Idolatry

Ezekiel 20 is a favorite chapter of mine. It's pretty depressing, to be honest, but it's one of those places where God Himself makes a commentary on the scriptures. I try to make note of those passages; it seems to me that God's commentary on scripture is probably the most helpful thing there is.

Ezekiel 20:1–8 opens with the claim that the children of Israel were worshiping idols in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:7–8). In fact, God says there that He commanded them to throw away their Egyptian idols, and they refused. He goes on to say (Ezekiel 20:15–16) that they were worshiping "their idols" in the wilderness. In context, that would seem to indicate the same idols they had been worshiping in Egypt.

Then in Ezekiel 20:27ff makes the claim that idolatry characterized their time in Canaan.

When I read the history of Joshua through 2 Chronicles, I tend to see it as a pattern of idolatry, judgment, repentance, restoration, then the cycle repeats. That's probably most evident in Judges, but it seems to hold for the entire history from Joshua to the Babylonian Captivity.  But Ezekiel 20 gives a different view of that history: it's one long story of uninterrupted idolatry. From the fathers worshiping idols in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:7) to the elders of Israel worshiping idols in Babylon (Ezekiel 20:1–3), there is an unbroken history of idolatry.

As an aside: when Joshua gathers the people to Shechem (Joshua 24:1ff), he calls on the people to "put away the gods" their fathers served "beyond the River" and in Egypt (Joshua 24:14). We like to quote Joshua 24:15 ("choose ye this day whom you will serve") as a gospel verse, but in context, Joshua is telling them they should choose whether they want to serve the Canaanite gods or the Chaldean gods, since they weren't apparently interested in serving the Lord. 

And of course this is what happens at Shechem. Jacob confiscated his family's idols and buried them under the oak near Shechem (Genesis 35:1–4) . They buried Joseph's bones in Shechem too (Joshua 24:32), which is suggestive. I suspect this is where Christ met the woman at the well (John 4:1–5).

But the point of Ezekiel 20 is that – at least from God's point of view – idolatry isn't a sin into which Israel fell repeatedly in the Old Testament. Rather, it's the sin that never really stopped the entire time. This is how God sees the history from Joshua through Ezekiel.

We should be thankful that God loves idolaters. It's striking to me that Scripture mentions Asenath by name three times (Genesis 41:45, 50; Genesis 46:20) and in every case, it tells us that she is the daughter of the priest of On. There's a message in that: when God chooses a wife for His man, He chooses her from idolaters.  Ezekiel 20:17 makes the same point right in the middle of the litany of their sins: God took pity on those idolaters He redeemed from Egypt.

I suppose that ties back into John 4 as well: the Lord Jesus went through Samaria to meet a wicked woman and tell her about His gift to her. And not only that woman, but "many people" in her city believed in Him (John 4:39–45). In fact, they asked Him to stay with them and He did (John 4:40). I can't find many places in the Gospels where people ask the Lord to stay with them, and I can't find a single one where He doesn't accept the invitation.

Of course you and I have a lot in common with those idolaters He redeemed from Egypt. We, like them, tend to hang pretty tightly to our idols. And He still has compassion on us, just like He did on them. We're a lot more like Asenath than we are like Joseph: but praise God! He loves to take pity on idolaters.

Lost and Saved

J. N. Darby wrote:

People don't believe [they are lost]. They believe that they have sinned, and that Christ has died for their sins; but that does not touch this question of being lost.

But if I get the consciousness of being lost now already, and that Christ dealt with that on the cross also; I then get saved, and that now, and that is just what people have not got thoroughly. They know neither what it is to be lost, nor what it is to be saved.

"Salvation and Separation" Notes and Jottings, p. 46

When I read Darby, I notice how he insists again and again on this idea that the believer in Christ has been brought into an entirely new place. It might remind us of Colossians 1:12–13, we have been "translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Darby's writing on Romans 7 and 8 centers on this idea: that there is a qualitative difference between someone "in Romans 7" and someone "in Romans 8." It's the change summarized in Romans 7:5–6.

We think a lot about Romans 4:1–8 around here, and remind ourselves that God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (cf Acts 13:38–39). God justifies the one who believes without works. God justifies the ungodly. These are things we can't remember too often, because they are the foundation of peace with God (Romans 5:1).

But Romans 4:1–8 insists these are Old Testament truths. God didn't start justifying the ungodly after the Cross. That's how Abraham (before the Law) and David (under the Law) were justified in God's sight. This is how God justified sinners from Abel on. God has only ever justified sinners on the principle of faith. This isn't something new, although the Cross revealed how God could do it while still remaining righteous (Romans 3:23–26). God can justify justly because Christ has died. God isn't becoming an accomplice to our sins after the fact by helping us cover them up. He has dealt with our sins in the violent and bloody death of Christ.

And notice how completely the Old Testament doctrine of justification is taught (Romans 4:6–8): the one who believes is one "to whom the Lord shall not at all reckon sin" (Romans 4:8). It's not merely that God justifies us from all sins up to the point that we believed: it's that God now considers the believer as one whose sins are not to be counted. 

This Old Testament truth goes far beyond the faith of many who claim to be New Testament saints.

So Romans 1–4 addresses what we sometimes call the "forensic" side of the Gospel. Man is guilty, men and women need to be justified, or they will be condemned. Romans 5 begins to address what we might call the "ontological" side of the Gospel: Man is lost, man is a sinner. 

John 3 addresses Man's "lostness" too. The Lord tells Nicodemus that we must be "born again" if we want to see the Kingdom of God (John 3:1–7). Interestingly, the Lord tells Nicodemus (John 3:10) that he ought to have known this as a "teacher of Israel." So just like Romans 4 builds the doctrine of justification by faith entirely on the Old Testament, John classifies the need for new birth as an "Old Testament truth." We might find it in Deuteronomy 29:4, or maybe in Ezekiel 36:25–27, or maybe in Jeremiah 17:5–9. Either way, it's certain the Lord considered that to be something "a teacher of Israel" ought to have known from the Old Testament.

But then the Lord Jesus beings up something the Old Testament doesn't mention: "eternal life" (John 3:14ff). 

John's Gospel doesn't talk about the Lord dying for sins. John doesn't teach justification, he teaches eternal life. In John's Gospel, Christ dies to give life to sinners who have none. More than half the mentions of "eternal life" in Scripture are in John's Gospel and his first epistle. Paul mentions "eternal life" eleven times (including twice in Acts), so it's not a foreign thing to Paul's writings; but if we want to understand eternal life, we need to look at John.

So here in John's Gospel, we go beyond the Old Testament (if we can say it that way) to something new around John 3:14, when the Lord discusses eternal life. 

In Romans, we go beyond the Old Testament somewhere around Romans 5:10, when we see the discussion of Adam and Christ. One man brought death on us all, the other Man brought life (Romans 5:17).

And this – to get back to our point – is where we deal with salvation. Salvation is an Old Testament truth in the sense that it's both taught and modeled in Exodus 14:13ff. But how God brings us salvation in Romans 5:10ff and John 3:14ff is a new thing. God brings us salvation by union with Christ.

Romans 6:1–11 teaches salvation in terms of baptism. Having been baptized into Christ, I have been baptized into His death. This frees me from who I was "in Adam" and brings me into relationship with God. Being freed from sin, I can now live righteously (Romans 6:13). This isn't Old Testament truth: this is new.

John 15:1–8 teaches this same principle. We are united with Christ as branches are united to the vine they grow out of. The fruit isn't really produced by the branches, but by the vine that produces the branches as well. It's not surprising that John presents this with an organic metaphor: it's very in character for him. But when we examine John's Gospel, we find that all his organic metaphors are built on the Lord's own words in John 3:14 - the Son of Man must be lifted up. So here, too, we have the Crucifixion as the foundation underlying our union with Him.

I don't doubt that John 15:1–8 and Romans 8:1–17 are describing exactly the same thing.

So back to where we started with Darby... there is a difference between being guilty and being lost. Frankly, some of what I've heard from "Christians" sounds like they're not even so sure of the former. But generally speaking, Christians acknowledge their guilt, and their need for justification. But that's really just Old Testament truth. It's not Christianity at all. 

I mean, it's true. But it's only the opening chapters of Romans.

To go as far as Romans goes – as far as the first few verses of John 3 goes – is to understand that I am not only guilty, but also entirely ruined. There's nothing in me for God to work with (Romans 7:18). It's not that I'm basically a good person who did some bad things, I am a bad person who has acted according to his nature. 

And God has dealt with that too.

Salvation is something much bigger than justification. It's not merely that Christ has died for my sins, but that I have died with Christ. It's not merely that my sins are forgiven, but He is my life. It's not just that I have been justified freely from all things (Acts 13:38–39) – although this would be an improvement over most of the "gospel preaching" I have heard in the last 45 or so years – it's that I am accepted in Christ, and have life in the Son. It's not merely that what I have done has been dealt with, but what I am has been dealt with too.

Of course none of this means we should abandon the truth of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. There can be no Christian life when the question of eternal judgment has not been put to rest. But stopping at justification is stopping in Psalm 32. To live out the life that the Apostles lived – to be what the New Testament calls a "saint" – is to live in an entirely new order of things.

And this is why I wrote several years ago that baptism is the gateway to the Christian life. I wasn't meaning to suggest that we are regenerated in baptism, or justified in baptism, or born again in baptism. I was trying to say that the message of baptism ("I have died with Christ") is where Christianity goes on from Judaism. The Old Testament teaches forgiveness of sins. It even teaches the need for new birth. What it doesn't teach is union with Christ. And that union is what differentiates Christianity from what came before.