God is kind

A couple years ago I had a sort of a mini crisis of faith. It wasn't that I was out there doubting Scripture or anything like that, but I had come to realize that my understanding of Scripture just wasn't sufficient. And so I spent a lot of time asking a lot of questions.

One passage that gave me trouble was Acts 14:14–19. Here we have Paul and Barnabas in Lystra, and they perform a miracle, so the people of Lystra decide they must be gods and begin to worship them. Paul reacts as we'd expect him to, and tries to set them straight. It's a story I've known since I was very young. But what caught my attention was v. 17

he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.

And it got my attention, because I realized my personal theology (if I can use that expression) didn't fit in with a God who'd bless pagans, "filling [their] hearts with food and gladness."

See, the dispensationalist in me was insisting that God could only be pleased in New Creation. I was convinced that a man cannot see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. I recognized that Christ's death brought about, in a sense, the end of Adam's race. He is not only the second Man, He is also the last Adam. And I had no idea how to fit God's blessing idolaters with food and gladness into that.

And bear in mind, Acts 14:17 is Paul speaking. This is after the Cross, after the Resurrection. This is clearly not something we can push into the "not for today" category.

Well, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this verse, and I've come to a conclusion I find surprising. Acts 14:17 has been giving me trouble, because I have allowed myself to forget that God is kind.

It's so easy for us to fall into various brands of puritanism that make God out to be mean, demanding, even unkind and unloving. When I think about puritanism, the first thing that comes to mind is the Calivinistic variety, maybe somewhere in New England. But there are other flavors of puritanism too. Dispensationalists have their own varieties, including several centered on "brethren."

One of my daughters has expressed concern about a friend who "doesn't seem to think that God actually likes her."  I think a lot of us have experienced that one.

God is kind. Let's not allow ourselves to forget that. God isn't the creditor who demands the last farthing. He gives freely because that's who He is. He pours out blessing on all of us, regardless of what we deserve. 

It seems to me there aren't too many sins worse than thinking ill of God. Let's be vigilant.

Acknowledging God as God

Sometime in the last six months I was sitting in a "Bible Church" on a Sunday morning, and it was a disheartening experience. We sang songs where "I" figured prominently, but "Christ" wasn't so prevalent. And we heard a very long sermon that seemed to be all about "community" and "sharing" and "real relationships," but there wasn't a whole lot about the Lord Jesus. And as I sat there I thought to myself, "Roman Catholicism is better than this, at least Roman Catholics have a God."

I was so surprised by what I had thought, that I was taken aback, and spent the rest of the day thinking about it.

Now, I have all sorts of problems with Roman Catholicism. I'm in no danger of converting to Roman Catholicism, because I have no interest in working for what God offers for free (Romans 4:5). And while I could make the argument that Roman Catholicism doesn't explicitly deny the Gospel – because they believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1–8) –; there is an implicit denial of the Gospel, because there is a responsibility to "walk according to the truth of the Gospel" (Galatians 2:14), and Roman Catholicism surely fails that test.

But the fact remains that my experiences in Evangelical churches have begun to make Roman Catholicism look a lot better than it once looked.

When so-called worship music is a lot about "I" and not much about "Him," then I have to ask who is actually the object of worship. When sermons are mainly about "I" and not much about "Him," I have to ask who is really at the center. When I can sit in a church for the better part of an hour and hear nothing about the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord, I have to ask why precisely I'm there.

 

Many years ago, after we decided we could no longer remain in fellowship with a particular "brethren" group, we spent several months visiting a "continuing Anglican" church. 

(I need to pause to give a word of explanation for our non-American friends. The Anglican church in Canada and the Church of England are associated with the Episcopalian church here in the United States. Here, "Anglican" generally signifies a church that has broken away from the Anglican communion. There are something like 16 Anglican denominations in the USA that are explicitly not in fellowship with the Church of England.  I'm oversimplifying a little, but it's important to note that "Anglican" in the USA is carefully chosen to mean "not Episcopalian" and "not in communion with the Church of England.")

Several people acted surprised that we would gravitate to a liturgical church after being so thoroughly "brethren," thinking we'd end up somewhere more Evangelical. But in my mind, liturgical worship is much closer to what we practiced with "brethren" than what I'd find in a Baptist church or a Bible church.

What I value about "brethren" assemblies is exactly what I valued about liturgical worship: the focus is on the Lord, not on me. The "main event" is remembering the Lord, not listening to a sermon. And while I understand there are some dissimilarities between liturgical worship and the Lord's Supper as practiced in most "brethren" circles, I found the similarities much more compelling. For example, liturgical worship is entirely participative (is that even a word?): there's no question that you're not a spectator, watching a show. You're absolutely participating.

I honestly believe "closed brethren" are much more closely related to Anglicanism than they are to the local Baptist church. It makes perfect sense to me that when W. T. Turpin abandoned brethrenism, he returned to the Church of England, rather than joining a Baptist church.  

OK, this wasn't meant to be a defense of Anglicanism. My point is that it made sense to us to step from "brethren" into a liturgical church, because the beneath-the-surface similarities were compelling: we were interested in "church" that was about the Lord, not about us. We were interested in a place where the Lord's Supper was central. We were looking for something where the congregation was actively participating, rather than simply listening to someone speak.

So I'm on an "assembly quest" again, because we're no longer in the city. We didn't intend to leave the assembly so much as we intended to leave the city and come to a place where we have room and it gets dark at night. And I'll hasten to say, when I've been back in the city, I've remembered the Lord at the same assembly where we'd been in fellowship from 2010 through 2019. The assembly there knows very well why we left, and it had nothing to do with them.

But we've been living in the middle of nowhere for more than two years now, and we've visited  a whole lot of churches. In this area in particular, there are too many small non-denominational churches to list. And over the last couple years, I've given a lot of thought to what I'm looking for in a church. 

So here's what I've settled on as a first requirement: they need to acknowledge God as God. I don't need to hear sermons about how to live a better life, and I don't need to sing songs about myself, my own devotion, and my own faithfulness. "Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him" is a catchy song, but when I pay attention to the words, it's obvious it's about me, not about Him. I can do without that sort of thing.

And I'm not saying I'm looking for a liturgical church, by the way. I am saying that liturgical worship gets the most important thing right, and the best of "brethren" has a lot in common with it.

Knowing Christ according to the flesh

A few years ago, I was reading Romans, Verse-by-Verse by William R Newell, and I came across this quote:

I affirm that the present day popular preachers DO NOT KNOW what human guilt, before God, is! DO NOT KNOW that Christ really bore wrath under God’s hand for the sin of the world! DO NOT KNOW that He was forsaken of God, as the whole race, otherwise, must have been! I affirm that they are preaching as if an unrejected, uncrucified Christ were still being offered to the world! They preach the “character” of Jesus, saying “nice things” of Him, and telling people to “follow His example”: while the truly awful fact that Christ “bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” that He was “wounded for our transgressions,” that He was “forsaken of His God”; that “God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up,”—and that “for our trespasses,” is never told to the poor, wretched people! Nor are they warned of that literal lake of fire and brimstone into which “every one not found written in the book of life” will be cast, and that forever. (Romans Verse-by-Verse, p. 37, emphasis added)

When I first read that, it was eye-opening. Whatever offers Christ made to the Jews, or to the Gentiles, He was rejected. Why would we think those offers are still open? Even supposing the offer was still open after the Resurrection, it seems like the book of Acts chronicles the final rejection of Christ and God's acceptance of that rejection.

It's striking to me that Peter effectively offers the millennial kingdom in Acts 3:19–21, but that offer is rejected. Daniel 7:13–14 describes the Son of man descending from Heaven to receive a kingdom, and it seems to me that would have been just as fulfilled at the end of Acts 3 as it would be now. Of course still we expect the Son of man to descend from Heaven to receive a kingdom, but my point is that Peter offered it right then and there, and was arrested instead (Acts 4:1–3).

But Newell's point is that Christ has been rejected (1 Corinthians 15:3–5): 

For I delivered to you, in the first place, what also I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures; and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

The gospel of Jesus Christ begins with His death. It presupposes His offers were rejected.

2 Corinthians 5:13–19 pushes that conclusion further with the astonishing statement that we are to know no one – not even Christ – "according to flesh." And immediately after the comment about knowing according to flesh, we have the introduction of New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Someone commented to me several years ago that so many churches were trying to know Christ according to flesh. That comment seemed vague at the time, but I have come to appreciate it much more fully over time. It seems to me that Evangelicalism is characterized by trying to know Christ according to flesh. 

I take Romans 7:5–6 to be a two-verse summary of Romans 7:7–8:4.  And in those two verses, we see a transition that we might miss in the longer passage that follows. There is a change from "when we were in the flesh" (Romans 7:5) to "now we are clear from the law" (Romans 7:6).  That transition is mirrored in Romans 7:24–25, but it's not so clear what happened in the latter verses. What happened is this change of position from "in the flesh" to "clear from the law".

If we look at 2 Corinthians 5:14–17, we see there is a New Creation, and it includes those who are in Christ. 

What does it mean to be in Christ? Well, He has died, and we have died with Him (Colossians 3:3). He was buried, and we have been buried with Him (Colossians 2:12). He was raised, and we have been raised with Him (Colossians 3:1). He was seen, and we shall be seen with Him (Colossians 3:4). But perhaps the most direct and striking statement about being "in Christ" is in Philippians 3:9 – it's not having any righteousness of my own.

2 Corinthians 5:14–17 teaches us that trying to know Christ "according to flesh" is remedied by recognizing New Creation. Philippians 3:8–15 teaches us that being "in Christ" means having no righteousness of my own. Romans 7:5–6 teaches us that being "in the flesh" means being subject to law, and that the remedy is to be "clear from the law" by death with Christ. Colossians 3:1–4 teaches us that our death with Christ isn't something we must attain, but something that is already true. Romans 6:1–11 teaches us that even having died with Christ, there is the need to reckon that to be true in order to experience the blessings of it.

2 Corinthians 5:16 tells us, even if we have known Christ according to flesh, we're not to know Him that way anymore. We have no reason to believe Paul ever met Christ before His resurrection, but Peter did. Peter had known Christ according to the flesh, as a man "in the flesh," he had known Christ unrejected and uncrucified. But Peter wasn't to know Christ that way anymore: that's 2 Corinthians 5:16.

Twice in the last year I have been in churches who were preaching through Matthew 5–7. I can't recall either of those sermon series mentioning that this was an uncrucified, unrejected Christ preaching to men in the flesh.

I found it odd that one of the preachers talked about our need for the Spirit of God in order to live out the teachings of Matthew 5–7. That's a particularly subtle form of eisegesis, to try and read Acts 2 into Matthew 7. There could be no indwelling Spirit of adoption, without the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (John 7:39). It was Christ dead, buried, raised, and seated at God's right hand who could pour out that Spirit (Acts 2:32–36). Even if we understand John 20:22 as Him giving the Spirit (which seems difficult in light of Acts 2), we still have to acknowledge that John 20 comes after the resurrection.

I am not, of course, objecting to teaching Matthew 5–7. But if we are to understand the Gospels in light of the whole counsel of God, we need to understand them in relation to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. This is the most important thing that has ever happened, and those events change absolutely everything. 

Closely related to that is the importance of addressing believers not as men and women "in the flesh," but as new creation "in Christ." 

And I'll reiterate what I think is an important practical point: the epistles present our acceptance and acknowledgement of our place "in Christ" as the key to experiencing the blessings for us there. It's true that God sees me as dead, buried, and raised with Christ; but I won't experience freedom from sin without recognizing, reckoning, and counting on what God has said. Objectively it's true because God says it is true, but subjectively it doesn't benefit me unless I believe God.

And this, according to Darby, is the meaning of "in the flesh." It is to be responsible before God:

What is it to be in the flesh? It is to be in relationship with God on the ground of our natural responsibility as men, as children of fallen Adam. It is, as to our moral state — which in itself is true — making the disposition of God towards us to depend on what we are towards Him. Of this the law is the perfect rule. It says, if conscience is awakened, I am such and such: God will be so and so towards me. Grace is on the opposite ground: God has been, and is, through Christ such and such, and I shall be so and so, as the fruit of it. But this changes everything.

"On Sealing with the Holy Ghost", Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Volume 31, p. 260 

 

It seems to me the leaven of Evangelicalism is attempting to know Christ according to the flesh. We all seem so desperate to be men and women "in the flesh," and I suspect it's because we just can't quite give up on ourselves. I suspect it's because being "in Christ" means having no righteousness of my own (Philippians 3:9), and we can't quite bring ourselves to view ourselves that way.

So having started with a quote from Romans Verse-by-Verse, maybe we'll end the same way. Here's a favorite of mine: "To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy, is the great secret" (p 172).

Losing the path

Some of what I have written on this blog is a consequence of real passion. A shocking number of things I have written here were outgrowth of hearing a recorded sermon, or reading an article online or in a magazine – or even watching a video on YouTube – where someone says or writes something I consider both wrong and dangerous. And sometimes the comments section will set me straight, sometimes the comments section reinforces my beliefs, and sometimes it just sits empty.

There are a surprising number of emails I have gotten over the last 14 years (or so) from people who stumbled across this blog. Some of those email exchanges turn into genuine (but remote) friendships, others don't really go very far.

As an aside: I don't try very hard to maintain my anonymity on this blog, but I try "not very hard." I generally don't mention where I work, or where I live, etc. I'm sure anyone who cares can figure those out. I try to extend the same lazy anonymity to the comment section, so I try to avoid giving away too much about people who leave comments. 

I should say, my favorite thing about this blog has been the people I've "met" from it. One or two I was privileged to meet in real life. And of course it goes the other way too: sometimes a real life friend reads my blog and that can set off some conversations too.

When I started this blog, it was more "for me" than "for you." I still read and re-read this blog, because I lose my way a lot. Sometimes I'm like the people in Psalm 107:1–7, who start out on a clear path, but somehow that path gets blurry, or lost, and they find themselves wandering. Well, I find myself wandering a lot, and when I realize I'm sort of wandering, it's helpful to look back at a time when I could see the path. 

The Lord told the Ephesians to remember "from whence ye are fallen" (Revelation 2:5). This blog is one of the things that helps me remember, when I realize I've lost sight of the path.

I was very young when I came to know the Lord. I've been at this "walking with the Lord" thing for probably 45 years. I don't do it very well, but I've been doing it a long time. In that time, I've learned that it's really easy to lose sight. It's hard to believe, when you're caught up in godly zeal, that you'll ever get dragged into the mundane. But you will. 

Don't confuse losing sight with unbelief. There's a huge difference between losing sight and losing faith. 

When you realize you've lost sight – and you will – then it's not time to hide, it's time to cry out to the Lord. He knows us, He remembers that we are dust. He isn't surprised when we lose sight, or when we sin. He's not even surprised when we sin really, really bad. The very best thing you can do when you realize you've lost the path is to stop walking. Your walking is making it worse. Stop and cry out to Him.

Earlier this year I got lost when I was out hunting. It was oddly similar to Psalm 107:1–7.  I kept my bearings very well, but I had forgotten what the map looked like, so I was actually going parallel to the road I was trying to intercept. I had remembered it running east-west, when it actually heads south for a very long way before coming back east. In fact, I only realized what had happened when I popped out of the treeline at a point I'd only ever seen when gazing across a gully. 

Part of the problem was that I was keeping up a good pace: when you're going the wrong way, the faster you go, the more lost you become.

Once I realized what I had done wrong, I took my compass out of my pack for the first time in decades and took some bearings: the sun was going down quickly, and I wanted to be sure I knew where I was going while there was still daylight left. That adventure ended sort of anti-climatically: I had hiked a trail through the bottom of the gully before, and was able to get back to that trail before dark. I was able to get back to my truck just after dark.

The point is, when you lose sight of the path, going quickly doesn't help. If you're not on the path, every step might well be taking you further away. So when you realize you've lost the path, don't keep walking. Stop and ask for help. "Lord, save me!" (Matthew 14:30).

I had something else I was going to write about, but I think it'll have to wait for another time.

Elk season this year was one misadventure after another. One very experienced hunter I know says, "You have to walk 500 miles for each elk you shoot." If I had set out to prove him right, I'm not sure what more I could have done this year.

 

Radicalism (again)

I was watching an interview on YouTube recently with Douglas Wilson about baptism. He makes some interesting comments in passing about systemic theology with respect to his father's personal hermeneutics starting around 1:11 and going until 2:05 or so.

Now, I don't know Douglas Wilson. I've never met him, but I know several people in Reformed circles who know him and think highly of him. He is postmilennialist, I am not. He has said and done many things I wouldn't say or do. But there have been several times –  especially in the craziness of 2020 and 2021 – that I have looked back and realized he was right, even though I thought at the time he was wrong. 

But this isn't about Douglas Wilson. It's about some comments he made in that one-minute digression: those have made me do some really hard thinking.

Wilson describes his father's perspective on scripture like this :

He's the kind of person who believes whatever the verse in front of him is saying, and he doesn't care at all about making systematic sense of it. You know his enemy is systematic theology, because he thinks that systemize... he thinks that systematic theology puts the verse on a Procrustean bed and then cuts the verse to fit the theology... He places a much higher priority on taking the verse in front of you at face value and let it do whatever damage to your systematics that it will. (1:23–2:03)

If you listen to his comments in context, they're quite respectful. It's very clear that he's not attacking his father, but it's also clear that he doesn't [entirely] agree.

The thing is, I can't decide what I think about these comments. I've tried to articulate my thoughts about this clearly, but I keep going around in circles. I finally realized it's OK to put some wild and only-slightly-coherent thoughts onto my blog and let people comment and/or judge me as they will.

So here are my scattered and perhaps contradictory thoughts:

It seems to me that the Protestant Reformation is the result of exactly what he says his father would do: "[take] the verse in front of you at face value and let it do whatever damage to your systematics that it will."  Isn't that just what Martin Luther did with Romans 1:17ff ? He threw away the entire Roman Catholic doctrine of justification because of that one verse. That's a pretty good description of Luther's concept of "one little word," right?

So on the one hand, it seems to me Sola Scriptura entails treating each verse of Scripture as having more weight than all our theological tomes combined. The words that God has spoken must outweigh everything else.

On the other hand, we need to respect the whole counsel of God. If by "systematic theology" we mean our vast libraries of books, then we certainly should be willing to throw them away in the face of just one verse. But if we take "systematic theology" to mean the overarching teachings and themes of the whole of Scripture, then we need to recognize all those other verses are God's words too. 

When Martin Luther read Romans 1:17ff, he wasn't reading just one verse in isolation. Justification by faith alone is spread through all of the New Testament, from the words of the Lord Himself (John 5:24), through Acts (Acts 13:38–39), then through all the epistles (Romans 4:5ff), and all the way into Revelation (Revelation 14:6–7). Martin Luther didn't pick out one "problem verse" and build a contrarian theology on it: he was struck by a single verse that clarified in one sentence a central theme of the New Testament.

The fact is that we're able to build all sorts of crazy ideas on a single verse in isolation. Every cult does exactly that. Regardless of what position you take on any number of questions, you're going to be able to find a "problem verse." And they're not always ripped from context, either. There are any number of difficult verses for every single person who sincerely tries to understand the Word of God.

So on the one hand, each verse is God's own words, and it outweighs all our own thoughts. On other hand, each verse is part of the whole counsel of God, and wasn't ever meant to stand all alone.

OK, that's a reasonably coherent thought.

One of my concerns with the Reformed crowd (of which Douglas Wilson is certainly part) is that when they use the term "systematic theology" they don't mean only "all of Scripture." In my experience, they have in view things like the Westminster Confession, the Creeds, and their vast libraries of theological books. (And don't let's think for a minute that "we" don't do exactly the same thing. We might not have as long a history, but we certainly seem to elevate our books and libraries.  J. N. Darby's writings aren't as universally accepted as they once were, but plenty of others' have taken their place.)

So if we warm up our old metaphor of "a ditch on both sides of the road," we might see on the one side the error of snatching a verse from its context, with no regard to the whole counsel of God, and using it to prop up some error or another. Cults seem really good at doing that, but pretty much every Christian I've ever met has fallen into some sort of error along those lines at one point or another.

The ditch on the other side of the road might be mistaking our theologies for the whole counsel of God. We might not be as formal about it as our Reformed friends, but we all have some sort of systemic theology, even if it's just a rough outline in the backs of our minds about what Scripture teaches. The question is, do we mistake that for the whole counsel of God?

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but at some point I became very surprised by what Scripture doesn't say. There were all sorts of things I had believed to be "absolutely true" that proved to be not Scripture, but someone's understanding of it. Those things might not have been "traditions" in as formal a sense as the Roman Catholic church has "traditions," but they were traditions nevertheless.

The Lord Jesus told the Sadducees, "Ye err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29). He told the Pharisees, "ye have made void the commandment of God on account of your traditional teaching" (Matthew 15:6).

So maybe the ditch on the other side of the road is something like allowing our traditions as much weight as the words God has spoken. Do we do that? Have we made void the words of God on account of our traditions? Those aren't Scripture – we know that, right?

Many years ago I was reading an article from a "brethren" teacher of some renown, rebutting some particular teaching. I was struck as I read it that his argument had basically nothing to do with the verses he cited. I mean, they sounded good at first glance, but when I actually looked up the references, they didn't at all say what he had been making them out to say. As far as I could tell, this man was so invested in his tradition, he was looking for any verse sounding more-or-less similar and calling it scriptural support. Only... it wasn't. 

So those are my only slightly coherent thoughts triggered by Douglas Wilson's interview. The interview itself is probably worth a listen, I honestly can't remember a lot of it. I was so absorbed in his tangential comments about "the verse right in front of you" that I remember basically nothing else.

Radicalism

One tension my wife and I discuss frequently is, "If you want a church where people believe something, you're likely to fall into a cult. If you want to avoid a cult, you tend to end up where people don't actually believe anything." I find myself constantly looking for a path between the horns of this dilemma.  

The authors who have most helped me (J. N. Darby, W. Kelly, Watchman Nee, Francis Schaeffer, etc.) have all been "radicals" in the strictest sense of the word. I don't mean they were radicals in the sense of "burn it down" Marxists.  I mean they were were willing to turn their backs on the establishment so that they could follow Christ.

I'm sure I've recounted this story before, but I was in a Bible reading once where we were reading through John 1. One brother commented on John 1:6, "What amazing credentials!" And that was a bit of an epiphany moment for me. I realized that the greatest of the prophets (Matthew 11:11) had no real credentials from a human point of view, but he was given the highest stamp of approval Scripture can give: he was sent from God. And notice this theme carries through the New Testament: John the Baptist (John 1:6), the Lord Himself (John 9:29), Peter and John (Acts 4:13), and sometimes Paul (Galatians 1:1, etc.) were all dismissed because of lack of credentials. But they all came with messages from God, and all had His approval.

Of course we can fall into the ditch on the other side of the road here. There is such a thing as pathological anti-credentialism (which I'm sure isn't a real word) – the veneration of someone precisely because he or she lacks credentials. Notice Scripture doesn't ever do this. Scripture doesn't assume someone who has formal education, or formal training, or human credentials can't bring messages from God. We might point out that Paul and Moses were both highly educated. But we recognized (and they recognized, see Philippians 3:4–7, etc.) that their human credentials really didn't mean a lot when it came to spiritual matters.

So let's recognize that there is a ditch on both sides of the road. But let's also recognize that Scripture uniformly praises those who "live for an audience of One," to quote Os Guinness. The attitude of the believer ought to be neither for or against the establishment, but for Christ and Christ alone. 

We are called to "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22). Despite preaching I've actually heard on this verse,  it doesn't mean we're to join a party and be faithful to it.  It means we're to be faithful to Christ.

Why would they come here?

Several years ago, my wife and I were speaking to a young(er) guy in the assembly about some then-current trends. I can't recall very much about the conversation. After it was over and we had parted, my wife commented, "If we offer people exactly what they can find everywhere else, why would the come here?"

I'm going to rip her words from their context and ask them as a more general question. Why would someone choose to come to our assembly, or Bible study, or church – or even more generally to the faith itself – if all we offer them is exactly what they can find everywhere else?

Peter told the Lord, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal" (John 6:66–71). We can sympathize with Peter: the Lord's words were somewhere between incomprehensible and offensive (John 6:52, 60–61), but they were the words of eternal life. It's like Peter has made the choice that it's better to be offended by the words of eternal life than to find inoffensive – but lifeless – teaching somewhere else.

The Lord Jesus offered (and offers) what cannot be found anywhere else: eternal life. There's only one place to get it, there's only one Person who can give it. But if we want eternal life, we need to accept that He might well offend us. 

I suppose the people in John 6 ought to have expected that eternal life would offend them. They were searching the Scriptures to find eternal life (John 5:39–40). When I read about the people the Lord was addressing, I wonder how they didn't find the Scriptures offensive. They clearly had a very high view of their ancestry (John 8:33–37), but the Scriptures themselves tell in clear detail how their fathers had been hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and rebellious (Luke 11:47). "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?" (Acts 7:52). 

And it's interesting the Lord doesn't tell them they searched the Scriptures for eternal life in vain, on the contrary, the Scriptures were leading them to Him, but they weren't willing to come to Him for eternal life (John 5:39–40). It's like they had a map to buried treasure, and they studied it carefully and followed it to its end, where they decided picking up a shovel and digging was just too much work. And even that analogy falls far short, because the Lord wasn't just passively waiting for them, but was actively offering them eternal life.

We see ourselves following the same path, if we're honest with ourselves. The Lord offends us, like He offended them. It's almost cliché to say it, but there's nothing so offensive to us as being told we're not God. We claim we're grateful for the Savior, but deep down, we all want to be the savior. It offends us when we need to turn to Someone Else for salvation. And I say that as someone who has known the Lord for well over 40 years. That rebellion in our hearts doesn't go away, and it won't until He comes for us (Philippians 3:20–21).

One of the dangers when we contemplate eternal life is the idea that we who have been given eternal life don't need it anymore. The Lord calls us to eat (John 6:53) and keep on eating (John 6:56). There is a one-time eating His flesh and drinking His blood to gain eternal life, there is also a repeated eating and drinking. Eternal life isn't the sort of thing that's "one and done." No, we are creatures who need to eat and drink again and again and again. We are creatures who need to feed. That's as true in the spiritual realm as in the physical.

So Peter's question is even more pertinent than we might at first understand: "where shall we go?"  It's not like you can come to the Lord just long enough to get eternal life and then go away. No, it's necessary to come to Him and stay with Him. Maybe that's one of the ideas in 1 John 5:11–12. God gives eternal life, that's true, but He doesn't put it into our hands, so to speak. He gives us life in the Son. And so if we have the Son, we have eternal life. But if we walk away from the Son, then we're effectively walking away from eternal life.

And don't let's think that's not a real thing. No, I don't believe we can lose eternal life, but we sure can walk away from it. It might be "ours" in some objective sense, but if we're neglecting it – if we're walking away from the One in whom it resides – then what good is it doing us? What's the point in having eternal life if we're not living it? I don't want weak, anemic, and wan eternal life. I want to experience eternal life that's well fed, and that means feeding on the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood. That means sticking close to Him, because He – He alone – has eternal life to give us.

But now we come back to where we started: if we're going to be near Christ, then we're going to hear things to offend us. It's not by accident that Christ offending His listeners and His offering eternal life are presented together in Scripture. An inoffensive Christ doesn't offer eternal life.

So let's go back to my wife's question: "why would anyone come here, if we're just offering what everyone else offers?" If people look at us and see that we have Christ, then we might get the odd crowd, but those are the people who are going to leave again pretty soon (John 6:66). But if we're faithful to Christ, if He truly is our center, then we can expect that those who come to us know why they're here.

Now, I must also point this out: if people come to us and are offended, we should be careful to ask if it's really Christ that is offending them. I have been in too many assemblies where their offensiveness is seen as a sort of a badge of honor. They seem to think it's proof of their godliness that people keep leaving. Well... that's one explanation. There are other explanations that are less flattering.

 

Careful speech

For various reasons that don't matter at the moment, I've been much more exposed to mainstream Protestantism over the last few months.  I've recently heard a couple people allude to Hebrews 4:15, and both went off the rails. We've talked about this before, so let's don't cover that ground again. But there are some difficulties we encounter when we're not careful, and maybe those are worth discussing in more detail.

At some point I made the decision that I'd try to express my thoughts about Scripture in the language of Scripture. I decided to use the words and phrases Scripture uses, rather than using my own. I'm not claiming to be very good at that, but I make the effort. I'm not sure where I got that idea, or when I made that decision, but I have some suspicions.

When I was a university student, I was part of an off-campus Bible study run by Kelly, one of the campus chaplains. Kelly led us through a study of 1 John that was life-changing for me, not because of content, but because of technique. We started the study by independently reading 1 John "as many times as you can over the next week." According to Kelly, when you had read a book of the Bible enough times you could quote it, then you were ready for a Bible study on that book.

I suspect it was Kelly who influenced me to try to use Scriptural words and phrases. 

See, when we express a thought in words, the words then begin to reshape the thought. So when we take a Scriptural idea and put it into words, those words begin to change the Scriptural idea in our own mind. If we're not very careful with our choice of words, we end up going wrong not only in how we express our thoughts, but in what our thoughts actually are.

Here's an example: I've heard many "brethren" refer to Satan as "the prince and the power of the air." That's not what Scripture actually says. Scripture calls Satan "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2, KJV). I'm sure this started out as a simple misquote, but we can see how the ideas aren't at all the same, even if the words sound similar.

Here's another example: just last week I heard someone talking about being "adopted into God's family." You can search all day long, you won't find that verse! Scripture doesn't teach adoption into God's family. It doesn't teach we are children of God by adoption. On the contrary, we are children of God when we have been born [again] of God (John 1:12–13; John 3:3). 

When scripture talks about adoption, it's talking about sonship. Galatians 4:1–5 presents sonship in contrast to childhood (I don't know the right word for that, perhaps childness?). A child might be treated as a servant in his own home, a son cannot be. 

The Spirit of God given to us connects adoption (Romans 8:15) and sonship (Galatians 4:6). 

So the person who talks about being "adopted into God's family" takes two ideas that Scripture presents in contrast and bludgeons them into a single concept. I can't think of a better recipe for spiritual disaster.

There are a great many errors we avoid when we attempt to stick to the actual words of the text.

It's not popular to say it, but the goal of Bible study isn't – or shouldn't be – to ask "how can I apply this to my life?"  A rush to find some sort of application in Scripture seems to be the source of a great many ills. If we could only learn to slow down and savor each word, we might find that God's words carry a great deal more weight and meaning than we might think. We might even find that God's thoughts center not on us at all, but on His Son, Jesus Christ.

Not everything is about us.

I'm afraid we're reaping the harvest of years of carelessness in reading and studying and quoting Scripture. Martin Luther believed the written word of God is so potent that even "one little word will fell [Satan]" We have largely abandoned that respect for the words that God has spoken. We think nothing of putting our own in their place. And I'm not talking about theological liberals, or progressive Christians here! I'm talking about people who believe in "verbal plenary inspiration."

I wrote before about hearing a preacher say, "the wages for sin is death," which is certainly not Scripture. Changing that one preposition from "of" to "for" ruins the argument of Romans 6:15–23. This was a professional preacher, paid to prepare and deliver his sermons. He didn't even seem to notice his mistake.

Well, I'm trying to avoid ranting, but I'm not doing a good job of that. I'm afraid I'm getting pretty close to a full-on rant here. 

So let's wrap this up with an admonition. And make no mistake, I'm saying this as much to myself as to anyone else. Let's act like the Word of God is just that. Let's acknowledge that God has spoken, and has spoken better than we can. Let's make every effort to think and speak in His words, not our own.

Why were you not afraid?

Numbers 12:1–16 is one of those stories that doesn't seem like very significant until you think about it. We have Aaron and Miriam bad-mouthing Moses because of the woman he married, and the Lord disciplines them for it.

There are a lot of questions I have about this story. Is Moses' Ethiopian wife Zipporah (Numbers 12:1)? Or is it someone else? When the Lord comes and stands at the entrance to the tent of meeting (Numbers 12:5), what did Miriam, Moses, and Aaron see? Was God literally standing there, like He did in Exodus 24:9–11?

Of course the real question about Numbers 12 is the question God asks, "Why then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?" (Numbers 12:8). And when I contemplate that question, I find myself under some conviction.

I am convinced that we soft-peddle the fear of the Lord. And by "we" I mean all Christians, but I think some of the most egregious offenders are people like me: people who believe in "free grace" and  God's unconditional love. (We can discuss "free grace theology" another time. It gets uncomfortably close to being an "-ism", and I'm not really excited about that. And of course there are some places I'm pretty sure the "free grace" crowd goes off the rails. But for the most part, I think "free grace" correct.) We've gotten pretty comfortable with saying things like "fear of God means fear of displeasing God" or "fear of God means reverential awe." The more I read about the fear of the Lord in Scripture, the less I think those statements measure up.

It seems to me that Numbers 12:8 is almost a type of Philippians 2:10–11. There is coming a day when God will point to His Son and ask, "why were you not afraid to speak against my Son?" 

John 5:19ff mentions again and again that our Judge in the Last Day will be Christ. It's a sobering thought that people who went around using His name as a curse word will find out that He's their Judge.

But the question isn't merely for unbelievers. We who know the Lord frequently live like we don't. And maybe the question we ought to be asking ourselves is, why we're not afraid to do that.

Chronology

When I was younger, I was a dogmatic Young Earth Creationist. I was convinced that if you weren't a Young Earth Creationist, then you really weren't believing what God had said. Indeed, I thought you were probably compromising with the world, trying to claim to be a Christian while at the same time denying the biblical account of creation.

These days I'd describe myself as a literal six-day Creationist who thinks it probably happened a lot more than 10,000 years ago. So an Old Earth Creationist, as opposed to a Theistic Evolutionist.

There is this idea that someday we'll get to Heaven, and we'll ask God all sorts of questions. I don't think that's really how it works (or how it's going to work). But if it works that way, if someday I get a chance to ask God all sorts of questions, mine will almost certainly focus on the first twelve chapters of Genesis. Was there a pre-Edenic creation in the gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Were the Nephilim the children of fallen angels who intermarried with humans (Genesis 6:1–4, Jude 1:6)? How big was Nimrod's kingdom (Genesis 10:8-12)? When was Job? I'm not saying I understand the rest of Scripture, but I am most intrigued by the first twelve chapters.

(I confess I really want Ezekiel 28:12–15 to be a glimpse into the Edenic and pre-Edenic earth. But there are pretty strong arguments in the other direction too. Apparently Kelly makes a strong case in In the Beginning – it's in my queue, but I haven't started it yet.)

What I find fascinating about the question of Young Earth vs. Old Earth is that both positions seem abundantly obvious to their adherents. If you hold an Old Earth view, there is no shortage of Young Earth proponents to patiently explain to you that you really must not have paid attention to Genesis. If you hold to a Young Earth view, there are equally convinced (but not, in my experience, as vocal) people who think you probably haven't paid attention to Genesis either.

So I'd like to look at those two arguments and see if we can see some larger principles hiding in there.

In my early twenties, I spent a lot of time on a Macintosh Performa building a spreadsheet to work out a chronology based on biblical genealogies. So I had a column for the person's name, one of his father's age when he was born, one for how long he lived, one for the Bible reference, etc. It went something like this: 

1. Adam was 130 when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3) 
2. Seth was 105 when Enosh was born (Genesis 5:6)
3. Enosh was 90 when Cainan was born (Genesis 5:9)

And it kept going well past the Flood (in Noah's 600th year (Genesis 9:28–29) or 1,656), all the way to Jacob. Things get tough in Jacob's life, the chronology just sort of trails off. But from Joseph you can cheat a little, knowing the Captivity was 430 years (Genesis 15:13; Exodus 12:40; Galatians 3:17). I can't recall working through the numbers past Moses, though.

If you go through that exercise, there are some surprising results. For one thing, Abram is actually an adult before Shem dies. So it's possible Abraham and Shem could have known each other.

Another interesting result is that lifespans drop off drastically in the first couple generations after the Flood. It's quite dramatic if you graph them.

If you had asked me at that time, I would have been excited to share all my findings with you, perhaps boring you with charts and graphs. Young Earth Me (YEM) was pretty excited by all this.

But over time, I began to wonder if YEM was barking up the wrong tree. I wouldn't describe myself as Old Earth Me (OEM) quite yet, but several things happened to move me in that direction.

Possibly the first was a conversation I had with an older brother who was going on about William Kelly's defense of the Gap Theory, I think it's in In the Beginning. When I was in school and first ran across the Gap Theory, it was presented as a kookie conspiracy theory developed by Victorians with over-active imaginations who were making concessions to Darwin. But when it turned out William Kelly was one of those "crazy Victorians," I had to give it some more thought. Because William Kelly might well be a kook, but also he's possibly the greatest expositor of Scripture in the last several centuries.

Something else happened, which is really the whole point of my story. Eventually I began to realize that the verses that didn't contain ages and "begats" contained a whole lot of relevant information as well. There are explicit verses, there are implicit verses too.

Here's an example from Exodus 6:16–20: Levi's son is Kohath, Kohath's son is Amram, Amram's sons are Aaron and Moses. So Levi is Moses' grandfather, Jacob is his great-grandfather. In other words, Moses is only the third generation after Levi, the fourth after Jacob. 

But when Moses numbers the Levites at Sinai, there are 22,000 (Numbers 3:14–39). If we recall that Moses is 80 years old at the time, we might reasonably say that the "current" generation is the fourth or fifth generation from Levi. Is it reasonable to think that Levi's three sons produce 22,000 [male] Levites in five generations? That seems... excessive. Levi had three sons, Kohath had four, Amram had two, and Moses had two. It takes far more than four generations to get to 22,000 if those are typical numbers.

That's not even taking into account the difficulty of having only three generations span 430 years of captivity in Egypt. Levi lived to be 137 (Exodus 6:16), Kohath lived to be 133 (Exodus 6:18), Amram lived to be 137 (Exodus 6:20). Moses was 80 when he stood before Pharaoh (Exodus 7:7). If we add up those numbers, we get 137 + 130 + 137 + 80 = 484 years. That's longer than the 430 years we need, but only if we don't think too hard. 

We don't think that Kohath was born right as Levi was dying, or that Amram was born right as Kohath was dying. If we assume their children were born when they were 60 years old, then there are only 60 + 60 + 60 + 80 = 260 years accounted for. That's 170 years less than the 430 we need. And 60 seems a little old to me. I'd expect it to be closer to 30. (I chose 60 so the numbers would work out for Amram to die before the Exodus.)

So it seems to me that there are probably more generations there than the four that are explicitly named. It seems entirely likely there are gaps in the genealogy.

I realize that biblical chronology is complex, and there are people for whom this sort of thing is a life work. I'm not attempting to make myself sound like some sort of expert. My point is that I've read through the Pentatuech many times, and I'm struck every time by the notion that the genealogies don't account for all the time the narrative arc suggests.

So in the end, I've come to realize that if I allow the genealogies to act as a sort of a chronology of the Pentatuech, I end up at a Young Earth position. But if I pay attention to the rest of the text, I end up at an Old Earth position. And that's my whole point: there are two equally obvious, but completely opposite positions the are both based on Scripture.

Now let's try and get some sort of useful application.

When the Lord Jesus was confronted by the Sadducees about the resurrection (Matthew 22:23–32), He rebuked them for not seeing a statement about the resurrection in Exodus 3:6. When He was confronted by the Pharisees, He questioned why they hadn't thought about the odd relationship between Messiah and David, that Messiah is both David's son and David's Lord (Matthew 22:41–46, quoting Psalm 110:1).

The Lord Jesus took the Jewish leaders to task for not understanding nuances of Scripture that most of us wouldn't ever notice on our own. He took them to task for not understanding the implicit teaching in Scripture.

I grew up in a Christian home. There has never been a time in my life when the Bible wasn't very much part of it. And sometimes it seems to me that I have a pretty good handle on what it says. Sometimes, I confess, I think and act and talk like there's not much in there I don't already know about. But there are times when I'm brought face-to-face with my own ignorance of what it says.

I didn't just wake up one day and decide to try out Old Earth Creationism: there came a day when I realized there were more clues in the text than those in the genealogies. When I was adding up the ages next to the "begats" in those genealogies, I thought I was being thorough; but when I really read what the text was saying, I realized I had missed a whole lot.

The Young Earth position was so obvious to me, that I didn't even think about the statements that didn't seem to add up. I was so caught up with the explicit statements, I missed the implicit ones. Now I look through the Pentatuech and the Old Earth position seems just as obvious.

And I suppose that's my point: we can get some strange ideas when we're not careful with everything God has said. Yes, it's possible to read things into the text that just aren't there. But it's equally dangerous to ignore what's staring us right in the face, because we think we already have the answers.

 

Christ the center

Ephesians 1:9–10 reveals one of the mysteries in the New Testament: God's will is to head up "all things" in Christ. That goes far beyond what I understand, but it's worth spending some time thinking about it.

Scripture tells us that Christ is "the last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45) and "the second Man" (1 Corinthians 15:47). In those two titles we see God's view of human history: He brought the human race to an end in the crucifixion, and He began something entirely new in the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:42–44 teaches us that resurrection changes things fundamentally. Resurrection makes us something different than we were. At the same time, it's not a replacement, but a transformation. This is a difficult concept for us to grasp: resurrection changes what we are, but it doesn't change who we are. I'm afraid it's easy to fall into error on both sides of that one: it's not that God replaces us, but He does transform us.

Christ, of course, is neither replaced nor transformed. He is eternally God, and that can't be improved. But at the same time, He is the end of what was before, and the beginning of something entirely new. There is now a New Creation, and Christ is the Man at the center of it.

In a Bible reading a few years ago, one brother said that in the first creation, God made the whole creation, then put a man at the center of it. But in the new creation, He started with a Man in the center, and built the creation around Him. Almost like He took the opposite approach.

We are part of this New Creation built around Christ as its Center.

It seems like what we really want, though, is a Christianity with Christ as a sort of a foundation, but not as the Center. We have all sorts of things we like to put at the center: morality, doctrine, even family. What we don't seem to realize is, whatever we put at the center is what we're worshiping.

1 Corinthians 1:30–31 tells us that God has made Christ our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption. Christ is our life (Colossians 3:4). The Christian life is supposed to be all about one Person. It's supposed to be like the New Creation, built around the Lord Jesus Christ at the center.

But we have no shortage of other things we try and put at the center. We put morality, wisdom, knowledge – even relationships with one another – at the center. 1 Corinthians 1:17 reminds us it should be "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" that's at the center of everything to us.

Imagine what that kind of life would look like! What would it look like if everything in our lives were centered around "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified"? What would it look like if we asked constantly how all the things we encountered were related to "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified"?

 

 

 

 

 

Getting the Gospel Right

When I was a teenager, I was struck by the anathema in Galatians 1:6–9,

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed (Galatians 1:8, NASB). 

What struck me then was the question, "so what is the Gospel?" If getting it wrong is worthy of anathema, I should be very careful to know what it is, right?

And it took me not long at all to realize that all the adults I knew had an answer, but basically none of them had a verse. So, for example, my Sunday School teachers had taught me that John 3:16 is "the Gospel in a nutshell." Well, John 3:16 is absolutely the Word of God. But when Scripture says "the Gospel," is it referring to John 3:16? What does the Scripture say?

As far as I have been able to tell, Scripture tells us what the Gospel is exactly once.  There are two passages laying out "the Gospel" explicitly:  1 Corinthians 15:1–8 defines "the gospel which I preached to you" (cf. Galatians 1:8),  and Revelation 14:6 gives us the "everlasting gospel."  The "everlasting gospel" is worth considering, but for now let's just focus on "the gospel which I preached to you":

Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, ² by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

³ For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; ⁷ then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; ⁸ and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:1–11, NASB).

This is the only time that Paul explicitly tells us what "the gospel" is. We would do well to commit to these verses to memory.  

Let's make the assumption that "the gospel which I preached to you" in 1 Corinthians 15:1 is the same thing as "[the gospel] we have preached to you" in Galatians 1:8. I think it's warranted in the text.

There is absolutely no question that the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly is counted righteous (Romans 4:5)... but the Scripture doesn't label that "the gospel." (Although to be fair, this is close to "the everlasting gospel" in Revelation 14:6, which we'll need to discuss another time.)

There is absolutely no question that the one who hears Christ's words and believes on Him who sent Him [Christ] has eternal life (John 5:24)... but the Scripture doesn't label that "the Gospel."

There is absolutely no question that the one who believes on Jesus Christ shall be saved (Acts 16:31)... but the Scripture doesn't label that "the Gospel."

What Scripture calls "the Gospel" is that Christ has died for Our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas and the Twelve. That's it, that's the only time the epistles say, "this is the gospel."

I don't bring this up to be contentious. I bring this up, because when I look to see how the Word of God defines the Gospel, I don't find "Four Spiritual Laws" or "The Romans Road" or even John 3:16. What I find is four propositions about the death, burial, resurrection, and witnesses of Christ.

Let's be quick to say that God loves to forgive (Micah 7:18–19). There can be no doubt that someone who believes God is justified freely. There can be no doubt that many, many people have heard a not-quite-right Gospel, and God has justified them freely when they believe. Not because they got the Gospel right, but because they believed on Him who justifies the ungodly. Remember, God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (Romans 4:5), and every one of us – if we are honest – finds our belief is mixed up in all sorts of unbelief (Mark 9:24). No one who comes to Christ will be turned away (John 6:37), even if they later realize they could have come "better."

In other words, the Gospel isn't some sort of arcane test we need to pass in order to get to Christ. God forgives freely with the slightest provocation. Galatians 1:6–9 isn't a rule to exclude hearers from forgiveness, it's a condemnation against those who preach something else as Gospel. 

I've asked this before, but I think it's worth asking again. Have we heard "gospel messages" that miss out on those four things? Have we heard "gospel messages" that don't talk about Christ being seen by Cephas and the Twelve?  Have we heard "gospel messages" that don't mention that Christ was buried?  Have we heard "gospel messages" that don't mention the Resurrection? I have heard all of those things.

These so-called Gospel messages reveal our hearts, perhaps more completely than we want to admit.

Paul preached the Gospel as something to be believed. We prefer to preach a Gospel that's something to do. The Gospel that Paul preached, that the Corinthians received, that they believed, by which they were saved – that Gospel has no call to action. That Gospel is the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It's not some proscribed action we give to sinners so they can be saved.

None of us wants to admit the central fact of Romans 4:1–5. God justifies the one who does not work, but believes. We just can't quite accept that, and so we add subtle "to-do" items to what Scripture calls the Gospel. 

"Here's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, repeat this prayer after me."  That's literally adding something to the Gospel.

We just can't resist adding something for the sinner to do.

It reveals, too, that we're not seeing everything through the lens of "Christ and Him crucified."  If we were seeing everything through that lens, it wouldn't be hard for us to give the Gospel Paul gave and stop there. It's because we see "Christ and Him crucified" as not enough that we keep trying to add something to that.

I'm not saying that God doesn't command all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30–31). Of course He does! But we sure have an easy time folding all sorts of things into that word "repent." And I can't help but notice that our friends who stress repentance seem to lose "Christ and Him crucified" in the process. Somehow the focus becomes "repent" and "Christ and Him crucified" seems to slip off to the side, away from center stage.

Maybe repentance is something to talk about another time. It deserves its own post.

But the point I'm trying to make is that our life as Christians is supposed to be all about Christ. And when we give a "Gospel" that is more about the sinner than about Christ, then we reveal that we're not determined to see everything through the lens of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And maybe this is the biggest single problem we have. We manage to find so many things to put at the center, where Christ should be, and then we act surprised that our lives aren't Christ-centered. Well... what did we think would happen? Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that's the center we should have.

And make no mistake, I'm at least as guilty of this as anyone else. I'm not accusing all those sinners out there, I'm saying "we" because I mean "we."

 

 

 

 

Lens

I was sitting in meeting, ruminating on 1 Corinthians 11:26. Rodger mentioned this a year or so ago, pointing out that when we announce the Lord's death, we're not merely announcing that He died, but all that His death entails.

So there I was, thinking about 1 Corinthians 11:26, and thinking about 1 Corinthians 2:1–2. Many years ago, someone mentioned to me that when Paul said he knew "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2), the context makes it clear he didn't mean he didn't think or talk about anything else. After all, this is the epistle that discusses church order, and marriage, and lawsuits, and a whole host of other issues. So he's not saying he's ignorant of anything but the Crucifixion. 

It seems to me that Paul was saying that the Lord Jesus Christ and His crucifixion were the lens through which he saw everything. So when he addresses church order, marriage, lawsuits, and so forth, he addresses them in through the lens that Jesus Christ was crucified.

I've heard people (especially Francis Schaeffer) talk about "a Christian worldview." Well, this might be Paul's version of a Christian worldview. Jesus Christ and Him crucified was the central fact of Paul's life, and everything he saw was in relation to this central fact.

I'm not doing a great job viewing everything through the lens of "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

If I were looking through that lens, I might not be terribly surprised at the terrible news on my phone every day. What else should I expect from a world that killed the Son of God?

If I were looking through that lens, I'd be a lot less angry about injustices I see around me. Surely the people who have and do reject Christ Jesus as Lord can't be expected to live any better than they do.

If I were looking through that lens, I might have a deeper appreciation for the beauty and majesty of the creation around me: it's a reflection of the One whose heart is unimaginably good. It's a testimony to the eternal power and God-ness of its creator (Romans 1:20).

If I were looking through that lens, I wouldn't be knowing anyone after the flesh, because I'd recognize that Christ's death ended the moral history of Adam, and His resurrection started something entirely new (1 Corinthians 15:45–49; 2 Corinthians 5:16).

So in the spirit of confessing our faults to one another, I will stop here and say that I've gotten distracted and had my eyes pulled away from the lens I ought to have been using. I've been far too likely to look at the world through a moral – but not necessarily Christ-centered – lens. I ought to have been seeing everything through the lens of "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

That is, after all, the Christian worldview.

Christianity

We've talked before about 1 Corinthians 15:1–5, that gives us the gospel as four propositions centered on the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we've mentioned that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection mark out the path for us: we are dead with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. And just as He was seen by Cephas and the Twelve, we also will be seen with Him some day.

What I've tried to say over and over – but perhaps haven't said very well at all – is that Christianity differs from what came before in that it involves death, burial, and resurrection. The Old Testament saints were justified by grace through faith, just like we are (Romans 4:1–8). I have no doubt they were born of God, just like we are. But they weren't crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. That's our place, it wasn't theirs.

In a very real way, the Christian life is uniquely the life of death, burial, and resurrection.

I said at some point that the Christian life begins with baptism. It's not so much that baptism stands at the gateway to the Christian life (although I think it does), it's that where the Old Testament saints end and we begin, is at the truth of baptism: that we are identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

Someone who believes but hasn't yet been baptized is justified by grace through faith in exactly the way that Abraham and David were, but he hasn't yet come to the point where Christianity starts – at least not consciously. Notice I'm not arguing whether God sees him as dead, buried, and raised with Christ. My point isn't what God sees, but what we see. An unbaptized believer is effectively an Old Testament saint.

Those of us who have been baptized are in an entirely different position, at least outwardly speaking. We are now in the place of those who have died with Christ (Romans 6:3).

In my experience, evangelical teaching on baptism is so weak it's effectively error. In my experience, when evangelicals talk about baptism, they're speaking in terms of obedience, not in terms of identity. So the statements of Romans 6 – baptism means we've died with Christ, been buried with Him, and shall have been raised with Him – are transformed into commands: baptism means we must live an entirely new sort of life, as though we had died with Christ, etc. I'm dismayed almost every time I hear evangelical teaching on baptism.

But it is true that our awareness of our identity in Christ has a tendency to fade over time. When we first realize we have died with Him, our shock turns to relief as we realize that we are now freed from that terrible sin that lives within us. We are relieved when we realize that God sees us as no longer being that old man that we were, and we are now free to agree with God, and count it as true ourselves. "I'm no longer that terrible old man, I'm no longer the slave of sin!" and suddenly we find ourselves free.

Because death is where slaves are free of their masters (Job 3:13–19).

But over time that realization fades, and we start to live again as though we're alive in this world. The memory of those first few moments of miraculous freedom fades, and we start to live and act as though we hadn't died with Him.

What's the solution? I'll blatantly rip a verse from its context and say, "remember therefore from whence thou art fallen" (Revelation 2:5). We're awfully quick to forget what it was like to be a slave to sin, and we can find ourselves drifting back that way all too easily. Like Israel, we start to think things weren't all that bad when we were eating leeks and onions back there... 

One thing about baptism, it doesn't give us a path back to the pre-baptism life.  You can't undo death.

In a very real sense, Colossians 3 picks up where Romans 6 leaves off. Romans 6 teaches that we have died with Christ, and that's something we have to reckon (count as true). Colossians 3 starts with that assumption, then goes on to say that, having died with Christ, we now have to "put to death" our "members on the earth." Colossians 3 gives a list of those members on the earth, but I'm not convinced it's a complete list. Be that as it may, it's striking that the command to mortify (put to death) our members on the earth is given to those who have already died with Christ.

Here's another place where evangelicals have gotten it wrong, in my experience. We have a tendency to put Colossians 3:5ff. before Colossians 3:1–4. In other words, we tend to see our having died with Christ as a result of our mortifying. But that's the opposite of what the text says. It says because we have died with Christ, we ought to mortify. In other words, our mortifying is a result of our already having died.

I've mentioned in the past that we can't skip Romans 6 on our way to Romans 12. We keep trying to throw people into Romans 12:1–2 who haven't yet learned Romans 6, and it just doesn't work. It can't work. Romans 12:1-2 is for those who have already learned Romans 6. In the same way, Colossians 3:5ff. is for those who have already learned Colossians 3:1–4.

Notice the progression of our relationship with death. When we first hear the gospel, the death of Christ means that Christ has died so I don't have to. That's a really basic, but really profound gospel. But then we learn that when Christ died, I died too. That's not something that's true in our experience, we are to believe it based on the word of God: we reckon (count on) it to be true. But now we come to Colossians 3:5ff., and death gets a little more real to us: now we begin to feel it. Now it cuts a little, and we might feel some of its sting. It cuts into those passions and lusts and sins that we enjoy. It starts to cost us something.

But we're not done yet. There is a third death for the believer, it's "death works in us" in 2 Corinthians 4:10–12. Notice this isn't something that's to be accepted on faith like death in Romans 6. And it's not something where we have some sort of control like the mortifying in Colossians 3:5ff. No, this cuts us very deeply, and we feel it, and we don't have any real control over it. This is death up close, personal, painful, and interfering. This is death as God's instrument to reveal the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh. This is, if you like, how God gets us out of the way so that people see Christ instead.

I've been reminded of this because I've been reading in Joshua. It seems to me that the Romans 6 death is connected with crossing the Red Sea (see 1 Corinthians 10:1–5, where the Red Sea represents baptism). And the children of Israel, we are told, crossed on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22).

The children of Israel crossed the Jordan the same way (Joshua 3:14–17), but notice that the priests had to step into the water before it parted. So we can reasonably say that although the vast majority of the nation crossed over without getting wet, it seems like at least the priests got a little wet.

But once the children of Israel got to Gilgal, then the idea of the cutting off of the flesh got real. This wasn't like walking on dry ground through the Red Sea, it wasn't even like walking over the Jordan and the priests' feet getting wet. This was full-on death. It was circumcision with stone knives (Joshua 5:2). This was very, very painful. In fact, it was debilitating pain, so that they had to wait in Gilgal until those who'd been circumcised recovered (Joshua 5:8–9). 

That's what the 2 Corinthians 4:10–12 death is like. It's not something we need to reckon as true, because it's painfully true in our own experience.

We've talked about all this before. It's nothing new. But sometimes we need to be reminded of these things.

 

7k

Romans 11:2–5 makes an argument from the story of Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel (1 Kings 19:1–18). Elijah had hid in a cave after killing the prophets of Baal, and had even asked God to kill him, believing himself to be the last believer in Israel (1 Kings 19:4–10). God corrected him, informing him there were seven thousand left who "had not bent the knee to Baal."

Romans 11:2–5 takes that story and uses it to demonstrate that God has not "cast off" Israel. It may look like it: the Church is (at least for now) predominantly Gentile (Romans 9:30–31). Things look bleak for Israel, and Paul is asking, has God replaced Israel? The answer, of course, is no. There is a day coming when all Israel shall be saved (Romans 11:25–26), but for now, God proves His intention of saving the entire nation by saving a  "remnant according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5). They're sort of like a deposit, a show of good faith.

Elijah is convinced he is the one last man standing, so to speak. But God's response is, "I know more than you: I know 7,000 times more believers than you do." And there is an application we can make from this story to ourselves.

We, like Elijah, have a tendency to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We look around, see ruin and decay, and think, "well, I guess it's down to me now." But that's foolishness. The Lord knows those who are His (2 Timothy 2:19). It's a pretty safe bet to say, as many faithful believers as we know, the Lord knows 7,000 times more.

I was thinking about this in connection with the seven churches in Asia (Revelation 2–3). In the message to each church, there is the promise to the one who overcomes. Do we not think there is an overcomer in every church? If we're honest, we don't. Not really. But even Thyatira has overcomers. Even Laodicea has overcomers.

It's striking that the overcomer in Laodicea isn't commanded to move to Philadelphia, or that the overcomer in Laodicea isn't told to move to Smyrna. As far as I can tell, the overcomer in Thyatira is called to overcome in Thyatira. The overcomer in Laodicea is called to overcome in Laodicea.

I know people who believe that the Roman Catholic Church isn't a church, while simultaneously saying that "the church in Thyatira" is Roman Catholicism. That strikes me as odd... you can't have it both ways. I'm not interested in Roman Catholicism because I don't see any point to working for what God offers for free (Romans 4:5). I'm certainly not claiming that the Roman Catholic Church faithfully preaches the gospel. But if I admit there is a resemblance to the church of Thyatira, I have to admit also that the Lord has overcomers there. And it's not surprising that He knows far more than 7,000 there, even though I do not.

Here's a thought: maybe I don't know who the overcomers in the Roman Catholic Church are, because they're too busy overcoming to pay any attention to me. It's worth thinking about. 

I can't in good conscience be part of the ELCA either, but I'm sure the Lord has 7,000 there too. There are overcomers even in Laodicea.

It can be frustrating to look at the landscape of Christendom. There are some pretty crazy things out there, and there are lots of things out there that I can't in good conscience be a part of. But I dare not claim to be wiser than the Lord. He knows overcomers in every church. He knows the names of those 7,000, even if I do not.

If I don't know about the 7,000 who haven't bent the knee to Baal, that might not be because they're not there. It might be because I'm like Elijah – so absorbed in myself I'm not letting God be God.

 

The New Covenant and Acts 2

One of my friends mentioned to me the New Covenant in connection with Acts 2, which I thought was a little odd, as I can't find a mention of the New Covenant in Acts 2. He tried to connect them via Joel 2:19–32, which I thought was more odd, because I can't find a mention of the New Covenant in Joel 2. But after some thought, I admit there is something there that's worth considering.

It's a fact that the Lord frequently fulfills a prophecy partially before fulfilling it ultimately. We don't have to look hard to find that sort of thing in Matthew's gospel, for example. A great deal of the statements Matthew makes about prophecy seem to be based on quotes wrested from their context. One reason for that (there are other considerations too) is that God sees ultimate fulfillment in Christ. For example, when Isaiah says, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son, and call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:10–25), our minds go immediately to Christ. And rightly so (Matthew 1:23). But in the context where Isaiah actually spoke that prophecy, he was promising deliverance from Syria to Ahaz. If we read on to the next verses (Isaiah 7:14–16), the promise is that a virgin would conceive, have a son, and before her son would be old enough to develop a discerning palate, God would destroy the kings of Syria. So God promises deliverance in the time it takes a young woman to marry, give birth to her first child, wean him, and he develops a taste for food. That's a really weird way to specify a time-frame, but God does it with a purpose: He is looking forward to ultimate deliverance from the ultimate enemy, and that will come from the Son of God, who would be born of a virgin.

So in Acts 2, the coming of the Holy Spirit is identified by Peter (Acts 2:14–21) as the pouring out in Joel 2:28–32. A lot of Christians read Peter's words here and declare that God has fulfilled the prophecy in Joel 2, it's now in the past. I disagree, because Joel clearly promises things that didn't happen in Acts 2. We have no record that the younger people prophesied while the older people dreamed dreams. As Watchman Nee points out, between the Holy Spirit's coming and Peter's sermon, we know for a fact no one had dreamed dreams, because none of them had been sleeping!  Peter goes on to mention the signs and wonders Joel promised (Joel 2:30–31; Acts 2:19–20), which is odd considering none of these things are recorded in Acts 2, nor anywhere else in Acts.

Peter wasn't claiming that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 was the fulfillment of the prophecies in Joel 2. Peter was claiming that what they saw in Acts 2 was a pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and they should have known a pouring out of the Holy Spirit was coming, because it's foretold in Joel 2. This is subtly different: the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is coming, I have no doubt. Acts 2 wasn't the ultimate fulfillment of that prophecy, but it was a partial fulfillment. Just like the child born in Ahaz's time was a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, but a bigger fulfillment was coming; so the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy, but a more complete fulfillment is coming.

Notice this same theme is picked up in Romans 11:25–27. What God has done since Christ was rejected (see especially Acts 3:19–26) is build something new on the earth that gives a glimpse into what things would have been, had Israel repented. And Romans tells us, it's with the intention that Israel would see what God has done in the church, and be moved to jealousy. 

And notice, Romans 11:27 mentions the Covenant God will make with Israel "after I take away their sins."

So here's another place the church and the New Covenant meet. Again, I don't believe that the church benefits under the New Covenant, but I absolutely believe that God is using us to demonstrate publicly His grace, so that Israel would be moved to repentance. God is showing how He would treat them, in how He treats us. And part of that promised renewed relationship with Israel is the New Covenant.

I should probably also mention... I don't believe the church is temporary, but I am certain the church is playing roles right now on earth that are temporary. What I mean by that is, our relationship to Christ as Bride isn't going to end, but our place on this earth as the house of God will absolutely come to an end. We will eventually be replaced by Israel in that sense. And that's a good thing! We should look forward to that, because it'll be part of the public vindication of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned before, I don't believe our role as the Body of Christ will last beyond our time here (Christ already has a body in Heaven, our place is to be His Body on earth). I don't believe our role as the habitation of God through the Spirit will last beyond our time here. But we absolutely will be "forever with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

The New Covenant and the Church

I think at this point I've made it clear that I don't believe the Church receives and blessings under the New Covenant. Properly speaking, the Church isn't a party to the New Covenant. The New Covenant has not yet been inaugurated, but when it is inaugurated, it will be made between God and the houses of Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:8–12). 

But the fact is that the Church isn't entirely separate from the New Covenant for several reasons:

1. we are united to Christ (Ephesians 5:28–33), the Mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:6)
   
2. we have the "blood of the New Covenant" (1 Corinthians 11:23–26)

Whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we announce the Lord's death (1 Corinthians 11:26). We have a tendency to think that we eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of what the Lord has done for us, but Scripture tells us otherwise. We eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him (I Corinthians 11:24–25). He is more than "just" the One who died for us. His death was for us, that's true. But it wasn't only for us: there is value in His death for God. There is something in His death for Israel. There is something in His death for us. And while our Calvinist friends might not approve of my saying so: there is something in His death for fallen, unredeemed, unrepentant man too.

But even more than that, we aren't really called to remember His death. We're called to remember Him, and in doing so, we announce His death. We remember the Lord as the eternal God who became Man. We remember that He spoke the universe into existence (Hebrews 1:1–4, Colossians 1:16). We remember that He dwells in light unapproachable, that no man has seen, nor can see (1 Timothy 6:13–16). We remember that He is the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18).

And yes, we remember that He came down here, becoming a Man with the express purpose of giving Himself for us (Hebrews 10:4–10).

But the point is, we don't dissect Christ. We remember Him, and that includes the New Covenant. 

Even more to the point, He gave us the cup, and told us explicitly it's "the new covenant in [His] blood" (1 Corinthians 11:25).

This last point is a problem for people (like me) who take the view that the New Covenant is with Israel and Judah. If the New Covenant isn't ours, why do we have the cup? Why doesn't the Lord say we have "the cup, which is My blood?" Why does He bring up the New Covenant?

To me, this is all about Asenath. The Lord came to His own, and they didn't receive Him (John 1:11). He presented Himself to His own people, and they made it very clear they'd rather have Caesar than their own King (John 19:11–15). So He was crucified by the hands of wicked men (Acts 2:22–23), and when they killed Him, they were clear that He was the King of Israel (Matthew 27:37). And then, after His resurrection, the apostles called them to repent, promising them that He would come back then and there, to set up His kingdom (Acts 3:19–21). But of course they didn't repent.

The timing of the Last Supper is significant: it's before the assembly was formed, before the Holy Spirit came. It's the night He was betrayed (1 Corinthians 11:23). And on that night, He gives the disciples the cup, and tells them it's the New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:19–20). They might not have realized it at the time, but the New Covenant will be made in blood (Hebrews 9:15–22), just as the Old Covenant was (Exodus 24:4–8). And the disciples were to remember that blood until He comes back.

No, I don't believe in transubstantiation. I don't believe the cup really is His blood, or that the bread really is His body. But I do believe that the Lord left a memorial of His blood, and of the New Covenant that will be made in it. And He made it a definite thing: we remember Him in bread and wine until He comes back (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).

So here we are: we announce His death while we wait for Him to come back. And when He comes back, He'll establish the "times of refreshing," inaugurating the New Covenant with Israel and Judah in His own blood. And that blood has been a testimony to His death for this whole time (Hebrews 12:24).

So in a sense, we're keeping the cup in trust for Israel and Judah. When our Lord comes back, He'll be their Lord too. And then we won't have that cup anymore.

But right now we're Asenath: we're the Lord's here while He has been rejected. We remember Him here so that His name won't be forgotten, but will be remembered throughout all generations (Psalm 45:17). And once His own people receive Him, we won't need to be holding that cup for them anymore.

There will be something amazing between the Lord and His people when He comes back for them. Some of that isn't our business, just like our union with Him is none of theirs. But when He does come as their King, He'll write His own copy of the law, just like Moses commanded (Deuteronomy 17:18). He'll write it on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

So no, I don't believe the Church is party to the New Covenant. And I don't believe the Church receives any blessings from it, although I'm sure there are some blessings that we'll both have, not because we share them, but because we need them. But I do believe the assembly is connected to the New Covenant, because it is Christ's New Covenant, and we are connected with Him. And I believe we are connected with the New Covenant, because we hold (even if only symbolically) the blood of that New Covenant, until He comes.

 

Dispensationalism

It's popular to hate on Dispensationalism these days (although I've seen faint glimmers of its coming back into fashion). Some of the criticisms I have seen are valid, most are a bit of a reach, some are entirely outside the realm of reasonable.

In my experience, the term "dispensationalism" generally means the Scofield version, with seven ages that each begin with a covenant and end with a judgment. I'm not a huge fan of that system, although I understand its appeal. Clarence Larkin taught a version with eight ages, rather than seven. I'm sure there are many other versions of Dispensationalism, but the Scofield version seems to be the one people think of first, and the one people are attacking when they claim Dispensationalism is wrong.

Reading Darby cured me of Scofield's brand of Dispensationalism. Scofield does a good job of seeing and calling out discontinuities between the Old and New Testaments (for example), but not such a great job of recognizing continuities. The immediate effect reading Darby had on me was to make me step away from a lot of the Dispensationalist ideas I had grown up believing.

But I digress. 

Dispensationalism seems to me to be particularly strong in its hermeneutic. It's not perfect, but it's based on a remarkably consistent hermeneutic. Dispensationalists tend to view things in context (perhaps to a fault), and are very consistent across passages. I'm frequently surprised by the inconsistent hermeneutic in conversations with Christians from other backgrounds.

One of the more common criticisms of Dispensationalism is that it teaches that man was justified by works under Law in the Old Testament, and is now justified by grace through faith.  That's a common enough criticism that it deserves a detailed answer.

Let's be clear that God has only ever justified fallen men and women by grace through faith. That's the plain teaching of the Epistles. But I admit that I have met some (not all, not most, not even many) dispensationalists who weren't very clear on that. I can't recall ever speaking to a dispensationalist who didn't quickly realize the truth when pressed on the point, but I should be fair and say that I have actually met dispensationalists (not many, but some) who weren't very clear on that. I don't think I've ever heard anyone teach error on that point, and I've certainly never read it anywhere that I can recall.

But there is another "line of truth" to consider: the Epistles teach that the Law was given to reveal man's sinfulness (Romans 3:20, 5:12–21, Galatians 3:19). God was testing the human race. It wasn't to educate God, but to reveal what fallen men and women are.

What God knows (and has always known) is that Adam's descendants aren't merely guilty, but are lost. When Romans 8:7 says the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God and cannot be, it's giving God's verdict of our race. We're not merely guilty, we are also lost.

The testing of our race reaches its climax in the life and death of Jesus Christ. God Himself comes to live as a Man, is hated, persecuted, and murdered. In the rejection of Christ, we have the very worst thing the human race has ever done. There is no sin worse than Deicide.

Is God surprised by the death of His Son? Of course not! It was by the "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" that He was killed (Acts 2:22–23). But that doesn't mean it wasn't the lowest point in human history. That doesn't mean God isn't going to judge the human race for this greatest of all crimes.

So Dispensationalism recognizes not only the individual need for redemption (only by the blood of Christ) and justification (only by grace through faith). It also recognizes God's testing of the human race. This is brought out especially by Darby and other "brethren" writers:

Man was lawless; then, when the law came, there was the transgression of the law; and when the blessed Lord in wondrous love and grace came into the world and went about doing good, they could not stand God's presence ("Our Portion in Christ," Collected Writings, Volume 21, pp. 317–326).

By nature, man was simply lawless (anomos), with a conscience, or the sense of good and evil. But he, being lawless in nature, was expressly put under law. If he had fulfilled it, he was righteous; but the flesh is not subject to it, nor can it be. ("The Pauline Doctrine of the Righteousness of Faith," Collected Writings, Volume 7, pp. 349–386).

Men had been sinners, lawless sinners and law-breaking sinners, before Christ came. His coming brought an additional element of sin. God came into this world in goodness. What did it do to Him?  ("The Law, and the Gospel of the Glory of Christ", Collected Writings, Volume 34, pp. 416–429)

One of the tragedies of Dispensationalism is that it has become characterized by charts and tables, rather than by a deep appreciation of God's ways with our lost race, but I digress. I love charts and tables, by the way. But the real meat isn't in the charts and tables.

It's fair to say dispensationalists believe that God put Israel – as representatives of the entire human race – under Law at Sinai as a test. It was a test He knew they (we) would fail, but it was a real test. And so we believe if they had passed the test (they did not and could not), then they would have been righteous based on their own merit. But that's not at all the same thing as saying they were justified by their works. They were not, as Romans 4:1–8 shows.

So yes, in a way, all dispensationalists believe that if men and women had kept the Law, they would have been righteous before God. But that would mean they were not lost. The Law doesn't prove man's guilt, but his lostness. And the impossibility of lost men and women being subject to the law of God is precisely what the law proved.

We don't believe that God has justified lost men and women any other way than by grace through faith. That is universally true: it was true of Abraham before the Law, and of David under it (Romans 4:1–8). 

Only one Man is just in God's sight on His own merits.