If anyone sins

I don't think we can talk too much about God's forgiveness, Christ's advocacy, or our own need of Him.

We all sin. " for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We are guilty of sin ("all have sinned") and we all continue to fail ("all... fall short"). There is no one who does not continue to sin. 

Our response to this fact is telling. We might respond by leaning into it, perhaps even celebrating it. "We all sin" we might say dismissively, while our passions rule us and drive us deeper and deeper into it. 

We might respond with a less enthusiastic – but equally useless – resignation. "We all sin" we might say, shrugging with a defeated sigh.

But Scripture lays out something different. The first response to our sin is on Christ's part. "If anyone sins" – not, "if anyone repents" – "we have an advocate with the Father" (1 John 2:2). It's important for us to recognize that Christ doesn't wait for us to repent, to confess, or to pray. No, whenever we sin, He is our advocate with the Father. Long before we feel any sense of remorse, He is already working on our behalf with the Father in heaven.

Our response to sin is laid out in 1 John 1:9, "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." It's remarkable that it is Divine justice that is linked to our forgiveness. God's justice demands He forgive us when we confess, because Christ has already paid for our sins. What an amazing thought, that the same justice that we would expect to drive God to wrath to punish us for our sins actually drives Him to forgive us, because Christ has died for us (cf. Romans 3:24–26).

There's a tendency for us to think that we earn God's forgiveness by our confession, which shows just how fallen we are. There is no merit in confession, it's simply an acknowledgment. It's saying what God already knows: we have sinned.

The language of 1 John 1:9 has a sacramental sense. It's for our benefit: we can point to confession and say, "I know God has forgiven, because I have confessed, and He promises to forgiven when I confess." The fact is that we have forgiveness of sins as a present blessing (Colossians 1:14). God doesn't wait for us to confess before He forgives. But we need that assurance of forgiveness. We need to know that He has forgiven, and so we have this answer: "if you have confessed, then I have forgiven." And we can point to that confession as a sort of a receipt of forgiveness.

Of course we still have a tendency to hang on to guilt, and we really insult God in doing so. We act like God's forgiveness is all well and good, but we need something more. It's an unimaginably arrogant thing for us to think that God might have forgiven me, but my standards are higher than His. It's a wicked thing to think.

And of course we might need to make amends to some other person. If we have sinned against our brother or sister as well as against the Lord, we might need to ask their forgiveness as well. But the fact remains that God is the most injured party regardless of whom else we have hurt.

We recognize, too, that our confession of sins is really a tangible result of Christ's advocacy for us, and the Holy Spirit's work in us. It's not our idea to confess our sins to God, but His. When we confess our sins and have that receipt of forgiveness, we come to understand that it's because Christ had already been advocating for us – even while we were still sinning – that we were brought to our knees to confess.

It's worth bearing this in mind. It's worth contemplating this. "Whoso is wise, let him observe these things, and let them understand the loving-kindnesses of Jehovah" (Psalm 107:43).

Intentional sin

For as long as I can remember, I've heard that there's no sacrifice in the Mosaic Law for intentional sins. I'm sure that's not a true statement, because Leviticus 6:1–7 outlines the trespass offering.  The trespass offering is prescribed for when someone defrauds his neighbor or swears falsely. These are undoubtedly intentional sins. 

Notice the difference in the descriptions of the the sin offering outlined in Leviticus 5:1ff and the trespass offering in Leviticus 6:1–7. The sin offering is for sins committed in ignorance, while the trespass offering is for sins committed knowingly. So yes, the Mosaic Law does have an offering for intentional sins.

Nevertheless, the Law does tell us that there is no offering for sins committed "with a high hand" (Numbers 15:30–31). So the question is, how do we reconcile Numbers 15:30–31 with Leviticus 6:1–7? If we take any intentional sin to be sins committed "with a high hand," then we have a real problem. But it seems to me we are to understand sin committed "with a high hand" to refer to a specific type or category of intentional sin. In other words, not every intentional sin is committed "with a high hand."

When Paul addressed the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:14ff), he told them that there is forgiveness for those who believe in the Lord Jesus "from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). That's an astonishing claim, and it would have been even more astonishing to the people listening to him than it is to us today. But it's nothing more than a succinct statement of the doctrine of justification by faith (faith alone in Christ alone) taught in Romans 4:1–8. There we read that the one who believes is a "man to whom [the] Lord shall not at all reckon sin" (Romans 4:8, quoting Psalm 32:2). 

And we should probably pause here (as we should pause so many times in Romans) and ask, do we really believe that? Do we really believe what Romans 4:1–8 teaches? I'm sure I often fall short of believing those words, even though I'm convinced they are God's own words. Our actions reveal what we truly believe, and my actions betray my own heart every time I look for some sort of penance, some sort of payment for sins that I commit. Every time I act like it's incumbent on me to make atonement for my own sins, it reveals that I really don't believe that God has already justified me freely from all sins.

Here's a question: have you ever confessed the same sin to God more than once? I know I have, and it revealed my own heart: it revealed I didn't really believe He forgave me the first time. 

But if we go back to Romans 8:1–8 or Acts 13:38–39 or Colossians 2:13–15, then we have to say that believing God means believing in absolute, final, unlimited forgiveness. It means that thinking we've sinned too much this time is unbelief. It's calling God a liar. It's thinking that our standards are higher than His. It's flattering ourselves that what Christ could not accomplish in dying for us, we can accomplish with some tears, some remorse, and maybe some ritual.

In a word, it's sin.

So let's take some time to bask in the completeness of the forgiveness that is ours at Christ's expense. There is no sin that God hasn't already forgiven those who believe on His name. Yes, even sins committed "with a high hand." 

Getting back to the question of the Mosaic Law, it seems to me the Law reveals two terrible things about us in those passages. First, if we're honest, we have to admit we've all sinned "with a high hand." None of us can say that every sin we've committed has been committed inadvertently. And if we're really honest, not one of us can say we haven't sinned deliberately, defiantly, and daringly. We've all sinned with a high hand.

But to me the far more troubling lesson is the lesson of the sin offering: we've all sinned inadvertently, perhaps even unknowingly. The law of the sin offering teaches us that we can be guilty without even knowing it, because we are sinners by nature. We can incur guilt without any effort at all, even without realizing we've done it. It's not merely that we sin, but that we are sinners. That's the real lesson of the sin offering. 

And the more deeply we realize it, the more deeply we learn to appreciate Romans 4:1–8.

 

Seeing

I've taken some flak in Bible readings for this, but I think it's worth making a small point that could be helpful. We'll start in Exodus 14:27–31, and observe – as we have several times already – that Israel was saved when they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore. This passage gives us a clear idea what salvation is: it's not merely escaping slavery in Egypt, it's not even escaping the judgment on Egypt, it's seeing the enemy defeated and lifeless on the shore.

So there is a subjective sense to salvation: it's not just that the Egyptian army was dead and lifeless on the shore, it's that Israel saw them there. The Egyptians lying dead on the shore is a fact: it's objectively true. But salvation isn't only objective truth, it's also subjective acceptance of that truth.

And we all know this on some level: the Gospel is laid out in 1 Corinthians 15:1–8, four propositions about the Lord Jesus: His death, His burial, His resurrection, His appearing to witnesses. That's the Gospel. But it doesn't do me any good unless I believe it (note 1 Corinthians 15:1–2 opens with this claim). We could point to numerous other verses: John 3:16, Romans 4:5, Ephesians 2:8–9. These all tell us that we come into the good of the Gospel by believing God.

I would argue that all spiritual progress, from justification by faith alone in Christ alone to the highest spiritual height, is a result of accepting what God has said. God says that Christ has died for my sins, but I only really come into the good of that when I accept that it's true.

Romans 6:1–14 is a good example of this. There's a real problem (Romans 6:1–2), there is a solution resting on God's declaration (Romans 6:3–7), and we come into the good of it as we accept (count on) it being true (Romans 6:11) and then there are practical exhortations flowing from that (Romans 6:12–14).

And I recognize I'm repeating myself here, but it's worth repeating: we can't skip those steps. I've read a whole lot of commentary on Romans 6. I've listened to a whole lot of sermons on Romans 6. But so much of it turns into drivel, and it's because most of it tries to skip to a favorite verse. It doesn't work that way! We can't skip the explanation of God's view of things in vv. 3–7 and try to get to the "reckoning" part in v. 11. We can't skip straight to the "practical" part in vv. 12ff. No, we need to work through it. We need to hear God's view of things, really immerse ourselves in it, and then align our mindset with that (which is all "reckoning" is) before we can live it out.

Now, we can point out that really, we have died with Christ whether we reckon it to be true or not. That's really the teaching of vv. 3–7.  But someone who feels trapped in sin is looking for something more: skipping from vv. 3–7 to vv. 12ff isn't going to help that person. That person needs v. 11.

And here's where I've gotten into trouble in Bible readings: it's not enough to go from "this is what God sees" to "this is how you should live" without the pause of "reckoning." Not only in Romans 6, but in every single passage. We need that pause of "reckoning" in Colossians 3:1–5, in Philippians 3:9–11, in Ephesians 4:1ff. We need it in all those passages. Because "here's what God sees" doesn't help us in practical terms until we see it too.

That's the lesson from Exodus 14:27–31,  a big part of salvation is seeing what God sees. It takes a change of mind, an accepting that what God says is true, even if we think we know better. We need to "see" the truth that's presented to us before it does us any good.

And so when we come to Philippians 3:9ff, we see being "in Christ" as an aspirational thing ("that I may be found in Him"). It's not that I'm not a man in Christ, but it's that we don't get the practical good of that unless our thinking is aligned with God's. No, I cannot make myself a man in Christ. Yes, God sees me as a man in Christ regardless. But if I want to come into the practical benefits of being a man in Christ, I have to be aligned with what God sees. And in Philippians 3:9ff, being a man in Christ means having no righteousness of my own. Until I accept that I have no righteousness of my own, I may be a man in Christ as far as God is concerned, but I'm struggling against it.

So sometimes I speak about our position in Christ in aspirational terms. That's not because I don't believe it's true, but because I'm trying to emphasize that we won't get the good of it until we come to believe, accept, and "see" that what God says is true. It's when I stop struggling against it that I come into the good of it. 

The least you could do

It's not uncommon to hear preachers say something like, "Christ died for you, the least you could do is to live for Him." It's worth noting that the epistles make no such claim. In fact, they seem to say the opposite. Consider 2 Corinthians 4:7–12 as an example, or Galatians 2:20.   "[I]t is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20, LSB). It's worth spending some time meditating on this.

Deuteronomy 29:4 makes the startling statement that God had not given Israel eyes, ears, and a heart to perceive what He was doing for them in the wilderness. What they needed was not more evidence of God's goodness to them (Deuteronomy 29:2–6), but Divine intervention and transformation so that they would understand what they had seen.

This theme is developed more fully in the prophets (Jeremiah17:9; Ezekiel 36:25–27), in the gospels (John 3:3ff; John 15:4ff), and in the epistles (Romans 7:4–6; Romans 8:1–8; Galatians 6:15). The testimony of the whole of Scripture, from the Pentatuech through the epistles, is that man cannot please God without a fundamental transformation that he is unable to achieve himself. It is only God's intervention that can make man capable of pleasing God.

Romans 5:12ff centers on this simple truth: man is not simply guilty, he is lost. Our problem is not merely that we are guilty before God (the focus of Romans 1–3), but that we are by nature opposed to Him. The problem is not only that we have sinned, but that we are sinners. And it might surprise us to realize we were sinners before we ever sinned (Romans 5:19). We are like the scorpion that stung the frog, "because that's what scorpions do." We sin because we are sinners, not the other way around.

At the root of the exhortation, "Christ died for you, the least you can do is live for Him," is the hidden assumption that we are not lost, merely guilty. Our guilt means we need forgiveness and atonement, but once that has been accomplished, we are capable of trying again – and getting it right this time! We have a clean slate. It rests on a denial that fallen man is truly lost.

The clean slate approach has already been tried and been found wanting. Exodus 31 – 34 detail the initial giving of the Law at Sinai, the failure of Israel to keep it, God's grace in sparing the bulk of the nation, and then His giving the Law again. 2 Corinthians 3:7–16 alludes to Exodus 34, especially Exodus 34:29ff. The verdict is that the Law, delivered for the second time, is the "ministry of death" and the "ministry of condemnation."

For many years, I took "the ministry of death" in 2 Corinthians 3:7–10 to refer to the giving of the Law in Exodus 32:19ff. But we know for certain that's not correct: the veiling of Moses wasn't a feature of Exodus 32, but of Exodus 34. So what 2 Corinthians 3 calls "the ministry of death" (2 Corinthians 3:7) and "the ministry of condemnation" (2 Corinthians 3:9) is explicitly not the first giving of the Law, but the second: it's law after forgiveness.

I've quoted this passage by JND before, but it's worth quoting again:

[T]he people, though spared by grace, were put back under law; and this was the ministration of death and condemnation of which the apostle speaks. For, in fact, if atonement be not made, grace only makes transgression worse, at any rate in the revelation of God; even in partial glory, with law it must be condemnation to a sinner. Law after grace, in a word, is what the apostle teaches us is condemnation; law after atonement is worse than absurd. It is putting away the sin, and then putting under it, or making the law of no authority and no effect. But vague grace - sparing, and then law, is the state of multitudes of souls; and that is what the apostle tells us is death and condemnation in its nature, and indeed the veil is soon over the reflection of grace to the soul (that is, the perception that exists of grace is soon lost).

– J. N. Darby, "Show me now thy way", Collected Writings, Volume 19, p. 181

Notice how the exhortation, "Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him" parallels the giving of the Law in Exodus 34. Putting responsibility for obedience on those who have been forgiven – because they have been forgiven – is not the Gospel. It's the "ministry of death."  This is what Luther might call "mixing Law and Gospel."

We might note, too, that obedience predicated on completed redemption isn't Gospel at all: it's pure Law. Consider Exodus 20:1–2. The Mosaic Law was predicated on a completed redemption from slavery in Egypt. God wasn't promising them He would deliver them from Egypt if only they would obey: He reminded them that He had already delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and thus He had a right to demand obedience. This is identical in principle to what is so commonly taught as "gospel" today.

The principle of grace – grace as opposed to law – is that God gives freely, demanding nothing in return. This is not the principle of Exodus 34, which put forgiven men and women back under law. This is something entirely different.

And so we ask the same question Paul asks in Romans 6:1, "so shall we just continue in sin then?" And like every question in Romans, this one tests whether we've been paying attention. If the Gospel taught in Romans 1–5 demands obedience, then that question would never be there. The question is there, because if we truly hear the Gospel taught in Romans 1–5, we'll be wondering whether we should just continue in sin. If more sin means more grace (cf. Romans 5:20–21), then doesn't that mean we can increase grace by continuing in sin?  If we don't see the question in Romans 6:1 as the logical one to ask, then we've been adding something to the Gospel of Romans 1–5. 

W. H. Griffith Thomas points out:

Before considering the Apostle's treatment of this question it is essential to observe that the very fact of such a question being possible shows with unmistakable clearness the true meaning of the Apostle's Doctrine of Justification (St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, p. 165)

 

And don't let's misquote Romans 6:1. It doesn't say, "can we continue in sin?" the answer to that is a resounding "Yes!" Praise God, if we continue in sin, then grace will abound. That's not the question.

The question is, "shall we continue in sin?"  That's a different question, and it has a different answer.

No one who says, "Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him" will ever be asked, "shall we continue in sin?" That person is on entirely different ground than Paul was. That question is the logical follow-up to Paul's Gospel. If no one's asking us that question, then we're preaching a different Gospel than Paul was. (Alan Gamble pointed this out brilliantly in a sermon I can no longer find online.)

And what's Paul's response to that question? Does he say, "may it never be! Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him!" No, he does not. He responds, "may it never be! How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:2). It's not that we should cease sinning out of gratitude. It's that we should cease sinning because we have died to sin.

God's remedy for guilt is that Christ died for us. Dying in our place, He paid the penalty we owed.

God's remedy for our lost-ness – for our entire inability to please God – is that we have died with Christ.

Notice how Romans 6:1–6 makes a mockery of the notion that "the least you could do is live for Him." God doesn't want our life! We were so lost that His remedy is to put us to death. Our life – the life that we inherited from Adam – was a life incapable of pleasing God (Romans 8:1–8, especially vv. 7–8). In and of ourselves, we cannot please God. 

 

I cannot stress enough that obedience based on gratitude for accomplished redemption isn't Gospel, but Law. It is exactly the opening statement of Exodus 20. We are no more capable of keeping the Law after forgiveness than before it. Our problem isn't that we lack gratitude (although we do), but that we lack power. This is what Romans 6–8 addresses.

The scriptural remedy for our lost-ness involves three things. First, we are freely justified from all guilt through faith in Christ (Acts 13:39, Romans 4:1–8). God wants nothing from us to make amends for our guilt: we are utterly helpless in the face of the crushing debt we owe, and any attempts to make payment for it mock God's righteousness. God forgives us because – and only because – Christ has died for us. There is no other remedy for our guilt before God. "[T]he one who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" (Romans 4:5, LSB). There is no other remedy that God acknowledges.

Second, we are delivered from the power of sin over us by our death with Christ. This is Romans 6:1–14, it's God's answer to the question, "so should we just continue in sin?" The answer is that God has already intervened for us, in the death of Christ, so that we are invited to see ourselves as God sees us. As far as God is concerned, when Christ died, I died. When Christ was buried, I was buried. When Christ rose again, I rose again. When Christ ascended, I ascended. I am a man "in Christ," and my life is tied up with His. Darby points out that Romans only addresses the first two: in Romans we have died with Christ and been buried with Him, but we haven't yet been raised with Him (cf. Romans 6:5). In Colossians, we have died with Him, been buried with Him, and been raised with Him (Colossians 3:1–4). But in Colossians, we still haven't ascended with Him. In Ephesians, though, we have gone all the way with Him, and are seated in the heavenlies with Him (Ephesians 2:4–6).

There is human responsibility in Romans 6. The first command in the book of Romans is in Romans 6:11, "consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (LSB). So there is something we need to do: we need to consider ourselves to be dead to sin. This isn't some sort of psychological technique, it's not wish fulfillment or "manifesting" or whatever other pop psychology pseudo-spiritual nonsense you might hear about. This is accepting by faith that God sees us as having died with Christ, and accepting His invitation to see ourselves the same way. This is our acquiescence to God's statement that we died with Christ. This is us saying, "whatever my opinion may be, God's opinion is the one that counts."

Third, we are empowered by the Spirit of God to "walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16ff, Romans 8:1–17). Notice the parallels between Paul's ministry in Galatians and Romans, and John's in John 15:1–11. The language is different, the descriptions are the same. What John calls "abiding in Christ" is what Paul calls "walking in the Spirit." 

Now, it's important to note that conflict isn't over yet. In fact, conflict hasn't really started. When the children of Israel left Egypt, they were delivered from Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea without any fight at all: it was entirely God's fight, and they were simply told to "stand still" and watch (Exodus 14:13–14). In fact, Scripture only says they were "saved" when they had seen the dead bodies of the Egyptians on the shore (Exodus 14:30–31). In a similar way, we are invited to look at ourselves dead with Christ (Romans 6:5–11). But once they had gotten through the Red Sea, they had to engage in conflict with the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8ff).

As an aside, one of the worst things so many preachers do today is invite us to conflict with the Egyptians. We aren't called to put sin to death, but to consider ourselves to have died to it (Romans 6:5–11). The Israelites weren't told to fight with Pharaoh, but to watch his destruction. They were called to fight with Amalek. In exactly the same way, there is conflict for us too, but we don't get to that conflict until we have learned to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."

 

Scripture doesn't teach, "live this way out of gratitude," but "live what you are in Christ." We are called into a new creation: we are new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), that is our motivation. Just like we used to sin because we were sinners, now we should live righteously because we are in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:1ff, Romans 12:1ff).

But notice this isn't something that God calls lost men and women to do! This is something we are called to do only after we have seen ourselves as dead and buried with Christ. We can't skip Romans 6 on the way to Romans 12. We can't skip Ephesians 2 on the way to Ephesians 4. It just doesn't work that way. It's worse than foolishness.

So with all that said (and it was a lot), here are just some of the problems with "Christ has died for you, the least you can do is live for Him."

First, it assumes that God wants my life. He does not, what He wants is the "life of Jesus" in our mortal bodies (2 Corinthians 4:7–12). What good is the life of a fallen man or woman to God? What value is a lost sinner to Him? Forgiven or not, the life of a lost sinner is of no spiritual value at all. It's the life of one who has died with Christ, has been buried with Him, has been raised with Him, and is looking for Christ to come back for him – that's the life that pleases God. It's not until we can say, "Christ, who is our life" (Colossians 3:4) that we have a life God can use.

Second, it supposes an independent life. The Lord Jesus said, "apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The entire discussion in John 15:1–11 centers on the self-evident fact that a branch on its own is useless. We don't produce fruit for God on our own: we produce fruit for God as the True Vine bears fruit through us. Forgiven, but lost, men and women are no more capable of pleasing God than unforgiven men and women. As new creations in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), we are capable of pleasing God, but...

The single hardest thing for us to learn is that the rules are different in the New Creation. In New Creation, life is from God Himself, we don't have it on our own (cf. John 6:26ff). Adam had some measure of life independent from God. The life of the New Creation in Christ isn't like that (1 John 5:11–14). No, the life of the New Creation is life that is hidden in Christ. We don't look to live autonomously. This isn't a life where we can go off and work hard to produce something and bring it back to God, as Cain did. It's a life where every breath, every step, every action has to be taken as an outflow of the life of God Himself in Christ Jesus.

 

Third, it assumes we can achieve righteousness. This is probably the most lingering aspect of carnal religion. Just like cockroaches seem to survive no matter what we try to do to rid ourselves of them, we cling to the carnal concept of producing righteousness for God until the bitter end. We need to stamp that out: we need to beat it mercilessly until it lies lifeless at our feet, and then we need to beat it some more.

The righteousness men and women can produce are of no value to God (Job 22:3, Isaiah 64:6).

A man in Christ Jesus has no righteousness of his own. This the plain statement of Philippians 3:8–11. Righteousness of our own is necessarily on the principle of law (Philippians 3:9), and that's a principle that can only condemn us (Romans 4:15). Law cannot produce righteousness, but that's all we have when we try to have righteousness of our own.

In God's view, we are men and women in Christ Jesus. But to come into the practical good of that, we need to embrace Philippians 3:8–11. If we are in Christ Jesus, we have no righteousness of our own. We are no more capable of producing righteousness now than we were then. We must give this up!

It's hard to imagine a more stark contrast than the one between "Christ died for me, the least I can do is to live for Him" and "that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own which is from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God upon faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

I'm sure there are many other issues that could be mentioned. I'm sure the comments will fill with other excellent points. But to me, these three are the reasons I reject the notion that, "Christ died for you, the least you can do is live for Him."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cornelius and Kelly

I've been listening to some talks on "The Dangers of Calvinism" that are more entertaining than helpful. It's not that there aren't real dangers in Calvinism, but these particular talks are more unhinged rants than careful analysis. And it's frankly sad I have to say that, because the speaker does bring up some good points, but his carelessness throughout makes it all too easy to ignore them.

At any rate, at some point in these talks, the speaker uses the story of Cornelius as a counter-argument to the idea of Total Depravity. According to this speaker, Cornelius was an unregenerate man who feared God, and Heaven took notice of his piety(!).

At the root of his misapprehension is the idea that "salvation," "regeneration," and "conversion" are all synonyms. They are not.

William Kelly can explain this better than I, so I'll stop my own commentary here and quote his.

From Introductory Lectures on the Acts:

It is a fallacy then to suppose that Cornelius had no better than merely natural religion. He was assuredly, before Peter went, a converted man. To regard him as unawakened at that time is to mistake a great deal of the teaching of the chapter. Not that one would deny that a mighty work was then wrought in Cornelius. We must not limit, as ignorant people do, the operation of the Holy Spirit to the new birth. No man in his natural state could pray, nor serve God acceptably, as Cornelius did. One must be born again; but, like many others who had really been quickened in those days (and it may be even now, I presume), a soul might be born again, and yet far from resting in peace on redemption, far indeed from a sense of deliverance from all questions as to his soul. There is this difference, no doubt, between such cases now and that of Cornelius then, — that, before the mission of Peter, it would have been presumptuous for a Gentile to have pretended to salvation; now it is the fruit of unbelief for a believer to question it. A soul that now looks to Jesus ought to rest without question on redemption; but we must remember that at this time Jesus was not yet publicly preached to the Gentiles — not yet freely and fully proclaimed according to the riches of grace. Therefore, the more godly Cornelius was, the less would he dare to put forth his hand for the blessing before the Lord told him to stretch it out. He did what, I have no doubt, was the right thing. He was truly in earnest before God. As we are told here — and the Spirit delights to give such an account — "he was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway."

Such was the man to whom God was about to send the gospel by Peter. Thus we must carefully remember that the gospel brings more than conversion to God. It is the message of life, but it is also the means of peace. Before the gospel was preached to every creature, a new nature was communicated to many a soul; but till then there was not and could not be peace. The two things are both brought us in the gospel — life brought to light, and the peace preached that was made by the blood of the cross. At the same time scripture shows there might be and often was an interval after the gospel did go forth. So from experience we know there is many a man that you cannot doubt to be truly looking to the Lord, yet far from resting in the peace of God. Cornelius, I apprehend, was just in this case. He would no more have perished, had it pleased God to have taken him away in this state, than any Old Testament saint, whether Jew or Gentile. No believer could be so ignorant of God and His ways of old as to imagine there ought to be any doubt about those who nevertheless were full of anxieties and troubles, and through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

And also from Kelly, from An Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles,  Chapter 11:

Again, let us remark how clearly this discourse of Peter distinguishes new birth from salvation. Cornelius was assuredly born of God before Peter visited him at Caesarea. Nevertheless Peter was to speak to him words whereby he should be saved. It is a gross mistake to suppose that the salvation which he now found is not far beyond new birth. Present salvation is the first foundation privilege of the gospel. To be born again was always true from Abel downwards. But those who are merely born again do not enter Christian ground until they have received at least the first and most needful blessing, to which the accomplishment of Christ's work entitles all who believe...

The remarkable care with which God introduced the new standing-point [of salvation] to the Gentiles makes this confusion inexcusable. Now, while faith never was without suited mercy from God, it is one of the most marked signs of unbelief to ignore the peculiar privilege which God is now giving, and to go back to that mode or means which may have been at a former time. Here, as has been already and often pointed out, the Evangelicals are as dark as the Sacramentarians. For, if the latter party attach exorbitant efficacy to the mere sign of the blessing, the former are as ignorant of what is signified. Both agree in making the initiatory institution of the gospel to be the sign of life or the new birth; whereas it is really of the remission or washing away of sins (Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16), and of death with Christ (Rom. 6:2-3; Col. 2:12), i.e., of salvation (1 Peter 3:21). Cornelius learnt from the apostle that for a Gentile it was no question any longer of God's uncovenanted mercy. He himself, already born of God and acquainted with the Messiah come for the deliverance of His ancient people by faith, had now to learn of salvation's door open to the Gentile believer as truly as to the Jewish. It is not promise, as hitherto even to an Israelite, it is the work accomplished, and soul-salvation henceforth given to all believers without distinction. As the seal of it, the Holy Ghost was manifestly imparted as on the day of Pentecost.

It's worth taking a look at From New Birth to New Creation by R. A. Huebner, (especially pages 16–17) as well.

We can group Lydia (Acts 16:14ff) and John's disciples in Ephesus (Acts 19:1ff) in with Cornelius. These people were worshiping the one true God before they heard the Gospel. They weren't pagans, they were in the same position as Old Testament saints. For them the Gospel wasn't a call from death to life, but a call into the new order that God has begun with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Well, I promised that I would limit my own commentary and just use Kelly's, so I'll stop here.

 

 

 

Righteousness greater than the scribes and Pharisees

Sometime in the last couple years I visited a Baptist church. The pastor began his talk by saying they were going through a series on the Beatitudes. I thought, "of course you are!"   I spent a lot of time in a Baptist church growing up: I'm not sure they believe anything outside the Gospel of Matthew is truly inspired.

I was reading through Matthew's gospel, and I was struck by a contrast I'm not sure I ever noticed before.

The Lord's words in the sermon on the mount are austere, "unless your righteousness surpass [that] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of the heavens" (Matthew 5:20). That's not a promising start for someone like me, and it's probably not a promising start for you either. In fact, the whole section is daunting: compare yourself to almost anything in Matthew 5 through 7, and you'll find you come up short.

But there is another thread, and it comes out in Matthew 21:31, "Verily I say unto you that the tax-gatherers and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you."

So we have this contrast: there is a righteousness greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, but it's a righteousness that tax-collectors and harlots can have.

This contrast is probably brought out the most vividly in Luke's gospel (Luke 18:10–14). There we have a Pharisee and a tax-collector contrasted. The Pharisee commends himself to God based on his righteousness (Luke 18:11–12), the tax-collector begs God for His mercy (Luke 18:13). What's the conclusion? God justifies the tax-collector (Luke 18:14).

And so we conclude (as the epistle to the Romans does), that the righteousness that God counts apart from our works (Romans 4:5, Philippians 3:9) is a righteousness greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees.

Now, we have to guard against the idea that the tax-collector in Luke 18:10–14 earned righteousness by his penitence. There is no merit in our repentance. But there is something there that the Pharisee was missing: the tax-collector saw himself the same way God saw him. 

It's fair to say that "God be merciful to me a sinner" is one prayer God will never fail to answer. It's the one request He will always grant. God doesn't deny the one who begs for His mercy, but He turns away the one who is righteous in his own eyes.

In my experience, Matthew 5–7 is used to urge Christians to live more selflessly. And it's not terribly uncommon to hear preachers give dire warnings based on Matthew 6:15 or Matthew 7:21–23 or another similar passage. It seems to me that some people think the point of the Lord's words was to urge us to out-Pharisee the Pharisees, like the take-home message is that the Pharisees just weren't trying hard enough.

Another reaction is to attempt to use the Lord's words to soften God's response to sin. It's tempting to look at passages like Matthew 21:31 and conclude that really, if tax-collectors and harlots get into the kingdom before the Pharisees, then God must not really mind at all if we live like tax-collectors and harlots. That's a difficult argument to make in light of the Lord's actual words: His condemnation of lust, for example (Matthew 5:27–29), seems to put a quick end to it.

I don't doubt that the Lord was addressing a specific group of people in a specific time and place. It behooves us to keep context in mind when we read scripture. He wasn't addressing us today, He was addressing Jewish people in Israel 2000-ish years ago. At the same time, we find in our own hearts the same shortcomings He pointed out in theirs.

In a sense, the Lord's earthly ministry was the last chance for fallen men and women to show themselves capable of repentance. Had they accepted the Lord for who He is and bowed to Him, they would have proven themselves to be something less than utterly lost. Instead, they took the Man God had raised up, hung Him on a tree, and left Him to die (Acts 5:30). That is the greatest sin anyone has ever committed: the worst thing our race has ever done. And we don't want to lie to ourselves and say we'd have done any different.

So there's a sense where the Lord's earthly ministry was a downward path to the lowest point in human history: the murder of the Son of God.

But God being who He is, He took the worst thing we have ever done, and He made it our salvation. So here we are, the Son of God has died for our sins, He has been buried, and He has risen from the dead. All we can do is say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"

And we know He will.
 

Worth it

Several years ago I was invited to a party at the home of a co-worker. At the end of it, he looked at me and said, "I'm glad you came."  That was a very kind thing to say, the fact that I remember it after ten years attests to that.

Isaiah 53:11 is a sort of an "I'm glad you're here" verse. It's amazing to think that God looks on the results of Christ's atonement for us and is satisfied. Scripture is clear that God's opinion of us isn't very good, but it's also clear that His love for us is measureless. Here we are, lost and ruined sinners, and the eternal and holy God loves us.

He did terrible things to save us. And when He looks at us, He thinks those terrible things were worth it.

we need both

We talked before about justification (by faith alone in Christ alone) and new birth. We are justified in God's sight – declared righteous by Him – when we do not work, but believe (Romans 4:5). We have life through His (Christ's) name when we believe (John 20:31). Both are true, but they aren't the same.

There's a temptation when we talk about this sort of thing to err in one of two directions: either we confound two distinct things and blur them together in our minds, or we put them in opposition to one another, and try to force ourselves to choose between them. The proper path is to recognize that we need both, but to understand at the same time that they're not the same thing.

So we understand that being justified in God's sight – being declared righteous by Him – is our guarantee against damnation. God cannot condemn the one He has already declared is righteous. So there's a sense where our eternal destiny is determined by whether we work, or whether we simply believe without works.

At exactly the same time, we understand that we need not only God's judicial acquittal (so that we cannot be condemned in His sight), but we need to be changed. We have an ontological need as well as  forensic need. It's not merely that we need to be acquitted, we need to be changed too. We recognize that we aren't what we need to be, and we recognize too that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). We need an entirely new life to see it (John 3:3).

It's important that we don't confuse what Scripture says about these two things.  We can search the Scriptures all we like, but we cannot find a single test in Scripture to tell whether we have been justified in God's sight. We can find Scriptural support for the idea that new life in Christ has produces results (1 John 3:9, 14, 24), but I cannot find a "test" of whether we are justified by Him. 

As far as I can tell, whenever someone says, "God be merciful to me a sinner," God does exactly that. That self-confessed sinner goes home justified (Luke 18:13–14). This is the foundation of our assurance before Him. We can be confident before God, because we know that He is the God who justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). We are confident that He has heard and He has acted when we say, "God have compassion on me, the sinner." We have nothing to fear when we have told Him the truth and stopped calling Him a liar.

But at the same time, we check ourselves against what He says about the life He has given us. Are we living that life? Is that something we have received, but are content to leave in the package, so to speak?  We are called not merely to have eternal life, but to "lay hold" on it (1 Timothy 6:12). 

And this brings us to an entirely different view of the Christian path. On the one hand, we must be content to call out, "God be merciful to me a sinner" and be confident that He has done exactly that. On the other, we recognize that eternal life requires feeding, as all life does. No living thing, except God Himself, can just go on without feeding. The eternal life we receive from God requires feeding too, which is really what John 6:35–58 is all about. We need not only to have eaten (John 6:53), but also to eat (John 6:56). There is, indeed a one-time eating, but there is also an ongoing feeding. We need both.

Again – we can't stress this enough – being righteous in God's sight has nothing to do with how well live after that. Having once been declared righteous, God no longer counts any sins against us (Romans 4:6–8). That's true regardless how we live from that point on.

Walking in newness of life isn't a result of fear of judicial retribution. We don't walk in newness of life because we're making atonement for our sins, nor because we're trying to acquire merit to buy our place in Heaven. Walking in newness of life is a result of Christ in us. We yearn to walk newly (I really don't think that's a correct use of the word) because He has worked something new in us (Philippians 2:13). And this isn't merely a "New Testament truth," it's taught in the Old Testament too: fallen men and women need a new heart (Deuteronomy 29:1–4).

So my exhortation to us – and I really do mean "us" here, I need to hear this as much as anyone does – is, don't let's lose sight of either truth. On the one hand, we are justified in God's sight without works when we believe Him. At exactly the same time, God works in us to produce something new: and it starts with His giving us new life. We can't work our way into new life, it's impossible to earn eternal life. But the eternal life He has given us freely grows and develops and matures into something very different than what we are by nature as Adam's children.

We need to hold on to both these truths.

by faith

Scripture tells us we're justified by faith (Romans 5:1) – by faith alone in Christ alone.

It's important to note that being justified in God's sight doesn't imply any sort of moral transformation: it's God's counting righteousness to us, not our changing into something (or someone) who is actually righteous (Romans 4:5). God counts righteousness to the one who does not work, but believes.

John 20:30–31 brings in another truth: believing, we have life through His name. Notice this absolutely implies a moral transformation. Having life isn't like being justified: it's not a declaration from God, it's an inward change that can't help but produce an outward result.

It's important for us to get hold of both of these truths: on the one hand, the first first step of our walk with God is being declared righteous in His sight. We can't earn more righteousness than we have in the first moments of our new faith. When we believe God, we are as righteous in His sight as we will be after a million ages in His presence.

On the other hand, the new life that begins when we believe is something that grows and matures and develops. Life isn't something that stays static: there is growth there.

So our relationship to God-as-Judge is as perfect as it ever can be the first moment of our Christian life, and it doesn't ever change. But our relationship with God-as-Father is only in its infancy in those same moments, and we expect it to change and mature with time and experience.

Now, our growth in this new life is a result of that same believing that begins it. So we don't take the first step by faith and then continue on in another way (Galatians 3:3). No, we are to walk as we have received (Colossians 2:6).

And that carries an unexpected consequence: our growth in Christ is really driven by our beliefs falling into line with what God has said. That's really the take home message of Romans 6:1–10, isn't it? As we hear, believe, and count on what God says is true, we find ourselves experiencing the same thing He promises.

This is worth some mulling over.

The Lord's return

My dad died earlier this year. I wasn't there the day he died, but I was able to see him just a couple days earlier and sit with him in his hospital room overlooking the water while the sun came up. I'm very grateful I was able to say goodbye: not everyone gets to do that.

Dad was characterized by 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. He talked about the Lord's coming every time he got a chance. My mother tells me that when my grandfather died, Dad took us kids through that passage and explained that our granddad wasn't gone for good: the Lord was going to bring him back with Him. I don't remember that, but I'm glad he did it.

I am certain the Lord's return will come in two distinct phases: He will come for us (1 Corinthians 15:51ff, 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18) before He comes with us (Jude 1:14–15, Revelation 19:11ff).  Not everyone agrees on that, but it seems evident to me that the Lord's coming is taught in Scripture in a way that the only way to reconcile all the pieces is to have a two-part event. 

Notice that's not very different from His coming the first time.  It's clear from Acts 1:6ff that the disciples assumed the Lord would fulfill all prophecy in His first advent. They were looking for a physical, earthly kingdom centered in Jerusalem – and as John MacArthur points out, this was after He had spent six weeks teaching them about the Kingdom (Acts 1:3) – and apparently thought they were on the verge of that.

I have to believe that their question about the Kingdom wasn't rooted in ignorance about the true nature of the Kingdom: I have to believe the Lord's teaching them for 40 days would have addressed that. So they were correct in their expectations, but not about the timing.

My point is that the disciples were clearly not expecting the Lord's departure and promise of a second coming (Acts 1:9ff). They saw only one Advent in the prophets. When we look back on the Old Testament after the Ascension, it's almost obvious that the prophets were predicting things that couldn't happen all in one go. They predicted Christ as both the conquering Savior and the suffering Redeemer. Those things weren't to happen at the same time. 

We admit that the Lord has fulfilled those prophecies in a spiritual sense, but it's pretty weak soup to try and read Psalm 2 as a spiritual conquest. It is a physical conquest.

We're not in Psalm 2:6ff, we're in Psalm 110:1.

In other words, we expect Psalm 110:2ff and Psalm 2:1ff will happen literally, bodily, and visibly. 

Maybe I'm belaboring the point here. Just like the disciples didn't expect the Lord to leave and come back to fulfill all those other prophecies, a lot of Christians think He is coming back for us and with us in a single event. But I think Darby, Kelly, et al. were correct in understanding that there are actually two events. 

It's early April, we had a snow storm last a little over a week ago, but we're now seeing early signs of spring. The grass is starting to look more green than brown, the standing water around our garden is starting to dry up, and the buds on the willow trees are starting to look fat. Spring turkey season opens next week, and the firewood is almost used up: time to get moving on next year's supply! There are fences to mend and trees to tend and all sorts of other tasks and chores to get a start on. 

And I have one more apple tree to plant before spring gets truly underway.

In other words, the seasons are still coming in their appointed order (Genesis 8:21–22). God's wisdom and divinity are still on display (Romans 1:18), and there's still a whole lot of work and blessing for me here. But at the same time, I am called to live in the expectation that it will all end abruptly when He comes back for us. 

That shouldn't surprise us: God doesn't stay where He belongs. He doesn't mind His own business. He keeps inserting Himself where He isn't wanted. How thankful that should make us!

I spent many years thinking that an expectation of the Lord's coming should diminish the world around us in our eyes. When I realized how wrong that was, I spent a few more years enjoying the Lord's blessings in this world, learning to appreciate the God who richly provides all things for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17) .  There is a ditch on both sides of the road: we can't lose sight of the Lord's coming to change everything in a moment, and we can't lose sight of the witness in this creation to the Lord's wisdom and divinity.

So to come back to my initial point: my dad taught us that our granddad wasn't gone forever, the Lord was going to bring him back. And now I can say that same thing about him too: he's not gone forever, the Lord is going to bring him back when He comes for us.

 

Not all who say

Once again I've heard someone appealing to Matthew 7:21–23 to convince an audience that if their works don't line up with their professions, they're not "truly saved."  I've heard this line of reasoning more than once, and I have to admit I find it puzzling. It makes me scratch my head. After all, the ones Christ rejects in those verses are the very ones who appeal to their works in order to prove they're His (Matthew 7:22). 

Accusing God

I was sitting in the Remembrance meeting one morning, and a man stood up and read Luke 15:1–2, "this man receives sinners and eats with them," he looked up and added, "Thank God He does!"

Here are the Pharisees accusing the Son of God of eating with sinners. That's not the only accusation they make against Him, of course, but it's one that sticks because it's true. They know they can't accuse Him of being one of those sinners: there's nothing in what He says or does to support that accusation. They don't like that He's known for eating and drinking – as opposed to fasting – but they haven't seemed to have gotten traction accusing Him of gluttony or drunkenness (Luke 7:33–35). So the accusation that He receives sinners seems like it might get some traction, because it's demonstrably true.

The last chapter of Jonah is in a similar vein: here's the prophet of God, and he points his finger straight at God and rants, "I knew it! I knew it! I knew I couldn't trust you! You're always forgiving people and showing mercy to them! You're always repenting of the evil you said you'd bring!" (Jonah 4:1–3).

Both of these stories are remarkable in that someone is accusing God of something that He actually did. When I think of someone bringing an accusation against God, I don't jump to the accusation being true. Jonah knew God's character better than most of us do. Odd as it sounds, the Pharisees seem to have understood Christ's character better than the disciples did. 

But what the Pharisees didn't understand, what Jonah might not have understood, and what we so frequently miss is, God's mercy to sinners is our only hope. 

The difference between Jonah, a Pharisee, and the man who stood up and read Luke 15 in the Remembrance is that he thanked God for His mercy. The other two resented it.

 

I have been accused of being a "calvinist," which isn't entirely true, but I suppose it's not entirely untrue either. There are many caricatures that come with a label like that. Some of those are built around more than a germ of truth. But there's a truth lurking in there that I'm not sure some of my friends recognize: my only hope for salvation is that God would act unfairly towards me.

It seems to me that a good working definition of grace might be something like: God acting towards me the way He wants to act, with no regard for what I deserve.

Salvation must be an act of sovereign grace, because it's only possible if God acts unilaterally according to His heart, not according to His estimate of me. So when I bask in what Calvinists call, "unconditional election," it's because I recognize that apart from God acting on His own with absolutely no help from me, there's only condemnation for me.

Hymn #181 in the Believers Hymn Book is a favorite of mine. Consider verse 3,

Preserved by Jesus, when
My feet made haste to hell!
And there should I have gone,
But Thou dost all things well:
Thy love was great, Thy mercy free,
Which from the pit delivered me.

Do we really understand that? Do we really appreciate that we were on our way to hell, and doing everything in our power to get there faster? When I think about grace, this hymn comes to mind. I was doing my best to rush to hell, and the Son of God stepped in and ruined all my efforts. He didn't wait for my permission, He didn't wait until I asked for help: He stepped in and stopped it.

 

So we might consider meditating on Jonah's words. We might want to think about his accusations against God. And while we think about the prophet ranting at God – maybe even jabbing his finger in God's face – we might want to add a "Thank God!" at the end of every line.

Has God really said?

Someone was talking about revival in the context of the current events at Asbury. The person made the statement that they're not preaching repentance like Jonah preached repentance. Regardless of what's going on at Asbury – I'm skeptical – , I'm having trouble understanding how someone can read the book of Jonah and conclude that Jonah preached repentance.

Jonah is a remarkable book both because of what it says and because of what it doesn't say. If you read Jonah in a KJV or Darby Translation or even the ASV, you'll be surprised to find that the only Person who is said to repent in the book of Jonah is God (Jonah 3:9–10, Jonah 4:2). Newer translations (NASB, ESV, NKJV, etc.) use the word "relent" instead.

But the point remains that the text doesn't say that either Jonah or the people of Nineveh repented. It's true that the king of Nineveh commanded all the people to "every one turn from his evil way" (Jonah 3:8), so we might see that as repentance, but Scripture doesn't use that word.

It's even harder to make the case that Jonah preached repentance. Scripture tells us explicitly what Jonah preached – "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jonah 3:4, ESV). There's no call to repentance in that, it's only a proclamation of judgment. In fact, it's difficult to put a message of repentance in Jonah's words given in Jonah 3:5–10. The king's words in particular are difficult to reconcile with the notion that Jonah was preaching repentance: he explicitly says they should all turn from their evils ways so that perhaps God might see it and change His mind (Jonah 3:9).  That's not someone who believed a message of repentance, it's someone who believed a message of judgment.

So no, Jonah did not preach repentance.

This wouldn't perhaps be worth comment, except that it's a trend I'm seeing in a whole lot of places: the tendency to appeal to Scripture, while not apparently paying attention to what Scripture actually says. And I think the Jonah example is one of the clearest.

On the whole, I think referring to Jonah with respect to so-called revivals is wise. There is a good deal of value in contrasting the repentance of Nineveh with modern "revivals" that don't seem to involve encounters with the holy God, or with one's own need of the Savior. I think this is a good use of Scripture. 

And I can't miss the irony that so many preachers I have heard expound on how Eve got into trouble by misquoting God's words (Genesis 3:3) do the very same thing. I was commenting to my wife recently, that there's a preacher I have found very helpful; but I have never – never – heard him quote Scripture correctly. Every single time, without fail, he slightly misquotes the verse. 

It is good and right that we should judge ourselves by the word of God. It is only proper that we should appeal to its authority and submit ourselves to it. And it should absolutely be the standard that we use to judge what we see and hear. But when we're not careful to say only the words God has said – when we misquote God – that's not evidence that we hold His words in awe. That's not respect, it's merely trying to put the authority of Scripture on our own ideas.

Of course we don't want to make a man a transgressor for a word. Especially when we have so many Bible translations to use, quoting Scripture gets complicated. 

At the same time, if we're going to claim to be speaking the words God spoke, we need to be sure we're quoting them correctly. And when misquoting Scripture is a habit, not something remarkable, then we need to carefully judge whether we really respect what God has said.

Maybe we need to learn to fear God more.

 

Prophetic certainty

I used to wonder why the Lord's coming for us is in Acts (Acts 1:10–11) and the epistles (1 Corinthians 15:51–57; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18), but not in Revelation. I think there are a few reasons for it, which we might want to discuss.

J. N. Darby differentiates prophecy (which relates to God's purpose and government on earth) from revelation to the church. From that point of view, we could say the Lord's coming for us is a matter of church truth, as opposed to prophecy (and I think Robert has made this point here before, but I can't find it now).  So the Lord's coming for His saints is distinct from the Lord coming with His saints: the former is detailed in the epistles (1 Corinthians 15:51–57; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18), the latter is in prophecy (Jude 1:14–15; Revelation 19:11ff).  I think there's a good deal of merit in this view.

There's another perspective on this that I think is worth contemplating.  Several years ago I was part of an assembly that went through the book of Revelation over the course of several months' reading meetings. I read through that book many, many times over the course of those meetings, and was struck that it's not truly chronological.  It struck me that Revelation is laid out similarly to Hebrews, where the Lord Jesus is shown to be superior in various comparisons. So the first three chapters show the Lord as Head (and Judge) over the church, then we see Him as superior over Heaven in the next couple chapters; then as superior over the fallen world and its kingdoms; over Satan, and Babylon and the antichrist; then as Judge over the living and the dead; and finally over the new creation. I realize that's very vague.

No doubt there are a lot of consecutive events in Revelation that are specifically mentioned, and there are clues right there in the text. For example, "then I saw" is a common phrase that indicates relation in time. But my point is that there are several sections that might well run concurrently.

It's also worth mentioning that Revelation is certainly a very symbolic book. There are several things in there that are not to be taken literally: the sword coming from the Lord's mouth, for example (Revelation 1:16). I really don't think we'll see a sword in the Lord's mouth when He comes to get us, I'm sure this is a symbolic figure.

So here's one bit of wisdom we can see in the scripture: moving the Lord's coming for us into the epistles, where the language is much less symbolic makes it much easier for us to grasp. We can firmly anchor the apostolic teaching of the Lord's coming literally, physically for us in time and space because of the context of 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians. 

But we might also remember that not all prophecy is actually fulfilled.  And before you jump down to the comments section, consider the prophet Jonah. He predicted the overthrow of Nineveh in forty days, and it didn't happen (Jonah 3:4).  I don't think we fully appreciate this point: the Lord sent Jonah to Nineveh, and His word to Nineveh accomplished exactly what the Lord wanted it to accomplish. But that prophetic warning went unfulfilled, precisely because they believed it.

I have heard that exact argument used for Revelation, and it's difficult to argue against. We know that God will send prophets with the purpose that their warning will be heeded; as a result, what they warn about won't come to pass.

Now, I don't actually think that's going to happen. I do believe Revelation will play out as written. But I don't know what that will look like when it comes to pass. There is symbolic language in that book, and it can be difficult to know which features are symbolic, and which ones are literal. For example: I can believe the demonic locusts (Revelation 9:1–12) will look just like demonic locusts, I can also believe they won't really be visible at all. Remember that Elisha's servant couldn't see the angelic host around him without divine intervention (2 Kings 6:17), maybe the people afflicted by those demonic locusts won't have any sense they're there, except for the pain they inflict. I just don't know. 

But the point is that the Lord's coming for us is not described in terms that invite speculation. Will the Lord come down on an actual horse (Revelation 19:11), or is that a symbolic description? I don't really know. But notice that when the apostle describes His coming to get us (as opposed to His coming with us), he uses much more concrete language.

The Lord Himself will descend with a shout (1 Thessalonians 4:16), the dead in Christ will rise (1 Thessalonians 4:16), those who are His and are still living at that time will meet them in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17). This isn't symbolic language, and it's not in a context laden with symbolism.

So here's a thought, and I think it gets back to the point that J. N. Darby and Robert were making: we can anchor our hope on the Lord's coming for us much more dogmatically (and certainly) than we can discuss things like what Babylon, or what those demonic locusts are. We can, in a sense, disagree on how to interpret big chunks of Revelation, while agreeing on 1 Corinthians 15:51–57 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. 

Personally, I find Darby's view of the Revelation convincing, and there are significant differences between that and the Scofield notes view. I think I've commented on those differences before.  But there are very good reasons that honest believers sincerely disagree with me on that. And I'm not going to make it a bigger deal than it is.

That being said, I'm certain the Lord's imminent return is not in the same category as the demonic locusts.  The apostolic attitude toward the Lord's return was that it could happen at any moment, and they lived expecting it. Again, I'm not going to accuse people who disagree with me of heresy, but living out the faith once delivered to the saints involves living in expectation that the Lord is coming for us and could be here at any moment. 

 

Comfort one another

J. N. Darby, commenting on 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 said,

It is remarkable that the consolation which he gives to those who surrounded the death-bed of a Christian, is their friend's return with Jesus, and their mutual meeting. It is customary to say, "Be content: he is gone to glory." This was not the way with the apostle. The comfort which he proposes to those who are mourning the death of a believer is, "Be content: God will bring them back." What a change must not the habitual feelings of Christians have undergone, since the consolation given by an apostle is counted in this day as foolishness! The believers in Thessalonica were penetrated to such a degree with the hope of the return of Christ, that they did not think of dying before that event; and when one of them departed, his friends were afflicted with the fear that he would not be present at that happy moment.

"The Second Coming of Christ", Collected Writings, Vol. 2, pp. 290–300

I first read that 20 or 25 years ago, and I was struck by how pointed 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 is. Here's a passage that tells us what point it's trying to make, and then tells us how we are to use it. We are taught the Lord's plan for those who are "asleep through Jesus" so that we won't mourn like the heathen who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13–14); and we are to be comforted by the knowledge that God will bring those departed believers back with the Lord when He comes (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

Odd as it seems, I can't recall ever hearing 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 read at a funeral, or in connection with someone's death. But that's exactly what the passage says we should be doing. It's possible I just haven't been to the "right" funerals – I've often wondered what the reaction would be to someone reading that passage at a funeral.

And I should probably point out that it's not a prohibition on mourning, but a prohibition on mourning like those who have no hope. The Lord Himself mourned for Lazarus, even knowing he'd be raised from the dead within a short time (John 11:33–36). So no, mourning is not wrong.

But in the end, we look forward to the Lord coming for us. As long as we're among "those who remain," then we look for Him to come for us and bring back our loved ones who sleep in Jesus. If we should die first, then we don't lose that hope, but we'll see it from another side. Let's not forget that our hope isn't to be disembodied spirits, but to participate in His resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:1–4).

 

 

 

Here be dragons

Someone tweeted this quote from J. N. Darby:

A distracted heart is the bane of a Christian. When my heart is filled with Christ I have no heart or eye for the trash of the world. If Christ is dwelling in your heart by faith it will not be the question, What harm is there in this, or that? Rather, Am I doing this for Christ?

Now, I have read a LOT of Darby's writings. I'm a huge fan. Still, I found my initial reaction was to reach out to the person and say something like, "Please be careful with this sort of thing!" Since I claim to be a big fan of J. N. Darby, I should probably talk about that.

William R. Newell wrote

We know what debt under God all those who have the truth today owe to Darby, through whom God recovered more truth belonging to the Church of God, than through any other man since Paul, and whose writings are today the greatest treasure of truth and safeguard against error known to instructed believers. Such men had more than an evangelist’s or teacher’s gift. There was spiritual authority they themselves did not seek, attending their ministry. This fact discerning believers,—those free from tradition’s bias, readily see and gladly admit. (Romans Verse-by-Verse, p. 464)

So why would I advise caution?

Galatians 5:16–21 catalogs the works of the flesh, and it contains the sorts of things we expect: licentiousness, idolatry, hatred, and so on. But those aren't all the works of the flesh: disputes and schools of opinion are included in that list. The flesh doesn't always manifest itself in gross immorality, but also in very religious ways too. In fact, I've read through Galatians many, many times, and I can't find any evidence that there was any sort of immorality going on in Galatia.

The problem in Galatia wasn't rampant immorality, but rampant moralism.

There lurks a little Galatian in many – probably all – of us. That little Galatian loves to get a hold on something like this quote by Darby and drive us into a spiral of introspective despair. I have known more than one person crippled by introspection, examining every thought and every action and every motive to determine whether it's "of Christ." Oddly, that introspection tends to lead into legalism more than it leads into Christ-likeness.

And really, when we're introspective, our eyes are full of ourselves, not Christ. So I'm not saying anything other than what the original quote said: a heart full of Christ doesn't have time for worldliness, but a heart fixated on whether it's full of Christ isn't actually a heart full of Christ. It's a heart full of self.

Reading Darby changed my life. I grew up in a Christian home, going to church every week, even attending a Christian school. I had heard and believed the Gospel at an early age. I have no doubt I was born again when I was very young. But my concept of Christianity was something like, "God has forgiven me, now I have to live for Him." And that led me, of course, to attempt to walk in godliness and holiness in the power and energy of the flesh. See, I understood that Christ has died for me, but I had no real concept that I had died with Him.

So that's one possible error: the error of skipping from Romans 5:1 to Romans 12:1, ignoring the essential teaching in Romans 6–8. And frankly, that seems to be typical of evangelicalism. The majority of evangelicals I have met seem to be trying to do something like that. "Christ has died for you, now you have to live for Him."

And yes, that seems to be the majority view among so-called brethren too. That little inner Galatian really thrives on this sort of "Christianity," which isn't really Christianity at all. It's just Judaism on this side of the cross.

 

But there is another error we might fall into. This is the error of diving into Romans 6–8 and staying there. Romans doesn't end in chapter 8, but so many who find deliverance in Romans 6–8 act like it does. Is it any less wrong to neglect Romans 9–16 than it is to neglect Romans 6–8? I don't think it is.

And I admit with chagrin that I spent many years stuck in this latter error. 

This seems to be a trap particularly dangerous for people who read Darby. Darby's ministry calls us to a life that's led and empowered by the Spirit of God. It's not that, "Christ has died for me and now I live for Him," rather it's "the life of Jesus manifested in my mortal body" (2 Corinthians 4:10). This is nothing less than Paul calls us to. This is precisely the teaching of Colossians 3:1–4. Christ has been raised, and we have been raised with Him.

But when we've glimpsed that life – perhaps even experienced it – then there is a tendency for the flesh to manifest itself in a sort of mysticism. This isn't actually any better than legalism, but it's not quite the same thing, at least in the beginning. And so we might find in ourselves a tendency to sit in Colossians 3:1–4, never quite getting around to all those practical verses in the second half of that chapter.

And something really strange starts to happen after a while: we start to find that our little inner mystic bears a strong resemblance to that little inner Galatian. And we find ourselves being very legalistic about not being legalistic. And we find ourselves taking those very verses about being freed by our death with Christ and turning them into yet another law to put ourselves (and everyone else) under.

The truth of the Word of God is that we can't divorce the opening verses of Colossians 3 from the rest. We can't live out Colossians 3:17ff without Colossians 3:1–4. But if we just camp out in Colossians 3:1–4 and ignore the rest of the chapter, we end up in something that's just as foreign to the Word of God as that powerless and fleshly legalism the Galatians invented.

And that's why I advise caution with Darby's ministry. There is very little that has affected my life like Darby's ministry. At the same time, I have seen in myself and in others a tendency to camp out in the bits of that ministry that seem different and refreshing, to the detriment of our own spiritual health.

God has called us to the life of Jesus manifested in our mortal flesh. We can't do that on our own, but knowing about it without experiencing it is not Christianity. It's some sort of twisted mysticism that contains just enough truth to get us into real trouble. There's nothing good down that path.

 

One red flag I have learned to recognize is what we might call "the advanced class" mindset. I have noticed this sort of thing tends to accompany trouble. It's hard to put a finger on exactly where the threshold is for this sort of thing, but in my 45+ years walking with the Lord, I've seen this many times. It could be membership in a specific church, or adherence to some doctrine or practice that differentiates the "enlightened" from other Christians. Basically, any sort of Shibboleth that divides the "spiritually mature" from the others is an indicator some serious problems. 

The best remedy against this sort of thing is to be content with Christ.

I was once told that the story of the daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27:1–11) teaches that "not everyone is assembly material," so "we" shouldn't intermarry with other Christians. If that doesn't scream "CULT" I'm not sure what does.

There is a remedy to this sort of thing, and Colossians models it for us. Before we do anything else, we need to worship the Father and adore the Son. Notice Colossians spends a lot of time in adoring the Son before it turns to our place in Him. Skipping Colossians 3:1–4 to get to Colossians 3:17ff is a recipe for disaster. Skipping Colossians 1:12–20 to get to Colossians 3:1–4 is exactly the same thing. Our first and highest calling is to worship God, and nothing good comes of neglecting that.

So we start by being worshipers of God and His Christ. And we recognize that nothing good comes of camping out in Colossians 3:1–4 and not going on to obey the rest of the chapter.

 

I suppose I should say: I am all for slowly and deliberately digesting the Word of God. So no, I don't think it's wrong to memorize those amazing verses in Romans 6–8 or Colossians 3. I certainly am not saying we shouldn't ruminate on them, or meditate on them, or dwell on them. I am saying when our mindset is something like, "I'll obey those other verses some other time," then we're in trouble. Colossians 3:1–4 isn't the end of the chapter: we're to go on from there and see the truth of our identity in Christ work itself out in how we behave in the real world.

And I highly recommend reading Darby. Honestly, nothing I'm saying here isn't in his ministry. It's just easy to miss it sometimes.

 

Fatal assumptions

When I read through the Old Testament I am struck every time by the tension between the Law on the one hand, and the common state of godlessness on the other. And this tension occurs at more than one level. Let's consider some examples.

When Moses brought the Israelites to Sinai, the command to circumcise all males was very clear (Leviticus 12:1–4). This command really predates the Law entirely (see Galatians 3:15-17), going back to Abraham (Genesis 17:9–14). There's no question that circumcision was commanded and expected. However, when we get to Joshua 5, we find that those who came out of Egypt had been circumcised, but the nation had apparently not practiced circumcision while they were in the wilderness (Joshua 5:4-7).

It baffles me. There is no clearer command in the Old Testament than circumcision. And Moses had to have known how seriously God takes it, after the journey back to Egypt (Exodus 4:24–26). But the plain statement of Joshua 5:2–7 is that circumcision hadn't been practiced at all in the wilderness. I have trouble reconciling those things in my mind.

 

Here's another example: Saul sends men to watch David in his house and kill him the next day (1 Samuel 19:11–17). Michal, David's wife and Saul's daughter, tells David to escape through the window and she puts "the image" in the bed to make them think it was David (1 Samuel 19:13).  What is "the image?" The NASB clarifies, by rendering "the image" as "the household idol" (1 Samuel 19:13 NASB). 

So here's a puzzle: why does David have a household idol? And why isn't it ever mentioned again?

Were we to judge David based on what Scripture tells us of his peccadilloes, we would be right to conclude that David was a man of loose morals. If we're not convinced by anything else, we might be convinced by Tamar's opinion that David would sanction an incestuous marriage with her half-brother (2 Samuel 13:13).

Here's another example: if we compare the law of the king (Deuteronomy 17:14–20) to the description of Solomon's reign (1 Kings 4:1ff), it's difficult to reconcile the two. If Solomon had set out to deliberately disobey every single command God gave to the king, he couldn't have done a more thorough job. He literally does the opposite of what God commands: he multiples horses to himself (1 Kings 4:26) – horses from Egypt no less (2 Chronicles 1:16–17) – and wives (1 Kings 11:3-4). He multiplies silver and gold to himself (1 Kings 9:28) to the point where silver wasn't considered valuable (1 Kings 10:21).

I realize the point of the descriptions of Solomon's wealth was to show God's blessings on him, but the fact remains that Solomon did exactly the opposite of what God commanded the king to do, and God blessed him in it.

We could go on: we could enumerate the sins of David and Solomon and Moses and virtually every other Old Testament saint. But the point isn't to slander men (and women too) that God loved and loves. The point is first, that God shows each of them grace. Second, the point is that I find myself entirely unable to explain where God draws the line, so to speak. I cannot tell you why God acts against David in the case of Urijah and Bathsheba, but He doesn't act against David when he demands Michal back (compare Deuteronomy 24:1–4 with 2 Samuel 3:13–16). I can't explain why David's household idol gets no more than a passing mention, but Solomon's worship of Chemosh, Milcom, and Molech causes God to act against him (1 Kings 11:4–7).

Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that scripture tells us David's heart was perfect (1 Kings 11:4) and he followed God fully (1 Kings 11:6).

 

Of course we see similar themes in the New Testament as well. 

I realized a while ago that Luke's gospel opens with descriptions of godly and upright people when the nation was in utter ruin: Zecharias and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon, and Anna. Luke is very careful to relate that four of these people are connected with the Temple in Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph are in Nazareth, so they're not so immediately connected with the Temple, but when the dedication of the Lord is mentioned, it's explicitly connected with obeying the Law (Luke 2:22–24).

Bear in mind, this is after Ezekiel 10:15–22. God's glory had left the Temple long before this. And this wasn't even the same temple! It wasn't Solomon's temple, nor even Zerubabbel's. This was Herod's temple. But Scripture treats it like it was the place where God had set His name. More shockingly, the Lord Himself referred to it as His "Father's house" (John 2:13–16).

And we might also remember the priests in Christ's day were Sadducees (Acts 5:17–18). They didn't believe in the resurrection (Matthew 22:23, Acts 23:8). That's a pretty big heresy. But the Lord acknowledged the Temple. 

Luke takes care to demonstrate Anna's godliness by describing how dedicated she was to the temple (Luke 2:36–38). If there was ever justification for writing off a temple, Herod's would be the one to write off. But the New Testament authors are careful to honor it, and Christ Himself acknowledged it.

 

Here's a final observation: Luke 24:13–34 tells us about two disciples walking to Emmaus after the Resurrection. They didn't know about the Resurrection, of course, but there they were, walking to Emmaus. They were going to wrong way: they should have been walking to Galilee (Matthew 28:7). But the Lord catches them up on the road, and He walks with them. Let's be clear about this: they're going the wrong way, and He goes with them.

 

All these stories might act as an antidote to pharisaism and puritanism, if we let them. If we think on them, meditate on them, and let them sink in, we might find some useful applications from them.

From the story of the circumcision in Gilgal we might learn something like: if you see a man entirely negligent of some fundamental observance, it might be he's more like Moses than you are. Leaving an entire generation uncircumcised is a big deal... but I'd love God to say the things about me that He says about Moses.

From the story of David and Michal we might learn something like: If you see a man with idols in his home, don't just assume he's not fully devoted to God. Don't forget a man whose heart was perfect with God had an idol in his home.

From the story of Bathsheba and Urijah we might learn something like: if you see a believer sin egregiously with no signs of repentance or remorse, don't forget God didn't send Nathan to confront David for about a year. It's possible for a true believer to live in the shadow of his sins for a very long time.

From the story of Solomon we might learn something like: just because someone burns incense on the high places doesn't mean that God isn't going to ask him what he wants. And just because God is blessing someone doesn't mean that he's walking uprightly. He could be enjoying God's blessings while at the very same time he's disobeying in every way.

From the story of Anna and Simeon in the temple we might learn something like: when we see someone faithfully attending a church built by a wicked man, run by godless heretics, don't assume God isn't counting that as genuine devotion. Even the church in Thyatira had overcomers, and there's not a word in Scripture to suggest they should have left it.

From the story of Christ cleansing the Temple we might learn something like: when we see someone going to worship God in a church built by a wicked man, run by leadership that doesn't even believe in the Resurrection, let's not assume Christ wouldn't go there too.  If there are as few as two or three gathering there for Him, then He's there (Matthew 18:20).

From the story of the two walking to Emmaus we might learn something like: when we see someone walking the wrong direction, let's not assume the Lord isn't walking with them. It's probably better to be going the wrong way alongside Christ than it is to be going the right way alone.

Now, I realize that there's a need for repentance. And I fully agree that when we see problems in our own lives, we aren't just to ignore them. We're to repent of them, turning to God from idols to serve the living and true God. I'm not out here trying to teach a lax attitude towards obedience. But if we learn nothing else from our Bible stories, let's learn that God almost never does what we expect Him to. 

That's pretty much the definition of "grace."

 

Not under law, but under grace

Romans 6:14 says we are not under law, but under grace. In my experience, that verse is easier to quote than it is to hear, believe, and take to heart. It is good for us to meditate on it.

Scripture is adamant that no one has ever been justified by works of law (Romans 3:20, 27–28; Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3:10). No one is justified in God's sight by obedience to law – neither the Law of Moses, or any other law. 

Someone once told me that when Scripture says we aren't under the Law (Romans 6:14), it doesn't mean that we don't have to obey the Law. Rather, he claimed, it means that we aren't justified by keeping the Law. That makes sense if you don't think about it too much. But once you start thinking about it, you realize that if our being "not under the law" means we're not justified by keeping the Law, then surely it follows that the Old Testament saints who were "under the law" were justified by keeping it. But that contradicts the plain teaching of the epistles, doesn't it?

The only way I can make sense of these two claims in the epistles is to conclude that the Old Testament saints were under the Law only as a rule of life – never as a means to justification –, so the epistles' claims that we are not under law must mean that we aren't under the Law even as a rule of life. I don't find evidence in the New Testament that we are to keep the Law for any reason: either as a means of justification, or as a rule of life. And yes, that includes the Ten Commandments.

I realize that Romans 6:14 is referring to law as a principle, not to "the Law" as a specific code. But that distinction might not be as significant as it seems at first.  No doubt "law as a principle" includes the Mosaic Law, that's self-evident. But it's not a stretch to extrapolate the Mosaic Law into "law as a principle" when we consider that it was given by God Himself. In other words, our problem with the Mosaic Law isn't that it's a defective law, but that the principle underlying it (or any other law) is not how God deals with us.

This is the fundamental claim in Romans 7:12–14. The Law is good, but I am not. 

Technically speaking, only Israel was ever under law: the law wasn't given to the Gentiles, but to the children of Israel at Sinai.  Romans 2:12 makes this clear: there are those who sinned "without law," who will perish "without law." On the other hand, those who sinned "under law" are condemned "under law." In this very simple taxonomy – only two categories! – both are condemned, but they aren't mixed up.

"Not under law, but under grace" means God deals with us, not on the principle of law (what we deserve), but on the principle of grace (He gives us freely what He desires us to have). 

Now, it's important to note that only one Man is justified on His own merit. For God to declare Him righteous is only acknowledging what He is in Himself. The rest of us have no hope for outside of God's grace. This is the plain teaching of Romans 4:1ff. Abraham and David – one without the Law (cf. Galatians 3:14–18), one under Law – are both justified entirely by grace through faith. God justifies us on exactly the same basis He justified them.

We more closely resemble Abraham than David in that we aren't under law as a rule of life. David was, we are not. But we don't entirely resemble Abraham either, because God dealt with Abraham as a man alive in the world. In this sense, both Abraham and David have a very different experience from us. We aren't alive in the world, but we have died with Christ. A believer who was once under the Law (and I think we can probably include an awful lot of people who grew up in Christendom here) has been freed from it in that he has died with Christ, and has now been freed from law.

And notice how careful the Scripture is about this: we have been freed from law so that we can bring forth fruit to God (Romans 7:4). We cannot produce fruit for God and maintain a relationship with law. The two are incompatible. Either we have law, or we are free to produce fruit for God. We cannot have both.

The problem comes down to this: law as a principle (and the Law in particular) is given to reveal sin (Romans 3:20). And notice it reveals sin, not sins. For many years I misread and misquoted that, thinking the Law reveals which things are sins, and which things aren't. But that's not what the text says; it says that law reveals sin. It reveals our own fallen-ness. It reveals that we are lost. It reveals that we cannot keep rules, even when they are good. It reveals that the mind of flesh isn't subject to the Law of God and cannot be (Romans 8:7).

And notice this is taught in the Pentatuech itself: Deuteronomy 29:4 makes it very clear that obedience requires an entirely new heart. Fallen men and women can't hope to please God (Romans 8:8). It's not merely that they don't want to (they don't), but that they cannot.

So law reveals my own sinfulness, and the Mosaic Law does it better than any other law can. It wasn't given for righteous men and women (1 Timothy 1:8–11). And here's where a lot of dispensationalists go wrong: the Law has not been abolished. Scripture doesn't teach that the Law has died, it teaches that I have. On the contrary, when we tangle with the Law, we find that it does exactly what it is supposed to do: it shows our own sinfulness.

There is coming a day when the Lord will have a people with new hearts, and He will write His law on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:31–34, cf. Deuteronomy 17:18). But that day hasn't come yet, and we're not those people. We haven't had the Law written on our hearts, we have died to it (Romans 7:4). The difference is striking.

I have no doubt that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us here and now (Romans 8:1–4). Notice, it's not that the Law is fulfilled in us, but "the righteousness of the Law" is fulfilled in us. It's not that we fulfill the Law, but we find ourselves walking in the very same righteousness the Law approves.