Gatekeeping Salvation

Galatians 5:11 talks about "the scandal of the Cross." The Cross of Christ is offensive for many reasons, not least is the shame crucifixion carried in the ancient world. The Son of God put to open shame is offensive, scandalizing.

Galatians 6:12–14 sheds some light on another sense of scandal. It is the natural desire of all of us to "boast in [our] flesh," and the Cross of Christ attacks that at its root. "[F]ar be it from me to boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," stands in contrast to boasting in the flesh. The latter attempts to find something in ourselves for God, the former sees that Christ is our only righteousness.

That's worth meditation. It's far easier for fallen men and women to say "Christ is my righteousness" than it is for us to say "Christ is my only righteousness." The first leaves a small opening for us to add our own righteousnesses to Him. The second is an acknowledgement that nothing I can do, and nothing in me, can add anything to what Christ has done for me. His death is my only hope for salvation before God, and there is nothing I can do that can add to that.

As far as I know, every Protestant claims to condemn the idea of an act of supererogation. But that idea seems to lurk just below the surface in our hearts. We all secretly cherish the belief that there's something we can do that will just sort of round out the righteousness of God by faith (Romans 3:21–22). 

We can't quite accept that God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (Romans 4:5). We all want to add some sort of qualifier to that statement. And we betray ourselves when we act as a sort of gatekeeper of salvation: when we say something like, "I just don't see that he can be saved and act like that."

What we're really saying is, "I wouldn't ever do that!"  It's the same thing the Pharisees did (Luke 18:9). 

As far as I can tell, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:9–14) is one prayer He always answers (Romans 10:8–13). 

Still, there is the question of how we should think about someone who makes some sort of profession of faith and yet appears to live in sin. The Pharisaic approach is clearly wrong, but there is some Scriptural support for the notion that a life of continued sin indicates a lack of new birth. On the other hand, Scripture contemplates a true believer who doesn't act like one. We should consider both of these.

1 John 3:8–10 is one of the tests Scripture gives: whoever has been born of God does not practice sin. Well, that seems pretty straightforward, but it raises some questions. Is sinning the same thing as practicing sin? In other words, does this mean that anyone who sins is not born of God? Or does it mean something like, anyone who sins deliberately is not born of God? Or does it mean something like, anyone who lives in long-term, unrepentant sin is not born of God? All three of these answers will give us some difficulty.

First, there is no doubt that true believers sin, and 1 John addresses that directly (1 John 1:7–2:2). It's clear from 1 John 1:7 that the one walking in the light still needs cleansing from sin. It's clear that Christ Jesus is our advocate if we sin (1 John 2:2). So no, the idea that a true believer lives in sinless perfection is contradicted in 1 John.

Second, the distinction between "deliberate" and "unintentional" sin in Scripture is real. This is the main difference between the sin offering in Leviticus 4:1ff and the trespass offering in Leviticus 5:1ff. The sin offering is for sins of inadvertence, the trespass offering is for deliberate sins, like defrauding one's neighbor, or giving false testimony (Leviticus 6:1ff). So that's a real thing.

But to make 1 John 3:8ff about inadvertent sin is to ignore passages like 1 Corinthians 5:1ff. Do we really want to say the man and woman committing incest in Corinth were doing it inadvertently? Like, they didn't notice it at the time? But at least the man was repentant after the fact (2 Corinthians 7:8ff). Do we really think he was born of God in the interval between 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 7?  We might look at Galatians 2:11ff too: was Peter not yet regenerated when he denied the Gospel by his actions towards the Gentiles?

So no, 1 John 3:8ff is not about deliberate sins as opposed to unintentional sins.       

Third, making 1 John 3:8ff about the "practise" of sin gives us some difficulty with Romans 7:14–21. There we have the positive statement that a man who is regenerated practices sin, even though he abhors it. In fact, "practise" is used five times in that passage: four times in the context of practicing sin, once in the context of practicing righteousness.

Romans 7:14ff gives us some context to help us understand 1 John 3:8ff. It's not that the true believer doesn't sin, nor that the true believer doesn't intentionally sin, nor even that the true believer can't go on in a sinful way for a very long time, practicing sin. The big question is, does he or she abhor it? Does that person look at his or her actions, see they don't measure up, and then just shrug and go on? Or does that person struggle with sin?

(As an aside, I do not take the more Reformed position that Romans 7:7ff describes what we might call the "normal Christian life." I think Darby is fundamentally correct in his understanding that Romans 7:5–6 describes a transition from "when we were in the flesh" (v. 5) to "now we are clear from the law" (v. 6). And I agree that Romans 7:7ff is the fuller description of "when we were in the flesh," while Romans 8:1ff is the fuller description of "now we are clear from the law." So yes, I agree with Darby that Romans 7:7ff is not normal Christianity. But I would be quick to add the Romans 8:13 warns us that it's always possible to end up back in that same place, even once we have experienced the deliverance of Romans 8.)

So while we might look at 1 John 3 and see in it a simple test, there are other passages to consider. True believers can certainly "practise" sin, Romans 7 is explicit. True believers can deliberately sin, Galatians 2 makes that clear. True believers can fall into sin in their daily walk, 1 John 1 contemplates this exact scenario. 

While I would caution against glibly accepting that anyone who is living in [apparently] unrepentant sin is a believer, I would also say that 1 John 3:8ff is no call to our being gatekeepers of salvation.

Bear in mind, too, there might be any number of people looking at you and thinking the same thing. 

This probably ties in more with the notion of inadvertent sin, but it's worth a mention here. Let me start with an example: I am convinced that it's sin to eat blood. It is forbidden several places in Scripture (Genesis 9:1ff, Leviticus 17:10ff, Acts 15:19–20). It is forbidden to Noah and his sons (which certainly includes us), to Israel under the Law, and to Gentile believers in the Church. There are several Christian groups who don't seem to have a problem with eating blood, as evidenced by the fact that blood pudding, black pudding, and blood sausage survive still in Christendom. So all those Presbyterians and Anglicans who eat black pudding – as far as I can tell – are living in inadvertent sin. In fact, they're practicing that sin. But you don't see me telling them they're unregenerate. And I don't believe that means they're unregenerate, even though I am fully convinced they are continuing in sin.

My point, of course, is that every one who sets him or herself up as a gatekeeper of salvation brings condemnation on him- or herself. Do you see something in someone else's life that makes you certain they're not born again? Don't be blind to the fact that there's probably something in your life that makes someone else certain you're not regenerate either.

And no, I am not saying we should all just say, "I'm OK, you're OK." That's not at all my point.

My point is that when our first reaction to seeing sin in someone's life is to question their justification, regeneration, or salvation, then we are acting in practical Pharisaism. We are deceiving ourselves about our own sinfulness. We are forgetting how lost we really are. We are presuming on God's grace, while (at least mentally) denying that He can have that same grace on someone else.

Glory days

I first heard about cargo cults when I read Richard Feynman's book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". He attacks cargo cult science near the end of the book, which is a phrase he uses to describe "science" that's really an imitation of science: an outward show without any real substance. That phrase has been brought into software development as "Cargo cult programming," used to describe a [presumably more junior] programmer imitating code written by a more senior programmer because it's known to work, although the imitator doesn't understand how or why it works. 

The story of the cargo cult grabs our attention because we recognize in it an all-too-human tendency to develop superstitions to explain events, and to latch on to them in practice to try and produce results we want. We all do this, all the time. I never go hunting without checking out this one spot where I have never shot an elk, because I know a guy who got a monster elk in that spot. I have no idea why the elk was there: was it an unseasonably hot day? an unseasonably cool day? was it particularly dry that day? was the elk just randomly wandering there? or was it going to a specific destination? I have no idea, but I do not allow an elk season to pass where I haven't spent at least some time waiting in that spot for a huge elk to wander through.

 

It seems to me there's a whole lot of "cargo cult Christianity" going on. Remember the "prayer of Jabez" craze? I didn't dig too deeply into that one, but from what I could tell at the time, it was very much "cargo cult Christianity."

A few years ago, I was visiting a church where the pastor was talking about Daniel 9:1–19. He spent the entire time talking about "remarkable prayers," and it took a while for me to understand that he wasn't very interested in the state of Daniel's heart, or of the God Daniel knew. He was interested in coming up with "the right prayer" we should pray. It's possible I missed his point entirely, but sitting in the congregation, I understood him to say that if we could just get the prayer formula correct, there would be results. 

 

I think the whole "cargo cult" idea explains some of what I have seen around "brethren." We don't set up airstrips in the jungle, but we do develop checklists, and we seem to think as long as we keep checking items off those lists, then we'll prosper spiritually.  Our lists might include women covering their heads, praying with "thee" and "thou," not having a pastor, or even having the right books on our bookshelves – although reading those books seems to carry much less weight than shelving them. 

Of course, not all "brethren" are guilty of that sort of thing; but an uncomfortably large number are.

These checklists are a lot more like the priests of Baal on Carmel than they are like Elijah (1 Kings 18:17ff). This is treating God like a household idol, rather than the creator of the universe. This isn't looking to honor God as God (Romans 1:21), it's trying to manipulate Him. Idols can be manipulated, God cannot.

We have forgotten what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego told Nebuchadnezzar: 

O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to respond to you with an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will save us out of your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden image that you have set up. (Daniel 3:16–18, LSB)

They didn't assume God would save them. They said they were unwilling to sin against God, whether He saved them or not. This is honoring God as God, not treating Him like an idol.

 

There's an interesting story in 2 Kings 14:1–22, the story of Amaziah. Amaziah's father had been deposed and assassinated (2 Kings 12:20–21). When Amaziah secured his place as king of Judah, he put to death those who had killed his father, but he didn't put their families to death, because the Law of Moses forbade punishing sons for the sins of their fathers or fathers for the sins of their sons (2 Kings 14:5–6; Deuteronomy 24:16).

To me the most interesting feature of Amaziah's reign is that he obeyed Deuteronomy 24:16. As far as I can tell, he's the first person in the Old Testament to do so. There's no lack of apparently godly people in the Old Testament who violate this command without a second thought. We might think of David handing over the sons of Saul to the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21:1–14). We might think of Achan's sons and daughters (Joshua 7:22ff).  Up until Amaziah, the kings and rulers of Israel seem to ignore this command entirely.

We might be tempted to think there's some sort of mistake here. How can God bless David, when he sins against God in the matter of Saul's sons? How can God bless Asa when the high places were not removed (1 Kings 15:14)? These are questions we need to ask, because they strike at the heart of so many of our failures.

When God blesses, we are apt to look for a cause outside of His goodness. We fail to learn the lesson of Deuteronomy 9:4–5. When God blesses, it's not because we earned it. It's because that's who He is: He is the God constantly on the lookout for the slightest excuse to bless us.

So when God blessed those early "brethren," it wasn't because they checked items off the list. It wasn't even because they had the right list. 

 

Now, it's true that God seems to bless most freely where hearts are wholly devoted to Him (1 Kings 15:14). But we should think very carefully on that. It is true that Scripture doesn't condone our claiming to love God while at the same time refusing to obey Him (John 14:15, etc.). At the same time, there's nothing more common in Scripture than someone who loves God and fails to walk up to His standard. God seems to be much more concerned with our hearts than even our actions. That's worth some time and meditation.

If we really want to make a checklist, we should put "a heart wholly devoted to God" at the top. (It can go above "women need to cover their heads" and "don't have a pastor," it really is that important.) And then we should focus on checking off that one item. We might find we spend our entire lives working on just that first item, and we might find we don't really need to worry about the rest. More likely, if we focus on that one item, we might find there are others that seem to be checked off without our noticing. A heart wholly devoted to God has some surprising side effects.

But we don't do that, because we find it easier to manage a list of superficial things than to work on the one substantial thing. We'd frankly rather be like Pharisees and worry about external minutiae than be like Peter who followed the Lord very badly.

And just to be clear, it seems obvious to me that Scripture does command women to cover their heads in the congregation. It seems obvious to me that Scripture really doesn't advocate having clergy. Really, I think "brethren" are correct about all those things. 

But these checklists we develop are only superficial things, they don't get to the heart of what made the "Brethren movement" great. It was an understanding of the Gospel as God's power for salvation. It was the firm conviction that God justifies the one who does not work, but believes. It was the recognition that those who are "in Christ" are separated from who and what we were in Adam. It was recognizing that Christ is coming back, much sooner than we think. These are the things that resulted in the "glory days" we all want to experience. These were the things of substance, not superficiality. 

God isn't waiting for just the right incantation before He'll act. He's not waiting for us to get to that really important item on the checklist. That's what idols do: that's not the God we worship.

What "brethren" got right were not so much the externals as the internals. They got a glimpse of the God of grace, and shared that glimpse with others. They saw just a tiny bit of His heart in sending His Son, and they did their best to help others see it. They saw that Christ is coming from Heaven for us, and they told others about it.

 

If we need an action item – if we need a to-do list – I'll suggest this: let's work on looking on the Lord's glory with unveiled faces while He changes us to be like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18). And we fully expect to find ourselves walking very badly with Him, but it's better to walk with Him badly than to be out there on our own. And when He blesses us in spite of our high places, let's just thank Him for His grace, and not look for some righteousness in ourselves to explain His blessing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In retrospect

One of my favorite features of Scripture is the internal commentary. I love the parts that comment on other (usually earlier) passages. Sometimes those commentaries add a bit of color to the earlier passages. Sometimes they seem to change the whole story.

Deuteronomy is a good example. Moses' commentary on the events from Exodus through Numbers adds nuance on some places, clarifies what the take-home message is in others, and sometimes seems to change the entire story.

For example, Numbers 13:1–16 tells us about the spies that Moses sends into the land from Kadesh-barnea. In the Numbers account, the Lord commands Moses to send the spies into the land. But Deuteronomy 1:22–25 tells us that sending the spies was the people's idea, and Moses agreed to it. In light of the commentary in Deuteronomy, it seems like the Lord's command in Numbers 13 was not to choose spies, but to send them into the land.

Another example might be Deuteronomy 10:1–5. Here Moses tells us about receiving the second set of tablets at Sinai, which is also told in Exodus 34:1–9. In both accounts, Moses is to bring stone tablets up the mountain; but in the account in Deuteronomy, he was told to build an ark for them first. I suppose that could be the Ark of the Covenant, but the description in Deuteronomy suggests it was something else. As far as I know, only Deuteronomy 10 mentions this ark.

We might also mention the relationships between 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. There are several accounts in 1 and 2 Kings that read very differently in light of the accounts in Chronicles. As an example, the story of Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:1–18 reads very differently than the same story in 2 Chronicles 33:1–20. It seems from both books that Manasseh is the worst king Judah had (2 Kings 24:3, 2 Chronicles 33:9, Jeremiah 15:1–4). But the account in 2 Chronicles tells us that Manasseh repented, the account in 2 Kings doesn't mention that.

As an aside, Manasseh's reign was the longest of any king of either Israel or Judah: 55 years (1 Kings 21:1). I think it's significant that the Lord allows the worst king to reign the longest, eventually bringing him to repentance. There are hints of Romans 2:4 in that.

Our favorite passage is Romans 4:1–8. Notice how that seems to turn the Old Testament on its head: Abraham is God's friend (James 2:23),  but it's not because he was a particularly good person. Abraham was God's friend because he believed what God said. 

Or we might notice how Romans 3:20 sums up the entire Old Testament in one sentence: "by law comes the knowledge of sin." We'll follow J. N. Darby here to point out that it's "sin," not "sins." Romans isn't claiming that the Mosaic Law told us that specific acts are sins, as though we hadn't already known.  Rather, it reveals to us our own indwelling sin. It demonstrates that fallen men and women are incapable of submitting to God. And we might notice that Moses' commentary of the exodus says the same thing (Deuteronomy 29:4).

Romans 9:6ff is another commentary on Scripture that turns the Old Testament accounts on their heads. We might read about Isaac and Ishmael (Romans 9:7ff), Jacob and Esau (Romans 9:11ff), or the children of Israel at Sinai (Romans 9:15-16) from the Pentatuech and not see what the Spirit of God brings out in Romans. But if we take Romans 9 to heart and look back at those stories, they read very differently.

I've probably read too much Darby, but I really think Romans 9:15–16 (quoting Exodus 33:19) is the crux of Christianity. God can either condemn us, or He can "hide in His sovereignty" and show us grace. There's not a third option. God would be entirely righteous simply to condemn us all. In fact, His righteous nature would drive Him to do exactly that. He can only act in grace towards us – any of us – by claiming His right to sovereignty as our Creator.

Now, I really don't like using words like "sovereignty" because Scripture does not. Or at least, it doesn't use it much, I guess we might claim 1 Timothy 6:15 (NASB) as justification. But in the end, the idea is there, even if the word isn't. "I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy" shows exactly on what ground God can show mercy to us. 

And that ties into our earlier thoughts about Manasseh and his 55-year reign. God chose to have mercy on Manasseh and He did. He gave the worst king the longest time to repent.

That's worth mulling over.

 

Not that lost

J. N. Darby had a real gift for coining a phrase. One that has been in the back of my mind recently is, "man's pretension not to be entirely lost" ("Letter on Free-will", Collected Writings, Vol. 10, p 185). In context, he was discussing "the doctrine of free-will." I'm going to take his phrase out of context and use it a bit more generally here.

R. A. Huebner used a similar phrase several times in his book The Sovereignty and Glory of God in the Election and Salvation of Lost Men (which is worth a read): "I'm lost, but not that lost!" It's not as clear as Darby's little phrase, but it might be a little easier to throw into conversation.

2 Corinthians 4:6 compares God's work in our hearts to His commanding light to shine out of darkness. I have spent a lot of time contemplating that comparison: it captures so much truth in just a few words. The God who can work in our hearts is the God who calls something from nothing. Any other god isn't enough for lost sinners. A god who needs something to work with isn't going to find the raw materials he needs in lost sinners. But the God who creates something from nothing – that God can do something with us, because what we have to offer (nothing) is exactly the raw materials He needs.

Romans 4:16–17 tells us Abraham believed in the God "who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist" (LSB). That's the God that can save lost sinners: the God who calls into being what doesn't exist. The God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9) is the only God who can save truly lost sinners.

That's not to say that lost men and women are nothing. But it is to say that there's nothing in us for God to work with (cf Romans 7:18). And we are thankful for a God who doesn't need raw materials! We are thankful to have been captured by the God who can make something from nothing.

An unbeliever might betray himself by pretending that he's not all that bad. An unbeliever might try to assuage her conscience with the observation that there are others who are worse. But God justifies the one who does not work, and instead believes on Him who justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). It's the one who says, "Praise God! He justifies the ungodly, that means me!" who finds peace with God. The one who refuses to stop working, who refuses to admit his own ungodliness: that one finds there's no God who is able to justify him.

The need for men and women to pretend that we aren't entirely lost runs deep. It's not just something the sinners "out there" do, it's something we do. The sinners out there might find there's no God to justify them unless they admit they are ungodly; but we tend to forget that too, and it's as disastrous to our Christian lives as it is to their justification. We, too, like to pretend we're "not that lost." Sure, we were once unregenerate sinners, but we were saved, right? Now we are able to produce something for God.

A friend asked me a what made me realize the Christian life ("sanctification") was based on grace, not works. I replied, "when I sinned so big I knew there was no going back."  There came a point where I realized I had sinned so badly there was nothing I could do to fix it. That is how we learn God's grace.

But it goes deeper even than that: there came a point in my life when I realized the problem wasn't that I was basically a good person who had done some bad things, but that I did those bad things because I am a bad person. We tend to think we are sinners because we sin, but Romans 5:18ff tells us the opposite: we sin because we are sinners. We need to let that sink in: it's not that we are lost because we sin, but that we sin because we are lost.

And this is the problem addressed in Romans 7. It's not the same problem as Romans 6, although there are unifying principles between them. Romans 7:5–6 teaches that the effect of Law on a believer is not to produce righteousness, but to produce passions and lusts. That's an astonishing result, but it follows from what Romans 3:20 teaches us. "[T]hrough the Law comes the knowledge of sin" – not "sins," but "sin." Law teaches us not that this thing or that thing is a sin, but that sin dwells in us (Romans 7:20).

We expect that putting ourselves under Law would push us into righteousness, but we find that Law does exactly what God intended: it reveals to us that we are lost. And it does that by arousing our passions and lusts so that we do "lost" things.

So we might use Darby's little phrase to sum up more than just "the doctrine of free-will," we might use it to sum up all those efforts to use Law to curb our sinfulness: it's just man's pretension not to be entirely lost. If we knew how lost we are – if we believed God when He told us about ourselves – we'd know that applying Law to ourselves must end in condemnation.

If only we weren't lost, then we might be able to do something with Law. If only we weren't lost, we wouldn't need a Savior at all. Think about that.

So what Scripture really teaches is, we need a Savior as much after we believed as we did before. We don't come in to eternal life by God's grace and then walk in it by our efforts. No! We need to be saved just as much as believers as we did when we weren't.

And that's why Darby's little phrase has been in my head so much over the last little while: there are so many things we do that really amount to our pretending not to be entirely lost. And frankly, none of us has time for that kind of pretending. All those things that fail us even though we need so desperately for them to work: all those things are a waste of time to those who really are lost.

The only hope for a man or woman who really is entirely lost is grace. Our hope is that God will act in kindness towards us even though we don't deserve it. And the sooner we learn that applies not only to the sinners "out there," but to ourselves, the sooner we can make progress in our spiritual life.

 

 

 

 

Grace all the way down

The other night a friend was talking about faith, and he commented in passing that it's pretty standard in Protestant theology to put a dividing line between salvation and sanctification. That comment clarified several things, and I found myself mulling over his comment. 

So if we put that into a diagram it would look something like this:

Salvation | Sanctification

 

When I was much younger, I was fully convinced of these categories. In my mind, the Christian life could be divided into two categories like this:

Salvation, New Birth, Justification  | Sanctification, Holiness

 

When I was eighteen, I thought the things on the left were gifts from God, received freely by faith; while the things on the right required discipline, by which I meant hard work.

At some point, I realized that BOTH sides are powered by faith, and "human effort" wasn't really part of either side. But in my mind, there were still two distinct "sides."

And then I read Watchman Nee's book Love Not the World. He makes some surprising statements about salvation, and I followed up on them. It didn't take very long for me to become convinced that the diagram should look more like:

New Birth, Justification | Sanctification, Holiness, Salvation

 

I became convinced that when Scripture uses the word "salvation," it's almost always meaning something that belongs on the right-hand side of that division. So it became more natural to think of it on the right, not the left.

 

That was almost thirty years ago. These days I think of the diagram more like this:

New Birth, Justification, Justification, Sanctification, Holiness, Salvation

 

I've pretty much given up dividing these things into two categories. That's not to say we can't come up with a taxonomy that's meaningful, but I'm not at all convinced Scripture puts them into those two "standard Protestant" categories.

 

A few years ago, I was told I sound very Catholic. My friend's comments the other night helped make sense of that. If I reject those two very Protestant categories, then I'm likely sound at least a little bit Catholic.  

But while I think Catholicism gets it right by not dividing up those things into two categories, it puts them all on the wrong side. In other words, Catholicism teaches something like this:

| New Birth, Justification, Justification, Sanctification, Holiness, Salvation

while scripture teaches something like this:

New Birth, Justification, Justification, Sanctification, Holiness, Salvation |

 That is, Catholicism is correct in not dividing those things, but it wrongly makes human effort a part of all of them. Scripture, on the other hand, puts all of them into the "by grace through faith" category.

So let's stop talking about me and start talking about Scripture. Galatians 3:3 and Colossians 2:6 give us a key principle: we walk as we have received. We don't begin in the Spirit and finish in the flesh. We don't start out by grace and finish by law.  We don't take our first steps with "Done!" and our last with "Do!"

We receive Justification, Forgiveness of Sins, and New Birth all as free gifts from God. We start out on the principle of "by grace through faith" (Ephesians 2:8–9).  That's the very first step. We don't switch to another principle once we have taken a few more steps. We finish the race just like we started it: we set out in grace, we finish the same way. 

 

It's grace all the way down.

 

For me (and I think for a great many people), the big turning point is the realization that freedom from the power of sin is presented in Romans 6:1ff as something Christ has done for us. When He died, I died. And because I have died, I am free from sin. It changes the entire perspective on "sanctification" from something I have to achieve, to something I have to receive.

And notice that's by faith: we have died with Christ, but it's as we accept it (Romans 6:11) that we come into the good of it. So we are freed from sin's power by grace (by the death of Christ) through faith (as we believe what God has said and reckon ourselves to be what He says we are). Just like "salvation" is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9), "sanctification" is by grace through faith. The key to the entire Christian life, from the first step to the last, is to believe God and accept what He says.

 

There's a hymn in Little Flock that's appropriate to mention here, Appendix #62:

And when in heavenly glory

My ransomed soul shall be,

From sin and all pollution

Forever, ever free,

I’ll cast my crown before Him,

And loud His grace extol — 

"Thou hast Thyself redeemed me;

Yes, Thou hast done it all."

That hymn captures a lot in very few words. We're not called to achieve something for God, but to receive with gratitude what He has done for us.

Repentance, penance, and absolution

Over the last year or so I've had several difficult conversations with friends and acquaintances who had found themselves overtaken in some fault or another. For whatever reason, they seemed to want to unburden themselves on me. Now, I don't object to being their sounding board: to the extend they think that's something they think they need, it's fine by me. But it seems to me there's a danger of which we should be aware: the danger of allowing repentance to become penance.

It seems to me there's a link between repentance and faith, and another between penance and unbelief. Repentance (at least, godly repentance) hinges on seeing ourselves as we are, and God as He is. Notice how Job 42:5–6 describes getting a right view of God, and how that drives Job to repentance.

Penance on the other hand, is an attempt to earn some sort of righteousness with God. Really, it boils down to unbelief: God has already told us we have no righteousness but Christ. God has already told us that Christ has borne our sins. God has already assured us that when we confess, He forgives. Looking for some sort of assurance outside of the word of God is not faith. Looking for some sort of merit in my own works – no matter how big or how small – is not faith. These things are the opposite of faith. They are unbelief.

So I suppose I would say the difference between repentance and penance is faith. Repentance comes from believing God, penance results from unbelief. Of course that doesn't help us very much in terms of identifying when someone has gone from the one to the other. But it might help me individually know when I've done so: "is this faith? or is it doubting God's word?" That's the real question.

I'm a little less dogmatic on the whole idea of absolution. There are certainly times when we need to seek forgiveness from someone other than God: we might have sinned against someone, for example, and need to seek their forgiveness too. And unlike with God, we might find ourselves needing to make some sort of amends to that person. But that's not really what absolution is.

Absolution is more about confessing my sins to someone else, and receiving from that person assurance of God's forgiveness. Is absolution something we need? No, we have the word of God to assure us that God has forgiven. But what do we do when someone comes to us, looking for assurance from us that God forgives? The more I think this over, the more I think there is value in a true believer assuring someone of God's forgiveness, as long as he or she is pointing them to the word of God. One friend of mine says we should be quick to say, "Jesus loves you, Jesus has forgiven you." I think that's good advice, but I'll add the caveat that we shouldn't ever say that as though we have authoritative knowledge in ourselves. It's not that I know that God has forgiven you because on my spiritual state or insight; no, it's that I know God has forgiven you based on His word, and we can look at it together.

So I think there's a place for absolution, as long as it's grounded in God's word, not in some presumed authority.

And let's be clear about something here: we can't talk about this sort of thing in the abstract. It's not very useful to talk about what a Christian should do in an ideal world. When a true believer comes to us with a guilty conscience, we're not dealing in the hypothetical. We who have sinned really big – so big that our standard evangelical faith collapsed under the weight of our own guilt – know there's a desperation that hypothetical Christianity doesn't really address. But when someone comes to us with that sort of guilt, we ought to lead him or her to the Cross, to God's grace, to Christ's having borne our sins. It's not the time to lecture, it's the time to lead with compassion to the One who is gracious to both of us.

It's important for us to realize that God forgives based on the death of Christ (Romans 3:21–26). Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1–8), and it is this – and only this – that enables God to forgive us. It's easy to lose sight of this when we deal with the question of confession: we're tempted to think that confession is an act of merit, and God forgives us because we confess our sins. That's not true at all. It's true that when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9), but it's not our confession that makes God forgive. In fact, even as we are sinning, Christ is advocating for us with the Father. I don't know another way to understand 1 John 2:1–2. 

Christ doesn't wait for us to confess, repent, or even acknowledge our sins before He takes action on our behalf. We all need to meditate on this. We all need to let this one sink in.

So why do we confess our sins? The simplest reason is our own peace of heart: we need to know that God has forgiven us. That assurance is as simple as confessing our sins, and then believing God. 

It's important, too, to realize that when we have sinned – when we are at our lowest – we are seeing ourselves exactly like God has always seen us. In fact, no matter how low your opinion of yourself is, God's opinion of you is worse. We have a tendency to evaluate ourselves based on our performance, usually our current or very recent past. But God knows all things: on our best days, He knows what our worst days will be, and He sees what we will do. So on our best days, we should be humble. On our worst days, we should remember God's view of us is no different than it was on our best days. God knows what we are.

And this brings us back to repentance. Repentance is a gift from God (Acts 11:18). It is the correct response to understanding that we have sinned (Acts 17:30–31). But it goes much deeper than our understanding of what we have done: it goes to our understanding of what we are (see Isaiah 6:5, Luke 18:9ff). Job repented when he saw who God really is. It's noteworthy that scripture doesn't tell us Job sinned. The closest thing we get to sin on Job's part is Job 32:1–3.

Job 32:1–3 gives a brief summary of the book up to that point. Job's friends "found no answer, and yet condemned [him]" (Job 32:3), but Job was also wrong, because "he justified himself rather than God" (Job 32:2). It seems to me this is a danger to us, particularly when we are doing something right: that we would justify ourselves rather than God.

Philippians 3:8ff tells us that to be "in Christ" is to have "no righteousness of my own."  This means we give up (or have given up) any merit we have. Even the questionable merit we might associate with confessing our sins. Any merit that comes our way from confession or repentance is something we need to give up if we want to be "in Christ."

I know I've offended people in the past by saying that there is a danger of our being no longer "in Christ." I don't mean that God ever sees us as anything other than "in Christ." We are accepted by God always and only "in Christ." I don't mean we can cease to be "in Christ" in God's eyes. I mean that our spiritual health and growth and progress are based on our seeing things the way God sees them (cf. Romans 6:1–11). That's what Philippians 3:8ff is talking about: it's not saying "I hope I can attain being in Christ," it's saying, "I want to see myself in Christ, just as God sees me in Christ." And the key there is to understand that we have no righteousness of our own.

We cease to be "in Christ" in our own minds – not in God's eyes – when we start to think we have righteousness of our own. We need to be very careful here.

One last note: it would be wrong not to mention a wonderful article by J. N. Darby here, "Cleansing by Water: and what it is to walk in the light." I can't recommend it highly enough.

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.

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.

 

Staying in His lane

Elihu tells us that if God were to "think only of Himself," the entire creation would perish (Job 34:14–15). That's a remarkable claim, and it brings us face-to-face with God in a way we don't always think of Him: He is the God who refuses to leave well enough alone. He is the God who refuses to mind His own business. He's the God who refuses to stay in His own lane.

J. N. Darby points out that God's reaction to the Fall is to ask two questions: "where are you?" (Genesis 3:9) and "what have you done?" (Genesis 3:11, 13). And he notices that God asks "where are you?" before He asks, "what have you done?"  We tend to think of those in reverse. But the bigger point is that God comes looking for man when he sins. It's a story we all know, so maybe we don't think how astonishing it is that God's reaction to the Fall is to come looking for us.

It's important we realize that God owes us nothing. He would have been perfectly just (and justified!) to simply condemn Adam, Eve, and all of their race. Were we to be thrown into hell, it would be no worse than any of us deserve. We have all sinned, we all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

But God isn't content to be just. He is the God who "devises means" – the God who plots and schemes – to be merciful to sinners (2 Samuel 14:14). One of my daughters once said God stays up all night poring over the law books, looking for loopholes so that He can be merciful to us. That's not strictly biblical, but it expresses the idea of the wise woman of Tekoa. So I'll give my daughter a pass on her definitely-not-biblical-and-yet-very-correct description. And notice how this aligns with the language of Romans 3:26: one result of the cross of Christ is that God could both justify and be just.

The old preachers used to say the only time in all of Scripture when God is seen to hurry is when the Father sees the prodigal returning and runs to meet him (Luke 15:20). 

And really, isn't that the astonishing thing about Genesis 18:20–21? God calmly tells Abram that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great that its stench has risen up to Heaven. So what does He do? He comes down to see if its really all that bad. That's a remarkable thought: that God Himself would come down from Heaven, looking to see if He can give Sodom and Gomorrah one last chance. It's a remarkable glimpse into who God is.

And we've noticed before that when God invites the Son to sit on His right hand (Psalm 110:1), He promises to make all the Son's enemies His footstool. But here we are: instead of being made His footstool, we have been lifted up to sit with Him in the throne (Ephesians 2:6). God isn't content to do what He really ought to do. He insists on doing so much more.

My working definition of grace is something like "God doing what He wants to do with no regard for what we deserve." I think I mentioned that before at some point. And the more we realize how little we deserve, the more we see that it's only God's sovereign grace that we have to thank.

I don't meditate enough on this.

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.

Experimental

My dad told me one time, "when Moses struck the rock a second time, he was wrong... but water still came out" (see Numbers 20:7–13).  I've thought about that comment many, many times. It's entirely possible – even likely – that God will bless us regardless of our obedience or our disobedience. God's blessing isn't evidence that we are obedient, it's evidence that God is good. In the story of the water from the rock, everyone was wrong except God; but He still gave them what they needed.

So let's don't allow ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking that God's blessing is proof of our own goodness. It isn't. A friend told me many years ago (quoting someone else), "God blesses us because He is good, not because we are."

But the fact remains that I'm not terribly interested in a Christianity that doesn't actually work. And this brings me to a sort of a conundrum: on the one hand, faith is believing that God has said. "The just shall live by faith," is really the central message of Romans (Romans 1:17), Galatians (Galatians 3:11), and Hebrews (Hebrews 10:38). There's not much more central than that!

But on the other hand, the epistles teach a transforming sort of faith. 2 Corinthians 4:6 tells us that the same God who commanded light to shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts. God's having called light to shine out of the darkness of our hearts (which is really the point Paul is making) suggests a visible effect.

Note I'm not talking about counterfeit spirituality. I am convinced nothing has done more to hurt the testimony of believers than trying to produce spiritual fruit from carnal energy. And I suppose that's really the point I'm trying to make. Moses and Aaron acted carnally at Meribah, but water still came out. See, it's possible to act with fleshly energy, and still see tremendous blessing. Isn't that what Philippians 1:15–20 teaches? It's possible to preach Christ out of envy, out of a desire for strife. And it's possible people will be brought to repentance out of it, not because God approves of the preaching, but because God blesses out of His own goodness.

I know for a fact that we can be fleshly in our preaching, our prayer, our Bible study, and even our declaring the Gospel. We know for a fact that God can and does bless us, and through us, even when we're acting badly, even when we're flat-out wrong. And seeing "results" isn't proof that we're right, it just means that God is acting like He always does – out of grace.

Not now, not here

1 Corinthians 14:27–33 presents us with some scenarios that should surprise us, if we're paying attention. In the first, we have someone in the assembly who wants to speak in a tongue, but there is no interpreter. So he is told to speak to himself and to God, but not out loud (1 Corinthians 14:28). In the second, we have someone who is prophesying – giving a word from the Lord – but someone else rises to speak, so he is to sit down and let the other person speak (1 Corinthians 14:30). And then we're given a remarkable statement, "spirits of prophets are subject to prophets" (1 Corinthians 14:32).

What's surprising here is that the text treats both the tongues-speaker and the interrupted prophet as having a legitimate thing from God. Neither one is treated as "out of order" in what they would say, but they would be "out of order" to say it at that time, in that place.

In other words, we are responsible to assess the situation, see how it lines up with 1 Corinthians 14, and then possibly refuse to say what the Spirit of God has given us to say. It's entirely possible that He will give us something to say, and then expect us not to say it, according to 1 Corinthians 14:32.

The first few times I experienced this, I tended to echo the disciples in John 9:2, "Who is in sin? Is it me for thinking I had something from the Lord? Or is it that other guy who stood up third, so now I can't?" But I've come to understand it might be more like the Lord's answer to the disciples, "Neither you nor he sinned, but this is the for the glory of God" (John 9:3).

There is a story in the Old Testament that seems appropriate to bring up here. David had a genuine exercise to build a temple for the Lord (2 Samuel 7:1–2). Nathan the prophet recognized it was a genuine exercise from the Lord, and told him so (2 Samuel 7:3). But the Lord spoke to Nathan, and told him that it would be David's son, not David, who would build the temple (2 Samuel 7:4–17).

So I've become a little more comfortable with the idea that I've gotten a genuine exercise from the Lord, but it wasn't ever His intention for me to be the one to act on it.

I'm not saying that third guy who stood up to speak in the assembly wasn't wrong to do so. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. I confess there are a lot of times someone stands up and I am quite convinced they had nothing to say. But to be honest, there are a lot of times someone else stood up, and it was a great act of love for me not to roll my eyes... but then someone else would tell me afterwards that they felt the Lord gave them something they really needed in that message. In other words, He knew much better than I what was best for the assembly.

And that's the big lesson in 1 Corinthians 14. There is real responsibility in the assembly, but at the end of the day, the Lord doesn't need me. He is perfectly capable of doing what is best for the believers there without my help. 

Underneath a whole lot of what we do is the fear that if we don't intervene, things will go sideways. That's not even close to what Scripture teaches. God who raises the dead might well use me, but He certainly doesn't need me.

"If we confess our sins"

I've had a long and tempestuous relationship with 1 John 1:9. It's a verse we teach to the children quite early:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (NASB)

We're right to do so! It has been an anchor for generations of Christians who have found they just don't measure up.

But there's another side to it. Let me illustrate with a story:

When I was a teen, I was in a Bible class. The teacher asked, "Which sins did Christ die for?"

Someone replied, "The sins we confess".

The teacher asked, "So if you die while sinning, do you then go to hell? After all, that would be a sin Christ didn't die for."

That was a watershed moment in my life.

It didn't occur to me immediately, but I eventually realized that I (along with many others, apparently) had come to believe that confession of sins was somehow meritorious. I'd never have said I earned forgiveness by confession, but I effectively believed it. Perhaps I'd have said that confession makes me forgiveable or something... but I did definitely believe that confession was a sort of a work I did to gain forgiveness.

Eventually I came to see that God forgives because of the blood of Christ, not because I have confessed. I came to understand that God forgives my sins whether I confess them or not. I don't see any other way to understand Romans 4:5–8.

So what's the point of 1 John 1:9? I am convinced the point of 1 John 1:9 is really assurance of forgiveness. It's not telling us how to gain God's forgiveness, but it's telling us how to be assured of it. When we have sinned, and that sin seems too big, and it seems to obscure God's face, and it seems to cut us off from God, we can look at 1 John 1:9 and be sure that God has forgiven it.

Going through death

I don't think anyone holds any illusions about this... but in the spirit of confessing faults one to another, I should probably confess that I'm sadly content to be like Moses and see the land. It's a great deal harder to be like Joshua and go into it.

The leaven of evangelicalism seems to me to be the notion that man in the flesh can please God. As I listen to preachers and teachers who consider themselves "evangelical", I notice two themes. The first theme is a dangerously compromised Gospel. Scripture teaches that God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (Romans 4:5). I have many times heard a "gospel" message that places some sort of work between the sinner and justification. Scripture doesn't call on the sinner to repeat a prayer, or to "invite Jesus into his heart." Scripture merely calls the sinner to believe. And to be clear: it calls the sinner to believe not something, but Someone.

The second theme is the idea that the justified sinner is now capable of obeying God, as a justified sinner. By contrast, what Scripture teaches is that those who have died with Christ are to yield their members to God as those alive from the dead (Romans 6:13). There is no pleasing God without going through death.

Scripture presents baptism as standing at the gateway to the Christian life. What is the truth of baptism? It is the fact of the believer's identification in the death, burial, resurrection, and public testimony of Christ (Romans 6:3–6; Colossians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 15:3–5). Baptism means my life has ended. And notice, it's really the first step in the Christian life. We don't work our way up to baptism, we start there.

A friend of mine once told me, "everything, even spiritual gift, must go through death for God to use it." I've thought about that long and hard, and I think he was correct. Really, isn't that the message of 2 Corinthians 4:10–12? The end goal of the Christian life is to have the life of Jesus manifested in our mortal bodies (2 Corinthians 4:10–11). The tool that God uses to bring that about is death: death works in us (2 Corinthians 4:12). Sadly, this seems to be the opposite of the evangelical view.

The fact is that Christ Himself taught this to Nicodemus (John 3:3). The problem is, we have done a masterful job of not really hearing what the Lord said. The point is not that we need to have a "born again" experience to get into the Kingdom. The point is that we need an entirely new life. That doesn't leave room for the "old" life. We've managed to convince ourselves that the Lord was describing an addition, not a replacement.

No one gets into the Kingdom of God intact.

Image of God

There is a connection between Exodus 20:4–5 and Colossians 1:15. The children of Israel were commanded to have no images to worship. An image eventually becomes an idol. Indeed, when God specifically commanded Moses to make an image (Numbers 21:8–9), it became an idol to them (2 Kings 18:4).

But God has specifically given us one Image to worship: Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.

In fact, when we consider John 3:14, we learn that the brass serpent was actually a type of the Son of Man lifted up. The children of Israel were committing idolatry when they worshiped the serpent that was lifted up for them, but God Himself invites us to worship the Son of Man who was lifted up for us. It is explicitly the Father's will that we should honor the Son as we honor the Father (John 5:23).

Isn't that cool? God knows we have a tendency to worship images, and He has given us an image to worship.

Under the footstool

Psalm 110 is a remarkable prophecy. It's quoted frequently in the New Testament, and arguably forms the basis of the doctrine of the epistles. Peter quotes Psalm 110 in Acts 2:34–35 to show that the ascended Christ has sat down at God's right hand. Hebrews takes up that same thought, quoting Psalm 110 to show that Christ's Priesthood is linked to Melchizedek's (Hebrews 5:6). Hebrews 9:24–28 goes on to point out that Christ is going to come back for us: His seat at God's right hand is not a permanent arrangement. He is there "until I make thine enemies thy footstool" (Hebrews 1:13).

God has promised to put Christ's enemies under His feet (Psalm 110:1). But not all His enemies. We were His enemies too (Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 2:1–3), but instead of the footstool, God has chosen the throne (Ephesians 2:6; Revelation 3:21).

This is the grace of God: He takes us from under the footstool to put us on the throne.

You gotta watch Benjamin

When we read Jacob's words to his sons on his deathbed (Genesis 49:1–33), we might notice his words to Benjamin are a little strange:

[as] a wolf will he tear to pieces; In the morning he will devour the prey, And in the evening he will divide the booty (Genesis 49:27)

Benjamin is a wolf, you don't want to turn your back on Benjamin.

I really think scripture has the flesh in mind when it talks about Benjamin. We've all got some of that Benjamin in us. And make no mistake, it's a ravening wolf.

Scripture tells us the stories of two different men from Benjamin named Saul. In the old Testament we have the story of the Saul the son of Kish, the first king of Israel. He was a great man. There came a day when God told Saul He was going to replace him with another man (1 Samuel 15:26), and Saul resisted and fought against that plan until the end, when he died on Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:4–8).

In the New Testament we have the story of another Saul, a Pharisee from Tarsus. He, too, was a great man. There came a day when God told this Saul He would replace him with another Man, and Saul agreed with God that this was a good idea (Galatians 2:20). Rather than fighting God's will to have another Man in his place, Saul went along with the plan. Like the earlier Saul from Benjamin, he had a lot of boast about. Unlike the earlier Saul, he realized that what God really wants is only found in one Man (Philippians 3:3–11).

Like the two Sauls, we find out that it's God's plan to replace us with Christ. Christ has died in our place, and God's plan is that He should live in our place too. I can't see another way to understand Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, *I*, but Christ lives in me." The real question is, how do we respond to that? The first Saul resisted, the second Saul capitulated. It's not at all a stretch to say that we have that same choice to make.

The essence of the gospel is Christ in my place. Christ in my place under God's judgment brought forgiveness – Christ in my place as alive in this world produces a walk worthy of our calling. I need to meditate on this more.

Grace, Faith, and Glory, Part 3

This is the third part of our guest posts from Robert on "Grace, Faith, and Glory". We are thankful again for Robert's sharing these with us!

2 Corinthians 3:18 ‘But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit’.

Paul reveals to the Corinthians his two-fold ministry — the ministry of the new covenant (3:6) and the ministry of reconciliation (5:18). Transformation and reconciliation! No wonder he felt his need of mercy in order not to faint.

This is a chapter of contrasts:

Ministration of death with Ministration of the Spirit
The law demanded death as the ultimate penalty for failure. The man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day is a sad example of this. But although the law made demands, it could not empower people to meet them. The ministry of the Spirit however brings the believer into a sphere of life and liberty. The law said, ‘thou shalt not steal’. The gospel says, ‘Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth’ Ephesians 4:28

Ministration of condemnation with Ministration of righteousness
The law also demanded righteousness from men. Many people started have their day with good intentions to do all that the law required, only to discover that they had failed again and were condemned in the sight of God. No wonder the Hebrew writer describes the system of law as ‘weak and unprofitable’. The ministry of righteousness however provides men with the righteousness of God obtained at Calvary and points them to the Lord in glory as their guarantee that He and His work are accepted. In Christ I am not condemned: I am accepted!

Vanishing glory with Abiding glory
In the original account of Moses veiling his face, the reason is given that, ‘they were afraid to come nigh him’ Exodus 34: 30. Sinful men could not even bear to look on the glory of God reflected in Moses’ face. Paul gives a further insight: the purpose of the veil was to conceal from the people the fact that the glory was fading from Moses’ face (v.13). In contrast, the new covenant subsists in glory (v.8), surpasses in glory (v.10), abounds in glory (v.10) and abides in glory (v.11). And the great reason for this is that the glory of God is now seen in the face of Jesus Christ (4:6).

Veiled glory with Unveiled glory
This is not an easy verse to understand but it helped me greatly when I discovered that we do not need the mirror! 


κατοπτριζόμενοι means neither "reflecting," nor "seeing in a mirror." though this last be etymologically the source, but "beholding," without reference to the mirror, as in so many words which thus cast their primitive shell.  

(William Kelly, Notes and Translation of Second Corinthians).

We now look to the Lord in glory and as we behold him, and become more settled as to our position in Christ, we move from the glory of the old covenant to the glory of the new. A life that is settled in the righteousness of God can enjoy the life and liberty of the Spirit and be free from the death and condemnation of the law. But unknown to us, yet seen by others, the more we look at the Lord in glory, the more we will reflect Him. We will reflect what we look upon.

Psalm 63:1, 2 ‘My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh languisheth for thee, in a dry and weary land without water: To see thy power and thy glory, as I have beheld thee in the sanctuary.’

Grace, Faith and Glory, Part 2

And here's Part 2 of Robert's article "Grace, Faith and Glory."  I personally found this article very convicting: it's all too easy to allow "grace" to mean "don't worry about it." These articles have brought to my own conscience that we are to walk worthy of the calling. Thank you, Robert, for your contributions here and in various comment sections!

Romans 1:17 ‘for righteousness of God is revealed therein, on the principle of faith, to faith: according as it is written, but the just shall live by faith’.

As we read Romans chapter one, we are looking over the shoulder of Paul and viewing his notes on what he intended to preach when he arrived at Rome. This is the standard for all gospel preaching:

• The Son of God
• The power of God
• The righteousness of God
• The wrath of God

The gospel reveals that God is no longer demanding righteousness from men: God provides His righteousness through the death of His Son. The law said, ‘do’: God says, ‘it is done’. And should someone say, I could not maintain such a life, I would always make mistakes and let God down, there is also given to us the power of God. The gospel brings the power of resurrection (v.4) and the power of creation (v.20) into a believer’s life. God gives us a new life and a new world in which to enjoy it!

Defining faith is difficult. Paul speaks about the ‘obedience of faith’ (v.5). When revelation is given to man, there are objections made immediately by his sinful nature. John 6 is the greatest demonstration of this – note the expressions, ‘Jesus said to them’; ‘they said to Him’. The heart of man always opposes Divine revelation. All who received the righteousness of God came to a point in their experience where they obeyed the truth that was being revealed to them. Faith then is the end of all internal argument, all debate and discussion.

The starting point for us all was the process of God revealing His word, then for a time we argued against it, or could not understand it, until we were brought by His grace and His Spirit to see that it was the truth and we obeyed and believed. This is the principle of faith to faith. So, the pathway of the believer is really a repetition of that first experience with God. He continues to reveal His truth to us and we find ourselves making objections and excuses as to why we do not need to obey. Then, the grace of God empowers us to see that not only is this the truth but that we can accept this truth and live it out by His grace. Faith to faith remains the governing principle of our lives – ‘the just shall live by faith’ (v.17).

The quotation from Habakkuk is not exact. He wrote, ‘but the just shall live by his faith’, for faith in his day was a very lonely experience. It was not meant to be for us. Paul was looking forward to visiting Rome and meeting the saints ‘that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.’ (v.12) Satan has long understood that the mutual faith of saints needs to be attacked and he brings us into isolation wherever he can. Paul was given an ‘abundance of revelations’ but he recognised that the faith was far too vast for one individual to enjoy. We need each other in the pathway of faith.

Ephesians 3:17,18 ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height’.