As those alive from the dead

We've talked about Cain's religion, and we've talked about fearing God. We've seen there is a relationship between those two things. At the risk of harping on a theme we seem to have gone over and over, I'd like to tie these two ideas into some things we've discussed before.

At the risk of sounding very Darby-ish, there is a constant temptation for Christians to try to please God in the power and energy of the flesh. If that sounds too abstract, we might say it a bit differently: there is a constant temptation for Christians to think they have something to offer God. 

Of course the opposite error is also a problem, and we'll get to that too.

Let's first start with a very odd statement in Romans 7:17–18, "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell." That sort of qualification isn't common in the Pauline epistles: "that is, in my flesh." It's not entirely unique, but it's not how Paul usually writes. I've learned to pay attention when Scripture breaks its own cadence like that: when it says something other than I would expect it to say. 

Here's the truly odd thing: I might have expected Romans 7:18 to say something like, "I know that in me good does not dwell." I might have expected it to say, "I know that in my flesh good does not dwell." Either of those makes sense. But what it actually says is, "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, good does not dwell."  What's the difference there?

It almost sounds like Paul is correcting himself. It almost sounds like he's mis-speaking and has to add a qualifier. But that's clearly not the case: in a letter we'd expect him to strike out a mistake, or even start his letter again. We don't expect him to keep a mistake in his letter and just sort of add a qualifier. So no, that small "that is, in my flesh" isn't correcting a mistake.

The effect of having those two statements together is to on the one hand tell us that there is nothing good in our flesh, but also to point out that the flesh is in us and there's nothing we can do about it. It's not that there is nothing good in me, it's that there is nothing good in me in and of myself. That's the point! That's what this awkward little interruption in the flow of thought in Romans 7 is emphasizing.

Notice how this aligns with the prior verse (Romans 7:17). On the one hand, I can differentiate between the "I" that has been born of God (John 3:3, 1 John 5:1) – that has died with Christ (Romans 6:11) and has been raised with Him too (Colossians 3:1) – and "sin that dwells in me." They're not the same thing. That's a distinction we must not miss. On the other hand, we must recognize that we are in fallen bodies (Romans 8:10) and we cannot do a thing about it. Christ will fix that when He comes for us (Romans 8:23, Philippians 3:20–21). We are waiting for the redemption of our bodies. So there's "me" and there's "my flesh," and they're not the same thing, but we really can't have the one without the other.

And we have to say yet again, there is a ditch on both sides of the road. On the one hand it's easy for us to fall into self-condemnation – perhaps even self-flagellation of some form – where there's nothing but despair as we see our own fallenness. It's all about "woe is me, I am undone" without acknowledging the new creation at all. On the other hand, it's tempting to latch onto the "not I, but sin that dwells in me" and claim some sort of entire sanctification that ignores the very real thoughts and motives we see in our own hearts.

Both of those errors put me at the center and take my eyes off Christ.

How grateful we are that the God who has called us is the God who commanded light to shine from darkness (2 Corinthians 4:6)!  The God who needs nothing to work with. The God who created everything from nothing. The God who doesn't need to find something good in me before He can use me... that God is the one who has begun a good work in me and will complete it (Philippians 1:6).

And that God – the God who commanded light to shine from darkness – has put us into this difficult position for a very specific reason: so that we would learn not to trust in ourselves (2 Corinthians 1:9, 2 Corinthians 4:7).

I offended someone once by saying we are not yet completely redeemed. I understand why someone might find that offensive, but it's nothing more than what Romans 8:23 and Philippians 3:20–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:50ff teach. God has redeemed us in the sense that Christ has died for us and there is no more price to be paid. But we experience that redemption in an inside-to-outside process. That process won't be finished until His Son comes to get us, when our bodies will be made like His (Philippians 3:21).

And this is the biggest point of all: God designed it that way. God's not surprised when He looks down and sees a regenerated man stuck in an unregenerated body. He's not trying to come up with a work-around for us until He can apply the fix! No, God has chosen this as the way He redeems lost men and women. He has chosen this as the path His children will take. So let's not rail too hard against it. We can acknowledge the path is hard without questioning God's choice of the path.

Yes, it's hard. But we're on the right path.

So what do we do until Christ comes to redeem our bodies? Well, the first thing is that we are to wait. One prominent feature that Philippians 3:20–21 and Romans 8:23 share is the emphasis on waiting. We're not going to fix this problem, we can't. We're not going to see Christ coming for us and say, "no, I've got this." We can't fix this, only Christ can.

Well, we don't stop waiting. When we stop waiting – when we lose sight of Christ coming for us – then we've taken a big step into apostasy. I remember Darby pointing out that the unjust steward doesn't say his master isn't coming back, he merely says his master is delaying to return. Actually, Darby is so strong on this point, I'll just share some excerpts:

The apostasy of the church consists in saying in heart, as settling itself here, "my Lord delayeth his coming." And so it did. The effect shewn in ruling as lords over the fellow-servants (hierarchical or clerical assumption in the absence of Christ), beating instead of feeding, and intercourse and communion with the world, eating and drinking with the drunken. ("Matthew 24 and 25", Collected Writings, Vol. 24, p. 227)

Verses 42-51. The faithfulness of the church is made to hinge on its watchfulness as regards this truth of the return of Christ. From the moment that it was said, "My lord delays his coming," "then the servant began to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken." "Therefore be ye also ready," said Jesus, "for the Son of man [not death] comes."

Matthew 25:1-13. The expectation of the return of Christ is the exact measure (the thermometer, so to speak) of the life of the church. As the servant became unfaithful the moment he had said, "My lord delays his coming," so it was with the ten virgins, for it is said, they all slept. It was not death, nor the Holy Spirit, that the ten virgins were told to expect; for neither death nor the Holy Spirit is the Bridegroom. All the virgins were found in the same state; the wise ones (the true saints) as well as the foolish ones, who wanted the oil of the Holy Spirit, slept and forgot the immediate return of Christ, as, on the other hand, what wakes them up is the midnight cry that He is coming. ("The Second Coming of Christ", Collected Writings, Vol. 2, p. 292)

So let's not stop waiting.

Second, we're called to glorify God in our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20). So we're not just to sit around until Christ comes for us. No, we're to use our fallen, sin-riddled bodies to God's glory. Romans 12:1ff gives us a more complete view than 1 Corinthians 6, but the theme is the same: we are called to glorify God in these bodies. We are called to be diligent, not slothful (Romans 12:11).

So don't let's get lazy.

And notice how these two things – waiting for the Lord to come for us, and glorifying God in our bodies – act as guardrails for the ditches on both sides of the road. Are you becoming worldly, forgetting your citizenship is in the heavens, storing up treasure on earth instead of treasure in Heaven? Then you need to meditate on Philippians 3:20–21. Are you becoming weirdly Gnostic, trying to pretend God hasn't called you to live in this world? Are you ignoring your earthly responsibilities because you're too busy staring at the sky? Then you need to meditate on Romans 12:1ff. There's a ditch on both sides of the road.

We are called to live for Christ here in this fallen world, and we are called to wait for Christ. We're pretty good at picking which ditch we'd rather fall into, but we're called to avoid them both. It turns out that doesn't come as naturally to us.

It seems to me that so many problems come from losing sight of the essential truth: it's the God who commanded light to shine from the darkness that has shone in our hearts. It's when we think that God looked into my heart and said, "Now there's something I can work with!" That's when we get into so much trouble.

I'm reminded of the John 8:33, where the Jews say, "We are Abraham's seed, and have never been under bondage to any one; how sayest thou, Ye shall become free?" That's such a ridiculous statement. It's like they were able to turn a blind eye to the fact that they were under Roman occupation. They were paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:21), they had to ask Pilate's permission to execute the death penalty (John 19:1–7). They were anything but free. Their own Scriptures called them servants (Nehemiah 9:36–37).  They had managed to expunge from their memory the prayer of Nehemiah, which is a bit of a feat.

It's interesting that Scripture leads us right up to the verge of despair then takes a sudden turn. So on the one hand, there's nothing we can do to remedy our fallen bodies' sinfulness. We can't improve ourselves, if you will. And we're assured that the harder we try to fight against the principle of sin "in our members," the worse we find ourselves sinning (Romans 7:14ff). And we start to think, "so there's nothing I can do, then." But it's right at that verge-of-despair that we find an answer (Romans 7:25). 

So there is another hand: there is a last-minute switch right at the edge of despair.  Romans 7:25–8:4 and Galatians 5:16 both call this "walking according to the Spirit." John 15:1ff addresses the same problem in terms of being unable to produce anything for God on our own vs. "abiding in Christ." I don't want to say abiding in Christ and walking in the Spirit are synonyms, but they're at least very, very closely related. And they both go against the idea of us producing something on our own.

God hasn't called us, redeemed us, justified us, and saved us so that we could just sit around and do nothing. But our attempts to do anything on our own often result in something far worse than "nothing." The point of life in the new creation is that we are to live for God as branches in the Vine, or as those who are walking in the power of the Spirit of God, or as those who are alive from the dead (Romans 6:13). Trying to live now like we lived then isn't going to work: there's something entirely new going on.

The key is depending on Christ, and there's nothing we hate so much as depending on someone else. We're fine saying we depend on Christ, as long as that's just a platitude. But to really do it – to have no backup plan – that's where we balk and fall back on ourselves.

When we look at the life the epistles urge us to live and try to divorce it from how the epistles tell us to do that, then we end up in this terrible place where we have responsibility and obligation, but we're not able to meet it. This is fundamentally the paradigm that's outlined in Romans 7:5ff.  "[W]hen we were in the flesh the passions of sins, which [were] by the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit to death." There's not one word in Romans 7 to suggest that the person caught in that experience lacks a right sense of obligation or a correct understanding of what he ought to be doing. The problem is that he find himself entirely unable to do what he knows he ought.

This is the result from trying to separate the what from the how. Not one command in Romans can be obeyed if we won't obey the first one. There are plenty of commands in that epistle, and they all rest on the first: "reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). That's the first imperative in Romans, and we cannot skip it. But the truth is that we all try. We all try to jump in at Romans 12:1ff without obeying Romans 6:11ff, and it's a disaster every time.

We simply can't obey Romans 12:1ff if we're not going to obey Romans 6:11ff. We can't obey Colossians 3:5ff unless we first learn Colossians 3:1–4. It just doesn't work that way.

And this brings us back to where we started. If we're not going to take the time (and it might take a very long time) to really learn Colossians 3:1–4 and Romans 6:1–11 and all those other very Pauline passages, we will find ourselves trying to become perfect in the power and energy of the flesh. We will find ourselves trying to know God like the unregenerate try to know God. We will find ourselves attempting to please God exactly like the unregenerate try to please God. And we will be just as successful.

We need to learn Romans 7:4; it's only those who have been made dead to the law by the body of Christ can bring forth fruit to God. We need to learn Romans 6:13; it's only those are alive from the dead that can yield themselves to God. Every time we allow ourselves to step outside of that – to build up an identity other than the one Scripture lays out for us – we find ourselves caught in the impossible position of trying to please God in ways we already know don't work.

 

Cain's religion

Every once in a while someone writes an article or posts a YouTube video or gives a talk about how we ought to dress for worship. I've heard and seen and read a lot of those over the last thirty or so years. I generally hold my tongue on this topic, except maybe to rant a bit to my wife or to a close friend. But I think it's a good time to make some comments about that where other people can find them.

I'm much less interested in how people dress for worship than I am in the way these questions touch on certain principles. So let's try and get to the "question behind the question" by the most direct route.

It seems to me that a whole lot of what people say about our attire in the gatherings is really Cain's religion: it's offering God what He does not want and did not ask for, while ignoring His commands (Genesis 4:1–7, Jude 1:11).  It's giving God what I think He ought to want, not what He says He wants. 

There are very few guidelines for how we are to dress for worship. As far as I can tell, the New Testament lays down only three:

1. we are to dress modestly, not displaying wealth (1 Timothy 2:9, 1 Peter 3:3–6)
2. men are to have their heads uncovered (1 Corinthians 11:1–8)
3. women are to cover their heads (1 Corinthians 11:1–8)

It's a pretty short list, but I have trouble finding anything else in the New Testament. We might look at James 2:1–9, but I think that's really more about how we react to people based on their appearance. It's not entirely unrelated, but it's not quite the same thing.

 

If we look back into the Old Testament, we don't find much more. We might consider the Lord's words to Samuel, that we look at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). I'm not sure to what extent that applies to how we dress, but I suppose we might consider it a general principle.

So really,  Scripture doesn't have that much to say about how we dress. And that seems odd to me, because there are plenty of people willing to take very dogmatic stances on the topic. Even more odd, I can't recall hearing or reading a single person whose teaching on the topic cited what little Scripture does says.

1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3–6 condemn dressing with ostentatious displays of wealth. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has seen preachers who dress like bankers, and it strikes me as strange. Haven't they read the epistles? Do they think they're above bowing to Scripture? Do they think 1 Timothy and 1 Peter don't apply to them? The epistles seem pretty clear in their condemnation of overdressing.

1 Corinthians 11:1–8 tells us men are to come into God's presence with their heads uncovered, while women are to cover their heads. I've been involved in many gatherings that practice this (to at least some extent), but I've worshipped with many more Christians who seem entirely ignorant of what Scripture has to say in this regard. It doesn't seem quite so common for men to cover their heads during worship as it is for women to go uncovered, but I've seen both.

Again, it strikes me as odd that someone who'd come up with all sorts of reasons we should dress a certain way to worship would then pass over one of the very few commands we do have. But in my experience it's very rare for someone preaching or teaching (or even ranting) on the topic of attire to mention 1 Corinthians 11:1–8, even obliquely.  

I suppose it's the whole issue of women covering their heads that really makes me scratch mine. The same people who seem to quail at the idea that we'd just say what the Holy Spirit says – that women are to cover their heads in God's presence – are then willing to bemoan our "casual culture" and demand Christians dress differently on Sunday than they do the rest of the week. Isn't that odd? They dismiss the express commands of the New Testament on the grounds that "that's a different culture" then they turn right around and urge Christians to ignore this culture and dress better. So which is it? 

If you're comfortable demanding men wears suits to meeting, but you're uncomfortable telling women to cover their heads, you ought to examine yourself very carefully. You are acting like Cain.

It seems hard-wired in fallen men and women that we are willing to do what we think God ought to want, but we're not so willing to take Him at His word and do what He has said. We're like Naaman (2 Kings 5:13): we'd gladly do some great thing for God, but we really don't want to do what He commands. 

And don't let's think this is limited to attire. It's exactly what's behind every works-based "gospel". 

It seems to me an effective antidote to the religion of Cain lies in three short words that Joseph said to his brothers: "I fear God" (Genesis 42:18). It seems to me that at the root of Cain's religion is the idea that I know better than God: that I have every right to judge what He says and does and thinks. What Scripture calls wisdom is just the opposite: it starts with fearing God.

It's very easy for us to soft-pedal the fear of God – especially we who lean more "free grace." We are very aware of the dangers of legalism – and with good cause! – but we should be careful not to allow ourselves to use Galatians as an excuse to ignore 2 Corinthians 5. We are all going to stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ. The effect of that on Paul was, "knowing therefore the terror of the Lord..." (2 Corinthians 5:11). The Lord Jesus taught, "fear rather him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). We ought to be very careful about softening what Scripture says about fearing God: it's not just an Old Testament truth!

If I were to fear God – truly say, "I fear God" like Joseph did – I'd be very reluctant to put my own words in place of His. I'd be very cautious about suggesting a dress code for meeting that wasn't based solidly in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 3 and 1 Corinthians 11. I'd be very cautious about any hint of a suggestion of putting words in God's mouth, because I'd be very aware that I would have to answer for that someday.

And frankly, we have a glut of so-called preachers and teachers who seem entirely unconcerned about ever being called to account for what they teach and preach (James 3:1).

Is there a problem with casual behavior in the church? Yes! Yes, there is. We really do need to be shaken up and reminded that judgment begins in the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). We ought not to wander into the place where Christians are worshipping with a glib, casual attitude. But let's don't think we can remedy that with an equally irreverent and Cain-ish teaching that substitutes our own words for God's. Don't let's think we can put our own words in God's mouth and He won't mind too much.

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."

 

A few thoughts on liberty in Christ

Following on our earlier conversation, it occurs to me that I used the expression "liberty in Christ" without really talking about is as a principle. I just sort of assumed it. We should probably take a few moments to consider what scripture says about about liberty in Christ.

Galatians 5:1 tells us we are to "stand fast"  in the liberty we have in Christ. It sounds odd to say it, but liberty in Christ is non-negotiable. As men and women in Christ Jesus, we may or may not actually practice certain liberties. But we don't have the right to abandon the liberty of our position: we have been set free in Christ, and we do not have the right to allow ourselves to fall into bondage.

Galatians 5:13 goes on to say that we have been called to liberty. If we are not living as free men and women in Christ Jesus, we are not living up to our calling. I don't think we appreciate this enough: a gospel that doesn't include liberty in Christ Jesus is false gospel.

Galatians 5:13 then tells us that we're not to use our liberty as an "occasion to the flesh."  So here's a line we cannot cross: we must not allow ourselves to fall into the false gospel of liberty-less Christianity. At exactly the same time, we must not allow ourselves to use our liberty in Christ to give the flesh opportunities to do what it does.

There is a connection here with Romans 6:14–16. If we obey sin (and remember that "sin" in Romans 6 doesn't mean "sins," but is a master who wants us as slaves), then we find we become the slaves of sin. It is possible for us to take the liberty we have in Christ Jesus and use it in such a way that we find ourselves enslaved. 

Of course, Christians who take that as an excuse to deny liberty in Christ Jesus are really denying the Gospel. So we need to walk very, very carefully here. On the one hand, we mustn't disobey Romans 6:14–16 and lose our liberty in slavery to sin. On the other hand, we mustn't disobey Galatians 5:1, denying the Gospel by not standing fast in liberty.  

We've said this so many times, but it bears repeating: law is no remedy for lawlessness. Legalism born of fear that someone might use liberty as "an occasion to the flesh" is like burning down a barn to remove a rat infestation, or amputating a finger because of a hangnail. It's a cure that's much, much worse than the disease. It's denying Christ.

Whatever sin we fear someone might fall into, denying the liberty we have in Christ Jesus is worse. We should meditate very carefully on this. The one is a sin to be repented of, the other is spitting in the face of the Son of God. There is nothing worse than that.

Romans 14:1–3 clarifies that being called into liberty doesn't mean we must practice our liberty all the same way. Notice that it's possible for our individual practices to vary: some might eat meat, some might not, but both are to do it "to the Lord."  Some might drink alcohol, some might not, but both are to do it "to the Lord." 

To put it another way, Christ has set us free both to practice and to not practice our liberty. A believer might not drink alcohol, another believer might have no problem drinking. We are forbidden from saying that the one is more spiritual than the other (Romans 14:3, 13). 

Having liberty in Christ to smoke a cigar doesn't mean we must smoke cigars, to go back to Spurgeon's example.

I have known Christians who celebrated holidays like Christmas and Easter. I have known other believers who did not. We are free to "regard a day," and we are free to "esteem every day alike" (Romans 14:5–6). But we are not free to deny the Lord.  If one believer regards all days alike, he must not judge those who regard one day over another. If another believer regards one day over another, he must not look down on the one who esteems all days alike.

See, it's not sin to eat meat, or drink wine, or celebrate holidays. It is sin to deny our liberty in Christ.

Romans 14:14 makes two different statements, and we should be careful to observe them: " I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself." There is no excuse for a Christian not to know that nothing is unclean of itself. But don't always find ourselves persuaded. So if I recognize that something isn't unclean in itself, but I just can't find myself free before God to do that thing, then I shouldn't do it. But I mustn't sin by saying it's unclean in itself.

And many others have pointed out, if we can't do something in the name of the Lord Jesus, it's not one of the "all things" we should be doing.

So those are a few thoughts about liberty in Christ Jesus. Denying liberty in Christ is sin, but we aren't obligated to practice our liberty: we might find ourselves "not eating to the Lord" or "not drinking to the Lord."  

We must not allow ourselves to be enslaved once more by making liberty in Christ Jesus an occasion to the flesh.

We must not allow ourselves to be goaded into denying the Gospel by fear that someone might take liberty in Christ too far.

And above all, whether we eat or don't eat, whether we drink or don't drink, we must do it "to the Lord." We are to do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Colossians 3:17).

 

 

Lordship and Liberty

A friend of mine made a comment the other night about Spurgeon's announcement that he intended to "smoke a cigar to the glory of God." That resonated with me, because I have been struggling for the last couple years to understand what Francis Schaeffer called "the lordship of Christ over the whole of life." And I think Spurgeon's comment helps.

I have advocated for "liberty in Christ" for many years. That really is biblical (Galatians 5:1, 13).  We are called unto liberty, and we cannot allow that to be eroded in the tiniest way. We need to "stand fast." This is a hill to die on.

At the same time, it seems like "liberty in Christ" has led (as often as not) to the notion that there are parts of my life that God doesn't care about.  So many times I've seen someone take liberty in Christ to mean that there are autonomous parts of my life. And eventually, that leads us into this "heavenly vs earthly" dichotomy. This is precisely the "upper storey" problem that Francis Schaeffer warned us about.

And notice, Scripture doesn't give us liberty and leave us there. Consider Romans 14:6, the one who eats eats "to the Lord," the one who does not eat "[it is] to [the] Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks." So it's not merely that I have freedom to eat or not to eat. Rather, whether I eat or don't eat, it's to the Lord, and thanking God through Him. 

So liberty in Christ is necessary, but it's not sufficient.  We must not compromise on our liberty in Christ, but we must not stop there either. Liberty in Christ isn't merely liberty, so to speak. It's not that we have license to own some parts of our lives to rule over ourselves as we see fit. It's not that there are neat compartments where we can autonomously choose to enjoy certain things without feeling guilty before God. That's liberty in some sense, but it comes short of the calling.

Rather, Colossians 3:17 calls us beyond liberty, to live to Christ in all things. 

Francis Schaeffer explains,

The lordship of Christ over the whole of life means that there are no platonic areas in Christianity, no dichotomy or hierarchy between the body and soul. God made the body as well as the soul and redemption is for the whole man  (Art and the Bible, quoted in  "10 Things You Need to Know about Francis Schaeffer", Christianity.com).

Like Spurgeon, I've been known to enjoy a cigar. I've understood that to be a liberty I have in Christ. But I don't know that I've ever enjoyed a cigar to the glory of God. Or, in the words of Colossians, in the name of the Lord Jesus. But that's precisely our calling.

So for the last couple years, I've been intentional about doing all things in the name of the Lord Jesus. And it didn't take very long to ask, "but what does that really mean?" How would I do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus? Well, the verse goes on to say, "giving thanks to God the Father through Him." So I've been intentional about practicing that.

Even feeding my chickens can be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, when I'm giving thanks to God the Father through Him. So I thank the Father that I have chickens, and that I have feed to give them. I thank Him that coyotes haven't gotten them, and that they give me eggs. And suddenly, feeding chickens becomes something very much part of New Creation: as a man in Christ Jesus, I am feeding chickens in His name.

But before you think, "wow! this is a spiritual giant," let me point out that I've been struggling with this more than two years, and I'll be first to say I haven't arrived yet.

 

Knowing Christ according to the flesh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Why were you not afraid?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The whole

I had an extremely encouraging conversation with a friend who is both much younger and much smarter than I am. Those conversations can be challenging, but also rewarding. I realized in the conversation that our faith must embrace everything that we are. 

It seems to me that we fall constantly into the trap of denying one truth in order to believe another. And that seems evident in our attempts at spiritual growth: some of us attempt to deny our emotions, others attempt to deny our wills, or our bodies, or our intellects in order to achieve some sort of spirituality. But of course none of those things is actually spiritual. True spirituality is not a denial of any part of what we are, it's being all that we are under the control of the Holy Spirit, under the Lordship of Christ (Colossians 3:17).

So the path to spirituality isn't denying our emotions in order to focus on our intellects, any more than it is denying our intellects in order to focus on our wills. We are made in the image of God, and we have emotions, intellects, wills, physical bodies, and so on. We don't become more spiritual by being less intellectual, any more than we become more spiritual by being less emotional, or by being less physical. The point of Christianity isn't that any part of what we are becomes less, it's that all that we are comes under the Lordship of Christ, under the control of the Spirit of God.

 

Our faith is to be intellectual, but not merely intellectual. It is to be emotional, but not merely emotional. It is to be intentional, but not merely intentional. It is to be physical, but not merely physical. But all under the Lordship of Christ.

 

But of course that's not really enough. Our faith is transformational: we who have died with Christ are transformed by it. We die as one thing and are raised another (1 Corinthians 15:40–45).  So please don't misunderstand me to be saying that spirituality is continuing exactly as we were as unregenerate people, that's not at all true. My point is that Christianity doesn't involve becoming less human: Christ is completely Man in His resurrection, just like He was before He died. We, too, will be fully human when we have been raised with Him. Christian perfection is not to be less intellectual, or less emotional, or less physical. We will be all those things in the resurrection.

My point is that denying our wills, or our emotions, or our intellects, or our bodies isn't spirituality. Spirituality is to have a will under God's control. It's to have emotions under God's control. It's to have a body under God's control. It's to have an intellect under God's control. Spirituality is being what God has made us to be, especially being subject to Christ in everything we do, think, and feel.

 

Many years ago I was reading Watchman Nee, and I was struck by his statement that Romans 6 isn't aspirational: it's not that we aspire to be crucified with Christ. It's a statement of fact: we have died with Christ.

Many of the sermons I listen to go off the rails at precisely this point. When those preachers talk about New Creation, they're not talking about something they believe to be real. If you listen – really listen – to what they say, they believe Romans 6 and Colossians 3 and Galatians 2 are metaphors: they are statements we should all be working hard to live up to.

I absolutely believe this is the leaven of evangelicalism: it's the idea that new birth is an addition, as opposed to a replacement. Nothing could be farther from the truth! 

 

But having said all that, the Christian life is nothing less than the life of Jesus in our mortal bodies (2 Corinthians 4:6–12). It's not a diminishing of the mortal body, it's not a diminishing of what we are as God's creations. It's a transformation. It's a change. But it's the life of Jesus worked out in mortal bodies. We can't shortcut the Holy Spirit's work in us by denying our intellects (although our intellect gets us into trouble) or by denying our emotions (as messy as they are) or by denying we have wills (as problematic as our wills prove) or by denying our physical bodies (as much as we might long for transcendence). The Spirit of God is working in us to reveal Christ in those things. And we are foolish to think we can help Him out by denying them.

Try the Spirits

There are some verses that can be tempting to consider out-dated. For example, verses about eating food sacrificed to idols seemed to me to be sort of a "not for today" thing. But then one day, I was a guest in a home with bona fide idols, and I suddenly found myself in desperate need of guidance.

So the problem was me, not the verse. That shouldn't surprise anyone.

1 John 4:1–3 is one of those passages. I never really seemed to need those verses, until all of a sudden I did. It seems to me like when I was growing up, there was a whole lot of distance between the sorts of churches where people would claim to have a new revelation from God and the sorts of churches that I would attend or visit. But (at least here in America) those lines are getting more and more blurry. There are certainly still some pretty hard-line "not for today" churches, but those are getting thinner and thinner on the ground. And I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing... it seems to me some of those churches weren't so much faithful to scripture as they were faithful to their own preferences. But that's a discussion for another day.

Now, let me start out by saying that someone who claims to be hearing from God – either audibly or inaudibly – is making a very serious claim, with some very serious implications. Are they claiming that the Scripture is incomplete? Are they claiming some sort of new revelation? Are they saying they are speaking as an Apostolic authority? Are they claiming equal authority with the writers of the New Testament?

In some cases, that's exactly what they are claiming, and we can condemn that sort of thing very quickly, very easily. The written word of God is complete and authoritative. We don't need to spend a lot of time and effort analyzing that sort of thing.

But there is another case that is much more of a "grey area," the "God gave me this verse" area. I have no doubt that the Lord speaks to us individually: I have no idea what being led of the Spirit is if not that. And neither I nor my friends would claim such a thing is a new revelation. The Spirit of God speaks to us subjectively, sometimes it's just a matter of us seeing a verse for the first time, or in a new light. Sometimes it's realizing that the verse we've read thousands of times is saying something different than we'd always thought. This is legitimately the work of the Spirit of God, and we definitely don't want to condemn that!

When someone claims to have "a word from the Lord," we should listen carefully. But we don't listen naïvely, we test what is said against the Scripture. Does it line up with Scripture? 

1 John 4:1–3 gives us a test, and it's brilliant in both its simplicity and it's breadth. The question is, does the spirit speaking to us confess Jesus Christ come in flesh? It seems to me there are several claims – "confessions" if you will – packed into this sentence, and we are to test "the spirits" by them.

First, the Spirit of God confesses Jesus Christ. I've met many who claim to be Christians, who are much more interested in angels than they are in Jesus Christ. At best, this is a dangerous place to be, at worst, it's a denial of the faith. Colossians 2:18–19 warns against this very thing: it's possible to get distracted by spiritual things and "not hold fast the Head." Angels are real, but we are expressly forbidden from worshiping them (Revelation 22:8–9). We are to worship God, and God alone. Hebrews 1–2 picks up this theme: the Son is over the angels, because He is by nature their superior – He is eternal God – (Hebrews 1:4) and He has earned what they cannot (Hebrews 1:3). 

Notice this contrast: the Son sits at God's right hand (Hebrews 1:3, 13), angels don't sit in God's presence, they stand (cf. Luke 1:19).

Perhaps more subtly, there are those who are content to worship the Father, but seem to forget the Son. John 5:21–23 shows us that it is God's purpose for us to honor the Son just as we honor the Father. If we're not honoring the Son, we're not honoring the Father either. So when I hear someone talk a whole lot about the Father, but never mention the Son, I take careful note. The test in 1 John 4:1–3 isn't what they say about God, but what they say about Jesus Christ. Someone who has a whole lot to say about God but very little to say about Jesus Christ fails that test.

Second, the Spirit of God confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh. A confession of Jesus Christ that's limited to His earthly ministry isn't really enough. You and I didn't come in flesh, we've never been anything except flesh. We began as flesh, and will be eternally flesh – to be sure, it'll be redeemed flesh, but it's still flesh. We are physical beings with a definite beginning.

But Jesus Christ is eternal God. When there was no such thing as flesh, there was the Son. When there was nothing but God, He was there. He is eternal. The Spirit of God confesses not merely Jesus Christ as a real Man, but as truly God.

Third, the Spirit of God confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh. The Spirit of God confesses Jesus Christ as truly Man. There is a danger that we don't believe Jesus Christ is God. There is an equal and opposite danger that we don't treat Him as Man. The Apostles wrote against both errors, but we might not truly appreciate their warnings.

The gospel that Paul preached makes this very clear – He was buried (1 Corinthians 15:4). Notice the language: it's not that "His body was buried,"  but "He was buried." John's gospel makes the same point (John 19:42): "There therefore, on account of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was near, they laid Jesus." The Lord is so completely Man that the Scripture talks about His dead body as Him. He wasn't merely eternal God who took a body, He is eternal God who became Man.

So that's the test from 1 John 4:1–3. I don't think it's the only test, but it's a test, maybe the most important one.

I'm pretty open about the fact that I'm not a cessationist. I can't remember ever taking that position, even as a young person. But I believe it's extremely important for us to test so-called spiritual manifestations against Scripture. 1 Corinthians 14 gives us a series of tests that relate to order, 1 John gives us a series of tests that relate to content.  In all honesty, I can't remember ever being in a meeting where the "spiritual manifestations" passed either set of tests. 

I don't bring that up to be contentious, but because it's of the first importance to me that we don't condemn what Scripture doesn't explicitly condemn. Condemning "spiritual manifestations" that fail to meet the tests of Scripture is nothing but obedience. Condemning those very same things because they don't fit my personal theology is something I just can't conscience.

Anyway for better or for worse, a whole lot of things that were once "fringe" are now "mainline." As we wait for the Son of God to come for us, let's be sure we're testing what we see an hear against Scripture. If we're hearing from a spirit that doesn't confess Jesus Christ come in flesh, let's be clear that's not the Spirit of God.

Waiting

1 Thessalonians 1:9–10 might suggest to us that a Christian is one who has turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from Heaven, whom He raised from the dead. It's striking that the Thessalonian description of Christianity puts waiting for the Son of God from Heaven on par with serving God. I don't mean that those two things are equivalent, but that they are of equal importance.

Philippians 3:17–21 says something similar: we are to model ourselves after those who walk like the Apostles, who are waiting for the Son of God to come from Heaven, to change our bodies to be like His. I'm not sure I've ever really obeyed that exhortation: I'm not sure I've chosen role models based on whether they're waiting for the Son of God from Heaven. But that seems to be what the passage is telling us to do.

 I'm old enough to remember a time when the imminent return of Christ was a common belief among evangelicals. When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, it wasn't a very controversial idea. Somewhere along the way, that seems to have fallen out of favor. 

There are many godly believers who hold different views to mine about the Lord's return. I'm not very dogmatic about eschatology, because I've lived long enough to have been proven wrong about a great many things. But I do insist that the epistles present the Lord's return as something that can happen at any moment, and that the Apostles expected Him to return in their own time. 1 Thessalonians 4:15–18 make it very clear: Paul includes himself in "we who are alive and remain."  1 Corinthians 15:51–52 make it clear that Paul didn't consider himself one who must necessarily die.

I recall reading J. N. Darby, where he pointed out that it's when the servant says "my lord delays" (Luke 12:45–46) that he begins to abuse his position. The servant doesn't say the lord isn't returning at all, merely that he's not returning soon.

I confess that I have fallen into that trap. I haven't ever denied that the Lord is returning, but I have certainly acted like He isn't returning soon. And I am more and more realizing that with this subtle shift in thinking, I have fallen into all sorts of traps.

So I've been reminding myself that the Apostles expected the Lord to return in their own lifetimes, and I am by no means wiser than they. I've been reminding myself that this life is real and significant and what I do here matters, but I have been called to wait for the Son of God from Heaven. 

Those two principles are in a bit of opposition to one another, and we've seen what happens when either one is ignored. On the one hand, those who forget this life is real and significant have a tendency to Gnosticism. On the other hand, those who forget that we're called to wait like the Son of God is just around the corner have a tendency to live like they don't think He's ever coming. 

So let's don't fall into either error. Let's not live like this life doesn't matter, but let's not live like it'll matter tomorrow. It might not.

Remembered

 Psalm 45 ends with a promise to the Son "I will make thy name to be remembered throughout all generations" (Psalm 45:17). I take this promise very seriously, because it ties in very closely with our role as Asenath.

Here we are, where the Man of God has been rejected, and we're waiting for Him to come for us (Philippians 3:20–21, 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10).  The Lord has told us we are to remember Him "until He come" (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). So here we are, waiting for Him to come back for us. And while we wait, we're to be remembering Him.

And we might not think that's very important: we might find any number of things that seem to be more important. But the Lord has asked us to remember Him until He comes.

When I think about the woman at Sychar, I remember the Lord told her that the Father is seeking worshipers (John 4:23). I find that striking: how many times do we read that the Father is seeking for something? As far as I can tell, this is the only time. And I notice the Father isn't seeking for servants, or champions, or talented people to advance the kingdom. He's seeking worshipers. And apparently He's content if they're just like the woman at the well, who've thrown away their lives already, and are wondering what they've gotten for it.

The Father is seeking worshipers, and the Son has told us to remember Him until He comes for us: those two things should align our hearts and – more importantly – our eyes while we're here. But if we go back to Psalm 45, we'll see there's one more thing. The Father has promised the Son that He'd be remembered throughout all generations. The Father has made a promise to the Son, and He's invited us to be part of its fulfillment.

Think about that for a while!

How many times do we get to be involved in the relationship between the Father and the Son? But that's exactly what remembering Him is.

So as hard as it is for me to do – much harder than it is for me to say – I need to get it into my head, and into my heart, that I am in this wicked world for a purpose. It's not to make a fortune here, it's not to enjoy what this world has to offer, it's not even to make this world a better place. The point of my being here is so that His name will be remembered until He comes back. And while I believe we are to make every part of our lives an act of worship – doing all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father by Him (Colossians 3:17) – at the same time I realize that the most important thing is to be waiting for the Son of God from Heaven, remembering Him until we actually see His face.

Except the Lord build the house

 Psalm 127:1–5

 

A friend asked me the difference between Dispensationalism and and Covenant Theology. My answer is that the one stresses discontinuities between the Old and New Testament, while the other stresses continuity. That's a pretty vague statement, but I think it's a good place to start. Obviously both are -isms, and so both are definitely wrong in at least some points. 

One of the effects of reading Darby extensively was that I began to back off a lot from the Dispensationalism I grew up with, as I began to see more and more continuities between the Old and New Testaments. That's not to say I dove into Covenant Theology, or anything like it. But reading Darby forced me to see and appreciate many continuities between the Old and New Testaments, which aren't really acknowledged among more mainstream Dispensationalists.

I really do believe all -isms are wrong. Dispensationalism, Calvinism, Arminianism – they're all wrong by virtue of the fact they're -isms. Yes, even Darbyism (and that really is a thing). They're all wrong because none quite addresses the whole counsel of God. Further, it seems like we humans just can't resist moving from "working model" to "interpretive framework" to "replacement for Scripture." We just can't seem to avoid getting to the place where we disregard at least some part of Scripture because of our personal theology (Matthew 15:1–6).

Don't get me wrong! If the choice is between Calvinism and Arminianism, and I have to choose, I'll take Calvinism every time. As far as I can tell, it represents Scripture much more completely and honestly than the other... but it would be far better for me to stick to Scripture. Similarly, I think Dispensationalism is a much better -ism than Covenant Theology, but it's still an -ism, it's still lacking, and it still easily becomes a replacement for Scripture if we allow our vigilance to fail.

I've said it many times: the unique feature of Darby's writings is that he resists the temptation to develop a theology. I wish I could do the same.

One of the marks of the "dispensationalism" of Darby, Kelly, et al. was the teaching that a godly walk isn't the result of careful adherence to the Law, or careful self-discipline, but the result of our union with Christ in His death, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the work of God in us. Of course that's a mark of that era's Dispensationalism that was quick to disappear. Many who teach Dispensationalism today still mention our union with Christ, but they seem to think it's relegated to a "positional" truth, not something that really affects our lives. 

Of course there is the opposite error: an error that I easily fall into. We won't passively fall into godliness. It's easy for me (and some other people I know) to allow ourselves to fall into the error opposite legalism, which is an almost fatalistic "passivism." That's not what Scripture teaches.

So what does Scripture teach?

 Psalm 127:1–2 shows us what's happening behind the scenes. There are builders working on a house, but unless the Lord is the one actually building it, their labor is vain. There are watchmen watching over a city, but unless the Lord is keeping it, their waking is in vain. 

Vain labor is a thing. It's probably more common than we realize: time, effort, resources spent pursuing some end on our own, without the Lord being in it. Robert has commented that "without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5) is a promise we don't like to remember. We like to think we are capable of accomplishing things on our own, we don't like to remember that without the Lord, we might well do things, but we can't accomplish anything.

Well, we don't interpret Psalm 127:1–2 to mean that the city shouldn't post watchers, nor that the builder of a house shouldn't work hard. That's going beyond what the Scripture actually says. It's not an injunction against human effort, but it is an observation that we cannot control the outcome of our labors. The Lord accomplishes what He sets out to accomplish, and we work against Him in vain.

We like to speak out against laziness – and rightly so –, but Psalm 127:2 tells us that the Lord gives rest to His beloved. Now, I read "His beloved" to mean primarily Christ, but it seems to me there is an extension to us here as well. When we recognize that our work is really His work, then we realize the outcome isn't really our concern. We don't pour our lives into vain labor, we allow Him the end that He wants.

At the same time, I have come to believe that our work (work "of the Lord" 1 Corinthians 15:58) is real and significant. I confess that any number of times over the last twenty-five years, I've held to a view pretty close to fatalism. I have many times believed – in fact, if not in words – that we are more or less just to sit and wait for God to do the work. I was wrong. That's not what Scripture describes. Rodger mentioned to me that sonship implies a significant relationship, almost an uneven partnership. We have been called into a relationship with the Father and the Son where we have been freed and empowered to take part in the work the Lord is doing. 

But make no mistake, the partnership is definitely not an even one. That's what Psalm 127 is saying. Those who build the house are laboring: but it's the Lord who really builds the house. The watchmen are waking, but it's the Lord who is keeping the city. So we're not working to produce something for God. We're working with God, to be a very small part of what He's producing. That's really the idea of sonship: that we come into the family business and take part. But we don't delude ourselves into thinking the family business was struggling until we took part: God is and was getting precisely the outcome that He wants.

 

Dead to the Law

 I was reading a book whose authors contend that Christians being "not under law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14–15) and their being "dead to the law" (Romans 7:4–6) shouldn't be taken to mean that Christians aren't under obligation to the Law. Their explanation is that "not under law" means not justified by keeping the law.

This view isn't as uncommon as we might expect, so it's worth thinking over.

Galatians 4:3–5 asserts that Christ came to "redeem those under law". So we can confidently say that at least some people are (or were) "under law". If we are to take these authors' view of what it means to be "under law", then we have to conclude that Galatians 4:3–5 teaches there are those who are justified by works. That's an odd statement in light of Galatians 3:10–12, Romans 3:19–20, etc.

What the epistles explicitly teach is that God has only ever justified sinners on the basis of faith (Romans 1:17, 4:1–15). God has never justified on the basis of works – not based on the Law of Moses or any other law. Justification is by faith, only and always. This is the clear teaching of the first four chapters of Romans, as well as the epistle to the Galatians.

So what does it mean to be "under the law"? Romans and Galatians both make it clear that the function of the Law was to reveal sin (not, as Darby points out, sins). In fact, Galatians makes the astonishing statement that it would have been unrighteous of God to add the Law as a condition to a promise He had made to Abraham 400 years earlier (Galatians 3:15–26). We can't make a promise, then add caveats and conditions long after the fact. So we conclude that the Law has nothing – nothing! – to do with justification in God's sight, nor even with the promised blessing to Abraham.

So the Law was only ever a "rule of life", never a means of justification.

And at this point, the entire argument falls apart. If the Law was never more than a rule of life, then it cannot be said that those "under the Law" were under it as more than a rule of life. Nor can it be said that those "not under Law" are under it as a rule of life, but not as a means of justification. That's absurd.

It's striking that Romans 7:4–6 describes our relationship to the Law in the same terms that Romans 6:11 uses to describe our relationship to sin. The Christian lives as separately from the Law as he does from sin.

Now, I realize there are more nuanced views that I've sort of glossed over here. But it seems to me that the Epistles clearly and unequivocally teach that the believer is, indeed, dead to the Law and under no obligation to it. That doesn't mean the believer is to live lawlessly, not at all! But it falls far short of what Scripture teaches to suggest that the Law has any authority at all over the believer.

The Synagogue

Sometime in the past couple years, I was struck by the fact that both the Lord and Paul appear to have regularly attended the Synagogue. Luke 4:16 tells us it was the Lord's custom to attend the synagogue. Acts 18:4 tells us Paul visited the synagogue every sabbath in Corinth.

What struck me is, the synagogue isn't in the Law of Moses. It was an invention of post-captivity Judaism; we generally credit Ezra with inventing the tradition of the synagogue (Nehemiah 8:1–12). In fact, the first sabbath day commandment – given before the children of Israel reached Sinai – commands against leaving your home (Exodus 16:29).  But the Lord respected the synagogue tradition, and appears to have attended faithfully.

I've spent a lot of time with folks who take very seriously any and all commands in the New Testament about the church and its order. We don't always agree on what that means – for example, "open" assemblies generally have elders, while "exclusive" assemblies take a "not for today" position on elders –, but it's not taken lightly. There is a tendency among some groups almost to attempt to reset the ecclesiastical clock and go back to Acts 2, like the last two millennia can just be ignored. And while I personally hold views along the lines of J. N. Darby and William Kelly, I see no less conviction on the part of others who might hold slightly different views.

So you can imagine my surprise when I realized that the Lord went to the synagogue. And He didn't apparently go there to accuse them of following a man-made tradition, He didn't go there and tell them that there's no mention of the synagogue in the Law, He didn't go there to remind them that they were to worship only in the place where God had put His name (Deuteronomy 12:1–14). He went there and read the scriptures.

And that made me question a whole lot of things.

Now's a good time to remind ourselves that the Lord did, indeed, call out the Pharisees for things they had added to Scripture (Matthew 15:1–9). We should remind ourselves that He went back to "the beginning" when it was a question of divorce and remarriage (Matthew 19:1–9). So the Lord didn't just act like adding to the Word of God was OK. But we can't honestly say He followed a regulative principle either.

Now, it's true that the Lord is eternally God. It's true that He has every right to do whatever He likes, because He is God. But that doesn't appear to be what's going on here. The fact is that the Lord submitted to the Scriptures, treating them like they were the written record of God's words. But here's a case where He accepted the traditions of Judaism, apparently without any qualms at all.

I don't doubt that the Lord's life as a man on earth was entirely characterized by a moment-by-moment obedience to the Father (Isaiah 50:4; John 5:16–20).  I don't doubt that He was led by the Spirit of God every single step He took (Luke 4:1, etc.). There's no doubt in my mind that the Lord wasn't just doing what He felt like doing at the time.

But at the end of the day, here's a case where He accepted the traditions Judaism without making a point of reminding everyone that they weren't (in this case) strictly obeying the Law. He wasn't calling everyone to follow the "Old Testament pattern."

And the Apostles seemed to have a similar attitude. I've spend many years contemplating Acts 15, but without getting too side-tracked, I'll just say that when a dispute about the Law arose, the Apostles weren't shy about making a decision. Was it a godly decision? Apparently it was (Acts 15:28).

So I've been making a conscious effort not to get too hung up on a regulative principle. I've spent many years doing exactly that. I'm not saying "anything goes," not at all. I haven't forgotten that the Lord accused the Pharisees of allowing the traditions of the fathers to make the Word of God of none effect (Mark 7:9–14). But I'm also realizing that the Lord was led by the Spirit of God to participate in things that fail the to meet the standards of a strict regulative principle. And I'm not going to claim to be better than Him.

The wages of sin

Housekeeping Note: I just found a whole bunch of comments that were awaiting moderation, some from a very long time ago. If you've tried to comment and your comment just disappeared, that was probably my fault. I'm sorry. I've updated the comment settings to make commenting easier, while hopefully cutting down on spam.

I was listening to a preacher a few weeks ago, who said, "the wages for sin is death."

Of course that's not what the Scripture actually says... the actual quote is, "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23, emphasis added). The idea here isn't that death is the reward for sinning – the idea is that sin is a master who pays his servants wages. The wage he pays is death.

At the simplest level, the two ideas seem very close, but when we give it some thought, we realize that there is actually quite a bit of difference between them.

We've already discussed the difference between sin and sins. Sin is the principle that lives in my [fallen] body (Romans 8:10), while sins are specific acts (Romans 4:7; 1 John 1:9). Scripture is careful to keep these two ideas distinct, although they do necessarily touch at times; for example, a single sinful act is "a sin". But there is a difference between the specific act and the principle that motivated it.

The difference is striking in Romans, where the first four-and-one-half chapters discuss sins, while the next three-and-a-half chapters discuss sin. The transition comes in Romans 5:9–12. Romans 5 starts out by describing the blessings of those who have been "justified by faith" (Romans 5:1), but continues on to discuss the deeper problem: that when Adam sinned, we all became sinners (Romans 5:19). We generally think the we are sinners because we sin, but really Scripture takes the opposite point of view: we sin because we [already] are sinners.

Let's take a moment to try and get our arms around that. There are those who believe that we're all guilty of Adam's sin, but I just can't find that in Scripture. Scripture doesn't claim we'll be judged for Adam's sin, but for our own (Romans 2:3–11). But Scripture does teach that it's on account of Adam's sin that we are sinners (Romans 5:19). So we're not guilty of Adam's sin, but we're fallen because of it.

But back to Romans 6:23... In Romans 6–8, we have the problem of sinfulness – not guilt exactly. The idea here isn't that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23); the idea here is that all are sinners, and are thus slaves to sin. So in Romans 6–8, sin is a master we obey (Romans 6:6, 12, 16–17, 20). And so Romans 6:23 gives us a dire warning: if we obey sin, it'll pay us wages. Those wages are death.

Sin is present with us as long as we are in fallen bodies (Romans 7:17, 23; Romans 8:3, 10, 23). There will come a day when the Son of God will come from Heaven to change our bodies to be like His (Philippians 3:20–21), and we won't have sin anymore. But now we find it's a constant enemy, and it's an enemy we can't get away from: we carry it with us everywhere we go.

I can't find anything in Scripture that says God condemns us for what we are. He judges according to works. But at the same time, our works are really driven by what we are. This distinction is important in Romans, and it's important in the Christian life. God forgives the sins of those who believe (Romans 4:1–8). So there is no condemnation for them: the Judge has already declared "not guilty". But while that gives us hope in the next life (if I can say it that way), it doesn't do a lot to affect the quality of their life now. A forgiven sinner is still a sinner.

The good news for us in this life is that God has freed us through death from our master sin (Romans 6:1–11). As far as God is concerned, we have died with Christ. So we are now freed from sin (from sin's power, not its presence). Our responsibility is to accept what God says is true, even if it doesn't look true to us. And as we accept what God says by faith, we come into the good of it.

But that doesn't take us out of the bodies that are "dead because of sin" (Romans 8:10). Even though we are freed from the power of sin, we find its presence still with us. So we still look for the Son of God to come from Heaven and redeem our fallen bodies (Philippians 3:20–21).

And that brings us back to the misquoted verse about wages. Romans 6:23 isn't telling us about God's judgment for sinning. It's telling us about sin's role as a master. And it follows the warning that we, having been freed from sin by death, can still put ourselves under bondage to sin simply by obeying it (Romans 6:15–16). Notice the parallel to Romans 8:11–13. Both warn us that it's very easy for us to go from practical freedom from sin into practical bondage to sin in an astonishingly short time.

As much as I hate to say it, this is an area where J. N. Darby's ministry is somewhat weak. I respect Darby very highly, but I think this is an area where he was so careful to avoid the ditch on one side of the road, he almost ran into the ditch on the other. He does a good job describing this problem in "Deliverance from the Law of Sin" (Collected Writings, Volume 32, pp. 323–331), but he tends to gloss over this problem in his other writings. So let me pause and emphasize that it's entirely possible for someone to experience the liberty of Romans 6 or Romans 8, and still fall into a sort of a practical bondage to sin. It's possible to fall, regardless of how far down the path we've gone. As long as we're in unredeemed bodies, we need to watch.

Yet without sin

Several years ago, I read "Review of R. Pearsall Smith on 'Holiness through Faith'" by J. N. Darby (Collected Writings, Volume 23, pp. 184–211). Odd as it sounds to say, it was a major turning point for me.

I was struck by Darby's insistence that temptation is sin:

Temptation is used in two senses in scripture. We are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lusts and enticed, and we are tempted from without by the enemy. The latter the Lord underwent, the former of course never. All this is confounded by Mr. S. He says temptation is not sin. In the sense used by James, it is sin. In the other sense of testing or trying, it is not. (p. 190)

I had grown up believing the old evangelical idea that "it's not sin to be tempted, it's only sin if you give in." After examining James 1:13–14, I had to admit Darby was correct. It is sin to be tempted. We are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lusts and enticed.

Of course it's not transgression when we're tempted: there is a difference between being enticed to sin and actually sinning. But it's still sin. If we hadn't lusts to draw us away, we'd never be enticed. The very fact that evil things entice us indicates there is something wrong.

The problem is that we are so careless and fail to distinguish between sins and sin. The former are specific transgressions: they are acts of sin. The latter is the principle that lives in us (Romans 7:17). Having the former means we're guilty, having the latter means we're lost.

"By law is knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). Not "sins", but "sin." Law does reveal specific sins, but the point of law is not to make us understand that certain things are sins, it's to make us understand that there is a principle of sin within us. It's to reveal that we are lost. The heathen understood their guilt (Romans 2:15), it doesn't take law to prove that. Law was brought in to show we're not merely guilty, but lost as well.

Temptation addresses not merely guilt, but also lostness. If we find ourselves tempted to sin, then James tells us we've already been drawn away of our own lusts. The believer who is tempted is the believer who has allowed his own lusts to draw him away (James 1:13–15).

And of course this touches on the person of Christ. There is an idea out there that Christ was tempted exactly like we are, by every sin that tempts us. The idea is based on Hebrews 4:15, but it's completely wrong. Christ was never tempted to sin in the sense that we are tempted to sin: He had no lusts to draw Him away. God cannot be tempted by evil things (James 1:13), and it makes Christ less than God to say He could be tempted by them.

What Hebrews 4:15 actually says is, Christ was "tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (NASB). The error here is in thinking "yet without sin" means "yet without sinning." It does not. It means there was no sin in Him to respond. "The ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing" (John 14:30). In tempting Christ, Satan proved that there were no lusts there to draw Him away. The temptation of Christ proved not that He didn't succumb to temptation, but that He was not capable of being tempted by evil things.

This is really the point of Colossians 3:5–7, isn't it? We're not to walk through this wicked world constantly struggling not to succumb to temptation. We're to walk through this wicked world like Christ did, unaffected by the sin around us. That's why we're told to put to death our members on the earth. If we find ourselves tempted by evil things, it proves that there is un-mortified flesh acting in us. It proves we have failed of the calling of Colossians 3:5–7. If we find ourselves drawn away of our own lusts and enticed, it means we haven't been putting to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:12–13).

So let's not fall into those subtle errors. Christ was tempted in all things like we are, but not by all things like we are. He was (and is) without sin, there were no lusts to draw Him away and entice Him. Let's not lower Him to the level of a sinner, saying He was tempted by evil things. And don't let's give ourselves a pass when we are tempted and think, "it's OK to be tempted, as long as I don't actually give in to that temptation." It's not: we are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lusts and enticed. When we find ourselves tempted by evil things, let's treat that like what it is – our flesh acting in its own lusts – and judge that before God.

Counterfeit Spirituality

The four points of the gospel given in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 are:

1. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures
2. he was buried
3. he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures
4. he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve

These four propositions group themselves into two pairs: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" and "he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" seem to fit naturally together, while "he was buried" and "he appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve" seem to fit together. Interestingly, these two pairs are pairs of opposites: dying and being raised are opposites, just as being buried and appearing are opposites.

We've also noted that these four points are an outline of the Christian life. Christ has died, and we have died with Him (Colossians 3:3). Christ was buried, and we have been buried with Him (Colossians 2:12). Christ has been raised from the dead, and we have been raised with Him (Colossians 3:1). Christ was seen, and we shall be seen with Him (Colossians 3:4).

We can see how this gospel is not only the gospel we have received, it is also the gospel by which we are saved, and the gospel in which we stand (1 Corinthians 15:1–2).

When we consider the gospel as an outline of the Christian life, we realize there is something entirely other about that life. It's entirely outside our experience to see a man who has died and was buried come out of the grave. If we saw that happen, we would be astonished. In fact, we might not believe it really happened, even if we had seen it ourselves.

Similarly, our lives are to be characterized by resurrection (Philippians 3:10). We're not called to live a good life, we're called to live an impossible life. We're called not to be good men and women, but to have the life of Jesus manifested in our mortal bodies (2 Corinthians 4:10–12). People aren't supposed to see our life at all, they're supposed to see the life of Jesus when they look at us.

Our lives should look as strange to our friends and neighbors as the Lord's life looked to the people around Him. Our lives should be as impossible for the people around us to understand and explain as it is for us to explain resurrection.

But that comes with a tremendous cost: 2 Corinthians 4:10 tells us the cost is death works in us. It's not here reckoning ourselves to have died (that's Romans 6). It's something we experience. And experiencing death is unpleasant.

In fact, it's such an odd concept to us that we manage to convince ourselves that Scripture doesn't really mean what it says: we convince ourselves that really it means we should try to live like Christ did, rather than what it plainly says: He lives in and through us.

And once we've convinced ourselves that what we're really called to do is to imitate Him, then we set about to make reasonable facsimiles of His life. Or at least reasonable facsimiles of some of the qualities we perceive in His life.

And we end up with counterfeit spirituality.

Because God doesn't call us to check items off a list to make our lives look similar Christ's. God calls us to a life the begins with dying with Christ, a life that's lived under the control of God, and in the power of His Spirit. He calls us to have the life of Jesus manifested in our mortal flesh.

God doesn't want my life. He doesn't want the best I can do, He doesn't even want the best I theoretically could do. He doesn't want even the very best version of me that could ever exist. He wants to see the life of Jesus manifested in my mortal flesh. And notice the contrast here: it's specifically in my mortal body that God wants to display the life of Jesus. Some day Christ will change my body to be like His – immortal and incorruptible (Philippians 3:20–21) – and then it'll be too late. God's not looking to display the life of Jesus in immortal bodies, but in mortal. He's looking for this amazing contrast: for the life of Jesus in unredeemed bodies.

So let's be careful not to become those who have a form of godliness without its power (2 Timothy 3:5).