The least you could do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

W. H. Griffith Thomas points out:

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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).

Worlds Colliding

It has been several years since I realized there was a bit of a disconnect in my mind. I read or re-read J. N. Darby's article, "First Resurrection; or, Resurrection of the Just" (Collected Writings, Vol. 2, pp. 301–309), and was struck by the clarity with which he points out that the Lord's coming for us is precisely Resurrection. Somehow, in my mind, the Lord's coming for us and the Resurrection were two distinct events.  There was a moment in my head that went something like this:

NICENE CREED: Our hope is the resurrection

DISPENSATIONALIST BIBLE TEACHER: No, our hope is the Lord coming for us

J. N. DARBY: (Looking confused) What's the difference?

That has proven to be a life-changing moment.

Over the past couple years, I have found myself combating the idea that our faith is (or ought to be) what Francis Schaeffer would call an "upper storey experience." I find myself slipping over and over into the idea that there's a "real world right now" reality where I go to work, pay my bills, keep the woodstove burning, wash dishes, and do all the "mundane" things; and then there's another level of reality where God is, where I am a believer, where the Lord Jesus is coming for me. It's really a very split view of reality... But that's not what Scripture teaches. 

There is a repeated theme when Moses addresses the children of Israel on the plain in Moab, he appeals to them several times on the basis of what they saw, and what they had heard (see Deuteronomy 4:9–13, etc.). The face-value message is that they shouldn't forget the Lord, but there is a deeper message here too: he is reminding them that these things really happened. They weren't to think of them in terms of myth, but in terms of documented, verified, witnessed history.

In Francis Schaeffer's excellent True Spirituality, he talks about how, if we were at the Crucifixion and we were to run our hands over the cross, we'd get splinters. His point is that the events of our faith happened in this world: they're not in some mystical reality. There is a physical place where the Son of God physically died, and people were there who saw it (John 21:24–25).

The appeal to witnesses characterizes both the Old and New Testaments. Moses appeals to the people to remember what they themselves had seen and heard, Paul appeals to over five hundred witnesses of the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1–8), and in what strikes me as the most convincing statement of the entire chapter, he admits that most of them are still alive, but some had since died.

But the point that Moses was making, that Paul was making, that Francis Schaeffer was making, is that our faith isn't in some other. We believe the Lord rose bodily from the dead. We believe God actually spoke to Moses in an audible voice, in human language. We don't believe the Lord will come for us spiritually (whatever that means), we believe He will actually arrive in this physical world at a definite point in time, and take us away.

I've been struggling to understand how to live that reality. The first thing I began to understand is that everything in this life is to be done in the name of Christ (Colossians 3:17). I don't even begin to know all that means, and I'm quite sure I'm not living up to it. But one thing it has to mean is that there's no such thing as a mundane thing. I'm to eat and drink in the name of Christ. I'm to wake and sleep in the name of Christ. I'm to wash dishes and drive to work in the name of Christ. I am to feed my chickens in the name of Christ. And yes, I am to kill and eat those chickens (when the time comes) in the name of Christ.

I think our Reformed friends have a better handle on this than our Dispensationalist friends do.

Something else it means is that asceticism is fundamentally flawed: if I am to do all things in the name of Christ, then there's really no part of this physical life that I am divorced from. I'm not to live in the hope of being rescued from this life, I am to live it in the name of Christ.  

Which is not, of course, to say we're not to be looking for the Son of God to come from Heaven to change our mortal bodies (Philippians 3:20–21). But it is to say that we ought to be living this life – until He comes – in His name.

There's a lot more to be said, but it's time to wrap this one up. Suffice it to say, doing all things in the name of Christ is one of the simplest and hardest things to do. But it's what keeps us from living in a spiritual un-reality. It protects us from asceticism on the one hand and latitudinarianism on the other. But more on that later.

Creation

I'm no great hunter, but I very much enjoy hunting. I'm enthusiastic rather than skilled.  Last year, I was trying to get a clear shot at an elk who walked down into a gully, out of my sight. Not wanting to lose a chance at him, I climbed down from  the tree stand and started making my way carefully down the hill after him. When I gave up and turned to go back for my pack, I saw two black, furry ears peaking out over a bush extremely close to where I had left my pack. I was so intent on the elk I was stalking, I had completely missed the bear that was much closer.

We all have trouble with tunnel vision. We all tend to focus so much on one thing we can't see anything else. One of the issues I have with a whole lot of ministry by "brethren" is precisely tunnel vision: a focus so intent on one issue, they are oblivious to all other issues. But I am just as bad as any of them.

One area where I've had really bad tunnel vision has been the whole area of New Creation.  The Pauline epistles bring New Creation into view sharply, front and center. "For [in Christ Jesus] neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision; but new creation" (Galatians 6:15). God isn't looking for us to improve what we are by nature in Adam, He is looking for something entirely new, what we are in Christ.

But the equal and opposite truth is, New Creation isn't some ethereal, vague place. It's not nirvana. We know this, because the Lord Jesus, having been raised from the dead, was as much a physical Man as any of us are. John 20:26–28 tells the story of Thomas not believing the Resurrection. So the Lord appears to the disciples, and invites Thomas to touch the nail marks in His hands and the spear wound in His side. Notice it's a physical touch that the Lord offers as proof. This isn't some discorporeal apparition, it's a real Man, with a real body.

And 1 Corinthians 15 brings both these truths to equal light and importance: the core of our faith – the single most important thing we believe – is that Christ has been raised from the dead in His physical body. If we don't believe in the bodily Resurrection of Christ, we're not Christians, period. This isn't negotiable (1 Corinthians 15:11–17). And Christ being raised from the dead, we shall also be raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:19–28). That's one truth, the bodily Resurrection.

The other truth is that Resurrection changes us (1 Corinthians 14:42–45). We won't be raised exactly like we are now, we'll be raised into incorruptibility. Our bodies will be changed to be like His. Not new bodies, but changed bodies, certainly. That's what we're waiting for: the Son of God will come from Heaven to transform our bodies (Philippians 3:20–21).

I have trouble keeping both these things in mind at the same time. I tend to think about the Lord coming to transform my body in such a way that I forget it'll still be a human body. I tend to think lose sight of the truth of bodily resurrection when I am thinking about the truth of our being raised into incorruptibility.

But the reality is that the end goal isn't for me to be any less human than I am. I'll be transformed, certainly, but not less human for all that. Francis Schaeffer might argue I'll be more human. I'm not sure I really buy that, but it's worth thinking about.

Or to put it another way, New Creation is still the sort of thing where we wash dishes and learn to play guitar. It's not a place where we sit around like a cartoon parody of Heaven, with gentle background music and harps and clouds. Ellis Potter points out that the Lord baked bread, build a fire, and roasted fish after His Resurrection. So New Creation definitely doesn't exclude mundane tasks.

There's a lot more to be said, but I think this is a good place to stop for now.

Dead to Sin

 I've written about this so many times that I'm afraid anything I write here will merely be a repeat of something I've said before. But perhaps it's worth going over again, and perhaps we might find something new and worthy of our time.

Having grown up very evangelical, it was a turning point in my life when I discovered Romans 6:1–11. For the first time, I realized that Christianity is not about my efforts to please God. The Christian life begins not with "Do!" but with "Done!" And that's not just a statement about justification or redemption – Colossians 2:6 tells us we are to walk with Christ in the same way we received Him. Both are by grace, through faith. Both are resting in what God says about His Son.

The first mention of "salvation" in scripture is Genesis 49:18, "I wait for thy salvation".  We next see it in Exodus 14:13, "stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah."  Exodus 14 goes on to describe what salvation looks like: "Thus Jehovah saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore" (Exodus 14:30–31).

I know I've said this too many times, but it bears repeating here. We tend to see words like "salvation," "redemption," and "justification" as synonyms; they are not. They are very closely related, but they don't at all mean the same thing. These words describe very different things. Sometimes they occur very closely together (sometimes they do not), but they're still very distinct things.

Exodus 14 teaches us two very important facts about salvation:

1. it is God's work – we need to "stand still" to see it (Exodus 14:13)
   
2. it results in our seeing the enemy dead (Exodus 14:30) 

Romans 6 invites us to see the enemy – our own fallen and lost selves – lying dead. There isn't merely some psychological trick the scripture plays on us, it's an act of faith. When I accept what God has said as the truth, I that is faith. Romans 6 doesn't make any sense except as an act of faith. God has said I have died with Christ, therefore it must be true.

Now, Romans 6 doesn't teach annihilation – it's not that I have ceased to exist. But it does teach that that man I was has died. I was once a lost sinner, but having died with Christ, I am not that man any more. And having been raised with Him from the dead (Colossians 3:1), I am now in a place to walk in newness of life. 

And notice, it doesn't say sin has died. It says I have died.

But it's of the first importance (or, as J. N. Darby would say, "of the last importance") that we do what Romans 6:1–11 invites us to do, what the Israelites did in Exodus 14:30. We need to pause and look at the dead enemy. Churches are full of people who are trying to walk in the newness of life, who haven't ever really believed or accepted that their old life has ended, that they have died with Christ. They haven't looked at the bodies on the shore.

And this is the problem I have with so many evangelicals when they start to discuss baptism: they make it out to be an act by which we promise to walk in newness of life. That's not it at all! It's not that we promise something to God, but that we are accepting what He has already done for us. Urging people who have never accepted that they have died with Christ to live in newness of life doesn't result in godliness, it results in hypocrisy.

Let me just add here, that our having died with Christ doesn't empower us. It frees us, but it doesn't empower us. It's the Holy Spirit that empowers us, and He's not the subject of Romans 6, but Romans 8. Having died with Christ, we are now in a place to walk in newness of life. But we find that being in that position isn't actually enough: we need the power of the Holy Spirit. But that's perhaps a subject for another time.

At one point, I applied Romans 6 to various sins. I might have thought to myself, "Remember, you have died to anger," or "you have died to lust." I don't believe that's what Romans 6 is teaching at all. It's talking about sin, not sins. And it's not even talking sin in the most abstract sense, although I thought that for a while too. The context of Romans 6 – the discussion that starts in Romans 6:1 and ends in Romans 8:17 – leads me to believe it's talking about the sin that dwells in me (Romans 7:17). 

But again, it's not that sin has died. Indeed, Romans 8:3–4 indicates that sin, having been condemned, is still very active. But I have died. I have died with Christ, and so I am free from sin (Romans 6:7, NASB). Not from its presence (at least not yet, Romans 8:23), but from its power.

We are, indeed, called to newness of life (Romans 6:4). But we get into trouble when we try and skip steps, and trying to walk in newness of life without recognizing our death with Christ, is definitely skipping a step.

The result of our having died with Christ is glorifying God in our bodies (Romans 6:12–14). This is unique to Christianity. We await the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23, Philippians 3:20–21) when the Son of God comes from Heaven to make them like His. But we're not just supposed to sit here and wait. We're to glorify God now, in fallen bodies. We're to live out in this creation a life that really belongs in the next (2 Peter 3:13).  That doesn't mean we don't hope for the new heavens and new earth, and it doesn't mean we just write this one off. We glorify God here and now, patiently waiting for His time to bring us into the new one. Keeping both of these things in focus, erring neither to the right hand nor to the left, is very difficult for me.

So seeing myself as having died to sin isn't an excuse for inaction in this world. But it's necessary to glorify God here and now.

Resurrection of the just

About a year ago we moved from the city to the middle of nowhere. We like it better here, but it was a pretty drastic move. Obviously we're not remembering the Lord with the same small group in the city. It's not that we were trying to get away from them or anything, just that we're now too far away to make regular visits. And then Coronavirus hit and changed a whole lot of things quickly.

Around the same time we moved, I'd begun to see that I'd allowed a lot of my views on Scripture to lead me into some problems. I wrote about that in "Best Wine" and "Losing Sight". So I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading, re-examining my ideas, questioning my beliefs, trying to throw away what isn't Scripture, embracing what Scripture actually says.

I've been meditating on 1 Corinthians 15:1–8, which naturally led me to contemplate the Resurrection of Christ, and resurrection more generally. The core belief of Christians is that Christ has risen from the dead. All through Acts, this is the central message of the Apostles. A great deal (if not all) of the teaching of the Epistles stems from this one fact. The Resurrection proves who Christ is, what He has done, and what He will do. It is proof that He is the Son of God (Romans 1:4), that He has been appointed Judge of all men and women (Acts 17:31), and that He will raise us too (1 Corinthians 15:20).

Scripture doesn't speak about "resurrection life", but it does talk about the power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:10) as something we can personally know. Sadly, we seem to try and turn that into some statement about the power of God in the sense of what God can do. But that's not really what the Epistles are teaching. It's not merely that the Resurrection is a demonstration of what God can do – it is that, but it's much more – it's that we are participators in Christ's Resurrection because God sees us "in Christ." We have died with Him, we have been buried with Him, we are raised with Him, we shall be seen with Him (Colossians 3:1–4).

The Lord spoke about two distinct resurrections: the resurrection to life, and the resurrection to judgment (John 5:29).  Revelation 20 talks about the "first resurrection" (Revelation 20:1–5) and the "second death" (Revelation 20:12–15). Those line up very clearly with what the Lord said of two resurrections.

Interestingly, Revelation 20:5 places the two resurrections 1,000 years apart, which might give us some hints about eschatology in Scripture. In one passage they're mentioned closely together (John 5:29), in another we're given more concrete information about their spacing in time. This is worth noting as we read through the Scriptures.

1 Corinthians 15:51–57 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 both describe a resurrection when the Lord comes. I don't think this is the same event described in Revelation 20:5, but clearly they're related.  The statement in Revelation 20, "this is the first resurrection," appears to me to be clarifying that the resurrection of the martyrs is part of the first resurrection. I don't think it's saying that the first resurrection is solely comprised of those martyrs, but that those martyrs are also included in the first resurrection that began earlier. 1 Corinthians 15:20 leads me to believe that the first resurrection began with the Lord's Resurrection, continues on through the event in 1 Corinthians 15:51–57 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, and comes to a close when the martyrs are raised in Revelation 20:1–5. These three are each part of one single resurrection. Those who are part of that resurrection are not to be hurt of the second death.

Scripture teaches that we are raised with Christ already (Colossians 3:1). But we are waiting for the resurrection of the body, described in Romans 8:23 and Philippians 3:20–21. But the epistles put us on the ground of that resurrection as far as our conduct, behavior, and testimony in this world are concerned. We are to live in un-resurrected bodies as though we had already been raised. Because in Christ, our resurrection is an accomplished fact.

But we notice that our destiny is not to be disembodied spirits. We aren't looking forward to going to heaven to live there as spirits forever (2 Corinthians 5:1–4). We are looking forward to our bodies being raised, being changed to be like His. My eternal destiny is to see the Lord with these eyes (Job 19:25–27), to see Him standing on the earth. It's easy to lose sight of this.

This idea anchors our thoughts to reality. We're not to be content with this world as it is. We're not to be content with ourselves as we are. We expect the Son of God to come from Heaven to claim us (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18), to redeem our bodies (Romans 8:23), to change us (1 Corinthians 15:51–57),  and to make us like Him (Philippians 3:20–21). And we expect the Son of God to come from Heaven to rule personally, bodily on the earth (Revelation 20:4). And we expect Him to judge all the living and the dead in the last day (Acts 17:31; Revelation 20:11–15).

We expect these things in the real, physical world. We're not talking about some "other", some sort of spiritual reality. We expect the feet of the Son of God to touch the ground in some actual, physical location on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4).

To be clear, I believe these things will happen in three distinct events, separated in time by the others. I don't believe the Son of God will come to claim us and to rule and to judge all at the same time. There are too many distinctions in Scripture between those events for me to think they all happen at once. Certainly the second and third are separated by 1,000 years in Revelation 20, but I'm convinced the first is distinct from the second as well.

But at the end of the day, Resurrection anchors our hopes to this physical reality. That is a profound thought.

Best wine

John 2:1–11 tells the story of the first of the signs in John's gospel: turning water into wine. I've been thinking a lot about this story over the last several months, because it seems to me like it shines light very clearly on an error I fall into. This is a story we hear in connection with marriage quite frequently: the Lord attending a wedding, which we cite as evidence that marriage is endorsed by Christ Himself. I think that's a completely valid conclusion to draw from the story.

We remember the story: the Lord attends a wedding, and they don't have enough wine. A friend of mine said in a Bible reading, "'no wine' is a serious problem – not as serious as 'no water' – but serious nonetheless." I think that's a good summary. I'm afraid (having grown up among Canadian evangelicals) "no wine" doesn't strike me as very serious... but the Lord took it seriously, and so does John.

So the Lord has them pour water into six earthen vessels, and when they draw out the water, they find it's turned to wine. And then they take this new wine to the master of the feast, who comments that they planned the feast wrong: they ought to have served the good wine at the start of the feast, then they should have served the lesser wine after the guests have drunk enough (John 2:10). (Presumably the guests' drinking was supposed to have dulled their palates.) But at this wedding, they served the best wine last.

My buddy went on in that same Bible reading to say that we're going to taste that vintage, but we need to wait until the Kingdom. I'm not much of a wine drinker, but I'm looking forward to tasting that one.

I've been mulling over the fact that the Lord made the best wine. The feast master's appraisal doesn't actually add anything to the miracle: Christ shows who He is by turning water into wine. But the Scripture includes it anyway, which indicates there's a lesson to be learned in it. There is a point beyond the "mere" miracle of turning water into wine: it shows that the Son of God paid attention to something as frivolous as the quality of the wine at a wedding. He didn't take an austere position and tell them that too much wine is bad for them, He didn't tell them they should be grateful for any wine He gave them: He made the best wine.

I confess that my views on Christianity – on sanctification and salvation and manifesting the life of Jesus in our mortal bodies – can lead to a completely passive Christian life. It's not hard from there to fall into a sort of a Gnosticism, where the world around us is somehow irrelevant. And I'm sorry to say that I've known many believers who have fallen into this exact error: they end up almost enslaved to their theology, afraid to act lest they do so "in the flesh" and contrary to the work of the Holy Spirit. It's all too easy to take what Scripture says about "death working in us" to an idea where we strive to be nothing so that Christ can be everything. But as one friend said, "striving to be nothing isn't Christianity, it's Buddhism."

Francis Schaeffer warns in Escape from Reason that if we divorce "Grace" from "Nature", we end up with an autonomous "Nature" that will eventually destroy "Grace" (pp. 28–29). Of course his concern was mainly about humanist intellectuals starting with Thomas Aquinas, but I have fallen into the exact error he cautions against, and I'm not alone.

The problem is as simple as tunnel vision. The truth of our unity with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection is glossed over to the point of complete neglect in many Christian circles. So we end up with a glut of "ministry" that urges counterfeit spirituality, where men and women attempt to be made perfect in the power and energy of the flesh. And when someone sees the truth of their unity with Christ, and the freedom that comes from that, the natural tendency is to share that with everyone. And the more it's resisted, the more it becomes the focus.

So let's just say that our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ is the key to a godly life. There can't be fruit for God unless we have been made dead to the Law by the body of Christ (Romans 7:4).

But let's not lose sight of the whole counsel of God.

Consider 1 Corinthians 6:19–20; we're called to glorify God in our bodies. Consider 2 Corinthians 4:10–11; we're called to manifest the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh. Consider Romans 12:1–2; we're called to present our bodies as living sacrifices. We could go on, but the point is that we're not called to a hypothetical life. We're called to live the life of Jesus in physical bodies, in the physical world.

Yes, the creation is fallen. Yes, our bodies are fallen. Yes, we look for a new heaven and a new earth. But I can't find in Scripture where I'm allowed to treat this creation like it doesn't matter.

A while back, Rodger shared a quote where someone said that Scripture talks about the "new creation", but it never once mentions the "old creation". There's an "old man" and an "old covenant", but there isn't an "old creation" in Scripture, because God isn't finished with the first creation yet. God doesn't call something "old" until He's done with it.

But I have frequently fallen into the trap of calling this present world the "old creation", out of a desire to draw attention to the [Scriptural] idea of New Creation. And I'm not alone.

So let's go back to the wine at Cana... when the Lord Jesus made wine, He made the very best wine. That comment doesn't just give us a hint into the wedding customs of that day: it shows us that the Lord Jesus treated the first creation with dignity as being the work of God. It's fallen, but it's not nothing. It matters. And good wine matters: Christ didn't act like it's unimportant whether the wine is good. He made the very best wine.

And I'm having to remind myself that when I allow myself to divorce this life from heavenly truth, I end up with an autonomous view of this life that eventually overtakes and pollutes my view of the heavenly. It's not just a philosophical trick Schaeffer was playing: it was a very serious warning about a truly dire problem.

Truly Lost

I was listening to a sermon this last weekend about Christian living. It was an odd experience to me: virtually everything the man said was true, but he left out two points that are oh-so-important.

He spoke about the temptation in the Garden, and illustrated James 1:14–17 from Genesis 3. He pointed out that we all have desires, and it's not wrong to have desires, but the first step in the temptation in the Garden was questioning God's motives: the serpent came to Eve with the suggestion that God was holding some good thing back from her. And he talked about how doubting God's motives led to her attempting to find satisfaction from disobeying God. And that led to sin and guilt and shame and death.

I'm painting in broad strokes here: his description of Genesis 3:6ff was actually quite good. But he seemed to miss a very important point when he drew an application to us: unlike Eve (and Adam), we are fallen. Adam and Eve started out innocent. We are not innocent: each of us has indwelling sin. Romans 5:19 tells us that one man's disobedience made everyone a sinner. That's not to say that we are all guilty of Adam's sin, but it is to say that I am a sinner because of Adam's sin.

So regardless of how free Adam's will (or Eve's will) was in the Garden, we really don't have free will now. I don't mean we don't make choices, I mean our will isn't really free. We are inclined to sin: not merely predisposed to sin, but Adam's sin has made us all slaves to sin.

The only freedom from sin is in death (Romans 6:7). Christ has died for my sins according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3; Romans 5:10); that deals with my guilt. I have died with Christ (Romans 6:1–7); that deals with my sinfulness (Romans 6:11). God has made me free from the rule of sin by identifying me with Christ in death (Romans 6:4).

It seems to me that legalism is characterized by not really believing that we are lost. If we are guilty, but not lost, we might see law (the Law of Moses, or some other law) as a path to practical righteousness, because we think we could actually keep it. But Romans 8:3 speaks directly to this idea: law (and here isn't specifically the Law of God) isn't effective, because it is weakened by flesh. I don't take that to mean that flesh in some way changes the Law, but that flesh simply can't keep it. That's borne out a few verses later: the fleshly mind is enmity with God because it isn't subect to the Law of God and cannot be (Romans 8:7). It's not simply that the carnal mind isn't subject to the Law – it's that the carnal mind cannot be subject to the Law of God.

And so we hear really good advice from well-meaning men and women who urge us to obey God. But the problem isn't that the advice isn't good, the problem is that we find ourselves entirely powerless to take it. The harder we try to obey God, the more we realize we simply can't do it.

Romans 5:9 through 8:39 lays out for us the Christian life. It starts with justification from guilt: because Christ has died for my sins, God is able to justly justify me (Romans 3:26). The one who doesn't work, but believes God is justified from all his or her sins (Romans 4:5). Regardless of what terrible things he or she has done, God freely forgives the person who believes Him (Acts 13:38–39).

Having been forgiven all our sins, we now face the question of what our life should look like. And we set out to obey God, but find ourselves incapable of doing so. The solution to this problem starts in Romans 6:1–11. There we find that Christ has died not only as our Sacrifice, but also as our Representative. God sees us as dead with Him, and it's our believing God that makes us free.

Notice it's exactly the same principle in Romans 4:5 as Romans 6:6–11. In both cases, the question is, "Do you believe God?" Do we believe God when He says that Christ has died for our sins? Do we believe God when He says that we have died with Christ? Believing God is the key to forgiveness of sins as well as freedom from the power of sin.

Romans 6 deals with two questions:

1. shall we continue in sin? (Romans 6:1–14)
2. shall we sin? (Romans 6:15–23)

Notice these aren't the same question: the first question addresses lifestyle, the second addresses what we might call dabbling. It's really asking whether we should "just this once" enjoy sin.

The answer to the first question is, "we have died to sin, how should we live in it?" And notice here it's not sins, but sin. It's really talking about the principle of sin that lives in our mortal bodies (cf. Romans 8:10–11).

The answer to the second question is, "you become the slave of the one you obey." Don't let's fool ourselves: if we start dabbling in sin, we've taken the first step to being a slave to sin.

There is a lot of debate about Romans 7. It doesn't sound like it should come between Romans 6 and Romans 8: it's almost like a step backwards to go from Romans 6 to Romans 7. The answer is that chapter 7 parallels chapter 6. In Romans 6, we're freed by death from sin; in Romans 7 we're freed by death from law.

Almost everything I've read on Romans 7 has been unsatisfactory. It seems to me whatever position you take on it, you're going to have some problems. But if we step away from the theological aspects of the chapter and look at it practically, it becomes a lot simpler.

Romans 7 brings us back to the question of legalism. What is the effect of the Law in our lives? We find, perhaps to our surprise, that the effect of law is to bring death to us (Romans 7:8–14). We tend to think that adding law (our own rules, or even God's) to our lives will have a purifying effect, but the testimony of scripture is that it brings death.

The two key verses are Romans 7:5–6. There is a contrast between "when we were in the flesh" in v. 5 and "but now we are delivered" in v. 6. So Romans 7:5 is summarizing Romans 7:7–24, while Romans 7:6 describes Romans 7:25–8:17.

Consider Philippians 3:9–10, where we learn that being "in Christ" means having no righteousness of my own. This is exactly opposite to what Romans 7:7–24 describes: it's someone trying to accomplish righteous before God, and he finds all he manages to do is sin worse.

The key in Romans 7 is giving up on ourselves. And to our surprise, when we give up on ourselves, we find the Holy Spirit ready to guide our steps (Romans 8:1–4). And so we come to this amazing section about "walking in the spirit."

So going back to this sermon I heard... there were two fundamental truths of the New Testament that were missing. First, our life has ended with Christ. We must accept this as true before we can be fruitful for God (Romans 7:4). There is no fruit for God unless we are dead with Christ.

Second, we must be empowered by the Spirit of God. My efforts to live righteously for God are pretty much summed up as, "when we were in the flesh." It's when we accept we have no righteousness of our own that we are really "in Christ" (Philippians 3:9–10).

Again, we're thinking in practical terms here. No doubt God sees us as "in Christ" regardless of how we act. But our experience won't reflect that as long as we're trying to generate righteousness for God.

But in the end, we're not rational creatures. Everything the man said about temptation was true, but I really don't think it will change anything. Our problem is moral, not rational. We need to be delivered through the cross of Christ in order to live righteously before God.

Embracing our identity

About six weeks ago I became a citizen of the United States of America. I was one of 73 people from 35 different countries who turned in Green Cards and took an oath to their new country.

It was clear throughout the ceremony that the United States considers a change in citizenship not merely to be a change in legal status, but a change in identity. They were quick to tell us, "you are now Americans!" Not, "you are are now a citizen," but, "you are now an American." One of the statements that was made was, "this is our home, we have no other."

Part of becoming an American is renouncing all loyalties to any other country. A friend congratulated me on no longer being "under the thumb of the queen" (I was born and raised in Canada). I admit my first inclination was to point out that I am technically still a citizen of Canada, but I caught myself. Canada may not (and does not) consider my becoming American to have changed anything, but I do, and so does the United States.

Romans 6:2 makes it clear that we have a new identity in Christ. Baptism into Christ Jesus is baptism into His death – we have died with Him. We now consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God (Romans 6:11).

Now, it's a fact that Canada still considers me Canadian. Canadian citizenship law is quite different than its American counterpart. Canadian law doesn't recognize my American naturalization ceremony: it's not that Canada doesn't believe it happened, it's just that Canada doesn't care.

In the same way, the world doesn't really care that I have been baptized into Christ Jesus' death. The world doesn't really deny that I've been baptized into Christ Jesus, but it doesn't acknowledge that it really means anything. At most, the world considers baptism to be an antiquated religious ritual.

It isn't my place to convince the world that baptism into Christ Jesus has given me an entirely new identity. Part of being a man in Christ Jesus is not caring what the world thinks about it. My responsibility is in considering myself to be dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11).

One interesting thing about becoming an American is the number of people who have

1. asked me if I am still a Canadian citizen
2. said, "well, it's true you're an American now, but you'll always be Canadian..."

I'll be quick to say some of those people aren't malicious at all. They aren't trying to undercut my identity as an American. But regardless of motive, that's what they're doing.

In the same way, there are many folks who'll try to undercut our identity in Christ. They say things like, "well... that's true positionally." They don't deny that we have died with Christ, but they undermine it subtly as they try to put boundaries on what that means. Even if some of what they say is true, Romans 6:11 commands us to consider ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God. It isn't obedience to undercut our new identity.

Were I to take my Canadian passport and move to Canada, I'd be welcomed back (after the customs officers dug through all my belongings). All would be forgiven: life could go on as a Canadian. But that's not an option if I took seriously the oath I took when I became an American. I still have the legal right to consider myself a Canadian, but that's not embracing my new identity. Like I was told at the naturalization ceremony: "this is our home, we have no other."

In a Saturday night meeting a couple weeks ago, one brother said the whole point of Romans 6 is to "embrace our identity in Christ." That gets right to the point. The world, the flesh, and the devil would all love for me to just go back to being a man in Adam. All would be forgiven, they'd love to have me back. And in a sense, I still have a legitimate claim to that. But a man in Christ Jesus is a man with a new identity, and it's our responsibility to embrace that identity (Philippians 3:20–21).

It can be hard for us to get our minds around our identity in Christ Jesus. There is plenty of evidence that we're just the same men and women we were before. We are reminded constantly that we carry around "the flesh". We think of this world as home much more often than we like to admit. And we find ourselves walking by sight, rather than by faith. But the command of Scripture is embrace our identity in Christ. It's not so much a repeated action as it is an ongoing one. It's not so much something we do as it is the way we think. We consider ourselves to have died to sin, and to be alive to God.

I shouldn't have to point out that I'm not trying to belittle Canada, nor Canadians. Of course it's just an analogy.

Earthen Vessels

There are several passages of Scripture that give a succinct summary of the Christian life. Philippians 3:3 is one, 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10 is another, Galatians 2:20 too. I find myself thinking about a lot about another, 2 Corinthians 4:6–7.

In 2 Corinthians 3:7–18, Christ is contrasted to Moses. We remember the story of Moses speaking with God – when he came back down from the mountain, his face shone and he didn't realize it (Exodus 34:29–35). The children of Israel had Moses cover his face with a veil so that they could look at him. Now the glory of God is shining in the face of Jesus Christ. Unlike Moses, we are to look on Him without a veil. And when we do, His glory transforms us.

In 2 Corinthians 4:6–12, we have something Exodus didn't talk about: when we've been gazing at the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, then God shines that same glory out of our hearts. It's the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness – the God who needs nothing to work with – who does this. He shines the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" out of our hearts.

Paul does that a lot, he talks about "the God who..." I've learned to pay attention to those small phrases, because they reveal an awful lot about the point the passage is making. Here it's the God who doesn't need any raw materials: He brought light out of darkness.

It's not mentioned in these verses, but we might pause a moment and consider that the first time God commanded light to shine out of darkness it didn't cost Him anything. He is God, He spoke and it was done. But in shining the light out of darkness in our hearts, the cost to Him was tremendous. It cost His Son.

2 Corinthians 4:7 goes on to say that God has deliberately put this treasure – the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ – in earthen vessels. He has chosen an entirely inappropriate vessel for His treasure. Why? Because He wants to be sure that we realize it's of God and not of us.

The passage doesn't actually mention the story of Gideon (Judges 7:16–21), but there are some striking parallels. First, we find that God carefully reduced the number of Gideon's men until they were down to 300 (Judges 7:1–7). We find, too, that God explicitly told Gideon why: He wanted there to be no question that it was He who brought victory, not strength of arms (Judges 7:2). Second, the weapons in the hands of Gideon's men were trumpets and torches (lights) hidden in earthen vessels (Judges 7:16).

We realize Gideon's plan was to reveal the torches not by lifting the vessels off the torches, but by breaking the earthen vessels. This is precisely what 2 Corinthians 4:10–12 goes on to talk about. As death works in us, the life of Jesus (notice here it's not "Christ Jesus" nor "Jesus Christ", but "Jesus") is revealed in our mortal bodies.

Susan has pointed out (quite correctly) that we don't cease to exist. Christianity is not Buddhism: we are not striving to become nothing. I'm afraid sometimes it sounds like that's what I'm saying – it's not. 2 Corinthians 4:16 makes it clear: there is an outward man that is broken down as death works in us, but there is an inward man that is renewed by this same process.

We saw this same contrast in Romans 7:22–23. There is an inward man delighting in the Law of God, but there is a law of sin in my members. What's the conclusion to the conflict in Romans 7? There the man cries out, "Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?" (Romans 7:24). Romans 8 picks up this theme in v. 10, where we find that the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit life because of righteousness. Romans 8 goes on to resolve this conflict in v. 23: we groan now, awaiting the redemption of the body. The Son of God is coming to change our bodies to be like His body (Philippians 3:21).

If I may pause here a minute: our hope as Christians is the resurrection of our mortal bodies to immortality. Someone once quoted 1 Thessalonians 4:17 to me about a man who is now asleep in Christ, "he is ever with the Lord." Of course that's entirely wrong – that phrase is clearly talking about those who shall have been raised into immortality. The dead in Christ haven't been made perfect without us: they await the resurrection just like we do. Our hope is, in a sense, physical: we await the resurrection of our mortal bodies. We might actually make it to that resurrection without dying, but all who are in Christ will be raised in what the Lord Jesus called the "resurrection of life" (John 5:29).

But our bodies haven't been raised to immortality yet. In a sense, that's really what the Christian life is – it's the life of Jesus manifested in mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:11). It's all about treasure in earthen vessels. It's about God's power seen in bodies that have yet to be redeemed.

It's true that the old man has died and the new man doesn't have to. At the same time, we recognize that death is the tool God has chosen to reveal Christ in us (2 Corinthians 4:10–12). We see the same truth in Colossians 3:1–5, because we have died with Christ, we are called to put to death our members on the earth. It's not that we are called to die, but we all carry about with us things that need to be put to death (Romans 8:12–14).

When the Son of God comes to change our mortal bodies, we won't have those things any more: there'll be no need to put to death the deeds of the body. But until then, death works in us.

You gotta watch Benjamin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paradigm un-Shift

Something has bothered me for a very long time, and I've struggled to put it into words. It seems to me we have a tendency when we've seen a truth to step back away from it, but still use the language of that truth. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense, so let me give three examples:

I once worked for someone who liked to talk about the Theory of Constraints, but he didn't seem actually to understand it. He liked to throw around the term "Theory of Constraints," but when actually pressed to explain himself, it became obvious he had no idea what it is. He used the terminology of ToC, but he really didn't mean what those words mean: he was using new terminology to describe his old ideas.

I spent many years studying internal martial arts. I began to recognize a pattern: there were some very skilled internal martial artists who would basically become kick boxers when it was time to spar. They were very good at the internal forms, but when it came time to put on the pads, they acted like they'd forgotten everything we practiced. It was weird: almost like they didn't really believe it would work in real life.

When I was a good deal younger, I got a glimpse of Romans 6:1–11. I saw for the first time that I had died with Christ, and God wasn't interested in my life per se. He is interested in the life of Christ. This was terribly exciting to me, and I would tell people about it. Almost invariably, the people I talked to would say, "Well, that's true positionally." I began to understand by "that's true positionally," they really meant "that's not true at all."

The Christian who sees Romans 6 as a sort of a morality tale is like the manager who talks about the Theory of Constraints but has no interest in understanding it, or the student who studies internal martial arts but has no intention of actually using them in a fight. He or she may use the language of the New Testament, but can't experience it.

It's interesting to listen to people speak about Romans 6. It seems like there are basically two approaches people take:

1. some believe that Romans 6 is describing a reality: I have died with Christ
2. some believe it's a metaphor: Romans 6 is effectively a call to live a "new life," living differently than before

It seems obvious to me people in the latter group like to use the language of the paradigm shift, but they don't really believe it. They've stepped back from that truth, if you like.

It seems obvious to me that Romans 6 is not a call to live a new kind of life: it's a statement that as far as God is concerned, my life has ended (Romans 6:2). Even if I don't believe that I actually died with Christ, it's impossible to avoid that plain command to think of myself that way (Romans 6:11). The fact is that Scripture commands us to "reckon" we've died with Christ. Regardless how you understand Romans 6:1–10, if you're not thinking of yourself as having died with Christ, then you're not obeying v. 11.

I was in a Bible reading where someone talked about how the raven and the dove that Noah sent out were really types of the "two natures," and how we need to feed the dove, not the raven. Of course that's nonsense.

Scripture doesn't talk about "two natures": it doesn't talk about an "old nature" or a "new nature". Scripture talks about new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and indwelling sin (Romans 7:17). The believer is a new creation in Christ, who is living in an unredeemed body. The day is coming when our bodies will be redeemed (Romans 8:23), Christ will come from Heaven and transform our bodies of humiliation to be like His (Philippians 3:21). Then we'll actually be free of the body of death (Romans 7:24).

This is fundamentally liberating: it's not that I have to choose between two natures, it's that I have been freed of who and what I was by the death of Christ so that I could walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4; Romans 8:1–3).

It's very easy to see truth in Scripture and sort of dull the edge a bit. It's easy to keep using the language of new creation but slowly fall back to the notion that we can improve the flesh. It's easy to forget that Romans 6 or Colossians 3 or Galatians 2 teach that our lives have ended at the cross of Christ. It's easy to forget we are new creations in Christ and start thinking it's God's purpose to improve us. It's easy to pay lip service to the truth while slowly stepping back from it.

There are plenty of teachers and preachers who urge us to walk in newness of life, but don't seem to grasp our death with Christ. It's not a metaphor or a romantic notion, it's a fact. Scripture bases the "newness of life" on the fact that I have died with Christ (Romans 6:4). We can't really experience new life while we try and cling to the old. We have to accept that we have died with Christ before we can expect to see the power of resurrection (Philippians 3:10).

So what?

I have a friend who speaks at Bible conferences a lot. I don't know how many times I've heard him say we need reality in our lives. Not only for our own benefit, but as a testimony to those around us.

We started out talking about how my co-workers and my neighbors and my friends and my family and the people in the little gathering here don't need to see me – not even the best version of me. They need to see the life of Jesus in my mortal body (2 Corinthians 4:10–11). Let's give some thought to that in practical terms.

2 Corinthians 4:10–11 tells us two things about this manifestation:

1. it's self-evident that it has to be Christ Himself they see, not my imitation
2. the cost is death working in me

May I suggest that the very first step is to go to the Lord Jesus in prayer, asking Him to manifest His life in my mortal body? May I also suggest that we ask for His patience and His grace as we contemplate the cost of death working in us? It is His work to do, but there will be very real pain associated with it, and we'll need His grace in the face of it.

The principle we keep coming back to is "abiding in Christ" (John 15:4). How do we abide in Christ? Robert commented

I was asked at the weekend, 'what does it mean in practice to abide in Christ'? I think John's answer may well have been, it means to be at the table and lean on His bosom John 13:23.

Paul's answer to the same question would have been, 'But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit' 2 Corinthians 3:18

Colossians 3:1 takes up this thread and talks about setting our affections on things above because that's where Christ is. We understand that if I continue to look for fulfillment and meaning down here, I'm not looking for it up there. This, too, has to be the work of God in my heart. Can I suggest we ask the Father to show us His Son? Can I suggest we ask Him to put Christ between my eyes and this world, to keep me from being distracted by the bright and shiny things here?

Exodus 24:9–14 tells us the story of Moses and the elders of Israel seeing God on Sinai, "they saw God, and ate and drank" (Exodus 24:11). Verse 14 is particularly interesting, because Moses specifically told them to wait there for him to return. But they didn't wait for him: they got impatient and turned to idols (Exodus 32:1–2). We do exactly the same thing when we decide The Man who brought us up out of bondage (Exodus 32:1) has been "up there" too long (Colossians 3:1–4). We soon start looking around for something down here we can turn into a god. So the New Testament tells us again and again, "He's coming back!" "Don't give up waiting!"

Let's not get tired of waiting for Him to come back down from up there (Philippians 3:20–21).

We come back to this theme of eating in God's presence in Joshua 5:8–12, where four things are associated with Gilgal:

1. circumcision, a rolling away of the reproach of Egypt (Joshua 5:8–9)
2. the Passover (Joshua 5:10)
3. eating the old corn of the land, a type of Christ in resurrection (Joshua 5:11, Leviticus 23:10–13, 1 Corinthians 15:20)
4. eating manna, a type of Christ in humility (Joshua 5:12, John 6:32–33)

For us too, there are these four things. We've discussed Romans 6:11 and Colossians 3:1–4 at length. We have died with Christ. But Gilgal reminds us more of Colossians 3:5–7. Here there is a mortifying, a putting to death. There is a real pain associated with Gilgal that's not associated with the Red Sea. And there is a real pain in Colossians 3:5 that's not in Romans 6:11. It's relatively pain-free to reckon myself to have died with Christ; it's not at all pain-free to put to death my members on the earth.

Here again, we need to go to the Father and ask Him for grace and courage.

But of course it's not all pain in Gilgal: there's eating too. There are three meals mentioned: the Passover, the manna, and the old corn of the land. If you look closely at the timetable in Joshua 5, there was just one day when they ate both the old corn of the land and the manna. We, too, have a very narrow window of opportunity to eat both. We'll never get beyond feeding on Christ in resurrection, but we can only feed on Christ in humility while we're here. The supply of manna ends when we're out of the wilderness.

When we eat with Christ, we can expect to get what my buddy Caleb calls "Luke 24 heartburn" (Luke 24:29–32). We all need that kind of heartburn, and we should all ask the Father to give us a really "bad" case of it. That kind of heartburn comes from lingering over the table with Him and contemplating Him "starting with Moses and the prophets" (Luke 24:27).

I've heard this time and time again, but I still fail really to practice it... Can I start to see time spent with the Savior as an investment? The very best use of time is to spend it with Christ.

Those are some simple suggestions for "where to go from here". They're simple, but hopefully practical.

Links worth sharing

Several people have emailed me with links and quotations over the last few weeks that seem appropriate to share.

S. sent several links related to Election. The first is a letter by J. N. Darby:

This fresh breaking out of the doctrine of free-will helps on the doctrine of the natural man's pretension not to be entirely lost, for that is really what it amounts to. All men who have never been deeply convinced of sin, all persons with whom this conviction is based upon gross and outward sins, believe more or less in free-will. You know that it is the dogma of the Wesleyans, of all reasoners, of all philosophers. But this idea completely changes all the idea of Christianity and entirely perverts it.

The entire letter is on the STEM website.

Another from S. was this gem: an article entitled "Early Brethren Leaders and the Question of Calvinism" by Mark R. Stevenson. It's very interesting. The article considers current teaching among "open brethren" in comparison with "early brethren" when it comes to the question of Calvinism. It's more academic than I'd normally read, but it definitely grabbed my attention.

Rodger sent a link to an article on "New" and "Old" in Scripture:

It may be helpful to point out that there are four new things in Christianity — the new covenant, the new man, the new birth and new creation. In contrast to the new covenant we read of the old covenant, and in contrast to the new man we read of the old man. Yet we do not read of old birth in contrast to new birth, nor old creation in contrast to new creation. The reason being that when God styles a thing old He has done with it. In the cross of Christ both the old covenant and the old man were brought to an end judicially in view of the bringing in of the new covenant and the new man, but God has not yet done with the first birth or the first creation. We sometimes use the expression "old creation," but this term is not found in Scripture. The nearest approach to it is in Hebrews 1:11, "they shall wax old," but the actual term "old creation" is not used. We are thus still connected with the first birth and can glorify God in it; and He will yet fill the first creation with His glory as the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk 2:14.

Again, the whole article is on the STEM website. This one caught my attention because I frequently use terms like "old creation".

I've been meaning to post this quote about J. N. Darby by William R. Newell from Romans Verse-by-Verse:

We know what debt under God all those who have the truth today owe to Darby, through whom God recovered more truth belonging to the Church of God, than through any other man since Paul, and whose writings are today the greatest treasure of truth and safeguard against error known to instructed believers.

Romans Verse-by-Verse, Chapter 12 (last checked 2016-10-28).

I wrote a blog post for my friend Scott's Digital Sojourner about reading Collected Writings of J. N. Darby. I should have included that quote, although it's likely I hadn't found it yet. Romans Verse-by-Verse is an incredible book, but it took me several years to read it through. In fact, I was given the book in 1996 and didn't finish reading it until 2015 or so...