|
|
| |
 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
|
| |
|
|
| |
Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
|
| |
Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
|
| |
|
email
|
|
Is A Jew Justified By Being A Jew?
The Christian Perspective. |
I want you to imagine a Jewish person who is as sincere in his religion as is humanly possible, full of zeal for God, and as faithful to his religious duty as is humanly possible. Even as I set up our hypothetical Jewish person, I can't help but think how that describes the Apostle Paul prior to his conversion to Christianity, but while I might hit on that in a bit, let's just ignore it for now.
What I want to establish is that our hypothetical Jew is by no means a hypocrite - he is not adding to the scriptures any modern practice, or skimping on anything, or living like the world - but is constant in prayer, in meditation on the OT, and again, in practicing biblical righteousness. He is no slough - but about as real a deal as you can get.
Such a man would be an admirable thing indeed, for a faithful Jew lives to serve the one and only God.
Now, let us also say that our hypothetical Jew lived in a bubble somehow, with other hypothetical Jews, who had never in his life ever been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, nor even heard that someone had come to earth 2000 years ago, claiming to be the Messiah, and proving that claim not only by signs and wonders, but by a righteous life, by fulfilling every Messianic prophesy that relates to the incarnation, and finally by being raised from the dead by God the Father; let's say that our Jew has never even heard of such a thing, nor has any in his community.
The question is, can this Jew be justified by being a Jew.
We set up the question in this way, because we do not want to say this Jew is rejecting Jesus Christ, for in order to reject the Christ, he would have to have heard about Jesus. So I want to underscore the fact that this hypothetical Jew has never heard about Jesus.
Suppose our hypothetical Jew lives his entire life in profound devotion, and dies calling on the name of the Lord even as the Patriarchs did. Will this Jew be justified at the judgment?
Having set up the scenario as I have, I suspect that some readers might be inclined to say, "Yes" - that this Jew, having never heard the gospel, and therefore having never rejected the Messiah, would likely be justified by his faithfulness as a Jew. The same would argue that his religion was the best it could be and was limited only to the light he was given, and therefore having lived as well as could be expected given the available revelation, that God would be unjust to expect more from on judgment day.
I set up the elaborate scenario to answer the question, is there more than one way to be justified, or put another way, can you be justified in the OT way now that the NT has been established, and the orthodox answer is "No" you cannot.
In truth, if such a hypothetical Jew did exist, and lived his life according to the OT standard, and died ignorant of Jesus, having never rejected him - this would not justify him on the day of judgment. On the day of judgment, God would examine this Jews sins, and all his religion will not suffice to cancel out even the smallest of sins. The hypothetical Jew cannot be saved under the old covenant scheme because that scheme was invalidated by the Messiah. Men were never justified by keeping the law, but by grace through faith - as Paul argues in the NT, showing how scripture says Abraham was justified - not by being righteous, but by trusting God - that is, Abraham was justified by faith, not by works of the law. So too our hypothetical Jew, having kept the law as perfectly as humanly possible (which means imperfectly), cannot be justified by it any more than Abraham himself could have been justified by righteous deeds.
The objection that arises in some camps is that this isn't "fair". This hypothetical Jew was sincere, and did all that he knew to do - how can a just God condemn a man who lived a better life than most Christians live today? An objection that betrays a gross misunderstanding of how we are justified.
We are not justified because we are good people or righteous, we are justified because Jesus was good and righteous, and in trusting Christ, we were baptized by Him into the body of Christ (the church) - united with Christ in such a way that when Christ was crucified, we too were crucified (in Him), so that our sins were carried by Christ to Calvary where God carried out a Judgment against them. God poured His wrath on Christ, and He, along with all who were united together with Him, died. Death had no claim on Christ however; Christ gave up his life and died the death that He died because He was willing to be united to those sinners whom God had elected to save from His wrath through Christ. It was the lives of these sinners that death had legitimate claim to, and when Christ received this wrath it was not for His own sin, for He was without sin, but was for the sin of those who were united together (by faith) with Him. Death took Christ, along with all who were in Him, but death had no claim on Christ.
It was for that reason that God, in order to remain righteous, had to raise Christ again from the dead - and it was for this reason that we who were united together with Christ, were raised from the dead in Christ - that is, just as Christ received death through our sins, so too we receive life through Christ's righteousness, for when God raised up Christ, He raised up all who were in Christ - this was the purpose of our union with Christ. Just as this union took Christ's life on Calvary, so it gave life to us on the third day - resurrection day.
The Jew who is not joined to Christ through faith, is not, nor cannot be saved, from God's wrath through his law keeping, sincerity, or own righteousness - it just isn't sufficient. The Jew is still a sinner, and his own righteousness, no matter how profound it is compared to others on the planet, does not attain to the level of righteousness required - which is a perfect righteousness.
One might object at this point also, saying, well then, how were the Jews ever justified? If they were justified by the law prior to Christ, why can't a hypothetical Jew who has never heard about Jesus be similarly justified?
Again - no person, Jew or otherwise, was ever justified by keeping the law, or prior to the advent of the law, by being personally righteous. The only means of justification has always been as an act of God's grace through faith. Before a law was ever given men were justified this way - by faith, that is, by seeing themselves as sinners, and therefore utterly and absolutely unworthy. In seeing themselves as sinners, they acknowledge that they cannot undo their sin - they cannot simply do enough good to cancel out those acts of rebellion (disobedience) that they have committed in the past - they see their own righteousness for what it is - vacuous, impotent, and as the prophet says - a filthy thing; and they look to God to save them from this - that is, they call on God to save them, and do not look to their righteousness as qualifying them for it. They call on God not to assist them in their righteousness so that they can earn heaven, but rather to have mercy on them, since they realize they can never earn heaven by their own acts of righteousness.
The objection at this point would probably focus on the fact that the Jew didn't "reject Jesus" - as though the reason God pours out his wrath on sinners were something other than their sin - that is, as though the reason hell is populated is because people "reject Jesus". This sort of objection springs from a corrupted teaching - the idea that sin doesn't condemn sinners, but rather failing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah and turn to Him in faith condemns sinners.
Here is how this works. Everyone who has sinned will be condemned by God for their sin on Judgment day. Big, small, young, old, domestic and foreign -we will all face the judgment, and everyone who has sinned will receive the same guilty judgment, and all who have sinned will receive God's wrath for their sin.
Hold on you say, what about those who are saved?
Those who are saved will be judged like everyone else on Judgment day, but the sentence for their sins has already been carried out - God has poured His wrath out on them already in Christ. God does not "enter into" judgment (i.e. carry out the judgment) when they are judged, because He has already done so in Christ.
Those who are condemned and are not in Christ, will certainly receive God's wrath. Here is a subtlety, so listen up. All of these will have lived a life that rejected God as their ruler, whether that their understanding of God as revealed in the Old Testament, or whether that be a greater rejection, having rejected the revealed Christ. But it will not be their rejection of God that condemns them - it will be their sin. To be sure, the very nature of sin - the very heart of it - is to reject God; that is where sin comes from - a heart that rejects God's rule, and in rejecting God's rule, rejects God.
God will not be moved by those who performed outward signs of righteousness, if inwardly they rejected Him. No one will go to hell "because they rejected God" they will reject God because that is what sin is, and they will go to hell because they did not repent of this rebellion in their life. Some will have spent their life pursuing sin with wanton abandon, and others will have spent their life in religious duty trying to earn a better afterlife by their righteous deeds - without ever acknowledging that they are and have always been, rebels who resent God's dominion. Whatever seeming obedience sprouted from ones such as these was always and ever intended to pacify God, to jump through the hoops God put before them, in order that they would reward them with a better afterlife. All their righteousnesses were performed to purchase something for themselves - that is, every seeming good deed was in fact an act of self preservation - an act of selfishness - an act of sin and rebellion.
The subtlety here is that some truly believe that you are condemned for failing to acknowledge the Messiah, when it works the other way - it is sin that causes every last person on earth to "fail to acknowledge" the Messiah. It doesn't matter whether we hear about the Messiah or not - from the cradle we reject God's rule, and we go right on rejecting God's rule throughout our life whether we are religious or not. We do this BECAUSE we are in bondage to it; that is, to sin. That is what sin looks like.
How then can anyone be saved? I mean, if we all start off as rebels because of our bondage to sin - why is it that some people turn to Christ and others do not?
The scriptures tell us. No man can come to Christ unless God the Father draws that person to Christ.
What was Paul doing when Christ met him on the road to Damascus? Who was Paul? Paul was Saul of Tarsus - a zealous Jew, and by zealous, I mean a keeper of the law, a student of the best schools in Jewish law, a man driven to do for God all that can be done for God. Saul was, according to his own understanding, acting in accord with all of Judaism when he took letters in his hand with him to Damascus - to bring the Christians he found there to "justice" - Paul had been engaged in rooting out the Christians so that they might be stoned to death. He was about as far away from being a Christian as one could possibly be - and yet he was full of zeal for God.
How, we say, did Paul meet Christ then - was he looking for Him? Was he trying to become a Christian? Did some coincidence happen by which he decided to become a Christian after changing his mind about things? NO! Jesus Christ came to Paul on the Damascus road, and intervened in Paul's life directly - having chosen Saul as one of His ministers before Saul was ever born - and having chosen this moment to reveal Himself to Saul, for this purpose - to call Saul to Himself on the day of His own choosing. Saul was struck blind and led to Damascus, and there he fasted, neither eating nor drinking for three days, and spent his time praying - and it was in this attitude of humility before God that Saul became a believer. Did Saul just arbitrarily choose one day to become a Christian? No, God drew Saul to Christ - just as God draws all who come to Him to Himself.
Anyone who is saved, is saved from sin - that is, they are saved from rebellion against God's rule in their heart, by and through God calling them to Himself. As many as God calls in this way, will come.
Some might balk at that because they have a corrupted understanding of righteousness. They believe that if God calls one person, it is only right for Him to call all people, lest some lack the opportunity to be saved. But such a presupposition imagines that there is something wrong or unrighteous about letting a guilty person receive the wages of their sin - that is, that God, in order to be "good" has to try and save people from His wrath, as though being merciful to one sinner suddenly made it unjust to allow any sinner to face God's wrath unless they too were given the same opportunity. I say, they have a corrupted understanding because they fail to understand that God's mercy here doesn't provide a mere opportunity to escape - but causes everyone who receives that mercy to turn away from their rebellion, and turn towards God in faith - that is, this act of mercy is the granting of repentance - the granting of the ability to overcome rebellion by turning to God in faith.
You see, if a Jew today were to live in accord with orthodox Judaism, keeping the law as best he can - even if he never hears about Jesus in his whole life - he will by no means be justified by being a good Jew - for no Jew was ever justified by being a good Jew. Justification happens by faith, and not by works.
Now, in order to make the example for "realistic" - let's describe two hypothetical Jews, one who is justified, and one who is not justified, and we will do this in both the OT and again in the NT.
JEW #1 in the OT (Not Justified): Keeps the law, prays, goes to temple, tithes, etc. Trusts that doing these things will satisfy God's shopping list of requirements, and looks to these acts of righteousness, coupled with his own ancestry, to qualify Him as a member of Abraham's covenant, and therefore justify him in the judgment. He will not be justified.
JEW #2 in the OT (Justified): Keeps the law, prays, goes to temple, tithes etc. Puts no trust in keeping the law as a means of justification but trusts God, even as Abraham trusted God, and as a son of Abraham's faith - that is, as one who did as Abraham did - believed God and it was accounted to Him as righteousness - is justified by faith.
Jew #1 in the NT (not Justified): Keeps the law, prays, goes to the synagogue, tithes, etc. Trusts that doing these things will satisfy God's shopping list of requirements, and looks to these acts of righteousness, coupled with his own ancestry, to qualify Him as a member of Abraham's covenant, and therefore justify him in the judgment. Whether he has heard about Jesus and rejected him or hasn't heard about Jesus at all - he will not be justified.
JEW #2 in the NT (Justified): Keeps the law, prays, goes to the Synagogue, tithes etc. Puts no trust in keeping the law as a means of justification but, trusts God, even as Abraham trusted God, and because of this trust is able to see that Christ is the Messiah - thus he too is a son of Abraham's faith - that is, he did as Abraham did - he believed God and it was accounted to Him as righteousness - and is justified by faith, but his faith is in God's Messiah, Jesus whom he is able to recognize because of his genuine faith.
The orthodox position, while I may not have articulated it perfectly above, is plain and clear - no one, whether of Jewish or Gentile birth, can be justified by adhering to a form of Judaism that fails to recognize the Christ that Judaism announced would come.
Do I believe that the Jewish people are going to be justified? Yes and no. I believe that those Jews who are of the same faith as Abraham will recognize their Messiah in Christ, and be justified, and those Jews who are of the same cut as the Pharisees who rejected Christ will not be justified, and will reject the Christ even as their forefathers did.
When Judaism was still the womb of God's Messiah, there were Jews who were of the faith, and Jews who were not. Only those who were of the faith were justified. But when Judaism gave birth to God's promised Messiah, those who were of Abraham's faith believed in God's Messiah. So it is today. Christianity is what Judaism has always promised, and anyone who claims to believe the promises of God, and the God of those promises, but rejects Him whom God had always promised - is deceived, thinking themselves to be of the faith, but lacking the very thing they imagine themselves to have.
So, no. A Jew, however kind, sincere, and magnanimous, is not, and cannot be justified by practicing a form of Judaism which denies the whole purpose of Judaism - God's Christ. Adhering to Judaism doesn't save anyone, and it has never has saved anyone, yet in the revelation that God delivered to the Jews, we find the faith of Abraham which justifies, and the promise of God's Messiah which all of Judaism was intended to bring into being.
If you are a Jew and are reading this, that is what most evangelical Christians believe. We believe that the Messiah would come from the Jews, as the Scriptures teach, and that He has come in the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that God is one God, and that there is no other, but that this one God exists as three persons, God the Father who decrees and directs His will, God the Son Jesus Christ, who though perfectly sharing the will of God the Father, acts in creation to carry out His will, and God the Holy Spirit who while perfectly sharing the will of God, acts as the power by which the Father's decree is carried out by the Son. We do not believe these are three God's but one God, unified in will and purpose, but revealed to us as three personalities, one of whom took on human flesh in order to redeem mankind from sin as part of God's eternal purpose which was determined before mankind, and this universe ever came into being.
My intention is not to offend, but to instruct. This is what most evangelicals believe. There are some evangelicals who would deny bits and pieces of this, some more, some less - as consensus is based on study and discernment, and we are not all equal in these things. But I think I have given a fairly accurate portrayal of the general understanding.
If you are an evangelical who has pondered these things, I hope that you see, or are beginning to see, that we are justified by faith and not by works of the law, which is what this post underscores. Saved by God, not by religions, not by works, not by doing the right things, jumping through the right hoops, etc.
Grace and peace.Labels: Christianity, Judaism |
posted by Daniel @
8:22 AM
5 comment(s)
 
|
|
|
|
| Not So Well Seasoned |
I was going to use the metaphor of rose coloured glasses, but in truth, rose coloured glass acts as a filter so that you are not seeing the whole picture, but only the part of the picture that is allowed through the filter - such that everything seems rosy because you are filtering out the light that isn't rosy.
But that didn't capture the flavour I was going for. In fact, flavour itself makes a better metaphor because, while seasoning can enhance flavour, seasoning can also mask flavour, even so far as to (effectively) change it.
God gives clear testimony to His character in His word. The bible doesn't provide us with as exhaustive a description of God as most of us would like - but the description the bible gives is consistent and clear. We do not have to wonder what God's character is like, for we know enough of God from His word to understand how God relates to His children. That God describes our relationship to Him as paternal is itself descriptive of God's character.
But, I find that even after years of study, and what I hope has been a very sincere walk with the Lord - yet I still anticipate that God will deal with me not according to the personality I find in scripture, but rather in accord with that personality as flavoured by my own fears and failures.
I think being a father is a profound responsibility. I think that because my understanding of God's love, mercy, and grace looks to earthly examples of the same for some foundation. That is, until someone points to a colour and says, "this one is orange" we don't really know what "orange" is. Likewise, if your childhood lacked perfect love, mercy, and grace, you will find yourself having no tangible point of reference for God's love, mercy and grace. That means that on some level each one of us will have some gaps to fill between what we have experienced in this life of love, mercy and grace, and the perfect image of these as found in the character of God.
For myself, I find that unless I make a careful choice to do otherwise, I tend to fill in these gaps with the sort of stuff that fear and ignorance can generate. That is, though I know the character of God in scripture, yet in practice I often season the character of God with the spice of my most frightened expectations.
It is this sort of "carnal seasoning" that keeps us from fully trusting God.
It isn't that God is untrustworthy, it is that we presume that God is going to abandon or fail us because we so often fail Him. The image we have of God has been seasoned by our carnal experiences. We cannot fathom His faithfulness because we have no experience with that kind of steadfastness.
I know this will describe some of us quite well, and others only marginally so, but it is something that I believe we are all in danger of falling into. I catch myself from time to time being afraid that God is going to not answer some prayer, or not be there for me because I fail Him daily - and I must catch myself because I know that is not only a horrible slander against God Almighty, but on a more personal level, it is the very opposite of faith - it is unbelief. It is me saying believing that God is different than He describes Himself as being, and I do that because I refuse to believe that God can remain charitable to such a sinning failure as myself.
But God is not as my fears paint Him to be. He is not a treacherous reed that if you lean on Him He splinters in your hands, rather He is a Strong Tower, and the righteous run into Him. How weak I am in faith and prayer when I take my eyes of the true character of God.
My encouragement then, to you dear reader, is to remember that no matter where you find yourself as you read this, know that God has set in place a throne of grace by which you may come to Him for help in time of need. He will not leave you, nor forsake you, but answers all who call on His name. His response is not based on your character, or your faithfulness, but upon His own. He is not like a man who withholds Himself or His blessing until He is certain that He will receive something good in return - but instead He is perfect in humility, in selflessness, in love.
Lean on God today, and not on your own understanding.Labels: faith |
|
posted by Daniel @
7:07 AM
4 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| Ten Minute Thought... |
I have set aside fifteen minutes this morning to blog. Not much, but I am a fairly fast typist.
Christian, have you ever consider God's faithfulness in the light of Jacob's faithlessness? Because this is a brief post, I will leave you to scour Genesis for the exact references yourselves, but consider that God chose to bless Jacob before Jacob was born. The covenant of Abraham and Isaac would pass to Jacob, the younger twin, and not to Esau. It was decided before Jacob and Esau had ever done anything, whether good or evil.
We know that scripture says, at a time before these twins were born, "Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated." and much is made of this in circles that discuss election and predestination, because clearly, Jacob was chosen by God long before Jacob determined to "choose God"; and it is clear that Jacob's eventual choice was something that God had predestined to happen. But this post isn't about the obvious, though there are some who would contend that this is obvious; no, this post is about the life of Jacob as it pertains to the relationship between God choosing him, and his choosing God.
Recall that Jacob was not exactly a righteous man. He took advantage of his brother Esau to gain his brother's birthright, then later, he deceived his father to gain Esau's patriarchal blessing, you know, where Isaac intended to name Esau as the family heir, and declare that after Isaac's demise, Jacob should serve and respect Esau as he had previously served and respected his father? But Jacob stole that from Esau through deceit.
Later, when Esau comforted himself with the thought that he would murder Jacob as soon as Isaac died, Jacob decided that his only recourse was to flee.
Was this (Jacob) a man of faith at this point? Was God pursuing Jacob because Jacob was so stalwart and faithful? Jacob well well aware of the promises God had made to his fathers; that is, Jacob would have known already what God had ordained for him, but did Jacob allow God to bring these things to pass, or did he work to bring these things to pass in his own power? In his own power, surely. A man who trusts that God is working doesn't lie and cheat to get what God has promised him. When his deceits finally stirred Esau's murderous wrath, it wasn't to God that Jacob ran. He ran to his relatives, putting his hope in a clever escape rather than in God's promises.
Yet even as Jacob fled, God came to him in a vision, and renewed the promise made to Abraham, but Jacob's response was even then less than faithful - that is, it wasn't Jacob's faith motivating and moving him when he said, "--IF-- you do this, --THEN-- I will follow you.
It is pretty hard to miss who is pursuing whom. The question we ask is whether God was pursuing Jacob because of Jacob's great faith/faithfulness, and the answer is also obvious - No.
Why do we ask these things? We ask them because I know that some who read this will know this much, that Jacob became a man of great faith in spite of his faithless beginnings. It took decades to bring this about, just as it take years for water to erode stone - but water does eventually erode stone, and here (in the case of Jacob) that is just what it did. Understand this - If God can change a man like Jacob who at first trusted only in himself, and whose "walk" was, at the first, filled with deceit and self effort - will God not do the same for all whom He has chosen? That is, did Jacob turn into a faithful man because he was pursuing God, or did Jacob turn into a faithful man because God was pursuing him. It is obviously the latter.
Some of you reading already believe yourselves to be children of God, but you struggle under Jacob's burden (as it were) - that is, you know yourselves to be children of God through the promise of the new covenant, and yet even knowing this you look to your own faithfulness rather than God's faithfulness as the evidence of your sonship. This happens (in part) because deep down somewhere, you still believe that it is your own effort that keeps you on the path. For this reason you find Christianity difficult: if your sonship rests in your ability to stay faithful, then every failure of (and in) your faith testifies to you that you are not a child of God. You are not looking to Him to keep you, but are looking to your own effort to secure His promise of sonship.
Look to Jacob therefore, and remember, oh troubled one, that it is not by your own might that you were chosen, nor by your great obedience that you were and are kept and loved - but that God has set His heart on you in spite of your failures, and is working in you, drawing you to Himself through every life experience even those which take years and decades to play out. God is in it for the long haul, having known all that would pass before He chose you. Your failure does not "surprise" God - He knew you would fail, and when, and how - and chose you anyway.
Do not rest/trust, therefore, in your own faithfulness, for you will fail, and each time you do your rest will be disturbed, your faith will be shaken, and your hope will dwindle. If you follow that path it will lead you to a cold, dead, faith. Instead look to Christ who has died for you when you were yet a sinner, and to God who called you to Himself through Christ long before you were ever inclined towards Him.
God is at work in you Christian, and though every believer pines for the day when we will be fully formed, yet if today we lack the maturity that we so hunger for, let us not be discouraged or think God is absent. Let us see the record that God has given in scripture - let us rehearse the history of men such as Jacob, men whom God formed into pillars of faith over the course of their entire lifetime. God can do a great work in a day, and He has given exceptional men to the church here and there - but I think there are far more Jacobs than John the baptists in the world.
So be encouraged you who look to yourself and wonder why it is taking so long. Start looking to God. |
|
posted by Daniel @
7:14 AM
3 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| What does putting in a minimal effort say? |
Well I s'pose it is no secret - I haven't been posting a great deal lately. I have been, and remain, somewhat preoccupied with other pressing matters in life. I hope together back into the swing of it soon, 'till then I trust in the continuing patience of my dwindling readership.
|
|
posted by Daniel @
3:59 PM
2 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| The Pursuit of Christ |
In Matthew 18:12-14 our Lord describes a man who has an hundred sheep. The ninety and nine are gathered together but one has strayed. Our Lord leaves the ninety and nine to go and recover the strayed sheep.
We all understand that this is a metaphor. That the story Christ is telling is about more than sheep.
Typically I hear the metaphor explained thus: the man represents Christ, the flock represents His church, and the stray sheep represents an unsaved sheep whom Christ is pursuing. How many pictures and songs depend upon that understanding? Plenty.
How many of us have noted the post positive conjunction at the beginning of verse fifteen? You know, it is usually translated as "but" or "yet" - and tells us that what is about to be said is related to what has just been said.
In other words, when we read, "but if a brother should sin..." (εαν δε αμαρτηση) we are reading a passage that is directly related to, and expressing/expounding the same thought as, the man with the hundred sheep going after the one that strayed. What was spoken in metaphor is now exposed - and (sadly) most people miss that.
We have "section A" cut out with a nice border around it: Here is a story about what a dedicated Savior we have. Then we have "section B": Here is some other thing that tells us how to discipline sinning believers... The grammar says these two things are related, but our translation puts white space and thematic headings between the two and we (naively/ignorantly) conclude that they are not related at all, and then we build both our theology and our practice upon a half understood passage that has been artificially spliced for us.
Is it not so?
You see, the picture of the man who leaves his sheep to pursue his stray is the picture of the one believer who goes to his brother and shows him his sin. That is what it is a picture of. It is the Spirit of Christ in the first brother, pursuing the wayward believer through the conviction of sin.
Why is that important?
It is important because the modern church has turned Matthew 18:15-17 into the "church discipline" passage, rather than the "Christ pursuing his stray lamb" passage, so that when one believer goes to another believer and exposes his or her sin in private - the whole thing is regarded as disciplinary by the church - when it is not disciplinary, but restorative - it is how Christ has said He will pursue His stray lambs.
People love to talk about "doing the work of Christ" or "letting Christ live in and through them" - but many who parrot these lines haven't the first clue that Christ does these things in accord with His word - that is, He said beforehand "HOW" He would accomplish these things in us, but we miss it because we have learned to read without understanding.
Do you not see it, I have laid it bear I think, Christ has said that He will pursue His straying lambs through believers. Those who obey the commands of the Lord -will- , should a brother sin, approach that brother and expose the sin. That is how Christ has described Himself as pursuing His wayward lambs. That isn't "church discipline", it's Christ pursuing a wayward lamb.
If the lamb is not found, there is no rejoicing. Note the structure in verse 13, "If it turns out that he finds it [the sheep], truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray". Did you catch the fact that it isn't always a given? The metaphor is not a man finding a sheep, it is a man searching for a sheep. If he finds it [1] there is rejoicing, and [2] the sheep is carried back to the fold - but if he does not find it [1] the search is abandoned, and [2] there is no rejoicing.
If a believer should sin we, as fellow believers, are expected to expose that sin (i.e. pursue the straying sheep). If the believer repents of the sin (is no longer straying, but becomes "found") he is restored (taken back into the fold), but if a believer refuses to repent (cannot be found), he is not taken back into the fold.
When we use this passage, I hope we come at it the way it is meant to be understood - it is Christ pursuing the wayward sheep through believers who in obedience are willing to expose sin for what it is, for the sake of all (Christ, the church, and the even the wayward believer).
If we think of Matthew 18:15-20 as a passage on how to administer a proper "spiritual spanking", we don't get it - whether we be on the giving or the receiving end. Christ has expressed exactly what He is doing in that situation to everyone who has ears to hear it. If you plan to "go all Matthew 18" on someone - I hope you understand what you are doing - and again, if you are on the receiving end of someone who is going to Matthew 18 on you - receive it from Christ for what it is, and not from the one who is handling it. Whether it is done in love, or is a bungled hatchet job - the one who is at work in it is Christ.
One final note: When Jacob had made up with Esau, he bid Esau go on without him; because Jacob had with him some little lambs, and would not drive them as hard as he would a mature flock, because doing so would only kill them. When it comes to expectations in this matter, as in any spiritual matter: be discerning. Expectations must reflect the maturity of those involved. |
|
posted by Daniel @
2:43 PM
3 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| Holy, Holy. |
Somewhere between grade six and grade nine we learned a thing or two in science about volume and displacement. The easiest way to measure volume was to put something into a water filled, graduated cylinder of glass, and see how much water the thing we were measuring displaced. If the water level was resting at 200 milliliters, and you put in some object so that the water level rose to 300 milliliters, you knew that whatever you had dropped into the water had a volume of 100 milliliters.
If the cylinder could only hold 500 milliliters of water, and you added 500 milliliters of liquid mercury, the mercury would displace the water entirely.
The Holy Spirit instructs us, through the writing of Paul in Ephesians chapter five, to be being kept filled with the Holy Spirit. When I first began both to study, and to try (as best I could) to live out the imperative therein given, I found that I didn't know what this was supposed to look like. At that time I was made aware of a passage from some of Dwight L. Moody's writings (c.f. Secret Power, D.L. Moody, Ch. 2) wherein Moody wrote:Turn to Acts 4:31, and you will find He came a second time, and at a place where they were, so that the earth was shaken, and they were filled with this power. That is, we are leaky vessels, and we have to keep right under the fountain all the time to keep full of Christ, and so have a fresh supply. For those of you who do not remember, Acts 4:31 records the filling of the Holy Spirit following a time of prayer. These were believers upon whom the Holy Spirit had already fallen at Pentecost, and after this prayer for boldness, the building they were in shook as in an earth quake, and -all- that were present were filled of the (tou in the Greek) Holy Spirit. Given that Peter was there, this passage is used to argue that while there is One (spiritual) baptism (the new birth), there can be many spiritual "fillings".
Moody isn't alone in understanding these intermittent fillings as normative of the Christian experience. I have listened to more than one misty eyed Christian recall some bygone day of blessing, and seen with my own eyes the lingering dissatisfaction associated with any day that isn't so "filled". There is ever a gnawing hunger within these for a new and fresh outpouring of God's Spirit upon them. Is it any small wonder, given that this verse is often pointed to as proof positive that God pours out blessings again and again? Why no blessing today?
In those days when I was only vaguely familiar with scripture I was understandably naive in my faith, and therefore more willing to accept (at face value) whatever anyone taught concerning scripture, as true. We all do that in our infancy - we presume that because people are sincere, and honest, and even godly, that they must be right also. It was so with me at least, and having come under the influence of those who had been previously influenced by Moody, my understanding of my current state was that I was like a "broken cistern that could not hold water" (c.f. Jeremiah 2:13). The imagery was swiped, as noted, from a passage in Jeremiah that had nothing to do with Spiritual Filling, but rather likened the worship of false gods, to turning away from an artesian well (God), and relying instead upon faulty reservoirs that you yourself dig out (false Gods). I don't know if Moody himself ever mangled the text like that, but there were people who were influential in my early Christian walk who had some practice in stitching together disparate ideas as though they spoke of the same thing, so that what I heard at that time, was a bunch of scripture that seemed to bolster the point.
The imagery of myself as being an empty vessel in dire need of spiritual filling caused me to spend a lot of time begging for fillings that never seemed to come. I naturally began to question the validity of my faith, and the validity of the Christian faith altogether. If God is real, surely He ought to be answering the prayers of His children when they cry out day and night for "the filling" by which I was made to understand, the entire Christian endeavor was made not only possible, but easy. I will go one step deeper, the filling by which I might have that perfect rest in God whereby I perfectly understood what God expected of me, and whereby I was perfectly at peace doing whatever that was.
The idea that I was a broken empty vessel, more than any other imagery, kept me on the mouse wheel - calling out to God for victory over sin in my life, and secretly blaming God for the lack thereof. If God truly is at working in me both to desire His will, and to work out His will - why was He dishing out the fuel to do that with an eye-dropper? Why was I -always- empty?
Now, the word used in Ephesians five to describe our being kept filled, is better suited to the wind filling a sail, or to a person being "filled" with remorse over the loss of their spouse, than it is to the filling of a bucket. I like the wind filling the sail picture better, because if the wind is blowing, that doesn't automatically mean the sail is going to be filled. In order for the wind to fill the sail, the sail must be set before the wind. It isn't that the sail is a vessel that has some capacity, rather the sail is the means by which the wind that is already there is able to work for the one who has raised their sail.
If, in order to picture the filling of the Spirit we are forced to use the analogy of a glass being filled with water, then I would suggest in order to picture it properly we must maintain that the glass is -always and ever- filled to the very rim with water. Anything in our life that is self serving, could be thought of as liquid mercury that is displacing the water - the more mercury we fill ourselves with, the less water room there is for the water. The notion then, to be being kept filled with the Holy Spirit - would place the emphasis, as the text does, on not being filled with other things. The way in which a person becomes filled with God's Spirit, therefore, is not to beg God to poor more in, but rather to beg God that what is displacing Him in your life would be removed.
Now when scripture says to work out your own salvation, you can understand what it is talking about. Now when scripture says that you are to plow up the fallow ground, you have some imagery that makes sense - Don't sit there filled up with your sin, and beg God to pour more spirit in on top of your rebellion - rather rage war against that which rebels against God in you. Paul often uses the imagery of the believer as a soldier in God's army, not (primarily) because we are in battle every day, though that is certainly true - but because we are not in our own army, but in God's and as soldiers we can rely upon the provision of Him who supplies us with the weapons of our warfare.
We are often like children who cry out for more wind when the problem is that we refuse to unfurl the great sail we were given when we were ushered into God's family through our faith in the promises of God - through our faith in the redemptive work of Lord Jesus Christ who by His own blood reconciled those who call on Him, to God.
Being filled with God's Spirit happens by default. You don't have to try and pray it down - you have to get out of the way. That is why the message of the apostles was that you are to die daily, to take up a cross, to not be filled with the things of the world, etc. etc. It isn't that you beg for God to pour something in - He already has, rather your job is to deal biblically with whatever is filling you that isn't God - you make war with that, and if you don't or aren't interested in doing so, there is something very, very, very wrong with your faith. Judgment day is coming, and I want to warn the sinner, especially if he or she considers himself or herself a Christian, that if sins cooing voice has turned your fight to slumber, and you rest content now in your sin - Good gravy! You're a heartbeat from hell, and think your last breath will take you to heaven.
Think again.
It is not the ones who cry, "Lord, Lord!" who will are being saved, but those who through faith and patience inherit the promises -- not the least of which is the promise that we will be given a new heart and a new spirit. I can't stress it enough - if you are at peace with sin, your Christianity is only lip service, and you are hell bound no matter what church you attend, no matter how moved you were, no matter what experience you had. Your experiences, and your lip service have nothing to do with the faith that saves sinners from sin. I say to you, what Christ has always said: repent and believe the gospel, that you might be saved from your sin.
To the rest of you who struggle trying to be filled with the Holy Spirit; I say stop! You're trying to do what you cannot do, and what has already been done. Instead do what scripture directs and commands you to do: present the whole of yourself to God - you want to know how that looks in a practical way? Nothing could be simpler. Recall in the OT how various Judean kings were "good" and others were "bad"? Consider and learn from what the good kings did as soon as they came into their kingdom - they cleaned out all the gunk that the bad kings let build up in God's temple. They restored the beauty and holiness of His temple. Sound familiar, that's because the NT says that this is God's will for you: that you be sanctified. How can I spell that out in clear language? It is God's will that you deal with sin daily and directly. You clean the temple, not because you are worried that if you don't God will spank you, you clean the temple because you love God, and desire God to fill the temple. Good gravy, it's not rocket science; If you want to clean the temple in order to make God like or accept you, you aren't worshipping God, you are just trying to pacify Him. The whole point is that you work out your own salvation (from sin) with fear and trembling - because it is God who works in you both to will (He is the one who causes you to hunger for fellowship) and to do (He will strengthen you to every good work He has ordained beforehand for you to walk in - your sanctification being the PRIME one), and all this because it pleases God to fill you, to fellowship with you - to make His home in you.
Don't play at Christianity brother, sister - you have only so many heartbeats left, and each one brings you closer to judgment - my desire is that every last one who reads this will enter into that judgment in Christ - unashamed workers, and not disillusioned slackers who thought they were genuine, only to discover their error too late. If God convicts you today, don't put it off till tomorrow.
|
|
posted by Daniel @
1:03 PM
11 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| I created my own font, from my own handwriting... |
| You probably can't see it. But I have it on for the post body. It was a fun little thing to do. If you can see it, let me know. I see it, but then I have the font installed. The font was small though, so I made it bigger. Labels: fluff. |
|
posted by Daniel @
4:47 PM
10 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
|
|
