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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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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...
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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
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| Does Abstaining from Sex Make You A Virgin? |
Provocative title? Check.
I am under no illusion. I know that when you include abstinence, sex, and virginity in the title of a blogpost, you are likely to get more visitors than you would have otherwise. So welcome to my blog you people that wouldn't have come here unless you saw the word sex in the link.
The question is a serious one, even though you can answer it before you read one word of this post. We all know full well (unless we are of the sort of conceit that prompts us to filter reality through the lens of some form of navel-gazing philosophy...) that you cannot produce new state of virginity by abstaining from sex after you lose your virginity. It doesn't work that way, and we all know it.
Given that virginity is not produced by abstinence, and (obviously), that abstinence is likewise not produced by virginity, we might wonder what exactly relates the two notions. I describe it this way: abstinence is a consonant adornment of virginity.
What I want to impart to you is the nature of that relationship. The notion that one does not produce the other, but is rather the natural expression of the other.
We know this intuitively, but I wanted to spell it out so that when I apply it, the application is as clear as possible.
Jesus kept the law of God. It wasn't the keeping of the law that made Jesus righteous. Jesus wasn't born in a neutral state, being neither righteous or unrighteous. He did not become righteous by keeping the law. When Christ kept the law it was simply the natural expression of His inherent righteousness.
Keeping the law (or let's just call it what it is: obeying the will of God) does not produce righteousness in you anymore than abstinence can produce virginity in a non-virgin. Christ obeyed God because He was righteous, and not in order to become righteous or produce new righteousness.
That is an important Christian concept because until we understand it properly, we won't understand what God is teaching us in the scriptures when the Spirit inspired men to write that without faith it is impossible to please God, or that there are none righteous, not even one.
Christ alone is righteous. Unless we have Christ, we do not have righteousness, and without righteousness, we will perish† in the judgment.
Whatever things we do that we think are obedient to the will of God, that is, our "righteousnesses" are described by God as spiritually unclean (cf. Jeremiah 17:9). Nothing we do in our own strength is righteous, and if that weren't enough we cannot take credit for anything we do in Christ's strength. That is, when Chrsit's righteousness is working in us, we err to think it is our own. It is His righteousness that saves us.
I want to unpack that a bit for our Catholic friends. If we say that Christ imparts His rightoeusness to us, we do not mean by that to suggest that Christ takes some of His own righteousness out of Himself, then puts it into us, so that it becomes ours. Nor do we mean by that that Christ zaps us and suddenly we start producing our own righteousness by obeying God - for obeying God does not produce righteousness, it merely reflects it.
If we obey God in the strength of Christ, our obedience reflects not our own righteousness, but Christ's righteousness that is in us through that spiritual union which is the new birth. It is as the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed in Jeremiah 33:16 speaking of the Messiah to come: "the LORD is our righteousness!".
In other words, the Christian is not in the business of making himself righteous. He can no more become righteous by his own effort than he can become a virgin through abstinence. We, Christians are and remain unrighteous in and of ourselves. We appeal to a righteousness that is at once not our own, yet again is ours but only in Christ.
There aren't as many in the church who understand this properly as there ought to be, so bear with me as I dwell on it for the sake of those who are new to this teaching.
The reason all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags to God is because none of them can wipe away the stain of your sin. Present obedience cannot undo former disobedience - and righteousness has nothing to do with sin. The person who has sinned is by no means righteous, and can never attain to righteousness ever again by any act of obedience, any more than the prostitute can become a virgin by subsequent abstinence.
Christianity is not, as some would have you believe, the process by which Jesus spiritually empowers you to obey, so that your newly empowered obedience produces an inherent righteousness in you that becomes the basis for your justification before God. God will not and cannot look to your obedience to justify you. You are a sinner, and even if you have managed to obey God in the strength that Christ supplies - that obedience is not the grounds for your forgiveness. Rather you obey God (in Christ's strength) as a consequence of the fact that Christ has saved you.
Do you see therefore how wrong-headed it is to imagine that your obedience adds anything to your righteous standing? Your obedience, if it is more than just a frightened person trying to appease and angry God in the hope that by doing so they might avoid damnation, is a consequence of God's work in you --not something you do to earn God's favor. If you are obeying the Lord from your heart it is something that comes from Him, and not you - and itself testifies to the fact that God is showing you His favor already. In other words, real obedience does not produce favor, but reveals the fact that God already favors you.
Not that we look to our obedience for assurance, rather we look to the Spirit within us who is compelling our obedience as the assurance that we are God's children.
If keeping the law did not make Christ righteous, but demonstrated that He was righteous already, then keeping the law will not make you righteous, and how much less given that you were not righteous to begin with?
Finally, this righteousness that every sinner needs to apprehend, the righteousness of Christ, is obtained by faith and not by obedience; yet when it is obtained, obedience naturally (and inescapably) follows. That is, as many as are justified by Christ, the same are sanctified by Christ.
This is where we make a distinction between righteous and holy. We are called commanded to be holy. That is to be "set apart" to God. We do this by obeying God (Don't miss this last part) which does not make us righteous, but makes us holy. Do you see that? Do you see that your obedience is expected, because you are commanded to be holy, but your obedience does not make you righteous. Your righteousness is not your own, but Christ's righteousness.
This is what people mess up the most. The moment you tie your obedience to "personal righteousness" rather than to personal holiness, you step on the little mouse wheel of human effort, and no matter how you run, you simply tire and are no closer to your destination for all your effort than you were when you began. You are pursuing a righteousness that you can never, ever attain. But when accept Christ's righteousness, and stop setting about to establish your own, you are free to pursue holiness, the actual avenue through which men are meant to draw near to God.
The one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness shall be filled with the righteousness of Christ, and thereby enabled to pursue holiness in spirit and in truth. Obey God therefore, not to make yourself more acceptable to Him, but because He has commanded that His childnre be Holy (set apart to Him).
† that is, the second death: being cast into the lake of fire to suffer torment eternally.Labels: God's glory, justification, sanctification |
posted by Daniel @
7:10 AM
3 comment(s)
 
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| Good Friday vs. Earth Day |
Today is the anniversary of the single most significant/important event in all history. It is the anniversary, in fact, of the one event in history that actually allowed there to be such a thing as history. Had Christ not come, God would have destroyed the world with Adam's sin. The cross stands, therefore, as the guarantee that there would be a history.
Today is the anniversary of this event. The anniversary of the day that our Lord offered Himself as the Mercy Seat for all those who repent and call upon His name. He became the place of propitiation - the ark of deliverance for those who believe. All of history points to this event, whether looking forward to it prior to His coming, or back to it.
Yet thanks to some oil spill in 1969, it is also the same day that, in 1970, the late Gaylord Nelson, a former Senator from Wisconsin (democrat) founded "earth day".
I find no joy in having to explain to my little ones the difference between real holy days, and those Hallmark™ days that activist dream up because they imagine that mankind might actually be able to destroy this world before our Lord returns.
It seems vulgar to me to mention earth day in the same breath as Good Friday. It is like the person who tells you that they have just came from the doctor's and learned that they have six weeks to live, and that their death will be so painful and horrible, that they can't stop thinking about it. To which you say that you also have your own troubles, having picked up a hang nail that morning.
I don't want to vent though - the world, and the people who live in it, pursue sin and avoid God because that is what sin leads us to do. Without Christ, we cannot expect the world to be more than it is. There will be some well meaning, but eternally misguided people today who will exalt the man-made celebration of the earth above what God has done for His children. It is tragic only in that it puts the depravity of sin on display, and most people won't even understand it.
To that end, enjoy the second Psalm:
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
"Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us."
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
"As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill."
I will tell of the decree:The LORD said to me, "You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel."
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
[ESV]Labels: God's glory |
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posted by Daniel @
11:15 AM
1 comment(s)
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| To the Glory of God. |
I was having a religious discussion with a Muslim friend, who in describing Muslim forms of worship gave the example of moving a salt shaker on the table from point A to point B. He said that if he moved the salt shaker mindlessly, according to his own capricious whim, or even according to some pragmatic function, that the gesture, spiritually speaking, was inert or neutral. If however, he determined in his mind to worship Allah in moving the salt shaker from point A to point B, then by virtue of his mind set, it was indeed an act of worship.
I do not hold my friend up as a spokesperson for all of Islam, but I will say this much, he is not a wishy-washy liberal Muslim, but devout and sincere, more so that many Christians I know.
Having set the stage, let me say that I presume that there must be some Christians who would see the distinction given by my Muslim friend, as parallel to what the Holy Spirit commands through Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31 ("Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."). That is, these Christians would interpret the command to "do all (i.e. whatever you do) to the glory of God" as meaning that when you engage in some pragmatic activity, you can turn it into an act of worship by focusing on how thankful you are, or again, by focusing on how much you love or appreciate God while you are doing whatever it is you are doing.
Thus, the act itself is "sanctified" because as you performed the action you were simultaneously engaged in "worshipping" God.
The question is, is that what it means to do all things to the glory of God? Does the run-of-the-mill Muslim worship his Allah according to a co-opted Christian formula, or does the run-of-the-mill Christian attempt to worship God according to a counterfeit practice?
To begin to answer this question and develop a right practice from scripture, we need to ask ourselves what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 10:31.
In chapter eight Paul addresses the practice of eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols. Two thousand years ago, people didn't rightly understand the nature of food borne diseases found in meats. Such things as botulism and salmonella were attributed to spirits in the meat. It was believed that these same "spirits" which could be driven out of the meat if you sacrificed the meat to an idol, and the idol accepted your offering.
More than a few new converts to Christianity (in Corinth at least) continued (presumably in their ignorance) to buy meat that had been sacrificed to (i.e. cleansed by) idols, even after they had become believers. Of course, as Paul explained, idols were nothing, and the food that was offered on them was no better for you than food that hadn't been offered on them.
Paul's teaching then was that meat that had been sacrificed to idols was no different (functionally) from meat that had not been sacrificed to idols. Thus a knowledgeable Christian was at his liberty to eat any meat set before him, free from the fear that the meat had been "spiritually tainted" by having been sacrificed to an idol, since there was, in fact, idols were less than dead, having no life in them, and no power to affect the meat that is naively offered on them. This was the "liberty" of a knowledgeable believer.
Yet this liberty, Paul argued, ought to be set aside by the mature believer, for the benefit of the immature believer, if the latter should (in their immaturity) conclude that the former was eating sacrificed meat because there was some spiritual benefit to doing so. Better, argues Paul, to set aside our liberty if exercising it causes someone else (in their immaturity) to progress in their error.
Paul argues that in the same way a mature believer sets aside his liberty for the sake of the immature, when it comes to such things, so Paul, as an example of maturity, has set aside his right to reap material things from the congregation in Corinth. This failure to reap material things from the congregation at Corinth was being painted (by some) as proof that Paul lacked a legitimate claim to Apostolic authority. Paul demonstrates that it is not a lack of authority that causes him to set aside what is within his liberty to take, but rather a concern for the congregation at Corinth that rises out of both knowledge and especially maturity, that he acts in the way he acts for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of God's glory, that he becomes all things to all men in order that through doing so, God would be most glorified.
Stop and summarize that thought to yourself. Paul is saying that he set aside his liberty for God's glory. That for the sake of God's glory, Paul was not only willing, but compelled to set aside his own glory.
We must bring this context to bear on the passage that shortly follows this understanding, for Paul's habit is to write in a spiral that winds its way outward from the small, but easily understood examples, to the greater wider application where that understanding exists, but is less clear to those who, by virtue of ignorance or immaturity, are less inclined to see it on the surface.
Paul then begins in Chapter ten, to speak of those who had only their own glory in mind - those who were speaking out against Paul, comparing their practice to the practice of those who grumbled against Moses in the wilderness, and (likewise) perished on that account. Paul shows that the temptation presented to the Corinthians - the temptation to grumble against Paul, was not some new temptation, but a common one (as illustrated by the mention of the exact same thing having been done to Moses by the grumblers of his day).
As the spiral winds its way back round, Paul concludes, therefore, flee idolatry! He gives practical examples of how that would look - if some person invites you to go eat, do so! But if doing so would injure the conscience of an immature believer, then do not exercise your liberty at their expense. Paul was being slandered (c.f. 10:30) for eating food that had been offered up to an idol, hence the full explanation, and it is directly in the context of Paul's explanation that we read, "whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.".
Note that this command does not say or imply that you sanctify some action by simultaneously worshipping God as you do it. What it is saying is that if something you do does not glorify God, don't do it. Let it be a rule for yourself that whatever you do, should be done for God's glory.
That was Paul's argument. He wasn't eating food that had been sacrificed to idols because he thought these foods were cleansed thereby. He was engaged in "being all things to all men" at the time, for the sake of the gospel. That is the inference, and this Paul was doing, for the glory of God.
It may seem that I am going out on a limb here because there are enough Christians out there who honestly believe that the command in 1 Corinthians 10:31 is a command to "spiritualize" or "worshipalize" every trivial, pragmatic moment of the Christian life. These, having painted an impossible picture of Christian duty, thereafter live under a persistent, fellowship hindering guilt of failing to inject an extra-biblical notion of worship into every trivial thing they do.
Now listen: You ought to worship God all the time, but there is no way that having a "worshipful frame of mind" turns moving a salt shaker from point A to point B into an act that gives God glory. God may be glorified in your worship, but He has carefully explained how you are to worship him, and moving around salt shakers is -not- on that menu. It may sound all nice and spiritual, to "spiritualize" the trivial and mundane, but ultimately you end up with holy bowel movements, and, when allowed to run its full course, you get sanctified sin.
Other world religions buy into this junk, but what else do they have? As the keepers of truth, we cannot allow ourselves to lace a right understanding of scripture with extra-biblical gunk such as this.
Worship God in the beauty of His holiness. Do not be as Nadab and Abihu, bringing in strange fire, inventing your own bizarre forms of worship, but instead worship God according to scripture; and make sure you understand scripture, do not linger long in a superficial faith.Labels: God's glory |
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posted by Daniel @
10:50 AM
1 comment(s)
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| Hallowed Be Thy Name |
Back in '73 a Roman Catholic nun from Australia named Sister Janet Mead recorded a surprise music hit (youtube link) with a rocked up version of the Lord's prayer, written to be the b-side of a Donovan cover. The tune made #4 in the top Billboard 100 that year, and though it is now 35+ years old, the tune still rattles around in my head from time to time.
But this post isn't about my sentimental reminiscings, nor about this nun, nor about her musical rendition of the Lord's prayer.
It is about Jesus, and a deeper look into His character on this Lord's day.
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He began His instruction with a sample prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name."
In recent posts I have discussed the humanity of Christ, if you haven't read those posts, this post may not have enough context for you to grasp what I am about to say fully, but I will proceed anyway. For the sake of this post, then, forget that Jesus was God - forget it altogether if you can, and pretend, if you will, that Jesus was just a man who was different from other men in that He was not cursed by Adam's curse. By that I mean, that you and I cannot perceive God except through revelation, either in creation itself, or through the word. Jesus however, like Adam prior to the fall, was able to perceive God experientially and naturally. Where God hides his face from us, His face was not hidden from Christ.
Thinking of Jesus as "just" a man might seem blasphemous to some, so I want to be clear, this is just an exercise to help us appreciate at a deeper level, the instruction Christ gave to His disciples. If we are wooden in our thinking and say to ourselves as many do, "this is God telling us how to pray" - we will only understand the Lord's prayer as an outline for prayer. We will look at the order and say, "this is the right and proper order", we will look at the content and say, "this is what we should be praying for" and we will do these things because, "God set them out this way in the Lord's prayer" and we will regard this as just another divine ordinance.
Now, it is a divine ordinance, don't get me wrong, but the problem with us is that while we recognize this prayer as instructional and all that - yet we tend to think of it in terms of a shopping list. Do this in this order if you want to pray right. We seldom consider the personality of Christ, and as such, we miss an opportunity to "know" our Lord, and miss an opportunity to "know" the glory of God through the majesty of our Lord's prayer.
I am not talking about poetry, or how nice the Lord's prayer sounds when we sing/pray it. I am talking about our Lord's affections - when the opening petition of our Lord's prayer is that God's name be Hallowed, do we stop and consider that this was the prayer of a Person (note the capital "P") whose incarnate human experience was intimately familiar with the presence of God the Father? I don't know about you, but when I think about Jesus praying this prayer, I don't think He is purposely (artificially) ordering things in His prayer so that the most important items in show up first in order. That is, I don't think Jesus is being a clinical Teacher here; I don't think He is standing aloof from His own affections here, and reciting a well thought out recipe - rather I think that His heart is speaking from the well of it's desire, and it's greatest desire is that the God whom Christ as a man knew, desired above every other desire, to see the name of that God hallowed.
A lot of us make so much of Christ's divinity, that we forget He lived as a man - and as a man He worshipped God the Father. We could make that clinical too - we could say, "Well, yeah, I mean, He had to worship God the Father because if He failed to do so, it would have been sin, so on the one hand He 'had' to, but being God, He didn't have to worship Himself, because He was God..." But that kind of "over-godifying" isn't very productive. Jesus was 100% God, but He was also 100% man during the incarnation. We take nothing away from His divinity when we (rightly) recall the reality of His humanity.
Jesus worshipped God the Father while He walked about on earth, but it was real, heart felt worship. He loved the Lord with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. There was no hesitation in Him. When our Lord prayed that God's name be Hallowed, we are not simply seeing the first bullet point in Christ's cold and aloof "how to pray" manual. What we are seeing is Christ's affection.
I don't know if I can really make this visible enough. Jesus prayed "Hallowed by Thy Name", not as a formula, but as the natural first affection of a right heart. Do you see how Jesus loved the Father?
I believe you do.
But that isn't where we stop this train. What I want you to ask yourself, and what the point of this post is all about - is if Jesus loved the Father that way, Jesus who perceived God freely, even as Adam had done in the Garden before the fall - Jesus who knew God, not simply and woodenly because "He was God Himself," but through the incarnation and in the grip and scope of His own humanity knew God - and through that knowledge truly desired that God's name be Hallowed - it says something profound about God the Father doesn't it??
I mean, Jesus' love for God the Father isn't pouring out solely from His own divinity - since, though Christ was God, He did not exercise His divinity on earth, thus this affection, this profound desire to see God's name hallowed is not coming from the chalkboard of His divinity, but from the desires of a heart that, like Adam before the fall - knew in His flesh, the personality of God the Father.
Do you ever wonder what you're missing out on, not being able to perceive God as Christ and Adam did? I mean, think of the magnificent splendour of God, the transcendent glory, the beauty of His perfection - all these were known to Christ in the flesh, so that when our Lord prayed, "Hallowed by Thy name" - the greatest instruction was not simply and only, "do as I am about to do" but more deeply: see Whom and how I love, and learn from my affections.
I am not trying to undo any of the teachings you may have heard about the Lord's prayer. Surely it is good to study this prayer, and to glean from it a right hierarchy of affections, etc. But what I want you to glean today is only the fact that our Lord Jesus worshipped and loved the Father - someone whom He, in His own flesh, knew - it was not a love that sprang out of duty, but rather a love that sprang out of being able to see God as He is.
Strive then, to trust that God is truly worthy of honour, praise and glory. Trust that when our Lord held God's name in His highest affection, that it was because He knew God, and knowing God He desired first that God's name be hallowed on earth as it is in heaven.Labels: God's glory |
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posted by Daniel @
5:30 AM
7 comment(s)
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