Christ and the Law: the triumph of grace over effort

I’ve always loved the book of Galatians.  There are few other books in the bible that demonstrate so clearly the disparity between earned righteousness and gifted righteousness as this letter from the apostle Paul to the church at Galatia.  But in the same way that we continue to desire McDonalds food even after seeing Supersize Me, why do we so often default back to the treadmill of trying to earn God’s favour when we know we already have it completely through Christ?  Why do we keep trying to earn what is already ours?

It’s quite possible, of course, that one might continue trying to earn grace because they have not yet truly received it,  but Paul is not primarily addressing that group in his letter to the Galatians.  He is writing to a church of men and women who have (presumably) already received and experienced that saving grace, but who are now tempted to go back to law keeping to maintain it (improve on it?).

Paul’s impassioned reminder to them is, “All who rely on the works of the law [for salvation] are under a curse.” (Gal. 3:10, ESV) and, “No one is justified before God by the law.” (Gal. 3:11, ESV)  He bases that statement on the truth that, in order to be justified before God by the law keeping, one must, “abide by all the things written in the book of the Law, and do them.” (Gal. 3:10, ESV)  All of them!  Jesus taught this same truth when He was carrying out His earthly ministry (cf. Matt. 5:19-20).

And if you’ve ever been in that boot camp of trying to earn God’s favour (or perhaps are presently there) you can probably still remember the taste of dirt in your mouth as you fell on your face again and again and again.  It’s the inevitable result of what I’ve now heard a number of preachers refer to as “confusing our justification with our sanctification.”

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John Bunyan captured the utter futility of trying to earn God’s favour by keeping the law masterfully in his book Pilgrim’s Progress.  Christian’s friend Faithful recounts to him this interaction:

Now, when I had got above half-way up, I looked behind me, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands … So soon as the man overtook me, it was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said because of my secret inclining to Adam the First. And with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backward; so I lay at his foot as dead as before. So when I came to myself again I cried him mercy: but he said, I know not how to show mercy; and with that he knocked me down again. (Bunyan, 1998 p. 93-4)

Christian then tells his friend Faithful, “That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none; neither knoweth he how to shew mercy to those that transgress the law.” (Bunyan, 1998)

Man’s effort could never achieve God’s favour.  For since the sin of Adam, even the best of our efforts are tainted with sin the way a tone deaf person taints even the most beautiful of songs.

The gospel way

In the midst of his pummelling by Moses (the law) however, Faithful recounts in his tale this important detail:  he says, “He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came by and bid him forbear.”  Christian inquires as to who came to his aid, and Faithful replies, “I did not know him at first: but as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and in his side: Then I concluded that he was our Lord.”(Bunyan, 1998)

The great hope of the gospel is that in Jesus, grace triumphs over effort.  Paul says in Gal. 3:13, “Christ redeem us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us -“.  In 2 Cor. 5:21 he expands on this by saying, “For our sake, God made Him [Jesus] to be sin [the helpless state of lawbreakers before a holy God] who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”  The Scriptures are clear that the penalty for sin is death (Rom. 6:23) and so this, then, is how Jesus freed us from the curse of the law: by becoming a curse.  Paul completes Gal. 3:13 with, “for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.'”

In other words – to use Bunayn’s terms – Jesus bids Moses forbear his pummelling of us, and instead, takes that pummelling upon Himself, to the point of death.

The way of the flesh

The favour of God that we could never achieve ourselves, then, has been fully procured by Christ and credited to our account.  To understand this, just imagine setting up a treadmill in the middle of an olympic racetrack.

The gun goes off and we begin running on the treadmill, while Jesus actually runs on the track and is victorious in the race.  Running on a treadmill in the middle of a racetrack represents all human efforts to win God’s favour – it achieves nothing (Is. 64:6).  Jesus’ running and completion of the race represents Jesus’ single effort – it achieves everything (Heb. 10:14)!  The incomprehensibility of the gospel message, is that Jesus then takes His gold medal and places it over our neck when we come to Him in faith and repentance.  His victory becomes ours (Gal. 4:4-5).

What Paul is trying to communicate in his letter to the Galatians – using that metaphor – is, really, “The race has already been won for you!  Why would you ever try and get back on that same treadmill again?”

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Every time we try to climb back on that treadmill, we deny the truth of the gospel.  Paul says earlier in Gal. 2:21, “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the [keeping of] the law, then Christ died for nothing.”

So how do we keep off that treadmill?  Here are a few suggestions that I have found helpful:

1. Keep yourself daily in the word of God: It is filled, cover to cover, with the same reminder Paul gives to the Galatians, viz. you can’t, but God can.

2. Intimate and honest conversation with the God (prayer): He saved you by His grace alone. He loves to unplug the treadmill for us.

3. Honest and open conversation with other believers (community):  Here is one of many places where the body of Christ can remind us of truths we already know and help us climb off that treadmill to nowhere.

4. Print out J. D. Greear’s gospel prayer and post it somewhere you will see it often:  The first stanza of the prayer is particularly relevant to treadmill running.  He reminds us to pray, “In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, and nothing I can do that would make You love me less.”  I need that reminder often.

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Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke (treadmill?) of slavery (Gal. 5:1).

Jesus echoes, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

 Grace triumphs over effort.

Making the most of what you’re given: what is “of first importance”?

What would you want to say if you knew you’d only have 20 seconds to tell someone about Jesus?  What would be your message?  What content would fill that 20 seconds?

I read a recent post that caught my attention about a street preacher from the USA who was arrested while preaching on the streets of Wimbledon, England recently for “homophobic remarks” that offended one listener in particular.

Now, absolutely, this was a far overblown and silly charge to begin with.  The term “homophobia” has become this (to borrow a phrase) junk drawer term today like ADHD was a diagnosis a decade or so ago.  Then: “We’re not sure what’s wrong with your child.  They must have ADHD.  Give them these pills.”  Today: “You’re saying something that i don’t like.  You sound like you don’t agree that i should be able to sleep with whomever i want.  You must be homophobic.“

To think that you could be arrested for what this man preached is wrongheaded and, sadly, just the birth-pangs of what’s coming.

But here’s the thing that stood out (beyond the ridiculous charge): this man says he intentionally chose as his text 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 and decided to preach on the sin of sexual immorality to this group of whomever happened to pass by, viz. those with whom he had built no rapport or even knew him from your uncle.  And if you watch the video, few, if any, stop to hear what he has to say.  Which means – generously – he has about 20 seconds where these people, whom he surely cares about and wants to share Jesus with, can clearly hear his voice.

And my question is: what do they hear in those 20 seconds?

Or maybe: What should they hear in those 20 seconds?

Now – yes and amen – recognizing that we are guilty before a holy and God and turning from our sin is part of a gospel presentation; and we are to call people to repentance.  But – as we surely all would agree – seeing that we stand justly condemned before a holy God is not good news.  The good news is that – though we all stand guilty – in grace and mercy that God did something about it (Eph. 2:4-10) by sending Jesus to live perfectly and die in our place and be raised again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3,4).  In fact, those things are what Paul says are “of first importance.”  Paul doesn’t even mention sin in this famous gospel passage except to proclaim what God did for sinners.

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And so, the next time God grants this street preacher, or me, or you, 20 seconds, or a minute, or an hour, to say something about Him to those who desperately need to hear, what will they hear from us?  How much God hates our our sin? (and He absolutely does!)  Or how much God did for guilty sinners?

One is a message of condemnation only. The other is a message of life and hope that would surely lead to then talking about sin and repentance.

What will you do with the time God gives you?

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“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”    – Jesus.

A 3-legged stool – 1 leg ≠ a 3-legged stool : why doctrine matters

“When you stand before God at the end, He’s not going to give you a doctrine test, He’s going to ask you what you did with the life He gave you!”

How many times have you heard (and perhaps even been convinced momentarily) by this specious line of reasoning?  As if things like doctrine and propositional truth and orthodox teaching are, at best, peripheral things to God, and what really matters to Him is how we live out our lives.  Additionally, it’s important to see that such reasoning assumes that our ability to stand before God at all is not about belief in anything in particular, but solely in our ability to work for Him.

This is a pervasive issue facing evangelicalism today, particularly amoung proponents of the social/activist gospel, and dealing with such an issue requires examining more critically the logic behind such a line of reasoning.

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To begin, when does 2 + 2 not equal 4? Or, to draw from the example in the title, when does 3 – 1 not equal 2?  Without digressing into philosophical meandering, the simple answer is never! And when you take a leg away from a three legged stool (by accident or choice) what you have is no longer a stool at all, but maybe, perhaps, a funky looking ladder?  The point is that a stool without all its legs can no longer serve its purpose as a stool.

But however natural or obvious these simple math equations may seem, somehow, there are occasions when these rules do not seem to apply with regard to scripture, or so one is led to believe.  This is usually seen where doctrine is removed from praxis as it relates to the Christian life.

One such place where the laws of mathematics and logic (and physics i suppose) are mysteriously not applicable (again, by accident or choice) is the oft quoted passage James 1:27 (ESV),

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” 

In sum, the three legs, if you will, that make up this stool of “religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father,” are as follows:

1: visiting orphans (in their affliction?)

2: visiting widows in their affliction

3: keeping oneself unstained from the world

Plain reading and basic literary skill show us three legs, and yet often when this text is quoted – particularly when it is ripped from its cosy, contextual home, and used as a proof text of some kind – it magically becomes only two legs: visit orphans and care for widows!  All that “extra stuff” about keeping yourself unstained from the world is either sawn off completely as irrelevant to the thrust (*ahem eisegesis) of the message, or is barely given more than a nod of affirmation by including it in the reading (which it often is not).

*See above description again for what happens when we remove a leg from a stool.

Yes, and amen, one of the general thrusts of the book of James is faith worked out in action or the orthopraxy of orthodoxy.  But look at what happens when we remove one of James’ (and thus the Holy Spirit’s) descriptions of what this stool requires: beyond being unable to stand or support anything, it removes the sin problem from the life of the Christian.  “Pure and undefiled religion before God” now becomes, not about how Jesus came into the world to save sinners (of whom we are a part) and how we should live in light of that grace, but simply about helping poor/destitute people.  This is one of THE thrusts of social gospel activists who take a reductionistic view of this passage and make following Jesus working for the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity.  The biggest thing to note from such an understanding of James 1:27 is that suddenly you don’t need Jesus to follow Jesus!!   To put it another way, such a reading of James 1:27 removes the power of the gospel, as well as its motivating force, to live out such lives of service and holiness.  This is the (again typical of the social/activist gospel proponents) overemphasis on Christ’s example (Christus exemplar) while ignoring or minimizing the other aspects of Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection.

Quite simply, it should be evident that any idea of following Jesus that doesn’t even require you to know about Him (let alone be rescued by Him) to do it, is not following Jesus.   Removing the call to personal holiness (doctrine) reduces James 1:27 to a two legged stool (praxis void of doctrine).

This is seen elsewhere when, in similar circumstances or sermons (see below 1), Matthew 4:17 is read as, 

“From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'”

What’s missing from that?!? Well, nothing really except the whole imperative of repentance which is Jesus’ entire reason for even saying that the kingdom is at hand.  Such a reading then makes Jesus’ first words of ministry simply an announcement and removes the warning that gives this announcement its context.  I guess in this case, we now have a ladder with only one beam? Or a swing with only one chain?

The end is this: when we seek to remove doctrine from what it means to live out the Christian life, we rob the teaching of scripture of its power to carry out what it teaches.  James (and all of scripture) teach that our works for God are to be the evidence of a true faith working itself out within us (James 2:14).  But faith in what?!? Working itself out for what purpose and by what power?  As said in the beginning, a stool without all it’s legs can no longer serve its purpose as a stool.  In the same way, our works in service of God will no longer serve their purpose when pulled from the context of doctrine because, in so doing, we remove the very motivation to do them.

Selah.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uasjRvevFFo

the plenary nature of Christ’s redemption

We’ve all been there.  Whether it’s one of those old bowling alleys or bingo halls, Grandpa and Grandma’s place for a visit, or any place, really, where smoking is still allowed these days.  We all know that smell.  The pungent odour that seeps into furniture and curtains and walls and carpets, that remains long after the last butt was extinguished.  In fact, even if no one has even lit up a cigarette recently, you still leave the place with the smell of it clinging to your clothes and hair. It is inescapable.  Smoke is just one of those things that ‘stays’ no matter how hard you try to get it off you (ask anyone who’s tried to hide the fact that they smoke from others).

In Daniel 3, we read of a time honored classic; a ‘main-stay’ of Sunday school tradition, in the story of three Hebrews (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), unwilling to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image and thrown into a fiery furnace because of their faithfulness. In verse 24 we’re then told,

“Then king Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counsellors, ‘Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?’ They answered and said to the king, ‘True, O king.’  He answered and said, ‘But i see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.'”

Nebuchadnezzar has his mind blown by this and calls them out of the furnace, and we are then told this,

“[they all] saw that the fire had not any power over the bodies of those men.  The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them.”

The miraculous salvation of these would-be martyrs is – in and of itself – profound and staggering.  But as i learn to understand and see more and more of Christ in the OT canon, (and, by the way, i believe this story includes not simply typology of Christ, but a literal Christophany [a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ in human history], which is one of the keys to the story’s significance.) the glaring correlation between Christ’s saving presence in the fiery furnace for those three men and Christ’s saving presence from the fires of hell in the life of every believer, comes into a sharp and singular focus.  Considering, also, what was just presented above about the particular properties and consequences of smoke, and the fact that Scripture tells us these three Hebrews came out of the fire not only unharmed but not even smelling of smoke, we are also given here a glorious vision of the consummate, plenary nature of Christ’s redemption.

In Hebrews 7:25, speaking of Christ’s unending role as our High Priest, we read,

“Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost, those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

Later in Hebrews 10:14 the author writes,

“For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

2 Cor. 5:21 tells us finally,

“For our sake, God made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

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Christ’s presence in the life of the believer is redemptive and transforming in such a way that, – like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – we are not only saved from the just wrath of a holy God in the fires of hell, but even the smoke from it’s flames cannot touch or cling to the one He calls His child.  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour!

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine … when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”  Is. 43:1,2

You can’t have one without the other: why the resurrection is essential to the gospel

Maybe you’ve been there before. Maybe not.  You’re on a trip and flying out momentarily, so you buckle up, get comfy, and find an album you love on your brand new iPhone 27 (hey, it could happen!) that you just waited 48 hours in line for yesterday, outside in the freezing cold.  You plug in your ear buds, press play and close your eyes … and hear nothing! And you lose it!!!  You stayed up all night transferring everything from your old phone to this one – not to mention freezing your butt off just to get the new phone – only now to have this piece of junk fail you!  You’re moments away from stabbing a pen into the screen when, quietly and sincerely, a 4 year old girl sitting on the aisle-seat toddles over and plugs in the dangling headphones cable into your phone and goes back to her seat.  This is what the kiddos like to called getting “PNWED!”

The waiting. The freezing. All the effort to transfer data: useless without plugging in the headphones!

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An image similar to this came to me today as i was reading Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church.  In chapter 15 he begins by giving us one of the quickest and most succinct tellings of the Gospel (historia salutis) in verses three and four:

“For i delivered to you as of first importance what i also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures …”

Now if you’re like me you’ve read this in the past and tended to focus on the first action of Christ viz. “died for our sins”, when thinking/speaking of salvation.  “What is the gospel?”, someone might ask you: “that Jesus died for your sins bro!  He suffered on a Roman cross in your place to absorb the holy wrath of God that you deserved b/c of your sins.”, you reply.  And there is nothing incorrect about what you just said! In fact, it may even lead one to wonder why Paul even “tacks on” all that other stuff about being “buried” and “raised on the third day” and “appearing” to all these people.

But the reason Paul does this is not to paint a broader picture, or prop up the “real” gospel message with extra details.  The reason is that without the resurrection you actually don’t have the gospel!

Just 10 verses later, Paul starts to kick the legs out from under a gospel presentation that focuses solely on Christ’s death, like Barry Bonds to a pelican, and then spends the rest of the chapter talking about nothing but resurrection.  He says without the resurrection, his (and all the other apostles’) preaching is in vain.  Without the resurrection they are misrepresenting God.  Without the resurrection our faith is in vain.  And finally, the ‘lights-out’ punch comes in vs. 17 when he writes,

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

You ever come across verses like this: verses you’ve read a hundred times, that feel like you’re reading them for the very first time?  It feels like this has to be an epic “typo” of some kind when you really see what Paul is getting at here. That everything:

– the Incarnation of Jesus as a baby, born of a virgin,

– the life of perfect obedience,

– the betrayal and horrific suffering,

– even the substitutionary death on the cross,

ALL MEANINGLESS if Jesus stays in the tomb!

(… take a moment and just let that sink in)

It’s little wonder that he follows this profound statement, that should rob our very breath, by adding,

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

The resurrection is essential to all these aspects of the life and substitutionary death of Christ b/c it is the very capstone of them; the place where God places His eternal seal on them all and says, “Accepted!  Paid in full!”

Romans 6:10 says, “For the death He died He died to sin, but the life He lives He lives to God.”  Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”  This ‘perfection’ for us only comes if Christ’s work is accepted and then applied to us.  Finally, in Philippians 2, after speaking of Christ’s Incarnation, life and death, Paul writes, “Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.“

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The bodily resurrection of Jesus: the true and only hope of the Gospel and the King’s Seal on Christ’s Person and work on our behalf, making it effective unto salvation.  Because of this, we can now worship and praise this living and glorified Saviour in heaven with all its host crying,

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing.”

Take it away, and the heavens – along with us – fall silent.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  Luke 24:5,6

and the Rock was Christ

It happens more often than i’d like to admit: sitting at the kitchen table over breakfast with my kids, reading bible stories from their kid’s bible (stories, so often, sadly gutted of much of their meaning and depth) and God just blows me up with something from His Word!  I don’t know why i do that: imagine that God doesn’t have something for me as well as i seek to minister to my kids.  But i’m grateful for it none the less.

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We were reading the story of Moses and the Israelites after they come out of slavery in Egypt today. In my last post, i talked about how God gives the good gift of the law only after He redeems His people, but He gave them so many other gifts as well.  In Exodus 17 (surprise, surprise!) the Israelites are complaining again to Moses and making up all kinds of kooky stories about how “good” they had it back in Egypt as slaves.  Right or wrong however, Moses can see this is about to go bad for him, so he prays to God for help.  God then instructs him to take some of the elders with him and his staff, and stand before Mount Horeb.  Then God says these words,

“Behold, I will stand before you on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.”

The clear and obvious reading of this text shows God’s loving provision, even for a rebellious people such as Israel.  But jump ahead to the New Testament and you’ll see a picture of  striking resemblance (congratulations to those of you who caught that).  In John 19:31-37 we read of the moments immediately after Jesus has given up His spirit and paid the horrible cost for our sins.  If you remember, the soldiers are trying to hurry up the crucifixions so that the bodies wont be hanging on the crosses during the Sabbath, and John writes,

“But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.  But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.”

Now i know there have been all sorts of medical understandings put forward in times past about what’s going on here, and why blood and water come out when Jesus side is pierced. And yes, the surface reading of this text is simply descriptive of the historical events.

But …

It’s like getting sucker-punched by the Holy Spirit when we go a bit further in the NT to 1 Cor. 10:3,4 and read,

“and all [that is Moses and all Israel] ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.“

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Now i know this passage from 1 Cor. 10, and i’m sitting there at the kitchen table reading about Moses and looking at this cartoon picture of Moses striking the rock with his staff, but in my mind and my heart i’m suddenly seeing a soldier ‘striking’ our ‘Rock’ on the cross, out of which life giving Water flows, and i’m struggling to hold it together in front of my kids!  They’re both like, ‘What?’ and i’m trying to imagine how to, then, describe this connection to a 5 and 6 year old as i compose myself.

In John 4 Jesus tells a woman at the well, “Everyone who drink of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  Two chapters later in John 6, Jesus says, “For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”  And reclining at table just before He is betrayed and crucified, Jesus takes the third cup of the Passover meal and says, “this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.“

How does this all fit together?  Why is this so significant?  Go back to Exodus 17.  There we read that just after the people are given water from the rock, Moses calls the place both Massah (which means ‘testing’) as well as Meribah (which means ‘quarrelling’) and writes, “because of the quarrelling of the people of Israel, and b/c they tested the LORD by saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’“

One of the Names given to the Incarnate Son of God from Isaiah’s prophecy about Him is ‘Emmanuel’, which means’ God with us’.  As we look to the cross where our ‘Rock’ was struck by a different ‘staff’, and as we are then fed and nourished by both His broken body and the double-sign of water and blood – i believe, pointing typographically back to the water at Horeb as well as showing presently this life-giving ‘blood of the new covenant’ – the LORD is surely saying to Israel of old, as well as to us today, ‘Yes! I am surely among you!‘

this Anachronistic Obedience

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines anachronism as, “a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place”, and also as, “a misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other.”  As with the picture above, we understand intuitively (or should) that certain things don’t go together, as well as the idea that things tend to follow a certain order in life.

And yet somehow, when it comes to the subject of obedience to God, Christians can often throw this understanding of the order of things out the window; seemingly oblivious to it. We’ll get to the anachronistic part momentarily, but the first problem we face when it comes to the subject of obedience to God is simply a complete misunderstanding of what that actually is!  It ends up looking like this: we, who have been redeemed by the blood of the spotless Lamb of God through no effort, choice, or even desire of our own, suddenly get the idea that we need to start paying God back.  One of the most obvious ways we try to do this is by “rule keeping” and/or making the ideas of obedience to God and “filling up our account with Him” synonymous.  J.D. Greear says in his excellent book “Gospel” that we often land in this place because we view the gospel as the “diving board” into salvation instead of being the pool itself.  Or, to put it another way, the gospel is the “starting pistol” that begins the race rather than the race itself.  This faulty understanding of the gospel will invariably lead us to the assumption that God has gotten us started in Christ, but we now have the impossible task of earning what Scripture says from start to finish can never be earned.

But the purpose of this post (and my second point) is to suggest that – if we can ever get beyond the idea of obedience to God as somehow earning our salvation – we can just as easily fall victim to a whole new problem viz. an anachronistic understanding of obedience that sees love for God flowing out of obedience to Him rather than our obedience flowing out of love for God.  The main problem with this understanding is that it completely sucks the life out our ability to ever obey God!

So, this is where things start to get kooky.  Has anyone ever been driving past one of those ‘speed traps’ just a little bit too fast and thought to themselves as they’re flagged down, “Man, i love the police department!”  Or been sitting under a mountain of receipts and folders during tax time and felt deeply, “I really love Canada!” How about standing before a counter full of dishes you now have to wash from the Thanksgiving dinner that you just made? Is anyone’s heart overflowing with joy for the gift of family at that moment?  Matt Chandler (Matty C) said it best when he said, “Obedience [he used the word discipline] won’t bring about love, but true love will always include obedience [discipline]”  So, we actually switch the order that God has lovingly laid out for us when we imagine that trying really hard to be obedient will somehow create deeper love for Him, even though we see this nowhere else in life.  

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Try something really “radical” then: follow the way God designed things to work, and see if the result is not remarkably different.  You can find innumerable examples of this design in Scripture, but here are two i think illustrate this understanding well:

The first is found in the book of Exodus.  God miraculously frees His chosen people Israel from slavery in Egypt through signs and wonders and plagues and, finally, by parting the Red Sea for them to cross over, while destroying the pursuing Egyptians in the same path.  The thing to see here is that it is only after God has rescued and redeemed His people that He gives them His good laws to obey in Ex. 20.

The second example is seen in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5 ff. where, again, it is only after Jesus describes the blessedness we have as born again children of God (Matt. 5:2-11) that He goes on to define what obedience to the law (and its depths) actually looks like.

Consider your own experience even: who among us, out of gratefulness and love for the cook, doesn’t go into the kitchen after the Thanksgiving feast, role up our sleeves and dig into helping cleaning up for them?  What new parent, out of the joy and love for this new member of their family, does not surrender sleep and sanity to sit up with a screaming baby at 3:00 am?  And what redeemed sinner, staggered under the weight of the heavy price that was paid for them on the cross, does not joyfully offer service to their Saviour and His Bride?  Yet in every case, He is always the initiator.  He, Whom is called ‘Love’ Himself, always gives us the gift first that then elicits the loving response.

He, to Whom we owe all things; the One of Whose love so amazing we sing ‘demands my soul, my life, my all’, demands these, not to repay Him in any way, nor out of any sense of duty, but simply out of the overflow of a grateful heart.  When we get the order right, then, obedience to His commands is not burdensome, but our true delight and the plain evidence of our love for Him (1 Jn.5:2,3).

Selah.

Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small!

The secret things of God

To what degree, and how exhaustively, does one need to know something in order to appreciate and joyfully participate in it?  Now, if you’re anything like me, you are already fighting the impulse to organize a full on polemic against a point i’m not trying to make, so i’ll get right to it here.

It may date me somewhat irreparably, but i remember quite well the TV and magazine advertisements for Cadbury’s Caramilk Bar, which always ended with the punch line, “How do they get the caramilk inside the Caramilk bar?”  This apparently was a secret of national importance that even the US president did not have access to; surely, a secret too wonderful for the likes of the common man such as myself to know.

But imagine with me for a moment, then, a boy or girl (a man or woman even) who received such a Caramilk bar – made in this secret, clandestine, transcendent way – who was so absorbed with discovering this secret that the idea of just ‘enjoying a chocolate bar’ was seen as frivolous and pointless even.  In fact, they even went so far as to say that the chocolate bar could not be enjoyed without first discovering the secret?

Now you or i might look at such an individual and say that this is ‘ridiculous nonsense’ and that ‘perhaps this person was dropped as a child’ or something of the like. ‘Who cares,’ we might argue, ‘how they get that stuff in there?  It’s good, whether i know how it’s made or not!’  We might, in turn, even go so far as to say that the enjoyment of the chocolate bar would be lost by pursuing such cleverly hidden and – ultimately – meaningless knowledge.

I can see i’ve already spent too much time on this point and, as the apostle Paul quipped regarding oxen, it is not for chocolate bars that i am concerned here.  The rub of it all is simply this: there are things God has revealed to us for our instruction and our good, and there are also things He has hidden from us, also to instruct to some degree, but certainly also for our good. 

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In Deuteronomy 29:29 – after much pains has been taken to recount the Law of God and recount the now familiar covenant language of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience – Moses writes,

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

I don’t intend to give a treatise on divine sovereignty or God’s transcendence here (or probably in any blog post for that matter), but merely to speak what the plain reading of this text seems to be saying viz. that what God has revealed to us in His Word is both good and sufficient for His children. And also, by implication, we need not seek to discover what He has chosen not to reveal to us in order to more deeply appreciate, or joyfully submit to, what He has revealed.

This, of course, does not mean that we are not to press deeply into what God has revealed to us in His Word and in His creation, and, through prayer and study, seek to squeeze out every last ounce of goodness and knowledge we can.  The whole premise of this blog would suggest that this is my belief!  But just like the person so intent on discovering the secret of the Caramilk bar, ultimately, looses both the enjoyment of the bar and the bar itself, i believe there is also a way in which we can become so obsessed with discovering what God has not chosen to reveal, that we can miss both the gift and the Giver.

There are many and sundry examples where this is evident; let’s look at just one for now.  The loss of a loved one, either to disease or some tragedy, can send even the strongest of believers into a tail-spin of questions and doubt. ‘Why didn’t God stop this?’ ‘Why did God take this person?’ ‘Did i do something to deserve this?’ When the loss is unexpected or involves a child, these questions may only become intensified.

But, i believe, here we have one example of the secret things of God.  We can scream ‘WHY?’ to the heavens until our throats bleed, but the answer will not come.  Or, worse yet, read the book of Job to see how terrifying it is when – on rare occasions – God does answer the question which would leave any of us wishing for the former. We can also waste years and alienate many close to us searching the ruins and wreckage for ‘clues’ that never lead anywhere or bring any life.  Sadly, some may finally walk away from God in the search when ‘acceptable’ answers cannot be found.

And yet – following the text at hand – what has God revealed to us? Foundationally, we know the Character of our God: that He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps. 103), that He is sovereign over all the kingdoms of the earth (Dan.4), that He is a loving, meticulous Creator (Ps. 139), and that all things work according to His plan for our ultimate good and His glory (Rom. 8:28, Eph. 1:11, Ps. 139), and on and on and on and on and on.  This is no powerless, aloof deity nor is He a capricious, sadistic tyrant.  We serve a loving Father who Shepherds us in the absolute best way possible,  but who also makes no promise to explain Himself to us.

In Isaiah 55 we read, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” This is no ‘cosmic cop-out’, where God patronizingly tells us not to bother trying to figure it out.  It’s really as though God is, through His word here, hugging a crying one-year-old who can’t understand why they can’t play by the open window, and saying, “It’s gonna be ok. I love you and I know much better than you ever could what’s best for you, even if I could never explain it to you now in a way you’d understand.”

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In His commentary on Deut. 29:29, Calvin said, “[it is] as though it were said, “God indeed retains to Himself secret things, which it neither concerns nor profits us to know, and which surpass our comprehension; but these things, which He has declared to us, belong to us and to our children.” It is a remarkable passage, and especially deserving of our observation, for by it audacity and excessive curiosity are condemned, whilst pious minds are aroused to be zealous in seeking instruction.”

Let us give ourselves to an ever deepening knowledge of the Holy, and by it, may we revel in what our loving Father has revealed to us; may we bow the knee in worship and also find balm in our hour of doubt and anguish. But beyond this, let us leave the secret things of God where He has lovingly placed them: out of our finite reach.

Selah.

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor?”    Rom. 11:34

on union with Christ

If you’ve never toured a vineyard it’s certainly one of those experiences worth having, even if you don’t enjoy wine. The sights and smells are rich, and full of an earthy-beauty (plus for people like me, it’s a chance to pretend for a moment like you’re traveling in Tuscany and not southern British Columbia!)

As you wander through the long lanes, with branches straining under the load of luscious grapes, even a casual observer can see that there is an interconnectedness about what you’re looking at; a syllogistic pattern of vines planted in the earth, branches attached to the vines, and grapes exploding in slow motion out of the vines.  Remove the vine and you have no branches or fruit. Remove the branches and you have no fruit. Remove the fruit and … well, you make some wine!

Something that you’ll miss however by a single visit is the seasonal changes a vine goes through.  Come in late Fall and you’ll see rows and rows of fruit ready for harvest.  But come in winter and you’ll see the vines trimmed down to almost nothing. Or come in spring and you’ll see the slow climb up the trellis as the branches spring from the vine and reach for the sky above and it’s nourishing light.  The thing to take away here is that even healthy, fruit-bearing branches have seasons where you see no fruit on them at all!

The last thing to notice is the pile of branches that have been pruned.  It takes a trained eye to see it, but even a seemingly healthy branch that bears no fruit needs to be cut away so that the healthy branches can have room to grow unhindered and produce more fruit.  It seems cruel perhaps but the vinedresser knows what is needed to produce the best crop.  These branches that are cut away are then simply piled up and burned.

In John 15, Jesus draws from these same observations we’ve just made and makes the following connections to Himself, the Father, and to us: He says, “I am the True Vine and my Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

A verse later He says, “Abide in Me and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.”

Finally, He says, “I am the Vine, you are the branches (avoid the temptation to hear cheesy 80’s worship chorus here). Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” He then goes on in sobering terms to describe the branches that do not abide which are cut away, wither, and are gathered and burned.

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And as we consider what it means to have union with Christ and, ultimately, to abide in Him, the analogy of the vineyard has striking revelations for us:

*note – i do realize that, technically speaking, “abiding” in Christ and “union” with Christ are separate things to be sure. I am merely moving past the obvious connection that if one is not first united with Christ, they cannot abide in Him.

The first, and most obvious, revelation seen here is that bearing fruit requires being connected to Jesus. The analogies are many and sundry. A fish can’t live out of water. We can’t live under water. And fruit doesn’t grow in the air. It needs to be attached to something to grow at all.  And bearing fruit is always connected in Scripture with life in Christ.  The one who bears no fruit at all (and i want to stress that point at all, for – as we saw above – fruit growth has it’s seasons) is not united to Christ, no matter how many WWJD bracelets, bible memory verses, or church attendance pins they may have.  A story i never used to get, but that illustrates this point strikingly, is found in Matt. 21:18,19 where Jesus curses the fig tree and it withers.  The key to understanding it is in seeing that the tree Jesus comes up to “looks” healthy (leaves growing and, i assume, figs are supposed to be in season).  But when Jesus sees that there is no fruit, he curses it and it withers (sound like anything we just read in John 15 about branches w/o fruit being cut off and withering?) So with us: no matter how healthy and spiritual we may appear to the world around us, God is not fooled, and our complete lack of fruit shows the true health and life of our soul (or rather the lack of it).

The second, and perhaps not as obvious, revelation is that – as the branch itself that is separated from the vine could not bear fruit and withers – so a man or woman separate from Christ – the true Vine – can not only not bear fruit, but has no life in them.  Earlier in John 6, Jesus used striking words to make this same point when He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”  In Colossians 3:4, Paul says of Christ that He “is your life“, and that when He appears, we will also appear with Him in glory.  As those united to Christ by faith and seeking to abide in Him always, we are meant to be nourished by the true Vine; to feed on Him by faith through the Word and the sacraments, in order to have His life in us.  So that we finally begin to see and understand, as He says, “apart from Me you can do nothing.” Here Jesus goes beyond the fruit part even; He says in effect, ‘forget the fruit bro – you can’t do anything apart from Me!’

So critical is this union with Christ to our eternal life and salvation that John Calvin began book three of his Institutes of the Christian Religion – Calvin’s main section relating to the application of redemption – with this statement, “as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from Him, all that He has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us.”

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May it be said of all of us who profess Christ, that we did not only wear the ‘clothing of the branches’, but that we – truly united to and abiding in Christ – bore ‘fruit in keeping with repentance’, and produced a bountiful harvest to the glory of God.

amen.

Unless you go with me …

I remember not so long ago being at Disneyland with my family.  We headed over to ‘Toon Town’, and when my girls saw the Goofy Gadget roller coaster, they both got really excited [another level higher than the excitement they already had just being at Disneyland for the first time] and wanted desperately to go on it.  We got into the line, but i noticed that as we got closer to going on the actual ride, my youngest daughter began to become increasingly fearful and gripped my hand more firmly. ‘Daddy, i don’t want to go anymore!’, was her plea as we were just a few people away from getting on.  I told her that b/c we were so close and had waited all this time, that she should at least give it a try, to which she said, ‘Daddy, will you please go with me?  I don’t wanna go unless you come with me!’

In Exodus 33, God gives the command to Moses for he and the people to leave Sinai and begin travelling towards the promised land, but – b/c of their covenant-breaking idolatry with the golden calf – God states, “but I will not go up among you, lest I  consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” Ex. 33:3  All the people, including Moses, get all freaked out and sad at this word from God, but God is like, “No way!  If I spend another minute with you fools I’m gonna take you all out!” [my paraphrase]  But what stands out most to me – among other things – here is Moses’ response to God as he pleads for Israel in the tent of meeting.

Here he has God’s promised land of ‘milk and honey’ before him, and God is promising to even send an angel ahead of them to drive out the other nations, so they will surely inherit the land.  But Moses – having learned a few things thus far on the trip – sees the great problem with what God is saying through Him and he responds by saying these words,

“If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.  For how shall it be known that i have found favour in Your sight, I and Your people?  Is it not in Your going with us, so that we are distinct … from every other people on the face of the earth?”

Moses understands that even the possession of this amazing promised land that God had sworn to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is not worth going into if God will not go with them.  He understands that the Presence of God amoung them is infinitely more important than the simple possession of the land, to the point where he even refuses to go into it without the Presence of God going with them!

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And in considering this text, it made me wonder if we couldn’t become so focused on projects and ideas and ministries in service of God, that we don’t share the understanding that Moses had in first seeking God’s presence amoung them?  How many of us would be willing to sacrifice a new ministry we’ve just begun, or a job we’ve finally received, or a fiance we long to marry if – in assessing it –  we saw that God was not present in it?  How many of us truly begin any such endeavours with the heart of Moses here: that we will not even begin to proceed if God will not go with us?  For, in many respects, the presence of God assumes both the blessing and protection of God.  One example of this is seen in 1 Sam. 18:12 where the presence of God departs from Saul and rests on David; Saul realizes this and is rightly afraid, for the blessing and protection of God now clearly rests on David.

So, in Ex.33 God was saying to Moses and Israel [as well as to all of us today] – in effect – ‘Do you seek Me or My blessings?  Will you refuse My blessings even if you can’t also have me, or are you ‘cool’ to just have My stuff with or without Me?’

Spurgeon speaks to this same idea in his sermon on Rev.14.  Quoting Samuel Rutherford he says, “‘Heaven and Christ are the same thing“‘, and, ‘O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without thee, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have thee still, it would be a heaven to me, for thou art all the heaven I want.‘”  Even our own”promised land” in the life to come – let alone the blessings we pursue in this one – should not be worth having if Christ be not present there!  May then this prayer of Moses be on all our lips in whatever endeavours we set out on; that we may always seek the Giver firstly and not the gift alone.

Amen.