Sunday, August 1, 2021
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Not Under Law!
Not Under Law
Reading Zanchius' Absolute Predestination, he observes that Abram didn't think ill of
God's command to slay his son (Gen 22), though mankind knew such an act was
evil (Gen 4). Abram knew the expressed will of God was better than the
prohibition against taking a life without cause. Similar to the order to
plunder Egypt (Ex 3) contrasted with the word to not steal (Ex 20). Is God of
two minds? Perish the thought. His purpose and plan are often hidden from us,
but ever being worked out to bring Him glory and do good for His own.
We read time and again how Jesus came to do
the Father's will - echoing Abram! In John 4:34 Jesus said His food was to do
the Father's will; in John 6:38 He said He came from heaven to do His Father's
will. And in Matt 7:21 we read that those who do the Father's will are the ones
who inherit heaven; For I have come down
from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the
will of Him who sent Me: that I should lose none of those He has given Me but
should raise them up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father: that
everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I will
raise him up on the last day.” (John
6:38-40). God desires mercy, not the sacrifices demanded by the law. The One
Who made a pleasing sacrifice on our account gives us His righteousness and
provides mercy, day-by-day. As our call
to worship reminds us, Moses was faithful as a servant in the house but Jesus
is a Son over His own house. When Peter asked Him about paying the temple tax
(Matt 17:24-27), Jesus said strangers pay the tax but the sons are free. God
the Father was not subject to the Mosaic Law; the Son is Lord over His house
and is free. All the sons and daughters are free! When Jesus began His public
ministry, He was showing people a better way, revealing a covenant built on
better promises. He did not lead people to the Old Covenant, He led people away
from it as it was being brought to its end. He left the Old Covenant to show us
the way to the New.
We also read of God violating laws of nature
that He established, making the sun stand still (Joshua 10:13) and giving life
to that which was dead (John 11). He cured leprosy with dirty water (2 Kings 5).
God is not bound the laws He gives man!
It was against the Mosaic Law for a healthy
person to touch one with leprosy (Lev 5:3 - page 127). Some lepers were healed in the Old Covenant
era, but the lepers were not touched. They were not touched when declared clean
by the Levitical priests. Jesus was sending a message by touching this man.
When Jesus began His kingdom ministry, He was no longer under the Mosaic Law as
He was as a minor child, else He would not have touched the man. He was working
to show the Jews that their Messiah was greater than Moses, even God in the
flesh, bringing a new and better covenant founded on better promises to His
spiritual people. In Luke 8:19-56 Jesus touched a dead child and raised her to
life; touching the dead was prohibited by the law (Num 19:11). The Mosaic Law
forbade spitting on a person: Num 12:14 declares one unclean who has been
spit-on; Deut 25:9 refers to spitting in in another's face as a curse on the
person. Jesus spit on the ground, made clay to apply to a blind man's eyes to
bring healing (John 9:6); He spit on a mute man's tongue to heal him (Mark
7:33); and He spit in a blind man's eyes to heal him (Mark 8:22-25), contrary
to Mosaic Law. Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7:15, 19), contrary to the
Levitical law; He healed a paralytic on the Sabbath (John 5:7-10), for which
they wanted to kill Him (John 5:18), for He not only violated their Sabbath, He
made Himself equal with God. In Matt 12, Jesus defended His disciples plucking
grain on the Sabbath, positioning Himself as greater than David (who had eaten
bread meant only for priests) and greater than (Lord of/over) the Sabbath. In
this instance, He cites Hosea 6:6, "For
I desire mercy and not sacrifice." While the law was not full of
mercy, it provided no specific exceptions to the weekly Sabbath for acts of
mercy. Healing was required in the law but no provision for doing so on the
Sabbath was given. Circumcision was required on the 8th day, which sometimes
happened on a Sabbath. Jesus pointed out the priests broke the Sabbath to keep
the law of circumcision. I think these points of tension were there to lead the
Jews to seek guidance from YHWH, but they built up a system of rules that they
thought they keep and be pleasing to God. Of old He told them, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice."
God is not bound the laws He gives man - He is Lord over both man and law!
Friday, July 16, 2021
Saturday, July 10, 2021
Sanctification
Sanctification
There are some Christians who teach that saints are totally depraved, with no difference in our being than before we were redeemed. Some of these seem genuinely concerned that we do not hold to infusion of grace into our flesh; and that is a legitimate concern.
It's not our flesh that has been made new by our new life in Christ. It's our soul that has been made alive. The soul of the unregenerate is dead - unable to move his flesh in a way pleasing to God. The saint has a soul that is alive to God, with the Spirit of God willing and making him able to do things that ARE pleasing to God (Phil 2:13). This is what I think we are taught in various places, including Romans 12:1-2 (HCSB) Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Note this: the way we avoid being conformed to this age is by being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The soul of the saint has been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His glorious light (Col 1:13) and we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph 2:6). Obviously this is not speaking about our physical being, but our spiritual being.
It should also be obvious that our mind, which is part and parcel of our soul, controls our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. We are not told that our flesh gets better with time, but we are told to control our thoughts, words, and deeds; we are not to walk as reprobates do, but as children of God:
Ephesians 5:6-11 (HCSB) Let
no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things.
Therefore, do not become their partners. For you were once darkness, but now ⌊you are⌋ light in the Lord. Walk as children of light— for the fruit of the light ⌊results⌋
in all goodness, righteousness, and truth— discerning what is pleasing to the Lord.
Don’t
participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Did you notice: a command to walk as children of light, which will bear fruit of that light which will reveal itself in goodness, righteousness, and truth – which means we can discern what’s pleasing to the Lord. Why would He give us such discernment if we have NO ability to influence our thoughts, words, and deeds? Why tell us NOT to take part in works of darkness if we are depraved and unable to say no to sin?
None of us will be without sin while we inhabit these bodies of death; but none who have been born from above by the Spirit of God are without a Helper who wills and equips us to do that which is pleasing to Him. We have an Intercessor who will make a way of escape (1 Cor 10:13) so that sin will not have dominion over us, but allow us to run away from it, as Joseph did so long ago. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture.
Romans 6:16-23 (HCSB) Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were transferred to, and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to moral impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from allegiance to righteousness. So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. But now, since you have been liberated from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the end is eternal life! For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That transforming renewal of our minds works its way out in our patterns of what we think, what we speak, and what we do. We have been liberated from sin and enslaved to God, which results in sanctification – the end of which is eternal life. Sort of sounds like sanctification is one of those essential things God works in us that we cannot do without.
2 Corinthians 7:1 (HCSB) Therefore, dear friends, since we have such promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, completing our sanctification in the fear of God.
We work at completing this sanctification by cleansing ourselves from impurities of the flesh and our fleshly desires. We should not think we can cleanse ourselves by our effort and we should not think God will sanctify us no matter what we do; both are ditches we need to avoid. It’s analogous to being so afraid of works righteousness that we do not tell people to repent and believe or being convinced we can save sinners by our clever words. Both are wrong thinking.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 (HCSB) For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God. This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. For God has not called us to impurity but to sanctification. Therefore, the person who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who also gives you His Holy Spirit.
Here is a very specific area of sanctification – sexual purity. Ouch! But look what we’re told: God wills our sanctification so we will know and be able to control our bodies in an honorable way. How anyone can say we are no different from unregenerate people confounds me. There is no teaching of perfectionism, but there is clear teaching that we are to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus so we won’t be led astray by lawless people (2 Pet 3:17 & 18).
Read the qualifications of elders and deacons in 1 Tim 3 and see sanctified life described in action terms: sensible, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, not a drunkard, not quarrelsome or greedy. No different from depraved reprobates?
2 Thessalonians 2:13-15 (HCSB) But we must always thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, so that you might obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, either by our message or by our letter.
We are chosen by God for salvation through sanctification. Not that we are sanctified and then saved, but that just as repentance and faith are separate but inseparable, so is salvation and sanctification. And this sanctification is the work of Spirit through the Word of Truth. And we finish this passage with the exhortation to behave rightly and think rightly, as taught by the apostolic records in Scripture. The Christian’s life IS DIFFERENT than the unregenerate’s life.
I have come to the conclusion that while justification (salvation, redemption) is monergistic, sanctification (perseverance, preservation) is not. But it’s not synergistic, either. That term conveys the notion that both elements or parties are required for the process to function. Even a casual read through the Bible will reveal the fact that God bids us to obey (Galatians 6:9) and enables to do so (Hebrews 13:20 & 21), He commands us to press on for the prize that will not tarnish and sustains us in the doing (Hebrews 12:1 & 2), and reminds us that apart from Him we do nothing (John 15:5). This is the essence of Augustine’s famous prayer that ignited the controversy with Pelagius: “God, command what you will, grant what you command.” The Christian will want to obey God and trust Him to bring it to completion. Yet He also works to conform us to His Son when we rebel and are not careful to walk as children of the light (1 Corinthians 5:9-13; Hebrews 12:3-11; James 1:2-4 & 12). Brothers, this should not be the case, we should not kick the goads; but it is comforting (and convicting) to embrace a God Who is not dependent on us!
So I conclude that God can work to sanctify us without our active participation, yet we cannot work towards growing in likeness to Christ without His active participation (John 15:5). We take 100% responsibility for the sin in our lives, we give God 100% of the credit for the good thoughts, words, and deeds we do. His Spirit in us works so that we pray effectively (Romans 8:26), without Him we can do nothing.
Sanctification. If it’s not part of your life, you need to examine yourself to see if you be in the faith (2 Cor 13:5).
Wednesday, July 7, 2021
Captive to the Word of God - version 2
Version 2 of my book is now available in Kindle, paperback, and hardback! Changes from version 1 include a correction on a Scripture reference, modification on the use of "church" to describe the assembly of saints, and an additional appendix explaining how law and covenant do not transfer outside the covenant, the New Covenant has a new law. But though law ends as regulation, it continues as revelation and is useful to the saints, as is all of Scripture.
Available in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback.
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Don't Be a Scoffer
Ezekiel is largely a warning to apostate Israel. One proverb they had grown fond of was a cute couplet used to convince themselves that what YHWH's prophets said would not come to pass - judgment would not come upon Israel, they were God's people!
Ezekiel 12:21-25 (HCSB) Again the word of the LORD came to
me: “Son of man, what is this proverb you ⌊people⌋ have about
the land of Israel, which goes: The days keep passing by, and every vision
fails? Therefore say to them: This is what the Lord GOD says: I will put a stop
to this proverb, and they will not use it again in Israel. But say to them: The
days draw near, as well as the fulfillment of every vision. For there will no
longer be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel.
But I, Yahweh, will speak whatever message I will speak, and it will be done.
It will no longer be delayed. For in your days, rebellious house, I will speak
a message and bring it to pass.” ⌊This is⌋ the
declaration of the Lord GOD.
But judgment DID come, they were taken into Babylon. And
that stands as a warning to all who claim Christ today. Do we rightly fear God
and seek to walk as Christ has commanded? Or do we scoff at the idea that He is
coming?
2 Peter 3:3-7 (HCSB) First, be aware of this: Scoffers will
come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires, saying,
“Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all
things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.” They
willfully ignore this: Long ago the heavens and the earth were brought about
from water and through water by the word of God. Through these waters the world
of that time perished when it was flooded. But by the same word, the present
heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment
and destruction of ungodly men.
Current scoffers have much in common with the unbelievers in
ancient Israel - they try to convince themselves that all will be delayed for
so long that it doesn't really matter.
But the Word of God has the present heavens and earth
waiting for the judgment of fire whereupon ungodly people will destroyed.
Are you a scoffer? Plead with God to give you a new heart
that longs to submit to Him rather than rebel.
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