MARKS OF RELIGION Week 50
Usually world religions have two trademarks. One is they require subservience through a code of conduct. The other is they require the individual give the gods something, usually money or sometimes animals.
The concept is the gods have something which we are supposed to need, since we lack it. So we come to the god to buy some sort of relationship to that god with money or a sacrifice.
However this is not the situation with Christianity. Paul says--He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1.4. When Paul says we are--in Him--he means we are in the likeness and image of God. We have Him within us, so that we are not lacking in anything we need. So, instead of coming to God to buy what we lack, we go out into the world to give away what God has given us.
This is why the Bible says we have an unspeakable gift, or freely you have been given, freely give. Paul says--you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise....Eph. 1.13.
We do not seek to acquire, we seek to give away. A perfect example is Matt. 8.2, 3. A leper came to Jesus. The leper bowed down, saying, Lord if You are willing, You can make me clean.'
Is Jesus willing? Will He hoard the power He has, running away to a desert community or to Miami Beach? What will He require of this soiled leper? What sacrifice must the leper make?
Jesus says, I am willing; be cleansed, Matt. 8.3.
What happens next? Is the leper to keep this miracle to himself, just not give it away? Jesus then says to him, present yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses prescribed, for a testimony to them. Not a testimony against the priest, but to him. Through the willingness of Jesus, two are blessed: the leper and the priest.
In Romans 4.15 Paul says—the Law brings about wrath. What he means is the Law reveals that we have fallen short of the glory of God. This results in wrath because we were meant to reveal God's glory beautifully. As we have sinned, so the glory of God has been darkened.
However, if we keep on reading Romans 5.8 says—while we were sinners Christ died for us. This released us from that wrath, to be free before God. Romans 6.6 says---we are no longer slaves to sin... We live the life of holiness which Christ lives, we are---alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We've been given the gift of eternal life. As a result, we are to give away. In Matt. 5 Jesus says to give away not just our shirt but our coat. He says in Matt. 5.42--Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. In Matt. 9.22 and 9.29 Jesus gives away His power. In Matt. 10.1 He gives the disciples authority over unclean spirits.
So we are not subservient to the Law but we are alive to the holiness of God in Christ Jesus. He even says in Matt. 10.39 that if we give our life away for His sake, we will find it. For all of the people in all centuries who have sought for a meaning to their life, this is where it is found.
This is how the Christian lives. It is unique.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
ALL I NEED--Part 2
In the NT we have been given encouragement and instructions by which to experience God in coming to Him.
When Jesus walked Israel many came to Him.
In John 2 Mary comes to her son Jesus, asking Him to provide wine. Then He came to the servants, changing water into wine.. In John 3 Nicodemus comes to Jesus asking about Him. So Jesus comes to Nicodemus when He says—You must be born again. In John 4 Jesus comes to Jacob's well. When He speaks the truth to the Samaritan woman, she returns to her city. Then John 4.40 says—When the Samaritans came to Him, they were asking Him to stay with them. He stayed with them two days.
In each instance, someone came to Him so that He might come to them.
We are told in John 4 that the Father is looking for true worshipers. He wants us to approach Him. Today we come to Him through the Spirit, through prayer and the Bible and through worship. In Revelation 22.9 the angel tells John, worship Him.
When we do these things, we can do what the Levitical priests did in the OT, we can approach God.
Jeremiah had said that we cannot go out of God's presence---
'Can a man hide himself in the hiding places, so I do not see Him?' declares the Lord. 'Do I not fill the heaven and the earth?' declares the Lord.
In Acts 17.28 Paul said to the Athenians---For in Him we live and move and have our being... So we see that God is all around us, like the air we breathe.
But God was not satisfied with His presence being all around us; He wishes to be in us. The Bible tells us that God not only fills heaven and earth, but He fills the souls of believers. In 1 Corinthians 3.16 Paul wrote--
you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Peter says in 2 Peter 1.4 that God has given us promises---that by them you might be come partakers of the divine nature...
Paul says in Ephesians 1.4 that---He chose us in Him...that we should be holy and blameless before Him. As Elijah was before Him, we are before Him so that we might be filled in Him.
Now all of this is quite spiritual, so we come to Him in quiet steps so that He would come to us in soft waves.
Some are far off, as the multitudes in John 6.2 where the crowd followed Him at a distance. So Jesus came to them through the disciples who fed them with fish and bread. When this happened, the crowd comes to Jesus as much as they can when they say—--This is of a truth the prophet who is to come into the world, John 6.14.
The centurion stands a bit off when he says in Matt. 8.8---if you just say the word, my servant will be healed. Jesus says to the centurion---Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed, Matt. 8.13.
Some come closer, as the woman with the issue of blood who---came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak. Jesus says---take courage daughter, your faith has made you well, Matt. 9.22.
Children even sat on his lap in Matt. 19.14.
How these people came to Jesus was how He came to them so that they could enter into His presence.
Hebrews 10.22 says—let us drawn near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
In the NT we have been given encouragement and instructions by which to experience God in coming to Him.
When Jesus walked Israel many came to Him.
In John 2 Mary comes to her son Jesus, asking Him to provide wine. Then He came to the servants, changing water into wine.. In John 3 Nicodemus comes to Jesus asking about Him. So Jesus comes to Nicodemus when He says—You must be born again. In John 4 Jesus comes to Jacob's well. When He speaks the truth to the Samaritan woman, she returns to her city. Then John 4.40 says—When the Samaritans came to Him, they were asking Him to stay with them. He stayed with them two days.
In each instance, someone came to Him so that He might come to them.
We are told in John 4 that the Father is looking for true worshipers. He wants us to approach Him. Today we come to Him through the Spirit, through prayer and the Bible and through worship. In Revelation 22.9 the angel tells John, worship Him.
When we do these things, we can do what the Levitical priests did in the OT, we can approach God.
Jeremiah had said that we cannot go out of God's presence---
'Can a man hide himself in the hiding places, so I do not see Him?' declares the Lord. 'Do I not fill the heaven and the earth?' declares the Lord.
In Acts 17.28 Paul said to the Athenians---For in Him we live and move and have our being... So we see that God is all around us, like the air we breathe.
But God was not satisfied with His presence being all around us; He wishes to be in us. The Bible tells us that God not only fills heaven and earth, but He fills the souls of believers. In 1 Corinthians 3.16 Paul wrote--
you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Peter says in 2 Peter 1.4 that God has given us promises---that by them you might be come partakers of the divine nature...
Paul says in Ephesians 1.4 that---He chose us in Him...that we should be holy and blameless before Him. As Elijah was before Him, we are before Him so that we might be filled in Him.
Now all of this is quite spiritual, so we come to Him in quiet steps so that He would come to us in soft waves.
Some are far off, as the multitudes in John 6.2 where the crowd followed Him at a distance. So Jesus came to them through the disciples who fed them with fish and bread. When this happened, the crowd comes to Jesus as much as they can when they say—--This is of a truth the prophet who is to come into the world, John 6.14.
The centurion stands a bit off when he says in Matt. 8.8---if you just say the word, my servant will be healed. Jesus says to the centurion---Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed, Matt. 8.13.
Some come closer, as the woman with the issue of blood who---came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak. Jesus says---take courage daughter, your faith has made you well, Matt. 9.22.
Children even sat on his lap in Matt. 19.14.
How these people came to Jesus was how He came to them so that they could enter into His presence.
Hebrews 10.22 says—let us drawn near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
ALL I NEED Week 49 Part 1
The two drives which have haunted nearly all Christians throughout the centuries have been:
--the drive to find certainty
--and the longing to experience God.
The more perceptive fiction writers say we live in an inconclusive world. So what is there which is certain, so the soul can know that it is in the hand of God? What really changes people?
In Matt. 6.14 Jesus is teaching about forgiveness when He mentions His Father. He says--if you forgive men for their transgressions your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Notice Jesus did not mention the individual sinner who sinned, but the Father who forgives. This makes forgiveness sure, as it comes from heaven and God. It come from eternity, in which God and heaven never change. If we are forgiven in heaven with God the Father, then it is sure upon the earth.
I have counted 13 times in Matthew's gospel Jesus says, God who is in heaven.
In Matt. 5.16 we are to let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and--glorify your Father who is in heaven.
In Matt. 5.48 we are to be perfect--as our heavenly Father is perfect.
In Matt. 6.6 when we pray and--your Father who sees us in secret will repay you.
In Matt. 6.9 it is--Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name..
In 7.11 it is--how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him? In 7.21 it is--he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. And in 10.32 it is--everyone who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. In Matt. 7.15-21 Jesus speaks first about those who are false. Then he summarizes by saying--Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of My Father, who is in heaven. This is the same lesson as it is in 16.17, 18.10, 18.19, 19.32. Each of these passages uses, the Father who is in heaven. What comes down from heaven from God is sure on this earth. This has been said in a short form in Matt. 6.10--on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus makes this personal in Matt. 19.32 when He is speaking of confessing His name. He says--Everyone therefore who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
Bu what about experiencing God? If Jesus died for our sins, we might get the idea He experienced God but we did not. Since we can't work our way to heaven or ever be holy enough in our flesh to climb into heaven, how can we--ourselves--ever experience God?
In our own day many desire to experience God. The further away from Biblical times we are the more difficult it is to find our way back. So the desire to experience God has become intense.
Just as soon as Adam and Eve leave the Garden, immediately God begins to draw them back to Himself. To replace what was lost in Eden, God gives Adam and Eve a family who will eventually give birth to a savior.
God gives His family, Israel, a tabernacle so that He might dwell in their midst.
He gives them His Law, so that they might know Him.
He gives them psalms so that they might approach Him.
He gives them a temple so that they might praise Him.
And then He gives them Himself, so that where He is they might also be.
Being with God is being like God. So God gives His Holy Spirit to transform every believer, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female just as in the Garden--those who are far off and those who are near.
In Exodus 14 God shows Israel His majestic power at the Red Sea. Not only did they see columns of bursting water careen so that they might walk between them, they felt His fury, His grandeur in holiness.
And in 1 Kings 19.11 God tells Elijah to stand before Him on a mountain. In a certain cave, Elijah hears God is not in the whirlwind, the fire, or the earthquake but in a still small voice. As God tells Elijah to come before Him, so God comes to Elijah.
In Psalm 69.18 David says--O, draw near to my soul and redeem it,
Ransom me because of my enemies.
Jeremiah 31.3 says--I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
These are promises fulfilled in the NT. There in John 12.32 Jesus speaks of His death as the act of redeeming which David asked for--If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me.
The author of Hebrews said in Hebrews 10.22 we can do this--Let us draw near with a sincere heart... And finally James summarizes it all when he says--Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, James 4.8.
The two drives which have haunted nearly all Christians throughout the centuries have been:
--the drive to find certainty
--and the longing to experience God.
The more perceptive fiction writers say we live in an inconclusive world. So what is there which is certain, so the soul can know that it is in the hand of God? What really changes people?
In Matt. 6.14 Jesus is teaching about forgiveness when He mentions His Father. He says--if you forgive men for their transgressions your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Notice Jesus did not mention the individual sinner who sinned, but the Father who forgives. This makes forgiveness sure, as it comes from heaven and God. It come from eternity, in which God and heaven never change. If we are forgiven in heaven with God the Father, then it is sure upon the earth.
I have counted 13 times in Matthew's gospel Jesus says, God who is in heaven.
In Matt. 5.16 we are to let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and--glorify your Father who is in heaven.
In Matt. 5.48 we are to be perfect--as our heavenly Father is perfect.
In Matt. 6.6 when we pray and--your Father who sees us in secret will repay you.
In Matt. 6.9 it is--Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name..
In 7.11 it is--how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him? In 7.21 it is--he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. And in 10.32 it is--everyone who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. In Matt. 7.15-21 Jesus speaks first about those who are false. Then he summarizes by saying--Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of My Father, who is in heaven. This is the same lesson as it is in 16.17, 18.10, 18.19, 19.32. Each of these passages uses, the Father who is in heaven. What comes down from heaven from God is sure on this earth. This has been said in a short form in Matt. 6.10--on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus makes this personal in Matt. 19.32 when He is speaking of confessing His name. He says--Everyone therefore who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
+++
Bu what about experiencing God? If Jesus died for our sins, we might get the idea He experienced God but we did not. Since we can't work our way to heaven or ever be holy enough in our flesh to climb into heaven, how can we--ourselves--ever experience God?
In our own day many desire to experience God. The further away from Biblical times we are the more difficult it is to find our way back. So the desire to experience God has become intense.
Just as soon as Adam and Eve leave the Garden, immediately God begins to draw them back to Himself. To replace what was lost in Eden, God gives Adam and Eve a family who will eventually give birth to a savior.
God gives His family, Israel, a tabernacle so that He might dwell in their midst.
He gives them His Law, so that they might know Him.
He gives them psalms so that they might approach Him.
He gives them a temple so that they might praise Him.
And then He gives them Himself, so that where He is they might also be.
Being with God is being like God. So God gives His Holy Spirit to transform every believer, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female just as in the Garden--those who are far off and those who are near.
In Exodus 14 God shows Israel His majestic power at the Red Sea. Not only did they see columns of bursting water careen so that they might walk between them, they felt His fury, His grandeur in holiness.
And in 1 Kings 19.11 God tells Elijah to stand before Him on a mountain. In a certain cave, Elijah hears God is not in the whirlwind, the fire, or the earthquake but in a still small voice. As God tells Elijah to come before Him, so God comes to Elijah.
In Psalm 69.18 David says--O, draw near to my soul and redeem it,
Ransom me because of my enemies.
Jeremiah 31.3 says--I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
These are promises fulfilled in the NT. There in John 12.32 Jesus speaks of His death as the act of redeeming which David asked for--If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me.
The author of Hebrews said in Hebrews 10.22 we can do this--Let us draw near with a sincere heart... And finally James summarizes it all when he says--Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, James 4.8.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
SERVING AND RULING Week 48
In 2 Corinthians 1.24 Paul says about taking spiritual authority over the believers in Corinth, Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy, for in your faith you are standing firm. The Greek word is kurieuw, to have possession of, or control. Paul is refusing to have possession or control over the saints at Corinth.
This recalls what Jesus said in Matthew 20.25, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authotity over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. The Greek word for 'lord it over them,' is a long Greek word. It uses kata, meaning against, with kurieuw, to have authority over.
Peter uses the same Greek word in 1 Peter 5.3. He is speaking to the elders of a church about shepherding the flock. He tells them to shepherd the flock, not under compulsion but voluntarily, nor yet as lording it over those alloted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. Peter is so intent on serving, he doesn't even mention the names of those who will follow him in ministry.
To give you an idea of the force of this word, Acts 19.16 translates this word as, leaped on them...to subdue them and overpower them.
Jesus will not allow the church to be run as governments are run--the ruler must be a servant. Jesus said He came to seek and to serve. Jesus said in Matt. 20.27, whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. .
A wonderful example of serving one another is Matt. 21.2. Jesus tells two disciples to go into a village to find a donkey and colt tied up. He tells them to bring the donkey and colt to Him. What was the result of such a simple act? The Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem which led to His crucifixion which led to His resurrection and then ours.
When Jesus and his mother and disciples go to a wedding in John 2, the guests run out of wine. Mary expects Jesus to turn the water into wine before everyone, to great acclaim. However, Jesus is the servant of God--not a ruler. He waits, turns the water into wine by using pots reserved for purification. These pots would not be at the wedding itself, but where only the servants could get them. The servants pour water into these pots. When Jesus transforms the water into wine, the headwaiter did not know who did this because Jesus didn't broadcast it, but the servants did, John 2.9. Jesus was with the servants when He did the miracle.
He was among us all as one who serves, Matt. 20.28. Paul says, through love serve one another, Galatians 5.13. But the great word from God about serving is Joshua 22.5, serve Him with all of your heart all of your soul.
In Matt. 20.30 Jesus walks by two blind men on His way to Jericho. They call out to Him, 'Lord have mercy on us, Son of David'. Does Jesus tell them what they need to do? Does He tell them what He's going to do? No, He came to serve. So He asks them, 'What do you want me to do for you?' Jesus says 'Me' once; 'you' twice. When they say, 'We want our eyes to be opened,' Jesus opens their eyes.
In Matt. 5.39 Jesus tells of what might happen when we do not lord it over another. Jesus says, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.... What would be the result in heaven if we did that? Jesus then says, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven...
What would be the result here and now if we served rather than ruled? Paul tells the Romans to, serve in the newness of the Spirit, Rom. 7.6. He develops the thought with, Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality, Rom. 7.10-13.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
TRUE OR FALSE Week 47
It's always interesting to see how others view you. An example of how Christianity is seen is from a well-known Jewish scholar Dr. Lawerence Shiffman. He has several things to say against Jesus and Christianity but they all seem to depend on one point.
He says Christian writers living 50 years after the death of Christ made up the gospels to appear to agree with OT prophecies.
Now if this is true, the epistles written before the gospels would not have any similiarity to them.. Since the historians say James was martyred in AD 62, his letter must have been written before then. Shiffman states that the gospels were written after that, to appear to make the life of Christ a fulfillment of OT prophecy. If this is true, James' epistle would have no relationship to Matthew's gospel.
So what do we find in James?
We know that when Jesus came, He came preaching the kingdom of God, not salvation or last things. Most of us recognize that the Sermon on the Mount is the Lord's great explanation of the kingdom which He brought and taught. But this kingdom is not just precepts but actions in the real world. Christianity according to Jesus is not just something you believe, but something you do.
Jesus uses some word pictures to say that. He says, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid...Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt. 5.14-16. That is an obvious call to make the kingdom of God apparent and visible to anyone and everyone in society.
In the literature of the ancient classical world, when a poet uses an extended metaphor he means to put something deep into the soul. this extended metaphor is saying the same thing more than once, using different images. When Jesus wants to speak against anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount, He uses 9 consecutive verses to do so, Matt. 6.25-34. So when James does the same thing in James 1.22-27 we should sit up and hear. He begins with hearing and then doing the Word. He goes on to a man looking at himself in a mirror; then he goes on from looking in a mirror to looking at the perfect law of Jesus and abiding in it. Then he goes on to controlling the tongue; and finally he mentions taking care of the widows and orphans as pure religion. James has gone from hearing to looking to abiding to controlling the tongue to aiding the widows and orphans.
You see what James has done? He has taken us from the inner quality of believing the Word to the outward gesture of taking care of others. He has taken Matthew 5.14 as a principle to be applied in his own day and time.
But that is only one instance, without a real close phrase or word linking James with Matthew. So let's look on.
In Matthew 5 Jesus will then mention five famous points of the Law: adultery, divorce, vows, and revenge (an eye for an eye), and loving your neighbor. Jesus will address each of these as indicating the sin in the heart which must be brought out to be forgiven. The role of the Law is to bring these inner things out into the open.
Does James have anything similar to this? Let's look at Matthew 5 and James 2.
In Matthew 5.25, 26 Jesus says if a man has a dispute with an opponent Jesus says, Make friends quickly with your opponent...in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. This is what happened to people who did not have money for a legal defense.
James says in chapter 2 to show no favoritism to the rich because if you do, you have become a, judge with evil motives, James 2.4. Then James says, God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? And then James says what Jesus had said in Matthew 5, Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court, James 2.6.
Now let's look at Matt. 5.17-19 and James 2.10, 11.
In Matt. 5.17 Jesus says, Whoever annuls the least of these commandments and teaches others shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven... Matthew 5.20.
James 2.10 says, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. James knows this brings up the question, How could someone be guilty of transgressing the whole law, yet have righteousness which surpasses the scribes and Pharisees? James says, by obeying the law of liberty, James 2.12. What is that law? Paul says in Romans 8.2 that it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which has set us free from the law of sin and death. James then says in 2.25 that we abide by the law of liberty by being a doer of the word, not just hearer.
Our conclusion is that the gospels were not written later than James to fabricate a certain kind of Jesus, but that James knew what his brother Jesus taught, he knew what the gospel of God was, he understood the kingdom of God.
It's always interesting to see how others view you. An example of how Christianity is seen is from a well-known Jewish scholar Dr. Lawerence Shiffman. He has several things to say against Jesus and Christianity but they all seem to depend on one point.
He says Christian writers living 50 years after the death of Christ made up the gospels to appear to agree with OT prophecies.
Now if this is true, the epistles written before the gospels would not have any similiarity to them.. Since the historians say James was martyred in AD 62, his letter must have been written before then. Shiffman states that the gospels were written after that, to appear to make the life of Christ a fulfillment of OT prophecy. If this is true, James' epistle would have no relationship to Matthew's gospel.
So what do we find in James?
We know that when Jesus came, He came preaching the kingdom of God, not salvation or last things. Most of us recognize that the Sermon on the Mount is the Lord's great explanation of the kingdom which He brought and taught. But this kingdom is not just precepts but actions in the real world. Christianity according to Jesus is not just something you believe, but something you do.
Jesus uses some word pictures to say that. He says, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid...Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt. 5.14-16. That is an obvious call to make the kingdom of God apparent and visible to anyone and everyone in society.
+++
When we go to James 1.22, James says the famous line, But prove yourselves doers of the word, 1.22. He has learned from Jesus that the kingdom must be seen, it must be in front of an unbelieving society. It is the be presence of God before the world. Peter Marshall, chaplain of the Senate in the 1940s, once said his task as preacher was to enable people to see Jesus. This means to make Christianity something you do, not just something you believe.In the literature of the ancient classical world, when a poet uses an extended metaphor he means to put something deep into the soul. this extended metaphor is saying the same thing more than once, using different images. When Jesus wants to speak against anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount, He uses 9 consecutive verses to do so, Matt. 6.25-34. So when James does the same thing in James 1.22-27 we should sit up and hear. He begins with hearing and then doing the Word. He goes on to a man looking at himself in a mirror; then he goes on from looking in a mirror to looking at the perfect law of Jesus and abiding in it. Then he goes on to controlling the tongue; and finally he mentions taking care of the widows and orphans as pure religion. James has gone from hearing to looking to abiding to controlling the tongue to aiding the widows and orphans.
You see what James has done? He has taken us from the inner quality of believing the Word to the outward gesture of taking care of others. He has taken Matthew 5.14 as a principle to be applied in his own day and time.
But that is only one instance, without a real close phrase or word linking James with Matthew. So let's look on.
In Matthew 5 Jesus will then mention five famous points of the Law: adultery, divorce, vows, and revenge (an eye for an eye), and loving your neighbor. Jesus will address each of these as indicating the sin in the heart which must be brought out to be forgiven. The role of the Law is to bring these inner things out into the open.
Does James have anything similar to this? Let's look at Matthew 5 and James 2.
In Matthew 5.25, 26 Jesus says if a man has a dispute with an opponent Jesus says, Make friends quickly with your opponent...in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. This is what happened to people who did not have money for a legal defense.
James says in chapter 2 to show no favoritism to the rich because if you do, you have become a, judge with evil motives, James 2.4. Then James says, God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? And then James says what Jesus had said in Matthew 5, Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court, James 2.6.
Now let's look at Matt. 5.17-19 and James 2.10, 11.
In Matt. 5.17 Jesus says, Whoever annuls the least of these commandments and teaches others shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven... Matthew 5.20.
James 2.10 says, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. James knows this brings up the question, How could someone be guilty of transgressing the whole law, yet have righteousness which surpasses the scribes and Pharisees? James says, by obeying the law of liberty, James 2.12. What is that law? Paul says in Romans 8.2 that it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which has set us free from the law of sin and death. James then says in 2.25 that we abide by the law of liberty by being a doer of the word, not just hearer.
Our conclusion is that the gospels were not written later than James to fabricate a certain kind of Jesus, but that James knew what his brother Jesus taught, he knew what the gospel of God was, he understood the kingdom of God.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
PRESENCE OF GOD
When I think of what the Christian faith is all about, I think of the presence of God first of all. He was present in creation--Let us make man in Our image(1.26)--He was present at the Fall when the Lord God said to Adam--Where are you?(3.9) He was present with Cain and Abel when He said to Cain--Why has your countenance fallen(4.6). He was present with Noah, even remembering Noah (8.1), and with Abraham many times.
He was with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He heard the cry of His people in Egypt, sending them Moses and then Joshua and the judges and kings and prophets and prophetesses. He was with Israel in His own glory in the tabernacle and later in the temple of Solomon.
In the NT He was with Jesus at His baptism, Matthew 3.17, He was with Paul on the road to Damascus, Acts 9.4,5, He was with Peter in Acts 10.14, and He will be with us in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Yet, this is not all. What does the Bible say God was like in His presence? What the OT says first is that God is the origin of us all, the One who breathed on Adam and the One to whom we will return, Revelation 21.6. More than that, in the Psalms He is the One who provides us with our life, our planet and food and drink. But most important, He is the One who provides us with a person to be like, Gen. 1.26, Philippians 3.10, Colossians 1.28, Hebrews 3.14.
When we realize God gave us a person to be, we are close to Him, He is close to us.
At first God provides an altar, Gen. 8.20 by which Noah and his family could approach God. Then with Moses He provided a covenant, laws and a tabernacle, Exodus 24. Later He would provide a land, Joshua 1. And then in the NT God provided Jesus to take upon Himself our nature, as we had taken upon ourselves His nature in Genesis 2. Philippians 2.7 speaks of Jesus taking on the form of a man. The Greek word is morphe. In Homer used it to mean the outward appearance which revealed an inner quality. So in Odyssey 11.367 it is usually translated, grace. In the Philippians passage, Paul says Jesus--
emptied Himself, taking the form (morphe) of a bondservant
and being made in the likeness of men.
The human form Jesus took showed us His human form while revealing His divinity. This is reinforced by Paul when he says in Phil. 2.8 that he was found in the appearance as a man--He looked like a man. Paul is saying He appeared to be an ordinary man, even though his morphe indicated that He was more than that. This is the image of God mentioned in Genesis 1.27--an outward image revealing an inner quality. So when Jesus comes to fishermen in Matthew 4, they just drop their nets to follow Him. In Matt. 8 a leper calls Him, Lord. A demon calls Him, Son of God, Matt. 8.29. They all know Jesus is a man, but much more than that.
When Adam and Eve fell, their inward quality was ruined although their outward form was not. As it turned out, God used their outward form, their morphe, to eventually renew their inward quality. This we see when God promised to send a savior through the seed of a woman.
What God is doing is beginning with His own nature, then enhancing it by giving His image to new creatures, Adam and Eve. When God provided an altar, He gave us the earth upon which to worship God. When He provided a tabernacle and the Law, He bestowed His presence in the midst of a nation so that the Jews could approach Him. And then He gave Himself to every individual, tribe, tongue and nation.
But that is not all. To make the circle of holiness complete, God gave His own nature and being to us through the Spirit, He took us into Himself that we would be in Him.
Now if all this is true, how how are we in Him and He in us?
After the Fall and before Jesus was born, a great many people displayed great talents. The first instance of this is Cain. He left the presence of God in Gen. 4.16, built a city, and his descendants became livestock herders, musicians, and metal forgers, Gen. 4.20-22. Being out of the worship of God did not ruin Cain's talents and those of his descendants.
What this means is that when Adam fell he could never fall out of God's care. Even Cain is given a city and skills. And by the way, those very same skills will be honored and used by God when Moses builds the tabernacle out of animal hides, metal for utensils and musicians to celebrate the tabernacle. Does this mean that even Cain in all his failure has a place with God's economy? Possibly it does. Does it mean that Cain did all of what he did on his own, entirely separated from God? Probably not. He was sent out of God's worship presence in order that his descendants might be brought back generations later.
We have this same pattern with Jacob and Esau. They were enemies first--Jacob was sent away--but then reconciled years later, Genesis 32. Cain and Esau never did take the role in God's plan of redemption that Abel and Jacob did. Still we can say they were cast down by God but not cast off. The same thing is true of Israel--they were cast out of Palestine into slavery in Babylon but God brought them back to be in the land when their messiah Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
God honored the image of God in man, even in Cain and Esau, no matter how defaced that image was.
We might not even know that He is in us, but Paul says He is.
The apostle says in Ephesians 1.18 he is praying, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of your calling... There is no other way to realize such glorious spiritual realities. They cannot be discovered on a scroll, by someone with special gifts or an overheated religious imagination, or someone possessing a secret map or language or viewpoint. Such insight must come from God.
Now we realize that what God did was true but not visible to us until we receive the inner sight to see it. What exactly are we to see? Hope, inheritance, power. The hope is His calling of us out of darkness, into light as John says in John 1.9. Our inheritance is the riches of His glory which is given to us now in part and then entirely when we reach heaven, Eph. 1.18. His power means the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will raise us up also, Eph. 2.6.
All of this is seen by grace, believed through faith. But as James says, faith is not alone for it always results in what can be seen. That brings us to the understanding that the presence of God in us reaches into our everyday life like bubbles coming to the surface of water. The woman caught in adultery saw forgiveness in Jesus. When Jesus healed a leper in Luke 5.13 Jesus tells the leper to go to the priest--
and make an offering for your cleansing, jus as Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.
Notice it is not a testimony against the priest, but to him. This is the faith which results in the works of love. It is the presence of God in us and among us which glorifies God.
When I think of what the Christian faith is all about, I think of the presence of God first of all. He was present in creation--Let us make man in Our image(1.26)--He was present at the Fall when the Lord God said to Adam--Where are you?(3.9) He was present with Cain and Abel when He said to Cain--Why has your countenance fallen(4.6). He was present with Noah, even remembering Noah (8.1), and with Abraham many times.
He was with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He heard the cry of His people in Egypt, sending them Moses and then Joshua and the judges and kings and prophets and prophetesses. He was with Israel in His own glory in the tabernacle and later in the temple of Solomon.
In the NT He was with Jesus at His baptism, Matthew 3.17, He was with Paul on the road to Damascus, Acts 9.4,5, He was with Peter in Acts 10.14, and He will be with us in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Yet, this is not all. What does the Bible say God was like in His presence? What the OT says first is that God is the origin of us all, the One who breathed on Adam and the One to whom we will return, Revelation 21.6. More than that, in the Psalms He is the One who provides us with our life, our planet and food and drink. But most important, He is the One who provides us with a person to be like, Gen. 1.26, Philippians 3.10, Colossians 1.28, Hebrews 3.14.
When we realize God gave us a person to be, we are close to Him, He is close to us.
At first God provides an altar, Gen. 8.20 by which Noah and his family could approach God. Then with Moses He provided a covenant, laws and a tabernacle, Exodus 24. Later He would provide a land, Joshua 1. And then in the NT God provided Jesus to take upon Himself our nature, as we had taken upon ourselves His nature in Genesis 2. Philippians 2.7 speaks of Jesus taking on the form of a man. The Greek word is morphe. In Homer used it to mean the outward appearance which revealed an inner quality. So in Odyssey 11.367 it is usually translated, grace. In the Philippians passage, Paul says Jesus--
emptied Himself, taking the form (morphe) of a bondservant
and being made in the likeness of men.
The human form Jesus took showed us His human form while revealing His divinity. This is reinforced by Paul when he says in Phil. 2.8 that he was found in the appearance as a man--He looked like a man. Paul is saying He appeared to be an ordinary man, even though his morphe indicated that He was more than that. This is the image of God mentioned in Genesis 1.27--an outward image revealing an inner quality. So when Jesus comes to fishermen in Matthew 4, they just drop their nets to follow Him. In Matt. 8 a leper calls Him, Lord. A demon calls Him, Son of God, Matt. 8.29. They all know Jesus is a man, but much more than that.
+++
When Adam and Eve fell, their inward quality was ruined although their outward form was not. As it turned out, God used their outward form, their morphe, to eventually renew their inward quality. This we see when God promised to send a savior through the seed of a woman.
What God is doing is beginning with His own nature, then enhancing it by giving His image to new creatures, Adam and Eve. When God provided an altar, He gave us the earth upon which to worship God. When He provided a tabernacle and the Law, He bestowed His presence in the midst of a nation so that the Jews could approach Him. And then He gave Himself to every individual, tribe, tongue and nation.
But that is not all. To make the circle of holiness complete, God gave His own nature and being to us through the Spirit, He took us into Himself that we would be in Him.
+++
Now if all this is true, how how are we in Him and He in us?
After the Fall and before Jesus was born, a great many people displayed great talents. The first instance of this is Cain. He left the presence of God in Gen. 4.16, built a city, and his descendants became livestock herders, musicians, and metal forgers, Gen. 4.20-22. Being out of the worship of God did not ruin Cain's talents and those of his descendants.
What this means is that when Adam fell he could never fall out of God's care. Even Cain is given a city and skills. And by the way, those very same skills will be honored and used by God when Moses builds the tabernacle out of animal hides, metal for utensils and musicians to celebrate the tabernacle. Does this mean that even Cain in all his failure has a place with God's economy? Possibly it does. Does it mean that Cain did all of what he did on his own, entirely separated from God? Probably not. He was sent out of God's worship presence in order that his descendants might be brought back generations later.
We have this same pattern with Jacob and Esau. They were enemies first--Jacob was sent away--but then reconciled years later, Genesis 32. Cain and Esau never did take the role in God's plan of redemption that Abel and Jacob did. Still we can say they were cast down by God but not cast off. The same thing is true of Israel--they were cast out of Palestine into slavery in Babylon but God brought them back to be in the land when their messiah Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
God honored the image of God in man, even in Cain and Esau, no matter how defaced that image was.
+++
We might not even know that He is in us, but Paul says He is.
The apostle says in Ephesians 1.18 he is praying, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of your calling... There is no other way to realize such glorious spiritual realities. They cannot be discovered on a scroll, by someone with special gifts or an overheated religious imagination, or someone possessing a secret map or language or viewpoint. Such insight must come from God.
Now we realize that what God did was true but not visible to us until we receive the inner sight to see it. What exactly are we to see? Hope, inheritance, power. The hope is His calling of us out of darkness, into light as John says in John 1.9. Our inheritance is the riches of His glory which is given to us now in part and then entirely when we reach heaven, Eph. 1.18. His power means the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will raise us up also, Eph. 2.6.
All of this is seen by grace, believed through faith. But as James says, faith is not alone for it always results in what can be seen. That brings us to the understanding that the presence of God in us reaches into our everyday life like bubbles coming to the surface of water. The woman caught in adultery saw forgiveness in Jesus. When Jesus healed a leper in Luke 5.13 Jesus tells the leper to go to the priest--
and make an offering for your cleansing, jus as Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.
Notice it is not a testimony against the priest, but to him. This is the faith which results in the works of love. It is the presence of God in us and among us which glorifies God.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
SCULPTURE AND SCRIPTURE
We all have read of St. Paul's encounter with the living God on the road to Damascus. Years later Paul tells the Corinthians what he's gone through for the gospel of God.
He says he went through labors, imprisonments, beatings and the danger of death. He took lashes from the Jews, beatings with rods, a stoning, a shipwreck, dangers from rivers, robbers, Jews and Gentiles who were against him.
What kept him going through all of this?
When Saul met Jesus on the road, He resculptured Saul's soul from inside out. He changed his heart, his name, his mind, his resolve and his purpose in life. God was present in Paul in much the same way God was present in the Holy of Holies---powerfully, purely, and in ecstasy. In the manner in which God was present with Adam and Eve in the Garden, in the manner in which God was upon David, God's Spirit was upon Jesus, so God was present in Paul. His life was changed, his travels were changed, his mind was changed, his relationships were changed, his vision of God was changed.
The JB Phillips translation of Romans 12 brings this out:
let God re-mould your mind from within so that you may prove
in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all His
demands and moves toward the goal of maturity.
We might be more familiar with another wording of this transformation:
be transformed by the renewing of your mind...
but the mind does not transform the soul, rather the presence of God in the soul then transforms the mind. The mind does not originate, it recognizes what God has done, what God is doing.
It is the presence of God from Adam to Christ to us. When God's presence is in us, we will desire His truth, we will seek Him through our will, and love His through our heart.
John 15 is famous for the 'I am' statements. Jesus is describing God's presence as the vine and branches: he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, John 15.5. Jesus will describe this quality of Him in us and we in Him with several images--fruit, branch, abide, commandments, but they all will culminate in love. When Jesus comes to a Pharisee's house in Luke 7, a woman washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair, and anointed His feet with perfume. Jesus says, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much... The forgiveness which Saul experienced on a road, the woman experienced at dinner.
We don't always know that God's presence is in us. Paul has to write to the Ephesians, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlighted, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Eph.1.18. Notice that Paul says the inheritance is, in the saints. With the OT, God's presence was upon the Jews or in their midst with the Law but not in them as it is with us.
God's presence gives us a new heart, a new mind, a new soul and will and life. When we are different people from the inside out, we have a new life, a new marriage, a new relationship with our children, friends, employees and all the saints whatever the denomination.
We all have read of St. Paul's encounter with the living God on the road to Damascus. Years later Paul tells the Corinthians what he's gone through for the gospel of God.
He says he went through labors, imprisonments, beatings and the danger of death. He took lashes from the Jews, beatings with rods, a stoning, a shipwreck, dangers from rivers, robbers, Jews and Gentiles who were against him.
What kept him going through all of this?
When Saul met Jesus on the road, He resculptured Saul's soul from inside out. He changed his heart, his name, his mind, his resolve and his purpose in life. God was present in Paul in much the same way God was present in the Holy of Holies---powerfully, purely, and in ecstasy. In the manner in which God was present with Adam and Eve in the Garden, in the manner in which God was upon David, God's Spirit was upon Jesus, so God was present in Paul. His life was changed, his travels were changed, his mind was changed, his relationships were changed, his vision of God was changed.
The JB Phillips translation of Romans 12 brings this out:
let God re-mould your mind from within so that you may prove
in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all His
demands and moves toward the goal of maturity.
We might be more familiar with another wording of this transformation:
be transformed by the renewing of your mind...
but the mind does not transform the soul, rather the presence of God in the soul then transforms the mind. The mind does not originate, it recognizes what God has done, what God is doing.
It is the presence of God from Adam to Christ to us. When God's presence is in us, we will desire His truth, we will seek Him through our will, and love His through our heart.
John 15 is famous for the 'I am' statements. Jesus is describing God's presence as the vine and branches: he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, John 15.5. Jesus will describe this quality of Him in us and we in Him with several images--fruit, branch, abide, commandments, but they all will culminate in love. When Jesus comes to a Pharisee's house in Luke 7, a woman washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair, and anointed His feet with perfume. Jesus says, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much... The forgiveness which Saul experienced on a road, the woman experienced at dinner.
We don't always know that God's presence is in us. Paul has to write to the Ephesians, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlighted, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Eph.1.18. Notice that Paul says the inheritance is, in the saints. With the OT, God's presence was upon the Jews or in their midst with the Law but not in them as it is with us.
God's presence gives us a new heart, a new mind, a new soul and will and life. When we are different people from the inside out, we have a new life, a new marriage, a new relationship with our children, friends, employees and all the saints whatever the denomination.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
GOD IS LOVE
A familiar Biblical phrase to which many non Christians cling is this: God is love, from 1 John 4.16. We might not know that the verses leading up to this simple statement are rich.
The chapter begins with the theme of the Spirit of God. John says test the spirits to see if they are from God. Among other things this implies that only one spirit comes to us from God, the Holy Spirit; He is sent as God to us. Any spirit must confess the Son, that Jesus has come from the Father, 1 John 4.2. And that's because only a spirit from God could do this. That's how we know to trust the spirit. Only the Spirit of God has experienced both the Son and the Father.
John says that we are from God, agreeing with Ephesians 1.4, and that God is in us, Ephesians 1.14. The spirits which are not from God are, from the world, 1 John 4.5, John 15.19. John says anyone with the Spirit living within them will listen to the apostles because the spirit of truth is in them, 1 John 4.6.
So we can see from the first 6 verses that the Spirit of God has come to us, He lives in our souls, and that He only can be trusted because He came from God, He did not come from the world. He witnesses to Jesus as the Son of God.
This means, among other things, that the Spirit of God is His love.
Now we come to 1 John verse 12, a verse loaded with richness.
First John says, no one has beheld God at any time... So how would God ever be seen? John says He can be seen in us by others whom we love, if we love one another... This is because God abides in us, as He did in the tabernacle, and, His love is perfected in us. But how do we know that He abides in us, as we are loving one another? John's answer is, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit, 4.13. There is the same thought, the Holy Spirit is God's love for us.
John saw and came to know not just that Jesus was the savior of the world, but that the Father sent Him. It is this confession that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world which makes every follower a believer, 1 John 4.14. In other words, to be the Son is to be begotten of the Father and sent into the world. When we know this, we have God.
Those who are of the world, who do not confess that Jesus is the Son of God sent into the world by the Father, do not abide in the love of God. They can say, God is love, but the Holy Spirit will not abide in them if they do not confess that Jesus came from the Father as the Son of God. Verse 15 says it: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.
Having said that only the spirit who confesses that Jesus is from the Father sent to us is true, and that we should love one another, how can we love in the perfection of the Holy Spirit?
First John says if God's Spirit is abiding in us,, God is abiding in us. As He is perfect, so His Spirit in us will be. Abiding is dwelling but it is not inert. We will experience the progress of the soul as we are in God. We will have no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. This comes through experiencing God. When we receive the love which is from God, we will have no fear of judgment day, 4.17.
Second, this perfect love from God is also for today. John uses the example of loving our brother. We might recall the last phrase of Matthew 23.8: you are all brothers. Jesus had said to forgive your brother endlessly, Matt. 18.21, and if you have anything against your brother, be reconciled to him, Matt. 5.22, and don't be a hypocrite about your btother's sin, Matt. 7.4. So here, John says if you can't love your brother who stands in front of you, how can you love God whom you can't see, 1 John 4.20.
When we receive His Spirit, when we confess that Jesus is the Son of God coming to us, when we love one another as He has loved us, then the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, one for another.
If you want to jump and shout, Halleleuiah, go ahead.
A familiar Biblical phrase to which many non Christians cling is this: God is love, from 1 John 4.16. We might not know that the verses leading up to this simple statement are rich.
The chapter begins with the theme of the Spirit of God. John says test the spirits to see if they are from God. Among other things this implies that only one spirit comes to us from God, the Holy Spirit; He is sent as God to us. Any spirit must confess the Son, that Jesus has come from the Father, 1 John 4.2. And that's because only a spirit from God could do this. That's how we know to trust the spirit. Only the Spirit of God has experienced both the Son and the Father.
John says that we are from God, agreeing with Ephesians 1.4, and that God is in us, Ephesians 1.14. The spirits which are not from God are, from the world, 1 John 4.5, John 15.19. John says anyone with the Spirit living within them will listen to the apostles because the spirit of truth is in them, 1 John 4.6.
So we can see from the first 6 verses that the Spirit of God has come to us, He lives in our souls, and that He only can be trusted because He came from God, He did not come from the world. He witnesses to Jesus as the Son of God.
+++
Now if the spirit of truth is in us, John says, let us love one another, for love is from God, 1 John 4.7, John 15.17. How do we know love is from God? Because of what God did, sending His Son. In the act of doing, love came forth, it was manifested. We know God loves us because He made Himself real to us in His Son. So if God has loved us, we should love one another. Notice John does not say return God's love to God--he says pass it on to one another. In the process of loving one another, God's Spirit will become apparent in us and among us. This means, among other things, that the Spirit of God is His love.
Now we come to 1 John verse 12, a verse loaded with richness.
First John says, no one has beheld God at any time... So how would God ever be seen? John says He can be seen in us by others whom we love, if we love one another... This is because God abides in us, as He did in the tabernacle, and, His love is perfected in us. But how do we know that He abides in us, as we are loving one another? John's answer is, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit, 4.13. There is the same thought, the Holy Spirit is God's love for us.
John saw and came to know not just that Jesus was the savior of the world, but that the Father sent Him. It is this confession that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world which makes every follower a believer, 1 John 4.14. In other words, to be the Son is to be begotten of the Father and sent into the world. When we know this, we have God.
Those who are of the world, who do not confess that Jesus is the Son of God sent into the world by the Father, do not abide in the love of God. They can say, God is love, but the Holy Spirit will not abide in them if they do not confess that Jesus came from the Father as the Son of God. Verse 15 says it: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.
+++
Having said that only the spirit who confesses that Jesus is from the Father sent to us is true, and that we should love one another, how can we love in the perfection of the Holy Spirit?
First John says if God's Spirit is abiding in us,, God is abiding in us. As He is perfect, so His Spirit in us will be. Abiding is dwelling but it is not inert. We will experience the progress of the soul as we are in God. We will have no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. This comes through experiencing God. When we receive the love which is from God, we will have no fear of judgment day, 4.17.
Second, this perfect love from God is also for today. John uses the example of loving our brother. We might recall the last phrase of Matthew 23.8: you are all brothers. Jesus had said to forgive your brother endlessly, Matt. 18.21, and if you have anything against your brother, be reconciled to him, Matt. 5.22, and don't be a hypocrite about your btother's sin, Matt. 7.4. So here, John says if you can't love your brother who stands in front of you, how can you love God whom you can't see, 1 John 4.20.
When we receive His Spirit, when we confess that Jesus is the Son of God coming to us, when we love one another as He has loved us, then the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, one for another.
If you want to jump and shout, Halleleuiah, go ahead.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
WORSHIP
Worship is the allegiance between the human soul and God. But what does our soul look like?
The OT tabernacle was given as the meeting of the individual and God. The glory of God was there for the individual soul to approach with a sacrifice. When the sacrifice was accepted, the individual soul was cleansed and purified, restored to God, having entered His presence. In the tabernacle we see God coming to Israel so that Israel could come to God.
Moses went up to the mountain to receive the directions for this tabernacle, by which God could be in Israel's midst. Now in the NT in 2 Corinthians 5.1 Paul says, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So the tabernacle represents our soul in its' resemblance to God in heaven, as a meeting of God and us. Peter says in 2 Peter 1.14, I must lay aside this my earthly tabernacle... and John says in Revelation 21.3, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them.
The purpose of the tabernacle in the midst of Israel was so that the Jews would be conformed to the image of God. This was a sacrifice, it was a ceremony, it was a proclamation by the priest, in other words it was their worship.
But in the NT, this tabernacle through which we are conformed to God is for everyone who believes by faith. Our tabernacle now is Jesus.
He existed in the form of God and emptied Himself to be made in the likeness of men, Philippians 2.6, coming to us. We exist in the likeness of God in order to meet God in the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, Titus 3.5. Instead of animals, when we present our bodies as a living sacrtifice, holy and acceptable to Him, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, Romans 12.1, 2. This will of God which is good and acceptable and perfect is the life Jesus lived, it is His ministry that we receive and do.
All of this is to prepare our souls to receive Him, as the tabernacle of our soul, our life, our hope.
This tabernacle has three qualities of worship.
The first one is the meeting of past and future in the present.
Many Biblical passages exemplifie this. When John wrote about the Jesus he knew, he began with, In the beginning was the Word...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory... John the Baptist said, He existed before me, John 1.15. When we contemplate the Biblical passages about God in the past, He comes to us in worship. This is quite evident in Hebrews 1.1, 2, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. What was long ago has come today. No time or place could reveal the 'now' aspect of the Ancient of Days than communion. However, we must open our souls by faith to these things. Do we believe that the God who made the world is now with us? This question is the essence of worship as an asking God to come. We say we approach God, but it is rather that God approaches us.
The second quality of worship is recognition.
In John 4 Jesus says the Father is looking for those who worship in spirit and truth. To worship in spirit is to have the Spirit of God within the soul so that we can recognize Him. When the Wise Men came to Jesus in Matt. 2.11, they fell down recognizing Him. The disciples follow Jesus at the slightest prompting as they recognize Him. James and John left their boat immediately to follow Him. A leper worshiped Jesus, calling Him Lord in Matt. 8.2. A Roman ruler knew Jesus could heal his servant immediately, Matt. 9.18. They all saw in their own soul who Jesus was, recognizing Him. His Spirit was in them. This Spirit will be given to the disciples and to allof us, John 17.8. When Jesus fills our souls as He filled the temple in Isiaiah 6.1, worship will break out.
The third quality of worship is hope.
When we bring our hopes to worship, we open ourselves to God as the God of love. Places where hopes have been spoken, felt, prayed, lifted up to God are spiritual places. They may be a small chapel or a wide cathedral. What is common to all is the belief that our hopes go to Jesus, as the author and finisher of our faith. Our hopes can be emotional, rational, detailed, personal or worldly. Our hopes ascend like a winding stair, upward, as we lift Him up. The perfect Biblical example is Matthew 8.5, the centurion's daughter. Jesus is willing to come to the centurion's home, but the centurion says, just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority; with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go' and he goes and to another, 'Come,' and he comes and to my slave, 'Do this' and he does it.'
What is being said here is a relationship from God above to us, from we in our need up to God in His majesty. The centurion knows that Jesus has ministering angels under Him who come when He calls, who do what He commands. Paul tells the Ephesians that, all things have been put in subjection under Christ's feet, above rule and authority and power and dominion. The centurion prayed, the angels brought the prayer up to heaven to Christ, who answers every prayer.
Worship is the allegiance between the human soul and God. But what does our soul look like?
The OT tabernacle was given as the meeting of the individual and God. The glory of God was there for the individual soul to approach with a sacrifice. When the sacrifice was accepted, the individual soul was cleansed and purified, restored to God, having entered His presence. In the tabernacle we see God coming to Israel so that Israel could come to God.
Moses went up to the mountain to receive the directions for this tabernacle, by which God could be in Israel's midst. Now in the NT in 2 Corinthians 5.1 Paul says, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So the tabernacle represents our soul in its' resemblance to God in heaven, as a meeting of God and us. Peter says in 2 Peter 1.14, I must lay aside this my earthly tabernacle... and John says in Revelation 21.3, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them.
The purpose of the tabernacle in the midst of Israel was so that the Jews would be conformed to the image of God. This was a sacrifice, it was a ceremony, it was a proclamation by the priest, in other words it was their worship.
But in the NT, this tabernacle through which we are conformed to God is for everyone who believes by faith. Our tabernacle now is Jesus.
He existed in the form of God and emptied Himself to be made in the likeness of men, Philippians 2.6, coming to us. We exist in the likeness of God in order to meet God in the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, Titus 3.5. Instead of animals, when we present our bodies as a living sacrtifice, holy and acceptable to Him, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, Romans 12.1, 2. This will of God which is good and acceptable and perfect is the life Jesus lived, it is His ministry that we receive and do.
All of this is to prepare our souls to receive Him, as the tabernacle of our soul, our life, our hope.
+++
This tabernacle has three qualities of worship.
The first one is the meeting of past and future in the present.
Many Biblical passages exemplifie this. When John wrote about the Jesus he knew, he began with, In the beginning was the Word...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory... John the Baptist said, He existed before me, John 1.15. When we contemplate the Biblical passages about God in the past, He comes to us in worship. This is quite evident in Hebrews 1.1, 2, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. What was long ago has come today. No time or place could reveal the 'now' aspect of the Ancient of Days than communion. However, we must open our souls by faith to these things. Do we believe that the God who made the world is now with us? This question is the essence of worship as an asking God to come. We say we approach God, but it is rather that God approaches us.
The second quality of worship is recognition.
In John 4 Jesus says the Father is looking for those who worship in spirit and truth. To worship in spirit is to have the Spirit of God within the soul so that we can recognize Him. When the Wise Men came to Jesus in Matt. 2.11, they fell down recognizing Him. The disciples follow Jesus at the slightest prompting as they recognize Him. James and John left their boat immediately to follow Him. A leper worshiped Jesus, calling Him Lord in Matt. 8.2. A Roman ruler knew Jesus could heal his servant immediately, Matt. 9.18. They all saw in their own soul who Jesus was, recognizing Him. His Spirit was in them. This Spirit will be given to the disciples and to allof us, John 17.8. When Jesus fills our souls as He filled the temple in Isiaiah 6.1, worship will break out.
The third quality of worship is hope.
When we bring our hopes to worship, we open ourselves to God as the God of love. Places where hopes have been spoken, felt, prayed, lifted up to God are spiritual places. They may be a small chapel or a wide cathedral. What is common to all is the belief that our hopes go to Jesus, as the author and finisher of our faith. Our hopes can be emotional, rational, detailed, personal or worldly. Our hopes ascend like a winding stair, upward, as we lift Him up. The perfect Biblical example is Matthew 8.5, the centurion's daughter. Jesus is willing to come to the centurion's home, but the centurion says, just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority; with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go' and he goes and to another, 'Come,' and he comes and to my slave, 'Do this' and he does it.'
What is being said here is a relationship from God above to us, from we in our need up to God in His majesty. The centurion knows that Jesus has ministering angels under Him who come when He calls, who do what He commands. Paul tells the Ephesians that, all things have been put in subjection under Christ's feet, above rule and authority and power and dominion. The centurion prayed, the angels brought the prayer up to heaven to Christ, who answers every prayer.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
FEED MY SHEEP
One of the passages in the Bible which reads cryptically is John 21.15-17, the passage in which Jesus asks Peter three times about his love and tells him three times to feed His sheep.
When John records that Jesus had to say these things 3 times, there has to be more to it than repeating what He said. Jesus always had a way of answering what people need, not what they ask. So maybe we can look a bit further into the Greek words used by John to see something more.
In John 18.25 Peter denies three times that he knew Jesus. Under Jewish common law, denying three times meant that a contract could be voided. So here in John 21 Jesus restores Peter to the covenant with God by asking him 3 times, 'Do you love Me?'
Now let's go to the first exchange, 21.15.
We will isolate 4 Greek words, the word for 'love,' agape, the word for respectful love, philew and two words for 'feed,' boskw and poimaine. In this verse Jesus says,
15--Simon, son of John, do you agapas me more than these?
He said to Him, 'Yes, Lord, You know that I philew You.
He said to him, Boskw My lambs.
The word agapas originally meant a welcoming love. It was used in Homer to mean the love between a man and his son. Then much later in classical Greek, 12 times in the Greek translation of the OT it was used for sexual love. By the time of the NT, the gospel writers used it in it's Homeric sense, the distinguished unselfish love with a family between father and son. Jesus is asking Peter if he loves Jesus intensly, even more than Peter might love his fellow man, the other disciples, or anyone. This is Peter's moment to tell Jesus He loves the Master more than anyone, more than life itself; in this regard the question is Peter's Abraham and Isaac moment. Abraham had to show he loved God more than his own son, and Peter is being asked much the same thing.
Peter does not use the word, agapas, he uses filew, an impersonal and less intense word. When Jesus says, Feed My sheep, using boskw, Jesus is using the conventional word for a shepherd feeding lambs. Boskw originally meant a field of grass and fruit trees. Jesus is saying if Peter must love Jesus intensly, before he can feed the flock as any laboring shepherd would. The follower as a laborer in the field is used in 2 Cor. 6.1 and Colossians 4.11.
But this will not be enough for Peter with Jesus.
The second exchange seems like a repetition but it is not.
16--He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you agapas Me?
He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I philew You.
He said to him, poimaine My sheep.
Jesus and Peter repeat their two words for 'love,' but now Jesus uses another word for 'feeding'. This is the word poimaine, meaning to feed one's own sheep, to care for their needs. What Jesus is saying is that Peter is to take his own love of Jesus and give that love to the sheep, to fellow believers. He is telling Peter to turn from loving Jesus to loving the sheep. Homer uses two forms of this word for 'shepherd and for 'flock', thus indicating the intimate connection between a shepherd and his own flock. It is from this connection of shepherd and flock that we get the expression, to shepherd a church.
When we notice that Peter has not changed his word, filew, this indicates that the flock is not Peter's possession but his care. It is his own to served. Peter seems to have understood this, as in 1 Peter 5.1 he calls himself a 'fellow-elder,' not the chief or the owner but a servant among servants.
Now for the third episode.
17--He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you phileis Me?
Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Do you phileis Me?
And he said to Him, Lord You know all things; You know that I philew You.
Jesus said to him, Boske My lambs.
Here Jesus does not use agapas, but phileis. He is asking Peter if he truly has turned from depending on Jesus to serving the flock of believers. That Peter uses filew indicates that Peter understands this is the real question. Is Peter ready to leave the fishing and his home behind to serve those he does not personally know, for the cause of Christ? By using filew but not agapas, Peter says he is ready. Now Jesus rewards him by saying, boske, feed the flock as a good shepherd would. It is not Peter's flock, the sheep belong to Jesus.
At last Peter is restored.
One of the passages in the Bible which reads cryptically is John 21.15-17, the passage in which Jesus asks Peter three times about his love and tells him three times to feed His sheep.
When John records that Jesus had to say these things 3 times, there has to be more to it than repeating what He said. Jesus always had a way of answering what people need, not what they ask. So maybe we can look a bit further into the Greek words used by John to see something more.
In John 18.25 Peter denies three times that he knew Jesus. Under Jewish common law, denying three times meant that a contract could be voided. So here in John 21 Jesus restores Peter to the covenant with God by asking him 3 times, 'Do you love Me?'
Now let's go to the first exchange, 21.15.
We will isolate 4 Greek words, the word for 'love,' agape, the word for respectful love, philew and two words for 'feed,' boskw and poimaine. In this verse Jesus says,
15--Simon, son of John, do you agapas me more than these?
He said to Him, 'Yes, Lord, You know that I philew You.
He said to him, Boskw My lambs.
The word agapas originally meant a welcoming love. It was used in Homer to mean the love between a man and his son. Then much later in classical Greek, 12 times in the Greek translation of the OT it was used for sexual love. By the time of the NT, the gospel writers used it in it's Homeric sense, the distinguished unselfish love with a family between father and son. Jesus is asking Peter if he loves Jesus intensly, even more than Peter might love his fellow man, the other disciples, or anyone. This is Peter's moment to tell Jesus He loves the Master more than anyone, more than life itself; in this regard the question is Peter's Abraham and Isaac moment. Abraham had to show he loved God more than his own son, and Peter is being asked much the same thing.
Peter does not use the word, agapas, he uses filew, an impersonal and less intense word. When Jesus says, Feed My sheep, using boskw, Jesus is using the conventional word for a shepherd feeding lambs. Boskw originally meant a field of grass and fruit trees. Jesus is saying if Peter must love Jesus intensly, before he can feed the flock as any laboring shepherd would. The follower as a laborer in the field is used in 2 Cor. 6.1 and Colossians 4.11.
But this will not be enough for Peter with Jesus.
The second exchange seems like a repetition but it is not.
16--He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you agapas Me?
He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I philew You.
He said to him, poimaine My sheep.
Jesus and Peter repeat their two words for 'love,' but now Jesus uses another word for 'feeding'. This is the word poimaine, meaning to feed one's own sheep, to care for their needs. What Jesus is saying is that Peter is to take his own love of Jesus and give that love to the sheep, to fellow believers. He is telling Peter to turn from loving Jesus to loving the sheep. Homer uses two forms of this word for 'shepherd and for 'flock', thus indicating the intimate connection between a shepherd and his own flock. It is from this connection of shepherd and flock that we get the expression, to shepherd a church.
When we notice that Peter has not changed his word, filew, this indicates that the flock is not Peter's possession but his care. It is his own to served. Peter seems to have understood this, as in 1 Peter 5.1 he calls himself a 'fellow-elder,' not the chief or the owner but a servant among servants.
Now for the third episode.
17--He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you phileis Me?
Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Do you phileis Me?
And he said to Him, Lord You know all things; You know that I philew You.
Jesus said to him, Boske My lambs.
Here Jesus does not use agapas, but phileis. He is asking Peter if he truly has turned from depending on Jesus to serving the flock of believers. That Peter uses filew indicates that Peter understands this is the real question. Is Peter ready to leave the fishing and his home behind to serve those he does not personally know, for the cause of Christ? By using filew but not agapas, Peter says he is ready. Now Jesus rewards him by saying, boske, feed the flock as a good shepherd would. It is not Peter's flock, the sheep belong to Jesus.
At last Peter is restored.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
MIRACLE
Have you ever noticed the churches which have a spirituality abiding in them? Or places where Christians have prayed, which have a spirituality on them? They don't seem to be the rule among churches, but the exception. Why is that? What makes certain places spiritual but not others?
Well, I imagine many answers could be given which are not answers but reactions. We might say certain churches are so focused on social works that they never contemplate the presence of God in their midst. Social justice is certainly a large part of the kingdom of God, but when such work emaciates other aspects of the kingdom of God then we have a ministry not a church.
This is true of an evangelical emphasis on knowing God's Word to the exclusion of belief in the Sacrament and a sacramental emphasis on how precisely the priest performs the Eucharist to the exclusion of the sermon.
But then, when we step into a prayer chapel or certain churches, we immediately become aware of the Spirit of God. These places are not always know for their social works or great budgets or numbers of missionaries they support or even their reputation in the neighborhood. So what do they have?
First, let's turn to a familiar verse, which has a phrase we all know:
Again I say to you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For when two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in their midst of them, Matt. 18.19, 20.
Here we have the promise that if two or more are gathered, the Son and the Father are there with them. This can only be said through the blessing of the Spirit, which is what we notice in certain places where Christians worship.
What this means is that what makes a place spiritual is when the people believe in the miracle that the Father and Sn are there with them. This miracle can mean that the people believe God is with them in the Sacrament, the Word preached, or the works of the Spirit. The tradition to which one belongs has no special hold, it's the belief in the miracle that God is here, which is the presence of the Spirit we notice.
Once I was in a Baptist church in which the Sunday School classes were studying John 17. After those classes, we all went to worship in the sanctuary. I've never experienced such worship, such holiness in a Baptist church. They aren't known for their emphasis on liturgy, so why was it so holy? I think it was because the wonderful people there really did believe in what John 17 said. God came down because their belief went up.
The second reason for holiness in a certain places is the wishes and hopes and prayers of the people. Wherever the hopes of the people are taken up, that place is special. When the Spirit of God moves on a group of those praying to seek what God is giving, then those hopes and prayers sanctify a place. By that I mean not just that hopes and prayers cleanse a place but that those hopes and prayers remain there.
We can easily imagine a sports arena where the fans have hoped for a championship for years--their hopes and wishes remain in that place. These places feel different than a hotel lobby or a bank. When saints have prayed in such earnest in a place that God answers them, that place will have the atmosphere that God is there. God seems to excavate a place for Himself in us and in our churches so that we enter into Him.
This is the miracle of His presence. We might become aware of Him through the Sacrament, through praying, through gathering with one mind, through serving one another, but He is there in us and for us and around us. We abide in Him through our prayers, He abides in us through His Word, His Sacraments, His Spirit.
The church is certainly not infallible, but it is the miracle of Christ among us.
What this means is, our hopes and prayers sanctify a place, they dedicate a place unto God. While we have our ceremonies of dedication, they are no more than asking God to come. It is our prayers and hopes in the Spirit which draw Him and bring us into Him. The United States was founded by those who had prayed for many years, they had hoped for religious freedom for generations. So when they stepped upon these shores, all their hopes and dreams had been realized in this land. God blessed America.
When I was a boy I watched Oral Roberts in his crusades. While his theology might be objectionable, the environment of faith was overwhelming and obvious. He created the atmosphere in which people believed God. The level of spiritual desire was unusually high, coming after WWII. The people had almost nothing materially; Oral had great faith; God moved among them under the tent.
Today many churches promote many things.
Do you believe God is in your midst?
In Him was life and the life was the light of men, John 1.4.
Have you ever noticed the churches which have a spirituality abiding in them? Or places where Christians have prayed, which have a spirituality on them? They don't seem to be the rule among churches, but the exception. Why is that? What makes certain places spiritual but not others?
Well, I imagine many answers could be given which are not answers but reactions. We might say certain churches are so focused on social works that they never contemplate the presence of God in their midst. Social justice is certainly a large part of the kingdom of God, but when such work emaciates other aspects of the kingdom of God then we have a ministry not a church.
This is true of an evangelical emphasis on knowing God's Word to the exclusion of belief in the Sacrament and a sacramental emphasis on how precisely the priest performs the Eucharist to the exclusion of the sermon.
But then, when we step into a prayer chapel or certain churches, we immediately become aware of the Spirit of God. These places are not always know for their social works or great budgets or numbers of missionaries they support or even their reputation in the neighborhood. So what do they have?
First, let's turn to a familiar verse, which has a phrase we all know:
Again I say to you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For when two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in their midst of them, Matt. 18.19, 20.
Here we have the promise that if two or more are gathered, the Son and the Father are there with them. This can only be said through the blessing of the Spirit, which is what we notice in certain places where Christians worship.
What this means is that what makes a place spiritual is when the people believe in the miracle that the Father and Sn are there with them. This miracle can mean that the people believe God is with them in the Sacrament, the Word preached, or the works of the Spirit. The tradition to which one belongs has no special hold, it's the belief in the miracle that God is here, which is the presence of the Spirit we notice.
Once I was in a Baptist church in which the Sunday School classes were studying John 17. After those classes, we all went to worship in the sanctuary. I've never experienced such worship, such holiness in a Baptist church. They aren't known for their emphasis on liturgy, so why was it so holy? I think it was because the wonderful people there really did believe in what John 17 said. God came down because their belief went up.
The second reason for holiness in a certain places is the wishes and hopes and prayers of the people. Wherever the hopes of the people are taken up, that place is special. When the Spirit of God moves on a group of those praying to seek what God is giving, then those hopes and prayers sanctify a place. By that I mean not just that hopes and prayers cleanse a place but that those hopes and prayers remain there.
We can easily imagine a sports arena where the fans have hoped for a championship for years--their hopes and wishes remain in that place. These places feel different than a hotel lobby or a bank. When saints have prayed in such earnest in a place that God answers them, that place will have the atmosphere that God is there. God seems to excavate a place for Himself in us and in our churches so that we enter into Him.
This is the miracle of His presence. We might become aware of Him through the Sacrament, through praying, through gathering with one mind, through serving one another, but He is there in us and for us and around us. We abide in Him through our prayers, He abides in us through His Word, His Sacraments, His Spirit.
The church is certainly not infallible, but it is the miracle of Christ among us.
What this means is, our hopes and prayers sanctify a place, they dedicate a place unto God. While we have our ceremonies of dedication, they are no more than asking God to come. It is our prayers and hopes in the Spirit which draw Him and bring us into Him. The United States was founded by those who had prayed for many years, they had hoped for religious freedom for generations. So when they stepped upon these shores, all their hopes and dreams had been realized in this land. God blessed America.
When I was a boy I watched Oral Roberts in his crusades. While his theology might be objectionable, the environment of faith was overwhelming and obvious. He created the atmosphere in which people believed God. The level of spiritual desire was unusually high, coming after WWII. The people had almost nothing materially; Oral had great faith; God moved among them under the tent.
Today many churches promote many things.
Do you believe God is in your midst?
In Him was life and the life was the light of men, John 1.4.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
JOB
Job is just awesome. It is the Biblical epic in the manner of Milton and Homer, with immense spiritual intensity. It can be read as a Biblical allegory, or as the account of God and the war in the heavenlies against Satan. Jewish scholars have always thought of Job as the allegory of Israel. It has associations of God, Satan, and a man which we might link with Genesis 2 and 3.
Above all Job is spiritual cinemascope.
If we begin with the simple arrangement of the book, the first two chapters and the last 5 chapters form a simple drama. God allows Job to be afflicted by Satan for a time, and when Job will not yield to Satan, God rescues Job to bless him.
This simple arrangement then suggests what a Jewish epic poet might say would have happened had Adam not succumbed to Satan. Blessing and protection in Job 1 and Gen. 1 and 2. Testing in Job 2 as in Gen. 3. Reward in Job 42, just reward in Gen. 3.8 through to chapter 4.
What has made the book famous is the poetry. Job 17.7 says--What is man that Thou does magnify him and that Thou art concerned with him? We are reminded of David's paraphrase of this in Psalm 8.4. Solomon also quotes and paraphrases Job in several places.
In chapters 3-37 the poet of Job has the four counselors advise Job on how to get out from under his suffering. The advise comes in three waves, three sections in which each of Job's counselors has his say. What makes Job relevant today is the underlying message. It is this message which has made Job worth preserving as the oldest section of the OT.
Job begins by saying he wishes he were never born--why did I not die at birth, Job 3.11. But Job knows God has allowed this tragedy, in fact Job says God has done this suffering upon him, Job 10.8. His counselors cannot accept that, they must say God rewards the righteous and punishes the sinners so Job must be a sinner, Job 11.13-14.
But Job has the intimation there is something beyond this in God, Job 12.13-25. God makes fools, his priests go barefoot, He loosens and He binds, He pours contempt, He makes rulers wander in a pathless place. This insight by Job that God rules to His own purposes, out of His holiness, sets the stage for Job's greatest understanding of God.
Beyond justice, God is holy.
Job knows God does not treat everyone the same, fairness is not His rule. So Job demands to speak to God personally--I would speak to the Almighty, Job 13.3. His suffering and God's holiness forces Job into the dramatic rise in thought--Though He slay me, I will hope in Him, Job 13.15.
Job has realized that even in death he will hope in God. Job then contemplates what he just said. He says in Job 14.14--If a man dies will he live again? This has become Job's hope. Not the cessation of pain but life through death. That God is to be trusted in life and death will free every man from sin, death and Satan.
What this means is beyond fairness is God's holiness. In order to bring Job through suffering God must make Job realize that if God were merely treating every man the same as the counselors say, no man would ever know God in this life. Men would only know His rule, not His person.
In order for Job to go from knowing God's rule to knowing God as a person, Job must be able to stand before Him. He asks God this, but it can only happen if God allows. God must give Job the act of standing before Him.
This is grace.
It is the risk of life through death, as Job says in 13.15. Because forgiveness replaces punishment, grace glows over justice. In order to stand before Him, God must choose Job. Job begins to realize this in a slender manner, Job 16.6-22. That choosing comes from God's holiness, the theme of the entire OT from Genesis 12 on. It is this choosing which is God's love. In the NT this is stated in John 15.16--You did not choose Me, but I chose you.
What Job comes to realize is justice bars him from God. Grace includes him in God, Ephesians 1.7. Grace is God's choosing Job in order to love him, so that Job's relationship to God is God's love chosen and returned.
No wonder the manuscript of Job has survived the centuries when so much other ancient writing has not.
Job is just awesome. It is the Biblical epic in the manner of Milton and Homer, with immense spiritual intensity. It can be read as a Biblical allegory, or as the account of God and the war in the heavenlies against Satan. Jewish scholars have always thought of Job as the allegory of Israel. It has associations of God, Satan, and a man which we might link with Genesis 2 and 3.
Above all Job is spiritual cinemascope.
If we begin with the simple arrangement of the book, the first two chapters and the last 5 chapters form a simple drama. God allows Job to be afflicted by Satan for a time, and when Job will not yield to Satan, God rescues Job to bless him.
This simple arrangement then suggests what a Jewish epic poet might say would have happened had Adam not succumbed to Satan. Blessing and protection in Job 1 and Gen. 1 and 2. Testing in Job 2 as in Gen. 3. Reward in Job 42, just reward in Gen. 3.8 through to chapter 4.
What has made the book famous is the poetry. Job 17.7 says--What is man that Thou does magnify him and that Thou art concerned with him? We are reminded of David's paraphrase of this in Psalm 8.4. Solomon also quotes and paraphrases Job in several places.
In chapters 3-37 the poet of Job has the four counselors advise Job on how to get out from under his suffering. The advise comes in three waves, three sections in which each of Job's counselors has his say. What makes Job relevant today is the underlying message. It is this message which has made Job worth preserving as the oldest section of the OT.
Job begins by saying he wishes he were never born--why did I not die at birth, Job 3.11. But Job knows God has allowed this tragedy, in fact Job says God has done this suffering upon him, Job 10.8. His counselors cannot accept that, they must say God rewards the righteous and punishes the sinners so Job must be a sinner, Job 11.13-14.
But Job has the intimation there is something beyond this in God, Job 12.13-25. God makes fools, his priests go barefoot, He loosens and He binds, He pours contempt, He makes rulers wander in a pathless place. This insight by Job that God rules to His own purposes, out of His holiness, sets the stage for Job's greatest understanding of God.
Beyond justice, God is holy.
Job knows God does not treat everyone the same, fairness is not His rule. So Job demands to speak to God personally--I would speak to the Almighty, Job 13.3. His suffering and God's holiness forces Job into the dramatic rise in thought--Though He slay me, I will hope in Him, Job 13.15.
Job has realized that even in death he will hope in God. Job then contemplates what he just said. He says in Job 14.14--If a man dies will he live again? This has become Job's hope. Not the cessation of pain but life through death. That God is to be trusted in life and death will free every man from sin, death and Satan.
What this means is beyond fairness is God's holiness. In order to bring Job through suffering God must make Job realize that if God were merely treating every man the same as the counselors say, no man would ever know God in this life. Men would only know His rule, not His person.
In order for Job to go from knowing God's rule to knowing God as a person, Job must be able to stand before Him. He asks God this, but it can only happen if God allows. God must give Job the act of standing before Him.
This is grace.
It is the risk of life through death, as Job says in 13.15. Because forgiveness replaces punishment, grace glows over justice. In order to stand before Him, God must choose Job. Job begins to realize this in a slender manner, Job 16.6-22. That choosing comes from God's holiness, the theme of the entire OT from Genesis 12 on. It is this choosing which is God's love. In the NT this is stated in John 15.16--You did not choose Me, but I chose you.
What Job comes to realize is justice bars him from God. Grace includes him in God, Ephesians 1.7. Grace is God's choosing Job in order to love him, so that Job's relationship to God is God's love chosen and returned.
No wonder the manuscript of Job has survived the centuries when so much other ancient writing has not.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
JOHN 17
This is one of the rarest passages in the Bible. It is John being allowed to curl back the invisibility of God so that we might stand in the enclosure of the Trinity.
This chapter doesn't use sanctification, justification, election, predestination or any of the $10 words we might expect of so holy, so rare a Word of God. It doesn't use an OT reference.
Jesus says, 'I come to Thee, I was with them, I kept them, I am no more in the world.' Simple words without a parable, without stained glass or metaphors of light or water or bread. There are no specific instructions as we find in the Law. Here the Spirit of God has inspired John to conceal as much as he reveals in such few words.
Yet the chapter is rich in Biblical themes of Father and only-begotten Son, belief in God, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, and God's glory. While we are not taken through the OT step by step as in Peter's sermons or the Letter to Hebrews, if we put the details of John 17 down for a moment and step back, we might realize what is being conveyed.
First, God in us and we in Him.
This is an uncovering of God. As the Lord revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain, as Jesus showed Philip the Father, so we are allowed to 'see' the relationship with the Father and Son. John will say in 1 John 1.3--what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Now here in John 17, we see how Jesus is the Son of the Father. It is a relationship of giving. Jesus says--Now they have come to know that everything Thou has given Me is from Thee, John 17.7. What the Father has as creator, He gives to the Son as redeemer. He says this when He says--the world which Thou gave Me I have given to them and they received, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee and they believed that Thou did send Me, John 17.8.
If God abides in us and we in Him, chapter 17 is telling us that God is much more in our lives than we might realize. We often do not 'see' Him, but He is just beyond our invisibility, taking care of us, loving us, being sovereign in the world for us as we are for Him. God is not the oblong blur of some religions or the philosophical arguer of the ancient Greeks or the dictator of ancient Rome.
Paul says--all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, Col. 1.16. He is all in all because all created things have some of His glory. That glory was given to the Son, who has given it to us as His body, the church, John 17.22.
When the disciples of John ask Jesus, Are you the expected One in Matthew 11.5, He says--Go and report to John the things which you see and hear...the blind receive sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
All these things the people saw. As the Father gave to the Son, He now gives to us. The NT does not ask us to go into the church as often as it declares that we would go out into the world. John says this--As Thou did send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world, John 17.18.
We might say that the essence of Christianity is that we belong to the Son as He belongs to the Father, that we would glorify Him.
Second, we can realize from this chapter how much Christianity is a gift from God. The Father gives authority to the Son, 17.2, the Father gave the disciples to the Son, 17.6, the words which the Father gave to the Son, He has given to men, 17.8, and the glory which the Father gave to the Son, He has given to men, 17.22. Over and over, it's a gift.
World religions aren't like this. Most deities keep accounts over men or the gods cannot be known Here the Spirit of God is revealing through the words John wrote that the Father gives to the Son and the Son gives to men and women. It is more like a family relationship than a world religion. John will say later in his life that God is love.
This relationship of giving is perfectly expressed in Acts 3.6 where a lame man cries out to Peter and John as they walk by.
Peter then says--Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do possess I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene--walk!
It is a gift. The man was not wealthy, he was not a Pharisee, a reader of the scrolls or a priest or government official. But he asked Peter and John, and the gift which they were given--that the lame shall walk--they give to this man.
A gift cannot be repaid, but it can be passed along. That's our gratitude, our capacity to love God. Freely we have received, freely give. No wonder God is love.
This is one of the rarest passages in the Bible. It is John being allowed to curl back the invisibility of God so that we might stand in the enclosure of the Trinity.
This chapter doesn't use sanctification, justification, election, predestination or any of the $10 words we might expect of so holy, so rare a Word of God. It doesn't use an OT reference.
Jesus says, 'I come to Thee, I was with them, I kept them, I am no more in the world.' Simple words without a parable, without stained glass or metaphors of light or water or bread. There are no specific instructions as we find in the Law. Here the Spirit of God has inspired John to conceal as much as he reveals in such few words.
Yet the chapter is rich in Biblical themes of Father and only-begotten Son, belief in God, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, and God's glory. While we are not taken through the OT step by step as in Peter's sermons or the Letter to Hebrews, if we put the details of John 17 down for a moment and step back, we might realize what is being conveyed.
First, God in us and we in Him.
This is an uncovering of God. As the Lord revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain, as Jesus showed Philip the Father, so we are allowed to 'see' the relationship with the Father and Son. John will say in 1 John 1.3--what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Now here in John 17, we see how Jesus is the Son of the Father. It is a relationship of giving. Jesus says--Now they have come to know that everything Thou has given Me is from Thee, John 17.7. What the Father has as creator, He gives to the Son as redeemer. He says this when He says--the world which Thou gave Me I have given to them and they received, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee and they believed that Thou did send Me, John 17.8.
If God abides in us and we in Him, chapter 17 is telling us that God is much more in our lives than we might realize. We often do not 'see' Him, but He is just beyond our invisibility, taking care of us, loving us, being sovereign in the world for us as we are for Him. God is not the oblong blur of some religions or the philosophical arguer of the ancient Greeks or the dictator of ancient Rome.
Paul says--all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, Col. 1.16. He is all in all because all created things have some of His glory. That glory was given to the Son, who has given it to us as His body, the church, John 17.22.
When the disciples of John ask Jesus, Are you the expected One in Matthew 11.5, He says--Go and report to John the things which you see and hear...the blind receive sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
All these things the people saw. As the Father gave to the Son, He now gives to us. The NT does not ask us to go into the church as often as it declares that we would go out into the world. John says this--As Thou did send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world, John 17.18.
We might say that the essence of Christianity is that we belong to the Son as He belongs to the Father, that we would glorify Him.
Second, we can realize from this chapter how much Christianity is a gift from God. The Father gives authority to the Son, 17.2, the Father gave the disciples to the Son, 17.6, the words which the Father gave to the Son, He has given to men, 17.8, and the glory which the Father gave to the Son, He has given to men, 17.22. Over and over, it's a gift.
World religions aren't like this. Most deities keep accounts over men or the gods cannot be known Here the Spirit of God is revealing through the words John wrote that the Father gives to the Son and the Son gives to men and women. It is more like a family relationship than a world religion. John will say later in his life that God is love.
This relationship of giving is perfectly expressed in Acts 3.6 where a lame man cries out to Peter and John as they walk by.
Peter then says--Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do possess I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene--walk!
It is a gift. The man was not wealthy, he was not a Pharisee, a reader of the scrolls or a priest or government official. But he asked Peter and John, and the gift which they were given--that the lame shall walk--they give to this man.
A gift cannot be repaid, but it can be passed along. That's our gratitude, our capacity to love God. Freely we have received, freely give. No wonder God is love.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
WHAT IS MAN?
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, he wrote about a character who had to make choices without regard to repercussions. So Hamlet questions his own nature, as to who he is. He says to his friend Rosencrantz--
what a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals--and yet
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Hamlet's question about himself is that he, like every man, is a mixture. He would like to clutch one element of his manliness but the other qualities are there, always there. So the question remains.
In Acts 17.28 Paul says--in Him we live and move and hae our being. We are completely His even if we don't believe in God. Jesus says in Matthew 10.29 that--not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from your Father. We have our existence because God exists. And yet, nearly all spiritual writers say we must empty ourselves of ourselves to be holy. We must pick up our cross daily, deny the world, relinquish our self to God.
So, we must ask, how do we do that?
While the Scriptures say man is evil (Gen.6.3), they also say God is good. We have been made in His image, Gen. 1.27. This means, among other things, that mankind is a person as God is a person. Paul said this in the Acts 17 passage when he says we have our being in God. Being a person means being self-conscious, which in turn means that we make choices.
This brings us to our freedom to make those choices. A man dead in his trespasses and sins does not have choices--he is dead. The one who has choices is the one who is living as the image of God. Even after Adam's sin, God speaks to him. Adam has the freedom to confess his sin, to return in humility to God, even if he doesn't. It is the man and woman living as God's image who has the choices. The purpose of that freedom to choose is to be transformed into the likeness of God in Christ.
God relates to us spiritually as men and women who are nothing without Him--apart from Me you can do nothing, John 15.5. We relate to God as a person who responds to Him in repentance and belief, Matt. 3.2, Acts 17.30. We are vessels in His hands, yet we are also impressed by His image to be like Him.
The disciples were called to be followers of Jesus, brothers of Him, friends of Him.
The disciples were called to be His followers, that is, those who would learn of Him, Matt. 11.29, John 6.45. They did follow Him and He revealed special things to them. But when He ascended, He gave the gift of the Holy Spirit for His disciples to go into the world. They became brothers, that is, fellow workers in the work of evangelism. In Matt. 12.49 Jesus calls His disciples His own brothers as--whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is my brother.
We see this when Paul calls Epaphroditus his brother in Philippians 2.25. Both Peter and Paul humble themselves in the work of the Lord. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1.24--we are workers with you for your joy... And in 1 Peter 5.1 Peter calls himself--your fellow-elder and witness. One among many, brothers in the Lord.
But that is not all. In John 15.23-17 Jesus says--no longer do I call you slaves..but I have called you friends. What is a friend according to Jesus? It is--for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. Why has Jesus done this? He has, in order that--you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.
And then there's more. According to Paul's word to Timothy in 2 Tim. 2.12, we will reign in heaven with Christ. In the eternal state, we will reign upon the new earth, Revelation 5.10, 20.6.
What this means is that as the living image of God we are given the freedom to choose God, to be his brothers and friends to ultimately reign in heaven with Christ.
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, he wrote about a character who had to make choices without regard to repercussions. So Hamlet questions his own nature, as to who he is. He says to his friend Rosencrantz--
what a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals--and yet
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Hamlet's question about himself is that he, like every man, is a mixture. He would like to clutch one element of his manliness but the other qualities are there, always there. So the question remains.
In Acts 17.28 Paul says--in Him we live and move and hae our being. We are completely His even if we don't believe in God. Jesus says in Matthew 10.29 that--not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from your Father. We have our existence because God exists. And yet, nearly all spiritual writers say we must empty ourselves of ourselves to be holy. We must pick up our cross daily, deny the world, relinquish our self to God.
So, we must ask, how do we do that?
While the Scriptures say man is evil (Gen.6.3), they also say God is good. We have been made in His image, Gen. 1.27. This means, among other things, that mankind is a person as God is a person. Paul said this in the Acts 17 passage when he says we have our being in God. Being a person means being self-conscious, which in turn means that we make choices.
This brings us to our freedom to make those choices. A man dead in his trespasses and sins does not have choices--he is dead. The one who has choices is the one who is living as the image of God. Even after Adam's sin, God speaks to him. Adam has the freedom to confess his sin, to return in humility to God, even if he doesn't. It is the man and woman living as God's image who has the choices. The purpose of that freedom to choose is to be transformed into the likeness of God in Christ.
God relates to us spiritually as men and women who are nothing without Him--apart from Me you can do nothing, John 15.5. We relate to God as a person who responds to Him in repentance and belief, Matt. 3.2, Acts 17.30. We are vessels in His hands, yet we are also impressed by His image to be like Him.
The disciples were called to be followers of Jesus, brothers of Him, friends of Him.
The disciples were called to be His followers, that is, those who would learn of Him, Matt. 11.29, John 6.45. They did follow Him and He revealed special things to them. But when He ascended, He gave the gift of the Holy Spirit for His disciples to go into the world. They became brothers, that is, fellow workers in the work of evangelism. In Matt. 12.49 Jesus calls His disciples His own brothers as--whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is my brother.
We see this when Paul calls Epaphroditus his brother in Philippians 2.25. Both Peter and Paul humble themselves in the work of the Lord. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1.24--we are workers with you for your joy... And in 1 Peter 5.1 Peter calls himself--your fellow-elder and witness. One among many, brothers in the Lord.
But that is not all. In John 15.23-17 Jesus says--no longer do I call you slaves..but I have called you friends. What is a friend according to Jesus? It is--for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. Why has Jesus done this? He has, in order that--you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.
And then there's more. According to Paul's word to Timothy in 2 Tim. 2.12, we will reign in heaven with Christ. In the eternal state, we will reign upon the new earth, Revelation 5.10, 20.6.
What this means is that as the living image of God we are given the freedom to choose God, to be his brothers and friends to ultimately reign in heaven with Christ.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
LOVE OF GOD
In Psalm 77 Asaph is lamenting that the great closeness he had with God has vanished. He says--
Will the Lord reject forever?
And will He neer be favorable again?
Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?
Has His promise come to an end forever?
This is the experience of many of us, from Job to our own day. Once we were aware of God's presence, close to us. But now that presence seems to have gone. We are tempted to say or feel God has changed, or that He has abandoned us in our trouble.
How can we respond to times like these?
In Revelation 2.4 the Lord says the church at Ephesus has--left your first love.
Do you remember your first experience with God? It might have been coming to God as a child through baptism or a Sunday School class. It might have been praying for the first time knowing who you prayed to; it might have been reading your first Bible or the first time you entered a church.
The apostle Paul once said the church is His body--the fulness of Him who fills all in all, Ephesians 1.23. This means that if God is all in all, He does not leave us. We can't use our hand to brush away air; so God, like the air, has not left us. As He is always present, we can return to our first love, Jesus Christ. John says--our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, 1 John 1.3.
Now that we know that, what is it like to have fellowship with God?
The innermost being of God is love. And just as a man would propose marriage--his undying love--to a young girl, so God in the beginning of our life with Him proposed love to us. Now as it is the desire and opportunity of the girl to express back her love for the young man, God then gives us the opportunity to express our love for Him. He appears to recede for us to give Him the love He has given us.
We return to our first love by taking the times in which we feel abandoned by God to love Him back.
We might remember Jesus said--Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you, John 14.27. If we have HIs peace in us and we have the Spirit of God all around us, we have the consolation of His presence even if we don't feel it at the moment.
We can speak to our soul. David said--
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence, Psalm 42.5
We can learn to trust Him, as trust is loving God. The Puritan Joseph Sibbes wrote--This trusting in God is the way to quiet our souls and to stay the same in every estate. The reason is because God has sanctified this holy grace to this end.
The Bible mentions several times in which God came to someone, gave them a blessing and then provided them with the opportunity to love God back through trust or faith. The first time is the most famous. Our whole world knows the story of Adam and Eve. God came to Adam, blessed him with Eve and blessed them both with the garden. Then God steps back. Adam and Eve now have the opportunity to trust in what God said about the two trees. They fail to give God love through trust in His word, so paradise is lost.
But now look at Abraham. He failed like Adam but God came to him again. In Genesis God tells Abraham he will have a son, even though Sarah is barren and old. She tells Abraham to provide a son through Hagar rather than through God's blessing, Gen. 16.2.
Later, God gives Abraham the opportunity to trust in God through Isaac., Gen. 22. He had to trust in God entirely concerning not just Isaac but God's promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations. If Abraham slays Isaac, this could not happen. However, this time Abraham believes and trusts the Lord to provide the lamb.
In the NT we read the same thing; Jesus approaches with blessing, then He gives someone the opportunity to love Him back. Luke says that 10 lepers come to Jesus for healing. He provides that healing. Nine walk away without expressing any love for Jesus, but one comes back. Although he is not a Jew, Jesus rewards him with--Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well, Luke 17.19.
God has blessed us, so we speak love to God through our trust in what He has said.
In all of this, we see the dynamic of love with our God. He loves us in order that we should love Him in return. As the Gershwin song says--our love is here to stay.
Instead of thinking that God has abandoned us or that we are depressed or downcast, we should think of these times as the opportunity to give back to God the love He has given us.
For He has visited us, Luke 1.68.
In Psalm 77 Asaph is lamenting that the great closeness he had with God has vanished. He says--
Will the Lord reject forever?
And will He neer be favorable again?
Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?
Has His promise come to an end forever?
This is the experience of many of us, from Job to our own day. Once we were aware of God's presence, close to us. But now that presence seems to have gone. We are tempted to say or feel God has changed, or that He has abandoned us in our trouble.
How can we respond to times like these?
In Revelation 2.4 the Lord says the church at Ephesus has--left your first love.
Do you remember your first experience with God? It might have been coming to God as a child through baptism or a Sunday School class. It might have been praying for the first time knowing who you prayed to; it might have been reading your first Bible or the first time you entered a church.
The apostle Paul once said the church is His body--the fulness of Him who fills all in all, Ephesians 1.23. This means that if God is all in all, He does not leave us. We can't use our hand to brush away air; so God, like the air, has not left us. As He is always present, we can return to our first love, Jesus Christ. John says--our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, 1 John 1.3.
Now that we know that, what is it like to have fellowship with God?
The innermost being of God is love. And just as a man would propose marriage--his undying love--to a young girl, so God in the beginning of our life with Him proposed love to us. Now as it is the desire and opportunity of the girl to express back her love for the young man, God then gives us the opportunity to express our love for Him. He appears to recede for us to give Him the love He has given us.
We return to our first love by taking the times in which we feel abandoned by God to love Him back.
We might remember Jesus said--Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you, John 14.27. If we have HIs peace in us and we have the Spirit of God all around us, we have the consolation of His presence even if we don't feel it at the moment.
We can speak to our soul. David said--
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence, Psalm 42.5
We can learn to trust Him, as trust is loving God. The Puritan Joseph Sibbes wrote--This trusting in God is the way to quiet our souls and to stay the same in every estate. The reason is because God has sanctified this holy grace to this end.
The Bible mentions several times in which God came to someone, gave them a blessing and then provided them with the opportunity to love God back through trust or faith. The first time is the most famous. Our whole world knows the story of Adam and Eve. God came to Adam, blessed him with Eve and blessed them both with the garden. Then God steps back. Adam and Eve now have the opportunity to trust in what God said about the two trees. They fail to give God love through trust in His word, so paradise is lost.
But now look at Abraham. He failed like Adam but God came to him again. In Genesis God tells Abraham he will have a son, even though Sarah is barren and old. She tells Abraham to provide a son through Hagar rather than through God's blessing, Gen. 16.2.
Later, God gives Abraham the opportunity to trust in God through Isaac., Gen. 22. He had to trust in God entirely concerning not just Isaac but God's promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations. If Abraham slays Isaac, this could not happen. However, this time Abraham believes and trusts the Lord to provide the lamb.
In the NT we read the same thing; Jesus approaches with blessing, then He gives someone the opportunity to love Him back. Luke says that 10 lepers come to Jesus for healing. He provides that healing. Nine walk away without expressing any love for Jesus, but one comes back. Although he is not a Jew, Jesus rewards him with--Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well, Luke 17.19.
God has blessed us, so we speak love to God through our trust in what He has said.
In all of this, we see the dynamic of love with our God. He loves us in order that we should love Him in return. As the Gershwin song says--our love is here to stay.
Instead of thinking that God has abandoned us or that we are depressed or downcast, we should think of these times as the opportunity to give back to God the love He has given us.
For He has visited us, Luke 1.68.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
GIFT AND REQUEST
When we read Matthew 5.48--you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect--we might not even believe that is possible. We might want to let that verse pour off of us like water off a rock. But if Jesus said it, what He said must be true.
How can we be perfect as God the Father, in heaven? We are here, we are in our human life with the twisting strain of disappointments. But Jesus must have meant something.
We read in Acts that the Holy Spirit is given to men and women--we hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God, Acts 2.10. It is by the power of this Spirit that the holiness of the Father is given to men and women. But that is not all. Having been given the gift to fulfill Matt. 5.48, God asks that we live out in that gift, that Spirit.
We might say God gives a command for which He gives the gift, and then as we receive the gift God asks we live in it.
Can we find an episode in the gospels which makes that plain? I think we can look at John 8, the woman caught in adultery. She is caught, throw down to dust in a corner of the temple courtyard. The Pharisees and scribes surround her, to stone her as the Law proscribed, Leviticus 20.10. Then they turn from her to Jesus, demanding of Him--what then do you say, John 8.5. Jesus knows the Law. And yet He knows she is a soul made in the image of God. He knows the commandment against killing, Exodus 20.13.
Here with this woman the Law is a rope unraveled in two directions, now so weakened so that it cannot be used. One direction is to stone her, the other is to prevent killing her through forgiveness. So Jesus must wrap the Law back together so that it glorifies God in heaven. If the men stone her, they are taking the place of God in her death, without the hope of the resurrection since she will die without repentance. If Jesus prevents the stoning of her, He must answer to the Law.
So He says the Pharisees and scribes cannot take the place of God to end her life. He says they are not so perfect that they can cast the first stone--he who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, John 8.7.
Jesus has made the demand of perfection mentioned in Matt. 5.48. The Pharisees and scribes do not have such a gift, only Jesus does. So He takes the gift from them to give it to her when He says--Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you, John 8.10.
Having forgiven her, now Jesus tells her to live in the gift He has given her. He tells her--Neither do I condemn you; go your way, from now on sin no more, John 8.13. She has the gift of forgiveness so she must now live a new life in the holiness of Matt. 5.48.
Most of the NT is about living out the gift we have been given, to be holy before the Lord. All of the Sermon on the Mount is God's instructions on how to--sin no more. This was always God's intention and will. If we turn back to Exodus 20 (just 7 verses after the commandment against murder) Moses tells the people--do not be afraid for the Lord God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin, Exodus 20.20.
Our heavenly Father always desired holiness for us. He gives what He requests in order to ask of us what He has given. When He declares the request that we be holy, that is our justification. When He gives the Spirit by which we can be holy, that is our sanctification. It is majestic and it is for us, every one of us.
Now having said that, how can it be?
1 John 1.3 says--our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. That we are complete in Him is stated in 1 John 1.7--If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin...If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins nd to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So we confess our sins, not because we are holy but to be holy. John goes on to say--whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. This is being holy by being cleansed of the sins we commit. Confession of sins, keeping His word, loving God.
Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy.
When we read Matthew 5.48--you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect--we might not even believe that is possible. We might want to let that verse pour off of us like water off a rock. But if Jesus said it, what He said must be true.
How can we be perfect as God the Father, in heaven? We are here, we are in our human life with the twisting strain of disappointments. But Jesus must have meant something.
We read in Acts that the Holy Spirit is given to men and women--we hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God, Acts 2.10. It is by the power of this Spirit that the holiness of the Father is given to men and women. But that is not all. Having been given the gift to fulfill Matt. 5.48, God asks that we live out in that gift, that Spirit.
We might say God gives a command for which He gives the gift, and then as we receive the gift God asks we live in it.
Can we find an episode in the gospels which makes that plain? I think we can look at John 8, the woman caught in adultery. She is caught, throw down to dust in a corner of the temple courtyard. The Pharisees and scribes surround her, to stone her as the Law proscribed, Leviticus 20.10. Then they turn from her to Jesus, demanding of Him--what then do you say, John 8.5. Jesus knows the Law. And yet He knows she is a soul made in the image of God. He knows the commandment against killing, Exodus 20.13.
Here with this woman the Law is a rope unraveled in two directions, now so weakened so that it cannot be used. One direction is to stone her, the other is to prevent killing her through forgiveness. So Jesus must wrap the Law back together so that it glorifies God in heaven. If the men stone her, they are taking the place of God in her death, without the hope of the resurrection since she will die without repentance. If Jesus prevents the stoning of her, He must answer to the Law.
So He says the Pharisees and scribes cannot take the place of God to end her life. He says they are not so perfect that they can cast the first stone--he who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, John 8.7.
Jesus has made the demand of perfection mentioned in Matt. 5.48. The Pharisees and scribes do not have such a gift, only Jesus does. So He takes the gift from them to give it to her when He says--Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you, John 8.10.
Having forgiven her, now Jesus tells her to live in the gift He has given her. He tells her--Neither do I condemn you; go your way, from now on sin no more, John 8.13. She has the gift of forgiveness so she must now live a new life in the holiness of Matt. 5.48.
Most of the NT is about living out the gift we have been given, to be holy before the Lord. All of the Sermon on the Mount is God's instructions on how to--sin no more. This was always God's intention and will. If we turn back to Exodus 20 (just 7 verses after the commandment against murder) Moses tells the people--do not be afraid for the Lord God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin, Exodus 20.20.
Our heavenly Father always desired holiness for us. He gives what He requests in order to ask of us what He has given. When He declares the request that we be holy, that is our justification. When He gives the Spirit by which we can be holy, that is our sanctification. It is majestic and it is for us, every one of us.
Now having said that, how can it be?
1 John 1.3 says--our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. That we are complete in Him is stated in 1 John 1.7--If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin...If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins nd to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So we confess our sins, not because we are holy but to be holy. John goes on to say--whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. This is being holy by being cleansed of the sins we commit. Confession of sins, keeping His word, loving God.
Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)