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The sinful nature of humanity wants what it wants.  It doesn’t want to be hindered from what it wants even on the best of days.  It will do many things to get what it wants.  I see it in scripture and I’ve watched it.

Everyone is going to do what he wants to do against the will of God.  Everyone.  However, I’m not writing about that in this post.  I’ve done many wrong, sinful things that I regret.  I’m writing about permanent positions or activities, where someone doesn’t turn from the belief or behavior.

All true believers have the same faith, based upon the same book, the Bible, with the same meaning.  God’s Word means only one thing.  It hasn’t changed.  2 Peter 1:1 says they (all true believers) “have obtained like precious faith.”  They obtained the faith, so they didn’t invent it or originate it.  True faith is of God.  Because of that it is “like,” the Greek esotimon, which means “equal, of the same kind.”

Peter begins his book by saying that faith isn’t going to be different for anyone as it is obtained from God, so what happens?  What’s the problem?  As you follow from the rest of the epistle, the problem is lust (1:4, 2:10, 2:18, 3:3).  Other related words or phrases are “self-willed” (2:10), “as they that count it pleasure” (2:13), “covetous” (2:14), “loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2:15), and “wantonness” (2:19).  In conjunction with the lust is the parallel problem with authority, essentially the same as lust, because if you want to do what you want to do, then you don’t want to do what someone else wants you to do.  This is represented by these two phrases or clauses in 2 Peter:

denying the Lord that bought them, 2:1
not afraid to speak evil of dignities, 2:10

They don’t like the authority of scripture (2 Peter 1) and they don’t like the second coming of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3), when they will give an account for what they’ve done.

2 Peter mirrors what Paul writes in Romans 1.  They know God, so what’s the problem?  It’s not a knowledge problem.  Just because they know, doesn’t mean they’ll believe and then practice what they should.  They “hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom 1:18), that is, they suppress the truth.  It’s rebellion.  It is a will or a want problem, which is why, when God gives them up, He turns them over to their own lust (1:24).  They don’t want God or what He wants, so He gives them what they want, which turns to their own destruction.  It defiles everything in their life, and one tell-tale expression of their lives is “disobedience to parents” (1:30), the most rudimentary rebellion against authority for a person.

What I’m writing can be seen all over scripture, but right from the beginning, the two sides of the same problem manifest themselves.  Eve wanted the fruit from the tree that was forbidden.  She distrusted God against His commandment or authority, and the man, we know from 1 Timothy 2, abdicated his headship for her, which again indicates a problem with authority.  When Eve wanted to do what she wanted to do, her lust, she did it against the command of God and the headship of her husband, which he obtained from God.

John says that every diversion from the right path is lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and then pride (1 John 2:16-17).  Someone wants what he feels, he wants what he sees, and he’s putting himself first to get it, pride.  Scripture is what gets in the way of lust and pride.  God says, no, I want you to do what I’m telling you, what I want.  A person either believes and does what God says, or he conforms what God says in some way into his own lust and pride.

I’ve established from scripture the real, actual reason for capitulation in doctrinal, practical, or cultural issues as stated in the title of this post.  There will always be the temptation to capitulate.  It’s also what I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.  Let’s take something doctrinal, like the doctrine of preservation of scripture.

Only two positions exist.  God either preserved all of His Words and they’ve been available to every generation of believer, or He did not.  In scripture, God says that He did.  The uncertainty of God’s Words diminishes authority.  If we don’t know what the Words are, then it’s also less likely we would know what they mean.  There is also the pride of scholarship, fitting into the academy, which says we can’t and don’t know because we don’t have the evidence to know.  This all describes the lust, very much akin to what we read in 2 Peter.

The false teachers say that we can’t call scripture the Words of God.  They are closer to fables, writings that came by the will of man, not holy men of God speaking by the Holy Spirit.  What’s real is uniformitarianism, no sign of direct divine intervention, explaining why no fulfillment of the guarantees of the second coming.  Those prophecies can’t be trusted, because they aren’t being fulfilled.  Real evidence debunks the authority of scripture and a real Jesus, one who would come back as he supposedly promised.  Hence, they can walk after their own lust and ask, where is the promise of his coming?  Eschatology itself is too hard to be understood, nothing to be certain about, so why should we deny ourselves the pleasures we desire to please someone we’re not certain exists?

The preservation of scripture is intervention from God, but according to the critics, there isn’t evidence of what God said He would do, so those promises are debunked.  If that’s the case, why should they change on any number cultural or social issues either?  Maybe they will hold on to the major teachings, but why should they regulate everything in their lives based upon a book that they aren’t certain about?

David in Psalm 16:4 writes:

Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.

The truth is that sorrows will multiply for those who go after other gods.  Because of that David will not participate in their worship, nor will he take up their names into his lips.  David is trusting the Lord, so he will associate himself only with the true God.

What would tempt David to associate with other gods, take up their names into his lips?  The other god might be more popular than the true God.  This is where lust and pride have their affect.   Lust and pride motivate association with the world’s music, entertainment, celebrity, and causes.  Rather than trust the Lord about their multiplied sorrows, they will take up their names into their lips.

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
                                                                      1 Peter 4:8

“Charity” is “love” (agape).  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:7, “Love beareth all things.”  I usually say, b-e-a-r and not b-a-r-e.  Of course, something exposed is something that was private.  People didn’t know it.  Proverbs 11:13,

A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.

Proverbs 20:19,

He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets.

The order of Matthew 18 says, keep it to the least number of people possible, that is, one on one.  If someone has repented already without a confrontation, then one-on-one isn’t even needed.  Bringing another person into a secret is to b-a-r-e, not b-e-a-r.  It isn’t love.  It can be something someone is ashamed for having done, has repented, has cleared himself, and taken a new and different path (cf. 2 Corinthians 7:9-11).  It is being a talebearer, revealing secrets, not being a faithful spirit.

On the other hand, there is public sinning about which someone is not repentant.  He does it in public.  When confronted, he doesn’t change.  Matthew 18 doesn’t apply to that person.  Someone can still go to him one-on-one, to take the most charitable approach, but it isn’t required.  If someone promotes his sin or behavior or his false teaching in public, it is appropriate to deal with it in public.  It isn’t gossip, it isn’t talebearing, if it isn’t secret.  Secret is kept secret with going one-on-one and not talebearing or gossiping.  Public is already public.  This isn’t that difficult, but it seems to be, especially when it is convenient.

If you warn someone about another person’s false teaching or repudiate his behavior, that he puts out in public, that isn’t gossip.  That is required in scripture out of love.  Calling it gossip is wrong.  It isn’t gossip.  Gossip reveals secrets, doesn’t expose public and many times, add to that, unrepentant behavior or teaching.

On the other hand, consider the following scenario.  You warn in private to someone about public wrong behavior and erroneous teaching, and the warned person then runs to the one of the wrong behavior and erroneous teaching and says, “He talked about you or he talks about you,” that is revealing a secret.  That was said in secret as a warning.  This is someone being unfaithful, not of a faithful or loyal spirit to someone who cared and is caring about someone else by warning him.

What I’m writing is not difficult.  People weaponize the term “gossip,” to use it against the biblical practice of warning about ungodly living and false teaching.  When I name names here, I do it only with people who have made something public and most often are unrepentant of their public actions and beliefs.  Some uncharitably call this, “taking potshots.”  Merriam Webster defines “potshot”:

1 : a shot taken from ambush or at a random or easy target. 2 : a critical remark made in a random or sporadic manner.

Furthermore, “random” means:

made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision.

A careful exposure, using scripture, of something that is public and unrepentant, which could damage other people, isn’t “random” or a “potshot.”  The word “potshot” ironically is a potshot.  I would take potshots with my b-b gun at various targets when I lived and worked on a farm when I was a child.  I understand the concept — random targets almost with no consideration.

On occasion a public sin would be better to treat in a private manner.  It could save embarrassment.  Sometimes someone needs public exposure.  Both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John deal with people in public even in the church.  It’s needed even more now with the growth of apostasy in these days.

In the garden, Eve lost track of all the trees.  Her world became the one she could not eat.  I would call this an immature view of the garden, considering immaturity to be a focus on self.  The primary aspect of the immaturity of children is that they are selfish.  Mine!  Going further, Eve might think she deserved more than she got, she was discontent, and, therefore, entitled.  She had an entitlement mentality.

God gave and gave and gave.  Eve had to have more.  This is unthankful, which is a problem.

Did God “coddle” Eve?  Did He give her too much, and that led to a trap for her?  The massive gracious gift giving of God did not cause Eve to sin.  The blessing of God is not the cause of sin.

I move forward in the Old Testament to the book of Judges.  A pattern emerges from Judges:  blessing, entitlement, sin, judgment, crying out in repentance, deliverance by a judge, blessing, entitlement, sin, judgment, crying out in repentance, deliverance by a judge.  Rinse and repeat.  Perhaps God could have withheld the blessing, so that entitlement didn’t come.  No.

Again, the problem is unthankfulness, not that God gave a lot.  This is also how Romans 1 diagnoses the problem.  Romans 1:21:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Glorifying God as God recognizes Who He is.  It acknowledges His nature, His position, His character.  Being thankful affirms or confesses what He did.  God is always good.

Briefly I want to take this in our thoughts to parenting.  Like God gives and gives, parents might give and give after the nature of God in that man is made in God’s image.  Children should confirm the goodness of God to them, but in the hierarchy of God’s authority and will, they start with a concession to the goodness of their parents.  They honor their father and their mother.

When children won’t acknowledge the goodness of their parents out of child-like immaturity, selfishness, they have started down a road to perdition.  The problem hasn’t been the giving of the parents, but the unthankfulness of the children.  I’ve witnessed a reversal of this by adult children, who charge the parent with entitlement, because the parent claims he is entitled to his authority and to lead.   “No,” the child says, “you’ve not done enough, so I still don’t have to listen.  You’ve got to do more of my bidding to earn my respect.”  A parent might ask, “What about all that I’ve done already?”  A child resents the parent mentioning anything he’s done.

God mentions what He’s done again and again.  Much of the Bible is a recounting of what God has done with hopes that the reader will receive it, that is, be thankful for it.  Who does not want to be thankful?  Is there a motivation for not being thankful?  Scripture says there is.

Romans 1 says that unthankfulness proceeds from rebellious suppression of the truth.  Why do people suppress the truth?  They’re sinners.  They are sinners not repenting of their sin.  They might say that it’s because they’re ripped off.  They weren’t given enough.  They couldn’t eat of the one tree.  Instead of focusing on all of the good things, they look at the bad things.  This is a poison that they can’t overcome, and it’s on God and in the case of children, their parents.

The suppression of truth relates to lust.  They don’t want God commanding.  They don’t want Him in charge of their lives.  They want “space.”  They want to do what they want to do.  God isn’t allowing them. He’s some kind of celestial Big Brother, controlling their lives.  Their parents keep telling them what to do, and they want to be done with that.  All disobedience to authority, whether God’s or godly authority, arises from unthankfulness.

People submit to God, because He’s good.  They can justify disobedience if He’s bad.  They do that with the existence of suffering.  A good God couldn’t allow suffering. He’s allowed suffering or even caused it, so they are justified in their dismissal of Him.  They think they are neutral in their approach to God.  No, they are rebels.  They are ingrates.  They want to do what they want to do and they have chosen a bad reason to vindicate themselves.

All human authority is flawed, but it’s still God’s authority (Romans 13:1-7).  In Genesis 9, Noah was flawed, but that didn’t justify Ham’s violation of His father.  Every human leader in human history does wrong.  God, of course, isn’t flawed, but He allows suffering.  Problems exist all around that could be attributed to Him.  Again, unthankful.  God is good.  He heaps on goodness.  They glorify Him not as God — neither were they thankful.

God’s truth doesn’t stop anywhere in the world.  It applies at some center point and in every place proceeding from that center, marking the center anywhere you want to put it.  It doesn’t matter if there is a center, His truth covers everything.  Some might put a center to it in order to emphasize that center, but the truth still applies everywhere else.  One doesn’t help the center where the truth is applied by not applying the truth in those areas further out from that center.  We can argue all we want about what the center is, but the whole world is still His world and integrity requires applying His truth everywhere.  Just because you picked a center and apply it there doesn’t justify not applying the truth to all other areas in His world.

Not applying God’s truth everywhere challenges the sovereignty of God over His creation.  It can’t be justified by emphasis, which by that I mean that one doesn’t emphasize the chosen center by disregarding the areas not in the center.  Let’s say the gospel is the center.  If I apply the truth to art, I’m not deemphasizing the gospel.  If I apply the truth to music, I’m not deemphasizing the gospel.  If I apply the truth to business or science or education or nutrition or architecture or lawn care, I’m not deemphasizing the gospel.

In fact, just the opposite, every other truth is diminished when another truth is diminished.  God doesn’t pick certain truths not to keep.  The gospel changes someone into a total truth keeping person.  Jesus said that in the Great Commission.  Every truth ignored creates a ripple.  All the truth is one.  Every truth fits into all the truth.  Not keeping one has some effect now or in the future on other truths.  This is because God is One.  When we talk about His attributes, we are talking about such perfection of harmony that never does a single attribute ebb at the flow of another.

Breaking truth into truths to emphasize one over another is like breaking God up into parts and emphasizing one part over another.  The truths are like the circulatory system.  Someone might bleed out faster by a violation of a major vessel, but he will bleed out with the violation of any vessel.  I’m just going to let it bleed, because it’s just a trickle is still death.

An obvious practice in professing Christianity today is conceding truth, looking for what’s important, what’s really important, what’s only important, and conceding other things, meanwhile perhaps saying no one is conceding anything, when they really are.  The world isn’t going to accept everything, so diminishing much of what the world doesn’t like and highlighting those parts that the world might like.  What this serves to do is like in ages past, the bifurcation of truth.  A dichotomy forms as occurred with gnosticism and neo-platonism, honing in on the sacred versus the secular realm.  Truth touches only certain spheres, bifurcated from others, because truth doesn’t have to touch those — they’re off limits for truth.

The most obvious bifurcation of truth in God’s world today is, well, the world today, that is, the culture:  music, dress, entertainment, friends, business, nutrition, art, architecture, etc.  Everything takes on a sameness, where Christians are no different, because there isn’t a Christian anything out there.  It’s kept only to the church setting.  Christians, true believers in churches, should be bringing the truth to everything in the world.

You are not living the Christian life, which means the gospel isn’t even saving you in the sense that it saves you right now on this earth, if it doesn’t change your music, dress, entertainment, friends, and every single other thing on the earth.  The prince of this world wants to protect the world like it’s his, from whatever God would want to do to it through His people.  And God’s people say, no, let’s just keep it to the church, among the actual assembly, and blend everywhere else.

The truth is not therapy, that is there to work only in the assembly of believers, to help them get through the world without giving up — feel good about one’s self, give hope, make happy, and learn some biblicalish things.  The Bible deals with everything.  It is to be applied to everything.  Christians have decided to be fine with the separation between secular and sacred.  This is our Father’s world, not Satan’s.

As an example, I just watched a youtube video, where a professing Christian presented a fun outing on youtube.  I think it’s fine, great, for a believer to use youtube as his medium.  Christians should use God honoring music in the background.  That doesn’t mean a hymn or a psalm, but what would conform to the nature of God, like Paul commanded (Romans 12:2).  He used a country-western song with a fitting title, Good Times, but here is the chorus:

We just tryna catch a good time
Even if it takes all night
Pass that bottle ’round the campfire
Sippin’ apple pie moonshine

For a true believer of Jesus Christ, passing a bottle of moonshine around all night shouldn’t be or be thought to be a “good time.”  It isn’t good.  And that matters.  It is conduct unbecoming of the gospel, conflicting with the truth.  It is however an example of how an avowed Christian separates his life in the world from the truth.  It’s a lie accepted especially today by evangelicals, misrepresenting biblical living.  I rarely see an evangelical podcast or other presentation that does not use ungodly music to introduce or in the background.

Engaging or integrating the truth all over, including in the places people might want it kept away because of lust or darkness, relates to the words of Ezekiel 44:23:

And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.

God is holy.  He commands, be ye holy as I am holy.  To retain holiness in the world, the truth must engage to differentiate the holy from the profane.  There are profane “good times,” which are not good, and holy “good times,” and those need the light of truth out in the world to transect God’s world for His glory.

Just because professing Christians bifurcate truth doesn’t mean that God or the Bible do.   These “Christians” really don’t have it both ways now.  They don’t.  God is the judge of that, because God owns this world.  It’s His world.  He’s also judging this world.  But they act like they do.  It isn’t Christianity.  Even if they bifurcate the truth, separating from the world where it exists, God doesn’t.

A believer is to and will bring the truth to every area of life.  The word “integrity” comes from a Latin root, which means “whole.”  A believer’s integrity requires integrating the truth into everything.  The truth shouldn’t clash with anything in a Christian’s life, or in that aspect he is lying to the world or at least to himself or God.  Nothing is out of bounds.  It’s all God’s.  A believer is going to treat it like it is and not some separate entity outside of divine dominion.

“See what you made me do!”  A manifesto follows that blames bad behavior on someone else.  Old Testament prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel both convey a now millennial anthem:  “my parents ate sour grapes, so now my teeth are set on edge.”  Blame empowers bad and then worse behavior.

God said, “No, the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” that is, you are completely responsible for your own deeds and attitude.   In contrast, you know today how this pathology works, especially with now regular mass shootings at the center of which is a troubled figure, someone who hasn’t had enough “love” as a child.  He’s the victim.  Sigmund Freud provided modern justification with his earlier twentieth century psychological theories and terminology.

The effect doesn’t follow the cause.  A parent eating sour grapes doesn’t cause a child’s teeth to be set on edge.  It’s a phony excuse that should fool no one.

If it is a parent’s fault (or some other authority figure), that assumes the parent did something wrong.  Maybe it wasn’t wrong, but let’s assume a parent sinned.  If the concern is sin, is concern over sin substantiated by more and worse sinning?  Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel said, the parent’s sin isn’t the concern.  It’s just an excuse.  The cause, like James and Peter teach (James 1 and 2 Peter 2), is lust.  If the parent’s sin was a concern, the reaction wouldn’t be more and worse sinning.  The child just wants to do what he wants to do and justifies it:  “See what you made me do!  So I’m going to do far worse!”

I’ve seen this in church through thirty-two years of pastoring.  Most people who leave a church blame the church for doing things wrong and then go to another church that’s worse.

What does someone do, who is really concerned about wrong or sin?  Scripture is very clear.  He tries to help.  He attempts reconciliation.  He seeks mediation.  Paul wrote that he tries to restore someone in a spirit of meekness.  He doesn’t say or think, “Hey, I know, I’ll go out and do more and even worse and justify it with I’m saying was someone else’s wrong.”

Prominent in Freudian psychology and still used by modern psychologists is the is the idea of defense mechanisms.   According to a Freudian psychologist, one of the mechanisms for a victim to defend himself is “acting out.”  He does puzzling things and makes peculiar decisions contrary to his own well-being.  People are afraid that he might “snap” and do something even worse.  His trajectory is in a downward spiral and he is in need of an “intervention.”  He also has his “enablers,” those who confirm his excuses and blame, because they also dislike authority and standards that clash with their own lust.  They are confused and misguided sympathizers.

According to God, no one is a victim.  If he dies, it’s because of his own sin, not his parent’s.  He owns what he is doing.  Paul said, someone’s body parts are either instruments of righteousness or of unrighteousness.  He should mortify, put to death, his deeds of the flesh.  John says he either loves God or he loves himself and the world.  Jesus said that those who enter not the narrow gate did not agonize or at least seek to get in.  They will have no one to blame but themselves.

When someone does more sinning and far worse, he exposes his excuses for what they really are, blaming his sin on someone else.  There is an axiom here, that to the degree someone blames his own wrongs on what he perceives are the wrongs of others, he will do more and worse.  The good news is that he thinks something is wrong.  He would only blame someone else if he thought something wrong was to be blamed.  In other words, he hasn’t totally lost the ability to know and identify what is wrong and what is right.  Now it’s just a matter if he is also willing to do something about it.  Does he love his sin so much that he will keep blaming other people for it?

Some of what Freud wrote smacks of some truth if someone places it in the context of truth.  Everyone who sins needs intervention.  Anyone who continues in sin without repentance will get worse, which could be described as a downward spiral.  A person who is not surrendered to God or controlled by the Holy Spirit will act out of the nature of the depravity that characterizes fallen human flesh.

What the world needs today is a message of repentance, like Jesus and John the Baptist preached.  Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  Relief is available for someone who will turn to God and like with all those who do in scripture, it will be accompanied by great joy.

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

Part One, and Two Recent Posts on Art:  One and Two (and Here’s a Third from Further Past)


Exodus 31 verses 1 through 6 read:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: 3 And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 5 And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship. 6 And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan: and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee.

Among other places in scripture, this passage represents a scriptural understanding of art.  The artist is Bezaleel, and in his characteristics, the LORD “filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship” (v. 3).  With those traits, he could “devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship” (vv. 4-5).  His partner, Aholiab, was very similar (v. 6).

Bezaleel and Aholiab needed these attributes for true craftsmanship for the depiction of the glory of the Lord in the tabernacle.  True art depicts the object of genuine beauty, which is fashioned after the nature of God as seen in His creation.  The tabernacle provides a model for art and Bezaleel the artist.  Terence Fretheim writes:

Bezalel executes in miniature the divine creative role of Genesis 1 in the building of the tabernacle. The spirit of God with which the craftsmen are filled is a sign of the living, breathing force that lies behind the completing of the project just as it lies behind the creation. Their intricate craftsmanship mirrors God’s own work. The precious metals with which they work take up the very products of God’s beautiful creation and give new shape to that beauty within creation. Just as God created such a world in which God himself would dwell (not explicit in Genesis, but see Psalm 104:1-4; Isaiah 40:22), so now these craftsmen re-create a world in the midst of chaos wherein God may dwell once again in a world suitable for the divine presence. 

J. Cumming in the Biblical Illustrator writes:

It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that 

“On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung”; 

but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was “inspired” was a clear recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human being who is so richly crowned and gifted. 

Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, music–things which really compete with nature in their spiritual suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the weaver, and the perfumer.

The Pulpit Commentary reads concerning the same context:

Artistic excellence is not a thing to be despised. It is very capable of abuse; but in itself it is a high gift, bestowed by God on a few only, with the special intent that it should be used to his honour and glory—not indeed in his direct service only—but always so as to improve, elevate, refine mankind, and thus help towards the advancement of God’s kingdom.

Before the crafting of the tabernacle, the divine Glory descends on Mount Sinai for six days, covering it with a cloud.  The building of the tabernacle is a commission corresponding to God’s creating the universe as seen in the linking of both creation and the tabernacle the institution of the Sabbath, foreshadowed in Genesis 2:1–4 and juxtaposed to the detailed description of the tabernacle in Exodus 31.  It is a re-creation of the act of original creation.  Art is imitative and depicts the glory of the Lord, the beauty of His holiness.  Bezaleel imitates God, the creation of the tabernacle representing the humanization of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, even as the tabernacle makes a place for the divine to dwell among mankind.

A parallel exists between the account of the creative, artistic act of Exodus 31, performed then in 35-40, and the making of the golden calf and its aftermath in Exodus 32-34.  In the case of the tabernacle, God’s people are  requested, not commanded, by God to offer precious metals. With the calf, there is a similar offering of precious metal.  Bezaleel’s work required skill at depicting the nature of God.  Aaron’s work proceeds according to the fashion of the nations round about and from his own imagination.  It does not require any great ability.  In the former, God is glorified, and the latter He is blasphemed.  The contrasting patterns offer a lesson.

The tabernacle represents the created order from original matter that was without form and void. The form reflects the meaning of divine arrangement: light from darkness, day from night, dry land from the midst of water. God gives it coherence through His revelation.  On the other hand, the making of the golden calf arose as an expression of the desire of self to satisfy lust, even communicated by the sounds that Joshua heard in coming down the mount.  Some consider it a kind of word-play because the Hebrew word in Exodus 32:25, translated “naked” and meaning “a lack of control or restraint,” is parua,  Pharoah, a kind of resubjugation to Pharoah, using the spoils that Israel took from the Egyptians when they left Egypt. The tabernacle was a holy act and the calf was an unholy one.

Revelation of God is the basis for true beauty, objective beauty, the beauty of God’s holiness, and art.  It is a transcendent depiction of God’s revelation, such as produces the awe of God’s creation and His will.  The physical world is not a prison from which to escape, even to look inward, but is the creation of God and the location of His visitation of man, just like the tabernacle.  This can include the glory of depicting in a realistic way ordinary people functioning at their work, which has spiritual dignity and significance.  The Bible is the first book of God’s revelation, but Dutch landscape painters portrayed nature as God’s second book of revelation.

Martha Bayles in Hole in Our Soul:  The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, said the modern age has been a period of “intense self-consciousness about the meaning and purpose of art” and it all started when art “began having radical doubts about its relationship with the truth.”  Instead of looking for the truth outside of ourselves, the modern age or the enlightenment looked to the ultimate reality in the mental, particularly in the realm of ideas.  Pre-enlightenment or pre-modern, art had been to express truth, which always originates from the outside of a man, so that art is a mirror or reflection of objective truth, a vehicle for real knowledge.  In a world of matter in motion, beauty does not exist as an objective quality, but the outpouring of inner feelings or expression.

Christians should enjoy the aesthetic qualities of art while developing the tools for critical analysis, so there is more to come.

Two Recent Posts on Art:  One and Two (and Here’s a Third from Further Past)

Art says both a lot about you, but it also influences you.  Some of what is called “art,” as I’ve written recently, really isn’t art, but that you call it “art” also says a lot about you.  Like everything else on earth in the realm of the world, the flesh, and the devil, men want what they want.  They like the “art” that they like.  Modernism and then postmodernism shifted art from the object to the subject, so that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  However, liking the “art” is not what makes it art.  It does though say something about it, when you like it, and it’s something contradictory to God.

You say, “I like this” or “I really like this,” and don’t think there should be any criticism, because art is only a matter of personal taste.  It isn’t, but you want it to be, because you want what you want without criticism.  The “art” abides in its own domain, not to be touched by God’s authority or scriptural thinking.  The teaching of scripture is not just an item of belief, but it functions as a unified, overarching system of truth that applies to all other subject areas.  It applies to science, business, sociology, history, art, and everything.

God rules everything in a believer’s life through scripture — it gives the truth about the whole of reality, the interpretation of every subject matter.  The purpose of Christianity is not just the salvation of the soul and the sanctification of the life, but to provide an interpretation of the world.  God doesn’t want us to turn over everything to the secular, except for Bible studies and prayer meetings.

Turning art to personal taste conforms to the development of a two track system between truth and taste, so fracturing the Christian life.  Believers are told to be salt and light, except it’s off limits to the actual world, which then allows or influences professing Christians toward the acceptance of secular values.  Being controlled by the Holy Spirit means nothing is off limits, but this bifurcation between the sacred and secular says that God is boxed out of that of the subjects’ choosing.  This is a form of idolatry or loving the world.  The ungodly art can’t be forsaken, so really neither is the self forsaken.  Following Christ requires forsaking self (Luke 9:27).

This is our Father’s world.  God created it.  Nothing has an identity separate from the will of the Creator and everything in creation must be interpreted in light of the relationship with God.  People want to keep their “art,” because of its interconnection to feelings.  The painting, sculpture, music, or architecture seduces with feeling that results in the subject operating according to his lust.  Lust is not an allowed way for a believer to judge anything.

For awhile now someone likes how he looks liking “art.”  If others like it, he has to look like he understands what makes it good.  He can’t say he likes something godly, because it most often isn’t popular, that is, it isn’t pop art.  Association with popular art gives the sense of rubbing off on the one who likes it.  He likes it too.  To God, it’s dung, to use the term that Paul uses in Philippians 3:8 to explain his unconverted life.  He counted his former life as dung, but  he can’t call the popular art dung, because it’s so important for him to fit into the world.

“Art” should not get a pass.  It isn’t neutral.  Nothing is neutral.  All of art, like everything else in life, should be judged against the beauty of holiness.  When someone doesn’t, his value changes.  It moves from God to self.  The highest value is what pleases himself and not God.  God isn’t a deistic god standing by as his creation administers itself.  He isn’t ignoring choices.  The personal taste that circumvents God expresses value different than God’s.  Here’s a person not following after God.  He doesn’t like what God likes.  God is cordoned off this life, except where He is allowed.  Someone truly saved doesn’t do this.  He doesn’t dictate to God what and where God functions in the world.  This is liking a God who saves him but isn’t the Lord of His aesthetics or art.

More than any facet of a man’s soul, his feelings cohere to his body, where sin indwells.  Paul writes that sin dwells in a person’s body parts, which is why salvation from the presence of sin occurs with the glorification of the body.  “Art” connects with feeling.  Does the feeling though arise from the right thinking, that is an ordinate affection, or is it the byproduct of lust?  Ungodly art that displeases God follows the allurements of depraved flesh.  The feeling of the subject justifies the object of his pleasure.  The bifurcation of that object into the mere secular, outside of scriptural judgment, completes the seduction.

As I describe aesthetic value, a right feeling, so that someone loves God and others according to godly values, some might consider it a matter of liberty.  Paul commanded, be not conformed to this world (Rom 12:2), which is not to accommodate, comply or harmonize with the spirit of this age. This is not relegated to pornography or something with such associated meaning as a swastika.  This is all aesthetic not in accordance with God.  It can be the gritty, trashy, urban murals of the modern inner city.  Often the decoration mirrors the subjective expressions of the tattoo “artist.”  It doesn’t have to be “wrong,” just violating the objective beauty of the nature of God manifested in His creation.  That is wrong, because it conforms to the world, not transformed by a mind renewed by the Word of God.

The ungodly art disorders the loves.  God Himself through scripture commands love God.  He can’t love God, because the world has bypassed God.  The profanity stains his conscience, disabling his ability to discern.  Others then are influenced by his wrong choice, multiplying the destructive lie of art as personal taste.