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Israel in the Land of Canaan: Perfect Spot to be a Light to the Nations
notice, first, the region actually selected for a possession of an inheritance
to the covenant people. The land of Canaan occupied a place in the ancient
world that entirely corresponded with the calling of such a people. It was of
all lands the best adapted for a people who were at once to dwell in
comparative isolation, and yet were to be in a position for acting with effect
upon the other nations of the world. Hence it was said by Ezekiel1
to have been “set in the midst of the countries and the nations” the umbilicus terrarum. In its immediate
vicinity lay both the most densely-peopled countries and the greater and more
influential states of antiquity,—on the south, Egypt, and on the north and east,
Assyria and Babylon, the Medes and the Persians. Still closer were the maritime
states of Tyre and Sidon, whose vessels frequented every harbor then known to
navigation, and whose colonies were planted in each of the three continents of
the old world. And the great routes of inland commerce between the civilized
nations of Asia and Africa lay either through a portion of the territory
itself, or within a short distance of its borders. Yet, bounded as it was on
the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the desert, on the east by the
valley of the Jordan with its two seas of Tiberias and Sodom, and on the north
by the towering heights of Lebanon, the people who inhabited it might justly be
said to dwell alone, while they had on every side points of contact with the
most influential and distant nations. Then the land itself, in its rich soil
and plentiful resources, its varieties of hill and dale, of river and mountain,
its connection with the sea on one side and with the desert on another,
rendered it a kind of epitome of the natural world, and fitted it peculiarly
for being the home of those who were to be a pattern people to the nations of
the earth. Altogether, it were impossible to conceive a region more wisely
selected and in itself more thoroughly adapted, for the purposes on account of
which the family of Abraham were to be set apart. If they were faithful to
their covenant engagements, they might there have exhibited, as on an elevated
platform, before the world the bright exemplar of a people possessing the
characteristics and enjoying the advantages of a seed of blessing. And the
finest opportunities were at the same time placed within their reach of proving
in the highest sense benefactors to mankind, and extending far and wide the
interest of truth and righteousness. Possessing the elements of the world’s
blessing, they were placed where these elements might tell most readily and
powerfully on the world’s inhabitants; and the present possession of such a
region was at once an earnest of the whole inheritance, and, as the world then
stood, an effectual step towards its realization. Abraham, as the heir of
Canaan, was thus also “the heir of the world,” considered as a heritage of
blessing.1[1]
Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of
Scripture: Viewed in Connection with the Whole Series of the Divine
Dispensations, vol. 1 (London: Funk & Wagnalls Company,
1900), 332–333.
The Deliberate, Convenient Ineptitude of Professing Christians at Applying the Lust Passages of Scripture
The Bible doesn’t say what lust is. It assumes we know, because we do know. Not knowing is either blindness or feigning ignorance. Blindness or feigned ignorance won’t work in the end with God. He knows we know. People can understand and apply the passages on lust. They don’t want to give up their lust. I’m asserting a deliberate, convenient ineptitude of professing Christians at applying the lust passages of scripture.
Hankins: When you come back to what would be primary points of concern now, I can think of two important issues. We need a theological articulation of a right view and practice of worship and the same concerning worldliness. We need a theological articulation of the nature of worldliness and what characterizes it. This seems to be a watershed issue to me.
Schaal: The advent of American popular culture took worship that had been consistent for millennia and turned it upside down. It took worship outside its normal and commonly accepted bounds, and now we are forced to define what aberrant worship looks like.
Hankins: I think we have been at that point for several decades now. I might be missing something, but I do not think we have gotten the job done of articulating the theology of worship and the practices that should grow out of it.
Schaal: So, back to the issue of worship. Is worship a bigboundary issue?
Shumate: There are two questions. In principle, is it? And second, how do you apply it? Worldliness and ungodliness in worship is a very serious issue.
Bauder: Worship includes doctrine (orthodoxy) and having our practices right (orthopraxy), it also includes loving God rightly (orthopathy).
Schaal: Having our passions right.
Bauder: Yes. Loving God wrongly becomes a boundary-level issue if someone or something is subverting our love of God sufficiently gravely.
Shumate: I think worship clearly is a big-boundary issue. After all, what is idolatry but a false worship? It was having an altar to Baal and an altar to Yahweh in the same courtyard and mixing those together. There is a great deficiency theologically in defining what idolatry is all about. We have a shallow understanding of idolatry.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.
And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.
Young people are encouraged to feel the very same sensational nervous impact of loud rhythmic music on the body that they would experience in a large, worldly pop concert, complete with replicated lighting and atmosphere. At the same time they reflect on predestination and election. Worldly culture provides the bodily, emotional feelings, into which Christian thoughts are infused and floated. Biblical sentiments are harnessed to carnal entertainment. . . . When you look at their ‘favourite films’, and ‘favourite music’ you find them unashamedly naming the leading groups, tracks and entertainment of debased culture, and it is clear that the world is still in their hearts. Years ago, such brethren would not have been baptised until they were clear of the world, but now you can go to seminary, no questions asked, and take up a pastorate, with unfought and unsurrendered idols in the throne room of your life. What hope is there for churches that have under-shepherds whose loyalties are so divided and distorted?
Furthermore, the feelings of the lust are confused with the workings of the Holy Spirit. A feeling proceeding from lust is considered to be an interaction with the Holy Spirit. Churches offer lust through the music and what people feel, they think is God. This is akin to what occurred in the Babylonian mysticism of the false worship in Ephesus and Corinth. Ecstasy, tied into lust even to the extent of temple prostitute activities, is seen as an encounter with God. This is common today in churches. They think they have an intimacy with God, but it’s actually just their lust.
When Someone Is Said to Be Divisive
Most of the time when someone is said to be divisive, it isn’t the person who is divisive. Don’t get me wrong. Some people are divisive. But most of the time, it isn’t a person who is dividing. Stay with me.
Scripture talks about divisive people. It is the heretic of Titus 3:10-11.
A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
The term heretick isn’t in scripture that much. It’s a word thrown around quite a bit though, usually, I’ve found, as a pejorative, calling someone a “heretic.” In fact, and I’ve written about this a few times on this blog, a heretic is a divisive or factious person. That is who it is in Titus 3:10-11.
I’ve pastored for 33 years, one year in seminary and 32 years in California since starting the church here, and I’ve seen the violation of Titus 3:10-11 in a church, like Titus 3:10-11 read. Factious people enter into a church and cause division. Usually it isn’t doctrinal, but personality based. Someone doesn’t want to do what he’s told or fit into the body. The whole church wants to remodel the kitchen except for one vociferous personality. Sometimes one person is a regular critic of leadership and it drags everyone down.
The main kind of heresy in a church is personality and pride. Someone doesn’t want compatibility with everyone else. He wants to stick out and make it about him. In the few usages of heresy, doctrine also divides. Someone will divert off the path of truth and try to take people with him. This could be a perversion of the Trinity, inerrancy, or the gospel. I think that is the usage of Acts 24:14:
But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets.
When the word “divisive” is used today, I don’t see it mainly as almost ever used in a scriptural way, either way. When someone says that you’re divisive, they aren’t using it according to scripture.
If a biblical doctrine divides, that’s no fault of the doctrine but of those who defect from it. Doctrine may divide, but biblical teaching can’t be divisive. The divisive are those who defect from the truth. To say a particular doctrinal stance is divisive is misguided rhetoric.— Mike Riccardi (@MikeRiccardi_) June 5, 2019
I read this retweeted in a twitter feed, and it’s something I’ve been talking about for years. The “divisive” one, the heretic, is the one who divides off biblical and historical doctrine. Just because there is “division” doesn’t mean that someone is being divisive. If I point out unbiblical doctrine, I’m not being divisive. It’s the person who has moved off or from biblical and historical doctrine who is divisive. Usually it’s something new.
The first human sin consisted in (1) doubting God’s Word and His goodness, (2) rejecting His Word as the authority for life, (3) asserting man’s own autonomous reasoning as the authority in place of God’s revelation, & (4) breaking God’s law. Every sin since consists in the same.— Mike Riccardi (@MikeRiccardi_) May 28, 2019
Doctrine may divide, but biblical teaching can’t be divisive. The divisive are those who defect from the truth.
Adult Children, pt. 3
Even those with a casual knowledge of scripture very often know Romans 1. Beginning in verse 18 to the end of that chapter, the content follows that men sin as a lifestyle, not because they lack in knowledge, but because of rebellion against that knowledge of God. They know God, but they choose their lust. God judges them by turning them over to their own desires, and they are in the end worthy of His wrath. They choose not to retain God in their knowledge and God turns them over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28). Paul lists the characteristic things that they do, things which are not proper, not fitting with God’s expectations for the world and for the humanity that He created.
Get this. The end of the description of the lifestyle of those who do not retain God in their knowledge, who are turned over to a reprobate mind, says (Romans 1:32): “they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” Please pay attention. “They which commit” is present tense, committing as a lifestyle or commit as a habit. However, those who choose to keep committing these things “are worthy of death.” It is not just those who do these things as a lifestyle, but those who have pleasure in those who do them. Someone doesn’t even have to do them, just have pleasure in others who do them.
Since this series is about “adult children,” I will talk about just one of the characteristics, but this is one of them, and in verse 30, “disobedient to parents.” This isn’t talking about children disobeying their parents. These are people who choose not retain God in their knowledge. That isn’t describing children. These are people who have settled in this.
The Greek word “disobedient” in Romans 1:30 is apeithes, which means literally, “not be persuaded by.” The portrayal here is an adult child, who has been taught scripture by his parents, and willfully rejects what they are teaching. Some adult children act, and with the agreement of other adults, like this is part of what it means to be an adult, to depart from what your parents taught you as a child.
The same Greek word is used in John 3:36 and translated in the King James Version, “believeth not,” as in “believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” The Greek work conveys obstinate rejection of the will of God. Disobedience is equated with unbelief. Haldane in his Exposition on Romans on this particular characteristic writes:
Obedience to parents is here considered as a duty taught by the light of nature, the breach of which condemns the heathens, who had not the fifth commandment written in words. It is a part of the law originally inscribed on the heart, the traces of which are still to be found in the natural love of children to their parents. When the heathens, then, disregarded this duty, they departed from the original constitution of their nature, and disregarded the voice of God in their hearts.
Barclay in His commentary on Romans writes:
Both Jews and Romans set obedience to parents very high in the scale of virtues. It was one of the Ten Commandments that parents should be honored. In the early days of the Roman Republic, the patria potestas, the father’s power, was so absolute that he had the power of life and death over his family. The reason for including this sin here is that, once the bonds of the family are loosened, wholesale degeneracy must necessarily follow.
Albert Barnes in his commentary on Romans writes:
This expresses the idea that they did not show to parents that honor, respect, and attention which was due. This has been a crime of paganism in every age; and though among the Romans the duty of honoring parents was enjoined by the laws, yet it is not improbable that the duty was often violated, and that parents were treated with great neglect and even contempt. “Disobedience to parents was punished by the Jewish Law with death, and with the Hindus it is attended with the loss of the child‘s inheritance. The ancient Greeks considered the neglect of it to be extremely impious, and attended with the most certain effects of divine vengeance. Solon ordered all persons who refused to make due provision for their parents to be punished with infamy, and the same penalty was incurred for personal violence toward them.” Kent‘s Commentaries on American Law, vol. ii. p. 207; compare Virg. AEniad, ix. 283. The feelings of pride and haughtiness would lead to disregard of parents. It might also be felt that to provide for them when aged and infirm was a burden; and hence, there would arise disregard for their wants, and probably open opposition to their wishes, as being the demands of petulance and age. It has been one characteristic of paganism every where, that it leaves children to treat their parents with neglect. Among the Sandwich islanders it was customary, when a parent was old, infirm, and sick beyond the hope of recovery, for his own children to bury him alive; and it has been the common custom in India for children to leave their aged parents to perish on the banks of the Ganges.
“Disobedience to parents” is no incidental thing. Paul writes that the person who chooses this deserves death. Later Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:2 the exact same expression to describe apostates in last days, “disobedient to parents.” It is the same Greek words. Concerning these in 2 Timothy 3:4, Paul writes:
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
Whatever godliness they have is just a form of godliness, and the right thing to do with this person or these people is to turn away from them.
For a moment, take the teaching about “disobedience to parents” into consideration. While an adult child disobeys his parents, that is, he rejects the scriptural teaching of His parents, turns away from their instruction from the Bible, he is accepting something else. What is it? What is so attractive in the world that would have him do this? 2 Timothy 3:6 says they are “led away with divers lusts.” This is not worshiping the Creator, but worshiping the creature (Romans 1:25).
The God, the one and only true God, Who created the world, designed and created parents, and in the natural order of God is for a child to follow in his parents’ teachings. In this, I’m not proposing that children disobey scripture, but to follow in the scriptural instruction of his parents. It must be some clear, plain actual disobedience to scripture that would contradict the instruction of the parents. When children have been taught the way they should go, when they are adult children, they should not depart from it, that is, they should not be “disobedient to parents.”
More to Come
Things Are Much Worse Now: The Growth of the Nones
From what I’ve read and heard, almost every generation of older people think things are worse now than before. It’s almost a rite of passage into old age to complain about what young people are doing now, comparing it to the way things were done. This expectation of each succeeding generation of old people is so anticipated that it might be assumed that things aren’t actually worse, it’s just the familiar protestations of the next crop of spinsters. The postulation becomes, “don’t trust the notions of the aged.” Except. Things really are much worse now. Take that from someone who still hasn’t started ordering off the senior menu, even though in spirit a card-carrying old-timer.
A recent survey showed there are now as many Americans who claim “no religion” — 23 percent — as there are who identify as Catholic or evangelical, the two largest affiliations.
This trend has been rising steadily, reportedly growing nearly 270 percent in the last 30 years. Which means next time they take the poll, America’s most popular answer to “What is your religious tradition?” will be “None.””
Preparation for the Lord’s Supper, part 6 of 6, from Wilhelmus a Brakel’s The Christian’s Reasonable Service
The excerpt above is from Wilhelmus a Brakel’s 4 volume systematic theology called The Christian’s Reasonable Service, which has been made available in an indexed form online.
One Christianity and Alternative Forms of Christianity: What Has Happened?
Two term Democrat mayor of South Bend, IN, and presidential hopeful, Pete Buttigieg, made the news this last week talking about “faith,” calling his own same-sex marriage “conservative” and something that “moves me closer to God.” Furthermore, he called Mike Pence, “cheerleader of the porn star presidency,” and continuing, said:
I’m reluctant to comment on another person’s faith, but I would say it is hard to look at this president’s actions and believe that they’re the actions of somebody who believes in God. . . . I just don’t understand how you can be as worshipful of your own self as he is and be prepared to humble yourself before God. I’ve never seen him humble himself before anyone.
Then today he went further toward Mike Pence:
If you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.
What does Buttigieg hope to accomplish by talking about his own “Christianity” as a homosexual? Both his and Donald Trump’s are not actual Christianity. Neither. Buttigieg knows that at least millennial evangelicals could vote for him. He’s attempting to pick off professing evangelicals. I’m saying this is the condition of evangelicalism today, and the leaders are afraid of a mass exodus of sympathetic to homosexuality.
Hailey Bieber in an interview this last week said her purpose is to ‘represent Jesus’ in the modeling industry. In the linked article, she recognizes the contradiction, but this is a similar if not identical alternative form of Christianity as Buttigieg.
For all of Christian history these two above presentations would be in outright, diametric incongruity with the Bible and Christianity, and yet this is where a kind of professing Christianity is today. Just like there is one truth, there is only one Christianity, the one Christ requires true churches to keep. What has happened? A lot. So many things that it is difficult to put a finger on just one thing.
Today many represent the incongruity in a philosophical way as postmodernism. It is a helpful category. Premoderns thought truth came from God, so we know with certainty truth by faith through revelation. Distinguished from them, moderns said we know by human reasoning or discovery, opting for rationalism. Postmoderns conclude truth was a social construct, more of just a personal theory, our truth is our truth, so my truth is as good as any other truth. Modernism was a machine that failed, trampling everyone into the dirt, not turning out well for whatever its basis might be. With postmodernism, no definite terms, boundaries, or absolute truths exist. Since everything is in error anyway, and it’s not safe to trust conclusions, nothing is absolute, except what the postmodern wants.
The philosophical explanation brings categories and the story of demise. It chronicles transitions, but it wasn’t the cause for permissible multiple massive variations in Christianity. Judgment begins in the house of God. 2 Peter and Jude provide a biblical explication.
Buttigieg says same sex marriage moved him closer to God and that a hypothetical rejection by Mike Pence, who hasn’t said anything to or about Buttigieg that I have heard or read, is a quarrel with Buttigieg’s “creator.” Buttigieg doesn’t go to scripture at all to defend his claim. The Bible repudiates homosexuality in no uncertain terms, let alone same sex marriage, based upon God’s design as Creator. God created male and female. A man leaves father and mother and cleaves to his wife by God’s design. Buttigieg is not arguing from scripture, and apparently he thinks this won’t matter to his audience, especially millennial evangelicals based upon his polling. He gives the following evidence for God “creating” him “gay”:
If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade. . . . [I] would have done anything to not be gay, when I started to half way realize what it meant that I felt the way I did. . . . If you had offered me a pill to make me straight, I would have swallowed it before I could get a sip of water.
Buttigieg puts his own feelings on par with revelation from God. He believes God created him homosexual because he has feelings he says that he really doesn’t want to have, even though they in the end make him a better man. Scripture says just the opposite. James 1:14 in a classic passage on sin says that “every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” Buttigieg’s sin originates in his desires. This isn’t God communicating to him, but his own flesh.
A lot of sin is based on feelings someone wishes that he didn’t have. He doesn’t want to lie. He does. He doesn’t want to react in selfish, angry way. He does. He doesn’t want to mouth off. He does. Postmoderns can say that God said something to them without any evidence, but their own feelings. Their churches accept this. Nothing in the Bible or the history of Christian theology matches this view. It’s an man-made and man-centered invention.
Buttigieg’s talk isn’t Christian. There aren’t several Christianities and you don’t get to choose the one you want. Again, 2 Peter and Jude both expose and foresee this perversion of Christianity. Jude 1:3-4:
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Don’t skip the verses. Go back and read them. Churches must contend for the faith. Why? Ungodly men infiltrate churches, “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” The emphasis in Jude and 2 Peter 2 is the denial of the Lordship of Christ. Men like Buttigieg want to do what he want to do, which is lasciviousness, and so he uses his feelings to allow for it. This is turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying Jesus as Lord. Buttigieg becomes lord, does what he wants, not what Jesus wants, and then justifies it.
The way the Lord Jesus Christ rules lives is through scripture through His churches. Rather than submit to scripture, we see men elevate their feelings above. This is worshiping the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). Very often today churches are embarrassed about scripture. They don’t like what it says. They don’t want to expect or require what it says. It’s easier to accept what people want to do. This acceptance is their new love. It isn’t love. It’s better to call it sentimentalism, if not just lust. They say they love each other and they feel love for one another, but their professed love contradicts scripture.
Churches and godly leaders of churches must contend for the faith, which is the one Christianity. There are no alternatives. I read someone recently who called the alternatives “the great omission” in contrast to the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. The great commission says “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” but the alternative Christianity omits this, in so doing, “denying the Lord that bought them” (2 Peter 2:1).
“Scandalous Grace,” “Jesus Plus Nothing,” and Very, Very Dangerous Christian GobbledyGook, pt. 2
Just as a matter of interest and information, I noticed after writing part one that a lot had been written against Tullian Tchividjian’s new and false teaching on sanctification and by extension, also salvation. Not in necessarily any order, here are some that have written good stuff exposing his false teaching and it should be considered, before anyone ever gets to all the problems that Andy Stanley has, whom I mentioned in part one. You can find some here (part one, part two), here (really important to read this one), here, and here (and really those are just a start).
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In our time on earth, we are not brains in a vat. God created sentient beings with awareness of their surroundings. Immediately He gave Adam things to do. From the beginning, God commanded Adam. Do this. Don’t do this. Human beings live, which means they do things. They can do wrong things and they can do right things. They do not get to do wrong things and then just apply what is called grace and suddenly it’s a right thing, where they get credit for the right thing even though they didn’t even do it. That is just playing games. However, it’s also not far off of how Tullian Tchividjian characterizes the grace of God.
I googled the word “performancism,” since I had not heard it until I considered writing on this subject, and Tchividjian came up in the headline of the second article. His book is titled, Jesus + Nothing = Everything, which it seems the crucial word of the three is “nothing.” When the Father said, “This is my beloved. Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), He was well-pleased with His Son’s performance, not nothing. His Son performed and He was pleased. Jesus is our model. We’re not thinking about nothing, when it comes to pleasing God.
Grace is not about not performing. Jesus said in His longest recorded sermon in scripture (Matthew 7:21), “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” Who will enter into the kingdom of heaven? Read it. “He that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” When you read about the life Jesus lived on earth in the gospel of John, He was doing everything the Father wanted Him to do.
I get how people don’t want to feel guilty about not doing the right thing. They don’t want expectations or restrictions, even though the Holy Spirit is called “The Restrainer” in the New Testament (2 Thess 2:6) and fruit of the Spirit is “temperance,” self-control. This is also the way of millennials especially today, as a generalized trait. When one brings up an expectation to a millennial, this is a “relationship” ruiner. You’ve offered a “rule.” Relationship can’t have rules except for one rule, toleration. They want accept, accept, accept. “I’m going to do this.” I accept. “I did this.” I accept. They have lived for years with only a “like” button, no dislike or disapproval.
The movement of Tchividjian and those who have accepted it are not just some minor, non-essential modification or tweaking of Christianity, where it retains its identity. His teaching corrupts Christianity. It is something different than biblical Christianity even compared to many aspects of evangelicalism, which don’t do that.
When someone might go about explaining the gospel to someone, he should bring the Old Testament into his explanation. That’s what Jesus and the Apostles did. The gospel is not detached from the Old Testament. The new covenant is corollary to all the other covenants. Blessing comes from obedience. We fail at obedience and we receive the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ. That justification changes how we live. The fleshy heart that replaces the heart of stone gives us the ability to do what the Lord wants and we receive blessing.
In order to be saved, we confess Jesus to be Lord. We give up our life for His life. He now owns us. We’re His slave. This means we still have expectations on us, but we’ve been changed to do that out of love. The goodness of God leads us to that repentance. Paul counted His former life as loss that He might win Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ enables the fulfillment of the obligations and expectations. His yoke is easy. The commandments are no longer burdensome. Even if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father. The grace enables to perform. Performance is the means by which you then know that you are saved. You don’t just say that you know Him, but you also do what the Lord says.
There is more to the attraction of scandalous grace than just dumping obligation, expectation, and disapproval. I recognize a mysticism and subjectivity to it. Part of the freedom is the inward leading, what I call the voice in the head. It is untethered to the objective standards of scripture. It is so important for its supporters to feel without judgment that feelings take on a prominent, if not preeminent role. No one can judge anyone if there isn’t anything solid by which to judge. Feelings are elevated, and this is obvious in the “worship.”
Worship in scripture is regulated as much as anything, but there is this “freedom” to the expression of the worship. Whatever the outcome, it’s the Holy Spirit, and this kind of spontaneity and creativity is supposedly the meanderings of the Holy Spirit through individuals, making it more authentic. This has never been true worship in the history of the church, and it is more fitting with the ecstasy of Babylonian mysticism in Corinth and the delirium of the Samaritans on Mt. Gerrizim.
There is so much freedom, so much liberation, that its not about God. Biblical grace is changing grace. Liberation is freedom from sin, which frees from the consequences, but Jesus taught that it is freedom too from the practice of sin (John 8:31-34). Christians don’t want to sin anymore. Christians don’t want to do what they want. They want to do what Jesus wants. That isn’t legalism. That is what grace looks like.
Left-wing legalism reduces what God wants to what is acceptable and performable, like the Pharisees. They worked in shortening everything to the things they could do. They left out the weighty things (barus), which means more burdensome or harder. Those aren’t hard to do if it is grace. Grace eases everything. It’s why believers will conform to the image of Christ. God works in believers to do that. That is liberation.
Someone might say, unlike the Pharisees, Tchividjian isn’t about performance. He’s about performance, just a different one, one that looks more like me and my flesh, yet calling it Jesus. Those most embedded in the Tchividjian movement of hypergrace are as showy as I’ve ever seen. You’ll see more selfies than anywhere. Image is big — that you can see — from the see-through acrylite or lucite pulpit to the right fit in the blue jeans. It is an expression that clashes with the beauty of the Lord and His nature. It is obvious that it needs liberation from the world, because if there is a pathological need, it is for them to get the culture to love, appreciate, and approve of them. They are chained to that. They just attach a designer “grace” sticker to it with the authentic background of crumbling urban infrastructure.
Relationship, pt. 8
On late Saturday or early Sunday, I’ve been posting either an essay on a trip to Europe last May/June or the debate once appearing online between Frank Turk and me on the preservation of scripture. This week I decided to postpone either of those two instead for another post on relationship. I will return to either of those on the weekend, when I deem fit. Here are links to the first seven posts on relationship and then the publication of part eight underneath.
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven
Relationship Requires Rules
Relationship isn’t rules versus relationship. Relationship has rules, which is easy to see — everyone applies rules to relationship, even if they still deny it. I understand where the idea comes from, that rules and relationship apparently conflict. In Ephesus, the Jews used their own rules upon Gentiles that caused sinful division in the church, as communicated by Paul in Ephesians 2:15:
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.
Enmity existed in the church between Jews and Gentiles because of “rules,” which were actually civil and ceremonial laws fulfilled in Christ. One of them was “circumcision,” even as the Jews were mocking the Gentiles as “uncircumcision” in Ephesians 2:11. Those “ordinances” shouldn’t cause division, because they aren’t legitimate anymore. It wasn’t a sin to eat meat for the Ephesians, because God had lifted that restriction. Instead, now it was a sin to add the restriction, even as Paul withstood Peter to the face because he stopped eating with Gentiles at Antioch to appear acceptable to the James gang in town for a visit. Unscriptural or non-scriptural rules can ruin relationship, but not all rules. Legitimate, God-ordained rules are necessary and even a basis for relationship.
I understand some of the thought behind “rules versus relationship.” Somebody breaks a rule, let’s say, “drinking booze,” something newly permitted, even celebrated, in evangelicalism. The one drinking doesn’t appraise it a problem, counting the rule as arbitrary, whether it is or not, or maybe even certain foul language, listening to or playing rock music, or women wearing short pants. Someone else, maybe a parent, rebukes the behavior, and uses scripture to disapprove. A parent has previously taught from scripture those “rules,” and the offspring knows that in advance.
Rules in and of themselves aren’t the problem. The division between people comes because someone doesn’t know the rules or misunderstands them. The parents can’t approve of what they understand and have taught as sin. Just because one of their offspring has changed doesn’t mean the parents are the cause. They might be. Maybe their rule has no scriptural or historical basis to it, but it isn’t a rule itself that causes discord. Rule is part of hierarchy, the archy part of that word, means rule, and God’s rule is at the top of it. That’s the problem. God isn’t ruling somewhere and that needs to be resolved.
Scripture establishes that violation of scripture is what impedes a relationship, actual relationship modeled after the Three Persons in the Godhead. God is light, and walking in the light is the basis of relationship, which is the light of scriptural doctrine and practice. Toleration of sin isn’t light — that’s darkness. Confession of sin characterizes those walking in the light. Everyone is going to sin, but relationship continues with confession of sin and reconciliation with God and man.
“Rules versus relationship” is saying that the person rebuking sin impedes relationship. It says that confronting the sin causes disharmony in the relationship, and suggests ignoring or tolerating the behavior in favor of getting along. It proposes that getting along is foremost to relationship. What I’m describing is a very popular millennial understanding of relationship. It’s false. It is an error that has also corrupted the biblical understanding of love, turning it into mere sentimentalism. Love is a warm aura or a good feeling, which some have an impression is the Holy Spirit. The overall good feeling between two people, built upon toleration, is a “relationship” that is superior to “rules.”
There is one large, overriding rule for “rules versus relationship,” and that is, don’t rebuke someone for sin. That’s the one rule that cannot be violated, an alternative sort of first and great commandment. Very often millennials know with certainty that rule and enforce it with dogmatic assurance. The relationship church then panders to them by reducing rules to almost none except for that rule, emphasizing only relationship, the faux relationship described in previous posts. The relationship churches read the demographics and know that millennials are leaving traditional churches, so they customize their message to fit them. Rapid numeric growth gives them the impression, one in error, that this is evidence that God must be approving of their strategy.
The Requirement of Reconciliation
At the end of part seven, I introduced the first rule of relationship, which could be declared in different ways, but I stated it: “A first rule for relationship is have and keep the relationship.” To keep the relationship, reconciliation must occur on a regular basis. When someone sins against or offends someone, reconciliation must occur. Someone either offends or is offended. The person offended and the person offending both have a responsibility for reconciliation. This is modeled after reconciliation to God.
Every human being offends God. To return to peace with God, a person must reconcile to God, and that message of reconciliation is the gospel. The gospel allows for reconciliation by means of the substitutionary death of Christ and repentance by a person. I’ll return to that thought, but it must be considered as a basis for all reconciliation. Horizontal reconciliation arises from vertical reconciliation.
As mentioned at the end of part seven, Jesus taught reconciliation as a rule for relationship between people in Matthew 5:21-24. He connects the rule to the sixth of the ten commandments. A person who will not reconcile hates the person and commits murder in his heart against him, this based on God’s untainted judgment. To accord to that rule, our church mandates that no one can continue in unresolved offense against each other. Unity must be kept, even if mediation is required.
How much does God want reconciliation? I used the word, “modeled” two paragraphs ago. It is more than modeling. We needed reconciliation. Our future is Hell without it. We are “condemned already” (John 3:18). The plan of God for the redemption of man is reconciliation. Jesus humbled Himself (Philippians 2:5-8). The Father sent His Son. Jesus provided for reconciliation. Jesus mediates the reconciliation. God wants reconciliation. He wants reconciliation with us, who are so much less than Him. This helps to understand how horrible it is for us not to want reconciliation, not to attempt to initiate reconciliation, let alone not accept someone else’s attempt.
Jesus became sin for us to reconcile us to God (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). Less is required of us, but we might still reject reconciliation, very sadly, and still claim to be a Christian. We’ve been given the ministry of reconciliation — this is the job of Christians — which is why saved people are “peacemakers” and only peacemakers shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9).
In conformity to God’s will on relationship, churches must maintain unity between church members. The church is where relationship occurs like God wants. The New Testament says a lot about this, and all the appropriate passages reveal sin is the cause of disunity, the severing of relationship. In 1 Corinthians 1:10, a pivotal verse to the message of Paul’s entire first letter to the Corinthian church, he writes:
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
The verse is clear, and yet this is very often not the standard for churches. Churches disobey it. Most millennials wouldn’t join a church that believed it and practiced it. This same teaching repeats itself all over the New Testament. The relationship that Paul required of the Ephesian church, he represents in Ephesians 4:2-6:
2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is] above all, and through all, and in you all.
There is one God, one Holy Spirit, and the unity of the Spirit is everyone in a church submitting to the Holy Spirit, which is the basis of the oneness. Keeping the unity of the Spirit necessitates Spirit empowered lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, and forbearing. All of those are vital to maintain the unity that God requires of a church. Central to this is reconciliation.
In Matthew 5, Jesus correlated the horizontal with the vertical when He said don’t come to me in worship until you first reconcile with your brother. In 1 Peter 3:7, God said He wouldn’t hear prayers until a man reconciled with his wife. In 1 John 3:14, John wrote, “He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” When offense separates two parties, both are required to initiate reconciliation. In Matthew 18:15-17, it is the offended initiating, and in Matthew 5:21-24, it is the offender initiating. Either way, someone is initiating reconciliation. Relationship with God is hindered with resistance to reconciliation.
Initiation of reconciliation is where lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, and forbearing come into play. Someone must humble himself to initiate reconciliation. He elevates the other person ahead of himself to initiate reconciliation. He is meek, that is, he does what God wants instead of what he wants in order to initiate reconciliation. He suffers whatever ill treatment he thinks he’s received to initiate reconciliation. He bears whatever offense he thinks he’s been given to initiate reconciliation. I’ve initiated reconciliation many times and it is never easy, because of the nature of the flesh, expressed by one word: pride. Pride keeps people from reconciling. They love themselves more than God at that moment, because God requires reconciliation.
People can find excuses for avoiding reconciliation. “I’m too angry.” “He was too offensive.” “He won’t listen anyway.” “I don’t how I can forgive.” “It was his fault.” “I didn’t do anything wrong.” “It should be him talking to me.” “It’s not going to work.” Scripture deals with all of those excuses. They are not legitimate reasons not to obey God’s command to reconcile.
All reconciliation requires first trying one on one. Matthew 5:21-24 says, go, that is, go to the brother. Matthew 18:15 says, go and tell him. Paul withstood Peter “to the face” in Galatians 2:11. Meeting face to face is better than a phone call or a letter, but the latter are better than nothing.
The Requirement of Mediation
When one on one doesn’t work, scripture requires a second phase, two or three (Dt 17:6, Mt 18:15-17). Another way to look at phase two is mediation. Paul mediated with Onesimus and Philemon (the entire epistle of Philemon). This principle is laid out by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:1-5:
1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? 2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? 4 If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. 5 I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
Some situations need to be judged by other people. A person who initiates reconciliation should be willing also to recruit a qualified mediator. One on one might work. Sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, reconciliation requires mediation.
In my past, I’ve tried to reconcile with individuals one on one and it didn’t work. I called for a mediator, which was rejected. That’s a person who doesn’t want to reconcile. Willingness to reconcile is also the willingness for mediation. The one who rejects mediation is at fault in failed reconciliation. Finding an agreed upon, fair, discreet mediator (or mediators) is based upon biblical teaching. The biblical mediator won’t gossip or tale bear, but keep everything said in this second phase just the parties involved.
Right this moment a division exists between me and someone very dear to me. It brings me severe pain just to think about it. I want reconciliation. I’ve initiated reconciliation with a petition for a mediator. I would allow for this person to choose the mediator, who would fulfill the above qualifications. I’m open to the prospect that I’ve done wrong. I want reconciliation. God requires me to initiate reconciliation and I love God. I seek it out of love for God and this person. I know mediation is necessary. This is not a first for me. Anyone in leadership will need mediation. This person is not attempting reconciliation or looking for mediation — at the same time though attempting to grow as a Christian. I would be happy if the latter could be true. I warn those who embolden or reassure this behavior: you are also partakers of it.
Let’s remember. Jesus said the person who will not reconcile is committing murder, implied murder in his heart, “in danger of the judgment,” and “in danger of hell fire.” In essence, not reconciling is a companion to not forgiving. In Matthew 18:21-35, the person not forgiving won’t be forgiven. That’s saying this is an unsaved person. No one should encourage that. It should be the opposite if they call themselves Christians.
Paul requires mediation for the confrontation of a pastor (1 Timothy 5:19). I ask for mediation when I’m approached with offense. I want witnesses. I’ve had accusations without mediation. I’ve listened to accusations against me with no recourse to defend myself. The other side accused and then would not listen. I was not allowed what is called, due process. Due process is a requirement in the American justice system, but sometimes accusers just want to accuse. This belies reconciliation.
The presence of witnesses characterizes due process, which is defined as “fair treatment” in which “the person must be given notice, the opportunity to be heard, and a decision by a neutral decision maker.” An accusation might be made, but the person accused must be given an opportunity to be heard,” which is akin to defending himself. He can mount a defense if he thinks he’s being unfairly accused. When the goal is reconciliation, the accusations have the purpose of reconciliation, so will not be shared with others in the way of gossip. The witnesses are in the room, not outside of the room.
I’ve been accused many times without due process. The people making the accusations did not want their accusations being judged. That, however, is the scriptural means of reconciliation. If someone is offended or has offended, and the relationship can’t be reconciled, mediation is required.
Relationship has a basis for reconciliation — the truth. A mediator or mediators can listen to an accusation of offense and judge the accusation based upon scripture. A judgment can be made that is acceptable between two people willing to submit to mediation. A relationship can be restored. The idea of restoration of a relationship equals reconciliation. Paul writes in Galatians 6:1:
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
The purpose of initiating reconciliation, the one on one meeting, is for the purpose of restoration.
When someone is offended, and the requirements of proving the offense are met, repentance is necessary for reconciliation, based upon scripture. When the offender repents, the one offended then forgives. It might be that both sides have offended or are offending, so both need to repent. Then both need to forgive.
More to Come
Relationship, pt. 7
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
No Relationship Between Believers and Unbelievers
Believers in Jesus Christ are in the world (Philippians 2:15), but they are not of the world (John 17:14). Scripture many times says that believers are “children of God” (Galatians 3:26, 1 John 5:2), also referred to as “children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). On the other hand, Jesus said that unbelievers are of their father, the devil (John 8:44), John called them the “children of the devil” (1 John 3:10), and they’re also called “children of disobedience” (Eph 2:2) or “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3).
A relationship between a believer and an unbeliever is incongruous and incompatible. If relationship is defined by what is between the members of the Godhead, it is non-existent. Paul writes that believers will need to be with unbelievers (1 Corinthians 5:9-10):
I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
Believers will be in proximity to unbelievers as neighbors, at work, on public transportation, and a host of other ways. I recognize that they function together in the world, just like Paul wrote above. That happens, but the nature of a believer so clashes with an unbeliever, that there is no relationship between them. Only one has the life of God in him. At best, a believer and an unbeliever can experience in a joint way, the grace of this life (1 Peter 3:7), which is given to both saved an unsaved. The “common ground” is “common grace,” both the just and the unjust experiencing gracious life-sustaining rain (Matthew 5:45). God provided food for everyone. There are things to talk about that both share that both enjoy as travelers on this earth. These graces of life, provided by God, are far inferior as an attraction than Jesus and eternal things for a believer. The unbeliever isn’t even giving God credit for them, and the believer shouldn’t be okay with that.
The scriptural goal with an unbeliever is evangelism. Relationship comes, not by common ground or interests, but by evangelism. A believer comes into relationship with an unbeliever, when the unbeliever believes. Jesus, the Apostles, the New Testament teach preaching the gospel to the lost. If an believer, however, wants to get along with an unbeliever, he might not preach, because preaching, although required by God, is unacceptable to the unbeliever.
Danger for Believer and Unbeliever Relationship
The relationship with the unbeliever for a believer calls for tolerance. Instead of reproving sin, he tolerates it. Sin offends God, but the believer is more concerned with pleasing the unbeliever, so he permits or excuses it. The path for the believer looks like the regression of Psalm 1. He walks with it, then stands with it, and finally sits with it. He becomes accustomed to it. He doesn’t hate it any more like God does. This is poison for anyone, but especially a believer. A believer will not keep living this way, because it conflicts with his nature. Unbelievers hate light. Believers hate darkness.
I witness this on a regular basis on social media. I see professing believers who maintain rapport with unbelievers by not pointing out their sin. The name of God or Jesus is never mentioned. It’s as if scripture is off limits. The use of foul language is often deemed acceptable. The temporal, popular, or worldly are welcome and celebrated. No criticism of that is tolerable. The offense of an unbeliever is unacceptable, while the offense of God is rampant.
The light of a believer will clash with an unbeliever. In the same context as John 3:16, speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus explained the contradiction (John 3:19-21):
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Professing believers, in order to get along with unbelievers, have to hide their light. At the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-15) and in describing the nature of true believers, those who are saved, Jesus says they will not hide their light under a bushel, but will let it shine. In a wonderful expression of his own life, Paul exclaimed that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). Hiding light is the same thing as being ashamed. It’s actually that we are ashamed of Jesus Himself, who died for us, if we are truly saved people. It could also just be fear or a harmful love for the world.
God created man with a need to belong. It was not good that Adam was alone (Genesis 2:18), but believers belong in the church with other believers. There is actually no alternative to that if they live according to their own nature. Jesus warned the disciples about this in the upper room discourse, especially in John 15:18-25:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
This is a long bit of text that is worth reading. It was fulfilled in Acts just like Jesus predicted. If it isn’t happening, it’s because the professing believer has changed, not the unbeliever.
The Harm of Association with an Unbeliever
When a believer decides he will try to get along, like Lot, many harmful effects come with his attempting to keep the gap bridged between himself and an unbeliever. The Bible warns all over about this.
One, he will not grow like Psalm 1 describes, as a tree planted along a river of water. He will dry up spiritually, because there is no sustenance. He will bring forth less fruit. I say less, because believers will bear some fruit. Two, his own behavior will be corrupted. Paul told the Corinthians that their doctrine denial came under the influence of “evil communications.” In order to to try fit in with the world, believers attempt to conform. Paul commanded in Romans 12:2, be not conformed to this world. When believers fellowship with the lost, they adapt their behavior to lost behavior.
Sadly, today whole churches have become worldly churches, because they have conformed themselves to unbelievers. Instead of worshiping God in reverence, they offer God fleshly, worldly worship, which God doesn’t accept. These churches become more worldly, like we see with the church at Thyatira in Revelation 2. More and more toleration begets acceptance and then conformity. In the Old Testament, this is Jeroboam building golden idols at Dan and Bethel. Today you see pictures of churches or at least gatherings that look like night clubs. To justify this kind of worship and behavior, they have to change their doctrine, especially their view of the grace of God.
A person who tolerates unbelievers will develop a taste for worldly things and then very often seek out a worldly church that will accept his worldliness. These churches have become expert at condoning their behavior. They even proclaim a superiority, because they emphasize (as I covered in part 3) “relationship” and grace and the internal over the external. They scoff at pure churches with the notion that these churches are about “rules” and not “relationship.”
Darkness is not some arbitrary essence. Darkness is not submitting to light, which includes rules. Eating of the tree in the garden was darkness. Obeying God is light. Sin is the transgression of the law. The law is a set of rules. When someone steals from a person, that’s violating rule, which affects the relationship. The rules that are the ten commandments are loving God and loving others, which is a relationship with God and with men.
Rule for Relationship
A first rule for relationship is have and keep the relationship. The relationship with God must start through reception of the gospel and then through submission to God. This requires the disciplines of living the Christian life. Because of the relationship with God, which I will explore in future posts, a believer will start, have, and maintain relationship with other believers. The relationship between believers is a familial relationship that will occur in and through a church. It is characteristic of a saved person, no clearer explained than in 1 John 2:19:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us,, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
An alternative to this example is that of Demas in 2 Timothy 4:10:
For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.
If you are a believer, then you will experience being forsaken by someone. Forsaking other believers, 1 John 2:19 shows, manifests unbelief. Someone who professed to be a child of light actually loved darkness more. He was willing to forsake a relationship for the world. This is not like God in the Trinitarian relationship. God didn’t abandon His Son, nor the Son His Father. It wasn’t possible. In the same way, it’s not possible for a true believer.
As we before established from scripture, light is truth and obedience, the right belief and practice of scripture. Darkness is not believing and practicing the truth. Not maintaining the relationship between believers is very serious. Jesus preached in His longest sermon (Matthew 5:21-24):
21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. 23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
An unwillingness to reconcile is murder in the heart, and I’ll start there in the next post.
More to Come
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