The Problem with Biblical Wisdom

Have you ever noticed that many people come to you and tell you, "Jesus says ____," or "The Bible tells us that ____"? It has been my observation that many, many times well-intending people are quite wrong when they fill in that blank. This isn't necessarily because they are mean-spirited, or even theologically inaccurate--though that can certainly be the case in some instances. Here is a short list of the reasons that well-intending people are just wrong when they provide each other with "biblical wisdom" (if you wish to see others, David Croteau authored a great book on some of the topics I'm discussing).

1. Sometimes, the Bible doesn't actually say that. A small list of examples include:

• "God only helps those who help themselves." In point of fact, the Bible consistently declares that God helps those who precisely cannot help themselves. 
• "Money is the root of all evil." No, it's not. "The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). The clear difference is that money itself is not "evil," but if a person's heart turns to a love of money, that will lead to significant problems (among which Paul lists ruin, destruction, and wandering from the faith). Money is not the problem. Greed is. And greed captures the heart of the rich and the poor.
• "Pride comes before a fall." This is a more moderate mistake: the concept is found in Scripture, but this is not a quote. So please don't treat it like one.

1. Sometimes, a person will take Scripture completely out of context to make a point that Scripture was not likely making. Examples include:

• "To live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). So here's my confession: this was one that I used when I served in a combat zone in Iraq, back in 2005. Of course, I used it to remind myself that, should I die, it was gain. But Paul was probably focusing on the first part of that verse: "To live is Christ" is a much more prominent feature of Philippians, a letter where Paul was entreating the Philippian believers to a unity of the faith empowered by the gospel, in shorthand, "living in Christ." And I might add that, for Paul, dying was gain precisely because living was Christ.
• "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). Again, this is pulling from Philippians (not trying to pick on Philippians!). This verse is seen on Tim Tebow's face, or in the mind of a boxer as he dishes out punishment to his foe. But this verse has nothing whatever to do with physical strength, nor does it have to do with actively doing an activity in the midst of trials. The verse in Greek is probably best represented by translating "do" quite differently (the word "do" is not there): "I can endure all things through him who strengthens me" might be a better way of understanding Paul's point. Paul is saying that, in whatever circumstance God has placed him, Paul can endure that circumstance--not "do things"--through Christ who strengthens him. Paul can be hungry, or live in abundance; Paul can suffer need, or live in prosperity. But Paul can only endure this through a long-established habit of Christ-sufficiency. Christ is sufficient for the moment. And Paul has learned to depend on Him in enduring his circumstances.
• "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope'" (Jeremiah 29:11). The context of this verse is (1) speaking to a people living under a specific covenant, and (2) speaking to that people who were in the middle of experiencing the curses of disobeying the terms of said covenant. Israel had disobeyed. Babylon was God's way of bringing upon them the covenant curses. And in the midst of experiencing those curses, God is reminding them that they are still his people. God has not forgotten them. This would be a great comfort to the Israel of God, a people who had forgotten their God, and a people whose God had not forgotten them. Please don't use this to suggest that God "has plans for good" for some specific person by using this verse. One could as easily respond by suggesting the opposite: "This is what the Lord says: 'Look! I am preparing disaster for you and devising a plan against you!" (Jeremiah 18:11).

1. Memes that misrepresent Scripture:

• There are simply too many of these to list. The most recent one that I've seen represents Jesus speaking with his disciples:

• Certainly the intentions are good with this one. The suggestion is a political one: You should not assume that taxing the people and giving the taxes to the poor is a good substitute for being generous with the poor and helpless in your local context. The problem? Jesus lived in a day when an Israelite's tithes and offerings--which would have been considered under a larger rubric of "generosity"--were given to Israel's political and religious class. When an Israelite tithed to the Temple, he was tithing to the political institution. These tithes, in turn, were a way to sustain the Priesthood--who were part of the political class--as well as the poor and helpless. And yes, Jesus taught that tithing in that situation was good. And he taught that generosity was good. The tither was not giving to the Romans, but he was giving to Judea, a Roman province.

We live in an age of biblical illiteracy. If you wish to give biblical wisdom, the process of learning it is longer than memorizing a list of favorite passages, so please be cautious with it. When you teach, when you decide to give that biblical wisdom, as well-intending that you are likely to be, intentions are no substitute for the hard work of proper interpretation. There are no shortcuts! As James reminds us: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly" (James 3:1). 

Toward the Cross

For my friends, my brothers and sisters, and those who happen to visit the page: this is, I think, the most important thing I will ever say to you.

I am convinced of this: The Cross is not a peripheral issue; as a Christian, it is not something we believe once and move on; as a non-Christian, it is not something you can accept or reject with impunity. Our grasping of the Cross defines us, yes, in eternity, but our present consideration of this also defines us now, who we are, who we want to be, and ultimately, it defines our present reality in Christ.

Don't believe me? Paul says this: "For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received--that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor. 15:3-4)\

Is the Cross "of first importance" to us?

It was to Paul. It was, arguably, to Jesus Christ. I'm afraid we treat it too lightly. Or at the very least, I treat it too lightly. I hope to turn from my vanity, from the lesser important things, and direct my attention toward the Cross, toward that which is of first importance.

Perhaps a bit of clarification is in order. What do we mean by "the Cross"? It is an historical event, but is this the beginning and end of it? I think it is proper to speak of the meaning of the Cross and its purpose. That is what we mean, and I think that is what Paul was getting at. It isn't just that Christ died: He died for our sins. It wasn't just that He was buried and raised again: he was raised for our vindication.

And here's the crux of the issue: we won't really ever understand the meaning of the cross (Christ died for my sins) until we come to grips with the problem: we are sinners.

Is that a throw-away phrase today? "We are sinners". What does that mean? Maybe we should take a short journey toward understanding this. What is God like? What are we like by comparison?

Isaiah describes Him: the seraphim, the "burning angels" fly about His throne, cover their feet and their faces, crying out "Holy, Holy, Holy! The whole earth is full of His glory!" (Isa. 6) God is holy: there is absolutely no one else like Him. The whole earth trembles at His feet. To witness His glory would be our undoing. He is terrifyingly, absolutely, beautiful, wholly other, and righteous. This is how the Word of God describes Him. Our generation needs to learn this: to fear the Lord is not just to reverence Him. It is to tremble at His presence, knowing that He is God and we are only a part of His Creation.

We, by contrast, are blighted and ruined. The Word of God tells us about the beginning of the tragic affair in Genesis 3. It also tells us about the continued state of this tragedy through nearly all of the rest of the Bible. The entire world holds its breath to behold the Holy One, our awesomely beautiful Maker. This King is rightly owed His due allegiance. We owe Him our homage, our very lives; every breath we take is His gift to us. Yet we, like dirty little thieves, take His gifts, His mercies, and snatch them up as if they were ours by rights. We ignore the throne of majesty and set up our own cheap little chairs on pathetic little pedestals, supplanting His rightful authority in place of our own. Moreover, we have broken His law.

We are beggarly, poor, weak, filthy, twisted, wretched, dead. We are all murderers, adulterers, liars. If you say otherwise, you perjure yourself.

And the Judge of the Earth must mete His judgment righteously: the verdict is in, the gavel falls, the courtroom stands as He announces His verdict: guilty as charged. The punishment is pronounced: eternal death.

And this is a righteous judgment. The glory and majesty of the King of the Earth has been impugned. I, you, we all have maligned Him.

To the degree we understand this problem is the degree to which we will grasp the meaning of the Cross. Jesus Christ died for my sin. The Glorious One, who sat upon His throne, condescended to become part of His Creation so that He would stand in my place. This is what we mean by "Substitution". The righteous God-man stood in the sinner's place so the verdict would fall upon Himself.

And let me add: we never move beyond this. We come to an initial understanding of it; we dwell on it, ponder it, consider it, work it in our hearts and minds. But we must never think that we can move past this to greater doctrines.

If you think you have adequately understood the Cross, you have not. We do not master this doctrine; it masters us.

A final note: if you are reading this and scoff at these things, I understand. I once scoffed at them myself. Unless God Himself enables us to gain an initial glimpse of the Cross, we are helpless to do it ourselves. If, on the other hand, God has opened your eyes to the truths of the Cross, we can thank Him that He will continue to do so. But let us never turn our back on the truth of the Cross, as if we move to better doctrines. Let us rather always move ever closer to it, knowing that the better we understand this issue, the more that the rest of our problems (doctrinal or otherwise) will pale by comparison.

Let us, then, be moved toward the Cross. I can only point the way, even as weak and incompetent as I myself am before such a great truth.

For my Brothers and Sisters Struggling with Habitual Sin

Please read to the end of this post: it is a magnificent presentation of the beauty both our faith and the object of our faith. I have included the link to the full sermon here.

My summary of Chalmers is this: You cannot hope to be rid of sin simply by extinguishing the habit from your life. You must replace your affection of your sin with the Spirit-led affection for God. Chalmers says it more eloquently, so please read!

Excerpts taken from Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), "The Explosive Power of a New Affection":

"There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world; either by a demonstration of the world's vanity, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. . .the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual and. . .the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it"

(Translation: there are two approaches to ridding oneself of habitual sin: (1) hope that we can prove to ourselves the utter vanity of sin, or (2) replace the affection for sin with a better affection for God. The first cannot work, and the second is the only sufficient means of ridding ourselves of habitual sin.)

"The ascendant power of a second affection will do what no exposition, however forcible, of the folly and worthlessness of the first, ever could effectuate. And it is the same in the great world. You never will be able to arrest any of its leading pursuits by a naked demonstration of their vanity. It is quite in vain to think of stopping one of these pursuits in any way else but by stimulating to another. In attempting to bring a worthy man, intent and busied with the prosecution of his objects, to a dead stand, you have not merely to encounter the charm which he annexes to these objects, but you have to encounter the pleasure which he feels in the very prosecution of them. It is not enough, then, that you dissipate the charm by your moral and eloquent and affecting exposure of its illusiveness. You must address to the eye of his mind another object, with a charm powerful enough to dispossess the first of its influence, and to engage him in some other prosecution as full of interest and hope and congenial activity as the former. It is this which stamps an impotency on all moral and pathetic declamation about the insignificance of the world. A man will no more consent to the misery of being without an object, because that object is a trifle, or of being without a pursuit, because that pursuit terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, than he will voluntarily submit himself to torture, because that torture is to be of short duration. If to be without desire and without exertion altogether is a state of violence and discomfort, then the present desire, with its correspondent train of exertion, is not to be got rid of simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting another desire, and another line or habit of exertion in its place, and the most effectual way of withdrawing the mind from one object is not by turning it away from desolate and unpeopled vacancy, but by presenting to its regards another object still more alluring."

(Translation: It doesn't matter how well you argue with yourself about the vanity and worthlessness of sin. The problem is the sense of pleasure you feel in the pursuit. It is wholly unnatural for man to be without desire and without an acting upon desire. Therefore, you cannot simply destroy the desire to sin; you must, rather, replace the desire to sin with a more attractive pursuit.)

"It is seldom that any of our tastes are made to disappear by a mere process of natural extinction. At least, it is very seldom that this is done through the instrumentality of reasoning. . . It is almost never done by the mere force of mental determination. By what can not be thus destroyed, may be dispossest--and one taste may be made to give way to another, and to lose its power entirely as the reigning affection of the mind."

(Translation: it is rare that reason alone will remove a person from a habitual attitude. Similarly, it is almost never the case that one can set oneself by the power of willful determination to destroy a habit. It is, however, the case that one habit gives way to another in the course of life.)

"To bid a man into whom there is not yet entered the great and ascendant influence of the principle of regeneration, to bid him withdraw his love from all the things that are in the world, is to bid him give up all the affections that are in his heart. The world is the all of a natural man. He has not a taste, nor a desire, that points not to a something placed within the confines of its visible horizon. He loves nothing above it, and he cares for nothing beyond it; and to bid him love not the world is to pass a sentence of expulsion on all the inmates of his bosom. To estimate the magnitude and the difficulty of such a surrender, let us only think that it were just as arduous to prevail on him not to love wealth, which is but one of the things in the world, as to prevail upon him to set wilful fire to his own property. This he might do with sore and painful reluctance, if he saw that the salvation of his life hung upon it. But this he would do willingly if he saw that a new property of tenfold value was instantly to emerge from the wreck of the old one."

(Translation: Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to the process of renewing and replacing our affections properly. The natural man cares for natural things, and it is only by the recognition that something of far greater worth is found in the rejection of the love of the natural world that man is capable of rejecting his love for the world.)

"Let us not cease then to ply the only instrument of powerful and positive operation, to do away from you the love of the world. Let us try every legitimate method of finding access to your hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the world. For this purpose let us, if possible, clear away that shroud of unbelief which so hides and darkens the face of Deity. Let us insist on His claims to your affection; and whether in the shape of gratitude, or in the shape of esteem, let us never cease to affirm that in the whole of that wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to reclaim a sinful world unto Himself, He, the God of love, so sets Himself forth in characters of endearment that naught but faith, and naught but understanding are wanting, on your part, to call forth the love of your hearts back again. . . When (a man) is told to love God supremely, this may startle another, but it will not startle him to whom God has been revealed in peace, and in pardon, and in all the freeness of an offered reconciliation. When told to shut out the world from his heart, this may be impossible with him who has nothing to replace it--but not impossible with him who has found in God a sure and satisfying portion. When told to withdraw his affections from the things that are beneath, this were laying an order of self-extinction upon the man, who knows not another quarter in the whole sphere of his contemplation to which he could transfer them, but it were not grievous to him whose view had been opened to the loveliness and glory of the things that are above, and can there find, for every feeling of his soul, a most ample and delighted occupation. When told to look not to the things that are seen and temporal, this were blotting out the light of all that is visible from the prospect of him in whose eye there is a wall of partition between guilty nature and the joys of eternity--but he who believes that Christ has broken down this wall finds a gathering radiance upon his soul, as he looks onward in faith to the things that are unseen and eternal. Tell a man to be holy--and how can he compass such a performance, when his fellowship with holiness is a fellowship with despair? It is the atonement of the cross reconciling the holiness of the lawgiver with the safety of the offender, that hath opened the way for a sanctifying influence into the sinner's heart, and he can take a kindred impression from the character of god now brought nigh, and now at peace with him."

Christmas Thoughts on the Paschal Lamb

A thought (or two!) about Christmas:

(1) Without the Easter event, there would be no Christmas event. (2) Without the Christmas event, there would be no Easter event.

The former refers to the significance of our Lord's life; the latter refers to the significance of our Lord's humanity. The former refers to Jesus' ministry; the latter to Jesus' essence.

After all, Peter's confession that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), was found to be (partially) wanting because Peter failed to understand the necessity of Christ's suffering and death (Matt. 16:21-24). Without understanding the necessity of the Easter event, our understanding of His birth, life, and ministry will be truncated. In fact, our understanding of the gospel itself will be flawed, failing to grasp the very power of the gospel in our weakness.

On the other hand, the Easter event must also be understood in light of the Christmas event. In other words, Jesus' death and resurrection is significant precisely because He was the God-man. John testifies that his own hands had handled and his own eyes had seen the Word of Life (1 John 1:1). This is no accident, no peripheral issue: Jesus is fully human. He breathed our air, sweated our sweat, cried our tears, bled our blood, felt our pain. He laughed and he wept; He felt the joy of friendship and the bitterness of betrayal; in other words, Jesus experienced our humanity in full. Without this man, exemplifying humanity in what we all ought to be, what we were made to be in the Garden, without this man there would be no Cross. Without understanding the significance of Jesus' humanity, the Cross is stripped of its meaning: it remains a theoretical doctrine. The significance of the Cross is precisely in this: Jesus the man stood in my place and bore the penalty that I justly deserve. As John Calvin so well puts it, "When we behold the disfigurement of the Son of God, when we find ourselves appalled at His marred appearance, we need to reckon afresh that it is upon ourselves we gaze, for He stood in our place." How can we behold this disfigurement, how can we "find ourselves appalled" unless He is fully flesh and blood?

Thus, the significance of Christmas: We understand Christmas rightly when we come to grips with His life lived, His necessary suffering and death, His receipt of my penalty. We understand Easter rightly when we come to grips with His humanity, fully and gloriously displayed in the fullness of His life, initially manifested on that first Christmas Eve. Let us, then, celebrate his birth with an eye ever toward the Cross and resurrection; let us celebrate his death and resurrection with an eye ever toward His birth, His humanity.

Merry Christmas-Easter, everyone!

Slaves of Christ?

Are we, in the Western Church, so immune to our Master's call to slavery, and to our relative response to abandonment of ourselves, that we would rather use the term "servant" than "slave"? Perhaps, even when we go so far as to call ourselves "slaves of Christ," we still hold dearly to our personal rights and privileges so that the term loses its meaning? We sing our Hallelujah's and call Him Lord, yet fail to recognize that the Hallelujah, a recognition that our Exemplar's risen and exalted status came after his lowly state--even to the Cross--and calls us to the same; similarly, we call Him "Lord" but fail to recognize that we abdicate any claim to our own lives, our "rights" and "privileges", when we use the term.

Or at least I do.

Some beautifully pertinent quotes from Murray J. Harris, Slave of Christ (from the New Studies in Biblical Theology):

"In twentieth-century Christianity we have replaced the expression 'total surrender' with the word 'commitment', and 'slave' with 'servant'. But there is an important difference. A servant gives service to someone, but a slave belongs to someone. We commit ourselves to do something, but when we surrender ourselves to someone, we give ourselves up."

"If the language of slavery is offensive, the offence would have been considerably greater for those who lived in societies where slavery was intrinsic than for us for whom slavery is simply an unpleasant and embarrassing memory."

"The term doulos (slave) expresses both a vertical and horizontal relationship of the Christian, who is both the willing vassal of the heavenly Master and the submissive servant of fellow-believers. The term epitomizes the Christian's dual obligation: unquestioning devotion to Christ and to his people. But the vertical relationship is prior and the horizontal secondary. Christians are devoted to one another as a direct result of being devoted to Christ. When they serve each other, they are demonstrating and expressing their slavery to the Lord Christ."

"A slave of Christ is not a right reserved for the favoured few in the church but is the privilege of all believers, unrelated to their giftedness or their particular role in the church... It has become, in a Christian context, a title of exquisite honour describing accredited representatives of the risen Christ... (I)t gained (this) positive connotation...because the divine Master they were serving was kind and generous and himself had blazed an exemplary trail of lowly service. What all the douloi (slaves) of this Kyrios (Lord) gained through being associated with him was not so much authority and power as unparalleled honour and the assurance that their service, whatever its nature, was of supreme value, simply because it was done for him."

"It is one thing for us to follow a grand custom and stand during the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus at the unforgettable climax of Part II of Handel's Messiah and so celebrate the ultimate victory of Christ. It is quite another thing for us to bow the knee before the crucified and exalted Lord of the universe and receive the metaphorical piercing of the ear as a sign and pledge of our joyful and willing slavery to him as long as we live. If we do this, then when we stand in his presence at the conclusion of our lives, and ourselves sing the song of the Lamb, we shall hear those unforgettable words from our Master's lips, 'Congratulations, good and faithful slave!'"

________________

So we who have the honor of calling ourselves "Slaves of Christ" must come to recognize, through God's gracious saving work, that we are called to nothing less than the Cross, to die to ourselves, to abandon notions of self-aggrandizement in favor of the--far greater!--calling to slavery.

We slaves of our Jesus, we slaves of our God, we slaves of righteousness are under a different management and ownership, and He is a far more compassionate and more capable Master than any other.

A Heilsgeschichte in Chi Major

Morning dew and evening breeze,
The sigh of wind—sweet shifting song
As trees in harmony sway ‘long
And He has given us the keys!
Sunrise caught in water drop,
Puts dimples in the perfect pond.
Sweet summer drizzle here and gone,
And we, from dirt to honored top.
His promise rings still in our heads:
“This golden plot is yours—partake!
Save one tree, all is for your sake!”
Sly snake assays his smarts and says:
“Is His promise life, indeed?
Take and eat! Know and see!”
The spotted fruit once spotted shines,
We took to live, now know we die.

Garden to desert; figs to thorns,
Now broken, now twisted, now torn.
His promise faintly dims our eyes:
“Death is one day doomed to die.”
A bit of fruit and nothing less,
We sold our souls for a pound of flesh.

Birthright turned from crown to pence;
Cheap, our prize had cost too much!
Our brothers fierce in anger turned
To put red hands to violence.
Echoes of former Tov M’od
Was strangled by some crouching sin,
Was twisted by our own device,
Still whispered our Creator’s ode.
And He, our Sovereign, enthroned
Great hesed gave the promised seed,
This theme had stretched the centuries:
“Deliver them who are your own!”

So Israel’s tutor, Pedagogue,
Might lead the nation to the prize.
The laud was ringing loud and long:
“Here His Christ, your Lord, your God!”
But she in blind self-righteousness
Had sold her soul for so much less.

Crown of thorns and garden tomb
Now broken corpse, deserted soul
His promise faintly dims our eyes:
“I am resurrection-life!”
The Son of Man and nothing less,
Redeemed our souls in righteousness.

The Cross: the unexpected means;
The Son of God and promised Christ
Upon the tree he sways and dies;
Once dead now risen owns the keys!
The sunrise on the tomb would bring:
The stone, the cloth, the empty bed,
Proclaims the truth of what he said,
And he, from slave to sovereign King!
His words, they ring still in our head:
“This bread, this cup is mine—partake!
Save one race, all is for His sake!
Body, blood, given instead:
This is promised life, indeed!
Take and eat! Know and see!”
Spotless bread and spotless wine,
We took to live, and with Him died.

And so our teacher, man-divine
Now leads His people to the prize,
Whose promise resonates our lives:
We, the branch, and He, the Vine!
The Son of God and nothing less,
Now owns our lives for righteousness.

Birthright turned from cross to crown;
Rich, this lavished grace to grace!
Now sends His Spirit, seals His prize,
And makes His name through us renowned!
Hope of future sinless days
Still wrestles with our crouching sin
But promises far better still,
And trumpets our Creator’s praise!
So He, our Sovereign, enthroned
Anticipated promise known,
His theme now trumpets through the age:
“Christ our King and we His own!”

Justice is Beautiful--A Footnote

Yesterday I posted on the aesthetic value of God's justice. I was reminded by a friend that I could be misunderstood at a certain level and I wanted to clarify a point. It is true that:

(1) God's justice will be beautiful in the eschaton.
(2) We will rejoice to see God's justice.
(3) God desires that no person perishes, but that all come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9).

There seems, then, to be a difference between God as the Reconciler, and God as the Judge. As Reconciler, God not only provides the means of salvation, but His desire is that mankind turns from sin and believes unto life in His powerful and effectual gospel. We herald the gospel of salvation knowing that God's general call is given with no regard to race, nationality, sex, or background (Gal. 3:28-29), and with the full knowledge that God is in the business of making friends out of His enemies (Rom. 5:6-8; Eph. 2:1-7).

This is, however, not to confuse God's reconciling activity with God's judging activity. He is not some grandfatherly figure, benevolently looking upon sin, smiling, and wagging His head. He is the Judge of the earth. He has set His purposes to setting the world right. We have the option to turn from our sin today and believe in His Christ, or reject His infinitely magnanimous offer. If we choose the latter, we may be sure that God's wrath is singular in purpose, unwavering in application, and absolutely, terrifyingly right.

Psalm 7:11-13 (NET Bible) 11 God is a just judge; he is angry throughout the day. 12 If a person does not repent, God sharpens his sword and prepares to shoot his bow. 13 He prepares to use deadly weapons against him; he gets ready to shoot flaming arrows.