God’s Character is Our Lifeline

Some years ago, I was traveling through California with my family, and we occasioned to cross the mighty Sacramento River via ferry (indeed, you read that correctly.  It was an Oregon Trail moment, although we were not obliged to caulk the minivan and float it across the river).  After a short wait, as the ferry eventually began to move across the calm river, some of us did not even notice, so smooth and quiet was the transition (and the realization was, yes, the most riveting moment of the entire crossing).

Sadly, the transition from the bedrock of godly faithfulness to the unsounded ocean of spiritual apathy is often much the same.  We do not always take note of our passing from terra firma to gloomy waters.  The truly difficult and tragic part comes when we look about and comprehend at last that we are adrift in this expansive ocean of spiritual sluggishness, but, by definition, find ourselves unable to overcome the strong currents which have been pulling us from the shore. 

 What does this look like in the believer's life?  A Christian realizes that he has grown distant from the Lord by his own inaction.  His misspent energies have propelled him away from his Savior, and he is repulsed (though perhaps not very strongly) by the selfish pride he finds issuing freely from his own heart.  This Christian knows what he must do - he must draw near to the Lord through prayer and through the study of God's Word, but one thing remains elusive:  conviction.  Prayers are stuttered until their momentum is squandered.  The mind returns to other pursuits.  The Bible is read, but it is cursory and halfhearted.  The eyes falter and the heart is unmoved.  The apathy deepens.  Does this sound at all familiar, reader? 

The problem is that we are attempting to rid ourselves of the apathy without addressing the very cause of the apathy.  It is like having a knife stuck in one's abdomen, and carefully applying a bandage around it.  We are saying, "I need to change my spiritual unconcern," but what we need to be saying is, "I need to refocus my selfish and wayward heart upon the Lord."  It is a subtle change on the surface, perhaps, but it makes worlds of difference - one seeks to repair self, while the other desires to return to a humble intimacy with God.  Do you see that the first statement has not served to remove our gaze from ourselves, and so is not very far removed from the condition of apathy?  Spiritual apathy is the result of spiritual distance.  Spiritual humilty is the fuel that diminishes this distance.

 

It seems, then, that the best course is to lay ourselves entirely aside for the time being, stop worrying about our apathy in and of itself, and start considering the character of our God.  Open the Psalms, not because they are easy or lightweight, but because you are certain to find the Lord's true praises proclaimed for His name and deeds.  Seek that praiseworthy character, and when you have found even a morsel of it, stop and consider it in all of its glory.  Savor the excellence of your God, friend!  Marvel at His flawless character - look as intently as you like, for you will never discover even the tiniest fault.  Take whichever element of His fame you have come across in the Psalms, and think how your Lord, by means of this attribute, continues to affect your life.  Are you pondering His unchanging character?  Then rejoice that this faithfulness allows you trust His promises!  Perhaps you see His justice, and you know therefore that you are secure in your salvation. 

This is a rich and generous tally of blessings indeed, and it steels a heart with joy to delve into it, for God has made us both to interact with His character and to desire His character.  We understand His character as it touches upon our lives - we are rendered humble and grateful when we see Him near and at work.  Look for Him, brother!  Do not rest until your desire for the Lord is rekindled, sister!  We cannot and should not expect satisfaction from merely human pursuits or human excellencies - God has designed us to desire more (Ecc. 3:11), and we cannot be content with any less.

 

Immerse yourself in the Lord, then, and be glad for His excellencies.  Go to Him in prayer, for it is from this stronghold that we praise Christ unselfishly, that we seek His forgiveness readily, and that we beseech His intervention earnestly, even if it is intervention in our own languid hearts.  Put simply, it is here that apathy becomes but a memory, for the heart that made glad by God's character is not one that remains unmoved by His grace and His promises. 

 

"Great are the works of the Lord;
They are studied by all who delight in them.
Splendid and majestic is His work,
And His righteousness endures forever.

He has made His wonders to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and compassionate."

- Psalm 111:2-4

Glory Without Love

In the brief history of this blog, we have already made much mention about God's glory - its importance and pre-eminence in the world.  This is not a lament, for indeed, how could the grateful recipients of His perfect and continual grace ever say too much about His glory?  Having said this, it must be acknowledged that we do run a risk of painting a lopsided portrait of our Lord if we prove careless in our rapture. 

Here is the risk.  If everything around us, including evil, has its being so that God may display His glory to tremendous degree (as we posited with almost painful brevity in How Glorious Is Glorious?), then what does this say about the genuineness of His love for us?  If God's goal is to display His glory, does this mean that His love is just a means to that end?  Put simply, does the pre-eminence of His glory diminish the quality of His love?

Three independent lines of thought should converge to offer some certainty in this matter about our loving Father.

1.  God's character is holy.  "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you," says John in 1 John 1:5, "that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."  God is overflowing with moral purity, and, as we know that God does not change (Mal. 3:16, Jas. 1:17), that moral purity is adorned with an impregnable integrity as well.  Put simply, God is holy, and He will never, ever be anything but perfectly holy.  Thus if He has put into His Word that He is love (1 John 4:8), we know that we absolutely must trust in His unimpeachable truthfulness.  He is not something resembling love, but rather love itself! 

He who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) has disclosed Himself indelibly as a God of love, and His bedrock holiness guarantees further that this love is uncorrupted by even the smallest vein of selfishness, impatience, or pride.

2.  The linguistic nature of God's love, as described in the Bible, demonstrates its reality.  God is "abounding in lovingkindness" (Ps. 103:8b, etc.).  "Lovingkindness" here is chesed in the Hebrew, the very idea of which moves beyond mere obligation into the realm of generosity.¹  By no means may we accuse the Lord of doing only the bare minimum in relation to us His children - the very language of His book declares that He goes above and beyond.  The extra mile (or extra lightyear?) which God covers in His faithful love demonstrates that more is at work than merely pretending a loving demeanor.

The New Testament likewise affirms this.  Here, the operative word for love is, of course, agape, with which we are all no doubt familiar, but one exemplary foray into scripture will uncover some exegetical paydirt.  Christ prays to the Father, "and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." (John 17:26) Here Christ declares that the agape love which the Father has for Him will also be directed toward His disciples, and, by extension, the rest of His followers.  If there is weight in God's love toward His own divine Son, then there is also in His love toward us.  This thought should provoke praise from hearts astonished into greater humility; amen? 

3.  The reality of His glory is predicated upon the reality of His love.  Notice how the psalmist describes God revealing His glory (Ps. 98:2-3):
"The Lord has made known His salvation;
He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel;
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God."

He demonstrates His salvation, His righteousness, His faithfulness, and yes, His lovingkindness, and so shows a generous measure of glory.  Mark this well, though:  God's glory, then, becomes reliant upon the reality of these different outpourings of divine character - His glory is not what it purports to be if, say, His righteousness is a farce, and so forth.  He has therefore tied the actuality of His glory to the truth of His love (and other wondrous things), and were His love a travesty, His glory would fall short - a gold veneer applied to a helium balloon. 


For these reasons, and others like them, we believers may rest in the certainty of divine love.  By no means does God's desire to display His glory diminish the reality of His love - in truth, the glory is seen in the reality of the love!  Our Lord has laid upon our grateful hearts a love so incalculable, so pure, so real, that we are powerless to equal it.  "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are." (1 John 3:1a)

And such we are.



1:  Vine, W.E., Merrill F. Unger, & William White, Jr.  Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996.  p. 142.

Grace in the Midst of Abandonment

(continued from The Grim Specter of Abandonment)

Taken as a whole, Paul's words in 2 Timothy 4 (which we examined in the last posting) suggest four attitudes which are right and becoming to a believer involved in the Lord's ministry (as all believers, by the way, should be).

1. Companions may come and go. An earlier statement by Paul had promised Timothy that persecution was a certainty for believers in the pursuit of godliness (1 Tim. 3:12). The most grievous barbs, however, often do not come at the hands of unbelievers, but of those within our very ranks. A foot soldier that rushes to meet the enemy is not surprised by a score of arrows thumping into his shield; it is the one that falls upon his back that perplexes and grieves him the most.

Paul's courageous scruples commended him to his God, but not always to his fellows. His boldness exposed sin, condemned false belief, and challenged true belief to greater faithfulness and godly pursuits. His gospel was keen and his standard was godly, as ours must be. If we are encouraging our fellow believers to pursue Christ with divinely-gifted strength, however lovingly, we are almost certain to lose a friend or two at some point (or at many points). Charisma and compassion cannot always salve the sting of conviction, even if that conviction was never intended, and though we may passionately communicate our best intentions, sometimes simply the exemplary (though imperfect) quality of our Christian lives will eventually compel certain others to distance themselves.

2. Compassion must continue toward our wayward brothers and sisters. Paul's considered response to the desertion perpetrated upon him by the Roman saints was to pray for their forgiveness from the Lord (v. 16).  We may conclude, then, that this act by the Christians in that city was indeed sinful and not merely poor or imperfect judgment, as only sin would call for forgiveness. Paul, however, was not entrenched in thoughts of revenge or personal undeservedness, but sought for the growth and benefit of those who had slighted him with their distance and quiet.

It is devilishly easy to be personally affected by the sins of others, especially when that sin crowds upon us, but frankly, any personal offense which we could muster is far outweighed by the affront to God which sin, by definition, constitutes. When we are humbly serving our great Lord, divine humility quiets our clamoring and injured pride, and when we feel the sting of sin against us, the need for comeuppance is far eclipsed by the urge to see this person right with the Master to whom we are enslaved. The slave does not trouble with any meager personal affronts when his or her loving Master has been offended.

3. One is enough if God is at work. Napoleon and Alexander could not conquer the smallest village without their armies, but such is not the case with almighty God. If God found Himself quite abandoned by the whole of mankind (which has never and will never happen), could He not breathe a word of authority such that the very rocks would proclaim His glory? Would the loftiest of peaks hesitate to move aside at the mere sound of His voice? Are the seas not sundered, and the flowing rivers not confounded, by His sovereign decree? He declares in His majesty, "Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine." (Job 41:11)

Paul's words are clear and decisive: "nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things." (Acts 17:25) Picture, if you will, this omnipotent, sovereign, self-existent God, at work through His people. Does He require a great host? Can human strength augment His might? No! He dispatches one prophet, solitary and unwilling, to a great pagan city called Ninevah, and an incomprehensible multitude is saved. If we find ourselves isolated in our kingdom work, we long for the blessing of fellowship, but we revel in the glorious blessing of God's continued faithfulness and assured purpose as we work!

4. The Lord's faithfulness is undiminished by the unfaithfulness of others. In this 2 Timothy 4 passage, Paul affirms God's faithfulness both in the short term (verse 17 - God stood with him, strengthening him for the complete delivery of the gospel to his opposers and keeping him from death) and in the long term (verse 18 - the Lord would continue to preserve Paul's soul unto a blessed and rich eternity, even against the evil designs of those around him, no doubt, in both the natural and the supernatural realm).

How pleasing it is to consider that when Christ said, "lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20b), He attached no provisos. He did not pronounce, "I am with you, as long as you keep your companions and make it worth My while," but simply, "I am with you always." This is a momentous statement, pregnant with divine omniscience and immutability. Though a thousand dear companions turn aside and make scorn, envy, or apathy their camp, yet we will not despair, so long as sin has not adorned our hearts, and so long as our God carefully accompanies us, even as He has promised! His plans are as healthy and as certain as they were before the worlds existed.


There is a certain glory when God's people come together and harmoniously minister for His name.  We see God, the great Designer, the great Orchestrator, the great Leader, at work within His workers, and it charms our hearts as believers to behold this blessing.  There is a different glory, however, when God's people must soldier on alone, or as a band that is smaller than it once was.  Here the sufficiency, faithfulness, and compassion of the Sovereign come to the forefront, and though our hearts are freighted with fresh sadness, we nevertheless appreciate our God all the more in spite of, and even because of, the heaviness in our own hearts, and we continue on in the glad certainty of His continued graces. 

The Grim Specter of Abandonment

Demas, Phygelus, Hermogenes, John Mark, the Corinthian church, the believers in the Asian province, the church in Rome, and even Barnabas - all of these at one point or another, for one reason or another, deserted the apostle Paul.  Some would return later, sparking immense joy, while the fate of others is lost to antiquity.  What would happen later was, in a way, immaterial - they abandoned Paul in the midst of a kingdom campaign, creating immediate and saddening reverberations throughout his ministry.  The workers dwindled, but the work was always there; the road always stretching longer before his eyes. 

Paul, in the dimmest twilight of his life, delivered these devastating words to Timothy:  "At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them." (2 Tim. 4:16) Paul stood trial in Rome before the highest levels of government, and he was obliged to do so entirely alone.  None of the countless converts who had been introduced to Christ by his bold proclamation, none of the brothers and sisters who had labored alongside him, none of the believers in all that city stood at his side.  Many of his dearest brothers and sisters were scattered across hundreds of miles and countless settlements, but Paul's words suggest that there were saints near at hand who pointedly chose to dissociate from the weary and manacled apostle.

The apostle follows this heartbreaking statement with something rather surprising, though.  "But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth.  The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." (2 Tim. 4:17-18)

Lord, grant it us to respond in this manner!  A tenacious hold on the truth, as well as a desire to minister for the Lord in some capacity, will almost certainly see us lose a friend or two along the way, sadly.  Truth divides, as it must, and sometimes the effect of earnest faithfulness in one believer is the exposure of subtle unfaithfulness in another.  The convicted believer (or an offended unbeliver, for that matter) may well recoil, and what then is our recourse?  We check our own lives and hearts for sin, of course, and for issues of Christian liberty - anything that might have offended our brother or sister.  If any fault is uncovered, we deal with it strongly and humbly.  If, however, we are in the right, what can we do?  Our hands are clean, but our hearts are baffled.

(To be continued in Grace in the Midst of Abandonment)

Practical Theology: Irresistible Grace in Evangelism

A young man, a wealthy ruler, comes before Jesus, and, kneeling, asks simply, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17) Christ's response (vv. 18-21) is, to say, the least, indirect.  The word "repent" does not leave His lips, and neither does "believe."  Both of these are implicit in the conversation, but He leaves them unsaid.  He asks a question.  He makes a few simple statements.  The man answers rather unrealistically.  Christ issues a command.  The wealthy ruler walks away, devastated and apparently unsaved (v. 22).  And so this familiar story leaves us. 

Surely Christ was operating within the realm of divine prerogative as He interacted with this man.  The nagging question, though, is this:  if Christ had taken a gentler, less demanding approach, would this man have been saved?  A related question - could this man have been saved, had he been allowed at this time to enter into the fellowship of true belief, just as veteran churchgoers are sometimes suddenly saved in today's churches? 

We can answer both these questions with some further consideration.  Christ answered as He did in order to reveal the character of the man's beliefs.  The young man's convictions did not permit him to submit himself to Christ, either as Savior (v. 20) or as Lord (v. 22), and neither is optional for salvation (cf. John 3:36, Luke 14:27).  The point is simple:  in this invaluable example, Jesus was not moved by a simple profession or a bare question - He drove His gospel in as deeply as was needed in order to outwardly prove or disprove the man's belief, and He did it with sincere compassion (v. 21).  He was unafraid to get to the bottom of this urgent matter, and He did so perceptively and lovingly. 

A few objections will surely sound out here:

1.  "This is the omniscient Christ - we can hardly be said to have this sort of insight into people around us."  This is true, but this does not hinder our knowledge and understanding of the gospel, and it is from this perspective that we operate.  People differ, but the old gospel was written by hands far stronger and timeless than ours.  If someone comes to us seeking to understand the gospel, we must give it to them with all of its force, with all of its urgency, and with all of its requirements, lest they come short of salvation.

2.  "Who are we to judge people's hearts?"  This is a terrible sort of assumption.  Judgment is neither meant nor required here.  Let us create a (somewhat imperfect) picture.  Your friend is standing upon an actively crumbling ledge above some yawning chasm.  He is not silent; he is crying for help.  There is a ladder behind him, and you point it out, describing this ladder and how it must be used.  You demonstrate it several times.  You explain it again.  He declines to use the ladder and turns away, having become upset that you are judging his heart.  If this sounds absurd, you have grasped the intent. 

If a person is truly humble before the Lord, grievously conscious of sin, and seeking to repent before a holy God, then no part of the gospel will work as a deterrent.  The powerful truth of the gospel will at first be a hot blade to the heart of such a person as he or she is laid low by the knowledge of personal sin, but it will become as honey upon the lips as this person approaches, once and for all, to dine at God's own table, invited by His grace and drawn by His might.  On the other hand, a feigned humility or inappropriate presumption on the part of such a person will only be flushed out by the true gospel, as it was with the rich young ruler, and this is no great loss, for this is not the sort of attitude that a holy God honors with salvation.

3.  "Will we not unduly dissuade people from Christianity?"  This question is perhaps the most important of all, for, were this true, it would create a formidable moral dilemma indeed.  We need not, however, explore this possibility, for God's Word strangles it with its usual blessed clarity:  "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out...This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day."  These words, spoken by Jesus in John 6:37 and 39, create a compelling picture of the Father's sovereign purposes at work - He gives His elect to Christ, and all that He gives will surely come to Christ.  In other words, we have landed upon the great truth of scripture which theologians like to call "irresistible grace."  It grants a lasting comfort to us in this matter.

If God is sure to win the souls He calls, as John 6 indicates, then the temptation to cheapen the gospel, to soften it so it may slip inoffensively into a reluctant heart, loses all of its teeth.  As God has divinely lavished the full measure of certainty in salvation, then the thought that we humans should try to add a further certainty of our own sort is intrusive and dangerous.  We either do not trust His work, or we seek to overturn it.  In fact, if we try to hurry someone into the kingdom and skirt away from a full understanding of the sinner's need for a Savior, or any other glittering facet of the gospel, we risk falsely assuring an unbeliever of his or her Christianity.  Here is a principle:  any person should be able to explain the saving gospel to someone else, from the very instant of salvation.  If this is not the case, we must question his or her understanding of the gospel, and, alongside of this, we must question his or her salvation. 

It becomes us well, then, to approach the repentant unbeliever with care and deliberateness.  Reckless haste is inappropriate:  nothing will hinder the truly repentant from salvation, certainly not a few moments of compassionate, soul-searching questions, but a glossing over of truth will never drive someone into the arms of the Lord.  No one can be cheated into the kingdom of God.  Explore the gospel with such the searching sinner with discernment and reverence.  Move to correct any misunderstandings, and rejoice if you see a truly burdened heart yearning for Christ's singular salvation!

One note further.  Jesus explained further in John 6:44 that only those whom the Father sends may come to Christ.  This removes one more reason to offer a hasty, emaciated gospel - we will certainly not sneak our friends into the kingdom this way.  No; God must be at work in a person, working His power unto salvation, and then nothing can stand in the way of that glorious salvation running its miraculous course and sweeping the glad, contrite sinner down into the ocean of grace.  How potently does God provide for our security, and how powerfully does this security arm us as we seek to bring people to Him!

Christmas and Christ's Sobering Purpose

"For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur."  These words, spoken in Acts 4:27-28 (emphasis added), tell us that there was established divine intention behind the crucifixion and death of Christ.  It is the predetermined nature of this purpose that concerns us at this time of year, for it means that this purpose was in place even as Christ was born. 

For this reason, we cannot consider the birth of Christ without the death of Christ invading our thinking.  He came with a divinely-imparted anointing to serve as the great sacrificial Lamb.  There would be an abundance of teaching, and of example, and of proof of His divinity and messianic mission, but all would culminate in His death and resurrection, wherein He would conquer death and exhaust the inexhaustible wrath of God intended for His children in an unprecedented display of divine grace. 

All of this was in the mind of God, and indeed was set into motion, at the birth of Christ.  The Savior never deviated, willfully or accidentally, from His direct course toward the cross.  At the very first step of this momentous journey, the angelic host announced to the shepherds, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased." (Luke 2:14) As we ponder this peace, we realize that it is not a Hallmark Channel sort of peace in which gruff but lovable people are reconciled after years of hostility.  There is a curious notion today that Christmas itself (or often "the spirit of Christmas," which is never defined, but always seems to reside in the hearts of children on television) is sufficient to bring about a wondrous sort of peace between people.  Perhaps the thought is that Christmas simply brings out the best in people, or even that God works during the Christmas season with the simple purpose of increasing our love for each other.

We must get these purely humanistic notions out of our heads.  When we see the unbelieving world using Christmas solely as an opportunity to join together and love one another, do we not understand that this is worthless, tragic, even vile in God's sight?  It should break our hearts!  What satisfaction can God have in love that is not based in Him?  Is unity pleasant to His heart if His grace is not the bond of that unity?  We must sweep the stars from our eyes and see that these are people who are going to hell, and no well-wishing or kind gestures on their parts can remove them from this deserved fate.  It is like watching skydivers rocketing toward an erupting volcano - and then smiling as they join hands to make a formation as they plummet. 

The peace that was proclaimed on that wondrous night is, incredibly, peace with God.  Christ came to bring people peace with their Creator.  The very God who was, at every moment, slighted and angered anew by the sins of His creations, and who would someday judge them eternally for those sins, was at the very same time, extending an offer of grace, of peace, to these very people.  This peace, then, was a peace that was calculated to keep us from eternal destuction, offered by our divine Opponent, and bought with precious, divine, innocent blood, the blood of the very God whom we have offended so keenly.  It is a peace that utterly obliterates our petty, trifling notions of human peace and crushes its rubble with a mountain of pure grace, a strong mountain that all of eternity will not wear down.  This is worthy of our devotion, our thanksgiving, and our proclamation as we bear down on Christmas this year.  Amen? 

Peace with God, by the blood of Christ, who came as a baby, with a divine appointment.  "For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross..." (Col. 1:19-20b)

Grace and Humility: The Story of the Shepherds

It must have been strange enough from Joseph's perspective, to be standing in a stable as the father to a brand-new Child, the divine Child, laid in a manger for a crib.  But then, to hear quick footfalls and turn to see a group of breathless shepherds, who had obviously been running through the night, stop at this stable and gaze at this Child with a wide-eyed astonishment which all but announced that they had found what they so intently sought - a wholly new experience for this young carpenter, to be sure. 

But then, surely it must have been odd for the shepherds as well, as they stood there, breathing, their hands hanging empty when they had so constantly gripped the rod in careful protection of their now vulnerable flocks.  And now, before them - a family settled into a stable for the night with a newborn laid in a feeding trough.  Who knows but under different circumstances, a chuckle might have escape their lips, or a smirk pulled at their cheeks, to see such a thing? 

Certainly no bemused smiles were to be seen that night, though.  They came not listlessly, but with urgency and purpose:  they sought the Child which the angel of the Lord, blazing the lonely night with the glory of God, had proclaimed to them.  This in itself was a curiosity - the glory displayed through the angelic herald, and through the heavenly host, spoke powerfully of the greatness of the Child.  The angel's description - the promised Messiah, the needed Savior, the proclaimed Lord - would have further assured them that this was a matter of great importance, even if it was not apparent that by "Lord," "Lord of all heaven and earth" was intended.  So they hastened into town, determined to find Jesus (Luke 2:16).

In spite of the majesty and the grandeur which obviously lay within the infant Jesus, the angels did not go up to Jerusalem and proclaim these tidings.  The great kings of the world were not visited.  The religious chiefs of Israel were passed over, in favor of a handful of hardy shepherds of no consequence.  In that day and that time, shepherds were regarded as untrustworthy, unsavory characters, to the point that they were not permitted to testify in court,¹ so it is richly ironic that God should so graciously choose such as them to testify of the arrival of the Savior (Luke 2:17).  These were Christ's first earthly messengers, not clothed in pomp and regality, as befits a king, but in unwashed working clothes.

These shepherds were favored not only with a dazzling vista of divine glory and heavenly joy, but with the offer of staggering grace.  "...For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:11; emphasis added) This Jesus would extend the offer of salvation specifically to these shepherds, just as He would specifically to countless others!  One cannot help but be reminded of Colossians 3:11b and its description of our renewal in Christ:  "no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all."  Our heavenly Father impartially adopts us into His family, and we are made brothers and sisters to each other just as truly as we become sons and daughters to Him.  Thus does a simple Roman jailer worship alongside a wealthy Jewish woman in Acts 16, and a prominent Pharisee-turned-apostle draw spiritual comfort from a young believer of mixed parentage in 2 Timothy 4:11.  The gospel is offered to all, and Christ, through His powerful grace, draws His people from all walks of life, to the praise of His name!

That unforgettable night, it was granted finally to the shepherds to visit the Child and gaze upon Him with seeking eyes and wondering hearts.  This brings us back to the beginning.  As they beheld Jesus, one cannot but wonder if the ordinariness of the scene might have assaulted their consciences.  Here was a masterful, anointed Savior from heaven, celebrated by the realm of holiness, and when He came to earth, there was nothing of the glory He so clearly deserved.  He rested His head on straw, and He was attended by sinful parents and sinful shepherds.  Mark this:  any personal excursion into humanity constitutes a relinquishment of indescribable and divine glory for Christ, no matter what the circumstances.  The situation in question, however, represented perhaps one of the greatest descents into humility imaginable.  He came not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45).  He waded unflinchingly into the thick of humanity. 

Ironically, in so laying aside His glory, Jesus saw His name exalted over all others (Phil. 2:5-9).  At the same time, He also laid down for us an example of the godly attitude which we must emulate as His followers (Phil. 2:5), and herein lies the principle.  Jesus' humility is what afforded humanity His exemplary life, just as His grace is what provided us with His saving death.  How wonderfully both of these are realized through the story of these humble shepherds, crushed by glory as the great Shepherd arrived into their world!



1:  Taken from the Reformation Study Bible note on Luke 2:8 - available under "Show resources" at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%202&version=NASB. 

How Glorious Is Glorious?

God lays waste to the great city of the Antichrist, bringing it and its people to utter and eternal ruin.  His holy servants rejoice at the everlasting punishment to visited upon those wretched adherents:  "Hallelujah!  Her smoke rises up forever and ever." (Rev. 19:3b)

Christ and the disciples see a man blind from birth.  Jesus explains that this man was made blind (by God - Ex. 4:11) "so that the works of God might be displayed in him." (John 9:3b) This long-established plan could not have happened without sin in the world to blight our race. 

God Himself declared, "I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these." (Is. 45:6b-7)

These snapshots from scripture, and many others like them, give us to believe that God is perhaps closer to everything than we might have guessed.  We begin to see, put plainly, that God's plan from eternity past willfully included a sin-soaked world.  While we absolutely cannot, and never should, suggest that God is the author of evil, or the agent of its introduction into our midst, neither can we suppose that God was taken by surprise in Genesis 3, or that He had to change His plan after sin came in.  No; what man means for evil, God means for good (Gen. 50:20).  Not a single purpose of the Lord's goes unaccomplished (Is. 46:10), so we may say that sin surely did not turn the least of His plans aside.  If God is absolutely certain to accomplish all of His intended purposes, we must acknowledge that this means He leaves nothing, absolutely nothing, to chance, so His plans necessarily include sin.

This is tremendously comforting.  If God is sovereign over evil, but is Himself holy, then He has the upper hand in all things, and we may rest securely in His promises.  If, on the other hand, we are sovereign over evil, or perhaps Satan, then this inordinate hole in God's absolute control constitutes a terrifying, and probably condemning, idea.  Evil can best us, but more frightening yet, evil can best God Himself.  Praise Him that this is not so!

But if indeed God is sovereign over evil, as is easily demonstrated by scripture, why should there be evil at all?  We cannot content ourselves with the commonly-held thought that He desires the exercise of human free will, and so evil must be suffered to exist.  We have already made mention of Isaiah 46:10 - God accomplishes all of His purposes, so He must necessarily have created this world, and everything in it, for the fulfillment of His purposes.  There is no room, then, for the preeminence of man's will alongside God's:  only one can reign supreme, and scripture declares that it is God's that does so.  And even if this were not so, if God were reluctant to allow evil into the world, He would not have orchestrated things such that a single sin devastated all things as it did.  God would not have allowed sin to propagate by default into every descendent of Adam and Eve.  He would not have cursed the entire world.  He would not have allowed Job to endure such demonic hardships for no fault of his own.  He certainly would not have chosen to direct a demon to entice Ahab to go into a losing battle in 1 Kings 22, and so forth.  The effect of sin upon the world and upon humanity were decided solely by the Creator, and His decision casts much light on His intentions.

There must be another reason besides that of man's presumed free will.  Paul reminds us of a piece of Old Testament truth:  "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.'" (Rom. 9:17) Pharaoh, that great opposer of God's purposes and God's people, was raised up, and indeed allowed to live (Ex. 9:16) expressly so that, in dealing with his treachery, God could show Himself to be mighty and so spread His fame across the world. 

This is simply astonishing.  As we reel from the implications, Paul goes further:  "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?" (Rom. 9:22)  So the display of God's wrath enters the equation, as well as that of His patience.  Yet again, and most tremendously:  " And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." (Rom. 9:23)

Glory!  As believers, can our hearts help but quicken at the mere mention of this word in connection with our Lord?  This is the heart of the matter, friend.  How can God show His merciful disposition?  In the forgiveness of sinners; mercy has no more immediate value in a sinless world than a candle in the hot sun.  It would be admirable, but not necessary, and certainly not understood.  How can He display perfect patience?  In not destroying us inherently wicked humans where we stand!  And what of His justice?  He must hold all of this world of evil to His just standards, and pour out His just wrath for His children upon His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to see that justice satiated.  And would we know the strength of His power without His conquest of evil, even the very evil in our own hearts? 

Grace, power, justness, wrath, patience, and so on - these are mere words until we see them come alive in the glorious deeds of our great God.  We should not understand them at all, but for our fallen, wretched existence.  The working of evil, although loathsome to God in every respect, is the backdrop against which the manifold triumphs of His perfect and unchanging character are thrown into brilliant and razor-sharp relief.  The Lord has actively included evil in His all-encompassing purposes, not because He loves it, but because He hates it with a prostrating, vengeful, eternal vigor, and He desires that His creation understand Him in this way - there is immense anger and immense power, but from this fearsome understanding we survey also the vastness of His mercy and love.

In a sentence, He makes His glory the most important thing in the universe.  Being perfectly righteous, God does this because it is wholly fitting that we should cherish and worship the unimaginable perfections which reside, solely and eternally, in Him.  Who could be more worthy of our attention, our devotion, and our allegiance than He?  Thus He does great things, things that muzzle human pride and arrest human strength, because He seeks to unveil "the riches of His glory." 

Evil exists because God, in His glorious wisdom, has decided that He may work against it and so show His glory.  Some may balk at such a thought, apparent though it is in His book.  They say, "Are you telling me that all the pain and all the death and all the cruelty that have ever existed in this age have their existence simply so that God can show who He is?"  To this, a simple "Yes!" will do.

It is dangerous, friend, to question God's omniscient prerogatives.  Such an attitude as this reveals that we have already formed an opinion, altogether too low, about the importance of God's glory, and have in fact allowed this opinion to shape our philosophy.  We say, in effect, "God's glory is not great enough for this world of evil in which we live."  How sadly backwards is this thinking!  We must come at things from the opposite standpoint:  the Bible says that God has suffered evil to propagate into this world, according to His longstanding decree, in order that He might be far more strongly glorified.  Rather than looking about us and scoffing the sheer impossibility of this, we must look about us and conclude that God's glory must simply be far, far more glorious than we had ever imagined, and far, far stronger than we had ever considered.  What effect might this realization have upon our perception of the Lord, or upon our attitude toward our own lives and hardships? 


Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped.  He said,

"Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord."

- Job 1:20-21

Fitted for Wonder

Long decades and many miles after the Israelites had been led from Egypt by God's omnipotent hand, they finally stood poised to begin their conquest of the Promised Land.  God's hand had not left them, and the wayfaring nation stood ready.  Now the surging Jordan River lay between them and Jericho, and God was about to work a wonder. 

The next day, His might would see this flooded, coursing river utterly stopped, its torrents piled in an inexplicable heap miles away, until the Israelites, stepping out onto the soft bed before them, would find naught but dry ground beneath their sandals.  God in His limitless power would once again prove unencumbered by the very natural laws which He had laid down at creation, and Israel would soon have a home. 

Joshua said to his people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." (Josh. 3:5b) This is an interesting sort of imperative for him to issue on the verge of the parting of the Jordan.  Why should they consecrate themselves?  What bearing might it have?  Indeed; Joshua did not say, "Consecrate yourselves, so that tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you."  Indeed, there is no cause and effect suggested here at all.  What, then, is the purpose of this command?

1.  The worthiness of God.  God deserves, richly and in every way, to be attended by holiness as He works His wonders.  He Himself is the Sun of holiness; it radiates from His very being just as light and heat issue from our central star, and He commands His people, "Be holy, for I am holy." (Lev. 11:44, etc.) Is it not wholly fitting that the Israelites, being made aware that greatness, unspeakable and divine, would soon be upon them once more, should seek to clothe themselves in a humble and pure godliness?  What could be a more appropriate response to the miraculous and gracious working of a holy God on behalf of an often wayward people?  Our God deserves holiness from His people, and indeed has laid works of holiness before them (Eph. 2:10). 

2.  The gladness of His people.  The Israelites could not rely upon the pure wonder of the God's work to stir their very human hearts.  If they wanted to savor the undiluted glory of it, if they wanted to rejoice in the Lord at the sight of it, they needed to prepare themselves beforehand.  We see this in our own lives at times, do we not?  In those moments when pride has free course in our hearts, we are unmoved by the moving hand of God.  God's provision in difficulty, His resolution of a demanding situation, even His salvation of a previously unyielding and dead heart do not move us, but leave us only with a vague sense of scorn, skepticism, or indifference.  By God's grace, sometimes this spiritual apathy is enough to startle and to stir us into repentance, but oh!  It is a far, far greater thing to see His work with holy eyes and to come unencumbered to His throne in humble adoration.  It is an exquisite and lingering shame when the sounds of God's matchless glory fall upon the deaf ears of His very own children!

Joshua's words serve as a warning and a challenge to believers in all ages.  Are we honoring a dserving God with consecrated spirits?  Are our hearts so cleansed as to desire to see His glory?  Do the manifestations of His amazing grace find a glad welcome in us?  If we do not see much of God's work around us, miraculous or otherwise, should we not consider that perhaps we are not cultivating holiness in our hearts, and so are not looking for or desiring His glory as it comes down?  Friends, let us fight the spiritual decay that can lead only to spiritual apathy!

Perfect Patience

Our infinitely holy God, by sheer virtue of His infinite holiness, is possessing of an infinite hatred of sin.  He cannot help but be so.  Holiness cannot choose but to oppose sin, or it is not holiness at all.  God removed of holiness is an impossibility, a horrible bit of paradoxical double-talk, so we conclude that He hates sin as steadily and as comprehensively as a thing could ever be hated (cf. Prov. 6:16-19). 

The utter repugnance of sin which resides within the Divine leads us to conclude that the barest shadow of patience within God in the face of sin must also be of infinite weight.  As God has righteously and immutably chosen to be the omniscient, incorruptible Judge of all the world (Acts 17:31), He cannot merely turn His back on sin.  He thus has every reason to hate sin and every motive to punish it, as well.

What happens, then, when infinite and holy justice collide with infinite and holy grace?  A window of incredible value is opened up:  a window of divine patience.  It is only this window that affords us any sort of chance at all to be saved by His grace.  The sword remains in its sheath; the Rider has not mounted His war horse, and we are incredibly extended the offer of salvation.  "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Pet. 3:9) Dear, divine patience!

There are those who would reckon this patience as weakness in our avenging Lord, or as proof of His fictitious origins (2 Pet. 3:3-4), but we know and rejoice that "He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed." (Acts 17:31b) So God's patience with sinners, my friends, is of infinite quality, but not of eternal quality (an interesting combination in our Lord).  It will reach its end on the day that God chose long ages ago.

Mark this well, brothers and sisters.  There is immeasurable glory in God's patience, just as there is incredible glory in His grace.  This divine forbearance floods the humble soul with a very tangible proof of God's incredible love, does it not?  However, there is no glory whatsoever for God to display through an eternal patience.  An eternity in which hell stands empty and unused demonstrates not patience, but apathy.  We see no justice here; only accommodation for sinners at the expense of God's holiness and biblical assertions.  Similarly, an incredibly long patience as God waits until all sinners repent reveals not a sovereign, loving God, but a weak sort of god who is enslaved to his own creation, who cannot move until they have, and whose words of warning are fodder for the scorn of depravity.  See how Christ's teaching about the narrow way (Matt. 7:13-14) is thus turned on its head. 

No, there lies in store for the unrepentant a fixed day in which the vast ocean of God's just wrath will confound its present bounds and break loose upon the world of God's enemies, roller upon everlasting roller.  The unsaved will by eternally drowned in the fury of the great Judge, immovably secured to an existence in which darkness, anguish, and loneliness are their only and just lot.  This is true because God's holiness and righteousness require it, but note too how well it shows us the strength of His present forbearance.  Let our lifelong brush with the immense patience of God prompt us to honor Him by making the greatest use of it - by obtaining so great a salvation, by growing in that salvation, and by proclaiming that salvation to others!

Faith in the Divine Filter

"Why is this happening to me?"

This is not so bad a question for Christians to ask, so long as we are prepared for the answer - so long as we seek the truth, rather than conclude that there is none to be had.  There is always a true answer to this question, truth that is long-standing and settled in the mind of the Lord. 

This truth is situated in the heart of Romans 8:28:  "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."  This is doubtlessly one of the most beloved verses in Christendom, but let us take care that our regard springs from good and true reasons.  This verse appoints us not, as some suppose, to a life of ease (i.e. everything will go well), but to one of purpose.  A cursory run through the biblical narratives suffices to reveal teh prodigious hardships that have been endured by God's chosen, even the most formidable and earnest of His saints, even when none of their actions would merit such trial. 

Beyond this, James urges his readers to "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials" (James 1:2), certain that it is not a question of "if," but "when."  Joseph delivers this wisdom to his traitorous brothers:  "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..." (Gen. 50:20a)  Evil is directed toward us, but God means it for good. 

Returning to Romans 8:28, we see the absoluteness of this divine work:  "God causes all things."  This means that every one of the events and circumstances which find their way into our lives are intentional, and that intention is laid down by none other than our loving, omnipotent God Himself.  There is, in effect, a divine filter that assures that those trials which actually reach us are designed for our good.  Consider how this same filter was seen in full force in Job 1 - God turned aside barb after satanic barb before allowing a very specific trial to visit its devastating impact upon His servant Job. 

With this in mind, the astonishing thing is not that we believers labor under difficulty, but that we labor under such small difficulty.  Indeed, the care that our Lord demonstrates through Romans 8:28 means that we should meet trials with something approaching curiosity:  why, indeed, has this particular trial made its way to me?  How will God use this for good?  This neither blunts the force of the trial nor softens its difficulty, but it frames it in the appropriate context of God's selective, sovereign purposes.  It invites a righteous response from the heart of faith that is assured both of the Father's changeless, loving motivation, and of the Father's faithfulness to lavish the needed grace to endure upon our humble frames. 

Does the tragedy of the present hardship crush my very heart?  My God has good and loving purposes behind this circumstance that will far oustrip and outweigh the immediate anguish.  Is this trial immense in its power upon me?  The power which God communicates to my soul is stronger yet, is stronger beyond my feeble reckoning. 

Any number of difficult things might have come about today, but this is the one that did, by God's will, for His glory, and yes, for my good.  Praise Him in all things!

The Adoption Bonus

This incredible declaration by our Lord was cited in a recent sermon by John Cox in connection with the cross of Christ:

"For thus says the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
'I dwell on a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite.'"

- Isaiah 57:15

It is a simple pronouncement, but let us not overlook the amazing implications contained therein. The Lord crafted this statement before time began; He delivered it in an age of antiquity, and He has taken omnipotent care to preserve it up to this very day and through time. Let us look again, then. The holy, eternal High King of all things, who dwells in a place of exaltation, nevertheless does not hesitate to dwell with those who are indescribably lower than Himself - people like us.

He tell us this in His Word because there is glory in it for us to survey. In fact, this verse points to the central glory of all the universe. We may make what seems a simple case that the Lord could easily have divined a way to save us without drawing near to us and revealing that wonderful nearness. The fact that our purposeful, deliberate, careful God did not choose to execute things in this manner is very telling: if asked what the aim of redemptive history truly is, we cannot answer simply, "Salvation, of course." There is more to it than this. Salvation lies at the core of redemptive history - hence the name - but what it accomplishes is the illumination of the unspeakable glory of God. Mark this well. He draws near to the lowly not because He must, but because as He draws near, His glory looms incredibly larger and clearer. The aim of redemptive history is the glory of God.

This is clearly expressed in Ephesians 1:4b-6: "In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Do you marvel at the glory? We are lovingly grafted into a place we dare not presume to insinuate ourselves: the very family of the Almighty. He comes to dwell in our midst according to His own predetermined plan, and this occurs not "to the salvation of His people," but "to the praise of the glory of His grace."

Our salvation both demonstrates God's glory and gives us eyes to perceive it, until our hearts are saturated and overflowing with an unprecedented, unexpected gladness. Yet atop this glittering and lofty mountain of grace, the Lord has still more to pile and to heap, until we are blinded and staggered again at the renewed brilliance before us. The divine arm that extends to save us is the selfsame arm which draws us irrevocably into the eternal and holy family of God, there to remain forever. We see His eternal, infinite glory in His salvation and His adoption, and we will rightfully praise Him forever for the glory that we see.

In considering the happy pinnacle of utmost blessing on which we now permanently stand, let us not stop short by considering only the grace that we receive, but also the glory that the one true God receives. The grace points to the glory; the salvation points to the Savior. If our thinking allows us to divorce the glory from the grace, the grace begins to mutate into entitlement, and the vacuum created will inevitably replace God's glory with our own - a poor and transient substitute at any time.

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

-Ephesians 3:20-21

What to Do with the President

The presidential election has come and gone once more here in America, and the Christian community has mixed feelings.  Some believers are ecstatic, when they certainly should not be.  Some are downcast for purely wrong reasons.  Some have good call for concern and sadness. 

It becomes every believer living in a democracy to cherish a uniquely Christian conviction when scrutinizing political candidates.  Dr. MacArthur said it well recently:  "You’re not voting for a pastor, you’re not voting for a spiritual leader, you’re voting for someone who has some sense of morality. Since the Bible says that the role of government is to punish evil doers and protect the good, you better have somebody in power who understands what is good and what is evil."  This is good perspective to bear in mind - let us spend our passions upon those things regarding which the Lord has spoken clearly and loudly in His Word:  the sanctity of unborn life, the narrow definition of marriage, the call to earn one's bread, the relationship we are to have with Israel, and so forth.

Much may be said about these matters, and indeed much has been said in the months leading up to the election, so I will not belabor this any further.  However, I would like to address the question of what we do from here as believers.  We have made our choices and cast our votes, and I would hazard to assert that any believer that loves God and His timeless truth is not pleased about Obama's re-election.  However, what do we do from here?  Three brief suggestions:

1.  Prayer.  "First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.  This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim. 2:1-4) We are to pray for our leaders, that they may be saved, for two reasons.  Not only is this attitude pleasing to our God, who loves to save people, but it will help us to conduct ourselves as believers in peace as we strive to carry out God's call to make disciples.  Consider for a moment if our nation were largely governed by people of true godliness and Christlike integrity - how might the Lord use such conditions for the furthering of His kingdom?  A direct question, now - do you pray for President Obama's salvation?

2.  Obedience.  The unsavory aftermath of this election does not arm believers with any sort of license to disobey their government.  Do we fear that injustices against God's established moral system will be redoubled?  Certainly.  Will we be disappointed, distraught, and dissatisfied with many of the choices made?  Without question.  However, this objections can hardly surmount the decree of the Lord concerning authorities, delivered by Paul to the believers living in the capital city of Caesar, of all rulers:  "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.  Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves." (Rom. 13:1-2) These are strong words that brook no excuses. 

An example close to home may illuminate.  I am a gun owner, both for personal enjoyment and for personal defense.  I believe firmly in the right to own firearms, and adamantly oppose modern gun control efforts for law-abiding citizens.  This being said, what should be my response if, say, the 2nd Amendment were repealed, and the government required all citizens to turn in their firearms?  Quite simply, my response needs to be to take my entire firearms collection to the appropriate collection point and turn it over without a joyful heart.  God's Word makes no provisions for my hiding guns under the floorboards, or burying them in the desert, or marching on Washington with a gun in my hand.  Such a response conveys a greater trust in metallurgy and smokeless powder than in the sovereign God of Romans 13. 

3.  Patience.  We Christians tend to not be dull and passionless.  Let us take care, though, that our passions are not misspent or poorly focused.  You discuss abortion with a staunch pro-choicer, for instance.  Are you consumed with a defense of pro-life philosophy, or with concern for this person's soul?  If they are saved, they need loving correction.  If they are not, the gospel is the first priority.  Rallying to a pro-life banner will not, in itself, alter an unbeliever's trajectory one hundredth of a degree away from eternal hell.

The same applies on a larger scale.  We can rant and rail about the poor decisions that the present administration is making, but do our just concerns prompt us to become embittered worriers, or praying, zealous workers within God's eternal kingdom?  Treating the symptoms of unbelief without addressing the unbelief itself does not breed salvation, only hypocrisy, and as a side note, will not save this nation.  This thrusts us, quite appropriately, into the realm of evangelism, and evangelism requires patience and compassion.


The same truth lies at the root of all of these points - the truth of Psalm 103:19: "The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all."  We can follow a sovereign God in the program He has determined for His people because He is utterly sovereign, and His omniscience, compassion, wisdom, and omnipotence accompany Him through His sovereign work. 

Opposite Father, Inverse Child

Your dad unbuckles you from your car seat, and he rushes you into the house to keep you from getting soaked in the rain. Later, he makes sure you clean up your room and are learning to be organized.  He encourages you to keep trying on your math homework and gives you hints, and so on - saving money, kindness to peers, demonstrating responsibility, communicating well.  Most importantly, He gives you the gospel, that you might be saved, and then urges to read the Word and to pray to the Lord, that you might grow and remove yourself from the coattails of your parents' faith.  Over the span of your childhood, his mission, like your mom's, is to raise you and train you such that you are able to function (as a believer, he hopes) in all spheres of life without constant, intense reliance upon him. 

Your heavenly Father, on the other hand, lovingly drew you to Himself when you despised Him and wanted nothing to do with Him (Rom. 3:11, 1 John 4:10).  Having secured your justification from sins through the blood of His Son, He did not cease His work in you, but continued with you and does so even to this day.  Here, though, begins a key difference between your earthly father and your heavenly Father.  If the similarities between earthly fathers and our heavenly Father are richly instructive to our understanding of God, so also are the differences. 

The difference here is that while our earthly fathers rightly seek to decrease our reliance upon them, God is actively working in His children to teach us more and more that we incessantly need Him.  We are not resting upon the laurels of our own presumed goodness, as man-made religion does, but we are renouncing it as naught but filthy rags, even as God does.  Christ said, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing," (John 15:5b) and we believe Him.  What constitutes foolishness to the world is life and growth and joy to us. 

Hear what Paul, that great and mature apostle, says about our reliance upon the Father:

• Rom. 8:15 - "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'"  The spirit within us leads us to cry, not, "I am able!", but "I need the Father who has adopted me!"
• Col. 3:17 - "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."  All that we do is to be done with a heart of proper thankfulness toward the Father.
• Eph. 3:14-16 - "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man..."  Here Paul professes his humble prayer to the Father that His Spirit would strengthen the people of the Ephesian church.  On display, then, is Paul's reliance upon the Father, and the Ephesian church's reliance as well. 
• Col. 1:29 - "For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."  Paul labors, relying upon God's strength in him as he does so.

We see, then, just from these few examples, that the path to powerful and effective Christian living is only through God and His grace.  If we do not rely upon Him as we seek to work in righteousness, our hands are empty and our hearts are wayward. 

The temptation, though, is to consider that as we grow in our faith, we can contend with more on our own, apart from humble prayer or strengthening grace.  We see this at times with longtime Christians who judge that they can "handle" temptations which they could not in their younger days.  It is strange indeed to think that in the bud of one's Christian walk, "handling" temptation meant turning to the Father with urgency and fleeing temptation, while for the seasoned believer, it can come to mean demonstrating how one can entertain the temptation and remain (supposedly) unaffected by it.  So our nightstands become arrayed, rank and file, with spiritual books that may entertain on one hand, but play fast and loose with cherished spiritual truths on the other!  So also are our televisions allowed to show us things which should not be countenanced, because we think this is proof of our righteous integrity!  How came our hearts to be so beguiled?  Our years in the faith should prompt us only to turn to the Father with greater zeal and with greater urgency, as He leads us by His own righteous hand.  We mature by reliance upon the Father, and indeed we mature into reliance upon the Father.  There is no other way, my friend. 

Man the Creator vs. God the Creator

I happened upon an article recently, a sad little piece of scientific amour propre, the thrust of which was that the recent attainments of the scientific realm have drawn shockingly close to legitimately expunging God from our understanding of the universe's origins.  While in the past, says the article, people have made awkward attempts to graft science and creationism together, "a foremost goal of modern physics is to formulate a working theory that describes the entire universe, from subatomic to astronomical scales, within a single framework. Such a theory, called 'quantum gravity,' will necessarily account for what happened at the moment of the Big Bang."

In short, a central effort within the scientific community seeks to explain the universe without a divine Originator.  To this end, the article declares later that "[t]he Big Bang could've occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there. With the laws of physics, you can get universes."

As believers devoted to the truth of Scripture as fact, not fable or opinion, how do we answer this?  We respond with dismay and sadness, certainly, but there are two responses which are wholly inappropriate. 

1.  Surprise.  We know from Romans 3:11 and others that the world does not seek after God.  This is an ironclad principle; there are no exceptions.  It is only the gracious intervention of the Spirit which turns the eye of contempt into the eye of faith (cf. 1 Cor. 2:10). We do not, then, expect the world to seek the one true God as its Creator and Sustainer.

Nor do we suppose that this modern age represents a fundamental departure for unbelievers from the disbelief of the past.  In other words, this scientific trend does not augment their disbelieving hearts with another layer of armor which must somehow be penetrated.  There have always been unbelievers who do not believe that the earth is the Lord's creation; it matters but little that they are now attaching impressive-sounding names and theories to their suppositions.  Whether unbelievers cloister themselves within this scientific garrison or not, we know that it is only the power of God that can transplant life into their dead, motionless hearts.  The presence of a godless, scientific worldview within such people does not in the slightest tax the reach of God, or the compassion of God, or the wisdom of God.  We know that "He has mercy on whom He desires" (Rom. 9:18b), and God Himself says, "My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure." (Is. 46:10b) His arm of salvation will always move with insuperable purpose and indomitable love.

2.  Doubt.  If we survey the above quote from the article, we note a certain lexical consistency:  these are words of possibility, not of certainty.  Thus we are given "theories" about what "could've" happened, and so forth.  God, when He creates, creates the universe, while man, when he creates, creates theories to dismiss the creative work of God. 

The problem with these theories is that they attempt to explain scientifically that which is entirely unscientific.  It is the proverbial apple next to the orange.  It is like saying you are going to douse your campfire by playing an old 78 of Wagner.  If you scratch your head and re-read that sentence, you have captured the intent.  The idea is ludicrous.  And neither do we explain creation using science.  Consider what science tells us in no terms of uncertainty.  For instance, it declares that matter cannot be created or destroyed.  Much hinges upon this truth, and yet matter must have had its origin at some point and from some cause.  We might also consider the second law of thermodynamics, which says that entropy cannot decrease; that is, that disorder is always increasing (i.e. ice melts in a glass of water).  How then could a "Big Bang" furnish the initial order of the universe?  Can science disclose this without violating its own principles?  Never!

Let us go yet one step further.  If, as scientists posit, the laws of physics in themselves are sufficient to create the universe, do we suppose then that the laws of physics predate space, matter, and time?  Are we to attribute to them the eternal, transcendent, self-existent character which belongs to God?  From what root did these laws spring?  And how could they (or why would they) exist without the matter and the time and the space which, on one hand, regulate them, and, other the hand, are held in their grip, as it were?  The words of Romans 1:25 echo rather ominously through our hearts with these thoughts:  "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."

I myself use science daily in my work; as an engineer, I apply it, but I do not investigate it.  As such, my knowledge is admittedly imperfect; howver, it seems clear that, for all the testing and dialog, science continues to fail with regard to the actual creation of all things.  Its theories cannot encompass this question. 

God does not labor under any such struggles.  Man may theorize, but God declares.  His Word begins, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  There is no ambiguity in this statement as to how the universe came into being.  Genesis 1 carefully records that God created it, and in six days.  Isaiah 44:24-25 records the magnificent and inimitable declaration of our preincarnate Savior:

"Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb,
'I, the Lord, am the maker of all things,
Stretching out the heavens by Myself
And spreading out the earth all alone,
Causing the omens of boasters to fail,
Making fools out of diviners,
Causing wise men to draw back
And turning their knowledge into foolishness…'”

Man's trifling theorizing cannot stand before God's omnipotent pronouncement.  Praise, praise Him!

What's in a Name?

I think I have said it myself.  I have heard it from others.  Perhaps you have said it yourself.  With some combination of amusment, bewilderment, and derision, someone has just asked, "So what religion are you?"  You reply, "It's more of a lifestyle than a religion; I'm a follower of Christ."  This need not be a undesirable statement, but let us consider it more closely.

The name “Christian” has been tainted by several unfortunate associations.  First, we see it appropriated by innumerable farcical “churches,” who have simply pinned Christ's name to their deity.  Second, it is claimed by anyone who attends either a genuine or cultish church, even if his or her profession of faith in "Chist" is as thin, and as transparent, as shrink wrap.  Tragically, the world is all too happy to affirm these definitions:  anyone who at least professes allegiance to Christ is a Christian, regardless of the truth of their devotion or the truth of their Christ.  

This does much to water down the term, to be sure.  However, I remain unconvinced that this forces us to the conclusion that the term is unsuitable.  To this end, I appeal to the historical nature of the term – not because traditions must be upheld, but because the past reminds us what it means to claim the title “Christian."

"Christian" (Χριστιανός) was the term given to believers in the cradle years of the church (Acts 11:26).  Not many years after this, having this title attributed to oneself was enough to earn persecution or martyrdom, even from the state.  "If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you...if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name." (1 Peter 4:14, 15b, emphasis added)

In other words, there is cause to glorify God in your label as a Christian, even if and when that moniker invites hardship.  There is every indication that the fledgling church took this to heart; our early brothers and sisters were often obliged to stand before their accusers and stare into the black face of martyrdom, and many said nothing but, "I am a Christian."  These few words assured dire recourse from their enemies, but they would say nothing else.  J. Spencer Northcote records that when they were pressed further, they would reply in this manner:  "I have already said that I am a Christian; and he who says that has thereby named his country, his family, his profession, and all things else besides." ¹

Today, though, "Christian" has become the moral password which politicians whisper to quickly establish trust.  It is the card which cults lay down in their plays for legitimacy and trust.  It is the color which teenagers brush upon themselves to avoid close scrutiny in their lives.  How did this word lose its original force?  Why has the absolute truth behind it been displaced by ecumenical well-wishing and lies?  This can only be the result of a church which has become all but indiscernible against the backdrop of the world.

To be sure, there will always be those who desire to twist and steal the name and truth of Christ, because this remains a permanent feature of the demonic mission, but there is no sense in our adding fuel to this ancient fire.  We must stand distinct from the world, moving opposition to the world, and "preach[ing] Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness." (1 Cor. 1:23b) To unbelievers who know this sort of church, the word "Christian" is usually not one that they desire to place upon themselves, lest they be blighted with the shame that they themselves attribute to believers, or the anger that righteousness stirs within them, or the scorn that they share among their comrades. 

Our lesson is clear; it has been proven out by history as well as by scripture.  As we draw closer and more uncompromisingly toward Christ, we neutralize the perceived benefits of falsely claiming Christ until they cannot outweight the hardships which the world affords (and which are to us but jewels in the crown of joy).  This is our course and our directive if we are to remake our own name into something more worthy of the one true Christ.

I am a Christian.  I belong to a worldwide, a national, and yes, a local church that has not done all it could.  I have not done all that I could, but still I am a Christian.

 

1:  Northcote, J. Spencer.  Epitaphs of the Catacombs or Christian Inscriptions in Rome During the First Four Centuries.  London: Longman, Green, & Co., 1878; repr., Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. p. 139.  Quoted from MacArthur, John.  Slave:  The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010. p. 9.

Christ Upholds the Reality of Human Responsibility

"What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy."
                                                      - Romans 9:14-16

We believe these words, and many others like them, because they are contained in God's book.  The dispensation of mercy comes from God's hands in accordance with His own sovereign choices, not in accordance with our actions.  This axiomatic - mercy, by definition, is not earned.  However, this truth has been met with more than its fair share of criticism, of course, as it asserts that the choice of salvation resides with God, not with the person. 

The natural conclusion of this is the question of how then God can condemn people to hell, if their salvation is His choice?  Paul addresses this in Romans 9:20-21:  "You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?' On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this,' will it?"  In other words, we are to acknowledge, without fully understanding, that God can choose to graciously save, and then condemn those whom He has passed over in the same moment, and there is surely no injustice in His so doing. 

We can accept this, but if we are honest with ourselves, it seems at times difficult to content ourselves with a concept so removed from our understanding.  We cannot help but wonder how this idea can stand up.  Fortunately, we may look to the words of Christ for two points of real and true comfort:

1.  Legitimacy.  "When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.'" (Luke 19:41-42) Here our Savior weeps and laments for the unsaved in Jerusalem.  If we sometimes struggle with feeling as though human responsibility in salvation is a merely ornamental element, we are comforted that the omniscient Christ never for a moment succumbed to this sentiment.  This was not forced emotion or sentiment for the sake of those around Him - there is no duplicity in the countenance of the Savior.

How precious and true are the tears of the Lord Jesus!  Do we give the due consequence to the lamentations of One who is beyond any form of dissembly, who understands as none of us can the utter sovereignty which is in His own very hands?  His tears fall neither lightly or inappropriately; rather, they come laden with a full understanding both of human nature and of divine nature.  If indeed the Lord Jesus can shed tears over the unfaithfulness of the unsaved, then we may rest assured that He at least considers their disbelieving choices to be of a very real substance.  Note that this lamentation is made even while sovereignly declaring that these unbelievers will not be allowed to see "the things which make for peace."

2.  Rationale.  "Then He said again to them, 'I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.'" (John 8:21) A glimmer of understanding lies within these words.  Jesus declares that the unbelieving Pharisees will die in their sins; that is, that their sins will remain upon their own heads when they die.  And so it would be for all of us, were it not for God's intervening grace.  We are each of us born in under the dark pall of sin; in condemning us, our divine Judge merely dispenses exactly what is deserved.  If He chooses to save us, He gives us what we do not deserve, but this does not affect the deservedness and personal culpability of those whom He passes over.  Human nature condemns, while divine grace saves.  Thus God is glorified for saving His people, while at the same time showing Himself to be utterly just in His righteous condemnation.  This raises other questions that are difficult, but at the least, it serves to give us a glimpse of God's justice in terms that we may appreciate.

Awash in the Sea of Compromise

At one point in the film Anatomy of a Murder, a lawyer expresses disdain for the idea of attempting to fabricate a viable but artificial excuse for a murder, even though this would be the muderer's only chance for escape from a murder conviction.  A friend of his replies quite simply, "Maybe you're too pure, Paul. Too pure for the natural impurities of the law."  In other words, one must not scruple to operate with a tinge of immorality while in an immoral system; so doing can bring about desirable, or even moral, results.

This excites no astonishment in us; the shelves of literature and cinema are saturated with this very idea:  Robin Hood's clever thievery feed the grateful poor, and Harry Callahan kills the Scorpio Killer, then wordlessly discards his badge.  Sadly, however, this travels deep beyond fiction into the very fabric of our world, the very stuff of human life, and perhaps the greatest, most tragic example of this is the final hours of Jesus before the crucifixion.

The Pharisees tried the Savior with a stunning and flagrant disregard for their own laws:  demanding that He testify against Himself, trying Him at night, trying Him before Annas, who was not the high priest that year, trying Him without the Sanhedrin present, even striking Him during His questioning (John 18:12-24).  This they did because they judged it necessary to stop the Christ by any means possible.

Later, Pontius Pilate, who never gave the slightest inkling that he supposed the Savior guilty of anything, nevertheless ordered Him to be unspeakably torn and mutilated.  He so decreed in hopes that the Pharisees would be quieted and ultimately relent in their desire to kill Him (John 19:1-4).  Were I an acquaitance of Pilate, I would ask him to not do me any favors. 

But a moment later, the chief priests would achieve the very apogee of their ecstatic blasphemy in this austere declaration:  "We have no king but Caesar." (John 19:15b) In other words, "Forget this Man, Pilate - He is not our king.  Caesar, the very one whom we hate and chafe against and seek to throw off, is our only king.  Forget even the God of Israel - we are under no rule but that of Caesar.  So do we deny the very God we claim to serve, if only it means we may be rid of this troublesome carpenter whose claims we cannot dispute."  And in doing so, they spoke far better than they knew about their own allegiances.

This is the world of sin, my friends.  Without the regenerating work and righteous wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we possess no spiritual equilibrium - we suppose that we can usher in good ends through unsavory means.  We tilt a quart of motor oil to our lips and expect it will turn to honey in our stomachs.  It is not a matter of desiring this sort of compromise, but rather, of supposing that it is the only recourse available to us. 

Praise be to God, though, that this sort of moral compromise is utterly foreign to the Christian world.  It is never called for.  We may be fraught with confusion or reluctance in our pursuit of righteousness, but we will never find ourselves needing to harness sinful means to accomplish a righteous purpose.  So Peter, in speaking to those enslaved to unkind masters, can simply tell them to bear up submissively and righteously under such treatment (1 Peter 2:18-20).  This answer from Peter is not out of touch or obtuse; he simply declares that righteousness and endurance are that which please the Lord.  There is no circumstance in which the temporal consequences of righteousness render the relinquishment of that righteousness a valid option.

Furthermore,God will never lead us into a situation demanding moral compromise.  His righteousness, His omniscience, His sovereignty, and His omnisapience (complete wisdom) all stand as insurmountable fortresses that oppose the incursions of moral compromise:  there will never come a need for us to equivocate, in either word or deed, on our dearly-held, divinely-imparted righteous principles.  More directly, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." (James 1:13)

There are certainly times when we can feel as though compromise could help the Kingdom - perhaps to grow God's church or to establish a relational context with the unsaved.  These feelings are not from the Lord.  When Christians sinfully forgo a righteous act in hopes of accomplishing a righteous end, they have forgotten that the righteous act they spurned was itself the righteous end that God desired!  Our righteous response to our circumstances is the Lord's prescription, and it is His prerogative to work through our righteous deeds as He sees fit.  Consider Jeremiah and Paul, for instance - both godly men, obedient and righteous, and yet the results of their ministries were dramatically different. 

Our righteous deeds, then, become as humble offerings to the Lord, for His own use.  To deny this by sinful compromise is to judge that the Lord does not have His own best interests at heart.  Furthermore, it assumes that a situation can have but one outcome if a righteous prescription is followed - such a mockery to God in His sovereignty!  In a word, it demonstrates our opinion of God as a weak, foolish, very human sort of deity.  May these things never be.

Instead, we joyfully hold to the truth that God sees all ends and has ordained all ends, and we may therefore rest in our resolve to tenaciously pursue His righteous principles at every turn. Moral compromise is neither a requirement nor an option for the saint whose eyes are fixed on Christ, no matter what the circumstance.  Praise Him for this beautifully rigid certainty!