Christmas Indulgence and the Obedience Leading to Righteousness

As I’ve been mulling over a quiet time study of the book of Romans with the Lord, one challenge that has come to mind for this Christmas season is how I handle the season in view of satisfaction in the justifying grace of the Gospel for my heart.  The Christmas shopping season is a very indulgent season.  There are lots of good things for us to buy, but it’s very easy to make idols out of these good things, and out of our buying power for these good things.

Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing the obedience that leads to righteousness and the faith that follows sound doctrine as a faith that God makes possible by deliverance of the sinner onto that faith, all for knowing satisfaction in the justification of Christ alone and knowing new eternal life and joy with the Lord.  And knowing the Gospel with the Lord means shutting out personal desires to justify oneself, to magnify oneself in self-righteousness over immoral neighbors and socially fragmented neighbors, to the grace of the cross of Christ with the Lord, and looking to bring these immoral neighbors to saving faith of the Gospel and wisdom of the Gospel, the obedience that leads to righteousness, as part of knowing personal satisfaction in Christ alone with the Lord.

“What then?  Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?  Certainly not!  Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?  But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.  And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.  I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.  For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed?  For the end of those things is death.  But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 6:15-23)

There are two things that really confront me out of this passage of Romans.  One was that the apostle Paul apparently had no problem discipling Christians who had come out of a background of excessive wickedness, even criminal wickedness, and that Paul even expected these Christians to be leading elders in the church in Rome.  And the other thing was that money associated with the bondage of wickedness was on the same par with money associated with personal freedom or free man status and self-righteousness; it all leads to death – the wages of sin is death.  Knowing the Gospel as a good word for free men and self-righteous men with the Lord means putting away self-righteous money – self-righteous achievement – to the atoning cross of Christ with the Lord, and identifying oneself – empathizing oneself – with wicked men as part of walking by satisfaction in Christ alone with the Lord.  And these wicked men are to be led to righteous faith in Christ, to the point of being raised into the wisdom of Christian eldership for the church.

So in thinking about the aforementioned passage of Romans with the Lord, I got to thinking about the issue of homeless people living around Ballston Commons and Tysons Corners and Clarendon, between the cities of Arlington and Falls Church.  Ballston, Tysons and Clarendon are all prime shopping areas for the Christmas season.  And yet the great irony is that this is where self-righteousness usually raises its ugly head the most, in that shoppers step over homeless people or avoid their calls for money while the shoppers are busy getting discount gifts for their relatives.  And of course, affluent suburban parents have to protect their kids from the people living on the streets, even though we have greater access to security than ever before, what with the simple use of cell phones, let alone Internet news outlets that report crime within a matter of minutes.

So how does the Gospel get applied to social fragmentation among people during the indulgent shopping sprees of the Christmas season?  I got to thinking of a couple of approaches out of the aforementioned passage of Romans with the Lord, for my own life and for other Christians’ lives.  One approach is treating homeless people to simple meals and table conversation – table talk – in the midst of buying gifts for others.  Often times, I step over homeless people or say a simple hello in selfishness to them as they wallow on the sidewalks, in my expression of fear toward their status.  Really, what that fear shows is that I idolize my high achievements.  I didn’t get to where so-and-so was because I avoided trouble and achieved a good salary, and I’m not going to give up that high status to losers.

The Gospel-rooted alternative to that mindset – and that idolatry – is that I take the time out of my own shopping schedule to talk to homeless people, asking them if they’d like to share dinner with me or a cup of coffee with me at the shopping mall, and we’d get a chance to talk about each other’s lives.  I’d talk about my idolatry of high achievement and strong insistence on self-righteousness, and how I make it on family values and look down on those who don’t have homes to go to.  And I’d listen to the homeless dinner guest as he or she unravels a life story of fragmented family relationships and social relationships, and real bondage to wickedness and depravity in scrapping for money as the addiction, the pleasure idol, of his or her life.

And I would point that dinner guest to the Gospel as a new satisfaction for his or her life, but not just at that one moment of conversation.  I would have to follow up with that homeless person where he or she is in his or her life, and where he or she lives (relatively speaking), and continue in table talk meetings with that person, not only pointing them to saving faith in Christ, but also to wisdom in the grace of Christ, the obedience that leads to righteousness.  I would point that table talk friend to deep, ongoing satisfaction in the gift of justification and adoption in Christ from God, that the table talk friend would know new relationship, new sonship, in a continuous way with God.  And I would look to plug the table talk friend into the body life and fellowship of receiving and welcoming Christians in my own home church or in another local church where the table talk friend would feel most comfortable.  And at a very deep practical level of the Gospel, I would point that table talk friend to reconciliation with their family members – often very divisive and self-righteous family members – for the cause of the Gospel with the Lord.  So that one approach of taking in homeless persons for table talk would be an effective way of applying the Gospel message to the Christmas shopping season.

Of course, I should be quick to note that in no way will I be consistent with this approach, even on a minute to minute basis.  The Holy Spirit will expose His followers’ inconsistencies and hypocrisies by the inscribed Word.  Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing inconsistencies in the flesh under the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and looking to trust upon Jesus’ sacrifice as the atonement for personal hypocrisies with the Lord, all for witnessing the Gospel as a better word of grace than moralists’ words with the Lord.  ” . . . You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? . . . For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ as it is written” (Rom. 2:22; 2:24).  I should also note that prayer is a good resort for addressing the lives of homeless people during the shopping season.  If you or I cannot take the time for offering table talk to homeless people, for whatever reason, then we should take the time to pray to the Lord for other Christians to speak the Gospel message into these homeless people’s lives.  Witnessing the Gospel into the secular city with the Lord involves identifying oneself with the city in serving the city’s needs for the cause of the Gospel with the Lord.  But witnessing the Gospel onto the secular city with the Lord also involves asking the Lord for His raising up of fellow Christians to evangelize the Gospel into the city and serve the needs of the city for leading urban unbelievers to new saving faith in Christ.

“Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts; and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief administrator over all the wise men of Babylon.  Also Daniel petitioned the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego over the affairs of the province of Babylon; but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.”  (Dan. 2:48-49)

The Gospel message does not involve radicalized personal autonomy.  Part of the problem of homelessness is that radical sense of autonomy, whether it is self-righteous people shutting out one of their own from their homes, or homeless people slaving after money as their comfort idol.

When Daniel asks Nebuchadnezzar to let Daniel’s friends join in the leadership over the city of Babylon, Daniel is essentially trusting in the God of Moses, the great shepherd of Israel who was counseled by his father-in-law Jethro to include the elders of Israel in the leadership process, in order to avoid spiritual burnout.  Self-righteousness breeds radical autonomy, which breeds personal burnout, often in profound ways of divided social relationships and family relationships.  So I say to blog readers with the Lord, regarding homeless people: If you cannot take the time for engaging in Gospel-rooted table talk with homeless people during your shopping schedules, whether because of necessity or because of unwarranted fear, take the time to pray to the Lord that He would be the God of Moses and the God of Daniel and raise up new Christians to corporately witness the Gospel onto these homeless people’s lives, just as the Gospel has to be applied onto our own lives.

And the second approach that I thought of out of Romans for dealing with the Christmas season with the Lord was this: Learn to let go of your spending money for buying good things, even very special things, for homeless people, as part of shunning the wages of sin and rejoicing in the gift of eternal life in the Gospel.  When I look at homeless people on the way to the mall, I promise you that the last thing I’m thinking about is whether that person is worthy of the money in my wallet.  And that is the thought of self-righteousness, of covetousness; I can’t be broken down to sharing with someone else – I can’t empathize with someone else – and so I build my own mental fortress around my savings and dare outside people to merit themselves to my money.

But knowing the Gospel as a good word for personal satisfaction with the Lord involves realizing in a personal walk by grace with the Lord that money upheld to personal freedom is the same slave driver as money upheld to personal depravity and bondage to wickedness.  My wallet cracks the whip on my life.  I become so attached to my money and my high status achieved by my money that my money actually shapes the life that I live.  That is literally a warning from the Psalms: “Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them” (Psalm 115:8).  And so applying the Gospel onto my own life, and applying this good word onto other people’s lives, with the Lord involves shunning this deep rooted lust for money to the cross of Christ with the Lord, and identifying my own status to the perverse status of people bound to the money of wickedness, the wages of wickedness, in pointing these people to saving faith and satisfaction for their hearts in Christ alone with the Lord.

And so a very practical way to fight personal covetousness with your money during this Christmas season is to think about buying choice gifts – even very special gifts – for homeless people and otherwise socially fragmented people during this season.  It could be done together with table talk; or on separate occasions.  The bottom line is that we learn to bring high minded free man status – elite capital status – to lowly brokenness and empathy of the Gospel, especially in relating to people who are practically slaves to money handed to them on the streets.  You’d be surprised how shocked these homeless people would be to receive a cashmere sweater and a packet of undershirts for the winter, or to receive well-funded gift cards for their own replenishment of basic needs.  Often times, these gifts are the first moments of kindness they’ve received from people in years.

And those moments become opportunities to speak the Gospel message into their lives.  “Then Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength” (Acts 3:6-7).  Identifying oneself with very socially fragmented people by the use of money for the cause of the Gospel with the Lord, and recognizing the comfort idol of money in these people’s lives and speaking the Gospel as a better word of grace onto these people’s lives with the Lord, will lead these people to new rejoicing in the idol-shattering power of the cross of Christ with the Lord.  In many ways, that idol-shattering cross becomes very real for our own lives in the process.  Flannery O’Connor was right: The life you save just may be your own.

A Servant Mindset of the Gospel for Thanksgiving

Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means growing into a servant mindset, an others-oriented attitude, for serving the church, the body of believers in Christ, based on knowing personal satisfaction in Christ and wanting to offer new songs of praise out of the foundation of Christ onto the Lord.  Many times, I do not approach the church with a servant mindset.  (For that matter, you could fill in the blank for many other areas of life where I struggle against a servant mindset.)  When I get involved in my home church with the Lord, I often worry about my reputation, how I look to others, and I grumble and grind my teeth silently in self-righteousness every time I don’t do something right.  And it’s not because of the church itself; it’s because of my idolatrous heart.  If I volunteer my time to lay service in the body life of my home church with the Lord, I have to have the mindset of satisfaction in Christ alone with the Lord, because Christ did it all for me – He was the Suffering Servant on the cross for my life.

Knowing the Gospel, the good news of Jesus crucified and risen from the dead for believers, with the Lord involves applying this glorious truth onto the heart with the Lord, and singing out of the foundation of Christ crucified and risen onto the glory of the Lord, and offering personal time to serving in the body life of the church of Christ based on knowing satisfaction in Christ alone with the Lord.

“Praise, O servants of the LORD, Praise the name of the LORD! . . . Who is like the LORD our God, who dwells on high, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth?  He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that He may seat him with princes – with the princes of His people.”  (Psalms 113:1; 113:5-8)

I personally would argue that this passage of the Psalms really speaks well to the need for true spirituality for deacons, the formal table servants of the church.  The vitality of the church is exemplified by singing deacons.  It’s not just a great name for a cabaret group.  It’s a real reality for real living in Christ among the members of the church.  And I would argue that the aforementioned passage of the Psalms also speaks well for any lay Christian who wants to get involved in the body life of his or her local church.

As part of preaching the Gospel to myself, and preaching the Gospel onto others, for this Thanksgiving holiday with the Lord, I enclose a good word here from George Mueller (also spelled “Muller”), from his autobiographical recollection of time spent joyously with seminary students in the name of Christ – seminary students also being church folks who struggle with self-righteousness and satisfaction in Christ alone.

“After my return to London, I decided to do something to help my brothers in the seminary.  I suggested we meet together every morning from six to eight to pray and read the Scriptures.  After the evening prayer, my communion with God was so sweet that I would continue praying until after midnight.  Then I would go to a brother’s room, and we would pray together until one or two in the morning.  Even then, I was sometimes so full of joy that I could not sleep.  At six in the morning I would again call the brethren together for prayer.”  (George Mueller,                     The Autobiography of George Muller, Springdale: Whitaker House, 1984, p. 27)

May this Thanksgiving be a time for many folks to consider the cross of Christ as the satisfying atonement for their own hearts with the Lord, for their singing of new songs out of the foundation of the cross of Christ onto the glory of the Lord.

Praise onto the Glory of God: The Divine Measure of the Gospel

Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing a God who rules over all other gods, the false gods of sinners’ hearts, and knowing this true God as the God who atones for sinners’ hearts through His Son Jesus, all for giving praise onto the glory of God for His first grace, His first love, for believers, the full ramifications of the Gospel message.  The ultimate new beauty of the Gospel is the Christian singing praise onto the glory of God.  God shows Himself as worthy of His people’s worship in His beauty and glory and mercy as revealed in His Son Jesus risen from the dead, His Son’s securing of a peculiar people from the bondage of death and His setting apart of this people to holiness and praise of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God establishes His trustworthiness among His people by providing them with His discipline, specifically through His disciplining rod, the inscribed Word, the Holy Bible.  God is the Chief Shepherd of His people and the Father of His children in His prodding of Christians to new praise of God by the inscribed Word.  God chastens His children with His Word, showing them their shortcomings in the flesh and pointing them to Jesus crucified as their foundation for spiritual rest.  Often times Christians live as wayward sheep.  I am prone to gratifying myself and worshipping myself, declaring my own holiness and my own happiness apart from God.  God has to discipline me in order that I would see Jesus clearly for my life, and that I would come to offer new praise out of the foundation of Jesus onto the glory of God.

Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing the disciplining rod, the measuring rod, of the Gospel in the form of the Holy Scriptures, and examining personal shortcomings by the rod of Scripture, and seeing the Gospel as a good word of grace, a word of living hope, from the Scriptures, all for giving new worship out of the bedrock of Jesus onto the glory of the Lord, in crying out to Him as Heavenly Father, “Abba, Father.”

“Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect.  Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?  For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.”  (Heb. 12:9-10)

The central issue of the Gospel for our hearts is this: Is the Gospel about dogma, or is it about delight?  If it’s about dogma, then the reality is that we run away from sound doctrine because we want to establish our own doctrine, our own system of justice and our own pattern and direction of worship for ourselves.  We declare ourselves our own gods and our own messiahs.

But if the Gospel is about delight, then we have to look at God’s inscribed Word and ask: What is it that makes our hearts sing for joy?  In the free fall of man, our exercise of free will in our own minds and our own eyes, everything makes us sing for joy – all things apart from God.  If it’s not sexual ecstasy, then it’s rigid fundamentalism.  If it’s not high academic reputation, then it’s radical cynicism toward all institutions.  Everything becomes an idol to the eyes of our hearts. 

Knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means seeing God’s inscribed Word as a corrective measure for the heart, and seeing the Gospel as a good word contained in Scripture about the cross of Jesus for the wayward heart, all for singing out of the foundation of Jesus crucified to the glory of the Lord.  God uses His inscribed Word to examine His people’s hearts, that they would not treat the inscribed Word as an arbitrary word, but would see their own shortcomings and the atonement of Jesus for those shortcomings in the inscribed Word.  The Gospel is about delight.  The Gospel is about the people of God giving praise out of the foundation of grace onto their Father.

Knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means knowing God as the Father of His people based on God’s sacrifice of Jesus to God’s justice at the cross, the testimony of Scripture from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and coming to know personal justification and personal adoption in Jesus, real sonship in Jesus, in new relationship with the Lord.  And knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means knowing the Bible as the book of worship for Christians, and not an arbitrary book for moralists or antinomians, and giving personal praise out of the foundation of Jesus crucified, the testimony of the Bible, onto the glory of the Lord, the Father of His believers.  God has given His inscribed Word not as an arbitrary word but as a real word, a better word than that of moralists and lawless rebels.  Both liberal sinners and conservative sinners reject the inscribed Word as authority from on high; they do it to build their own kingdoms and their own justice systems, their own means of self-justification, apart from God.

But knowing the Bible as the written testimony of the Gospel with the Lord means knowing with the Lord that the inscribed Word is not an arbitrary word; this inscribed Word judges the merits of fallen unbelievers, their idolatrous mockery against the Holy Spirit through legalism or antinomianism.  ”Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend into Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Hell, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:7-8).  Every attempt at hiding from God and developing our own belief systems is an attempt to avoid discipline from God, and therefore avoiding God Himself.  If there are no such things as Heaven or Hell, and if there is no God, then why are we so busy defending our own beliefs?  God provides the Gospel as the counterpoint to our self-elaborated idolatry.  We justify ourselves; God, by His grace, gives us a new justification, the cross of Jesus as the fulfillment of the divine and moral Law.  This is a reality check against moralists; we cannot defend ourselves by our morals – these quickly become our false gods and false saviors.  And we gratify ourselves; God, by His grace, provides a new foundation of satisfaction, a new bedrock of rest, in His Son Jesus, a bedrock solidly testified in the inscribed Word.  This is a reality check against antinomians; we cannot run away from God and think that we are safe – even our own quests for freedom become our idols.   

Knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means knowing the Gospel as the expert foundation for coming to spiritual rest and grace and holiness in new relationship with the Lord, and joining into a new ingathering of new Christians, a new city of the Gospel, and knowing this new ingathering, this new city, as set apart to holiness in the name of Christ with the Lord.  And knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means seeing the Gospel in the inscribed canon of God as the foundation for singing new praises together with other Christians, other vessels born again by God’s spoken Word, onto the glory of the Lord.  ” ‘You are the light of the world.  A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden’ ” (Matt. 5:14).  When Jesus says these words to His followers, His disciples, He is speaking the power behind these words, the power of the Holy Spirit, onto the disciples’ lives, that they would congregate as a new and better city than the city of Israel, a city fallen to spiritual apostasy and self-righteousness before God, and before imperial Rome.  The kingdom of God is right here, right now, in the Gospel message; it is a kingdom blessed by the Holy Spirit.

God’s people are set apart as holy vessels pleasing to His sight, because they are washed and born anew by His Word.  And God’s people will keep God’s Word onto their lives and reform their lives to singing new songs to Him based on His Word, because of God’s keeping power over their lives, His sanctifying grace over their lives.

” ‘You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.  Abide in Me, and I in you . . . If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”                 (John 15:3-4; 15:10)

Knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means knowing a new identity of holiness and security in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the bedrock of justification for the believer’s faith, all for singing new songs rooted in this new security and holiness in Christ onto the glory of God, the God of first fruits and last fruits, and the Father of first grace and last grace for His believers.  “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.  Amen” (Rom. 11:36).  Knowing the Gospel contained in Scripture with the Lord means examining the wayward heart for shortcomings of sin, real false worship, by the measuring rod of the Bible, and seeing the Gospel as good news of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection testified in the Bible for believers, all for receiving new justification and new sonship in Christ with the Lord, and for singing new praises out of the foundation of Jesus crucified for believers onto the glory of the Lord.

I offer an insight here from Alexander MacLaren, a Puritan preacher and brother of Charles Spurgeon in the pulpit, in drawing from MacLaren’s commentary on the book of Luke and the story of the centurion who counted himself unworthy to Jesus for the sake of the centurion’s servant, and the story’s greater spiritual lesson of examining oneself for knowing the joy and healing power of the Gospel.

” ‘ . . . They besought Him . . . saying [that] he was worthy for whom He should do this . . . ‘I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof: [wherefore] neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee.’

. . . A Roman centurion, who could induce the elders of a Jewish village to approach Jesus on his behalf, must have been a remarkable person.  The garrison which held down a turbulent people was not usually likely to be much loved by them.  But this man, about whom the incident with which our texts are connected is related, was obviously one of the people of whom that restless age had many, who had found out that his creed was outworn, and who had been drawn to Judaism by its lofty monotheism and its austere morality.  He had gone so far as to build a synagogue, and thereby, no doubt, incurred the ridicule of his companions, and perhaps the suspicions of his superiors.  What would the English authorities think of an Indian district officer that conformed to Buddhism or Brahminism, and built a temple?  That is what the Roman officials would think of our centurion.  And there were other beautiful traits in his character.  He had a servant ‘that was dear to him.’  It was not only the nexus of master and servant and cash payments that bound these two together.  And very beautiful is this story, when he himself speaks of his servant.  He does not use the rough word which implies a bondservant, and which is employed throughout the whole of the rest of the narrative, but a much a gentler one, and speaks of him as his ‘boy.’

. . . The elders said, ‘He is worthy’; [the centurion] said, ‘I am not worthy’ . . . [The] one saying expresses the favourable view that partial outsiders took of the man, the other gives the truer view that the man took of himself . . . These elders did not think loftily of Jesus Christ . . . The higher we lift our thought of Christ, the lower becomes the thought of ourselves.  These elders saw the centurion from the outside, and estimated him accordingly.  There is no more frequent, there is no more unprofitable and impossible occupation, than that of trying to estimate other people’s characters.  Yet there are few things that we are so fond of doing.  Half our conversation consists of it, and a very large part of what we call literature consists of it; and it is bound to be always wrong, whether it is eulogistic or condemnatory, because it only deals with the surface.

. . . ‘I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof, wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee.’  This man had a loftier conception of who and what Christ was than the elders had.  To them He was only one of themselves, perhaps endowed with some kind of prophetic power, but still one of themselves.  The centurion had pondered over the mystic power of the word of command, as he knew it by experience in the legion, or in the little troop of which he, though a man under the authority of his higher officers, was the commander, and he knew that even his limited power carried with it absolute authority and compelled obedience.  And he had looked at Christ, and wondered, and thought, and had come at last to a dim apprehension of that great truth that, somehow or other, in this Man there did lie a power which, by the mere utterance of His will, could affect matter, could raise the dead, could still a storm, could banish disease, could quell devils.

. . . Further, the centurion saw himself from the inside, and that makes all the difference.  Ah, brethren!  [Most] of us know our own characters just as little as we know our own faces, and find it as difficult to form a just estimate of what the hidden man of the heart looks like as we find it impossible to form a just estimate of what we look to other people as we walk down the street.  But if we once turned the searchlight upon ourselves, I do not think that any of us would be able to stand by that plea, ‘I am worthy.’  Have you ever been on a tour of discovery, like what they go through at the Houses of Parliament on the first day of each session, down into the cellars to see what stores of explosive material, and what villains to fire it, may be lurking there?  If you have once seen yourself as you are, and take into account, not only actions but base tendencies, foul, evil thoughts, imagined sins of the flesh, meannesses and basenesses that never have come to the surface, but which you know are bits of you, I do not think that you will have much more to say about ‘I am worthy.’

. . . [Most] of us are strangers to ourselves.  The very fact of a course of action which, in other people, we should describe with severe condemnation, being ours, bribes us to indulgence and lenient judgment.  Familiarity, too, weakens our sense of the foulness of our own evils . . . We look at the errors of others through a microscope; we look at our own through the wrong end of the telescope; and the one set, when we are in a cynical humour, seems bigger than they are; and the other set always seems smaller.”

(Luke 7:1-10; Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke, Charleston: BiblioBazaar, 2007, pp. 140-1; 143-4)

I find MacLaren’s insight a good word to apply onto my own heart as part of my walk in the foundation of the Gospel message with the Lord.  “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.  Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart . . . ” (Prov. 4:20-21).  I would admit to being a fan of the Puritans, but only to the most important point: worship of God as the full fruit of the Gospel message.  A point I will often make to blog readers is this: If you’re going to read the Puritans, or if you come across people who wax euphoric about the Puritans, focus mainly on the Puritans’ expository commentaries, their lecture books and sermon books on the canon-books of the Bible.  This is where you learn the Puritans showing themselves as fallible men who were awestruck by the grace of Jesus and who came to offer praise out of the foundation of Jesus onto the glory of God.

Above all else, I find the Gospel message contained in Scripture to be the only and ultimate source of real honesty for my heart, that I would freely confess my sins in view of the atoning cross of Jesus for my own life with the Lord.  Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing the foundation of Jesus crucified as an atoning grace, a guilt-washing grace, for sinners, and confessing personal sin to the Lord based on the foundation and context of the cross, all for knowing new grace relationship with the Lord and singing praises onto the glory of the Lord.  ”Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:7; 51:10).  Knowing the Gospel contained in the Bible with the Lord means knowing the Gospel as the only good word that makes sinners leap for joy on the foundation of grace with the Lord, all for offering the personal life to the cleansing power of the atonement of Jesus and singing new songs of worship out of the foundation of Jesus onto the glory of the Lord, the Father of a true and better hyssop, the washing of sinners’ guilty stains by the blood of Jesus, for His believers.

Evangelism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Self-Sufficient City

This Sunday, my church community group (or Bible study group or fellowship group) is hosting visitors to our Sunday worship service.  I personally look forward to my pastor’s administering of the sacrament the Lord’s Supper as part of my support of the church by hosting endeavors with the Lord.  The Lord’s Supper is a powerful testimony about Jesus’ brokenness and grace for believers, signified by the bread and the cup.  When I participate in the Lord’s Supper in my church with the Lord, I want to remember Jesus’ first humility, His first love, at the cross for me, for my own counting of my life and my merits as nothing to the grace of the cross of Christ with the Lord.

The Gospel is a powerful testimony of grace and brokenness for the secular city.  In the fall of man, we love to build ourselves up to maximum boasts and radical displays of self-sufficiency apart from the Lord.  This display is visibly featured in the city: we love to invest in highly lucrative businesses or build up lavish homes in our cities.  This is especially true in the city of Arlington.  People here love to spread their names among tightly connected friends and networks for landing top notch jobs in political offices or lucrative commercial enterprises.  As an example of this radically built self-sufficiency, Arlington was recently rated by MSNBC as one of the top cities to live in for riding out the current recession.  Our mentality in Arlington is that we don’t get ourselves in bleak situations and trouble spots; we know how to avoid them.  And we know how to invest in just the right things that keep us steady and prosperous through any bleak economic circumstance.

But the Gospel does not testify to self-sufficiency; it testifies to radical brokenness, real humility, rooted in grace.  Jesus counted His life as nothing in a saving way for sinners, so that their faith in Him would be a sound faith, a justifying faith.  This is the life of the Gospel: justification by faith alone.  Knowing the faith of the Gospel with the Lord means counting personal merits and personal pride to death to the grace testimony of the cross of Christ with the Lord, and knowing this mortification of pride and merit to the cross of Christ as a powerful Gospel-rooted counterculture to the high merits of unbelievers with the Lord.  Arlingtonians get by on massive pursuits of self-made achievements and self-actualization apart from the Lord.  But the life of the Gospel, the life of justifying faith, is the life of putting away these self-actualized achievements to the cross of Christ, in knowing a new and better life in His name.

Knowing the life and faith of the Gospel with the Lord also means putting away personal pride to the cross of Christ with the Lord and reaching out to self-actualized unbelievers for winning them over to the faith of the Gospel message with the Lord.  Arlingtonians don’t evangelize each other as a general rule.  Everyone has their own spiritual interests, and to intrude on another person’s lifestyle is to practically be asking for trouble, and asking for alienation.  But the Gospel is rooted in power from on high, the power of the Holy Spirit, based on the Spirit’s raising of Jesus from the dead, even in Jesus’ raising of Himself by His own power, His own initiative, from the dead.  Arlingtonians ask for spiritual relativism; the Gospel deals with blunt reality, in addressing the real world dysfunctionality of sinners by Jesus’ death and resurrection from the dead.  Knowing the life and faith of the Gospel with the Lord means putting away personal merits and self-protectionism to the cross of Christ with the Lord, and knowing the cross of Christ as the foundation for preaching the Gospel message as a victorious message over the dead for unbelievers’ ears with the Lord.

And knowing the life and faith of the Gospel message with the Lord means putting away personal pride to the cross of Christ and partaking the Lord’s Supper within the body of Christians, the church, with the Lord, in remembering the cross of Christ, Jesus’ penal substitution and propitiation and imputed righteousness, in the symbols of the bread and the cup with the Lord.  And preaching the Gospel message of Jesus’ atonement as grace for unbelievers with the Lord means applying the testimony of Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice onto the heart in remembering this testimony from the Lord’s Supper with the Lord, and trusting the Lord’s power to use His Gospel message about lowly grace to bring self-actualized unbelievers into lowly conversion to Christ.

“And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion.  He said, ‘I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.’  Then his companion answered and said, ‘This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, the man of Israel!  Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.’ “  (Judges 7:13-14)

Gideon had to learn to count himself as nothing in abiding with the LORD God and hearing of his future conquest of the camp of Midian, the city of Midian.  Gideon had to count himself as a mere loaf of barley bread, insignificant bread, to know victory over idols with the LORD.

Knowing the faith and life of conquest of sin in the Gospel message with the Lord involves knowing Jesus’ sacrifice as the central point of conquest for the idols of the city with the Lord, and preaching this cross onto unbelievers’ ears with the Lord, and trusting the Lord’s power to bring these unbelievers to humble new faith in Christ.  The Gospel message is an idol-shattering message for self-sufficient cities.  The root problem of self-achievement for unbelievers and their cities is the problem of idolatry, the problem of self-worship and self-justification.  We gratify ourselves by building up our names in vast networks of financial success and prosperity.  And we justify ourselves by defending our names against our rivals, shutting down our intellectual competitors in the marketplace by harsh words and self-defense mechanisms and lawsuits.  This is certainly true in the city of Arlington: along with a vast array of commercial outfits, we have also accumulated for ourselves a vast array of law firms for dealing with various lawsuits and disputes.

But knowing the Gospel message with the Lord means knowing the Gospel as a very different language, a countercultural language, for unbelievers’ ears, and preaching this countercultural language onto unbelievers’ ears for winning them to a new beginning in Christ with the Lord.  Arlingtonians are focused on self-justification; the Gospel speaks about new justification, God’s justification from on high through the virgin birth and substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus.  Arlingtonians are focused on self-worship; the Gospel speaks about new worship, and ultimately a new foundation for worship, in God’s gift of His Son Jesus as the Mediator of worship, and God’s direction of believers to worship of God based on Jesus’ atonement for believers.  Knowing the Gospel message with the Lord means coming to expression of awe and wonder toward the Lord for His first grace, His first love, for sinners through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.  God shows Himself as worthy of worship and sovereign in glory and mercy through His Son Jesus.  God conquers all false gods by God’s lowly sacrifice of His Son Jesus as the Word born in flesh to the cross.  And communicating this Gospel message of new justification and a new goal, the glory of God in the Gospel, onto unbelievers with the Lord will lead to breaking unbelievers’ pride toward their conversion to new lowly faith in Christ and new satisfaction of their hearts with the Lord.

“Consumer-Driven Recession” and Grace-Rooted Words

There was a U.S. News and World Report article that I read several weeks ago that I wanted to take the time to write about, even though I risked missing the relevance of the moment by not blogging on the same day as the article.  But patient language of the Gospel is good language.  It speaks not by presumption, but by trusting in God for grace.  ” . . . For God is in Heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few” (Ecc. 5:2).  So I take the time here to write about the U.S. News and World Report article with the Lord.

The article was written in assessment of the immediate prospects of the American economic fallout into recession.  Enclosed is the full article.

The GDP Report: What It Means

Specifically the article writer used language that was rather disturbing: she used another social pundit’s insight that the American economy was being led into a “consumer-driven recession.”  Rather than offering any gracious direction for the worried consumer and entrepreneur, the article writer instead constructed the article as a polemic social commentary against the course of American consumer interests as this course headed into recession.

For the most part, I thought the article was a well-written piece on the course of the American consumer markets and economy and the resultant downfall.  But I also thought that the phrase “consumer-driven recession” was a poor choice of words rooted in bitter cynicism toward the collapse of the American markets.  That is not the sort of language that speaks renewal into the American consumer markets.  But I would say here with the Lord that I do not find this language surprising: our words are often the tipping points to bleak despair.  The Gospel message speaks a better grace for anxious sinners’ hearts.  “The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters; the wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook” (Prov. 18:4).  So I will write some insights here on the article writer’s choice of words and the Gospel as a good word for private businesses and consumer markets with the Lord.

The first insight I would say here about the U.S. News and World Report article and the Gospel is this: The more you rise up in academic achievement and politics, the more determined you will be to offer polemic social commentaries and divisive words that create alienated relationships with people in consumer markets.  This is the course of the fall of man: By our tongues, we want to express words of high ambition and divisive achievement against the Lord and against our peers.  The Gospel message is simply that Jesus had to offer Himself as a substitutionary Word, the Word born in flesh, in place of sinners’ fallen words before the sight of God, and before the sight of Jesus’ ambitious enemies.  Jesus speaks on behalf of His believers at the cross.

Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means seeking satisfaction in Jesus as the substitutionary Word and substitutionary sacrifice for the personal life with the Lord.  And knowing the Gospel with the Lord means speaking the Gospel as a word of grace onto divided unbelievers and their home cultures with the Lord, and recognizing with the Lord that high human ambition leads to divided relationships among people in their rebellion against God.  And upholding the Gospel as a word of grace for the personal life with the Lord means suffering to the polemic words of highly ambitious sinners with the Lord, and trusting the Lord to provide Himself as the believer’s true home and true Father beyond all fallen cynical surroundings in fallen secular cultures.  “As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable” (Prov. 25:3).  In learning about the Gospel as a word of grace for my own life with the Lord, I would have to say about the U.S. News and World Report writer that her poor choice of words reveals a much bigger depravity in her heart.  The article writer knows how to make sharp arguments; but she doesn’t really understand grace.  And I would say here with the Lord that applying the Gospel as a good word onto radically disillusioned private businesses and fractured consumer markets with the Lord will have to involve pointing these businesses and markets to the blunt reality of fallen arrogance among political officials and social pundits with the Lord, and pointing these businesses and markets to spiritual rest in the Gospel alone with the Lord.

And the second insight that I would mention about the U.S. News and World Report article and the Gospel would be this: Applying the Gospel onto fractured businesses and markets with the Lord will have to involve identifying oneself with the fractured relationships between businesses and markets and civil governments with the Lord, and using personal talents and skills among these businesses and markets for pointing them to satisfaction in the grace of the Gospel alone with the Lord.  The blunt reality of fallenness in civil government is this: We choose political leaders who will profoundly disappoint us in their establishment of public policies.  Government officials will worship themselves at the high levels of civil government.  In self-gratification, government officials will want to make it known with their words and their civil laws that any sense of freedom that entrepreneurs flash among themselves will only be a limited freedom under the officials’ authority.  And in a high degree of suspicion, these government officials will also make it known that they hold the right to redefine these entrepreneurial freedoms in any way and at any time they see fit.

And in self-justification, government officials will exercise severe punishments among entrepreneurs who don’t conform to the officials’ ideal visions for commonwealth.  Because of harsh, self-defensive words exercised by political officials and social commentary pundits alike – words based on elite self-sustained academic achievement and a high interest in gaining profit off of verbal alienation of intellectual competition – these political officials and social pundits destroy consumer confidence and lay waste to the economic undergirdings of their cities and cultures.  It is self-righteous language and self-gratifying language that destroys consumer markets and creates consumer disillusion and economic recessions and economic depressions.

Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing the Lord’s dwelling presence of justifying grace among His believers, and putting the personal life at risk among unbelievers during economic crises by bringing the personal life alongside fractured businesses and markets and using personal skills among these businesses and markets for talking to unbelievers about the fractured relationships between consumers and civil governments by the grace of the Gospel with the Lord.

“After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth.  And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius demanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them.  So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for by occupation they were tentmakers.”  (Acts 18:1-3)

Disillusioned consumers and entrepreneurs will want to talk about justice not being served in the economic meltdowns of their surroundings, thus spurring an unwillingness for these consumers and entrepreneurs to re-invest in the markets.  The Gospel is a just word for believers.  God has radically addressed His own divine justice in the divine and moral Law through the cross of His Son Jesus, in God’s justification of believers through His Son Jesus.

And consumers and entrepreneurs will want to complain about government officials’ high cynicism levied against them, thus breeding cynicism among the complainers themselves in such a way that they break off social relationships among each other, among consumers, and discourage investment in the markets.  The Gospel is a gracious word for believers.  God has provided His people as His own dwelling place, by the witness of the Holy Spirit among believers’ hearts, in such a way that Christians put away their cynical words to the cross of Jesus and repair relationships among each other and invest in each others’ lives, and put their lives at risk by witnessing the Gospel among unbelievers in the consumer markets.

I do think that the Gospel is a better word of grace over the U.S. News and World Report writer’s poor choice of words, “consumer-driven recession.”  Abiding in the foundation of the Gospel message with the Lord means laughing at personal cynicism by putting away cynical words to the cross of Christ with the Lord, in knowing the cross of Christ as the true righteous sacrifice of the Gospel message for living in new joy with the Lord, and knowing peace with the Lord during tumultuous times and culture shifts and economic recessions and cynics’ false words.  ” ‘You shall laugh at destruction and famine; and you shall not be afraid of the beasts of the earth’ ” (Job 5:22).  I think that speaking the Gospel into consumers’ lives and entrepreneurs’ lives among private businesses and consumer markets will provide a better grace for them during some very difficult times for economics and consumer profits and consumer confidence in the coming months.  Harsh words from political pundits and political officials simply will not do.

Trendiness Versus Gospel Satisfaction

” . . . The hypocrite says he believes, yet he goes on in sin.  He is all creed, but no commandments.  He believes, yet he will take God’s name in vain: ‘Wilt not thou from this time cry unto Me, ‘My Father, who art the guide of my           youth?’ . . . Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.’

. . . [True] faith is joined with sanctity: ‘Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.’  The jewel of faith is always put in the cabinet of a good conscience.  The woman that touched Christ by faith felt a healing virtue coming from Him.  Though faith does not wholly remove sin, yet it subdues it.

. . . The hypocrite tastes something in the vine and olive, he finds contentment in the carnal luscious delights of the world, but no sweetness in a promise; the Holy Ghost Himself is spiritless to him . . . [True] faith finds much delectation in Heavenly things.  The Word is sweeter than the honeycomb.  Christ’s love is better than wine.  Thus we see a difference between the true faith and the spurious.  How many have thought they have had the live child of faith by them, when it has proved the dead child.”

(Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Supper, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2004,           pp. 54-5; Jer. 3:4-5; Psalm 19:10; Song 1:2; 1 Tim. 3:9)

The Holy Spirit and Authentic Gospel Witness

” ‘Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all    truth’ . . . The One who would thus undertake for [the apostles] is called ‘the Spirit of the truth.’  In addition to affirming that He was the Spirit of ‘the truth’ (of Christ), this title also emphasized His suitability for such a task, His competency as the Saviour’s Witness.

. . . Another thing suggested by this title of the third Person of the Godhead is His relation to and connection with the written Word, which, like the incarnate Word, is also called ‘the truth’: ‘Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth.’  The inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is in a unique sense the work of the Holy Spirit: ‘Holy (separated) men of God spake moved by the Holy Spirit.’  So too the interpretation of Scripture is the special work of the Spirit: ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.  But God hath revealed unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save (by) the spirit of man which is in him?  Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but (by) the Spirit of God ‘ . . . For an interpreter we need a trustworthy guide, an infallible teacher; and he is to be found not in the ‘Church,’ the ‘voice of tradition,’ the ‘intuitive faculty,’ or in reason, but in the Spirit of God.  He it is who quickens, illumines, interprets, and the ‘only’ instrument which He uses is the written Word.

. . . By nature we are spiritually blind, and He guided us into the way of ‘truth.’  Then as ‘babes’ in Christ, He has to teach us how to walk . . . [There] must be a yieldedness on our part, a corresponding obedience!  If the Spirit ‘guides’ our steps, the necessary implication is that we are walking with Him, that we are closely following His directions.  This term also suggests an orderly, gradual, and progressive advancing: we grow in ‘knowledge’ as well as in ‘grace.’

. . . ‘But whosoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.’  This is parallel with [John 15:15], ‘For all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you.’  What a searching word this is for every teacher!  ‘If the Spirit may not speak of Himself, if He speaks only what He has heard of the Father and the Son – O, preacher!  How canst thou draw thy preaching out of thyself, out of thy head, or even thy heart?’

‘And He will show you things to come’ . . . [It] is promised that He would show [the apostles] things concerning the future!  There are many prophecies scattered throughout the Epistles – far more than most people imagine – which the Spirit has given.  But the main reference, no doubt, in this word of Christ, was to the book of the Revelation, the opening sentence of which reads, ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass.’

. . . ‘He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you.’  This is the prime object before the Spirit: whether it be revealing the truth, speaking what He hears, or showing things to come, the glorification of Christ is the grand end in view . . . This is the vital test for every lying spirit which would obtrude itself into the place of the Spirit: rationalism, ritualism, fanaticism, philosophy, science falsely so-called, all dishonour Christ, but the Spirit always magnifies Him.”

(A. W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975, pp. 873-6; 1 Cor. 2:9-11; John 16:13-14; 17:17; 2 Pet. 1:21; 2:2; 3:18; J. E. Gossner qtd. in Pink 875; Rom. 8:14)

A Word of Grace for Tumultuous Seasons and Culture Shifts

One thing I love about the Gospel in my walk with the Lord is knowing that the Gospel speaks grace for believers not just for every season of life, but especially for those seasons in which the believers’ home surroundings and comfort zones are being totally reconfigured and uprooted and believers are left wondering where they are to go to next for their security.  Knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing the Gospel as a good word for enjoying spiritual rest in Christ beyond all the whims and ebbs and flows of changing and shifting cultures, and sinners’ touchy-feely sentiments about trends and culture identity, with the Lord.

And knowing the Gospel with the Lord means knowing the Gospel as an expert foundation for speaking grace onto unbelievers’ lives during their radical culture shifts and high expressions of suspicion toward civil authorities and civilian unrest in their home surroundings, all in winning new converts to saving faith and spiritual rest in Christ with the Lord.

“And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.  Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.  Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.”  (Acts 11:27-29)

God provides His inscribed Word, the Holy Scripture, as a prophetic and apostolic Word that speaks grace onto His people’s lives in such a way that Christians seek rest in the Lord alone as their only true home and their only true Father, beyond all the whims and follies of culture shifts.  God wants His believers to know true security in Himself rather than in their comfort zones and their home surroundings.  The Gospel is an ironic word of grace in that it radically shakes up believers from their comfort idols onto seeking rest in the power of God alone.

During Sunday worship service my pastor introduced a fellow pastor from Egypt, a pastor who watches over the spiritual growth and evangelical witness of individual churches in Egypt.  Several of the visiting pastor’s insights made an impression on me.  One insight was that the pastor’s churches have the burden of evangelizing nominal churchgoers in traditional established churches in Egypt.  These churchgoers are familiar with the Christian heritage from many previous centuries, but they have no saving faith in the Gospel.  And so the pastor’s churches have the burden of reintroducing the Gospel as a fresh word onto the churchgoing unbelievers who make up a small self-protected minority within the larger culture of Egypt.

And the reason that the nominal churchgoers are such a minority in Egypt is because the ninety percent majority of people in Egypt are Muslims.  The visiting pastor’s churches not only have the burden of sharing good news with nominal church people, but they also have the burden of sharing this good news with a very strong Muslim majority in Egypt.  Planting and harvesting the Gospel in Egypt is a much harder experience than in America, as Egypt provides a culture in which religious freedom is a fringe idea at best.

And the insight from the visiting pastor that really got my attention was the pastor’s burden for seeing churches planted and grown in Arlington specifically for the purpose of reaching out to Muslims in this city.  One of the fasting growing areas for Muslim populations along the East Coast is the city of Arlington, combined with the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church.  Muslims are moving here to Arlington to start a new life after shifting away from their home cultures overseas.  And the visiting pastor wants churches to be planted in Arlington specifically for Gospel witness to these new incoming Muslims.

These insights from the visiting pastor warm my heart.  I want to see the Gospel being preached onto unchurched unbelievers and unreached people-groups, and to see the Gospel sown and harvested among regions where the Gospel was not established in previous times, in longing to see new believers raised up to the grace of the Gospel from very spiritually barren surroundings with the Lord.  “And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation . . .”      (Rom. 15:20).  My hope with the Lord is that individual churches would be planted for Gospel witness onto newly arrived and well situated Muslims and other diverse ethnic neighbors in Arlington, for bringing these diverse unbelievers to a radical encounter of the grace of Christ beyond the spiritual brokenness of culture shifts and civil unrest among fallen sinners from their former home lands.

The Substitutionary Atonement of Christ for the Worship Life of the Church

“As death breaks its bond by which the law binds man and wife together, so it is death – ‘only’ death – which breaks the bond which, by the Law, binds the sinner under the Law and its condemning bondage.  We are delivered from the Law, discharged from the Law by death, ‘i.e.,’ by the death of Christ for us.  ‘Ye also,’ the Apostle says, ‘were made dead to the Law by the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead.’

It is obvious that – unless we make void the Apostle’s teaching altogether – as death stands alone in affecting the matter of the wife’s release from the law as pertaining to matrimony, so death – the death of Christ for us, and our death in His death – stands alone in affecting the matter of our justification, that we should be not under the Law, but under grace.

. . . Undoubtedly His sinless perfection, His perfect humanity, His obedience unto death, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, had to do with the redemption of the world, had to do with the atonement for sin.  These were necessary conditions to make His death available and efficacious.  Let it not be thought for a moment that, in view of Christ’s satisfaction for sin, we would depreciate the value of Christ’s life or the merit of His holiness.  God forbid!  Let them be set down to the value of the price, the price at which we were bought.

. . . No doubt in the history of the death and exaltation of Christ we are to see exhibited the supreme example of the truth, ‘He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’  No doubt, also, we are to recognise in the passion of the Lord Jesus that which was infinitely well pleasing to the Father, as the accomplishment of the word, ‘Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.’  Doubtless, also, we may well look at the solidarity of Christ with the human nature of the whole race He came to redeem, and the sympathetic oneness which made His perfect humanity so open to the griefs and sorrows, and the weight of sins belonging to His brethren . . . But none of these things share with His death the efficacy which it has as affecting the justification of man.  In this matter the death of Christ may, in some very true sense, be said to stand quite ‘alone.’  It does ‘not’ stand alone in the record of sympathy, and obedience, and sorrow, and suffering, and submission.  It is the consummation of a life of perfect devotion, yet it is but the crowning part of a whole.

. . . [In] view of the redeeming work of the Son of God, we do well to lift up our hearts in exulting joy, in triumphant adoration, recognising the truth that in the atonement of our great Melchizedek, mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”                                     (Luke 18:14; Psalm 40:6-8; Nathaniel Dimock qtd. in The Doctrine of the Death of Christ; in Relation to the Sin of Man, the Condemnation of the Law, and the Dominion of Satan, 2^nd ed., London: Paternoster, 1903, pp. 18-21; 23;           Rom. 7:1-6)

Jesus’ Sacrifice as a Better Word than Utopian Politics

Today it is official: Barack Obama and the Democrats have assumed a majority stronghold over the American presidency and Congress.

Doubtless there are some Christians who grind their teeth at that culture shift.  I would remind blog readers with the Lord that the Gospel speaks a better word of grace onto liberalized culture.  Knowing the Gospel message, the glory of God revealed in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection from the dead, with the Lord involves seeing this Gospel as an expert foundation of holiness and grace for sinners, and speaking this expert foundation onto self-righteous cynics and utopian thinkers alike with the Lord.

“And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.  Also from the appearance of His waist and upward I saw, as it were, the color of amber with the appearance of fire all around within it; and from the appearance of His waist and downward I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire with brightness all around.  Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it.  This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.”  (Ezekiel 1:26-28)

God had to show Himself as a man on fire and a conquering soldier for the apostate Jews and the utopian Babylonians.  God shows Himself as a man dwelling among the captive Jews by fire, the same God who dwelled with the forefathers of Israel by the pillar of smoke and the pillar of fire.  Israel was judged as dead because the Jews had intermingled with pagan idols, all while professing themselves as a privileged community apart from the LORD.  Now the LORD would bring renewal onto the sons of Israel.

And God shows Himself as identifying with the fall of Israel and the arrogance of the Babylonian Gentiles by God’s appearance in royal splendor as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of a great army, among the angels, the otherworldly sons of God, and by God’s appearance in the royal colors of a conquering pagan soldier among the fallen Jews.  Both the Jews and the Babylonians sought their own glory in their own secular kingdoms apart from the LORD.  God shows Himself as a better conqueror of the fallenness of the Jews and the Gentiles by God’s sacrifice of His Son Jesus as the virgin born Son of Man to the cross and the fallenness of the Jews and the Gentiles.  Jesus’ sacrifice to the cross shows a better conquest than that of the pagan soldiers of Babylon, and the self-righteous cynicism and duplicity of apostate Israel.  Jesus’ sacrifice shows a better word of grace than utopian politics.

Knowing the Gospel, the glory of God in Jesus’ sacrifice to the cross and conquest of death, in new relationship with the Lord means cutting off cynical words to the cross of Christ, in knowing Jesus’ power over death and worshipping out of sonship in Christ onto the glory of the Lord.  And knowing the glory of God in the Gospel with the Lord means speaking a better word, the Gospel message, onto self-righteous cynics and utopian thinkers, and even utopian government officials, with the Lord.  Many evangelicals had glorified themselves in secular politics and secular culture, and led their congregations to spiritual apostasy over several generations apart from the Lord.  These evangelicals’ cynicism and duplicity have also led to America being handed over to spiritual liberalism, post-Christian language and sensibilities, and to a more formal social liberalism in the form of people yearning for a more perfect culture, a dream culture, and people taking control of civil government and legislature for this end.

But I say to cynical Christians with the Lord: If you really believe the Gospel speaks well to the new liberal movement, put away your suspicious words to the cross of Jesus and speak the grace of the cross of Jesus onto the new liberals’ lives.  The new liberals, both in civil government and in overall American culture, may want to glorify themselves in their dreams for a beautiful spotless country.  But Jesus’ word at the cross was to conquer sin and death.  Jesus’ sacrifice speaks a better word than utopian ideals.  And knowing the Gospel with the Lord means putting away cynicism to the cross of Christ and making friendships among utopian idealists for bringing them to the grace of the Gospel and new faith in Christ with the Lord.