Of Death and Sin. Christ Is Our Only Righteousness!
I remember vividly the day Kurt Cobain died. It may have been the day after. I was attending a legalistic Christian College (whose name I will not reveal, but if you take the last two words before this parenthetical statement and add the word Pepsi Cola and you’ll be pretty close.) 1 and someone had gotten the USA Today and on the front cover was the news of Cobain’s death. Even as I type this it is amazing that my spell check is not catching Cobain; he has become such a part of our culture. I remember that a student walked in and grabbed the paper read the headline, threw it down and said, “Huh, Good!” I asked him what he meant. He replied, “One less person for Satan to use!” In my immaturity the only way I knew how to respond was “You’re one less person for Satan to use!” What I meant, or at least how I remember thinking about it was, that even the believer in their disobedience can steer people toward that which is Satanic rather than that which brings the Gospel to the forefront.
I thought of this today as I read about the death of Christopher Hitchens. I have a tendency to react in self righteousness. I have a tendency to say, “Well at least I’m not like…” I read an article by Dr. Moore that was helpful and it made me think further about my standing with God through Christ. Whether Hitchens is standing before God condemned or not, he and I have the same standing regardless, depending on what we did with the claims of Christ. That is I only stand rightly before God because Christ is my substitute. As Paul writes in 1 Cor. 1:26–29, “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD” (NASB 95; emphasis mine).
This, my friends, says it all! I am nothing without Christ’s righteousness. The best I can bring to God is my sin and that makes me no better than Hitchens. His public affronts against God are more apparent, but my sins are no less offensive and deserving of judgement from an eternal perspective. Praise the Lord that Christ is the Righteous One, through whom sins can be forgiven! Therefore in the words of my younger, less mature self, “I am one less person who Satan can use!” We must submit to God and humbly accept that but for Christ, we are wretches who God graciously saves for His own glory and by the kind intention of His will (Eph. 1:5)! I can only boast in him!
- I didn’t stay at this school, I eventually transferred to Moody,where there were other self righteous people, including me! ↩
Awaiting a Deliverer
THINGS LEARNED FROM STUDYING JUDGES pt. 2
The idea of a “judge” in the book of Judges is really not the point of the book. The proper understanding is probably more along the lines of deliver. The people of Israel needed a deliverer. They were caught in this pattern of disobedience, idolatry, spiritual adultery and then repentance and restoration after God delivered them. The problem is that once delivered the Israelites might live relatively well, until the “judge” died. Then it’s back to the same thing.
Usually Israel cried for deliverance because the consequence of their sin became unbearable. They were usually taken captive and made slaves. It seems that true repentance was rarely the cause of their weeping and cry for mercy. However, the intended outcome of any deliverance should have been that they recognized the mercy of God and turn back to him and faithfully serve him. Again, this was not the case.
Before we quickly point the finger and accuse Israel of what seems to be complete and utter failure to recognize what was happening; let’s pause and consider the parallels to us. Israel did not deserve God’s mercy, they were acting like adulterers and enemies of God. Yet God sent deliverers to them. In the same way God sent his Deliverer at a time when we were His enemies (Rom. 5:8). Then once we are delivered we must recognize our tendency to fall back into sins, sins that we we abhor, but still sins that we commit (Rom 7:15–24a). Yet, we also know that Christ is our ultimate deliverer on the day when we our salvation is consummated (Rom. 7:24b–25)!
Praise the Lord that our Deliverer accomplished this work and will accomplish the final work on the day when we see him face to face (1 John 3:1-2). Let us also remember that those who have such a hope do not use grace as an occasion to sin, but strive to live pure lives (1 John 3:3); recognizing that when we do sin, we have an advocate with God the Father (1 John 2:1).
SDG
A Scholar I May Never Be
I love the Bible. I love that God froze his word in time and in languages that we still have access to. I wish I was proficient at those languages. One of my seminary professors once told me, “Success in Greek will take hard work on your part and a God given aptitude.” It’s not the first part I have trouble with, it is the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I have a problem with God, I just don’t think he has given me the aptitude. Don’t read this wrong either, it doesn’t mean I’m not going to work hard.
Some of you might be thinking, “Jason, I thought you’ve already taken Greek.” I did, about 16 years ago and unlike a bike, if you don’t use it regularly (read, translating from the original, not reverse engineering an English text), you loose it. I have retained vocabulary and some rules, but as I start to go through Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek, I realize how much I don’t remember and how poor my handle is on the English language. This is my ultimate downfall. If I had only paid closer attention in my English classes, I would probably not be having as hard of a time relearning what I barely learned in my undergrad Greek courses.
I am realizing though, I may never get the handle on it I’d like to. I may have to settle for scholarly pursuits in areas in which I have a greater aptitude. Maybe settle isn’t the best word, but a Greek scholar I may never be. I will trust that the way God has wired me is what I should excel at. That doesn’t mean I won’t strive to get a handle on the basics of Greek and rely on men (thank God for them!) who are geniuses in Biblical languages.
“What about Hebrew?” you ask. Not touching that one for a while…
One of My Best Experiences
I love being a part of an elder ruled church. I am not stating this because I happen to be an elder. I am sating it because I love submitting to and leading with the guys who are my fellow elders.
Outside of some very sad news we received last night (one of our elders youngest sisters passed away in a tragic scuba diving accident), the way God used the elders of New Community Church to come together to make some hard and last minute decisions about 2012 was awesome. Even the way God allowed us to all be together the moment we heard of our dear brother elder’s tragedy was providential!
It’s exciting to see the leadership get excited about things like budgets and how God has blessed us and what we need to do to cast the vision of ministry to the dear folks of our flock!
It’s hard to believe it has been eleven years since God brought us to St. Louis to be on staff at NCC. Though things are not always easy, I am thankful for the men whom I serve with who help bear each others burdens.
God is Jealous
THINGS LEARNED FROM STUDYING JUDGES pt. 1.
This year I am taking our small group through the books of Judges and Ruth. You have to throw Ruth in there or it’s just too depressing. As usual I am learning a ton, while I am studying to share with others. In this first post, in a series I hope to continue here on the blog, let me draw out a few parameters about the book of Judges.
- We should understand “judges” better as deliverers or saviors of the children of Israel.
- The writers of historical books were concerned about drawing out religious truths implicit in history.
- The original title in the Hebrew Bible was probably the first line of 1:1 about after Joshua’s death. It is most likely that this would account for the restating of Joshua’s death in 2:6–9. This causes most scholars to believe that the passage we are studying tonight is a prologue, and introduction to set up the book of Judges.
- Though very practical reasons are given for Israel’s failures, we are constantly pointed back to the sovereignty of God.1
The pattern of the book of Judges is cyclical. We see that the children of Israel constantly go back to idols, though God has been gracious and delivers them from the calamities that are consequences for their idolatry/ spiritual adultery. In this action of God we see both His jealousy and His willingness to forgive. We also see the need of consequence.
The phrase that is often repeated in some for in Judges is, “The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth” (NASB–U Jdg 3:7). The idea of spiritual adultery is described by phrases like, “Then the LORD raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. (Jdg 2:16–17). Of course we see in this the reason for the jealousy of God. I’m sure this raises questions in the minds of some.
Is it right for God to be jealous? The short answer is yes, because He is God. The longer answer draws out that idea. For me it all goes back to who God is and what He has to say about Himself. In Is. 42:8 God proclaims, “I am the LORD (YHWH), that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.” Notice it is not we who deiced who gets the glory, rather it is God who refuses to give His glory to another. We may try to give glory to other things (as the Israelites did), but God will not ultimately allow it to happen!
We (I), so easily make idols in my heart and try to give glory to other things, to the graven images of my heart and mind. God will not allow it because He is jealous for his glory (Ex. 20:4–6). He will discipline us, steer us back to Him, if we are His. Let us (me) repent and turn back quickly. He made the provision for us to be able to see His glory and not be destroyed by sending His son to redeem all who believe in Him (1 John 1:1–4). God will get the glory, because ultimately, He will give none of it away.
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- Though most of this is my own words some of the concepts are taken from Arthur E. Cundall & Leon Morris, Judges & Ruth, Inter-Varisty Press, Leicester, 1968 ↩
