Too Much Grace?

"I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"  Galatians 2:21

 

In my recent blogs I have been talking about two opposing ways of viewing the world, and more specifically God and our relationship to Him.  For a more in depth understanding of these different points of view, I refer you to my blog entitled Which Lens.  But briefly, Action/Consequence is our natural, default way of thinking. It is about me--what I do and what I expect to achieve or receive as a result. When I live in the Action/Consequence world view, my life is about seeking gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise through my own actions. As a result, my life will be about comparing and competing which leads to judging and often condemning others or myself. This way of thinking applies to everything in our lives, including religion, and leads to a distorted view of God.

Death/Resurrection, on the other hand, is a completely unnatural, counter intuitive way of thinking. It is a point of view which only comes to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and without his help we quickly revert back to Action/Consequence thinking. It is all about God and what he has done for us through his son, Jesus Christ. It recognizes that without Jesus we were dead (Ephesians 2:1), but because of him we are now alive (Ephesians 2:5) and that we are all alike in our unworthiness and need. Because of that, we have no basis for comparing or competing; judging or condemning. In this world view, all recognition, glory, honor and praise goes to God alone.

Using those two lenses, I want to take a look at the great fear many have concerning the teaching of grace:  If you preach it too much, people will be likely to consider grace as a license to sin, and will stop wanting to live godly lives.

The Book of Romans has some startling insight on that subject.  In Romans chapter 5 verse 20, Paul says, “The law was added so that the trespass might increase.” What was the reason the law was added, or given? So that “the trespass” might increase.  What is Paul saying? The Greek word translated here as “the trespass” is Paraptoma and literally means “to fall by the wayside”. It is equated with sin in the sense of defeat.  The reason the law was given, Paul says, was to increase the instances of defeat.

Paul elaborates further on that thought in chapter 7, beginning with verse 5, “…the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.”  And again, in verses 8-10, “But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire, for apart from law, sin is dead.  Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.  I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.”

In our natural Action/Consequence way of thinking, emphasis on teaching the law, or what God expects from us, should result in obedience, or godly living.  It is just logical.  The more we hear regarding what we should be doing, the more likely it will be that we will do it.

Yet, in the upside down and backwards world of Death/Resurrection, we find scripture telling us the opposite.  In a world without sin, the law would simply be a description of how we were already living.  But, in this world, where sin exists, the law clarifies how we are not living; and further, because of sin, when we are told what we should be doing, our “sinful passions” are actually aroused, and instead of becoming more obedient, we get worse!

So, if preaching law, obedience and right living, because of our sinful natures, actually produces defeat and fruit for death, where should the emphasis be?  Let’s take a second look at the context of the verses above:

Romans 5, verses 20 and 21 says, “The law was added so that the trespass might increase.  But when sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Romans 7, verse 4 says, “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.”

And, finally, at the conclusion of Paul’s discussion of how our sinful natures take something as “holy, righteous and good” as the law and twist it into something that produced death in us, he says, in verse 24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Our emphasis must always be on what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.  There is a wonderful use for preaching and teaching what the law requires; it is to remind us of how far we have all fallen from what God demands.  But the preaching of law must always be concluded with the good news that the demands of God have been completely satisfied for us by the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Contrary to the Action/Consequence logic that thinks we will only be good if we are repeatedly told how we should be living, Death/Resurrection shows us that it is only through the comfort which comes through hearing the good news of grace over and over that we will begin to “bear fruit to God.”

The Agonizing Gulf

This week I was struck by words from the book Strength to Love, By Martin Luther King, Jr. “One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.  A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves….  This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage.”

We say one thing and do another.  We know what is right, but do the wrong.  This quotation sounds a lot like Romans 7 verse 19, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

In my early life I was painfully aware of what I think of as my core set of weaknesses:  Self-pity, arrogance and impatience.  I was prone to melt-downs and blow-ups.  I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that I grew up believing my behavior determined my salvation, and when I examined my behavior, I lived in a state of fear, guilt and despair as far as my salvation was concerned. 

Then, in my early thirties I discovered grace.  I learned that I was not saved on the basis of my obedience, but solely on the basis of what Jesus Christ had done for me.  Once I was thoroughly convinced of that truth I let go of the need to earn my salvation, but I expected that, over time, I would become a better person.

As time passed, however, I realized that as far as my core set of weaknesses were concerned, I had made little to no progress.  I knew now that my salvation wasn’t dependent on conquering those issues, but, frankly, I was ashamed of my continued failures!  I wanted to change.  This seemed like a worthy goal, so I rededicated myself to obedience. I pleaded with God to change me.  I tried hard to change.  I confess that I even pretended to change; but that worked for only so long, and then I either melted-down or blew up.  I was embarrassed and discouraged. The same old feelings of fear, guilt and despair, which used to plague me before I learned about grace, began to torment me again.  How was it possible to have been a Christian for so long, I wondered, and to have made so little progress in those areas?

In one of his blogs, Tullian Tchividjian borrows an illustration from Jack Miller regarding a similar struggle of Samuel Johnson, an 18^th century writer and moralist.  Taken from Johnson’s diary and prayer journal, Jack gives us a record–through the years–of Johnson’s life-long resolutions, failures, and frustrations:

1738: He wrote, “Oh Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.”

1757: (19 years later) “Oh mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining.”

1759: (2 years later) “Enable me to shake off idleness and sloth.”

1761: “I have resolved until I have resolved that I am afraid to resolve again.”

1764: “My indolence since my last reception of the sacrament has sunk into grossest sluggishness. My purpose is from this time to avoid idleness and to rise early.”

1764: (5 months later) He resolves to rise early, “not later than 6 if I can.”

1765: “I purpose to rise at 8 because, though, I shall not rise early it will be much earlier than I now rise for I often lie until 2.”

1769: “I am not yet in a state to form any resolutions. I purpose and hope to rise early in the morning, by 8, and by degrees, at 6.”

1775: “When I look back upon resolution of improvement and amendments which have, year after year, been made and broken, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” He resolves again to rise at 8.

1781: (3 years before his death) “I will not despair, help me, help me, oh my God.” He resolves to rise at 8 or sooner to avoid idleness.

I completely identified with Mr. Johnson’s heart! Thankfully, in my near despair, God led me to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12 verses 7-9.  “To keep me from becoming conceited,” Paul says, “…there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

Whatever Paul’s thorn in the flesh actually was doesn’t matter.   God had been close to Paul and taught him many things, but because of that Paul was in danger of becoming conceited.  So, God sent him something which resulted in his being humbled.  Whatever it was, Satan used it to torment Paul and Paul wanted it to go away.  He did not want to feel weak! He wanted to be strong and competent!

I began to think about why I was so desperate to change.  Was it really about my desire to please God, or was it actually about my own embarrassment because I hadn’t changed?  Was it about God’s glory or my own?

God uses our weaknesses to keep us humble and to keep us honest.  We squirm uncomfortably, and beg him to remove our weaknesses, but instead he says, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.  It’s not about your goodness; it’s about my goodness toward you. Neither is it about your failures or inconsistencies; your melt downs or sloth (fill in your own weaknesses here); it’s about the fact that my grace has already provided all you need. Your weaknesses are an opportunity for me to demonstrate my power on your behalf. 

Paul’s response was, ‘Well, if that’s the case, then I’m just going to boast about my weaknesses, so that your power can rest on me!’

God may or may not allow me to see growth in my core areas of weakness. Who knows, maybe I have grown and just can’t see it; but that is not the point.  What God wants is for me to have a humble understanding of my need for him; gratitude for what he has done and continues to do for me; love for him, his word and his presence; increasing joy and peace as I rest in him; and growth in my desire to share with others the news of his amazing grace which he offers us especially because of the “agonizing gulf between the ought and the is”. 

FRUIT

“…The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”  Galatians 5:22

"I'm not a very good Christian".  I recently heard someone utter those words, and it made me stop and consider what they were really saying.  In my last blog, Which Lens,  I talked about two different ways of viewing the world, Action/Consequence and Death/Resurrection. 

Briefly, Action/Consequence is our natural, default way of thinking. It is about me--what I do and what I expect to achieve or receive as a result. When Action/Consequence is my world view, my life is about seeking my own gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise. As a result, I will always be comparing and competing which leads to judging and often condemning others or myself. This way of thinking applies to everything in our lives, including religion, and leads to a distorted view of God.

Death/Resurrection, on the other hand, is a completely unnatural, counterintuitive way of thinking. It is a point of view which only comes to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and without his help we quickly revert back to Action/Consequence thinking. It is all about God and what he has done for us through his son, Jesus Christ.  It recognizes that we were dead (Ephesians 2:1), but because of him we are now alive (Ephesians 2:5) and that we are all alike in our unworthiness and need.  Because of that, there is no basis for comparing or competing; judging or condemning.  In this world view, all recognition, glory, honor and praise goes to God alone.

With those two points of view in mind, I'd like to explore the concept of what it means to be a "good Christian", using John chapter 15 verses 1-4 as a framework: 
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

Let me begin by saying that, because Action/Consequence is our default way of thinking, it will also be the default lens we use when reading scripture.  Action/Consequence is natural, but Death/Resurrection is unnatural, and is revealed, or given to us, only by the Holy Spirit. When scripture is read through the lens of Action/Consequence, the reader comes away with a distorted Me-centered understanding of what was said.

In these verses, Action/Consequence will immediately focus on the words, “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.”  Everything else in that passage will be secondary to those words and the understanding of the rest will be colored by how Action/Consequence interprets those words. 

I remember, as a young girl, sitting in a Bible class discussing what the word “fruit” represented in this passage.  Some thought it referred to the number of people you “saved”.  If you weren’t sharing your faith and no one was saved, God would cut you off.  Others argued that fruit represented obedience in general.  If you weren’t living a life of obedience, i.e. obeying all of God's commands, you would be cut off.

The sense of this passage, then, through the eyes of Action/Consequence is, “You better be good, or God will cut you off.  The only way you can be good is if I help you, so you better stay connected to me and produce fruit, or else.” When understood this way, these verses incite fear.  The fear is then used as motivation to devise plans for daily devotions, etc. in order to keep yourself connected to the vine, and to busy yourself trying to be the best you can be, so that God won’t chop you off. 

Now, let’s look at these verses again, through the lens of Death/Resurrection.  Jesus is the one speaking, and he begins by saying, “I am the true Vine”.  If there was no vine, there would be no branches, because the vine produces the branches. The vine is the source of life for the branches.  Jesus, and all that he represents, is the true Vine. 

Because we were dead in our transgressions and sins, without hope, God sent his Son to live a perfect life, which record he then applies to us; and to take our record of wrongs and pay the full penalty for them in our place. We stand, in Christ, on the other side of the grave, with our debt marked “Paid in full”.  Romans 8:1 says there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For those who are in Christ, all condemnation is gone.  Jesus took it all. To be “in Christ”, is the same thing as being “in the Vine.”

We are connected to the Vine when we live out of the comfort, relief and assurance of all that Jesus has done on our behalf.  As we allow the implications of the gift to permeate our beings something inside of us shifts.  We stop striving to prove ourselves; stop trying to earn or deserve. We are humbled at the understanding of our undeservedness. An immense gratitude fills our hearts, and from that humble gratitude flows love for the one who has given us everything.  As we begin to comprehend the fact that, despite our unworthiness, we are dearly loved and accepted by God, a peace, unlike anything we have ever known, comes over us.  With the realization that, in Jesus, our sins will never be counted against us, a joy which cannot be contained bubbles out of us.  Without the weight of expectations hanging over our heads, we find ourselves becoming more patient, with ourselves and with others. Because of the kindness God has shown to us, we are also kinder, to ourselves and others.  When we know that our standing with God isn’t dependent on our own goodness, we find ourselves wanting to be better people.  The doubts and fears which used to plague us fade away, and we are full of faith in the One who has done everything for us.  We begin to desire to live into the way God already sees us, and humbly ask for his help in controlling the things which have controlled us in the past.  

Did you notice that I just covered all of the fruits of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22?  The natural outgrowth of being “in the vine”, is fruit.  The branch does not worry and strive to produce the fruit.  The fruit will grow simply because the branch is attached to the vine. 

Let’s look at verse four again, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”  To remain in Jesus means to rest in him; to rest in his completed work for you; to know that you have nothing to prove.  As you remain “in Christ” or “in the Vine”, he will remain in you; continually reminding you of his love for you and all that he has done for you and is going to do in the ages to come.

If a person says he is attached to the Vine, but is still worrying and striving to “produce fruit”, he is living from Action/Consequence, and is not attached to the Vine. He may be producing good works, but it is not fruit.  The gardener is looking for fruit.

When someone says they are not a very good Christian, they are, most likely, thinking in Action/Consequence terms.  In reality, Christians are simply people who have come to realize the utter impossibility of ever being good enough to escape God’s judgment and punishment and have humbly and gratefully accepted God’s amazing offer to give Jesus the punishment which we deserve, and to give us Jesus’ perfect record which we don’t deserve.  Squarely facing our true condition and then accepting our belovedness because of Christ is what frees us, albeit imperfectly, to live a fruitful life.  

WHICH LENS?

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe….” Ephesians 1:18-19

Recently I have been working with a concept that has proven to be an incredibly helpful tool for me, not only in my study of Scripture, but in my life in general, and I want to share it with you in the hope that it will be useful for you as well.  Although I have made it my own, the idea is as old as Scripture and has been expressed in many ways by many others over the centuries.

I maintain that we view all of life – our circumstances, friendships, love relationships, the authority figures in our lives and even God and Scripture – through one of two lenses, which I have called Action/Consequence and Death/Resurrection.  Let me explain what I mean.

I see Action/Consequence as being our natural, default way of viewing the world. ‘If I do this, I will get that.’ ‘If you do this, in relation to me, you will get that.’  Consequences, of course, can be either positive or negative.  For example, if I’m nice, people will like me.  If you’re a jerk to me, you will not like how I am to you.  If I work hard, my boss will notice me.  If I slack off, my boss will notice me, too, but in a different way!

The Action/Consequence model, then, is about my expectations; about what I believe I deserve in response to my actions, based on my perception of justice or fairness.  Someone once told me that we were created to live in a perfect world, but all that remains is our expectation of it in relation to ourselves.  When I put forth a positive effort, my expectation is that I will be rewarded.  If I am not rewarded, I feel that I have not been treated fairly. I do not, however, necessarily have that same sense of fairness when it comes to rewarding your positive actions; but, if your actions negatively impact me in some way, I do have a strong sense of justice in regard to the punishment I think you should receive!

Because this is our natural way of viewing the world, it is also our default way of understanding religion.  When Action/Consequence is applied to religion it will always be about me and my doing – ‘If I do this, I will receive that.’  We see this in all world religions.  When it is applied to Christianity it says, ‘If I do this/don’t do this, I will go to heaven.  If I do this/don’t do this, I will go to hell.  If we believe that we are the ones going to heaven, we will have feelings of self-righteousness and superiority.  We will look down on and judge those we feel are not living in a way that is worthy of heaven, or at least as worthy as we are.  On the other hand, if we want to go to heaven, but believe we are the ones deserving of hell, we will live in fear, despair, guilt and shame.  Both groups operate under the assumption that their salvation is won or lost based upon their actions.

Sadly, many churches which call themselves Christian, under the guise of honoring God, preach only the message of Action/Consequence.  You will hear merely a sentence or two in passing about Jesus; the idea of his dying for our sins is used only as a springboard for the real emphasis, which is about me and what I am to do.

Action/Consequence is Me centered.  It focuses on what I can achieve or gain.  It compares and competes, judges and condemns; it is tit for tat, eye for an eye, dog eat dog; it seeks gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise for me, even at the expense of others.

The second way of viewing the world is Death/Resurrection.  This way of thinking is not natural to us; in fact, it is so completely counter intuitive that it seems upside down and backwards to the way we naturally think.  It is a point of view that comes only through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and without his help we quickly lose the concept and revert to Action/Consequence thinking.  Whereas Action/Consequence applies to everything in life, and therefore extends to religion; the Death/Resurrection concept applies first to our understanding of our relationship to God, and then extends to our view of everything else in our lives. 

Death/Resurrection has nothing to do with my actions and achievements; it is all and only about the actions of someone else on my behalf:  ‘Because of what Jesus did for me, I will live.’

To illustrate what I mean, I refer you to the book of Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 1-10.  Verse 1 begins, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world….”  First of all, what does Paul say was our condition?  Pretty sick?  Nearly dead? No, we were dead; no sign of life. When you are dead, how much can you do to save yourself?  The only hope for a dead person is resurrection, and that certainly must come from a source outside of you.

Secondly, when does Paul say we were dead?  When we “followed the ways of this world”.  Of course, “the ways of this world” can mean the list of sinful acts our minds go to when we read verses like this, or those words can refer to the default ‘way’ of the world—described as Action/Consequence above.

Verse 3 continues, “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” Again, the cravings, desires and thoughts of our sinful natures are for our own gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise. 

Then verse 3 goes on to say, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath”.  Along with everyone else, we deserved God’s punishment, or his wrath, to be poured out on us; not so much because of our sinful acts, but rather due to the fallen nature from which those acts came.

To sum up our condition as described in verses 1-3, we were dead, waiting for God’s final judgment, condemnation and wrath, with no ability to help ourselves in any way; a seemingly hopeless situation!

Thankfully, the passage continues in verses 4 and 5, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” That is the heart of Death/Resurrection! Because of God’s love, and God’s love alone, we were dead and then made alive with Christ!

The next verses explain more fully what God actually did for us, and why he did it, verse 6, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…” Where are we already seated as a result of having been raised with Christ? With him in heaven!   As surely as you’re seated on your couch or chair at this moment, in Christ, you are already seated in heaven!  Not because you earned the right or deserved to be there, since you were dead and unable to do anything, but simply because of God’s great love and mercy!

 And, why did he do this for us? Verse 7 says, “…in order that, in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”  Action/Consequence thinking would expect the verse to say he raised us up so that we could do something in return for his kindness; but, instead, it says God raised us up so that he, for all of the coming ages, could show the incomparable riches of his grace to us! Instead of telling us what he expects us to do for him, he tells us that he has only begun to shower us with his incredible riches!

In verses 8 and 9, Paul makes sure that we understand there is no room for us to claim we have earned any of this; he says again, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” 

In the Death/Resurrection model, God is clearly the only one who deserves glory! We must come to realize that we, and all of humanity, are on the same level playing field; we are all alike in our unworthiness and need.  There is no basis for comparing and competing, judging and condemning. Whatever we have, we have received as a gift. We bring nothing to the table but our need, and who would brag about that?

I know some of you are uncomfortably asking, ‘Isn’t there anything that I’m supposed to do?’ Let’s look carefully at the end of verse 9 and then verse 10 to see how Paul addresses that issue, “…not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship…”  We have nothing to boast about because we are God’s workmanship.  We are not our own workmanship. We are not intended to be self-made men and women who must pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps! 

Verse 10 goes on to say, “…we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus…” In this Death/Resurrection status we are being created, by God.  We do not create ourselves; He creates us.  And how is he fashioning us, creating us? By firmly grounding us in the truth that everything we need, he has already done for us through his son, Jesus Christ!  As we humbly begin to accept and believe this incredible truth, our hearts respond with a gratitude and love that cannot be contained.  God then reveals to us his plan-- for us “to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  God has carefully and thoughtfully planned ways for each of us to share, with our neighbor, our humble, grateful love; not to earn God’s favor but because of his favor!

Because we are human, our initial way of viewing things will always be Action/Consequence.  My hope is that, by understanding and acknowledging this, we will learn to pause and allow the Holy Spirit to change our lens.

The Answer

“Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has eternal life.”  John 6:47 




I would like you to think for a minute about what you would say if you arrived at the gates of heaven and God asked you why he should let you in.

My Pastor recently told us about a survey he read that said many more people believe in heaven than in hell.  His response was, that belief was very convenient for them!  The fact is, people, both Christians and non-Christians, have many different opinions about heaven and what gets you in and what keeps you out.  I heard a talk recently by the son of a notorious mafia mob boss.  The son had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior and had spoken many times with his father about his faith and what it meant.  The father, who professed to be a Christian, told his son that he was not worried; because he was sure God would let him into heaven, since over his lifetime he had certainly done more good deeds than bad.  His belief consisted of a large scale with the good deeds on one side and the bad deeds on the other, and if the good side of the scale is heavier, you’re in!

The idea that heaven is the reward we receive for living a good life is the most commonly held belief in all world religions.  Outside of Christianity the reward may be called by other names, but the general idea is the same – there is a reward we receive in the afterlife that is given to us on the basis of our behavior. 

I was raised on the other side of the spectrum from the mob boss, in a church that took sin, heaven and judgment very seriously. I grew up believing it was wrong to ever assume you were saved, because, when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your past sins were forgiven, but from then on you were expected to be on your way to becoming perfect with the help of the Holy Spirit. If you did sin, every sin had to be confessed and forgiven or it remained on your record; and any sin remaining on your record when you died would mean you were not saved.

 I was born into a church-going family, but I officially made the decision to become a Christian at the age of 10.  Therefore, according to what I was taught, all of the sins I had committed from the ages of 0-10 were forgiven, but after that the burden was on me to let the Holy Spirit make me perfect. I had to be prepared to confess each sin I did commit; preferably before I went to sleep each night, in case I died in my sleep or was hit by a bus as soon as I left the house in the morning; because if I died with any unconfessed sin, I was lost.

Many churches still teach this today but most of those that do, cut their believers some slack by making a distinction between faults, mistakes and sins.  Faults and mistakes, they say, if unconfessed, won’t remain on your record and keep you out of heaven, which leaves only the big intentional sins to be confessed.  This interpretation gives the believer at least a glimmer of hope; a possibility of meeting the requirements for salvation.  My church, however, offered no such escape clause.  When I said they took sin seriously, even eating between meals was considered a sin! The list of sins was endless. There was not only the list of sins I had actually committed, there was also the list of the good things I should have done and didn’t do, which were also sins.

Needless to say, by the time I was eleven it was painfully obvious I wasn’t perfect and I was fairly certain I already had unconfessed sins on my record, since I knew I couldn’t possibly have remembered everything l had done or not done! Discouragement set in at that point.  I began answering every altar call, begging for forgiveness and mercy.  No one wanted to spend eternity with Jesus more than I did, but it appeared hopeless.  In a few minutes I will explain to you why, looking back, I am actually grateful for that!

It was, literally, only by the grace of God that I did not give up.  I hung in there, hoping against hope that God would have mercy on me.  I was in my late twenties/early thirties before someone finally told me the Good News.  In scripture the word “gospel” in the original Greek means “good news”.  I can honestly remember feeling guilty as a teen because I secretly wondered why it was called that.  I concluded that it must only be good news for good people, and I was obviously not good enough.  Consequently, when someone did finally present to me what scripture actually teaches about grace, although my heart swelled with hope, I was terribly afraid that this news was too good to be true.  I wanted with all of my heart to believe it, but I knew that if I believed it and it wasn’t true, I would be lost.  To me it was a matter of life and death!

Fortunately, two of the good things my church had taught me were that scripture was the inspired word of God and could be trusted to be true, and that every believer could count on the Holy Spirit to teach them. You didn’t have to be a preacher with a degree for the Holy Spirit to help you to understand the truth. With that assurance in my heart, I decided to “lock myself away” with only the book of Romans and the Holy Spirit until I understood what the Bible really had to say about how a person was “saved” (or how they got to heaven.) And, when I came out on the other side of that study, I believed that the good news of God’s grace was really good news and it completely transformed my life!

For the next few minutes I’d like to share with you, from the first three chapters of the book of Romans, the answers that I found to the question of what God will be waiting to hear from you when you reach the pearly gates; as well as the differences between what the Mob Boss believed, what I believed, what all other major religions believe and what scripture actually has to say about what is required to get through those gates.

The reason I turned to the Book of Romans for the answers to my life and death questions was because it is the clearest, most methodical presentation of the gospel in scripture.  Paul presents the message step by step.  The first three chapters are actually intended to bring everyone to the point of hopelessness and despair. The reason Paul begins this way is because, until we are totally convinced of the absolute desperation of our situation, we will not be interested in the remedy.  This is the reason I am actually grateful for the despair I lived in all those years.  When I finally heard the good news I was completely prepared to receive it, like a drowning man would a life preserver!

In chapter 1, the verse we are all probably most familiar with is verse 16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” But the next verse is equally important, “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” 

The reason we all know verse 16 and aren’t as familiar with 17 is actually at the heart of our problem.  We human beings love to have everything be about us.  We want the focus to be on us!  We like the idea of the gospel being about God’s power, but we want it to be all about God’s power IN US.  If it’s God’s power in us, then it’s about US. The focus will be on how and what I am doing for God.  But, if you look at the verses, they actually say this gospel, this good news, is about God’s power FOR us who believe.  It is about God’s righteousness, not ours.  It’s about God’s power to, through his son, give us his own righteousness, and all we have to do is believe, or have faith in God’s power to give us that righteousness – it’s a gift we accept by faith alone, from first to last!  The focus then, is on God and God alone, which is where it should be!  The danger comes when we begin putting ourselves into the equation; thinking that we can add anything to what God has provided for our rescue.

The rest of chapter 1 tells the story of how sin has taken over the world and its thinking.  Even though God has plainly revealed himself to the unbelieving world through his creation, they rejected the truth and their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened; so, they have no excuse to offer God when they stand before him.  They can’t say ‘we had no basis to believe you were real, so we didn’t believe.’

Chapter 2 begins by focusing on anyone who might be feeling superior to those poor schmucks described in chapter 1, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” (Romans 2:1) The next few verses are basically the same, stating in different ways the fact that we are all a mess. We are all aware of God’s mercy and kindness, which is meant to make us sorry for our behavior and then cause us to stop acting that way; yet, none of us stop.  We just keep messing up over and over. 

Remember the churches that let their members off the hook by making a distinction between faults, mistakes and sins?  The most common word for sin in the Greek is hamartia and it actually means “missing the mark”.  The “mark” that we are missing is the righteousness of God.  Anything less than “hitting the mark” of the perfect righteousness of God is “missing the mark”; or sin.  God sees no difference between faults, mistakes and sins to give us an easy out.  Verses 6 and 7 say, “God will repay each person according to what they have done.  To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.”  The words “persistence in doing good”, in the Greek, are in a tense that means to continuously, on an ongoing basis, do good.  In other words, to those who continuously, always, do good, God will give eternal life. But Paul has already said in verse 5 that because of our stubbornness and unrepentant hearts we are storing up wrath against ourselves for the day of God’s wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed.  Feeling hopeless yet?

At the end of chapter 2, going into the first part of chapter 3, Paul, who has been mainly talking to the Gentiles up ‘til now, says that if you sin without the law (like the Gentiles), you’ll be judged apart from the law; but if you have the law and you sin, you’ll be judged by the law.  Then he begins to deal with those who had been given the law; those who had been entrusted with the very words of God and had witnessed his power and glory and experienced his presence in their lives; yet all of those blessings were still not enough to enable them to obey the law God had given them.  Paul points out that they were just as guilty of sinning as the Gentiles.  Then, verse 13 sums it all up, “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.”  I will get back to this verse in a minute, but let’s move on to chapter 3 first.

Chapter 3 gives us a scathing description of the human condition.  It is so scathing, in fact, that everyone I know who reads it has the same reaction, “These verses aren’t talking about me. I’m certainly not this bad. This is a description of the really bad people out there.”  But in reality, what Paul has done in Romans 3:10-18 is to collect a number of verses from the Old Testament where God himself is describing mankind, and put them all in one place so that there can be no question of how God views humanity:

¹⁰ As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
¹¹ there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
¹² All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
¹³ “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
¹⁴ “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶ ruin and misery mark their ways,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they do not know.”
¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

And then he sums it up by saying in verse 19, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.”  Whether you are a Gentile, who never had the law but broke your own internal moral code, or a Jew, who had the Law of God, you stand before God with nothing to say. Then Paul lands the final crushing blow in verse 20, ^“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” 

Now let’s go back to, verse 13 of Chapter 2 where Paul said, “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” Yet, here in Chapter 3 verse 20 he tells us that no one will be declared righteous by keeping the law.  What is he saying?  He is saying, “Here is the criterion for salvation: perfect obedience to the law; but no one can do it!” 

Paul has brought us carefully to the point of hopelessness, and then finally shows us our only hope:

^“ But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”  (verses 21-24)  Because no one can ever be declared righteous by keeping the law, God has provided a righteousness for us that is apart from the law, and that righteousness comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe.  None of us can earn or deserve this righteousness.  Our justification is given freely by his grace, or his totally undeserved love and mercy.

To be “justified” doesn’t simply mean to be declared not guilty.  It means so much more than that.  It means to be declared righteous, with the very righteousness of God himself, fully satisfying the requirements for salvation! What an amazing gift!

So, if you arrived at the gates of heaven and God asked you why he should let you in, the only acceptable answer will always be, “Because of my faith in Jesus Christ alone as my righteousness.”

 

Snake Bites

                                        
                                       

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Galatians 3:13

My all time favorite movie line comes from, of all things, a Veggie Tales movie – The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.  Sedgwick, one of the pirates, finding himself in a seemingly hopeless situation, lies down and begins to review his life as he prepares to die.  “It was a good life,” he says, “at least that one day…from about 2:00 to 2:30.” I laugh every time I think about it! 

I was reading John chapter 3 and came across verses 14 and 15:  “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  The story about Moses and the snake is found in the book of Numbers, so I decided to see what the connection was between that incident and what Jesus was saying in John.

As I leafed through Numbers, I saw that, from the moment the Israelites left Mt. Sinai, a pattern emerged.  God watched over them and provided for them, but the Israelites felt his provisions were not up to their standards; they then bitterly complained about the miserable life they had; God severely reprimanded them for their lack of gratitude and respect; and then they repented.  That same story, with varying details, repeats throughout the entire book.

The life the Israelites were living may not have been one of riches and pleasure, but God made sure their basic needs were met.  He miraculously provided water in the desert when there was none.  He sent them their daily food in the form of manna when there was no other food to be found. Deuteronomy 8:4 and 29:5 says their clothes and sandals did not wear out and their feet did not swell during their forty years in the wilderness.  It was a no frills life, but as Deuteronomy 8 explains, it was the life God intended them to have, to mold them and teach them the lessons he wanted them to learn. But the Israelites were not satisfied with what God gave them; they felt entitled to frills!

In Numbers 21 they were traveling from one place to another and on the way they became impatient and once again began to complain about the life God had given them: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” (Verse 5)  They called the manna, which God hand delivered to them each morning, detestable!

This time God’s severe reprimand was delivered to them in the form of what I think of as a living parable; he sent them poisonous snakes which bit them, and many of them died.  The snakes were both the deserved curse for their disobedience and disrespect, and a tangible representation of the venom of sin that constantly poisoned the Israelites’ minds toward everything in their lives, including God. 

In this and the other similar stories, my tendency is always to shake my head at the hard-headed, dim-witted Israelites, until God reminds me that we are all alike.  We have often been dissatisfied with the lives we have been given. As a matter of fact, some of us, like Sedgwick, can only think of about half an hour on “that one day” when we were satisfied!

Instead of understanding and accepting that the life circumstances God has given us are part of his plan to mold and teach us, we have all wished for more – more money, better cars, bigger houses, better jobs, kinder spouses, grateful children, truer friends, better health, fewer problems, and have often allowed those desires to be the driving force in our lives, sometimes even to the point of anger at God when we don’t get what we want.  And, we have all feared what we might have to deal with in the future, despite the many evidences God has given us of his presence and blessings in our past.  Our minds, too, have been poisoned by the venom of sin.  That is why what happens next in the story is so important.

The Israelites ran to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you.  Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” 

But, instead of taking the snakes away, God tells Moses to do something very strange, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; and anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”

If I were writing this story, I would have written it a little differently.  First of all, in answer to Moses’ prayer for the people, I would have had God take away the snakes, so that his words would be in the past tense “and anyone who was [had already been] bitten can look at it and live” Then, I would have had Moses make something more pleasant to put on the pole; something like a dove or maybe a rainbow, to turn their minds toward God’s promises when they looked at it. 

But that is not how the story went, and this is the link between this story and Jesus in John chapter 3.  God had Moses make a replica of the poisonous snake, the very thing God had sent them as a punishment or curse for their disobedience; the snake which also represented sin itself, the ultimate curse; and He told Moses to put it on a pole so that “anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” Why would God want them to look at the snake?

In John 3, Jesus compares himself to that snake on a pole because he knew that when he was lifted up on the cross he, in essence, would become the snake.  He became the curse; and, not only that, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says he actually became sin for us! 

On the cross he took the entire curse of sin, which we deserved, upon himself, so that anyone who is bitten- and we all have been and will continue to be on this earth – can look at him and, seeing what he did for us, believe in him and have eternal life! (John 3:15)  

Because of Jesus, the fatal effect of sin’s poison has been overcome forever!

Vicarious Victories part 3: No Longer Accused

 

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”  Revelation 12:10

 

I had a hard time with temptation number 3.  Since I had already written about 1 and 2, I felt I had to cover all of them, but I just didn’t have a handle on what to do with this last one.  When I read the passage initially, I thought it was going to be easy, which is funny, because that’s what it seemed to be about – easy. 

Satan took Jesus from the top of the temple to “a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”” (Matthew 4:8-9)

At first glance, it seemed obvious that this was a temptation about taking the easy way out.  “Skip the whole torture and death thing, Jesus; I’ll just give it to you if you worship me.”  Avoid pain whenever possible.  That pretty much sums up my philosophy of life.  I’m not just talking about physical pain, although I definitely try to avoid that; I’m talking about all pain.  If I had my way, I would never have to worry about money or relationship issues or illness or death.  I would live happily ever after.  I would have a life of, well, ease.

Jesus obviously didn’t take the easy way out, and his victory is applied to me, for all of the times I avoided pain to the point of being dishonest, lazy, selfish, etc.  The End.

Easy, right?  But, for some reason, with this temptation, I just couldn’t get past what Satan was offering.  He showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, and he said he would give it all to Jesus.  This presupposes that it was his to give.  Note that Jesus didn’t laugh at him and say, “Who do you think you’re kidding?”  If what Satan was offering Jesus was just ridiculous, then the temptation was no temptation at all; but, obviously, it was a real temptation, so what was it all about?

 I don’t claim to understand whether, as some have suggested, Satan had some official role in relation to the earth, and, if so, when it was given to him (Before the fall? After the fall?); but, in at least three Old Testament passages, Job 1 and 2 and Zechariah 3, Satan is mentioned as coming before God in what appears to be a representative manner regarding matters that concern this world.  In each instance, he was either looking for someone to accuse, or he was accusing.

 Regardless of whether or not Satan was the Representative of Earth in the Heavenly Council, we do know that since the time of Adam, every single person had sinned, and now stood condemned to suffer the wrath of God.   Romans 2:5 says, “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.”  Ephesians 2:3 says we were all, by nature, objects deserving God’s wrath.  Satan’s rule over the earth was based on his right to stand before God and accuse everyone on the planet of deserving God’s wrath, or punishment, which would be poured out on the Day of Judgment.

In the book of John, there are three passages where Jesus refers to Satan as “the prince of this world”, and these passages helped me to understand the third temptation.  The setting for each of these passages is the week before Jesus’ death, and each reference to Satan is specifically related to that death. 

In John 12, what we refer to as Palm Sunday had just occurred. In verse 27 Jesus spoke of all that he was facing, and his feelings about it.  He said, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!”

 He was troubled at the thought of what lay ahead, and his Father heard the cry of his Son and answered him, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”  (John 12:28) In that exchange between Jesus and his Father we see that, Jesus had come for the very purpose of suffering and dying, and that his suffering and death would bring glory to his Father.  God’s answer to him was that, in Jesus’ birth, life and ministry to this point, he had already been glorified, and that now, in Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection, he would be glorified again.

In that context, Jesus says, “Now is the time for judgment on this world, now the prince of this world will be driven out.”  (John 12:31)  Jesus was about to end the power of Satan’s rule once and for all.  He was going to drive him out!  But, how would he do that?  First, he would take, as his own, the sins of the entire world.  He assumed the responsibility for every sin of every human that had ever lived or would ever live.  Then, he faced God’s righteous judgment for all of those sins, and stood as one condemned before God, deserving of his wrath.  And, finally he satisfied God’s wrath by offering himself as a sacrifice, for us, on the cross.  The resurrection was the evidence that the mission was accomplished and the sacrifice was accepted.

Satan could no longer accuse anyone who accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on their behalf.  Judgment had already been satisfied.  “…there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) Satan’s power was broken at the cross!

Jesus’ second reference to Satan as the prince of this world is in John chapter 14.  Jesus was with the disciples at the Last Supper.  He had told them that one of them would betray him, and in chapter 13, Satan had entered Judas, and Judas left to set his betrayal in motion.  Jesus continued preparing the disciples for what lay ahead, and he comforted them by telling them that he would be going to be with his Father soon, but that he would send them another Advocate or Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who would “remind you of everything I have said to you.”  He told them that he was leaving his peace with them and that they didn’t need to be worried or afraid.  He told them that they should be glad he was going to his Father and then he said, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming.  He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” (verses 30-31)

With those words Jesus made clear that he was not Satan’s victim, or submitting to Satan’s power in going to his death; rather, he was going to his death for us, because he loved his Father, and this was not only his Father’s will, but his command, and Jesus fulfilled all of his Father’s commands.

The third reference is found in John 16.  They are still at the Last Supper and Jesus is once again speaking of the Holy Spirit who would be coming to them.  While all of what he said to them about the coming Counselor is important, right now I want to focus only on what Jesus says here about the work of the Holy Spirit in regard to Satan.  “When he [the Holy Spirit] comes he will convict the world…in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”(Verses 8,11)  As he has throughout his discourse on his soon coming suffering and death, Jesus spoke of the outcome as a completed fact.  Here he confidently proclaims that the prince of this world stands condemned.  When the Holy Spirit arrived, he would prove the world wrong about their idea of judgment.  The sins of the world were judged, condemned and atoned for, at the cross.  Forgiveness is there for all who will accept it.  The only one who stands condemned, without hope, is the accuser himself.

Now, let’s go back to the mountaintop and consider what Satan was actually suggesting in his alternative plan.    “…the devil… showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”” (Matthew 4:8-9) 

“Forget the sins of the world,” he was saying, “look at all there is to enjoy.  See the splendors the world has to offer.  If you join forces with me, if you acknowledge me as your God, what a ride we could have!  Our pleasures would be unending; our power would be unstoppable.  Forget your Father who expects you to suffer and die!  How crazy is that?  Look at what he wants for you versus what I want for you! You have to look out for Number One.  You’re worth it; they aren’t!  They made their own bed; just let them lie in it.”

“Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!  For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Yes, Jesus refused to take the easy way out, and that victory is applied to me for every time I have; but, he also chose to ignore the pleasures of the world; he refused to put himself and his enjoyment first;  he chose to ignore worldly power and fame.  Instead, “he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:7,8)

For every time I have chosen to put myself first and have chosen the pleasures of the world over God and over my fellowman; for every time I have chosen power over humility; for every time I have acted on the thought that “they made their own bed; just let them lie in it”; Jesus’ victory on that mountaintop is applied to me.

And not just that, but, for every sin that you and I have ever committed, or ever will commit, because Jesus chose to be obedient to death, his victory was applied to us, at the cross; we need only to accept it, and we are no longer accused.