What Happens when Human Beings Forget God

                The prophet Hosea spoke God’s words of condemnation, warning, and judgment to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel during the late 700’s and early 600’s B.C.  Note the flow of thought in this description by the Lord, given through the mouth of Hosea, of the degraded moral and spiritual condition of his people:

 

There is no faithfulness or steadfast love,

                and no knowledge of God in the land;

there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery;

                they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

 

(Hosea 4:1b-2).  The key thought in this text is that there is no knowledge of God in the land.  The people have forgotten their Maker and Redeemer.  They have turned their backs on the One who is their covenant God.  They have spurned the word of the Lord and have refused to listen to his prophets.  What is the result of this lack of knowledge of the Lord in the land?  The general description is that the people lack steadfast love and faithfulness.  Over and over in the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Psalms, the Lord is described as fundamentally a God of steadfast love and faithfulness.  It is thus no surprise that if the people have turned their backs on the Lord, they would no longer be like him.  They are devoid of the grace of God in their lives, so there is no evidence of steadfast love and faithfulness among them.

                The last two lines of the section quoted above from the Book of Hosea describe the practical manifestations of the lack of knowledge of God and the resulting lack of steadfast love and faithfulness.    This past weekend violent shootings in our city of Chicago took nine lives and wounded 28 other people.  We weep over such senseless bloodshed, and we know the causes of such violence may be many.  However, the one cause we can be sure of is that we no longer have the knowledge of God in the land.  Because we have turned from his goodness and spurned his word, there is no steadfast love and faithfulness, and “bloodshed follows bloodshed.”  Our prayer as the people of God must be for the Lord in his infinite mercy to cause his gospel once again to seize the hearts of men and women, for apart from the gospel, which brings the knowledge of God, the bloodshed will not end.   

What Shepherds Do

                Ezekiel 34:1-24 is the Lord’s denunciation of the current shepherds of his people Israel, that is, of the prophets, priests, and kings.  However, God promises that one day he will rescue his people from these false shepherds and will tend his flock himself.  No less than God himself will become the great shepherd of his people.

                We know that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy of God becoming the Good Shepherd of his flock (John 10).  What we might pass over in Ezekiel 34, however, is the Lord’s description of how he will care for his sheep.  In Ezekiel 34:16 the Lord gives this glorious promise with respect to his work of shepherding: “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and strong I will destroy.  I will feed them in justice.”

                Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:1-4 teach that the elders who lead local Christian churches are shepherds of the flock of the Lord, serving under the sovereignty of the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ.  Ezekiel 34:16 thus means for local church elders that we too, as shepherds of God’s flock, are to be about the business of seeking the lost, bringing back the strayed, binding up the injured, strengthening the weak, destroying the fat and strong, and feeding the people of God in justice.  May the Lord grant us the grace we so desperately need to shepherd the flock faithfully! 

Mass Killings and the American "Culture of Death"

                America has been deeply shaken by senseless and wicked mass shootings carried out 18 days ago at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and yesterday at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.  Undoubtedly the trial of the Colorado shooter and the press inquiries into the Wisconsin murderer will bring to light some of the killers’ personal motivations for these heinous crimes.  The Bible calls on Christians to mourn with those who have lost loved ones in these calamities (Romans 12:15) and to pray that they will seek and find comfort in the one true God of the Bible, who alone is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).  However, horrific crimes like these also call for Christians to reflect on the reasons why mass killings that would have been unthinkable just 50 years ago now seem to occur with frightening regularity.

                No one should deny at all the personal responsibility to be borne by the evil men who carried out the murders in Colorado and Wisconsin.  The Wisconsin killer died in a fire fight with police, and the Colorado killer must bear the full penalty for his crimes under Colorado law.  However, as Christians we must also wonder if our changing culture has not played at least a background role in these killings.  The late Pope John Paul II famously described western civilization, including American society, as a “culture of death.”  What John Paul II meant is that we do not respect life in the womb, for on average, more than a million abortions take place in the United States every year.  We also on see evidence in America of less and less respect for the lives of the elderly and disabled and the terminally ill.

                The Bible declares that all human life is valuable from the time of conception to natural death, because all human life bears the imprint of the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27).  Even the most disabled little baby is more like his or her Creator than any other beings in the universe.  However, as the United States has turned from biblical teaching and biblical values, and as it has embraced first modernity and then post-modernity, we have left behind this biblical teaching on the value of all human life.  As tragic as mass killings are, perhaps we should not be so shocked by them.  After all, can a society that allows the killing of more than one million of its citizens in the womb each year really profess surprise over mass killings of people outside the womb?  Is one of the byproducts of our devaluation of life the cheapening life to the point that evil men with twisted minds feel permission to commit mass acts of murder?         

Wise Reflections on the Chick-fil-A Controversy

                Many Christians are aware that Dan Cathy, the president and chief operating office of the fast food company Chic-fil-A has spoken out against same-sex marriage, on biblical grounds.  Last week municipal leaders in Chicago and Boston responded that they would seek to block the establishment of Chick-fil-A franchises in their cities.  Many of them have backed off their comments, in light of First Amendment concerns, but I wanted to use this space to quote three replies to the controversy I found especially helpful.

 

“If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching, or prevent Jewish parents from circumcising their sons, or ban Chick-fil-A in Boston, then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms.  Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that’s good and decent, and that you’re going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.  There, didn’t that feel better?  Now we can get on with the fight.”  Ross Douthat, “Defining Religious Liberty Down,” www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29.

 

“Recent comments by those who administer our city seem to assume that the city government can decide for everyone what are the ‘values’ that must be held by citizens of Chicago. . . . [But] [p]eople who are not Christian or religious at all take for granted that marriage is the union of one man and a woman for the sake of family and, of its nature, for life. . . . Jesus affirmed this understanding of marriage when he spoke of ‘two becoming one flesh’ (Matthew 19:4-6).  Was Jesus a bigot?  Could Jesus be accepted as a Chicagoan?  Would Jesus be more ‘enlightened’ if he had the privilege of living in our society?  One is welcome to believe that, of course, but it should not become the official state religion, at least not one in a land that still fancies itself free.”  Archbishop Francis George, “Reflections on Chicago ‘Values,’” www.archchicago.org.

 

“What we are seeing today is a massive cultural shift that permits leaders to label Christians as intolerant and bigoted simply for expressing their views about how society should function.  But strangely enough, the same social ostracism and cultural condescension are not extended to Muslims and faithful adherents of other religions.  No, the prejudice appears to be directed toward Christians who dare to speak publicly about the deeply-held religious convictions.  That’s why, at the end of the day, this conversations isn’t really about marriage, gay rights, or restaurant permits.  It’s not about the cultural divide between north and south, liberal and conservative.  It’s about Jesus.  It’s about the radical sexual ethic He set forth in His teaching—a moral zealousness that hits our current culture’s sexual permissiveness head-on.  And it’s about His forgiveness offered to all sexual sinners, so long as we agree with Jesus about our sin and embrace Him instead.”  Trevin Wax, “Why the Chick-fil-A Boycott is Really about Jesus,” www.thegospelcoalition.org.

  

Longing for the Gospel

                How badly do we long for the gospel to do its transforming work in our hearts?  The following is an excerpt from the personal journal of the colonial American Pastor Jonathan Edwards (1703-57), found in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, reprinted ed. (Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth, 1990), 1:xlvii:

 

I have loved the doctrines of the gospel; they have been to my soul like green pastures.  The gospel has seemed to me the richest treasure, the treasure that I have most desired, and longed that it dwell richly in me.  The way of salvation by Christ has appeared, in a general way, glorious and excellent, most pleasant and most beautiful.  It has often seemed to me that it would in a great measure spoil heaven to receive it any other way.

The Love of God for Christians

                For many years I have treasured John 17:23, where Jesus declares that God the Father loves Christians with the same infinite and perfect love with which, within the one God, the Father has loved the Son from all eternity.  Now today the lord riveted my attention to John 15:9, where Jesus similarly declares that “[a]s the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”  To think that the one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- loves his people with the overflowing, steadfast love He has experienced within himself from all eternity!    

The Truth that Brought Relief to Charles Spurgeon in an Hour of Crisis

                On October 19, 1856, Charles H. Spurgeon was preaching to a congregation of about 10,000 that had assembled at the Surrey Music Hall in London, when someone suddenly shouted out “Fire!”  Seven people were killed in the stampede toward the exits that ensued, and dozens more people were injured.   Spurgeon felt the blow of the tragedy very deeply.  “I was pressed beyond measure and out of bounds with an enormous weight of misery,” he would later write.  “The tumult, the panic, the death, were day and night before me, and made life a burden.”  (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, reprinted ed.  [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1954], 162).  Where did Spurgeon find comfort in the wake of such a horrific calamity?  He writes:

 

From that dream of horror I was awakened in a moment by the gracious application to my soul of the text, “Him hath God the Father exalted” [Acts 5:31, KJV].  The fact that Jesus is still great, let His servants suffer as they may, piloted me back to calm and reason and peace. 

 

(Spurgeon, Lectures, 162).  In other words, the great preacher found peace in the knowledge that Jesus Christ is an exalted Savior, and in him we find not just salvation from sin and eternal death but even deliverance from deep despondency of soul.

 

The One Who Sets Prisoners Free

                The prophet Isaiah looked forward to the ministry of Jesus Christ as one that would set spiritual prisoners free.  We recall that Jesus applied the words of Isaiah 61:1-2 to himself while preaching on the Sabbath in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19).  Isaiah 61:1-2 prophetically puts these words in the mouth of the Messiah:

 

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

                because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor;

                he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

                and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. . .

 

The reference to setting prisoners free is mainly spiritual.  Jesus Christ-- by the grace of God-- sets gloriously free those who have been held captive and prisoner by their own sin.  These lines from Isaiah 61:1-2 thus make great sense of the marvelous third stanza of Charles Wesley’s great hymn “And Can It Be?”:

 

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

fastbound in sin and nature’s night.

Thine eye diffused, a quickening ray;

                I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.

My chains fell off; my heart was free!

                I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Amazing love, how can it be

                that Thou my God shoulds’t die for me?

 

 

Learning from Suffering

                Here is an excerpt from a television interview conducted in 1978 by William F. Buckley, Jr., with the great English Christian leader Malcolm Muggeridge, who looks back on the role of suffering in his walk with Christ.

 

[The cross] worked for centuries and centuries, bringing out all the creativity in people, all the love and disinterestedness in people, this symbol of suffering; and I think that’s the heart of the thing.  Of course, it’s what been lost and why the faith is languishing; because it cannot take in that truth that we can learn nothing—and you know, as an old man, Bill, looking back on one’s life, it’s one of the things that strikes you most forcibly—that the only that that’s taught one anything is suffering, not success, not happiness, not anything like that.  The only thing that rally teaches one what life’s about—the joy of understanding, the joy of coming in contact with what it really signifies—is suffering, is affliction.

 

Vintage Muggeridge, ed. Jeffrey Barlow (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans 1985), 114-15.

Two Reflections from the Book of Isaiah

My current devotions are in the book of Isaiah, and the Lord brought these two thoughts to mind as I read:

 

1.       God’s exhaustive foreknowledge (i.e., his complete knowledge of the future, flowing from his sovereignty over the future) is such that he could call Cyrus by name about 120-150 years before the birth of the Persian emperor (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1).  Is it any reason the Lord declares that he alone is God, and there is no other?  (See Isaiah 45:5.)

 

2.       Really bad governments try to set themselves up in the place God alone should have over their citizens.  In Isaiah 47:8, 10, we see that Babylon was so depraved, she declared herself to be I AM, the title God alone bears (Exodus 3:14).

Isaiah 41 on the Comprehensiveness of God's Care for His People

The Lord in Isaiah 41 speaks a word of comfort to his people, who in the short term are going to experience exile at the hands of the Babylonians, but who in the long term will know God’s comfort and restoration.  In v. 10 the Lord declares that he will hold his people up “with my righteous right hand.”  Then in v. 13, God adds that he will also reach down from heaven and take hold of our right hands as well.  God is underneath us his people, holding us up at all times.  And he is beside as well, giving supremely wise guidance and demonstrating at every instant his steadfast love.  Oh how comprehensive is the care of the Lord for those who are his people, by His grace, in the Lord Jesus Christ!

Jonathan Edwards on the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins

                Three Jonathan Edwards scholars have done the church a great service by editing and releasing a series of 15 sermons the great New England pastor preached during the winter of 1737-38 on the topic of Jesus’ Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, recorded in Matthew 25:1-13.  You may be aware that the First Great Awakening, which the Lord used Edwards to lead, occurred in two phases: phase one in 1734-35 and phase two in 1740-41.  The first phase of this great work of revival seemed to end abruptly with the suicide of Edwards’ uncle in May of 1735, along with other events.  By the end of 1737, Edwards was deeply concerned that some of the conversions he thought he had witnessed during 1734-35 were not in fact genuine.  Some of the people of his hometown of Northampton (Massachusetts Bay Colony) were returning to their old ways and attitudes of sin.  Some of the people who had undergone emotional experiences during the first phase of the Awakening now gave every appearance of being unchanged from their prior spiritual lostness.  Edwards preached the series of sermons from Jesus’ Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, among many other reasons, to call these “false professors” to genuine repentance and faith in Christ.  In typical Edwardsian fashion, the pastor held out before his lost hearers the spiritual beauty and excellence of Jesus Christ, suggesting that his glory should draw them to cleave to this Jesus as their spiritual husbands:

 

Consider how worthy and excellent Christ is, and how worthless [are others].  That glorious person that seeks your love is a divine person; he is one that is infinitely above all creatures, above the highest angels. . . . Christ is an heavenly one, yea, he is the king of heaven; he is infinitely above heaven itself. . . . [I]n Christ is real, substantial excellency.  The more acquaintance you have with him, the more excellency you will see in him, to delight and ravish your heart.

 

Jonathan Edwards, “True and False Christians (On the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins),” ed. Kenneth Minkema; Adriaan C. Neele, and Bryan McCarthy (Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2012), 57.  May God grant that you and I, through the glorious word of the Lord, would indeed grow in our “acquaintance” with Jesus Christ, to the end that we would find our souls increasingly delighting in our Savior and Lord!   

Our Help Is Supremely in God, not Man

                Crisis came to the Hebrew nation of Judah during the ministry of the prophet Isaiah.  The Assyrians, the overwhelming military power in the Middle East of the day (late 700’s A.D.), were threatening little Judah and Jerusalem.  In one of the weaker moments of his otherwise godly kingship, Hezekiah turned to the Egyptians for help, seeking a military alliance against Assyria with the Jewish people’s ancient foe.  However, the Lord reminded Hezekiah, through the prophet Isaiah, that the king was not to trust in human help but rather in the Lord alone.  As recorded in Isaiah 31, God warned Hezekiah that the Egyptians and their horses were mere flesh, whereas he is the Ruler of the universe.  The Egyptians would completely fail Judah as an ally, but the Lord would come himself to fight on behalf of the Jews.  The miraculous story of what God did to keep this promise is told in Isaiah 37.

                How does Isaiah 31 apply to our lives?  If we are sick, we do well to seek out doctors to treat us in whom we are able to repose the utmost trust.  However, no matter how gifted our physicians may be, our ultimate trust should be in the Lord.  Even the most eminent surgeon is utterly incapable of helping us, absent the Lord’s empowerment.  No medicine can work to heal our bodies unless God gives that medicine the power to cure us.  Indeed, whenever we find ourselves in a difficult situation, Isaiah 31 reminds us to trust ultimately in the Lord and never supremely in other people, no matter how talented or powerful those other human beings may be.     

Some of the Biblical Teaching on Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in Outline Form

 

1. The most important biblical passages touching on the question of marriage, divorce, and remarriage include Genesis 2:18-24; Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Malachi 2:13-16; Matthew 5:31-32; 19:1-12; Mark 10:1-12; 1 Corinthians 7:12-16; Ephesians 5:22-33; and 1 Peter 3:1-7.  Scholars and pastors who love Scripture and hold fast to its supreme authority disagree to some extent about the interpretation of these passages, so what I am setting forth in this handout is a discussion of my own personal conviction, based on my own grappling over many years with the texts above.

 

2. Most importantly, the Bible affirms that marriage from the beginning, even before there was sin in the world, has been established by God the Creator as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman that includes the fundamental promises that, by God’s grace, the husband and wife 1) will love one another with a steadfast love, and 2) will keep themselves only unto one another so long as they both shall live (Genesis 2:24).  God thus wants the “default setting” of all married couples to be complete sexual and emotional faithfulness, until they are parted by death.  “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6).  God created marriage to bring joy to human beings and, more deeply, to be a glorious picture to the world of nothing less than the loving, covenantal relationship between Jesus and the church (Ephesians 5:25-32).

 

3. However, because of our human sin (Mark 10:5), God allows divorce in a certain limited number of cases.

 

4. My belief is that the Bible clearly allows for (but does not require) divorce by the offended spouse in cases of sexual immorality like adultery and homosexual acts (Matthew 19:9) and in cases of abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:15).  This appears to be the historic position of most Protestant churches concerning the grounds for divorce.  For example, The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) says regarding this issue: “Although the corruption of man be such as . . . to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage, yet nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient for dissolving the bond of marriage” Westminster Confession, Chapter 24, art. 6. 

 

5. Are there other cases in which divorce might be scripturally permissible?  That is a hard question to answer, and I think the Bible always wants us to err on the side of trying to save marriages, but there may be some cases.  For example, many years ago I counseled with a wife who had discovered that her husband was literally the not the person he had represented himself to be prior to the marriage.  In other words, he had fraudulently induced her into marrying him.  Because in this case the whole marriage was an act of fraud by the husband, I concluded that the Bible would allow that wife to divorce that husband.

 

6. My personal opinion is that Matthew 19:9, which is admittedly a difficult text to interpret, allows for remarriage by the person sinned against in all cases where the Bible allowed the prior divorce.  I also believe that Scripture allows remarriage by a person whose former spouse has divorced him or her unbiblically.  I do not believe that the Bible allows remarriage by a person whose sin caused a divorce or by a person who divorced his or her spouse unbiblically. 

 

7.  All of us know that divorce, even where biblically allowed, is always a tragedy that causes deep pain and lasting consequences in the lives of the divorced parties and in the lives of their children.  Virtually every divorced person I have ever talked to describes going through a divorce as being something like walking through the aftermath of the death of a close loved one.  The church must seek to minister the grace and love of Christ to families caught up in the tragedy of divorce. 

 

8. If you are the one whose sin caused your former spouse to divorce you, or if you divorced your spouse for unbiblical reasons, understand that divorce is not the unforgivable sin.  God loves you and wants to supply you with his grace and mercy, especially through his people, to help you deal with your sin and experience his healing grace.  If you confess your sin to the Lord, he will be faithful not only to forgive your sin but also to cleanse you from it (1 John 1:9).

 

9. If your former spouse was guilty of sin that led to your divorce, or if your former spouse divorced you unbiblically, only the Lord can give you the grace you need truly to forgive that former spouse and to experience the fullness of spiritual and emotional healing God has for you.        

 

10. If you divorced someone unbiblically some years ago, or if someone divorced you unbiblically some years ago, and neither one of you has remarried, please consider before the Lord whether it is possible for you to seek reconciliation and remarriage to your former spouse.   

 

 

 

 

The Covenants of the Bible

Here is some teaching I have developed on the covenants of the Bible, based on the “new covenant” passage in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

 

·         Jeremiah 31:31- YHWH promises that at some indeterminate time in the future, he is going to “make a new covenant” with his people.  Let us get at the meaning of this key phrase by answering the following questions about it.

 

o   #1- When will YHWH bring about this new covenant?

§  He says he will do so in days to come, meaning an undefined time in the future.

§  Jesus said at the time of the Last Supper with his disciples that the new covenant was coming into effect with his crucifixion the following day (Luke 22:20; see also 1 Corinthians 11:25).

§  Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 and adds that with the advent of the new high priesthood of Jesus Christ, the new covenant of this passage has now come into effect.

 

o   #2- What is a covenant?

§  My working definition of “covenant” is “an agreement between two parties that stipulates the terms of their relationship.”  In the ancient world most covenants were made between a stronger party (like a local king) and a weaker party (like a farmer needing that king’s protection).  One Bible scholar thus defines “covenant” more specifically as “a relationship between persons, begun by the sovereign determination of the greater party, in which the greater commits himself to the lesser in the context of mutual loyalty, and in which mutual obligations serve as illustrations of that loyalty.”  (Michael D. Williams, Far as the Curse is Found: the Covenant Story of Redemption (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2005), 45-46.)

 

o   #3- What are the covenants of the Bible? (I am setting forth in this section one classic position on the covenants, which is the position espoused by Reformed theology.  Many Bible scholars who love Scripture would set forth a different framework for the covenants.)

§  The covenant of redemption is the agreement among the three Persons of the Trinity, made in eternity past, to redeem humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of the second Person of the Godhead (John 17:2, 6; Philippians 2:8; Isaiah 53:10; etc.).

§  The covenant of works (or covenant of Creation) is the agreement God entered into with Adam, as the head of the human race, the terms of which were that if human beings would obey the Lord’s commands, he would bless us, and if we disobeyed, he would punish us (Hosea 6:7; Romans 5:12-21; 7:10; 10:5; Genesis 1:28-30; 2:16-17; etc.).

·         The problem is, of course, that because all human beings are sinners who sin (Romans 3:23), none of us can make ourselves right with God through the covenant of works.

§  The covenant of grace is the agreement God has entered into with all of his people of all times, whereby he saves us by his grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, in such a way that he is eternally our God, and we are eternally his people (v. 33; Leviticus 26:12; Revelation 21:3; Jeremiah 24:7; 30:22; Ephesians 1:4-5; 2:8-9; Romans 3:21-26; etc.).  (For this discussion on the covenant of grace I am indebted to Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994), 519-22.)

·         My understanding is that both the old covenant and the new covenant are different phases (or dispensations) of the one overall covenant of grace.  I would also argue that God’s covenant with Abraham to give his people land and make them numerous (Genesis 15:1-21; 17:1-27) is part of the covenant of grace, as is God’s promise to King David to grant him an heir who would have an eternal reign over the people of God (2 Samuel 7:1-29).

·         The old covenant is specifically the phase of the covenant of grace that included the Law God gave through Moses to his people, with all its ceremonies and observances (2 Corinthians 3:14).

·         The old covenant Law was a product of God’s grace to his people (Exodus 20:1-2).  The giving of the Law did not nullify the grace of God in his covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:6; Galatians 3:16-18).  The old covenant ceremonies looked forward to the new covenant realities.  For example, the animal sacrifices of the old covenant looked forward to the once-for-all-times sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the sins of his people (Hebrews 10:1-4).

·         Here is a great irony of the covenant of grace.  Christians are able to be parties to the covenant of grace because Jesus Christ the God-man kept on our behalves the covenant of works!  Jesus never sinned.  He perfectly kept all of God’s law all the time (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 1:19; etc.).  When God saves a sinner by justifying that sinner, God credits to that sinner the righteousness of Jesus, which means the Lord imputes to that sinner Jesus’ keeping of the covenant of works (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:1-12; etc.).  In this sense we are saved not just by the covenant of grace but also the covenant of works—Jesus’ keeping of the covenant of works on our behalves!

 

§  #4- Who are the parties to the new covenant?

·         Verse 31 says the parties are God on the one hand and “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” on the other hand.

·         The New Testament makes it clear that the phrase “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” means “all believers living after the time of the death of Jesus on the cross and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost” (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; Hebrews 8:1-13; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18).

·         We should not be surprised at this identification of the new covenant and the church age, because the New Testament calls Christians the “son of Abraham” (Romans 4:13-25; Galatians 3:7-9).

 

The Intolerance of the "New Tolerance" Toward Christianity

News item: Vanderbilt University, which was founded by Methodists in the 1870’s as a Christian institution of higher education, earlier this year informed Christian groups on campus that they must comply absolutely with the school’s non-discrimination policy, which means they must allow atheists or students involved openly in serious sin to be candidates for their leadership, or be banned from campus.

 

News item: Ron Brown, an assistant football coach at the University of Nebraska, has spoken out publicly on the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual activity as sin.  In response a member of the Lincoln, Nebraska, Board of Education wrote to the chancellor of the university demanding that it fire Coach Brown.

 

News item: The University of Illinois in 2010 terminated the contract of adjunct professor Kenneth Howell (whom the university later reinstated) because in a class on Roman Catholic doctrine, he set forth the Catholic Church’s historical teaching on homosexual acts as sin.

 

            What in the world is going on in the United States of America?  We could multiply the three news stories cited above many times over, because we read more and more of open hostility toward public advocacy by Christians of historical Christian moral and doctrinal teaching, especially in our universities.  Without being paranoid or practicing fear-mongering, we may rightly ask what the source is of this increasing hostility toward historic Christianity.

 

            Dr. D.A. Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, has put his finger on one of the sources of this hostility in his wonderful new book The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).  In the book Dr. Carson helpfully distinguishes between what he calls “old tolerance” versus “new tolerance.”  The “old tolerance” flowed from the religious and free speech rights set forth in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Dr. Carson also believes the “old tolerance” flows from the character of God, who exercises amazing tolerance and forbearance toward sinners (Romans 3:25; Acts 17:30; Exodus 34:6), yet who at the same time insists that there is one and only one way to salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), and that one day he will judge all people (Romans 2:16; Revelations 20:7-10; etc.).  The “old tolerance” held there is absolute truth, and those who sincerely believe they have access to that absolute truth should defend that truth vigorously and freely in the public square.  But where one person disagrees with another person about the content of absolute truth, each person should listen to the other person respectfully, and each person should defend the other person’s legal and moral right to express freely his or her views in public.  (The only exception would be where a person in his speech advocates violence or other conduct that is dangerous to human health, society, or human life.)   

            In religious matters the “old tolerance” said that while I might disagree with the claims to truth made by other religions, I must respect the practitioners of those other religions, and I must defend their right to advocate the ideas of their religion in the public square.

            The “new tolerance” is very different.  The “new tolerance” begins with the belief there is no absolute truth.  (I have never heard anyone who claims there is no absolute truth explain to me adequately why the statement, “There is no absolute truth,” is not itself a statement of absolute truth!)  The “new tolerance” also says that if there are positions it considers intolerant, then people who advocate those positions should not have the right to advocate those positions in the public square.  In other words, the one view that no one is allowed to hold is intolerance, which intolerance the “new tolerance” redefines as “any questioning or contradicting the view that all opinions are equal in value, that all worldviews have equal worth, that all stances are equally valid” (Carson, p. 12). 

You can see from this discussion just how radically different the “new tolerance” is from the “old tolerance,” and this distinction helps us make sense of the increasing number of headlines in which America’s cultural elites single out Christian doctrine and moral teaching as (in its view) intolerant and thus liable to censoring.  It turns out the “new tolerance” is very tolerant when it comes to almost everything but historical Christianity, toward which the “new tolerance” is in fact rabidly intolerant (and thus the title to Dr. Carson’s book). 

How should Christians live in a society in which the “new tolerance” dictates increasing intolerance of historic Christian doctrine and moral teaching?  The temptation for the church, of course, is to try to get along in society and avoid suffering by watering down biblical teaching that is offensive to our cultural elite.  Compromising on biblical truth is not the course, however, advocated by the Lord Jesus Christ, who reminded Christians that because the world opposed and persecuted him because of his truth claims, it will also oppose and persecute us his disciples when we assert those same truth claims (e.g., John 15:20; 16:33).  Dr. Carson rightly notes that in a world of the “new tolerance,” Christians must persevere courageously in confronting the world—in love and humility—with the absolute claims of the gospel.  However, we must also be ready to suffer persecution for the cause of the gospel, to which the “new tolerance” is opposed, all the while rejoicing that God would count us worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus (Acts 5:41).

May Almighty God grant his church in America the courage and love we need to live in these difficult days of the “new tolerance.”

 

Eleven Reasons Why the Christian Claim that Jesus Rose Bodily from the Dead Is Rational and Credible

I have taken my summary in the notes below in part from Mark Driscoll and Gary Breshears, Doctrine: What Christians Should Know and Believe (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2010), 287-96; Steven T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 180-85; Paul Beasley-Murray, The Message of the Resurrection (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity, 2000), 246-55); John R. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God (Phillipsburg, N.J., Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994), 143-47; and William Lane Craig, Apologetics: An Introduction (Chicago, Ill.: Moody, 1984), 167-206.  There are, of course, many more than just 11 reasons why we can say belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is credible and rational, and these works offer many such other reasons. 

 

1. The best explanation for the radical transformation of the disciples of Jesus from a fearful band of followers who largely abandoned Jesus in his hour of greatest need into to a group of bold spiritual warriors who would risk their lives for the cause of the gospel and thereby turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6) is that they had encountered the resurrected Jesus Christ.

 

2. Jesus’ tomb was empty.  When the disciples began to proclaim that Jesus had risen from the dead, their claims would have earned no reception at all if the body of Jesus still lay in the grave in a location widely known.  In other words, if the tomb of Jesus were not empty, everyone would have dismissed out of hand the resurrection claims of the early church.  The truth is that we have no record of anyone ever challenging the disciples’ claim of an empty tomb.

 

3. The Bible records that hundreds of people were eyewitnesses to the bodily resurrection of Jesus, including a group of more than 500 people at one time (1 Corinthians 15:4-8).  Some critics have charged that the disciples were hallucinating when they saw Jesus risen from the dead, but we have no account from history of more than 500 people experiencing the same hallucination at the same time. 

 

4. What is more, there is no indication from Scripture or history that the disciples and other witnesses to the bodily resurrection of Jesus were liars or lunatics.  To the contrary, the Gospels show every indication of being careful and truthful accounts of the life of Jesus compiled from the eyewitnesses.

 

5. The Gospels testify that it was women who were the first to find the tomb of Jesus empty that Sunday morning (Luke 24:1-8), and it was a woman, Mary Magdalene, to whom the resurrected Jesus first appeared (John 20:11-18).  In the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, the testimony of women was considered so inherently unreliable, it was inadmissible in court.  Therefore, the only reason why, in Jesus’ world, the Bible would record that women were the first witnesses to the empty tomb and resurrection was that women in fact were the first witnesses to the empty tomb and the resurrection.

 

6. It is impossible to account for the origin of the Christian church apart from the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  The claim that Jesus was the risen Lord lay at the heart of early Christian preaching (e.g., Acts 2:24-32; 17:31; etc.), and the early Christians risked their lives for the claim that the tomb was empty and Jesus had risen bodily from the dead. 

 

7. The Gospels testify that the disciples and other early Christians were astounded by the bodily resurrection of Jesus and initially doubted that it had occurred (e.g., Luke 24:10-12; John 20:8-10, 24-25), even though Christ had informed them specifically at least three times before his crucifixion that he would die and rise again on the third day after death (Mark 8:31; 9:30-31; 10:32-34).  In addition, there was no widespread expectation within Judaism in the 1^st century A.D. that the Messiah would rise from the dead.  Because the followers of Jesus were not expecting him to rise bodily, the only way to account for their subsequent bold testimony of Christ’s bodily resurrection was that they in fact had been eyewitnesses to that resurrection. 

 

8. The Gospels have shown themselves to be historically reliable,[1] and there is no good reason to doubt the historicity of their accounts of the resurrection of Jesus.    

 

9. The early church stopped worshiping the Lord on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and began to worship on Sunday instead (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2; Revelation 1:10).  There must have been a monumental event that occurred on a Sunday that would cause the early Christians to shift their belief about the correct day for Sabbath worship in the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11), and the best explanation for that shift is that the early church worshipped the Lord on Sunday in commemoration of the bodily resurrection of Jesus on Sunday.

 

10.  It is difficult in the extreme to account for the reality that billions of Christians for the last 2,000 years have affirmed as fundamental their belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:4) unless that event actually occurred in time and space.  

 

11. Jesus’ own earthly family originally doubted his claims to be the Messiah (John 7:1-5; Mark 3:20-21), yet after the resurrection of Jesus, Mary and Jesus’ half-brothers had joined with the early Christians (Acts 1:14).  It is hard to explain this transformation of the family of Jesus apart from a personal experience by them of the bodily resurrection of their son and half-brother. 

 

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[1] On the historical reliability of the four Gospels, see F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 6^th ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity, 1981); and Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity, 1987).

A Few Preliminary Thoughts on the Trayvon Martin Case

The shooting of 17-year old African American Trayvon Martin last month by a 28-year-old Hispanic man named George Zimmerman reminds Americans that racial tension today tends to boil just underneath the surface of our society, and a single event can cause those tensions to erupt out in the open.  Today’s New York Times leads with an article whose headline summarizes well the growing anger that African Americans and others are expressing in the wake of the February 26 tragedy: “Race, Tragedy, and Outrage Collide After a Shot in Florida” (www.nytimes.com).

 

How are Christians of all races to respond to the terrible events of February 26?  There is so much that could and should be said in answer to this question, but allow me to offer just a couple of potential answers.

 

1)      On the one hand, Christians must avoid a rush to judge the motives of George Zimmerman.  The fact is we simply do not know yet whether Zimmerman acted to harm Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed, because he was racially profiling the teenager.  We do know that Zimmerman wanted to be a policeman and a judge, and so he may have acted out of a deeply sinful desire to impress local police officials with his toughness.  At this point we the public cannot say exactly what was in the mind of George Zimmerman.

 

2)      On the other hand, it is abundantly clear that Zimmerman violated the rules of the neighborhood watch program of which he was a part, and it seems apparent he also used excessive force in his encounter with Trayvon Martin.  Even if we assume that Martin was a genuine threat to Zimmerman, the Bible contains a principle that in matters of self defense, we may use only that amount of force that is reasonably necessary under the circumstances (Exodus 22:2-3).  This biblical principle is also written into American criminal law.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion, based on the facts we do know about the events of February 26, that George Zimmerman did not violate the biblical principle against use of excessive force.       

 

3)      And even though we do not yet know the motive in the mind of George Zimmerman, and even though there are politicians and other leaders who would shamelessly exploit this tragedy for personal gain, the case nevertheless gives those of us who are not African American an important chance to think about what it is like to live in the United States as an African American male.  I have read through the years, for example, of African American men who served in the upper echelons of corporate American or our universities, who were refused rides in taxis at night simply because of the color of their skin.  Many African American men report that society regularly profiles them, presuming that they are threat when they are nothing of the sort.  All of us need to think how we would feel to be under regular suspicion, not because of who were are but simply because of how we look.  All of us also need to be the kind of people who, like the Lord himself, seek to look at other people based not “on the outward appearance” but “on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).   

Some Thoughts for Teenagers-- and All the Rest of Us-- on Trusting God

                Why does the Bible command Christians to trust in the Lord with all our hearts?  (Proverbs 3:5).  That command means the Lord wants you to trust totally the goodness of his plan for your future marriage (or future singleness).  He wants you to trust totally the wisdom of his plan for where you should go to college.  He wants you to trust totally the love of his plan, set out in Scripture, for the way you use your body and your mind.

 

                We might ask, however, why the Lord is worthy of such absolute trust as Proverbs 3:5 describes.  After all, none of the human begins around us are trustworthy all the time.  Our friends lie to us, and even our parents fail us from time to time.  What makes the Lord so different from human begins?

 

                The answer is that just about everything about the Lord makes him different from human beings.  You can trust God with all your heart because unlike human beings, he knows all things perfectly, including all future things (Job 37:16; 1 John 3:20; Isaiah 44:6-8), and he will thus never lack the information necessary to make the best possible plans for your life.  You can trust God with all your heart because he loves you with infinite and perfect love (John 17:23), as most clearly seen in the death of Jesus Christ the Son on the cross for your sins (1 John 3:16).  If God’s love for you is so great that he did not spare even his beloved Son for your sake, then surely you can trust the Lord to give you everything else you really need (Romans 8:32).  Moreover, you can trust God with all your heart because he is good (Psalm 136:1), and all his plans for your life are therefore “good and acceptable and prefect” (Romans 12:2).  Finally, you can trust God with all your heart because he has all power to carry out his sovereign will for your life (Genesis 18:17; Jeremiah 32:17; Romans 11:36), and no one will ever be able to thwart his good and loving plans for you (Daniel 4:35).

 

                Think about where in your life right now you are wavering in trusting God.  Are you failing to trust him for some future supply of wisdom you know you need, or do you fear he will fail you when it comes to providing for your financial needs in the future?  Consider that in order for God to break your trust, he would, in the words of one of my seminary professors, have to de-God himself!  And the Lord cannot ever de-God himself.  He cannot fail you.  So like the father at the foot of the mountain of Transfiguration, ask the Lord to build your trust in him.  Say with that father to the Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).    

 

Some Reflections on the Biblical Virtue of Humility

Isaiah 66:2b (ESV): “But this is the one to whom I will look:

he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

 

 

Jonathan Edwards, dairy entry for March 2, 1723: “How much better do I feel when I am truly humbling myself, than when I am pleasing myself with my own perfections!  Oh how much pleasanter is humility than pride!  O that God would fill me with exceeding great humility, and that he would ever more keep me from all pride!  The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world.”  Excerpt from The Works of Jonathan Edwards, reprinted ed. (Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth, 1990), 1: xxvii. 

 

 

A. proposed definition for humility: “honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.” C.J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness (Sisters, Oreg.: Multnomah, 2005), 22.

 

 

B. how to seek to grow in humility, by the grace of God

1. Take the gospel deeply into your soul, for that good news reminds us 1) that we are Christians by the grace of God alone (Ephesians 2:8-9); 2) that any natural or spiritual talent or blessing we possess is ours by the grace of God (1 Corinthians 4:7); and 3) that our position in the world is also ours by the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:10).

2. Meditate daily on the humility Jesus displayed in his life (e.g., John 13:1-11).

3. Meditate daily on the massive reality that Jesus Christ, though he was the eternal Son of God, “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

4. Tremble at the word of God (Isaiah 66:2b).

5. “Begin your day by acknowledging your dependence upon God and your need for God.” (Numbers 5-10 herein are taken from Mahaney, Humility, 171-72.)

6. “Study the attributes of God.”

7. “Laugh often, and laugh at yourself.”

8. “Identify evidences of grace in others.”

9. “Encourage and serve others each and every day.”

10. “Play golf as much as possible.”

 

 

The Glorious Gospel of a Happy God

 

                The good news that is the Christian gospel includes the good news that the God of the Bible is an eternally and infinitely happy God.  That is not to say God is happy with everything that goes on in the universe he created.  After, by our sin we disciples of Jesus grieve the heart of God (Ephesians 4:30).  The Lord certainly does not enjoy either sin or the effects of sin in the world, like illness, brokenness, and death.  What the Lord does delight in, eternally and infinitely, is himself.  Within the Godhead, the Father has delighted from all eternity in the Son and the Spirit; the Son has delighted from all eternity in the Father and the Spirit; and the Spirit has delighted from all eternity in the Father and the Son.  We catch just a glimpse of this intratrinitarian delight in the baptism and Transfiguration of Jesus, at both of which occasions the Father spoke from heaven and said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5).  Luke 10:21 also reports that Jesus the Son “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” over the plan of the Father for his earthly ministry.

                Jonathan Edwards, the great early American pastor and writer, summed up this intratrinitarian delight in “An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity” in these words: “It is common when speaking of the Divine happiness to say that God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of Himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, His own essence and perfection.”  Contemporary Christian writer and Pastor John Piper insightfully adds:

 

No one would want to spend eternity with an unhappy God.  If God is unhappy then the goal of the gospel is not a happy goal, and that means it would be no gospel at all.  But, in fact, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).  Jesus lived and died that his joy-- God’s joy—might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15:11; 17:13).  Therefore the gospel is “the gospel of the glory of the happy God [1 Timothy 1:11].

 

(John Piper, The Pleasures of God, revised ed. (Sisters, Oreg.: Multnomah, 2006), 26, emphasis in original).  The gospel is good news, among many other reasons, because it is the news of how in Jesus Christ, sinful human beings can come into right relationship with the God who is infinitely and eternally happy!  

The Grace of God in the Life of Boaz

 

                Reading the biblical Book of Judges can sometimes be more than a little bit discouraging.  The Lord had faithfully brought his people the Jews into the Promised Land, just as he said he would do.  However, consistently during the approximately 325 years the judges led the people of Israel, the Jews turned away from the Lord again and again and again.  Though they had witnessed incredible miracles Yahweh had performed on their behalves, the people of God turned away from the Lord to the worship of the false gods worshiped by the people groups around them.  The refrain that closes the Book of Judges sums up the seriously tragic spiritual declension of the day: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25; cf. Judges 17:6; 18:1; and 19:1).

 

                The last five chapters of the book of Judges show especially clearly an Israel that has fallen into spiritual and moral degradation of the basest kinds.  The land is full of violence, disrespect for women, sexual immorality, and abuse of neighbor.  We wonder whether there was any Israelite at all living in the day of the judges who was full of the grace of God and of noble character.  The we turn to the pages of the short Book of Ruth, which introduce us to a Jewish man by the name of Boaz.  This man does prove to be full of the grace of God, manifested in his exercise of steadfast love toward his workers and toward his extended family.  Boaz’s love for the Lord and utter integrity and faithfulness toward his workers and family shine through in this book, and they shine especially righty when we see that Boaz lived during the otherwise degraded time of the judges (Ruth 1:1). 

 

                There is even more to Boaz, however, than his godly character.  The Book of Ruth stresses that Boaz is the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth, the woman of Moab who has been converted to the worship of the Lord (Ruth 3-4).  As Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer, Boaz purchases Ruth, by payment of a ransom price, out of difficult circumstances into a situation of blessing.  In this respect Boaz foreshadows his direct descendant (Matthew 1:3-6) Jesus Christ who would be the great Kinsman-Redeemer.  Jesus became our kinsman by becoming a real human being—God the Son became one of us! (John 1:14).  Christ redeemed sinners by dying to pay the penalty for their sins on the cross of Calvary (Romans 3:21-26), so that whoever trusts in Jesus alone for salvation has eternal life (John 3:16).  Jesus did not redeem his people’s souls through payment of money, as Boaz redeemed Ruth, but he paid our ransom price to the father with his own infinitely precious blood (Mark 10:45; 1 Peter 1:19).

 

                The other morning after I had re-read the story of Boaz from the Book of Ruth, I prayed that God in his grace would make me a man of noble character—of steadfast love and faithfulness—like Boaz.  However, I also pray with thanksgiving that Boaz points to an infinitely greater Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who shed his blood on the cross to obtain an eternal redemption for the people of God.  “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

A Word about the 2012 Elections from the Book of Judges

 

                Old Testament scholars believe that the Book of Judges may have been written, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, around the time of King David.  The reason they draw this conclusion is that the Book of Judges seems in some ways to be an apologetic for the establishment of the Israelite kingship.  Scholars see this apologetic in the last sentence of the book: “In those days there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).  Similar statements are made by the inspired writer in Judges 17:6; 18:1, and 19:1.  The idea seems to be that the time of the judges was a period of such great evil in Israel because there was not a righteous king like David ruling over the people and leading them to follow the Lord. 

 

                That certainly seems to be part of the reading of Judges 21:25.  But surely there is more to this verse.  Surely the inspired writer means not only that Israel declined into great evil because it lacked a human king, but even more the point of Judges 21:25 is that at the time of the judges, the Jewish people were not serving the Lord as their ultimate King.  To be sure God was still ruling over his people; no human action can dispossess God of his universal supremacy.  However, the Israelites at the time of the judges were living in practical ways as if the Lord were not the supreme King of their nation.  Because the people were living as if God really were not their ultimate King, the Book of Judges is for the most part a discouraging account of serious spiritual decline and the violence and degradation that flow from such decline.

 

                Here is where I think Judges 21:25 speaks to American Christians in an election year.  On the one hand, it is right that we should pray every day that God in his mercy would raise up to political leadership in our land men and women who love righteousness and justice.  We desperately need leaders full of God’s love and biblical wisdom.  At a deeper level, however, Christians need to pray that Americans would recognize that the God of the Bible is our supreme King—and to live under that reality.  Even more than godly leaders, the United States needs the Lord himself to come with reviving mercies, beginning with a spiritual cleansing of the church and moving outward from there.  Until the day Americans recognize God as our supreme King, the men and women of this country will continue simply to do what is right in their own eyes.  As the Book of Judges demonstrates, doing right in our own eyes can only lead to violence, degradation, and destruction.

Reflections on Three Passages of Scripture

 

1. Deuteronomy 30:6: the circumcision that really matters

 

            The Lord gave to the Old Testament people of God the rite of circumcision of the flesh as “a sign of the covenant” between the Lord and Israel (Genesis 17:11).  However, God also made it clear that this outward act of cutting the flesh of males was not the kind of circumcision that really matters.  The deeper circumcision that counts most is not physical but spiritual; the deeper circumcision that matters most is of the heart and not of the body.  And whereas a father was to circumcise the flesh of his newborn son, only God can circumcise the human heart.  This is precisely what the Lord promised to do for his people in Deuteronomy 30:6: “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” 

            Let us marvel and rejoice in the reality that as Christians, God has circumcised our hearts!  Let us marvel and rejoice that even as God commands us to love him with all our hearts (Deuteronomy 6:5), so he in his wonderful grace gives us the ability to do so, by circumcising our hearts!  This circumcision of the heart is a work of the Lord’s grace that makes us part of the people of God, for “circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Romans 2:28-29). 

But what exactly does it mean that God has circumcised the hearts of Christians?  I think we find the answer to that question in the prophecy of Ezekiel 36:26-27, where the Lord foresees the day when he would take out the hearts of stone of his people and replace them with hearts of flesh.  “And I will put my Spirit in you,” the Lord adds, in a promise that we know God fulfilled in believers beginning with the Day of Pentecost.  In other words, just as physical circumcision of the body involves a cutting open of the skin, so the spiritual circumcision of the heart involves God’s cutting open of the heart, in order to put the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers.  It should astound us that God himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), has come to live spiritually in us through the circumcision of the heart!  What a gracious and loving and mighty and glorious God we serve!

 

 

2. Colossians 3:22-24: the case of the rotten boss

 

            I realize Colossians 3:22-24 deals on its face with slaves and masters, but for many reasons I believe we can draw principles from it for application to the Christian’s life in the workplace.  I have in mind in particular those of you who work for bosses like the pointy-haired boss in the comic strip Dilbert.  The pointy-haired boss in Dilbert is a fool who constantly frustrates the employees by managing and leading poorly.  The pointy-haired boss really only cares about himself and his advancement up the corporate ladder, and so he sees the people who work under him only as a means to the ends he desires for himself.  What if the pointy-haired boss is your boss?  How can you as a Christian glorify God in circumstances under which you spend most of your day frustrated, because you have a fool for a boss?  Consider two principles from Colossians 3:22-24.  First, your ultimate boss is not the pointy-haired manager or any other human being; your ultimate boss is always the Lord.  God loves you infinitely, and his plan for your life, including your work life, is infinitely wise.  That is not to say that God in his mercy might not move you to a new position under a far better boss.  But as long as you are working under the pointy-haired manager, work hard and do your best.  God is a hard worker who always does his best too (Genesis 1:31), and when we work that way, acknowledging the Lord as our ultimate boss, not only does God get great glory, but we find peace, even if we are working for a human boss who is a fool.  When God gets glory, joy and peace for us always follow.

            Then second, understand from Colossians 3:22-24 that even if your company does not reward you adequately for your good and faithful work, you have an eternal reward that the Lord is storing up for you in heaven.  Again, that truth does not mean that the Lord is forbidding you from looking for another job where you might be better paid.  What it does mean as that as long as the Lord keeps you where you are, your ultimate reward does not come from your next raise or promotion but from knowing that God has reserved in heaven a great spiritual reward for those who work by his grace and for his glory.

 

 

3. Jeremiah 23:29: God’s word a hammer

 

            Jeremiah 23:9-40 contains a section of prophecy in which the Lord condemns the false prophets living in the day of Jeremiah.  In v. 29 God says the following about the true word that he speaks through men who are his genuine prophets, men like Jeremiah: “’Is not my word like fire?’ declares the Lord, ‘and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?’”  In the context, this statement by God means that his word is like a hammer in that it means judgment for the false prophets in Judah.  The Lord is going to fulfill his word against those false prophets by bringing down the hammer of his judgment against those who speak from their own imaginations, to the great detriment of the people, rather than from the Lord.

            As I read Jeremiah 23:29, however, I also wonder if in the lives of Christians, the word of God as a hammer might not be a positive metaphor?  For example, I can use a hammer for a negative purpose like destroying a clay pot in anger, or I can use a hammer for a positive purpose, like helping my son to build a pine car for the Awana Grand Prix this coming Sunday evening.  In the same way, I think, God’s word was destructive to the false prophets, but it is like a hammer in the souls of Christians in that God uses the Bible to build something very good—Christ-likeness—in our hearts.  The Lord also uses the hammer of his word to “knock away” the sin that weighs us down and keeps us from running the spiritual race he has set before us (Hebrews 12:1-2).  Let us therefore rejoice in the Lord for great gift his word is to us, and knowing that Scripture is a good hammer in our souls, let us take up God’s word and read and meditate on it.