Recently I wrote a web page on Bible interpretation.
I talked about a symbolic form of interpretation described by Origen, the great 3rd century theologian from Alexandria, Egypt. But what I talked about, Britt Mooney recently put into practice.
I loved the picture he painted with the prophet/sorcerer Balaam’s words.
Since that’s the middle of a 3-part post, you probably should read the 1st and 3rd, too, but that 2nd one stands all on its own as well.
I just finished a post on the same subject I’m about to address.
In that post, I wondered whether these kind of stories really happen daily. I got to thinking about that, and I don’t have a story like those from today.
But I do have one from yesterday.
I went to a men’s breakfast in the Memphis area yesterday morning. I’d been warned that there’s a guy who comes to that breakfast who likes to teach and spouts a bunch of Scriptures that are often not practical or applicable. I was warned it might be very difficult to listen to him, and it was suggested to me that it might be good to pray he wouldn’t make it that weak.
I think there was some worry about my getting in a debate with him, but I don’t debate people who aren’t interested in learning. I discuss with people who want to learn together with me; I don’t debate people unless it’s necessary for the sake of bystanders.
Anyway, I prayed God’s will would be done at the breakfast.
It turned out the fellow they warned me about had to leave early. Before he left he piped up and gave a little speech that helped me understand what people had warned me about. He slipped into a preacher voice, used "praise God" a lot, and said a couple controversial things that he had no intention of discussing or being educated about—and he wasn’t educated on those things.
However, he also spoke long enough for me to see something I liked in him.
One, he made an effort to relate part of what he said to something another guy had said. He did it positively, and it gave honor to the previous speaker.
He didn’t have to do that; he just did it.
Two, his point included a story about a brother that admonished him. He listened to that brother even though there was financial loss involved in doing so.
In other words, this fellow stayed short enough not to disrupt and take over the breakfast—which I’ve heard has been a problem—but long enough for me to get a glimpse of something good in him.
There are younger brothers interacting with this man who are not sure they should be as tolerant with him as they are. As a result of that short time, I was able to encourage them that I’d probably be tolerant, too.
I left the breakfast intending to drive to Jackson, Tn to find a spot there to do some writing and research.
I was going to go the fastest way, jumping onto the freeway, which would take me all the way to Jackson. Somehow, though, I just couldn’t get myself to do so. I felt compelled—an easy thing to happen to me, as I like country drives—to take an old highway to Jackson.
On the way, one of those young brothers from Memphis called me to ask me about my statement that there was something sweet about this man in the story above.
I explained to him what I meant, and it encouraged him. Then he asked me some questions about how to get through to another brother that’s having trouble following some advice he desperately needs.
I was driving on an empty highway, hardly ever seeing a car. The drive was leisurely, and the conversation was pleasant to have. Generally, I hate talking on the phone, and dodging all those trucks between Memphis and Jackson would not have helped.
Now atheists hate it when I tell stories like that. I’ve been called stupid and naive, and stories like this have been called asenine and pointless.
Whatever.
I think God led me to drive on a country highway rather than the freeway because he wanted me to talk to that young brother freely.
Apparently, those things don’t happen on a daily basis. I don’t have one from today. However, if I remember these (this post and my previous one) from the last two weeks, it’s because there’s been three times as many events just like those.
The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim. 2:2)
I’ve been saying for years now that I believe in God because of the small, daily interaction with him, not because of the larger miracles I’ve experienced.
I’ve never kept good track of those things, though, and like most of the meals I’ve eaten the last few years, I can’t remember them well enough to say what they are.
So I thought I’d start keeping track. I’m going to try doing it right here on this blog. I’ll still intermix teachings with these stories some days, but I want to tell these kind of stories regularly.
This week has been a good week for seeing God interact with me, but let’s begin nine days ago, on a Friday.
That night I was supposed to teach about 20 men, faithful men to whom we are trying to commit basic and necessary teachings so that they’ll be able to teach others also.
That Friday, I was trying to decide between teaching on contentment—accepting the things God sends into your life, growing from them, and seeing his hand in them—and teaching on the Word of God. I have a not very good version of that teaching on my Christian history site (though, hopefully I’ll have it updated by the time you click on that link).
Anyway, the decision was very difficult for me. I wavered back and forth all the way into the afternoon.
The problem was, I really felt like God was leading me to do the teaching on the Word of God, but I’ve taught that before; two or three times, in fact, and here at RCV each time. On Fridays, we get together what are pretty much the most teachable men we have, so it seemed likely they would already know the teaching.
I worry about boring people (sometimes so much so that it’s sin and disobedience to my calling, which is to teach; some teaching is boring even when it is useful).
Anyway, I finally gave in and realized that if I was going to be faithful to God, I was going to do the teaching on the Word of God.
When I taught that night, it was the clearest I’ve taught on the subject because it was well outlined and I had a slide show so everyone could follow it.
But here’s the point of this story …
Since we’re trying to teach faithful men to teach others also, I asked the brothers if one of them would volunteer to teach on the subject to the whole village the following Wednesday. One did, and he went off to prepare.
I provided him with my notes, my outline, and my PowerPoint, but I also told him that he needed to ingest the teaching, make it his, and then teach it from him, not parrot what I said.
Though like most villagers, he’s spoken publicly to the whole village a number of times—our gatherings are usually open mike—this was the first time he’d been called on to teach the whole village, at least 50 or 60 adults make it on Wednesday night. He was nervous.
He asked me questions every day from Friday till Tuesday. He was clearly unsure what he was supposed to be doing.
Then on Wednesday morning, he sent me the following by email:
I was wrestling with this last night, trying to prepare everything, and feeling pretty dry. Told my wife that I was going to bail out. But then I took a good look at why I was getting all wadded up, and the reasons all had to do with me.
It helped to take a look at the subject matter—the word of God—and this morning I asked him to let me rest and to give me the word he wants to speak, I’m not going to worry about the "me" parts of it. All of a sudden it’s he’s giving me stuff in a rush … pretty exciting.
That thrilled me. How do you teach a young man how not to simply repeat a teaching but to make it his own? How do you teach him to teach out of revelation from God and not just from the letter?
The answer is you can’t. You have to leave those things to God.
And God did it.
Take another look at that email. He said, "It helped to take a look at the subject matter …"
Remember my struggle with the subject matter? I vacillated between the Word of God and Contentment as the subject that Friday night, and felt that it was God letting me know that I should teach on the Word of God.
Would the same thing have happened had the subject matter not been the Word of God?
I don’t think so.
That’s the kind of little thing that happens to me almost daily. Day by day, trusting God proves to be a good and wise thing to do.
Actually, I’m not sure it’s every day, but it’s pretty often.
It’s within the last couple weeks that my 7-year-old daughter had a deep spiritual experience.
She was at a nursing home, singing with other children for the residents there, when one of the songs suddenly meant something to her and convicted her. She burst into tears, and her grandmother (my mother) talked to her and helped her go apologize and do something nice for the person she’d wronged.
When my wife and I were talking about it, I told her, "You know, I just remembered that right about that time I set aside time to especially pray for our children. Maybe that had something to do with it."
She looked at me with wide eyes, and she said, "I did, too! I guess it was God!"
Once that sort of thing happens several hundred times, it does something for your faith.
I have a story from yesterday, too … I’m going to put another post to tell you about it. That’ll keep this one a bit shorter.
Dum de dum dum …
You know, it is not always easy to come up with concise way to explain something. In fact, it rarely is.
Okay, let’s try this. I want to show you the way the early Christians would have understood Psalm 50, and then I want to show you how it applies to us today.
I want to do this just in case it might better equip you to get the teachings out of the Old Testament that the apostles and the early church got out of it. The Old Testament books were a lot richer collection to them than they are to us.
I have this really great web page on their Bible interpretation that I wrote yesterday, but it’s not edited or formatted to go up on the web yet! So sorry!
Well, first of all, the early Christians would have quoted the whole long passage (and the Ante-Nicene Fathers would translate it as they "adduced" the passage, the only place I’ve ever heard that word used).
This isn’t the 19th century, though, so I’m going to cut a lot … and, in fact, because it’s the 21st century, I’m going to use one of those modern translations that comes free with the Online Bible. It’s called the God’s Word Version.
Gather around me, my godly people who have made a pledge to me through sacrifices. … I am not criticizing you for sacrifices or burnt offerings, which are always in front of me. But I will not accept another young bull from your household or a single male goat from your pens.
Whoa! God’s a little irritated here, it appears.
I actually think this translation misses the point, but so do most of the others I referenced. The point is not that God isn’t criticizing them about sacrifices or burnt offerings. Hopefully, you’ll see that the context suggests that God’s saying, “If you didn’t offer any sacrifices, I wouldn’t criticize you. It’s not sacrifices I care about.”
Okay, so why doesn’t God want another young bull or even a single male goat from the Israelites?
There’s actually two reasons. God gives those two reasons over and over in the Scriptures, but we modern Christians have adopted one particular error that stops us from noticing one of those reasons.
So this passage is useful because it gives that neglected reason first. Most other passages give them in reverse order.
So what’s that neglected reason?
See if you can pick it up from the Psalm:
Every creature in the forest, even the cattle on a thousand hills, is mine. I know every bird in the mountains. Everything that moves in the fields is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, because the world and all that it contains are mine.
Can you see it yet? The next verse in Psalm 50 is going to give the answer away, but I want to let one of the earliest Christian writings explain it to you. That will give even more import to the next verse in Psalm 50.
When the Gentiles offer [sacrifices] to those that are destitute of sense and hearing [i.e., idols], they furnish an example of madness. [The Jews], on the other hand, because they think they’re offering these things to God as if he needed them, might just as well consider it an act of folly rather than of divine worship.
The one that made heaven and earth and all that is in it and who gives us everything we need certainly requires none of those things which he himself bestows on those who think of providing them to him! (Letter to Diognetus 2)
The reason God tells the Israelites here that he owns the cattle on a thousand hills is to tell them that he doesn’t need their sacrifices. He owns everything; why in the world would he need the Israelites to send them up to heaven in the form of smoke?
So after all that, here’s the verse where God says it very directly:
Do I eat the meat of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
God is telling the Israelites, "Are you nuts? Do you not realize that I don’t need those sacrifices of yours? Do you think I’m hungry up here? Do you think I eat beef and drink goat’s blood? Listen, even if I did, and even if I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you because I own a lot more than you do."
We modern Christians usually miss this reason that God rejects sacrifices because we think that the reason that Christians don’t offer sacrifices is because Christ was the final sacrifice.
If so, the apostles didn’t know about it. They were still offering sacrifices even after Christ died (Acts 21:26).
Christians don’t offer sacrifices because God doesn’t need sacrifices. He owns everything. He’s really not interested in sacrifices. Those were only given to the Israelites to help keep them focused on him.
As far as the early Christians were concerned, the ancient Israelites weren’t offered the Spirit of God the way Christians are. Thus, as a fleshly people, they needed some fleshly things to keep them going. Those things included sacrifices, a weekly Sabbath rest, and all the other external observances of the Law.
Christians don’t need such things. They offer up spiritual sacrifices because they are a spiritual people. Those spiritual sacrifices include mainly walking in holiness before God.
God comments in Psalm 50 that those are the sacrifices he’s looking for:
Bring your thanks to God as a sacrifice, and keep your vows to the Most High.
I need to add one more place where God says that he’s really not interested in sacrifices. The early Christians loved to quote the following passage:
When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not tell them anything about burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I did tell them this, "Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Live the way I told you to live so that things will go well for you. (Jer. 7:22-23)
God never said anything about sacrifices when he brought them out of Egypt??? So what’s all that stuff in Exodus and Leviticus?
If you look, you’ll notice that none of the sacrifice commands came until after the Israelites made the golden calf. It was at that point that God spoke about sacrifices, giving the Israelites a religious system that was for their sake, not God’s, to help keep them from wandering to other gods.
Of course, that only worked so well.
Oh, I mentioned two reasons that God didn’t want any more bulls or goats from them.
The second we do know about. They were disobedient and difficult, so their sacrifices were offensive to God.
How dare you quote my decrees and mouth my promises! You hate discipline. You toss my words behind you … Consider this, you people who forget God. Otherwise, I will tear you to pieces, and there will be no one left to rescue you.
Then God says a second time in the Psalm what true sacrifices are:
Whoever offers thanks as a sacrifice honors me. I will let everyone who continues in my way see the salvation that comes from God.
Okay, that’s it for Psalm 50. If you’d like some more on the law, I think my Law of Moses page has apostolic teaching on the Law that modern Christians are in desperate need of knowing.
There’s an article today on the Scientific American web site about our brain and belief.
They say that the idea that there is a difference between religious belief and any other kind of belief is "popular in the scientific community as well as among the general public."
I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know it’s true that the idea that reason doesn’t play a role in religious belief is popular in devout fundamentalist circles. Fundamentalists like to argue that we need to believe in God by faith, without proof. They call it "blind faith."
I’m not a believer in blind faith. I think blind faith is stupid and dangerous.
Think about it. If blind faith is a good idea, then why shouldn’t Muslim children grow up exercising blind faith in Mohammed? Why shouldn’t Indian children grow up exercising blind faith in the Hindu gods?
Let’s take it a step further. Why shouldn’t Hamad children grow up exercising blind faith in the adults who raised them to believe that America is the great satan and that blowing themselves and others up for Allah will win them rewards in the afterlife?
As I said, blind faith is stupid and dangerous.
Paul’s letters are full of reasoned arguments for belief in God and for his Gospel. He never says, “You should either just know what I’m saying is true or you should just take my word for it in blind faith, one or the other.”
The early Christians sure didn’t have our view of blind faith. They not only honored reason, but they knew both that Jesus was the Logos of God and that the Greek word logos can as easily be translated "reason" as it can "word." In fact, it’s the word from which we got the English word "logic."
The anonymous Letter to Diognetus, which dates from the late 1st or early 2nd century says:
He who thinks he knows anything without true knowledge, and such as is witnessed to by life, knows nothing, but is deceived by the Serpent, as not loving life. But he who combines knowledge with fear, and seeks after life, plants in hope, looking for fruit. Let your heart be your wisdom; and let your life be true knowledge inwardly received. (ch. 12)
Don’t miss what he’s saying here. True knowledge looks for fruit. It believes what is witnessed to by life.
If what you believe doesn’t produce good results—if it’s not witnessed to by life—then you need to reject it, not exercise blind faith in it.
Ignatius of Antioch, who was appointed bishop of Antioch by the apostle John, wrote the following on the way to his martyrdom:
It is in line with reason that we should return to soberness [of conduct] and, while we still have opportunity, to exercise repentance towards God. (Letter to the Smyrneans 9)
When you get to the time of the apologists, in the middle and end of the 2nd century, then the arguments from reason really come out.
It’s not hard to know why. The apologists were not teaching the Scriptures and the Christian life to people who already believed in Christ. They produced the first writings directed at those outside the church.
As you will see, there was certainly no call to blind faith! Like Christ’s words and Paul’s, their letters and books are full of appeals to reason, which they said was given to man by God to be put to good use!
Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honour and love only what is true, declining to follow traditional opinions, if these be worthless. (Justin Martyr, First Apology 2)
This was written about the year 150, and it was directed to the emperor, though it is unlikely that Antoninus Pius ever read it.
Think about what the situation would be if Justin could only appeal to blind faith! He would have to leave the Romans to the worship of their false gods. Rather than do it, he appeals to reason, asking them to consider that statues made of wood and stone could never be gods.
One of my favorite such quotes can be read as part of an early Christian debate that I have on my Christian history site …
Even dumb animals judge concerning your gods. Mice and swallows know that they have no feeling. The gnaw them, trample them, and sit on them. Unless you drive them off, they build their nests in the very mouths of your gods. You wipe, cleanse, scrape, and you protect and fear that which you make, while not one of you thinks that he ought to know God before you worship him. (Minucius Felix, The Octavius)
That quote is in response to a Roman argument that sounds remarkably like modern arguments for blind faith.
Isn’t it obviously better and more respectful to simply receive the teaching of your ancestors, to cultivate the religions handed down to you, and to adore the gods that you were trained by your parents to fear? You should believe your forefathers rather than assert your opinion about the deities.
Octavius doesn’t put up with this argument. He mentions the animals lack of reverence for the Roman gods in the quote above, but he begins his answer differently …
If the world is directed by the will of one God, then it shouldn’t matter how old the opinions of unskilled people are. They should not be enough to make us agree with the gods of our forefathers.
It is important to reason. One cannot "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints" unless he is willing to reason rather than accept by blind faith errors handed down to him by tradition.
Conclusion
I want to tie this all together by saying that of course scientists found that the same parts of the brain are used for religious beliefs as for any other belief.
God gave us reason. His Son is known to Scripture as the Reason or Logic of God (alternative translation of Logos, see above). He wants us to use that reason in the pursuit of truth, even Christian truth.
Sometimes something will just click. I finally get it.
There are people who think that being a Christian means asking Jesus into your heart, and then struggling through this life attempting to obey him the best you can. In fact, perhaps most Christians think that.
Somehow that never dawned on me.
I was told many years ago, then told over and over throughout the years, that it’s impossible to live the Christian life that way. I was told over and over the proper way to live the Christian life, and it has given me hope, sustenance, and occasionally the most amazing power from heaven, even in my weakest moments–no, especially in my weakest moments.
Yesterday, as I was reading Roy Hession’s The Calvary Road, I got it.
Not everyone knows these things!
These things are the very Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These things are the power and foundation of your Christian life.
If you don’t know these things, then, my friend, it’s no wonder you struggle so much.
The Way is hard even when you do know your utter reliance upon Jesus Christ and the greatness of his power in you. How impossible it must be if you do not know!
Here are “these things” in Roy Hession’s words:
Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. … Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. … And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to others. And that is revival in its essence.
The Christian life really is about believing. It’s about believing that in you—that is, in your flesh—nothing good dwells (Rom. 7:18) and that in him, everything good dwells. It is about believing that we really can die to self and that Jesus Christ can really live his life through us.
And it’s about believing there is no other way than that.
Our flesh can never please him (Rom. 8:5-13). If he doesn’t do something miraculous, if we don’t really and miraculously become "his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works," then we have no hope. We will thoroughly fail and embarrass ourselves in the process. We won’t have a shot.
Jesus has a high and difficult call. Read it yourself: Luke 14:26-33. He asks for everything.
If you’ve struggled just to give God merely what the typical American church—perhaps the First Church of Goats Who Don’t Help People and Rich Men Who Can’t Be Saved—asks of its members, then the thought of trying to give Jesus what he asks for in Luke 14 must make you want to run and hide!
That’s why the Christian life starts with dying!
The Calvary Road goes on about that:
Dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. There may be an initial dying when God first shows these things, but ever after it will be a constant dying, for only so can the Lord Jesus be revealed constantly through us. … It will mean no plans, no time, no money, no pleasure of our own. It will mean a constant yielding to those around us, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man. Every humiliation, everyone who tries and vexes us, is God’s way of breaking us, so that there is a yet deeper channel in us for the Life of Christ.
Did you know that’s the life Jesus Christ called you to?
If you don’t, then you’ve been lied to. There isn’t any other Christian life. There’s only the one that Roy Hession just described for you.
What’s worse is that often supposed Christians turn away from the call of Jesus Christ, thinking that kind of life is impossible. The exact opposite is true!
It’s the "easy" Christian life that isn’t possible. The Scriptures teach us that the mind set on the flesh cannot be subject to the law of God. The person who’s in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:7-8).
And if you’ve found some other way than the one Christ preached, you’re in the flesh! He’s sure not going to help you live your own brand of Christianity!
The impossible Christian life is the only one that can be lived because it is the only one God gives grace for. That would be the life Christ preached, where you turn the other cheek, deny yourself, serve everyone, forsake your family and possessions, keep all your promises (and your idle comments), and basically take up your cross, follow him, and never do your own will.
How can that be possible?
Just one way.
You see, the only life that pleases God and that can be victorious is His life—never our life, no matter how hard we try. (Calvary Road, p. 25-26)
That last thing. You have to know that.
There is no other way.
“Therefore, I … mak[e] mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, so that you may know … the exceptional greatness of his power toward us.” (Eph. 1:17-19)
This is a response I just sent to someone. There’s nothing personal in it, so I wanted to post this here. I hope there’s something helpful in it:
The thing that helped me most with baptism was comparing it to the sinner’s prayer, something I believe Peter does in 1 Peter 3:21. Peter says baptism now saves us, and then he explains how it saves us. It saves us by being the appeal to God for (or from) a good conscience.
The KJV and other versions have answer or pledge in the place of appeal, but after reading through several lexicons, I would argue that the NASB’s “appeal” is the only reasonable translation there.
So, baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience.
That fits very well with the verses on baptism in the NT. In Acts 2:38, Jews ask Peter what they should do since they are convicted about crucifying Christ. He tells them repent and be baptized for (eis – into) the remission of sins, and they’ll receive the Holy Spirit. See how that fits with 1 Pet. 3:21? They wanted a clean conscience. He told them to be baptized, and their sins would be forgiven, and they’d receive the Holy Spirit.
Baptism was the way they carried out their faith. It was their “sinner’s prayer.”
Of course, you know there’s no sinner’s prayer in the NT. Read through Acts, and you’ll see that everyone was baptized immediately, the same day. Baptism was the apostles’ sinner’s prayer. The Philippian jailer was baptized in the middle of the night!!! (Acts 16)
When Paul had been convicted by Christ on the road to Damascus, Christ sent him to wait there. Ananias came and told him, “What are you waiting for? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord!” (Acts 22:16).
So Paul, too, washed his sins away in baptism, despite having seen the Lord 3 days earlier. Baptism was his sinner’s prayer.
The early church believed the same way. All Christians believed in baptismal regeneration, including the Reformers, all the way into the 17th century. A symbolic baptism has to be the worst-attested doctrine believed by any large group of Christians ever. It’s new, it obviously violates many Scriptures on baptism.
Baptists and others like them deal with this by using verses on faith to teach about and argue for their version of baptism. They have to. Pretty much all the verses on baptism clearly disagree with them. Church history disagrees with them–100%, across the board–all the way until a century AFTER the Reformation.
So here’s how what I teach differs from the Roman Catholics. One, the Catholics baptize babies. That’s an indication that they think baptism does something spiritual even apart from faith. I don’t believe that.
I believe baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience. Babies can’t do that. We believe, and then we join ourselves to Christ in baptism. In the beginning, it was really that simple. It wasn’t that baptism was a magic rite. It was the baptism was the proper response of a believer to hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and believing.
Okay, so here’s the real difficult issue:
What about those that don’t know?
What about me personally? I was witnessed to by pentecostal believers. They believed, like the Baptists, that baptism is symbolic. So rather than have me respond to God with baptism, as the Bible teaches, they had me pray a prayer. Of course, even the prayer was ineffectual, because like Cornelius in Acts 10, I had received the Holy Spirit as soon as I heard the Gospel and said I believe it. The power of the Spirit fell on me, gave me a good conscience, and changed my whole world as soon as I said, “Yes, I believe.”
I was baptized a month later, wondering what good such an act was, because doing the “public testimony” seemed so meaningless as to be ridiculous. What sort of public testimony is baptism nowadays? Lots of people have been baptized. Many of them repeatedly. Most of them live lives that are a testimony AGAINST Christ.
So baptism is a lousy public testimony. Live a holy life! That’s a great public testimony.
And, Scripturally, how does one explain Paul baptizing the Philippian jailer in the middle of the night? What sort of public testimony was that? How about Cornelius with Peter? It seems clear Cornelius was baptized in his house, on the spot. What sort of public testimony was that?
I believe God makes exceptions. I believe he made an exception for the thief on the cross. I believe he made an exception for Cornelius, pouring out the Spirit on him before baptism.
I believe he makes exceptions for us ignorant 21st century Christians who think baptism is symbolic and can be waited on. He forgives our sins and fills us with the Spirit because we ask him to by a sinner’s prayer or a prayer to be filled with the Spirit. Being merciful, loving, and kind, he answers that prayer.
Scripturally, though, the example set for us–and the command of Christ–is that baptism be the appeal to God for a good conscience, not something else, not even an actual verbal prayer.
I hope that answers your question. Justification does come upon faith, but faith always acts. So responding to the Gospel by an act of faith, such as baptism or the sinner’s prayer (one being biblical and one being the tradition of Charles Finney and D.L. Moody) does not contradict justification by faith. Instead, it shows us what justification by faith looks like.
Remember, Peter didn’t say in Acts 2:38, “You don’t have to do anything. You have already believed, so you’re justified.” No, he said, “Repent and be baptized.”
Clearly, those Jews believed . How could the be cut to the heart, as the Scripture says, unless they had believed what Peter taught? Yet, Peter still told them to repent and be baptized.
One needs to perform an initial act of faith.
I’d love to say more about Peter’s initial act of faith, but this email is long enough. The first time Peter received a command of the Lord, it was to throw his nets on the other side of the boat (Luke 5). When he did so, the effect was incredible. He acknowledged he was a sinner, and then, when the boat got to land, he forsook everything and followed Christ.
Amazing, isn’t it? Jesus didn’t tell him to be baptized, to read the Scriptures, or any such thing. Instead, he told him only to throw his nets on the other side of the boat. Peter said, “At your word, I will do it.”
He did it. The response to the Word, by obeying it, was like eating it. The Word was implanted in his heart like a seed and he was born again (Jam. 1:21 w 1:18). At that point, because he responded/obeyed, he didn’t need to be told he was a sinner. He didn’t need to be told to follow Christ. The Word of God was now in him, and so he knew what he was supposed to do!
Of course, I know there’s issues with me saying he was born again there and not later, after he repented for denying Christ. But Jesus said that Zaccheus was saved (Luk 19) right there on the spot. There, once again, the Word of God (Jesus) told Zaccheus something simple. He told him to hurry, to come down, and that Jesus would eat with him. Zaccheus complied, and the Word of God was planted in his soul. Jesus didn’t have to teach him to repay those he’d cheated. He knew already because the Word was in him.
Then, as I said, Jesus said that salvation had come to him that very day. It had! And it was because of his positive response to the Word of God.
Baptism is our positive response to the Word of God. It’s like eating it. When we respond, the Word of God will go down in us like a seed, saving our souls.
Well, I guess I did say all of that about Peter. Sorry for the long email. I hope it’s a blessing to you.
In one of the comments, someone asked:
If one finds oneself constantly failing in the Christian life (ie a constant Rom 7 experience) what should he do? How (practically) do you obey through the power of the spirit and not your own flesh?
I’m about to show you what my answer was. I wouldn’t mind some input—John C, I’d love it if you’d add to this in the comment section.
Until then, it’s my hope that this will help some. Going forward in Christ is above all a matter of knowing and pursuing him. He that wishes to please God must know that he is, the writer of Hebrews says, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
So here’s the answer I gave:
This is a difficult question to answer from a distance.
The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. It is good to have brothers (or sisters) speaking into your life. If there’s an ongoing struggle, they can see what you’re lacking.
If you don’t have that kind of fellowship, then the question I would usually ask is what one thing that God is asking you to do.
If you don’t know, then you need to find out. It’s very hard to fix everything in your life at once. It’s much easier to know exactly what God is asking of you, work on that, then move on to the next thing he gives you as soon as he has you moving on.
For example, let’s say that I seek God, and I believe the one thing he’s got for me is to really pay attention to those that I’m with: to listen, to let there be love in my eyes, and to really seek to let Christ reach them through me while I’m with them.
Then, when a person begins to talk to me, it’s a reminder to set my eyes on God. It’s a reminder to ask God for grace, and to focus on doing his will.
That act will carry over into other parts of my life, and the successes will strengthen me and draw me closer to God.
I don’t say this out of some system I’ve developed. I say this out of what I’ve watched God do with people for 27 years. He’s always got something that he wants you to learn or change in. You’re his student, not your own, so you have to focus on what he’s focusing on.
That’s all you’ll have grace for. You won’t have grace for the lessons you’ve assigned yourself. You’ll have grace for what God is asking of you, and God only asks what he knows you can give, no matter how difficult it is.
Focus on that. Make it the goal of your life. If you fail, then repent, get up, and ask him for even more grace. God knows you may be weak and need some time, but if he’s asking something for you, it is within your power–as long as your eyes are on him.
That’s a specific answer. I have one much shorter general answer.
Walking in the Spirit means trying to keep one eye on God all the time. It means checking inside to see if God has dropped anything in your heart in every situation and conversation you find yourself in. Sometimes there will be nothing. Other times, there will be something there, and you must obey.
One obedience leads to another. He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much.
We have to give ourselves time to grow. We can’t be crushed by failures. We have to allow ourselves to be forgiven by God (mercy), and we have to rely upon his help (grace).
John, a friend of mine, has a blog on this topic as well.
Apparently, I let out a deep, light secret last night.
God loves you.
Well, okay, everyone—especially those so hungry for God that they’ve come to a Christian community like Rose Creek Village—knows that God loves them.
Somehow. In some way. Certainly in a way worth talking about.
But apparently we don’t know it in a way that produces real believing.
I’m sorry this post is so long, but I am making war with that most evil, most dangerous, and most insidious of all demons … you.
Self.
Nothing will take you down like self. You’ll believe the most ridiculous things and miss out on the most obvious truths because of that demon there. There’s none worse.
I don’t know how to take down that demon with less words that I’m using today.
But he’s worth taking down. I hope you’ll read them.
Don’t get me wrong. There are people who walk around in joy all the time. They know God loves them, and they know it the right way. They’ve got it inside, and they’re pouring it out in their lives day by day.
But there’s a good chance you’re not one of them. So let me let you in on the secret:
Okay, I’m going to narrow my audience down here the way Paul did. I’m speaking to those who "love God and are the called according to his purpose."
I’m speaking to those who have chosen to go after Christ. I’m speaking to those who have heard the Gospel, embraced it, and know that their life doesn’t matter any more; only the will of God does.
For the rest of you, you have to start there. You have to believe the Gospel. The Gospel is to believe in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ said you cannot be his disciple unless you deny yourself, take up your cross, leave your family and your possessions, and follow him.
If you haven’t done that, then what you need to hear is that God is commanding you to repent.
But for those of you that have repented, but you still can’t seem to get it right, I have good news for you …
You never will.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)
If you’re in Christ, then the reason you’re not getting it right is because you need someone else to live your life for you. You’re dead. Your life is safely and permanently tucked away with Christ inside of God.
No wonder you’re a hopeless failure!
Give it up!
For I am crucified with Christ; neverthless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)
We all know that verse, but do we do it?
Do we hopelessly give up on ourselves and let Christ live in us … through us?
So you just sinned. One more time you opened your big mouth. You got your feelings hurt, and you mistreated the perpetrator. You chickened out and didn’t confess the Lord when a good opportunity arose. You looked at the wrong thing or in the wrong place.
Or, worst of all, you failed to help a person in need.
So what now?
Well, now you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. That’s what 1 Jn. 2:2 says. And surely you’ve heard that the word "advocate" there means a defense lawyer. Jesus Christ is on your side against God.
What a bunch of poppycock and slander against God!
You don’t need a defense attorney against God. God’s on your side! And if Jesus is defending you before God, then he’s doing it because God commanded him to. Jesus only does what he sees his Father doing.
"If God be for us, who can be against us?" Do you remember that verse?
If not, go look it up. It’s in Romans 8:31. Read it. Read the verses around it. Eat them (Jer. 15:16). Let them become part of you. Let them become the rejoicing of your heart.
I looked up th. Greek word in 1 Jn. 2:1. It’s parakletos.
For those of you that don’t know, that’s what the Holy Spirit is called in John 14. It’s comforter.
Oh, yeah, in some situations it can mean a defense attorney. But not before God! Not for you! You don’t need a defense attorney before God.
God already knew, from the foundation of the world, that you were going to be weak and fail.
When you are weak and fail, you have to look up at God. He already knows you’re helpless without him. He knows you can’t repent—and follow through on that repentance—without his grace.
So what does he want you to do? Hide because you think he’s going to punish you?
Never! All God’s punishment is redemptive. None of it is just punitive—at least not with disciples.
If God is ever disappointed with you, it is because he wants you to repent. It’s not even because you haven’t repented yet. It’s because he wants his displeasure to motivate you to what you desperately need, repentance.
Then, once you’ve repented, he wants his love to fill you. He wants you to love him because he first loved you.
Quit thinking God feels bad about you. Once you desire the good, knowing you’re helpless to produce it, but also knowing that Jesus Christ is you deliverance, then God feels GREAT about you.
Yes, yes, yes!
Let us come boldly to the throne of grace so that we may find mercy and grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:16)
Notice the order. Mercy is first, grace second.
What’s grace?
The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. (Tit. 2:11-12)
Mercy is God forgiving us. Grace is God teaching us, empowering us, and using us.
You can’t do righteousness without God. You are evil.
Yes, you are evil.
If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, then how much more does your Father in heaven know how to give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him. (Matt. somewhere—6:11?)
Don’t worry, God already knows that.
That’s why mercy is first, and then grace to help is second. He forgives you so that you will stick around, with your eyes on him, obtaining the power you need which God calls grace.
Aargh! There’s sooooo much to say on this subject and not enough time to say it!!!
Sin will not have power over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Rom. 6:14)
There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1)
If you want to have joy, peace, and righteousness, I highly recommend believing these things and coming boldly to the throne of grace to obtain the grace you need.
This morning in Bible study a few of us were looking at Galatians 2. Obviously, as we go further in Galatians, we need a good working definition of justification, and we went after that.
The Greek word justify is just the word righteous used as a verb. Thus to justify is to make righteous.
Really, though, that doesn’t answer any questions. What’s righteousness?
Some say that righteousness is simply right standing with God, and it has nothing to do with what we do. The apostle John, however, has made it clear that’s impossible:
Little, children, let no one deceive you; he that practices righteousness is righteous just as [Christ] is righteous. He that practices sin is of the devil. (1 Jn. 3:7-8)
Can that be said any more clearly?
On the other hand, it is clear that the only righteousness God wants is his righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteousness is like filthy rags. Paul says that the problem of the Jews was that they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own (Rom. 10:3).
So how does all this apply to us?
I feel like Paul explains it well in Philippians 3:
We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh. (v. 3)
Paul then explains that if anyone was going to have confidence in the flesh, he could. He was a Jew, a pharisee, and concerning the righteousness of the Law, “found blameless.”
Recent ice storm in TN
Things can’t get much better than that for a follower of God, can they?
But look what Paul’s righteousness got for him. He was a murderer. He was an enemy of God, persecuting God’s Son. Jesus told a story of tenants that were stealing a king’s field, hoarding its profits so greedily that they were willing to drive off his servants and kill his son. Paul, “found blameless” in the righteousness of the Law, was one of those tenants.
Our own righteousness is worthless.
So what did Paul do about it?
He doesn’t leave us wondering. He goes on to explain it …
I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
There is one thing Paul pursued; it was knowing Christ.
This is the one and only route to righteousness. We’ll never work ourselves into righteousness. There is not some other law better than the Mosaic Law that will give us righteousness. Paul says that if there were a law that could have given life, then righteousness would come by the law. He says this because there is no law whatsoever that will give life and produce righteousness.
Does this mean that we can’t do righteousness?
Of course not! Only those who do righteousness are righteous as Christ is righteous, says John.
So how do we do it?
We know Christ! We actively and avidly pursue Christ!
Let’s talk about works.
Our life is about works. James says they’re necessary to be justified (2:24), and Paul says that we’re to be zealous for good works (Tit. 2:14) and careful to maintain them (Tit. 3:8).
Someone gave a great example in our Bible study today. Jesus told the story of a Levite who was in the synagogue giving thanks that he wasn’t like the tax collector who was in there with him. The Levite believed he was righteous, while the tax collector was unrighteous.
The tax collector, on the other hand, dared not even look up to heaven. He hung his head, beat his breast, and asked for mercy from God.
Jesus finishes the story by telling us that the tax collector went back to his house justified—made righteous—and not the other.
But let me add one twist to the story …
There is a difference between the tax collector that’s in the synagogue, head bowed to God, crying out for mercy, and the tax collector that’s sitting at home, counting his coins, and not pursuing God.
Zaccheus was a tax collector. I tell you that there was a difference between Zaccheus before he went up in the tree to see Christ and Zaccheus when he came down from the tree having glimpsed the living Word of God.
Zaccheus the day before was a cheat. He did not have salvation. Zaccheus after he saw Christ repented for his cheating, determined to return what he had stolen and more. He was transformed by knowing Jesus Christ.
And Jesus Christ said, “Today salvation has come to this man’s house.”
Our righteousness must come from Christ. We must pursue him.
If we pursue Christ you will see good actions. Those who pursue the knowledge of Christ are those who count everything else but dung. Their desire is for Jesus. They set aside all else. They repent for their wickedness, and they repay those that they have wronged.
There is not a law for righteousness, but there is a Christ to know who produces righteousness; real, tangible righteousness that can be seen and experienced.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! … There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do [make me “perform what is good” – Rom. 7:18], God did. By sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit … For if you walk according to the flesh, you must die; but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the flesh, then you will live. (Rom. 7:24-8:4; 8:12-13)
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared beforehand for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)
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