September 14, 2010: Questions On Perseverance
I received the following response to last week's post:
Your post mentioned the parable of the sower and the seed that was sown on rocky soil and the seed on good soil. Can you address the seed that fell among the thorns which choked the plant? Are they saints clothed with Christ's righteousness? Have they persevered in their trust in Christ though they live in sin and perhaps have no outward evidence of fruit? Are they repentant, are they trying? Your analogy of marriage seemed to me to indicate that we should not expect Christ to remain married to us if we are unfaithful to him, and yet aren't we often unfaithful to him when other things become more important to us than God?
My answers to each question:
Can you address the seed that fell among thorns which choked the plant?
Jesus said, "The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature" (Luke 8:14). I believe this picture represents people who ultimately love sin more than they love Christ. In contrast with the seed that fell on rocky soil, they do not fall away from the faith because of external pressure - the heat of persecution - but because of internal pressure - the lure of corruption. Like Demas, who deserted Paul "because he loved this world" (2 Timothy 4:10), they choose to conform to the world and to their own desires rather than to Christ.
Are they saints clothed with Christ's righteousness?
No. They don't want to be clothed with his righteousness. They find it an ill-fitting garment and cast it off.
In the parable of the seeds Jesus is contrasting those who stay with him and those who don't. The sheep who hear his voice follow him and abide (remain, stay) with him. Those who don't remain with him are of several types. Some don't even get started in the first place - the seed on the path that fails to germinate and is eaten by birds. Others leave because of persecution. Others leave to follow a life of sin.
Jesus never said, "Whoever would come after me may revert to his sinful lifestyle." Instead, he demanded a self-denial so strong that he compared it to carrying a cross to your own execution (Luke 9:23). When he showed mercy to the woman caught in adultery he did not say, "You may now go back to your whoring," but "Leave your life of sin" (John 8:11). When he healed the lame man at Bethesda he did not say, "Even if you keep sinning, you'll still be ok," but rather "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" (John 5:14). When a rich man wanted to follow Jesus while hanging on to his greed, Jesus turned him away (Matthew 19:22).
Have they persevered in their trust in Christ though they live in sin and perhaps have no outward evidence of fruit?
No outward evidence of fruit? When Jesus came across a fruitless tree, he cursed it! (Matthew 21:19). That was supposed to be a warning.
When a person lives in sin and gives no outward evidence of fruit, he has in effect denied the faith. Paul confirms this in Titus 1:15-16 when he speaks of those who "claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him." I believe it is very common to deny God with one's actions. Paul gives an example of such behavior in 1 Timothy 5:8: a man who refuses to provide for his family "has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." Such a man does not actually say "I reject Jesus Christ." He doesn't have to - his behavior does that for him. Words can lie; actions can't. That is why Jesus said, "By their fruit (not by their words) you shall know them" (Matthew 7:16).
Anyone who says "I know God, I've accepted Jesus," while his behavior proves he is "detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good" (Titus 1:16) is simply lying about his faith. Jesus insisted that those who merely call him "Lord" but don't do the will of God will not get into the kingdom of heaven: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).
James concurs regarding the fate of those who "have no outward evidence of fruit." James 2:14: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?" No. The answer to that rhetorical question is no. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17), and dead faith cannot save.
Are they repentant, are they trying?
Well, if they are repentant and trying, I believe that God will certainly show them grace. "A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:17). No man is so good that he does not need to be in a constant state of bemoaning his sin and repenting of it. The good news is that "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
I think it is important though to distinguish between those who are "repentant and trying" and those who are "unrepentant and not trying at all." In my own pastoral ministry, for example, I have been happy to extend words of grace to those who have fallen into sexual sin and who seek the Lord's pardon and restoration. But those who refuse God's transforming grace will not receive it. I have written to two unrepentant (and formerly Christian) adulterers who were both dumping faithful wives in order to pursue sin, "It is important for you to understand that you are going to hell. If you died tonight, you would hear from Jesus the awful words, 'Depart from me. I never knew you.'" (See Matthew 7:23). To this day these men remain impenitent, and I fear their time is running out. I do not say (and would never say) that they are without hope. I do say, however, that they are not now in a state of grace.
Your analogy of marriage seemed to me to indicate that we should not expect Christ to remain married to us if we are unfaithful to him, and yet aren't we often unfaithful to him when other things become more important to us than God?
It all depends on what you mean by "unfaithful." That is a big enough topic to require a separate Pastor's Page, and Lord willing I'll deal with that next week.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
September 7, 2010: Perseverance Of The Saints
On three occasions in recent weeks I have found myself having to defend the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints against some energetic opposition. It seemed good to me to write out a defense of this doctrine and have it at the ready should the issue come up again.
Who are the saints? They are the holy ones of God who belong to him by faith and whom he has chosen to inherit eternal life. What does it mean that they persevere? It means that they continue, they endure, they persist in Christ all the way to heaven. None of them is lost. They don't "believe for a while but in time of testing turn away" (Luke 8:13); they endure to the end and are saved (Matthew 24:13). Each of them has a regenerated heart, not a "sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God" (Hebrews 3:12). They do not disown Christ, since the Bible promises "if we disown him, he will disown us" (2 Timothy 3:12) - and saints can never be disowned. They abide (remain, stay, live, persist) in Christ; they do not "go out from us," as John explains, "For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (1 John 2:19). They are eternally secure. No one can pluck them out of the hand of the Father (John 10:29). Nothing can separate them from the love of Christ. (Romans 8:38-39).
The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints tends to be undermined today in one of two ways: (1) by denying that it is even necessary for believers to persevere in their faith, and (2) by applying the assurance of salvation not merely to persevering saints, but to unpersevering unbelievers! (Yes, I have seen that done.)
I was challenged the other day concerning whether I would actually tell a convert that he had to persevere, and the answer is "Of course! Yes!" Heaven forbid that instead of proclaiming perseverance we should say to a young Christian, "Just believe in Jesus for a week or so, then if you go back to your atheism or hedonism or whatever you'll still be ok." What a contemptuous disregard for Christ's admonition to endure to the end!
When I tell my son that he must be faithful to his wife, I am not saying, "Son, make sure you honor your vows for a period of time - a few months, maybe a few years - then you can sleep around." No! I'm telling him to be permanently faithful. Temporary fidelity is infidelity; temporary belief is unbelief. Would we earnestly tell men to persevere in their marriages, but shy away from telling them to persevere in Christ? Would we instruct our children on the meaning of "till death do us part," but neglect to teach our children of faith the meaning of "endure to the end"? Is Christ less worthy of our faithfulness than a spouse? Are we perhaps afraid we'll "lose the converts" if we tell them that Christianity is a life-long commitment? That's worse than fearing our sons won't marry if we tell them they must be faithful to their spouses for the rest of their lives!
The doctrine of perseverance, of course, does not depend on any such analogy. It is grounded in the Scriptures. Here are some of the many Bible verses that support it:
Hebrews 3:14: We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
Note the "if" in the verse above. It does not say that we have come to share in Christ whether or not we hold our confidence firmly till end, but if. If a person does not hold firmly to the end, then he has not "come to share in Christ." He is not a saint. Again, all saints persevere.
2 Timothy 2:12: If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us.
This verse does not promise, "If we fail to endure, we will nonetheless reign with him." Reigning with Christ is conditioned on endurance. Those who do not endure will not reign with him, and those disown him will be disowned by him. That is precisely what Jesus promised in Matthew 10:33: "Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." It will be pointed out that Peter disowned Christ three times and yet remained a saint. True - but it must also be mentioned that he lied about Christ only when he felt threatened with death by torture, that he felt anguished remorse within seconds, that he repented within days, and that he then persevered in Christ until his own crucifixion many years later. Peter's momentary "disowning" can hardly be compared with willful, public, repeated, consistent, to-the-deathbed disavowal of Christ like that shown by (for example) former Billy Graham colleague Charles Templeton.
Matthew 24:13 He who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Nowhere does the Bible promise salvation for those who do not stand firm to the end. This is not a problem for saints, however, because all of them do stand firm in Christ. Again (how many times do we have to say it?), the saints persevere.
But aren't there people who make a temporary commitment to Christ and then revoke it? Oh yes, there are lots of them, and the Bible talks about them in spades and warns us not to be like them. They are not saints, and we should not label them as such. Here are a few texts that speak of those who do not persevere in the Lord.
Luke 8:13: Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.
Here Jesus is talking about temporary converts. They "receive the word with joy" and "believe for a while," but fall away when things get hard. I know that some evangelicals teach it is not possible to believe in Christ temporarily, but both the words of Jesus and our most casual observations prove that false. Jesus was right. Some people do in fact "believe for a while." They aren't faking it. Their joy is real. But later they change their minds and renounce the faith they once embraced. They are not saints, of course, because saints persevere. The saints in Jesus' parable of the seeds in Luke 8 are those who continue to grow and produce a crop.
2 Peter 2:20-22: If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
Sobering, isn't it? It is a terrible thing to be a temporary Christian. Peter teaches that lapsed followers of Christ are worse off than those who have never known him. It is much better never to know Christ at all than to know him and turn away.
Hebrews 3:12: See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
The writer of Hebrews is addressing people he calls "brothers." He has seen many former brothers turn away to sinful unbelief, and the whole book of Hebrews can be seen as the author's desperate plea to professing Christians that they persevere in the Lord and beware the apostasy that so many others have fallen into. In 2:1 he writes, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." What happens to those who drift away is described in 6:4-6 and 10:26-31:
Hebrews 6:4-6: It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Hebrews 10:26-31: If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In the Bible, we actually have the names of some people who "crucified the Son of God all over again," "trampled [Him] under foot," "treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant" after they had once professed faith in Christ. They are Judas, Alexander, Hymenaus, and Philetus. See below:
2 Timothy 2:17-18: Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth.
1 Timothy 1:19-20: ...holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
2 Timothy 4:14-15: Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message.
Matthew 26:24:
The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man [Judas] who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."
I have found that those who maintain that such non-persevering apostates (or "temporary believers") are still saved despite their apostasy often appeal to John 10:27-29 and Romans 8:35-39. The passage in John quotes Jesus as saying, "No one can pluck them out of my hand," and Paul in Romans says that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. The full texts are below:
John 10:27-29: My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.
Romans 8:35-39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
These texts are a great comfort to all believers. But applying them to apostate unbelievers is abominable! Please note, in John 10, who the people are who cannot be plucked from the hand of Jesus. They are identified in verse 27 as his sheep: "My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." And they follow me. Repeat that phrase "and they follow me" a hundred times if necessary to get it stuck in your head. The promise is for sheep who follow Christ! It is not for wolves who abandon him. It is not for apostates who drift away and disown him. All sheep who follow Christ can rest assured that they will never be snatched out of his hand.
Romans 8 makes the same point. "Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ." Who are the "us" to whom this comfort is given? The persevering saints of verses 28 to 30:
Romans 8:28-30: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
The "us" of verses 35 and 39 are the "those who love God" of verse 28. A lover of God, called according to his purpose, foreknown and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, can never be separated from his love. To qualify for the "no separation from Christ" promise in verse 35, a person must love God back in verse 28. Apostates, who hate God so much that they "believe for a while" (Luke 8:13) and then "return to their spiritual vomit" (2 Peter 2:22) and "trample the Son of God under foot" (Hebrews 10:29) and "subject him to public disgrace" (Hebrews 6:6) and "shipwreck their faith" (1 Timothy 1:19) are neither sheep who follow Christ nor lovers of God who can avail themselves of the promises in John 10 and Romans 8.
Someone texted me the question, "So does 'perseverance of the saints' doctrine mean that no one should feel eternally secure in their salvation?" I texted back, "Of course not. All those who persevere should feel eternally secure. Those who do not persevere should not feel secure."
Perhaps an analogy will help.
Do you feel secure in your marriage? I hope so. I hope that, if you are married, it is to someone who would never leave you nor forsake you.
Now let me ask you to imagine that you are married to someone who is perfect in every way. This mate would not, could not cheat on you. Unfaithfulness is not in his nature - it is completely unthinkable to him. In addition, he is kind. He is also strong and protective - you know that he would prevent any kidnapper or abuser from coming in and snatching you away. If you get sick he will care for you. If others insult you he will not join in their bullying but speak compassionately to you. If you become poor he will not ditch you; instead, he will be poor with you, and will labor to provide what you need. If you become terminally ill, and die, he will be at your bedside holding your hand. Neither life nor death nor sickness nor poverty nor persecution nor anything like that can separate you from his love.
Would you feel secure in such a marriage? Of course you would. Would you fear that your marriage to such a man would end in divorce? Of course not! You'd have every reason for confidence that your marriage to him would last a lifetime.
However, you would have no grounds for such confidence if you're cheating on him. Chronic adulteresses who treat their loving husbands with contempt have no right to an assurance that their marriages will endure. Wives who trample their husbands under foot may expect a divorce just as surely as sinners who "trample the Son of God under foot" may expect a "raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."
Saints persevere, and rest assured that their union with Christ will last forever in the same way that loving wives rest confident that their good husbands will be with them until parted by death. Apostates and adulteresses, however, have no such assurance. They should not rest easy. They should repent, if possible, while there is still time.
On three occasions in recent weeks I have found myself having to defend the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints against some energetic opposition. It seemed good to me to write out a defense of this doctrine and have it at the ready should the issue come up again.
Who are the saints? They are the holy ones of God who belong to him by faith and whom he has chosen to inherit eternal life. What does it mean that they persevere? It means that they continue, they endure, they persist in Christ all the way to heaven. None of them is lost. They don't "believe for a while but in time of testing turn away" (Luke 8:13); they endure to the end and are saved (Matthew 24:13). Each of them has a regenerated heart, not a "sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God" (Hebrews 3:12). They do not disown Christ, since the Bible promises "if we disown him, he will disown us" (2 Timothy 3:12) - and saints can never be disowned. They abide (remain, stay, live, persist) in Christ; they do not "go out from us," as John explains, "For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (1 John 2:19). They are eternally secure. No one can pluck them out of the hand of the Father (John 10:29). Nothing can separate them from the love of Christ. (Romans 8:38-39).
The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints tends to be undermined today in one of two ways: (1) by denying that it is even necessary for believers to persevere in their faith, and (2) by applying the assurance of salvation not merely to persevering saints, but to unpersevering unbelievers! (Yes, I have seen that done.)
I was challenged the other day concerning whether I would actually tell a convert that he had to persevere, and the answer is "Of course! Yes!" Heaven forbid that instead of proclaiming perseverance we should say to a young Christian, "Just believe in Jesus for a week or so, then if you go back to your atheism or hedonism or whatever you'll still be ok." What a contemptuous disregard for Christ's admonition to endure to the end!
When I tell my son that he must be faithful to his wife, I am not saying, "Son, make sure you honor your vows for a period of time - a few months, maybe a few years - then you can sleep around." No! I'm telling him to be permanently faithful. Temporary fidelity is infidelity; temporary belief is unbelief. Would we earnestly tell men to persevere in their marriages, but shy away from telling them to persevere in Christ? Would we instruct our children on the meaning of "till death do us part," but neglect to teach our children of faith the meaning of "endure to the end"? Is Christ less worthy of our faithfulness than a spouse? Are we perhaps afraid we'll "lose the converts" if we tell them that Christianity is a life-long commitment? That's worse than fearing our sons won't marry if we tell them they must be faithful to their spouses for the rest of their lives!
The doctrine of perseverance, of course, does not depend on any such analogy. It is grounded in the Scriptures. Here are some of the many Bible verses that support it:
Hebrews 3:14: We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
Note the "if" in the verse above. It does not say that we have come to share in Christ whether or not we hold our confidence firmly till end, but if. If a person does not hold firmly to the end, then he has not "come to share in Christ." He is not a saint. Again, all saints persevere.
2 Timothy 2:12: If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us.
This verse does not promise, "If we fail to endure, we will nonetheless reign with him." Reigning with Christ is conditioned on endurance. Those who do not endure will not reign with him, and those disown him will be disowned by him. That is precisely what Jesus promised in Matthew 10:33: "Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." It will be pointed out that Peter disowned Christ three times and yet remained a saint. True - but it must also be mentioned that he lied about Christ only when he felt threatened with death by torture, that he felt anguished remorse within seconds, that he repented within days, and that he then persevered in Christ until his own crucifixion many years later. Peter's momentary "disowning" can hardly be compared with willful, public, repeated, consistent, to-the-deathbed disavowal of Christ like that shown by (for example) former Billy Graham colleague Charles Templeton.
Matthew 24:13 He who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Nowhere does the Bible promise salvation for those who do not stand firm to the end. This is not a problem for saints, however, because all of them do stand firm in Christ. Again (how many times do we have to say it?), the saints persevere.
But aren't there people who make a temporary commitment to Christ and then revoke it? Oh yes, there are lots of them, and the Bible talks about them in spades and warns us not to be like them. They are not saints, and we should not label them as such. Here are a few texts that speak of those who do not persevere in the Lord.
Luke 8:13: Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.
Here Jesus is talking about temporary converts. They "receive the word with joy" and "believe for a while," but fall away when things get hard. I know that some evangelicals teach it is not possible to believe in Christ temporarily, but both the words of Jesus and our most casual observations prove that false. Jesus was right. Some people do in fact "believe for a while." They aren't faking it. Their joy is real. But later they change their minds and renounce the faith they once embraced. They are not saints, of course, because saints persevere. The saints in Jesus' parable of the seeds in Luke 8 are those who continue to grow and produce a crop.
2 Peter 2:20-22: If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
Sobering, isn't it? It is a terrible thing to be a temporary Christian. Peter teaches that lapsed followers of Christ are worse off than those who have never known him. It is much better never to know Christ at all than to know him and turn away.
Hebrews 3:12: See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
The writer of Hebrews is addressing people he calls "brothers." He has seen many former brothers turn away to sinful unbelief, and the whole book of Hebrews can be seen as the author's desperate plea to professing Christians that they persevere in the Lord and beware the apostasy that so many others have fallen into. In 2:1 he writes, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." What happens to those who drift away is described in 6:4-6 and 10:26-31:
Hebrews 6:4-6: It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Hebrews 10:26-31: If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In the Bible, we actually have the names of some people who "crucified the Son of God all over again," "trampled [Him] under foot," "treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant" after they had once professed faith in Christ. They are Judas, Alexander, Hymenaus, and Philetus. See below:
2 Timothy 2:17-18: Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth.
1 Timothy 1:19-20: ...holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
2 Timothy 4:14-15: Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message.
Matthew 26:24:
The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man [Judas] who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."
I have found that those who maintain that such non-persevering apostates (or "temporary believers") are still saved despite their apostasy often appeal to John 10:27-29 and Romans 8:35-39. The passage in John quotes Jesus as saying, "No one can pluck them out of my hand," and Paul in Romans says that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. The full texts are below:
John 10:27-29: My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.
Romans 8:35-39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
These texts are a great comfort to all believers. But applying them to apostate unbelievers is abominable! Please note, in John 10, who the people are who cannot be plucked from the hand of Jesus. They are identified in verse 27 as his sheep: "My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." And they follow me. Repeat that phrase "and they follow me" a hundred times if necessary to get it stuck in your head. The promise is for sheep who follow Christ! It is not for wolves who abandon him. It is not for apostates who drift away and disown him. All sheep who follow Christ can rest assured that they will never be snatched out of his hand.
Romans 8 makes the same point. "Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ." Who are the "us" to whom this comfort is given? The persevering saints of verses 28 to 30:
Romans 8:28-30: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
The "us" of verses 35 and 39 are the "those who love God" of verse 28. A lover of God, called according to his purpose, foreknown and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, can never be separated from his love. To qualify for the "no separation from Christ" promise in verse 35, a person must love God back in verse 28. Apostates, who hate God so much that they "believe for a while" (Luke 8:13) and then "return to their spiritual vomit" (2 Peter 2:22) and "trample the Son of God under foot" (Hebrews 10:29) and "subject him to public disgrace" (Hebrews 6:6) and "shipwreck their faith" (1 Timothy 1:19) are neither sheep who follow Christ nor lovers of God who can avail themselves of the promises in John 10 and Romans 8.
Someone texted me the question, "So does 'perseverance of the saints' doctrine mean that no one should feel eternally secure in their salvation?" I texted back, "Of course not. All those who persevere should feel eternally secure. Those who do not persevere should not feel secure."
Perhaps an analogy will help.
Do you feel secure in your marriage? I hope so. I hope that, if you are married, it is to someone who would never leave you nor forsake you.
Now let me ask you to imagine that you are married to someone who is perfect in every way. This mate would not, could not cheat on you. Unfaithfulness is not in his nature - it is completely unthinkable to him. In addition, he is kind. He is also strong and protective - you know that he would prevent any kidnapper or abuser from coming in and snatching you away. If you get sick he will care for you. If others insult you he will not join in their bullying but speak compassionately to you. If you become poor he will not ditch you; instead, he will be poor with you, and will labor to provide what you need. If you become terminally ill, and die, he will be at your bedside holding your hand. Neither life nor death nor sickness nor poverty nor persecution nor anything like that can separate you from his love.
Would you feel secure in such a marriage? Of course you would. Would you fear that your marriage to such a man would end in divorce? Of course not! You'd have every reason for confidence that your marriage to him would last a lifetime.
However, you would have no grounds for such confidence if you're cheating on him. Chronic adulteresses who treat their loving husbands with contempt have no right to an assurance that their marriages will endure. Wives who trample their husbands under foot may expect a divorce just as surely as sinners who "trample the Son of God under foot" may expect a "raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."
Saints persevere, and rest assured that their union with Christ will last forever in the same way that loving wives rest confident that their good husbands will be with them until parted by death. Apostates and adulteresses, however, have no such assurance. They should not rest easy. They should repent, if possible, while there is still time.
Friday, August 27, 2010
August 31, 2010: Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den [that had a radio in it], and laid me down in that place to sleep [while listening to WMBI]; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.
In my dream, I saw Jesus talking to a rich young man. I seemed to understand that I was viewing the scene recorded in Mark 10:17-27, except that a few things seemed different.
First, instead of the rich man approaching Jesus, it was Jesus who approached him. The rich man never asked, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Instead, Jesus asked him, "Is there anything I can do to persuade you to have a personal relationship with me?"
"I'll need some assurances first," the man replied.
"I'm your servant," Jesus said. "Please tell me your concerns. I'll listen, and I'll try to do whatever I can to make this work."
"Ok. I'd like to know this: Are there a lot of do's and don'ts in your religion? Rules and regulations that I have to follow?"
"Rules!" Jesus cried. "Do's and Don'ts! Listen, young man: this is about relationship, not rules. The Pharisees are all about rules. The elder brother in my Prodigal Son story is all about rules. Oh those silly rule-keepers! I can't stand it when people think they can please me by obeying a bunch of rules. Why, just the other day I told my disciples, 'If you break all my rules, you will remain in my love' [John 15:10]. Thankfully my disciple John understood this right way - he was taking notes and I saw him write down, 'This is love for God: that we not trouble ourselves with obeying a bunch of rules' [1 John 5:3]. Ask the crowds who have heard me preach, and they can tell you how consistent I have been on this point. I boldly told them recently that my true mother and brothers are those who hear the Word of God and realize that they don't have to 'do' or 'perform' it in order to be part of my family. [Luke 8:21]. I'm about grace, not performance."
In my dream I saw the man turn to a friend, and I heard him whisper, "I like Jesus' religion! All other religions of the world are concerned about what I DO. They insist that I follow a set of rules in order to be in right relationship with Ultimate Reality and enjoy Its favor. What a relief to know that rules and regulations are not an issue here! Please remind me in case I forget: In Jesus' religion, there's no rule against sleeping with my kids' babysitter, or neglecting my parents, or taking bribes, or defrauding my clients, or oppressing races I don't like, or slandering all the innocent people who get in the way of my ambition."
Then the man turned back to Jesus and said, "Tell me this. Do I have to sacrifice anything?"
Jesus sighed. I perceived he was frustrated that the man still wasn't getting it. "Look," Jesus said. "Sacrificing yourself is a work. You're not saved by works. You're saved by grace. Stop trying to earn my favor! It really is all about rules and performance with you, isn't it? I mean, here you go again, thinking you could 'please' me or 'earn my favor' with your 'performance' of 'obeying the rule' of 'sacrificing yourself' to follow me. All the other religions of the world are about that kind of thing. They require sacrifice and self-denial; I don't. If any man would come after me, he must lay down his cross and stop thinking that he has to do all these burdensome things to please me" [Luke 9:23].
"Are my riches a problem?" the man asked.
"A problem? A problem??? Oh heavens no. It's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to spit in the sand. I could take you to quite a few of my assemblies that are full of people with nice homes and expensive cars who don't even tithe! I'm so glad they understand that my love is unconditional - it has nothing to do with their generosity or lack thereof [2 Corinthians 9:7]. Just the other day my disciple Peter marveled, 'Lord, we have left nothing to follow you!' [Mark 10:28], and of course I just grinned at him. (Oh, and I should mention in passing that since this is your first time visiting me, I don't expect you to give anything. Just let the collection bucket pass. It's policy. I don't want you to feel threatened or pressured.)
"No, friend," Jesus continued. "Your money is no obstacle at all. Quite the opposite in fact. I find that having people like you around helps us be more attractive to the kind of people we want to draw in. And I may as well tell you now - an unwritten requirement for lay leadership in my community is financial success of the sort for which you obviously have a knack."
My dream began to fade. But just before it was fully gone, I thought I saw the man's face break into a broad smile. He seemed to place his hand on Jesus' shoulder. And as my eyes began to flutter open, I nevertheless distinctly heard him say, "Jesus, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den [that had a radio in it], and laid me down in that place to sleep [while listening to WMBI]; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.
In my dream, I saw Jesus talking to a rich young man. I seemed to understand that I was viewing the scene recorded in Mark 10:17-27, except that a few things seemed different.
First, instead of the rich man approaching Jesus, it was Jesus who approached him. The rich man never asked, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Instead, Jesus asked him, "Is there anything I can do to persuade you to have a personal relationship with me?"
"I'll need some assurances first," the man replied.
"I'm your servant," Jesus said. "Please tell me your concerns. I'll listen, and I'll try to do whatever I can to make this work."
"Ok. I'd like to know this: Are there a lot of do's and don'ts in your religion? Rules and regulations that I have to follow?"
"Rules!" Jesus cried. "Do's and Don'ts! Listen, young man: this is about relationship, not rules. The Pharisees are all about rules. The elder brother in my Prodigal Son story is all about rules. Oh those silly rule-keepers! I can't stand it when people think they can please me by obeying a bunch of rules. Why, just the other day I told my disciples, 'If you break all my rules, you will remain in my love' [John 15:10]. Thankfully my disciple John understood this right way - he was taking notes and I saw him write down, 'This is love for God: that we not trouble ourselves with obeying a bunch of rules' [1 John 5:3]. Ask the crowds who have heard me preach, and they can tell you how consistent I have been on this point. I boldly told them recently that my true mother and brothers are those who hear the Word of God and realize that they don't have to 'do' or 'perform' it in order to be part of my family. [Luke 8:21]. I'm about grace, not performance."
In my dream I saw the man turn to a friend, and I heard him whisper, "I like Jesus' religion! All other religions of the world are concerned about what I DO. They insist that I follow a set of rules in order to be in right relationship with Ultimate Reality and enjoy Its favor. What a relief to know that rules and regulations are not an issue here! Please remind me in case I forget: In Jesus' religion, there's no rule against sleeping with my kids' babysitter, or neglecting my parents, or taking bribes, or defrauding my clients, or oppressing races I don't like, or slandering all the innocent people who get in the way of my ambition."
Then the man turned back to Jesus and said, "Tell me this. Do I have to sacrifice anything?"
Jesus sighed. I perceived he was frustrated that the man still wasn't getting it. "Look," Jesus said. "Sacrificing yourself is a work. You're not saved by works. You're saved by grace. Stop trying to earn my favor! It really is all about rules and performance with you, isn't it? I mean, here you go again, thinking you could 'please' me or 'earn my favor' with your 'performance' of 'obeying the rule' of 'sacrificing yourself' to follow me. All the other religions of the world are about that kind of thing. They require sacrifice and self-denial; I don't. If any man would come after me, he must lay down his cross and stop thinking that he has to do all these burdensome things to please me" [Luke 9:23].
"Are my riches a problem?" the man asked.
"A problem? A problem??? Oh heavens no. It's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to spit in the sand. I could take you to quite a few of my assemblies that are full of people with nice homes and expensive cars who don't even tithe! I'm so glad they understand that my love is unconditional - it has nothing to do with their generosity or lack thereof [2 Corinthians 9:7]. Just the other day my disciple Peter marveled, 'Lord, we have left nothing to follow you!' [Mark 10:28], and of course I just grinned at him. (Oh, and I should mention in passing that since this is your first time visiting me, I don't expect you to give anything. Just let the collection bucket pass. It's policy. I don't want you to feel threatened or pressured.)
"No, friend," Jesus continued. "Your money is no obstacle at all. Quite the opposite in fact. I find that having people like you around helps us be more attractive to the kind of people we want to draw in. And I may as well tell you now - an unwritten requirement for lay leadership in my community is financial success of the sort for which you obviously have a knack."
My dream began to fade. But just before it was fully gone, I thought I saw the man's face break into a broad smile. He seemed to place his hand on Jesus' shoulder. And as my eyes began to flutter open, I nevertheless distinctly heard him say, "Jesus, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
August 24, 2010: Plan B
I honor people whose dreams get crushed, whose plans lie in ruins, whose life's work comes to nothing - and who still find some way to move forward. They are my heroes. If you are one of these people, God bless you. I will be looking to you, drawing inspiration from you, meditating on your virtue and doing my sorry best to imitate your ways. Thank you for being my example. Please take comfort in knowing that you are one of God's means - perhaps his primary means, certainly his most poignant means - of taking me through this season of bewildered melancholy. You have almost certainly inspired others too, but you may not have known it.
I will explain why I love you so much. A couple days ago I accepted a job offer with Sears to sell mattresses on commission. I start training tonight. It is good to have a job, and it's an abomination for an able-bodied man like me not to work. Ever since I got laid off from the pastorate a year ago (and have had only temporary jobs since), the Bible verses that most come to mind are not pleasant ones like "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11), but rather stern ones like "If a man will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10), and "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for the members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8). The money I expect to earn from Sears won't be enough to provide for my "relatives and household members" - but at least I'll be contributing something toward my upkeep. Hooray job.
I am thankful to God for this work, and have told him so. But I confess that my gratitude does not keep me from feeling like my heart has been ripped out and now lies on the floor in a pulpy mess. You see, all this time I thought that I had a sacred calling. I first sensed - or thought I sensed - that God was calling me to a pulpit ministry when I was about 16 years old. For the sake of that call I went to Wheaton College and majored in Bible. God's call to preach - or again, what I thought was God's call to preach - was the reason why, on returning from missionary service, I went to Trinity and got an MDiv. I studied Greek and Hebrew and read Calvin and Edwards not so that I could equip myself to sell mattresses but so that I could honor God by proclaiming his Word in the pulpit to which he summoned me.
Oh well. Thirty years after first setting my face toward ministry I find myself surveying the wreckage of a broken dream. The leaders of the tribal group that I worked with in Colombia insisted that I not translate the Bible. My first wife left me. Deacons in both churches that I pastored abruptly informed me that my services were no longer wanted. And now I can find no prospects at all for paid work in the only thing I know how to do.
It seems to me that when a man reaches middle age, it is reasonable to expect, in this culture, that he be working in a career for which he has acquired a couple decades of experience and skill. He should own a home. He should have a pension or be saving money for retirement. He should have life and health insurance. He should be providing for his family and paying for his kids to go to college. Well, I have landed in middle age and have failed at every single thing on the list above. (Though I do have 300 dollars in a checking account.)
So now I have little choice but to go on to Plan B. Not a ministry, but a mattress; not a pulpit, but a bed frame; not a mission, but (hopefully) a commission. Part of me says, "Very well then - if this is the hand I am dealt, I will play it as well as I can and work hard to be the best mattress salesman Sears ever had. I will hawk bedding to the glory of God." Then another part of me answers, "Right. How spiritual of you. But just what makes you to think you will be any more successful at this than you have been at anything else?" Deep within I know that there is nothing in my understanding of God that precludes the possibility of cascading down a series of plans from C to D to E to F, each one less fulfilling and more humiliating than the previous. (Have you seen Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space? The first 8 plans didn't work.)
This is where I look to my heroes. Actually heroines, since the three that come to mind are all women. There's my mother, who, in her mid 50s, battled fragile health and the despair of sudden widowhood in order to find work and carry on both emotionally and financially. There's my sister Lois: pretty, bright, capable, funny - she kept a beautiful house and raised three kids until her crap scum of an adulterous husband dumped her the same year their son was murdered and her (and my) mother died. She picked up the pieces of a broken life and now, in her 50s, works harder than anybody I know in the back-breaking work of an elementary school janitor. And there's my wife Lisa. (My admiration of Lisa embarrasses her, I know, but I don't care - she is admirable, and I need to admire.) For five years after her husband died this widowed mother of three would not wear mascara because it ran every time she cried - and she cried all the time. But she pulled herself together and raised her kids and went to school and became a physical therapist assistant and blessed a thousand hearts and capped off all her kindnesses by loving a lonely single-dad pastor of a small church. (Yes, I'm part of her Plan B.)
Was anyone more deserving of having their Plan A work out than Jennie, Lois and Lisa? A life-long marriage to one good husband and relaxed retirement in sunset years - that's the way it was supposed to happen. But it didn't, and when it didn't, they all found ways to assemble a Plan B from scratch and carry it through with character and strength and good grace.
May God be merciful to me for all my whiny, auto-indulgent self-pity. If you would be so kind, please say a prayer that he will give me power to embrace Plan B with the grace and dignity of my heroines and betters. And say a prayer of thanks, too, for them and for all the Plan B role models you know who have bravely assembled workable realities from the shards and fragments of broken dreams.
I honor people whose dreams get crushed, whose plans lie in ruins, whose life's work comes to nothing - and who still find some way to move forward. They are my heroes. If you are one of these people, God bless you. I will be looking to you, drawing inspiration from you, meditating on your virtue and doing my sorry best to imitate your ways. Thank you for being my example. Please take comfort in knowing that you are one of God's means - perhaps his primary means, certainly his most poignant means - of taking me through this season of bewildered melancholy. You have almost certainly inspired others too, but you may not have known it.
I will explain why I love you so much. A couple days ago I accepted a job offer with Sears to sell mattresses on commission. I start training tonight. It is good to have a job, and it's an abomination for an able-bodied man like me not to work. Ever since I got laid off from the pastorate a year ago (and have had only temporary jobs since), the Bible verses that most come to mind are not pleasant ones like "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11), but rather stern ones like "If a man will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10), and "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for the members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8). The money I expect to earn from Sears won't be enough to provide for my "relatives and household members" - but at least I'll be contributing something toward my upkeep. Hooray job.
I am thankful to God for this work, and have told him so. But I confess that my gratitude does not keep me from feeling like my heart has been ripped out and now lies on the floor in a pulpy mess. You see, all this time I thought that I had a sacred calling. I first sensed - or thought I sensed - that God was calling me to a pulpit ministry when I was about 16 years old. For the sake of that call I went to Wheaton College and majored in Bible. God's call to preach - or again, what I thought was God's call to preach - was the reason why, on returning from missionary service, I went to Trinity and got an MDiv. I studied Greek and Hebrew and read Calvin and Edwards not so that I could equip myself to sell mattresses but so that I could honor God by proclaiming his Word in the pulpit to which he summoned me.
Oh well. Thirty years after first setting my face toward ministry I find myself surveying the wreckage of a broken dream. The leaders of the tribal group that I worked with in Colombia insisted that I not translate the Bible. My first wife left me. Deacons in both churches that I pastored abruptly informed me that my services were no longer wanted. And now I can find no prospects at all for paid work in the only thing I know how to do.
It seems to me that when a man reaches middle age, it is reasonable to expect, in this culture, that he be working in a career for which he has acquired a couple decades of experience and skill. He should own a home. He should have a pension or be saving money for retirement. He should have life and health insurance. He should be providing for his family and paying for his kids to go to college. Well, I have landed in middle age and have failed at every single thing on the list above. (Though I do have 300 dollars in a checking account.)
So now I have little choice but to go on to Plan B. Not a ministry, but a mattress; not a pulpit, but a bed frame; not a mission, but (hopefully) a commission. Part of me says, "Very well then - if this is the hand I am dealt, I will play it as well as I can and work hard to be the best mattress salesman Sears ever had. I will hawk bedding to the glory of God." Then another part of me answers, "Right. How spiritual of you. But just what makes you to think you will be any more successful at this than you have been at anything else?" Deep within I know that there is nothing in my understanding of God that precludes the possibility of cascading down a series of plans from C to D to E to F, each one less fulfilling and more humiliating than the previous. (Have you seen Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space? The first 8 plans didn't work.)
This is where I look to my heroes. Actually heroines, since the three that come to mind are all women. There's my mother, who, in her mid 50s, battled fragile health and the despair of sudden widowhood in order to find work and carry on both emotionally and financially. There's my sister Lois: pretty, bright, capable, funny - she kept a beautiful house and raised three kids until her crap scum of an adulterous husband dumped her the same year their son was murdered and her (and my) mother died. She picked up the pieces of a broken life and now, in her 50s, works harder than anybody I know in the back-breaking work of an elementary school janitor. And there's my wife Lisa. (My admiration of Lisa embarrasses her, I know, but I don't care - she is admirable, and I need to admire.) For five years after her husband died this widowed mother of three would not wear mascara because it ran every time she cried - and she cried all the time. But she pulled herself together and raised her kids and went to school and became a physical therapist assistant and blessed a thousand hearts and capped off all her kindnesses by loving a lonely single-dad pastor of a small church. (Yes, I'm part of her Plan B.)
Was anyone more deserving of having their Plan A work out than Jennie, Lois and Lisa? A life-long marriage to one good husband and relaxed retirement in sunset years - that's the way it was supposed to happen. But it didn't, and when it didn't, they all found ways to assemble a Plan B from scratch and carry it through with character and strength and good grace.
May God be merciful to me for all my whiny, auto-indulgent self-pity. If you would be so kind, please say a prayer that he will give me power to embrace Plan B with the grace and dignity of my heroines and betters. And say a prayer of thanks, too, for them and for all the Plan B role models you know who have bravely assembled workable realities from the shards and fragments of broken dreams.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
August 17, 2010: "Look at Me! I Did A Good Thing!"
Don't you hate it when you do a good deed and don't get any credit? Or sacrifice yourself and no one notices? Or engage in some holy act of discipline just when everybody is looking the other way? Me too.
This is a bad thing, of course. We should never notice that no one is noticing, nor should we make even the smallest effort to adjust somebody's spotlight of moral perception so that it shines on us. Jesus commanded that we do our good work quietly: "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them," he said (Matthew 6:1). When giving to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing (verse 3). Pray privately, behind closed doors (verses 5-6). And when you fast, do it so stealthily that, as you walk about town, you try hard not even to look hungry! (verses 17-18).
Recently on the radio I heard about a Christian leader who had fasted for 40 days. That's a violation right there. Evidently this leader not only told people that he was fasting, but for how long! You can't do that, Reverend. I recall hearing similar stories about "how long our leaders have been fasting" at a Promise Keepers rally in February 1996, and it was one of several things that turned me off to that conference. Publicizing our piety is wrong. Put a lid on it. I'm sure it's annoying to endure days of holy hunger and get no inspirational mileage out of it - but that's the way it has to be.
Some years ago when I was a guest speaker at a church the pastor introduced me to a woman in his congregation who had read the Bible 33 times. 33 times! Great. But you see the problem, don't you? She was keeping track. I'm all for reading the Bible, but I'm all against counting the number of times you've done it. Let not your left hemisphere know how many times your right hemisphere has read the Word.
It is best to do good simply because it is good, because it pleases God, and take no notice of whether you are being noticed. Many of us have been inspired by stories of those who became Christians - or who grew in their Christian maturity - by observing the behavior of stand-out believers and deciding "I want to be like that." Those accounts (I know several) indeed warm the heart. But in our corruption we are apt to misuse them by thinking, "If I behave really well in front of so-and-so, he'll be awfully impressed with me, and he'll ask me my secret, and I can tell him 'Jesus!'"
Hmmm. Here are some problems with making deliberate goodness a strategy for evangelism and discipleship:
1) You'll be surprised how seldom it works. A friend told me that the times in his life when he was most righteous in his Christian walk, no one noticed, no one was curious, no one said "My, what a great change has come over you!" Frustrating isn't it - how can they not notice? But maybe instead of being chagrined over the lack of attention we should be thankful for the lack of persecution. Jesus behaved perfectly and got crucified; the disciples behaved pretty well and mostly got martyred.
2) You'll be tempted to turn goodness into a mercenary endeavor. A patriot fights because he loves his country; a mercenary fights to get paid. When a person starts practicing discipline and virtue in order to receive wages in the coin of evangelical influence, he is likely to lose heart when he observes that nobody is "seeing his good work and glorifying his Father in heaven." Soon he finds himself without motive for righteous behavior. Remember that goodness is not a means to an end. It is an end. Be good for goodness' sake.
3) Boy will you get a comeuppance when you engage in a duel of virtue with an unbeliever - and lose! That has happened to me. I have known some non-religious people who excel so magnificently in several areas of moral life that all I can say to you is "Good luck trying to out-behave them." They are unlikely to be impressed with your generosity, your hospitality, your self-discipline. But even if you aren't as good as they are in some things, the fact remains that if you believe in Jesus, you still have the truth they need to hear.
Just be as good as you can no matter who is looking. Or isn't looking. God is always looking, and that should be enough for us.
Don't you hate it when you do a good deed and don't get any credit? Or sacrifice yourself and no one notices? Or engage in some holy act of discipline just when everybody is looking the other way? Me too.
This is a bad thing, of course. We should never notice that no one is noticing, nor should we make even the smallest effort to adjust somebody's spotlight of moral perception so that it shines on us. Jesus commanded that we do our good work quietly: "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them," he said (Matthew 6:1). When giving to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing (verse 3). Pray privately, behind closed doors (verses 5-6). And when you fast, do it so stealthily that, as you walk about town, you try hard not even to look hungry! (verses 17-18).
Recently on the radio I heard about a Christian leader who had fasted for 40 days. That's a violation right there. Evidently this leader not only told people that he was fasting, but for how long! You can't do that, Reverend. I recall hearing similar stories about "how long our leaders have been fasting" at a Promise Keepers rally in February 1996, and it was one of several things that turned me off to that conference. Publicizing our piety is wrong. Put a lid on it. I'm sure it's annoying to endure days of holy hunger and get no inspirational mileage out of it - but that's the way it has to be.
Some years ago when I was a guest speaker at a church the pastor introduced me to a woman in his congregation who had read the Bible 33 times. 33 times! Great. But you see the problem, don't you? She was keeping track. I'm all for reading the Bible, but I'm all against counting the number of times you've done it. Let not your left hemisphere know how many times your right hemisphere has read the Word.
It is best to do good simply because it is good, because it pleases God, and take no notice of whether you are being noticed. Many of us have been inspired by stories of those who became Christians - or who grew in their Christian maturity - by observing the behavior of stand-out believers and deciding "I want to be like that." Those accounts (I know several) indeed warm the heart. But in our corruption we are apt to misuse them by thinking, "If I behave really well in front of so-and-so, he'll be awfully impressed with me, and he'll ask me my secret, and I can tell him 'Jesus!'"
Hmmm. Here are some problems with making deliberate goodness a strategy for evangelism and discipleship:
1) You'll be surprised how seldom it works. A friend told me that the times in his life when he was most righteous in his Christian walk, no one noticed, no one was curious, no one said "My, what a great change has come over you!" Frustrating isn't it - how can they not notice? But maybe instead of being chagrined over the lack of attention we should be thankful for the lack of persecution. Jesus behaved perfectly and got crucified; the disciples behaved pretty well and mostly got martyred.
2) You'll be tempted to turn goodness into a mercenary endeavor. A patriot fights because he loves his country; a mercenary fights to get paid. When a person starts practicing discipline and virtue in order to receive wages in the coin of evangelical influence, he is likely to lose heart when he observes that nobody is "seeing his good work and glorifying his Father in heaven." Soon he finds himself without motive for righteous behavior. Remember that goodness is not a means to an end. It is an end. Be good for goodness' sake.
3) Boy will you get a comeuppance when you engage in a duel of virtue with an unbeliever - and lose! That has happened to me. I have known some non-religious people who excel so magnificently in several areas of moral life that all I can say to you is "Good luck trying to out-behave them." They are unlikely to be impressed with your generosity, your hospitality, your self-discipline. But even if you aren't as good as they are in some things, the fact remains that if you believe in Jesus, you still have the truth they need to hear.
Just be as good as you can no matter who is looking. Or isn't looking. God is always looking, and that should be enough for us.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
August 10: 2010: The Passion Of The Christ Revisited
The disciples did not know which one of them would betray Jesus (Matthew 26:21-22). That is amazing, because it shows how well Judas blended in. If he had been the only disciple who couldn't heal or cast out demons, if he had always let someone else do the preaching, if he had disappeared during prayer meetings, or if he had got caught sneaking off to brothels, then when Jesus said, "One of you will betray me" the rest would have said, "Of course! We all know who that has to be." And Peter no doubt would have drawn his knife and tackled Judas and begged Jesus' permission to slit his throat.
Judas must have seemed like one of them, saying and doing most of the right things most of the time. There was only one warning sign that we know of. In John 12:6 we read that he used to steal from the money bag, and that he feigned a love for the poor so that he could skim contributions intended for them (Like many TV preachers today!). But I suspect most of the disciples didn't even know Judas was embezzling. Maybe only John saw him lift coins from the common purse (Matthew, Mark and Luke don't report it), and, being a young follower of Jesus - probably only in his teens or early 20s - John decided not to say anything at the time.
Judas came to mind as I contemplated the recent revelation of Mel Gibson. I mean "revelation" literally: the public revealing of the character of this devil in human form. The news concerning Gibson in the last few years - and especially the last few weeks - has shown us that it was an antichrist whose film about Jesus' crucifixion took over the ministry of many of our churches in the spring of 2004. We didn't know Gibson then. We do now.
The facts are these: Mel Gibson is a greedy, self-indulgent, foul-mouthed drunk. He is a fornicator and an adulterer. He is racist and anti-Semitic. He is a man of threats and violence who spews hatred in all directions. Have you listened to the tapes of his foul tirades against the whore for whom he dumped his wife? No? Good. Don't. They might educate, but they cannot edify your soul. When a child of hell gives voice to rage, the children of light should stop up their ears.
I think now it is possible to see The Passion Of The Christ in its true light. Gibson never loved Jesus Christ. He loved violence, and for him the holiest moment in history was simply an excuse to exhibit the torture porn for which he is celebrated. The other films Gibson directed, Braveheart and Apocalypto, are similarly riddled with bloody excess. Concerning Braveheart, one reviewer wrote, "The action sequences are gory and the final scene is not for the squeamish as Gibson directed the camera to hold for a rapturous moment of disembowelment." As for Apocalypto, a reviewer asked, "Does Gibson need to repeatedly show us lopped-off heads bouncing like coconuts down the towering stairs of a pyramid to prove that pre-Columbian Mayan society was a savage place?"
Charles Krauthammer made a good point about The Passion Of The Christ when he wrote in March of 2004, "Three of the Gospels have but a one-line reference to Jesus' scourging. The fourth has no reference at all. In Gibson's movie this becomes 10 minutes of the most unremitting sadism in the history of film. Why 10? Why not five? Why not two? Why not zero, as in Luke? Gibson chose 10."
Gibson chose 10 because he got a pathological thrill out of the graphic depiction of torture. Now it is true that Jesus suffered terribly, and it is also true that that suffering is meaningful to us Christians. "By his stripes we are healed." But does that mean we must have his cinematic blood splattered in our faces? Because it is likewise meaningful that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. So, to appreciate his humanity, do we need to watch explicit cinematic close-ups of him going to the bathroom? The virgin birth is important too: should we watch a filmed dramatization of baby Jesus' crowning head breaking Mary's hymen as she gives him birth?
My tone is angry - I know. I am angry. I get ticked off when wolves dupe lambs. Back in 2004 my congregation went to see The Passion, and I did not go with them. That got me a rebuke from one of my parishioners. I half-apologetically wrote a Pastor's Page explaining my objections to Hollywood treatments of Jesus, but I wish now in retrospect I had stated my case much more strongly, and advised my congregation not to go.
The Church universal is not wholly to blame for being so badly snookered by Gibson the Psychopath. Sometimes it is just very hard to tell who is for real. Again, Judas fooled everyone but Christ. In Acts 16, it apparently even took Paul several days before he realized that the girl who followed him around telling everybody that he was a God's servant proclaiming salvation was actually just a demon-possessed subversive.
Still, I would like to see a lot more spiritual discernment in the Church in North America. We demonstrate a disturbing knack for getting swayed by celebrity, spectacle, entertainment and extravaganza. We've proven ourselves capable of throwing spiritual caution (and spiritual reasoning) to the winds for the sake of a compelling flick.
Some time ago I was in a church men's group meeting that featured clips from another Gibson vehicle, The Patriot. These clips showed battlefield decapitations, bullets to the head, hatchets to the neck, knives to the chest - again and again and again and again, leaving a huge and gruesome body count. Even children participated in the violence onscreen. I left the church in sadness, wondering, "With the stunning lack of spiritual discernment here, am I in the right place?"
The disciples did not know which one of them would betray Jesus (Matthew 26:21-22). That is amazing, because it shows how well Judas blended in. If he had been the only disciple who couldn't heal or cast out demons, if he had always let someone else do the preaching, if he had disappeared during prayer meetings, or if he had got caught sneaking off to brothels, then when Jesus said, "One of you will betray me" the rest would have said, "Of course! We all know who that has to be." And Peter no doubt would have drawn his knife and tackled Judas and begged Jesus' permission to slit his throat.
Judas must have seemed like one of them, saying and doing most of the right things most of the time. There was only one warning sign that we know of. In John 12:6 we read that he used to steal from the money bag, and that he feigned a love for the poor so that he could skim contributions intended for them (Like many TV preachers today!). But I suspect most of the disciples didn't even know Judas was embezzling. Maybe only John saw him lift coins from the common purse (Matthew, Mark and Luke don't report it), and, being a young follower of Jesus - probably only in his teens or early 20s - John decided not to say anything at the time.
Judas came to mind as I contemplated the recent revelation of Mel Gibson. I mean "revelation" literally: the public revealing of the character of this devil in human form. The news concerning Gibson in the last few years - and especially the last few weeks - has shown us that it was an antichrist whose film about Jesus' crucifixion took over the ministry of many of our churches in the spring of 2004. We didn't know Gibson then. We do now.
The facts are these: Mel Gibson is a greedy, self-indulgent, foul-mouthed drunk. He is a fornicator and an adulterer. He is racist and anti-Semitic. He is a man of threats and violence who spews hatred in all directions. Have you listened to the tapes of his foul tirades against the whore for whom he dumped his wife? No? Good. Don't. They might educate, but they cannot edify your soul. When a child of hell gives voice to rage, the children of light should stop up their ears.
I think now it is possible to see The Passion Of The Christ in its true light. Gibson never loved Jesus Christ. He loved violence, and for him the holiest moment in history was simply an excuse to exhibit the torture porn for which he is celebrated. The other films Gibson directed, Braveheart and Apocalypto, are similarly riddled with bloody excess. Concerning Braveheart, one reviewer wrote, "The action sequences are gory and the final scene is not for the squeamish as Gibson directed the camera to hold for a rapturous moment of disembowelment." As for Apocalypto, a reviewer asked, "Does Gibson need to repeatedly show us lopped-off heads bouncing like coconuts down the towering stairs of a pyramid to prove that pre-Columbian Mayan society was a savage place?"
Charles Krauthammer made a good point about The Passion Of The Christ when he wrote in March of 2004, "Three of the Gospels have but a one-line reference to Jesus' scourging. The fourth has no reference at all. In Gibson's movie this becomes 10 minutes of the most unremitting sadism in the history of film. Why 10? Why not five? Why not two? Why not zero, as in Luke? Gibson chose 10."
Gibson chose 10 because he got a pathological thrill out of the graphic depiction of torture. Now it is true that Jesus suffered terribly, and it is also true that that suffering is meaningful to us Christians. "By his stripes we are healed." But does that mean we must have his cinematic blood splattered in our faces? Because it is likewise meaningful that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. So, to appreciate his humanity, do we need to watch explicit cinematic close-ups of him going to the bathroom? The virgin birth is important too: should we watch a filmed dramatization of baby Jesus' crowning head breaking Mary's hymen as she gives him birth?
My tone is angry - I know. I am angry. I get ticked off when wolves dupe lambs. Back in 2004 my congregation went to see The Passion, and I did not go with them. That got me a rebuke from one of my parishioners. I half-apologetically wrote a Pastor's Page explaining my objections to Hollywood treatments of Jesus, but I wish now in retrospect I had stated my case much more strongly, and advised my congregation not to go.
The Church universal is not wholly to blame for being so badly snookered by Gibson the Psychopath. Sometimes it is just very hard to tell who is for real. Again, Judas fooled everyone but Christ. In Acts 16, it apparently even took Paul several days before he realized that the girl who followed him around telling everybody that he was a God's servant proclaiming salvation was actually just a demon-possessed subversive.
Still, I would like to see a lot more spiritual discernment in the Church in North America. We demonstrate a disturbing knack for getting swayed by celebrity, spectacle, entertainment and extravaganza. We've proven ourselves capable of throwing spiritual caution (and spiritual reasoning) to the winds for the sake of a compelling flick.
Some time ago I was in a church men's group meeting that featured clips from another Gibson vehicle, The Patriot. These clips showed battlefield decapitations, bullets to the head, hatchets to the neck, knives to the chest - again and again and again and again, leaving a huge and gruesome body count. Even children participated in the violence onscreen. I left the church in sadness, wondering, "With the stunning lack of spiritual discernment here, am I in the right place?"
Friday, August 6, 2010
August 6, 2010: Loved
My allusion last week to something my mother said 25 years ago prompted an old friend to email me and say that he had just mentioned Mrs. Lundquist to a young acquaintance. "I told Brytanie that your Mom, by all physical appearances, seemed to just be a simple woman — until she opened her mouth and spoke."
Doug got that right. Mom certainly had a knack for showing that she was not vain about her physical appearance. As she aged she looked more like Susan Boyle than Beth Moore. Even in kindergarten her teacher assumed that she was mentally retarded. And many decades later, when visiting a nursing home to help with a chapel service, she noted with amusement how kind souls would take the hymnal from her hands and turn the pages because they assumed she couldn't do it herself.
But when she spoke she was worth listening too, and when she hauled out her Smith-Corona she typed insights worth preserving. My brother just sent me an old essay she wrote when I was six and scared of penicillin shots. It is reprinted below. I love the way Mom could see the hand of God in ordinary events, and call to mind Scriptures that related to them. I also marvel at the simplicity and elegance of her pitch-perfect prose.
Are Not Tears In Thy Book?
Tucking his blankets more snugly about him, I hugged our little Paul, gave him a good night kiss, and waited to hear his latest confidence.
"You know, Mom," he said, "I found out that my days go in zigzags. Today was a rough day." He sighed and then concluded hopefully, "So maybe tomorrow will be a gentle day."
A "gentle" day. I smiled at the lovely thought before I sighed with him. I knew something about tomorrow that I was glad he didn't know. There was at least one rough spot in the coming day for our six year old son - a visit to the doctor's office for another penicillin shot. Paul would probably try to persuade me that he really didn't need that shot. He would wonder aloud if he couldn't get well without going through all that again. There would almost certainly be tears before he would quietly submit to the inevitable.
Some words that the Psalmist used about his own tears came to me. On one troubled day, David struggled with misgivings and fears concerning his future, and he prayed: "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" (Ps. 56:8).
How this flash of insight must have given David fresh hope! The ring of triumph marks the rest of the Psalm. God had numbered and recorded his wanderings, his "zigzags," his rough and gentle days. And his tears? He assumed that they too were measured, even treasured, and recorded.
Because I love Paul, I would spare him unnecessary tears by not telling him about tomorrow's appointment sooner than he needed to know. And because He loves him, He wouldn't let Paul shed one more tear than was needful for his ultimate good.
I thanked Him that evening for the loving mercy that sends us gentle days, and even counts the tears for the rough ones.
My allusion last week to something my mother said 25 years ago prompted an old friend to email me and say that he had just mentioned Mrs. Lundquist to a young acquaintance. "I told Brytanie that your Mom, by all physical appearances, seemed to just be a simple woman — until she opened her mouth and spoke."
Doug got that right. Mom certainly had a knack for showing that she was not vain about her physical appearance. As she aged she looked more like Susan Boyle than Beth Moore. Even in kindergarten her teacher assumed that she was mentally retarded. And many decades later, when visiting a nursing home to help with a chapel service, she noted with amusement how kind souls would take the hymnal from her hands and turn the pages because they assumed she couldn't do it herself.
But when she spoke she was worth listening too, and when she hauled out her Smith-Corona she typed insights worth preserving. My brother just sent me an old essay she wrote when I was six and scared of penicillin shots. It is reprinted below. I love the way Mom could see the hand of God in ordinary events, and call to mind Scriptures that related to them. I also marvel at the simplicity and elegance of her pitch-perfect prose.
Are Not Tears In Thy Book?
Tucking his blankets more snugly about him, I hugged our little Paul, gave him a good night kiss, and waited to hear his latest confidence.
"You know, Mom," he said, "I found out that my days go in zigzags. Today was a rough day." He sighed and then concluded hopefully, "So maybe tomorrow will be a gentle day."
A "gentle" day. I smiled at the lovely thought before I sighed with him. I knew something about tomorrow that I was glad he didn't know. There was at least one rough spot in the coming day for our six year old son - a visit to the doctor's office for another penicillin shot. Paul would probably try to persuade me that he really didn't need that shot. He would wonder aloud if he couldn't get well without going through all that again. There would almost certainly be tears before he would quietly submit to the inevitable.
Some words that the Psalmist used about his own tears came to me. On one troubled day, David struggled with misgivings and fears concerning his future, and he prayed: "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" (Ps. 56:8).
How this flash of insight must have given David fresh hope! The ring of triumph marks the rest of the Psalm. God had numbered and recorded his wanderings, his "zigzags," his rough and gentle days. And his tears? He assumed that they too were measured, even treasured, and recorded.
Because I love Paul, I would spare him unnecessary tears by not telling him about tomorrow's appointment sooner than he needed to know. And because He loves him, He wouldn't let Paul shed one more tear than was needful for his ultimate good.
I thanked Him that evening for the loving mercy that sends us gentle days, and even counts the tears for the rough ones.
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