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TOWARD THE MARK
"... reaching forth unto those things which are before ...
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus
"
(Philippians 3:13-14)
| Vol. 8, No. 3, May - June 1979 |
EDITOR: Mr. Harry Foster |
[ifc/41]
----------------
EDITORIAL
THE deterioration in world conditions is so immense and so rapid that
few of us can appreciate its gravity. Among God's people there are various
explanations and a few suggested remedies. I do not propose to add to these
but only to call attention to a somewhat neglected parable told by the Lord
Jesus. It is the story of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-9).
May it be that this homely story gives us some clue as to God's activities
in our modern world? To a mere observer it may have seemed rather extreme
that the woman should precipitate in her hitherto orderly home a violent
upheaval and temporary chaos pictured in the words: "sweep the house and search
diligently until she find it". Everything was put out of place and dust was
in the air, nobody could be at ease in that home, so long as she was pursuing
her search. Was it worth it? To her it certainly was.
This is meant to be a picture of God. Since the first story tells of
the Shepherd and the third of the Father, we may even suggest that this
middle one stresses the activities of the Spirit. Somewhere in the world
there are missing units to His eternal purpose and He will not rest until
the tally is complete. So the world is in turmoil. Everything is being shaken
and moved; the dust is being stirred up and everybody upset.
What does it all mean? Perhaps that we should pray and talk less about
our discomforts and more about God's yearnings. Perhaps He is trying to
teach us that He plans to use world chaos to disinter and recover His lost
heritage in the nations.
----------------
PILGRIM SONGS OF GOD'S PEOPLE
(Studies in the Songs of Ascent)
J. Alec Motyer
3. PSALMS 126, 127 & 128
WE will find that this further triplet of psalms has a similar unity
to the other two groups. We begin with trials in the world, we continue
with the pilgrim journey and we come again to the glorious truth of security
in the Lord.
In some ways I would suggest that these three psalms treat of a pilgrimage
of the heart. They are very interior in their examination of the believer's
experience. Previously the psalms dealt with dangers that beset the pilgrim
pathway viewed outwardly in his journey through life; here, however, we have
them viewed inwardly. For example, the Lord has turned the captivity of
Zion (126:1), but we are still needing to have our captivity turned (v.4).
It is true that the Lord has done great things for His people, but oh that
this might be true of me! Looking at what God has done for Zion "we are glad",
but looking inward to our own personal experiences, our inner sadnesses and
emotional travails, tears beset us.
We sow in tears. Things are not working out for us as we would have expected
and hoped for. We suffer something of a sense of failure. Instead of being
able to rejoice in a total salvation, we find ourselves in a vale of weeping.
Perhaps we may entitle these three psalms: The Experience of Failure (126),
The Fear of Failure (127) and the Transcending of Failure (128). This time
our pilgrimage is not from a far off Mesech to Zion, but a pilgrimage of
the heart from the vale of tears to the place of rejoicing.
PSALM 126 -- The Experience of Failure
In this psalm we find the Church in the midst of a watching world: "Then
said they among the nations, The Lord hath done great things for them" (v.2).
The world is not here on the attack, as it was in the two earlier groupings:
"Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips ..." (120:2) and "We are exceedingly
surfeited with contempt" [41/42] (123:3). The world
was wagging its tongue in a hostile way, full of aggressive animosity. Here,
however, the watching world is giving its comment on what God has done for
His people, but the situation is the same in that the Church is still on
its pilgrim pathway in the midst of the world. And it is finding that it goes
forth weeping. So even though the world is saying approving things and making
happy noises, for God's people it is proving to be what the hymn writer calls:
"A vale of tears".
In this pilgrimage of the heart the believer's individual experience
fails to come up to the experience of Zion. 'Zion has had its captivity
turned, why cannot I? What is wrong with me that I am not living up to the
heights of that which God has done for His people? Where is the joy that
we have been promised? God has done great things for somebody else, why not
for me? Why do I still walk through a valley of weeping, with unexpected
sorrows which subtract from the joy of life? What am I to do about it?'
i. The Realm of Recognition
The psalm is full on the one hand of the realisation of God's total salvation
which produces laughter and singing, but on the other hand with an inward
sadness devoid of all laughter and characterised by tears. Perhaps a more
descriptive title for the psalm would be: 'Two Realms of Reality'. First
of all there is the realm which we gladly recognise, as we give wholehearted
consent to the great saving acts of God: "When the Lord turned the captivity
of Zion, we were like unto them that dream". It was what the Lord had done.
It was His sole act, unaided by His people. Zion was in captivity and we
were all asleep. While we slept it all happened, and we awoke to wonder whether
after all it was something which we had dreamt. How vividly do this verse
and a half bring before us the great Bible truth that salvation is the sole
act of God! We woke up to participate in that which God has been doing while
we were out of action. In a sense, we seem like spectators, observing with
happy appreciation the marvellous deliverance which the Lord has achieved
without any advice or assistance from us. We were like dreamers, but we woke
up to burst out with delighted laughter at what had happened while we slept.
"Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing."
You will often find that laughter and singing are used in the Old Testament
to depict the enjoyment of that to which we have contributed nothing, our
entrance into a divine deliverance in which we had no hand. So it is here.
It was the Lord who turned again Zion's captivity. We do not know what particular
act of deliverance is referred to here. It may be that the people of Zion
looked right back to the exodus from Egypt. Scripture often celebrates this
great event which was certainly not a matter of effort on the part of the
Israelites, but wholly an act of deliverance by their Self-sufficient God.
He provided the protection of the blood of the lamb, and when they had feasted
on the lamb, it was He who opened the door of pilgrimage to them. Perhaps
the exodus was the "great thing" that the Lord had done for them.
It might also have been such an occasion as when Sennacherib besieged
the city, having treacherously returned after being bought off by King Hezekiah.
How helpless Zion was then! It was as though children had come to the birth,
and there was no strength to deliver. When they were thrust down into a position
of utter helplessness, they went to sleep in despair, but in the night the
angel of the Lord destroyed the army of the Assyrians. They woke to find
their enemies all dead corpses. It must have seemed like a dream, but it
was real after all, and their mouth was filled with laughter and their tongue
with singing.
It could even have been the turning of the seventy years' captivity in
Babylon. When the Jews in Babylon heard that an even greater conqueror was
on his way, they must have felt the chain of bondage tightening still more.
They must have reasoned that if they did not escape from Babylon how could
they expect to escape from Babylon's conqueror. But as they slept Cyrus,
the great conqueror, came in and -- against all human odds and expectations
-- set God's people free. Scripture had foretold that this would happen and
Scripture's God brought it about. He said that He would, and He did. They
had lost their song when they came to Babylon, but now their captivity had
been turned and they sang as never before.
The return from Babylon was no mere dream. The marvel of it all is taken
note of by the surrounding countries: "Then said they among the nations,
The Lord has done great things for them". The work was so wholly divine that
even unbelievers looking on saw the essential truth of the matter, namely
that this was a sole great [42/43] act of God. The
Church took up the cry: "The Lord hath done great things for us ...", so that
it passed from the realm of reporting to the realm of testimony. "We are
glad". There is nothing in the Hebrew to account for the word "whereof". Two
great matters are placed side by side in testimony: "The Lord has done great
things for us" and "we are glad". As a matter of fact there is a little more
emphasis in the Hebrew, so that it could almost read: 'We live in the place
of gladness'. This is something of a paraphrase, but it is intended to bring
out the thought that we have here an emphatic statement of continuance in
joy -- we continued glad! That should be true of us, whatever be our frame
of mind and whatever we are going to find in the latter half of this psalm;
we look at the total and eternal salvation which God has wrought for us, and
in faith we rise up in joyful praise. As we keep our eyes fixed on that glorious
and all-sufficient salvation, we are glad.
ii. The Realm of Experience
With verse 4 we pass from the realm of recognition to the realm of experience:
"Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south". There is
some disparity between the fullness and finality of what God has done and
the way in which that is working out in our experience. Certainly God has
done everything necessary to bring many sons to glory; in fact He has done
it so sufficiently that the New Testament speaks of His Church being already
glorified. When, however, we turn over the pages of our heart's diary of
daily life we have to confess that there is still so much to be done in us.
Experience lags behind reality.
There is a felt need and also a proposed solution: "Turn again our captivity
as the streams in the south". Something needs to be done about this sense
of failure and as we pray about it, the suggestion we make to the Lord is
that He should deal with it "as the streams in the south". Now the south
is a very dusty place with very little water. If you go down there in the
heat of the year, you will find that its water-courses are quite dry. It is
beyond the wit of man to fill them with water, but the time will come when
God will send His rains and the water-courses of the south will stream with
flowing water. This is used by the psalmist to illustrate what he wants God
to do for him. 'Lord, can I ask You to turn my captivity and deliver me from
everything hostile and from my own inadequacy? I want You to do something
as dramatic and transforming as You do instantaneously when You send Your
rain and fill the water courses of the south.'
No doubt as our hearts rise up to acknowledge failure, they are all too
prone to suggest a solution. Wouldn't it be marvellous if suddenly God came
to us at all those parts where our life is like an arid ditch and poured
out upon us in one moment all the things that would make for fullness and
refreshment! Well, the answer is that it would seem so, but that this is not
God's way of doing things. The answer is rather, as in verse 5, "They that
sow in tears shall reap in joy ...". There is a fullness of experience, but
it does not come with the sudden totality of the downpour of rain but with
the slow maturing of the crops. To learn this lesson means to be spared much
anxiety. God's way in salvation is the instantaneous, total work of Christ:
God's way of bringing the felt experience of that salvation day by day is
not the instantaneous rain but the slow maturing of the crop -- first the
seed and then the harvest.
People look for the blessing that will give a sort of 'instant coffee'
of total sanctification, but God points them to the example of the seed,
the sheaves and the harvest. An old friend of mine who is now in the glory
had a way of saying things which sounded almost like the book of Proverbs.
He would say: 'When God ripens apples, He don't 'urry' and while you were
thinking of that he would add, with perfect timing: 'An' He don't make no
noise'. In salvation God acts alone, but in sanctification, in bringing His
people through into the full experience of all that is good for them in Christ,
He acts by means of an obedient people. The farmer does not so much co-operate
with God as obey the rules which God lays down, so there are rules for enjoying
God's fullness of blessing, the conscious, deliberate activities of those
who submit their lives to the rules of God, and these involve sowing in tears.
But there is a beautiful promise at the end; there is the assurance of
that total experience for which our hearts long: "they that sow in tears
shall reap in joy". In the order in which the Hebrew words are set the words
"in tears" and "in joy" are right together in the middle of the sentence,
so that is reads: "they that sow in tears, in joy shall reap". This is God's
way of drawing our attention to the transformed [43/44]
emotional reality. We can look forward to a full harvest. A harvest of
"sheaves", a full and abundant harvest.
PSALM 127 -- The Fear of Failure
Another and more descriptive title for this psalm would be 'Two Sorts
of Activity'. In Scripture, the opposite of rest is not work, it is restlessness.
And restlessness is what Psalm 127 is about. It does not call us away from
activity but calls us to the rest of God which makes activity worthwhile.
It continues where Psalm 126 stopped. There the work of sowing was related
to the promise of fruit: the work was related to the fruit
. Here there are two contrasted sorts of work, the one of restless strain
and the other of restful reliance. If we are going to put our hands to this
sort of work of God which brings His crop of certain maturity, then what
sort of work is it? Is it the aching drudgery which arises from our own anxiety
to get things done, or is it the joyful fruitful work which comes as we rest
upon God? In principle the whole of life is contained here in Psalm 127.
"Except the Lord build the house ...". Building a house is looking to
the future; it is concerned with what is not yet but is hoped for. It is
what is planned for the days to come. It stands for what it is, the house
in which we would like to live and it also stands metaphorically for the
family we would like to produce. It looks to the future. On the other hand
the city: "Except the Lord keep the city ...", speaks of safeguarding the
past, watching over what has already been in existence. So it is that the
psalm in its illustrations brings before us the whole of life, whether we
are looking forward to benefits and blessings envisaged and hoped for, or
whether we are trying to safeguard the benefits and blessings which have
already been granted. The whole of life is here.
And into this situation the Lord comes with a pledge -- He is both ready
to build the house and to keep the city. The word "Except" is not put there
to mock us, as if we were saying that it would be lovely if only He would
do it, but rather to encourage us in the knowledge that He will do it if
we want Him to and will let Him. And when He builds, then that is building
indeed. And when He guards, then that is guarding indeed. Here then is a Scriptural
pledge. Whether it is dealing with the actual bricks and mortar, or what
those materials signify in relationships, does not matter. It is all included.
What areas of possible anxiety are here included, costs of the actual house,
cost of the children, costs of providing for the future, and against them
all we are faced with the simple pledge: "He gives ...". It is vain to be
on such a tension, rising up early and so late taking rest. We live in the
days of the 'working breakfast'! That particular abomination of modern life
means that in these days politicians cannot even eat their food in peace.
"It is vain that you rise early and so late take your rest, eating the bread
of toil." Could you have a more perfect description of life's tensions than
that?
Over against it, "He gives". Let us take the liberty of isolating the
words. The spirit in which we do so is not unscriptural, for this is the
whole message of Scripture -- the bountiful giving of God. The gift here
described is the one which matches the pledge: "He gives unto His beloved
Sleep". It does not say "rest," as in verse 2, where the word means rest in
the sense of cessation. He doesn't say to the man who is building his house,
'Stop putting brick upon brick and leave it all to God'. He does not suggest
that you go away on vacation and live in a friend's house and when you come
back you will find that God has built your house for you. The verse does
not suggest cessation but it promises sleep. This is in contrast to "the
bread of toil". Toil is the word used in Genesis 3 when man fell into his
fallen state and found himself doomed to toil. Previously, in the tending
of his garden, he had found that the earth was rushing to bestow its produce
on him, but now the situation became different; he entered into sin and then
found that he could only extract benefit from the ground in the sweat of his
brow. Sleep, however, is that rest of spirit which permits withdrawal from
care; it is the divine provision of renewal of strength for the activity to
which He calls us. He does not propose to take us from activity into inactivity;
He takes us from restlessness into rest.
And look at the guarantee which accompanies this statement. He gives
sleep to His beloved! It is the love which guarantees the gift. There are,
I think, three ways in which the love of God is expressed in the Old Testament,
or at least, three outstanding ways. There is one verb which expresses the
free, unprovoked love of God for His unworthy people -- the love of God for
sinners. Then there is another word which expresses love
[44/45] which produces persistent grace -- the patience of God's
love. Thirdly there is this word here which tells of the love in which one
person puts his arms around another -- the love of an intimate relationship.
This is the word used for the statement: "I belong to my beloved, and my beloved
belongs to me" (Song of Songs 6:3). All three apply to us. He has won us
by His love from the state of sin; He persists with us in His love even though
we are sinners; and on the basis of that relationship established by grace,
He now puts His arms around us and claims us for Himself: "I am thy Beloved
and thou art Mine".
The further verses about the heritage of children are wonderful but do
not at first sight appear to follow on from what has just been said. May
I suggest that they are used illustratively to expand what verses 1 and 2
have to say about the removing of the toilsome, fretful, anxious work which
is non-productive and leading us into the realm of God's gracious giving?
There are two ways of considering this matter of children. We can say about
a married couple: 'Have they any children?' or we can ask: 'Has God given
them any children?'. There is really no contradiction or disparity between
those two things -- they are in fact two sides of the same truth. Children
come as a gift from the Lord; they are very positively His plan and His gift
of goodness and grace.
When we take our activity from the hand of God, a fulfilment of His grace
to us, then we may safely rest back upon God and leave the outcome to Him.
He not only gives children, He gives happiness and security in family life
too. "arrows in the hand of the mighty" (v.4) -- that is a picture of attack.
"They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate"
(v.5) -- that is a picture of defence. Children are good in every way, it
says, whether you think of yourself as going out on the attack or whether
you are waiting on the defensive, there you are, with your family all round
you. This picture of a united family illustrates the great gift of God. The
happy man and his family just got on with it, this joyful business of having
children. They didn't fuss. It was not a matter of nagging anxiety. It was
a matter of resting in the ability of God to take away any anxious fear
of failure. Such blessing and security of family life are a picture of the
life of rest and fulfilment to which God calls us all.
PSALM 128 -- The Transcending of Failure
We have here two areas of promised fulfilment, that of personal, present
life and that of public and future life.
i. Fulfilment Now (vv.2 & 3)
"Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee." We have here a
picture of marital joy and security. As a reference to the use of the word
in any Concordance will show, the vine-like fruitfulness of the wife does
not refer to the bearing of children but to every part of their home life
in which she responds to and is delightful in the eyes of her husband. The
true rendering is: "in the innermost parts of thine house", for this is the
area where her God-given blessedness should have its chief expression.
This happy man has fulfilment within the walls of his own home. His children
around his table are like olive-plants. Elsewhere we are told that it is
olive oil which makes a man's face to shine (Psalm 104:15), so this glad feature
of his family life is that the parents have children who bring joy and delight
to their hearts. Happy faces around the family table; this is a lovely picture
of present personal fulfilment.
ii. Fulfilment to Come (vv.5 & 6)
The other realm refers to public and future life, but it again starts
with personal blessing, though this is placed in a larger setting: "The Lord
shall bless thee out of Zion". This personal blessing moves on to consideration
of God's blessing on the welfare of the Church: "Thou shalt see the good
of Jerusalem all the days of thy life". What is more, this blessing reaches
forward to the future: "Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children". So here
we have public and future joys. By bringing these two realms together, the
psalm expresses to us totality of joy for now and for the days to come, and
because it goes on in this way it is a fulfilment and happiness that is secure
and not transient.
Is there a secret of such happiness? There is. Notice how, with each
of these pictures of fulfilment, the present personal happiness (vv.2 &
3) and the public and future happiness (vv.4 & 5), the explanation is
mentioned first (vv.1 & 4). "Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, that
walketh in his ways" (v.1). What happens to such a person? Verses 2 and 3
give the answer. "Behold that thus shall the man be blessed that
[45/46] fears the Lord" (v.4). What happens to such a person? The
answer is in verses 5 and 6. So the recipe for happiness is declared twice
over. The secret lies in the individual life. The secret lies in me -- the
sort of person that I am in my relations to the Lord. It is not in my circumstances
and it is not because of other people, but in my fear of the Lord.
"Blessed is every one". It is quite personal. "Thus shall the
man (the individual) be blessed." If I am experiencing loss, inadequacy,
a sense of failure, the transforming point is not changed circumstances or
different people around me, but in me myself. The secret lies in the quality
of personal life. First of all the call is to fear and walking; a reverence
for the Lord that is matched in outward obedience. Verse 4, however, speaks
only of fear. A true fear of the Lord will always be productive of a life
that is conformed to His will, but a life that outwardly shows the marks
of obedience is not necessarily that which has the inward fear of the Lord,
so the psalmist puts his finger on the matter of supreme importance in individual
life, the fear of the Lord. The inward heart reality of fear of the Lord
involves the reverential acknowledgement of the greatness, holiness and love
of God. This is the fear which casts out fear. It is the beginning of wisdom
and it is the secret of happy fulfilment.
(To be continued)
----------------
A MATTER OF URGENCY
(Studies in John's Gospel. Chapters 13-17)
John H. Paterson
5. MORE MEANINGS OF 'IF'
I HAVE suggested last time that the word 'if', which recurs 25 times
in the Authorised Version of these chapters, has many shades of meaning.
We considered the six or seven verses in which the word occurs in the context,
'If you know this, then you also know, or can work out, that
', and we thought about the Christian's responsibility for using the knowledge
he or she already has, to work out the next step.
But there are in these chapters at least three other cases of the use
of 'if', and these I am suggesting that we call the conditional --
'If you want A to happen, you must fulfil condition B; the evidential
-- 'If you claim A to be true, it will be attested by the presence of B;
and the exclusive -- 'If you have A, you can't have B'. Even these
three uses do not quite exhaust our 'if's', but we are less concerned here
with grammar than with what we may usefully learn from these chapters, and
so we shall consider each of the three in turn.
The Conditional 'If'
Generations of Christians have been happy to use the device known as
a Promise Box. It was in every Christian home when I was young, and you
were invited to dip in and take out a tiny scroll on which was written one
of the many great promises of the Bible. These promises then served as a
reminder throughout the day of what God had said He would do for His people.
But oddly enough I never heard of a Condition Box! Yet it would have
been just as logical, just as well-filled, and just as challenging. It might
not have cheered us up in the same way, but another very obvious reason why
no one had thought of compiling such a thing is that evangelical believers
have lived and died for the principle of unconditional grace -- precisely
for the belief, based on the assurance of God's Word, that there are
no conditions attaching to His salvation. The very idea of a condition
therefore seems like a denial of that great gospel principle.
We may rejoice in God's free grace, however, yet still be conscious of
some very important conditional 'if's' in His Word. A well-known example
is: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and
open ...". So, too, is: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the
doctrine, whether it be of God" (John 7:17), and most of all, perhaps, the
'if' that comes in the chapters we are considering: "You are my friends,
if you do whatsoever I command you" (15:14).
Now it is common, of course, to point out that these conditions apply
not to our fundamental [46/47] state of grace but
only to our awareness of that state and in our conscious relationship
to the Lord. To that I should at once reply that the distinction is more
apparent than real; that a salvation which yields no sense of assurance,
which leaves me uncertain whether or not I am believing a myth (for that is
the point of John 7:17), and which provides for me only a remote and formal
relationship with my Saviour, is a very limited salvation indeed. It is, if
you like, a technical salvation, but it does little to encourage me
from day to day. Putting it bluntly, it is impossible to rejoice over it,
and it is difficult to recommend it to others without feeling a fraud. And
as I write those words I seem to have described in a nutshell not only the
dismal Christian lives of some believers I have known but also my own career
over long periods of time.
Within the context of John 13-17, there can be little question what conditions
Jesus was laying down to His disciples (15:7, 10 & 14). There are two:
to abide and obey. However in 15:10 He seems to run the two together by saying,
in effect: 'the secret of abiding is obeying', so that, in the end, there
is only one condition: to obey His words. But how much is governed by that
condition: the response of the Father to our prayers; the consciousness of
His love; the intimacy of a relationship with Himself for which there is
no substitute -- friends! Really, if you eliminated all those things from
the Christian life, would there be enough left over to be worth recommending
it to your neighbours?
Let me now return, once again, to the context of these chapters -- to
the disciples' manifest alarm that they were going to lose Him, upon whom
they had come so completely to depend. In what He was saying to them, there
was one word on which their attention was certain to fasten -- the word translated
here "abide" or "remain". They were threatened by change; yet change was
the last thing they wanted. They must have strained their ears to hear Him
contradict His earlier statements about leaving them. If only He would remain,
there would be no problems.
But of course He was going; He never promised to stay. What He did say
was that, if certain conditions were fulfilled, then various of the benefits
of His presence would remain -- His influence with the Father; His love for
them; the fruit of knowing Him which would be manifest in their own lives.
Most of these promises were conditional, however, on their doing something
which, at that moment, made very little sense: that they would "abide" in
Him. Not only these disciples but generations of Christians since then (one
thinks, for example, of Hudson Taylor, whose biography is explicit on this
point) have asked themselves: 'How can I abide in Christ? What is
the secret of abiding?' I suspect that all young earnest Christians go through
a stage of feeling that, if only they knew that secret, they would
never falter again!
There can surely be no secret. The Lord Jesus had minutes rather than
hours with the disciples; He would not waste time playing guessing games.
Any 'secret' there is must be here in these very verses and the only thing
that emerges from these verses, I suggest, is that obedience to Him is the
key. We err if we try to complicate the matter; if we imagine the existence
of some cryptic code or recipe that lies beyond obedience. Admittedly, our
angle of approach may be wrong. For the disciples (as for some Christians,
too) the important thing was to have Him present. It was comforting, reassuring
-- and might quite possibly be selfish. For the disciples, His presence had
become an end in itself. For Him, it was merely a means to an end .
That end was fruit on the vine; the only question to be answered was, 'Which
is the best way to obtain more fruit?' Since, as He very well knew, there
would be more fruit when He was gone, He had gently to disengage their attention
from the means, to concentrate it on the end.
We may become [so] accustomed to the thought that the highest good we
can attain is to be in the presence of the Lord and enjoy being wholly occupied
with Him that we need the corrective challenge of the question which the
disciples had to confront: Would you rather have His presence and little fruit,
or His absence and much fruit?
Of course the question is in reality a bogus one: He repeatedly assured
His disciples that He would in fact be with them and in them, for there can
be no fruit at all if He is really absent (15:5). But it still remains
true that He is there not for our mere enjoyment, but for the fruit that
His presence brings.
The Evidential 'If's'
The next category of 'if's' are those which tell us what should follow
from our lives as Christians: "By this shall all men know that you are my
disciples, if you have love one to another" [47/48]
(13:35); "If a man love me, he will keep my words" (14:23); "If you loved
me, you would rejoice" (14:28). They call for a practical response to our
understanding of His words.
It seems as though the Church was 'caught out' on this point almost from
the start, through failing to think clearly about the implications of what
the Lord Jesus had taught. The Epistle of James was written on this very
theme: that if people claim to belong to Christ, their actions must fit the
words. One of the most dramatic 'if's' in the whole Bible is Paul's to Peter,
no less, in Galatians 2:14: "If thou, being a Jew ..." which we may fairly
paraphrase as arguing, 'If you really grasped the meaning of a new life in
Christ, you wouldn't go around worrying about whether or not people had been
circumcised'. We can hardly pretend to have got better at this as time has
gone by! The points of testing may be different, but the times when belief
and conduct are out of line with one another are still far too numerous for
our comfort. Belief implies conduct to match.
The trouble seems to be twofold. On the one hand, we have not thought
sufficiently about the implications of phrases which are in common use
among Christians: phrases like "all one in Christ Jesus", or "in the name
of Jesus", or "crucified with Christ". We can meditate on every one of these
for years and find -- as I am sure every reader has found -- that there
is layer upon layer of meaning in them, and every fresh layer makes demands
upon the way we act.
On the other hand, we fail to react correctly to what we hear because
we do not understand enough of the context. One of the principles on which
the late Field-Marshall Montgomery led his services was an insistence that
every single soldier be kept informed of what we called 'the big picture'
-- that is, the soldier was to be briefed not merely about the hill or farmhouse
he was ordered to attack, but about how this small operation formed part of
a strategic whole.
Here in John 14:28, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples: "You are all
sad but, if you understood what is going on, you would be rejoicing".
They were trapped by their own ignorance of the 'big picture'. We can see
this well enough in our own children; their reactions are often surprising
and may, in fact, be the opposite of what we expect. I remember our children
once bursting with howls of dismay and terror at the sight of a friend who
had put on a comic costume to try to amuse them! Their point of reference,
like that of the disciples, was too narrow to enable them to take apparent
contradictions in their stride. To react aright to the apparent contradictions
of God's way is a thing that has to be learned, slowly over a lifetime. At
least, that is how long it took Abraham, and Jacob and Moses!
The Exclusive 'If's'
Finally there are one or two 'if's' in these chapters (13:8; 16:7) which
put before us an 'either ... or' situation. You can have one or the other,
but not both. On the first occasion Peter, who was obviously embarrassed
by the whole foot-washing scene, was told that he could either have his self-esteem
or his part in Jesus, but not both. In the second case, the Lord Jesus told
His disciples that they were assured of the presence of one or other members
of the Trinity, but not of two. We considered, in an earlier article, what
I called the old and the new 'life-support systems' by which these disciples
were to live. The moment of transfer from one to the other was almost upon
them. But first Jesus had to make it quite clear that they were alternatives:
that the coming of the new really did mean the passing of the old. Who would
not opt for a double helping of life-support systems if they could get it?
What man with a weak heart would not be reassured if he could be followed
round, day and night, by a team of specialists equipped with oxygen and ready
to step in at the first hint of trouble? We all appreciate that kind of
backup.
But God has never put Himself in the position of saying to His people,
'I shall help you this way, and if it doesn't work, I shall help
you that way!' He does not need stand-by systems, we are the ones
who yearn for those. His way for the present is the single way of the Spirit:
"If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart,
I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will convince the world
of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment."
(To be continued) [48/49]
----------------
CHAPTER BY CHAPTER THROUGH ROMANS
Poul Madsen
17. WHAT ABOUT ISRAEL? (Chapter 9:1-29)
MANY regard chapters 9 to 11 as a section which does not really belong
to the Roman Letter because it makes a break in the sequence of thought.
They understand it as a parenthesis that can be omitted without the loss
of anything essential. This view must be rejected. Paul's ability to develop
his presentation or truth in a logical sequence is exceptional, and would
not fail him here. At the conclusion of chapter 8 he has said that nothing
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, and such a
statement almost automatically calls forth the question: Then what about
Israel? Are they not separated from the love of God?
Chapters 9 to 11 contain the apostle's answer to this question. The section
thus falls within the main theme of the letter, which is justification by
faith. This is not a parenthetical insertion, but a continuation of the doctrine
of the righteousness of God (1:17).
1. A Heart Matter for the Apostle (vv.1-5)
Paul knows that his words about wishing himself anathema from Christ,
if it could profit his Jewish kinsmen, might be taken as oratorical outburst
of sentimental exaggeration with no reality behind it. He therefore emphasises
that it is in Christ that he speaks this truth and that the Holy Spirit
witnesses to this great sorrow which burdens his heart. His conscience --
the sentry within man against lying and hypocrisy -- has the Spirit's confirmation
of fact that it is no passing impulse but a deep pain of heart which makes
him give expression to this incredible wish. Divine love is characterised
by sorrow and pain because of the lost condition of the human race, and
expresses this in a willingness to suffer on its behalf. This love is not
callous, but suffers deeply when it is rejected by man. The more it is rejected,
the greater is its pain, and it does not cease even when it has been so rejected.
This love filled Paul. Because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone who believes, "to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile" (1:16),
he had always sought to bring the offer of salvation to the Jews first. As
a rule they had rejected it, and persecuted him in return. No one had brought
him more pain and suffering than his kinsmen according to the flesh, but
it seems that there was no one whom he loved more. He was willing to be accursed
from Christ, if by this means their eyes could be opened. Divine love is
never matter-of-fact, but always fired by a miraculous element. The fate
of the Israelites mattered very much to Paul.
In this connection, he wrestled with one of the greatest riddles of life:
How could the nation which God had chosen above all the nations of the earth,
reject the Messiah whom God had promised them in the Old Testament and then
sent to them in the fullness of time? Did this not suggest that after all
there are powers which can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?
If the history of Israel proves this, then none of us can ever be certain
that the same will not happen in our case, for they had more promises and
privileges than any of us, and yet they went astray.
Was it that God's promises could not be fulfilled? Did His promises fail
in the face of the people's stubbornness? The promises belong to Israel (v.4).
Why then have they not been fulfilled? The adoption belongs to them also,
(Exodus 4:22), but now they failed to know it. They were without glory, though
really the glory belonged to them; and they were outside of the new covenant,
although they were the people of the covenant. They did not have the law
of God written in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, although the giving of
the law belonged to them; and true worship in the Spirit was foreign to them,
in spite of the fact that they had the temple service. All this was painful
to Paul. It was not only an intellectual riddle, but a problem for his conscience,
for if it can be proved that God gives promises which He does not keep,
then how dare we preach the gospel?
What was most incomprehensible was that Christ was descended from Israel,
according to the flesh: He was an Israelite, yet Israel had rejected Him.
Can it be that in the last resort man has salvation in his own hands? Has
mere man ultimate power over God? Paul clearly did not think so, for in speaking
of Christ, he described Him as "over all, God blessed for
[49/50] ever", betraying his own inner conviction that this could
not be so. To him it was unthinkable that God should give promises which
He could not keep, and be thwarted by man's wilfulness. Christ is over all.
"Amen", he exclaims, as this conviction grips his heart.
Then how is it to be understood? This is what chapters 9 to 11 are all
about. They are therefore of great importance to our understanding of the
gospel. We must not read them as a philosophical view of the course of history,
but as an account of how God is faithful to His promises and will never
fail those to whom these are given. At the very commencement we notice that
the apostle's argument in these chapters is almost exclusively built upon
quotations from the Old Testament, so that he proposes to prove that the
whole matter of Israel's rejection and everything else dealt with in this
section, is part of God's original plan and wholly subservient to His purpose.
2. To Whom has He Given the Promises? (vv.6-31)
The apostle has exclaimed about his kinsmen according to the flesh: "They
are Israelites!", but now he says: "Not all those who are from Israel are
really Israelites" (v.6 Danish). This distinction between technical
and real Israelites is in accordance with what he has already affirmed in
2:28-29. Clearly there are two kinds of Israelites: those who are that only
because they are descended from Abraham, and those who are so because they
have Abraham's faith. The former are Israelites after the flesh, while the
later are this after the Spirit, and it is only to them that God has given
His promises -- and these promises He has fulfilled.
To prove his case Paul points to the descendants of Abraham and Isaac.
Abraham had two sons. The son of the handmaid, Ishmael, was indeed Abraham's
son after the flesh, but God's promises did not apply to him. Every Israelite
knew that. Not one of them would imagine that Ishmael and his descendants
had a claim on God's promises. These applied exclusively to Isaac, who was
born as a result of God's word of promise which Abraham and Sarah had appropriated
by faith.
We ought to notice the way in which the apostle expresses himself when
he says: "... the children of promise are reckoned for a seed" (v.8). The
word "reckon" is a significant word in the teaching concerning justification
by faith. The word "seed" is also important. In Galatians 3:16 and 19, Paul
explains that the seed of Abraham is one Person, namely Christ, but he then
goes on to say: "If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according
to promise" (Galatians 3:29). So, early in his argument, Paul has indicated
that all God's promises are connected with Christ, and consequently they
apply to those -- and only to those -- who believe in Him, and so are true
Israelites, being the seed of Abraham even as was Isaac.
Israelites, however, would affirm that they were all descended from Isaac,
the son of promise, and therefore eo ipso, had a claim to the promises
of God. Paul rejects this. He emphasises that although Isaac (in contrast
with Abraham) had two sons by the same wife, who were actually twins, yet
as regards God's promises, these two were in entirely different situations.
One of them, Jacob, was loved by God and included in His promises; the other,
Esau, was not loved by God and was not included in those promises. What is
more, this difference of treatment was in no way due to the characteristics
of one as against the other, for the matter was decided before they were
born. It was therefore God who decided to give the promises to Jacob and not
to Esau, and that decision rested upon the fact that Jacob, and not Esau,
was the one whom He had chosen.
In this way Paul proved that descent from Isaac does not necessarily
involve inclusion in the promises. God is, and has always been, perfectly
free and sovereign regarding those to whom He gives His promises. Of course
He must be so; His promise would cease to be a promise if anyone could advance
some claim upon Him. In that case it would be an obligation and not a promise.
Nor can anyone make himself worthy of such a promise. Jacob did not earn
the favour any more than Esau did. It is important to keep hold of this fact,
both in our thinking and preaching, but it is difficult to do so because
it offends our ideas of what is just and fair. That is why so many efforts
are made to weaken or explain away this paragraph. Any such attempts at explanation
must be set aside, for they support the idea that in the final issue it is
man himself who decides his salvation, so that it is not by God's grace alone.
God's promises, then, apply to the 'true' Israelites, that is, those
whom He in His sovereign [50/51] freedom has chosen,
and who have responded to Him in faith. We can therefore immediately reject
the suggestion that God gives promises and then fails to keep them. We may
ask if an argument based on a distant past (Isaac, Jacob, etc.), is really
valid today. The answer is that God is the same. He was free in the time
of the patriarchs, and He is free today. God is God, and He always acts on
the basis of His own free choice according to His deliberate purpose. The
Church ought to take notice of this, for otherwise it draws its own boundary
in relation to the world, excluding people whom God does not exclude but
chooses, so repeating Israel's mistake. We must remember that the seed of
Abraham includes everyone who is in Christ. God's choice takes place in Him.
Those who are in Him are chosen, and those who are chosen are in Him.
3. Does This Agree with Righteousness? (vv.14-29)
Perhaps this heading is misleading, for it partly suggests that we can
summon our Creator to our own judgment seat, which is absurd. Perhaps it
would read better: 'Does this agree with mercy?" for it is from this point
of view that Paul treats the problem. He links the fact of God being sovereign
to the equal fact that God is merciful. The mercy of God is the central theme
in these three chapters and concludes the final reasoning that "God has
shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all" (11:32).
Human logic, however, tries to argue that God's mercy is not righteous.
It asks: Was it not unfair to Esau that God hated him before he had done
anything good or bad? Was it fair that Jacob should be blessed by the love
of God? Is there unrighteousness with God?
The question whether God is right is only raised by those who do not
truly reverence Him. It is both a result of pride which sees nothing presumptuous
in calling God to argue His case at the court of man's fallen reason, and
of an inflated opinion as to man's ability to pass ultimate moral judgments.
Notice how Paul treats such a question! Firstly, he answers it with a categorical:
"God forbid!" He does not take the question seriously, but only repeats what
his critics say in order to repudiate the very idea. Next -- and this clearly
shows that he does not think it worth the trouble even to consider the possibility
of God being unrighteous -- he points out the examples of God's treatment
of certain people like Pharaoh. According to human reasoning, these make
no attempt to prove that God is righteous, but rather seem to suggest the
contrary. For example, "For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very
purpose did I raise thee up, that I might shew in thee my power, and that
my name might be published abroad in the earth". Those who would take this
up to reason that God was obviously unrighteous towards Pharaoh are attempting
to return to an argument which the apostle has refused to deal with, because
he will not sit in judgment upon God. All he can say to that is: "God forbid!"
In this passage Paul is not seeking to argue for God's fairness, but
is insisting that as God is God, He is absolutely at liberty to act in His
sovereignty. His argument is rather this: God is God and therefore He acts
as God. This is seen in the fact that He, who owes nothing to any man and
from whom no man by his own efforts can ever deserve anything, is free to
be merciful and loving to whom He will. It must be so, for no man can claim
God's mercy and grace as his right. If man could demand blessing, then it
would no longer be mercy: men would have assumed the right to decide and
God would have ceased to be God. The mercy of God has its explanation in
God Himself. "God is love" (1 John 4:16) and therefore He shows love.
There is no other explanation. When God is merciful, He is simply being
true to His nature.
Since God is free, He is not bound to show mercy. God's love is not a
law of nature which operates automatically and which every man can regard
as a matter of course. That in His sovereign liberty He shows mercy to whom
He will, means also that He can refuse to show mercy. Pharaoh is cited as
an example of this. God showed His power over him by hardening him. "So then,"
Paul concludes, "He hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will He hardeneth"
(v.18). Anyone who forms thoughts about God with himself as the centre and
starting-point, inevitably forms a god in his own image. Questions as to
whether God is righteous or as to whether we fatalistically despair because
everything if foreordained anyway, reveal that the questioner is self-centred
and is forming his own ideas about God.
Paul is thinking and speaking in Christ, that is, with God as
centre and starting-point, and therefore his thoughts and words are the
complete opposite of those of fallen man. When we [51/52]
reason naturally; we say: God's sovereign freedom to be merciful and to
harden, according to His will, is nothing less than a mechanical determinism
which cancels out all human responsibility: "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why
doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will" That kind of 'logic'
only arises when you think apart from God, basing your standards on your
own world of ideas. This is quite unrealistic for the man who is "in God".
There is no contradiction between God's sovereign choices and man's personal
responsibility. God is absolutely free: no one and nothing can limit His
freedom. At the same time man is a created being who must give an account
to God as being responsible to Him. This applies both to Esau and to Pharaoh,
and to all others to whom God did not show mercy.
It is not therefore true that we are faced with the alternative that
either it is God who foreordains everything and man has no responsibility,
or man has a responsibility and therefore God's choice is limited or conditional.
On the contrary, we are faced with what our minds cannot grasp, namely, that
God's sovereign foreordaining and each man's personal responsibility are
both valid. This applies to Pharaoh. We must be careful not to try to make
a synthesis between the two incompatible contrasts. Any attempt to weigh man's
responsibility against God's foreordaining, or to limit man's part in his
responsibility to God, leads away from revelation to philosophy.. Such a
downward move into the area of philosophy inevitably involves our making
God the object of our analysis, and so ceasing to stand in awe of His majesty
and rather creating a god in our own image, an idol. "O man, who art thou
that repliest against God?" How dare you try to arraign God before a court
of human ideas of justice! Perhaps a good motto for this section would be:
"My thoughts are not your thoughts ... as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are ... my thoughts higher than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Paul reveals God's thoughts without trying to adapt them to our reasoning,
for they cannot be so adapted. The doctrine of God's liberty to show mercy
or to harden are a part of God's revelation of Himself. This is what our
God is like! This is how He acts! He is majestically at the centre of His
universe, and He alone decides everything. Our salvation has its spring in
His eternal counsel and was decided even before we had done anything good
or bad, indeed before we were born. It rests in God alone.
So we see that the doctrine of predestination excludes any idea that
the saved person ultimately has earned his salvation, and is essential for
the preservation of the freedom of God's grace. If we weaken it, then we
weaken the free grace of God and we rob the gospel of its power. We even
risk placing man in the central place, which belongs only to God. This goes
beyond all human reasoning, nor is there any room for it within the bound
of human ideas as to what is right. This ought not to surprise us, for that
which is divine hardly ever corresponds to our conceptions. God makes no
attempt to give an explanation just to satisfy us. He is and remains the
God who dwells in inaccessible light.
We have got to be content with the fact that as the clay has not control
of the potter, nor have we control over God. The clay has no right at all
to ask the potter what he is doing with it. If this comparison stood alone,
it might create the misconception that God is an indescriminate tyrant. Paul
does not let it stand alone, but continues by saying: "What if God, although
he would show his wrath and make known his mercy, yet in much long-suffering
has borne with vessels of wrath, fully prepared unto destruction" (vv.22
and 23 Danish). Here it is revealed that, in showing mercy and hardening,
He is no sadistic despot, but one who suffers long over the vessels of wrath.
He suffers long because His object has been to lead them to repentance (2:4),
and even when this does not occur His rejection achieves something positive,
an unimaginable glory for Himself, as we shall find expanded more fully
in chapter 11.
In verse 17 it is clearly stated that God's purpose in hardening Pharaoh
was partly to show His own power in his case, and partly that His name might
be glorified in all the earth. Thus Pharaoh was compelled to serve God's
plans, even while he did everything he could to thwart them. He was fitted
unto destruction, yet God showed him much long-suffering (think of the nine
plagues); this gave him the opportunity to change his mind, and his refusal
to do so gave God the chance to show the glory of His mercy in the case of
His chosen people. Pharaoh existed, then, not to forward his own purposes,
but God's; and God's purpose was a mighty salvation which should be proclaimed
in all the earth. [52/53]
The people of Israel have become vessels of wrath, fitted unto destruction.
God has shown them much long-suffering, giving them the opportunity to repent
and using their rejection to make known the riches of His mercy upon vessels
of mercy which He afore prepared unto glory, that is the Church called
from both Jews and Gentiles (v.24). Israel's rejection has thus served God's
positive objective of bringing salvation to the nations.
Paul now returns to the decisive question as to whether God has really
kept His promises. Far from those promises being contradicted by the rejection
of Israel as a nation and salvation coming to the Gentiles, they are confirmed
and agree perfectly with what God has said through His prophets. Firstly
Paul quotes Hosea. At first glance this prophecy does not seem to promise
the Gentiles anything, for it is addressed to the people of Israel, and might
have seemed to suit better a position after 11:26. Nevertheless it is used
here as a promise to all who can be included in the true Israel. The saved
Gentiles were not God's people before, but now they have become so by faith
in Christ. The apostle then quotes Isaiah: "Though the number of the sons
of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved"
(Isaiah 10:22). That was what God had said. It had been fulfilled. A remnant
of Israel, Paul among them, had been saved. So God had kept His promise.
The remnant had been saved by the grace of God alone. The remnant has
nothing to boast of, but the word of God has been fulfilled and the proof
given that God never fails to keep His promises. In this way we have found
confirmation of the fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus. This is due solely to God's grace. For this reason Paul
closes this part of his argument with one more quotation from Isaiah: "Except
the Lord ...". He has not failed. Everything has happened as He said it would.
We can safely trust His promises.
(To be continued)
----------------
LEARNING FROM LEVITICUS
Arthur E. Gove
5. THE TRESPASS OFFERING
Reading: Leviticus 5:1-10; 6:1-7
WE now come to the last of the five offerings. The first sweet savour
offerings spoke of the preciousness to God of the death and life of His Son;
the Peace Offering pointed out how God and man can share the satisfaction
of Christ's sacrifice; and now the last two speak of the perfection of the
work of the cross to put away sin. The Sin Offering suggested how He dealt
with our evil nature, there being no mention of special sins but rather of
people -- the priest, the congregation, the ruler and the common people.
The final Trespass Offering, as our scripture readings suggest, is occupied
with specific sins. As we have already said, although this is last in the
divine order of institution, this provision for our wrong and sinful actions
is the first in sinful man's consciousness. We first come to God through
Christ when we know how we need forgiveness of our sins.
In broad principle this is similar to the Sin Offering, but it will be
helpful to note both the comparisons and the contrasts. Like the Sin Offering,
it was not a sweet savour to satisfy His heart but an atonement to satisfy
His just requirements. It reminds us of how Christ suffered for our sins.
Moreover it concerns trespass against God as well as trespass against man.
The wrongs done to others must be provided for, but we are told that dealing
falsely with a neighbour is also to commit a trespass against the Lord (6:2).
"Against thee, thee only, have I sinned", cried David, though he had done
this by grievously wronging Uriah (Psalm 51:4); while the confession of
the prodigal to his father clearly acknowledged this truth by saying. "I
have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight" (Luke 15:21).
Every wrong act of ours is an offence against God -- hence the need for
the Trespass Offering. Now it is true that God can forgive all manner of
sin, but at the same time it is also true that He is "of purer eyes than to
behold iniquity" (Habakkuk 1:13). It is impossible for Him to disregard or
pass over the smallest sin, for to do [53/54] that
would deny the perfection of His holiness. By the full provision of the cross,
however, every least detail of man's sinfulness is provided for by a holy
God. His grace is also perfect, and His grace gives the Trespass Offering
to assure the sinner of forgiveness.
So it is that the righteous can give thanks at the remembrance of His
holiness (Psalm 97:12). The non-Christian cannot rejoice at God's holiness;
he would rather wish to ignore the subject. He may seek to console himself
with thoughts of God's love or mercy, but he can find no comfort in the realisation
that God is holy. The Christian, however, can and does rejoice, because
he sees that there is the full expression of God's holiness in the cross.
As Mr. Alec Motyer writes: 'God fulfils His total nature in the redemption
of His people. Forgiveness is God's ability to deal with the offence and
take it away'.
As in the Sin Offering, mention is again made of "ignorance", but this
is only in connection with "holy things" (5:15). We cannot claim to be ignorant
when we lie to someone or act in some unseemly way to a neighbour. It is
indeed a fact that our natural conscience recognises the claims of fellow
men more readily than God's standards in holy things. Our actions to other
people are usually plain and deliberate and we know when we have done wrong.
In the sanctuary, however, our consciences cannot be the regulator; in holy
things we may offend unwittingly. Nevertheless we need the Trespass Offering
just as much, for God's holiness and not our awareness is the standard when
His rights are in question. On behalf of God's people the prophet Malachi
posed questions in this very connection. "Wherein have we polluted the table
of the Lord? Wherein have we wearied him? Wherein have we robbed thee?" they
asked, apparently unaware of their shortcomings. The truth is that we fall
short even in our prayer, praise and worship.
The holiest hours we spend
In prayer upon our knees,
The times when most we deem
Our songs of praise will please,
Thou Searcher of all hearts,
Forgiveness pour on these.
How precious and how blessed it is to know that the blood of Christ answers
for these as well as for our more conscious trespasses! As we come to God
by way of the cross we find the absolute perfection of provision for every
offence and every shortcoming.
THIS offering not only gave men a sense of their sins but also a deeper
understanding of divine grace. The appointed offering was a lamb or a goat,
but if the sinner's means were not sufficient for such an animal he was allowed
to bring two doves or pigeons. He was not excluded from the full benefits
of forgiveness because he could not afford a lamb. Of course if he could
afford a lamb and only brought doves, then he would be guilty of a lack of
appreciation both of the sinfulness of sin and the greatness of divine grace.
There would be some who could not even manage the doves, and for such it
was ordained: "If his means suffice not for two turtledoves or two young
pigeons, then he shall bring his oblation for that wherein he hath sinned,
the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour ..." (5:11). We should note that
the right of access to God was not created by the value of the offering, but
by a gift in relation to the man's means. People's capacities might vary but
the supreme and constant factor was the grace of God in providing for all.
THE one distinctive feature of this offering was that it dealt with sins
which required restitution. This applied to trespasses against the Lord (5:16)
and also to trespasses against man (6:5). Not only was restitution to be
made, but one fifth was to be added in both cases. This meant that the injured
party, whether the Lord or the fellow man, had his loss more than remedied.
This is a very practical reminder that even mere restitution is not enough
to put right the matter in which there have been wrongs. But it is also a
blessed foreshadowing of how both God and man have gained more by redemption
than ever was lost by the Fall. From His creation the Lord will receive a
far richer harvest of glory, honour and praise than could have been if sin
had never marred it and redemption restored it. None of the rulers of this
world understood this, for if they had done, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). By His great Trespass Offering Christ
has restored to the Father more than ever He lost by reason of man's sin.
But man has also gained. We who have been injured by sin and who have
suffered great loss because of it, now find that the riches of God's grace
are available to us without limit. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound", so that from the cross there now comes to the [54/55]
pardoned sinner the assurance: "All things are yours" (1 Corinthians
3:21). Outside of Christ, the Father has nothing to give; but outside of
Christ, there is nothing that the true Christian desires. In the Trespass
Offering one fifth was added; in our salvation grace was multiplied.
It is significant, though, to observe the reversed order of sacrifice
and restitution in the two cases. When the sin was against the Lord, the
offerer had to bring the blood of the sacrifice first, and then offer the
restitution (5:15-16). When a trespass was against a fellow man, however,
the sinner was commanded first to make restitution and then to bring his offering
to the Lord. This is very important and emphasises the fact that any offence
against another man is spoken of as being "a trespass against the Lord" (6:2).
It follows, therefore, that such a wrong interferes with my communion with
the Lord, and makes it imperative for me to put that right with the one wronged
before I seek to resume fellowship with God. This does not mean that putting
things right with another puts me right with God. I still need the Trespass
Offering. But it does mean that it is vain to bring that offering unless
I have first righted the wrong done to man. As the Lord Jesus Himself said:
"Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled
to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matthew 5:24). Getting
right with God does not excuse us from putting things right on the human
plane. Far from it! "First" is the divine priority both of the Trespass Offering
and of the Sermon on the Mount, and then when that restitution has been
made, the offender can know in a new way the sweetness of fellowship with
God.
SO this Trespass Offering points anew to that great work of redemption
and restitution performed by the Saviour on the cross. If we had to try
to make our restitution first before we could come to God we would be eternally
lost, for a lifetime of good works would never atone for one single trespass.
In the matter of restitution to God, the order is sacrifice first, and indeed
Christ has provided both the offering and the restitution for all our sinfulness
and our every sin. As He said on the cross: "It is finished!"
So we have now completed our consideration of Christ's redeeming work
as set forth in the offerings. No one of these could portray the whole truth,
so we are given all five of them in order to impress us with the absolute
sufficiency of Christ's work on the cross to meet every need of a holy God
and of sinful man. Surely our response must be to echo the apostle's exclamation:
"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For of him,
and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever.
Amen" (Romans 11:33 & 36).
(Conclusion)
----------------
A PILGRIM'S PRAYER
Harry Foster
5. A PILGRIM WHOSE FEET ARE STEADY
"Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto
the end"
Psalm 119:33
A PILGRIM who is not persistent is not worthy of the name. Two words
constantly recur in this man's prayer; they are translated "keep" and "observe".
They reveal the pilgrim's awareness of the need to keep on. The final test
for every Christian is not to "mount up with wings as eagles", nor even
to "run and not be weary", but simply to "walk and not faint". At the end
of this very long psalm the traveller has not yet arrived, but he still
shows no signs of giving up. His feet are steady.
He makes no claim to outstanding strength of his own. At times he has
to confess that he can hardly keep going. He collapses: "My soul cleaveth
unto the dust, quicken thou me according to thy word" (25). He is ready to
drop: "My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according to thy
word" (28). His eyes stray in wrong directions: "Turn away mine eyes from
beholding vanity, and quicken me in thy ways" (37). He fears and loses heart:
"My soul fainteth for thy salvation" (81) "My flesh trembleth ..."
[55/56] (120). He is all too conscious of his own inadequacy: "I
am small and despised" (141) and of his tendency to wander from the path:
"I have gone astray like a lost sheep" (176). In spite of all this, though,
he still presses on, and he makes no secret of the fact that it is the Word
of God which keeps him going: "Unless thy law had been my delight, I should
then have perished in my affliction " (92).
In addition to this, his path is beset by those who are determined to
hinder his progress. They use psychological weapons, "reproach and contempt"
(22); "Princes also sat and talked against me" (23); "The proud have me greatly
in derision" (51). They try to trip him up: "they have overthrown me with
falsehood" (78); "the proud have digged pits for me" (85); "The wicked have
laid a snare for me" (110). They exert evil pressure to deter his progress:
"The cords of the wicked have wrapped me round" (61); "Redeem me from the
oppression of man" (134). His own inadequacy is complicated by all this
opposition.
Is the spiritual pilgrimage really like this? It may all sound a little
fanciful or morbid to those who have not seriously embarked on the business
of such a journey. Every devoted follower of Christ will, however, recognise
only too well the reminders of what a fight it is to keep steady feet in
the way of holiness. "Fightings without and fears within" was how the apostolic
traveller described his own pilgrimage (2 Corinthians 7:5), and his words
give a graphic portrayal of every believer's walk with God. It was Paul who
indicated the only suitable weapon for such a conflict -- "the sword of
the Spirit, which is the Word of God" (Ephesians 6:17). Certainly this psalmist
put all his confidence in the same divine weapon. Almost every mention of
inward flutterings or outward threats is accompanied by a new grip on the
hilt of this spiritual sword.
He is far from boastful. Indeed he humbly appeals again and again for
the comfort, the lifting up or the sustaining which he calls "quickening".
No, he is not brash, but nor is he apologetic. Far from it, one gets the
impression that he has real zest for this conflict: "My zeal hath consumed
me, because mine adversaries have forgotten thy words (139), and in one outstanding
claim, he points us to the worthwhileness of being involved in the battles
of the Lord: "I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil" (162).
This idea of "spoil" is somewhat foreign to our modern procedures, but the
Bible accounts of battles usually make reference to it, for good or ill.
If we substitute the word "reward", some of our contemporary philosophers
will probably greet it with a supercilious sniff. Well, whatever may be said
about such things in the material realm there is no doubt that in the spiritual,
battles are fought for treasures to be lost or won. The pilgrim was able
to look back on some of those grim struggles of his past and affirm that
he was a much richer man because of them. "Great spoil!" New treasures from
God's Word are worth more than all the gold in the world.
It may be objected that my metaphors are getting mixed. I spoke of God's
Word as a weapon and now I suggest that it is rich in spoil. No, not mixed
metaphors, but spiritual realities. When we get involved, as this man did,
with problems and threats to faith, we can only emerge victorious from our
conflicts by fresh recourse to God's Word. We must learn from it and we must
give wholehearted obedience to it. It is our sword. As we do so, however,
and get the victory, we realise that we have discovered new wealth and new
life in God's Word. We thought that we knew it well enough, but our need
drove us to it in a new way, and we emerge with hearts that are not only grateful
for survival but enriched with new treasures. We have found "spoil".
The way is not all battle. The pilgrim walks happily along, enjoying
among other delights the honey which he collects from the nests of wild
bees. Even as he enjoys it, though, he sings of an even greater delicacy:
"How sweet are thy words to my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"
(103). And in spite of all the jeers and alarms, he has a most extraordinary
tranquillity in his spirit. Listen to him: "Great peace have they which
love thy law; and they shall have none occasion of stumbling" (165). This
is a New Testament blessing enjoyed by an Old Testament saint -- "The peace
of God which passeth all understanding". It is quite striking to reach almost
the end of such an account of tough journeying, to find the pilgrim assuring
us that if we have been worrying about him and the problem of keeping his
feet steady to the end, he himself knows no such strain. No, he is enjoying
"great peace" -- heaven's own peace -- even here in this troubled world.
We are meant to do the same. We must battle on. We must pray without ceasing.
We must plod forward. But we [56/57] can do all this
with indescribable joy and peace in our hearts provided that we continue
to set our love on the law of the Lord. There is no occasion of stumbling
and no unhappy tension of mind for those who do that.
My final remarks in this series must be to call attention to the extraordinary
last verse of this long psalm: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek
thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments" (176). Our natural reasoning
would have suggested beginning the story with this kind of allusion to straying
like sheep and then proceeding to show how experience and obedience to the
Word had freed the pilgrim from such sheep-like weaknesses and matured him
into a saint, incapable of straying. This inspired psalmist is much more
true to real life, faithfully reminding us that the most mature pilgrim is
as capable as ever of wandering from the path. Perhaps it is something of
a warning to those of us who are near to the end of our earthly pilgrimage.
When human will power weakens and when the human mind is less reliable, then
we need the Shepherd more than ever.
Thank God that we have Him. Another psalm affirms: "He will be our guide,
even unto death" (Psalm 48:14). Thank God, too, if in our earlier life we
have laid up God's Word in our heart, for then, right at the very end, our
final claim will be: "I do not forget thy commandments". This is literally
true. As one who has often visited death-beds I can testify that the feeblest
pilgrims can usually be quickened into response by some quoting of the Scriptures.
As vitality wanes and when all else is forgotten, they clearly remember God's
Word. I was once with a dying old lady who seemed to have lost touch with
the conscious world of time and sense. As she was Scottish I ventured in
her case to use the metrical version of the 23rd Psalm -- "The Lord's my
Shepherd, I'll not want ...". Although she was past all normal conversations,
she took this up and -- to my discomforture -- left me floundering when I
disremembered subsequent verses. I stumbled with my words while she stoutly
whispered on:
"My table Thou hast furnished
In presence of my foes;
My head Thou dost with oil anoint,
And my cup overflows.
Goodness and mercy, all my life
Shall surely follow me;
And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling place shall be".
Like the psalmist, she was a pilgrim whose feet the Word of God kept
steady right to the end. Nothing more remains for me to say than to add
our "Amen"! "Thy word is well tried; therefore thy servant loveth it" (140).
(Conclusion)
----------------
THE ETERNAL PURPOSE OF GOD
Roger T. Forster
I WONDER if you have ever invaded the shrine of a modern scientific laboratory?
It is most inspiring to see the mysterious signs, symbols and sacred utensils,
untouchable of course, and to be initiated into the deep secrets of science
by a white-coated priest. You may ask innumerable questions concerning the
complex knowledge which promises to give enlightenment to all its devotees;
about the ultimate meaning of all things.
Why does the computer whirr, buzz and flash lights? Why does this atom
react when bombarded by particles? Why does the genetic code change when
an ovum is fertilized under certain conditions? Satisfactory answers explain
all things. Every effect about which we ask has a cause by which our priestly
scientists can answer our question 'why'.
Noticing a piece of equipment in a corner, namely an old battered kettle,
steaming away over a bunsen burner, you ask 'And why is that kettle boiling?'
To which you receive the illuminating reply, 'Gas and air are mixing together
and combustion is taking place. Energy is released in the form of heat which
is transferred to the water causing its molecules to move faster as the temperature
rises. At a crucial point, 100 degree centigrade to be exact, a change of
state occurs and the resulting steam requiring more room, pushes the lid
off the kettle and so the kettle is boiling'.
'Oh', you reply. 'I only wanted to know why the kettle is boiling'.
Encouraged by the response, our scientific tour guide waxes into a fascinating
description of the [57/58] technological processes
by which the gas was converted from the chance collocations of chemicals
which we call coal and so conveyed to the laboratory. 'Furthermore', he continues,
'The coal was extracted from the earth after some vast diluvian forest had
sunk into its carboniferous coffin some thousand of centuries ago'. 'Well,
you did want to know why the kettle was boiling, didn't you?'
Feeling that your lecture, like its contents, had left you a little dry,
you turn to the brown-overalled individual who is standing in the corner
of the laboratory, leaning on a broom. You ask him: 'Can you tell me why the
kettle is boiling?' 'Of course, mate', he replies. 'I want a cup of tea don't
I?'
This is an equally good answer, if you happen to be thirsty, but it is
not the answer of 'why', meaning how does it work, what cause brought about
such an effect? It is the meaning of the 'why' of purpose, which science
cannot tell us since it is outside its province and technique. Only the person
who put the kettle on to boil can tell why he did so. Therefore, only God
can tell us for what He made the universe and why we are in it. This is revelation
not investigation.
Now, says Paul, God has done this: "The eternal purpose which he realized
in Christ our Lord" (Eph. 3:11). The eternal purpose, God's purpose for the
creation, is found in Christ. When we come to Christ and own His Lordship,
we intuitively know we have found the answer but often we are unable to explain
immediately what we sense inside ourselves. We know Christ is the eternal
answer for we are aware that our hearts, into which He has placed eternity
(Ecc. 3:11), are now completed. Therefore we know it is His answer, for
we are aware we have arrived in Christ. We know it is His purpose, for we
are conscious of direction for the first time, but it takes a life time to
verbalise totally its content.
The whole Ephesian epistle can be understood as describing this purpose
of God and we can note it in seven ways.
Chapter 1:4-5 Sonship, developing his family character
The word translated "purpose" (v.5) is made up from two Greek words,
namely beautiful and thought. God's beautiful thought was also His greatest
ever, for when contemplating for what purpose man was to be made He did
not decide, 'I'll make him to be a psychedelic angel', though maybe you
know some humans who are, neither did He major on constructing a supersonic
beast, although you may be aware of such who fall into that category. God's
greatest and beautiful thought was to destine beforehand (pre-destine) man
to be conformed to the image of His Son. That is to bear ultimately God's
own character.
The highest end that any creature could have, the highest satisfaction
any living being could know is to give God Himself pleasure, as does a son
to a father just by being his son. The greatest pleasure that could ever
be received is to give pleasure to the highest, (Psalm 149:4), that is God.
Everyday we give our Father our presence and our voice, ("Let me see your
face, let me hear your voice" Song of Solomon 2:14), we are fulfilling the
eternal purpose. Every Jesus-action moulding our character by His life within,
draws out the Father's admiration till 'That's my boy' sounds around our
being, as it did on Jesus' baptismal day, "This is my beloved Son". It was
because it was such a great thing which sin destroyed, namely the Father and
Son relationship, that such a great thing was required to treat sin seriously
and restore that relationship again. The obedient death of His Son was the
price.
Chapter 1:23 Fulness, to express the infinite personality of God
While Jesus was here on earth we saw expressed in a human body "The fulness
of the Godhead" (Col. 2:9). There was nothing missing in this revelation
of the Godhead, but its mode of expression was restricted to a young, male,
Jewish, first-century dimension. Now Christ dwells in the body of His church.
Christ is now experienced in male and female bodies, in young and old people,
in grey hair and wrinkled faces, in white, black, yellow and brown skins,
not only olive skins from the Mediterranean basin. In rice fields and factories
the fullness of the personality of our God may now be seen. No wonder we
get excited about seeing each other, for we then see something of the beauty
of our Lord, even if it is yet imperfect it is still God's purpose, continuing
for eternity.
Chapter 2:10 Workmanship, God's poem to express His soul's beauty
The third aspect of the purpose of our creation is that we should be
God's workmanship. Any work for a Greek tended to be a work of art and indeed
this Greek word for workmanship sounds like 'poem'. That the human race should
express God's beauty was the original intention. Sin permeates our actions
and relationships with so [58/59] much ugliness, indeed,
our very 'rightness' is often repellant and our 'goodness' unattractive.
Holiness is beautiful in the Bible (c.f. Psalm 29:2), not cold and austere
like the snow-capped tops of the Swiss Alps, but rather colourful, as are
their lower valleys in Spring, rich in golden sun and full of fruit, and the
sounds of bells, like the holy garments of the High priests said to be of
beauty and glory since they were festooned with gold, full of colours and
carrying fruit and bells on the fringe of their robes. Crowning all was the
inscription, "Holiness to the Lord" (Ex. 28:36). God's view of holiness is
that it is beautiful as when a good thing is done finely and a right action
has more to it than being right. In front of me on my desk is a home-made
card with a hand-made drawing of a cross, and match-stick men together with
a verse. It came with a small gift of money. It took time, thought and care
worth more than the money, the money was necessary, the card was not but made
the necessary gift beautiful. I remember a friend taking off the wrapper of
some chocolate he had been given and finding a bank note slipped under the
paper just at the moment he needed it for his fare. That was beautiful giving
and made a poem out of the prosaic.
Chapter 2:21-22 Temple, to express God's presence
God has always wanted to be at home with man. When He walked with Adam
in the garden I'm sure they spoke of building a home for God; in fact of
making the garden of Eden into a garden-city. At any rate this is what appears
in Revelation at the end of the age, where also it says that God's tabernacle
is with men. Already this intention of God is recovered in the church where
God's Spirit makes His presence intensely known. If you look my home and
see footprints on the mantelpiece and coffee cups under the chairs you get
an impression of what sort of person lives there. So when people come to God's
home, the people of God, they get impressions of what God is like. But there
is more to it than this. God's home is also a temple, a place where he is
worshipped. The Lord is "enthroned upon the praises of Israel". As we worship
the Lord His presence is revealed and intensified. A home is a place for
love -- so is a temple, for worship is simply making love to the Almighty.
If I tell my wife she is the most beautiful girl in the world; in one sense
I don't need to say it, she knows already as I've told her so many times
before. So it is with God as I love Him, I tell Him all He knows already.
He is great, He is like Jesus; He washes feet, He gives friendship to fishermen;
He says, "Forgive, they know not what they do". So God is there, we bow in
the presence of His majesty, we don't know if we are in heaven or on earth
and it hardly matters, for we shall worship and love Him for ever in the
new heaven and the new earth.
Chapter 3:10-11 Instruction, to express the many-coloured wisdom of
God
God's wisdom is manifold, many coloured we could say, variegated as some
packets of seeds are described and surprise us when, having been planted
all the same size and colour they come up with a profusion of shapes and colours.
So another aspect of God's purpose, conceived in eternity and realized in
time through His Son, is to reveal through us His wisdom, what and how He
thinks, what His judgements and discernments are. Consequently sometimes God
is doing something in me which I don't understand, it's too big to totally
grasp. The prophets experienced this in their preaching and writing, said
Peter. They didn't fully understand what they prophesied even though they
inquired into it. However, they found that they were not serving themselves
but later generations, 1 Peter 1:10-12. So God's wisdom exercised in our
words and actions may well be beyond our own grasp. Hosea must have felt confused
when his wife whom God had told him to marry played the adulteress, left
him with three children of which certainly at least the third, whom he called
"Not my people", was not his son. Nevertheless, I can see him sitting lonely
at home saying to himself, "We know that in everything God works for good
with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose" (Romans
8:28) -- or at least the Old Testament equivalent to that effect! One day
God tells him to go to the slave market and buy back his wife who was being
sold off at a half price. He does so and loves her back into a real woman.
Then God says go and tell My people that they have treated Me like your wife
treated you. You are just the man, in fact, the only one who can preach it
because you are the message in yourself. When Christ returns and takes up
His peculiar possession, amongst them Hosea, and calls them His jewels, Mal.
3:17 (A. V.), He will get special and unique pleasure out of each separate
colour and shape according to the specific wisdom each of our lives has
[59/60] expressed and will forever express. There will be many-coloured
jewels representing this many-coloured wisdom (Rev. 21:19-20).
Chapter 4:16 Body, to express God's action
John Wesley said, 'God does nothing but by prayer'. In other words it's
a co-operative, this kingdom business! Paul says we are co-workers. We are
Christ's body for the extension of His mission and activity in the world.
Even if on Christ's return the body disappears and becomes the final analogy
which we have in Eph. 5, that is the bride, we will still be the vehicle
for God's activity in the eternal ages. Even in the age to come Christ will
be glorified in the saints and marvelled at in all who have believed (2 Thess.
1:10). So the truth contained in the picture of a body is still an aspect
of God's eternal intention. What adventure does He wish to accomplish through
you? Keep two thousand children alive by air and prayer like George Muller?
Legislate for forty years for the freedom of the slaves as did Wilberforce?
Run labour exchanges, orphanages, write educational and spiritual books,
found schools and above all that, evangelize Great Britain as no one before
or since, as did John Wesley? Sing songs to God accompanied by strings as
did David and thousands of modern day counterparts? What is the adventure
God will do through you as His body? And what a way He does it! Through the
flow of love through the different parts of His people, parts perhaps even
unknown to each other working together and demonstrating that He is at work
over and above it all! I love the encouragement Paul gives us to expect to
be able to work together when he says we are knit together. Knitting is just
lots of holes held together by wool. Christ the wool flows between us as
we see ourselves as nothing more than holes, so there is not much there then
except what is of Christ. Well, we never were very much anyway! This is the
best way to experience the body-life.
Chapter 5:25-27 Bride, to receive and respond to God's love
God is love and man's greatest faculty as a gift from that God is to
be able to love. Above all, to love Him and enjoy being loved by Him. This
will go on forever. Love is the biggest time waster there has ever been so
we will need eternity for it. We just share in each other, exchange with each
other, soak in each other, knowing, communing and living. Contemplating the
beatific vision of Christ in His glory and being lost in the atonement. Not
as eastern mysticism, which loses self-consciousness, as when a drop of water
falls into the ocean and absorbs the ocean into itself and the ocean absorbs
the drop: but rather, as when the husband and wife are one flesh, yet never
more distinctly two and conscious of that fact in loving. Old-age wrinkles
are going, adolescent spots are vanishing, there'll be a bride of beauty
for His soon-coming wedding. 'Come Lord quickly, we want to be at the wedding!'
Strange bride who has to be dragged to the altar! Stranger bridegroom who
would drag her unwilling to the same! Certainly Jesus won't, but waits for
our cry of anticipation, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly" (Rev. 22:20).
He waits for our holy kingdom living which hastens the day of the
kingdom (2 Peter 3:12), and looks for our obedience to preach the gospel
to all the world and then shall the end come (Matt. 24:14).
God's last word for our eternity is Eph. 1:9-10. He will head up together
again (Greek) all things in Christ. Neither now nor then are we here for
ourselves -- thank God, but for his Son. Despite the wonderful seven-fold
intention of His eternal purpose planned for us, as seen above, God thankfully
saves us from ourselves and says -- and all that and eternity too is for Jesus
My Son!
(Originally printed in "FULNESS" magazine)
[60/ibc]
----------------
[Inside back cover]
INSPIRED PARENTHESES (19)
"(not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ,
and God the Father, who raised him from the dead)"
Galatians 1:1
THERE is no element of surprise in this opening parenthesis. All lovers
of God's Word agree that Paul's apostleship was not conferred upon him by
men -- not even by the Twelve -- and that its origin was divine. It was neither
by men nor was it of men. We know that the only human being involved was
the simple brother, Ananias of Damascus, who acted as a direct agent of Jesus
Christ after the Lord had already had a personal encounter with His new
apostle and taken command of his life.
FURTHERMORE, we are all aware that Paul's conversion was based on the
reality of Christ's resurrection. There was no need to inform Saul of Tarsus
that Jesus had died under the curse of God; he knew that all right. Perhaps
Isaiah's words were peculiarly fitting to this Israelite who certainly considered
that Jesus had been stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. What he could
not understand was the atoning nature of the shameful cross, so that he had
to meet the risen Lord for himself before this truth could dawn upon him.
Only the resurrection could lead to the discovery that "he was wounded for
our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities ..." (Isaiah 53:5). There is
a sense in which this is true of every believer. We are saved by the cross,
but we can only be led into salvation by the risen Lord Himself. In Paul's
case, however, the Lord had not only provided him with salvation but commissioned
him as a special apostle to the nations. So Paul opens his letter with this
claim, and this is the special point of this parenthesis. He addresses this
letter to the Galatians and to us with all the authority of this divine ordination.
NONE of this is new to us. What is surprising, however, is the rest of
Paul's sentence after the parenthesis: "Paul, an apostle ... and all the
brethren which are with me". He claimed no isolated eminence. He did not
allow his special calling to separate him from any of his companions -- all
of them. Although he would yield to no man as to his divine status, he was
very careful to keep himself in active fellowship with his companions in
the gospel. The whole of Paul's story shows how he always avoided isolation
from his brothers, and how carefully he practised what he preached about
mutual interdependence in the body of Christ.
IT is sadly possible for a servant of the Lord to neglect this most important
factor in spiritual ministry. A man may rightly claim to have been personally
set apart for God's service. Paul certainly sustained that claim, as our
present parenthesis emphasises. At his peril, however, such a man stands aloof
from the fellow Christians with whom God in His sovereignty has associated
him. "Paul ... and all the brethren which are with me" is the basis of true
spiritual ministry.
IN this matter a wife is no substitute: hers is a different function.
Only to have younger disciples or assistants is equally insufficient: they,
in a sense, are under orders. A man needs more than this. He needs others
of spiritual substance to provide him with balance; not to ordain or govern
him but to protect him from becoming a free-lance when he should be a related
member of Christ's body.
PERHAPS this letter is one in which the apostle most emphasises his personal
spiritual authority. His apostleship is not from men neither through a man.
The more remarkable, then, that the letter is said to come from Paul and
all the brothers with him. This parenthesis should therefore not be detached
from its context. All who take Paul in any way as their example should not
only read the parenthesis but be sure also to note the importance of the introduction
as a whole. In the next parenthesis we shall find him insisting that God
does not accept any man's person (Galatians 2:6) but nowhere shall we ever
find Paul suggesting that practical fellowship is unimportant.
----------------
[Back cover]
"LITTLE CHILDREN, ABIDE IN HIM;
SO THAT WHEN HE APPEARS WE MAY HAVE CONFIDENCE
AND NOT BE ASHAMED BEFORE HIM AT HIS COMING."
1 John 2:28
----------------
Printed by The Invil Press, 4/5 Brownlow Mews, London
WC1N 2LD -- Telephone: 01-242 7454
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