funerals, fasting, feasting, and the first day of the week

Emergents (enchanted by the ‘Big Tradition’), some Old Life Reformed (emphasising the institutional church and sacraments), some Federal Vision folks like Peter Leithart (with a similarly high ecclesiology), the rising influence, in the States at least, of evangelical Lutheranism (which tends to stress liturgy), our ecumenical romance with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the popular influence of Anglicans like Tom Wright, the childish drive for the novel and sensual that marks a culture bloated on narcissism, and the shallow gospel of many Western believers have converged to create the perfect liturgical storm.   It is a storm threatening to swamp gospel fulness and freedom in Christ.  Evangelicalism, in many quarters, is all too ready to exchange the real for rituals and regulations, the freeing for the enslaving, Christ for the childish and cultic legalistic ceremonies.  Ritualistic faith is on the increase, an inevitable result of  faith that fails to ‘hold fast to the head’ (the risen reigning Christ in heaven) and instead seeks religious experience and assurance in that which is sensuous and ceremonial, that which is merely ‘earthly’ (Cols 2:16-20); when the substance is lost the shadows rush in to fill the void.

My previous post (but one) protested strongly against the present evangelical love-fest with all things liturgical (liturgical calendars and its seasons such as lent).   However, you may well read the post and say, ‘That’s all very well.  I see the force of your argument.  However, does not Christianity have its special day (the first day of the week), and its rituals (baptism, the Lord’s supper), and does it not promote fasting?  Is there contradiction here?’

It is this latter question I wish to address.

a believing hermeneutic

Whenever we find what we perceive to be a tension in Scripture the way forward lies in believing faith that seeks to do justice to both statements without playing off one against the other or adopting one to the exclusion of the other.

With this hermeneutic, we may well conclude that in principle New Covenant faith radically abandons ritualistic religion reducing many religious days to one, many different rites and ceremonies to two simple acts, and  regular ritually obligated fasts to the occasional and voluntary.  We may not understand why any special day or ritual is left but this is a question faith need not have answered to live obediently.  We do not have to fully understand a matter to be taught and guided by what is revealed.

This seems to me terribly important.  Christians ought to have a humble submission to God’s Word that believes and obeys without requiring all questions answered.  We must avoid the critical superiority that robs Scripture of its authority and impact by a thousand clever avoidance questions and arguments.  I am not advocating a faith that does not inquire, study and seek to learn.  Far from it.  Godly scholarship is a gift from God.  However, scholarship is not always godly, not always believing, and certainly not always submissive.    Scholars, like the rest of us, too often read the Bible without that childlike trust and submission.  When this is the case no amount of scholarly nous will compensate, indeed it is likely to blind; spiritual truth is spiritually discerned.

Church tradition can also be a force for good or ill.   Church tradition like scholarship can be good if the tradition encourages making Scripture humbly studied the authority for faith and practice, but where the tradition makes the authority the tradition itself (whether confessional or non-confessional)  spiritual blindness is inevitable.  Both scholarship and tradition are powerful forces to buck, yet a believing hermeneutic must be willing to challenge both.  Neither are final authorities.  Only Scripture is truth.

There is only one guard against deception and that is a heart and mind subject to the Word and depending on the Spirit.  This is ever the way of understanding and blessing.

sabbaths and sunday, law days and love days

We can, however, go a little further in addressing the apparent tension expressed above by noting some basic differences between OT regulations and NT practices.

We should remember that the nature of religion that allows man to save himself (as the Mosaic Law did) is to focus on what is external and ritualistic.  Such religion is typically full of rules and regulation, things to do.  The Mosaic Covenant (this do and live) was certainly like this.  The Sabbath was the key sign of the Mosaic Covenant (Ex 31:13) and exemplifies this principle.  So important was the Sabbath that it was enshrined as part of the Ten Words in the tablets of stone.  Remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy was a vital component of covenantal obedience.  It was a regulation carefully drafted with various activities proscribed.  Failure to observe it was punishable by death (Ex 31) and honouring it was the way of life (Isa 58:13,14).  We should not miss the fact that Sabbath observance was a legal obligation with much hanging on it.

However, when we come to the NT and the day Christians observe, the atmosphere is quite different.  Firstly, of course, Christians do not observe the Sabbath.  It simply will not do when Sabbatarians, in an attempt to claim Sunday as  the Christian Sabbath, argue for one day in seven.  The Sabbath is not any one out of seven, it is specifically and intentionally the seventh day.  It is the day when God rested having created for six.   There is simply no suggestion in the NT that the Christian day is a Sabbath, in fact the opposite is the case (Col 2:16).  The very choosing of another day clearly signalled a decisive change in covenantal relationship since the Sabbath was the covenantal sign of the OC (Ex 31).

But what of the Christian day of worship – the first day of the week?  Is this enshrined in a  statute or written on a tablet of stone?  Is there a command that Sunday must be remembered and treated as holy?  Is it defined as a day of rest? Is there a sanction of death on those who fail to observe it?  Clearly not.  Why do Christian’s worship on a Sunday?  We worship on a Sunday because that is the day of Christ’s resurrection.  Indeed, after his death the resurrected Christ appeared only to his disciples on Sundays (the first day of the week).  It would appear that the Holy Spirit so impressed upon the young church the association between the resurrection of Jesus and the first day of the week that  it quickly became the day of Christian gathering and worship.  Soon it was simply known as ‘the Lord’s day’ (Rev 1:10).  Love for the Lord had set it apart.

My point is, it was no mere legal regulation or ordinance that gave the first day of the week its significance but love for the one who was identified as Lord in resurrection on this day.  In this way the Spirit impressed on the heart of the infant church the appropriateness of Sunday for Christian worship.     The Sabbath signalled the end of the old creation: the first day of the week the beginning  of the new creation.   The Sabbath was for man, the first day of the week is for the Lord.  Sunday is not for Christians a day of rest but a day of worship.  Let me repeat, Christians worship on a Sunday not from duty, not from fear of judgement, and not to gain merit.  They gather out of love for their Lord.

Can I observe in passing, this is why the Lord’s Day observance society is so wrong-headed.  The Lord’s Day was never intended to be foisted on society.  It was intended for Christians and not the world.  It was a day when believers were drawn together to worship out of love for their Lord, not for unbelievers to observe by legal enforcing.  The whole premise is wrong.  We so easily lapse from grace into legalism.

These two days, it seems,  illustrate the different principles that guide the different covenants, the difference between the legal precepts of the old and the gracious privileges of the new, in particular, those of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

baptism and the lord’s Supper

We speak of these as ‘ordinances’.  The word means ‘an authoritative command or order’.  Yet I wonder whether this word is best suited.  For, yet again, juridical language is entirely absent.  Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper may be better termed privileges than ordinances.  In both cases we receive from the Lord.  In both cases, the emphasis is far less on what we ought to do than what grace has accomplished.  Both indicate blessings bestowed.

In our baptism we are carried through waters of judgement and death (safely in Christ our ark) and emerge  to the privilege of a new world and life the other side of the deluge.  Sin is gone in the judgement of the waters and we stand before God in resurrection with no more conscience of sins (2 Pet 3:21).  Baptism is rich with the symbolism of grace; it brings us through judgement into a new creation.  (In terms of command, the preponderance of verses focus on the command to baptise rather than the command to be baptised.)

In the Lord’s Supper, again we receive.  We sit at the table of the Lord and eat what he provides.  He is the spiritual host.  And he is the spiritual food (specifically in his death).  The focus is what is graciously given.  Again there is no legal or juridical context. The context when the disciples are first introduced to the Supper could not be more intimate and familial.  Christ’s love for his own and his desire to fellowship with them is the atmosphere in which it is inaugurated (Luke 22:15).  His love is on full display.  He washes their feet, feeds them, teaches them, comforts and prepares them for the coming hours and days; having loved his own which were in the world he loves them to the end.

The Lord’s Supper is a love feast.  It is no formal ritual with eating a legal duty.  It is not rigidly confined by rules and regulations.  Nor is it elaborate or ceremonial.  The meal is the essence of simplicity.  It is simply bread and wine and we are free in when we eat it and where we eat it (Cf Acts 2).  What matters is the state of heart in which we eat (1 Cor 11).  We should eat realising that it is a meal symbolising the oneness of God’s people in the body of Christ (1 Cor 10:16).   We eat out of love for the Lord and a desire to fellowship with him and his people.  Any thought of mere obligation to a rite or ordinance fails to grasp what it is about; ritualism and relationship are mutually exclusive.

Much more of course could be said regarding these gospel privileges, however, my concern is simply to underline that both, like the Lord’s day, arise in a context of grace and relationship not law and ritual and both reflect the context in which they arise.  Be suspicious of every attempt to squeeze ritualistic drama from these privileges for the less we appreciate their inner spiritual realities the more we will make of their externalities.

We should also note in this context that neither has any intrinsic ‘magical’ saving quality.  They have no sacramental value of themselves.  Being baptised and taking the Lord’s Supper does not confer grace or guarantee spiritual security.   1 Cor 10 makes this very clear; it is possible to be both baptised and regularly take the Lord’s Supper yet be destroyed by God.

fasting

Paul is quite clear that denying ourselves bodily needs and provisions is no virtue in itself.  The Mosaic Covenant (Judaism)  made numerous ascetic ritualistic demands on the people.  Not so the NT.  In fact,  it explicitly condemns ascetic impositions (Col 2:20-23) describing such teachings as the teaching of ‘deceiving spirits’ and ‘doctrines of demons’ (1 Tim 4:1-5).  Real self-denial, we discover, is not a denial of the body but a denial of the flesh (our Adamic human nature opposed to God).  Yet, fasting is something the NT assumes God’s people may do from time to time (Matt 9:15) normally depriving ourselves of some legitimate bodily need (usually food).

What are we to make of this apparent contradiction?  The first thing to be said is that in the New Covenant fasting is always voluntary (whether by an individual or a group).  There is no imposed season for fasting.  There is no rule that tells us we must fast.  Indeed there is no injunction to fast. Yet  Jesus assumes his people will fast and Paul tells us he often fasted.  We are not told when to fast, where to fast, how to fast, or how long to fast (though it should not be of such a time that Satan can take advantage Cf 1 Cor 7: 5).  Again the difference between law and gospel becomes apparent.

If someone fasts it will be because the Holy Spirit prompts him or her to do so.  Such prompting appears to be definite and in lieu of a specific task or purpose.   Thus Jesus fasts before facing the temptation of Satan and the beginning his public ministry (Matt 4:2).   Some of the church at Antioch fasted as they were considering the future strategy of expansion.  When Paul and Barnabas were considering who to appoint as elders in various churches they fasted (Acts 13:2, 14:23).  It seems too that fasting was generally accompanied by prayer (Lk 2:37, 5:33).  The point is this was a time of intense seeking the mind of God and humbling oneself before the Lord.  It is to our shame that most of us know little of this today.  Prayer and fasting seem to be linked with spiritual power.  Perhaps we see here a reason for our spiritual weakness.

For our purposes, the main point to note is that fasting is not an institutionalised ritual that is part of an imposed church calendar but is an activity that arises out of a burden placed on the heart by the Holy Spirit.  How easily our legalistic hearts institutionalise and ossify activities that should flow from freedom in the Spirit.  The value of a fast does not lie in the hunger for food it creates but the hunger for God that created it.

conclusion

The heart of Christianity is a living relationship with Christ by faith.  We live in union with him, rooted and grounded in him, and nourished by him (Cols 2).  Everything that ritualises, institutionalises and mechanises this should be treated with suspicion.  How ready we are to make a ritual or a law out of what is intended to arise from the heart freely as it seeks God’s face.  How easily we turn from life in the Spirit to the deadening letter, from privilege to performance, from relationship to ritual, from the unveiled to the veiled, from the spiritual to the sensual, from grace to works.

Let’s make it our aim to discover the true grace of God and having discovered it, to stand fast in it.

ear piercing and bondslaves

What is the difference between the obedience Law demanded and that which Christ displays?  It seems beyond coincidence that the answer is signalled in Exodus immediately upon the giving of the Ten Commandments, the pulse of the Mosaic Covenant.  In Exodus 21 we read:

Exod 21:1-6 (ESV)
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

Having received from Yahweh the Ten Words of the Covenant in Ex 19, 20, Moses begins to develop its civil and ceremonial implications.  First comes legislation regarding slaves.  There are, of course, many questions that press in upon us when we consider the Bible and slavery, but these are not for this post.  Here, I want to flag simply the Christotelic aim of the text.

Israel, understood slavery all too well.  The people had until very recently been little more than a rabble of slaves in Egypt.  They may have been God’s people but they had yet to develop real national identity.  It was only in leaving Egypt and subsequent journeying in the wilderness that national identity (and dignity) began to be shaped and the stigma of the past erased.  Yet it was never quite erased.  Israel never quite forgot her past.  Actually, the Lord did not let her forget.  As the Law is about to be reiterated for the second time on the eve of entering into her inheritance (the Promised Land) she is reminded:

Deut 5:6 (ESV)
“‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Some 500 or so years later he is still reminding them of this (Mic 6:4).

Yet, while God rescues them from slavery in Egypt there is a sense in which their slavery continues.  They are no longer slaves in Egypt but are now slaves of Yahweh.  There is a sense in Scripture in which we are all slaves.  Slavery cannot be avoided, the only question is who we serve.  In Ex 19,20, the Lord, the great King-Warrior who liberated them from Egypt,  spells out the implications of their redemption.  As their liberator (according to the customs of ancient civilizations) he had rights over those he liberated; they were obligated to him.  In the Covenant of Sinai, of Law, Israel was bound over to serve the Lord.  His authority was of a different kind but the fact remained, he was their Lord; he was their ‘Master’  and ‘Owner’ (Isa 1:3; Jer 3:14; Mal 1:6) and this Israel must never forget.   In the NT, this covenant of Sinai, the Law,  is called a ‘yoke of slavery’ (Gals 5:1, Cf  Gals 2:4).

Israel was enslaved to the Lord like the purchased Hebrew slave.  In redeeming her, she was rightfully his – he was her legal Master.  He had rights of life and death over her.  She was responsible (on pain of death) to obey his Law.  She must serve him.  There was nothing voluntary about this.  Israel had no option but to accept the covenant; all, under Law, were involuntary slaves (Cf Gal 4).  She, like the Hebrew slaves among her, was indentured and must serve (six years – the number six is often associated with human responsibility in Scripture) until the promised freedom of the year of Jubilee.

If, upon the year of Jubilee, the slave did not wish to be free, if his love for his Master and family was so great he refused his freedom, then he was to be taken to a door-post (probably that of his Master) and his ear bored through with an awl.  The bored ear symbolised his commitment to his Master (an ear ever open and devoted to his commands).  He made himself a slave for life, forever.

We must all serve, but there are different kinds of service.  There is the involuntary service of legal duty and there is the voluntary service of devoted love.  The difference is as absolute as Law and gospel.  In Law we have involuntary service; in gospel we have voluntary service.  The difference is all-important.  Gospel service is the service of Christ.  Christ, although born ‘under law’ didn’t serve simply within the relationship of this covenant.  He introduced a new way of serving.  The service of Christ was never mere legal duty.  His was service of an altogether higher kind.  It was the voluntary service of love and devotion.  Love always delights to serve. It was the service of one whose  ear was bored through with an awl.  This is precisely the figure used  of Messiah in Psalm 40 (and cited in Hebs 10).

Ps 40:6-8 (ESV)
​​​​​​​​In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, ​​​​​​​but you have given me an open  [dug, bored, pierced] ear. ​​​​​​​ Burnt offering and sin offering ​​​​​​​you have not required. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​Then I said, “Behold, I have come; ​​​​​​​in the scroll of the book it is written of me: ​​​ ​​​​​​​​I delight to do your will, O my God; ​​​​​​​your law is within my heart.” ​​​

The ‘opened ear’,  as in Isa 50, is a signal of dependence, but ‘opened’ also means ‘digged’ or ‘bored’; as in Ex 21 where it is a symbol of devotion; an ear ever open to obey.   It spoke of one who rejoiced in God’ will, who had this will engraved on his heart.  For him sacrifice and service was never merely duty, but delight.  He did the things that pleased his father because he loved him.  His meat, that which nourished his being, was to do obey.  He would hear no will but the will of the One who sent him (Jn 6:38).  And he came voluntarily.  He entered voluntarily into bond-slavery and did so forfeiting complete freedom.  Being in the form of God he took the form of a bondslave for this was his father’s will.  No-one but God could ‘take the form of a servant’ for everyone else was a servant.   Of course, here relationships begin to overlap.  For Christ, his God is his Father.   He becomes a bondslave but is always a Son.    His devotion to his God, his Master, is devotion to his Father: ‘but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do’ (Jn 14:31). And it is a devotion ‘unto death, even the death of the cross’.  He will not be free.  He loves his Master.

And he will not go free because he loves his wife and family: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (Jn 13:1).  When the heavens were established Christ, the divine wisdom, was there beside God, like a master workman, ​​​​​​​and was daily his delight, ​​​​​​​rejoicing before him always, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​rejoicing in his inhabited world ​​​​​​​and delighting in the children of man (Prov 8).   Here is mystery.  What is man that the Lord should care for us  (Ps 8)?  Why should he set his love upon the children of men?  Yet he does.  Christ will serve gladly,  because he loves the church and will sacrifice himself  fully for her (Eph 5).  In love, he will lay down his life for her (1 Jn 3:16).  Like Jacob he will serve as long as necessary that he may win her and make her his own.  Love bears all things, and endures all things.  Love never fails. Love never abandons.  Love, once awakened, is as strong as death; it is irresistible and unquenchable.  It will have its way.  Love exclaims, ‘I love my wife. I will not go free’.  And so he took a towel and girded himself.   He came among his people as one who served and gave his life a ransom for the many.  He proclaims in resurrection to his God,  ‘Behold I, and the children you have given me’.  He does not take up the cause of angels but lays hold of the seed of Abraham; his delights are truly with the children of men.  He loves his wife and children. He will not go free.

Of course, we too are bondslaves.  Having been set free from sin we have become slaves of God (Roms 6).  Our kiss of vassal allegiance to the Son was a confession of such.  It effectively said:

“Pierce my ear, O Lord, I pray;
Take me to Your door this day.
I will serve no other god;
Lord, I’m here to stay.
For You have paid the price for me;
With Your love you ransomed me.
I will serve You eternally;
A free man I’ll never be.”

Paul says, let this attitude be in you which was also in Christ Jesus… he took the form of a bondslave… he made himself nothing.  We are ‘sanctified to the obedience of Christ’ (Hebs 2).  And like Christ we serve not in the old way of the letter (Law and mere imposed duty) but in the new way of the Spirit.  Like Messiah the law is engraved on our hearts.  Ours is the slavery of sons.  Our nature is to love for to be born of God is to love for God is love.  Love is the nature of the life of Christ within, the fruit of the indwelling Spirit.  Our renewed hearts gladly recognise that nothing we have is our own.  Our possessions, our talents, our life, our all… we hold them for the giver.  And such bondservice gladdens the heart of God.   The God who in selfless love gave his Son as a propitiation for our sins and freely along with him gives us all things wants more than obligated love, he wants unconstrained love, chosen love, reciprocated love.  Who loves, who does not wish to be loved in turn?

And, in love too we serve one another.  In the gospel we are called to freedom. Only we do not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another (Gals 5:13).   If he, our Lord and Master, has washed our feet then we, in his spirit and by his Spirit, will wash each others feet.  And so we gird our loins.  In love we consider others before ourselves.   In love we avoid behaviour that would make others trip.  We carry each others burdens.  We outdo each other in showing deference and honour.  We contribute to the need of the saints and show hospitality.  Whatever gifts we have been entrusted with we use for the building up of the body of Christ.  We walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us as a fragrant sacrifice to God.   Such service delights God.  The service of the elected slave who says,  ‘I love my Master, I love my family (the people of God) I will not go free’.

Of course, we fail.  Even as I write this, I see how poor my service is.   This is a reason for regret but not for dismay or fear for my acceptance does not lie in the quality of my service.  At best, should we do all we ought, we will be unworthy bondslaves.  Only Christ was the perfect servant and, gloriously, my acceptance rests in his vicarious, God-vindicating, sin-eviscerating, Satan-vanquishing, infinitely valuable and voluntary bondserving death, not my vapid bondserving life.   Yet, despite our failure and in our failure, with its bitter taste fresh in our mouth, we come gladly to the throne of grace for mercy and help and say with bishop Handley Moule,

My glorious Victor, Prince Divine,
Clasp these surrender’d hands in Thine;
At length my will is all Thine own,
Glad vassal of a Saviour’s throne.

 
My Master, lead me to Thy door;
Pierce this now willing ear once more:
Thy bonds are freedom; let me stay
With Thee, to toil, endure, obey.

 
Yes, ear and hand, and thought and will,
Use all in Thy dear slav’ry still!
Self’s weary liberties I cast
Beneath Thy feet; there keep them fast.

 
Tread them still down; and then, I know,
These hands shall with Thy gifts o’erflow;
And pierced ears shall hear the tone
Which tells me Thou and I are one.

should christians go on strike?

Recently a friend suggested I write a post on whether Christians should go on strike.  I have not done so but a post that does can be found here.   The basic perspective and spirit of this post I thoroughly agree with and I think the writer (Louis Kinsey, an evangelical Church of Scotland minister) makes important and perceptive points.  I would add just a few observations, some underlining and others developing what he says.

1.  In the final analysis striking is a matter of personal conscience.  What is important is that Christians make a decision whether to strike or not based on conscience and not pragmatism nor the pressure of others.

2. In the UK striking is for many workers a legal option.  Industrial action is part of the legal provision of the country to help sustain equity in the balance of power between employer and employee.   Equity in power is a good thing in a fallen world and if withdrawing labour is part of the Government’s lawful mechanism for maintaining it then Christians may well feel freedom of conscience in exerting their rights (sometimes Paul used his rights and sometimes he did not).

3. We must be absolutely clear about our motives in striking (or not).  If we strike, we must be sure we are not simply motivated by dissatisfaction, greed and envy; is participating in the strike for my good or for the good of society?  If we don’t strike, we should be sure that we are not simply avoiding a loss of pay while allowing others to make sacrifices from which we benefit.  One possible option here is to contribute our wage to charity should we choose not to strike.

4.  We should consider carefully the wider context and implications.  The value to society of striking in the midst of a world recession should be weighed.

5.  We should consider carefully and in the light of Scripture the wider questions regarding justice.  Evangelicals today regularly tell us that God cares about justice.  This is true.  However, he also cares about how justice is achieved.  There are a number of correlated questions here.  How does God intend to bring about righteousness?  How far is personal justice a legitimate goal for a believer?  How far should we go in pursuing justice for others?  Does God intend  his people to pursue justice by coercion?  What does the way of the cross say to us about the God’s way of achieving ‘shalom’ in a fallen world?  When do Christians exercise their rights and when do they choose to forego them for higher Kingdom interests?

You may wish to further read here.

the justification/sanctification debate and a biblical voice

I have been following the debate over at the Gospel Coalition Website on the relationship between justification and sanctification.  At the heart lies the place of the law in  the Christian life.  This link (here) should get you started if you are interested.  There is a lot of confusion in some Reformed and Reformed/Lutheran quarters about this topic as I have indicated in a previous post.  The most recent contributions have been by Mike Horton who is, I am afraid, hopelessly at sea in his understanding of law and its relationship to the Christian and so ends up with a bit of a dog’s breakfast for an argument (see here and here).  His basic problem is that his thinking is controlled by confessions and not Scripture.   However, in all this confusion I want to recommend a blog post that gets it just right.  John Starke’s post (here) is a shaft of clear light in troubled and confused waters.

If you are interested in the topic I suggest you begin by reading D Moo’s first-class article (here) and perhaps some of D A Carson’s mpg 3′s that can be found online.  T Schreiner’s book ’40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law’ would also be a valuable read, as would Jason Meyer’s ‘The End of the Law’.

gospel obedience, the obedience of sons

​​​​​​​​I am writing to you children, ​​​​​​​because you know the Father. ​​​ 1John 2:13 (ESV)

Many Christians struggle deeply with their failure and sin.  We know we ought to be like Jesus (or perfect as our heavenly father is perfect) but we know just as surely that we are not.  As a result we often feel failures and live with a sense of condemnation.   This sense of condemnation and accusation is compounded significantly if we think of obedience in terms of law-keeping and many of us do.   It is a kind of default position for the flesh that always thinks in terms of personal achievement and personal justification.  To further complicate matters,  many believers are taught in their churches to think of  gospel obligations as ‘law’.  Preachers tell them that they must keep the law for their sanctification.  Thus the instinct of the flesh (law-keeping) is institutionalised in  Christian theology.

Obedience viewed as law-keeping is strongly embedded in most flavours of Reformed and Lutheran thinking.   Many Lutherans, viewing obedience as ‘law-keeping’ yet gospel instincts telling them law-keeping is sub-Christian or wrong, reject all preaching that calls for obedience labelling it legalistic.  Preach the great indicatives of the faith, they say, and ignore the imperatives, these are only law that condemns.    Any pursuit of ‘good works’ is legalism.  All our righteous deeds, even as believers, are ‘filthy rags’.   Some Reformed folks, influenced by this brand of Lutheranism (and perhaps reacting against law-preaching in their own experience) energetically extol God’s grace in the gospel, particularly in justification, but are extremely reluctant to speak of gospel imperatives or obligations.  The gospel they say is ‘trust’ not ‘trust and obey’.  It is ‘resting and not wrestling’ or ‘trusting and not trying’.    Now this is most misguided and dangerous and it flows ultimately from the false and misguided notion that Christian obligations are ‘law’.

Other Reformed believers react strongly to this dismissive approach to ‘trying’ and ‘effort’ in the Christian life, not least because the NT is full of exhortations that believers not only ‘trust’ but that they ‘obey’ and ‘make every effort’ in their Christian life; the NT even speaks of ‘the obedience of faith’ , a phrase which bookends the great exposition of the gospel in Romans (Roms 1:5:16:26).   Indeed it is full of calls for Christians to be marked by ‘good works’.   They rightly note too that these injunctions to godly living are not intended to function as the OT Mosaic Law did, that is, to show up our failure and bring us to an end of ourselves, rather they are aspirational commands for the believer in the life of faith.  NT injunctions are not intended to condemn but to counsel and convey the life of faith.  All this, this brand of Reformed thinking ‘gets’, but then they go and spoil it all by calling these gospel obligations ‘law’ and even telling believers that the Mosaic Law itself is a ‘rule of life’ for a Christian and binding on his conscience, or at least, and somewhat inconsistently, the Ten Commandments are.

The root problem, I believe, in this angst about obedience many experience, is the underlying assumption, that Christian obligation is ‘law’.  As soon as we see our call to gospel obedience as a call to ‘law-keeping’ then we think of God as a ‘Law-Giver’ and relate to him as such.  All gospel truths revealing God is our Father and we are sons seeking, like his beloved Son, our Lord, to do what our Father does (Jn 5:19), being morally what our Father is, being sons of our Father in heaven (Matt 5:45) and pleasing to him (Jn 8:29, Matt 6:4) is compromised and eclipsed by thinking of  him as Law-Giver and his directing in our lives as ‘law’; Father and Law-Giver become hopelessly entangled and gospel freedom is quagmired.

The truth is that ‘law’ keeps God at a distance.  When the OC was given the people were afraid to draw near, indeed they were forbidden on fear of death from drawing near (Ex 19,20).  When Moses came down from the Mountain and his face shone with the glory of  God, the people were unable to look at his face and had to hide until the glory faded (2 Cor 3).  Why?  The glory of God in the Law condemned.  It was simply holy demand. Law by its nature creates distance between God and his people.  This is Paul’s contention in Galatians 3.  When God made a covenant with Abraham he spoke to Abraham directly without intermediaries but not so with the Law.  There intermediaries came into play – in other words, distance was intrinsic to the Law (Gal 3:19).   Relating to God through ‘law’ is like the child in a wealthy C1 home being brought up by a guardian or disciplinarian (in our times, a boarding school!).  His relationship was with the tutor – his father was a distant figure.  In fact, he felt (and was) no better than a slave (Gal 3:24-4:3).  It was a form of captivity from which the child longed to be freed (Gal 3:23).  Little wonder Paul preached a gospel that ‘redeemed from the law’ (Gal 4:4).

And note this last text well, it is not here  freedom from sin, but freedom from the law.  And it is not freedom from the law in one form only to be sent back to another, it is freedom in every sense.  The statement is abstract and absolute and there are no qualifications; believers are not under law but under grace (Roms 6:14,15).  Grace, not law, rules the Christian life in every area.  The mature son (Gals 4:4) is not sent back to the law to be a child all over again – he lives instead as a mature son by the power of the indwelling Spirit.  He needs no such disciplinarian (as law) to keep in check and restrain him, for the indwelling Spirit of grace gives him the maturity to discern what is sinful and wrong, to reject it, and to embrace what is pleasing to his Father.  Sons don’t have disciplinarians (or a book of rules with sanctions) to train them, they have the maturity to discern and do what their father does (this would be meaningful particularly to Jewish readers whose sons became involved in the father’s business and were like their father – to be otherwise was to shame them and him).

And so, even in part to frame our relationship with God in terms of the OC (law and a Law-Giver) is pernicious.  It distances us from God and engenders a relationship of servile fear.  We immediately become either ‘law-keepers’ or ‘law-breakers’, and whichever, a mentality of fear and bondage is established in our hearts and minds.  With such a legalistic view of our relationship imposing itself, it is no wonder many believers live with an oppressive even morbid sense of condemnation and accusation.  When we conceive of obedience in terms of law-keeping and disobedience in terms of law-breaking it is only natural we begin to feel anxious about our ‘performance’,  haunted by our failures, and have a foreboding of imminent punishment.

And so, it seems as if, whether because of the default legalism of the flesh or institutionalised legalism in the church,  many of us find it difficult to live and obey within a healthy gospel liberty. We have not grasped and entered fully where grace has placed us in Christ, that is, recognising that our obedience flows from: being sons of God and knowing him as Father; having the indwelling Christ, that is, divine life, in our heart through the Spirit; and  from imitating Christ as younger children imitate an elder and admired sibling.  This is a great tragedy and ultimately the work of the Evil One who likes to rob us of our joy in God and God of his delight in our wholehearted obedience.

Now it would be good to look at Scripture and try to trace out  the contours of our position in Christ and our obedience through Scripture and I am tempted to do so.  But I will resist the temptation and perhaps do so some other time.  In the meantime, let me simply recount the reply I gave to someone who was  annoyed by my claim that all this ‘law-keeping’ mentality was sub-Christian at best and demanded to know how I ‘imagined’ obedience.

My response was something like this…

As a young father, I well remember my one-year old son taking his first steps.  I was sitting in one side of the room and he was wobbling precariously on his pegs while balancing against a chair some few yards away.  I held out my hands and called on him to walk towards me.  I knew he was ready to go and just needed some encouragement and direction.  After a fleeting hesitation he began to waddle unsteadily across the few yards towards me.  He managed to cover the whole few metres on two wobbling legs and podgy feet without resorting to his default ambulation, crawling.  It was a moment of great celebration.  I gave him a big congratulatory hug and he gave a big contented smile.

Now spiritually this is us.  I am like a baby trying to take his first steps. I look to my Father and see his encouragement to walk towards him and I start walking (like Peter in the water to his Master) keeping my eye on him.  I may totter a little.  I may even fall and have to struggle to my feet and try again.  If I fall I am sorry but I don’t feel my Father loves me less. I don’t feel condemned.  I don’t expect punishment, or fear I’m not his son.  He is still smiling encouragingly.  He applauds the few steps I managed and urges me to get up and try some more. And I do so.

This view of obedience is as far from law-keeping as night from day but it is very close to the biblical picture.  When as a father I encouraged my son to walk towards me I wasn’t asking him to do what was beyond him.  I knew human beings walk; I didn’t ask him to do something that was alien to his nature.   Nor did I encourage him to walk when he was a month old.  I waited until he was ready.    Everything about his being at that point was ready and wanted to walk.  It was natural to him.  Instinctive.  Walking is what human beings do.  I was encouraging him to do what he was made to do.

Nor did the thought cross his mind (or mine) that he was in trouble if he fell.  He was secure in his Father’s love.  The command came with open arms.   Had he fallen, I would not have been ready to come down on him like a ton of bricks.  There was no punishment for failure.  Now don’t get me wrong, when he did something deliberately naughty he was disciplined.  When he rebelled against authority there were consequences.  But punishment and consequences were in the context of a loving family and not a law-court.  Fathers discipline in love and because of love (Heb 12).  As Christians, our failure at times is wilful and deliberate and incurs our heavenly Father’s displeasure and discipline, and if we are thinking rightly we will welcome this and acknowledge its necessity and benefit.  Some failure, however, is falling when we are trying to walk and that is a different matter.

Neither my son nor I have siblings.  We are only children. Often where there is an older brother or sister the child learns more quickly.  He tends to copy the older sibling.  In a sense the Lord Jesus is like that to us.  He has lived the life of faith before us and done so perfectly.  He inspires us and sets the example and we learn from him (Heb 12).  But yet again we are seeing growth and obedience within a family context.

My son learned to walk.  Then I taught him how to ride a scooter… then a bicycle… then sail a windsurf Board… then drive a car…  Each stage in life brought a new challenge, a new opportunity for growth and development and for relationship.   For all of these were occasions of Father/Son intimacy and joy; he found joy in my pleasure at his accomplishment and I found joy in his willingness to learn and his success.

Such is life in the family of God.  The life of faith and obedience as our heavenly Father develops within us all the potentialities of the eternal life he has given through Christ.  Today, my son is an adult and many of his skills, mannerisms, and human characteristics are similar to mine; nature and nurture have taken their course.  Sometimes the likeness is uncanny and scary (for I am fallen and not the best source of nature and nurture).  But which father does not get pleasure when he sees himself in his son (and which son does not delight to see his father in him)?   Which father does not rejoice in the intimacy of an adult relationship with his son?   And which son does not cherish this relationship – only sin destroys this?   My son knows what my mind will be on many things almost without asking.  Our thinking on many issues travels down similar grooves.  We can often work in tandem without words.   Of course the analogy is not quite exact.  He is his mother’s son too and this creates complications… but you get the illustration.

Sure, this is just an illustration.  It is not the whole picture, not by any manner of means.  But it is far nearer the biblical perspective of Christian obedience and growth than our default legalism and the institutionalised legalism of aspects of Reformed theology.

I could have sent my boy off as a child to Boarding School and put him under the care of tutors and disciplinarians.    Had I done so then he would have learned through punishment and hardship.  He would have seen me as a more remote figure in the background and perhaps a much harder one (such is life directed by law).  But I didn’t.  He grew up in his father’s house, knowing his father and his father’s love, and that made all the difference. (Cf. Gal 4).

Let’s grow up in the Father’s house, knowing the Father.  And preachers, please don’t send us to boarding school.

Gal 3:23-4:7 (ESV)
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.  I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. 

superstitions and the christian

It is surprising and disturbing how many Christians are superstitious.  Without embarrassment many will… through salt over their shoulders… refuse to walk under a ladder… touch wood as a good-luck charm… read their horoscopes etc.

Superstitions like these are, of course, profoundly unChristian.  They assume forces other than God control the course of history and order our lives.  They are deeply pagan.  Sure, for many these are kind of thoughtless gestures.  Yet thoughtless gestures reflect an underlying belief.  The trouble with superstitions is that they may begin almost as a joke.  In the West, especially in Protestant countries that have become largely irreligious superstitions seem harmless fun.  People ‘pretend’ to believe in them.  They do not understand what they are flirting with.  For what happens is that what starts as a lark becomes a belief.  The tennis player who notices when he wins he normally has his red sweat-band on his wrist.  At first he is merely bemused and decides to wear it regularly in a self-mocking way.  But in time he will not play without it.  It has gained power over his mind.

The same is true of horoscopes.   Someone reads their horoscope for a bit of a laugh or out of curiosity.  Curiosity encourages them to read it more regularly.  Before too long they read it slavishly and order their life by it.  Such is the nature of demonic activity.  The superstition (like an idol) is nothing in itself.  It is mere folly – self-evidently nonsense.  But behind these lie demons ready to trap the unwary.  Slowly the superstition gains power over the mind and so demonic slavery is established.

I have a ladder angled on the gutters on my house at the moment.  I almost make a point of walking under it rather than round it (checking that there is nothing on it that may fall on my head).  I am asserting that God and not some charm is my protector and keeper.  Christ is the one in whom I live and move and have my being.

Paul’s words are apposite here:

Col 2:8 (ESV)
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

and

1Cor 8:4-6 (ESV)
Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth-as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. 

1Cor 10:14-22 (ESV)
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 

The apparently innocent is not as innocent as it seems.  Don’t be taken captive by empty superstitions.

christmas hate

Rather amusing post from Michael Bird over at Eungelion.  Though, given the modern hype, I think the Puritans had a point, even if they were a little obsessive.  Interesting observation too on notions of Christian liberty (Roms 14:5,6).