GREATER RICHES

It is a weighty matter to attempt to write on a subject so grand as the person and work of the One referred to most often in the Bible simply as “the Spirit”.  It is likely that He is the person of the triune Godhead who has been least understood and appreciated during these Christian centuries.  While it would be impossible to do justice to the subject of the eternal Spirit in a brief article, or for that matter even in a lengthy commentary, He is nevertheless worthy of diligent study and meditation, and the word of God gives us ample material for such a meditation.

There seems to be a reluctance among many Christians to delve into such an unfathomable subject, in light of the error that many in Charismatic and Pentecostal circles have been led into by exalting the Spirit of God to a place He never took for Himself. After the ascension and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit came forth from the Father as the Spirit of truth, in order to bear testimony of and to glorify Christ, not to speak from Himself (on His own), nor to solicit glory or worship for Himself.¹ Accordingly, there is no precedent in all of Scripture for praying to or worshiping the Spirit, nor for praying in His name.

An even more serious error in the opposite “ditch” has been the denial by various cults over the centuries of the distinct personality and deity of the Spirit. Such a denial destroys the fundamental doctrine of the trinity, of God fully revealing Himself in three persons in Christianity, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The trinity of the Godhead was not fully understood in the Old Testament (although retrospectively we can see partial disclosures of it), but to undermine it now in any way is the height of heterodoxy.

A good way to learn about the Spirit is to review His titles or designations throughout the word of God, but particularly in the New Testament, where His person and work is revealed with respect to Christ and His own. There are more than a dozen such designations, and it is my purpose to touch on the significance of some of them briefly.

The Spirit:  In the frequent use of the title of “the Spirit”, the lack of a modifier would seem to indicate most clearly His personality, dignity, and authority. We might provide as examples the occasions in the Acts when the Spirit definitely directs the apostles and prophets in their actions and utterances, as well as in I Corinthians 12, where He seen as the power behind the spiritual gifts or manifestations in the assembly.

The Spirit of God:  We find this title used in several places in the Scriptures to establish the Spirit’s deity, and particularly His absolute competency in revealing the things of God to saints who are indwelt by Him. “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (I Corinthians 2:10-12). Another example of this appears in I John 4:2: “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” The spirit of a man knows what lies in the man himself, but it has no capacity to truly know God apart from the Spirit of God, who searches “the deep things of God.”

The Holy Spirit:  Usually rendered “Holy Ghost” by the translators of the KJV Bible, this designation for the Spirit frequently sets before us His interest in bearing testimony to God’s holiness in this world now that God has manifested Himself here in flesh, and so we scarcely find the term in the Old Testament. Consider these fragments:  “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee . . . therefore also that holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1: 35).  “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).  “For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness . . . who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit” (I Thessalonians 4:7-8). Fittingly, “Holy Spirit” is used dozens of times in the Acts, in which God begins to call, by His Spirit, a people sanctified or set apart² for Himself out of an unholy world.

The Comforter:  This title of the Spirit is found exclusively in the “upper room ministry” of the Lord Jesus (John 13-16), where He speaks so tenderly to His disciples of the time period after He would go to the Father.  Jesus would no longer be with them to aid them and comfort them, as He had so faithfully for more than three years. So He promised not to leave them comfortless, or as orphans (14:18), for it was His care and advocacy that they especially seemed to fear losing. The Greek word translated here as Comforter, parakletos, is also translated as “advocate” in I John 2:1, where it is “Jesus Christ the righteous” who takes up our cause or makes our case before the Father when we sin.  This helps us to understand the Comforter’s advocacy on our behalf in this world, while we are “absent from the Lord.”

The Spirit of Truth:  The Lord Jesus speaks to His disciples in the upper room of the coming of the Spirit of truth,¹ in conjunction with His title of Comforter. Not only does the Spirit take up the Christian’s cause and act as advocate for him, but He also bears a true witness concerning the glorified Christ, and is fully competent to guide the Christian “into all the truth.”  There can be no excuse for a believer going astray from the body of revealed truth found in the word of God,³ and especially not since much truth long forgotten was recovered through the goodness of God a couple of centuries ago. How much we ought to depend upon the Lord to bring us along in our souls in the enjoyment of the truth, by means of the Spirit of truth!

(To be continued, Lord willing.)

 

¹  John 15:26; 16:13-15

²  The words “holy”, “sanctified”, and “saint” are all from the same Greek root.

³  See also I John 2:20-27

Over the past three decades, I have often been asked to give an account of the way the Lord has led us in our walk with Him and with others of the household of faith. When Pharaoh asked Jacob to give an account of his years at their first meeting in ancient Egypt, Jacob’s answer was not yet an utterance of worship or of hope, for it seems he was just beginning to make the transition from complainant with a begrudging, backward look to worshiper with prophetic insight and upward gaze. May my outlook never be that “all these things are against me”, or that “few and evil have been the days of the years” of my sojourning.  Much rather, let my spirit emulate that of the Jacob who finally said: “The God that shepherded me all my life long to this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil”.¹ For the Lord has indeed been my Shepherd through the years.

I was born to loving parents, was reared, born again, baptized, married, and started a family in a Christian denomination that dates back almost 500 years to the early period of the Reformation. I have many fond memories of my first 25 years, for the church folk around me were caring and kind, and I wish for those who remain there only the blessing of the Lord.  But it was perhaps in my 24th year that the Spirit of God began to exercise my soul, first as to my own failures, and then as to the claims of the Scriptures upon me, not only morally, but also ecclesiastically and doctrinally. I will attempt to give account of these exercises, and of how the Lord shepherded me, along with my understanding wife, through a period of changes and up to this day.

The first matter that the Lord used to stir me up was that of denominational identity. While others around me seemed to find no fault with denominating themselves collectively using the name of an early leader of that religious movement, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the custom when I read and thought upon the implications of I Corinthians 1:10-13 and 3:4-7.  “While one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?”  That is a searching question that surely goes deeper than sectarian names, but it certainly must include that prejudicial practice.

Perhaps the logical outcome of a having a conscience troubled about denominationalism was to seek to understand how the church of God was meant to function in practical unity, prior to its gradual division into various communions over disputes ranging from trivial to foundational. To my unlearned mind, it was evident that these divisions were all the result of failure among Christians of one sort or another, but I longed to be able to have fellowship with other believers on a scriptural basis. In fact, I remember telling others, with some conviction, that there had to be a basis for fellowship with other Christians worldwide that was scriptural, and that met the criteria that the Spirit had impressed upon me to date, even though I had as of yet no idea if there were any in the world who met simply on that ground, on those principles.

During that particular period, the church we belonged to was looking and praying for a minister or “preacher”, for it hadn’t had one for several years, and procuring one was thought to be necessary to the church’s spiritual well-being. At one particular Wednesday night Bible study, the text of I Timothy 5 was under discussion. When verse 17 came into view, more light on the matter of ministry and leadership in the church of God dawned on me than ever had up to that point. “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.” I already knew what Bible scholars generally admit, that “elders” and “bishops” (overseers) were the same people viewed from different perspectives. What impressed me was that in the beginning it was normal for there to be multiple elders or overseers in an assembly, rather than one bishop over a congregation or group of congregations, as our denomination taught. Furthermore, it was obvious from this verse that an elder may or may not spend much of his time laboring in the word, showing that the rigid structure of ordination and the clergy/laity divide was not contemplated by the Spirit of God or by the apostles.

The most earth-shaking development in my soul during that period was a dawning conviction that true believers in Christ were eternally secure without a possibility of losing their eternal life or salvation. Even more striking to me (and at the same time a cause for the welling-up of some real emotion for the gravity of it), was the nascent understanding that I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, which of course supported the truth of eternal security. Multiple Scripture references bear on these wonderful doctrines,² but for this narrative it will suffice to mention John 10:26-30.  By means of that passage, I inadvertently raised a controversy during another Bible study I happened to be leading during a Sunday morning service, for a minister had not yet been ordained to fill the normal preaching role.  “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me . . .”  Found together in these three verses are perfect security, election, and predestination, but it is remarkable how quickly the argument is made by Arminian teachers that one can take himself out of Christ’s hand, even if none else can. However, the brief phrase “they shall never perish”, taken in context but not annulled by the subordinate clause that follows it, is enough to assure the soul of the simple believer that he shall not, under any circumstance, finally be lost forever.

Realizing that the truth that God was impressing upon me was not welcome in our native denomination, we left it so as not to stir up emotion and strife among those we still loved. But the Lord had more to teach us before He settled our hearts with regard to the matter of fellowship. We attended a small home church for about six months, where I became troubled about several of their traditional teachings. Not only did they also reject the doctrine of the believer’s eternal security, but I came to see there the pitfalls of a legalistic believer’s baptism, autonomy in church fellowship, and an open (unguarded) communion table. After seeing these errors, we were led by God’s shepherding care away from that group and to a gathering of saints where the many things I had learned by the Spirit from the Bible over the course of a year or two were answered and affirmed.

It brought further affirmation to find that two of the teachings I had learned and held as true from my youth in our ancestral sect were also appreciated among these brethren gathered simply in the name of the Lord Jesus:  Conscientious objection to military and political involvement, and the clear teaching as to head coverings in ministry and worship, found in I Corinthians 11.

Dispensational teaching was one major line of truth that I only came to learn and enjoy a few years after being gathered with others in the name of the Lord Jesus.  The brethren were patient with my ignorance in that regard, allowing time for growth in the understanding of God’s timetable and His various ways of dealing with men on the earth throughout the ages, which dispensationalism teaches. The “blessed hope” of the rapture of the church to meet its Head in heaven, and of our literal reign with Him for a thousand years, still brings great comfort and enjoyment to our hearts. It is only right that the Lord Jesus Christ should be glorified and reign over this earth (where He was once crucified and is still rejected), ruling the nations with a rod of iron, receiving them from His Father as an inheritance, in company with His beloved church.³

It has brought satisfaction and peace to my soul to have a real sense that our loving Lord has shepherded us, in many cases by teaching me principles from His word months prior to encountering brethren who enjoyed and practiced the same truth. By grace, we can still have happy fellowship on the simple ground of the unity of the body of Christ, though in separation from false doctrine and practice. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

I have waxed longer with this account than necessary, perhaps, but there is even more that could have been said for the glory of God.  May the Lord use this much as an encouragement to seeking souls.  “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

 

¹  Genesis 42:36; 47:9; 48:15-16 (Darby translation)

²   Ephesians 1:3-14; Romans 8:31-39; John 6:37-40

³   Psalm 2:8-9; Revelation 2:27

Over the past few generations, Western society has been increasingly viewed through a prism that divides liberal and conservative thought, and many of us tend to place ourselves somewhere in that spectrum.  This is understandable, if we take into account the historical forces and paradigm shifts that have changed the world over the last century.

A term that has come into vogue as a more palatable substitute for “liberal” is the term “progressive”, at least when the subject is the political spectrum. If the term “liberal” is used in a societal or religious context, there is implied by it a liberty or freedom of thought that is disinclined to be bound to historical norms or traditional teachings. The idea of progressivism seems to emphasize more the spirit of making progress, which of necessity implies that a former mode of thinking or acting lacks the moral power to provide modern humanity with the peace and prosperity it has always sought. These terms are both relative ones, when viewed against their cultural and historical setting.

Conservatism is also a relative paradigm, and I suppose no one would dispute that observation. But what interests me as a student, both of the Word of God and of the human race, is not whether a segment of society or a political party are deemed conservative relative to a liberal or progressive paradigm: What really matters are the principles and practices that are being conserved, or kept safe and intact. After all, what value is there in keeping that which is by nature false or corrupted?

The word of God, understood and taught within a dispensational framework¹, is without doubt the preeminently worthwhile thing to be conserved or kept in this life. God gives us His own estimation of His word by the pen of David in Psalm 138:2:  “I will . . . praise Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and for Thy truth: for Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name.”  The word of God is the medium by which God has revealed His name to us (as Jehovah to Israel and as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the New Testament), therefore He gives His word the preeminence that befits it.

The Lord Jesus’ entire life demonstrates to us the value He placed on the Scriptures. As the Word made flesh, He could not do otherwise than obey it implicitly, and He made it clear to all that the word of God formed all of His thoughts and guided all He did.²  Jesus continually reminded His followers of the importance of obeying and keeping the word of God, and His gentle correction of an adoring woman in His company in Luke 11:27-28 ought to speak volumes to us.  When she made much of the blessedness of Mary, as many in Christendom still do, He does not miss the opportunity to declare what it is that really brings blessedness: “Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” This declaration ought to be for Christians the very essence of conservative Christianity – conserving the word of God in all its integrity (not the traditions of men) by allowing it full authority over our lives and consciences.

Satan uses many devices to prevent us from keeping the word of God, but I will mention a few that we ought to particularly guard against in these last days. Worldliness keeps so many from even reading or “hearing” the word, which is an obvious prerequisite for keeping it. Humanism keeps a man’s thoughts and aspirations down at the level of human needs and desires, rather than seeking first and foremost the glory of God, and His righteousness. Liberalism leads people astray by emphasizing ethics over doctrine and experience over Scriptural authority, when it is sound doctrine and the authority of God’s word to which the Lord Himself and all the inspired writers subject our consciences. Allowing oneself to be caught in any of these snares virtually ensures failure in conserving the precious word of God.

There is an apt picture of the principle of conserving the truth we have received, given us in Ezra 8:24-34, in which a remnant of Judah returned from Babylon to Jerusalem carrying the silver, gold, and vessels of the house of God, which had been looted from the temple by King Nebuchadnezzar many years earlier. This precious trove was weighed and counted at the beginning of their trip, carried across the desert, and finally weighed and counted again at the end of the journey, to ensure that all that collection so valuable to Jehovah was kept in its integrity until they reached their destination.

May each of us who have been predestined for glory, and to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, have the desire and the strength to keep the truth of His word until we reach that final destination. The word of the Lord Jesus to the Philadelphian saints was: “Thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word . . . ” and again, “Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world.”³  It is especially encouraging to notice that, of all the seven churches written to in Revelation 2 and 3, the positive assurance of the Lord’s love (“I have loved you”) is given only to the Philadelphian saints, who kept His word.  Surely the Lord Jesus loves all of His own, but those whom He can commend for keeping His word are especially able to claim and enjoy it.

 

¹   Understanding the Scriptures dispensationally simply means that God has dealt with man on the earth in different ways administratively during the various periods of history.

²   John 1:14; 5:30,39; 7:16-18; 8:26-28; etc.

³   Revelation 3:8-10

In the end, it was the God of heaven who selected the 45th president of the United States of America. Many of those in that country who feared Him had been in consternation as to the moral or spiritual qualifications of the candidates for that high office, and some had prayed that their God would give reprieve from what seemed to be a decline into an increasingly intolerant environment for faithful Christians. After all, the Bible enjoins prayer “for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (I Timothy 2:2).

Many of the Christians who voted for the prevailing candidate were never quite able to feel good about doing so in the light of the scandals and moral failings they had become well aware of before they cast their vote for the president, and some of them fell back in their minds on the old doctrine of “the end justifies the means.”  Those who voted for the losing candidate were eventually tempted with a feeling of schadenfreude while observing the failures of the new leader, who would never in any case have been able to right the sinking ship of moral and political power in what was called the West.

The new president presided over a superpower nation, one of the nations which the Lord Jesus declared would hold sway on this earth and over the land of His chosen people Israel, until “the times of the nations (Gentiles)” would be fulfilled (Luke 21:24). For He who became known as the God of heaven in Daniel’s day because His land was overrun by the the nations, is still really the “Lord of all the earth”¹ that Joshua knew, who led His chosen people into the land of Canaan, that land which He specially claimed in perpetuity (Leviticus 25:23; Ezekiel 21:27) to be the earthly inheritance of the people of the Son of Man.

The diplomatic priorities and policies of the new president contributed to the rise of kingdoms in the Middle East that would invade the land of Israel and eventually fall in the battles of Armageddon.  And no matter what strategy this leader of the free world pursued in dealing with Russia, that ascendant nation continued the diabolical scheming that would eventually lead to its utter destruction; because in the end, Russia dared to come up against Israel and its Savior, who has promised to magnify Himself and “be known [as Jehovah] in the eyes of many nations” (Ezekiel 38).

For in the end, the God of heaven and earth² will have seen to it that His beloved Son is glorified over all the earth.  All God’s delight is in His Son, who was rejected and crucified by the man whom He created. It has always been God’s ultimate and over-arching purpose to have the Lord Jesus Christ His Son take His rightful place as “firstborn of all creation . . . that in everything He might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:15-18 ESV). Prince and pauper alike will bow the knee to Him.

The most blessed portion for men in all that coming scene of His glory will be that of Christians who suffer with Christ in this life and end up overcomers, because to them is given the promise of reigning with Christ: “To him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father” (Revelation 2:26-27).  The nations, from the superpower on down to the city-state, along with their leaders, are truly no more than a drop from a bucket, no more than dust on the scales, when weighed against God’s eternal counsels.³

 

¹   Daniel 2:18,19,37,44; Joshua 3:13

²  Ezra 5:11; Matthew 11:25

³  Isaiah 40:15; Ephesians 1:8-11

Recent political events and discussions in the United States have served to remind us that God often sets up the basest of men and women over the nations of this world (Daniel 4:17). Now it is not my desire to enter into a political discussion here, but rather, to discuss a few principles from the Scriptures that may help  us understand how God maintains control in the affairs of men, all the while leaving them free to follow their own desires and inclinations.

Let’s begin with the words of an inspired prayer of the apostles and early Christians in Acts 4:24-31. “Lord, Thou art the God . . . who hast said by the mouth of thy servant David, Why have the nations raged haughtily and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth were there, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ. For in truth against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou hadst anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the nations, and peoples of Israel, have been gathered together in this city to do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel had determined before should come to pass” (Darby translation). This is a remarkable passage, for not only is it the Spirit’s indictment on history’s most nefarious conspiracy, but we are here clearly told that God is able to predetermine by His counsel an evil act or conspiracy without compromising His impeccable, holy character.

This question goes to the heart of the Calvinist/Arminian divide, and to the debate over so-called “free will”. However, I do not intend to delve into the theological depths of that argument, but rather to bring Scripture to bear primarily on the question of how God righteously constrains and manipulates men of the world for His own glory. Isaiah 45 provides a good example of this in Cyrus.

Humans sin against their Creator and against His creatures  as a result of a combination of these three factors: Inclination, Opportunity, and Suggestion. I believe we see this clearly in Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden, and I have no doubt we can trace these factors in all of our personal failures.

Eve had the inclinations that are inherent in human nature, even before she sinned, and she was drawn to the forbidden fruit for what she felt it offered her (nourishment, enjoyment, and wisdom), even though God had provided everything they needed, freely and in abundance.

Adam and Eve certainly had the opportunity to do that which forbidden by God, for He had placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden with nothing but a command to keep them from partaking of it. He placed no fence around it, and the fruit was evidently within reach of the ground.

But it was the suggestion of the serpent that we might call the catalyst that brought about the sin which God anticipated before time began.  “Ye shall not surely die . . . ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). Along with that suggestion and vital to its success was the additional claim that God’s promised judgment was but an empty threat.

It may be a difficult thing to accept, but it is the prerogative of God to commission Satan, or at least to allow him, to suggest to man a course of action that will result in glory for Himself.¹  One of the most instructive passages in the Word of God on the matter of Jehovah’s manipulation of evil spirits to lead men down a particular course is found in II Chronicles 18, where a certain spirit volunteers to use the mouth of a prophet to lead King Ahab to his doom. And in the New Testament, when Satan himself entered into poor Judas and drove him to betray the Lord Jesus, that was no doubt a part of “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). This resulted in the Lord’s crucifixion to the glory of His Father, and for the eternal blessing of all of us whom God has chosen and called.

So how does this work practically with respect to a “king”, whose “heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will”? (Proverbs 21:1)  Imagine an unbelieving king or dictator or president with a natural inclination toward pride, and a desire to be revered for his wisdom and strength. God may give opportunity (by removing hindrances, for example) to that ruler to destroy the life or career of his rival, while an evil spirit could suggest that in doing so the ruler may consolidate his power without fear of consequences. Now suppose that this kind of thing happens dozens of times a day, for decisions great or small, and that in every instance, that man makes the choices that give him the most pleasure. His heart leads him along down the path of destruction, while Satan and his servants suggest his choices and God does not hinder him. Thus is man a slave to his own lusts, in effect helpless but for sovereign intervention.

Only the Christian is free from this downward spiral of bondage to the flesh, by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).  Only the Christian has the life of Christ and the Spirit of God within, so that Paul could write: “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these things are opposed one to the other, that ye should not do those things which ye desire”.    Moreover, “the love of Christ constrains us.”²

The unbeliever has no such check on his carnal inclinations, so that if either past experience or a lying spirit suggests there are no consequences to selfish choices, there is no depth to which the natural heart of man will not go.  “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

Our God is absolutely not the author of evil, but just as He can make the wrath of man to praise Himself, and then restrain the remainder of that wrath,³ so also can He glorify Himself through the evil in the minds of His creatures. God is able to constrain the acts of the vilest despot, who nevertheless freely and continually chooses his destructive course.  And there, but for the marvelous grace of God, go I.

 

¹  II Chronicles 18:12-27; Job 1&2; Matthew 4:1; Luke 22:3; John 13:27

²  Galatians 5:17, Darby translation; II Corinthians 5:14

³  Psalm 76:10

Some of the most beautiful poetry ever written is found in Solomon’s “Song of Songs”, an ode of love (with all its graceful sentiments and instructive distractions) between the Beloved and his Love. Many Christians understand this love story to be not only applicable practically to the human marriage relationship, but also a glorious picture of Christ and His earthly bride, Israel.  By extension, all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ of any age may rightly see themselves as objects of His deep affection, His fadeless love.

In chapter 2 of that little book of the Bible, verses 3 and 4, the spouse has this to say of her Beloved: “I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love.”  There is no doubt that while she was on that ground over which love held sway, and in that moral place where His banner overspread, she had the sublime enjoyment of her Beloved, and needed nothing more to satisfy her heart.

All too soon, however, whether through her lethargy or distraction, that “fair one” is found apart from her Beloved, no more under His shadow and banner of love, and so the sadness of loss, along with the pain of unfaithfulness, is the bitter result (Song of Solomon 5:2-8). Thankfully, the story does not end there, and she is restored to the full enjoyment of His presence and His love, until she can say: “I am my Beloved’s, and His desire is toward me” (ch. 7:10).

The Ephesian assembly was given, through the apostle Paul, some of the highest and most profound truth that the Spirit of God ever taught and entrusted to man. Reading carefully through the Epistle to the Ephesians, one cannot miss the emphasis placed on “love” in that book, as it appears multiple times in each chapter. What especially stands out is the repeated appearance of the little phrase “in love”.¹  The first of those references is at the very beginning of the epistle, where we are told of our unchangeable position “without blame before Him in love”, but the remainder of them have a very practical bearing, and I believe that the Christian’s enjoyment and experience depend greatly upon his or her practically remaining there in the moral place where love’s power and influence prevails.

There are exhortations in Ephesians to walk in love and to forbear one another in love, and we have a model for the church to edify itself in love by acting as the “one body” of Christ. I would like to dwell just briefly on two of the portions in which the phrase “in love” is used in this epistle.

Paul prayed that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith, that they, “being rooted and grounded (or founded) in love”, would be able to apprehend the magnitude of the inheritance they (and we) have been given, and to know the infinite love of Christ (Ephesians 3:14-19).  Being rooted brings to mind the figure of a tree planted in a most favorable spot, as in Psalm 1:3. Being grounded in love might have the connotation of building one’s life on a firm foundation or rock (Luke 6:48-49; Ephesians 2:20; II Timothy 2:19). All of a Christian’s fruit-bearing and all of his building ought to be done in the power of the place where he is exhorted to be rooted and grounded:  In love.

The second reference I would like to touch on is in chapter 4:7-16, where the apostle describes the provision that Christ made for the church, His earthly body, upon His ascension to heaven. He clearly desired that the church (assembly) would grow to maturity and to the measure of the stature of His fullness, and that Christians who make up the assembly should not be “carried about” and swept off their mooring by all the deceiving voices that seek to turn souls from the truth to systematized error. In contrast to these deceivers, the members of the body of Christ are to “hold the truth in love” (verse 15, JND translation). There is to be “truth in the inward parts”² among the saints, a sincerity and a teachableness that seeks to know the truth of God as revealed in His Word. But this desire to know the truth is not enough by itself – it must be maintained and exercised “in love.”

The Ephesians left their “first love” within a generation, and we are told of the Lord’s displeasure in them because of it in Revelation 2:4-5. All the truth they were maintaining and defending was commendable, but without love, and having left the ground of love’s refreshing influence, the truth they held was stagnating and profited little.³

There is no substitute for truth or truthfulness held in love, where real spiritual growth is looked for.  How many dear young people have left assemblies where there is a perceived lack of sincerity, and how many souls of all ages leave assemblies that have moved away from that moral place of Christian power – “in love”.  This applies in families as well, and the blessing of seeing children “walk in truth” (III John 4) is no doubt related to the measure in which parents value the truth and seek to pass along that heritage in the power of love. But there is a place of safety and blessing, where the love of the Lord Jesus may be enjoyed and drawn upon, in spite of our failures. Jude exhorts his brethren in this manner by the Spirit: “Beloved, keep yourselves in the love of God.”

 

¹  Ephesians 1:4; 3:17; 4:2; 4:15; 4:16; 5:2   ²  Psalm 51:6   ³  See also I Corinthians 13:1-3

It is an old question among Christians: Is there an “age of accountability”, or a point at which a developing child becomes personally accountable before God for disobedience and sin? Some have suggested the twelve-year mark has some significance with respect to maturity and accountability because of the account of the Lord Jesus hearing and asking questions of the doctors of the law in Luke 2. A few have insisted that the age of accountability is 20, for that was the threshold of personal accountability for refusing to enter into the land of Canaan upon the report of the spies in Numbers 14. Some religious traditions deny the concept altogether, on the ground of their teaching that even infants are guilty of Adam’s transgression.

Before commenting on when a child might become accountable and therefore guilty, we ought to touch on the subject of guilt and imputation (reckoning) of sin. When God imputes sin to a man’s account, or charges man with sin as guilty of it, that man faces condemnation for that sin, for taking his own way in conscious disobedience to the God who has creatorial claims upon him. But God is so merciful that He only reluctantly imputes sin to man, and we can see this in II Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”  The blessed Lord’s request of His Father for His people while He was being nailed to the cross was a manifestation of His merciful attitude toward them: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Even Moses’ action of breaking the tablets of stone bearing the ten commandments (Exodus 32:19) was directed of Jehovah in order to show His people mercy, since the entrance of His holy Law into such a scene of wanton idolatry would have necessitated imputation, and therefore immediate and complete judgment for their sin; but God is “slow to anger” (Nehemiah 9:17, etc.).

Now some Bible teachers hold that Adam’s transgression was imputed to the whole of the human race, including young children, and they make statements like: “A man sins because he is a sinner”. They point to Romans 5:12-19, where Paul writes that “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners”. However, just because a child is constituted or appointed a member of a race of sinners by birth does not mean he will be condemned for the sin of that race’s head, Adam. In this very passage, and quite contrary to the teaching that Adam’s sin was imputed to us at conception or birth, we read that “all have sinned”.  This very definitely connects individual responsibility to the condition of the race as under condemnation, showing (I believe) that there is no imputation of sin and no individual condemnation until there has been conscious, willful sin against God.

Keeping in mind God’s merciful hesitance in imputing or reckoning sin, which would result in condemnation, we may learn much from Jesus’ testimony as to the practical moral innocence of our little ones. “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven”, He said, and “put His hands upon them, and blessed them” (Matthew 19:14; Mark 10:14-16). These children were no doubt affected by the fall of Adam with its consequences of death, disease, and an innate conscience of good and evil. However, they had evidently not yet doubted or spurned the goodness of God toward them, nor developed the guile in their hearts (by squelching conscience or despising commandments) that would render those hearts “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 7:9).

The Lord Jesus spoke a parable in Matthew 18, after His words of acceptance and approval of the little ones, whose angels (their spirits) always behold the face of the Father in heaven.  “If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” (v. 12, ESV)   Just before He posed this question, he spoke of His mission to “save that which was lost”¹, in the context of the little children He valued so highly. Children need a Savior, for they are part of a fallen race, and part of a groaning creation, but it is only after they willfully go astray and leave that place of nearness to God “on the mountains”, that they need to be sought, found, and brought back to God by the Shepherd of their souls.

On the cross of Calvary, the “Savior of the world” has already completed the infinitely effectual work of redemption, by which He will “[take] away the sin of the world”, and “reconcile all things to Himself”.  God’s desire and plan was to remove the curse of sin from creation and to bring it into a state of reconciliation and peace in a coming day of millennial glory, when heaven will open and form a connection with a cleansed earth . How could we not then view little children as “safe”, of whose kind is the kingdom of heaven?  For “Jesus Christ the Righteous . . . is the propitiation . . . for the whole world”.²  Everything has been done for their temporal safety and blessing. What a blessing it is when our children and grandchildren go directly from being safe to being saved without straying far!

At what age or stage of development does a child go astray and lose that safe and blessed status? Is it when there is the first sign of conscience working after some disobedience?  The Lord alone knows. But I would suggest it does not hinge entirely upon the successful inculcation of the knowledge of right and wrong, nor on the possession of a sensitive conscience, for even those who are limited mentally may exhibit evidences of conscience, and yet be incapable of responsible action.

I will venture no further specificity on a subject already so fraught with conjecture, but my meditation on this matter has caused me to better appreciate this aspect of the kindness of our God:  How slow He is to impute sin to a person’s account, but how quick and how willing He has always been to impute righteousness³ to the account of all who simply believe!

 

¹  Contrast this with “to seek and to save that which was lost” in Luke 19:10.

²  John 4:42; John 1:29; Colossians 1:20; John 1:51; Revelation 21:9 – 22:5; I John 2:2 (JND)

³  Genesis 15:6; Romans 4

 

The Word of God uses several adjectives to describe the various spiritual states in which believers are found while still in this world.  It is a wonderful thing to look forward to the day when all believers of all ages will be with and like the Lord Jesus who saved their souls – when that which is perfect comes, and when that which is “in part” shall be done away (I Corinthians 13:10).  But in practice here and now, Christians are all in need of spiritual growth, and ought to be making progress in their souls. Consequently, most of us will at some point in our lives and to various degrees be characterized by carnality, godliness, and spirituality.

You might ask why these scriptural characterizations should matter to us. First of all, it is always a healthy thing to accept the commentary of the Word of God applied to our personal lives, when the Spirit brings that to bear on our consciences in light of our behavior and our thoughts. Secondly, by looking at the kind of believers these terms are describing in the Bible, we may be able to gain (by grace) either the encouragement, or then the godly fear, that will enable us to better please the Lord Jesus our Savior. Let’s look briefly at each of the three designations given above.

Carnal (or fleshly) Christians are put before us as a negative example in I Corinthians 3. We find them also alluded to in Romans 8:4-6 and II Corinthians 10:2.  The apostle Paul chides the Corinthians for their fleshly thought processes and behaviors, which made them no different from “babes in Christ”, who were truly saved but who had made very little progress in learning Christ (Ephesians 4:20-24).  They were behaving like they knew nothing but the wisdom of the world, and that worldly wisdom was leading to envy, strife, schisms, and it was no doubt the reason that immorality and false doctrine was being allowed in the assembly at Corinth.¹  I think that no true believer in Christ would really want to be in such a sad state, but because we all still have the flesh in us, it is easy to lapse into such a condition if we are not “exercised unto godliness” (I Timothy 5:7). So what is godliness?

A godly believer is one who lives with reference to God in the situations of his or her life, and who practically brings God into everyday living.  Conversely, an ungodly person lives without reference to God, or shuts Him out in a practical way every time conscience or circumstance or divine testimony speaks of God to his soul.  I believe we can state that an ungodly person is never viewed as a true believer in the Bible.  A Christian may be carnal (or fleshly) and a very immature believer, but he is never considered to be ungodly. We ought to seek to “live godly in Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 3:12), and to the extent that we do so, we will not fit in with the “ungodly sinners” (Jude 15) around us. It is instructive that, for all of Lot’s lack of spiritual understanding and vigor, II Peter 2 alludes to him as an example of the “godly” whom the Lord delivers out of temptations. After all, Lot does endure a modicum of persecution when he references God, and specifically recognizes Jehovah’s right to judge his wicked neighbors (Genesis 19:9-14). Righteous Lot was in some respects carnal and godly at the same time. What an incongruity!

The spiritual saint is no doubt godly as well, but real spirituality goes beyond godliness. Spirituality and carnality are really mutually exclusive, and Paul seems to make that clear in I Corinthians 3:1.  Just before that point in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul had provided an insight into how a spiritual man or woman thinks and learns truth. He who is spiritual receives the things of the Spirit of God (who glorifies Christ), for those spiritual things are communicated to his own spirit by spiritual means, not in a manner that would appeal to the natural man or the flesh.²  The Lord Jesus condemned fleshly wisdom and established the supremacy of the Spirit’s operation in the believer’s mind in one short but potent utterance: “It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63).

Following the tendencies of the flesh makes one carnal. Honoring God in practical, everyday living makes one godly.  Having a teachable spirit that learns the mysteries of God from the life-giving Spirit of God constitutes one a spiritual Christian. And should you exercise yourself unto godliness and prayerfully maintain a spiritual attitude, you will become that which is certainly the will of the Lord for all of His own: a Christian that is perfect.³

¹For example:  I Corinthians 5:1-2; 15:12

²  I Corinthians 2:6-16 (refer to J.N. Darby’s translation for verse 13 in particular: ” . . . communicating spiritual things by spiritual means.”)

³  Matthew 5:48; I Corinthians 2:6; Philippians 3:15; Colossians 1:28; James 3:2  (It is the temporal perfection of Christian maturity.)

 

 

God created man on the earth in His own image, male and female, for the grand purpose of bringing glory to Himself through the eternal Son of God, who would come into the world as the sinless Son of Man, the Seed of the woman.  Man was created an intelligent being with a mind that has the capability of thinking independently of God, and that is capable of having desires that are independent of God’s desires or will. This capability makes man an “agent” according to the most basic definition of that word: “A person or thing that causes something to happen” (Merriam-Webster). God did not place constraints upon man’s potential for independence as to his thoughts, desires, and deeds.

Moreover, man as an agent was set by God in a relationship of accountability to Himself, to represent Him on this earth, and to be obedient to His pleasure or will.  This rendered man a “moral agent”,  for morality has to do with the matter of right or wrong behavior, and it was God who stipulated at the very beginning what was right (Genesis 1:28-29; 2:15-16) and what was wrong (2:17).   This jeopardy of moral agency for man was not a light matter for God, who of course foreknew the result of putting man to the test of obedience.¹  There was no ambiguity in His command to them, and His test was eminently fair.

The Lord God made the garden in Eden perfect for Adam and Eve. They lacked nothing that they needed for life and happiness, and even the tree of life in the middle of the garden was not off limits. That symbolic tree of life interested God very much, and it still delights His heart as the means by which He imparts the blessed enjoyment of “the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18) to man for his eternal blessing (Revelation 2:7; 22:14). But the man and the woman were not interested in what interested God, and did not find His superabundant provision sufficient for their every need and desire. They wanted more; and they distrusted their perfectly benevolent Creator, thinking that perhaps He was withholding something good from them. That is where “the lusts of men”² first come into view in God’s “very good” creation (Genesis 3:1-6).

It would be a mistake to think that these lusts (inordinate desires) sprang up only after their sin was consummated in the eating of the forbidden fruit. True, their latent conscience was only then awakened or sensitized, but the deed of disobedience was simply the result of the natural desires of the heart given free rein. (See also James 1:14-15.)  God allowed them to go through with the deed in order to make it manifest to them and to all their offspring what are the consequences of thoughts and desires independent of Him – alienation and condemnation.

The lusts of men are concisely stated in John’s first epistle as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (I John 2:16). These together make up the principle of “the world” – that ordered moral system maintained in independence from God.  Eve succumbed to the primeval manifestations of this same three-fold motive after seeing the forbidden fruit and entertaining the claims of the Serpent. She “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise”.  The Lord Jesus was tempted in these three ways as well, but He as the second Man who came in sinless perfection overcame Satan exactly where the first man failed, and where the old man always will fail (Luke 4:1-13).

To make this warning against worldly ways and principles relevant to our modern experience, we could perhaps summarize the lusts of men in this way:  “The impulse to indulge, the desire to acquire, and the ambition to attain – without regard to the will of God.” The scourges of gluttony, drug abuse, pornography, homosexuality, extra-marital sex, greed, human trafficking, racism, classism, political and religious strife, and every other societal blight, have their roots in one or more of these lusts.

“All is vanity!” lamented Solomon, when he saw the results of living according to his desires. What hope is there when once we must acknowledge that our own lusts or desires have made us slaves to sin in the flesh?  Let us not dare to ask with the rebel in Romans 9:20: “Why hast Thou made me thus?” God made us with the potential for those desires, in His perfect wisdom and for His glory, but it is nonetheless we who have thought, desired, and acted in independence and distrust of Him.

Should a man then turn to the Law of Moses to curb his lusts and help him live uprightly? How futile that has proved be throughout history since the Law was given.  Take note that there was not even a law given to forbid or curb “the pride of life”, or the ambition to attain or achieve something outside of God’s perfect will (Romans 12:2). A law could never make a rebellious sinner humble.

Man’s only hope of deliverance from the bondage of his lusts is to cast himself upon the mercy of God by faith.³  The Spirit of God is the one who alone can quicken the spirit of a man (or woman, or child) in order to convict him of his utter need for God’s marvelous grace to “live the rest of his time in the flesh [not] to the lusts of men, but to the will of God”.²

 

¹  See Genesis 6:5-7 for God’s grief at man’s depravity.

²  I Peter 4:2

³  Daniel 9:18; Romans 9:15-16; Titus 3:5

These words of gentle rebuke were spoken by the Lord Jesus to His devoted disciple, Peter, just after Judas betrayed the Master. Peter had just drawn his sword and cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest, when Jesus said to him: “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:52; John 18:11). The Lord made it very clear that He did not desire that His disciples rise up in defense of Him, no matter their good intentions.

But what may not be quite so clear to Christians is the enigmatic commentary of the Lord Jesus, found only in Matthew’s gospel, in which He seems to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between using a deadly weapon and suffering death by its instrumentality. What lesson did He want to teach Peter, and by extension, all of His disciples down through the centuries to us?

I believe we can rule out a couple of possible meanings of those words taken at face value. When Jesus said,”all they that take the sword shall perish [by] the sword”, it would seem obvious that he didn’t mean that statement in the most literal sense, for millions have taken up the sword and other weapons and have lived long lives and died natural deaths.  On the other hand, many Christians who have refused to defend themselves using deadly force, or who have had conscientious objections to taking up the sword in wars against foreign powers, have suffered violent deaths for their faith and their stand for the truth of God’s word. In witness to the truth of that, one has only to call to mind the violent death of Jim Elliot (at 28 years old) and his compatriots in 1956, who could easily have dispatched their Auca Indian murderers by using the guns in their possession, but chose not to “take the sword” in self-defense.

However, it would be a careless handling of the Scriptures to minimize or pass over this saying of the Lord because it can’t be taken literally.  He never said one idle word, nor one phrase that we can afford to take lightly. You or I might have said something like that with the best of intentions during such a “teachable moment”, but were we pressed on it after the fact, we might not be able to make a coherent case justifying our hasty utterance. Not so the Lord Jesus; His words were full of meaning, and it is left to His disciples to search out that meaning. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2).

Consider this:  Taking up a weapon puts one on the ground of violence, or perhaps more particularly, on the ground of resorting to violent means to bring about a desired end, whether selfish or apparently selfless in nature.  Many have admired the methods of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Ghandi, both of whom clung to the ideal of non-violent resistance to oppression (although we must note that taking that non-violent stand did not save either King or Ghandi from violent deaths at the hands of assassins). They took the ground of non-violence, and they reaped a reward for it, in terms of their legacies among their people, and in terms of the admiration that much of the rest of the world still has for them. “They have their reward” (Matthew 6:2).

Which ground ought a Christian to take then?  It seems abundantly clear that the Lord sought to impress upon His disciples that taking a non-violent position is the higher moral road, and that taking up carnal weapons against perceived evil¹ puts one on the low road where death prevails and the Lord’s approval is missing.

Ulrich Zwingli, a leader in the Swiss Reformation, apparently despised the non-violent example of the Anabaptist Swiss Brethren and took up arms with many other pastors to defend Zurich from an invasion by the Catholic cantons of Switzerland in 1531. He voluntarily put himself on the ground of violent resistance, and suffered death in short order on the battlefield at 47 years of age. Zwingli even suffered the posthumous indignity of having Martin Luther celebrate in recognition of God’s sovereignty at the news that he and his partisans lay dead.

Now you may be asking: If a violent death came early for both Jim Elliot and Ulrich Zwingli, regardless of the respective moral ground they took (which, in both cases, seemed to hasten their demise), then how can we make the claim that their positions really mattered after all?

I would suggest that Zwingli’s choice was a foolish one, and while he may have been a true believer in Christ, taking the sword was really just building with stubble², to be burned up in the end as a fleshly attempt at building the “temple of God”.  But Jim Elliot died “building” with the fireproof materials of gold, silver, and precious stones², a true martyr for the cause of Christ, and 60 years later there is general agreement among Christians that he was “no fool”.³   He chose by faith the high moral road of refusing to take the sword to defend against persecutions, resulting in much fruit for Christ in this world, “and in the world to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:30). Jim Elliot and his friends did not venture onto the ground of violence and death, but chose rather the way of spiritual life and peace (Romans 8:6).

 

¹  See also Matthew 5:38-40; John 18:36; II Corinthians 10:3-4

²  I Corinthians 3:10-17

³  Elliot wrote in his journal on October 28, 1949: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”