Tag Archives: Romans 1

Do the Commands of God Create Moral Duties for Those Who do not Believe in God?

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Ethics, Francis Schaeffer, Romans, Uncategorized

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I will post a review of the remarkable book Did God Really Command Genocide by Paul Copan & Matthew Flannagan. For the moment, I offer the following addendum to a discussion and objection to the Divine Command Theory of ethics (the understanding that something is morally obligatory because God commands it to be so, whether or not human beings understand the source of that obligation).

An objection discussed on page 155 of the book raise by philosopher Wes Morriston:

In order to successfully issue a command, one must deliver it to its intended recipients. This brings us back to the problem of the reasonable nonbeliever. On the fact if, God has not succeeded in speaking to her. And since she is a reasonable non-believer, God has not even succeeded in putting her in a  position in which she should have have heard a divine command. How then, can she be subject to God’s commands? How can her moral obligations be understood by reference to what God has commanded her to do?

Copan and Flannagan respond to the argument in terms of its philosophical merits. What I propose to add to their argument is a Scriptural response. Paul in Romans 1 & 2 directly addressed Morriston’s argument. In Romans 1, Paul explains that human beings actively seek to suppress the knowledge of God and his ethical condemnation of human sin:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:18–21 (ESV). Yet, despite the fact that human beings (the “reasonable nonbeliever”) deny any knowledge of God or God’s moral communication, human beings are well aware of the moral content of God’s communication: “Though they know God’s righteous decree” (Rom. 1:31). The “reasonable nonbeliever” apprehends God’s moral communication (“righteous decree”) in their conscience (which is exactly the basis upon which Morriston and other atheists seek to condemn the God of Scripture for being immoral). Paul makes clear that God’s moral authority is not premised upon the unbeliever being consciously aware of God having issued the command. The unbeliever’s moral conscience is a sufficient ground:

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Romans 2:12–16 (ESV). Francis Schaeffer in his book The Church in a Post Christian Culture puts it this way:

Let me use an illustration again that I have used in other places. If every little baby that was ever born anywhere in the world had a tape recorder hung about its neck, and if this tape recorder only recorded the moral judgments with which this child as he grew bound other men, the moral precepts might be much lower than the biblical law, but they would still be moral judgments. Eventually each person comes to that great moment when he stands before God as judge. Suppose, then, that God simply touched the tape recorder button and each man heard played out in his own words all those statements by which he had bound other men in moral judgment. He could hear it going on for years—thousands and thousands of moral judgments made against other men, not aesthetic judgments, but moral judgments. Then God would simply say to the man, though he had never heard the Bible, now where do you stand in the light of your own moral judgments. The Bible points out in the passage quoted above that every voice would be stilled. All men would have to acknowledge that they have deliberately done those things which they knew to be wrong. Nobody could deny it.

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 41–42.

 

The religion of “sci-tech progress”

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Culture, Hope, Psychology, Theology, Thesis, Uncategorized

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This article from reason explains that hope — although it does not explain it in terms of hope — is the (?) basis for satisfaction:

Stavrova and company concluded that the “correlation between a belief in scientific–technological progress and life satisfaction was positive and significant in 69 of the 72 countries.” On the other hand, the relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction was positive in only 28 countries and actually negative in 5 countries. Similarly, belief in sci-tech progress correlated with a sense of personal control in 67 countries, whereas religiosity was positively associated with personal control in only 23 countries—and was negative in 10 countries.

Stavrova and her colleagues speculate that this negative association between a belief in God and a sense of personal control might arise from dispositional differences. Primary control strategies aim to change the external world so that it fits with one’s personal needs and desires; secondary control strategies seek to change personal needs and desires so that they fit with the external world. Earlier research has found that religious believers tend to score higher on secondary than primary control strategies. Stavrova and her fellow researchers suggest that future studies might “examine whether a belief in scientific–technological progress, in contrast to a religious belief, entails individuals to rely more on primary rather than secondary control strategies.”

So why do people who believe in sci-tech progress tend to be happier than the religious faithful? Stavrova and her colleagues propose that “achieving control over the world and mastering the environment has always been one of the major goals of science. Believing that science is or will prospectively grant such mastery of nature imbues individuals with the belief that they are in control of their lives.” This sense of personal control in turn contributes to a higher life satisfaction.

It turns out that people who rely upon the efficacy of the human intellect to solve problems have a greater chance of living satisfying lives than those who cling to the supernatural hope that an unseen sky-God will somehow save them from their troubles.

A few things here: I certainly don’t believe bare “religious belief” matters much at all. In fact, I would hold that his belief in “science” is a “religious belief”. Belief can never be better than its object: the study merely looks at “religious belief” as if all religious belief were interchangeable. It does not consider the certainty of that belief.

It is the Scriptural position that most “religious belief” is false and rebellious.

Second, there is no apparent control for circumstances. I suspect that most of the people who hold to the “sci-tech progress” and well-educated, relatively prosperous and younger. In such a circumstance “sci-tech” has relatively little work to do. A comfortable, sociable, reasonably attractive 30 year old is probably happier than other people: but such happiness hinges upon circumstance.

I would be curious of the satisfaction of a “sic-tech progress” believer on the day they learn their child has cancer.

As a Christian (and often a poor specimen), I know that there is no promise of endless happiness now. In fact, the promise is precisely the opposite. I am hopeful; but I also know the realism that this world as a painful one. I know that making a better device will not alter the human heart. I know that no amount of medical technology (for which I am very grateful) will ever ultimately put off death.

I know that cultist and idolators often begin joyful.

Another aspect: personal control. Any belief in “personal control” is on its face irrational — although the desire for personal utter autonomy has been a human goal since the Garden.

 

 

 

Why are human beings inveterately religious?

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Culture, Romans, Uncategorized

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According to Dominic Johnson:

Reward and punishment may not emanate from a single omnipotent deity, as imagined in Western societies. Justice may be dispensed by a vast unseen army of gods, angels, demons and ghosts, or else by an impersonal cosmic process that rewards good deeds and punishes wrongdoing, as in the Hindu and Buddhist conception of karma. But some kind of moral order beyond any human agency seems to be demanded by the human mind, and this sense that our actions are overseen and judged from beyond the natural world serves a definite evolutionary role. Belief in supernatural reward and punishment promotes social co-operation in a way nothing else can match. The belief that we live under some kind of supernatural guidance is not a relic of superstition that might some day be left behind but an evolutionary adaptation that goes with being human.

It’s a conclusion that is anathema to the current generation of atheists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and others – for whom religion is a poisonous concoction of lies and delusion. These “new atheists” are simple souls. In their view, which derives from rationalist philosophy and not from evolutionary theory, the human mind is a faculty that seeks an accurate representation of the world. This leaves them with something of a problem. Why are most human beings, everywhere and at all times, so wedded to some version of religion? It can only be that their minds have been deformed by malignant priests and devilish power elites. Atheists have always been drawn to demonology of this kind; otherwise, they cannot account for the ­persistence of the beliefs they denounce as poisonously irrational. The inveterate human inclination to religion is, in effect, the atheist problem of evil.

But what if belief in the supernatural is natural for human beings? For anyone who takes the idea of evolution seriously, religions are not intellectual errors, but ­adaptations to the experience of living in an uncertain and hazardous world. What is needed – and still largely lacking – is a perspective in which religion is understood as an inexhaustibly complex variety of beliefs and practices that have evolved to meet enduring human needs.

Read the rest

I agree that this process is hardwired — although I hold that the source comes from a different direction:

Romans 1:18–25 (ESV)

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

 

 

ACBC Conference 2015 Plenary Session no. 2 (Albert Mohler)

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Romans 1
The Gospel when it is rightly set forth reveals the righteousness of God: (1) it reveals our sinfulness before the perfect God; and (2) the righteousness imputed to us; the righteousness which justifies us.

The Gospel is good because of the bad news.

Romans 1:18

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Who is suppressing? There is a pattern of preaching which says that “those people suppress the truth in unrighteousness”. But the truth is that is the children of Adam who suppress the truth.

This is the key to human epistmology:
Human beings suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Continue reading →

Preaching from the Old Testament: Boice on Hosea 4

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Hosea, James Montegomery Boice, Preaching, Romans

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Hosea 4 contains a condemnation of the priests of Israel for failing to instruct the people about the covenant:

Hosea 4:6 (ESV)

            6       My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;

      because you have rejected knowledge,

      I reject you from being a priest to me.

                  And since you have forgotten the law of your God,

      I also will forget your children.

(A minority of commentators take “I reject you from being a priest to me” as a reference to Israel generally. Even if one were to grant that unlikely point, the remainder of the chapter explicitly singles out the priests for condemnation in their work.)

The pastor of a Christian congregation thus faces a challenge with such a text: How can I preach this passage to a contemporary congregation?  The passage cannot be understood and applied exactly on Hosea’s terms, because no one alive today is an Israelite existing in the Northern Kingdom prior to the Assyrian invasion.

Consider the condemnation in general:  The people who claim to be the people of God do not have a proper knowledge of God.  That lack of knowledge has led to a host of sins (detailed by Hosea) which sins invite the covenant curses coming upon the people.

That same principle applies directly to the people of God today. Our lives directly reflect our knowledge of God.  Hosea explicitly states in 4:1 that a lack love is conjoined to a lack of knowledge of God. In 6:6, Hosea says that God desires such love and knowledge. How then does one obtain the knowledge?

The primary way such knowledge is conveyed in both the OT and the NT is through public instruction. Hosea contains a sharp rebuke of priests who fail to perform their function. The Scripture repeatedly condemns those who take the responsibility of instructing and then fail to rightly perform that function.

From that one could draw various applications: 1) The duty of pastors to rightly teach; 2) the obligation of Christians to be taught; 3) the condemnation of those who fail in this task; 4) the responsibility of Christians toward poor teachers (even if they are not “false” teachers); 5) the responsibility to obtain such knowledge.

James Montgomery Boice took a radically different tact in handling this passage.

To apply this passage to his congregation, Boice went through Romans 1:18, et seq.  Boice argues by analogy based upon Paul’s proposition concerning human knowledge of God in Romans 1:18, et seq. (which I have posted in the margin):[1]

 

How pointedly this all comes down to us! Here we think of the first chapter of Romans—indeed, we can hardly fail to think of it—for the argument brought against Israel in Hosea 4 is precisely the argument that Paul brings against the race as a whole in his great doctrinal epistle. We may even go further. The similarity of ideas and even verbal echoes between these two chapters indicate that Paul probably had Hosea’s chapter in mind as he penned his own indictment of the gentile nations….

Paul is saying three important things in these verses. First, God has given a revelation of himself to all people from which, however, all have departed.

James Montgomery Boice, The Minor Prophets, Paperback. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 1:43.

What Boice has done is define the indictment of Hosea 4 in general terms:  Human beings are liable before God for rejecting the knowledge God has given them. That does not mean that the information God has given to humanity generally is the same as the information God gave to Israel in particular:

There is a difference here between Paul’s words to the Gentiles and Hosea words to the Jews, for the Gentiles had less knowledge of God than Israel had. Nevertheless, there is an important similarity, for each has departed from that knowledge, however little or great that knowledge was. In the case of the Gentiles, Paul claims only that there was a knowledge of God’s “eternal power and divine nature.”  That is, the Gentiles knew even without the law of Israel (which they did not possess) that God existed and that he was all-powerful. Israel possessed the bulk of the Old Testament and therefore had great knowledge. She knew God as the holy one of the Law and the faithful one of the covenant. To turn from such knowledge was great sin than the sin of the Gentiles. Nevertheless, the sin was the same in nature and the judgment equally justified. (1:43).

General proposition: Human beings are liable to God for rejecting such knowledge of God as they possess.

Application to all humanity: All human beings have sufficient knowledge to know the existence of a Creator, and thus have a duty to worship their Creator as their Creator.

Application to Israel: Israel possessed the knowledge granted to all humanity and possessed additional knowledge, “the law of your God” (Hosea 4:6).

Note, we cannot argue in the opposite direction: One cannot argue that Israel is responsible for not knowing the law of their God on the ground that God has granted a general revelation of God as Creator to all humanity. Israel is responsible for knowing the terms of the Mosaic Covenant because God specifically and verbally gave Israel the terms of the Covenant. Likewise, Paul does not contend that all people are responsible for knowing the Mosaic Covenant; only that all people are responsible for not responding rightly to such revelation as they have received.

For these reasons, Hosea does not rely upon general revelation to support his charge against the people. Rather, Hosea lays the chief blame upon the priests who did not teach the people the content of the covenant.

Boice then lists out the moral effects upon a people which flow from a rejection of the knowledge of God. Boice does not address the reason which Israel in the context of Hosea rejected knowledge of God, and, therefore, does not answer the question of the priest’s responsibility.

While Boice’s exposition is possible, it seems to have drained the bite out of Hosea’s prophecy, because Boice has place the problem “out there”. Those people outside suffer this moral degradation due to a lack of knowledge. That is true, but Hosea didn’t point at the Assyrians: he pointed to Israelites.

While Boice is an admirable preacher, it seems he failed in part to deliver as pointed as the text requires.

 

 

[1] , which reads as follows:

Romans 1:18–32 (ESV)

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Popular Culture is About Worship

28 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in Romans, Worship

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First, we must understand that at its heart, popular culture is about worship. It is a way of commending a certain understanding of the world as reality, commending something (besides God) that is worth living for. No matter how trivial it may seem, popular culture is ultimately religious.

http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/advice-pop-culturally-perplexed/

(read the whole thing).

Human beings worship — we can’t help it. Imagine someone observing our culture who has come from the future or the past. What would think about movie “stars” and concerts and athletic events? Look at the structure and behavior of such things.

What about the way we describe personal relationships, “I believe in you.”

Materialists who believe in science are as superstitious and religious as the pre-Socratics who tried to attribute all existence to “fire” or “water”. It is rather silly to think that hydrogen gas left alone for a sufficiently long time will spontaneously fall in love and write sonnets. Only the most crass and careless believer in superstitions think such a thing.

Look at how we speak about politics — and what we expect politicians to do. A friend said (before the last presidential election) both these guys promise me that they’ll make my kids smarter!

Human beings are hard wired to worship. Genesis 1-3 describe human beings in a manner which demonstrates that our most basic physical actions were profoundly matters of worship. When sin invaded, the capacity — the necessity to worship did not go away, it just went haywire:

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:19-25

You therefore must be perfect

14 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in 1 Peter, Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Obedience, Preaching

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You therefore must be perfect

          Cut to the Heart

It is not uncommon: The husband learns that his wife feels unloved. He asks, What do you want me to do? She says, Love me. Yes, he says, but what do you want me to do? Do you want to get you presents? Do you want a vacation? I want you to love me.

Or, when someone in the church has fallen into some great sin: when I meet with them, they ask, What do you want me to do? God calls for you to repent. Yes, but what should I do? Repent. Yes, but what am I supposed to do?

The husband and the one who does not repent both possess the same trouble: They are willing change their behavior, but they do not understand their trouble lies deeper and elsewhere: the change they need is a change of heart. When Peter preached on Pentecost, Luke tells us that the people present “were cut to the heart” (Acts  2:37). Conduct merely exposes the heart.

          God Seeks Heart Devotion

It is heart religion which God seeks. Conduct matters, obedience matters – but it merely matters as it works with the heart. Obedience without a heart of devotion is hypocrisy. In Psalm 50, God explains he does not hunger or thirst for sacrifices – like some vicious pagan god.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls

Or drink the blood of goats?

 

Psalm 50:13. What then does God desire

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

And perform your vows to the Most High,

And call upon me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you and you will glorify me.

 

Psalm 50:14-15. We think that our greatest trouble comes about because or behavior. We experience guilt and shame and fear and think that if we could only obey the law, all would be right. But behavior will not work:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:20.  It is true that we cannot be perfect and the law shows how imperfect we are. But the law is the x-ray, our disease is a lack of love.

We are imperfect law-keepers. Yet the real heart and point of the law is that can only be met by love. Breaking the law of God is objective rebellion against God – when refuse to obey, it is because we refuse to love, we fail to “glorify” God – as God calls for in Psalm 50. We refuse to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Paul makes this point in Romans 1. In verse 21, he says the trouble with human beings is that we fail to “honor” God and we are not “thankful“. In verse 23 he human beings have

exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

In verse 25 the trouble is that fail to worship God.

These are heart troubles. It is the heart which refuses to be thankful, to give honor, to worship. These are problems of relationship. These are problems of love.

The deepest trouble for humanity is that we lack God, we lack the dearest and deepest desire of our soul. God has been patient, and his kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). When Paul explains justification – the act of God responding to our law breaking, Paul writes:

5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” Romans 4:5–8 (ESV)

          The Gospel Glorifies God in Jesus Christ

When we think our deepest trouble is law keeping, we draw all the wrong conclusions.  We miss the whole point of the Gospel. We miss the whole point of the Christian life. God does not forgive us because we have obeyed well enough to make up our past transgressions. God forgives on the basis the merit of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel is the story of God glorifying Jesus in his incarnation, obedience, death, burial, resurrection, ascension.  Thus, as the Jesus nears the cross, he prays:

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. John 17:5 (ESV)

One element of the Father glorifying the Son is the the Father gives the elect to the Son.  We are saved for the purpose of God being glorified.

Thus, we cannot be “saved” on our merit — for that would be for our glory. It can never be a matter of great obedience. Rather, we are “saved” solely on the basis of the merit of Jesus Christ. Jesus gets the glory and the honor for our salvation.

Our standing with God derives solely from the merit of Jesus — merit which we recieve by faith through the grace of God.  We receive justification, salvation on the basis of a relationship with God in Jesus. We come as beggars and rebels and leave as sons and daughters.

Peter writes that God “redeems” us based upon the payment of the “precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 18-19).

We obtain that merit on the basis of relationship: We are to “believe” in his name (John 3:16).

We must come to God in faith (Heb. 11:6).

We exercise “faith and hope in God” (1 Peter 1:21).

We believe that God has demonstrated Jesus to be the Son of God in power (Romans 1:4; 10:9).

We confess Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9).

We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). 

When we are saved, we are brought into relationship with God. Peter states that we are being “built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). He calls us the “household of God” (1 Peter 17).

Paul writes that we are “in Christ” and thus “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

We have been raised up and seated with Christ (Eph. 2:6).

We have been buried and we have been raised with Christ (Rom. 6:2-11).

We have been adopted by God! (Rom. 8:15).

We are joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17).

As Paul writes:

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

God deals with our sin by dealing with our relationship to him. Jesus has overcome sin and death. Our job is not to overcome the guilt of sin, but to join in relationship to God in faith, hope and love.

The Gospel is that the King has come. He has overcome guilt of the law. He has overcome sin. He has overcome death.  That is the good news. Because of that good news we can freed from sin and death, but only by becoming reconciled to the King.

          We Draw the Wrong Conclusion

Unfortunately, Christians draw the wrong conclusions. On one hand, many seek to become extra-saved, extra-righteous by means of effort. They try to set aside the relationship to God and to finally be right before in their personal efforts. This is the husband who asks his wife, What should I do? Surely the husband’s conduct matters, surely his behavior matters to his wife – but only as it points to his heart.

A wife would desire her husband to husband to show her kindness by helping with the housework – but if her husband had broken legs, she would not think him less loving when did not mow the lawn. A wife could desire her husband to take her to a nice restaurant for dinner, but if they have no money, she does not think that he doesn’t love her. The behavior matters – but only as it points to the heart.

There is a second problem: fancy word, “antinomianism”. This is the guy who, “That’s legalism bro,” when you point out his sin. They figure that since we are saved on the merit of Jesus Christ alone, it does not matter what we do. Holiness may be nice, but it is not essential. This is a husband who ignores his wife, because they are married.

In the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a husband says to his wife, “What I need manners for? I already got me a wife.” His lack of manners reflects a lack of love in his heart.

There is a middle ground which takes a bit from both. This perhaps the most common and subtle version: In this case, one does not go so far as to deny all need for moral life.  However, in this third version we make the commands a bit less extreme.  We know that we cannot be perfect, so we think lessen the commands and make exceptions and add caveats.

This is a husband who says, I’m good enough and she should be content with that – even though she knows herself to be unloved. He doesn’t beat her, he doesn’t commit adultery. And, he doesn’t love her. It is the man who wants to know why he should repent, because there are other people who are worse.

          You Must be Perfect

But consider our command in 1 Peter 2:1

1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

This is merely the first of many commands which given by Peter. That command contains no limitations, exceptions or caveats. In fact, to make the point emphatic, Peter uses the word “all” three times in one sentence.

I will not humiliate you with a public interrogation. However, I think it safe to say that at the very least the “hypocrisy” clause will catch us all as law breakers.

Later in the letter, Peter will make extraordinary demands upon employees, upon husbands, upon wives. These demands weigh so heavily upon the flesh, that many people think they are unfair. Indeed, many Christians think that God cannot possibly mean what he says.

Servants are supposed to endure beatings and “endure” because “this is a gracious thing in the sight of God” (1 Pet 2:20).

In the same manner, wives are called upon to submit to husbands who “do not obey the word” (1 Peter 3:1) and show “respectful and pure conduct”, a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:2 & 4). Surely God does not mean that we are called upon to suffer.

But Peter measures the suffering and sacrifice by the sacrifice of Jesus. People calls Jesus the “example” which we are commanded to “follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). We are commanded to be like Jesus.

And that is the point.

God demands absolute perfection:

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 (ESV)

You must be perfect. Period:

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisee, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20 (ESV).

          What Will We Do?

So, what will we do? Plainly we are not and cannot be perfect. We can try to be perfect, and be disappointed – we can crush ourselves in pain. But that will not work. We can throw up our hands and try nothing at all.

Usually, we seek to shift our ground – we make the command less. We choose a command which we think we can obey. We argue that the command no longer applies.

All of these alternatives are wrong, because they miss the essential point: Our trouble with God is not the law breaking, but the rebellion. Our lack of perfection in obedience only demonstrates the lack of perfection in our love.

The reason a wife cannot submit to her husband is because she loves God too little – her complaints about her husband are excuses for her lack of love of God. The reason a husband does not love his wife is because he loves God too little – his complaints about his wife are excuses for not loving God.

          We Must Desire God to Keep the Commandments &

          We Keep the Commandments Because We Desire God

The trouble is that we misread the commands. We absolutely must fully and completely obey the commands – but we must obey them in the correct manner. We obey the commands, because we desire God.

I shifted things here a bit – I have been talking about loving God and now I have shifted to desiring God.  So pay attention ….

I give you a set of directions. The traveling directions are painstaking and complicated. It will take days to complete the trip. You don’t care if you go. You look at the directions, drive a bit, quit.

Consider a different option:  The instructions are identical, but the destination is different. The trip will take days, it will be difficult, there will be many hardships. But – and this is the key difference – at the end of the trip lies the place you want to go. By following the directions, you make it to a place you love. You will make the trip because you desire to obtain the beloved.

Let us say that a dear friend invited you to a dinner at his house in the Hollywood Hills. If you have ever tried to find a place in the hills at night, you know that it can be exceedingly difficult to even know where you are. Now, would you curse your friend for living in the hills, solely because it was a difficult trip?

Why then do we curse God for the difficulty of obedience and moral holiness?

Take the Ten Commandments. We can easily miss the entire point of God’s instruction to the people at Mt. Sinai. We make it ten commandments and lop off the first thing God says:

1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:1–3 (ESV)

God had already rescued Israel. The “commandments” were directions on how God and his people would live in relationship with one-another.  Paul draws out this idea in 2 Corinthians 6:16, take a look with me:

16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” 1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. 2 Corinthians 6:16–7:1 (ESV)

The obedience comes about because of the relationship. Since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves ….

There are many things which I must do for my children. But I do not obey these rules so that a relationship will exist, but rather because the relationship exists. I care for my wife not for the purpose of creating the relationship, but because the relationship already exists.

But there is something more: I care for my wife and my children not merely because a relationship exists. I care for them so that my relationship will become more profound, more loving. I obey to increase to the love.

I follow the directions so that I can make it to dinner with my friend.

I obey God so that I can dwell with him. I obey because I love, and because I want to love still more. I obey because I desire God.

          Psalm 15: We Shall Sojourn

Turn to Psalm 15:

A PSALM OF DAVID. 1 O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; 3 who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; 4 in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5 who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.

Who is going to live you? Who will dwell with God?

First, these demands are absolute. They seek perfection? Who has ever been this perfect? Hold that thought.

Now, one could read this and think: If I do these things, then I can earn access to God. But that cannot be true. The Bible everywhere states the opposite. When God rescued the Israelites in Egypt, the Israelites worshipped Egyptian idols (Lev. 17:1; Deut. 32:16-17; Ezk. 20:3-8).  Abraham’s father worshipped idols (Joshua 24:2).  As Paul wrote, God rescues the ungodly. And Peter makes plain that God rescues on the basis of the blood of Jesus.

What then must we think when we read Psalm 15? What would someone do with such a Psalm?

The answer takes two steps:  First, there is the matter of the one described. The only one who perfectly fulfills such a demand is Jesus. We can only enter into this relationship with God, if we enter with and because of Jesus. Jesus’ entry is our entry. There is no other door to the temple.

Second step: We seek a blessing; we seek God.

But does that mean that we ignore this command for perfection because Jesus is perfect? No.

Think: Why would someone walk blamelessly, speak truth, not slander, et cetera? What is the promise? To sojourn with the Lord – in his tent. The obedience was to deepen and extend the relationship.

The 119th Psalm states that the one who walks blamelessly in the law of the Lord will be blessed. Why must you obey? So that you will be blessed. You obey so that you may dwell with God.

Consider another text, Isaiah 66:1-2:

1 Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV)

This takes the same idea but works from a different direction. Here, God is looking for someone – the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at God’s word. God is looking for someone who will be in relationship with him.

Psalm 24:1-2 says,

1 The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Psalm 24:1–2 (ESV)

If God is so great, how then will I come into relationship with him?

3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. Psalm 24:3–4 (ESV)

Why should I seek to ascend to the hill?

5 He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah Psalm 24:5–6 (ESV)

The one who obeys is also called the one who “seeks the face of the God of Jacob”. We seek God, because we want God. We want the blessing. Obedience flows naturally out of a desire to obtain God.

In Colossians 3, Paul gives several commands for moral perfection. In verses 1-4 he commands that we set our hearts and minds upon Jesus – that we long and desire for him, to be where he is. He then lays out commands about anger and immorality and covetousness. Then, strikingly, he writes in verse 11

          Here there is no Greek and Jew

What “here”: What is the place to which Paul refers? It is the place of obedience, the place of living as renewed, recreated human being[1]. He then goes on to commend love for one another and desire for God. Obedience is the place where the love of God flows out of our hearts and into our lives.

Knowing that, consider our text in 1 Peter 2:1-3:

1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:1–3 (ESV)

If you think of the commands and obedience as burdensome things you must do, you will always be seeking some way to get around the problem. But that is not how Peter presents the situation.

Peter writes you are putting these things as you are longing for the milk. Obedience to the command and longing for God are the exact same thing – they are merely viewed from a different aspect.

Why do men work so hard to ride their bicycles through France? To gain a blessing, to win an award.  Why would someone travel for hours through narrow, difficult roads, or waste around the indignity of an airport? To see grandmother.

The hard work is inseparable from the desire for the blessing at the end.

See this: In the very act of obedience, we are chasing hard after God.

Tim has been preaching on marriage. Now you could just think of this a marriage seminar. If you’ll do what’s right, you could have a better marriage.  Yes, if you love and honor and cherish one-another as God has commanded, you both be happier. But that’s not the point. The experience of your happiness in marriage is an extra benefit of obedience – but it is not the primary purpose of marriage.

Peter gives commands to those in a marriage so that they can be like Jesus – and what did Jesus ever do except seek hard after his Father? What did he desire than his Father’s will?

          What Happens in Our Obedience?

I love my wife so that I can understand God. I love my wife. I lead my wife, because in so doing I learn about God. But even more wonderfully, I will come to dwell with God in a more profound manner.

Think of it: When I love my and sacrifice my wife, I begin to understand better what it means for Jesus to love and sacrifice for me. When I love my wife, I am acting like Jesus. My act of love teaches me his act of love. It also teaches my wife about the love of Christ. My obedience to Jesus helps my wife come to know and love Jesus.

When my wife shows deference and honor and submission to me, it teaches her about the church’s relationship to Christ. It also teaches me about the church and Christ.

As I learn God in Jesus Christ, I grow in communion with the Father in the Son by means of the Spirit.

You could think of obedience as the map to a friend’s house. You could think of obedience as coming to stand on the top of a hill from which I can see the ocean. You can think of obedience as clearing out a dam which has stopped a stream.

When I guard my tongue – as Peter expects – I come into deeper fellowship with God in Jesus Christ. Peter writes of Jesus, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Jesus did this, because he “entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

In 1 Peter 3:8-13, Peter commends love and perfect speech, so that we can obtain a blessing. Now what greater blessing can God give than himself?

When I love my wife, I ultimately seeking to come into the courts of God. When brothers and sisters live in fellowship, they are transformed drink deeply from the living waters.

Consider your own experience. When you have bickered with your wife, slandered your brother in Christ, brooded in anger, coveted, lusted, lied has been your experience that your heart ran more deeply in love for Christ?

Obedient holiness toward God is nothing more than seeking God in self-sacrificing love. I am not saying that obedience does not cross our flesh – it seeks to destroy our rebellion. But obedience can only flow out of love: “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

In our text, when Peter gives the commands to leave aside wicked speech and to deeply desire God, he goes to say that are thus being built up into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5). He goes on to list out a series of relationships which exemplify our place before God: chosen, royal priests, holy nation, a people for his own possession, people who proclaim God’s glory. People who have received mercy, people who needed mercy because they – we — are profound law breakers.

When we live in self-sacrificing manner, our obedience derives from our relationship to God., and seeking relationship. Obedience is not like trying to obey traffic regulations. Obedience is seeking a friend, our dearest friend, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

          Obedience Glorifies God in Jesus Christ

As noted above, the Gospel ultimately concerns the glory of God in Jesus Christ. The Gospel is ultimately Trinitarian. Humanity gains greatly when the glory and merit won by Jesus causes us to be “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).  While the salvation of human beings is a step in the glory of Jesus Christ, it was not the chief aim of God’s intention:

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:11–12 (ESV)

R.C. Sproul explains:

God predestined from all eternity not only that Jesus should be Saviour, but that Jesus should be King of kings and Lord of lords. God has already crowned his Son, for the coronation has taken place in the ascension; but we live in a world that does not recognise its ruler, that does not kneel in obeisance before its appointed king. The same one through whom all things were made, by whom all things were made and for whom all things were made, will receive all things at the end of time. God’s appointed plan for the universe is to bring all things on heaven and on earth together, under one head. The goal of creation is neither chaos nor disharmony but unity, and the point of unity will be his anointed king.

 

How does that relate to us? Well it is in him. Paul writes: In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory (verses 11, 12). This universe is destined for glory and Christians are predestined to participate in and witness to that glory.[2]

Calvin puts it well:

Here again he mentions the final cause of salvation; for we must eventually become illustrations of the glory of God, if we are nothing but vessels of his mercy.[3]

We are “illustrations of the glory of God”. Thus, Peter explains that our salvation (the application of the Gospel in justification) and our obedience (the working out of that truth as a practical matter in our lives) are both for the glory of God. Note the progression in the following verses:

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1 Peter 2:9–12 (ESV)

First, he chose his be people so that you would “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness”. Second, we abstain from sin in obedience to God’s commands so that even unbelievers will “glorify God on the day of visitation.”

 

 (The audio for this lesson can be found here: http://calvarybiblechurch.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180033150&sec_id=180008560  The audio tracks the same material, but does differ in certain respects.)

 

[1] Lightfoot refers to this as the “regenerate life”:

11. ὅπου] i.e. ‘in this regenerate life, in this spiritual region into which the believer is transferred in Christ.’

Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 8th ed., Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (London; New York: Macmillan and Co., 1886), 214.  The region of the new creation:

Ver. 11. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, free.—“Where” refers to the region of the new creation in Christ, in contrast with the domain of creation without Christ; in the latter there is division, contrariety and discord; in the former union, fraternity. Just as in the parallel passage (Eph. 4:25: “for we are members one of another”), this fellowship of the regenerate, the converted, requires truth and friendship among each other.

John Peter Lange, Philip Schaff, Karl Braune and M. B. Riddle, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Colossians (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 66. O’Brien further clarifies:

Within this new humanity (ὅπου, a particle denoting place, is here employed figuratively to denote the circumstances or presupposition of what has gone before = “in the realm of the new man,” Dibelius-Greeven, 42) the barriers that divided people from one another—racial, religious, cultural and social—are abolished (Lightfoot, 214, claims that οὐκ ἔνι means: “Not only does the distinction not exist, but it cannot exist”; cf. Martin, NCB, 108; for a contrary view see Abbott, 285). The theological reason is that “all were baptized into the one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free” (1 Cor 12:13).

Peter T. O’Brien, vol. 44, Colossians, Philemon, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 192. This region, this regenerate life, this new humanity Paul calls the “new man” – as opposed to the “old man”. The characteristic of the “new man” is that he has put off the practices of sexual immorality, covetousness, anger and evil speech (Col. 3:5-9). The spiritual and the practical are thus co-incident.

[2] R. C. Sproul, The Purpose of God: Ephesians (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 30-31.

[3] John Calvin, Ephesians, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), Eph 1:12.

Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False

20 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Apologetics, Book Review, Romans

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Romans 1:18-25 tell us that the existence of God is obvious from the very creation itself. However, human beings, seeking to suppress the knowledge of the wrath of God, retreat into the creation and refuse to even be thankful to their creator. In short they are willing to believe the lie:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. Romans 1:18–25 (ESV)

Now, one may contend that Paul is simply arguing for his own position without any merit.

With that question in mind, consider the essay by Alvin Plantinga[1], reviewing atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel’s[2] new book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press, 2012) in The New Republic[3]. Plantinga sets forth Nagel’s argument and its implications. What is interesting is not Nagel seeing the problem with naturalism, it is the reason on which Nagel rejects God:

  

Materialist naturalism, says Nagel, cannot account for the appearance of life, or the variety we find in the living world, or consciousness, or cognition, or mind—but theism has no problem accounting for any of these. As for life, God himself is living, and in one way or another has created the biological life to be found on Earth (and perhaps elsewhere as well). As for the diversity of life: God has brought that about, whether through a guided process of evolution or in some other way . As for consciousness, again theism has no problem: according to theism the fundamental and basic reality is God, who is conscious. And what about the existence of creatures with cognition and reason, creatures who, like us, are capable of scientific investigation of our world? Well, according to theism, God has created us human beings in his image; part of being in the image of God (Aquinas thought it the most important part) is being able to know something about ourselves and our world and God himself, just as God does. Hence theism implies that the world is indeed intelligible to us, even if not quite intelligible in Nagel’s glorified sense. Indeed, modern empirical science was nurtured in the womb of Christian theism, which implies that there is a certain match or fit between the world and our cognitive faculties.

Given theism, there is no surprise at all that there should be creatures like us who are capable of atomic physics, relativity theory , quantum mechanics, and the like. Materialist naturalism, on the other hand, as Nagel points out, has great difficulty accounting for the existence of such creatures. For this and other reasons, theism is vastly more welcoming to science than materialist naturalism. So theism would seem to be a natural alternative to the materialist naturalism Nagel rejects: it has virtues where the latter has vices, and we might therefore expect Nagel, at least on these grounds, to be sympathetic to theism.

SADLY ENOUGH (at least for me), Nagel rejects theism. “I confess to an ungrounded assumption of my own, in not finding it possible to regard the design alternative [i.e., theism] as a real option. I lack the sensus divinitatis that enables—indeed, compels so many people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose.” But it isn’t just that Nagel is more or less neutral about theism but lacks that sensus divinitatis. In The Last Word, which appeared in 1997 , he offered a candid account of his philosophical inclinations:

I am talking about something much deeper—namely , the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers…. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

Here we have discomfort and distress at the thought that there might be such a being as God; but this discomfort  seems more emotional than philosophical or rational.

Nagel finally – it seems – it seems, grounds his atheism in desire – is the desire for the creation (the universe) to be without a Creator.

Btw, Nagel writes in his book (as quoted by Plantinga):

“I find this view antecedently unbelievable—a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense. … I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two.”

[2] His faculty page reads: 

THOMAS NAGEL (B.A. Cornell 1958; B.Phil. Oxford 1960; Ph.D. Harvard 1963), University Professor, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law. He specializes in Political Philosophy, Ethics, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Mind. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society, and has received Guggenheim, N.S.F., and N.E.H. Fellowships, a Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities, the Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy, the Balzan Prize in Moral Philosophy, and honorary degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and the University of Bucharest. He is the author of The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford, 1970, reprinted Princeton, 1978), Mortal Questions (Cambridge, 1979),The View From Nowhere (Oxford, 1986), What Does It All Mean? (Oxford, 1987), Equality and Partiality(Oxford, 1991), Other Minds (Oxford, 1995), The Last Word (Oxford, 1997), The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice (with Liam Murphy) (Oxford, 2002), Concealment and Exposure (Oxford, 2002), andSecular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament (Oxford 2010).

 

http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/thomasnagel  The page also links to online papers.

 

Nagel’s book reviews are here: http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/thomas-nagel/

 

 

[3] http://www.tnr.com/print/article/books-and-arts/magazine/110189/why-darwinist-materialism-wrong

For another review see, “Do You Only Have a Brain? On Thomas Nagel”, by Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg, October 3, 2012, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/article/170334/do-you-only-have-brain-thomas-nagel#  Here is a portion:

Nagel opposes two main components of the “materialist” view inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The first is what we will call theoretical reductionism, the view that there is an order of priority among the sciences, with all theories ultimately derivable from physics and all phenomena ultimately explicable in physical terms. We believe, along with most philosophers, that Nagel is right to reject theoretical reductionism, because the sciences have not progressed in a way consistent with it. We have not witnessed the reduction of psychology to biology, biology to chemistry, and chemistry to physics, but rather the proliferation of fields like neuroscience and evolutionary biology that explain psychological and biological phenomena in terms unrecognizable by physics. As the philosopher of biology Philip Kitcher pointed out some thirty years ago, even classical genetics has not been fully reduced to molecular genetics, and that reduction would have been wholly within one field. We simply do not see any serious attempts to reduce all the “higher” sciences to the laws of physics. ….

The second component of the thesis Nagel opposes is what we will call naturalism, the view that features of our world—including “consciousness, intentionality, meaning, purpose, thought, and value”—can ultimately be accounted for in terms of the natural processes described by the various sciences (whether or not they are ever “reduced” to physics). Nagel’s arguments here are aimed at a more substantial target, although he gives us few specifics about the kind of naturalism he opposes. He does characterize it as the attempt to explain everything “at the most basic level by the physical sciences, extended to include biology,” and the one named proponent of this view is the philosopher Daniel Dennett. Although Dennett would not characterize his project as trying to explain everything at the “most basic level,” he does aim to show that phenomena such as consciousness, purpose and thought find a natural home in a picture of human beings inspired by Darwin. In the absence of any clearer statement of the argument, we will assume that this is the so-called “neo-Darwinian” picture that Nagel opposes.

 

Jesus is the Radiance of the Glory of God: Hebrews 1:3

09 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Ministry, Preaching, Quotations, Richard Sibbes

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Jesus is the Radiance of the Glory of God: Hebrews 1:3

On Monday last, I received a telephone call from an old friend.  I had not seen nor had I spoken with him for years.  He had come to my wedding, but distance and time and the day-to-day concerns of life had kept us apart.  Our wives sent one-another Christmas cards, but we had not spoken.

            He told me about his life.  He also wanted to know something about mine.  When I first came to know this man in college, during the early 1980’s, my manner of life was quite different than it is today.  While the details would profit no one, Peter’s admonition in 1 Peter 4:3 makes a fair summary of life at that time:

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

I was not the greatest sinners, but I was not best of men.  Now, this does not make me some unique sinner.  That circumstance or inclination held you back from worse vice and depravity does not make you a whit better.  The law of God is as a pane of glass: a nick of the part is a breaking of the whole:

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

James 2:10–11. 

            By birth, I am a sinner. But then, so are you.  So let us put away our pretenses of perfection and self-righteousness and consider the things of God squarely.  We have no right to speak a word before God in our defense – but we have an advocate who speak for us.

            Now, to my friend’s second question.  He asked it in a couple of different ways, but the gist of it is as follows:  Since my manner of life has changed, do I think myself somehow better than his?  If I, a pastor, came to see my old friend, would I look down on him?  Would I condemn him?

            That is the question which I will answer this morning.  This man was as good a friend as I could have hoped.  I honestly had delightful days with him.  He treated me well and was always straight up with me.  He deserves a fair and full answer to his question.  I am answering that question here in public, because it concerns things far greater than him or me. To answer the question touches on sin and guilt and shame and redemption and hope and judgment and life and death.

            Our text this morning is Hebrews 1:3,  but I will read verses 1-4 to provide the proper context:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Our primary point of doctrine this morning is: 

            God spoke and God still speaks in His Son who is the radiance of the glory of God.

We will consider three questions:

First, what is the importance of God speaking in his Son who is the radiance of the glory of God?

Second, what is the glory of God?

Third, what does it matter:  (1) to my friend, (2) to you who know God in Jesus Christ, (3) to you who claim to know God?

First, what is the importance of God speaking in his Son who is the radiance of the glory of God?

            A fitting answer is matched to a question.  You know the TV show Jeopardy:  The contestant is given an answer and then must fashion a fitting question.  For example, the contestant is told, He was the first president of the United States.  The contestant says, Who was George Washington?

            If God speaks in His Son who is the radiance of the glory of God, it would imply that such provision is given because the glory of God is something we lack.

            That thought be may be quite strange to you:  I rarely hear anyone speak of wanting to get glory from God.  Most people never speak of glory at all – except in the context of military adventures or perhaps sports.

            A well-trained Christian might speak of giving glory to God.  One would know that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. But few ever speak of looking to obtain glory:  that sounds too proud!  Seeking glory sounds like it must be a sin – particularly to seek glory from God.  How could I ever get glory from God?  It sounds like blasphemy.

            Turn to John 5.  In that chapter we read of how Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethseda.  It was done on a Sabbath, which provoked some consternation among those present.  In the dispute which followed Jesus made the following statement, as recorded in John 5:17:

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

This brought the crowd to a boil.  They wanted to kill Jesus because he had committed blasphemy.  You will see their reaction in 5:18, read with me:

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus then went into an explanation of the Son’s position and authority.  We must skip over a great deal of this, so please turn down to verse 40.  In verse 40 Jesus had characterized the crowd as follows:

you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Then in verse 41, Jesus then makes this statement which further distinguishes him from the crowd:

I do not receive glory from people.

The word “glory” here might seem a bit strange.  It might make more sense to think of this statement as saying, “I do not receive praise from people.”  The opinion of human beings does not concern me.  Let us now connect these two ideas together:

            Those who do not seek Jesus do seek praise/glory from human beings.

Jesus wants to make this point perfectly clear, so he restates it in a slightly different manner in verse 44.  Please read with me John 5:44 – and, if you have not done so, make this verse in your Bible:

How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

You probably know that believing and having faith are two ways of expressing the same idea.  Faith is of great importance for one’s life:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9.  By faith, we do not mean some vague sort of faith. Faith is a complete and utter trusting in the merit of Jesus Christ.  Faith does not make us worthy of salvation: that is a gift of God.  Faith is the means by which obtain the merit of Jesus Christ.

            In John 5:44, Jesus has explained that the only one who can possibly have faith – and thus the only one who can be saved  — is the one who (1) does not seek glory from men, but (2) does seek the glory which comes from God.

            You must see that the glory of God is more than an option – it lies at the very heart of life and death.  Please turn to the third chapter of Romans.  In chapters 1, 2 & 3, Paul has been building the case that all humanity, every man and woman ever born stands guilty before God. The indictment culminates in the charge of Romans 3:23:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

In the church, most of the attention is placed upon the first clause:  all have sinned.  The second clause, concerning God’s glory, gets short shrift.  It is that second clause which I want you to consider.

            Jesus has said that God’s glory is something we must seek.  And Paul here says that God’s glory is something we lack.  The verb here translated “fall short” is a word which is elsewhere translated by “lack” or “need”.  As John Murray explains, “the verb refers to a condition not to an action”.   We could say,

            For all have sinned and continually lack the glory of God.

            We often think of sin as a sort of abstract law breaking: it is a behavior which is better or worse.  It is like a parking 25 minutes in a 20 minute zone.  When my friend asked me the question as to whether I would condemn him for his behavior – should I come and see him – he was making the same sort of assumption.  It is what people generally believe.

            Now it is true that sin is the violation of the law of God.  But in violating the law of God, we are doing far more than merely failing to do or not some required action.  Let me explain:

            Some years ago I heard a story of a pharmacist who allegedly sold diluted cancer drugs.  I don’t know whether he was eventually convicted, but I do recall that I was indigent at the accusation.  At that time, my father was dying of cancer.  So the matter of cancer medication had a personal bite.

            By selling the diluted drugs, a pharmacist could make more money.  His motivation was economic. His wrong was thus an economic wrong:  He had made a contract to sell a product of a certain quality for a certain price.  By selling an inferior product, he breached his contract.  The solution would be adjust the contract price.

            We do this sort of thing all the time:  the truck driver dings the washing machine on the way into the house, so the store knocks $50 off the price.  A paving stone is improperly set, so the installer gives you a $10 break.  We do not think the washer machine delivery man evil for dinging the washer and we don’t feel cheated when the price is adjusted.

            But the wrong of the pharmacist was somehow worse than merely breaching his contract: diluted drugs would kill someone.  The wrong was deeper, greater than mere money and behavior: if the pharmacist had actually deliberately diluted drugs, he was a killer.

            Many people treat sin like a mere breach of contract.  Their fault lies in doing or not doing some required thing.  Sure they dinged the washing machine – but they make up for the wrong by being especially good in some other place.  An angry word costs a donation to a pre-school; adultery costs expensive jewelry and feeling very bad: there are all sorts of adjustments that can be made.  When you add in the fact that I was provoked before I became angry, or I was weak before I committed adultery, the books begin to balance rather quickly. 

            But Jesus and Paul make a rather different point.  Sin is not a matter of some particular action or the failure to do some particular thing:  sure it entails behavior, but it is far worse than mere behavior.  The wrong of sin cannot be  balanced by doing some countervailing good deeds.  The pharmacist does not fix the wrong of killing my father by reimbursing me half the price of the drugs.  A deceiving pharmacist is not just a thief, he would be a murderer.  The one who sins is not just engaging in bad behavior.  Sin is not just an action which divides into good people and bad people.

            Sin is a status:  it is a condition.  Sin means that we lack the glory of God.

This brings us to our second question:  What is the glory of God?

            Jesus has said plainly that we will not be saved, unless we seek the glory which comes from God.  Paul has laid humanity under a common indictment:  we have sinned, we lack the glory of God.  What does this mean?  What glory of God are we lacking?

            Consider our text in Hebrews again:  In these last days, God has spoken finally and fully in his Son, Jesus:  Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. Jesus is what God has to say.  Jesus displays fully the glory of God.  Jesus is the answer to our sin.  I want you to see how this works, so please turn with me to Exodus in the 32nd  chapter.

            As you turn there, I will set the stage.  The Israelites were forced into slavery in the land of Egypt.  God had promised Abraham that he would rescue Abraham’s descendants from slavery in the land of Egypt.  Even though the Israelites in Egypt were idolaters – they were wicked rebellious people who did not worship God —  God did rescue the Israelites.  God displayed his power by destroying the Egyptian gods one-by-one.  The Egyptians worshipped the Nile, so God turned the Nile to blood.  Act-by-act, God proved to the Egyptians and to the Israelites that he was true and living God.

            God took the Israelites through the sea and drowned the Egyptian army.  God took them out to the wilderness.  Then on Mt. Sinai, God showed himself in clouds and fire and lightning, and spoke the Ten Words from the Mountain.  God began with the gracious word of salvation:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Ex. 20:2.  God did not save them based upon their merit, but based upon his promise.  When God gave them the law, it was because he had rescued them.  He did not give them the law so that they could earn their rescue.

            Here is how the people reacted:

Exodus 20:18–21 (ESV)

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

Moses when up the mountain to be with God and to receive the law. With Moses gone, the people pestered Aaron for some gods:  “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”  Ex. 32:1.

            Sin is always insane. Sin is madness.  Sin makes a beast of a man; sin unmans man, it makes us less than a man.  In sin we trade “the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:23).

            Bizarrely, these Israelites lived as if God had died, as if he were no longer to be found.  God was not pleased, and God told Moses of their sin.  God threatened to destroy the people.  Moses in humility sought God’s mercy on the people.  God relented in his determination to destroy the people.

            It is this point that I want to pick up the story.  If you will look in chapter 33, I want you to look at the request of Moses in verse 18, Exodus 33:18:

Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”

What a strange request.  Moses has seen God thunder from Mt. Sinai.  Moses has heard God speak.  Moses has been on the mountain and has received the law from God.  God has come down as pillar of cloud over the tent of meeting.  God spoke with Moses personally.  Why then did Moses say,

            Please show me your glory.

God then answers Moses as follows:

Exodus 33:19–23 (ESV)

And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

In chapter 34, we are given an account of what happens.  How does God show his glory to Moses?  God has performed signs and wonders beyond all comprehension. He has destroyed the most powerful kingdom in the world.  He has mocked the gods of the Egyptians.  He has spoken audibly.  What is there to show.

            Look down at verse 5 of chapter 34, and I will read through verse 8:

Exodus 34:5–8 (ESV)

The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.

God is asked to show his glory.  What does God reveal? Does God show Moses a universe which extends through trillions of miles? Does God show Moses Seraphim of aching beauty? Does God pulverize a mountain range? What does God display?

            He tells Moses his name.  He displays – not his creation, not his power, not wisdom – he reveals his name.  And how does God name himself.  Look at this again.  Mark it in your Bible. Do not forget these words:

            He is God

            He is merciful

            He is gracious

            He is slow to anger

            He abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness

            He forgives iniquity

            He forgives transgression

            He forgives sin

            Yet, he will not clear the guilty.

What is the glory of God; what is at the heart?  It is the mercy and grace of God.  And how is that displayed?  In Jesus Christ.  There is a sting in this disclosure – and we will get there.  But first I want you to see this and drag it into your head and heart:  God is a God of mercy and grace.          

            But God is no fool.  God is just. God cannot show this mercy for nothing.  God cannot overlook the least sin.  If the smallest sin were unchecked, God would cease to be God.  The least unrighteousness in God – and what is more unrighteous than to leave wickedness unpunished —  would shake the heavens and un-god God. God’s justice will not go unsatisfied.

            And so, to display mercy, God met his justice by fulfilling the demands of justice.  God granted mercy, but at a cost.  God became a man.  The Son of God became man.  Jesus did not cease to be God, but he veiled his glory in the wrap of humanity. Jesus became a man.

            The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the ruler of all creation, the heir of all ages, the one who upholds all creation by the word his power, the king of angels, lowered himself to become a man. The Lord of glory, became a man.  Jesus suffered pain, and indignity and shame.  Jesus suffered insult and weakness and sorrow.  Jesus suffered betrayal and hatred.  Jesus was delivered over and murdered.  God made Jesus to be the representative of mankind.  God made Jesus to suffer the punishment due to man. 

            2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Here is the radiance of the glory of God.  When asked to show his glory, God proclaimed his mercy.  But that mercy was not a cheap grace; it was not a thoughtless gift.  For God to proclaim that mercy, he had to give of himself. 

            I could try to give you a picture of the graciousness, the depth of love shown by God in Jesus Christ.  But any picture I could draw would be too little.  Any analogy would tempt blasphemy, because God’s love is incomparable.  Anything to which I could compare this love would be too little.  Some things cannot be compared.  At some places, we must merely stand in silence and wonder and awe.

If for a moment we actually saw the profound depth of God’s justice-satisfying mercy in Jesus Christ; if we understood what it was for God to become man, to bear the weight of the curse and fulfill the demands of the law; if we caught a glimpse of the shame of sin born by Jesus Christ; if we understood the marvel of overcoming death in the resurrection; if we could even hear the eternal praise to the Lamb of God, it shake our hearts with fear and love – we would shiver with a holy awe. 

            The men who saw only hints of God’s glory fell down in worship.  “Human kind cannot bear very much reality” (T.S. Elliott, Burnt Norton).  The reality of God’s glory shatters the confidence and pride of men.  If you would be cured, gaze upon this glory.

            Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God.

What does this mean?

            It means much:  I will apply this point to three sorts of people: To those who do not truly know God in Jesus Christ.  To those who do know God in Jesus Christ.  And to those who claim to know God, but settle for seeking glory and praise which comes from man.

            The first application:  To those who have not come to know God in Jesus Christ:

            You may think that I would have you to be good.  I do not.  Being good, as you call it, is of absolutely no value.  I am tired of hearing Christians and moralist think that the world would be right if only they could make everyone else behave.  The problem with the world is not behavior.  The problem with the world is that human beings lack the glory of God –the gift of God himself.  The problem with human beings is not their conduct, it is that they lack Jesus Christ.

            No one is going to hell because they are drunk or immoral or deceitful or angry or murderous or – you pick your problem.  Jesus explained quite plainly why people are damned:

John 3:17–18 (ESV)

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Anyone in hell, is there solely because they refused to believe in the Jesus Christ.  If you go to hell, it is because you refused to receive the glory of God radiantly displayed in Jesus Christ.
Let us be plain.  You are a sinner.  Your parents were sinners.  Your children are sinners.  The world has only produced one type of human beings:  sinful.  We are all in the same boat on this count, so let’s stop pretending that someone else is more deserving of hell than us.  We all deserve hell.  We all know that we sinners. 

            That is bad news.  Sinners are going to be punished. 

            However, there is good news.  God is merciful.  God freely saves all who receive the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  God does not demand money.  God does not demand sacrifices.  In fact, God will not sell salvation for any price in heaven or earth or under the earth. Salvation is not for sale.

            Yet God will freely give salvation to all who admit that they lack the glory of God.  God will give salvation to all who by faith appropriate, take hold of the merit of Jesus Christ.  By faith, we mean that one absolutely trusts in Jesus Christ’s merits – and that you at the same time give up all claim to your own righteousness. You must strip off every vestige of your own glory, your own pride. You must admit that you are deserving of no good – and then you must receive as a gift the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

            It is the trade of the universe.  One trades sin and shame for mercy and glory.  One trades death for life.  One trades being an enemy of God to be a joint heir with Christ.  One trades the hatred of the world for the fellowship of the saints.  You trade your sin for Christ’s glory.

            There is a bite here to: Should you come to judgment day dressed in your own glory, you will be damned.  Why so?  You said no one will go to hell because of this or that sin.  Yes, but you will go to hell because you have spurned the mercy of God.

            Jesus said that Hell was created for the devil and his angels.  Every man in Hell is trespassing.  But men will be in Hell.  Jesus said, Many on that day ….

            Why will they be in Hell?  Because God offered them mercy and grace and forgiveness.  But man rejected God’s grace.  A man who rejects the pardon of God is guilty before God.  A man who is offered the free grace of God and spurns that grace deserves nothing less than God’s wrath.

            Should you go to Hell, you will go to Hell solely based upon your own pride.  You are too proud to receive that which God freely gives. You are saying, God becoming man, bearing the cross, fulfilling the law – all of that is too little for me!  If I do not go through the front door of heaven, bearing my own glory – I will not go. 

            You will not go.

            I do not say this of my own opinion.  I say it based upon the opinion of Jesus and His apostles.  If you say this is wrong, then you say that Jesus was wrong.  You may say this, but be plain of what you are saying. If you dislike the message, then take your complaint to God and tell him that his grace is too expensive, since it will cost you all your pride.

            The second application:  To those who know Jesus.

            1 John 1:8–10 (ESV)

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Anyone who says that he has never sinned makes a liar of God.  Anyone who says that he does not currently possess sin is self-deceived.  Dear believer, in this life you will never be out of gunshot of sin. While we are in this life, we will be imperfect. 

            It is true that as we come to know the Lord, that the Lord changes us. Anyone who has truly come to know the Lord will be able to look back over the arc of his life and see change.  The change may be erratic, it may be fitful; there will be falls – sometimes spectacular falls – but there will be change.  I like the image Jack once gave:  You have seen those little dogs on long leashes.  As the master walks up the block, the dog may be going in any number of directions.  At any moment, the dog may actually be running the wrong way. But over the course time, the dog begins at one end of the block and ends up at the other end. 

            One who has come to know Jesus must be changed to conform to Jesus.  That is the effect of the glory of God:

            2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)

18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

When you have come to God, the glory of God in Jesus Christ will change you.  It must happen.  The glory of God changes the heart as surely as the sun warms the earth. To say that you know Christ and yet that knowledge has made no transformation of your heart is as if you say you saw a flood with no water or a fire with no flame:  it is a contradiction in terms.  To know Christ is to be changed.

            And yet this does not happen all at once.  Sin will dog us as long as we live on this earth.  We will stumble and fall.  We will trade our glory for shame. And while we may lose the trade of many of our most obvious sins, our sight of sin becomes more acute.  The longer we know the Lord, the more our sin pangs us. As the glory of God shines more brightly, we see more fully the depth and breadth of our sin.

            If you come into an abandoned house filled with broken furniture, you do not need much light to see that it needs to be cleaned.  And so you begin to haul old chairs and tables out of the room.  You open the shutters.  Then you add a lamp.  And as you clean and increase the light, you discover that the room was far more filthy and disgusting than you knew at first.

            As God cleans out the most obvious sins from our lives, he opens our eyes to the true depth of our sin to keep us ever humble. 

            Here we see the pride crushing weight of mercy.  The law reveals the presence of sin – it is as a broom in a dusty room:  it creates a great cloud, it reveals the dust; but it does little make the room clean.  The Gospel shows sin for its evil.  The Gospel reveals sin in all its hideous color. If you wish to understand sin, look at the cross.  The mercy of God discloses sin for its hateful end. 

            On the cross, men killed Jesus; but that was not the greatest pang borne by Jesus.  On the cross, Jesus bore the full wrath of God.  When you see sin, you must think of the unmitigated fury and hatred of God against sin.  When you see the cross, you must know that sin cost your dearest friend an infinitude burden of wrath. When you see the cross, you must see God’s love for you – but more than that, you must see the glory of God. God loves you that you love him, that you may make much of Him, that you may glorify Him – for therein lies your greatest joy.  To display the glory of God- that is the end for which you were created.  To be anything less than a God-glorifying grace-bought sinner is to forfeit your joy and crown and hope and glory.

            When you see your sin in the light of the glory of God as shone in the cross, it must make your feet to stumble and your heart to break for love and fear.  When I see my sin by light of the cross, when I see the bitterness of sin and the unsparing depths of God’s mercy, it must drive me to repentance.

            But how?  If God is merciful, then does henot lift of burden of sin?  Do you not know

            The kindness of God leads you to repentance.

Rom. 2:4 (NASB). Thomas Watson wrote of repentance:

It is sorrow for the offence rather than for the punishment.  God’s law has been infringed, his love abused.  This melts the soul in tears….O that I should offend so good a God, that I should grieve my Comforter!  This breaks my heart! (21-22).

            David fell. Abraham fell. Peter fell. How could we be better than they? We fall.  Thomas Brooks wrote that before sin Satan is a parasite, after we sin he is a tyrant. Before we fall, sin beckons us.  After we fall, sin mocks us.  You my friend will sin again – and here is where mercy triumphs over shame, where the glory of God rescues us from sin – not by making sin a light thing, but by revealing the glory of God.

            To sin and think, I have done nothing wrong. Or to think, I will just say “I’m sorry – Jesus forgave this so it is no big deal” is madness. To have no conscience for sin and yet claim to know Christ is like a man who has no pulse and yet claims to live.  If you think that the mercy of God means that sin is a light thing, then you understand neither mercy nor sin.  The one who thinks mercy has made sin light is one who has not tasted mercy.   A man filled with morphine and Novocain may think his body whole – even though his legs are being sawed off.  A man filled with false concepts of mercy may think himself safe, while his soul totters on the brink of Hell.

            A true understanding of cross-bought mercy makes the conscience tender to sin and desirous of holiness.

            Mercy is a pledge to the true son to not despair.  I wish to speak to the believer who has sinned – perhaps has even seen a sin dog his heels for years and despaired of ever shaking himself free from this parasite.  How your sin wearies you and leads you to despair – for you I have a word of hope.

            Sin seeks to drive you to despair. Sin lies about your Lord.  The Devil tempts you to think, God cannot forgive – not such a one as you!  You have failed again! Oh, such lies!  To lie against mercy!  To deny the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

            See your sin in the light of the cross.  The cross drives you to the sweet end of repentance.  Repentance has not been given to crush your soul, but to crush your pride:  Your pride says that you must be good enough to be loved.  The cross says, you cannot be good enough – but do not despair.  Jesus is good enough.  Jesus has merited your salvation. Your sin has been nailed to his cross. Hopeless, graceless sinners are saved to display the unsearchable riches of Christ so that

            Through the church the maniformed wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Eph. 3:10.

            Repentance is not a gloomy self-centered introspection: it is a sweet unburdening of the conscience by casting sin upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.  It is sorrow, but it is sorrow which seeks joy.  Here is the cause to rejoice:

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! 

My friend, your conscience may be your terror this morning.  Your heart may ache, your conscience bloodied because you have sinned.  I could list them, but you know them well.  You tremble and think, how could God forgive me again?  How can I plead forgiveness one more time?

            Which father of you would throw away your four years old son, because he disobeyed five times in one day?  Which mother of you would cast away your baby because she fell ill of a fever?  If you can show mercy and extend grace to the foolishness and weakness of a child, why do you think God would show less mercy? 

            There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Rom. 8:1.  And:

Romans 8:32 (ESV)

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Do not despair in your sin. To fall into despair because you think that God’s mercy has run dry is to defame God and murder your own hope.  I have sinned, you say.  Then come:

Hebrews 4:15–16 (ESV)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Of this point, Richard Sibbes wrote:

What should we learn from this, but to `come boldly to the throne of grace’ (Heb. 4:16) in all our grievances? Shall our sins discourage us, when he appears there only for sinners? Are you bruised? Be of good comfort, he calls you. Conceal not your wounds, open all before him and take not Satan’s counsel. Go to Christ, although trembling, as the poor woman who said, `If I may but touch his garment’ (Matt. 9:21). We shall be healed and have a gracious answer. Go boldly to God in our flesh; he is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone for this reason, that we might go boldly to him. Never fear to go to God, since we have such a Mediator with him, who is not only our friend but our brother and husband. Well might the angel proclaim from heaven, `Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy’ (Luke 2:10). Well might the apostle stir us up to `rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice’ (Phil. 4:4). Paul was well advised upon what grounds he did it. Peace and joy are two main fruits of Christ’s kingdom. Let the world be as it will, if we cannot rejoice in the world, yet we may rejoice in the Lord. His presence makes any condition comfortable. `Be not afraid,’ says he to his disciples, when they were afraid, as if they had seen a ghost, `It is I’ (Matt. 14:27), as if there were no cause of fear where he was present.

            The Third application:  To those who say they know Jesus, but seek glory from men.

            For you, I have no words of comfort.  This mercy of God speaks your doom.  Jesus said that if you seek the glory which comes from men, they you cannot believe.  If you seek the glory which comes from men, you will not be saved.

            Some weeks ago, Jack preached a sermon, “Hell’s Furnace Heated Hotter”. That sermon was preached to you.  Who did Jesus condemn most pointedly: Those who love the praise of men and who use religion as a pretense to gain such praise.

            Let me be perfectly plain. There are people in this room who use their Sunday attendance as a cloak for their Monday vice.  You have come to this room, week after week and use an hour of sermon and a couple of bucks every few weeks as a sop to your conscience so that you can lie and cheat, you can be unforgiving and unkind, so that you can refuse to love your wife, refuse to honor your husband, so that you can complain against your employer, so that you can neglect your  children in the pursuit of toys which your children will curse when you fall into your grave.

            You are in this room.  You may have hid your sin from everyone around you.  You have concealed your lust from your husband, your theft from the boss, your covetousness from your small group, your hatred from your brother.  I may have praised you to your face.  You may have fooled us all.  But God sees and God is not mocked.

            There is hope for you.  The hope of repentance.  The hope of mercy.   The mercies of God are great.  He will forgive any who repents.            

            But if you continue to care more for the glory of man and the praise of man than the glory which comes from God alone, you have God’s promise.  As Jesus says in Luke 20:47:

            They will receive the greater condemnation.