Affections, Mind and Will Captured by the Kingdom?

Treasure by Falashad

Here are some musings from Matthew 6:19-24.  For Where your treasure is there your heart will be also!

 

“[This] is the principle on which the regulation of our life entirely depends, and the object to which all our senses are directed.  If honor is reckoned the supreme good, the minds of men must be wholly occupied with ambition.  If money, covetousness will immediately predominate.  If pleasure, it will be impossible to prevent men from sinking into brutal indulgence.  We have all a natural desire to pursue happiness; and the consequence is that false imaginations carry us away in every direction.  But if we were honestly and firmly convinced that our happiness is in heaven, it would be easy for us to trample upon the world, to despise earthly blessings, and to rise towards heaven.”     John Calvin

Whatever has your heart has your focus or interest and whatever has your heart and focus is your functional master.  What you treasure with your heart captures your affections and what you treasure you spend time considering and contemplating or setting your mind on, and what has your affections and your abiding interest or pursuit is what winds up governing your will or your choices – i.e. controlling you or mastering you.

Jesus uses three word pictures to describe how this works.  He first speaks of a treasure.  What you treasure or place supreme value upon is where your heart is fixed.  Your heart is the working combination of what you think/believe and what you want or desire.  Hebrew 4:12.

What captures your heart shapes and controls the focus of your life.  This is the next picture that Jesus gives.  The eye is the lamp of the body.  Here Jesus is describing the heart too but with a slightly different nuance.  They eye is like the heart a figure of speech.  By it Jesus is teaching that whatever you treasure is that with which you are supremely preoccupied. 

He is speaking of matters of preoccupation.  You may be occupied with the stuff of this life but you must not allow yourself to be preoccupied. 

You may be engaged with the stuff of this life and to some degree be busy with the matters of this life (you cannot help but be) but you are not to be preoccupied with them.  Preoccupy is defined in the dictionary in terms of that which dominates or engrosses the mind of (a person) to the exclusion of other thoughts.  You are engrossed mentally with whatever preoccupies you.   This carries the further negative notion that thus you are distracted from what is truly important.

Jesus speaks of your focus – your eye is the lamp of your body.  This is another way of saying where your treasure is there your heart is also. You tend to focus on what you value or treasure.  A healthy eye is an eye that is focused on the goodness, greatness, grace of the Living God. God is the supreme object of vision and the consequence is your whole body or life is full of light.  A healthy eye is when you set your mind on the things above.  You become preoccupied with Christ and his kingdom.  This gives you the only proper grid from which to view this earthly life.  It is this grid that enables you to really manage the affairs and issues of this life so that they do not consume you with either covetousness or anxiety.

If your eye is bad – if your supreme focus is on the creature (on yourself – this is the grid by which you see reality) then what light you have within you is really darkness.  The implication here is that you are deceived. You may think your vision is good and your life is good but if your eye is not fixed on God who is light then the very light you have within is darkness and how great is that darkness.

What you treasure is that on which you fix your vision (with what you are preoccupied, what you set your mind upon) and such becomes your true master.  You can have more than one employer but you can only have one master – one to whom you give ultimate allegiance.  Again, no one forces you to treasure what you treasure or to set your vision on what you set your vision.  You treasure what you find appealing and delightful.  Coveting your treasures or worrying about holding them or keeping them is what winds up controlling your life.  So that which you treasure and on which you fix the eyes of your heart ends up mastering you.  This is a law of reality.  It is as fixed as the law of gravity.

There is no such thing as ultimate freedom (or ultimate neutrality) where you the creature are a law and rule unto yourself.  As Bob Dylan sings, “You got to serve somebody.”  So Jesus teaches that when it comes to ultimate treasures and visions and masters there can be only one over your life.  Note how he emphasizes worship here.  It is under the idea of serving.  You cannot serve two masters.  You cannot worship two treasures for either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money – materialism, property, what money can buy and achieve for you. 

Of course there is more one can serve than money.  Whatever competes for first place over you heart, competes for that place that belongs to the Triune God.  So if money is not what competes for God’s preeminence in your heart what does?  It can be anything.  John Calvin gives these words that help me at least understand what Jesus is saying about the two masters.  I often feel that my obedience to God is hindered by a pull to other ‘gods.”  The issue is whether on not you are fighting this pull. 

“It is no doubt, true, that believers themselves are never so perfectly devoted to obedience to God, as not to be withdrawn from it by the sinful desires of the flesh.  But as they groan under this wretched bondage, and are dissatisfied with themselves, and give nothing more than an unwilling and reluctant service to the flesh, they are not said to serve two masters: for their desires and exertions are approved by the Lord, as if they rendered to him perfect obedience.  But this passage reproves the hypocrisy of those who flatter themselves in their vices, as if they could reconcile light and darkness.”   

It is never a matter of one's heart being empty, one's inner vision being cloudy or one's life being free from an outside ruler.  It really has to do with what your heart treasures, where your vision is cast and who or what is your master.  Jesus calls you to turn to him so that your affections, mind and will might become captured by the Kingdom of God and that means that you are delighting in God's gracious and true (rightful) rule over your life now and forever!

Grace Changes One's Nature

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  Romans 8:5-8

  

It is important to be sure you believe what the Bible teaches on all that it reveals and presents – this is true of what it has to teach about our fallen natures in Adam and our renewed natures in Christ.

Now the first point to be made about the text is that it is descriptive.  There are no commands, admonitions for injunctions given to the readers.   This is important because what Paul is describing is the contrast between the basic nature of unbelievers and believers. 

A believer is someone who by the work of the Holy Spirit is now enabled to fulfill the requirements of the Law.  There is within your inner life as a believer the desire to obey God’s commands for God’s glory.  This is now the governing inclination or disposition of the believer in Jesus Christ.  This is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit engrafting you into Jesus Christ, changing your basic nature from one of self-centeredness to God-centeredness and remaining resident within your life to give you divine aid and power to love God and obey his commands.  This is a gracious supernatural work of God.

This is what Paul means when he says in verse 4:  “That the righteous requirements of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk or live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”  The believer is in the most central and basic place in his or her nature no longer governed by one’s relationship to Adam or what is called the flesh but governed by one’s relationship now to Jesus Christ that is marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul means when he describes the believer as no longer being in the flesh but in the Spirit.  Therefore, the believer is now able from a heart of faith, motivated by love and with the view to the glory of God to obey God’s commands.  This means more than parroting the commands of God, or obeying them externally.  Many can do that.  What this means is that the believer by virtue of the presence, work and influence of the Holy Spirit is able to obey God’s commands with the right motivation.  This is no small thing!

Now Paul expands on what he means by this in verse 5 by setting up the contrast between the nature of the unbeliever and the nature of the believer.

The Unbeliever:                                   The Believer:

Lives according to the flesh                Lives according to the Spirit

Minds the things of the flesh               Minds the things of the Spirit

Is in the flesh                                              Is in he Spirit

"For those who are according to the flesh have their minds on the things of the flesh and those who are according to the Spirit have their minds on the things of the Spirit."  The emphasis in verses 5-8 falls on the nature of the unbeliever.  Then in verses 9-11 the emphasis is on the nature of the believer.  Yet Paul stresses the nature of the unbeliever by making this contrast between the two. 

The flesh is defined by John Murray as “human nature corrupted, directed and controlled by sin.”  Sin is the extreme self-centered focus we now have that marks our rebellion and enmity with God.  

The unbeliever is described as first walking according to the flesh.  This description points to the lifestyle, conduct or behavior of the unbeliever.  The lifestyle or conduct of the unbeliever conforms to the dictates of the flesh. 

This is the case because the unbeliever thinks of the things of the flesh.  They have their minds on the things of the flesh.  In other words their thoughts, interests, affections, purposes, agendas are governed by their absorption with the flesh.  This is their ruling disposition – the mind of the flesh.  In contrast the believer who lives according to the Spirit is taken up with the things of the Spirit – they have their thoughts, interests, affections, purposes, agendas governed by their absorption with the Spirit. In other words the believer walks according to the Spirit because one has one’s mind on the things of the Spirit.  This is their ruling disposition and inclination – the mind of the Spirit.   This is the internal functioning, frame of heart and mind of both the unbeliever and believer.  This is their inward attitudinal leaning and orientation.  The contrast is sharp. The saving grace of God in Christ not only secures for us a righteous standing with the Father but by the Spirit's inward work the believer is given a new nature and with it a new disposition that finds God and the things of God pleasing to the affections.  

Super Abounding Grace

Here are some musings on grace from Romans 5:12-21.  I pray that this might be of encouragement and help to those who happen to come to this post. 

The great reality about being a Christian in the Biblical sense of the word is that you come to know the wonder of God’s grace. In fact through Jesus Christ you have access into God’s grace in which you now stand.  By grace you have been saved and by grace you have been brought into the dominion or reign of grace in which you now and forever will stand.  What this grace means is that because of and through Jesus Christ God is favorably disposed toward you, your sins have been forgiven (and will continue to be forgiven), God is no longer your judge who condemns you, He is your heavenly father who has justified you and adopted you and is no longer angry with you, and one day he will bring you into his eternal kingdom to live with him forever with no sin in your heart and no disease in your body but will so transform you to make you fit to live eternally in a new heavens and new earth.  It just doesn’t get any better than this. 

Living in Grace means that you have moment by moment access to the throne of grace.  God is so favorably disposed toward you that he is ready to receive you and help you.  Yet God’s grace comes to you with God’s truth, as well.  God is light and this means that God wants you to know the truth about Him, his character and grace and about you, your status before him as his dearly loved child and the remaining work that needs to be done in your life to make you more and more like your elder brother Jesus. 

Here he states that a Christian is a man or woman who now belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.  A Christian is a person who stands in the grace of God, who lives under the reign of grace that is mediated through the Lord Jesus Christ.   This being the case a Christian is no longer connected with Adam.  A Christian has been transferred from the dominion of Adam’s headship to the dominion of Christ’s headship.  A Christian is no longer in Adam but is now in Christ. 

Paul describes here only two kinds of people: those who are connected with Adam by virtue of simply being human beings and those who are connected with Jesus Christ by virtue of receiving the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness (5:17).  He stresses that all people without exception share in Adam’s one transgression – his one trespass.  Adam was ordained by God to be representative of all his descendants – progeny.  Adam’s descendants share in the guilt of his one transgression by imputation and that is why we are sinful (morally corrupt) and why we die.  In fact his one trespass led to condemnation for all people and by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners. 

This further means that sin reigns in death.  Sin rules over the hearts and lives of people confirming its rule through death.  This means that not only are we culpable for Adam’s sin but we are slaves of sin. Sin is personified here as a tyrant that rules over us.  We are in bondage to its power.  Now sin has been in the world and operating in the lives of people from the time of Adam’s fall to today.

Paul contrasts Adam with Christ, sin with grace and death with life.  Christ has not come simply to redo what Adam failed to do but rather to go way beyond Adam’s fall.  Not only is there the transgression of Adam, there is the obedience of Jesus Christ.  Not only is there the condemnation that comes from Adam’s transgression there is the justification that comes from Christ’s one act of righteousness.  Not only does death reign through that man’s trespass, we who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

The whole thrust of this passage is to underscore the superlative power of God’s grace over sin.  We are never to focus on sin as an end it itself.  Yet we need to understand the plight of sin and its historical and personal dimensions if we are going to grasp and be grasped by the greatness of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus.  Yet we never stay hovering over our sin – we take our sin again and again to Jesus Christ.  When our sin is exposed it is for the sake of repentance, confession and the receiving of fresh applications of God’s mercy and forgiveness. 

This grace is God’s favorable disposition toward the ungodly that moves him to deliver you from the condemnation of Adam’s sin and the rule of sin over your lives.  This comes to us under that banner of the gift of justification that has been secured for us through the obedience of Jesus Christ.  Just as Adam’s act of disobedience brought upon us the condemnation of sin and its bondage leading to death, so the obedience of Jesus Christ secured for those who will receive him by faith, justification.

So salvation is not about what you can do but what has been done for you by Jesus Christ – by faith in Christ you are justified and come to know peace with God. 

To be justified further means that your ties have been severed with Adam and you are now united with the exalted and reigning Jesus Christ.  He is your new representative – you now bear his name and his victory over sin, condemnation and death are yours.  You have been transferred from one dominion where sin ruled to a new dominion where grace rules.  You have been set free from the guilt and power of sin.  You are now under the benevolent rule of grace that is greater in its power than your sin.

So what must you do?  You must see who you are in Christ and have assurance that you are now put in the rank of the righteous.  You have been put in the category or rank of a righteous person in Christ.  This super abounding grace is indeed amazing.  So be open to what God wants to show you in your life that he wants to change. Don’t refuse to see indwelling sin.  Look for it with the assurance that you do so not under God’s frown but under God’s smile. Talk about the need to change and grow in your Christian life should encourage you not discourage you. Be also assured that no amount of messes you make exclude you from God’s gracious presence.  He will say, “What took you so long to come to me, I have been waiting for you.”  He is just that loving and he is just that graciously determined to change you into the image of Jesus Christ and this is a very, very, very good thing.  “For his grace does reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  What super abounding grace this truly is! 

Do You Want To Go Away Too?

Bread and Wine by LivingOS

Here are some musings on the Gospel and its relation to the Lord's Table drawn from John 6:48-49.

Drawing your life from Jesus Christ is what the Lord’s Table should impress upon you.  Our life is found in our relationship with God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and through him with the Triune God.  The Table points us to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross – his body given for us, his blood shed for us and as such it reminds us of how his death was payment (penal payment) for our sins that we might be made right with God and thus restored to our original place before our Creator.  This restoration, however, does more than simply bring us back to where our first parents Adam and Eve were with God before the fall.  Rather, because we have been restored to God through the person and work of the God-Man Jesus Christ we are now justified, reconciled and adopted as dearly loved children of God.  We have more in redemption than our first parents did in innocence.

The Lord’s Table points you to the new life that you now have in Christ.  For the point that is made in our consuming the bread and the cup is that there is real and eternal life in Jesus Christ because Jesus is the door, the fountain of living water, the true vine, the good shepherd and the bread of life.  Because Jesus restores us into the privilege of God’s table and heavenly court we have thus been brought back to the true source of life.  Jesus has entered the garden of God by way of the flaming sword of the cherubim – taking upon himself the judgment of our sin and opening the garden of intimacy with the true and living God where alone is found the Tree of Life and we now see that the Tree of Life is truly the Lord Jesus Christ who gives life to those who trust and follow him as his disciples. 

So the question the Table puts to us every time we come is this: are you truly drawing your life from Christ?  Does the relationship you have with Jesus Christ by faith bring real joy to your heart?  Do you love following him, staying close to him, growing in knowing him, obeying his commands, living by the priorities of His Kingdom, trusting in His Father as your Father, and experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit in your life?  Is there a subjective, internal growing joy and peace in your heart that at the same time leaves you with an insatiable and unquenchable yearning and desire to press ever closer to Christ and to His Father as your Father? 

When the Lord Jesus was on earth those who followed him literally followed him.  That is how they demonstrated their faith in him and their allegiance to him.  Now there were many who followed him other than the twelve.  The Gospels tell us that there were certain women (many other women) from his Galilean ministry had followed him and cared for his needs.  Likewise many claimed to be his disciples other than these faithful women and the twelve.  There came a time at the height of his earthly popularity when Jesus performed probably his greatest miracle or sign other than when he raised people from the dead – that was the supernatural feeding of more than five thousand people from only a few loaves of bread and a few fish and afterwards he sent his disciples back to collect twelve full baskets of leftovers. 

When he began to unpack the meaning of this sign which pointed to the need in faith to come to him as the bread of life and believe on him as desperately soul hungry sinners in order to find true life – real ongoing transformation – it was too difficult for them to believe and they turned away from him.  Then turning to the twelve he asked them this question: “Do you want to go away too?”  

Of course Peter answered and rightly so, “Lord to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”  So Peter and the others continued to follow Jesus.  Yet one of those who followed him was later to betray him and Peter who answered him “Lord to whom shall we go?” denied him three times.  The others all ran away.  Judas, though following Jesus really did not believe that he had the words of eternal life and the others’ faith was so weak that under pressure they fell.  Yet Jesus restored the eleven and after his death and resurrection they were more certain than ever that he had the words of eternal life and was indeed the Holy One of God.  Yet how did they manifest their faith in Him once he was exalted – how did they follow him once he was taken up into heaven?  They followed him by following what he taught and his teaching was propagated within the context of His New Covenant Community as his teaching was preserved under the care and oversight of the Holy Spirit in the Canon of the New Testament.  So they followed Him as they heeded his word within the Covenant community of the local church. 

The Lord is asking us this question – we who profess faith in Him as our Lord and Savior – “Do you want to go away too?”  If we profess like Peter, “Lord to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God;” then how do we manifest the genuineness of this profession?  How do we today follow Jesus Christ and continue to follow him?

On this side of the death, resurrection and glorious exaltation of Jesus Christ we follow him by:

1. Being sure that by faith we draw our life from Him.  This means that we look to our relationship with Jesus Christ and find from this relationship supernatural grace to live for Christ.  Drawing your life from Christ means that your relationship with Him and through Him with the Father shapes your affections, priorities and choices.  This is what we find portrayed for us in the Lord’s Table for in faith as we eat the bread and drink the cup we are indeed drawing our life from Christ.

2. By having a hunger for His Word.  His words are words of life.  Peter acknowledged this about his teaching, while the vast majority found is words disturbing and they could no longer follow him.  A hunger for God’s Word specifically entails a hunger to hear his Word proclaimed.  The public proclamation of the Word is just as vital to your spiritual welfare in helping you draw your life from Christ, as is your participation by faith in the Lord’s Table.  Jesus Christ is present in both the Table and the Proclamation of His Word and we desperately need both if we are to follow Him.  

3. Finally you follow Jesus Christ as you remain with his followers as they are gathered in the local church. Jesus called his early followers individually but he called them to be a community.  This is still his pattern. They followed him as they stayed connected with the New Covenant community that came to tangible expression though local churches under the care of God ordained shepherds who where charged to faithfully preserve and expound the Apostolic teaching. 

Hearts that truly follow Jesus yearn to draw life from Jesus Christ by faith (the drawing of this life from Christ is depicted in the Lord’s Table) and have that life shape affections and priorities and choices.  Such hearts have a hunger for the Word, especially the hearing of the Word.  Such hearts see the value of Jesus’ community of followers and eagerly participate in the worship and fellowship meetings of that community.  As you do these things then you are saying to Jesus, “To whom else shall I go Lord, for you alone have the words of eternal life and I have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” 

Preach the Gospel To Yourself Daily

       It is essential that followers of the Lamb draw their life from him.  This means learning how to preach or proclaim the Gospel to yourself and that daily.  You need to hear the good news of Christ finished work and present intercession on your behalf daily.  The following points are my feeble attempt to do this for myself.  I hope they will be of help and encouragement to others. 

I am a justified and dearly loved son/daughter of the Living God. 

The Lord knows my heart and the depth, degree, pervasiveness of my remaining and indwelling sin.   The Lord uses circumstances to expose my sin so I might see it and seek Him more earnestly for grace to repent and believe, so I might have the power to love and serve.  

My sin (thoughts, attitudes, and behavior, i.e. both the root and the fruit of sin in my life) is my sin and does not belong to, nor is it caused by anyone else.  The Lord forgives me for every “eruption of my corruption”.  He continues to pardon, forgive and cleanse me. 

    Eruptions of my sin in terms of root (unbelief) and fruit (sour relationships, neglected opportunities, conflict with others, self-pity, playing the victim, lusts of the flesh, etc.)  in no way change my justification, acceptance and sonship with my Father.  Though if not dealt with, will disrupt my fellowship with my Father. 

I am not in any real or substantive bondage to my sin.  Though it annoys me, harasses me, hollers at me, etc., using lies and deception to create in me a perception of being in its power.  This is not the case.  I am not a bondslave to sin, in that sin has no legal power over me.  I am free from it. Therefore, I can freely and honestly, with godly sorrow, face my sinful thoughts, attitudes and acts, confess them and repent of them.  

I need not and I must not allow myself to be given over to despair because it only makes me more vulnerable to temptation.  I can be confident and bold in approaching my heavenly Father's throne of grace, knowing that he will receive me there being favorably disposed toward me as his dearly loved and justified child.  He welcomes me.  

Jesus Christ is my elder brother and Great High Priest who represents me before that throne of grace.  I can go to him for help when I am being tempted.  He sympathizes with me.  He knows my weakness and he will give me help.  I am not alone.  

My circumstances, including the stance other people have toward me (for good, for ill, or indifference) is the Lord’s providence toward me. This is His doing and if I am called of God and love God, the present ordering of my circumstances are for my good.  

As I hold to the truth and to the sweet savor and nutrition of the Gospel, I will change by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit who works in my life.   

He is the Spirit of Adoption who testifies with my spirit, that I am a dearly loved child of God. The Spirit of adoption is also the Spirit of holiness and when through the Gospel he testifies to the former he does so always to lead me down the path of the latter.  

So it is only by the hearing of the Gospel of God’s grace that I will grown by bearing the fruit of the Spirit produced in my life and walking in the good works that God has prepared for me in advance to do and which by doing adorn the Gospel.   

    
 Thanks be to the Father for his infinite love, thanks be to the Son for his sustaining grace, thanks be to the Spirit for his intimate communion.  Thanks be to the Triune God for such a great salvation!

Oh, The Glorious Three-Personed God

 “Oh, The Glorious Three-Personed God”

Batter my heart, three personed God; for You

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an unsurped town to another due,

Labor to admit You, but oh! To no end;

Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed unto Your enemy.

Divorce me, untie me, or break that knot again,

Take me to You, imprison me, for I

Except You enthrall me, never shall be free;

Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.

John Donne (1572-1631)              

The revelation of God being One in Three is not an abstract notion fit only for theologians or philosophers.  There is also no inherent contradiction in God’s Triune nature.  We may not be able to comprehend how the one God eternally exists in the three persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit yet we can apprehend this.  It is not contrary to our reason.  As we believe this about God our faith must then move toward increased understanding.  This must occur if we are going to know and worship God in a way that really conforms to what He is.    The basic summation or confession of what the Bible teaches concerning the Trinity may be stated in the following way:

1.  There is only one God.

2.  The Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God

3. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct  persons (distinct centers of self-consciousness and self-awareness).

From this summary we can go back and reflect more deeply, worshipfully and prayerfully on the Bible texts that teach the following.

1. There is only one God who is indivisible.

2. The Father is God.

3. The one who is called the Son and the Word of God is       also fully God.

4.There is an eternal relationship, bond and fellowship between the Father and the Son.

5. The Holy Spirit is a person and not a thing or an inanimate power or presence.

6. The Holy Spirit is a person equal to the Father and the Son who also sustains an eternal relationship with the Father and the Son.

7. The Scriptures present the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as sharing equally in the full attributes, glory and power of God.  Thus, they are as God in Three Persons to be honored, worshiped and obeyed.

It is also important to state that the words and terms that have been used to give expression to the Bible’s presentation and descriptions are legitimate and helpful and not contrary to Scripture. They are tools that help us by faith pursue a deeper understanding of God.

For example the ancient church was surrounded by a polytheistic culture.  Many gods were worshipped.  The Christian church embraced the Old Testament’s monotheism and affirmed that there was only one God who is indivisible and who revealed himself to Abraham, Moses, David and the Prophets.  When they came to give expression to how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit could each be God without there being three Christian gods, they stated that the three shared equally in the one divine substance, essence or nature.  They used such Greek and Latin terms as phusis, essentia and natura. They were convinced from the Scriptures that the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit were not mere titles or roles that the God of the Old Testament assumed at different stages in redemptive history. So they used such Greek and Latin terms as hypostasis, subsistence and persona, which are best translated by the English word person.  The word person captures the Biblical reality that the Father and Son and Holy Spirit stand over against each other as distinct centers of self-consciousness and self-awareness.  There is mutual love and communication between them. 

Yet when the early church fathers tried to explain the manner or way or mode of how the three relate to one another they went a bit beyond Scripture and moved into a more metaphysical and abstract realm.  When we come to understand the Trinity we realize that the relationships between the three persons are eternal and necessary.  For God to be God there is and must be a Trinity.  Yet we come to understand to some degree the eternal inner workings of the Three in One and One in Three due to the work of redemption that God achieved for sinners.  It is an amazing thing to consider that within the inner fellowship of the Triune God the plan of redemption was established before the foundations of the world.  Here we begin to understand the eternal relations between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  To think that our salvation means that we come to share in the Triune fellowship of the Living God is indeed a source of wonder and joy!  As John Donne expressed the intense joy and glory of this union between the believer and the One he called the “three-personed God.”  “Except You enthrall me, (I) never shall be free; Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.”  

Rejoice in the Lord But Beware of All Joy Killers

 

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.                             

                                                                                           C. S. Lewis

Finally, my brothers,  rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.  Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God  and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh...Philippians 3:1-2

Do you like to be reminded of something that you already know?   You know that you have that doctor’s appointment.  It is written down on your calendar at work and at home.  Then the day before the appointment the secretary from doctor’s office calls to “just remind you that you have an appointment tomorrow.”  That night before you go to bed your spouse says, “Honey, don’t forget about your doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”   At breakfast as you are enjoying that bowl of corn flakes your teenage daughter greets you with a kiss and she says, “Hey, don’t you have a doctor’s appointment today?”   Being reminded of what we know can be a little frustrating.   Yet if it is an important matter that we should not forget then we might be more willing to receive reminders.  This is the case for example with your anniversary or your mother’s birthday.  

How important a matter is the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you?  As Paul is writing his letter to the Philippians, while under house arrest awaiting word of Caesar’s decision about whether he would be released or executed what do you think is upper most in his mind?   What do you think he really wants to communicate to these Philippian believers?  We have already seen what little concern Paul has for his own welfare.  His concern rests with others.  His interest is in their welfare.  He wants to make sure that they do not forget something.  What is it?   It is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the implications that the Gospel has for their lives.  He begins reminding them of what they had already heard from him by commanding them to rejoice in the Lord.   

Rejoice in the Lord!   Joy is a theme that runs throughout this letter.  Some have called it the epistle of joy. Yet this joy comes from faith in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is joy that rises from faith in Jesus Christ and the benefits that he brings into your life.   This command implies the existence of vital saving faith in your heart.  This command assumes that Jesus Christ is the great and glorious object of your faith.  You cannot rejoice in what you do not have stock or something vested.  To rejoice in the Lord implies that you know Him.  To rejoice in the Lord means that you understand the value and worth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that it has weight in your life and upon your heart and mind.   It is to the Lord that you are to look for your joy.  In fact it is joy that comes from your faith that fuels a life of obedience to God that honors and glorifies Him.    So this command, “rejoice in the Lord” is also a call to keep fighting for your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.   For you cannot rejoice in the Lord without your faith functioning in a vital way.  

One of the reasons that we may not rejoice in the Lord is because joy killers have hijacked our faith.  Paul tells us that it is no bother for him to remind us of the Gospel (this is what does beginning in 3:7-11).  In fact it is a safeguard for us.  Then he gives us a warning “beware of the joy killers.”  He doesn’t say it quite like that but that is what he means.  “Beware of those dogs, those workers of iniquity, those mutilators of the flesh…” Wow, this is pretty strong and even coarse language coming from the sanctified pen of an Apostle! 

Paul is referring to those who were teaching that while it is important to believe in Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord it is not enough.  You must add to your faith in Jesus the practice of keeping all the ceremonial Laws of Moses and especially the rite of circumcision.  This in essence did two things.  First it diminished the sufficiency and centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior of sinners.  In doing this it then killed the joy that comes from believing that Jesus Christ alone is the sufficient and complete savior of sinners.   Whatever eclipses the inherent value of the Lord Jesus Christ before the eyes of your heart is a joy killer.   Whatever exalts, promotes or enhances our self-centeredness (this is what Paul means by the flesh in verse 3) by default eclipses the Lord Jesus Christ and destroys our joy.  

True circumcision occurs when through faith in Jesus Christ you die to self-centeredness and are raised to a new way of life that is Christ-centered and God-centered.  This means that the "self" that is focused on self is cut off and thrown away.  Now the self begins to focus as it was created to function.  Paul captures this new focus that the Gospel of Jesus Christ creates in your life when he says that “we are the true circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory and boast in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh.”   The result is that we are able to really rejoice in the Lord and in that joy live a completely different life – not a life of the flesh but a life empowered by the Spirit and centered exclusively on Jesus Christ.  Paul’s concept of the flesh entails both self-centered pride and self-centered pleasures.   In this passage he is concerned with fleshly pride.  In Galatians 5:16-26 he is concerned about fleshly passions or perverted pleasures.   When the self is centered on issues of pride or the pursuit of selfish self-satisfaction it is turning from the Gospel and heading down a path of woeful destruction.  Teachings or ways of thinking that promote such steps and thereby cast a dark shadow over the pure son/sun of the Gospel are joy killers because they are Gospel detractors and grace deniers.  So Paul here does two things.  He calls you to rejoice in the Lord by believing the Gospel but also to beware, beware, beware of all joy killers!

Do You See God as Gracious Toward You?

I still plan to continue with posts on my change of conviction regarding conditional immortality and the theological reasons for this change but I want to return to my basic purpose for this blog and that is to highlight the grace and truth of the Gospel.  So with that in mind I offer some musings on grace that I have found from Psalm 130.

Even though we confess that we are saved by grace alone, it is still hard for us to grasp the truth that Almighty God is in Christ graciously disposed toward us all the time.  We also struggle to understand how saving grace alone is the power to help us change.  We at times slip into thinking that there must be something we have to do to prepare to receive God’s grace or to be sure we hold on to God’s grace.  We confuse what God’s grace does in a person’s life with conditions that we must meet to receive God’s grace.  We sometimes think that we must have conviction of sin, repentance and faith to secure God’s grace.   In reality it is God’s grace and God’s grace alone that brings conviction of sin, faith in Jesus Christ, repentance over sin and a fleeing to Jesus Christ.  Such grace for forgiveness of sins, justification and restoration with God and eternal life is also graciously and freely offered to all people (men, women and children – red, yellow, black and white) in the free and genuine offer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is an offer that God the Father makes (2 Corinthians 5:20 see also Isaiah 55).  It is an offer that Jesus Christ makes (Matthew 11:28-29).  It is an offer that the Holy Spirit makes (Revelation 22:17).

We need to be careful that we do not slip into a legalistic frame of mind and heart, whereby we acknowledge that God’s grace in Christ saves and keeps us, yet we still think that we must do our part to keep God from turning from us, especially when we sin.  When you sin and even drift away from obeying God and away from walking with Him how do you view God at those times?  Or even when you seem to be doing well, how do you see God’s stance toward you?  Do you really see how wonderfully gracious God is toward you in Christ?  We are reluctant to really declare the fullness of God’s grace because we still struggle with what we must do or with what our part is in the relationship.  We basically see the New Covenant that God offers us in Christ as a contractual arrangement between us and God, whereby He promises to do His part, if we will continue to do our part.  We may also be concerned not to promote the notion that because God is gracious to us we can do whatever we want even when we do what is contrary to his revealed will and because he is gracious we can get away with it.  Some have indeed turned God’s grace in Christ into a license for vice.  What needs to be said is that both the idea that there is something still that one must do to prepare to receive God’s grace or to keep God’s grace and the idea that if we really say that it is by grace alone that we are saved then this promotes loose living are actually two sides of the same coin and are antithetical to the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ. 

In Psalm 130 we learn that God’s grace in the forgiveness of sins has a purpose or intention.  We might say that God who is gracious to us in forgiving us our sins intends such grace to lead us in a certain direction (See Titus 2:11-14).  In fact God’s grace is the very power to lead us in that intended direction.  This is brought out clearly in verse 4: “With you there is forgiveness so that you might be feared.”  To fear God captures a life changing disposition of heart that moves us to humble ourselves before God with worshiping and admiring hearts.  To fear God is not a slavish dread that keeps one away from God.  The fear of God is a yearning to be as close to God as one can get and to stay in His awesome and transforming presence.  To fear the Lord means that you are now paying attention to Him.  This motivates you to obedience and holiness of heart and life.   

Now what creates in your heart this kind of fear of God?  Is it the certainty of God’s judgment?  Now God’s judgment is a certainty and His judgment is just and holy but it is not what creates true fear in your heart.  The psalmist says that it is God’s grace toward you whereby he does not mark your iniquities but rather forgives you (again and again and again) that produces such godly fear.  In fact the more you see God as he truly is: gracious toward the sinner, the needy, the broken, the weary, the wretched in the free offer of the Gospel and as continually gracious toward his dearly loved children who have come to believe that Gospel then the more you will fear Him.  This means the more you will grow in holiness of heart and life.  So if you in faith understand that God’s grace is rooted in his very nature (he delights to be gracious) this frees you both from the haunting notion that God is lurking around the corner waiting for you to blow it so that he can pounce on you and from the vile notion that such teaching about grace will only promote immorality and vice.  God’s grace is both his comforting and restoring love that is there when we sin enabling us to renew our fellowship and walk with Him and His intimate presence with us moment by moment delighting in us as His children and leading us toward greater freedom and obedience.  So do you really see God as gracious toward you?  Do you recognize how vital to your life it is to see God as gracious toward you?  

In commenting on how grace removes the barrier of our approach to God John Calvin wrote:

"How is it possible for any man to offer himself cheerfully to God unless he rely upon his grace, and be certainly persuaded that the obedience he yields is pleasing to him?  When this is not the case all men will rather shun God, and be afraid to appear in his presence and if they do not altogether turn their back upon him...in short, the sense of God's judgment, unless conjoined with the hope of forgiveness, strikes men with terror...whence it follows, that men never serve God aright unless they know that he is a gracious and merciful being."

Can we have an "amen!" here for Mr. Calvin's words about God's grace?