Personal or Corporate? (05/04/25)

It’s a question I found myself asking in my previous consideration of these verses:  Is it just possible that Paul’s call here isn’t to personal pursuit, but to mutual aid?  That may not be the most apt phrase to apply, but neither is it the least.  Well, at the very least, this is not some thought utterly foreign to the faith.  I find, for example, Ironside observing that it is ‘assembly salvation’ which Paul is addressing here.  The Wycliffe Translators Commentary offers a similar thought, that this is a matter of corporate salvation, concluding, “Salvation is corporate.”  I would add that the connective tissue of, “therefore,” or as the NASB has set it, “so then,” keeps us firmly attached to the preceding discussion.  We are still contemplating the life of the church, or more properly, the life of the Church, for as Paul has shown in what leads up to this, the same concerns that apply within the local body apply across distance.  We’re still addressing that same line of thought.  “With humility of mind regard one another as more important than oneself.  Don’t just look out for yourself, but also for others” (Php 2:3-4).

“Salvation is corporate.”  I want to stay on that thought for a moment, particularly as I don’t think we generally think of it as such.  We tend to consider salvation a most personal matter.  But we must come back to the old adage.  “No man is an island.”  No believer can face the trials of living godly alone and succeed, and so we have this call to work at unity, to work at keeping this body knit together in healthy cooperation.  We have this call to be concerned for the spiritual growth of each one of us, to lend our effort to the salvation of all, not just me, me, me.  We will come to the nature of the work, and by what means we achieve it.  But stick with this for now.  We are joined together to a purpose, not just to gather for friendly chatter; not just to be seen, certainly; and not just to be on the receiving end of the next sermon.  We come bearing gifts, given us by God, to present before God in pursuit of the purposes of God.  That has been the theme of this chapter to date, and Paul hasn’t just veered off on some new topic.

God works.  We are forced to start there, to take this as bedrock truth.  And we shall.  But God work through means and beloved, we are the means.  Each one of us is a tool in the hands of God to bring about His desired goal.  We set ourselves as bondservants of God Most High, committed to the pursuit of His purposes, and to do so by the means of His choosing.  We are given gifts, and we recognize that like medicine, they come with the instruction, “Use only as directed.”  The best of gifts can be abused, turned to improper or illicit ends, and sinners that we are by nature, we are terribly adept at doing so.  It requires attentiveness on our part to avoid doing so.  It often requires that one of our brothers, who can see that to which we have blinded ourselves, to point out to us where we have gone off course, and call us back to our senses.  Certainly, at this level, the corporate aspect of this message applies.  God works through each of us toward the salvation of all of us.

Nowhere is that more evident than when a leader of the church falls.  It’s not just personal failure on his part.  It impacts the whole.  While I should have to maintain that no truly redeemed person will fall away even in reaction to such a moral failing in their mentor, still the repercussions are terrible.  Wounded conscience may well be set back by such things, and while eternal salvation may not be lost, the progress of the present may stall for a long season, which can only be to the detriment of the one who is stalled.  And who knows but that this failure has shut the ears of this or that person who had been almost to the point of hearing the gospel to effectual result?  Who knows but that such a person has thereby lost his last chance at salvation?  Well, to be sure, God being fully in control, I must conclude that such an outcome cannot in fact come to pass for one who is called by God.  And yet, we have responsibility.  And yet we remain morally culpable not only for the progress of our personal sanctification, but also for what we have done to see those around us given every chance at salvation.

It’s a strange sort of tension, and one that comes through these verses with a particular clarity.  It is God who works, yet we must work.  Salvation is by grace alone, yet we must work it out.  Salvation comes in full in that first glorious moment when our hearts finally heed the call of Christ, yet throughout life from that point onward we find we are in a constant struggle to improve upon it, to work out our salvation, as Paul instructs us here.  What comfort, then, to know that we are not alone in this.  And though we know that it is indeed God who is at work in us, what comfort to know that we have brothers and sisters here with us who have our backs, who will speak to us when we have need of being spoken to.  We have others around us who are just as concerned about our spiritual maturity as we are.  And we, in turn, ought to be just as concerned with theirs.  As much as we fear being found to be busybodies, we mustn’t allow that proper concern to become overblown to the point that we simply won’t get involved in each other’s lives.

This becomes particularly applicable when the church finds itself strained by disagreement and disunity.  We know too well the difficulties that arise in the lead up to a church split.  We know the painful realities that come of individuals or groups angrily tearing themselves away from the fabric of body life together.  We may not face full schism, but I can think of several such events troubling even the last decade or so.  There have been those departures due to pastoral failings, both in this church and in the one I previously attended.  And those are hugely wounding to the health of the body.  God is gracious, and heals those wounds, but not without some scar tissue remaining.  There are any number of families that I no longer see with us who were there when first we came, and why?  Because that wound has proven to painful for them to overcome.  I suppose I could attribute my own departure from that prior church at least in part to the same thing, though I think it was far more a matter of doctrinal difference.  But still, I don’t know as I could say with full assurance that it was the right course to take.  God has seen fit to bless me, but then, I could look at the division even in my own household when it comes to matters of faith, even of Christian faith, and find cause to wonder which is cause and which effect.

And then, too, I must ask myself how I should properly address such matters.  It’s all well and good to insist that no, I must allow them the conviction of their own conscience.  And at some level, that simply must be done, because I assuredly have no means of editing their will, and must leave that to God, should He so incline.  And I must also accept that should He not so incline, it shall not come to pass, whatever my feelings and opinions on the matter.  But there remains this calling upon each one of us, to strive for a true unity.  I could go back to the depths of the unity urged upon us in those previous verses:  One mind, one soul, one spirit, one pursuit.  There being but one gospel, one God, one Truth, it stands to reason that this ought to be our pursuit.  And it is a real dilemma to know what to do when that oneness is rent and split.

Well, the real work should have gone into preventing the rending in the first place, and thus, the call of our Apostle here.  Put continual effort into obeying this gospel, obeying God.  Put continual effort in the bringing about the maturity of salvation in all of us together.  It’s no good if you’re the only one maturing.  We need for the whole church to be brought to maturity.  Heaven would be a lonely place indeed if your or I alone gained entrance.  Even if it were but one person per church who truly won through to eternal life, it should be a most terrible outcome, I should think.  Where then the promise of an eternity with every tear wiped away?  Oh, I know.  Being in the immediate presence of God would certainly swamp any sorrows, and given no break in that presence, no moments alone, perhaps there could never again arise thoughts of those left behind.  But from this present perspective, it’s hard to imagine such a thing, isn’t it?  How much do we still reflect on those long since gone from this life?  Memories may fade, and the details be lost, but still the thoughts come unbidden, don’t they?  Those moments when thoughts of mom or dad return, or perhaps of friends lost along the way; they are in some sense what make us human.  And if human, then are they not reflective of the nature of God Himself?  Does He not Himself find need to address thoughts of those who are left to perdition?  I should think He must at some level, though I may too much seek to think of Him in merely human terms in doing so.

At any rate, there is an expanding scope to the application of these verses before us.  Ironside looks to the corporate aspect, observing that the Church ought to correct course from within.  That was certainly the hope of the Reformers.  They did not set out to establish new denominations, only to right the ship of the Church and hold her true.  But it was not to be.  It ought to remain our chief desire to preserve unity on a true course towards mature faith and mutual salvation.  As such, we find the call elsewhere to seek not outside adjudication over matters of faith, but to resolve them amongst ourselves.  I think, for example, of Paul’s stern rebuke of the Corinthians for taking their differences to court.  It would certainly be hard to imagine any such course proving wise in our current social climate, and it was in no way a better option then.

Where I don’t know as I can follow is down the course the Clarke pursues.  He looks to this as a most general exhortation, taking in, if I understand him aright, both believer and unbeliever, both churched and unchurched.  His basis is that, and I hew pretty close to his own wording here, “all rational beings have this power available to them.”  I can join him to a point in that idea.  Certainly, we have Scripture teaching that every man, woman, and child is made aware of the reality of God, necessarily so, for He is evident in His creation, His invisible attributes are to be discerned in that which He has made.

Interesting to be rereading “How Shall We Then Live” in light of that point.  The chapter I was reading last night reflected on how, at its base, the scientific community in its origins recognized the necessity of God as He has revealed Himself to be to the expectation of finding any understanding about the workings of the world around us.  Because He is Who He Is, we can expect discernable order.  We can expect rational cause and effect in events great and small.  Were He not the God Who Is, the sort of science that empowers such wonders as missions to distant planets could not hope to succeed.  Were He not the God Who Is, medical science could not be expected to address the least malady, let alone things like collapsed lungs, cancer, and the like.  But He Is, and we can.  I suspect it becomes less the case as man seeks to pursue these ends without faith and without God, and I dread to contemplate the end results of those efforts.  But at base, this still holds.  God Is, therefore we can.

But to suggest that this power unto salvation is made available to every rational being still feels a step too far.  To be sure, the offer of salvation is to be withheld from no man.  We don’t know, in our finitude, who is redeemed and who is not.  Even within the local body, we don’t know with real certainty.  We do our best, particularly those charged with the task of leading and protecting the church, to ascertain the validity of claimed salvation.  We wish to be certain that baptism is not just an emotional response of the moment, or hunger for the spotlight and applause.  If it is not reflective of a real rebirth, then let’s not waste our time.  Likewise, that coming to the altar in the first place.  Too often, it’s just an emotional thing, fleeting.  Too often, it’s just peer pressure, or a desire to be the center of so much attention, but devoid of a real change of heart, devoid of a real move of the Spirit.  And we just accept it, suppose something real has been done.  And sadly, far too often, we just get on with our lives, and forget about this rebirth, even if it’s real.  Well, good luck to them.  I’m off.  Come back to the main thrust of this part of my notes:  Come alongside.  They shall have need of us if they are to grow.  And comes their own progress and maturation, we shall likely find ourselves in need of them.  They weren’t brought to salvation here just for the convenience of the location.  They have purpose, as do each one of us.  God has made it so.  There is none to be considered an appendage in the body of Christ.  Each has his gift to contribute, and we ought to avail ourselves to the full benefit of every gift supplied.  We can only do this together, and only as God supplies.  Let it be so.

Humility in Effort (05/05/25-05/06/25)

I remind again that we are still on the same subject of humble fellowship which was so richly presented in preceding verses.  There remains no place for vain conceits as to our great achievements, nor as to the cause for our progress.  That consideration has not been set aside so that we now find cause for pridefulness in our working out of salvation.  Let us think of it as sanctification if that makes it easier to contemplate the need for continued work, but Scripture chooses the term salvation, and as such, we must accept that this is what is intended.  But to do it in our own strength, as if God had but started the process and left us to ourselves to figure out how to finish the job?  No, that simply will not do.  That is a recipe for exactly the sort of vain conceits that we were just called to eschew.

Whatever else we conclude in looking at these verses, this much must be settled.  We have been saved by Christ, and by Christ alone.  No other work would do.  Nothing that came before Christ could suffice.  The whole system of sacrifices and laws which Moses laid out in excruciating detail could not, in the end, make anybody righteous.  They could not do so at the outset, either.  Though the whole of Israel listened to the Law expounded, and swore upon the name of God that they would do just as He says, there was really no hope of even one of them doing so.  To thus swear, “we will do it,” was to all but ensure the curse which would come of disobedience.

There is nothing else coming that could achieve it, either.  There is nothing in this new birth that is ours in Christ that has thrown some switch in us that we might now comply with the perfection that is required.  And let us understand this as well:  The Law has not changed.  Oh, the ceremonial aspects have been set aside, and those things particular to the governance of the seedling nation of Israel.  But the standards have not been lessened for the Christians, nor the cost of noncompliance.  We stand as those for whom the price of the penalty for our sins has been paid.  But then, for those who lived prior to the advent of Christ, whose faith was yet in Him, though they knew not exactly who He was, the same can be said.  In that regard, we have nothing on Abraham, certainly, nor on the least believer in God to precede us.

The sum is that in this working out of our salvation, whatever that entails, the most fundamental cause we have for fear and trembling lies in the recognition of our own utter unworthiness.  For all that we have been saved, it wasn’t because we are somehow better, more worthy, than these others around us who have not.  We have been saved, declared beloved of God, in spite of our utter unworthiness.  We have been welcomed into His family – by His choosing – not because we somehow bought our way in.  And having been welcomed in, we cannot earn our way in.  How does one earn what one already possesses?  No, nor can we repay.  To repay lies as far beyond us as was the possibility of meritorious salvation in the first place.  If it took the eternal blood of God Himself to put paid to our sins, as Anshelm so clearly observed, how do you expect to ever work hard enough to repay Him?  If Jesus paid it all, and all that you have is from Him, what’s left by which you might even make a start at it?

In plain point of fact, this passage removes any last vestige of possibility for us supposing to merit anything.  For even this work to which we are urged with such urgency as leads us to fear any least possibility of failing to comply, that leaves us trembling with the need of doing our utmost, we are immediately turned to the consideration of how any such compliance is even possible.  It is God who is at work in you.  Even the willing of doing what is right comes down to His effort, not yours.  However hard, then, you may work at this salvation, the sad yet glorious fact remains that you remain, in yourself, as to your own doings, utterly unworthy.  So lay aside any least thought that we are being called to pursue some meritorious salvation here.  Lay aside any supposition that you and I are going to somehow earn our way in.

Lay aside, as well, any terror of failing out.  This notice of God working in you must surely cast from you any fear of failure.  This is not, then, cringing concern lest we find we have not done enough, and find in the last day that we have come up short, and don’t get to enter into the presence of God after all.  Put that far from you!  To be sure, there are many among us who account themselves redeemed, but are not, who call themselves Christians but are not.  And many of these may be truly convinced in their own minds that they speak truly.  There is, to be sure, cause for concern in those passages that speak to the judgment of God, for He judges truly, and there can be no appeal to a higher court, for no higher court exists.  To hear, “Depart from Me, I never knew you,” is cause indeed for terror.  But that is not threatened here.  Rather, what we should be hearing is this.  “Perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment” (1Jn 4:18).  Look at the wrappings of that message.  “There is no fear in love.”  “The one who fears is not perfected in love.”  And then observe the followup point. “We love because He first loved us” (1Jn 4:19).  Even here, we are pointed back to God as the source, the cause, the means.

But we have set ourselves to be His bondservants.  That remains the fundamental aspect of Jesus’ own example that Paul has laid out for us to base our own efforts upon.  “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant” (Php 2:7).  He put aside all His prerogatives, did nothing by which to insist upon His rights, rights He truly possesses, unlike so many of the rights we feel we can demand be honored.  And as was observed in contemplating those rich verses, it wasn’t just appearances.  This form was every bit as real and complete as was the form of God which is His before, during and, after the period of His incarnation.  So, then, not abject fear, not even ‘slavish fear,’ is called for in this instance when we are urged to our work.  There is only the anxious desire to please Him Whom we have set ourselves to serve.  We have granted to Him – to the degree we are in any position to grant Him anything – the right to set us our goals and tasks.  And as His bond-servants, we are anxious only insomuch as we desire to see those goals achieved.

An aside here.  We can look around and find too many around us who have no real purpose in life.  While they would probably not acknowledge the case, much of this comes about from the reduced need for real employment.  There was something that passed by on the Internet yesterday regarding the general dissatisfaction with life that now plagues Great Britain.  And I would suppose that pertains in greater degree to those native to that isle.  But why?  The state pays for everything.  I mean, seriously, go watch back episodes of Grand Designs.  Here are ridiculously expensive homes being put up by a single mom who works as a waitress?  Seriously?  You’re telling me she could afford that on her paycheck?  It’s ludicrous to think so.  No, so much is paid by the state that work becomes more a matter of lifestyle choice than of necessity.  And what results?  A populace that knows nothing of being needed, has nothing of worth to offer, and knows it.

Okay, I’ve called it an aside, but it’s to the point.  We could look at this matter of salvation, the fact that all is up to God, start to finish, and find it a reason for indolence and dissatisfaction.  I mean, really, if it’s all God’s doing, I may just as well kick back, right?  Grab me a beer from the fridge, and I’ll just spend my days watching sports, if that’s my thing.  If God’s got it, why should I get worked up about it any longer?  Well, for one thing, God is not so foolish as our average governing power.  He knows the worth of man, because He created man.  And He created man to know his worth.  From the first moments of Adam’s existence, he was given a useful task by which to contribute to what God was doing.  Why?  Did God need the help?  Was He somehow incapable of maintaining what He created?  Was He having trouble coming up with names for everything, that He felt need to have Adam do it instead?  No.  There is nothing of need about this, not on the part of God.  But in His perfect knowledge, He knew that this man, this Adam, would have need of purpose.  Indeed, so great was his need of purpose that to be alone would not serve.  He would need another that had need of him.  For again, God did not need Adam.  Adam needed to be needed.  And nothing in that regard has changed.  To be clear, Eve had just as great a need to be needed.  The particular needs may differ, the specific roles and duties may differ.  But we are created with this need, and God sees to it that our need is provided for.

Thus, this call to work at salvation.  If it were something where we could just kick back and wait for Him to do whatever He’s going to do, we would find no value in it.  We would, in point of fact, come to resent it, just as those who dwell on the welfare checks as some presumed right come to resent the very system upon which they have been forced to depend.  Work at this salvation, then, not because you are in some perilous position from which you might lose what you have.  Work at it for your own health.  But more, work at it because this is your purpose, this is what gives meaning to life, and even more than that, because this is what pleases Him Who made you.  His love for you ought rightly to compel you to seek that He might be pleased, like any half-aware child would seek to please his mom and dad.  I don’t suppose even the worst child really loses that pleasure in hearing the approval of his or her parents.  I guess, given the fallen state of the world, there may in fact be those who could care less, but my deeper suspicion is that any such callousness on their part is more an act, a protective shell, than real disregard.

Well, let us accept that we have a true regard for the joy our Father may take in our actions.  One thing should come clear:  No Father has been made joyful by having to do everything for his child.  I mean, it’s one thing when the child is young and incapable of anything.  But when the child is grown to maturity?  When he is now capable, trained by your fatherly efforts, taught by your ways?  If, with all that, you are still left doing it all without even the least effort on that child’s part, this is not a thing of joy.  Neither is it a thing of benefit to the child.  To continue like this would be to doom that child to fail.  For like it or not, one day, you will be gone and the child will remain, and then, what shall he do who never learned to do for himself?

So, while we have this knowledge that it is God at work in us, yet we are not left to idle away our days, just waiting for Him to do His thing.  We are called to obedience.  We cannot call it obedience if there has been no exercise of our own will in obeying – at least not obedience of the sort that is in view here.  You might manage compliance, like some prisoner forced into his cell, or forced to some onerous labor.  But it wouldn’t be obedience.  Our moral culpability requires that there must have been real choice of acting or not.  The main factor here is that our actions could not in fact please God, nor even be founded on concern for pleasing God except He first (and continuously) acted within us.  Here, I think, is the ultimate Middle Voice action, though it is not expressed in that way.  We work because God is at work.  He has given us the will to do so, yet we must in turn exercise that will.  He has supplied us the power, the skill, the ability to pursue that which He would have us do willingly, but we must avail ourselves of that power and put it to use in the pursuit of that purpose.

Yet, nothing about this puts us in the place of earning His favor, of adding our merit to His grace.  There is this powerful point to be maintained.  It is the working out of our salvation that is called for, not the gaining of it.  The JFB puts it in perspective rather well, I think.  “Salvation is ‘worked in’ believers by the Spirit, who enables them through faith to be justified once for all; but it needs, as a progressive work, to be ‘worked out’ by obedience, through the help of the same Spirit, unto perfection.”  There is our goal, and I note it is addressed in terms more redolent of sanctification than what we generally consider as salvation.  But it’s a simple enough matter.  You can’t work out what you don’t already have in your possession.  Salvation remains a settled matter.  You have received grace, and grace upon grace.  You have been adopted into the household of heaven.  This is done.  The papers have been signed.  It’s official.  But I suppose most any adopted son will want to make plain to all that he is indeed a son of his adoptive father, and how shall he do so?  He can’t go for DNA testing to make the case.  But he can demonstrate his sonship and his gratitude for the love shown him by demonstrably pursuing to have a like character with his new father.  He can honor his adoption by demonstrating his love through obedience to the example set him.

This is where we are.  The adoption is not somehow merited after the fact, nor can salvation somehow be merited after the fact.  It was never about merit and never will be.  It remains the result of a freewill action undertaken by God, as does this work to which we are now called.  What this calls for is an end to any presumption on our part.  There is no room left us for the indolence of believing that now we are saved, we can just get on with life unchanged.  No, we work because God is at work.  And we must reasonably expect that if we will not work, neither will He.  While we have this assurance that it is in fact He who works in us both to give us a will to work and give us the means to work, yet there is no promise to be found that He will do so where there is no reciprocal effort on our part.  If you would see the result of that approach, have a close look at Pharaoh.  It is hardly a result to be desired.

We have the sum of it from Bernard.  “Our will does nothing thereunto without grace; but grace is inactive without our will.”  This is the place of humble obedience.  I can do nothing apart from God, but I cannot expect that God will do anything without me.  This is what’s required.  Walk humbly with your Lord (Mic 6:8).  Walking humbly without Him will achieve nothing, not even humility.  Walking proudly with Him will lead only to presumption and arrogance.  We must walk together with Him, looking to Him for understanding and strength, seeing in Him the impossible goal of our own development, and receiving from Him the necessary means to the goal.  We must recognize that we don’t have this in hand.  He has us in hand.  And then, with happy hearts, we must set ourselves to the task of walking worthy.  If I might go back to the previous portions of this chapter, we must determine to be model citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and in doing so, we come back to the necessary aspect of such citizenly character, and care for one another.

I come back to the community aspect of this salvation we are talking about.  It’s our salvation, not mine.  It’s mutual concern for one another, using our gifts willingly, not to advertise our piety, but to encourage one another’s faith.  This, after all, is the goal He has set for us, that we might dwell together in unity, real unity, deep, heart-felt unity; a unity so deep as to call for a one-souled, one spirit sharing of life together.  Remember, this all connects.  We keep running down a chain of therefores.  We’re still on the same matter of church life, of life such as has been given us to live.

It comes back to that fellowship we have, something I was stressing in the sermon I delivered on the material that led to this therefore.  We have a share in one another.  We have a vested interest in seeing each other saved and progressing in sanctification.  In a very real, very significant sense, your gains are my gain, your failures, my failure.  And we can reverse the relationship.  My gains are yours, my losses yours.  Jesus spoke out against the charge laid against Him that He was somehow of the devil.  He observed that a house divided cannot stand (Mk 3:25).  If we will not support one another, we will cease to be a body.  We will cease to be period. 

I could suggest the example of Jerusalem in the time of her visitation.  There was truly a house divided, a kingdom divided against itself, and what became of it?  Utter destruction.  Those who worked so hard to preserve their power, to the point of disregarding every last aspect of the Law they so vociferously urged on those they ruled, found themselves entirely powerless to stop the judgment that came upon them.  And why did judgment come?  Because they were divided against their true King, and always had been.  And the King eventually said, “Enough!”  He did not say so gladly.  He did not say so vengefully.  He said so with tears welling up, because while He had been working in them, they were unwilling.

Now, let me try and bring this round to something like an application.  It’s one I took to heart last year, going through these verses, and, as the last days of work have shown me, it’s one I still have need of truly establishing as who I am – a task I am again reminded I cannot do by main strength, but only by the grace of God.  And I cannot expect that grace to be operative when I am just coasting along on my own power.  So, let me come back to it.  Let me recall to mind how much better things were when I was willing to set myself a servant, to welcome the interruptions and context switches as opportunity to help, rather than some undeserved annoyance.

I pray again as I prayed before, God, grant me the wisdom to maintain a joyous and godly demeanor amidst the challenges of the work week, amongst the challenges of home life that so often comes in conflict with that work week.  Empower me, Lord, to walk as I should.  With my daughter back here with us for a season, let her see You somehow in me, and in such clarity as might dispel the attractions of this pseudo-religious pursuit she has chosen.  Let her see You, hear Your call, and truly respond.  Work in her, I pray, as You worked in me.  Nevertheless, Your will, my Father, but might You find it in Your will to will and to work in her as You have in me.  And I could ask the same for my beloved wife.  Though I feel confident that she is truly Yours, yet as You know, I have serious questions about the course she is on.  And it tears at the unity of this small body of the household.  So, I would seek that You might somehow restore unity in Your truth.  Work on us both, for I am not so foolish as to think I’ve got the truth nailed down so thoroughly as to learn nothing from her.  But I see things that to my understanding seem terribly off, and I know myself too well to suppose I can offer loving correction at this point without reverting to an unwanted fierceness.  Show me, then, how to walk this out in You.  And if it is, to borrow Paul’s phrasing, a thorn in my side that I must abide, so be it.  I just want to do as You would have me to do, and to do so in the fashion You desire, in the power You provide and the grace that demonstrates that You are indeed my Father in heaven.

Focused Effort (05/07/25-05/08/25)

Let me reiterate a critical point as I begin this portion of my study.  Whatever we may conclude about this passage, it cannot be that Paul is urging us to earn salvation.  I know I mentioned it already, but Ironside makes the point so well, that this not working for salvation, but working out what you already have.  You can’t, after all, work out something you don’t already have.  It might result in an increase, as when one works out at the gym in such a fashion as increases muscle mass.  But even then, the muscle was already there.  You already had those muscles else the workout would have been entirely impossible. 

This reality as regards the relationship of our effort to our state gives cause for a proper understanding of that fear and trembling which Paul ascribes to the effort.  It is not some dread of failure.  It’s the depth of concern that comes of deep respect for Him Who has given us this immeasurable gift of salvation.  Seeing this, as it were, in our lap; knowing that there’s not the least inkling of a hope of a basis for thinking we somehow deserved it, should move us to wonder first, but also to such depth of regard for God Who gives us this most marvelous, most undeserved gift.  The depths of love there to be seen in this gift must surely stir reciprocal love; if not equivalent in quality and quantity, then at least in earnest.  And that love produces in us this deep, respectful concern to please Him Who has so graciously dealt with us.

This obedience to which we are called is not, then, some onerous duty we feel forced to pursue though we’d rather be doing something else.  It is, in fact, the first step towards rejoicing in the Lord always.  How better to rejoice in Him than to do that which pleases Him?  How better to express our love for Him than to obey His command and fulfil the purpose for which He made us?  I described this in last year’s notes in these words:  “Obedience is the dance of wonder.”  Forgive me if I seem full of myself in repeating that, but I would have to say these words came to me unbidden then, and they captivate me now.  It’s funny, isn’t it, that Pastor should send out an email yesterday with the question of whether we are worshiping as those who dance like David or on the sidelines observing like Michel.  But how did David dance?  The typical perception is of a man given over entirely to overwhelming emotions of joy, all sense of decorum gone.  If one were to take Michel’s view, all sense was gone period.  But the larger arc of David’s life demonstrates this dance of wonder-filled obedience. 

I am in wonder at what God has done for me, done in me, done through me.  Not always, but often.  I am in wonder to find myself put in the pulpit, even should it be but this one time.  I am in wonder still at what He chose to do through me as we taught in Lesotho last year.  And, I should have to say I am rather chagrined that I was not sufficiently available to His leading to have done the same in Zambia or Malawi.  Different circumstances, to be sure, but some of that difference was assuredly in my willingness to pursue the dance of full obedience, setting aside all reliance on self and on prepared material, willing to go where He says to go, to say what He says to say.  That is a surprisingly difficult place to abide.  But it is the place of exactly such a dance of wonder.  It does not make a spectacle of oneself, as some might suppose.  It is not a leaving of the senses either.  It is a dance of recognition as to who it is who is at work in this work, and knowing it ain’t you.

And, as I was discussing with my brother over dinner last night, it’s a perspective we need to take not only to those things we consider ministry work, but into our workplace and into our family life.  Whatever it is we must pursue today, the question remains the same.  What attitude shall I have in that pursuit?  How shall I choose to respond to those challenges that will come?  Will I be gracious as my Lord is gracious?  Or will I be resentful, complaining of interruptions, and busily saying, if not in word than in attitude, “Don’t you know who I am?”  We’ve all seen the celebrity or the pol so full of themselves as to suppose their mere identity should absolve them of any responsibility, excuse them from any unwanted obligation.  But we can come the same attitude, and often do.  And this ought not to be.  Here is your chance to represent, and the question is, will you represent the old man or the new?  Will you come across as one of the boys, or will you show that work which God has been doing in you?  I was holding onto this perspective for a season, and it was good.  Attitude improves.  Frustration wanes.  But somehow, I lost sight of it, and allowed old ways of cynicism and snark to reassert themselves.  Time to stop again.

It’s no accident that these last few weeks have been the sort where work priorities are colliding constantly, demands piling up.  And it’s easy to feel the unfairness of it, particularly as it has a very clear, deleterious effect on work output when I have to keep shifting attention.  It’s like being a dog in a field full of squirrels.  Every time you begin to chase one, another crosses your path, demanding your attention.  And the deep concern rises up in you that every last one of these is going to get away from you because you can’t focus on any one of them long enough to get anywhere.  You’re left just spinning in a circle, not even moving at all, just slowly boring a hole in the ground with the wear of your feet.  And let me tell you, no amount of committing oneself to some new approach is going to help.  You can hit the day with grandest intentions of shutting out the noise and getting this or that item taken care of.  But phones will ring, emails will come, texts will bombard you, and if they don’t, there will just be something else to come and hit you with yet another matter that needs attention.  The only change that’s going to bring change is a change of attitude.  And the only way that change of attitude is going to come about is by God’s doing, and us acceding to what He is doing.  We might say the only way change is coming is by us learning the lesson He’s trying to teach us through these trials.

We are called to give our best effort to those who have claim on our time.  We are told to work not only when it can be seen that we are working, but to work just as diligently when we are out of sight of the boss which, for me, is pretty much always.  But we are also reminded to work as doing for the Lord, not for whatever manager, team-mate, housemate, or whomever may be involved.  Whatever our job, whatever our task, He remains Lord.  It is for Him we do what we do, whatever we do.  Does it earn us income by which to live?  Yes.  But it is also the means of provision He has chosen, and He has some good for us to do here.  Does that mean full-on evangelism in the workplace?  Do we dismiss the mandates of our employment and make every engagement of the day about the gospel?  I don’t personally think so.  Could be I’m just infected by the disease of modern life, or too willing to comply with such demands.  But then I think of Paul, in prison.  He couldn’t go out and preach to the city.  But he could speak to those who came.  He could do what he was able to do, and he set himself to do so.  Did that involve evangelism?  Not directly, I don’t think.  Those who came with questions he would gladly answer, and those who came to share faith with him, he would gladly reciprocate with shared faith.  But did he directly evangelize those guards that were with him?  Perhaps so, but he never says as much.  On the other hand, his character spoke volumes.  The care they could not help but notice, the selfless concern for those around the world who sought his wisdom, these would register.  Perhaps they would even lead to such questions as presented an opportunity for the Gospel.  And honestly, how much more fruitful such an opportunity than when one tries to just cold-call those whom you have never before seen.

Here is our anxiousness, then, that our eyes should remain on the goal God has set for us, that we should seek the more to devote ourselves to attaining that goal.  “Work out your salvation.”  Exercise it.  Seek its improvement.  Strive to live in that fashion which makes evident to all that God is indeed your true Father.  I can’t but think again of Micah 6:8.  “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?”  To be sure, to walk with God must surely keep one humble.  But we know the struggle of it.  It’s hard to keep ourselves walking with Him.  Sometimes the path gets difficult.  Sometimes the places He walks are dangerous or painful.  It’s no wonder, is it, that Paul set before us the event of our Savior walking humbly with God even to the point of obediently giving Himself up to death on a cross.  Talk about your painful walks!  Yet, He obeyed, and He did so having emptied Himself of His divine prerogatives, His rightful, inherent access to the full power of His being.  And I think we could say that in His lowest moment, there in Gethsemane, He knew something of fear and trembling.  But He kept the goal in view and gave His all to the task set Him.

Here, we are most greatly helped by what follows in our passage, the assurance that God is at work in us.  He is working within us that we might in fact be willing to the work He has for us to do.  He is working within and without us to supply that power and ability that is needful to the task.  We may not always feel it.  We may not always be bright enough to lay hold of it.  But it’s always the case.  But here we can run into a problem.  I have felt it in myself.  We come to verse 13, and see that God is doing it all, and our inclination is to simply sit back in satisfaction.  Well!  If He’s got it, no sense me getting involved.  If God is doing it, I don’t need to.  Let me be clear on this, and first and foremost with myself.  God’s quite necessary involvement does not absolve us from effort.  To take the language of our various theologians here, the fact that all we do relies on God is no grounds for indolence on our part.  To take Calvin’s discussion of the matter, given this is a mindset so often attributed to his theology, God’s work is not such that we may simply repose.  His acting in us does not provide us with space to be inactive.  Neither does it render our part in the effort pointless.

Matthew Henry, no surprise, puts the sum of this in most quotable form.  “Work, for He worketh.”  His involvement is indeed great assurance to us, that our efforts will not prove to be in vain.  If you’ve ever fallen into trying to address some besetting sin in your life by such means as you could devise on your own, seeking to go all Frank Sinatra and do it your way, you have no doubt known the futility of that work you do without Him.  The truth remains, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).  I wonder if we truly grasp the extent of that, though.  Seriously.  Apart from Him you cannot so much as breathe.  Apart from Him, life ceases, existence ceases.  But here, we are more concerned with those aspects of life that have meaning, that matter.  In all our effort to do good, this truth holds.  If He’s not in the work, we cannot do it.  We may call our mess good, but it won’t be.  That, I suppose, is the great problem of the unbeliever.  He thinks he’s good.  I did.  What do you mean, I need to be saved?  I’m a good man.  Yes, I can still recall those conversations.  And in hindsight, I can clearly see that my definition of good was severely lacking.  But comes salvation, and what do we do?  Do we just, “let go and let God?” as the famous slogan has it?  The answer we have before us says, “No!”  Get to work, for He is working.

I have observed it often enough, but it fits the context here as well.  If we would work out our salvation in such fashion that we don’t find ourselves laboring in vain, it really does need to be the case that we have our eyes on the goal that God is setting.  Put another way, we need to observe where it is that He is working, what it is He is working on, and join Him in that work.  If He is seeking to address point A in us, but we are preoccupied with doing something about point B, then we are back at futility.  Our focus is on the wrong thing.  And quite often, it seems to me, point B proves to be a symptom of point A.  We’re not addressing the root issue, we’re trying to trim off the most obvious rot that has resulted.  We want to fix what is most easily seen, lest others note our failure.  But God wants to get to the root of the matter, so those more easily seen results will no longer arise.  Work, for He worketh, by all means.  And work where He worketh.

One last observation here, benefit of Mr. Barnes.  He writes, “The great difficulty in working out salvation is in forming a purpose to begin at once.  When that purpose is formed, salvation is easy.”  There’s a good deal of truth to that, isn’t there?  Like most any other project we might undertake, getting started is often the hardest part.  There’s too much of us saying to ourselves, “Oh, I can’t.”  Or, perhaps it’s the self-critique of, “I’d only mess it up, anyway.”  And soon we have talked ourselves out of the doing completely.  Nowhere is that more likely to be the case than in this matter of pursuing the work of sanctification.  And nowhere, in fairness, is it more true to say, “Oh, I can’t.”  No, you can’t.  Not on your own.  But you’re not on your own.  God is at work in you.  It is His work that has produced the thought of trying.  It is His work that can get you over the hump of, “Oh, I can’t.”  But still, you must get your own self off the couch and onto the task.  To return to the recurring point, you can’t do it without Him, but He won’t do it without you.  So, look to see where He is seeking to work, and then, get up and get after it.

If today is like yesterday, then I suspect for me it’s going to be refusing to be frustrated and annoyed once again.  Oh, but how it rose up yesterday!  Here are two tasks set before me, neither of which I really know enough about to pursue, and yet they are my responsibility.  And the third task, about which I do have understanding, and which wants a bit of urgent attention, is forced to wait while these things occupy my time.  And the ones I know who might have answers to help me along the course seem either unwilling to answer, or unable to understand the question in the first place, or perhaps there’s just a communication issue and their answer doesn’t come in understandable terms.  We all, after all, have our assumed knowledge, those things that are so familiar and obvious to us that we come to just assume everybody else must know as well.  And so often, that’s not the case.  So, how to respond?  Shall I allow frustration to rise up into anger?  Shall I just give up?  Neither will do.  Perhaps a bit of self-inspection would be called for, a recognition that I can be just as frustrating to deal with.  Ah.  There’s that call to consider others more important again.  There’s that call to put paid to the arrogance and set oneself to serve.   And alongside the call, a reminder.  “You can’t do this without Me.”  Just because you’re at work doesn’t mean the equation has changed.  Remember Whose you are.  Remember that even here, even in a world which communicates almost solely through text messaging, still you represent Me.  Think about what you say.  Think about how you say it.  Think about how you come across to these coworkers.  Are you seeking to make yourself useful, or to make yourself unapproachable?  Keep your eyes on the goal.

Yes, Lord, I shall try and do better at that today than yesterday.  And I pray that You will keep me mindful of Your presence in the work, that I might pause to appeal to You for the aid I will most surely need.  Somehow, Father, let it be the case that Your grace abounds in my own graciousness in dealing with whatever comes today.  And in all, Thy will be done.

In the Presence of Holiness (05/09/25-05/10/25)

There remains a good deal upon which to make comment.  It may be that I have already touched on some of these points, but we’re not done yet.  One big thing to be remembered here is that we remain on the matter of harmonious unity in the Church.  We are still considering the life of the church as opposed to the life of the individual, or in addition to that of the individual.  We can ask again, how are we to pursue this harmonious unity?  It is beyond us in ourselves, a point we have likely found proven in our own experience.  But verse 13 is the critical component in the answer.  God is at work in you.  The Wycliffe Translators Commentary observes that textually, God is set in the emphatic position.  It would sound like a jumble of words to us presented in the literal order of the Greek.  “God for it is which works in you.”  But as I have often observed, and as is observed here, word order is more to do with emphasis than anything else in Greek syntax.  God is emphatically at work.  Whatever we conclude as to the willing and the doing, God is emphatically at root in it.  He is doing.

Arguably, it is doubly emphasized by the form of “it is” used here.  For God, He it is who works.  This becomes inescapable.  It’s not difficult, in light of this announcement, to see how Calvin arrives at his understanding of the matter, when he insists that no place is left for our personal power as somehow cooperating with God.  We can’t, he insists, so much as align our will to His will by our own ability.  All comes down to Him.  God calls.  God offers salvation.  I might go farther and say God saves.  Still, Calvin does leave us a part in this because God leaves us a part in this, and it is an active part.  He gives, and we must embrace what is given.  He calls, and we must undertake to live henceforth in a manner suitable to His calling.  But even in this, Calvin would insist, “We act only when He has prepared us for acting.”  That seems to accord well with the flow of this verse.  God, He is the one working in you, but there remains the willing and the doing.  They are the object of His work, the result of His work, yet it remains the case that they are done by us.  We are actively involved in the willing and the doing, not overridden by some sort of cosmic interrupt routine.

Pardon me if I lapse a bit into the language of the computer, but it’s helpful for my exploration of this point.  When an interrupt comes into the processor, were we to consider its present set of instructions as being its will, that will gets set aside, pushed onto the stack, to be overwritten by the will to act in response to this interrupt.  It’s a new priority, and so, the will of the CPU is set aside to pursue the will of this interrupt to its conclusion.  Then, perhaps it can resume its former pursuits.  The analogy is not perfect, but it illustrates the point.  This is not what’s happening for us.  It is not that some process comes along, pushes all data out of memory to make room for itself, overwrites our instructions and demands our attention.  Yet, if no instructions are provided, what remains to be done?  Of course, we differ from that poor CPU in that we do have ideas of our own.  We have a growing cache of memories, habits, interests and so on.  And frankly, if we come to deal with matters of faith as an interrupt, from which we return to our various other pursuits, we will fail and fail hard.

But no!  God prepares us for acting.  He supplies this alternate set of ideas and interests.  He calls us to come reason together with Him.  It’s not so much a case of being pushed onto a new course, as it is making the option of a new course available, and causing us to recognize that this is so.  And, seeing the option, seeing that it is clearly better, we choose.  Is that the way of it?

This is one of those occasions where it’s truly both interesting and helpful to have read from a number of differing perspectives as to the passage before us and its implications for our lives.  Clarke, whom I would expect to differ greatly from Calvin, really only diverges by degree.  He observes that, “The power to will and the power to act must necessarily come from God.”  I emphasize that necessarily part, as I often do, because it is by way of being a philosophical necessity.  It’s not just a word added for interest, or to lend emphasis.  It is truly necessary.  It cannot be otherwise.  Of course, we are not talking about just any act willed and undertaken.  The power to will and act in sinful manner cannot be thus ascribed.  We are concerned solely with such choices and actions as are in pursuit of that obedience to which we are called, to the good purpose of serving His good pleasure.

But Clarke moves to a counterpoint, observing that the actual act just as necessarily comes from the man in whom God wills and empowers.  I don’t think we would find that Calvin had much to complain of in that perspective.  Compare and contrast.  Calvin says, “We act only when He has prepared us for acting.”  Clarke writes, “God gives the power to will, man wills through that power; God gives the power to act and man acts through that power.”  These are, so far as they go, of one accord.  But they hint at a larger difference.  Calvin leaves God fully in control, though it is man who acts.  Clarke at least edges towards having man in control, though God has acted.

Personally, as is quite evident by now, I tend towards Calvin’s perspective, not because it seems more comfortable, or easier to accept, but because to my thinking it cleaves closer to the full scope of Scripture’s revelation.  The sum of it is, as Barnes points out, that religion without the aid of God is pointless.  Effort at holiness without God in the effort can achieve nothing of value.  That way is the way of the Pharisee, so sure that his careful, meticulous observance of his book of regulations must mean he is righteous.  But God says otherwise.  God continually comes to such a one saying, “You lack this one thing” (Lk 18:22).  Think about the example of the rich young man in that passage.  Whether he was a Pharisee or not is not said, though the likelihood is that he held to their views in some degree.  They were, after all, considered by most as the paragons of virtuousness at the time, though this was often rather distant from the truth of the matter.  But virtue and righteousness are not entirely synonymous, are they?  I can be quite virtuous, at least by my own lights, and yet remain guilty of many an infraction.  I may be virtuous in regard to one matter, and yet despicably vile in regard to others.  As Jesus observed in the Sermon on the Mount, even tax-gatherers love those who love them.  Even Gentiles greet their close friends.  These are virtues, are they not?  And yet, any Jew hearing Jesus on that occasion would recognize those referred to as among the chief of sinners.  A tax-gatherer?  A Gentile?  Surely, these have no place in the kingdom of God!  Unthinkable!  And yet, it is Matthew, the tax-collector who writes, Matthew, who was chosen by Jesus to be one of His Apostles.  It’s not the appearance of virtue, not even the exercise of true virtue that demarks true righteousness.  True righteousness demands true holiness, holiness such as meets the demand of that same sermon.  “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).  And again, we must face the sad fact that, try as we might, comply as we might, it will ever prove to be the case that we yet lack one thing.  That’s the inevitable result if our pursuit of religion is undertaken apart from God.

Here is the sad state of those who insist that all religions are equal, that all effectively want the same thing, promote the same goodness in their followers.  The answer must be that no, in fact, they don’t.  They may urge the same virtues in their followers, but as they supplant God with another, what they urge must, in the end, prove a vain pursuit that leaves the pursuer frustrated or indifferent, depending on their natural inclinations.  But here is something quite different.  In the life ordained by God, in this Christian pursuit of life, God works in you.  He for whom the word impossible loses all meaning works the impossible in you.  The holiness, the perfect righteousness that even now remains quite thoroughly beyond you to obtain, He has supplied in Himself, of His own choosing.  And here’s an even more marvelous aspect of this life of faith into which we have been called.  Even when we find ourselves negligent, even when we are, as it were, absent from the work, still God works in us.  The conclusion of the JFB is apt.  We aren’t called to undertake this work even though it is actually God who works.  Rather, we are called to undertake this work because it is God who works.  Knowing He’s here, doing what needs doing, empowering what we had not the power to do, is strong encouragement to engage in the work to which He points us.

Again, I can turn to the Gospels.  And here, we must surely discover the emphatic declaration that nothing’s going to happen without God’s involvement.  Jesus informed His hearers, so confident in their genealogical heritage as the chosen people of God, that, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” (Jn 6:44a).  And don’t miss the other half of that.  “And I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”  Who starts it?  God.  Who finishes it?  God.  Who is present and at work in us for the duration in between those points?  God.  It is thus that we have the assurance given us just a bit earlier in that chapter.  One had come asking what they must do to be doing the works of God.  After all, if we are here for His glory, we must do as He would have us do, right?  Mind you, in this instance, it might just as readily have been that they saw what Jesus did and wanted to be able to do the same.  You do these signs and wonders.  How can I get in on that?  But the answer Jesus has for these, whatever their motivation, is one.  “This is the work of God, to believe in Him whom He has sent” (Jn 6:29). 

Stop getting worked up over your works, you who seek to earn His favor.  If you are His, you already have it!  Stop being so caught up in signs and wonders, you who hunger for power you can exercise as the whim takes you.  It’s His power, and while it is given you for your benefit, it is most definitely not given you in order that you can play with it, show off with it, use it with no regard for His purposes, only your prestige.  No, the real work remains belief.  The thing that pleases God is trust in Him; that, and the earnest recognition of our own inadequacy.  I think of Paul’s comment to those proud gift-users in Corinth, albeit primarily because the JFB happened to make reference to the comment.  “It’s not as though we are adequate in ourselves, or consider anything as coming from ourselves.  Our adequacy is from God” (2Co 3:5).   We know this, in our brighter moments, but for whatever reason, it seems to be a hard truth to hold onto.  We revert to form, insist that we’ve got everything in hand now.  Events will ever and always come to force us back to recognizing that no, we don’t.  But we are with God Who does.

This is a wonder and a joy.   God does.  The grace of God is toward us.  His grace began this work in us.  This we must surely recognize.  But His grace continues in us.  Call it irresistible grace, call it cooperating grace.  But call it the joy that it is.  God is at work in you!  It’s not that you were somehow good enough to attract His positive attention.  It’s not that He got you started and now you can do it on your own.  It’s not that He was obliged to do as He has done.  No!  All has been, as Paul says, for His good pleasure.  All has been by His choice, freely made on the sole basis of His love.

Perhaps it might help to consider how this new life into which we have been introduced comes into being for us.  Jesus spoke of it as being reborn, and I find this a particularly telling choice of word.  Consider the example of physical birth.  It may be that there is some act of will on the baby’s part when it comes time to emerge from the womb.  It may be, as we tend to hear it said, that said baby wants to come out.  But as to its conception, as to that first incipient moment of generation, the baby has no will, has no involvement at all, really.  It is quite strictly speaking, the result of the will of those two who have come together in an act of procreation.  This fits quite well with the matter of rebirth.  As with physical birth, the originating moment, the generation of this new life, lies not with the recipient, but with the giver of life.  That is to say, it’s not your choice to be reborn any more than it was your choice to be.  The one who chose is the one who gave life; father and mother in the case of physical life, Father, Son, and Spirit in the case of this new spiritual life.

Now, as I have been writing out this thought, I see perhaps another parallel.  Like that baby ready to emerge from the womb, perhaps there is this place for self-will to be involved.  I don’t suppose it’s a great stretch to suggest that baby feels, at some level, that the time has come.  In similar fashion, I might suggest that as we respond to this new life birthed within us, there is again an involvement of the will feeling that it’s time.  How many of us came to faith after having heard the gospel many times, perhaps having read the Bible many times, but to no particular effect?  But then came the occasion where the soul knew.  It’s time.  And this new life became life in us.  There is some dawning realization that it is no longer I that lives, but Christ living in me.  But it’s not some awful possession, such that the ‘real’ me lies submerged by the dominating presence of some alien power.  Neither is it some second personality between which we may switch in schizophrenic fashion.  No!  This is the joyous realization that life has finally begun in earnest.  This is the wonder of finding God not merely close, but within, present in the temple of this body.  And yes, it is a wonder.  It is a wonder that defies me to this day to truly apprehend.  Perfectly holy God has so worked upon this sinful man as to be able to abide in me without it being my utter destruction.

You know, Scripture speaks of the crucible aspect of faith, how we are being refined in the fire of holiness.  Well, if you’ve ever been around molten metal of any sort, you can perhaps sense the agony of such a crucible experience.  I think back to the days when I had to work with the wave soldering machine.  You would put in solid bars of solder and bring on the heat.  All the impurities come to the top, a nasty black flotsam floating on the sea of liquid metal.  It is fit for nothing.  It will not serve the purpose of joining metal to metal as solder should.  It must be skimmed off and disposed of, leaving the purified solder behind.  I suppose we could consider something like the pasteurization process as well, heat sufficient to kill off whatever bacteria might lurk in the milk.  And yet, it is not a process of destruction for the milk, but of purification.  I suppose, could milk or metal be said to have feelings, the process must be painfully agonizing to undergo.  And yet, the end result is increased goodness.  Solder bars do not appeal all that much to any sense of beauty.  But that pool of liquid solder from which all dross has been removed is as lovely as silver.  Whole milk may be ever so wonderful, and I know some would insist on its superiority.  But then, there remains a certain inherent risk to it.  Like sin, it may taste good yet hide seriously harmful effect.  The pasteurized milk, on the other hand, presents no such risk.  But I seem to be wandering in a sea of analogies this morning.  Let me try and return to shore.

The general complaint brought against the understanding of this verse that I tend towards; that this really is showing God in the driver’s seat throughout our lives, is that this reduces man to nothing but a machine.  Interesting to be rereading Schaeffer’s “How Shall We Then Live?” as I work through this part, particularly as I have been reading as he points out the development of post-modern thought, with rational man, and rationality in general, reduced to meaningless machine, and all meaning transferred to some department into which reason cannot be brought.  But if man is machine, man is absolutely compelled into action.  Just as this computer I use cannot do anything of its own volition, all claims for AI notwithstanding, so man as machine is just operating on instructions supplied by some outside force.  He cannot find meaning.  He cannot have meaning.  A computer does not have meaning.  A car, or a shoe, or a hoe, do not have meaning.

But this is not where we are left when we find God is at work in us.  I recall my brother of old insisting that God is a gentleman, and will not force Himself upon you.  And with that, I would disagree.  Again, rebirth, like birth, is absolutely an act forced upon you, your will being, certainly in the case of physical birth, non-existent, let alone non-exerted.  But the pursuit of life is another story altogether, isn’t it?  And again, the development of baby to child to adult is illustrative.  This progression is not compelled action, is it?  The baby will, barring tragic event, proceed to childhood.  Of that there can be no doubt, nor is there any particular act of will involved.  It is life doing what life does.  But the nature of that child is another matter.  Here is will exercised.  And whatever early life may have been for that child, by no means is the child he becomes a compelled action.  Nobody forces us to become who we are, not parent, not sibling, not peer, not God.  But any of these may well influence our choices.  Several of these may tend to influence our choices for ill.  One hopes that doesn’t include parents, but we know it sometimes does.  But God is certainly not among that number.  No, He influences for good.  From Him we learn of a better way.  In Him we see a better way, indeed, an ideal way.  And having seen His goodness, and having been influenced by His goodness, empowered by His goodness, we might say that we naturally choose the goodness we have come to recognize.

Barnes pushes this point hard.  He observes (and he is hardly alone in this), that however you may manage to coerce a man, as to his actions, yet his will remains free.  Barnes’ moves to the point that whatever may be said of his actions, you cannot force him to believe anything other than what he chooses to believe.  You may force him to say that black is white, up is down, good is evil.  But you can’t force him to believe it.  You may try and convince him, but convincing is not compelling.  Now, I could think back on Jonathon Edwards’ treatment on free will.  He observes that even the submitting to such coercion is, in the end, an act of free will.  Even then, you chose, and had you not chosen, you would not act.  We could think of Pharoah, whose heart God hardened.  And some would argue it is unfair to lay charge against Pharoah for acting as he did, under the circumstances.  For all that, what condemnation can we bear towards Judas, given that his part was established and inescapable?  Yet in each case, the man did as he willed.  He did not choose as though compelled to act other than he wished.  At most, we can posit that God chose not to intervene.  “They did not see fit to acknowledge God,” so God left them to it (Ro 1:28). It’s no excuse.  There is no excuse.  But neither is there compulsion, coercion.

A couple of the commentaries thought to put us in mind of Psalm 110, where we read, “Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power” (Ps 110:3a).  Freely!  Could it be that God would find himself thwarted by the will of man?  By no means!  I should think that point proven beyond doubt by the record of events from Adam to Jesus.  So much had been done to try and disrupt God’s purpose.  Generation upon generation, Satan worked to throw things off.  Generation upon generation, the sinful proclivities of man threatened to disrupt the course of redemption.  Even those in the line of promise were not immune to acting against the promise.  But God…  He remained in control then, and He remains in control now.  His word goes forth, and does not return to Him without having accomplished all His good purpose.  All of these moving parts.  All of these free-willed agents of choice and action, and still His word accomplishes His purpose.

So, let this be settled.  Who you are today is who you are by your own choosing.  If you have become a miserable sod, there’s really no one to blame but yourself.  If you are becoming who God intends you to be in this reborn life, it’s by your choice.  I’ve seen too many who want to put the blame elsewhere for every bad thing that happens to them, yet take the credit for every good.  We have a sick society, which has been trained to just such thinking, to the degree they can still think in terms of good and bad.  But the baseline fact remains that we do as we choose to do.  If we waste our time, it is by choice.  Don’t blame it on social media.  Don’t blame it on society itself.  You chose it.  Same applies if you feel yourself constantly over-busy, overbooked and overwhelmed.  Hey!  You chose this.  If you don’t like it, choose more wisely.

But in your choosing, you to whom this new birth has come have new and better choices available.  God is at work in you, beloved!  He has truly freed your will from its bondage to sin.  Yet, the will having been freed, must still choose.  The will having chosen, we must still act.  Choose the path that leads to maturity.  Choose to walk humbly before the Lord your God, observing His course and setting yourself to follow.  Choose to learn from the Master, that you might somehow gain His skills.  Choose to follow the Way, and make the Way your own.  Choose to live as one who recognizes that he abides in the presence of Holiness.  God has chosen.  He has established His temple in you.  Now, you must choose.  Will you recognize this new reality, that you are not your own, but are indeed the temple of the Holy Spirit?  Or will you insist on going on as you always have, defiling that holy place with your besetting sins?

I will tell you this.  Holiness wins out in the end.  God does not fail.  Thousands of years of trying did not push Him off the course of redemption.  Thousands of years more of trying will not push Him off the course of completing this work.  So, rest in the assurance, but not in the rest of indolence.  Have utmost confidence in the work that God is doing in you, but not in such fashion as leaves you grown lazy and presumptuous.  Work because God is working.  That is the clarion call not only of this verse, but of the Bible in full.  Come!  Enter into the joy of your good Father, feel His arms embrace you.  And then, walk with Him, talk with Him.  Receive His counsel and His aid, that you may grow into the man you were born to be.