Our Joy and our Duty (07/08/25-07/10/25)

So much material to review, and so many points gleaned upon which to comment further!  I could despair of finishing this part of my study.  But I shall endeavor to accept the schedule my Lord has for these exercises and proceed as I am able.  I seem to be in a place of being overwhelmed by many things this morning.  The needs of the workplace overwhelm.  The needs of maintaining this household overwhelm.  The needs of the morning, even though they involve in almost every regard a pursuit of edifying faith, incline to overwhelm.  Perhaps I should stop putting dates to these notes, for it becomes, at some points, just a reminder of how long things are taking.  I’m not actually sure just what purpose it serves, other than, on those occasions I come back to review earlier considerations, it gives some sense of where I was, what was happening.  Other times, it just reminds me how long it takes me to pursue these things.  But enough of that.  I have much ahead of me, and though I won’t get an earnest start on it until tomorrow, I don’t wish to overwhelm myself further by meditating on my overwhelmed state.  So, I will just peek ahead at the first point I’ve left myself to touch upon, Calvin’s observation that the answer to daily distress is to rejoice.

Right then!  Thank You, Lord, for these morning times.  Thank You for providing at least this small refuge of coolness in which to abide the heat of the season.  Thank You that You have richly provided for all the needs that present, and You continue to amply supply us with wisdom both to navigate our sometimes tense discussions of the course forward, and to address those needs.  Keep me mindful, Father, of Your glad offer of wisdom, of discernment, of everything needful for life and godliness, and let me not be bogged down or dismayed by the necessities of the day, but rather lay hold of the joy that is in me, and march forward in Your strength.  Amen.

Okay, let’s begin in earnest.  And let’s begin where Paul begins:  Rejoice!  Now, it’s not clear what happens between the beginning of that verse and the end.  Was Paul, in fact, planning to move on to the things he picks up again in Philippians 4:4, when it occurred to him to add this note regarding the Judaizers?  Did he perhaps notice that he had more room left to write than he had anticipated?  Or was he already headed in this direction as he issues this call to rejoice?  It’s hard to determine.  One can see the backward connection.  Epaphroditus is to be restored to you, a man to be received by you with joy, and I will be more joyful knowing your joy.  So, rejoice!  But I don’t know as the connection is quite as strong as that.  Perhaps it’s simply that his call to receive him with joy turned his thoughts naturally to what has been rather a theme in this letter, the heavenly call to rejoice.

So, we reach that middle clause about writing the same thing again, and we have commentators scratching their heads.  Is he talking about some other letter we don’t possess?  Is he talking about the instruction he gave to them while he was with them at the start?  I suppose either or both of these are possibilities.  But couldn’t it just as readily point no farther back than that call to receive their friend back among them with joy and regard?  There’s some connective tissue here.  We have that command:  Receive him with joy, and regard those like him highly (Php 2:29).  Yes!  Rejoice in the Lord!  After all, it is for the work of Christ that he came so close to dying, that you came so close to losing him.  But then, we go forward to the topic that occupies the rest of this passage, those evil-workers of the false circumcision, those mutilators of the church.  Of them, beware!  Regard them with discerning eyes to perceive what they really are, and refuse to become like them.

But here, we are trying to focus on that simple command:  Rejoice in the Lord.  There has been discussion of the stresses and distresses in the lives of Paul and Epaphroditus.  The one remains in the place of facing possible death, the other has faced it and been restored.  They know from trials.  And their response?  Rejoice!  You can feel it in Paul’s reaction as he describes his current situation to them.  Yes, I may die.  If so, rejoice!  I’m home with Christ.  If He would have me freed?  Rejoice!  I will be able to minister fruitfully that much longer.  There is no cause for distress in this trial, for I belong to Christ.  There’s no way to lose.  And this was a constant with Paul, wasn’t it?  They’d seen it back when he was there, thrown into prison unlawfully, and how did he respond?  Did he bewail the injustice?  Did he call down imprecations on the heads of those who did this?  On those who caused this?  No!  He and Silas sang praises to God.  They rejoiced.  Rejoicing, as Calvin observes, is the answer to daily distresses.  Stop wallowing in them and remember your Savior.

This is a theme others pick up on as well, and one we do well to pick up in our own turn.  Matthew Henry, for example, points out that the more we rejoice in Him the better prepared we shall be to suffer for Him.  Better prepared, and more willing.  That’s not, to be clear, any call to go looking for trouble.  That is never our calling.  No, our calling remains, “Insofar as it lies with you, be at peace with all men” (Ro 12:18).  But there come those times when peace is not in your power to maintain, when, like David, you cry out, “I am for peace, but they are for war” (Ps 120:7).  Don’t be distressed!  In fact, rejoice.  If it is to be war, understand that God’s hand is still in it, still on you.  There is purpose to it, good purpose, for He is good.  Such suffering as you may be called to endure is not caprice, it’s not callous disregard on the part of a distant and careless deity.  It is in accord with the will of God’s perfect goodness, and as such, come what may, we may rejoice in Him.

Ironside points us towards that realization, as well, quoting Amos 3:6 - If a trumpet is blown in the city will not the people tremble?  If calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?  You know, God is not at all shy about admitting to his role in these trials.  Not in the least.  Hear it and hear it well.  “The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these” (Isa 45:7).  Forming and creating, causing and creating; how much difference are we to find in these terms.  Forming speaks of molding, or resolving to do.  Causing speaks simply of making, doing.  Creating is no different, really.  It is, well, creating; doing, making.  The words are varied, but the meaning remains much the same.  It’s not as though His role in the harder providences differs from His role in the pleasant ones.  Mind you, as to those hard providences, we must recognize that He in no wise sins nor even entices to sin.  Yet, we must also recognize that even the devil does not act except as permitted according to the plan and purpose of God, and even then, only within the bounds set by Him.  The devil’s intentions, like our own, may be far from godly, but the Lord is able to turn even the worst of motives to His good end, as Joseph recognized.  What you meant it for is one thing, and for that, you shall answer to God.  But whatever your intent, He meant it for good, and that, really, is the chief matter.  So, rejoice!

This is our great comfort amidst the trials.  Ironside writes, “Circumstances may be anything but conducive to either peace or gladness, yet the trusting soul can always look above the restlessness of earth to the throne where Christ sits exalted as Lord at God’s right hand.  He is over all.”  I doubt you have need to look any farther back than yesterday to perceive the negative circumstances of life.  For some, being awake at such an early hour as I tend to be would be counted among them.  Certainly, finding it necessary to navigate disagreements at the end of a long, hot day on the heels of such an early morning would be accounted a circumstance we would as soon avoid.  But avoidance isn’t always possible, is it?  No.  Nor is our response always the rejoicing it ought to be.  But, praise God, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Advisor, who reminds us soon enough that these circumstances, however trying, are not somehow evidence that God is displeased with us.

So many situations come to mind as I write that.  We have several in our church family who are facing battles with cancer, as well as the battles their family face in walking with them through that trial.  Is this to be taken as some sort of indication that God is mad at them?  I don’t think so, no.  We have, as my brother reminded me even last night, those who lost sons at an early age.  Why, Lord?  Well, we can agonize over the unfairness of it, or we can recognize that we serve a wise God, who had good reason for taking them home early.  Who knows but that they might have been far worse off had they lived?  Or, what of the many families hit by this flash flood in Kerrville over the weekend.  So many lives lost, and so many of them young kids from Christian families.  Is this some sign of the times, some punishment of sinful America?  It strikes me as utmost hubris and folly to suppose oneself fit to make such pronouncements.  And frankly, given the specifics, it strikes me as reflecting a rather poor understanding of God, renders Him but another capricious super-being not unlike those gods of Rome and Greece.  And that simply will not do. Besides all that, we have the direct teaching of our own Lord on the matter.  “Do you suppose that those on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were somehow worse culprits than all who live in Jerusalem?  I tell you plainly, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish!” (Lk 13:4).  At bare minimum, you’re in no position to point fingers.  More to the point, consider Lazarus, who died.  Why?  Had he sinned in some fashion worse than others?  I mean, to be sure, he had sinned.  We all have.  That’s king of the point in the verse I just quoted.  But here?  “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (Jn 11:2).  Or, take the question His own disciples had asked.  “Who sinned, Rabbi, this man or his parents?”  And how did He reply?  “This isn’t about his sin, nor that of his parents.  It is in order that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:2-3).  You don’t know.  So, stop it.  Just stop it.

Now, I come around to another side of this matter of rejoicing in the Lord.  It echoes the point of Nehemiah 8:10, which ends with the well known declaration that, “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”  Several of our authors have made reference to this verse.  It’s not some point that just leapt to mind for me.  I do find it interesting, though, that per the concordance, this is the sole occasion in which the joy of the Lord is mentioned.  And what is the call for it?  God has called a feast.  Ezra had been instructing the people in the Law, which had not been heard in some time, and hearing it, the people were weeping, one presumes from conviction, though this is not said directly.  And so, Nehemiah and Ezra together spoke up.  “This day is sacred to the LORD your God.  Do not mourn or weep.”  It’s a time for celebration, not self-flagellation.  Well, then!  Is there not a place to expand this application and observe that all days, being as they are given to us by our glorious God, are sacred, and thus are occasions not for weeping but for rejoicing?  Our God is with us!  Whatever is happening, our God is with us!

Pay attention, now!  Paul is writing this from his prison cell, not what one might consider the standard occasion for a celebration.  He is writing to a church of which he had just observed, “To you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Php 1:29).  They were going through some stuff, and it wasn’t just their concern for their friend Epaphroditus.  They were facing trials at home.  And isn’t it something that in spite of this, their concern and their energies are directed outwards, to come to the aid of their brother Paul in Rome!

But hear it.  Rejoice!  Ironside builds on this.  What cause, he asks, do we then have for fear or doubt?  All may be swept away, yet Christ abides unchanging.  He remains our everlasting portion.  That hits with a particular poignancy in light of the news from Kerrville, where truly, all was swept away.  Honestly, it’s hard to imagine.  Here you are, your kids enjoying an overnight at camp, surrounded by friends, and counseled by fellow believers, and in a mere hour – an hour! – all is swept away.  The pleasant river – and the Guadalupe is a pleasant river at most times – has suddenly risen a full thirty-five feet.  I can put that in some perspective from where I sit.  We have wetlands out back, which are a source of pleasure and privacy for us, and refuge for wildlife.  Today, though it is raining a bit, they are not particularly wet.  There might be a bit of water down there somewhere, but mostly, it’s just a big bowl depression, probably a good fifteen feet lower than our foundation.  But consider the surprise, should we find that by the time I am at work, the water has risen not just to our basement, but well into our first floor!  To put it somewhat differently, if the house were at water’s edge, such a rise would have it wholly submerged.  In an hour!  In the middle of the night!  And it’s not still water, but a raging torrent seeking release downriver somewhere.  And even in such a nightmare situation, Ironside’s point holds.  All may be swept away, yet Christ abides unchanging.  Our losses may be great, even if we ourselves survive, yet He remains our everlasting portion.  There is the mindset that could lead Paul to so boldly declare that, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Php 1:21).

This is not the place in which we would think it right and reasonable to rejoice.  It would seem perverse, ungodly even.  Imagine if it were your child swept up by that river.  Could you rejoice yet in the Lord?  It might take time, I should think, before you could be restored to joy, but yes, I think that in Christ you could indeed find cause for joy even in the midst of so great and terrible a sorrow.  Being resigned to your fate is one thing.  Coming to terms with what cannot be changed is one thing.  But if you have not already established a firm and resilient trust in the Lord, I have to think such a thing would utterly break you.  How many, I wonder, are raging against God for their loss, decrying His injustice?  Certainly, it’s a favorite game of the unbeliever, almost as much enjoyed by them as claiming that indeed, this is God’s justice done to these people for their political views or some other such errant nonsense.  It’s as despicable as it is ill-informed.  But the believer as well, when it hits close to home like this, is liable to know a season of not just sorrow, but resentment.

It would be interesting, I suspect, to query those who have undergone such loss.  But something in us, in me at least, finds it an uncomfortable matter to probe just how they responded in the immediate aftermath.  No, we reason, best we allow them space to grieve, space to allow that wound to heal, in order that they can move on with life in Christ.  But I suspect part of it is also that we really don’t want to come close to such loss, and to such feelings as that kind of loss might stir.  I think back to our last trip to Africa, and my brother reflecting on the time in his life when exactly such a loss had come to pass.  It’s the sort of thing you can’t hear without becoming tearful yourself, for the pain, even after these many decades, is plain to see and to hear, and you feel it yourself, if only in echoes.  Yet, still the message holds.  Still, the command remains.  It is our duty to rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Go back to Aaron, on the day God informs him that his sons’ lives are forfeit for playing fast and loose with the priestly ordinances.  And comes the instruction.  Don’t you go mourning and tearing your clothes, Aaron.  You represent Me, and what is to transpire expresses My holiness, My justice.  You shall not weep for the exercise of My justice, for in that exercise I am glorified, and where I am glorified, you, My representative, should rejoice.  Leave the mourning to others.  For your part, rejoice in the Lord.  It is your duty.

It is our duty.  It is also, to be sure a great privilege given to us, that we can rejoice.  Even in such depths, we can rejoice.  We know His friendship, and we know Him with Whom we have entered into such friendship.  We know His proven character, His great and unchanging love.  We know His goodness.  As such, even when we cannot perceive the good in our circumstance, yet we can know it is there.  For we know that we are in His hands, and He does indeed work all things for good to those who love Him and are called by Him (Ro 8:28).  So, yes, this is an enormous privilege, that we can rejoice.  As ironside observes, and as we have been observing, both a privilege and a duty.  As he writes, “It is also [our] duty to rejoice constantly in the Lord.”  And this:  “Holiness and happiness are intimately linked.”

This is our most fundamental cause for rejoicing.  God is holy, and by the work of His Son, our Lord, we have not just been declared holy, righteous in the sight of the law, but are being made holy and righteous, purified through and through.  But sometimes purification hurts.  The Refiner’s fire is still a fire, and sufficient to burn away the dross of sin, sufficient indeed to consume all.  There’s an image of God that we might find a tad uncomfortable, that He is an all-consuming Fire.  Yet, He is.  Indeed, you will find that declared far more often than the joy of the Lord.  “The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Dt 4:24), “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), and we, beloved, are a living sacrifice (Ro 12:1).  But for us who believe, His consuming fire is not annihilation, but purification, rendering from the rather ugly ore of our lives the pure silver of holiness.  So, rejoice!  Rejoice even in the fire.

When the sorrows of life rise, rejoice.  When troubles come your way, be of cheerful countenance.  When dragged into debate, be pleasant and kind in presenting your side.  Don’t get drawn into an angry tit-for-tat.  That’s considered something of an artform for the debater.  Think of how presidential debates go.  Part of the exercise is seeking to get under your opponent’s skin while remaining calm, pleasant, level-headed yourself.  You see it as well with interviews in politics, particularly when the interviewer and interviewee are of opposing viewpoints.  The reporter wants nothing so much as to get that moment which will show his victim in an unflattering light.  Just give him those few seconds that he can slice out and put to use, and he will consider it a job well done.  And how greatly we admire the one who will not supply those few seconds.

Well, faced by opposition, faced by pawns being moved by forces of spiritual darkness, how powerful a thing when your response is not anger, nor sorrow, nor resentment, nor even melancholy, but only joy.  I’m not talking about laughing hysterically.  I’m talking about deep-rooted, confident joy.  Whoever your enemies may be, you have a friend in Christ.  Rejoice!  This is, as the JFB suggests, your security against error.  And, I might add, it is your protection against terror.  Far better, when troubles come in like a flood, that you keep your head, face the trials in the confidence of faith rather than the overwhelmed fight-or-flight response of terror.  Call to mind that this is your duty, and perhaps, just perhaps, it shall be sufficient to put some steel in your backbone, and a quiet smile on your face.

Yes, life is hard.  Yes, trials are our assured experience.  But rejoice!  Him Whose friendship you enjoy has overcome the world (Jn 16:33).   And it is He who has you in His hands, hands from which nothing but nothing but nothing can tear you away (Jn 10:29-30).  This is your privilege.  This is your security.  You know to Whom you belong, Who it is you serve.  Come what may, you belong to Him, and He is ever good and thoroughly able to preserve your soul intact to stand before Him in that last day fully refined, fully alive – more fully alive than you have ever known in this life.  Rejoice!  Ground yourself in the God Who Is.  Ground yourself in these things He has caused to be written down, and why?  As a safeguard for you.  If they were written as your safeguard, how foolish you would be to treat them as some light thing, some matter of indifference.  As we were reminded Tuesday in our men’s group, in the armor of God, you have but one, perhaps two offensive weapons, the one mentioned directly being this very word of God which is your sword.  The second, if we are to account it part of that armor, and I think we can, is prayer.  But pray from a place of true knowledge and true love, which, beloved, we can only establish upon this true word of God, laid down for our benefit, and preserved against unimaginable odds by our Living King in order that we might have it here before us this day, a reliable testimony of His glorious majesty, and of our duty as believers.

Misplaced Confidence (07/11/25-07/12/25)

We now enter into a bit of compare and contrast.  We have seen, in the previous portion of this letter, three examples of godliness in Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus.  Now, Paul turns to those who have been seeking to make inroads into the church, and hits immediately upon a threefold call to see them clearly.  Beware!  Look at them and perceive the reality of their condition, discern their true state, and take care that you do not follow their example.  It seems clear that these false teachers were speaking against Paul in hopes of gaining influence themselves.  In that much, they are not so different from those in Rome whom Paul had noted earlier as preaching the gospel from wrong motive, seeking to cause him grief (Php 1:17), gaining at his loss.  But they, at least were proclaiming the gospel.  These, on the other hand, are presenting something else.  At best, it is the gospel plus, which ever winds up being in reality the gospel minus.

So, Paul exposes them by turning their own opinions back upon them.  They are dogs, who account the Gentiles but dogs.  Now, you may be like me and find dogs in many cases more welcome and pleasant than people.  But their views would be far different, more akin to what one finds in Africa.  Dogs are barely tamed if at all.  They are not house pets, but guards.  To the degree they are trained, they are trained to attack and defend.  But many are wild strays, left to fend for themselves, and this is far more how the term was used in regard to people.  A dog is shameless.  It will eat anything, couple with most anyone, and, being so caught up in defending itself, will be found generally snarling at everyone.  There is a high degree of dissatisfaction implied, a hunger never sated.

He moves, then, to declaring them workers of evil, which again reflects their perspective of the Gentiles.  To them, the Gentile was unclean by nature, irredeemable, really.  Oh, they might go fishing for proselytes, but even the proselyte would never be a true member of the community, would never truly be accounted among the chosen people.  It’s not so far removed from what we have seen with the DEI movement in our day, and their baseline premise that the Caucasian male is beyond redemption, evil by nature, and for all intents and purposes, evil by definition.  They can confess it, they can decry it.  But they can’t change it.  And again, Paul turns this right back upon the holders of such a worldview.  Wrong again!  It’s not these who are evil workers, but yourselves.  And, in a thought that echoes Romans 1:32, they not only practice things which must result in their exclusion from the salvation found in Christ, but teach others to do the same, “giving hearty approval to those who practice them.”

Now, pause and feel the force of this.  That section of Romans is describing the unrighteous, who are wicked, greedy, envious, sowers of strife, spreaders of deceit, filled with malice towards all.  You can hear echoes of that description of the dog.  Here, it is being applied to those who purported to proclaim the true requirements to be placed upon the Gentiles if they would receive this salvation that the Christians proposed.  Oh!  They told you all you had to do was believe on Christ?  No, no.  There’s so much more you must do.  You must take up the whole panoply of Mosaic Law and tradition.  Certainly, you must adhere to the schedule of feasts.  Certainly, you must abstain from unclean foods.  And most assuredly, you must take upon yourself the mark of the covenant.  But, as Paul declares so forcefully to the Galatians, fleshly pursuit of ritual compliance cannot possibly complete what was begun by the Spirit (Gal 3:3).  No one ever was nor ever could be justified by the Law, as God Himself declared before ever the Law was expounded, saying, “The righteous man shall live by faith” (Gal 3:11). That’s not, of course, to suggest that having faith we can simply go on sinning with impunity.  If we go on sinning with impunity, it must be recognized that we have no faith, we have no real knowledge of God nor any real experience of salvation.

But let me try and stay on track here.  We have one more discernment to consider.  They are the concision.  Now, that’s not a word we come up against in normal conversation.  It might put us in mind of being concise, and it can actually take that sense, but its primary meaning is to indicate a cutting up or cutting off.  The NASB supplies the intent by speaking of them as the false circumcision, but that misses the sharpness of Paul’s word-play here.  They are leaning hard on this act of circumcision as a necessary component of redemption for the Gentiles.  Believe on Christ if you like, but you must do this as well.  Paul’s choice of words contrasts katatomen and peritomen, so the same root, but a different prefix, down versus around.  The one is to cut down, and has connection to acts such as those of the Baal worshiping Canaanites, actions forbidden by God among His own.  The other indicates the cutting around of the foreskin in circumcision, which was indeed a covenant sign to the Jews, but was also a practice familiar to most of the surrounding peoples as well.  The act itself, then, could not be so significant as all that.  The Egyptian, the Amorite, the Edomite, these could all point to their circumcision, were that all was required.  And that’s really at the heart of Paul’s rejection here.  The act they would force upon you is nothing in itself.   And so, he having warned of the falsity of their claims in turning their every boast to a cursing of themselves, he observes, “We are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”  The mark means nothing.  The reality is everything.

Now, understand that this is not something unique to the Judaizers, nor is it something unique to antiquity.  It is the common, default setting of humanity, even amongst Christians today.  There are plenty of believers – and I will allow that they may indeed be counted among the redeemed – who are dead certain that this work or that must also be pursued scrupulously else salvation is forfeit.  But any such insistence must either be blind to failure or set the bar too low to mean anything.  It reduces religion to outward form, and tends to dismiss inward condition.  Hey.  I go to church every Sunday.  What I do Monday through Saturday doesn’t matter.  But that’s not how it goes.  You may avoid smoking, dancing, movies, computers, social media, and good on you if you do so.  That’s your call, and you are no doubt following the dictates of your own conscience, hopefully informed by the Holy Spirit within, who knows your limits.  But these are not binding upon anybody.  Smoking is certainly unhealthy, as we know.  But a sin?  Less clear.  Coffee may be unhealthy or not, depends what study you follow.  It certainly has physically addictive properties.  But a sin?  I rather doubt it.  Dancing may be for some a matter too sensual, inevitably leading to impure thoughts and if so, by all means abstain.  But to denounce those who are able to dance with enjoyment and maintain purity as being impure?  Well, that’s more of a sin than their dancing was, isn’t it?  Now you’re in breach of clear tenets of godliness.  “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Ex 20:16).

It’s down to this:  It’s not about the works.  The works are a necessary outworking of inward spiritual realities, which is to say, as James does, that faith devoid of works is dead, useless, “just as the body without the spirit is dead” (Jas 2:20, Jas 2:26).  But it’s necessary in the same way that the seed planted, if it grows, grows necessarily into the particular plant whose seed it is.  Planting an apple seed will not get you corn.  Planting the Gospel will not get you a life of habitual sin.  Yet, we know by teaching and by experience that even where the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak (Mt 26:41).  Thus, the need to pray that we not be met with temptation.  Thus, the cry of the Apostle, which is really the cry of every believer as they grow, “The good I wish, I do not do, but practice the very evil I do not wish.”  But, oh!  The answer that comes!  “It is not me, then, for I do not wish it.  It is sin which dwells in me; evil present n me, who wishes to do good” (Ro 7:19-21).

The works won’t always line up with the best desire of the mind.  We are at war, and not, primarily with one another, not with those outside the church, but with our own, fleshly nature.  We are not, like the Manicheans, to denounce the flesh and everything fleshly.  That’s not the point.  But the spirit has been renewed, the which this body has not.  If you wish to make it a distinction of spirit and soul, go for it, but it’s really the will and the sensuous.  The will is transformed.  The will desires to be godly, but the body seems incapable of it.  There is too much of sensory input, too much of such weaknesses as come with the flesh.  The best of intentions may be overwhelmed by exhaustion, by hunger.  And frankly, however diligently we seek to be in possession of godly character, old ways will burst through.  The calmest of men will yet know moments of anger and frustration.  The most chaste of men will yet know the powerful enticements of lust.  And by men, let me be abundantly clear, I mean humanity at large, not just the male contingent.

No, outward performance cannot give us any basis for confidence in our salvation.  Indeed, I have often observed this in regard to those of a more Arminian mindset, certain that this faith which we have can be lost.  There must, in that perspective, remain some degree by which faith depends on me, on my works, on my faithfulness.  And if that’s the case, then serious and clear-eyed introspection must surely declare that all is lost.  If it’s on me, then I can just stop trying now, because any effort I might make is pointless, doomed to failure.  Faith without works is assuredly a dead faith, but works without faith are just as dead.

What counts is not the cutting of the flesh, not the careful observance of this or that pursuit or prohibition.  Be just as scrupulous as you please about observing the Sabbath.  Be as careful of speech as you are able, and quick to point out how offended you are by this or that.  But these things don’t mark you out as holy, not in themselves.  Either the work of the Spirit in transforming the heart is real or it isn’t.  If it’s real, there will assuredly be a trendline in character and act which follow.  But the mere appearance of such acts does neither ensure nor enhance the heart transformation.  In this sense, even the spiritual disciplines can become sinful acts which wind up leaving us more distant from Christ than we would otherwise be.  If our confidence comes to rest on our discipline rather than Christ, then frankly, we’re right there with the Judaizers.  It may not be circumcision we are pushing.  Perhaps it’s length of prayers, or frequency of prayers.  Perhaps it’s depth of study, or the way we express ourselves in worship.  Whatever it is, if it’s not Christ, it’s not enough.

The problem is not found in the effort to comply with the command of our Lord and Savior.  No, Jesus declares it, as do His Apostles.  “If you love Me you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15).  “No one who is born of God practices sin” (1Jn 3:9a).  “Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?  May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Ro 6:1-2).  What is sin, after all, but failure to comply with the command of Christ?  Amazingly, the chief command remains:  Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor.  By this they will know.   Beyond that, believe on Christ, that He is the Son of God sent to redeem from sin and death all those whom the Father has given Him.  Be careful of trying to make that a basis for universalism, for God is constantly declaring the bounds of all.  Contrary to popular conceptions, all very rarely means all, almost exclusively means all within some set. 

But back to my point.  This cry against the legalistic tendency on display in these self-proclaimed teachers with their insistent message that you must do this, must refrain from that, is not excuse to lay aside all thought of compliance with that which God truly does command.  The answer is not to slip into antinomianism, declaring that nothing is required of you, nor can it be.  No.  Antinomianism is its own special form of idolatry, more properly to be understood as autonomianism, the law of self-rule.  Perceived in that form, it quickly becomes clear that this is nothing more than to replay the original sin.  That original sin, you recall came of hearing the suggestion that if they would but dismiss the instruction not to eat of this tree, they would become like God themselves, which is to say, answerable to no one.  And, we might note, in that Satan, in the guise of a serpent came first to whisper this sinful idea to our forebears, we see that the original sin must lie with him, more so than Adam or Eve.  Not that this excuses their capitulation to the temptation, but the sin in them is no different in kind than the sin in him.  He, too, thought to gain self-rule, to become answerable to nobody and no power.  It didn’t work out for him, and it won’t work out for us.

So, we do not simply dismiss those passages, even in this very letter, which not only encourage effort in living godly, but require it of us.  But observe!  We work because God is working in us.  We are enabled to comply because He works even on our will, changing us from the inside in order that we might find it in our own interest and desire to do that which is pleasing to Him.  Obedience, then, no longer comes from threatening punishment.  Obedience doesn’t arise in fear.  We aren’t trying to wheedle favors out of a powerful overlord, or to avoid his disfavor.  We know His love is already ours.  We know that He has already assured us of our status before Him, as redeemed and righteous in the righteousness of His beloved Son.  We know we have nothing to prove, not to Him, not to one another, not to ourselves.  And in that light, we are absolutely free of the demands others would seek to impose upon us in the name of some supposed righteousness.  As Paul writes later in this letter, “I can do all things in Christ Jesus” (Php 4:13).  Yes, that speaks primarily to contentment, and the capacity to stand firm whatever the circumstance.  But there is also a deeper recognition, I think.  “All things are lawful for me, but not all are profitable.  All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything” (1Co 6:12).  Most critically, the opinions of others cannot be binding upon conscience.  That’s what we’re dealing with most immediately in this passage.

Legalism is the attempt to bind another’s conscience.  It may come of a reasonable motive, I cannot say good.  But the one seeking to lay down rules may very well be fully convinced and convicted in conscience that these rules are helpful, perhaps even needful for holiness.  They quite probably arise from personal experience, perhaps even at the prompting of the Spirit in their conscience.  But where they fail is that they don’t recognize the personal part of it, refuse to accept that others may not have need of such boundaries, or that God might very well be working on other matters, or the same matters in a different fashion in others.  What’s binding for us is what is written.  But that, I must insist, is not permit to present our favorite proof text and then insist on that basis that our contrived rule is in fact binding.  No, God has granted us everything needful to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence (2Pe 1:3).  The command of God is not to be found in surface readings of selected texts chosen for their alignment with our personal preconceptions.  The command of God is found in truly understanding what He has revealed of Himself, and of ourselves, arriving at what we might term a holistic grasp of sound doctrine, which can only come about, I must observe, as we draw closer in our relationship to this holy God Who has, of His own free choice, made His abode in us.

Legalism leads ever to comparative, performance-based religion, which can only produce a comparative, performance-based righteousness.  And any such righteousness cannot but prove faulty, deficient, and vain.  To borrow the Preacher’s favorite phrase, performative religion is vanity and wind.  It is a futile pursuit that can only lead to one of two points.  Either one is brought to recognize the futility of it and gives up, or worse, one becomes convinced of their perfection when their faults are still plainly present.  In short, whatever the outward appearance that such efforts may achieve, they are nothing in and of themselves.  If the heart is not in it, outward condition is nothing.  If the Spirit is not in it, goodness is not in it.  Nothing good can come of mixing unscriptural demands, or unscriptural liberties with the doctrine of Christ.  The closing warnings of the Revelation apply here.  Anyone who adds to this book, God shall add to him the plagues written in this book.  Anyone who takes way from it, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and from the holy city (Rev 22:18-19).  Stop it!  Beware!  Beware of those who would add or detract from the sound doctrines of the gospel given once for all to the saints.  Beware of your own propensity for doing so.  Don’t suppose you’re immune.  You are not.  Seek to see yourself with eyes as clear as those Paul calls us to turn upon these dogs, these evil-workers.  For we all of us have a Pharisee lurking within, seeking to appear more righteous than we are, seeking to force compliance to our standards from those around us, even though we fail of our standards ourselves.

And let us recognize this as well (with a nod to Barnes).  Whatever we may have been prior to conversion, and for all that, whatever we may still be after conversion; whatever privileges and means we may enjoy; whatever prestige and position, none of these supply for us any sufficiency in any sense.  We in the materialistic west do well to recall this to mind.  Our church, by and large, tends to be well off, or at least relatively well off.  Yes, we have among us those who are not, and they are entirely welcome, and we will care for them both spiritually and materially.  But it’s easy for us to become complacent in our provision, to come to think that we are secure.  Like that man of the parable, building a new barn to house his increase, we begin to think that life being this pleasant and richly provided, we must be doing all right.  God must be pleased with us.  And perhaps He is.  There is nothing in having house and property, in having employment and retirement plans, or any other such thing which is in itself unholy.  We are in a period where younger generations have imbibed the Socialist twisting of truth, and concluded that money itself is evil, or that capitalism itself is inherently evil.  But that is not the message of Scripture.  No.  Read more carefully.  “The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil” (1Ti 6:10a).  It’s not money.  It’s not a desire for security.  That’s not what Paul has in view there.  It’s avarice, we might even call it a lust for cash, cash, cash.

You know, just think of all those various thug-shots we see, as criminals post their boastful pictures.  Look at me!  I’ve got wads of cash, baby.  We find it reprehensible in the mega-rich with their ostentatious display.  We find it hypocritical as they go on their exotic trips to meet and discuss how we ought to sacrifice our lifestyles in support of whatever their latest scheme proposes.  We see it as corruption, as our politicians turn office into profit center, coming away with wealth untold, and frankly, unbelievable as legal gain given their salaries.  It’s the love of money.  It’s the heart, not the object.  And it is a root, not the root.  Honestly, I’d suggest it’s more a symptom of the evil that lies behind it.  If one wanted a definitive root of evil, I should think pride comes much closer to fitting the purpose.  But I’m not sure that’s an exercise worth pursuing.  Sin is sin. 

Whatever, then, our status in worldly terms, it means nothing in regard to our salvation and our standing before a holy God.  I might observe that He owns the cattle on a thousand hillsides.  “For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps 50:10).  Speak of wealth!  He owns it all, knows nothing of need.  And yet, even in the act that led to our salvation, God, in Christ, laid aside all of that, became poor, earthbound, so non-priviledged that He could speak of Himself as not even having a place to lay His head.  You know, we looked at that earlier, how He emptied Himself to become obedient to Himself.  Now, don’t get all spiritual about that, and suppose this advocates us emptying ourselves so that we can obey ourselves.  That’s hardly the point.  It’s not even a case of emptying ourselves so that we can obey Him.  No.  It’s a reshaping, renewing, resting in His hands and His working, as He molds our character after His own.  Not passively, though, but coming alongside Him in what He is doing.  How much better this is than striving on our own to somehow become what He wants us to be!  And better by far than seeking to please those who come with their insistent demands that we ought rightly to comply with their ideas.

But let us have no confidence in the flesh, no, nor in our provision.  After all, all that we have in our provision is by His hands.  We could just as readily be the one to hear, “Today your soul is required of you” (Lk 12:20).  Don’t be the fool whose riches have been toward self rather than God.  Be the wise man who rejoices to hear news of his own homecoming.  Even so, Lord, come quickly! (Rev 22:20-21).  And in the meantime, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with us all.  Amen.

The Christian Response (07/13/25-07/14/24)

I am still on the same topic, I think, but hopefully starting to shift my point of view.  We have been looking primarily at the error of the legalist, though acknowledging that we may and likely do have our own legalistic tendencies.  But now I would like to begin to turn our attention more to the right approach to the question of sanctification.  As Paul urged us earlier, we are still to be working this out in fear and trembling (Php 2:12).  We do have a call upon us to be actively involved in the process.  But we are being called to do so with a particular mindset, a particular view to the effort.  And that, I think, is the great purpose behind this exposition of Paul’s.

You have before you the command to be holy, to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt 5:48).  And some of us have already thrown up our hands in resignation, seeing the impossibility of the assignment?  Me?  Perfect?  I may have a high regard for myself, higher than is reasonable, but perfect?  Most unlikely.  How I would love to soften that command with thoughts of completeness, or sufficiency.  But honestly, the setting won’t permit it.  Jesus is talking about the practice of righteousness, which is as good as to say the pursuit of sanctification.  So, we have the goal set before us, and if it does have us on the verge of just giving up before we start, then best we should see that two approaches are on offer.  It’s there in His presentation.  “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them” (Mt 6:1a).  Beware of making it just a performance.  But it cuts deeper than this.  If the call is to be perfect in holiness, the question has got to be, “But how?”  Frost’s poem comes to mind.  “Two roads diverge.”  I won’t take it farther than that.  But both claim they will get us to where we are going.  Problem is, one of them is wrong.

One road leads down the way of human effort or human position.  I appreciate that when the JFB looks down this road, they observe not only ritual observance such as the Judaizers promoted, nor even just the sort of pure lineage that meant so much to them, such as Paul observes he can claim as well or better than they can.  But they also place on their list the mortification of the flesh.  No doubt, they have the mention of circumcision in view, but the term takes much more into its scope, and I think it is well that we do likewise.  We may even accept that to speak of the mortification of the flesh is largely to speak of the means of grace; things like church attendance, time in the Word, prayer, fasting, what have you.  These are all things that may impart some spiritual benefit.  But I have to insist that the result is only a possibility, not a guarantee.  Just as circumcision, though a sign of the covenant, was practiced by many who had no thought at all for the covenant, so can these pursuits be undertaken with no real connection to seeking sanctification.  They can become an end in themselves, or, which is perhaps worse, become just a habit, a thing we do without thought and without significance.

Put it this way.  Several commentaries observed that the Jews were hardly the only ones to practice circumcision, though they did so, perhaps, at a much earlier age.  In reality, circumcision was pretty much the norm for that region.  And we might observe that it’s a relatively common practice even in the west to this day.  The same could be said of fasting.  Fasting in and of itself has no spiritual value.  Many pursue a course of intermittent fasting for no greater reason than some supposed health benefit.  Some read the Bible as nothing more than a class assignment, or perhaps with no greater purpose than to hope to poke holes in its message and have a laugh.  I could think of my brother tearing pages from his pocket New Testament to use as rolling papers.  I cannot imagine what led him to think it was a good idea to be inhaling an ink-soaked page, but, oh, it was transgressive and cool.  And utterly sacrilegious, but that thought was far from me at the time.  But let us suppose we read Scripture together with our spouse in the evening; a fine practice.  Yet, if it is just ticking the box, a duty to get on with and get done with, then no spiritual benefit accrues.  If prayer is just a duty completed, then I dare so, no wonder those prayers go unanswered, and how much greater the wonder if they actually receive answer!  Therein is mercy added to grace.

Now, we look down the other road, and what do we see?  “We put no confidence in the flesh.”  Even as we seek to comply, this holds.  That road runs through one thing and one thing only: reliance on Christ and His perfect work.  There may be acts of obedience undertaken on that road.  Indeed, I should think it inevitable that there will be.  But behold the shift.  They are no longer seeking to be good enough, seeking to earn God’s favor.  They are acts of appreciation for God’s favor already securely received.  His perfect work has done it, and the very One we would please is at work with us on this road, empowering both the will to please and the capacity.  And He, having begun this work in us, is faithful to complete it (Php 1:6).

As Calvin writes, “All confidence in the flesh is vain and preposterous.”  That hasn’t changed just because you’ve become a Christian, and it hasn’t changed because you’ve been on for lo, these many years.  If anything, our years walking with Christ have brought us more and more into possession of a mindset akin to that which Paul expresses in the midst of Romans.  “For I know that nothing good dwells in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but not the doing of good” (Ro 7:18).  I know there are those who insist that Paul is expressing a hypothetical case here, rather than his current reality, or perhaps is looking back upon his early days in Christ rather than presenting the mind of a seasoned, mature believer.  But I think experience will show that the situation is quite the opposite.  It is the young believer, full of fresh fervor for the faith, who has this confidence that he has indeed conquered his flesh and become ever so spiritual and holy.  It takes a great deal of failure, a history of failure post-conversion, to bring us to the reality that even with this call upon us, there remains no place for putting confidence in the flesh, which is to say, putting confidence in our own will and capacity.  For, even where the spirit is willing, it remains the case that the flesh is weak (Mt 26:41).  And far too often, truth be told, the spirit really isn’t all that willing.  It needs a bit of a kick in the pants.

That wraps us back around to what might, I suppose, be a third road laid before us, or maybe a turn-off along one or the other of those roads already chosen.  That is the danger of ‘self-complacent antinomianism’ as the Wycliffe Translators Commentary puts it.  It tends to be the reality of what transpires amongst those who, “let go and let God.”  I mean, there is indeed a great validity to that advice, but sin in us is ever ready to make it a justification not to bother at all, and that simply won’t do.  Nobody ever grew stronger by sitting about thinking that maybe someday they should start exercising.  Neither did they improve by leaving everything to their trainer.  Musical skills might perhaps gain a little something from watching musicians, but if that’s the sum of the effort, then the skills will remain poor and useless.  It takes practice.  It takes effort, and the will to put in that effort.  The distinction here is not to rely on that effort alone to achieve the end.  What, for example, if all your practice has been doing no better than to practice error, to reinforce bad habits?  No, we must rely on Christ, but we are called to do so all the while striving to work out our salvation.  It’s a constant tension, seeking to do our utmost and simultaneously seeking to rely on Christ to supply our utmost.

Thus far, this feels rather like a rehash of the previous part of the study.  Let’s turn a corner.  Matthew Henry points out that conformity is either inward or it’s pointless.  This comes to how we approach even such things as lie before me this Sunday.  It is Sunday, and I will be serving on the worship team, and as such, I need to be asking myself whether indeed I am worshiping in truth, or worshiping because it’s my habit, and besides I just love making music, or if I am worshiping because hey, it’s expected of me.  Scripture could not make it any clearer.  True worship is from the heart.  It is ever and always a freewill offering, given voluntarily, not called forth on demand.  Perhaps this is why I have such a reaction to our propensity for issuing instructions.  Stand up now and sing.  Sit down now and listen.  Do this, do that.  To be sure, some degree of instruction is needful to keep us together, but this isn’t really about keeping us together, is it?  It’s about expressing our hearts to the One who made us, the One who has called us His own.  If indeed you are worshipping, and not simply going through the motions, surely your heart leaps within you.  If you are truly worshipping this most amazing God of ours, I cannot imagine you need instruction or permission.  It’s not about throw your hands in the air now.  It’s not about everybody shout.  Oh, there may be a call to do just that, and if that call finds response in your heart, then by all means, do so.  But it’s not compulsory.  Even when the call is to stand or to sit, you know, if you’re in a different place, and God is pressing you to do otherwise, well, do otherwise.  You don’t need to be belligerent about it.  Indeed, you ought not to be.  But if He would have you stand in rapt embrace of His presence when all around you have taken their seat, well, whom should you heed?

So, then, while we have indeed this command to rejoice in the Lord, this command to worship, it cannot be a worshipping forced by compulsion.  If it is not from the heart, it is not truly worship.  But where it is from the heart, it is indeed a free-will offering, the truest of free-will offerings.  This is an offering of delight, delight in Him, in what He has done.  Such delight will surely recognize the things commanded of us by our Lord, and not merely recognize them, but seek to do those very things.  But why?  For the delight of loving Him.  We do not worship on demand, nor do we comply with every claimed rule that others would impose upon us.  We worship in accord with what is shown us in Scripture, what comes as the clear instruction of the One we would worship.  We worship in the liberty of a Spirit-informed conscience.  That is not license for some free-for-all.  There is to be order in the house of God, for God is a God of order, not of confusion (1Co 14:33).  Let us, then, set ourselves to know His way and His will, and to worship Him freely in accordance with that rule.  And let all else that others would impose upon us be dismissed, but not with flippant disregard.  No, let us take the time to seek peace, to edify those who would constrain us by the means of those same Scriptures in which we have found our liberty, that they, too, may worship in spirit and in truth.  This is not a call to combat, but a call to edify, to build up, not to tear down.

Unity (07/14/25)

I see that this next head really does follow from what I just finished writing in the last.  I see also a bit of comfort for myself in that it is not me echoing my own thoughts, but others of greater mind than myself have concluded much the same.  I’ll take, for example, the point made in the JFB, that true worship is rendered only with the influence of the Holy Spirit, flowing from His inward working, and not restricted to any particular schedule or place.  Now, I think we must recognize that if, indeed, this worship flows from the inward work of the Spirit within us, there will indeed by a unified aspect to it when we are gathered together to worship our holy God.  That is to say, a greater liberty may apply in personal times of worship than applies in communal worship.

When we gather together, it is as one body under one Head.  This is emphasized repeatedly throughout the New Testament, a message more needful to the church than to the tabernacle.  Yes, Israel had its tribes, but they had a unity as the nation chosen by God.  Among the Gentiles, this would be harder to discern, this unity of peoples.  The church was drawing together slaves and slave-owners, and declaring them one in Christ.  It was setting men and women on the same level in Christ.  It was, for all that, insisting that Jew or Gentile, Christ remained the same, and welcomed on the same grounds.  Now, let it be understood that those distinctions which applied were eradicated entirely.  Men still have particular roles and a particular authority not applied to women.  But they are also commanded to exercise their authority in the fashion they see Christ exercise His, which is to say sacrificially, willing even to die for those over whom they have been granted authority.  It’s not a place for preening and demanding.  It’s a place for most tender care, and utmost attentiveness.  The slave was not called to rebel against his master, whether that master was of the church or not.  But he was called to do his best in serving regardless.  The Jew was no more called to abandon his heritage of religious activity than the Gentile was called to take it up.  The Law was not binding, but neither was it forbidden.  This is a point we should perhaps be careful of.  It’s not the participation in such things that constituted a rejection of Christ.  It is only when they come to be viewed as having salvific import in and of themselves, of somehow proving righteousness, or at least a greater comparative righteousness, that problems come.  We could say the same of Communion or of Baptism.  If these are taken as more than the sign they intend to be, as having in themselves the power to save, then we overstate the case, and have ourselves become such as demand a fleshly compliance as a necessary component of faith.

This is difficult to touch on without fearing to overstep in one direction or the other.  These are, to be sure, means of grace.  And we are right to expect that the one who believes shall desire of his or her own accord to be baptized.  We ought to feel a certain spiritual hunger for the shared observance of Communion, for it is given us as a reminder both of that covenant into which our Lord has entered with us, a covenant sealed, as with Abraham long ago, by God alone, yet binding to us with whom He has covenanted His certain promises.  At the same time, it is a clear, visible observance of our unity as one body under one Head.  If it becomes but empty ritual, then far be it from us to participate.  But the problem then is not with the service of Communion, but with our participation.  We have failed to note the symbolism of the act, the visible reminder of our unity with Christ and with one another.  There is, rightly observed, a particular potency to this sharing of communion, to the sound, even, of the household of God partaking in unison of this blessed observance.  I can think of a few occasions, and I would have to say only a few, where the sound of so many biting into their piece of Matzo at the same time was so magnificently audible, and so profound in its impact.  Yet, whether audible or not, the visible unity is profoundly to a purpose.

I will repeat here something said in my first-round notes.  I think it worth the emphasis.  We are one body, as I have been saying, under one Head, saved by one means, and serving one God.  That is a point declared repeatedly in Scripture.  We have seen it in the earlier teaching of this letter.  You will find it in just about every other epistle sent to the Church, whether from Paul or one of the other Apostles.  But let me take from Paul’s sharp notice of those disturbing the church.  For us to act in any way that would disturb the unity of Christ’s body is to be the dog, the evil worker seeking to tear and destroy, to mutilate the body of Christ.  What can this be, but the act of one whose professed faith is a false profession?  I can bring Calvin to bear here, who notes that the law of God is the unified truth of God.  It is, as such, the very bond of unity.  Think how Paul so often observes that what he is saying to one group is the same as he preaches to all groups.  There is not one body of doctrine for Corinth, and another for Macedonia.  The churches in Asia Minor are not given a different gospel than those in Rome.  We are one.  Our worship is one.  It must be, for it is informed by the Gospel, and by the Holy Spirit of God Himself.  It is thus that we come to this point that we who glory in Christ Jesus put no confidence in the flesh.  Our confidence is not in the quality of our rejoicing, nor in the frequency with which we rejoice.  It is in Christ alone, in His finished work, in His presence in us, shaping us to His image, in His promise that this which He has begun, He will assuredly complete.

If in fact our worship is informed by the Gospel and centered in God, then it must result in renouncing any thought of claiming self-worth in the matter of righteousness.  It is only then that we can worship from a pure conscience.  External privilege and external act don’t enter into it, though they may flow from it.  Worship must come, I think, from a place of deepest humility, and that holds whether we are in the pew, on the platform, or home in our private space.  When once we allow worship to be made in any way about us – our preferences, our skills, our desires, our offerings – it has ceased to be worship of God and become worship of self.  Look out!  I could tell you again just how strongly this is felt by those who serve in the ministry of music, or of public prayer, or in preaching.  We are not, after all, inhuman, not immune to the pleasure of being recognized.  That is not to say that we ought to refrain from expressing our gratitude for one another’s gifts.  But it is a call to those who serve to recall that they serve Christ in Christ and by Christ.  That He remains everything, and we, at most, can be pleased to confess that we have done as we ought.

Let then our worship be true.  Let us cast aside all confidence in this flesh of ours, all thought of claiming for ourselves a righteousness consisting in our actions, our learning, our anything.  Let us cast ourselves upon Christ our Lord, the sole hope we have of salvation, and that, a hope right certain.  He is Lord, and He has said it.  So it shall be, and to Him be all glory, praise, and honor.  Amen and amen.

The Legal Function (07/15/25)

Now, I have touched on the point somewhat already, but with so much focus on the danger which legalism poses to the believer, there must come the question; what are we to do with the Law?  We know readily enough that the Law is not in itself evil.  It’s not as if God had somehow erred in devising those commandments given through Moses.  Nor ought we to suppose that somehow the system of sacrifices and feasts and other such observances was somehow a mistake which God then had to correct in the sending of His Son.  No.  God is good, and His law is good and righteous and true, just as He is good and righteous and true.

Yet, we observe that the Law in itself was insufficient to the purpose; the regulated worship of the temple was insufficient to the purpose.  The blood of bull and ram was never going to suffice to truly atone for the sin of man, which should have been self-evident in the fact that these offerings had to be made repeatedly, constantly.  So, then, how are we to attend to this Law?  If it is but a shadow of the true source of salvation and righteousness, do we then disregard it utterly?  I dare say that at this point Paul would be saying, “By no means!”  Far be it from us!

No.  The thing is, the Law is descriptive.  It declares to us what that holiness is which God requires of us.  And we find it repeatedly summed up in two points:  Love God to the uttermost, love your neighbor at least as much as you love yourself.  We could perhaps reduce it to one simply stated command:  Love.  I say it is simply stated, but we find in practice that the application is impossible for us.  And that is perhaps the first thing we must come to grips with as regards the Law.  It defines a necessity which is to us an impossibility.  That’s what gets missed by those who insist that salvation remains a matter of our works.  It was certainly the case with those who like the Pharisees had convinced themselves that their deeds were indeed making them righteous.  Think of that young man who encountered Jesus with the question, “What must I do to be saved?”  From his perspective, he had been keeping the Law perfectly.  But so much of Jesus’ message to the Jewish nation was seeking to make plain that no, they had not.  They had not even understood the Law perfectly, else they would have known better than to make any such claim.

Really?  You have managed it, have you?  We cannot help but notice that Jesus sticks to what we call the second table of the Law, that covering our horizontal relations, our love for our neighbor.  And that young man seemed fully convinced that he was in compliance.  Oh yes, all these things I have done from my youth.  Jesus didn’t bother assailing that claim directly, but rather moved to the one law of the second table that He hadn’t mentioned yet.  “Okay.  Give all you have to the poor, and then come, follow Me.”  Now, it wasn’t that being wealthy was sinful somehow.  It was that wealth had an inordinate claim on this young man.  In point of fact, it was even deeper than that, though I don’t know as it registered.  It drove home the point that such compliance as he supposed he had to those other laws was only a thin veneer.  It missed the full depth of what was commanded.

Go back to those teachings we have as the Sermon on the Mount.   You have heard it said … but I say.  You think you have satisfied the commandment against murder because you have not taken up a weapon in anger and slain another, like Cain and Abel.  But I tell you, if you have as much as thought your brother a fool, you’ve already violated that Law.  You think you are clear of charges in regard to adultery because you’ve never engaged in sex outside of marriage.  But I tell you, if you’ve as much as looked upon a woman and thought what it would be like, you’ve already come under the full guilt of that Law.  Your compliance, such as it is, is fine.  It’s just insufficient.  And we haven’t even come round to the idea of loving God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength.  Really?  You’ve given Him all?  I doubt you’ve given Him even a tenth.  Even as you read the Bible, even as you sit under the preaching of the Word, even as you sing His praises, I would venture that your mind wanders, thoughts turn to whatever comes next in your day.  If the sermon runs long, you’re checking the clock impatiently.

No, the Law declares what is required, but supplies no power to achieve what is required.  The whole body of Leviticus and Deuteronomy spell it out in almost excruciating detail, both as to personal life and as to the regulation of worship and of temple order.  You shall do this.  You shall not do that.  You shall do it here, not there.  You shall be in such a place on such a date without fail.  But even as it lays down the requirements, failure is baked into the process.  You shall appear without fail, but if you fail, here is an alternative.  You must be perfect, but when you inevitably are not, here is what you are to do.  One might think that even with such a surface understanding as that young man it might be recognized that all of these provisions for failure were kind of making a point.  You will fail.  You cannot but fail, for the requirement is perfection, and you have been imperfect from birth.  It was already too late for perfect when you drew your first breath.

Why, then?  Why demand the impossible?  Because we need to recognize our impossible situation.  We need to come to a real and accurate sense of self, in order that we might seek God for a remedy.  The Law was never going to be a thing to which we could point and say, see?  My record shows that I am indeed righteous.  I’m getting in!  Even Enoch, who was no more, made no such claim, nor could he.  Even Elijah, taken up to heaven in chariots of fire, couldn’t dream of making any such claim.  Their hope, their claim to this inheritance lay not in the Law, but in the Redeemer, even as it is for us today.

Okay.  No doubt we are well and good with this.  But it still leaves us asking, what was the point?  Why those long centuries of impossibility?  Why not just send Christ down there at the start?  I am quite sure I am insufficient to the answer to such questions.  The best I can offer is that things fell out as they did because this would best serve to set forth the glory of God.  This way would lead to such a magnificent reveal as would set the angels back on their heels in wonder.  But in the meantime, we have still to consider how this Law applies for us now that the New Covenant has come and done away with the Old.

It may help to recognize what so many of the proscriptions of the Law intended.  I mean, why all these prohibitions around certain foods?  Why the concern with how one trims one’s hair?  Why the various bounds on wine, if God was so pleased to bring them into a land practically dripping with the stuff?  And so much of it has to do with being set apart from those other religious practices around us.  Egypt had their gods and their practices, and it was incumbent upon Israel to make plain by their practices that the God they served was quite distinct from those idols the Egyptians worshiped.  This was even more the case when it came to the Canaanites.  They had made sex central to their religion, for so much of their religion pertained to matters of fertility, whether of crop, of flock, or of family.  And it’s clear that such concerns held for the Jews as well.  No wonder, then, that the Canaanite manner of worship proved such an enticement to them.  Never mind that it seemed to offer a great deal more by way of entertainment.  It spoke to their felt need, and offered visceral experience of the need being met.

And so, much of what we see proscribed by the Law pertains to making clear that no, this is not just some variation on Baal worship.  No, this is not just one more God among the myriad gods of the nations.  He is not a mountain god that you may disregard by taking to the valley, or a valley god you can avoid by staying in the mountains.  He is the singular God of all, Who alone has true right of command and right demand of worship.  So, sexual purity ranks high in this Law, because it sets His people apart from the promiscuous pursuits of pagan religion.  Foods, or particular preparations of foods are set off limits not because they are somehow unhealthy or any such thing, but because those manners of preparation, or those particular foods are associated with this or that false god, and you are not to have so much as the appearance of acknowledging said idol.  The cutting of hair?  Again, a matter of at least appearing to approve of the practices of the idolater.

I think of John’s strong command against the false teachers.  Don’t even greet such a one (2Jn 10)!  To greet would imply acceptance of his teaching, approval of his message, and this, you must never do.  To go down the street and participate in the feast at the local temple of Aphrodite or Artemis or whomever would suggest your agreement that they are indeed gods, even if by your words you make plain that you think no such thing.  Here is, I dare say, the great danger of our national tolerance for other religions.  Tolerance comes to be seen as acknowledgement that these other religions are just as valid – or perhaps invalid – as the Christian faith.  Is it any wonder, really, that there is such muddled thinking in that regard?  But for us who believe, the call remains:  Have nothing to do with these things!  Make it plain by your practice that no, in fact, these myriad religions have nothing in common with Christ.

That’s not to say that one cannot find any point of commonality, as to the teachings.  It would be rather shocking, I should think, to find a religion that had not even the slightest contact with truth.  But however much truth may be found there, it is, of necessity incomplete or distorted.  We come back inevitably to the point that there is one God, one Truth, one Way.  And having come back to that central point, we meet once more the call to be different, demonstrably different in both practice, and, more importantly, in character.  We don’t need to be rude about it.  We don’t need to take up protest signs and go march against the local Hindu temple or mosque.  We don’t need to decry the atheists and pagans around us with angry harangues.  The Law commands love, even for these neighbors, and love has better things to do than to cast down.  Love seeks to build up, to lead to holy faith, to bring gentle correction where it can find reception.  And where it cannot?  Love requires that even so, we bless rather than curse.  Even so, we do as we may to uphold life, even in those who reject Life.

I’ve wandered about a bit on my course, here, as always, but let me try and come back to the main thread.  The Law is not to be dispensed with utterly.  We are not to react to legalism by sliding over into antinomianism, insisting that there is no demand set upon us at all.  No.  What’s called for is the recognition that the Law, if it is parted from Christ, is indeed a dead letter.  Yet, for us, the Law ought not to be parted from Christ.  Rather, we find that in Christ we have been granted everything needful for life and godliness (2Pe 1:3).  Everything.  We have it!  That is a most wonderful truth to lay hold of.  At the same time, it ought to drive us that much more speedily into the arms of Christ, for if we have this at our disposal, and still so readily and constantly come up short, what excuse remains?

Understand, then, that Paul is not rejecting the Law outright, nor is he by any means calling that Law evil.  Where he forbids circumcision, we must first understand that it is not the act, but the ritualized perception of that act as necessary for holiness, which he forbids.  Most of the nations around Israel in that period had their own practice of circumcision, with or without religious connotations.  As I have observed elsewhere, we have the practice here in the West, again, with or without religious connotations.  For most, it’s a health issue more than anything.  And, as we have been reading through Galatians in the evenings, I suppose I should make clear that when Paul says the one who is circumcised is cut off from Christ, it’s not the act itself that is in view.  It’s the thought of such an act being necessary to salvation, or somehow securing salvation.  We could make the same case for Baptism, I should think.  If you undergo baptism in the mindset that having done this one thing, you are not locked in, or from the mindset that if you don’t you are locked out, then please!  Don’t do it!  Baptism is a sign.  It is a declaration of what has already transpired in you.  It does not, cannot make you holy, nor does your failure to be baptized somehow prevent you entering heaven.  The thief on the cross next to Jesus certainly had no opportunity for baptism, did he?  And yet, he had the promise.  “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

I dare say that the believer who has opportunity to be baptized will do so, but as the Spirit leads, as an act of joyful submission and acknowledgement to one and all that Life has come to him or her.  Again, it’s not the practice itself, but the false understanding which is rejected.  As Barnes observes in regard to the perspective these dogs were demanding, “As they held it, it was not the true circumcision.”  It was, as Paul describes it, a mutilation, a cutting no different than the practice of the Baal worshipers of old, and as such, falling under the proscriptions of the very Law they claimed to uphold by their demand of it.  And the warning Paul applies here is one we do well to give heed.  For it is as true of any practice we may hold sacrosanct today.  I’ll give Barnes the last word here.  Such ritualized observance without an accompanying true heart change must tend to destroy the church rather than make her holy.  For, such ritualized observance, leaving the heart untouched, leads to pride, to a false confidence in a holiness not possessed.  Whether we consider circumcision, or coffee, or any such thing, the evil or the good is not in the object, but remains a matter of the heart, and in matters of the heart, if the Spirit is not working, there can be no change.  And if the Spirit is working, there can be no doubt.  Salvation belongs to our God, a gift He gives freely to whom He will.  And we, with gratitude receive, and receiving, we rejoice, giving all the glory to Him, for He alone deserves it.  He alone is God.  Far be it from us, then, to insist upon any outward form as binding, unless indeed we can found our practice on a clear and true understanding of what is clearly written for our benefit.

A Side of Zeal (07/16/25)

As the last part of this study, I want to zero in a bit on that clause which begins verse 6 – as to zeal.  Lexical entries observe that this is generally taken as applying in a negative sense, indicative of envy and contentious rivalry, which seems to be how Paul is applying it here.  But zeal also has its positive aspect of seeking to supply a deficiency, seeking to emulate that which is excellent, determined pursuit of zeal’s goal.  I’m not sure that we are ever to hear it in anything but a mix of its positive and negative aspects here.  Certainly, in this setting, zeal is being noted as a cause for confidence, and thus, as a positive trait.  Yet, observe how it has turned to that very contentiousness in persecuting the church.  Oh, he thought he was doing right, thought he was defending God’s honor and seeking to eradicate this perceived falsehood.  He was ever so keen to be about that work, and who knows but what he was rather enjoying the reputation he was obtaining amongst his fellow Pharisees.  We are not granted to see into his mind and heart.  We have only the record of his deeds before and after his conversion.

This passage might perhaps get us closest to his mindset at the time of any record we have.  I was so zealous for the God of Israel and the holiness I thought we had in our system, that I persecuted those I thought to be teaching error.  That’s pretty much the sense of this.  And in that, one can readily see how the thoughts play out.  We can see it because we are all too familiar with it in ourselves.  We are so convinced of the rightness of our actions, the rightness of our motives, that most anything we might do seems justified.  And you can see this zealousness for God lauded in several places in Scripture.  What prompted me to include this tag on my study is largely the collecting together of several such passages by the JFB commentary.

The most familiar, I think, must be Psalm 69:9, with its message that, “Zeal for Your house has consumed me. The reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”  And, of course we recognize this as having been applied to Jesus our Lord on the occasion of His driving the merchants out of the temple courtyards.  This we might term a holy fervor.  In Christ, it must be truly holy, an act with which no fault could expect to be found.  Paul, no doubt, felt much the same about his own actions at the time.  But there was rather a significant difference, wasn’t there?  His perspective may have come closer to that of Psalm 11:139 – My zeal has consumed me, because my adversaries have forgotten Your words.  This, one suspects, is how he perceived these proclaimers of Jesus the Messiah, and particularly so when it became a message of Messiah resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Now, pause on that for just a moment.  If any people ought to have been in position to accept this possibility, it would be the Jews, would it not?  It may have been exceedingly rare, but to be sure, they had record of men taken up into heaven.  See Enoch, or Elijah.  Indeed, we see from the Gospels that in that period there was an expectation that Elijah would be back.  Well, how was that to be?  I suppose it would not be a resurrection exactly, if he had never died, but I don’t think the expectation was of some ghostly apparition.  It was of a true return.  Indeed, so real were their expectations that they failed to perceive the fulfillment when it stood before them in the person of John the Baptist.

I know, if primarily from reading C.S. Lewis, that many religions had their conception of a god who died and came to life once more.  He speaks of it as the corn king.  It is a view of deity that seeks, I suppose, to explain the planting cycle and the seasons.  There is something of that in Greek mythology, as well, in the tale of Orpheus entering the underworld in hope of retrieving his beloved Eurydice from the grave.  Now, in fairness, he was not posited as a god, but as a hero, and yet the distinction between god and hero in that mythos was rather slim.  We might posit that the hero was perhaps a bit more human in character, as he was perceived to be human in nature.  Yet, human with the addition of certainly god-like qualities or abilities.  Yet, I should have to think that by and large the hero with god-like qualities was morally superior to the actual gods with their caprice.  But I am greatly adrift here.  They had greatest cause to accept Christ, but zeal which they supposed to be for God and His pure worship prevented them from doing so.

Here is the trouble with zeal, I think.  We suppose our zeal to be for God, but it too often proves to be zeal for our opinion, our position.  I can take the tired example of Calvinism versus Arminianism.  It’s well and good to be wholly convinced of your opinion on those points which form the divide.  To be sure, we ought not to be holding as truth that which we do not actually believe with conviction to be true.  That would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it?  That would be, if anything, mere posturing.  But even where we have strong conviction as to our views, we must remain humbly aware that it’s entirely possible that in spite of our strength of conviction, we are in fact wrong.  We must remain teachable by the Word.  It is precisely when our zeal for the things we hold true will admit no possibility of our being mistaken that we head into trouble.

There is another passage which demonstrates the zeal held for the Lord God.  It comes in 2Kings 10, which tells of Jehu’s ascent to rule, and in particular of his taking of the Lord’s vengeance upon Ahab, upon Ahaziah, and upon the Baal worshipers.  His was a bloody and violent ascension to power, but undertaken by the Lord’s word through Elijah.  And in the midst of this he meets up with Jehonadab, son of Rechab, who is upheld as a man of righteousness in Jeremiah 35.  Having met, Jehu calls Jehonadab to join him in his chariot, saying, “Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD” (2Ki 10:16).  This is in the midst of this slaughter of God’s enemies, somewhere between the dual regicide, and the eradication of the Baal worshipers.  It’s hard for us to perceive of this activity as holy, isn’t it?  We have come to eschew violence in the upholding of religion, and view such behavior as something of a throwback, as evidence of a failure to evolve, as it were.

But his zeal, if anything, rejected as insufficient.  He has the approval of God, so far as it goes.  “You have done well.  You have done what is right in My eyes in eradicating the house of Ahab.  So your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel for four generations” (2Ki 10:30).  But this is immediately followed with the notice that there were things left undone.  “He did not walk in the law of God with all his heart.  He did not depart from the sin of Jeroboam” (2Ki 10:31).  Here is another issue with zeal, and its reason for being included in Paul’s message.  Zeal inevitably relies on the flesh, draws from the passions of the flesh.  Those passions are themselves unreliable to begin with, but then, too, they have their limits.  There comes an end to strength.   Passions run dry.  And then, what have you got?  The drive you knew is gone.  The interest you had has faded.  And if all you had was that passionate zeal, then you are going to shipwreck on whatever comes along to grab your attention next, whatever may offer a bit of a thrill, or a sense of purpose, however misguided that sense may be.

And so, we come to the last passage I want to touch upon here.  “I testify that they [the Jews] have a zeal for God, but it is not in accordance with knowledge” (Ro 10:2).  And there is the root problem.  Passion divorced from knowledge; energy unconstrained by wisdom.  Think of it in terms of electricity, perhaps.  Electricity is a great boon when it is constrained and controlled by proper wiring, insulated such that current cannot flow every which way, but only where it is directed by the wisdom of the wire.  Let it take the from of an electrical storm, however, or arc across to something outside its insulated path, and nothing good is going to come of it.  It becomes a destructive force, and unpredictable.  It still has the same energy to it, but it is no longer a force for good.  It becomes a force for evil.  Such is the power of our convictions.  When they are properly constrained by true knowledge of God, and Spirit-informed wisdom as to application, they can indeed be a great good.  They must be a great good, for they are then turned to the purposes and glory of our great and good God.  But when we allow vain imaginations to take hold, when we become so firmly convinced of our falsehoods that we cannot accept correction even from the Holy Spirit within, when we become stiff-necked and proud in our own brilliance; ah, then, indeed the energy of our zeal becomes a destructive force, harming the very people of God among whom we count ourselves.

May it, then, never be found necessary in our case to observe that while we have great zeal for God, it has come to be divorced from real knowledge of Him.  Let us set ourselves to know and to love the God Who Is, as He Is, not trimming off the bits that are hard to accept, nor attributing to Him the vagaries common to man.  Let us rejoice in the assurance that He is good.  Let us view our days through the lens of His goodness.  Let us recognize that even those things we account tragedy have, by His involvement, a good end in view.  All is not caprice.  All is not chance.  God is not like those Greek deities just playing games with humanity for their own amusement, or to stroke their own egos.  No.  He is holy.  He is, quite probably, the only truly holy being in all that is.  And He is unerringly good in all that He does.  Whether He sends blessing or cursing, He remains good.  Whether He brings prosperity or calamity, He remains good.  And in all, His promises remain true.  All things truly do work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Ro 8:28).  We are the true circumcision, who have been granted this gift of faith by which alone is righteousness to be attained.  “In Christ alone my hope is found.  He is my light, my strength, my song.  This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.”

Let us, then, cast off all thought of justifying ourselves.  Let us cast off all thought of earning His favor, Who has poured forth His favor upon us already.  Let us cease from trying to earn a Father’s love, and celebrate, instead the love we know we have from our Father.  Let us seek to live lives that reflect our heritage, that demonstrate His character, that reflect His glory, and may He have all the praise, all the glory, all the honor in the doing.