Called Upward (09/17/24)

We are considering a passage that wraps itself around matters of perseverance.  As I have summarized it in the outline heading, we are concerned with pressing on and with holding fast.  It’s a two-fold concern, and the latter aspect of holding fast finds its object in the former pressing on.  If we are pressing on, after all, it must be with some goal in mind, right?  Paul swings into the familiar imagery of the Greek games, what we might recognize in the modern marathon, which hies back to those games, or some other road race, or even the cross-country running competitions of our high school days.  Any of these will do.  For all such races consist both in pressing on in pursuit of the goal, of gaining the lead and holding it.  And these games have some prize, some award for the one who finishes first.

Now, for our purposes, we cannot be focused on that matter of finishing first.  Our focus is solely upon finishing, and finishing well.  Our competition is not with one another but with our own nature.  And the goal we seek, as Paul notes elsewhere, is something far more valuable than a wreath, or a ribbon, or a cup, a trophy of some kind.  We are competing for eternity, for life.  But that may be too vague a matter to capture our attention, I suppose.  I mean, you’d think life might be worth us taking notice, but then, from our perspective, it seems we already have life, so why compete?  That’s a theme I expect I’ll come back to before this study is over.

But for the moment, I want to look at what the NASB sets before us as the upward call.  It’s a popular image.  Our church used to have a basketball outreach program for the youth, called upward basketball.  The idea, obviously, was to draw them in for the game, and then take opportunity to present them with the Gospel.  I cannot speak to how successful that program was.  I do know it took a lot of work from a lot of people, and at some point, it kind of went by the wayside.  So be it.  Times and seasons.  But we have this phrase, at least in many of our translations, setting before us the prize of the upward call.  The NIV shifts the focus a bit, making the prize out to be something sought as it is the reason for which God calls us heavenward – a different reading of this phrase.  The KJV leaves prize and call more firmly connected, but speaks of it as a high calling.

You see some issues for translation here, though the words themselves seem simple enough.  There are but the two, ano and kleseos.  The former speaks to a higher place, or something above.  It might be upward.  It might be on top.  And as to calling, well, here is an invitation as might be given one invited to a feast.  In context, it is clearly a reference to divine invitation, we might say a call from on high.  Interestingly, the same term applies to matters of vocation.  And I’m not altogether certain that this sense of the word is absent here.  I think the KJV leans that way with its high calling.  Certainly, one called by God to be an officer in His church has a high calling, and hopefully, they recognize that fact.  That, I should note, applies not solely to ordained clergy, but also to those who serve as elders or deacons.

But is that the intent here?  Is it a question of seeking to fulfill vocation?  Vocation, after all, has application not just for the offices of the church, but even for the more mundane matters of employment.  Even the housewife raising her children pursues her vocation.  Even the man tilling his field to feed his family pursues his vocation.  Even the child, pursuing the completion of chores and lessons, is pursuing his or her vocation.  And all of us together, as we seek to live godly, as we seek to mature and to be that which God has in mind for us to be, are pursuing holy vocation.  So, sure.  Let us have a sense of vocation as to this calling, for where there is a call, there is a response expected.

Now, we have yet the question of whether it is the quality of the calling, the source of the calling, or the purpose of the calling that is in view with this aspect of high or upward direction.  Well, here’s something, at least.  This ano is an adverb, not an adjective.  It is not describing some quality of the calling, but rather, some quality of the action of pressing.  It seems to me that our translations are just a little misleading in this regard.  It reads to me more like Paul is giving us two parallel phrases as object of the verb.  Perhaps it should read more like this.  “I press on for the prize, upward for the calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  On for the prize, upward for the call.  The first clause comes in the accusative, the direct object of the verb press on.  Now we have a genitive clause regarding the call.  But with the adverb present, I don’t see how this can be adjectival in application.  So, maybe I’m still reading it wrong.  Upward must still have reference back to the pressing on, and so, too, must the call, I think.  But then it’s a matter of how or perhaps in response to what.

Sorry.  I’m wrangling a bit with this.  It’s a challenge, and it would be well to hear it rightly.  I mean, when I read of this upward call, one image that comes to mind, perhaps from having been in 1Thessalonians not so long ago, is that of the archangel come to announce the return of our Lord, that moment when we shall all be called upward to join Him in the air, transformed in body in a flash, that our eternal spirit may finally have an eternal vehicle.  Here is that moment when the perfection noised about in this passage is finally come our way.  And to be sure, it is not our own doing, but His finished work.  But is that where we are supposed to find our thoughts directed in this passage?  Perhaps so.   Certainly, that is a goal that remains at some distance, though at what distance is beyond us to say.  It is probably not so near as our anxious reading of the present state of affairs would lead us to suppose, or even to hope might be the case.  It is quite possibly not so far off as we tend to convince ourselves it is.  We do not, after all, know the hour or the day, and that holds whether His return precedes our interment in the grave or whether our interment precedes His return.  Either way, our time has come, and our every urgent concern ought to be that we be found ready when it does come.

I am going to settle on this much.  Upward is the direction of our pressing on.  There is a prize to be had, and in some regard, at least, that prize is already ours.  It consists in that inheritance stored up for us in heaven.  It consists in that salvation procured for us by Christ Jesus.  It consists in that call which God has already sent forth from heaven, inviting us not merely to a banquet we might attend and then head back home before we wear out our welcome.  No!  This invitation is more than an invitation.  It’s the signing of our adoption papers, a calling us into His own family, to be in and of His family forever.  This is your prize, and yes, it is already yours, who have in fact known the calling of God upon their lives, whose hearts have been renewed by the Spirit so as to receive this Gospel offer of redemption, whose spirit has been reborn not of flesh and blood, but of the Spirit Himself, that we might indeed enter into life – real Life, not this walking death that is the human experience.

We are made for higher things.  We are made for heaven.  That may sound prideful, but it’s not that we have made ourselves such.  We have been made – remade.  All the stench and stain of sin has been eradicated, wiped away.  Now, you know as well as I that in spite of this being very much our reality, yet we walk this life in the flesh of the old man, still subject to the temptations of the old man.  No, that’s the wrong word.  Not subject to, but prone to.  We are no longer slaves to sin.  We have options now.  We can choose to resist the devil.  We can choose to discipline our bodies and our thoughts.  That’s pretty much the point here, isn’t it?  If you are truly desirous of this goal, of this prize set before you, then give it your all.  Dedicate yourself to this race, this competition.  That’s what’s happening in these middle verses, and again, I expect I’ll come back to that idea.  For now, though, I think I have chewed these two words enough to arrive at some sense of the matter.

And Lord, having some sense of the matter, may I find myself indeed that much more strongly committed to the course of pursuing Your ways, of seeking Your kingdom and Your purpose in my days.  Yes, there will be much in my day, even today, that smacks of the mundane.  Work will still be work.  Matters of sustenance and relationship will remain necessary components of the day.  Yet, You are in it.  You are here with me, and more, as I pursue these various mundanities, even habits of the day, I do so as one who is with You.  I am not alone in my thoughts.  That is both a fearsome and a comforting thing.  May it be more a matter of comfort than of concern.  May I retain awareness of Your companionship, Your fellowship, even as I set my studies aside for the morning and proceed to the next component of my day.  Let me abide in grace.  Let me, as I deal with coworkers and spouse and divergent opinions and traffic and the like, be just that bit more consistent in demonstrating in my character and demeaner my being part of Your family, a son of Your household.

Laid Hold of (09/18/24)

Having considered the upward call, you can’t help but notice Paul’s expression of urgent effort in this passage.  I press on.  I’m stretching forward to the goal.  But towards what?  What is the goal?  He wants to lay hold of something he has not yet laid hold of, but for which Christ Jesus laid hold of him.  And yet, for all that, just what it is he’s seeking to lay hold of is not specified.  Is it this perfection?  Can we find a referent in the verses leading up to this?  Well, yes, of course we can.  And there, we have this goal of resurrection from the dead.

So, if nothing else, here is a reminder not to lose sight of context, no to become so tightly focused on the verses immediately in view as to forget how we arrived at these verses, or where they are leading.  I am straining to gain the resurrection from the dead.  Or, to bring in some commentary from another of Paul’s letters, in which he advises young Timothy to persevere, to lay hold of ‘that eternal life to which you were called’ (1Ti 6:12a).  This is the good fight of faith.  But it’s not a fight we face alone, and it’s not a fight we must win in order to have salvation.  This is, as ever, a bit of a tension in the Christian life.  Okay.  It’s a serious, abiding tension, and one we are forever sliding away from in one direction or the other.  If my future is settled, why am I striving, and if I am striving, how is it that my future is settled?  If salvation is by faith, why this getting exercised about works, about effort?

Well, I can’t reasonably claim to have all the answers.  But I can say this much:  The overall course of Scripture leaves it clear that both aspects pertain.  The Christian life cannot be devoid of works, and yet, the Christian works, knowing that His works are not the basis of his salvation, but rather the fruit of it, the evidence of it, if you will.  If faith is the evidence of things unseen, as Scripture says (Heb 11:1), then works are the evidence of faith.  They are not the means by which faith is obtained, else faith would not be the evidence of things unseen, but rather, an edifice built on the evidence of prior works.  Faith is not look what I’ve done, but look what God has done for me, in me.

We were not laid hold of by Christ in order to be workmen, and yet, as we are laid hold of by Christ, we have the privilege and honor of coming alongside Him in the work that He is doing.  To be laid hold of as workmen would be to suggest a need in God, a necessity for laborers to do what He cannot, or will not do for Himself.  But God has no such dependencies, no need of outside help in order to achieve all that He would do.  God without man would still be God, and every bit as much so.  God without a single soul saved would still be complete in Himself, still be just as perfect, just as holy, just as eternally satisfied in the completeness of His being.  But He chooses to have us as participants in His world and in His fellowship.  He chooses to make us fit members of His family.  He chooses to call us alongside into the work of the kingdom, not as needed labor, but as sons and daughters blessed to spend time with Abba, doing the things we love together.

Follow the chain of this thought just a bit farther.  Paul is seeking to lay hold of the power of God by which he attains to the resurrection from the dead, and via that resurrection, unto eternal life.  And what is life?  In answering this, we come to the real nugget, the real prize that is in view here.  Jesus answers the question for us:  Eternal life consists in this, “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (Jn 17:3).  Here, we are again at the ginosko form of knowledge, the experiential, the knowledge that comes of intimate acquaintance.  We know God.  We have been blessed with the immeasurable privilege of knowing Him.

This seems to be a recurring theme of late.  Here is that surpassing value that has so gripped Paul that everything else is trash, the value of knowing Jesus my Lord.  And He IS Life.  He gives life to whom He wills, to all whom the Father has called.  Here is your high calling, your upward call.  God has called from heaven.  Your ears have been opened to hear it.  “This is My beloved Son.  Listen to Him!”  And having heard, you obeyed.  You have listened to Him, come to know Him through all that He said and did.  And here, too, is the work of the Holy Spirit, as He Himself described it, to bring to mind all that Jesus said and did.  It is for this that you have been laid hold of by Christ:  That you might indeed know Him, know Him intimately, deeply, truly; and knowing Him, that you might indeed pursue Him, follow Him, join Him in His life and work.  It was for this that He laid hold of us, that we might know Him, and knowing Him, love Him, and loving Him follow and obey Him.

And now, we can come back to the passage before us, and see where Paul’s thinking is.  Oh!  I want to be fully obedient to my Lord, to be in that place of perfect compliance to all He commands, and I know I have not got there yet.  But I know, also, that it is precisely for such perfect compliance that Christ laid hold of me.  This is where I am headed, but I’m not there yet.  This is the goal, the prize, the end game.  But that being the goal, I am still here, in the temporal, engaged in the world.  And in that engagement, I mustn’t lose sight of the goal.  I mustn’t become so distracted by the stuff of life as to lose sight of that life which really matters.

Beloved, take this from today’s exercise.  You have been laid hold of, and that, for a purpose.  You are not saved to simply wallow in your past until such time as Christ calls you home. You were pulled out of that mire.  Why would you slip back into it?  I mean, we do.  I know we do.  And yet, the absurdity of it, the foolishness of it, must register at some point.  How can it be that we who are dead to sin should still live in sin?  How is it that these things still have the power to entice dead men?  It’s a quandary, and one with which we all alike struggle, if in varying degree.  You are no more immune to it than I am.  But in spite of that, we have this assurance:  Christ Jesus has laid hold of us.  God has called us, and the Son has received us.  We are His as a gift from His Father, and He cherishes us as the gift that we are.  This is your status, your standing, if indeed you are in Christ.

But being thus cherished, we too cherish Him Who has laid hold of us.  That leads to a desire to please.  I need not earn His love, but I would that I might live in a fashion deserving of such love.  One hopes a similar mindset informs how we interact with our loved ones, be they spouses, parents, children, or siblings.  One hopes that the things we do for them are not done in hopes of earning their love, or for fear that if we don’t, they’ll stop loving us.  Is that really how you live in relationship?  Are you really doing things from a ground of fear?  I mean, even a child striving to obey the command of his mother or father does so from something more than fear.  To be sure, there may be fear of the consequences, should he neglect to do so.  “Wait until your father gets home,” remain words to instill a certain dread.  But if that was the whole of it, I suspect the result would be in keeping with the threads I see on the web regarding malicious compliance.  Oh, I’ll obey your commands alright.  I’ll do so in such fashion as to bring the full, unintended consequences down on your head, and I’ll laugh all the while as things come crashing down.  That, to be sure, is not the obedience of love, nor obedience entered into with any care soever for the one obeyed.  But that’s not family, hopefully.  And it’s certainly not the right obedience of one who would claim to follow Christ.

Let’s understand one thing first.  There are no unintended consequences to the commands of Christ.  God knows perfectly, and as to what He commands, and for that matter, who He commands, no mistakes are made.  There may be fallout of the obedience given Him, particularly as He moves those who are yet His enemies to serve His purposes even as they pursue their own.  Even there, though, their motives are known to Him, the excesses of their pursuit of those matters in which He is using them are known to Him before ever they start.  And they shall have their own reward.  But still, His purpose is served, and served to perfection.

This can only be more true, were such a thing possible, when we are concerned with God’s commands and intentions towards His own.  It’s not a promise, certainly, of a rose-garden life without a care in the world.  Indeed, as is often pointed out, and as I often point out myself in these studies, we are assured of the very opposite.  In this life, you will know tribulations (Jn 16:33).  Through many trials we must enter the kingdom (Ac 14:22).  That, recall, was Paul’s encouragement to the church!  Count it all joy (Jas 1:2-3).  These trials, these tribulations are producing endurance in you, with the result that you shall be rendered perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  We’re right back at the goal set before us here.  We’re back at that for which we were laid hold of:  eternal life, a thing entered into by the resurrection power of Christ, and a thing for which perfection of faith is a requirement, but not one we bring into being by our persistence, rather one brought about by God Himself.  “I have called you,” says the Lord (Isa 43:1) who speaks and it is.  “I have called you in righteousness, and I will hold you by the hand and watch over you” (Isa 42:6). 

Beloved, God is for us!  That’s settled.  His love for us is an everlasting love, the which no height nor depth nor demon nor power nor any failing of mine can sunder.  We are in His hands, and nothing, absolutely nothing can pull us out of them.

Thank You, Father, for taking me in hand.  Thank You for this assurance of Your love for me.  After all, if You did not love me, why would You have taken such pains to make Yourself known to me so many years back?  Why would You have stirred in me the desire to spend these morning hours with You?  Why would You bother with me at all, except You love me, and desire to see me home with You come the end of my term here.  Blessed be Your name.  And thank You, as well, for Your presence with me, in me, as the Holy Spirit guides and cajoles and rebukes and redirect.  May my heart ever be tender to His leading.  May my mind be more and more inclined to heed His instruction.  May I, in short, be more like You, day by day, that indeed You may have joy of Your choice of me.  That, to be sure, comes round to me seeking that I might know You ever more, day by day, more deeply, more rightly, more familiarly.  Stir me to devotion, and grant that I might indeed stir myself, moment by moment even this day, to a greater devotion to You, to loving You, to manifestly belonging to You, demonstrating that reality in all my interactions.  You know the trials these recent weeks at work have been.  You know how readily I can be overwhelmed, frustrated, and so on.  But hold me in Your power.  Grant me the peace of mind to reflect Your grace on these coworkers, even over the distance at which we work, and may something of Your light shine through, somehow, and reach them sufficiently as to lead to questions.  And as questions come, grant that I might be so bold as to give answers.  And grant that my demeaner would not detract from those answers should occasion arise.

In the Game (09/19/42)

There is a goal, that thing to be obtained, which we have identified as the resurrection unto eternal life in fellowship with God.  This is that aim which shapes our course, to which our energies are best applied.  You know, much of the world around us is caught up in figuring out how to be themselves.  There was some video snippet that came up the other day, some person how is apparently somebody giving his bit of inspiration to personal greatness or whatever.  Oh, you have to figure out who you’re not so that you can find out who you are.  And when you find out who you are, you need to lay aside anybody and anything that is holding you back from being who you are.  Okay.  Sounds good, I guess.  But what if I find my authentic me is a vile psychopath?  Is this still really good advice?  Probably not.  The quality of pursuit cannot exceed the value of the goal.

So, Paul is pursuing this goal of knowing God.  I will insist that this is the fundamental.  Resurrection is there, but how are we to attain that apart from dying?  And at least in the physical reality of the act, we are not permitted to speed the day.  We serve God Who Is Life.  Thou shalt not murder has its positive counterpoint in, thou shalt support life.  We were reading of Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees in men’s study Tuesday, and Jesus was clearly put off by the Pharisees’ raising concerns about work over concerns of life support.  Here is a woman afflicted for nigh on two decades with some crippling disease or spirit, and you’re more concerned that I might do so much work as to lay My hand on her and speak a word or two, or, if you’re willing to admit as much, to exercise God’s power, than that she walks away restored to a life more in line with design.  And you call yourselves the experts!  You don’t even know whom you serve, not really.

Resurrection is a piece of this, a victory over death, and thus, an experience of life to the full.  And it may be that Paul has in mind the more spiritual component of this in the victory over sin, harking back to his writing in Romans.  We have died to sin!  We are resurrected to life in Christ.  The old man is dead, and the new has come.  Yes, there remains this business of a new body that lies ahead.  But the transition has already begun.  It began the day you heard God’s call and by the Spirit’s prompting within, you responded.

This is our future.   But as Paul observes, we’ve not yet attained it.  We’ve not yet got possession of it to make it our own.  It is our birthright, but it is not as yet our lived reality.  Oh, but we know it shall be!  He adds an alternate understanding here.  I haven’t made this my lived reality yet.  I have not yet become perfect.  Does that imply that he thinks he can reach that point at some juncture during this earthly life?  Well, for one thing, it would behoove us to get the syntax a little more in line with what is there in the Greek.  The matter of becoming perfect is addressed as a perfect passive action.  The perfect tense implies present result of past action.  Given where we’ve been in arriving at this passage, one might suppose those past actions are wrapped up in the list of fleshly approaches to righteousness that he has now seen as the rubbish they are.  But the passive voice suggests something slightly different.  It’s not that he hasn’t finished the work of making himself perfect.  It points beyond himself, outside himself.  He has not yet been made complete.

Okay, so given the race imagery that saturates the passage, we might take that as a matter of reaching some goal, and we know what that goal is.  But if that’s the case, surely this should be active voice, as Paul conveys a sense of his effort in the matter.  But no.  That isn’t the case here, though things become more active in subsequent discussion.  I have not yet been made complete.  I may be over-stressing the point, but I do believe there is an intentional removal of self in this action, especially as he is countering those who are bound and determined that their actions render them perfect in God’s sight.  We hit that towards the end of this passage.  Compare and contrast.  I have not yet been made complete.  All of you who are perfect and complete must surely think as I do.  My former works did nothing to draw me closer to perfect righteousness, and you, who still rely on your works, must surely come to recognize the same thing, if indeed you are in Christ.  That’s kind of the flow of this message.

Let’s be clear here.  Perfection is out of reach.  We cannot make ourselves complete.  For all that, we can’t even make a holy offering.  Our best intentions, our best efforts, remain stained by sin, corrupted by self-interest and pride.  We try to be better, but in and of ourselves, we never are.  All our efforts to live as our authentic selves, to lay aside all that holds us back, comes to naught.  What matters is Christ.  That’s been the message throughout this chapter, and is, in fact, the message throughout Scripture.  From the moment those Ten Commandments were first made known it should have been painfully clear that compliance was beyond us.  But instead, everybody signed on with the emotional response.  Oh, yes!  This we shall do, and we take upon ourselves the full terms of this covenant for better or for worse.  One wonders how many ever snapped to the enormity of that covenant.  To be sure, there were some.  And down through the years, it was explained more fully, the scope and breadth of these simple commandments made more clearly known.  And still, it seems that pride somehow left us convinced that sure, we can do that.

We’re still in this condition.  We still convince ourselves that we can handle this life of godliness.  We don’t need to pray.  We don’t need the church.  We don’t need anybody.  Just me and God, man.  That’s all I need.  And while there is a grain of truth to that, the grain is spoiled, diseased, rendered valueless by corruption of God’s own instruction and design.  No, you’re not enough.  And if you would have God with you, it’s going to be on His terms, not yours.  By your insistence on flying solo, you are already out of compliance, even as you boast of your piety.  It doesn’t work that way.  It cannot because He will not.

Let’s see if we can move this discussion forward just a bit.  Paul gets us to the one practice that remains to him.  “I forget what is behind, and reach forward to what lies ahead.”  Does this mean that we simply dismiss all our former sins?  Does that mean that, having become a new man, we skate free of all responsibility for past actions?  Far be it from us to suppose so!  True repentance and turning away from former practices is one thing.  But repentance must surely include taking responsibility, seeking to make right what one had made wrong.  And honestly, it’s not so much the sins that Paul has in mind here, but rather, those exercises undertaken as a means to righteousness.

It’s very much a contest between grace and works.  Now, observe.  Paul has not stopped working.  This whole racing setup is work.  Reaching forward, straining towards the goal, running to win, beating the body into submission; all of these are work, but no longer of the nature they used to be.  It’s no longer about making oneself righteous, or showing oneself righteous.  It’s about truly being who we truly are.  You see?  That happy-feel self-help video did have a point.  We should be who we truly are, when who we truly are is in Christ.  It ought to show.  It ought to shape us.  It ought to temper how we respond to such situations as come our way.  But if we’re still busy trying to earn our way into God’s favor, to get His attention in hopes that maybe He’ll leave a blessing behind, or at least not smite us down this instant, where’s the joy?  Where’s the fulfillment?  Where’s the authentic self?

So, what is he leaving behind?  All those efforts to make himself righteous.  What is he stretching out to gain?  That which is already his:  eternal life, knowing God.  And so, “I press on toward the goal.”  That goal, it should be noted is not like the tape across the finish line now visible just a few yards ahead.  No.  It’s yet a distant mark, perhaps barely visible in the distance.  You can see it, but it’s a long ways off yet.  And so it remains throughout life.  If the goal is heaven, which is, after all, where we expect to enjoy this eternal life of knowing God fully as we have been fully known by Him, it surely isn’t going to be anything we can find here on earth, is it?  Who could suppose themselves to have attained to heavenly perfection in such a world as this is currently?  Do you expect heaven to be full of vexation and trial?  If it were, who would seek it?  What would be the point of pursuing eternal life, if that life was to be of no better quality than what we know at present?  I’ll pass, thanks!  If that’s the deal, then frankly, maybe the nihilists have it right.  But it’s not, and they don’t.

We have a goal set before us.  It is a challenge, and intentionally so.  But it is a prize that is involved.  There is victory to be had.  That victory is to be had only by the means of God’s provision, which is to say, by faith in Christ Jesus who has in fact reached that goal, who has obtained the prize on our behalf, and who now awaits our arrival at the finish line.  Perfection isn’t ours to manufacture.  It’s ours, period.  It is the goal towards which God is working in us, as Paul said earlier, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.  His good pleasure is our perfection, our being remade, restored to our proper image and form, and so, rendered suitable to be in full fellowship with Him.

You know, there are those who bend their skills to the restoration of old vehicles, or to other objects of antiquity, not seeking to improve upon their design, not seeking to adapt them to current standards, but simply to undo the ruin of age and rust and accident.  There was, perhaps still is, a show on British television, called, “The Repair Shop.”  The team there takes in these relics of the past, cherished items from this or that one’s past, and undertakes to restore them to their original beauty.  And of course, the ones they show in the series are indeed thus restored.  They are rendered beautiful, functional again.  And needless to say, the owners of these items are overjoyed to see that restoration complete, to have the pleasures of the original condition made theirs again. 

I think God’s work on us is much the same.  There was, in the original design of man, a creation of utmost beauty.  God looked upon His handiwork and declared it not just good, but very good.  Here was a creature after His own image – not another god, certainly, but sharing in such of His characteristics as are possible to share.  He could fellowship with such a being.  He could share Himself with such a being, and they could delight in one another.  Now, be careful.  This was not satisfying some need in God that could not otherwise be satisfied.  But it suited His good pleasure, and, we must also say, it expressed His inherent goodness.  But sin entered the frame.  The work was corrupted, the image no longer as clear as once it had been.  And man, in this retrograde condition, continued to sink further from his original glory.  The image became more distorted with time.  And, at least from my perspective, it continues to do so.  The distortions of this present age, seems to me, would make even the Canaanites blush.

But God’s in the restoration business.  I recall that play years ago, with its little handout advertisement.  “Come and meet the mender of broken things.”  This is our Jesus.  And we, dear ones, are those broken things.  We are in desperate need of repair, and in no position to repair ourselves.  We need Christ, the great Mender.  And praise God, we have Him!  He is ours as we have been made His.  But perfection?  No, that lies yet ahead, when we have arrived back home, and been made like He is.  As John observes, we don’t know yet what that’s going to be like, but we know it shall be.

Well, there remains this matter of perfection still, doesn’t there?  After all, Jesus Himself calls us to it.  “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).  But let’s be careful here.  This is not given as a command, at least not implicitly.  It’s delivered as an indicative, a statement of what is true.  It’s future certain.  You will be.  It’s also, I would note, middle voice.  How that should be heard in this instance, is a bit of an open question, but I don’t see evidence of a deponent condition here, such that we should take it in an active voice, do the work yourself, sense.  It could, in proper, middle voice fashion, suggest a work undertaken in self-interest, a rendering oneself perfect, but that would leave us at odds with far too many passages in Scripture.  So, I think it best we hear this as a reciprocal middle voice action, where it is a cooperative work between ourselves and some outside agency, and here, that agency is clearly God.

So, yes, you are to be perfect. You will be perfect.  And it’s a goal set before us towards which we ought, as those in the race and desiring to win, ought to exert every effort.  But that alone won’t get you there.  Hear Peter’s instruction on this point.  “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1Pe 5:10).  Now, that’s not some novel concept that Peter came up with one evening.  It’s established on the testimony of Scripture, on the things God Himself has said.  I touched on these already in this study, as they had come up in prayer last Sunday.  But Isaiah speaks in God’s voice, “I (God) have called you in righteousness.”  “I will do it.”  It’s here in Paul’s letter to Philippi as well.  “He who began the good work will complete it” (Php 1:6).  HE will complete it.  You will be made perfect.  And yes, you have a part in the action.  You are not some passive lump to just sit back and wait for God to do His thing.  You are not a piece of wood or stone waiting to be fashioned by His hand.  You have been, by His design, made a moral agent, an active participant in the process, a man like Him in nature, creative, thoughtful, loving, productive of desires and intentions.  You work because He works.  Your work has value because you work alongside Him, observing His ways, pursuing His ways.

And so, we are back at the tension of Christian life in the present tense.  We see that holiness is required – perfect holiness.  We see that it is our certain future.  We also see that it is certainly not our present possession.  And having come to know and love God, we have this urgent desire to please Him, to be such as He intends us to be.  Oh, we know full well it lies beyond us to achieve.  But we also know the joy of trying, the joy of drawing a bit closer to the goal.  And we pursue this course with the absolute delight of knowing that, in due course, having suffered for a little while in this race, we shall indeed attain to that goal.  One day it shall no longer be far off, but shall be a prize obtained and held firmly in hand, laid hold of as we have been laid hold of by Christ.

Think about that.  Jesus says He has us in His hands, and none can take us from Him.  He has firm hold of us, whom God the Father has given Him.  The same firm grip applies here.  We shall indeed lay hold of this prize, this upward call to resurrected life, and having laid hold of it, nothing in heaven or on earth shall ever take it away from us.  After all, it, too, is the gift given us by the Father.  And the gifts and the calling of God are, we are firmly assured, irrevocable (Ro 11:29).

Father, thank You.  There are, as You well know, times when I feel much farther from this goal than I should be.  There are times when I feel perhaps I have set myself back on course, or more properly, that You have set me back on course.  But it seems I veer off again in short order.  Even from these morning studies, how long before I revert to form?  But some parts linger, I know.  Those things that You wish to have embedded in my soul, embedded in my thought life and character, take hold.  Thank You for that, and may there be more such nuggets of righteousness that adhere to my conscious actions throughout the day.  May I, in brief, be daily more like You, display Your goodness more fully and more truly.  May I, by Your handiwork and my compliance, be restored to what I was designed to be.

Assured of Victory (09/20/24)

In a letter so steeped in the idea of contentment in the providence of God it seems odd, at first, to find this passage with its pressing on and striving.  But it fits.  The key to seeing this is found in that opening verse.  And in a rare turn of events for me, I find myself wanting to quote the NRSV in their presentation of the point.  “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”  That’s it!  I press on, but not with the anxious concern of whether I win or lose.  I press on knowing I have already been won.  He has made me His own!  How many times can I say this?  God does not lose sheep.  I press on, but in contentment, knowing that the goal, while still so very distant, is assuredly within reach.  Indeed, I press on towards the prize of that upward call in Christ Jesus which is my guaranteed inheritance.

Okay.  I must pause here.  I have expressed some sense of what this upward call is, but here, recognizing that the upward call is the prize we’re after, it becomes clearer, doesn’t it?  It is not a matter of salvation any more.  That’s settled.  This is that call at the last day.  This is the trumpet call, the shout of the archangel declaring that the time has come and our King is here.  The upward call is indeed a call upward, into the heavenlies to meet our Lord in the air.  It’s the first full dawn of the new creation.

This is our goal in life, to reach home, to come to that day, whether walking or in the grave, in the full assurance of our Savior’s love.  That is the rest into which Jesus invites us to enter.  It is also the rest which we hear God cut off from those who will not abide in Him.  The passage is repeated thrice in Hebrews.  “I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest’” (Heb 3:11, Heb 4:3, Heb 4:5).  It originates as a reference to that first generation brought out of Egypt.  “For forty years I loathed that generation.  I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart, and do not know My ways.  Therefore I swore in My anger, “‘“Truly they shall not enter into My rest”’” (Ps 95:10-11).  And to think, that is the closing thought of that Psalm.  Yikes!  But observe the root cause:  They don’t know Me.  Though I’ve acted so forcefully to rescue them, though I have been in their midst, a pillar of fire by night, and of cloud by day, though I have made known to them Who I AM and what I require, yet they insist on not knowing Me.  We’re back to Romans.  “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Ro 1:18).  It’s active resistance.  This goes beyond cognitive dissonance.  This is a refusal of reality.

I suppose we must note that the author of Hebrews is not addressing unbelievers, but rather the Church.  And in bringing up that first generation of the Exodus, it would be hard to miss the parallels to the Church which has been on its own exodus, lo, these many years.  Is it possible, then, that we should find our hope forfeit after all?  I will continue to insist that no, it is not, if indeed that hope was founded on the faith which comes of Christ by the Holy Spirit pursuant to the will of the Father.  God is not a man that He should repent (Nu 23:19).  To continue that passage, “Has He said, and will He not do I t?  Has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”  This is a voice of assurance.  But it is an assurance for those whom God has called.  Many may tag along for any number of reasons.  They may have heard the voice of their own imagination and thought themselves called.  They may have been deluded into a false sense of Christian security, perhaps convinced that their baptism as a child sealed the deal and they need have no further concern, perhaps having once experienced a burst of emotion on response to some sermon and recited a prayer which they are now convinced guarantees their outcome.  Or perhaps they have no such hope at all, are simply along for the ride, going through the motions but as a social matter, or as a necessary inconvenience for maintaining marital peace.  Been there, done that.  God decided to change it for me.  And there’s hope, not that biblical hope of certainty, but the more earthy hope of potential, that God may yet move upon these misled companions in such fashion as to render them true brothers and sisters.  Even those who have infiltrated with evil intent, seeking to spread the tares of false belief could, should God so choose, find themselves brought to Truth instead.  And wouldn’t that be a wonder and a joy?

This is the thing.  This is my motivation.  I’ll offer Goodspeed’s rendering of that last clause in verse 12.  I stretch forward, “because I have been captured by Jesus Christ.”  I love that!  That’s really how it is.  It’s certainly been my experience.  I didn’t come to Jesus because I felt some pressing need, nor even, really, a curiosity.  But I came.  And He made His point.  He captured me.  He made me His own.  It went from church being an hour or two I tolerated to keep the peace at home to the realization, the absolute certainty, that He Lives!  And suddenly, the fulness of it was there.  “My Jesus lives in me.”  Well, He lives just fine without me, as well, but the enormity of this:  He lives in me!  God has chosen to call me His own, to make His abode in my heart.  There was no conscious inviting Him in.  There was no real volition to it at all, only a succumbing to the evident.  He is real.  He does speak.  It is true.  Well!  How can one respond in the face of that, except to bow down and worship the God Who Is?  I have been captured.

Knowing myself captured, there is plentiful cause for contentment.  It took me a few years to realize this.  For a time, I was still struck by the danger signaled by that repeated reminder from Hebrews.  Look!  They were called, and they were rejected, right?  Well, no.  They were present at the calling, but they did not in fact receive the call.  They went through the motions, but they weren’t really interested.  I mean, being freed from the slave pits was all well and good, but this journey was no picnic, either.  Honestly, one wonders if this Moses guy really knows where he’s going.  Why, after all, is it taking us this long to get across so small a peninsula?  And he takes us, largely unarmed, and wearied by travel, to try and invade an established nation?  What is wrong with this guy?  What is he thinking?  And somehow, that looming tower of smoky cloud and flashing lightning doesn’t register with them.  Somehow, they can ignore how it follows the camp wherever they go.  Somehow, the significance of that covenant entered into at Mount Sinai just seems like a bit of a lark with no impact on their lives.  “You will not enter My rest.”

Those are indeed dreadful words, and at some level, they should spur us to greater effort in pursuing the life God has set before us.  They should have us looking to see where that pillar is indicating we should go.  But they should not have us looking over our shoulder constantly for an angry God sending His wrath our way.  There is an assurance in this race.  If you’ve read any of my studies, you’ve heard it.  Romans changed my perspective.  It settled me.  How can it not?  Hear the force of it.  “No height or depth, nothing in all creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ro 8:39).  And that’s really the culmination of a long list of things that can’t alter the outcome for us.  But, O, my Lord!  If nothing in all creation can separate us, beloved, that assuredly includes me in it.  I cannot separate myself from my Jesus.  I have not the power.  I may become dismissive at times, but I cannot become separated.  God does not lose sheep!  He will leave the ninety-nine to find that one who has wandered off.  That is not to say I incline to be that one.  But I know the capacity is in me to be so.

How about this, if that verse is not sufficiently convincing?  “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Ro 11:29).  Now, the Charismatics will look at that and zero in on the gifts.  They will make of it a declaration to support the idea that those gifts noted in 1Corinthians still pertain.  And honestly, that may well be true.  I would maintain that I have on occasion experienced such gifts in very real use.  I would also maintain that I have witnessed an awful lot of counterfeit, exploitative and self-promoting abuse of, or imitation of such gifts.  But it is the calling that ought to have our attention.  And it has come to have a central place in my own worldview.  You hear it in my choice of verses to quote often enough.  “I have called you by name.  You are Mine” (Isa 43:1).  That has become such an anchor in my faith.  “Do not fear, I am with you” (Isa 43:5).  This is not some notion that Paul devised to gain a following.  It is the promise of God, echoing down through the ages from those first days outside the gates of Eden.

Understand, though, that the assurance of this call is no excuse for indolence.  It is an assurance of rest, yes, but not of ease.  And that is very much the message Paul is conveying here.  You know, those who think to achieve perfection by their compliance to a body of regulations and practices are at great risk of plateauing.  I would argue that in many ways, they are more at risk of such an outcome as are those who rest in the assurance of God’s love.  If it’s about my works, then I am inclined to find that point at which I can say, “good enough.”  I mean, it permeates so much of life, doesn’t it?  I mow the lawn, but I’m not looking for perfection, every blade at uniform height, the edges carefully demarked and maintained, each and every loose blade left by the cutting carefully removed from the yard.  Comes a point when I say, “good enough.”  And most times, that comes pretty quickly.  I might persist a bit more with clearing snow from the driveway, but only because I know that a ‘good enough’ that comes too early risks causing headaches farther along.  Mixing a song, I may hit that point.  Yeah, there’s things that bug me in the mix, but it’s good enough.  I’m tired of working on it, now.

In pursuit of godliness, there is no good enough.  That’s rather the point.  If ever there was a good enough, then there would be no point in Jesus.  The choice of God to take upon Himself the fulness of man, to go through some few years of earthly existence in the weakness that is man, to suffer such ignominy, such humiliation, such excruciating agony of death.  Indeed, if ever there was a good enough, then God’s choice to give up the Son on our behalf was the ultimate act of child abuse.  But there isn’t a good enough, and that act is in fact the greatest sacrificially loving action ever undertaken.  We focus on Jesus and the agony He willingly underwent to see us secured for a heavenly inheritance, and rightly so.  But pause and consider the agony of our Father.  He, too, suffered on that day.  Do you suppose He could turn from His own Son, His own self, with Whom He has known eternal fellowship, even for so brief an instant, and not suffer greatly?  Do you suppose He could do as His Justice demanded, knowing that the One upon Whom wrath descended was wholly undeserving of that wrath, and not know deepest sorrow for the necessity of the whole thing?  But it was necessary.  It is the way, the only way, not just one of many possible ways, by which He could act to save a remnant without violating His own essential nature.

So, no.  Don’t plateau.  That’s the message here.  This prize of heaven lies ahead.  Yes, it is yours, already set forth as your inheritance, guarded in heaven by Christ Himself and not subject to loss.  But it is a goal.  It is a desire, your greatest desire.  It is the anxious longing of all creation, the reborn spirit within seeking its fulness, even as the child of man stretches forward to his future fulness of maturity. 

We may know of some who seemingly refuse to stretch forward for maturity.  Adult children, we call them.  They’re in that neverland mindset.  They resonate with the old Toys’R’Us jingle.  “I don’t want to grow up.”  But as we grow up, as we take up the tasks and duties of maturity, we recognize that mindset for the abhorrent deformity it is.  It sounds so lovely, but it’s utterly defective.  So, in life, we strive for the prize of maturity.  We take to the place of responsibility, willingly or unwillingly as the case may be.  It seems to me that something in the matter of procreation brings one to a greater willingness to take responsibility.  There is this tiny life that now depends upon me doing my part.  There are people who depend upon me.  In my younger days, there was no such concern, and had one suggested there should be, I would have laughed.  But youth is for the young.  It is not, as the saying goes wasted on them.  But it is for a season, and maturity lasts longer, and in the end, it fits better.

Take it back into the matter of spiritual maturity.  That’s what’s in view here.  I’m not perfect, nor perfected.  Far from it.  I’m not capable of it.  But I am loved by the One Who is capable of it, and indeed, determined to see it come to pass.  And He speaks.  He occupies my conscience, whispers instruction, reminds me Whose I am now.  He urges me to greater effort, greater exertion, not as one striving to earn my way, but as one desirous of that maturity that is my birthright.  I press on.  With varying degrees of determination, to be sure, but I press on.  I am His.  That is settled.  He is working.  That is clear.  And because He is working, I set myself to the work He has given me to do.  And I pray that today I may do it that bit better than I did yesterday.  I pray that as He works in me, and moves me to my work in Him, that I may indeed be maturing, growing wiser, growing stronger in godliness, coming nearer to home, inching closer to that prize.

Here’s another passage that might give us pause.  It should.   Jesus, addressing one of those casual hangers-on that thought maybe at some future point he might answer the call, but not just yet.  Need to say goodbye to some things first, had stern warning to give.  “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:61-62).  You know, you hit that warning in isolation, stripped of context, and you’re likely to respond like the disciples around the table at that last meal.  “Is it I?”  Am I the one to betray You?  Am I going to fall away?  But that’s not really the point here, is it?  This isn’t a falling away after receiving the call.  This is a refusing to receive that call in the first place.  You’ve heard.  You recognize that here is the Way in which you should go, and yet, no.  You want to go back to Egypt for a bit.  “You shall not enter My rest.”

You know, maybe these guys had been following the Master for a few days or a few weeks.  They had tasted the excitement of it.  They recognized something in Him, that here was somebody truly good.  Did they recognize that here was God?  Unlikely.  Maybe just another good teacher, or perhaps a prophet.  But even a prophet can be dismissed from mind.  Yes, I hear your warning, and I’m sure it’ll come about in due course, but I’ve got things to attend to.  I’ll get to it when I can.  But when it’s God?  When you know it’s God?  How can we think this way?  I mean, we do, but how is this even possible?  Just how foolish are we?  Oh, but beloved, God does not lose sheep!  There is your place of rest.  Don’t become complacent.  Don’t just accept that this is the way you are, and it’s never going to change.  For one, that’s not true, not if you are in Christ.  You are a new creation!  The old has passed away.  You don’t have to remain as you are.  You are no longer a slave to sin.  You are a child of God.  And He is leading you onward into spiritual maturity.  He will get you there.  But far better it should be with your willing compliance than as one kicking and screaming and insisting that no, you’d as soon stay here in spiritual infancy.  It’s abhorrent in the adult child.  It’s abhorrent in the Christian.  Stop it.  Get up.  Keep going.  Stretch out towards that prize, and whatever else you may do, hold fast the ground you have gained.

Christian Maturity (09/21/24)

I’m moving into verse 15 this morning, with its somewhat enigmatic opening clauses.  “Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude.”  What’s going on here?  Didn’t Paul just finish saying that he had not yet been made perfect?  Well, who’s this us, then?  Or, perhaps it is the case that we need to revisit just what he means by being perfect.  I will note that there is really no verb involved here.  Perfect is an adjective in this case, so modifying the noun.  The noun is implied in the activity of being of an opinion.  So, I guess I must start by saying that the NASB has not done the best job translating this, though it seems a consistent take.  I suppose the verb is necessary in English.  But the Greek is more directly, “as many as perfect,” where, “as many as,” being a pronoun, serves as subject, and perfect is applied as a trait of this subject.  It is only as we get to the matter of attitude, that we really arrive at a clear statement of ‘us.’

Okay, so what is this business of perfection?  It speaks to completeness, to maturity in full.  Here, then, are those who deem themselves to have been fully obedient to Christ, lacking nothing necessary to the fulness of pious, godly living, having brought the work of sanctification to a conclusion.  Stated that way, I should think it rather clear that Paul is not including himself in this.  For one, I think Paul would be in complete agreement with Zhodiates in concluding that this matter of perfection is not some static state, but rather an ever progressing goal.  That’s not to say there’s no endpoint to the process, but it would be right to suppose that such an endpoint lies outside the confines of this earthly life.  I can’t think along these lines without hearing John’s comment on the matter.  “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be.  We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1Jn 3:2-3).  This, I observe leads to hope, and because our hope is fixed on Him, we have motive, incentive to purify ourselves, because He is pure.  This purifying is another aspect of perfection, of Christian maturity, which is, after all, what we’re on about here.

Christian maturity must first come to the realization that full maturity is not to be had in this life.  It second recognizes that the matter of maturation is, in so many ways, beyond us to address.  The human body matures quite apart from any undertaking of will.  A baby doesn’t will himself into adulthood.  It happens.  Some outside agency has determined the development of body and mind, and while we may do things to help or hinder that development, we are never really in control of it, never in the driver’s seat.  The same holds in the spiritual development of a believer.  We are actively involved, certainly, but we’re not in the driver’s seat.  Control of this development lies with Another, and He is already Perfect.  That takes us right back to those favorite verses of mine from chapter 2.  It is God who is at work in you.  To keep John in view, we shall be our full, authentic selves.  But as John sees this assured reality as incentive to try harder, so Paul.  Work out your salvation (Php 2:12-13)!  Strive towards this perfection.  The goal is there.  The prize is already yours.  But you must continue towards the finish line.  And I really dislike throwing a must in here, because it smacks of works all over again.  This isn’t about works.  It’s about desire.  This isn’t about earning.  It’s about appreciating.

As I said, physical maturation transpires with or without your consent.  In large part, the same could be said for mental and emotional maturity, though we might have somewhat more impact on those.  Still, the mental capacity will not mature past its design, and will occur, in however stunted a form, regardless of how much we may seek to prevent it.  Likewise, emotional maturity.  It comes, eventually, whether we want it or not.  Even the worst of adult children must, at some juncture grow up.  Eventually, parents, and whatever others might be willing to coddle them, will be removed from their lives, and no choice remain, but to mature.  They may never reach a full maturity.  Certain developed habits of thought and feeling may very well persist from childhood right on through to the grave.  But even with that, there has been some sort of maturation going on.  It’s just been inhibited by a certain lack of willingness, a mindset of, “I don’t want to grow up.”  It’s understandable, perhaps, this sentiment, but it remains a disorder, a negative trait in the one who insists on sticking with it.

Okay, back to our verse.  As many as are fully mature, “Let us be minded.”  Have this attitude.  This is an active voice call.  Get in the game, for it is this racing to win, stretching out to reach the goal and take the prize, that he is talking about.  Here is my attitude:  Forget the past, forget all that stuff I thought was making me more mature, and stretch for the goal of true holiness, true maturity, in the assurance of that eternal life which is mine in Christ Jesus.  No, I’m not perfect, nor shall I be in this life.  Oh, but I shall indeed be perfect!  It shall come about when I see Him, when He has completed this good work in me.  So, too, for you.

This is put in the subjunctive voice, with its sense of possibility.  It’s not yet the established certainty of the indicative.  But I don’t know as it would be fair to say there’s some doubt about it, either.  It’s more a question of when than of if.  You see, these who are pushing their works-based theology are not being rejected utterly.  They are not being denounced as false believers; misguided, perhaps, but not false.  There is a stunning generosity of spirit in this.  Let us have this same perspective.  I mean, it’s possible, I suppose, that one should hear a touch of snark in here.  Surely, you who think yourselves perfect must see the same thing I do.  But I think it’s more tender hearted than that.  I am confident that God will bring you round to this perspective in due course.  It’s just going to take time to shed those old ways and receive the fulness of the liberty that is yours in Christ Jesus.

Wuest insists on a darker perspective here.  He offers us this.  “If, as is the case, in anything you are differently minded, and that in an evil sense, this also will God reveal to you.”  Fair enough on the first part.  It is a first class conditional, the condition assumed true, at the very least.  It may or may not take on the full force of, “as is the case,” but it certainly has a minimum weight of, “Let us assume.”  Now, given the context, I think Wuest is within rights to declare it a certainty.  They have, after all, been promoting a need for circumcision, and other works of compliance with Judaic rites and traditions, and Paul’s not having it.  But does that render their mindset evil?  That’s harder to say.  I suppose, given that the Jerusalem Council had already established the very limited set of conditions that Gentiles ought to maintain, it would take a certain perverseness of spirit to come insisting on more.  And it seems doubtful that any believing Jew would be unaware of that conclusion reached by the Council at this stage.  So, if they are seeking to usurp proper church authority, sure, I guess we can put that down to evil intent.  But I could also see this as simply being too steeped in those traditions, and in traditional ways of thinking, to have yet broken free of tradition.

Set it in that light, and we all have plenty of baggage we drag along into our newfound life of faith.  The Corinthians had theirs.  The Philippians, for all that they tend to show in a far more positive light than most, had theirs.  Perhaps pride might be accounted their biggest hangup.  That position of being true Roman citizens, a city under its own governance, and so well-ordered as to be accounted something of a second Rome, could lead one to a certain civic pride.  You might sense something of that in Luke’s writing, a situation that has led many to conclude that he was from that city before he met Paul in Troas.  All this to say, don’t get too harsh on these Jewish believers.  We have our own issues to address.  In America, particularly, I think this same sort of civic pride becomes something that can easily mar our presentation of faith.  Political fervor likewise comes into the house of God, and can too easily serve as an alternate piety.  How can you say you believe in God and still vote for him, or her?  And it really doesn’t matter which side of the divide you stand.  We become so convinced of the piety of our position that the very idea that somebody could think differently and still find acceptance in Christ becomes unthinkable.  Ah, “but such were some of you” (1Co 6:11).  It would be well could we remember that.

Wrapping up this section, I want to offer the somewhat softer perspective presented in the Phillips translation.  “And if at present you cannot see this, yet you will find that this is the attitude which God is leading you to adopt.”  What a beautifully tender conclusion to this necessitated conflict.  We had that mic drop moment at the outset.  I mean, it had to sting in the extreme to find yourself referred to as a dog, an evil worker, indeed, a false circumcision (Php 3:2).  These guys had just been soundly slapped in the face.  Their every perspective was being not just challenged, but renounced utterly, and in terms most offensive.  These, who had been taught to think of the Gentiles as dogs, unfit even to associate with, are now the dogs, and their pious practices declared to be dung (Php 3:8).  Even the most tender of hearts is going to have trouble receiving that.  Perhaps later, when there’s been time to reflect on the offense a bit, time for the Spirit to salve wounded sensibility and allow conscience to observe things more clearly, but just now?  Were this read in something of a town meeting format, I could envision that contingent rising from their seats and storming out the door.

But this closing thought, if they remained to hear it, softens the blow.  You are not rejected.  You are just not at that stage of maturity you think you are.  Hey.  I know how it is.  I was right there with you, thought the same way, probably pushed it harder than you ever have.  But God changed my mind.  He will change yours.  And we will be patient with you.  This truly is a lovely rendition of church discipline.  Those on the right course are affirmed.  Those on the wrong course are not pushed away, but corrected, at least if they are willing to receive correction.  And even if that leads to a walkout on their part, should they walk back in alter, they will be welcomed as warmly as if they had never left, more warmly, perhaps.  For here is one rescued from the fire, and as the angels rejoice in heaven, so the church rejoices over a member once lost who is once more found and made whole.

Lord, let us have this shared mindset.   Grant us to be of one mind in those things that truly matter, in matters of truly knowing You.  As to those secondary, tertiary issues that so occupy us, let us be generous, accepting, willing to recognize our own limitations.  Let me be so, for I know I can become too determinedly right in my own thinking.  May I, then, remain teachable by You.  May I be generous in spirit.  May I be less inclined to find cause to criticize and reject, and more inclined to glean.  May I, in short, become less about me, and more about You.  And may I find strength to set myself more fully to the task.

Christian Unity (09/22/24)

We come to the conclusion of this passage.  Whether we should hear this as arms around the ones just rebuked as evil workers, or as a continuance of that rebuke is not certain for me.  Something in me pushes for that reconciliation that appears to be held out to them.  There is potential for fellowship in the prior verse.  “God will reveal this to you as well.”  If you are one whom He has called, then even though you are so far off course at the moment, He will correct you.  He did me, after all, and you see how far off I was from what I now understand by His grace.

It’s possible, though, to hear this as an echo of Jesus’ rejection of the hypocrisy inherent in the pursuit of righteousness by works.  Or perhaps this is an encouragement to the main body of the church to remain steady on course.  If the former, then this would be a call to self-reflection.  You claim much in regard to righteousness.  Fine.  Live up to your claims.  If the latter, it’s more of a caution.  Don’t let go of what you have attained because these folks come insisting on some matter of works.  Overall, though, I think I would remain where the heading suggests I remain; with a call for Christian unity.

And observe the basis for this unity.  It lies and being of the same mind, having shared perspective as to the knowledge of God.  Does this mean we agree on every last detail?  Probably not.  There is room for a great deal of variation in how we suppose certain matters of faith and doctrine to be, and these ought not to preclude the sort of unity that is in view.  And is this not, after its fashion, what Paul arrives at in conclusion?  Do you have a different attitude?  Do you disagree on some points here?  Well, God will reveal His truth to you in due course.  But, “In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.”  That comes from the Apologetics Study Bible.  It strikes almost a conciliatory note.  There is nothing in this disagreement, it would seem, that sets any of you outside the body.  Push it too hard, and perhaps it will, but it need not be so.  You wish to retain certain of your customs?  Well, I mean, being circumcised is no more a cause for ejection than for inclusion.  Observing the feast days of the Old Covenant will not somehow render you unfit for the kingdom.  It’s not the doing so much as the motive that is of concern.  It’s your propensity for, “you all must do likewise.”

I think, though, that we can take a wider application here.  As the CJB phrases it, “let our conduct fit the level we have already reached.”  Don’t slip back to former sins.  Don’t lose what you have.  Don’t neglect what you know.  As James observes, “to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (Jas 4:17).  It’s not just about avoiding things you ought not to do.  It’s about being who you should be.  It’s about more than knowing the truth.  It’s about living in full accord with the truth.  Heard this way, you have something akin to, “Don’t just believe it.  Live it.”  But that comes across more like a rebuke, and a general rebuke at that.  This does not seem to fit where Paul is going with his thoughts.  It’s an urging forward, yes.  But there seems very little in this letter that is by way of rebuke.  Rather there has been encouragement both in and for that which is evident in their faith.

All that being said, there remains this matter of unity, of accord.  Tyndale brings it to the forefront with his translation.  I will offer it in a more current English phrasing.  “Let us proceed by one rule that we may be of one accord.”  That rather folds verse 15 back into this.  Let us all have this mindset of pursuing the goal of the heavenward call of God in Christ.  In doing so, we will be of one accord.  For, it’s not as though His call is confused.  It’s not as though heaven is one way for some, another way for others.  There is one heaven in which resides our one God, the one God.  He IS Truth.  This is not the same as declaring that Truth is our god.  That way lies idolatry and it merely leaves us back at the question of whose truth is true.  No, God IS Truth.  If we would know Truth, we must needs know Him.  It keeps coming back to that.  If we know Him, we are being granted to know Truth, for He is Truth.  Apart from Him, truth devolves to opinion.  It may be well reasoned or not.  It may be accurate or not.  Opinion is like that.  But Truth, being rooted in the essential being of God, is not a fluctuating thing.  It is not mere opinion, and it cannot vary according to personal preferences.  There is no preference setting on the menu of Truth.  Truth is, because God is.  And we, in response, can either set ourselves to be in accord with Truth, or suffer the inevitable consequences of rejecting it.  The most evident consequence lies in the realms of mental illness and disorder.  If we try to live in a world shaped by the truth of God, which is to say, reality as it is laid before us, then we must push ourselves ever deeper into delusion, and delusion, taking hold, becomes disorder, disorder proceeding to disease, and disease, left untreated, to death.

So, I come to this.  There is in fact one Truth, one body of Truth, if you will.  And it is God’s prerogative, indeed His very nature, to define it.  That truth ought, by rights, to be evident to us in what we observe in the world around us.  But, of course, the world around us is corrupted by sin.  That is true, and as such, we can’t simply look at the world around us as defining how we should be.  But we can see evidence of God in the orderly progression of nature.  We observe planets and stars and galaxies, and we have those among us who formulate means of describing just how greatly these things are ordered, how magnificently balanced various forces, amongst all these moving parts turn out to be.  We are able to travel to other bodies, hurtling through space at alarming rates of speed, and arrive precisely at the place we intend.  Why?  Because for all their great speed, and all the wild forces at play, the whole resultant motion is entirely predictable, accurately predictable.  Our buildings stand firm, barring defective building practices, or serious physical trauma to the structure.  Why?  Because the natural order is sufficiently regular in its operation that we can architect a structure suited to the location.  We can discern what crops will grow in our region because we know that, climate alarmists notwithstanding, the seasons proceed in orderly fashion, and in general, temperatures cycle within a known range.

All of this just concerns the observable world around us.  But then we come to the realm of meaning, the questions of what is life, why are we here, what should we be doing?  Here, the truth of God informs our worldview.  Indeed, if we call ourselves Christians it ought to be the case that the truth of God is our worldview.  Here is the motive force of life.  Here is the what and the why and the how of life.  Here is God, Who is Life, Who is True.  And, to take His word, He has told you what is required of you:  Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God (Mic 6:8).  Love Him wholeheartedly, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  For some of us, we need to alter that just a bit and say, love your neighbor better than you love yourself.  And maybe, that even includes a need to love yourself better.  You are, after all, created in His image, and, if all of this applies and finds root in you, you are recreated in spirit, a true son or daughter of God Most High.  All that remains is to receive the life He has given you, and to enjoy this liberty into which you have been purchased.

That enjoyment is not a call to do whatever floats your boat.  That would be anarchy, not liberty.  Neither, though, is that enjoyment a call to constant reference to the rule book.  We are not called to go through life second guessing ourselves, pausing every few steps to consult the orders and see if we’re still on course.  I mean, yes, we wish to remain on course, and it is well to check when we’re unsure, or to receive correction if we have drifted.  But the one running a race does not win by such constant pausing to check the rulebook.  He does so by having long since internalized the rulebook such that it has become second nature to him.  He knows the way he should go, and he goes in it.  “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me” (Jn 10:27).  That’s our condition.  That’s the liberty in which we walk or run.  We don’t need to keep checking the rules.  We need to hear, so we know which way we are going. 

How shall we hear?  It’s not through dreams and visions.  It’s not through consulting the voices in our heads.  I’m not ruling those out entirely, for God will do as He pleases.  I have known dreams that I suspect had their source in Him.  I’ve known plenty of others that had far more to do with bodily necessities trying to stir me to wakefulness before it’s too late.  I’ve heard my Lord in my thoughts, if only the once in such clear fashion, and I know others who heard from God in near-to-audible fashion at some critical juncture in life.  I’ve known the warning of the Spirit in highly evident fashion.  And more often, I hear Him in conscience, pointing out the things that need attention in my character, rather than in my circumstance.  It’s all well and good to have God’s guidance to steer you clear of accident or injury.  But that’s still the physical plant, and honestly, if this body is destroyed but my spirit remains true to Him, no loss.  Not to me anyway.  But, in like manner, if this body is preserved however long, and my spirit has withered in corruption, no gain.

So, we have the prophetic word made sure, as Peter says (2Pe 1:19), and we hear from God through the preaching of that word.  As Paul writes, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” (Ro 10:14c).  How indeed?  We may read, but reading may not bring understanding.  We read a passage in Isaiah together last night, my wife and I, and much of it passes over without conveying any real sense of meaning.  Perhaps the imagery was more readily understood by those present back in the day.  Perhaps his points of reference were clearer to them.  Or perhaps, in God’s providential wisdom, He chose to keep it occluded, revealed yet not revealed.  I don’t know.  I do know it has meaning, and not random meaning such as we may devise in our desperate attempt to arrive at some point to it.  No.  Peter will not permit it.  “No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of personal interpretation” (2Pe 1:20-21), because it was proclaimed as the Holy Spirit spoke from God through men.  I don’t much doubt but that Isaiah had as much trouble understanding the point of some of his prophecies as do we.  Yet, there is truth in it.  No, let us be more firm in our statement.  It is truth.  God spoke it, and so it is.

This is what drives us.  This is what informs our worldview, who are in Christ Jesus our Lord.  There is one body of Truth, one definition of holiness, one standard to which we are called to attain, and to attain perfectly.  If this is our worldview, we cannot but look at ourselves and find ourselves wanting.  We are not in compliance.  But we are pushing forward.  We cannot in any significant sense fix the past.  We can, perhaps, make amends where past failings have caused harm to another.  We can apologize, certainly, but anybody with kids knows just how empty an apology can be.  For all that, anybody who watches the news knows this.  “I’m sorry I got caught.”  “I’m sorry there are apparently going to be consequences.”  But it doesn’t reach to the point of, “I’m sorry.  I really screwed up there.”  It doesn’t arrive at, “I need to change.”  It always seems to devolve back to, “You need to change.”  You misunderstood.  You took offense at something that shouldn’t have offended you.  It’s all about you, not me.  And, you know, I’m really sorry for you.  But me?  I’m going to keep on keeping on.

No, that’s not the answer.  That’s not the course of godliness.  We own our mistakes.  We seek to amend our ways.  To the degree it lies with us to do so, we make right that which our wrong has done in damaging ourselves, others, or God.  After all, every sin is a sin against God.  But there, we are up against it.  We have not the means to undo the damage done against God, not in ourselves.  We must indeed rely on and appeal to the atoning work of Christ on our behalf.  And this we can do.  And this we can do with utmost confidence, knowing that we belong to Him, given to Him by God the Father, God our Father.  He has us well in hand, and He always shall.  It is in this confidence, this assurance of ultimate victory, that we press on for the goal.  We have stumbled, but we’re still in the race.  We have yet the prize before us, and we can run in the certainty that indeed, that prize is already ours in heaven.

I find myself in mind of the old Steve Taylor song, “The Finish Line,” as I consider this perspective.  I go back and forth as to whether this is contemplating Jesus, Who ran the race, or us as we attempt to do so.  Looking at the lyrics, this morning, I would say it’s more clearly the latter.  But suffice to say, it speaks to our condition and our assurance.  “The vision came, he saw the odds, a hundred little gods on a gilded wheel.  ‘These have tried to take Your place, but Father by Your grace I will never kneel.’”  Ah, but those little gods, we keep making them and tacking them on.  It’s not in us to stop, sadly.  But there comes something within us, the stirring of the Holy Spirit, the assurance of Christ, and things shift.  “Off in the distance, bloodied but wise, as you squint with the light of the truth in your eyes, I saw you – both hands were raised!   I saw your lips move in praise, and I saw you steady your gaze for the finish line.”  The culmination is of a race run to the uttermost, every last scrap of strength and energy expended.  “And I gasped when I saw you fall in His arms at the finish line.”  It’s more than a marathon.  It’s more than an endurance test.  But it’s there!  You will make it, because He who began the good work in you is faithful to complete it.

Lord, these are things to bring tears to my eyes.  There is, in reading those lyrics without the intervention of music and tone, a powerful image of Your grace, of the challenge Paul has set us, that You have set us.  And there, too, is the glorious prize of assurance.  We shall make it, because You are with us.  You hold us fast.  You stir us upon our course, beckon us to greater effort.  “C’mon!  You can make it.  Keep going!”  And in You, we find fresh reserves to carry on.  We see You there, cheering us onward, arms outstretched to welcome us, and once more we kick it into gear.  I’m not giving up.  I’m not giving up on me, and I’m not giving up on my hope for those You have caused me to love.  We are going to make it.  We shall have this attitude, this mindset, because You will see to it that we do.  Let me be such a one, Lord, as stretches out for this prize, and leaves behind all that might hinder me.  Let me be such a one as pushes forward for the finish line.  And let me be such a one as is true to Your Truth.