New Thoughts (11/13/18-11/19/18)
Philosophical Proof (11/14/18)
Before digging into the substance of Paul’s argument, I think it’s worthwhile to step back a bit and observe the nature of his arguments, and the reason they are as they are. One thing that can be said is that his arguments are very much an appeal to reason. It’s a call to think things through. Here, I see the risk of taking Scripture in such small sub-divisions, for the days between working the last passage and beginning to write again on this section leave me at risk of forgetting what brought us to this point. Remember the closing thoughts of that last section. “So we preach and so you believed” (1Co 15:11). That is absolutely connected to the question that opens this section. “So how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” Or, to be only marginally more charitable, how is this getting a hearing among you?
This is the problem he unpacks throughout the passage before us: Either you didn’t believe at the outset, or this new doctrine you’re chasing must be seen as false. If you say you believe both then you are not logically consistent. Quite simply, you cannot believe both things true.
What may be less obvious to us is how his argument strikes at the culture of that time and place. He is arguing well, but he is arguing against a particular way of thinking about things, a way which was commonly to be found in the practices of Greek philosophy, which we will hold, following Barnes’ lead, stands opposed to true philosophy. To be clear, this is not a setting of Greek thought against Jewish. It’s a setting of metaphysical sophistry against clear reason. The Greek philosopher, we are told, starts with the question of feasibility. Can we see how this could possibly be so? If yes, then perhaps the conclusion may be accepted. If no, then no matter how compelling the evidence on offer, it must be rejected. True philosophy, on the other hand, starts with the factual evidence. Here is the thing. That is established. Now: What can be discerned from that fact? Whether or not we understand how it can be, the simple factual reality is that it is. How is an interesting question, but in our finite understanding, we should hardly expect to be assured of an answer. That changes nothing. The facts on the ground demonstrate that it can be because it is.
Now, that’s all well and good, but what has this to do with a letter to Corinth? Well, it seems, if we follow the curvature of Paul’s arguments, that some theory was on offer that purported to let them hold on to a resurrected Christ yet rejected a real, physical resurrection of the believer. Why? Well, there’s that pesky matter of factual evidence where Christ is concerned, so we can’t very well deny that. But, there’s no physical evidence of personal resurrection, and in spite of the man, Jesus, we don’t see how there can be. Therefore, we must deny it and, having denied it, we must then derive some sort of explanatory doctrine that allows us to leave Christ speaking Truth. That’s no mean trick! But, it would appear that their approach came to declaring the personal resurrection of which Christ taught to be a spiritual thing, perhaps figurative, but never physical.
As to who was spreading this idea, we can only speculate. There were any number of candidates. Adherents of the Sadducees might bring the idea, for example, given that they did not believe that resurrection was a thing. It could have been the influence of Gnosticism, which is certainly seen often enough then and now. It could have been cultural leftovers, their general conception of gods bleeding into their conceptions of God in Christ. It could have been the influence of typical Greek philosophy, or it could have simply been that the arguments presented followed the tenets of that philosophy. Whatever the case, Paul is set to expose the absurdity of their conclusions. The whole message boils down to, “You haven’t thought this through!”
We have already seen one fact established beyond reasonable doubt: Jesus Christ, the man who lived among men, was crucified by the Romans, truly dead and truly buried. Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God, did not stay buried. He rose. This is not myth. This is not overheated imagination. This is not fabrication. The weight of evidence is simply too great. Again: You have the Twelve, you have Paul, you have five hundred odd Galileans. That many witnesses cannot be believed to have simply made the whole thing up. In any just court of law, the sheer weight of their testimony would establish the matter. Were the case untrue, we could expect results nearer the trial of Jesus, where quantities of testimony were brought, but those testimonies conflicted with and contradicted one another. There, the weight of the testimony brought demonstrated the opposite: That the testimony was false.
But, I do find it interesting that the same argument that upholds the factuality of the death and resurrection of Jesus is a primary issue with tendencies for conspiracy thinking in our own day. I think of the notion that there is some cabal utilizing jet engine exhaust to dispose of noxious chemicals. The point should readily be recognized as absurd. But, there’s a YouTube video! Somebody’s done research. Planes fly over this lake, and fish are dying. Clearly it’s connected. Look, I’m not going to tell you that jet engine exhaust is water vapor so pure you could condense it, bottle it, and sell it for drinking. But, the idea of some nefarious plot? As with the resurrection, there would have to be too many witnesses, too many involved, for there to be any possible suggestion that they all collude to remain silent on the subject. Never mind that the costs involved would render this the most foolish of possible ways to dispose of unwanted chemical waste. The likelihood of the plot remaining intact is simply vanishingly small.
Now, as concerns Christ’s resurrection, which is a matter of significantly more weight than the composition of vapor trails, we have fact established by sheer weight of witnesses. It is, as Matthew Henry suggests, the insurmountable fact. It is the huge, gaping problem with supposing there is no personal resurrection, or that resurrection is just figurative. However, it requires a bit of effort at reasoning to see that connection. That’s where Paul will be taking us.
Before we proceed, though, there is a semi-related thought from Barnes that I think worth a bit of discussion. He points to another fact, although I might argue it is a less well-established one. Yet, I don’t suppose any among us would deny it as being fact. In our personal case, we have what we would construe as the undeniable fact of sin’s reign broken over us. Oh, we would be fools to suggest that sin has no power over us, but its power to reign? That we see is over. We can choose not to sin, which we could not do before we heard the call of Christ. Can we prove this in some scientifically satisfactory fashion? Probably not. It’s sort of akin to proving the negative. But, the weight of the evidence tends to demonstrate the factuality of the premise.
Where does this take us? It takes us two places; one being that place Paul takes us: To deny the doctrine of resurrection is to deny the fact of sin’s reign broken. It’s to deny the fact of your own experience, because you are denying the necessary source off that fact. But, there’s another point Barnes makes which is intriguing. Here’s the thing: You are that living fact, if you will. You are, in that sense, a witness not of the resurrection of Christ, but certainly to the resurrection of Christ. How so? Apart from the reality of His resurrection, sin’s dominion over you could not have been broken, yet it has been broken. Ergo, His resurrection must, of necessity, be real. It is, as with the philosophical argumentation of Paul, an argument from the facts on the ground to the necessary basis for that reality.
But, take this away. You are a witness. Your life is a witness. That is at once a most uplifting thought and a thought most daunting. If I am a witness, what does my testimony say? Too often, I am quite certain it says things I would prefer left unsaid. And yet, no matter how many times I slip and fall, the evidence remains: Sin, while it gets me more often than I should like, is not in control. God is. The spirit is willing to stand for righteousness, however weak the flesh. This was not the case previously. It is now. It isn’t something I’ve done. It’s something I’ve been made to be. “By God’s grace I am what I am.” By God’s grace, I am living nearer that reality day by day.
Appeal to Emotions (09/15/18)
As Barnes considers the second part of this argument, he observes it to be an appeal to emotions. It is, he suggests, an argument that depends on an unwillingness on the believer’s part to accept that what they had believed was in fact false, and that those fellow believers who had died believing had died believing a falsehood. In his view, it comes down to a question: Could they really admit such a doctrine into their beliefs as would render all their other beliefs false? This argument, he suggests, is compelling and quite as useful today as then. I am sorry, but I have to think he has somewhat missed the course of the argument.
First off, it could readily be argued that the Corinthians had already been called to set aside all they believed in favor of a new system of belief when they heard the call of the Gospel. For most of us, this will have been the case. To accept that the Gospel is true requires laying aside all manner of dearly held conceits. I must lay aside any idea that I am or was a good man. I must lay aside the idea that I am the captain of my own soul, and may cheerfully do as I please without fear of consequences. I must lay aside any other religious system that may have taken hold, up to and most assuredly including various corruptions of Christian doctrine. I feel for those who have been raised in Catholicism, for example, and discover themselves of a sudden fully convicted of the real Gospel message. It’s hard to set aside that tendency towards works righteousness. It’s hard enough for those of us who were not trained in that system, because it’s such a natural response in us.
My point is this: If Paul’s argument is that you shouldn’t accept this doctrine because it might require you to dispense with previously held beliefs, then the argument is as valid against adopting Christianity in the first place as it is against allowing Christian doctrine to be amended. There are times, quite frankly, when what we have thought to be sound Christian doctrine actually needs to be amended, and in such cases this very argument is our biggest impediment. If I’m to take my emotional attachment to being right as the measure, then I am urged to cling to my error more tenaciously and refuse all edification. It is utterly unthinkable that this is what Paul urges in this passage.
That is not to say that Paul’s arguments do not carry a certain emotional weight, but the appeal is not to emotions. The appeal is to reason. It is, as was said earlier, an exercise of the true philosophical approach. Here is your premise. Now, if that premise holds true, here is what must necessarily follow from it. What I see is this. In the first half of this passage, Paul is demonstrating the error of the premise on the basis of established fact. Christ’s resurrection is established fact by all the rules of establishing fact. It is settled. Now, then, your premise is that there is no resurrection for humankind, but if there isn’t then said fact (which you have acknowledged and quite rightly placed your faith in) must not be fact. Remove that fact, and you have believed a fantasy, and as such your belief is as worthless as the message was false.
The second half, on the surface, feels like a repeat of the argument, and in part, it certainly is. But, there’s been a subtle shift. Now it’s not a demonstration of the falsity of the premise. It’s an exploration of what must also be true if the premise is true. There’s a hint of that already in verse 15. If your premise held, then our preaching must be false, for Jesus could not have been raised from the dead given that, as you posit, resurrection is impossible. But starting in verse 17 it really does shift to consequences. If resurrection is impossible your faith is worthless. If your faith is worthless, then you remain in your sins. Death remains the minimum punishment, and as such, those who we describe as having fallen asleep (which term we must suppose was common in Corinth as well) are not asleep. There are truly perished, utterly destroyed body and soul, and have been stripped of whatever hope they held in life. This is the necessary consequence of what you are trying to add to your faith: It is the utter destruction of faith and the hope found therein.
I come back to a question Barnes asks in relation to this part of the argument. What use belief in a false system? He applies that as being the question Paul asks in regard to the true Gospel, for their proposed doctrine would, if true, render that a false system. But in reality, the question must be applied instead to that proposed doctrine. What use belief in a system that must destroy all hope? This same could be asked of the Judaizers. It could be asked of the Gnostics. It could be asked of the myriad heretics who have troubled the Church down through the ages, and still do. It is a question we will find occasion to ask ourselves when in the course of edification we discover some point we have held to be true is challenged.
That applies to those who come out of a works-righteousness faith into a Gospel faith. It holds on lesser matters as well. I think (as I so often do) of that effect of reading Romans, which so thoroughly upended several doctrines I held to be utterly certain up to that point. Of course you could lose your salvation if you weren’t exceedingly careful of your walk, I would argue. I recall doing so with some vehemence to a poor older couple who were relatively new to faith. I would apologize to them if I knew how to contact them. But, after a few years spent in that marvelous text it became absolutely untenable to maintain that position. The argument of Scripture was too strong to the contrary. God calls, else we do not come to faith. That’s more an argument from John than from Romans, but it’s one Gospel. He predestined those who would believe and that, quite frankly, is our only assurance.
Were I following Paul’s approach, that sense of assurance would be our unquestionable fact. If you know yourself assured of salvation, then certain other matters must necessarily be true as well. One of those is that your salvation is not your own doing, for you also have that other unquestionable fact: You are painfully fallible and about as unchanging as the tide. God, on the other hand is faithful. He is also all-powerful and all-knowing according to our confession and according to His revelation of Himself. If He is all-powerful, on what basis would you propose that you can counter His will by your weak stubbornness of heart? If He is all-knowing, what is it about you that you suppose He didn’t take into account when He called? If His Word does not return to Him without accomplishing all that He purposes, what power do you have to countermand His purpose? If you still wish to insist on your free will choice, then you will need to accept the consequences of such free will choice, which is that you are equally free to relinquish faith and lose salvation at any moment. You have no assurance, other than the assurance of failure, for you’re right back at that works righteousness which never saved a single soul. And again I ask: What use belief in a false system?
There are times when we must accept what our emotions reject. There are times when the best thing we can possibly do is let go of all we once believed, because something infinitely better has come.
The Gospel Message (11/15/18)
Now, perhaps, we can actually look at the meat of the message before us. One thing that must be clear from the outset, and particularly given the connection to what immediately precedes, is that the death and resurrection of Christ is the Gospel. This was the fundamental message of the preacher. I’ve observed it before, but it will bear the repetition. This, Paul reminded them at the outset, was the sum of his preaching amongst them. “I determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucified” (1Co 2:2). Now, mention of Him crucified necessarily (as we shall see) encompasses His resurrection as well, for Christ crucified is just one more victim of Roman justice.
But that was the point: Roman justice had put this man to death, but God had raised Him up. His innocence was proved by that simple fact, we might argue, although I’m a bit leery of doing so. Was Lazarus wholly innocent? He was raised. Was that sick child earlier on wholly innocent when Jesus called him out of his casket (Lk 7:12-15)? All we know of him is that he was an only son, and she a widow. These things do not innocence establish. So, I’m not sure I’m ready to suggest that God raising one from death establishes their innocence. Now, that He remained risen is another story. That He not only rose from death, but ascended into heaven: that is unique to Him. One might point to Enoch who was no more, or Elijah taken up before Elisha’s eyes and find others who ascended into heaven, but they were not raised. One might point, as I have already done, at others who have been raised, but they did not ascend into heaven. There remains one, unique Son of Man and Son of God Who did so.
This is the Gospel: Christ died for your sins, and being raised up from death, we see sufficient proof that His payment of our penalty was accepted by the court of heaven. That He now reigns in heaven, and intercedes before that very court on our behalf at every moment is the whole of our assurance. It’s not that we now walk in perfectly circumspect obedience, much though we would like to do so. It’s that every time we mess it up again, every time we snap to the fact that we have sinned yet again against a perfectly holy, wholly infinite God, we have this going for us: Our Savior intercedes for us; He who has already done the time for our crime. It is no license to sin with abandon, but it is the sole comfort we can lay hold of, and the only comfort we need, when once we recognize afresh our sins and repent of them. He is faithful.
This is the power of the gospel to save! It both convicts the sinner of his sin and offers the remedy for sin. It remains up to God whether the sinner will hear to any good effect, but the power is there regardless: To some, the savor of life, to others the stench of death (2Co 2:16). Let us, then, hear Calvin on the matter. “Let us therefore bear in mind, that the entire gospel consists mainly in the death and resurrection of Christ, so that we must direct our chief attention to this, if we would desire, in a right and orderly manner, to make progress in the gospel – nay more, if we would not remain barren and unfruitful.”
It is as needful for our own sanctification as for our efforts to evangelize. Isn’t that something? Gospel first and last, as they say. You cannot be saved but for this most wonderful message, and God opening your ears to it. You cannot grow in sanctification except this message be held centermost in your thoughts. Again, keeping in mind the context in which this most powerful argument is being made, those gifts and powers that so capture our attention are candy by comparison. To be healed of some disease is no small matter, certainly not for the one who is healed. But, on the scale of eternity? It’s nothing. What use perfect health in this life when eternal condemnation remains on the schedule? What value a life of plenty if eternity is to be spent paying for the privilege? This is sort of the flip side of Paul’s argument at the end: What use was the discipline of faith in this life if there is no eternal reward? It is time and past time for us to begin to evaluate our present tense by God’s perfect tense. If, indeed, our faith has brought us to a place where our focus is on this life only, we are to be pitied more than all men, for we will have assured ourselves of eternal blessing only to discover we spent the entire time worshiping idols, and God never knew us.
The Gospel, it must be said, does not teach us to ignore this present life, but it does require us to put it in proper perspective.
The Necessity of the Resurrection (11/16/18)
One of the great benefits of this passage is that it gets us thinking about the significance of the Resurrection. I don’t think this is something that gets enough attention from us. We get the death, and we understand the substitutionary nature of His death. But, the Resurrection can seem something of a sideshow. OK. He did that, and yes, it gave the Apostles something to hang onto after the shock of His death, but what would have changed, really, if we had only His death? Well, everything would have changed. We would not have a living King in heaven, pleading our case when the Accuser comes with his accusations. That seems rather significant, doesn’t it?
But, the thing that I think escapes us is that the Resurrection was absolutely necessary in order for His death to mean anything at all. We need to remember what death is. Death is the punishment for sin. Had there been no sin in the world, there would have been no death in the world. And here, I can readily imagine the scientifically inclined thinking, where would He have put them all if none ever died? It could be argued that this was never going to be an issue since God was fully aware that sin would in fact make rapid entrance into His creation well before He ever got to the work of creating. So, yes, it seems impossible that a land of finite resources could have handled humanity in its proper form, even if that land was extended to encompass the universe. Eventually, it would be overrun. But, that is a pure hypothetical, because man, at least in this created universe, was never going to manage immortality. The penalty of death would see to it that the resources could support the population, but it’s not death impose as thoughtless population control. Every death is morally just, for every man who died was guilty of sinning against God.
Does this apply to animals and plants as well? Or are they the unwarranted fallout of our own sins? I don’t have a satisfactory answer there, only an opinion. I think they are fallout. They do not have a soul after the fashion of mankind, and therefore cannot be moral agents in their own right. As such, their deaths cannot be penalty for their own sin, can they? But, their deaths as additional penalty for our sins – would that be just? I think, if we accept that animals are in fact animals, and not moral agents ala humanity, we can conclude that yes, it is just, or at the very least, it is not unjust. But, I am far more concerned with our own death, because that is what God shows Himself to be more concerned with.
So, let us consider again: Had Christ Jesus died and not risen, what changes? Set aside the King enthroned in heaven for the moment. That is a given. Dead men do not take the throne. But, is there anything at all left, any benefit so ever in His having lived a man? The answer is no, and the answer is no precisely because of the nature of death. Death is the wages of sin, the beginnings of the court’s penalty imposed. I would stress it is only the beginning, but it is necessarily the beginning. If Jesus had died and simply stayed dead, what would it indicate about Him? It would indicate that He had in fact sinned in some fashion at some point in His life, and that His death, however unjustly imposed so far as human agency was involved, remained just. It purchased nothing because it only paid the penalty that was due.
Here, we could I think at least argue that in His case it paid the debt in full, for it was the death of an infinite being paid for crimes against an infinite being. But, His death could not, in this instance, have benefited anybody else. It was, at most, a personal redemption. But, if He remains in the grave, then surely even that personal redemption is shown to be for nothing. What would be the point of redemption if the end result remains exactly the same? His death was made needful because of our sins. His resurrection was equally needful because of His innocence. It was the seal set upon His innocence, and the only possible evidence that His death had in fact been substitutionary, and not simply justice served.
Matthew Henry writes, “He must rise for our justification who was delivered for our sins, or in vain we look for any such benefit by Him.” Indeed, this is the case. But, as Barnes observes, there is another aspect to this that becomes unavoidable. What Paul says in regard to the preaching of the Apostles and their witness of God becomes equally true of Jesus and His witness of Himself. He, after all, clearly declared that He would rise again. Indeed, our reading of the Old Testament Scriptures indicates that He had – if we at least accept His past – been saying this for a very long time. If, then, death turned out to be as final for Him as one might suppose it was for all, then not only did His death save nobody, but His life is a demonstrable farce. He is found a liar, and His word is discovered to be utterly unreliable. There remains absolutely nothing to the Man which we could declare beneficial to anybody. Even His moral teachings are rendered suspect because His veracity is rendered suspect. If He is not risen, He is no prophet, nor is His death any atonement. But, praise be to God, He is risen! He has had victory over death, that greatest weapon and threat of the enemy, and having risen, He has set seal upon that victory. Our hope is well anchored.
The Necessity of General Resurrection (11/16/18)
From this point, the logic of Paul’s argument is quite simple really. Clarke sums it up nicely. If Christ is risen, it follows that mankind can be raised. By corollary, if mankind cannot be raised, then Christ cannot be risen. Having established beyond doubt that Christ has in fact risen, we are left no choice but to accept that resurrection more generally is in fact possible, however impossible it is for us to explain how that might be.
Now, I mentioned in the prior section that if Christ were not resurrected, He is demonstrated to be a liar. The same holds true for personal resurrection, as a passage from the Gospel of John makes clear. There, we read what Jesus spoke. “An hour is coming even now when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son to have life in Himself, and He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. Don’t marvel at this. An hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth: Those who did good to a resurrection of life, those who did evil to a resurrection of judgment” (Jn 5:25-29).
The first thing that is abundantly clear from that passage is that Jesus announced not only His own resurrection, but ours. So, then, if our own resurrection is not to be realized, then once again, He is shown a liar, and we can dismiss Him without further ado and just get on with life. But, there is another message to observe there, one which will rankle those who dislike Reformed theology. Notice the nature of personal resurrection as Jesus the Resurrected One describes it. It’s not a case of good people get to live again and bad people remain in the grave. No, everybody gets resurrected. There is no escaping eternity. There is only the question of how it will be spent. “Those who did good to a resurrection of life, those who did evil to a resurrection of judgment.” Either way, it’s eternity. If ever there was encouragement to seek that forgiveness which is in Christ alone, this must surely be it! The false hope of the atheist is found in the ostensibly sweet surcease of death. But, to their great horror, it shall be discovered that this simply is not the case. It is no surcease, and it assuredly won’t be sweet. But, too late then to make a change.
Now, following the arc of Paul’s argument, we have seen that if we deny personal resurrection we have no choice but to deny the resurrection of Christ. It seems unfathomable, doesn’t it, that this would even be possible to those to whom Paul wrote? The evidence of His resurrection strikes us as insurmountable. But, in fairness, most would be more like Thomas, I think, requiring the direct evidence of touch and feel before the report would really be believed, no matter how many witnesses you could bring to bear. But, where faith has taken root, it would seem we must have accepted this much: That Christ is Risen indeed. So, Paul’s first line of attack is to observe this necessary connection. You can’t have one without the other. From here, he proceeds to observe certain consequences that must just as necessarily follow upon the eventuality that Christ was not in fact risen.
Necessary Implications (11/17/18)
As concerns this doctrine of personal resurrection, the point is made. Take away this doctrine and, as it must take away the resurrection of Christ, every foundation for Christian faith is destroyed utterly. What comes of this? Well, if faith is destroyed utterly then those who have died in Christ have perished utterly. This, as the Wycliffe Commentary notes, is said so as to stand in stark and emphatic contrast to their expectation. They died as going to sleep, as expecting a resurrection of blessedness. If they were wrong, they were very wrong.
Now, it might be argued that the issue is small. If dead is dead, then what was the harm in their belief? They attempted to live a morally upright life and to some degree did so. They had this odd belief that they would rise again, but rather, there is in fact this terminus of being that pertains in the grave, and it is permanent. It’s not as though they’re pining away in regret down there in the dirt. But, I observe that Paul and his readers alike must entertain some sense of continued being beyond the grave, else this really isn’t much of an argument.
What happens, though, if being persists, but without hope of the resurrection? Now, there is a miserable lot. There, I think, is something nearer the Greek conception of what it means to be dead. Quite frankly, it’s not far at all from the Jewish conception, particularly as expressed by the Sadducean faction. You can see in reading the Old Testament texts that there was some sense of a beyond, an existence of the dead. They had gone somewhere, call it what you will. You can see it in Greek mythologies concerning Hades and so on. The dead weren’t really dead dead. They had gone somewhere we can’t go, and they can no longer come back to where we are. This, I think, was the more common perspective at the time. Life was over, so far as we experience it in living. But, something persisted. Take that mindset and Paul’s point is indeed a stark point of contrast. No, if you take away the resurrection, what you have left is nothing. They do not persist. They have not gone elsewhere. They have perished utterly, the soul every bit as much as the body. This is not, then, an appeal to emotions, at least not solely so. It is an appeal to understanding, to the degree that we can have understanding of what happens after death.
But, there are also necessary implications for the living. If this doctrine of resurrection is removed, you really can’t claim to persist in Christian faith. The two views cannot be held together in any cohesive fashion. If you have chosen to adopt the view that resurrection is impossible then you have tacitly declared your former beliefs to be a pack of lies learned from a pack of liars. As far as Paul’s argument goes, this is demonstrably not the case. He has demonstrated the veracity of the underlying claim. As such, the ‘if’ of the matter must be seen as presenting an impossible condition.
But, let us apply this point a bit more broadly, and perhaps with implications more pointedly exposed. If the ones we have been listening to and learning from are in fact discovered to be false witnesses against God (as opposed to true witnesses of God) then any system of faith and belief which we have based on those teachings is at minimum worthless. At minimum. A pack of lies does not become meaningful truth because we have believed them. A pack of lies remains a pack of lies regardless how ardently they are believed.
Here, let me consider for a moment what ought to be a particularly terrifying possibility. Suppose that we have in fact come to recognize the God Who Is – we have the right God – but we have arrived at a system of beliefs about Him and what He requires of us which is utterly wrong. I’m not talking about minor misunderstandings, or such things as we may debate over at length and both feel we have a strong Biblical basis. I’m talking about beliefs that are found to seriously misrepresent God. Such a situation, for all the religious decoration we may put upon it, and for all that we may even continue to refer to it as Christianity in spite of our error, leaves us right back where we were set in the opening portions of Romans. “Though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God” (Ro 1:21a). “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Ro 1:25a).
This is bad enough for the unbeliever. I think of the documentary my wife and I began to watch a few evenings back, concerning the cave paintings discovered over in France. The film became unwatchable, not because the picture was bad or the sound was off. No, it became unwatchable because it became evident that the cave had been made into a religion. Given the atheistic tendencies of modern France, it’s no surprise that God was left out of any discussion of the cave and its significance. But, to watch how the place was treated was to get a sense of the care taken for the Tabernacle back in the days of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. To listen to these scientists and watch their reactions to and behaviors in that place was to observe a religious ceremony. We must have the special shoes. We must place each step carefully lest we transgress. We must stand in awed silence and hear the cave, hear our own heartbeats in the cave. Being there induced vivid dreams of running with the lions. What was this but a replacement religion? Many have observed that such is mankind that if you took away God he would have to invent one, but here it was displayed in clear and certain form.
Now: Retain the systemic error, but set God back in His rightful place. What has happened? You have a sense of the real God, but so far as dealing with the problem of sin, you’ve derived a false formula. You go about your various rites and rituals in hopes of appeasing God, if not pleasing Him, but all of your rites and rituals are fabricated from nonsense. He’s neither impressed nor amused, and further, His standards continue unchanged in spite of your error. His Law has not altered to adapt to your confusion, and sin remains utterly real. What you have, then, is not merely a fruitless faith that fails to address the problem of sin, you have an evil faith which in fact adds to and multiplies your sins against a perfectly holy God.
If you have read the Old Testament, you get a sense of just how terrifying such a possibility ought to be to us. We have lost our awe of God in some degree, I think, in our New Testament experience of His grace, but it remains – as it always was – a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31). And yet, it gets worse. It is one thing, after all, to have a mistaken belief. It is another to teach that error to others. But, here is the worst possible charge: That it be discovered that we have taught error to others and claimed it as God-sourced teaching.
Consider the most fundamental commandments given by God, as we learn them from Moses. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex 20:16). This is a foundational point of jurisprudence even to this day, though it gets abused, it seems, more often in our age of social networks. But, we look at this and we see justice. Certainly, if we find ourselves the neighbor, we want very much that those who bear witness about us testify truly. That desire on our part ought rightly to serve as a goad for us, that we would testify truly about others, and not falsely malign their name. Well, what happens when you bring God in as witness to your veracity? “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” (Ex 20:7). This isn’t about being overly casual with the use of His name, wrong though that is. It’s not our tendency to utilize the name of God either as a curse word or simply an interjection. This has to do with testimony, to the making of vows. To take His name in vain is to call upon Him as witness to your lies. It is particularly evil in that by doing so, you seek to make Him a liar like unto yourself. Thus, your calling upon Him to bear witness to your false witness is to bear false witness about Him.
Barnes observes, “To bear false witness of a man, or to say that a man has done what he has not done, is regarded as a grievous crime. How much more so to bear false testimony to God!” This is the charge Paul is laying himself open to, in the hypothetical; himself and all the Apostles with him, for he has already made clear that they have the same message. The whole of Christianity is then found to be established on the word of false witnesses against God, and is God somehow supposed to be pleased by this?
But, friend, the problem continues in our day, if anything happens with alarming frequency. All manner of so-called teachers jump up and claim God has given them words to speak, which words prove unreliable, contradictory, and wholly at odds with what we find revealed by God about God in Scripture. We find it in what we might construe as being lesser cases, which do not involve teaching, but persist in making demonstrably false claims of having been told something by God. The crime is not lessened by much. It remains a case of using His name in vain. If you claim He told you thus and such was true, and it is found to be false, then what does this say about God? Quite frankly one or the other of you must be found a liar. Either you lied about hearing it from Him, or He lied in telling it to you. Either way, you have given false testimony about Him, and have in fact brought shame upon His perfect Name.
This is the fundamental point: To invoke God’s name to attest to a lie is heinous. It is criminal in the extreme. The JFB offers a couple of thoughts on this point, worthy of contemplation. “If forgery of a king’s coin is penal, how much more forgery against the King of kings: Miracles are His coin.” Now, that might suggest a particular sort of fraud, one we might associate with false promotions of faith healing, claims of gold dust falling from the sky, and the like. But, these are, to my thinking, the more obvious charlatans; if perfectly capable of duping and misleading many. What of those who merely opt for teaching false pieties and claim it as God’s true intent for His people? What of those who denounce the Christian Church, and even the Apostolic doctrines, in favor of some new set of doctrines they have received from God – be it by dreams and visions, by purportedly careful research, by a return to the primitive (whatever that is), or whatever other methodology has led them hence. If it requires us to see God as contradicting Himself, of one thing we can be sure: That ain’t no heavenly doctrine you’ve got there. Here’s another thing about which we can be sure: That teacher isn’t from God.
“’Pious frauds’ are dishonoring to the God of truth.” This also comes from the JFB. Here, I think, we find words to remember, and to apply in a much wider context. Pious frauds are not merely those who preach a false gospel, teach false paths to purity, or what have you. I fear that at some level, and in some circumstances, we are all shown to be pious frauds. We all have our public personae. We all have our masks. Now, I have heard it argued that some of those masks are merely the currency of social concord, and ought rightly to be used. I get the point. But, a problem comes about when we try to use those masks to appear more righteous than we are, and it gets worse because we tend to convince ourselves that the masks are the reality. Let us, then, endeavor to lay aside our tendency towards fraudulent piety, albeit without becoming social pariahs. Let us endeavor to strive the harder for that true piety which is found solely in the hope established upon our risen Christ.
View of the Last Day, View of the Present (11/18/18)
Now, here is a question for us. Let it be accepted that we are convinced that the grave is not in fact the end of being. Let it further be accepted that the question of a bodily resurrection has been shown true to our satisfaction. Finally, let us stipulate that we are agreed as to the existence of God and His being the One revealed in Scripture. Well, then, when thoughts of the Last Day arise, the Day of Judgment, what feelings do they stir in us?
Calvin posits that Paul takes it as a given that we look forward to it; that we even go so far as to say we have set our entire hope on that day. I wonder how true that was then, and I certainly wonder how true it is now. It seems to me that one large impetus for rejecting the doctrine of resurrection lies in a continued dread of that day. This can perhaps be traced back to continued adherence to some form of works righteousness, a belief that we have to earn our clearance before the court. Amongst atheists, where the basic stipulations are denied and disbelieved, I think such dread may yet underlie their determined denial of God. If death is perishing, then that Day does not come, and we need not face the dread. Sadly for them, denying the Day does not alter the schedule for the Day.
But, even in Christian circles, I wonder what portion finds the Day of Judgment a day to look forward to with hope. I think of the camp that insists that believers are never brought before the throne on that day, that the Day of Judgment is for sinners only. Well, is this not a position taken because the day is still a day of dread and somehow we must reconcile our faith with concerns about our just due? Face it. The argument presents the answer to itself. If that day is truly for sinners only, then all are invited, indeed required to appear. For God has already observed that every one of us is sinful. That’s why we needed the Atonement and the Resurrection in the first place! Add to that the imagery that Jesus uses of separating the sheep and the goats in that day (Mt 25:32-46). What is the setting? The nations are brought before Him, but not for condemnation out of hand. No, some are blessed. But, it’s still the Day of Judgment. It’s still mankind in toto and individually come before the Judge.
I have to say that how you anticipate that day depends absolutely on how you have internalized the Gospel. If you have truly come to recognize your hopelessness and your utter inability to make things right then you’ve come halfway. If you have additionally recognized the call and the promise of Christ to forgive those sins and pay your penalty then I’d say you’ve come half the remaining distance. Many, however, fall short on the last bit, which is to recognize that even your progress (or lack of progress) post-conversion does not impact the outcome for you on that day. Now, I dare say one who makes no progress and makes no effort post-conversion is almost certainly not converted in the first place, but instead takes false comfort in a merely mental assent to the idea of forgiveness, particularly to escape from penalty. Who wouldn’t leap at the chance to avoid consequences? But, that’s not conversion.
Whether or not Paul took it as a given that the Corinthians looked forward to that Day with hopeful expectation, or whether they did in fact hold that perspective, I cannot say. But, I can say this: We ought to do have such a perspective. If your faith is such as still shies away from looking at that Day, perhaps it’s time to gain understanding. Perhaps it’s time to pray that God would make your true status as His adopted child more fully integrated into your sense of self. Perhaps it’s time to confess of some unrepented sin which still gives you cause for concern. Or, perhaps it’s merely time to accept the forgiveness already given for some previously repented of sin. Whatever it is that leaves you concerned or even merely cold when it comes to considerations of that Final Day, pray that God would make it clear to you, that He would help you to address the issue, whatever it is, and that He would restore your joyful expectation of that most blessed day.
Where that comes into play in the course of Paul’s argument is his final assessment in verse 19. If we have been wrong about this, we are more deserving of pity than anybody. Why? If death is death and that’s it, we haven’t lost, have we? But, we have! We had, to bend the current phrase, only once to live, and we wasted it. If we have been living by the tenets of Christianity, seeking to walk righteous in the midst of a fallen world, then we have carried ourselves as dead to its pleasures. We have denied ourselves luxuries and entertainments that might have been ours to enjoy. We have been beset by cares for our own sinful estate, and about the fate of those around us who do not know Christ. We have lived a rather anxious life, truth be told, if in fact it was all for naught.
So, there is another question for us. How do we view this present life? The news, certainly, is dark, whatever portion of it may be accurate, and whatever source you may be considering. The depravity of man is pretty hard to avoid at present. On the other hand, certainly here in America, we live in what must reasonably be accounted the most prosperous and easiest of times. It is often observed that the poorest amongst us remain rich by world standards. The whole nation has largely become Alice’s Restaurant, where you can get anything you want, do pretty much anything you want, be anything you want. Do you still feel dead to worldly pleasures? I rather doubt it. We may limit the degree to which we heed the enticements. We may settle for a Ford rather than a Lincoln, for example. Or perhaps we’ll accept that one car per person is enough. But in an age when most believers have an unnecessary toy in their pocket that likely cost upward of a thousand dollars, to say we deny ourselves seems a bit much.
Oh, there are clearly sinful pursuits that we don’t pursue. On the other hand, I doubt there’s many that you could still get full agreement on. But, we have our list, and we do our best to maintain compliance with that list, and this we count as denying ourselves. Chances are, the things on that list are things we didn’t enjoy anyway, but leave that aside. If I paint a dark picture, perhaps you can write it off as self-assessment and pat yourself on the back for doing better than I am. Perhaps. Perhaps, however, I merely continue to be aware that God’s assessment remains true. There are none found righteous, no, not one. That He declares some righteous in spite of that, on the basis of the Atoning work of Christ, and His choice of where that gift is given, doesn’t alter the facts. It alters the outcome.
In the meantime, we remain a people whom God often chastises. Now, for the wicked, such chastisements as may come in this life are but the beginnings of their punishments. To our eyes, it may seem that those punishments never even started, and the unfairness of it all may cause us to gripe against the injustice of it. There’s some dangerous turf! For one, the idea that we have full knowledge of the full scope of any man’s life is absurd on the face of it. We know the public persona. We know what they wish to allow to be known about them. As to their private lives, their inner turmoil we have no idea except in those cases where it has led to tragedy. Even then, we don’t really know the full extent, only that their days were not so rosy as we might have presumed.
But, if chastisements are the beginning of punishment for the wicked, what’s up when we are chastised ourselves? Indeed, it may often seem to us that the punishments endured by the believer far exceed those of the wicked. Honestly, who can look back upon the persecution of Christians by Rome and think this was exceeded by the trials the most evil of men have faced in this life? The worst serial killer facing the chair has not suffered such punishment. How is that fair to the believer? What is God doing? Well, again, our sense of the fairness or unfairness of it all tends to reflect our sense of eternity. If our focus remains too much on this life and not enough on heaven, then yes, the unfairness of the present may well upset us and even disturb our faith. But, if our eyes are on heaven, and our hearts yearning towards home, then we join Paul in saying, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Ro 8:18). It’s not that this life doesn’t matter. But, it’s a comparative nothing set on the scale of eternity.
So, what’s happening? God chastises those He loves. Mind you, He chastises the wicked as well. Make of that what you will. I might suggest that it gives evidence that He loves even them, and sorrows greatly over the necessity of their punishment – to the degree that God sorrows at all. But, for those He loves, this is training. It is designed to bring about patient obedience. Calvin describes it as preparing us ‘by the cross for a true renovation’. That points us back to eternity, to that resurrection of which Paul writes, when the mortal puts on immortality.
Matthew Henry writes, “How sad is his case indeed, if he must be dead to worldly pleasures and yet never hope for any better!” Indeed, that is the necessary conclusion Paul reaches concerning this false doctrine of death. Yet, very nearly the same sentiment applies to the unbeliever. How sad for them, if they have been so alive to worldly pleasures and yet failed to obtain that hope which is infinitely better! Dear ones, we are not called to a life of asceticism, seeking to deny the physical realm as totally as we are able. But, we are called to set our sites higher. If our concerns are too much on present experience of blessing and not enough on that greater blessing already received, we need to shift our perspective. Health is nice. A good paying job and a compatible spouse are wonderful things. Happy, upstanding children are a blessing. But, if the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared to that glory to be revealed, neither are the pleasures. The sum of years, whatever they held, remains but a speck of sub-atomic dust when held up against the span of eternity that is promised in the promise of the Last Day. Look hence and rejoice to know that you have been granted entrance to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Look hence and fear not, your Shepherd has gone before you to prepare your place.
The Foundation of Faith (11/19/18)
Faith is assurance based on assessment of the evidence. If faith is sound, it is because it is fastened upon that which is sound. It has a solid foundation. Our foundation, the most fundamental truth of the Gospel, is the resurrection of Christ. That necessitates His death preceding His resurrection of course, and in turn, requires His birth as a Man. But, it is the Resurrection upon which faith either stands or fails. If the Resurrection be taken away, faith has no leg to stand on. What is it about the Resurrection that is so critical to faith? We have already looked at the necessity of His resurrection to our redemption. Apart from that seal upon His lifework, that lifework comes to nothing, and we remain dead in our sins.
This reinforces a point Pastor Dana was making in yesterday’s sermon. As regards the miracles of Jesus that John saw fit to incorporate in the narrative of his gospel account, they are all geared toward revealing Jesus Christ as the sole giver of life. We will eventually here Him make that claim explicitly in that gospel. Indeed, as the concordance shows, He makes that claim repeatedly in different formulations. “I AM the Bread of Life” (Jn 6:35, Jn 6:48). “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh” (Jn 6:51). “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves” (Jn 6:53). “I AM the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). “I AM the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25a). “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn 14:6). Those last two are perhaps the most critical to our faith. I consider that in John 11:25, the message continues until arriving at the question, “Do you believe this?” Well, do you? That would seem to be the question for our brothers in Corinth.
His Resurrection is our foundation, apart from which faith is a nullity. Further, as that verse in particular makes plain, if He is not resurrected, not only are the Apostles liars for preaching that He is, He is also shown a liar for claiming that He would be. What sort of faith takes a liar as its object? What value can such a faith have? Sigh. There is the necessary follow up question. How many today have placed their faith in some alternative Jesus which, being an alternative and not the real Jesus, is necessarily a lie? Faith is worthless in and of itself. It is the foundation upon which faith is established that matters. There is a reason God in His wisdom determined to leave us a written testimony to His Truth. It is because lies are easy to come by and hard to shake loose of. Here is the test: Does it accord with what is written? Is the Jesus who is being proclaimed the Jesus to Whom all Scripture points? Is what is said of Him by this claimant to revelation of one accord with what has been written according to His Revelation? Does it proclaim Him Lord of all, the one who came to die for our sins, God made man that man might be saved? Does it insist on your powerlessness and His power? Then perhaps it is well. But, if it has set you center stage and made Jesus your aide, something’s very wrong. If it has left Jesus no more than a champion for your pet cause, something’s very wrong. If it’s all about access to power and nothing about the awesome righteousness of a perfectly holy God, something’s terribly wrong.
The JFB observes a contrast in this passage which might go unnoticed, but is critical to the solidity of faith. They observe that when Paul points to Christ crucified, he speaks of Jesus as dead. It is somewhat indirect here, but it’s here. “If Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead…” This is real death with no term of art softening the blow. The word is chosen quite deliberately, that we may be assured of the absolute reality of His suffering and death. This is needful. Apart from His very real suffering and death, no atonement has been made, and again we are left in our sins with no hope of redemption. But, observe also that when Paul turns to the fate of the believer, he does not speak of death. He speaks of sleeping. They are asleep. This is not a one-time usage. We see it repeatedly in the New Testament. Those who are asleep will rise. We shall not precede them in meeting the Lord (1Th 4:13-15). This is our assurance: Those who go to sleep have every expectation of awaking once more. If we in fact go to the grave to remain there, then to call it sleep is a lie of the first order. But, there comes a time when we remain there no more. “Amen, amen, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live” (Jn 5:25). “All those who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and come forth; those who did the good to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil to a resurrection of judgment” (Jn 5:29). That time is not now, but we are assured of its coming. We shall all rise. The only question is to what end?
If our faith looks no farther than this present life, then any hope we entertain is pure fancy. We have entertained ourselves, perhaps, but we have not addressed the issue of our sin. If this message of the gospel be taken away, then preaching is empty and faith is vain. It has no real content, no foundation. It is, in the parlance of the age, vapor-ware. It is worse. It is idolatry. It must be. Faith that does not set itself upon the Truth of God is of necessity an idol. When we set our preferred beliefs above the message God has imparted to us, it matters not if we call those preferred beliefs Christianity or Scientology or any other name. We swear our fealty to an idea, and in doing so, we spite the God of all Creation. This is the end result of all bad theology, and I must insist that an intentional disregard for theology is nothing but bad theology.
It is a line of song that comes back to me often. “Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little eyes what you see.” We may have played that song for our children in their youngest years. But, in reality, it’s a message we never outgrow. Be careful, little Christian, what you believe. This whole letter has been an extended dissertation on that point, and that ought to give us great pause. If those who had benefit of what were surely the best possible teachers given that Jesus has departed back to heaven have so swiftly fallen so far from truth, what of us? If we account ourselves so much wiser and better than they, then it is time to hear again: “Take heed lest you fall.” We become so sure of ourselves, that we could never stray into error like that. But, the Truth is far different, isn’t it? “All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (Isa 53:6). And we remain sheep. We remain inclined to following our nose rather than our Lord. Thank God that He is so patient a Shepherd! Thank God that He has accounted for our wandering ways and seen fit to haul us out of our insistent error and back into the security of His fold. May we learn. May we hear and heed the word of our Shepherd and, as He has assured us will be the case, hear no other.
I am very leery of taking that as a promise that anything we choose to hear must necessarily be His voice. For one, I am not that stupid. I know I have chased after falsehoods before. The sheep, to take His chosen image, are not so careful of the shepherd’s voice that they never again go astray. No, the shepherd continues to be a necessary watchman because sheep, whether for listening to other voices or simply not listening at all, are still inclined to wander. Left to themselves they would be in harm’s way in short order. This is our story. This is our song. Praise God there’s a Savior, all the day long. He may let you wander, and you may well experience harm – disciplinary harm – in the course of your wanderings. The assurance, the only assurance, is that He will in fact come find you, pull you out of the mess you have made for yourself, and carry you back. That is no assurance of avoiding error. It is an assurance that for all your error, yet He will see to it that you make it. It is the Word of God. “I will do it.” “Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it. I will surely do it” (Isa 46:11). Those are words upon which to hang your faith, for He has surely done it. It is finished.
