Testing God (10/11/26)

When Sapphira continues to uphold the lie her husband had devised, Peter immediately confronts her.  He asks a question which reveals the charge:  Why did you two agree to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?  But what exactly is meant by this putting the Lord to the test?  The KJV suggests an attempt to tempt the Spirit, but at base, the word means, as Thayer offers, “To try whether a thing can be done.”  It’s like the young child looking to see what he can get away with.  Will mom react if I do this?  How about this?  How far can I go?  Just how smart are they?  And for many of us, that testing continued right on into adulthood. We carry it into the workplace, into our daily lives.  Every time we hop in the car to go somewhere, we find ourselves testing things, seeing what we can get away with.  You know you’re supposed to come to a full stop at the stop sign, whether you see anything coming the other way or not.  But maybe we can just slip through this time, maybe a rolling stop would suffice.  We know the speed limit, but we know it’s low.  It’s only for inclement weather conditions, right?  Things are dry and traffic is light.  There’s no reason to be so restrictive.  So, we test the limits.  And we’ll keep on testing, keep on pushing, until something stops us.

Here’s where we get into a very dangerous place, if we’re not already there.  We bring that same attitude into our spiritual life.  We arrive at church, and we are perhaps hiding away our true selves for one reason or another.  We put on our blessed-life masks and tell each other everything’s grand when we really don’t believe this is so.  We smile and bless even those we’d rather not have to talk to.  Maybe, just maybe, we are one that others would really rather not have to talk to, but somehow that part seems to elude us.  Ah well.  But we’re pretty sure we can put one over on our fellow congregants.  We’re pretty sure we can maintain our own benign little sins out of sight without the elders becoming aware.  And unless there comes a point where church discipline must be exercised, we may feel our point proven.  They don’t know.  They’re no holier than I am.  You may even be right in such an assessment.  But there remains a distinction.  They have been drafted, however willingly, into service to guide God’s church.  And it’s a pretty strong likelihood that they do so in recognition that it is in fact God’s church they guide.  If we as individuals are not our own, but purchased at great price by our Lord, how much more the Church?

So, when we find these two coming with their donation, making it out to be a grander gesture than it really was, we’re in this same place.  They are testing the limits, seeing what they can get away with.  This may not have been their primary motive, but it is the primary effect.  Maybe they just wanted a bit of that praise that Barnabas was getting.  Maybe they wanted the reputation without having to be reputable.  They just wanted to be someone.  It’s a big crowd, this church, and there’s a certain draw of pride in being such as stands out from the crowd.  That is the more likely motivation as they allowed themselves to feel it.  But to gain a reputation for piety by corrupt pomposity could only serve to corrode the truly pious.  It could not be allowed to stand.

Getting back to the real issue, though, by lying at the altar, as it were, they were in fact making a statement about their professed belief.  They claimed to believe God, to have put their trust in the Son of God.  To make such a claim, contrary to the understanding of some, is to claim one’s place as the temple of the Holy Spirit, to claim to be such a one as is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, by God Himself.  It is an audacious claim, to be sure.  But in the believer, it is an accurate claim, even if he himself cannot begin to apprehend how it could be so that this perfectly holy, utterly divine being could choose to be in such close communion with the likes of himself.  But to claim fealty and communion with God Who is True, with God All-knowing, and then to try and put one over on His representatives?  That is an attempt to put one over on Him.  That is a clear statement that either you don’t believe He knows all or you don’t believe He’s sufficiently connected with His church to care.  It is the supposition that He will not, perhaps cannot do anything about it.  It’s the same attitude that shows in those Peter warned the church about in his epistle later.  They insist that all is continuing as it has since before our fathers passed from the scene.  Nothing ever changes, so no reason to be overly concerned with righteousness or thoughts of Christ’s return.  Matters of God’s holiness or justice don’t enter into our calculations because we’re convinced it’s never really going to happen anyway.

It gets down to being a declaration that God isn’t all that.  We don’t really believe.  We just want the social acceptance, the reputation.  Take this same mindset a bit farther, and not all that large a bit, and you have the sort who will carefully label their businesses with bible verses and Christianese lingo, maybe advertise in the little flyer of local Christian businesses, because hey, it draws some business, and it also gives those customers an undeserved sense of your trustworthiness.  If you can get one over on God, you can surely get one over on His sheep.  Easy targets, they are, especially if they presume you to be one of their own.  This is what was entering the life of the church in the guise of these two connivers.  This is what the Shepherd acted to expose and eliminate.

They had conspired together, “to test the Spirit of God’s ability to know what is going on” as the TLB renders the verse.  Little children looking to see what they could get away with; adult villains looking to prepare their marks; wolves in sheep’s clothing:  It all comes to the same thing, acting on the belief that God doesn’t know, cannot know.  Such testing must inevitably meet with the ultimate proof that the supposition acted upon was quite incorrect.  It may not happen so instantaneously as it did with Ananias and Sapphira.  It may not happen in the course of this lifetime.  But there will be a reckoning, and it will be just.

We ought to hear this as call for a self-examination, and such self-examination as may require our calling upon the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what our true thoughts are.  For we are terrifyingly adept at deluding ourselves.  Let us, then, hear the clear warning of Scripture, and seek to know ourselves well enough to repent of what needs repenting of.  And, “Let us not try the Lord as some did in the desert, and were destroyed by serpents” (1Co 10:9).  Don’t presume on God’s grace, but be thankful for it.  Don’t assume forgiveness.  Repent in order that He can in righteousness do so.  Those things you keep hidden away, don’t fool yourself!  Do you really think He doesn’t know?  He does.  Do you really think you will never have to give account for those things?  You will.  God is Just.  He is Love, yes.  He is Merciful, yes.  But He is Just.  And He will not have His glory diminished even the least little bit by you, even if you loudly insist you are His child – even if you are in fact His child.

Rightful Authority (10/12/26-10/13/26)

We might ask why it is that the Holy Spirit saw fit to record the case of Ananias and Sapphira.  In doing so, we must recognize that it was written for our benefit, for the good of the church.  But that just leads us to ask, how so?  What are we being warned against or encouraged to do?  The warning, I suppose, is rather painfully clear:  Don’t be a hypocrite.  Don’t think you can con God.  You can’t, and He won’t be amused by your efforts.  We might also observe the lesson, both warning and encouragement, that God will see justice done.  We have already been treated to events which we might suggest were a foretaste of heaven.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost would seem to fit that description.  The full-throated fellowship of believers as we witness it in the life of this first church might also count as such a foretaste.

This coverage of Ananias and Sapphira serves as something of a counterpoint foretaste of the Last Day.  In this case, judgment and punishment have already been exercised.  Yet, we would have to acknowledge that this is not full and final judgment, though I would say that it is irrevocable.  It is generally accepted that once departed from this life, options for redemption have ceased.  I’m not sure one could find a solid biblical basis for that, some passage that makes the matter explicit.  But I do believe the full scope of Scripture delivers such an understanding to us.  The understanding that God is righteous, purposeful, and unchanging would seem to require that we take this to be the case.  Any other outcome would leave us with a capricious God who is merely playing games with humanity.  And that is not the God of the Bible.

I am taking somewhat of a long way round to explaining the reason for this portion of my comments.  They are concerned with matters of rightful authority.  This is what we are seeing exercised by Peter.  I don’t think it is the primary purpose of this passage to teach us about the rightful exercise of authority, but it certainly does give us a glimpse of that exercise in practice.  Peter is operating in official capacity here.  He is not merely doing as he sees fit.  Neither is he acting on supposition or professional knowledge.

We have explored this before.  He has no basis for knowing what this parcel of land would have sold for.  Even if he had some reason to know prevailing rates, he would have no real basis for knowing anything more than a ballpark figure.  For all that, how much did he know of the parcel of land which was sold?  Was it local?  Did he know these two well enough to have facts and figures as to the extent of their properties?  There’s just no reason for us to think he had any such data to work from, and I rather doubt that these two would have played their little game if they supposed he did.  That’s what renders his words so shocking.  How could he be speaking with such certainty?  He had accused Ananias with no evidence.  Were this a police action, it would be thrown out of court, even if he was right, because there’s no evidence given.  Ananias could just continue to maintain his claim and the whole thing would likely blow over.  Of course, in such a public court, there would also have been no basis found for charges.  So he didn’t choose to hand over the full price to you.  It’s not like there was some contractual obligation on his part.  Who cares?

Now we find him not merely setting forth his accusations against Sapphira, who has already exposed her complicity in the matter, but he is so bold as to declare the outcome, the punishment which will be meted out for her effrontery.  We have to understand this.  Peter, bold as he could be, would never have been so bold as all this except he was absolutely certain of what he said.  And given the nature of the things to be said, and given the responsibilities of guiding and nurturing a newly formed and rapidly expanding community, I cannot see him having anywhere near the necessarily degree of certainty except it be the case that the Holy Spirit has supplied his words.  Indeed, I would say the Holy Spirit has not merely supplied him with the knowledge of what really happened, and the words he should deliver in reaction, but has truly compelled him to deliver those words.

We have had now four events set before us in rapid succession, in all of which we should recognize this same activity of the Holy Spirit.  In that encounter with the lame man outside the temple, it is unthinkable that Peter would have been so bold as to speak and act as he did except he had the fully informed assurance of hearing the Holy Spirit directing both word and deed.

I have to pause momentarily.  I have encountered a group who seek to act with that same sense of full empowerment in dealing with those who are lame or ill.  Yet, I would also have to say that with that group, there is little evidence that they act as compelled by the Spirit.  Rather, it seems to me, they act in presumption.  God must heal, because that’s His promise.  And so, they may insistently haul some poor soul out of his wheelchair and insist he walk, and accept whatever stumbling steps that man may take as validation.  Yet, that man returns to his wheelchair unchanged, perhaps even a bit miffed at the exchange, and quite probably, even less inclined towards God than he was before.  This strikes me as being worse than the lies told by the couple before us.  Now, I don’t know.  Perhaps on occasion God chooses to act through these folks in spite of themselves.  He can, after all, do as He pleases, and is perfectly capable of obtaining wondrous results even through the most corrupt of vessels.  Yet I cannot think that such presumption is going to meet with a, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” come that day.  This wasn’t the act of a servant.  Where’s the obedience to command?  Where’s the command in the first place?  I shall have to leave room for the possibility that I am wrong in my assessment, but honestly, I rather doubt that I am.

Okay.  Come to the second example of Peter compelled to speak.  We find him, together with John, before the Sanhedrin, called to account for what that group construed to be their aberrant teaching.  Don’t miss it.  The Council thought themselves to be faced with a potentially false prophet, and acted according to their intended function as regards such.  And had they concluded that indeed these men were promoting some other god, they would have been within rights to pronounce a sentence akin to that which Peter delivers here.

Now, that, I have to say, is part of this narrative flow that I hadn’t really noticed.  There is indeed this parallel between the Sanhedrin in exercising their proper authority, however improperly it was exercised, and Peter’s exercise of authority.  They are to the same purpose:  To secure the spiritual safety of God’s people, and defend it against any intrusion of falsehood or idolatry.  And think of Paul’s message to the Colossians.  “Greed amounts to idolatry” (Col 3:5).  It is the worship of wealth, finding security in one’s accounts, and considering the protection of that wealth as more pressing a matter than pursuit of holiness.  Had Ananias and Sapphira been permitted to get away with their deception, that is exactly what would have been introduced into the church:  Idolatry.  Eventually, people would know the truth.  And if, upon learning the truth, they saw that the Apostles did nothing, that God did nothing, what conclusion would they reach, but that wealth was indeed more to be pursued than faith?

But as concerns that council, we are more interested in Peter’s defense.  The exposure of their sin by his defense is bold beyond imagining.  He has been placed, he and John together, in a position intended to humble and impress.  The seventy one members of the Council are arrayed before him, no doubt well dressed and looking impressive.  He and John, on the other hand, have slept in a prison cell, wear whatever robe they have likely worn for years now, and are unlikely to have been granted a bath or what have you to start the day.  The intent is to overwhelm and thus compel confession and repentance.  It didn’t work, because what Peter had to confess was not some sin of his, but the truth of those events about which he spoke so freely:  the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And in so doing, it would be impossible to avoid touching on the complicity of this same council in that terrible miscarriage of justice.  They had not acted as their authority should have led them to act.  They had not delivered God’s verdict, but their own.

Now we can come to the case of Ananias.  As noted, Peter has no reason to be aware of what this man is attempting to pull.  Yet he knows.  We have no suggestion that there was some set of investigative questions leading to his conclusion.  It’s just, Ananias shows up, Ananias makes his offering and his claim, and Peter denounces him before the Church, or whatever portion of the Church happened to be present at the time.  If he had just been spouting off, this was a most dangerous gambit on his part.  It could have destroyed the whole work.  How long would this congregation remain a congregation if this man whose words had called them to come together proved to be so mercurial, so skeptical, so wrong?  For Peter to have spoken on that occasion really requires us to understand that the Holy Spirit had not merely injected ideas into his thinking, but had insisted that he speak.

Come to this next event with Sapphira, and his leveling of charges against her is no longer a wonder in itself.  He now knows.  The sudden death of Ananias confirmed the truth of the matter for all intents and purposes.  But to proceed immediately to bold declaration of the sentence to be imposed?  That was bold indeed!  If Peter had just been going on the basis of the outcome for Ananias, there was great risk of presumption.  He would have been acting not dissimilarly from Moses striking the rock when God had commanded no such thing.  It’s how it had worked before, and he assumed.  But there was no legitimate basis for that assumption.  The command was different, and he should have listened, done as instructed.  Yet, Peter speaks with absolute confidence, and subsequent events swiftly demonstrate that his confidence was on firm foundation.  Why?  The Holy Spirit had given him the words to say, and compelled him to speak them.  Do you suppose for a moment that Peter relished having to deliver such a message?  I can’t imagine that he did.  I can’t imagine any godly leader being excited at the prospect of pronouncing judgment against a church member.  Indeed, I would argue that any such excitement over judgment would indicate that said leader was not godly at all.  God declares that He Himself takes no pleasure in punishing sin.  But it is necessary for the good of His people, His kingdom.

So yes, what we have before us is in fact a demonstration of godly exercise of authority.  The man in charge does not act simply because he’s in charge.  He is not doing as he pleases.  Indeed, as I have noted, he is largely doing as he would really rather he didn’t have to do.  But the office requires it.  The One Who rules supreme over His church requires that it be done, and he who holds the delegated office must comply.

That chain of delegated authority does not stop with the elders of the church, any more than it stops with the president of the nation, or other officers of civil government.  It pervades all aspects of life.  It enters into each household individually.  When we come into the household setting, we find the husband set in a place of authority, of leadership, to which it is expected that wife and children will submit.  This is not a place for despotic rule, husband lording it over his family with threats and force.  Rather, the husband is set in this place of authority much like the elders, like the Apostles were set in a place of authority over the Church.  The Church remains the property of God.  They do not rule over a kingdom of their own, but serve the One Who reigns supreme.  So, too, the husband in his household.  He is not establishing a little fiefdom in which he can enforce his will, but serves at the behest of his Lord, to shepherd this little flock.  And as with the Church, so with the family, they are not his flock, but they belong to the Lord.  The husband is to shepherd that flock, to protect them, to guide them, to cherish and care for them with utmost attention precisely because they are not his own.  And he will answer for his performance in office just as the elder will answer for his shepherding of the church.

That should rightly send a chill down the back of every husband.  I know it gives me great pause, for I see the state of affairs in my little family, and it frankly does not speak well of my leadership.  I have loved them, and do so still, yet my love has been more in the nature of the world’s love than God’s.  If the shepherd is primarily charged with defending the sheep against the wolves that may come, then I must confess I have failed utterly.  If I consider the task of training up, of instilling a right understanding of God’s truth, I have likewise failed utterly.  If I consider the matter of seeking to model godliness before them that they might have a sound example to emulate, no doubt I have failed just as badly.  This I would that I could do over and do it right.  But that is not an option given us.  So, I can only pray that God will so move as to protect His own in spite of my poor leadership.  If indeed they are His, then I have every confidence that He will do just that.  Yet, I suspect that I will find I have much to answer for when my time comes.

Still, I shall not be alone in that.  My failures, and they are many, will offer no defense for those I have failed.  And that, too, is a lesson to be drawn from the rightful exercise of authority as it plays out in this passage.  A husband’s authority does not alleviate the guilt of the wife who follows his ungodly command, or the child who follows in his sinful footsteps.  Each answers for his own sins.  Each is rewarded for his own righteousness.  If there is any validity whatsoever to the concept of generational sin, it must be in its capacity to increase the likelihood of repeat.  It is an influence rather than a compulsion.  It certainly offers no excuse to that subsequent generation which follows in the footsteps of sin.  But neither does it demand that those footsteps be followed.

That, I find, is a clear message in the passage before us.  Sapphira gets not relief from being the submitted partner to her husband.  Her complicity is not lessened by his greater authority.  She agreed to his deception, exercised the same testing of the Spirit’s knowledge by continuing to uphold the lie here before Peter.  And having committed the same sin, she is subject to the same judgment.  There is no favoritism here.  There is no distinction of persons in God’s justice.  What is just is just.

I have known those in earlier years who would insist that we as churchmen were to abide by the instruction of the pastor right or wrong.  Any error, it was posited, would be required of him.  We, for our part, would be commended for our obedience.  That is so horrendously incorrect as to be criminal!  That is the same defense offered by so many who fell sway to Nazism in the 40s, even those who were feeding bodies into the showers and the fire pits.  We were just following orders.  Not our fault.  We acted rightly, didn’t we?  No.  No, you did not.  Such injustice, such horrendous inhumanity shall never be undertaken rightly, regardless the chain of authority that commanded it.  You are complicit, and you will be held to account.

Now, many seek to apply that same thinking to the military today, insisting that whatever actions the government may undertake which happen to differ from their preferences amount to the same crimes as happened in Auschwitz.  But it is not so.  The events do not parallel at all.  Or, at the very least, they are not evidently so.  There are many actions undertaken in the execution of a war or the defense of the nation which would be, or ought to be unthinkable in any other setting.  And one hopes that there remains a concept of just war governing our government’s exercise of war powers.  Acting with resolve is not a crime.  Acting with violent force against those who seek to act with violence against us is not a crime.  The government, to the degree it abides within the divine limits upon its powers, is within its rights to act.  It should give us pause to consider where we might be compelled to reject that authority.  It is not a thing to take lightly, for God makes explicit that all authority comes from Him.  Yes, it is often the case that those to whom authority is delegated so abuse that delegated authority as to have nullified it rather completely.  But be not swift to arrive at such a conclusion.  Be wise.

I have brought out, in our case, the example of the wife as subject to her husband, and yet answerable for her complicity in following his corrupt direction.  The same would apply most assuredly to a church which opted to follow after false teaching from the pulpit, errant direction from the elders.  Being submitted to their leadership will offer no protection when sins are exposed.  “I was just doing what I was told,” won’t fly.  We are not called to blind obedience to any, not even to the Holy Spirit, truth be told.  “Test the spirits.”  That is our instruction.  Make sure you’re really hearing from God before you act, for there are plentiful lying spirits abroad in the world (1Jn 4:1), and plentiful false prophets promoting their false claims.  Don’t just take it at face value.  Test it against the clear witness of the Word.  These things were, after all, written for your benefit, that you might have a clear standard against which to measure what you are being told is true.

All of this speaks to a people with brains engaged.  Faith is not, nor has it ever been a matter of baseless trust, or worse, a trust built on wishful thinking.  Faith acts because faith is informed, and its information comes from Him Who is indeed all-knowing.  This has to inform how we interact with our fellow believers as well as how we fashion the course of our lives.  Indeed, this has to inform us as to the fact that however it is we fashion the course of our lives, He to Whom we have sworn our devoted allegiance is in fact shaping and guiding that course.  As concerns Peter in this moment of duty, as he pronounces harsh sentence upon these workers of iniquity in the church, he doesn’t do so on a whim, and he doesn’t do so as a means of bolstering his credentials.  He does so because he must.  The same Holy Spirit that has been giving him the words to speak has also been making it inescapably clear that those words must in fact be spoken.  It would be amazing for him to have this inside information on what’s going on amongst his fellows.  But it could easily turn out to be the case that one possessed of that information would yet refrain from acting upon it.  Oh, he’s like that, is he?  Okay, well, I’ll be wary of him until You deal with him.

I could readily envision myself acting in such fashion, given it is my preferred approach to leave the corrective actions to God, particularly when it comes to fellow believers.  I would just make a mess of it, I expect, but He can speak to them as readily as to me.  There’s a point to which I would maintain that this is in fact the course of wisdom.  But it does run the risk of sliding over into apathy or something like it.  Except God is in it.  He directs, and where necessary, He compels.  He will guard His own.  That is truth.  That is not, as pastor reminded us Sunday, a promise that we will face no hardships as believers, nor is it a promise that we shall avoid martyrdom, disease, or any other sore trial of life.  It is an assurance that in spite of those trials, in spite even of the grave, we shall live in Him and be with Him in eternity.  There remains the question of reward, but one hopes we are not pursuing this life merely in hopes of maximizing the reward we get at the end.  It’s one thing to be motivated to please God, it’s quite another to desire the riches of reward more than the pleasure of our King.

But here, I believe we see the man of God compelled to action by God.  The Holy Spirit, I have so often been told, is a gentleman, and would never force Himself upon you.  If I may wax British for a moment, poppycock!  God will do as He must to see His good purposes achieved.  Were it not so, there would not be so much as one man or woman redeemed in all history.  The assessment He gave of mankind through David would remain unaltered.  “There is none righteous, not one who does good.  All are corrupt and not a one seeks God” (Ps 14:3).  Had God not forced Himself upon us, at least insomuch as He has given us hearts transformed by which to know and love Him, we would yet be those who have turned aside.  Had He not pushed His way into my thoughts that day in Groton, proposing His theorems to me by which to prove to myself that He Is, well!  I would not have been bothered to find out, would have continued to write the whole business off as merely a tool to keep peace in my newly established household.  But God compelled action, not that I didn’t gladly comply.  However glad, it’s not like I could do otherwise.  He was intruding on my consciousness, arranging events around me such that I could not help but stumble into those proofs of His hand; and if His hand, then His whole Being!

So, yes, Peter acts willingly, so far as that goes.  But he also acts as one compelled to deliver the message he has been given.  This, I suspect, is the experience of every sound preacher who has concern to deliver the message God has for His people in this time and place.  But how many pastors would willingly take their place at the pulpit and deliver such a message?  I could imagine, perhaps, Jonathan Edwards doing so.  “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” was, after all, a sermon, not something he hoped to sell down at the Christian book shop.  And that was hardly a comforting message, was it?  You’re dangling by a thread over a fire hot beyond any fire you have ever known.  Yes, there was hope in it, for the gospel is ever the hope of rescue from the deadly outcome of sin.  But first, we must see the fire, know its threatening heat.  One could have envisioned Peter offering that sort of message here.  “If you don’t repent, then…”  But the time for repentance has passed for this couple.  In her case, we might hear that question Peter asked as one last opportunity to come clean.  But she would not.  The die is cast, and the character shown unchanged.  And so, the dreadful conclusion:  God has said, “Fine, your will be done.”  You want to withhold from Me?  You will be withheld.

But for Peter to deliver that sentence; how much assurance would he have required to speak so boldly of so deadly a turn of events?  He’s not threatening here.  He’s not issuing warnings as a prophet might.  He’s pronouncing a decision, a sentence with no chance of parole.  There can be no appealing the decision.  There is no place for lawyers to try and wrangle a lighter sentence, to offer reasons for clemency.  There will be no note from the governor pardoning the crime.  Justice will be served.  And he must have known, by that same Holy Spirit, that as harsh as this action was, it was for the good of God’s people.  The purpose behind this was good purpose.  He could not afford to measure the event by his feelings or opinions.  Indeed, it would fall to him, I would imagine, to make this clear to the rest of the Church.  This is not God showing Himself anxious to punish the first time you trip up.  This is not an axe taken to any sense of assurance you may have as regards your salvation.  No!  Salvation remains by faith and faith alone, and that faith is itself a gift given you, not some response you have worked up in yourself!  But there are fakers in the body.  There are ever fakers in the body, and while this is no call to be skeptically judgmental as to your brothers, yet there is a place for wisdom.  Wisdom insists that we each of us look to our own condition, and root out any similar duplicity in our ways.  We must live knowing that every hidden thing shall be exposed.  We should know that the God we serve is the God Who Knows.  And He is intimately active in the life of His Church.

We had need to go to the grocery store yesterday, and our course took us past a church, shall we say the remnants of what used to be a church, that ever so proudly makes display of such things as make plain that anything to do with Christian Truth long since left the building.  Their religion is tolerance, at least for anything other than holiness.  Yet, they still declare themselves a church, still announce their Sunday School program.  Yet, they are vendors of death, disguising their poison as medicine for the soul.  Does that sound harsh?  Good.  These are deadly deceivers, even such as we are warned about in Scripture.  They don’t preach truth, don’t offer hope.  They tickle the ears, offer only the comfort of delusion, telling everyone that really, there’s no need to change a thing.  Indeed, one wonders what would be the point of attending such a service.  What can they possibly tell you except that you have no need to hear what they are saying anyway?  And for this, you would pay?  Whatever.

But this is not the Church.  Whatever it may choose to call itself, it will not alter the truth.   This is a synagogue of Satan.  Were it the Church, God would be acting so as to divest it of its erroneous ways.  There would be repentance of the most heart-wrenching sort, at the realization of what they have been doing, what they have been claiming is true.  But this is a people to whom God has said, “Fine.  Have it your way.”  There is a concomitant follow-on to that.  “I’m out.”  And the man of God who finds himself amidst such a people ought to hear his Shepherd saying that and say likewise.

Here, in the setting of the first church, there is no option for the true believers to off to some better congregation.  There was no opportunity for church shopping.  It’s this or nothing.  And for the Church itself, the same might be said.  It’s this or nothing.  Satan, of course, is rooting for nothing.  But God.  God has seen to it that the wolf that sought to infiltrate the flock stands exposed.  He has also seen to it that the wolf, being thus exposed, is dealt with.  There will be no tolerating this.  This is not a believer momentarily in retrograde trajectory.  This is a wolf.  This is one come to spread his poison, his falsity to others, and he must be excised without mercy.  His wife is of the same nature:  All posture, hoping to gain by undeserved reputation.  If they were willing to lie to the Holy Spirit, they won’t think twice of lying to the sheep.  If they would seek to take advantage of God, they will assuredly seek to take advantage of you.

This is an issue that develops when we are taught incessantly of how God is Love, but never have that news balanced by reminders that God is also Wrath.  We love to hear preaching about His mercy, but if it is not joined with preaching about His holiness, His righteous wrath, then it is so much tickling of the ears.  Oh, we are told, you can’t really go about preaching like that anymore.  People won’t stand for it.  They’ll pack up and go to some other church that will teach more to their liking.  Yes, they might do just that.  They might go down to that so-called church I passed yesterday.  But if they do, and if it is because you have been preaching the whole truth of God in loving concern for the welfare of their souls, well!  Perhaps that is a pronouncement of judgment as clear as Peter’s announcing of the grave that lay ahead for Sapphira.  They’ve made their choice, and it’s no fault of yours.

Our message, our practice, our profession of faith, cannot be a matter of marketing.  It’s not about giving the people what they want.  It’s about telling the people what they need.  You’re not going to get folks hungering for salvation if there’s no mention of their danger.  Who shall seek forgiveness of sins except sins are exposed as utterly sinful?  It’s a harsh duty, to be sure.  It’s a thankless duty much of the time.  Yet, what pastor worth his salt ever preached for the purpose of hearing his congregants say, “Nice sermon, pastor” at the end?  Far better the angry response, really, for anger may yet arrive at realization and repentance.  It’s like those stages of grief, isn’t it?  First the denial, then the anger, then the acceptance of reality and the possibility of seeking change.

Yet, it is all done in love.  The discipline of God’s people is ever done in love, for God is, it remains quite true, Love.  He doesn’t lust after vindication.  He cares about eternal outcomes.  He doesn’t want your pain.  He wants your purity.  The refiner’s fire remains an apt depiction of what’s going on.  You can’t remove the impurities without the heat.  You can’t clean the pan in which you cooked supper except by applying friction and force to scrub away the cooked on remnants.  The remnants of sin will not simply fall away.  They must be excised.  That sin which seeks to enter the church must be isolated and eliminated lest it spread to the body as a whole.  And God will see it done, for it is His Church, established by His Son.  It is the body of Christ, of which He is the Head, and He will heal His body as needed.

Love, we are told by Scripture, believes all things and hopes all things.  But let us never suppose that believing all things is a call to credulity.  It is not.  Love does not put on blinders and refuse to see what is true.  Love isn’t stupid, such that it cannot understand what is true.  No!  Love is attentive, cherishing the object of its love and wanting very much to guard and protect the loved one.  When love sees danger approaching, love acts.  Love must act.  Love could hardly be love and simply allow approach to become attack.  Love sees the car barreling down the road and holds firm to the loved one, lest she step out.  Love sees the deadly danger of false doctrine and seeks to instruct in truth.  Love doesn’t let things fester.  When love must act, it is often in such ways as would appear unloving as the world measures love.  It may require stern words, harsh actions.  But they are undertaken in hope, out of concern and care, so as to preserve life.  And love, godly love, always acts in such fashion as will best serve to glorify the God Who Is.  The cherishing of life is assuredly one aspect of that.  The training up of our charges in truth and holiness, even when they don’t particularly want to hear it, is an aspect of that.  The preaching of the whole truth of God, not just the happy parts, is a definite aspect of that.  Let us love, then, as God loves.  Let us trust Him to guide, and allow Him to train us to follow faithfully.

Church Discipline (10/14/26)

We are shown a first example of church discipline in the actions Peter has undertaken in this instance, but I would have to say they are not exactly aligned with the instruction given for such in Matthew 18:14-20.  There, the process is to go first in private to address the matter with your brother, escalating as necessary in order to produce in him a repentant response.  Exposing that sin before the whole church is to be the method of last resort.  So, at least so far as we are informed by this narrative, it seems those earlier steps were bypassed.  In this instance, we might consider that it was necessary to move directly to the final step, for the sin itself was being undertaken, as it were, before the whole church.

So, lesson number one for church discipline:  Matthew 18:14-20 is not a rigid formula, but general guidance.  The most compelling part of that instruction is that which describes the full scope of authority imparted.  “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18:18).  That is not, however, implying that we, or the Apostles, or any other being, can bind God to our decisions.  Rather, it was the assurance, particularly to the Apostles, but also, I believe, to such as are entrusted with the leadership of the Church, that in their decisions, God Himself is present to guide and restrain as needed.  “For where two or three have gathered in My name, I am in their midst” (Mt 18:20).  You’re not left to your own devices.  God is with you.  Surely, if He is able to observe your every act and thought, as is evident in this process, He is just as able to guide and inform, as is also evident in this process.

We might ask, if this is the case, why He did not simply intervene directly in the hearts and minds of these two.  I must conclude that they were not His.  They were His in the sense that all of Creation is His by right of being their Creator.  But they were not His as numbered among the elect redeemed as a result of His choice of them.  They had tasted of the Gospel, but not been changed thereby, and ultimately, that result must be down to His choice, even as the authority exercised by Peter and the other Apostles, or by the pastor and elders in the local church today must finally be down to the same authority.  And in most cases, the most direct, if perhaps least satisfying answer is that He has chosen to so act in order to make His glory manifest, to make Himself manifest.

In judgment, He made it clear that He was not merely some idea, some theoretical deity of man’s devising.  He is Who He says He is.  He is all-knowing.  Point made.  He is all-powerful.  Point made.  I rather appreciate the conclusion delivered by the Message in this case.  As concerns the response of the Church and the city, “They knew God was not to be trifled with.”  And that’s a very needful bit of knowledge for the believer.  Our nature is too readily prepared to trifle with God.  After all, He is not here with a physical presence, such that we might look at Him and see the power; talk with Him and hear the extent of wisdom and knowledge.  He is here, though.  That’s part of the message of this act of discipline.  He is here, He knows, and He will act.

This ought to both concern and encourage us.  As to the extent of His knowledge, if it were not for the fact that we know Him, and knowing Him, know His love for us, it should surely crush us.  God knows!  God knows the thoughts I seek to keep back out of sight.  God knows the real reasons I do things, reasons I may not even allow myself to be conscious of.  But more often, it is conscious, isn’t it?  We’re trying to put our best self forward, but underneath the effort, the man of flesh still seethes.  I serve, but often resent the necessity of serving.  I give of myself, but up to a point.  Sooner or later, I begin to claw myself back, insist on me time.  I don’t suppose there’s anything especially wrong with that, other than the attitude, the carefully manicured graciousness that seeks to hide away the heart.  Far better, I’m sure, that the heart should be as the appearance.  Isn’t that rather the lesson we have here, that hypocrisy is not going to be tolerated?

Yet we face constant encouragement to “Fake it ‘til you make it.”  There’s something to this.  There’s something to seeking to be the person you’d like to be, rather than settling for the you you are.  Self-improvement cannot happen by accepting the status quo.  Self-improvement, however, cannot happen at all apart from God’s involvement.  If we are off trying to improve things by dint of our resolve, and He is not in it, then it will be a futile effort.  It will be all faking it and no making it.  But where we work along God as He is working, we may find ourselves greatly surprised at the ease with which we progress.  Why?  Because it is God Who is working in us, both to render us willing and to make us capable (Php 2:13).  As ever, that is not a call to, “let go and let God.”  It’s a call to be comforted in knowing that however feeble and faltering we may be, He shall strengthen us.  Yet, the fact remains.  God is not to be trifled with.

Here is another note of encouragement to be found in our passage, and in this most extreme exercise of church discipline.  God will act.  He can and He will.  He will do as is needful to preserve His own, and we who have heard His call and answered are in fact His own.  “By this we know that we have come to know Him:  We keep His commandments” (1Jn 2:3).  Now, that assurance may be no assurance if we suppose perfection in so doing is the test.  But still, “The one who abides in Him ought to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1Jn 2:6).  What is the most fundamental point of obedience?  “Love your brother” (1Jn 2:9).  And here, too, if we suppose perfect love to be the expectation, we may find our assurance a bit shaky.  But then, we have another witness to our faith.  “We know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1Jn 4:13).  That, in the end, is the reliable testimony upon which we stand.  And as He testifies within, “We know that we love God’s children when we love God and observe His commandments.  For this is the love of God:  That we keep His commandments and don’t deem them burdensome” (1Jn 5:2-3).

Okay.  Observe.  What we are looking at in the actions of Ananias and Sapphira, as they wished them to be seen, was not in fact keeping any commandment of Christ.  Had they kept their property or had they sold it and put the full price of that sale in a bank to earn interest, there would have been no sin in it.  But in that they opted to lie, in that they sought to con their fellow believers into thinking they had done so selfless a thing as to turn over the whole price to the Church, they were in fact not loving their brother, not walking as He walked.  And God would, of the necessity of His own essential character, act to preserve His Church.

Understand this.  We benefit greatly from the fact that God protects and preserves His own, for we are His own.  Yet, in acting to preserve, He acts not primarily for our benefit, but for His own name’s sake.  This is the fundamental basis for excising this poison of sin before it could metastasize and spread.  God will be glorified.  He will be honored, and most especially so in His temple – His temple which we are if indeed we are reborn and renewed in Christ.  It is HIS Church, His body.  We, as component parts of His body, are accounted as the apple of His eye (Ps 17:8), a thing most cherished, and most firmly protected.  We are, after all, His children by His choice.  He has adopted us, opted to clean us up so as to be a gift to His Son, so as to be a worthy gift to His Son.  That worth is not of our own merit, to be sure, but of His doing.  Yet, while children of His household, we are also, simultaneously servants of the King, wholly sold out to His will, all rights transferred to Him, and gladly so.  But do not let this escape you:  God will be honored by His servants.  That servant who will not honor Him will not long serve Him.  That, I expect, lies at the root of Satan’s expulsion from heaven.  He was to be a servant of God Most High, and by most accounts, is deemed to have been well regarded in his service until he grew to regard himself too highly.  He no longer served, and as such, he was no longer tolerated in God’s presence.

Back to the matter of church discipline.  Discipline is, by its very nature, unpleasant.  The author of Hebrews is quite correct in his assessment.  “No discipline is deemed joyful at the time.  It is sorrowful.  Yet, those trained by it gain the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11).  It is needful.  It is the pruning which, while it seems so violent to the tree, proves to be for its healthier growth.  I think of those pea vines from which I somewhat anxiously await some evidence of actual peas.  Some of the lower leaves are yellowing, and it seems somehow wrong, detrimental to pull them off or cut them off.  Would I want a finger lopped off because it was a tad discolored?  Probably not.  Yet, if that finger were posing a threat to the rest of my body, it might be the best thing to do; cut out the disease lest it poison the whole, and what would have been merely somewhat debilitating become deadly.  That is the business of church discipline.

Sin in the Church must be addressed, else it will be assumed to be acceptable practice.  That was the danger in Corinth, as they simply overlooked the obvious sin of a man engaging in sexual activities with his father’s wife.  That was the danger in prideful exercise of the gifts, in boasting of prowess rather than boasting in God.  That is the danger in any sort of permissiveness prevailing in the practice of the Church.  God is holy, and He knows.  He will have His children represent Him truly, and He will have His Church serve Him fully.  The body is not here to be misused.  It is not here to suffer from neglect as it sits idle.  The body is to respond to the Head.  The body is to demonstrate the glory of its Head in all that it does.  These disciplinary actions are taken to guard the health of the body.  They are necessary defensive measures, however offensive they may be to our sensibilities.

Now, in modern practice, I don’t suppose we are ever likely to encounter an exercise of church discipline such as this.  But honestly, that’s up to God, isn’t it?  It was up to God there in the first church.  Peter didn’t impose sentence, he merely announced the decision.  “What you bind on earth will have already been bound in heaven.”  Your judgments are not yours, but God’s.  You are but the voice by which judgment is delivered.  The decision is His.  It is therefore righteous, and it is therefore good.  It is to good purpose.  The body’s overall health is both preserved and improved by the removal of this diseased organ.  And that which remains and is alive is warned by the action, lest they be tempted to likewise see what they can get away with.  Our practices may not come to so final and irreversible a conclusion.  We who have had to administer church discipline have done so in hope.  The hope is that those who have required discipline will receive that discipline to good purpose and repent, becoming more fully devoted to God thereafter.  And sometimes, praise God, it works out that way.  Other times, however, the one under discipline remains utterly unrepentant and walks away.  We yet pray that in due course such a one might, like the prodigal son, return to his senses and return to the Church, and should he do so, he will be welcomed as was that prodigal son.  But if he will not, if God has so hardened his heart as to find him rejecting the call to repent, so be it.  The health of the body must prevail.  God must prevail.  And He will.  For, as the old Charlie Peacock song says, “Jesus loves the church.”

The Purpose of the Church (10/15/26)

The NET observes that this is the first time we encounter the term church, ekklesia in the original Greek, in the book of Acts, and almost the first usage of that word in the New Testament at all.  We have but three other occurrences prior; one as Jesus declares His building of the church in Matthew 16:18, and a twofold mention of it as the culminating witness in matters of church discipline in Matthew 18:17, as we considered yesterday. 

One might reasonably have expected that they would identify as a synagogue as they gathered together, that being the term with which they would have been quite familiar.  But then, as I just noted, Jesus had not spoken of establishing a new synagogue.  He spoke of building His church.  Both terms, I would note, speak to a gathering, an assembly.  Due perhaps to Jewish sensibilities, a synagogue was an assembly of men first and foremost, gathered to pray and to hear Scriptures read and explained.  The church shares many of those same functions, of course.  Interestingly, however, its base meaning speaks to a public assembly of citizens, called from their homes to serve some deliberative function.  It may still be spoken of as an assembly of men, primarily, but I dare say that from the outset it was established without so strong a division of the sexes as would have prevailed in the synagogue.  Women remained distinct in their functions, yet equal in the sight of God and Church.  This is difficult to convey adequately in an age so ready to be offended by any least whiff of patriarchy.  But it was no dominating spirit of maleness that prevailed, at least not for long.  It was simply a recognition of the divine orderliness.  Even in the Godhead itself, one must perceive the Father granted primacy in all things, and yet, Father, Son, and Spirit are One God, and equally so.  It’s not a measure of worth, but a matter of organization.

Back to the Church.  The single, most distinguishing feature of the church, the thing which sets this gathering out as distinct from the synagogue, is that those gathered in the church have been called together, or called to gather, if you prefer.  Thus, the community we call the church is the gathering of those called by Christ.  To this we might add, I suppose, the sense of the Church being gathered for deliberations.  In that light, we might view the Church as the meeting place between man and God, though God is by no means constrained to the facilities of the gathered Church, whatever form those facilities may take in a given time and place.  But perhaps we can see it as the place in which God invites us to come reason together with Him (Isa 1:18).

And going back to that verse, observe the benefits of reasoning together with God.  Note first that this is not an invitation to come argue with God.  Reasoning may consider the logical arguments by which a point is established as factual, but it’s not primarily a matter of argument, as if in a court case, each side hammering away at the premises proposed by the other.  If we come to reason together with God, there can be but one outcome:  That we learn to understand Him, and understanding Him, come to understand truth.  There is also this promise, though:  “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.”  When we come to reason with God, we will begin to see more clearly, as His reason informs our own.  Seeing more clearly, we will see our need for redemption, and His offer of the same in the Gospel.  We will discern that He has made provision for our sinful estate, by which to restore us to that righteousness which was intended to be ours from the outset.

Now, I speak of it as a restoration to intended function, but we must also recognize that this fall into sin was in fact part of the design of Creation.  Satan did not wreck God’s plans, he served God’s plans.  This isn’t speaking to his intent, only to the outcome.  The whole design of Creation was intended, from its first conception in the mind of God, to drive towards the crucial day when Christ, the Son of God, God Incarnate, would take upon Himself the full penalty for the sins of all whom the Father called, that their sinful record might be made white as snow, pure and holy in the sight of God in light of His Light.

So here is a primary function of the Church.  It is the place where men come to reason with God.  They come as free citizens of the heavenly kingdom, called by the herald of the Gospel to gather before their King in fellowship with Him and with each other.  Thus far, our view of this early church has largely focused on the horizontal fellowship of those gathered, their sharing with one another and caring for one another.  And this, to be sure, ought always to mark the life of the Church.  Yet this, without the horizontal component of fellowship with God, is no more than a country club.  And there are times when the world’s perspective of church life devolves to just that.  For all that, there are churches where worship has been displaced by something of a country club atmosphere.  The people no longer gather to honor God, but rather to be honored by one another.  This is nothing new, but it is no less troubling for being an old issue.  Corinth suffered from this, at least prior to Paul’s first epistle to that congregation.  I would note that, so far as I have been able to discern, there remains no trace of that church.  Was this in correspondence to their corruption of the function of the church?  I cannot rightly say.  It seems, from that second letter, that the situation had improved there.  But such fluctuations can recur, and we are not given to know the final state.  We can, however, see plentiful examples of once vibrant, living churches that have become empty husks, or worse, mockeries of the very function they were intended to serve.

Let me offer another aspect of what it means to be of the ekklesia.  I’ll take this from Thayer’s lexical entry.  The Church is, of course, a gathering of Christians, or at the very least those professing to be Christians.  Such a church will be generally observant of such religious rites as they have determined befit the church.  I would have to say, however, that the more legitimate the church, the less those rites are matters of their own determination and the more they are intended to follow after God’s own blueprint for worship.  Come to the true church, and it runs even deeper than this.  It’s not just about those hours which may be spent gathered together.  It goes home with every believer, such that they “manage their own affairs according to the regulations prescribed for the body for order’s sake.”

But, oh!  We hear mention of regulations and already resistance is rising.  What?  We are of the truth, and truth has set us free!  We are under grace, not law!  How dare you even suggest any regulations.  Was not the Reformation established on the point that nothing can bind the conscience but Scripture itself?  Why, yes it did, but if Scripture is binding, it must, at some point define regulations, mustn’t it?  The Gospel is not contrary to the Law.  It is the answer to the impossibility of the Law, the salve for our sin-sick condition.  What is sin?  It is a violation of regulations, those regulations deriving not from the man in the pulpit or the elders in committee, but from God Himself.  The Church is, when functioning well, that place where we come to reason with God, to learn of His ways, His regulations for our lives, and to learn how we might come into compliance with those regulations.  We are come to learn how to live as citizens of heaven, because that way of life is not natural to our nature as mere creatures.  It needs training.  It needs exemplifying.  It needs, however gently, however lovingly, enforcing.  And that enforcing of discipline is not always going to be gentle, or pleasant, or even particularly welcome.  Yet, as we observed yesterday, and as the author of Hebrews informs us, it produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness in those who will be trained by it.

Now, I often find myself commenting on the state of those churches which have fallen, or are in process of falling by the wayside.  But again, I am here far more interested in the true church, the Church Invisible, which is but a subset of that which promotes itself as being church.  Here is where Christ’s words hold.  “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Mt 16:18).  Here is the purpose behind church discipline, to turn back the insidious assault of those agents of Hades that may infiltrate the visible church.  Let me then offer the assurance that is contained in that establishment clause.  “I will build My church.”  Understand this fully.  Christ is intimately involved in the life of His Church.  How could He not be?  He is the Head of which we, the church invisible, are the body.  To be of this church is to be of one body.  It matters not what spans of time or distance may separate us.  We are one body.  When I am reminded of those brothers and sisters I have met in Africa, though they gather at a different hour, and their gatherings may look and sound quite different from ours here, yet we are one body, and my love for them is no less than for those in my local church.  It should not be.  It cannot be.  It isn’t.  It may differ in how it functions, yet it is the same love, for it is God’s love poured out within, and pouring out from that rich supply.

So, if Christ is the head of this body, if He is the active agent in building His church, we should know that we know that we know that this Church will in fact stand.  Why?  Because He is able to make it stand, and not only able, but willing; and not only willing, but determined.  There is that verse from Paul, Romans 14:4, which speaks to matters of infighting and disagreement in the body.  “Who are you to judge?  He is servant of another, and answers to his master.  His master determines whether he shall stand or fall, and he will stand because the Lord is able to make him stand.”  What holds for the individual, though conscience may differ between individuals, holds for the church as a whole, though its local invocations may differ in their practices.  The true church will stand.  He is able to make it stand.  It may not always be pretty.  It may never be perfect.  Not in this life.  Yet, in the culmination of history it shall be found standing yet, to be present with Him forevermore.

What, then, is the function of the Church?  To worship God, certainly.  To gain true knowledge of God and to be trained in the true imitation of God as well.  To make God manifest to a world yet in darkness, most definitely.  And to fellowship both with God and with man, that the whole may in due course be brought into perfect harmony with the reason of God.  Let us, then, not fear the discipline that may be needful for our maturity.  Let us not hold back from expressing our devotion to the God Who Is.  Let us not deceive ourselves, nor be deceived by others, so as to follow after some manmade substitute, but let us hold fast to Christ our head, and serve faithfully as His body.

Fear or Reverence? (10/16/26)

As a final note to this event, we hear that great fear came upon the whole church, and not just the church, but also such as heard of the matter who were not in fact part of the church.  This matter of fear is disconcerting.  It’s not really something we associate with the activities of the church, is it?  I mean, after all, God is Love, right?  What place has fear in a child of God?  And quite probably, we have learned over the years that the same word we have translated here as fear can also be translated as reverence.  Were it only the church in sight, we would be tempted, at the least, to shift this to a matter of reverence.  But we would be wrong to do so.  And it may well be that we are wrong to attempt to keep these two ideas separate.  Fear has such negative connotations for us that we cannot find connection between that feeling and our interactions with God.  This suggests that perhaps we have lost any sense of the significance of the fact that He is holy.

Holiness is so foreign a concept to us that we would be hard pressed to define it.  What, after all, does it mean to say that God is holy?  In reference to our own sphere of existence, we might deem one holy who is particularly pious, whose deeds are, at least per our observations, good and honest and filled with a certain selflessness.  We may fall back to the technical definition as regards consecration, being set apart for God’s exclusive use.  But that term also speaks to being pure, morally blameless, without fault.  This, Paul says is the intent of His calling, His choosing of us.  Hear that particular declaration again.  “He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4).  This is our intended state, our proper condition:  Holy and blameless.  The two are sides of the same matter.  If we are indeed holy, then there is no moral fault in us, nothing deserving of blame.  Now, I can’t imagine that any one of us could be so blind to ourselves as to try and lay claim to such a state.  And we would do well, I think, to stay clear of supposing any brother, elders, pastors, and even Apostles included, fits that statement.  But this is our intended state of being.  And why?  Because it is our Father’s eternal state of being.

He alone, says Paul, possesses immortality.  He alone dwells in unapproachable light (1Ti 6:16).  Light is a favorite depiction of holiness, for all lies exposed and visible as it truly is.  James speaks of our God as the Father of lights (Jas 1:17), with whom there is no variation, no shifting shadow.  There is no question of Who He Is.  There is no alteration of His truth.  What is true today was true before the foundation of the world.  What was true at the foundation shall be true at the culmination of history.  God does not change.  He has no need to.  He is holy – perfectly holy.  There is no least deficiency in His moral blamelessness, no faintest wisp of sin to be found in Him, nor will He tolerate the stench of sin in His presence.

Okay, one cannot state that without encountering an unanswerable mystery.  If this is so, dear one, how is it that He makes His abode in you or me?  How was it that Satan could waltz into His courts to make his accusations against God’s chosen?  He, after all, is the father of lies, and lies are most assuredly sinful.  False witness is most assuredly sinful.  To act in pursuit of death is absolutely sinful; except, of course, where death comes as the wages earned by sin.  But God remains holy.  In His judgment, He is holy, blameless, morally perfect.  In his forgiveness, He remains likewise perfectly blameless, utterly righteous.  Don’t miss the significance of John’s statement, which we hold so dear.  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn 1:9).  He is faithful to do so, having promised the same on the basis of Christ’s payment of our due penalty.  The court records have been wiped clean of charges against us, the demands of justice having been satisfied.  And so, forgiveness is not overlooking our sins.  It is not a nod and a wink.  It is a righteous and just act undertaken by a perfectly holy God.  He remains true.  He remains pure.  He remains right and good in so doing.

The same of course holds true in such cases as are set before us in this passage, where sin is not forgiven, having remained unconfessed, nor does He cause His Holy Spirit to so move upon the unrepentant heart as to do so.  This is one of the great arguments of Christian faith.  Does God choose or reject because we seek or avoid, or do we seek or avoid because He chooses or rejects.  Which is cause and which is effect?  I would maintain that God, given that He chose us before the foundation of the world, must necessarily be the cause.  He alone has the true independence of action to initiate change where He seeks change.  He alone has the power to harden the hearts of men, or shall we say, to withhold such intervention as might soften hearts which have been hardened since conception?

And whichever course He may choose for whichever individual, He remains holy.  He remains self-determinate.  He remains the one, the only one, who can rightly declare the end from the beginning, and why?  Well, one could posit that it is because He sees both, sees the whole span of time in one instant, being as He dwells outside the realm of time.  But more, it is because His word does not fail of its purpose.  He speaks and it is.  Thus it has been since the first moment of Creation.  God spoke and it was.  This hasn’t changed.  God does not change.  And He is holy; perfectly holy, utterly devoid of any least defect, utterly without any least deception or falsity.

This is what the Church encountered in the events before us.  He is without falsehood, and will have His children be likewise.  Yes, He understands our limits, that we are but flesh, corrupted from birth.  But then, as Peter tells us, He has granted us everything needful for life and godliness.  We are granted access to His own divine power to live the life He has commanded us.  We can comply, if not perfectly.  We can repent of our failings.  We can seek Him and be found by Him.  We can stand in His presence.  But who can do so?  Who can stand in His holy place?  “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted his soul to falsehood, and has not sworn deceitfully” (Ps 24:3-4).  There’s the problem.  We’re back at hypocrisy, appearance seeking to be other than what one really is.  God is holy, perfectly pure, and true, outward appearance and inward reality in perfect accord.  God will have His children be likewise holy and true.  He knows that we cannot hope to achieve such a state apart from His work within us, and we are blessed with the assurance that He does indeed so will and work within us (Php 2:13).

The question remains, though, how do we respond to such a one as we have proclaimed to be our Lord and King?  Do we come before Him in fear or in reverence?  Is there any real, significant difference?  Well, reverence has the idea of respect.  I suppose anything we fear might be said in some way to have gained our respect.  Reverence may have a sense of awe, as the American Heritage Dictionary has it, profound awe.  That would certainly apply to the scene before us.  When we encounter God in such immediate action, moving upon the individual with no possible assigning of human intervention, we are face to face with Power.  I would note that this is the standard reaction of humankind to encounters with angelic beings.  It may be lesser power, but still, it is awesome power, and pure beyond our capacity for purity, and we feel ourselves undone.  Meeting an angel was rarely, if ever, the cause for warm fuzzy feelings.  It was a dangerous place to be.  One recognized the need for particular care.  We find, over and over again, a propensity for the man faced with an angel to fall down as in worship.  And we find, just as often, the angel refusing any such act as unfitting.

They, too, know this fear or reverence for the only One to whom worship is due.  They will have seen, after all, the impact of sinful pride upon their own number, in the expulsion of Satan and those angels who rebelled together with him.  They’ve seen the outcome, and they will not have any part of it.  So, yes, there is a worshipful aspect to reverence, and as that same American Heritage Dictionary offers, there is often an aspect of love involved in reverence.  I would maintain that a proper reverence for God must include such love for Him, for it comes of knowing such love from Him, and the only proper response to such love is love of the same sort.

Yet, if we go for loving devotion and strip it of any idea of fear for the absolute purity of Him with whom we have to do, we are in extreme danger of abusing His grace.  We stand in great risk of presuming upon His clemency and dismissing His holiness.  To do so is deadly.  His holiness demands justice, for He cannot be holy and simply disregard those sins committed against His divine decree.  At the same time, it would be an utter misrepresentation of His person to hold Him in terrible fear, having no sense of His love.  That, I would say, is the pattern of idolatry.  The Canaanites, the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, and whatever other system of beliefs you choose to consider; they all of them pursue a religion built solely upon fear.  Offerings are but attempts to appease an angry, quite likely capricious, deity.  If I don’t make offering, he may smite me.  If I don’t perform, my crops may fail, my lineage may be cut off.

I hate to say it, but this thinking has not entirely left the Church.  We have plenty who have been trained that by giving they are ensuring a multifold return.  They don’t give for love.  They give for gain.  Entire ministries have been built upon this concept.  This is, at base, what the prosperity gospel is all about.  There’s nothing of holiness involved, only a business opportunity.  It’s the ultimate pyramid scheme, really.  You give to get, and you get others to give that you may get more.  But reverence has gone out of it.  Fear of Him Who reigns forever has gone out of it.  There is no thought given to holiness, to living in accordance with the terms of God’s holy covenant with His own.  And why?  Well, quite frankly, because these are not His own.  They are imposters, or at the very least, the victims of imposters, and so they shall remain unless God sovereignly chooses to awaken them to their true condition, and stir their hearts to repentance.

The pure love of God requires that we hold fear and reverence together for Him.  We are unlikely to comply with His terms, after all, except we have a certain fear of the consequences for noncompliance.  That was the great risk to the church present in Ananias and Sapphira.  Had they gotten away with it, it would become known.  And when it became known, others would be tempted to play the same game.  Trust would be destroyed.  God would be diminished in the eyes of man, a powerless deity to be used as one pleases, no better than those denizens of Olympus that the Greeks promoted.  But God is not like those figments of human imagination.  He is real.  He is all-powerful.  And He is holy, utterly without fault or blemish, perfect in all His ways.  And He will be held in profound awe and respect by His creation.  Every knee will bow in due course.  Every tongue will confess that He is Lord.  They will be left with no choice.  The decisive factor will not be either fear, or awe, nor even respect.  The decisive factor will be the accompanying love.  We who belong to Him obey from a place of joyful compliance, finding nothing burdensome in His commandments, but only good, as He is good.

Let us, then, set aside this urge to remove all fear from reverence, and rather, return to a place of holy fear, holy reverence, loving Him Who is our Lord, our Father, and deeply concerned with all such ways as we fall short of His intentions for us.  Let us pray that He will continue to will and to work, that He will continue to discipline and forgive, that He will continue this work of renewal in us until we have, all of us together, come to the fullness of maturity in the image of Christ our Lord and King.  And let us give praises to Him Who is both willing and able to make us stand, both now and on that great and final day.