Tag Archives: Salvation

God’s Righteousness Demands Justice

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My devotions have taken me into the book of Ezekiel. Without question this is one of the strangest and most difficult books in the Bible to read and understand. There are descriptions of wheels within wheels with eyes all around. The words create the image of flying saucers in my mind. But it is obvious that the main point of the book is that God is fed up with the sinfulness of His people.

In Ezekiel 9, the prophet sees a vision of some men, one of whom has an inkhorn. God tells him to go into all the city of Jerusalem and put an ink mark on the forehead of all those who “sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done” within the city. So he obeys and marks the foreheads.

Then other men are told to basically go out into the city and kill all of those who do not have the mark. It reminds me of the Exodus where God rescued all those who had the blood on their doorposts.

A couple of things struck me right away. First, this kind of incident is not going to sit well with people of the 21st century. The killing of all these “innocent” men, women, and children seems gross and excessive. But on the other hand, we Christians have always taught that the wages of sin is death. Do we really believe that?

But wait! What was the sin of these people? The people who were slain were those who were not sighing and crying over all of the abominations being done within the city of Jerusalem. Not sighing or crying over wickedness is a sin? I thought sins were things like murder, rape, and other forms of brutality. But what does it mean when the Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”? God laments the sinfulness of people and all of the abominations that mankind does, especially if these deeds are being done by His own people. If we were godly, we would sorrow too, … wouldn’t we? I was struck by how very far short I fall below God’s standard of holiness!

What keeps God from going out now and executing all of us who are lacking in our sorrow over sin in our country or in our churches? Isn’t this where the gospel comes in? Jesus came here and died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. That’s what we preach, right? But what does that mean? It means that Jesus took my sin of not sighing and crying upon Himself. In effect that means that Jesus was blamed by God for not crying or sighing over the sins of our cities and churches. And because of that guilt, God executed Him on the cross, just as the men in Ezekiels’ time were executed for that very same crime.

What about me? When we trust Christ as our savior, God gives us Christ’s righteousness in replacement for our own meager and sometimes phony efforts at righteous living. When God looks at me, He sees me as having been perfectly mournful over the sins of my city and my church. Why? Because Jesus is perfectly mournful and I have been given credit for that righteous attitude.

We can’t look at someone who has been brutal and violent and feel superior. We all are guilty of capital offenses against God. But God in His mercy and grace offers us a free, unearned pardon through His Son Jesus Christ. I’ve taken Him up on that offer. It was too good to turn down. What about you?

Part 5 – God’s Remedy

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In these blog posts, I’ve been musing about the purpose of life and how God fits into the picture. The Bible clearly describes our condition as one of rebellion and sin against God. He is our creator, and we have rebelled against Him. The punishment for that rebellion, or sin, is death – eternal separation from God forever.

But the Bible presents us with it calls the Gospel – the Good News. The good news is that Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, took on human flesh and came here to live among us. He did not do this merely to be a good example. What good is a good example if we don’t want to follow that example, or are incapable of following that example?

The gist of the Good News of the Christian message is this:

1) Jesus Christ came and took our punishment on Himself when He died on the cross.

Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the [cross], that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5)

For [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

2) God offers salvation and forgiveness as a gift to everyone who repents and believes the Gospel.

Repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:15)

Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:30)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)

3) God offers to give us His righteousness in exchange for our sin.

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” But to him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. (Romans 4:3, 23)

And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. (Philippians 3:9)

4) God offers eternal life to those who trust Him with their souls.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16, 17)

Part 4 – God is Not a Grandpa

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So far in my musings about the meaning and purpose of life, I have tried to show that there is a God who exists, and that he is greater than all that we can imagine, and he created and owns everything and doesn’t need our advice and counsel to figure out how to run the world. The second thing we looked at is the Bible’s teaching that God’s purpose for all he does is his glory. We were created by him in his image in order to reflect his glory and majesty, and when we get side-tracked from that we lose our focus and then find ourselves without meaning and purpose. Finally, I tried to explain the Bible’s point of view that all of us have sinned against God by not acknowledging him and by not being thankful for his provisions for us and finally disobeying his just commands.

Most people view God as being a kind old man who doesn’t really expect much of us. He wants us to be happy and helps us now and then, but pretty much stays out of our way. When it comes to some sort of final judgment, God realizes that we all pretty much do our best, and nodding his approval, welcomes us into his home. The problem with this is that it is not at all the way the Bible describes God. The Bible describes God as being a just God. Being just means that he cannot just ignore sins against him. He loves people, but in that loving, his character of justice cannot simply overlook sin. Think about it this way. How would you feel about a judge who freed the same criminal over and over because he really liked the guy. Suppose the criminal was in court for his 50th murder in the act of committing a robbery. Would you be pretty content with that judge if he just kept letting this man go because he was a nice guy and was really likeable? We all know that such a judge is not just and should be removed from the bench. And yet we are hoping that God is like that judge.

The God presented to us in the Bible is completely just and will not overlook sin.  He has already demonstrated that to us in this world by putting all creation under a curse. We know something is wrong. We have a sense about how people should ideally get along, and yet we see so much abuse, fighting and killing in the world that we know something is wrong. We picture what an idyllic garden should be like, and yet there are constant attacks on that garden by weeds and pests of one kind or another. We are trying to grow a few beautiful roses right up next to our sunroom, and suddenly one morning every bud was gone. A deer had come up to the house and had eaten every bud that was available. That same deer has to be careful to avoid being attacked by a predator or killed by a hunter or run over by a car.

We know things are not like we think they should be, and it’s not because we’re just lazy and want an easy life. We know things are out of whack somehow.  The Bible explains that God cursed the ground because of us – because of our sin. Paul writes in the book of Romans, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

So my thoughts today are aimed at understanding that God is a just God and he will and has responded to our sin and disobedience with appropriate punishment.

Numbers 14:18 “He will by no means clear the guilty.”

Ezekiel 18:4 “The soul that sins shall die.”

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.”

Next time we’ll look at God’s solution to our problem.

Part 3 — Who Then Can Be Saved?

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So far in my musings about the meaning and purpose of life, I have tried to show that there is a God who exists and that he is greater than all that we can imagine, and he created and owns everything and doesn’t need our advice and counsel to figure out how to run the world. The second thing we looked at is the Bible’s teaching that God’s purpose for all he does is for his glory. We were created by him in his image in order to reflect his glory and majesty, and when we get side-tracked from that we lose our focus and find ourselves without meaning and purpose.

Within ourselves we know that something is not right with the world, or even with ourselves for that matter. We have a sense of the kind of love that should pervade human society, and yet that love is woefully missing. There are some glimmers of it, but there are an awful lot of dark places. This is true on a global scale, and it is true within our own circle of family and friends. Things often seem pleasant and people seem happy, but there is a lot of friction, discontent, abuse, and anger around. We know this is true and we know it should be better than it is.

In addition to interpersonal and international frictions, it seems as though nature is messed up. In many ways nature is beautiful, but even there we see death, violence and a sort of unsettledness both in the living world and in non-living aspects of the world such as weather and geological instability. How are we to explain this? Atheists and naturalists have their ways, but to me these are not satisfactory.

The Bible’s explanation is that God gave one specific negative command. Human beings, in the person of the first man, Adam, disobeyed God’s command and rebelled against the creator and owner. As a result, he brought the curse of death upon the whole human race and upon creation itself. The Bible says that the whole creation groans (Romans 8:22). We as people groan because we are plagued with sickness and decaying bodies. We groan because making our living is not easy. Nature resists our attempts to grow food and to build a decent life for ourselves. We find rust and decay affecting virtually everything we make, and it takes work to keep things in good repair and working order.

When God cursed us, he told us that disobedience would cause death. And that is what we see all around us.  As time went on God gave us more and more commandments in order to show us his character and to allow us to see just how far from his path we have wandered. Through the ten commandments and other moral instructions given in the Bible, God shows us where the line is, and we can see clearly how far we’ve fallen, and how impossible it is to live the way God designed us to live. Sometimes we look at commandments as overbearing and authoritarian, but God is the one who designed us along with the rest of the world. He is the one who knows how these bodies, minds and spirits work best. His commands are to provide a way of living that works best. Ultimately, we find that we can’t live by those standards even if we try. We don’t have it within us to comply. That too is part of the consequences of our fallen nature. We don’t really want to live like God wants us to. We don’t want God to be telling us what to do. We want our independence.

God tells us in Romans 1:18 and following that the crux of the problem is that even though we know God is there and that he is powerful, we naturally do not give him the glory that he is due and we are not thankful to him for all that he has provided. We just assume we have a right to everything. We end up worshipping and serving created things, such as ourselves, or the stuff we can own, more than we worship God. This leads to sins of every kind that Paul lists for us in this passage. The chapter ends with these sobering words, “who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

This is where many people jump ship. They say, “I just can’t believe that being disobedient to my parents, or living in sexually immoral ways, or being selfish is worthy of the death penalty.” The neat thing about living in America is that we are free to believe anything we want, and no one else can dictate our conscience to us. We can live in the ways described here and believe that we are just fine. We’re allowed to do that.  The thing we need to ask ourselves is whether all of this is OK with the God who is actually there. God is either like he is described in the Bible or he is not. At some point each of us has to come to grips with the possibility, and I would say reality, that God actually does have standards, and that he actually does care how we live, and that he actually does impose the death penalty on those who fall short of his standards.

Having said that, though, we need to resist the temptation to think that it is those other people who have the death penalty on them while we walk free. You see, the argument Paul is trying to make in the book of Romans is that every single person is guilty. In fact, in the next verse after citing the death penalty, he makes this statement. “Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things” Romans 2:1. I used to think this verse was not true of me. I would look at people who were doing terrible things and judge them and congratulate myself for not being like that. But this verse tells me quite clearly that I do the same things. Jesus, for example, tells us that to be angry is like murder in God’s eyes. Lusting after a woman is like committing adultery. The standard is very high, and I have fallen short. The death penalty looms.

Thus, we end today’s musings with the conundrum that God’s standards are so high and so strict, that we find everyone in the world is guilty before their creator and are under the just condemnation of God. Who then can be saved?

God’s Mystery – Our Salvation

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In Colossians 1:26 Paul speaks of a “mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations.” What kind of mystery would God have that he would keep it hidden for ages? According to Scripture, this mystery has now been revealed to His saints. “Now” means at the time Paul wrote this. That means that for ages past there has been some truth that God purposely waited to reveal until the time was right. In Romans 16:25, Paul tells us that the mystery was kept secret since the world began, but is now made manifest by the Scriptures and made known to all nations.

Whatever this mystery is, God already had it in mind when He created the world! We get glimpses of what this mystery is in several passages. Romans 11:25, for example, says that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. In Ephesians 1:9ff. Paul writes, “having made known to us the mystery of His will … that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him.”

We see further in Ephesians 3:3-6 that this mystery was not made known to men in other ages, but now has been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel. There we have it! In the Old Testament it appeared that God had chosen one people, one nation to be His special people. But now we learn that since the beginning, God intended to bring the gentiles into the blessings of Christ offered in the gospel. In verse nine he continues, “and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s amazing to me to think that God wanted to show His wisdom to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. From Ephesians 6:12 we know that our battle is with the principalities and powers in heavenly places. So, it seems to me that God is using this mystery of the inclusion of the gentiles in his eternal plan to demonstrate his wisdom to his enemies – the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This is the plan of salvation that began with the people of Israel in the Old Testament era, but once Christ had come and completed the work of redemption, the mystery was unveiled in all of its splendor as the gospel was announced to all peoples everywhere. I wonder what the principalities and powers thought when once they only had to focus on one small people, but now their doom is sure as they see the manifold wisdom of God spreading like wild-fire throughout the world.

Thoughts from Ephesians – 5

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Ephesians 2:1-10

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,  in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Paul personalizes the exceeding greatness of God’s power that he just talked about. He told us that the power toward us is the same as the power that raised Christ from the dead. Now he explains that we also have been raised from the dead. The phrase “He made alive” in verse 1 is not in the original. That’s why it is in italics in your Bible. So first, he describes the lostness from which we were raised but he doesn’t explain the resurrection until verse 5. Our condition is described as one of death in trespasses and sins. We used to walk in this condition following the pattern of the world and in the plan of the prince of this world, Satan. We also lived according to the lusts of our flesh and were in our natural state children of wrath just like everybody else. We were naturally the objects of God’s wrath, anger and condemnation.

But God, because He is rich in mercy and because of the great love He has for us, made us alive with Christ. He did this even when we were dead in our trespasses. Nothing is said here of our faith or our responsiveness to the gospel. It takes a living person to be able to respond. We were dead. Resurrection comes before response. Just as in the case of Lazarus. Jesus called him out of the tomb and he came out. Did Jesus give him life because he obediently came out of the tomb or did Lazarus respond because of the life God had given him? The same is true of us. The calling of God and the Word of God grant life and then there is response.

We have been more than raised. There are several other actions that God has (past tense) performed. He has raised us up together and made us sit together with Christ in heavenly places. These have already occurred. As far as God is concerned, we are already there.

So many times we focus on us as the reason for everything God does, but in this passage we get a different point of view. God’s purpose in all of this is that in the ages to come he might show how rich His grace is as it was demonstrated by His kindness. He wants all of creation to realize how great His grace is. It has everything to do with the glory of God and His greatness. Because, after all, it is by grace we have been saved through faith. All of this is a gift of God, not through any of our own works because then we might boast. We are the workmanship of God. We are His creation – both the original and the new creation in Christ.

The Passion of Jesus Christ

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It’s been a while since I read a book by John Piper called  “The Passion of Jesus Christ”. But an excerpt from chapter 22 is worth noting:

But what just is the ultimate good in the good news? It all ends in one thing: God himself. All the words of the gospel lead to him, or they are not gospel. For example, salvation is not good news if it only saves from hell and not for God. Forgiveness is not good news if it only gives relief from guilt and doesn’t open the way to God. Justification is not good news if it only makes us legally acceptable to God but doesn’t bring fellowship with God. Redemption is not good news if it only liberates us from bondage but doesn’t bring us to God. Adoption is not good news if it only puts us in the Father’s family but not in his arms.

This is crucial. Many people seem to embrace the good news without embracing God. There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart because we want to escape hell. That’s a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable without any spiritual change. You don’t need to be born again to want these things.

The evidence that we have been changed is that we want these things because they bring us to the enjoyment of God. This is the greatest thing Christ died for. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. I Peter 3:18

Message of the Cross – Part 6

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“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5–11, NKJV)

The mind of Christ was such that even though He was God himself, He purposely and consciously took the form of a bondservant and stooped down to serve us, even to the point of death of the cross. As a result, God highly exulted Him and gave Him an exulted position such that every knee will someday bow to Him.

The challenge to us is to have this kind of mind. We are to have a mind to humble ourselves and to stoop to serve others. Since Christ died for all, then all should no longer live for themselves but for the one who died for them. “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15, NKJV)

During this Easter season as we consider all the Christ has done for us to rescue us from condemnation, we should realize that we don’t belong to ourselves to live for our own agenda and own interests, but for God and others.

Message of the Cross – Part 5

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“knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” (Romans 6:6, NKJV)

As I mentioned in one of the previous articles, the Bible teaches us that if we have trusted in Christ, we have been placed into Christ. Since that is the case, God considers us to have died with Christ when He died on the cross.

In this passage, Paul writes that when that happened, our old man was crucified with Him. By old man he is referring to the old self. Some people call it the old nature. The Bible says that “if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Our passage for today, Romans 6:6, tells us the purpose for this crucifixion of the old man – that the body of sin might be done away with. Some translations say that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, or made of no effect. The ultimate goal is so that we should no longer be slaves for sin.

What we as Christians need to do is to practice believing what God says is true. No matter how we feel about our sinfulness and the power of sin over us, the Bible says that our old man was in fact crucified so that the body of sin would be made ineffective so that we would not be a slave of sin. If we find ourselves in slavery to sin, it’s because we have voluntarily yielded to it, not because it has power or authority of us.

At this Easter season, let’s remind ourselves of what God says is true – our old self has been put to death.

Message of the Cross – Part 4

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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, NKJV)

In this passage Paul gives us a very important truth about our relationship and oneness with Christ. Here, just as in Romans 6 and Colossians 2, Paul teaches us that we died with Christ. There are all sorts of practical implications in this truth. In this passage we see that since we have died with Christ, it is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us. As Jesus himself taught us that he is the vine and we are the branches. The life is in him.

As we live our life then we need to recognize that moment by moment our goal is to live out the life of Christ who lives in us. Our life is a life of faith in the Son of God, trusting him to live his life effectively out through us. Paul says it this way in his letter to the Corinthians: “and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:15, NKJV)

I heard Kevin DeYoung quote John Calvin the other night. I think this is a fitting summary of this truth. Calvin said, “We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to our flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God’s: let us live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal.”