We’re all searching for what we believe will bring us life. In that search, we can look upward or we can look outward.
Think of the cross, that horrific tool used by the Romans to demonstrate — in no uncertain terms, in a very clear, physical manner — who was in charge (Rome, not you). It consisted of a long vertical wooden beam for the body of its victim, and a shorter horizontal beam for the arms and hands. Its two parts came together near the heart and head.
Though Rome is long gone, the cross lives on as a symbol: Focus your search vertically and you’ll have life to the fullest; focus horizontally and you will be left empty.
I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
I’d like to talk about salvation, sanctification, and a curious effect of the latter.
To be “saved” means of course that you’re now in God’s family, now a member of the Body of Christ. Your sins are forgiven — past and future — and your relationship with God is re-set.
Though some come to salvation via a lightning-bolt moment, others take a longer time, like someone awakening from sleep who becomes aware that they have for some time been awake.
Either way, salvation is a relatively quick thing, an event.
Sanctification is a process, one in which you are being made day-on-day more like Christ. It begins the moment you are saved, and it lasts the rest of your life.
Here’s the curious thing: At some point in this process, you’ll come to realize that the more you are in Christ, in the Spirit — and Christ and the Spirit in you — the more your heart will be broken by this world.
Like a patient with an ill-set bone, the good doctor must first re-break so that he might properly set.
In a previous post (here), I argued that the Spirit is vital to understanding the Bible. I stand by those words — if you don’t invite Him to “clear your mind, open your eyes and ears” before reading, you’re looking at the party from outside, through a window. Come inside and feast.
I didn’t say nearly enough.
You’ll remember that God is a being comprised of three very distinct persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We tend to “lump” them all together by using the name “God,” and in a sense we are very right in doing so. But don’t forget Jesus’s words to us before He left this earth to be with his Father in Heaven:
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth…. The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14 (NIV)
If you’re not daily — moment-by-moment, really, as we’re to “pray without ceasing” — in touch with the Spirit, you’re not fully “in Christ.” And — hear me on this — that goes not just for your Bible reading and prayer, but your church as well.
Does your church as a fundamental matter of principle and practice invoke the person of the Holy Spirit?
I’m about to say something that will either seem shocking or ridiculous. Hear me out; you owe it to yourself. It may be the most important thing you hear this year.
You’re feeding yourself poison if you attend to 99% of what goes as news.
Don’t buy the lie that you have to “stay ‘informed'” about “what’s happening.” The news is not what’s happening — it’s really not. It is comprised mostly of two things: 1. Super-selected utra-condensed contextless tragedy about which you can do nothing; and 2. trivia.
What are the effects of choosing to ingest this poison? From number 1 above, you get a) helplessness; and b) either a hardened heart (one that starts to enjoy tragedy, in a sick, voyeuristic kind of way — see “Darwin Award” types) or despair.
From number 2, you get preoccupied with things that don’t matter.
You don’t have to have it. Turn it off.*
*If you care to know more, see Neil Postsman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death.
“We may read many truths in the Bible, but we cannot know them savingly, till God by his Spirit shines upon our soul.” — Thomas Watson
I’ve long been amazed that there exist biblical scholars, those who are supposed to be most “in the know” about what the Bible is and is about, who just don’t get it. How in the world could a Bart Ehrman, world-renowned agnostic professor of New Testament at the University of North Carolina, seem so adept at missing the entire point?
We all do well to remember that the Bible is first and foremost a story. It begins with the creation of heaven and earth, and it ends with “happily ever after,” the final defeat of evil, the restoration of the cosmos, and the marriage of heaven and earth, God and His people living together in peace, joy, and intimate relationship for eternity. We have to enter our reading with that understanding. It is not primarily a recipe book for how we are to behave. It’s certainly not a book that’s there to reinforce our notions of how the world ought to operate.
Here’s my real point: I am ashamed to say that I used to kind of enjoy looking down on people like Bart Ehrman. But the truth is this: I’ve never had his level of knowledge of the Bible, and there’s an excellent chance I never will. And until very recently, I too had what I can only now describe as a wooden relationship with Scripture.
I mean, I got certain parts of it, but the great bulk remained sterile and unmoving. I could, with God’s grace, read John 3:16 and understand that this verse was vitally important. (There’s a reason our Sunday School teachers had us memorize it!) But then I’d read, I don’t know, about God’s leading the Israelites through the desert on their way to the Promised Land, and I’d feel that I was reading a history book about a group of people long ago and far away, unconnected to the life I was living out day to day.
I think that most Christians today way-underestimate the importance of the Holy Spirit. If we mention Him at all, even in a church setting, it’s often uncomfortable, sometimes even weird.
This is ridiculous. The Spirit is a person, a vital member of the Trinity, a person just as the Father and the Son are persons. He’s not this shadowy ghost who’s only incidentally, and on special occasions, involved in the life of the believer.
It wasn’t until the Spirit entered that the words of the Bible came alive.
Think of it this way: You can know all about a particular human being, their name, where they were born, where they grew up. You can read their writings, hear their speeches, be told stories about them. You can see photographs. But you’re still on the outside. And then one day you actually meet them, enter their life. Maybe you start by going to lunch or spending an hour with them around a campfire. Only at that point can you begin to say that you know them.
The Bible was like that for me. I knew a good deal about it. I had dutifully taken the time to read it, took classes in college, participated in Bible studies. I could relay lots of facts about it. But when the person of Holy Spirit came upon me, when I invited Him to my reading, I finally started to know the Bible in a shockingly personal way. This was no longer a book about them:I was in the story. Passages would now almostjump from the page, almost as if the words were illuminated in gold. True meaning arrived.
The next time you sit down with your Bible, start by inviting the Spirit to come, first to clear your mind of anything that prevents you from hearing what God is trying to tell you, and then to open your eyes and ears.
God is the source of all wisdom. He has a plan for you. But he’s not going to be slotted into that open space you have in your calendar the Thursday after next.
Remember, he comes first – before anything else. As the first psalm reminds us, you must seek him, put yourself daily in his path, and open yourself to “the law of the LORD,” scripture.
From that practice, you will be “like a tree firmly planted,” receiving confirmation, correction, and direction directly from THE stream of all goodness and wisdom. Not only will it set the tone for the rest of your day, but you’ll find with a little practice that it truly is a delight.
And above all, you’ll be honoring your Maker.
Contact me if you’d like a practical plan as to how to do this, how to engage in daily devotion and prayer. It takes fifteen minutes a day, tops.
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. (ESV)
In the quoted sections in these verses, Paul is directly responding to statements made by the Corinthian church apparently intended to justify their actions, their misuse of God’s grace. Yes, we are freed from the legal consequences of our sin. But what rightly follows? How are we to respond?
What does Paul mean by “helpful”? That which leads to flourishing, which is what God desires.
What does it mean to be “dominated” by something? Well, addiction is an obvious answer. But we are dominated by anything to which we give inordinate attention or effort. (See Augustine’s “misordered loves.”)
What does it mean that God will “destroy” the stomach and food? It’s a reminder, I think, that we are but dust. It is a call to humility, a reminder of God’s power.
We do well to remember that God is both love, which in Christ’s acts on the cross liberates us from the bondage of sin, as well as holiness, without which we would not have needed liberation.
What is moral, sexually? Well, let’s look at God’s intention.
Sex is an innocently wonderful, pure gift that God gives to husband and wife. It is meant to be enjoyed, to lead to deeper spousal connection — and of course to produce children. It is a gift begetting gifts.
Now, married people, you might be telling yourself, “I’m good – I’ve never touched anyone other than my spouse.” If so, consider this: Our Lord tells us elsewhere that the standards are so high that even lustfully gazing on someone who is not your spouse rises to the standard of adultery.
I think the point here is that while we are now free from the condemnation that rightly results from our choices, we are not then “freed” to simply go on doing what our “flesh” desires. The changed heart that results from the knowledge of being made right with God will, as a consequence, be repulsed by immoral behavior.
How we think and act is evidence of that changed heart.
The natural result of being set free from rightful condemnation isn’t a desire to go on doing what got you to the point of needing salvation. If you’re in the habit of stuffing yourself with food that’s not good for you, you don’t go right back to the trough after you’ve been freed from that bondage. Let me put it another way: Only a fool would think that after being pulled from the fire, cleaned up, burns healed, it’s a good idea to run right back into the fire. To do so would be to be stupid and thankless.
For many years, I worried whether I was “in.” Let me explain.
You see, God is both incomprehensibly loving and incomprehensively holy. Both, at the same time: infinite love and infinite holiness abiding together in one being. Human beings — and cultures for that matter — tend to emphasize one over the other. Culturally, it’s a pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth. Compare the stereotypical Puritan of the 1600’s with our current culture, which seems to call us to love the sin itself rather than the sinner.
Some Christians have a strong assurance of their salvation, God’s love. But they fail to grasp the desperate situation of the reality of sin in their lives. Others, like me, know the holiness of God, know fully well that they fail to “measure up.” As St. Paul says in Romans 7 (ESV), “I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” We tend to live in shame, not knowing for sure that God truly loves us, not really knowing that we’re “in.”
To be a Christian, you have to hold both in your head.
You need to focus deeply on the aspect of God that is opposite what you intuitively grasp about him. Find ways to put yourself in his way, to step off your bank into his water.
Here’s what it looks like for me:
What you and I must meditate on every day is the absolute perfection and completeness of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was perfect in his life, perfect in his death, and perfect in his resurrection. There is nothing we could ever think, desire, say, or do that could in any way add to the forgiveness and acceptance that we have received from God based on Christ’s work. You are perfect in the eyes of God because [of] the perfect righteousness of Jesus…. You are righteous before God even in those moments when what you are doing is not righteous. You measure up in his eyes even on those days when you don’t measure up, because Jesus measured up on your behalf. Yes, you should acknowledge the sad reality of remaining sin, but you must not make that sin your meditation. Meditate on and celebrate the amazing grace that has completely changed your identity, potential, and destiny.
New Morning Mercies, Paul David Tripp
Let me finish with a story.
Very recently — this very fall, in fact — I had been leading a discussion session on mortality in a coffee shop in Deep Ellum. Repeatedly, the subject of assurance of salvation came up. After our final session, I walked back to my car dejected. This is the very thing that had “dogged” me my entire life. I understood that I was weak spiritually, that there was absolutely zero way I’d ever be able to live up to what God rightly expects of me.
As I sat down in the seat of my car, reaching over to fasten my seatbelt, a little voice told me to look down to my left, into the side pocket of the car door. There was – it’s still there, if you want to see it – a single ticket, the kind you might get at a school carnival.
How do you pronounce it? Using the ecclesiastical pronunciation, it’s odd CHAI-lows (odd as in “odd,” chai as in the tea, and lows as opposed to “highs”). The second syllable is emphasized.
Where did the name come from? I studied Latin in high school and college, and when I was working on my master’s at HCU, we did a deep dive on the Middle Ages, focusing in particular on what is called the “medieval model” of the universe.
Ever the “systemizers,” medieval thinkers envisioned the created order with the earth at the center, and concentric, invisible spheres (“heavens”) as you moved outwards. Each of these spheres held a “planet” (which simply means “wanderer”), starting with the moon and moving outward and upward through Mercury, Venus, etc. Beyond the seventh planet, Saturn, was the firmament, into which all the stars were placed.
Seven spheres, seven planets: “The Seven Heavens.”*
What does it mean? In Latin, ad means “to” or “moving in a direction towards.” And caelos means “heavens” (accusative plural). Ad caelos —> “moving away from the earth, upwards toward the heavens,” which is what Jesus did in the Ascension (ascendit ad caelos).
More than you wanted to know. But there you have it.
*In his book The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis holds that while we now know the Medieval cosmology to be untrue, it still holds great value as a “a supreme medieval work of art.” It was a beautiful way for our forbears to understand God’s created order and is not to be confused with our modern conception of “astrology.”
God knows that when you eat of the Tree of Good and Evil your eyes will be opened, and you will be like him.
Genesis 3:5 (ESV)
Everything broke the day we believed this lie.
The insinuation (I use that world quite deliberately) is that we are fit to rule our lives independent of our Maker. We foolishly set ourselves up as heads of state of our little kingdoms of one.
Because God gave us free will, each of us gets to choose our life priorities. He will not impose Himself on us, a requirement of love. God doesn’t want us to be robots.
But because outrageous arrogance and stupidity are in our very DNA — not to mention the fact that we were made for community, for putting others first — we are not fit to be a king. The kicker: If we include the Lord at all in our lives, we try to go about assigning Him a support role.
Think about this! God made the universe and all that is in it. He holds everything together — not just this little ball of dirt and water, but all the planets, stars, galaxies, the “whole show” — with His little finger.
Is this the kind of being you expect to be your assistant to help you reach your life goals? Are you calling on the Holy of Holies to serve you in your little kingdom of one?
