Calls to Repentance

The Old Testament prophets came to God's people at a time when they were well entrenched in generations of sin against God and one another. They were stubborn, heard-hearted, and at times indifferent to the covenant obligations that they should have been but weren't keeping. What did God call them to do? Point out their guilt toward God, prophesy judgment on their sin, call them to repentance, and promise the hope of God's restoration as a result of their repentance and of God's faithfulness to his promises to them.

Christ as prophet did the same with the coming of the New Covenant: He reminds us of our guilt toward God, of judgment on our sin, of the need for repentance, and of the promised hope of restoration by the faithful Father if we but turn to him in faith and repentance. There is now no need for prophets to bring this word to us, for Christ is the Word and the Prophet, the summation, consummation, and fulfillment of what God had previously revealed to his people.
We are continually called to repentance as the promised Holy Spirit does his work in us.

This concerns our covenant relationship with God. I suspect we have a similar relationship to one another: to exhort, to admonish and rebuke, to restore in communion with God and with one another. But as with the prophets and Christ, our authority to do this does not come from ourselves but from God and is to be rooted in his Word.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another... (Col. 3:16)

Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. (Rom. 15:14)

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness... (2 Tim. 3:16)

Although this is important as we are in fellowship with one another generally, covenanted as it were to one another as the Body through Christ our Head, I suspect that it has especial importance for the covenant of marriage. We have obligations to one another as members of one Body, and we, as husbands and wives, have obligations to one another as one flesh. Marriage, perhaps more than many other relationships, affords many and frequent opportunities for repentance and forgiveness, both of which should come often and without strings attached.

If we are truly to mirror Christ to one another, to be prophets to one another, it seems that our relationships, when they are marked and marred with sin, should also be marked with exhortation, rebuke, admonishment, correction, forgiveness, repentance, and humility, looking to Christ as the authority and putting away damning pride and self-centeredness. When we, like Israel, are well entrenched in our sin against God and one another, we need to be called to repentance, not only by an inner prodding of the Spirit but also by one another. Sometimes we just need to be slapped about the head--an interesting means, I suspect, of the Spirit's work. This is how we love one another. And when we do this in Christ, "in a spirit of gentleness" (Gal. 6:1), rooted richly in Him and the Word, it is, as with the prophets, Christ speaking through us and doing his work through us,

that he might sanctify and cleanse [the church] with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:26-27)

The Goodness of God

I was recently faced with a serious and sincere question about the goodness of God from a fellow brother in Christ, a question that I realized I did not have a ready answer to. This must mean, I think, that I haven't thought deeply enough about the issue. I want to try and do that now, but I so often feel like I don't have the intellectual resources to deal with such things. Odd coming from a philosophy PhD, and a humbling admission, but true nonetheless. The meat of the matter is reflected in the following queries:

If God is perfectly just, shouldn't we somehow all be given the chance that was given to Adam? Isn't it essentially unfair of God to apply Adam's sin to us from birth when we did nothing to deserve it?

There are a number of things going on in this passage. There is some doubt, even if hypothetical, about God's goodness by bringing out contradictory implications of his justice. That is, on one reading of what justice requires, it seems that God is not just after all. This leads to a second thing to note in the passage: an assumption about what justice is and what actions should follow from it. There is also the seemingly absurd idea that some aspect of the universal (the sinfulness of Adam's posterity) could be determined by the actions of the particular (Adam's rebellion).

The first place I want to run in response to these issues is away from individualism and toward federalism, away from personal autonomy and toward the covenantal representation and solidarity.* When we make assumptions about what justice is based on an implicit individualistic standard, of course it seems that God is unjust in applying Adam's sin to his posterity before the entrance of that posterity on the scene. Sometimes in scripture this individualistic standard is indeed applied to the judgment wrought by personal sin, as when the law says that "each one shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deut. 24:16). But that context, the father/son relationship, does not constitute the same kind of relationship that Adam had to all mankind.

In the latter case, God set it up that Adam was to be mankind's federal representative such that his actions would be applied to those whom he represented in the context of the covenant God made with him. God did not just covenantally bind himself to Adam qua individual but to Adam qua federal head of humanity; this means that had Adam persevered in faithfulness, humanity would have reaped the benefits downstream, but as it happened Adam was unfaithful, which had serious detrimental affects downstream. This way of contextualizing Adam's relationship to God and to humanity in terms of covenant also helps to make sense of the strange idea that Adam's fall as a particular event had an affect on the plight of humanity after him. Because of Adam's status as federal head of humanity, his past actions are present both around us and within us.

How does this covenantal reading of the fall and of original sin apply to the issue of justice, of punishment for an offense? It seems rather unjust to be blamed, punished, or judged for an offense that one did not commit, yet this seems to be exactly the situation we find ourselves in with the doctrine of original sin. But here, punishment, blame, and judgment are assumed to be strictly judicial, as referring only to an offense committed; what is left out of the equation, a factor that is present in Adam's circumstance, is that sin not only refers to an offense against a commandment, a transgression of a law, but it also refers to the violation of a relationship. The covenantal view includes both the legal and the relational, and the one is not reduced to the other.

Insofar as we are "in" Adam relationally as our representative before, his offense affects us relationally with respect to God. The horizontal relationship between Adam and us and the vertical relationship between Adam and God and between us and God are simultaneously affected, because they are all interrelated through covenant. Adam's actions affect us horizontally in the same way that a king's actions affect his vassals; in both cases, the latter is represented by and under the federal jurisdiction of the former. What is the affect of Adam's actions on the vertical scale? Just as Adam's covenantal relationship to God was jeopardized by his rebellion, so our relationship to God is jeopardized and in need of repair. This is why Christ is called the Second Adam: just as Adam brought death to all regardless of any particular offenses committed, so also Christ brings life to all apart from any particular acts of merit on their part.

So, was God just to apply Adam's sin to us? Yes, but not in the way in which we are used to thinking about justice applied. We quickly lose sight of the covenantal, corporate, and relational aspects of sin and punishment, and when we lose sight of these we are also likely to lose sight of God's goodness.

* Michael Horton has a very nice discussion of how a covenantal reading of the fall helps to make sense out of original sin in his Lord and Servant (133-146).

Blessed be the LORD,
Because He has heard the voice of my supplication.
The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart exults,
And with my song I shall thank Him.
The LORD is their strength,
And He is a saving defense to His anointed.
Save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance.
Be their shepherd also, and carry them forever. (Psalm 28:6-9)

This is a wonderfully encouraging psalm. The LORD hears us. He is our strength and our shield, our battlement, our saving defense. We are his people; he is our shepherd, our caregiver.

But this morning, in the midst of these encouraging truths, I was struck down by other truths. That I so seldom come to him with my supplications. How, then, can he hear me when I fail to raise my voice to him? That my heart does not always trust in him. How, then, can my heart rejoice? That I do not run to his saving defense when attacked by worldly standards of success and failure. How, then, can I be helped?

LORD, give us eyes to see and ears to hear, that we may be encouraged.

Yesterday after church we found out that one of our elders and his son were killed in a car accident Sunday morning. Our confession of faith during worship was from the Heidelberg Catechism (Lord's Day 10) on providence:

27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?

A. God's providence is His almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by His fatherly hand.

28. Q. What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence?

A. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love; for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move.

It is much easier for me to accept that "all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move" when the good things come to us. It is much more difficult when the bad things come. I too quickly go to the "rain," "fruitful years," "food," "health," and "riches" parts; it is much easier to think of God as bringing those, forgetting that he brings their counterpoints as well, to both the godly and the ungodly. Part of the difficulty is not knowing or being able to comprehend the "Why?" behind the gifts--and they are all gifts, points and counterpoints alike. We want to discern why some gifts are given to some people, and others to other people, good gifts to the ungodly and bad gifts to the godly. Solomon saw this and called it Vanity. Indeed.

Perhaps the comfort is cold, especially when the pain is so near, but the hope in which we rest is that because God upholds all things and nothing is left to chance,

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

We rejoice and grieve at the same time. This is not schizophrenia, it is the proper response to adversity from the hand of God. But we do not grieve as the unbeliever because of our hope in Christ. We rest in the fact that there is an answer to the "Why?" question, though it lies not in us; it lies in the ultimately (but, thankfully, not completely) incomprehensible will of God.

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:14)

I am reminded of Job and of Horatio Spafford's hymn, "It Is Well with My Soul" and the story of its origin. Having lost their children and their wealth, they did not lose their faith and trust in God. Truly amazing. Knowing the story and having only a very small idea of what it must be like to undergo such loss, I get choked up whenever I sing this hymn.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Sojourners And Strangers

The year of jubilee caught my eye during this last jaunt through Leviticus 25.

"And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan." (v. 10)

I never really thought about the implications of the year of jubilee for the Israelite or Israelite economics until now--and, really, I am probably missing a lot that's there. (Scott, if you're still reading this, I'd love to hear what you think.) But think about what this must have been like, for the buyer as well as for the seller. If an Israelite was so down on his luck that he had to sell some of his property, and neither his nearest kin could redeem it nor could he become prosperous enough to redeem it later, in the year of jubilee it would simply be given back to him at no cost (vv. 25-28). Period. Property did not remain in the perpetual possession of the buyer, no matter what work the buyer put into it or fruit he got out of it. What reason is given for this?

"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me." (v. 23)

The same goes for the Israelite who becomes so poor that he sells himself as a slave and hired servant:

"He shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers." (vv. 40-41)

This is even the case where a "stranger or sojourner," that is, a non-Israelite, is the one who buys the Israelite as a slave or servant:

"And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee." (v. 54)

The reason given for this command?

"For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.... For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." (vv. 42, 55)

The land is the LORD's; it is not theirs to hold on to throughout their generations. The Israelites are the LORD's servants, not ultimately servants of one another. To the buyer, I wonder how much of a drag this must have been, to have to release without recompense what you paid good money for. But for the seller (of his land or of himself), the transitory nature of the land and the people--it is not their land and they are but strangers and sojourners in it--is a cause of jubilation every fiftieth year!

Here in the very structure of Israelite society, God offers a beautiful picture of redemption: no matter what happened over the previous fifty years, in the year of jubilee all accounts are wiped clean. Burrowed deep in the economic transactions of the Israelites is the reminder that neither they nor their stuff is really theirs--these things are the LORD's. I wonder what affect our own societal and economic views on property have on how we view ourselves and our stuff, how difficult it is for us to see these things as transitory, as ultimately the LORD's and not ours. Are we not just like the Israelites in the relevant respects: sojourners on this earth as they were (1 Pt. 2:11; Heb. 13:14), redeemed from bondage as they were? We should also have the same attitude that God's commands to the Israelites reveal (and, likely, were meant to instill): of being quick to forgive, of keeping no record of wrongs, of realizing that our lives and our stuff flow from God's steadfast faithfulness to us and not from our own doing.

Let's Fight

Finally got around to seeing 300. Visually stunning, as I expected, but not just in the battle scenes. There was a nice flowing feel to movement on and off of the battle field, a graphic novel come to life with slow and real-time motion, stops and starts, that added to rather than detracted from the visual experience. I suspect this was largely the point as the movie was based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name. The battle scenes reminded me of the descriptively stunning battle scenes in the Illiad where larger-than-life men are leaping through the air, lopping off heads and popping out eyes. Good stuff.

A few weeks ago Don preached on God as the Divine Warrior (Hab. 3). It really is a glorious passage of God’s authority and power over creation and the heathen nations. God in His splendor goes forth, and the earth and peoples react accordingly:

His splendor covers the heavens and the earth is full of His praise…. Before Him goes pestilence, and plague comes after Him. He stood and surveyed the earth; He looked and startled the nations. Yes the perpetual mountains were shattered, the ancient hills collapsed…. Thy bow was made bare, the rods of chastisement were sworn. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The mountains saw Thee and quaked…. Sun and moon stood in their places; they went away at the light of Thine arrows, at the radiance of Thy gleaming spear. In indignation Thou didst march through the earth; in anger Thou didst trample the nations. (Hab. 3: 3-12)

In stories like 300 and the Illiad, too, are warriors going forth in the knowledge of their strength, fighting for glory, honor, and loved ones, refusing to either retreat from or submit to their enemies. It is a picture, both in Scripture and in ancient Greek literature, that I think is appealing to most men. We want to be warriors. We want to fight for glory and honor. We want to fight for those we love and hold dearest to our hearts. We want our enemies vanquished.

Ultimately, though, as Paul says:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete. You are looking at things outwardly. (2 Cor. 3:3-7)

In the end, the battle is the LORD’s, not ours. Yet we must fight. King Leonidas in 300 refused to retreat from the powerful and more numerous Persian army. He refused to heed Xerxes’ call of wealth, pleasure, glory, and power because it came at too great a price: submission. True, Leonidas’ pride was a human one and, thus, ultimately as groundless as the things Xerxes promised him. But he recognized that those things were worthless if gained at the cost of bowing his knee, at the cost of recognizing that his enemy was greater than he. That, too, is defeat. A greater defeat than dying on the battlefield, a defeat that would taunt and burden him every second of whatever life he chose to live.

I submit that we should have the attitude of Leonidas. There is, I think, a place for battle, even with the weapons of this world. But we must remember that we do not fight in our own strength but in the strength of the LORD. We do not fight for our own glory, but for the glory of the LORD. We do not fight for our own sense of justice, but for the LORD’s justice.

Thou didst go forth for the salvation of They people, for the salvation of Thine anointed. Thou didst strike the head of the house of evil to lay him open from thigh to neck. Thou didst pierce with his own spears the head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us; their exultation was like those who devour the oppressed in secret. Thou didst tread on the see with Thy horses, on the surge of many waters. (Hab. 3:13-15)

With the LORD at our side, we must not retreat. We must not submit to His enemies.

Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places. (Hab. 3:18-19

Oh, and there's one more thing that 300 reminded me of: I don't have six-pack abs.

Freedom of the Tortured Soul

When I read those psalms of David where he appeals to the LORD for deliverance from his pursuers, I often overlook their application to my own life. I mean, when am I ever pursued by enemies hounding me as David was? While not intending to engage in purely "spiritual" exegesis here, the fact is that sin is an enemy that loves to pursue and hound me at every turn, and it is all too easy, in a real and yet ultimately perverted sense, to want to be caught by it but to resent and despise the capture. In these times, the soul is enslaved by sin as master and is tortured by the tension it brings.

In these times it is hard for me to grasp (existentially, rather than intellectually) Paul's teaching in Romans 6 and 7 about what is true of us in union with Christ (the "indicative") and what he urges us to do in response (the "imperative"). In Christ we have been united with him in the likeness of his death,

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (6:5-7)

Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to god in Christ Jesus.... For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. (6:11, 14)

and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (6:18)

Yet, in the midst of these truths, Paul urges us to not be under the mastery of sin.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your moral body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.... (6:12, 13)

There must be, then, some sense in which we are already free from the bondage of sin but not yet completely free of its power, or else why include the imperatives to be slaves of righteousness rather than slaves of unrighteousness (6:18)? Indeed, Paul himself gives a clear picture of the redeemed soul tortured by sin:

For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. (7:15)

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. (7:18-19)

I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? (7:21-24)

There is, of course, an answer: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (7:25) It is a good answer. It is the only answer. But it is often difficult to experience this freedom, this victory, in one's life when pursued daily --and daily captured -- by sin. In addition to being reminded of Paul's answer, how can it be applied to our lives? It is all too easy to feel alone to work out how the law of the mind wrestles with the law of the flesh.

My pastor is in the midst of a long series on the Holy Spirit, and it has been nice to be reminded that the Person of the Spirit applies the work of Christ in our lives. Reading on in Romans,

However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. (8:9)

for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (8:13, 14)

And in the same way the Spirit also helps in our weakness.... (8:26)

Although it is easy for me to act as if I am left to fight off the enemy on my own, that simply is not true. It is not part of the indicative, because the Spirit is there to lead me in the imperatives. Just as David entreated the LORD to be his deliverer, so we must entreat the Spirit to be ours on a daily basis. We must not only look to the work of Christ; we must also look to the work of the Spirit in applying the work of Christ to our lives.

From The Depths To The Throne

A couple of things that have struck me lately, during a time when I apparently think I'm too busy to maintain the most important relationship I have and to make adequate use of the means of grace.

Though my sins rise to heaven thy merits soar above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell, thy righteousness

exalts me to thy throne.

All things in me call for my rejection,
All things in thee plead my acceptance.

(From The Valley of Vision)

Thou dost not play in convincing me of sin,
Satan did not play in tempting me to it,
I do not play when I sink in deep mire, for sin

is no game, no toy, no bauble;

Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much

in the nature of the sin committed, as in the greatness of

the Person sinned against.

(From The Valley of Vision)

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in

affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the

words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High.

So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;

they fell down, with none to help.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,

and burst their bonds apart.

Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,

for his wondrous works to the children of men!

Some were fools through their sinful ways,

and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;

they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the

gates of death.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

He sent out his word and healed them,

and he delivered them from their destruction.

Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,

for his wondrous works to the children of men!

(Psalm 107:10-15, 16-21)

Lord's Day 15

Part of the Confession of Sin from last Lord's day worship:

We seek your salvation, then act like we save ourselves. We beg your forgiveness, then repeat our errors. We experience your grace, then act defeated. We rely on your power, but only in hard times.

One thing that struck me about this part of the Confession is how we are such unfaithful reasoners. It has been suggested even by secular philosophers that belief has an ethical component, that there is a moral responsibility that goes along with believing certain things. Now, those philosophers don't put it quite like this, but the general idea is still there: our beliefs about God and the relationship we as Christians have with Him have certain implications about what we ought to do. Yet, in proclaiming those beliefs through both word and deed, we so often draw the wrong conclusions in our words and deeds -- conclusions that are more consistent with unbelief than with belief.

Seeking salvation in God implies that we cannot accomplish this ourselves; yet, we behave as if we save ourselves, as if we have no need for God on a regular basis. Begging forgiveness implies a mortification of our sin, that in seeking to have our past sins wiped away we also seek to be free from sin's slavery; yet, we continue to repeat our errors, often without concern or remorse, as if we were not already out from under sin's tyranny. Experiencing God's grace implies that we are more than conquerors in Him; yet, we behave as if we are helpless in defeat. Relying on God's power implies recognition of His constant love for us and our absolute reliance upon Him at all times of our lives; yet, we come to Him on our knees only when we are already knocked down.

Wisdom and Folly

Although most (I should think) focus on the many chapters of aphorisms in Proverbs, one of the most remarkable sections to me is the first nine chapters. It is set up as the passing along of godly wisdom from a father to his son/children--I don't know if this was meant to be a literary device, but one literary device that struck me as interesting is the parallelism in Chapter 9, how the personification of wisdom as a woman and the woman of folly are compared and contrasted. Wisdom prepares her enticing feast (9:2)--as does the woman of folly (implied in 9:17). Wisdom cries out from the highest place of the city, the most visible place, to the simple, the naive, to those who lack understanding (9:3-4)--as does the woman of folly (9:14-16). Both want to entice. Both want to draw in those who lack wisdom and understanding. Both want to change them, yet in different ways: Wisdom seeks to fill the lack of understanding (9:6), the woman of folly wants to make straight paths crooked (9:15). As a young man journeying through town, hearing these women speak the same words, which shall you choose? Into whose house will you go? How often we choose stolen water (9:17) over sweet, heady wine (9:5)! How often we choose to sup on the bread of our sin in secret (9:17) rather than take in the richer fare of righteousness! We do not see--we do not want to see!--that the dead are the guests in the house of the woman of folly, that her doors are the gates to hell (9:18). Sin is deceitful like the woman of folly, it entices us with luscious offers but can offer only death in the end. That's why we need instruction from those wiser than we. That's why we need nine chapters of this refrain: forsake folly and seek after the wisdom from God.

I need to re-read John Owen's Mortification of Sin.

For the past couple of years I've been doing a weekly bible study at local halfway house kind of place for drug and alcohol addicts. The guys that (voluntarily) come in go through a pretty strict 90-day program, during which they are required to come to the bible study. When I was asked to do it, I wasn't sure how it would work out. I mean, how would I relate to these guys? I've never even been close to being addicted to drugs or alcohol. I'm a philosophy PhD and most of these guys have never been to college. And so on.

But the more I spent time with them, the more I realized a number of things. For the most part, they don't know their bibles. They want someone to go through the scriptures with them and give it to them straight. There is very little theological baggage to work through with these guys. So, I'm able to tell it to them straight, even if it's not what they (or I) want to hear. It is so refreshing to just be able to do that in a bible study! I love it. And they don't seem to mind. I think it is refreshing to them, too. (Some of them have even taken to calling me "Preacher" or some such nonsense. I tell them that if they have to call me something, which they seem overly fond of doing, to call me "Rabbi," since I'm only a teacher. HA!)

But another thing I realized early on was how much I have in common with them. Lest we begin to think too highly of ourselves (1 Cor. 10:12), we should understand that sin is very much like addiction. In an excellent book I've been reading on addiction, the author makes the similar claim that not only is sin like addiction, but the root of addiction is sin. It is a worship problem in which we put our own desires and pleasures above God. Addiction is sin that has gone too far, sin that enslaves us, sin that we've made friends with. (I am also reminded of the similar descriptions that John Owen gives of sin in his Mortification of Sin.) I've been going over Romans 6 and 7 in the bible study for a few weeks now. There Paul gives an excellent description of the addict:

For the good I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish (7:19)

But this is also a description of the Christian! There is a war going on inside of us. What will save us from this deep-seated tension? Alcoholics Anonymous? Narcotics Anonymous? That's not what Paul says.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (7:24, 25)

Only Christ can free us from such bondage. Having been freed from sin through Christ, we become slaves to God (6:18, 22). We have a different master now: no longer sin, leading to death, but God, leading to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:23). This is what they need to hear. This is what we need to hear.

All The Nations Shall Be Blessed

Been reading Isaiah. Like all the other prophets, both major and minor, it is a series of promises of judgment (a bad thing) and promises of restoration (a good thing). Many of the judgments are against the non-Israelite nations, and many, if not most, of them concern their pride and arrogance in their own strength. They think that because they beat up on Israel, it was their own strength, might, power, and military prowess that accomplished it. But their field of vision is too narrow and their arrogance too wide. They do not recognize that the God of Israel is behind it all.

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger;
the staff in their hands is my fury!
Against a godless nation I send him,
and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
But he does not so intend,
and his heart does not so think;
but it is in his heart to destroy,
and to cut off nations not a few.... (Is. 10:5-7)

One of the "godless nations," of course, was Israel herself--"godless" because she consistently refused to keep covenant with her covenant-keeping God. Assyria came and beat up on Israel and then Babylon took her people into exile during the time Isaiah prophesied.

Yet, God is faithful even while His people are not! Isaiah is full of promises of the restoration of Israel. Incredibly, Christ Himself is promised through Isaiah. But something else in Isaiah's prophecies caught my eye, something that seemed out of place but really shouldn't have seemed so.

In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD of hosts....

And the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them. And the LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.

In that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the world of my hands, and Israel my inheritance. (19:18, 21-25)

Isaiah here isn't just talking about a remnant in Egypt and a remnant in Assyria that will worship the LORD (although he talks about that elsewhere). He is talking about Egypt and Assyria as nations worshipping the LORD. But they're not supposed to get God's grace and mercy--that's reserved for His covenant nation Israel! He forged no such intimate bonds with these other nations. It simply seems incredible that, in the midst of all the horrible things that Egypt has done and Assyria is doing to Israel, they will "in that day" worship the God of the nation they have oppressed and boasted over. How can God call Egypt His people?? How can Assyria be the work of His hands in any way except as a rod with which to chastise His precious Israel??

And yet this has been God's plan all along.

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen. 12:1-3)

Israel was supposed to be a blessing to the nations! She failed. Yet God keeps His promise to Abraham and mercifully sends Christ, who did not fail to be the light to the nations (Is. 9:2; Matt. 4:12-17). Christ is a blessing to the nations by breaking down the "wall of separation" between Jew and Gentile, between Israel and non-Israel (Eph. 2:11-22) and covenanting Himself with all who come to Him, regardless of nationality. Truly, the gospel was preached to Abraham! (Gal. 3:8)

This, I think, is the sort of thing that should be in the back of our minds as we wade through judgment after judgment and restoration after restoration in Isaiah. It is all too easy to lose sight of the significance of Isaiah's prophecies. Seeing its place along the trajectory of redemptive history (is there any other kind??) helps keep it in focus.