I used to have a very skewed idea of God’s holiness and our lack of holiness. I was taught that just one sin would be enough to fall short of God’s glory and be condemned to Hell. This might be so, but will we ever know? No one has ever lived in all of history who is qualified to test this theory. But when I viewed in my mind's eye this poor, hypothetical sinner who snuck a cookie and was condemned to Hell, it seems to present a view of God as a deity with a cosmic case of OCD. So it seemed to me that in this world existed a spectrum of sinners, from the most wicked to the I-tried-my-best-but-it-just-wasn’t-good-enough that would all be doomed to fail to please an unappeasable God.
When it Comes to Poison, What You Can’t See Can Hurt You
Now true, God does have high standards (“be holy as I am holy”), but even were he to lower them by quite a bit, we wouldn’t make the cut. When he said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees”, he wasn’t saying, “They’re doing great, but you need to do even better.” He actually described the religious leaders as white-washed tombs full of dead men’s bones. 1 Gross…
Would Jesus give me a better assessment? Some of what comes out, in word and deed, doesn’t seem that bad. It’s sort of a mixed bag, right? But the bible doesn’t describe “mixed bags”. There are good trees that bear good fruit, and bad trees that bear bad fruit. There are fresh-water springs and salt-water springs. We have this contaminated water coming out, and the reason that it’s contaminated is the sewage beneath the surface that we can’t see that’s coming in contact with the water. So what everyone else sees is just the tip of the iceberg. God sees the heart, so he can see the rottenness at the root, the sewage at the source, the rest of the iceberg.
God’s Portrait of the Average Sinner
Some of the imagery God uses to describe us and our “lovers” (our idols) and all our works (including what we consider good works) without his cleansing work (by no means whatsoever an exhaustive list, and I provide references for at least one instance of each, but some of these are used multiple times throughout the Bible):
1.
- Prostitution (Entire Book of Hosea)
- Cannibalism (Isaiah 9:19-21)
- Bruises, sores and raw wounds from head to toe, with not one sound spot. (Isaiah 1:6)
- Menstrual cloths (euphemistically translated “unclean things” (Isaiah 30:22)
- Dung (euphemistically translated “rubbish”) (Philippians 3:8)
- White washed tombs full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness (Matthew 23:27-28)
- Desert wasteland (Isaiah 51:3)
- A Donkey in heat (Jeremiah 2:24)
- A horse that will not come without bit or bridle (Psalm 32:9)
- Fuel for the fire (Isaiah 9:19)
Are we to believe God is guilty of exaggeration? Or do we believe by faith that God is describing the reality to which our pride blinds us. Consider this. Jesus said anger is murder. 2 He did not mean that, though anger is a relatively small sin, it still falls short of his perfectionistic standards. He is saying that God, who sees the heart, sees actual murderous thoughts in our heart and is disgusted, just as we are disgusted by the acts of those who murder a person physically. And if we could see them as clearly as God, we should certainly agree.
Jesus Was Not Teaching Anything New in the Sermon on the Mount
Some teach that through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-8), Jesus innovated a new way to teach God’s law, insisting we see beyond the letter of the law and consider the spirit of the law. But when you search the Old Testament, you will see that God has always measured the heart:
“All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.” (Proverbs 16:2)
“But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as a man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
“I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:10)
Some teach this as if it were good news. They deceive their hearers. Do we really think God is going to be impressed with what he finds in any of our hearts? The villain who, deep down, is “just an old softy” may exist in the world of the Saturday morning ABC special or the Hallmark movie of the week, but if you believe that anyone has something better going on inside than what they present on the outside, then you reject God’s Word. Our heart is compared to a spring and our words and actions are what flow out of it. Also our words and actions are compared fruit that come from a correlating tree. Nowhere does scripture ever describe anyone as having a better heart than they outwardly appear. He only warns of those that seem to have it the other way around, bad heart, but keeping up outward appearances.
“From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” (James 3:10-12)
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:15-17)
As the second passage implies, we can cover up our uncleanness, fool others (and ourselves) about our sin. We can cover our “wolfishness” with innocent clothing. Isn’t it funny that we never get warned about sheep’s in wolf’s clothing? They’re prolific in television and film, but they are as mythic a creature as unicorns and fairies.
Jeremiah vs. The Prosperity Preachers
Jeremiah 29:11 is used all the time as a verse to prove that God’s plans for us are always to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us a hope and a future. But if this was a promise to be universally applied, then can someone tell me why the 28 preceding chapters are chock full of God’s threats of famine, destruction, and harm of every sort?
Jeremiah was not the only preacher in Israel, but he was the only one warning of the coming judgment. Jeremiah 8 describes that Jeremiah opposed the great number of teachers in Israel who “heal the wound of my people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace.” He said people had forgotten how to blush (8:12). They were acting like a prostitute in God’s eyes, but they preferred teachers who told them they would not be judged. “You’re God’s chosen. He only has good plans for you!” But God said about his “chosen” in Jeremiah 8:13 “When I would gather them, declares the Lord, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves are withered and what I gave them has passed away from them.” (This is a warning fulfilled in the siege on Jerusalem soon to come, and Jesus later echoes this prophecy by cursing the fruitless fig tree (the Temple in Jerusalem) predicting the destruction of the temple and sacking of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.)
Preachers Who Say You are Without Sin Deceive You, and the Truth is Not in Them
The Religious leaders brought Jeremiah up on charges of treason for speaking doom on his own countrymen and on his king. But he was only saying what the Lord had already said. According to Jeremiah 8:8, these people really believed they were doing okay and that they were pleasing to God. They said, “We are wise and the law of the Lord is with us,” which they had been taught by the “lying pen of the scribes”. Their teachers flattered their hearers and twisted God’s word, highlighting their status as God’s chosen, but never preaching against their sin, never teaching that God should be feared. Israel thought they were safe and it was those sinners out there that had to fear God’s judgment. In other words, they had great self-esteem, but were on the broad road to destruction.
Are the words of Jeremiah against the prophets who deceived and refused to give warning any different from Paul’s warning to Timothy?
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3)
How do you know God has made your blind eyes see? You’ll finally see your sin for what it is
Paul explains in Romans 2 that we see sin clearly in others but are blind to our own sin. We are prone to judge others for the very same sin we ourselves practice. If we were aware of our own sin, we would not be quickly judging others. The fact that we judge others proves that we are blind to our own sin. This same thing is also addressed by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount2. We clearly see our brother’s eye, but are blind to the log in our own eye.
David recognized this truth, as he penned under the inspiration of God’s Spirit:
“Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his yes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.” (Psalm 36:1,2)
When you read in His Word how God sees the sin in our heart, you must believe in faith the picture God has given of our sin, accept that we are unable to perceive the weight of it unless he grants it to us. For instance, scripture constantly compares idolatry (a sin that could never be committed against us since we do not deserve to be worshiped) to adultery (a sin that we humanly can grasp, as far as how offensive it is). There is extremely descriptive language throughout the writings of the Old Testament prophets. The imagery used to describe our faithless, wandering hearts would disgust any person of average sensibilities. We must believe by faith that friendship the World is enmity towards God and the same as committing adultery. (James 4:4)
Also consider this passage. God compares Israel’s infighting to cannibalism:
“Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is scorched, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no one spares another. They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied; each devours the flesh of his own arm, Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh; together they are against Judah. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.” (Isaiah 9:19-21)
Actually, this goes beyond cannibalism. God sees Israel as a person devouring his own flesh. Doesn’t this remind us the apostolic teaching that believers are all individual members of one body and should treat each other with the same consideration that we would our own flesh? And indeed, Paul warned “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” (Galatians 5:15) We have to simply have faith in his word that if we backbite and gossip, we are no better than cannibals.
Who shall rescue me from this body of death?
Our darkened sinful mind is not able to see our own heart as it is, nor see our sin for what it is. James says the word of God is a mirror. It’s the only truthful mirror available for seeing our own heart.
“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:23-25)
The law gives liberty? Really? Yes! As we read God’s law and “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21) It will slay the old nature, as we feel the weight of God’s judgment on that sin, and accept in faith the death of that sin on the cross. We consider how Christ has already borne that sin. As we abide in his Word, we see the truth and the truth sets us free (John 8:31-32), as we see the horror of the honest picture of our sin as it is brought into God’s light. And, God willing, we gradually grasp, in our limited ability, and that granted by God, the misery our sin brought upon our Savior as he suffered the cross.
As we humbly accept God’s view of our sin, we come into agreement with He who hates our sin. We cease our striving against the judge and seek redemption through our Savior. He is gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love.
“”Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah1:18)
By God’s message, by the Gospel, we are saved (justification), are being saved (sanctification), and will be saved from the final judgment (our final redemption). But God’s perfect law prepares us to receive his promise of Salvation. Can we receive God’s salvation, can we truly say we are believing in him to save us if we’ve never seen we’re lost?
Will your Doctrine stand up to the fires of Judgment Day?
God’s Word is replete with warnings to those who are self-deceived, who treat the Day of Judgment lightly, who hope his judgment will come speedily, but do not consider what this day might be like for them. Remember Jesus warns (Matthew 7:21-23) that many in that day will say “Lord, Lord,” and he will say “I never knew you.” Consider those in Israel who continued with the temple sacrifice and kept on sinning, who made light of their sin because they figured the sacrifices would cover them, God said, “What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done many vile deeds? Can even sacrificial flesh avert your doom?” (Jeremiah 11:15)
But you might say, “Well, that was the blood of bulls and goats. The blood of Christ is more powerful. It covers more than the temple sacrifices did.” Does it really? We only are covered by faith in the blood. I do not pour the physical blood of Christ over me. Our faith looks backward to the cross. Their faith looks forward to the cross. Their faith was not in the blood of the lambs, bulls and goats. Their faith was to be in God as their salvation, who provided this salvation through Christ.
When Israel ceased to fear God and just go through the motions of what they were told would cover their sin, God responded in this way:
“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more fain offerings; incense is an abomination to me… they (the sacrifices and feats appointed by God, of which they went through the motions devoid of faith) have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good.” (Isaiah 1:12-17a)
The Bible makes it clear, we are saved by faith alone, but saving faith is never alone. The fruit of repentance are good works. We cannot purpose or will these good works. But if we do not see the fruit, we need to cry out to God for a new and living root, for new life.
Many claim to follow Christ but have never had their eyes opened to the vile nature of our sin. Why is this important? If Christ paid the debt, how does it matter how big the debt was, as long as it was paid off? There are so many reasons, but there’s only one I’ll address right now. Jesus said of the woman who anointed him with expensive perfume that she loved much because she was forgiven much. He said that he who is forgiven little, loves little. (Luke 7:36-50) Now that is not to say that this woman sinned more than Simon, who Jesus rebuked.
Simon had already performed the equivalent of “accepting Jesus” of “asking him in” and then expecting to be blessed for it. But did he see he was a sinner? It was the woman’s sins that were more overt. She could not hide the fact that she sinned much. The peril is so much greater for those whose greatest sins are easily hidden. Those who do not see the gravity of what Jesus carried for them will not love Jesus as they ought. And they also will hate sin as God does, because it “crucifies again the Son of God” (Hebrews 6:5-6)
No comments:
Post a Comment