There is a great divide between the city of God and the city of man. The competing armies of the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, however, have this much in common- we’re all bad. The defining quality of the gap may in fact be found in how we look at evil. If we were to poll those outside the kingdom of God on the question of evil, most of them would begin thinking through their pet answers to this common question- why do bad things happen to good people? That is, for the world, the problem of “evil” is more about the problem of human suffering. “Evil” is defined in their minds by things like pandemics or what we sometimes call “acts of God.”
Were the same polling to come before God’s people, we would see that we are hearing a different question. What puzzles us isn’t pandemics and famines. We don’t wonder why bad things happen to good people because fundamental to our confession is this truth, that the only time a bad thing ever happened to a good person was when He volunteered for it. To us, the “problem of evil” isn’t destructive acts of God, but the primordial destructive act of man. The question is, how did good people do bad? How did Adam and Eve, created righteous and upright, come to rebel against their Maker? Where there is pain, we who have been redeemed look to our faults. Those outside the camp point their fingers at God.
This explains perhaps why we tend to do better at weathering the storms. When sorrows like sea billows roll we may feel pain, but our universe isn’t turned upside down. We haven’t suddenly found ourselves inexplicably suffering at the cruel hand of the fates. Instead we are at peace, for we know the promise of our God, that all things work together for God for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. We know that for us, in short, that not only are there no good people, but there are no bad things. And we know that for them, even the bad things redound to the glory of our God.
When Covid hit our shores, however, there was still room for debate, even within the kingdom. Some of us want to declare Covid the clear judgment of God. Other professing Christians take a different tack. Covid, some suggest, is the work of the devil, or his evil henchman, blind chance.
Whichever view we hold, however, we are still taking the world’s view. In both cases, we overlook that which the event calls us to look to- our own sins. God may be judging the world. He may also be judging us. Were we wise we would not like the mariners of Tarshish react to judgment by looking for someone to blame, but would, like Jonah, confess, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me” (Jonah 1:12).
The problem of evil, in short, is the problem of us. And the answer to the problem is the answer to every problem- Repent and believe the gospel. We who have done so, if we have learned anything, must have learned that we must continue to do so all the days of our lives. Martin Luther was right when he affirmed this as the first of his 95 theses: When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said “Repent”, He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. We repent all our lives because repentance is life.
But we do not stop there. We are to believe. We are to believe not only that if we confess our sins that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, but that He will indeed cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is His promise. And it has the power to overcome all the evil in the world.
The bottom line then is this. While every calamity that comes our way does indeed come from the hand of God (see Isaiah 45:7), the problem of evil is our problem. And Jesus is the solution. As we trust in Him to rescue us from the wrath to come, so we trust in Him that what we experience in the here and now isn’t wrath at all. He merely wishes our dross to remove and our gold to refine. There too we find the answer to our evil. Suffering and hardship exist for His glory. Just like sin. He will be glorified in the judgment of the wicked, and the cleansing of the other wicked, we who have been called according to His purpose.
I have suggested in the past that we ought, when tempted toward pride in our own spiritual maturity, take an honest look at how far we have to go, at the great gap between where we are and where we will be. When, on the other hand, we are assaulted by doubt, we ought to take an honest look at where we started, and where we have come. The truth is that apart from Jesus, the most pious men to have ever walked the planet were immeasurably distant from moral perfection until the moment they died. And the most scandalous sinner who came to Christ at the last possible moment traversed that infinite distance immediately upon his death.
All of this, and a fairly steady diet of science fiction, had led me to tweak this understanding a bit. We can make a difference. Suppose that in a distant galaxy, a kajillion light years away, there is Planet Perfection. Not only is it a perfect planet for human habitation, it is a planet fit only for perfect human habitation. Now suppose you receive two things in the mail, first, citizenship papers to Planet Perfection. In fact, you’ve been adopted by the King of the planet, who just happens, by the way, to rule the whole of the universe.
Also in the mail, however, is your ticket to get there. No, you won’t be doing warp speed on the Enterprise. Even that would take too long. No, you’re going teleportation express. There is a time appointed for you to appear at the teleportation station. Once there you’ll step into the chamber and instantaneously be both transported and transformed, arriving at the same moment perfect on Planet Perfection.
Of course you’re excited. You’re also grateful, and eager to please your new Father. But it will do you precious little good to board a plane, a train or an automobile setting out for the planet. You could, theoretically, get a bit closer, but not so you would notice. What, though, could you do? While in one sense every bit of travel you can muster won’t make much of a difference in how far you have to go, won’t you rejoice in every step toward not the planet but the portal? Wouldn’t you rejoice as you pack your bags? Wouldn’t the journey to the station increase your excitement and anticipation? All you have to do is get to the station, and then in an instant you’ll be a perfect prince on Planet Perfect. And every day you get a day closure to departure.
But there’s more. In the in-between, after you’ve received your paperwork and before you step into the portal, every bit of becoming more what you will be, more what your adoptive Father is, is like already being there on the planet. You are becoming what you will be, living in light of the promise of Planet Perfect.
I have so very far to go. But He already loves me as if I were all the way there. He has already made me His son. I’m packing my bags, and learning the manners of the court. And He is preparing me for that place.
How do I repent? How do I know when I have repented? If repentance is a gift from God, then what is my role? If I think I have repented but then commit the same sin again, does that mean that I did not in fact repent?
The devil’s name gets at his game. He is far less interested in tempting us into peculiarly heinous sins than he is in accusing us. He is the accuser, the slanderer. His great strength lies in his ability to discourage us, to cause us to doubt the very promises of God. One such promise, one that I wrote about in my book Believing God: 12 Biblical Promises Christians Struggle to Accept, is found in I John, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1:9). This verse is foundational to our hope. We know that we are sinners, and if we forget, Satan is always there to remind us. What we need to remember is that God is in the business of saving sinners.
How do we repent? We enter into the gravity of our sin. We mourn for our rebellion against the true and living God. We do not seek to minimize our sin, nor to rationalize it. We next, however, cry out for forgiveness in Christ. We ask that our Father in heaven might in His grace cover our sin with His blood. And then, we walk away from our mourning, and move into dancing. We celebrate the sure promises of God. We do not prove our former sorrow by wallowing in it, for such is unbelief. We do not parade our sadness as if our sadness could atone for our sins. We rejoice that Christ not only can cover our sin, but has done so.
Then, we endeavor by His grace to put our sin behind us. We seek, as much as is possible, to make right what we have made wrong. And we beseech the God of heaven and earth, that His Spirit might work in us such that we overcome this particular sin.
How do you know when you have repented? When you have done the above. And since, not if, but since repentance is a gift from God, what is your role? All of the above. That God gives you a heart that is able to repent, that He convicts you of your sin doesn’t mean that He repents for you. You repent. And when, not if but when, you commit the same sin again, such does not mean you haven’t repented. It instead means that you need to repent again. As you do so, however, remember that from the moment you embraced the work of Christ for the first time, all your sins, past, present and future, were forgiven once for all. The moment Christ died on Calvary, your sins, past, present and future were atoned for. Remember that in the midst of your repentance your Father in heaven isn’t angry at you, waiting for you to get your repentance right. He is instead loving you as a father, and teaching you how to live a more godly life.
Please remember that the most sincere God-honoring repentance is still tainted with insincerity. Were we wise we would repent often for the anemia of our repentance (as well as for the anemia of our celebration of His forgiveness). Here is where the Devil seeks a toe-hold. The right response is to spit in his face, and to stand under the shadow of the Cross.
My counsel for all those struggling with guilt and repentance is to look to the model. Psalm 51, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and written after David is confronted by Nathan over his sin with Bathsheba, shows us what repentance looks like, as well as reminds us of the joy of our salvation. Study it carefully, and study it often.
It wasn’t the first time a wife upstaged her husband, and the results were nearly as disastrous. In Eden Eve took the lead, conversed with the devil, bit the fruit, and then served it to her husband. By the time the Reformation came around the bride of Christ, the church, had taken it upon herself to become the mediator between God and man. An institution created to be a help suitable to the second Adam, like a second Eve, the Roman church, desiring to be like God, affirmed that she was the means by which a man might have peace with God. She held the purse strings to merit, to the means of grace, and to grace itself. Rome fell when she affirmed that she saved the lost.
Ever since the serpent has been slithering through a different tack. Rome made herself to be everything, and the serpent has since made the church to be nothing. Oh, we might be willing to confess that on occasion good things can come through the evangelical church. It’s a blessing to hear good preaching. Who doesn’t enjoy time with friends? And then there’s the church softball league. The church as the church, however, what’s that about? Who needs that? I mean, I can download preaching from around the world, I can play rec league instead of church league softball, and I can hang out with the guys from Promise Keepers, instead of the guys from church. What am I missing?
What we’re missing is our mother, the church. She doesn’t nurture us from afar. She doesn’t feed us through the internet. She can’t discipline us when we won’t even acknowledge her. Now my heart breaks for those who have made orphans of themselves. I fear for homes led by men who are so intent on leading their families that they refuse to be led by elders and so lead their own children into rebellion. But what is most frustrating, is when those who won’t acknowledge our common mother yet insist that they are my brother.
If I had a nickel for every story I’ve heard that begins with “Well, my son, uncle, father, friend, roommate, doesn’t belong to a church, but is a Christian” my nickel collection would be the envy of my neighbors. If I had a dime for every “brother” who believes he is owed all the relational goodies of being in the family but who insists that no one will rule over him, well, my nickels would each have someone to play with. This friend can’t understand why her “professing” daughter is shacking up with her girlfriend. That other friend wants to leave his church, without transferring to another church, and yet still wants to be free to come to the Lord’s Table. How can you commune if you have made yourself immune to excommunication?
Friends, I know churches can stink up the joint. Rome did, and it didn’t stop there. But just how repentant are we when we, by refusing to join a church, profess, “Well, I’m a sinner, but not a sinner that might need the grace of discipline. I’m a sinner, but not as bad as all the elders in my town. I’m a sinner, but I’m too good to join that church over there because of their sins.” This kind of repentance looks an awful lot like pride.
It’s true that the work of Christ becomes ours when we by the power of His Spirit trust in that work. It’s true that the thief on the cross never took any membership vows. It’s true if you trust in Him, and end up shipwrecked alone your soul will be safe. But it is also true that on the glorious truth that Jesus is the Son of God the Son of God has built and is building His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It is also true that the church is our Mother, and our calling is to honor her. Our post-modern, western, evangelical low to non-existent ecclesiology isn’t a mere mistake. It isn’t merely bad systematic theology. It is instead deeply and profoundly dangerous. Love your mother. She bore you.
Thesis 34- We must teach our children that the Bible is their family story.
A gracious friend recently gifted me with what may have become something of an anachronism. We in these United States are awash in Bibles. We have study Bibles for just about every station in life, and just about every theological conviction. We have more translations than we can use, and more paraphrases than you can shake a stick at. What we seem to have fewer and fewer of is what were once known as “family Bibles.” These Bibles, of course, contained the Word of God. But that also served a different purpose. The family Bible was where a family recorded the most significant events in that family. The family tree was kept there, and anyone, wanting the see a shorthand version of their own corporate history could find such there at their fingertips.
What may be lost in our plethora of Bibles is this fundamental truth, that every Bible is the family Bible, because the Bible tells the story of our family. If push comes to shove, and we are willing to look at it from something of a scientific perspective, we might be willing to accept this. Adam and Eve, after all, are the very root of our family tree. We all trace a common ancestry back to Noah. Genetically speaking, we have a connection. But there is far more to it.
Our children are constantly being seduced into other faux families. The culture sees our children in demographic terms, as members of particular markets. The culture wants my 14 year old son to see himself as a 14 year old boy, with all that means in terms of clothing, music, even language. But his identity is in Christ. He is an heir of the king, and a child of Abraham.
Which means that when we come to our Bibles we are not coming to study the history of a distant people, and how they related to God. We are not coming to a list of truths. Instead we are reading the story of our own people, and how God related to them. My paternal grandfather served in the African theater in World War II. My grandfather, however many greats back, led our people out of bondage, out of Egypt. My father has served for decades as a teacher of the Bible. My fathers, so many generations back, were prophets called by God to call my other ancestors to repent for their unbelief. Our children sing along with us that father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. And I am the child of the children who sat upon the knee of Jesus.
The Bible isn’t simply something we believe. It is instead our own story, and the story of our children. It, like a family Bible, defines what and who we are. It marks our boundaries and sets our paths. It sets our place in space and time. Jesus said to His disciples that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, in Samaria and the outermost parts of the world. God, by His grace, brought His grace to a cold and misty northern edge of an island in the North Sea, to Scotland. And there He brought my people in, and better still, made us His people. Our children need to understand that the promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing to the nations is fulfilled in them, and that because of that promise, we who were once not a people are now not only the children of Abraham, but by faith are the children of God.
