The purported value of ethical relativism, the idea that there are no transcendent, binding rules for right and wrong that all humans are morally required to submit to, is that it allows us to live in peace. That is, if you have your ethics, and I have my ethics, well then there is no real need for us to fight over whose ethic wins. (So long, as, of course, our lives never actually cross.) The real value is far more sinister. We find ethical relativism appealing because we find our own guilt unappealing. Though we seek to suppress such knowledge, we all know that God is, that He is holy, that we are not, and that we are in trouble. Not the kind of pleasant thoughts one wants to go to sleep thinking on, so we suppress that truth. Do away with ethics and we do away with His holiness, our guilt, and therefore our trouble.
Trouble is, we don’t live in our own solipsistic bubbles. Our worlds do collide. Consider the case of Jason Collins, the NBA player who a few years back announced in Sports Illustrated, that he engages in sexual acts with men. On the one hand we are not supposed to judge him. After all, there is no transcendent standard that says men should only take their pants off with their wives. On the other hand, we are supposed to not judge him. Wait. How did that get in there? Sodomy is fine because there is no moral standard we all must meet. But we must all approve sodomy because there is a moral standard we all must meet. Says who? If there is no transcendent moral standard by which we must condemn sexual perversion, where did this transcendent moral standard come from, that insists we must not condemn sexual perversion? Somebody is imposing their own ethic here, and it’s not the Christians.
Jason Collins was the first male professional athlete to admit he mistreats men. For that he received magazine covers, applause from the entire Good Morning American television crew, congratulatory phone calls from the first lady, and a thumbs up from her husband. Where, I am left wondering, was all this for the first male professional athlete to admit he mistreats dogs? Where was the Michael Vick coming out party? I want to live in a world where dog fighters need no longer live in fear and shame. How many young dog fighters could have been set free from unspoken bigotry if the world had simply affirmed Michael when he bravely acknowledged his habits? It’s a cold world when a dog fighter can’t be affirmed in what he is.
That’s different? Why? Because dogs can’t give their consent, while Mr. Collins’ victim and victimizers can and do? So who made consent the magic word? (And is it really that magic? What about adult incest? Will we celebrate our diversity, and hand Jackie Robinson’s mantle to the first professional athlete to come out of the adult incest closet? ) Why does consent make all personal moral decisions now become transcendently sound moral decisions? Did God say consent is the key? Or was that just some men? And if other men disagree? Why is consent privileged, thereby making child molesters suddenly become evil? By what standard?
Ethical relativism is not merely absurd. It is instead that tool by which God’s judgments are not just banished, but judged as beyond the pale. The end game isn’t “Nobody gets to affirm right and wrong” but “You Christians may not affirm right and wrong.” Which is why sexual perverts do not merely ask for tolerance but demand affirmation. Their own worldview won’t allow it, but when has that ever stopped them?
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This bonus special edition of the Jesus Changes Everything Podcast features a conversation between RC and Lisa as they celebrate their third wedding anniversary. Give a listen and join us in giving thanks.
Though there is nothing I am sufficiently thankful for, the list of things I am thankful for is endless. The pious answer, Jesus, is true. But not much of a surprise. All of us in Christ have the same infinite dependence on His grace and thus ought to have the same gratitude.
Today, however, is a special day, a day in which I give even greater attention to thankfulness than I do every day. Every day I thank God for Lisa, my precious wife, my most trusted counselor, my joy. Today, on the occasion of our third wedding anniversary, my gratitude overflows into the boundless ocean of cyberspace. Many of you have been blessed by Lisa’s wisdom, her pouring out the Word of God that she keeps in her heart, through her Facebook posts, through her pieces at thepurposedrivenwife.com. Some of you have listened in when she has been a guest on the Jesus Changes Everything podcast. Some of you are blessed to actually know her and to be loved by her.
What is true of none of you but is true of me is that I know her as my wife, my fitting help, as bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, my soul mate. I know how she blesses me with her soothing voice, speaking to me words of affirmation. I know how she blesses me when her deep hazel eyes look at me with love. I know how she inspires me to do things I never thought possible. I know how she blesses me when her wit makes me literally laugh out loud. I know how she sees into me and sees in me what no one else sees. I know how she stands by me, with me, behind me, even when I come up short, fall down, fail. I know when I am sick or in pain how she nurses me back to health. I know in moments of victory how she cheers me on. I know how she feeds me on both home baked bread and every word that comes from the mouth of God.
She speaks wisdom. She serves sacrificially. She risks. She storms the throne of God on behalf of so many. She is, in short, a font of life and blessing. When I was in the deepest pit she beseeched the living God for hours on end, for days on end- “Let him live Lord. Let him breathe.” And God heard her. What a deep and profound blessing it is for me to live with her and to witness our Father’s delight in her. His love for her, His joy in her, feeds my own love and joy and deepens still more my gratitude.
Three years ago on this day we rejoiced that God had led our steps to marriage. Today we rejoice that He continues to guide our steps in our marriage. Tomorrow we will get up and do it again. We will praise Him, together. We will thank Him, together. We will beseech Him, together. We will hear Him, together. We will follow Him, together. He will bless us, together.
Maslow was wrong. Well, he was right before he was wrong. It is true enough that we all have a hierarchy of needs. Some things are more important than others. Trouble is, he didn’t know what the most important things were. Foundational in his system are those things necessary for survival, things like food and water. King David had a different, a better perspective. He said that the Lord was His Shepherd, and he shall not want (Psalm 23:1). David, at this point, has no green grass, and no still water. To be sure God does provide these things, but before He does, David already has everything he needs, the Lord for His Shepherd. Survival is still up in the air, but David has already finished with his worrying. He has what he needs.
One of the most foundational principles in the modern marketing of the church is the notion that we need to tap into not Maslow’s needs, but “felt needs.” This language leaves open the question of what is truly needful, and calls us instead to make our pitch for what our target audience believes their needs to be. Is our target market afflicted with fear? Offer them peace. Is our market suffering from ennui? Offer them excitement, adrenaline.
We serve a big God. He does indeed give us not just peace, but the peace that passes understanding. We serve also a thrilling God. He is no tame lion. So why wouldn’t we meet the lost at their point of need with all the riches our God has to offer in Christ Jesus? Because our greatest need is to stop worshipping ourselves. When we market Jesus, telling people that He will provide for them this or that, when we list the bullet point benefits awaiting those who will walk the aisle we do not meet people where they are, but leave them where they are. Their problem, which is my problem, is self-worship. If the glory of God is that He allows me to better serve myself, I am still worshipping myself. When He becomes a means, I remain the end. Jesus didn’t tell us to count His benefits. He told us to consider the cost, and to take up the cross.
I don’t need to survive. I need to die. I need to do the will of my Father in heaven. That must be my meat and my drink. I need His life, His death, His Spirit, His Word, His fruit, His resurrection, His promise, His obedience. I need Him. And I need to come to understand that every other desire, no matter how pious, is the pathway to death.
The glory of God isn’t that He so potently serves me. The glory of God is that in His grace He teaches me to serve Him, working in me to do and to will His good pleasure. Every good gift, every drop of still water, every blade of green grass, is designed to show us Him. They are just the shimmering reflection of the one true gift, the one needful thing, the Pearl of Great Price.
God’s law serves at least three purposes, which Calvin wisely expressed. He affirmed that the law first serves as a mirror for us. It reveals the perfect character of God, and in so doing, it exposes our sin. This might be called the schoolmaster function. The law instructs us in our need for God’s grace. It reveals His perfection, and our failure to measure up. It reveals our need for Christ.
The second use is often called the civil use of the law. Here Calvin argued that those outside the kingdom are restrained by the revelation of the law. It doesn’t change the heart of the unregenerate, but it can create a sense of fear. As the civil law reflects God’s revealed law, and with it, civil sanctions, it restrains the wicked.
The third use of the law is likely the most controversial. Calvin argued that the law reveals to us that which is pleasing to God. That is, it tells us what to do. As we obey it we please Him. Some fear that in embracing this third use we muddy up the first use. If we argue with respect to the law, “This you must do” are we not at least obscuring the truth that “This you cannot do”?
My fear, however, operates in the other direction. If we obscure the third use of the law we obscure the first use of the law. That is, if we are not called and required to follow the commands of God, our failure to do so doesn’t mean we are at enmity with God. The schoolmaster cannot tell us of our need for atonement if we have not failed to do what we are called to do. Secondly, however, without the third use of the law we end up worse off than the heathen. We don’t know what to do. We are left without direction. If we are not called to do what the law of God says, how will we decide what to do?
Some will say, “Let love decide.” Great answer. Trouble is, the Great Commandment, which calls us to love God and our neighbor, is that which binds up all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:40). Which means that “love” is not a new, indistinct, culturally conditioned law, but is instead the law of God. We are not left with what we think love means, by abandoning the law, but are left with what love actually means by keeping the law.
The third use of the law, however, has this other benefit. We could see it as the other side of the second use coin, or as an extension of the third use. The law tells us how to have a good life. It tells us how to be blessed. It tells us how to do what we were made to do. To put it more poetically, the law is the gateway to joy. This is less because, especially for believers, God sends thunderbolts down on us when we disobey Him, or rose petals on us when we obey. It is more because the law is good in itself. Obedience is blessing long before obedience brings blessing. We were made for this.
David certainly needed the law to convict him, to point him to his need for Christ. But he sang, “Oh how I love your law” (Psalm 119:97) for the joy that it brings. God’s law is not a list of pleasures we are not allowed to have, a list of delights we are not allowed to touch. It is instead pleasure and delight. Having been, while yet unbelievers, restrained, having been at our conversion convicted, having been in our walk instructed, may we be in our hearts, as we will be in eternity, ever joyful.
