It was likely driven by my own personal spirit of Eyeore. Either that, or I just like being unconventional. Our class was asked what event in the Bible we thought was the most significant of all. Eighty percent picked the crucifixion of Jesus. A smidge less than twenty percent picked the creation. I, alone, picked the fall. My reasoning went like this. Creation, as glorious and astonishing as it is, as needful for the rest of the story, isn’t the story itself. It is the stage on which the story is told. Then, taking the opposite tack I thought that as important as the crucifixion is, it wouldn’t have happened, wouldn’t have been necessary, were it not for the prior fall of mankind. The fall of mankind is the very hinge of history, the reason for history. The world begins with man and God in joyful relationship. The world ends with man and God in joyful relationship. The whole of the in-between revolves around the sin of Adam and Eve.
The fall changed almost everything. The creation, which had enjoyed perfect harmony, now began to groan. Death descended on the animals like a curse. The ground suddenly became stingy, though prodigious in producing thorns and thistles. Man, who had been at peace with the animals, was now at war. Man, who had been at peace with each other, was now at war. Man, who had been at peace with God, was not at war. Virtually every positive became a negative. Death, sickness, danger, pain, decay filled history’s stage, opening a Pandora’s box of Pandora’s boxes.
The only thing left untouched, unchanged, was the untouchable, unchangeable God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit enjoyed an infinite blessedness before creation, before the fall, and indeed after the fall. They had no need to do anything about the fall, about the calamity of Eden. They would have been utterly just to condemn Adam, Eve and all their descendents to an eternity of their wrath. They would have rejoiced to exercise their wrath in just that way.
But they didn’t. Instead they covenanted together. Instead they determined not just to rescue us from their just wrath, but to recreate all that had been lost. The Father would choose a people from all of humanity. We would become His children, and together, the bride of His Son. The Son would take on flesh and dwell among us. He would live a life of perfect obedience, and then suffer the wrath of the Father that was due to us. He would be vindicated, and would begin the process of recreating the world when He walked out of His tomb. Forty days later He would ascend to His throne and from there would brings all things under subjection. He would send the Spirit who would breathe life into the chosen, indwell and empower them. And as the bride of the second Adam, the church, the second Eve would be a help suitable to Him as He fulfills the dominion mandate.
It is a glorious thing that our sins are forgiven. It is a wondrous truth that we need not fear the wrath of our heavenly Father. It is a stunning reality that we will never suffer anger from on high. And it would be a terrible thing indeed to diminish any of these truths. It would in turn, however, be to miss the full glory of the gospel to stop there. It would be to cheat Jesus of the praise due to Him to stop there. What we need to come to understand is that Jesus changes everything.
My insecurities are grounded in Adam’s fall. The solution is embedded in the coming of Christ. My fears flow out of Adam’s fall. Courage breaks forth from the empty tomb. My temper spews out of Adam’s fall. Peace grows out of His ascension. Whether it is my failure here or discontentment there, always and everywhere the solution is Jesus. Not what I think about Jesus, not how I get close to Jesus, but what Jesus is and what Jesus is doing. When I say “Jesus changes everything” I do not mean that changing our perspective on Him will change our perspective on the world. I mean instead that Jesus is about the business of changing everything.
Jesus changes everything in my life. There is no Jesus-free zone that remains untouched, that will not be remade, or burned away. Every bit of my life, every bit of yours, every bit of our eternities will not merely be stamped, “Property of Jesus” but will be so stamped because they will also be stamped, “Remade by Jesus.”
When we seek to fence Jesus off from a part of lives, to maintain a “No Jesus” zone we are not setting aside a bit of freedom for ourselves. What we are doing instead is inviting another master into our lives. When Jesus is how we get our souls saved, but the American dream is how we make our earthly choices, we are serving two masters. And that is always doomed to failure. When we want Jesus to only change some things, we do not leave the rest the same. Instead we face the endless, wearying complications of syncretism. What we are called to is a simple life. Here we have but one master to please, one Lord to serve, one goal to pursue, and that is that we would be made more like that Lord.
What a glorious blessing that as we seek first His kingdom, as we labor beside Him to see all under His dominion, we know that He will win. His kingdom will cover the earth as water covers the sea. The nations will be discipled. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. Jesus is changing me, which redounds to my blessing. Ultimately, however, He is changing everything for His glory. Ultimately the Father, the Son and the Spirit rejoice over the recreation of all reality. Ultimately they rejoice together in the manifestation of their glory. The stars, the galaxies, the angels, and all the saints will sing that glory, forever and ever. His kingdom is forever. Because Jesus changes everything.
All of us, both within and without the church, face the temptation of being legalists when dealing with others’ sins against us, and antinomians when dealing with our sins against others. We want those we have perceived to have wronged us to pay for what they have done, while reminding our own tender consciences that we all deserve a little grace.
The two propensities come to a head at one and the same time as we seek to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the walking dead all about us. The first objection, typically, comes from the antinomian side. The sacrifice of witnessing to our enemies is that we know we will be hated for pointing out the reality of their sin. We will be pilloried as narrow, bigoted, judgmental, medieval. We will run smack into Romans 1. The unbeliever, in his unrighteousness unrighteously suppresses his knowledge of his unrighteousness. He, in short, doesn’t want to hear it. The irony, of course, is that what we are trying to tell them is just what they need to deal with their guilt. We would be wise to remember that when we fall under the onslaught of their wrath. They want to hide from their sin, while we are trying to tell them how to make it go away.
The second problem, however, arises when we get to the promise of God. As we preach, “Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” they will find “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” to be almost as incredulous as “Repent.” In fact I’ve often heard this objection- “What a minute. You’re telling me that if Adolph Hitler had simply said just before his death, “Jesus, forgive me” he would have entered into heaven at his death? That’s all it takes, just saying you’re sorry?”
Of course that’s not all it takes. Though our repentance is never the ground of our peace with God- that is, God doesn’t forgive us simply because repenting is such a wonderful thing it covers our sins, it is necessary and necessary that it be genuine. Saying something and meaning it, because we are sinners, often means two different things. Second, the ground is not in our repentance, but His provision. “All it took” was for God to put on humanity, to live a perfect life, and to suffer the wrath of the Father due to all those who would believe. The passion of Christ is not a small thing.
The scandal, in fact, is less that we who are sinners should get off scot free, but that God should pay such a high cost for our redemption. Had Hitler repented at the last moment he would indeed now be enjoying the blessings of eternity. Not, however, because his sins would have gone unpunished, but because his sins would have been punished on Christ. And such are we.
I wonder if perhaps those outside the kingdom would be less tempted to think of the gospel as a cheap get out of jail free card if we were more faithful in grasping that we are Hitler, and Jesus suffered for us. The gospel is not for good people who fall a bit short, but for evil people. Jesus did not come to rescue the beautiful princess. He came to rescue the ugly hag that killed Him, because He laid His life down. Perhaps the gospel would scandalize the world less if it scandalized the church more.
No. Christians, of course disagree on this. And when we disagree we can usually expect someone to trot out the whole “meat offered to idols” and weaker brother texts discussion in I Corinthians and Romans respectively. Neither of these texts, however, were given to us to squelch discussion nor to leave us blind to moral absolutes. There are things that the Bible forbids. There are things the Bible doesn’t forbid. And there are things that fall into neither category. The key is wisdom to discern what goes in which category. If you say, “Adultery is a sin” and I say, “Whoa there. I think in certain circumstances adultery can actually be a good thing” I cannot accuse you of being a legalist. Neither can we agree to disagree by considering adultery a meat offered to idols issue, wrong for you, but fine for me. In like manner, if I say, “It’s a sin to read any Bible translation other than the King James version” and you say, “There are other acceptable translations” I cannot accuse you of being an antinomian. Neither can we agree to disagree by considering the ESV to be meat offered to idols. What the Bible calls sin is sin, whatever others might say. What it allows it allows, whatever others might say.
So where do boycotts fit in? Rightly they belong right in the middle of the meat offered to idol category. There are two objections that might come up for eating meat offered to idols. The first is that it might be bad for you, spiritually speaking. It might have demon cooties, so to speak. Paul rejects this out of hand. The mature, he argues, know that “an idol is nothing in the world” (I Corinthians 8:4). Meat is meat and foolish incantations spoken over it won’t change that.
The second objection might be this- am I not supporting the work of idolaters by buying meat from them? And here is where we get to the issue of boycotts. Paul, however, still has no objection to buying the meat offered for sale by idolaters. Why? Because we are buying meat, not idolatry. We are not guilty for what they do with the money we give them. When we trade our money for meat, the meat is ours and the money is not. In like manner, if the Home Store supports gay causes, or Red Crawfish restaurant supports Planned Parenthood, I am not guilty of supporting either if I buy some plywood, or a steamed lobster. I am buying wood and seafood.
May you boycott such companies? Of course you may. Feel free. The trouble is, however, that boycotts are most effective when they are widely practiced. Which will likely give you the temptation to move from “may” to “must.” You will be tempted to accuse your brother of sin for not joining you in your boycott, which is just like accusing your brother of sin if he buys meat that had been offered to idols, which Paul says you must not do. Buy from whomever you please. Sell to whomever you please. Or boycott whomever you please. But always remember- “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand” Romans 14:4.
One should not, after centuries of such folly, be surprised when Roman Catholicism exposes its shameful pride. As our senses have grown dull, they’ve become more brazen with each passing year. They, after all, are the one true church. They are the source of an infallible tradition. They hold the checkbook to the treasury of merit. Heck, their patron saint, Mary, is supposedly the Queen of the Universe.
Tradition, that mysterious unnamed repository of revelation, according to Rome, is equal in authority to the Word of God. But it gets still worse. The Roman church, according to the Roman church, stands over God’s Word like a colossus. They don’t just claim to have a perfect understanding of the Bible. They don’t just claim to be equal in authority to the Bible. They claim that they gave us the Bible. Rome saves us. Rome vets God’s Word.
Here is how the argument goes. When controversy arose early in the life of the church over whether this book or that belonged in the canon, the church convened a council to settle the matter. They settled the matter. Ipso pronto, hey presto, and QED, the church “gave us” the Bible and is therefore its master. Yeah, no.
First friends, the good Roman Catholics back in the time of this council, were better than their children. They did “finalize” the canon, but even they recognized the Bible was their authority, not the other way around. The language they used to affirm the canon was “Recipimus,” Latin meaning, “We receive.” “We receive these books to be the authoritative Word of God.” They affirmed not that they made the canon, but that they recognized it. They did not give it its authority, but recognized the authority it already had. Rome no more gave us the Bible than I crowned the Lord Jesus when I “made” Him Lord. He was Lord long before I was born. I just, by His grace and power, recognized it.
Second, when you challenge Rome, asking where they got the authority to give the Bible its authority, they will inevitably turn to Jesus, Peter and Caesarea Philippi. There Peter affirmed that Jesus was the Christ. There Jesus said that Peter was the Rock. And there Jesus said He would build His church upon the rock. There are nuanced arguments about what Jesus must have meant, Rome affirming this was Jesus anointing Peter as the first Pope, most Protestants affirming the rock is the declaration of Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, not Peter himself. Trouble is, even if we stipulate Rome’s position, we still have an inescapable problem. If is that place where Rome gets its authority, then Rome’s authority rests on the authority of the Bible. Uh-oh. The Bible’s authority rests on Rome whose authority rests on the Bible. Both feet planted firmly in mid-air.
The Bible is the alone Word of God. And those who think they gave Him His voice, those are not the people whose voices we should be listening to.
Don’t believe the hype.
