Stupid pride. The doctrine of total depravity affirms, among other things, that the impact of the fall hits us on all fronts. It is not just our wills that are fallen, but every faculty we possess, including our faculty of thinking. We err in our thinking because we are the children of Adam. While I’m willing to concede that it is possible to err without falling into sin, I would argue however that errors are a fruit of sin. I don’t confess before the Lord the typos I am prone to. But I believe I would not be prone to them had I not been born a sinner. This does not mean, of course, that to be a non-sinner makes one omniscient. There is, after all, a great difference between not knowing everything, and knowing what just isn’t so.
That we can err without falling into sin, however, doesn’t mean that sin never contributes to our errors. In fact I suspect our sin impacts our thinking far more than we like to confess. In part because we don’t like to confess. We not only don’t like to confess doing wrong, we don’t like to confess being wrong. To acknowledge error, even if that error is not in itself sinful hurts us right where it counts, in our pride. We often fall into error by believing what we want to believe. We stay in that error; we double down when we refuse to acknowledge we were wrong in the first place.
This afflicts us not just individually but corporately. That is, I not only want to be right, but want to be in the right crowd. We’re a tribal people and are quick to not only believe what our tribe believes, but to believe that what other tribes believe is not just wrong but stupid. It’s one thing to admit that I was wrong about this or that. It’s another to admit that not only was I wrong, but so were my ancestors, my heroes, all those closest to me.
If the problem is pride, and it is, the solution is humility. We’re not called to a skepticism disguised as humility, where we refuse to make any assertions, where we proudly claim to know nothing can be known. Instead we’re called to be bold about the truth and humble about ourselves. We’re called to not conflate the Scripture itself and our understanding of it. We’re called to listen like children and to check like Bereans.
Jesus has promised us that the Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 16:13). This must not lead us to affirm that we now have all truth. If He is leading us there it must mean that we’re not there yet. If we insist we’ve already arrived we won’t move, and plant ourselves in our ignorance.
His Word is truth. It tells us we yet struggle with sin, in our hearts and in our minds. He, however, has promised to conquer all His and our enemies, including our foolish pride. He is washing us with His Word. And He will finish what He has begun in us.
The rumbles have already begun, between churches and states, churches and churches, church members and other church members. There has been no Olly, Olly oxen free opening all churches of all sizes in all jurisdictions. There has been increasing impatience driven by genuine skepticism over the dangers involved in the pandemic on the one hand and genuine health fears on the other and genuine concern over governmental overreach on the one hand and a genuine commitment to submit to the governing authorities on the other. Those who insist on meeting are deemed selfish and uncaring by those who think we should not. Those who think we should not are deemed to have bowed the knee to Caesar and to have denied the Lordship of Christ by those who think we should be meeting. I may be a fool but I am not fool enough to think I can settle those disputes. I’m not going to try.
I am, however, making a plea that those churches that are not meeting face to face would not take a slight and subtle further step away from community by not meeting at the same time. I get the low cost convenience of the thing. We’re already putting the service online. Click one more button and now it’s there for those who missed it, or want to watch it later. Who wouldn’t want to make that available? And, if that decision has already been made, and we can better ensure against technical hiccups by recording in advance what we’ll put online, why wouldn’t we?
Because this radically increases the disunity of the body we’re already suffering through by not meeting together in space. It moves us from doing something together, to merely watching the same show. It is not time travel, but it is time shifting. It turns our gathering together to worship, even from our own homes, into deciding what time we will “watch” worship this week. How am I to join into the earnest prayers of my pastor if I know he prayed them hours, or days ago? How will I hear a sermon speaking to me when I not only wasn’t at the place it was given, but wasn’t at the time it was given? When my local body cannot meet together in space, they are still my local body. I can feel their sorrow, for they are just around the corner. We are together going through this hardship. If, however, my local body doesn’t meet together in time, I’ve lost a second point of connection. I’m alone.
Is it less convenient to make sure you get to the church on time? Of course it is. Would it be nice to get some extra sleep and log on in the afternoon or evening? Of course it would be. Is something lost, something intangible but still real, something amorphous but nevertheless powerful? Yes. Just like something is lost when we add services, creating temporal church splits. Please don’t hear me saying you are in sin if you watch the service later, or film the service earlier. Please do hear me saying that it might be better to do neither, but to hold on to whatever unity and togetherness we can.
Thesis 28 We must be the bride of Christ.
When God the Holy Spirit gives us a metaphor, we do Him a disservice in reducing it down to a mere metaphor. When He describes the church as the bride of Christ, we are denuding His words if we conclude merely that this means, “Jesus loves the church in a way much like how a groom loves his bride.” The church as the bride of Christ certainly includes that notion, but its meaning is far richer, far more full. One thing we too often miss is that because the church is the bride of Christ, and Christ is the second Adam, the church is the second Eve. We, like our mother Eve before us, exist to be a helper suitable to our husband. Adam was called to exercise dominion, and Eve to be a help in that calling. Jesus is now exercising dominion, bringing all things under subjection, and the church is to be a help in that calling.
Brides, however, are far more than just helpers. They have a peculiar calling. Brides, for instance, are called to beauty. When a bride processes into the sanctuary, does anyone complain about the inefficiency of it all? Do we think, “You know, she’d make it down the aisle a whole lot more quickly if she weren’t dragging that train behind her?” Do we complain because she walks so slowly?
In like manner, the church is to be about the business of exercising dominion. This, however, is not merely an exercise of power. It is also an exercise in beauty. We move the kingdom forward when we are about the business of removing every spot and wrinkle from us, as we seek, through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, to wash away all that is displeasing to our Husband. When we attend to our beauty we have not fallen into world-denying piety. We have instead entered into the great battle, wielding the weapon of beauty.
The bride does not merely work beside her Husband, but is likewise defined by her love for Her husband. That is, that Christ loves the church is true enough, but we are called in turn to love Him. We are to delight in Him, rejoice in Him, draw near to Him. Jesus is not an interest we have in our life while we pursue our life. He is instead our very reason for being. Progress in life is measured by growing in our capacity to love Him.
The bride’s calling is to be a help suitable to her husband not only in terms of ruling over all things, but also in the call to be fruitful and multiply. Here too it is the same with Christ and His bride. Our calling is to bring forth godly seed, both through the work of evangelism and through the work of nurturing our children in the Lord. When we are barren, when we are content that we are in the kingdom, and have no passion to bring more in, we are an unfaithful bride.
That, in the end, is the defining mark of all these things- our call is to be faithful, not just to the faith, but to our Husband. We faithfully seek to please Him. We faithfully grow in love toward Him. We faithfully bear fruit. And we faithfully give our affections to no other. We reject the seduction of the world. We rejoice in the love of our Husband. And we long for the day when we will dance with Him, with neither blot nor blemish.
Times are hard. As I write our pandemic has been rudely shoved to the back burner of our collective consciousness. Covid’s destructive side-kick, economic meltdown, is now flying below our radar. Instead our attention, and our fears have zeroed in on what is politely called civil unrest and more accurately called violent mobs. We are learning the nuanced differences between tear gas and pepper spray while spontaneous uprisings come equipped with a running tab down at the Bricks ‘R’ Us store.
One man, called to protect and to serve, is caught on camera killing another man while, in the name of his victim, thousands across the nation are caught on camera carting off televisions, Rolexes and high end cheesecakes. It has not been an auspicious few months. What surprises me, however, is that this surprises me. Are these strange days? Or are they simply the old normal?
Our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created. One of their children murdered another of their children. From there it’s been a story of murder, theft, rape, war, starvation, sickness, death. After God washed the world clean, save for Noah and his family, God established civil government, giving it the power of the sword to punish evildoers. From that time forward civil governments, more often than not, have used that sword to punish those they were supposed to protect. Noah, the good one, the one who found favor in God’s eyes, drank himself into a stupor and his son took advantage.
Eventually the people of God were enslaved by a tyrant who hated them simply because they were Hebrews. Babies were murdered. Sickness and economic calamity swept through the land. And God carried His people on eagles’ wings to a land flowing with milk and honey. Before, however, He let them into this virtual paradise He reminded them, His people, His beloved, His own special nation, “When you go in, don’t steal from each other. Don’t murder each other. Don’t betray your husband or wife.” God’s people needed that instruction, and, just like today, they didn’t much heed it.
Why then are we surprised? Protesters march in the streets chanting, “No justice, no peace” and then are shocked when they receive justice and not peace. Derek Chauvin is guilty of a capital crime. The three officers with him are guilty of a capital crime. The rioters who shot and killed the retired police officer in St. Louis are guilty of a capital crime. The brick throwers and the looters are guilty of a capital crime. George Floyd was guilty of a capital crime. You are guilty of a capital crime. And so am I. Every mothers’ son of us stands guilty before the living God of that crime that earns not a life sentence, not a death sentence, but a life death sentence, a death that lasts forever in hell.
That we are under His judgment, however, doesn’t change that George Floyd didn’t deserve, on the earthly plane, to die. That every storeowner and every victim of mob violence are under His judgment doesn’t justify those sins committed against them on the earthly plane. What it does is take away our shock. What it ought to do is drive us to gratitude. We all, every mothers’ son, should praise God He hasn’t taken our lives. And we all, every son of the Father, should praise Him that He sent His Son, an innocent man killed through the cruelty of the state. We, the guilty, live, as His children, forever. I’m grateful for 2020, but I will be more grateful when it is over. Not because 2021 will be better. But because eternity will be closer. Maranatha Lord Jesus.
