Friendly reminder that instead of our Monday night study tonight we’ll have a Q and A session on FB Live, 7 eastern. Bring yourselves and your questions, and we’ll see if I can find the matching answer. A new study, We Believe, on the Apostles’ Creed begins next Monday, God willing.
While I am not at all immune to making mistakes I do try to be careful with my words. I ask my readers to show care with my words as well. I don’t pretend to have the capacity to see into anyone’s heart. Nor does my library card give me access to the Lamb’s Book of Life. I don’t know for certain who will go to heaven and who will not, who is currently a believer and who is not. I do know, however, that the Bible does provide us some standards by which we are called to make tentative judgments. Among those standards is this- confessing the faith.
Our faith confesses, remember, that it is not our confessing the faith that wins us eternal life. Jesus did that. His life, death, and resurrection are the cause of my redemption. I, by His grace, rest in Him alone. But those who have been redeemed by Him confess Him. As such, I would argue that one cannot have a credible profession of faith while denying what His church has said about who He is. To deny the Trinity, to deny the incarnation, to deny His birth of a virgin, His perfect, obedient life, His substitutionary death, His bodily resurrection, His future return, His deity, His humanity is to deny Him.
The great bulk of the ecumenical creeds in church history gave themselves to hashing out these sticky issues. They deemed their work as involving an exposition of essentials to the faith, and I concur. The best summary the church has come up with, in my judgment, is found in the Apostles’ Creed. It’s very function was to summarize as clearly and as succinctly as possible the essentials of the faith, that without which the faith would no longer be. The Creed, of course, is not infallible. No one suggests it was breathed out like the Scripture was. It could, hypothetically, be in error.
That said, I don’t believe it is in error. It may, however, have not quite covered all that should have been covered. What is missing from the Apostles’ Creed is a clear exposition of penal, substitutionary atonement and the necessity of resting on that work alone for salvation. It is possible to find these glorious truths in the creed, but it is certainly not easy. At the end of the day these two, the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ and the necessity of resting on that work alone, can themselves be summarized even more simply- only those who look to Christ as their one true sacrifice and cry out, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” have a credible profession of faith.
No, one doesn’t take a theology exam proctored by Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. And certainly one might be ignorant of the history of these theological debates. The man that Jesus spoke of, who cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” knew nothing about Jesus, His suffering for us on the cross, or His resurrection. These things hadn’t happened yet. Yet, according to Jesus, he went home justified. There is a yawning gap between Apollos who knew nothing of the baptism of the Holy Spirit until he was instructed and the Pharisees who positively affirmed that He did His works by the power of the devil. Apollos was reborn, indwelt by the Spirit that he knew precious little of. The Pharisees knew the Spirit and hated Him.
I am, as always, open to opposing arguments. I don’t think anything above would be any different from that which the true church has always affirmed. Nothing controversial there. If I have erred, my only response is this, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Sometimes, indeed often, we build and maintain our paradigms for our own comfort. Our worldview is usually less the result of careful, dispassionate, sober-minded analysis, and more the result of self-serving, special pleading, rationalization of our sin. We believe what we believe not because these beliefs commend themselves to our minds, but because in our minds the beliefs commend us. These habits of our desperately deceitful hearts lead us to miss the voice of God. He speaks, and we hear what we want to.
We come to our Bibles with this most fundamental presupposition- whatever the Bible may be saying, it can’t be telling me that my life needs to be fundamentally changed. Wherever the Bible calls for such change, it must be addressing someone else. Out of this presupposition flows what I call “the diabolical art of simultaneous translation.” This is what happens when our eyes roam across the very words of God in Scripture, but our mind changes what we read into something safe, something reasonable, something inoffensive. Jesus, for instance, tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear, that this is what the Gentiles worry about, and we ought to know that we are under God’s care. What our mind hears is something like this- Those people who are more prosperous than I am need to stop worrying about money. When I get as prosperous as they are, I will be pious enough to no longer worry. Those worrying prosperous people really ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and we hear, “Those people who don’t believe, who aren’t in the kingdom, who don’t have the righteousness of Christ, need to get serious about pursuing these things. Thank heavens I already have this covered. Because I have already done this I can now devote my time to something important, worrying about what I will wear and what I will eat.” When the Bible steps on our toes we try to quietly tiptoe away. What we’re supposed to do is face up to our sins. What we’re supposed to do is repent and believe.
One way we might begin to do battle against this weakness is to come to the Bible with a prior commitment to this basic truth- whatever this text or that text is saying, it is likely that it is speaking to me and my sin. Before we decide whether a covenantal paradigm makes more sense or a dispensational paradigm, before we settle the vexing question of who wrote Hebrews or which gospel was written first, before we figure out whether Genesis 1 and 2 are history or poetry or both, we need to come willing and eager to have the mirror of the Word show us our sins. That will happen when we expect it to show us our sin.
The Word of God consists of the words of God. Their meanings tell us what His meaning is. They are little mirrors that build the big mirror. They are also, however, little hammers that together make up the sledge hammer God uses to smash our recalcitrant hearts. Because our hearts are hard we insist on soft words. When alone with our Bibles we soft sell our Bibles, translating our hammers into pillows. When in the pew on Sunday morning we insist on preaching that does not offend, that does not confront, that does not strike, that rests lightly on our stony hearts.
God’s hammer smashes not just the icons of the world around us. It also smashes the idols of my heart. It is hard, heavy, even painful, precisely because of the love of the One who wields it. Because He has promised not only to forgive me for my hard heart, but has promised to soften it. He has promised to beat it into submission. As He pounds my heart He in turn opens my ears. Thus we move from grace to grace, from life to life, from faith to faith.
When our stony hearts are beaten, they do not merely turn into gravel. Instead they turn to soil- soft, welcoming soil. And then the Word no longer comes as a hammer, but comes as seed. The soft ground of our hearts welcome that word, and soon it bears fruit, multiplying thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold. Soon we find that we have ears to hear and eyes to see and the very mystery of the parables unfold before us. If we would hear, we must be willing to hear. If we would be willing, He must make us willing.
His kingdom is that place where His Word is heard, welcomed and obeyed. That same Word has promised if we will drop everything for the sake of the kingdom, all these things will be added to us. His kingdom is therefore in turn where worry about tomorrow is banished. God’s Word is a hammer. But it is a hammer that speaks blessing to us. May He be pleased to give us ears to hear the blessings that He speaks.
Remember when COVID-19 meant we were all going to have to stay at home for a week or two? Remember how scared we all were that we were all going to die? Remember how we were willing and ready to do whatever we were told if it meant we would make it out alive? I don’t know what will come to pass between the time I write this and the time I publish it. I do know this, that as I write the American people are increasingly agitated, and frightened, not over COVID-19 but over the economy. My guess is we will get increasingly shrill and demanding about our new fear and increasingly annoyed by and indifferent to the fear we used to have. Welcome the new fear, same as the old fear.
It was, however, just a week ago that Jesus provided us with a golden opportunity to practice what He preached, to fear not them who can kill the body but Him who can kill the body and soul. Last week was Good Friday. While we are called to always remember, it is that day when we remember that Jesus took on Himself the wrath of the Father that was due to us for our sins. It was that day that the one real thing we have to fear, the one great thing we have to fear, falling into the hands of the living God, was vanquished forever. We’re supposed to “enter in” to that fear, to own that hideous truth that we crucified the Lord of Glory. We are, on that day, to look deep into the horror that is our own character, to see in His repulsive visage the face of our own sin. So that we can, on that day, rejoice in His victory. Good Friday is a good day to remember how bad we are, because it is a great day to remember the fullness of His victory, to hear both, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me” and “It is finished.”
Jesus died for sinners. And because we are sinners we find it all too easy to forget that He died for us. We move on. Our minds focus on what the pundits are talking about, rather than what the calendar reminds us of. We’ll come back to His death for us next year. For now though, there’s the economy to worry about, the election to argue about, the closing of social distances to hope for, more toilet paper to gather. Except, remember how we promised ourselves last Friday, “This year Lord, I won’t forget. I won’t let anything crowd out my humble acknowledgment of my sin and my joyful celebration of Your grace.” We didn’t make it a week. Because that’s what we are. And that’s why He came.
I ran headlong into my sin. He ran headlong into my punishment. I denied Him. He affirms me. I cried out, “Crucify Him!” He cried out, “Forgive him.” I claimed to be innocent, knowing I am guilty. He claimed to be guilty, knowing He is innocent. I earned the Father’s wrath. He earned the Father’s favor. I receive the Father’s favor. He received the Father’s wrath. The Father embraced me. The Father forsook Him.
I crucified the Lord of Glory. The Lord of Glory laid down His life for me.
While it is certainly gloriously true that out of God’s love for us He sent His Son to cover our sins, to remove them as far from us as the east is from the west, this is not likely what Peter has in mind here. He is instead, in context, talking about interpersonal relationships among Christians in the church. He is calling us to a dual kind of grace toward others.
First, we should be slow to convict. I Corinthians 13 tells us that love “thinks no evil.” When we love each other we practice with each other a judgment of charity. We assume the best about others, assigning the best of motives to their actions. Sadly, however, this wisdom is often confused with something altogether different.
Too often we are unwilling to call sin sin. Some time ago I wrote a brief piece arguing that x was a sin. I might have been right. I might have been wrong. What puzzled me, however, were those who replied this way. First, they were willing to concede that x was unwise, selfish, dangerous, even shameful. But they argued that saying it was sin was going too far. Indeed these same friends argued that I was dangerous, Pharisaical, legalistic, small-minded, arrogant, even ungracious to say X was a sin. They did everything but call me a sinner. Which makes no sense. It is a sin to be foolish, and selfish. It is a sin to be arrogant and ungracious. Somehow we Protestants have reduced “venial” sins to folly and in turn elevated “mortal” sins as unforgivable. Sin, though, is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Have we forgotten that we do this all the time?
The second kind of grace that Peter calls us to here is to not even bother to deal with every sin in a given relationship. Here we are, redeemed, indwelt, heaven bound, but we still sin against each other. Peter calls us here to not sweat the “small stuff.” Note, however, that he recognizes that the small stuff is still sin. The text doesn’t say, “Love covers a multitude of unwise, selfish, arrogant, shameful decisions.”
Consider addiction. I was, for over twenty years a nicotine addict. I am grateful to be free now for years. I was well persuaded, and remain so, that my addiction was sin. We are called to not let anything rule over us, and for certain nicotine ruled over me. My old habit is rather rare in Christian circles. What is far more common is addiction to caffeine. We joke about it, laugh about it, but the truth is coffee is the chemical stimulant of choice among evangelicals. Being addicted is a sin. But it is precisely the kind of sin Peter is talking about. We don’t fuss at each other because coffee is more needful than it ought to be.
Consider being habitually late. When we are late for an appointment we are a. not keeping our word, b. stealing time from those we keep waiting c. not doing unto others and likely d. thinking of ourselves more highly than others. So should we concoct a Matthew 18 intervention for the late? Probably not. What we ought to likely do is plan around the late folks, or move on without them. What we certainly do is continue to love them.
When we are wronged our calling is to practice a careful moral calculus. Is this offense one I should let go of? Is it among the multitude that love covers? Or is this offense grievous enough that love means confronting in grace my brother? Sadly what we usually do is think we are practicing the former while actually holding grudges and putting miracle-grow on roots of bitterness. Peace in the church calls us to under-accuse, over-repent and over-forgive. Let us not be afraid to call sin sin, but let us not be slow to forgive it and to look past it.
Liars gonna lie. That’s what we do. I, having been known to tell a lie from time to time, quite understand the temptation and the reality. What is harder for me to understand is why lying is so effective, why it is that we are so susceptible to believing lies. I believe one reason we are lied to so often is because lying works. What I don’t get is why it works, especially after we have been lied to so often.
The internet seems to attract liars. I understand, for instance, that sundry north African countries are having a hard time getting anyone to serve as oil minister. These poor guys seem to die every other day. And wouldn’t you think, with all the care they take to leave millions for their wives, that they would have found a way to actually get those millions home without needing my help?
Direct mail, however, however outdated it might seem to be, hasn’t given up either. Recently I received in the mail an official looking envelope from Motor Vehicle Services. In blaring red letters I was warned that this was my last notice. Were my tags expired? Was I past due for an inspection? The other thing I noticed on the envelope was that it was sent presorted. That is, cheaply. It was direct mail. Turns out Motor Vehicle Services isn’t after all a government agency. It’s a private business offering warranties on cars.
I remember the same basic trick being played on me by a Christian ministry. This envelope was oversized with snazzy red stripes, and a profile of an eagle. It said EXPRESS DELIVERY, and DATED MATERIAL on the front. It too, however, confessed to being direct mail by the pre-sorted sticker in the corner. It was an appeal for donations.
As I said, I understand that people lie. But why would that work? Who would trust any promise from any business that started the whole business relationship with a lie? “I know I just tricked you into opening this envelope, but now I want you to trust me on this warranty deal. You’re going to love it.” Who would make a donation to a ministry that introduces themselves to you with a lie? “We lied to you about this being an overnight package. But we will take good care of any money you send us for this worthy project. Honest we will.”
The sad truth is not just that we lie, but that we accept lying. We are not put off by it, nor are we driven to a fitting skepticism. We take the view that if a business isn’t lying to us it isn’t really trying. The sad truth is that we have lost the capacity to blush when we lie and lost the capacity to object when we are lied to. We have no shame and we have no dignity. And that friends, is the truth.
