The Immeasurable Benefit and Very Real Danger of Systematic Theology

The Immeasurable Benefit and Very Real Danger of Systematic Theology

Scripture is the revelation of God's mind, perfectly revealed by the Holy Spirit through the miracle of divine verbal inspiration, but pushed through the limitation of human language, and received by the hearer or reader by fallen minds and diminished intellect. Vast oceans of perfectly revealed knowledge are carried by small pipes to the leaky buckets of our brains. All of this means that inerrant scripture is often hard to understand. There is no flaw in Holy Writ, but there are in me and in all other sons of Adam. The Bible is perfect; my theology may not be. In fact, I'm absolutely confident both in the perfection of the Word and in the imperfection of my comprehension. Somewhere, I'm wrong. Probably, I'm wrong about a great many things.

Despite this, while all (honest) students of scripture must acknowledge, at the outset, our fallen state, we have this sense that we can climb mount improbable. We can figure it all out. Our minds are equal to the task of grasping all that God's vast wisdom has recorded for us. We might not state it so bluntly, but it is the underlying presupposition of every author of a systematic theology text and of every denominational committee which publishes their creeds. They've wrestled with the data, done the homework, and have the answers for you, neatly presented with footnotes and charts. Here is the mind of God! Obviously, this is the height of conceit, as God clearly teaches in Isa 55:8-9:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Similarly, when Job finally gets his "day in court" before the Almighty, he is sharply reprimanded for thinking that he had the level of knowledge required to figure out God. "“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" Job 38:2.

What then? Should we not try to understand scripture? Certainly not! On the contrary, God invites, even commands, us to seek him out, to read His words and to make sense of them.

"'Come Now, Let us reason together,' says the Lord." Isa 1:18

"And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deut 6:6-7

"This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Josh 1:8

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers." Psa 1:1-3

Most clearly: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." 2Tim 2:15

So we are to study, read, meditate, and then admit when we don't have all the answers. This balance has proven very hard to strike, as time after time throughout Church History pastors have either acknowledged the impossibility of knowing everything and so they haven't tried or they dig deep, build their footnotes and systems, and then fail to acknowledge when it doesn't always add up perfectly. Let's explore this problem a little deeper and see what we can learn.

The Immeasurable Benefit of Systematic Theology

We need Systematic Theology. There has been a rise in popularity recently of inductive Bible Studies, where people infer the general truths of God by reading discrete passages of scripture in context and asking questions of that one text. In some settings, the questions are all the same, sometimes, they are inspired by what the text says, but in all cases, the learner tries to build a theology from a selected passage. Most of the time, this is fine, but there are some cases when it is confusing, or even dangerous! Even when care is taken not to lift a passage out of context, errors can be made.

Consider one famous example, which is recorded within the pages of scripture itself. The most internally-quoted passage of scripture (the reference that other scripture cites more than any other) is Exodus 34:6-7:

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

More people writing scripture quote God's self-revelation there than any other passage, so you'd think that meant that we had its meaning nailed down, but the last phrase, the bit about God "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children," made many Biblical scholars and Rabbis teach that a child can be punished by God for what their Fathers did. If you read through scripture, you can see this presupposition showing frequently.

One example is when the crowds wonder in John 9:2 if a blind man was born that way because of his parents’ sin. They had looked at only one passage, not taking into account others, and had developed a theology of God punishing the innocent for the sins of their fathers. This isn’t how God works.

We know that this isn’t the intended point of the passage because God has to correct the Rabbinical teaching himself in Ezekiel 18. God goes to great length to make sure that his people know that they will live or die because of their own sins, not the sins of the Father. He has to do this, though, because one passage was allowed to form a complete theology. The point of this passage is that there are consequences in the lives of every person because of the sinful lives we see modeled and the broken habits we inherit, and God cannot turn a blind eye to my sin just because I can point to my Dad and say that I learned it from him. My sin will be judged in my personal accounting with God, even if it is the sin that I learned on my parents’ lap. I know this because I can read passages like Ezekiel 18 and John 9 among others and put together a “big picture.” That is a systematic theology, and it is immeasurably beneficial to us as believers.

Systematic Theology helps reign in our interpretation of one verse because we know what scripture says in other places. Systematic Theology turns a pixelated view of God, understanding individual verses as points of revelation, into a beautiful high-definition image of God as revealed in His word. It provides organization, framework, and even beauty to the pursuit of knowing God.

Systematic Theology is why I know that while God is invisible (Col 1:15), transcendent (2Chron 2:6), and unfathomable (Rom 11:33), He is still a person who loves (John 15:9), wants to be known (Jer 29:13), that He loves humanity in general (John 3:16) and me in particular (Romans 5:8)!

Systematic Theology tells us that Jesus is God (John 1:1-3), told others that He was (John 8:58-59), was believed to be so by His apostles (Matt 16:16), and that acceptance of this fact is the foundation of saving faith (Romans 10:8-10).

If we don’t systematize our theology, we end up knowing isolated facts, not the person of God. We might win the Bible Challenge, but not the race of faith. Without systematizing our beliefs, we may embrace some post-modern vague spirituality drawn from inspired truths in scripture, but we would not be able to relate in a saving way to the faith that those truths demand.

We live in a time when people “outside the camp” of faith in Messiah like to point to the Bible and ridicule it as outdated, illogical, and irrelevant. In sharp contrast to this attitude, we are called by God to pour our attention into our study of His Word, the Bible. Only when we do so will we make sense, not only of it but of everything else. Over and over again, I read authors who speak in the past tense about when people believed that the Bible was not only theologically true but also reliable in the areas of history and science. The erosion in confidence in the Bible begins when we start to take difficult passages out of context, bronze them in popular culture as too hard to understand or systematize, and then set them up on pedestals as representations of all of God’s Word.

Systematic theology urges the exact opposite: let’s understand those difficult passages (for certainly, they exist) in light of all the easy to understand ones and see how they bring contrast, shades of meaning, and color to the testimony of all of scripture, making God’s word actually more beautiful, not less. We must let scripture speak as an organized whole into our lives!

We must systematize our beliefs, and in the overwhelming majority of the cases, challenges to our logic and comprehension can legitimately be resolved by careful study. It took years of debate for the finer points of our faith to be described. The doctrines of the nature of Christ, the definition of the Trinity, and the meaning of baptism have all been hammered out by well-intentioned, Spirit-filled people toiling at the task of Systematizing Theology. It can be done, and the final product is beautiful, durable, and well worth the effort.

We have a rational faith, and its reasoning and reliability can be demonstrated by the Holy Spirit’s guidance of our study. We don’t hold a faith which has no foundation in reality. In fact, Christianity, more than any other religion, bears out time and time again its reliability when tested against the evidence produced by science. Biology, archaeology, cosmology, and others constantly bear witness to truths contained in the scriptures. We don’t hold our faith, “by faith,” meaning “without understanding.” Our faith is rational, and Systematic Theology is the best way to demonstrate this rationality. Organization and systematization of beliefs are required by God both directly in scripture and by the desire to organize that He has built into the human mind. So, what’s the problem?

The Very Real Danger of Systematic Theology

The problem with Systematic Theology is that sometimes we get really good at it (or read books written by people who are really good at it), and we start to trust our own ability to reason (or the author’s) so much that we forget that we are flawed, fallible, and impossibly inadequate to the task of knowing everything about God. Also, we live in a scientific age when people are used to being able to “Google” any conceivable question and have the knowledge in seconds. Physics works that way. Shouldn’t God? I can watch a 5 minute YouTube video and know how to change the spark plugs on my truck. Shouldn’t I be able to know the details of the Divine in as much time? God becomes just one more intellectual challenge to be figured out.

The problem is that this is not at all who God actually is. He is neither a natural law, a concept, or a force. He is a person, an infinitely complex and wonderful (as in inspiring wonder) person, and we have to know Him like we know a friend, not like we know a fact. I’ve been married to my wife for 15 years now, and there is much about her that is still a mystery (just ask her!). She resists systematization, and my attempts to know the “facts” about her only frustrate my desire to know her as a person. God is like this, but since He is infinitely more complicated a person than my wife, it is infinitely more difficult to reduce knowledge of God to a formula. Sometimes, the “math” of God just doesn’t work.

When our “God math” fails to work, when infallible truths resist clean systematization, we can do one of two things: 1) We can force statements to fit by either ignoring contrasting scriptures or playing linguistic games with the text until we’ve explained it away and made it not really say what is says, or 2) We can admit the fact that God is not math and that there is mystery here and embrace it. Honest Theologians take the second road, but those books don’t sell as well, and “mystery” rarely gets the votes in denominational committee meetings. Consequently, most systematic theologians push for an answer where one clear statement may, in fact, be further from the truth than an honest admission that “your ways are too wonderful for me” (Psa 139:6).

Let’s consider just one example, and it’s a big one. There are two clear truths taught in scripture throughout its entire testimony. They run parallel from the beginning of scripture to the end, seemingly leading to two different conclusions, but both supported by correct hermeneutics. In order to be Biblical, we need to understand and believe both of these statements.

First, God is sovereign on the question of salvation. He declared before the foundation of the world not only that Jesus would be Saviour (1Pe 1:20; Rev 13:8) but the individual persons who would benefit from that salvation (Eph 1:4; Acts 13:48). When the word goes forth and the Spirit of God rides out and convicts people of sin, driving them to their knees in repentance and faith, that knowledge, faith, and repentance are all gifts of God (2Tim 2:25; Eph 2:4-5) given to people who had already been chosen to receive it (Rom 8:28-30). If people don’t like this situation and feel it is unfair, Paul tells them to suck it up and stop complaining. God is sovereign. We are not. Deal with it (Rom 9-11, esp 9:18-23), and after you have come to terms with it, worship Him for it (Rom 11:38). This sovereignty is a fact of scripture and an unswerving reality in God’s universe. He keeps his own counsel on questions of election. Just ask Korah.

Running parallel to this truth throughout scripture is the unquestionable reality of your need to choose to follow God. Jews were admonished to choose faith in God under the old covenant (Josh 24:15). New covenant believers are similarly told that they need to choose God (Matt 4:17; Mark 1:15; Acts 2:38). We are offered blessings or curses based on our choice to follow or reject God under the old covenant (Deut 30:19; Ezek 18:30-32) and the new (1Tim 6:9-10; Rom 10:1-3). Changing your mind on this issue is a possibility and bears worse consequences than having rejected in the first place (Heb 6 and 10). Just because we are sinners by nature (Psa 51:5; Eph 2:1-3) does not mean that we are not also sinners by choice (Gen 6:5; Matt 5:19; Prov 20:9). We need to make a real, conscious decision to turn from sin and choose Christ (1Jn 3:6-7; Jas 4:7; Acts 3:19). The failure to do so is a real choice, for which the unrepentant will be held accountable (Matt 23:37; Rev 2:21; 9:21; 16:11).

We can build a systematic theology about either of these truths, but to build a system that embraces them both is very difficult. This has caused systematic theologians of all traditions to create polemics embracing one set of truths at the expense of the other. In one corner, Reformed theologians in the tradition of Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, and Edwards have exposited thoroughly the sovereignty of God at the expense of the reality of our choice. To that school, in order for God’s call to be effective, His grace must be irresistible, atonement must be limited, and our will’s freedom is at least greatly restrained, if not an illusion entirely. This is clearly not the teaching of scripture.

In the other corner are champions of our freedom of will, lead by Huss, Arminius, and Wesley, who rightly proclaim the truth and genuine nature of our choice and its consequence. In order to make this work completely, they have to reduce God’s prescriptive decree to simply a predictive one. God’s decree is not the reason we are saved. It is simply his foreknowledge informing Him that we have chosen Him in the then-future in which we now live. This is clearly not the teaching of scripture either, but it’s the corner you paint yourself into when you start with “above all else, we are free.”

Resolving this tension is not a matter of rigorous logic or being a better student of the original languages; it is a matter of humility. Honest, God-fearing, Jesus-loving, Word-respecting saved people have built their systems on one of these truths and have looked cross-eyed at the other.

We aren’t going to discover some logical structure that neither Calvin nor Wesley were able to see. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the scriptures and filled both of those men has chosen to leave the resolution of this tension beyond our understanding. We don’t need to get bigger (in understanding, intellect, or wisdom). We need to get smaller, especially in our own self-estimation.

Can I just pause here and add a plug for our own branch of the family tree of faith? I love that the Calvary Chapel Church stands in the middle on this difficult question (and a few others). They reject the clearly unbiblical conclusions of irresistible grace and limited atonement and then just say, “Simply teach the Bible simply.”

Humility and Mystery

Really, there is only one being that can completely and perfectly describe God, and that is God Himself. Before you tell me, “He has self-described! It’s called the Bible!” I need to caution you in your presupposition that you have an ability to receive the truth that equals God’s ability to convey it. You don’t. We need to begin our Systematic Theology with an open confession of our weakness and smallness before the task. Begin with humility and wisdom will follow.

Part of putting away our academic pride involves letting go of the commitment to have all truth fit in one neat little package. Obviously, when one answer is possible, we should take it. We don’t want to fail to walk as far down the road as warranted logical processes go, but we don’t want to push it farther than scripture intends either. We need to study hard to show ourselves approved, but we should not speak in greater detail than scripture does. When it is silent, we should be as well.

Unbelievers will often find difficulties in the Bible and say that the Bible has “contradictions.” It doesn’t. The Bible is perfect. It is the perfect word of a perfect God. Where the disconnect happens, it’s our fault, not God’s. I suck at Basketball. If I were to jump in and play with the Chicago Bulls, I would frequently fail to get their passes, read their plays, and run as quickly. It’s not their fault, though. They can pass, run, and communicate. I just can’t keep up. It’s the same issue here. God is revealing the perfect truth. I’m just too small-of-mind to see all the connections.

What unbelievers might call “errors” or “contradictions,” I call “mystery.” I’m not okay with the statement, “The Bible is full of errors,” but I agree heartily with, “The Bible is full of mystery.” In an error, the underlying truth claim is false. In a mystery, the underlying truth claim is true. I just don’t know what it is completely.

Paul, who had taken a tour of heaven and wrote a large portion of the New made the statement, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face-to-face. Now, I know in part. Then, I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1Cor 13:12. There are many such examples in scripture, and it’s okay to admit that.

I met regularly with a very intelligent unbeliever who had read the Bible for years and not placed his faith in Christ. He was referred to me by a mutual friend who wasn’t up to the questions that this unsaved intellectual was asking. I agreed to meet with him weekly over lunch, and after about 6 months, this person still hadn’t been satisfied. I remember our final meeting when we were dealing with one such point of mystery in scripture. He, being of a mathematical background, said, “I can believe that ‘A’ is true. I can believe that ‘not A’ is true. I just can’t believe them both at the same time.” It was very well-put, and it reflects the attitude of many western people, saved and unsaved, when they read the Bible. We have learned our rules of logic so well that the rules themselves have blinded us to the genuine existence of mystery and the reality that there are true things that we can’t fully understand.

In closing, let’s look at an encounter one man had with the Living God. In Judges 13, Manoa, a man about whom we know very little, came face-to-face with the pre-incarnate Christ. He asked this Christophany for His name. In that culture, you name is more than a label. A name is your identity. It wasn’t simply a “who are you?” question. It was a “tell me all about yourself” moment. Look at what Jesus says:

“Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, ‘What is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we may honor you?’ But the angel of the LORD said to him, ‘Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?’ So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the LORD…” Judges 13:17-19a

When Jesus says that his name is “wonderful,” he doesn’t mean that this is his name. We aren’t to call him “Wonderful” as a personal address. The word means, “to arouse wonder about.” Wonder is “to stand in amazement, awe, or curiosity.” So, when Jesus calls himself “wonderful,” he says that he can’t be figured out. He can’t be nailed down. He is bigger than our ability to describe. We ought just to be amazed, awed, and even a bit curious.

Manoah understands. His immediate response is worship. That should be ours as well. Rather than fighting, striving, and doing grammatical gymnastics to force mysterious sections of scripture into man-made descriptive boxes, we should instead just take a page from Manoah’s playbook, accept the wonder, and worship a God who is too big to describe with perfect precision. Aren’t you glad that this is the God we serve?

Celebrate Shavuot With Us!

Shavuot is a complex holiday. Much like most other Judeo-Christian observances, it has portions which are strictly Biblical, portions which are tied to yearly cycles of seasons and life events, and portions of it which are, in all honesty, just silly.   The plan I'm posting here is what we do, borrowing some of the extra-biblical "tradition" of the Jewish celebration, to lend a sense of authenticity to the history of the holiday, and packing in as much Biblical symbolism as possible.

The Food: No holiday gets past "go" without food.  This holiday coincides with the barley harvest, and as such, much bread is baked and eaten.  It is also a peak production period for milk in Israel, so dairy is high on the list as well.  We start by baking bagels in the morning.  Recipes abound online. Pick one.  They take time to make, so don't make everyone wait for breakfast for them.  Have something quick to hold you over, then make these.  Enjoy the process. While they're baking, we make fresh homemade butter by shaking heavy whipping cream in cleaned out plastic ware or baby food containers.

Throughout the rest of day, food should be bread-and-dairy focused. We had homemade Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken last year for dinner (That's a no-no in Kosher food laws--combining dairy and meat in one meal--but we get to celebrate the fulfillment of the Law on our behalf, right? We also get to live on this side of Acts 10!).  

The Family Time: This is one of the three pilgrim feasts of the year.  In Israel, that means that Jewish men over the age of 12 must appear before the Lord in Jerusalem.  Usually, whole families went.  That means that families spent a lot of time together, talking about the Lord and learning from one another.  Find time to just talk about God with your family. Ask questions, answer them with scripture.  Marinade in the greatness of God together.

If you have younger children, as I do, google "Shavuot Crafts."  There are many.  Do something together to help them understand what this day is about.

The Scripture: Two sections of scripture are typically read on this holiday.  I'd suggest you may add a third.  First, sometime early in the day (perhaps over fresh homemade bagels and fresh butter) read the book of Ruth together.  It takes place during this time of year (the barley harvest) and is about the inclusion of foreigners (gentiles) into the plan of God's salvation through the Jew.  That's a pretty awesome fit for us gentiles who are celebrating this high Jewish holiday.

Later in the day (maybe as dinner is cooking), read the story of the 10 commandments from Exodus 19 and 20.  Talk about the meaning of the Law for the Jew and its fulfillment for those of us who follow Messiah.  In a typical Jewish home, this conversation, the studying and discussing of the law, goes all night.  I'd suggest you change subjects after dinner.

In the evening, at the conclusion of the day, read some of the New Testament scriptures which discuss Jesus' fulfillment of the Law and our ability to live in His perfect completion of the Father's demands.  Examples might be taken from numerous places in the book of Romans or Hebrews.  You may even read some of Jesus' own statements about His relationship to the Law in the gospels.

Read Acts 2 to bring the symbolism into the New Testament.  God has not only given us an invitation to relationship, but He has filled us with Himself! What an amazing truth in which we get to live!

Close the day by thanking God that He invites us to know Him, has given us His standard for living in the Law, and has fulfilled His own requirement by sending Jesus to live it perfectly for us!

Happy Shavuot!

Sixth Saturday of Omer: The Lifter of My Hands

In the second half of Exodus 17, there is the little-known story of the battle between Israel and Amalek.  It's the first armed conflict for God's people in their wanderings.  There will come many more. These people, just a month before, were slaves.  When they left Egypt, they plundered their neighbors so that when the left, they were equipped for battle (Exodus 12:33-51), but they'd never before had to use the swords, shields, and spears with which they left.  

God brought a test of their resolve and of their faith in the form of Amalek and his soldiers.  These were a people who had been in battles before.  They had the upper-hand of experience and the upper-ground positionally.  All was in their favor.  All, that is, except for the God of the Universe.

Scripture does not record God giving the plan to Moses, but He must have.  Moses wouldn't have chosen this strategy himself.  The plan was simple-seemingly.  People would live or die--nations would rise or fall--on the strength of Moses' deltoids.

"So Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed." Exodus 17:9-11

If the battle were short-lived, Moses could have done this on his own.  Holding your staff above your head isn't exactly a crossfit routine.  The problem was stamina.  Battles are not won in five minutes, or even five hours.  After a time, Moses' strength began to fade.

"But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." Exodus 17:12

The real point of this story is the support that the body is to a person of God in times of difficulty, community, and the way God triumphed through seemingly impossible odds.  I'm seeing this passage, though, through the eyes of the Omer, through the season that we're in  where we look at the invitation to relationship that began at Passover and culminated at Sinai.  In that light, I'd like to make a few observations.

If the plan of God had been to have Moses stand on the top of the hill, raise his staff over his head, and God would send an angel to kill all the Amalekites, there wouldn't have been a need for Aaron and Hur to hold him up. If God had needed  an action in obedience and faith, Moses could have risen to the occasion on his own.  That wasn't the plan, through.  This called for protracted effort, for a seemingly impossible act of endurance, especially from an 80-year-old man.

God is about to give His people the law.  Up until now, they have had folk knowledge of God's requirement for living as passed down through oral tradition from the patriarchs, but there are not yet any of the "thou shalt not's" for which the law is famous.  God is about to call his people to obedience in a new, fuller, more life-altering way than they can imagine.  His call to obedience will not be something that they can accomplish short-term.  God does not call them to live righteously for an hour, a day, a season, or even for a span of holy days (think Mardi Gras before Lent).  Rather, God is calling His people to live differently for the rest of their lives, and for the rest of their generations to come.

"Honor Me Before All Others" FOREVER.

NEVER STOP "Keeping my Name Holy."

ALWAYS "Keep the Sabbath day."

AS LONG AS THEY LIVE "Honor your Mother and Father"

Every day. Always.  Never-Stopping.  Obedience.

We can't hold it up that long.  If it's up to our strength, Amalek wins every time.

This aspect of the enduring obedience of the Law is what makes it such a good schoolmaster for us regarding our sin.  Most people, if they knew it mattered, could live a day without breaking the 10 commandments.  Some would even stand a chance against all 613 requirements of the law for a few hours.  It's the fact that the record keeps going, that the time keeps counting.  You have to be perfect FOREVER.  Nobody's up for that task. I know I'm not.

So God sends two avenues for help to us.  We have our Aaron and our Hur, but they're better... because they're God.

The law has not passed away. Christ himself said that he had "not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it" (Matt 5:17).  So it's not that the battle is over.  Christ didn't come and remove Amelk from before us.  That will happen when we're glorified and enjoying the new Heavens and the new Earth.  No, for now, we still struggle against sin.

The Holy Spirit provides the first support.  He serves as our Aaron.  The Third Member of the Godhead is here to equip us to do rightly through "works of service,"  through gifts, and through the conviction of sin when our hands fall. He came in power at both Sinai and at Pentecost.  The first time He came, He was rejected by the Hebrews (we'll get to that next week), but He came to indwell fully at Pentecost.  The Jews were given the Law without the One who would empower them to live it out.  That is why so much of the OT is a train-wreck of sin that goes from bad to worse.  They couldn't keep the staff up in the air without their "Aaron."  They weren't that strong.  

Before you get too haughty--you aren't either.  Apart from the indwelling Spirit, you'd be bowing before Baal too.

The second support is Christ.  He came to fulfill the law, and He did it. Through the miracle of God's grace, Christ's satisfaction of the Law is credited to us when we fail, and our failure  is added to the account of Christ, which he paid on the cross.  When we lie, covet, take God's name in vain, steal, dishonor our parents, and work instead of worship, Christ is there, holding up our hand, and saying, "I got you.  I did that one right.  You can use my perfection here."

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2Cor 5:21

You see, on one hand, we are being constantly supported in our spirit by the Holy Spirit, who is speaking into our souls, "Live this way.  Say these things.  Meditate on these scriptures. No. Don't go there.  You shouldn't have done that.  You need to confess."  On the other hand, we have Christ, who is standing in the gap created between our best efforts and God's perfect standard.  He is speaking to the Father, "I have paid his debt. He failed here, but I am perfect.  Look at me for his righteousness.  Punish me for his sin."

Moses had Aaron and Hur to hold him up during a trying time that he could never have endured on his own, and an infant nation was saved.  We have God the Holy Spirit and God the Son holding us up and guaranteeing our inheritance for an eternal reward.  Praise be to God for His unfailing love!

The first step toward a relationship with God on his terms, according to His rules, is to know that you are flawed.  You can't do it on your own.  You are not good enough to keep the staff in the air.  God already knows this about you.  Do you know it about yourself? 

The second step is to invite the support of the Holy Spirit and the Perfect work of Christ to stand in the gap of your failure and turn the mission of righteousness from impossible to accomplished in you. God is waiting to help in your battle.  Will you let Him? 

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Third Saturday of Omer: Already and Not Yet

Third Saturday of Omer: Already and Not Yet

The season of counting the Omer is about taking time to look at what it cost to redeem God's people and the value that the purchase puts on salvation and freedom from bondage and then moving into gratitude for the relationship with God that came about on Mt Sinai in the first Shavuot, 50 days later.  Next Saturday will mark the half-way point of the Omer, so it is appropriate for the transition to begin from looking back to Passover to looking forward to Shavuot.  The account in Exodus of Moses' psalm is a fitting way to begin this transition.

In Exodus 15, the first psalm of scripture is recorded.  In it, Moses declares the wonderful works of God and the mighty way in which God redeemed his people. Throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments, the delivery of the people of God from bondage in slavery is seen as a picture of His salvation. Egypt is a picture of sin and slavery to the flesh and the fallen nature, and Pharaoh is by extension the devil himself.  If Exodus 15:1-18 is read with this analogy in mind, it is a beautiful exaltation of the victory of God's saving love over the assault of the enemy of our souls.

Moses begins by praising God for having triumphed over the enemy in bringing salvation to the Jews. "I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea."

In Moses' case, of course, this is an undisputedly complete task.  The statement is obviously put in the past tense.  When you read this as a picture of our salvation, though, would you have written in that way?  Can you say, with Moses, that "the Lord has triumphed gloriously" in your own salvific story?  It doesn't always feel that way, does it?  I am tempted to say, of myself, that "the Lord WILL triumph gloriously" in my life.  I see the struggles in my heart between my new nature, and my fallen flesh that is still "at war within me" (Jas 4:1). I know that I will fall to a sin, repent of it, pray against the enemy's assault in this area, and invite the Holy Spirit into this area of my heart to heal my wounds and remove my sinful desires.  I still very much feel the war that rages there, and I can think, erroneously, that my salvation is still a matter of contention between the will and work of God and the draw of sin.  This is not the case, however.  When God saves, he saves completely.  There is still a part of our perfection that is "not yet,"  the glorification that can only come after our flesh is literally put to death and we are raised glorious and incorruptible (1 Cor 15:50-58), but the salvation from sin and the destination of my soul is a "fait accompli," a finished work, a "done deal." The "horse and rider" of the enemy has been drowned in the sea of God's judgement for my sin.  The punishment for all of the wickedness in my life has already been poured out on the Lamb of God, and none was reserved for my eternal soul to bear.

This is a wonderful truth that is sometimes hard for me to internalize.  I don't have a long list of besetting sins that I fall to time and time again.  God has graciously been working in my life for many years now, and He has claimed victory in many areas that were once opportunities for the enemy.  Still, I am by no means perfect.  Just this morning, I was convicted by the Holy Spirit of a failure in an area I've been working on giving to the Lord, and I felt the regret and self-reproach that comes with the awareness of sin in my life.   What I have to get better at doing in those moments is realizing that salvation is both a process and a finished work.  It is both an "already" and a "not yet."  I get the "not yet" intuitively.  I am reminded again and again that I have not yet been glorified.  What is less intuitive for me is that the real war over my soul is done.  I am a child of the King, and I have been bought with the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. I should be able to stand and say, with Moses, that the work of my salvation is a completed work.

Paul says the same thing, albeit in a different immediate context, when he writes that "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17).  The old is gone, and the new has come in the question of who I am.  It is a miraculous work of God in my life that the enemy of my soul is defeated.  The miracle of my salvation is, in fact, a greater one than the miracle that inspires Moses to write the first psalm. Throughout the psalm in Ex 15, Moses again and again lays out the details of the pursuit of the enemy and the conquest of God.   He doesn't tell the story in a chronological way.  Instead, he lists every aspect of Pharaoh's pursuit interrupted by a statement of God's glorious conquest.

"Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea,  and his chosen officers were sunk in the red Sea.  The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.... The enemy said, 'I will pursue, I will overtake'... you blew with your wind; the sea covered them."(Ex 15:4, 9, 10).  Moses can't even list his enemies and the intent of the adversary without interjecting that they are all canceled, in every aspect, by the work of God.

In my life, this psalm might have been written like this: "Satan paraded ill-dressed ladies through my store, but God has freed my from lust.  I was wronged by a friend and saw anger approaching, but Jesus let me see that person through His eyes.  I was tired of waiting for an answer to a prayer and could have given in to discouragement, but I know that God is not done with me yet, and that His timing is better than my own impatience."   Whatever the enemy brings into my life as a snare, whatever sin entices me, God has already won the battle.  The enemy is already defeated.  Fait accompli!

While the enemy has already been defeated in a permanent and sure way, never to ensnare the Israelites again, they are not yet in the promised Land.  They're in Arabia,  not Canaan.  God still has a journey to lead them through, and it still lies before them to know God and His ways at Sinai. Moses is aware of this, and testifies to the "not yet" aspect of their salvation as well, when he declares, "You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for our abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.  The Lord will reign forever and ever" (vs 17-18).   Even though Moses declares the "already" of Israel's freedom, he acknowledges that there is still a "not yet."

And that's where we find ourselves.  God has freed us from the bondage of sin.  He has won the war in a decisive and final way.  For those who have placed the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts of their heart and have had a mikvah as testimony of our cleansing by faith, the Red Sea, the line of demarcation between our current life and the life of sin that we've left behind is clear, broad, and irrevocable. We, the children of God in Christ are free forever from that life, and yet we are not in the "Promised Land" of Glory.  

Paul writes of the reality of salvation that, "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified" (Rom 8:29-30). We, the living church, live in the comma between "justified" and "glorified." We are already right before a Holy God, but we have not yet been glorified in our flesh. So we live on in this tension of already and not yet, wrestling with our old nature, which has been mortified and yet dies slowly. 

How shall we live in this age of tension? And from where is our strength derived to live out the "already" in the midst of all this "not yet?" Moses sets out the answer at the top of his psalm. 

"The Lord is my strength and my song,
    and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father's God, and I will exalt him." Ex 15:2

We are to live in this tension on the strength that God supplies (This is the topic for next week), not leaning on the life we have known before, on the other side of the Sea.  We are to have our life and being in the power of God. He is the one who has brought us into the "already" and will bring us into what is still "not yet."  He supplies what we need for the journey and will show us the way. 

Meanwhile, we are to live in adoration, praise, and worship of God.  Notice the purpose of Moses' heart here.  He acknowledges the fact that his salvation has come only from God, and it drives him to worship.  The "song" flows immediately out of the context of the salvific experience he just had.  How can we live any differently?  We have been saved!  That should light the fires of worship and adoration so brightly that the world will know that we are worshiping, adoring, people of God. Those who do not have a desire to worship have not known salvation. To know who you were, the bondage you were under, and the destiny that awaited you, and then to know the Lamb of God who takes your place in the way of the wrath of God and gives you instead His love and freedom, is to be driven to your knees in adoration. 

So join with me in loving, worshiping, adoring, and laying down your life before the one who has decisively moved you, once-and-for-all out of the slavery and bondage of sin and into the "already" of freedom and who will, one day, move you into the "not yet" of glory.  Praise be unto Him!

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