Tim Hayes – Page 14

Resist Not Evil

The fact of evil in the world may constitute the greatest proof of God’s existence; we recognize people doing wrong and we’re moved by moral instinct to condemn and resist evil behavior. Yet without God there can be no such thing as evil.

Recognizing and responding to evil is fundamental to both our spiritual nature and our entire legal code, so we must be very careful when Christ says, “Resist not evil.” (Mt 5:39a) Taking this out of context sets us up for failure.

This is not about being passive as someone is abusing us, or inviting random acts of violence, or even being persecuted for our faith, but a civil context where we’re found guilty of harming another and justice requires similar harm be imposed on us, the offender (38). In other words, the context is where we already have a moral obligation to endure a given level of inconvenience or punishment (evil) in resolving an injustice. (Le 24:19-20) In such cases, mere justice is insufficient for the follower of Christ: we must go beyond the letter of the law in making things right. (Php 2:15)

This is most clearly seen in Christ’s second example, in the immediate context of how we’re to voluntarily offer to suffer more than we already have: we’ve been sued in court and found guilty, and the penalty is that our coat is being taken from us and awarded to the plaintiff. (40) When our community has found us guilty (implying we resisted resolving the offense out of court (Mt 5:25), and the offended party had to take us to court to find justice), it’s certainly appropriate for children of light (Ep 5:8-10) to go above and beyond what the law requires and voluntarily offer more if our adversary wants it. (1Co 6:7b) In other words, we’re to go out of our way to make things right once we’re shown by due process to be in the wrong. (Mt 5:16)

Christ’s third example is similar; one is compelling us to carry their burden a mile. (41) In other words, we have a moral obligation to comply with their request, as when Roman soldiers conscripted subjects into short-term manual labor to assist with military duties. (Mt 27:32) When one with such authority lawfully engages us to do something most people would resent, we show our integrity by willingly and cheerfully going well beyond what is required.

There’s a sense of resolving injustice even in Christ’s first example: someone strikes us on our right cheek. (39b) This would either be done with the left hand or with the back of the right hand, and would therefore be a formal insult. Presuming it is deserved, and lawfully dealt, Christ is telling us to submit to more harm than required to ensure any and all wrong on our part is fully resolved.

We see then by repeated examples in the immediate context that Christ is not teaching us to be passive in the face of wanton malevolence, but to voluntarily accept additional suffering (evil) as needed to fully resolve our offenses and fulfill our civic duties. He is calling us to live above reproach. (Tit 2:8)

It’s important then to consider how others might abuse this concept and teach us that it’s inappropriate to resist evil people, to defend ourselves and others, that we’re never to confront and challenge those who would wrongfully and maliciously harm us.

Yet Christ Himself does not do this, passively stand by as others harm Him contrary to the Law; He does not turn the other check when He is slapped; He publicly resists such abuse by pointing it out as unlawful and challenging it. (Jn 18:22-23) The Apostle Paul acts similarly, even cursing his perpetrator. (Ac 23:3)

So, when Christ’s teaching here is understood as a general requirement to defer to evil people in their malice, rather than simply accepting additional harm in resolving a civil dispute, suggesting we ought to voluntarily submit to arbitrary wickedness and not defend ourselves (NASB, NIV, RSV, ASV, ESV), we must be very careful; the examples Christ gives don’t appear to support such a conclusion.

It may very well be that one is being malicious and evil in taking advantage of our willingness to go the extra mile in resolving a dispute, yet we ought to maintain a spirit of generosity and love toward them regardless (Mt 5:44), just as we would towards all people. (42) This is the spirit of our Father, who is benevolent toward the evil as well as the good. (45)

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Lord of the Sabbath

When Christ says the sabbath was made for Man, and not Man for the sabbath (Mk 2:27), we might conclude the same about the rest of Torah, that it was made for us: we weren’t made for it. We might also conclude there might be times when it’s OK to break certain parts of God’s law, as when we’re in danger or have an emergency.

The immediate context is about harvesting on sabbath when we’re famished: the disciples were plucking grain (23) and the Pharisees accused them of breaking Sabbath. (24)

Christ counters with David eating bread he wasn’t allowed to eat; David and his men were famished and there weren’t any good options. (25-26) Christ seems to be saying there are times when God mercifully overlooks certain kinds of Torah violations: it isn’t that they aren’t violations; God just doesn’t call them out or hold us accountable for them in the same way.

What shall we say of god-fearing people who lied during the Holocaust to save innocent lives? Do we really see ourselves standing up on Judgment day condemning them? (Mt 12:41) We might be quite alone if we do; while God doesn’t officially approve of this kind of behavior, neither does He explicitly call it out as evil (Ex 1:19); He does seem to overlook it. (20-21)

The fact that plucking grain on sabbath actually doesn’t violate Torah at all, just Jewish tradition, may then not be the point; perhaps the point is that God is free to mercifully overlook certain kinds of sin without being unjust. (Ge 19:21) Perhaps it’s also about us being overly scrupulous in evaluating others’ behavior, especially in difficult, unusual or trying circumstances.

In reminding us He’s Lord of the Sabbath (Mk 2:28), Christ wasn’t telling us it’s OK to violate the sabbath now, or any part of Torah (Mt 5:19), but that He knows best when and how to show mercy when we break it.

It’s one thing to appreciate the mercy of God (Ps 136:1), yet it’s another matter altogether to presume He will be merciful when we deliberately and willfully choose to break Torah for our own pleasure and convenience. (He 10:28-31) When obeying God will bring suffering and difficulty, how committed should we be to honoring and respecting God’s Law? Should we break sabbath to keep a job? Or lie to save a loved one? Would we rather starve than eat unclean food?

Every one of us will give account of himself to God (Ro 14:11-12), and we’re all at different stages of maturity; some have faith to suffer for minor Torah violations, while others may not yet be so well grounded, becoming bitter and resentful in premature sacrifice. We should not create burdens for ourselves and others (Ac 15:10) which we’re unable to gladly bear. (He 10:34) Sorting this out is no small matter.

Whether God will slam us to the mat if we happen to break His Law under duress may not be the right question. Would Jesus break God’s Law to convenience Himself? or to accommodate someone He loves? Even to spare His own life? He never did sin like this (1Pe 2:22) and we’re to follow His steps. (21)

A better question might be, What kind of Resurrection do we want? (He 12:35b) What kind of testimony? (Re 12:11)

It’s a matter of faith to trust God to work out the details when we’re in a bind, to give us the strength to walk in joy, honoring Him as we suffer. Staying alive isn’t the ultimate priority (Php 1:21-22); neither is comfort or pleasure – ours or anyone else’s. We’ve not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. (He 12:4) The goal of God’s love is holiness: it makes no room for sin.

Shall we be so delighted in God’s ways that as the pressures of life mount up and threaten us (Ps 119:61), closing in about us until our very life hangs in the balance (109), we’ll not neglect or forsake His precepts? (87) Clinging to them as unto Him? (31) If we’ve yielded our body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God (Ro 12:1), we’ve already decided.

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Number Our Days

Time is arguably our most precious asset; our days on Earth are limited, and wisdom asks God to teach us to number them (Ps 90:12), or to quantify and manage them; we should be using every bit of this most precious resource to glorify God as well as we can — redeeming the time (Ep 5:16): treat every moment as if it’s priceless and we’d buy it back if we could.

So, one helpful way to look at this might be to examine how we’re spending our “free” time: what’s left after we’ve done our duty, fulfilled our responsibilities. We should know how much free time we have and maximize it in pursuit of God’s kingdom and righteousness. (Mt 6:33) Most of us have no idea how much free time we have, how many hours are slipping away unnoticed every day, underutilized, and the related opportunity cost.

Here’s an idea: fill out a 12X12 grid where each square is 10 minutes (2 hrs per row) and block out how you think you’re spending your time; when multi-tasking identify the focus activity.

Here’s my typical weekday, optional activity up top and more dutiful time beneath. “Free” time (purple/red/pink) is 5+ hrs, which I mostly spend working out — for general health / stress relief while memorizing / meditating on scripture and praying.

How we manage our time reflects our priorities, what we value — or worship. This is especially true of “free” time, what we do beyond duty, when we have a practical choice. The decisions we consistently make here tell us where our heart is and define who we are. (Mt 7:20)

The realty check is we actually are spending our time according to our priorities: we live according to our most deeply held values. This is how God renders to us all according to our deeds (Ro 2:6) even though salvation is by faith: our actions spring from our hearts and reflect our true beliefs. (Php 3:18-19)

Our entire life is composed of these tiny little 10-minute blocks, and we all have 144 every day: no one has any more or less. How many do we have in total, in our entire life? Only God knows, but once we choose to spend one a certain way, we never get a re-do; it’s gone forever and we can’t get it back.

What does God intend for us to do with each block? (Ps 119:97) What would our lives be like if we spent each one for Him? (Col 3:17) That’s the opportunity cost of making other choices; it will all be revealed on Judgement Day (Mt 12:36), and will reverberate eternally. (Mt 7:26-27)

If we’re misaligned with God’s values we can ask Him to show us where (Php 3:15); if we’re uncomfortable giving God an account of how we’re living it’s never too late; there’s no time like the present to acknowledge reality and ask Him for help. (He 4:16) He already knows. (Ps 139:2)

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Works of the Devil

When we observe inconsistencies between our rational minds and our emotions we discover our subconscious: underlying beliefs controlling us which are contrary to our intellect. What we actually believe and who we are is a composite of all these beliefs, and it’s a bit mysterious.

Many fight intense negative emotion, fear and anxiety, when they’re in no danger; others, a critical voice relentlessly discouraging and crippling them; still others wrestle with a debilitating sense of shame and worthlessness they can’t shake off. We all have spiritual wounds keeping us from functioning according to God’s design.

A girl, having done her best, hears, “Why don’t you do better? You’ll never amount to anything!” Satan whispers, “Something’s wrong with you; you’re unloved, worthless, unimportant, unnecessary.” As an adult she’s working herself to the bone serving others, but she’s constantly anxious, restless, no satisfaction or peace.

A boy is sexually violated and hears the insidious whisper, “If God loved you He wouldn’t have let this happen to you; you’re dirty, flawed, worthless.” As an adult he’s filled with fear and shame, hiding in rebellion and perversion.

We might frame all of this up in terms of lies and truth: when we’re acting inconsistently with reality we’re believing a lie. We might call the resulting damage to our souls works of the devil, the consequence of believing Satan’s lies about our lived experience (Jn 8:44b), and see Jesus Christ, the Truth (Jn 14:6), as our Deliverer: He destroys the works of the devil. (1Jn 3:8b)

Whenever we experience trauma, Satan is at hand to feed us the lie: “God isn’t good; you’re the problem.” But it’s just a lie, and there’s no reason to believe it. Yet we do tend to believe it, and this is the problem.

These lies are often buried so deeply within our subconscious we don’t even know what’s happened to us, or where to begin in dealing with them. So, how do we get free? (Ro 7:24)

We get into spiritual bondage in stages, gradually, starting in childhood and believing more and more lies as we go through life. So, it should come as no surprise that we generally get free the same way, over time, in many small steps, believing more and more truth (Jn 8:32) as we pursue God (Mt 7:7-8) and He teaches us His Way. (1Jn 2:27)

The only path to freedom is going back the way we came: realigning our mind with reality, believing differently; it’s called repentance, and it’s the gift of God. (2Ti 2:25-26)

Freedom comes as we internalize three primal truths: [1] God is good; [2] God is sovereign; and [3] He created each of us for a unique purpose. Like a three-legged stool, remove any of these fundamental principles and we have an unstable foundation.

We must know deep down that God loves us and that He’s ultimately benevolent towards us. (Ps 27:13) We must also know He’s in charge of everything: nothing ever happens without His permission. (Ro 11:36) And we must be confident that He has a unique design and purpose in creating us (Re 2:17b), and that all He has ever allowed to happen to us, or ever will allow, is ultimately for good. (Ro 8:28)

God calls us to pursue His purpose for us (2Ti 2:17), and He will help us as we turn to Him and follow after Him. (He 4:16)

The more deeply we know these things the more we align with reality and deliver ourselves from Satan’s devices.

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Pleasure in Them

Recently I’ve been convicted of enjoying others as they violate God’s ways. Granted, it’s fiction that I’m enjoying, but I don’t really see the difference: how is enjoying sin in a fictional character any different than enjoying it in real life?

While I might not be so bold as to actually do what they do, when I take any pleasure in their disobedience, don’t I reveal my own heart to be aligned with their sin in some way? (Ro 1:32)

For example, I enjoyed watching a navy seal avenge himself (Terminal List), I was sympathetic with fornicators (Titanic), rooted for thieves (Ocean’s 13) and took pleasure in insubordination. (Top Gun: Maverick) What are all the ways I take pleasure in sin, and how is this not itself a sin?

Similarly, twinges of envy and bitterness reflect unbelief in the goodness of God; it’s blaming God for making mistakes, distrusting Him, claiming I know better, positioning myself as God and putting myself on the throne. This is not fully believing in God; it’s failing to submit to Him and honor Him. (Ro 1:21)

By God’s grace I’d never actually do such things against God deliberately with my words and will, of course, but when my emotional impulses and tendencies reveal an inconsistency with what I think I believe, I should soberly address it. (Ro 7:21-24)

I’m being double-minded (Ja 1:7) when my emotions are inconsistent with my intellect, misaligned with what I claim to believe. Like claiming God is my delight without joy (1Pe 1:8), or believing God is good without thanksgiving. (Col 2:7)

This is all driven by inconsistent, contradictory conscious beliefs (formal double-mindedness = not loving truth), and/or by subconscious beliefs of which I may be entirely unaware. In either case, it’s definitely an opportunity to grow more into the likeness of Christ (1Jn 3:4): Jesus Christ has no such inconsistency. (Ps 45:7)

In diagnosing this I notice the root cause of my behavior to be lies embedded within my conscience, the part of me approving what’s good and rejecting evil; my conscience is telling me sin is good, desirable, acceptable, even tolerable … when it’s not, so my conscience needs to be cleansed and healed. (He 10:22)

So, what should I do about this? Systematically search my conscious understanding and root out all inconsistency as well as I’m able, hiding God’s Word in my heart and meditating on it, comparing my beliefs, attitudes and actions with what God says and praying through any verses which rub me the wrong way. God has commanded me to do this very thing for this very reason (1Ti 1:5), so He can heal me of the lies to which I’m still clinging and set me free.

I can also continue to observe my emotions for inconsistencies with the Word and lift them up to the Light, asking God to show me the lies I’m still harboring way deep down, and heal me. He is in the business of purging my conscience from dead works with the blood of Christ that I might serve Him more completely and fully. (He 9:14) Wherever I’m not aligned with His Way He will reveal this to me when He’s ready to deal with it in me, in the perfect time and in the perfect way. (Php 3:15)

This is the sobering journey of sanctification, and I’m to work it out with fear and trembling (Php 2:12), knowing God is working in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure. (13) As I hunger and thirst after righteousness, He has promised to fill me (Mt 5:6) that I might partake of the divine nature. (2Pe 1:4)

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To Patience Godliness

Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith (He 12:2), instructs us to diligently add to our faith (2Pe 1:5); though God works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13), He tells us to work out our own sanctification with fear and trembling. (12)

As we pursue God, there’s evidently an optimal path or sequence in sanctification: starting with faith we’re to add virtue, then add knowledge, then temperance, then patience, then godliness, then brotherly kindness, then charity. (2Pe 1:5-7)

Adding godliness between patience and brotherly kindness is perhaps unexpected: godliness is how we might identify the ultimate spiritual goal (2Pe 1:3), so why would God emphasize a particular sequence in sanctification, and include godliness as an intermediate step?

Godliness is from the Greek εὐσέβειαν, which is also translated holiness. (Ac 3:12) It evidently conveys the idea of reverential piety, fervency and earnest sincerity in spiritual matters. It’s wanting to be aligned with God at the most fundamental levels; it’s receiving Him into the deepest recesses of our hearts, inviting His scrutiny, rebuke and chastening, and welcoming His healing, communion and fellowship. (Re 3:20)

Focusing first on rightly aligning with God before kindness and love, godliness being the fine-tuning of this alignment, is perhaps an indication that we must be in right relationship with God before we can rightly relate with others. The greatest commandments, summarizing all of God’s Law (Mt 22:40), sequence moral priority like this: first love God then love others. (37-39) The Decalogue confirms, starting with godward commands (Ex 20:3-7), and finishing with relational commands. (12-17)

Having patience as a foundation for godliness positions us to maintain hope in suffering as we pursue holiness; it’s saying God is good at our own expense, knowing God is faithful, and reveals that we are rightly grounded in Him. Until we suffer well in God our faith hasn’t been tried (Ja 1:2-3) and found true. (1Pe 1:7)

Focusing on godliness as a foundation for kindness and love helps us love more authentically, more effectively. Knowing God’s love doesn’t come naturally; think carefully about it, examine it, pray for and seek understanding. (Ep 3:14, 19) If we don’t understand God’s love, how can we rightly love ourselves and others?

As we grow in Christ we don’t get everything at each stage of sanctification before we move on to the next; we don’t become perfectly virtuous before we gain the first bit of knowledge. The idea here is emphasis; if we value virtue above knowledge, we’ll understand how to rightly use knowledge and it won’t make us proud. (2Co 8:b) Similarly, pursuing godliness as a foundation for charity ensures that what passes for agape love in us is the genuine article, authentic, not superficial or put on, not for show.

God’s love is about holiness (He 12:10), not human comfort, happiness or pleasure. The more we’re aligned with God, the more our love for others will reflect His.

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Faith in His Blood

The instant of conversion is when we believe on God in the context of what He has done for us in Christ (Jn 3:36), but what is it exactly that we actually believe in or about God and/or Christ that saves us?

Abram was justified the instant he believed in Jehovah (Ge 15:6), yet he evidently had a deep relationship with God prior to this time and was following Him the best he knew how. (1-4) Abram had obediently left his home and family to follow Jehovah (He 11:8), built an altar to worship Him (12:8) and called on His name. (13:3-4) Yet Abram’s belief in God did not justify Him.

The faith which justified Abraham came afterward (Ro 4:19-22), and was thus more than believing in God’s existence, that God should be worshipped, trusted and followed at any cost. Such beliefs are evidently typical of those seeking God and His salvation (Lk 13:24) and involve prerequisites to saving faith, but do not fully comprise it. (He 11:6)

We might think believing on Christ is equivalent to accepting the fact that Christ is God’s Son and that He rose from the dead, yet we find Christ Himself telling us that many who call Him Lord, evidently believing such obvious basics about Him, will ultimately be cast away, eternally condemned. (Mt 7:21-23) Many who claim to believe the historical facts about Christ aren’t obeying Him, showing that they don’t love Him (Jn 14:23), and He’s telling us in no uncertain terms that these folk don’t belong to Him. (26-27)

God says Jesus Christ is made a propitiation for us through faith in His blood. (Ro 3:24-25) In other words, the belief that justifies is an explicit, unwavering trust in, dependence on and rest in the efficacy of the blood of Christ for one’s personal justification before God: it is the blood that makes atonement for our soul. (Le 17:11) It’s knowing we’re justified by what Christ has done in shedding His blood and dying for our sin (1Co 15:3), becoming our sin (2Co 5:21), washing us from our sins in His own blood (Re 1:5), and imputing perfect righteousness to us. (Ro 4:23-25)

This is not the same as believing Jesus Christ died to provide an offer of salvation to the whole world, such that anyone may be forgiven of their sins. While this is certainly true (Jn 3:16), this belief in itself does not save anyone because it is not personal; it’s not about one’s own sin being atoned and paid for. This belief opens the door to salvation, but believing it does not get us through the door because something that applies to everyone, but does not in itself save anyone, cannot be proper grounds for our justification. Believing it gives us no personal assurance of eternal life.

We are justified as we receive God in Christ (Jn 1:12-13), becoming fully persuaded that the salvation God promised in Christ He has already performed in us (Ro 4:21-22): that the blood of Christ and His atoning work has satisfied God in our personal case and has eternally justified us. (Is 53:11) This is a supernatural work in which God assures us of eternal life in Christ (1Th 1:5), based entirely on the work Christ has done in dying for us personally on the Cross, paying our sin debt to God, and creates in us a new nature (2Co 5:17) that loves Him (Jn 14:23) and obeys Him. (1Jn 3:9-10)

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Believe on Him

Given that there are only two places to spend eternity, Heaven and Hell, and nothing in between, it follows that at the most fundamental level there are only two eternal spiritual states before God: condemned and justified (or not-condemned). (Jn 3:18)

Given that we all start out alienated from God, dead in sin, under the wrath of God (Ep 2:1-3), such that we’re all commanded to repent and believe (Ac 20:21), in order to go to Heaven a transition must occur when we go from being condemned to being justified. According to Scripture, this transition happens as we believe on Jesus Christ (Jn 3:36, Ro 3:26), so it is important to understand what this means, to ensure that we are justified and are no longer condemned.

The first thing we might notice is that if there are only two possible states before God: condemned and justified, any transition between these two states must be instantaneous; it must happen in an instant. In other words, in order to go to Heaven there be an instant in time when we stand condemned before God, dead in sin, headed for Hell, and the second after this instant we are justified before God, headed for Heaven, eternally safe, such that God will never again impute sin to us. (Ro 4:6-8) Becoming justified cannot occur gradually over a measurable period of time, or involve an ongoing process of growth and transformation. This is directly implied by the fact that there are fundamentally only two possible, eternal spiritual states: condemned and justified; there is nothing in between, no middle ground for us to occupy, even for a moment.

A second thing we might notice is that at the instant we are justified we must believe something new and different about Christ that we have not believed before, and this belief will relate in some way to the person, character and/or atoning work of Christ. (Ro 4:23-25) This follows from the fact that if we are justified by believing on Christ, justification is conditional upon having this belief in Christ, and having this belief in Christ implies that we are already justified. So, this belief in Christ must first occur in us at the instant of justification, and not sooner or later: justification happens as and when we believe on Christ, and we believe on Christ as and when we are justified.

This may seem trivial, stating the obvious, something anyone could discover by thinking just a little bit and using some common sense. Yet this understanding of salvation is very uncommon among professing Christians: that [1] there must be an instant of conversion (or salvation), and that [2] this event is marked by believing something new about Christ which was not believed before. (Ro 3:22)

Most all Christians do not believe salvation occurs when their beliefs about Christ and His work change. In most every case, what is believed about Christ just before the instant of salvation is identical to what is believed about Christ immediately afterward. In other words, no beliefs in or about Christ change at the point when most think they’re being saved. This is how most every evangelical gospel tract presents the good news and evidently how most every instructed Christian would explain it, basing salvation itself on something other than simply believing on Christ. This is — obviously — no small thing.

The typical substitute today, at least in Evangelical Christianity, is some form of The Sinner’s Prayer, in which a person, believing they are currently headed for Hell, and having been told the good news about Christ’s death, burial and resurrection and having believed the message, yet perceive nothing in the message itself suggesting that they are justified before God merely by believing it. Rather, they hope to experience this transition from being condemned to being justified by telling God they’re sorry they have sinned, asking Christ to save them, and committing their lives to serve and obey God. They think of this act of prayer as trusting Christ to save them, but nothing about what they believe is changing during this act of praying, so this cannot be the correct way to present or understand the gospel if salvation is by believing in Christ.

In the Bible, when the gospel message is presented, people are saved as they hear and believe the message; something miraculous happens within them causing them to believe on Christ (Ac 8:35-37); they are never encouraged to pray any kind of prayer or engage in any kind of ritual in order to be justified — they just believe. (Ac 10:43-44)

Praying to receive Christ does not get us to Heaven; neither does being baptized, taking a sacrament, following any religion, creed or tradition, or performing any kind of ritual. (Ga 6:15) Those who depend on such Man-made devices for their eternal safety have perverted the gospel of Christ and do not rightly understand it. (Ga 1:6-8)

It should come as no surprise that many — perhaps almost everyone — calling Jesus Christ Lord will be cast away from Him, as He pronounces those dreadful, final words: “I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” (Mt 7:22-23)

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Crucified Among You

A Being Who creates time and space must be beyond both space and time, inhabiting eternity, able to simultaneously experience all of time and space at once. (Ep 4:10) If there are 10 dimensions, or more, God has designed each one and exists within, through and outside them all (Ro 11:36), being both ever-present and omnipresent.

The Word gives us glimpses, windows into His unimaginable infinitude. As Christ walks the earth, He is yet in the heavenlies (Jn 3:13) holding everything together. (Col 1:17) He has already trodden down all who err from His statutes (Ps 119:118), as if the Day of Vengeance has already come and gone. (Is 63:3-5) In other words, anything and everything God will ever experience … He may have already experienced it, and He may always experience it.

This includes that mysterious moment nearly two millennia ago when Jesus Christ cried out: “My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46) If any moment in all eternity is the most dreadful, the most intense, the most awesome and wondrous, perhaps it is when the deepest eternal communion within the very Godhead is disintegrating, breaking, being disrupted and marred by sin. This is the moment God is pleased to bruise His Son, to put Him to unspeakable grief, to make His Holy soul an offering for sin. (Is 53:10)

This darkest hour, when Christ became our sin, as He was treated as a sinner, as an abomination by His own Father, would certainly be an hour He might never want to experience again, ever, for all eternity. Yet, if this is Love, born of and revealing Love, the highest possible form and expression of Love, why would God forget it?

The fact that God is Love itself (1Jn 4:16) suggests that God accepts this infinite suffering as part of His eternal experience, ever mindful of the dreadful price He has paid to ransom us. It is immeasurable suffering on our behalf; we can never fully comprehend it.

So, when Paul claims Christ was crucified among the Galatians, decades after He rose from the dead (Ga 3:1), while he certainly wasn’t being literal in the sense that Christ had came back down to Earth to die again, it seems Paul may not have been entirely metaphorical either: there’s evidently a very real sense in which the atonement of Christ may a timeless, ongoing event from God’s perspective, though He has only offered up Himself once. (He 7:27)

And herein, within the infinitude of God, we may find the mystery of the Gospel laid out for us afresh and anew, how God can be angry with unbelievers, condemning them for their unbelief (Jn 3:18) and holding them guilty for breaking His laws (Ro 3:19) long after the Cross, yet assure all who believe on Christ that He bore our sins in His own body on the cross (1Pe 2:24), such that Christ cleansed us from all our sins long ago. (He 1:3)

To acknowledge this, as the scripture clearly states, is to admit that the atonement of Christ is both limited to those who have already believed (Is 53:11), yet also available to anyone (1Jn 2:2) who is willing to seek after God until they do believe. (Mt 7:7-8)

So it is, in the wisdom of God, how unbelievers remain condemned in their sin (Ja 5:19-20), how David believes on Christ long before Christ comes as if He has already died, such that sin is no longer imputed to him (Ro 4:6-8), and how we find all our sin laid on Christ only as we believe on Him, well after His work is completed. All this can only be true if the work of the Cross itself persists outside of time in some mysterious way.

Before the foundation of the world, Christ is slain (Re 13:8), and He lives this out over time in every holy sacrifice offered up in faith before the Cross itself, in all who see the Lamb of God taking away their sin. (Jn 1:29) It continues even now, with and without the visual aid of animal sacrifice, unto the end of the world, as each elected soul grasps the efficacious miracle of Christ’s substitutionary atonement, until the very last believer is welcomed, sin-debt paid in full, and the Bride of Christ is complete, new heavens and new Earth blaze with the ever-present glory of the greatest act of Love the universe has ever known.

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I Am Not Worthy

As servants of Jesus Christ we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God: after He’s given His Son for our sin and taken us into His own family, it’s the only reasonable thing to do. (Ro 12:1)

We might easily want to do something great for God, to be significant in His kingdom, and if we aren’t careful become frustrated or even resentful if the way before us seems menial, insignificant, unimportant, difficult or painful.

Yet the greatest of mortal men, John the Baptist (Mt 11:11), felt quite differently. John felt unworthy to perform the most trivial, lowly service for Christ, to even loosen His sandal. (Jn 1:26-27) His humble attitude puts things in proper perspective.

What should we consider ourselves worthy of before God? What kinds of blessings do we deserve? What station, position or recognition? To name anything good at all here is to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, carelessly, thoughtlessly, presumptuously. (Ro 12:3)

The fact is that whatever God assigns us, whatever task or duty or suffering He is pleased to call us into, we should be extremely thankful for it, grateful beyond our capability to express it. It is infinite mercy, anything He is pleased to order for us more than what we truly deserve: to burn in Hell, forever cast away from God; we don’t deserve any better.

Measuring the importance of our lot, of what God ordains for us, cannot be our concern; only God Himself assigns ultimate significance and value. What role we play in the eternal drama of God, how critical our task in His strategic plan, how our lives impact others and glorify God, both now and in eternity … only God knows. It is our heart God is watching (1Co 4:5), why we’re doing what we’re doing. In running the race set before us (He 12:1), our unique and precious race, our focus must be to obey Him reverently and serve Him joyfully (Ps 2:11) Our singular desire must be to hear Him say, “Well done!”

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