Note: This post is adapted from a sermon I first delivered at Bethany Bible Chapel in Winchendon, MA on July 3, 2022. It follows the outline of the sermon on every point but is not verbatim what I said in the initial delivery; the message was also originally taught from the ESV but has been switched to NASB here.
While some people who know me on Facebook may expect differently, it has been about 15 years since I was last punched in the face. That time, it was by my ex-fiancée; she had been led to believe by some people who didn't like me (admittedly, for good reason) that I had been cheating on her. I hadn't, but at the moment when that right hook connected, that didn't really matter. What mattered in that moment was that she really believed it, and through her actions, I was finally convinced that she really believed it. The reason for this is actually pretty simple: we act in accordance with our beliefs. That is, our behavior displays what we really believe, whether we intend to or not.
The epistle of James is heavily focused on this. James wrote his preserved letter to believers who already understood the gospel. This letter doesn't deal heavily with the basics of the faith or how to understand salvation; his concern is what they're doing about it. The passage we're looking at today is essentially a summary of the whole book in that it condenses a lot of these concerns into one neat little package. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for [their] body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, [being] by itself. But someone may [well] say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
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Faith That Saves
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If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin [and] are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one [point,] he has become guilty of all. For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT COMMIT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by [the] law of liberty. For judgment [will be] merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:8-13 (NASB)
Now, I've mentioned this before, but it bears reminder here: when I and others call something a gospel issue, we are not saying that this issue is the content of the gospel. That is, when someone says that our approach to racial reconciliation or sexual abuse is a gospel issue, they aren't saying that Christ came to save us primarily from inequality or assault, as it is sometimes framed by its critics. What we're saying when we reference something as a gospel issue is that it is an issue that reveals what we believe about the gospel. James is saying that in today's passage, that our treatment of others reveals what we believe about the gospel. And Jesus said the same in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. In the parable, people are sorted 'like sheep from goats,' and each is given their due reward and an explanation on why they're receiving what they are. For example,
"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me [something] to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me [something] to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
Matthew 25:34-36 (NASB)
- When I was hungry, did you give me food?
- When I was thirsty, did you give me drink?
- When I was a stranger, did you welcome me?
- When I was naked, did you clothe me?
- When I was sick or in prison, did you visit me?
He makes it very clear that the answers to these questions matter. In both cases, those receiving reward as well as those receiving punishment, the addressed parties express confusion. Both ask when they ever saw Jesus in these situations, when they ever had the opportunity to act in accordance with these questions. And Jesus tells both of them "to the extent that you did (or did not) do it to one of the least of these, you did (or did not) do it to me" (Matthew 25:40,45; NASB). By their actions, the people in the parable displayed whether or not they had love for one another, but that wasn't all. Jesus tells us, by delivering this parable, that this very same behavior reveals whether or not we have love for Him. The answer to those questions, as it concerns "even the least of these my brothers," is the very same answer as it concerns Him. But how does this work?
Works Produce Evidence of Faith
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As such, our actions serve as evidence of what we believe. Our words are an inferior proof in this regard. After all, we can lie about what we believe. We can even lie to ourselves. Titus is warned by Paul about false teachers that "They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed" (Titus 1:16, NASB). James touches on this same idea in our passage, when he says "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works;" note here that he doesn't say "what good is it that he has faith," but rather, "what use is it if he says he has faith" (James 2:14, NASB). James isn't even comparing faith and works, he's showing that an empty statement of faith is not sufficient evidence that said faith exists! Works serve as evidence of what faith exists, and I don't mean big showy works. My standing at the pulpit and preaching isn't the kind of evidence God is looking for, and Jesus goes so far as to say that even miracles aren't enough on their own.
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.] "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'
Matthew 7:21-23 (NASB)
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have [the gift of] prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed [the poor,] and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NASB)
Similarly, it is the daily walking with God that displays our love for Him. In my previous Sunday morning message at this church, I referenced the then-current sermon series about the heart of Christ and said that the point of so much of what we were saying was to take the things we learn about the nature of Christ and behave as though they are fundamental truths of the universe. That all of creation, including us, is defined by the very heart of who Christ is. This happens by way of a growing relationship with Him, in which we make decisions in service to Him. Loving Him above all and loving others in that is essential to our walk as Christians, and it will be displayed in our actions toward one another. James warns, "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?" because a faith that is fixed on God will draw us closer, not only to Him, but to those who bear His image (James 2:15-16, NASB).
It can go the other way, as well. Actions that do not glorify or serve God are evidence of faith that is not fixed on Him. One of the things we need to keep in mind here is that we each have some areas in which there is room to grow. None of us are perfect; even if our lives in general point to a faith fixed on God, we have some element in our lives that is still skewed, whether by holding onto it for ourselves or being just a little wrong about who God is in that matter. That which we believe can be our undoing just as easily as they can help us grow, and even one area of false faith in our lives will impact our general behavior. Jude warns about this, though he's mostly focused on false teachers and therefore on a pattern of behavior that displays a whole life rooted in something other than Christ, when he says that "...these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed" (Jude 1:10, NASB). Our actions are the means by which the immediate fruit of our beliefs are realized in our lives. But we need to discuss why that is.
Faith Produces Work
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But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
1 John 3:17-18 (NASB)
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the [child] born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
1 John 5:1-5 (NASB)
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:20 (NASB)
If our faith is not moving us along the path highlighted by John, that of growing in our service to God's commandments and manifesting His love ever more, then it simply is not faith. Or at least, it isn't faith in Christ Jesus. One can have faith in many things, but if that thing is the God of the Bible, these results being discussed by James and John will be the fruit of it. James is helpful here, in that he provides some examples, and these examples are expanded upon and added to by the writer of Hebrews. James highlights Abraham and Rahab; the former is discussed in more detail in Hebrews 11:8-10 and 11:18-29, while the latter is addressed in Hebrews 11:31. They are, in Hebrews, listed among a collection of examples, people who held great faith, and whose faith was proven by their works. The examples we have of faith throughout scripture are people whose faith drove them to action. In every case, they believed God was going to do something or had done something, and they acted in accordance with that belief. The chapter highlights not only great and major decisions made in faith, but consistent daily life spent in light of God's nature, God's works, and God's promises. This is boiled down in Matthew 8, where in verse 10 Jesus declares a centurion as having more faith than He had seen in all of Israel. But what showed Him that faith? Simply put, a man who recognized Christ's authority, understood who Christ was in daily terms that impacted his life, and acted in full confidence of what Jesus would do.
There's a process to this, so let's break down how it works with an example from my own life. The first step is that our beliefs about the truth of the world inform how we process information. We decide who and what we're going to trust, and how we will analyze new data, based on the beliefs we already have about the world and the bigger picture. I'm habitually anti-authority, and while God has softened my heart toward those in authority, my natural inclination still isn't exactly instant trust. This became glaringly relevant the first time I was arrested. I was 13, got attacked in art class over a misunderstanding paired with a bad day, was arrested for fighting in school, the details aren't important right now. What is important is that the police officer who sat across from my parents and me explained that he knew I hadn't actually broken the law, every witness' testimony lined up on that fact, but it had been determined that it was better to charge me anyway so ensure the department would not get accused of racism, seeing as the young man who attacked me was black and I wasn't. He assured us that this was a thing that happened from time to time and they therefore knew the court would throw out the charges and everything would be fine; he was right in that regard, the court did throw out my case and I was never in trouble, and the family of the young man who attacked me accused the court of racism for punishing their kid but not me.
So the idea was that I wouldn't get in trouble, the police would look squeaky-clean, the kid who attacked me gets punished, and everyone wins. Based on conversations with my parents since then, I'm under the impression they very much accepted that answer as the best way to navigate a complicated situation. As I said, they had ample evidence as the situation continued to unfold that the officer was right about how the situation would be seen and how best to offer some measure of satisfaction without putting me at undue risk. I, however, did not. What I heard in that explanation was that the police were, on a systemic level, putting their image as a higher priority than their actual job. That they were more concerned with looking like they were practicing justice than in actually practicing justice. As the officer's worldview made him think he was explaining a reasonable compromise for a broken world, and the worldview of my parents made them hear a reasonable compromise for a broken world, my worldview made me hear a confession of repeated offenses against my community. While my parents thought about how much pressure that officer must have been under and how complicated the situation was and worried whether or not the judge would follow through on the officer's promise, my head was elsewhere. How many people, I wondered, had been thrown under the bus before me? How many of them didn't get their cases thrown out like mine was? How many people were in prison, or had criminal records, or were now dead because it was easier and more important to maintain the image the police were after than to do right by them?
Now, I'm not actually advocating for my position in this post, and I wasn't in the sermon. I've done that elsewhere and certainly will again, but the point here isn't whether or you agree with me or my parents. It's why you agree with who you found yourself agreeing with. The point is that, as you were reading that story, some things stood out as more reasonable than others. Some things clicked easier, some people sounded like they were being more fair to the circumstances than others did. That's what I'm trying to highlight. That moment where your mind began to interpret the story through the lens of what you already believed, that's how this works. We process information based at least in part by a system of credibility we establish based on our existing beliefs about the world and how it works. And then, once we've processed the information, the information we have deemed as credible informs how we make decisions. That event (and others) formed a long-standing distrust of police in my mind, and that distrust manifests in how I handle encounters with police. But that's not limited to isolated encounters, because how we make decisions and the bulk of our decisions shape our daily lives. How I view cops is evident in how I drive, how I vote, how I talk to my kids about the law. There is a fair chance that my anti-authoritarian mindset, by shaping how I interpreted that one situation, will not only prove to shape my whole life, but the lives of generations after me. And this is true of all of us, and it is true of every belief we hold. They all impact our behavior in this way, and by doing so, they all shape every day of our lives. Even if we try to act differently without changing those beliefs, it will break down. The consequences of our beliefs will find a way to show through, even when we don't realize it. There will be cracks, and people who know how to recognize the beliefs at play will see them glowing bright and clear through those cracks.*
We would be wise to remember that God always knows how to recognize the beliefs at play and sees all our cracks.
Examining Our Faith Adjusts Our Works
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Having Christ as our interpretive lens is more than just knowing things about Him. James ends our passage with a warning to that effect, when he says "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 2:19, NASB). One commentary I consulted pointed out that the faith of demons is better than the faith of some of us, because they at least know God well enough to shudder. That is, they have enough awareness of who He is and who they are and what that means for them to recognize the end result of that interaction; but even that is not enough faith to bring about any change in them. But this shouldn't be so for us!
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NASB)
If you're reading this, and you've been treating the Christian life or social morality or ethics or even some other faith as a checklist that you think will save you, it's time to stop. You need to repent, recognize Christ for who He truly is, and place your trust fully in Him. Lay down whatever it is in your mind that tells you to interpret discussions like this as anything you can or should do to fix yourself, and lean on Him to change you on a fundamental level.
If you've already done that, if you've recognized your need of Christ and submitted to Him, then you need to take stock. have you fully given yourself over to Him, or are you still trying to hold on to rusty pieces? We need to always be looking to the person of Christ and our beliefs about Him, examining how well we reflect Him. And this side of eternity, there will always be something where we're lacking, where we're a bit off the mark. We need to identify those places where we don't quite look like Christ, where we don't have a natural draw to glorify Him more, and take things like this post as an invitation to ask why. What belief am I holding that doesn't align with the truth of who God is? Don't beat yourself up, don't try to force a new behavior; take a step back and examine your beliefs. Where are our hearts and habits leading us? Any place in our lives where we are not being drawn closer to God is a place that needs examined.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Ephesians 2:8-10 (NASB)
A Reminder
I made a point to note during the sermon that I'm not encouraging people to beat themselves up over mental illness. There are some conditions, like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and many more, that do add strain to the work of walking with Christ. But those aren't who you are, and they don't have to be foundational interpretive lenses. They create an environment in which you are operating, and the question is about what you do in your environment, whatever that environment is. Do you seek to glorify God even when things are difficult? Do you long for Him even when your mind is screaming that you're alone? The questions being asked in this post are about the alignment of your heart relative to God, not about the obstacles you face along the way.
In my previous post in this series, I addressed the nature of Christ as the living Word of God. While I will be relating this post to that statement, I will not spend time revisiting the idea in detail; rather, this post will deal with the twin questions of the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture.
Inerrancy | |
The logic for the former is fairly straightforward. It relies on two essential claims; that God is the source of scripture and cannot be wrong about anything, and that the accuracy of that which can be seen is the evidence that the claims about that which cannot be seen are accurate. As stated previously, all revelation about God comes through the Son, who by His very nature is Truth and therefore cannot have falsehood within Himself. If the Bible is to be understood as the word of God, then it must be given to us by the Word of God, and as such must have His essential nature as truth without any mixture of falsehood. And, as Christ submitted Himself to a state which allowed His claims of divinity to be tested (ultimately by His resurrection, but also by His works in the flesh), so He has built into scripture the ability to be tested. This ability is carried in the details of things which happened in full view of human witnesses, including minutiae such as genealogies, miracles, and conversations between man and God. The accounts of these events are generally included by people in a position to know they are true, to indicate that the ultimate Teller of the story is faithful in the telling, and therefore can be trusted to tell of things which human eyes cannot witness on this side of eternity.
The logic for the latter is not really much more complex. It, too, relies on two essential claims; that God used human authors to pen scripture and therefore allowed their understanding to shape the way the scripture was recorded, even when that understanding was incorrect, and that the stories contained in scripture serve to illustrate essential truths rather than to prove them. The Bible, therefore, is a document in which God reveals truth to mankind through avenues accessible to mankind, with is focused primarily on allowing mankind to connect with that truth. As Christ used parables which were not true but were able to enlighten ears ready to hear, so He as the Word uses fables and ideas which are not true but are able to enlighten ears ready to hear. The accounts of these events are often written by people who were not eyewitnesses but had reason to believe the events at least so far as they illustrate truth, to indicate the lesson God wanted man to learn.
Both sides will affirm 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which in the NASB states that "all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." In the case of the former camp, this passage is evidence that all scripture is true and accurate; in the latter, it is evidence that the result of applying the scripture is the primary concern, rather than the actual content of that scripture. Both sides attempt to take scripture seriously, but have a different focus on how to do that.
I do not find the argument of the latter group convincing. The essential problem with the view that scripture can be truthful without being accurate is that the Bible itself doesn't really present itself this way. The parables of Christ, for instance, are presented in a manner in which their nature as educational stories is evident; He speaks in vague terms about archetypal characters rather than specifics, He makes interpretive statements like "such is the Kingdom of God," and he often uses them directly to illustrate the answer to a question or challenge. But this isn't the case of stories like Noah's flood or Jonah's whale, both stories that are widely considered folklore by those who hold the truthful-but-inaccurate stance. These events are described in detail, generally placed in a specific period or point in time, with specific named characters in specific named locations, as part of a narrative that has not been prompted and is not paired with interpretive statements. That is, if the Word of God is telling parables in the construction of scripture, then He is a significantly different kind of storyteller in the flesh than He was outside the flesh, the very way His mind seems to process stories is different, and this calls into question how much the two storytellers can really be the same Person.
It also places mankind in a position to judge what of scripture is to be taken accurately and what is not. In the inerrancy view, scripture itself tells us; that which is written in a manner that indicates it is history will be read as history, that which is written in a manner that indicates hyperbole will be read as hyperbole, and so on. It is not true that inerrancy demands that every passage of scripture be read as literal, but that it be literally read as the genre which it presents. By placing the authority on us as interpreters to determine what of scripture we will treat as what, we become arbiters of truth. But this is not a position we are ever granted. God is truth, and the arbiter of truth; we are recipients of and responders to truth. To hold that some elements of scripture which claim to be true can be false requires that we place something else, inevitably something of our own, as a higher authority on the nature of the text than the Author of scripture Himself. But for the Christian, there can be no higher authority than God, and there can therefore be no higher authority on how to read His words than He Himself.
I therefore stand on inerrancy, and posts from this blog will be written from the understanding that the Bible is true in the manner to which it presents itself as true on all matters.
Sufficiency | |
I do, of course, agree with the CBN and their ilk in the claim that the gospel is sufficient for the salvation of mankind, but then, so would the majority of the people the CBN and their ilk are condemning. The fact is, the argument for using man-made discussion points and theories is not designed to replace or supplement the gospel, but to apply it. The aim is to help people who are not Christians see how the gospel informs the problems they see in the world, and to help Christians see how the brokenness of the world is affecting real people so we can accurately and helpfully bring the gospel to those people. And for this purpose, the Bible itself not only isn't fully sufficient, but never claims to be. We have historically understood that application of the gospel in different contexts requires us to explain how the gospel plays out in the lives of real people in that context, and we see the Bible itself practice this. Paul, in Titus, uses ideas as presented by a pagan poet to explain how the gospel needs to be applied in Crete. Jude uses Jewish folklore that we don't hold as authoritative to illustrate his point. If we can understand that human authors of scripture can use man-made ideas to help them apply the gospel without watering the gospel down, why can we not understand modern Christians as capable of doing the same?
As such, I maintain that the sufficiency of the gospel for the salvation of human souls is a true stance that should be defended whenever it comes under attack, but that it is not under attack in this particular context.
In the interest of limiting our focus to avoid repetition, the outline for this post will actually be drawn from Jude.
Jude 20-25 (NASB)
Growing in Faith | |
The Christian life is a dynamic one. It is not static and unchanging, we do not begin with all the answers, and we have to spend the rest of our lives growing. Jude begins his exhortation by reminding us that the work of growing is to be built on faith. It is by fixing ourselves on the hope of salvation, on Christ, that we are made pure and the Christian life begins to manifest in our lives.
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And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1 John 3:3 (NASB) |
1 Peter 2:4-5 (NASB)
Prayer in the Holy Spirit | |
The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober [spirit] for the purpose of prayer. 1 Peter 4:7 (NASB) |
Jude adds prayer to his exhortation. Prayer is necessary for all the rest of this. We cannot be growing in Christ if we are not in communication with Christ, we will not keep ourselves in the love of Christ or live in light of His next coming if we do not lean on Him for our strength. More on this will actually be covered below, but for now, prayer is the means by which these things become real in our lives.
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Keep in the Love of God | |
The Christian life is marked by love, specifically, that we are living out the love of Christ. This means that the Christian life must be lived in community, and that how we then treat one another (and those outside of the church) must reflect the way God loves us. We cannot be living out the Christian life if our lives do not, in fact, look like Christ; and how we love one another, and the degree to which we do so, is critical to that.
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Now I ask you, lady, not as though [I were] writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 2 John 5 (NASB) |
Hebrews 10:23-25 (NASB)
Waiting for Eternal Life | |
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:11-13 (NASB) |
The Day of the Lord is the period of judgement that ends the systems of this world and initiates the final rule of Christ. The specifics of this period vary based on interpretive system, but all of them mark this a decisive line between the age of the church in the world and the next age.
The method of interpreting that is not a necessary topic for this post. The point is that there is a judgement coming, and those of us in Christ will be brought safely through into glory, and we must look to that day as we live out lives now. As said before, we must know where we are going if we seek to go there well. And, whether or not we are prepared, we will be going here. |
1 John 2:28 (NASB)
Discernment | |
Verses 22 and 23 of Jude give some input on what all of the above looks like in direct interaction with others, but the thing I'd like to narrow in on is that it assumes that his hearers have some way to know which approach is appropriate for the situation. The lifestyle he is proposing, then, requires a certain amount of discernment.
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And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Jude 22-23 (NASB) |
Revelation 2:2-3 (NASB)
Hebrews 4:12-13 (NASB)
Benediction | |
Hebrews 13:20-21 (NASB)
[Act] as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but [use it] as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. 1 Peter 2:16-17 (NASB) |
Applying these principles paint, in broad strokes, everything this series has sought to cover. The general epistles heavily concern themselves with these aspects of our relationship to God. The authors encourage us to see God's glory, to rely on His power, and to live under His authority, even when this puts us at odds with the world around us. We do ourselves a disservice when we gloss over these books; their words are as important to us today as they were to the original readers.
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1 John 5:5 (NASB)
I have taken a few discipleship groups or classes where we were asked to find a passage that summarizes salvation, and in every case what was cited were John 3:16 or one of maybe three sections of Paul's writing. And again, this is fine, Paul did write about this and his writing is super helpful. But in our study of the general epistles as a body worthy of equal consideration, we cannot ignore what they have to say about salvation and redemptive history. I'd like to try something that came to mind while I was reading and sorting and preparing this series, and that is actually to pull the nature of salvation from the letters to the seven churches, in chapters 2-3 of Revelation, and use those as a guide to the way the rest of the general epistles handle the subject. We will be exploring the "He Who Overcomes" statements. Each of these is tailored to the church that is receiving it, but taken together, they create a picture of what salvation is. |
Eden Restored | |
Revelation 2:7 (NASB)
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. Genesis 3:22-23 (NASB) |
Now, God was not concerned about us pulling a fast one on Him and eating from the tree when He wasn't looking. Having access to the tree was not some threat to Him. But there was a need to separate mankind from the Tree of Life, and so God did. Now, we will explore more about the promise of life in the next section, but the point for right now is that Christ is promising through John that there will be a restoration to the perfect created order, that we will again be in the paradise of God and have access to, not only the Tree of Life, but the giver of life Himself.
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Hebrews 4:2-5 (NASB)
The Second Death | |
Revelation 2:11 (NASB)
Revelation 20:14-15 (NASB)
John himself also summarizes this promise when he says, "The world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2:17 NASB). Jude focuses on the negative side of that arrangement in verses 5-7, where he points to Sodom and Gomorrah as evidence of the destruction that awaits those who are not in Christ.
This promise of eternal life shows up a few times in these two chapters of Revelation, as we've already seen one in access to the Tree of Life above. This, then, is our second note about salvation as the general epistles understand it: it is eternal life, and stands in stark contrast to the judgment that will fall on those who remain enemies of God. |
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:11-13 (NASB) |
A New Foundation | |
Revelation 2:17 (NASB)
The manna is a theme that gets some development earlier in scripture, though it isn't as strongly recurring topic. In fact, there are really only two places we need to go to get the general thrust of the story so far. The first is during the wandering in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, when the people of Israel were in a barren place and hungry. God sustained them with provision in the form of a miraculous bread that appeared with the morning dew that they simply gathered. While there is very little discussion of the manna after that point in scripture, it certainly left a mark on the culture, because it gets cited after Jesus feeds the 5,000. He performs the miracle, He and His disciples ship out at night, and the people find them the next day and ask for more bread as a sign. A relevant part of that conversation includes:
John 6:31-35 (NASB)
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Hebrews 2:14-15 (NASB) |
Whether or not the stone is a literal stone that we will be handed is an interesting discussion to have, but for our purposes here in asking what it says about salvation, we can instead focus on what is written on the stone. And what is written on the stone is, in fact, a new identity. We are, by our natures, slaves to sin, as discussed in Hebrews. We have an identity wrapped up in our relationship to the world and to death. But in Christ, we have a new identity, a new foundation to who we are, and at the very beginning of 1 John 3 we have the promise that this new identity is that we get to become children of God.
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Glory and Power | |
Revelation 2:26-28 (NASB)
Revelation 1:5-6 (NASB)
Sanctification | |
Revelation 3:5 (NASB)
Communion | |
Revelation 3:12 (NASB)
Hebrews deals with ideas related to this quite a lot. While Philadelphia is dealing with a "synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie," which is definitely not wording used for Judaism as a whole elsewhere in scripture and therefore probably a localized and specific group of people, Hebrews discusses at length that the entire temple system has seen its completion in Christ and that He is better than it was ever capable of being (Revelation 3:9 NASB). Given here is one example, where Jesus is noted as being superior as an eternal priest.
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The [former] priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:23-25 (NASB) |
A Greater Wealth | |
Revelation 3:21 (NASB)
1 Peter 3:21-22 (NASB)
Focus of Salvation | |
1 Peter 1:3-5 (NASB)
Hebrews 2:1-4 (NASB)
James 5:7-8 (NASB)
The general epistles do not spend their time overly concerned with describing the false teachers of their day. We can learn some information about the content of these early false teachings, but this is almost never the focus. This means that the information on identifying false teachers is widely applicable, which is very helpful. Even if it means that we have less historical context than we'd like. However, there are some indications on what, exactly, the writers of the general epistles were dealing with. |
Echoes of the Exodus | |
Hebrews 3:16-19 (NASB)
Balaam
2 Peter mentions Balaam as an archetype of the teachings he was condemning in 2 Peter 2:13-16. Here, Balaam is described as loving "the wages of unrighteousness," and those who are seen to be following after his character are described as "...stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children" (2 Peter 2:13b-14 NASB). In Jude 11, readers are warned that "for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam." John condemns the church in Smyrna, "'But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit [acts of] immorality" (Revelation 2:14 NASB).
We know little about Balaam son of Beor, but the bulk of what we know is in Numbers 22-24, and we find in two different Biblical sources that he was later killed by the people of Israel while his town was being destroyed. The cultural understanding of what Balaam actually did must have drawn from other sources, however, because the actual narrative does not contain everything said of him here. Either way, the image being given of the false teachers of the day seem to include significant immoral behavior and an open enjoyment of their unrighteousness, as well as a certain amount of greed that drove Balaam to answer Balak's call after being told by God not to. This last point also indicates a disregard for God's command.
In Revelation, Balaam is associated with the Nicolaitans, a heretical sect which held that spiritual freedom was a license to live immoral lives and seems to have been present in Thyatira and Pergamum as well. Given the emphasis on good works in James, it is distinctly possible that the groups he was addressing were, if not Nicolaitans, at least similar to them in doctrine. If Peter and Jude have the same understanding of Balaam as John does, which seems likely from their descriptions, then they might also have been addressing the rise of the Nicolaitan sect. Given the context of the phrase in which Jude's use of Balaam appears, he may have also been citing Balaam's involvement in Balak's jealous attempts to usurp the will of God through sacrifices and condemn God's people.
Korah At the end of Numbers 15, a man is stoned to death for gathering wood on the Sabbath. In Numbers 16, we have the story of Korah's Rebellion. Korah, a Levite, gathered some allies and accused Moses of taking more authority over the people than he had claim to, declaring that every member of the congregation was holy. The ringleaders of the rebellion are swallowed up by the earth, while those who were offering incense but were not Levites were consumed by fire from Heaven. This is a story of jealousy of God's chosen leadership, a greed for power, a system of improper sacrifices being offered to God, and a disregard for the command of God given through Moses. Korah's associates, by using holy implements to burn incense without the blessing of God or the ritual washing necessary to stand before Him, offer improper sacrifice and thereby call condemnation on themselves. |
Nature of False Teaching | |
James 3:1-8 (NASB)
The warning is simple: teachers are held to a high standards of accountability for what they teach, and the means through which they teach is corrupt and in need of purification. Our tongues can guide our entire lives, especially if we make our living through speech, and if we do not have this under control everything else will suffer. In this way he is, somewhat indirectly, warning that the false teachers, those who do not have bridled tongues, who allow blessing and curses to come from the same source, will lead themselves and their hearers astray. Everything described in the rest of that chapter, when applied to the body at large, is a matter of significant concern. When applied to teachers, it is harrowing.
Peter, likewise, does not focus on specific false teachers. He does directly address the existence of false teachers in his second epistle. however, and in this he gives us some important information to know about them. He notes some ideas that are growing familiar: denying the work of Christ, causing destruction and division, disregarding the command of God for righteous living, and living to greed.
Where other epistles go to the period of the Exodus, Peter goes to the writing of Old Testament prophecy. He discusses how the prophets were guided by the Holy Spirit, but false prophets arose among them. Likewise, now that a new revelation has come, false teachers are arising. It is in this discussion, interestingly enough, that Peter cites in 3:15-16 that Paul's writings are scripture--and that they are being corrupted by false teachers just as surely as prophecy was. |
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in [their] greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 2 Peter 2:1-3 (NASB) |
Strange Fire | |
Balaam and Balak offered sacrifices to God in an attempt to get a favorable response from Him despite the knowledge that what they were seeking was against His will. This is an improper sacrifice. Cain offered a sacrifice that did not meet God's standards, presumably because His heart was not on pleasing God. Korah's associates used holy items to burn incense in an improper way. For this, they died, and the censers were hammered out and used as plating on the altar as a reminder to never do such a thing again. But we are now the implements of God, useful for His purposes and cleansed for holy work and tasked with the duties of priests. |
1 Peter 2:9-10 (NASB)
In contrast, then, the teacher who is honoring God properly is one who operates out of humility rather than jealousy, charity rather than greed, seeking unity and seeing life blossom in their congregations rather than destruction and division, respectful of God's commands without being legalistic, and leaning on the sacrifice of Christ rather than offering up a life that is marked by corruption. But the true mark of a sound teacher is the salvation they preach, and this will be the topic of the next post.
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