Monthly Archives: October 2014

Dead, But Alive

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DEAD, BUT ALIVE

“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.” Galatians 2:17, 18.

This is quite complicated reasoning. If the Jews who believed in Jesus, no longer meticulously kept all the minute details of the law in order to satisfy God’s righteous requirements, but trusted in Christ’s righteousness given to them through God’s grace, didn’t that mean that Jesus was deliberately causing them to be disobedient to God? Wasn’t Jesus making them “sinners”?

No, quite the opposite! God gave His Son as an atoning sacrifice for sin so that those who believe in Jesus and what He did to restore us to God, no longer need to work for acceptance with God by trying to obey His laws. Jesus fulfilled the law, and then died as though He were a sinner, in our place. To go back to law keeping as a way of satisfying God’s requirements would make us law-breakers because Jesus Himself did away with law-keeping as a way of being acceptable to God. We would be defying God’s instruction and setting up our own way to gain acceptance with Him.

Let’s use an Old Testament illustration. God gave the Israelites a promise. He said He would give them the land of Canaan as an inheritance. When they reached the border of the land. He instructed Moses to send in twelve spies to check it out (Numbers 13:1-3). Ten of the spies came back with a good report of the products of the land but put fear into the hearts of the people by describing the Canaanites as giants whom they could never overcome. They refused to believe God’s promise and incited the people to rebel against God and Moses.

Instead of trusting God and obeying His command, they complained against Him and against their leaders in spite of encouragement from Joshua and Caleb that God would help them overcome the Canaanites. God was angry with them because of their refusal to believe His promise and to take the land. They would not be allowed to enter the land He had promised to them. They would all die in the desert and their children would take possession of Canaan.

When they heard this, they mourned and decided they would go up and fight the Canaanites in spite of God’s instruction that they were not to go because He was not with them. Once again they disobeyed God, went into Canaan and were soundly defeated in battle. They had disobeyed God’s instruction twice – first to go, but they refused, and then not to go, and they went.

God gave His law to His people but they did not obey it. Then He sent Jesus who fulfilled and did away with the law as a way of salvation. Now Peter and his companions were wanting to go back to keeping the law as a way of pleasing God when God had given them Jesus to replace the law. That would make them law-breakers all over again.

“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for, if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:19-21.

Paul concluded his discussion with a compelling argument. Once he was dead because of the law; now he was dead to the law. All the law did for him was to reveal just how much of a sinner he was. Through faith in Jesus and the righteousness He gave to Paul, he was now joined to Jesus in a faith union which made him perfectly acceptable to God without having to do anything except trust and obey Jesus.

What was the point of Jesus’ coming to earth and dying on the cross if people could be righteous by their own efforts? For Paul, Jesus was all or nothing. Either Peter and those who were influenced by him, trusted Jesus for acceptance with God or they ignored Jesus and tried to do it on their own. They could not have both.

The same truth applies to us today. We are either joined to Jesus by faith and live our lives in union with Him plus nothing, or we abandon Him altogether and work hard to satisfy God’s holy standards by trying to keep rules. There is no middle road. As soon as we add rules to the mix, we cancel out grace, faith and righteousness and go back to slavery to fear because we will never know whether we have done enough or not.

Jesus said, “Follow me.” That’s all!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

One Small Step Backwards…

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ONE SMALL STEP BACKWARDS...

“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So, we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because, by the works of the law no one will be justified.” Galatians 2:15, 16.

This sounds like a bit of a tongue-twister, doesn’t it? What is Paul saying?

Peter and his fellow disciples, in their association with Jesus, had experienced a rude awakening. As part of a religious system that relied heavily on their performance for acceptance with God, they thought that their law-keeping was what He demanded to satisfy His requirements. Jesus taught them that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was actually their Father, and that He was calling them into a relationship of intimacy with Him as their sons, just as Jesus was His Son, and the model of sonship they were to follow.

Sin had alienated them from the Father, and no amount of trying to do the right thing by observing rules and carrying out rituals could undo their sinful behaviour or change their sinful nature. They were not “sinful” Gentiles, those who worshipped idols and engaged in depraved behaviour but that didn’t make them any better than those who did. Everyone fell short of God’s perfection and they could do nothing about it.

Jesus’ untimely death on a cross, which they thought was a terrible tragedy, turned out to be the opposite. It was God’s pre-ordained way of dealing with the sin they could not get rid of by rule-keeping. Jesus died in the place of sinners to satisfy God’s righteous demand for the payment of a huge debt. He died as an atoning sacrifice for all people for all time so that God could accept as not guilty everyone who submitted to Jesus as their rightful Lord.

What, then, was Peter thinking when he slipped back into his old pattern of behaviour, thinking he was better than the Gentile believers and withdrawing from fellowship with them? It was a backward step, and would have serious repercussions if it was what he really believed. Even his temporary lapse into the fear of man affected his standing before God.

Everyone who takes the step from confidence in his own efforts to satisfy God’s holy requirements to trusting in Jesus for acceptance with God, has a standing in God’s grace which enables him to approach the Father with confidence. Because of Jesus, he has been declared “not guilty”. His sin has been removed; he has been washed clean of sin’s pollution and he had been given a new nature, one that makes him a son, not a slave. He is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and, through Him, has been restored to oneness with the Father and able to call Him “Abba”.

One small step backwards for Peter was actually a huge fall from standing in the grace of God to standing in his own righteousness which God declared was like filthy rags in His sight. The great Apostle Peter was unwittingly in danger of disqualifying himself by being afraid to stand up for what he believed.

Thank God for Paul’s boldness and for his clear understanding of the gospel. Without it we would not have the letters his wrote to the Roman and Galatian churches which give us a clear explanation of what God did through Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself. It was through trial and error, struggle and debate that the truth of the gospel began to emerge in the early church. We are blessed to share in the great heritage passed down to us from the church of the past.

Thank God we learn from our failures as much as from our successes. Peter must surely not have forgotten the lesson, and become stronger for it. Of course it all depends on whether he received Paul’s rebuke or not. We have a clue to his attitude in his second letter which we have preserved for us in the Bible. He obviously held Paul in high esteem because he wrote this:

“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction.” 2 Peter 2:15, 16.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

 

Clay Feet!

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CLAY FEET

“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned, For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?'” Galatians 2:11-14.

Even Peter! How strong are the traditions that enslave a person’s conscience!

 

Peter was far from Jerusalem. There were no scrupulously traditional Jewish believers in the vicinity of Antioch, so he freely mixed with Gentiles according to the dream which had led him to enter Cornelius’ the centurion’s house in Caesarea and eat with him (Acts 10). But when a group of Jewish believers came from James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, he slipped back into his old Jewish attitude of exclusivism.

For Peter it was not a matter of conscience or conviction. He had long dealt with the right or wrong of eating with Gentiles – which was an expression of reconciliation; the Holy Spirit had seen to that. Here it was a matter of the fear of man and Paul was quick to rebuke him, even publicly, for going back on his conviction in order to appear loyal to his Jewish heritage. He wasn’t even honouring the word of God but rather Jewish customs which actually contradicted God’s intention.

In his defines of the gospel of grace he preached, Paul referred to this incident to convince his Galatian readers that he had actually stood up to the great Peter whom he had just described as one of the “esteemed” leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

By Peter’s behaviour he had inadvertently dishonoured the gospel of Christ which was the good news of salvation through Him alone. Peter was insinuating that Jesus had not really destroyed the barrier between Jew and Gentile through His death; that Jews were still superior to Gentiles, and showed it by their refusal to eat with fellow Gentile believers. In the end he was saying that he had to uphold the customs of his forefathers which took precedence over the truth of the gospel.

For Paul this was unthinkable. He had given up too much for the sake of the gospel and suffered too much at the hands of his fellow Jews because of their fanatical loyalty to useless traditions to sanction Peter’s hypocrisy by keeping quiet. To say nothing meant that he was allowing Peter to lead others, even his companion Barnabas, astray. If it meant publicly exposing Peter’s cock-eyed thinking, so be it.

Paul does not record Peter’s response. Did he defend himself? Did he make excuses? Did he graciously acknowledge his error? We do not know. All we know is that Paul clearly understood the message of the cross and he defended it fearlessly even to standing up to Peter himself. It was not his intention to belittle Peter or to show himself better than Peter. It was always and only his motive to hold Jesus up as an all-sufficient Saviour for both Jew and Gentile.

Paul had long since come to understand that, at the cross, everyone stands on level ground. There is no longer a difference between Jew and Gentile. All the differences that existed were artificial and man-made. The Jews, as God’s covenant people were chosen, not to make them exclusive, but to set them apart for a divine purpose – to show the world that their God was the only and true God by the way they lived.

They failed dismally, anyway, and all they did was to show how impossible it was to be like Him by following rules and rituals, most of which they made up, without having their hearts changed. It took the Son of God to show them how to love like the Father, and then to die in the place of sinners to reconcile them to the Father. Where, in all that, were they better than anyone else? They stood on level ground with every other human being in both their sin and their eligibility to receive God’s grace through the death of His Son.

Thanks to Paul’s understanding and clear presentation of the truth, Peter and his companions received correction and we have this letter which presents Jesus to us as the all-sufficient Saviour of sinners plus nothing.

How true it is that anyone, including Peter, can have “clay feet”!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Paul’s Trump Card

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PAUL’S TRUMP CARD

“Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” Galatians 2:3-5.

What part does circumcision play in the life of a believer? This was a very live issue in the early church. On what grounds were Gentile believers permitted to be acceptable to God and to be part of the fellowship of the church?

The Bible relates two apparently contradictory scenarios. In Acts 16:1-3, Paul had Timothy, son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother, circumcised because of the unbelieving Jews. Yet in Galatians 2:3-5, he records that he did not compel Titus, a young Greek believer, to undergo circumcision. Was Paul being inconsistent?

David M Rogers (www.bibletruth.cc/gal2_1_10.htm – The Circumcision Controversy) wrote a thorough and compelling explanation for Paul’s action. (Read the article to get the full explanation).

To summarise, the circumstances for each situation were different. Timothy was half Jewish. And Paul had him circumcised for the sake of unbelieving Jews, because no uncircumcised person was permitted to participate in the Passover (Exodus 12:48, 49). This was a missionary motive, not to make Timothy Jewish but, because he was already half Jewish, to give him opportunity to reach unbelieving Jews.

“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew to win the Jews…” 1 Corinthians 9:20.

In Titus’ case, he was a Greek. He had no Jewish ancestry and no Jewish connections. He refused to be circumcised to satisfy the demands of false believers – those posing as believers but who were only out to get converts for their cause. Later in his letter, Paul makes their motives clear. They were not interested in binding Jesus’ yoke on Gentile believers. They were teaching and trying to enforce their own yoke on people who had already received the message of Christ, so that they could collect “scalps” for themselves (Galatians 4:17) and avoid the offense of the cross (Galatians 6:12).

The issue for Paul was not that circumcision in itself was wrong but that the teaching that, for the Gentile, circumcision was necessary for acceptance with God was wrong. Circumcision does not guarantee that a person’s heart is pure. It was nothing more than an outward sign that a Jewish male belonged to the Jewish race and was recognised as belonging to the covenant people of God. But, even for him it was not circumcision that made him a true Jew, but obedience to God.

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” Deuteronomy 30:6.

“…Even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.” Jeremiah 9:26.

Even in the Old Covenant era, God was more concerned about heart attitude than about a physical sign. Circumcision meant nothing without obedience to the teachings of God from the heart.

“Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commandments is what counts.” 1 Corinthians 7:19.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:6.

For Paul (Romans 13:8-10), and for Jesus (Matthew 22:36-40), loving God and loving others fulfilled all the commandments.

Was Titus circumcised? No. Why was Titus not circumcised? Because he refused to bow to the demands of false teachers who insisted that Gentiles had to become Jews first before they could be accepted into the fellowship of the church. What was the issue? Was the cross of Jesus sufficient for Gentiles to be saved? Yes, a thousand times, yes! How did the cross deal with the Law? Watch this space…!

Is this still an issue today? Yes, it is although it rears its head in many other subtle ways, if not in the matter of circumcision. What Paul taught in this letter deals with every way in which this is an issue today.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

No Loose Cannon

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NO LOOSE CANNONS

“Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure that I was not running and had not been running my race in vain…” Galatians 2:1, 2.

In Paul’s autobiographical sketch, he was insistent that at no time did he get permission from the leaders of the Jerusalem church to preach to the Gentiles, and he also did not learn what to preach from them. He was God-ordained, God-instructed and God-commissioned to go to the Gentiles.

There was another reason why he was sent by revelation to Jerusalem. It was important that the leaders of the early church were in complete harmony with one another in what they taught and what they did, especially as there were many false teachers who were undermining the unity of the church. There were to be no loose cannons acting independently of the Body of Christ, inventing doctrines of their own and setting up splinter groups wherever they went.

Throughout his life as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul kept in touch with the church in Jerusalem and the church in Syrian Antioch, the two main centres of Christianity at the time. He and Barnabas functioned as leaders at Antioch for years before they were commissioned by the Holy Spirit through the leaders of the church there to go to the rest of the empire with the gospel (Acts 13).

Paul’s brief visit to Jerusalem after his years in Arabia was just an introduction of the erstwhile persecutor to Peter to reassure him of Paul’s authenticity in case Peter thought that he was an infiltrator with another agenda.

“…As for those who were held in high esteem – whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favouritism – they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognised that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.” Galatians 2:6-8

Paul’s visit to Jerusalem after his second missionary journey (Acts 18:22), achieved his purpose. The Jerusalem church leaders could have no doubts about him when they listened to his story. And what a story! He didn’t major on his achievements as much as on the things he suffered for the sake of the gospel; beatings, imprisonment and even stoning at Lystra and being left for dead. No fake apostle would ever endure experiences like that for a lie.

He would also have told them of the miracles God did for him and his companions; like Peter, a miraculous release from jail in Philippi through an earthquake, and the even more miraculous conversion of the jailor and his entire family; deliverance of a demon-possessed girl which landed him and Silas in prison; his survival of the stoning episode; his escape from the murderous intentions of fanatical Jews time and again, all told one story – God was with him and working though him.

He would also have related to them the leading of the Holy Spirit – how he and Barnabas were chosen and commissioned by the church leaders in Antioch after a season of prayer and fasting; how he was blocked for going further into Asia Minor and redirected, through a dream, to move westwards into Macedonia. How he was directed towards the Gentiles because of the hostile attitude of his fellow Jews.

Paul had to learn to read his circumstances because this was mostly the way that the Spirit led him. There were times when the Lord Himself encouraged and reassured him by a personal visit when he was at the end of his tether. Throughout all his experiences, good and bad, Paul was learning how to walk with the Lord and to be led by the Spirit.

There could be no doubt in the minds of Peter and his fellow leaders that Paul was a genuine apostle; that the message he preached was the same message they preached and that he was a God-ordained apostle to the Gentiles. They were united in heart and gladly endorsed Paul’s ministry.

“James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognised the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” Galatians 2:9, 10.

How much better it would have been for the witness of the church, had leaders down the ages followed the example of the apostles and worked hard to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There were and are too many loose cannons with agendas of their own, building their own kingdoms with teachings they invented instead of doing what Jesus commanded – “Follow me!”

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.