Tag Archives: gods

By Their Works

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BY THEIR WORKS 

“‘If He called them “gods”, to whom the Word of God came — and Scripture cannot be set aside — what about the one whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son?’ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.’

“‘But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.’ Again they tried to seize Him, but He escaped their grasp.” John 10:35-39 NIV.

There is only one way to recognise the nature of a tree — by its fruit. There is no doubt that an apple tree is an apple tree when it bears apples or an orange tree is an orange tree when it bears oranges, though it may look like a lemon tree or some other citrus tree.

The Pharisees refused to accept Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God because they insisted that the works He did, although He did the things that reflected the nature of His Father, were evil because He did them on the Sabbath, as though it were the day, not the nature of the deed that made His miracles evil!

Unfortunately for them, their very accusation revealed the nature of their “tree”. Their fruit was so rotten that they called evil good and good evil. Jesus warned, “‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognise them.'” Matthew 7:15, 16a NIV.

If the fruit of Jesus’ life matched the nature of His Father, then He must surely be His Son, since a son contains the genes and perpetuates his father’s nature into the next generation. In Psalm 82:6, God called the Israelites ‘gods’ because they were to reveal the nature of their God to the world as His sons, His gracious, compassionate, slow-to-anger and abounding-in-love-and-faithfulness nature, yet the Pharisees were anything but like the God they claimed as their Father.

Jesus set great store on works because works reveal the nature of the person just as fruit reveals the nature of a tree. In his letter, James picks up on this theme, showing his readers that a true believer is identified by his works as Abraham was by his. To the Hebrew mind there was no such thing as believing without acting on that belief. Believing in Jesus was meaningless unless it issued in obedience to Him.

The Apostle Paul, in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, contended for faith apart from works as a way of salvation. The Judaisers — a Jewish sect of believers in Jesus — insisted that Gentiles be circumcised first before they could become believers. To Paul that meant that the death of Jesus was insufficient to reconcile a wayward son to the Father and that was unthinkable. Yes, the death of Jesus is sufficient to deal with our sin and to restore us to fellowship with the Father. There is nothing we can do to add to the sufficiency of His work on the cross.

James, on the other hand, recognised that good works — tsidaqah, which isfulfilling our duty to God by sharing our resources with people less fortunate than us, caring for the alien, the widow and the orphan and helping the weak and oppressed — are a fruit of our confession of faith in Jesus. We reveal our oneness with Him when we do what He did just as He revealed His oneness with the Father by doing what the Father wanted Him to do.

For all their big talk, the Pharisees and religious leaders made it glaringly obvious that they were of their father, the devil, because they were doing his works, not the works of the Father. “‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.'”  John 8:44 NIV.

That is quite an indictment!

 

How important it is to show our connection with Jesus by doing what He did and living like He lived, just as He lived out His connection with the Father by the way He treated people. It is not what we say that reveals our connection but the way we live. Let’s make sure that our fruit is the fruit of the Spirit and not the deeds of the flesh.

 

We are known by our works, not our words!

The War Intensifies

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THE WAR INTENSIFIES

‘”But then there was a split in public opinion, some siding with the Jews, some with the apostles. One day, learning that both the Jews and non-Jews had been organised by their leaders to beat them up, they escaped as best they could to the next towns — Lyconia, Lystra, Derbe and that neighbourhood — but then they were right back at it again, getting out the Message.” Acts 14:4-7 (The Message).

What a life! Always on the run! But they had a divine commission to fulfil and a message to deliver and they could not afford to become faint-hearted about it. As long as there was new ground to break they pressed on, their hearts burning with a passion to make Jesus known. Fortunately for them, they never knew what lay around the next corner for them.

“There was a man in Lystra who couldn’t walk. He sat there, crippled since the day of his birth. He heard Paul talking, and Paul, looking him in the eye, saw that he was ripe for God’s work, ready to believe. So he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Up on your feet!’ The man was up in a flash — jumped up and walked around as if he had been walking all his life.” Acts 14:8-10 (The Message).

All in a day’s work! Whether it was hearts or bodies God was healing, it was all miracle! Paul and Barnabas were on a mission for the kingdom of God and nothing would stop them. Imagine the thrill, in the midst of opposition and the threat of being killed, of seeing God at work like that — a partnership between Him and them that they would not miss for anything in the world.

These two emissaries for the kingdom of God were in the thick of pagan society, surrounded by a culture of godless living and religious superstition and yet they were not deterred from their task of making Jesus known. His power through them was lighting up the darkness, bringing life to those who would believe. One man in the crowd showed a spark of faith and Paul pounced on his opportunity to rescue him from a life of useless disability.

One day Jesus purposefully took His disciples to a place no self-respecting Jew would ever want to visit — equivalent to feasting one’s eyes on the images in “Playboy” magazines — Caesarea Philippi — the red light district of Israel! In full view of the debauchery and sexual orgies on the go there He told them, ‘On this rock I will build my church.’ So confident was He in His power to change people’s lives that He could announce it in the worst possible circumstances.

Paul and Barnabas were personally involved in the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise. No matter where they proclaimed their message, God’s power was there to transform lives. A crippled man, deformed from birth, healed in an instant; history repeating itself in a pagan city! Peter and John had seen the same thing happen at the Beautiful Gate of the temple in Jerusalem with surprising results — the outbreak of opposition against them from the Jewish hierarchy.

Paul and Barnabas were in for a surprise too. Initially it was not rejection but worship!

“When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they went wild, calling out in their Lyconian dialect, ‘The gods have come down! These men are gods!’ They called Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes” (since Paul did most of the speaking). The priest of the local Zeus shrine got up a parade — bulls and banners and people lined right up to the gates, ready for the ritual of sacrifice.” Acts 14:11-13 (The Message).

In their pagan ignorance, these people responded in the only way they knew. A miracle had happened, so it must be the work of a god. They mistakenly thought that Paul and Barnabas were gods, not understanding that God really did come, in the person of His son, Jesus. A showdown was about to happen, a clash between the kingdoms of darkness and light. Satan was snatching every opportunity he could to destroy these men because they were a constant threat to his unchallenged rule over whole world.