Category: Articles

We Who Are Friends

by Rick Shrader

In a study of walking with God we have seen that Jesus Christ must be the only Lord and Master and that we submit ourselves to Him being mere slaves.  This relationship is accepted at the very beginning as the humble repentance of our sins casts us completely at His feet for mercy and forgiveness.  If we had no other relationship with Him we would gladly obey and serve because of what He has done for us in forgiving our sin and giving us eternal life.

The picture of slavery in the Bible is a strange thing to our modern ears.  In the pagan world, both in the Old and New Testaments, believers were sometimes subjects of unbelieving and tyrannical masters who knew only their nations’ oppressive ways.  However, in the Jewish nation slaves were more like indentured servants.  One could willingly give himself to a Jewish brother as a servant to work off a debt or to redeem land.  The law protected the servant from abuse and even commanded his release after seven years or at the year of Jubilee (see Exodus 21 and Leviticus 25).  The New Testament commanded masters to treat servants well and even to raise this relationship to one of friendship and respect (see Col 4:1; Eph. 6:9; 1 Tim. 6:1-2; the book of Philemon).

The Old Testament gave a picture of a servant who came to love his master so much that he would choose to stay with him for life rather than to be released at the appropriate year (Exod. 21:1-6).  Whether this is exactly what the New Testament calls a doulos, or bond slave, is debatable, since a Roman slave was mere chattel.  Yet Paul’s use of the word doulos fits this Old Testament picture because Paul describes himself as a doulos, or bond slave, throughout his epistles.  This kind of a servant chose to be a slave for life.  His ear was pierced through as a mark of ownership as Paul remarked after his stoning, “From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus” (Gal. 6:17).

This gives the New Testament believer a new glimpse into his relationship with Jesus as Master.  When Jesus washed the disciple’s feet he said, “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am” (John 13:13).  That relationship cannot and will not be broken.  Yet later that fateful night Jesus walked with the disciples and said, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.  Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:14-15).  This Master-servant relationship is also a Master-friend relationship.  It was a relationship unheard-of in the ancient world.

For the Lord, this new relationship is entered into by promise and faithfulness.  For the believer, it is entered into through understanding and submission.  “Lord, I have come to you as a sinner needing forgiveness and also as a humble servant to a Master. I have found your yoke to be easy and your burden to be light.  I have loved your kind and gentle hand upon me and I desire to remain under your care forever.  Oh, Lord, take me to the door post and mark me forever as your bond slave.  Let me bear in my very body your marks, the marks of my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.”

Then do we find Jesus a Friend as well as a Master.  Then does He bring us into His confidence.  “Draw me, and we will run after thee:  the King hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee” (Song of Solomon 1:4).  “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).  “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any many hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).  “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21).

Being a servant-friend of Jesus Christ is the highest, yet lowest, position for a believer in this life.  We serve Him in whatever way He calls us to serve, yet all the while we abide and commune with Him as our Master.  Proverbs tells us that “a friend loveth at all times” (17:17); “sticketh closer than a brother” (18:24); “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (27:6); and as “iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend” (27:17).  The New Testament gives us many pictures of our walk with our Master-Friend.

I am used by Him

“If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21).  We will discuss our body as a vessel for God in a later article, but it is enough here to see that our Lord desires to use a clean vessel, honorable, sanctified, and prepared for work.  We know that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7).  We can be fragile but clean, humble but useable.

It is a remarkable thing that God does His work through believers who are not yet glorified.  He does not commission angels to preach the gospel nor to petition Him with prayers.  No, He sends redeemed sinners to the uttermost parts of the earth to do His bidding, and He is with us always even to the end of this age.  In joy or in pain, in success or in failure, in life or in death, we would say with the martyrs, I have served Him all my life and He has never failed me.

I can hide in Him

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:7-8).  Satan is a roaring lion walking about seeking to devour me (1 Pet. 5:8).  I am like Peter and could be sifted as wheat by him (Lk. 22:31) except that my Master-Friend intercedes for me.  As Luther wrote in his hymn,

Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing,

Were not the right man on our side,

The Man of God’s own choosing.

The church has lost too much respect for the devil.  Of course I don’t mean admiration but rather a healthy knowledge of his power and might.  We don’t understand well enough the doctrines of demons nor do we see clearly the spiritual wickedness that exists in high places.  We play too loosely with the pleasures of the world and do not fear the harm that inevitably results.  Our Master-Friend said, “The servant is not greater than his lord.  If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).  Why should we think that we can partake of the pleasures of sin for a season and not be harmed, contrary to our Lord?  But He also said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

I can walk with Him

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Col. 2:6).  “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (2 John 6).  Walking is the most frequent analogy of fellowship with the Lord that we have in the New Testament.  There are at least four Greek words that are translated “walk” which range from walking carefully, to traveling, to keeping straight, to marching and keeping rank.  In all of our necessary modes of walking through this life, we have a Friend that walks with us.

On resurrection Sunday afternoon two disciples walked to the village of Emmaus and Jesus appeared and walked with them.  Though they didn’t recognize Him, He spoke to them of the events surrounding His death and resurrection.  When He suddenly departed they said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he walked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).  Friends walk shoulder to shoulder and enjoy fellowship because they are of a kindred mind and seek a common goal.  When you have this Friend walking with you, it doesn’t matter if there are two or two hundred walking along.  The joy and fellowship is because of Him.

I can abide with Him

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).  John later recorded, “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).  We should not confuse our position of being in Him with our relationship of abiding in Him.  We are secure in Him and are given all the rights of children.  At the same time, while we walk through this life, we carry the old nature also which can commit sin and break close communion with our Master-Friend.

Can’t you see those two disciples at Emmaus stopping at the Inn and reaching out to Jesus’ arm saying, “Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent” (Luke 24:29)?  The song writer put it,

Abide with me!  Fast falls the e-ven   tide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

Those disciples sat at meat with Him and watched Him break bread and then they knew Him.  We also would know Him better if our evenings were occupied more with His abiding presence.

I can talk with Him

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14).  “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Ex. 33:11).  For Moses that was an unusual occurrence.  But for us, though we do not see God, we have the privilege of speaking directly to Him because of the intercession of our Lord and of the Holy Spirit.  We come boldly to the throne of grace and find mercy and grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16).

Someone said, “If you walk with God, you must also talk with God, or you will soon cease to walk with God.”  We should not be a quiet friend who enjoys the company but never responds or interacts.  The Lord invites us to speak.  “His eyes are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers” (1 Pet. 3:12).  His words are forever recorded for us.

I can trust Him

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5-6).  “And such trust have we through Christ to God” (2 Cor. 3:4).  Again, I am not speaking of that wonderful time when we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  That trust is secure and cannot be broken.  I am speaking of a trust that places confidence in Him day by day, that knows He will do what is best, and that in everything gives thanks knowing that this is the will of God for me.

The providence of God is a wonderful blessing to the believer.  My Lord is in control.  “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).  “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:17).  I find myself saying, “Can the world get any worse than this?  Can human beings become any more depraved than they are today?”  But I remind myself that I am merely a servant for my Master-Friend.  He is the Builder of the whole house and controls everything in it.  “Fear not,” He said,  “I am the first and the last:  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:17-18).

I can die with Him

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:8-10).  In our position in Christ we have been crucified with Him and yet we live (Gal. 2:20).  Yet this living is also a continual dying.  Jesus said to the disciples, “Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with” (Matt. 20:22).  For many, that has meant the very death of the body in martyrdom.  For others it means the giving of the body to God as a living sacrifice to do with as He sees fit.  It may be in mocking or perhaps in some cruelty.

Paul confessed “I die daily,” and then said, “Awake to righteousness and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Cor. 15:31, 34).  It ought to be our joy to give ourselves to our Lord and to whatever comes our way for His name’s sake.  “By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned” (2 Cor. 6:6).

It will never become easier to be an outcast in the world.  In the latter days things will become worse and worse (1 Tim. 4:1-3).  The antipathy toward Christ and things that are holy will only become greater.  Yet we are encouraged, “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach” (Heb. 13:13).  One likely view of Paul’s infirmity in the flesh is that it was the constant persecution which he endured.  When Jesus explained to him that it was in these times of weakness that His strength was manifested, Paul said, “Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9).  It is a privilege and a strength for the believer to die daily with the Master-Friend.

I can look for Him

“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. 9:28).  “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).  This is the blessed hope of the church (Tit. 2:13).  We have the privilege of waiting for Jesus to return and catch us away in the air to ever be with Him (1 Thes. 4:13-18).  He has not appointed us to the coming wrath, but to obtain this salvation through Him (1 Thes. 5:9).

We do not look up enough.  We aren’t constantly looking for the coming of our Master-Friend as we should be.  It is hard for us now to realize what joy we will experience when Jesus comes again.  If we could understand that as we should, we would constantly strain our eyes for His return.  The song writer wrote,

 Then we shall be where we would be,

Then we shall be what we should be;

 Things that are not now, nor could be,

 Soon shall be our own.

And So . . .

The benefits of knowing Jesus Christ as Savior are eternally wonderful.  Also knowing Jesus Christ as our Master-Friend is a blessing that only believers in Him can experience in this life.  It seems ironic, almost oxymoronic, that a Master could also be our Friend but it is true.  We gladly obey His commands and yet find them encouraging and true.  We’ve desired that He be our Master forever and He has also become our Friend.

Having used hymn illustrations so far, let me conclude with another familiar hymn.  Joseph Scriven (1819-1886) was born in Ireland and graduated from Trinity College, London.  He was engaged to be married soon after graduation but tragedy struck when his fiancé drowned the day before the wedding.  Joseph moved to Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and met a Christian girl named Eliza Rice.  But tragedy came again when Eliza died of illness weeks before the wedding.  Scriven wrote the words to this well-known hymn after these great trials,

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry,

Everything to God in prayer!

O, what peace we often forfeit,

O, what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry,

Everything to God in prayer.

Joseph Scriven died from drowning not long after his lines were put in to music.  Two decades later D.L. Moody heard the song and gave it national recognition and it has remained there ever since.  The words are true and scriptural.  We have a Friend, a Master-Friend in Jesus.

 

 

God Who Is Our Master

by Rick Shrader

It is overwhelming for the human mind to try to contemplate God.  “For who hath known the mind of the Lord?  Or who hath been his counselor?” (Rom. 11:34).  “Shall any teach God knowledge?  Seeing he judgeth those that are high” (Job 21:22).  Yet Solomon advised his son to seek the knowledge of God:

My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding.  Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God  (Prov. 2:1-5).

Of those first patriarchs that lived long lives before the flood, Adam, Enoch and Noah were said to have  walked with God (Gen. 3:8, 5:22, 6:9).  Matthew Henry beautifully wrote of them,

To walk with God is to set God always before us, and to act as those that are always under his eye.  It is to live a life of communion with God both in ordinances and providences.  It is to make God’s word our rule and his glory our end in all our actions.  It is to make it our constant care and endeavor in every thing to please God, and in nothing to offend him.  It is to comply with his will, to concur with his designs, and to be workers together with him.¹

Our problem in our walk with God is that we as fallen humans are self-centered and forget what we know about God.  Like Adam and Eve who disobeyed God, we begin to think that we know better than God and begin to make decisions apart from His approval.  Since God is invisible to us, and does not even appear physically to us in discipline, we go on as if He has approved of our action or does not care so much what we have done.  But of course God does see us every moment, and He does know everything we do and think, and He is working with us both in chastisement and blessing.  Paul’s reminder that we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7) is written for this very reason.

Before we can see ourselves as God’s servants we must first see Him as our Lord and Master.  To do this we must remind ourselves of Who God is and what that means when it comes to having a relationship with Him, especially as believers in Jesus Christ.  True, we cannot understand all about God but we can understand what He has revealed to us.  “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).

God the Father

Sometimes when we say “theology” we mean a study of all that the Bible has to say.  Theology is usually broken into ten general areas or “ologies” such as Bibliology and Ecclesiology.  Theology proper, however, is the study of God Himself.  Millard Erickson says, “The doctrine of God is the central point for much of the rest of theology.  One’s view of God might be thought of as supplying the whole framework within which one’s theology is constructed and life is lived.  It lends a particular coloration to one’s style of ministry and philosophy of life.”² The study of the doctrine of God can be, and should be, an inexhaustible study.  Yet as Erickson points out, it ought to encourage us to a proper relationship with God and cause us to want to walk with Him and have fellowship with Him.

Since our narrow focus is to draw closer to God in our daily walk and to see Him as our Lord and Master, a few reminders of the attributes of God our Father are helpful in this regard.  They will help us make that “coloration” of our Christian life that is so vitally important.

God is sovereign.  By this term we mean that God is in complete control of everything that exists.  Ryrie says, “The word means principal, chief, supreme.  It speaks first of position (God is the chief Being in the universe), then of power (God is supreme in power in the universe).”³

The Bible says God has a plan for all things that happen in the world, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18); God has a purpose in what He does, “according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11); God does whatever He pleases with His creation, “Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Psa. 135:6).  We should understand that God is the only One Who can truly be our Lord and Master.

God is holy.  The primary meaning of God’s holiness is that He is set apart or separate from everything else.  John Feinberg calls this “majestic-holiness. . . As the majestic God whose qualities know no boundary, God’s being is infinitely above his creatures.”⁴  Moses sang and gave thanks to God for His deliverance in the Red Sea, “Who is like unto thee O LORD, among the gods?  Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exod. 15:11).  In her song of praise, Hannah said, “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God” (1 Sam. 2:2).  Mary also, at her conception sang, “For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name” (Luke 1:49).

Around the throne of God as John was privileged to see it, is a crystal sea that separates God from all else.  Henry Alford writes that “the intent of setting this space in front of the throne will be, to betoken its separation and insulation from the place where the Seer stood, and indeed from all else about it.”⁵  From beginning to end, the Scriptures portray God as holy and separate because He alone is eternal and all else is created and infinitely less in comparison.

God is transcendent and yet immanent.  There have been many abuses of both of these concepts of God, but there is also a wonderful picture of God as our Lord and Master in them as well.  God is transcendent in that He is above and separate in His holy perfections from all that is created.  He is not out of touch with His creation or beyond our possibility of knowing Him, yet He remains on a plane far above His creation in His person and attributes.  It is described this way, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).

At the same time God is immanent in that He is accessible to His creation and within the reach of those who will seek Him.  “Whither shall I go from thy spirit?  Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (Psa. 139:7-8).

God is loving.  The good news for the sinner as well as the saint is that God loves us.  He did not have to, and when sin entered into His creation, He did not have to redeem us, but “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16).  “So” is from the adverb houtōs, so much, in such a way, like this.  God loved us enough to give Himself in the person of His only Son that we might be redeemed from our sinful condition through Him.  This love brings us into a relationship with God that could not otherwise be.  We will find that making Him our Lord and Master is an easy yoke and a light burden.

God is a triunity.  This description of God is important to our walk with Him, in fact, it is essential.  Though the Old Testament emphasizes the one true God, the New Testament further explains the trinity of God, making Him a tri-unity.  Ryrie says, “To emphasize the oneness while disregarding the threeness ends in Unitarianism.  To emphasize the threeness while disregarding the oneness leads to tritheism (as in Mormonism).  To accept both leads to the doctrine of the triunity of God.”⁶  The fact is that not only is God the Father said to be God, but so is God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  The only biblical and logical conclusion is that we believe in the trinity in its traditional understanding.  As we will see in the following sections, our walk with God the Father is also vitally involved both with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit.

God the Son

The fact that God is a trinity reveals the fact that God exists of, by, and for Himself.  He did not need the world in any way that affects His glory and existence.  Yet He created us and extended His love toward us so that we might enjoy His own fellowship that He has within His very Godhead.  The apostle John admitted that when he wrote, “that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

To walk with God, therefore, is to walk with His Son Jesus Christ.  There is no other avenue into that fellowship.  It must be remembered that since Jesus Christ is God, the second Person of the Trinity, all attributes that belong to the Father also belong to the Son.  Paul wrote, “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9).  John finished his first epistle saying, “and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

Jesus is not just another man with whom we can selectively follow or with whom we may or may not choose to have fellowship.  Rather, it is in Him that we live, move, and have our being.  It is Christ alone Who qualifies to be our Lord and Master.  Our submission to Him must be complete and absolute.  It will require a total dedication, denial of self, and a taking up our cross and following Him.  That process will be explored in the next article.

There are many New Testament texts that speak of the deity and Lordship of Jesus Christ.  There are many descriptions, metaphors, similes, and various ways He is described.  Everyone knows the idea of His being the Door, the Good Shepherd, and the Word.  Consider briefly how many descriptions one book alone, the book of Hebrews, gives to our Savior.  These are given to encourage the readers to make Him their only object of worship.

God and Lord (1:8, 10).  The first chapter of Hebrews is taken up with proving that Jesus is greater than the angels who were created to worship God and minister to believers.  The Old Testament described them as “a flame of fire” (1:7, from Psa. 104:4) but, in contrast, Jesus is called “God” (1:8, from Psa. 45:6) and also “Lord” (1:10, from Psa. 102:25).  Believers do not worship angels but they do worship God in the person of His Son.

Captain of salvation (2:10).  “Captain” is the word archechon, which is also translated “Author” in 12:1.  Yet it is right to see Jesus Christ as the One who leads us into the battles of life and initiates the victories over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Apostle and High Priest (3:1).  Jesus is uniquely our Apostle in that He is the Sent One from God Who speaks to us the Word of God (see 1:1-2).  The whole book of Hebrews is given to the idea of Jesus Christ being our High Priest.  In fact, He is also the sacrifice, the veil of the temple, the mercy seat, and the Priest Who initiates the blood sprinkled in the holy of holies before God.

Author and Finisher (12:2).  Jesus is again said to be the “author” of our salvation (see 5:9), and also the “finisher” (lit. “Perfecter” from teleōten) of our faith.  I like to think of this picture as the starting line and finishing line of our race.  These are often the same line but mark vastly different points in the race.  Jesus is the One with Whom we begin our race and the One with Whom we will one day end our race.

Mediator (8:6, 12:24).  Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant which He initiated with His own blood.  Paul told Timothy that Jesus is the only Mediator between the sinner and a holy God (1 Tim. 2:5).

Helper (13:6).  Since He is our Helper, we do not fear what mere mortal men may do to us.  The believer always has a Helper Who can deliver him out of every difficulty.

End (13:7-8).  Jesus is the end, the “result” of our lives.  This gives us purpose because He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Shepherd of the sheep (13:20).  God brought Jesus Christ from the dead to be our Shepherd Who will also lead us out of death into eternal life.  No wonder when He is our Shepherd, we have no other want.

It is through Jesus Christ that we fellowship with God because He is Himself God in the flesh.  Though possessing all of the attributes of deity, He also is a sympathetic Priest Who knows us and is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.  This is the only One can truly be our Lord and Master.

God the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is that person of the Godhead Who lives within us.  Every description of Him in Scripture speaks of names, attributes, and actions of deity.  It is the Spirit Who regenerates us (Tit. 3:5) and then dwells within us (1 Cor. 6:19-20).  Our bodies become His temple and we are obligated to His leading and conviction.  After all, His voice is God’s voice.  Someone said that Jesus dwelt in a sinless body during His earthly ministry, but the Holy Spirit has to dwell in our sinful bodies, which is much more frustrating to Him.  Nevertheless, He never leaves us nor fails in His divine mission of keeping us until the day of redemption.

Understanding the ministry of the Holy Spirit within us will help us yield to His leading in a greater way.  The apostle Paul showed that He seals the believer until the day of our redemption (Eph. 1:13; 4:30) and is the earnest of our coming inheritance (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).  This shows that God owns us and we are His purchase by the blood of Jesus for eternity.  The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s child (Rom. 8:16) and continually brings assurance of our standing in God’s presence.  The Spirit participates in our prayers by interceding at the throne of grace and making groanings for us which we cannot speak as He interprets our prayers before God (Rom. 8:26-27).

In a wider way, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin (John 16:8) and also restrains the sin of the world on behalf of the church in this age (2 Thes. 2:6-7).   Yet the Spirit can also be grieved (Eph. 4:30) and quenched (1 Thes. 5:19) by believers even as He continues to dwell within us.  Our sin grieves Him and keeps Him from having full sway in our lives.  We should rather seek to be filled by the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) which will then produce the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 6:22-23) which combats the lusts of the flesh, and allows the love of Christ to be shed abroad in our hearts (Rom. 5:5) by the Spirit.  All of these provide great benefits to the believer and allow us to walk with the Lord.

And So . . .

The purpose for this article is to help us to see our need for making Jesus Christ the Lord and Master of our lives.  We will not make that surrender to Him unless we first realize that we as believers are living and walking with the God of all eternity Who powerfully lives and works within us.  Our yielding to Him ought to be motivated by this fact.  How could we who are sinful and rebellious refuse the working of the sovereign, holy God Who gave Himself for us and lives within us?  Our very bodies are His temple and our talents and abilities are weapons to be used for or against Him.  That surrender begins with David’s words, “Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psa. 46:10).

In his book on being holy in this world, Erwin Lutzer said it this way,

Our only hope is obedience to the teachings of the New Testament; our fate depends on whether we are willing to become one of Christ’s disciples in the fullest sense.  Then we will search our hearts, motives, and affections.  Anything that mars our fellowship with God will be recognized as sin.  We will discipline and restrict ourselves in matters that can never be included in an official statement on worldliness.  Like Christ, we will not please ourselves but will want to please God alone.”⁷

Notes:

1. Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, vol. I (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., nd) Gen. 5:24.
2. Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (Chicago: Baker Books, 1991) 263.
3. Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1987) 43.
4. John Feinberg, No One Like Him (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001) 340.
5. Henry Alford, The Greek New Testament, vol. IV (Chicago: Moody Press, 1958) 598.
6. Ryrie, p. 52.
7. Erwin Lutzer, How in this World Can I be Holy? (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985) 108.

 

 

Made Right But Broken

by Rick Shrader

When we think about our walk with God, it is important to remember both our position in Christ and our relationship with Christ.  Salvation makes us secure in our position: “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10).  But our walk with God is a matter of our ongoing relationship with Him: “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication” (1 Thes. 4:3).  So our walk with God will center largely on how we respond to His instructions as believers.  John said to the elect lady, “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.  This is his commandment, that, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (2 Jn. 6).

Our walk with Christ is set in a larger theological picture in Scripture.  Human beings were the only creatures made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26).  When Adam and Eve fell into sin, though they retained their image of God as human beings, they were separated from God and became dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1).  This deathly separation is passed on to all of their posterity, even to you and me (Rom. 5:12).  Unless our sins are forgiven, we will be separated from God forever in the lake of fire.  But the wonderful good news (i.e., the “gospel”) is that through faith in Christ and His righteousness we can be born again and have our standing with God restored (John 3:1-5).

But the problem with our walk with God is that we still must pay our last debt to sin and die in this flesh, even though we are alive in our spirit to God.  Therefore though we are made right with Him, we are still broken until resurrection day when we will be raised incorruptible.  The walk that we seek in our lives takes place during this time of having a secure position in Christ while also needing a progressive relationship with Him, “For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

An analogy

We still live in an industrial age.  We are used to having machines of various sorts that do things for us, even if that is a computer or smart phone that gives us information.  The last hundred years and more have been an amazing time to be alive and see what man can do and build.  The danger, of course, is that man also built the tower of Babel as a monument to himself rather than to his Creator.  Machines, however, do not run themselves.  They need power.  (As a note, seeds, which only God can make, receive power from their Creator and grow on their own, so to speak).  The wheel might be called the first machine.  But without power the wheel is just an odd shaped hunk of material.  One might as well make a square wheel if there is no power to make it move.  A wagon with wheels needs someone or something to pull or push it.  Now a so-called self-powered mobile machine like a car (an “auto-mobile”) is also a hunk of material unless it has a powerful battery to start it and gasoline to maintain it.  An electric motor must also have a power source for its plug or it is of no use.

So it is with human beings.  Because we are made in the image and likeness of God, we need to be powered by Him or we are spiritually dead. But even if we have been made alive in Him, we also need a maintenance schedule or we will run down and stop.

The power to run

Human beings are amazing creatures.  Even people who are not born again have been able to accomplish magnificent things because God has made all of us to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”  (Gen. 1:26).  God has even allowed us to make machines that fly like birds, that swim like fish, that soar into outer space, that climb into the human body and repair the tiniest things that are broken.  We are amazing creatures.

But God says that these human beings are “dead.”  They are doing all of this while “dead.”  The day Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree they “died.”  How is this so?  Death is always a separation.  On that day Adam died spiritually.  He was separated from his fellowship with God and became “dead in trespasses and sins.”  This kind of death can only be remedied by a new birth, a new creation created in Christ Jesus.  Adam also began to die physically because of sin. This is why every person who lives will also die.  This death is a separation of the spirit from the body.  “Then shall the dust return unto the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7).  The only remedy for this kind of death will be resurrection.  The final death is an eternal separation from God in the lake of fire.  This separation can never be undone.

The human being who is unsaved and dead spiritually, has not yet died physically or eternally.  Therefore he is capable of doing many wonderful things, even with his spiritual deadness.  What he cannot do is worship God.  He cannot experience fellowship with his Creator.  He cannot enjoy Christian fellowship, prayer, singing, or even contemplation.  He is unplugged from his spiritual power source.  He can appear to have spiritual power for a short time but this will not last.  It is hypocritical.  The true state of powerlessness will eventually be made plain.  He is like a man-made wind-up toy that can be wound up on its own, but it will only go so far and then have no ability to go further.

Looks can be deceiving

We are left on earth with two kinds of people:  the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14) who is lost and without God’s power; and the spiritual man (1 Cor. 2:15) who is saved and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  The natural man lives in the flesh but can occasionally appear to be a spiritual man.  The spiritual man lives in the Spirit but can occasionally appear to be a natural man.  Of course, the natural man (a lost man) only appears to be spiritual but is a hypocrite.  We cannot help this man by trying to encourage him to live spiritually.  He has no power to do that because he is dead to that kind of life.  When he attempts to be spiritual, this is a manifestation of true legalism, a working of the flesh to be spiritual.  At the same time, the spiritual man (a true believer) can be carnal because he still lives in the fleshly body which has not died and been resurrected.  However, because he possesses the Spirit of God he can be encouraged to repent of his carnality and walk with God.  A sign of a true believer is remorse for sin and repentance of known sin.

Looks can be deceiving because the natural man and the carnal Christian look exactly alike.  They both have moments of spiritual works but they also have moments of carnality.  Some natural people believe they are Christians and will say so, but many will not.  We may preach godliness to both men for we are not sure which is which.  But we know that the natural man who is playing the hypocrite will not be able to hear and the spiritual man can and should because he has God’s Spirit.  Often the Spirit of God will use this kind of preaching to begin the conviction process toward salvation in the natural man.

I have two cars in my driveway.  One has a battery in it and the other does not but my wife doesn’t know which is which.  They are both beautiful machines and, if powered, are capable of wonderful things.  I have keys to both and I let her choose which one she wants to drive and go out to start it.  I could even laugh if she takes the wrong key because I know what will, or rather what will not, happen when she turns the key and expects it to run (If this were a true scenario the result might be my early demise!).  The moral of the story is clear:  we are fearfully and wonderfully made but without life from God, though we may look wonderful, we are dead in trespasses and sins.  Yet with God’s power we can do great things.

Time to learn to drive

The true believer, our spiritual man, is secure in Christ because of his positional sanctification.  But because he is capable of carnality he needs to practice ongoing or progressive sanctification.  He looks forward to resurrection day when he will be made complete physically as well as spiritually, and he should because the Bible is full of such encouragements.  Yet for the rest of his time on earth, living in an unresurrected body, though a secure child of God, he must work, war, and wait.

Our day of salvation is like the first day we get our driver’s license and we get into the driver’s seat of dad’s car.  The car has power and we are legally ready to operate it, but it is a brand new experience for us.  It takes some time to learn how to drive a car!  (I know, we should have had driver’s education by now, but you get the point.)  An accident could happen the first time we attempt to drive because we aren’t familiar with such a powerful machine.

In a believer’s life, tragic things can happen from bad theology or bad advice.  A new believer has not had the time and experience necessary to walk the Christian life.  He has all the power and the legal right to do it but he knows little or nothing of what the Bible says or how the Spirit works in his life.  It is critical that he lives around spiritually minded and biblically grounded Christians and not around carnally minded  ones.  Seeing a new believer have an “accident” that could have been avoided is a sad thing.  Learning to walk with God is not an instantaneous act.  We start slowly, observe all the warning signs, and proceed with caution knowing that we are operating a wonderful life that God has given.

Time for maintenance

All machines need maintenance because man-made things wear down, grow old, and eventually quit.  We eventually learn that we can slow this process down with added care and proper use of the machine.  We’ve all seen an old ‘32 Ford, or some such car, sitting out in a farmer’s field red from rust but having the shape or resemblance of its glory days.  It’s kind of beautiful but kind of sad.  At the same time we may walk into a car museum and see a perfectly restored (or preserved) ‘32 Ford still in all its glory.  What is the difference between the two?  Maintenance!  They were both made of the same material at the same time, they both had the same potential for long life but one got proper care and one did not.

An automobile will run for a long time without maintenance and can appear to be invincible.  Gasoline is necessary but you can go hundreds of miles without worrying about it.  Gas is the most constant form of maintenance and must be tended to on a regular basis. There is even a gauge on the dash and you ignore it to your own peril.  In the Christian life we have those things that take constant maintenance.  We must have fellowship with other believers who are in the body of Christ, the local church.  We must begin to read our Bible and to go to God in prayer daily.  Without these we will run out of spiritual gas.

Some things in a car take longer range maintenance.  Oil, lubricants, and coolant will last a lot longer than a tank of gas, but they won’t last the length of the car’s life without updating.  In fact, if the oil light or heat light comes on you may have already ruined the engine.  One of the first things Jesus taught His disciples was the importance of the Lord’s Supper.  We don’t do this on a daily basis like prayer and Bible reading, but it is absolutely necessary for our Christian life and longevity.  We are only baptized once to show our faith in Christ but we cannot live in fellowship with God without that one-time action.  There may be times of surrender to God that change your whole life’s direction.  There are levels of learning that we pass and go on to higher things.

Some forms of maintenance may or may not come.  These are repairs that must be made when something breaks.  Unlike the other forms of maintenance, one car may break down while another never does.  There are some breakdowns that could have been prevented with proper maintenance, and there are some breakdowns that we just couldn’t see coming.  In the Christian life we are all prone to breakdowns.  Proper maintenance on the periodic level will prevent most if not all of these.  We are constantly attacked by Satan and his demons but constant fellowship with God will overcome that.  We are continually lured away by the lusts of our flesh but constant Bible reading and prayer will give us strength to overcome them.  The pride of life is built into our system and listening to the Holy Spirit will keep us humble.

The final restoration

The new believer needs to learn how to walk with God.  Walking with God is an experience for the whole man, body and soul, the outside material person, and the inside immaterial person.  Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19-20) and belong to God.  God will one day reclaim even the body and resurrect it to incorruptible and immortal life (1 Cor. 15:42-44).  Our spirits are also God’s (Col. 3:3-4) and we possess the Holy Spirit Who guides, convicts, warns, and teaches us on our way.  When the body returns to the dust (at physical death), our spirits will go to be with God.  This “intermediate state,” as it is called, will be a blessed experience also because we will be alive (Jesus said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”) and enjoying the presence of the Lord though absent from the body (2 Cor. 5:8).  Until then we must take care of the life that we have on this earth.

All people, lost or saved, will one day be reunited with a resurrected body and will live forever in heaven or hell.  For the believer, this will be an existence with indescribable joy and blessedness.  All of the difficulties of maintaining our walk with God in this life will be more than worth while.

And so . . .

We are fallible creatures.  We are made in God’s image but fallen in sin and susceptible to all kinds of problems in this world.  We do not work at walking with God in order to gain eternal life.  We have that in Christ. Rather we learn that there is no greater joy for the believer than to maintain close fellowship with his Lord.  John wrote, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:4).

This fellowship requires regular maintenance on our part.  This is not a legalistic work but a willing and rewarding work that results in the sweet fellowship with our Creator.  May we continue in this great work of walking with God.

 

 

Can We Walk With God?

by Rick Shrader

One has only to read the Scripture to know that a believer should walk with God.  “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory” (1 Thes. 2:12).  “As ye have therefore received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Col. 2:6).  “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).  Surely there is nothing more important for a child of God than to walk with Him and yet if there is anything that seems elusive in the Christian life it is this.  How is it that a sinful creature, albeit saved and positionally sanctified by the Spirit, can walk in fellowship with the holy God of all creation?  Yet He has written, “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one” (Isa. 57:15).

Humble and contrite are key here because no one claims to have “arrived” in this most holy endeavor and truly we have not.  We are all on an upward plane growing more and more unto the perfect day when we will be like Him and see Him as He is.  And everyone who does have this hope is in the process of being purified (1 John 3:2-3).  Yet what true believer does not have a yearning inside him or her to walk closer with God tomorrow than today?  What believer does not mourn over sin and rejoice over the promise of eternal life?  Surely we all do and if we do not we are not only out of fellowship with Him but are in a dangerous and defeated place.

Age has its advantages and its regrets.  Experience has taught us by trial and pain to avoid many things and we may live with the scars of battles lost and won.  The immaturity of our youth lives with us longer than we desire and we pray daily that our children will know to avoid those failures themselves and be helped by a godly testimony now.  We have learned that the world is no friend of grace and the oasis of worldly pleasure is a mirage that is an idol of the soul and keeps us from God’s fellowship.  Heaven is closer now for all of us, and we press toward the finish with a certain joy that is set before us.  Death is both an exit and an entrance which leads to a perfect walk with God.

“Religion,” wrote the godly Doddridge, “in its most general view, is such a sense of God on the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and of our dependence upon him, as shall engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a manner which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him.”¹  The apostle Paul also would agree who wrote, “that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more” (1 Thes. 4:1).

My encouragement for the new year would be to continue on the road of walking closer with God.  The day in which we live provides enough obstacles and battles that we are not left without opportunities for our growth.  A trial that frustrates the body cannot touch the soul that rests in Him.  A beating, jail, and chains could not keep Paul and Silas from singing praises. A storm on Galilee brought the words from the Lord, “peace, be still” and that is why Peter later admonished those who suffer to “commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:19).

I have found with Solomon that of the making of books, even on the subject of walking with God and our sanctification, there is no end.  I’ve tried to benefit from each one that I have read in some way.  Yet when it comes right down to it, the believer has to do it, not just read about it.  The Book has to be opened, the knees have to be bent, the tongue has to be loosed, the flesh has to be lectured, and the spirit has to be fed.  The race has already begun and the battle engaged.  We can take our ease on the sidelines or be part of the fray.  I’m a foot soldier as many others, and glad to be and I see a number of things that factor into our walk with God.

The church is busy

The church in general is too busy building things than walking with God.  All of my life, from the second half of the twentieth century into this half of the twenty first, church life has largely been a race to be the biggest and the best.  I’m a committed fundamental Baptist and I grew up in a large church and found my way into the ministry, but the pitfalls for many of my brethren have been evident.  When the goal is to build the church larger and faster, there is always a grab bag of pragmatic tools in each generation that will accomplish the task.  The larger evangelical scene has exploded this kind of church growth movement exponentially.

There have been good and not so good results from “building” churches in this way.  I’m sure that many souls have been saved due to aggressive evangelism and soul winning.  Praise the Lord!  Baptists have sent more missionaries to the field than any other denomination and, no doubt, spent millions upon millions of dollars doing it.  That fruit is still reproducing itself though the number of personnel is now shrinking quickly as an older generation dies off.  Property and buildings are enjoyed by congregations today who may not have had to bear the burden of the mortgage.

But there are negative results from the church growth movement.  The success syndrome has taken its toll on the spiritual life of the church.  Godliness and Scriptural admonitions are easily set aside in favor of things that attract the unsaved and worldly.  Cultural acceptance is paramount as surveys dictate what the church should look like, how the church should perform, and even how the message should be preached.  As John warned, “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them” (1 John 4:5).

The point is that it is not necessary to walk with God in order to “build” a church, at least not in the modern sense of the word.  There are plenty of methodologies available to the church that can be handled by the carnal and ungodly which will virtually guarantee a crowd.  In fact, the church acting godly would probably guarantee the lack of a crowd.  Godliness doesn’t make the unchurched comfortable nor should it.  Sadly, it doesn’t seem to make the churched comfortable either.

We might learn a lesson from the evangelical Francis Chan.  He started a church in his living room in Los Angeles that grew to over 5000.  Then all of a sudden he resigned and went back to a house-church model. His reasons were a lack of Christians using their gifts, a waste of millions of dollars, a lack of love for one another, and having the unpleasing role of a celebrity.²  Now I’m not advocating house-churches to the exclusion of buildings.  Buildings are better.  But here is a man who just got tired of “building” a church to the exclusion of a real walk with God.  Surely fundamentalists ought also to feel the pull toward the godliness of our forefathers.

Walking as a Biblical word

Any English Concordance will give you hundreds of uses of the word “walk” in reference to our spirituality.  The New Testament has two Greek primary words with various forms:  peripateō (to walk around), and poreuomai (to travel).  When you think about it, walking is a unique analogy to our spiritual life with God.  First, we “walk in the flesh” (2 Cor. 10:13), i.e., we have to exist in this fleshly body.  We are not ghosts that float around in spirit only.  We have to carry this carcass around with us and we are limited to its space.  The body in which we walk is dying yet yearns to stay around and take its ease.  We have to keep under it and bring it into subjection.

Second, walking means not too fast and not too slow.  Though our existence is also called a race, we are told that with God we must walk, communing and enjoying our travel.  We cannot go too slowly either lest we stop or fail to advance in the journey.  “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psa. 1:1).  Third, walking takes balance.  To walk circumspectly is to walk carefully as a man on a tight rope (akribōs is as an acrobat).  To veer off to one side or the other is to lose our equilibrium and fall.  Fourth, to walk means to be going in a certain direction.  Paul said of Titus, “Walked we not in the same spirit, walked we not in the same steps?” (2 Cor. 12:18).  Paul knew where he was going and Titus was going there too.  Fifth, we have to think as we walk.  “Let us walk honestly, as in the day” (Rom. 13:13).  A man who doesn’t contemplate his walk is losing his way.

Sixth, it takes light to walk.  “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth” [NKJ, ‘do not practice the truth,’] but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another” (1 John 1:6). God is light, John says, and there is no walking with God apart from this light.  Seventh, there are rules of the road that must be kept.  “And as many as walk according to this rule” (Gal. 6:16).  Eighth, and most importantly, we walk as our Lord taught us, by His example.  “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1 John 2:6).  In addition, the Bible gives us several examples of how not to walk: as the world walks, in the lust of our flesh, disorderly, in darkness, as enemies of the cross.  Walking is something all able people do everyday.  Walking with God ought also to be second nature to the believer.

Is there a secret?

In a day of quick fixes we may find ourselves looking from church to church, seminar to seminar, book to book, forum to forum, for the sure-fire formula to spiritual life.  Since walking with God is mostly a matter of progressive sanctification, we can fall into one of the two pitfalls that have always presented themselves.  One is to find our rest in self-serving work that glorifies us rather than God.  I’m not disparaging good works.  The New Testament is filled with commandments and spiritual laws.  Legalism is not to be found in the mere existence of law.  But walking with God must be just that—a walk with God and not with ourselves.  We must walk only to please Him, not others, not heroes, not leaders, and certainly not ourselves.

The other is to think that we can “let go and let God” do it all for us.  This formula sounds good to the spiritualist.  He thinks that he has arrived at a plane above the dirty din of the world and is sailing along with no effort of his own.  Sanctification to him is all positional with no room for sanctification that takes real effort and work.  I think Charles Ryrie said it best years ago in his book, Balancing the Christian Life,

Is there a ‘secret’ for victory in this area?  Yes, there is, and it is no secret! . . . . Again the human and divine are joined in the matter of walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16).  The life that does not fulfill the lusts of the flesh is the life that walks by means of the Spirit, and yet it is I who am commanded to walk by means of the Spirit.  Even Galatians 2:20 reminds me that Christ lives in me and I live the life.  In other words, it is quite clear from the Scriptures that there are a correlation and a conjunction of both the human and divine agencies in sanctification.  To exclude or deemphasize one or the other is to miss an important aspect of the truth and to have an unbalanced, defective spirituality.³

So the walk with God is not legalism nor is it license.  God certainly has regenerated us and indwells us through His Spirit.  We have added His spiritual presence to our existence and we walk in the light as He is in the light.  Yet we fight a good fight that involves our flesh as well as our spirit and we have weapons and armor fit for the battle.

In one way we walk as a unified creature.  We cannot separate body and spirit until death and progressive sanctification involves the whole person.  “Be joyful in the Lord, my heart! Both soul and body bear your part: To God all praise and glory.”⁴  We are not Gnostics who think our souls travel to higher realms above the sinful body.  We are not Epicureans who think we might as well eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die.  Yet in another way we realize that body and soul are different.  Paul explained that the body is just a tent that will be folded up and put away some day (2 Cor. 5:1) and to be separated from the body and go on to heaven is a far better thing (Phil. 1:23).  The body can suffer and even die but neither can affect the life of the spirit.  The joy of the martyr at the time of death will always amaze us.  “Fear none of those things,” John said to the persecuted church at Smyrna.

We are all susceptible to failure

The immediate problem with dealing with a subject such as walking with God is that we all fail in many ways.  We have our devotions and fully intend to have a consistent walk and then we don’t.  Our time, interests, distractions, tempers, lusts, appetites, the cares of this world, all seem to pile upon us and we find ourselves confessing them again and starting anew.  We read that we are to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect but we never come close.  We read how Jesus walked and we try to follow His example but we fail.  We feel the leading of the Holy Spirit and then we contradict Him and say no, not now, maybe next time.  That is, we are all human.

We will be like Jesus one day but not now.  Death will be our graduation from this school called life, and we will “be like him for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:3).  Until then we are going in that direction.  Paul said, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).  God sees me as “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6) and wearing the righteousness of Christ for my pardon positionally, but I have not attained practically to that standard, not in this life.

The message in John’s first epistle is that as believers we do walk (present tense, continually) in the light as He is in the light and we do have fellowship with Him (present tense, continually) and therefore the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us (present tense, continually) from all sin (1 John 1:7-8).  However, since we still sin we must confess our sins (aorist tense, occasionally) and He does forgive us those sins (aorist tense, occasionally) as often as we confess (1: 9-10).  In fact, when we sin (aorist tense, occasionally) we have an Advocate Who is the propitiation for those sins (2:1-2).  So He has made provision for our failures and for all our sin.

When do we rest?

The Scriptures continually remind us that our rest is in heaven and in the future kingdom of God.  Until then it is walking, work, and war.  He has called us to glory (Rom. 8:30), to redemption (1 Cor. 1:31), for corruption to inherit incorruption and for mortality to inherit immortality (1 Cor. 15:54), to our conversation in heaven so that our vile body may be like His heavenly body (Phil. 3:21), to be presented faultless before His presence (Jude 24).  And much more.

In the old book by Richard Baxter (1615-1691) titled, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest⁵, Baxter has a whole chapter titled, “It Is Not On Earth.”  Here he has six ways that our present afflictions actually cause us to look forward to rest.  For example, trials make us desire rest. Then he gives seven reasons why our present rest hinders us on our way and can become an idol to us.  One is that we contradict the type of rest which God will one day give us. Then he gives nine causes of “our unreasonable unwillingness to die” because hanging on to this life shows a dissatisfaction with our coming rest. His point is that we have an eternity of rest coming which encourages us in all our journey to be diligent in our walk and endure everything in our time here.  A walk always comes to an end, and so will ours.

And So . . .

There is nothing more important in the Christian life than to walk with God and we should let nothing hinder us from it.  After all, we are going to walk with Him throughout eternity and how offensive it would be to Him to desire the things of this world that keep us from His fellowship.  We might be better off to be taken home early so that we would change our mind quickly than to be carnal for so long.

Walking with God is both difficult and easy.  Jesus invited us to wear His yoke but said that His yoke is easy and His burden light.  As exercise is painful but eventually brings good health, as a diet is unpleasing but later brings satisfaction, so learning to walk with God is contrary to our old nature but afterward yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.  Let us not be weary in this well-doing because we’ll reap if we faint not.

Notes:

1. Philip Doddridge, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (U. of Michigan reprint from an 1873 edition) 13.
2. https://youtu.be/KQ9Yeq-tavk
3. Charles Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life (Chicago: Moody Press, 1973) 38, 65.
4. “Sing Praise to God,” verse 4.
5. Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest (Boston: The American Tract Society, nd) 225-254.

 

 

The Law of Liberty

by Rick Shrader

The “Law of Liberty” has always struck me as a perfect oxymoron.  How can you be under the law if you are at liberty?  Or how can you be at liberty if you are under the law?  Isn’t this kind of like jumbo shrimp?  How can you have it both ways?  Yet the New Testament has many such seemingly contradictory statements.  “While we look at the things which are not seen” (2 Cor. 4:18).  “And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:19).  Obviously, we are being asked to accept the impossibility as a figure of speech, and yet to accept the intended meaning literally.

James uses this term twice in his book.  First, in 1:25, “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”  Here James is comparing two men who look into God’s Word.  One sees and understands but goes away without changing anything, like a man looking in a mirror and then forgetting what he saw that needed to be fixed.  The other man looks, sees, and then changes his appearance.  The second usage is in 2:12, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the perfect law of liberty.”  Here James is warning his readers that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (vs. 13) and be held accountable for what the Word of God revealed to us and whether we heeded it or not.  The ‘law of liberty” refers to all that God has said.  James doesn’t limit it just to the Mosaic law but to all of God’s revelation.  Even though James may actually be the first New Testament book written, anything spoken by Christ or written under inspiration is still the “law” of God to a believer (see 1 Tim. 5:18, 2 Pet. 3:16).

Many seem to struggle putting the two concepts together.  Some push it to legalism and teach that there are certain things we must to do be saved or remain saved.  If we keep the “law,” maybe baptism or church membership or various sacraments, we will be given the liberty from sin.  Others, and I think more common today, push this into license and teach that salvation sets the believer at “liberty” from any law which must be obeyed.  As to the latter, we often hear accusations that believers who abstain from questionable things or religiously practice good things are judgmental and have not found the true joy in Christ.  To them, it seems, liberty and joy can only be found where there is no law pressing upon the believer.

William MacDonald, however, explains the “law of liberty” in 1:25 this way,

In contrast [to the forgetful hearer] is the man who looks into the word of God and who habitually reduces it to practice.  His contemplative, meditative gazing has practical results in his life.  To him the Bible is the perfect law of liberty.  Its precepts are not burdensome.  They tell him to do exactly what his new nature loves to do.  As he obeys, he finds true freedom from human traditions and carnal reasonings.  The truth makes him free.¹

Douglas Moo also explains James’ “law of liberty” in 2:10 in a similar fashion,

God’s gracious acceptance of us does not end our obligation to obey him; it sets it on a new footing.  No longer is God’s law a threatening, confining burden.  For the will of God now confronts us as a law of liberty—an obligation that is discharged in the joyful knowledge that God has both ‘liberated’ us from the penalty of sin and given us, in his Spirit, the power to obey his will.²

The gospel does not make demands on us as a condition for salvation but the life of grace does, as we walk in the Christian life.

Restrictions are necessary

Every country has laws which are binding on every citizen.  We refrain from killing, stealing, cheating, and other crimes for the sake of peace and liberty.  Even the presence of a policeman on the street is a deterrent to law breakers and thus creates liberty for other people.  When there is no respect for the law there is no liberty for citizens to go about their daily lives.  This week in Chicago we saw a policeman shot to death while trying to help someone in a car accident.  The murderer not only robbed the policeman of his right to do good work for the community, he robbed the accident victim of his right to receive help.

Someone likened law and liberty to a great train.  A locomotive is one of the most powerful land machines that we see and use.  Most of us have traveled at sometime on one of these huge vessels.  A train is made to travel on a track and if you take the train off of the track and set it in a field or on a parking lot, that powerful creation becomes useless.  Without the restriction of the track the train loses its purpose.  In a similar way our automobiles must be governed by rules of the road or they lose their purpose too.  If we all stopped obeying the traffic laws and went our own ways by our own rules there would be chaos.  In effect we would all lose our liberty by eliminating the things that restrict us.

God gave man liberty by restriction

God put the first man and woman in His garden with wonderful liberty to enjoy the garden and to eat of an endless variety of fruit and food.  Yet we all know that God also placed a single restriction on the man and the woman, a single tree of which they were not to eat.  Charles Ryrie wrote, “The test to which Adam and Eve were put was both extremely significant and relatively minor.  It was minor from the viewpoint that a single prohibition in the midst of all the bountiful provision of the Garden of Eden was a relatively  minor matter.  Not to allow them to know evil experimentally was a blessing from God, not a lack in their lives.”³   What Adam and Eve did not realize, nor did they need to, was that their liberty in the garden was being safeguarded by the restriction to the one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God was keeping them from knowing evil experimentally which would limit, even destroy, their wonderful liberty in the garden.  Satan fooled Eve into thinking that God’s restriction was a negative thing not a good thing.  When she and Adam broke God’s simple restriction they consequently lost their liberty.

Restrictions free us

Sometimes we tend to think that the restrictions God has placed on us even now, in our fallen condition, are robbing us of our own liberty.  When I pastored in Ft. Collins, CO, a young college student from Colorado State University visited me in my office.  He was a Christian young man away from home and living in the dormitory with all of its worldliness and temptations.  He was questioning why God would not want him to commit fornication like most of the rest of his fellow students did.  He figured if God made him with this desire that it couldn’t be a bad thing; in fact, remaining “pure” seemed to rob him of his “liberty” and was making his life more difficult, not better.

I asked the young man if he was a born again believer and he gave me a clear testimony.  I asked him why he trusted Christ simply by faith.  After realizing what I was asking he said, because God said he was to accept Christ that way.  Then I pointed him to Scriptures such as 1 Thes. 4:3, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.”  I asked him why he should obey that verse.  He smiled and said, “because God said to do it.”  A believer is a person who believes God in all that He has said, whether for salvation or Christian living.

Of course, what the young man was about to learn, whether by obedience or disobedience, was that God’s law was actually liberty from a life of destruction and ruin.

Obedience is of the will, not emotion

Our human personality is made up of intellect, emotion, and will.  We can know things, feel things, and do things.  All knowledge comes from God, “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).  Emotions about things come and go.  We can like something at one moment and despise it the next.  We can love and we can hate.  Paul said of lost men without the Spirit of God, “Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Eph. 4:19).  If we try to navigate this world by our emotion we will end in an emotional mess.

God deals with us primarily through the will.  He reveals knowledge to us and tells us to do the right thing based on that knowledge.  In our fallen condition doing the right thing is not always easy, in fact it can be very difficult because our fleshly emotion wants it another way.  Our very salvation starts out by an act of the will as God says, “whosoever will may come.”  Our Christian life continues as God says, “whosoever will, let him take up his cross and follow me.”  God never asks us to feel right and then do right.  Trusting God is a matter of obeying first and finding the right feeling because we obeyed.  This is why love can be commanded,  “Husbands, love your wives.”  Believe what God says, set your will in that direction, and the joy of the Lord will certainly follow.

The cross kills and gives life

The Roman cross of crucifixion was not a pretty thing.  It was ugly and cruel, merciless and deadly.  It killed effectively and completely.  Jesus died for our sin on such a cross.  He paid the penalty for our sin.  His was a foreign guilt, our guilt, which He bore for the whole human race.  When we accept that death for us, we receive a foreign righteousness, His righteousness, which is placed upon us.  As the song writer wrote, “Tis done, the great transaction’s done.”

The repentance process is to realize that we should have died there on that Roman cross.  We would deserve what we got.  Faith is to realize that Jesus did not die for any sin of His own but for our sin and therefore He died as our Substitute.  The proof that He died for our sin and not His own is His resurrection bodily from the grave because death had no claim on Him. When we come to Jesus by faith we acquiesce to His death, or in fact, we die with Him.  Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

As a believer in Christ, I am directed by my will to take up my cross and follow Him.  I am walking to the death of myself.  It is not always kind nor pleasant but it is the direction my Savior went.  Yet as I go I find that this cross, this yoke, is easier than I thought and the burden is lighter than I thought.  I find a liberty in my soul, yes even in my emotion, that comes from such a cross.  “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:8-10).

Law is not legalism but liberty

A.W. Tozer compared the old cross of the Bible with the new cross of culture.  He wrote, “The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him.  It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect.”⁴  There are always those who think of restrictions as something “legalistic,” something God would be less than God if He insisted upon.  So the cross is redirected into a lotion for the emotion, so to speak.  James had severe words for such an attitude, those whose very prayers were to consume things upon their lusts.  “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?  Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

To cover up for that friendship one only has to accuse others of legalism.  This is the vernacular for saying that pleasing God involves outward showiness and is almost always hypocritical.  It is implied that a person who maintains any outward separation from the world is working for salvation, to coax reward from God by works rather than by faith.  Some years ago a well-known writer and speaker made this same accusation of legalism about conservative Christians.  Dr. Ernest Pickering answered that man in a booklet titled, Are Fundamentalists Legalists?  He wrote, “The writer also declares that Christian leaders formulate rules of conduct so that persons obeying them can ‘earn God’s acceptance.’  After many years of ministry among thousands of churches both in this country and others I believe I can say with confidence that I have never met a pastor or Christian leader who believed this.”⁵  And neither have I.  One may disagree with another believer’s life style, but one should not accuse such a person of working for his/her salvation.  To be saved is to be accepted by God.

It is right to try to please God

Pleasing God should not be seen as a fleshly effort of legalism or Pharisaism.  In fact, pleasing God is specifically a New Testament life-style, a “law” of the New Testament for the believer.  Consider the following admonitions.  “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts” (1 Thes. 2:4); “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more” (1 Thes. 4:1); “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10); “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:22).

The “laws” of the New Testament have always been understood, not as works “for” salvation, but as works “because of” salvation.  This is the only way to understand Paul’s warnings against good works and James’ admonitions to good works.  The author of Hebrews simply said, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 10:14).  Being born again and eternally secure, the believer should desire to please God with the time he has left on this earth.  There is no better way to be relevant to the present generation than to please God.

And so . . .

In light of these things, the law of liberty makes sense.  It is an oxymoron but only as a figure of speech.  The laws of God as seen in the Word of God protect the believer’s liberty.  They stand as a warning just as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stood as a warning to Adam and Eve.  Our life is freer and better when we heed those warnings and abstain from (or adhere to, as the case may be) those things that would hurt us and thus impede the liberty to which Christ has made us free.  Freedom is not free, for Christ paid the awful price for our sin and disobedience.  Our freedom, our liberty, comes freely to us in salvation but admonishes us to walk as He walked, in obedience to His laws.

Notes:

1. William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995) 2224.
2. Douglas Moo, Tyndale New Testament Series, James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 98.
3. Charles Ryrie, A Survey of Bible Doctrine (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1972) 108.
4. A.W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God. Kindle version, chapter 10.
5. Ernest D. Pickering, Are Fundamentalists Legalists? (Decatur: Baptist World Mission, nd.) 15.