Month: April 2018

… holding faith and a good conscience (I Tim 1:19)

… the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared … (I Tim 4:2)

May I, by your grace, O Lord, have a clean conscience in Christ, for you have taken my guilt and thrown it into the depths of the sea.

I bet you have someone in your family like Aunt Georgina. She feels guilty when she dries her hands on the wrong towel in the bathroom at Uncle Bob’s house. She apologizes when she gives Christmas gifts because she wasn’t sure what you wanted. Her conscience troubles her when her dog innocently scares a neighbor by licking him in the face. Normally, she is pleasant enough, but every now and then her feelings get the best of her and she feels so depressed about something she did that she can’t relate properly to anyone in the family. Her guilt incapacitates her.

Likely, you’ve also seen Charles Jackson. He cheats on his wife, and when discovered says, “Come on! This is the 21^st century!” He constantly berates his children and justifies himself by saying, “I had to teach them what was right.” He defames a coworker to get her job and concludes, “That’s the way the world works.”

Aunt Georgina seems to feel guilty when a gnat lands on her plate, while Charles Jackson doesn’t seem to feel anything when he unjustly divorces his wife. He has a convenient explanation for everything, and remorse never touches his soul.

Aunt Georgina and Charles Jackson are both dealing with guilt, but they are doing it in different ways. Guilt is a human thing. No matter where you go you find it, and you and I all wrestle with it.

Now the first key to dealing with guilt is to understand that we use the word in different ways. The first way we use the word is to refer to real guilt, which I will label “Guilt.” Guilt refers to real moral wrong. Charles Jackson had Guilt when he cheated on his wife. The second way we use the word refers to feelings of guilt, which I will label “guilt.” Aunt Georgina had guilt when she dried her hands on the wrong towels.

Problems occur when Guilt and guilt do not correspond. In other words, if we have no real Guilt but we feel guilty, that is a problem. Or if we have real Guilt but feel nothing, that, too, is a problem. Feelings of guilt are not necessarily unhealthy. What is unhealthy is when the feelings and the reality don’t match. We should feel guilt appropriate to our real Guilt.

Now, feelings of guilt often come with other feelings like shame, embarrassment, depression, and inferiority. Consequently, most people don’t enjoy feeling guilty — even the Aunt Georginas of the world. The human race has, thus, concocted some clever ways to shirk these feelings.   Generally, this involves denying Guilt, a skill which most of us have become adept at. We do this in different ways. Sometimes we simply redefine right and wrong. If we redefine what real Guilt is, then we are free to engage in our behavior without any of those inconvenient feelings. Sometimes we do not redefine Guilt but justify it with excuses a mile long. We agree that one should tell the truth, but that time we called in sick when we weren’t sick was a special situation. And besides, everyone else does it. Our excuses can be quite clever, and we generally believe them, so that we rescue our souls from those monstrous feelings of remorse.

The problem with these efforts is that they are self-centered, arrogant, and dishonest. We do not have the authority to redefine Guilt. That is God’s job, not ours. He sets the standards. We don’t. We can certainly label things right and wrong, and our labels can come close to or be far from reality, but we cannot change the reality. Imagine for a moment a man who cheated on his taxes and tried to get out of it by redefining tax law. He can’t to do that. He doesn’t get to write the law. And neither do we get to decide what real right and wrong are. Second, when we justify our Guilt with excuses, we paint ourselves to be prettier than we are. It is false advertising, and usually the ones we most deceive with our advertising are ourselves.

These sorts of practices will not do. We fool ourselves into feeling good. We hold up Aunt Georgina and say, “We don’t want to be like her,” but in our efforts to flee Aunt Georgina, we turn ourselves into Charles Jackson. Many people have no feelings of guilt because they don’t believe they have any Guilt. They proclaim “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. These sorts of efforts to hide Guilt are dysfunctional, deceptive, and sinful in their own right. They are nothing more than a cover up.

Now the Christian way of dealing with Guilt is quite different from these natural ways. The Christian way begins by acknowledging our Guilt. In one sense, this is just a matter of being truthful about who we are. The moment, however, we acknowledge our Guilt, we can begin to deal with it. People who hide it behind fancy definitions and excuses are never able to deal with it. They don’t even know it is there. And the thing about Guilt is that it doesn’t just go away, and it always involves real life. Guilt is not an idea floating in the sky like a runaway balloon. It is mixed with Earth. It deals with a rebellious attitude we had, some harsh words we spoke, a person we hurt, a defilement of our own body. Guilt insists on being as real as dirt. If we clean it up and pretend there is no dirt, if we treat Guilt as a vague feeling not tethered to reality, we never heal. The Christian way wants to deal with the real issues and not sweep them under the carpet.

Dealing with Guilt in a healthy way involves making things right, and the first place we must do this is with God. After all, when we sin, it is His law we have violated. When we harm another, we have harmed a soul He made. When we defile our own bodies, we defile His creation. Every wrong we do, we do against God. Therefore when we sin, we need to make things right with God just as a child who disobeys his father must deal with his father.  Thus, all sin, no matter who it involves on earth, involves our heavenly Father whom we have disobeyed. Consequently, we must make things right with God.

The Christian way, however, is honest enough to see that you and I cannot truly make amends to God. It is too expensive. God is not Mrs. Johnson next door. He is an eternal and infinite King. He is a consuming fire. Justice surrounds His throne, and Guilt and justice can be an expensive mix. Real Guilt does not just deal with life issues. It is itself a justice issue. Therefore, the Christian way acknowledges not just our own Guilt, but the just judgment of God against it. People who say that hell is a cruel doctrine do not understand their own sin.

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.  (Heb 10:1)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  (Mt 5:17)

Many years ago, I heard an interview on the radio in which a secular news reporter was criticizing Christians for being inconsistent and failing to follow their own book. “For example,” he said, “The Bible clearly forbids people from eating pork, yet Christians everywhere think nothing of putting pepperoni on their pizza.”

When I heard what he said, I couldn’t believe my ears. I was embarrassed at the critique — not for myself but for the reporter. He was obviously a well-educated man, but he plainly had no idea what Christians believe about the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. I was embarrassed at his confident display of ignorance.

Since that time, I have heard the same accusation many times over, sometimes dealing with food, sometimes with other examples — Christians wear clothes with mixed fabrics; Christians do not stone adulterers or children who curse their parents; Christians do not practice the Old Testament ceremonial washings or require circumcision. Every time I hear the accusation, I feel the same embarrassment that I felt for the news reporter. Apparently many people actually believe that Christians are hypocrites for failing to practice much of the ceremonial and civil law that appears in the Old Testament. What they do not understand is that Christians would be hypocrites if they required people to keep the ceremonial and civil laws in the Old Testament.

It seems necessary, therefore, to say something about what Christians believe about the relationship between the two testaments. Before we talk about Old Testament history, however, let’s talk about more recent times. In the nineteenth century, the United States had laws regulating slavery. Today those laws are meaningless, for the context has changed. In the nineteenth century, however, the United States also had laws prohibiting murder and stealing. Those prohibitions still exist and will continue to exist. No doubt you can think of other examples of both types of law, for there are many of each. It seems rather plain, then, that some laws change with the times, while other laws remain fairly constant. No normal person would criticize a U.S. citizen today for failing to follow nineteenth century tax law. We do not live under nineteenth century tax law. We would, however, criticize a citizen who violated nineteenth century laws on kidnapping or rape, for we recognize that those prohibitions still apply. Now the relationship between the Old Testament laws and the Christian is much like this normal relationship we recognize with law in general.

Some Old Testament laws deal with moral and character issues that are universal. Other Old Testament laws deal with a specific government in a specific time. In this respect, the Old Testament is no different from the laws of any other land.  But with the Old Testament another category also applies. Some Old Testament laws symbolize or foreshadow future realities. Those realities came in Jesus, and now we no longer need the symbols, for the real thing is here. It seems appropriate, therefore, to talk briefly about these different categories of Old Testament law.

First, the obvious. The Old Testament came before the New Testament, and the New builds upon the Old. The Old Testament is like the first 40 chapters of the story, and the New is the remainder of the story, to include the climax. The Old Testament provides the context for Jesus, and both Old and New Testaments focus on the same thing — Jesus. The Old Testament prepares people for the coming Messiah; the New reveals Him. The Old foreshadows a perfect sacrifice for sin; the New enacts it. The Old predicts the coming of a new covenant; the New releases it. The Old is constantly looking forward; the New is constantly looking back at the Cross and Resurrection. Both testaments describe the same event from different perspectives. Because the New Testament comes after the Cross, it gives a clearer picture than the Old, but one can easily see the New in the Old and vice versa.

This means that the New Testament interprets the Old. The clearer picture helps us understand the older one. Suppose you have two pictures of the same mountain.  One is an old drawing in which the artist drew the mountain based on a description given to him, and one is a clear photo in which the contours of the mountain are easily discernible. The clear photo helps you see what the artist was trying to represent. In similar fashion, the New Testament helps us understand the Old Testament law, the sacrificial system, the Messiah, and the covenant between God and Israel.

The Old Testament tells the story of God’s dealings with His people. Included within those dealings are many laws. The New Testament is clear that some of those laws deal with moral issues and are, thus, still commanded for one who would follow Jesus. Do not commit adultery, do not steal, honor your father and mother are some examples. The New Testament is also clear that much of the Old Testament law was ceremonial and symbolic (see the book of Hebrews). Sometimes that ancient law existed merely to symbolize a purity that God demanded of His people. Wearing clothes made from only one type of cloth and plowing fields with one type of animal might fit that category. Sometimes it existed to symbolize the fact that God’s people were to be set apart from the rest of the world. Circumcision and dietary laws might fit that category. Often it existed to foreshadow a coming reality. The entire sacrificial system complete with its washings and rituals fits this category, and so do the laws symbolizing purity and the fact that we are to be set apart.  In Jesus, all of these categories are now fulfilled, for in Him, we are made pure on the inside, we are set apart from the world in how we live, and we see in the Cross the true sacrifice that the ceremonial sacrifices symbolized. Thus, Christians do not do away with the Old Testament laws. Rather, in Jesus, they fulfill them. The Christian is under a new administration, but it is not any administration. It is the very administration that the Old Testament was pointing towards.

In other instances, Old Testament laws — particularly punishments for crimes — reflected a situation in which the entire nation consisted of those who were supposed to be the people of God. In that case, often the punishment for a crime was the real punishment that God says a particular crime deserves. Adultery, breaking the Sabbath, cursing your parents, and more received the death penalty under the old covenant. The punishment was more severe because the entire nation was supposed to be the people of God. God could hold them to a higher standard. These punishments, thus, reveal the severity of sin. They show us how God views such sins. They do not mean that civil government today should adopt such punishments, for the context has changed.

Today, the people of God are interspersed throughout many nations. Today the people of God are a minority in every nation, including those nations that identify as Christian. Today the people of God are a spiritual body and not a civil entity. Thus, civil laws that were unique to a situation in which the people of God were a nation unto themselves do not fit the current situation in which the people of God have no borders, are a minority within any nation, and are a spiritual body. If an entire nation truly was the people of God, then the severe punishments we see in the Old Testament would rarely be carried out. Today, however, if civil government had such punishments, most of the world would be in instant trouble.

Now, of course, since the Old Testament contains different categories of laws, one must determine which laws are universal and which are not. Some people talk as if this is hard to determine. In most instances, it isn’t.   It is fairly obvious that some laws, like prohibitions against murder and lying, are universal moral issues. It is also fairly obvious that other laws, like the kind of food you eat, have no moral basis in and of themselves.   They had a purpose, but that purpose was something other than moral.

For the Christian, the New Testament sheds light on the Old. This means that the New Testament has something to say about the true purpose of the Old Testament laws. When the New Testament describes what sinful and righteous lives look like, it often does so by reiterating Old Testament commands (Rm 1; Eph 4-5). Murder, stealing, coveting, lying, crude language, idolatry, greed, disobedience to parents, drunkenness, adultery, homosexuality, rebellion and more are all condemned in the Old Testament and then condemned again in the New. In these situations, interpretation is obvious. The Christian lives under the current administration of the New Testament, and that administration plainly states that such behaviors are universal moral issues.

The New Testament, however, also states that other Old Testament laws no longer apply. The imperfect sacrifices of Leviticus have given way to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus (Heb 10). The sign of God’s people is no longer circumcision but faith and a life that reflects it (Galatians). The dietary laws are described as morally neutral and nonbinding (Mark 7:14-20). In all of these situations, the New Testament never condemns the Old Testament laws. It does not say that they were immoral or unjust. It says simply that a new era has begun.

Now if Christians truly believe that they live under a new era, they would be hypocrites to require people to go live under the old era. That old era has been fulfilled. Therefore, if you like pepperoni, put it on your pizza. And if people criticize you for not following the Bible, I guess you’ll just have to love them. It may be appropriate to gently correct them — or it may not be, depending on the situation — but they don’t know what they are saying.