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Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (Jn 8:34-6)

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. (Rm 6:6)

You have freed me, O Lord! Hallelujah! I am free!

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, and in doing so, he changed the course of history and improved the plight of millions of people, in his own day and in ours. But Scripture says that Christ has done something that far surpasses what Abraham Lincoln did. It says that Christ has freed the slaves. He has freed them from a bondage whose consequences are far worse than those of a nasty plantation owner. He has freed them from chains that they could never run away from, for these chains are in our own hearts. Scripture states that apart from Christ, we are slaves to sin, but the Son has set us free. Hallelujah! Scripture also tells us how this has happened. Christ has destroyed the bondage of sin through the Cross.

The Cross was a multi-faceted event. Christians say, “Jesus died for our sins,” and sometimes we say it so much that it becomes cliché. Many who say the words never allow the words to sink in. We need to see the glory of redemption. In the sight of God all our sins are gone. Praise be to His name.

But the Cross has done much more than redeem us and wipe away our sins. The Cross has actually changed who we are. It is not just that Jesus died for our sins. It is also that we died with Christ (Rm 6, Gal 2:20; Col 3). Our old self — the self that wants its own way — has been crucified. The heart that was steeped in sin has died, and the chains of sin have been broken. The bondage is gone because in Christ our old self has died. We are now free.

This is a transaction of a different sort. In the Cross, God offers not just a payment for sin and forgiveness. He also changes our very essence, for on the Cross, He destroys our old nature.

This transaction is the foundation for a holy life. When people are in bondage to their sinful selves, they are utterly incapable of living in righteousness. But Paul says that our old self was crucified with Christ and that we are dead to sin. Because this is true, he then concludes that we should not let sin reign in our mortal bodies (Rm 6:1-12). In Colossians, he says that we have died and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. Therefore, we are to put to death all sorts of sins (Col 3:3-10). In both Romans and Colossians, Paul begins by telling us what God has done and concludes by telling us how we ought to live in light of what God has done. The Cross is the power through which God does this work. Thus, a righteous life is just as much a result of the Cross as forgiveness is. If we lean on the Cross for our forgiveness, we ought also lean on the Cross for power to live a right life.

The Cross is the power of God over sin. It is the ultimate Emancipation Proclamation. It frees us from our old master. We were in bondage to sin, enslaved to our own selfish desires, but the Cross destroys the chains by putting to death the old self. Through the Cross, sin is dead. Through the Cross, God says, “You are free from sin. Now live that way.”

This teaching is generally neglected in the church. People hear of Jesus’ substitutionary death and the pardon that comes with it fifty times more often than they hear of this, yet this is just as much a work of the Cross as that is. This part of the Cross prevents cheap salvation. When Paul teaches this doctrine, his purpose is to combat the idea that people in Christ can live in sin (Rm 6:1). God may forgive us, but that doesn’t mean we can live as we please. Paul is saying, in effect, “If you think you can live in sin, you don’t understand what happened on the Cross.”

It is no coincidence, then, when churches that neglect this teaching often breed shallow faith. “Just come to Jesus and His blood will cover your sins and God will forgive you.” That statement is gloriously true, but it is incomplete. Sometimes our message stops in Romans chapter 3, but Paul’s message doesn’t.   The good news is that in Christ, followers of Jesus are made right in the eyes of God AND made right in their very nature. Forgiveness and reconciliation are built upon the Cross. But so is a holy life. We are to live a certain type of life because, through the Cross, God has made us into a certain type of person.   Our slavery to sin is over. The Son has set us free.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  (Eph 5:31-2)

Lord Jesus … I do.

When a rich man marries a poor woman, the two become one.   They share one home, one life, one bed, one estate, and one purpose. As far as the law is concerned, everything the husband has belongs to the wife. His riches are hers. She may have come out of the slums, but now she is a duchess.

The Scriptures make the wild claim that the Christian is that poor woman who became a duchess.

Our original poverty is a result of our spiritual state in sin. Our natural home is a spiritual slum. It is a spiritually oppressive place, an ugly, smelly, dirty place, a hopeless place, though some entertain false hopes of earning their way out of it.   People build their little shanties and make things as pleasant as they can, but they were born in the slums, they live in the slums, and if they insist on their own way, they will die there. We are poor spiritually because we sin. Our sin has separated us from our God and has consequently left us only what we can contrive on our own. Our sin has corrupted our bodies and souls. It has brought sickness and death, bitterness and meaninglessness. In sin we lose our purpose, our peace, and our hope, for in sin we lose God, and all good things are tied up in God.

But God calls us out of these slums and into His riches, and the Christian enjoys abundant spiritual wealth, the result of a wondrous marriage we have entered into — the uniting of our souls to Christ. In Him, we share one life, one Spirit, one inheritance, and one purpose. As far as God is concerned, everything Christ has belongs to us. His riches are ours. We have, thus, moved from the spiritual slums to a spiritual palace. Our new identity takes on the name of our Groom. Our new life is a garden of righteousness. Our new home is filled with peace and joy, and hope reigns over our souls.

We do not have any of these riches because we have somehow earned our way out of the slums. The kingdom of God has no “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” stories. We have these riches because we belong to Jesus and Jesus has these riches.

This marriage of my soul to Jesus — this new identity in Jesus — is the substance of what it means to be a Christian. We are married to Christ. We have died to the law that we might belong to him who was raised from the dead (Rm 7: 4). We may talk of all sorts of wonderful benefits that Scripture promises, but this is the source of them all. Everything we enjoy as Christians, we enjoy because of our union with Christ. We are in Him, and being in Him means that we have His riches. We are united with Christ in his death so that we share in his resurrection (Rm 6:5). In Christ we have received every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (Eph 1:3). In Him, we are chosen to be holy and blameless (Eph 1:4). In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7). In Him, we see God’s great and mysterious purpose (Eph 1:9). In Him, we are united together (Eph 1:10). In Him we receive an inheritance unspeakable (Eph 1:11). In Him, we receive God’s Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13). In Him, we do not live under condemnation (Rom 8:1).

The real Gift of God is not forgiveness or peace or love or holiness. The real Gift of God is a union with Christ, or to put it another way, a union with God Himself. All of these other gifts are byproducts. They are certainly glorious, but their glory is itself a reflection of the glory of God. God is the real prize.

God has given us Himself, and He has done so in Jesus Christ. When we marry Jesus, we receive everything that Jesus has. All good gifts are in Christ. “This is the message. God has given us eternal life and that life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (I Jn 5:12-13).

Thus, the key to life is not to pursue life. The key to joy is not to pursue joy. The key to holiness is not to pursue holiness. The key to all these things is to pursue Jesus. If we pursue life for ourselves, we miss Jesus, and when we miss Jesus, we miss life. Life is in Jesus. When we have Jesus we have everything. When we miss Jesus we miss out on everything.

Let’s be clear. Christianity is not primarily about forgiveness, love, joy, or righteousness. It is about Jesus. And in Him, God grants us forgiveness, love, joy, and righteousness. In Christ we are rich.

All these things mean that Jesus is the prize. When a man marries a woman, he desires a true response from her. He would be a fool to marry a woman who was only trying to get at his bank account or his villa in Switzerland. When a woman marries a man, the main prize needs to be the man. Those who marry for money or status or fame or whatever are phony. In the same way, Jesus will have nothing to do with people who prize his riches above him. He must be the prize. He desires us to unite with him, not to unite primarily with forgiveness or freedom. Those things are good, but they are just part of the estate. We receive them when we join ourselves to Christ.

This idea that God is willing to unite with us in marriage would be insane if God had not said it Himself. If I had come up with the idea, you would think I was crazy. Indeed, often those who hear of earthly marriages between a wealthy man and a poor woman think the man to be out of his mind. This marriage, however, exceeds those by an infinite degree, for the separation between God and us is light years beyond the separation between two social classes.  Consequently, the riches we enjoy in Christ far exceed the riches of earth, for I would rather have the peace of Christ than all the money in the world.

Jesus lifts us from the spiritual slums and takes us for himself. He comes to us and proposes. He says, “Would you have me as your Lord?” We say “yes” by faith, for when we have genuine faith, we have given to him our pledge and our all.

Christ died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God (I Pet 3:18).

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (II Cor 5:21).

These Scriptures give a picture of the great transaction that lies at the heart of the gospel. Remove the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and there is no gospel. God died for us. The death of Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Now we are free in the eyes of the law.

But not everyone likes this idea. Here are some objections people sometimes raise.

1) This transaction of removing sin through the Cross is not fair. If we are the ones who sinned, then we ought to be the ones who pay. It is not fair to have someone else pay for our sin. After all, we do not allow someone to go to jail in place of the criminal. He must serve his own time.

True enough. But our criminal justice system does take checks. If you violate the law and incur a $500,000 penalty you cannot pay, a wealthy man who loved you could write a $500,000 check and you would be free. Is that fair?

Now if someone put a gun to the wealthy man’s head and said, “Write that check,” that would have been unfair.   But Jesus went to the Cross willingly out of love. No one forced him; He freely laid down his life. And if the wealthy man freely wrote the check out of love, we would not call it unfair either.

But this objection does not see reality either.  You see, if we wish to be strict about it, then I’m afraid we shall not be able to pay for our sin. The price is too great. We are like a two-year-old with a trillion dollar debt. We are, thus, left with this dilemma. We could think ourselves noble and insist we pay what we could never pay. Or we could accept the transaction on our behalf. God has written the check. We are certainly free to say, “No thanks. I’ll pay it myself,” but that would be a bit foolish. Headstrong too. Here is someone lovingly offering to give us a gift and genuinely desiring us to take it, but we turn him down with some high notions that we can do what He did. That is not noble. That is arrogant.

Finally, this objection is built upon the notion of works. We must work our way to God. We must earn what we get. This is why Muslims so often raise this objection, for Islam is based on works. If somehow, however, we were to earn our way to God, then God would actually owe us something. No! A thousand times no! This, too, is arrogance. The gospel of God is based on grace. God gives us what we could never have otherwise. It takes humility to admit this fact and to say, “Thank you.” Sometimes receiving a gift is harder than giving one, especially for prideful people.

2) If God is so great and loving, then why does he need a transaction to forgive? Why all the drama? Why not just forgive and be done with it?

There was once a judge who presided over the court of a small town. He was such a merciful judge that whenever he found a criminal guilty, he simply issued a decree of forgiveness and wiped away the penalty. What do you think of that judge?

The idea that God should just forgive and be done with it asks God to be that judge. It asks God to ignore justice. If God forgives without any payment for sin, God is unjust. In that sense, this objection is naïve.

The real situation of redemption is more like this. There was once a judge who presided over the court of an entire province. Since he was the only judge for the province, he saw every case. One day his teenage son stood before him, accused of stealing. After hearing the case, the judge concluded that his son was guilty. He ordered that his son pay the penalty for his crime — restitution to the offended party up to five times what the son had stolen. The son, of course, had no way to pay the penalty and was facing the prospect of debtor’s prison for a long, long time. That night when the father was home, he filled a bag with gold from his personal treasure, and the next day when he went to court, he paid the court treasurer in full the amount that he had ordered his son to pay.

That is the story of redemption.

The transaction is necessary not only because it is just but also because it shows great love. The Cross demonstrates the love of God far more clearly than a vague “just forgive and be done with it.” In the parable, we see the judge’s love for his son through the transaction. If the judge had merely “forgiven” his son and written off the penalty, we would not view the action as loving. Those who say that God can just forgive and be done with it don’t have much of a god left. Who wants to worship that judge? “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:8).

3) This idea of a sacrifice for sins is ancient and barbaric. Surely we cannot in today’s sophisticated world believe such nonsense.

In response to this objection, I almost don’t know what to say, for this objection doesn’t attempt to make any arguments. It simply assumes that modern ideas are superior to ancient ones. This is what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery. This objection avoids any intelligent discussion by lumping an idea into the category of ancient and barbaric. It is a cultural argument. What if someone said that the idea of a certain black man is absurd because it came from a backward African culture?  You would clearly reject the rationale and rightly so.  OK.  This objection does the same thing.   Ancient cultures are not necessarily inferior to modern ones. To say that they are betrays an arrogant prejudice and says more about the person raising the objection that it does about the actual merits of the Atonement.

. . . and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rm 3:24)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace. (Eph 1:7)

. . . it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Gal 2:20)

Father, I thank you for the Cross, for through it I have riches that this world cannot touch. 

 Sometimes the Bible uses fancy words to describe what God has done. Justification, redemption, reconciliation, and regeneration are some of those words. I want to explain these ideas in common terms and show how all of them are tied together.

Redemption is the work Jesus did on the Cross in which his death paid what you and I justly owe. It is a spiritual transaction. In a sense, God paid a great price to purchase the human race out of her sin. He then issued a contract that reads something like this:

From: God Almighty, Creator of the universe

To: the human race

 Let it be known that your ways are not my ways. You are enslaved to sin and dwell in the slums of sin with no way out. I will have no sin in my presence.

 Let it also be known, however, that I have loved you with an everlasting love and do not desire you to remain where you are. Therefore, I offer you the following proposal:

I have paid the price to purchase you out of your sin. That price consists of the blood of my Son. On the Cross, I have freed you.  I will freely apply this transaction to all who accept it — to all who put their faith in my Son. They shall then belong to me and I to them. Before the law, they shall be clean, and they shall freely enter into my presence as my children. They shall be free from the chains of their sin and enjoy a new life as the Bride of Christ.

Redemption has purchased us out of the slums. This redemptive transaction is the ground for justification (Rm 3:24) and forgiveness. (Eph 1:7). Justification deals with the Law and makes us right before the Law. It is a justice issue. Legally, all who rely on the redemptive transaction of the Cross are clean because their Guilt has been atoned for. Forgiveness deals with reconciliation and restores our relationship with God. It is a relational issue. All who rely on the redemptive transaction of the Cross now belong to God. They are restored legally because Christ has paid their penalty. They are restored relationally because they are now united relationally to Christ.

Regeneration simply means “new life.” Those who enter into the contract with God — those who rely on the gracious transaction of the Cross — receive a new life. The old life in the slums of sin is gone; the new life in Christ has begun. New life is made possible by redemption, for redemption unites us to Christ.

All of these gifts — legal justification, personal forgiveness and reconciliation, a new life, and the redemption through the Cross — are inseparable. Each is a different aspect of our union with Christ, for when we say “yes” to God’s proposal of redemption, we are simultaneously saying “yes” to a union with Christ. We belong to him. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (I Cor 6:19-20)

“… and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Rm 3:24-5)

Praise, You, O Lord! My guilt is gone through the blood of the Cross!

This week’s blog continues the last one. If you haven’t read the last one, scroll down.

In the last blog, I mentioned that real Guilt involves relational brokenness and justice. When we sin, we justly deserve punishment and we harm our relationship with God. Therefore, any attempt to deal with Guilt properly, must deal with both those issues. God will not simply wave His hand and forgive our Guilt to restore the relationship, for such hand waving ignores justice, and God is just. But neither will God execute a just punishment in a cold manner devoid of any relational meaning, for such a punishment ignores love, and God is love. When God deals with our Guilt, He does so in a just way and a loving way.

God has released justice through the blood of the Cross (Rm 3:24-6), and He has brought reconciliation through the blood of the Cross (Col 1:20). In Jesus, God has removed your Guilt. He has done so with complete justice, and any payments or debts you may owe because of your Guilt are gone. The Cross took care of those. Justice has been served. Therefore, the barrier that your Guilt brought between you and God is destroyed. In doing this, God offers you reconciliation. He says, “Come. I will forgive your sin.  Abide in my presence.”

This action of God is precisely the thing that we could never do ourselves, and it deals directly with the real issue — our sin. The follower of Jesus experiences this reconciliation, this forgiveness, by faith. Therefore, the Christian way of dealing with Guilt is to acknowledge it and bring it by faith to the Cross, which destroys it. The Christian may sin at times, but before God, all the sin is gone.

We are free from Guilt through Christ, and it is this freedom that allows us to rejoice in a real way. Our joy is not the deceptive comfort of hiding our Guilt. It is the full realization that we are more Guilty than we know but that we have been released from it because Christ has died. Praise Him!

This freedom from Guilt then affects our feelings of guilt. The Cross is the antidote to Aunt Georgina (see previous blog). Christians have no business bashing themselves on the head for a Guilt that is gone. I do not mean Christians should never feel remorse. I mean simply that they should never wallow in it. Their sin is gone. It is not just hidden from their eyes through some rhetorical trick. It is completely obliterated by the love of God. When Aunt Georgina grasps that fact, she is a different woman. She may still wrestle and struggle with her orientation to guilt. We do live, after all, in a fallen world. But she is not the same Georgina. When her heart and mind fully grasp the fact that all her real Guilt is gone, the inappropriate feelings of guilt begin to disappear. “If God has forgiven me for the time I cheated in chemistry and for the sexual relationship I had with Aaron, then why am I worrying about towels?” Aunt Georgina is clean in Jesus Christ, and she ought to think accordingly.

The Christian way of handling feelings of guilt is not to deny real Guilt but to deal with it through the Cross. Because the Christian way actually deals with the real problem, it produces real peace from the inside out and not just a contrived peace built on blindness.

Christians are righteous in God’s eyes because God has made them righteous through the Cross. The theological term for this act is “justification,” and we have been justified not by our good works or by our religious rituals but only by faith in Jesus and the work He did on the Cross. Justification comes in Christ. We “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Rm 3:24) We are made right for the simple fact that we are in Christ. Justification is part of our union with Christ, and when we enter into that union, our relationship with God changes. Sin and Guilt are destroyed. We are clean and right in his sight because we are in Christ, and Christ is clean and right. We are made right by faith because we are united with Christ by faith. Justification and the removal of our Guilt are part of the package of being in Christ. Praise Him! By faith, your Guilt is gone.

… 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.

… a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (II Tim 2:15)

As you spoke in ancient times to real people in real settings, so, too, do you speak today to real people in real settings, and you use what you said to the ancient people to encourage and challenge us modern people.  Praise your name!

We have been talking about how to read the Bible, and I have been saying that, in one sense, we ought to read the Bible in much the same way we read other books. The past couple blogs have given some examples. We talked about adjusting how we interpret the Bible according to the genre we are reading. We then talked about the importance of the writer’s situation and historical context and used two letters from Paul to illustrate. But the Bible contains more than Paul’s letters. So let’s continue talking about writer’s situation and historical context, except today let’s focus on one prophet and the psalms.

In the book of Micah, the prophet foretells the birth of Messiah in Bethlehem (Mic 5:1-4). We often bring this prophecy out at Christmas, but we rarely mention the writer’s situation and context, even though Micah states up front that Jerusalem is under siege when he writes (5:1). This fact adds significantly to the meaning of what God was doing with that prophecy. When God predicted a ruler who was from ancient days but who would be born in Bethlehem, he was sending a message of hope to a people who did not know if they would be alive tomorrow. God gave them encouragement in their situation by giving them something bigger than their situation. Micah did not write to give you and me information we could put in our Christmas programs. He wrote to encourage despondent people. You see, the message of a coming Messiah is hope in a desperate situation just as the message of the 2^nd coming is today hope in our desperate situations.

The prophets are constantly addressing a people facing problems like invasions, sieges, injustice, corruption, idolatry, and more. When you read the prophets, they often describe their context for you just as Micah did. Listen to it and try to put yourself into the situation of someone facing the same issues. You will better understand what the prophet is doing.

When it comes to the psalms, each psalm has a historical context. Sometimes we know that context, sometimes we don’t. Some psalms come with a preface that states the context. Psalm 54 says that David wrote the psalm “when the Ziphites went and told Saul, ‘Is not David hiding among us?’” This story appears in I Samuel 23:15-29, and you will better understand Psalm 54 if you read that story first. The story helps you get inside the head of David.

Many psalms, however, do not have such a preface.  Instead, some psalms refer to the context in their body. In Psalm 86 David says “O God, insolent men have risen up against me; a band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.” (v. 14). When we read this psalm, we must understand that evil men are attacking David in order to kill him. When David then says, “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord” (v. 9), he is making a great statement of faith because what he sees with his eyes is that men ignore God and want to kill the godly. The historical context helps us see David as a real man struggling with real difficulties, but it also magnifies his faith. This is not a nebulous “Preserve my life” (v.2). It addresses a situation just as specific as yours and mine.

Now all this talk of history within the psalms does not mean that the psalms are history texts, but neither are they ahistorical because they are songs. No one thinks Francis Scott Key was trying to write history when he wrote the “Star Spangled Banner.” At the same time, no one doubts the historicity of the battle of Baltimore Harbor, the event that inspired the song. When he wrote that he saw “in the dawn’s early light … the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air,” he is likely describing what he saw.  If you think of the psalms as something like that, you will not be amiss.

Finally, sometimes historical context can give perspective on difficult texts. In Psalm 137, the author blesses him who takes the infants of Babylon and dashes them against the rock (v 9). Some people do not understand how the Bible can say such things. But we live in our antiseptic world, divorced from the realities that drove this psalm. The author is a Jew who has likely witnessed Babylon dash Jewish infants into the rock. He was likely there when the armies burned the city and put to death thousands of innocent men, women, and children. He has likely seen women raped and the temple razed to the ground. He has vivid pictures in his mind of Edomites shouting, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” (v. 7) He has now been taken as a slave into captivity in Babylon (vv. 1-3), and in this psalm, he expresses his raw feelings, and asks God to repay Babylon with what she did to Jerusalem (v 8). The prayer is a cry for justice. The author expresses that cry with such a crude image (v. 9) because that may be the image that he cannot get out of his head. He will never forget what he saw.

The Babylonian destruction and captivity of Judah is the historical context of the psalm. It is so foreign to us. We cannot imagine anyone thinking what this author said about the babies of Babylon. But then neither can we imagine going through what this author just went through. We sit in our easy chairs 2700 years after the fact, sip our lattes, and somehow think we understand. We pass judgment on a man who just went through hell. The historical context, however, tempers our judgment. You and I will never completely understand the feelings of this psalmist. We haven’t walked in his shoes, and we don’t want to. But the historical context shows me where his feelings came from.

Imagine an African man in the 19^th century who was forcibly taken from his family, put onto a boat, and shipped to America. He was sold into slavery on a Southern plantation. He was whipped and beaten. He eventually started a family in America, only to have his master take away his boy and finally sell his wife to someone else. He wished and prayed for justice, and he prayed that his master would lose his own boy and see what it is like.

Today, I may not wish such things on anybody, but I get it. I know why that man feels that way. The historical context he is in changes how I look at him. We need to see this psalm and many other psalms in much the same way. And we need to see that we, too, can express our real feelings to God, even if what comes out might sound crude. I think God is a big enough God to deal with our hurt.

“… a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”  (II Tim 2:15)

I pray, Lord, that you grant me your Spirit as I read to help me grasp the plain sense of what you say.

Let’s say you write a simple text that says, “Hi Abdul, We’ll come Saturday.” You write that text because you are in a specific situation and feel the need to communicate specific information to a specific audience. And this is true no matter what you write. The simplest email or a 300-page dissertation both give specific information to a specific audience to address a specific situation. All writing does this, including Biblical writing. Therefore, if you want to understand the Bible, it helps to understand a writer’s situation and context. This is rather basic, but let me give some examples where knowledge of a situation helps us understand Scripture.

Let’s begin with Paul. Paul himself tells us that he is a former Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, and that he once tried to persecute the faith he now follows. He has a calling to take the gospel of Jesus to Gentiles, so he is a cross-cultural minister, but he is also steeped in the Old Testament and quotes it profusely. When you read Paul, you have to let him remain a Hebrew and not try to make him a 21^st century American or Asian or whatever. In this sense, you need to understand the Jewishness of the gospel. Even when Paul writes to Gentiles, the gospel is the culmination of the Hebrew Scriptures. And even when Paul says that Gentiles do not have to keep certain Jewish ceremonial laws, he says that their faith is rooted in God’s eternal plan revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures. In other words, Paul is a Hebrew even when he is telling people that they don’t have to be Hebrews. It’s who he is. And it’s what the gospel is. This means that when you read Paul, try to understand him from his sandals.

Now Paul wrote many letters, but they are not the same. For example, he received information that one of the churches he had planted had abandoned the gospel of justification by faith and had accepted contrary doctrines. He wrote an official letter to that church in order to address the specific doctrines they embraced with the intent that the church read his letter publicly. That letter is Galatians.

Toward the end of his life, however, Paul found himself in prison. He believed that his life was poured out and that the authorities would soon execute him. He wrote a private and deeply personal final message to a man whom he regarded as a son. That letter is II Timothy.

One author. Two very different situations. This means that when you read II Timothy, you must read it differently from the way you read Galatians. It is private, not public. It does not touch on many of the themes or problems Paul deals with when he writes publicly. The tone is different. The style is different. The wording is different. The topics are different. But the man is the same. His situation, however, has greatly impacted what he says and how he says it. This is common sense. No one writes a private letter to his son in the same way that he writes an open letter to the editor. Nor does he necessarily say the same kinds of things.

When you read Galatians, therefore, understand that Paul is combating the idea within the church that God justifies us on the basis of our keeping the law. Paul is saying, “Your faith, not your works, saves you.” He argues it. He supports it from the Old Testament. He contrasts it with the error the Galatians were embracing. He discusses the implications of living life under this new gospel of faith. Most everything he says in Galatians is tied to the idea that justification comes by faith, not works. That is the historical situation he is addressing. If you miss that, you miss Galatians.

But when you read II Timothy, you hear a man pouring out his heart to his son and encouraging that son to fight on. Whether that son is to guard the good deposit entrusted to him in the Scriptures, or to entrust to faithful men what he has received from Paul, or to remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, or to remind the church of these things, or to present himself to God, or to rightly handle the Word, or to flee earthly passions, or to avoid controversy, or to preach the Word, or to … You get the idea. You see what Paul is doing. And he is doing it because “the time of [his] departure has come.” He has fought the good fight and finished the race, and now it is time to pass the baton to the next runner. That is the situation Paul is in. If you miss that, you miss II Timothy.

Common sense.  When you read the Scriptures, use your common sense.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.  (II Tim 2:15)

 Father, help me approach your Word with a right head as well as a right heart.  Grant me your common sense.

The Bible is not an ordinary book. If you do not have a right heart, you will never understand it, for it is more than words. And yet the Bible is an ordinary book. Its writers were real people writing to a real audience with a real historical setting. Sometimes they wrote history, sometimes legal code, sometimes songs and poetry, sometimes letters, sometimes proverbs, sometimes prophecy; and when they wrote, they used normal words with normal meanings to fit their purpose. In this respect, the Bible is like all other books, and the skills that help us interpret the U.S. Constitution, Hamlet, and the lyrics of the Beatles also help us interpret the Bible.

For example, if you want to understand Thomas Paine, it helps first to know the meanings of the words he used. It then helps to know that he is writing nonfiction, that he is a child of the Enlightenment, and that he is personally sympathetic to the colonial cause during the American Revolution. In this respect, interpreting the Bible is like interpreting Thomas Paine. You need to know what the words mean. You need to take into consideration the genre, the writer’s specific situation, and the broader historical context. And when it comes to the Bible, learning these factors does not require a college degree or years of study.

But it does require study. The study of Scripture is important. It often helps us discern the plain sense of a passage.

Let’s give some examples. Today we will talk about genre.

Common sense says that the genre of a piece of literature should inform how we read it. We should not interpret poetry the same way we interpret epistles. Common sense also says that if the author declares his genre, we should give precedence to what the author states. For example, Luke states outright that he has “carefully investigated” many sources and is writing an “orderly account” of the events that happened (Lk1:1-4). Common sense, thus, indicates that one must interpret the Gospel of Luke to be historical narrative. That is what Luke himself says he is writing. In fact, any interpretation of Luke that says he was somehow trying to write legend is intellectually irresponsible.

But there is more, for Luke also states that he is writing this orderly account so that the reader “might know the certainty of the things [he] has been taught.” Thus, Luke has a pastoral objective as well. He is not writing history just for history’s sake. One must then interpret Luke as an attempt to write history which has great theological significance. Any interpretation of Luke that says he is too theological to be historical is suspect. To Luke, history and theology are not mutually exclusive. In fact, to Luke, history is theological. He tells us so straight up. When we read Luke, we must, thus, let Luke be Luke and not force him to fit our 21^st century biases and categories. If you read Luke as mythology or midrash, you miss Luke.

When reading the psalms, however, we might take a different approach. The psalms are a collection of songs, an ancient hymnbook so to speak. They are full of passion, struggle, faith, pain and praise, and they often use figurative language. So when the psalmist tells us, for example, that “God will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge” (Ps 91:4), he is not saying that God is some sort of giant bird. He is rather using poetic metaphor to illustrate a point about God’s character. This is poetry, not expository description, and we need to read it as such.

When it comes to epistles, we need to read them even differently. Though they are not historical narrative as the gospels are, they do have historical context, and they generally address specific issues. Those issues are doctrinal and practical. For example, Romans is a theological treatise on the gospel, while I Corinthians, deals with multiple issues that have come up in the Corinthian church. It’s not that Romans never talks about living life (it does) or that I Corinthians never gets theological (it does). Both letters marry theology and practice. Theology is always practical, and everyday life always involves theology. In the broadest sense, this is what the epistles are about. They are letters explaining how the Cross and Resurrection should affect our lives, and they apply the theology of the Cross and Resurrection to specific contexts. In this sense you might say they are like case law. If someone wrote to you today explaining some principle of Constitutional law and then illustrating that principle with specific cases, he would not be far amiss from what the epistles are doing. The content would be different obviously, but the idea is much the same. Therefore, when you read epistles, read them to learn God’s theology and to apply it. That’s the genre.

The Bible contains many more genres. Much of Exodus and Leviticus is legal code. Read it as such. The Proverbs, however, are not laws. Don’t read them as such. They are meant to give wise counsel for life, not precise legal requirements. And, of course, Revelation is its own animal. You can’t read about beasts and angels and trumpets and bowls and streets of gold and a river with fruit trees without seeing a great contrast and a great war between heaven and earth. Behind all the symbol, God judges this earth and delivers His people, and in the end they see His face. The main themes are obvious, but the details that the symbols represent … Well, shall we say that we must hold them loosely?

One more quick word. Sometimes a genre can exist within a genre. For example, the gospels are historical narrative, but within the gospels, Jesus tells parables. Now the parable is history in the sense that it is what Jesus said, but a parable itself is not necessarily history. It is a different literary genre. This means that when Jesus tells the parable of the ten virgins or the Prodigal Son, he is not likely describing some event that happened. This genre within a genre is quite frequent. Revelation contains epistles. Isaiah contains history, prophecy, and song all within the same book. The Psalms frequently refer to historical events.

But don’t let this fact discourage you. In most instances, the genre within the genre is clear. Common sense generally will show you what is going on.

Taken as literature, the Bible is a rich book full of many genres, and each genre needs to be read in a different way. But isn’t this common sense? You would do this with any other book wouldn’t you?