Author: maplesuites

Outline
God
Creation
Sin
Jesus Christ
Salvation
The Holy Spirit
Sanctification
The Church
The Kingdom
Life Everlasting
1
GOD
In these studies on the ten major concepts of Christianity, it is natural that we should begin with God Himself. “In the beginning God” are the first words of the Bible. Let us likewise make this our starting point.
For the sake of clarity we shall proceed under three heads: the reality of God, the being of God, and finally the character of God.
I. The Reality of God
The first article of Christian faith, according to the Apostles’ Creed, is “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” What reasons may be given for this belief?
First, there is the witness of the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation the fact of God’s existence is never questioned. The Bible purports to be a record of the acts of God: it is not man's story so much as God's story. Christian faith accepts the biblical witness to the reality of God and proclaims His existence with assurance.
Could the Bible be wrong on this major point? Such is theoretically conceivable; however, since the Bible's credibility as a faithful guide to life is generally accepted, it is hard to imagine error on the belief that undergirds all other teaching. In other words, if one accepts the moral and ethical principles of the Bible as valid, the actuality of God must likewise be admitted. His existence is presupposed in every instance as their ground and basis, and furthermore, the teachings of the Bible cannot really be carried out except in His wisdom and strength.
Second, there is the evidence of God in nature. The Psalmist cries, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1), and the Apostle writes, “Ever since the beginning of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things he has made” (Romans 1:20). God’s glory and handiwork, His power and deity are unmistakably revealed through His creation. That God is, is there for all to behold. Only the willfully blind can deny His existence and His vast power and wisdom.
One may note more specifically the design, the pattern, the purpose at work everywhere. The world is “on the move”: the earth in its development of plant, animal, and human life from one stage to another evidences some great intelligence guiding and directing. The beauty of sunsets, mountains and valleys, skies and trees is inexplicable if there be no God who so creates and enjoys. The order of the universe, the laws of light, of gravity, the fact that all is cosmos rather than chaos, the regular movements of stars and planets, and on the earth of days and seasons, bespeak One who creates and sustains “by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). Joseph Addison put it memorably—
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim:
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does His creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand.
Third, there is the testimony of inner experience. “As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God” (Psalm 42:1). The hunger of the heart for God, the deep yearning of the soul for fulfillment in another, points toward one who has made man for Himself. Could there be this universal longing without a true answer? Man hungers and thirsts physically for food and drink, and there is food and drink to satisfy; could this be less true of the far deeper hunger and thirst of the soul for God? The answer of Christian experience is unmistakable: “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8).
Inner experience of desire for God is also supplemented by an assurance of His presence. Who has not known moments of awe when some place—be it mountainside, star-studded heaven at night, stately cathedral, or humble room—has seemed filled with the presence of Another? Like Jacob at Bethel we may have cried, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17).
Moreover, belief in God “works.” Countless people testify that until they believed in His existence, life never really seemed right; but once having unquestionably affirmed God's reality and acted thereupon, life has become fuller and more abundant. “For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Such true believers, men and women of faith, have been people of destiny, their lives often changing the course of history. Fearing God, they feared no one else; believing in Him, they could believe in all things. Could this belief have been an illusion, when it made for stronger, better, wiser people?
Now let us hasten to add that none of the reasons suggested for belief in the reality of God—the witness of Scripture, the evidence in nature, the testimony of inner experience—is final proof. Nor is the total—even if one should add many other reasons. In the last analysis, the reality of God is based on faith. In this world we walk by faith and not by sight—“now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). But for those who so walk, who so believe, God does become ever more meaningful in their lives.
One further word might be added: belief in God and action thereupon is basically no different than one’s procedure in relation to the objective world. Through our physical senses we are convinced that there is a world of people and things around us, and we act accordingly. The more we act the more unshakable our conviction becomes that there is much else besides ourselves. So with God. There is indirect evidence through our physical senses—God in nature—and direct evidence through our spiritual perceptions. When we act on this evidence, the conviction of God’s reality, as with the world and other persons, becomes increasingly certain.
Why then are there some people who call themselves atheists? The answer would seem to be twofold: first, there are many who willfully disbelieve in God’s existence because of guilty consciences. They would prefer that He didn’t exist so that they would not have to face His demands. To believe in His reality would mean a different kind of living—and that they do not want. Hence, they prefer to delude themselves into unbelief. Second, and perhaps more often, some do not believe because they become so preoccupied with the things of sense that spiritual awareness tends to die away. Little reading of the Bible and prayer, little attention to the “glory of God” in the heavens, little heed to the hunger of the soul—and making earthly substitutes for all these—lead inevitably to atrophy of soul as surely as little use of a member of the body (a hand, a foot, an eye) leads to gradual disability. If one replaces God with lesser devotions, He cannot become or remain real.
The concept of God begins with the whole-hearted affirmation of His reality.
II. The Being of God
In discussing the being of God, let us think of Him in the opening words of a catechism definition: “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being.” Then we shall proceed with a later statement: “There are three persons Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and in glory” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, partial answer to Question 4: "What is God?").
1. A spirit—“God is spirit” (John 4:24). God is not flesh and blood; He has no body; He is by nature spirit. References in the Bible to God’s hands, eyes, finger, etc., are accommodations to our human condition so that His reality may be more concrete. It is hard for us to think upon God without thinking of some tangible form; it is likewise difficult for God to reveal Himself to us without anthropomorphic expressions being used. The climax of this situation is realized in the Incarnation: God actually assuming human flesh (“the Word became flesh,” John 1:14) that He might be known more fully.
Still God is, and remains, spirit. But what does this mean? Have we any way of comprehending such? Perhaps the best approximation to understanding is to suggest that God is most closely akin to that which is the deepest part of our nature: our spirit. Man is body, mind, and spirit—the latter is that which is our deepest and truest self. Our spirit functions through our minds and our bodies, but is to be identified with neither: it, like God, is intangible, incorporeal.
On this level of spirit God is most truly known, for here God and man may be in true communion—“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit,” (John 4:24). In the beautiful words of Tennyson—
Speak to Him thou for He hears,
Spirit with Spirit can meet‑
Closer is He than breathing.
And nearer than hands and feet.
2. Infinite—God is unlimited, unbounded. Human beings are finite, confined in space. With God there is no confinement, no limitation. “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee” (1 Kings 8:27). As infinite, God is everywhere present—
Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
If I take the wings of the morning
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there thy hand shall lead me,
And thy right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139:7‑10)
Hence God is both infinitely far and near: He is far beyond all His creation, but also, as the Apostle says “He is not far from each one of us, for ‘in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:27-28).
This understanding of God is important. On the one hand it avoids deism, which thinks of God as far removed from our world affairs; on the other, it stands against pantheism, which imagines God as in whole or part identical with His creation. The biblical view and understanding of God is neither deism nor pantheism, but theism, which views God as both far beyond and very near all things: He is both transcendent to and immanent in His total universe.
This appreciation of God provides true Christian perspective. God is to be worshiped as one whose “ways are not our ways” and therefore as the wholly other; but He is also one with whom fellowship may be had, and in whose presence there is joy and strength and fullness of life.
3. Eternal—God is the great “I AM.” “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’…say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). God is the eternal contemporary, the everlasting now. He is without beginning of days or end of years; He is not confined by the time order in which we live.
Past, present, and future are all equally real to Him, for time is His creation. Hence He knows the end from the beginning: it is all “spread out” before Him. As one from a high perspective, such as a mountaintop, may view far beyond what others below can see, infinitely more so God from the vantage point of eternity. He beholds all.
This does not mean that time is meaningless to God. Rather, He both lives in all time and beyond all time. He suffers “down among” our years—even in Christ being crucified at a certain point in time (which has split all time in two: b.c. and a.d.). He also in Christ is eternally “destined before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20).
Perhaps the greatest comfort afforded by the understanding of God as eternal is that we may have confidence about the future. The future is safe, for it is in the hands of one who knows it already: He knows it and is satisfied. God is eternal, everlasting—in this we may rejoice.
4. Unchangeable—“I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6). The Scriptures constantly affirm the unchanging nature of God—the rock being the symbol often used of His abiding reality.
Occasionally there are references to God’s “changing” His mind (“repenting,” for example—“the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people,” Exodus 32:14), but the changing is never a fluctuation in God’s nature; it is always some different aspect of His nature being brought to bear on man’s condition. Given a certain condition of man, God invariably acts in the same manner. For example, God may seem to change from fearsome power to sacrificial love, but the seeming change is utterly dependable—He always and inevitably acts in uniform fashion. If, for example, man sins, he can expect God’s punishment; if he repents, he can depend on God’s forgiveness; if he seeks after God, he can count on God’s presence: God changes not.
In our world of time and flux, of coming into existence and passing away, of building up and tearing down, it is good to know that God does not change. He is “the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
Having considered that God is spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, let us further note that God in His inner Being is “one God in three Persons.”
One God—Christian faith holds unequivocally to the belief in one God, and one God alone. In the midst of a world that worshiped many gods, Israel proclaimed its monotheism: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). So, for example, the words from Isaiah: “I am the first and the last; besides me there is no god.” (Isaiah 44:6). The New Testament conveys the same message—“There is no God but one” (1 Corinthians 8:4). Again, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
Many names are and may be given to God: however, He is and remains one.
In three Persons—Christian faith holds equally fast to the conviction that “there are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” This belief in the Trinity is expressed devotionally in the words of the hymn:
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Not three gods, but one God in three persons is the Christian belief. Furthermore, by “persons” is not meant “individuals” but personal self-distinctions (sometimes called “subsistences”) within the divine reality. There are three “persons,” which also means three modes or operations, for although the three work as one—and are one—the Scriptures show God the Father primarily as Creator, God the Son primarily as Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit primarily as Sanctifier.
God therefore is not alone (though alone God!)—for He is within Himself the richness of personal relationship. “God is love”—and this love is eternally expressed in the love among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: again, not as three individuals but as three personal realities. The highest form of being personal on the human level is that of love in which there is an interweaving, almost a coalescing of individuality, with resultant richer personal significance. For example, of husband and wife it is said, “the two shall become one” (Mark 10:8). And it is true in a wonderful and mysterious way that, as far as the limitations of finitude permit, they do become one, and at the same are all the richer persons for it. They are one individual in spirit, and at the same time are two very real persons. Of course, the human analogy is incomplete, since husband and wife begin as two and move toward becoming one, whereas God is, from eternity, one, and eternally expresses the essence of the personal as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (For another analogy of man’s “trinitarian” nature in relation to God, neighbor, and self, see the next study on “Creation”).
A few other comments about belief in the Trinity:
(1) The word Trinity is never used in the Bible. However the Scriptures do speak, at various times, of God as Father and as Son and as Holy Spirit. Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, 20 includes the words “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Hence God “in three persons”—yet one God—is unmistakably biblical.
(2) Other earthly analogies—in addition to the husband-and-wife illustration—may help point to the mystery of three-in-oneness. For example, again on the human level, man as man is a combination of body, mind, and spirit; yet at the same time he is one individual. Body, mind, and spirit all have their own “operations”—yet all make up one man. Or again on the inanimate level water, H20, is a good illustration. H20 may be either ice, liquid, or steam, depending on the temperature. It is the same substance, but three “subsistences” that are quite different.
Of course, both of these analogies are only very inadequate suggestions of what lies beyond our mortal minds—but they may be helpful.
(3) The belief in God as Trinity has not only its scriptural foundation but also its grounding in Christian experience. The early disciples did not begin with this belief (as one, so to speak, “handed down from heaven” that they must accept); rather, they gradually became convinced that the one God was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They knew already that He was the Creator Father; however, through the example and words of Jesus a fuller understanding slowly emerged. Then as time went on they came more and more to realize that however human Jesus Christ was (and of this they had no doubt), He could not be contained in human categories. He did for them things which only God could do. He had to be—however paradoxical, even contradictory, it seemed—both man and God. Likewise the Holy Spirit—promised by the Father and sent by the Son—who came in great power at Pentecost, was He not also God yet in another “person”?
So for us today the Trinity is not a speculative doctrine supported by Scripture but beyond all experience. Rather, God is one God “in three persons” as we experience Him in creation, redemption, and new life.
III. The Character of God
The concluding words of the catechism definition of God speak of His “wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” These affirmations, drawn from the Scripture, profile the character of God.
It is immediately to be noted that the general picture here is of a personal God. God is not some blind force or energy; rather, He is personal through and through. Those who think of God as impersonal make Him less than man. Surely He is more—and therefore is personal to the ultimate and final degree.
A personal God is also perfect in all the respects mentioned. He is all-wise, all-powerful, all-holy, all-just, all-good, all-truthful. Since most of these terms are self-explanatory, let us single out only one of them: all-holy.
The holiness of God is everywhere stressed in the Bible, but especially in the Old Testament. God is often called “the holy one” and He constantly demonstrates the holiness of His nature.
Moses at the burning bush hearing the words, “Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5); the high priest wearing on his forehead the engraving, “Holy to the Lord” (Exodus 28:36) and being allowed to enter the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle only once a year; Isaiah hearing the chorus of seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:3); Jesus calling God in heaven “Holy Father” (John 17:11)—such are typical of the scriptural witness to God as holy.
As holy, God is “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29) against all impurity, all iniquity. God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Habakkuk 1:13) and therefore must destroy or purge evil wherever found. Nothing in any way unrighteous can be tolerated in His awesome presence.
Yet holiness is not the final word about God’s nature. What is not clearly stated in the catechism definition is finally the most important thing of all, namely, that God is also all-love. The love of God is everywhere stressed in the Bible, but especially in the New Testament. This is the profoundest theme of the Bible.
From the Old Testament saying that “It is because the Lord loves you…that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh” (Deuteronomy 7:8), to the New Testament climax—“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16), the ever recurring theme is the marvelous love of Almighty God.
How great is that love? It is finally only to be measured by a cross on a lonely hill—amazing, beyond all imagination—He loved mankind so much that He died. Truly “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
God then is all-holy and all-love: He is holy love—and as such is our Father. So did Christ speak of Him; so may we likewise know Him forever.
In the Christian concept of God we have considered His reality, His being, and His character. Now it is time to stop. God is not finally to be discussed or debated or even described. He is to be worshiped and obeyed.
2
CREATION
We have spoken of God, His reality, His being, His character. We come now to creation. Let us consider this under three heads: its origin, its nature, its climax.
I. The Origin of Creation
In Genesis 1:1 the origin is clearly stated—namely, God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Hence: (1) the universe is not eternal, and (2) the universe is not a result of chance.
There are those who hold that the universe in some form has always existed. Its pattern may have varied, they assert, but there was something always there. One form of energy changes into another in a kind of eternal procession. To inquire where it came from originally is meaningless; the universe always has been.
The Christian faith answers no: the universe is not eternal. At a certain moment called “the beginning,” God created. Out of preexistent material? No, out of nothing. As another verse of Scripture puts it, “(He) calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17). Further, the universe is not a chance event, coming into existence by some kind of spontaneous generation. Rather it came from God, according to His will and purpose.
If this be the case, as Christian faith affirms, then the universe takes on an entirely different cast. Without God it is a bit terrifying to contemplate that there is nothing beyond but billions of stars and planets and satellites almost lost in the unimaginable vastness of space. It all seems cold, and our little earth ridiculously small—and everything rather meaningless. But when one understands and believes that God is its Maker and that He must have had reason for creating it all, then the universe becomes friendly, and warm, yes, even purposeful.
This becomes even more heartwarming when one realizes that (to put it a bit peculiarly) “all of God” was involved in the act of creation—God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We say in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” But we also believe that God the Son was in it, for the New Testament account of creation (John 1) says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.”
The Word and the Son are identical; hence, though the account of creation in Genesis 1 does not mention the Son by that name, God does create through His word. “And God said” is a phrase that precedes every act of creation throughout the chapter.
Surely God the Holy Spirit was also active, for though the word Holy is not used this early in the biblical narrative, the Spirit of God is shown as participating in creation—“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
The Psalmist put it beautifully in saying, “When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created” (Psalm 104:30).
“All of God” was in it, which is only another way of saying that creation was no casual act of an unconcerned God. Rather God, humanly speaking, “threw Himself into it.” Such makes us rejoice all the more as we contemplate the vastness of our universe.
Our universe is no chance incident without reason or cause, with nothing out there but unspeakable vastness and pinpoints of light. It is rather the deed of God.
II. The Method of Creation
The method wherein God created the heavens and the earth is clearly that of progressive acts. Creation does not happen all at once; rather it follows an order in the mind and word of God. Over a period of six days creation occurs, from the creation of light to the creation of man, in a succession of acts.
Here it seems important to add that the six days cannot refer to six twenty-four-hour days, since the sun which makes day as we know it is not created until the fourth day. The six days of Genesis 1 refer then to six periods of time during which God did a certain work. As 2 Peter says, “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (3:8). Indeed a day could be a million, a billion, a trillion years, depending on God’s ways of working.
Understanding this truth, one finds no contradiction with the scientific view of lengthy geological eras prior to the coming of man. Rather is this confirmation of the way creation has been continuing over a long period of time.
Striking also is the manner in which Genesis depicts the creation of life, beginning with plants and trees, then moving on to the living creatures first of the waters, then of the sky, then of the land, and finally man himself. This progression is confirmed by biological study which shows that man is a relatively late arrival on the scene. Behind him is all the process of creation which climaxes in his coming.
Incidentally, Christian people have sometimes been very much disturbed by doctrines of evolution, fearing that they contradict the Bible. To be sure, if such doctrines deny the creative power of God they are in contradiction. But if evolution be understood to mean that creation has taken a long, long time through one species after another, then this only confirms the Scripture—which has been saying the same thing for lo these many centuries. The method of creation in Genesis is that of progressive acts—and much biological science has been able to give us illustration of how that progression might have occurred.
The method again: God creates through His Word (His Son), with His Holy Spirit moving over everything. The creation develops from the formlessness and void and darkness of Genesis 1:2 to the creation of man in Genesis 1:26.
Every step along the way was a good step as God worked His plan out. Perhaps we think upon the ice ages of the past, great convulsions of the earth, prehistoric monsters—and tend to shudder. Was it not all a kind of tangled-up, godless world for a long time? But no, says Genesis, it was leading up to the creation of man: it was all good. Over and over in Genesis 1 an act of creation contains the sentence “And God saw that it was good.” When it was all done, the Scripture reads, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31).
The method of creation: the progressive acts of the Triune God—a marvel to contemplate.
III. The Climax of Creation
The climax of creation, as already mentioned, is the creation of man. Now we may add: the creation of man in the image of God.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth....So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26, 27).
Before inquiring as to what this means, another description of man’s creation should be added from Genesis 2: “The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (2:7).
This latter description points to man’s creatureliness—that he is of the earth as are all other of God’s creatures. This is not to be forgotten or denied: man is an animal—even if the highest and most advanced. He belongs to the animal kingdom.
However, it is also said of man that he was created in the image of God. In that respect he is different from all the rest of creation, for of no other created thing is this affirmed. Herein lies man’s distinctiveness—creature, yes—but also made in the divine image.
But just what does this mean? Doubtless it refers to some likeness between God and man—“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This makes no reference to physical similarity, because “God is spirit” (John 4:24). Man’s body therefore cannot be fashioned after God. There are indeed references in the Bible to God’s hand, His face, His eyes, His finger, and so on—but these (as noted previously) must be understood in a figurative manner. They are used occasionally only to make more concrete the reality of God.
Again, then, what is the meaning of man’s creation in the image of God? One possible answer is that since God is Trinity in Unity—man is somehow a trinity too. Note that the verse does say “in our image, after our likeness,” and then farther on “in his own image.” God is both more than one and yet also one. Various trinitarian aspects of man’s inner nature are sometimes mentioned, such as, man is body, mind, and spirit; again, that he is a thinking, feeling, willing creature. A trinity outside man’s own nature is that of his relationship to God and his neighbors, so that man is actually man only as he stands in a vital relationship to the Other above and the other about. The verse in Genesis speaking of man’s creation in God’s “own image” proceeds to say, “In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This would imply that man is only man in duality—with another person—and therefore in trinity: man with God above and his neighbor about (in this instance, at least, the neighbor being the other sex). God is Trinity within Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; man is trinity without himself—existing in a relationship to God, to neighbor, and to self.
Whether this is precisely what the Scripture is saying is hard to know for certain. But of this we can be sure: that man is greatly different from all other creatures in that he is made for God—indeed, cannot really live without Him—and he is made for his neighbor and cannot really live without him either.
Note next that man is given a very high place in creation. Just after the words “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” follows “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Is not this still another aspect of man’s being created in God’s image? God, who has dominion over all things, has given man dominion over the living creatures of earth. Man images God in that he is made to rule, to be the master of God’s creation, albeit under God’s final rulership.
At times man may seem rather small, even insignificant, in comparison with the vastness of God’s universe. Recall how the Psalmist felt (Psalm 8):
When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars which thou hast established;
what is man that thou art mindful of him,
and the son of man that thou dost care for him?
But then he goes on to marvel at man’s high stature—(his creation in the image of God, if you will)—
Yet thou hast made him little less than God,
and dost crown him with glory and honor.
Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the sea.
Then does the Psalmist end by crying—
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is thy name in all the earth!
Man, “little less than God,” having dominion over God’s own works: such is the climax of God’s act of creation. Dust of the earth, creature alongside other creatures, but by God’s will made in the divine image: such is the grandeur and glory of man.
If this be his grandeur and glory, man’s joy and happiness lie in the wonder of his relation to God and his neighbor. For in this relationship of faith and love man fulfills his God-given nature.
The origin of creation—God; the method of creation—progressive acts; the climax—man in the divine image. To God be the glory!
3
SIN
We come next to a consideration of sin. Let us proceed by considering it under three heads: its nature, its cause, its results. In our consideration we shall mainly use Genesis 3, for therein is contained the basic account from which the concept is drawn.
The word sin does not actually occur in Genesis 3. Its first mention as such is in Genesis 4, the story of Cain’s murder of Abel, where the words occur, “If you do not well, sin is couching at the door” (4:7).
However, there can be no question that Genesis 3 is the description of the basic evil that lies upon the world. There it begins: as Paul affirms in the words of Romans, “Sin came into the world through one man” (5:12).
I. The Nature of Sin
From the narrative in Genesis 3 it is apparent that sin in its essence is disobedience to the commandment of God. God had said, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Genesis 2:16).
The woman, later to be called Eve, eats fruit from the forbidden tree, gives some to her husband, and he eats. So do they disobey the express command of God.
Another way of putting it is that sin is to say, “Not God’s will, but mine be done,” acting therefore according to one’s own pleasure. Sin is rebellion against one’s Creator and actually an attempt to usurp His sovereignty. “God may command, but I do not have to follow”—one may so say or feel and thus believe he can call the signals. Sin is to seek to remove God from the throne and put self in His place.
The tragedy of man’s sin is that it is disobedience against the God who is holy love. Man is faithless to the God who in love has given him a beautiful world and all good things in it. The very commandment of God, moreover, is not an arbitrary imposition but is God’s guidance for true human existence and His gracious warning against that which will destroy.
One of the greatest gifts of God to man is freedom. It is one of the characteristics of man created in the image of God that distinguishes him from all the rest of creation. Man may “freely” (note the word in Genesis 2:16) act. Without freedom, man would not be truly human. But at the same time it is an exceedingly perilous gift because he can use that freedom to disobey God and so fall into sin.
No animal, below man, is able to sin, because no subhuman creature is truly free. It acts in terms of stimuli and responses, heredity and environment. Man however is created to act freely. Much of his action is determined as is the animal’s, but essentially man, like God, is free to make decisions, free to act. If he uses that freedom at any point to disobey his Creator, he thereby sins.
Perhaps you recall the catechism definition: “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, answer to Question 14, "What is sin?"). A good definition. Adam and Eve did not conform to God’s commandment; rather they transgressed it by eating the forbidden fruit.
So it is throughout the Bible. For example, the Ten Commandments are given by God. To fail to conform to them, to transgress them in any part is to break God’s law and therefore to sin. Hence the great importance of knowing them, understanding them, seeking to practice them. The words of the prophets who preface their messages with a “Thus saith the Lord” likewise contain commands for the ordering of human life. Such a word as “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) is truly a divine command. To fail to conform to such precepts is likewise to sin.
But even more clearly and profoundly are God’s laws revealed in the New Testament in the words of Jesus Christ.
“You have heard it said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill….’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment....You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.... Judge not, that you be not judged....Love your enemies,” and on and on. Jesus shows that the laws of God refer not only to external acts but also to inner feelings and motives. Hence one may sin without doing a thing, since with the heart God’s laws may be broken.
Also in the New Testament the stress is made that the great commandment is to love God and love one’s neighbor. Sins of commission, wherein one actually does something against God or one’s brother, are compounded by sins of omission wherein one fails to show love. To fail to show love, as the priest and Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan, is to break God’s commandment in a fearsome and tragic way.
In essence sin, from the Garden of Eden on, is revealed to be disobedience to the commandment of God. It is to say, “Not God’s will, but mine be done.”
II. The Cause of Sin
Sin is a strange phenomenon. By definition it is a breaking of God’s commandment done willfully, freely by man. But why, we ask, should this ever happen? If God is good and made all things “very good” (as Genesis 1 concludes), surely His commandments, whatever they are, are good also. Why should anyone want to break them? Did God create man with a rebellious streak in him? No, man also was made “very good.”
It is fascinating and instructive indeed to turn to Genesis and the story of the Garden of Eden. Here is paradise, and yet sin enters. How? Why? Do Adam and Eve arbitrarily and maliciously decide that they will not obey God’s commandment about the tree? Obviously not; they sin because they submit to a deceptive temptation. The cause of sin is always temptation, and such a nature as to deceive one into thinking that there is justification for doing the forbidden thing.
Let us then focus on the particular temptation that leads to Eden’s transgression. Man and woman have been created in the image of God. Among other things this means that, like God, they have dominion. God rules over all things; man rules also, though his dominion is limited to the earth and the lesser creatures upon it. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the earth, fruit-bearing trees—all are placed under man’s responsibility. He has the God-given task of tilling and keeping the garden in which he is placed (2:15); he gives names to all God’s living creatures (2:19). So is man called to exercise his dominion under God. Man, meaning man and wife, she as his helper (or “help-meet”), are to share this great and wonderful responsibility. It is to be a life of fellowship with God, of love for one another, of responsibility for all God’s creation.
Now, as the story has it, in the midst of all this paradise of pleasant plants and delicious fruit-bearing trees which man is to tend and enjoy, God places two other trees: one in the midst of the garden, the “tree of life,” the other the forbidden one, the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (2:9).
Perhaps this raises two questions: first, if God made everything good, and nothing but good, why a forbidden tree? The answer is that this particular tree is just as good as any other, but if man is to be strong in faith and character he must be tested. If a child, for example, is to grow morally, there must not only be instruction in righteousness, but also clear warning against evil. Some things are simply forbidden. Innocence is pretty, but character is far better—and it only comes through trial and testing. Were there no forbidden tree, were man free to do absolutely everything he pleased, he could hardly be worthy of God.
But, a second question: does not this mean that God is at least partly responsible for their sin? Did he not provide the temptation? The answer: no. As one New Testament writer says, “God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). The test is there, but if man meets it gladly and says that he will not do what God has forbidden, there is no temptation and of course no ensuing sin.
The tragedy is that man allows the test to become a temptation by becoming gradually convinced that God who has given permission for everything else is unfair in not letting him do this one other thing. Man, who should gladly recognize that the test is for his own good and therefore should strongly resist if it becomes a temptation, begins rather to focus his attention upon it. Soon this one tree becomes so important that temptation becomes almost overpowering. He—and here we should change the gender to “she”—is soon hearing a serpent with its subtle voice speaking that which finds a quick echo in her heart: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” The one forbidden tree thus in fancy becomes all the trees, and God’s justice questioned.
Quickly she regains some of her balance, knowing that this is going too far—of course, God never was that unjust. Hence, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” This of course is only a partially correct statement; it was the tree of life in the midst of the garden which was for their eating, but with temptation having been aroused, she sees the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as if it were in the midst and adds what God did not say, namely, that one could not even touch it. So does the temptation become more and more irresistible, until she can now hear the serpent saying what she wants to hear, namely, “You will not die.” Eve perhaps began to muse, “It is all a matter of God’s jealousy; He wants to deny us the best fruit in the garden. Moreover, God is fearful lest we become really like Him, with eyes opened to everything. It is time we took matters into our own hands—so let us eat this delectable fruit and really live.”
Thus do we read that tragic, terrible verse—“She took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.” Sin enters the world through subtlety and deception.
Another factor that leads to temptation and sin is the very situation of man’s limited dominion. Man’s highest authority is over the wild creatures, the serpent of course included, and this unfortunately leads him to feel he ought to have more. Thus does the serpent, representing a part of creation man rightly rules, become a source of temptation to want to rule over more and thus pridefully assume God’s place and authority. Pride goes before destruction, and pride assists in mankind’s fall.
Now let us seek to summarize the cause of sin. The cause does not lie in a perverse desire to break God’s commandments, but rather it is caused by deception, the deception that sin somehow is rewarding and that God, who does not want us to sin, is depriving us of life and freedom. So does the serpent whisper in one’s ear, and to the degree that we fall for it, we fall farther away from God, farther away from true life.
This brings us to our final consideration.
III. The Results of Sin
God had said that “in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” But did they really? They still seem to be scurrying around. Scurry is right, the scurrying of those who are no longer the same—something has died.
They feel guilty and ashamed, and cannot bear their nakedness of body. It seems to expose their deeper nakedness of spirit. They fashion aprons for themselves, perchance to hide their guilt and shame from each other. They become fearful of God’s presence and seek to hide themselves among the trees of the garden in the vain hope that God may not find them. Something has died between them, and between them and their God—they are afraid, ashamed, laden with guilt. And when God speaks, pointing to their sinful deed, each seeks to justify himself by placing the blame on another. So tragic the results of disobedience to God.
To all this is added a curse upon the serpentine origin of sin in its subtle, deceptive nature; upon woman who shall henceforward bring forth children only in pain because creation is now in travail; upon man who shall henceforward till the ground only in the sweat of his face because the earth now knows man’s blight. Man and woman are driven out of Eden, away from the presence of God. Expulsion from Eden is God’s judgment upon sin, but also it is God’s mercy, because they can no longer bear His presence. So they spiritually die.
Such continue to be some of the results of sin for all mankind. They make up a sad total of deep inner guilt, of separation from one another, but even more of alienation from God. Sin, whether it be in Adam’s day or our day, is the same; it brings the same devastating results. It seems so alluring to break God’s laws, but we find ourselves broken by them instead. It is so tempting to live just for ourselves, but we lose life in the process.
The wages of sin is death. It begins with Adam—“sin came into the world through one man.” And it has been going on ever since. It is death now and death in eternity, unless there is a way out—unless somehow, somewhere, there is Someone who can lead us back into the paradise of God.
Ah, but is it not wonderful that in this ancient story, almost hidden away (Genesis 3:15), is the promise that the seed of woman shall someday (for all the bruising of heel that it must endure) bruise the serpent’s head. In that mortal bruising mankind will find its sure salvation.
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”!
4
JESUS CHRIST
There is one supremely urgent question in life which every person must answer. It was asked by Jesus Himself: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). It is finally not “What do others say?” but “What do you say?” That alone really counts.
On the surface it is admittedly a strange question. Indeed, coming from the lips of anyone but Jesus of Nazareth it would seem absurd. “Who am I?” asked by someone else could not even be taken seriously. “Why, of course, you are a man, a human being, just like all other human beings—who do you think you are?” might be the reply. But with this person Jesus we know one cannot answer so easily, for there is mystery. Yet we know we must answer—and we sense that what we say is fearfully important.
In order to get at an answer to Jesus’ probing question, “But who do you say that I am?” let us consider the matter under two headings: Jesus Christ as the Son of man, and Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
I. The Son of Man
It is striking to note that Jesus—before asking, “But who do you say I am?”—raised the question, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” (Matthew 16:13). Thereby He designates Himself “the Son of man.” Later in this same narrative Jesus twice uses the title again for Himself. “For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father…the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:27, 28). Hence whatever might and ought to be said about Jesus as the Son of God (as in Matthew 16:16) does not replace the name and significance of Jesus as the Son of man.
The name by which Jesus almost invariably calls Himself in the New Testament is “the Son of man.” He applies this name to Himself over eighty times—so commonly as to be almost overlooked.
“The Son of man came not to be served but to serve.” “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” “The Son of man came eating and drinking.” “After two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up.” And so on, again and again. There is no need to multiply references. To open one’s New Testament to almost any page in the four Gospels is to find this self-designation of Jesus as “the Son of man.”
It is therefore regrettable that we so seldom use that title for Jesus. It was the phrase that came naturally to Him, one that expressed His complete identification with all humanity. It is interesting to note that the disciples never raised a question about the title, for doubtless it seemed to them to fall so easily, so properly, so truly from His lips.
Centuries before, the phrase “Son of man” (without the article the) had been used frequently in the book of Ezekiel as a title of address by God to the prophet—“Son of man, stand upon your feet…Son of man, I sent you to the people…” (Ezekiel 2:1, 3, and thereafter some ninety times in the book). The phrase in Ezekiel is a way of expressing the prophet’s humanity and His identification with other people. Other passages such as the familiar words of Psalm 8—“What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him?”—show that the phrase is another way of saying “man.”
This backward glance at the Old Testament makes it clear why the disciples probably never gave a second thought to Jesus’ calling Himself “the Son of man.” For, unmistakably, there was never in their minds any question of His complete humanity. They were all sons of men; so was He.
In light of that fact it seems strange that one of the early heresies in the church denied that Jesus was really a man. This heresy was known as Docetism. It vigorously affirmed that Jesus was God and only God, and that He just seemed to be human.
What a vast departure from the New Testament! For nowhere, especially in the Gospels, is there any question of Jesus’ real humanity. The disciples lived with Him day by day. They ate with Him, they walked with Him, they slept with Him, they saw Him weep, they watched Him pray. Surely He was man—man through and through.
Now let us examine that title again, “the Son of man,” and note the significance of the article the. Ezekiel was addressed as “son of man”; Jesus refers to Himself as “the Son of man.” This may at first seem of no particular import. Yet surely it is, for it says something about Jesus’ humanity that can be said of no other man: He was the man—man fully and completely as God intended man should be!
In Genesis man is spoken of as being made “in the image of God.” And yet man, from Adam on, ceases to image the divine, because his sin mars the image. Man made to love God and his neighbor disobeys God (Genesis 3), and soon thereafter is destroying his brother (Genesis 4). Man becomes therefore inhuman, or subhuman, and it is only when Jesus Christ appears in the world that man once again is truly man, truly himself.
Recall for a moment the scene of Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate wherein Pilate says to the crowd, “Here is the man!” (John 19:5). One senses that it is not Jesus on trial, but Pilate; for here is manhood supreme that judges and shames all other men. “Here is the man!”—man who alone of all mankind has never turned aside from doing God’s will, regardless of the cost; man who alone of all mankind has never ceased to love His neighbor, be he friend or foe. “Here is the man!” Behold Him whose eye is undimmed, courage undaunted, sacrifice unlimited—yes, to the very end.
This is the “second Adam,” who does not fall, who not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is no sin in Him coming from the tempter’s lure. Indeed, it was not easy, for He likewise was tested and tried by every wile and subtlety. Yet always He remained firm. Unlike Adam He constantly obeyed the Father’s command—and so until death was perfect in obedience, perfect in faith, perfect in love. Even His worst enemies could find no real fault in Him.
In the words of the poet:
O man’s best Man, O love's best love,
O perfect life in perfect labor writ,
O all men’s Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest—
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor, tattled by an enemy,
Or inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture’s grasp, or sleep’s, or death’s—
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, Thou Crystal Christ?
(Sidney Lanier, "The Crystal Christ.)
“Man’s best Man,” “Crystal Christ”—man who shows us the wonder of what it is to be truly human, who gives us the perfect pattern. Jesus, the Son of man—that we each might be a son of man living like Him to the glory of God and the service of all others.
Let us then never fail to stress the importance of the humanity of Jesus. For until He came, there was no paragon, no example, no man as God would have all men be. There was no one who lived life in all its possible abundance and fullness and joy. But now that He has come, we have a Guide, a Pioneer, a Leader, whom to follow in His teachings and His example is to know life that really endures. Of course, there is self-denial and sacrifice in it, for did He not say, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
But in that very self-denial is liberation from bondage to self; in that very sacrifice to the cross is the joy of a new life being resurrected from the dead.
II. The Son of God
To recognize Jesus as “the Son of man” is of great significance for what has yet to be said. For it is against this background that He raises the all-important question: “But who do you say that I am?”
The disciples have already replied to His first question, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” that “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” In other words, Jesus was unquestionably a prophet and among the greatest—if not the greatest—in the eyes of the people. Jesus was a human being, but also a prophet, which, by definition, means a spokesman for God.
Then comes that piercing question, “But who do you say that I am?” And by that very question two things are implied: first, the answer others are giving is not adequate; second, it is highly important that they speak for themselves. Thereupon Simon Peter replies for the disciples, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
The answer, as given in Matthew, is unmistakable. Though Jesus is the Son of man and among the mighty prophets, He is much more. He is also the Messiah, and as the Messiah is the Son of God.
Let us hasten to observe that what Peter said about Jesus as the Christ is quite amazing. For though many people hoped for a Messiah, they never went beyond thinking of a Son of man, of the line of David, who would restore His people to power and prosperity. They never thought of Him as somehow also “the Son of God.” Indeed, so imbued were they with the Old Testament teaching “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4) that to consider the Son of God was hardly possible. Yet here is Simon Peter, nourished on the Old Testament, saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
If such is amazing, let us note further: Jesus, the humble Son of man, does not rebuke Peter as if he were indulging in fantasy. Rather does Jesus reply: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” No rebuke—indeed, that comes later when Peter wants to restrain Jesus from the cross—no rebuke, rather a blessing.
Jesus Christ is “the Son of man”—and continues so to be as the rest of the narrative unfolds—but at the same time He accepts the testimony that He is “the Son of God.” And the latter, He adds, only comes by revelation from above; “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father.”
Unfortunately there have been people since the beginning of the Christian era who have been unwilling to accept Jesus as the Son of God. (We have already mentioned the Docetists who, contrariwise, would not accept Him as the Son of man.) Others, from disbelieving Jews to so-called liberal Christians, have not wanted to admit Him to be the Son of God. The Jew has often been unwilling to accept Christ's divinity because it seems to deny the unity of God; the liberal Christian, because it seems to deny the unity of man. How can Christ be the Son of God and God still be one? the Jew asks. How can Christ be the Son of God and at the same time man? the doubting liberal wants to know. In both cases the divinity of Christ seems to be unreasonable. Hear this: That is exactly the way it is bound to be, for according to Jesus Himself, this truth goes beyond reason. This fact of the divine sonship comes by revelation instead.
Hence whenever a person says, “I cannot accept the divinity of Jesus Christ because it doesn't make sense,” it only shows that he is making reason his final guide rather than revelation. He is therefore making what he thinks more important than what God's revelation discloses.
Furthermore, this also betrays the fact that Christian experience has not gone very deep. Those who knew Jesus only casually, as did the multitudes, could go no farther than calling Him teacher or prophet. But for those who were closest—His own disciples—there was the growing realization that He had to be more than any human category could express.
Of course there were the “mighty works” (or miracles) that He sometimes did, but miracles were not any real proof of His divinity. For had not Old Testament prophets done mighty works too—Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, Elijah and the fire from heaven consuming the offering of Israel, Elisha and the raising of the Shunammite's son from the dead, and many others? Miracles were no proof of divinity. Nor did Jesus ever perform a miracle to prove His identity. Indeed, they were always done to meet human need.
Did they then believe He was divine because He told them so? No, not basically. As already noted, He consistently referred to Himself as “the Son of man” and not as “the Son of God.”
The answer is that it was neither mighty deeds nor self-attestation that revealed the deeper secret of His nature. The revelation rather came through His life, His person, and what they felt happening to themselves in His presence. Of course, they knew that He was a man, essentially as human as any one of them. However, a change began to occur in their lives that only God could bring about. They knew their sins had been forgiven—a thing only God can do; they felt a love and compassion far beyond any man’s capacity; they began to feel new life stirring in their hearts that only God can bring. Truly He was man, and yet there was something else: somehow God was there too.
Down through the centuries people have been finding the same thing true about Jesus Christ. You may begin by following Him as only a man, but if you stay with Him long enough He finally gets hold of you. Someday, like doubting Thomas, with all doubts gone, you fall at His feet saying, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
Let one further thing be underscored: the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is not only life-changing for the individual; it is also the very rock on which the Church is founded. For did not Jesus say in the words that followed Peter’s confession of faith, “On this rock I will build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it”? We must never then allow this rock to be shifted by the skepticism of any age—else the Church will be confounded and the powers of death will surely prevail.
Let us end as we began. The one question in life of supreme urgency is not “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” It is rather the next question of Jesus, “But who do you say that I am?” Can you not only say, “O man’s best Man,” but also, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”? If so, then come the wondrous words of Jesus in reply, “Blessed are you!” And you are on your way—part of the true Church of the living God, with Him to live and abide forever! Amen.
5
SALVATION
The Christian faith essentially is the proclamation of the good news of salvation. It is, as Paul puts it, “the gospel of your salvation” (Ephesians 1:13), and therefore is the most wonderful and exciting message in all the world. Let us review that message and ponder its meaning. Our basic Scripture passage will be Ephesians 2:1-10.
I. The Condition of Man
We may first observe the condition of people prior to salvation. In a word, Paul speaks of it as death: “And you he made alive when you were dead.”
The gospel is good news to dead people, not first of all to people dead in their graves, but to people in a far worse condition than that: people who are dead while still physically alive.
Who are these dead people? Paul describes them as “dead through…trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Sins have brought death. But just what are these trespasses and sins in which people walk that bring death? Paul answers: “Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air...following the desires of body and mind.”
To follow “the course of this world” is to live for worldly goals: success, fame, wealth, security, happiness. To follow “the prince of the power of the air” is to seek after evil in any form, to give in to temptation of any sort, to be the devil’s minion. To follow “the desires of body and mind” is to be dominated by the passions of the flesh and the pursuits of the intellect, to make satisfactions of the body or achievements of the mind the driving force in life. All of these are trespasses and sins that bring death.
In passing one should note that from the world’s viewpoint these are the things that contrariwise make for life rather than death. Life is measured in terms of success, money, prestige—or pleasures of body and mind. Such, however, is illusory; for all these are the ingredients of death—death to the spirit, the soul of man.
Man was not made by God to follow “the course of this world” or “the prince of the power of the air” or “the desires of body and mind.” He was made, rather, to follow the course of heaven, the King of all power, and the desires of God’s will. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:16-17). The course of the world is the course of death; the will of God is the way of life now and always.
When man follows the course of the world, he loses God, other people, and himself. Recall the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. Like people ever since, they were misled into thinking that the way to live was to follow their own desires rather than God’s commands. It mattered not that God had said that disobedience to His will was certain death. They became convinced that to live was to do what they wanted, not what God wanted—and so they disobeyed and died. They lost God, fearful of him, running from His presence; they lost each other, blaming the other person, and in the next generation actually killing each other; they lost themselves, being ridden by feelings of guilt and shame. They were dead—dead in every way that really counted, just as dead as people of any day and generation who likewise follow everything except God and His will.
Are there many such dead people in the world? The answer is that all are dead—unless they know salvation through Jesus Christ. All? Yes, all. Listen to the words of Paul in Romans 5:12: “Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” We may blame Adam in part, but every man sins likewise of his own volition and hence brings about his own death.
One other word about the condition of people prior to salvation: not only are they dead, but they are, in and of themselves, hopeless and helpless both in this world and the world to come. If it is true that the physically dead cannot themselves change their lot or improve their situation or bring themselves to life, how much more true of the spiritually dead! They cannot get back to God, they cannot really love their neighbor as themselves, they cannot get rid of the inner anxiety that haunts their soul. They are shut out of the Garden of Eden, and there is no human way back.
The world prior to salvation is a cemetery, however pretty the tombstones and however lovely the graves. It is the place of the dead, not the living. Paul uses two powerful phrases in Ephesians to describe the living dead: they are “sons of disobedience” and “children of wrath.” The former phrase has been sufficiently pointed to in our discussion of people’s willful disobedience of God’s commandments. So the living are all dead “sons of disobedience.” But what about “children of wrath”? Whose wrath? The answer must be: God’s.
We shall come shortly to a discussion of God’s love, but we must not pass by God’s wrath. The “wrath of God” is a powerful phrase throughout the Bible which refers to God’s opposition to sin and evil. Evil cannot go unnoticed, for God is holy and a consuming fire against sin. He cannot abide unrighteousness in His presence. God driving out man from the garden, God raining destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, God sending Israel into captivity, Christ angrily driving out the moneychangers from the Temple—the wrath of God is a fact because God takes sin with utter seriousness.
Sons of disobedience, children of wrath—such are all people prior to salvation. Since all are dead, there is in themselves no hope. Nor does man deserve more than the wrath of God, for he willingly follows the course of the world and not the will of God. The wages of sin is death—and such wages man receives and deserves no more.
The condition of man prior to salvation: dead.
II. The Mercy of God
Let us next contemplate God’s mercy in man’s plight.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him” (Ephesians 2:4-6).
This then is the mercy of God, stemming from His great love: that though we were dead, He has brought us to life with Christ. Even as Christ died physically and was raised by God from the dead, so we who have died spiritually have been raised so that we are actually, in the truest sense of the word, alive.
But, how could this have happened? Have we not spoken of the wrath of God against all sin, that we are literally “children of wrath”? Is this wrath suddenly shifted to mercy and is God no longer a consuming fire against evil? Does He now because of great love somehow overlook or tolerate evil and save the person regardless of his sin? Such were impossible of God; mercy cannot cancel out holiness, or love replace justice. Also, unless sin were overcome, man raised up would still be the same “old” man because sin continues to bring death.
How then can God do it? The answer is that one marvelous word—in many ways the most wonderful in the Bible—grace. “By grace you have been saved.” We may recall a gospel hymn with the line “Grace greater than all our sin.” The grace of God is what God does through Christ, consistent with His holiness, that none of us deserves.
Grace is not God’s overlooking sin, for such is impossible. It is rather God’s way, utterly undeserved by us, of dealing with sin through Jesus Christ and bringing us to salvation through His death on the cross.
Let us look back at Ephesians 1:7-8: “In him (Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us.”
Ah, there we have it! In the death (“his blood”) of Jesus Christ sin has been dealt with completely. Dead as we were through our trespasses and sins in which we once walked, “following the course of the world,” etc., death has been overcome by “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”
We have spoken of the wrath of God in the Old Testament revealed against Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Israelites. As “sons of disobedience” they were constantly undergoing divine punishment, more and more lost to God, lost to one another, even lost to themselves. They deserved no more than death and God’s fury. But now we gladly call to mind that in the Old Testament God is also revealed to be merciful and gracious. He has no delight in punishment. His earnest desire is that His people will repent, turn from their evil ways, and walk in His truth. When sins are committed, there are always the alternatives: continue in them and be destroyed, or turn from them in true repentance, and God will surely forgive. Concerning the latter, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin” (2 Chronicles 7:14)
The fact that they did not change “their wicked ways,” for they had become “sons of disobedience” and “by nature children of wrath”—indeed “dead through trespasses and sins”—has already been commented on. But this tragic lot was their own doing; they should have been able to “turn,” and in that turning receive God’s ever ready forgiveness. Punishment brought some temporary change in them, but the call to repentance invariably fell on deaf ears and hard hearts.
Let us pause now to ask the question: how is forgiveness related to God’s holiness? If God is a consuming fire against all evil, how could He have forgiven and still been true to Himself? For does not forgiveness mean to treat sin lightly?
To answer: forgiveness is misunderstood when it is thought of as a “soft” way of dealing with sin. For forgiveness can only be received where there is repentance—and repentance is hard, terribly hard. If such repentance does come, it means turning from sin in the assurance that all is forgiven. Hence forgiveness is not only an act of God’s grace and mercy; it is also that which is most satisfactory to His holiness. For, in a way that punishment never can, it may lead to holiness of life.
To use a common illustration: a child may break a parent’s law and be found out. If the parent is only concerned with justice, he will administer appropriate discipline. But if the parent also loves the child and desires strong character (“holiness of life”) in him, he will hope for true repentance—a genuine sorrow for the sin, and a desire to forsake it—and will gladly forgive. The sin has not been dealt with lightly: it has been overcome through travail of soul.
The final problem which the Old Testament cannot answer is how to bring people to true repentance. God is ever standing ready to forgive their sin, but they do not truly repent. It seems they cannot, for they are so under sin’s dominion as to be “sons of disobedience” and as a result “children of wrath.” They are spiritually dead and cannot come to real repentance.
Now to return to the New Testament and the wonderful answer which is provided by Jesus Christ: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” Something has happened in Christ which has brought about true repentance and salvation. Something has happened powerful enough to break the dominion of sin, to awaken us from the dead, to change us from children of wrath to children of peace. Something has brought to us overwhelming conviction of sin and the desire to forsake it always. Something has brought us from death to life.
This “something” which has done all this, and much more, was Christ’s death on the cross.
When His death on the cross first penetrates us, there comes the realization that “there is none righteous, no, not one.” We sense that all our life and deeds are infected with the same pride and envy, the same self-concern and self-approval, that put Him to death. The disciples who betrayed Him, denied Him, forsook Him, the religious leaders and nation that scourged Him and pilloried Him—we are a part of all them. Every sin against one’s neighbor is against Him who is the Son of man; every sin against God is against Him who is the Son of God; every sin against self is against Him through whom we were made. It is not that we sin now and then, but that the whole bent of life—“the heart turned in upon itself”—is a life that crucified Jesus Christ. We are sinners, deserving only the wrath of Almighty God. If He should destroy us now, we would abundantly deserve it.
Such a realization could drive us to the very brink of despair. Like Judas of old, we might want to end it all. We may feel no repentance—only remorse, misery, and bleak hopelessness. Try as hard as we will to change, to repent, we are still held fast in the toils of our own trespasses and sins which now have become a mountain of infinite proportions.
But let us look again at this same death on the cross—at something utterly amazing. Thus far we have been seeing ourselves more and more marked out as sinners, and the cross as the climax of our villainy. We have been descending further and further into the abyss as we have felt the fierce judgments of the Almighty upon our evil. But now at the cross we discover—marvelous to relate—that God in His great mercy and love has been following us step by step, sharing our pain, entering into our suffering, feeling our punishment upon Himself, bearing our evil as if it were His very own. In His holy wrath, His righteous judgments smite us through and through; but in His holy love, He is smitten far more than we. Far more than any earthly father who suffers with an erring child in his pain, despair, and punishment, so God suffers with us. It is not just that every evil is against Him, that every sin crucifies Jesus Christ; it is that in His vast love He suffers infinitely more than we in receiving His own judgments upon Himself. We cannot die without His dying with us; we cannot feel Godforsaken without His feeling more Godforsaken than we; we cannot go to the depths of Sheol without His going at our side. So does His Son die in our death; so does He cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”; so does Christ descend into hell.
At last the full marvel and wonder of God’s action in the death of Jesus Christ dawns upon us. It is not only that He died with us: He also died for us. He not only went all the way with us; He also so completely identified Himself in love with our lost souls that He actually met death in our place. “The wages of sin is death”—and, marvel of marvels, we now know He made full payment. His love was so great He could not just die with us; rather did He die our death that we might live again.
This is what happened at Calvary. And through the vastness of such love we can repent, because it is He Himself that has broken the power of sin; it is He Himself who has made full atonement; it is He Himself who was crucified in our stead; it is He Himself who pours forth forgiveness beyond measure. O God, have mercy; Christ, have mercy: we repent in dust and ashes. Thy mercy and love have smitten us through and through!
In such divine compassion there is redemption; in such forgiveness there is repentance and salvation.
III. The Role of Faith
Finally let us note the place of faith. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast.”
We have beheld at the cross the incomparable vision of justice and mercy in their ultimate expression: the wrath of God against sin being discharged against Himself in His Son, and forgiveness being poured into every repentant heart. It follows that faith is the avenue through which this great salvation comes. To believe in Jesus Christ and His death for us is essential to our repentance and receiving His wondrous forgiveness.
For surely there is nothing automatic about Christ’s dying in our place. He died for the sins of all the world, but unless we believe in Him and what He has done for us, we are yet “dead through...trespasses and sins.” It is only by such faith that we are brought to repentance, and without repentance there can be no appropriation of the divine forgiveness. It is only in such faith that we are “made alive...together with Christ...and raised up with him.”
What do our works contribute to this great salvation? Absolutely nothing: for contrariwise it was our works that made this salvation necessary. Our works consisted basically in “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air...following the desires of body and mind.” It was our works that led to the loss of God, of other people, of ourselves. It was our works that led to death—the very death the Son of God embraced for our sakes. Our works, whatever their supposed goodness, are all infused with evil. Our works are those that helped nail Christ to the cross; our works are terrifyingly shown in His agony on the tree; our works—God, have mercy; Christ, have mercy....
So do we turn from all works to Jesus Christ. Boasting is forever gone. Salvation is through Him and Him alone.
Then it is, on the other side of salvation, that good works do actually begin. For even as by faith and repentance we died with Christ to sin, so do we rise with Him to live a new life through the wonder of His grace. We may then through the living Christ begin to do works that are truly good. Such is God’s will, “for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” This is the goal: the climax of God’s great act of salvation.
6
THE HOLY SPIRIT
There is a story in the book of Acts which records Paul’s coming to the city of Ephesus, and there finding some disciples. Whereupon Paul inquired, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They replied, “No, we have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:1-2).
This incident seems quite relevant to our situation today. The typical church member may be heard to say, “I can understand the reason for God and Christ, but the Holy Spirit—I don’t quite see what it’s all about.” It is not that he has never heard that there is a Holy Spirit but that there is little understanding and experience.
Let us then think upon the meaning and the place of the Holy Spirit, considering this doctrine under three heads: the nature of the Holy Spirit, the operation of the Holy Spirit, and finally the reception of the Holy Spirit. Or it could be put in question form: Who is the Holy Spirit? What does the Holy Spirit do? How is the Holy Spirit received?
I. Who Is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit is God. Christian faith speaks of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19, 20), Jesus sends His disciples forth to proclaim His message, “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” God is spoken of as one “who gives his Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 4:8). The Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit, being God, is therefore personal. It is improper, indeed incorrect, to refer to the Holy Spirit as “it.” “He”, “Me”, etc.—personal pronouns—more adequately convey the personal nature of the Holy Spirit. For example, we read in Acts 13:2, "The Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’”
The Holy Spirit is frequently throughout the Bible referred to simply as “the Spirit.” Note, as an illustration, how the terms are interchangeable in Acts 8:17, 18: “Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given….” Instances such as this could be multiplied.
Again the Holy Spirit may be referred to as “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of the Lord,” or “the Spirit of (Jesus) Christ.” In the Old Testament almost all mention of the Holy Spirit is of Him as “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of the Lord,” or merely “the Spirit.” This begins with Genesis 1:2, “The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters,” and abundant references may be found throughout to “the Spirit of the Lord” and “the Spirit.” As a pertinent New Testament illustration of the interchangeableness of terms, observe Romans 8:9—"You are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. Such biblical quotations as already given show that however much the Holy Spirit is distinct (as in the Great Commission), He is also the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. One God in three persons is the mystery of the Trinity, and the Holy Spirit is always referred to as the third. He proceeds from the Father through the Son—“The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (John 14:26). Therefore, the order is invariable: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
God as Holy Spirit points also to a twofold fact about the divine nature. First, God as spirit is noncorporeal: He has neither body nor form as does man. All references in the Bible to God’s face or hand or eyes, and so on, are anthropomorphisms. They are human ways of speaking of Him who is spirit and yet also personal. As spirit, God is not limited in space or time; He is everywhere and always present. As said the Psalmist, "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!" (Psalm 139:7-8).
Second, God as holy means that He by nature is pure, undefiled, without evil. In Him is all moral perfection. God is holy spirit.
One further word about the nature of the Holy Spirit. The name is of course interchangeable with Holy Ghost. Due to the present connotation of the word ghost as some kind of an apparition or phantom that belongs to the realm of the weird and occult, the more meaningful term is now Spirit. This accords also with the words of Jesus about God in John 4:24—“God is spirit.” In worship we often, however, hold on to the older name, as in the Doxology and the Gloria Patri.
II. What Does the Holy Spirit Do?
The Holy Spirit is depicted in Genesis 1:2 as “moving over the face of the waters.” The earth was yet unshaped; all was darkness; there was neither light nor life. Then followed the various moments of creation. The Spirit was instrumental in creation, especially in bringing order out of chaos, cosmos out of emptiness, light out of darkness. "Brooding upon the waters," intimately in contact with the stuff of creation, by the Spirit's ordering and vivifying power a universe comes to be.
The Holy Spirit in relation to creation therefore represents God at work “down among” the materials, bringing forth by His power the heavens and the earth. God's word may be spoken from afar—“Let there be light,” etc.—but it is against the background of, or coincidental with, the brooding, energizing Spirit.
An understanding of God as Holy Spirit makes us aware that God is not only transcendent, far beyond all things, but also immanent, close to all things. His vast power streams from infinity “beyond,” but His Spirit is also constantly moving over, brooding upon, working within all that He does and makes. So it is that “He is not far from each one of us, for ‘in him we live and move and have our being’”(Acts 17:27-28).
As the Old Testament unfolds, God as Spirit is seen again and again as the power of God working with, “coming upon,” and sometimes entering into man. This is invariably for a special task or calling. For example, Bezalel, master craftsman for the Tabernacle, was “filled...with the Spirit of God...to devise artistic designs” (Exodus 35:31, 32). Of such men as Gideon, Samson, and David, it is written that “the Spirit of the Lord took possession” or “came mightily upon” them (Judges 6:34; 14:6; 1 Samuel 16:13). Ezekiel speaks in various ways of how “the Spirit entered into me,” “the Spirit lifted me up...and brought me," the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me” (Ezekiel 3:24; 8:3; 11:5). Many other like references could be cited.
Also, and quite significantly in the Old Testament, there is prophecy of the Messiah to come—“A shoot from the stump of Jesse.... And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him” (Isaiah 11: 1, 2). Again, not only shall the Spirit rest upon Him but, says the Lord, “I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3). Ezekiel looks forward to the day when for Israel and Judah, “I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live” (37:14). Climactically, in Joel are the words, “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (2:28). Hence, the Old Testament with its occasional manifestations of the Spirit looks forward to a great day when the Spirit shall be poured out upon all people.
Let us now turn to the New Testament and note the operation of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. First, He is conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel says to Joseph about Mary, “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). Jesus is unique in that in Him a new creation, a union of God and man, is for the first time existent. He is “the spiritual man” by birthright. Second, at baptism “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him” (Luke 3:21, 22). Third, as He began His ministry, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1, 2). Following this testing period “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee,” and at Nazareth He read from the Old Testament the words “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good news” (Luke 4:14, 18). Jesus therefore to the fullest possible degree represents the Holy Spirit in power and immediacy. Conceived of the Spirit, anointed by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, empowered through the Spirit: such is His life from beginning to end. It is a life of power, of purpose, of abundance—God-inspired, God-filled, God-directed.
We come next to the operation of the Spirit in the life of the disciples and the early Church. From Jesus' earliest ministry He was proclaimed as one “who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8). In John's Gospel Jesus says, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:5). Jesus promises that the Spirit will come after He goes away bodily, and “He will bear witness to me...he will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment...he will guide you into all truth” (John 15:26; 16:8, 13). After Jesus’ resurrection, that same evening “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:22-23). Then there follows an instruction period of forty days during which time Jesus tells them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which…‘you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 1:4, 5). Then He adds, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Ten days later, on the Day of Pentecost, “Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind...and there appeared unto them tongues as of fire...and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:24).
Not only are the disciples filled with the Holy Spirit, but they assure their listeners that the prophecy of Joel is now being fulfilled for all others—“this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel...that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2:16, 17). The result: "the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38) that day to many others. They are baptized with power, the power of the Holy Spirit. The story continues in Acts of the Holy Spirit being given to many people in the early Church.
Let us seek to summarize thus far the operation of the Holy Spirit in the life of the disciples and Church. “Baptism with the Holy Spirit” is a tremendous promise of Jesus, for it means not only forgiveness and cleansing symbolized by baptism in water but also a new life filled with a new kind of power and wisdom. The wind at Pentecost represents this power; the tongues of fire this witness. Now the disciples can witness for Christ “to the end of the earth”—as they could not before—because they are filled with divine power and truth. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they may bear true witness to Jesus Christ, bring others to conviction of sin, and help them receive the same wonderful gift they have known. Lives take on new order, new purpose, new meaning.
Hence, the operation of the Holy Spirit in relation to human lives is similar to that of His role in the creation of the physical universe. Even as the Holy Spirit in creation moved “over the face of the waters,” down among the darkness and void, and brought order, cosmos, light, meaning, so the Holy Spirit may “move over” an individual’s life and bring new life, new purpose. There is a new witness: the witness to Christ with convincing power that brings others to salvation; there are charismatic manifestations (tongues, prophecy, gifts of healing, etc.); and there is guidance and grace for living lives of “love, joy, peace” (Galatians 5:22), which are fruits of that same Spirit.
The Holy Spirit essentially means a new life, no longer a natural man but a spiritual one; God is at the center, not man. Man is a new creation, with God the directive power—and day by day there may be continuous growth into the likeness of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit directs.
Such is the magnificent, wonderful operation of the Holy Spirit who is now “poured out upon all flesh.”
III. How Is the Holy Spirit Received?
We come finally to the critical question: How is the Holy Spirit received? For surely the Holy Spirit is not poured out willy-nilly on all flesh. Nor is He obtainable by human ingenuity or plan. Recall the story in Acts of Simon the magician who offered money to get the power of the Spirit and was severely reprimanded, “Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!” (Acts 8:20).
Perhaps the most direct answer to the question of how the Holy Spirit is received is to say that He comes through believing in Jesus Christ and is received as a gift.
On the Day of Pentecost Simon Peter declared, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Believing in Jesus Christ is basic (and baptism in His name is the outward sign of commitment), for he who believes in Him receives forgiveness and is promised the gift of the Holy Spirit.
A thrilling account of the gift of the Holy Spirit is found in Acts 10. Peter was saying in his first sermon to a Gentile audience, “To him all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). He has not mentioned the promise of the Holy Spirit, but “while Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” There had not been any water baptism yet either; it follows (note verse 47). Genuine belief in Jesus Christ brought forgiveness and at the same time (“while Peter was still saying this”) the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It is also apparent, from the witness in Acts, that not everyone who believed in Jesus Christ received at the moment of initial faith the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. The question of Paul, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (19:2) suggests the possibility of a reception of the Spirit not concurrent with belief. And a prior account, in Acts 8, specifically demonstrates a later gift of the Holy Spirit. Philip had preached the word in Samaria, so that the Samaritans “believed” and “were baptized” (verse 12), but it was only at a later time when Peter and John came down from Jerusalem that the Samaritans received the gift. The apostles first prayed for them (verse 15), and then "they laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Spirit” (verse 17).
The Holy Spirit is promised to all who believe. As Paul puts it elsewhere, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law...that we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14). The question accordingly is this: Has the promise been fulfilled in our own lives? Unlike the Ephesians of Acts 19, we have doubtless heard that there is a Holy Spirit, and if we have known Christ’s redemption we have received the promise of the Spirit. Has that promise been fulfilled on our behalf?
Here it is essential to keep one’s eyes focused on Jesus Christ. For it is He through whom the Holy Spirit is given. Even as by Him redemption is wrought, so through Him the Holy Spirit is poured out. Not only is He Savior, He is also the risen and exalted Lord who gives the Holy Spirit. Thus the words of Peter on the Day of Pentecost: “This Jesus God raised up....Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this” (Acts 2:32, 33). Hence, even as we have looked to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, believing that His death on the cross is our only hope, so we look to Him as Lord, the one who pours out His Spirit for a new life of power and witness in His name.
Thus are we called to believe in the promise of the Spirit and to receive Him in faith. This means to be expectant and open, for God delights to give His Spirit to those who are eager to receive. Recall the words of our Lord: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11:13). Jesus, in this same context, teaches the importance of asking, seeking, and knocking (Luke 11:9, 10). Thus not only an attitude of openness and expectancy, but also a willingness to persist in prayer is important. This is particularly shown in the account of the disciples who, awaiting the promise of the Spirit, “devoted themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14). So did they pray persistently, expectantly, and in this atmosphere of faith the Holy Spirit was poured out.
One only need add that on the human side there is nothing one can do to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a gift, and thus cannot be earned, worked for, or achieved. Rather there is the forswearing of all effort in the realization of complete need. This signifies total surrender, yielding of oneself wholly in body, mind, and spirit so that the Holy Spirit may have full possession. Those who are hungry and thirsty, empty before the Lord, He satisfies with all good things: He grants His power and presence; He gives His Holy Spirit.
Is it possible that we have found forgiveness in Christ's death but have failed to receive from the exalted Lord the Holy Spirit which He pours forth beyond measure? Do we really look to Him not only as Savior but also as Lord? These are questions of urgent importance today. For it may well be that the lack of vitality and power, of joy and radiant witness, in the lives of many people is due to failure to receive the promised gift of God’s Holy Spirit.
Let us conclude by offering the simple prayer, “O Lord, send your Spirit upon your people, fill us to overflowing with your presence and power, and send us forth with fresh joy to be your witnesses to the ends of the earth. In your blessed name we pray. Amen.”
7
SANCTIFICATION
The concept of sanctification relates to holiness. It deals with progression in holiness, or, as the word implies, the sanctifying of human life.
We may consider this doctrine under three heads: the necessity of sanctification, the method of sanctification, and, finally, the extent of sanctification.
I. The Necessity of Sanctification
The necessity of sanctification is declared in words of the Old Testament: “I am the Lord your God...be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). God is a holy God; hence He will have His people be a holy people. In speaking to Israel He says, “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).
The imperative need for sanctification therefore roots in the nature of God. When God is understood in His holiness, there can be no question about His requirement upon man. For if God made man to have fellowship with Himself, man must be holy even as His Maker.
Over and over again the holiness of God is sharply etched in the Scriptures. One only need call to mind Moses at the burning bush, the Israelites at Sinai not allowed to place a foot on the holy mountain, the Holy of Holies of tabernacle and temple which no man except the high priests (and he only once a year) could enter without dying. Thus does God make terribly vivid His holiness, that men might come to understand the urgency of being holy.
Occasionally one hears God described in familiar and indulgent ways—e.g., a nice kind of guy. Aside from the sacrilege involved, such talk leaves no room or need for sanctification. One can then properly be or do anything—and it’s fine with God. The need for sanctification can root only in a true understanding of the nature of God as holy.
If the necessity of sanctification roots in the holiness of God, it grows in the realization of the unholiness of man. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are an ever increasing portrayal of man’s deep-dyed lack of holiness. It is not only a matter of man’s external actions wherein takes God’s name in vain, commits adultery, kills, steals, lies, and so on; it is also an even more urgent matter of man’s internal thoughts and feelings wherein he despises God, lusts, hates, envies, judges, condemns. Man is anything but holy; impurity and uncleanness mark his life all through.
Because of God’s holiness and man’s unholiness there is separation between God and man. Man was made by God to live a righteous life both now and always, but if there is no holiness in this life, there is only deep misery and pain and continuing separation from God. For to be unholy is to be shut off from God and the riches found in Him—and this is torment.
The necessity of sanctification then is grounded in the holiness of God, the unholiness of man, and the resulting separation of God and man in this world and that to come. “Be holy, for I am holy” is a divine commandment, forever inescapable.
II. The Method of Sanctification
Two things may be said about the method of sanctification: first, there must be a radical break or reorientation in man’s nature that puts him on the road to holiness; second, there must be a continuing looking to the Lord for growth in righteousness thereafter.
First, the radical break is a dying to unholiness, a death to sin. For example, Romans 6 depicts this in terms of being baptized into the death of Christ (verse 3). Also in this same chapter the radical break is viewed as a deliverance from bondage, from slavery to sin (verse 6). This death to sin, this deliverance from bondage, is essential; for without such, all growth in holiness is impossible. There is no point in discussing growth in something that is either not there to begin with, or, if there, is confined so tightly it cannot increase. A radical break with the past, a new beginning, is necessary.
This ought to be stressed a thousandfold for the reason that people often feel that growth in holiness and development in Christian character is a relatively simple matter of improvement of nature. Man, they feel, is basically all right; just give him a good environment, good teaching, good ideals—and goodness will automatically grow. If one will only instruct children in the teachings of the Bible (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule), then they are on the road to Christian maturity, true virtue, and holiness.
Or perhaps someone urges that if any one devotes enough time to self-examination, to prayer, to fellowship with the right kind of people, to living according to the highest standards, he is bound to grow in holiness of life. Man has it in himself—if he would only really try to find ways of bringing his goodness to fruition.
The Scripture says flatly: no. Man does not now have it “in himself.” Rather, man is spiritually “dead...through trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1); he is “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). So, try as hard as he may to grow in true character and holiness, man cannot do so initially because of his death and serfdom.
The Ten Commandments, for example, cannot of themselves make for holiness. When originally given to Israel, they were not intended to be the origin of a nation’s movement toward holiness. The origin lay rather in God’s act of redemption from Egypt—and this redemption is stated in the preface of the Decalogue: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me...” (Exodus 20:2-3). The Israelites were no longer dead in Egypt, slaves to Pharaoh; now as made alive and free, grateful for God’s redemption, they are to keep His commandments. The point then is (as Paul so often stresses), the law cannot make alive or set free; only God can do that. But once made alive and set free, it is possible to begin to do what never could have been done before.
So we return to the point that, for sanctification to occur, there must be a radical break: an initial point in which there is a dying to unholiness, an emancipation from slavery. This point is of course the death of Jesus Christ in which, through faith in Him and His death for us, we find our sins died for and our enslavement at long last overcome.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?...Our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:3, 6). Christ not only died, He also rose again; hence we who have believed rise with Him into a new life. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
Elsewhere Paul points out the parallel with the Old Testament: “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under this cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1, 2). As a result of this “baptism,” they were a people rising into “newness of life.”
There can be no sanctification that does not begin with faith in Jesus Christ and His death on the cross as our own death; for to be baptized into that death (as Paul puts it) is death to sin, freedom from slavery to sin. There can be no other point of departure for Christian living, for growth in holiness, for sanctification. For in that death there is resurrection; in that liberation there is new life. For Christ not only died; He also rose again, and with Him as the living Lord there can now be real growth in sanctification.
Second, after the radical break, the dying to sin through Christ, comes the living to God in Christ. So writes Paul: “The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6: 10-11).
Sanctification, growth in holiness, becomes a matter of being “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We who were “slaves of sin...having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18).
This growth in holiness, however, is nothing automatic and inevitable. There is a radical break with the past through faith in Christ’s death and baptism in His name, and there is a new life beginning; but this growth only occurs as we look to God in Christ Jesus and continue to offer ourselves for His cleansing and service.
“Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness….For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification” (Romans 6:13, 19).
Sanctification, therefore, continues as we yield ourselves to God, even as a slave yields himself to his master, his life and actions being determined by his lord. Paul does not hesitate to speak of this new status as becoming “slaves of God”—“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Romans 6:22).
Let us leave Paul’s letter to the Romans for a moment and quote a verse from 2 Corinthians 3:18—a verse which beautifully describes the progress of sanctification—“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Paul is emphasizing that yielding to God, or slavery to Him, is a matter of steadily beholding His glory, of keeping one’s eyes focused on Jesus Christ. In that steadfast devotion a transformation into His likeness gradually occurs.
Sanctification is not making oneself holy either by adding virtues or discarding vices. Rather it happens to one as he keeps his eyes fixed upon Christ and offers his total self to be used in His service.
Moses came down from Mount Sinai, face aglow with the holiness and splendor of God. And whence had it come but from being a “slave of God” for forty days and nights? He had beheld the divine presence, and in beholding that glory he was transformed. All who saw him knew that God was in his life. So may we be “changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.”
III. The Extent of Sanctification
How far is it possible to grow in holiness? May one become completely sanctified in this life? There are some who claim that the Bible teaches complete sanctification, for does not God say, “Be holy, for I am holy”? Does not Jesus teach, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”? Furthermore, do we not read in Romans 6 about being “set free from sin’? Is the mature Christian one then for whom sin is forever gone and whose life is one of perfect purity?
The biblical answer to these questions is that God’s standard can be nothing less than perfection in holiness. There must be growth in holiness as we look to Jesus Christ. But perfection of character in this life? The answer is no. Indeed, the more one grows in holiness, the more one realizes that there are sins yet to be overcome. It is the saints who are always most conscious of their sinfulness, because the closer they come to God in holiness the more they behold the evil that yet remains in them.
It is as if one were to view an object in dim light. Very little of defect or soil would be seen, but the brighter the light in which the object is viewed the more every tiny crack and every least amount of dirt or smudge stands out. So it is with one who grows in holiness; he becomes aware of sins none other could see. He knows increasingly the longer he lives that the need for continually making his confession and, as Paul says, yielding his “members to righteousness for sanctification” will remain.
Quite often the struggle becomes exceedingly intense. It is not just a matter of moving from darkness to light but an inner warfare that begins the moment one is on the road to sanctification. The power of sin has been broken, but the remnants continue to struggle and seek to overpower the spirit. “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other” (Galatians 5:17).
The flesh goads, harasses, and there may be stumbling or falling, but the Holy Spirit within enables us to gain the victory.
For sanctification we must in this life more and more die to sin and live to righteousness. This we do as we are slaves to God, looking steadfastly upon Jesus Christ, and yielding ourselves continually to His Spirit. This is a real transformation which He brings that makes life both here and hereafter richer and fuller.
Finally, when we are at death’s portal and pass through to the other side into the full presence of God, it will not be that we have achieved or received enough holiness to stand before Him, but that Christ will stand for us. Moreover, by His Spirit we will finally be made perfect in holiness and so dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
We may close with some words of an old hymn:
Take time to be holy,
Be calm in thy soul;
Each thought and each motive
Beneath His control;
Thus led by His Spirit
To fountains of love
Thou soon shall be fitted
For service above.
8
THE CHURCH
We now turn to a consideration of the church. Let us think about the church under three heads: the origin, the nature, and the purpose of the church.
I. The Origin of the Church
The origin of the church rests entirely in God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The New Testament refers to the church as “the church of the living God” (1 Timothy 3:15). Jesus Christ speaks of the church as “my church” (Matthew 16:18). Throughout the book of Acts it is the Holy Spirit who inspires the church and fills it with power and wisdom. Truly in the words of our familiar hymn, “She on earth hath union with God, the Three in One.” The church is the church of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This fact is important to stress because of a prevalent view that the church is essentially a human institution, one of the many forms of human association. Of course, the church is made up of people, but according to the Scriptures, for all its human composition, the origin does not rest in man but in God and His purposes.
In a certain sense the church began in Old Testament days. To be sure, the word church does not occur until the New Testament; however, the New Testament in looking back does speak, in one instance, of “the congregation in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38—in the King James Version the translation is “the church in the wilderness”). The word church is the translation of the Greek ecclesia, which means basically an “assembly of people” or a “congregation.” Thus it can refer in the Old Testament to the people of Israel, those chosen by God to carry forward His purposes and promises in the world.
The Old Testament concept is that the whole nation of Israel was actively devoted to the worship of God, that they as a people were a divine congregation to meet in assembly to hear the divine commands, to proclaim to the world His eternal promises. This was “the church in the wilderness"—and in some sense the church later on as a nation. They were the Israel of God.
Hence, even in the Old Testament the ecclesia originated in God; the Israelites were a chosen people. Moses speaks in Deuteronomy: “You are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples on the face of the earth” (7:6). Chosen of God, the ecclesia belonged to Him, and as His possession they were to keep His covenant and be a blessing to all mankind.
Unfortunately Israel as a nation failed to keep God’s commandments, to maintain His pure worship, to love Him and their neighbor. They were finally given up by God to punishment and captivity. Only a remnant of Israel returned, but few remained faithful—until Jesus Christ came to create a new ecclesia, a new assembly, a new fellowship, not circumscribed by race, as with the Jews, but containing all people who truly believe in Him. There is continuity with the ecclesia of the Old Testament, since Jesus of the flesh was an Israelite, but the new church rapidly broadens out to include all people.
Hence we may say that the church did not come truly into existence until the New Testament; therefore the English word church does not properly occur anywhere in the Old Testament. Even as Israel of the Old Testament was God’s chosen people, so the church of the New Testament is His choice through Jesus Christ.
Let us now note the first occurrence of the word church in the New Testament, Matthew 16:18—“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”
Note the personal nature of this statement. Not “the church will be built,” but “I will build my church.” The church will belong to Christ, and He will be the builder.
Moving on with the New Testament, only one other specific reference to the church is made in the Gospels (see Matthew 18:17). Christ does not refer to it again by name. So do we come to the book of Acts wherein the first mention is in 5:11—“And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all who heard these things.”
These words confirm that the church is now a reality. Referring back three chapters to Acts 2, we find the story of its coming into existence, even as Jesus had foretold.
It happened on the Day of Pentecost, the day on which the Spirit of God came as a mighty wind and as tongues of fire, the day on which fearful, weak disciples found themselves with new power and wisdom, the day on which about three thousand others were baptized and received the gift of the Spirit. It was the birthday of the church—“my church”—before prepared by God the Father, founded by God the Son, and empowered by God the Holy Spirit.
The church then, in origin, is entirely of God. Man neither planned it, nor founded it, nor built it, however much man may and must be a part of it. The church is the church of the living God, the church of Jesus Christ, the church of the Holy Spirit.
C. S. Lewis in his classic Screwtape Letters, purportedly written by an important official in Satan’s “lowerarchy” to Wormwood, a junior devil on earth, gives advice on how to destroy a young Christian’s faith. In one letter Screwtape says:
One of our greatest allies at present is the church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our
boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.
How often true. Even members of the church sometimes do not see that the church is more than a human society made up of more or less good people doing this and that. The church, and only the church, is “spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.”
So lift up your eyes afresh, fellow Christians, and rejoice your hearts, for we are members of the only divine institution on the face of God’s earth—one that, coming from God, is destined to outlive the universe.
II. The Nature of the Church
We have noted the origin of the church in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let us now pass on to a consideration of what the church is like. How is the church to be described, indeed to be identified?
In the popular mind the church is usually thought of as the building on such and such a street, or in such and such a town. The First Presbyterian Church is that red brick building on the corner of Park and Main. “Is there a church nearby?” someone asks, and invariably the answer is in terms of a building labeled Methodist or Baptist or Catholic, and so on.
Let it be underscored, however, that until later than the first century there was not a single church building. The church was not a building: it was rather the ecclesia, the assembly, of those who had believed in Jesus Christ, had been baptized in His name, and had received the Holy Spirit. They went to the Jewish temple for prayer, they met in peoples’ homes for worship and breaking bread, and they shared their earthly possessions. Many signs and wonders were done in Jesus’ name. They were a company united in praise, study, fellowship, and service.
Thus when Acts says “great fear came upon the whole church,” the reference is to the believing, baptized, Spirit-receiving company of people. They were those who had called on the Lord and were “being saved” (Acts 2:47). They were people who had received new life, and in the excitement and wonder of it were witnessing to everyone of what Christ had done for them and how He could do it for all who would likewise believe in His name.
One more remark about the church and a building. Nothing said has been intended to disparage church buildings. If nothing else, a building is a necessity for shelter in Christian worship and fellowship. The early Christians for all their lack of distinct buildings did meet in the temple and homes; they were not without the use of buildings. But the point here is that, building or no, the church is still wherever there is a coming together of Christians.
In speaking of the nature of the church let us return to the point that the church is the fellowship of people who believe in Jesus Christ. This means that the church stands constantly in a living relationship to Christ. How is the church to be recognized or identified? It is by observing a fellowship of people whose total lives, their worship and their work, are sustained by the living Christ.
The Apostle Paul uses three vivid images of the connection between Christ and the church in Ephesians. First he speaks of Christ as “the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (1:22-23). The church’s Head—its Leader, Guide, and Mind—is none other than the exalted and risen Christ. The church is the extension of the incarnation, the embodiment in time of Christ’s eternal purposes. The church exists to carry on the work He began on earth and now directs through His Spirit. Neither pope, priest, nor preacher can be the head of the church. There is but one: He who said, “I will build my church.” The church, the ecclesia, must exist for nothing else but to carry out the living Christ’s will—to be for Him His hands, His feet.
A second figure Paul uses is that of the church as “the household of God”—the church as a growing spiritual building with Christ as the chief cornerstone, and all people being built into it. “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (2:19-21). The church by nature is the only place where all mankind can dwell together in harmony. This is where Jew and Gentile, black and white, rich and poor find themselves one; for, whatever outwardly may separate, in the church all are built and joined together with Christ as cornerstone. There can be no longer any strangers or sojourners—all are at home with Christ.
The third picture is that of the church as the bride of Christ. In Ephesians 5, against the background of Paul’s injunction to husbands to love their wives, he adds, “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that the church might be presented before him in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (verses 25-27). Christ loves the church beyond any husband for his bride, for not only did He give Himself up for her, but also He ever seeks to purify her, make her holy. Hence love—the love of Christ for us and our love for Him—is the tie that binds. The church is the place where love should reign supreme, where love is to be the motive for every action. As the church day by day fellowships with Christ, she grows in strength until the consummation when she will sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
To review: Christ the head of the church, the church His body; Christ the cornerstone of the church, the church His building; Christ the husband of the church, the church His bride. The true church then is the church that is bound together with Jesus Christ: the body to carry out His work, the building to house all people in unity, the bride to do all things in love.
How is the church to be identified or described? The answer again: it is a fellowship of baptized, believing, Spirit-renewed people for whom Christ is in all such ways the living Lord.
III. The Purpose of the Church
Finally, the purpose of the church is far greater than the mind of man can conceive. The church exists to proclaim “the manifold wisdom of God.” As Ephesians 3:8-11 puts it, “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And what is this “manifold wisdom of God” that is “according to the eternal purpose realized in Christ?” The answer is given specifically in Ephesians 1:9, 10—“For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
The “manifold wisdom of God,” to be proclaimed by the church, is that all things shall some day be united in Jesus Christ. For God has highly exalted Him “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10, 11).
Thus shall all things be united in Christ and in Christ alone: this is the mystery made known to the church. This is the sure end; some day the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, all the universe shall be united in Him.
And how is all this to be achieved? It is to come about through the church ever proclaiming “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Colossians 3:8). The church has but one message, and that message is Christ—that “in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7), that “in him…we have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:11, 12), that “in him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13,14).
What manifold, what glorious wisdom of God—“through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross!” (Colossians 1:20).
The message of the church to the world is that Christ crucified and risen is the wisdom of God and the power of God, that to believe in Him is to find sins forgiven and new life begun, and to become a joyous part of that vast throng which rejoices to live ever to the praise of His glory.
The church then has a message triumphant and glorious, for it proclaims to a warring, disunited world that some day all things will be united in Jesus Christ. We may seem far distant from the goal, but the goal is as certain as are the promises of God in heaven. So, sad world, lift up your eyes and behold Jesus Christ; He is the final answer!
How does He do it? Through the strange, wonderful, and mysterious plan of God He does it by a victory already won at the cross. For at the cross evil was struck a mortal blow, and when the eyes of men and nations look back to a cross-crowned hill, there salvation from sin is found, the dividing walls of hostility break down, and Christ becomes our eternal peace.
The church exists to proclaim this amazing, this victorious, this “manifold wisdom of God.” This is the proclamation of everyone who believes in Him. We are all His body, His building, His bride to witness to others of His unsearchable riches, that they might likewise become a part of the company on earth that shall dwell with Him forever.
Let us then summarize: the origin of the church is in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; the nature of the church is that she is the body of Christ, the building of Christ, the bride of Christ; the purpose of the church is to make known "the manifold wisdom of God." What a heritage, what a nature, what a destiny!
Is the church, for you, all that? If you are a member—baptized, believing, Spirit-gifted—is it your greatest concern in life to do His bidding, to tell others of His unsearchable riches? If you are not a member, will you delay longer, standing on the sidelines and missing the joy of sharing with others in growing together, serving together, and witnessing together?
The time is short. Let us all more forward under the banner of Jesus Christ to the end that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father!
9
THE KINGDOM
We read in Mark 11 how at the triumphal entry of Jesus the people cried, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!” (verses 9, 10).
It was a time of great excitement: people spreading garments on the road, waving leafy branches which they had cut from the fields, shouting their hosannas as they went before and followed after the figure of one riding on a colt. For, as their words show, they were convinced that at last the kingdom of David was coming. Jesus was the King—“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (note the parallel in Luke 19:38—"Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”). The long hoped-for event was being ushered in. Surely such an event called for celebration by word and action in every way.
Long ago Isaiah had prophesied of one to come and had said, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom” (9:7), and Zechariah had cried, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass” (9:9). Clearly this was the day of prophetic fulfillment; Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, riding on an ass’s colt. The King was coming in His kingdom!
Let us think together upon the kingdom. What does the Bible have to say? Is it really something to be excited about? Let us consider the subject matter under three heads: the significance, the nature, and the arrival of the kingdom.
I. The Significance of the Kingdom
The significance of the kingdom can hardly be exaggerated. The Old Testament looks forward with high expectancy to its coming some day, and the New Testament is filled with references to it.
Jesus begins His ministry with the proclamation of the kingdom: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15).
So urgent is this message that Jesus does not stay long in one locality—“And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them; but he said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose’”(Luke 4:42-43). Note also the great importance of the kingdom in that Jesus says He was “sent for this purpose,” to proclaim the good news about it.
Sometimes the message of Jesus is spoken of as threefold: teaching, preaching, healing. For example, “And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people”(Matthew 4:23). At the center stands preaching, which is the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom.
Not only does Jesus proclaim the kingdom, but also He sends out His disciples to do the same. “And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1-2).
The message is so compelling that the true disciple must give it absolute priority in his own life—“Seek first his (God’s) kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33), and must also give it priority in his own witness—“Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60).
Again the importance of the kingdom may be noted from Jesus’ telling His disciples to pray for it—“Our Father who art in heaven...thy kingdom come…”—and his assurance that no sacrifice is too great to make for the kingdom—“There is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more” (Luke 18:29, 30).
Further, even as Jesus’ ministry begins with the proclamation of the kingdom—“the kingdom of God is at hand”—so likewise it ends with it. For after His death and resurrection He is still speaking of it to His disciples: “To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
Nor does the proclaiming of the message of the kingdom end with Jesus’ departure. It becomes the message of the church and the early apostles. “Philip…preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12). Paul at Ephesus “…entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, arguing and pleading about the kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8). The last verse in Acts—hence quite important—speaks of Paul’s final work in Rome, namely, as “preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered” (28:31).
The significance of the kingdom, and the message about it, can hardly be exaggerated. It is a first and last in Jesus’ and the apostles’ teaching; it demands complete priority in life and witness; there is no sacrifice too great to be made for it.
But for all that, is it really something to get excited about, to sing hosannas and wave palm branches?
Indeed, says Jesus, the kingdom is so valuable and desirable that it is “like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again [it]...is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:44-46).
According to Jesus, the kingdom is the most exciting, the most valuable discovery in all the world. No wonder Jesus came preaching it, no wonder He spent forty days talking about almost nothing else, no wonder He wanted disciples to realize its inexpressible value and to go out and proclaim it even as He had done. No wonder “Hosanna!” is the shout. The kingdom is at hand!
II. The Nature of the Kingdom
What then, we must inquire, is the kingdom? Toward an answer let two preliminary things be noted. First, a matter of terminology: namely, there is no difference in the New Testament between “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven”; the phrases are interchangeable. For example, we have noted how in Mark, Jesus is quoted as saying, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the gospel.” The parallel passage in Matthew (4:17) has Jesus saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” In Matthew heaven is regularly substituted for God, probably because of the pious Jewish custom of avoiding the use of the divine name wherever and whenever possible. The other three Gospels, and the New Testament in general, use the phrase “kingdom of God.”
Second, there is a difference between the phrases above and the phrase “the kingdom of David” (as used by the people at Jesus’ triumphal entry). The average Jew looked forward with great expectation to the literal, earthly fulfillment of the passages in Isaiah, Zechariah, and elsewhere in the Old Testament about the firm and immovable establishment of David’s throne. This would occur in Jerusalem, and from the Holy City all the world would be ruled in justice and truth. Possibly many in the throng sang hosanna because they tended to identify “the kingdom of David” with the “kingdom of God” and eagerly looked forward to Jesus’ earthly coronation and sovereignty.
Of course, it was a strange spectacle: great David’s greater Son riding on an ass’s back. No prancing steed, no marching soldiers, no battle cries. Some must have wondered, and some must have felt that this was a different kind of king and kingdom from what had ever been known before. Their hosannas must have been the richest and truest of all.
In order then to understand the nature of the kingdom we should recognize that Jesus from the outset of His ministry was seeking to change many people’s thinking from their earthbound viewpoints. Hence along with the proclamation of the kingdom He also says “Repent”—“…the kingdom of God is at hand; repent.” “Repent” means “change your mind” or “attitude.” The Old Testament, Jesus implies, did took forward to a worldly kingdom, but now it is time to look deeper, to see more clearly, to adopt a new perspective. This, says Jesus, is a kingdom far more wonderful than the reestablishment of David’s throne and receiving the material blessings therefrom. It is verily the kingdom of God; it is “at hand”; and therefore is good news—gospel—far beyond that of the majesty of even the most glorious kingdoms of earth. “Repent”—change your mind—and “believe.”
Let us then inquire specifically concerning the nature of this “new” kingdom. What kind of a kingdom could have such inestimable value as He everywhere proclaims this kingdom to possess?
To answer: it may seem a bit surprising that Jesus nowhere specifically defines His terms. He never says, “The kingdom of God (heaven) is this….” Rather does he say again and again, “The kingdom of God (heaven) is like this….”
For example, we may note the parable of the unjust servant. Recall how it begins (Matthew 18:23): “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants….”
The parable goes on to describe how the king who was owed a vast sum of money by one servant nonetheless upon this servant's entreaty “released him and forgave all the debt.” What a joy it must have been to know forgiveness of so great a debt, to be a free man again! The parable continues with the account of this same servant not being willing to forgive a trifling sum that a fellow servant owed him. The result: the restoration of the earlier debt and deliverance into jail. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
The kingdom is “like,” or “may be compared to,” this earthly story of monetary indebtedness. It is as if you were to imagine being hopelessly in debt and in jail for a sum too large for anyone to repay and then your creditor taking pity and forgiving every single penny. Can you imagine your joy when you realize all this? Or can you imagine your grief if you were to lose everything by failing to show mercy likewise?
By implication Jesus is saying that in the kingdom of God something far more wonderful than forgiveness of an unpayable monetary debt is involved, namely, the forgiveness of an impossible weight of trespasses and sins. There is no debt so heavy as the debt of sin, no imprisonment so inescapable; but in God’s kingdom there is complete remission of the debt and marvelous freedom from the bondage. Little wonder the kingdom of God is “the pearl of great value,” “the treasure hidden in a field” which to have is worth sacrificing everything else! No wonder Jesus proclaimed the kingdom from beginning to end, and likewise did the early apostles—for this was good news beyond one’s fondest imagination!
But let us not forget that the forgiveness of God, though not merited, and given by grace, does not continue if we do not forgive others. Has someone else sinned against us? Then we must likewise forgive as we have been forgiven. How petty the sin or sins of my brother against me in comparison with my huge amount against God! If I do not freely forgive, then I no longer am forgiven—and the kingdom of heaven is my existence no more.
The picture from this one parable (others could be cited) shows that the kingdom which Jesus came preaching is the realm of life in which man is right with God and with his neighbor. It is living in the realm of grace, not exacting “an eye for an eye,” not working to achieve divine and human relationships, but rather accepting, loving, forgiving others even as God Himself accepts, loves, forgives. It is not a realm in which evil is overlooked. Rather it is looked squarely in the eye and measured all the way through; but once having been fully seen, even exposed, it is thereupon promptly and completely forgiven. God does exactly that; in His kingdom man does it too!
The kingdom of God is therefore an amazing reality in this sordid sphere of earth. Until Christ proclaimed it, the world was sunk in a morass of sin and guilt before God and of bitterness and judgment toward one’s neighbor.
Kingdom living is to accept the magnificent truth that God forgives us every tawdry bit of sin, and in turn we are to forgive every sin and evil any may have committed against us. Suddenly the world becomes pure, the air bracing; man smiles in the presence of God, as he reaches out his hand in love and tenderness to his brother man!
This is at least one aspect of the kingdom Jesus came preaching . Do you wonder that the crowds sang their hosannas, that the children lifted their sweet voices, that the rocks almost cried out in exultation! Truly the people did not fully understand, but underneath it all was the realization that it was a day never to be forgotten. “Hosanna! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David....Hosanna in the highest!”
III. The Arrival of the Kingdom
Finally under this head, let us consider two questions: first, when does this kingdom come; second, to whom does it belong?
When. To answer: the kingdom is both present and future. On the one hand Jesus said it was here now: “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). “Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). It is also future, for His disciples were told to pray, “Thy kingdom come”; and Jesus looked forward to the day when He would again sup with His disciples in the kingdom of His Father (Matthew 26:29). What accounts for these seemingly different chronologies of the kingdom? Namely, Jesus viewed the kingdom as present and growing within the world, but its full completion resting in God’s hands . To illustrate this point, Jesus spoke of the kingdom as “like a grain of mustard seed” which, though tiny at the beginning, grows to “the greatest of shrubs,” or “like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened” (Matthew 13:31-33).
The kingdom of God was not truly known until Christ came proclaiming it. The law and the prophets were until John, since then the good news of the kingdom is preached (Luke 16:16). It will not achieve its consummation, however much its growth in the world, until at the end the evil is sorted out from the good. Then to those at His right hand—“the king will say…‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Matthew 25:34).
To whom. The kingdom belongs only to those of childlike attitude—“Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15). A small child accepts a parent’s forgiveness completely, and whatever his playmate’s faults against him he readily forgives and forgets. The child lives in a happy world of being forgiven and forgiving. So must we all become as little children if we are to share in God’s kingdom.
The kingdom only belongs to those who are “poor in spirit”—“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Those who are not proud in spirit, who are willing to bend so low as to admit their need of God’s grace and to gladly show forth that grace and love to others: to such belongs the kingdom.
The kingdom is also a possession of those “who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). Strangely enough, one of the signs of the kingdom’s reality is persecution from without. The world becomes antagonistic toward anyone who breaks out of its mold, a mold that includes neither facing up to evil nor knowing the wonder of forgiveness. Even as Christ was reviled and persecuted, so will there be for all members of His kingdom times of real sorrow and pain. Yet through it all there is blessedness.
Finally, the kingdom belongs only to those who are “born of water and the Spirit.” “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). In other words, there must be the forgiveness that cleanses and the renewing power of God’s Spirit which makes one live a life of mercy and compassion toward others. God has promised the gift of His Spirit to all who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and those who so believe and so receive live henceforth in God’s eternal kingdom.
God’s kingdom is an amazing reality. We behold it nowhere, and yet it is everywhere present, as people humbly submit themselves to God’s marvelous grace and show forth that grace to others. It is a kingdom of childlike existence, a kingdom in which pride of spirit is replaced by humility of spirit, a kingdom in which one’s self-protective, self-conscious, self-defensive spirit is more and more purified by the Spirit of the living God. It is a new world—regardless of persecutions that must come—so exciting, so joyous, so rich and full that one lives to share it, to proclaim it, to help others also find its glory.
So do we rejoice to cry with the disciples and children of old, “Hosanna! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!”
For there is nothing in all the world that can begin to compare with the joy of living in that kingdom.
10
LIFE EVERLASTING
In closing this series of studies, we come to a consideration of the concept of life everlasting. The final sentence of the Apostles’ Creed, well-known to many, is, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Let us center our thinking on the last of these phrases, “the life everlasting,” and do so in question-and-answer format.
Let us assume the presence of a non-Christian, who, having heard us say this Creed, now raises certain questions. We shall try to demonstrate the significance of our affirmation by answering the various questions he asks.
Question: I heard you say you believe in “the life everlasting.” Just what do you mean by that? Do you believe that life goes on forever? Your life and my life?
Answer: Yes, we Christians do believe that life goes on forever, that physical death is not the end. We believe that those who assume that this life is all there is—the materialists, the humanists, the atheists, and so on—do not have a proper understanding of the nature of life. We believe that the yearning—present everywhere at all times—which people have for immortality has an answer beyond the grave. Indeed, we Christians do believe that life goes on forever in spite of the seeming end at physical death.
Question: But wait a moment. How can that be? The person disintegrates at death. The body dies, surely. The bones of people of many thousands of years are scattered over the earth. What kind of life everlasting are you talking about?
Answer: You fail to recognize that there is not only body, but there is also spirit, which is an immortal and indestructible part of man. Indeed it is his very deepest nature. I have a body but also I am a spirit: a spirit that expresses itself through my body with its various mental and emotional aspects. The body is the vehicle for the spirit and at death there is a separation of the mortal from the immortal. Hence just because the body is fragile and fades (indeed it dies daily; every hour you are one hour nearer to the end) has nothing to do with the spirit. God created man different from the rest of the animal world: He created him in His own image and likeness. This means many things, but for one thing it means that God has given to man something immortal. God made man that way.
Question: You mean then that you as a Christian believe life goes on forever, but only as a spirit? I am not sure I am very interested in that kind of life beyond the grave, because this would just be a part of me, although you say it is the essential part. I’m not sure this kind of life beyond the grave is very appealing. The body decays, so I don’t expect it to go on, but I’m not sure I want to continue forever just as a disembodied spirit.
Answer: Wait one moment. I did agree with you that the body decays and then dies. Then I tried to show you that there is something else immortal and indestructible in man—the spirit. But this does not mean that the body is done away with for good. Did you not also hear us say in the creed that we believe in “the resurrection of the body”?
Question: Yes, I did hear you say that, but I’m not at all clear just what you mean, since you agree with me that the body is frail; it fades away and dies. It is therefore quite unlike the spirit. So what is this resurrection all about?
Answer: It means simply that though our present bodies are mortal and die, the mortal will be raised immortal. The corruptible will put on incorruption; thus the resurrection body will, like the spirit, live forever. Now in this world where all things material fade away through growth and maturity and old age, the body does likewise. But there will be a resurrection in which the natural body, which we now have, shall become a spiritual one.
Question: I think I see what you are getting at. But I confess that the idea of a “spiritual body” confuses me. Spirit and body seem to be quite different from one another. What do you mean when you speak of a spiritual body?
Answer: It means basically that the limitations of the present world as we now know them with our physical bodies—the limitations of space and time—will no longer apply to a spiritual body. It will be a body, yes, but no longer spatially or temporally confined. In the New Testament we read about Jesus, who was buried and then rose from the dead. After His resurrection we have some glimpse of what His spiritual body was like, as a kind of prefiguring of what we may look forward to. Though He was recognizable by the eyes of faith to His disciples, His body was different in that it was no longer confined. He was able to appear through closed doors. He could be present in different places almost immediately. Neither space nor time had the same significance to Him as before. We Christians believe that this is a kind of pre-vision of the spiritual body which shall be the lot of us all.
Question: But that brings up another point. You say Jesus rose from the dead—that His body didn’t stay in the grave and that He thereafter had a spiritual body. It was resurrected. But, remember, that doesn’t seem to be happening to other people. They are placed in the grave when they die, and their bodies stay put. When then does this resurrection of the body occur?
Answer: There is a difference, unquestionably, between Jesus Christ and those who are followers of His. The Christian faith does not hold to an immediate resurrection from the dead for other men. Rather do we believe in a final day when all will be resurrected together—a day when the present, natural world of time and space will become a spiritual world. “A new heaven and a new earth,” we call it. Therefore being a spiritual world, the spiritual body will be adapted thereto. Jesus was the first fruits in His resurrection with His spiritual body a sign of the future. As He became, so we believe we shall be.
Question: Doesn’t that mean in your view that you cease to be as an individual, and a new person someday takes your place? Isn’t that like reincarnation, wherein you are supposedly born one person in this world and a different person with the same spirit in the next world?
Answer: No, we do not believe in reincarnation. The picture is more like that of a seed buried in the earth. The seed looks as if it is dead and gone forever. But later on—some time later—the plant springs up from the seed. The plant looks different, yes, very different perhaps from the seed, but really it isn’t. It was there all along, but until the seed was buried, even died, the new form which was already there in the seed could not come to life. So it is that our natural, physical body is raised a spiritual body. This is not a new person. It is the life that was there all along, fitted and adapted for the new heavens and earth in which we shall dwell.
Question: But some peoples’ bodies, at death, aren’t put in a grave. Some are mutilated and scattered. Some are never found. Some become a part of something else. How then is the body ever able to spring up like a seed into this spiritual body of which you speak?
Answer: Wait, good friend. The resurrection is God’s work, and He is not handicapped by what happens to the parts or elements of the physical body. God, who numbers every hair of our head, and knows every grain of sand by the sea, surely is able to take of our mortal remains, wherever or whatever they may be, and reshape them into the immortal.
Question: But if the resurrection of the body does not take place until the end of this physical world, as you say, then you must mean that the person does continue for a long time after death only as a spirit. If so, what is the spirit doing? Is it resting, or sleeping, or something else like that?
Answer: If it is the spirit of one who belongs to God, he goes immediately into the presence of God, that is into heaven. Jesus Christ on the day He died said to a penitent and believing thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” This must then be true of believers of all ages who have passed on. Their spirits are even now rejoicing in the presence of God, and, like all of us, look forward to the resurrection of the body. The resurrection will be an event which all of us will share together. God in His marvelous plan does not give an advantage to those earlier born, or a disadvantage to those later; all will know the resurrection together. Abraham and Moses, Peter and Paul, all others who are people of faith, will share with us the resurrection and the new heavens and the new earth. That is a great occasion to which all of us may look forward.
Question: So then you are saying that there is a kind of intermediate state after physical death—the state of a disembodied spirit? Then later comes the resurrection when there is a spiritual body. Is that correct?
Answer: Yes, from the point of view of us here in time, not in eternity, there is an intermediate state. So we may properly say that Abraham, Moses, Peter, and Paul—and all others of faith—are now in this intermediate state, and look forward like us to a resurrection yet to come. But on the other hand, from the point of view of eternity, which overarches time, the resurrection may be just as much a present as a future reality. Thus in another sense, from the aspect of eternity, there may be no intermediate state or stage. It is possible that the person in eternity already knows the resurrection and so exists not partially as a spirit but as a complete person. But maybe this is getting a little too complex. What is the next question you have to ask?
Question: Does everybody live forever? Good and bad alike? Do all spirits continue? Does everyone after death share in the resurrection?
Answer: Yes. For remember the earlier point, that God made the spirit immortal; therefore death cannot destroy it. The spirit, like God, is everlasting. The same holds true of the body, for whether the person is good or bad the body is still, as it were, sown in the ground, and later is resurrected.
I would add, however, that there is one category of people who will not experience the resurrection, namely those who are believers in Christ and alive at His final coming. They will be “caught up” instead.
Question: What do you mean by their being “caught up” at Christ’s final coming? Knowing little about such a “coming,” I confess I don’t understand what you are getting at.
Answer : We Christians believe that not only did Christ come in the incarnation, but He will also return at the end of time. You will recall how we said in the creed, “He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” At His return the dead who belong to Christ will rise first, then all living believers will be caught up with them to meet Christ. However, this also means a transformation, for even as the dead will be raised with incorruptible bodies, so the living will find their natural bodies immediately changed into spiritual ones. So we shall ever be with Him in heaven.
Question: I want to ask something now that is bothering me a great deal. You speak of heaven, and that believers go there. Does this mean that, though all people live forever, some go to another place?
Answer: Place may not be quite the right word. For in eternity there is not the same spatial existence, the same geography, if you will, that we have now—it being not a material but a spiritual world. So I will try to answer you, but it is not easy from our finite, temporal, limited perspective. Heaven means the presence of God—the realm where God is known and worshiped and loved. And it is true that not all people know that reality. Some go on into eternity not belonging to God, and therefore they live in eternal separation from Him. This is what we call, in Christian faith, hell.
Question: Now you disturb me with what you are saying. Could you tell me about the difference between heaven and hell?
Answer: Again I say we are dealing with things beyond our full comprehension, but a few words may be suggested by way of explanation. Heaven means the realm or sphere in which God is present not just by faith or momentarily, but by sight and completely. Here in the world we know God only in part. But heaven is the reality in which God is continuously known, in which the vision of God is present, in which we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and we love our neighbor as ourselves. Heaven is climactically the praise and adoration of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout eternity.
Heaven also represents other things. It surely means rest from toil, from drudgery, from pain and sorrow; no more crying, no more tears. But also it means service—the opportunity for service in a fuller way than we have ever known here on earth. Many a person on this earth has been frustrated and unfulfilled. But he will find in heaven, we believe, opportunity for unlimited service. Time here is too short; failures are too many; opportunities often are not what they might be; but heaven is opportunity unlimited, unbound. Yet, even after having said that, “What no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived…God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthian 2:9).
If heaven is what we have said, then hell must be just the opposite of all this. It is a sphere of isolation from God, where even faith is no longer able to lay hold on Him as faith may in this world. It is also a sphere of isolation from other people. If in heaven we know people completely (only partly here on earth), then in hell one does not know other people at all. It is isolation, a separation both from God and from one’s neighbor in such a way that the condition is one of darkness, of torment, of pain. It is eternal death in distinction from eternal life. That is what hell really is.
Question: But how do people end up in such a condition as hell? Does God want this to happen? Does He send them there?
Answer: No, it is not God’s desire at all. God sends no one to heaven, and surely He sends no one to hell. People go there by their own choice.
Question: Who in this world would chooses hell—with all its pain and misery as you describe it—when he could choose heaven with its joy and blessedness?
Answer: As strange as it may seem, people do it all the time—not just for the future, but even in this life. They choose not to live for God but to live for themselves. And they are miserable inside. But somehow they would rather be miserable doing their own will than happy doing God’s. They are tormented within, but they won’t surrender to God. They so much want to run their own lives, seek their own satisfaction, work for their own ends, that misery, pain, illness—nothing will make them change. And when they die, they merely become what they already are—citizens in a city of destruction, dwellers in eternal separation from God.
But, may I say again, they would rather be in hell than in heaven. Even as is true in this life, they are miserable away from God, but more miserable having Him around, since their self-centeredness makes God’s reality unbearable. Like some animal of the night they can not bear the light. Even so, such persons who cannot bear God’s presence do not want Him. So in a sense we might say that God, out of His love and mercy, permits hell. God let Adam and Eve go out of the Garden of Eden because they were miserable in His presence. Yes, they deserved to be excluded from the presence of God because of their sin. But beyond that, God’s mercy was manifest in their exclusion, because had they stayed in the Garden of Eden their lives would have been utterly into intolerable—always fleeing from the presence of God—always in fear and shame. Therefore God let them go—and their “hell” on earth (with drudgery and pain) was more bearable than the Paradise of God.
Question: You say then that a loving God permits hell? But to me it still seems impossible. Why doesn’t God just annihilate everybody at death who is not going to heaven? Wouldn’t that be far more loving? If I saw my child was going to be in torment forever, I would rather see him die than be in such a condition as that.
Answer: But did you not earlier hear it said that God has created us with immortal spirits—that we cannot die? God will not annihilate His own act of creation. Therefore the question is not whether we shall live on or not; the only question is the sphere in which we shall continue to exist. And when you speak of the torment into which God seems to let people go, may I remind you again that hell, with all its pain, is less torment than for a self-centered person to have to live eternally in the presence of God and of other people that are always praising Him and are loving and kind to one another.
Question: Why did God ever create man in the first place if such a possibility as hell lay open to him?
Answer: God wanted creatures who freely choose Him. Without freedom of choice they would have been puppets and not people. This freedom of choice meant that they might also choose themselves, and in choosing themselves they would choose hell.
Question: But was creation worth it if hell was even a bare possibility? Did not God know what would happen to much of His creation? Did He not foresee what was going to occur? Why then should God have created the world?
Answer: Yes, God created the world foreseeing what was to take place. The only reason God was willing to go through with it was because He was ready to pay the price Himself. He could create because He was willing to suffer even more than any of His creatures that He might win them back. One day on a cross almost two thousand years ago, God in human flesh suffered and died. You also heard us say in our creed that “he descended into hell,” and we mean it, because this was the great act of the love of God whereby He entered into all the misery and the pain and the torment, even to the very depths, in order that He might win man from his isolation and separation. God, who permitted hell, has plumbed its horrible abyss that man might freely—through penitence and faith—come back to Him. You may be sure that God has suffered far more because of hell than have any of His creatures.
Question: I have but one final question to ask then, I suppose, and that is: What did God do in dying in human form on a cross? What did He do that could win man out of his self-centeredness and isolation—his hell on earth and hell to come? What did He do to bring man back to Himself, without forcing him and without making him uncomfortable in His presence? What did God do on the cross?
Answer: The answer to this is the most important thing of all. God in Christ on the cross did, and does, that which makes all the difference in this world and the world to come. For one thing God makes us aware of His tremendous love—how far He goes for us in suffering our pain, our agony, by even descending into hell. And He also makes us aware of how evil we really are, that all the sin we commit is a sin against Him—a crucifying of His very Son. So at the cross we may become aware of what our evil does to the very love of God. But—and here is the final answer—at the cross, in spite of all our evil, we hear the word of forgiveness pronounced, “Forgive them….” It is this word of forgiveness that can cleanse away the sin and bring new life so that one may thereafter live joyously in the eternal presence of God. This, my good friend, is what God in Christ has done countless times in bringing people from death to life—from self-centeredness to God-centeredness—from hell to heaven. The cross is therefore the power of God for salvation, but for those who will not receive it, God can do no more. They choose against all God’s love, and they carve out their own destiny here and in the world to come.
Are your questions done? If so, then let me say as vigorously as I can that to believe in the life everlasting (as we Christians have said we do) without believing also in Jesus Christ would be a dark and fearful belief. For without Him, life everlasting would be for all of us not eternal life but eternal death—eternal separation from the presence of God and one another. But when we truly believe in Jesus Christ, when we commit ourselves to Him, when we seek the divine forgiveness at the cross, then we do not go on perishing as we have been perishing since the days of Adam and Eve. Rather do we find eternal life—life in the presence of God both now and forever.
So, finally, may I ask you who have raised these questions, whom we have tried our best to answer, just one thing: will you not also believe in Him? Will you not also receive Him whom God sent to die on a cross? Are you now willing to accept Him as your Savior also from sin and from hell? God has done all He can. All the resources of the Almighty have been poured out and emptied on the cross. It is up to you to believe in Him and so to receive His forgiveness and the life everlasting which is eternal life both now and always. To God be the praise and the glory!

The Ten Major Teachings of the Bible

© www.thegreentree.weebly.com October 2008

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