In the last post I talked about the problem with lists. There seems to be an innate tendency within believers to reach for a definition of spiritual health that distills a relationship with God to a list of things we can and cannot do. The problem with lists is that they limit God, cheapen grace, and miss completely the trajectory of freedom which the New Testament offers. The prevailing message of the New Testament is that the law, the ultimate list, failed to make men and women right before God. That was not the function of the law. All the law could do was demonstrate the righteous and just claims a holy God could expect of willing followers. The law could not erase sin, it could only define sin.
I am an amateur carpenter. One of the tools I carry around is called a plumb bob. A plumb bob, or a plummet, is a weight with a pointed tip on the bottom that is suspended by a string and is used as a vertical reference line. One use of a plumb bob is to help a person determine whether or not a wall is straight. A plumb bob does not lie.
Imagine then for a moment you are holding the plumb bob next to a brick wall you have just built. As the plumb bob comes to a standstill, you notice that from the top of your wall to the bottom there is a 7 inch gap. You say to yourself, "By golly, I have built a crooked wall. I have erected a mini leaning tower of Pisa." But, not to worry – you have in your hand your trusty plumb bob. It has done a splendid job of pointing out that your wall is crooked. The question is this: Can a plumb bob now make your wall straight? The answer is: No. A plumb bob's use is one-dimensional. It tells an accurate story of crookedness. It offers nothing by way of correction.
So it is with the law. The law, held up against our lives, tells an accurate story of our crookedness. It demonstrates the violence our lives have accomplished against God's law and rightful expectations. God has told us to: place no other gods before Him; to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor our fathers and mothers, to not steal, to not bear false witness, to not want other people’s stuff or position in life, and so on. Jesus seems to put the law – this list of commands – on steroids by saying that if we fail these commands even in our hearts we have sinned against God. An honest person, even a good honest person, will have to admit that they have failed God in regard to this expanded definition.
And that is the point. God has made it impossible for us to climb our way into heaven. He has so raised the standard of righteousness that we have all, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “…sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” The list was good. It stood silently like a plumb line against our lives – sure and accurate – as we erected a crooked life of lies, gossip, backbiting, lust, greed, arrogance, coveting, hatefulness, unforgiveness and such. All of us have done these things. We are all little “Leaning Towers of Pisas” and the law offers no relief – only diagnosis.
The entire epistle to the Galatians is dedicated to this issue. I quote at length from chapter 3:1-5:
Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of His death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the Law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
In closing, let’s return to our working metaphor – the color gray. I said in the last post that many want to cast the Christian life and spirituality in black and white terms. I used to believe that. I no longer do. I believe that there is an enormous amount of freedom – what would be called gray by some – in which a Christian not only has the freedom to move, but also carries a responsibility to move. I will say much more about this in a future post.
My concern at the moment is this lure to add copious "black and white lists" on top of the grace discovered through the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus did not come to abolish the law; He came to fulfill the law. Our participation in His death, received by faith and enacted through baptism and communion means – joy of joys – that we have fulfilled the law as well. We share, according to the Word of God, His righteousness and His victory over sin, death, and the law. For those keeping score – that is a really good deal.
In my next post, I will show how the list mentality is the single greatest contributor to a failed and joyless Christian life and a powerless church.
I am an amateur carpenter. One of the tools I carry around is called a plumb bob. A plumb bob, or a plummet, is a weight with a pointed tip on the bottom that is suspended by a string and is used as a vertical reference line. One use of a plumb bob is to help a person determine whether or not a wall is straight. A plumb bob does not lie.
Imagine then for a moment you are holding the plumb bob next to a brick wall you have just built. As the plumb bob comes to a standstill, you notice that from the top of your wall to the bottom there is a 7 inch gap. You say to yourself, "By golly, I have built a crooked wall. I have erected a mini leaning tower of Pisa." But, not to worry – you have in your hand your trusty plumb bob. It has done a splendid job of pointing out that your wall is crooked. The question is this: Can a plumb bob now make your wall straight? The answer is: No. A plumb bob's use is one-dimensional. It tells an accurate story of crookedness. It offers nothing by way of correction.
So it is with the law. The law, held up against our lives, tells an accurate story of our crookedness. It demonstrates the violence our lives have accomplished against God's law and rightful expectations. God has told us to: place no other gods before Him; to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor our fathers and mothers, to not steal, to not bear false witness, to not want other people’s stuff or position in life, and so on. Jesus seems to put the law – this list of commands – on steroids by saying that if we fail these commands even in our hearts we have sinned against God. An honest person, even a good honest person, will have to admit that they have failed God in regard to this expanded definition.
And that is the point. God has made it impossible for us to climb our way into heaven. He has so raised the standard of righteousness that we have all, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “…sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” The list was good. It stood silently like a plumb line against our lives – sure and accurate – as we erected a crooked life of lies, gossip, backbiting, lust, greed, arrogance, coveting, hatefulness, unforgiveness and such. All of us have done these things. We are all little “Leaning Towers of Pisas” and the law offers no relief – only diagnosis.
The entire epistle to the Galatians is dedicated to this issue. I quote at length from chapter 3:1-5:
Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of His death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the Law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
In closing, let’s return to our working metaphor – the color gray. I said in the last post that many want to cast the Christian life and spirituality in black and white terms. I used to believe that. I no longer do. I believe that there is an enormous amount of freedom – what would be called gray by some – in which a Christian not only has the freedom to move, but also carries a responsibility to move. I will say much more about this in a future post.
My concern at the moment is this lure to add copious "black and white lists" on top of the grace discovered through the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus did not come to abolish the law; He came to fulfill the law. Our participation in His death, received by faith and enacted through baptism and communion means – joy of joys – that we have fulfilled the law as well. We share, according to the Word of God, His righteousness and His victory over sin, death, and the law. For those keeping score – that is a really good deal.
In my next post, I will show how the list mentality is the single greatest contributor to a failed and joyless Christian life and a powerless church.
3 comments:
When my daughter was 4 she asked me why Jesus had to die. Before I could answer, she said "I know. No matter how hard we tried to reach up to heaven (and she was standing on her tiptoes at this point) we could never reach God. So Jesus had to come down to earth to us." Thanks for the reminder that He's the one by which we become righteous, not by our "marvelous" works...
We are in desperate need of renewing our minds and hearts daily! Repentance is the key.
Living, and walking out our Salvation should be our act of obedience in return for all of His love, grace, and mercy that He abundantly dishes out to each of us.
We are in desperate need of renewing our minds and hearts daily! Repentance is the key.
Living, and walking out our Salvation should be our act of obedience in return for all of His love, grace, and mercy that He abundantly dishes out to each of us.
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