8 May
RETRACING WHAT WE LEARNED FROM LUKE 1-4 and LOOKING AHEAD
The Gospel of Luke, as with the other 3 Gospels, is about a Person, about God in his revelation in Jesus Christ, and about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ – it is in fact the story of God’s salvation plan for fallen humanity (in the first Adam). To appreciate the Gospel, we need to understand the whole biblical story from Genesis to the first arrival of Jesus, and also what follows until Revelation.
Fallen humanity faces the prospect of condemnation, judgement and eternal death in the first Adam. The triune God decided, before the creation of the world to save fallen humanity: the heavenly Father initiated the plan of salvation to bring men and women back to himself, through Jesus; God came, in the person of Jesus Christ to carry out the plan, in his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension, and God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, applies this reality and plan into the lives of those who believe.
So in Luke’s gospel, he sought to make this salvation plan known – its content, its clarity, and its communication in Acts (also written by Luke). Thus Luke began by ensuring that the hearers know that this is not a fable but the coming of the Messiah (whom the OT believers were looking forward to) is an actual event in history, and the birth, life, ministry and subsequent crucifixion of the Messiah are also authentic happenings which many can testify to. So Luke took pains to ‘interview’ many who were alive then (including the disciples, Mary, Elizabeth, and others to authenticate his story}.
Three preliminary passages in Luke reveal that the biblical story in the OT was coming to the big moment – the coming of the Messiah. Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55, Zechariah’s Benedictus in 1:67-79, and John the Baptist’s preaching of messianic repentance in 3:1-18.
Each of these passages is all about Jesus in one way or another. Mary’s song sees the entire sweep of God’s covenant with his people Israel coming to completion in her baby boy, whom she will call Jesus and whom she hears is the Son of God and the KIng of Israel who will sit on David’s throne. Zechariah’s prophecy focuses on his prophet-son, but within his own words there is the prediction that the “horn of salvation” will rise in the “house of David,” who will rescue Israel “from the hand of our enemies” and give us an endless reign of holiness and righteousness – that person is Jesus.
John, too, nearly three decades later, continues with the identical theme: he is the ‘voice’ who speaks up for the one “who is more powerful than I,” and that person will “baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” There is no doubt that the main Person and Actor here is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God who took on flesh; he is fully God and fully man, whether as a baby, or a 12 year old boy or the One baptised by John, identifying himself with the people he came to save, or as the true Israel who overcomes the devil in the wilderness, the last Adam and the second man to head a new humanity and a new recreation.
Both John and Jesus, when he arrived on the scene, announced ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. John even warned the Pharisees and those who came to him – he called them ‘brood of vipers’ and asked who warned them of the coming judgement. In his call for repentance, John detailed that repentance not only involves a commitment that requires a complete change of mind, heart, and life, but that it should be followed by good works and a positive outcoming in one’s life and vocation. John also warned those who came not to depend on their pedigree or ‘ancestry’ from Abraham, for God can raise up children for Abraham out of the stones.
Here we see that the NPP’s claim that the Jews were saved because they belong to the covenant community and their keeping of the Law only ensured that they remain in the covenant community does not ‘hold water’; John the baptist urged them to repent and not to depend on their background and spiritual pedigree. In fact, in John’s gospel, Nicodemus, a teacher of the Law and Torah, who came to Jesus by night, was told that he must be ‘born again’. Nicodemus, in all likelihood, must had kept the law as best as he could, being a teacher of the law; yet, this did not qualify him to be in (i.e. saved in the covenant community) – in fact, he was told he was out unless he was born again, (meaning justified by faith, regenerated and united with Jesus by the Holy Spirit) – spiritually a ‘new creation’. The whole humanity in Adam needs to be ‘born again’ in order to be saved and to enter into God’s kingdom. It begins with repentance, and the receiving of forgiveness, followed by union with Christ by the work of the Spirit; and it leads to good works and transformation of life to become more like the Master. In the casa of Nicodemus and Jesus’ communication with him, it is clear that Jesus revealed that the kingdom of God was breaking into history in himself – he is the Messiah; he is the Saviour; salvation is in him – he is the gospel (the good news) – but he is also the one who would be the substitute for man to receive the wrath of God for man’s sin and the one who would die so that those who are his would live and receive abundant eternal life. Nicodemus could not be saved by keeping the law; no man can even live up to his own standards of morality, not to say anything about keeping God’s standards. Being ‘born again’ is completely God’s work through his Spirit – man cannot contribute anything at all. Faith is just the ’empty vessel or hand’ that receives the gift of God, by grace (no merits at all on the receiver’s part). If this is the truth, then Arminians’ rejection of Christ’s imputed righteousness and Christ’s substitutionary death cannot be right; their understanding that faith is essentially a commitment to do something rather than self-despairing trust in Christ is also wrong.
In the same vein, Baxter’s ‘adjustment’ of the doctrine of justification to meet the threat of “easy-believism” was not in order; Baxter was highly respected and regarded as the leader of the Puritans and what he did caused much harm to his followers among the Puritans.
John Wesley was also highly regarded among Christians, but his subscription to Arminianism and his rejection of the substitutionary nature of Christ’s death were also damaging to the then Christian world. Whitfield, a contemporary of John, one who subscribed to Reformed theology, tried very hard to convince John Wesley to adopt the biblical reformed theology as Whitfield understood, but to no avail for many years. Nonetheless, Whitfield respected John and loved him; he requested John to preach at his funeral. On the subject of justification by faith in Christ alone, we are dealing with a matter which affects our eternal destiny and greater will be the judgement on preachers and teachers who have presented an uncertain or false message.
What we need to see is that Jesus is the central figure in the Gospels, all four of them; Jesus sees himself at the center of God’s saving plan for fallen humanity (which includes Israel of the OT and NT as well as Gentiles and peoples from all nations). The Gospels tell a story of Jesus on center stage, from his birth, through his growing years, in his earthly ministry which ends at the cross, in his resurrection and ascension. As we study the Gospels, we must not miss this; we can learn from the life of Mary, John the Baptist, Simeon, and the rest but we must not lose sight of Jesus at the center of God’s story of salvation.
We noted that the NPP got it wrong because of wrong exegesis and orthodoxy. Even though the first task of exegesis is the historical one (i.e. to determine the biblical author’s intended meaning) the first task is not the ultimate one. The ultimate task is the Spiritual one, to hear the text in such a way that it leads the reader/hearer into the worship of God and into conformity to God and his ways.
12 May
TEACHING AND PREACHING – THE CONCEPT COMES FROM THE TEXT
In todays’ message on Luke 4, it is helpful that what was brought forth was the importance of preaching the text from the context; and also the caution that even pastors can also be guilty of preaching out of context.
As I shared before, years back, I was one of three elders (pastors) leading an inter-denominational congregation – I was a tent-maker, pastoring, and working as a medical general practitioner at the same time. I had my fair share of preaching, teaching, baptising, conducting funerals, counselling, and all that pertain to pastoring a congregation.
But when it comes to preaching, I have to confess that, as a tent-maker, I had limited time to prepare, and my preaching was often, below the mark, in my evaluation and current assessment. Over the years, after pastoring for some 30 years, and now at the age of 75, I think it helpful (as a ‘watchman’, shared previously) to share some of the critical lessons I have learnt on the subject of preaching and teaching from the Bible.
The first realisation: When a preacher fails to preach the Scriptures, he abandons his authority – he presents to his hearers no longer with a word from God but only with another word from men.
When I was a young Christian, I attended a church where the preacher spoke on any issue ‘under the sun’ (political system, philosophy, trend in psychology and “how to” series, except preaching the Scripture) – I recall how disappointed I felt and how little ‘spiritual food’ I received during those days.
God speaks through the Bible – it is the major tool of communication by which God addresses individuals and his church. Through the preaching and teaching of the Scripture, God encounters men and women to bring them to salvation (2 Tim. 3:15) and to mould them and nurture them to become like Christ (in character particularly 2 Tim. 3:16-17). Many Christian preachers acknowledge that the best type of preaching is expository preaching, which carries the impact of authority.
“Expository teaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through him to his hearers” (From ‘Biblical Preaching’ by Haddon W. Robinson) – this is a very helpful definition, although it is almost impossible to comprehensively define biblical preaching (and teaching also, if you will).
When we affirm the importance of preaching a text from its context, the first essential is to know and ascertain the thought of the biblical writer which actually determines the substance of the sermon. The preacher must honestly endeavour not to bend his thought to the Scriptures, or to use the Scripture to support his own thought. Not too often, preachers sought to present their own novel ideas on certain issues, and just slot in some ‘Scriptures’ to vainly support those ideas when in reality, the particular Scriptural passages do not, in any way, point to, or explain those ideas (which may even be unbiblical).
Does the preacher hold a high view of the Bible or believe it to be the infallible Word of God” – this is critical and mandatory for sound biblical preaching and teaching. A passing grade in systematic theology does not qualify an individual as an expositor of the Bible. Theology may protect us from wrongful nearsighted interpretations, but at the same time blindfold us from seeing the text. I remember talking to a young pastor and interacting with him on the book of Revelation, and to my surprise, he honestly confessed that he did not take the module on this book in his seminary studies, and he practically knows very little about this book.
“It is all too easy to read the traditional interpretations we have received from others into the text of Scripture. Then we may unwittingly transfer the authority of Scripture to our traditional interpretations and invest them with a false, even an idolatrous degree of certainty. Because traditions are reshaped as they are passed on, after a while we may drift far from God’s Word while still insisting all our theological opinions are “biblical” and therefore true” (D.A. Carson in his book “Exegetical Fallacies”). On the subject of applying what little knowledge on the language of “Greek” in the seminary, some seminary graduates who become preachers have been guilty of exegetical fallacy in the quotation of Greek words and interpreting them into ‘doctrines’ – this is well covered by Carson in his book. Undoubtedly, the Greek language is not an easy language to master – all would agree to it, but unfortunately, there are still those who use their limited knowledge of the language in an inaccurate manner to bring across a doctrinal teaching.
In the approach to a passage, an interpreter must be willing to reexamine his doctrinal convictions and to reject the judgements of his most respected teachers. He must be willing to make an about turn in his own previous understanding of the Bible should these conflict with the concepts of the biblical writer. The Bible is not a child’s storybook; it requires thoughtful interpretation and response. The richness and value of Scripture is discovered only through hard intellectual and spiritual work, guided and taught by the Author and Teacher, the Holy Spirit.
Many would agree that words are important to convey ideas; so in our approach to the Bible we are primarily concerned with what the biblical writer means through his use of words. We do not however understand the concepts of a passage merely because we analyse its separate words. A word-by-word grammatical analysis can be pointless and boring as reading a dictionary. Even a sentence-by-sentence analysis may not yield the ideas the biblical writer seeks to communicate.
If an expositor or preacher aims to communicate the message of a biblical passage or text, he must do so on the level of ideas.
Where a man will spend eternity depends on his reading or hearing the ideas, the propositional truth, the facts of the gospel; in a sense, the preaching of the gospel is ideas, ‘burning’ ideas brought to men, as God has revealed to us in Scripture. True doctrine is an idea revealed by God in the Bible.
Ultimately, the authority behind the preaching resides not in the preacher but in the biblical text. But effective expository preaching requires listeners with ears to hear. Since their souls depend upon it, a preacher must offer his hearers sufficient information to decide if what they are hearing is what the Bible actually says. At the same time, for a congregation to grow, the people in the pew must labour to understand the writers of the Bible. The people in the pew are not present to be ‘entertained’; they are there to worship, and to receive God’s communication and revelation, and to apply them to their lives (being doers of the Word and not hearers only).
All too often, some preachers quickly preach on the implied applications from the text rather than on the actual ideas and communication of the biblical writer and as a result, what God truly desires to communicate does not come through.
This is also a sad development; what is communicated ends up only with the peripheral ideas rather than the core ideas the Lord God seeks to utter.
Nonetheless, before a man proclaims the message of the Bible to others, he should live with that message himself – this is perhaps the most ‘fearful’ requirement – the messenger must live out the message he proclaims. Hence, there is also the need for the preacher to be conscious that he is representing God at the pulpit – he is speaking on behalf of God – there should be the sense of reverence, decorum that is in line with one who is commissioned to speak God’s Word. At the same time, the congregation should not treat the sermon as just an ‘interlude’, without any due regard that God’s Word is being communicated during the sacred ‘hour’.
For the preacher, true preaching comes when the loving heart and the disciplined mind are laid at the disposal of the Holy Spirit. His is a noble calling, a sacred calling; hence James wrote that not every one should aspire or presume to be a teacher (or preacher) for such ones would be judged more strictly. A preacher must learn to listen to God before he speaks for Him; he must spend much time in prayer and in studying God’s Word.
14 May
MORE ON PREACHING AND TEACHING
It is true that all good preaching is teaching (at least a major part of its composition) while not all teaching is preaching. It is possible to give a lecture on a biblical theme or text with accurate information communicated, but without any appeal (directly or indirectly) to act upon it, but just to receive and acknowledge the content delivered. But preaching must go beyond this level; a lecture is not adequate enough for either the pulpit or the market-place – biblical preaching teaches God’s truth with a view to life-change, with a summons to action (and the truth should be expounded from the text – implying good and accurate exposition, but it can also be gleaned as implied applications which come forth from the truth of the text itself, but the latter should only come forth after the former is clearly expounded as the intended message of the biblical writer). For instance, it is helpful to consider how to overcome temptations from the text of the temptations (testings) of Jesus (as implied applications), but expository preaching must prioritise what Dr. Luke intended to communicate in the testings of Jesus in the wilderness (bearing in mind that Jesus is fully God and fully man, and his mission was to effect God’s salvation plan as the last Adam and the second man, to inaugurate a new humanity in a new era; and to do this, Jesus not only must die at the cross for fallen mankind, but he must also be sinless and remain sinless as the perfect man in order that those who believe may not only be saved by his death, but also saved by his life ( his sinless righteous life on earth, which can then be imputed to believers, ensuring the justification by faith in him alone, to God’s glory alone) – with apologies to elder Kang who had delivered a wonderful message on this passage.
The testings of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness affirmed his sinless life, not giving in to sin and the devil, even under intensed temptations, whereas Israel failed in her forty years in the wilderness (cf Jesus’ fasting for forty days) – hence Jesus proved to be the “true Israel” of God, who kept God’s laws immaculately, and he was the only one human who did it – none others can be saved by keeping the law of God, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. He is therefore the only Saviour and the only way back to God, for only a human can die for the sins of other humans (and humanity), and only a perfect sinless human can impute or credit his righteousness to other sinful humans; also only a fully God and fully man has the power, the eternal life, to overcome sin and to be resurrected and to ascend to the Father (exalted above all to the highest place).
In other words, Jesus’ testing in the wilderness (initiated and led by the Holy Spirit) is highlighted by Dr. Luke to demonstrate his sinless obedient life to God, and his victory over the devil’s deception, lies and evil intentions – he overcomes not just in this wilderness, but he continues to overcome until he said, “It is finished” at the cross, whereas the first Adam (and Eve) failed, and led the whole humanity to condemnation and to the Fall. None of the ‘descendants’ of Adam can revert the serious consequences of the fall – as in the book of Revelation, only the “Lamb of God” qualifies to take and open the seals. John the apostle wept profusely before that, for he knew that the eternal destiny of mankind in hell cannot be changed if there is no one able to rescue ‘fallen mankind’. Only the last Adam, the second Man, the One who is fully God and fully man, can do it and indeed, he has done it!!
Biblical preaching begins by engaging the mind with the truth God has revealed, but then proceeds to apply this to the heart, the seat of the affections and the focus of our decision-making, in order to activate the will.
Bad preaching that is common is bad not because of incompetence of technique or style, but because of its paucity of biblical content (and therefore of true spiritual authority) and its absence of heartfelt passion for change. If all I got for going to church was a ten-minute reverie on what has been happening in the news this past week and what we think of it in its parading of intellectual doubts about the basic doctrines or the moral absolutes of the faith; and the display of using the pulpit or teaching to exonerate the self and the supposedly wrong perceptions of others, and also using it to ‘blast’ others who apparently have wronged us, and to ensure one’s position and ‘kingdom’ is secured for many years to come, of course I would not bother to come back next week.
This is what has emptied churches for the last hundred years or more and is still doing so. But what produces joyful, confident, yet humble and gracious, godly people is the hearing and receiving of the living and enduring word of God! Biblical preaching (and teaching) always changes lives.
So what is shared here is not directed at any individual, any pastor or biblical teacher, but is shared sincerely to go against the “tide of deterioration” that is happening in our churches, not only locally, but elsewhere too. It is sad to hear that churches in many countries have been abandoned and changed to discos or community centres. I recall attending a church overseas, where the organist was a 100 year old gentleman, and the congregation was just a handful. After the service, my family and I were thanked for our attendance and particularly for our singing of God’s hymns, for the impression was that such singing has not been heard for many years in their small congregation of older folks (not that I am not old myself).
May the Lord God revive His church, beginning with us, and beginning with the ‘revival’ of preaching and teaching which are living and enduring. In a church which is regularly taught the Bible, a great deal of preventive pastoral care is accomplished through the preaching
It can be a lonely and discouraging business to study and pray to be good preachers and teachers of God’s Word; it is easy to decide that other higher-profile activities are more significant than time spent in study and in prayers, preparing to feed the flock with a good, nourishing biblical diet. Yet the absence of that diet is perhaps the greatest single cause of the church’s present anemia and illness.
20 May
THE SPIRIT AND THE MINISTRY OF JESUS
Everything that has been accomplished for us in Christ is to be applied to us and in us by the Holy Spirit. The correlations between the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit, and subsequently between the work of the Spirit and the faith of the believers, are of the most comprehensive and intimate kind.
Christ was first the recipient of the Spirit in the fulfilment of the Messianic ministry, in order that he might, as exalted Lord, become bestower of the same Spirit upon his people. The Spirit who dwells on Christ, sanctifying him, is given by Christ to us, with the authority of the Father, to reproduce in us what he first produced in Christ himself (Note the roles of the three Persons of the Godhead).
Christ’s body is the true temple of God; he is consecrated as the meeting place between God and man, with the power and sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Christ is bearer of the Spirit not for his own sake but for ours. He bore the Spirit in order to bestow the Spirit; he receives the Spirit in order to accomplish his work so that the Spirit may communicate him in the virtue of his accomplished work to all who believe. The Spirit chose Christ as his seat so ‘that from him might abundantly flow the heavenly riches of which we are in such need’; Christ becomes ours through the gift of the Holy Spirit in us.
The gifts of the Spirit dwell first in him, and then through him come to his people. Better, the gifts dwell in him, and in union with him we together and severally come to share in them.
Christ receives the Spirit from the Father in order to fulfil the role as mediator. He then sends the Spirit; as mediator he sends him from the Father, as Son he sends him himself. The Spirit then works to transform us into the image of Christ and to restore us to the kingdom.
In our study of Luke, the above, in essence, describes for us that salvation and all its benefits not only come to us through Christ but are to be found exclusively in Christ. Union with Christ brings the believer into fellowship with Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended, reigning, and returning (all these to be seen in the later parts of Luke Gospel and in Acts). If Christ is our Redeemer, then Christ was incarnated in order to deal precisely, perfectly, and fully with both the cause of our guilt and the consequences of our sin. Union with Christ was the means by which the Spirit applies this to us.
The key to salvation and assurance lies in the extent in which the Son of God has come near to us in his incarnation, actually entering into our situation, tasting our experience from the inside, and exchanging his strength and confidence for our fears and frailties.
The Spirit then, as the bond of union between the Father and the Son is also the bond of union between the Son and his people. It is through his ministry that all that is in Christ for us becomes ours; indeed, Christ himself ‘clothed in the gospel’ becomes ours. The Spirit is the executor of the Godhead in bringing us into union and communion with Christ through illumination, regeneration, adoption, and communion, All this is ours through the Spirit alone.
As we consider the Spirit and the ministry of Jesus, we must not miss the Father in all this. The TRINITY is central in all this; we not only must understand this intellectually – we need to assimilate this in experience. There is a difference between the knowledge of the truth and the knowledge of the power of the truth – it is the presence of the Spirit of God that transforms our bare knowledge of the truth into our experience of the power of the truth.
Christians in general may have a vague or bare idea of the Trinity and the Triune God. For instance, we may address Jesus in our prayers and end the prayer with “in Jesus’ name we pray”, not realising that “in Jesus’ name’ we are in effect affirming that our prayers to the heavenly Father is through Jesus and his mediation and completed work. The entrance into the ‘Holy of Holies’ was made accessible with the veil torn because of the completion of Jesus’ mission and sacrifice on the cross. We can pray to Jesus; yet we ought to realise that prayers are often made to the Heavenly Father (for we are His children) in Jesus’ name. When we pray to the Father, we ought not to thank Him for dying for us on the cross – it is the Son who died, not the Father. Enough is written to illustrate how little is our knowledge of the power of the truth of the TRINITY.
We may not realise that when we ignore the Persons of the Godhead and attribute certain actions to them which do not apply to them individually, we are in fact, in some sense, ‘dishonouring’ the particular Person of the Godhead, without being aware of it. What is more, the true knowledge and experience of the power of the truth of the Triune God would enrich us immensely in our relationship and walk with God.
22 May
THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL FULLY
The Gospel comes from God; its subject is Jesus; it is as promised in the Old Testament; it is for all people; and it calls everyone to believe and obey.
The heart of the Gospel is that it reveals a righteousness that comes from God. This has been elaborated fully in the sharing on “Justification is by faith in Christ alone”, where the subject of the “Great Exchange” was discussed.
One of the greatest errors is to place ourselves at the heart of the gospel we preach. “Righteousness’ is the attribute of acting consistently in a good and right way. As such, it finds its complete expression in the character of God Himself. God always acts rightly, in accordance with His nature and promises, and His perfection in this regard is the standard against which every person is measured. That means that God must punish sin and therefore must take action against the unrighteousness evident in us. Yet it also means that His promises to save a people must also stand. The wonderful good news of the gospel is about how God can make us righteous, without compromising His own righteousness. People can only be justified (made righteous) by faith and God has made this possible through Christ.
The good news, about how God can make people righteous is set against the backdrop of our utter condemnation and our total powerlessness to do anything to save ourselves.
Romans 1:1: The gospel comes from God i.e. the source of the good news is not humanity, not even the apostle Paul, but God Himself. And the gospel is about God. Hence the gospel is not ours to alter in any way – we must merely be faithful to His message and to pass it on as it is given to us.
Vs 2 – it was promised beforehand in the Holy Scriptures. It is God’s eternal plan, revealed to His people hundreds of years previously, in the Old Testament. Throughout history God has been working to fulfil His plan. Jesus is not God’s ‘second plan’, or that the Old Testament is about a God of anger and the New Testament about a God of love. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we see how the promise of a Messiah finally came, following the birth and ministry of John the Baptist, and after Malachi, there was about 400 years of ‘silence’.
Vs 3 – the gospel is about Jesus. The reason why the gospel is ‘regarding His Son’ (rather than us and our needs) comes over in verses 3-4 of Romans chapter 1, where Paul reveals the fullness of Jesus’ identity: he describes Jesus from two points of view – in earthly terms, he was a descendant of David, but in the spiritual realm, he has been declared to be the powerful Son of God by means of His resurrection from the dead. (Only a king who conquers death can reign forever as in 2 Sam. 7:13).
Thus he is Jesus (the man) Christ (the promised Messiah) our Lord (the supreme ruler of the universe).
Vs. 5 – the gospel demands the obedience of faith – the appropriate response to such a figure as Jesus is absolute submission. The goal of gospel proclamation is not our benefit, but that Jesus’ name might be honoured; and the gospel is for everyone.
We are not at liberty to present the gospel and the response as a satisfying and fulfilling way to live and invite them to try it out for themselves – we are not in the business of presenting lifestyle options. We need to wake people up to the fact that their Creator is rightly angry with them for the way they treat Him and that they are powerless to save themselves. God’s judgement does not mean that He is unloving; love and justice are hallmarks of His perfectly righteous character.
It is commonly held that we need to be saved from our sins, but the sobering truth is that we need to be saved from God Himself, for His anger is personal and active. Just as He reveals HIs righteousness, so He reveals His wrath, and the purpose of both is to lead people to repentance and faith.
If, wrongly, we identify ‘sins’ as the problem with the world, then we will look for moral reform, teaching religion in order to help people live ‘better lives’. If, on the other hand, we see our problem correctly, that God must punish our rebellion and that he has already handed us over to judgement, then we will realise that we are absolutely powerless to alter our plight – our society completely fails to understand the helplessness of our situation. Most people acknowledge that something is wrong but they suggest we should try to make ourselves better – but all these solutions are a waste of time, because they address the symptoms rather than the disease.
Since the problem is that we are facing God’s wrath as a result of our unrighteousness, the solution cannot come from us. We need God to step in, which is what He does. It is God Himself who makes people righteous i.e. in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed.
God’s solution must be apart from the Law because no-one’s good works can be sufficient to secure a righteous verdict on judgement day. In fact, the Law only makes us conscious of our rebellion. Hence the need for Jesus to come and the need for the gospel – God’s righteousness is appropriated in a different way, ‘by faith’. God’s righteousness is bound up with the salvation He will bring – God’s righteousness is given to all who believe (the gospel through His Son). To justify does not mean ‘to let off the hook’, or ‘to treat as righteous’; rather it means to declare righteous – it is a legal term, meaning that someone is justly acquitted because the penalty for his crime has been paid – this verdict comes as a generous gift from God; it has to be given since it cannot be earned.
It is essential to see the cross as addressing the issue of God’s justice. God did not let us off the hook, nor did He overcome His anger by means of His love; each would have been fundamentally unjust. Rather, through Jesus’ death, the price has been paid. We must be wary of our tendency to put ourselves at the centre of God’s plans. Although we are great beneficiaries of His grace, He did not send His Son to die, primarily on our account. Rather, it was for the sake of His name and His character, so that it should be proved that He is faithful and just and able to fulfil His promises.
Faith is about putting one’s confidence in the fact that God is faithful to His promises of salvation and is able to keep them. Faith is not ‘a work’, because it does not earn justification; in fact, it is the opposite of works – faith is trusting solely in what God has done. Indeed, by grace we have been saved through faith – and this is not from ourselves. It is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. (Eph.2:8-9)
It is only by understanding the gospel fully would we bow down on our knees,in gratefulness, adoration, and worship, and give our lives to live for Him who died for us and rose again. It is only by fully understanding the gospel that we can truly appreciate in depth the grace, mercy, and love of the Triune God; and also feel burdened for those who have not responded to this wonderful good news!
24 May
GOD’S AUTHORITY AND HIS KINGDOM’S NORMS IN JESUS
As we study the Gospels, we would encounter the teachings and demands of Jesus as He set to correct and to put right the meaning, fulfillment, and continuity of ‘the Law and Prophets’.
This is particularly seen in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (in Matthew 5 and in Luke 6).
In His teachings, Jesus is setting out a breathtaking description of morality which makes God Himself the standard of it all:
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48);
We are to be holy, for the Lord our God is holy (Lev.19:2); loving, because God is love (1 John 4:7).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ authority is one of the most dominant features. The Law and the Prophets point toward him, but he himself determines their meaning, fulfillment, and continuity, with an authority nothing less than divine. It is important to recognise that the Old Testament Scriptures have no intrinsic status apart from God – whatever authority they possess is derived. But because the derivation is from God, it takes nothing less than divine authority to interpret it and define it in this way, implicitly, therefore, Jesus is claiming authority for himself. Jesus authoritatively makes plain the demands of the kingdom and how they stand in relation to the Old Testament Scriptures.
Hence, Jesus repeatedly said, ‘You have heard that it was said…..but I say unto you..” Jesus was authoritatively giving the meaning, fulfillment and continuity of the teachings from the Old Testament (that was misinterpreted in most instances by the Scribes and Pharisees). If we miss this, we will come to the wrong conclusions regarding the norms and demands of the kingdom of God. Jesus was not just quoting Scriptures, but he was actually giving the true meaning of what was written in the Law and Prophets; He himself was the fulfillment of it.
Take the Ten Commandments first stated in the OT: They form the central part of the unique covenant of grace which God entered with his own people as he redeemed them from Egypt.They were not meant to be regarded as setting out the demand of a universal and absolute law for all nations, but as a revelation of the new and liberating kind of life which they were now to enjoy and witness to as his own people. Each command describes an aspect of the freedom now to be enjoyed in the fullness of life which was now opened before God’s redeemed people. What was negative about them was indeed a promise that they would continually be given help to overcome all the destructive impulses and forces in their own hearts and would thus no longer need to behave as other nations tended to behave. Moreover, the whole wide range of conduct covered by them was a sign that the gracious love and care of God covered every important aspect of life they had to live together.
The Ten Commandments hence were given to a redeemed people; they were not meant to be kept to secure redemption. They can be seen as Ethical Freedom – guidelines for life for a people of God, now redeemed, and now given enablement and help by God continually to overcome all the negative impulses that are forbidden in the commandments. And this would distinguish them from all other nations and people – they are God’s people, given guidelines for life from God who would enable them to keep the guidelines continually if they were to depend on Him and follow Him, as well as cling to Him.
What Christ came to reveal and establish through his life-work and example could be properly understood as the restoration of the humanity we had lost.
The Old Testament is a preparation for the birth, life, teaching, death and final triumph of Jesus, and the gospels and epistles unfold their meaning.
We must open our minds as fully as we can to Christ’s teaching. We cannot do this adequately without the priority he himself obviously gave to the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus, when he spoke the Sermon, was not merely painting an ideal picture, and he had no negative purpose in mind. He had no other motive than to demand that all his hearers listen seriously to every part of it and respond with all their heart and mind and strength.
The Sermon describes a new way of life now made possible for everyone around Jesus because the evil forces that have dominated so much of this world’s life can now be cast down from their place of power by his word! (Luke 11: 20-22),
The Sermon details this new way of life now opened up for everyone who will now hear and allow the demands and promises which Jesus utters to come to full effect in mind, heart and behaviour. People can now become wholly transformed in instinct and character!
The Sermon therefore describes the life of a kingdom that has already broken into the world with transforming power. Its demands are the ethics of those who are willing to allow themselves to become caught up more and more fully within the movement of salvation history until Christ comes again.
Jesus is here to show the way to all who are ready to follow him; the strength to follow him is also here. The living Christ has two hands, one to point the way, and the other to stretch out to help us onward.
Jesus is fully aware of the human heart’s propensity for self-deception, and issues a strong warning: “Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:1). All ‘acts of righteousness’ must be preserved from the ostentation of showmanship and from the degradation of the chase for human approval. It is for this reason that Jesus outlines three fundamental acts of piety -giving, prayer, and fasting, and how these should not be undertaken to ‘gather’ human approval; it is clear that God dislikes and forbids hypocrisy.
As we ponder on the authority of Jesus in his teachings on God’s kingdom and perspectives, we notice the following:
– The authority of Jesus to heal and to transform is implicit in his person and mission – we see this clearly in the Gospels’ accounts.
– The authority of Jesus, formally submissive to the law of Moses, in fact transcends it and fulfills it (Matt. 8:4).
– The authority of Jesus is so sweeping that when Jesus speaks, God speaks (Matt. 8:5-9)
– The authority of Jesus is a great comfort to those of faith, and a great terror to the merely religious and hypocritical.
– The authority of Jesus is a function of his work on the cross (8:14-17).
In fact, the authority of Jesus must never be seen in independence of his atoning sacrifice; it is always a function of his work on the cross.
The Sermon on the Mount offers two ways, and only two.
The one ends in life (7:14), good fruit (7;17), entrance into the kingdom of heaven (7:21), stability (Matt. 725);
The other ends in destruction (713), bad fruit and fire (7:19), exclusion from the kingdom along with other evildoers (7:23), ruination (7:27).
A man will ignore the weight of these blessings and curses only at his own eternal peril!
25 May
CLEARING SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
What does it mean to say that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament (the Law and the Prophets)?
Some understand it in the sense that Jesus fulfils the Law by keeping it perfectly, and now he fulfills it in the lives of his followers by means of his Spirit (Rom. 8:4). These points are no doubt true, but they do not appear to be taught in Matt. 5:18, where the language seems tighter than that.
To understand how he fulfills the Old Testament, we must understand how it prophesies. Some of it is prophecy in the simple predictive sense – how the OT focused on the Messiah and his coming (eg. place of birth Mic. 5:2; Matt. 2:5). But some OT prophecies cited by Matthew are not nearly so clear. For example, Hosea 11:1, “I called my son out of Egypt,” is used to point toward Jesus’ return from Egypt to Palestine after the death of Herod the Great (Matt. 2:15); but originally it referred to the exodus of the Israelites under Moses. It appears, in this case, that it is the history of the Jews which points forward to Christ, but not in any easy predictive sense. There are many hints in Matthew’s Gospel that this form of ‘prophecy’ is not uncommon.
Another example: In Deuteronomy 8 Moses reminds the people that they wandered for 40 years in the desert, where God permitted them to suffer hunger in order that they might learn that man does not live by bread alone, so also Jesus endured hunger for 40 days in the desert, and when tempted to doubt God’s provision replied that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:1-4). This quotation is from the Pentateuch (Deut. 8:2), what the Jews called the Law in the narrow sense, and some prophetic function is here presupposed for it.
The NT interprets the OT as pointing forward toChrist and the blessings he brings. For eg., the sacrificial system pointed toward Jesus’ sacrifice (Heb. 9:8; 10:1). Indeed, everything had to be fulfilled that was written about Christ in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:445), and the resurrected Christ could explain this to his disciples regarding himself (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).
We must rid ourselves of conceptions of fulfillment which are too narrow. Jesus fulfills the entire Old Testament – the Law and the Prophets – in many ways. However, he did not come to abolish them, but rather to fulfil them in a rich diversity of ways – not a single item of the Law or the Prophets shall fail, says Jesus: no ever, until heaven and earth disappear, i.e. till the end of time, until everything is accomplished.
The righteousness demanded by Jesus surpasses anything imagined by the Pharisees, the strict Orthodox religious group of Jesus’ day. Christ’s way is more challenging and more demanding – as well as more rewarding – than any legal system can ever be. Moreover, his way was prophetically indicated before it actually arrived, as apostle Paul says, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from the Law has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify (Rom. 3:21; recall “Justification by faith in Christ alone” and “Imputation of Christ’s righteousness”). By another route, we also have returned to the Beatitudes – just as the beatitudes make poverty of spirit a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom, so Matt. 5:17-20 ends up demanding a kind of righteousness which must have left Jesus’ hearers gasping in dismay and conscious of their own spiritual bankruptcy.
The Sermon on the Mount hence lays the foundations of the New Testament doctrines of justification by grace through faith, and sanctification by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
Another issue to clear: Although it was mentioned previously that the Ten Commandments were given to Israel which was a redeemed people, following the exodus from Egypt, it does not mean that all of Israel was saved.
Here we look at Paul’s explanation in Romans:
“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith….since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.” (Rom. 3:21-26,30). In Galatians, Paul also explained that the true Israel and the children of Abraham are those who share the same faith as Abraham’s. It is not simply those who descended from Abraham physically.