February 24, 2006

Could it be possible that someone could sin as soon as he has been born? Psalm 58:3 suggests that we descendants of the fallen Adam “go astray as soon as [we] be born.” The Bible tells of one prominent individual who his relatives understood actually sinned while he was in the act of being born; in fact there is also a suggestion that he sinned while still in the womb! Of Rebekeh’s being pregnant with Esau and Jacob, we read: “The children struggled within her.... And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold there were twins in her womb..... They called [the first’s] name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob” (which we are told means “supplanter,” someone trying to grasp what God has not given him; Gen. 25:22-26, KJV).

We may say that this character-name was given the poor child on flimsy evidence, but he had to carry it almost all his life. The name was understood to be prophetic. He lived it out, even grabbed the birthright from Esau by what we would consider unfair means—taking advantage of the man’s indulged appetite. The problem: Jacob wanted to grab something before God gave it to him.

The story of how Jacob finally “overcame” in his trial of faith in his “night of wrestling” illuminates our future. Jeremiah 30:5-7 (NIV) describes how the people of God—all who overcome—will experience most severe testing of their faith. The great event all over the world near the close of human probation will be “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” “Every strong man.... like a woman in labor, every face turned deathly pale.... How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it” as Jacob himself was saved out of his “night of wrestling.” Severe trial but still “good news.”

The “wrestling” in prayer must begin now, for it is a life experience, not a 24-hour triumph some time far in the future.

February 23, 2006

It was a memorable Presidents’ Day weekend as we sought to remember our two most prominent February-born presidents. One devoted his life to establishing the Union of the states that formed the American republic; the other devoted his life to preserving its Union.

Both cherished a sober reverence for the Deity and sensed His leading in the crises of American history. Both in their most enlightened moments understood the Deity to be the Father of humanity’s Lord Jesus Christ who is the Savior of the world, and they sensed that the Godhead comprised the heavenly Father, the Son, and what was then termed the Holy Ghost, one God, one Lord. Both presidents were Protestant in their religious conviction; but both firmly believed that Providence was leading the new nation into complete religious liberty, a separation of church and state. Evidence indicates that both presidents wanted the “church” to be faithful to its duty to proclaim reverence for the holy law of God, to proclaim what they dimly conceived to be a righteousness by faith, the best they could understand at that time. Both of our revered February presidents were Protestant by deep conviction, both wanted Europe’s devotion to the papacy to remain foreign to these shores; both sensed therein a threat to the security and prosperity of this nation.

The news from the media on Presidents’ Day weekend was disturbing: deep, bitter, and bloody conflict between Islam and the West; a victory of Hamas in Palestine that threatens to undo the “progress” that we have gained in Iraq; deep and bitter divisions in our own political homeland; ominous evidences of moral corruption “in high places.”

And yet among those who cherish the special message of Daniel and Revelation there are also divisions and perplexities: as we await Heaven’s outpouring of the “latter rain” (the same Holy Spirit of which Pentecost was the “former rain”), how can we distinguish between a premature counterfeit “outpouring” and the genuine to follow? It’s time to be sober, to think clearly, to walk softly.

February 20, 2006

Daniel’s prophecies are plain. Jesus urges us to “read” them and “understand” them (Matt. 24:15). As clear as sunlight is the one about the “cleansing of the sanctuary” (8:13, 14): “unto 2300 days: then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Obviously that’s “the true sanctuary [tabernacle, tent] which the Lord pitched, and not man” at His office in heaven (Heb. 8:2). And it’s equally obvious that the “cleansing” of the heavenly sanctuary cannot be done until first the hearts of God’s people on earth are cleansed. Therefore it follows as surely as day follows night that the great High Priest is working through the Holy Spirit to minister much more abounding grace to enable them to “overcome even as [Christ] overcame” (Rev. 3:20). Again it’s obvious—that’s to overcome sin in the fallen, sinful flesh or nature which they have inherited from the fallen Adam, “even as” the Savior “condemned sin” in that same “likeness of sinful flesh” in which the Father “sent” Him to save the world (Rom. 8:3). And of course verse 4 follows verse 3, so there the Holy Spirit announces to the world the glorious results of the Plan of Redemption finally demonstrated beyond dispute: “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.”

The word for “righteousness” there is special—DIKAIOMATA, which means Christ’s righteousness finally lived out in the “flesh” of those who believe in Jesus. In other words, in plain and simple language, it’s righteousness “imparted,” not merely “imputed” in a legal sense. Babylon’s “gospel” of justification by faith goes as far as “imputing” legally Christ’s righteousness (DIKAIOSUNE) to those who believe; but their actually living it out in the flesh isn’t possible (says Babylon) until they are glorified at the coming of Jesus and their sinful nature is finally zapped by replacing it with a sinless nature. In other words, Babylon’s gospel is clear: you can’t overcome SIN as long as you are still in your fallen, sinful flesh. Only Christ “condemned sin” in that sinful flesh; you can’t.

But the biblical gospel of justification by faith proclaims better good news: “the Savior of the world” saves His people FROM sinning while still in this world with the fallen nature of Adam. They too “condemn sin” in that flesh. How? By receiving, opening the heart to, “the faith OF Jesus” (Gal. 2:16; 3:22).

And the last link in the good news story: that same DIKAIOMATA (imparted, not merely-legally-imputed righteousness) is seen in the wedding garment worn by the bride of Christ at the long-delayed “marriage of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7, 8). That’s happening now, not tomorrow.

February 19, 2006

Most of the Song of Solomon (S. S.) is joyous, upbeat love. How could two people be more deliriously happy with each other?

But there is one of the “songs” that is sung in the minor key. It has been said that the path of true love is never smooth. The love of these two is strained to near the breaking point in the drama of chapter five. (As we study we must remember that the “two” are Christ and His bride-to-be; their path to the “marriage of the Lamb” has been rocky!)

It’s not the Bridegroom who has been fickle; sorry, it’s the “girl.” He has “chosen” her, “elected” her; His love has been steady. Their courtship has led them to the point of commitment, what we would call “the engagement.” He is “ready” for “the marriage,” long delayed. In chapter five He has come to her in a time of world history when He especially needs her to stand by His side as a “help meet.” There is a denouement to the crisis of the ages when the Lamb of God who rides His white horse into the final battle of time needs His bride, His one true church, to cooperate with Him as only nuptial love can do. But is her love nuptial? Sadly, no; the story tells how she callously enjoys her selfish comfort, leaving Him knocking, knocking, vainly on her door.

The story is told in S. S. 5:2-7. Finally she realizes she has repulsed Him and belatedly gets up to let Him in, only to discover that His divine patience after years of delay, has been strained too far; and He is “gone.” The story of her search for Him in the dark streets of the city is pathetic. Decades of prayer and fasting for a renewal of “the latter rain” and “the loud cry” power have not as yet healed the wound in the relationship.

But.... He still loves “her.” Why not choose a new “bride”? Revelation 19 says the same one will repent and “make herself ready,” because His love is not fickle. That, incidentally, is our only hope.

February 18, 2006

It’s something that Jesus didn’t just “say” quietly to the Twelve. He “stood and cried in a loud voice” that everyone attending that “last and greatest day of the Feast” could hear, a message that was bursting forth from His soul. And it was a quotation from the Song of Solomon (S. S.) that said what He wanted to say, which He dignified by calling “THE Scripture.”

If you’re thirsty, He said, “come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37, 38; S. S. 4:15; NIV, KJV). This is not a mere profession of “accepting Christ” like you enroll in an insurance policy; this is a thirsty soul famishing of inward dryness eagerly drinking every drop of spiritual moisture in a clearer grasp of gospel truth than he has ever before understood. The dry “gospel” has become life itself. Thus “believing” is defined: it’s not head knowledge, but the yearning in Jesus’ soul now transplanted into your soul. You now actually love the Bible with the enthusiasm of your former worldly addictions—sports, dress, money, pleasure, appetite. You, poor little uneducated, untrained soul that you are, you have become a bubbling spring of fresh water of life. Everyone who rubs up against you in life is refreshed somehow by something you have said about “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5, 14). Your heart has become a treasure store of gospel truth. You have become one of those “144,000” whose passion is to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Rev. 14:5).

This becomes a clearer definition of what it means to “believe.” It’s self-humbling; you want to pray that although “I believe,” yet “help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). You’re hesitant now to boast of your so-called “faith.” Like Moses, you’re not even aware that your face is shining (cf. Ex. 34:29).

This is “evangelism” in God’s design. It’s ordinary people not necessarily “trained in literary institutions” who bubble over humbly with pure gospel truth that has satisfied their own soul thirst.

February 17, 2006

This week around the world millions of Christians are studying a strange, unlikely book in the Bible: the Song of Solomon (S. S.). They are discovering, for one thing, that it’s quoted extensively in the New Testament, especially by Jesus! This removes the lingering doubts that maybe its sexual content slipped into the Bible by mistake. Yes, the book is to be read reverently!

Its alluring glimpses of a Paradise of sexual love are not bad to imagine because the message gets across unmistakably that it’s Jesus Himself who is the Lover yearning to become fully one with His Bride in a “consummation.”

Paul cites S. S. when he speaks of Christ’s goal for the church that it be “without spot” (Eph. 5:27; S. S. 4:7; we have a ways to go!).

Jesus quotes the Greek version (the Septuagint) in His message to the leadership of the last of the seven churches when He tells of knocking, knocking, “at the door” (Rev. 3:20). But the source in S. S. turns out to be a sad vignette. It describes the young woman who is loved so dearly as selfishly snuggling warm in bed on a cold rainy night while her poor Lover is barred at her door, forced to keep knocking while He remains outside, lonely, cold, hungry, wet, and obviously the One whose disappointment is beyond description (S. S. 5:2-6).

But Christ’s most delightful quote is in John 7:37, 38 where He frankly identifies S. S. as “THE Scripture” and clarifies forever what true “evangelism” means according to His view. “Evangelism” is the accepted name for doing what Jesus commanded when He said “Go ye to all the world and proclaim the gospel.” It’s interesting to see what S. S. says about that ( 4:15). But our time limit is expired; this must be tomorrow if the Lord gives us another day.

February 16, 2006

Cal Thomas writes a syndicated column in which yesterday he seriously appealed to the leadership of the Christian community. “What is it with evangelical Christians that so many of them need a cause beyond the commission they’ve been given?.... Evangelicals should pursue.... higher virtues instead of settling for the lower life of politics..... Let them return to the eternal message that has been given them to share with a world that needs it now more than ever. That is a message which ‘cleans up’ the inside of the hearts of men and women......”

Thanks to this messenger from the Tribune Media Services! He may not realize that he echoes the message of the man who the Lord says He will send “before [His] great and dreadful day,” “the prophet Elijah” (Mal. 4:5, 6). The prophet was famous for lopping off the heads of 450 “prophets of Baal” at the “brook Kishon” (1 Kings 18:40), so that we’re all rather afraid of his return. We read that John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy for the people of Christ’s day (Matt. 11:12-15); but that was not the “great and dreadful day of the Lord,” which will be only at the second coming of Christ. That means that “Elijah” as a message is due any day now at some new “Mt. Carmel.” And just as the scribes and Pharisees failed to recognize “him” in John the Baptist long ago, so today “we” stand in mortal danger of getting mixed up with the “450” who are immersed in Baal worship and don’t realize where they are in God’s sight.

In the last analysis, “Baal worship” was and is the worship of self disguised as the worship of Christ, so it can be and often is an unconscious lapse.

But “Elijah” is not yearning to chop heads off. Read the prophecy in Malachi: he comes to “turn.... hearts” in a blessed Day of Atonement reconciliation, a healing of alienation of heart from God, and also from one another. This is the message this newspaper columnist recognizes must be proclaimed to the world. “Elijah” will do it, for God has promised. Let’s not resist him as Jezebel and Ahab did!

February 15, 2006

St. Valentines Day—a pagan festival imported into Christianity. But therein lies an important insight into living real life.

The original pagan god involved was Eros (Greek) and Cupid (Latin). To this day Cupid is often pictured as a cherub shooting arrows from his bow, the idea being that if he strikes a couple, they are programmed to fall in love. Very nice.

The “love” with which they fall in love is, of course, eros, which is love based on the goodness or the beauty of its object. It is said that all the world loves a couple who are in love. But the eros-love that Cupid shoots in his arrow is not a lasting love unless the other love, agape, takes its place. Only agape love “never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8).

Cupid may do very well shooting his arrows to lead couples to fall in love, but the problem is that he can also shoot arrows to cause them to fall out of love again. Broken hearts and bitter lives can follow.

Through Satan’s deceptive wiles, youth imagine that the love that is agape is a spoil-fun kind, and they instinctively shy away. “Falling in love is MY business!” they say. But let’s not forget that if the Son of God, the Savior, gave Himself for us, He bought us and redeemed us from the kind of death that is eternal; His utterly self-sacrificing love deserves His having what He paid for—your affections. When youth recognize that eternal truth that shines in the cross of Christ, they will outwit Cupid. Their love will be purified from that bitter enemy of love—selfishness. Their love will be incomparably delightful. The love they will know together will be a fabric woven stronger than any loom on earth can weave. Their love will be that described in the Song of Solomon: “Love is powerful as death.... No flood can drown it” (8:6, 7, GNB).

February 14, 2006

Our book for group Bible study asked a pointed question: “If you knew someone severely tempted to engage in illicit sex, what would you say to help that person?” Peter says we should “be ready always to give,.... a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15); so I volunteered. I would read three texts that are not only good advice but powerful HEART-CHANGING good news:

(1) “God [sent] His own Son in the LIKEness of sinful flesh, on accoout of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law [KJV] might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3, 4). That word “rightousness” is not the word that means Christ’s righteousness imputed legally, but it’s the imparted gift that has become your character. In other words, you connect with a Christ who is real—He took YOUR fallen, sinful flesh but conquered that same temptation in the very flesh that you have, where you are now.

 

(2) Christ “was in all points tempted LIKE as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15, KJV). The word LIKE means tempted to break all ten of the commandments, “yet without sin.” If there is one that He never knew the temptation to break, we have no Savior NOW from that sin; such an idea leaves Him imprisoned in the stained glass windows of the cathedral.

 

(3) If you LET the Holy Spirit hold you, and don’t wriggle your hand away from Him, He will not let you fall into either fornication or adultery, no matter how alluring the temptation: Galatians 5:16, 17.

Read closely: “the things that you wish” (“the things that ye would,” KJV) are the bad things your sinful nature prompts you to do. Most people read that backwards, thinking you can’t do the good things you want to do even if the Holy Spirit is leading you—isn’t that horrible bad news? Read what it says: let the Holy Spirit hold you by the hand and you CAN’T give in to the “flesh” because the Holy Spirit is striving against it. Who is stronger? Your flesh or the Holy Spirit?

The Gospel is better good news than we have thought.

February 13, 2006

The new editors of the National Geographic Magazine are daring to step out from the traditional editorial matrix of our prestigious journal. They have published an issue devoted to healthful living—somewhat out of their “geographic” interests—in which they featured the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Loma Linda University. It has been founded to promote the principles of “wholism,” enhancing the combined physical and spiritual interests of humanity.

Now the editors are making a foray into an interest shockingly new to our staid National Geographic—investigating the conflicting views of humanity on the book of Revelation in the Bible, and “prophecy” in general. This weekend they have sent a film crew to a leading Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sacramento to watch a pastor-evangelist’s take on Bible prophecy. They are, we understand, simultaneously inquiring of other proponents of conflicting prophetic interpretations.

Three leading views engage their attention: (1) The “preterist,” which holds that the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation had their fulfillment millennia ago; therefore they interest only grey-headed history buffs. (2) “Futurist,” the view that places their fulfillment some time in the dim future at the end of human history. Likewise, the impact on the people’s thinking is to shelve Daniel and Revelation into conjecture. And (3), the one the Geographic films in Sacramento this week,—the “historicist,” the view that sees these prophecies fulfilled throughout history, leading up to a grand climax at the second coming of the Savior of the world. And that time is now.

The Lord Jesus Christ urges you and me to give our assiduous attention to both Daniel and Revelation (Matt. 24:15; Rev. 1:1-3). The most stupendous events of world history are upon us. No time now to get drunk and sleep. “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning,” says Someone who loves us dearly (Luke 12:35).

February 12, 2006

This weekend, millions of Christians around the world are studying frankly and openly what the Bible says about the terrible results of fornication and adultery. The problem is more than the wrath of God because of the transgression of His holy law; it’s the pain which it brings to Him. One Christian writer says, “Fornication causes more suffering in America than theft, and perjury and random violence combined..... Fornication is an evil far greater than modern society likes to acknowledge. It is sad that even churches are unwilling to give this sin the attention it so richly deserves” (Reo M. Christensen, Spectrum, Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 64).

Much unhappiness in marriages can be traced to this beginning.

The true Christ of the Bible is a Savior FROM sin, not in it. The Christ who belongs in stained glass windows is far removed from experiencing our temptations. He is not the Christ of the Bible. The Father sent the true Christ “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” (Rom. 8:3, 4). He was “in all points tempted like as we are tempted, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). That is our flesh, He was made to be. The glorious truth is that the Son of God as the Savior of the world saved the human race from sin; brought us “out of the house of bondage” to sin (Ex. 20:2), and in condemning sin in our fallen, sinful flesh, He forever conquered the problem of sin in the one place where sin had taken its last refuge in God’s universe. All that the universe of God awaits is for God’s people on earth to appreciate His accomplishment. Its Good News is “the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). It’s not the lack of works that holds up Christ’s final victory; it’s the lack of faith on the part of God’s people. The real thing.

February 10, 2006

It’s backward from current wisdom, but it’s the words of Jesus: “Blessed [happy] are those who mourn” (Matt. 5:4, NIV). Why and how can people who are sad be so truly happy?

It’s not only old people who “mourn.” There are also young people who swim upstream against the current and dare to think soberly. They are not relaxed at the giddy parties; they are burdened with the reality of the world. They may not know the reason for their sobriety, but they are unconsciously aware that we are living in the solemn time of earth’s history known as the great Day of Atonement when God Himself is on trial before the universe and its fate is in the balance. Will the leader of the Great Rebellion win the final battle of the “great controversy”? Even teens can see that a mysterious evil is permeating our world.

But that’s old news; what’s disturbing are its all too visible inroads into the “body of Christ,” His church. Thoughtful youth are perturbed. They can’t help it; they’re sober.

We heard a pastor declare recently that raucous, uncontrollable laughter is a sign that one has received the Holy Spirit. Well, here’s a different idea: “It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke than to listen to the song of fools. Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools” (Eccl. 7:5, 6). God made us so we can laugh; but the reason truly happy people can be so sober is that they are uncomfortably aware that a false and counterfeit “holy spirit” is enveloping the world and seeking to capture the church. It’s the most lethal danger the church faces during these 2000 years since Christ established it. He is concerned; so should we be concerned. Blessed are those who mourn with Him—positively. He is at work; so should we be.

February 6, 2006

The Word That Turned the World Upside Down

(Part 3 of 3)

This idea of agape has been dying out among many professed followers of Christ because a pagan notion has subtly infiltrated our thinking. I refer to the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul. If there is no such thing as real death, then Christ did not truly die. If He went to Paradise the day He was on the cross (as many mistakenly believe from a misplaced comma in Luke 23:43), then there was no true emptying of Himself, no true death on the cross, no dying the equivalent of the second death, which is the real thing. If so, Christ did not, could not, pay the penalty for human sin—and that would mean, we have to.

The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul logically makes Christ’s sacrifice to be a sham, a pretended stage play of enduring the wrath of God for sinners, when in fact He was sustained throughout by confidence of great reward to come. But when the darkness overtook Him on Calvary, the light of His Father’s face was completely withdrawn. His cry “Why hast thou forsaken me?” was no actor’s wail. Isaiah was right: “He hath poured out his soul unto death” (Isaiah 53:12), even “the second death” (Revelation 2:11).

The infiltration of a false idea from ancient paganism began soon after the apostles’ time, for Jesus warned the first of the seven symbolic churches of Revelation: “Thou hast left thy first love [agape]” (verse 4). When God’s enemy saw the power packed in that idea, his first move was to lead the early church into apostasy on that essential point. We can document step by step the progressive abandonment of the idea of agape by the so-called Church Fathers. Augustine finally worked out a synthesis of agape and self-centered love that became the foundation of medieval Catholicism. Luther tried to restore agape, but sad to say, his followers returned to the doctrine of natural immortality, and again agape nearly died out. The world is now ripe for its rediscovery.

By now we can probably begin to sense the gulf that separates human love from agape. Unless enriched with it, human love is really disguised selfishness. Even parental love can be a mere “seeking our own,” a subtle form of selfishness.

Our present epidemic of marital infidelity is evidence enough of the self-centered aspect of sexual love. Love for each other when it’s eros is based on egocentric motivations. No wonder it dies! In contrast, agape “seeketh not her own“ and “never faileth” (1 Corinthians 13:5, 8). Remember: eros is itself not something bad; we’re all here because of it. But if your marriage is based only on eros, you are probably headed for the rocks.

Having said all this, one additional contrast between human love and God’s love remains: Natural human love wants the reward of immortality: agape dares to relinquish it. This was what overturned all the value systems of antiquity.

God has not written an encyclopedia article for us about agape. Instead, He sent His Son to die on a cross, so we could see it. The true dimension of that sacrifice is that it is infinite, complete, and eternal.

Christ went to the grave for us, not because He deserved it, but because we did. In those last few hours as He hung there in the darkness, He drained the cup of all human woe to its dregs. The bright sunshine in which He had walked while on earth was gone. All thought of reward to come fled His mind. He could not see through to the other side of the dark and awful grave that gaped before Him. God is agape, and Christ is God, and there He is—dying the death we deserve. (The fact that the Father called Him back to life the third day in no way lessens the reality of His total commitment on the cross in our behalf.)

Now we come to something disturbing. It’s not enough for us to say, “Fine, glad He went through that; but you mean I must learn to love with agape? Impossible!”
 

We sinful, self-centered mortals can learn to love with agape, for John said: “Love [agape] is of God, and he who loves [with agape] is born of God and knows God. He who does not love [with agape] does not know God; for God is love [agape]” (1 John 4:7, 8 RSV).

Moses is an example of one who learned.

The Lord gave him a special test one day. Israel had broken their covenant by worshipping a golden calf, and He proposed to Moses that He wipe them out with a divine “H-bomb,” and start from scratch with a new people—Moses’ descendants.

The temptation to take the place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a very real one. God liked him, but had had enough of Israel . He offered Moses a terrific promotion with fame for all time. So what did he do? Accept the proffered honor, and let Israel go down the drain?

Moses was torn to his depths. He had never cried so much in his life. Listen, as in broken sobs this mortal like ourselves tries to change God’s mind:

“Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—” Here Moses breaks down; he can’t finish the sentence. (This is the only dash in the entire King James Bible!) He glimpses the horror of an eternal hell stretching before him if he shares Israel ’s fate. But he makes up his mind. He chooses to be lost with them: “... and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Exodus 32:31, 32).

Moses stood the test. I can imagine the Lord throwing His arms of love around His weeping servant—He had found a man with love like that in His own heart.

Paul had found that same agape in his heart, for he also wished himself “accursed from Christ” for the sake of his lost people (Romans 9:1-3). Everyone who sees the cross as it truly is and believes, finds the miracle of agape reproduced in his own heart. This is how the world will be turned upside down again, “for the love [agape] of Christ constraineth us” that we “should not henceforth live unto [ourselves], but unto Him which died for [us], and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:14 , 15).

We miss the point of the New Testament if we miss agape in it. We also stay in the dark about what faith is, for New Testament faith is a human heart-appreciation of the “breadth, and length and depth, and height” of the agape of Christ (Ephesians 3:18,19). There can be no real change of heart in righteousness by faith without a true appreciation of it.

Here we are in the last moments of time before the second coming of Christ. The “remnant” church of the last days is to be distinguished as those who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12 ). How does one truly “keep the commandments”? A sobering answer comes: “agape is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10 ). It’s the basic idea of God’s last message of mercy to the world.

As the apostles fanned out telling their story, the cross became the world’s moment of truth. In that lightning flash of revelation, every man saw himself judged. The cross became the final definition of love; and that’s why that word agape turned the world upside down. Let it turn your life upside down!
 

February 5, 2006

The Word That Turned the World Upside Down

(Part 2 of 3)

Natural human love rests on a sense of need. It feels poor and empty of itself and requires an object to enrich its own life. A husband loves his wife because he needs her, and a wife loves her husband for the same reason. Two friends love each other because they need each other. It’s natural. Each feels empty and alone.

Infinitely wealthy of itself, agape feels no need. The apostles said that the reason God loves us is not because He needs us, but because—well, He is agape. “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9, RSV). To this day we are staggered by the idea of a love that “seeketh not her own” (1 Corinthians 13:5, KJV). Even churches seem drawn almost irresistibly to representing God’s love as a seeking-its-own thing, a motivation inspired by His own acquisitive instinct. God saw a hidden value in us, it is assumed; and He was simply making a good bargain when He bought us.

We come to resemble what we worship, so multitudes profess to worship such a God because they too are seeking a good bargain. Their religion is the soul of acquisitiveness—what they want to acquire is heaven and its rewards—celestial real estate, and this self-centered motive is what keeps them going. When agape breaks through into this egocentric milieu, the reaction is pretty much what happened when it broke upon the ancient world and transformed lives.

Natural human love rests on a sense of value. Many Africans still follow the ancient bride-price system, which faithfully mirrors the more subtle basis of all our other cultures as well. The amount of the bride price to be paid depends on the expense of education the girl’s parents have invested in her. A few cows suffice for one who can barely scrawl her name; astronomical dowries are demanded for girls who have been to Oxford or Cambridge .

We also pigeon-hole one another. Few treat the garbage man as courteously or patronizingly as we do the mayor or governor. If, like water seeking its own level, “ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?” asks Jesus (Matthew 5:46 , 47). “Men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself” (Psalm 49:18).

In contrast, agape is an idea from outside this world. Rather than being dependent on the value of its object, it creates value in its object.

Suppose I have a rough stone in my hand. I picked it up in a field. If I try to sell it, no one would give me even a nickel for it. This is not because a stone is inherently bad, but because it is so common it is worthless. (Eros is not bad; it’s worthless, for it is as common as stones.)

Now suppose that as I hold this rough stone in my arms, I could love it as a mother loves a baby. And suppose that my love could work like alchemy and transform it into a piece of solid gold. My fortune would be made. This is an illustration of what agape does to us.

Of ourselves we are worth nothing other than the dubious chemical value of our bodies’ ingredients. But God’s love transforms us into a value equivalent to that of His own Son: “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir” (Isaiah 13:12 ).

Doubtless you have known some example of human flotsam that has been transformed into a person of infinite worth. John Newton (1725-1807) was one. A godless seafarer who dealt in the African slave trade, he became a drunken wretch who fell victim to the people he tried to enslave. At length agape touched his heart. He gave up his vile business, was transformed into an honored messenger of glad tidings. Millions remember him for his hymn that discloses the “fine gold” that he became:

“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found;

Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear,

The hour I first believed.”
 

Natural human love goes in search of God. All heathen religions are based on the idea of God being about as elusive as a cure for cancer. People imagined that He is playing hide-and-seek and has withdrawn Himself from human beings. Only special ones are wise or clever enough to discover where He is hiding. Millions go on long journeys to Mecca , Rome , Jerusalem , or other shrines, searching for Him. The ancient Greeks outdid all of us in building magnificent marble temples on their highest hills in which they felt they must seek Him.

Again, agape is the opposite. It is not humans seeking after God, but God seeking after man: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10 ). The shepherd left his 99 sheep that were safe and risked his life to find the one that was lost; the woman lit a candle and searched her house until she found the one lost coin; the Spirit of God searched for the heart of the prodigal son and brought him home. There is no story in all the Bible of a lost sheep required to find his shepherd! This upset all common human ideas.

Paul was obsessed with this great idea: “The righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach)” (Romans 10:6-8, RSV).

That “word of faith” is as closely related to agape as a negative is to a photographic print. Faith is the response of an honest human heart to this tremendous revelation of agape, and Paul’s point is that this tremendous “word is near you.” Have you heard the News? There’s the evidence: God has already chosen you and sought you out where you’ve been hiding from Him! The Good Shepherd is always on safari looking for us.

Our human love is always seeking to climb higher. Every first-grader wants to enter the second grade; a child who is 6 says “I will soon be 7.” No job seeker wants demotion instead of promotion. The State politician longs to get into the national game, and probably every national senator at some time dreams that he/she might make it to the White House.

Who has ever heard of a national president voluntarily resigning in order to become a village servant? Plato’s idea of love could never imagine such a thing. Neither can we!

What sobered the ancient world was the sight of Someone higher than a president stepping down lower and lower, until He submitted to the torture-racked death of a criminal. In what is probably an outline of Paul’s favorite message in Philippians 2:5-8 (RSV), we can trace seven distinct downward steps that Christ took in showing us what agape is:

1. “Though He was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” When we get into high positions in politics, business, or even the church, it is our nature to worry about falling. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” But the Son of God abdicates His crown voluntarily, motivated by this strange, unearthly love, agape.

2. He “emptied Himself,” or “made Himself of no reputation” (KJV). We humans will fight to the death to maintain our reputation. And daring deeds of valor are not always the same as emptying oneself as Christ did, for Paul says one can give his “body to be burned” and yet lack agape. When he says Christ “emptied Himself,” he meant a voluntary surrender for eternity of everything held dear, something quite impossible apart from agape.

3. He took “the form of a servant [slave].” Can you imagine a more dismal life than always being forced to work without wages or thanks? Angels are said to be servants, “ministering spirits” sent to wait on us (Hebrews 1:14). If the Son of God had become like one of them, that would have been a great condescension on His part, for He was their Commander. But He stepped still lower:

4. He was “born in the likeness of men,” “lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5, KJV). Not the sun-crowned, majestic splendor that Genesis says Adam enjoyed, but the degraded level of fallen man in the abysmal human debasement common to the Greco-Roman world. No human being has ever fallen so low but that the Son of God has come far enough to reach him or her. And once let that agape steal its way into our hearts, all lingering traces of any holier-than-thou spirit melt away before it, and agape makes it possible to reach the hearts of others.

5. “And being found in human form, He humbled Himself.” In other words, He was not born to live an easy life in either Caesar’s or Herod’s palace. His mother had Him in a stinky cattle shed, forced to wrap her little one in rags and lay Him in a donkey’s feed box. His became the life of a toiling peasant. But this was not enough:

6. He “became obedient unto death.” This pregnant phrase means something different from the suicide’s mad leap in the dark. No suicide is ever “obedient unto death.” If he were, he or she would stay by and face reality. The suicide is disobedient to it. The kind of death Christ was “obedient” to was not an escape from responsibility. It was not like Socrates drinking his hemlock. It was like going to hell, the conscious condemnation of every cell of one’s being under the assumed or understood frown of God. The seventh step in condescension Christ “took” in our place makes clear what an awful price He paid for us:

7. “Even death on a cross.” In Jesus’ day such a death was the most humiliating and painful possible. Not only was it the cruelest ever invented, not only the most shameful—being strung up naked before the taunting mob who watched your agony with glee—death on a cross carried a built-in horror deeper than all that. It meant that Heaven cursed you.

The reason was that the respected ancient writer Moses had declared that anyone who dies on a tree is “accursed by God” (Deuteronomy 21:23 ). And everybody believed it, of course. If a condemned criminal was sentenced to be slain with a sword or even burned alive, he could still pray and trust that God would forgive him and look kindly on him. He could feel some support in his death.

But if the judge said, “You must die on a tree,” all hope was gone. Everybody understood that God had turned His back on the wretch forever. This is why Paul says that Christ was “made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13 , KJV). The kind of death Christ died was that of the lost who must perish at last in hopeless despair—it’s what Revelation calls “the second death.” Of course it was a million times worse for Christ to endure than it will be for them because His sensitivity to the suffering was infinitely greater than any of theirs.

Imagine a crucified man on a cross: crowds come to jeer at him as today we flock to a ball game. Like an old, wrecked car that children throw rocks at, he is a human write-off, abandoned to be mocked and abused in horror unspeakable. You must not even feel or express pity or sympathy for him, for if you do, you disagree with God’s judgment of him! You are on God’s side if you throw rotten eggs or tomatoes at him. So people thought.

This was the death that Jesus became “obedient” to. In His despair He cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Be quiet and reverent as you think about it. You and I are the ones who would have had to go through that if He had not taken our place.

February 4, 2006

Benedict XVI’s new encyclical (book of 71 pages) is on the subject of “Eros and Agape,” two opposite ideas of love. It is stirring worldwide interest. The fundamental idea on which his ideas are based is the doctrine of the natural immortality of the human soul.

Out of this belief grows the Roman Catholic teaching of (1) the veneration of the [dead] saints; they’re still alive, in heaven, the teaching says, so you can invoke them to help you. The most venerated is the (still) Virgin Mary—virtually a co-Savior of the world with Christ, to whom we are told we can pray. (2) An eternally burning hell for people who die unbelievers. (3) A “purgatory” for people who die not bad enough for that hell but who will suffer “discipline” to prepare them for later entering heaven; nominal Catholics are expected to go there. (4) An intermediate place of childish bliss for innocent babies that die unsprinkled in “baptism.” (5) A vast system of offerings to assuage the pain of loved ones in purgatory has resulted in great wealth for the church.

We too have authored a book about AGAPE which is based on the opposite teaching—that man is by nature mortal and that immortality is a gift rather than an inherent possession genetically. It is a gift given by Christ to “whosoever believeth” in Him. This is the teaching of John 3:16 —“that whoseover believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” For the next several days we will send you this book as Dial Daily Bread offerings. As usual every day, we will be glad for your comments pro or con. Let’s see what the Bible says! And then, let’s rejoice in its clear truth.

The Word That Turned the World Upside Down

(Part 1 of 3)

Preface

“I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels, but if I have no agape, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell.

“I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no agape, I am nothing.

“I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned—but if I have no agape, this does me no good” (Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. In the original Greek, the word for love is agape, Good News Bible).

“Dear Friends,.... agape comes from God. Whoever loves [with agape] is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love [with agape] does not know God, for God is agape. And God showed His agape for us by sending His only Son into the world, so that we might have life through Him. This is what agape is: it is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.....

“God is agape, and whoever lives in agape lives in union with God and God lives in union with him. Agape is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage in the Judgment Day..... There is no fear in agape; perfect agape drives out all fear. So then, agape has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.

“We love [with agape] because God first loved us [with agape] (John, in his First Letter, 4:7-19).

“I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in agape..... Yes, may you come to know His agape—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God” (Paul, Ephesians 3:17 -19).

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So you think it’s fantastic that one little word could turn the world upside down?

Yes, the world was once powerfully shaken by a little band of men from Palestine who carried news embodied in one rather obscure word. Their terrified enemies in Thessalonica (a city in modern-day Greece ) confessed its impact: “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6, RSV). The dynamite-laden messengers: Christ’s apostles, especially Paul and his colleague John.

The word that performed this mighty feat was one little known in the ancient Greco-Roman world—a Greek term, agape (ä gä´pay). It meant “love,” but it was revolutionary. It came to carry a spiritual wallop that overwhelmed people’s minds, catalyzing humanity into two camps, one for and the other against the heavenly idea.

Those that were for it were transformed overnight into recklessly joyous followers of Jesus, ready to lose property, go to prison, or even to die a tortured death for Him. Those catalyzed against it as quickly became cruel, bloodthirsty persecutors of those who saw light in the new concept of love. None who heard the news could ever sit on the fence.

The mysterious explosive in this spiritual bomb was a radically different idea than had been dreamed of by the world’s philosophers or ethics teachers. It was a new invention that took friend and foe alike by surprise.

It wasn’t that the ancients had no idea of love; they talked about it plenty. In fact, the Greeks had three or four words for love (our modern languages usually have only one). But the kind of love that came to be expressed in agape mercilessly exposed all other ideas of love as either nonlove or antilove.

All of a sudden mankind came to realize that what they’d been calling “love” was actually veneered selfishness. The human psyche was stripped naked by the new revelation. If you welcomed the spiritual revolution, you got clothed with agape yourself; if not, having your robes of supposed goodness ripped off turned you into a raving enemy of the new faith. And no one could turn the clock back, for agape was an idea for which its fullness of time had come.

When John took his pen to write his famous equation “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he had to choose between the several Greek words. The common, everyday one—eros—packed a powerful punch on its own. Something mysterious and powerful, eros was thought to be the source of all life. It swept like a torrent from a broken dam over all obstacles of human will and wisdom, a tide of emotion common to all humanity. If a mother loved her child, her love was eros, thought to be noble and pure. Likewise, the dependent love of children for their parents and the common love of friends for each other. Further, the mutual love of man and woman was a profoundly mysterious drive.

 

The Word That Turned the World Upside Down

“Is God eros?,” asked the ancient pagans. Yes, answered their philosophers, including the great Plato, because eros is stronger than human will. It produces the miracle of babies. It makes friends and families. And it dwells in everyone by nature. Therefore, said the pagans, it must be the spark of divinity in all humans.

For the ancients, love was pretty much what it is for us today—the “sweet mystery of life,” the elixir that makes an otherwise intolerable existence possible to endure. Plato hoped to transform the world by a kind of love that he considered “heavenly eros.” Words derived from it today have an exclusively sexual meaning, but Plato tried to get the world to climb out of that swamp of sensuality by a spiritually uplifting idea, something noble and inspiring. It was based on climbing higher, getting free of physical lust, being attracted to a greater spiritual good for the soul.

But John could never bring himself to write that God is eros. He astounded the thinkers of his day by saying, “God is agape.” And between those two ideas there stretches a vast gulf wider than the east is from the west.

The apostles’ idea was revolutionary in at least three ways:

1. If one loves with agape, he has “boldness in the day of judgment” (verse 17, KJV). Without it, one cringes in terror when confronted with ultimate judgment; with it, he walks fearlessly into God’s presence past all His holy angels, utterly unashamed and confident. That was anciently unheard of.

2. “There is no fear in love [agape] but perfect love [agape] casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love [agape]” (verse 18, RSV). Fear with anxiety is the substratum of human existence in all ages. Fear too deep to recognize can make us sick, gnawing at the vitals of the soul until one’s physical organs weaken in their resistance to disease. Years may go by before we can see or feel it, but at last the weakest organ of the body breaks down, and doctors must try to repair what agape would have prevented by conquering the fear.

3. Every sublime moral and ethical goal of humanity is nothing without agape, says Paul in his famous love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. One can “speak in the tongues of men and of angels,” “have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,” have “faith, so as to remove mountains,” “give away all I have, and.... deliver my body to be burned,” and yet not have the all-important ingredient. He ends up “nothing.” And agape has a phenomenal quality of enduring “all things,” for agape “never ends” (RSV).

How did agape differ so much from the common idea of love? How could the apostles’ idea possibly be such a threat to Plato’s noble concept? The answer is found in clear-cut contrasts between the two ideas:

Ordinary human love is dependent on the beauty or goodness of its object. We naturally choose friends who are nice to us, who please us. We fall in love with our sexual opposite who is beautiful, happy, intelligent, and attractive, and turn away from one who is ugly, mean, ignorant, or offensive.

In contrast, agape doesn’t depend on the beauty or goodness in its object. It stands alone, sovereign, free. The ancients had a story that illustrated their most sublime idea of love:

Admetus was a noble, handsome young man with all the personal qualities of excellence. He fell sick with a disease that the oracle of the gods pronounced would be fatal unless someone could be found who would die in his place. His friends went from one to another, inquiring, “Would you be willing to die for Admetus?” All agreed that he was a wonderful young man, but “Sorry,” they said, “we couldn’t die for him.” His parents were asked, and they said, “We love our son, but sorry, we couldn’t die for him.” Finally his friends asked the beautiful girl who loved him, Alcestis. “Yes,” she said, “because he is such a good man and because the world needs him so, I am willing to die for him!”

The philosophers boasted: “This is love—willing to die for a good man!” Imagine their shock when the apostles said that wasn’t it at all. “One will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love [agape] for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,” yes, “while we were enemies” (Romans 5:7, 8, 10, RSV).

A message like that either captured your soul or turned you into an implacable enemy.
 

February 1, 2006

The political victory of Hamas has stunned the world, including many Christians who have believed the glorious promises of God to Abraham’s descendants apply to political modern Israel. We have hoped and expected that two nations could learn to live peacefully in the narrow geographical confines of Palestine. We have welcomed every encouraging sign that a Road Map could develop, so as to lessen human suffering. But now, how can one of those two national governments contribute to peace if its founders have historically clamored for the destruction of the fellow nation?

The Jewish Israelis have worked wonders with what was the fallow land that was anciently Israel. Jews are the only ethnic survivors of ancient civilizations; they lead the world in economics, philosophy, the arts, military genius. There is only one flaw in their ethnic makeup: somewhere in their genetic history they incurred the guilt of rejecting and murdering the Messiah whom God sent to them. Their political and religious leadership proclaimed with passion, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt. 27:25). Thus they persuaded the Roman governor to murder Him. But Paul makes a strong case that God did not forsake them; their Messiah actually asked God to forgive them (Luke 23:34); He did. So the way it ended up was that they forsook God. This forced Him to withdraw from them the divine protection which He had promised to their father Abraham. Hence the success of suicide bombers: God had promised New Covenant Israelites, “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night”(Psalm 91:5). But no Israeli can go to a café or theater or stop at a traffic light and not be subliminally afraid.

Will modern political, ethnic Israel ever repent? Be careful; history may pound some spiritual common sense into Abraham’s literal descendants (cf. Rom. 9-11). They don’t know how to “do” corporate repentance for their rejection and murder of the Son of God—unless the “remnant church” of biblical prophecy (Rev. 12:17; 14:12; 3:19) should teach them. Don’t write that off as an impossibility. We thought a Hamas victory was impossible; maybe the Holy Spirit can also win a victory.