In this section, I am posting opinion and reflection. So we come back around to the original question of what God's will is for the church and what the church really needs: In a sense, asking the church to change its attitude toward sin is like asking a leopard to change its spots. The church's current attitude toward sin manifests to us that many professing Christians are not actually cleansed of their sins, because they are not confessors (same-sayers about their sin), so what is needed? What is God's will for the church? First of all, the Gospel must be preached in its entirety, and the whole counsel of God must be presented in the power of the Holy Spirit so as to confront the church with the need for assurance of salvation. I personally would rather have to deal with a congregation of people who are afraid they are not saved, then what we have today, which is congregations full of people who assume they are saved, even though their life displays no fruit in keeping with repentance.
The reality is that easy preaching helps no one. Sugar-coating, holding back the full expression of man's condition and God's power, holiness, love, and complete sovereign control, trying not to be 'offensive'; these things only keep a person from being truly redeemed and freed from sin. It is apparent that there are many in the church who need to be saved! They need to need to understand the depth and impact of their own sin and submit to Christ, who conquers and redeems our hearts. They don't need a change of attitude; they need a change of nature!
What is eternal life?
What is salvation?
What is discipleship?
Is Christ the way to a better life, or just an escape from judgment? Is that all we see of Him in the Bible? What was He saying when He said that He came to bring a sword, and that He came to divide, to set husband against wife and parents against children...? Why did people swarm after Him by the thousands for a time as He healed and fed and taught, but then the more He spoke, they all drifted away? Eventually, only the 12 remained, and even one of those was a traitor. Jesus no known model of ministry; he cared nothing for opinions or personal desires. He said on several occasions that He only did what the Father told Him to do. Don't forget that because you have such open access to God's Word, you are responsible for what it teaches.
"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself." (Saint Augustine) Why was He so hated and so loved? Why was he such a threat to the Jewish leaders, and enough of a disturbance that Rome even took notice of Him? And throughout the ages, He has remained the central figure of history. Just the fact that He is still so hated, reviled, judged, misrepresented, and so many have unsuccessfully devoted their lives to debunking His life and teaching; this alone should tel us something, if we are awake.
These things tell me that Jesus the Christ is exactly who He claimed to be- the holy Son of God, and as a result, He is both my Saviour and my Lord.
This half-hearted, passionless, hateless, and only somewhat negative attitude of the church towards sin is not the evidence of a redeemed people. The enemy is more than content to allow the church to go on gathering in mild devotion, feeling bad about all the bad things in the world, even having a twinge of personal guilt occasionally, but doing enough things in spiritual circles to make themselves feel better, and to feel that they are doing better in their 'personal struggles'. Our 'Christian' counselors sell us the Freudian lie that sin is really just emotional baggage and bookstores fill up with self-help books and '7 Ways to Live a Fulfilled Life!" Meanwhile, the divorce rate in churches skyrockets, our children desert the faith, leaders are exposed as perverse hypocrites, and our pews are packed with people who believe they are safe from hell but say nothing and feel nothing when it comes to their own sin.
Is this the Gospel that Paul, Peter, and the early church preached and lived? Christ is not calling you and I to some dim sort of struggle with our emotional baggage, where defeat seems to reign and the devil hides in the shadows, secretly enjoying the worship of false Christians who continue to be obsessed with themselves, thereby glorifying the prince of the power of the air.
Look at Ephesians 1:18-23 "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" THIS is the upward calling, the inheritance of the redeemed. It is all summed up IN Christ, and IN Him we "overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us..." (Rom. 8:37)
By no means am I suggesting that it is impossible for a true Christian to ever struggle with sin. John, probably a bit reluctantly, wrote in 1 John, "...if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father..." See, and here we meet the heart of God in the amazing thing He has done through His Son and the cross! If we hold to some Arminian view of our salvation, that it is a slippery thing which can be lost and regained (which by the way is in direct contradiction to the warnings in Hebrews. Those passages say that someone who falls away can never be restored. So if that's talking about Christians, then it would be saying that Christians only have one shot at keeping their salvation. Therefore it is a correct interpretation to say that these passages speak of those who have been brought to the threshold of salvation, having been given the truth and the opportunity to repent and have turned away); and if we interpret 1 John 1:10 (If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness) to mean that un-confessed sin is unforgiven sin, then we miss out on this most incredible aspect of our salvation, the joy and freedom of knowing that every sin of ours is paid for and that this work is a finished work, with immediate and continuing results. As Augustine wrote, "The joy of the redeemed soul will flow over into the glorified body."
Ok; let's take a breather. I'll try to finish these reflections in the next post.
Thank you, Nate. Much to digest. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteDeanna