Reforming Grace by Jonathan Crissey

Reforming Grace By Pastor Al Berardis

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jesus spoke of easing human burden and setting people free. I have discovered what He actually was speaking about.â&#x20AC;?

Preface/Acknowledgements I wrote this book in order to help other people struggling with the full impact of God’s incredible Grace and mercy. Jesus spoke of easing human burden and setting people free. I have discovered what He actually was speaking about. My hope is that at least one other person would be aided to discover that truth and be set free as well. This book is to be combined with the bible study series, Reforming Grace. There are three parts to the bible study: Part One – Reforming Liberty; Part Two – Reforming Repentance; Part Three – Reforming Work. Each of these parts is addressed in the book in summary fashion; the bible study gives much more detail. I would like to acknowledge three people who are responsible for encouraging me to attempt to write the book. The first person is my wife Karen, who has always believed in me and encouraged me to actually put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Next is our youth Pastor (Eric) who also encouraged me to write. Finally, there is Pat our administrative assistant. While we were going through our time of testing and subsequent revelation, the pastors were discovering (at times on a daily basis) the incredible riches of the Word of God with respect to His incredible Grace. During that time Pat kept asking us the question, “Yes, you guys are getting it but what are you doing to bring the message to the church?” This book is a part of my personal answer to Pat. Thanks Pat.

Contents Preface/Acknowledgements Chapter One: Process Bias Section One: Legalism: The Evangelical Paradox  Chapter Two: Explaining legalism  Chapter Three: The Effects of Legalism  Chapter Four: The Root Cause of Legalism  Chapter Five: Christian Denial Section Two: Reforming Liberty – Abolishing the Law  Chapter Six: It Started as a Promise  Chapter Seven: The Law Ratified the Promise, so Cast Out That Bond Woman  Chapter Eight: Living in the Promise Section Three: Reforming Repentance – Getting to the Actual Biblical Definition  Chapter Nine: Parenting, Relationships and Repentance  Chapter Ten: The Law Helps Mis-define Repentance  Chapter Eleven: Repentance in the New Testament  Chapter Twelve: Repentance in the Old Testament  Chapter Thirteen: Reforming Matthew 18; Dismantling a Shrine to Legalism Section Four: Reforming Work: How the Law of Liberty “Works”  Chapter Fourteen: The Grace-Works Debate  Chapter Fifteen: Noticing the Law of Liberty  Chapter Sixteen: Work - The Fruit of Faith Section Five: Reforming Divorce – A Case Study in Legalism  Chapter Seventeen: The New Testament Divorce Law  Chapter Eighteen: Divorce Allowable? Who Said?  Chapter Nineteen: The Words of Jesus  Chapter Twenty: Epilogue

Chapter One: Process Bias Remember the days back in school when you were working on some kind of problem, usually math, where the correct answer kept alluding you? What made matters worse is when you would go back over your process steps, you swore that each step was correct but those “correct” process steps didn’t give you the right answer. The harder you looked the more and more frustrating your dilemma became to the point that you were sure that the problem was an impossible contradiction, whereby the correct process steps led you to an incorrect answer. The more you looked, the worse the problem became. I remember some of those problems quite vividly and in my immaturity, I swore that there was no way that the dilemma would be solved. The problem would always seem hopeless. Then something would happen. I would walk away from the problem for awhile and then I would stumble upon some wrong assumption that I had made about some aspect of the problem and ‘bingo’, problem solved. What happened? In being able to see the flaw in the process step, was the key to unlocking the correct answer. By the way, I also remember feeling stupid when I discovered my error. In these cases, why is it so hard to find out where the errors lie? Why does it take us so long to uncover the key to the right answer? I believe the answer to those questions is bias. In our math problem days, we were sure that our process was correct. We were sure that we had what was required to lead us to the correct answer. Therein lies the one of the major contributors to bias. In being sure that our process is correct, we are blinded to the correct way to see the final answer. The answer is veiled from our sight. We just keep on repeating the same mistake over and over again until we are sure that we have some kind of impossible 3

problem on our hands. In short, we are introducing bias into our problem solving. We do not allow for the fact that the way we look at the problem could be flawed and thereby prohibiting our ability to see the answer. This is the exact problem faced today by the evangelical Christian church. Every day, scores of Christian people read their bibles. Their daily quest is a search for an answer to a problem. Theirs is a search for truth; theirs is a search for God. They read verse after verse, chapter after chapter, book after book, sincere in heart, pure in motive and deadly flawed in approach. Their answer is just as flawed as my math problem. How is this possible? How can these seekers of truth be guaranteed a flawed outcome to their sincere devotion? The answer again is bias. Their reading is just like the process steps in my math problem. They build “line upon line”, “precept upon precept” based on a wrong frame of reference. Theirs is the proverbial building of a house on the foundation of sand. Story after story, the structure soars into the air with the builders resolutely confident that their building process is the only process in which to build the structure. Year after year, they continue to labor, until one day, the entire structure comes crashing down around them. The end result is not just a devastation of their personal faith in God (for how could God let this happen) but the ultimate crash affects their personal relationships. They look around them and everywhere they look, they see relational collateral damage. How could this happen? How could this sincere devotion lead to such carnage? The answer: a faith based on bias. This is what plagues a large portion of evangelical Christianity today; a faith steeped in process bias. 4

In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul explains the concept of biblical process bias. Paul tells the Corinthians that whenever the Law of Moses (i.e., Old Testament Law) is read with the clear intention that the law must be obeyed in the life of the believer, there is a “veil” over the hearts of the readers and hearers. In that day, the Jews were the main purveyors of process bias. To the Jew, behavior in accordance with the law was their only way of relating to God. The law was their vehicle to get to God and they had no other religious frame of reference. Today, this same veil of the law is at the core of Christian process bias. Many Christians today just like the Jews, believe that personal behavior in accordance to the law is of paramount importance in pleasing God. Many still maintain that obedience to the law is required by God in order for a proper relationship with God to be established. It is precisely this insistence on law obedience that Paul states is the nature of the veil that is over the heart of the reader. Paul states (2 Corinthians 3) that when a person insists on behavior in accordance with the Old Testament Law, the Law of Moses, that belief places a filter (a veil) over the heart of the believer. The filter then “colors” everything they see, hear and do in the body of Christ. In addition, this veil of the law prevents the truth of the gospel from ever reaching the heart of the one with the veil. In effect, this person is blinded to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A veil provides another function. It not only colors the view of the wearer, it also makes the wearer unrecognizable to the outside world. Hence the veil of the law does the same thing to the church at large today. The bias of the law infiltrates our minds and hearts to where the message of the Good News of the Gospel is obscured to the point that true faith is unrecognizable to all who look upon the church. The world looks upon the church desiring to see true 5

love and acceptance but all they see is a veil of hypocrisy. We “say” that we live by grace but in reality we hold each other to the requirements of the law. So in effect we see that today’s evangelical gospel message has lost its credibility as well as its impact. In 2 Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul goes on to tell us that the Old Testament had a particular type of glory. That old testament of the law was both temporary and designed by God to fade away. Just like the glory that faded from the face of Moses, so the glory of the testament of the law was also fading. Paul also calls that fading old testament, that dispensation, that ministry, a ministry of death. The Old Testament glory was designed to be replaced by a permanent and greater glory, which is the glory of the New Testament, the testament of grace and mercy through the blood of Jesus Christ alone. This is the testament of life. Paul states that those who attempt to hold on to the Old Testament covenant (i.e., righteousness obtained through the keeping of the law), have been blinded. The bias of the law has veiled their hearts and clouded their understanding. These people cannot understand the liberty of the true Gospel and they continue to live a faith of bias, a faith of contradiction and hypocrisy. Only by turning to the true Gospel of Jesus, the Gospel of Liberty, can the believer be free from the process bias of the law. Paul is very clear. He states that the Old Testament glory (the glory of the law) has been abolished. The old dispensation of the law has been crucified. It was nailed to the cross and “taken out of the way” (Colossians 2:14). However, process bias refuses to allow the law to die and to be abolished in our walk with Christ. The biased believer continues to “read in” a faulty premise to all aspects of his/her faith. 6

Now please don’t misunderstand me. Just because I’ve stated that the glory of the Old Testament, the glory of the law and the commandments have been abolished, that in no way means that the law itself has been destroyed or eliminated. In the King James version, the translators picked the word “abolished” (2 Corinthians 3:13) to describe the affect of the law on the believer today. In the Greek, the word abolished means to be “unplugged” or “deactivated”. So, in effect, the affect of the law has been rendered inactive in the life of the believer, even though the law itself is good, holy and just. The real issue here is that even though Paul keeps telling us that the affects of the law has been deactivated in the life of the believer, the believer keeps on reactivating and “replugging” the law back into their lives! It is precisely this reactivating of the law that contributes heavily to our process bias. This bias affects everything including daily scripture reading. The biased believer reads-in all kinds of requirements to their personal walk with Christ and more tragically, they read-in all kinds of requirements into the lives of the rest of the world. Hence, this bias is the source of continued pain and suffering both for the individual believer as well as those surrounding that believer. There are now all kinds of behavioral requirements, as well as dire consequences, for all those who fail to meet those requirements. The end result is an evangelical church that is steeped in legalism, judgmentalism and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy reins in a church where we claim to say that we are saved by grace alone but then we insist that God still relates to us based on a standard of behavior; a standard based on the law. This bias also clouds our thinking to the point that it is impossible for us to see our own hypocrisy. The normative evangelical church teaching insists that we are still obligated to behave to the standard of the law but at the same time teaches we are to love others unconditionally. No wonder the 7

average Christian is confused and no wonder the outside world scoffs at our conduct. The outside world can see the hypocrisy; however, our veil blinds us from seeing our faith as a faith of bias. What’s the answer and how do we remove the veil of our process bias? The answer lies in understanding legalism. Legalism is a topic that few inside the church really want to speak about today. However, it is precisely the understanding of the “what and how” of legalism that is crucial to being able to remove the veil from our hearts and ultimately our faith. We must understand and agree that the law bias is exactly like our math problem. The bias of the law has made us sure that our reading and understanding of scripture is correct and is the only way to interpret scripture. However, just like our math problem our subsequent process steps will lead to an incorrect answer. The Christian today knows that there is something wrong; he/she can see the evidence in all the failed and strained relationships in their lives. We wonder what is wrong but until we see that the source of our problem is ourselves and the way we look at the scripture, we will continue to insist (just like our math problem) that we have an impossible situation on our hands and the church just doesn’t work the way God has intended. I truly hope that the rest of this book will aid in your understanding about the bias of our faith. With renewed understanding, you will be empowered to remove the bias from your walk with Christ. By the way, the church is counting on you!

Section One: Legalism: The Evangelical Paradox Chapter Two: Explaining Legalism Surfing the net one day, I ran into some incredible images. One headline story included images of people holding signs that proclaimed “God Hates Fags”, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God is America’s Terrorist”. Obviously, seeing these signs and my curiosity now piqued, I couldn’t resist reading the story. What I found actually sickened me. The pictures related to a story about Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. The members of Westboro Baptist Church have a macabre custom which is to show up at high profile funerals and protest. Yes, that’s correct, they protest at funerals. What makes the funerals high profile and what are they protesting? The decedents are all homosexual! Westboro Baptist Church had originally gained notoriety by picketing at the funeral of Matthew Sheapard a gay college student who died after two men lured him from a bar, tied him to a fence and beat him outside Laramie, Wyo., in October 1998. Westboro followers showed up with signs that read "God hates fags" and also said that Shepard was in hell.1 Westboro has continued this type of grandstanding by picketing at the funerals of US military personnel who also were homosexual. To the folks at Westboro, the fact that we are at war in Iraq and that many service men and women have died, is directly related to the fact that the US military allows homosexuals to serve. Hence slogans like, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God is America’s Terrorist”, are proclamations that 9/11 was orchestrated by God to pronounce judgment on the US for it’s catering to homosexuals. They also believe that hurricane Katrina was a 9

judgment against the US because of the gay tolerance as well as the behavior of those who live in New Orleans. So, is Westboro Baptist Church an aberration? Most people would believe so and I would most certainly agree. The simple fact is that most sincere Christian people would, in the strongest terms, decry these outlandish claims as having no rightful place within the belief system of anyone called by the name of Christ. Most Christians abhor such behavior. So how does this type of thing take root? Is their motivating doctrine something like Jonestown and Jim Jones or Waco and David Koresh? No, not at all. Quite the opposite. If you look at the website of Westboro Baptist Church (by the way that’s godhatesfags.com), the root of all this hateful behavior is the Five Points of Calvinism!2 That’s right, the source of this outlandish behavior is a staple of Protestantism and Reformed Theology. For those of you who are not versed in Protestant history, John Calvin was one of the men whose doctrine shaped the early days of the Protestant Reformation (1485 -1535). The five points of Calvinism (known by the acronym TULIP) was developed by the followers of Calvin to simply communicate the tenets that Calvin espoused, although his followers did embellish a bit. So, how do the Five Points of Calvinism get translated into such hateful behavior? Unfortunately it’s all too easy! Point number three (the “L” in TULIP) is the doctrine of “limited atonement”. That means that Jesus died for only a limited amount of people and only that limited amount of people will ultimately be permitted entrance to heaven. Westboro Baptist Church (via John Calvin) also holds that the Old Testament moral law is still in effect in that they believe that your behavior (or mis-behavior) is directly responsible to invoke 10

judgment from God. Calvin believed that the “third purpose of the law” was to prevent misdeeds in the true followers so adherence to the law was essential to the Christian lifestyle. So, when you combine the beliefs of only a limited amount of people permitted into heaven and that selection or predestination is based on individual behavior (for how could God “select” a homosexual), you have the recipe for disaster. “God promised dire outpourings of very painful wrath, and there’s nothing more painful than killing one of your children and that’s what’s going on in Iraq,” Phelps (Westboro Pastor) said. “That’s what we’re preaching and the forum of choice to deliver such a message, obviously, is the funeral of the kid that’s been blown to smithereens." 3 This stomach turning morality disaster is rooted in the reality that Westboro’s attitude and behavior now has divine sanction. What’s more, they believe that they have been given a divine right to become separatist. Admittedly, I may have oversimplified a bit for the sake of example for Westboro Baptist takes their belief to the extreme. The Westboro adherents believe that only members of Westboro Baptist Church will make it to heaven while all other people will go to hell. So, we understand that there are other factors involved in driving this group to the extreme radical fringe. However, the most troublesome aspect of this disaster is that this moral tragedy gets its power from mainline Protestant doctrine. Now right here you may ask yourself, what does the behavior of a fringe sect of hateful churchgoers (for I can’t bring myself to use the term Christians) have to do with the mainstream of the evangelical Christian community? After all, we all know that they are wrong and we are right. Don’t we? 11

Well, my objective in this chapter was to define legalism. In the example of Westboro Baptist Church, we see a radical fringe participating in separatist activities based on a belief that one code of conduct is “better” than another code of conduct. Based on that judgment, separatism is justified. The question here is, aren’t we guilty of the exact same thing? Don’t we do exactly what the folks at Westboro are doing? That is, don’t we determine that our way of living, our code of conduct is better and thereby we can condemn other people’s behavior based on that judgment? So, what is the difference between the folks at Westboro and you and me? You may be hugely offended by my comparison right now and if you are, I apologize. My only purpose is to define legalism. In order to do that, we must understand that the seeds of legalism are within each one of us. We all are recovering legalists. We decry one behavior in others and we in effect do (maybe not that exact thing but) very similar things ourselves. Legalism thrives on judgments about behavior and is only concerned about controlling behavior in other people. Legalism doesn’t have any power unless it’s directed at someone else. Legalism directed toward oneself may be seen as just being circumspect but legalism toward others is judgmentalism pure and simple. Legalism seeks to justify one’s self. Legalism seeks to control others. My original draft of this chapter ended with the last two lines above. However, the day after I completed the writing of this chapter, something occurred in church that I felt I needed to include. While in church that day, I was making my way to the sanctuary having just come from teaching a class. Upon arriving at the door, I paused outside in the lobby because there was a slide 12

show underway in the sanctuary. Not wanting to disturb people by opening the door, I paused outside the door and watched the slide show through the glass. I greeted a member of the congregation as he was out in the lobby as well. We exchanged some small talk and I asked him if this was a slide show from the benevolence trip to Mississippi that one of our members took to help out the victims of hurricane Katrina. He told me yes it was and that the member had done a great job with the slide show. Then he said something that startled me. He started talking about how the hurricane was God’s judgment on the people of the gulf area and that they (the gulf coast people) better “get it together” if they want to be spared by God. I was speechless. I had just completed this chapter on Westboro Baptist Church knowing how they felt about the victims of hurricane Katrina and here is one of my own, saying basically the exact same thing! Judgment based on individual behavior. The legalist is everywhere. The legalist is in all of us.

Notes: 1: Josh Belzman, Behind their hate, a constitutional debate, MSNBC.com, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12071434/ 2: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Westboro Baptist Church, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church_(Topeka) 3: Belzman

Chapter Three: The Effects of Legalism My wife Karen and I have three great kids. Our middle child, Jennifer is a beautiful vibrant young woman, who at the time of this writing is 21 years of age. Jennifer has a buoyant personality but as all young adults having just gone through her teen years, has issues wherein she struggles. Jennifer, along with our 23 year old son Michael, have been turned loose from mom and dadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reigns and are free to live their lives as they see fit which includes church attendance. The simple fact is that both Mike and Jen are free to attend church or not attend church as the spirit moves them and sometimes it feels like the spirit is never moving them! A few months back we had an interesting chain of events occur. Jennifer was working with our youth pastor in leading a home group of teens in a six week discussion group at our home. She and her friend Kristen, did a great job in leading this small group in discussion on some very important teen issues. I sat in the other room each night as they met and listened to the conversation that the girls led. I was extremely touched on several occasions, where Jennifer shared personal insights and feelings on her own issues and how her relationship with Christ was one major factor in helping her in her journey with her personal baggage. The kids in turn responded very well to the girls, to the point that the teens never wanted to leave our house at the end of the night. There was indeed a connection. In that stretch of time, Jennifer was not attending Sunday church service, understanding that 21 year olds have hectic lives, boyfriends, late nights and the like. However, on one particular Sunday, our youth pastor had called a meeting at 9:00am for all 14

teen small group leaders. Jen decided to come to the meeting but had no intention of attending the church service after the meeting. However, upon leaving the meeting and running into a few friends (and with mom’s prompting!) Jen decided to stay for the 11:00 service. It was a great service, great music, better message; a message of grace. The entire morning was enjoyable from start to finish. A couple of days later, as Karen and I were sitting at the kitchen table, Jennifer came into the room, with tears in her eyes, disdain in her voice, and as she threw a note on the table she said, “Well, I guess the people at church still think I’m a slut.” What happened? A very well meaning woman at church, took it upon herself to write Jennifer a letter. The subject of the letter was Jennifer’s selection of clothing on that particular Sunday morning. Our well meaning church lady took it upon herself to lecture my daughter on her revealing tank top. Needless to say, that letter threw our house into a bit of spin. Our first concern was for Jen. Fortunately (or unfortunately) Jen had plenty of experience with this type of thing in the past and had learned to put these types of things into proper perspective. She understood that the real issue was with the lady who wrote the letter and not with her. Jen was then able to rise above the incident and return to normalcy very quickly. My wife on the other hand was a different story. My wife often describes herself as a “she bear” when these types of things happen with the kids. So, as a result of the she bear showing up, Karen was not able to immediately confront the woman nor could Jen (not yet having developed that skill), so that task fell to me.

I called the woman and arranged a meeting. The woman was a very likable person. She and I had always related well; she had a great heart and loved God and other people. I had a genuine respect for her. The meeting was cordial and polite. She first apologized if she had offended anyone and said she had no intention to hurt anyone. She explained that her motivation was strictly driven by God’s Word and further explained that when someone had brought her the Word of God on some issue of her own, she appreciated it and told me that it helped her. She explained that she just wanted to do what the Word said in that the older women are supposed to teach the younger women. I explained that there were some things about Jennifer that she did not know and these things are significant when it comes to commenting on her selection of clothing. I told the woman that our daughter was struggling with anorexia. Years ago, Jennifer got herself into a pattern of behavior that ended with her loosing an unhealthy amount of weight and was diagnosed with anorexia. We thank God that we caught it in time and with the help of a lot of counseling, Jennifer got on top of the issue. However, from time to time, the issue flairs up. Jen continues to struggle but is moving on with her life. Now the thing that is important, I explained, is that because of Jen’s continuing struggle, her clothes are very important in allowing her to feel good about herself. If any of her clothes fit loosely in any way, she feels that she is getting fat and thereby thinks she needs to loose weight. Subsequently, Jennifer’s clothes have always needed to fit tightly because in her mind, that’s when she looked and felt good about herself. Karen and I had battled with Jen long and hard for years over the clothes issue and bathing suit shopping was usually an all out war! Then the anorexia reared its ugly head. At that point, we did a lot 16

of research and decided to not to make the clothes issue a huge issue with Jen. We found out that control is a big issue with anorexia patients and that by allowing Jen more flexibility in her clothing decisions, we provided Jen some space to allow her to work through her issues. I continued to explain to our church lady that Jen’s issues were further complicated with the fact that Jennifer had experienced some traumatic event as a four year old. We were never able to pinpoint the exact truth about this experience but counselors concluded that Jen either saw something or was told something that added trauma to her life that was severe enough to cause some noticeable panic behavior. Counselors told us that there could be a link between the traumatic experience and the anorexia. From there, I also went on to gently explain to the woman that she misapplied the verse in 1 Timothy. I outlined that the verse she referenced (1 Timothy 2:8, citing the word “modest”) was a comment about wearing extravagant clothing and the verse had nothing to do with revealing clothing at all. The verse had more to do with “respect of persons” and the attitude of the heart than with the clothes women wear. What’s more, the verse talks about braided hair and pearls. I pointed out that if we take that verse literally, we would have to ban all hair braiding and the wearing of pearls. I was trying to get her to see the spirit of the words and not just the words themselves. I gently outlined all these things to our church lady. Now, one might think that with all this new information, that she would have relented if for no other reason than to apologize that she acted in haste and should have checked with us before she approached our daughter with whom this woman had no relationship at all.

However, that was not the case. She was very polite and expressed concern for Jen but she was unmoved when it came to relenting on the whole Jennifer incident. She was resolute in her position that she was responsible to instruct young women in the way they should act. She told me that she had done this before. She mentioned that she approached another young woman at our church in the women’s bathroom on the same subject. Amazingly, that young woman also had a background. That girl had been sexually assaulted while in high school and she too was dealing with her related issues. At the end of our conversation, our church lady and I agreed to disagree on protocol over approaching young women on their behavior within the church. As a church leader, I then asked her pointedly to stop approaching women as that is not what our church is all about. She has since left the church citing that the church leadership was not committed to the Word of God. What is it about our evangelical Christian experience that produces these types of incidents? If you’ve been around church for any length of time and if you’re honest about it, you know that these things happen all the time. Some of them go beyond explanation to exasperation. How can a supposedly loving people suddenly become rigid, unfeeling and in many cases downright mean? The answer to a large degree is legalism. As I stated in chapter two, legalism seeks to justify one’s own behavior and seeks to control others. The need for control however, can come from different sources. In the midst of the conversation with the church lady, she did recognize something about herself that she admitted could play a role in why she acts in the way she does. She admitted to me that when she was a young girl, her parents, especially her dad, were fanatical when it came to covering up around the house. She told 18

me that she had to go around the house wearing a robe, covered up to the neck so her brothers would not “see anything”. To me, this was a very important insight into the motivation behind our church lady’s actions. Now if you add to these types of life experiences (for all of us have these types of incidents in our past), an incorrect view of being or becoming holy, you can see the formation of the motivation for our church lady to become the women’s “clothes cop”. Remember, legalism seeks to justify one’s own behavior and seeks to control other people’s behavior. Actually, you can say it this way; legalism seeks to justify one’s own behavior BY controlling other people’s behavior. “If I have to walk around with this guilt, then other people have to as well.” I just mentioned an incorrect view of holiness or becoming holy as a factor in our legalists motivations. Legalists feel that they are defending all that is holy and good. They are staunch defenders of the Word. Many believe that they must not only defend the Ten Commandments, the Law of Moses, and the words of Christ but the very character of God Himself. In the mind of the legalist, the world has compromised and it’s their job to show that we as Christians do not compromise! How can I be so sure that I’m right as to the motivation and inward thinking of legalists? Remember, I used to an active legalist and I am still in recovery! What’s more, according to the Apostle Paul, I’ll have this recovery fight until the day I die. We’re all legalistic in one way or another. We love to justify our own behavior and point out the flaws in other people. Jesus taught and demonstrated this principal over and over again. We just deny that it’s within each of us, stating instead that it’s always the other guy’s problem. Hence, the parable of the Pharisee and the beggar; 19

“oh thank you oh Lord that I am not like that beggar over there.” We are deluded and misguided. Now if you’re reading this and a little perplexed about the paragraph about defending the Word and the character of God, saying to yourself, “aren’t we as Christians supposed to do exactly that? Aren’t we supposed to show the world that we don’t compromise on the Word of God and that we are different than they are?” Well, I invite you not to give up on me and stay tuned. For it’s the answers to these questions that drive the rest of this book. How should a Christian view their role in the body of Christ and how should we view our role with the rest of the people outside the body of Christ? How are we to view scripture as it relates to our relationships? How do we love other people without “compromising” on God’s standards? All these questions are worthy of consideration and answer. However, there is one main theme that runs through all of them. That is the issue of bias (see chapter one). All of the questions listed above seem very complex if you take them at face value, requiring volumes to be written on how to properly answer them. However, if you remove process bias from the questions, you will quickly find out that the answers become a lot simpler and incredibly easier to find.

Chapter Four: The Root Cause of Legalism As I’m writing this Barry Bonds just hit homerun number 714* of his career. That homerun has just tied the legendary Babe Ruth for second place on the All-Time Career Homerun list, second only to Henry Aaron. There has been much ado about Bonds’ quest for Babe Ruth’s record and ultimately Aaron’s record. All kinds of people have all kinds of opinions about Barry Bonds. If you’re not up on the Bonds controversy or just don’t know baseball, let me fill you in. The All-Time Career Homerun record is one of baseball’s most coveted records. For decades, the legendary Babe Ruth held the record with 714. In 1974, Henry (Hank) Aaron broke Ruth’s immortal record and retired with the new mark set at 755 homeruns. At that time, there was a lot of controversy over Aaron breaking Ruth’s record. There were the obvious racial overtones, where Aaron (an African American) was attempting to break the record of a white man. Prior to breaking the record, Aaron received an incredible amount of life threatening letters and phone calls. Those threats actually still exist right up to today. So, race played a big factor in people’s minds when considering who should hold the standard for baseball homerun excellence. Now for the baseball purist, there was a baseball reason not to warmly accept Aaron’s record. You see, Babe Ruth was the proverbial “baseball god”. Ruth’s legend has some kind of mystique about it where any of Ruth’s records that any subsequent player attempts to break, is met with the utmost scrutiny. In Aaron’s case, many baseball purists believed that an asterisk (footnote in the record books) should be placed next to Aaron’s homerun number because Ruth hit his homeruns in a lower amount 21

of games than Aaron. People who venerate Ruth as the “greatest player who ever played” believe that achieving the 714 in the shortest amount of games is a major factor in the legitimacy of the homerun record. The same thing applied to Roger Maris, who in 1961 broke the Babe’s single season homerun record. There were many who believed that an asterisk should be placed along side of Maris’ number because Maris hit his 61 homeruns in more games than did Ruth (Ruth hit 60). Just like Aaron, Maris also received numerous death threats about breaking the Babe’s record. Now we have Barry Bonds about to pass the Babe’s mark with his next homerun. In Bonds’ case, the situation is even made worse due to allegations that Bond’s has used illegal performance enhancing drugs (steroids) to help prolong and embellish his career. This accusation has even further fueled the dislike for Bonds as he readies to pass the Babe. So it’s no wonder that Bonds has also received numerous death threats and hate mail just like Maris and Aaron. In all three cases, Bonds, Maris and Aaron, people have tried to uphold the standard set by the baseball god, Babe Ruth. They try to protect this standard as if the world depended on it to the point of even threatening the life of someone who would dare to break the standard. These purists continually call to attention the “sins” of these potential “standard breakers” citing their actions as antibaseball. This principal of standard protection is one of the all important factors that fuel the Christian legalist today. Just like in our baseball example, the Christian legalist defends the standard set by God, measuring every one (other than themselves) to that standard, to the point of threatening all who will not behave exactly as the originator of the standard. In the end, these defenders of the 22

standard, feel that they’ve done their job and that God is certainly pleased with their efforts, after all it’s His standard that they are protecting. Now when we’re talking about Christian legalists and standard protection, what exactly is the standard that they are trying to defend or protect? The standard we’re talking about with respect to the Christian legalist is of course the Old Testament law anchored by the Ten Commandments. In the Christian community, the Ten Commandments have become in effect just like Babe Ruth’s career or single season homerun records. They are standards no one is supposed to challenge and let there be death to those who will compromise on that standard. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not, in any way, casting dispersions on the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses. I’m just stating the same thing as the Apostle Paul. The law is perfect and holy and good. There is no argument about the nature and character of the law. The question with respect to Christian legalism is what is the proper response to the law? Herein lies the issue. Bear with me on some doctrine for a moment. The Christian doctrine of justification (or being saved) states that we are saved by God’s Grace through our faith, without any regard to any righteous deeds (or works of the law) of our own. Most Christians say yes and amen to the fact that our salvation is completely a free gift of God grace and mercy with no help by us. So if there is no contention that our salvation is completely God’s responsibility, what’s the issue with legalism or trusting in my work of the law for my righteousness? The answer is found in how we live after our salvation experience or after we first come to Christ by faith. 23

There are a myriad of reasons why the legalist believes that the Christian needs to obey the laws of the OT. There could be volumes written to attempt to explain. However, I believe there is one major contributor. Remember in chapter two, we talked about Calvinism and the acronym TULIP. We said the “L” was the doctrine of “limited atonement” where the belief is that Jesus only died for the sins of a limited amount of people. Inherent within that belief is the contention that Christ did NOT die for the sins of the WHOLE world, He died for a portion of the sins of the world. Herein is the root of the issue. Scripture is clear that God has reconciled the whole world to Himself through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (1 John 2:2). That means that every sin past, present and future has already been atoned. That fact has tremendous implications to all believers. The fact that every sin, even those in the future, has already been atoned means that there is no “standard of performance” for us to live by, for God has already expunged the sin and provided to us the Righteousness of Christ. If we have been given the Righteousness of Christ and there remains no sin to be atoned, that means that our behavior has no bearing on our relationship with God where judgment is a factor. God’s wrath has been appeased by the sacrifice of Christ. All that is left is a love relationship. Again, our behavior has no bearing on our being holy for we’re as holy as we’re ever going to get; all that left is an intimate, unconditional relationship. It’s all about God’s Grace and our relationship is based on the “law of liberty” (we’ll define this later), for we have been freed from the bondage of keeping the Law of Moses. Performing to the rules and regulations of the Law of Moses has nothing to do with being a Christian. 24

If you do not understand that every sin has been atoned including our future sin, then it only makes sense that you will hold to our participation in our holiness. If our future sins have not been atoned, then our future behavior will have a bearing on our relationship with God to the point that some people hold that if you don’t act is a certain way that you can lose your salvation, lose God’s forgiveness. We hear this all the time from Christians. They will take a scripture like 1 John 1:9 (“If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”) and apply that to how believers should live in today or in the future. They say that as we sin, we NEED to ask for forgiveness in order for God to expunge the sin. This is not the gospel. There can be no participation on our part in any way; else grace ceases to be grace. The simple fact is that ALL sin was expunged at the Cross and no action (not even confession) has a bearing on our righteousness. However, this viewpoint that we must now participate in our sanctification is at the root of Christian legalism. For if we must participate in our sanctification, then it follows that our behavior now becomes important and thereby must be based on the some standard of behavior. Enter the law. If behavior is important, then the law is now revived in our lives and becomes a requirement in our Christian life. People who hold to this idea, then start down the path of standard protection. Now, standard protection wouldn’t be so bad if the protectionist stayed within themselves. However, it never stops at the individual. Legalism is always concerned about the behavior of other people. Not only are the legalists responsible to correct behavior in their own lives, they must uphold the standard in every 25

one else as well, thereby leading to things like writing letters to young girls because their shirt is too tight, or their belly button is exposed. If Christ really died for the sins of the whole world and if I have already been given the Righteousness of Christ as a free gift, then my behavior has no bearing on that gift at all. That means that God truly loves me regardless of any action or inaction on my part now or in the future. Now, in my opinion, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love! * In the time it took me to write this chapter, Barry Bonds has hit his 715th homerun. Sorry purists, the standard keeps changing so really, if you think about it, there is no standard.

Chapter Five: Christian Denial I am a recovering legalist! I will for the most part, battle legalism all the rest of my life. That’s the plain and honest fact about me. However, the truth is, we’re all legalists. We are all guilty of the same crime. The battle with the law is part of our sin nature. It’s the thing that Paul is talking about in Romans 7:22-23 when he says that he responds to the law of God in his mind but sees a different law working in his body. Paul goes on to tell us that our human experience is all about law and grace to the point that the law is part of the very essence of our flesh, it’s a part of our sin nature. I was born a legalist! People who can readily admit their legalism are far more able to accept God’s grace as a covering for their legalism. I do recognize however, that there are some people who admit that they are legalists but think that it’s a good thing to be legalistic. I won’t address those folks here. Some people, however, completely refuse to understand that they too, are guilty of legalism. They fiercely hold on to the fact that they are saved by grace but they also absolutely insist that they do not struggle with going back to the works of self-righteousness found in the works of the OT law. These folks fail to understand that the story of Paul’s battle with the legalists in the book of Galatians is really a story of the daily battle of the believer today. They fail to understand that the battle experienced by Paul in Romans 7 is the vocalization of the battle between law and grace. This is a lifetime struggle. The struggle between the law and the Spirit is one that has been “designed-in” to our walk of faith to continually test us. These tests are sent by God to see if we will go back to our own self righteous ways or to continue to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit (James chapter one).

This chapter is devoted to look at the some of the aspects of Christian denial; denying the fact that we are all legalists. While the garden variety Christian will most definitely agree that we are saved by the Grace of God with no works of our own, they stop well short of allowing themselves (and others) complete freedom so in essence, they deny that we are called by God to walk fully in the law of liberty (James 1:25. 2:12). While there are probably many aspect of Christian denial, I will address three that I see. It is my proposal that if these aspects are present, it’s a good bet that the person is in denial about their legalism. The story of Christ’s Bible Church (CBC) is an interesting story when talking about legalism and Christian denial. Having lived through the experience as one of CBC’s pastors, I can tell you that I recognize that God used our experience as a necessary part of our (both the pastors and the church) spiritual growth but it is one experience I’d choose never to repeat. Having experienced the pain and utter frustration of church based legalism, I can certainly understand why thousands of pastors each year leave the ministry due to burnout. Fighting legalism is emotionally draining and exhausting. The roots of Christ’s Bible Church go back over 100 years, founded as a Lutheran church. In the late 1950’s, the local church body believed that the Lutheran denomination was straying from a commitment to the bible as the inspired Word of God. The members then decided to break with the denomination and become independent in order to stay true to the bible. In 1996, the church moved locations from an urban setting to a suburban setting in an attempt to establish a new direction for the church. Our current ministry philosophy was birthed in 1998 heavily influenced by the work of Rick Warren and the “Purpose Driven Church” of Saddleback Valley, CA. Along with a new 28

church building and ministry strategy, came a new pastor. The current Sr. Pastor took over in 2000. At first, the congregation adapted to the new direction as we added to both the building and the staff. We continued to implement the principals of the Purpose Driven Church, culminating in 2004 with the church wide program the “40 Days of Purpose”, based on the book, The Purpose Driven Life. Our attendance (at 225 in 2000) ballooned to over 500 people per week with a one Sunday total of 750 during the 40 Days of Purpose. By the end of April of 2004, the church was truly in an explosive growth mode. A few months prior the 40 Days of Purpose campaign, our youth pastor implemented a student led worship service. Our student ministry is anchored by a teen led worship service at the same time as our late adult service. The teens run the service. They play the music, they sing, they run the sound/video, and lead the service. The youth pastor just does the main message, however the teens are responsible to run the entire service. However, at that point, the problems started. Since the student service is a service oriented exclusively to teens, the elements of the service are designed to appeal to teens: dimmed house lights, colored spot lights, stage, drama, video, etc. The student led worship service provided the first opportunity for criticism from the congregation. Some of the adults started to severely criticize the youth pastor likening the service to a “night club”. Another example of the criticism would be the use of secular music, citing that secular music has no place in church. (In reality, in over two years of the student service, there had been three uses of secular music; two songs about Jesus and one on sexual abstinence.)

The criticism about the student ministry continued hot and heavy, not just focusing on the ministry strategy but on the youth pastor himself. Accusations were leveled against the pastor and his character. Charges of drinking, swearing, lying, and other incredible false accusations continued on the pastor, characterizing him as “worldly”. These charges as well as the accompanying gossip led to the point of some people leaving the church. Over the next several months, more and more people continued to leave the church. Some of them left not because of anything specific, just because there were “problems” at the church. That means, “I can’t identify what’s wrong but since there are people complaining and some leaving, well there must be something “wrong”. The pastors continued to meet and pray about the reasons for the departures. After months of enduring the criticism, gossip and general harangue, the pastors concluded that at the root of the criticism and departures, were the seeds of legalism and a misunderstanding about the biblical doctrine of grace. We finally understood that the student worship issues were only symptoms of much deeper issues. When this revelation occurred, the leadership started the congregation down the path of Grace. Even though the process was very painful to endure, it was very important to experience in order for a light to shine on some of the root cause issues. Also, the conflict brought to my attention the first sign of Christian legalism denial. That sign is found in the charge of being “worldly” and “fleshly”, as was the charge against our youth pastor. Prior to this experience, I had heard literally hundreds of Christians use the terms worldly and fleshly and I had used the same terms in the same context myself. The context was in reference to people 30

who were living their lives aligned more closely with the practices of modern society and less like a holy people. The terms didn’t have to be used to imply direct sin but were and are used more in terms of cultural practices. However, depending on who you’re talking to, those cultural practices can be considered sin on wheels. How is the charge of worldliness an indication of a denial of legalism? The answer in my opinion is a great Christian Paradox. The denial works like this: If a person does not understand that the law has been completely abolished1 (unplugged or deactivated – 2 Corinthians chapter 3) in our lives, then that person will have the orientation that we are not completely free and thereby we must walk according to some standard of performance as Christians or some understanding that the law still applies to Christians as we walk with Christ. However, since these folks also understand that our salvation is gained not by any works of our own but strictly through the shed blood of Christ, their insistence on a standard of behavior can not be absolute, for Christ died for our salvation apart from the works of the law. Hence, the legalist must adopt a sliding scale of appropriate behavior. If therefore, we then must walk according to some set of performance standards (albeit not absolute), then it only follows that we will view other people’s behavior as bad, fair, good, better, best. We will rate people on a scale of holiness. Since there will be little argument at both extremes of the scale (very good and very bad), there will be little discussion about these things. Hence the area of greatest focus will be in the middle, in the proverbial grey area. That’s where the legalist lives, forever trying to determine where the appropriate behavior line exists.

“Worldly and fleshly” now can be used by the legalist to help the cause of defining the grey area. So, all cultural practices are now open for scrutiny. That’s how Christians continue to focus on and argue about behaviors like, going to movies, playing certain games, drinking wine, dancing, listening to various kinds of secular music and the list goes on and on. Now, when we go back and look at the treatment our youth pastor received during 2004 and 2005, it all makes sense. By in large, our congregation was still at a place where they still held the law in high regard not understanding the proper place of the law in the plan of God. They continued to hold a mixed law/grace understanding of the way we should live today. With that bias, when confronted with a pastor who lives in a place with greater perceived freedom than they allowed for themselves, they just judged him based on an inherent violation of good, better, best. They determined by cultural Christian standards that his new expression of the acceptable line of behavior was unacceptable in their sight. Their reaction was totally logical and was NOT THEIR FAULT, for they only reacted from what they had been taught about worldliness. Now there is one additional issue with respect to a cultural practice based definition of worldliness that I should mention; it’s totally unbiblical. The bible absolutely tells you how to properly define the terms “worldly” and “fleshly”. They are the same thing and they are defined as living by the dictates of a self-righteous, law oriented, works based way of life; in short, worldliness is living by the law. This definition (in context) is all over the New Testament; however legalists can never see the definitions within the pages of the bible. The law bias has blinded them to the obvious definitions. Remove the veil of the law and the definitions jump off the page. We will 32

look at the proper definitions of worldly and fleshly in later chapters. Suffice it to say, that when we hear the charge of worldliness, there’s a good chance the one bringing the charge is in Christian legalism denial. The next aspect of legalism denial is a denial that appears when we deal with repentance. Repentance is one of those sacred cows of Christianity. It is a mysterious doctrine that is passionately protected but rarely understood by those who are so passionate. However, it is a good litmus test to see if someone understands grace or is defending a law oriented view of the world. As CBC continued along the path of God’s Grace, there were (and still are) some folks that would “hang in there” long enough to engage the pastors in a dialogue. These people have been refreshing in that they would bring their questions or objections to us in order to get an explanation or gain some clarity. During one of these question and answer processes with one of our members, a very troubling belief surfaced. I puzzled long and hard over this issue not quite understanding the origin of this particular viewpoint. It wasn’t until I detected a link to the law, that I was able to see the next manifestation of Christian legalist denial. In the midst of our discussions, this member mentioned the fact that he would withhold full restoration back to the family from one of his children that had committed some household offense. The reason that he would withhold complete restoration was that the child would repeat the same offense over and over again. The logic here was that since the child repeated the offense, then the child could not have been sincere in their “repentance” after the first offense. This logic shocked and troubled me for all I kept thinking about was the child. Where was the message of 33

unconditional acceptance and unconditional forgiveness? My heart ached for that child. Although I had never studied repentance in detail, I had now studied enough of God’s grace to inherently know that there was something wrong with this approach. In response to the empty feeling inside my stomach, I set out to understand repentance. What I found was actually very shocking. I found out that I did not truly understand the proper concept of biblical repentance. I had been taught the standard Christian line of repentance but that had little to do with actual biblical repentance. I will address the concept of contextual biblical repentance in Section Three (Reforming Repentance), however, I’ll just make one quick comment here as we look at how it relates to Christian denial. The way in which we look at the law has a bearing on how we view repentance. For years I had been taught that repentance deals with a “turning away from our sin” and turning toward God. While the general idea of that statement is not totally incorrect, it helps legalism a great deal. The simple fact is that the bible, in an overwhelming number of cases in the New Testament, talks about repentance NOT as turning from my sin but turning toward faith and belief in God’s plan. John the Baptist preached the “baptism of repentance” for the forgiveness of sins. John did NOT preach “repentance” for the forgiveness of sin. The first statement (ie, “baptism of repentance”) says that I am baptized with or given repentance and the second statement says that I bring about the means of forgiveness. This is a huge difference. The first way completely trusts in God for forgiveness, the second relies on us to do something. The first view is grace driven, second view is purely law driven.

Plain and simple, repentance is a gift of God and shows up with the exercise of faith. However, if a person believes that God requires us to turn from our sin never to return, then it only makes sense that the person will also base their forgiveness toward other persons based on some similar standard of adequate “repentance”. Inadequate repentance equals incomplete forgiveness and restoration. In short, if we are required to do anything in order to receive forgiveness of our sin, then love is conditional. If repentance therefore, is not a gift, then the law lives and there’s a good chance that we are in denial. The last aspect of Christian denial I’ll mention is the aspect of obedience and work. While it may not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the topic of obedience would be at odds with the doctrine of God’s complete grace, the root cause is not at all obvious. Again, the veil (2 Corinthians 3) of the law is firmly rooted in our cultural Christianity. In the 20+ years of my church experience, I’ve heard this refrain more than any other; the refrain that God expects obedience from us. You’ll hear this all over the Christian landscape. You’ll hear it in Children’s Church, the Teen Service and certainly in the sanctuary. You’ll hear it in sermons, you’ll hear it in hallway conversations and you’ll hear it in prayers, “To obey is better than sacrifice”. Most Christians have no problem with the idea that God expects us to obey Him. To make any statements to the contrary that God expects us to obey Him, would be like questioning the character of Billy Graham, Mother Theresa or the Lord Jesus Himself. However, if the law has really been abolished in the life of the believer, then what is the right view of our obedience in God’s eyes? This is the million dollar question. 35

The proper view of works will be covered in detail in Section Four, Reforming Work, however, like repentance; I’ll make quick mention as it relates to Christian denial. As I become more and more familiar with the depth and dimensions of God’s incredible grace, I like the word obedience less and less. Now I know there are probably scores of people when they hear a comment like that, will start to condemn me for preaching a cheap gospel. That’s fine as I’ve been accused (more and more these days) of many grace related untruths. The fact is that I wouldn’t mind the word obedience so much, if I heard it used in the proper New Testament context. That is, if I heard people quote Jesus when He said, “…if you LOVE me, you’ll keep my commandments.” Now there’s the type of obedience that I’m talking about! There’s nothing wrong with keeping commandments, when they are the “right ones”. What did Jesus command? Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself! There is no mention of keeping the Sabbath, not lying, or stealing, or anything else for that matter; there’s nothing but love in Christ’s commandments. I know this may cause many of you to scratch your head saying, “I don’t understand. I agree with what Al’s saying, I agree with loving God and my neighbor. So, what’s the issue?” The issue is in the definition of obedience. For so many of us, we have been taught that obedience is a following of the law, even when we aren’t required to keep the law. The real issue is; what is the true definition of obedience? For so many of us living in New Testament times, obedience is manifested through the trusty book of James. The immortal words 36

of James ring all throughout the church, “be a doer of the word and not a hearer only”! In these words are found the foundations of the Christian way of life, our day to day living patterns. For what good is our faith if it doesn’t have some practical way to be expressed. Just as Abraham and Rahab were justified by works, so faith without works is dead. Herein lies (for most of us) the root of the meaning of obedience. However, in short, it’s just more of the same; in that it’s just a keeping of the Old Testament law in New Testament lingo. Now before you throw down this book and write me off as a heretic, let me ask you a question? Are you really sure you understand what “be a doer of the word” really means? I mean, have you studied it for yourself, or do you presently trust what someone else told you? If you’ve never studied it for yourself, the answer may absolutely shock you. Permit me to explain. James, in several places, quotes from other New Testament teachings, primarily Romans and Hebrews. In James chapter one where James is talking about being a “doer of the word”, he is quoting2 Romans chapter 2. Now before I launch into the context of Romans 2 as compared with James 1, let me say one thing. Most of us, if we are asked what it means to be a “doer of the word”, would reply that’s easy, obey what the bible says. That would mean to perform the commandments and we might even go so far as to say obey the law (even if we’re not required to do so). I maintain, that’s what most of us would answer. Now let’s go to James and Romans. If you read the context of Romans 2:13 (what James is referencing) you will see something interesting. 13

For not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers of the law shall be justified. 37

Compare to James 1:22: 22 But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. It is very interesting that James patterns his exhortation after Romans 2:13 but changes one very important thing. James does not say be a doer of the law, he says be a doer of the word. Folks, this is not just a coincidence it is purposeful. Just look at the context of Romans 2. Romans 2, is a classic discourse by the Apostle Paul laying out the fact that the Jews were absolutely no different from the Gentiles. Paul makes the case that God is no respecter of persons and then goes to show us what he means. He then states that the Gentiles who did not have the law (ie, given the law externally by God like the Jews) are condemned by their actions and in effect, their actions actually reveal that they have the law (negative sense) written on their hearts, so they are condemned by the law. The evidence that the law was written on their hearts was that the Gentiles were either “accusing” or “excusing” each other, ie, they are showing respect of persons based on the principals of the law or in plain speak, they were showing partiality based on what other people do. Then Paul goes on to berate the Jews for their hypocrisy, for he says they are blind guides. They tell others not to act one way and then do the exact same thing as what they tell others not to do. So, in effect, they are no different from the Gentiles. In verse 12, as Paul starts his accusation of hypocrisy, he states the Jews will be judged by the same standard as the Gentiles. He states that the Gentiles will perish without the law and the Jews will be judged (and subsequently perish) by the law. Now just to 38

drive the point home to the Jews, he emphasizes the requirements for keeping the law in verse 13. 13

For not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers of the law shall be justified.

So, in effect Paul is saying that no one can keep the law!!! That’s the whole point. No one can be a doer of the law!!! Now, it would make no sense whatsoever for James to quote this exact context of Romans 2, and then intend the meaning of “doer of the word” to mean “doer of the law”. He even changes the word law to word. This is an obvious reference to the Gospel. I implore you to read the whole context of James chapter one. Clearly, a doer of the word is someone who continues to walk in faith/grace, and not return to the works of the law. It has nothing to do with keeping the law. We’ll look at this more closely in Section Three however I’ll leave you with one final thought. Obedience is not a dirty word if it’s the proper obedience. Over and over again, in the New Testament, scripture states that obedience is doing the will of God by continuing to live by faith and not to draw back to the works of the law (Hebrews 10). However, if you keep hearing someone quote James 1:22 with the intention that “to obey is better than sacrifice”, with the clear intention of keeping the commandments and the law, that’s a clearer indication of Christian legalist denial. Notes: 1: Comment on the use of the word abolished. First, the Apostle Paul used this word in reference to the law and its glory in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Its usage does not in any way mean that we are to destroy the law, as Christ said, “I came not to destroy but to fulfill.” Again, we fully agree with Paul that the law is holy, good 39

and pure. The word abolished does not impugn the law whatsoever, its usage relates more to the effect of the law (re: the word “glory” in 2 Corninthians 3) in the life of the believer. The actual Greek definition speaks directly to this understanding defining “abolished” as being unplugged or deactivated in the life of the believer and not a disparagement of the law itself. Also, as you will see later in this book, the law still has a purpose for the believer today. With that understanding, it would make no sense to say that the law has been destroyed in the life of the believer (with the understanding that there is therefore no further use for the law) if we also agree that the law still plays an active role today. 2: I fully understand that scholars are not together when it comes to the dating of the book of James with respect to the rest of the books of the New Testament. Some believe that James could actually be the earliest book written, coming before the book of Romans. If this were true, then my supposition that James quoted Romans could not be justified. However, there are many scholars that believe that James was written just before his death, as late as 65AD. I hold to this position primarily due to the fact that James, Peter and John were at odds with Paul in the beginning of their ministries. Peter, James and John initially had a problem with the Gospel of Grace and it took a while for them to adopt Paul’s revelation. In the book of Galatians, Paul very adamantly insists that Peter and James did not add one thing to his message when they met in Jerusalem (3 years after Paul’s salvation). Based on this fact, it makes no sense to me that Paul would quote James, in my opinion James quotes Paul. In any event, if James is not directly quoting Paul, he most certainly is quoting Paul’s doctrine, for James most certainly heard it directly from Paul.

Section Two: Reforming Liberty – Abolishing the Law Chapter Six: It Started with a Promise I am not a seminary trained pastor. That’s not an apology nor is it a knock on seminaries in any way; simply as statement of background. I’ve been living as an evangelical Christian for over 20 years. I have been an elder in church for over 10 years, a pastor for six, and I’ve never had any formal biblical training. All of the bible knowledge that I possess has come primarily from one of three sources; from personal study, from pastor’s sermons and from radio teachers. If I were to rank these sources by the impact of each on shaping my theology in the early days of my walk with Christ, the list would look like this; 1) radio teachers, 2) pastor’s sermons, and 3) personal study. That’s 180 degrees from where it is today. Why is that? Is there some reason that I’ve grown tired of listening to the radio? Yes, absolutely! The painful truth about today’s American Christian experience is that a large amount of our theology comes from what other people teach us and not from our own discovery in God’s Word. Now that wouldn’t be so bad (and actually in line with the bible) if the teaching came from the local church pastor. However, so much of our theology today is shaped and influenced by the media, especially the radio. Yes, the advent of television has helped this phenomenon but I believe the radio more than TV, has a tremendous influence on our minds and it shapes our theology as well. I believe the reason for this is the day-to-day routine of bible radio. People get into their cars on their way to and from work, and there 41

they are; the bible teachers just waiting to teach. The radio has a tremendous effect on the formation of our biblical doctrine simply by the use of repetition. Now, there is one thing that absolutely amazes me about the phenomenon of doctrinal teaching done in the form of a radio or TV broadcast. While most people when looking for a church scrutinize the senior pastor to an incredible degree, there is little concern that I can see, as to the legitimacy of the radio/TV teacher. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not questioning the Charles Stanleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and the Chuck Swidolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of the world but there is an incredible amount of radio personalities that have no business teaching biblical theology to anybody. All these radio teachers need is the proper amount of money and a cash poor radio station, and bingo, a bible authority is born. Amazingly, it is the likes of these authorities that we hear our members quoting time and time again with some of the most offthe-wall biblical applications! Today, this phenomenon is one of the most frustrating issues faced by the modern pastor. The plain truth is that the average pastor gets roughly one to two hours per week (if you add Sunday and some mid week teaching service) as an average, to teach his/her members. Compare this to the 5+ hours a week that the average Christian listens to radio teachers. That ratio is a losing proposition for the modern pastor, especially, if that pastor is trying to undo some kind of biblical error in his congregation. The faithful pastor preaches one message on Sunday morning and then Monday through Friday, the aberrant radio personality undoes much of what that pastor accomplished on that Sunday morning. This is an incredible frustration. This brings me to the topic of this chapter. It is my supposition from many years of observation as well as personal experience, 42

that if we asked the average Christian today, “is there Grace in the Old Testament?” they would answer absolutely NO. If we asked them, “did God ever intend for man to live by the law?”, they would answer yes. If we would go on to ask them, “what came first, the law or the promise?”, most people would undoubtedly say the law. These basic responses come from years of misapplied biblical teaching. They come from the type of law oriented teaching that, in my opinion, many radio personalities drive home day after day. The truth is that I have listened to some very credible bible teachers over the past twenty years but I’ve also listened to some really bad ones as well. However, the summation of all this bible teaching both good and bad, resulted in my ignorance over some very basic bible understanding. One of the most basic understandings that the vast amount of radio teachers (and pastors for that matter) failed to teach me was that the Promise came BEFORE the law!!! Most Christians understand that Abraham lived before Moses did. They understand that God spoke to Abraham and asked him to move from Ur to Canaan. Most people understand that God moved through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the Fathers of the lineage of the Messiah, but I believe few understand (as I did not until recently) the importance of the promise God made to Abraham. The truth is that the unconditional promise made by God to Abraham, the promise that God would unconditionally bless Abraham and his seed, the promise that the whole world would be blessed by God’s unconditional mercy, that very promise came 430 years before God gave the law to Moses. This historic fact tells us plainly that God always intended His salvation to be based on His own Grace and on His Grace alone. The law and the law’s related 43

works performance, had nothing to do with the unconditional promise. So, what happened when the law came? Did the law nullify the promise of God? The Apostle Paul states in the book of Galatians, “absolutely no way”. The law ratified the promise and it did not take one thing away from the promise. In brief, here is what God accomplished by issuing the promise prior to the law. God had always intended that a loving relationship with Him would always be accomplished by His Grace alone and nothing else. So, God tells Abraham, that he (Abraham) was the one to receive the promise for all of mankind. God promised Abraham, that for no reason other than God’s goodness and mercy, that he would receive the blessing and that blessing was to be applied not only to him but to his seed after him. The seed God spoke of, actually spoke of Christ and all those who believe and trust in Christ would be credited as part of that seed. Therefore, by faith, all those who trust/believe in Christ would be included in the blessing. Again, the promise was unconditional and received by faith in Jesus Christ alone. So, if the promise of salvation was to Abraham and his seed after him, why even give the law 430 years later? Again the Apostle Paul tells us that it’s all the plan of God. Based on our inherent sinfulness (our sin nature comes from God), we rebel against the law regardless of whether we live under the law or not. Remember, we said in chapter five, that the Apostle Paul told us that the Jews were no different than the Gentiles for all are guilty before God. Hence the law was given, Paul tells us, in order for sin to be manifested, or so people could see just how sinful they are. In short, the law was given in order to magnify sin and pronounce 44

everyone guilty before God. That’s it! The law was given to condemn the world and by the way, the law did a very fine job. We are all sinners condemned to death. So, if you place the truth about the law coming after the promise, into our discussion of Moses and Abraham, the law was given to Moses and the people of Israel as an example of how NOT to live. In other words, the law was given to show you and me just how much we need the unconditional promise of the Father. Without the unconditional promise of God, we humans are in a lot of trouble for no one can keep the law and even come close to fulfilling its requirements. The misunderstanding of this very basic truth, gives fuel to the legalist. For if we believe that God intended us to live in some fashion under the law or if the law came first, then we may have an incomplete understanding of Grace. Additionally, even if we understand that God established the first (Old) Testament or Covenant in order to remove it so He could establish the second (New) Testament, we might get the idea that God still intended for us to live by the law, it’s just that we can’t because of our sinfulness. Further, if we think that God intended for us to live by the law, even though we know we’ve been made holy by Christ, then maybe, the law is a good way for us to live today. That is not the gospel. On the other hand, if we understand that God never intended for us to live by the tenants of the law (the promise coming before the law tells us that), then it is very hard to argue that we are supposed to live by the performance of the law today. That would make no sense.

Hence, we see that our basic understanding of some obvious historical facts has a very direct bearing on our current belief system. More importantly, that belief system has a major impact on our treatment of other people. Process bias is alive and well in the church today and that bias has been responsible for much pain in the body of Christ!

Chapter Seven: The Law Ratified the Promise, So Cast Out that Bond Woman As we were going through our journey from legalism to grace, each of our pastors experienced the reformation in a different way. Our Senior Pastor was going through a tough personal time in the relationship with his wife. Through that relational difficulty, the Gospel of Grace was discovered. Our Maturity/Discipleship Pastor has a very rare genetic disease that threatens his life; again, grace discovered through that hardship. My reformation was not aided by any relationship or through any other hardship. It was not swayed by any pastor or contemporary author of today, neither by any media personality. My reformation was accelerated by the Father of the Reformation himself, Martin Luther. It happened quite by accident actually. Admittedly, I had read books by Chuck Swindol, (The Grace Awakening) and Larry Crabb (The Pressure’s Off) and was looking for other grace based books on the internet. I had in my mind to write a bible study on the book of Galatians, since the book was instrumental in energizing my search for liberty and our church was in desperate need of an understanding of grace. While I was on the internet searching, I came across this particular website. What I had found was Project Wittenberg. Project Wittenberg was a project of Concordia Theological Seminary whose goal was to provide an electronic library of the works of Martin Luther. I was also surprised to see that Zondervan Publishing was responsible for the content on the site. In the 1940’s, P. J. Zondervan wanted to provide to the American people, the works of Luther in a readable form. Luther wrote in Latin and German, and other attempts at translations were very difficult for the average American to read. Zondervan not only wanted to make Luther readable, he wanted to make Luther “speak 47

American”. Hence, what they produced in 1949 was a very readable, very poignant translation of Martin Luther’s commentary on the book of Galatians among other works. Concordia then started to round up these types of documents and were making them available through the internet. What I had found was no ordinary site and no ordinary work. I started reading Luther’s commentary and was mesmerized. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I found a man who was writing almost 500 years ago and he was articulating things that were happening right in our church! Luther outlined that when the Reformation started, he and his group were hailed as heroes but shortly after the start, when the false teachers came in with false doctrine, they were hated. Here’s a sample: Luther commenting of Galatians 4:16; “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” “The same thing happened to me. When I began to proclaim the Gospel, there were many, very many who were delighted with our doctrine and had a good opinion of us. And now? Now they have succeeded in making us so odious to those who formerly loved us that they now hate us like poison.” Martin Luther1 “At the beginning of the Reformation we were honored as the true ministers of Christ. Suddenly certain false brethren began to hate us. We had given them no offense, no occasion to hate us. They knew then as they know now that ours is the singular desire to publish the Gospel of Christ everywhere. What changed their attitude toward us? False doctrine.” Martin Luther2 48

Luther had experienced the same thing the Apostle Paul experienced and the same thing we were experiencing; the wrath of those who would come against the true Gospel, the Gospel of Grace and the Law of Liberty. Luther understood first hand what it felt like to stand alone on the truth of God’s Word. Martin Luther seemed to understand Paul like no one else I had ever read. Luther seemed to get right “into Paul’s head”, for he understood Paul to an incredible degree. Luther made Galatians come alive in my soul to the point that on one day, our secretary and youth pastor had to come into my office to see if I was alright for I was openly weeping at what I was reading. Luther understood Grace. However, before then I never had a clue what Luther actually thought or said. I knew the typical stuff about Luther, you know, the stuff they teach you in college in your Christian Europe class. I knew that while a Roman Catholic monk, Luther discovered that we were saved by grace and not by works and that’s what gave the main impetus to the Reformation. I also knew that Luther was pretty rough on anyone who leaned even a little to the works side of the equation. I figured this made sense, since he had just come out of an institution that was pretty much all works oriented. So, I knew some tidbits of information and had read about Luther but I had never read Luther. This was an education. I have now read Luther’s commentary three times and I believe I now know why Luther was so rough on anyone who even breathed works. It all makes sense now. The Apostle Paul starts out in chapter one of the Book of Galatians and basically makes just one very strong point in that chapter. Paul states that anyone who preaches a works oriented gospel is preaching a different gospel and deserves to be damned. Wow! 49

These are pretty strong words from the Apostle but I now understand why they are necessary. According to Paul (as my understanding was aided by Luther) to believe that any act of obedience changes your relationship with God, to either move God for you or against you, or to make you holy in any way, is really just self righteousness. So, if you hold to a position that any action would be adding to your holiness or would change God’s attitude toward you in any way, you are actually treading upon the sacrifice of Christ and making His sacrifice of no effect in your life. “Man's own righteousness is in the last analysis a despising and rejecting of the grace of God. No combination of words can do justice to such an outrage. It is an insult to say that any man died in vain. But to say that Christ died in vain is a deadly insult. To say that Christ died in vain is to make His resurrection, His victory, His glory, His kingdom, heaven, earth, God Himself, of no purpose and benefit whatever. … …And yet this atrocity is all too common. Let us be warned. Everyone who seeks righteousness without Christ, either by works, merits, satisfactions, actions, or by the Law, rejects the grace of God, and despises the death of Christ.” Martin Luther3 Now according to Paul, to reject the sacrifice of Christ through self-righteous acts is to be guilty of idolatry. Idolatry means a different god and a different plan of salvation than the plan of the Father through the sacrifice of the Son. This is the reason that Luther (and Paul for that matter) was so adamant toward any 50

preaching of a works based salvation. Self-righteousness is akin to idolatry. Paul goes on to tell us what to do in order to get back to the pure Gospel of Grace. Come with me now as we take a quick trip through the Book of Galatians chapter 4. This will give us a basic understanding of Paul’s solution to legalism. Paul tells us in Chapter 4, that we’ve been saved “from the elements of the world” (Gal 4:3). In this context, the “elements of the world” (the same as the ‘rudiments’ of the world in Colossians 2) are defined as living by the law. Find that hard to believe? Just read the context of Galatians 4 and Colossians 2. In Galatians 4, Paul is stating that he doubts that the Galatians’ have been truly saved and is afraid that he has labored in vain. He states this because the Galatians were “observing days, and months, and times and years.” Clearly these are references to observing religious customs, man made religious rules and regulations. In Colossians 2, Paul is even more blunt. After he calls the “traditions of men” the same thing as the “rudiments of the world” and then defines what he means. He goes on to say in verse 20, that we’re dead with Christ “from the rudiments (principles) of the world”. We know that we’ve been saved from these principles, for he applies a contrast. He says that while we were alive in the “world” we were subject to ordinances, “touch not, taste not, handle not”; obvious references to the ordinances of the law. He says that all these are the commandments of men and a form of will worship and all this “neglecting of the body” has no honor because it only satisfies the flesh! So we see, all the rules and regulations of men, even when based from the law are nothing but the commandments of men and are 51

called will worship which is idolatry. In short, living by the law and its rules and regulations is defined as being worldly. This understanding is quite a bit different than the accusations leveled at our youth pastor! In the last chapter, we saw that the law was given for the purpose of condemning all people. The law did its job and has no additional spiritual function. We also saw how it was God’s intention for us never to live under the law as seen in God giving Abraham the promise 430 years before He gave Moses the law. Paul tells us by doing that; the law was our schoolmaster to “bring us to Christ”. The law did not nullify the promise, the law ratified the promise. Hence the law demonstrated to us the utter futility of attempting to live by its rules and regulations and how utterly dependent we are on the unconditional promise of righteousness by the unilateral action of God. Now, understanding the function of the law and the futility of attempting to live by it and the complete freedom that the sacrifice of Christ has obtained for us, Paul is baffled as to why the Galatians would still attempt to drag the law back into their lives. Paul then asks one hugely significant question to the Galatians in 4:21; “Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?” This is a tremendous question. However, the answer is even better. Paul goes on to tell the Galatians that the law tells you what to do, that is, the law (Old Testament scripture) tells you how to live. Paul then goes into the allegory of the freewoman and the bondwoman; the story of Sarah/Isaac and Hagar/Ishmael. Remember the story of Abraham? God had promised Abraham that He would make of Abraham a great nation to where his descendents would be like the sand of the sea. At that time, Abraham and Sarah were childless and well advanced in years. 52

After many years of waiting, Sarah gets the idea that God must want them to help. Sarah then sends her servant Hagar, into her husband Abraham, in order that they may have a child by Hagar. This was allowable by the way, by Jewish law and custom. Sarah just did what she thought was right. However, this was not God’s plan. Fighting between Sarah and Hagar ensued after the birth of Hagar’s son Ishmael and that resulted in the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael from the household of Abraham. God’s plan was to open Sarah’s womb so Sarah could conceive and that’s exactly what happened. Sarah birthed Isaac. So, Ishmael was born after the bondwoman (Hagar) and Isaac was born after the freewoman (Sarah); one by the law, one by the promise. Now let’s look at the next verses from Galatians 4 in detail. 23

But he who was of the bondwoman (Ishmael) was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise (Isaac). Now you will notice in this verse, Paul states that the son of the bondwoman was born after the flesh. Interesting that Paul doesn’t use the term law here as a contrast to promise but uses the word flesh. This correlates also to the phrase “elements of the world”, which we looked at earlier. The idea here is that which is fleshly (akin to worldly) is that which is of the law, that which is self righteous. 24

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which engenders bondage, which is Agar. Ok, now we’re told that these things (Hagar/Ishmael and Sarah/Isaac) are an allegory. These things now stand for the two 53

covenants, the Old Covenant and the New Testament. We’re told that Hagar/Ishmael stand for the Old Covenant. Where did the Old Covenant originate, at Mt. Sinai where the law was received. Paul also adds “which engenders bondage”. Why does the Old Covenant engender bondage? Because it’s conditional; “IF” you keep the whole law, then you’ll be blessed by God. The only problem is that no one can keep the whole law, for if you offend in one point, you’re guilty of all the whole law! 25

For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. Now we’re given additional information about Hagar, the law and the Old Covenant. Paul says that they are all answerable to Jerusalem. That’s very interesting! Further, look at what he says about the children of Jerusalem; he states that they are in bondage! Wow, this just keeps getting better and better. Think about it for a minute. Here you have Hagar the mother of Ishmael (who is the father of all the Arab peoples) not only being connected to the law and the Old Testament but also to Jerusalem. And what’s more the children of Jerusalem are exactly in the same bondage as the children of Hagar/Ishmael. So we see, it makes no difference if you’re Jew or Gentile if you live your life by the law and not by faith. I think it’s more than ironic that Jerusalem was destroyed just a few short years after Paul wrote these words. The prophecy that Jesus predicted came true, that “not one stone of the temple should stand upon another”. God made sure that the symbol of the law, the temple in Jerusalem, was completely and utterly destroyed after the symbol of grace (the cross) was firmly planted into the ground.

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. 54

Paul then gives us the New Testament answer; the New Jerusalem from the book of the Revelation, is from above and is free. It’s free of any laws because it’s by faith. We’re told in Revelation that Righteousness dwells in that city and by the way there is no temple in the New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem is not only from heaven but is the mother of us all. Sarah isn’t the mother of us all but the promise that God gave Abraham is the mother of us all. That promise came from heaven and is above anything on earth. The promise is heavenly. Keeping the law is earthy. 27

For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bears not; break forth and cry, thou that travails not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Paul quotes here Isaiah 54:1. I never understood this verse at all until my understanding about barrenness changed. I used to think when I read this verse that barrenness was bad. A barren woman could not bring forth children and naturally I could never understand why Isaiah or Paul would say to “rejoice thou barren that bears not”. That is until I found out that in this context being barren was good. To be barren means that you have no ability to bear any work of self-righteousness, no labor of works to try to add anything to grace. In that context, I now understand that yes, a woman should rejoice because the scripture states that the woman who does not give birth to children who are by the works of the law, births children that are way more numerous than the woman with a husband. Why, because the barren woman’s children are children by faith! No wonder Christ was born of a virgin and by the way, did you know that not only Sarah was barren but so were Rebecca (Isaac’s wife) and Rachel (Jacob’s real wife)! Let’s listen to Martin Luther as he comments on the allegory of the barren church, Isaac and Ishmael. 55

“Paul quotes the allegorical prophecy of Isaiah to the effect that the mother of many children must die desolately, while the barren woman shall have an abundance of children. (Isaiah 54:1.) He applies this prophecy to Hagar and Sarah, to the Law and the Gospel. The Law as the husband of the fruitful woman procreates many children. For men of all ages have had the idea that they are right when they follow after the Law and outwardly perform its requirements. Although the Law has many children, they are not free. They are slaves. As servants they cannot have a share in the inheritance, but are driven from the house as Ishmael was cast out of the house of Abraham. In fact the servants of the Law are even now barred from the kingdom of light and liberty, for ‘he that believeth not, is condemned already.’ (John 3:18.) As the servants of the Law they remain under the curse of the Law, under sin and death, under the power of the devil, and under the wrath and judgment of God. On the other hand, Sarah, the free Church, seems barren. The Gospel of the Cross which the Church proclaims does not have the appeal that the Law has for men, and therefore it does not find many adherents. The Church does not look prosperous. Unbelievers have always predicted the death of the Church. The Jews were quite certain 56

that the Church would not long endure. They said to Paul: ‘As concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against.’ (Acts 28:22.) No matter how barren and forsaken, how weak and desolate the Church may seem, she alone is really fruitful before God. By the Gospel she procreates an infinite number of children that are free heirs of everlasting life. The Law, ‘the old husband,’ is really dead. But not all people know it, or want to know it. They labor and bear the burden and the heat of the day, and bring forth many children, children that are bastards like themselves, children born to be put out of the house like Ishmael to perish forever. Accursed be that doctrine, life, and religion which endeavors to obtain righteousness before God by the Law and its creeds.” Martin Luther 4 Luther hits the spiritual nail on the head when he says that the “old husband is really dead (Romans 7:1-4) but not all the people know it or want to know it”. Luther understood human nature in the 1500’s and there is no difference today. The result has been for centuries in the Christian church, people continually mix law and grace together. We hear this call in our church today even though you may not recognize the form. Our little reformation at CBC has been going on now for almost two years and time and again we hear the calls for “balance” from the congregation. Balance? What does that mean? I’ve endeavored to understand what our folks mean by this and I’ve come up with only one conclusion. My conclusion is that a call for 57

balance is a call to in some way draw back from grace and to “add back” some requirements of the law. In short balance means to mix law and grace. My question back to them is; how can I preach anything but total grace for to preach works or to lead with works is to emphasize the self and not the Lord. What was Paul’s conclusion to the whole matter? Paul in verse 30 of Galatians 4 then sums up the entire issue which ties directly to the beginning of the allegory (ie, verse 21 “do you not hear the law”). Paul says, “Nevertheless, what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman for the son of the bondwoman will not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” In other words, both New Testament and Old Testament scripture actually tells you what to do with the law; they tell you to cast it out! The bottom line is that we cannot live by both the liberty found in the grace of Christ and the bondage of the works of the law. We cannot mix law and grace, the two cannot coexist, and the two certainly cannot live in the same household. Paul reminds us in the last verse of chapter 4; “So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.” My question is this; why do we feel the incredible need to leave an all loving, all accepting, all forgiving adoptive parent and return to a condition imposing, performance demanding, consequence executing natural parent?

Notes: 1 Project Wittenberg, Galatians Commentary, Chapter 4, pp. 86106, verse 5 2 Project Wittenberg, Galatians Commentary, Chapter 4, pp. 172193, verse 12 3 Project Wittenberg, Galatians Commentary, Chapter 2, pp 68-85, verse 21 58

Project Wittenberg, Galatians Commentary, Chapter 4, pp. 172193, verse 27

On-line link: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/gal/web /gal-inx.html

Chapter Eight: Living in the Promise Being a pastor is a rollercoaster of emotions. There are times when there are great joys and then there are times of crushing disappointment and sorrow. One of the worst times of sorrow is when we are involved in the lives of people who not only are bent on self destruction but on the destruction of their children. The pain of watching adults take advantage of children is probably the worst sorrow in my job as a pastor. There is an incredibly strong bond between a child and his/her natural parent. That bond obviously has been designed into us by the Father Himself. However, that bond if only one sided, can be the source of much pain and rejection. Children instinctively want love and acceptance from the ones who birthed them. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s as basic as eating and breathing. However, when the ones responsible for giving birth do not share the love and acceptance, the results can be horrifying. As pastors, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been involved in all kinds of situations but the one that absolutely rips your heart out is the scenario where a biological parent repeatedly neglects and abuses their birth child. The abuse can be physical, sexual, mental, or verbal. That parent repeatedly pours out his/her wrath on their innocent and fearful child. Year after year this scene is played out until finally someone steps in. It could be a friend, neighbor or teacher but someone mercifully steps in and attempts to stop the onslaught of hate and abuse. Now, at that point, we all breathe a sigh of relief for our hearts are with the child as the target of the abuse. The pain can stop for us as a third party observer; however, the pain doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily stop for the child. Yes, the physical, sexual, verbal abuse may have stopped but how about the ongoing sting of rejection that the 60

child now lives with? That child now lives with the realization that their own birth parent has such a low opinion of them that the parent would resort to this kind of behavior. The self loathing, guilt and rejection that accompany that realization are things that will stay with the child for the rest of their lives. We know that the sting of rejection is an intense emotion for even when the parent has treated the child with such distain, the child in many cases still seeks the approval of the parent, to the point where some children choose to return to the home of the abuse. So many children would rather put up with the harsh treatment, than to live without some kind of recognition from their natural parents. We see the strong desire for parental acceptance at different times and in different forms during our everyday lives. It is seen in the toddler when he’s about to perform some great feat, “Mom, look at me, look at me, mom, are you watching me?” It is seen in the rebellious teenage boy who is acting out deliberately to get mom or dad’s attention. It is seen in the adopted young woman now seeking her birth mom. It is seen in the woman of 50, who has been cooking fabulous meals for her family for three decades but when her elderly mom comes to visit, she somehow has to ask mom the most basic cooking questions. So, we see the intense inner desire to seek acceptance from our parents is life long and is extremely difficult to overcome. The reason that it is so intense and difficult to overcome is that it’s prewired into all of us humans. God wired us to have this emotional need and those things that are by nature are the hardest to overcome. How is this discourse about parental acceptance related to legalism and self-righteousness? In the same way that acceptance from your parents is a strong and pre-wired instinct within all of us, so is the desire for self-righteousness. God has wired us to have a 61

natural desire to want to live by some code of conduct, a set of rules and regulations. We all have an urge to justify ourselves. We all want our own way; we all want to be right. Each one of us has the desire to put our life’s plan into effect; each of us has the desire for self-righteousness. God has wired us with this need for self acceptance by what we do and again, as a natural need, it is most difficult to overcome. When speaking of this legalistic natural drive within all of us, we are just like the abused child who continually seeks the acceptance of the natural parent to the point of returning to the abuse. All of us have the natural desire to return to that abusing parent, the law, to fulfill a natural need for performance acceptance and self gratification. Just like the abused child, this drive is an intense one to overcome. Do you find this idea of God implanting the desire for selfrighteousness into all of us, hard to believe? Are you skeptical that the bible tells us that? Please look at some scripture with me. Let’s go to the Book of Romans. The Book of Romans is a book of incredible insight into the nature and character of God. It begins in chapter one. In chapter one, the Apostle Paul tells us that God has given every human being the innate ability to know all about Him. In chapter one verse 19, Paul tells us “that which may be known of God is ‘manifest’ in them (people without the law)”. This means that a basic knowledge of God is pre-wired into all of us. That’s what the word “manifest” means in the Greek; to lay bare. God has laid bare within all of us the obvious truth that there is a God. That’s how Paul could say that when judged by God, all men are “without excuse”. Paul then goes on to tell us about the law in Romans chapter two. His audience is the Jews who are in Rome. He is berating them pretty hard for in chapter two he plainly accuses them of 62

hypocrisy. He says that you who tell others not to do certain things, do you do the same things? He is laying out a case that lets the Jews know that they are absolutely no different than the Gentiles; which is an extremely harsh accusation for the Jews whole lifestyle strived to segregate themselves from the godless Gentiles. Paul then goes on to lay out a beautiful argument telling the Jews that there is no difference between themselves and Gentiles. He states that “as many as have sinned without the law (reference to the Gentiles), shall perish without the law”. Further, “all who sin in the law (the Jews), shall be judged by the law”. Hence, Paul is stating that all men are guilty before God, those who have received the law and those who haven’t. Now if you look at the first statement by Paul about the Gentiles perishing without the law, this might seem perplexing. For the New Testament tells us that only through the knowledge of the law is the imputation of sin. So, how could the Gentiles be guilty (to the point of death) if they never received the law and the knowledge of sin? Simple, Paul then goes on to tell us that the law has been “written on their hearts”. That’s how the Gentiles could be held responsible for their sin; the knowledge of good and evil, as well as the law has been pre-wired into all humans, so all humans are without excuse. All humans both know about God and what is good and bad. All humans are therefore without excuse. Paul tells us that the Gentiles show this knowledge of the law by their actions. Their conscience bears them witness to this truth. The obvious telling factor is that the Gentiles were showing partiality to each other based on their behavior, for Paul says that the evidence was that the Gentiles were “accusing and excusing one another” (Romans 2:15). The Gentiles, based on the God given pre-wired propensity for the law, were just doing what they were wired to do, ie, show partiality. 63

Now, with that understanding it makes perfect sense that the natural desire for self-righteousness is one of the most difficult impulses to break. That’s why Paul ends Romans chapter two in the way that he does. He tells us that the only way to eliminate this natural innate propensity to self-righteousness is to get a circumcision, a “circumcision of the heart”. We must supernaturally get the law cut out of our heart. That’s the only way to walk in the Spirit and not to continually walk in the flesh. Enter the Holy Spirit. Remember the title of this chapter? It’s Living in the Promise. How shall we live today, how do we live in the promise? The answer is by the Holy Spirit and nothing else. Paul tells us that if “we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (law powered flesh that is). God has unilaterally declared that He alone would give us a circumcision of the heart. That promise came as far back as Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6. We do nothing to receive this circumcision of the heart; God alone does the work. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross unilaterally atoned for all the sins of humanity and thereby abolished the law. The law required code of conduct has been fulfilled via the Righteousness of Christ and has been given to each of us who trust in His plan of righteousness. There are no more requirements left to fulfill; hence the law now can rest. It has been deactivated in our lives and in a word, abolished (2 Corinthians chapter 3). This is how Paul can now tell us in Galatians chapter 5 to “stand fast in the liberty that Christ died to obtain for us and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage (the law)”. The Greek word to stand means to stand perfectly erect without a hint of bending to the law. Our liberty is utter freedom. He then goes on to tell us that not only are we to stand fast in our liberty without a hint of bending to the law, he adds in verse 13 64

that we have been “called to liberty”. Liberty is the calling to which God has called us. Our calling is to abandon the law completely in order to live a new life, a life without the hypocrisy of the law, a life without partiality based on some hypocritical pretence of proper conduct. We are called by God to walk in complete and utter freedom, where the Holy Spirit can be free to lead us. For it’s only in complete freedom where we will be truly free from leading ourselves and it’s only apart from the law that we can actually hear the Holy Spirit as he attempts to guide us in our personal relationship with Christ. “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law”. (Galatians 5:18). Living in the Promise and not the law is best seen when we talk about other people. For remember when we said that legalists are always concerned with the behavior of other people? Living in the Promise is the antidote to the law oriented relationship, for since the law is no longer active, there can be no standard in which to judge any one else. The Apostle Paul closes the incredible Book of Galatians with the conclusion to the whole matter. “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault (sin), you which are spiritual (ie, Spirit oriented not law oriented) restore such a one in the spirit of meekness…” (Galatians 6:1) This is Living in the Promise at its best. Since there is now no longer any standard of behavior for anyone to follow, all that is left is unconditional love and acceptance regardless of anyone’s behavior. In short, Paul is telling us to bear everyone’s sins. Plain and simple, put up with everything that your brother does. Verse 2 plainly states, “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ”. This is awesome doctrine. Since there is no standard of behavior for anyone to perform, then all we need to do is to fulfill the “royal law” of loving your neighbor as yourself and in this context, bear his sins and then attempt to restore the individual when he falls. 65

By the way, don’t attempt to worry about accountability, that’s the role of the Holy Spirit. Look at verses 4-5. “But let every man prove his own work and then he shall have rejoicing in himself and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden.” This is the proof positive. Our role in relationships with other people is not one of holding people accountable for their actions, for that is solely the role of the Holy Spirit. Since Christ died for every sin, past, present and future, then our ministry can not possibly be one of sin prevention. Our ministry is a ministry of reconciliation. Just love the person right where they are and help put them back together without judgment. I want to leave you with a mental picture of Living the Promise before you leave this chapter. Unfortunately, to get the proper picture, I can’t refer to any event that I can think of in the church. In order to get the right picture, I have to turn to the secular world and specifically, Desperate Housewives! If you’re a Desperate Housewives fan, you may have seen this episode. The one I’m thinking of is the one where Brie is about to have a nervous breakdown. She has just cast her son out of the house by dropping him off in the middle of nowhere with just some cash and one bag of clothes. The reason for this drastic measure is due to the actions of her son. Brie’s son, a homosexual, in order to send a message to his mother, has just slept with his mother’s boyfriend. Brie, completely repulsed, has decided that she can no longer live with her child’s behavior. Her solution to her son’s behavior is to cast her son out of the house. Brie, now turning all her attention to her daughter, is smothering the daughter with love. In her guilt over casting her son out of the house, Brie obsesses over her daughter’s birthday party trying to be super mom and give her daughter the perfect birthday. In 66

preparing for the birthday party, Brie also makes the perfect cake. Motivated by obsessive guilt ridden emotion and action, the party is a complete disaster. The disastrous party is capped off by Brie dropping the cake on the floor in front of her daughter and her friends after a struggle with the cake. Brie’s daughter is humiliated by her mother’s behavior and storms out of the room. The party quickly ends and the scene switches to a devastated Brie alone in the living room (site of the dropped cake). Enter Susan, friend of Brie. Susan also has a long list of moral lapses like sleeping with her best friend’s fiancée among other gems of behavior. Susan enters Brie’s house to find Brie in a daze, on her hands and knees scrubbing the cake stain out of the carpet. Brie looking like she’s a half step away from complete insanity and breakdown, tells Susan what happened including what she had done to her son, ie leaving him in the middle of nowhere. Susan seeing her pathetic, borderline psychotic friend and moved with tearful compassion, says absolutely nothing but instead gets down on her hands and knees, reaches into the bucket for a rag and starts to help her friend clean the carpet. With both in complete silence and scrubbing the stained rug, the scene fades to black. Can you imagine a church that loved people that way? Hard isn’t it? However, this is the exact picture of Living in the Promise! Now that I’ve given you a good picture of living in the promise, let me spend a few pages telling you what “living in the promise” is not. First and foremost, living in the promise is NOT a license to sin and living in the promise is NOT antinomianism! For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, let me explain. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, there were some people who took the teachings of Martin Luther and his revelation about the liberty found in the gospel, to a place where Luther never intended. Some 67

people, most notably a man named Johannes Agricola, concluded that since Christ has fulfilled the law for us, there is therefore no purpose for the law in the life of the believer today. Their logic states that since they are justified by Christ, the believer therefore cannot sin any longer. So the law, by their logic, would not serve a purpose any longer. With no sin, there is no need to feel the weight of their sin which the Apostle Paul states is the spiritual purpose of the law. Further, Antinomians hold that the law should not even be taught to the Christian believer. To an antinomian, the law is a dirty word and should not even be uttered from our lips for it provides no purpose whatsoever.1 It should be pointed out that this is absolutely not the proper definition of the gospel of grace, the law of liberty and living in the promise. It should also be noted that the term “antinomianism” (“against the law”) was coined by Martin Luther himself to depict this improper view of grace. Luther resolutely stood against the antinomian point of view, confronting Agricola to his face and actually persuading Agricola to print a retraction of his views.2 For the record, Martin Luther absolutely taught that the law has a great value for the believer today. As did Paul, Luther believed that it is only by the knowledge of the law, do we understand our sin. The grace minded believer understands that since there is no way they can keep the law, they understand the fact that they sin continuously. In contrast, the person who attempts to live by the law is deluded to think that they actually can live by the law, so based on that belief they thereby deny their sin. Luther believed that the law should be active in the mind of the believer to the degree that the grace minded person understands the depth, breadth and width of their depravity. 3 Each day, the grace dependent believer discovers more and more about the reality of his/her sin. In this way, they will also fully understand the incredible personal value of the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross. 68

â&#x20AC;&#x153;No man is to despair of salvation just because he is aware of the lust of the flesh. Let him be aware of it so long as he does not yield to it. The passion of lust, wrath, and other vices may shake him, but they are not to get him down. Sin may assail him, but he is not to welcome it. Yes, the better Christian a man is, the more he will experience the heat of the conflict. This explains the many expressions of regret in the Psalms and in the entire Bible. Martin Luther4 In this quote, Luther states that the grace minded individual, the individual who refrains from attempting to live self righteously by the law, allows the law to expose their sin. The fully mature Christian will not shrink from this reality but will then instead continuously look to his/her savior for the coverage of their sin. Without the law, there is no knowledge of sin. Without the knowledge of the law, there is no experience of the conflict between the spirit and the flesh. Without the law, there is no ability for godly sorrow and thereby a looking for the goodness of God as an answer for that sin. That alone will lead us to true biblical repentance. So, according to Luther and Paul, the law plays a vital role in the understanding that it is impossible to live by its dictates and further, it reveals the utter necessity for the grace of God. Finally, it is not inconsistent to say that the law is vital in the life of the believer to expose the reality of their sin, while understanding that the law plays no further role in the plan of salvation. As Paul states, the only purpose of the law is to be a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. 69

Notes: 1: A Treatise against Antinomians written in an Epistolary way, by D. Martin Luther, translated out of the high Dutch original; containing the mind of Luther against Antinomians and a recantation of John Agricola Eislebius their first father. This edition of Luther's treatise "Against the Antinomians," is excerpted from Samuel Rutherford's "Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist," (1648), part II, chapter XI, pages 69-80, where it is translated from the High Dutch in its entirety. 2: Luther, A Treatise against the Antinomians. 3: Luther, A Treatise against the Antinomians. 4: Project Wittenberg, Galatians Commentary, Chapter 5, pp. 216236, verse 17 On-line link: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/gal/web/gal-inx.html

Section Three: Reforming Repentance Chapter Nine: Parenting, Relationships and Repentance It is my considered opinion that so much of the way we relate to other people is the product of how we were raised. The life strategies that we have been taught as children continue to play out in our lives as adults. We may not even be aware of them for they are deeply ingrained into our personality; however, they continue to show up over and over again in our adult relationships. Most people would have no trouble handling the idea that the parenting skills of our parents (and in some cases lack of parenting skills) have a direct bearing on how we relate to others as adults. I’m not saying that all our faults and failures can be or should be blamed on our parents. I’m just observing that a lot of our ways of relating to each other is learned behavior and that we relate to other people not even realizing where these strategies originate. I feel that our definition of repentance is a classic case of a learned strategy from our childhood. We take the parental example and neatly fit it around some biblical themes and viola; we have our home grown definition of repentance. Consider that millions of parents understand biblical principals without necessarily being active Christians. People understand biblical wisdom without necessarily practicing the faith. Most people have heard the Proverb, “spare the rod and spoil the child”. Further, many people not just Christians, will understand the principal behind how spanking is supposed to work or at least that we’ve been told it’s supposed to work. What I mean is, most people would agree with one Christian author (Gary Ezzo along 71

with wife Maryanne) when he defines the purpose of spanking (he calls it chastisement): "Chastisement means to inflict pain with controlled force on an individual to amend an inner attitude"1 When my kids were smaller, I remember practicing this definition. My spanking was supposed to engender a “change of mind and heart” in my child. I actually spanked my oldest son, waiting for a sincere cry of repentance. Hearing that cry would tell me that my son was truly repentant and that I could now stop; after all, his mind was changed about what he did for obviously there was some kind of household infraction that warranted the punishment. Folks, what I’ve just described to you is the cultural definition of repentance and not the biblical definition. For most of us believe that a change of mind is based on changing our mind about what we have done (ie, some kind of sin) and “repenting” or going the opposite direction of that sin. All kinds of people would understand this to be true and not just Christians. This, however, is a cultural definition of repentance. Remember the man I described in chapter five, ie, the man who withheld from one of his children, complete restoration back to the family, when that child kept offending in the same manner? Reinforcing his cultural definition of repentance is a related view of contrition. For this man, contrition (ie, how badly his child felt about his sin) is a significant ingredient in the definition of repentance. If the child “genuinely” felt badly enough about his transgression, he/she then would not want to repeat the behavior. Again, the repetition of the sinful act was a clear sign that the child was not contrite and thereby not genuinely repentant. 72

The very real truth is that this man is not alone in his view. Most people relate a feeling bad about what they have done, to their definition of repentance. While repentance, in most cases, can involve contrition or a general feeling bad about what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done, that related characteristic is not the main definition of repentance. Contrition is a part of repentance but it is not the main biblical definition. The additional truth here is that the bible helps this phenomenon or should I say, our reading of the bible helps this misunderstanding. We are going to look at most of the usages of the word repentance in the New Testament in chapter 11. However, there is one place that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll mention here, that encourages the average reader to attribute contrition as the main definition of repentance. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, the bible states, 10

For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world works death. The context of this verse is one where the Apostle Paul is discussing the situation with the Corinthian church where he admonished them for the mishandling of a situation involving fornication with one individual in the church. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he admonishes them and tells them to separate from that individual. In the second letter, he tells them that by the receipt of the first letter, the Corinthians were made sorry by his letter and then reacted with passion when they realized their toleration of this situation.

Paul tells the Corinthians that when they received his first letter, his admonishment of their tolerance of this manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actions, stirred up a feeling of contrition in the hearts of the Corinthian church. That feeling of contrition lead to a change of mind in the 73

Corinthians and that repentance (ie, change of mind) resulted in a different action. In verse 10, Paul summarizes this process and relates it to salvation. He states the same premise as demonstrated by the situation with the Corinthian man and his fornication. Paul states that a feeling of contrition is involved with the process of repentance, however, it should be noted that it is not the definition of repentance. Paul states that the godly sorrow leads to repentance. Paul does not say that godly sorrow is repentance. The truth here, Paul says, is that a feeling of contrition is a factor in leading someone to repent or change their minds and then go the other way. So far in this chapter, we’ve started to define the meaning of what we generally believe about repentance. We will get to the actual biblical definition in the next two chapters. However, before we do that, let’s look at some other factors that will strengthen the cultural definition and thereby aiding the development of hostile feelings toward anybody that would question the cultural definition. Like maybe how you’re feeling right about now! Let me tell you about another grace disgruntled member of CBC with whom I spent much time explaining our position on the Gospel. This one individual was very polite in his questioning of the Gospel of Grace that we preach but he was also pit bull like, in defending his legalism. So adamant was this man, that he actually told me that he considered himself a legalist and that being a legalist was a good thing. He believed that the grace message that we preach is just a giving in to the modern liberal church crowd because, in his opinion, all we wanted was a big church. This accusation always baffled me. For if we were giving in to liberal members of our church (I’m still waiting for them to identify themselves by the way), then why was all the pressure 74

coming from the legalist side? After all, if we were going to bend to pressure, especially from pressure that had a direct impact on the attendance number of our church, then certainly we would bend to the legalists! As of this writing, our church attendance is down by over 50% during the last two years. Anyway, this one individual had a hot button issue. That hot button issue was parenting. Parenting was the ultimate battle ground for this person. He believed that there was no greater issue to prove that we were just a bunch of bleeding heart liberals who had thrown out the Word of God. The man’s chief complaint against our teaching on parenting was the fact that we did not teach that Proverbs 22:6 was a promise. Proverbs 22:6 : “train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” We teach that this is a precept or principal. The main difference between a precept verses a promise is that with the precept view, there is no guarantee that the execution of this verse will result in saved and obedient Godly Christian adults. This man asserted that under a promise, God was in a way, obligated to save his children as long as he did his part to instruct them in obedience. He accused us of running away from the accountability of teaching Proverbs 22:6 as a promise, for if our children fail to grow up as perfect obedient Christians, then we have failed as parents and are answerable to God. The biblical support for this man’s view was scant at best. He referenced Hofni and Phineas, the sons of Eli, as well as the failure of David with his son Absolam as prime examples of parental failure. MARK THIS SPOT! We’ll come back to it. 75

Now continue reading chapter 9. His position was that with respect to Hophni and Phineas, Eli was guilty of not restraining his children when they were young and that is the reason for their demise (for they were killed by God because of their sin in the Temple). He also sites the same type of failure with David for the reason for Absolam’s demise. He believes that these failures were all due to parental failures while the children were young, thus the parents were responsible for the failure of their kids when they got older. This may seem like a logical conclusion if it were not for his awful scriptural exegesis. In both cases, scripture does not site any parental failure when the children were young but in both cases these failures occurred when the children were adults. Hophni and Phineas were already priests in the temple (1 Samuel 2:12-17) when they made their sinful decisions. Eli’s responsibility had nothing to do with parenting and everything to do with “preferring his children” before God. Absolam was also an adult (2 Samuel 13:28) when he made his decision to take revenge on Amnon for the rape of Absolam’s sister Tamar. Scripture is very clear in that the actions of God and men were spurred on by the sinful decisions of the adults and had nothing to do with the parenting skills of the parents when the children were young. As a matter of fact, Hophni and Phineas were trained up to an incredible degree as children, for they were trained to be priests in the temple, thus their training and instruction would have been great. Further, there is every reason to assume that they would have received the exact same training as Samuel (the Godly prophet) who was in effect adopted by Eli. In one case, the children (Hophni/Phineas) made bad decisions and in one case the child (Samuel) made good decisions. 76

Now, I know you may say that this is all well and good and that’s a great argument to respond to one man in one church in the country. You may then ask the question, “is this a widely held view throughout the church at large?” The answer unfortunately is yes. You may or may not be familiar with Growing Families International (GFI) founded by the Ezzo’s who I quoted earlier. This group has become quite influential in the area of parenting advice and parenting seminars. They were quite influential in the 1990’s until their practices came under wide criticism and scrutiny. However, their parenting programs, which include Growing Kids God’s Way (GKGW), have sold millions of copies and have influenced and continue to influence many parents in their views of parenting. Now, I’m not here to discuss the merits of GKGW for I’m sure there are many good and bad points with any such type of program. However, what is disturbing is that regardless of whether the advice is good or bad, that advice is being heavily influenced by bad theology. Most Christian parents are not even aware that they are being taught a philosophy that is based on a skewed view of theology. For the underlying philosophy of GKGW, derived from the author’s theology, is responsible to drive their advice on parenting. The plain and simple truth about these types of programs is that very few people are aware of aberrant theology when debating specifics about an issue like parenting. GFI and GKGW have been sited by very reputable Christian watchdog groups like the Christian Research Institute (CRI), for their cult like sociological influence on adherents as well as their aberrant theology. The following is a comment from CRI on the Ezzo’s, founders of Growing Families International and authors of Growing Kids God’s Way.

“The Ezzos’ unbalanced emphasis on the parents’ role seems to flow out of their theology of the will. Coming from a Calvinist perspective, the Grace statement links their view with Pelagianism (while not calling it outright Pelagianism), a fifth century heresy that denied the doctrine of original sin and taught that man could be righteous by the exercise of free will alone. Arminians, who believe in the freedom of man’s will, would probably not go so far as to compare the Ezzos’ view with Pelagianism. But Arminians also believe in man’s utter need of the gospel to be righteous, and so they too would likely find the Ezzos’ lack of emphasis on the grace of God disturbing. Such disturbance would not necessarily be assuaged even when the Ezzos do teach on the grace of God. This is because of their stress on the necessity of human works to receive that grace: ‘To obtain for our children the spiritual and saving blessings comprised in the gracious promises of God’s Word, we must believe and be faithfully obedient. Without faith, we have no title to any blessings of promise. Without obedience, we cannot expect the favor of God and the communication of His grace on our children or on our efforts. God is not obligated to extend His grace to those who know to do right but fail to do so.’ Essentially the Ezzos are suggesting that if parents faithfully ‘grow their kids God’s way,’ God will be obligated to save their children, for the parent can train the child to a point where he or she will be receptive to the gospel. This is a serious confusion of grace and works (Rom. 4:4–5; 11:6; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5).” 2 78

It is precisely this serious confusion of grace and works that is at the core of the wrong idea that parents are solely responsible for the moral outcome of their children. This confusion can then lead to relational failure between the parents and their children and then on to relational failures between the children and other people. If the kids learn the system, they will replicate the system! The main point here is that if you believe that God has guaranteed that your children will automatically live good, moral and upright lives just because you trained that child in moral obedience, then you are sure to focus on just the rules and not on the relationship! For if God has already promised to do His part then the only one who can fail is you. That means that you will spend all your relationship time worrying about the conduct of your children and their adherence to the rules and regulations. Now, remember our cultural definition of repentance? Well, if you are spending all of your relationship time focusing on the rules and not on the relationship, then you will also be focusing on things like repentance or overly concerned that your child (or husband, friend, etc.) adequately “changes their minds” about their infraction and move to a holier conduct. You also will be waiting for the “cry of repentance” to make sure that your child/wife/friend has changed their mind about their behavior. The obvious end result of this misguided focus will be a love and concern for the standard and a loathing and distain for the one we supposedly love! Is it any wonder that the man I described in chapter five (ie, the man who withheld from one of his children, complete restoration back to the family, when that child kept offending in the same manner) is a staunch believer in the Ezzo’s and a teacher of Growing Kids God’s Way?

So, we can see that our definitions about something as basic as the doctrine of repentance can play a huge role in all of our relationships. In the next few chapters we will look at the true biblical definition and place the cultural definition in its proper place.

Chapter Nine Addendum: A Move of God I was typing in chapter nine one Monday morning when the phone rang. My daughter answered the phone. She recognized the man on the other end as the father of one of my older son’s (Mike) friends. As she handed the phone to me, she commented to me that “he doesn’t sound good.” The father of Mike’s friend indeed did not sound good and in fact he sounded about as bad as anyone could sound on the phone. He went on to tell me that his son (his only child) had committed suicide. What do you say to someone at that moment? What words do you use? I quickly told him that I would be right over. I spent the rest of that day mostly in silence, just sitting as two people writhed in absolute agony and grief. That day was one of the hardest days in my all days as a pastor and as a human. I returned to my house later that evening. I recounted the activities of the day with my family. We sat around the kitchen table and cried in sympathy with our friend’s loss. My wife and I hugged each of our kids and then asked them once again, that if they ever had a pang of suicidal thoughts, that they would seek us or someone else because no matter what the problem, there is always a solution. So, at the end of an emotionally charged day, I sat back down in my computer chair to see if I could add a few paragraphs before bed. As I looked at the cursor, still blinking exactly where I left it, I decided to reread the paragraphs right before I stopped writing. Upon reading those paragraphs, I was quite flabbergasted at what I 81

had written. Please refer to the place holder “MARK THIS SPOT” earlier in chapter nine for that is the exact point where I stopped writing. The following is the eulogy that I delivered two days after the day of the phone call from our friend. As you read, you will see the connection from what I was writing and the suicide incident. Eulogy for Jason Evans June 28th, 2006 Good afternoon. I’m Al Berardis one of the pastors here at Christ’s Bible Church. I’m a friend of the Evans family. I’ve know Jason, Olga and Chuck for about 13 years. Jason and my son Michael were friends from 5th grade at the King’s Christian School. On behalf of the Evans family I’d like to add my thanks for everyone coming out to support the family. This is a very hard thing for me to do today. For funerals are hard enough but the funeral of someone who has taken his own life and that life being so young, make this day extra difficult. I ask you to forgive me in advance if I have trouble making it through this. I’d like to begin today by doing some counseling. You may be here today concerned for Jason. You may be fearful, that because Jason has taken his own life that he may not be in heaven today. Let me speak to that concern. Some people believe that taking your own life is the unpardonable sin. It is not. The bible is very clear; there is no sinful action that is outside of the forgiveness of God. There is no sinful action that cannot be forgiven by God, including taking your own life. Jason made a bad decision but so do we all make bad decisions in our lives. Jason’s decision is in no way any different than any 82

other bad decision in that they are all forgivable by our loving and merciful God. There is no doubt in my mind today as we sit here, that Jason is now in complete and utter joy in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. I’ll tell you about that a little more in a moment. I believe God is very present in the lives of Olga and Chuck Evans, for I believe He is speaking to us all through Jason. I am writing a book. The book is on the unbelievable Grace of God. I am currently on chapter nine. I was at my computer on Monday morning writing, when the phone rang. It was Chuck Evans. My daughter Jen handed me the phone and Chuck told me about Jason. I then went over to spend time with the family. Later that evening, I returned to my computer and I reread what I had written. Chapter nine starts out on the topic of parenting. I was telling the story of one man who disagrees with the church’s point of view on parenting. Listen to what I wrote in regard to parenting. “The main complaint that this man had against our teaching on parenting was the fact that we did not teach that Proverbs 22:6, (“train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”) was a promise. We teach that this is a precept or principal. The main difference between a precept verses a promise is that with the precept view, there is no guarantee that the execution of this verse will result in saved and obedient Godly Christian adults. This man asserted that as a promise, God was in a way, obligated to save his children as long as this man did his part to instruct them in obedience. He accused us of 83

running away from the “accountability” of teaching Proverbs 22:6 as a promise, for if our children fail to grow up as obedient Christians, then we have failed and are answerable to God. The biblical support for this man’s view was scant at best. He referenced Hofni and Phineas, the sons of Eli, as well as the failure of David with his son Absolam, as prime examples of parental failure.” At that point Jennifer handed me the phone. Folks God is moving here today. You have to understand that Hophni and Phineas and Absolam all died as young adults. The truth about Hophni and Phineas and Absolam is that they made their own decisions as adults and that the parents were not at fault for the bad decisions of the children. There are no guarantees of perfect results in this life here on earth. The truth is that neither Jason nor his parents are at fault here today. In fact, some of you might feel a twinge of guilt here today, feeling that somehow if you had just done something different, that this may have been avoided. I tell you no, there is no fault here on anyone’s behalf. The purpose of God does not lay fault in people trying to love other people the best they can. There is no fault here today. According to both his mom and his dad, Jason suffered from depression. Jason had a natural bent, as his mother put it, “to see the world as the glass half empty”. That’s just the way Jason was, it’s not right or wrong, it’s just Jason. You see Jason had very high standards in life, standards that governed every area of his life. We saw those standards all the time at our house for we would talk about Jason that way, that Jason had very high standards for 84

himself and others. We could see that this view of life impacted the way Jason lived his life. Well, over the past two years, this propensity for high standards coupled with his depression, made life increasingly hard for Jason. He was always comparing the things of his life to his high expectations and in all cases, everything in life could not match up to those expectations. The more he would search for perfection, the more it would elude him. Everything in Jason’s life was now evaluated on this basis, even his relationships, for nothing or no one could meet up to the expectation. This was all part of Jason’s depression. This is no one’s fault; this is just a fact of life in living in this fallen world of ours. For you see, Jason was a very deep thinker and Jason had figured out some foundational biblical truths that most people spend their whole lives trying to figure out. You see, Jason understood that everything should be perfect; that things shouldn’t be decaying and declining as we see in our world today. Jason also understood another truth. In my discussions with Jason, he told me that no one should judge anyone else for anything. That no one should judge him for how he acted and no one should judge anyone else for the way they acted. Jason understood the biblical law of liberty and unconditional love and acceptance. Jason knew the Gospel, he just didn’t know he knew it! Now, did Jason LIVE in the truth that he understood? No, he did not. His depression kept him in a no win situation, on one hand there was supposed to be a perfect standard to live by and on the other hand we weren’t supposed to be judged by ANY standard, we are supposed to love people based on NO standard. This was a hopeless contradiction for Jason. 85

What’s the answer? Well, I believe Jason received his answer about six months ago. Six months ago, I was sitting in my office here at the church when someone rang the doorbell. It was Jason. He was driving his car down Haddonfield Road out here and he got a flat tire right across the street from the church. He knew I was working here as a pastor, so he came to seek help. While he was waiting for his tire to be fixed, we had a great time of talk and fellowship. I could tell that he was really hungry to hear about spiritual things so the conversation quickly turned to things of faith. Well, I was able to share with Jason the story of the Gospel of Grace. I told Jason the story of how Jesus Christ came to rid the entire world of the curse of sin and that we are accepted by God just because of His love for us and through absolutely no effort or good deeds of our own, that our entrance into heaven was just based on faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone and nothing else. When I was finished his eyes lit up. He then said these words to me. He said, “Wow, in all my years at King’s and at church, I’ve never heard that before. It’s like I’m hearing this for the very first time”. He went on to explain the impact further, he said, “you don’t understand. It’s like you could be speaking a language from a different planet, that’s how new this is. You’ve opened up a door here for me today.” I believe Jason walked through that door there that day. Jason had a faith and trust in the plan of God even before he knew the role that Christ played in his salvation. All God requires of us is to express faith and trust in Him and His plan, that’s it, nothing else. Jason had that kind of faith. Did Jason understand all the ramifications of Christ’s sacrifice that removed all the requirements for perfect behavior from us all? Did he understand 86

that God only wants us have faith toward Him and love each other unconditionally without holding each other to a standard of behavior? No, but that’s ok, for I believe that Jason lived out and fulfilled God’s plan for his life. I believe that Jason had a deep and abiding faith and trust in Jesus and that places him “safely home” in the arms of Jesus Christ today. How about you today? Do you think that the story about my book writing and how Jason just happened to break down in front of our church were just coincidence? Or, do you recognize God working in the lives of both Jason and you for you are here today, hearing about the faith of Jason Evans. I ask you today to honor the life of Jason Evans. You can guarantee that you will be safe in the arms of Christ, when your life is over by simply believing and trusting in the plan of God which is the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus to pay for your sin and to remove your need for perfection. Jesus Christ provides you the white robe of His perfection for free. End Eulogy for Jason Evans Now I don’t want to get dogmatic about what had happened with respect to God moving right in the middle of my writing of chapter nine, for we understand that everyone is not susceptible to depression and suicide. However, I think a general application is justified. We absolutely understand that my son’s friend had a melancholy personality type and a general bent to see “the glass half empty”, then later in his life slipped into depression. However, when you add to that personality type the pressure of living life by the “requirements of the law”, the results can be disastrous. Now, I am not blaming the Christian school nor the churches the boy attended, however, all I am suggesting is that we all share the 87

responsibility of putting added pressure on our kids, our teens and our adult peers by the insistence in living our lives according to some external standard of behavior. For my son’s friend, the standard of behavior was a chase of perfection that cost him his life. Now I know that I included counsel within the words of my eulogy that said that no one is at fault for the tragic loss of my son’s friend. However, as I sit here writing this addendum, I can’t help but wonder, what would the outcome of the boy’s life have been if he had been taught from a child, the unconditional love, mercy, acceptance of the law of liberty. In practical terms: the external standard of behavior has been replaced by the leading and witness of the Holy Sprit, the filling of God Himself! “Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) Notes: 1: A Critique of Growing Kids God's Way, Biblical Ethics For Parenting, by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo, Fourth Edition; 16th Printing; Summer 1997, Copyright 1993, (p. 209 of GKGW). http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/ezzo/ezzokids.htm 2: Kathleen Terner and Elliot Miller, The Christian Research Institute, STATEMENT DG-233, MORE THAN A PARENTING MINISTRY: The Cultic Characteristics of Growing Families International; http://www.equip.org/free/DG233.htm 3: Terner/Miller

Chapter Ten: The Law Helps Mis-Define Repentance A proper view of repentance is not only important to how we relate to God, it’s very important in how we relate to each other. For as we view our forgiveness from the Father, we view forgiveness in the same way with other people. The bible clearly tells us that our salvation is solely by the Grace of God. That means that our salvation is not helped along by any works of our own. We can’t add any human effort to the work of Christ on the Cross. Our entire relationship with God is based on His work and His work alone. If we attempt to add just one thing, we nullify the work of Christ on the cross. We access the grace of God through our faith. Hence the scripture, “for by grace we are saved through faith, it is the gift of God…”. So, what does that mean? It means that a gift is just that, a gift. You can’t DO anything to receive a free gift, or else it stops being a gift. We access that free gift through our faith. Where does that faith come from? Bible is clear in Romans chapter one and Ephesians 2, faith comes from God. That’s how Paul in Romans chapter one can say, “men are without excuse”. How is that possible? God has laid bare the truth about Himself within each of us; we come “out of the factory with the faith switch set to the ‘on’ position”. So, our salvation is a free gift based on the free gift of faith that God gives us. Most people would say yes and amen to the statement that “we’re saved by grace through faith, it is the gift of God” and you can’t add one thing to obtain God’s forgiveness of sin. But then, they stumble when we talk about repentance. Somehow, when we talk about repentance, people get the idea that repentance is something 89

that must be brought about within the person FIRST before forgiveness of sin and salvation can be granted to that person. Many people see repentance as kind of a pre-requisite to forgiveness and salvation; they see it as “repent first and then God will forgive you”. The question is: Is this the proper biblical view of repentance?” The obvious answer is no, it is not. So, what’s the problem? How did we get so confused? How did we get so schizophrenic about repentance to where we believe that repentance is necessary for salvation and that it’s something that we must do in order to obtain God’s forgiveness? In addition, we understand that there is nothing we can do to obtain our salvation. How did we get so double minded when it comes to repentance? The answer is simple. It’s the law. The law continues to veil the truth. An improper view of the law, tricks us to believe that adding just a few things to our salvation is ok. “I mean, the law is not bad, and keeping the law can’t be so much a bad thing. So, if repentance is required for salvation, it only follows that we must bring it forth in order for God to forgive us.” Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It is this mixing of law and grace that is at the core of our misunderstanding of repentance. If we remove the impediment of the law, then we can see clearly. The bible says that all the requirements of the law have been fulfilled by Jesus Christ and then given to us. We can’t do one more thing to become more holy or righteous. It’s all a gift of God. Now, if we have a flawed view of grace, whereby we believe that we can mix some works in with grace, then we’re going to read the scriptures with an improper bias. We are going to be susceptible to 90

“reading in” to the scriptures something that is not actually there. This is the case with many people and the concept of repentance. Is there a place in scripture where a skewed filter (bias) will mislead a person to misunderstand repentance? Yes. Here’s how Dr. Charles P. Baylis (on staff at Dallas Theological Seminary) explains the problem. “In the debate about what is necessary for salvation, repentance and its meaning have always been a focal point. At the center of this controversy are verses in Acts which link repentance with salvation. Peter stated in Acts 2:38 to those gathered at Pentecost, "Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins." Why did Peter call on them to repent? In Acts 3:19 he continued his second sermon by requesting that they "repent and return." Return to what? Was it necessary that men return to something before they could be saved?” 1 According to Dr. Baylis, people tend to link repentance and forgiveness of sins together in a way not intended by the bible. The key to understanding repentance in the New Testament is to understand the historical context of repentance in the Old Testament. Context is one of the keys to understanding anything in the bible and it certainly plays a huge part in understanding repentance. With the help of Dr. Baylis, we are going to look at the historical Old Testament roots of repentance as well as look at what the NT says about repentance. Where does repentance come from and how does it play in our view of forgiveness and salvation? To answer these questions, we’re going to look at a couple of principals. In chapter eleven, we’ll start in the New Testament to 91

look at some basic principals. In chapter twelve, we’ll look at the historical context of repentance in the Old Testament. We’ll then be in a good position to attack one of the shrines of legalism. Hopefully, we’ll be able to dismantle that shrine in your mind!

Notes: 1: Charles P. Baylis, Repentance in Acts in Light of Deuteronomy 30, Michigan Theological Journal 1.1 (1990) pp. 19-34, p19.

Chapter Eleven: Repentance in the New Testament This chapter explores the New Testament definition of repentance. The format of this chapter as well as chapter twelve are laid out in more of a bible study format. The information in these chapters is adapted from the Reforming Repentance Bible Study, which is part of the Reforming Grace Bible Study series. Each point is just highlighted here; you will find much more supporting scripture references and application in the actual bible study. What does the New Testament say about repentance? The answer may surprise you. Let’s take a look at the actual biblical definition. There are basically Four Principals that we will look at in this chapter on NT repentance. First Principal: Repentance is a gift of God:  Acts 11:18: When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. Contained in this verse as well as others is the basis of repentance. Repentance is a gift. Again, you don’t DO anything for a gift. God freely gives repentance to us all. In our study of repentance, we can’t loose sight of the fact that repentance is a gift of God. This is the first thing we must understand about repentance. Now, what’s next? Second Principal: Repentance means turning from your plan to God’s plan. 93

We’re going to look at the actual Greek words for repentance in just a bit, however, most Christians would agree for most of us have been taught, that repentance is a change of mind. I would agree with that basic definition. Then most of us would then have the understanding that it is this change of mind which aids us in turning from our plan to God’s plan. Now, right here. Most of us will say “yep, that’s right. We’re turning from our sinful life to God’s righteous life.” So, we would understand that repentance in large part, means repenting from our sins. Well, that’s not what the bible says.  Acts 26:20: (Paul speaking to King Agrippa) But showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.  Acts 20:21: (Paul speaking to the elders at Ephesus) Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me stop right here to make a point. This is very important in properly understanding scripture. The context of any verse is of paramount importance when it comes to properly understanding both the meaning of the words and the greater principal application. This is certainly the case here with repentance. While a change of mind is the basic definition, we must look to the surrounding scripture to give us the proper application. So in these two verses above, the basic change of mind definition applies to changing your mind in turning to God and changing your mind about God’s plan. Both of these understandings are 94

important to understanding the general application of repentance in the NT. Let’s continue.  Mark 1:14-15: Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel.  Acts 19:4: (Paul speaking to Apollos and others) Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” Now these last two scriptures (Mark 1, Acts 19) help define the first two verses we read. Here we’re told that repentance involves turning toward God and believing the Gospel; believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s how we turn toward God. Leave our plan of self-righteousness and change our mind and go toward God’s plan! Now, these next scriptures just PLAINLY tell you the real intention of repentance.  Hebrews 6:1: Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, Well, here it is! This is the main definition; repentance is changing our minds about, turning from our dead works. It is turning from the works of the law and turning to the gospel, the gospel of Grace by faith in Jesus Christ. The next verse amplifies this truth. 95

 Hebrews 6:6: If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. The entire context of Hebrews chapter six is one of law/grace, set up by verse one. The context here is that if someone leaves the grace of Christ and goes back to the works of the law to obtain their righteousness, then they leave Christ and there remains no more sacrifice for sin (they crucify the son of God afresh). What’s the result? They cannot be renewed again to repentance; for if they leave “repenting” (i.e., turning from the dead works of the law to faith toward God) there is nowhere left to go! I hope you can see this. So we see, that repentance does mean turning from sin but specifically, turning from our self-righteousness and turning to God’s plan. Now at about this point, you might be wondering about John the Baptist. You might be asking yourself, “didn’t he preach to repent of our sins?” The answer is plainly no! John never preached “repent of your sins”. Consider these verses:  Matthew 3:2: “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  Matthew 3:11: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance but he that cometh…”  Mark 1:14-15: “…and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe the gospel.” Third Principal: Repentance is symbolized by Baptism. John preached the “baptism of repentance”: 96

 Mark 1:4: John did baptize in the wilderness, and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  Acts 19:4: Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. In Acts 19:4 the baptism of repentance is defined. It is defined as believing on Jesus Christ; turning from the law (self righteous way of coming to God) and turning to Christ (God’s way of coming to God). Please note: In these scriptures, it’s not repentance for the remission of sins, for that could lead you to believe that we must do something to bring about remission of sins. Rather it’s “the baptism of repentance” for the remission of sins which tells you that this is not the case. In Baptism, something acts upon the person being baptized. Where does this come from, Zechariah 12:10.  Zechariah 12:10: And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. This is a very important verse. This verse confirms the fact of something acting upon us as symbolized in baptism. That something is God Himself, the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit baptizes (comes upon) us and we respond in repentance. Please also notice in this scripture that the mourning is toward a person not toward any sin. 97

Fourth principal: The meaning of repentance includes the idea of “afterward”. There are three main words for repent/repentance in the NT. The root of all three NT words: “meta”. Which means “accompaniment, afterward, succession”.1 So, the Greek gives you an indication that repentance is a changing our mind afterward. That begs the question, “after what?” Biblical application of “afterward”  Romans 2:4: Or despise thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance? Here is the base principal. The goodness of God leads us to repent. When we respond to God’s goodness, we repent, or change our mind about God. This is where faith comes into play. God has given each of us the ability to know all about Him. That faith, that the knowledge of God, is pre-wired into all of us. Then, when the Holy Spirit comes to us, the “para-clete”, the one who comes alongside and starts to tell us about Jesus, when we hear about His goodness and mercy, we then respond in faith and trust that what He has promised He is able to perform; we then repent of our self righteous way to God and accept His way, i.e., the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for the remission of my sin. You see folks it’s all about faith. Repentance and faith are tied together but repentance (or a change of mind) follows after faith. Let’s look at an example.

Matthew 21:28-32: 28

But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. 29

He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented (passive voice), and went. 30

And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. 31

Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. 32

For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented (passive voice) not afterward, that ye might believe him.

In this parable, it was the relationship with his father that caused the first son to repent. After he responded in self-righteousness (wanting his own way not the father’s) he then reflected on the goodness of his father and repented himself, i.e. changed his mind. This principal is explicitly played out in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Remember, when the younger son had gone out and spent all the father’s money and when he’s sitting in a pig sty, hungry and alone, he reflects back on the goodness of his father and how good even the servants were treated in his father’s house. That thought propelled him to go back to the father.

Now, in order to get the full import of this parable (i.e., the two sons in Matthew 21), we must first look at the greater context of where this parable is located in scripture. Matthew chapter 21 starts with the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, so we know that the time frame is the final week of Christ’s earthly life. In the beginning of that week, Jesus then does something pretty dramatic. He goes into the Temple and then drives out the moneychangers and the animal merchants (verses 12-13). After He takes a quick trip to Bethany and curses the fig tree (verses 1722), He comes back to the Temple and there the Pharisees catch up with Him. In Matthew 21:23, the Pharisees call Him on the carpet for overthrowing the tables in the Temple. They are obviously upset about the incident and then they demand to know by what authority He does these things. They want to know who gave Him this authority. Jesus then says something very important to our discussion. In verse 25, He asks the Pharisees this question, “The baptism of John, where did it come from, from heaven or from men?” The Pharisees know they’re in trouble no matter what way they answer, so they say that they cannot tell. Jesus then says that neither will He tell them what authority He has to do these things. However, Jesus is not going to let this go. Instead, He decides to teach on the topic of the question He just asked the Pharisees. This is very important to our discussion on repentance. Jesus decides to teach on what the Baptism of John was all about. He then launches into the parable that we read earlier, verses 2832, the story of the two sons. 100

Now in the story of the two sons, we saw how reflecting on the goodness of the father leads us to repentance. However, the hardness of our hearts will lead us NOT to repent. That’s the story of the second son, right? Now let’s read verse 32: “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” In this verse, Jesus ties the original question about John the Baptist to the teaching of the parable of the two sons. Jesus is telling us that God the Father sent John as an emissary to us here on earth. John came with the baptism of repentance; an invitation to respond to the gospel and to turn from our law centered self-righteous attempt at holiness. Many people responded to John’s message, many did not. In verse 32 scripture tells us that publicans and harlots responded to the message and the self-righteous religious people did not. For what does verse 32 say at the end of the verse; “…and you, when you had seen it (John and his baptism) repented not afterward that you might believe him.” John was God’s action acting upon the hearts of men, inviting them to respond. Some respond in faith and repentance and some don’t. Now Jesus continues to teach on this subject. Look at the whole rest of the chapter, verses 33 – 46. Jesus tells another related parable to what He’s talking about in verse 32; specifically the Baptism of John; God sending emissaries to His people; God initiating the action and waiting afterward for people to respond in 101

faith and repentance. Verse 32 sets up the next parable starting in verse 33. 33

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: First of all notice the words “hear another parable”. This tells you that Jesus is still teaching on the same subject as verse 32 and prior. Jesus is going to illustrate very graphically His lesson on repentance. In this verse the householder represents God and the husbandmen represent people responding to God. The vineyard represents our hearts and/or the Kingdom of God. You will notice that God gives the vineyard to the husbandmen so by metaphor, we understand that God both prepares our hearts and then gives them to us. In short, He’s given us everything that we need. We know from scripture that God gives us faith and now we’ve learned that He’s given us repentance. We have everything that we need because God gave it to us. This is extremely important to understand! 34

And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. In this verse, the servants represent the prophets/Holy Spirit and the fruits represent faith and repentance. This is the baptism of John. God acts upon His people and waits for the response afterward. He waits for us to respond to Him in faith and repentance when the time is right. 102

And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Obviously, the husbandmen are not responding favorably to the Lord of the vineyard; no, faith, no trust, no repentance. 36

Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. God is longsuffering, He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want anyone to perish but wants everyone to come to repentance by responding in faith and turning to accept the sacrifice of Christ to pay for their sins. He wants them to turn away from self righteous ways to holiness. 37

But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. 38

But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. 39

And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. Obviously, this is the story of Christ. Christ also came to seek faith and repentance from His people. God only seeks to receive that which He has already given to us. God gave us faith and repentance. He just seeks the proper response (the fruit) back when He asks for it. 40

When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?

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They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. Now this is very interesting. The Pharisees very correctly respond to the “physical” aspects of the story but they completely miss the spiritual application because they walk right into the punch line. 42

Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? What is Jesus saying here? Jesus is stating that the “stone the builder’s rejected” is the son of the vineyard owner and more than that (according to Romans) the Gospel of Grace. Jesus is saying that God has given the vineyard to those who will give back the fruit when the Lord calls for them. The Lord of the vineyard has given the stewards (husbandmen) everything they need, for we all have nothing that we haven’t been already given by God (1 Cor. 4:7). All we need to do is give back to God when He asks. The Gospel of Grace has made this possible. When the husbandmen reject the son, they are in effect rejecting the Grace and Goodness of the Lord and thereby going about to set up their own righteousness. They do not respond in faith because the rejection of the servants followed by the rejection of the Son is a rejection of the Lord of the vineyard. The husbandmen do not respond in faith and do not trust in the Lord of the vineyard. 43

Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 104

Verse 43 is the ultimate result of demonstrating a lack of faith and repentance. Here Jesus is stating that the kingdom of God will be taken from the Jews, a nation who supposedly was seeking God but actually went about to set up it’s own righteousness (Romans 10:3) and the kingdom will be given to the Gentiles, a nation who had no outward knowledge of God and was not actively seeking God as a nation. Verse 43 says, that the Gentiles will act in faith and will bring forth faith and repentance when they hear about the goodness of God. The Gentiles respond afterward to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Very plainly, Jesus is telling us that repentance is a fruit of God’s grace. It shows up when a person responds to God in faith; turning from their self-ruled way and turning to the Gospel in faith. Repentance and faith are bound together. You can’t have one (repentance) without the other (faith). Does the bible ever use the word repentance in relation to repenting of sins? Yes, but in a very limited sense, which we won’t cover here. Just know that in the 61 usages of the three main words (see chapter notes) for repentance in the New Testament, only 5 refer to repenting from sin and again in a very limited sense. In summary, we clearly see that New Testament definition of repentance has more to do with turning from our self righteous way of living and turning toward God in faith. Our change of mind is the same thing; i.e. changing our mind from the self righteousness of living by our own works and moving toward in faith to God’s plan of grace alone.

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Notes: 1: Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Repent/Repentance and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance,  Metanoeo: “to think differently afterward”  Metanoia: “to reverse (afterward) one’s decision”  Metamellomai: “to care afterward”

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Chapter Twelve: Repentance in the Old Testament When I had completed my study of repentance in the New Testament, I had organized the material into a bible study and I was all set to start to teach our church members. However, as I was putting the final touches on the material, I kept on hearing in my head, “Old Testament”, “Old Testament”, “Old Testament”. Over and over again, I kept hearing the still small voice urging me to look at the repentance in the Old Testament. When I heard it, I started complaining to the Lord, “Lord, do you know how much work that will be?” “I just wanted to look at repentance from a New Testament point of view.” “Why do I have to go to the Old Testament anyway?” The more I questioned, the more I heard, “Old Testament”. So, understanding that it is always the better idea to go with the prompting of the Spirit and not against Him, I started to look at repentance in the OT. As I really just got started into the study, I decided to go to the internet for some help. Just like I stumbled upon the Wittenberg Project and Martin Luther, I now stumbled onto something equally mind blowing. I found Dr. Charles Baylis. Dr. Baylis is Professor of Biblical Exposition at Dallas Theological Seminary. He wrote and article for the Michigan Theological Journal that outlined a view of repentance that absolutely supported my understanding of the NT definition. However, Dr. Baylis found the same conclusion within the pages of the Old Testament. The more I read the more I was astounded. Dr. Baylis had captured my feelings exactly, I just had no idea that the topic reached back into the Old Testament. Remember in the last chapter we said that at the root of the misunderstanding about repentance and salvation, were two verses 107

in the Book of Acts; 2:38 and 3:19, where Peter tells the people to “repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins”. In Acts 3:19 he adds the word return to the word repent. Those verses have been responsible for generations of debate and in many cases fights, between those who say the baptism in required for salvation and those who say it is not. Clearly, Peter is creating a relationship between repentance and forgiveness. It is that “relationship” that is at the core of the debate. The proper understanding of this relationship is vital to properly understanding biblical repentance. To misunderstand it, is to misunderstand and therefore misapply repentance. From what we have learned so far from the NT definition of repentance, we can see that Peter was not saying” “In order to receive forgiveness of sins, you must first feel bad about, change your mind about and turn away from your sins never to return again! That’s not what he’s saying at all. Peter is not linking repentance and forgiveness as if repentance were a prerequisite to forgiveness. We have seen that the bible defines the words of Peter to mean: “Respond to God the Holy Spirit as He is calling you to change your mind about your self-righteous works of morality, turn away from that, turn to God and believe the gospel, believe that Christ came to die for your sins, and that belief will impute to you forgiveness of sins.” Those are two completely different interpretations of “repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins”. One meaning is a works/law oriented meaning and the other a grace oriented meaning. 108

Peter was preaching the same message as John the Baptist and the same message as Jesus. The only difference between Peter and John/Jesus was that Peter preached after the Resurrection and John/Jesus preached before the resurrection. We see in the Gospels that both John the Baptist and Jesus both preached, “the Kingdom of God is at hand”. However, neither Peter, nor Paul or any of the other disciples, ever preached, “the Kingdom of God is at hand”. Why? For after the resurrection, the Kingdom of God was now a reality! The Kingdom of God had come! After Pentecost, the Kingdom of God was now a reality on earth. God was now dwelling in the hearts of men! The Holy Spirit had come! The Day of Pentecost was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, after His Resurrection before He ascended, had instructed the disciples to “wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). In that statement, He was referring directly to the OT prophecies about the giving of the Holy Spirit. To which Old Testament prophecies was Jesus referring? The answer to this question is the key to understanding repentance in the Old Testament. The OT prophecies (eg, Jeremiah 31:341, Ezekiel 36:272, Zechariah 12:10) are derived from Deuteronomy 30:1-93. Remember that the book of Deuteronomy is a book of remembering or retelling by Moses to the Israelites, all the instructions about the law, just before the Israelites go into the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 30, Moses is not just reciting a recounting of the law, he is prophesying what will happen to the Jews in the future. Let’s look at that passage.

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And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shall call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, Please notice that this is not a conditional statement. It is a prophecy. God is unilaterally proclaiming what he will do; “…it shall come to pass WHEN these things come upon you”. So, we see that this is a promise by God as to what He will do when the Jews are carried away to another land because of their disobedience. Please notice that God is telling them that He will (in the future) drive them out of the land even before they enter the land. God is saying to forget the blessings because you won’t be able to keep the conditional part of the deal and you will end up with the curse. Can you see that? God is promising to drive them out even before they enter. Why, because they didn’t keep the conditional promise. 2

And shall RETURN unto the LORD thy God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; Again, please notice that God is promising that the Jews will “return to the Lord and obey his voice and do ALL that I commanded” them. Now, let’s stop here a minute. How is that possible? We know the Jews history. When was the time that Israel returned to God and obeyed His voice and did everything that God commanded? Answer: Never! The Jews never have obeyed everything commanded by God.

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Is this then a prophecy yet to be fulfilled? Answer: No, not in a physical sense. Let’s keep reading. 3

That then the LORD thy God will TURN (TURN BACK) thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will RETURN and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. 4

If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: 5

And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shall possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. This is the same promise that God made to Abraham. Moses is just restating the same promise. How is that promise to be received? Look at verse 6. 6

And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou may live. The promise is a one way promise. That’s what the promise to Abraham was, an unconditional promise. God will do all the work. In verse 6, God promises to circumcise the heart of Israel. This is how Israel will “return” to God. God will pour out His Spirit upon Israel and it’s in that circumcision and that circumcision only that righteousness will be imputed (just like Abraham) to Israel and its then and only then when Israel will have obeyed the voice of God. Their obedience is not in their own strength; their obedience is an imputed obedience because of imputed righteousness. That imputed righteousness is the only way they will be able to obey and “live” (end of v6). 111

Listen to how Dr. Baylis talks about this verse. “The phrase ‘the LORD your God will circumcise your heart’ introduced the New Covenant. The New Covenant was a change which God would enact within man, as opposed to a change which man would accomplish on his own.* Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31 expanded Deuteronomy 30:6 further. Thus Moses' final sermon to the nation prophesied a time when Israel would return to covenant relationship, and God would change their hearts. It was one of the earliest, most specific references to the New Covenant. It is this return that is called ‘repentance.’”4 *The Old Covenant was a test of man's ability to change his own heart. He was exhorted to "circumcise his heart" (Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4), but he could not. The Old Testament records that failure. It is only in the New Covenant that God changes man's old heart (cf. Col. 2:11; Rom. 2:29).5

So, here it is. This is the Old Testament concept of repentance as it applies to the New Testament. The “repentance” is a return to a covenant relationship (one way promise) with the Father, where we His children are just the recipients of His Grace and Goodness. It’s that return to which John the Baptist, Jesus and Peter called the Jews to “repent”. 7

And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. 8

And thou shall RETURN and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. 112

And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers So, the Lord just rounds out His promise to Israel and the results of His circumcision of the heart. The blessings will only come after the Lord keeps His promise and circumcises their hearts. Folks, this is the gospel in all its glory. God is the one who unilaterally will circumcise the hearts of men and women. He takes away their sin and punishment. He gives them the complete fulfillment of the Law of Moses, complete obedience to His commands. You receive that promise by faith and faith alone. You forfeit the blessing and receive the curse if you “face away” from God and do not respond in faith. A lack of repentance is defined as not believing that God alone has paid your penalty for sin. A lack of repentance means to not believe the gospel. In the Reforming Repentance bible study we go into complete detail on the rest of the chapter. However, the one thing that is very clear from a detailed study of Deuteronomy 30 is that it is quoted by Paul in Romans chapter 10; the language is unmistakable. Romans 10 ties together the OT and the NT definitions of repentance for they are the same thing! So, we are now absolutely sure that the New Testament principal of repentance is the same as the Old Testament principal when it comes to “turning to God” and “believing God”. Repenting means to believe the gospel, respond to God by faith, trust in Jesus Christ as the payment for my sin and to trust in that sacrifice alone for my salvation. This definition alone is the correct view of repentance as it applies to salvation. The call for repentance in the early parts of the Book of Acts was a call to Jews 113

to “return” and “repent” or go back and believe God and receive the righteousness of God by faith just like Abraham did; go back and live according to the PROMISE. Peter’s instruction to the Jews in Acts 2 was very appropriate because of the history of the Jewish people. They knew very well of the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but what about the Gentiles of Peter’s day? Did Peter ever tell the Gentiles to “repent”? No, the book of Acts does not record any instruction by Peter or anyone else that the Gentiles were to “repent”. Now while the concept of repent would not be incorrect in reference to the Gentiles (since to repent is to believe the gospel) as suggested in other books of the New Testament, nowhere in Acts do we find instructions to the Gentiles to repent. We will not look at the specific scriptures in Acts to see the instructions to the Jews and Gentiles, I encourage you to do that yourself. However, I will let Dr. Baylis explain. “The first several chapters of Acts explain the reception of the New Covenant by a remnant of the nation Israel. Chapter 10 explains the inclusion of Gentiles into that promise. If "repentance" was a return to covenant relationship, then how was it that Gentiles might return according to Deuteronomy 30:1-6, when they never had a covenant relationship to which to return? It is one of the major purposes of Acts to explain the inclusion of Gentiles in the New Covenant.” 6

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Dr. Baylis cites Acts 10, where Peter has gone to the home of Cornelius for the purpose of explaining the Gospel message to the Gentiles. “This message was absent of any accusations of killing the Messiah, since it was the Jews that had done this. It is also absent of any mention of the word "repentance" since Deuteronomy 30 was addressed only to Israel, and would have meant nothing to Cornelius as a Gentile. However, other than the substitution of the word "believe" for "repent," the elements are the same. Belief brought forth forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (10:44-45), the elements of the New Covenant. The sign of the New Covenant, baptism, was then administered to these Gentiles in 10:47.” 7 In Acts 11, Peter explains the events at the home of Cornelius to the local Jewish leaders. The events at the home of Cornelius included the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles in the same way as the Jews. Dr. Baylis then reminds us that the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles is the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30:6, ie “…the Lord will circumcise your heart…” Dr. Baylis concludes: “Deuteronomy 30:6 had stated, ‘ . . . the Lord your God will circumcise your heart. . . in order that you may live.’ Thus, the repentance brought about the New Covenant which brought new life. Acts 11:18 records the reaction of the Jerusalem Jews at Peter's testimony about Cornelius. ‘Well then, God has granted the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.’ While a Jewish remnant were repenting (returning) to covenant 115

relationship Gentiles had been mysteriously included in that remnant's return.” 8 To summarize, we see that repentance in the Old Testament involved a return by the Jews to the covenant relationship with God. That covenant relationship is the one that God instituted with Abraham. God gave the blessing to Abraham by promise. The covenant relationship to which Israel was to return was an unconditional, unilateral relationship of blessing promised by God Himself to Abraham. God then continued to fulfill His Promise to Abraham (ie, “all the nation of the earth shall be blessed”) by including the Gentiles. The way into the Promise for the Gentiles was the same as the Jews, ie, believe the Gospel and receive forgiveness of sins. So, what do we conclude? Whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, rich or poor, salvation is by faith and faith alone. “Repent”, believe the gospel and be saved! Notes: 1: Jeremiah 31: 31-34: 31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for 116

they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. 2: Ezekiel 36: 23-28: 23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. 24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. 25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. 28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. 3: Baylis, p21 4: Baylis, p21 5: Baylis, p21, note 6. 6: Baylis, p32-33 7: Baylis, p33 8: Baylis, p34

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Chapter Thirteen: Reforming Matthew 18; Dismantling a Shrine to Legalism There is one individual that immediately comes to my mind when we talk about the difficulties we’ve had in people leaving the church over the past two years. We should have understood when he first came to the church that this individual had a legalistic bent. At that time, he told us that he looks for a church that handles church discipline well. He said he likes to attend a church where the leadership was not afraid to pull out Matthew 18 and live by it. This should have been our indicator as to which filter/bias this individual was using to interpret scripture. However, the story is an interesting one none the less. When our youth pastor introduced the teen worship service, this same individual was one of the biggest critics of that service. He openly criticized the pastor, the leadership and what’s more on several occasions, badgered the kids. After several incidents, where all kinds of people were offended, there was one final incident that propelled one of our pastors to take action. The pastor sent a letter to the individual in question asking him to refrain from further discussions with any teens on the subject of the teen service and also asked for him to meet with the elders before this individual could resume fellowship at the church. Well, this individual refused to meet with the elders/pastors. The reason he cited, “the elders did not follow the process outlined in Matthew 18”. Now, this was very interesting. Here we had a person whose main church selection criteria was a church that followed Matthew 18 but when he was the subject of the supposed church discipline, he refused to meet citing a foul in the technical requirements of the letter of the law of Matthew18. Simply what he meant was this: the elders had not followed the exact process steps of Matthew 18 where the elders did not allow 118

the offended individual (in this case the teen) to come to this individual on their own. After the teen would have then come to the individual and then felt that there was no “repentance” or resolution, then the teen was supposed to go to get two or three other people and re-confront the individual. If after the second meeting, there was still no “repentance” or resolution, then the teen would go to the church. It was the responsibility of the church to then confront the individual and then determine what, if any, further steps should be enacted. In short, this individual claimed that we (the elders) were not following Jesus (his words) and since we were neither following Jesus nor Matthew 18; he was not obligated to meet with us opting rather to leave the church. Interesting irony! Now, I did take the time to respond in writing to this individual to explain that Matthew 18 is not a process document, i.e., step one, step two, step three, where someone (especially church leaders) are forbidden to get involved early in the process. I explained that this happens all the time. The elders get involved with all kinds of disputes and offenses early in the restoration process, especially where the offended party is either afraid or unable to confront the offender alone. I stated that this was the case with the teen. I mentioned that he (the offending individual) was an imposing man (physique and booming voice) and the teen needed some assistance in confronting properly. Again, citing that we (elders) get involved all along the reconciliation process for reconciliation is the most important issue not the procedure. Well, needless to say, my explanation was deemed inadequate I was dismissed as not biblical. It never ceases to amaze me how people are continually given over to the letter and have no regard for the spirit. This is the core of legalism, concern for people is minimized and concern for the standard is maximized. 119

Anyway, this story is a perfect segue to introduce the subject of Matthew 18. The misunderstanding and subsequent abuse of Matthew 18 by the church at large is incredible. All kinds of churches have used Matthew 18 to punish and persecute people for years. From empowering people to act as sin police to ensure others don’t sin, to making scared pregnant girls stand before congregations to openly confess their sin, to excommunicating people for their divorces. It is this abuse of scripture that I would like to address in this chapter. What’s the real issue with Matthew 18? Why has this section of scripture been so misunderstood and misused? It is my opinion that a large part of the misunderstanding is due to our cultural definition of repentance and the linkage to forgiveness that says repent first then forgive. Remember, we’ve just spent two chapters reforming repentance and redefining repentance in our minds. However, that old cultural definition is very hard to eliminate from our consciousness. The old man will not just let the “repent of your sin” to leave our minds and hearts. Hence, Matthew 18 will live on in our hearts as the “church discipline” chapter. If we can properly carry the biblical definition and application of repentance around in our daily Christian lives, then and only then will Matthew 18 stop being the discipline chapter and start becoming the forgiveness chapter. Let me explain what I mean. We will always see Matthew 18 as the church discipline chapter if we have our cultural definition of repentance stuck in our minds. If that is the case, we will read verses 15 - 17 this way: if a brother offends me and I go to him and confront him and he repents, I then forgive him and we are restored. If he fails to repent, then I go and get two/three others and re-confront. If he repents then, I forgive and restore. If he still doesn’t repent, then I take it to the church and if he still doesn’t repent then the church has the right to kick 120

the brother out of the congregation or enact some other sanction against the offending brother. First of all, that is the typical way those verses are interpreted. This interpretation of verses 15 - 17 is based on the cultural definition of repentance. Now consider that those verses are not speaking about getting your brother to repent. The verses don’t even mention repentance! The actual words of Jesus are hearing and not repenting. Those verses actually say: 15

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 16

But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 17

And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

These verses clearly indicate that it’s the hearing that’s important; there is no reference to repenting. The idea is that reconciliation is the most important thing and not necessarily “who’s right”. The process outlined in Matthew 18 is a reconciliation process and not a repentance process. There is no mention that IF the offender “repents” (ie, feels sorry, changes their mind about their sin and asks forgiveness) , THEN you are cleared to forgive him. The clear teaching of scripture in Matthew 18 is to forgive regardless of repentance (that’s cultural repentance, ie feeling sorry for and turning from my sins).

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The simple truth is that God forgives regardless if someone “repents” (cultural definition) or not. If you don’t believe this, look at the rest of Matthew 18 as compared to Luke 17. The Demonstration of Forgiveness Irrespective of “Repentance” (Cultural repentance that is!) Before we look at Matthew 18, we’ll need to look at a parallel passage in Luke 17. A quick note before we look at this passage. There are 63 usages of the three main Greek words for repentance in the New Testament. Of those 63, 61 are used in reference to repentance toward God. The other 2 are here in Luke 17:1-4, they are used in reference in repenting of transgressions to other people. I thought I would highlight this fact so as not to confuse the discussion of the proper view of repentance toward God. Obviously, here in Luke 17, the main concern is restoration between people. Luke 17:1-4 1 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! 2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. 3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. 4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shall forgive him. In verse 1-2 (Luke 17), Jesus starts talking about offenses in the same way as in Matthew 18. In verse 4 he makes the statement that if someone offends you, then “repents” and asks forgiveness, we should forgive him even if it’s seven times in one day. 122

Now most people would absolutely agree, as I do, with this teaching. If your brother “repents” or changes his mind about his offense, if he turns and asks forgiveness, then we are to forgive him. Although, that teaching is very true, (obviously we’re supposed to forgive someone if they ask) many people use this specific teaching example to go beyond what scripture intended here. Many people would say that this is the formula for forgiveness and what’s more, they take this specific application and apply it back to God. They would say that not only do we forgive only after someone asks, they would also say that God does the same thing, i.e., God requires us to forgive only after repentance or a change of mind about our offense. Not only should bells and whistles be going off in our minds right about now because of the study we have just gone through in the last two chapters but we’ll see very quickly that you don’t have to go very far to see that scripture itself will teach us that this is a completely false application of biblical repentance/forgiveness as it relates to God. Let’s go on. 5

And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.

The disciples upon hearing this, (ie, verse 4 and having to forgive someone 7 times in one day if they ask, knowing how hard it would be to forgive the same person that much) ask Jesus in verse 5 to increase their faith. After all, if they have to forgive that much, then they are going to need a lot of help. In response to the apostle’s request, Jesus launches into a parable that illustrates the principle of forgiveness and specifically to increase the faith of the disciples.

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But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?

And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shall eat and drink?

Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. In verses 7 – 10, Jesus tells the story of a man that has a servant that comes in from the field after working all day and instead of the master saying to him to go in and relax and eat, rather the master would say to the servant, go in and prepare me a meal and then after I’m done, you can eat. Jesus then asks a very important question in verse 9. He asks, “Does the master then thank the servant because he did the things asked of him”? Jesus answers his own question, “I think not”! Then he applies the parable in verse 10. He calls us unprofitable servants who do those things that are asked of us! This is an extremely important lesson. Once again, the subject of forgiveness is carried down from the start of the chapter. Jesus tells the disciples, yes, we’re supposed to forgive anyone who asks us to forgive but we’re also supposed to forgive regardless if anyone asks or not. This makes “repentance” (cultural definition) irrelevant for forgiveness.

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I hope you see this distinction. Yes, Jesus did teach that if someone “repents” of their deed and asks you to forgive them, you’re supposed to forgive them. However, this is the basic requirement. Jesus, by the parable, is saying “of course you’re supposed to forgive someone if they ask but going the extra mile, great faith says, that you forgive without the need for ‘repentance’ or waiting for someone to ask.” That’s great faith; forgiving regardless of repentance or changing our mind about our fault and asking forgiveness. This understanding is fully supported by Matthew 18. Let’s look at it. Matthew 18 1

At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18 starts in verse 1 by the disciples asking Jesus “who is the greatest”. This is a law based respect of person’s question based on moral performance. Jesus quickly dispenses with the law and goes to the humility tact and uses the child metaphor, ie giving up all your rights and become as a little child with no rights. Jesus emphasizes faith as the requirement for entry into heaven. 125

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receives me.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence come!

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.

And if your eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 11

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

In verses 6-10, Jesus makes the point that whatever is going to stop you (in this case the law) from humbling yourself as a child, cut it out, get rid of it. In verse 11: â&#x20AC;&#x153;For (Because) the Son of Man is come to save that which is lost.â&#x20AC;? Jesus now is about to tell you how it is with the Father. 12

How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? 126

And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. 14

Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep vs. the 99. You’ll notice that the Shepherd goes to the sheep. He doesn’t wait for the sheep to come back because Jesus says (in verse 14) that it’s God’s desire that not one is lost. This is the same principal as the Prodigal Son; the father ‘runs’ to the son before the son has a chance to utter a word. The plain picture here is that the Father forgives regardless of “repentance” (cultural). 15

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 16

But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 17

And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Please notice the word moreover in verse 15. This word carries the context into the story about the offended brother. “Moreover” is just like saying, “in addition”. Now Jesus goes into the instructions on what to do if you have something against another brother. The answer is plainly; forgive! He steps through the offense/restoration process, attempting to restore fellowship along the way. First, notice that Jesus starts the 127

process by saying “if a brother shall trespass against THEE.” This is a personal situation and how to handle it. Now, in the final step (verse 17) He says that if the brother doesn’t hear the church (ie, does not mean the entire congregation – could be pastor/elder or some church official counseling the two) “then let him be unto ‘THEE’ as a heathen man and a publican.” Again, please note that this is still a personal matter and does not involve anyone but the two offended parties. This has nothing to do with “the whole church now has something against the brother”. This is not church discipline in the way we’ve been taught. Jesus is clearly stating that if you can’t rectify the situation, then the bond between you is dissolved. Any obligation between the two over this issue is now dissolved. This concept relates directly to 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul is giving instructions about marriage to an unbeliever. He states that in that case, a “believer is not bound” and “we’ve been called to peace.” The next verse tells you this is true. 18

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Notice in verse 18, Jesus states the principal of binding and loosing. This is placed here on purpose to talk about the church having a responsibility to make a right judgment concerning the offended parties. Verses 18-20 connects directly with verse 16 and 128

the idea that at the word of 2-3 witnesses, every word shall be established. Please understand something here. Verse 16 and following is NOT an inquisition. This is not, “someone has offended me so I’m getting 2-3 other people to make the other person repent.” This is a process of reconciliation, regardless of who is right and who is wrong. For all we know, the offended party may be the one in the wrong. We see this so often in counseling; the offended party drags the offender into the office and the tables quickly turn on the offended because it was their perception of an offense and not the truth about the offense that was the issue! In verses 18-20 scripture tells us that whatever the “issue counselors” (i.e. the 2-3 people plus others from the church) are going to decide with respect to the dispute, then heaven will abide by their decision. If they continue to bind the parties together, they are bound. However, if they loose the parties, they are loosed. Look at verse 19. Verse 19 explains verse 18. Verse 19 starts by using the word again and just repeats what was said in verse 18. Then 19 explains 18. “If 2 (or 3) of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them.” Historically, these verses have been taught out of context for years. That is how we could have people running around shouting “I bind you Satan in the name of Jesus” and “I loose you Satan in the name of Jesus!” These verses have nothing to do with binding and loosing Satan or other spirits. Verse 19 states that heaven will abide by the decision of the church in the process of conflict resolution between offended parties. 21

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 129

Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Now, Peter then starts to understand a basic principal and jumps in, in verse 21. Peter has heard this before. Peter has heard the Lord teach on offenses in the past; he recognizes that theme and responds with the very words of Jesus. Remember Luke 17? 3

Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. 4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shall forgive him. Peter knows that he’s heard Jesus speak on this subject before and then responds with Jesus’ own words. The topic is forgiveness. In a dispute, the overarching principal is forgiveness, regardless of the conflict resolution; forgiveness is still the main principal. Peter asks the question about forgiveness and then answers using Jesus’ own words from Luke 17, “until seven times”. Again, Peter thinking he’s got a line on forgiveness but still demonstrates that he doesn’t understand the unconditional forgiveness principal, uses Jesus’ teaching on “forgive if someone asks”. Jesus, then answering right along the same lines as the parable in Luke 17:6-10, launches into the great story of “70X7”. Jesus then places forgiveness into a completely different category. The story of the unmerciful servant is placed here to tell us that our forgiveness from God is unconditional! Let’s read it.

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Therefore, is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. First of all, notice the word “therefore”. Anytime we see a “therefore” we’re supposed to find out what it’s “there for”. In this case, the word tells you that this is a story about forgiveness and unconditional forgiveness as told by Jesus in verse 22. 24

And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. 10,000 talents in the story, represents an insurmountable sum. There is no way that the servant could repay that kind of debt. The application notes in my bible puts the total at about $4 billion dollars (and that’s in AD 30 value!). 25

But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26

The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Let me ask you a question here. Is the servant “repenting” or asking forgiveness here? Answer: No! In fact, he’s doing just the opposite. He’s still insisting that he’ll be able to pay in his own strength. There is no repentance (i.e., asking for forgiveness or turning from sin) here only stubbornness, self-delusion, and self-righteousness. 27

Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

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Wow! What does this verse tell us? It tells us that God forgives us regardless of (cultural) repentance and regardless of whether we ask or not. The Lord has compassion on the servant even though the servant was self-deluded and stubborn. Notice in verse 27, the master after being moved with compassion, then looses the servant from the debt. This directly ties back to verse 18 and binding and loosing. By this example, we see that God has set the pattern of forgiveness for us to follow. Unconditional forgiveness is based on our relationship with God. He then asks us to do the same thing with each other. 28

But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owe. 29

And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 100 pence was a very payable debt. My bible application notes suggest about $3,000. So we see that the second servant was sincere in his plea for more time. He could have paid the debt. 30

And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. 31

So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. 32

Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desired me: 132

Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? 34

And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. 35

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. Verse 35 is an extremely important verse for us to understand. The verse states in the same way that God unconditionally forgives us, we are to unconditionally forgive everyone else of every trespass and offence. Now, we understand that unconditional forgiveness is easy for us humans. Peter upon hearing forgive 7 times a day if a brother repents and asks, needed a huge increase in faith. Thus, we understand that unconditional forgiveness will take an even greater amount of faith and favor from God. Just because we forgive someone of the offense that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done to us, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily mean that there is complete restoration of the relationship. Take the case of adultery. As an example, suppose a husband commits adultery. The wife is still required (please excuse the word) to forgive the husband. Now we understand that it may take quite a long time to do that. However, just because the wife forgives the husband, that does not mean that she can live with the husband in a marriage relationship. The relationship may be damaged beyond repair and in that case a divorce is granted. We are to forgive every trespass but that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean that the relationship is completely restored. Sometimes there are devastating consequences to sin. 133

So, the great story of 70X7 is an incredible lesson in unconditional forgiveness. My question here is this: how is it possible that we’ve never seen this before? How have we missed this incredible story of unconditional forgiveness? The answer is simple. We’ve been deluded by the conditional nature of the law. “If you do this, then I’ll do that”. That’s the law. If you behave in a certain way God will bless you; if you behave in another way, God will curse you. We’ve taken that all the way to repentance. If you repent, then God will forgive you. If you don’t God won’t. That’s not the story of our God. His forgiveness is unconditional. There is no direct link between “repentance” (cultural) and forgiveness. Forgiveness is unconditional. However, the only way to access that forgiveness is through our faith. The Gospel is all about faith. I hope you find this study valuable in helping you dismantle the Matthew 18 shrine to legalism. May the Lord help us to let it stay dismantled to the point that there is not “one stone left upon another”!

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Section Four: Reforming Work: How the Law of Liberty “Works” Chapter Fourteen: The Grace - Works Debate On March 31, 1995, the music world as well as the rest of us, were shocked to hear the tragic news story of the emerging Tejano singing superstar Selena, who was shot to death in a hotel in Corpus Christi Texas. Selena was not only beautiful and talented but at only 23 years old, her whole life was before her. The music world reeled from the tragic loss of such a vibrant and gifted musical talent. The soul of the Latino community had suffered a deep, painful wound. What was equally as painful to hear was the identity of the murderer. It was not some jealous ex-lover or crazed druggie. Rather, it was one of Salena’s closest business associates. “Yolanda Saldivar fit the classic stereotype of ‘la dueña’, the faithful chaperone or assistant. Neither attractive nor charismatic, the short, pudgy registered nurse from San Antonio was Selena's constant companion. Her devotion and loyalty were beyond question. With the Quintanilla family's blessings, Yolanda founded the Selena Fan Club in 1991. Whenever Selena y los Dinos (her band) played San Antonio or nearby communities, Yolanda was at Selena's side. She was Selena's eyes and ears, friends said—so trusted that she gave up her fan club position last fall to run Selena's boutiques.”1 From all the accounts of the incidents that I have read, Saldivar was, to the outside observer, the model of a devoted fan. She appeared to everyone, including Selena’s immediate family, to be a person who was motivated by a genuine love, concern and 135

admiration for another person. To all who looked on, Yolanda Saldivar seemed to be a person motivated by a pure motives and a person to be trusted with some amount of responsibility. “Some members of Selena's circle spoke of another Yolanda. She was possessive and controlling, says Martin Gomez, who designed fashions for Selena until, he claims, Yolanda's obsessiveness drove him to quit. She was a loner who had lived with her mother until recently (i.e., at the time of the quote) and had few friends. She had once been accused of embezzling funds from a previous employer, and she had defaulted on a student loan. A woman who moved into an apartment with Yolanda discovered that Yolanda didn't just have pictures of Selena on her walls—the whole place was ‘like a shrine.’ Spooked, the woman moved out after two weeks.”2 Apparently, it was this “other Yolanda” that was the real Yolanda. For the real Yolanda, while being confronted for stealing from the both the fan club and the boutiques for which she was responsible, raised a gun and shot the object of her devotion in the back as she (Selena) was trying to escape the room. The one gunshot hit Selena in the back, killing her. Yolanda Saldivar was convicted for the murder of Selena Quintanilla Perez in October of 1995. Now, I won’t even speculate as to what were the real motivations behind the actions of Yolanda Saldivar. I don’t know if she pretended to be devoted to Selena in order to work her way into the inner circle. Or, I don’t know if a sincere devotion just went bad. The truth is that no one may ever know what truly motivated Yolanda to do what she did. However, these types of examples of “typical” human behavior, speaks to the truth about all of our true motives. We, as a part of the church of Jesus Christ, love to point the finger at the despicable motives of all of them out there in the world but we absolutely fail to see the exact same thing about ourselves. Oh we will say that 136

there is no way that we would ever be so self-serving and manipulative as to pretend to be a friend of a famous person just to seek our own advantage. We say that we would never perform acts of benevolence which outwardly would appear to be genuine but then deep inside, where the real motive lies; we find nothing but self-glorification. In my opinion that’s exactly what Jesus says that we do when we pretend to live an obedient life by performance to some kind of moral standards. We pretend to be a friend of the Lord Jesus by calling on His name and perform all kinds of benevolent acts which on the outside look like we are very much concerned about the person we claim to venerate. Then, when the pressure is truly applied and there comes the confrontation of the things that are truly in our hearts, our wonderful selfless acts of benevolence are found to have seriously flawed motives. For when we are performing acts of righteousness in order to fulfill the requirements of the law, we are in effect the same as a Yolanda Saldivar. We are then in effect, performing those acts for our own benefit. The bible says that we “nullify the work of Christ upon the Cross” and thereby crucify the Son of God afresh. We are no different than Yolanda Saldivar. This same conflict is found each time we continue to live our lives according to the old way of the commandments. We insist, just like the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18, that we will pay every penny that we owe, all we need is just a little more time in order to be perfect. Surely, we will be able to live the perfect life because if we have the righteousness of Christ, then we can perform all the deeds of the law and in effect, I can become perfect by my performance. This misconception is the heart of the debate between Grace and Works. Make no mistake, the belief that we can become perfect by our actions or even attempt to reduce our sin, plays a big part in our insistence that we need to continue to live by the deeds of the Old Testament law. 137

In the final analysis we are completely deluded and our process bias will continue to hold us captive to read scriptures like James 1:22 (be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves) to say that our self-righteous attitudes are correct. Our faulty logic continues to ask us this question, “how can we be doers of the word if we don’t keep the commandments and teach others to do the same?” May God forgive us all!

Notes: 1: The Queen is Dead, Joe Nick, internet article; http://www.joenickp.com/music/queenisdead.html 2: Nick, The Queen is Dead

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Chapter Fifteen: Noticing the Law of Liberty I hope you weren’t confused after reading the end of the last chapter when I mentioned the Book of James, specifically James 1:22. You may have remembered our discussion from chapter five when we dealt with the typical misapplication of this verse. At the end of last chapter, I quoted the verse in the typical misunderstanding fashion and not in accordance with our discussion in chapter five. Hence just like we said in chapter five, to hold to the old understanding about being “a doer of the word” is to continue to be in denial about our legalism. If we hold to the veil of the law, we will read scripture through the flawed filter and thus experience process bias. Again, remove the veil of the law (hence remove the bias) and we will see clearly. One of the greatest obstacles to shed our insistence to self inflicted legalism is our understanding (or misunderstanding) of what James meant by “be a doer of the word”. The standard doctrine of the “doer of the word” is another sacred cow of evangelical Christianity. We just continue to repeat that which we’ve been taught without any thought or genuine study of our own. We love to think we’re Berean Christians but in reality we’ve got a lot of work to do! (Pun intended) To quickly review from chapter five, we said that being a “doer of the word” does not mean to be a “doer of the law”. We know this is the case from the Book of Romans chapter two. James is demonstrating all throughout chapter one, that faith is the operative way to live and the person who continues to live by faith is the one who is a “doer of the word”. Specifically, the one who will not go back to the works of the law to obtain their righteousness but walk day by day by faith (for the just shall live by faith) and God’s grace. This is what James means when he says be a “doer of the word”. 139

James handles two main themes in chapter one. He introduces the idea of trials and the idea of partiality. James will continue to return to these themes through the early chapters. First, James tells us that trials are sent by God to test our faith. Question: in what way do trials test our faith? Answer: to see if we are going to draw back to the works of the law. The scripture comparison here is to Hebrews chapter 10. James tells us that the person who is double minded, who is like a wave tossed by the wind, is a person who does not continue in faith but goes back to works of self righteousness. Part of the testing of our faith, is to see if we are going to show partiality to other people. Showing partiality is a sure fire way to tell if a person has left faith and is living by the dictates of the law. How, you may ask? James outlines that we, because of our self righteous sin nature, are bent on showing partiality to people based on what they do and/or their status. Someone who is living in the law will continue to show respect to persons (partiality) based on outward, superficial factors; those which are evidenced by works. James then continues to amplify the truth about trials but distinguishes between trials of faith (sent by God) and temptations to sin. James very plainly tells us that our trials are those sent by God to test our faith and not to tempt us to sin. He states that the temptation to sin comes from within each one of us, so sin is not the issue when it comes to trials of faith. In verse 15, he tells us not to make a mistake about this (“do not err my brethren”). James then goes on to tell us that in keeping with the truth about the trials of our faith (ie, staying the course of faith and not drawing back to works) we are to be “quick to hear” (faith comes by hearing) and slow to act, ie, speaking and being wrathful. Why? Verse 20 states; 140

“

For the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.”

I used to believe this verse meant that just getting mad didn’t produce righteousness. This is not what “wrath” means here. Let’s look at some Greek definitions. Vines: Orge (wrath): “Originally, any natural impulse or desire or disposition, came to signify anger as the strongest of all passions. (It is used in many “wrathful” applications in the NT).” “Note: ‘…orge suggests a more settled or abiding condition of mind frequently with a view of taking revenge.” Also, the root of the word, means to “reach out after”, “covet after”, “desire’”1 Strongs’ defines Orge: “proper: desire (as a reaching forth or excitement of the mind), by analogy: violent passion, by implication: punishment – anger, indignation, vengeance, wrath.”2 Now take these Greek definitions and put them into the context of the chapter, we see that verse 20 (and 21) is linked to the prior discussion where James is talking about sin emanating from the internal lust of the person. We see that the intense passion, revenge or vengeance coupled with the greater context of trials of faith, speaks to the self righteousness of man. For look at the next verse. 21

Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. The verse clearly tells us to give up the self righteous intense passion and “receive with MEEKNESS” the engrafted word, which (very importantly) is able to save your soul. Obviously, receiving with meekness the engrafted word (gospel of grace) is the polar opposite to proud self righteous intense passion. 141

Therefore, when in the middle of a trial, continue to be quick to hear the Gospel of Grace and slow to react out of the law, which really comes from your own lusts within your own sin nature. So, lay aside all that self-righteousness and receive in the wisdom of humility, the word of grace, which is alone able to save your soul. Now, when James then states that we are to be a “doer of the word” we understand from the immediate context and from Romans chapter 2 (and our prior discussion) that he clearly does not mean a “doer of the law” and clearly refers to a person who continues (through trials) to remain in the grace of God through our faith. So, the correct understanding of verse 22 (be a doer) will allow you to properly understand the rest of the chapter. The metaphor James gives about being a hearer verses a doer. James says that a hearer of the word in like a man who is beholding his face in a mirror, then he goes away from the mirror and forgets what manner of man he is. The word “beholding” in Greek tells you that this man is “considering” or trying to “perceive” what type of man he is. The mirror or tells him how imperfect he really is, for he sees all the imperfections of his face. The metaphor here says that this man does not continue in grace but goes back to the works of the law and in effect is just a hearer of the word. He then “forgets” what manner of man he is” which is telling you that he forgets that he is a sinner completely and utterly saved by the unilateral love and action of God. This is what the law does. It allows us to pretend that we are not filthy rotten sinners because how can we be rotten sinners if we’re living and performing to a holy standard. Attempting to live by the standard, the rules and regulations of the law makes him a respecter of persons, for the first person he will “respect” and thereby excuse (because of his self deluded behavior), would be himself. The contrast to a “hearer of the 142

word” is a man who continues in faith and is not drawn back to the works of the law when he experiences trials is likened to a man who looks into the perfect law of liberty. Now, I’d like to stop right here and make a point. The title of this chapter is noticing the law of liberty. For years, I have heard pastor after pastor preach on these verses. Time and time again, I would hear how the “perfect law of liberty” was looking into the bible, the word of God. Their application was that the bible will tell you what type of man you are and if you are a doer of the word you will DO everything the bible tells you to do. Folks, that’s a euphemism to mixing law and grace. The emphasis on doing in all those sermons was to always obey the commands of God; in short, bone fide legalism! This incorrect interpretation of the “perfect law of liberty” and subsequent teaching, led me to a classic case of process bias to where I never even noticed the phrase the “law of liberty”. I read over this verse for years and never noticed the phrase “perfect law of liberty”. Ironically, the “law of liberty” was held captive in my mind by a “reading into” the scriptures something that is not actually there. Ironically, James says that there is no mirror involved with the man who is a faithful doer. The man who is a forgetful hearer, going back to the works of the law, is likened to someone who looks into a mirror. However, the doer of the word does not look into a mirror but into something else; the perfect law of liberty. It is interesting to note that James uses the word “behold” or consider/perceive for someone (the hearer only) looking into the mirror. There is a feeling of some action of the mind attempting to understand. However, James uses the word “look” which is a different word in Greek for someone (the doer) peering into the law of liberty. This word means to “bend over” or “stoop down” to 143

see. There are only three other usages of this Greek word in the NT; once in 1 Peter 1:12, where Peter is saying that the angels desire to look into these spiritual things, which would be the idea of angels stooping over us to see. It is also used twice in the same context in John and Luke both describing what Peter and John did when they came to the tomb to see that it was empty; they stooped and bent around to see the empty tomb. Those who look into the perfect law of liberty are those who continually fix their gaze on the person of Jesus Christ, they are like the Apostle’s when they bent over and stooped down to see into the empty tomb, just in awe of the grace of God. These people do not look away like the hearers do, no these people continue gazing at the miracle of the Resurrection! In verse 25 (“but whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein”) the word “continue” in Greek is a compound word. It is the word “parameno”, which is from “para” which means beside and the word “meno” which means abide. So, the meaning of “parameno” means to stay beside or near. This usage of parameno is perfect in this setting. For the person who is a doer of the word is one who stays beside the empty tomb staring into it with wonder and awe; knowing that it is the utter grace and mercy of God that has saved us. That person lives each day in that wonder and awe of the amazing grace of God and does not go back to the futile works of the law. They continue to be a doer of God’s will and not a hearer only. The hearer, however, is the man who forgets that he’s despicable and then tries to “go back” to the self-righteousness by the deeds of the law. He forgets what manner of man he is for the law helps him do that. When we live by the deeds of the law, then we delude 144

ourselves to think we’re holy and without sin. We forget what manner of man/woman we are. You will notice at the end of verse 25 (“but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed”), that the doer of the word will be blessed in his deeds. Why? Because these deeds are done in the right attitude and by the Holy Spirit not our own spirit. James then tells us what real faith looks like. James says that the true person of faith loves other people. He mentions that true faith does not show partiality in any way. The way that is exemplified is that a person of real faith; a) does not speak evil of other people and b) goes and visits the people who are normally discriminated against like the fatherless and widows, i.e. people of “low degree” or means. In short, “doers of the word” don’t keep the law, they love people! Hearers of the word don’t really love people, they are just interested in keeping the law to satisfy their own flesh. I’d like to end this chapter with a striking example of the extent to which process bias has pervaded today’s evangelical landscape. This example is an exclamation point to the truth that the church at large has institutionalized process bias and has no problem with “reading in” to scripture something that is not there. In short, the veil of the law is firmly fixed in front of the eyes of the church. A few months ago, I was in the midst of teaching Part Three of the Reforming Grace Bible Study Series, Reforming Work. As the class was in the midst of a discussion in James chapter one, one of the class members wanted to read aloud the application notes from his Life Application Bible. This particular individual was quite enamored with the Life Application Bible and quite frequently quoted the application notes as we discussed various issues in the class. 145

Now, I think the Life Application Bible is a fine tool for general bible study and devotion. However, this particular example teaches extreme caution when relying on application notes exclusively to base our understanding of God’s word. This would apply to any biblical commentary not just the Life Application Bible. Since this person was continually quoting from the application notes in each class, I decided to look at the application notes prior to actually teaching the class. At that point in the class, we were ready to discuss James 1:22-25. As we have just seen above, these verses describe the differences between a “doer of the word” and a “hearer of the word” through the use of metaphors. Again, the metaphors are: a doer of the word is like a man who beholds his face in a mirror, and a hearer of the word in likened to someone who looks into the perfect law of liberty. When I looked at the application notes for James 1:25 in the Life Application Bible, where James talks about the law of liberty, I was absolutely flabbergasted at what I read. The following is a direct quote from the Life Application Bible application notes for James 1:25. “It seems paradoxical that a law could give us freedom, but God’s law points out sin in us and gives us the opportunity to asks for God’s forgiveness (see Romans 7:7-8). As Christians, we are saved by God’s grace and salvation frees us from sin’s control. As this does not mean that we are free to do as we please (see 1 Peter 2:16). We are now free to obey God.” 3 According to the Life Application Bible application notes, the “law of liberty” is exactly the same as the Law of Moses. There is absolutely no doubt this understanding is exactly what is meant by this note, for the authors cite Romans 7:7-8. If you look at those 146

verses, you will see the absolute reference to the Law of Moses. This is incredible! The implications of this incorrect application are staggering. This application tells the reader that it is the Law of Moses that gives us freedom from sin and frees us to obey God. This is a direct contradiction to scriptures like 1 Corinthians 15:56, “ the strength of sin is the law”. How on earth can the Law of Moses give us the freedom from sin when the bible clearly states that is the Law of Moses that gives sin its power? This is a hopeless contradiction. No wonder thousands of Christians live defeated lives in hopeless hypocrisy. Unless we come to understand that the law of liberty is a principle completely separate and distinct from the Law of Moses, we will continue to guarantee that Christians will live in utter frustration. Unless we remove the veil of the law from our eyes, we will never understand that the very law we cling to, is the very thing that continues to fuel our appetite for sin. Unless we allow Jesus to take the law “out of the way, nailing it to the cross” (paraphrase of Colossians 2:14), we will never be free as individuals. Moreover, we will continue to insist to other people that they too must gain their freedom by their adherence to the Law of Moses. This will then guarantee that we will continue to relate to others based on their behavior and performance. Finally, the related relational failures that logically follow the resulting judgmentalism, will absolutely guarantee that the church will continue to be a failed institution. The outside world will never get a chance to see the love we have one for another. When we continue to insist that we replace the unconditional love of God with the conditional love of the law, we guarantee that we deny the 147

healing found in the gospel and we will just continue to “shoot our wounded”.

Notes: 1: Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words; 2: Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 3. Life Application Bible, New International Version, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, Wheaton, IL and Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids MI, p. 2246, 1:25.

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Chapter Sixteen: Work - The fruit of Faith The Book of James has always been at the forefront of the discussion (and in too many cases fights) between Grace and Works. Whereas the overall New Testament (NT) principal of salvation is stated as “we are saved by Grace” and not by works, the Book of James has always given people difficulty because it appears to contradict these word by Paul in many places in the NT. In the Book of James, it appears that scripture is stating that works and not just grace/faith alone justify a person. Most people when the come to the Book of James and attempt to discuss the concept of “a man is not justified by faith alone”, love to start the conversation in James chapter 2 and verse 14. There is one huge problem by doing that. They have completely cut out all of chapter one and half of chapter two. From what we’ve already seen, the proper understanding of chapter one, will have a tremendous impact on our understanding of chapter two. It is impossible to understand the back half of chapter two until we understand all of chapter one and the first part of chapter two. We need the entire context not just picking up at verse 14 of chapter two. It is no wonder that the Christian community has been so confused over the Book of James when attempting to understand the story line by starting in the middle of the movie! The first verse of James chapter two is a very telling verse, for the subject is the same as the end of chapter one. In chapter one James stays with some main themes and showing partiality is one of them. Verse one of chapter two just picks up where chapter one leaves off and as a matter of fact, emphasizes the point James just made at the end of chapter one. 1

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 149

The reason that James says this is because he has just stated that people with real faith will love all people regardless of their social position (i.e., fatherless and widows mentioned in chapter one). He then very plainly states for us to not have faith with respect of persons or showing partiality. In the next few verses, James then gives further examples of this. He launches into a discussion about how we give special treatment to wealthy people and we will discriminate against people who are poor. James even highlights the paradox of the situation citing that it’s actually the rich people who oppress us by wielding their economic power over us, yet we still cater to them because of their social position. This hypocrisy is taken to the ultimate level when James says these same wealthy people blaspheme the very name we worship. The next few verses are crucial to properly understand how James speaks about works. James goes on to tell us that those who keep the royal law will be those people who will “love their neighbor as themselves”. What’s more important and crucially important to understand about those who keep the royal law is that those people are not people who keep the Law of Moses! This is of vital importance to understand. Those people who live by the law of liberty have been set free from the obligation of keeping the commandments. They have been freed by the liberty that Christ died to obtain for them. James tells us emphatically that the law of liberty is the polar opposite as keeping the Law of Moses! If you need persuasion, just look at verses 8-11 in detail. If you do, you will find out that James says that if you attempt to keep the Law of Moses but you offend in just one point of the law, you 150

thereby are guilty of the whole Law of Moses. So, by implication, no one can keep the Law of Moses. James sets up the law of liberty as the contrast to the Law of Moses in these verses. Now, what is equally important to understand here is that the application of these verses is that James tells you that to try to live by the Law of Moses and thereby become a “respecter of persons” or to show partiality, we then become a transgressor of the law. Thus, the conclusion is as James tells us: 12

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. 13

For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoices against judgment. James makes it unmistakable that the walk of faith is a walk of no partiality via the law of liberty and not the Law of Moses. For those who show partiality based on performance shall be judged with the same unmerciful spirit that they show the ones they discriminate against. James is absolutely clear; faith has nothing to do with law where the whole purpose of the law is to segregate and discriminate. However, faith has everything to do with love and mercy, for “mercy rejoices against judgment”! Now, we’re finally ready to go on to talk about works. James goes to great lengths to help us to understand the basis of faith and grace and how they relate to non partiality. The works or acts of benevolence that would be done for the wealthy person, should also be done to the poor person. That’s the emphasis as we start to look at the infamous verses on works in James chapter two (verses 14-26). The foundation of the first chapter and a half of the book of James is a discussion about faith and grace. James goes to great lengths 151

to let us know that the proper way to live (i.e., be a doer of the word) is to live via a faith/grace filled life and not a Law of Moses oriented life. Based on that very clear instruction from James any discussion of how you should live (i.e., the works we do) will also be based on the same foundation. Hence, the discussion in the second half of the book of James is NOT a discussion about Grace verses Works; rather it is a discussion about Law/Works and Faith/Works. According to James from chapter one and the first half of chapter two, the proper framework in which to enter the works discussion is: are we going to remain in the works of faith OR are we going to “draw back” to the works of the law? That’s the real question and contrast. Whether we work or not is not the issue, it’s the type of works that is the issue. Martin Luther, in the early 1500’s, speaks to these verses (14-26) very well.

"So the question is asked: How can justification take place without the works of the Law, and how can no justification take place by the works of the Law even though James clearly says: 'Faith without works is dead' (2:26) and 'By works a man is justified' (2:24), adducing the examples of Abraham and Rahab? And even Paul says (Gal 5:6): 'Faith (which) works by love' and above (Rom 2:13): 'The doers of the Law shall be justified’? Answer: the apostle distinguishes between the Law and faith, between the letter and grace, and so also between their works. He calls those works 'works of the Law' that are done without faith and grace, by the Law, 152

which forces them to be done through fear or through the enticing promise of temporal advantages. But he calls these 'works of faith' which are done in the spirit of liberty, purely out of love to God. And these can be done only by those who are justified by faith. But the works of the Law contribute nothing toward this justification, nay, they greatly hinder it, because they will not let a man realize that he is unjust and in need of justification. ...” 1 "There when the blessed James and the apostle (Paul) say that man is justified by works, they are disputing the false conception of those who contended that a faith without works would be sufficient. However, the apostle does not say that faith is without its characteristic works-for then there would be no faith at all since 'activity reveals the nature of a thing' according to philosophers-but that it justifies without the works of the Law. Therefore justification does not require a living faith, which performs its works.” (W 56, 248f in Plass 720-721) 2 In that one line, (“Answer: the apostle distinguishes between the Law and faith…”), Luther affirms that our perspective here is right on the money. It’s all about the law and faith. They are diametrically opposed to each other. The discussion is not about faith or works for real faith works! The proper discussion is between the law/works and faith/works. That’s the real issue. I believe much of the church has missed this for centuries. Luther understood it, we’ve missed this.

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Let me ask a question here. What does Luther mean when he says that “the works of the law contribute nothing toward this justification, nay, they greatly hinder it, because they will not let a man realize that he is unjust and in need of justification. ...”? Answer: The works of the law are like a mask; they mask depravity in a person. When someone operates under the works of the law, they are attempting to live to some moral standard of behavior. When we do that, we then delude ourselves to think that we actually can live to that standard and thereby we push away our sinfulness. As we do that, what Luther says is that we do not realize that we are unjust and in need of justification. The law deceives us to think we (by our own behavior) are righteous. This is gross self-righteousness! Next question: What does Luther mean when he says, “Therefore justification does not require a living faith, which performs its works”? Answer: Luther is outlining the fact that evidential works accompany faith for they cannot be separated (see the next quote by Luther). However, no effort is required by God for justification. The works are present, however they are not required. Now we can quickly cover the controversial verses (14-26). In verse 14, James picks up with the theme of no partiality. He states that since we are loosed from the Law of Moses and now governed by the law of liberty, we need to act like it. We need to treat the poor person (v15) like we’re governed by the law of liberty; we must love our neighbor like ourselves. People who walk by faith will most definitely give practical assistance to people in need. James then gives us the best example of the works of faith; the Father of Faith, Abraham. Abraham put action to his faith which 154

illustrates the type of faith that exemplifies the law of liberty. Abraham being fully persuaded that God was able to perform, put action to his persuasion. He moved in faith and his actions were a testimony to his faith. Martin Luther very properly establishes the connection between faith and works, they are inseparable. This quote also describes the role of faith/works in the life of Abraham as well in any believer. “In the Word of God all things that are attributed to works are attributable to faith. Faith is the divinity of works. Faith permeates all the deeds of the believer, as Christ's divinity permeated His humanity. Abraham was accounted righteous because faith pervaded his whole personality and his every action.” Martin Luther 3 Luther properly states that we cannot separate works and faith for they are inseparable. People of faith can’t help but do the works of faith just like the man Jesus can’t help being God. This is the clear teaching of James and very misunderstood by people accusing the doctrine of Grace as being a “no works” doctrine. Let me give you an example from our church experience. As we were just beginning to bring the message of the depth and dimension of the Gospel of Grace to our congregation, people kept on telling us that we shouldn’t teach this doctrine to new believers. What? Did I hear that correctly? Yes, numerous people told me that we can’t teach Grace to new believers. Why? They believed that new believers would not be able to properly balance grace with good works. They actually asserted that we should teach the law to new believers until they were ready to handle Grace. Wow! This is unbelievable logic. 155

As responsible church leaders, we are now supposed to teach false doctrine until our new believers were mature enough to handle Grace?!? How in the world are new believers supposed to get mature if we don’t teach them the doctrine under which they are able to mature? This is great vanity and futility. This clearly indicates a severe lack of understanding that the contrast in James is not works vs. grace but law/works vs. faith-grace/works. The other example of the misunderstanding of the message of James is found in the word balance. The word balance is supposed to indicate teaching just the right amount of law with just the right amount of Grace to make sure people don’t sin. Can’t we see there is no balance! Mixing law and grace can’t work. There is only Grace. In holding to the balance argument, we see that those people who adhere to it, are just indicating their misunderstanding of the fact that the true gospel does not and cannot separate faith and works for they are inseparable. Now let’s get back to James chapter two. Now after the example of Abraham, James does something very interesting. James makes reference to Rahab right after the mention of Abraham. Not too many people understand why Rahab was placed here by James. Most people focus on the comparison to Abraham in the previous verses. Most people think that Rahab is just an afterthought by James and doesn’t add one thing to the storyline. However, I believe the reference to Rahab is priceless in this discussion. The comparison to Rahab is an exclamation point to the discussion or law/works and faith/works. If you remember the story of Rahab, what did she have to do when she hid the spies? She had to lie to the soldiers to protect the spies. This is a clear distinction between the works of the law and the works of faith. For how could Rahab bring herself to lie if she was bent on not sinning and not breaking the law “thou shalt not bear 156

false witness”? Rahab was also a Gentile. She was not regulated by the Law of Moses but it didn’t matter. Rahab knew it was wrong to lie for the law was written on her heart. However, Rahab was more interested in expressing faith in God and helping the plan of God, hence her actions were driven by faith; actions by the way, that were honored by God, lies or no lies. What’s the bottom line? James is very clear; whether Jew or Gentile, male of female, rich or poor, saving faith is exemplified by loving all people with actions in line with our fully submitted faith in God, which understands that no action is required on our part for God to love and save us, for all the work was done by Jesus! Hence Luther’s quote, “Therefore justification does not require a living faith, which performs its works.” 2

Notes: 1: Ewald M. Plass, compiler, What Luther Says: An Anthology Three Volumes. (St. Louis MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1959). W 56, 248f in Plass 720-721, W is the Weimar Edition of Luther's Works http://gbgmumc.org/umw/james/Background/originaltexts.htm#luther 2: Plass, 720-721 3: Project Wittenberg, Galatians Commentary, Chapter 3, pp 106135, verse 10 On-line link: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg /luther/gal/web/gal-inx.html

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Section Five: Reforming Divorce – A case study in legalism Chapter Seventeen: The New Testament Divorce Law Divorce in the church has become, in my opinion, the ultimate example of legalism. We’ve all seen varying versions of this same divorce scenario played out in churches all over the country. I believe that divorce has come to typify our obsession with the law as well as typifying our defense of the standard wherein we believe God insists we live. This scenario has damaged countless lives and has even cost many people their faith. Here’s one version of the scenario based on several situations that we’ve encountered. There is a man, we’ll call him Bob. Now Bob is married to a lovely girl, we’ll call her Carol. Bob and Carol have been married for about 15 years. However, their years of marriage have been rocky from the outset. They have struggled in their relationship together never seeming to get themselves on the same page. There was one brief time however, when both Bob and Carol seemed to be on the same page. That’s the time is when Bob got saved. Carol had always been a professing Christian but Bob had always kept the Lord at arms length. However, when the two of them were having intense marital trouble about ten years ago, Bob finally turned toward faith in Jesus. At that time, there was a genuine change in Bob. He seemed to be more sympathetic to Carol’s needs and feelings. Carol had a sense of relief when Bob was finally treating her with some level of respect. Sadly though, that change in Bob was all too short lived. In the next few years, Bob continued to profess his faith in Christ, in fact, he was now getting involved more and more in church 158

activities. Bob was attending men’s bible studies on a regular basis and became quite active in the Promise Keeper Men’s Ministry to the point of being the contact point for all Promise Keeper events at their church. Bob was getting into the Word of God as well and on many occasions was asked to lead the men’s bible studies. Ironically, many of those studies focused on the proper behavior of the godly man toward his wife. In spite of all this church activity, Bob and Carol’s marriage continued to spiral downward. Bob was always quick tempered and had a propensity to belittle his wife, never seeming to appreciate her gifts and talents. Carol was not without her faults but it was always Carol that was the one who would be the peacemaker and put up with all Bob’s issues for she believed that God would someday touch Bob’s heart and change his attitude and behavior toward her. So, year after year, Carol would hold on to the promise of marital restoration. Year after year, Carol prayed for a change. Well, Bob’s behavior continued to worsen. The more that Bob would study his bible and pray, the more it seemed that his heart was hardened toward his wife. He became more and more critical toward anything Carol did. It seemed that nothing that Carol would do, could ever possibly please Bob. Bob continued to harangue, belittle, insult, and now verbally abuse his poor wife. All the people at the church would attempt to help Carol. Well meaning person after person would talk to Bob about his behavior. Person after person would attempt to hold Bob accountable for his behavior. Bob, when confronted, would briefly change his behavior, for he really wanted to change to stay true to the bible. Those talks would help for a while but after a short period of time, Bob would sink back into the same old behavior patterns. In fact, his behavior was continuing to get worse instead of better. 159

The people of the church would continue to encourage poor Carol, telling her to pray and read her bible more. She was encouraged to clear her life of all possible sin for that sin could be blocking the blessings of God. Poor Carol would then desperately scour her life searching for all possible shreds of sin. However, the more Carol prayed and repented of sin, the worse Bob’s behavior became. Then one day, Bob submitted himself to go a psychiatrist to be tested for a possible mental disorder. In confirmation of everyone’s suspicion, Bob was diagnosed with a severe personality disorder. The good news was that Carol now had a medical diagnosis to explain Bob’s behavior; however, the bad news was that the prescription for Bob’s malady was a very long program of intense counseling and medications to possibly improve his condition. There was no guarantee that his condition would ever change. The whole church then rallied around Carol to help her to pray for Bob’s condition. Bob started to take his medication and go to counseling; however, he never really believed that he had this mental condition. He submitted to the medication and counseling because of the external pressure to do something about his marriage, for they had to do everything possible to save the marriage because divorce was out of the question for Christian couples. Well, the counseling did not help Bob’s condition, for Bob would continue even to blame and criticize Carol in his counseling session with the psychologist. Month after month, year after year, Bob would continue to take his medication off and on, and go to counseling off and on; i.e., when he could be encouraged, cajoled or threatened to go. In all this time, Bob’s behavior toward Carol continued to deteriorate; for Bob now felt that it was Carol’s fault that everyone 160

thought that Bob had “some mental condition”. Bob now blamed Carol for all the problems of their marriage. Carol was now starting to sink mentally and emotionally. In the early years, she was able to hold it together, trusting in God to get her through and to improve her situation. The years of verbal and emotional abuse, however, were wearing her down. She cries now all the time and she now sees no hope for the future with Bob. She also now feels, along with the frustration, intense guilt that she has failed, since she must be to blame for God always keeps His promises, right? Bob’s abuse is now escalating to an incredible degree. He now spends all his waking hours thinking of ways to “get his wife” for she is to blame for all his problems in life; Carol is solely to blame for everything wrong in Bob’s life. Bob’s behavior is now at an all time low, now actively trying to set up his wife. Carol, now a step away from a nervous breakdown, turns to a divorce lawyer as a final solution. In Carol’s mind, the pain has to stop; for she either needs to escape or else suicide is the only other way out. Carol decides that divorce is her solution because the wounds from Bob are so deep and so profound, that she believes there is no way she could recover from those wounds. No marital infidelity ever occurred, however the mental and emotional abuse was so significant, that she felt there was no way for reconciliation at this point. Well, the church now discovers that Carol is divorcing Bob. The church is now quite upset at Carol’s actions. The church by no means accepts or condones Bob’s actions, but they are absolutely opposed to Carol’s action to divorce her Christian husband. The church goes to visit Carol and attempts to get Carol to drop the divorce proceedings. Bob is involved, not wanting his wife to 161

leave him for that would enrage him more (this is part of his psychosis). Carol is unwilling to drop the proceedings after several meetings with church friends, pastors and elders. The church then escalates the Matthew 18 proceedings telling Carol that if she does not drop the proceedings for divorce that she will be excommunicated from the church citing Matthew 18 as biblical precedent. Carol refuses to drop the proceedings and the church has no choice but to excommunicate Carol from the church. Carol is devastated. She cannot believe that the people who supposedly supported her through all her rough times, through all the pain and turmoil with Bob, were now turning their backs on her when she needed them the most. Carol was now all alone. Not only was she rejected by her husband but now she was rejected by her church. The rejection doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop at the excommunication, for the church leadership has instructed the church members not to associate with Carol at all. Close friends now shun Carol and Carolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s isolation is now complete. Carol now completely devastated by the treatment from her church is not only in a crisis over her husband, she is now in a crisis of faith. For now she has been told that God is upset with her to the point of removing her from His church. Is she still a Christian? Carol, abandoned by her husband, her church and now God, walks away from Christ. How is this scenario even possible? How does this type of thing happen? How have we as a church come to see Carol as the perpetrator and Bob as the victim? How do we feel at the end of a scenario like this, that we are doing that which is pleasing to God? Unfortunately, the answer is far too simple to understand. The answer is rooted in the law. There are some churches that maintain strict adherence to the law which includes the Law of Moses. This type of treatment in those churches makes perfect sense. 162

However, in many churches they may understand that we are not bound to the Law of Moses however, in their eyes we still can’t run away from the New Testament law. What New Testament law you may ask? The New Testament law we believe that Christ commanded. This New Testament Law is not the law that you would first gravitate toward, namely “love your neighbor as yourself” for that would be too merciful and gracious. Rather, in divorce cases such as the one we outlined above, this is the New Testament Divorce Law. A law that we are sure came straight from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know the one I’m talking about. Remember when Jesus said to the Pharisees that “whosoever divorces his wife, save for the cause of fornication, and remarries another, commits adultery”. That’s the law I’m talking about. Of course, the New Testament Divorce Law! It is this law that enables churches all over the country and the world to treat people the way our fictitious example treated Carol. Now, right about here, you may be questioning my sanity. You may be thinking to yourself, now I really know that this guy is a bleeding heart liberal and has completely gone over the top on this Grace stuff. For how can he be seriously questioning one of the unquestionable doctrines of evangelical Christianity; how can he actually question the words of Jesus. Has this guy gone mad? If you’re thinking thoughts along these lines, that’s ok, I forgive you, even though you may not care about that right now. All I can ask you to do is to read the next two chapters to understand how it’s possible for the church to misunderstand the “mother of all doctrinal sacred cows” of Christianity, the untouchable New Testament Divorce Law. After all, if you’ve invested the time to 163

read this book this far, what’s two more chapters? What I’m hoping is that if you’re still reading this far into this book, that maybe, just maybe you’re thinking that there might actually be something to all this Grace stuff. May God bless you as you continue on your journey with Him.

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Chapter Eighteen: Divorce Allowable? Who Said? When I committed my life to the Lord Jesus Christ, I immersed myself into the bible. I like millions of new believers, was enthralled with the reality of the love of God and how His mercy applied to my life. I wanted to learn everything about this new faith of mine. I read the bible constantly. I never missed a Sunday sermon. I listened to every Christian radio station possible. In short, I wanted to absorb everything I could to learn about the God I now served. Looking back, it did not take me long to become a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Xeroxâ&#x20AC;? copy of the standard conservative evangelical Christian. I spouted all the usual party lines. I condemned all the bad stuff and supported all the right causes. I held condemnation for many cultural practices including holidays like Halloween. I supported boycotts of companies that supported gay rights. My wife and I purged our house of all alcohol and all secular music. As an elder at my church responsible for leading couples groups and subsequently counseling many troubled couples, my wife and I were emphatically anti-divorce. We believed faithfully, what we had been taught about divorce; there were no biblical grounds for divorce except for two instances. Those exceptions, fornication and desertion only in the case of an unbeliever, were the only two very limited cases that divorce could ever be uttered form our lips. Other than those two very limited cases, I did not believe that divorce was warranted under any circumstances. My position on divorce was of course based on a veiled truth about the law. I was victim of classic process bias. The years of teaching that I received contributed to my own process bias based bible misinterpretations. There was no way that I and my wife 165

were able to move to any other position as long as the law held in any type of prominence in our minds. So, for years, I was resolute in my belief that the there was one absolute truth about divorce and that truth was beyond discussion. Then the difficulties at the church started. The journey to grace began for not just the church but for me personally as well. My personal study took on a whole different tenor. It was like I was reading the bible for the first time. Concepts that I could never understand, I began to consider. Parables and other sayings of Christ that I never understood now exploded off the page. My personal revival had come. Then it happened. The realization when it hit me, hit me like the proverbial bolt from the blue; I realized that divorce was allowed by the law! The Law of Moses allowed divorce. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe how simple yet profound but what was even more amazing in my mind was that I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe that I had never allowed myself to understand that very basic simple truth. God allowed divorce through the Old Testament Law. Now at this point, you might be jumping ahead of me a bit, which is fine. You may be saying, wait a minute Al, you keep on saying all throughout these pages that the law has been abolished (deactivated in the life of the believer) so how can you be going back to the law to site a requirement of the law to govern our actions today? Now before you get too comfortable with that idea, consider what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking about here. Yes, the reality is that divorce was not originally intended by God. However, because of the fall of man and the problem of sin and evil, God allowed divorce because of a very real consequence of the fall of man; the hardness of the hearts of people! 166

What’s the reality? Are we really saying that what little mercy and grace the law allowed, that God somehow now revoked that grace to institute a stricter code to govern life in the New Testament? How could this be? The truth is that it makes no difference that the law has been abolished in our New Testament lives and that the Old Testament law allowed divorce. The law also requires that we love the Lord with all our hearts and we wouldn’t throw out that principal with the requirement to live our lives according to the commandments. The plain and simple fact is that the Law of Moses allowed divorce. Now please listen to this very important point: Jesus did not change one “jot or tittle” of the law; He came not to change or destroy but to fulfill. Jesus said; “until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled.” So, how can we live in the full grace of God where He allows us to remove the specter of the law from our lives and then voluntarily place ourselves under a system that takes away the grace even the law allowed? That is exactly what we do when we impose the divorce law upon people. I know my discussion about divorce being allowable by the Law of Moses is a hard one for most Christians to swallow at first pass. It may take you a while to determine if what I’m saying is applied in the proper biblical context. That’s ok, for that’s what you should do. Consider my words, and then look for yourself to see if what I’m saying is correct. By all means, be the Berean Christian! Now let me just stop here a minute. Please do not misunderstand my position on divorce. I am decidedly anti-divorce. That stance has never changed. Divorce is generally devastating to the family. Divorce is to be avoided at all costs for divorce destroys lives. So, please understand that just because I have a different 167

understanding on the words of Christ, that doesn’t mean that I am pro-divorce. Divorce should only be the absolute last resort to marital difficulty. Allow me to give you a hand with your synthesis of this new information. Let me ask you to consider one question on this idea of divorce being allowable by the Law of Moses AND that is still applies today. The Pharisees were always coming to Jesus to attempt to trap Him with His own words. This was because many times they would hear His very gracious words and in their minds, His words would be in opposition to the Law of Moses. So, they would come to Him and with His own words try to get Him to contradict the Law of Moses. This scenario happened with the issue of divorce. When the Pharisees came to Jesus to confront him, they asked him this question; “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” The Pharisees wanted to catch Christ in a dilemma. They wanted to see how Jesus would respond, understanding that the law allowed divorce but they had heard the teachings of Christ at times (like the Sermon on the Mount) where they perceived that His words contradicted the Law. The very important question I would like you to consider is this one: did Jesus ever answer their question? Did Jesus ever answer the question as to whether divorce was allowable by the law? The very plain truth about this is that Jesus never answered their question. The question on divorce was posed to Christ on two occasions and on both occasions Jesus never answered their questions. We will see that plainly in the next chapter.

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The better question is “how did Jesus respond to their questions?” The Pharisees were bent on catching Him in a contradiction about His words verses the law, however, Christ did not play their game. Jesus was always doing that. The Pharisees would come with one agenda and Christ just refused to play on their terms. Jesus was always flipping the game on them; Christ always forced them to play by His rules. This is the case here with divorce. Jesus did not answer their question because it was not a worthwhile question to answer. The Pharisees perceived that Christ was contradicting the Law of Moses because of the hardness of their own hearts. Christ’s answer was not an answer about contradicting the Law of Moses but rather a condemnation about the hardness of their hearts. Jesus’ teachings on divorce were always oriented toward the original intention of God but He never contradicted the allowance of God. This is a huge distinction. All that the Pharisees could hear was some perceived infringement on the allowance of God but they never would allow Christ’s teaching to “sink into their ears” so they could hear about the intention of God. If they were open to hear about the intention of God, that would mean they would have to admit their sin and for the Pharisees, that was never an option. In the next chapter, in order to help you further, I am going to look at every occasion that Christ taught on divorce. My plan is to see if His words really do speak to the explaining the original intention of God without revoking the allowance of God.

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Chapter Nineteen: Divorce; The Words of Jesus In this chapter, we will look at all the occasions that Jesus taught on the subject of divorce. We will look to see if Christ instituted a New Testament Law on divorce or if Jesus was differentiating between the intention of God verses the allowance of God. The key here obviously, is to understand what Jesus meant in the context surrounding His words. Before we even look at the actual words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, we must look at the introductory words of Christ that tells us how to interpret his words that will follow. In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus is telling the people that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. He also says something very important; He states that if we try to perform to His standard of righteousness, then weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in trouble because if we break just one of the least of the commands of the law, then we are the least in the kingdom. He further explains this in verse 20: For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. This verse tells you that to be holy and righteous on your own without Christ, you must exceed the holy performance of the Scribes and Pharisees, which is impossible. This verse also tells you how to interpret the next bunch of verses because Jesus is about to tell you in what way does your behavior have to exceed the Pharisees. First, in Matthew 5:31, Jesus is in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon, He is elevating sin not just to the acts of the law but to the Spirit of the law as well. For example, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just about killing (or not killing) your brother but the real issue is 170

the condition of your heart or being angry with him; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just about committing fornication (or not committing) but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about lusting in your mind. In all these cases in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus elevates the bar, making holiness by self-effort impossible. Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; clear teaching is that holiness has nothing to do with just your actions but has everything to do with what is in your heart. The teaching on divorce is in the exact same vane. Here are His actual words. 31

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: 32

But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery. This teaching is in the same style as the other teachings in this section (ie, murder/anger; adultery/lust) where He first states the standard (or what the Pharisees claim they keep) and then He elevates the standard to be out of reach by any human. In Matthew 19 and Mark 10, the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus with the Law of Moses. Clearly, the law allowed divorce. When Jesus answered them, He went right for the spirit of the law and the original intent of God for the marriage relationship. However, that does not change the fact (nor did Jesus intent to change the fact) that divorce was still allowable by the law. This principal is probably best seen in Mark 10: 2

And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. 3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? 4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 171

And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 10 And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. 11 And he says unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she commits adultery. Notice in this passage that after Jesus gives the teaching to the Pharisees, the disciples come back to Him and ask Him to explain again. Jesus then restates how a divorce is sinful. He states that by divorcing and remarriage, you commit adultery. This teaching would be quintessential in confronting the Pharisees with the reality of their sin; for anyone who divorced his wife (and remarries) for no good reason commits adultery. This would have been a revolutionary teaching for those who would just divorce for any reason because the Law of Moses allowed it and thinking there was no sin involved. However, this teaching in no way nullifies the fact that the Law of Moses still allowed divorce. All Christ is doing is to define how divorce is sinful. Divorce is not preferable by God but because of the hardness of the heart divorce is allowable. There is no reason to believe that our hearts have changed at all and that suddenly we all can live as God originally intended. The truth is that our hearts are still desperately wicked and there are times when (because of our 172

stubbornness) our differences cannot be reconciled. In those cases, divorce is an option. In Luke 16:18, the context is again the spirit of the law or misusing the law for your own gain. In chapter 16, Jesus begins his teaching by telling the parable of the unjust steward who uses his power to defraud his master and to provide favors to the other landowners so in time of need, he (the steward) may have a job. In verse 14, the Pharisees derided him because they perceived that Jesus told this parable because the Pharisees were covetous. In verse 15 Jesus said, “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men but God ‘knows your hearts’ for that which is highly esteemed before men is an abomination in the sight of God.” Then in verse 18, He uses divorce as an example. 18

Whosoever puts away his wife, and marries commits adultery: and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband commits adultery. The Pharisees used divorce for their own gain because of their evil hearts. From there (in verse 19) Jesus then launches into the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, again demonstrating the futility of chasing after riches on earth. In this context, the law (exemplified by divorce) is no different than riches; both are used to serve one’s evil heart. These are all the references to Jesus words concerning divorce. So we can see from all these scriptural contexts, that Christ explained the original intention by God with the case of marriage. He explained that God originally intended that once a couple was married that they should not separate. That was God’s original intention. However, the reality is that marriage exists in this present world, which includes sin and depravity. In this context, 173

God who is rich in mercy allowed divorce seeing that the hardness of people’s hearts would be a real issue in the process of reconciliation. God’s allowance can very readily coexist with His original intention because God has already atoned for all the sin, both the divorce and subsequent adultery. All Christ did in Matthew, Mark and Luke, was to explain just how divorce was sinful. Prior to His explanation, it was never considered sinful, neither by the Pharisees nor by the disciples. In summary, Jesus’ words about divorce are to demonstrate spiritual principals and never intended to change the law. If the law provided mercy in the case of divorce, then why on earth would the NT disavow that which the law provided and require “ungrace” in the area of divorce? Remember our discussion on Matthew 18 and Luke 17 in chapter 12? Properly applied, Luke 17 and Matthew 18 allow the abolition of the law to apply to divorce. In a divorce case, there is a dispute between two parties. After the parties do everything they can to gain reconciliation (individually, friends, church) and are still unforgiving/stubborn/hard hearted/etc, they can seek a divorce. Divorce is not preferable (as Genesis tells you) and there will be great consequences to all involved but because of the hardness of the heart, divorce is granted as we are called to peace. Understanding that the law no longer applies to our walk of faith and our life in Christ, we are permitted to read the bible with an understanding that the person is more important than an external code or standard of behavior. This liberation then allows us to allow basic human understanding and compassion to apply to a troubled woman like Carol in our prior example. We are not condemning a man like Bob but the truth is that we live in a cursed and fallen world. Decay is a natural part of our reality. The truth is that Bob could not help himself and there may be no conceivable way to change Bob’s behavior. When we understand the 174

incredible grace and mercy of God’s unconditional love, we can relax and allow that grace to pass to Carol and Bob’s situation. Jesus asked if there were any disciples who could make a right judgment about specific situations. His plea was for us to make a right judgment. In Carol and Bob’s case, the right judgment, the merciful judgment is to understand that there is no reconciliation in the future with this couple. Although Carol may be well able to forgive Bob, understanding that his behavior to a large degree is driven by his mental condition, she may be very much unable to continue to live with him and to submit herself to the continued abuse. Here is where true wisdom comes into play, where we do not draw back to self-righteousness and demand that Carol “stick it out”. Rather, true wisdom allows God’s forgiveness and mercy to apply to this depraved and disastrous situation. Divorce may be the only solution in this case. “…and mercy rejoices against judgment.” James 2:13

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Chapter Twenty: Epilogue On the day I finished the writing of chapter eighteen, I was on vacation. It was Sunday and since we weren’t out of town, I was contemplating playing hooky from church, sleeping in and just being generally lazy. However, my wife told me she was going to church and wanted to make sure our youngest attended our youth service, so I decided to tag along and attend our 11:00 service. Our senior pastor was in rare form that day. He was preaching from the Book of Job, one of my favorites. His main point was that in the mysterious world of suffering, we shouldn’t be looking for God our Savior but we should be looking for God our Maker. For God our Maker has a purpose for every trial and every hardship as he polishes, prunes, tempers, and makes us more and more into His image. It was a great sermon and I was glad I was there to hear it. I realized that the Book of Job was probably as good a place as any to end the writing of this book. For the story of Job like no other in the bible, personifies the mercy and grace of God. Job was declared righteous by God, meaning that Job did absolutely NOTHING to deserve the horrific trials that followed. God knew Job’s character and behavior and by God’s own admission, there was nothing that Job did to deserve the harsh treatment he received. What does this tell us? It tells us that our relationship with God and what we receive from God has absolutely nothing to do with our actions or behavior. For here you have a man who feared God and stayed away from evil and God still allowed a number of incredible calamities in his life. Certainly Job’s actions had nothing to do with what he received from the Lord. 176

Is God therefore unreasonable and unfair in His treatment toward His people? Absolutely not! God already knows what is in the heart of a man for God has already put it there. Within Job was already placed a depraved sin nature which Job did nothing to receive. Job’s sin nature was given to him by God. It is then God’s prerogative and good pleasure to address that sin nature in all of us at any time and in any way He chooses. God chose the perfect time with Job. God’s allowance of the calamity in Job’s life revealed something about Job’s inner character. Job’s intense trials revealed that Job was self-righteous. For Job 32:1 tells us that Job’s friends left off accusing Job because Job was “righteous in his own eyes”. There it is; Job’s heart is revealed. It was God’s prerogative and good intention not to leave Job where he was with self-righteousness in his heart, so God decided to allow the incredible events in Job’s life to address his inherent sin nature, a nature that God Himself placed within Job. Job did nothing to receive this sin nature. So, the clear teaching of Job is that Job did nothing to get into the calamity and Job did nothing to get out of the calamity, for it was solely the action of God that changed Job’s circumstances. The application is plain. We do nothing to receive our sin and sin nature and we do nothing to receive the atonement for our sin and sin nature and once received, we can do nothing for the rest of our lives to maintain that status. Our holiness is based solely on the finished work of Christ upon the Cross and the Father’s benevolence. That’s it, nothing more. So, the law by definition can have no role in our lives for it makes no logical sense that it would. Can we then see that if we place the law in any role to assist the work of Christ, we in short nullify His work, call Him a liar, and thereby go about to set up our own 177

righteousness? To go one step further, our self righteousness is really idolatry, for that is what results when we worship our own way and not the way of God. When Job finally realized that he justified himself instead of justifying God (just read Elihu’s speech to Job), he placed his hand over his mouth realizing how vile a creature he really was. Job finally realized his self-righteousness and self worship. At that point, God restored Job. May the Lord grant us the same wisdom as we continue to let go of the self-righteousness of living by the law. May the Lord grant us the incredible insight to understand that since He has taken care of every sin that could ever be conceived (past, present and future) that He decides how we are to live our lives. For doesn’t’ the bible tell us that our lives are not our own, that we have been bought with a price; we’re bought with the precious blood of Jesus? What could we possibly add to that? Since the blood is the only thing that purchased our righteousness with absolutely no help (past, present or future) from us, God has truly set us free from the bondage of the law. Once liberated, God has now “called us to liberty” (Galatians 5:13) for the “just shall live by faith” and faith alone. Don’t you think it’s about time we started walking in accordance with our calling? Finally, let me leave you with this. If we can find enough faith within us to take God at His word when He tells us in the Book of Romans that it is He Himself that is responsible for placing the law within our hearts, then we will be able to allow the Holy Spirit to FULLY circumcise our hearts to remove every shred of the law from our lives. It will be then and only then, that the veil will be 178

fully lifted from the front of our face thereby removing all shreds of bias from our faith. The results of that supernatural occurrence will be staggering. Can you imagine a world where there is no judgment of other people for their actions, for Christ has atoned for all of their actions already? Christ has already given each person the free gift of righteousness, thereby relieving all men from the obligation of moral behavior. With removal of all obligation, the world will finally be able to live in peace as each person will be truly equal in Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes as well as the eyes of humanity. The church will then be free to love as Jesus originally envisioned and finally at long last, the world WILL know that God loves them, just as Jesus has loved us! "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.â&#x20AC;? John 17:20-24 (NIV)

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