Distinction

Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.  -- Malachi 3:18

During the Incarnation, Jesus talked of how things would be for people at the end of His earthly ministry.  He compared it to the days of Noah.  No one expected the flood, even though Noah told them judgment was coming.  They continued to live as though nothing ever changed.  In the time of Jesus, people heard Him speak and tell of terrible times to come – e.g., Matthew 24, yet they continued to live as though Jerusalem would never face tribulation. 

I don’t know if things will become difficult, if judgment of some kind will fall upon the earth.  I don’t know if San Francisco will face another great earthquake, if the Yellowstone caldera will erupt, or if a sweet meteor of death will strike Washington, D.C. or Brussels or Mecca. 

I do know that I will die someday, and I’m not the only one to which this end will come.  When that happens, I believe I will be required to give an account of how I have lived since I entered this world.  Some of that account is going to be pretty embarrassing, if not downright shameful.  Still, I believe in the mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God.  As Jeremiah said in Lamentations, the mercies of God are new every morning.  I will not exhaust His clemency or His compassion. 

I am not anyone else’s judge.  As many failures as I have had, as many times as I have willfully and intentionally done the wrong thing, I can in no way be acceptable to God on my own.  But I am not on my own, for … [I]n Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them … (2 Corinthians 5:19).   Christ stands between the righteous and the wicked as Aaron the priest stood between the living and the dead (Numbers 16:48).

But for Christ, I could in no way be counted among the righteous had not the Father [f]or our sake  … made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Christ is our distinction.

I Don't Care 'Cause I'm All Right

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. – Matthew 23:2-3

A preacher told the story that it was Homecoming Week for a Christian College.  The local tavern put up a sign out front that said, “Bring your parents here for lunch.  We’ll pretend we don’t know you.”  In response, the college chapel put on their sign, “Bring your parents to service here.  We’ll pretend we do know you.” 

Jesus, in Matthew 23, tears into the religious leadership, but He starts out by instructing people to listen to what the scribes and Pharisees taught.  They were in a position of authority, sitting, as it were, in the place of Moses, as intermediaries between the revelation of the Law and the people of God.  These leaders were supposed to -- as Ezekiel says, help people distinguish between the holy and the profane.  By following what these experts in the Law said, a person should be able to live a life of righteousness pleasing to the Lord. 

The scribes and Pharisees, however, did not follow their own teaching.  Like our lawmakers today who are careful to exempt themselves from the restraints and restrictions of their legislative efforts, those Jewish leaders disingenuously found loopholes, excuses, and exemptions for their own unrighteous behavior.  One of the reasons James suggests that we should be careful about wanting to be teachers is that those who try to instruct others will be judged more severely (James 3:1).  Thus it is a bad idea to stand anywhere near most politicians.  Most of us couldn't hold the light for the elitists in Washington and Hollywood to hypocritize by.  

Nobody wants to be a hypocrite, but we should know what a hypocrite really is.  What it is not is someone who is not sure they are able or willing to follow Christ.  A hypocrite is not someone who attends church on Sunday after they have had a few drinks on Saturday.  A man only becomes a hypocrite when he tries to cover up or excuse his own actions while condemning others for the same thing.  A hypocrite is not a person who, having severely damaged his or her life through disobedience, speaks from experience and denounces those bad choices.  A hypocrite is not a person who fails and falls, who struggles, seemingly in vain, to conquer some habit or overcome some obstacle. 

I see hypocrisy as being nearly impossible for the truly humble, the meek, the contrite, and the broken.  Hypocrisy is an especially odious kind of arrogance.  If we see that God has been merciful and forgiving toward us, we are probably inoculated against hypocrisy, for we will want to be forgiving and merciful to others.  None of us are perfect, and the closer a saint gets to God and to perfection, the less inclined such a one is to brag about it.  The worst thing about certain ministers who have been guilty of egregious iniquity is not that they are sinners – who isn’t?  Rather, it was that they, like those to whom Jesus spoke, felt they had a special indulgence because of their knowledge and position. 

He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).  The righteousness of the saint is never his own.  It is possible that, in the sight of God, self-righteousness is the most repulsive thing there is.   

In the Garden, after Adam and Eve fell, they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves.  God demanded that they drop those leaves and clothe themselves in the skins of innocent animals, which God Himself slew.  This is the picture that condemns the one who is proud of and trusting in his own righteousness -- a fine fig-leaf suit he has sewn.  Only when we understand that Jesus was slain on our behalf, and we are, by grace, clothed in Christ can we be presentable to God and accepted by Him.  


(This is the Three Dog Night cover of a song written by Randy Newman and really has nothing to do with my post, except it is where I got my title.)
 

Believe On

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jonathan Edwards, in his work “The Excellency of Christ”, speaks of the many apparent contradictions, the paradoxes of the Lord Jesus as He was crucified, as in this excerpt: 

Christ's holiness never so illustriously shone forth as it did in his last sufferings, and yet he never was to such a degree treated as guilty.

Christ's holiness never had such a trial as it had then, and therefore never had so great a manifestation. When it was tried in this furnace it came forth as gold, or as silver purified seven times.  His holiness then above all appeared in his steadfast pursuit of the honor of God, and in his obedience to him. For his yielding himself unto death was transcendently the greatest act of obedience that ever was paid to God by any one since the foundation of the world.

And yet then Christ was in the greatest degree treated as a wicked person would have been. He was apprehended and bound as a malefactor. His accusers represented him as a most wicked wretch.  In his sufferings before his crucifixion, he was treated as if he had been the worst and vilest of mankind, and then, he was put to a kind of death, that none but the worst sort of malefactors were wont to suffer, those that were most abject in their persons, and guilty of the blackest crimes. And he suffered as though guilty from God himself, by reason of our guilt imputed to him; for he who knew no sin, was made sin for us; he was made subject to wrath, as if he had been sinful himself. He was made a curse for us.

You remember how in the movie Spartacus all the rebels begin to shout, “I’m Spartacus!” – identifying with and as their leader.  It was better to be crucified as Spartacus than live on as slaves. 

As He was crucified, Jesus said, in effect, “I am sin.”  He identified Himself with and as the worst aspects of humanity.  He became pride, lust, greed, envy, jealousy, hatred, rage, blasphemy – all the vile wickedness that dwells in the hearts of rebellious men.  But then He demonstrated, by going willing through the horrors of the punishment and ignominious death He suffered, His hatred of sin.  It was better to be crucified as sin than to allow us – all of His beloved children – to live and die in such bondage. 

In His death, sin was dealt with, not just the products of sin but the factory from which those products flow.  Because He took on our life and buried it, we may take on His and be raised. 

I struggle so much to be while the Lord just keeps saying that I am.  One says you have to pray without ceasing.  Yes, pray on, but pray for that which is not yet, and yet must be.  The Lord asks why we are praying for what already is.  Believe on. 

Unfair Trade

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5:21

Many long years ago, Dr. Fred McKinney was a professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri.  We were in a rather large lecture class listening to Dr. McKinney expound, probably on the psychology of personality, when a big German Shepherd wandered in through the open doors in the back.  The dog made its way to the front where the utterly unruffled professor launched into some remarks about animals in general and dogs in particular.  For one thing, he stated that, though understanding the logic of it, he could never bring himself to have a male dog he owned neutered.  "I suppose," he observed, "I identify with them too much."

We identify with our family, which makes sense, but we also identify with things that are more difficult to explain rationally.  We are all, I think, a little tribal in identifying with schools, towns, states, sports teams, political parties, and celebrities.  It's not a new thing, and it has always been a phenomenon manifested in religion.  Paul chided the church at Corinth in his first letter to them for adhering to personalities such as himself, Apollos, and Cephas thus creating sects and "dividing" the Body of Christ.   

Politicians, for all their interchangeable and disposable rhetoric about unity, thrive on tribalism and party identity.  Both professional and collegiate sports teams are able to rake in vast sums of money because of people who pay to watch and support "their" teams.  Everybody talks about supporting your church, buying locally, being community-spirited, being patriotic.  Veterans identify with their branch of service.  We seem to have some intrinsic need to belong, to tie who we are to someone or something else.  The point is not that these connections are  necessarily wrong, rather that they evidence an inherent human ability which God is able to use for our benefit. 

I quoted the well-known verse from Ruth a couple of days ago:  For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Ruth was not only committed to helping her mother-in-law, she was going to cease being of Moab and become of Israel, specifically, like Naomi, of Judah.  Christ calls us to be "in the world but not of it".  As Christians, our identity need no longer be tied to the place we were born, who our parents were, where we went to school, or what we do for a living.

What is truly astounding and inconceivable is that we are able to identify with Christ because He identified with us.  He identified with us as humans, as sinners, going so far as to identify with our sin.  Look at what Ruth said and think about her words as foreshadowing what God did.  He said, "I will come down and dwell with you, and your sin will be My sin."  Ruth didn't get something for nothing when she identified with Judah.  She gave her love and loyalty but she also gave her child:  Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse.  And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi." 

As God steps in to identify with our sin, He offers us His sinlessness and righteousness that we might identify with it.  He offers us His Son's death that we might have His Son's life.  Through the death of Jesus, we become sons and daughters of God.  Identification has the power to completely alter the course of our lives, free us from the bondages of the old nature, and empower us to live above and apart from the world system.  


Helen Parr:   Your identity is your most valuable possession. Protect it.