Forget Sin, Forget God

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is always before me.

-Psalm 51:3

Before sin can be behind you, it must come before you. You must see the eyes of those you have hurt. You must come to know that the faces you see full of hurt and anger are really reflections of your own. Sin must come before you so that you know your transgressions. Such intimate knowledge is not something you forget.

Forgetting your sin is forgetting God, because at the heart of all sin is a God who has been hurt. He is not hurt by self-pity, but by deep concern for us and those we have hurt. Forgetting our sin means accepting it. It remains too close for us to see and fear. Without fear of sin, there can be no fear of God.

The cross of the suffering Christ is a deep, still pool in which we see our sin. We swear friendship, loyalty, and love to Jesus, but cannot stay awake with him. We curse ourselves and swear we do not know him with our actions if not our very words. We strike out with swords and anger instead of standing firm beside him. We run off naked into the night, exposed as foolish, frightened children.

The One who would not save himself hangs before us. He is the mirror of each of us, caught in sin, nailed to that which kills us, unable to save ourselves. Empty religion builds the cross and leaves us there to die. It points out the futility of our lives and cries out to God, "Why have you forsaken me?" but waits for no reply and anticipates no rescue. Empty religion is the cross with no crown, Adam in futility working the soil for thorns, Eve in pain bearing only a still-born child. It puts us on the cross and makes us self-pitying martyrs instead of the New Creation.

The One who is innocent and yet condemned stands before us. Mocked and beaten with a crown of thorns he is hated for no reason, for being with the wrong people, being guilty of telling the truth about himself and our sin. Brutal government finds it necessary that the innocent should die rather than a whole nation perish. Unsubstantiated claims drown out true confession. The howling crowds dictate justice, wanting to see punishment rather than seek vindication and reconciliation. Whether we are unwilling to help or a party to his condemnation, our brutality is shown in the flogged, spat-upon Savior who stands before us.

We remember our sin so we can remember God. Nothing else. Our personal sins will make us run and hide. Our empty religion will crucify us. Our brutal politics will bring us to hate and blame. 

"I know my transgressions" so that I might know you, Jesus. You bore the cross, but you did not stay there, but you did not stay there, and neither must I. Amen.

Festooning Psalm 103

My dear soul,

    praise the Lord, this God!
May we always remember
    what a blessing he is!

You forgive!
You heal!
You redeem!
You crown me!
You satisfy!
I am so satisfied, so full, so energized,
    I could fly!

You see me among the oppressed,
    those wandering like sheep with no shepherd.
I need you to work for my good
    and to make me good.
That is what you showed Moses so long ago
    and what you always show your people.
Yes, that goodness comes from your heart,
    so gentle and kind,
    so hard to get angry
      because you love me do dearly.

Lord, I do not deserve it,

    but you don't accuse or hold a grudge,
    or treat me like I treat others,
      how I treat you.
It's just who you are,
    completely accepting and embracing
    whoever seeks you out,
    throwing out my sins
      never to be seen again,
    treating me like a long-lost son
      so passionate because I am yours,
      so gentle because you could easily blow me away.

I don't  have long here, Lord,
    and I won't really be remembered.
    I'm just like stubble blown from a field.
So I will have to trust your love -
    your never-ending love -
    to keep me around,
    to make things right for my children
      and their children, and on and on,
    to make good your good promises to me,
    to remind me of the joy of doing it your way,
      the right way.

Your good ways are firmly set so near me
    and as far as I'll ever go.
They will always be over and above
    every other plan or rule I can see.

Bless you, my good Lord!
King of angels!
Commander of all forces!
Creator and Owner of the universe!
Bless you!

Oh, bless him, my dear soul,
    who sees even you.

How Jesus and Paul Loved the Law

What has been the effect of antinomian Christianity on spiritual formation?

Antinomian Christianity is Christianity which is lived “against the law.” In this view we are not only made right (justified) with God apart from the law, we are made right by avoiding disciplined action according to the law. “It amounts to rejecting [the law] entirely except in so far as it may be done to you by God, passively.”1

With such a relationship to the law, antinomian Christianity has a spiritual formation without any form. Such Christianity must rely on “grace as formless spurts of permissiveness that thrust the law aside.”2 Without the form of the law to guide and structure our spirituality, we are left with a grace that merely allows disobedience and empty living. The formation of our spirit is not based on the revelation of God’s guidance for all of life, but on emaciated superstitions that reduce life with God to mere service to humanity, a “get-out-of-hell-free” card, or a really good worship service show.

Why did Paul “love” the law? (Note Romans 7:22)

Paul loved the law because it made him “conscious of sin” (Ro. 3:22), his great enemy which sought to enslave him to “impurity and ever-increasing wickedness.” (6:19-20) He loved the law which was so “holy, righteous, and good” (7:12) that sin wanted to deceive him and make “the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually [bring] death.” (7:1-0-11) The law helped Paul to see and know sin as his great enemy bent on deceiving and killing him. The law also explained, taught, and illustrated a life of willing “slavery” to God in “true righteousness and holiness” (Ep. 2:24), the very essence of eternal living of a life like God’s. (Ro. 6:23)

Why is the law so important even today?

Sin is still our greatest enemy and we are in need of guidance and teaching more than ever. With the loss of the knowledge of morality in favor of a vague sympathy for morality, we find ourselves cut adrift, “infants [in knowledge], tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” (Ep. 4:14) We are more afraid of law than of sin, more afraid of guilt than of wrongdoing. So, we find ourselves unable to grow in grace and have called such stagnancy the inevitable cost of being fallen human beings. Our world and our lives look quite pagan, without hope and without God (Ep.2:12). The law supports us and can bring hope and God’s presence through a grace that actually brings knowledge and overcomes sin.

How do law and grace go together?

The law is direction and guidance, which is a grace in itself, but it is not complete. The law points to the fullness of grace found only in Jesus. As Dallas Willard said, “The law is the course of rightness, not the source of rightness.” When law is taken as ultimate in our life with God (“The Bible says it, so I will do it!”), we find our willpower is insufficient to keep the law, so “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Ro. 7:15) This is because our will is no match for sin coming at us in obsessive desires. (vv. 18-20) When the law is not ultimate, but subordinate to the grace through Jesus in his abiding Spirit, it becomes a powerful ally, able to not only identify sin, but able to bring new desires that overcome sin from a new nature operating in and around us.

Why is the law so important to the soul and its restoration?

More and more we are finding that recovery of physical function after injury must include the right kind of activity and effort of the affected areas. Apathy makes injuries much harder to heal or even permanent. Similarly, our souls cannot heal without the right kind of effort in their injured and fragmented areas. “The law was given as an essential meeting place between God and human beings in covenant relationship with him, where the sincere heart would be received, instructed, and enabled by God to walk in his ways.”3 This “meeting place” is one where delighting in the law will bring integration and healing to the soul by God’s grace supplied by Jesus, our Teacher. The efforts to delight in the law may seem small and indirect, but will help the soul as nothing else can. Where there is healing and help for the soul, God’s kind of life flows through our life and our being making what is impossible for any person possible with God.

____________________________________________________________________________

1Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ (p. 213). The Navigators. Kindle Edition.

2Ibid, 215.

3Ibid, 212.

Some Detective Work

What matters in learning. . . is not to be taught, but to wake up.  [A good book] also imparts invaluable information, but in the process it should unquestionably wake any reader up; since it reveals a love and joy in acquiring knowledge, . . . which even the youngest of children may have in a fountain-like abundance - as his incessant rain of questions proves - until, alas, perhaps, he goes to school.  (Doorly, The Insect Man, Introduction)

Watch and beware of the leaven [teaching] of the Pharisees and Sadducees. . . .  Let them alone; they are blind guides.  And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.  (Matthew 16:6, 15:14)

Education in our culture is the end of learning rather than the beginning of learning.  Such education is punctuated by certificates, degrees, and awards that indicate achievement in a subject rather than interest in or commitment to a subject.  A person often has achieved something with a degree and that is good, but whether that person cares much about the subject after getting their degree is optional and perhaps not even expected.

One of the building blocks of this kind of education is an obsession with proof rather than understanding.  Getting proof marks the end of inquiry.  Getting understanding marks the beginning of inquiry.  Proofs are helpful when they are present, but they are relatively rare and only in subjects of less importance.  Understanding grasps the truth more tentatively but with more expansiveness than proof can grasp the truth.  Understanding can use truths that are immediately accessible through experience while not provable or even explainable.  All to say, a demand for proof is often an indication of a mind that has stopped inquiring, whereas seeking understanding welcomes conversation and questions.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.  Jesus answered them, . . .  'An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.'  So he left them and departed.  (Matthew 16:1, 4)

In  a Bible study one of my daughters was hesitant to share much of anything because the leader kept asking for people to "prove" whatever they said from the Bible.  Instead of seeking to understand what people we saying, he was cutting off all inquiry by "testing" the people.  What a shame!  A time of Bible inquiry became a Bible Inquisition instead.  This is an example of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  Proof over understanding.  Unfortunately typical.

In contrast to such teaching, Jesus asks a question of his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"  After they answer, he brings greater understanding with a second question, "But who do you say I am?" (Matthew 16:13,15)  When Peter answers well, Jesus tells him not that he is right, but that he is blessed.  "Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."  Simon Peter had woken up to a new world!  The Father revealed what Peter had discovered.  Jesus did not just tell them he was Messiah, he allowed them to discover it and his Father to reveal it.  In the lives based on this revelation of Jesus by the Father, the gates for hell would not prevail and heaven would be unleashed on earth in a new way.  (vv. 18-20)

Peter continues to understand how Jesus teaches when he writes "Set your hope fully on the grace being brought to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ."  (1 Peter 1:13)  The blessing and grace of the Father is in the understanding of Jesus as the One, the Messiah.  Such grace and strength from God is evident and victorious in the "tested genuineness of your faith. . . found to result in praise and glory and honor in the revelation of Jesus Christ" even though "you have been grieved by many trials."  (vv. 6-7)  Peter implies that such revelation is given to those who "search and inquire carefully" like the prophets of old and that those who would be disciples need to "prepare their minds for action," not merely passive acceptance.  (v.10, 13)  There can be no discovery without revelation, but it seems there can be no revelation without discovery either.

Adequate proof and correctness will come with learning directed at understanding.  But seeking proof without understanding ends up with ignorance and blindness.  Although Peter had made a true confession of Jesus as the Christ, he and disciples went through a number of failures showing that they did not understand what the confession meant yet.  After Peter rebukes Jesus for his revelation of his death and resurrection, Jesus tells him, "You are a hindrance to me.  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." (v.23)  Peter was talking about Jesus instead of listening to him on the Mount of Transfiguration (17:5).  They failed to cast out a demon perhaps because they thought they had it right about Jesus when they actually had lost faith in him and understood him less (v. 20)  It seems nothing fails like success.

Our family enjoys a number of different detective shows.  The pathway to discovery is exciting to follow.  Also, I think the fact that truth will ultimately be revealed makes such searching satisfying, even in a TV show.  This is the kind of learning that Jesus would have in his followers: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:25)  Perhaps we have to do some detective work to follow Jesus at times, knowing that the hints and clues he gives will bring us to the truth about him and ourselves and the truth that is in him and in ourselves.  Perhaps only this is the sort of person Jesus says can be his disciple.

Joy in the Lord: Deep Satisfaction

What we all need is this:

Find deep satisfaction in Jesus -
  his words, his works, his ways,
  how he is with us.
I just want to say it again: Enjoy him!

Then allow that deep satisfaction
  to gentle your words and actions
  so they surprise everyone, even you!
And now you see the Lord Jesus,
  gentle and humble, is near
  and is your Teacher in all things.

So learn to hear his gentle teaching
  over your anxious, hurried thoughts and feelings
  by asking for his help with everything
  and gratefully knowing he will help you as he has before.

Then you will find you are not
  easily alarmed or offended
  but completely at ease at God's side
  with the sure defense of Jesus
    against all attacks on your heart and mind.

(Meditation on Philippians 4:4-7)

Because I Follow Jesus

I am absolutely miserable! Is there anyone who will deliver me from this body where sin and death reign so supremely? I am thankful to God for the freedom that comes through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! (Romans 7:24-25, The Voice)

Belonging

The "wretched man" (ESV) that Paul expounds on in Romans 7 is his effort to identify with his "brothers and sisters well versed in the law" in verse 1. It reflects some of Paul's experience from his past and present in his struggle against self-justification.

Paul begins by explaining that a person may either belong to the law or belong to Christ (vv. 1-4).  A person who belongs to the law justifies his life by the law. The law is his reason for doing or not doing certain things in his life. When asked why he has certain habits or practices he will cite the law. His ability to explain the law will prove whether his action is for God or not.

A person who belongs to Jesus seeks to follow him, to remain as close to Jesus as possible. Following Jesus is the reason for her actions and his intentions. Jesus justifies her rather than her ability to explain the law. Her actions will be supported by her Lord or not. By his voice she stands or falls. She will probably also have reasons from the law, but these are supportive to her interactive relationship with Christ.

We cannot belong to both law and Christ. In the end we will seek our justification from one or the other. One is based in prayer and living with Jesus. The other is based on having the correct views about God and being able to defend a viewpoint. One of them is at the bottom of our hearts. That is our justification. When we belong to Jesus we not longer seek our justification through the law: "my brothers and sisters, in the same way, you have died when it comes to the law because of your connections with the body of the Anointed One. His death - and your death with Him - frees you to belong to the One who was raised from the dead so we can bear fruit for God." (v.4, The Voice)

Flesh and Spirit

A person who belongs to self-justification will find themselves "living in the flesh," that is, by their own wits and abilities. (vv.4-12) The law arouses self-defensiveness, which only increases worry and fear. Such motivations only lead to evil (Psalm 35, Matthew 6). Sin gets the upper hand and seems like the only way out, since it is so natural for us to do. We find in the face of law, we pretend or even lie about ourselves in order to escape what the law requires and yet seem like we are justified in our actions. This is the inevitable outcome of living in the flesh, by our own wits and abilities.

Jesus justifies and releases from the law anyone who belongs to him. The law's requirements are still before them, but instead of generating worry and fear, they bring hope and anticipation. The law no longer imprisons him because he knows he cannot obey it without Jesus, so he "dies" to such an obedience to the law. Instead he serves in a "new Spirit-empowered life." Jesus gives grace so that obedience is possible by asking him for help instead of trying to manage on our own.

The bad fruit generated through trying to obeying the law is pretense and disobedience to God. The good fruit grown for God is real obedience to him through following Jesus and depending on him every step of the way. The law becomes a promise of what God will do in those who follow Jesus rather than a punishment for those who cannot keep it. Those who follow Jesus can truly see "the law is holy; and its commandments are holy, right, and good" (v.12) instead of suspecting that the law is sin or that that God sent the law to destroy people. (v.7, 13)

The Role of Trials

The heart of this problem is that the law is spiritual, that is, from the Spirit and that we are on the flesh, which is enslaved to sin, that is, a life without God (vv.13-20) This is like oil and water. As long as the law is spiritual and I am not, the two will always come apart. So when I try to obey the law with my own wits and abilities, I will always find myself compelled to disobey it for some very good reason. It will just make sense to lie or pretend or just do it this one time. The natural abilities of humanity are not enough for the law. In the end they will separate just like oil and water. Good intentions are not enough. We need more powerful that comes from outside of us into our hearts.

Sin lives in us as long as we live by our own abilities. Sin is resistance to God. The flesh cannot be used to get to God. It cannot be removed. It must be sacrificed. Our natural abilities find their place when they are surrendered to God. They are put to death when we refuse to rely on them. We rely on Jesus instead. Our natural abilities are meant to serve, not rule.

The war inside each person is the war of temptation (vv.21-25). Temptations are the law of the flesh on its own. Inevitable as gravity. Mere human ability is enslaved to wrong-doing because it is powerless to resist. Temptation is the door for Jesus to enter our lives. In trials we realize our inability and can rest in his ability. This is the law of God. We serve God's law by being delivered from a body that cannot save itself by Jesus, who saves us from all trials and temptations.

In the face of trials and temptations, then, the law is spiritual. It points the way. We are unspiritual and of the flesh if we merely try to figure how to do what the law says on our own. Jesus died so we can become spiritual, born from above, immersed in the Spirit, saved by him, and then train to the law with Jesus as our Teacher, submit to the law with Jesus as our Lord, and delight in the law with Jesus as our dear Friend.

Justification

Self-justification comes from a person who belongs to a law or religion rather than a living Lord. It grows a disposition of resistance to God evidenced by hidden vices and contempt for other people as one struggles to obey by her own power. Self-justification fails in trials and temptations, ending up with a person doing what she does not really think is right. Justifying oneself is a temptation in itself, because it ignores the reality and presence of God.

Justification from Jesus comes to those who belong to him and have abandoned self-justification based on the law or religion. It grows a disposition of loving surrender to God. When one justifies his life by saying, "It's because I follow Jesus," usually the outcomes will not be disputable. The fruit of that person's life will indicate who or what they are following. A life of virtue and compassion flow from Jesus. Trials are the place of salvation for a person who belongs to Jesus, one sure place where he will discover a truly Spirit-empowered life, one of mercy and grace, one full of light - love, truth, and power from God.

God Wants Sons, Not Slaves

Now in putting everything in subjection to [man], he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to [man.] But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:8-11)

Wages or Gift?

Our pastor preached that true Christianity differs from all other beliefs in that they are all about law-keeping and true belief in Christ is about grace. Assuming he is correct and the gospel is about grace as opposed to law-keeping, what kind of god(s) do people believe in that would demand law-keeping? What kind of person would want to serve such a god?

Another way Paul talks about such a law-keeping faith is one that works for wages. Wages are what is given for valued work. More work, more wages. This is not a bad thing in itself. It is only right that a person who works harder and better deserves more wages for their work. But the kind of god who gives wages for work is one that wants workers or slaves. If God gave us wages for our work, it would show that he made people to be his slaves.

Also, wages are one way to make work valuable. Indirectly, they also make a person feel valued. It is natural to feel this way. Significance is tied to work. It can be tied in a healthy way. Work builds the value of one's self. This is a good thing and part of how we are made. Work builds self-worth, but work is not the worth of one's self. It is what comes from a person who values the life they live with God and with others. People mistake work as the source of such value rather than the course of it. In relation to God, humanity warps their self-worth into selfish ambition, trying to prove to God and themselves their worth before him and others through work. Any wages earned from such work ultimately become self-justification of our worth before God. Jesus points out such a mentality in his parable about unfair wages. (Matthew 20:1-16)

But what if God does not want slaves, but sons and daughters? Perhaps this is why he gave life with him as a gift rather than wages. Wages are for valued work, gifts are for valued people. A god who merely wants slaves makes sense to us. It is an old idea and plays into our general idea that powerful people want to get work out of the sweat of someone else's brow.  What we have in Jesus is a God who loves and values people and works for us. "For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son." Gift. He values these people.

Now God did not need to love people. He is love. He does not love by necessity, but by nature. In order to make sons and daughters, God had to do more than love them. They had to become more than objects of his love; they had to become recipients. He had to enable them to love him. And even more: he had to enable them to love as he loves. People cannot do this without his direct action on them. No amount of convincing, begging, threatening, pushing, or pounding will bring such a love into a person. That is because this kind of love is what the life of God is. And no one has life in themselves but God alone. So if they are to live, he must give this life that is love to them.

Problems with God's Love

Two problems. The first is that such love can only be accepted, not forced. In making people as they are and having the kind of love he has, God could not force people to have such love. It needs to be freely given and freely received. So God has had a continuing conversation with persons and with humanity called his "revelation" in order to find those who would freely receive such love. It is not a mystery to God who those people are. They are chosen by grace, that is, they are drawn by his free gift of life and love with himself.

Some are not drawn to this gift and refuse it. Why? This is the second problem. Sin. In making people who can freely receive his gift, he made people who could freely refuse it as well. It is beyond understanding how God can make a person who can freely refuse him. And yet we see that played out in the life of Jesus, who "came to that which was his own and his own did not receive him." God made people who could reject him. It seems he did this mostly for the sake of those who would receive him. He did not want people to reject him, but was willing to have it that way so that he might have those who would receive him and become his children.

Sin proves to be a greater problem that just some refusing God. Everyone resists and refuses him. It is now human nature to do so. This does not mean that God makes us that way, but that we grow up knowing no other way. Even good homes and churches produce people broken by their sin. Better parenting and education are good, but they cannot fix this. Only new life from above takes care of this problem, but how does God get past our resistance without forcing us to love him? Conversation. Revelation. Gospel. In the end he has sent his final Word in Jesus. The Word of love, the Word of command, the Word of judgment, the Word of grace and mercy. His conversation with humanity and with each person. "Who do you say that I am?" In conversing, God finds those who would and can receive his life of love.

Beyond Forgiveness

The conversation comes to utter conversion. In the X-men world, Wolverine has his skeleton changed from bone to impervious metal, his skin and organs changed from ones easily broken and hurt, to ones supernatural in strength and healing. The process is agonizing. It nearly kills him. Repentance unto conversion is like that. The body bent on sinning is put to death and converted into another body. The heart, mind, and soul also become something else and something more.

Conversion leading to discipleship is like a seed being planted. The seed dissolves and gives way to the plant. So these bodies will dissolve and be transfigured into lasting, supernatural bodies that will "shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Matthew 13:43) This body is used up in the journey to God as the inner self is renewed day by day. The promise of God is in this process of growth which is called discipleship. We learn some agonizing lessons. God's mercy continually reminds us in our struggles that his desire is for our growth in our new life, not for punishment. Punishment only comes to those who go through pain with no hope. God's grace supplies us with supernatural strength in our times of need and request, and is not just for our forgiveness. Forgiveness is needed, but also transcended.

Whatever work we may do, then, is not what brings us to God, but what God brings to us. Like Adam naming the animals in the Garden of Eden, we name our experiences before God. In our sin, we name them as opportunities to grab and take, to push and force, to come out on top and look good. As we learn from God, we find we can name our experiences places where we see God's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control. As we name them correctly, we learn to live them as well. That is thankfulness, naming life rightly and living it well. The only life worth being thankful for is the one that God gives by giving himself to us.

And so our slavery opens up into adoption. We become like our master by his gift to us and end up as his daughters and sons. We find that we are not significant because of what we do, but what we do comes out of our significant life with God. It is like being Esther who was brought into the Persian court. We find that God has placed us in this world and in this life we have, and we can ask ourselves,  "Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14) We are significant because of the one who places us and gives us being. Perhaps we can also learn from Esther in realizing our greatest work is in bringing our requests and intercessions before the King. We are placed to pray, to praise, to labor, to be thankful in the life God has given us. That is our significance and our value. We are not trying to overcome our lives, but have overcoming lives. That is our heritage as God's children.