New Thoughts (1/6/06-1/10/06)
While I must grant the fact that the connectedness of these passages is in part a side effect of the choices I have made in ordering this study, it remains the case that there are three seemingly unrelated ideas discussed here. These are discussed in such close proximity one to another that it seems Jesus must have considered them as related. So, I find myself asking how. How is it that Jesus sees matters of judgment, measure, and liberal giving as connected? What is it He is hoping to get me to see in that connection?
In Mark’s account (and another parallel thereof in Luke’s) there is this strong connection between judgment and measure. Be careful how you take what you are hearing, because the way you measure is how you will be measured. Now, there is not a clear statement of judgment in that, but then we must see what is meant by this matter of hearing. It’s more than simple auditory reception. It is a matter of hearing with understanding, learning from what is so heard, and then obeying what has been learned.
Well, the New Living Translation looks at this definition of the matter and decides that Jesus is simply talking about how His own message is listened to. So, they take away from Mark 4:25 the idea that the ones who have are those who accept His teaching, the ones without being those who refuse to hear Him. Thus, the increase and loss spoken of are in regard to understanding. That is certainly one possibility, and in the context that Mark has for this comment, it would probably be fitting. However, this idea of receiving as you have given is a matter that Jesus reiterates on a number of occasions.
It is sometimes known as the law of sowing and reaping. In other regards, it might be viewed as the law of holy irony. I find this aspect is often displayed in the negative application of God’s reciprocity. This is visible in that version of Mark 4:25. Those who opened their ears to God, who were eager to hear and understand what Jesus taught, would be given holy aid to hear God better and with greater comprehension. Those who didn’t wish to accept what Jesus was teaching at this point would be left to their darkened minds. It fits that part of God’s dealings with man by which He allows men to make their choices, for good or for ill. You wish to ignore what He is saying? He will, then, remove all possibility of your hearing Him. You wish to keep your personal sin intact? He will leave you to it, and allow you to spiral right on downward into greater sins. Whatever your dealings with Him or in His name, He will see to it that you are repaid in kind, and repaid with interest.
That is the sum of what Jesus is saying here. Be careful what you hear. Some take that to be a command to listen only to that which is blatantly Christian in content. All art produced by non-believers must be eliminated from our presence. All study that so much as mentions another religion, even if it is as dead as the mythologies of antiquity, must be scrupulously avoided. This, however, is not the point. The point is how you hear what is being taught. If I am nodding my agreement with the messages of such music and movies and books as promote promiscuity and violence, endorsing every vile alternate lifestyle that man’s perversity has devised, I have not heeded His word. If I am refusing to consider such music and movies and books as are truly beautiful in their construction, if I refuse to accept such truths as the world does manage to grasp, am I really being any more careful of my hearing? Am I really displaying wisdom?
In truth, we can no more control what we hear than we can control what we see. We walk in a fallen world, and whether we choose to or not, we will hear about and witness things that we dare not approve. We will find many a non-believer in full agreement with our disapproval of these things. What, then, are we to do? What is it in our reaction that sets us apart from these unbelievers? In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, it strikes me that this is more to do with that ‘evidence’ that we hear from those we know. We must be exceedingly careful to sift the real evidence from what is no more than gossip. One could say from the malicious gossip, but what other sort could there be? Gossip is by its very nature malicious. This sense of the message actually fits well with the conclusion we find in Mark’s gospel. The reason we need to take such care is because the standard by which we measure what we have heard shall be applied to our own case, and used in like manner. If we have been quick to believe every evil report, so shall the heavenly courts put to the record every evil report that has come in about us. We need not look for mercy in this case.
Here, we reach Luke’s addition to our understanding of the message. Folded together with what Mark has said, it might be said this way: Be careful what credence you give to hearsay evidence. Don’t be so quick to judge and condemn the one you have heard about, then you will not be swiftly judged and condemned either. Rather, pardon them, and you, too, will be pardoned. Returning to the wonderful image that Matthew follows with explains the point more fully. While you are considering this ‘evidence’ you have heard, think about yourself a little. You have been shown this minor sin in your fellow man’s life, but before you move to condemn him, is that same sin not in your own life? In fact, what you know is true of your own life is far greater than what they are telling you is true in his case, isn’t it? Before you respond to this news, think very carefully: how do you wish to be treated when your own sin comes to light, for it surely will.
Now, when I turn to that oddly placed verse in Luke, I begin to understand how it connects. As you give, so it will be given to you, and poured out in such quantities as you cannot contain (Lk 6:38). Is this really about the money? There is nothing else in the vicinity of this message to give it such meaning. In fact, what surrounds it is the matter of judgmentalism, of reaction to sin and failure in those around us. If you are giving mercy and forgiveness to those who sin as you do, then you can expect the same. If you are swift to condemn the sinners around you, then you can expect the same. The difference is that what you receive comes from the courts of heaven. There shall be no appeals process.
The other subject matter that lies in context with this in Luke’s text is concerned with teaching. As teachers in the service of God, we represent Him. Dare I say that in this context, the view of God that we teach determines how He will be with us. It will not change who He IS if we have utterly misrepresented Him to those who listen. I have said before, and will doubtless say again, that what we think or believe does not change the Truth. The Truth is that He IS God, the essence of Good, Mercy and Love, and likewise the essence of Holy Jealousy, Justice and Wrath. He is all of these in perfect balance, for He is all of these in perfection. If our teaching insists accenting one aspect of His perfection and slighting another, what can we expect from Him? If our teaching and our practice make manifest a God who is only Just, who is Jealously Wrathful, showing no Mercy and Love to those who offend Him, what can we expect from Him?
As we seek understanding of this God we serve, as we profess this thing and that about Him, we need to really consider what those things we accept say about God. Do they picture Him in the fullness of His glory? Is all the modern, charismatic concern with generational curses a concern that does God justice? Personally, I can’t see it. Certainly, there are many places in which Scripture makes the point that God will visit the sins of the father on the children, yet I also note that those places where He declares such things are those places where the children have earned His wrath in their own right. Look at the example from Isaiah 65:6-7. I will repay, says God. I will repay not only their own sins, but their fathers’ as well because of the things they have done to scorn Me. I will pour the full measure of their past works into their hearts.
It remains a matter fitting together with this message we are studying: As you have given out, so you shall receive with interest, yet always in full Justice. As you have been towards your Creator, so shall He be with you with interest. You have ignored Him? He shall ignore you. You have insisted on disregarding His care for you? He shall remove that care.
I must also note (which I have probably done before) that God Himself has declared an end to this understanding of His ways. Through the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, He determined to correct this thinking. No longer will they say that the children are being punished for the father’s sins. No! But, ever man will die for his own sins (Jer 31:29-30). See, all this turning to generational curses is but an attempt to remove the guilt from ourselves and place it on another. The whole society of victimhood in which we live today is caught up in this same habit. Every sin in my life is to be blamed on somebody else. Nothing is my fault. I’m just a victim of circumstance. Lives have been ruined by this mentality, yet the blame is not to be laid at the feet of those external causes. Rather, the blame lies with the victim who refused to overcome. That may sound harsh, yet it is largely true. Yes, those external causes were wrong, vile, and worthy of every condemnation. Yet, these things do not remove personal responsibility.
I must note that shortly after making this great declaration, Jeremiah delivers a seemingly contradictory statement, one well read in Church circles. God manifests His love to thousands, he writes, but also repays the sins of the fathers into their children’s hearts (Jer 32:18). Now, it must be said that the end of this thinking of which Jeremiah previously spoke was declared in the prophetic voice. “In those days they will no longer say…” It is in those days “when I will make a new covenant” (Jer 31:31). We are in those days! That new covenant was fully and perfectly established at the uttering of those three little words, “It is finished!”
You foolish Church! Who has bewitched you, you who know full well the crucifixion of Jesus the Christ of God? All I want to know is this: Did you receive the Spirit by the Law or by faith? How foolish can you be? You know full well that this life you have was begun by the Spirit, so how can you think that it will be perfected by the flesh (Gal 3:1-3)?
No, I cannot deny that in many cases, there will be fallout from one generation to the next. I have been witness to too much of this in my own life, and amongst my own acquaintances. Yet, I must declare that it sickens God in heaven when He sees His children simply wallowing in the consequences when He has already declared an end to all that. He set His children free, perfected the whole of the Law in His Son, and provided pardon for our many and several sins against Him, even those we are still waiting to commit. It is, indeed, a great evil when the consequences of a father’s actions so poison the generation that proceeds from him. It is hideous, reprehensible, and worthy of all condemnation that he would so serve as the destroyer of his own family. Yet, it remains to that succeeding generation to either drain the destructive poison from itself, or succumb to the destruction. Those who succumb remain responsible for their own choice in doing so. We are, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to accept and really believe it or not, each one of us personally responsible to God for our own decisions and actions.
With all that in mind, it must be noted that the very jugmentalism that we tend towards is sinful in itself. As with any sin, it is not only sinful, it is also self-destructive. This is highlighted by what Jesus tells us here: as you measure out your judgments and condemnations, so will you be measured. Why is that, Jesus? Well, Paul has the answer. It is simply because the things we judge and condemn in others are things we know (though we deny it) that we do ourselves. Therefore, our acknowledging that the things is wrong in others must necessarily force us to conclude that it is equally wrong in ourselves (Ro 2:1). We have laid the groundwork for those who would prosecute us in our prosecution of these others.
Now, examples will doubtless be raised (and I could provide many for myself were I so inclined) of terrible things that others have done, the like of which we would never consider. Yes, and it would be true enough to say that we would never do what we know they have done. What we lose sight of is the full scope of the commandments of God. If we allow our judgment to conclude that they are sinful, but we are innocent of any such thing, we have fallen into the exact same mode of thinking that Jesus was correcting in the first part of His message. We have become like the rich young ruler, thinking that our failure to physically put anybody to death leaves us free and clear with regard to the sixth commandment. The reality, though, as Jesus has said, is that when you go so far as to be angry at your brother, when you so much as insult them and call them scoundrels, you have already broken that commandment.
We see things as a matter of degree. We like to think that God does the same, and perhaps He does. But, I think more of that tendency of ours has to do with our unwillingness to be honest with ourselves. We want to feel good about ourselves, just as much as the next guy, so instead of comparing our proclivities against the standard God provided, we seek out somebody with much greater problems and then join the Pharisee in saying, “well, at least I am not like them!” Jesus turns to us, however, and tells us that the judgment we just passed in their case proves our own. It may differ in degree, but not in guilt.
Where are we to go with this, then? It seems inevitable that as we are confronted by this rule of life that Jesus gives us, we will feel it colliding with the attitude we are taught to have towards sin. Are we not supposed to oppose sin wherever we may find it? Indeed, I think we must. But, what Jesus teaches next in this matter, when correctly understood, tells us how to proceed. How can you be a help in dealing with your brother’s minor sins, He asks us, when we have such huge issues with sin ourselves? Here is the big answer! First, we must tend to our own business, and frankly, until we have dealt with it entirely, we have not yet reached the position from which we can even consider passing judgment on those around us.
Oh, we may feel we have advanced so much farther than they in this matter of holiness. In general, though, I think we will find that while we may truly have outstripped them in some one aspect of our faith, they will likewise have outpaced us in some other aspect. We tend not to look there, because it once again leaves us feeling like underachievers and we don’t like that feeling.
The other rule of thumb we might apply is that which Paul had noted. What you judge in those around you, you do yourself. The difference, folks, is that in others we’re willing to condemn it outright, while in ourselves we can come up with all manner of excuses and mitigating circumstances. Let me say this: the sin we notice in our brother or sister is the one we ought to be examining ourselves most carefully for. I find it a rule, not only in my life, that what offends us most in others is when they show the same character flaw we know we have. In that moment of offense, we tend to block ourselves from remembering that it is our own flaw that has offended us in this brother. Much easier to express our offense about him than about ourselves. Then, we get to be the righteous one and they are the ones who need to deal with their issues. Watch out! That upset you feel is a sure sign that you need to do a self-exam.
This is so often true particularly when it is the ‘little’ sins that are bothering us. That critical spirit in my brother, oh! It makes me so angry when he gets that way! Look out, my friend, the log is in your eye. And her, she never enters into worship like a true believer would. I tell you, if that is the worst of her sins, she is far ahead of you or I on this road to righteousness. Rather than complain of her one failing, I do well to look to my own list of issues.
Yes, but what about those big-ticket items of sin? What, when we hear of a particularly gruesome murder case? Surely, we are in our right to condemn this thing? Yes, indeed! Murder is of course a matter for condemnation, and its condemnation is just. Likewise, the just consequences due its perpetrator are a matter of Scripture as well. The one who takes the life of a man shall have his own life taken from him. Yet, even here, there is more than enough reason for us to look to our own estate more, even, than that man’s. Oh, we recognize well enough that what he has done is a great evil in God’s eyes as well as our own. That was not in doubt. But, do we remember what Paul said? Do we realize that the very thing we are condemning in that man has company in our own behavior? Do we yet understand that the sixth commandment is set against far more than just that final act of murder? In every way that we have criticized our fellow, in ever way that we have ever accused any other member of the human race of being useless, we stand just as guilty in God’s sight as that one whose case we understand so clearly.
I tell you that from this we ought to recognize our proper response to all such things. There is an old adage that runs around Church circles. Being an old adage, it is doubtless an over-simplification of the matter, yet it is instructive. It instructs us to hate the sin, but to love the sinner. OK. As I said, it’s not entirely accurate. Apart from genius, simple statements, especially those that communicate generalizations such as these, seldom are. Yet, there is a truth to it. We are not called to pass swift judgment on every sinner we meet. Were we to do so, the house of God would stand empty, for even we would have long since absented ourselves. We are not called to preach the good news of judgment, although it is a message that will need to be heard as part of what we were sent to declare. Our message, however, is the message of Good News, news of the Kingdom, and of the great work of the King in arranging our own pardon for sins every bit as worthy of condemnation as those committed by the ones we speak to.
Paul made a point of letting people know that he was the chief of sinners. Why? Because it made manifest the great mercy of God in forgiving even such as himself. If He could show mercy to me, when I had done all that was in my power to destroy every trace of faith in Him, what is it you have done that would prevent Him from showing you that same mercy? This does not in any way condone what you have done. Far be it from us to condone sin, even in a fellow believer! Perhaps even particularly in a fellow believer. No! We ought to be diligent to protect our brother from his own hypocrisy even as we seek to destroy such hypocrisy in our own lives.
Now, I confess I am facing a very large challenge to what I am teaching myself here. There are things that occur in one’s life that they have no control over, as there are those who are in our sphere of relations and influences who are there not by our own choosing. There are crimes one learns of whose implications and reach are great to the point of breathtaking. I have been going through a period in which God’s promise to bring every hidden thing to light is being played out in a most painful way. A great deal of illusion has been forcibly stripped from my thoughts, not of a sort that I had slipped into as a way of escape (at least I don’t believe so), but a sort spread by close relations. Perhaps they were meant to somehow protect me, although I find that doubtful at present. Such ideas of preservation with regard to those we lie to are utter nonsense, and were we more honest with ourselves (let alone others) we would recognize that whatever veneer we put on the thing, it is simply an attempt at self-preservation.
These things I have been learning of are truly terrible. Lives were not lost, but they may actually be the worse for all that, for lives have been horribly warped if not destroyed outright. My inclination is to react in just such righteous indignation and condemnation as Jesus removes from our list of options here. It is incredibly difficult to imagine a course by which those who have done such terrible things might turn about and discover Salvation standing beside them. For all I know, it may not come about that God in His mercy decides to do such a great work. Yet, for all I know, He may do just that. He did, after all, pluck me from the midst of my own sin and rebellion to stand me up in His own house as His own son. Can I, then, deny that He might well cause these others to stand beside me, true brothers in Christ at the end? Can I, dare I, declare them hopelessly beyond His reach? How could I do so, and still claim to believe He is God. Nothing shall be impossible with Him! There is the great Truth of God. What He purposes can no man lay asunder. If I have rejected the possibility of mercy to these, how shall I think it acceptable to claim that same mercy for myself?
After all, while I may not have done as these have done, I have done badly enough. I have sufficient sins in my past, and sufficient deceptions, to know that there is a log I must deal with. I am not so egotistic as to think God has done all this just to bring this log to my attention, yet I am aware enough of God to know He may well be using the evil of these events to His own good purpose in doing just such a thing. Let me clarify. There is no least possibility that these evils were arranged by a good God for a good purpose. There is every possibility, indeed a certainty, that God has taken these things that were intended solely for evil, and has determined that they will work for good.
Lord, let me find that good. Let me deal with those things in myself that You know I need to deal with. Bring healing, Lord. Bring light that I may know life more fully still than I have since You first met me. God, You have changed so much about who I am, yet so much remains to be done. Even so, Lord, do that which You must do to manifest the work You have declared finished on the Cross!
Now, let me briefly consider the message of Luke 6:38 from another perspective. It is different and yet it is the same. For, the spirit and attitude in which we give are indeed a judgment we have passed. In one regard, where such giving is in the form of doing good for a neighbor, seeing to the needs of the needy, or some like effort, our mode of giving is a judgment on the worth of those receiving. How we give towards such ends is a reflection of how great our love is for those being helped.
In another way, though, it is reflective of our judgment of God. We give as reflects the way we think God provides for us. If we are giving to His kingdom work in a fashion that claims poverty on our own behalf, how is this anything less than condemning God for not providing sufficient to our need? If this has been our excuse, might I suggest we be very wary of that law of reciprocity, or of irony, that so often defines God’s response? If we go about pleading the case that God does not provide for us as we ought, I find it very reasonable to think He may truly cease from providing. It is no different than the blindness that comes upon those who refuse to see Him. It is no different than the just condemnation that comes upon those who refuse to heed wisdom, they become fools. It is no different than those who reject the sanctions of holiness in regards to sexual conduct. They are left to sink ever deeper in their own pursuits, until their very bodies bear the penalty of their course (Ro 1:27).
If my giving declares God a niggardly caretaker over His own, shall I not expect that His provision for me shall come to reflect my opinion of Him? Oh, He will doubtless continue to provide life, such as it is in this world. But, in truth, His provision has been wonderfully abundant. In truth, He has blessed with an excess of provision for the very purpose of allowing me to give into His kingdom work! He provides to me the means to be the means of His provision to others. How shall I respond to that? Shall I refuse my Lord and King, insisting on hording that provision for my own use? Oh, but I would dwell in fear of hearing that holy rebuke, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you” (Lk 12:20)! There, the followup question is, “Who will own what you have prepared?” I think we could well hear another question to our benefit: “What have you prepared for yourself with all this?”
Lord God, it is impossible, I suppose, to read through this message without sensing the great need for course correction. Truly, You have (as You so often do) timed this study according the schedule of my needs. In some ways, it has been very much like that time You led me into a study of Your Providence in preparation for the challenge of layoffs. Now, in the midst of this trial of my character, You have been preparing me to respond properly to the horrors of circumstance that have crowded ‘round me. Oh, I could doubtless condemn those who have done as they have done, yes, and the condemnation of their actions would be just. But, as much as I may revile those actions, and the nature of a man that would allow him to do such things, yet You call me higher. The physical manifestations, heinous though they are, are not the most important matter. There are eternal matters at risk here, and You would, I know, have my concern be on Your concerns.
God, You who are able to use all things for good, whatever purpose may have been in their planning, I ask that You would take this disintegration of family and bring from it the salvation that You have brought to me. I pray for those who, by the judgment of many, have fallen beyond all redemption, and I declare that I, too, was beyond redemption but for Your grace. God, manifest Your grace! You came, O Lord, to rescue such as these, to bring such healing as they might not even know they need any longer. Oh! Let it not be that they rest under such condemnation as You declared in Romans! Let it not be that they have been lost for eternity! Oh! Though Your judgment in such would be just beyond all argument, yet, Lord, let Your mercy be manifest. Your Love, my God, is great enough even for this. Don’t pass them by, my King! Have mercy on them, Son of David! Where all has been made doom and sorrow, bring Your balm, Your oil of gladness, and restore all that Your enemies have destroyed.
