New Thoughts (6/23/06-6/27/06)
John bore witness to the truth, for he was the lamp. A lamp, of course, sheds light on a matter, reveals whatever might have remained hidden in the darkness. This is the point Jesus is making here. John’s testimony made the truth about Jesus, about what God was doing, very clear. It was made manifest, clearly visible to anybody who cared to look.
Jesus looks at those who are listening to Him and says, “You were glad enough to get all excited while he was preaching, but did you understand him? What he was telling you had in it the keys to salvation. Did you see what he was getting at?” Well, what did he say? He said, “One is coming who is greater.” He was clearly speaking of the expected Messiah, and most everybody who heard him understood this much. He said, “The kingdom is coming, prepare for the king.” Again, the message was plain enough that even the Roman soldiers got it. Then came the key testimony: “This is the One I was talking about. I have seen God’s seal of approval upon Him. He is the One who was coming. He is here.”
Right around here it seems the folks listening to John got lost. Some were too caught up in the man himself and could not accept that he was less important than they wanted him to be. That is clear from the fact that many of his disciples continued to uphold a claim that John was the Messiah even when John flatly denied it. Long after his death, they still held to that premise, halfway to salvation but blocked from reaching it in truth, because they missed the unconcealed truth, the ‘manifest essence of the matter’ upon which John taught.
Then, there were those who were just being entertained by the prophet. It had been a long while since Israel had known a prophet in her midst. The awe that once attached to such men was largely gone. Society had forgotten that a visit from the prophet of God was not always, not even usually, a comfortable blessing to receive. More often than not, they came when rebuke, correction and warning had become necessary. Yes, it is a blessing when God corrects and warns us rather than leaving us to our stupidity, but it is not comfortable in the least.
These, however, who were pursuing Jesus in their offense, had not really been listening too closely to what John was saying. They had merely enjoyed the novelty of the prophetic voice. They had been pleased to see a young man so caught up in his faith and they rejoiced to see such zeal in the coming generation; but they didn’t really pay attention to him beyond that. They were willing to be excited by his livening up of the ministry for awhile, but only for awhile. When he began to correct even themselves, well that was another thing altogether. When he began to take even the governors of the land to task, maybe he had gone a bit too far. Through it all, though, they had managed not to look at the truth he exposed to the light. They had managed to block their ears when he said, “Here is Messiah!”
Jesus, in His mercy, seeks to recall these things to their mind. He does not, in fact, directly claim the testimony of John for Himself. He does not directly point them to that part of the testimony. He merely invites them to replay the things John had said in their own mind because in them lay the seeds of their salvation. If they would but understand what he had taught, they would understand Jesus and they would understand what the Father was doing in their midst.
John was the lamp. Fausset’s article notes that the lamp is symbolic of conscience. By the light of the lamp, God searches our inner state. Of course, He need not search it for His own edification. He sheds light on our condition that we might understand it for ourselves. This is the light that comes from the call to repent. Look at yourself. Really look. The light is on, do you see the shape of the room which is your soul? It’s a mess! It’s in desperate need of being cleaned up. Now’s the time. The king is coming to visit you, and you can hardly receive him with your house – His house – in such condition. The light is shone upon this situation that we might take the opportunity to put things aright before He comes.
The corollary to this is that when the lamp goes out, it is significant of a loss of any real knowledge or wisdom. Consider: Jesus is the Light (Jn 8:12). As very God, He is the absolute essence of perfect knowledge and wisdom. He is all-knowing, and all-powerful. He both knows what He knows, and He knows how to apply what He knows perfectly to every situation. He is not, cannot be, surprised. Ever. He has never once been taken aback by the way things played out. It is only to the degree that we partake of the light He imparts that we can lay claim to any knowledge or wisdom in ourselves. When He removes His light from man, the brain may continue. Thoughts will still be processed and conclusions reached. Plans of action will still be formulated and pursued, but these will no longer be informed by any real knowledge, no longer reflect any real wisdom. They will be but the darkened foolishness of a man without God.
The great sorrow of this particular moment in the discourse Jesus is having with His pursuers is that it is reflective of that light going out. It’s there in the fact that they rejoiced to witness John’s ministry, but didn’t really hear what he was saying. It’s there even more powerfully in verse 37. “The Father Himself has borne witness of Me, but you have never once heard His voice.” How this must have stung these representatives of religious scholarship and authority! How dare this young upstart from the backwoods think to claim superiority to themselves!
Of course, these men had not really come with any interest in hearing Jesus out. They had already decided that He was some ungodly imposter that must be dealt with. He didn’t maintain their standards of holiness, so He could hardly be a holy man. If He were, then they must acknowledge that they were not, and this they could not do. So, it is not as though they have suddenly switched from interest to offense as Jesus laid out His claims. No, they started at offense. It has merely been growing as the enormity of Jesus’ claim became more evident. Wow! They were put off by His willingness to break the Sabbath. Well, now He had gone straight into blasphemy, so far as they were concerned. He had declared Himself God’s equal, a thing unthinkable amongst man. Their ears were too full of themselves to reach the appropriate conclusion that He was more than a man. Instead, they were so caught up in their own understanding. They were sure Messiah was just a man, and so they heard Him, even if they could accept His claim as Messiah, claiming what Messiah could never claim: godhood.
This growing, intensifying offense was doubtless clear on the faces of those who had come out to deal with this Man. He is quite aware of it, for Jesus the Teacher is always aware of His surroundings, always looking for something in the here and now that can bring His message home more clearly. He sees the pride of knowledge which is in them, and He who is Knowledge declares, “you have never heard His voice. You have never seen Him.” Of course, any follower of Torah must agree with that, for to see Him is death. Everybody knows that. Yet, the implication here is obvious: “I have.” But, with that I am treading into the next study, rather than this one.
The point that needs to be seen here, and understood clearly is that pride has a habit of blocking out the light. The greatest problem facing the Pharisees was that to accept the Truth meant admitting their own error. To acknowledge God at this point would require that they acknowledge that all the effort they had put into establishing their own credentials of righteousness had been misguided and futile. Think how hard it was for Paul to do this. It required him being all but struck dead by God’s own hand before he could accept the possibility that maybe he had been wrong. It is incredibly difficult for the self-righteous to accept that they are not righteous at all, particularly when they stand in a place of some authority and respect.
What will the people make of a pastor, or even a deacon, who confesses to his sins? This is the one of the greatest problems in the Church today. It is the pride of the leadership that leads to their fall (Pr 16:18). Pride leads to the fall. It can do none else, for pride cannot accept even the very wisdom of God as greater than itself. When the leader is unable to confess his sins before those who follow, it is an effort at extinguishing the very light they are called to shine. Pride is the bushel basket that covers the lamp. The worst part is that their attempt to avoid exposure will inevitably fail, and will inevitably make a bigger mess when the exposure finally comes. Because they are hidden behind their wall of pride, their conscience is cut off from the cleansing Light of Christ. They begin to feel they can do worse things yet and still remain ‘righteous.’
This is exactly where the Pharisees were at. They had come to a point where they could consider murdering a man of God, and still think they were somehow upholding the demands of righteousness. They would come to a place where they were willing to pervert the role of the holy court in preserving the sanctity of the people in order to preserve what they deemed to be the greater good. “It is better that one should die than that we should all suffer Rome’s anger.” This was rationalization at its worst. This is the same pragmatism that pervades the Church today. It is the same attitude that allows a denomination to ignore the clear commandment of God in pursuit of greater attendance numbers. It is the same darkened thinking that will set aside every demand of righteousness in the name of getting more people ‘saved.’
They travel far and wide, well off the Narrow Way, to win one proselyte, and when he is won, they make him even more a son of hell than they are themselves (Mt 23:15). Jesus said it of the Pharisees, but it is as true of many denominations that claim the name of Christianity today. The lamp has gone out in those pulpits. All real knowledge and wisdom has been eliminated from what is taught there. God has been eliminated from His own religion, and what can be the result but that it become a religion of devils?
As always, when I find my thoughts drawn to this issue, I must needs turn them to myself. It is easy enough to point my finger at these other churches and declare their faults, but I need to be applying the message of Jesus to myself. After all, what Jesus claims is, while particularly true for Him, generally true for all. Our works testify as to the veracity of our claims. It is easy enough to say one is a Christian. It is easy enough to claim one believes in God and rests in absolute dependence upon Jesus. The real question is what do our works say about those claims. James tells us that faith which does not result in works is useless (Jas 2:20), and reflects a dead spirit (Jas 2:26). Certainly, faith will be expressed in the word of our testimony, but if our testimony is not confirmed by our works, our testimony is not true.
I must confess that my works do not always testify well. My works can often be self-centered things, little concerned with what might serve God’s purposes. I often fall into that habit of hoping He might bless what I’m going to be doing anyway, when the servant spirit that He desires in us would hope to be a part of what He has already blessed as His plan and purpose. It does not take a great deal for me to get so caught up in what I am doing, so enwrapped in the details and the challenges, that any thought of the Father’s presence with me in that task are lost.
This state can continue, but only for a time. This I know from experience: God draws me up short. He embarrasses me with the witness of my works and my words. He makes me to see that the unbelievers around me are offering a better testimony than I am. Oh! The sorrow of it. Oh, the repentance that comes once again in those moments. You know, when the man from India in the next cubicle has to remind me of my tongue, even as I have been complaining of the offensiveness of the language from across the hall, something’s wrong. I forget. I forget whose I am, Who has bought me at such great price. Then I am reminded that I serve a God who can correct me through any means He chooses, even the mouth of a donkey, should He so desire. He has used many an unbeliever to admonish His own children. It should not surprise me to find He still does.
My Jesus, I come again in pursuit of Your forgiveness. I know that there are any number of times when my thoughts and my words have left behind all semblance of righteousness. I doubt not that there are many such times for which I have neglected to apologize to You. Lord, forgive me. It is not enough, in this time, to recognize that I have come a long way from how I used to be. It is a horror that so much of what I used to be is still there, ready to come forth without warning. Holy Spirit, as the old song says, “mold me and make me after Thy will.” Mold me as one who knows You are ever with him. Make me as one who awaits Your command with urgent desire. Let me be one, Lord God, whose works, whose words and habits declare that here is a son of God.
As I was gathering my thoughts for pursuit here it occurred to me that as much as our works are our testimony, in a greater sense, they are God’s testimony. After all, it is He who is at work in us both to will and to work according to His good pleasure. Yes, and He is pleased to point to His children and testify that they are His. It strikes me that the primary function of these works is to provide His testimony as regards us. After all, as Jesus says of those He is speaking to, “You have neither heard nor seen Him, though He testifies of Me.” That is true in even greater degree of those who still walk in darkness. Hear and see Him? They don’t even recognize that He exists! So, God provides a testimony they can see and hear. He provides the things we say and do. I have to say, though, that this is not really about what we say and do in times of purposeful ministry. It’s not the preaching and the programs that are in view here. It’s what we are about when we’re not preaching, when we’re not in clear times of ministry.
The testimony of works comes in the course of daily labors. It comes when we’re dealing with family at home. It comes when we’re out shopping. It comes when we’re dealing with our coworkers, fellow students, teachers, employers and employees. It comes with every interaction we have with others in the course of the day. It comes with the things we are saying when we think nobody’s listening.
As regards those last, the things we think, say and do in private, here the testimony is for us. It is here in particular that God can testify to our own spirit that He has been working, or that we have been rebelling. After all, if there is one place where we might expect to see ourselves free of any pretense, free of any effort to put a good face on things, it is in the private moments. When we’re out and about, we may feel the need to impress somebody, but by ourselves, who is there to try and impress? It’s only me and me. Oh, and God. In this sense, then, these moments give God opportunity to testify not only about us, but to us. This can be a great bolster to faith, particularly after times that have required repentance.
Father God, work on this in me, I pray, that my works might reflect what I know You are doing in me. I thank You for those testimonies I have had from You to encourage me, yet I know that what I have displayed before the world is not as consistent as it should be. I pray to You, Lord, that You would continue to work on this man until he is consistent. I pray also for my brother, for as we were talking with each other last night, I know he is in a similar place. Jesus, it’s so hard to be mindful of You when we are out and about our daily labors. It is hard, yet I know it cannot be impossible. For the both of us, then, and for all those others in a similar situation, I ask that You teach us how to pray without ceasing, how to keep You ever in our thoughts even when our thoughts are crowded with the work You have chosen for our employment. Show me, Lord, how I can acknowledge You in the way I pursue this vocation. Show me, also, my King, when and if the time has come for a change.
Holy God, You well know the thing that has been on my heart to pursue, but I need to know whether it is my desire or Yours that has got my attention so. Lord, I know not what to ask that I might be certain of Your direction in this matter, nor even if I would condone such questions in myself. I ask only this, then, as I have learned to do in the past: If this is a path You have laid out for me then let every obstacle be removed from it. If it is not, Lord, block any step I might take upon that way. I submit myself as fully as I know how to Your will in this matter. You make the call, my King, and let me only be strong and courageous to obey no matter how You may answer me.
I have touched on this already, I know, but it bears more consideration: It is the whole question, or series of questions, that represent the moral application of this passage to me. If my works are my testimony, what do they say of my faith? That is the first question. Are my works works of the spirit that reflect what God has been accomplishing in me, or are they works of the flesh clearly demonstrating just how much remains to be done? I have to say both. There are things that I do, or refuse to do, that are not in any way reflective of my God and King. There are reactions that I may have to situations that would lead anybody who knows me to question whether I believe at all.
There are, however, other ways in which I see that I do things that would have been unthinkable to the me of a decade or so ago. There are things I see in myself that have nothing to do with selfishness. Some might attribute this change to the normal course of maturation, or to parenthood, or to some other natural cause. I cannot agree with that. The course of my life has wandered so far from where my minimal planning was taking it, the me that is today is so radically different than anything my former self might have envisioned or even desired as to defy the possibility of natural order. Indeed, my life at present has so very little to do with anything I thought I wanted, anything I thought I was pursuing, anything I thought had anything to do with me; and yet, it is a most wonderfully blessed life, indeed.
The woman I am married to is nothing I ever thought I wanted, but she is everything my heart desires. The house in which I dwell is beyond my wildest imaginations. I would not have thought I’d ever dwell in such a place, would have despaired of ever owning even half such a place, yet God has planted me here. Even the marvel that greets me outside day by day seems a miracle. Here I am in the midst of what borders on a city, tucked between two major highways, yet I am greeted by such variety of wildlife every time I sit here in this office. I can almost, not quite but almost, escape the thought of there being any other sort of world around me in these morning hours. All is birds and peepers, deer and squirrel gamboling about. It is, to me, a small taste of that paradise which Adam lost. It is, as my Pastor explained to us last week, a small gift of my husband to me, a foretaste of the life which is to come, binding my heart ever so much closer to His.
These are not, I must confess my works. They are His works. It is no effort of mine that has wrought this change. Therefore, they are all the more a witness to me of His love for me. That the almighty God in heaven should look down upon such as me and determine in His heart to not only save me from my own stupidity, but to bless me with blessings that He knew would be pleasant to me even when I didn’t think them pleasant; this is beyond anything words can express thanks for! This is beyond anything I can possibly expect! These are reason to believe, and rejoice. These are reasons for me to seek to do those things that are pleasing in the sight of my Betrothed.
I hear, then, what my Lover’s works say to me about His love for me. I am led to seek all the more that my works might express the same love for Him. Oh, it is a most imperfect gift that I present to my Beloved, yet with each passing day I seek to make that gift better than it was before. I know He sees me stumble in the effort. I know He has seen each mistake that has marred that finished product which is my life. Yet, He has also seen as I seek to rework that area, seek to repair what marred the goods, and to refashion it in a more pleasing manner. He has not only seen that effort, He has blessed that effort with His own direction and with the help of His own hand to make the repair so fine as to be unnoticeable – all signs of the earlier damage removed. What an awesome God is mine!
Now, there is one other aspect of these works I need to examine. I am much impressed with the knowledge that these works of which I speak are works that were appointed by the Father. This is what Paul teaches in Ephesians 2:10. I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works; works God prepared beforehand for me to accomplish. Couple that with the assurance that it is God who is at work in us, both to will and to work according to His good pleasure (Php 2:13). Paul then tells us this should be reason enough for us to go about our work without grumbling (Php 2:14).
With all that in mind, I must consider this question: These works the Father appointed for me to do; have I been faithful to pursue those works, or have I been too busy pursuing my own poor pleasure? Have I been faithful to pursue them to their accomplishment, or have I been satisfied to chase them for a time before getting distracted by other things? This gets right back to that matter over which I am praying. Is it a work prepared for me, or a distraction from what I should be doing? You know, I find it is exactly in those times when my will is most closely aligned with His that it is hardest to be certain. I’m not talking about those moments of clear and obvious ministry in this case. It’s not in questions such as whether I should be teaching in home group or not that I cannot be certain what He desires. But, when it came to putting these studies on the web, well that’s another thing. Is this something He wants, or just ego dressing? I felt I had pretty clear direction on that when I started, although there have been times along the way when I’ve wondered why He asked for it. Over the years I have heard from probably four people at most who have looked into that work and been blessed in some way by it. Yet, I know there are many more who have at least seen a portion here or there. Whether they have been blessed by it, I have no idea. Whether they have drawn closer to God because of it, I have no idea. God knows. Just as He knows why He asked for it in the first place. Perhaps it was for that one man who found an answer in them when he was facing a personal dilemma. That alone would be enough reason. I don’t know, though. I just keep pursuing that course because He has never told me to stop.
In terms of employment, it has been a similar story. There have been those times when I clearly heard Him saying it was time to move along. There have been other times when I thought I was hearing Him but I was only hearing me. Praise be to God, He has been faithful even in those times to clean my ears, and put me back on track before my foolishness really took hold. Indeed, looking back on one such instance, I see an answer to my first question. My works, in that instance at least, gave evidence of the God I believe in. Yes, and that was a situation in which I could have done as I pleased to some degree. But, God has kept me in this current employ even when I thought it was time to go. As with the web site, I don’t know why. I can make my suppositions about the matter, but I really don’t know. I would only be guessing. But, God knows. He has His reasons, as He always does, and so I must content myself to proceed on the path He has laid out. After all, He prepared this labor just for me!
Lord, it occurs to me that I should be asking You what it is You want me to accomplish while I’m here in this employ? So, I’ll just ask You. What is it, Lord? Is it that there is one in particular amongst my coworkers that You wish to see brought to Your light? Is it just to continue to stand upon the principles of Your kingdom? Whatever it may be, Lord, open my eyes to it lest I should leave it undone in my ignorance. Yes, and having opened my eyes to it, give me the boldness to do all that You require. Let me be found faithful to pursue Your appointed works to their accomplishment!
The importance of works in the life of the believer cannot be overemphasized. If I take Jesus as my example, as I surely ought to do, I find that He was constantly pointing to the works He did as reason to believe. That is in essence what He says in this passage. Don’t believe Me just because I say this is true; believe Me because the works you see Me doing confirm what I say. In many other places Jesus is heard with a similar message: If you can’t take Me at My word, look to these works I do and believe because of them.
It strikes me just now that there is a great similarity between what Jesus is saying and what Paul says in warning us to test the spirits, rather than simply assuming every spirit is of God. The comparison is, of course, not perfect, but there remains a common point. Indeed, both point back to a fundamental Truth from God’s Law. The testimony of a single witness is never sufficient to establish the truth. Truth is established from the testimony of two or three witnesses. What Jesus is saying here flows from that basic Truth. If all I have is my own testimony, you have no reason to believe me. If all we have from the spirit that is speaking is that spirit’s assurances regarding itself, we have as yet no reason to believe.
So, too, with my witness to the world around me. If all I have to offer are words, if my actions do not corroborate what I am saying I believe, then the world has no reason to believe me. If I claim to trust in God, but operate as though I don’t believe He even exists, who will believe my claim? Why should they? It follows, then, that the works I do (and I must be careful not to think of them as ‘my works’) are intended to serve as the confirming evidence of my words. This fact applies both to those works of a miraculous nature that God may do in confirmation of ministry and to those good works that my love of Him prompt from me as I walk out my faith and trust in Him.
I think we can hear Jesus as pointing to both categories of works when He calls those around Him to believe on account of the works He does. It is both the testimony that God gives on His behalf, the miraculous works that could not possibly transpire without His involvement, and the constancy of behavior that Jesus displayed. He, like no other, walked out a life that was wholly consistent with what He professed to believe. He, like no other, lived His confession of faith in God. Both forms of works serve to confirm the word of our testimony. Both forms are a necessary confirmation, the one testifying on our behalf and the other on God’s behalf. When the testimony of our works confirms the testimony of our mouth we will find that the people who are watching will believe in His name.
That is the story of Jesus’ life. In Jerusalem, as Jesus celebrated the Passover, many saw the works He did and believed (Jn 2:23). The importance and the power of this confirming testimony of works is brought out later in His ministry. “If My words had not been confirmed by these works, by miracle and by example, then there would be no sin in rejecting Me” (Jn 15:24). This simply echoes what He is saying here – His word alone is not enough, because His word alone would not fulfill the requirements of Law. But, He continues, “They have seen My works and still they hate Me. Because they hate Me, they assuredly hate My Father as well.”
When our testimony is like in constancy with that of Jesus, our testimony, too, brings this crisis to the hearer. It is, in this sense, a terrible and awesome thing to serve as a messenger of the Gospel. When the testimony is given as it should be, all excuse for unbelief is taken away. The crisis is brought upon each one who hears, and it must surely break our hearts to see so many reject the evidence. That rejection may not prove final. Perhaps God will be merciful and afford another chance, another proof of His love, but He is certainly not obliged to do so.
Of course, there is the corollary of this point: woe to that one who causes another to stumble. What will cause this, if not our failure to align works with words? The new believer, seeing an inconsistent walk in the life of his elders, may well decide that there was no reason to believe after all. The unbeliever, seeing nothing in our actions to distinguish us from every other sinner around us, will likely decide he’s ok the way he is. Why pursue something that requires so much of our time and resources if there is no return? We live in an age moved almost solely by the profit motive. We are a people who will not give to any activity or movement, however charitable and good, unless we see a clear return on our investment. If we can’t turn a quick buck on the effort, why expend the effort? If we would see a lost nation turn its efforts toward the pursuit of a holy God, if we would see those around us made living sacrifices as God desires, we are going to have to be able to demonstrate by the example of our own lives that the benefits are indeed ‘out of this world.’
Therefore, my brethren, let us walk in a manner worthy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ of God (Eph 4:1). Let my life give evidence to my faith, and let my faith give evidence to my God and King.
