New Thoughts (06/30/09-07/03/09)
On this occasion, I think it would be well to begin by hearing the translation of this passage given by the Amplified Bible. “So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples” (Jn 8:31). This immediately focuses the attention on the matter of abiding. The word itself is familiar enough to us, but mostly because we hear it so often in the context of Christianity. Yet, rarely do we have it defined or explained. It’s one of those words we’re just supposed to know. Knowing that we should know, we may have the tendency to just nod our heads when we hear it, and then walk away wondering what it means.
We could blame the culture around us for our lack of experience with the idea of abiding, I suppose, but the fault lies with us for allowing culture to influence us so. As a starting point, what that translation has brought out is good: Hold fast to those teachings. Live in the way those teachings indicate you should. My! You know, it’s exactly because we have not done this that we have lost our sense of what it means to abide. Indeed, given a world largely at odds with this God we serve, it should hardly come as a surprise to find that everything that amounts to abiding is being eroded from our experience.
We can make whatever excuses we like, but this is the fundamental issue: We have lost all sense of community. Mobility has empowered us to achieve many things, some of them even as impressive as we like to think they are. But, that achievement has come at great cost. Face it: we are more familiar with and closer to people who live miles away from us than we are with those next door. Our geography used to choose our friends in large part, but no more. Truly, we have many ‘friends’ that we may see no more than that one or two hours that we are together at church. Nor are we really building a friendship in that time. We just happen to be in the same place in pursuit of a common interest. Or, at least there is a degree of commonality. We don’t necessarily know how much our faith coincides any more than we really know what it means to abide. We’ve both grown so used to the language of faith that we rarely stop to consider what the words actually mean. It’s enough to hear them go by, and feel the gentle glow of our assumptions.
As I say, we have mostly lost all sense of community. We know we’ve lost it, although we try and minimize our sense of the loss. No, no. I have my friends and acquaintances. I still keep in touch [on the rare occasion that I remember]. You know, we’ve got the Internet now. I don’t need to go over there to visit. We can just chat on IM and exchange our little inanities. Oops. Did I say that? We have, by and large, settled for a very poor substitute for community. We don’t know how to abide. We barely know how to stay still. Oh, we may sit in one place for hours on end. Television has trained us to that habit, and our computers are a fit successor in that training. But, our attention is in need of constant shifts and drifts. Focus is all but forgotten. If we can’t be doing several things at once, we grow bored and distracted. Abide? We can barely even concentrate!
Let me, then, look at that word. What does it mean to abide? Well, we might think for a moment on what we have when we have an abode. We may recall the commonly noted distinction between a house and a home. A house is nothing but a physical structure. It is shelter from the weather, but it is strictly utilitarian. It has no warmth, no life. A home, on the other hand, has taken on the personality of those who live in it. Arguably, to be a home, that house must be infused with the love shared by those who live in it: the last vestiges of community. Unless that shared love of one for another is present, the house remains but a house. It is a place we can take shelter in, a place to lay down. But, we will escape it as soon as we can, because we have no sense of belonging there. We are aliens in our own houses.
Thinking upon what makes a house a home, it strikes me as interesting that we never think of the home of God. We go each week, perhaps several times a week, to the house of God. We go to His house to worship, and then we leave and return to our own. We may even be of a mind to cry out that God would do more than visit us in His house, but would stay. It’s His house after all! Shouldn’t we expect to find Him home? Ah! But have we done our part to make His house a home?
We could start by asking if our love for Him has been so real and so evident as to contribute to the hominess of His house. Perhaps we can make that claim without blushing. Perhaps we really do come visit out of desire more than out of a sense of duty. But that’s not enough. That’s the equivalent of the husband and wife who love one another but can’t stand the kids. It’s not home. It’s a war zone with sides drawn up. That same shared love must extend to all who make up the household. If it does not, is it any wonder that those who are left out of love’s shared bonds are quick to seek the exits? Oh, they’ll uphold their familial duty. They’ll come visit at the appointed hour. But, as soon as that hour’s over, well: They have other places to be.
We are considering, though, what it means to abide. Well, perhaps we can think of that phrase we might associate with the town gossip. “Oh, I can’t abide that woman.” Can’t stand to be anywhere near her. I want nothing to do with her, and if we never crossed paths again, that would be just fine. Well, if that’s what it means not to abide, then we might look at the opposite to begin to perceive what abiding looks like. The opposite, in this case, is that sense of always wanting to be with her, hoping that your paths never separate. Oh! Doesn’t that sound just like the dawn of love! Doesn’t that sound just like the newlyweds!
And, isn’t that just what Jesus wants in us? Come away with Me. I have made a place for you. In My Father’s house there are many rooms, and I have prepared one for you that you might always be with Me. My house is your house, rather My home is your home. Come and stay with Me always.
This, however, is but a part of abiding, the most literal sense of the word: take lodging with. We don’t visit as we once did. We stop by. Time was when travel happened at a speed that pretty much required that if we came to visit we’d be there for awhile. Visits were measured in days, not minutes. People built their homes with an eye to such visits. Every home had its guestroom, or guest rooms if there was sufficient space. There was always extra food on hand, just in case. And, whatever was being done when those guests arrived, well, it could wait. We have company, and our guests are our priority. It’s no coincidence that we who are of God’s family are called to be hospitable. It’s no coincidence that we are called to join in real fellowship. The early church, going from house to house, breaking bread together, sharing life together: there was and is a reason for that. There is and shall be good cause for us to recover what we have lost in letting go of that lifestyle!
But, there is more to abiding. There is also a sense of being kept. One can sense it in hospitality. What makes a visitor long to stay more than to enjoy real hospitality? You know, when your hosts are seeing to your every comfort, when the conversation is lively, the food good, and everything is just so enjoyable and comfortable, who’s going to want to leave? You’re being kept. It’s not as though you are being kept with bars and cage. You are being kept as in being well looked after, coddled if you like. It’s like life in a resort, or a spa. It just doesn’t get any better than this!
Then, there is the active aspect of abiding, the personal involvement in abiding. That involves not becoming different, rejecting all pressure to change. Again, my thoughts are drawn to the surge tide of societal influence on the people of God. Reject that pressure! Stand against the tide! Though the power of that tide erodes everything around you, stand! You know, as I write this, there is a picture on my screen, the picture of a lighthouse on its island in the midst of the ocean. The rocks that edge that island have felt the ocean’s power, have been eroded by that power year after year. Yet, the lighthouse stands. It is a bastion against the destructive power of the sea. Indeed, that’s exactly why it was put in place: to warn those who would be destroyed else. Whatever the ocean may throw at it, whatever storms may come, that lighthouse stands! It abides! It will not become other than what it is. The beacon remains in place to warn away the wary.
What a picture for us! Jesus is, in this picture, the lighthouse. He must be, for He is the Light! His Word stands on that rock to shine forth warning to those who would otherwise make shipwreck of their soul. But, our Lighthouse does not stand aloof and remote. He does not remain in isolation out there on some island with “Do Not Trespass” signs all around. No! He invites us to come take lodging with Him. He seeks our company, and when we come, we find Him the perfect Host, seeing to our every need and comfort. He is, after all, the Comforter, and He has placed His home at our disposal. We come to visit, and we find ourselves desiring to stay, for we are being kept and kept well. He is such a wonderful host, a heavenly Host, if you will pardon my humor. But, it’s true! Nobody could be more attentive. Nobody could be more intriguing in conversation. Nobody can tell stories like He can. And, what is there that He cannot speak about? There is nothing. His breadth of experience is unmatchable. Yes, and however busy He is, whatever it was He was doing when we came knocking on His door, He sets it aside. However long we choose to stay and chat by His fireside, He never looks at His watch, never fidgets, never excuses Himself to return to His work. He makes us feel that we are the most important thing in His life. No! It’s greater than that, stronger than that. He makes us KNOW we are the most important thing to Him.
So, we come to take lodging with Him, to be kept by Him. In Him, we find a role model, a mentor. We have found in our experience of His hospitality a desire, even a need, to learn how to host like He hosts. He is more than pleased to teach us, and He will take as long as it requires for us to master the skills He has to offer. Then, it is our turn to work actively in the business of abiding. It is our turn to so persevere in doing as He has shown us that we will allow no force, no power, no circumstance to cause us to become different. We will abide in what we have learned in His abode. Then, when we have had to make our way home, we can be assured that our home is a place where He will be pleased to abide even as we are so pleased to abide in His home.
This is the relationship He seeks with us: a mutual abiding one with the other. For, in such abiding we approach that unity for which Jesus prayed on our behalf: that we might be one even as He and our Father are One. It’s a degree of intimacy that we are given a glimpse of in marriage. It might be well to keep that married intimacy in mind as we move forward to the promise that we shall know the truth. We are once again looking at the ginosko form of knowing. In the previous section of this chapter (Jn 8:21-30), we come across that same Greek word twice, when John tells us that they didn’t realize what Jesus was speaking about, and again in the verse following, as Jesus tells them they will know He is I AM when they have lifted Him up (Jn 8:27-28).
In looking at that passage, the focus was on the experiential nature of this knowledge when compared to the implicit knowledge of eido. It was a case of book learning versus real-life application. That distinction can still be applied as Jesus turns to the believers. It’s not enough to hear the parables explained, so that you can proudly tell the next person what He means. It’s not enough to know what the Law truly requires, and to avoid the urge to chase after lesser standards instead. It’s not enough to know what you should do. That’s all eido. It’s not bad. It’s just not enough. We need to experience what eido has taught us. We need to apply it to daily life, and gain the insight that only such applied use of knowledge can bring.
If we abide in His word, rather than just listening with the attentiveness we might give the typical conversation, we will come to that experiential knowledge of the Truth He speaks. As we abide in that Word, we cannot but put it into practice. As we put it into practice, we cannot but see the Wisdom of the Word. As we absorb that Wisdom, we cannot but come to a deeper understanding of how to apply that same Truth from the Word to other situations that we may face.
We become intimate in our knowledge of His Truth. We become, then, intimate with Him. We enter into an intimate relationship with our Lord, the Word of God made manifest. I know I have touched on this aspect of ginosko before, but it bears repeating in this instance. To the Jews, that word had taken on a particular usage as a circumlocution for sexual intercourse. Now, they may have been more likely to use that term of illicit relations of that sort, but the same applies to marital consummation. Abraham knew Sarah. He knew her intimately. He knew her as he ought not to have known another, for God intended that bond to exist between one man and one woman, as He intends for that same level of intimacy to exist between us and one God, to be shared with no other.
There is a vulnerability that must accompany intimacy. There is an opening up to the other in such degree as leaves us quite aware that we risk emotional wounding if our trust proves to have been misplaced. God, of course, need fear no such error in judgment. Neither shall we ever find cause to fear such an error as we entrust ourselves to an intimate relationship with Him. It is between mere mortals that such fear has its causes. So, part of what I am hearing from Jesus in this passage is that very invitation to intimacy. Come and know the Truth. Come and allow yourself to be vulnerable to the Truth. Allow Truth to invade your space, to inform your thinking, to become one with you.
Here, of course, the Truth that Jesus is concerned with is to do with morality and religion. Oh, we have trained ourselves to think that religion may be a bad thing. We have given the word such awful connotations. But wiser heads know better than that. Religion that is fully vested in religious truth is exactly the goal of faith. Religion is only a bad thing when it is a bad religion. Just so, a person of bad morals does not make moral truth bad. Morals are only as good as the Truth they acknowledge. In Christ, the Word of God, and in His teaching, we are given expression of the pure truth of True religion. We are given the definitions of True morality. Here, and here alone, is man given a rock-solid, unshakable and unchanging basis for understanding what is good and what is not.
It is to this understanding, this foundation, that Jesus invites us to be joined most intimately. Open yourself to moral and religious truth. Let it speak to your being. Let your being become one with it. What results? As this most fundamental Truth is infused into your life, integrity flowers. It is the natural outflow of such an influx of pure Truth. Character formed by that Truth will reflect the morals that God has commanded. The lifestyle moved by that Truth will engage in the religion that God has decreed.
The Pharisees lived by (or at least promoted) strict rules and regulatory practices, so much so that Paul spoke of them as ‘the strictest sect of our religion’ (Ac 26:5). But, that was our religion. It was not strictly speaking God’s religion. It was ours. It was what we had made of it. In time, Paul recognized the danger of that. He came to realize that for all its strictness, all that had been achieved was “the appearance of wisdom.” For, whatever its origins, it had become a “self-made religion” promoting “self-abasement and severe treatment of the body.” It looked good, but it had “no value against fleshly indulgence” (Col 2:23).
Over against this, James speaks to us of what God decrees as real and worthwhile religion. In God’s eyes, pure and undefiled religion is found in visiting those in distress, and in remaining unstained by the world (Jas 1:27). That may seem a bit vague to us, and I suspect it is intentionally kept so. Yes, we have the example given of widows and orphans as far as who we are to consider distressed, but we are not given this as the exclusive and complete list of options.
We have a bad tendency of playing this game with the text of Scripture; that when we come across a list of some sort, we immediately conclude that the list is complete and may not be added to. So, we see the gifts of the Spirit that Paul notes, and assume full stop at the end of that list. There can be no other gifts. We see the fruit of the Spirit, and are convinced that these traits are the entirety of it. We see the list of five aspects of ministry and refuse to consider whether there might be more. Perhaps there is just cause to view it in this way, but I am not so certain of that. Shall we, on that same basis, decide that the distressed we are called to console are only to be drawn from these two categories of widow and orphan? What about parents who have lost a child to one thing or another? Are we to refuse them comfort because they are not on the list? I should hope the answer is obvious.
The point is that these things are such as reveal the intimate knowledge of the Truth. These are things reflective of that integrity of character and lifestyle that flow from such intimate knowledge. That intimate, experiential, lived out knowledge of the Truth that Jesus teaches is, after all, what marks the true disciple. This is what distinguishes disciple from mere student. The student may learn, and may even learn to apply his learning. But, he’s not devoted to it. He’s not committed to the subject as a guide for living. At best, it is a means to earn a living. The disciple, though, has found his model, his mentor, his meaning for life in the teacher he has joined himself to. He has come to this teacher as the one whose ways are worth making one’s own, whose life is worthy of emulation. He has come to learn to be just like this teacher: to become intimate with that Teacher’s thinking, to take upon himself the same character that informs this Teacher, to live as that Teacher lives. Nothing else will do. Nor will the Teacher be satisfied with anything less.
In this case, of course, it is not merely moral and religious truth that is in view, but truly, it is divine truth. More properly, we might say it is Divine Truth. Here to teach it has come the One, He Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Who better to impart the life of truth than He who is the very incarnation of Truth and Life! He is Truth unveiled, laid bare for us to see. Standing thus before us, He invites us to that intimate, experiential knowledge of the Truth He Is. And this: the unveiled, unvarnished, unrestricted Truth of God, shall set us free.
Do you not see? The Truth is the Way. There is no other. The Way leads to the Life. It is the exclusive path thereto. All paths do not lead to God. One does. That path is the Way. It is the Way of the Life. It consists wholly of the Truth. It is only by committing ourselves fully to the Truth that is the Way that leads to the Life that we can have any hope of freedom from the bondage of sin.
The careful practices of the Pharisee cannot, in the end, break the bonds of sin. Sin remains. It may be hidden away, but it remains. It may drape the chains that bind the sinner under rich silks to keep them out of sight, but the chains remain. Even so, the rituals of the temple could not fully absolve the sinner of his guilt. They could buy some time with the blood of goats and bulls, but they could not buy eternal satisfaction from such temporal materials. These were provided as a sort of tutor to lead us to the Christ Who is the Truth which is the Way (Gal 3:24-25). But, now the Truth has come. The Way has been revealed. There is no further benefit to this tutor. Indeed, the knowledge set before us has exceeded what the tutor could teach us, and so, to continue under that teaching would become a hindrance to our growth.
No! The Real has come. The Truth! He, whom the tutors would lift up on the cross and put to death, has achieved what they could not. He has revealed to us the reality that they could only ape. He has paid the price in full: once for all, with no repeat application ever to be necessary, nor even possible. These proud Pharisees could perhaps lengthen the reach of the bonds of sin, or maybe administer some sort of medication such that we would not feel the pain of sin’s bondage so fully. But, they could not break the bonds nor remove the cause of that pain. Their best efforts were as effective as applying no more than aspirin to counter a knife wound. Vain, empty gesturing to keep the dark at bay, and nothing more. Jesus, on the other hand, stood as unveiled reality. He showed us what real life was about. He showed us what real purity looked like. He showed us just what man was designed to be by being it. He procured our freedom. He paid our debt in full that we might be free to come follow after Him, to learn at His feet, and to walk in His Way.
That is the Truth that shall set you free! We can soften it to a making us free, but it is a setting. It is a destroying of the bonds we had forgotten were there. Look forward to the next verse, and see the reaction of the blinded prisoner. “We were never enslaved, so what exactly do You mean about setting us free?” (Jn 8:33). And, isn’t that exactly how we react in that first moment of faith. Save me from what? I’m in no danger. I’m a good man. What’s all this talk about sin? Bonds? Hah! I could quit anytime. Except, of course, we can’t quit at any time and we never could. Our sins are so closely knit into our habitual lifestyle that we have trouble even seeing them any more. We are so used to life on the edge that we don’t sense the danger of hell’s flames just over the horizon. But, the Truth comes! He must needs force us to confront the Truth about ourselves. He is merciful to require our eyes to look upon the unveiled reality of our own situation. But, He is more merciful still! For, having forced us to confront ourselves, He then turns our eyes upon Himself and says, “I have redeemed you! I have called you by name, and you are Mine. Come home, My child, and enter into your rest.”
Here, then, we have knowledge, experiential knowledge absorbed into and made part of our lifestyle, leading unto salvation; salvation being represented in the liberation from sin’s bondage. We could shorthand the message to believers as, “you will know, and you will be freed from the debt of sin.” Yet, what did we hear said to the unbelieving Pharisees just moments ago? “You will know, but you will die in your sins anyway.” If it weren’t clear enough to us already, this should make it unmistakably clear that knowledge, even experiential knowledge is not enough.
What we have here is knowledge joined with practice joined with faith. And let me reiterate the point Paul makes as regards faith: Faith is not of ourselves, lest we find cause to boast. Rather, faith is by grace, a gift from God by which to produce the flower of salvation from the seed of knowledge. We might deem practice the soil in that analogy. But, apart from faith, the seed of knowledge cannot germinate. Knowledge that is not joined together with faith becomes vanity. This is, by and large, where the Pharisees had wound up. They knew all sorts of things about religious truth. They even practiced a fair amount of what they knew. But, it got them nowhere in the end. They would die in their sins in spite of it. Why? Because faith had not come together with knowledge and practice.
This is our own trinity of belief, I think. Knowledge, practice and faith. These three must function in unity to be truly alive. Yet, they are three very different aspects of the matter, are they not? If we do not know God to be God, if we do not know what it is He requires of one who would be holy as He is holy, then we can hardly practice doing as He requires, can we? One might suppose in a universe of infinite possibilities, there might be somebody who accidentally stumbled upon the practices that please Him, but even then, the practice being separated from knowledge would likely prove to be of little use.
The best one might have then is an atheistic do-gooder. I do not say that to denigrate the good they do. Not at all! Inasmuch as the deeds they do are good, those deeds are undeniably good. I can even accept that the motivation of the doer is altruistic entirely. But, even so, it does not make that one a good man, any more than those same works would suffice to make a claimant to Christian faith a good man. The works alone don’t suffice. The works, even joined with a knowledge of God, do not suffice. Indeed, if it had only come that far, then I would have to suppose the knowledge one had of God was faulty. For, had you truly known God, you would have known that works alone had no particular power of merit. Indeed, you would realize that they cannot, in the end, add so much as a micrometer of merit to your account.
Soli gratia. That is the cry of truth. It’s only by grace. It’s only by grace that we have received from God the faith that gives value to our knowledge and effort. “If you believe that I AM,” Jesus explained to those Pharisees, “then your knowledge might be of use for your salvation” (Jn 8:24). No, He doesn’t say it in those terms exactly, but that’s the implication. First, notice that He didn’t say, “if you know that I AM.” Indeed, He says that they will know. So did many a demon, but it’s not getting them into heaven, and it won’t get you in, either. Belief! It’s critical to the process, and belief can not come except God has decided it shall come. It is His gift. It is not ours to demand or ours to stir up. It is His to give.
Therefore, we hear Jesus tell us that no man can come to the Father except by Him (Jn 14:6). Therefore, also, we hear Him tell us that none can come to Him except the Father draw him hence (Jn 6:44), unless it has been granted to him by the Father (Jn 6:65). The sovereign Lord has the authority to grant His blessing of faith upon whomever He so chooses. He also has the authority to withhold. It is something He grants. It is a gift bestowed by the Highest King upon the subject of His choosing. That subject cannot demand the gift. He cannot earn the gift. A gift that is earned is no gift. It is a payment for services rendered. No, faith is a gift given by God. It may be exercised once in our possession, but even that exercise cannot cause it to grow. Growth is also given by God, who alone determines the seasons and the harvests.
Yet, while faith is not in truth anything over which we have control or even oversight, yet we are fully involved in this process of redemption. Knowledge, we can pursue. We are given myriad tools to increase our understanding of God. We are given myriad opportunities to grow closer to Him in fellowship. These are, as more traditional teachers would point out, the common means of grace. The normative practice of God is to implant the seed of faith by means of the preaching of His Word. To this, He adds the watering of fellowship within the community of saints, the meditation upon His revealed Scriptures. To this, also, is added prayer, but not the near mindless, frenzied pleas of the pagan; rather the earnest, heartfelt sharing of a David, the exposure of the heart to the Light of God. As we draw closer to Him through study and fellowship and prayer, we are made ready to recognize those works He has placed in our path that we might do them. We are made ready not only to recognize, but also to do.
We are inclined to think of those good works as things like we read of the good Samaritan. Or, perhaps we envision works like Philip and the other apostles were doing in the early church. I can almost guarantee that what we envision as our good works are likely to look an awful lot like what the Pharisees would have considered good works. Yet, all their good works accomplished nothing as measured by a heavenly scale. The works we are called to do may be far more homely than those we imagine are to be our lot. Our good work may consist in little more than caring for the family entrusted to us. It may seem an awful lot like we’re just going about our daily lives as we always do, and this may not have the ring of good works to our ears. Yet, as we go about these tasks in the power of faith; as we steadfastly model the ways of a righteous man in pursuing our daily lives, we are indeed good works walking. We are indeed being made part of those ordinary means of grace by which another in our sphere of associates may find cause to seek out this Jesus we serve.
Faith, knowledge and practice. These three conjoined are a power against which the very gates of hell cannot prevail! These three conjoined are the engine of heaven powering our lives. We may wax and wane in our devotion to one or more of these principals, yet not one of them can truly disappear from the life of a believer. As we considered, in the last study, the nature of what is the essence of God, so, we must view these as the essence of the believer. Without these things, the believer cannot be a believer. They may be more or less evident at a particular time, either separately or in combination, but they cannot be lost entirely. Knowledge, by nature, grows over time. Yet, even that may dim in the closing years of life, as the powers of the mind diminish. Practice may be particularly vulnerable to the weeds of daily cares, but not so vulnerable as to die out. We may not obtain to perfection, but we practice. We may neglect practice for a season, but still, having practiced for so long, what we have practiced continues to come through in our actions. It’s become almost reflex. But even the best reflexes benefit from further practice. Faith, being implanted by God’s gift, we need not fear the loss of. Like practice, it may benefit from constant exercise. But, it is not dependent upon our exercise. It is dependent upon God and God alone. Therein lies a foundation for Jesus to tell us that we are not to be anxious for anything. It’s in His hands, after all, and His hands are not subject to failure.
What must be our primary concern, then, in light of all this is the training of our minds. We are called to put our efforts into thinking as the Word teaches. We are called to allow that learning to thereby shape our character so that we are inclined to do as He has instructed. More than that, we are brought to the place of being instant in doing as He has instructed. We abide in His word, and we abide by His word.
What remains for us to consider in these few verses is that matter of becoming free. We are likely even more inclined to react as these Jews listening to Him did. What? We’ve never been enslaved to anyone! Of course, if we looked at our employments more honestly, we might not be so sure of that. Yes, we get paid for our labors, but there is always a bit of the master / slave relationship between boss and employee. It may be more civilized, but it’s not all that different in the end.
Of course, we will quickly recognize that Jesus is not talking about enslavement to a person. He is talking about enslavement to our own base habits, to our own fleshly ways. He is talking, more to the point, about the otherwise inevitable results of our pursuits. Paul is good enough to make this abundantly clear as he expounds on the Gospel of Christ. The law of which Jesus expounds is the law of the Spirit of life, and that life is had in Christ Jesus. This is what set you free from the law of sin and death (Ro 8:2). Now, Paul spends a good deal of time contrasting the Law as given under Moses with the Law of the Spirit as given under Jesus. He is not, however, condemning Mosaic Law, for it truly is a God-given law for man. What he is condemning is the way in which that Law is made a bane to mankind rather than a boon.
You see, the Law, as is said elsewhere, was given as a tutor for us, as a tool to train our thoughts to look forward to Messiah. But, sinful flesh sought to make the Law an end in itself. We shall obey this and then we shall be counted as righteous. Convince of this meaning in the Law, man sought to pursue a life of obedience, and finding it impossible to do so, found it equally impossible to face that fact. It is not in a man to face the futility of his efforts. So, as we see transpire with the Pharisees, the standards propounded in the Law are tweaked and adjusted in order to arrive at something that looks more or less the same but remains achievable. Then, we pat ourselves on the back for keeping our nose clean, so long as cleanliness is measured by our new standards rather than the original. But, this has done nothing to change the reality of our sins, nor the legal penalty for those sins.
Indeed, no power in the Law, even in its unadulterated form, could in any way release us from the penalty for sin. The Law, by God’s design, was not delivered until well after we had availed ourselves of the opportunity to sin. Were it not so, Adam would have found the tablets beside him when first he was created. But, he had only the one rule to abide by, and even this proved too much to ask of him. Frankly, with the Law or without, we are just as inclined to ignore the mandates of righteousness and do as we like. No man has managed to go through life without at least once choosing the wrong course of action, the unrighteous course. So certain is that outcome that David would note that even in his conception, he was sinful. Man stands in permanent need of one to redeem him from the penalty for sin, because having once sinned, he has made himself guilty of the whole penalty that the Law of God demands, and that penalty is death.
This is the slavery Jesus is talking about. Having sinned, there is only one outcome. We are chained to that outcome as fully as if we lay forgotten in the dungeon of some medieval castle. There is no hope of paying off our captor. There is no hope of pardon from the governor. There is no chance that this debt could ever be paid, for the debt we owe is life itself. Only death will satisfy the demand of the law, and who would pay such a price for such as me? Thanks be to God, there is One! Through our Lord, Jesus the Christ, that debt has been paid (Ro 7:25)! The chains that bound us to the due penalty of sin have been removed from us!
Yes, and this is not enough in God’s sight! Not only has He brought about the impossible in achieving our release from the due sentence of His own justice, but He has provided us with a tutor to serve us while we are on parole. He sense His own Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, whom we know and love as the Holy Spirit, and His Spirit takes up His residence with us, in us. There, upon the throne of our heart, He speaks to us, teaches us, reminds us of the Way. Thus reminded, we are empowered to walk in that Way as He moves in us to bring that power to comply. You see, then, that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there truly is liberty (2Co 3:17).
I cannot pass on the change of wording that has transpired as Paul writes that. The Truth sets you free, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Freedom or liberty, which is it? Is there a distinction? Indeed there is! Freedom is a removal of all bonds. Thus, when Jesus and His apostles speak of setting us free, it is that very idea that is put before us. We were in chains awaiting execution, but we those chains have been removed. Like Peter, we find the gates of our prison swinging open and the guards asleep. Nothing prevents us from doing as we please.
But, as the Spirit takes up His residence in us, it is not the anarchy of purest freedom that we enjoy, but rather, it is liberty. Liberty has boundaries. Liberty knows its limits. Liberty is to freedom as the sheep’s fold is to an open field. The sheep in the field is free to do as it will, including the freedom to wander into danger, and even to wander into what can only lead to death for the sheep. The sheep in the fold is also free to do most of what it may be inclined to do, excepting only that it cannot go beyond the walls of that fold. Thus, it cannot wander into danger or death. Arguably, then, that second sheep is more free than the first, for it is free of the need to concern itself with matters of safety. It is truly free to pursue its pleasures unmolested, for it knows that boundaries are in place to prevent it from wandering into danger, and it knows there is that Shepherd watching to ensure that no danger comes in across those boundaries.
Liberty, because it knows there are restrictions in place to prevent deadly error, is shown to be the truest freedom. Freedom without boundaries must necessarily devolve into anarchy, and anarchy is safe for no man. So, then, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, because He is ever watchful, ever placing the boundaries and limits for us that we may walk in safety. Elsewhere, Paul will note that all things are permissible to the child of God, but that in spite of that permission, not all things are profitable (1Co 10:23). We are free, then, as pertains to legality. But, the boundaries set by the Spirit hold us to that subset of things that are edifying and profitable to our spiritual health.
Thus, coming to the Galatians, Paul writes, “You were called to freedom. But, don’t you dare make that freedom an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love” (Gal 5:13). Don’t you dare look upon that “all things are permissible and lawful” clause and make it an excuse to do what you know full well is sinful! Don’t go beyond the bounds of liberty. Those boundaries are in place for a reason. Children, obey your parents, for this is good in the sight of the Lord. They set boundaries round about you to keep you safe until you have come to a degree of maturity sufficient to the needs of this life.
In pursuit of God, we are all as children, and the Spirit serves as our parent. Obey Him! Where He says no, do not persist in doing. Where He says go, do not hold back. He sets our boundaries round about us to keep us safe in our spiritual childhood. Oh, yes, we think ourselves mature in the Spirit, but we are like any teenager in that regard. We are so sure we know better than our forebears. We have tasted the first small bites of maturity and have allowed that to convince us that we’ve arrived. Had we anything like real maturity, we would know better. We would know that there is so very much that we don’t yet understand, that we may never fully understand. Had we a true maturity in spiritual things, we would never treat the spiritual so lightly as we do. We would never so much as contemplate what is sinful, knowing that the very Spirit of Holiness abides within, fearing that our least sin must surely cause Him to depart.
Don’t make freedom an opportunity for sin! Don’t allow the certainty of forgiveness lead you into an easy willingness to do things you know will need forgiving. Having been freed from sin, having found to your great surprise that the certain death that was set before you has been averted, don’t go back to it. Go and sin no more (Jn 8:11). Indeed, become slaves of righteousness (Ro 6:18). This is your reality, Christian! You have been freed from sin, and the death that must inevitably follow, and in being thus freed, you have been enslaved to God, and the righteousness that must inevitably follow. You have gained the benefit of sanctification. You, who had no cause to expect any such boon, have found yourself granted this marvelous gift from the every One who by all rights should have delivered the death sentence upon you. Indeed, where you had every reason to expect certain death, you instead come to a place of knowing with even greater certainty that your end lies in eternal life (Ro 6:22).
Yes, He is faithful to forgive, but don’t you dare make that an excuse to take sin lightly. You are in no position to do so. You are enslaved to Him and to His righteousness. You are committed to pursuing His good pleasure, not your own evil pleasures. Whereas your slavery to sin had been a true bondage, an unwilling servitude to the habits of the flesh, to the ways of this world, and through these, to the present ruler of this world, this new slavery is something different. Recall the provision made in the Law of Moses. By God’s decree, whatever slavery might be practiced amongst His people, whatever servitude a man might surrender himself to as a means to survival, it must be only for a season. The date of manumission was decreed by Law. Yet, there would be those who, facing their freedom, would prefer to continue serving. In such a case, they could decide of their own accord to become servants for life unto the household so chosen.
This, as everything in the Law, was set forth as an example for our own edification. This is exactly the relationship we have entered into with God in Christ. We have willingly chosen to mark ourselves out as servants for life unto His household. Yes, and we have done so with the clear knowledge that the life unto which we have committed ourselves is eternal as He is eternal. Now – amazement of amazements – He does not suffer us to remain in that relationship to Himself. “I no longer call you slaves, but rather friends, for you have been made aware of all your Master is doing” (Jn 15:15).
It gets better still! Not only does the very God of heaven call us friend, He calls us, “My child.” As Joseph legally adopted the Son of God as his own, so God has adopted us sons of Adam as His own. Can we ever really grasp the wonder of that? Not only has He paid the price of our sins in His own blood, not only has He caused every legal charge against us to be removed from the record. And think upon that for a moment: He hasn’t just marked them down as time served, penalty paid. He has had them removed from the records. There can be no further reference to those crimes of ours! But, this was not enough to please Him. No! He welcomed us as servants in His household. He tutored us in our ignorance. Then, as we declared our lifelong devotion to the service of His house, He declared His eternal friendship with us. No, this was not some sort of cause and response. They are, however, reciprocal.
But, He still wasn’t satisfied, still hadn’t done enough for us. So, He wrote up adoption papers. He, who shares perfect fellowship in Himself, decided that even that perfection could accept a wider fellowship. It was not some lack in His fellowship that needed us to fill it. It was a Love to big to be contained even in the infinite bounds of God. That Love which He is could not be satisfied in loving Himself. That Love must overspill Him and pour out on His creation. Yet, that Love could not pour out in proper degree upon a dumb creation unaware of Him who poured. That Love could not pour out in full degree upon mere servants, nor even upon friends. It required the greater bonds of family to satisfy the desire of Love to pour out.
We know this in our own imperfect way. We know that, however loving we may be, there is a different love for our fellow man in general than there is for our coworkers. There is a different love for our coworkers than for our friends. Yes, and there is a different love for our friends than there is for our family. I speak here on the basis that we find cause to love in each and every one of these relationships, setting aside the imperfections that fallen man brings to each case. Even within the family, we know a distinction of love. The love between siblings differs from the love between parent and child, and neither of these approaches the love that unites husband to wife. And all of these varied aspects of love, in spite of our imperfections, model the Love of God, and represent to us the Love He has for us.
He has loved us as ‘fellow man’, merely one creature amongst many. He has loved us as coworkers as we became bondservants in His employ. He has loved us as friends, as our joy began to be found in the same things that brought Him joy. He has loved us as children (and still does). He has loved us as siblings, for in adopting us, He has made us brothers and sisters to His only begotten Son, the Son who, by His determination, was made the firstborn among many. And, of course, Father and Son are One. The promise, remains, though, that we shall be the bride of Christ, wedded to the Son, that He may also love us as His spouse, the finest and most devoted Love that we are granted to know in this life.
All of this is laid out in the course of our lives as we accept that first step. He has planted within us the seed of faith. He has so opened our understanding as to recognize our situation and to rejoice that we see our Redeemer before us. He has done it all, really. He has saved us even though we had no interest in being saved, even though we were actively opposed to the idea. He then asks one sign of us, if you will: Abide in My word, eat My word, breathe My word, do My word. Become so enamored of My word that it is made the very fiber of your being (for it is so!) Therein is the power to break every chain of sin. Therein is the path from creature to bride begun. And all along that path, the Lord Himself accompanies us, speaking constantly, “Here is the Way. Walk in it.” What Love is this! What marvelous, all-encompassing Love!
