New Thoughts (06/12/10-06/18/10)
I see three main points that I should like to make in regard to this passage. The first point touches upon faith, the nature thereof. Look at the way Jesus reacts to the first response of the disciples. You have little faith. Don’t you understand? Don’t you remember anything? Then, when He has finally got their attention and repeated His lesson, we are told that they finally understood. Recognize, then, that Jesus did not connect faith with uncritical belief here. He is not seeking a blind faith, or a faith that hopes things turn out the way we like. He is connecting faith with the brain. We are, after all, to love God with all our mind as well as with all our heart (Mt 22:37).
Had He left it with only our heart, the implication would have been that feeling was more critical to faith than knowledge. But, this is not the case. They are co-equal. Knowledge that remains disconnected from our feelings, mere head-knowledge as we tend to call it, is nothing to do with faith. On the other hand, feelings that have no basis in knowledge of the Truth are equally worthless to faith. In this day and age, too much of what passes for faith is of this latter form, opinions based on emotion rather than reason. Too much of belief is in a god fashioned in our own imagination rather than God Who is revealed in the Scriptures He caused to be authored. God has said, “I AM that I AM,” but we are busily worshiping a conception of Him which is not that He which He IS.
Our faith is small not because we fail to exercise it. Our faith is small because we give it such a weak foundation. Again, look at the focus Jesus demonstrates in what He says. “Do you not yet understand?” What is understanding? In this case, it is the process of perception. It’s not just the data points that the senses provide to our mental mill, it’s the operation of that mill. It’s thinking! It’s one thing to decry our ‘stinking thinking’. It’s another entirely to suppose that thinking at all is the problem. The truth of the matter is exactly the opposite. The problem is that we rarely think at all, let alone as we ought.
Jesus also complains of the failure to remember. This is truly a terrible thing for the Christian to suffer, this failure to remember! After all, one of the greatest things about this gift of the Holy Spirit abiding with us lies in the fact that He will recall to memory that which Jesus taught. But memory is only useful if it’s exercised, if it’s referenced. Let me just stick in a bit of an engineering analogy here. The computer upon which I do these studies has devices we refer to as memory devices. What do they do? They store information as instructed. But, if that is all they ever do, then we have that most useless of devices that go by the name, “write only memory.” A write only memory is useless because no means has been provided by which one might retrieve and recall what is in memory. It’s stored, but what is stored is of no earthly use because it cannot be remembered.
By the same token, if I were to write these notes off to disk every day, but came back tomorrow only to find I could not reload what I saved today, it should prove to be a most worthless exercise. Memory, you see, requires the effort of recollection, else it is nothing of any value. Perhaps you’ve met people like this, people who seem to face each day as if it were the first they had ever seen. Whatever happened yesterday, they have forgotten utterly. We are all like this, I think, when it comes to weather patterns. Every year, we are convinced that spring has come later, fall earlier. The snows are not as deep as they once were. It’s raining more often. Whatever the case, it’s like this is the first time it’s been this way. But, if we take notes and keep track of things, we discover that really, it’s not any much different than it was before, after all.
Example: My perception of this year to date has been that it was significantly cooler than normal. Indeed, reports from around the country help to bolster that opinion. But, when I actually look at the data, and compare it against several previous years, I discover that really, on average it’s been warmer this year. The memory must be exercised. The process of perception must take facts into account rather than mere opinion.
This is the thing I find with faith. Faith is, at root, a matter of being convinced by the arguments. To believe is to be convinced, not simply to decide that one is going to say it is so. Blind faith? Never! Faith, it is true, is the evidence of things yet unseen, but were it not for the body of proof long since delivered faith would find no reason to expect. Faith comes because we have not only perceived, but processed the perception. We have not only stored away the results of that process, but exercise ourselves in drawing forth the memory of what we have processed. We recall to mind that which God has already done, what He has done not only in history, but in our case personally. Faith has a reason! And, because it is eminently reasonable, faith is not shaken. Opinion, emotional response to stimuli, these things may pass for faith, but when the shaking comes, these things will fall away like autumn leaves. Real faith stand like the mighty oak in winter because it is rooted deeply in the soil of Truth understood.
With that in mind, jump to the end of the story for just a moment. Once Jesus has reiterated His lesson, because the disciples are now attentive to what He is saying rather than what they were doing, they understand. Here, a different term is being translated, though. In this case, it’s the active process of putting together what has been gathered through both thought and observation. In other words, those things remembered and those things which perception has been processing are brought together and set into order. They are thought about. They are actively cogitated upon. Reason is applied. Knowledge is applied. It must be. For, as Zhodiates so beautifully describes this particular form of understanding, it is “the activity of knowing.” There can be no passive knowing. Even rote learning, for all that it is denigrated today, is an active process. The mind is exercised in memorizing that which is delivered to it. Once memory has been properly filled, the effort can move on to processing that memory to produce greater understanding, but running those processes upon an empty memory will produce nothing, will it?
It requires both. Memory and perception combined and worked upon to produce a logical ordering of the information. God alone produces faith in man. Much of that work, however, is accomplished by the design in which He made man. He did not create us to be passive components in the process of faith, but to be highly active. The brain was made to think because it is good to think.
Let me be clear that I am not advocating mind only. Mind and heart must be united in this faith that Christ has brought to being in us. But, the heart cannot love what the mind does not know. If, then, you find your faith is small today, get to thinking about all that God has done. There is a reason that we are given this direction in Scripture. Meditate upon the Lord. Absolutely! Do not settle, though, for thinking grand, historical thoughts of what He did for other people at other times. Get personal! Take inventory of your own life. How much has He already brought you through? How many bits of personal stupidity did He already rescue you from? Count on your fingers how many times He has ever failed you, and be honest about it. The count will ever come up zero. Why do all this? Because it exercises your memory. It gives your mental processes some real data to chew on, and as this happens, you move into the ‘activity of knowing.’ Faith in God is no longer an issue for you because you know! You have been convinced by the arguments He has presented in the record of your own life. Now, as you work upon the knowledge contained in that record, you must surely see that you have every reason to trust Him with your future.
You might ask how it is that we lose sight of this reality. Well do I know that this is the case. We walk into the situations of life and it seems we lose sight of God awfully fast. We get so caught up with trying to bull our own way through the trials that we fail to take Him into our accounting. Memory fails us yet again. This is exactly what I see happening with the disciples here. The order in which the narrative is delivered may occlude the situation somewhat, but it seems pretty clear that they have noticed the bread shortage they have created for themselves and are attempting to sort out amongst themselves and in their own power what to do about it.
It is into this distracted atmosphere that Jesus speaks, and it is because of this distracted atmosphere that they fail to hear what He has said in clear terms. The minute He has put the naming of these sects into His warning, it is already patently obvious that He is not concerned with foodstuffs. But, they are. They are caught up in the events of this life and therefore fail utterly to hear what He is saying. Listen! This is what we do every day. We allow ourselves to get focused on the stuff of daily living. We’ve got bills to pay, kids to raise, families to feed, jobs to do, possessions to maintain, all this stuff. Let us suppose that we are of a mind to care for our duties, and see these as things to be dealt with as opposed to being things to be avoided.
What happens? We’re men! Men do things. Men see the problem and jump on solving it. We’re self-reliant, after all. We’re supposed to be. Head of the house and all that. And, in that effort we allow our eyes to become fully focused on the things of this world. Meanwhile, there’s God telling us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. There’s God reminding us that there’s nothing here worth getting anxious about. To which we anxiously reply, “What me? I’m not anxious! Am I? Really? Oh, no! What can I do about that? How shall I stop it? What must I do?”
Come to the old chorus. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face and the things of the earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. With prayer and thanksgiving, make your needs known to Him, not that He isn’t perfectly aware already. He has provided everything for your need. Here’s an idea: As you make your needs known to Him, consider the things you are making known. Are they truly needs or merely wants? If we’d only strip the wants out of that picture we’d already find ourselves with a great deal less to be fretting over. We’d already find ourselves far less distracted by the issues of this life.
If we find we are failing to hear God, or at least failing to hear Him in full, let this be the first suspicion that enters our minds: that we have allowed the mechanics of life to distract us to the point that we aren’t really listening. These are the things that dull the ears and make sight hazy. If you’re not really listening to somebody in the room talking to you, you know what happens. Suddenly, they’re asking you about some point or other, at the least a response is required from you, and you discover you have no idea what they’ve been saying for the last however long. Why? Because you’re ears were in the conversation, but you weren’t. Same thing happens with God. If anything, it’s worse, because our attention span is pretty limited, and He’s not there waving at us where we can see Him and find reason to focus.
Honestly, I find this happens even as I’m reading the Word at times. My eyes are continuing to process the text. I can hear the words, as it were, humming in my head. But, my thoughts are already off onto what needs to be done next. My thoughts are contemplating what the commute is likely to be like today. I’m already looking at how I might solve whatever it was I was doing at work when last I was there. This is terrible! This is being distracted by the issues of this life, and if left unchecked, pretty well ensures that I am not really hearing God. What’s going to happen if I continue in study with such a mindset? I’ll tell you. I’m gong to start studying my own opinions and taking them as doctrine, because I’m the only one I’m hearing. This must be combated. This must be countered with prayer, with a determined turning of eyes and mind upon the things of God and off of the things of this world. They will be upon me soon enough, but if I have not taken this time to prepare, to suit up, as it were, the day is not likely to go well.
It’s always such a joy to find that God is orchestrating the various threads of studying which I am involved. I saw this at the outset of mining this particular passage, as Table Talk provided insights as to the issue of leaven. I saw it again last night as our men’s group wrapped up our explorations of Romans 8. One looks at the end of that passage, the great confidence to which Paul points us. We are victors, conquerors, nay: more than conquerors. Not by anything in ourselves, but because of Christ Jesus and the absolute conviction that nothing in all existence can separate us from His love. Yet, as we discussed, we face trials daily and as often as not we feel overcome by them. Why? We are to be a people who know not only the truth of what Paul has said, but the power inherent therein. Well, as I have been saying in this passage, the why is because we’re not paying attention to the right things. We’re not exercising the mental facilities God gave us in recalling to mind how well He has done by us all these years past.
We have become distracted by the events before us. We are caught up in the circumstances and we allow ourselves to take our eyes off of God, off of His kingdom, off of His Providence. We become once more a people with eyes that fail to make sense of what they see, ears that fail to register what they hear. We are not blind or deaf, but our failure to avail ourselves of the data provided by those organs renders us less informed than if we were so debilitated. We no longer gain knowledge from our senses, but only distraction.
This leads me into a bit of an aside, I find. For it is very much the story of our day and age. We are a people deluged by information. We can pull up facts and news at a rate unthinkable a very few short years ago. What do you need to know? A quick internet search and there you go! Your choice of answers. What word are you having difficulties with? Just type it in, and here’s a dozen dictionary definitions at your fingertips. This is all well and good. But, it rapidly becomes a distraction.
On the one hand, there is this problem: We confuse having the data available with gaining knowledge from that data. We suppose that the wealth of information we have available must necessarily make us pretty darn smart. But, the truth is otherwise. I recall yet again my favorite lesson in this regard, an event that transpired shortly after college. First year electronics had taught me the simple equation of Ohm’s Law, which showed how one calculates current or voltage or impedance, given any two out of the three. That’s all well and good. I could deal with the relatively simplistic test questions and what not. But, come to a real-life application… Here’s the need to measure high current, and we don’t have an ammeter capable of such a range. What to do? How am I supposed to deal with that? It took a more seasoned hand to point out that a simple application of that same Ohm’s Law would allow me to observe that large current as a relatively small voltage.
To borrow an old Talking Heads line: “Facts are useless in emergencies.” Quite true. One needs knowledge, understanding, a realization of how those facts might be applied to one’s benefit. Or, I might borrow from a more fitting source in Charlie Peacock. “The facts of theology, though true in every way, alone cannot save me.” Truth, you see, is larger than the sum of the facts. Truth is applied fact, if you please. Truth requires, as that latter song notes, experience. It requires active effort in applying the facts to real situations. In the realm of faith and religion, truth means we have to go well beyond memorizing the Scriptures. We have to go well beyond knowing some number of names for God. We have to actually know Him. We have to have come to the place of seeing that He has long been active in our lives, far longer than we have been active in His worship.
This is the thing I see Jesus pointing out so clearly to His disciples here. You have a history with Me. It’s not like you’re facing this sort of challenge for the first time. You’ve been with Me. You surely ought to know Me by now, and even if you don’t know Me all that well, you’ve seen Me in action. You know from the evidence of your own senses, your own experience, that I provide. If only you would take inventory of the record, this business of being short on bread would not even phase you, and you certainly wouldn’t be so foolish as to suppose it concerns Me! Use your heads, gentlemen! Use your heads instead of your eyes. Process the data. Engage with the evidence. Recall to mind all that you have been through with Me, all that I have been through with you. And you think this is going to be something I cannot deal with? Please! You know better! You are just distracted by the present data. Seek instead the applied knowledge of the kingdom.
All that info from the internet: if it’s not harnessed by knowledge, if it’s not guided by wisdom, it’s nothing but distraction. All the news in the world won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t grasp the implications. What use is it, after all, knowing about the disaster after the fact? What will you do about it now? News, by its nature, reports what is past and gone. It’s history. Done. The minute it seeks to point toward the future it ceases being news and becomes mere opinion. It’s like theology without doctrine, doctrine without Truth. It’s vain imagination, and about as trustworthy as a holed tire.
All this stuff that comes at us, the data points of our trials and tribulations. Same deal. It’s information, to be sure, but it’s disorganized information. It’s just data points with no meaning until we apply the correct thought processes to it. If our thought processes are nothing more than woe is me, I’m destroyed, then frankly, we have no thought processes. We are just a disorganized, random response to stimuli. Neither does righteously proclaiming that the facts don’t exist really give evidence of anything more. The facts are what they are. It’s the meaning we’re after. If the facts are that I have a cold, or that I have stubbed my toe, or that my car is out of oil; claiming that ‘in the name of Jesus’ it isn’t so won’t change the facts. If that’s not outright insanity, it certainly isn’t wisdom or knowledge. The most one might say for it is that it’s a cheap attempt at witchcraft. Of course, we’re all good Christians and we’d never play with witchcraft. Except, of course, that we do it all the time, trying to manipulate God into playing the game our way.
No, the wisdom of God lies in seeing the facts, acknowledging the facts, and then turning our attention back to God. OK, Lord, what would You have me do? I know You’re hand is with me, for You haven’t changed. I know that whatever this looks like, it is surely for my good, because You have told me that. I know that even in this, I am more than a conqueror as You are with me, and that battle is Yours. So, you lead and I shall follow. You direct and I shall act as You say. My eyes are upon You and my ears are straining to hear Your words. You have my attention. Speak, for Your servant is listening. There is wisdom. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and allow Him to speak to you, to guide you. He is your Good Shepherd, after all. He has proven His trustworthiness repeatedly in every situation you have ever faced. He’s not going to stop now. Get your eyes off the data and onto the Truth!
But, Scripture points to one other reason that we don’t hear, which we must attend to. It is alluded to in the words Jesus quotes from the prophets who came before, the reference to unseeing eyes and unhearing ears in Mark 8:18. If I turn to Ezekiel 12:2, where this same phrasing appears, I find God has assigned a reason to this problem. It is because those thus afflicted are ‘a rebellious house’. So, let’s be clear about this, particularly in ourselves. The failure to grasp the importance of what God is showing to us, the failure to really hear what He is saying to us, is not a failure in our organs, nor even in our wits. It’s a failure in our morals. We don’t get it because we don’t want to get it. So long as we can go on feigning ignorance we figure we can go on living like we always have. If we really lay hold of what God is making clear, the we’ll have to change. It’s change or die, really. The sad fact is, we tend to find death the more tolerable option. But, that’s only because we really have refused to hear or see the implications of God’s Truth.
One cannot look at the reality of eternal damnation and find that preferable to anything. One can only convince oneself to pretend that reality is not real, that death really is the final curtain and nothing exists beyond. Beware the leaven of the Sadducees! Look again at their particular tenets. No life after death, only this one, folks. This is all there is, therefore this is all that matters. Make the most of it because there’s not going to be another. Of course, if there is no eternity then there is no repercussion to fear beyond what may come in this life. A man of clever mind can easily avoid such repercussions and enjoy whatever he may please, right?
Listen! This error is rampant in the church today. It’s there in the prosperity gospel. It’s there in the unhealthy focus on miraculous healing. It’s there wherever the people who call themselves by God’s name find that He must address their present physical conditions or be wholly irrelevant. There is no view of heaven in these theologies, only another get rich quick scheme. Of course, these schemes tend only to work out for the one promulgating them, and mostly from the hides of those who listen. But, so what? There’s no eternity out there for these charlatans to fear. Indeed, I am quite certain that in their own minds, there is no God of eternity to fear either. They read the Bible but fail to hear its message. It’s only a bunch of words from which they can select those that fit the advertising for their own brand of spiritualized nonsense. They are a rebellious house and they seek to teach a rebellious unbelief from which they can profit. As I read Jesus saying to His disciples in the God’s Word translation again today, “Don’t you catch on?” Don’t you catch on to the Truth of God, to the fact that Jesus is forever pointing beyond the situations of this life to an eternity that dwarfs it to insignificance? Don’t you catch on that those who claim to represent Him yet offer nothing but worldliness are lying rebels against the True God? Seek Him first, and His righteousness. The rest, being in His hands anyway, will surely work itself out.
This brings me back round to the matter of the leaven, the central image of what Jesus is saying. We need to recapture the reason behind the rituals of Passover. Why was Israel commanded to get all the leaven out of the house for this occasion? What was the meaning? The meaning has to do with sin. Sin, like leaven, is pervasive. Let a little in and it soon fills the whole. It may not be noticeable at the outset, but it will soon become undeniable and, apart from God, irreversible. Thus, we find Paul calling us to “Be that unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1Co 5:8). I’ll be coming back to that. Here, there is a particular aspect of sin that is in sight, that of false doctrine. And yes, false doctrine is a sin. Absolutely! It is an evil even beyond that of the act itself in that it promotes and recommends what is ungodly in God’s name.
Listen. Many have looked to the central truths of the Gospel, seen that salvation is by grace alone, by God alone, and found this to be an excuse. If it’s all grace, all God, then I don’t need to worry about what I’m doing. He’ll forgive me anyway because He called me. Wrong! Paul, in the midst of His clear and eloquent laying out of this most critical of doctrines, stops to condemn those who have insisted on just such an error after hearing his own exposition. They suppose, he says, that they ought surely to go sin that much more since it will lead to a greater forgiveness from God which must surely glorify Him all the more. What is the conclusion? “Their condemnation is just” (Ro 3:8).
I was taken by this particular point made in Table Talk last week. “Salvation by grace alone brings with it the responsibility […] to fight to the death against its [sin’s] destructive presence and influence.” The effort required to clear the house of leaven at Passover was real effort. The effort required to eradicate sin in our lives is nonstop, lifelong labor. It’s a fight to the death. Either we will go down fighting and find that in Christ we have won, or we will go down because we refused to fight and we shall discover that Truth was not changed by our unbelief. Sin really did matter. God really does hate it. Hell really does exist, and eternity really is a very long time.
I cannot wish such an eternity on any man, certainly not myself nor those in my charge. Yet, my own actions belie a certain unbelief. My own willingness to tolerate the little sins of my life rather than fight to the death against them indicate the degree to which I really don’t believe it. Yet, I shall not find in this a cause for despair except it be to despair of my own strength. For, this I know full well: It is Christ who liveth in me. It is He who began this work and He shall most assuredly complete it. He it is Who is willing and working in me that I might once more rise up to the battle, and He shall do it! That is the glorious reality of Scripture: Not an excuse but an assurance, not a reason to relax but a certainty of victory when once we decide to stand firm, and an assurance that in Him, by Him, because of Him, we most certainly will decide to stand firm. We shall will it for He wills it, and His will, being backed by His power, will assuredly accomplish all its purpose.
Oh, I would love to suppose this is all some passive road to righteousness. It would be wonderful if we could just sit back and let it happen to us. But, that’s not the way of it. We are called to active participation. The result may not be ours to effect, yet we are called to strive with all that is in us anyway. Be that unleavened bread (1Co 5:8). Work out your salvation (Php 2:12). It never ceases to amaze me that Paul, having told us to so labor at this business of salvation ‘with fear and trembling’ immediately turns to the best of reasons for doing so in full confidence: “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Php 2:13). Does your pride need a bit of dashing? Listen, then. It’s not about you. He’s not doing it just so you can have a nice eternity. He’s doing it so that He can have a nice eternity. He’s doing it for His pleasure, and quite frankly, as He has decided to do so, He’ll do it whether you’re pleased by the concept or not. Deal with it, son. You’re His. He has called You with an everlasting love. He has decided, and by His own right arm, He will do it. Indeed, He already has. It is finished.
Now, then, let me address the particulars of the specific bits of leaven Jesus is addressing in this passage. I have no doubt there is a sermon and more in that topic alone, but I’ll try to be more brief in my effort than all that. While other parts of Scripture clearly set the equation of leaven representing sin, Jesus is using it in a more specific sense. Elsewhere, He has identified the leaven of the Pharisees specifically as being their hypocrisy. It is this particular sin that offends most in their case. But, here, while we should certainly keep these other aspects of leaven’s symbolism in view, we are told directly that it is the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees that He was addressing.
Be careful here! It is not every teaching of these groups that He rejects. Elsewhere, you might recall, He admonishes that our righteousness must surely exceed that of the Pharisees if we would enter heaven. As I have seen on previous occasions when studying this group, their original motives were sound, and to the degree that the results of those original motives are found in practice, their practices were sound. It is when practice and opinion are raised up to the level of doctrine though there is no Biblical foundation to support that we run into issues. The issue is that of corrupt doctrine, false doctrine. One needn’t read too far to realize how seriously the Apostles took this issue. Paul is so adamant in cleaving to the One Gospel of Christ that he calls down condemnation upon even the angel that would dare teach contrariwise (Gal 1:8). John tells his charges that when a teacher comes along who is teaching what is not true, they should not even so much as give them a greeting lest others think it implies approval of the message (2Jn 10-11).
This charge to take great care for the singular Truth of the Gospel must remain with us as it has through the ages. The Reformation came about over concern for upholding the Truth. The various councils of the early centuries were more than philosophical squabbles. Divisive though many deem them to be now, they were not. They were wholly taken up with determining the Truth and ensuring that every lie was carved away from the Church. In this, those involved were truer to the God of the Gospels than most of us are today. We are busy trying to unite the church, and to do so we must necessarily ignore our doctrinal differences. There’s a time and a place for that, to be sure, for much of what demarks the differences is really closer to tradition than strict Scriptural teaching. This is not to denigrate the earnestness of those who have established the distinctions. Whether baptism must be by immersion or by whatever means avail may mark out different denominations, but the core understanding of baptism as a rite of the Church remain. Whether this is applicable in the form of infant baptism, or ought best be reserved for the age of reason is a question over which we may scruple. But, whichever form a particular sect has promoted, it has been done on the basis of their best understanding of what the Bible teaches. There remains a fundamental understanding as to the significance.
But, there are points where what is taught is just plain false to the Bible. It may throw out Scripture references to promote its viewpoint, but it’s wrong. It’s corrupt, and being corrupt, it will have a corrupting influence upon those who are thus taught. This brings us to the leaven equation. False doctrine is like that leaven, even as we saw sin is like the leaven. It doesn’t take a lot. It’s not immediately obvious when it’s been introduced. See, if false doctrine were so patently, clearly false as to make us reject it out of hand then it would be no problem. Like the lies of the devil, the wrapper of truthiness (to borrow the current phrase) make it seem acceptable at a quick glance. It sounds right. But, it isn’t. And so, the false message wriggles its way into the mass of a body’s teachings. And there it festers and ferments, like leaven in the dough. It goes unnoticed for long and long, but then one finds the whole is leavened. The whole is corrupted.
This is the process that ruined what the Pharisees had begun. The traditions sounded good. In proper application, they might even have been good. But, tradition wasn’t Law and never could be. What raised it up to that level in their own thinking was that terrible root sin of pride. The research for this study brought out twin errors that define the leaven of the Pharisees: hypocrisy and ‘prideful religiosity’. I think we can safely say that the latter was the first-born, for hypocrisy finds its raison d’etre in pride. Pride leads one to put a better face on their condition than really exists. Pride leads one to display a righteousness that one doesn’t really possess. Pride leads one to see one’s own failings as major issues when noticed in others, yet wholly forgivable in oneself. So, for the purposes of this section, let me reduce it to pride. This is the root issue in the teaching of the Pharisees, in their doctrine. It raises man too high in his own esteem, makes him to suppose himself far, infinitely far better than he truly is. And, failing to sense his own sinfulness and desperation, he therefore fails to seek God and His forgiveness.
Then, there are the Sadducees and their near relatives the Herodians. Here, we also find a pair of underlying issues. These have to do with focus and motive. What was their motivation? Power, first and foremost, and near behind it prestige. Another pair of twins. Power and prestige. Looking at this group, it becomes quite clear just how willing they were to compromise their religion in order to gain and maintain these goals. They were not servants of God but servants of self. They were not seekers of the Kingdom, but wholly creatures of the world. Had God laid out strict requirements for the office of High Priest? It mattered not. Rome didn’t like it, and these men preferred their position to their Truth.
All of their concern was to do with the comforts of this life: health, wealth and fame. These were what mattered, and God, while they certainly laid claim to His name, was but a tool by which they might achieve their true goals. It’s interesting to note the comment one of our references brought to light, that this group was one with a focus on the freedom of the will. Why do I find this interesting? As I look at the landscape of the Church at large, it strikes me that those most tied to a focus on seeing God do miraculous healing, and on God providing health, wealth and happiness for His kids in this life are today also the major proponents of free will as over against the sovereign God Who predestines as He chooses.
Can it be that this matter of free will versus predestination is as serious an issue as that? Honestly, I could almost have placed it in the same group as the debates over the nature of baptism and timing thereof, among those questionable things, those matters of conscience that Paul informs us ought not to divide. But, looking at a connection such as this? Which is the symptom and which the disease? Is the connection a necessary one; that as we lift ourselves up by our notions of free will and a God who must have our nod before He can work His will in us our focus becomes ever more on ourselves, our circumstances, our comfort. After all, who would will for himself a life of want and need? Yes, I know, there have been those who do just that, but they are noteworthy for the very reason that they are the exception, not the rule.
Let me come back to the main thread, here. If I wish to reduce the warning to something fairly simple and straightforward that I can carry from this passage, I can start by noting the two sets of twin errors that have been shown. There are the twins of pride and hypocrisy that we have represented in the Pharisees. There are the twins of power and prestige that we have represented in the Sadducees. But, let me reduce it by one, if only for the alliterative value of doing so: Pride, Power and Prestige; these are the dangers from which we must flee. These are the great corrupting poisons which will inevitably ruin the whole of religion where they are not rooted out.
Listen carefully. There is a form of pride that one most certainly ought to take in their pursuit of God. That which we do for Him we should do with our utmost effort, with our best effort. We should strive in all things to work in a way that we can be proud of. But, ever and always we must simultaneously recall to mind that our best efforts are yet so wholly saturated in sin as to be worthless. All our worth is in Him and Him alone. We do have power and authority because Christ Jesus has chosen to invest His own authority and power in us. Yet, the power is not our power. The authority is not ours to abuse. As with all delegated authority, our right to exercise that power and authority ends the very minute that we wander astray from His directions. He is yet in command.
If we are chasing power for power’s sake, we are assuredly not commanded by Him nor are we seeking Him. We’re chasing the idols of this world. Prestige? Seems to me that wherever the representatives of the Church have found prestige, they have found their undoing. Pomp and circumstance become more the concern than faith. Truth goes out the window in favor of a favorable public opinion. We can see it happening all about us. Look to England, where we find the prestigious head of the state church promoting accommodation with Islam, the very doctrine of the devil! How can this be? Very simple, really. Pride, power and prestige have done their inevitable work, corrupting all sound doctrine in those they infect.
It is time and past time that the people of God recall themselves to living as God has told them. What does He require? Quite simply, to pursue justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him (Mic 6:8). We can’t walk humbly with Him if we’re busy pointing out all our accomplishments. We can’t walk humbly with Him if we don’t have any attention for what He is saying, any interest in what He is showing. We cannot be lovers of kindness when all our concern is all wrapped around self. Pride, power, prestige: those things are the goals of the self seeking. Justice, kindness and humility are the goals of the godly.
