New Thoughts (02/23/11-03/01/11)
For all that I tend to favor the use of the NASB, and other newer, relatively literal translations, I have to say that in cases like this passage, the newer translations have lost something. They tend to want to present a more proper form of English in the narrations, to make it easier on us as we read, so that our tender sensibilities are not jarred by the unfamiliar cadences. Considering the text of Mark’s account, however, a more literal, less Anglicized reading reveals the author to be a particularly adept storyteller. A storyteller tends not to be as concerned with proper tenses and the finer points of grammar as with drawing the listener into the scene, helping them to enter into the story that they might see the imagery more clearly in their mind’s eye. If that requires splitting an infinitive here, or dangling a participle there, so what?
Looking at the passage from Mark in Young’s Literal Translation, for one, reveals an intermixing of tenses that might seem odd to the English Major, but really feels quite natural when heard as if it were a tale being relayed to you by a friend. There is this shifting into and out of the present tense. So, we have this sense of immediacy, of being on the scene, as these self-important ones come out to accost Jesus. They come. They say. They are right there in your imagination even now. And yet, shortly thereafter, we find that they were reasoning amongst themselves. But, when they finally answer Jesus’ demand, they say. Back to the present.
What this suggests to me, this immediacy of the telling, is that the one who was telling the story was there. He is seeing it in his own memories as he is relaying the event. He is himself a storyteller of some ability. If, as is often supposed, Mark’s account is essentially a transcription of Peter’s preaching or recollections, doesn’t this capacity for relaying a story fit with the Peter we meet in the pages of Scripture? His is a characteristic immediacy with all of life. That’s what we see in his instantaneous and often overblown responses to Jesus; constantly jumping right out to the extreme before Jesus reels him back in to where he ought to be. But, it seems to me this also befits his history as a fisherman. Those hours spent in the boats, hours spent ashore mending nets, those are hours in which a very few men are in company with one another with little to distract from the drudgery of daily toil. To our own time, the association between the men who go out to the sea in boats and the telling of tales remains strong. I see no reason to suppose it was different in the time of the apostles.
If you have one of those older translations around, before the translators felt it necessary to point out how new their work was, it would be worth your while to suffer the antiquated English of those translations if only to hear the storyteller’s style. The updated, newer than New American Standard at least flags this storyteller’s usage with an asterisk, yet feel the need to shift to the past tense in proper English fashion. It’s rather a shame, to my thinking. After all, even the most proper of us are not so far removed from the tale tellers as to be thrown off by this style. At any rate, lay hold of some translation where you can spot these ‘historical presents’ and either read them or shift them mentally into the present tense immediacy with which the authors originally imbued them. It just makes the whole account that much more personal, that much more accessible. This is, by the way, a stylistic device that John uses quite commonly as well.
Turning to that question with which the authorities confront Jesus, there is again a structure to the question which might seem a bit odd to our ears. “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” I think our tendency would simply be to ask, “Who authorized this?” We don’t have a great deal of interest in delegated authority, I don’t think. Frankly, in our society we don’t have a great deal of respect for authority in any form, but the farther down the ranks, or the chain of delegation that authority is, the less it even impinges upon our considerations.
Let’s take a very current example from events of the day. We see the chief authorities in Libya being challenged by their own populace, and their response has been to bomb the very people they claim rule over. Meanwhile, here at home, eyes and ears await the official response. What will our President say? Well, as it stands, he says nothing, but rather leaves it to his Secretary of State to respond. But, this is a good two or three links down that chain of authority. It just doesn’t seem to carry the weight that the situation calls for. I mean, what does the average American care about pronouncements made at this level? They have no particular impact on us. They don’t typically lead to such legislative activities as would have bearing on our day to day activities. The President? Well, first and foremost, he’s our representative to the world, yes? So, what he says, since it reflects upon us for good or ill, will be viewed as having importance for us. Has he represented us well, or to our shame? Since reputation matters to us, this matters to us. Secondly, he has great influence, if not actual control, over the direction of the nation. Will he involve us in this Libyan issue, or will he steer us clear? This is a matter in which lives are at stake, potentially the lives of people we know, perhaps even of family. So, yes, when and if he speaks, we have cause to pay attention. But, his underlings? Who cares?
If we shift ourselves back into this period of history into which we peer, however, I think we find the perspective much different. Delegated authority holds a higher esteem, but it is still only as valuable as its source. In a sense, then, the two halves of the priests’ question are the same, and yet, they also relay a different perspective as to their challenge. The first half really comes across more like, “What right do you have to do what you have done?” This, as some of the footnotes indicate, points most fully back at His actions taken against the courtyard marketplace. Oh, yes! He had hit them where it hurt them most: Right in the pocketbook! For all that they preened and posed to keep their piety and their power clearly visible in the public eye, it was really the profits that mattered. This marketplace was, after all, for their income. Oh, sure, it was dressed up in nice religious clothing. It was to make it easier for those coming from far places. It’s such a pain transporting livestock for the sacrifice. Just buy it here. It’s only a slight mark up, and really, who’s going to notice? As for the moneychangers, well: that was mostly for foreigners anyway, and who really gives a fig about them? But, that cut off the top of every sale? A fine bit of a paycheck, that!
So, this One who had so thoroughly disrupted the trade they profited by had really cut them to the quick. It was bad enough that He was undermining their popularity, denting the public opinion of their righteousness. Really, I don’t know how much they saw Him as a threat to their power or position. That would depend on the degree to which they considered Him to be Who He said He was. But, as a threat to their bank accounts, He’d already proven Himself. This could not be allowed to continue! He must be brought down a notch or two. The public must be given to understand Him to be a fraud. So, they come: What gives you the right?
The implication, of course, is that those asking the question are the authority. The crowds would certainly know them as such. So, the immediate point of their question is to make painfully clear to one and all that they did not authorize Him, did not condone His actions, nor supported His words. Of course, to their way of thinking, it was utterly inappropriate that anybody would claim to be a teacher if they had not come from their own schools.
Whose disciple were you? Who taught you? This brings us to the second half of the question. The assumption that is evident in that question is that He must have gotten His message from some man. After all, that’s how it works. One rabbi passes on to another. Which rabbi was He following? Perhaps, in dealing with this problem, they were going to need to go farther than just this Jesus fellow. But, it seems to me that the assumption is that however He answers, it will be the name of some rabbi or some other religious leader type, however little known, that He will point to as His authorizer.
The thing to be aware of, linguistically speaking, is that this authority about which they ask is a delegated authority. There is no room in their question, nor in their thinking, for the authority of a ruling sort. One might very well question whether their was room in their thinking for the Authority of God, which may have played into the reply Jesus makes to their inquiry. But, I’ll get to that in its proper place.
Before I do, I should like to consider one possible doctrinal aspect to this exchange between the priests and the Master. I suggest that one point we ought to take away from this passage on a doctrinal level is that God is not required to give answer to man. I should note as well that there is a corollary point to be considered: Man is required to give answer to God. In simplest sketch, note that Jesus takes absolute charge of the conversation. They demand an answer of Him and He outright refuses, except they first answer Him. Given their weasel answer, He opts not to provide them with any answer to their inquiry. This provides us the first point: God is not required to give answer to man. But, notice as well the way His own question is posited in Mark’s text. Having asked His question, He appends a command: “Answer Me.”
That they do should already in part confirm His authority, whether they know and accept its provenance or not. There is something irresistible in the command of Jesus, the command of God. Is it always thus? Clearly not, for we resist entirely too often and too easily. But, when that command comes, when it is the Voice, failure to comply is really not an option, is it? And, I have little doubt at all that the Voice was applied here. You will answer! After all, He Who asks not only has the authority, He Is the Authority.
I could almost be convinced that the reason they answer Him is much the same as the reason for the answer they give; that they were driven by a need to protect their reputation. However, which would have saved more face, to insist that their own authority did not require them to heed this demand for an answer, or to answer with such a claim of ignorance as they do? No, I should think that asserting their own authority would have been the more effective move for preserving dignity. But, something in that “Answer Me” demanded compliance. In fact, it could be posited that their acceding to the demand of that command gave the very answer that Jesus did not. That they thus set themselves under the authority of His command is indication that they recognized the Authority from Whom He derived His own. It may even be the case that they recognized that His Authority was not really so much a delegated authority after all.
I am mindful of that reaction to come when they come to arrest Jesus in the garden. Two words Jesus speaks, and these mighty warriors who have come for Him fall back quaking. “I AM”. That’s all it took. Why? Because in those two words, they were hearing the Voice. It was the same Voice that had thundered out its approval of this Son of God. It is the absolute embodiment of Authority. It is a sound that is only barely veiled from revealing the full manifestation of God in our presence. I think that same imminence is there in that demand Jesus makes, “Answer Me!”
I have written often of that moment of crisis into which God tends to draw us. There is that time when procrastination is no longer an option. The situation has been laid out, and a choice is demanded. It is like that with us in that moment when salvation comes. True, we have been prepared and counseled such that the choice we make in that crisis is already determined. But, for us in that moment of decision, the sense of crisis is no less for all that. After all, we generally don’t know that the outcome is certain already. We just feel the weight of decision. Pride or salvation? Which shall it be? Is this truly so real? Can I trust it? Oh! But, what will people think? On the other hand, what if this is real and I refuse it? What hope then? Pride or salvation, which shall it be? It really is something of a crisis in our thinking.
These men, confronted with the question Jesus poses, are really in that very same crisis. There is that within them that knows full well Who authorized Jesus, knows full well Who authorized John, for that matter. And, they know their guilt for having refused to acknowledge the need John was making clear. They refused to change, to repent, to reform their lives in a real accord with God’s plan. Here, confronting Jesus, they know – at some level they know – Who they’re trying to take down. They are very much facing this dilemma, whether to save pride or pursue salvation. Sadly, they choose pride.
Here is the thing: They have attempted what Jesus successfully achieves. They were trying to demand an answer from Him. But there’s one problem with that: God is not required to give answer to man. This being my chief doctrinal point from this passage of Scripture, I’d like to dwell on it for a moment or two. One first thing I should like to make note of is the way in which this scene parallels the courtroom scene from Job. For all that Job was a righteous man, in the midst of his trials, he thought to question God as to the justness of his situation. What did I do? How do I deserve this treatment? God! This is not like You!
The sentiments may not be that directly expressed, but they lie at the heart of his comments. So, after all the ‘wise’ counsel he receives from his friends, we arrive at Job 38, wherein God answers Job directly. For two full chapters, we hear God laying out His own credentials and asking Job to consider whether he can match them, which of course, he cannot. Then we arrive at His concluding remark: “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it” (Job 40:2). Job can but confess his error in having questioned the Lord’s judgment. God returns to pointing out His achievements, such things as Job could never even imagine having done, which leads to a second confession. “I know that You can do all things, and no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Job faced this crisis and came through it. “Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).
This is the same scene playing out in that courtyard. The ‘authorities’ have come out to accuse Jesus of acting improperly, and Jesus has in that one brief question made clear that they are confronting the One Whom they claim as their own source of authority. In His, “Answer Me”, they are put in that same spot Job was set in, “Let him who reproves God answer it.” Sadly for them, they faced the crisis and failed utterly. Facing the choice of standing firm on their pride or repenting unto salvation, they stood firm. But, that second confession of Job’s stands. “No purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” They could not therefore refuse to answer at all, but their answer was as near to no answer as they dared make it. And, though I would hold that Jesus had very clearly answered their question, yet He stands, rejecting their authority to demand answers of Him. “I will not tell you.”
Let me take a bit of an excursion here. Jesus was scrupulous in observing the demands of that system of religion God had instituted, of which these men, for all their corruption, were still representatives. We see Him comply, for example, with the baptism of John, a baptism of repentance for Him Who had no need to repent. Why did He do so? Because He thus fulfilled the requirements of the kingdom, as befit Him. No, He had no need to repent, yet He would undergo the baptism He required of all Who would follow.
I then turn my thoughts to David, in that period between his anointing as king and his ascent to the throne. Throughout that period, he insisted that the reigning king, the current authority, be duly honored. He would not suffer his men to do anything against Saul, even though Saul was after his own head. Even though he knew he had God’s appointment to Saul’s position, he did nothing to make that promise a reality. Why? Because Saul, for all his failings, was still God’s appointed, and he would leave it to God to determine the time of that appointment’s ending.
So, then: I would expect Jesus, the perfect seed of David’s line, to likewise respect such authorities as God appoints. One would expect that the priesthood of His holy temple might qualify for that respect. So, how is it that we have a defiant Jesus here, refusing to give answer to their question? What I think we must conclude is that these men had long ceased to have any authority, at least any authority from God’s hand. And, as we will later hear Jesus explain to Pilate, there is no other authority except that which God deigns to delegate. There is, then, nothing in these men that requires His obedience.
This principle has been found as a guiding point for much of the Church. It is one of the primary issues that the Protestants hold against the church of Rome. No man may compel our obedience except as God has delegated authority upon that man. The Pilgrims, if my memory is accurate, would promulgate the concept that we ought follow no man farther than he himself follows God. This is of a piece with the cry of Sola Scriptura which was so much a part of the Reformation. God’s Word alone has the authority to bind conscience. Man may teach and preach, but his efforts in that regard are only as good as his adherence to the Word, and those who sit under their ministrations are duty bound to confirm what is heard with what is Written.
Coming back to the passage at hand, what Jesus’ reaction tells me is that these men had outstayed their authorization. Of course, a bit of historical understanding makes that pretty clear anyway. The high priest, an office which was to be by God’s appointment and held for life, had become an office filled by political appointees. God did not determine, Rome did. And even in this time, we find there are retired high priests muddying the waters of leadership.
It comes to this: Jesus could very well be turning their very question back upon them: Who authorized you? It wasn’t God. It was Caesar. It was Herod. It was Pilate. They couldn’t even point back down their lineage to answer the question at this stage; couldn’t claim Aaronic descent or Abrahamic origins as authorization. Nope. It was Gentiles: the same Gentiles that they wouldn’t suffer to enter the Holy Place, the same Gentiles whose own God-appointed courts they were currently complaining in. Yes. They did all they could, it seems, to keep the Gentiles who would come to God from coming, and yet the only authority they could honestly point to was handed to them by those very Gentiles. And they think to ask Messiah whence His authority derives?
In actuality, I would say that Jesus, by His question and by His response, has indeed turned their question back upon them. In fact, I would say that the same question is being asked in three parts. There is that question the priests pose to Jesus: Who authorized you? There is the question Jesus poses in response: Who authorized John? And, I think we ought to hear the implication in that question that the answer to His question is in turn the answer to theirs. Then, there is the unspoken question which is answered in their confessed ignorance, however dishonest that answer: Who authorized you priests? The answer to that one, as I said, is seen in their answer to His question. “We don’t know.” Truth be told, they do know, and they set themselves firmly opposite what they know. As such, the full answer to that unspoken question is that their authority comes from exactly the opposite source as that from which John’s and Jesus’ authority derives.
Can I make one further point before I go in a new direction? There is one lesson further that we ought to draw from this exchange. These leaders were doing everything in their power to avoid answering the question. The answer they gave we might characterize as weasel-words or prevarication or simply an outright lie. It’s certainly evasive. “We don’t know.” It comes down to, “we do know, but we don’t want to say.” We’d rather not answer, if it’s all the same to you. But, there is this we should understand. When God asks, there is no avoiding the answer. The crisis demands it. “Choose you this day.” There will be no failing to choose. To attempt to avoid the choice is to have made it. To attempt a non-answer is to have answered. I come back to that marvelous confession that Job makes: “No purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). If His purpose is for you to answer, you will answer. Rest assured in that!
Looking once more at the question Jesus levels back at those come to challenge Him, it strikes me as one of the clearest cases of Jesus on the attack. From the outset of my pursuit of this particular study I have had this thought in the back of my mind. It is something I picked up years ago from a text discussing the parables of Jesus. This text saw the parable as a weapon in Jesus’ hands, a means by which He assaulted the religious authorities. Whether one holds that to be the case with all of the parables, I think there are certainly those, particularly in this closing period, which would fit such a description. I further suggest that this particular interchange must certainly be seen as an assault, an intentional confrontation. He may not have instigated the interaction, but He’s certainly taking the opportunity to drive home His own barb, if you will.
Given that this is Jesus we have in view, I do not suppose for a moment that we should think of this as some sort of reaction from a wounded ego. More appropriately, we might see it as the rebuke of the true King upon these poseurs, these imposters who claim to represent His government and yet reject His governance. This is, then, an assertion of legitimate authority and not a display of petulance.
The attack Jesus makes against these false shepherds operates on a number of levels. As I have suggested already, it serves to answer their question by indirect means. They had their fears of what would follow if they admitted John’s authority as coming from God. I suspect, however, that what they were intended to understand was that the answer as regarded John’s authority was the same as applied to Jesus. There was, of course, the understanding on Jesus’ part that they would not willingly admit to knowing that John was God’s man, and for the very reasons here stated: It would bring their own disobedience into the clear light of day, and that they would not tolerate. So, we have this first aspect to the attack, essentially pointing up the fact that they already knew the answer and had nonetheless arrayed themselves against not only Him, but the One Who sent Him.
There is another, far more mundane aspect to this attack as well. Quite simply, Jesus is fully aware of the attempted attack upon Himself. He knows that this question is intended as a trap for Him, one to which He can give no safe answer. In essence, the very dilemma these men perceive in answering His question is the dilemma they sought to catch Him in. Had He claimed direct authorization from heaven, they would doubtless have refused the claim, and likely jumped straight to blasphemy charges. This is, after all, how they eventually respond to Him anyway. To have answered their question openly and honestly at this stage would simply have advanced the schedule a bit. But, Jesus didn’t come to advance God’s schedule, only to implement it.
Had He instead prevaricated, the problems become manifold. First, He would then open Himself to their denunciation, lose influence upon the people. If, after all, He is teaching and acting on no more than earthly authority, then what cause has any man to follow Him? There is also the risk that He opens Himself up to charges for His actions in the temple courtyard. If He’s not here on God’s authority, He’s subject to temple justice for this outrage. Most importantly, though, had He opted to lie He would have failed of His mission. The perfection of His sacrifice would become an impossibility and all would be lost. With that in mind, praise God He stood firm!
A third aspect to this attack involves the unmasking of hypocrisy. This is something Jesus has consistently refused to leave untouched throughout His ministry. If there is one thing our Lord and Savior simply refuses to tolerate it’s the hypocrisy of those who claim a piety that simply does not exist. Consider the case. Here we have the chief priests, whose primary function is to bear the prayers of the people before God, a function requiring a particularly high degree of purity on their parts as they are before His face. Here we have the scribes, the purported experts on the content, meaning and right application of Scripture, not to mention the interpreters of the prophecies. Here we have the elders, the wise greybeards of the public, who ought to be best equipped to provide role models for those who come after.
These men, these pillars of the religious community, are asked a relatively simple question. They are asked to assess this prophet John, whether he was legitimate or not. That really is the question, just as it is really the question they are asking of Jesus. Was John acting on God’s direction, or just fevered imagination? Was he a holy man, or some outcast from the Essenes? What’s your reading? How do you advise your flocks on this matter?
What we are told of their discussion in considering how to answer makes it very clear that these under shepherds of the God of Truth had no real concern for Truth. Their debate is not as to the validity of John, the nature of his ministry, the soundness of his teaching or lack thereof. This doesn’t even enter into the equation for these guys! They have one concern and one concern alone. That concern is for their hides.
I contend that they knew full well where the truth of the matter lay, but as their conversation reveals, they also understood that admitting what they knew would simply lay them open to a greater condemnation. But, this is only that much more revealing! They knew they deserved condemnation. They knew what they had done before God in refusing to heed John’s message. They knew full well that they were in outright rebellion against the kingdom of God which John announced! Yet, somehow, they thought that having to admit of this fact before man was a greater risk to their wellbeing than having it known already before God! Shocking, isn’t it? Not really, or it shouldn’t be. We play the same game all the time. But I’ll come back to that point later.
For now, the major issue at hand is that these arbiters of Truth are more concerned about public opinion than public education. These teachers of God’s people are afraid to suggest what may be counter to popular opinion. Everybody thinks it’s true, so even if we felt certain he wasn’t a prophet, we could hardly say so! Not that any such belief would have guided this answer from them, either. Again, their concern wasn’t with speaking truly, but with speaking what would best preserve their dignity and authority. And for this, they opted an answer pleading total ignorance on the matter! Hard to imagine that being the best option, but such was their reasoning. Keep this in the forefront of your mind, though: The answer they chose was chosen for one reason and one reason only: self-preservation before man. Not even the smallest of thoughts were given to God in this deliberation. Such were these men of God, such was their hypocrisy. By this one question Jesus posed to them, that hypocrisy is laid bare for all who care to see it.
The final aspect of this attack which I should like to note is that Jesus has turned their question right back on their own heads. Just as they have asked Him where His authority comes from, this question neatly reverses the trajectory and demands of them where their own authority comes from. In the same way that it reveals their hypocrisy, it reveals the answer to that question. See, if their authority were from God, then it would be God they feared, God they obeyed, and God’s perspective which they sought in giving answer. I could go so far as to say if their authority were from God, they would have clearly seen that same authority operating in John and certainly in Jesus. That they even had to think about the answer already indicates that they are part of some other governing body.
More revealing, though, is the nature of their deliberation. What their deliberation shows is that they function under a fear of man. What that fear of man in turn indicates is that it is man who is their source of authority, at least so far as they are concerned. There is a fine old quote, I forget where I first came across it. I would venture to say it was either Calvin, Matthew Henry, or C. S. Lewis. I’m thinking it was the latter. At any rate, the saying goes something along the lines of, “A man will either fear God or he will fear everything else but God.” I’m sure I’m wording that more poorly than the original, but the point is sufficiently clear.
What I see revealed here, though, is that this thing we opt to fear is the thing from which we think to derive our authority. One could argue that we vest that thing with authority. OK. This is not a direction I had expected to go in for this study, but here it is, and I must pursue. Now, the clear truth of the matter is, as we well know, that all authority comes from God else it is no authority at all. That is Truth. But, our perceptions tend to be a different thing. Considering this point, it is perception that matters.
Let me try it this way: what you fear is what you will obey. I don’t know if you realize how much power is vested in that statement. This is reason for us to stop getting quite so worked up about how the devil is doing this and doing that. No, we are not ignorant of his efforts, nor do we do ourselves any favors by acting as if he is not doing everything in his power to bring us down. But, his power is not the thing we ought to fear. Fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you fear Him (Lk 12:5)!
Here, what we are seeing is fear of man, a popular malady amongst not only the lost but also the saved. It is fear of man that directs their deliberations, and it is from man that they perceive their own authority as deriving. Politically, this was certainly true at the time. Rome, not God, was in charge, at least so far as these men were concerned. Of all the people in all of Israel who should have known better, who should have recognized that whatever the present circumstance, God remained in control, these men should have been firm in that understanding. Yet, they were utterly cowed by circumstance. They were meekly submitted to Roman corruption of God’s order. Hey, you want to make the priesthood a political office? Fine! You want to change the office of high priest from a lifetime position to employee at will? No problem! Just let us have our fineries, our perks, and you do what you please, sir. Well, then, whom were they serving? God? Not this way.
But, this is where the attitude begins. We allow the governing powers of our society to shape the behaviors, the activities, the boundaries of the Church. We vest them with an authority to which they have no proper right. Fear sets in. Big Brother says we must not speak on this subject or that, lest they invoke steep financial penalties against us. We might lose our tax-free status! But, don’t you see? That tax-free status, nice though it is, has become the bit in your mouth, constraining you to go only where the one holding the reins points you. Fear of man.
Soon, this spreads, as we see it with the example set on the page before us. Soon, it’s not just those who hold some form of earthly authority to whom we feel the need to bow and scrape. Even the most powerless hold power over us! Look at this! The very same unwashed masses of whom these elites thought so little – feh! What do they know of Torah? What do they know of righteousness? – they are now bowed down to. Their answer is shaped to avoid offending those whose opinions they suppose to be of absolutely no worth! Can you imagine!
Fast forward. What has happened to the church of today? Be very certain that God has, as He ever does, preserved a remnant that does not bow its knee to the tides of culture. But, look around! We have raging debates in the pulpit as to whether the church should condone or condemn homosexuality! We have weasel-word preachers afraid to actually claim Christianity is the Truth and not just one amongst a myriad of equally valid religious viewpoints. We have a climate in which you can almost certainly find something wearing the church label that will condone your own chosen peccadilloes. We have been silenced. Why? Did God tell us to be quiet? Hardly. But, society has, and in many cases we have decided to fear society rather than God. For shame!
Popular sentiment holds that history is doomed to repeat itself. That may stem in part from Santayana’s famous point that those who ignore history are thereby doomed to repeat it. I suppose, given our propensity for doing just that, it might seem reasonable to simply drop the qualifier and jump to the conclusion. But, we must not! We, of all people, ought to be such as learn from the history God has unrolled before our arrival. He has seen to it that we have record of what is past. He has seen to it that here, in the pages of Scripture, we have not just the bare notes of history, but history imbued with the purpose of understanding, of instructing our present, lest we indeed repeat the errors it contains. And yet…
For today, I want to close concentrated upon that thought: that the things we fear we invest with authority over ourselves. If we continue to function under the fear of man, of public opinion, we shall rapidly become utterly powerless, just as the officialdom we see before us in the text. If, instead, we would truly fear God, if we would become wholly and utterly convinced that He really is AUTHORITY, that He really and truly means what He says, that He really and truly does utterly abhor every least sin, every least infraction against His holy rule; well, how would we then live?
Really, how would we react to a sermon like those Jonathon Edwards used to deliver? How would we react were we so forcibly reminded of the wrath of God? Culture has conditioned us to sound only the note of “God is Love!”, and has so warped our understanding of love, that the very word conjures up images of 60’s poster art. Our whole sense of love, in this culture, is occupied with a flower-child understanding of the matter, devoid of any real depth of knowledge. It’s all feeling, no thought. It’s all free and undemanding and wonderful. It’s no fault! If one of us changes our minds later, hey! No problem. Find somebody else. But, this has nothing to do with the love of God for us, nor of the love we ought surely to have for Him! That love (at least as regards our love for Him) has room for fear. This just utterly confuses our refined sense of things, but it’s the reality. It’s the Truth, and I for one need to recall myself to the power of it.
As I have noted, he answer to the question of John’s authority is of necessity the answer to the question of Jesus’ authority. Consider what John’s fundamental message was. The kingdom draws nigh. The king is coming. Then comes that marvelous day on which he would point out Jesus and proclaim, “behold the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29). That he repeated this to his disciples the next day (Jn 1:36), might suggest that, he being the forerunner of Messiah, he never really stopped saying it. Don’t think this point was lost on the Pharisees. It is at least a portion of the hesitancy they feel in answering honestly. They know that if they acknowledge John’s authority, they will have to acknowledge Jesus’ authority as well.
But, there is worse to consider. John didn’t just say, “here comes the kingdom!” He made very clear that this was not the good news it should have been. It was more a message of, “here comes the kingdom, and you’re not even close to ready.” John, you see, was a true prophet. He wasn’t going to stop with telling people the good parts only. He wasn’t going to assume everybody already knew their problems and what they needed to hear from the prophet was solutions. Nope. John was one to make sure the problems were fully exposed and well understood. Only then is there any value in pointing out the answer.
Note the shape of his message, as we have it, for example, in Luke 3:8-9. Don’t think that calling yourself God’s people will do it. Pointing your way back to Abraham isn’t going to cover your sins. No! You need to repent, and your life needs to show that you meant it. Understand this very clearly: The axe is already laid at the root of the trees. You ought perhaps to picture the lumberjack spitting on his hands and rubbing them together in preparation for grabbing that axe, making his backswing and getting down to business. And, once he goes to it, every last fruitless tree will be cut down and burned. Believe me, the leaders down there in Jerusalem had heard the message. It may have come to them second or third hand, but it had come to them. This is the even larger part of their concern, as we have it expressed in their deliberations. If we acknowledge John’s authority, we will have to answer for our failure.
This certainly applies on the personal level, and I do fully intend to get to that point. But, as John was preaching to a nation, I think it behooves us to consider that this applied on a national level, and still does. For Israel, the coming of Messiah required a very real national cleansing. The rabbis had a sense that this was so, and taught it as a prerequisite for the event. I suspect that their teaching was along the lines of suggesting that Messiah couldn’t or wouldn’t come until and unless Israel got her act together and returned to the ways of the ancient faith upon which she was founded. This seems to be the way we naturally think of things. Whether such a way of thinking would have been equally natural in that time and culture I cannot really say, but it would not surprise me to find it so. The nature of the fallen, after all, does not change much with time. The window-dressing of current concepts of civility and decorum may shift, but the underlying habits of thought?
So, they taught this, shall we say, half-truth. Yes, Messiah’s coming required a national cleansing. That was quite accurate. That is, in fact, the point John makes. The mistake was in supposing that Messiah was waiting on them to get their part done, that their failure to act would hold off His arrival indefinitely until they were ready. We have this same distortion to our thinking often enough today. It seems our nature cannot help but imagine its way back into control. No, no! God cannot save us unless we allow Him. He cannot heal us unless we permit Him. Christ won’t return until we do. Notice that each of these thoughts, however we may couch them and paint them over with a pious veneer, put us in the driver’s seat. We are in charge. God may be all powerful, but only if we don’t stop Him! That’s the way we are inclined to view things. If we forget to pray, He won’t be able to act!
Who do we think we are? If God is all powerful, then certainly nothing I do is going to thwart His efforts, nor anything I neglect to do. Go back again to that marvelous confession from Job. “No purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). What He has determined, you, little man, are not about to nullify. This really ought to cleanse our thinking entirely. It also, when once we have trained ourselves to think aright, ought to give us every confidence in this God we serve. Face it. If this were not the Truth of God, we would have no reason to care one whit about His views. If I can stop God by my own will, with my own choosing; if I can even stall Him by my stubbornness, then frankly, He isn’t God. This popular, “God is a gentleman. He would never force Himself on you,” declaration; this is such tripe, so wholly at odds with what He declares of Himself. Face it: If He had not forced Himself on you, you would still be strolling the streets of Hell oblivious to your deadly danger. No one comes to the Son except the Father calls. That is the clear message. Oh, indeed, seek and you shall find, but in truth, none seeks anything but a way around God, until He comes and plants faith within the soul.
On this national scale, I hear something of this same sense of God won’t, God wouldn’t, God can’t, when it comes to our own day and age. It is a false sense. If you looked at Jerusalem at this point in history when Jesus walked, “the Temple! the Temple!” was the cry of assurance. Never mind that they had plenty of history to look upon and see what became of God’s people when they began depending on a symbol rather than the Reality. See? His house is here. He would never suffer Himself to lose that house. So, we can do what we want. We’re safe. Yes, this thinking really was the way of it. Indeed, read of Jerusalem’s fall, and see how little regard they had for God or His temple. It was just a totem for them, and God doesn’t deal well with totems. Idolatry may well be the chief thing He hates above all other crimes.
This tendency to suppose the human edifices of religion are sufficient to contravene against the enormity of the nation’s sins doesn’t fade. Today, you may not hear it said of particularly grand cathedrals or structures of that nature. But, consider the security we tend to try and wrap about ourselves on the premise that we fund and fuel so much of the modern missionary effort. Do we really not understand that when the time comes for a national punishment, God is perfectly capable of relocating those efforts? Do we really fail so utterly to grasp the flow of history? Do we really fail to see that every attempt to establish this nation or that as uniquely protected by God has been shown to be futile? Worse, it has proven to be such a poison as corrupts the national soul, leading to the same neglect seen in Jerusalem’s fall. The false confidence that began with at least the foundational understanding of something being accomplished for the Kingdom of God loses all interest in the Kingdom of God and settles for a confidence with no foundation at all.
We place our hope on the concrete things about us, perhaps with some lingering conception that there was once a spiritual underpinning to these things. Darned if we can remember what those were, though. No. Memory fades, and with it, our sense of the divine. So, we settle, as Paul points out, for things of our own creation. We exchange the glory of incorruptible, infinite God for an image: something perhaps in the form of man, or of creature. Why, in our wondrous modernity, we don’t even care for such forms. Something in the form of a box will do, or a form wholly unidentifiable.
Truly, we live in an age that idolizes the ugly. Just look about at the trends of culture. Body piercings, head-to-toe tattoos, torn clothing, ‘art’ composed to shock and disgust. Listen to the music, if it can still be considered as such. Melody is gone. For the most part, any hint of talent is gone. I’ll confess that back at the dawn of the punk rock period, I thought that was pretty cool, myself. Hah! They celebrate their utter lack of talent. Hah! Listen to the words they’re using! But, the cool faded pretty quickly, to what was at most a mild amusement. Truth be told, this was a root of what we see today. It is now so commonplace to use the language that shocked us in the seventies that the listener today may not even notice them go by. The ‘artiste’ must go to much greater lengths to shock, to get a rise out of the audience. And, they’re more than willing to do whatever it takes. So, we have art projects consisting of bodily excretions, and we have declared such things to be, if not beautiful, then at least acceptable. What is wrong with us?
Lay this side by side with the utterly evil practices condoned by law. Lay this together with legalized murder of the most vulnerable of our citizens, the baby in womb or the elder in decline. Lay this together with a growing propensity to insist that homosexuality is not merely a fact of life, it’s normal and even good. Why, we should teach it to our kids, see if maybe it’s something for them to pursue. At what point does the tide of cultural depravity rise to such height that no historical record of fine Christian foundations will really matter?
Oh, that we might recognize our danger! Listen! If Israel, a nation – the only nation that could point to God as her founder, was not kept safe by that reality, how can we suppose that we will be? These things were written for our benefit, that we might see the errors and avoid them. These things were written to stand as our tutors. God is our Father. As any good parent, He seeks that we might learn from the mistakes of our parents, of our older siblings so as not to repeat them. Sadly, like the children we once were (and still are), we see the mistakes as something to try out, rather than something to avoid.
All of this builds up to this main point: For Israel, the issue was that Messiah was coming and the nation was in desperate need of a very real moral cleansing. For us today, the issue is pretty much wholly unchanged. Messiah is coming again, and again the nations are in desperate need of a very real moral cleansing. Worse yet, whereas Messiah came to save and not to judge that first time, this time He comes as the conquering King. This time, He reigns like the kings of old, like the King He Is. Obedience is no longer optional. It is required. Worship and honor are no longer optional. Every knee shall bow, even if it must be firmly thwacked from the rear to force the point. Every tongue shall confess, whether it be with joy inexpressible or utmost apprehension, that He truly is Lord of all. And, in that return, the judgment He has held off for millennia on end will be held off no more. The Last Day remains ahead of us, but for how long, we are not permitted to know. All we are told is that it shall come without warning, at a time unexpected. And, whenever that time may be, we are in no way ready for it. I pray we shall find cause to prepare, to repent and bring forth fruits in keeping with that repentance, before our Judge and King declares that the time is come.
While I remain in this matter of the Pharisees and their response, I want to reconsider something Jesus had said on this subject earlier on. Back in Luke 7:26, Jesus is talking to His own followers after some of John’s had come from John in his imprisonment. Jesus asks His listeners about John, as to why they had gone to see him. Clearly, they went because they supposed him to be a prophet, and this status Jesus confirms and amplifies: He is more than a prophet. He is that one foretold, the messenger sent before Messiah to prepare His way. He amplifies still more: There has not been one greater than John ever born to woman. This is high praise, indeed! But, He closes with a bit of a stinger: “Yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John” (Lk 7:28). Understand, of course, that this is not a slap at John, but rather a simple point made as to the relative value of the before and the after.
What I am more interested in considering today, though, is the response. Look at the next two verses there in Luke’s account. “When all the people and the tax-gatherers heard, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John.” One quick side-note here: Even Luke has picked up this habit, it seems, of considering the tax-gatherers as no longer being of the people. But, perhaps it is only intended to increase the wonder at what was happening. Even the most despised, spat upon, lowest of the low members of the social order got it, and accepted it. These, after all, had got it when John said there was need to repent, had accepted it, had acted on it. Their lives now bore the fruits of that repentance. The forerunner had indeed prepared the way for Messiah to Whom they now attended.
But, then comes Luke 7:30: “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.” Wow! That is such a powerfully sorrowful statement. They rejected God’s purpose for themselves. Isn’t that cause for tears? Here were the ones positioned and prepared to lead the revival of all revivals, and they wouldn’t take the first step. Messiah Himself, the only One among those born of woman who had no need to repent, had taken that step in obedience, but these couldn’t bring themselves to do so. Thus, when Messiah stands before them, they remain wholly unprepared, a way unfit for the King. And, as they rejected God’s purpose, God’s purpose is become to reject them.
We must, of course, recognize that this statement remains bound by the fact of God’s omnipotence and omniscience. He is no more put off His game by their rejection than He was by Babylon and Assyria. He is no more blindsided by their stubbornness than He was by the Cross. All proceeds according to His perfect plan, and yet, His perfect plan so often lays out the clear possibility that things could have been different. Israel’s history had always included a period for Saul’s reign, yet as history unfolded, even well before his rise, it had been made clear that a better course had been available.
This is a difficult thing to hold in our thoughts. It’s easy to slip into fatalistic thinking, supposing that the course of our lives is so fully programmed and scheduled that nothing we choose to say or do really matters. This is false. On the other side of things, it is easier yet for us to suppose that our choices are truly capable of stopping God’s plan, altering it to suit our own tastes. This is equally false. We are moral agents, and we have not only the capacity for choosing but the responsibility for doing so. Yet, we remain the creatures of an all-powerful God, God Who sits athwart all time, God Who knows the end from the beginning, because He has ordained the end from the beginning.
We must grasp this in what Luke has just said. The Pharisees and the lawyers, in rejecting God’s purpose for themselves, did not somehow require God to return to the drawing board to come up with a plan B. No! This was fully expected and accounted for. Yet, as God’s plan and purpose continued to unfold, it was also painfully clear that for them, there could have been a far better outcome, had they had the moral fortitude to face themselves honestly.
There is no truer statement, I think, than that pride kills. What else kept these men from acknowledging a clear work of God in their midst? What else led them to be more concerned with genetic pedigree than Godly inspiration? These who were supposed to be servants of the Most High God had instead set themselves as the ones to be served. In their thinking, however they might have drawn from God’s revealed will in Torah to lend support to their theories, it was really their determination that mattered. If they had not trained and accredited the preacher, the preacher had no business preaching. If the prophet was not from out of one of their schools, then he couldn’t possibly be legitimate. Not that Torah gave them any good reason to hold such views. But, they could always cobble together something that sounded reasonable. Of course, so could the Devil.
I am not so much interested in exploring the failings of the leadership of that time as I am in seeking out how these same things are so glaringly obvious in my own life. Though it pains me, I would have to confess to some of these same prejudices. I, too, tend to want a pastor with a pedigree. Even though I know the sad state of many of our seminaries, the degree of unbelief being promulgated from these most unlikely of places, yet I have a certain preference for one who has undergone the serious training a pastor ought to have, in my thinking. I want a teacher who has been taught how to properly divide the Word and how to properly apply it. I want a teacher who can make his points without resorting to out of context misapplications of Scripture. Yet, I am also aware of some fine pastors who really don’t have that training. I am also keenly aware (as I must be) that a degree does not automatically confer competence, nor does its lack automatically imply there is no competence.
Still, there is something in me that wants that proper derivation of the authority to speak on the subject of God (as long as I am not myself held to that standard!) For shame. The simplest of truths is that by and large, were our standards used as the qualifiers for who might speak God’s Word to us we would fail doubly. We would fail first in that we would deprive ourselves of the input of our peers, of others whose love of God and love for His Word is all the qualification needed. We would, were we in that time and place, have rejected Peter, James and John as unqualified. Paul we might have had cause to accept, but none of the others. Secondly, since it is our standard and our accreditation that matters so to our thinking, we would likely wind up approving a whole host of others who have no business at all speaking into our lives, for they do no more than to reinforce our own mistakes. They tickle our ears. They speak nothing but vain imaginations, but their imaginations are like unto our own, so we’re eager to listen. Pride kills.
Father God, I know this is yet an issue with me. Perhaps it is to be so until I am home with You. Yet, I would that You keep me mindful of my danger. Even so recently as yesterday, I feel that pride well up, that sense that I am something, that I have wisdom beyond others. Such nonsense, and I know it. Yet, there is clearly this habit in me to turn the story into an “I” story. Lord, the story is about You, else it is of no value. The Church is about You else it is of less than no value. Teach me, Holy One, to so shape my speech as to reflect this Truth. Teach me, Holy One, to walk out my life in fullest accord with this great Truth. Bring me to the place, my God, that I truly walk out the belief that I don’t matter, You do. I don’t matter, my brother does. This is Your desire, Lord. I know this. And yet, I don’t find it in myself to comply. I need You. I need You to work this pride out of me, this self-focus. It is a slow poison, I know, and it must be purged once for all.
Now, I would turn to what suggests itself as the key verse to this passage. Honestly, it is difficult to take but one verse out of here and say that this is it. But, were one forced to choose, Mark 11:31 would be a fine choice to make. These men begin reasoning, we are told. They are reasoning among themselves. And, we are given this glimpse into their thought process: “If we say that John’s authority came from heaven, then Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe him.” Would it be unreasonable to suppose that when they said, “if we say,” what they might have been more honest in saying was, “if we admit”?
This is a problem which is certainly not confined to those leaders, or to leaders in general. It is a common plight of mankind. Some, to be sure, escape the paralysis that comes of such deliberations, but if we were privy to the private thoughts of those caught in a similar dilemma, would they be much different?
What we are shown in these men is fear. On the one hand, there is fear of the implications of admitting to the Truth. Truth requires change, and we don’t care much for change. This is all the more the case when the Truth we consider is coming from God. God commands us to love, and to do so as He commands requires change in us. It requires a willingness to turn our attention on the unlovable. It requires us to care about something not directly touching on our own situation. It requires a true lessening of our sense of self-importance, and that may prove particularly difficult, for we have been conditioned to that very sense.
There is also the embarrassment factor. To actively love as God requires might demand that we do some things that people might find weird. We don’t like being found weird, not unless we are in control of that perception and pursuing it for purpose of amusement. But, to be decreed a weirdo, a potentially dangerous aberration in society? No, we aren’t ready to bear such a burden, really. Yet, this is the demand of our Lord. Love them enough to labor for their rescue. Love them enough to inform them of Life, even if they don’t seem interested. Love them enough to speak the Word even if you feel awkward, even if you feel certain they don’t want to hear it.
This brings us around the other side of the dilemma these men were facing: If they answered in a fashion that would avoid having to face their own failures, there was the problem of the answer those listening would expect to hear. There was this court of public opinion all about, awaiting their pronouncement. And the fear arose that, were they to answer in a way that public did not wish to hear, there would be repercussions. Now, whether their fears were an accurate assessment of the situation or not is almost an irrelevancy. Would the people have dared to stone their own leadership for suggesting that John was not really a prophet? Seems to me that these leaders had been suggesting that for some time, and they were still around to be here considering the question yet again. Did they suppose their public so dim of mind as not to have noticed the treatment they had given John? Perhaps so.
There is, however, an equal if not greater likelihood that the fears they held were completely unwarranted. Did the people hold John to be a prophet? Certainly. It was quite clear that this was so. Would they have turned on the Temple over this conviction? It seems to me doubtful. But, the mind has a way of trumping up perceived dangers. When once we allow fear to creep into our calculations, it will invariably amplify whatever hints and innuendos have led to that fearful concern. Fear will rapidly remove all reason from our reasoning.
So, these poor men are between the proverbial rock and the hard place, at least in their thinking. On the one hand, to speak the Truth would expose their own rebellion. On the other, to speak the Lie would seem to expose them to the ministrations of an angered mob. Seeing the dangers on every side, they are absolutely paralyzed in thought. What to do? How to extract themselves from this position? And, they arrive at the ever popular escape route: “We don’t know.”
Do we really dare to condemn these men for such behavior? To be sure, they deserve it, particularly being in the positions they held. But, am I truly the only one to have felt this same dilemma on occasion? Frankly, I see entirely too much of myself in this. There are Truths that I would hold to be perfectly evident in Scripture and yet tend to avoid in my thinking, lest they show me my failure to comply. I would dearly love to delete that sentence, but I do not think I am granted leave to do so. Even so, there is a different aspect of this which has my attention more; has done so since I began contemplating these verses.
There is this role which is laid upon married men, laid upon them by the Word of God. We are required to act as the heads of our households. We are required to be the shepherd over even so small a flock as we may house therein. Even if it be only husband and wife, the husband is called upon to be the voice of God’s Truth. If questions arise, if beliefs need correction, it is his responsibility to answer and correct. It is his responsibility to do so without trampling conscience, without lording it over wife or child, but still to do. This can be exceedingly difficult, and it can lead us into that place where fear chases the reason out of our reasoning.
Over the last several months, I have found myself in just such a place. Called upon to give an opinion as to the validity of a particular ministry that had my wife’s attention, I was from the outset quite reluctant to do my duty for the simple reason that the very nature of that ministry was such as to be of no interest to me. Yet, part of the reason for my lack of interest was a recognition that the very premise of the thing tended to guarantee that the most honest and conscientious review of their material would require a negative review. However, in time God and an insistent wife combined to convince me I must at least do my duty and read the stuff, however distasteful to me.
As I read, I felt a growing dread. For I knew, or at least thought I knew, how much hope my wife had vested in this being true and worthy stuff. I could perceive that she felt her very life depended on this, that it was in some ways her last hope. Now, being very much in love with this woman, the last thing I wanted to have to do was deliver a verdict that would crush that hope. Honestly, I wanted rather strongly to find enough good in their material to grant her the OK to pursue their course. But, one arrives at a dilemma: Is it more loving to allow your charge to go their own way, knowing full well what lies down that road, or is it more loving to tell them the Truth? Yes, the answer is obvious, isn’t it? Yet, there is that fear. There is that fear of the anger one will have to face in delivering that Truth. There is the simple annoyance of an anticipated overheated argument ahead. One sees nothing but warning signs. If that one is me, one tends to try and delay the need to give answer. And, when caught out on that delay, what’s the safe course? “I don’t know!” I can’t render an answer I don’t have, now can I? And, frankly, who can prove I do know, if I insist I don’t?
I’m telling you, I’ve been there. I spent weeks there. I tried to read the book more slowly so that I needn’t render opinion, having come to the end of it. Yet, it was a trial to have that stupid book staring at me evening upon evening, unwilling to finish it, yet in many ways unable to read anything else for the fact of it being there, a pending item on the to do list, an accusation waiting to point finger at me should I set it aside in favor of something more wholesome or more interesting.
Praise be to God that He did not simply leave me to my plea of ignorance as He did with these men at the Temple. Praise be to God that He has gifted me with the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit Himself, to keep at me, to keep me mindful of my duties and my God. Eventually, even this fearful man felt it necessary to face the issue, to give the answer. Having sought counsel, and having received counsel both good and bad, both for and against, the one question I could not avoid was to ask myself whether I was going to fear God or fear man. Well, in spite of the great desire of the flesh to fear man, something in me, God in me granted me the nerve to rise up and speak the Truth in love even as I am required to do. And do you know? This dear woman was perfectly accepting of that Truth. She did not suffer being crushed into despondency because the thing proved false. She did not demand all manner of justifications and arguments over every point of my reasoning. She was satisfied to abide in the fact that God had given His verdict and I had been willing, (well, eventually) to speak that verdict. God is marvelous!
Truly, we have no cause to fear, particularly when that task is that of leading those who love God themselves. But, it goes farther. We have no cause to fear period! If God is for us, who can be against us? Let this, then, be a seed of sorts, an instigation to leave fear behind. Let me learn from my own experience with Him that when I’m with Him, everything is possible.
To close out this study I shall turn to something said in doxology as I began it. It hinges upon a point I believe I have already touched upon, that God was not sidetracked, surprised or blind-sided by the response of Israel’s leadership. Neither was this the case when those crowds that had so lauded Jesus at His entry into the city opted to cry out for His death. All was and is accounted for in His perfect planning. I believe I have also commented on the need for us to avoid entering into a funk over being so controlled by fates. That is not the point, although it can be a fine distinction between this and the Providence of God. The distinction lies in our willing participation. Fate moves us whether we would choose to be moved or not. Providence moves with us, joins with our own predilections to produce God’s perfect results.
You see, when John the Baptist declared that A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given him from heaven (Jn 3:27), he was quite right. Sadly, as we perceive things, that applies for both good and ill. The stubbornness of these leaders, the pragmatism of the crowds and the faith of the apostles, all of these are equally traceable to the same source point: This is what each received from heaven. Thus far, you may be thinking, there’s not a great deal of cause for doxology in all this. There’s nothing in this that is really prompting a shout of praise from me. But it is there! The seed of doxology is in that very fact that all that which fills our days is traceable to this source we know as God our Provider, God our Father!
What, then, do we discern of Him Who thus apportions our times? Well, we can start with that well known message from His brother James. “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow” (Jas 1:17). Hear that in detail. Admittedly, James doesn’t comment as to where the bad things might be coming from. But lay that aside for just a moment. The good and perfect gifts come to us from the Father. And, be clear on the significance of the remainder of that verse. There is no variation in Him. He is steadfast, permanent, unchanging. He Is Who He has been and Who He shall be. We needn’t fear any such pragmatism from Him as we know too well in ourselves. Neither is there shifting shadow in Him. This is in part simply a parallel to the previous point. But, there is a different nuance to the statement. What is it about shifting shadows that is negative? It is the way they deceive, how they befuddle the senses, baffle our perceptions. What James reveals to us, then, is that God is clear about Who He Is. He is clear about what He does. He doesn’t try to divert our eyes while He performs some sleight of hand. He says what He means and He does what He says.
Let us try another. “I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11). I am glad, in reading that, to see that the NASB replaced the ‘prosper’ we are more familiar with, perhaps, with the more accurate ‘welfare’. It’s not about getting rich. It’s about what is good for us. Join to this the message Isaiah relayed. “So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (Isa 55:11). Again I see that the NASB has substituted away the oft abused ‘prosper’ for the more accurately understood ‘succeeding’. But, understand that this is spoken, at least in part, of the very thing Jeremiah was spelling out. Those plans He has for your welfare are plans He has spoken already, and having spoken it, having given His word on the matter (and having given His Word to absolutely assure us of it), we have this certainty that the Word of Him Who changes not likewise changes not. It does not fail of His purpose.
Come back to the New Covenant, then. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). God, Who knows us more perfectly than we can know ourselves, has set these things up for us, works that are truly good because it pleases Him that we do them, however imperfectly we do so. Like the good and perfect Father He is, He has set out these educational toys for us, if you will. He does not have any particular need for us to take care of these matters. He could surely deal with them Himself. But, it is to our good that we experience the doing. It is for our growth. It’s like the library of literary classics, encyclopedic works, and the like laid open for the explorations of the curious youth. It’s like the construction toys, the artistic toys, the musical instruments, laid out for the child to encounter. They are entertaining, yes, but they are also tools which aid the child’s growth. So are these works which God has prepared beforehand for us. And bear in mind, particularly in those moments when we feel all guilty and cast down by our failings, that His word does not fail to accomplish what He desires.
Remember, too, my particular favorite passage, Romans 8:28. “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Understand that even our mistakes are accounted for in that ‘all things’. There is assuredly both cause and call to repent. That cannot, dare not, be denied. But, having repented, we must come to the point where we are more caught up in the grace of God which changes us than in our own imperfections. We must repent, but we must not come to wallow in the mire of our failures. We must come to lay hold of the Lifeline from on high and be pulled clear.
When we settle for wallowing, what we are really doing is returning to salvation by works. We are still convinced in mind that we can attain to perfect obedience by sheer force of will. We cannot. Our dependence, our absolute and utter dependence on the perfect obedience of Christ remains and ever shall so long as our term in this life continues. Perfection is promised, it is true, but it is promised in that day when we shall see Him as He is. “Now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1Jn 3:2). “for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known” (1Co 13:12). These are reasons for hope, for that special brand of Christian hope which knows no doubt whatsoever, which is so much more than a wishful thought.
Listen, I have arrived at the doxology: This God, This good and perfect Father – perfect in knowledge, perfect in application and perfect in result – has counted you a member of His own household, if indeed you are amongst those whom He has called. Look again at John’s statement. NOW we are children of God. The papers are signed and filed with the legal offices of heaven. You have been adopted, and it is an irrevocable matter. Knowing this, we must surely understand that all those perfections by which I describe our Father in heaven are arrayed for what? For our welfare, for our good. All the perfection of God is at work to promote my good, even my best. He has laid out things for me to accomplish, the accomplishing of which I was created for, and He has assured me that He Himself is operating not only around me but within me to see these things fall out according to His perfect plan. It is He Himself Who is at work in me! Can you imagine! Me, I can’t even imagine how it is He can stand to be anywhere near me, but there He Is, right within, holding me in hand, guiding me, shaping me, moving me in will and in deed, to draw ever closer to the goal of heaven. Cause to praise God? I should think so! By His own infallible promise I am assured that, though I don’t know as yet what I shall be, yet I know I shall graduate from the teknon child of my present to the huios son of His desire. I shall graduate. There is no maybe, because frankly, it’s in His hands and His alone. And there could be no safer place!
