Reception (05/25/22)

It interests me that Paul so often manages to thread together a triad of words that make the point for him.  It’s something of a Holy Ghost repetition, I suppose, an emphasis achieved by reiteration.  Here in verse 13 we have another case, or at least we do as I perceive things.  You received, you were taught, you accepted.  That middle one might be a bit of a stretch, but I think the implication is there.

You received what was transmitted.  This is not merely pausing to hear.  It’s not simply, you heard what we were teaching.  No, there is mental acceptance involved here.  You didn’t just hear it, you received it.  If I think of things like radio transmissions, you know, those signals are all around you all the time.  And your radio, or your phone, is always hearing those signals, ready to lock on should you be so inclined.  But the radio, to take the clearer example, will only lock on to one particular signal, one particular frequency so as to actually receive it.  There’s a reason we call it a receiver, after all.  Everything hears, in the sense that the signal is present everywhere.  But only the receiver tuned to that signal receives it, makes intelligible sound of it.  And to carry it a step further, only the attentive listener understands that which is transmitted.

So, if I modify my analogy somewhat, the radio hears, but the listener truly receives.  The radio gets no benefit from having decoded the signal, derives no meaning from it.  The listener, on the other hand, perceives the message imparted over those radio waves, and gains information from it.  In like fashion, many heard Paul’s preaching, but it passed over or through them without much effect.  They may have understood the language, but they either failed to understand or refused to accept the meaning.  Jesus had the same issue.  It comes up in the lexical discussion of logos as opposed to laleo.  You can’t understand because while you hear the words, the laleo, you cannot apprehend the meaning, the logos.  Zhodiates, in particular, directs attention to this contrast in Jesus’ dealing with the Pharisees.

That takes us to our second word, logos.  You received this specific message:  “the word of God’s message,” as the NASB translates it.  And, to reinforce the point, you received it as being the word of God.  Now, we run into a bit of trouble thinking about this, because we also have Jesus presented to us as the Word of God, and we may tend to conflate the two, failing to recognize the nuance, the distinction of meaning in the two usages.  In the latter, we are presented with Jesus as the intelligence of God expressed in living, breathing, human form.  Here is the Essence of God made Incarnate and walking among us!  Here, however, it’s the message, and the communicated doctrine, a communication which continues long after our Incarnate Lord has ascended and returned to His heavenly throne.  Yet, He remains, and that is a large part of that very doctrine of which Paul speaks.

What is doctrine?  In some corners, it is held to be almost offensive, an unnecessarily divisive habit of mankind which detracts from the purity of the Gospel.  But the Gospel is doctrine!  It is the teaching of God’s own doctrine.  It is, in simple point of fact, the impartation of Truth as defined by God Who IS Truth.  This is His communicated instruction.  And that instruction is doctrine.  Fundamentally, you cannot have the Gospel apart from doctrine.  You cannot have the Truth without instruction in same.  You may discount the significance of truth in this matter, and focus on one or two fundamental and readily agreed aspects of that instruction – particularly the news of being saved from sin.  But the fact remains that the whole of God’s instruction applies.  And frankly, I do not find the Apostles particularly averse to being divisive in the defense of Truth.  That is not to say they fell into internecine squabbles over what was true and what wasn’t.  But in upholding the whole Truth of the Scriptures against any and every false intrusion, no!  These were lions of the faith.

We, if we would walk in the paths they have shown in following Christ, must learn to distinguish between upholding Truth and seeking unity at all cost.  What unity can there be, after all, between light and dark, between God and idols?  And what can this excessive concern for unity be but an idol, if in fact it leads us to have little concern for truth?  There’s a balance to be maintained here, and carefully, for even this desire for balance can become an idol in our hands.  But God remains God, and His Truth remains the only Truth.  It ought to remain our deepest concern that our faith is in God as He truly is.

So, the third word:  You accepted it.  We’re not talking a nod to the quality of the argumentation.  We’re not dealing in mental assent.  Yes, that sounds reasonable.  Oh well, back to work.  No, you received it favorably.  More than that, you embraced it as your own.  This embrace implies such an imbibing of the truths thus taught as to have woven them into the very fabric of one’s character.  That, of course, is the hope and the goal of preaching, isn’t it?  We aren’t looking for dismissive acceptance or tolerance.  Honestly, we shouldn’t much care if the world around us believes as we do or not, at least so far as our own habit and character are concerned.  We don’t minister to please man, but to honor God.  So, yes, there is deep concern lest they find themselves lost for all eternity.  But if they reject the generous offer God makes in this Gospel, we follow our Teacher’s instruction, and wipe the dust of them off our feet, moving on to those who will receive this instruction and embrace it as their own, as we have done.

Does this render us callous?  It shouldn’t.  It should render us bold, not arrogant.  It should break our hearts to see so many who reject what God has set before them.  It should drive us to prayer that He might yet so work upon their hearts as to render them receptive, that others might find it possible to plant seed to good effect where our planting has failed.  We are called, after all, to pray for our enemies, and we must recognize that all who reject the kingdom of God set themselves as enemies to God, and therefore to us.  That is the cause of their opposition to us, for they already perceive us as enemies to their preferred way of life – even if that way is in fact the way to death.

So, we find Paul in this observation of their positive, whole-hearted reception of sound doctrine, presenting it as cause for constant thanksgiving to God.  For one, he would recognize perhaps as no other that such reception could only come about by God’s own doing.  If they received, as they clearly had, it was because God was at work in them.  The thanks does not redound to Paul and his team for being such persuasive and effectual teachers.  After all, they were just as persuasive, just as effectual, among those who had rejected the message and sought to destroy them.  No.  The deciding factor was not their skill in oratory and rhetoric.  The deciding factor, as always, was and is the determined will of God.  It is He who tunes our spiritual radio and opens our ears to hear, accept, and own that which He is speaking through His chosen instruments.  It is He who gives understanding, else the message passes over us unheeded, and unnoticed.

But this is not our story, is it?  We have heard.  We have understood.  We have internalized this great body of holy Truth and made it part and parcel of the very fabric of our being.  This is who we are, children of God Almighty, made in His image, and remade by His choice and power, that we might sing forth the praises of our God as a holy priesthood.  It’s in our words, yes, as we seek to impart His truth and bear His gospel to the nations.  But more, it’s in our actions, our life habit, our worldview.  It is who we are.  And that is both the power of God in us, and the reason that opposition becomes so fierce.

Opposition (05/26/22)

Moving on to verse 14 and the rest of this passage, we face one of the darker truths of faith.  There will be opposition.  God is not silent about this.  Jesus spoke of it quite plainly.  “In the world you have tribulation” (Jn 16:33).  Or, as we have been hearing for the last few Sundays, there is the instruction of His disciples given in Matthew 10.  “They will deliver you to their courts.  They will scourge you in the synagogues.  They will bring you before governors and kings because of Me.  All of this will be as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles alike.  Don’t worry about what to say when they deliver you up, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you” (Mt 10:17-20).  He doesn’t stop.  Brother will deliver brother to death, father deliver child, and child deliver parent.  “And you will be hated by all on account of My name” (Mt 10:21-22).  But, He adds, the one who has endured to the end will be saved.  “Fear not,” He adds, “for I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).

Look:  They put your Lord and Master to death for the singular offense of being holy.  Can His servants expect less?  No.  And again, it is a point our Teacher Himself made plain.  There will be opposition.  There has always been opposition.  There always shall.  Paul is making the same point, looking back at his countrymen.  They killed the prophets who spoke of Messiah, and had the audacity to remind them of the need for true holiness in those who would call themselves God’s chosen people.  They killed Messiah Himself!  Why?  Because by His presence, He convicted them of their sins, these who set themselves as the religious elite.  They sought to put the Apostles to death, who led this new sect.  Paul should know.  He was right there with them, seeking to destroy this heresy from out of Israel.

Perhaps Paul faced rather stronger opposition from them for this very reason, that he had been so strong a proponent of their position before Jesus hauled him out of that activity and made him His own emissary to the nations.  It is, perhaps, no particular wonder that Paul made such a point of relaying this part of the message along with the hope of heaven.  You’re going to get there, for He who reigns has called you by name.  This is clear from the fact that you received and accepted the news of His rescue, rather than laughing it off as, for example, those of Athens had done.  But it won’t be an easy path.  Indeed, your life is going to get much harder now that you’re not going along with the crowd.  Living joyfully in the light of Christ is not going to be a walk in the garden.  It will be somewhat more similar to traveling alone along a wilderness path, threatened from every side, and all but defenseless.  Yet, the call remains to rejoice in the Lord always.

Paul is not bringing this up so much as a matter of forewarning of things to come, for things have already come for his recipients.  It came before he even left.  But it seems that things got worse after he had gone, rather than better.  While he was there, it had been primarily the local Jewish religious leaders who had been a problem.  And this was nothing new for Paul.  It had been his experience pretty much throughout, and would continue to be so.  If you scan those parallel verses that come up for verse 16, the scope of their activity in opposing him is rather stunning.  In every place he went, he had made the synagogue his first stop, seeking to make known to his brethren this salvation that had been made available to them, as it had to all.  The One we have waited for, lo, these many years; He has come.  He walked among us.  He was put to death by our own machinations, and yet, by His death He conquered death.  God raised Him up once more unto life eternal, and He makes that same eternal life available to all who will repent of their sins and return to a true and vibrant faith in Him.  But they would not have it.  They would not hear of it.  No, and when they saw that some among their congregation did, they determined to see that his message was squashed and his access eliminated.

As I say, the scope of their opposition is stunning in its virulence.  They weren’t satisfied to see him driven from their city.  They chased him to the next.  When he had left Thessalonica for Berea, they followed him there and sought once more to cause him trouble, and if they could, no doubt, cause his death.  Indeed, to the end, it is particularly these “Jews from Asia” who cause the most issue for Paul.  When he returns to Jerusalem some several years later, they’re still at it.  “When the seven days of his vow were nearly over, Jews from Asia, seeing him at temple, began stirring up the crowd, and they laid hands on him” (Ac 21:27).

Mind you, it wasn’t only these out-of-towners involved.  The local hierarchy, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, were right in there with them, and stirring up the whole of Jerusalem – careful, mind you, not to instigate a riot – to dispose of this thorn.  After all, they had known Paul when he was still proud, vicious Saul, ready to haul these Christians out of their hiding places to face the judgment of the Jewish court.  What had happened to him?  It seemed he had gone native, as later nations would say.  Rather than defeat them, he had joined them, and he knew too much.  He was well trained in the teachings of these same Pharisees and Sadducees, understood well how they thought and what they believed.  This made his countering of their teaching that much more effective, and undermined their perceived piety that much more thoroughly.

Understand and understand well that there is a yawning chasm between piety and holiness.  There is a piety which seeks for appearances.  It knows all the right things to say.  It knows the right image to put forth.  And it is ever so pleased to have the accolades of men who hold the pious one in high regard for his apparent uprightness.  Yet, it is quickly shown to be no more than a gauzy disguise over an avaricious and sinful man.  And when something pokes through that disguise, it riles.  It stirs the defenses of the one poked.  He will not suffer his reputation to be destroyed, and will gladly see you destroyed to prevent any such result.

Now add to this, as happened in Thessalonica, the loss of membership, and those whose prestige was found in large part in the strength and size of their local synagogue would of course lash out.  Several of their members had gone off after this Jesus whom Paul preached.  And among them were many well-to-do members of society.  This was, then, a loss of both prestige and profit to the synagogue.  In a market city, among a people whose livelihood was deeply involved in trade, loss of these patrons was a big deal.  It hurt the synagogue, yes.  It also hurt the pocket.  Those connections that had been established through shared religion, which maybe allowed for more favorable deals, for greater access, were threatened.

So, how much of the opposition was concern for purity of religion, and how much for profitable connections with co-religionists?  We can’t say.  I would suspect it was both, but I would also suspect the greater part concerned profits rather than purity.  But that may just be my own sinfulness on show.  Who knows?  I don’t suggest that I have access to profitable connections through the church, and to the degree any such connectivity is available, I am not aware of having sought to use it.  But self-preservation is a strong influence, and that’s really what we’re dealing with here.  And it brings us to the great question of faith, doesn’t it?

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. He who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Mt 10:37).  That doesn’t mean we just walk away from all family because we’ve found Jesus.  It does, however, mean, that we don’t diminish our witness for the sake of preserving family unity.  Now, for the Jews in particular, this was a big deal.  In that society, family was all.  And there was the significant reality that if one went wandering off from what father construed to be sound, Judaic faith, well!  Moses insists.  You are no longer mine.  You are not part of this family any longer.

The film series, ‘The Chosen’, puts this on display in the case of Matthew, but in regard to his choice to work with the Romans as a tax-collector.  His father, in particular, will have nothing to do with him, nor with anything that comes from him.  His mother, being a mother after all, is a bit softer, but still will not be associated with him.  But understand.  In the mindset of the Jewish populace, those who had gone after Christ had become worse than tax-collectors.  My goodness!  They were associating with Gentiles!  They were inviting Gentiles to believe in God, and not even requiring of them to maintain adherence to Mosaic law.  If those who worked with Rome were less than dirt, these were less than dung.  They were to be rejected, opposed, and purged from Israel.  And that would hold, whether we are discussing Jerusalem, Judea, or the regions of the Diaspora.  There will be opposition.

As I say, Paul was hardly surprised by this.  He had been part of it.  Thing is, when he was met by Messiah out there on the road he traveled for the very purposes of eliminating this cancer on Jewish society, everything changed.  There was a physical change, wasn’t there?  He lost his sight for a time, and became instantly wholly dependent upon the aid of others.  This was Saul we’re talking about.  He had his temple orders granting him authority for this mission.  But now that didn’t matter very much at all.  Indeed, he had, for all intents and purposes, been accosted and defeated by the very One he had come to destroy.  But he wasn’t destroyed.  Only set on a new course, given a new purpose.

I don’t know as we often consider this point, but it occurs to me that the thorn in the flesh of which Paul would later write may have had its start in this initial blinding he experienced.  We are given to understand, or at least suspect, that his issue had something to do with his eyes, after all.  It would rather make sense that he would be left with this very clear reminder of that first moment as he went about his life of obedience to this Christ he had once sought to destroy.  But he had met his Messiah, and been granted to understand that this is exactly what had happened.  It would seem odd should he have missed it.  After all, here he was, blind and groping, and speaking to a dead man.  That’s got to have an impact.

So, he knew what he was up against.  He knew, perhaps more than most, what the real nature of the Pharisee was.  He knew pride, power, and profit played strongly in their thinking, whatever appearances might say to the contrary.  And his success, in spite of their opposition, would sting.  It would give rise to opposition even more fierce.  After all, he was threatening those advantages they sought by their system.  In Thessalonica, and elsewhere, he was peeling away their parishioners, their income stream.  This could not be permitted to stand.

But, like the Reformers who came after him, Paul was not in any way seeking to overthrow the faith of the Jews, any more than Jesus was.  He came to reform those beliefs, to restore them to Truth, and to peel away the accretions of falsehood that had cluttered up the truth and left the true believers starving.  And they wouldn’t have it.  The leadership showed that their interests were not in the spiritual health of their flock, but in the material comfort of their own existence.  It had been so when Jesus came.  It continued to be so when Jesus departed.  And let us have no delusions.  It continues to be so with us.  We are every bit as capable of suffering these very same self-delusions.  We, too, can fall into a crass, commercial sort of faith.  It may show in self-dealing, in pastoring for profit, as some do.  It may show in a faith that is self-satisfied.  I’m saved, and everyone else be damned.  There’s no room for that!  It shows when we allow our service of worship to devolve into nothing more than a social club, a shared experience with about as much meaning to us as a concert or a sporting event.  Oh, wasn’t that fun?  And if it ceases being fun, well, we’ll find someplace else to be, thank you very much.

Here, I think, we must recognize that Paul is bringing this up not so much as comforting or consoling, but really, as giving further cause to rejoice.  And that intention is not so perverse as it may sound.  He’s not calling for masochism among the believers.  He is, however, reminding them that if indeed they have been called to suffer so on behalf of the faith they have, it is clear indication that God sees their faith as sufficient to face the suffering.  He will make that more explicit in his next letter to this church.  Hear it.  “So we speak of you proudly in other churches because you persevere in faith in the midst of all the persecutions and afflictions you endure.  This is clear indication of God’s judgment in counting you worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are suffering” (2Th 1:4-5).

You not only persevere, but as we read in this letter, you do so with such a joy as is testified to by all who encounter you!  It’s not just your new beliefs that are news.  It is your joyfulness in spite of your trials.  Look, we have reason to believe that some among them had actually been put to death for whatever trumped up charges, but in truth, because of their faith in Christ.  We can expect that many were dealing with hardships in terms of employment or ostracization for their faith.  Life was not easy before, and it sure wasn’t easy now.  But here’s the news:  All of this is but evidence of God’s confidence in you!  It’s not somehow proof that you’re wrong, or that you’re pursuing your faith incorrectly.  Quite the opposite, really.  If you were ineffective in your faith, there would be no point to such opposition.  There would be no need to torment you if you were just a quiet little mouse keeping such things to yourself.  But you’re having an impact.  Your faith is known.  It’s undeniable, and with it, there is the undeniability of God’s presence with you.  It may bet mislabeled.  It may be written off to other things.  But however they play it, the reality remains.  There’s been this great change in you, and all of their attempts to destroy you only leave you stronger.

This it has ever been with the church.  The Reformers knew it well.  And before them, there were those who had faced the persecutions of Rome.  Their conclusion?  “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  That reality has never changed, has it?  Locations may change.  The points of fiercest opposition may shift from nation to nation, but the overall state is unchanging, as is the overall result.  You’re not alone.  You will not be destroyed by these opponents, for God is with you.  Though you die, yet will you live.  And those who would so readily toss off their faith to preserve their lives will in fact die.

There will be opposition.  But it doesn’t come as a surprise, or it certainly shouldn’t.  Nor does it come as destruction.  For God is with you.  God fights for you.  Both victory and vengeance are His.  And you are His.  So stand fast, as indeed you shall, for He has called you by name, and it is His power, His work in you by which you shall stand.  All glory to Him, and all fealty to His cause.  So may it be found to be with us.

Sin's Full Measure (05/27/22-05/28/22)

Having noted their long history of opposition to God’s Truth, Paul observes the result of that record:  They are not pleasing to God.  Again, recognize it is the religious leaders and not the general populace of the Israelites that Paul has in view here.  These men who have set themselves as paragons of virtue are in fact not so.  They are not after God’s interests.  They have not aligned themselves with His purposes.  Indeed, as has been shown in his brief list, they have consistently set themselves firmly against His purposes, and as such, they have shown themselves to be opposed to the best outcome for all mankind.  They are hostile to one and all, which they prove over and over again in their attempts to keep the good news of the Gospel from going forth.

Whether it is religious jealousy or materialistic jealousy that drives them, the result is the same.  They have pride in their religious position, their self-serving, self-defined piety and the reputation they have amongst the more general public.  They revel in the honor they are given amongst their fellow Jews, and even in the way the Gentiles look askance at them for their chosen way of living.  It becomes a badge of honor to them to be misunderstood and even ridiculed by the heathen host amongst whom they must live.  Indeed, for all they may complain of it, they do nothing to alter their situation.

Now, I have to say, as I type those thoughts, I find it sadly easy to identify with.  We can be religiously jealous, refusing to even acknowledge those churches whose views on secondary matters of doctrine differ from our own.  We have, for example, a Methodist church all of a mile down the street from our church, and an Episcopalian church perhaps three miles down.  Now, I can’t speak to where these two churches are at so far as the more crucial matters of faith, but let us suppose they hold fast to Christ for all that they differ in their approach and in their understanding, as I said, of these secondary issues.  Still, I suspect, we would have nothing to do with them.  And why not?  Do we really account them as strangers to Christ?  On what basis?

Or, move beyond the inter-sect issues of the Church, and the tendency to grow by poaching members from other bodies.  But let me say this, first.  That poaching, so far as I can discern, is never an intentional effort at sheep rustling.  It’s more the restlessness of the sheep, their searching for greener pastures, or perhaps departing in a fit of pique.  It may well be that departure has come over things seen as serious doctrinal differences.  Or it may be that remaining in fellowship with others whose doctrinal views are not quite the same as our own has proven to be just too much, and it’s so easy to switch bodies, find a group with more similar perspectives.  In many ways, I think the church was much stronger when the choices were fewer.

But that still leaves us to consider our response to the world outside the walls of the church.  Some may well take pride in being constantly rejected by those around them.  They may construe it a badge of honor to be rejected and ridiculed.  And up to a point, they may even be right in doing so.  Certainly, we don’t wish to compromise our faith and character in hopes of going along to get along.  On the other hand, we are not called to intentionally offend.  We don’t win hearts and minds by being annoying.  We don’t display Christ by being in your face obnoxious about our rejection of the world and its ways.  We certainly don’t do any good for the world by withdrawing into monastic enclaves and refusing all contact with those outside.

Look at the example of Jesus.  He did not undertake to avoid those whose lives were so displeasing to God.  He sought to let them know that pardon was yet possible, that God had not abandoned them to their fate, and more, that the religious pride of those who had charge of God’s house at the moment were not giving a true representation of the One they claimed to serve.  As Paul says, “They are not pleasing to God.”  And frankly, they don’t care about pleasing God.  They are pleasing themselves, for all the pious paint they apply to the picture.  Their rejection of you is not God’s rejection of you.  It is more accurately God’s rejection of them, not that they would recognize that.

So again:  How do we deal with the unbelieving world around us?  Do we seek to blend in?  Do we obey, as we are encouraged to do, the desire that we just keep our God to ourselves?  Or do we become militant about faith, marching the streets with demands for repentance, and seeking to put the proper fear of hell in them?  There’s a place for that.  I mean, again, if we take the example of the One we claim to follow, He was not shy in pointing out the realities of hell.  If we look back upon those periods in which the Church was being the Church, and God was moving upon the hearts of an unbelieving populace, this is very much the message.  You are in mortal danger of an eternity of punishment, and only the mercy of God can serve to prevent that outcome.  It’s when we stop short, when we present the reality of hell as a certainty and then withhold the remedy of the Gospel as a real possibility that we become ‘hostile to all men’.

Now, I don’t think we are very much in danger of seeking to prevent the Gospel from getting out to those who still need to hear it.  Our sins, I suspect, are more along the lines of negligence in our duties than in dissuading those who would speak from speaking.  Even so, we might do well to heed the outcome that Paul sets before us here.  Sin has a bad way of growing more virulent in us if we do not recognize its onset and take steps to eradicate it.  Remember that the Pharisees began with a truly commendable intent.  Their roots lay in seeking to live in such a way as would ensure that they not only remained clear of violating Mosaic Law, but remained far from doing so.  So, they set boundaries around the boundaries God had set.  They made rules for themselves more stringent than were required.  And when we consider that those laws God laid down were already beyond fallen man to keep in full, designed to drive us to recognize our dependence upon God’s forgiveness and empowerment, what was to be expected when those rules were expanded, detailed to the point they must be considered for every least aspect of daily living?  Well, one of two things was going to happen, if not both.  The first and most likely outcome was that those who tried would fail.  I mean, that’s a given.  But how to respond?  They could leave off their attempts to out-God God, or they could so refine their expanded rules that in fact they became easier to keep.  They, of course, chose the latter.  Watch out!  Chances are you and I do the same.

We would rather be found right than actually be right.  We want to think that those practices we have developed over the years of our faith in Christ are in fact the standard.  But they are not.  Christ is the standard.  And however careful, however elaborate our practices at holiness, they will not suffice.  Christ alone can and does suffice.  To conclude otherwise is to join the Pharisees in their rebellion and opposition to the grace of God.  That hurts, doesn’t it?  But that’s the deal.  We set our habits of holiness above the truth of God for all practical purposes, and then wonder at the futility of it.  Or, we carefully ignore the futility of it, so that we can continue in our false comfort.  But in fact, by our imposition of false standards and overly cumbersome practices, even should we define them as spiritual disciplines, we render the approach to real faith inaccessible to those desperately in need of a Savior.

What comes of it?  Try the CJB rendering of the outcome.  “Their object seems to be always to make their sins as bad as possible!”  Well, whether it’s their cognizant object or not, it is certainly the way of sin, isn’t it?  It will not be satisfied until it has poisoned the whole, and achieved its final outcome of death in the sinner.  The disease left untreated will not satisfy itself with destroying, say, a finger, or an organ.  Corruption continues and spreads, until the once living organism is left a rotting corpse, in its turn corrupting other living organisms that may come in contact with it.  Why do you suppose there was that prohibition in regard to touching the dead?  Contagion spreads.  Corruption ever seeks a new host for its corrupting ways.

Here, the result was evident in actions.  “They even tried to stop us from preaching to the Gentiles the message that would bring them salvation. In this way they have brought to completion all the sins they have always committed”, as the TEV renders this last verse.  Not satisfied with their own death, they sought to prevent all others from obtaining life.  What a weird response to the living God!  And yet…   And yet, what are we doing differently when we remain silent, when we leave the Gospel unspoken in the face of need?  And why?  Perhaps because we have been told that the workplace is not an appropriate spot for evangelism, and rather than find creative ways of complying with God and man, we have simply marked out the workspace as off-limits to the Gospel.  Really?  Well yes.  I have known those who found a way, and did so with appropriate honoring of their employer.  By all means, to evangelize while claiming wages by being on company time is questionable activity.  It’s one thing, I suppose, if you do the sort of work that leaves the mind free to wander, and has room for chatter.  But such duties are rare indeed.  But one can have a Bible on one’s desk.  One can answer questions that may arise.  One can defer conversation for the breakroom, or even for getting together outside working hours to discuss things.  And one can be winsome in that presenting of God’s great good news.  It’s okay to suit the message to the occasion.  It’s only when we start distorting the message to make it more palatable, trimming off the hard bits, that we run into trouble with our true Boss.

But these were not seeking to find means to bring God before the Gentiles.  Rather, they thought purity demanded that the Gentiles be kept far away from God.  Let these dogs into the synagogue?  No way!  Give light to those in darkness?  Not us!  If God wanted them to have light, He’d give it to them.  Well, He did want to, and He was doing so.  But in their commitment to their own views, they failed to see it, and refused to see it done.

And so, we come to what is, perhaps the most difficult part of this passage.  Out of their filling up the measure of their sins with this constant opposition to God’s purposes, wrath has come upon them, and that to the uttermost.  Okay.  It’s not hard to see the cause and effect here.  It may be a little disconcerting, though.  They were, after all, God’s chosen people.  Aren’t these the very ones of whom He said, “How could I ever let you go?”  “With weeping they shall come, and by supplication I will lead them.  I will make them walk by streams of waters, on a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born” (Jer 31:9).  “Is Ephraim My dear son?  Is he a delightful child?  Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him.  Therefore My heart yearns for hm.  I will surely have mercy on him” (Jer 31:20).  So, what’s up here?  Wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.  Where’s the remembering?  Where’s the mercy?

I dare say, the mercy was right there in the Gospel.  But they would not have it of Him, and so, as is so often so awfully the case, God acceded to their insistent will.  Have it your way, then.  And wrath came upon them to the uttermost.

Now, I need to back up just a moment to that matter of filling up.  I want to note, as Zhodiates points out, that the particular term used here speaks more to the measure than the act.  The act is continual, yes, but it is continual to the point that the full measure has been met.  The barrel of sin has been stuffed full, tamped down, and packed in with even more.  There is no place left for further sin to fit.  The corruption is complete.  This is particularly shocking if we consider the reason for Israel’s stretch in Egypt.  God could have left them in the Promised Land to begin with, driven out the Canaanites, or destroyed them at the outset.  But He waited.  Why?  Because the full measure of their sins was not yet complete.  God could have redeemed Adam and Eve right there at the gates of Eden, or even within its borders.  But He waited long centuries, centuries in which the wickedness of sin grew to the point that He found it needful to all but wipe out life on earth and start over again.  And still, sin grew.  Still corruption spread.  And then, finally, there came the point where the disease of sin had become so widespread and so malignant that action must be taken, else the patient would be lost utterly.  And so, the time was right for Christ to come, to live before sinful man in perfect, sinless life, to die by the hand of man in spite of His perfect, sinless life, and to conquer death once for all in being resurrected to perfect, sinless life.

And still we wait.  And still we know another time awaits, the time of His return to reign in power forever and ever.  Indeed, He reigns already, but much of His kingdom remains unsubdued.  Sin still runs rampant, and arguably as utterly sinful as was the case in the days of Noah.  Certainly, the corruption runs deep and wide, and grows deeper and wider by the day.  But apparently, mankind has not as yet reached full measure.  For had he done so, wrath would come, and that, too, in full measure.

And this, I have to say, is where I find myself somewhat at a loss.  Paul says it has already come upon them in full measure.  When?  How so?  Well, the simplest, and perhaps most honest and accurate answer is that I don’t know.  Paul doesn’t say, and his wording doesn’t really supply any particular hints.  It’s stated in the aorist tense, an indefinite sort of action generally preceding the time at which things were written.  It is in the indicative mood, so an action realized or as certain as if it were.  And being in the past, as the aorist would tend to indicate, the certainty would seem more likely to come from action accomplished.  But that just leaves more questions, doesn’t it?

If we try to apply this to the fall of Jerusalem, which would seem an obvious point of wrath poured out, we have a serious problem with the calendar.  For this is an early letter, generally taken to have been written in the early 50s, and Jerusalem’s fall was in the 70s.  Yes, there would have been a period of siege leading up to that conclusive destruction, but not ten years’ worth, I shouldn’t think.  So, what does Paul have in view?  Out of their filling the measure of sin to the full, wrath has preceded.  That feels wrong, logically, but that seems to be more or less where the wording takes us.  This has come, ephthasen, that we are considering has this sense of being beforehand, anticipating, or preceding.  Thayer suggests the sense is that this wrath has come upon them unexpectedly.  Well, that would certainly hold, wouldn’t it?  What Pharisee would be thinking his own damnation must certainly be in the offing?  Those who had any such sense of events had likely already come to faith in Christ as their salvation, for to come to that conclusion must require that one has found his current system of earning God’s favor to be wanting.  And if that’s not going to do it, and you still believe in God, surely you’re going to be casting about for some other means of surviving, of gaining His favor towards your illustrious self.

So, this constant filling up of their sins has given cause for the coming wrath, the wrath that has come.  That wrath is certain, I think we might say because God in His foreknowledge already knew the full measure of their sins.  Wrath merely awaited the adding of that last little bit.  The Amplified, which supplied my reading this morning, points back to Genesis 15:16 in this instance, with God’s announcement in regard to the Amorites.  This was informing Abraham of the eventual captivity of Israel in Egypt, and also informing him that not only was this temporary, at least on the grand scale of time, but it was also to a purpose.  “In the fourth generation, your descendants will return to Canaan, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”  They haven’t got there yet, but they will.  Now, bear in mind that this comes even as God is declaring, indeed, sealing, His covenant with Abraham.  You have My word on this.  They will assuredly be given this land, but on that day, after these things have transpired.  It won’t be an easy road, but it will be one with certainty as to outcome.

Perhaps we should hear that same future certain perspective here, even though it is declared in the past.  There is, after all, that sort of prophetic aorist sense of God speaking.  Is God speaking here?  Well, it’s Scripture, so yes.  But it’s Paul, so indirectly.  Tie it back to the start of this passage, though:  You received God’s message from us for what it truly is, God’s words.  I don’t think it a stretch to suppose Paul and his readers understood that this would include these words they were now reading.  Here is God’s stated truth, provided with commentary, that we might understand and believe:   Their constant opposition is sin, and sin to the full, for which wrath has come.  As I say, we could argue that wrath has come from before the beginning, for it’s not as though their failures somehow took God unawares.  But His wrath would certainly do so them.  It comes unexpectedly.

I think we can argue that God’s wrath always comes unexpectedly, when it comes.  After all, it comes upon those who have no heart for God, no thought for Him.  Hearts are hardened, necks stiffened, and with time, sinful man becomes convinced that there is no downside to his sin.  He’s clearly gotten away with it thus far, and this builds expectation that he shall continue to do so.  Pharaoh, whose actions are brought briefly into view with that message to Abraham, did not go charging after the Israelites intent on committing national suicide.  He may have been foolish to commit chariots to the charge through those marshy grounds, but his intent was victory, not the defeat that came upon him.  Sin had blinded him to his own folly.  His experience of life to date gave him no basis for considering failure.  He was, after all, a god in the eyes of his countrymen, and he no doubt had bought into that idea himself, just as the Caesars were doing in Paul’s day; arguably, just as the elites of government and industry suppose themselves in our own, taking to themselves, as they do, the power to coerce the course of life in us lesser mortals.

So, in that sense, sure, wrath arrived beforehand.  Its outcome, being as it is God’s wrath we are discussing, is a foregone conclusion.  You know, when Titus undertook to besiege Jerusalem, for all his confidence in his armies, the outcome was far from certain.  Sennacherib had learned that the hard way.  Nebuchadnezzar had learned that the hard way.  Pharaoh, certainly.  But God, when He determines a thing shall be done, sees it done.  He sees it done His way, and He sees it done on His schedule, and no act of man nor of devil has power to alter that schedule or that outcome.  It is dead certain.

The Jews that Paul has in view, to be as charitable as the situation permits, thought themselves the champions of holiness.  Their opposition to Paul’s ministry wasn’t directly a matter of wanting to refuse the Gentiles any hope.  It was a matter of purity.  We must keep God’s church pure, and that surely means these perversions of tradition musn’t be allowed to stand.  Moses was clear.  Idolatry must be purged from Israel with extreme prejudice.  Like Paul in his own turn, they thought they were doing the work of God.  But in fact, as he points out, they were not.  They were not aligned with His will or His good pleasure, and indeed, were doing nothing other than to make that much more certain their eventual doom.

God’s wrath came upon them unexpectedly, but why?  Because they had ceased considering what God wanted, and wholly substituted it with what they wanted.  They wanted the feeling of holiness, rather than the reality.  The reality was too hard, too humiliating with its impossibility.  Better these traditions of achievable goals.  Better our way than His.  And God said, so be it.  Go your way.  Your way leads only one place:  Destruction.  And when it comes, it will have been fully earned by your deeds along the way.

Understand, then, that God will by no means leave sin unpunished.  This held true for the Pharisees.  It holds true for us.  Our salvation is not in sins glossed over, nor is it found in somehow achieving perfect obedience, so long as we measure perfection from some specific starting point.  It’s not that our past sins have been dealt with, and so long as we manage to keep our noses clean hence forth, we’ll be granted entrance.  No!  Jesus paid it all!  In Him, our sins – all of them – were punished in full, to the full, eternal extent of their due penalty of death.

This bothers me.  It bothers me because we are taught to view that singular moment of Christ’s death on the cross as the sum of that punishment He bore on our behalf.  And to be sure, the punishment He bore was horrendous.  It was horrendous, just contemplating it on the human scale.  Crucifixion was designed to be horrendous.  It was, and I think remains, the most gruesome, excruciating, utterly humiliating form of punishment that man has devised.  As a deterrent to others, no doubt, it serves its purpose well.  To see one dying in slow agony, all possibility of human dignity eliminated, as he befouls himself in his struggles to somehow alleviate the pain in some quarter of his body, harassed by onlookers and carrion birds alike, baked in the sun and derided by all who saw, that’s going to have an impact.  I mean, there’s a reason we saw less crime when the death penalty was a real and swift possibility.  And there’s a reason why we see more crime as the consequences of getting caught diminish.  It’s a simple cost/benefit analysis.  But I digress.

If we bear in mind the eternal nature of our sins, as they are committed against eternal God, we are forced to recognize an eternal punishment is due.  That is the very function of hell, right?  Death is not sweet surcease to the sinner, but entrance into an agony that never ends, transfer into that place, “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mk 9:48).  This is what’s due the courts of heaven for your sins, for my sins.  This is the price that had to be paid for our liberty, for our forgiveness.  This is the price Jesus pays.  I shift that to the present tense, and I have in mind that perhaps a Greek present would be suitable.  Is there, I have to wonder, a sense in which Jesus continually pays that penalty?  It is, after all, eternal.  What shall we see in Him when at last we are welcomed into heaven?  We have in our eyes that glorious, shining, white knight of God, His purity the very sun of this new world into which we have been translated.  But is He not also the Lamb Who was slain?  Is this not part of what John saw?  “I saw between the throne, with the four living creatures, and the elders, a Lamb standing as if slain” (Rev 5:6).  He it is that is proclaimed worthy to receive power, riches, wisdom, might, honor, glory, blessing (Rev 5:12).

There is nothing in this image that speaks of wounds healed, of death defeated, other than that this Lamb, ‘standing as if slain,’ is yet standing.  He is yet handed the book of Life, yet able to open its seals and proclaim its contents.  He is yet upon His throne.  But is it just possible that what John was seeing here is the horrible, ongoing, personal cost to our Lord Jesus in His taking it upon Himself to be the propitiation for our sins?

I recall once more my brother of old, who had a deep and abiding concern lest his continued sins were somehow adding to the burden of punishment Jesus had borne, or was bearing.  It’s a valuable mindset, to be sure, although insufficient in itself to achieve much.  But at some level, if the first sin already procured an eternity of God’s wrath poured out, it’s hard to see how the second, or the seven-thousandth adds to it.  Logically, is not infinity plus one still infinity?  Is not eternity times ten just as eternal as before?  Of course, these are unanswerable musings from our point of observation.  We cannot know.  And perhaps it’s just as well, for it would no doubt crush us, in this present form, to discover that our constant failures have in fact left our beloved Lord to face eternal agony.

But He is God.  He is Unchanging, Eternal, and All-powerful.  He has no dependency upon anybody or anything outside of Himself.  So, if this is in fact the case, it is so by His choosing.  That does nothing to lessen our guilt, but I think perhaps it lessens the likelihood that my surmise is correct.

What is certain is this:  God will by no means leave sin unpunished.  And He is not slow.  He is patient, yes, but He is not slow.  His judgment, when it comes, will be perfectly on time, fully earned, and fully meted out.  This should rightly be cause both for confidence and concern.  It is our confidence in that we can rest in the knowledge that whatever injustices appear to go unaddressed in this life, in the eternal balance, they shall be addressed in full.  It is our rightful concern that we should take great care, lest we discover our own sins have earned that outcome for us, in spite of our confident belief that we have upon us the call of God.

Let me just say, if indeed we do have His call upon us, then our confidence is fully justified, for by His predetermined choice of us, we are fully justified.  We are fully justified not by our perfected actions – as if!  No, we are fully justified by the full paying of our penalty by our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Word made flesh.  In due course, we, the redeemed, called by God to be bride to the Son, shall dwell on the earth, and all who dwell there with us will likewise be the redeemed, will join us in worshiping Him:  Everyone whose name is found written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Sin's Full Answer (05/29/22)

Let us understand that at the most fundamental level, each one of us must hear this hard message.  There is no escaping the righteous judgment of God.  Your sins will find you out.  They already have.  God is witness, and He hasn’t missed a thing.  I have to suppose, if we are indeed in Christ, that each one of us has already heard this message.  And presumably, we’ve learned, to our relief, that the message doesn’t stop at reminding us that we are in deep, inescapable trouble.  That message comes with a counterpoint.  There is no escaping, but there is redemption.  You have long since passed beyond the point where you could do anything about your situation, but God can and has done everything.

That’s the message these Thessalonians had received.  You received God’s message, and gladly accepted it as truly relaying word from Him.  This is His message.  To you.  There is redemption.  You’ve been in the dark for long ages, but no more.  Those who called themselves the chosen people of God thought to exclude you from the hope entrusted to them, but no more.  You were not a people, but no more.  There is redemption, and it is yours.

This is the positive note in this passage, and indeed in the whole letter to this point.  Look at you!  Your very being, your very demeanor gives strongest evidence that God Who saves is God indeed.  And this is one of the great, marvelous aspects of God’s work of redemption in us.  It supplies us with an evidence that is beyond all power to undermine.  Now, let’s be careful here.  Lived experience is not in itself incontrovertible proof of anything.  Our experience is not the be all and end all of argumentation.  Let me put it plainly.  Lived experience can lie to us.  And it is a danger all that much greater in that it is such a compelling body of evidence for us.  But this has been my experience!  I was there.  I lived it.  How could the lessons I learned from that be wrong?  Well, for one, most basic reason, that life you have lived, those experiences that have shaped your views, came in the midst of a bunch of other lost sinners such as yourself.  Their deeds were broken.  Their philosophies, such as they are, were broken.  Their beliefs were broken.  And these, they imparted to you, and you, being unaware of any alternative possibility to explain things, internalized them as your own.  That doesn’t make them right.  It only makes them prevailing.

Pity the child growing up in today’s world.  This is the only normal they know, and it is abnormal in the uttermost.  All the worst thoughts of humanity through the ages have reemerged and come to be celebrated as signs of progress.  Really?  Promiscuity, rampant drug abuse, inability to accept the simplest facts of physical reality, gender dysphoria, celebrating death and relishing the power of it?  These are signs of progress?  In what sane world?  But we are not in a sane world.  We are in a world grown darker by the day.  And we are called, in this ever darkening world, to be the light, to shine forth that light which God has shed abroad in our hearts.

You have learned.  There is redemption.  Freely you have been given.  And you cannot but see the need around you.  The whole world, it seems, is one massive, sucking wound.  And it is festering.  The corruption is spreading, and necrosis is setting in.  The situation is dire, and here you are with the antidote.  What, then, will you do?  Will you head for the hills and seek your own safety?  Or will you serve in the purpose of your Lord?  “Freely you were given.  Freely give.”  Those are the instructions He left with you.  Here is your prime directive, if you’ll forgive the Star Trek allusion.  Hear His prayer, offered as He approached that moment which would be your salvation.  “I have given them They word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  I don’t ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them in the truth.  Thy word IS truth.  As You sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world…  I don’t ask in behalf of these only, but for those who believe in Me through their word as well, that they all may be one, even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they may also be in Us; that the world may believe that You sent Me, that You love them just as You love Me” (Jn 17:14-23).

That’s a hard passage to excerpt.  It practically begs us to continue, to hear all that this marvelous Lord of ours prayed on this occasion.  And I left myself this question here, one I asked in preparatory consideration of the passage before us:  How would it feel to receive this note?  I had in mind, of course, this letter from Paul, and its reception by those first readers of it up in Thessalonica.  But of course, just as that high priestly prayer of Jesus, it is not just a message to them, but who all who have believed.  So, let me expand it this first step:  How does it feel to have received this letter?  For it has come to you and to me.  And I have to say, rather like that first exercise of study I undertook with John’s first letter, it does not feel as comfortable as I had anticipated it would.

You know, I read through this epistle, and I was somewhat surprised at the lack of issues needing to be addressed, of the overall, upbeat sense of Paul’s encouragement to these young believers.  But as I have been encountering their faith through Paul’s recognition of them, it has come as strong challenge, and all the more so, as the message of their faith coincides with the messages being delivered from the pulpit at church, as Pastor Mathews seeks to stir us up in our faith in considering Matthew 10.  Why?  Because what we are shown of this young church does not much look like my current condition of faith.  The joy you have in the face of serious trial of your faith is known.  It is contagious.  All who encounter you comment on it as they go forth from you.  Again, I don’t know as this church had any sort of missionary outreach program, but being in the port city as they were, every day was a missionary outreach of sorts.  We are no different.  No, we don’t live in a port city, but every day we are brought into contact with unbelievers.  And yet, we take so little notice of it, most times.  If we happen across another believer whom we do not know, we may enjoy a brief chat, and nod our happy recognition of shared beliefs.  But when we come up against those who have not heard, or those who have heard and rejected, I suspect for most of us, the tendency is to clam up and keep this light to ourselves.

Now, to be sure, there is, along with this encouragement to be light shining into their darkness, the reminder to avoid casting our pearls of heavenly wisdom before swine.  There is place both for canny recognition of fallen nature, and gentle admonition and encouragement where it may do some good.  We are not called to constantly throw ourselves in harm’s way, to seek out persecution as some badge of honor.  But neither are we granted permit to hide away from it.  The world hates you.  Why?  Because you are not of the world.

I hope, that in whatever fashion the call of God was made known to you, this little tidbit of reality was not withheld.  If it was, you’ve been done a great disservice.  God did not hide that fact from His children.  Jesus did not elide that part from His training.  Paul did not gloss it over as he bore this message out into that very world that hated to hear even the good, the easy on the ears part of the message.  We told you this would be part of the package.  We warned you that troubles weren’t going to subside just because we left town, although we did see that leaving would be to your benefit.  Were it not so, we would have remained, for you are dear to us.  But know this:  Your Lord, whom you have received (it is so very clear that you have!) is ever with you.  He it is who spoke to His disciples, “Lo!  I am with you always, even to the very end of the age” (Mt 28:20).

That message hasn’t changed.  The situation hasn’t changed.  The world is still dark and growing darker, as sin proceeds on its course to being filled to fullest measure.  The light of the Church may seem to flicker, and be on the verge of going out entirely, but this is our own misperception, being in this dark place.  No, the Church continues strong, though many fall away.  After all, it is not the visible manifestation of the Church, the building and the officials and the rites and so on, which constitute the real core and power of God’s Church.  It is Christ Himself, His revealed Incarnate, and Ascendant Self, which establishes the Church that is truly the Church, the Church Invisible, as it has sometimes been called.  “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Mt 16:18).  Upon what rock?  Peter?  Hardly.  But upon the revelation, granted from our Father in heaven, that this Jesus, whom Jew and Gentile together conspired to slay, is in fact the Christ, the Son of the living God.  It is upon that TRUTH.  It is upon the rock-solid reality that He came, He lived a sinless life of full and complete compliance with the entire law of God, He died, His life given in purposeful atonement for our sins.  Pause there.  He died of His own free will and purpose.  It may have come by the hands of Jew and Gentile, but it was His will being done.  Even in this moment of deepest humiliation, God was not cowed by mankind whom He had created.  But know this:  This Jesus who died did not stay dead.  He rose again.  He is restored to life, as indeed He must be, for God cannot die, can He?  He Who is eternal and unchanging can hardly cease to be.  Nietzche, for all his sad popularity, was quite thoroughly incorrect.  Now, to be sure, Nietzche is dead (nor am I the first to make this witty observation, but God remains.  Jesus lives!  And because He lives, and because He has chosen to rebirth us into that same sort of life He lives, that same sort of life He is, we live.  Indeed, though we die, yet shall we live, even as He has done.

That is the message we proclaim in being baptized, is it not?  I have died, and have been reborn.  That life I lived to sin, that life I lived in and of the world is no more.  I have died to sin.  But I haven’t stayed dead any more than my Savior did.  No!  Now I truly live.  Now I live a life worthy of being called life.  Now I know the certain hope that has been birthed within me, as the very Bread of Life Himself has come and made His abode in me.  That is the Church.  That is the edifice Christ Jesus has established, against which the fullest force of hell cannot avail.  “I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish.  No one shall ever snatch them out of My hand.  My Father who gave them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of His hand.  I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:28-30).  And how did the world respond to this most marvelously wonderful news?  They took up stones to stone the One Who is Life.

So, let me return to my question.  How does it feel to receive this note?  You see, all of that which I have been reflecting upon, as it traverses John’s gospel, and the words of Matthew, and really, the full scope of all that we find written in this marvelous body of Scripture, comes with it.  All of that is there as part of Paul’s bit of encouragement here.  All of that is there in what you (I hope and trust) have received as what it truly is:  The word of God.  And that word, as we have seen, does not shy away from pointing out that you are left amidst hostile forces.  “I don’t ask that You take them out of the world.”  No.  The world needs you here.  And you, dear ones, have been found to have a strength of faith which, in God’s inerrant estimate, is sufficient to withstand the trials that must come of being in this situation, of being assigned this duty of service.

Again:  We don’t need to go looking for trouble.  We are not, by any stretch, called to be a stench and an offense in the sense of those around us  We will be, for this message, while sweet with the knowledge of Him to those who are being saved, is ever, at the same time the stench of death to those who are perishing.  It is an assured foreshadowing of their certain end, and no wonder they don’t take it kindly.  Who, after all, is tickled by the prospect of dying?  Even we, with the reward of heaven before us, discover a certain reticence towards being hurried hence.  It seems to be our experience as others around us age and die, that there comes a time when we are reconciled to that event, and truly at peace with traversing the divide between this world and the next.  But it doesn’t come easy.  It doesn’t come naturally.  It is evidence of our loving God indeed being with us even to the end.  It is, I must suppose, a final assurance that indeed, that redemption to which we have clung in hope is fact, rock-solid fact, just as the Redeemer, in His Incarnate life and death, is rock-solid fact.

And so, as we continue in this life, we are left as a testimony to Him Who is in us.  And this is indeed a great honor, isn’t it?  God sees in us a people who can withstand the trials of being, as it were, outcasts in the world.  There will be opposition.  There will be persecution.  There may very well be ostracization, and even death of a murderous and torturous sort ahead.  Yet, God is with us.  And by His strength, we shall stand.  By His power we shall face even such an end with grace.  We needn’t go seeking it out, but should it come, trust in the Lord.  “You will be given what to say in that time.”  For, it is no longer you or I that lives, but Christ living in us.  It is not in our strength and confidence that we stand, but in the power of the triune God Who Is, and Who is in us, with Whom we are One, even as He is One.  In Him we live.  In Him we have our being.  And apart from Him, there can be only death eternal.

This feels a very odd place to leave a study.  And yet, I am at the end of my notes.  So, be encouraged.  Be honored that God finds you fit to face the challenges of lively faith in deathly surroundings.  Do not be overcome by the darkness all around.  It only causes your light to stand out the more.  Do not be afraid of those who have power only to destroy the body, but cannot touch the soul.  Rather, hold fast to Him Who is Life, and who has chosen to impart to you life, even in spite of yourself.  He has given you to drink of His own spirit, and indeed, you shall thirst no more.  And you may proceed with the confidence that in Him, though you die, yet shall you live.  For to live is Christ, and to die is gain, and really, with that in view, what can the world do to you?  Be encouraged!  You are a living testimony to the Living Word.  You are a beacon of hope in a hopeless world.  Shine brightly!  Don’t hold back.  Let the God Who Is have his perfect work in you, and let His work ring forth from you.  Indeed, pray for those who spitefully use you.  Pray that even your sufferings, should they come, will be to the purpose of salvation for the very ones who so sorely use you.  He saved us, after all, and we were just as bad.  May they, then, hear the call of Christ, the Living God Who Is, even in the midst of their fiercest opposition to His inevitable, eternal reign.