New Thoughts (3/3/02-3/4/02)
Indeed, this passage would seem to say that salvation could be lost. Yet, God's purposes are not vain, they neither change nor fail. If, then, His purpose is our salvation, can we really think ourselves powerful enough to prevent Him? We were powerless to save ourselves. I find I must contend that we are equally powerless to prevent that salvation, if God has truly elected to save us. But what else are we to make of Paul's comment here, that God will as readily remove us as He has those branches before us?
Calvin is perhaps correct in aiming this statement at those who proclaim their faith falsely. However, I don't believe it is targeting those who have knowingly falsified the claim to faith. The Israelites did not set out to lie about their state with God. They believed it. They thought themselves to be doing all that was necessary. They thought they were living righteously. Not all, perhaps, but certainly a portion held to this belief. Yet God rejected them for the very simple reason that they were wrong, and when God brought correction to them, they refused to listen.
In the church today, many who think themselves doing all the right things are likely to be disappointed when they discover that they have been fooling themselves. Many in the church today still labor under the misconception that they can earn their way in, that they're 'good enough.' All they've been taught has failed to penetrate this conceit, and so they declare their faith, even as they deny it by their actions. It is the heart and habit that determine. If the heart and habit are faithless, we will indeed be purged from the tree of God's church. But if irrevocable salvation has come to us, then our heart and habit cannot but be firmly founded on faith.
We are blessed to have the example of the Jews to learn from, as well as the example of all those who have gone before us. God doesn't change. If He would not tolerate such unbelief in the Jews, He will neither tolerate it in the Christian of this century. Some out there are depending on their parents' beliefs to see them through, or on a ritual that was never accompanied by honest belief. How does this differ from the Jews? They were confident in their lineage, in their rite of circumcision. These physical connections to the ancestral covenants they thought were enough. But they weren't. If the consecration of sharing the root of Abraham's faith did not prevent rejection, no lineage of our own, no rite of our own, is going to suffice. There remains only the pure grace of God.
There is another danger we are warned of here, perhaps an even greater danger to us in this day and age, than that of unbelief. That warning is against our old enemy pride. Here, Paul had been pointing out to the Jews how it was that their position had been lost, and how it was that the Gentiles had come to take their place. And all the while, the Gentiles are listening, and perhaps relishing a little bit the way Paul was bringing this proud Jewish people to task. But Paul turns himself mentally, to see what's in their thoughts.
Yes, you have been privileged to take their place, he says, but do you think yourselves incapable of the same mistake? Already, in thoughts such as that, the mistake is begun again. A great privilege has been given you, but with that privilege comes a certain danger to yourself, the danger of pride. Today, our pride may not be a matter of our status compared to the Jews. It may be our status compared to some other denomination. It may be the freeness of our worship compared to some other believer. It may be the quality of our teaching compared to another. It may be our grasp of theology compared to another. Any of these things can cause pride to swell up in us. For that matter, just about anything is capable of bringing pride out in us. Yes, there are exceptions to this, but pride is still perhaps the most natural sin of man.
But God has issued many warnings about this. (Hab 2:4 - As for the proud one, his soul is not right. But the righteous will live by faith.) Look and note well: pride and faith stand utterly opposed. Pride is dependence on self, it is the self-sufficiency we so love to boast of. Faith is the direct opposite: full and utter dependence on another, on God. This is what we are called to. Here, God provides a curative for us, having so clearly defined the illness. Whenever pride slips in, says the prescription, remind yourself of these words: "I am a branch in need of the root. The root stands just fine without me." In this, pride is combated on two levels at once. First, we are forced to remember that without the root, we are deadwood. Without the foundation of Christ, we topple helplessly. Secondly, we are forced to remember that we are here solely by God's favor. He doesn't particularly need us to accomplish what He will. We certainly haven't done some great service to Him by accepting His offer of salvation, nor by any of the ministry we have done since. In all that, we have been no more than dutiful slaves. And, quite frankly, even if we had utterly failed in our duties (as Israel had largely done before us), He would have gotten the job done some other way. If man had completely and utterly failed God (which, in all reality it had), He would yet find a way to see His purposes done. That is the story of Christ. That is the story of man. That is the cure of pride. The tree remains the tree, even though we are grafted in. The tree will continue to be the tree, even if we must be cut off.
Barnes tells us that faith promotes humility and dependence on God. I'm not sure that's exactly true. I suspect that it might be more accurate to say faith largely consists of humility and dependence on God. They are inseparable. Calvin puts it thus: "It is the nature of faith, and what properly belongs to it, to generate humility and fear." This feels closer to it. One cannot claim faith in God and at the same time claim self-sufficiency. Faith in God is an open acknowledgement of our total insufficiency, our total inability to do anything about our condition.
That our faith is in God specifically, requires that we have some understanding of who He is. If we believe He can save us, where no other man or power has been able to, we must know that He is more powerful than any other power. If our faith is in the fact that God will save us, we must know something more about Him, that He is loving and merciful. If our faith has revealed our own needy condition, if we recognize that we are in need of this powerful, loving, and merciful God, we must know something even more important about Him; that He is holy and just. We must know that He is truly the Lord of heaven and earth, that He rules over His creation, and that He cannot be bought. Knowing Him, knowing us, we cannot but have a proper fear of Him.
In the end, we are no more than God's grace has made us. The self-made man is a myth, and a bad one at that. Perhaps not a myth, but if real, a very poorly made product. His every tendency is along the downward spiral, his every action is marred with the imperfections of his own making. It is God's grace that can repair the machinery of such a broken man. Only God's grace. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can cause that machine to run smoothly, to operate in accord with its original design. We are called, as Mr. Clarke says, to "Depend incessantly on God's free grace, that you may abide in His favor." That is the only way.
