2008-06-27
Good Morning God's Treasures,
The Holy Spirit leads me to continue examining cross-references to MT 7, Christ's Sermon on the Mount words about judgment. I have been in classes where it is taught that only Christ has the right to judge. Surely, that is true with regard to the big issues, things like the granting and taking away of human life. However, we were given the ability to discern and to make judgments on smaller matters. God's ground rules for doing so are outlined in MT 7: 1-29, so if it's been awhile since looking at this chapter, please feel free to review it now. These are the subjects our Lord takes up: 1) judging others; 2) ask, seek, knock; 3) the narrow gate; 4) a tree and its fruit; 5) I never knew you; 6) the two house builders; 7) the authority of Jesus.
Today, we will look at JN 8: 31-36 with the understanding that God explains Himself far better than any human can. "So Jesus said to those who believed in Him, ‘If you obey My teaching, you are really My disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.' ‘We are the descendants of Abraham,' they answered, ‘and we have never been anybody's slaves. What do you mean, then, by saying, ‘You will be free?' Jesus said to them, ‘I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave does not belong to a family permanently, but a son belongs there forever. If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free.'" There is a very sophisticated concept here, that of what real freedom is. Christ uses the example of the difference in the relationship between a family member and a slave in a household to explain it. The slave must go and do what the master tells him. As Christ explains in JN 15: 15, the family member has the right to know everything handed down from the family patriarch, but the slave doesn't. He also goes on to say in JN 15: 16 that it is He Who chooses the believer to be "adopted" [RO 8: 14-16] into the family of God. Adoption isn't a usual choice for a slave. In fact, the slave has very few choices at all. On the other hand, a member of the family is given much more latitude, in addition to privileges the slave never has.
Freedom is a very signal issue to every American. In fact, many of our young people are fighting voluntarily, and even some giving their lives, so that our freedoms are protected. Our very right to worship as we choose is one of these freedoms. But the kind of freedom that Christ means in JN 8 is the freedom to act within an ethical construct that allows us to act without being vanquished by Satan's forceful efforts to upend it. That ethical construct is the teaching found in the Scriptures. It allows us to act without guilt or any of the other blockages Satan tries to put on our paths. This freedom allows us to come to God's throne boldly and with confidence that He will use His superior judgment and His loving compassion to guide us at any time. EPH 3: 12, " In union with Christ and through our faith in Him, we have the boldness to go into God's presence with all confidence." We also know that though formerly God's enemies, Christ, through His Atonement, has made us God's friends [RO 5: 9-11]. Thus, we must come to understand that our Lord Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice of His physical life, so that we might have the freedom that comes with being a part of the His own body, the church.
This freedom is not freedom without license. Of course, there are penalties for misusing the freedom that Christ gives us. Those penalties might be civil or from God or both. One of the toughest judgments I remember came in the Karla Faye Tucker case in TX. At age 14, Karla fell in with the wrong crowd. She ended up getting high with her older, more experienced cohorts at the time, and was involved in a vicious ax murder. This young lady was immediately apprehended with the others and was placed on death row in one of the TX prisons. I would have thought this was completely deserved, had it now been for several factors. For one, TX is known for being almost too quick to use the death penalty. Another was that once she was off the drugs, Karla Faye came to Christ. During the 14 years she was on death row, she was responsible for bringing many other inmates to where the Holy Spirit could give them faith in the Lord Jesus too. At the time, I was in favor, especially due to her young age at arrest, in commuting her sentence to life without possibility of parole. Instead, Karla Faye was executed. My husband had been in favor of her execution right from the beginning, so you can imagine we engaged in numerous debates over this matter until the day of the execution. To this day, Peter's explanation of why this had to be still sticks in my mind. He believes that Karla Faye had to be given the civil punishment to the full extend of the law, but feels that God has forgiven her and thus, allowed her to enter heaven. I will let that stand in my mind. Hers is a case where we must realize that even with the freedom our faith in Christ gives us, it is not freedom without license [as the anti-Nomians of Paul's day would have had us believe]. We must realize that even with the wonderful freedoms, including that to worship as we choose, that real freedom is can only come about within the limits of God's teaching through His word and prayer. With our reverence for God, knowledge of Him gained though study of His word and prayer, and experience with Him gained by serving Him, we can know real freedom in our own lives. We will know He is always-righteous, including in His judgments on the last day.
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before Your mighty throne with sin still staining our souls. Yet You love us and understand that only our faith in Christ and willingness to repent has saved us. We confess our sins to You, knowing You will listen and judge us in righteousness. And by our faith in Christ, we are saved indeed! We can say this boldly, because of JN 3: 16, always worthy of being repeated. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." That something so wonderful would happen, was even prophesied right from the beginning. GN 3: 15, known as the Protevengelium in Latin, is the first we hear of this. [God speaking], "I will make you [the serpent] and the woman hate each other; her offspring [all humans] and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite their heel." We are reminded again of this amazing truth in PS 68: 19, "What a glorious Lord! He Who daily bears our burdens also gives us our salvation." One favorite reminder of Your wonderful judgment from the OT comes in IS 53: 5-6, "But because of our sins He was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did. We are healed by the punishment He suffered, made whole by the blows He received. All of us were like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way. But the Lord made the punishment fall on Him, the punishment we all deserved." It was Your judgment that allowed us a glimpse of Christ being awarded the right to be Judge of us all in Daniel's vision, in DN 7: 13-14. It is by Your judgment that You allow those You esteem, like Daniel and John, to have a vision of the future-one that those who study Your word can see too. We are honored to have You as our God, to worship and adore You, to praise and thank You. In the mighty and holy name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
Next week, we will look at COL 1: 27 with some background from COL 1: 15-20 and COL 3: 1-4. These truths will allow us to know Who Christ is better and Who we as true believers are. Then, we can gain a better appreciation of God's supreme wisdom, compassion, and judgment. Our faithful God loves us more than we ever deserved and more than we know. LAM 3: 22-24, "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my Portion; therefore I will wait for Him.'" We can deal so much more calmly and effectively with the challenges of our lives when we really know and understand the love with which the Father surrounds us. PS 103: 13, "The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who have reverence for Him." PS 63: 7, "Because Thou hast been my Help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice." NH 1: 7, "The Lord is good, a Refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him." PS 33: 5, "The Lord loves what is righteous and just; His constant love fills the earth." Despite our sinfulness, those of us who believe in Christ and repent of our sins can see great blessings in God's statement of HO 14: 9, "The Lord says, ‘Bring My people back to Me. I will love them with all My heart; no longer am I angry with them." Escaping God's wrath means escaping the worst of all consequences, spiritual death. How sweet and calming that is! I must end today with praising God using His words, in PS 66: 20, "Praise God Who did not ignore my prayer our hold back His love for me."
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn