2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
Yesterday, we examined the relationship between deeds, faith, and grace as God reveals it through Paul in RO 1: 1-7. All of this instruction that we receive along with the entire Bible is designed to carry out God’s agenda for us that we should learn to keep our covenant agreements with Him and take them seriously. RO 7: 14-25 is Paul’s teaching on the conflict between the flesh and the spirit. Review this if you haven’t read it recently, because it helps us to understand why we must struggle to make changes in our lives that will allow us to keep our covenant agreements. God makes it clear to us that our eternal, spiritual lives depend on us recognizing the motivation He has given us to be faithful and acting on that.
In Paul’s time, the time of the early church, he was faced with serious problems that were an outgrowth of combining people who came to faith from paganism with people who came to faith from traditional Judaism. The former beliefs of the first group were in multiple gods and human rationalization for sin. The former beliefs of the second group were based on monotheism (the belief in one God) peppered with a huge dose of legalism and reliance on their genetic connection to Abraham. That is why arguments arose in this group regarding which day the Sabbath should be observed on and what foods were okay to eat. Groups like the Anti-nomians (who believed in grace without license) and Judaizers (who relied on the old legalism of traditional Judaism) squabbled with one another and placed enormous challenges before Paul, to his teaching that God’s purpose for the church is that we should unify and edify the Body of Christ. It is within this context that Paul wrote RO 2, his attempt to address the hypocrisy of the traditional Jews in their objections to his teaching. The lessons in RO 2 are not just for Jews, however, they are for all of us.
RO 2: 1-11, “Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself. We know that God is right when He judges the people who do such things as these. But you, my friend, do those very things for which you pass judgment on others! Do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or perhaps you despise His greatest kindness, tolerance and patience. Surely you know that God is kind, because He is trying to lead you to repent. But you have a hard and stubborn heart, and so you are making your own punishment even greater on the Day when God’s wrath and righteous judgment will be revealed. For God will reward every person according to what he had done. Some people keep on doing good, and seek glory, honor, and immortal life; to them God will give eternal life. Other people are selfish and reject what is right, in order to follow what is wrong; on them God will pour out His wrath and fury. There will be suffering and pain for all those who do what is evil, for the Jews first and also for the Gentiles. But God will give glory, honor, and peace to all who do what is good, to the Jews first and also to the Gentiles. For God judges everyone by the same standard.” What an important message this is! Humans by nature are arrogant and self-centered. We want to believe that everyone else can’t be okay unless they are a carbon-copy of ourselves. If this seems like a harsh thing to say, it is only stating what can be easily observed in the behavior of the worldly people around us.
But, God wants something very different for us. He wants us to follow a very different example than worldly people; He wants us to follow that of Jesus Christ. When Christ Who was raised in a day when Jews and Gentiles didn’t socialize or connect with each other, spoke with such love and patience with the Samaritan woman at the well, He broke through the foolish prejudices of his culture setting an example for us [JN 4 :1-42]. It is clear from the arguments that Paul gives in the RO 2 passage here that God wants to lead people to repentance, part of which is a turning away from hypocrisy and prejudice. RO 2 :6 is consistent with PS 62: 11-12, “More than once I have heard God say that power belong to Him and that His love is constant. You yourself, O Lord, reward everyone according to his deeds.” It is also consistent with PR 24: 12, “You may say that it is none of your business, but God knows and judges your motives. He keeps watch on you; He knows. And He will reward you according to what you do.” We must understand that He is an always righteous and fair judge, looking at each of us from the same standard as expressed in RO 2: 11. His consistency here can be seen in DT 10: 17, “The Lord your God is supreme over all gods and over all powers. He is great and mighty, and He is to be obeyed. He does not show partiality, and He does not accept bribes.”
By looking at these OT scriptures and Paul’s message, we can see that God has been trying to get the same messages across to us consistently and has been completely open, as a true loving friend would be, about what we must do to keep up our covenant agreements. In Christ, He has given us a paradigm to follow for putting prejudice and hypocrisy firmly aside. He commands us to focus our attention not on ritual and legalism or even our genetic heritage, but on unifying and edifying the Body of Christ by demonstrating love and faithful obedience to Him. He has called each of us to be loved and to love others in Christ.
PRAYER: O Lord, we acknowledge that we must resist the temptations of the flesh to be prejudiced and to act with hypocrisy. This is so easy to do. Our flesh tells us that we should be in control; our spirits tell us that You are. We offer thanks today that we are dying to the flesh and that you never give us a challenge that is beyond our ability to overcome [2 COR 5: 17 and 1 COR 10 :13]. You want us to have Your perspective on the matter of genetic inheritance and the Jewish traditions of legalism. That is why You have us read about Christ’s colloquy in the last week of His earthly life with the Pharisees in the Temple, where He is trying unsuccessfully to get it across to them to see that they were losing sight of God’s teachings in favor of the emphasis on rituals in MT 23. You command us not to judge others, but to leave judgment to the One Who has been given the authority to carry it out, our Lord Jesus Christ. You call us to learn to love one another as He loves us, which means that we cannot continue acting with prejudice or hold back the spread of Your Gospel from those different than us who want to hear it. Because of Your immeasurable love for us, You have not only commanded us to keep our covenant promises but have given us specific instructions for how to do that which we can obey. Your greatest motive is Your desire to dwell in eternal joy and fellowship with us in heaven. To that end, we humbly offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I am led to see how in the course of keeping our covenant agreements, we spread the Gospel and can see the separation from the faithful of those who qualify themselves for the judgment of the lost. God’s many lessons for us are always designed to be in our best interests. While keeping to the Covenant of Grace may seem simple on the surface, our fleshly desires tempting us to break these agreements means that we are often presented with a struggle to do that. It is critical that we understand our loving Abba gives us specific instructions in His word to be victors in keeping His Covenant of Grace. Remember BIBLE = “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth!” God loves each of you and so do Peter and I.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn