faith for faith

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (Rm. 12:3).

The foundation of humility is a right understanding of who we are in light of what God has given to us. As regards our salvation, we must recognize that we, like the rest of mankind, were once dead in our own transgressions and were by our choice enemies of God, but God, being rich in mercy toward us, has borne our transgressions in the person of Jesus Christ and has revealed himself to us by the Holy Spirit. We have no basis upon which to boast in our salvation, for our salvation was completely accomplished without us, and love and mercy were directed toward us even before the creation of the world (cf. Eph. 1:6). We did not choose God, but God chose us, so that in all things, especially in our salvation, he might receive glory and honor and that we might glorify him with humility.

This humility that we are to have extends beyond our salvation into our place in the body of Christ. For even among those who are God’s children through Jesus Christ, he assigns to each a measure of faith so that each of them might perform a different function within the body. The apostle Paul continues in Rm. 12:4 with the analogy that the church is like a human body, and each member in the church performs a particular function. And, as in the human body, some members perform seemingly more crucial roles than others. However, a member’s role within the body is not determined by his ambition or his hard work, but it is determined by God who assigns to each a different measure of faith in order that there might be diversity of function within the body.

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There is little doubt that when the Holy Spirit through the prophet Moses penned the narrative of the life of Joseph that Joseph was portrayed in such a way to make him a pre-figuring of the coming Messiah promised in Genesis 3:15 and realized in Jesus Christ. We see this in the narrative sinlessness and blamelessness of Joseph (though we know he was a sinner, yet there is never any mention of his failings), and how, through the person of Joseph and his unmerited sufferings, that he saved God’s people from starvation and extinction and thereby fulfilled the Promise of God given to Abraham. In Sunday School yesterday, our teacher made an excellent observation concerning the narrative of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife found in Genesis 39. The observation was in the similarity between the Joseph’s temptation in the house of Potiphar and Adam’s temptation in the Garden. Both, though low in rank compared to their masters’, were given charge of their masters’ estate and were permitted to enjoy all things save one–in the case of Adam, eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and in the case of Joseph, Potiphar’s wife. Both were tempted to take both, yet unlike Adam, Joseph did not fail. Where Adam did not succeed, Joseph did, thereby demonstrating the coming Messiah’s position as the Second Adam, the second head of the human race, who, rather than imputing his sin to his subjects as did Adam, imputes to his subjects his righteousness (cf. Rm. 5:12-21). Just as through Joseph’s righteousness and obedience, God saved Israel from physical annihilation, so too now through Christ’s righteousness and obedience, God has saved spiritual Israel from eternal destruction (cf. Gal. 6:16). Just a thought.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). The call of Jesus Christ for any who would follow after him to “take up his cross” is a radical command. For Christ is not, as many who interpret the passage declare, speaking of one’s petty trifles, such as bad hair days, broken cars, etc., as one’s crosses, but that those who would follow after him must continually be killing themselves and their natural passions, by a bloody crucifixion nonetheless. It is an act of priestly service declaring to God and to the world the God whom we serve. The apostle Paul says in Romans 12:2 that this killing of ourselves, this offering up our “bodies as a living sacrifice” upon the altar of the Holy Spirit, is not merely something that is suggested of those who are radical followers of Christ and who are mentally unbalanced according to the world, but it is the “reasonable service” of those who are in him. Crucifying one’s self for the sake of following Christ is reasonable. Its reasonableness rests not in the act of crucifying one’s body, but it rests in what God through Jesus Christ has done. For, as the apostle puts it, the greatness of the “mercies of God” are such that all ambitions and pursuits in this age are brought to nothing in the light of God’s work. For if God did not spare the life of his only Son but gave him up for us all, why then would we not give up all things in this age to follow hard after him by putting to death the deeds of our bodies? (cf. Rm. 8:13). Indeed, it would be unreasonable for us to do otherwise. Therefore, if we who claim to be in Christ love and pursue the things of the world, viz. the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride in possessions (1Jn. 2:15, 16), we prove ourselves, in the least, to be unreasonable, and at the most, that the love of the Father is not in us in spite of our claims. Just a thought.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rm. 12:2).

There is much talk about “knowing the will of God” for one’s life, and all sorts of methods are proposed for discerning it. Many will tell you (and many of them from good sources with good intentions) that you discover the will of God through prayer, by being still and listening to the “still, small” voice of the Spirit of God. Others will tell you that you do not know the will of God because you are out of the will of God, thereby making your case hopeless. And yet others will tell you to search for open and closed doors (i.e. those things with offer little resistance to you and those that offer major resistance, respectively), with the “open” doors being those things which are the “will of God,” and the “closed” doors being that which is not the will of God.

There are many problems surrounding the discernment of the will of God in these ways. First, we are never told in Scripture that prayer is a two-way conversation, or that we are to seek special revelation in the audible voice of God. The passage from which this notion is taken, i.e. 2Kg. 2:12, is concerning the Lord’s speaking to his prophet Elijah in a low whisper. The problem in using this passage to conclude that God speaks to everyone in this way is an interpretive one, for it is a narrative of Elijah’s life not an instruction to the saints of God. It would be just as valid to say that we must do as Gideon did and throw out a fleece to determine God’s will (cf. Jdg. 6). Additionally, we are not told anywhere in the apostle’s writings to seek the will of God in this manner.

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I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Rm. 12:1).

The appeal by the apostle rendered, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,” is a translation of the word “parakalo” which is the verb form of the noun “paraklete,” which is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe the office of the Son as our Advocate and Comforter–as one who, literally, is “called along side” a soul (“para” beside, “kal” call) (cf. Jn. 14:16, 25, 15:26, 16:7). That being said, the point of the apostle in employing the term is not to call to memory the office of Jesus Christ (though he does do that at times in his previous discourse, viz. Rm. 5:1; 8:35, etc.), but to issue a call to those who are in Christ to live in a particular fashion beside or in light of what the apostle has already taught, put simply as “mercies of God.”

There is little doubt that the apostle is calling to mind everything that he has taught up to this point (viz. Rm. 1-11), for in it is the exposition of the Gospel which is the revelation of the “mercies” of God to men. For from the beginning of the apostle’s discourse, we see him proclaiming without shame the Gospel, which is the revelation of the righteousness of God from faith for faith, viz. “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe” (cf. Rm. 1:16, 17; Rm. 3:22). For in it, we see the dire state of all of humanity in that no one, neither Jew nor Greek, is better off than the other, for all are under sin and therefore “fall short of the glory of God” (cf. 3:9; 3:23). However, justification has come to men through Christ’s righteousness, which is received by faith (cf. 3:24; 4:24, 25), so that no one may boast in his state of righteousness and subsequent salvation (cf. 3:27; 6:20-23).

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For those who are well acquainted with the teachings of orthodox Christianity, The Shack by William Young is an easy target. As seen in my evaluation of the theology of The Shack (to which I will likely add even more), its pages are filled with almost incessant heterodoxy. From its idolatry of the triune God, to its distortion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to its man-centered view of God and creation, its heresies are such that they would, as a friend of mine quipped, make Arius blush. And despite these abounding heresies, The Shack has been accepted and even heralded by many evangelical Christians as a great work of Christian literature.

However, The Shack is not the disease of the American church, but its acceptance by the church is merely a symptom of the disease that she has had for years. For, though Young will certainly be judged one day for his heretical portraiture of God, there will be many pastors who fill pulpits in American churches today who will incur a much more devastating judgment. For these pastors have for decades neglected their office by their disobedience of the command of our Lord to the apostle Peter, “[If you love me], feed my sheep” (Jn. 21:17). For these pastors have acted precisely in the manner of the shepherds of Israel whom the Lord condemned through the prophet Ezekiel:

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Introduction to the Theology of The Shack
A. The Shack and the Second Commandment
B. The Shack and Sexual Confusion
C. The Shack and Trinitarian Distortion
…..1. The Economical Heresy
…..2. Redemptive Distortion of the Triune God
…..3. The Shack and the Incarnational Heresy
D. The Shack and Free Will
E. The Shack and Gospel Distortion NEW! (6/6)

In spite of defenses to the contrary, The Shack is a theological treatise. Though it does not take the forms of such works as The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin or The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, it nevertheless propagates a thorough and distinct theology. The Shack, however, opposed to the aforementioned works by Calvin and Luther, acts more or less as a theodicy, a work designed to justify the ways of God to men. In the case of The Shack, it is a theodicy that seeks to justify the supposed “problem of evil,” a philosophical problem that exists in the mind of some who cannot reconcile the amount of evil and pain in the world with the notion of a good and omnipotent God. This is clearly the intention of the author, for it is said of William Young in his short biography on the book’s jacket that “he suffered great loss as a child and young adult.” But now, Young has somehow “theodicized” God to himself quite effectively, for he “now enjoys the ‘wastefulness of grace’ [whatever that means] with his family in the Pacific Northwest.”

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It has been almost a year since I began writing Free Indeed, and since that I time, though I have yet to write or to edit this treatise on the man in Romans 7:7-25 any further, I have since continued to meditate upon this passage in light of my continued studies of the book of Romans. I also during that time have entertained other opinions on the matter and have considered the validity of my case in light of those opinions as well as in light of my further study of the apostle’s epistle. And since those further meditations, I have yet remained unmoved in my interpretation and indeed have seen it validated by my further studies.

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