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“Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matt 9:17)
Last Sunday I was moved to share this in our meeting (oh by the way, I don’t “go to church” on Sundays. The church “meets” in our house on Sundays. I hope you get the difference. If not, keep reading). In our shared personal perusal of the New Testament, I have come to appreciate how the above applies so appropriately to us, and I’ll explain why. However, one thing I’ve learnt over the past few years is that religious people are also the people who are the most ignorant about the history of their religions, and are bound to repeat the same mistakes their predecessors made.
Look around in every major religion in the world. You will find three things which almost always runs through all of them. The first is sacred offerings i.e. sacrifices, second is sacred spaces aka temples and the third a sacred priesthood that offers these sacred sacrifices in the sacred spaces. Hinduism, Budhism, Judaism, Islam, Greco-Roman paganism, you name it. There is always a combination of all or some of these. Even Christianity has these as well, however, there are some things that sets Christianity apart from the others. We’ll start off by looking at sacred offerings.
Sacred Offering
We as Christians believe that there is no need for us to perform any sacrifices, be it of any animal, human or other form. We believe that Christ is the ultimate sacrifice which was offered once for all, and does not ever need to be repeated.
“Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sin, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself” (Heb 7:27)
Therefore the only thing we need to do is to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Heb 4:16). However, this was not always the practice. In the hay days of the Roman Catholic church, Christians lived in the understanding that the bread and wine that was termed the “Holy Communion” represents the actual body and blood of Christ – a concept known as transubstantiation – and that every time that it was shared, Jesus was being re-offered again. I stand to be corrected, but I think this is still the mindset (if not the practice as well) of Catholicism and I dare say some of us Protestants as well. It is because of this need to “resacrifice” Christ, that we see alters in most Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Suffice it to say that historically it has been established that this whole mind frame came from the adoption of purely pagan practices, i.e. Roman, Gallic and Frankish religions of the time.
However, thanks be to God for the work of Martin Luther and the Reformation struggle, which seriously challenged this thinking and has set Reformed Christianity on the truthful path. Nonetheless, I wish they had gone further.
Sacred Priesthood
The Norm
Of course, to perform a sacrifice and to make it pleasing to whichever god you serve, it must be given by “respectable”, “holy” people, right? So, we come to the second pillar – the priesthood. In every religion, there is always the special set of people who have the sole preserve to present sacrifices and make interventions on behalf of the “ordinary” people to their god. It is the same in Christianity, but how profound the differences are!
In the Old Testament, beginning from Aaron, there was always appointed a high priest from the tribe of Levi, who were dedicated and set apart for the service of the temple. In the case of the high priest, not only did he have to be of the tribe of Levi, but he must of necessity originate from the family of Aaron (and by extension Moses, since they were brothers). Ordinary people were only allowed into the temple courts, and not the temple itself, the preserve of Levites. In addition, only the high priest was allowed to go into the section of the temple called the holy of holies once a year, where they performed a sacrifice for the sins of the whole Israel. This form of separation between the ordinary people and the “holy” is one that exists in most of the religions I’ve mentioned.
The Difference
However, in this respect there are 2 things which set Christianity apart from all others.
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Christ is our high priest. Unlike other religions including the Judaism, we need no human high priest.
“The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man” (Heb 8:1-2).
When Jesus Christ went to heaven, he went and offered his own blood in the tabernacle that was situated above (Heb 9:12). You will note that the tabernacle Moses made was based on very explicit instructions. That was because God was looking at the dimensions of his own tabernacle above, whiles giving the instructions to Moses to make a copy of (Heb 8:5). The above will be come even more important when we come to the third pillar.
However, at the completion of this exercise, he now sat down at the right hand of God, and received the power to send down the Holy Spirit to the church. This is exactly what Peter said about Christ when the Spirit was poured out on them.
If this is the case, then I’m tempted to ask where the concepts of General Overseers, Moderators and Presidents come from. Are we trying to replace the High Priesthood of Christ? Are we not just going back to the other religions of the day, especially to Judaism? Hmm.
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We Christians are now priests of the Most High God. And i mean ALL OF US. Unlike other religions including the Judaism, we need no separate priesthood.
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi’, for you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father’, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher’, for you have one Teacher, the Christ.”(Matt 23:8-9)
Ask any modern day preacher the meaning of this passage, and you will hear a million and one explanations. However, it is very clear from the context that Jesus was making this comment because of the pharisees and teachers of the law who now “sit in the chair of Moses” (v 1-2). By this statement of Christ, he has leveled us all onto one ground. There is none higher than the other, and our only Master, and Teacher is Christ, and our only Father is God.
In fact, this is the motivation for passages like 1 Pe 2:9, 1 Cor 14:26, Ro 15:14 etc.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”(1 Pe 2:9)
“To him who loves us … and has mad us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father …” (Rev 1:5-6)
“What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.” (1 Cor 14:26)
“I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another” (Ro 15:14)
There is a problem in the Christianity today, and it’s called the clergy – which translated means “heritage” or “inheritance”. Interestingly, the rest of the church is called “laity”, translated “people”. Ironically, God has always described his “people” as his “heritage” or “possession”. Where did the division come in? You see, because of the concept of priesthood of all believers, it is imperative that we allow others to express what God has given them to give to the body in more ways than even 1 Cor 14:26 above here envisages. It is of the utmost importance that we don’t let our practice become a one-man show, as it pertains today.
Someone asked a question that for all their over 30 years of being a Christian, it never occurred to them to ask why it is that Christianity is the only place where people are not allowed to ask questions after such an “important” thing as the “sermon”. I know most of the reasons that will be given, but I tell you the answers never address the core of the problem. Infact, we are practicing the Levitical priesthood all over again, though we claim to be under a new law – New Testament law.
“If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come – one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when there is a change of priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.” (Heb 7:11-12).
In the NT, there are about 58 verses that talk about being priests to one another, just like the examples given above. I tell you, the priesthood of all believers has more mention than elders and pastors that we so revere today. I hope to do a little discussion of them as part of this series on Rediscovering NT Christianity. Although elders have an indispensable role to play in the growth of the church, they are only guides, not gods.
The usurping of the role of Christ as the High Priest of his church, and the continuous division between the clergy and the laity leading to a non-functional, apathetic priesthood are unfortunately still with us, a demon which still begs exorcising, and one which unfortunately the Reformation left untouched.
Sacred Space
The Norm
Having a holy sacrifice and a holy person to perform that sacrifice, what is left is the holy place to perform it. This brings us to the third and final pillar – sacred spaces.
As we’ve already mentioned before, Moses was given explicit instructions to build the Tabernacle of the Testimony, which he did. Therefore the tabernacle became the place for the offering of sacrifices to God, and where the Ark of the Covenant was, on top of which God was supposed to dwell (in the mercy seat between the Cherubim). This was then carried about everywhere the Israelites went during the Exodus.
When Israel settled down, David wanted to build the Lord a temple, and finally Solomon did build the temple. It is very important to note that unlike the tabernacle, though God gave his approval for the building of the temple, he gave no instructions as to how it should be built. And God did make manifest his presence to them through his Spirit descending in glory over the temple. However, God never meant this temple (or any subsequent ones) to be his abode, and therefore we find that the Spirit never stayed in the temple for long. This is what Stephen referred to when he reminded his accusers that “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men” (Ac 7:48), quoting what the Lord himself said in Isaiah 66:1-2. Unfortunately, the Jews had taken the temporary interest of God in temples to mean that he could be camped in a thing of man’s making.
However, this is not entirely their fault, because every major religion before, in and after their time had temples. There is always an attempt to house a god in a certain man made location, be it in Mecca, the Temple of the Dome in Jerusalem, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre also in Jerusalem, Buddhist temple in China or Kweku Bonsam’s shrine in Ghana.
The Difference
Herein lies the difference when it comes to NT Christianity. God’s ultimate plan is revealed, and his disinterest in all man made abodes made clear, when we are told that God’s temple is not a building, its a people.
“Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with Him‘” (John 14:23).
“But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Ro 8:10).
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Co 3:16)
“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God” (1 Cor 6:19)
All these point out how different Christ’s ministry in the NT is from the OT. No longer do we need to make an appearance in a certain building before we consider ourselves in God’s presence. God is in us (note, I didn’t say we are in his presence). And whenever we meet together, he dwells in us. We are his temple.
It is no wonder then that archaeological evidence shows that no church buildings existed until 100 years after the death of the apostles. The earliest church buildings can be dated to mid AD 200, in the time of Emperor Constantine.
It is not because they were poor. In fact, the Christians of Achaia (i.e. Corinth) were quite the contrary, and were rather putting money together to help their brethren in Jerusalem.
It is not because they were in small numbers, because the language of Acts 21:20 says “thousands of Jews had believed” in Jerusalem.
It is not because they were persecuted, because the Roman empire was one of the most religiously tolerant empires, until the times of the Emperor Neros and Emperor Domitians who came way after Christianity was established. In fact, Gallio’s refusal to deal with religious arguments in Ac 18:12-16 is only representative of the attitude that the Roman leadership took to their subject colonies – freedom of worship.
And don’t misconstrue Ac 2:46 saying “they met in the temple courts” to mean they met in the temple. Don’t forget that it was only Levites that were allowed to directly worship in the temple. And worst of all, the Jews had just killed a man they considered a blasphemer – I don’t think they’d take kindly to his followers sharing the same temple with their Judaic worship. That would have to be over the dead bodies of the Pharisees and the priests of the temple. Just as it says, the temple courts were open spaces outside the Jerusalem temple where people could meet. Period.
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
Like I stated previously, the Reformation led by Martin Luther helped rid Christianity of the hegemony of man-made sacrifices, and we owe them a debt of gratitude. However, the concept of the clergy – which stands starkly against the priesthood of all believers, and the church building – a paradox when compared to the people being the temple of God – seem to be so ingrained in the modern Christian mindset that it’s difficult for us to admit that there is something wrong with them.
For some (mostly the laity) the status quo suits their lifestyles, and don’t want to be ruffled by getting too deeply into active participation in the body of Christ. After all, “that’s the pastor’s work, right”?
For others (especially the clergy), that is all they know to do, some having even attained PhDs in theology. Its the source of their daily bread. They dare not touch these historically, archaeologically and scripturally unfounded institutions, for they do so at great personal peril.
Even though it’s been established historically that early Christianity was the first religion to practice a system of equal priesthood and non-temple based worship, we have however abandoned that and gone for old testament based Judaic and Greco-Roman pagan practices. Would it not be right to say that we have put new wine in old wineskin?
My only personal pain is that Christianity is not judged by what it was meant to be, but what it is now (which is only natural). We live in a world where people have become increasingly cynical, if not hostile to the message of Christ, simply because of what they see us doing. Maybe we in Africa don’t see it much, but it’s so visible in the western world. However, I can already see signs of it creeping into the African society.
Are we willing to change the old wineskin for the new?
Filed under: Faith, Gospel, The Church | Tags: church, God, mystery, purpose, salvation
This is the first in a series I’m writing on Rediscovering NT Christianity. This article is available for download here
Many of us have read the popular title by Rick Warren, “Purpose Drive Life”. Unfortunately I am yet to read it, but I’ll like to tweak his title to apply to this writing. I have heard many people say “God will reveal what he has purposed for me” or “What God has purposed for me will surely come to pass”. We seem to think that God is yet to reveal that purpose, and that some special time will come when we will be made aware of it. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint a lot of us, but God’s purpose for us has already been revealed. We are only meant to conform to that purpose, and I’ll explain why by touching on one of the facets of that purpose – the body of Christ.
Let us start off by asking ourselves these questions. If the God we believe is really an omniscient God, how come he didn’t know that Adam could fall to the temptation of the devil? Or did he? If he did, then if Adam had passed the test, what would God have done? Would there have been the need for Jesus Christ at all? Did Christ only exist for the purpose of saving us from our sins, or God had a purpose for Christ far greater than we can all imagine. These for me are about the most important questions that we as Christians must answer to be able to truly understand the purpose of man on this earth, and by extension the purpose of our faith.
God’s Mysteries Revealed
This is why the epistle of Ephesians is such an important one (and part of the reason why we should spend more of our time reading the NT than the OT). Like I mentioned in a previous post, its the only letter Paul wrote to a church which didn’t attempt to deal with any particular problem that the recipient church was facing. It is full of such theological weight that many of us read it without fully assimilating it’s implications for our faith. I encourage you to take the time to read that book again, alongside Colossians and Hebrews. It is the epistle that explores God’s purpose for our redemption, a purpose which existed before the foundation of the earth.
Paul always spoke of certain mysteries. Of these, he often said though it had been given directly to him by revelation, other apostles and prophets of his time had also received these same mysteries. These then became the vision that drove Paul’s ministry. However, he states clearly that these mysteries were totally hidden from the prophets of old, who wished they could look into them as well. These mysteries were hidden nowhere else but in God himself, and obviously it will only take God to reaveal them.
“And he made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph 1:9-10)
“Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph 3:2-5)
“Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me; to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph 3:8-11)
Paul here mentions 3 mysteries hidden to the prophets of old.
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When the times have been fulfilled, everything will be brought under one head, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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The promises of Abraham are available to both Gentiles and Jews through a living body called the church, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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The world, spiritual and physical is intended to see the many-sided wisdom of God through the same living body called the church. This ETERNAL PURPOSE was again achieved in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You can see the amazing plan of God. Christ and his church are everything. When God sought to achieve his purpose on this earth, he made that purpose happen through Christ, and that to make that purpose clearly visible to the earthly and heavenly places, he chose the church to display that purpose. From the three above, it is obvious that because everything is IN CHRIST, THROUGH CHRIST and UNDER CHRIST, the church is nothing without Christ. However, what is even more shocking to me is that God’s wisdom can only be displayed in the church.
Let me use this example to display the implications of these mysteries. We know scientifically that decisions are taken by the brain, and communicated to the rest of the body for action to take place. In the same way, God’s intention and design is that when Christ being the head thinks of something to do, his Church will act it out. This is what we mean when we say that Christ is the head of the church. We don’t only mean that he is the say “General Overseer” of the church, but that he is the source of direction for the rest of the body to act.
And this is exactly what the Ephesian epistle seeks to communicate to us – our relationship to Christ as his body (Colossians talks about the supremacy and headship of Christ over his body amongst other things). That we are in a very privileged and powerful position, being the body of Christ. Our role is to seek out what the head wills, and do it. However, no part of the body acts alone, but always in coordination with certain other parts. To grasp something, the arm must move toward the object, and the nerves and muscles exerted for the fingers to clasp the object. The biceps and triceps are then flexed to lift the object up, and the purpose is achieved. I hope the doctors will excuse my ignorance of human anatomy, but I believe this is basically what the human body does, and the church is no exception.
The Manifold Wisdom of God
But what exactly is the manifold wisdom of God? Hmm, that will take me a whole book to delve into, but I’ll summarise it in three ways, though they are actually more than three.
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God intends the Church to be the bride of Christ, spotless and holy as Christ himself. (Eph 5:27; Rev 19:7-9). Just as Abraham sent his servant to bring a wife to Isaac, so has God sent his Holy Spirit to bring the Church to Christ.
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God intended and has created a new family, in which he is the Father, Christ the eldest son, and the church his younger brothers. (Ro 8:29;Heb 2:10,19;5:8). We have a direct relationship with him, again possible only through Christ. That is why both Gentiles and Jews have to come under the church. Check out what Paul said “Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God” (1 Cor 10:32). In fact, the world even awaits our revelation as the sons of God, and until then will continue to groan in the pain that it does. (Ro 8:19-23).
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God has always intended to dwell within and among men. It’s the reason why we individually and corporately are his temple (1 Co 6:19;3:16). This conforms to the new Jerusalem, where the writer of Revelation writes “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them’” (Rev 21:3). When you continue reading, there it is stated clearly that there no temple in that city: “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev 21:22). Can you guess why? Because the church which is part of Christ will be with Christ then. Christ will be joined with the church, which will in turn be joined with God. No temples needed. Hallelujah!
Purposed Before Creation
Liberating and empowering as this purpose is for us – a purpose which became Paul’s burning passion – it was a purpose that existed before man was created. The apostle calls it an eternal purpose, and that is why he says it was hidden. That is even more amazing to me. That means that even if Adam had not sinned, the church will still have come into being somehow, existing in, under and by Christ solely for the purpose of displaying God’s wisdom. Oh, and Paul cannot be accused of introducing teaching that Jesus did not teach. Christ himself said that his kingdom was prepared “since the creation of the world”. Let me show you some places where this “before/since creation” concept exists.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world‘” (Mt 25:34)
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be adopted as his sons …” (Eph 1:4)
“This purpose was given us in Christ before the beginning of time …” (1 Ti 1:9)
If Adam Hadn’t Sinned
So now, we come back to answer the million dollar question. What if Adam & Eve hadn’t sinned? How does Christ and the church fit into the picture? Do you remember that apart from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, there was also the tree of life in the garden? Well, what did Jesus Christ say about that same tree of life in Revelations 2?
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7)
Well, a tree of life can only give eternal life. And therefore when man had fallen to sin, God had to prevent access to that tree, so they don’t stick to their sinful nature for eternity. Therefore they would have been given eternal life from that tree. Now note who is making the promise here. Jesus Christ himself. He is the one who will give it to them – again salvation in, through and by Christ. They would then have become the founding members of the church.
Implications of God’s Purpose
We can see that God had already determined his purpose for our creation and inclusion into the body of Christ. His overriding concern is for Christ and his body, the church. And therefore, it is obvious then that God’s purpose is intensely a corporate one. God is not going to reveal a separate purpose for you, apart from a purpose that fits within his eternal plan, a purpose centered around the church. The church is the reason why Christ came. If this is so, then the following observations can be made.
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Salvation is not about us the individuals who are saved by Christ. I know that our gospel and everything else that we teach today is so individualistic, but trust me, you were not saved for your own salvation’s sake. You are saved to take an active part in building up that body alongside others to make manifest God’s wisdom.
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Because of the unfortunately individualistic twist which church scholars trace from the D.L. Moody line of preaching, most Christians see the church not as the end itself, but just a point for gathering Christians who have been saved. We see our main mission as saving the whole world, which has shown evidence historically of producing very weak Christians. We don’t realize that it is within the church that transformation really happens, and every avenue must be explored to make that transformation be visible to the world. That is how the world will see the wisdom of God. Christianity has always been about “calling out from among the Gentiles a people for himself” (Act 15:14). Its the same thing God told the Israelites when he saved them from Egypt – “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself … out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession” (Ex 19:4-5).
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It is because of the truth that God wants to dwell within his people that it’s painful to observe the mindset of Christians regarding the church building, as if God still dwells in buildings (this is exactly what Stephen tried to tell the Jews which incited their anger to kill him – “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men.” (Acts 7:48) ). The 1st century Christians understood this so well through Paul’s ministry, that it has been established historically and archaeologically that they never built for themselves church buildings, but simply used their homes or any available meeting spaces (a natural consequence of this was that they met in small groups, allowing them to also pay more attention to individual maturity). It’s only when a Roman emperor (Constantine) decided to nationalize Christianity that he commandeered existing temples for the Christians and built new ones as well, that set us on this path of decline.
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Because everyone is to be actively involved in building up Christ’s body, simply because that is the eternal purpose of God, it’s again painful to observe the separation between clergy and laity. We have created an artificial split between those who may serve God, and those who may just watch the show. It is a natural consequence that once you put some people in charge and not just give them guidance roles, but tell them that they are supposed to do all the important work in the church, then everyone else will relax. If there is one thing we all agree with, growth comes from directly experiencing an activity. No matter how many lessons you give a student, if they do not have the opportunity to practice it (and I mean practice it in the most important organism to any Christian – the church), they will never be a well-rounded student. The same is true of the church. If we only sit on the pews everyday and only a handful of us do any spiritually related activity, we are not displaying the wisdom of God – that he lives in everyone and is capable of using everyone.
I’ll leave you to ponder the rest of the implications of adopting such a mindset towards God and his purpose for you. However, I hear people say very often that where there is no vision, my people perish. The problem with contemporary Christianity is not that we don’t have a vision. Au contraire, there is an abundance of vision. The only question is whether this vision is defined by ourselves, or its the eternal purpose that God had designed before the foundation of the world.
Understanding that the church is God’s central eternal purpose on this earth made me see why Christ said this:
“I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them”(Mat 18:19-20)
When a group of people gather under Christ’s headship (i.e. where he is the brain and they are the body) and are focused on his already predetermined purpose, they are walking in the mind of God. Therefore, whatever they as a group (not individuals) wish for concerning that purpose WILL BE DONE, because it already is in line with God’s vision. No wonder Paul said that “WE have the mind of God” (1 Cor 2:16), not “I have the mind of God”.
Our vision must not be individual, but corporate. It must not be from us, but from God. And finally, we must understand that God’s vision was predetermined before the foundation of the earth, and we can only conform to it, not dictate new terms to him. Or else we will heal the sick, raise the dead and do more than Mother Theresa did, but God will tell us he doesn’t know us because we pursued our own purpose.
** For an indepth discussion of the eternal purpose of God, refer to “From Eternity to Here” by Frank Viola, “So Beautiful” by Leonard Sweet, or “The Stewardship of the Mystery” by Theodore Austin-Sparks, which is available chapter by chapter at http://www.austin-sparks.net.
One of the defining marks of Christians is praise and worship, and I will not even begin to go into the importance of such an exercise to the faith. Suffice it to say that it is a tool not to be underestimated. It is in the same vein that I’ll like to look at our praise of God in the light of the two theological masterpieces – the epistles of Ephesians and Colossians. The question has never been whether we should praise God or not, its what we should be praising God about.
Before I go on, it is worth noting why I deem these epistles masterpieces, especially Ephesians. The Ephesian epistle is the only one that was not written to address any particular problem that was happening in any church, unlike most of the the Pauline epistles. In fact, some bible scholars argue that since the earlier manuscripts of Ephesians do not have the phrase “in Ephesus” (“To the saints in Ephesus” – Eph 1:1), it may be that it was a circular letter written to a host of churches. It was written during a time of imprisonment in Rome, when Paul was not going anywhere fast.
Paul had already written a gist of the revelations he propounds in here in the prior letter to the Colossians (Don’t fret. Even though most bibles place Ephesians before Colossians, bible scholars agree that Colossians and Philemon were written together and Ephesians followed them, all in AD 61. Maybe you need a chronogical bible, but I’m not sharing mine 
). He only goes on to delve fully into these matters in Ephesians. As an author’s comments on Ephesians goes,
“This letter is the crown of Paul’s ministry, ‘the Divinest composition of man’, and ‘the high water of Holy Writ’ … Ephesians is a matchless presentation of God’s eternal purpose and the unsearchable riches the Christians have inherited in Christ. (The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, Frank Viola).”
I couldn’t agree with him more, because in my experience, it is the book that Christians need to rediscover – one that clearly states in no uncertain terms why the church exists, and why we are called to be a part of it. For me (and countless others I’ve met in the blogoshpere and beyond), it’s one of the books that reinforce why I should be proud to call myself a disciple of Christ in the face of so much despondency and despair at what Christianity has stood for over the centuries.
But I digress. Let us look at the cause for Paul’s praise in Eph 1:3-10. It’s quite a long one, but easy to break down and assimilate.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given to us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace the he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”
First off, he says we should praise God for blessing us with every spiritual bless “in Christ”. Now that is mind boggling – not that God is going to bless us, but he has already blessed us. But don’t forget he is very specific about the kind of blessings – spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms “in Christ”. The question is, what are these blessings? Well, if I know God very well, he “will not do anything without revealing it to his prophet”, so I believe it won’t take a rocket scientist to show us what these are – they are right next in line.
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We were chosen before creation: This is exciting! Even before Adam and Eve were brought into being, God had chosen us. This reason alone is good enough for us to give praise to God every second. Do you doubt that? Well, even Rev 13:8 says “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast – all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world”.
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We are predestined to be God’s sons: Have we even thought about what comes along with being a son of God, alongside Jesus Christ? Have we even considered being in the same family as God, with Jesus Christ as our elder brother? “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the first among many brothers”(Ro 8:29). Do we even understand the fact that the world continues to be in the pain that it is – and that this pain will not go away – until the sons of God are revealed? “The creation awaits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Ro 8:19).
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We have redemption through his blood: I cannot overstate the work that Christ did on the cross, turning us “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God” (Ac 26:17). Most assuredly, the battle was won on the cross, but the war will be won in his coming kingdom (Rev 19-22).
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He made known to us the mystery: This is the part that fascinates, and enchants me. What is that mystery? That all things in heaven and on earth will be “brought under one head” or “summed up in Christ”. This mystery is so great that God had it hidden in no one than within he Himself. He had kept this mystery from the devil, and in the latter’s planning and scheming, he didn’t know that he was fulfilling that mystery. In expounding “summed up in Christ” further, Paul gives us this gem:
“Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made manifest to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus” (Eph 3:8-11)
I’ve been writing about purpose and process, but I tell you, this is the eternal purpose of God. That Christ, through his church, will display the manifold wisdom of God to the everything everywhere, spiritual or physical. You will notice that this purpose was “accomplished in Christ Jesus”. Well, there’s your “summed up”.
You see, most of us don’t realise that God is a God of purpose, and undoubtedly even as he is eternal, so are his purposes. In that ignorance, we always think of Adam’s sin and Christ coming to save us, as if God didn’t know that it would happen. The church for us is an after thought. To God, it’s his masterpiece and part of his purpose from eternity past. I urge you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind about this. But if his purpose considering the church and Christ was an eternal one as stated above, then we must always ask ourselves “What was God’s purpose in creating man”? We must start asking questions about “before creation”, not put our binoculars on “Adam to Christ”. Like Austin Sparks said and I paraphrase, most Christians are stuck at the bottom of a ravine between 2 hills, from which Christ came to redeem us, ignorant of the fact that we were meant to move to the other side of the hill, where God had always intended us to be. Frank Viola terms the two hills Gen 1 & 2 and Rev 21 & 22 – everything else is just an intermediary step. But again, I digress. We will have time to talk about the consequences of the eternal purpose of God later.
(I’d recommend “From Eternity to Here, Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God” by Frank Viola or “So Beautiful” by Leonard Sweet if you want to get a full discussion of God’s eternal purpose. Again, I won’t give you mine 
).
However, I want us to be happy about the fact that we are part of that church, part of that eternal plan before Adam fell. Another reason to be ecstatic.
Might I remind you that all these reasons given by Paul for praising the glorious grace of God are extremely spiritual. They are absolutely connected with the heavenly. In fact, Paul had this in mind already when he wrote the previous letter to the Colossian church (thinking chronologically here, remember) about their attitude, reminding them to set their minds on things above.
“Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:1-4)
Again, he reiterates how everything is summed up in Christ – how we died and our life is hidden in Christ, by virtue of which we can only appear in glory when Christ’s glory is manifested. He makes it ample clear that our glory is not on this earth. And again, it is not for naught that Paul gives the same reminder to the Corinthians.
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Cor 15:19).
So, what is my point? What has this got to do with our praise?
I hear too often, and my ears grow weary, of Christians only praising God for bread and butter. I’m heartbroken at how we excel at praising God with the clichéd, “I thank God for taking care of me and my family throughout the week …”. I’m astounded at the vim with which we everyday praise God for “Making us somebody amongst our earthly peers” and having saved us from “Families without hope of any success”. It’s like a canker. It’s in our “gospel” music, local or foreign. Its in the pulpit, and it’s in Christian literature. It’s everywhere.
The question I want to ask us Christians is this – when it comes to comfort, prosperity, family comforts and world fame, who are on top of the list? I’m not very familiar with the world’s rich list (I hope my ignorance is forgiven, because there are weightier matters than these), but remind me if Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Sultan of Brunei and the Queen of England are people you will consider true Christians. Even ordinary “by mouth” Christians. Hmm, I didn’t think so. Make no mistake, if you are aspiring to “Bill Gateship”, you are in the wrong organisation (i.e. the church).
Because it is a well known fact that the world’s most successful people are either self-professed or can be considered atheist. A few may have a belief in God, and fewer yet in Christ. Yet we are lost in trying to attain the world’s comforts by “going through God”. And, because we do not know what Christ has given us which makes us diametrically different from these people, we continue to “praise” God for the things that he gives to everyone, whether they believe in God or not. Even the Psalms say that it is God who gives rain to the wicked as well as to the righteous. So, when we are praising God, I find it very very disquieting that we have very little notion of some of these things that are causes for the praise of the New Testament writer’s praise. In fact, there are few occasions in the NT where the writer praises God for anything other than the hope that he has called us to, the eternal purpose which he predestined from the foundation of the earth, the salvation which he has given us, the body of Christ which is the church of which we are part, the bride of Christ to which we belong, the house/temple of God of which we are precious stones in, the royal priesthood and the holy nation of God to show forth God’s excellencies, etc. If we are people of a new covenant and not the old, then I challenge us to redefine our praise according to New Testament standards.
I’m not saying that don’t praise God for what he provides for you. Far from it. But like my dad said the other day, if you sow to earthly hope, you will reap earthly hope. Obviously I do not need to state the converse.
If we are truly sons of Abraham, “who was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10), and is still waiting for that city that Christ his seed will bring (again another example of “bringing everything under” his headship or “summing up”), then our praise must change to reflect that glorious hope. Because it is indeed glorious and great.
“Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven …” (Mt 5:12)
Filed under: Faith, Religion | Tags: Angel & Demons, Christianity, Faith, Religion
“I just saw ‘Angels & Demons’ and this is my questions, if religion is flawed due to man’s imperfections then why do we still believe”?
This is in answer to the above question that a friend asked, and I’ve quoted them here verbatim. You can download this article from here. Since Angels & Demons is a fictional story about events in the Vatican during the election of a new Pope, I will seek to make comments only in the light of Christianity. I cannot and will not hold brief for any other religion.
Let me start off by asking a question of my own to this one. When you say “why do we still believe?” the question I ask is “believe in what”? Are we talking about believing in Christianity as a religion, or believing in the church or believing in Christ? Answering this question well is critical to the whole discussion, and must not be trivialized. Therefore in that direction, I’ll digress a little bit by talking about the basis of the Christian’s faith – Jesus Christ.
When He was leaving his disciples he gave them a command to go to the ends of the world and “make disciples” (Mt 28:19). Note that he didn’t say “believers” but “disciples”. And what was the cardinal standard and evidence of this discipleship?
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:34-35).
Another thing which Jesus himself said will mark his disciples out is that they will always be in the minority. It has always been, and will always be the case, that the righteous who live by faith are always a remnant, and not part of the larger norm. Doesn’t that remind you of what Jesus Christ said about the narrow and wide gates (Mt 7:13-14)? Or that out of the 600,000 (counting men only) people who left Egypt to go to the Promised Land, only 2 out of that generation made it? And yet, were they not all saved by the blood of the lamb used to mark their doors during the passover night? Jesus said “many are called, but few are chosen”. Ah, guess what James said about the same calling – “Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself” (Ac 15:14), not “taking all the Gentiles”. Interestingly, it matches perfectly with what God told the Israelites when he set them free from Egypt – “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession” (Ex 19:5)
A third characteristic that he gave of his disciples is that they will be a people of much suffering because of their faith. (Mt 10:24-25;Lk 9:23-24; Lk 14:25-27). This came to existence in the lives of the early disciples and they were never under any illusions about it (Ac 14:22), and neither should anyone who lives by faith. Abraham lived by faith, yet neither did he nor all the great men of faith who came after him receive the promise of an eternal city in the eternal kingdom in their lifetimes, a promise to all who are of the faith of Abraham (Heb 11:13-15). Were they living for a reward on this earth, or living like strangers on this earth, they looked forward to their inheritance – “a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10)?
I could go on and on about what Jesus himself said, but then you will get bored. So let me cut to the chase – we must always be mindful of the fact that religion which becomes institutionalized, highly formalized and increasingly hierarchical always exists for the purpose of self-perpetuation. As a result, such religion seeks to exert inordinate control even outside its own bounds and instead of serving as a conduit for expressing a certain faith, becomes the faith itself. It becomes more enthralled in outward symbolism and pretence, pride and hypocrisy. Like the Laodicean church of Rev 3:14-22, it becomes so naked that those who do not belong them even see this hypocrisy, yet they themselves will deny the existence of such a state. Ultimately, such religion moves away from its original purpose and becomes full of man-made rules and regulations. A classic symptom of such religion is that it begins to court the attention and support of the state and the world and abandons it’s simplistic focus on the original basis for its existence.
In this light, let’s look at a portion of Wikipedia’s definition of religion which I find interesting, and note my emphasis.
“‘Religion’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘faith’ or ‘belief system’, but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviours, respectively”
As stated above, although we may interchange faith with religion, we can see clearly that religion is more encumbered in the social and not in personal convictions, which rather defines faith. There will always be a conflict between faith and religion, and it is increasingly more difficult for faith to triumph over religion when religion has become a conduit for achieving man’s dreams, not God’s.
And that is why I welcome a movie like “Angels & Demons”. Unlike its precursor, which was purely sacrilegious because it distorts historical fact which all historians and archaeologist will not dispute (by saying Jesus had wives and children), this is one that makes you stop and ponder what we as Christians belong to and associate with all the time – the church. In this movie, a group called the Illuminati is deemed to have originated within the Roman Catholic church when the latter stood against Galileo’s observations that the earth was round. According to the same Wikipedia article on “Religion” under the section “Religion and science”,
“The Roman Catholic Church, for example has in the past reserved to itself the right to decide which scientific theories were acceptable and which were unacceptable. In the 17th century, Galileo was tried and forced to recant the heliocentric theory based on the medieval church’s stance that the Greek Hellenistic system of astronomy was the correct one”
Here was a church that was basking in the glory of state support, and at the height of it’s power. As a result of Emperor Constantine’s explicit support, Christianity had become state religion and all men in the Roman Empire were required to convert (what happened to “called out”?). Instead of being a suffering church, they were busy ruling over worldly affairs and enjoying the best the world had to offer. They had replaced a priesthood of all believers (“you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood” – 1 Pe 2:10) with an unscriptural separation called the “clergy” and “laity”. They had appointed for themselves a capital on this earth (what happened to “our citizenship is in heaven” – Phil 3:20, and “You have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem … to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven”?). They had been given their own country and city, the Vatican (Abraham must be having second thoughts – “why did I live like a stranger when I arrived on the promised land”). They were busy acquiring property for the clergy through active taxation of both business and their membership, yet the poor membership were left to their own means. They were not feeding the flock, they were feeding on it. They had become the faith. How different were and are they from the Pharisees of Jesus’ time? Oh, and don’t take this as a “Roman Catholic Church” bashing, because I believe majority of the church is guilty of this Laodicean self-deception. The RC church has only been at the forefront of the general march in the wrong direction, that’s all.
Granted that they were not even supposed to be ones deciding on what the scientific world should accept or not, simply because that has never been the mandate of the church of Christ in the first place. If they were not so obsessed at defending their worldly acquisitions and power, they would have been led by the Spirit of God to simply commission a study into the word of God to know what the Word which we Christians believe to be complete and final said about that. They would have noticed in the first place that there is nowhere in the Bible that states the the earth is flat. On the contrary, there is rather Biblical evidence that suggests that the earth is round.
“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.” (Is 40:22).
And to digress a bit further into the topic of science and religion, as someone said, the fact that the Bible does not mention insects, does not mean that God didn’t create them. The fact that the Bible did not mention dinosaurs does not mean that from the Bible’s standpoint, they did not exist. In fact there is evidence to suggest that the Bible does talk of certain huge animals in Job 40 & 41 and the Psalms (Behemoth and Leviathan). In Job 40 the behemoth is described, and a few of those descriptions are captured below.
“He moveth his tail like a cedar” (Job 40:17 KJV)
“Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.” (Job 40:23 KJV)
I’m not too sure how many hippos and elephants have tails “like a cedar” or trust they can draw up the Jordan. But we might want to take a further look at these chapters and an even more critical appraisal of our Bibles that we keep under your pillows instead of in our hearts henceforth.
But I’m not here to be the apologetic, so I’ll leave my digression here. I believe that the most endangered species of people in this day and age are not those who don’t believe in God and think life is just a passing thing and science will explain all and solve all problems. No, those who need to be preserved are religious Christians, who claim a faith in God but actually only claim a faith in religion.
Because we who claim a faith in God have absolutely very little knowledge of Jesus Christ and what he really stands for, much to the joy of the devil. We are educated Christians with Bachelors, Masters and PhDs in “Rocket science”, and yet cannot discern the simple fact that it is about knowledge of God himself, something that if we will submit to His Spirit, the latter will reveal to us.
“This is what the Lord says: Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me …” (Jer 9:23-24).
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Eph 1:17)
Because if God does not give us this, then in spite of all our advanced education and knowledge, the prophecy of Isaiah will be very true of us.
“For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, “Read this, please”, he will answer, ‘I can’t; it is sealed.’ Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read and say, ‘Read this, please,’ he will answer, ‘I don’t know how to read” (Is 29:11-12).
It is good to have watched Angels & Demons, and I guarantee you personally that you should expect even more books and movies that question our “religion” in the future. The only question is whether we are ready for the onslaught that exposes our duplicity, or if we’ll do the soul searching ourselves before the Mighty Searcher himself arrives, whose eyes like blazing fire (Rev 1:14), already see through us.
Filed under: Faith, Gospel | Tags: Abraham, Faith, Gospel, Inheritance, kingdom
This article is available in pdf format here
I don’t know how many of us actually have actually taken time to digest Galatians 3, but it is one of those chapters that made me go like “Wow!!!”. I believe it behoves us to go into the implications of the content of that chapter and how they affect the hope and faith we have, against that which God had predetermined from the foundation of the earth. We’ll start off by looking at a passage from that chapter.
The Gospel was First Preached to Abraham?
“The Scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you’” (Gal 3:8).
The first wow comes from realising that the gospel – the good news – did not originate from Jesus Christ on his earthly mission, but rather was in existence way before that, to the extent that it was preached to Abraham. Wasn’t the gospel about Jesus Christ? How did Abraham understand the gospel announced to him then, if there wasn’t as yet the one to bring it into fulfilment? The basis of our modern faith is Christ’s work on the cross that redeemed us from sin and brought us to the Father. But what was the basis of his faith? If “we who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal 3:9), then how similar or different is ours?
The key to understanding this is found in the same Galatians 3, this time in v 16.
“The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds’, meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed’, meaning one person, who is Christ” (Gal 3:16).
It important to note that in most of the passages in the NT where the word “promises” are used, it does refer to the promises God made to Abraham. In fact, most of the passages containing this word are misapplied in contemporary Christianity to mean some prosperity that God has promised for those who have faith in him on this earth, without recourse to what God has already told our “father of faith”, Abraham.
But back to the point. These promises were spoken to Abraham when God called him out of his father’s house in Ur. God promised to give a certain land through which all nations will be blessed to Abraham and to his offspring. He was to “take possession of the land”.
“He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it” (Ge 15:7).
A Stranger in His Own Land. Promise Fulfilled? Not Yet.
But we find that Abraham lived in tents and as a stranger on the land even when he had finally arrived there. He never built a city, neither did Isaac nor Jacob. Even God acknowledged that fact.
“The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.” (Ge 17:8).
“The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day” (Ge 18:1)
To understand this stranger-in-your-own-land behaviour of Abraham, we have to ask why there is always the attachment of the offspring to the promises, and not just to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob alone. As Gal 3:16 says, it was because that offspring is not a plural one and no ordinary singular one as well. He is the Christ himself. Note that the Israeli nation, though they have inhabited the “promised land” for so many years, have had periods long of total exile from their own land. Indeed, they themselves continue to wait for a Messiah who will grant them total unconditional reign over that land and over the earth. And in that same wise, until that offspring has come, that land will never belong fully to Abraham (and to all who are heirs with him of that promise). It is this offspring who shall bring the promise to fulfilment.
The writer of Hebrews does a brilliant expose on this particular issue in 11:8-10, and it is one that every child of Abraham, everyone who lives by the faith of Abraham, must continuously imbibe.
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign land; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:8-10).
The inheritance of a city is what Abraham looked forward to, and he looked forward to it by faith alone. It simply wasn’t one he could bring about. Only God in all his wisdom and power could. And obviously he never gained this promise, but he determined to live like a stranger on this earth until that promise was brought to fulfilment by He who had made it. And he was not the only one who lived by faith in the promises, however all those who shared in this faith with him had one thing in common – they were looking forward to a country of their own.
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (Heb 11:13-16)
So we see that Abraham and these men of faith were waiting for a city that God Himself will build,a heavenly city. What city is this city? Where is it and what is it like? The only city in the Scriptures that match this criteria is the New Jerusalem, described in Rev 21. I’ll encourage us to take the time and read all of it, but verse 1&2 of it says:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” (Rev 21:11-2).
This was their inheritance, and everywhere that you see the word “inheritance” or “inherit” especially in the NT, you should have this picture in mind. This was their privilege and their honour – to be found in the city of God at the end of the age of men. Let us look at some examples.
“As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance” (Dan 12:13 – which was spoken to Daniel at the end of all the visions he received from God).
“Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Ac 20:32 – Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders)
“who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:14 – Paul talking about the Holy Spirit the Ephesian disciples had received by faith).
“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:28-29 – speaking of their future inheritance)
“He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (Rev 21:7 – declaration of God to John in his vision about the heavenly Jerusalem)
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Mt 25:34 – Jesus separating the sheep from the goat in his judgement on his throne of glory”
Note that inheriting this city is only an extension of the millennial reign, in which these same overcomers will rule with Christ over the whole world, physical and spiritual.
“I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge … and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Rev 20:4)
Christ and the Inheritance
So then, did Christ teach about this inheritance of a kingdom, of an eternal city? Did Christ promise the reign in that kingdom (not just entry into it) to his disciples? What did Christ preach at all?
The stage was set for what Christ was to do on this earth even before he entered the world from Mary’s womb, when the angel appeared to her concerning the son she was about to give birth to.
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end”.(Lk 1:32-33)
And so, Jesus carried the message of who he was and what he was bringing to us who believe in his message. Let’s take a look at what he preached at the very beginning of his three year ministry, right after being tempted by the devil in the wilderness.
“From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’” (Mt 4:17).
Jesus began by calling people to repentance. But you will observe that the call to repentance is not for repentance sake, but for a purpose – because of the kingdom. You see, the gospel has always been about the kingdom. It is not about Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is not about redemption from sin. It is not about healing and miraculous deed of Jesus, neither is is about healing us and providing us with daily bread. These wonderful themes aforementioned are the process through which the purpose is achieved – God’s ultimate plan of sharing the reign of the world physical and spiritual with His called out people (‘eklessia’ or the church) in a kingdom whose capital is the new Jerusalem – the one Abraham was looking forward to. The fact that the kingdom Abraham looked forward to is the same one Jesus has prepared for us can be seen in the light Mt 25:34 and other places, which states that the Kingdom was prepared for us “since the creation of this world” or “before the creation of the world” (Eph 1:4; 2 Ti 1:9). It is no wonder then that Jesus himself calls His gospel “the gospel of the kingdom”.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Mt 24:14)
It will interest you to know that there are more than 50 references to the phrase “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew alone, not speaking of the other Gospels. In fact, when Peter was beginning to wonder what exactly they were following Jesus for, he got a clear and straight answer reminding him not of gaining repentance from sin and eternal life, but an inheritance in that Kingdom. He didn’t tell Peter of the process, for Peter was already part of those who were following me. He was telling him of the purpose – the kingdom.
“Peter answered him, ‘We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’” (Mt 19:27-28)
You see, the Jews have always been a strong-headed people who prided in their position as children of Abraham, children of the promise. And Jesus’ message never changed that promise, or made a different promise to them. Have you wondered why there are a so many of the parables which talk about the kingdom of God (“the kingdom of God/heaven is like ….”)? The Parable of the Weeds, the Parable of the Net, Parable of the Mastard Seed, Parable of the Talents & Pounds, Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Parable of the Ten Virgins etc? And neither did the Jews misunderstand Jesus’s message in relation to the promise, for they had come to know and believe he was the Anointed One, the expected king who was going to bring about the kingdom of God.
“While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.” (Lk 19:11).
All this belief culminated in the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem described in the Gospels. In fact, the Jews of his day are the direct opposite of modern Christian – they had a good glimpse of the purpose (though not completely), but were completely thrown off tracks when Jesus expounded the process by which they may enjoy that purpose – repentance, faith and obedience to God through a renewed life offered by Jesus alone. On the contrary, we are caught up in different stages of this process, and I honestly cannot say that much for our appreciation of the purpose – the kingdom.
Implications of the Inheritance Life
If we are to be called true children of Abraham (Gal 3:7), then the examples in the life that our father Abraham lived should become cornerstones of our faith. And therefore it behoves us to look at certain characteristics of the life of our “father of faith”, that we may apply these to our own. Because I guarantee you that we cannot have it any easier than he had it and still be fit for the inheritance.
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Be ready to live like a stranger on this earth – As we have already established, Abraham lived as a stranger on this earth, this same earth that will be given back to him to rule over when Jesus returns. We as Christians cannot set our goals and priorities on what the worldly also desire. We must fully understand that although we are in this world, we are only waiting for our heavenly city and until Christ returns, we can only wait in faith and in His earthly representative’s power – the Holy Spirit. We should expect the world not to understand us for living like this, because they have not submitted their lives to the Holy Spirit that quickens us. If we endeavour to build our cities now, we will gain the world’s approval alright, but I believe I don’t need to state the obvious when it comes to God’s own.
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Be ready to suffer for your faith – Not because God hates you, but because as Frank Viola put it last week, God intentions grow the “human spirit but frustrates the soul and bids death to the flesh”. Between the time God called Abraham and blessed him, till the time he gave birth to Isaac was 25 years. It was such a long time that he was tempted to get the blessing through some other means – through Hagar. Of course that wasn’t God’s plan, but it shows us the importance of total reliance on God for the fulfilment of his own promises to us, something that our rebellious soul hates.
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Be ready to loose much for your faith – Related to the theme of suffering is loss. Here was Abraham, missing the company of family, friends and familiar settings. And these losses do not preclude the loss of the comfort of religious institutionalism. Just as Abraham was called out of his comfort zone, history has continuously shown that true spirituality does not breed well in the institutions of the day, which tend to exist for their own self-perpetuation.
Also this loss could be also very personal. Take the case where Abraham was prepared to lose his son, knowing that God was capable of providing again through resurrection (Heb 11:17-19). Little did Abraham know that the real sacrifice was yet to come in the form of “the seed” – Christ.
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Become a friend of God – I’ve heard the popular song “I’m a friend of God”, and I’ve had cause to ask myself how I am a friend of God. We will all agree that friendship does not just form in the air. It is based on sharing a mutual concern or love or participation in something, and our friendship with God is definitely not about our interests, but His. If we are truly friends of God like Abraham was, we will be busy about building his kingdom, not ours. The one thing most important to God on this earth is the church which is to be the bride of Christ (if you doubt that, take some time to digest the book of Ephesians), and we better become active participants in building it, not warming its pews. Oh, and I don’t mean the church buildings, but his organic church, composed of them that that are gathered in his name.
If you study this gospel of the kingdom and it’s attendant Spirit produced lifestyle, it makes you understand the dearth of true spirituality in the church today. And it is not surprising, given the condemnation that Paul pronounced on those who preach any other gospel.
Conclusion
If you study this gospel of the kingdom and it’s attendant Spirit produced lifestyle, it makes you understand the dearth of true spirituality in the church today. And it is not surprising, given the condemnation that Paul pronounced on those who preach any other gospel.
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really on gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Gal l:6-9)
Today, the gospel we hear keeps “motivating” us to build our cities on this earth. They keep telling us that what is good for the world is good for us as well. The pulpit has become the stage for teaching philosophy and management skills, all wrapped up with a semblance of Jesus Christ. Even though Paul reminds us to “set our heart on things above” (Col 3:1), we have woefully turned it upside down. As for those who keep to the reformist theology, they unfortunately only continue to harp on the processes as individual in their own right, and fail to see their connectedness to achieve that ultimate purpose.
Or is it because of this?
“As for the prophets who lead my people astray, if one feeds them, they proclaim ‘peace’; if he does not, they prepare to wage war against him” (Mic 3:5).
Theodore Austin-Sparks said that the mere existence of epistles after the Gospels points out the fact that Christianity is not a single event that happens to you, but a lifetime of progression in knowledge, which should lead to further obedience. That underpins our discourse today and I hope we come to a “unity of the faith” on this matter.
The Apostle Paul was indisputably instrumental in the early church and it’s growth. Even as he went about doing his work, his heart’s desire was to see certain traits in the churches that he had either founded or at least had spent considerable time working in. This desire is expressed in his prayer of thanksgiving when he heard of two traits in these churches – Faith and Love.
Paul’s Thanksgiving
“For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers”(Eph 1:15-16)
“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all the saints – the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth.” (Col 1:3-4)
“We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thess 1:2-3)
“We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.” (2 Thes 1:3)
As you may have observed from these passages, he talks about “faith in Christ Jesus” and “love for the brethren”. One may ask what was so distinct about these that he continuously looked out for them in the members of these churches (and I believe wherever else he went). There are quite a number of reasons, but we will look at only a few.
Why Faith?
Because faith is the foundation of our relationship with Christ. You see, when we love someone, we want to please them. Heb 6:11 says without faith it is impossible to please God. That means God himself has shown the way we may show love to him – by faith in Him. Christ’s atoning death on the cross achieves a certain double edged benefit for us.
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In the negative sense, it sets us free from sin and it’s ultimate punishment, death.(Ro 6:3-14; Heb 2:9)
“The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the live he lives, he lives to God.” (Ro 6:10)
“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour, because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone”. (Heb 2:9)
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In the positive sense, it brings us into fellowship with Christ himself and the Father, a fellowship that existed when God created man. (I Jn 1:3; 1 Cor 1:9; 1 Pe 2:9-10)
“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 Jn 1:3)
The first benefit had to come, to enable the second one. God could not have fellowship with sinful man, but since Christ has become the intermediary for us, we are able to approach God now and our fellowship with him is now restored. When the Scriptures say that Abraham walked with God, it does literally mean that. Simply put, he was a man of faith not in anything or anyone else, but God alone. We cannot clothe God when he’s naked because he never is. We cannot feed him when He is hungry, because he never is.
What determines our fellowship with God is faith. Even our ability to take advantage of Christ’s aforementioned work is again only by faith. Nothing else suffices. There is nothing else we can do for God besides that.
Why Love?
Because love is the basis of our relationship with each other. Note that we are talking about “love for the saints”, not the rest of the world. Many Christians today engage in some good deeds for their communities and those in need but who are not a part of the saints that they share fellowship with. Though this is commendable, their real first responsibility is to the saints (Gal 6:10). In fact, in Jn 13:34-35, Christ says the basis upon which the world and by extension Himself will identify his disciples is through the love the disciples have for one another.
The fellowship described previously is a fellowship akin to family. God becomes our Father, and we his sons. Check out what Jesus told Mary when she met the risen Christ on the third day:
“.. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God‘”.(Jn 20:17)
Now imagine I claim that God is my Father and you also claim that God is your Father. By simple logic, we are siblings, right? But I withhold the use of a spiritual gift which will build you up simply because of some personal problem I have with you. That is not a family in sync. That is hypocrisy, pure and simple. That’s why James had some strong words for those who saw their brother in need but only told them “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed” (Jas 2:16).
It is therefore not surprising that Paul is overjoyed to find these traits in them. These are the things that show growth, and signs that we should all look for in our lives, those of our fellow Christians and in our churches. Not growth in numbers, as wonderful as that may be.
Paul’s Prayer
Having thanked God for the exhibit of faith in Christ and love for the brethren that he had witnessed in these disciples, he goes on to pray for something additional, something which I believe is the source of these two traits in the first place – he prays that they may know Christ more. He believes that their faith and love will abound more not just in “gnosis” – knowledge – but in “epignosis” – what the Strong’s dictionary defines as “recognition, that is, (by implication) full discernment, acknowledgement: – (ac-) knowledge (-ing, -ment).”
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” (Phil 1:9-10)
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe”. (Eph 1:17-19)
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” (Col 1:9)
When men have come to that discernment of Christ, then they can be deemed to have become mature in Christ. Until then, they are still babies. This same word “epignosis” is the basis again of the word “knowledge” used by Paul in describing the reason why God gives us the ministries of apostle, prophets, teachers etc.
“to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:12-13).
The new life experience as a result of repentance and faith in Christ was never the end in itself to the disciples of old. It was only the beginning of a process, the purpose of which is that we “attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”. And this can only be achieved through the discernment of Christ’s supremacy, His superiority and his position as the foremost of all things in heaven and on earth, God having purposed that everything be summed up in Him. This is what Paul describes as “the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” (Eph 1:9-10)
This is not just a knowledge that we have, it is knowledge that we experience. It is knowledge that moves us into a life of faith and love without limits. When you’ve caught this vision of Christ, you don’t need any motivational message or any other gospel. Christ himself and the attainment “of the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”, becomes your passion. Nothing on this earth holds you back any more.
Now this knowledge and the work that it does in our lives Christ can only be granted by the Holy Spirit working within us. That is why them that continue to walk according to the flesh are unable to discern Christ, and therefore are unable to please Him as Ro 8:7-8 tells us. This is why Paul yearned to see further increase of “epignosis” in the disciples, which will only make their “love to abound more” (Phil 1:10), and obviously their faith as well. His hope, his prayer, his mission was that by making this knowledge of Christ’s supremacy real to them and they accepting it, he may then be able to present fully rounded, mature and perfect men to God as the evidence of his work.
“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” (Col 1:27-28).
“For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy” (1 Th 2:19-20)
Conclusion
It is interesting to note that this yearning of Paul’s was consciously transferred to those who had close fellowship with him in the glorious burden of service to Christ. See what Epaphras, the elder from Colosse’s prayer day and night was for:
“Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured”.(Col 4:12)
2 Cor 10:4-5 is a very well known passage in the arsenal of the modern day Christian, and I’ll like us to draw the curtains by taking a very good second look at it. Note my emphasis in bold.
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor 10:4-5)
Although the word “knowledge” here refers to “gnosis” – the simple form – and not “epignosis”, one cannot ignore the fact that the strongholds that we are fighting are not “devils”, “witches” and “enemies” as we Africans always postulate in our sermons. Though there is no doubt that these strongholds are from the devil, the strongholds themselves have to do with issues of the mind – arguments, things that stand against the knowledge of God, thoughts etc. The battlefield has always been in the mind, and until we are “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Ro 12:2) so that our minds and hearts are filled with the gnosis and epignosis of Christ, the devil will continue to hold sway over us. In fact, any preacher who spends most of his time teaching you more about the devil, witches and “enemies” than filling you with knowledge of Christ and his supremacy and sufficiency, and must be discounted as a false preacher. Trust me, in Ghana even our dailies are filled with such false doctrine from “great” men of God.
If we continuously bring men to Christ only so that they will fill the church seats and be utterly ignorant of Christ, we are only doing the devil a service. Because until men are “perfect in Christ” (not “perfect” by their own measure), they are useless to Him when he returns. If we want to see more faith and love in our churches, we must first see more knowledge of Christ in them. There is no short cut.
In Derek Prince’s “The Spirit Filled Believer’s Handbook”, he classifies types of baptism recorded in the New Testament into four main ones. After mentioning John’s baptism, Christian/Jesus’s baptism and baptism in the Holy Spirit all of which we know so well, he mentioned one other form – the baptism of suffering. Indeed, it seems quite clear that this baptism has taken a place of neglect in contemporary circles, and I’ll only seek to further throw some light on this topic.
Let us look at this baptism of suffering described by Jesus Christ. James and John, the sons of Zebedee had come to ask Jesus to set each one them on the left and right hand side of Christ’s throne in his glory. And this was Christ’s response to this request:
“‘You don’t know what you are asking’, Jesus said. ‘Can you drink the cap I drink or be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with? We can’, they answered. ‘Jesus said to them, ‘You will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant.’”(Mk 10:38-40)
Note that Jesus Christ fully agreed with them when they said they could drink of the cup and be baptised with his baptism. In fact, he said plainly that “they will”. And this agrees perfectly with his own statement in Mt 10:24.
“A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!” (Mt 10:24-25)
The imperative of perseverance through suffering as a means by which God trains us up from being children of his to being his sons cannot be overstated. The purpose of grooming sons as heirs alongside the elder brother Jesus (Ro 8:29) is so important that God will take his children through every means to have that purpose established. As the late Theodore Austin-Sparks puts it, God always seeks to have his “men of stature”. This understanding of what I call the forgotten baptism was never lost on the disciples, and they continued to encourage and remind themselves in that direction.
“Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith: ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’ they said” (Ac 14:21b-22)
Note that they didn’t say “we will”, but “we must” go through many hardships. We will look at some of the traits of the lives of the early church and how their lives depicted their understanding of these teachings of Jesus Christ. This would help us get a picture of the kind and grade of suffering that they experienced, and whether we are not missing out on something in our contemporary days. Subsequent posts will delve into other traits, but we’ll look at three here.
Distinct Community Life
One of the traits that clearly marked out the NT church was its understanding of the fact that “they were in this world, but not of this world”. Paul admonished the Corinthian church to separate themselves from the unbelieving world.
“Do not be yoked together with the unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? … For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people’. Therefore come out from them and be separate.” (2 Cor 6:14,16-17)
Of course this statement does not mean that we do not associate with the people of the world, because then “In that case, you would have to leave this world” (1 Cor 5:10). However separation from the world is required because among other things:
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we are the temple of the living God and God seeks to move and dwell amongst us as stated above. Obviously a God who doesn’t tolerate wickedness will not have any unbeliever soiling his temple.
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we are holy in Christ – “You were taught with regard to your former way of life … to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:20-22-24). Paul, the founder of the Ephesian church, reminded them that he taught them to put on what God had already prepared for them; His righteousness and holiness. Separation is not to achieve holiness, but rather because of holiness.
The evangelical theology of Reformists (i.e. most Protestant, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity) focuses on trying to change the world by applying the standards that the church lives by on worldly people, who by by nature have been“blinded by the god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4) and will never succumb to it. Unless men have began living the life that Christ alone gives – a life in the Spirit – they are totally incapable of pleasing God (Ro 8:6-8). We continuously underestimate the fallen nature of unregenerate man, and it can be well attested to that efforts in this direction only yield quantity and not quality Christianity.
Just as God called the Isrealites to be his people and made stringent efforts to set them apart from the surrounding nations, so is the church. Note what God said about Israel and Baalam’s concurrence of it when he uttered his oracle concerning them:
“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex 19:4-6)
“I see people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations” (Num 23:9)
Compare these to 2 Cor 6:14-17 already reproduced above and to the following:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pe 2:9-10)
The similarity between the OT and the NT cannot be overemphasized in this respect. Given these foundations, our duty to the world is to “call a people from among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith” (Ro 1:5). Note the use again of the phrase “a people”? The church is supposed to be an alternative society that under the unction of the Holy Spirit lives by the law of the Lord, the law of love (Jn 13:34-35;Gal 6:2). Our purpose is not to change the world by making everyone a Christian, our purpose is to call out from the world and disciple those who are willing to live the life of Christ (Gal 2:20-21) and to show to the world by our conformity to the will of God, the supremacy of Christ and what God’s intent for Christ and those that follow Christ is in his coming kingdom is.
“His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph 3:10-11)
The church is a show-piece to the world of God’s wisdom, not the world’s wisdom. God’s wisdom is centered in Christ – not worldly power, riches or fame. If the church looks like the world, in what way is it a show-piece then? I’ve heard it said before that whiles the world is becoming churchier, the church is becoming worldlier. It is safe therefore to presume that we live in tragic times – yet God’s grace abounds nonetheless to them that will avail of it.
An Expectation of Trial and Suffering
“… And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Ro 5:2-4)
“We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them.” (1 Thess 3:2-4)
“So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.” (2 Ti 1:8)
“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he want to please his commanding officer.” (2 Ti 2:3-4)
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (Jas 1:2-3)
“For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.” (1 Pe 2:19-20)
These passages were written to a very diverse audience of Christians scattered throughout Rome (in Ro); Thessalonica (in 1 Th); Timothy in Ephesus (in 2 Ti); Phoenicia, Cyprus and Syrian Antioch (in Jas); Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bythnia (in 1 Pe). Yet there is a consistent reminder throughout all these – suffering is part of the package. Accept it and persevere in it, not with gloom, but with patience and even joy, knowing that it has a purpose.
I believe that it is no coincidence that this was so important to the theology of the first century church. Many try to argue it away by saying that the world then was very hostile to Christianity, warranting the encouragement to perseverance. I find that explanation not satisfactory. Any church that determines to be true to the purpose of God in being the agent of transforming men and women into the sons and daughters of God to reign in His kingdom will be faced with persecution as a group and as individuals alike. Until we resurrect the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom and it’s attendant life, we will continue to sit in peace with the world. We will never rock the world’s boat. If you want to know the effect of that gospel, take the case of Paul’s first visit to Thessalonica in Ac 17:1-9. When the angry Thessalonian people couldn’t get the escaped Paul and could only lay hands on Jason, they accused him of one particular thing – “ and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus” (Ac 17:7).
However, I find that another form of persecution of the true church is at hand in our times, albeit in a very subtle way. Wonder how? We live in a world where the phenomenon of humanism, the cardinal sin of man, has so infiltrated the ranks of Christianity and our foundations have proven to be very weak to respond to them. Today all sorts of pragmatism, self-help, motivational, how-to-experience-your-next-breakthrough teaching has entered and taken our pulpits which were already adrift by storm. These teachings have totally abandoned self-sacrifice as a result of love for Christ (Jn 13:34-35; 1 Jn 3:16) and replaced it with self-love. It has replaced humility as a result of Christ being our only glory (Phil 3:7-10) to self-pride. It has replaced the wisdom of God which is foolishness to the world (1 Co 1:20-25;2:1-2) with philosophy and management principles rehashed as the word of God. As a result, those who are truly searching for God are found in the minority, and have to endure the scorn or silent treatment of those walking the broader way. Ah, but Paul only had what Jesus said in mind when he reminded the Thessalonians that “You know quite well that we were destined for them”.
Self-Sacrifice in Meeting Physical Needs
The standard of discipleship was already defined by Christ before his death, and I believe there is no other measure that will suffice than Jn 13:34-35.
Jn 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Obviously, the love of Christ was not shown in words, but in action, even to the point of suffering and death on the cross. And the early church understood the depth of Christ’s love and the standard that he set for them. However this standard of love cannot be attained by our own fleshly effort, but again only if we live the life that Christ lives in us – walking according to the Spirit and dieing to the flesh and it’s desires (Eph 4:20-22). It is important to note that the love that Christ endeavours for us to show is not only in meeting physical needs, but also in spiritual ones. This section deals with the physical.
Focusing on meeting the physical needs of one another, one of the attitudes of the NT disciple was that everyone who was capable of working must find a job to sustain themselves and in addition, to also meet the needs of others less fortunate. Jesus said, “you will always have the poor among you … (Jn 12:8)”, and therefore it was imperative for the church to take an active attitude towards fighting poverty in the church. This attitude is reflected in Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonian and Ephesian disciples.
1 Thess 4:12 “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
Eph 2:28 “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those in need.”
Such an active stance required a lot of sacrifice on the part of members, and especially the leadership of the early church towards making sure capable members were somehow employed and not sustained by the funds put together by the church. It is a well recorded fact that a large majority of the disciples in these times were the poor in society, and this responsibility was quite a huge burden in the church, enough to cause confusion and the subsequent creation of the office of deacons in Ac 6. Exemplified by the Apostle Paul as a tent maker (Ac 20:3), the epistles are replete with much advice about how the leaders themselves worked with their own sweat to sustain themselves and those who were with them in ministry.
Ac 20:34-35 “You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’”
2 Thess 3:7-10 “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, labouring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat’”
In stark contrast, we have a lot of unemployed men and women today in the church, and our leaders are only busy claiming their pound of flesh off their already poor congregants. Others are also busy courting the rich of this world to come to their churches so they can give big donations, which end up sustaining their lives of luxury. As Paul states above here, it is not that such people do not have a right to be supported by their members, but the fact is that that is all that their minds are on, and as capable men and women as they also are, they’d rather be a part of the problem rather than contribute to the solution.
Someone made an observation that when you are totally dependent on your congregation for your daily bread, amongst other things there are two things that can happen:
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They become slaves to you as you continue to demand your sustenance for doing your God given duty (1 Cor 9:15-16) or
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you become a slave to them by preaching what suits their carnal pleasures so they will continuously be pleased with you and give to sustain you (2 Ti 4:3; Phil 3:17-19).
Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot this side of the universe that confirms this observation.
In addition, voluntary giving towards the needs of the brethren was highly encouraged and practised, as seen by the sale of property in Ac 2 to meet the needs of the poor amongst the disciples, and also in the commendation of the Philippians (Phil 4:14-16) for their record of giving and the encouragement of the Corinthian church to do the same (2 Cor 8 & 9). I believe that an insistence on the purpose and importance of work also fed into this ability to give voluntarily.
Conclusion of Part 1
The character traits of the early disciples and their lives showed a dynamic and vibrant community of people who lived God’s purpose, not theirs. If we are to be judged as overcomers in this race, can we make it without an acknowledgement of suffering and the part that it plays in moulding our characters? Are we not in danger of being called “illegitimate” (Heb 12:7-8)?
Many will wonder why this article is titled this way. I mean, apparently there is an explosion of the word of God on the African continent, if you haven’t noticed. But the answer is simple – having heard a lot of sermons, I find it painful, if not appalling, that very few have stuck with me. I’ve had to downrightly condemn a lot of contemporary sermons as falsehood. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get on the high horse of super morality or spiritual knowledge. On the contrary, there are certain underlying principles about the word of God which enable us to discern when what we are hearing is NOT the word of God. As I always state, my writings are only an attempt to unearth just a little corner of the truth – the rest is up to God himself to reveal to us as we earnestly seek to know Him (Heb 11:6).
Conventional wisdom always informs us to tackle anything starting from a definition of the purpose, after which we define the process. Therefore it behoves us to first establish the purpose of the word of God, after which we look at the process that it seeks to achieve. We’ll look at the well beaten passage of 2 Ti 3:16-17 to help define the purpose.
Scripture Leads To Righteousness
“All Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Ti 3:16).
Isn’t it interesting that the four cardinal uses of the word of God are all related to “straightening” or “guiding” us in the right way i.e. through teaching, rebuking, correcting and training? This training is done to teach us righteousness, so that we will be equipped for every good work. But how does knowing righteousness make us “thoroughly equipped for every good work”. Because according to Heb 5:13-14, that is the only means by which we know the will of God , and stay away from evil.
“Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use, have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:13-14).
Righteousness Shows Us The Will of God
Remember what the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden was called? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What has this got to do with the above passage? The cardinal sin of the human race is our drive to establish our independence from God by deciding that we know what is good and what is evil i.e. we make our own choices. This nature of independence does not go away when we are born again, and must continuously (“by constant use”) be made to submit to what God defines as good or evil. That is when we will be said to be doing the will of God. Therefore, being trained in righteousness is knowing and doing what God says is good, not what our flesh, the world or the devil says is good. According to the above then, it is very dangerous to continuously feed on milk because then we will never be able to discern the will of God and do the same.
The importance of the word of God in achieving this maturity and perfection cannot be overstated, given the Apostle Paul’s command to the elders of the Ephesian church – a church he had started and nurtured – when he was about to leave them on another of his journeys.
“Now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified” (Ac 20:32)
Here, the image of building a house or structure is used to describe the process of maturity, which should ultimately lead them to their inheritance – an inheritance which was promised from the foundation of the earth, to all spiritual descendants of Abraham – the inheritance of sonship with the Christ in God’s kingdom (Lk 22:28-30, Heb 12:28, Ro 8:17-20, Ro 8:29). This inheritance is described in several places of the New Testament as the hope of true disciples, and Ro 15:4 gives us clearly how by the “word of His grace” we have that same hope.
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” (Ro 15:4).
Doing God’s Will Brings Perfection
The above notwithstanding, God wants us to arrive at the point when His will becomes perfect for us, not just good; “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom 12:2). Then we would have achieved what Jesus Christ told His listeners on the mount; “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). We would then have joined the ranks of the Abraham and Job, who were described as blameless (Gen 17:1, Job 1:1).
Having done these righteous acts – acts which are according to the good, pleasing and perfect will of God – we would then be qualified to be a part of the wedding feast of Christ and his bride – the church.
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints”(Rev 19:7-8)
It is interesting to note that the bride is adorned with our righteous acts i.e. we all will be wearing our righteous acts on that wedding day – I shudder to think of what will happen to those who do not have any. I believe the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matt 22:1-14) holds the answer to the latter. As I’ve said before, the parables that Jesus spoke were not just stories, but things that will happen before, during and after he comes. He was only revealing the future.
I believe that by understanding these underlying foundations of what God’s will is for us and how He intends for His word to achieve it, we can by the guidance of the Spirit of God determine clearly when a certain “good news” (the word Gospel means “good news”) may not be good news after all.
The True Prophet
Because of this vision of God for the work that His word is supposed to achieve in us, it then becomes very essential to have this as the basis of understanding and expounding the word of God. Because of the fallibility of man and the tendency to only look at our circumstances when we come to God, there is also no doubt the tendency to twist the word of God to our advantage. This was what motivated Paul to strongly warn his “son” Timothy about the discharge of his duty as an apostle to the church in Ephesus – and it immediately follows in 2 Tim 4 right after stating the source and purpose of the word of God in the previous chapter as we’ve seen above.
“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.” 2 Tim 4:1-2 (emphasis mine)
The true prophet of God seeks to present the ever unchanging purpose and vision of God in all it’s different lights, and rejects any inclinations to water down or misrepresent that purpose. As a result, they teach with:
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great patience – because their aim is to make that vision as clear and comprehensible as possible. Such people are not in the business of numbers, but of ensuring that those over whom they are shepherds become “men of service”, such that together with their sheep, they “all may reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”. (Eph 4:11-13).
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careful instruction – because nothing of that vision should be left out. As much as it lies with them and is within their power as the Spirit enables them they, like Paul, would have been deemed NOT to have “hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God” (Act 20:27).
The False Prophet
On the contrary, it is VERY easy to become a false prophet. In fact, we are living in an age where the false prophets far outnumber the true ones and are making the loudest noise with their own version of “the word of God”, and I live in full confidence of the fact that until God intervenes, there is only going to be more of them. And it is simply because they are in the business of telling us what our ears want to hear. Immediately after warning Timothy about how he should preach the word of God, Paul adds that:
“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”(2 Tim 4:2)
Many of such men are busy in the enterprise of gaining worldly accolades and fame and they have totally abandoned the way of truth. I think we forget that the way to God is always a narrow one, and only a few find it. It is for such men that this was written:
“For as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.” (Phil 3:18-19)
I have made reference to some of these so called “words of God” in some of my previous posts, but one such “gospel” which is on an unfortunate ascendency is the so called “motivational gospel”. This gospel has become so widespread that even our “good old” traditional protestant churches are being swallowed by it. To start with, I find it very glaring that most of the passages that refer to the purpose of the word of God place little emphasis on “motivation” or “encouragement”. There is rather an abundance of “teaching”, “rebuking”, “correcting” etc. Secondly, where we are encouraged by these passages, they are to motivate us to run the race of faith, whose evidence is in absolute obedience to God. We should be motivating ourselves to set our minds heavenwards, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Col 3), and work towards preparing our garments of righteous acts that will be given back to us to wear at the wedding of Christ and His bride. We should be reminding ourselves that our citizenship is in heaven, not on this earth (Phil 3:20-21).
You see, when a people keep their focus on this life and it’s pleasures, and continue to teach, encourage and “motivate” only in the direction of “God is here to solve your problems” and “God is here to make you rich” and “Your enemies are out to destroy you”; when a people’s total focus is on being the “head and not the tail” even more so in their business and social endeavours; when a people live for the day when men will acclaim them as having been “great” men “blessed” by God; when people will go to the ends of the earth to proclaim their faith but live in a neighbourhood where their poor next door neighbour is even afraid to approach them, I beg to differ that such persons have the word of God dwelling within them.
Instead of reminding these poor souls who come to warm their pews every Sunday of the glorious authority and rule that awaits them in Christ’s future kingdom (2 Ti 4:7; Mt 19:27; Rev 20:4-6), of building them up into men of service (Eph 2:11-13), of allowing them to serve one another with their God given spiritual gifts (1 Cor 14:26;1 Pe 4:8-11; Col 3:16) we find these prophets only talking about how God will bless them on this imperfect earth marked for destruction by the same word of God.
Instead of reminding them of their calling to do good works (Eph 2:10; Tit 2:14; Rev 19:8) and above all to display the love that is the ultimate mark of our discipleship (Jn 13:34-35), they are busy in protecting the unscriptural institution called “the clergy” and building marvellous church buildings, forgetting that the people are the church. Instead of feeding the sheep and laying down their lives for them (Jn 10:11-12;2 Thess 3:7-9), they are busy feeding on the sheep (Ez 34:3; Phil 3:18-19).
Didn’t God promise the land of Caanan to all those he rescued from Egypt? Indeed, if “There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children” (Ex 12:37), why did God reject all of them and allow only two out of that generation – Joshua and Caleb – to enter the promised land? And God is good, making sure that the occurrences of the Exodus were recorded for us, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea …Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did” (1 Co 10:1;5-6). Oh the lessons we have to learn from that Exodus!
I guess some of us are waiting for the day when Christ judges our works as depicted in 1 Cor 3:11-14, before we realise that it’s about quality, not quantity. My first fear is that it will be too late and too costly to wait for that discovery. But my greater fear is that if we keep on this path of disobedience, we will not even make it to that judgement, simply because we do not have anything to bring before Christ for testing. Like the unfaithful servant in The Parable of the Talents (Matt 25:14-30), we will most certainly be amongst those “weeping and gnashing” their teeth.
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The other day, I was a bit perplexed when I came across the Luke 3:38. Verses 23 to 38 describe the whole genealogy of Christ, but I had to stop and think when I read v. 38
“… the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God”.(Lk 3:38 )
Wait. I thought only Jesus Christ was ever referred to as the “Son of God”? Or does the fact that we capitalise the spelling of his make him a different kind of son than Adam? Further study helped clear things up a bit, and I’ll only make a tip-of-the-iceberg attempt here.
The Bible states in John 1:12 that we who believe and receive Jesus Christ are given the right to become children of God (KJV “sons of God”). The question is why we need to be given the right to become sons of God. Why does God make us his sons? The truth of that is stated in Ro 8:29:
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”(Ro 8:29 )
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Ro 8:17 )
So here we have a simple statement of the mind of God in redeeming us. The purpose of our discipleship, the grand design of it, is to get sons & daughters of God who will share the reign of Christ with him. This is also in keeping with John’s vision of the millennial kingdom in Rev 20:4,6.
“I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God … Blessed and holy are those who have a part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years”.(Rev 20:4;6 )
Note the description here.
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These people are seated on thrones. (compare with Lk 22:28-30)
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They have been given authority to judge (compare with 1 Cor 6:2-3).
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They are called “priests of God” and they reign with Christ as kings. We’ll delve more on this royal priesthood later.
As I pointed out to a someone the other day, Jesus Christ came to give this opportunity to everyone worldwide, but He knows that it is only the few who will qualify to be take this opportunity in spite of numerous attempts by the masses. Remember the broad way/narrow way story? It was not for naught that James said they were given apostleship by Christ NOT to call ALL Gentiles but to “call out from among the Gentiles a people for his name” (Ac 15:13). So then, how does on qualify to be amongst the “called out”? How does one become a son? Let’s look at certain other passages that talk more about sonship.
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“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26 ) - similar to Jn 1:12, the first qualification to be a son is faith in Christ and his finished work on the cross. As Peter conceded , “Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Ac 4:12). I believe many of us are familiar with this first step and I will not belabour the point.
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“Because those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God”(Ro 8:14 ) – this refers to a continuous submission to the leading and direction of the Holy Spirit.
Many of today’s Christians are still living the baby life. After being saved by faith and grace, we refuse to be matured by submission to the Spirit’s guidance, and continue to live in our unregenerate nature. We want to claim a faith in God but continue to serve him according to our own wisdom. But Gal 2:20 tells us what we’ve become, again by faith in Christ.
“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. (Gal 2:20 )
If we refuse to accept the fact that when we decided that Jesus should be our Saviour, we were crucified with Christ and Christ lives in us, then everything we do will be under the direction of the flesh, and not of the Spirit. We will still be trying to please God according to our own wisdom, which James describes as “earthly, unscriptural, of the devil”(Jas 3:15). Paul puts it very simply: “those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Ro 8:8).
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“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?” (Heb 12:7)
I’ve come to the point which is the most difficult for the contemporary Christian to submit to – suffering. It’s importance is underlined by the fact that the Son of God, whom we are supposed to be like, had to go through his own share.
“Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him …” (Heb 5:8-9 )
The purpose of God allowing us to go through suffering is so our characters will be refined. If God is going to entrust the rule of this world to his sons, then he must make sure that such sons would be sons who are worthy of leadership, and the greatest mark of leadership is always defined in character.
“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope” (Rom 5:3-4)
Note that this is not a character that is constituted of self-belief, but – in sharp contrast to today’s “believe in yourself” theory – a character that reflects God’s own character. Such a character is not formed out of our own self will, but a simple and total submission to the authority of God, to His Word and to His Spirit. The characters of faith in Heb 11 exhibited such submission, and Abraham’s example is described below.
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Heb 11:8).
Contrary to the contemporary Christian’s mentality, the early disciples were under no misconception about the imperative of suffering
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“Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God’”, they said. (Ac 14:21-22).
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But the endurance of suffering is not worth anything if that endurance is abandoned midway. Christ has promised that “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev 3:21). It is interesting to note that this was contained in the letter to the Laodicean church – obviously to believers. So even though we are sons by our faith in Christ, our final declaration as sons of God will only be made if we overcome. Then, we can sit with Christ and rule the nations, as Rev 20 shows us.
But how do these explain why Adam, who was thousands of years before Christ’s coming, could be called a son of God? Given that he never believed in Christ, was never filled with the Holy Spirit (at least not as far as I know) and was never deemed to be an overcomer, how could he be called a son of God? The answers will be found in these subsequent points. Note that my references to Adam also refer to the whole human race in general.
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God created Adam in his own image and likeness (Gen 1:26) and gave him authority over the earth. God gave man a taste of the authority that he was to inherit in his final state, if only he obeyed God.
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God intended that if Adam passed the test of not eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he will give him to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. Christ intends to give that reward to those who overcome – “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7). This was the same tree of life that God prevented Adam from eating after his fall in Gen 3:22.
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God intended that everything, including Adam renewed after eating the fruit of the tree of life, will be summed up in His Son Jesus Christ. Paul calls that the “mystery of His will” that God had made known to them: “And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ”(Eph 1:9-10).
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That this has been God’s eternal plan was also not in doubt to the early Christians. Paul reminds Timothy of it in his second letter to him – “God, who saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” (2 Ti 1:8b-10)
All of these go to point out the fact that Jesus Christ only came to fulfil the purpose that God had intended for man right from creation, and God had already made provision for man’s (through Adam’s) failure. The purpose has always been the same, as well as the means to achieve it. The purpose was that men become sons of God, and the means was in Christ through a total belief and obedience to God. All is summed up in his Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, it is important to note that it is God who is the one pursuing man, not the other way round. When Jesus Christ said “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Lk 19:10) he meant what was lost to God. God lost his potential sons, and those sons had to be bought back.
It is then of exceeding annoyance that God’s effort to save man is thwarted by man’s unbelief, and God has consciously made it a point throughout His word to state clearly His coming merciless judgement of such unbelief. As it turns out, Adam’s primary sin was a disbelief in God, and that has been the bane of man since, with the nation of Israel no exception. He had punished the unbelief of the Israelite nation before, wiping out all the six hundred thousand (counting men only) Israelites who left Egypt on the exodus, and allowing only Joshua and Caleb out of that generation to enter the land of promise. This is the theme that the writer of Hebrews uses to exhort us to hold on unwaveringly to our belief in the living God.
“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’” (Heb 3:12-15 )
Finally brethren, I’ll like to leave this discussion by reminding us again of a section of Hebrews.
“In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” (Heb 2:10-11 )
Is Jesus ashamed to call you a brother?
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I have had course to muse on the attitude of Ghanaians towards next week’s elections and especially that of Christians in this country. I have determined not to make a comment about my observations, but I can’t hold my thoughts in any more, and I believe it is incumbent upon me to share it with all who are interested, especially Ghanaian Christians.
First of all, I’m also a Christian who subscribes to the authority of God over every human being on this earth. As 1 Co 11:3 teaches us, the head of the woman is her husband, that of the husband is Christ, and that of Christ is God. God delegates his authority to other men, who must exercise this authority in both kindness and sternness, as God himself is.
Ro 11:22 “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God; sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.”
God himself being the source of all authority, respects whatever a nation institutes as its structure of authority. This hierarchy of authority must always be respected, even if the authority is abused. It is important to note that authority abused does not render that authority cancelled. When Saul abused his authority in trying to kill David, the latter still respected him as the one anointed by God, and refused to kill him even when he had the chance.
As a result of this understanding, it has been a part of my church’s daily meeting routine to pray for the nation, whether in election year or not in accordance with 1 Ti 2:1-2.
1 Ti 2:1-2 “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quite lives in all godliness and holiness.”
In fact, we take the “first of all” so literally that it is the first prayer topic on our prayer list when we meet. And I believe that it should be so throughout all Christendom.
Ghanaians are concerned about the level of pre-election violence, and many wonder what it will be like during and after the elections, especially if either one of the major political parties does not win. The occurrences in Kenya, until recently a peaceful nation and other African countries have jolted people awake to the reality that it could happen in Ghana as well – a fact that I’ve never doubted. It is my cardinal belief that you can never hold down a people for ever – there is always a boiling point and there’s no telling what could happen when that point is reached.
In this regard, there has been a cry raised for prayer for this dear nation of ours, especially as we enter an election period. And this cry has been very pronounced among the Christian community, with some of us sharing our convictions of the same need through emails, forums etc. People have organised all sorts of well-intentioned programmes to pray for the nation, and the false prophets are also capitalizing on this to do their part – which is to be expected. But the question I keep asking myself is at what expense do we want “peace” in this nation? Do we want peace, so that the wicked may still continue to rule the land? Do we want peace, so that the poor may continue to suffer, and the defenseless may have no recourse to justice under the powers that be?
If there is one thing that Christ promised us, it is not the peace of this world.
Mt 10:34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
However the devil has unleashed a very deceptive message to the Ghanaian populace today, called “peace at all costs”. His most effective tool for this deception is our pulpits, using priests and “men of God” who keep pumping us full of messages of peace, when they forget that true peace can only come when there is justice, equity and truth in the society. Instead of encouraging people to look out for the godly characters of our leaders and vote on those basis, they are dulling the minds of people in preparation to accept whatever outcome there is in this election. How different are they (and us) from the generation of the days of Jeremiah and Isaiah?
Jer 6:13-14 “From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people, as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace’, they say, when there is no peace.”
Is 30:10 “They say to the seers, ‘See no more visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right!’. Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.”
The greatest sin that any generation can commit is to live in denial of the truth of their age – to continue in the pursuit of self-preservation and self-enjoyment when there is clear evidence of abundance of injustice and inequity around them. For your information, the root of the abominations of Sodom and Gomorrah begin with these same causes. It is a classic symptom of a society that doesn’t care for each other that they finally fall into the pursuit all sorts of sensual pleasures, which in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah was sexual perversion.
Ez 16:49 “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
Is 58:6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen; to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”
And the truth of Ghana today is that there is so much poverty, desperation and injustice about us, yet there is a continuous effort to enrich the rich. In spite of all this, the contemporary Christian is the least bothered about it. We ourselves do not have the attitude of concern for the poor amongst us (in our congregations), our families and our neighbourhood. We have come to the conclusion that God has called “Me” to bless “Me”. Period. The purpose of God’s blessings are lost upon us. Paul reminds us of the reason why we need to be blessed in all things – so that we may abound in good works. Jesus also reminds us that we will always have poor people amongst us, and we must endeavour to see to their needs.
2 Co 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”
Mt 26:11 “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me”
Jas 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”
I therefore find it totally unacceptable to see “men of God” on TV claiming they are praying for peace in this nation, when they won’t even mention the act of election itself and what should guide people’s choices during the elections. Are they worried about the plight of Ghanaians at all or they are seeking the praise of men for being the “pillars” of peaceful elections in Ghana? What do they want the peace for? Do they want it so they can continue to collect their Sunday offering from the poor churchgoers and live in luxury, or they want peace so that the poor people of Ghana will live purposeful lives, lives filled with hope that God has not neglected them?
To me, there are two questions that we as Ghanaian Christians need to answer. The first is what should inform our choices in this election? Going into details on the criteria for determining a Ghanaian Christian’s vote will probably take a whole day, so this attempt is only a shortened one. Ghana is a nation of Christians, Moslems and traditional worshipers, with a spice of other religions to mix. Ghana is not a nation like Israel, which God had a covenant with to be it’s God and they be his nation – Ex 19:3-6 (no other nation has this covenant anyway). As a result of this, to a Christian, character is of the overriding importance. In setting the standards for choosing leaders for the Ephesian church, Paul advises Timothy to first look out not for the “spiritual” competence, but competence in character – competence in morality (1 Ti 3) . And to this extent even though some may not agree, if one of the leading candidates for this election were a Moslem, but he showed character as opposed to a Christian candidate whose virtue is not evident, I’ll respectfully urge that we vote for him. Simply put “Faith without works is dead”. If Ghanaian Christians had been more circumspect in applying Christian and biblical principle in selecting some of our leaders, we wont be where we are now. Indeed, we must look out from the choices we have at the one who has been consistent at showing virtues of uprightness, kindness, industriousness, humility, pursuit of equity (not equality – that is utopian) and justice. As worldly people we would probably vote based on competence and track record, but as disciples of Christ the basis of our judgement should be as God will judge – moral integrity first before anything else – “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart” 1 Sa 16:7.
The second and even more telling question is what should be our reaction on the election results itself? If there is evidence of rigging in the favour of one candidate or the other, do we sit down and say “Ye pe asomdwe” in the face of deception and lies? Or do I suggest that Ghana go into civil war? Far from it, because “God is not an author of confusion” and neither should anyone who claims to be his child or servant. As I’ve already established, praying for peace in this nation has been part our fabric as a church, and I strongly believe that peace in a nation leads to better livelihoods and an ability to continue doing the will of God on this earth. However, if I know my God well, he is also a God of severity and that the pursuit of truth to him is more important that that of peace. Ronald Reagan once said that “peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means”. If justice and truth are not served, peace is only an illusion. It will always come back to haunt us, so the earlier we deal with it the better. If you don’t believe me ask the people of Dagbon. What happened in 2001 has happened before, and no effort was made at truthful resolution. This generation is only reaping the mistakes of the past one.
We Christians will have to stand up for what is right. We must denounce any attempt by anyone to force their will on us. We are supposed to be the beacons of light and the salt of this earth. If in the face of abundant corruption and vote rigging we sit down and accept traitorous leadership, we only become guilty of ignoring our duty to see truth prevail. We don’t need to wield guns. We don’t need to fight the government. All we need is to get on our knees. Do we honestly believe that it is God’s will for us to live under corrupt and unjust leaders? Have we ever wondered why Christ prayed “Your will be done on this earth, as it is in Heaven”? Or have we forgotten that we have a more powerful weapon than they do? Have we forgotten that we have a more powerful God than they do?
Mt 18:18-19 “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven”.
2 Chron 7:14 “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, the will I hear them from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land”.
The key to God listening to our prayers is the agreement of purpose on our side (“if two of you on earth agree”) and a reliance on the fact that He alone is capable of turning things around. Oh and by the way, we don’t need all Christians in Ghana to agree on this, just two or three. I believe that there are more than two or three Christians in this country who are willing to lay down some serious prayer to their God to change the course of this nation.
If Nkrumah wanted peace, we wouldn’t be here today with a nation we call our own. How much more we who are the sons of the Lord Most High? Are we ready to test our faith?
These are my thoughts on the issue of leadership in this country, especially with regards to what Christians should do in a leadership crisis. I don’t expect that these same principles apply to those who are not disciples of Christ, and neither will I be perturbed if these are not the basis of judgement of such people. However, even as we who love Christ pray for a peaceful election, we must seek “truth at all costs”, not “peace at all costs”. You are respectfully allowed to disagree with me.
