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Peace offering

By on March 13th, 2011

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When we think of a “peace offering” we think of guilty husbands hastily purchasing flowers.  Or meek penitents bringing gifts to their fuming friends.  The one giving the peace offering is feeling dreadful.  The one to whom the offering is made is tapping their foot saying “This better be good.”  And maybe, just maybe, they can be bought off by the peace offering.

But that’s a million miles from the biblical sense of a “peace offering”.  (See Leviticus 3:1-17; 7:11-21)

The peace offering was the crown of the five offerings laid out in Leviticus.  It wasn’t like the burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering or trespass offering.  In this offering, sins weren’t on the table.  Only food.

Our guilt had been resolved through the blood that the LORD provided.  When the worshipper came to the peace offering – sins were far behind them.  No-one is buying off God here.  This is about cleansed worshippers wanting to draw near to the LORD.  It was a completely voluntary offering.  If they liked, the Israelites could pull up a chair to eat with the LORD.

You see this was the one offering in which the offerers shared.  It was a meal with God.

And that’s where the work of atonement is always heading.  God does not simply want to acquit sinners.  He wants to feast with them.  He doesn’t want to endure us on the outskirts of His presence.  He invites us to sit at table, to laugh and share and talk and eat.

The peace offering is not about us guiltily earning our way into God’s good books.  It’s about enjoying our at-one-ment.

Do you realise that you are not simply forgiven, not simply tolerated but actively loved and pursued by the LORD?  He did not give His own blood in order for us to remain strangers.  And He doesn’t simply want coffee buddies.  He wants dinner guests.  He adopts us into the very heart of His family life.  The face to face for which we’ve been made is not any old intimacy – it’s table fellowship.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  (Romans 5:1)

Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”  (Revelation 3:20)

For more on the “peace offering” and other highlights from Leviticus, see these excellent talks.

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Atonement

By on March 12th, 2011

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Can the young girl atone for her mistake?

Can the sportsman atone for his blunder?  Can the husband atone for his callous remark?

If we answer ‘yes’ it’s usually an answer about the guilty party’s need to make amends.  But the bible has a fresh angle on the atonement question.

In fact the bible gave us a fresh word when it gave us “atonement.”  Wycliffe in his 14th century translation out of Latin used words like “to one”, “one-ment” and even “at one” to capture how the bible speaks of bringing man and God together.  But it took William Tyndale in his 1526 translation to standardize this new word – “atone” both as a verb and a noun. And it simply means what it looks like – it’s about addressing the God-man estrangement.  It’s about making God and man “at one” again.

We have already seen an early use of “atonement” in the Golden Calf incident.  Moses ascends the mountain saying

“now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.”  (Exodus 32:30)

There he asks to be blotted out of the Father’s book so that his people will not.  (v32)  Perhaps now is the time for that long-promised sacrifice from Genesis 22.  Perhaps Moses will be the sacrificial Lamb of God dying for his people.  But no.  It was not time for the mountaintop atonement.  And Moses was not to be the sacrifice.

But following Exodus we have a book that is all about this sacrifice and this atonement.  Leviticus is a book laying out all the regulations of tabernacle worship.  As we’ve seen, the tabernacle was the setting for a dramatization of heavenly realities.  And at the heart of its worship was the shedding of blood to make atonement.

49 times the word appears in Leviticus and almost always in the context of blood.  The tabernacle was many things – a portable tent, the dwelling place of the Glory of the LORD, a multi-media gospel presentation, a working model of how God and man can meet… But one thing the tabernacle definitely was… it was a slaughterhouse.

How many millions of gallons of animal blood were shed at the altar, as Old Testament worshippers were shown the cost of atonement?  But here is a key verse about that bloody atonement:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.  (Leviticus 17:11)

In this dramatization of the future atonement, the LORD makes it clear that He gives the blood to make atonement for their sins.

And this is what is so different about the LORD.  Our sin does demand blood.  We cannot be at one with our God, we who dwell in sin and death.  There is a reckoning for our sin.  But the LORD does not demand our blood.  Instead He provides blood.  The blood of a substitutionary sacrifice.  It’s the blood of another that makes atonement.

So over and over again the Israelites are being shown what atonement means.  I am guilty.  I am worthy of death.  But the LORD wants to be at one.  So He provides the blood.  He pays the cost.  And every worshipper at that tabernacle should have looked forward with awe and gratitude to the Real Atonement.  All of this was pointing them to the time their LORD would come as a Lamb – the Lamb of God to atone for the sins of the world.

We are not right – us and God.  We dwell in sin and death.  He dwells in light and life.  And we cannot make things right between us.  Nothing we can do will make atonement.  We can’t embark on our own spiritual pilgrimage to God.  We can’t flog ourselves in atonement or shed our blood to make amends.  But the LORD Jesus has provided His own blood.  Freely.  The blood of God has been shed (Acts 20:28).  That infinitely precious atonement has been made.

And He hasn’t done it to leave us on the outer.  He hasn’t done it to simply forgive us, or give us a righteous status.  He’s done it to make us ONE again.

In the book, the notion of atonement is the fairytale ending.  But still we long for it.  We long for the girl to make amends, to put everything right again.  We long for the sports star to bounce back and for the estranged couple to be reunited in love.  How much more should we rejoice in this atonement?  Christ has done everything – moved heaven to earth! – to make this reconciliation.  And He’s done it all to make us one – to bring us “nigh” as the old translations say.

Now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.  (Ephesians 2:13)

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High Priest

By on March 11th, 2011

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Federico Fellini has been called the High Priest of Italian Cinema.  Bill Hicks the High Priest of Stand-up Comedy.  And Prince, the High Priest of Funk, Soul and Rock n Roll.

It’s the idea of being an authority.  One who mediates the genre out into the world.  They are the go-to person when it comes to their own speciality.

Well in the bible, Aaron is appointed as High Priest of God. What an awesome honour!  What human being could possibly fulfil the role??

Surely not Aaron.  Not the one who presided over the Golden Calf debacle.  But astonishingly, this sinner is dressed up in the special robes and consecrated as God’s go-between.  How should we understand this?

Well it’s all a part of the elaborate, multi-media dramatizations of Old Testament worship.  When the Israelites were saved out of Egypt and brought to Mount Sinai, they received all sorts of representations of heavenly truth.  First they received the ten commandments – the Good Life intended for God’s son.  But that’s just a part of this model of ultimate reality.  Next come instructions about building a tabernacle.

This tent would be a portable model of heaven and earth in which spiritual truths are acted out.  Again and again Moses is told that these things are not the spiritual realities themselves – they are copies and patterns of heavenly things. (Exodus 25:9,40; 26:30)

Through the tabernacle the people would see many things dramatized – the nature of God, heaven and earth, the problem of our estrangement from God, the cost of atonement and just how we get back into His presence.

And presiding over this earthly model of heavenly truth would be Aaron – the High Priest.  Of course, sinful Aaron was in no position to be God’s ultimate go-between.  But He was play-acting the role of One who the Israelites already knew.  Just as the divine Angel of the LORD – Christ – had brought the people from slavery and darkness to God Most High, so Aaron would perform the role of go-between.  And he would point the people to that ultimate work of Christ in the future when He would effect the true mediation.

Let’s just think of one way that Aaron did this.  Consider his clothing, in particular his breastplate.  On his breastplate were precious stones which had engraved upon them the names of the children of Israel.  (Exodus 28:9)  Aaron was to identify completely with his people.  The people are on his heart.

Then, on the day of atonement (which we will shortly consider), Aaron makes the blood sacrifices that point to Christ’s ultimate atoning work on the cross.  Then he moves through the tabernacle to the inner sanctum, representing heaven.  He displays the blood before the throne of God, demonstrating that the price for sin has been paid.  He fills this Most Holy Place with incense – a symbol of prayer being made for the people.  And, crucially, throughout this mediating work, he bears his people on his heart.

And Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, when he goeth in unto the holy place, for a memorial before the LORD continually.  (Exodus 28:29)

So it is with Christ.

Through all of Christ’s work from incarnation to cross to resurrection to His ascension into heaven – even on into all eternity – He carries His people on His heart.

Right now we are waiting for that future face to face with Christ.  But today we can know that the One who is face to face with the Father has carried us with Him.  We have a Friend in a very high place.  And He bears us on His heart.

As Charitie Bancroft has written so wonderfully:

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

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Longsuffering

By on March 10th, 2011

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“Describe yourself” says the interviewer with a glint in their eyes.

Yikes.  You really want the job.  How to sound humble but also omni-competent?  What to reveal about myself? Probably the less the better.

“Why is he asking?” you wonder.  Doesn’t my track record speak for itself?  Won’t he see pretty quickly who I really am?  It can be a very awkward question.

But Moses has the nerve to ask it of God Most High.  Still on the top of mount Sinai, he asks the unseen LORD:

Please show me your glory (Exodus 33:18)

Glory eh?  What should we expect next?  Dazzling special effects?  Breath-taking displays of raw power?  No, here is how God reveals His glory.  He responds,

“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”  (Exodus 33:19)

This is the LORD’s glory.  Goodness, grace and mercy.  And it’s all summed up in His “name”.  His name is His divine character and it’s what the LORD promises to proclaim next time He visits Moses.

Well in Exodus 34 it happens.  The unseen LORD comes down to describe Himself – to proclaim His name.  He descends again to the top of Mount Sinai in a cloud,

and stood with Moses there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.  (Exodus 34:5-7)

Right there at the heart of God’s name – His character – is that lovely word “longsuffering.”  We have William Tyndale to thank for its entrance into the English language.  In translating Galatians 5:22 he rendered the Greek word makrothumia as “longsuffering” – a word that previously did not exist.  This “longsuffering” is one aspect of “the fruit of the Spirit” – that life that is birthed in the believer by the Spirit of Christ in us.   Makrothumia means patiently bearing heat without disintegrating.  And it’s the same word that the ancient Greeks used when translating Exodus 34.

The original Hebrew phrase is actually two words: “long” and “nose”!  The nose (or nostrils) are associated with anger.  And so, as often as not, the phrase is rendered “slow to anger.”  But as someone with a considerable proboscis of his own, I think we should return to biblical roots and proclaim the great godliness of big noses.

I digress.

The Most High describes Himself as long-nosed.  Or, idiomatically, longsuffering.  Merciful, gracious, forgiving.  These traits give us confidence.  But He also mentions His justice.  He won’t clear the guilty.  He will pay back iniquities.

So how do we put that all together?  What does it look like to be longsuffering but also to punish wickedness?  How do we know if we are recipients of His patience or His punishment?  And, more fundamentally, how do we know that God’s not doing what we do in job interviews?

There are plenty of gods out there and they all claim to be kind.  Plenty of religious texts speak of a merciful deity.  How can we believe this one?

Well Moses knows the name of the LORD.  He hasn’t just heard God speak His name.  He’s seen the name in action.

Back in Exodus 23, God tells Moses about His Angel who He will send ahead of the people.  The Angel leads, commands and forgives the people all because the Father’s “name is in him.”  (Exodus 23:20-22)

The character of God Most High is perfectly expressed in His Son.  And Moses has seen that character because he has witnessed first-hand the saving acts of Christ.

So after hearing the Father proclaim His name, Moses is overjoyed:

Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord I pray thee, go among us

Moses tells the Lord (the Father), he wants his Lord (the Son) to continue leading them.  Now Moses has seen the glory of the invisible God.  He has heard His name and recognized that this is precisely the character of the Christ He’d seen and known.

And this is how we can be assured of the character of God.  We see it in the saving acts of Christ.

Who can look at the cross and doubt that God is in fact longsuffering.  There is Jesus patiently bearing the heat Himself.  And at the same time He is revealing His determination to punish.  The name of God makes sense when we look at Jesus.

Plenty of gods claim to be glorious.  But their glory doesn’t look like this.  Plenty of gods claim to be merciful.  But we’ve never seen the evidence.  With Jesus we get something very different.  In Jesus we have seen the character of Almighty God.  When we see His arms outstretched to the guilty, who can doubt the depths of His divine longsuffering?

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Face to face

By on March 9th, 2011

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Children love “staring competitions” with their parents.  But we all know the “competition” is a front.  We know what the child wants, we know what the parent wants.  Face to face.

Or think of the long-distance relationship.  Lovers who are sick of letters and phone-calls.  They want face to face.

Or the misunderstandings of work colleagues, accusations escalating, emails flying.  What do they need to resolve it all?  Face to face.

There is something incredibly powerful about face to face.  When someone draws their face near perhaps they want to kiss you, whisper something, tell you a secret.

It speaks of closeness,  transparency, openness, friendship, love.  There is knowing and being known.  Face to face.

In Exodus chapter 33 we read about Moses going into the tent of meeting at the foot of Mount Sinai and speaking with the LORD:

“The LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.”  (Exodus 33:11)

This is incredible intimacy.  The LORD Almighty… face to face… as a man speaks to His friend.  Whatever “the image of God” means, this is its consummation: man and God in face-to-face fellowship.

Moses had this privilege intermittently and only for a matter of minutes.  Even so, these encounters had a remarkable effect on him.  His own face would radiate after “face to face” with the LORD.  When he went back to the people he would veil his face because they couldn’t bear to see that reflected glory fading away.  (Exodus 34:29-35)

But all of this sets us up for an encounter later on in the same chapter.  In Exodus 33, Moses is speaking to the LORD on top of the mountain and asks to see His glory (v18).  But in verse 20 He responds, “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.”  And again in verse 22 He says “my face shall not be seen.”

What is going on?  Is the LORD moody?  At sea level He’s pally but at altitude He becomes aloof?

No, the face-to-face LORD at the foot of Sinai is the Angel of the LORD who has been leading the people.  The unseen LORD on the mountain is God Most High.  To say it another way – the Son is the visible image of the invisible God.  And it’s God the Father who sends His Son to reveal Himself to the world.

That’s what their conversation on the mountain is all about.  Moses asks the unseen LORD, Who will go with the people? (v12).  The Father replies:

My presence shall go with thee.  (Exodus 33:14)

“Presence” is literally the word for “face.”  The Father is saying “the Face-to-Face LORD will go with you.”  He is pledging the help of His Son, His Angel, His Presence – the LORD Jesus.  When Moses hears this news he is satisfied:

“If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” (v15)

Give me Jesus or give me death!  Moses wants the Father’s Face.  And He has it in the Father’s Son – the Face-to-face LORD.

Jesus reveals the unknown God.  And always has done.

But He doesn’t just show Himself to Moses.  At Christmas He revealed Himself to the world.  Jesus is God’s Face turned towards us.

And He offers us all an experience far superior to Moses’.  For Moses, face to face was a rare privilege.  But for those who look to Jesus now, we have a future promised whose very atmosphere is “face to face.”

The Apostle Paul writes that Christians will enjoy a “face to face” future that makes our experience now like “seeing through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  Every kiss you’ve ever desired, every affirmation you’ve ever craved, every relationship you’ve ever pursued, every longing you’ve ever felt – will be fulfilled when you’re face to face with Jesus.  And He, for His part, will say to His beloved, “It is so good to see you, let me get a good look at you.”  Face to face.

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Stiff-necked

By on March 8th, 2011

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If a ploughman’s ox refuses to turn the way he wants, he calls the obstinate beast “stiff-necked.”  And nine times in the bible, that’s what the LORD calls His people.  The first occasion is in Exodus 32:

“I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.”  (Exodus 32:9-10)

God’s anger is provoked by the people worshipping their new golden god.  As far as He is concerned, this idolatry is a matter of stubbornness – a refusal to be led.  In wilful disobedience a stiffnecked people go their own way and they court total annihilation from the LORD.  In His wrath He threatens their destruction.

But Moses intercedes for Israel, and stunningly, the LORD Almighty listens.  Moses reminds the LORD of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”  (Exodus 32:14)

Apparently wrath can be averted for stiffnecked sinners.  This is good news.  And the rest of the chapter will unpack how.

First of all Moses calls the priests to execute a judgement on the people.  The Levites pick up swords and kill the guilty (v28).  Levites have always been blood-thirsty men.  As Jacob prophesied about their tribe, “their swords are weapons of violence” (Genesis 49:5). And this violent act is their “consecration” to priestly duty (v29).  You might even say it’s their ordination.

These Levites became priests that day.  What a fearful thing it would be for the Israelites to come to these men when they sinned.  But that would be the drill.  At the tabernacle, the people would have to confess their stiffnecked ways to these violent men bearing swords.  And as their priest plunged that sword into the animal substitute, the Israelite would be left in no doubt that this blood-shed is precisely what they deserved.

But secondly, even after this blood-shed, Moses realises there’s still a work of atonement to be performed:

Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. (v30)

Here’s what Moses offers to the Father:

Blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. (v32)

Moses offers to die in the place of the people.  He doesn’t offer the blood of goats or bulls.  He doesn’t offer the blood of the guilty.  He offers his own blood – the blood of the innocent, the blood of the people’s ruler.

Would Moses himself be the promised Lamb to be provided on the mountain to make atonement?  Genesis 22:1-14 has been promising just this atonement for centuries – the Lamb on the mountain as a burnt offering.  Would Moses be the One to make atonement?

No.  God Most High declines Moses’ offer.  Instead He reminds him of His Angel – the true leader of the people (v34).  The true Warrior and Commander at their head was indeed going before them.  They must continue to wait for Him and to trust in Him.

One day He would descend from the heavenlies, the Divine Angel and Saviour, the True Priest for the people, the Atoning Lamb, the Ruler of rulers and a true Innocent.  It’s Christ who would be handed over to death by Levites, killed by piercings and blotted out of the Father’s book.

In this way would the true atonement be made.  In this way One greater than Moses would make intercession for we stiffnecked rebels.

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Golden Calf

By on March 7th, 2011

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How long does it take a nation to fall away from its spiritual heritage?

Well in Exodus 32 it’s been 50 days since the Israelites had arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai.  They had been redeemed from slavery, brought through the Red Sea and carried by the Angel of God on eagle’s wings. He has brought them to hear the voice of God Most High speaking the ten words.  And they all responded:

“All the words which the LORD hath said will we do.” (Exodus 24:3)

Well, with such assurances of the people’s moral resolve, Moses stays up on the mountain receiving instructions for the tabernacle.  And while Moses is away, the Israelites play.

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.  (Exodus 32:1)

How quickly they had forgotten the LORD Christ who had led them so faithfully.  And how soon they turned from God’s Presence to idols, breaking the very heart and foundation of the law.

Well Aaron complies with the people’s wishes immediately.  He compels the people to give towards this false god (verse 2).  This is in stark contrast to how money was raised for the tabernacle where every donation was a free-will offering.  (e.g. Exodus 35:4-29)  But while true worship of the LORD is always free, false religion is always compelled.

So the goods they had taken from the Egyptians (Exodus 3:22; 12:36), instead of being pressed into the LORD’s service, are made into a golden calf.

Why a calf?  Well Psalm 106:19-20 clarifies that this is the calf of an ox.  Now when you put Ezekiel 1:10 and Ezekiel 10:14 together you see that cherubs are like oxen.  And we know that the devil is a cherub (Ezekiel 28:14-19).  Here’s the shock, Israel has not just descended into any old false worship.  This is devil worship.  That’s not to say they were consciously invoking Satan’s name.  In fact they liberally sprinkled their calf-worship with mentions of “the LORD”.  But this only shows that saying “Lord, Lord” doesn’t mean a whole lot.  You can worship Satan in Jesus’ name.

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What would Moses do when he found out?  Moses, the righteous ruler dwelling in heavenly glory.  How will he respond to his sinful people?

“As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?”

And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”  (Exodus 32:19-24)

Justifications for sin are always ridiculous and Aaron’s is no exception. Moses responds thunderously with righteous anger.  The law is hurled at a sinful people and tomorrow we’ll see the outcome.

But compare Moses with Christ.

Because Christ is the original Righteous Ruler of the people.  He too dwelt in heavenly glory and His people gave up waiting and turned to idols.  But when the time came, the Father didn’t send a thunder-bolt.  He sent His Son.  As a baby.  And Jesus, when He came in the flesh, did not hurl the law at us.  Though we deserved nothing but condemnation He answered us with mercy.  He didn’t force us to drink down judgement.  He offered us His own lifeblood in salvation.

And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.  (John 1:17-18)

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Eye for eye, tooth for tooth

By on March 7th, 2011

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“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” said Gandhi.

Not quite.  “Two eyes for an eye” might do it.  Or “an eye for an eye for an eye” might.  But “an eye for an eye” was an upper limit of retribution set down in law explicitly forbidding the escalation of violence.

It comes within the first body of laws after the ten commandments (or “ten words” as they really are):

“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exodus 21:24-25)

Here is what’s being established: You have the right to expect recompense for the losses you have borne through another’s sin.

Elsewhere in the law’s application we see that eyes, burnings, woundings etc were not literally exacted as payments in kind.  Instead the value of what was inflicted was to be paid as recompense.  So the very next verses in Exodus give a case study of how to respond to the wounding of an eye:

And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.  (Exodus 21:26-27)

The application of this law will not blind the world.  But neither will it save the world.  All it does is establish a foundation of justice.  We see in the law that there are such things as just deserts and punishments that fit a crime.  We should expect retribution for the harm we cause.  The law establishes justice.

And we need justice if we’re going to have the true power that saves the world: grace.  Let me explain.

If you take a dislike to my cat, cut it in two with a chainsaw and send me the parts in the mail I could respond in three ways.  I could press charges and see you suffer for your crime.  Hopefully you’d be forced to pay damages equal to the loss of poor Balthasar.  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, cat for cat.  That’s justice.

But perhaps you come and plead with me for mercy.  You hadn’t had your morning coffee, your broadband was infuriatingly slow that day, you’re under financial pressures, it was a moment of madness, you can’t afford the lawyer’s bills, you’ll make it up to me somehow.  Extraordinarily I might show you leniency – I won’t quite exact the level of punishment you deserve.  But of course that’s only lenient because of the expectation of justice.

Thirdly I could show grace.  I could come to your house, forgive you unreservedly, empathize with your financial woes and offer to help you with your bills.  Now that’s extraordinary.

But it’s how the LORD deals with us:

He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.  (Psalm 103:10)

The LORD’s relationship with us is not and cannot be a tit-for-tat one.  He is always showing us incredible grace, condescending to guilty sinners.

And from the Old Testament itself we understand that “law” and “justice” were never an end-point.  The Law and the prophets were always pointing to grace.

But justice serves grace.  It’s only the justice of the law that makes the offer of grace extraordinary.  Grace is truly gracious (and not simply an arbitrary “soft touch”) because the law has determined that “every transgression and disobedience receives a just recompence of reward” (Hebrews 2:2)

And this explains what is a mystery to many: How can Jesus be so pro-law and pro-grace?  Didn’t Jesus famously say:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:  But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  (Matthew 5:38-39)

And yet, only a few verses earlier He said:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.  (Matthew 5:17)

Jesus goes beyond “eye for eye” because He’s filling full the law’s intention.  You see the law’s intention was never to simply balance the scales.  No the point of justice is to serve grace.  It establishes the losses incurred through sin and demands that they be borne.  But here is grace: the LORD (the offended party) comes to bear the cost Himself.

On the cross Jesus turns His cheek to a world that has given Him a cosmic slap in the face.  It is the ultimate show of grace.  But He is not thereby abolishing justice.  He’s upholding it.  His grace is that He bears the losses the law demands.

Interestingly the phrase in Exodus that introduces “eye for eye” is often forgotten: “Life for life” (Exodus 21:23).  And Jesus establishes the true meaning of “life for life.”  He comes to guilty sinners and says “Life for life!”  But not, “yours for mine”, “mine for yours.”

The ultimate God-man dynamic is not legal.  It’s counter-conditional, extraordinary grace.  As Gandhi himself would discover in the political arena, this is what changes hearts and carries the victory.

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Thou shalt not covet

By on March 5th, 2011

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What do we make of a regime that has thought crime on the statute books?

Well then, what do we think of God the Father?  Because on Mount Sinai here is His concluding word of the ten:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

“Covet” is actually a rare word in the King James translation.  It comes to us (through French) from the latin cupiditas, meaning desire.  And that’s certainly how the Authorized Version translates this Hebrew word most often: to desire or delight in.

It’s a heart word.  It’s about where we set our affections.  And here it is inscribed on stone by the finger of God and given to the people.  The concluding commandment of the ten is about my heart’s desires!  What kind of law is this?

How do you legislate desires?

Well actually, this is what the law has pointed towards all along.  The first and last words book-end the whole thing and show us the intention.  We begin with “thou shalt have no other gods before My Presence” and we finish with “thou shalt not covet” because the question throughout is, Where will you look for life?  Will you look to the Presence of the unseen LORD, the Son of the Most High God?  Or will you look to the things of this world, your neighbour’s house, wife, job, car, stuff?  The Good Life is about setting our hearts upon the LORD before everything else.

Luther in his Large Catechism gives a brilliant exposition of the law’s expectation for our hearts.  He’s commenting on the first commandment and says:

What does it mean to have a god? or, what is God? Answer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the whole heart… That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.

Therefore it is the intent of this commandment to require true faith and trust of the heart which settles upon the only true God, and clings to Him alone. That is as much as to say: “See to it that you let Me alone be your God, and never seek another,” i.e.: Whatever you lack of good things, expect it of Me, and look to Me for it, and whenever you suffer misfortune and distress, creep and cling to Me. I, yes, I, will give you enough and help you out of every need; only let not your heart cleave to or rest in any other.”

As Luther will go on to say, every breaking of the other commandments is first a breaking of this one.  First our hearts stray from Christ and however we travel from there, it will end badly.  The tenth commandment is simply the flip-side of this truth.  It describes the “other gods” which we’re tempted to love.

And in between 1 and 10 we are continually dealing with heart issues.  It’s never been about surface level moral action.  Even when it tells us “thou shalt not kill or commit adultery”  (Exodus 20:13-14), it’s meaning goes far beyond actual homicide and sexual activity.  As Jesus shows, the law doesn’t just highlight my behaviour, it highlights my heart – my anger and my lust.  (Matthew 5:21-30)

But it can’t change my heart.  That’s the thing.  In fact when the law comes into my heart it doesn’t just highlight sinful desires, it provokes them.

The Apostle Paul describes this process in Romans 7.  He considers our verse for today “thou shalt not covet” and confesses:

the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence (i.e. lust).

It’s the old thing – nothing makes me want to walk on the grass more than the sign “Do not walk on the grass.”

What are we like?  A good law comes with right and proper expectations for my heart and soul.  But not only does this law expose my sin, it multiplies it.  That’s how sinful I am.

Many people want to draw a distinction between law and grace as follows: law deals with externals, grace deals with internals.  This is wrong and dangerously so.  The law also deals with internals.  The law has all sorts of expectations for my inner life.  The difference between law and grace is not external versus internal: it’s me versus Him.  Under the law I consider myself as the Faithful One with a heart set on God.  Under grace I look to Christ as the Faithful One who accomplished the law (inside and out) on my behalf.

My hope is not in my ability to look to God alone and refrain from coveting.  My true hope is Jesus Christ who resisted all temptation, set His face resolutely for the cross, and for the joy set before Him endured the cross, abandoning Himself wholeheartedly to the Father.

And when I see Him living the Good Life for me, my heart is moved.  And my neighbour’s ass loses something of its allure!

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Honour thy father and thy mother

By on March 4th, 2011

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It’s interesting to read modern alternatives to the Ten Commandments.  Their silence on the subject of God is deafening.  Few people today see God as having anything to do with the “Good Life.”   Maybe that’s not surprising.  But what’s also consistently absent are expectations about family commitments.  In fact committed relationships of any kind are forgotten.  Respect and honesty and tolerance in general are trumpeted loudly, but not actual obligations towards particular human beings.

But the trouble is, as Linus says, “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”  We can easily nurse a sentiment of goodwill towards humanity.  But loving our neighbour – the person who actually crosses our path – that’s where we constantly fail.  And that’s what we actually need if all our talk about loving the world is to take flesh.  We don’t need more love for the world.  We need to love the actual people in our lives.

And so the actual ten commandments will strike us as very different to how we usually think.  And different even to how Christians generally think.

Sometimes Christians want to cite the ten commandments as a common sense morality that could be detached from the God who gave them.  They’d like to argue that the whole world not only can agree on them but that it pretty much has.  They claim that the law written on these tablets of stone is some “natural law”, known by all (deep down at least).

Yet in reality these are particular commands from a particular God to a particular people.   And the prohibitions on killing, stealing, lying, etc, flow out of the particular Lord He happens to be.

On Mount Sinai the unseen LORD begins by stating how particular He is – “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”  (Exodus 20:2)  And His first three words to His people are strictly theological:

1. Have no other gods before my Presence (i.e. my Son)

2. Do not bow down to or serve any other gods.

3.  Do not carry my name vainly.

Then straight away we reach the fourth command: Sabbath – a Jewish observance if ever there was one.  And together these first four commands (often known as “the first table”) are the foundation for the last six.  Particular love for this particular covenant God comes first.  And then we come to the “second table” – love for others.

After securing our faithful devotion He tells us exactly how our religious devotion should work out in everyday life.  We will honour our parents.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. (Exodus 20:12)

The very first command regarding love of people makes it unavoidably concrete.  Not everyone has a spouse or siblings or even a neighbour.  Everyone has a mother and father.  And so our Heavenly Father says “Start there.”  Not with an abstract love for humanity but with those relations closest to you.  No-one can claim some kind of religious dualism – loving God but not loving people.  The two are absolutely entwined.

As the Apostle Paul will say, God the Father is He “of whom the whole family [on] … earth is named.”  (Ephesians 3:15)  Therefore to honour our heavenly Parent we must honour our earthly parents.

Conversely, if we fail to honour our earthly parents it’s a sign we are out of sorts with God.

In Romans 1, Paul reveals a litany of sins.  He says of the human race estranged from God:

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents.  (Romans 1:30)

We probably don’t think “disobedient to parents” belongs on that list along with all the other crimes.  But for Paul it summarizes what’s wrong with the human heart.  Our natural inclination towards childish rebellion is chilling when you think about it.  Before we’ve even learnt language we rebel in all sorts of ways against those who have begotten us.  They are the reason we live and yet innately we display a mad mistrust of those to whom we owe our existence. Dishonour of parents is a symptom of our dishonouring of God.

But the Good Life is different.  The Good Life – as lived by Jesus – loves our heavenly Parent and honours our earthly ones.  At the beginning and end of His life Jesus showed what this will look like (Luke 2:49-52; John 19:26-27).

The saying is almost true:  Charity doesn’t quite start in the home.  It starts in heaven.  But when the life and love of Jesus gets into us, the first place on earth it will manifest is in practical service of our nearest and dearest.