Justification - Part 2

Rom.4:20-21 ... "With respect to the promise of God, he (Abraham) did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform."

In Romans 4, Paul refutes the entire Jewish doctrine of justification. He points out that Abraham was not saved by works, but rather by his faith which prevented him from "faltering at the promises of God." Even the works he did in response to God's commandments were not the works of the Mosaic Law, since that Law was then 400 years in the future. From Rom. 2:28-29 we learn that being a Jew by direct descent from Abraham was no longer important with God. What matters now is being a Jew spiritually, an identity available only by faith in Christ and obedience to Him. The same logic applies to being a "child of Abraham." There is no longer a distinction in being descended from that Patriarch, and his righteousness is not passed down to his heirs. Only when, like Abraham, we put our faith in God, "who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead," is our own faith "counted to (us) for righteousness," (cf. vs. 23-24). Although this faith requires obedience (Rom. 1:5), it is not obedience which has merit and obligates God to save us. We are not saved by works.

From Rom. 4:20-21, we learn that we cannot construct a doctrine of justification to suit ourselves. Since the Protestant Reformation began in 1519, many have done that, and it led to great division in Christi-anity. What we must do is study the New Testament to see what it teaches about the problem of sin and how it may be forgiven. As Rom 4:21 says, "What God has promised, He is also able to perform." The critical point is to understand what it is that "God has promised." It is not for me or anyone else to speak for God and then demand that everyone accept what I have decided leads to justification. God Himself has already spoken, and what He has said is all that matters, because only He justifies. It is not some-thing that happens automatically when we follow an A - B - C prescription. God has given us the intelli-gence to understand what He has said. He will be pleased with us if, like Abraham, we respond in humble faith to the Gospel, which Rom. 1:16 says is "the power of God for salvation." When God for-gives our sin, that is justification. When motivated by faith we follow His instructions in the Gospel, He will reckon our faith to us for righteousness. Only then will be justified.

Justification - Part 1

Rom.4:20-21 ... "With respect to the promise of God, he (Abraham) did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform."

Justification is not a word of common daily use. In fact, few people use it once a week or once a month, at least not in the Biblical sense. But justification refers to something the importance of which is monu-mental to everyone. It refers to God pardoning a person of sin and treating him as if he had never com-mitted the sin. How is this so important to every person who walks the earth? Two Scriptures show us that importance. The first is Rom. 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The second is Rom. 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." In short, every person sins, and sin leads directly to death. Were it not for justification, the future for each of us would be as barren as the Sahara Desert ... and a great deal hotter! God's mercy and love offer everyone justification and the renewal of the pros-pect of eternal life. It is the purpose of this essay and the next to outline how we may be justified by God. In the following presentation in this post, the Jewish idea (of ancient Judaism) is presented. In the following post, the Christian idea is presented. The latter is the way to justification that God offers to the world through Christ. 

For several tears after the church was established in Jerusalem, it had a strong Jewish identity. Jewish prejudice against Gentiles was very strong. Eph. 2:14 called it a "dividing wall" and a "barrier" which kept Jews and Gentiles separate. Within the church the influence of Jewish thought and custom was powerful and posed a challenge to Gentiles who came into the church without this mental and cultural baggage. In fact, many Jewish Christians did not want Gentiles in the church. God found it necessary to prepare Peter with a vision (in Acts 10) to persuade him to enter the house of the Gentile Cornelius, teach him the Gospel, and baptize him. And Acts 15 is devoted to a great conference of apostles, elders, and others at Jerusalem to deal with the consternation it caused Jewish Christians to accept Gentiles as brothers in Christ.

One of the major challenges that faced the early church centered on the doctrine of justification. The Jews thought that because they were genetically descended from Abraham, justification was their birth-right. Abraham was their spiritual hero, being the "father of the faithful" and having the distinction of being called "the friend of God," (Jas. 2:23). His faith was the epitome of human response to divine promise, so much so that Gen. 15:6 reports that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness," which is quoted by Paul in Rom. 4:3. Since all Israel were genetically in Abraham when righteousness was conferred upon him as reward for his faith, they believed it was also conferred upon everyone descended from him as well. Therefore, so they argued, to be a descendant of Abraham was to be justified the moment one was born. The Jew thought he was born righteous, lived righteous, died righteous, and joined Abraham after death.

Beyond all this, the Jews also thought they accumulated righteousness by the scrupulous performance of the rituals and other religious acts taught in the Mosaic Law. The Pharisees, the most conservative party within Judaism, carried this doctrine of righteousness by works to the ultimate by "hedging the Law about" with endless deductions from Mosaic requirements to ensure that everything would be done that could be done to increase one's righteousness through participation.

(In the next post, Paul's refutation of the Jewish doctrine of justification will be presented. Then the Gospel doctrine of justification will be revealed.)

Ingratitude - No. 7

Rom. 12:10 ... "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor."

You owe it to yourself most of all to be grateful and express meaningful, convincing appreciation when someone gives you something or does a favor for you. When you receive something like that and show no recognition of what motivated the giving, you prove yourself unworthy of it. A person is giving you a part of their life (as explained in a previous article), and you show no sign you are touched by it. This reflects an entrenched attitude of selfishness, which I am convinced is the origin of all sin. It projects the idea that, "I am first and most important, and everything is for me. I owe you no gratitude, because you are only doing what for me is natural ... getting!" There are now millions of people on public wel-fare in this country, but few of them feel any gratitude. They think the country owes them what they get, and they are never satisfied. Rather, they want more, always more, and ... often even demand it.

Paul dealt with this very attitude of selfishness and ingratitude among the Christians of the church in Corinth. They had received a great deal at the expense of the time and even the sacrifice of others. Those gifts had enlarged their welfare and lifted them up, but they did not acknowledge it. Rather they took pride in their advancement and began to feel superior. So, Paul admonished them in I Cor. 4:7-8, "Who regards you as superior? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did not receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" That is amazing! The riches those Christians had was given to them; they had not earned them by work and merit. But once they had them in their possession, they boasted of having them and felt superior.

About 20 years before I moved to the city where I now live, I came one day to visit a gentleman about his possession of certain material in which I was interested. He said something I have not forgotten after the passage of 45 years: "I got this material by the generosity of others. I have it because they gave it, not because I obstained it myself. So, I owe it to them and take no credit for having it." It was intellec-tual property, and he could have put a price on it. But he did not and willingly shared it with me. This contrasts with so many people who only share what they have received as a gift by putting a big price on it. If you gain access to it otherwise and use it, they will sue you for as much as they can because you have diminished their personal domain a little. In contast, some intellectual material carries this gener-ous offer: "If this will benefit you, use it freely. For that was how I was blessed to get it."

Note: There is much more to be written on this subject, but I hope that in these 7 articles I have made the case convincingly that ingratitude is a sin derived from selfishness. I hope these articles will produce both in myself and every reader a sense of obligation to express the kindness of gratitude to those who give us a part of their life in the form of a gift or helpful service. It is unto this goal I have written and published these articles, and not just to publish something on a blog for the sake doing it.

 

Ingratitude - Part 6

II Tim. 3:1-2 ... "Realize this, that in the last days difficult  times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy."

It is important to recognize something about ingratitude that is rarely noticed -- TO BE UNGRATEFUL IS A SIN! It is one of the 19 that are listed in II Tim. 3:1-9. It occurs there together with being "brutal, haters of good, and treacherous," which no one doubts are sins. Being ungrateful is not restricted to one's relation to God who gives us everything that's good; it extends to being ungrateful to people about us who show us favor with gifts, helpful deeds, and shared time. It is covered by the principles of "lov-ing others as you love yourself," (Mat. 22:39), and "doing to others as you would have them do to you," (Mat. 7:12). We are taught in Rom. 13:8 to "owe nothing to anyone except to love one another."

From a previous article in this series, remember that the word translated "ungrateful" in II Tim. 3:2 essentially means "not expressing kindness for kindness received." According to I Cor. 13:4, kindness is a major component of pure love (agapê). This means God holds you accountable for returning kindness -- in the form of sincere gratitude -- for kindness received. There is a great deal of sin among Christians of which they are not aware, because they fail to show real gratitude when someone gives them a part of their life in the form of a gift or service. In fact, such favor shown is very often not even considered to be a gift. 

Perhaps most ingratitude is due to ignorance and indifference, which are products of a self-centered life. Such a person receives the gift and feels no motivation to express gratitude. In many cases, however, the recipient is so self-centered that he thinks lesser people than he somehow owe him special favor. But sin is not mitigated by ignorance, indifference, or conceit.  God has said that being ungrateful is a sin, (II Tim. 3:2), and so it is. I appeal to each reader, examine yourself objectively. If you recognize the fault of ingratitude, train your mind and heart to return kindness for kindness received. You will then recognize that, indeed, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," (Acts 20:35).

Ingratitude - Part 5

Rom. 13:8 ... "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another."

The word translated "ungrateful" in IITim. 3:2 is acharistoi, which is formed of the root charis (kind) and the prefix a- (not). The idea expressed is that of not responding to kindness someone has shown in giving you something or doing something for you. There is something about receiving a gift that is seldom recognized. Suppose someone gives you $100 as a gift. What did you receive? Well, $100! But there is a lot more to it than that. How did the person get the $100 he gave? He had to work for it! Now suppose he earns $25 an hour for his work. That means the $100 he gave you really amounts to four hours of life in hard work. When someone gives you a gift, they are really giving you a part of their life, that is, the time it took to earn what the gift cost. No one can give you anything more precious to themself that a part of their life. When I receive a gift, that is what I think about, and it truly touches my heart very much. If it is cash, or a book, of a visit when I am sick, what I consider is the part of that person's life expressed in what they have given or done for me.

To show gratitude really does not mean to return something of equal value to recompense for the gift, because that negates the gift. If someone gives you a part of their life, what you really owe them is a part of your heart in sincere thankfulness. When I receive a letter or card expressing appreciation and thankfulness, it means a hundred times more than a return gift to "pay me back." I prize such written letters and notes and save them. I enjoy reading them again and again. To me the only thing that corresponds to a part of life someone has given me via a gift is a significant expression of love and kindness in a sincere statement of gratitude ... preferably in writing so that it can be read, reread, and truly "felt."

Ingratitude - Part 4

Luke 17:17-18 ... Jesus said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine -- where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?"

In the list of sins in II Tim. 3:1-9, the seventh is being "ungrateful." Perhaps every reader knows what that means ... or do you? Of course, anyone can tell what it means in words, but do we show the mean-ing by our deeds? We know in our head what many things mean, but the deeds that proceed therefrom frequently indicate we do not show the meaning in what we do. And, my friends, true meaning is shown in action far more effectively than in words. In Jas. 1:22 we are told to "prove yourselves doers of the word (of God) and not merely hearers who deceive themselves." A "hearer" in the Biblical sense is one who both hears with the ears and understands with the mind. James refers to those who hear and per-haps understand well enough, but who feel no motivation to express in action the message coveyed in what they heard.  In the New Testament we are often taught to be grateful for what people give or do for us in kindness rather than to repay a debt.  But so much of the time we show little gratitude for the favor received.

In Luke 17, Jesus healed ten lepers who were doubtless jubilant they were rid of the loathsome disease. And yet, of those ten, only one returned to thank Jesus. That man was a Samaritan, a member of the non-Jewish enclave in their land whom they despised. It is generally claimed by those who must deal with large groups of people, that we in the United States are typically the most ungrateful people on earth. In agreement with that is my own experience as an educator. Quite a number of seniors (12th graders) asked me to write a letter of referral to help them gain admittance to a perferred university. I always wrote those letters, each one consuming an hour of my precious time when I was very busy. Only three times in my 42-year career did a student bother to thank me for the effort. One was a girl from China, one a girl from Cuba, and the third was the mother of a girl from Germany. Not one Ameri-can student ever showed such gratitude. Evidently, they thought I owed them the favor, which I did not. Thus I see ingratitude as a great problem here that needs to be addressed. In future articles in this series, I intend to do just that.

Ingratitude - Part 3

II Tim. 3:1-9 ... "In the last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, ... etc."

In the two previous articles I have stated that the origin and energy of sin is self-interest. That is what II Tim. 3:1-2 clearly states: "In the last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self." In the following eight verses a list of 18 sins is given. It is my conclusion that each of them is an express-ion of self-interest, being a "lover of self," or simply being selfish.

Consider the first-named in that list, being a "lover of money." What is more selfish than that? Money buys good clothing, fashion, pleasure and power. To a great many people money is the Golden Rule ... "He who has the gold is the one who rules." In an election year in this country, every candidate for an office persistently begs people of their political party to donate money on regular schedule (monthly). If you dare ask, "How much should I give?," the immediate answer is, "MORE!" It takes mountains of money to win an election. The idea is paramount that money has power. Furthermore, the Bible strongly emphasizes that money buys pleasure, a reality obvious to everyone. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, what did Jesus say the young man did with the bag of coins his father gave him? (Luke 15:13, 30).

What has just been said of self-interest leading to the love of money can also be demonstrated by the third and fourth sins in the list in II Timothy 3 ... boasting and arrogance. I would like to go through the entire list and demonstrate from Scripture the way in which self-interest leads to each sin named. It is a very easy task, and so relevant to daily life. But that would take far more space and time than I am willing to give in this series of articles. There is, however, one of them that claims central attention in the development of this series. It is something rarely recognized as being a sin, because it has taken control of the mind of so many people. Even in the church it is prevalent, and yet it is ignored without thought or consideration. There are occasional lessons given on ingratitude, but they seldom boldly proclaim and emphasize that it is a SIN! The usual assessment is that it is unbecoming and the result of distraction, then the emphasis shifts to the need to be grateful. No one is confronted with the realtiy that ingratitude is a sin, named in the same list with being "brutal, haters of good, treacherous and reckless." (Read the list!) Everyone recognizes the sinful nature of these other spiritual malignities of human char-acter, but we glide over ingratitude and do not emphasize it as sin.

One may argue that being ungrateful refers only to the failure to show gratitude to God. But the text in II Timothy does not limit the direction of being ungrateful. It is a sin to be ungrateful either to God or to people who give you of their time and material resources. In future articles, this theme will be discussed further in the hope that it will generate a dominant spirit of gratitude within all of us.