THE EFFECT OF GOOD DEEDS

I Pet. 2:15 ... "For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men."

      Christians must live in a world that is not friendly to them. Our Lord foretold that this would be the case and also gave the reason for it when He said, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you," (John 15:19).  In other words, discipleship to Christ means being appointed to a lifestyle that is in marked contrast to that which characterizes the unregenerate. And it is only natural for people to speak against those who differ from the norm. The more someone varies in his values and manner of life from whatever prevails, the more he subjects himself to censure. This phenomenon of human nature perhaps more than anything else drew the disapprobation of Judaism upon Christ. He was fully aware of this and, knowing that it would later shift upon his disciples, He warned them, "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you," (John 15:18).

      The world's animosity toward Christians takes many forms, but that under consideration in Peter's statement (above) is verbal abuse. Irreligious people often resort to spoken attacks against the lives, the convictions, and the institutions of those who are religious. Perhaps many of them feel they are right in their unbelief and owe it to society to expose the errors of the religious, although one may wonder about their resort to an ad hominem approach. For the most part, however, it is more likely that their verbal abuse is a diversionary maneuver to distract attention from their own lost and undone lives.

      One way or the other, Christians must learn to cope with it; and to do that successfully they must first look to their own lives. If any inconsistency exists between our doctrine and our conduct, we expose ourselves to the charge of hypocrisy. If we become careless and allow our confidence to run ahead into self-confidence, then we are setting ourselves up to be accused of arrogance and self-righteousness. If we are harshly critical of the irreligious and can speak naught to them but rejection and condemnation, we will be categorized as Pharisaical bigots. And if we neglect the business of the routine functions of life to breathe only the rarified air of withdrawn sanctity, we will be proclaimed as fanatics.

      Correcting these faults, all of which are so easily committed by the religious, we go a long way toward silencing the critics. But a great deal more is required, and our text (above) shows us what it is, namely, we must be diligent in doing right. Three verses earlier we also read, "Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation." The ungodly may debate the faith vs reason issue, but they have no grounds for arguing against feeding the starving, clothing the ragged, and relieving the suffering of the orphan, the widow and the infirm. The ungodly may ridicule worship, Bible teaching and confidence in prayer, but they cannot help but respect the works of beautification, construction and public utility which Christians promote in the environment. Worldly people appreciate the courtesy, kindness, forebearance, cooperation in beneficial community projects, and patriotism of Christians even though they may want to show contempt for the idea of church organization and membership, and submission to a religious standard.

      When Christians diligently correct their lives until they accord with the doctrine they teach, and then go beyond that to devote themselves to good works that promote discernible improvements in the lives of people other than themselves, it will indeed "silence the ignorance of foolish men."

      

BE HOLY AS GOD IS HOLY

I Pet. 1:15 ... "Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior."

      This text presents one of the greatest words of the Bible, the word holy. Translating the Hebrew qadosh in the Old Testament and the Greek hagios in the New Testament, it is here applied first to God and then to men. This is to be expected since God is holy in a primary and independent way while man's holiness is secondary and dependent upon God's grace. The essential meaning of the term involves two connected ideas: (1) separation from all that is defiled, and (2) devotion to all that is divine and pure. To achieve the first of these requirements only is insufficient, for unless the love and longing for holiness is maintained, sin will eventually filter back into one's life and contaminate him again. This is the lesson Jesus teaches in the parable about the man who, being cleansed of evil and set free from pollution, feels strange and invites seven wicked spirits to enter into him, (Mt. 12:43-45).

      God is certainly holy in the sense that He separates Himself from everything unclean. An Old Testament prophet worshipfully said to God, "Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness," (Hab. 1:13). This observation is complemented by the statement of God's response to man's indulgent evil, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God , and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear," (Isa. 59:2). In fact, God is exalted so high above all wickedness that He is immune to its enticement. We are assured that "God cannot be tempted by evil," (Jas. 1:13). That God is pure is evident from His absolute separation from and utter disgust with defilement. To be holy, those who serve God must separate themselves from the defilements which permeate our environment. In a vision, the prophet Zechariah saw Joshua the high priest clothed in filthy garments standing before the angel of the Lord. He was then commanded to remove these garments and replace them with clothing that was pure and clean. The Lord then said, "See, I have taken your iniquity away from you," and told him he was now fit to enter into his priestly services. The filthy clothing represented sin, and Joshua was not allowed to minister to God until he was purified, or made holy, (Zch. 3:1-7). And so it is with Christians today who are also priests unto the Lord, (I Pet. 2:9).

      In our efforts to please God and draw near to Him, (Jas. 4:8), we must strive to be conformed to His state of being holy. We have just seen something of what it means for God to be holy, and therefrom  we can understand something of what we must do to "be holy in all (our) behavior." We must first learn to withdraw from everything that is defiling in our mental, verbal, and behavioral experiences. The New Testament abounds in passages which deal with the specifics of this kind of personal exodus, but one especially pertinent quotation to be inserted here is this: "'Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,' says the Lord,' and do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you'," (II Cor. 6:17).

      As we disengage ourselves from "the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," (II Pet. 2:20), we must devote ourselves to the purity and uprightness of the Christian life to which we have been redeemed. The "defilements of the world" will always be around us, enticing us and sometimes even making ugly spots on our souls. But "hating even the garment polluted by the flesh," we must "keep (ourselves) in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ," who will remove those defiling pollutions, for "He is able to keep (us) from stumbling, and ... make (us) stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy," (Jude 21, 23-24). Being holy as Christians is therefore not an unattainable ideal but an expected reality as God looks down upon His people.

DEALING WITH PERSONAL SIN

Jas. 5:16 ... "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."

      The Scriptures assure us that everyone commits sin and thus defiles his soul. Most of the third chapter of Romans is devoted to developing this point, but we note particularly these three statements: -1- "There is none righteous, not even one," (v.10); -2- "All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one," (v.12); -3- "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (v.23). Beyond these sobering declarations we are further humbled by I John 1:8, which proclaims, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."

      How should we react to the sins these Scriptures attribute to us? There are three possible responses, and people variously resort to one or the other. First, there are those who deny that they actually commit sin. Although it is hard to imagine how anyone could believe such in the face of the above-quoted Scriptures, there are nevertheless those who feel themselves invulnerable to sin for one reason or another. As support for their utter confidence they often use I John 3:9, where the apostle wrote that "no one who is born of God practices sin." This, however, is an abuse of the text. The verb "practices" ("commits" in other versions) is in the present tense, which in the Greek original denotes continuous action more than the idea of time. John is really saying that the Christian, by his adherence to God's word, does not continue in a sin that has been committed. He does not here deny that Christians do sometimes sin, for he has already affirmed that in v.8. Second, some people attempt to hide their sins, ignore them, or belittle their importance and the danger of their consequences. This attempt, as well as the first, is ultimately futile, for it is written in II Cor. 5:10 that "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." The third response to sin is that urged in Jas. 5:16 (above). Unless a person has "seared" his conscience "as with a branding iron" (I Tim. 4:2) through self-deception, hypocrisy, and denial, it will signal to him, by the pain of guilt, that he has sinned.

      Guilt is a destructive force within the human psyche, operating relentlessly to reduce one's ability to function normally in life until, at last, it produces the collapse of his personality and mental health. Guilt can only be removed through the assurance of being forgiven. And forgiveness is available in obedience by faith to the blood of Christ, for it is written: "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:14). A little further we find this appeal: "Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water," (Heb. 10:22).

      To receive the removal of guilt through the forgiveness of sin, however, one must honestly face up to his sin and confess it, first to himself and then to God. And if he is a Christian, he must confess it to his brethren so that they may assist him in praying. There is a great cathartic effect in confession. Just to tell someone about your failure, provided the person is sympathetic and benevolent, relieves a great deal of the pressure imposed by guilt upon your mind. And to have that fellow Christian join with you in laying your faults and weaknesses before a truly kind Savior, and to plead His forgiveness and the renewal of your virtue, will build resolve against falling to the same sin a second time. Jas. 5:16 looks, therefore, beyond the immediate problem of sin and guilt to the essential unity of Christians and their fellowship in the Lord in all aspects of life.