Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 151: Ephesians - Going Deep and Growing Up

“Go deep!”  “Grow up!”  The first sounds like something you would hear from a quarterback wanting to practice his ‘Hail Mary’.  The second sounds like classic advice from an older sibling to a younger (or even from a parent to a child.)

I also think they summarize two passages which together capture the heart of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  The first is Paul’s prayer in 3:18-19.  “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Paul is saying, “Consider the love of Christ…and really consider it.”  Linger with it.  Look at it from one angle, then from another.  Walk around it.  “Walk about Zion, go all around it, count its towers, consider well its ramparts; go through its citadels, that you may tell the next generation that this is God…” (Psalm 48:12-14)

There is a praise song from the Australian Christian fellowship called Hillsong.  The song is called, “Oceans”.  The second part of the bridge goes like this, “take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith would be made stronger in the presence of my Savior.”

There is an ocean depth to the love of Christ which should make explorers of all of us.  In the same way that scuba-divers strap on their suits and oxygen tanks and go fathoms deep to explore the coral and the ocean floors, we should take our tools of Scripture, silence, imagination, deep longings, and prayer, and explore the height, depth, and length of God’s love in Christ.

What does it mean to go deep?  Jessica’s parents visited recently.  We were considering driving to Cape Canaveral to see the Kennedy Space Center.  I was sitting at home reading online reports about the Space Center to see if it was worth the money.  The Atlantic space shuttle exhibit came up everywhere – “go see it!”  “Don’t miss it!”  “Leave yourself many hours for this!”  I could confirm this once we’d gone: it gave us different experiences of what goes into space travel.  There were films that showed the initial dream: a paper airplane space shuttle that could land itself.  The actual shuttle was there – hanging in the exhibit with all its glory.  Astronauts were there to share a handshake, a personal story, or a photo.  A launch simulator led us through the shaking, rattling, and rolling of going up into space.  Hubble satellite pictures displayed the great invitations of vast galaxies and stars from the great beyond.  Little kids wandered in and out of interactive cockpits.

When I sat down to read Ephesians, I thought about the breadth, length, height, and depth.  And I thought about the folks at the Kennedy Space Center.  They wanted folks to understand the breadth, length, height, and depth of the excitement, will, energy, drive, innovation, teamwork, and discovery of space travel.  The Atlantis exhibit is what they developed to accomplish it.  To go deep is to know and experience something on multiple levels and in multiple ways.

Which leads me to ask: how does God intend to initiate us into the breadth, length, height, and depth experience of Christ’s love?

The answer brings us to our second passage: by growing up.  Consider Ephesians 4:14-16: “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”

Have we considered how much about good, righteous living we have learned from just being around other people who are living this way?  This is how we learn everything, from our infancy onwards.  We learn so much from being around other people – talking to them, listening to them, thinking about them, being surprised by them, being moved by them, getting angry at them, apologizing to them, experiencing forgiveness, grace, humor, singing with them, and endless more.

Paul is saying that this is how it works.  The church is a gathering of people who build one another up in Christ from day one.  All that is required for the Atlantis exhibit of the Christian faith is speaking the truth in love.  Christ’s love, to be specific.  We need it.  Christ is the source.  In Ephesians 2, he is the foundation stone for a building being built.  In Ephesians 4, he is the head which cares for, and builds up the rest of the body.  In John 15:5, Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  We need to be rooted and grounded in him.

We also need truth.  “Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up…”  Think of it this way.  You can spend time with Christ.  You can also spend time with other believers.  But if you don’t tell the truth about yourself to Christ or to other believers, what are you left with?  This was the predicament of Judas Iscariot.  He had spent so much time with Jesus and other followers who had left everything.  Yet in the end he had nothing to show.  He had a hidden life with hidden motives. 

We need to tell the truth.  And we need to tell the truth about ourselves.  It can’t just be telling other people the truth about themselves.  Sometimes when people use this phrase, “speaking the truth in love,” they basically mean this, “I’m going to tell the painful truth about other people.  They’ll probably get mad.  But they shouldn’t.  Why?  Because they should trust that I don’t mean any harm.”  This very well could be all truth and no love.  It makes a lot more sense if you make your heart and vulnerability known to others, drawing the strength to trust other people from your experience of the love of Christ.  In other words, speak the truth about you, your sins, your falsehood, your idolatry, your reliance on Christ for acceptance and grace.  Speak that truth in love.

This is how we grow up.  This is also how the church grows up.  Speaking the truth in love to one another allows us to tap into our amazing gifts to learn to live rightly merely by being around each other.  Normal life, normal gatherings, normal friendships gathered around normal meals together become powerful experiences of the risen Lord Jesus.  The rest of chapter 4 and then chapters 5 and 6 provide wonderful practical guidance on what this life of speaking the truth in love looks like.

There is a lot more to Ephesians, obviously.  But these two passages paint the big picture of God’s will for the Ephesians, and also God’s will for us: going deep and growing up.  

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 149: Romans 12-16 - Gratitude

It seems strange at first to write about gratitude with these last few chapters of Romans.  Strange, because Paul refers explicitly to gratitude or thankfulness only one time in this section.  After guilt and grace, is this just a shameless attempt to shoehorn one more ‘g’ word into the series?

No, it isn’t.  While the word ‘gratitude’ is not used much, it is hard to deny that the humor and temper of the Christian life which Paul describes is aptly characterized by the word gratitude.

Consider this request, which comes from an 18^th century Christian hymn: “In this posture, let me live, and hosannas daily give; in this temper let me die, and hosannas ever cry.” 

Which posture?  Which temper?

Consider also this verse from Romans 15:18: “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.”

What strikes me first about this passage is this: Paul is satisfied.  It is enough.  How surprising to consider what strikes me next: the restless, dissatisfaction with staying still.  Winning obedience, proclaiming – working – spreading the good news of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum – modern day Croatia and Bosnia: this is what Paul’s life is about.

What a strange brew of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, of restfulness and restlessness!  The activity is fueled by a deep rest in the love of Jesus.  Jesus describes it in the Gospel of John, the night before his death: “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy…So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.  On that day you will ask nothing of me.” (John 16:20-23)

Many pleasures of life cost a lot of money.  When we enjoy them, we can’t entirely escape pangs of guilt: “I don’t deserve this.  A lot of people can’t afford this.”  The joy of new life is much sweeter.  We deserved death.  Christ’s sacrifice and new life brings joy to the deepest darkness of our lives.  Every room of our sin-sick hearts is fumigated.

Observe the many marks of the restless restfulness of gratitude in Romans 12-16: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (12:14-15)  “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.” (12:19)  “Welcome those who are weak in faith…” (14:1)  “We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” (15:1)  “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (15:7)  And finally this line – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Have you ever been too full from a big lunch?  You don’t exactly abound, do you?  But in God’s logic, to be full is to abound, to overflow.  That’s exactly what the Holy Spirit does within us.

Each of these lines (and many more) suggests Paul has cast aside whatever ambitions he had before.  In Christ, the only ambition that remains is love: love for God, and as we can see in chapter 16, love for people.  I count 17 uses of the word ‘greet’ in Romans 16:1-16.  17 greetings in 16 verses – now that’s a life of gratitude.  Paul knows people.  He’s comfortable with them.  He gets to know them.  But he yearns for them.  He prays for them.  He thinks about them when they’re apart.  He burns in his heart for them to grow in the Lord.

“For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles.”

In the end, it is right to come back to this word – gratitude.  Jesus had said, “On that day, you will ask nothing of me.”  We know why this is.  This is the vivid sense of all God has done, that God has given us far more in Christ crucified than we ever would have dared to ask.  What more could we ask?  In such moments, our laziness and complacency burn away.  Our gratitude overflows – abounds – into the life of love God meant for us – the life of love Paul describes in these last chapters of Romans.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 149: Romans 3-11 - Grace

Grace levels the playing field.  Whether you are religious or not, you have no advantage with God.  “…since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” (3:24)  Grace has leveled the playing field so that whether you are a very talented player in this game of life, or whether you aren’t, God is just as available to you.

We must resist the temptation to make this about our talent.  Believe me, it will keep coming up in your discipleship.  “Sure, I’m saved by grace, but let’s face it…I’m working a lot harder than some of the people around here.”  Remember the level playing field.  Remember what Paul said when he spoke of sinners, “of whom I am the worst.” 

Didn’t Abraham have to earn the right to be the father of the whole nation of Israel?  Wasn’t that righteousness and obedience his own?  Paul says no.  It came because he believed God.  He trusted God.  Of course, we are talking about faith now.  And both grace and faith are necessary for salvation.  Paul describes Abraham this way: “But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.”  Abraham has faith – faith that God justifies, that God forgives, that God will keep his word, that God will bless his offspring, that God is his redeemer.  His faith is never in himself, but always in God.  He trusts that God will do the gracious things he says he will do. 

Paul’s point is this: the really good life – the blessed, joyous, godly, loving life – comes not through scrupulous law-keeping, but through trusting in God’s promises.  These would be the promises given to Abraham in Genesis 15.  The law was given later to Moses.  But the law doesn’t signal a new rule or measuring stick for what is a good life.  We know that Abraham’s righteousness came from only this: he believed God was gracious and would do what he said.  This is consistent throughout the Bible. 

Chapter 5-7 provide us with a number of illustrations for how different things are now that we have been shown grace through Christ’s sacrifice.  The first illustration is that we were enemies.  Knowing that this is true shows how admirable and unique Christ’s love is.  There is no love to compare to this.  Next, Paul describes our condition as being a part of Adam’s lineage and transgression.  It has spread to us.  Having made this point, Paul says that Christ’s faithfulness has spread to us much more thoroughly than Adam’s sin spread to us.  It is strong and comprehensively saves us.  Knowing this is true shows how powerful Christ’s love is.  Next, Paul uses another illustration.  We are dead.  “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death…”  Christ’s death has become ours through faith.  We also live with him by faith since he is risen.  Knowing this is true shows how completely God has put the old life behind us.  That one word says it all: dead.  It is gone.  Finally, he uses the illustration of a slave.  “…you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”  We were slaves to sin, doing whatever it commanded.  Now however, we do what God commands.  Knowing this is true shows that 100% of our life’s resources are to be committed in this new direction.

In all these illustrations, Paul has shown that God’s grace is admirable and unique because of what we are - enemies.  It is powerful because it covers every part of us.  It has comprehensively dealt with the full ramifications of our old life.  And, finally, it moves us powerfully to live full throttle in a new way.

Words really fail to describe it.  Really, at this moment, the best thing I can do is stop writing and ask for the grace to feel what I’m describing.

But that’s not all.  Not even close.  Now that this is true for us, where do we get the power to live this life?  Paul in chapter 8 tells us that this is what the Spirit of God does.  The life of obedience, submission, righteousness, and perfection is fully available to us.  It comes through living life in the Spirit.  “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”  (8:11)

Even though you are saved, you still don’t live by your own strength.  God actually lives inside of you through the Holy Spirit, who ministers the life of Christ to your life.  He reminds you of your new family.  Of course, I’m referring to the church.  But I’m also referring to God himself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This is your family.  You are encouraged to call on God as your own Father, just as Jesus did. 

And it turns out as we continue through chapter 8 that this will be the truth you hang on to in your hour of need.  We all know what Paul is talking about in the rest of chapter 8 – groaning, hardship, distress, persecution, nakedness, peril.  He’s talking about the worst things that have ever happened.  In hope we are saved.  We don’t see the glory where we are going.  But in our faithfulness and obedience, our destination is assured.

And it’s all by grace.

Do chapters 9-11 change the subject?  Not at all.  Although many find the content perplexing, we can worship God along with Paul.  Paul is living out the grace he’s been talking about.  He is bringing his concerns about his own people.  He models a life of discipleship for us.  He clings to what he finds in the Scriptures.  And he trusts that God will move and bring his own people, the Jews, into a recognition of the Lordship of Jesus, and into the glorious salvation and worship of the people of God.

Grace levels the playing field for Gentiles in the first century.  Ironically, we need to have the playing field leveled again, only for the Jews.  We Gentiles find it easy to live without gratefulness for the faithful witness of the Jews.  We find it easy to forget about them.  What can we do?  We can cling to God’s grace yet again so that we can live by grace.

This is important for our Old Testament reading.  When it talks about obedience and commandments, being faithful or unfaithful, don’t think, “Oh, this was before God was gracious.”  Paul’s point here is that all of God’s word, his promise, his law, his abiding with Israel through all those years – this was all faithfulness to the covenant he made with Israel.  It’s all grace.  Jesus himself is the full presence of the gracious God.  How do we deal with that, since Jesus doesn’t show up until the New Testament?  St. Augustine’s word about the Bible can help us: “The New in the Old concealed; the Old in the New revealed.”  Jesus is on every page of the Bible and on every day of human history.  His activity is concealed in the Old Testament, but fully there.  His human life in the New Testament clarifies what the Old Testament had been saying all along.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 148: Romans 1-3 - Guilt

Today, May 29, marks the first of three catch-up days.  I love catch-up days.  Life is so busy.  Having no reading on these days allows us to catch our breath and maybe make up some readings without getting further behind.  The title of my post is not a typo.  Yes, I know that Romans was our reading from early May.  Although I am caught up with my reading (whew!), I will publish these in order for the benefit of those who are at least a little behind.  If you are really behind, I can't help you. I will post devotional material on several of the biblical books we’ve read recently: Romans, Ephesians, 1 Samuel, and 2 Samuel.  Are you still in Romans from earlier this month?  Maybe you're thinking, "I wish I were as far as Romans!"  Well, maybe in the next few days you can get there.  Here is the first of three posts on Romans:

Guilt

 

We gain a clear picture of what is wrong with the world in verse 1:18.  “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.”  I consider the truth that God is Lord over all.  That he has created the stars and planets (Psalm 33), that he spoke all creation into being (Genesis 1:1-13).  All of these, and more, are truths about God.  They are as plain as day.  But they are not acknowledged as true.  Their truth is ‘suppressed.’  Just considering it should make us weep.  How could the love, righteousness, and might of such a God be ‘suppressed?’  How could we miss it and cause others to miss it as well?  The answer cuts us all to the heart.  The wickedness of the ungodly suppresses it.

It is certainly true that God alone is worthy to be worshiped.  This is the truth that humans exchanged when we fell from our original purity and innocence with God.  We “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” (1:25)

It is a truth that we have cast aside, like it was nothing.  When Paul talks about truth, this is what he means: God alone is Lord of all.  He created all things.  He alone is worthy to be glorified and worshiped.  But this is what does not happen.  God is not enthroned in human hearts.  He is not enthroned in their lives.  He is not enthroned in their relationships or families.  We shouldn’t be surprised then, that he is not enthroned in our nations.

It is suppressed.  It is hidden by all the false gods which have taken the Lord’s place in our lives.

Have you ever gone through a bad break-up?  We call it being "dumped".  It is hard enough to deal with.  But what makes a bad break-up even worse is when that person has traded you in for someone far worse.  It is extra hurtful because it doesn’t only hurt us now.  We hurt for the other person who has made this bad decision.

We have dumped God.  And we traded the most beautiful, joyful, creative being in the universe for a lie.

Now, you've probably heard someone say, "Excuse me?"  Well, with sinful humans it isn't even a question.  We direct it at God like a command: "Excuse me!"  We all love excuses.  We love to avoid blame.  Paul makes the case that Gentiles and Jews alike are without excuse.

 

Gentiles are without excuse.  Gentiles may not have had God’s law.  But God’s power and nature are seen in what he has made, so they have no excuse. (1:20).  So Paul can say, “All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law…” (2:12).

Do religious people have an advantage here?  After all, who has known the beauty, faithfulness, and holiness of God better than his people, the Jews?  Don’t they get a leg-up on the rest of humanity by being the chosen people?  Paul says no.  Jews also are without excuse.  They have God’s law.  But do they obey?  The Old Testament testifies that they don’t.  What then?  Can the law save them?  Absolutely not!  Paul says, “All who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.” (2:12)  Religious hypocrites who say they know God but don’t obey him suppress the truth about him just as much as those who don’t know him at all.

Paul closes his account in chapter 3 by maintaining that Jew and Gentile alike are “under the power of sin.”  We are imprisoned under God’s judgment and wrath.

I know this is hard to hear.  It feels like you’ve been knocked down a peg, that you’ve fallen down a flight of self-esteem stairs.  But the step down in this case is really a step up.  You will not be able to hear the good news unless you hear it from down there.  When we think we’re doing ok, we are still living a lie.  Why isn’t the truth of God seen in the world?  Because of us. It is because our words and our lives don’t testify that God is Lord.  Our words and our lives, then, are one big lie.  If this truth hits home for you, know this: even when our sin is clear to us, it is always clearer to God.  God knows more than you can imagine.  But remember this too.  If God says in his Word that he will be gracious, we can trust that it will be enough.  It is true that if we assess ourselves by God’s standard, we find “nothing to lift our heart to self-confidence.” (John Calvin).  But salvation does not come from us.  It comes from God.  “I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord.” (Psalm 121:1-2)  We can’t count on ourselves.  If we cling to God’s grace, we’ll find that it is enough.  In the next post, we will move on in our Romans road to the next chapter, the chapter of grace.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 123: Judges

Have you ever read a positive review of a movie? Then, when you watched it, your own experience didn't live up to the hype? You wondered what you were missing.

I once went to see a movie with a friend. We were already late so we weren't surprised when the movie was already occurring when we entered. The movie was total chaos, a total shambles. My friend and I looked at each other, puzzled. We mouthed, "Do you understand what's going on at all?" Shaking our heads. Then, 40 minutes later, the movie ended. Later, it hit us - there were two screenings playing that movie. We went into the screening that had already been playing for an hour. No wonder it was terrible, we thought.

Later, I saw the whole movie. It was stunningly well-made. The ending was still chaotic. The difference was that the story was well-told. Tragic, yes. But a masterpiece.

Filled with accidents itself, the Book of Judges is no accident. It is tragic. But it is a brilliant book with a strong point.

It is difficult reading though, isn’t it? Reading Judges, I turned to a commentary for some serious guidance. I was worried. "Is there something I'm missing here?" "Is this book supposed to be such a downer?" I was relieved to find that I wasn't missing the point of Judges. I wasn't missing the reason why it wasn't inspiring. It's about the sinfulness of humanity.

 
We must face it head-on: without God's guidance, we are lost. How can these sad stories of Judges serve us? They invite us to repentance. Most of us think that a good religious life will protect us from the terrifying consequences of the book of Judges. But a good religious life can lead us into the same blind self-confidence which kept the Israelites from seeking God's will in the first place. Our lives are sad stories too. They are full of self-confidence. As with Jephthah, our un-checked vanity can have disastrous consequences for our families, for our kids. As with the Levite, in Judges 19, using others without any regard or love can result in tragedies for which we are not strong enough to take any of the blame – blame which we ought to take. As with Samson, our pride in being religious can bring us to greater humiliation than we ever thought possible.

In short, if we listen to these sad stories of Judges with the right heart, we will come away from them humbled, ready to listen to God, to our neighbor, to consider others better than ourselves, and to see the need to live our lives by the light of a true authority. This book can change our lives.

Judges shows us what went on in the days when Israel had no king. There was no king to govern the lusts, ambitions, jealousies of Israel. Not having had the strength to take the land, they have settled into a state of geographical and also spiritual compromise with the powers that be.

But we have a King. He leads us not only with all the protection, governance, and solid instruction of a powerful king. He also loves us. He prays for us. He stoops to save us. He even gave his life as a substitute for our sinful lives. He has borne all of the punishment and wrath for what we have done. Our lives don't have to look like those in the time of Judges who had no king. With our King Jesus on his throne, we will find great strength to live as we ought.

Judges shows us human history growing worse and worse. Only God can intervene.  And He has!  Nowhere is this point made stronger in the entire Bible than in the first three chapters of our next book: Paul's Letter to the Romans. As we read Romans over the next week, look for the three pillars of Paul's letter: guilt, grace, and gratitude.

Reading the Bible in 2014: Day 86 - Navigating Numbers v. 3 - Atonement: An Unlikely Marriage

The first reflection on Numbers was about the tribes of Israel who camped and journeyed together through the wilderness.  The second reflection was about whole-hearted vs. half-hearted following.  We have several examples of whole-hearted following in Caleb and Phineas.  We have plenty of examples of half-hearted following which I shared in that reflection.  This third reflection will be about the idea of atonement.

Atonement is easily understood by looking at the word itself – at-one-ment.  Atonement takes parties that have been separated and reconciles them to new unity, bearing the cost of whatever caused the division.  A sinner and a holy God.  They are ‘one’ again.  At-one-ment.  Atonement.

Have you ever seen an unlikely marriage – he’s a slacker and she’s type A…she’s athletic and he’s clumsy…he’s short, and she’s tall (or maybe the other way around : - )… and you wonder, “How did they ever find each other?  They seem like such opposites.  What an unlikely marriage!”

Justice and mercy are an unlikely marriage.  Justice is severe with no exceptions made.  Mercy covers over sins.  Throughout history, it has been downright impossible to keep the two together.  Mercy without justice is too lenient.  Justice without mercy is too severe.  Where do we find them both?  In Christian worship.  In atonement.

Atonement is a miracle, really.  It is the marriage of God’s justice and God’s mercy.  God alone is 100% just and 100% merciful.  Consider two examples from Numbers.  In Numbers 16, Dathan and Korah have just rebelled against Moses and against God.  They tried to usurp the priesthood by offering unauthorized fire with censers.  Those are like torches.  The Lord’s wrath goes out against the sinners like a plague.  It is basically moving person to person!  This is God’s holiness and justice – his anger against sin.  This is the same justice that you rarely see married to mercy in the world.

Look what happens next.  Aaron goes out with his censer and rushes out into the plague as it sweeps peoples’ lives away.  How scary!  But the plague stops.  The rightful priest stands in the gap between the living and the dead.  He makes atonement.  This is God’s mercy on his people. 

That’s not all.  Consider the censers – the torches I just mentioned.  These disastrous instruments which have caused such awful death are brought into the tabernacle, the most holy place of worship.  What is such a sinful thing doing in the house of worship?  Look at the passage: “For the censers of these sinners have become holy at the cost of their lives…Thus they shall be a sign to the Israelites.” (16:38)  Do you see what has happened?  The censers are now a reminder.  It is a reminder of God’s holiness.  They remind everybody of the terrible sin that Dathan and Korah did.  To look at it is to say, “I fear God, so I will obey him.”  But that is not all.  It is a reminder of his mercy as well.  To look at it is to say: “God has been merciful to protect me from danger in this way.”  God’s ways alone are life for us.  In this way, atonement creates in us the vivid and authentic, whole-hearted worship of God that he desires.

This is atonement – a marriage of justice and mercy.  To remove one of them obliterates the concept.  It is a miracle.  It is at the heart of the Christian faith.  We must keep this in mind as we read.

Here’s another example.

In chapter 21, the people sin and “speak against God”.  God sends poisonous serpents into their midst.  We are told that many died.  The people repent.  God instructs Moses to make a serpent out of bronze, to put it on a pole.  If an Israelite had been bitten, it took only a glance at the bronze serpent and they would be healed.  The bronze serpent made atonement for the punishment of sin.  They would live.

In John 3:14-15, Jesus speaks about the bronze serpent of Numbers 21.  He says, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  He would be lifted up.  On the day he died, he was lifted up on a cross. 

In this lifting up, he accomplished our atonement.  We can see Jesus in these stories from Numbers.  Although the censers of Dathan and Korah were unholy, they become holy through the sinners’ death.  The serpents brought death to the Israelites’ camp.   Redemption came when their eyes fastened upon the image of the serpent.  Even though this is the Old Testament, we see that our atonement in the New Testament is similar.  Jesus died a long time ago.  But when we see through the eyes of faith that he bore our sin on the cross, we receive eternal life as God’s gift.  We see our judgment fall on our divine substitute.  We are cleansed.  At-one-ment.  We are ‘one’ with God again.

Do you believe this?  Isn’t it powerful to know that another has made atonement for you?  Justice and mercy are married together in him.  Death to sin, and alive to Christ in his new life.  This is his gift to you.  Your chains are gone.  This is the heart of Christian worship.  It is an old truth – as old as Leviticus and Numbers!  But it isn’t old-fashioned.  The atonement we see throughout the book of Numbers in these examples and others is “lifted up” by Jesus.  It is fulfilled when he is lifted up on the cross to make atonement for us.

Are you thankful that God’s judgment has fallen on another instead of you?  Are you grateful for the mercy that has given you new life?  Spend some time thanking God for Numbers, for Jesus Christ, and for how the marriage of God’s justice and mercy in Jesus has changed your life.

Reading the Bible in 2014: Day 74 - Whole-Hearted or Half-Hearted?

The book of Numbers teaches us about holiness.  One of the best examples of holiness is the whole-hearted following of God shown by Caleb of Jephunneh. Caleb takes an expeditionary journey into the promised land with other representatives of the twelve tribes.  Everyone else is intimidated by the size of the people there.  Only two have enough confidence in the Lord to go in.  One of them is Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ apprentice.  The other is Caleb of Jephunneh.  And here is what God says about Caleb: “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me whole-heartedly, I will bring into the land...” (14:24, emphasis mine)

What does it mean to follow God whole-heartedly like Caleb?  It means to take a public stand of trust in God.  It means to be courageous in standing alone.  It is hard to be the only one standing strong.  Moments like these prove not only to God but to the other people that there is one present who whole-heartedly follows the Lord.

We can also learn what it means to be ‘whole-hearted’ by looking at its opposite.  We can learn from the failures of others in their half-hearted following.  There are a number of examples of this in Numbers:

1)      Queasy Over Quail.  The Israelites grumble for food in chapter 11.  What does God give them?  He gives them way more quail than they could ever want.  The sin is not their hunger.  Their punishment comes “because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” (11:20)  They have scorned the favor God has shown them.  In the same way, we can scorn God’s deliverance by ignoring what he has done for us and say “take us back to our old lives!”  This is half-hearted.

2)      Aaron and Miriam – Seditious Siblings.  Moses’ family – his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam – question whether God has actually called him.  They are angry at him for marrying a Cushite woman.  Don’t buy it – that’s a red herring.  The real issue is this: “…and they said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?  Has he not spoken through us also?” (12:2)  It is not a bad thing to be an ‘Aaron’ in God’s plan – it is a great thing.  It is not a bad thing to be a ‘Miriam’ in God’s plan – it is a great thing.  To compete with one another to be God’s mouthpiece – this is half-hearted.

3)      Ignorant Israelites.  After the spies’ bad report, the people rebel and they refuse to go.  Their punishment: to die out in the wilderness.  But now the Israelites change their minds: “Here we are.  We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.”  Moses warns them: “Why do you continue to transgress the command of the Lord?  That will not succeed.  Do not go up, for the Lord is not with you…” (14:40) They suffer disaster.  This is half-repentance – they say they are sorry, but they ignore all that God has just said in verses 26-35.  Half-listening  to God is not enough.  His grace is not cheap.  It demands a changed life.  This is half-repentance.  It is half-hearted.    

4)      Tribes in Tumult.  The revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in chapter 16 brings the tribal competition to crisis pitch.  The twelve tribes were made to worship God together.  Now the Reubenites and Levites have rebelled against Moses.  Chapter 17 illustrates the moral of the story.  God has chosen Aaron’s family to be priests.  Everyone else has to be content with that.  Competing with others for muscle, power, and leverage in God’s family is tragic.  Rather than facing the Lord in the center of the camp, they face each other in rebellion.  It is half-hearted.

5)      Moses’ Mistake.  Even Moses fails in a critical moment.  Instead of his usual precision, to-the-letter obedience, Moses tries to obey the ‘spirit’ of what God is saying.  This is not whole-hearted Caleb-style following.  In his half-hearted devotion, Moses turns away from God’s commandment.  His half-hearted devotion is an insult to the holiness of God: “But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” (20:12)

6)      First Commandment Failure.  Moments like Moses’ failure at Meribah and Dathan and Korah’s idolatry in the wilderness are memorialized so that the people would walk in the fear of the Lord and not consider their own ways to be wise.  But this all comes crashing down when the Israelites commit idolatry and sexual immorality with Midianite women.  It seems a compliment to even call this half-hearted worship.  Are their hearts in it at all?

Imagine walking with God and then rejecting him on the scale they have by Numbers 25.  Phinehas the priest kills Zimri the Simeonite, who has yoked himself to a Midianite woman.  God applauds this killing.  What are we to make of this?  It is a difficult scene.  There are many scenes in this book in which the solution seems harsh.  And yet the same words will be there – whether this is your first reading of Numbers, or your 25^th.

And yet from our end of history, we see that Israel’s pursuit of holiness has failed.  Phinehas is not always there.  The disease can’t just be cut out.  Israel ultimately failed at holiness.  But God’s mission – to put holiness in his people – has not failed.  Rather than execute us, God allowed himself to be executed.  Rather than impale sinners, God allowed his own wrists to be impaled, and pinned to a cross.  The passage with Phinehas reminds us that the quest for holiness is a whole-hearted affair.  It tolerates no compromises.  But thanks be to God that the cost for all our half-hearted compromises have been born by God in Christ.  His Spirit lives in us.  He is whole-hearted.  He is holy.  Because he is, we can be too.

I’ll write tomorrow on our third theme: on how sin is atoned for in Numbers.