 |
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
|
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
|
|
 |
 |
|
 PERFECTIONISM VERSUS FAITH
Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on March 25, 1984 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation… Romans 1:16 WHEN I WAS GROWING UP IN THE CHURCH, I became turned off by its “holy wars.” I have never understood the presumptuous attitude of people who believe they have been anointed by God to cleanse the world of everyone they disagree with. Throughout its history, the church has fought and divided over some of the strangest things. They debated over the nature of the Godhead and the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Apart from the dispute over the authority of the Pope at Rome, the basic doctrinal matter that separated the eastern and western branches of the church was the so-called filioque controversy. At issue was whether the Holy Spirit “proceeded” from only the Father, or from both the Father and the Son. Now it is important to remember that the first century Christians never had to decide on such matters. In fact, the Apostles’ Creed, an early declaration of the Christian faith, didn’t address this subject at all. It was only centuries later that a church council issued a doctrinal statement that the Spirit proceeded from the Father. Then a later regional church council added the Latin term filioque, meaning “and Son.” So the church became deeply divided over whether the Holy Spirit came forth from only the Father, or from both the Father and the Son. This led to the split of the eastern and western branches of the church, which are still in disagreement to this day. I am well aware theologians say these are vital matters, but at the risk of sounding irreverent, I have to ask, “What difference does it make?” The study of doctrines and church history is important as an intellectual pursuit, but I use this as an illustration of how easy it is to come under bondage to traditions. If we could quit fighting over the nature of God, we might find out when we get to heaven. We can ask God after we arrive; He is the real expert in theology. Maybe we can ask the Holy Spirit Himself! Throughout its history, the church has tried to keep people in bondage to its traditions and has opposed the teaching of liberating truth. That is why the Reformation was so fiercely opposed by the established church: the Reformation was a threat to its power. The church had adopted the heathen concept of perfectionism, which came straight out of Babylon, moved into Persia and ultimately into Rome. They believed that when someone died, their deeds would be weighed in a balance and they would only be allowed to enter into heaven if their good deeds outweighed their bad deeds. The Babylonian king Belshazzar certainly believed that idea. In Daniel 5, on the night Belshazzar’s kingdom fell to the Persians, he was shaken to his core by Daniel’s interpretation of what the hand wrote on the wall: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” By Belshazzar’s own standard, he knew he was doomed. The Roman Catholic Church, having adopted that same notion of perfectionism, essentially appointed itself as the dispenser of the added weight of goodness you needed to “tip the scales” in your favor. You went to confession and if you didn’t measure up, the priest would tell you what good deeds you had to perform in order to be restored to God’s favor. The problem is your good deeds could never catch up with your bad deeds. It was like borrowing money from a loan shark at one hundred percent interest: you could never repay it. And as long as the church cleverly kept that control over you, you could never catch up. That is how they exerted power over people. Along came Martin Luther, a monk weighed down by a sense of sin who yearned to feel a release in his conscience. He had practiced all the penitential devotions, even climbing the steps of the Lateran Palace in Rome on bleeding knees. But after years of such torment, the light began to dawn for him when he understood the words declared in the Old Testament and repeated three times in the New Testament: “The just shall live by faith.” With that promise of God ringing like a cymbal in his brain, Luther shook off the bondage and set a continent free. In response to the Reformation, the Catholic Church further entrenched itself into the doctrine of perfectionism at the Council of Trent. There the church established as a law that there was no possibility that anyone could ever be absolutely sure of his salvation; only the church could dispense a measure of security. The tragedy is that even Luther, once he started to have power, fought against others who wanted to be free from his authority. Religious authorities inevitably fall into the same pattern: an elitist leader or group defines what they consider to be good behavior, and then they abuse their power and tell you that you can only make it into heaven if they approve of you. And the church is still doing that today. That is why Jesus said we make void the word of God by our traditions. I preach a message of simple faith. I earned a Ph.D. in Philosophies of Education and could give a detailed recitation on the history of the church. We could talk about the seven church councils, the Arian controversy, the controversies over the nature of Christ, the icon controversy and the Marcion controversy. We could explore the history of the Coptic Church and the schism with the Nestorian Churches that carried the gospel into Persia, India and China. We could study Tertullian, the great Bishop of Carthage, who helped determine the canon of Scripture. His logical reasoning enabled him to defend the church, yet he ultimately converted to Montanism and spent the last years of his life criticizing the church. But all of them got off the track on the same point: they all fell into endless discussions of doctrine that go beyond the way of salvation. The Table of the Lord has been another subject of controversy in the church. The Table of the Lord was meant to be an act of remembrance of what the Lord has done for us, yet it has long been a subject of division. My position is clear: the elements of the bread and the wine are emblems.* The declaration of the Latin words “Hoc est corpus meum,” meaning “This is my body,” does not somehow impart the life and substance of Christ into the bread and the wine. But again, why are we divided over this? If you believe that the elements are the literal body of Christ, I think your theology has some problems, but I will still partake with you. It is not the nature of the elements that makes taking Communion beneficial; it is the act of discerning what Jesus provided at Calvary, and the faith which appropriates that knowledge, that make it beneficial. Paul said in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation.” He defined that gospel, the good news, as the revelation of a way of righteousness that is different from what had prevailed before. God is not limited in His expressions of righteousness. In ancient Greek philosophy, they would describe the divine law abstractly by using the word themis, which came to represent the nature of God existing beyond time and outside of our perspective. We can neither fully comprehend nor articulate the nature of God. As Paul said to the Corinthians, “we see through a glass, darkly.” Yet wherever the nature of God found an outlet on the stage of time, in whatever form it shone forth, it would be described using a different Greek word, dike (pronounced dee-kay) or one of its derivatives. This word dike is at the root of the __________________ * See, for example, Dr. Gene Scott, Introduction to Communion (Glendale: Dolores Press, Inc. 2007). Greek words we translate using the English words “just,” “justification,” “righteous” and “righteousness.” Because of our limited ability to understand and articulate, any glimpse we have of God’s nature will be partial and insufficient to answer all our questions. The first expression of God’s nature as revealed on earth was the law. The law answered some, but not all, of our questions about God’s nature. The law came with a two-edged promise: if you could keep it, you would live; but it you missed any part of it, you would die. God was equally bound to keep both sides of the promise. The law was God’s standard, an expression of His nature. It defined a standard of behavior that, if it could be kept, would allow us to see what God would look like clothed in human flesh. Now it is obvious that the law of God didn’t exhaust every expression of God’s righteousness. The law was an expression of God’s righteousness as seen in the realm of time and human behavior. If you could keep it, you would live, but the standard itself dictated that you must keep it perpetually, personally and perfectly, without ever falling short. Failing to do the things you should do was as much a violation as doing the things you should not do. And the reward or punishment wasn’t dependent upon whether or not you knew the law. Once the law was uttered, it remained unchanged, whether anyone knew it or not. There have always been people who try to reduce the law down to something they think they can keep. I have heard people say, “I like to keep my religion simple, and God can’t improve upon the Ten Commandments!” Well, He did. The law was much more than just the Ten Commandments. There were laws concerning what you could eat, how you could eat and whom you could eat with. There were even laws telling women what to do at periodic times of the month. But spiritual simpletons always try to reduce God’s standard down to just the little portion of the law they think they are able to keep, and then they berate and condemn the rest of the saints for their failure to keep the law. Paul taught that the law was given as a “schoolmaster,” in order that the knowledge of God’s standard would bring about the knowledge of sin. The Greek word translated “sin” in the New Testament is hamartia, which simply means “missing the mark” or “falling short.” The church has debated for years over the question, “What is sin?” Even Tertullian, as smart as he was, wrongly believed that once a person became a Christian there were certain sins he could commit only once, and there were no second chances. By Tertullian’s standard, we are all lost! Won’t he be surprised to see us in heaven! Paul understood that no one can keep the law. From the moment you are born, you are ignorant of the law and falling short. Because man is born outside of fellowship with God, he doesn’t know God’s will or even how to think God’s way. We are all born with a tendency to sin. There is a story I like to tell that illustrates our basis tendency to sin. A little boy came running down the stairs and said, “Mama, there’s a bear in my room!” The boy’s mother replied, “Johnny, there is no bear in your room. Go back upstairs and ask Jesus what He thinks about that.” The little boy went back upstairs, and when he came down a few minutes later his mother asked him, “What did Jesus say?” And the little boy answered, “Well, Jesus thought it was a bear too, when He first saw it!” It is our nature to cover our tracks. It is our nature to think we are right, and everyone else is wrong. That is why Paul said, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Paul taught that there wasn’t anything wrong with the law; it showed us the way God would act if He were here on earth. Were God to move into a tent of human flesh and walk in the realm of mankind, He would keep all of the law from beginning to end. We, on the other hand, have never kept the law, and we cannot keep it. Paul said that the law has no power to help us. The law cannot even bend down to pick us up, because to do so would compromise its perfection. All it can do is crystallize and point out our shortcomings; and by its very nature, the law can only condemn us. But the law was not the only expression of God’s righteousness. God spoke in many ways in the past. He declared His standard of righteousness to the Old Testament prophets, but He put His standard on display when His nature moved into a tent of human flesh called Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law…but to fulfil.” He perfectly fulfilled the law without compromise. So now we have two expression of God’s standard: we can look at the law in the Old Testament, or we can watch Jesus perfectly perform in the New Testament. There is perfection, and you don’t have to complicate God’s revelation. God laid down the law in the Old Testament through His chosen people, Abram and his descendants. He did not choose Abram because he was perfect, God chose him because he had faith. Abram’s descendants were all people who fell short of God’s standard, and they often became prideful because God had chosen them. They turned the choice into privilege. But they were chosen for the task of revealing God’s will, and they became His oracle people. Through them, God spoke forth His redemptive plan for fallen man. In the Old Testament, God spoke in types and shadows of the redeeming work of Christ. One of those types and shadows is called the law of the kinsman redeemer. When someone had lost his inheritance and was facing the penalty of that loss, it could only be restored and their former position redeemed by someone near of kin. One of the reasons the book of Ruth is in the Bible is to demonstrate in a drama the role of the kinsman redeemer. The kinsman redeemer must meet certain conditions: First, he must be someone near of kin; a stranger may not perform the role. Second, he must have the means of price of redemption. Third, he must be willing to pay the price. And finally, he must actually pay the price. That was written into the law, and once God declared this principle, it became the only way man could be redeemed. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews looks in amazement on God’s plan, saying that God did not stoop down to help fallen angels, but He stooped all the way down to help sinning, fallen man. The author then unfolds the way it was done, saying that we all share flesh and blood, and we don’t have any choice about that. He states this precisely in the Greek using the word koinoneo, meaning we “jointly participate” in flesh and blood. We are “kinned” together with this common denominator. Flesh and blood houses our being. We don’t have a choice, but Christ did have the choice and He voluntarily took upon Himself flesh and blood. This is stated simply as a declaration of faith: He was born of a woman so that the nature of God might voluntarily become kinned to us. John says He was always with the Father and of the same essence as the Father, yet He willingly chose to become our near kinsman in order to redeem us. Christ perfectly fulfilled the law in order that He might have the means to pay the price of our redemption. Paul anticipated that someone might question the idea that one man, Christ, could stand in for all of us. So Paul argued rather eloquently that by the same principle, one man had already condemned all of us. Because Adam sinned, all mankind is born outside of God’s presence and no longer walks with God nor learns from Him as the direct Tutor. Man is born with the deck stacked against him. But Christ, our Kinsman, possessed the price of our redemption, His own perfection. And God would let Him pay the price, as long as He would do so willingly. Jesus demonstrated His willingness when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Jesus could never have saved us if He had only lived a perfect life, but refused to die in our place. He could have gone right back to heaven without us, without actually paying that price. The final conditions of the kinsman redeemer had to be met: Jesus had to willingly pay the price and He had to actually do it. In Exodus 21, God laid down another law called the law of the perfect servant. The perfect servant, having worked six years, could go out from his master’s house a free man. If he had obtained a wife and children during his servitude, they could not go out with him. But if the servant plainly said, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,” he would be taken to the judges and to the door of the master’s house where he would let his ear be bored through with an awl and nailed to the doorpost. The ear is the symbol of obedient hearing. In submission, the servant allowed his ear to be nailed to the door of his master’s house so he could keep his wife and children and abide with his master forever. This was another type of Christ, who paid the price to keep His wife, which is the church, and His children, those born of the seed of the word. Christ could have gone back to heaven and been restored to His glory, having perfectly fulfilled on the stage of history God’s standard in His fleshly habitation. Instead, He chose to redeem us, and He actually paid the price of His perfect life by bearing our sins in His own body and dying in our price. As Isaiah 53:6 declares, “The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” In the Old Testament tabernacle, animals were sacrificed and their blood was poured out as propitiation for man’s sins. The high priest had to carry the blood of the sacrifice into the presence of God in the Holy Place. And if the sacrifice were not satisfactory, the high priest would be stricken dead. There were bells on the bottom of the high priest’s robe that would continually ring as he moved about. If the people outside could hear the bells ringing, they would know that the high priest was still alive and the sacrifice had been accepted by God. In the New Testament, Christ is the propitiation for our sins. He is not only the propitiation, He is what theologians call the propitiatory: Christ was not only the sacrifice, He was the accepted sacrifice. There is a mystery in John’s account of Christ’s Resurrection when Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” Jesus had to ascend to heaven and there, in the presence of the Father, He had to meet the criterion of the perfect sacrifice. That is the meaning of Peter’s declaration on the day of Pentecost, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.” The Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost as proof that Christ was the accepted sacrifice. Now the price has been fully paid. As Matthew 13 says, He paid the price to buy the whole field in order to get the treasure in the field. Every sin in the whole world was laid on Him. Romans 3:23 declares that “all have sinned.” Whether heathen or Jew, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” God’s standard is the same for everyone: it is the same for the heathen who lack knowledge of God’s law as it is for the Jews who were brought up with the knowledge of the law. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Tertullian should have understood that everyone who comes to God still continues to fall short. All have sinned, but Christ is the propitiation for our sins. You can trust in the finished work of Christ without understanding every fine point of theological doctrine concerning the nature of God. It is not necessary to explain God’s nature in all its dimensions, because you will never be able to do so. You don’t have to understand the mystery of the Godhead. The Trinitarian doctrines were worked out by church councils hundreds of years after Christ’s earthly ministry, and New Testament Christians never even had to decide the issue. I happen to have a historical churchman’s perspective, but I am not so presumptuous as to try to force that view onto other people as the price of their salvation. All you have to know is that God moved into a tent of human flesh who perfectly kept the law. He obtained the price of our redemption. He willingly gave His life as a ransom, and He actually paid the price for every sin. That is why Paul was able to announce the good news: there is no another righteousness available, a righteousness that is the power of God unto salvation. God can give salvation to anyone, anywhere, anytime. He can save a murderer if He wants to, and that would be none of Tertullian’s business. He can take a man like me, who is a thorn in the eye of the self-righteous, and without their approval, He can declare me “Saved!” He can take people every race and color, whether they are ignorant of the law or have knowledge of the law. He can even take people who have never heard of Jesus if He wants to. God can save whom He will, but He has told us in advance whom He chooses. He wants faithers! God has said, in essence, “I’ve decided that since I can save whom I will and we are going to be together throughout eternity, I only want people who will trust Me.” Some self-righteous churchman may not like that. I can imagine some deacon saying, “Well, I trust You, Lord, but I still want You to notice what I’m doing for You. I want a little credit. I’ve never committed adultery – I just thought about it, but I missed the chance. But over there is a woman who got away with it! Now, if You’re going to let her into heaven, I’ll grant You that, but I should still rate a little higher than her in eternity.” And God would say, “Go to hell! She is saved!” The deacon would argue, “Well, why would You accept her?” And God would say, “Because she trusts Me.” The deacon says, “But she doesn’t know as much about the doctrine of the Trinity as I do!” And God would say, “All she has to know is that when I make a promise, I keep it.” I know I am being ludicrous, but can you see the folly of elevating church doctrines over a trusting relationship with God as revealed in His word? Imagine this same deacon sees a woman praying for healing, and he says, “God, You can’t heal her unless she perfectly understands which Person of the Trinity does the healing – Jesus, the Father or the Holy Ghost.” And God would say, “All she has to know is that I promised, ‘I am the LORD that healeth thee,’ regardless of what I am, which she will find out in due time.” All she has to do is pierce through the fog of traditional garbage and the guilt laid on her by those who would try to tell her she has to deserve it. She can simply say, “Lord, I believe You, and if I die without being healed, my last words will be, ‘God said it and I can trust Him.’” The deacon still argues, “But she didn’t say the ‘sinner’s prayer’ properly!” And God would say, “All she has to say is what Peter said when he was sinking fast: ‘Lord, save me!’ I am the one doing the saving. All she has to do is believe Me when I say I loved her enough to put her sins on Christ and He loved her enough to bear them. She is My child because she trusts Me.” Another accuser of the brethren says, “Well, she trusted You yesterday, but I watched her today and she isn’t perfect!” But God will rebuke the accuser and say, “She is covered, and each day gives her a new opportunity to trust Me.” When this woman finds herself in a circumstance where it looks like she won’t make it, she remembers God’s promise, “I am the Lord who provides.” So she makes up her mind, “I will keep trusting God, and if I die, at least my last act will be an act of faith.” And lo and behold, God provides for her and she is still here. She takes God at His word when He says, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” She doesn’t have to define the doctrine of the Trinity before she can claim a promise of God. She doesn’t have to make a distinction of whether her strength comes from the Son or the Holy Ghost. When the strength comes, she doesn’t have to know whether it comes from the energy of God or from the will of God. This may shock some, but she could even pray, “Who gives a damn about any of those things? Just give me some help, Lord! I believe You’ll do it!” I’m sure our self-righteous friends would object and say, “Well, there’s no way God would hear a prayer like that, with words like ‘damn’ or ‘hell’ in it.” If using the words “damn” and “hell” is a sin, then I am sure that God knows how to break up the prayer into its parts; and He puts any bad part on Jesus and listens to the rest of it. You see, we are covered! Someone says, “But she didn’t kneel at an altar to pray.” No, she took God at His word when He said in the Bible, “We have an altar,” one Christ Jesus. You can meet Him right where you are, wherever you are. You can’t be perfect, and trying to be perfect to please God is a losing proposition. The way of faith may be hard work, but it is achievable. You can learn to trust Him, and each time you take that step of trusting faith, He gives you one hundred percent of Christ and you’re already home free. You can’t find a better deal than that. That’s Basic Christianity. All you’ve got to have is faith! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2022 Wingspread | November, 2022 Wingspread November, 2022 Wingsprea | October, 2022 Wingspread | September, 2022 Wingspread | August, 2022 Wingspread | July, 2022 Wingspread | June, 2022 Wingspread | May, 2022 Wingspead | April, 2022 Wingspread | March, 2022 Wingspread | February, 2022 Wingspread | January, 2022 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
||
 |
 |
