Drinking Mercy (and Coffee) Instead of Sorrow

“...I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:18-25).

Sometimes we read (and teach) this passage with an emphasis on Paul’s “gain” and “desire to depart and be with Christ.” This is a good and right thing – we need more of a scripturally-informed leaning toward and yearning for Christ’s heaven (Colossians 3:1-4 is a very important passage to me). However, that’s not the whole story.

I got to be part of a 100th birthday for a dear sister in Christ yesterday. She was having a difficult day health-wise, but it was a joy to see her reach – by God’s grace – this landmark. I thought of the difficulties and sorrowful loss her family has experienced in the years I’ve been their pastor, and was reminded of this profound truth proclaimed in the midst of heartbreak:

“This I recall to my mind,

Therefore I have hope.

The LORD’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul,

‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,

To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:21-26).

This was Tuesday’s meditation for me.

Today is Wednesday. I got a call this morning telling me that another dear sister in Christ, a 94-year-old prayer warrior of the highest degree, was in the hospital with a possible stroke. I confess: I felt a bit of fear inside. I was thankful to find her sitting up, smiling, eating breakfast, and drinking coffee (that magnificent elixir gifted from heaven to a sod-bound race). It was good to see her like this.

I don’t know what the next hour, day, or month holds, but I told her I hoped we’d be celebrating her 100th in six years. She agreed. I read Psalm 30 with her, prayed, and left. On the drive in to the office another passage from Philippians came to mind, and it wasn’t the one at the top of this post.

“But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need; because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow” (Philippians 2:25-27).

It’s interesting that Paul’s “gain” and “desire to depart and be with Christ” didn’t make him emotionless or oddly inhuman about “the last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26). The apostle loathed this thing (as I do with all my soul) and considered it the mercy of God that his fellow servant and dear brother was brought back from the brink, so that Paul wouldn’t have to drink a cup of “sorrow upon sorrow.”

I long for the heavenly Home where my Savior and Lord is. A lot. But I hate the process of getting there, and despise the fact that a funeral is always somewhere unseen around the corner. Paul held both of these emotions without contradiction or sin, which strengthens me. I pray for the grace to do the same.

Keeping the Cross in Sight

I meet on Thursday mornings at a local coffee house with a group of guys. We’re reading through Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology. Not always the most exciting reading, but I’ve found it good in my life to always be reading something that’s not easy to read. Kind of like exercise for the brain.

This morning I was driving down the hill from my house toward the highway. We’re at that time of year that I leave before sunrise on Thursdays. A woman was walking up the hill on the sidewalk. I watched as a coyote crossed the road just behind her. She stopped, suddenly realizing that something was behind her. Looking, but not seeing it, she looked back to me and waved. Always good to have company when you suspect something’s stalking you in the twilight. She kept walking. I stopped just past her and watched the coyote for a few moments before heading on to the coffee house. Something ghost-like about a coyote's ability to disappear into the dusk. I thought about the thousands of miles I have run on the trails near our house. I’ve seen several coyotes and snakes and javelina...I wonder what I haven’t seen that has crossed the path just behind me?

This morning we discussed Christ’s atonement for our sins. When we talk about our sin being an offense to a holy God and Christ dying for our sin, sometimes people get the idea that the Father’s an angry old grump and Jesus forced Him to like us. That’s not scriptural.

Berkhof says: “According to Scripture the moving cause of the atonement is found in the good pleasure of God to save sinners by a substitutionary atonement. Christ Himself is the fruit of this good pleasure of God. It was predicted that He would come into the world to carry out the good pleasure of God, ‘and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand,’ Isaiah 53:10. At His birth the angels sang, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased,’ Luke 2:14. The glorious message of John 3:16 is that ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.’ Paul says that Christ ‘gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father,’ Galatians 1:4. And again, ‘For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, Colossians 1:19,20” (italics original).

All those Scripture verses the old Dutchman mentions show us that God the Father loved us and therefore sent His Son to atone for our sins.

More Berkhof...this time his “proofs” for the necessity of the atonement:

1.      It would seem to be the clear teaching of Scripture that God, in virtue of His divine righteousness and holiness, cannot simply overlook defiance to His infinite majesty, but must needs visit sin with punishment. We are told repeatedly that He will by no means clear the guilty, Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18; Nahum 1:3. He hates sin with a divine hatred; His whole being reacts against it, Psalm 5:4-6; Nahum 1:2; Romans 1:18...the justice of God should be maintained.

2.      This leads right on to the second argument. The majesty and absolute immutability of the divine law as inherent in the very nature of God made it necessary for Him to demand satisfaction of the sinner. The transgression of the law inevitably carries with it a penalty.

3.      The necessity of the atonement also follows from the veracity of God, who is a God of truth and cannot lie. “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent; hath He said it, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” Numbers 23:19. “Let God be found true,” says Paul, “but every man a liar.” Romans 3:4. When He entered into the covenant of works with man, He decreed that death would be the penalty of disobedience. That principle finds expression in many other words of Scripture, such as Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 6:23. The veracity of God demanded that the penalty should be executed, and if sinners were to be saved, should be executed in the life of a substitute.

4.      The same conclusion may be drawn from the nature of sin as guilt...negatively, it is lawlessness, and positively, transgression of the law of God, and therefore guilt, 1 John 3:4; Romans 2:25,27, and guilt makes one a debtor to the law and requires either a personal or a vicarious atonement.

5.      The amazing greatness of the sacrifice which God Himself provided also implies the necessity of the atonement. God gave His only-begotten Son, to be subjected to bitter sufferings and to a shameful death.

These are all worthy proofs. Concerning #4, it strikes me if people don’t “feel” like sinners, they don’t think they are sinners. “Sin” is determined by a purely horizontal standard, and the horizon these days is as shifty as a mirage. Berkhof reminds us in his fourth proof that God’s Law (as revealed in Scripture) is the standard, not the culture or mass opinion of humanity.

Proof #5 is the most profound. Who, looking at the Son of God on the cross, can feel self-righteous and pure? Despite the foolish “the cross shows our worthiness,” it shows just the opposite. This is why the Gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ is so offensive. You and I were so sinful and unable to save ourselves that it took the giving of the sinless, glorious, beloved, and eternal Son of God in our place to save us. He Who had done no wrong had to entire into our sinful separation from God, crying out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46//Mark 15:34).

The atonement exalts the Trinity’s great justice and love at the same time.

Berkhof gives this example that highlights both at the same time: “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness...for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26).

I’ve always preferred a verse a few chapters later to illustrate this same point: “...God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Romans 5:8,9). Love and wrath. Together. No contradiction. No paradox. Both held together in the cross of Christ.

Through the eyes of the Law, the Prophets, and the Apostles, stop and take a good look at the cross. Often. Don’t get so busy in your schedule that the scriptural depths of its meaning become just a whisper of a ghost behind you while you’re about your daily business.

The Riches of Delayed Judgment and Eternal Mercy

On Sunday nights we’re considering the book of Numbers. Last Lord’s Day evening we looked at chapter 21, where, for the first time, Israel engages in warfare during the wilderness wanderings. Some of the ethical questions that rise up when reading Joshua also come up here.

“When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. So Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.’ The LORD heard the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah” (Numbers 21:1-3).

Too often we allow the atomistic tendencies of biblical scholarship to govern our reading of the Scripture. We don’t consider Numbers in its greater context as part of the first five books of the Bible (I have no problem standing with tradition and calling them the books of Moses). Numbers 21 does raise ethical dilemmas – until we consider it as the “continuing story” of a much larger saga. In verses 1-3 the Canaanites are destroyed. Why? The greater epic tells us.

“These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers.’ He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant’” (Genesis 9:19-27). The curse of Noah on Ham and his descendants begins to come to fruition centuries later in Numbers 21. The sin of their father is visited upon them.

What about the Amorites? “...Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, ‘Let me pass through your land. We will not turn off into field or vineyard; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king's highway until we have passed through your border.’ But Sihon would not permit Israel to pass through his border. So Sihon gathered all his people and went out against Israel in the wilderness, and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. Then Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon; for the border of the sons of Ammon was Jazer. Israel took all these cities and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all her villages...thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites. Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. Then they turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went out with all his people, for battle at Edrei. But the LORD said to Moses, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’ So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was no remnant left him; and they possessed his land” (Numbers 21:21-25,31,35).

Again, seeing this passage as part of the greater story answers some of our questions. “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete’” (Genesis 15:13-16). God’s plan was declared for this land and people centuries prior to the judgment. If we don’t consider this, Numbers 21 will seem unfair and even cruel. In light of Genesis 15:16, however, it is the end of an extremely long delay in judgment. What does the Bible say about this? “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds” (Romans 2:4-6). Hundreds and hundreds of years of delayed (and deserved) judgment was a display of “the riches of His...patience,” but they never repented.

Judgment may be delayed, but it is never cancelled. It begins to fall in Numbers 21.

One day in Athens the apostle Paul stands in the Areopagus and speaks to the gathered intelligentsia: “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:24-31).

Why did God create the nations of people, giving them boundaries and limited times? “...that they would seek God...” And, after centuries of existence with God’s patience but no repentance, judgment comes.

“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me...” (Exodus 20:3-5//Deuteronomy 5:7-9). Unfair? No. Because each generation not only receives the consequences of the previous generations’ sin, but embraces this sin and makes the lawlessness its own.

“...through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned...for as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:12,19).

A nation of people exists in a certain time and certain place for the sole purpose of seeking God. When they reject this purpose generation after generation, two things are happening. First, they are rejecting the wealth of God: His patience. Second, they are compounding the coming judgment by not only rejecting repentance, but taking their parents’ sin upon themselves and making it even greater in their generation.

Too many believers have a low view of the sinfulness of humanity. They conceive of humanity as full of “good” or “well-meaning” or even “innocent” people. So passages like those in Numbers 21 shock and disturb us. The Bible teaches a deep and eternally deadly lostness among all of humanity without exception.

There is a sobering application here, of course. From God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 15 to the fulfillment of that promise in Numbers 21 is something like 800-1000 years. The U.S.A. (just to use one example) is 238 years old. Delay is not suspended or non-existent judgment, especially since two centuries is a very small period of time compared to the average in human history.

Preach the Law, contemporary violation of it, salvation from its consequences in Christ, and command repentance in your preaching, Church (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15; 6:12; Luke 13:3,5; 24:47; ; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). May God’s rich patience and sweet grace bring revival so that instead of compounding the coming judgment we pass on an inheritance of blessing: “...I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:5,6//Deuteronomy 5:9,10).

This is not just a promise from the Law, but also of the Gospel:

• “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20).
• “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him...if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me” (John 14:15,21,23,24).
• “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9,10).
• “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected” (1 John 2:3-5).
• “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2,3).

Judgment is promised and inevitable, but the blessing of forgiveness, eternal life, and the riches of God Himself are freely given in His Son. “...the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Repent and believe today. For those who do, the riches of delayed judgment today become the song of a rich mercy throughout eternity: “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).

Don't Blame Love

• "...put on love, which is the bond of perfectness" (Colossians 3:14, Geneva Bible).
• "...let us which are of the day...[be] putting on...love" (1 Thessalonians 5:8).

True love is an act of the will, and is not to be blamed for the self-will that breaks covenant.We do not helplessly fall in or out, but either put it on in covenant commitment or unrepentantly masquerade for temporary convenience.

I recognize that all humans (even Christians and especially myself) sin, but there is no biblical justification for an appeal to God's mercy, forgiveness, and love apart from a repentant confession of sin (as defined by the Scripture). The entry-point for the eternal enjoyment and consolation of the benefits of Christ is humbly and freely confessing that sin is sin as defined by the Scripture.

So, breaking covenant in the name of love and then - either in open or tacit unrepentant rebellion - appealing to the fact that "God is love," "forgiving," or "merciful" is further evidence from your own lips that you want the benefits of ideas like love, forgiveness, or mercy without committing to the covenant in which they are solely found.

Don't blame love.