10

Open to God

It is one thing to be told, on the authority of Scripture: ‘This is the Goal: here is what you should be like as a Christian.’  But it is another to find the motivation to aim for the highest and to know how to proceed to the ideal of holiness.

In the last analysis, it may be asked: Is the whole matter reduced to grit, guts and determination, rigorous self-discipline and total dedication?  Is it as if God places us at baptism/conversion on a road, shows us the way, and says, ‘Be resolute.  Go on the narrow way without turning left or right until you arrive at the gates of the heavenly kingdom.  There you will find a royal welcome’.

Or, on the other hand, is the whole matter reduced to the sovereign grace of God and the mighty power of the Holy Spirit?  Is it as if God places us at baptism/conversion in a boat, hoists the sails, and then sends the wind to blow us unfailingly in the right direction to arrive on the shores of the celestial city; and he says, ‘Sit still, trust in me and you will arrive safely in the harbour of the heavenly kingdom’.

TWO ASPECTS

Within the New Testament there are statements of Jesus (and his apostles) which can be lifted out of their context, placed alongside each other, and used to support each of these opposing interpretations.

Take, first of all, the teaching that by valiant and dedicated effort and striving we can arrive at the Goal. Jesus said:

Make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not be able to do.  (Luke 13:24)

Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.  (Luke 14:27)

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  (Luke 18:14)

No-one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.  (Luke 9:62)

And the apostle Paul urged the young man, Timothy, in these terms:

But you, man of God flee from all this (evil), and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.  Fight the good fight of the faith.  Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  (1 Tim 6:11–12)

Timothy is to ‘flee’, ‘pursue’, ‘fight’, and ‘take hold’.

Take, in the second place, the teaching that we are wholly dependent upon the sovereign grace of God through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said:

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.  Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.  (Luke 10:21)

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.  (Luke 12:32)

Apart from me, you can do nothing.  (John 15:5)

When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.  He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  (John 16:13)

And the apostle Paul told the church in Ephesus:

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  (Eph 2:8–10)

The ‘saints in Ephesus’ who are the ‘faithful in Christ Jesus’ (1:1) are to remember that salvation is by grace alone.  Paul told the Philippians that God ‘who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’ (1:6).

THE PARADOX OF GRACE

Can we reconcile these two apparently opposing dimensions?  The answer is ‘yes’ if we bear in mind that we are not dealing with two equal powers.  Human beings at their noblest are never more than dependent creatures, to whom God gives life and being.  Their best efforts will never come anywhere near the perfect actions of their eternal Creator, Sustainer and Father.  In fact, as creatures and servants of God, we must say (after doing everything we were told to do): ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’ (Luke 17:10).

In comparison with his fallible creatures, the Lord is perfect in nature and being, thought and word, will and action.  And as Creator and Father he calls his creatures into communion with himself so that he is truly their God and they are really his people.  He always – because of who he is, the Lord – must take the initiative and ultimately be in control.  Yet, because he has made mankind in his own image, in his likeness, we are able to make a genuine response to his invitation and truly obey his word.  Never forgetting that he is always Lord, we are called to give ourselves unreservedly, wholeheartedly, single mindedly and devotedly to him and his cause.

We see how God took the initiative and called for human response in the ministry of Jesus.  First, God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.  Then, as incarnate Son, Jesus proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God (the rule of God bringing salvation).  It was like a great army at the city gates waiting to enter (Mk 1:15).  Therefore, his hearers were to submit to God’s rule and receive his salvation: they were to live as true disciples of the kingdom, looking forward to a glorious future, and not being put off by problems, testing, temptations and trials (see the Sermon on the Mount, Matt 5–7).  So in the four Gospels we have two sides of the divine coin of grace: on the one is the emphasis on the free and sovereign grace of God in Jesus; and, on the other, is the call for nothing less than total submission and obedience to this Lord.

The teaching of Paul supports what we find in the Gospels, and it may be described as the paradox of grace.  Here are some of his statements which contain both the emphasis on God’s grace and upon human endeavour:

If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  (Rom 8:13–14)

But the Lord said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect by weakness’.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong’.  (2 Cor 12:9–10)

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed [me] – not only in my presence but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.  (Phil 2:12–13)

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry.  I can do everything through the Lord who gives me strength.  (Phil 4:12–13)

Paul’s life as well as his teaching contains both emphases.  He always feels entirely dependent upon the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: and he always strives to give of his very best in serving the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is certainly ‘all of grace’ but it is also a ‘total dedication in mind, heart, will and body’.  However, the latter is only possible because of the former.

FULFILLING THE AIM

Christian spirituality accepts not only that God has set before his people a goal [Part Two] at which to aim, but also that he has provided, provides and will provide for them all the help needed to fulfil this aim.  However, spirituality leaves to theology the exposition of the nature and content of this divine help; it concentrates upon that side of the divine coin which consists of the duties of believers as they respond to God’s grace.  Such duties as submission, meditation, prayer, attending corporate worship and receiving Holy Communion are some of the areas which spirituality covers.

Further, a spiritual guide takes each of these duties and offers practical guidance as to means, methods and ways of fulfilling them.  For example, suggestions as to how to meditate, forms of prayer, ways of cultivating the virtues and methods of self-examination have been, and still are, offered.  And the guidance can be given in general terms or specifically, depending upon circumstances.  And we must always bear in mind, and never forget, that all ways, means and methods are never to be ends in themselves but only routes towards the true end – fellowship and union with God.  It is also worth adding that experiences gained in fulfilling duties are not to be ends in themselves but only indications of the greater experience which comes to those who, being pure of heart, see God in his glory.

In fact the variety of duties may be compared to the variety of tasks required in the proper cultivation and care of a garden.  The gardener recognises that her garden is wholly dependent upon the sunshine, the rain and the multitude of chemical reactions which take place (the nitrogen cycle etc.).  Yet she has to dig, to hoe, to weed, to plant, to transplant, to prune, to mow and to harvest.  If she did not maintain constant vigilance and work, the garden would soon get out of shape and become a wilderness.  In the cultivation of mind, heart and will we are totally dependent upon God’s grace but yet we have to be as a good gardener of the soul, sowing and reaping, pruning and weeding, digging and transplanting.  The aim is that the fruit of the Spirit will grow and be seen and tasted.

In the next three chapters we shall explore the basic duties of spirituality in general terms.  The structure in which we shall locate these duties to God and the neighbour is the threefold way of response to God’s self-revelation.  This way is portrayed in how Jesus, the true Israel(ite), responded to the Father.  The people of Israel were summoned to walk in the way of the Lord who had led them from Egypt via Mount Sinai to the Land of Canaan.  They were to fulfil their duties as the recipients of God’s Law, as the adopted sons of God and as those whom God had chosen to have spiritual fellowship with.  This is the threefold Way of Torah, Sonship and Knowledge.  (There is a good exposition of this way by the Bishop John Tinsley in The Imitation of God in Christ.  An Essay on the Biblical Basis of Christian Spirituality, London, 1960.)

The Old Testament informs us that the people of Israel failed in their covenant obligations and duties and did not walk after the Lord in his threefold way.  But Jesus walked in this way perfectly, fulfilling all its duties: and he humbly claimed: ‘I am the Way (because) I am the truth and the life’ (John 14:6).  Therefore, it is not surprising that the early Christians described what we now call Christianity as ‘the Way’ (Acts 9:2; 19:9; 19:23; 24:22).

11

Submitting to the Lord

In the Bible both male and female believers are called ‘sons’ of God.  The reason for this is not merely the subordinate place women held in society.  It is also that the attitude and duty of a son, especially a first-born son, in Jewish society is an admirable portrait of the relation of a believer to God, the Father.

FATHER AND SONS

Fatherhood included much more than begetting through sexual intercourse, followed by providing physical and material support as well as teaching a trade.  It also involved showing and teaching the son the moral and spiritual way in which he ought to live and walk and guiding him along that way of life, the father himself providing a worthy example.  The idea was that through obedient submission to the will of the father, the son becomes a perfect reproduction of his father at every point.  So the advice of Solomon, often repeated in the Book of Proverbs is, ‘My son, keep your father’s commands’ (6:20).

We find that the people of Israel are called the sons of God who are to imitate their Father and walk in his ways:

You are the children of the Lord your God . . . Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.  (Deut 14:1–2)

I will lead them [Israel] beside streams of water, on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.  (Jer 31:9)

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me.  (Hos 11:1)

As the last text reveals, Israel was more often a disobedient than obedient son, failing to keep the Father’s commandments, and not walking in his ways.

Jesus, as the new Israel, succeeded where the old Israel had failed.  We see in Jesus both a perfect submission to Joseph in Nazareth and a perfect submission to the Father in heaven.  The Gospel of John has a particular interest in the latter and records Jesus saying:

My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.  (4:34)

For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but to do the will of him who sent me.  (6:38)

I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  (15:10)

The true Son is he who walks in the way of his Father, gladly submitted to his will.  For Jesus, as we know, this meant the way of suffering, public death as a criminal and hurried burial in the grave of a stranger.

CHILDREN OF GOD

Christians are the children of God, adopted by the Father into his family, with Jesus as the elder Brother.  Thus they pray, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’ (Matt 6:9).  And as Paul explained:

When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of Sons.  Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father’.  (Gal 4:5–6)

Abba is the Aramaic word for ‘Daddie’ and used by offspring of all ages: Paul used it again when he wrote to the church in Rome.  By the Spirit we cry, ‘Abba, Father’, for ‘the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children’ (Rom 8:15).

As sons (children) of God we are duty-bound by gratitude and grace to submit wholeheartedly to the Father by obeying his will, which is revealed in and by Jesus Christ.  What this means practically is written in every letter of the New Testament; but, let us keep to Galatians for from there we already have taken our primary text on Christians as the adopted sons of God.  The quotations are all from chapter five.

On the principle that ‘the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature’ (v.17) then (a) ‘Do not use you freedom [in Christ from the guilt of sin] to indulge the sinful nature’ (v.13); (b) ‘Do not gratify the desires of the sinful nature’ (v.16), and (c) ‘Do not become conceited, provoking one another’ (v.26).

‘Serve one another in love.  The entire law is summed up in a single command, "Love your neighbour as yourself"’ (v.14).

‘Live [walk] by the Spirit’ (v.16), ‘be led by the Spirit’ (v.18) and ‘keep in step with the Spirit’ (v.25).

Here we find three components of the submitted lives of God’s children.  First of all, their souls are filled with the Spirit of the Lord Jesus and he is the inspiration of their obedience.  Because of his presence they produce the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (v.22).  In the second place, they will obey the whole moral law of God as it concerns fellow human beings because they aim to love others after the example of Jesus.  Thirdly, they positively reject sin, resist when tempted by Satan and put to death those desires arising from their [old] human nature which are contrary to the will of God.

Each of these three components can also be illustrated from the Letter to the Romans from which we also quoted Paul’s teaching concerning Christians as sons of God.  When we are constantly being filled with the Spirit then we are conscious of the Spirit helping us in our weakness.  ‘We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will’ (8:26–27).  Further, we are able to begin to love our neighbour because ‘God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us’ (5:5; cf 13:8–10 and 15:11–14).  Thirdly, as to the rejection of sinful thoughts, feelings and desires arising from the [old] sinful nature which we all possess (and will do so until we die) Paul has much to say.

Significantly, he says some of it in the centre of his great exposition of the ministry of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus in chapter eight.  ‘Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires’ (8:5).  However, since Christians have received the Holy Spirit to dwell in their hearts as the Spirit of Christ, they are under obligation to be submitted to Jesus and his Spirit.  ‘Therefore, we have an obligation – but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if you by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God’ (8:13–14).  Mortification is a slow, and sometimes painful process and experience (see further 6:11–15).

As we would expect from a long letter there is much more in Romans about the duty and joy of submission as sons to God the Father.  There is submission to God as he works in his providence.  ‘We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’ (8:28).  To live as a son means accepting what comes to us hour by hour as that which God has allowed or caused to happen to us so that in and through it we may learn to trust, love and serve him the more and better.  And this includes pain and suffering: ‘We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope’ (5:4).

Then also there is submission to human government and laws through giving respect, honour, and obedience, as well as paying all rightful taxes (13:1–7).  This is not done reluctantly, but gladly, for Christ’s sake.

Finally, from this Letter we may note there is a submission one to another, and always in favour of the weaker sister and brother (chaps. 14–15).  ‘Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way’ (14:13).  And ‘Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.  All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble’ (14:20).  The corporate dimension is emphasised also by Paul in Ephesians 4–5.  His summary is in 5:21: ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.’  This submission includes such things as earning money in order to share it with the fellowship and of speaking (at all times) for the good of others (4:28–32).

In the brief 1 John there is teaching on both the privileges and duties of children of God. First the joy and privilege of sonship:

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God: And that is what we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Dear friends, now are we the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. (3:1–3)

The joy and privilege lead to the duty of purification, the cleansing from moral stain through the resisting of all temptation to break the commands of God.  And there are other duties of children of God:

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God: neither is anyone who does not love his brother. (3:10)

To do right (= to be righteous) is to keep God’s commandments in heart and action.  And the call to love the brother is again emphasised in verse 18.  ‘Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue [only] but with actions and in truth.’  We all know that actions speak louder than words: and genuine actions (i.e. in truth) speak even louder.

To summarise.  To be a child/son of God, and to belong to his adopted family with Christ as elder brother, is a great privilege bringing deep joy.  It also means the duty of constant and unhesitant submission to God our Father.  This submission is both in the keeping of his commandments and doing what is right and accepting without rebellion his providential government of our daily lives and affairs.  We are gratefully and dutifully to respond to our Father with full mental persuasion, wholeheartedly and willingly.

12

Obeying the Lord

Torah is the name of the first five books of the Bible, the Books of Moses (Gen, Ex, Lev, Num, Deut).  It means that which God has revealed for his children to believe and obey.  Torah is all that God tells his covenant children of his own character, grace, mercy and faithfulness, as well as his statutes, ordinances, judgements, laws and commandments.

Torah is God’s signpost pointing the way to follow him as the Lord.

Be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you: do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in the way that the Lord your God has commanded you . . . (Deut 5:32)

Blessed are they whose ways are blameless,

who walk according to the law [Torah] of the Lord. (Ps 119:1)

He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  (Micah 6:8)

The people of Israel were given Torah as God’s revelation and gift to them.  It was their duty to make it the foundation of their corporate and family and individual lives.

JESUS AND TORAH

Jesus saw the Torah as something both to be personally obeyed as a Jew within the old covenant and also to be brought to completion through his role and work as Messiah.  This is why he gladly submitted to the baptism of John even though he had no sin to confess: ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness’ (Matt 3:15).  And this is why he said: ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law [Torah] or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them’ (Matt 5:17).  And the fulfilment meant both bringing the revelation of God to its fulness and making the whole sacrificial system of the Temple obsolete through his sacrificial death at Calvary.

Jesus did not set aside the moral law contained in the Torah: he did not cancel the ten commandments (Ex 20).  He said that the whole of the Torah as commandments from God could be summed up in two large commands.  ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’, and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:29–31).  Love is to be that which controls both our interior and our exterior lives.

What loving God means in practice is seen in the example of Jesus.  His ready and joyful submission to the will of the Father and his constant communion with him through trusting and obeying are to be placed alongside his using every opportunity for meditation, worship and prayer.  What loving the neighbour means in practice is also seen in the example of Jesus.  There is much food for thought in John 13.  Here we read of the washing of the disciples sweaty and dusty feet by Jesus, of the protests of Peter, and the explanations of Jesus.

You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done for you.  I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  Now you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (13:13–17)

This is a dramatic illustration of self-giving love, that love contained in the new commandment: ‘A new commandment I give you. Love one another.  As I have loved you so you must love one another.  All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another’ (13:34).  But, we must always remember that such love in imitating Jesus is only possible because he first redeems his people – a theme which is clearly portrayed in his washing of the feet (13:10–11).  A redeemed people are to love with Christ’s love.

PAUL AND TORAH

When we turn to the teaching of Paul we find that he insists that Jesus Christ is the new Torah and, at the same time, the perfect example of obedience to the new Torah (1 Cor 9:20–21).  As the fulness of the revelation of God to mankind, Jesus is the new Torah, the new signpost and way to the Father.  His life, ministry, passion, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection, along with his teaching concerning the kingdom of God and his own role and identity, constitute God’s revelation.  By looking to Jesus, studying him and his teaching, we see both what God is like and what God requires.  Christ as the eternal Son of God in human flesh is the new Torah.  ‘Christ is the end of the law’ (Rom 10:4), meaning that Christ is the embodiment and the completion of Torah.

The example of Jesus as well as his teaching, says Paul, is love.  The Son of God ‘loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20) and his love ‘compels us’ (2 Cor 5:14) to seek to imitate him.  The entire law with regard to our obligations to other people is summed up in the single command to love your neighbour as yourself (Gal 5:14; Rom 13:8–10).  In fact the only thing that counts, says Paul, ‘is faith expressing itself through love’ (Gal 5:6) and this applies equally to both Jew and Gentile.  And what love means in practice is beautifully and movingly portrayed in the hymn of love found in 1 Corinthians 13.  Love is an interior virtue which must express itself externally in attitude, word and behaviour:

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

Such love is the gift of God through the presence of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ (wonderfully explained in Rom 5:1–5).  But it is also the result of continued prayer, of definite putting to death of sinful and selfish desires (Rom 8:13; 13:14; Gal 6:7–10), and of a conscious attempt to imitate Jesus.

But let us take another look at these words from 1 Corinthians 13.  It is as if Paul has passed love as a beam of light through a crystal prism and it has come out of the other side broken up into its component colours – red and blue, and all the other colours of the rainbow.  Love has nine ingredients – patience, kindness, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, calmness (good temper), guilelessness and sincerity.  All these relate to attitudes and actions towards other people.

Patience.  ‘Love is patient.’  Love is calm and not in a hurry; but is always ready to do its work when the call is heard or felt.  In the meantime, it is being expressed as a meek and quiet spirit.

Kindness.  ‘Love is kind.’ Jesus spent a lot of his time doing kind things to and for people.  Love is expressed in a sympathetic and friendly nature, always ready to help where help is needed.

Generosity.  ‘Love does not envy.’  Love does not know the feeling of ill-will towards anybody; it is always magnanimous and will never put anyone down.

Humility.  ‘Love does not boast and is not proud.’  Love relinquishes the right of self-congratulation and self-satisfaction.  It puts a seal on the lips and causes the mind to forget what has been done for others.

Courtesy.  ‘Love is not rude.’  This is love in relation to etiquette: it is politeness in society; it is gracious behaviour in company.

Unselfishness.  ‘Love is not self-seeking.’  Love knows that the greatest happiness is in giving, not only of goods but of time, energy, and commitment.  It is not seeking things for ourselves but always wanting the best for others.

Calmness.  ‘Love is not easily angered.’  There is no place or even possibility for a quick temper or touchy disposition where love reigns.

Guilelessness.  ‘Love keeps no record of wrongs.’  Love is not suspicious and does not remember faults in order to use them to put down a person.  Love sees the bright side and puts the best construction on every action.

Sincerity.  ‘Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.’  Here love is the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of the faults of others; it delights in not exposing the weaknesses of others but in seeking to understand them; it is the sincerity of purpose which tries to see things as they are and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or slander denounced.

Love is not an emotion; it is a movement of the will, inspired by heart and mind.  Love is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the truly Christian character.  And it is a character which is built up by ceaseless practice.  As Jesus himself increased in wisdom and favour with God and man (Luke 2:52) and as he learned obedience through daily experience (Heb 5:8) so the character of love, with its constituent parts, is built up (by the grace of God) through practice.  Each day provides opportunities for the exercise of most if not all the ingredients of love: these have to be taken and used to allow the love of God to flow through us.  Yet we are to be more than channels of the love of God.  We are to be reservoirs from which channels flow.  The love of God is to fill our hearts/minds as a reservoir so that as occasion demands that love can flow in the appropriate channel of attitude/activity to our fellow human beings.

But what about the ten commandments?  Did Paul think there was no need to obey them?  The answer is that Paul believed that in truly loving God after the example of Jesus’s love of the Father we shall truly only worship the One God who is the Lord, we shall place no idol before us to bow down to it, we shall not misuse the holy name of God, and we shall remember the Sabbath (by remembering the new Sabbath).  Further, in loving the neighbour after the example of Jesus’s love for his fellow men, we shall honour our parents, not commit murder or adultery, not steal or give false witness and not covet what belongs to others.  Further, because love of God and fellow creatures begins in the heart we shall obey these commandments not only externally but also internally – not committing adultery or murder, for example, in intention and desire.

If we seek to obey the commandments in and by our own strength and according to our own interpretations then we find we are forever feeling guilty and powerless.  It is important to read carefully the seventh chapter of the Letter to the church in Rome to gain insight in this area of spirituality.  Only with the aim of loving God and neighbour after the example of Christ and in his strength as a forgiven child of God will we fulfil the moral law of God.

JOHN AND TORAH

It will be profitable now to turn to the inspired wisdom of the apostle John in his first Letter. For him love is the fulfilment of the moral law and he writes:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth . . . (3:16–18)

Love not only goes out into action for the good of others; it also drives fear from our hearts – ‘perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment’ (4:18).  Further, the love of God for us and in us means we have to be discriminating in what we love:

Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever.  (2:15–17)

The ‘world’ has various meanings.  It can mean the physical universe or ‘the human race living on the earth’.  Here it is neither of these.  It is an inclusive term for all those people who are in the kingdom of darkness and have not been born of God.  It is people as they are influenced by Satan, sin and evil.  The command not to love this world is based on two arguments – the incompatibility of loving both the Father and this world; and the transience of this world as compared with the eternity of those who are in Christ and do God’s will.  For if a person is engrossed in both the outlook and pursuits of those who reject the love of God in Jesus Christ, it is evident that she/he cannot genuinely love the Father.  This teaching has all kinds of ramifications in everyday life.

To summarise.  Jesus Christ has fulfilled the old Torah and in so doing become in himself the new Torah.  To us he is also the example par excellence of obedience to Torah.  Such obedience is summarised in one word, love.  The new covenant, inaugurated by the bloody, sacrificial death of Jesus on the Cross, binds Christian believers to love God and each other (together with all neighbours) in imitation of the love of Jesus.  This duty to love never changes.

13

Knowing the Lord

The Hebrew language has all kinds of interesting features.  But in one particular it is unique.  It uses the verb ‘to know’ of sexual intercourse and because of this ‘to know’ can sometimes point to deep, personal and intimate relationships where no sexual overtones are involved.  It can also be used in the same way as the verb is used in ordinary English – to know about things or people.

THE OLD TESTAMENT

So when we read that God has chosen the people of Israel and that he knows them, we understand this to refer to a special, covenant relationship which he has with them.  ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth’ (Amos 3:1, RV; NIV paraphrases using ‘chosen’).  Likewise when Israel is called upon to know God, or is chastised by the prophets for failing to know God, we understand this to refer to a failure to trust, worship, love and serve him.  ‘"Let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight" declares the Lord’ (Jer 9:24).  And referring to a king now dead, Jeremiah also declared as God’s mouthpiece: ‘"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.  Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the Lord’ (22:16).  A right relationship with God leads to a right concern for deprived people.

The Old Testament is the account of the Lord who always knows his people and of these people often failing to know the Lord.  However, one of the characteristics of the future Messiah in the prophecies of the Old Testament is that he will be known of God and truly know him (Is 11:2,9; 53:11); and through this knowledge he will bring salvation to the people.  Jesus is presented in the Gospels as the One who truly knows the Father even as the Father knows the Son.  Jesus said: ‘All things have been committed to me by my Father.  No-one knows the Son except the Father, and no-one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Matt 11:27; cf Lk 10:22).

JOHN’S GOSPEL

This intimate relationship of love between Father and Son is especially emphasised in the Gospel of John.  Speaking to the Jews about his relationship to the Father, Jesus said: ‘Though you do not know him, I know him.  If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word’ (8:55).  And speaking of his relationship to his true disciples Jesus said: ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep’ (10:14–15).  Here an intimate relationship leads to a costly action.  In his great prayer before his arrest Jesus said: ‘Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they [the disciples] know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and they will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them’ (17:25–26).  Knowledge is expressed in love, the deep and intimate love of God for himself, and for his children.

So we see that knowledge is not merely having information about God and Christ, it is being in such a close relationship with the Godhead that the love which is of the essence of the Godhead flows into the believer and through him to the world.  Do not Satan and all the evil angels know all about God and his ways?  Yet they do not love him, worship him or obey him.  The knowledge of God which Jesus has and which he shares with his disciples is a knowledge that is an intimate relationship, leading to loving worship, obedience and service.

PAUL’S LETFERS

In the Letters of Paul we find that the verb ‘to know’ and the noun ‘knowledge’ are often used in their ordinary meanings.  For example, possession of information or facts about Christianity can be dangerous, says Paul.  ‘Knowledge puffs up’ but, in contrast, ‘love builds up’ (1 Cor 8:1ff).  And he adds, ‘So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge’ (v. 11).  Here knowledge leads to pride, vanity, lack of care and sin.

‘Knowing’ is also used, as we would expect of one who was ‘a Hebrew of the Hebrews’, of an intimate relationship between God and those who believe and trust in his Son.  At the end of the great hymn of love in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul wrote this: ‘Now we see but a poor reflection; then [in the kingdom of God] we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known [now by the Lord Jesus].’  And addressing the Galatian churches he reminded them of their former pagan position and what God had done for them in Christ by the Holy Spirit.  ‘Formerly when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.  But now that you know God – or rather are known by God – how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?’  (4:8–9).  Here he reflects his conviction that the believer only knows [is in intimate fellowship with] God because God has taken the initiative in knowing [regenerating and causing his Spirit to dwell within] him.

Of course, it would be wrong to separate this knowing which is spiritual union with God from that knowing about God, his character, his gospel, his promises and his kingdom.  Those who know God intimately as Father must also have a minimum doctrinal and ethical knowledge about God and his revelation.  And the greater is their knowledge of God’s revelation and will, and the greater their understanding of Christ, his identity, mission and glory, then also the greater is the possibility (in the right spiritual framework) of a deeper knowledge of God in terms of communion and fellowship.  However, knowledge about the Bible, theology, ethics, church history and worship does not of itself guarantee spiritual fellowship with God.

The ideal situation is where there is a growth in knowledge about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit and this is matched by a deepening relationship of love and trust in God.  Then we are known by God and we truly know him.  In fact, each Christian has put on in conversion ‘the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator’ (Col 3:10) when he lives as a Christian ought to live.  And to live as we ought to do our minds need to be constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit.  Paul emphasises this throughout his Letters, and nowhere more strongly than in that to the Ephesians.  Here is one of his prayers:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.  I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you . . . (1:17–18)

The renewal of the mind is certainly the work of the Holy Spirit; but, it is also achieved by the Holy Spirit as we fulfil our duties of meditation and prayer.  We must both hear Scripture read in church and read Scripture privately in order to become familiar with God’s revelation, especially his self-disclosure in Jesus Christ.  We must hear sermons on that revelation and we must make time to meditate (consider, reflect upon, apply to our own lives) this revelation.  Further this hearing and this meditating are to be turned to prayer, asking God to help us grow morally and spiritually according to the light we have gained from his Word.

Paul often calls upon his readers to engage in meditation and consideration.  He urged the Philippians to consider the humility of Jesus, incarnate Son, who humbled himself even to death on a cross, and to imitate his holy example (2:5ff).  He told the Colossians to raise their minds to think of Jesus in glory: ‘Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things’ (3:1–2).  And he advises the Ephesians to consider the armour of the Roman soldier as a way of recognising what spiritual armour God has provided for his ‘soldiers’ as they are attacked by Satan and evil powers (6:10ff).

As to prayer, we notice that Paul’s Letters contain many prayers.  Thinking of his converts and their needs he often breaks into prayer.  Also he urged all believers to constant prayer: ‘Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’ (1 Thess 5:17).  He did not mean that we are to do nothing else but pray for how can we pray if we are engaged in some necessary, absorbing activity like serving a customer or answering the questions of an insistent child?  He meant that we are to turn to prayer often throughout the day – to perhaps longer prayer on waking and retiring and shorter prayers as occasion arises and circumstances permit.  Hereby we shall keep God constantly in mind, be aware of his presence, and seek his guidance and blessing on the day’s events and circumstances.  Continual prayer also means regular prayer day by day as well as through each day.  Here we may recall that both Jesus and Paul were brought up to use the Psalter as their book of prayers, to learn the psalms and to pray them as prayers for themselves and/or for their people, Israel.  Over the centuries the Church has followed this practice and many people have prayed – and continue to pray – the psalms as personal prayers day by day, month by month, year by year.

I JOHN

There is much food for thought concerning knowledge in 1 John.  In the opening paragraph John tells us that ‘our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ’ (1:3) and a little later he explains:

We know that we have come to know him [Jesus Christ] if we obey his commands.  The man who says, ‘I know him’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.  This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.  (2:3–6)

Here the verb ‘to know’ is used in the general sense, ‘we know that’, and in the Hebrew sense, ‘to know him’.  The knowledge of intimate fellowship has the direct implication, says John, of obedience and imitating the Lord Jesus.

At the end of the short Letter there is this paragraph:

We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; [Jesus Christ] the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one does not touch him.  We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.  We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.  And we are in him who is true – even in his Son Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life. (5:18–20)

Here the ‘we know’ is not human confidence alone: it is a humble confidence arising from the inner prompting of the Holy Spirit.  It exists because ‘we’ are in a relationship with God in which he treats us as his dear children.  And not only are we protected from the sinister power of Satan; we also habitually and decidedly do not intend to commit sin.  That is, we do not desire and attempt ever to break the commandments of God, especially the command to love one another.  However, when we do fall and fail we look to God the Father through the Lord Jesus: ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1:9).

To summarise.  Knowing God is only possible when we are known by God as our Father.  While such knowing is always a personal relationship and thus deeper than intellectual knowledge about it, it normally also includes knowledge about the Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – his character, his way and his will.  The apostolic Letters of the New Testament emphasise the necessity of receiving and believing sound doctrine in mind and heart: and the apostles oppose error and heresy in most of their Letters.  The need to receive sound doctrine today includes the duty of studying the Bible to learn of God and his ways and also of learning and studying the Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian) as summaries of Christian doctrine.

The same Letters also emphasise that being in communion with God, and ever longing for deeper, richer communion, is of the essence of the new covenant.  They expound the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the new covenant: ‘This is the covenant that I will make . . . I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God and they shall be my people.  No longer will a man teach his neighbour or a man his brother, saying "Know the Lord", because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest . . .’ (31:31ff; cf Heb 10:15–16).  And because knowledge is personal relationship the apostles insist upon all those duties which increase such knowledge, particularly corporate worship and prayer.  Included in the former is fellowship with believers, the ministry of word and sacrament: included in the latter is meditation, adoration, praise, thanksgiving, confession of sin, petition and intercession.

Spirituality must include the duties of study, prayer and corporate worship.