Month: March 2008

Passion Week: The Servant of the Lord

Monday of Holy Week begins with a passage from the passionate prophet Isaiah

The Servant of the Lord

42 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen one in whom I delight;

I will put my Spirit on him

and he will bring justice to the nations.

2 He will not shout or cry out,

or raise his voice in the streets.

3 A bruised reed he will not break,

and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

4 he will not falter or be discouraged

till he establishes justice on earth.

In his law the islands will put their hope.”

5 This is what God the Lord says—

he who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,

who gives breath to its people,

and life to those who walk on it:

6 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;

I will take hold of your hand.

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people

and a light for the Gentiles,

7 to open eyes that are blind,

to free captives from prison

and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

8 “I am the Lord; that is my name!

I will not give my glory to another

or my praise to idols.

9 See, the former things have taken place,

and new things I declare;

before they spring into being

I announce them to you.”

The Servant Lamb has obediently faced Jerusalem, redolent of the nard poured over His feet by Mary, the sister of Lazarus. In this singular action, she followed the example of her Lord in costly devotion, not only pouring the expensive perfume over his feet but in letting her hair down in public and gently drying the feet that would carry Him to the Cross later in the week. Isaiah tells of a similarly humble servant who will nonetheless shake the world of injustice, not through shouting or violent display, but through the consistent  display of righteousness. Peace be with you as you discover your own humility and consider what costly sacrifice the Lord calls you to.

Bricks Without Straw

Ministry that is accompanied by struggle, persecution, and difficulty often leads the pastor to what where God’s plan lies. The Lord calls us to specific ministry objectives big and small and we faithfully follow that call only to discover that the ministry that results is fraught with heartache, disappointment, and struggle, sometimes even failure. I was reminded of this in reading Exodus this morning. Moses and Aaron are called to a ministry of confrontation with Pharaoh and leadership to their people. They carry the Lord’s message to him to release His people and, as a result, Pharaoh increases the pressure on the Hebrews.

The result is predictable, given what we know about human nature:

The Israelite foremen realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.” When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, “May the Lord look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”  Ex 5:19-21

Leaders in Christ’s church must be willing to remind God’s people that following His plan is a dangerous pursuit and there is always a chance that not all of us are going to come through unscathed. If God calls your church to a specific ministry, no matter how unglamorous, our calling is to lead our people into the fire regardless of the pain, scorn, and fallout that might come our way. To do anything less is to proclaim our lack of trust in the providence of our Father.

You see, we must continue to read on despite the fear of reprisal that a ministry call may generate. When Moses presses Yahweh for understanding, he gets this response:

“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’ ” Ex 6:6-8

We, as followers of the Risen Christ, have the same great promise to undergird everything that the Father calls us to do. Every step of every day may be an incredible struggle as compared to others around us but, in the end, we have the promise of eternal life in the peace of the Lord. We can be faithful to our calling or we can avoid it, God gives us this choice but there is never a promise that either path will be easy.

The Dispensational Perspective on Sanctification

Does the dispensational believer hold a unique view of sanctification that differs from those we have examined thus far? Not particularly. For those not familiar with Dispensational theology, it is an interpretive system that separates the interaction of God and His creation into various economies or ‘ages’. In each of the ages, God placed man under a specific trust, the periods delineated by major crisis events. The system maintains that there is a thread of unity that weaves through the Scriptures and proclaims the glory of God. These theologians arrive at this system by a consistently literal interpretation of the Bible.

As with any theological discussion, we must remember that within any group there are a variety of view, and within Dispensationalists it is no different. Many hold a view of Sanctification that is consistently Reformed in its definition. It is seen in two parts, a positional change occurring at the moment of justification and continuing progressively through the life of the believer by the Grace of God. Unique to the Dispensational view is an idea often credited to theologian Lewis Perry Chafer in which the believer’s sanctification is viewed through the filter of their two natures. The progressive sanctification occurs as the believer yields to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. This progressive action is separated from the initial justification, requiring a separate act of faith for its initiation.

This view of humankind and its two natures has its roots in Augustinian thought. Used in discussing sanctification, it is presumed to explain why the Christian continues to sin after their justification by God. Moreover, if this powerful influence remains in humankind, how much sanctification can be reasonably be assumed? The old nature, referred to as the ‘flesh’ is not eradicated by the new birth; it exists side-by-side with new nature that is desirous of holiness. As Charles Ryrie succinctly describes,

The moment one accepts Jesus Christ as his personal Savior he becomes a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). The life of God within him begets a new nature which remains with him along with the old as long as he lives. Understanding the presence, position and relationship of the old and new within the life of a believer is essential to experiencing a wholesome and balanced spiritual life. [Balancing the Christian Life, Ryrie]

He argues against the use of nature to visualize two men living side by side as this give opportunity to assign blame for one’s sinful behavior to ‘the little man’ that lives inside of the new creation. Ryrie instead recommends that the word nature be replaced by capacity.  In doing so, we see that despite our new birth, we retain the capacity for sin. The goal of sanctification then is to reduce this capacity by a commensurate increase in one’s capacity for righteousness. The regeneration and new birth leads us to another important concept in understanding Dispensation sanctification and that is the filling of the Holy Spirit. Regeneration coincides with the baptism in the Holy Spirit for the Dispensationalist and it is not seen as a subsequent crisis event. The filling of the Holy Spirit is altogether a separate matter.

In this perspective, all Christians are regenerated, baptized, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit but not all Christians are filled with the Spirit. This vital concept is the explanation for the wide difference in the spiritual power and experience exhibited by the members of the Church. The Dispensationalist states that the infilling of the Spirit, the power for all ministry and the source of sanctification of the believer is a work of God subsequent to the regeneration. It occurs repeatedly throughout the life of the Saint and is the source of fruitfulness. Pointing to Eph 5:18,

Do not get drunk on wind, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

leads back to the twin capacities suffered by man. Just as wine changes ones capacity to act, the infilling of the Spirit changes one’s capacity and enables him or her to fulfill the will of God. Putting the verse to the grammatical test, it is well known that the verb “be filled” is in the present tense, giving it the meaning to “keep on being filled.”  This filling is not automatic however. The believer must be fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit in order to receive these fresh infusions, making progress in sanctification conditional and sometimes halting.  (Here the Dispensationalist departs from their generally Calvinistic view to realize that human will affects plays a role in this process of the Sovereign God. They would not go so far as to commend Arminian theology but rather, they refer to this a more moderate Calvinism.)

Conclusion

Dispensational sanctification views the process as a twofold occurrence in the life of the Christian. It is at once positional, placing the sinful human being into a righteous relationship with God and progressive, changing the new creature over the span of their life. There is no perfection in this life with that event only occurring when the believer moves into the next life in the presence of the Lord. Uniquely Dispensational is the view that one must act a second time in faith to initiate this progressive pattern of change.

It’s Not Who I Am

Once again we were forced to view the unrepentant proclaim – contrary to their newly publicized behavioral miscue – that “this goes against who I am.” We hear this all the time from those closest to us and those in the public arena. When a wrong idea or behavior is revealed or escapes us, our first reaction is to say, “This is so against who I am and what I believe.” The trouble is, it’s not.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

Everything we do, feel, think – everything – comes from the person we are deep down in our hearts. If an impurity has lodged itself in our hearts or we have left an avenue unguarded, our heart will betray us sooner or later. For Elliot Spitzer (“my behavior goes against my core belief in right and wrong”) it came sooner. For Ted Haggard (who used his pulpit to aggressively condemn homosexuality) it came later. For some, the moment of revelation has yet to come.

But…guaranteed, it will come. No matter how long we attempt to hide our behaviors or our thoughts or our proclivities, eventually a moment of weakness will allow them to surface, revealing for all the world what is in our heart, who we truly are.