Obeying the Gospel

WITH HIS WOUNDS WE ARE HEALED (FEBRUARY 16)

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"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

AS A JEWISH RABBI, PAUL STUMBLED OVER THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST IN THE SAME WAY THAT MANY HAVE. The Messiah was to be the King, God’s “Anointed.” How could He even be killed, let alone die by crucifixion? To be hanged on a tree was to be under God’s curse (Deuteronomy 21:22,23). Surely the way in which Jesus was executed meant that He could not be the Messiah.

The point Paul did not realize until later, however, was that Christ was indeed under God’s curse, but it was not for His own sins; it was for ours. He voluntarily submitted to an accursed death to free us from the curse. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).

Isaiah had prophesied about the substitutionary nature of the Messiah’s death centuries before it happened: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” God put Him to grief, making Him “an offering for guilt” (v.10). In v.11, He would “bear their iniquities.” And in v.12, He “bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” All of these phrases in Isaiah 53 say what many other Scriptures affirm: the Messiah’s death was vicarious. He suffered for us — substituting Himself on our behalf at the bar of God’s justice and agreeing to take the penalty that we had incurred by our sins.

Had any of us witnessed what was done to Jesus and known that this abomination was being suffered for us, it is not likely that we could have borne the sorrow of that. Perhaps it was a mercy that the handful of Jesus’ friends who were at the foot of the cross did not fully understand what they saw until later. Who could have seen that, understood it, and not been crushed by shame?

The cross of Christ, therefore, is the ultimate contradiction: He was murdered that we might be resurrected. Upon Him was laid the chastisement that brought us peace, and in His horror is our hope.

"The cross is a picture of violence, yet the key to peace, a picture of suffering, yet the key to healing, a picture of death, yet the key to life" (David Watson).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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DESPISED AND REJECTED BY MEN (FEBRUARY 15)

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"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3).

IF THE WORLD HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO DESIGN ITS OWN MESSIAH OR SAVIOR, IT WOULD HAVE COME UP WITH SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT GOD ACTUALLY PROVIDED. Jesus was, to say the least, a shock. He was offensive, if not ridiculous, to His enemies. At one point, even His family thought He was “out of his mind” (Mark 3:21). The multitudes, who at first thronged to hear Him, eventually concluded that His teachings were too bizarre to be taken seriously (John 6:60,66). And even His closest friends and disciples often had a hard time understanding how He fit the pattern of what they thought would happen when the Messiah came (Mark 8:31,32).

Many centuries before Jesus was born, Isaiah had said the Messiah would be “despised and rejected by men . . . one from whom men hide their faces.” In 53:2, he said that “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” This does not mean there is any inherent value in poverty, or social and physical unattractiveness. But it was no accident that when God entered the world as a human being, He did so in very lowly circumstances. We may not understand all the reasons why God did this, but this much seems clear: God wanted those who would be attracted to the gospel to be people who were looking for something other than “niceness” as the world perceives niceness. He wanted people who were looking for forgiveness.

The apostle Paul wrote, “We regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16). As long as Paul assessed Jesus by fleshly criteria, he saw nothing Messiah-like about Him. To see the truth about this “despised” man, he had to look below the surface, so to speak. But what about us today? If we were trying to find the Messiah, what characteristics would we be looking for? Would we recognize Him when we found Him?

"Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble" (George MacLeod).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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APPEAL TO GOD FOR A GOOD CONSCIENCE (FEBRUARY 14)

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"Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21).

ACCORDING TO PETER, BAPTISM SAVES US. Its effectiveness does not lie in the washing of dirt from the body, and even as an action that is considered spiritual or religious, being immersed in water would surely not produce the forgiveness of sins if somebody did that in a rote, mechanical way, with no genuine penitence or faith in Christ. Nevertheless, Peter says that baptism saves us — and we need to understand what he meant by saying that.

In v.20, Peter had mentioned Noah. It was in Noah’s ark, built at God’s command, that eight people were “saved through water” (NKJV). Then, in v.21, Peter said that baptism “corresponds to this.” Building the ark was an act of faith (Hebrews 11:7), but the outward act was not optional. It was not as though Noah had already been saved and the ark was just a sign of his commitment to God.

In a striking way, baptism is parallel to Noah’s situation. Like Noah’s obedience, baptism is an act of faith (Colossians 2:12), but also like Noah, we will not be saved without doing what God said. If God says to be baptized for the remission of our sins (Acts 2:38), we need not expect the gift to be given until we obey Him.

But let us be clear: the critical factor in baptism is what takes place in the heart. When one is baptized, he is longing to be saved from his sins. Making “an appeal to God for a good conscience,” he yearns for his conscience to be eased by the grace of God’s forgiveness — and “calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16 NKJV), he does what God has commanded, crying out for salvation.

When the Ethiopian official in Acts 8 learned the gospel and was baptized while he was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, the text says that he “went on his way rejoicing” (v.39). And the Philippian jailer, after being baptized in the “same hour of the night” was said to have “rejoiced” (Acts 16:33,34). Surely, if there is anything in the world that can turn our sorrows into a song, it is the relief that comes from our conscience being cleared, the burden of sin’s grief having been lifted (Romans 8:1,2).

"The gospel is like a fresh, mild, and cool air in the extreme heat of summer, a solace and comfort in the anguish of conscience" (Martin Luther).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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BEGINNING WITH THIS SCRIPTURE (FEBRUARY 13)

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"And the eunuch said to Philip, 'About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?' Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, 'See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?'" (Acts 8:34-36).

IN ACTS 8, WE HAVE THE ACCOUNT OF A CHRISTIAN NAMED PHILIP TEACHING THE GOSPEL TO AN ETHIOPIAN OFFICIAL WHO WAS RETURNING FROM A TRIP TO JERUSALEM TO WORSHIP. When Philip approached, he was reading from Isaiah. Inviting Philip into the chariot, the man asked him about the passage he had been reading: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter . . .” (Isaiah 53:7,8). So “beginning with this Scripture,” Philip “told him the good news.” Jesus was the person the prophecy referred to, the Messiah through whom we must receive the forgiveness of our sins. Philip also explained how the gospel must be responded to, because when “they came to some water . . . the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?’”

What happened here was typical of most of the evangelism in Acts: Jesus was shown to be the Messiah by the messianic prophecies in the Scriptures. In Acts 18:28, for example, Apollos showed “by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.” When taken as a whole, the Old Testament is seen to be a thoroughly messianic work. It is filled with passages that prefigured the coming of a Savior, not only for the Jews but for the whole world — and the detailed fulfillment of all of these prophetic texts in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth cannot possibly be accounted for by chance or accident.

In Acts 8, there is a straight line that runs from this man’s reading of Isaiah 53 to his baptism into Christ. Each step led quite reasonably to the next. First, he saw the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words in Jesus. Then he concluded that Jesus, as the Messiah, was his Savior. Next, he listened to Philip’s explanation about how the gospel must be responded to. And finally, he asked to be baptized. Thankfully, the Ethiopian was an honest man: (1) willing to see the truth, and (2) wanting to do whatever the truth required of him.

"The correspondence between the description of the Servant and the events surrounding Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was so convincing that the Ethiopian believed immediately and was baptized" (Michael A. Rydelnik).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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TRUSTING GOD’S CHOSEN MEANS (FEBRUARY 12)

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"And the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.' So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live" (Numbers 21:8,9).

THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW WHY GOD CHOSE THIS WAY OF SAVING THOSE WHO HAD BEEN SNAKEBITTEN. As the people of Israel drew near to the Promised Land, they grew distrustful and spoke against God and Moses. “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:6). But when they cried out in grief, Moses prayed for them, and God said to him, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (v.8). So Moses did as he was instructed, and sure enough, “if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (v.9). As we meditate on what’s involved in obeying the gospel, several things about this incident merit our attention.

One is that, as we have said, we don’t know why God decided to save the people in this way. Presumably, He could have done it in other ways, some of which might have made more sense to us. But if we are looking for some self-explanatory link between looking at a bronze image on a pole and being cured of snakebite, we will look in vain. Any linkage that our logical minds might decipher would be nothing more than a guess.

But the second thing is, we don’t have to understand God’s rationale. It was His grace that chose to provide any cure at all — and if He required them to look upon the bronze serpent before His grace granted the cure, He certainly had the right to do so.

Today, it is common to hear individuals question why God would connect baptism (immersion in water) with the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16). But we do not know the reason why God linked that action to that result — nor, for that matter, do we know why He decided to require faith (John 8:24), repentance (Acts 17:30,31), and the confession of our faith (Romans 10:9,10). But the fact remains, those are the requirements that He has decided on.

One last thing is obvious, however: God’s reasons are always good. And He has never devised a plan that did not have amazing results.

"What God does, he does well" (Jean de La Fontaine).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE HORRIBLE LIE WE TELL OURSELVES (FEBRUARY 11)

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"The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord" (Obadiah 3,4).

THE PROBLEM OF PRIDE ADDRESSED IN THE LITTLE BOOK OF OBADIAH IS A UNIVERSAL PROBLEM. Specifically, it pertained to Edom, a nation that had grown proud because of the apparent invincibility of its power and geographical security. Through the prophet Obadiah, God promised He would bring devastating judgment on the sins of Edom, and they would learn that they were not, in fact, as secure as they supposed. But the problem that plagued Edom is a universal human problem. There is no nation — and no individual — who does not need to listen to Obadiah.

The term hubris is familiar to us from ancient Greek and Roman history. It referred to the pride that deludes a person into thinking he can do anything he pleases, a pride that results in tragic consequences. But hubris is not only the problem of tragic heroes in ancient history; it is the problem of every human being. If possible, it is more of a temptation today than it was back then.

If we believe our hands can achieve anything our minds can envision, we are telling ourselves a horrible lie. As God said to Edom, “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” And as He said to the prosperous landowner in the story of Luke 12:16-20: “You fool! Tonight you will die. Then who will get what you have stored up?” (CEV). The fact is, we are not as invincible as we like to think. We are not autonomous. And we are not the masters of our own destiny. If we think we are, we’re being not only foolish but self-destructive. Sooner or later, God will humble us and remind us of the limitations we have refused to acknowledge.

Today, we live in an age of tremendous scientific progress. But the paradox of progress is that the more we achieve by our own know-how, the more vulnerable we are. Our pride becomes our weakness. And the worst part of it is that it makes us think we’re too powerful to need God or the gospel of His salvation through Christ. We destroy ourselves by what we thought was our strength.

"We are slaves to our gadgets, puppets of our power, and prisoners of our security" (Billy Graham).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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SOWING AND REAPING (FEBRUARY 10)

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"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Galatians 6:7,8).

ONE OF THE WORST MISTAKES WE CAN MAKE IS TO DISCONNECT OUR ACTIONS IN THE PRESENT FROM OUR DESTINY IN THE FUTURE. The doctrine of God’s grace, for example, is sometimes misunderstood to mean that we will enjoy eternity with God in heaven no matter how we live our lives right now. But that is not true. If we persist in disobedience, we are going to be lost. “Do not be deceived,” Paul says. “Whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

Our destination in eternity is going to be the end of a path we have followed in this world. As long as life lasts, we are free to change paths (and that is what the gospel begs us to do), but when death overtakes us, then it will be too late. God’s judgment will be His unalterable ratification of the choice that we have made. For those who have obeyed the gospel and walked in Christ, heaven will be the “result” or “end” (Greek telos) of their journey (1 Peter 1:9). There will be nothing arbitrary or unpredictable about it.

There is a certain kind of fool, however, who ponders what has just been said and thinks to himself, “I will live my life right now in whatever way I please, but at the very end I will turn to God and be saved.” His foolishness consists of at least two dangerous assumptions. One is that his opportunity for salvation is not going to run out unexpectedly, before he has time to repent. The other is that his deathbed repentance is going to be genuine. God will always accept genuine repentance, of course, but how sincere do you think a person’s repentance will be who all his life planned to give God nothing but the last few leftovers of his life?

These thoughts are sobering, to be sure. But if we “sow to the Spirit,” they should also be encouraging; we can be confident that we will “from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Galatians 6:8). Either way, the Law of the Farm is going to decide our destiny. While we can, let’s start obeying the gospel. It will bring us back to our Father — and He is eagerly waiting to welcome us home.

"He who lives in sin and looks for happiness hereafter is like him who sows cockle and thinks to fill his barn with wheat or barley" (John Bunyan).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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WHAT IF WE COULD SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM BUT ONE? (FEBRUARY 9)

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"And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'" (Luke 12:18-20).

THE SUCCESSFUL, PROSPEROUS ESTATE OWNER PORTRAYED IN JESUS’ STORY IS A FIGURE WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH. We may (if we’re honest) see him when we look in the mirror, but even if we don’t, we see him in our neighborhoods and communities. Especially in the wealthier nations of the world, the population is increasingly made up of people for whom God is largely irrelevant, but their lives have still been happy, healthy, and socially well-adjusted.

Religious people may suppose that secular people are not genuinely happy, but the truth is, we live in a world where it is possible to deny the existence of God and still get through life quite comfortably. Even more so today than ever before, with the advances that have been made economically and scientifically, a person can have a life that is long and enjoyable. Psychologically, there are techniques available to overcome dysfunction and unhappiness. And if a person adopts the secular moral principles of compassion and equality, he can relate healthily to those around him and lessen the amount of suffering in the world.

But what if the God whom we have denied really does exist? What if we have solved all our problems except the biggest one? The man in Jesus’ story said, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” His life had been built on the assumption that there was no problem to which a secular solution could not be found — but now the problem he had not paid attention to confronted him in all of its terrible, deadly reality.

Eventually, we will find out whether our decisions about God were wise or foolish. If the Scriptures are correct, a day is coming that will be the greatest of all judgment days (Acts 17:30,31). Until then, the worst mistake we can make is thinking that because the sun is still shining in our lives, sin must not be a problem for us.

"Shallow natures tremble for a night after their sin, and when they find that the sun rises and men greet them as cordially as before, and that no hand lays hold of them from the past, they think little more of their sin — they do not understand that fatal calm that precedes the storm" (Marcus Dods).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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DO WE DENY THE LORD’S DIAGNOSIS? (FEBRUARY 8)

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"I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent" (Revelation 3:18,19).

IF THE GOSPEL IS ABOUT GOD SAVING US FROM OUR SINS, THE FIRST REQUIREMENT IS TO SEE OUR SINFULNESS IN ITS TRUE LIGHT. This is not an easy thing to do, especially in our age when the very concept of sin is often scoffed at. We may admit to having made a few mistakes, or even having some dysfunctional habits, but we do not see ourselves as sinful people who need the forgiveness of our Creator. We think of ourselves as good people who might profit from a little improvement. We just need to “come to Christ.”

But Jesus’ diagnosis of our problem cuts deeper. Not even the best of us has a heart anywhere close to the purity that would be needed to live with God in eternity. Deep down, we know we’ve been good when it suited us, but when it didn’t suit us, we did as we pleased, often setting aside what we knew was God’s will. We know, if we’re honest, that self-will has been our master. The heart-penetrating light of truth shows us to be rebels against God.

Ironically, the more respectable our lives have been outwardly, the harder it is for us to see how rebellious we’ve been inwardly. That is why Jesus’ message of repentance was rejected by the religious folks who should have been the first to welcome Him. As they saw things, they had no significant sins to repent of.

Even as Christians (maybe especially as Christians) we are sometimes hindered by an overly optimistic assessment of how well we’re doing. To the Christians in Laodicea, who thought they were well-clothed, Jesus counseled them to buy from Him white garments so that “the shame of your nakedness may not be seen.”

What should be our response when the Lord tries to burst the bubble of our self-righteousness? We should accept the Lord’s diagnosis. Like David, we should admit that God is right and we are wrong: “so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Psalm 51:4). If we’re not willing to be honest about how sinful we’ve been, there is no hope for us to be forgiven. 

"God has nothing to say to the self-righteous" (Dwight Lyman Moody).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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WHAT SIN IS (FEBRUARY 7)

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"Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4 NIV).

IF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IS ABOUT SALVATION FROM OUR SINS, IT IS IMPORTANT FOR US TO SEE CLEARLY WHAT SIN REALLY IS. If we deny the thing we need to be saved from, we are a long way from accepting God as our Rescuer. Hard as it is, sin is a fact we must face.

To begin with, we need to understand that God has authority over us. As our Creator, He has the right to govern everything about us. He happens to be a benevolent King (and we should be grateful for that), but in any case, He is our King. If we still lived in a sinless relationship to God, our every thought, word, and deed — and even every motive — would be obedient to His will.

But, of course, we have departed from God’s rule. Every last one of us has done this (at least those who are old enough to discern good and evil). Early in our lives, we began pursuing our own will, deliberately setting aside what we knew to be right. This is what sin is, and none of us can claim to be innocent.

Nowadays, we react negatively to words like “obedience” and “disobedience” (and that is one evidence of how much self-will is embedded in us), but the basic idea of obedience is essential to any realistic concept of God. In the final analysis, that is what sin comes down to: disobedience to God. It is a flouting of His law, His rule over our lives. Simply put, sin is “lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). As Benjamin Whichcote said, “Sin is defiance to the authority of God.”

It is important to see that God’s law is an objective standard for our behavior. The thing that is wrong when we sin is not merely that we do something that gives us subjective feelings of guilt, but that we transgress an actual standard of right and wrong, one that originates in the mind and character of God Himself.

Also, it is not just our actions that are sinful but our intentions (Hebrews 4:12,13). In fact, that is the main thing that is wrong with sin. “Sin is not wrong doing; it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God” (Oswald Chambers). Only creatures made in God’s image are capable of committing this crime.

"Sin is an affair of the will. It is not a “vestige of our animal inheritance.” That trivial notion comes from an unexamined, too-quickly swallowed doctrine of evolution. Why blame the brute creation? No self-respecting wolf would be guilty of our modern wars" (George Arthur Buttrick).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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