12April2010

Ecclesiological Nobodies, or Spiritual Somebodies?

Written By robfaircloth

Paul, the author of Romans, who was imminently qualified and inspired by God to write of the realities of God’s initiative for us through the person and work of Christ (Chapters 1-11), and what that meant for our relation to the kingdom of God and to each other (Chapters 12-16), was somebody.

Other than for a few directed greetings in Chapter 16, Paul does not name a single person to whom he is actually writing. The audience in Rome, those called of God to belong to Christ, those called to be saints, are nobodies.

Yet the imminent author of Romans, intimately acquainted with the truth of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit, says something radical about who these nobodies really are.

“For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you — that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Romans 1:11-12).

He is not saying that he is going to provide them some gift of the Spirit that isn’t already manifested in them. The Holy Spirit does that. What he is saying is that this somebody and the nobodies to whom he writes will be “mutually encouraged” by the respective manifestations of the Spirit that they possess through faith in Christ.

These nobodies, then, aren’t nobodies at all, but are the called, the saints, the “belongers” to Christ (verse 6) through whom the Spirit himself works. They are somebody because God had promised the gospel, because Christ secured grace, and because the Spirit demonstrated power in his resurrection (verses 2-5).

Paul and his Roman readers would strengthen each other and edify the body of Christ by manifesting the Holy Spirit to each other.

Do our gatherings for worship, for Bible study, for discipleship exhibit this same expectation? Are the dividing lines of race, class, wealth obliterated by mutual reliance on the Spirit and the realization that we are all the worse spiritually without true fellowship with other believers, regardless of their “importance” in the eyes of the world?

Like Paul we should “long to see” other believers so that the Spirit will do his sanctifying work of edification through us.

7April2010

Acts 1:8 versus the Great Commission

Written By robfaircloth

Jerry Rankin recently posed the proposition that Acts 1:8 has been distorted in our evangelistic efforts. This passage, in which the risen Christ tells his disciples “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”, is referenced by Rankin in light of the Acts 1:8 Challenge.

Acts 1:8 is employed by some as a directive for evangelistic efforts, urging churches to concentrate their evangelistic efforts in all of the “spheres” of missions cited in the passage: each church should be engaged in missions in its Jerusalem, in its Judea, in its Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Rankin proposes that some churches consider this to be a sequential directive, causing them to engage in “their Jerusalem” and stop there. The idea that a church accomplishes evangelism in one “sphere,” then works on the next, is the distortion Rankin decries.

This emphasis and the chatter surrounding it is indicative of an apparent shift of focus in evangelism and missions. It seems relatively recent that Acts 1:8 has been adopted as a rallying cry of world missions, almost supplanting its long-time predecessor, the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

Some will respond that there is no such “shift,” but that Acts 1:8 is simply a continuation of the charge given in the Great Commission, adding vital instructions for disciples hoping to accomplish the witness of the gospel to the nations.

However, there is a huge difference between Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8. The Great Commission is directive, while Acts 1:8 is descriptive. That is, Matthew 28:18-20 lays out the command and Acts 1:8 lays out the consequence. Acts 1:8 is a results passage: it is, in effect, the Great Conclusion to the Great Commission.

Note, for instance, the direction of action in Acts 1:1-11. Christ presented himself alive to the disciples, appearing to them and speaking to them (1:3). Jesus ordered the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise: they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit (1:4-5). The disciples would receive power, the Holy Spirit would come upon them, and they would be his witnesses (1:8).

All the action is being done to the disciples. The focus is on what the Holy Spirit will do. In other words, the action in Acts 1:8 is passive. The disciples are told what they will receive and what they will be. In contrast, Jesus’ charge to disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 is active: go, make disciples, baptize, teach.

Acts 1:8 is a great promise of what will happen when the Holy Spirit empowers and works through followers of Christ. But using the promise of what we will be (witnesses) as the instruction on what we should do may be less helpful than is supposed. For example, what does it mean to “be a witness”? Neither Acts 1:8 nor the passage in which is sits tells us, so for that we must turn to the gospels and other commands issued by Christ (Acts 1:2 refers to these “commands”). In those, we are told to go, make disciples, baptize, teach (Matthew 28:18-20), proclaim the gospel (Mark 16:15), proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47), and “feed my lambs” (John 21:15-17).

There is certainly a direct, unequivocal command from Jesus himself to be about the business of proclaiming the gospel to all nations until he returns. But that command is in the Great Commission. The danger of using the Great Conclusion as our missions and evangelism strategy is that it omits these other positive commands, most significantly, the command to “make disciples.” It is, after all, much easier to “be a witness” than to “make a disciple.”

Taking the natural import of these passages together, we find that when we act under the authority of Christ and in his abiding presence through the Holy Spirit, we receive power to proclaim the gospel, make disciples, and baptize and teach those disciples. As the Spirit works this increase of the Word through us, we serve as a testimony to the nations that Jesus has risen in power, that his work on earth continues through his disciples, and the authority and power for this work is through the Holy Spirit and the word.

The significant thing for Christ-followers is not that we are to engage in certain “spheres” – because invariably the spheres don’t cover all areas – but that we, empowered by the Holy Spirit that Christ gives, are to make disciples of all nations.

2April2010

Our Hands are on the Head of the Lamb

Written By robfaircloth

“He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting” (Leviticus 1:4-5).

It is no wonder that not many of us relish that portion of our read-the-Bible-in-one-year plan that takes us through Leviticus. How morbidly gory. And this description of sacrificial events is not merely the introduction, after which we get to the ‘good stuff.’

Repeatedly we are told how we are to treat peace offerings, either from the herd or the flock, lamb or goat. We are instructed how to treat offering for unintentional sins, intentional sins, sins of the congregation, sins of leaders. We are instructed how to deal with the uncleanness of childbirth, of nocturnal emissions, of leprosy – even of leprous houses.

And for each of these offenses and offerings, an animal dies. The perpetrator brings his lamb to the priest, lays his hands on its head, and turns it over to the priest for slaughter, its blood spilled and flesh torn.

Over and over, offense after offense, animal after animal God gives us the picture of the guilty laying his hand on an innocent substitute. Over and over, day after day, year after year, the picture of symbolic transfer is played out in the scene of temple life for Israel, and as a result of the magnitude of sin, the bleating of sheep fills the ears and the running of blood is ever before the eyes.

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Leviticus 17:11).

We no longer have the picture of temple sacrifice in the style of Leviticus. Instead, we have the Lord’s Supper, with its otherwise mundane elements and repeated words “this is my body, this is my blood.” And rather than depicting a repeated event, these pictures themselves are reminders of a single event, an accomplished act, the final Levitical sacrifice.

It is now Christ who is the sacrificial Lamb, led to the slaughter, his blood spilled and body torn. And it is my offense that requires his presence on the altar, my hand placed on his head, my guilt transferred to the one who was innocent.

When we commemorate the Last Supper in Maundy Thursday celebrations, the crucifixion in Good Friday services, when we claim that we have trusted Christ, we are saying to the priest, to our neighbor, to our fellow offender that we have sin for which blood needs to be shed, and that we have placed our hands on the head of the spotless Lamb. We are proclaiming that it should have be us on the cross.

And when we join together for sunrise services on Resurrection Day, we are acknowledging as obsolete the Levitical system which required that once an animal was slaughtered and new offenses committed, new life was required, new blood had to be spilled.

Instead, in the New Covenant, in which “this is my body, this is my blood,” this Lamb is not forever silenced, his heart not forever stopped, because he was Begotten of the Father and was able to bear the punishment for sin in our stead, God providing proof that he was satisfied with the Lamb by raising him from the dead.

It should have been the offender’s own blood in Leviticus, it should have been our own body on the cross, but praise God that it was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

22March2010

What have you done for me, lately?

Written By robfaircloth

We recognize that there is something powerful in the utterance of words. Thoughts may influence us greatly, but speaking them into existence makes them somehow more – well, real.

The drill sergeant, with the goal of getting a green recruit to recognize his dependence on the group, doesn’t merely want to know the recruit’s beliefs, but demands “Let me hear you say it, private!”

Parents who want reconciliation between siblings aren’t satisfied with a penitent heart, but insist that the offending one “tell your brother how you feel.”

And the frustrated girl dealing with her reticent romantic interest doesn’t want to know he loves her, but longs for the day he actually says it.

In Psalm 35, David reflects this same idea when in the midst of an otherwise imprecatory litany he makes a request of God that he “Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation!’” (35:3b). Two things occupy David’s mind about God: 1) a fact, 2) a proclamation.

David faced myriad problems: men sought his life, devised evil against him, laid traps for him, bore false witness, rejoiced over his calamity. All of this resulted from the animosity of God’s anointed, King Saul, and the mere fact that David had been called of God to replace Saul. David had a calling and ministry that others resented and didn’t understand.

But against these David seeks the Lord’s aid, and though he suggested that God fight with shield and buckler, with spear and javelin (vv. 1-2), his true request was otherwise: that they be put to shame, disappointed, caught with their own snares, and that David’s cause be vindicated…in other words, that they fail in their attempts against him.

In this midst of all this David seeks assurance. He knows he cannot trust the might of his own armies, or the cleverness of his schemes, or the brilliance of his defenses, but can only draw confidence from the fact that God is his salvation. This Fact further demonstrates that it is not what God does to alleviate David’s temporal circumstances that make him his salvation, but simply – and profoundly – who he is.

But David isn’t satisfied with the Fact: he wants Proclamation. Perhaps sensing the reality of his nature and that he, like us, needs the Gospel preached to him daily, insists that God declare again to him the Fact: I am your salvation! Like the one who longs to hear his master say “Well done, good and faithful servant,” David knows that unless he heard Proclamation of the Fact from God, he would tend to look elsewhere for sources of salvation, or relief, or solution.

Some of us have never heard God say “I am your salvation!” because we remain in our sin. Some of us don’t want to hear it, because we prefer to look elsewhere for salvation. David reminds us that we need both fact and proclamation.

22February2010

Is the Holy Spirit Egalitarian?

Written By robfaircloth

There is no doubt that in God’s economy, every person is of equal value before Him. No soul is better or worse than another — none more worthy of damnation or salvation, since all sin and all must come to Him through Christ.

Among believers, every one is privileged to be sealed with the Holy Spirit and to possess a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Some Christians, however, maintain that not only are all believers of equal value before God, but also that the opinions of every believer are equally valid, on every subject.

This thinking appears in notions that each manifestation of the Spirit is the same. The opinion of the church member who rarely reads his Bible, studies, prays or researches any issue is considered equal to the one who is studied and experienced.

We would never think of asking our lawyer to read our x-rays, or of asking our radiologist to prepare our will.

It isn’t exactly the same in church life, but the reality is that the Spirit gives gifts to men, and those gifts are different. To paraphrase Paul on the subject, “some are feet, some are eyes.” All are of equal value and are all necessary, but they do not perform the same function. We wouldn’t ask the foot to watch where we’re going, and we wouldn’t ask the eye to support the weight of the body.

Is the Holy Spirit egalitarian? Yes, in the sense that He seals, abides in, and provides gifts to every believer without distinction. But No, in the sense that His manifestation does not create uniformity among believers. When we fail to recognize and appreciate the different ways that He works through the lives of believers, and the unique spiritual contributions of each, we run the risk of quenching the Spirit.

22February2010

The Lesson of Spilt Blood

Written By robfaircloth

The Old Testament system of sacrifices was a graphic and repetitive reminder of the severity of sin, and of the requirement that blood be spilt in order to obtain atonement and forgiveness. Since Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, offered himself as the unique and completely efficacious sacrifice that need not be repeated, there is no need for continued sacrifices.

Yet can we say that the need for men to be reminded of the severity of sin and of its drastic consequences — as well as the sufficiency of the gospel to repair the God/man breach — has been eliminated after the Cross?

If not, under the New Covenant in Christ what serves to teach men about sin?