The Old Testament for Christians

There's no doubt that how we, as Christians, are to read and apply the Old Testament (OT) is a difficult issue. Many Christians consider the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 to be immediately applicable to us today, but they would not apply the laws about servants, personal injury or property in Exodus 21 in this way, and so their use of the OT is inconsistent.

The problem is our misunderstanding of the big picture of the Bible, and of God's plan for his people.
In Galatians, Paul shows us that there was only ever one gospel - the gospel of grace received by faith/trust in God's word of promise. So, 3:6-7,

⁶Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." ⁷Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.

So before the law was given, God gave a promise which had to be believed, or trusted, and as soon as Abraham trusted God's promise, he received the benefit of the promise, i.e. 'righteousness' or 'right-standing with God'. And nothing has changed in God's economy - whoever believes his word of promise inherits the blessings of that promise. Not to believe what God says is not to believe him, to insult him, and to reject the blessings he offers.


So what about the law? Why did God give so many pages & pages of instructions & laws? Paul says that no-one was ever justified (put right with God) by obeying the law because everyone fails to obey all the law. So what's it for?

Well, in Galatians 3:19 Paul asks this very question, and then answers it in v24:

²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.

The law is there to lead us to Christ. God gave the promise, and then gave the law as an interim measure until the promise was fulfilled in Jesus. So when I read about the Passover, I'm reminded that Jesus is the true Passover lamb. When I read about circumcision, I'm reminded that this was an outward sign of the inward reality that Jesus brings - membership of his people. When I read about the tabernacle, I'm reminded of heaven. And so on. Every OT law points to something Jesus has won for us, or something Jesus is to us. This is a consistent use of the OT. It's how the NT uses the OT.

But in Galatia, as in the church today, people could not see this and kept wanting to reinstate OT laws. For the Galatians, it was circumcision that was reinstated in order to ensure God's blessing. Today it's, "I'll be more acceptable to God, and he will really fill me with his Spirit, if I pray more, evangelise more, abstain from this or that, observe the Sabbath properly, keep the church building holy, read my Bible more." And having arrived at this belief for themselves, they try to persuade others that unless they too undergo this kind of discipline, they are not really very spiritual. In so doing they lead people into 'weak and miserable' religious slavery (Gal 4:9). But Paul is quite clear in v25:

²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

Yes, you read it correctly, 'We are no longer under the supervision of the law'. The OT no longer applies to us in the same way it applied to Israel.  It was an interim measure until Jesus came. In fact, Paul goes further in 3:10-11,

 ¹⁰All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." ¹¹Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."

You see, if we rely on keeping the Sabbath or reading the Bible or praying or any other religious activity to keep us right with God, we are cursed! Cursed because we will fail to keep the Sabbath perfectly, or read or pray enough or with our full attention and so on.

From the moment God made his first promise to Abraham, all he wanted was for us to believe his promise. When we trust God's word of promise, we receive all that God has promised. We don't have to earn it - God simply wants us to trust what he says, and therefore to trust him.

This truth was so important, so fundamental to our relationship with God, that Paul was prepared to rebuke Peter and the Galatians very, very firmly, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was clearly in the wrong." (2:11); "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" (3:1). When he wrote to the Colossians, he made the same point, 'do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize.' (Col. 2:16f)

Christ is everything, and so a simple faith in Christ is everything. Trust him, and you receive every blessing of every promise he makes.

Who to please?

My quiet time this morning took me to Galatians 1:7-10

 ⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received let him be accursed.
 ¹⁰For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Here's a question every preacher-teacher must ask himself - Am I distorting the gospel to suit my congregation? Now, I take it that 'distorting the gospel' can be safely applied to any part of God's word and that none of it is open to distortion in order to please men & women, and so when I was faced with preparing to preach from 1 Corinthians 14, and the section about women in church, it was initially very tempting to find a way around what the apostle teaches there. But when you look at the bigger context of the passage - at chapter 11, and the meaning of Christ's submission to the Father - then what appears to be a really big problem becomes a wonderful possibility for imitating Christ. Men are to be servant leaders - laying down their lives for their wives and for the church. Loving the church and their wives with no thought for themselves, but always and only seeking the good of others. And if men did this, would women find it so hard not to follow Christ's example of humility and accept loving, considerate, Christ-like leadership?

This is, of course, completely counter-cultural. We've been bombarded with some fairly extreme feminism for 50 years - feminism which, at times, has been filled with hatred to men and demeaning of men (though it has to be admitted, that the reaction against men's inappropriate subjugation of women was understandable - indeed right. It's just that the pendulum always swings too far in reactionary movements).

But then the whole of the gospel is counter-cultural. The world encourages us to elevate our self-worth and pride. The gospel says, 'humble yourself and admit your sinful rebellion'. The world offers no forgiveness, because it has no basis for moral right or wrong and no source of mercy to deal with guilt. The gospel offers infinite mercy and forgivenss from a loving heavenly Father and a self-sacrificing Son.

Since this gospel is such a glorious, life-giving, freeing, hope-filled, divine gospel, I know who I shall try to please!

praying together

I met with James Packman, Vicar of Frant, this morning to pray together. It was a great encouragement (he's a godly evangelical).
If you're not in a prayer triplet or pair, why not find someone to pray with?
Spend 10-15 mins sharing prayer needs, read a Psalm and pray for 20 mins or so: total 45 mins max.
A great start to the day!

Extremes

It's been a week of extremes:

• We're in the worst recession since the war, but bankers pay themselves £6bn of tax-payers' money in bonuses.
• Ed Tomlinson's (I can't call him 'Father') writes about modern funerals on his blog and it's reported on the World Service and the national press (I'd better be careful what I say!).
• Nick Griffin appears on Newsnight and people break in to the BBC to protests against him (fortunately he came across about as badly as he could have done - and is now complaining to the BBC - apparently it's all their fault!!).
• Royal Mail managers want modernisation and the postal workers go on strike in the run-up to Christmas.

What a messed-up world we live in!

Thank God we have the Bible to explain this crazy, wicked, mad, mad, mad, mad world. And thank God for his solution to such greed, selfishness, godlessness, racism and conflict - by which I mean the gospel and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

If I had to live without these, I don't know how I'd cope. How does the world make any sense at all to a godless person? Surely the only escape is to pursue money and pleasure. And that's what everyone does. And the vicious circle goes round again...

Diocesan Synod

So, having finished 4 hours of lecturing for the Diocesan Reader & Pastoral Assistant training course on Saturday morning, I headed off to my first Rochester Diocesan Synod (the 'parliament' of the Church of England in N & W Kent & S E London).

There are 193 benefices (i.e. a church or a group of churches with a clergyman) in the Diocese, and, as I arrived at Synod, the Diocese was proposing a budget of £4.9m (an average of over £25k per benefice!). I detected a note of unrest at this - it seemed as though parishes had finally had enough of ever-increasing centralisation and its spiralling costs which are paid for by the parishes (and therefore by church members). I caught the end of the last two or three brief speeches and then the vote. It was a close vote. But I was delighted that my first vote in synod contributed to a narrow victory for common sense and the priority of the local church - the budget was defeated by 4 votes, and 2010 begins with the same budget as 2009.

Then business moved on to the green agenda. A motion was put to the Synod that every church & school in the diocese should use a green energy supplier, install micro-generation equipment and save energy. The lady from Church in Society (which has a budget of £255k) had a nice PowerPoint presentation which showed all the usual statistics, and then had some pretty pictures of windmills, solar panels, energy saving light bulbs & electric cars. The Archdeacon wanted to set up a committee to look at this further (another talking shop, another carbon footprint...). Experts said it was a waste of time, and that some of her ideas probably caused more polution than they saved.

Eventually common sense prevailed, and an heavily abbreviated and amended motion was passed. It's typical of the diocese - jumping on the popularist bandwagon, doing something countless other organisations are already doing, and expecting parishes to pay more. Why, oh why does the Diocese not get off our backs, stop foisting on us the cost of committees & courses we don't want, and support us in proclaiming Christ and him crucified?

Temptation

Christianity is not about obeying rules, but about following a person - the Lord Jesus. We know that, and yet, when we want to become 'better Christians' - i.e. more like Jesus - we say to ourselves, 'I must not do that again'; 'I must try harder'; 'I ought to do this'. We make ourselves rules to follow! And then, when we fail again, we feel guilty, useless, a failure, and we end up in a dark and depressing place.

And so, when we read about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Mat 4; Luk 4), we remember that old sermon which concluded, 'If only you would read & learn your Bible, then you'd be able to quote it at the Devil and overcome temptation just like Jesus.' But we don't. And we know we never will. We fail. And we end up burdened by guilt.

But what if, rather than asking, 'What does this passage tell me to do/not to do?' we ask, 'What does this passage tell me about Jesus?' Well, it tells me that though he faced the same temptations I face, he did not succumb. He did not sin. He did what I cannot do. He did what Israel always failed to do. He is (Mat 4:2) God's faithful Son.

And so, having been crucified as an innocent man (Mat 27:19 & 23) he is raised by God from death. Because he resisted temptation, he is able to deal with our failure, our sin, our guilt when he dies on the cross and is raised to new life.

So the temptation of Jesus is not a stick to beat us with - 'You must learn you Bible' - but wonderful news about Jesus - 'He does what you cannot do, and frees you from your failure. He wins for you a new resurrection life.'

But still we want to make progress in godliness. We can't just carry on in our sin and say, 'Never mind Jesus died to forgive me.' So how do we make progress if it's not by obeying rules? We follow a person. Jesus, and when we fail, we thank God for Jesus. We praise him that there is an alternative to selfishness and sin. We remember that to follow Christ is pure joy, but to follow sin is destruction and death. We recall that we are resurrection people, filled with the Holy Spirit. We remember, 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.'

And then, with this gloriously positive vision before us, we make progress. Gratitude, praise, and remembrance. They are the tools to progress, not rules and guilt.

Mysticism

Someone asked me yesterday about mysticism (the use of candles, stones, icons, smells etc. to get closer to God) - what does the Bible say?

Well, I pointed her to Jim Packer's great chapter in 'Knowing God' which explains the Bible's teaching. And then, this morning, I read this in Hosea,

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
Take words with you
and return to the LORD.
Say to him, 'Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously
that we may offer the fruit of our lips.

God's word tells us to approach God with words! Words of sorrow and repentance. Words of praise ('the fruit of our lips').

And this is completely in tune with the rest of the Bible. We come to God through the cross of Christ always acknowledging our dependence on his grace and mercy - and we do this in words. So the prayer books are right when they dictate that our services should normally begin with a confession, and continue with praise.

The rest of Hosea 14 is a list of wonderful metaphors for the blessings we receive from God when we come to him with words of contrition:

I will be like the dew to Israel,
he will blossom like a lily.
Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots;
his young shoots will grow.
His splendour will be like an olive tree;
his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.
Men will dwell in his shade.
He will flourish like the corn.
He will blossom like a vine,
and his frame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

But does all this preclude the use of candles, icons etc? Well yes. In Hosea, one of God's main complaints is the way Israel constantly used idols. And idols are more subtle than we think. In Exodus, when Israel made the golden calf, Aaron said, 'This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt... tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.' And they presented offerings to the calf. But notice - as far as they were concerned, they were worshipping the LORD. But the LORD himself did not take it that way. How insulting to represent Almighty God as a cow - even a gold cow!

In the same way, God has chosen to communicate with us by speaking through his word. It's not hard to pick up your Bible and read, hear God speak, and speak to him in response. Why do we think this is insufficient? Why do we also need candles and icons and incense? Generally it's because we want some kind of 'spiritual experience', but what greater experience of God is there than hearing him speak?

Wrath & mercy

One mention of God punishing mankind (let alone that four letter word H***) and people object, 'I thought God was supposed to be loving.'

Hosea 11 paints a delightful picture of God's wrath & mercy in perfect harmony:

¹ "When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

² But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me. ...

³ It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.

⁴ I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them....

⁷ My people are determined to turn from me. ...

⁸ "How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel? ...
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.

⁹ I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.

¹⁰ They will follow the LORD;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.

¹¹ They will come trembling
like birds from Egypt,
like doves from Assyria.
I will settle them in their homes,"
declares the LORD.

God simply cannot give up on his people - his son.

Ultimately, of course, v1 is applied to Jesus in Matthew 2:15. He is God's faithful, obedient Son. What Israel could not do, Jesus does. But not only is Jesus what we're not, he removes both our failure and God's wrath.

The cross is indeed the place where wrath and mercy meet.

Prosperity feeds idolatry

I've been reading Hosea in my quiet times, and today I read this:

As [Israel's] fruit increased
he built more altars;
as his land prospered,
he adorned his sacred stones.
Their heart is deceitful,
and now they must bear their guilt.
The LORD will demolish their altars
and destroy their sacred stones.

And then a thick, glossy catalogue arrived from a company supplying 'Ecclesiastical Furnishings & Garments'. Here I could buy anything from a perspex communion table for £2273, or a stations of the cross set for £47,150, to a wallet-sized hologram, 'Prayer to our Lady Fatima' for £1 (inc. VAT). Probably the worst item is a '12" resin infant Jesus with halo' for £70, though the fridge magnet of St Jude is really ugly (but 'only £5.50'). Sadly these aren't in their online catalogue, so I can't show you the pictures!

Now some of you might think I'm just a fundamentalist protestant taking a poke at the Catholics. Not so. I agonised long and hard about how much (if anything) we should spend on our new chairs at church. We must be able to justify every penny we spend because the danger is that the more we prosper, the more we spend on adorning 'sacred spaces'.

If we think such expenditure adorns the faith, we're sadly mistaken because the New Testament constantly reminds us that we don't need altars or temples - we have Jesus, and we're to adorn our lives with holiness and good works. This theme is especially prominent in 1 Peter, which is interesting since Paul had to argue with Peter not to impose Jewish customs on Christians. Clearly, by the time he wrote his first epistle, Peter understood how the OT had been completely transformed by Jesus, and he left us an absolute gem of a letter!

Money

Why, when, almost without exception, we have so much, is God's work so often limited by lack of money? Why do we find it so hard to live simply, and to enjoy giving sacrificially to the work of the kingdom?

Of course, there are the broad-brush answers about selfishness & sin - and I'm as guilty as the next person. But if we probe a little deeper, why do we feel the need to be selfish? Why, when we want to be generous, are we not?

Perhaps we're afraid of denying our children and spouses what others have, and so being thought of as mean - putting the needs of others before them.

Perhaps it's because, when the needs of gospel organisations are so great, we feel that our little bit won't make any difference, and we just keep hoping that God will send us a very wealthy person who'll be able to write a cheque for £100k and not even notice it's gone!

Perhaps we who teach the Bible simply aren't clear enough in our teaching, and don't lead with a good enough example.

I long for the day when I won't have to worry about income for Christian charities (NB I'm not just talking about St Peter's here!).