Human Sexuality from a
Biblical World View
Why These Notes?
Recently a small home group
of local Christians invited me to speak to them about gay marriage and sexual
standards for Christians. Rather than citing a long list of proof texts I
hastily assembled the following notes which give a very brief picture of how I
see the Christian life after becoming familiar with the entire Bible. Biblical
illiteracy is at an all-time high in our society nowadays, and I believe many
of the problems Christians struggle with daily could be resolved much more
easily if we first read, and read again, through the Bible thoroughly, so that
we see the big picture. If one looks at the entire Bible as an integrated
message from our Creator, it is soon evident that a Biblical world-view differs
radically from a secular or pagan world-view. As God has been increasingly marginalized in our society, we
are constantly brain washed to adopt the secular model. In the long run the two
views are incompatible. Which view will survive? Should we not line ourselves
up with the winning team?
Our Authority: Jesus Christ, delegated apostles,
prophets.
We have available to us a
large body of information on the man Jesus. We know who he was, what he said,
the claims he made. Christians claim Jesus is
presently alive and is the heir of all things. (We all learn from teachers and
other human beings). The followers of Jesus consider Jesus to be by far the
best qualified human being who has ever lived. He asks each of us permission to
be the Lord of our lives. He promises that his rule in our lives will unlock
the secret of life and that He will guide each of His followers through life
and on into the next. Jesus is the ruling Lord of creation. I have asked him to
be my Lord. This is where the Christian path begins for every Christian.
Authority: The Bible. The gold standard Jesus
Himself used was the Bible.
When Jesus walked among men
on earth two millennia ago his authority, his reference to truth, was always
the Bible (the Old Testament). The Jewish Bible was for Jesus the very Word of
God. Jesus taught that the authority his prophets and apostles were to rely
upon after he left them was the Bible. Therefore a person who claims to be
under the authority of the Bible is also bound and obligated
to treat the Bible as Jesus did. See: "What the Bible says about Itself," http://ldolphin.org/App.html,
and "The Authority of the Word," by Ray Stedman, http://www.raystedman.org/misc/authword.html. The world hates God and is hostile to
God and God's ways. Christians must not rely on secular views and values in our
analysis of the situations we face.
Sadly, at the present time the church in America is heavily compromised
because of adopting the standards of the world and abandoning the authority of
Jesus and of the Bible. Our priorities have become turned around backwards,
marginalizing Jesus.
The Christian World View is Holistic
Jesus is called in the Bible
the "Word of God." The same term "the Word of God" is also
used to describe the Bible. The New Testament is consistent with the Old
Testament--its authority also comes from God. The Bible is a supernatural book,
unlike any other written document.
It takes root in the human heart and changes all those who will allow
God access to their inner lives. The important matters the Bible deals with
have been given to us by God by revelation. This means much of what the Bible
teaches is not available in any other book, or from any other source. Trust
what the Bible wishes to teach us, approach it with an open mind and Jesus
makes clear to us the layers of knowledge and information in the Bible.
Jesus said that he was
"The Truth." The Bible does not teach information on a given subject
in any one given book or section. The great themes of Biblical truth are woven
through the entire Bible, "...here a little, there a little, line upon
line, verse upon verse." In order to understand one part of the Bible, we
really need to know the whole. In order to see the whole picture clearly we must
be willing to look at the whole Bible.
In our day, moral standards have become relative for many, and many
doubt that absolute truth exists at all.
Truth Not Acted Upon is Lost
The deep truth of the Word
of God opens to our understanding as we act upon the truth we already have.
But, truth ignored is lost. If we obey the truth we already have, more truth
will be given us. God always makes it possible for us to obey the truth He
gives us. At the end of this life we will be judged by the truth we actually
had and on our obedience to that truth.
This means if we fail to take the truth we receive seriously, we can
lose everything. Millions endanger
their eternal destinies by sitting through sermons where truth is proclaimed.
Failing to act, hearts and minds become dull.
The Creation of Everything (Genesis 1-3)
The Bible presents the whole
of creation as the work of a Master Craftsman, as an integrated whole. Adam was appointed as Manager,
Governor, Steward over the entire original creation. The universe was created as a home for
man and for God. (Hence the "Cosmic Anthropic
Principle"). Adam/Eve
were to be fruitful and multiply (bringing children into the world and
populating the planet; and they were to manage the creation. Man and God were
to live together in unity. It is best to take the book of Genesis as accurate prose which records our true history as one race descended
from one man Adam and one woman Eve.
The Ruination of Everything
The universe as we see it
now has been horrifically damaged by active evil agents. It is best not to
blame the present state of things as God's fault. Evil in the universe did not
begin with man but with a fallen angel, Satan. Enticing Eve, and then Adam,
Satan persuaded our original parents to eat the fruit of the one tree forbidden
to them by God. The fruit of this tree represented Adam taking upon himself his
own standards of good and evil and becoming his own god--a rival to the one
true God. Essentially this amounted to cosmic anarchy against the Creator. Man was tricked into believing he could
be his own god. In fact we were designed to live in constant harmonious
partnership with God. At the Fall, the first man and
woman actually lost their high place as governors over the creation. Satan
promised them power and position they could not have. Our first parents became
immediately subject to sin and death. They suffered immediate spiritual death,
eventual physical death -- and permanent exile from the very presence of God if
eternal life as a gift from God is rejected. Nature as well as man was ruined by the
Fall, and the universe began to decay (Second Law of Thermodynamics). Satan
took over the management of the entre creation, corrupting the entire
"world system" of politics, economics, industry, commerce, trade,
philosophy, science, etc., Fortunately Satan is subject to limits and boundaries
set by God. This angel, once held an office similar to Prime Minister of the
universe. He was demoted to be "the god of this world" (system)
temporarily. He is a destroyer whom Jesus called "a liar and a murderer
from the beginning." Jesus is now engaged in restoring man to his original
rule over creation, "in Christ." Jesus is now undoing all the evil
done in the world by Satan and by us, (see Hebrews 2).
The Biblical Way of Viewing History
The fall of our first
parents, Adam and Eve, severed their relationship with God and they began to
make their own laws and rules of "society," which is actually a pagan
"world System," opposed to God and exalting man. In our natural
state, apart from Christ we humans all live as enemies of God and we are
incapable of doing any lasting good.
The Bible is largely
chronological but does not focus on the history of every nation. Instead
Scripture tells us about "the line of redemption," -- the account of
that fraction of mankind who grant God permission to restore them to a holy
relationship to God. God is not now "fixing" the world but building a
whole new creation centered around Jesus and those who
follow Him. The vast majority of human beings have rejected God's rule over
them even though the gift of healing and wholeness God offers to us is free and
restorative.
Salvation and The
Remnant. In every generation since
the beginning, a few individuals have been willing to be restored to a
relationship with God, by means of spiritual birth, through faith in Jesus
Christ as Lord. Broken, lost sinners are made into entirely new persons --
God's solution to human sin is radical. God Himself had to enter the human race
as the man Jesus in order that all human sin could be paid for by a qualified
substitutionary sacrifice. This is no trivial solution. The sins of every human
being who ever lived were transferred to Jesus (outside of time). Jesus was
then punished fully for each one of us--whether or not we accept him. Does Jesus know us well? Does He
understand all temptation? (See http://ldolphin.org/sixhours.html
and http://ldolphin.org/howsaved.html).
Three days after His death
and burial, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He taught in and around Jerusalem
for 40 days and then ascended into heaven, promising to return at an
unspecified time to judge all evil--evil among men and angels. Jesus will then
establish a Kingdom on earth, ruling over the nations from Jerusalem.
Israel was chosen by God to
be a model nation setting an example for the rest of the nations. Israel has
thus far failed badly in this. For instance, God intended that Israel should be
the "wife of Yahweh" but the prophets constantly speak of Israel as
the unfaithful, adulterous wife of Yahweh. In general only a remnant pleased
God.
The church was chosen to be
the virgin bride of Jesus instead of "the wife of Yahweh." But after
2000 years, only a relatively few people have responded to the call of Jesus.
We are now very near the time when Jesus will return. Much information is given
us in the Bible so we can know ahead of time how the end of the age will
unfold.
Local
churches were established by the Apostles in the First Century so that Christians could receive shepherdly care by teaching pastor-shepherds. God desires
His people to know "the whole counsel of God." Every Christian
reports directly to Christ, the Head of the Church. It is God's intention that
there should be no hierarchy within or among the churches. The churches have
struggled with many problems which Jesus taught about
in seven letters found in Revelation 2-3. We are now in the final stage of the
church where Jesus has largely been excluded from the day to
day affairs of the church. As the Lord of the Church, Jesus has always
wanted to be involved in every aspect of local church life. If Jesus is absent
from involvement in all the affairs of the local church, an evil spirit takes
over by default.
Special problems occur when
a church is large and everyone does not know the others. When we humans fail to
do things as God has instructed us, for example in regard to running a larger
church, the Lord simply ignores us and works "outside" what we have
made into an "institutionalized" church. (See http://ldolphin.org/church.html).
Larger churches are a mixture of believers and non-believers--the pastor and
staff may not all know the Lord. Revelation 17 indicates that a false church
will rise to power at the close of the present age. 2 Thessalonians 2 predicts
widespread apostasy in the church as the age comes to a close. There are
numerous warnings about false teachers found in the New Testament. So we have to learn to discern between
good and evil as we grow in Christ, and we will find ourselves engaged in daily
"spiritual warfare." Spiritual warfare occurs out in the world, but
also within the church.
The universe,
the planet, all of the inhabitants were created by Jesus and for Him.
Today most of the inhabitants of earth live pagan lifestyles -- they are people
worthy of destruction. We are all
houseguests in a universe built by and owned by the God of the Bible. In the
end God must act justly. When He returns to earth to gather His faithful
remnant the vast majority of earth's inhabitants will be destroyed--that is,
excluded from His presence forever. All this is to say that a nominal Christian
commitment will probably not be enough. "Knowing God," according to
the Hebrew and Greek of the Bible, means we are each to have a relationship
with our Creator very much like the intimate kind of knowing between man and
wife in marriage. It is not an accident that the First of the Ten Commandments
is a prohibition against every form of idolatry. Yet Americans today are a very
idolatrous people!
"Enter
by the narrow gate; for wide is the
gate and broad is the way that leads
to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. "Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and
there are few who find it. "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. "You will know
them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from
thistles? "Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears
bad fruit. "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. "Every tree that does not bear
good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "Therefore by their
fruits you will know them. "Not everyone who says to Me,
ÔLord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My
Father in heaven. "Many will say to Me in that day, ÔLord, Lord, have we
not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many
wonders in Your name?' "And then I will declare to them, ÔI never knew
you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'
"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will
liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: "and the rain
descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it
did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. "But everyone who hears
these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who
built his house on the sand: "and the rain descended, the floods came, and
the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its
fall." And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people
were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority,
and not as the scribes...." (Matthew 7:13-29)
When Jesus died on the Cross, two thousand years ago, He paid for the sins of all
men for all time. What is important for us to see is that all our sins have all
already been dealt with in full. After any of us allows Jesus Christ into his
or her life, none of our sins can be brought up against us again in God's
courtroom. Justice has been served by Christ dying in our
place. This first stage of Christian experience is called
"justification." We are also being made into whole new persons, and
to that end, the integrity or "righteousness" of Jesus is credited to
our accounts. We can claim thousands of promises in the Bible by faith. We are greatly-loved members of God's family and no longer His
enemies! After justification, the next stage of Christian growth is called
"sanctification." It is all about God showing us the life of faith which involves trusting Jesus Christ in all we do. Old
habits are broken, old problems are resolved one by one and gradually we become
more and more like Christ in the way we live. At death we will be
"glorified"--and at that time we will receive sinless, new resurrection
bodies, like the body Jesus had after His resurrection. The paradox of living as a Christian is
that everything has changed and been made new, though at times it seems that
nothing has changed. (Usually the order n the Bible following salvation is justification,
sanctification, and glorification. Some verses show these "steps" as positionally already accomplished. In 1 Cor. 6 the order is
switched: "...And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified,
but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of
our God....")
Patriarchs, Families, Tribes, then
Nations
Reading the Bible, starting
with Genesis, it is soon evident that ancient groups of people were named after
their patriarch or "founding father." In most cases, the
characteristics of these groups resemble the personality, faults and strengths
of their first patriarch. God deliberately built great variety into the human
race, all programmed into Adam and Eve. Our main concern is how God's people live, we are not to draw our life-style values from those
peoples who do not know God. The main theme of the Bible is our redemption, our
restoration from the horrific damage done by the Fall.
Clearly God is not saving everyone, though He urges everyone to come and join
His program and to line up with His values.
Genesis 10-11, "The
Table of Nations" lists for us the 70 original nations according to their
origins. Evil very nearly destroyed the whole human race about 6000 years ago.
The Flood of Noah reduced the world population from many billions down to only
eight survivors: Noah, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. The building of the Ark required about
100 years and during this time all of mankind was offered free room and board
to safety. But only eight humans accepted. Human evil can become so powerful
that eventually virtually no one is interested in knowing God at all on His
terms.
From beginning to end, the
Bible is about God's love, mercy and grace. Each of us can have as much grace
as we need in order to be made fully whole and fully qualified to be citizens
of heaven. There is much violence and death recorded in the Scriptures. This
violence and bloodshed and cruelty is because of the
animosity most people have for God. As we come to know God personally each
Christian can't help but appreciate God more and more as we see where we
started from as lost sinners with no hope.
When Paul spoke in Athens
(Acts 17) he acknowledged that the nations of the world have distinctive
characteristics inherited from their background.
Then
Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I
perceive that in all things you are very religious; "for as I was passing
through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with
this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship
without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything
in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made
with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything,
since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one
blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has
determined their preappointed times and the
boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope
that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one
of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own
poets have said, ÔFor we are also His offspring.' Therefore, since we are the
offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or
silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times
of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in
righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this
to all by raising Him from the dead." (Acts 17:22-31)
The Importance of Covenants
The Law of Moses is part of
a great covenant agreement between God (Yahweh) and Israel at Mt. Sinai. The man Jacob, renamed Israel,
represents one branch of the family of Abraham. About 4000 years ago God called Abraham from the line of
Noah's son Shem to be a spiritual father to many nations. (God's covenant with
Israel at Sinai resembles a Jewish wedding ceremony).
The New Testament (or New Covenant), which applies to
Christians, does not include the dietary restrictions or holy days and feasts, but
does carry over all the moral requirements of the Old Covenant. Feast days,
festivals, special foods, and so on are left to the Christian's individual
discretion. The moral standards of the Old Covenant are carried over into the
New Covenant but generally with lesser penalties.
A covenant is a set of
solemn promises and commitment between two or more persons. Breaking a covenant
is a very serious matter as far as God is concerned. (Where would we be if God
decided to arbitrarily divorce us?) All that God does is done through
covenants! One's personal relationship with God is a covenantal relationship.
Marriage as it is described in the New Testament is a covenant, this time
between one man, one woman, and hopefully including God.
The state often gets involved
in affirming and endorsing marriage by requiring a license and by providing
strong financial consequences for divorce. The church takes part in marriage by
reminding man and wife that their relationship is like the covenant Christ has
with His virgin Bride, the true church. Two families are joined together when a
man and a woman unite in marriage. Communities are built around clusters of
families observing the terms God has given us for our relationships with our
neighbors.
There are examples in the
Old Testament of men who took more than one wife. It is impossible for a man to
give himself totally to more than one woman, but if a man with several wives
converts to faith in Christ he should not put away his extra wives since they
depend upon the man for their livelihood. The Bible is quite frank in showing
the flaws of men like King David. He is "the man after God's own
heart" in the Old Testament but his family life and marriages leave much
to be desired.
The Law of Moses shows us
what God is like as a Person. If we are going to spend eternity with God, we
have to change so that we become like Christ. This is a huge requirement for us
because we are very selfish and self-seeking whereas God is completely
self-giving.
God is Holy and Just and can only act according to His nature. God is also
Love. But God's love is entirely self-giving and not self-getting. The Law was
not needed before the Fall because our first parents
always acted in harmony with God. The Fall has
violently disrupted the created order and caused mankind to live in opposition
to God--as His enemies. (See Romans 1-3). "The
wages of sin is death." Death is separation from God, and God is the
Source of all life.
The Law can be studied with
great benefit (as in Psalm 119) because the Law shows us what God is like.
Believers are free from the Law--the Law has nothing to say to the man who is trusting Jesus and walking with Him.
Galatians
3:19 "What purpose then does the
law serve?
It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the
promise was made; and it was
appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator."
Romans 7:7 "What shall we say then? Is
the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except
through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had
said, 'You shall not covet.'"
Genesis indicates that God
created two separate and distinctive sexes -- male and female -- Both sexes are
needed to convey the image of God. Though God is not a sexual Being, He has
both masculine and feminine attributes. (see
"Made in the Image of God," http://ldolphin.org/Image.html).
Then God said, "Let Us make man (mankind) in Our image,
according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over
every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He
created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
Men and women are alike in
spirit but not in body and soul. One goal of marriage, as far as God is
concerned, is evidently our wholeness (holiness) achieved by man and wife
learning to obey God and to love one another in harmony with the self-giving
love of God. It is comparatively easy for two men or two women to love each
other wholeheartedly -- assuming the parties agree regarding the Biblical
meaning of love. It is more challenging for a man and a woman to love each
other as God intends, because men and women they are quite different in how
they give and respond to love. In addition, the Fall
has damaged all of us very deeply. When both parties in a heterosexual marriage
invite Jesus to rule in their lives, marriage becomes a joyful and redemptive
celebration as God intended it. But marriage is not easy and requires hard
work.
In addition, the body of
each true Christian believer is a temple of God. Idolatry is therefore a very
serious defilement of God's temple. Spiritual
adultery is allowing rival gods in one's heart. Jesus indicated that sin is
deeper than just outward actions. "He who hates his brother is a murderer
and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."
"Whoever looks upon a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with
her in his heart."
Divorce is a very serious
violation of the covenant of marriage. Therefore marriage should be taken very
seriously -- God intends for marriage to be a life-long commitment. God hates
divorce, especially because of the harm done to our offspring (see Malachi
2:15-16). Sexual relations (which meet with God's approval) are limited to
marriage only! Children are a precious gift from God, and therefore abortion is
almost always murder as far as God is concerned. God did intend sex not only
for procreation but also for pleasure. The Bible treats casual sex outside of a
marriage as pagan in origin and also inconsistent with our becoming whole
persons. I Thessalonians 4:1-8 tells us that sexual immorality hinders our
emotional and spiritual wholeness. (See "Sexuality and Wholeness" http://ldolphin.org/sexrcs.html, by
Ray Stedman). Of course sexual immorality, and all sorts of other sins, can
occur in marriage. A marriage license does not give us special protection
against sin.
God finds homosexual actions
abhorrent or repulsive, (Hebrew: toebah) Leviticus 20:13. Paul in Romans Chapter 1 says that
homosexual actions are "contrary to nature." The New Testament is
even-handed in treating all forms of sexual immorality in much the same way.
A life-style involving
sexual activity outside of marriage ultimately disqualifies a person from
heaven! This is the standard for everyone in God's covenant community. The
writer to Hebrews says, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed
undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. (13:4).
The Greek word "porneia"
from which we get our English word "pornography," is a strong word
covering any and all forms of sexual misbehavior. Early
Christians understood this word to encompass activities such as: prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, incest, and bestiality. Masturbation is not
specifically spelled out in the Bible, but it falls short of fulfilling the
purposes for which sex was designed.
God
uses pain and chastening and suffering when necessary to help each of us attain
to the holiness "without which no one shall see the Lord," see Hebrews 12:1-17. God loves each of us
intently, thus He "hates" those things that hold us back from become
whole and fulfilled men and women. We can each have as much grace and mercy as
we need in overcoming the selfish and self-centered desires of the human heart.
Christians are to help one
another overcome sin. The guidelines of Matthew 18 are very important when
discipline and correction is needed, (http://www.raystedman.org/leadership/discipline.html).
To help us each develop a Christian world-view, as we read through and study
the entre Bible, we should pay attention to the main thread of the Bible: God
created us very much like Himself. The Fall has
radically changed everything. God Himself in the Person of Jesus the Son of God
came into our world and died for each of us, paying the full penalty for our
sins so that we might be made into new men and women, living forever in
community. The covenant community is called to live by radically different
standards than we see all around us in the world. The ultimate separation
between those who choose to follow Jesus in order to be made new, and those who
ignore the calling of Jesus is absolute. God means what He says in the Bible.
Taking Jesus seriously is a matter of life and death.
While marriage is the usual
route for unmarried Christian men and women to move toward, a single person
dedicating his life to the service of God is promised an inheritance greater
than that given to sons or daughters, (see http://ldolphin.org/singleinchrist.html).
Eunuchs for Christ
Thus says the Lord: "Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. 2 Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil." 3 Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, "The Lord will surely separate me from his people"; and let not the eunuch say, "Behold, I am a dry tree." 4 For thus says the Lord: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. 6 "And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." (Isaiah 56:1-7)
Human
beings are designed to be nurtured by a father and a
mother living together in a committed marriage, influenced by the role models
of siblings, grandparents, and by other Christians.
Communities, villages,
towns, cities and nations are built around the family unit as the basic order
of the social order. Since many of us did not grow up in healthy, functioning
families, the local church to a large degree can make up what we failed to get
from our natural families. How does God build His covenant community? How did
God originally set up the family of tribes, peoples and nations? One sees all
this clearly through numerous examples in the Bible. In Scripture God shows us
the full range of relationships from very good to totally broken. Societies can
and do collapse when marriages become severely damaged by divorce and
immorality. The failure of parents to nurture their offspring and to provide
role models for married life and family living eventually means the next
generation will be inadequately prepared for the responsibility of their own
marriages and raising their own children. We are not to emulate the pagan
nations of secular society but pay attention to the ways of our Creator.
A main premise of this essay
is that it is not enough to know a few snippets of Biblical truth; we must take
God seriously by looking at everything as God does, and then choose to line up
and follow Him every day. The above generalizations about marriage and family
and society are not spelled out word for word in Scripture. Most of what we
learn about God and ourselves takes place as we set out and start following
Christ. Head knowledge is of no value if it is not applied. Each of us is
unique and our God is very much a Personal God. He desires to teach each of us
as His very own sons and daughters, one by one
When the Bible is Silent
It is generally stated that
when the Bible is silent on a subject, there is probably no prohibition at
work, or the answer is obvious by study using Biblical examples. Important
subjects are mentioned in the Bible repeatedly, not merely in one or two
obscure verses. We are supposed to be able to build our own Christian world view by knowing the whole Bible and understanding the
main themes: where did man come from? What is wrong with the human race? What
is God doing in the world today to fix things? Where is history headed? What is
God like?
What God is Doing Right Now to Restore Things
The church was founded by
Jesus Christ for the purpose of calling out of the world a group of people from
every tribe and nation who would be made completely new by regeneration from
God. (The true church today is a small sub-group, or remnant, of the much
larger visible, "professing" church. Only the remnant will be
saved). Sadly, the vast majority
of people on earth today, as well as in every previous generation since Adam,
will not be persuaded to come to know Jesus Christ. They remain lost forever.
While Israel was given mainly earthly promises, God's promises to the Bride of
Christ, the true church are mostly heavenly. This means that the followers of
Jesus will eventually enjoy the exploration of all of the
vast universe. Eternal life comes to stay in the life of every true Christian
when spiritual rebirth occurs.
Through His Spirit, God
restrains evil in the world to a very high degree down through history, otherwise anarchy and violence would prevail all
the time. God is not making our world a better place to live by improving the
human race--that happens only when people are regenerated by
God and live their lives in dependence on his Spirit. Through the true
church God is presently restraining evil in the world (acting as
"salt" and "light"). This restraint is soon to be lifted.
This age will end in a horrific war with most of the human race being
destroyed.
God much prefers Mercy to Judgment!
"All through the Bible we see God's love is
manifest to men and women everywhere in urging them to escape this judgment.
God in love pleads with people, 'Do not go on to this end!' But ultimately he
must judge those who refuse his offer of grace. He says, in effect, 'I love you
and I can provide all you need. Therefore love me, and you will find the
fulfillment your heart is looking for. ' But many men and women say, 'No, I do
not want that. I will take your gifts, I will take all the good things you
provide, but I do not want you! Let me run my own life. Let me serve my own
ends. Let me have my own kingdom. ' To such, God ultimately says, 'All right,
have it your way!' "God has three choices: first, he can let rebellion go
on forever and never judge it. In that case the terrible things that are
happening on earth, all these distressing injustices, the cruelty, the anger,
the hate, the malice, the sorrow, the hurt, the pain, the death that now
prevails, must go on forever. God does not want that, and neither does man.
Second, God can force men to obey him and control them as robots. But he will
never do that because that means they cannot truly love him. Love cannot be
forced. Therefore, third, the only choice God really has is that he must
withdraw ultimately from those who refuse his love. He must let them have their
own way forever. That results in the terrible torment of godlessness. If God is
necessary to us, then to take him out of our lives is to plunge us into the
most terrible sense of loneliness and abandonment that mankind can know. We
have all experienced it to some small degree when we get what we want and then
discover we do not want what we got! For that sense of bored emptiness to go on
forever, is unspeakable torment." (Ray C. Stedman, The Time of Harvest,
Discovery Paper No. 4206)
The messengers of the Good
News of Jesus Christ urge people everywhere to avail themselves of God's grace
and mercy, which are freely available at the present time:
"For
Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and
therefore all died. And he died for all, that those
who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and
was raised again. So from now on we regard no-one from
a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so
no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God,
who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not
counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of
reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were
making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled
to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:14-21)
Understanding Biblical terms such as
"Love"
The popular forms of love as
depicted in movies, on television, in popular social discourse today are almost
always far from the meaning of the principal Biblical word for love, which is agape. Agape is self-giving, sacrificial love. Jesus said, "A new
commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that
you also love one another." (John 13:34)
The love that originates in
God seeks the welfare and long-term good of the Beloved, regardless of the cost
to the Lover. Agape love does not ask for something in return. It is neither
"romantic love" nor "need-based love." (See 1 Corinthians
13).
Since our inherited nature
from Adam is self-centered, we have to retrain ourselves one day at a time. In
dealing with others, are we allowing Jesus to love the other person through us?
We are asked to love our enemies, and people we may not like by nature. Loving others as Christ loves us is often very inconvenient, interfering with all sorts of other things in
life we would prefer doing by far.
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if
One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live
should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose
again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even
though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no
longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things
have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of
God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us
the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to
us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as
though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be
reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 15:14-21)
Our one English word
"love" can really mean our covetousness, our manipulation of others
to get them to love us--and to disguise a dozen forms of lust or selfish
desire. Real love originating in God is self-giving. Worldly love is selfish and
self-seeking. It is central to the Christian life
that we gain real life from God by losing our old lives. "For you know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He
became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." (2 Cor. 6:9)
A topic of great confusion
today is the insistence by many that we all were born with various sets of "human
rights." Most of these alleged human rights are not based on the Bible at
all. A corollary to this is the insistence by some that what two people do in
private does not affect anyone else. This is patently false. Through the
spiritual dimension, we are all connected to everyone else on the planet even if
we will not acknowledge God. Christians are actually very tightly connected to
other Christians. We are said to be "members one of another," and
"members of the Body of Christ."
"Judge Not." Jesus
said we were not to judge others. "With the same judgment you judge
others, you yourself will be judged." This is about putting other people
down in order to exalt oneself. Elsewhere the New Testament says the church is
to judge her own internal affairs. Christians are to evaluate one another so we
can grow. Later we will judge angels, and the world! It is not true that what
we do in private affects no one but ourselves. As members of one race, we are
all "bound together in the bundle of the living."
The Goal is Wholeness
"You must be Holy for I am Holy," says the
Lord. Righteousness has to do with a person's basic integrity before God--his
or her standing. The Bible teaches that we are not able to stand before a holy
God on the basis of our own deeds or merits (i.e.
"self-righteousness"). When any individual commits his or her life to
Jesus Christ, that person's sins are transferred to Jesus and Jesus then pays
the full penalty for all of the individual's sins. Secondly, the righteousness
of Jesus is credited to the believer's account, available by faith. Only those
actions we accomplish by means of the resources of Jesus,
have lasting value. Trusting Jesus for everything, and denying self
characterizes the "New Covenant" which Jesus put to effect at the
Last Supper. Also called "the Exchanged Life," The Bible asks that
every Christian live by the example Jesus gave us. Everything
He accomplished was done by trusting in the Father. For us, everything
we do is to be done in dependence on Christ Jesus.
"For I through the law died to the law that I might live to
God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if
righteousness comes through the law,
then Christ died in vain." (Galatians 2:19-21)
The Bible clearly tells us
that human beings have been designed to live in a harmonious, personal
relationship with God. We are not autonomous "gods." We function
either as servants of Jesus or as servants of sin (see Romans 6). The life
Jesus lived while he was among us on earth can be considered an example of what
a whole man looks like. Jesus did everything in dependence upon God the Father.
He taught that we who follow Jesus are similarly to live our lives in
partnership with Jesus.
When God asks for a certain
kind of acceptable behavior from his own people, he always provides us with the
necessary resources to attain to that level of behavior. The standards of the world and the prevailing
moral values of the secular world around us are to be shunned by followers of
Christ. We are asked to live "in the world but not of the world."
"For this is the will of God, your sanctification
(wholeness): that you should abstain from sexual immorality (porneia); that each of you should know how to exercise self
control over his own body in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust,
like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and
defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and
testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore
he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His
Holy Spirit." (1 Thess. 4:1-8)
The Apostle Paul tells all
of the followers of Jesus Christ, that we are "complete in Christ who is
the head of all rule and authority." (Colossians 2:10).
God is not very much interested in our present happiness! His greatest work in
us is about eternity and the life His followers will enjoy with Him forever in
the ages to come. The unbelievers of this world will not go on from this
present life to enjoy eternal life with their Creator. They have rejected the
free gift of salvation.
Love between two persons
can't take place unless both parties consent and find common ground for their
relationship. John 3:16 is often said to be a one-verse summary of the major
theme of the Bible, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son, so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have
everlasting life." God offers Himself to us unconditionally. The Christian
life begins when we agree to allow Jesus Christ to be our Leader and Lover and
Friend. He will do the rest, but a relationship with Jesus requires our assent.
Jesus is the appointed heir
of all things. If we ignore Him, we will lose everything in the end. Right now
we are house guests in His House. He will be back soon
and then a great separation will occur dividing those who know and follow Jesus
from those who do not. This is why a sound world view
is so important. We can't have it both ways. Jesus said, "He who is not with Me is
against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters." (Luke 11:23)
Lambert Dolphin
October 1, 2009
November 10, 2019
(Corrections,
10/4/09)
(Changes,
10/13/2009. Thanks to Elaine Stedman and Marshall Diakon)
(Edits:
10/25/09. Thanks for Elaine Stedman)