Hebrews Lesson
209 September
2, 2010
NKJ Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your
heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
NKJ Proverbs 3:6
In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct
your paths.
We’re in Hebrews 12:14ff where the topic is to pursue
peace. Tonight I'm focusing on the aspect of peace. As I pointed out in
previous classes, there are 4 ideas that are related in the pursuit of peace. One
is love, the second is grace, the third is reconciliation, the forth is
forgiveness. In terms of our life as believers, forgiveness toward others is
not an option. That's really clear from a number of things that our Lord taught
and as we get into the New Testament.
NKJ Hebrews
12:14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness…
Holiness or sanctification or what we would call (so
it has a lot more sense for us) our spiritual life. Sanctification has to do
with being set apart to the service of God. So part of being set apart to the
service of God entails pursuing peace; and part of that of course is exercising
forgiveness towards others.
This is the same idea that’s echoed in 1 Thessalonians
5:15 that we are to seek after that which is good for one another. That means
this is command. It's not an option. It's mandated in every arena of life. I
want to review where we’ve come from in terms of 4 points.
Love then is expressed towards an undeserving object
in terms of the word grace, which means unmerited or undeserved kindness. I
want to emphasize that because often what we hear is undeserved kindness. Somebody
needs to be kind to us. It is undeserved kindness. You know we just don't hear
the undeserved part. We just hear the second part. But it is really undeserved kindness. We don't deserve it. It's
unmerited. In fact we deserve just the opposite.
So when that gets applied in terms of human
relationships it gets pretty difficult. We think that somehow we can just skate
by by not having anything to do with the person who
has offended us or has seriously abused us or hurt us or defrauded us in some
way. Reconciliation means that there is a basis for bringing those who are in
personal conflict and are completely polarized back together. That's what
reconciliation means. That's not easy. In a lot of cases that won’t work, but
it shouldn’t be our fault that it doesn’t work. Then forgiveness. You can’t
have reconciliation without forgiveness; and there has to be real genuine
biblical forgiveness that can only be a product of God the Holy Spirit. So in
the first point I developed these ideas of love, grace, reconciliation,
forgiveness and how they're related to pursuing peace with others.
The problem with that is that if the other person in
the conflict has caused the conflict is not honest and is not brought to that
point in their own spiritual growth to honestly face their responsibility, then
what the hyper sensitive person has done is basically given them a pass. Instead
of resolving the issue that has this caused breach and caused the conflict, it
simply set things up for its repetition. So when a person is too eager in the
pursuit of peace and was willing to let bygones be bygones and “Let’s just all
smooth things out without there ever being necessarily an admission of guilt on
the part of the other person” (a recognition of their contribution to the
problem), then it doesn’t really bring things to conclusion. It simply
generates more problems.
So as I pointed out there are two problems to sort of
watch out for here. One is the acceptance of responsibility where none exists,
and that is the problem with the hyper sensitive conscience that just
perpetuates the problem. Then the other is the person who gets caught up in
self-justification and self-deception out of arrogance and isn’t willing to
recognize the level or the degree to which they contribute to the conflict. So
you can have either of these going on in which case if a resolution occurs
where either of these is present it's not a real resolution. It's just a fraud;
it’s a counterfeit, and then the next thing you know, there's going to be another
problem, another conflict. That happens in all kinds of relationships and in
all kinds of situations. So we have to follow that principle of Matthew 7:34 in
terms of humility, being willing to examine ourselves and take the log out of
our own eye before we start focusing on the other person’s problem which in the
passage is looking at the grain of sand in their eye.
As we go look at this I want to go to back to that
passage so you might want to turn back there in your Bible for a few moments
this evening as we go back to Ephesians 4:32 just to add a few more comments to
this. Last time I pointed out that there's a whole series of commands that take
place in this section most of which are present imperatives, which indicate
this is supposed to be the standard operating procedure, the standard behavior for
the Christian way of life. This is what God expects from all of us all the
time. I went back to about verse 18 or 19 or 17 and I started walking through
all the different commands that we have all the way down to 5:18 which is the
command to be filled by means of the Spirit. There is just one mandate after
another: all these commands for the Christian life. In the middle of this we
have this section from 4:32 to 5:2 that gets separated in our reading and
sometimes in teaching because there’s a chapter division there. And sometimes
they're some other things that come between the chapters and we lose sight of
the fact that this is all one contiguous explanation.
NKJ Ephesians
4:32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, just as God in Christ forgave you.
NKJ Ephesians
5:1 Therefore be imitators of God as
dear children.
NKJ Ephesians
5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given
Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Now I’ve underlined the “be” in verse 32 and 5:1
because both passages start with the same Greek verb ginomai, which means to become something you weren’t before. It emphasizes
change; it emphasizes spiritual growth. It emphasizes moving from being a self
centered, self absorbed, arrogant, carnal sinner to being someone who grows in
maturity, who imitates God and sees godliness. That’s what godliness really is:
manifesting God's characteristics and traits in our own spiritual life. The
command is a present imperative indicating that this is to be a standard operating
procedure in our life. We are to be kind to one another; and therefore be imitators
of God as dear children. This is the process of spiritual growth and spiritual
advance.
Now in that first phrase “be kind to one another”, the
word that’s translated kind is the Greek word chrestos, which means that which causes no discomfort or pain. So when
we're dealing with forgiving one another, the mandate is to be kind to one
another. And how are we kind to one another? Well, charizomai that’s there that’s
translated “forgiving one another” is a participle; and
it’s a participle of means. We're kind to one another by forgiving one another.
We're not kind to one another by going over and cutting the grass or helping to
wash the car or helping people out with this problem or that problem. What Paul
is saying is that you're kind to one another by forgiving one another. So chrestos has the
idea of not causing discomfort, not causing, not making issues out of things
that shouldn't be issues. There are some things you do make issues out of that
are supposed to be made issues out of. So chrestos has to do with that
which causes no discomfort. It's something that meets a high standard of value.
So let’s say we go get our car worked on. We take our car to the mechanic and
they work on it and get everything fixed. They bring it back to us and they
say, “Is everything OK?” We
say, “Yeah. Everything is fine.” That's the idea of this word. In fact it’s
translated that way in a couple of passages. It just means that it meets our
standards. It’s acceptable. It’s good, not acceptable in a mediocre way but
it's what we expected. It meets our standard that we were demanding. So being
kind to one another emphasizes also meeting a high standard and in
relationships it emphasizes being benevolent, kind, or pleasant to one
another.
Now there's an appositional word that comes after that
that helps us to understand the meaning of that a little bit more, and that's
the word tenderhearted. The word tenderhearted in the Greek is eusplagchnos. Splagchnos is the
same word for mercy that’s used elsewhere. It has to do with coming from the
kidneys.
The Jews and the Greeks were very concrete in their
understanding of the emotions so they would use terms like “from the bowels”
because they understood emotions really do upset you. Just think about how many
times you get either excited or angry or worried and how your intestines (your
insides) get all churned up. Well, that's why they would use these kinds of
concrete words to express emotion. So the word they would use to express
merciful or compassionate in a legitimate sense with those is through this word
splagchnos.
The eu
prefix just emphasizes something that’s good or benevolent in front of it. So
to be kind to one another has this idea of exercising mercy. Mercy is grace in
action. Now what all of this relates to is being gracious. “Be kind to one
another” is the command - by forgiving one another.
The Greek word for forgiving there as I pointed out in
the past isn’t the word aphiemi,
it is the synonym used in several passages.
Charizomai, from charis, meaning grace. So it’s being
gracious to one another; but it’s used as a synonym for aphiemi in places meaning to wipe
out a debt. It’s used in an economic sense like that. It's this idea of not holding
something against someone for some offense that they have committed. So we're
kind to one another by eradicating this offense that has caused a
conflict.
Now that's fine as far as it goes but the really hard
part is what comes next, because the model is "even as God in Christ was
gracious to you" – same word charizomai. So charizomai
emphasizes that the issue here is the implementation of grace. It's the
implementation of grace. It's not just talking about grace; it’s
not just understanding grace; it’s not just being oriented to grace in terms of
understanding the theological or doctrinal principles. But it's implementing it
in a very real way in the way impacts our relationships. So it is grace in
action. You have not implemented grace in your life as a believer, you are not
reflecting the grace of God in your life as a believer, you
have not elevated yourself to the standard of being gracious in your life, if
you're not forgiving one another. That's how we exhibit kindness to one
another.
The standard is as God in Christ or by means of Christ
forgave you. So it's instrumental there indicating that it’s through Christ and
His work on the cross that we have forgiveness and are the beneficiaries of
God’s grace.
NKJ Ephesians
5:1 Therefore be imitators of God as
dear children.
We are to imitate our Father as a father teaches his
children how to live. When those children grow up, they implement the teachings
of their father.
Then we have another command (another present imperative)
in verse 2. Before I go on I want to reflect one other verse – chestos the word
for kindness is used in Luke 6:35.
NKJ Luke 6:35 "But love your enemies,
There’s the command to love your enemies.
do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and
your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.
So love has that idea of initiating action to those
who are antagonistic to us. It has that idea of initiating action. The action
is defined as good and it’s defined also as not expecting any kind of response
from the other person.
Don’t put an agenda on there and say, “I'm going to be
kind and good to you and if you don't respond, you dirty rotten so-and-so, then
I'm going to not kind to you anymore.”
"But love your enemies, do
good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great,
and you will be sons of the Most High
This isn't talking about salvation and your destiny in
heaven. This is talking about spiritual maturity so the issue is rewards and
future ruling and reigning responsibilities in the kingdom.
and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of
the Most High
Because you are acting like a son of the Most High; that's the
implication there.
For He
is kind to the unthankful and evil.
There's that comparison again. We are to imitate God
who’s our Father because as He has demonstrated love and kindness so we’re to
imitate that and reflect that to the world around us because He is kind to
ungrateful and evil men. See, we don't like this because that means we have to
be kind and gracious and forgiving to people that we just can’t stand. That's
the same word chrestos.
It's this idea of kindness, of graciousness and it comes back to what has been
taught.
Then when we come to the last verse in these 3 verses,
we have the command to walk in love or by means of love. That is to
characterize our life. The unconditional impersonal love demonstrated by
God.
NKJ Ephesians
5:2 And walk
in love, as
See there's that little word “as” again, the same word
that you have up in 4:32. That’s the pattern; that’s the model; that's our
standard.
walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given
Himself for us
What did that verse use that we have back there in
Luke 6:35? "Ungrateful and evil men". That’s
when we were yet enemies of God. That’s what we were:
ungrateful and evil men. That is,
Christ died for us.
Now we’re looking at 5:2, we are to walk in love as
Christ also loved us and has given Himself as a substitute for us.” It brings
in the idea of a substitutionary sacrifice. Then Paul
adds a final phrase here.
for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Now that phrase connects it right back to Old
Testament sacrifices which is where we ended last time as I was looking at the
peace offering. If you're trying to take notes and keep these enumerated those
first 4 points of review are:
NKJ Leviticus
3:5 'and Aaron's sons shall burn it on
the altar
That’s the sacrifice of the bull or sheep or the goat.
upon the burnt sacrifice, which is on the wood that is on
the fire, as an offering made by
fire, a sweet aroma to the LORD.
That’s the olah, the first of the offerings,
the 5 offerings mentioned the beginning of Leviticus. The burnt offering with
the smoke ascending was primarily a picture of the believer giving up himself,
making a statement of his complete and total devotion to God. All the first 3
sacrifices you have in Leviticus are all called sweet savor or aromatic
sacrifices because this same statement is made. It's an offering by fire. It’s
a sweet aroma to the Lord. There’s a connection that Paul makes here between
what Christ does on the cross and the sweet smelling or sweet savor offerings
at the beginning of Leviticus. Since the issue is forgiveness, which is
connected to reconciliation, then we would tie that to the whole issue of the
peace offering.
Last time I started looking at the peace offering in
Leviticus 3. The two passages that describe the burnt offering are Leviticus 3,
which gives the sort of the mechanics. This is how you do it, who does it, and what you bring. Then Leviticus 7:11f
describes how the priests were to implement it.
In Leviticus 3 we realize first off that but the peace
offering can come from the herd. It can be male or female so there is not a
distinction made as there was with the burnt offering in chapter 1.
NKJ Leviticus
3:1 …whether male or female, he shall
offer it without blemish before the LORD.
NKJ Leviticus
3:6 ' If his offering as a sacrifice of
a peace offering to the LORD is of
the flock, whether male or female, he
shall offer it without blemish.
NKJ Leviticus
3:12 ' And if
his offering is a goat, then he shall
offer it before the LORD.
There are no birds here as you had with the earlier
offerings. It has to be an animal of this size because this is the only
offering where there is a shared meal. The shared a meal emphasizes fellowship
and rapport and reconciliation that has taken place,
because of the sacrifice. That's the picture: the peace that comes. The shared
meal is the result of the fact that a sacrifice has been made. In other words,
a penalty has been paid.
Now this is important because when you talk about
forgiveness I find that forgiveness is one of those really misunderstood issues
in life. If you forgive somebody that doesn't necessarily mean that you absolve
them of the consequences. Now I want to say that again because a lot of people
think forgiveness means you don’t suffer any more consequences. Sometimes you
can forgive somebody and they have to go through the consequences. If someone
has committed a murder and they are on death row and they're going to be
executed for their crime, just because they've become a believer as Karla Faye
Tucker did back in the 90’s in the Texas penal system (There was a human cry by
all kinds of pastors who said, “Ah. She has become a believer now. She needs to
have her sentence commuted.” That shows how so many Christians don't understand
this issue) doesn't necessarily mean that the penalty should be commuted. Now
God did that several times. So it’s not saying and I'm not saying that you
shouldn't be gracious at times and commute the consequences, it depends on the
circumstances and the situation.
The most obvious example is in the Old Testament when
David committed two capital crimes. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. Then
he conspired with Joab to have her husband Uriah
killed when it was discovered that Bathsheba was pregnant. So if Uriah was killed then there wouldn’t be a problem. So David is complicit in murder; and he
is responsible for adultery both of which were to be punished with the death
penalty under the Mosaic Law. But God commuted that sentence for David. He's
forgiven and the consequences are reduced. There were consequences. There were
consequences that impacted his family four fold during the coming years. There
was tremendous disruption and things that happened within his family: incest,
murder of one half brother for another, the rebellion
of Absalom. All these things were – the death of the baby – all
these things were part of the discipline (the divine discipline) and the
consequences of the action, but it wasn't as severe as it could have been.
Other times God commutes the sentence completely, and
there are no consequences. So forgiveness does not mean necessarily that
consequences are removed. That might happen; that might not happen; or they
might just be diminished. Forgiveness and the implementation of consequences of
punishment are two different issues; they are not the same thing. Yet most
people in our culture cannot distinguish between the two.
Your kids will get you on that if they haven't
already.
“Well, you forgave me so why are you punishing me?”
“Because, you need to know that certain actions demand
punishment and consequences. But you're forgiven. You’re loved. It just doesn't
feel like it right now.”
So that is maintaining that distinction in terms of
those consequences.
The other thing that we have in terms of forgiveness,
is forgiveness does not necessarily mean that everything's going to go back to
the way it was instantaneously because in a number of serious situations where
there has been financial defrauding, where there has been physical or sexual
abuse, where there's been a criminal action, it is not wise for the person who
has been the wronged person, the person who has been defrauded or abused to put
themselves back into a situation where it can happen all over again. That
doesn't mean that they haven’t forgiven the person.
But if you have entered into a financial transaction,
let’s say a real estate contract with somebody, and they defrauded you and you
lost a couple hundred thousand dollars and that person comes to you and asks
forgiveness. You are to forgive them and truly genuinely forgive them but that
doesn't mean that you're going to enter into real estate deal with them the
next day. That would be foolish. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether or
not you've forgiven them. It’s whether or not you have learned your lesson. Those
are different issues.
We have to understand what forgiveness really is. As I
pointed out last time The Oxford English
Dictionary points out that forgiveness has to do with not harboring ill
will, laying aside any desire for vengeance, any bitterness any hostility, any resentment
that occurs as a result of the conflict that had occurred. I want to describe
that a little more because I’m developing some ways to think about that that I
think will be helpful for everybody in terms of looking at forgiveness from a
subjective aspect, which means you as the subject (the one forgiving), what's
going on inside of your soul, and an objective aspect; and that has to do with
what happens in the life and actions of the person who is the object of
forgiveness. These are the two things that need to be distinguished.
So the peace offering illustrates this that the peace
that occurs (the reconciliation) occurs because the penalty has been paid. My
point in everything I've just said is that the penalty that is paid may vary. Sometimes
we may say in terms of the actions of the individual that there are no
consequences, but actually a penalty is paid. As I’ll point out that penalty
for all sin was paid for at the cross. A penalty has to be paid.
Now looking at the aspects of the peace offering you
can turn over to Leviticus 7, the last part of chapter 7 from 11 down to the
middle part (11:21), which deals with the aspects of eating the meal together. This
is very important because it shows that the two parties that have been a part
of this conflict are not just going to kiss and make up, they are going to sit
down and have a meal and there is a real genuine restoration of the
relationship. That is very hard to do, and I would suggest that you can't do it
unless you have the power of God the Holy Spirit, unless you’re in fellowship
and you're really trying to do what the Word of God says to do.
But the principle that I want to take from the peace
offering is that a penalty is paid before there is the reconciliation. There is
a penalty paid and I want to see how that works out in some passages in the New
Testament. Now I want to take you back into the New Testament to Romans. We’ve
touched on Roman 5 before. I want to take you back to Romans 5, which is one of
two key chapters on reconciliation in the New Testament. You have Romans 5 and
2 Corinthians 5.
In Romans chapter 4 Paul has explained justification:
that justification takes place because God as the Supreme Judge of the Universe
is able to decree in a judicial decision that the individual is just before His
court because that person has been imputed or given the righteousness of
Christ. And that’s what salvation is. We don't do anything for it; it is pure
grace. Grace means God gives us something that we don't deserve. Anything less
than that doesn’t meet the standard of grace, it is completely lacking in
grace.
So justification, which we describe by "faith
alone", is the result of God's grace in providing a Savior by which our
sins are imputed to Jesus and He pays their penalty in full. When we trust Him,
His righteousness is imputed to us or credited to us so that our sin is
covered. It is not removed in the sense that we’ve become “not sinners” or it
never happened, because you'll hear especially in Bible colleges this trite
little phrase that justification means just as if I never sinned. That’s just
theologically poor. The first reason is because our condemnation isn’t because
we sinned; our condemnation is because Adam sinned. So it’s not “just as if
I've never sinned.” Secondly we're going to continue to sin and our sin or “not
sin” isn't the issue. The issue is that we are saved because we possess
Christ’s righteousness and that is what God looks at, not our unrighteousness
or our relative righteousness. It is not just as if I never sinned. That’s
almost heresy. Justification is free.
NKJ Romans 5:1 Therefore
He’s taking his explanation of salvation to the next
step. He says:
having been justified by faith,
Now that's a rather ambiguous way to translate this
participle. It should be translated with a causal sense for what Paul is saying
is, “Because we’ve been justified by faith we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now two things need to be stated here in terms of the
grammar that are very important. That phrase that’s translated “having been
justified” is one word in the Greek, but it's a perfect participle. The perfect
passive participle emphasizes a completed action in past time. So you have this
completed action back here that justification took place in the past; and it's
done with; it is not a process. Now I could go off on a long rabbit trail
otherwise known as an anacoluthon here because this is the problem with both
Lordship salvation and Roman Catholic theology is justification is seen as a
process.
There are a lot of reform guys in lordship who will say
it is a once-for-all action, but they don’t really work it out that way. Roman
Catholicism is much more overt with this, and Roman Catholic theology says that
having been justified is not a one time action; it’s a process. But this makes
it clear that because we have been justified (completed action, perfect tense
– having been completely justified by faith in the past) we now (present
time) have peace. Peace is a real present time possession that every believer
has with God because at some time in their past they were justified by faith
alone in Christ alone.
So Paul starts off by saying, “Therefore because we have
been justified by faith we presently currently have right now peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ.” The conflict has been resolved.
NKJ Romans 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified
Same phrase, perfect passive participle with the emphasis
on the present realty of a past completed action.
by His blood,
Which is a metaphor for His death.
we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
Now “shall be saved” is what tense? Future. See you
thought when you were justified you thought you were saved, didn’t you? That’s
not what Paul says in Romans. Paul says you were justified, but you will be
saved in the future. See the word sozo has different meanings, and it rarely has the meaning
in Scripture that is synonymous with justification. It does in several places,
but most of the time it has a different sense. Sometimes it refers our present
spiritual life: we are being saved. And sometimes it has to do with our future
glorification. That’s how it’s used mostly in Romans.
NKJ Romans 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him.
That’s phase one salvation (phase one justification)
when we put our faith alone in Christ alone. At that instant we are justified. Then
in the future we will be saved from His wrath. That is eternal condemnation or
eternal judgment through Him. So we have the past and the future.
NKJ Romans 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of
His Son,
When we were enemies (when we were obnoxious, when we
were disloyal, when we were rebellious, when we were doing everything against
God, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, when we were as obnoxious as we
could possibly be), we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
Now notice that it doesn’t say we were reconciled to
God by our faith in Christ. Did it say that? No, it doesn’t say that does it? It
says we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by
His life.
Now “shall be saved” is future tense. But His life is
emphasizing something different. So the “shall be saved” here is not talking
about future glorification. The
“shall be saved” here is talking about how we live our present tense spiritual
life. We are saved in the present – our ongoing sanctification, our
ongoing spiritual growth, by His life. His death paid the penalty for sin but
in His life He demonstrated how to live by means of God the Holy Spirit, how to
solve problems, how to depend upon God, how to apply the Word; all of those
things. So by implementing that then we can grow and mature as believers in
this life.
So in Romans we have the principle of reconciliation
and peace built on a penalty that’s paid, a sacrifice that’s made, and the
forgiveness that occurred at the cross.
Now I’m tying a lot of different loose ends together
here for you so I don’t want to get too far afield so that at the end of the
lesson tonight we can pull these threads together a little better.
2 Corinthians is the other passage that deals with
reconciliation and peace, we read:
NKJ 2
Corinthians 5:17 Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ,
And you are if you’re a believer in Christ.
he is a new
creation;
You are a new creation in Christ. You still have the
sin nature but you're a new creature in Christ. You have new capacities and new
capabilities; you have new resources.
old things have passed away; behold, all things have
become new.
NKJ 2
Corinthians 5:18 Now all
things are of God, who has reconciled
us to Himself
Notice, God is the one who initiated. That’s grace. He
initiated the reconciliation. He reconciled us to Him; we don't reconcile
ourselves to God. Reconciliation
is God's work, not man’s work.
through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of
reconciliation,
Application: if you are in any kind of relationship
(business relationship, a marital relationship, family relationship, friendship
relationship, whatever it might be) with another person and a conflict is
involved, then we are to pursue peace because that's part of the ministry of
reconciliation. This isn't just limited to preaching or explaining the gospel
to people so they can be reconciled to God.
How can a person talk to other people about being
reconciled to God when they can't implement the basic application of reconciliation
to other people? How can that work? And that's what
the implication of this is.
NKJ 2
Corinthians 5:18 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 when the world was lovely, wonderful,
happy and pleased with God, but when the world is completely antagonistic to
God and hostile to God. God is initiating in grace His plan and to effect
reconciliation and peace.
NKJ 2
Corinthians 5:19 that is,
that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their
trespasses to them,
God isn’t saying, “Okay, here's your list of sins.” He
imputed those sins to Christ on the cross. He's not imputing those sins to the
world.
and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
NKJ 2
Corinthians 5:20 Now then,
we are ambassadors for Christ,
We represent Him. That means as representatives of
Christ the standard of behavior in our life is to imitate what Christ has done.
That takes us right back to the Ephesians 4:32-5:2 passage in terms of
forgiving one another as God through Christ has forgiven us.
as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf,
Now in your Bibles you
is in italics, but Paul’s not talking to the Corinthians. They are already
saved; they are already reconciled. He is talking about “we”, meaning the
collective of the body of Christ as Christians. We implore (that is,
unbelievers, non-Christians) on Christ’s behalf.
be reconciled to God.
God’s the one who does the work but the way the
unbeliever is reconciled to God is by trusting in Christ. In terms of the
conflict, he has to respond to the initiative of grace, to the overtures of
grace. But we all know that they don't all do that. In
the same way when you are trying to resolve a conflict in your life whether
it's marriage, business, family, whatever it might be, there are going to be times
and people that just aren't going to respond no matter what you do. There are people who aren’t going to
admit their fault, their guilt, their part of the action, at all. In fact
they’re just going to continue to blame you for everything. But we are to
function on that higher standard of grace. We are not to fall short of that
standard.
When I talk about reconciliation here, I’ve emphasized
that this really took place at the cross and I’m gong to tie it back just
briefly. We've gone through this in detail in Colossians 2:13-14 where Paul
said:
NKJ Colossians
2:13 And you, being dead in your
trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He
has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
That’s wiping them out.
NKJ Colossians
2:14 having wiped out the handwriting of
requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it
to the cross
It wasn’t nailed to the cross by our faith in Christ
in 1955 or 1965 or 1995. It got nailed to the cross. That list of indictments
got nailed to the cross almost 2,000 years ago. That's when reconciliation
occurred. Now the issue is to affect that not to lay the groundwork for it. The
groundwork has already occurred.
So this all raises the question: how do you forgive somebody that won’t
admit guilt? Didn’t you just say there had to be a
recognition of guilt, there had to be a penalty paid? All of these
examples that I’ve given (the peace offering, etc.) of penalties paid that
forgiveness when we realize experientially the forgiveness of sin in our life,
don't we have to come to that point where we recognize that we’re a sinner and
that we are in need of salvation, that at some point there’s an admission of
failure or guilt on our part for contributing to the conflict in terms of
sin?
And there are passages that indicate that. For example, Luke 17:3-4.
NKJ Luke 17:3 "Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins
against you, rebuke him
Which means to confront him with it. That's the issue
of Matthew 7:3-4. Matthew 7:3-4 tells us how to go about that. You go about
that by being humble and taking the log out of your own eye before you take a
grain of sand out of the other person's eyes.
rebuke him
And how do you do that? Remember the forgiveness? You’re
kind which means you're not doing it in a way that will overtly and
intentionally cause pain and suffering.
and if he repents, forgive him.
Now that’s the word metamelomai. Now we have trouble
with this word repent. Repent means simply to change, to change his mind. He’s
done something against you and you confront him with it and he says, “You are
right. I was wrong.”
What are we supposed to do? Forgive him. Here the word
is aphiemi, which is the verb for wiping it out,
just as if it never occurred.
NKJ Luke 17:4 "And if he sins against you seven times in a
day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,'
“You know I was sorry. I repent. I did something
wrong.”
you shall forgive him."
Each and every time!
NKJ Matthew
18:21 Then Peter came to Him and said,
"Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to
seven times?"
NKJ Matthew
18:22 Jesus said to him, "I do not
say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
It is an idiomatic way of expressing Jewish idiom
indicating you don’t stop. Day in, day out they just keep doing the same thing;
and they keep coming back and saying, “You know, I was wrong.”
“I’m supposed to forgive them?” Isn’t that what God
does for us?
I don’t want anybody raising any hands now. This isn't
true confession; this isn’t show and tell. But how many times have we gone to
the Lord in confession and confessed the same old sin. If we’d had a counter
we’re some were up into the sixth or maybe seven digits by now in confessing
whatever sin that was – arrogance, anger, pride, lust, whatever it is. We've
been confessing the same sin against God 239,000 times now since we were 8
years. Now that's the pattern. Is God going to forgive us just as quickly and
for the same reason the 269,000th time as the first time? Yes!
He doesn’t say, “You know, I’m just getting tired of
this. You know, can’t you get it right? Haven’t you learned this yet? I’m not
going to forgive you the next time. It’s over with.”
Grace has a higher standard and we can’t fall short of
that standard of grace, which is always patterned in the character of God. We
have to pursue peace with all people, and we have to understand love and grace,
and we have to understand forgiveness and what it is and what it isn’t. We're
going to come back next time, tie this together looking at Matthew 18 and then
putting this together with what's happening in the next 3 verses in Hebrews 12:15ff.
Notice that next phrase there. The next phrase that is
so often taken by people to mean that somehow you just don't get saved. What
have I been saying all night? Looking carefully lest you fall short of the
grace of God. What's the standard for forgiving people? It’s God’s grace. If
you don't live up to that standard, then you fell short of that standard; and
you're not forgiving as God in Christ forgave us. That's what that means. It’s
just a simple phrase. Falling short of God's grace means you're not living up
to the standard that God set for forgiveness. Then that’s tied into Esau.
So we'll see that and pull that together next Thursday
night.