The Wideness of God's Mercy: The Book of Jonah

The book of Jonah has some very unusual features. There is Jonah himself, who does not seem to be fit to be a prophet. He is disobedient to the Lord’s call to preach. He then puts on one of the most spectacular displays of pouting in recorded history. Jonah is miserable and angry the whole time, even after God shows him a lot of mercy.

Perhaps even more surprising than God’s mercy to an angry prophet is God’s mercy to the city of Nineveh. These are pagan peoples who worshiped idols and not the living God. God had no covenant with these people and He owed them absolutely nothing. They were actually enemies of Israel and were the same Assyrians who carried the Northern tribes away into captivity and then threatened Judah and Jerusalem before God worked a miraculous deliverance in behalf of the prayers of King Hezekiah.

Perhaps now you see why Jonah did not want to preach there. He may have feared for his life. The Assyrians were known for their cruelty. And Jonah really did not want God to be merciful to the city of Nineveh. Most people really don’t want to see their enemies get blessed. We want to see our enemies get what we think they deserve!

Another big surprise in this book is that the city of Nineveh actually listens to Jonah and repents! We are ready for these pagans to simply laugh at Jonah, or maybe even stone him for annoying them. But they put on sackcloth and ashes – an ancient sign of mourning – showing even more contrition than any of the Jews did when God sent them prophets. God had sent prophet after prophet to the people of Israel and they had never listened. God sent one prophet to these pagans and they immediately repent! Throughout this strange little book, the pagans are consistently behaving better than we would expect, even better than the angry prophet God sent to them. Jonah is running and hiding from his God, while the pagan sailors are praying to their gods. The people of Nineveh want to live, and so they repent earnestly, but Jonah is angry and just wants to die.

How strange! What are we supposed to do with a book of the Bible that portrays pagans in a better light than a Jewish prophet? Maybe human beings are really not that different from each other, when we strip away all of the superficial elements of life. Perhaps the Jews had forgotten that, even though they had a special calling from God, they were not inherently better than the Gentiles.

The book of Jonah anticipates God’s inclusion of the Gentiles and was perhaps written as a way of reminding the Jews that they were not the only people God was concerned about. Sometimes people who have had a lot of grace forget why they needed grace in the first place.

It all begins with a call to preach to Nineveh. Jonah runs away, leaving the land of Israel behind.

Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 
He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. 
So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1:1-3 ESV)

So we see that Jonah’s troubles are really self-inflicted. He would have been much better off just obeying the voice of the Lord. Does this sound like a familiar scenario? What troubles have you brought on yourself because you simply refused to do what God clearly commanded?

Jonah represents one of the most common responses of men and women to God. Even Adam and Eve attempted to hide from God in the shame of their nakedness. But God pursued Adam and Eve and God pursued Jonah. This Divine pursuit is one of the great themes of the Bible. I don’t mean man’s search for God but God’s seeking of man. We do not seek after God. We are on the run. If God had not come to seek and to save us we would have been lost forever. The impetus always belongs to God, not to man. If we have found God it is only because He really found us first. And we love Him because He first loved us.

And so George Matheson penned the words of his hymn:

“O love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in Thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”

If we forget that God is the one who kept seeking us then we may become proud and think that our relationship with God is based on something we did out of our own righteousness. Those pagans were not seeking God and so God rejected them. But we were seeking God and so God had to accept us. How wrong we are for thinking this way!

Jonah was wrong for thinking he could successfully run from God. In the minds of ancient peoples there were many gods who were attached to certain places and nations. If you wanted to get away from the God of Israel, all you had to do was leave the land of Israel. Out on the sea you would be subject to a different god.

The problem with this plan is that Jonah is dealing with the living God who is the maker of heaven and earth and all that is in it! This is no local, tribal deity like the petty gods of the nations. Our problem is that our view of God is sometimes too small. We think there may be certain areas of life into which God does not or even cannot venture. So we can escape there and be safe from God’s meddling in our affairs. Wrong! If God is God, then there is no place we can god to escape His presence.

David wrote a Psalm about this very reality.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:7-12 ESV)

The presence of God should be a comforting thing, unless you are alienated from Him. Then there is perhaps nothing more terrifying to know that God knows everything about you and everything you do. We will all have to give an account. You cannot hide from God.

So why do we try to hide from God?

There may be something God has commanded that we don’t want to do. Why should we obey God? How bad can it be? We enjoy our freedom and our independence. Americans don’t like to be told what to do. Religion is all about rules. Who wants to have a lot of rules to obey? That’s no fun! So God is just a cosmic killjoy who is out to spoil our fun. It is one of Satan’s oldest deceptions about God. “God is trying to keep you down. The only way to really enjoy life is to break free and do your own thing! What’s so bad about self-expression? What’s the worst thing that could happen? You won’t die!”

Jonah may have thought the people of Nineveh would kill him. He was worried about his own skin. Or, it may have been simple hatred for the city of Nineveh. His own prejudice and personal feelings were more important than the Word of the Lord.

We have to remember that Jonah is a Jew and a Prophet of God and he is behaving like a pagan unbeliever. Sometimes the people of God fail miserably. The failure of Jonah is really a picture of the failure of the people of Israel to obey God. Have we done any better? No. The Church has been just like Jonah. The whole human race has been like Jonah running from God.

Jonah paid the price for his disobedience. He began a downward descent that would take him places he never dreamed of having to go. Someone has said that sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. Jonah was supposed to preach to the wicked city of Nineveh and he is being wicked himself. He is in the same condition as those to whom he is sent to preach! God is preparing his messenger. Before you can preach to others you have to experience the grace of God. God was being gracious to Nineveh and to His prophet. Everyone needs grace!

Jonah is forced to confess his sins to these pagan sailors, who actually try to avoid Jonah’s demise. They are being more merciful to Jonah then he will be to the city of Nineveh! These pagan sailors are being more spiritually sensitive than the prophet of God! They are at least praying to the gods they know while Jonah is hiding in the bottom of the boat. What do we do with the fact that pagans are often more sincere than religious people? Hypocrisy is a huge problem for the Church today and pagans can see it! They are often more consistent in their beliefs than professed Christians.

These unusually moral sailors try to spare Jonah. But they have run out of options.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 
Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows. 
And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. 
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. (Jonah 1:15-17 ESV)

So Jonah descends into the abyss. He has no reason to think at this point that he will survive this ordeal. Jonah’s experience in the belly of this great fish is like being buried alive. He is in darkness and without any hope. That is, any hope apart from the Lord. Jonah has no place else to go but back to God. Jonah is like many people who turn to the Lord when they have finally hit the bottom. Unfortunately, having our back against the wall is often what it takes to cause us to be humble enough to turn to God. Sometimes God has to break our will and take away all of our props that held us up, removing all of our false hopes that we can succeed in getting our way.

So finally, the prophet who had been zealously running from the presence of the Lord begins to pray. In the belly of the fish Jonah has to turn to the Lord for salvation.

The prophet of God needed the same thing the pagans in Nineveh needed – salvation. Before he was ready to offer salvation to the city of Nineveh, Jonah had to experience God’s salvation himself. Before we can be used by God to bring salvation to anyone else we have to experience it for ourselves. Those who preach the Gospel are themselves being saved by it. This is why angels are not sent to preach the Gospel to men. This would not have the same power because no angel has ever experienced salvation or the grace of God. Men are being used by God to teach angels about His grace. Angels long to look into the things concerning salvation! We are seeing new aspects of God’s nature on display through the salvation of sinners.

But sinners like Jonah may not know or admit that they need salvation. As long as we remain proud and self-sufficient we will never appreciate grace. Jonah had to learn about his need for grace in the belly of a fish. It is best for us to learn about grace without having to be brought down so low.

We should learn about our need for grace through the Law. Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3.20). We have to listen to what the Law and the Prophets teach us or the Gospel of Christ will not make sense. Being under the instruction of the Law is like Jonah being in the belly of the fish – we are being prepared to receive the salvation of God. If a person refused to believe the Law and the Prophets he will not believe the Gospel either.

Remember the conversation between father Abraham and the rich man who was in hell:

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him (Lazarus) to my father's house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 
But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 
And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 
He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” (Luke 16:27-31 ESV)

People should not think that if they reject what God has already revealed that God will give them some additional help or revelation. God does not have to give anyone a second chance. God was being especially gracious to Jonah in order to instruct us. Jonah deserved to die for his insolence. In fact, Jonah’s descent into the belly of the fish is meant to be a kind of death. Jonah’s plight is the same one faced by the entire human race!

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

We were all dead in sin. And there is only one hope for a dead man – the salvation of God! Only God can save from death. And so when Jonah finally prays in humble dependence on God that “salvation belongs to the Lord” – he is brought back to the land of the living. Jonah’s salvation is like a resurrection.

“…out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice…” (Jonah 2.2)

“…you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.” (Jonah 2.6)

In the same way, our salvation is dying, being buried, and being raised – all of which is depicted in the watery grave of baptism (Rom. 6.1-4). That old, selfish, sinful life has to die with Jesus so we can be raised to walk in the newness of life in Christ. Salvation is a death and a resurrection to a new kind of life.

“Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2.9)! That is the theological center of the book of Jonah and it is also at the very heart of the message of the entire Bible. God is a savior. And this salvation comes from God through pure grace.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

Now that Jonah has been saved he is ready to serve. He has been humbled. He finally sets out for the city of Nineveh. Obedience and service are always the signs that accompany someone who has experienced God’s gracious salvation.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)

Jonah was ready to walk to Nineveh and do that good work God had prepared for him to do. How about you? Are you willing to go where He wants you to go? What work is God calling us to do? Where is our Nineveh?

After the fish vomited Jonah onto dry land again, the call of God came to Jonah yet again, giving him a second chance to obey the Lord.

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. 
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. 
Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. 
And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 
And the people of Nineveh believed God. 
They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. (Jonah 3:1-5 ESV)

We are perhaps surprised that the city repents at the preaching of Jonah. Jonah may have been surprised too! Prophets were not usually received by the people. We should take note that these people did not know the God of Israel and had probably never heard any of God’s prophets before. Jonah only preached a negative message without any good news whatsoever. Jonah did not even promise the people of Nineveh that God would spare them if they repented. But the people did believe the message and they repented. It is a myth that people need a long period of time to respond to God’s Word.

Repentance is a major them in the book of Jonah. Jonah had to first repent and go to Nineveh. The city of Nineveh was given the opportunity to repent, which itself is a commentary on the mercy of God. God does not have to give Nineveh, or any of us, space to repent. There is no salvation without repentance, even though some Christian teachers say you can be saved even if you don’t repent. That is like saying you can turn to God without turning to God (C.S. Lewis). Nonsense! “Christianity is a religion of repentance” (Martin Luther). When we turn to God we must also turn away from all of the worthless idols, or false gods, that we have set up in our hearts as functional saviors. Paul said that the Christians in the city of Thessalonica“turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9 ESV). 

Repentance always accompanies true faith and conversion. If there is no repentance there is no faith. And if there is no faith there is no salvation. Only open hands can receive a gift.

Jonah did not preach the love of God to the city of Nineveh. He preached a message of wrath and judgment. Most people today see some kind of discrepancy between God’s wrath and God’s love, as if these attributes of God are somehow in opposition to one another. That would mean God is at war with Himself or that God has a good side and a bad side, like a man with a quick temper. But God is not a man. God’s wrath and mercy are both at work in the story of Jonah and God’s wrath and mercy are both revealed in the Gospel. The thing that makes the Gospel good news is the fact that God sent His Son to save us from the wrath that will one day break forth upon this world. So the Gospel contains both a warning and a promise, while Jonah’s message was only a warning. We have a much better message to preach than what Jonah was given to preach in the city of Nineveh!

Jonah must have been surprised that the city repented. The Jews had a habit of rejecting all the prophets God sent to them. Even when God sent His Son, His own people mostly rejected Him. The religious leaders asked Jesus for a sign in their unbelief, something even the pagan city of Nineveh did not do to Jonah!

But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 
The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:39-41 ESV)

The sign of Jonah was Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. Jonah was a sign to the city of Nineveh that God had visited them in mercy and given them space to repent and be saved from God’s wrath. Jesus was like Jonah to the city of Jerusalem, but they refused to repent and be saved and the judgment fell like a hammer when the Romans later destroyed the city of Jerusalem. That’s why Jesus wept over the city. But Jesus is also Jonah to the entire world. Now, Jesus did not preach to the entire world. But He sent His Church into the world to preach the Gospel to all the nations before the End comes. The Church is Jonah, sent to the wicked City of Man.

Jonah did not weep over Nineveh. He was angry that God showed them mercy. God’s prophet did not reflect the compassion of the God who sent him.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? 
That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 
Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 
And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:1-4 ESV)

How strange it is that Jonah begrudged the people of Nineveh receiving the very mercy from the Lord that he himself had previously experienced in the belly of the fish! There is something in human nature that desires mercy for ourselves, but justice for others. Did Jonah have a right to be angry that God was being merciful? Do we have the right to accept God’s grace for ourselves and not be gracious to others who need that grace as we did, and still do?

Jonah pouts because the city was not destroyed, as he had apparently wanted to see. Jonah wanted to see these pagans get what they deserved, forgetting that God had not given him what he deserved. But other people’s sins are always worse than our own sins! Jonah pouts like the elder brother in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. Elder brother types are those who ask “why should other people get grace when we have worked so hard doing our religious duties faithfully?” Legalists are offended by grace.

As if the incident with the fish were not enough, God tries to teach His prophet one more lesson about His grace and compassion. Jonah sat outside the city of Nineveh, pouting that God had not destroyed it and feeling sorry for himself.

Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. 
So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 
But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 
When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. 
And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 
But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 
And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 
And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”(Jonah 4:6-11 ESV)

Jonah had more care for a plant than for the people of Nineveh. This plant represents Nineveh. That great city had grown up under the care and the watchful eyes of the God who has created “from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…” (Acts 17:26-28 ESV)

Paul spoke those words to the pagans in the city of Athens. We can compare and contrast Jonah’s lack of compassion for the city of Nineveh with Paul’s concern for the idolatrous city of Athens (Acts 17.16). Are we more like Jonah or Paul? We have no right to call ourselves the people of God unless we care about the things God cares about.

Out of Step with the Gospel (Galatians 2.11-21)

There is only one Gospel! A different Gospel is not the Gospel at all. The Church is built on a single, solid foundation of apostolic doctrine. This single, unified revelation can be summarized in the Gospel, which trumps all other messages, opinions, or agendas. The Church has always been subject to the Gospel and to being corrected by that Divine revelation.

Even the behavior of an apostle is not above correction by the Gospel, which is what we find Paul recounting to the Galatians. The apostle Paul had to correct the apostle Peter because Peter was not in step with the Gospel! Paul does not recount this confrontation to exalt himself or embarrass Peter but to bolster his case to the Galatians. The Galatians needed to pay attention to what had been revealed to them in the Gospel, as delivered by the apostle Paul, because even someone like the apostle Peter was also subject to this same message and bound by its truth.

Peter and Cornelius

To better understand the issues involved we must go back to a couple of key events in the history of the early Church. The first event involved Peter and his call to preach to Cornelius and his household. Cornelius was a Gentile. The Jews had separated themselves from contact with Gentiles, lest this make the Jews ceremonially unclean in some way. The first Christians were devout Jews who saw no reason to suddenly forget all of their traditions that they had kept for centuries and which had been commanded by God.

But something was about to change and it would start with Peter and Cornelius. We may not realize that God’s call to preach to Cornelius was a revolutionary event that literally changed the course of human history! God prepared both Cornelius and Peter beforehand. Both men received visions.
Cornelius was commanded by an angel to send for Peter.

And Peter received a vision of a giant sheet let down from heaven which was filled with all kinds of animals. Peter was invited by a voice to kill and eat some meat. But Peter refused to touch any animal that was unclean according to the Law of Moses. Finally the voice said to Peter, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:15 ESV). It was immediately after this that Peter was visited by men from Cornelius.

And Peter had learned from the vision. He went with them to Cornelius’ house and he said to them,

“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28 ESV).

Clearly the vision of the sheet let down from heaven was about more than just food, it was also to be applied to people!

After Peter preached Christ to this Gentile household the Holy Spirit came on them. This was an important event for Peter and the other Jews with him to witness.

“And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles” (Acts 10.45).

It was like a Gentile Pentecost! God had accepted even the Gentiles!!

But there was some backlash for Peter. He was called on the carpet back in Jerusalem.

“So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them’” (Acts 11:2-3 ESV).

At this point Peter stood up to these men and stood by what he knew the Lord had revealed to him.

“If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way” (Acts 11:17 ESV)?

The Jerusalem Council

But this issue did not go away. Now Paul comes on the scene and has been preaching and establishing churches out in the Gentile world. One family of Gentiles is perhaps tolerable, but not a whole movement of Gentile churches! Before too long the Gentiles will outnumber the Jewish Christians! Then what will become of Christianity and the Church? So goes the paranoia of all bigotry and prejudice right up to our times! What should we do with the Gentiles who are coming into the Church?

“But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1 ESV).

We may not be able to keep the Gentiles out completely, but we can at least clean them up a little!

And so the first ecumenical council of the Church convened to debate this issue. Paul went first, giving a report of what the Lord was doing among the Gentiles through his ministry, which included the Galatians.

But the Circumcision Group had not gone away.

“But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the Law of Moses’” (Acts 15:5 ESV).

(Notice that the men who said these things were themselves Christians.)

Now Peter took his turn.

“Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:7-11 ESV).

Beautiful! Peter is right on target, in perfect agreement with Paul, and is standing up to these legalists!

Paul Confronts Peter

But after this something happened that caused Peter to lapse back into the old ways. Peter had been participating in full fellowship with the Gentile Christians. The Circumcision Group was still lurking in the background, still clinging to their position. And they somehow convinced Peter to withdraw from full fellowship with the Gentiles. I don’t want to be too hard on Peter here. I don’t think he changed his mind about the Gentiles. I don’t think Peter abandoned the Gospel himself, at least not intellectually.

But in his behavior toward the Gentile believers Peter was out of step with the Gospel. And Paul called him on it publicly! Some Biblical scholars have taken the position that this encounter was symptomatic of a deep division in the early Church between Peter and those who followed him and Paul and his disciples. But there is no evidence that Peter and Paul were ever divided either before or after this brief conflict. I think Peter immediately made the necessary correction and the unity of the Church was intact.

But this issue between Peter and Paul was not primarily a doctrinal issue. Peter was not in danger of becoming a heretic and denying the basic tenets of the Faith. The problem was with Peter’s orthopraxy (practice), not his orthodoxy (doctrine). Peter was not denying the Gospel with his lips, but his actions were in opposition to the Gospel. There is a kind of behavior that is out of step with the Gospel. Something made Peter change his walk, or his conduct, so that he was no longer walking in step with the Gospel.

If it happened to Peter could it not happen to any of us today? What caused Peter to get out of step with the Gospel?

Fear is out of step with the Gospel. 

Peter was afraid of the men from the Circumcision Party. He was intimidated by them for some reason, which is a form of fear. We don’t know why Peter was intimidated by these men. Perhaps Peter thought that offending them would undermine his ministry to the Jews. Peter was the primary apostle sent to the Jewish people, as Paul was to the Gentiles.

The Fear of Man

We don’t know why Peter was afraid, but we do know that we are warned in Scripture about the fear of man. And I think I know why we often become intimidated by other people.

•Sometimes we are just afraid of conflict. So to keep the peace, or some semblance of peace, we compromise what we know to be true. God’s people are peacemakers but not at the expense of the truth of the Gospel.

•We may also be overly concerned about our reputation, or what people think about us. This seems innocent, or sometimes even legitimate, but it can also mask a love for the praise of men (John 12.42-43). Many people deny God in order to be accepted by other people – a serious sin!

•We may be intimidated by men because we don’t know how to defend the truth and argue our position effectively. Sometimes we know something is wrong, but we don’t know why and we don’t know what to say. So we just go along with it.

•We may compromise the truth in order to maintain our position or status in the group. Some of the most evil deeds that have been done were done for the sake of being accepted by peers.

•We are intimidated by people we deem to be important and worthy of honor. But sometimes the people we choose to honor are not really worthy of honor. There are some people whose opinion of us should not carry very much weight.

•And sometimes we are afraid because we are thinking only of ourselves instead of the Kingdom of God. We tend to live in the moment instead of thinking of the bigger picture.

The Gospel is the Remedy for Fear

When we are tempted to fear man we should remember that God is infinitely greater than man and God is the one we should fear (Luke 12.4-5). Fear of man makes us weak, but the fear of God will make us strong. If God be for us, who can be against us (Rom. 8.31)? We learn that God is for us through the Gospel.

The Gospel is the source of our confidence and will drive out our fear. So if we are afraid it is because our faith in the Gospel is weak.

Our sun is a powerful source of light, being many times larger than the earth itself. But to block out the light from the sun all we have to do is shut our eyes and we won’t be able to see its glory. The same is true of the light of the Gospel and unbelief. If we close our eyes in unbelief we won’t be able to see the glory of the Gospel and we will walk in the darkness and in fear.

Unfortunately, it is possible even for believers to have times of weak faith. Having weak faith is not the same as having no faith at all. But we are capable of highs and lows in our Christian walk. Peter himself is an excellent illustration of this. Peter walked on water, but then began to sink. Peter would follow Jesus to the death, but denied he even knew Christ when pressed by a little servant girl. Peter preached on Pentecost, and opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, but then withdrew from fellowship with the Gentiles when pressed by the Circumcision Group. We are also capable of these extremes, if our faith is weak.

Faith is dynamic, not static. So we need to continue to grow in grace and in our knowledge of the Gospel (2 Peter 3.18). And when we make mistakes we repent. That’s what Peter did. The ministry of the Body of Christ is to help us be strong in faith and to recognize where and when we have failed to live by faith.

Favoritism is out of step with the Gospel. 

Peter was practicing favoritism by withdrawing from fellowship with the Gentiles in favor of his Jewish brethren. There was no other legitimate reason for Peter not to fellowship with the Gentiles other than the fact that they were Gentiles! These were Brethren and Peter refused to fellowship with them based purely on their race and nationality.

To show favoritism is to judge a person based purely on external criteria. The Greek word is to literally “regard the face.”

You can’t judge a book by its cover and you can’t judge the value of a person based on their appearance, race, age, gender, nationality, dress, or wealth.

God Does Not Show Favoritism

Peter had previously learned not to show favoritism when he was called to preach to Cornelius and his household.

“Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35 ESV).

God does not show favoritism. God looks at the heart, not at the outward appearance of a person (1 Sam. 16.7). (This seems to contradict the fact that God clearly chose and favored Israel over other nations. But there were some of the people of Israel who were rejected because of unbelief. Not all who are descended physically from Israel actually belong to the People of God.)

Since God does not show favoritism, God’s people should not show favoritism either.

“My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts” (James 2:1-4 ESV)?

God accepts people on the basis of faith (Heb. 11.6) and no other criteria. God may even accept people that you don’t particularly like!

Who are you to reject people God has accepted? You will find yourself fighting against God if you do (Acts 11.17).

Learning to Accept People

We tend to judge people externally based on criteria that are either personal preferences or cultural baggage rather than Biblical absolutes – truth that transcends opinions and culture. We have no right to withdraw from fellowship with Brethren based on favoritism. But old ways of thinking can die hard. There are things we will have to unlearn when we learn the Gospel.

We do have to be able to make a distinction between brethren and false brethren. We should not fellowship with a person who claims to be a Christian yet is immoral or embraces and teaches false doctrine. But a person might be a brother yet be in error and need correction. We should not be looking for any and every reason to reject people. God does not do that or He would have already rejected us all!

Accepting brethren may mean that we have to accept people that we disagree with on disputable matters (Rom. 14). Otherwise we are in danger of drawing our circle of fellowship smaller and smaller, which is what the cults do. Don’t either accept or reject whole groups of people as if everyone is the same because of the group they belong to. That is sectarianism and it is another form of favoritism. If you don’t like it when people judge and reject you before they even know you, then don’t do that to others! Practice the Golden Rule! Divisions begin with an attitude problem that can be traced back to pride. I feel free to reject the people that I feel are inferior to me.

But God has the final word on who is in and who is out of His Kingdom. The tax collectors and prostitutes got in while the Pharisees stood outside the door. And who would have thought that any of the Gentiles could ever be included in the family of God (Eph. 2.11-13)? You and I got in by grace through faith.

And we should extend the same grace to those who also want to enter in and not make it harder for them by showing favoritism.

Hypocrisy is out of step with the Gospel. 

Paul said that Peter’s behavior was hypocritical, even influencing Barnabas, who had previously been known for accepting people. Hypocrisy spreads like a disease in the Church. When influential people are hypocritical it creates a culture of pretense and bad behavior is rewarded instead of shamed. A Church infected by hypocrisy becomes something akin to a religious theater where people come to watch a slick production put on by professional actors.

Who is a Hypocrite?

We often hear this word “hypocrite” used pejoratively by people criticizing Christians and the Church, but do we really know what the term means? I have heard people say that we are all hypocrites. We all may have behaved hypocritically at some point, but this is a serious sin that cannot be a part of our lives at all.

•Hypocrisy is to be insincere, acting differently from how you really feel or believe. In this case, Peter knew that there was nothing wrong with eating with the Gentiles, yet he withdrew. Imagine someone being your friend in one context and then refusing to even be next to you in another context!

•When you know something is wrong and you do it anyway, that is hypocrisy.

•In public you may take a certain position on an issue. But in private you may do something entirely different. That is hypocrisy.

•Hypocrites live by convenience. They will do what they feel to be personally advantageous to them at the time. Religion can be turned off or on when it is convenient to do so.

•Hypocrites seem especially good at avoiding suffering for what they believe.

Jesus condemned hypocrisy in the strongest of terms (Matt. 5.20; 6.1-2, 5; 23.1-3, 5-6). God hates religious sin most of all. Jesus was angry with the Pharisees but not with the woman at the well or the woman caught in adultery. But He made a whip of cords to drive out the money-changers in the Temple!

Why do People Become Hypocrites?

The main source of hypocrisy seems to be trying to please other people. We selfishly want to look good and have others praise us, even if we have to compromise and lie to get approval. In extreme cases this is a form of idolatry.

Our beliefs and our actions have to match. If these do not match then we may not really believe what we say we believe. We may have embraced another Gospel. Or, we may be compromising what we believe because of some outside influence.  There may be a need to confess sin and come into the Light (1 John 1.5-10). God’s people are to be truth-tellers and not liars (Eph. 4.25; Col 3.9).

Hypocrisy is the most common reason people give for avoiding the professed Church. Christians publicly condemn sin, yet the Church is filled with sin even among the leadership. Many Churches seem to have ulterior motives, like money, and are not genuinely interested in the welfare of people.

We are the only Jesus people in the world can see. People have a right to inspect the lives of professed believers to see if our lifestyle matches the claims we make. People would not be as quick to dismiss the truth of the Gospel if our lives adorned the doctrine (Titus 2.10).

Legalism is out of step with the Gospel.

The heart of the problem with Peter’s behavior was that it was based on a legalistic approach to God being propagated by the Circumcision Group. Even though the Law of Moses was given by revelation of God and was to be obeyed, no one was made righteous by keeping the Law. The Law was given to teach us about sin and our need for an imputed righteousness that comes through faith. This is a major thrust of Paul’s letter to the Galatians (See chapter 3-4).

How to Identify Legalism

I don’t think legalism is as easy to identify as some people think it is. It can be a subtle error. Legalism may be based on the Bible, legalists often use the Bible more than others, yet their conclusions are wrong because their starting-point is wrong. Legalists have the wrong hermeneutic (method of interpretation). God had commanded circumcision and many other things. If we are legalists we could also conclude that the food laws and all of the feasts also must be kept. The legalists in the early Church thought this meant that God received people on the basis of doing these things. But the Gospel said that God accepts people on the basis of faith and nothing else.

Here are some of the characteristics of legalism and legalists:

•Legalism is an approach to God that believes we can be righteous based on what we do. All religion tends toward legalism and attempting to establish our own righteousness before God.

•So legalists actually add to the Gospel, putting additional burdens on people (Matt. 23.4; Acts 11.10). The Gospel sets us free, but legalism enslaves. Everyone who wants to be justified by law is in bondage and under a curse (Gal. 3.10).

•Legalists are never content to keep their views to themselves but always want to bind their additional requirements on others, while condemning anyone who does not meet their standards.

•Legalism always leads to arrogance. But anyone who knows the Gospel cannot be proud because we know that we are not justified by our works. The Gospel calls us to trust in the work of God, not in our works. A Christian does good works but does not trust in those works.

Legalism is not Faith

We are justified like Abraham was justified, by faith in the promise of God (Gen. 15.6). God preached the Gospel to Abraham (Gal 3.9; Gen. 12.1-3). This was many years before the Law. The Promise came first! This means the Promise is superior to the Law.

The Circumcision Group had neglected to consider the fact that Abraham was already justified by faith before he was circumcised. Circumcision was the sign and seal of God’s covenant but could not have been the basis for his justification (See Romans 4.9-12). Powerful reasoning on the Scriptures by Paul!

If we have Abraham’s faith then we are his children and are blessed like Abraham. The Gospel is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, which included a blessing for both Jews and Gentiles who have faith in Jesus, the Seed of Abraham.

We all get in the same way, through the same message, by the same faith. There are no second-class people in the Body of Christ. Everyone who has faith in Jesus is accepted and there are no additional requirements. This means we must also then accept one another without conditions or reservations. If the Gospel is compromised then the very fabric of Christian fellowship also begins to unravel.

Conclusion 

Peter’s behavior proves that simply embracing the right doctrine intellectually does not mean that our behavior will automatically be right and good. Our behavior may be out of step with the truth of the Gospel.

If we do find our conduct at variance with the Gospel that does not mean that the Gospel is a flawed message or that it encourages and justifies our sin. Being justified by faith does not mean we are free to continue in sin. Instead we are to walk in the Spirit (Gal 5.18). But Christians still struggle with the Flesh and that may mean that true believers will sometimes stumble.

The Gospel will teach us how to walk. The Gospel will teach us to die to selfish desires through the Cross and walk by faith in the Son of God. The Gospel will teach us how to walk in love, accepting those who have also been accepted by God through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Necessity of Christian Character (2 Peter 1.5-11)

Let’s suppose that after years of saving and hard work you are finally able to build your dream house. The project is completed and the house is ready. Everything has been done perfectly and the house is both beautiful and strong. Now you can move in and call it home for the rest of your life. It is at this point that you suddenly realize that you have made a serious error. In your budget you did not allow resources to furnish the house. You spent all your money on the building of the house and now you have nothing left to furnish it! There is no money for couches, chairs, tables, desks or bookcases. You have no bed to sleep in, no dressers for your clothes, and no television! The house is structurally sound. The walls are straight. The roof will keep out the rain. But because the house is not furnished you cannot use it. Even if a house is well-built and ascetically pleasing, it cannot be used unless it is furnished.

The same principle applies to our Christian faith. There are certain things that we must have to furnish our faith so that we can actually live by faith, putting it into practice. This is exactly what the Apostle Peter is teaching believers to do in our text. Peter is exhorting believers to add character to their faith, which will furnish their faith and make it practical. Faith must be applied to life and character is where the rubber meets the road in spiritual life. Faith itself is useless unless accompanied by character.

A Reasonable Exhortation

There are several incentives held out by the Apostle that will motivate a true believer. There are also some warnings against backsliding, or failing to grow in character. Peter says we should be diligent or earnest to add character to our faith. We must be involved in this process or it will not happen. There is a Christian proverb that tells us to “let go and let God.” But proverbs must be properly applied to the right situation. This proverb to let go and let God is certainly applicable to certain situations that are out of our control. But adding character to our faith is not one of those situations. This is something we must do, with God’s help, or it simply will not get done.

If God gives us something to do then He will also supply the ability to do it. The believer has already been given every resource needed in the spiritual life. The resources that we need come through the promises of God. I believe Peter is referring to the promises in the Gospel, though there is a sense in which all of the promises of Scripture may apply in some way to believers in Christ. Believers share in the Divine nature and therefore escape the corruption of the world. The world is going one way and believers are going in another direction. Everything Peter tells us to do in this text is contingent upon sharing in the Divine nature. It is pointless to tell unregenerate people to build godly character, though many preachers today are trying to make that happen!

Peter will go on in the heart of his epistle to argue that we must take advantage of every resource to grow in our faith because of the presence of false teachers that will infiltrate the Church and lead unstable people astray, even to their destruction.

The goal of the Christian life is to have an abundant entrance into the eternal Kingdom. Everything we do is for this single purpose. We must see our growth in character as a preparation to be forever with the Lord. If we do not see it this way it will be easy for us to lapse into legalism or to simply become moralists. But the Christian life should never be reduced to law-keeping or just being good. There is a much higher calling. We want to be ready to dwell in the courts of the Lord forever. The time we have on earth is to prepare for our heavenly home, which is ultimately going to be the New World, or the New Creation, that God will unveil when Jesus comes again.

A Relevant Exhortation

Some doctrine would make believers question the necessity of adding anything to faith. Is faith not sufficient by itself? Are we not saved by faith alone, apart from works? I would affirm that we are saved by faith alone, but true faith is never alone. It is always accompanied by works and by growth in character. Others might ask if we can really add character ourselves, through our own effort, or is this only the work of grace and the Spirit in us? This could be construed as legalism. The answer to this objection is that God has given us all the resources we need to grow, but we must be involved in the process and show diligence to the end.

Another question might be: how are we to add character? What should we do? If this were a modern preacher he would give us several ways to add to our faith. Some Christian traditions provide very structured ways for people to grow. But Peter does not do this and there is a very good reason for this omission here. We cannot grow spiritually by a routine, discipline, or even a law. We must understand the nature of spiritual life in Christ.

Peter’s instruction is a relevant word for our generation because we have so many who claim to have faith. And it is rather easy to say that you believe. But Christian character is what is often lacking from the lives of professed believers. If we are honest we all must confess a need to grow in some area of our character, even if our faith is strong. Peter’s instruction is needed today in the Church because it is often assumed that if people just believe and make some initial decision to follow Christ that this is sufficient and insures their ultimate entrance into the eternal Kingdom. But there is no certainty that an initial conversion or decision will ultimately result in a person entering the eternal Kingdom. Something must happen in between the point of conversion and the day when we leave the body and this world in death. It is also assumed that spiritual growth will just happen automatically if people are true believers and that the individual is passive and uninvolved in the process.

If the process of growth were automatic then there would be no need for this exhortation or for diligence on our part. We would simply let go and let God and coast into heaven. If building character did not really matter then God would simply take us up to heaven the very moment we believe. But God leaves us in the world for a time because there is some work that must be done. Christian character is not optional and it is not automatic.

Why Do We Need To Develop Character?

Most Church members today probably don’t feel that the exhortation in this passage is absolutely necessary. Many have been taught that once you believe there is really nothing else for you to do, except wait for heaven. We should dismiss any notion that developing Christian character is only necessary for those really spiritual Christians who might want to be clergy or go to the mission field while the regular Church members are exempt! Peter is talking to rank-and-file Christians in his epistle. It is absolutely vital that the Christian grows in character – adding virtue to his or her faith. And there is one person for whom you should be very concerned: yourself! It is not your job to make sure that everyone else is adding character to their faith, even though we are usually very good at noticing what others need to work on while ignoring our own faults.

When the Scripture tells us to do something that ought to be enough for us to obey. Peter is not giving us a suggestion here but an imperative. However, Peter is also reasoning with us because we are new creatures in Christ and we have the ability to understand the underlying reasons for this exhortation. We will likely be more motivated to do what Peter says if we understand why he said it.

To Put Our Faith into Practice

I think another way of looking at Peter’s exhortation is that we are to apply our faith to our lives so that our faith is the driving force behind who we are. There should be no area of our lives that does not connect to our faith. Christians should not live compartmentalized lives – putting faith on for Church services or during a crisis only to take it off again when it is not perceived to be needed or applicable. But I fear this is all too common in the Christian community. Religious people do not live by faith. Religion is something that can be turned on or off at our convenience. Our faith must become practical or useful. By this I mean our faith ought to have a powerful and pervasive impact on our lives. Surely this is what James meant when he said that “faith without works is dead.” If faith is not practiced there will be no clear demonstration of its authenticity. How do you know your faith is real if it has nothing to do with you personally and how you think, feel, and act? Faith should form your character and provide an overall focus and direction for your life. We build our lives around the promises of God.

I do not mean to say that faith in God allows us to get what we want out of life, as if God is just a tool for us to use. Unfortunately, this view of faith is nothing more than a way for us to be successful in this world. But God defines success very differently and faith means living to please God while participating in HIS agenda.

Faith is a dynamic force that moves people who believe the promises of God to do what they would not otherwise do by nature. Abraham was willing by faith to sacrifice his son Isaac, reasoning that God could raise Him from the dead. David was willing to fight a giant, reasoning that the battle belonged to the Lord in the first place and that God would give him victory. A person who says “I have faith” but does nothing is probably a liar and is self-deceived. Living by faith means trusting God, but not in a passive way. There are times when we cannot help ourselves and we need to sit quietly and wait on the Lord. But we must exercise our faith just like we would exercise our muscles. You don’t get in shape and lose weight passively sitting in front of the TV at home. You must get in the gym and do something! The same is true with faith. Faith must be put to use or it will atrophy. So put your faith to work and do something with it! That is what Peter is exhorting us to do.

To Replace the Works of the Flesh

Salvation is not simply getting out of something bad, it is getting into something good. We get out of Egypt like the Israelites, but we must also get into the Promises Land. The fruit or works of the flesh must be replaced by the fruit of godly character. We can forget that the purpose of salvation is for us to bear fruit unto God, not simply to be forgiven of sin and then to keep wallowing in it. We often focus on eliminating the negative things, not adding positive things. But the power to eliminate the negative is found in adding the positive character qualities.

You will notice that Peter’s exhortation is entirely positive. He is not telling us what we should avoid or eliminate from our lives but what we need to add and keep on adding. If we do add these character qualities, like self-control, then most of the negative qualities of the flesh will disappear from our lives. We have trouble with the Flesh precisely because we have not added the positive virtues. If you want to avoid getting sick, the best medicine is to be healthy.

Unfortunately Christianity is almost always viewed negatively instead of positively. People think being a Christian just means giving up everything that you might enjoy in life. The Church has managed to teach people that Christianity is morality, which means avoiding certain things. Of course, we can avoid worldly things while never getting around to actually adding any character to our faith! Being moral is not necessarily being Christian. And even morality must be about what we do, in a positive sense, and not just about what we avoid.

Don’t misunderstand me. There are things we must avoid. We must crucify the Flesh and keep it up there on the cross. But surely the reason for this crucifixion of the Flesh is so that the Holy Spirit can start producing a new kind of fruit in our lives. The cessation of carnal living should be a prelude to godly living and not just the creation of a giant vacuum in our lives. I have noticed that the Christians who only speak of what to avoid are usually not very joyful people. Let’s begin to talk more about what we are for and not just what we are against. Replace the works of Darkness with the Light and then let your light shine!

To Reflect the Character of God

We are not simply about morality for its own sake. The goal is godliness which means being like God. We have been born again and God is our heavenly Father. He has given us birth and has implanted His Divine life within us. If you are a believer in Christ you are carrying the Divine DNA around with you! And the children of God should be like their Father. So Peter is not telling believers to do something that is fundamentally against their nature. Yes, it is against the nature of the Old Man that came from our father Adam. But Peter is appealing to that part of us that has been born from above. So not only is Peter’s exhortation possible, it is something we are eager to do because we long to reflect the character of our Father.

From one perspective you were saved for no other purpose than this: that you can be a partaker of the Divine nature and be like God. God’s purpose is to conform those in Christ into the image of His Son, who is the express image of the Father. We have been given the indwelling Holy Spirit so that this amazing transformation can commence even while we are still in these clay vessels that we call our bodies. No believer should say that what Peter is telling us to do is impossible because you have been given life through the Spirit so that you are no longer a debtor to the Flesh that you have to obey its sinful desires. Now we have been joined to Christ so that we can bear fruit to God. This spiritual fruit is actually the character of God reproduced in us!

Divine Resources for Character Development

I anticipate that the response of many people would be that developing the character of God is an impossibly high goal. We must remember that man was originally made in the image of God and so we already have been made to reflect something of God’s glory, though we fall short because of sin. Salvation through Christ, who is Himself the perfect image of God, is the way that God has made to redeem that which originally bore His image. Though we fall short in Adam we are being remade in Christ in the image of our Savior, who is the image of the invisible God. So we should be able to see that salvation is much more than just morality or even law-keeping. If God wants us to be like Him then we can be assured that He will give us the means to accomplish His will. It is possible to grow in character because we already have every resource we need. Salvation is a complete package that leaves us lacking nothing, though the believer will not automatically realize everything about salvation the moment he or she believes.

There is a process of growth that begins when we believe and will eventually, unless something short-circuits the process, end up in eternal glory where will be like Christ completely. At this stage in the process, when we are still in the world and in the body, we are a work in progress. God is working in us but we must also work out our salvation. There is a sense in which we are not saved yet. Salvation has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We have been saved – that is justification. We are being saved – that is sanctification. And we will be saved – that is glorification.

Peter’s exhortation is really about our sanctification. He is writing to people who have already believed and been justified. Nothing Peter says here contradicts the doctrine of justification by faith. But now that we have been justified we must also be sanctified. Faith is just the beginning, not the end of our salvation.

The Beginning of the New Life

Everything must begin with faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11.6). Faith is not just a step in our salvation, like a one-time exercise that must be performed before we can advance to the next step. The righteous live by faith. Faith is to the spiritual life what breathing is to the health of the body. No faith means no life. Faith is like a spiritual life-line that connects us to Heaven. If we don’t have faith then Peter’s exhortation is not meant for us because we cannot add to what we don’t already possess. The trouble is that there are many professors who are not possessors. That is, there are many who say they have faith but do not manifest the evidence of faith in their lives. We are talking about faith, not religion or Church membership. It is necessary for us to examine ourselves to see if we are really believing. Our faith must be in the promises of God, which is how we then participate in the Divine Nature. Faith is the key to everything in the Christian life. Faith is not purely intellectual but is something we do in our hearts. In other words, faith involves the whole person and not just the mind. Here I am mostly interested in what faith does in us and not in defining faith, though every believer should have an understanding of what faith is (See Heb. 11.1).

In C.S. Lewis’ story The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the children open the door of an old wardrobe and are transported into the world of Narnia. Lewis was not just a master storyteller, he was also a master of metaphor. The wardrobe is about what faith does for us. When a person turns to God in faith it is like a door has been opened and that person has entered into a whole new world. When we go through the wardrobe door, life will never be the same again because we will never be the same. And yet going through that Door is just the beginning of our adventure. Faith is a journey. Along this journey there are many things that we must learn, even through conflict, temptation, and pain. God wants to use us, but we must be made ready. Faith makes us ready for God to work in us.

But faith is only the beginning and not the sum total of our character transformation. No one who comes to God in faith is instantly made perfect in his or her character. God accepts us through faith, not because we have a flawless character.

Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works. We do not develop character so that God will accept us. We develop character because we are God’s children. We are already accepted and THEN we start to work on our character. We do this with God’s help, which is the work that grace does in our lives. God’s grace is God’s help. God wants to make us into new creatures who are pulsating with Divine life, love, joy, power, and beauty. Its going to take a lot of grace to make that happen. And when we finally stand before our Maker and receive praise from Him, it will only be by His grace that this glory will be ours. That journey to glory begins with faith.

The Knowledge of God

Every race has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Getting a good start is important to a runner, but does not necessarily mean he or she will finish well. Faith is our starting point, but we must then run the race that has been marked out for us. Glory is the finish line. But in between we must run the race. Christians tend to celebrate the beginning of the Race. We are overjoyed when people are converted. When our beloved brothers and sisters leave the world in death we will miss them, but we are also glad when a person dies in the Faith and enters into glory. But that time in between is more difficult and for some reason the modern Church does not talk very much about what happens in between conversion and death. But it is that in between stage that Peter is addressing. This is the time to develop character. We have everything we need to do this. We are not on our own. We have God’s grace to help us.

So how does this work? The ability to add character to our faith is found in our knowledge of God. Everything we need is found in God Himself and is realized through our intimate association with the entire Godhead. When we encounter God we are changed. I am not talking merely about intellectual knowledge. A person may know about God and yet not really know God. God is a living presence and not just a fact in a book. We come to know God through reading the Scriptures, but this is not like studying some historical figure who is passed away. We do not study God as if He were some object to be dissected. We come to know God like we come to know a person because God is a person. I do not mean that God is a man. I mean that God is personal and not just a Force or a Mind.

When we come to know God we find that we are actually entering into a Divine fellowship that consists of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We are being welcomed into this Divine relationship that has always existed and will always exist. The knowledge of God is more like being part of a family than it is like going to school to learn algebra. Knowing God is eternal life (John 17.3). This eternal life is found in fellowship with God. Just being with God is a life-giving experience. We remember how Moses’ face radiated with the glory of God after Moses came down from Sinai. And that was a brief exposure that soon faded away. Through Christ was can gaze continually at the glory of God and we are transformed by it, even though now we see through a glass darkly. But the transformation of our character begins now as we gaze at the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ.

The knowledge of God comes through the light of the Gospel of Christ and from no other source. If our vision of God is growing dim it is because we have lost sight of the Gospel of Christ and we need to look more earnestly at the face of Jesus.

This kind of knowledge has nothing to do with a ritual or procedure. The living God cannot be packaged in a program or a discipline. That is too small of a box for the glory of God! The folks who are looking for such things do so because they do not know the living God and they are not gazing at the face of Jesus. When we have seen His glory we will have done with lesser things. When we have God we find that we need nothing else. And through Christ we have been given access to God. So let’s approach His Throne of Grace with confidence and we will find all the grace we need to be everything God wants us to be!

A Changed Affection

Peter says that we must be earnest or diligent. There must be some effort and some desire on our part or this work will not get done. It’s true that we can’t do it ourselves by our efforts alone. We need God’s grace. But God’s grace does not drag us along kicking and screaming! Some people seem to think that God will overpower them in order to bring them to a point of repentance and change. But those who have to be overpowered are seldom the recipients of a blessing from God. God may discipline His children to produce repentance and make them ready to be blessed. But the blessing does not come to us when we are resisting God. God is working to change our character, so we should be prepared to submit to this process instead of stubbornly resisting His will.

God only works with those who have a desire for Him. We cannot be passive and expect a blessing. We must be like Jacob when he wrestled with that angel all through the night and refused to let him go until he got the blessing. God can work with a man like Jacob who wants the blessing more than anything else in the world and is willing to do just about anything to get it! You may not be everything that you need to be, but you can WANT the blessing of God and that counts for something with God. In our present state while we are in these weak, mortal bodies our desire to serve God will usually fall short of our ability to actually carry it out. But God will bless our desires to grow. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled.

Promises for the Faithful and Warnings for the Backsliders

What the Christian must beware of is beginning to think that this process of growth in character is something that just happens automatically and that once we have believed there is nothing else that we must do. This kind of thinking can lead to slothfulness in the Christian life. A routine and a discipline cannot by itself insure that we will be growing, but that does not mean that we can be sloppy and undisciplined and expect to grow. We must avoid these extremes. One person will say that there is nothing we can do but believe, while another person advocates some kind of disciplined routine. Christian people tend to go to extremes and there are trends in the Christian community where the pendulum will often swing in one direction or the other.

But Peter is teaching us a kind of balance. We must have faith, everything begins there, but we must then add to our faith and we must apply ourselves diligently. So we must avoid the extremes of being overly mystical or becoming legalistic and trusting in our works. It is not wrong to work as a Christian but it is wrong to trust in our works as the basis for our justification.

It is not our part to begin to tell people exactly how to discipline themselves and how to order their lives. Peter does not do that here and we will get off track if we emphasize how people ought to live their lives. However, there are certain things that simply must be done. You must work this out for yourself. And you must be serious about this and put some effort into this activity or it will not happen. So Peter is motivating us here to do this work of adding to our faith, but he is not giving us specific directions. The important thing is that we are motivated in a certain direction and then the Apostle is confident that people who have faith and who are guided by the Holy Spirit will be equipped to do the Lord’s will. To motivate us Peter supports his exhortation to add to our faith by showing that there are great benefits in the Christian life that come with character and great dangers when we continue to lack these character qualities. So there are promises along with warnings to conclude this passage and we may need both the promises and the warnings to motivate us, depending on where we are in this process of growth. A person who is doing well might simply need to remember the promises to be motivated to do even more. A person who is falling back will need to be warned so that they will turn things around.

Weakness and Inconsistency

There are certain things that can plague the lives of believers and contradict the very purpose for salvation through Christ. These things must be addressed because Christ did not deliver us so that we would go back to that old life. Christians who go backwards instead of forwards do not glorify God and in the process they will also probably make themselves miserable as well! If this backsliding is not corrected it will eventually lead a person away from Christ entirely.

We can be delivered from a life of weakness and inconsistency. It is possible for us to be stable and strong, with possible moments of weakness or discouragement being the exception not the norm. I fear that moments of strength and consistency are the exception and not the rule for many Church members today. We should not think that being a Christian is always a mountaintop experience. But always living in the valley of despair or always falling into temptation and sin should not be the normal state of the believer. It might surprise some people to know that Christians do not have to be weak and always stumbling and falling. Some people may not know what to do to be strong. Some people are living in a wilderness, spiritually speaking, and they don’t know where to find a well of water to refresh themselves. Some people are trying to drink out of dirty cisterns. There are all kinds of religious things our there that promise strength and yet fail to deliver. But Christians should not be constantly blaming other people for their lack of character. We may have had some serious setbacks in the past.

But the important thing is what we are doing now. We are responsible for our own spiritual lives. But if we don’t do these things and add to our faith we will be unstable and will eventually fall, possibly beyond recovery.

The Full Assurance of Faith

We can have full assurance of our calling and election. We must be able to know that we belong to the Lord, that we please Him, and that we are destined for eternal glory. It is possible to know that you have been called and elected by God. Adding these character qualities is the evidence. If you are not sure about your election you must look for the evidence. Is there any proof that you have believed? What difference has faith and salvation made in your life? Are you a different person now or are you still doing the same old things, thinking about life the same old way? If you have been saved then you must know it by the different kind of life you now have. If nothing has changed then what salvation has actually occurred? Perhaps you have not grown or you have fallen backwards into the old life.

If we know our calling and election then there can be nothing that will shake us. If we don’t know these things then almost any trial or pain could be our undoing. There are many people who seem to be doing good in the Christian life up until that moment when some trial comes their way. Then all of the sudden they are filled with doubts about their faith and even about the goodness of God. It is not uncommon to hear people say they are angry with God because they have encountered some hardship in life. That hardship has shaken their faith. I would argue that they were not adding to their faith these other character qualities and so when the storm came they were not prepared for it.

When we are not growing the first thing to leave us will be our assurance. All kinds of doubts will begin to flood our minds. This is directly from our Enemy who is constantly shooting his flaming darts at us. If we are not adding to our faith and being diligent about the Christian life the Devil will attack us and find us vulnerable. And the Devil loves to attack the Saints with doubt and discouragement. The Saints must remember who they are in Christ in order to have confidence. This is the confidence that enables us to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus!

Preparing for Eternity

The whole point of this exhortation is so that we might be prepared for the very presence of God. Someday either we will leave the world or the world itself will leave and we will stand before God. Every person is on a collision course with God and life is really about nothing else other than preparing our souls for that critical moment when we must give an account to our Creator. The Day of Judgement will be the time when the Master will inspect His servants and all their works. There are some who will not stand on that day but will be unacceptable to the Master and will be excluded from His Kingdom.

We are to add to our faith so that this terrible fate will not be ours. We want to add to our faith these character qualities so that we will hear “Well done good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Master!” When we hear those words that will be glory – having the eternal praise and pleasure of our Lord.

If we add to our faith, then we can expect to spend eternity in the presence of God. When our time on earth is done, Christ will bring us into His eternal Kingdom where we will fit perfectly, having been prepared on earth for this glory. We can have an abundant entrance there. That is, we can go on our way to heaven with our sails filled by the Winds of God, a smile on our faces, and a song in our hearts. Sometimes we might feel as if we are hanging on by our fingernails and just barely making it in the good fight of faith. Perhaps we always feel this way because we are not adding to our faith the character qualities that are necessary for us to be more than conquerors. After the dust from the Battle has cleared we shall see His face and reign forever with Christ on His throne. We must have that eternal perspective or we will find ourselves discouraged. If we are not preparing for eternity then the tyranny of the temporal will prove too much for us. The modern world is filled with distractions that try to steal our affection away from heavenly things. It has never been more important for Christians to set their affections on things above. This is not so we can escape what is unpleasant in the world, but so that we can expect to have an abundant entrance into the World to Come!

It should be the desire of every believer to keep growing and increasing. If we are not moving forward then we are in danger. This also implies some humility in realizing that we have not yet arrived. This process of growth does not stop as long as we are in the body. Even if you have made great strides in some area there is probably some other area that needs work. The Spirit has His ways of showing us where we still need some work. We should be sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit and to the Word of God to identify those areas of our lives that still need growth. So keep adding character to your faith until the day your faith becomes sight!

Be Reconciled to God! A Communion Meditation

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).

This verse appears in the context of having to stand before the judgement seat of Christ and give an account. We know that our bodies are mortal and that we will eventually have to fold up these tents and move into our eternal dwellings. But this does not mean that it doesn’t matter what we do while we are in the body. We will give an account for what we did while in these earthly vessels. There have been those who teach that the body does not matter, everything is purely spiritual, and so we can do whatever we want with our bodies. But the body belongs to the Lord. He has purchased us, including our earthly bodies, at a great price. So our bodies belong to God and are not to be used for selfish and sinful desires. The body is for the Lord, not for pleasure. Those who live in the body only for pleasure will have to give an account to the Creator for squandering His gifts. So as we remember the death of Christ we must think about the fact that our lives are not our own, to do as we please, but we have been purchased by the body and blood of Jesus. And eventually we must all stand before the Lord who purchased us. We want that day to be one of glory and salvation instead of condemnation and sorrow.

The reality of the coming judgment should be sobering and could be fearful. When our physical bodies and the rest of this physical cosmos have all melted away, we will stand before the Lord naked and completely exposed as we really are. There will be no place to hide from the Lord on the Day of Judgment. Many people spend their whole lives attempting to hide from God, just as the parents of the human race did after they sinned and realized that they were naked. Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, a woefully inadequate covering. And so men and women still try to cover themselves, hiding their shame and nakedness. We cover ourselves with material things, entertainment, careers, education, and all of the pleasures and distractions an affluent society has to offer. Not all of these things are inherently wicked. But people use these things to hide from God. Even morality and religion can be a man-made covering designed to make us feel that when we stand before God we will not be completely naked and ashamed. At least we have been nice, decent folks! But all of our righteousness is like filthy rags in God’s presence. The only covering that God will find acceptable is the righteousness that He Himself will provide. And this righteousness cannot be earned, it must be imputed through faith in God’s only Son. Jesus died so that we could be clothed with the very righteousness of God and stand in His presence without any shame.

Being able to stand in the presence of God without shame or fear, having been completely accepted by Him, is to be reconciled. Because we have been reconciled through the death of Christ, we do not have to fear being condemned at the Judgment. This reconciliation was accomplished by Christ on the cross. Instead of just writing off the human race and destroying us as our sins deserved, God sent His own Son to take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. It was sin that separated us from God and even created enmity. We were all enemies of God, alienated by sin. We are hostile to God by nature, not wanting to submit to God. And we know that it never goes well for those personalities who choose to rebel against the living God! Satan and all of his demonic hosts were cast out of heaven and await the Day of Judgement and the Lake of Fire without any hope of being reconciled. But in His infinite wisdom God has devised means by which those sons of Adam and daughters of Eve who are estranged from Him might be reconciled! Even the angels who are still in heaven have never seen anything like the reconciliation that God has made through Jesus and they desire to look into these things that we remember at the Lord’s Table!

Having been reconciled through the death of Christ we now live for Him. Being reconciled to God means we are at peace with Him instead of being hostile to His will. Before we were reconciled we wanted to go our own way and live for ourselves, not for God. And for those who have not received this reconciliation that God offers in Christ, they still live in opposition to God’s will and are therefore alienated from Him in their minds because of their sinful deeds. These sinful deeds do not have to amount to murder or the base desires of the Flesh. Many of those who are alienated from God might seem moral and may even be religious! But they are not living to please the Lord. The Lord and His will are not the primary thoughts in their minds. They are living for themselves and perhaps they add the Christian religion to their lives just to insure their personal happiness and development. But those who have been truly reconciled no longer think of themselves in this way. We have not been reconciled to God so that we can then just go on our way to live as we please, still separated from God. We have been reconciled to God so that we can have fellowship with Him and can participate in His purpose and work. And so the Lord’s Table reminds us that we are to live for the One who died for us.

We must continue to appropriate the reconciliation that Jesus died to accomplish. To appropriate means to make it your own possession. When we appropriate food we ingest that food so that the nutrition is able to benefit our bodies. I think it is for this very reason that the Lord gave us something to eat in order to remember Him. We must personally appropriate the body and blood of the Lord, which is done through faith, so that His death actually benefits us personally. There are those who teach the doctrine of universalism – that everyone will automatically be saved – and they ignore the fact that the death of Christ must be personally appropriated. No one can be reconciled who does not personally receive the reconciliation. The reconciliation has been accomplished. Now you and I must actually be reconciled to God! Let us not just talk about reconciliation, as if it is some intellectual abstraction. Let’s actually be reconciled and appropriate this peace with God! There are many people who long to have that inner peace but who continue to refuse to appropriate the reconciliation that God offers the world through the death of Christ. But no one will have the peace of God until they have peace with God. As we come today to remember the death of Christ, let us be reconciled to God!

Revelation: The Gospel of the Kingdom (Revelation 1.4-6; 5.6-10; 11.15; 19.11-16)

Introduction

There is no book in the Bible like Revelation. No other book has created such conflict and confusion in the Church, even though it is, ironically, A REVELATION! A revelation means that something is being revealed not concealed. So this book should make something clear. Yet this book seldom clarifies anything and I think I know why: most people get caught up in the details and miss the message of the book of Revelation. What is the central message or theme of this book? What is the one truth that is being revealed in Revelation? The theme of the book of Revelation is the current reign of Christ.

You will notice I did say the CURRENT reign of Christ not the FUTURE reign of Christ. That is on purpose. I am making an intentional distinction here and am also leaving behind some of the more popular interpretations of the book. It is usual for interpreters of Revelation to treat this book as if everything in it is for the future. Certainly there are things in Revelation that have not happened yet. But this book is not just about the so-called End Times and much of the misunderstanding has come from reading Revelation as a graphic novel about the end of the world.

We seem to have something in our nature that gravitates toward doom and gloom. People are fascinated by the so-called Apocalypse – a word that has completely changed its meaning in modern usage. Apocalypse is actually the word for a revelation and had very little to do with the end of the world, though that is mentioned in the book of Revelation. But that is not the theme. The true Apocalypse or Revelation is not the end of the world, it is the Kingdom of Christ. Revelation is not about the end of something but about the beginning of something. This book is not doom and gloom at all, it is a book of good news and glorious hope – IF we will submit to what God is doing. The only scary stuff in Revelation is for those who will not submit to the reign of Christ. For those who do bow the knee to Christ, in anticipation of every knee bowing, the book of Revelation is the good news of the Kingdom of God!

The Gospel of the Kingdom is not a new theme. Jesus preached the Kingdom. The book of Revelation is not revealing any completely new doctrine. This is a vision designed to inspire hope. To inspire this hope the book of Revelation is helping us to see something that is otherwise unseen.

Modern science has helped us to see things we could not see. With the help of electron microscopes we have seen into the fascinating and surprising world of atomic particles. These were things so small they could not be seen by past generations. The Hubble telescope has helped us see deeper and deeper into space and revealed new galaxies, stars, and even planets. These wonders were previously too vast and far away to see. The tiny subatomic world has always been there. The vast celestial worlds have always been holding their cosmic dance. But we could not see these things until now.

There is more to reality than meets the eye. This is one of the enduring lessons of the book of Revelation. This book opens a door into another world. There is a higher reality we have not been privileged to see. But now someone from that World has opened the Door and invited us to follow Him in!

What John saw was a revelation of Jesus Christ. This was not just a revelation that Jesus gave to John, although that was certainly the case, this is a revelation of Jesus Himself. But the Christ John saw on the Isle of Patmos is not the humble carpenter who walked the shores of Galilee. This is Jesus, the same Jesus who was crucified and raised from the dead, but He has changed. He has ascended. He is in His glory not His humility. The days of His humility have ended.

The book of Revelation picks up where the Gospels and the first chapter of Acts end – He ascended into Heaven. He has begun to reign. That is the revelation of Revelation!

This revelation of the current reign of Christ in heaven is in the form of a vision. This vision is given in a series of ever-enlarging cycles, each cycle consisting of the same structure or pattern. The book of Revelation is a single revelation. There is a unity in the book. It is not a series of revelations, it is a single revelation given in a widening and expanding cycle of visions, all of which relate to this central theme of the reign of Christ. The book is cyclical, not linear or chronological. The same territory is covered multiple times as the cycles keep spinning, each time the scope of the vision getting larger and larger.

The vision unfolds in a series of 4 cycles, each cycle consisting of 7 objects: 1. 7 Churches, 2. 7 Seals, 3. 7 Trumpets, and finally, 4. 7 Bowls. The theme is the Kingdom of Christ. Each cycle gives a slightly different perspective of this theme:

·The 7 Churches show us that the Kingdom is being established on earth in the Church.
·The 7 Seals show us that the Kingdom is being established in heaven by the Lamb seated on the Throne.
·The 7 Trumpets show that the Kingdom is being established even in the midst of conflict with rival kingdoms.
·The 7 Bowls show that the Kingdom is being established by God’s judgment.

Each of the 4 cycles have a similar internal structure containing the following 3 elements: 1. the revelation of enemies that are in opposition to God and to His people in the world. 2. God judges these enemies and destroys the opposition to Christ and His People. 3. The Kingdom is established, and the Saints overcome and reign with Christ.

In human warfare historians can often point to certain battles that were turning points that determined the outcome of the war. In the American Civil War there was a turning point at the Battle of Gettysburg when Pickett’s charge failed to break the Union lines. At that point the tide had turned in favor of the Union and against the Confederacy. In the Second World War the Allies hit the beaches at Normandy to invade Hitler’s European defenses. When a beachhead was finally established, the tide had effectively turned against Germany in favor of the Allies. In both of these examples the war did not end with these battles and there was much more conflict to follow. But there was a decisive moment when the war was all but over.

The book of Revelation shows us a Cosmic Conflict. But the outcome of this conflict has already been decided by a decisive turning point. That turning point was the Ascension of Christ into Heaven and His subsequent enthronement at God’s Right Hand. There will be more conflict before the End but the outcome is not in question: God is setting up a Kingdom in which His Christ will reign forever!

I. At the present time there are rival kingdoms in conflict with Christ’s Kingdom.

The cycles of Revelation culminate in the New Creation when all opposition to God and His Christ is removed forever. But at the present time the enemies have not been removed. What we are seeing is the wisdom of God being displayed in that God is working out His eternal purpose in the very presence of opposition.

In Revelation the enemies of God and His people are unmasked for us to see. Behind the scenes is a vast network of spiritual darkness that has for most of human history exercised its dominion over the world. Under the influence of these invisible forces of evil, the world has set itself in opposition to God and His reign.

The very idea that people are free to do what they want is laughable when we consider the fact that Satan has successfully deceived the entire world into joining his cosmic rebellion against God.

There are a couple of prophetic, Messianic Psalms often quoted by New Testament authors that perfectly expound the message of the book of Revelation. These Psalms are not quoted in Revelation, but the ideas are woven through the visions of the book:

Psalm 2:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,

“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,

“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree:
The LORD said to me, 

“You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Psalm 110:

The LORD says to my Lord:

“Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.
The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind,

“You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.

Both of these Psalms prophecy the reign of God’s Christ IN SPITE OF THE WORLD’S OBJECTIONS! The role of Christ is something God has given to Jesus. The World did not vote for Jesus as their King. In fact, the world voted AGAINST Jesus! But this does not change the decree of the Lord one bit! Jesus is still the King in spite of all the raging and opposition of the World, which is still going on today.

And God has chosen to bring His chosen people through this world of opposition.  Jesus had to come through this world of opposition on His way to Glory, and so do the Saints! Faith must be tested by opposition and adversity just as gold must be refined by fire or an athlete’s body must be strengthened by being afflicted in training. God is using the wicked world to perfect the faith of the Saints.

The World seems to be raging out of control, but it isn’t. God sets limits for the World just as He does for the waves of the sea. Even Satan is God’s Devil and can go no further than the length of the leash God measures for him. The World is afraid that we are going to destroy ourselves, blowing ourselves away in some self-inflicted, fiery cataclysm. Perhaps someone will finally push the nuclear button!! It is a fear depicted in a hundred Hollywood screenplays. The book of Revelation assures us that this world will stand until God accomplishes His purpose and He will dispose of it in His own good time.

II. God is currently demonstrating that Christ’s Kingdom is the absolute authority and cannot be successfully opposed.

The fact is that God has always had a Kingdom because He has always been God. While there may be personalities in the universe who are in rebellion against God or who do not acknowledge God this in no way threatens the reign of God. Every personality must eventually acknowledge and submit to God’s rule, even if forced to submit against their will – which never results in a blessing.

When John saw a door opened in heaven and was invited into the heavenly realm, the first thing John saw was the Throne of God. Jesus first addresses the Church which is in the earth. But the rest of this vision will be given from a heavenly perspective.

To orient us to the heavenly realm we are taken directly to the center of all reality, which is the Throne of God. John saw a throne with someone sitting on it. The Throne is not empty – God is ruling and reigning! This Throne is never vacant and so the Kingdom of God is eternal. Nothing is out of control because God is seated on His Throne, in spite of all appearances to the contrary down here on earth. We must come up higher and see things from the Throne.

John also sees that the Lamb is seated there in the Throne with God. The heavenly worship is directed at the Lamb just as it is directed at the One seated on the Throne. And it is the Lamb who takes the scroll from the One seated on the Throne – taking charge of the purpose of God and unveiling it for us to see. And so the Throne of God and the Lamb is the central fact of John’s Revelation.

The vision of the Throne is the theological center of the book of Revelation. I would even go as far as to say that the Throne of God, which was seen by other men in Scripture before John saw it, is the most foundational truth in all Biblical revelation. God is on His Throne! Is there any personality in heaven or on earth who can move God from His Throne or defy His righteous reign? This book of Revelation will show us that there are those personalities, including men, who will actually try to oppose God. Their failure will be complete and their ruin beyond repair.

Everyone trusts in some absolute – something that they deem to be firm, solid, reliable, and maybe even immutable. We build on lives on what we believe to be absolute. Everyone deals in absolutes, just not the same absolutes. And eventually all of our absolutes will be tested to see if they are everything we believe them to be. Some folks are going to be eternally disappointed! Many of the things people have trusted in all their lives will evaporate underneath their feet, leaving nothing but the yawning chasm of death and eternal despair.

But our Absolute is the Throne of God! “A glorious throne set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary” (Jeremiah 17.12). The Saints will never be disappointed because we have trusted in God’s eternal Throne as our place of sanctuary.

John’s vision into the Heavenly courts is meant to drive home the fact that the Heavenly realm is always superior to the Earthly realm. Heaven rules Earth. Heaven always trumps Earth. Heaven is the real place, the main place.

Heaven is the control-room for the earth and that is where the Savior has gone on our behalf! If you want to make sense out of the earthly realm you must go up into the heavenly realm. The view from the mountaintop is always the clearest.

This is why we must always live from the top down, never basing our understanding of life with the earth foremost in our vision. Until we get this order right – heaven comes first and earth a distant second – we will never live rightly. So it goes with most people in our society.

Too many people are like Nebuchadnezzar, strutting around on his palace like a rooster, boasting and puffed up with pride. It took Nebuchadnezzar seven years of theological training to get his perspective corrected so that he finally acknowledged that the heavens do rule. Many people never learn this lesson. I hope we can learn humility faster than old Nebuchadnezzar, and without eating all that disgusting grass!

Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand! That hand will either squash you into powder or exalt you in eternal glory. God’s people are those who have learned to humbly pray “our Father who art in Heaven.” And then “Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

III. Jesus is currently in Heaven so that He can be both Priest and King.

In the Tabernacle there was a veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. This is an illustration of the separation between the earth, where we dwell, and Heaven, where God dwells. Once a year on the Day of Atonement the High Priest would go beyond the veil into the presence of God in the Holy of Holies to intercede for the people. In the same way Christ, our Great High Priest, has passed beyond the Veil separating Heaven and earth and is now in the presence of God. This is the meaning of the Ascension. Some modern people find it almost ridiculous, as if Jesus blasted off like a rocket into space. But Heaven is not a part of this creation and could not be reached in a spaceship.

Jesus passed beyond this creation into the presence of God. Heaven is the presence of God. Jesus had to go back into Heaven for our salvation to be complete. His work on earth is finished, but His work, or ministry, in Heaven is ongoing.

Jesus has assumed the role of the High Priest. His earthly sacrifice would have meant nothing unless He entered into the Heavenly Places.

Presently, He is our Intercessor in Heaven in behalf of the Saints who are still sojourning in the hostile World. The book of Hebrews lays out this doctrine, which was prefigured in the Law and especially in the mysterious Melchizedek, who was both a king and a priest. Jesus has also assumed the role of King and Priest.

The book of Revelation shows us Jesus the High Priest from the very beginning of John’s vision:

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Revelation 1:12-16)

Jesus appears to John as a glorified priest who is walking in the midst of the Churches. Jesus’ first order of business is to minister to the needs of the Churches. As it turns out the Church is very much in need of this High Priest as there were all kinds of deficiencies found by the searching eyes of the Lord. While the Church is still in the world she needs a good priest because the world is a place of separation, impurity, and temptation. Our High Priest knows exactly what it is like to be in the world and to be handicapped by the weakness and limitations of the Flesh and to even be tempted by the Devil. So Jesus is perfectly qualified to be our High Priest. And since He is in heaven He is no longer limited by the Flesh and can minister to His Church in the World without the restrictions of time and space. Jesus is there to make sure we get all of the grace we require to overcome the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

There is an excellent illustration of Christ’s intercessory ministry in the life of the Apostle Peter. We remember how confident Peter was in his ability to follow Jesus even unto death. But Jesus knew that Peter was not as strong as Peter thought he was. Jesus said to Peter:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”(Luke 22:31-32)

We learn from Peter’s overconfidence that it is our tendency to think we can do more than we can actually do. We overestimate our natural strength and ability and therefore we sometimes think we can do things on our own. But there are all kinds of things we cannot do for ourselves and we have to get some help. All of us have been in the position of being blessed by someone’s help. If this is true on a carnal level, then how much more is it true when fighting the good fight of faith! We have to have help from our Great High Priest or we won’t make it through the world with our faith intact. Jesus is praying for you, that your faith will not fail as you sojourn through the world!

Conclusion

Jesus went back to Heaven to be our High Priest. When the intercession is over, the High Priest will come out of the Holy of Holies. Jesus will appear. The veil that separates heaven and earth will be torn asunder and every eye will see Him.

He is not coming back to earth to reign or to fight any enemies. He has already defeated all the enemies and He has already received the Kingdom from His Father. But when He appears every knee will have to bow and every tongue will have to confess that He is Lord. His appearing will mark the end of the Old Order and the fullness of the New Creation in which Heaven and Earth will be one.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnificent story The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is a king who has not yet ascended to the throne. First, Aragorn must fight many battles and win the war against the Dark Lord’s forces. But when Frodo and Sam reach Mount Doom, and the terrible ring of power is cast into the fire, the Enemy is utterly defeated. Aragorn has no more enemies to fight and returns to his city victorious. But Aragorn must then assume the role of a Healer, restoring his people who had been afflicted with the evil weapons and dark magic of the Enemy. And so when the King returns the people discover that he is not only their victorious Lord but also the only one who can bring healing and restoration. A victorious king who is also a healer!

The Lord Jesus is not coming back to fight another battle, but to bring healing to everything touched by the curse of sin and death. Contrary to what many people think the book of Revelation teaches, the Lord Jesus is not coming back to fight. The world itself will not be able to stand the glory of His appearing. Jesus does not have to fight, He just has to show up and it is all over! He has already won the battle and He could not have been exalted into Heaven if He had not overcome all of His enemies. There is no more enemy for Jesus to defeat when He comes, just the final casting away of everything and everyone that does not belong in the New Creation.

Ultimately, the home of the Saints is the New Earth that John saw. In this New Creation the two realms of Heaven and Earth are merged together and the Saints will reign forever while living in the fullness of the Divine Presence, even seeing the face of God. When that happens then the Kingdom of God will have come in all its fullness.

The Kingdom of God has already invaded and we are awaiting the final stage of God’s eternal purpose. In the meantime we are living in that uncomfortable and sometimes painful period of time in between the Ages. The Wheat and the Tares are still growing together.

I have always enjoyed canoeing and whitewater rafting on rivers. The idea is to slip your boat into the stream and let the current carry you down the river. It takes very little work to go downstream. Trying to paddle against the current is exceedingly difficult and takes tremendous strength and stamina, even on a small river. As long as we are in the Flesh we must paddle upstream, against the current of this present, evil World. There are powerful forces pressing against us. But our King can bring us through. So hold on to Jesus and learn to rest in His everlasting arms.