•4:33 PM
Yet another response to a college student who wrote:
"I disagree with many of your points, Christopher. In particular, I submit that Christianity has everything to do with morality. ...Similarly, the New Testament plainly shows us how to live for Christ by dying to ourselves and seeking after righteousness. It is possible, though you seem cynical about it. ..."
"I disagree with many of your points, Christopher. In particular, I submit that Christianity has everything to do with morality. ...Similarly, the New Testament plainly shows us how to live for Christ by dying to ourselves and seeking after righteousness. It is possible, though you seem cynical about it. ..."
My Response:
Hello, Jesse! I did want to write a short reply to you just to clarify my position.
You are absolutely correct that those who lived under the old covenant of works "often fell out of righteousness (right standing with God)." However, wouldn't you agree that under the new covenant we have been given the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17) which we have received by faith? And, isn't this righteousness the righteousness of God himself (2 Cor. 5:21) and therefore unchangeable and unending? Therefore, we no longer need to seek after righteousness once we are saved; we possess it! (I believe the verse you have in mind is Matthew 6:33, which I take as an invitation to salvation not as an invitation to right living.) Also, the very basis of the New Testament is that God says he will put his "laws into (our) mind, and write them in (our) hearts" (Hebrews 8). This is a reference to God himself, as his Spirit, living in us and guiding us into a life that pleases Him. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
My only argument is that where religion wants to force a man to change from the outside-in (from the bodily actions to the heart), Christianity changes a man from the inside-out. If he will let it. Man's responsibility is to "yield" (Romans 6) and to "let" (Phil. 2:5) God do his work through us. It seems like a minor point, but it is the difference between allowing an apple tree to produce the fruit which it will naturally produce, or standing behind a pulpit and yelling at it to do the same thing.
The New Testament assumes that our "new creature"-ness will affect a change on our outward behavior as we yield to God. Religion assumes that the regenerate man is just as prone to disobedience as the unregenerate man, but why then did Paul call them "saints"? Religion produces hypocrites who are right on the outside, wrong on the inside, and powerless to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ which is, at its heart, a new life...not a new morality. If businessmen, or anyone else, would make a change in this world, then they must first realize that salvation is of the Lord, and sanctification is as well.
I am not negating our will or our choice in the matter. I am simply saying that, given the absence of weeds and the presence of sunlight & water, roses will bloom all by themselves. Many believers are not walking holy lives because they have not been taught that they are, by their very nature, blameless before the eyes of a holy God. They are bound with 'shoulds' and 'should nots' and heaped with such condemnation that they second guess their dreams, their actions, and their very salvation. No wonder they sit in their pews week after week!
Well, I better stop now before I go overboard. I hope this was not too offensive; it was not meant to be. I am simply trying to set forth the New Testament as I see it. Again, I thank you for your response.
You are absolutely correct that those who lived under the old covenant of works "often fell out of righteousness (right standing with God)." However, wouldn't you agree that under the new covenant we have been given the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17) which we have received by faith? And, isn't this righteousness the righteousness of God himself (2 Cor. 5:21) and therefore unchangeable and unending? Therefore, we no longer need to seek after righteousness once we are saved; we possess it! (I believe the verse you have in mind is Matthew 6:33, which I take as an invitation to salvation not as an invitation to right living.) Also, the very basis of the New Testament is that God says he will put his "laws into (our) mind, and write them in (our) hearts" (Hebrews 8). This is a reference to God himself, as his Spirit, living in us and guiding us into a life that pleases Him. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
My only argument is that where religion wants to force a man to change from the outside-in (from the bodily actions to the heart), Christianity changes a man from the inside-out. If he will let it. Man's responsibility is to "yield" (Romans 6) and to "let" (Phil. 2:5) God do his work through us. It seems like a minor point, but it is the difference between allowing an apple tree to produce the fruit which it will naturally produce, or standing behind a pulpit and yelling at it to do the same thing.
The New Testament assumes that our "new creature"-ness will affect a change on our outward behavior as we yield to God. Religion assumes that the regenerate man is just as prone to disobedience as the unregenerate man, but why then did Paul call them "saints"? Religion produces hypocrites who are right on the outside, wrong on the inside, and powerless to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ which is, at its heart, a new life...not a new morality. If businessmen, or anyone else, would make a change in this world, then they must first realize that salvation is of the Lord, and sanctification is as well.
I am not negating our will or our choice in the matter. I am simply saying that, given the absence of weeds and the presence of sunlight & water, roses will bloom all by themselves. Many believers are not walking holy lives because they have not been taught that they are, by their very nature, blameless before the eyes of a holy God. They are bound with 'shoulds' and 'should nots' and heaped with such condemnation that they second guess their dreams, their actions, and their very salvation. No wonder they sit in their pews week after week!
Well, I better stop now before I go overboard. I hope this was not too offensive; it was not meant to be. I am simply trying to set forth the New Testament as I see it. Again, I thank you for your response.
|
1 comments:
That's why Paul beseeches us "by the mercies of God" to live rightly. The morality of the NT is found not in the old man getting right, but in the New Man getting put on.