A World Apart – The Implanted Word

If the Word of God is truth and fact, and if Christ is at work in it and through it, then the passage as found in James 1:19:25 takes on new relevance. Here’s the passage:

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

Now, this passage inclusion comes to you on the heels of me listening to John Piper’s Desiring God sermon audio messages on the new birth, and in fact this passage was at the core of one of them. Specifically, he talked about the implanted word, which I believe is a fact of life. It gives the moral law argument some real credence Biblically. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I summarize the effects thusly: One central, unassailable fact of human existence is that every code of behaviour, every society, is ultimately subject to the constraint of morality. There are always permissions and taboos which guide acts and thoughts within that culture, and which exist as inherent points of development from childhood. Call me on it if I’m wrong, clarify if I’m not presenting it accurately, but this is the essence of the argument. That’s a bunny trail for another time, however. My object now is to look briefly at what ‘the implanted word’ means.

As I’ve said, I believe that the implanted word of God is a fact. I articulated, a long time ago, my own understanding of how predestination and free will work together, and this passage, looked at now with older eyes, really reminds me of that meditation. I reconciled these seemingly opposing points of view by saying to myself that predestination is the outworking of the choice to accept providence in one’s life (in more words than that, mind you!) Actually, what I should say is that this passage makes the mental leap to accept that possibility an achievable thing. To accept that the Word of God in morality, in myth and in practices is already present within every culture and every human being suggests a fascinating understanding of what mission should consist of; not a preaching of the Word to a collection of new hearers, but an awakening of the understanding within a culture of where the Word of God has already touched the lives of nonbelievers. My minister here calls it the traces of the Spirit, and I can think of no better phrase for it. Truly, the Word has gone before.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Argument

In an earlier post, I mentioned that there has been a gross overbalance in my subject matter, tending towards a lament at the state of the church in the West rather than bringing what Christ really means to the believer to the fore. With A World Apart, I’m hoping to rectify that somewhat. The title itself has two meanings: The first is to distinguish, to sequester. The second is perhaps more subtle, but also more interesting. I’m using it to suggest the loss of a consciousness of Christ in the contemporary Western world, and what that means.

A world apart is what happens when the church becomes wrapped up in itself, but also what happens when the Christian experiences Christ. The ‘new birth’ of being born again
A) changes desires
B) creates knowledge of sin, for ‘we know that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin’ (Romans 3:19-20)
and
C) creates a new understanding of the world within which we live and interact with others. It creates an understanding that there is a world apart from the sin, darkness and destruction we find ourselves in on a daily basis, and that we can and must live for the coming of that world.

Thus the Christian is distinguished from the world of sin by being separated from it for a new and better purpose than the trivialities and amusements that we so often define as our lives. That purpose is to live for the joy of the world redeemed from all of its follies, its shortsightedness, its injustices, and its many troubled souls.

The second meaning of ‘a world apart’ is one that will occur throughout these posts, and that is the essential quality of being without God, losing or rejecting a consciousness of Christ. In a world that is self-centered, there can be no room for others. This is the state taken to its logical extreme, which may not always be the case. While there are many who serve others without a consciousness of why they do it – that is, without knowledge of the Servant King – and in so doing call themselves good people, what I intend to suggest here is that this is still a selfish aim, a reward-oriented rather than love-giving life. Here is the first tricky step of what’s going to become a long journey – Biblically, part of the reason that service is rendered to others freely is to gain a reward in heaven…but that reward is not for us. It’s to give God glory, and to do that by praising Him. Essentially, our reward is to celebrate the purity and holiness of the eternal Lord without being constrained by sinful selfishness. It’s very hard to wrap your head around this, sometimes.

Digression aside, I began speaking here about the essential quality of being without God. I’ll return to that now, but I needed to lay some groundwork. This is, without doubt, a world without the consciousness of Christ as sovereign, as supreme, as messiah and intercessor. It contains things which we call good, but also a terribly disproportionate amount of what we call bad. We use these terms because we are aware of right and wrong, but not why. I mentioned, some time ago, the moral law that guides us. Those foundational posts are going to return here, augmented with some new value-added.

A World Apart is intended to celebrate the hope of redemption for a lost world, to imbue its readers with a sense of truth in a sea of falsehood, and to express a sense of awe at the power and glory of God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To do this I may have to break one or two of my unwritten rules, take some risks in presenting what amounts to my perspective as connected to what truth is, and go deeper than I have before in my posts. But I can’t believe that what you’re going to get here is going to be without purpose or product, because I have been promised, in Isaiah 55, that God’s going to use what He has purposed to be used:

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him when he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:6-11)

So you’re going to see more Bible, for sure, because uncompromisingly, I believe that the Bible recounts truth, and is the inspired Word of God, which both tells the story of Jesus and brings Him to those who seek Him in it. He is real both in the Word and in writing Himself to us through it as people of the Word. And that’s where I’m going to start off.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Structure

An oath in court is a false one to those who can no longer believe in the solemnity of swearing on the Bible. Truth, then, becomes a travesty because if there are no consequences, there are no incentives towards holiness.

This is the essence of the new machinery of life. Why swear on the Word of God if you can’t believe that that Word holds any consequence in your life? Why should it be true in a culture of relativism, and in which justice can be decided on the flip of a coin, as Two-Face so strikingly portrays?

Buy the right people, entice them with extravagance, and you have the courts on your side. Press the right button, edit the right words and truth becomes an artifice of fiction. This is the structure of the world.

Assume nothing. Believe that the knowledge of good and evil – that which we sinned in when our first parents were kicked out of paradise – is no longer the ultimate goal, and you’ve got to start really questioning where faith stands in relation to itself. Go one further, and take a look at what has become the new pinnacle of aspiration – Self-actualization, self-creation, self-delusion. If we can create ourselves anew with new clothing, new scents, new products, what point does a Creator have, and what point does the fact that we are image bearers of God have? What’s the new ultimate goal?

Let’s look at what I’m really saying here.

Moral absolutism is essential to the Christian life. We need definition of what constitutes good and evil, and where those definitions come from. So the first step in building a worldview in right relationship to God is this:

He is good.
We are not.

We are sinful, poor people, wretched in spirit and drowning in need.
He is sufficient, rich in provision, abundant in joy, and seals us up against the evils of the world.

He is right.
We are wrong.

And in all of our sinfulness, only He can save. Only He is the way, the truth, and the life. Begin with this, and there’s hope.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Assumptions

When you come from a Christian background, you make assumptions.

When you come to a society where truth is relative and information subjective, you’ve got nothing.

So let’s lay some groundwork.

We are rebels without a cause…engines of sex and fun and commodity without a driver. We are purveyors of fine lines (Want a life…going cheap! I just feel like having a good time!) and back-alley brawlers with Jesus. But we know…somewhere…that we…are…WRONG

Christ crucified: Why? Sin punished: Why? Suffering from the hands of a [good] God: Why? Where’s the hope? What difference does it make in my life? I’ll tell you.

Have you ever felt guilty for no good reason? Empty, hollow, alone, dead? Have you ever walked a road ‘a million’ times, and never looked around? Have you ever wondered why we use terms like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, or ‘that’s a sin’, or ‘But it’s my life to live?’. You know what the truth of that is? You know where it comes from?

It’s because we know there’s more. We know that something in us speaks to decency, to compassion, to ‘humanity’, and it’s because we know that we’re doing something we are not designed for, and that we should, in our morbid self-sufficiency, pay the price for it.

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We can’t

Jesus did

That’s it.

But there’s more…so much more to begin with. Assumptions, you know.

In a society, in a culture, where truth is defined by the skin you sleep in and by the only thing that makes sense…your own point of view…we are still subject to rules of right and wrong, moralities taught to us by our fallen fathers and mothers and by a world where we put on philosophies like suits of clothes to suit the day. There is, without doubt, something in us that recognizes good and recognizes evil, although it’s a moral compass that may be demagnetized. Or, better yet, we’ve each got a hold of Captain Jack’s little treasure, ‘a compass what pints the way to your heart’s desire.’ There’s a weighted analogy for you. But we are moral creatures if we are human creatures, and we have to, in this, give total and entire credit to God who is holy, who is just, and who is Creator.

Let’s make this Biblical:

Genesis 8:21-22:
And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”

Undeserved grace I. And here’s the best part: Ask yourself if this is good or evil.

Deuteronomy 10:14-21
Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

Romans 2:12-16
For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles [that's us] who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

The essence, number 1, the first principle, whatever you call it, is thus:

There is right and there is wrong. God shows this in his character, Jesus shows this because He is God, and both condemn that which is evil in men, but for love have paid the price.

When you come to the aimless generation with a heart and a message, you’ve got to make assumptions.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.