JAMES A.E. MACLELLAN

An Oxymoron: The Law of Liberty

2012-02-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

An oxymoron is like de-caffeinated coffee. The kind that gets you up in the morning. The word comes from Greek oxys (sharp) + moros (stupid) It is often used as a contradiction in terms. For instance you would want your contractor to give you an "accurate estimate." Or how about having some of your "adult children" over for supper. Perhaps your reading this after lunch and you are enjoying a "cold hotdog?" One oxymoron that I came across in Biblical literature is found in the very practical writings of the half-brother of Jesus, James. He writes, "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. [1]

The law of liberty??? Some people using the KJV of the Bible equate such a phrase to David's affirmation in Psalm 119:44-45, "So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever. And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts." Undoubtedly there is a freedom and liberty in keeping God's rules. Most of us know that to be true. I don't think that is where James is taking us though. A "fairly accurate" understanding of the sentence is that the Greek present tense connotes a continuous action. In other words James is saying to Christians, "Keep on, keeping on." The verb mellō in Greek means “about to be.” There is a judgment that is imminent.

Now we know from verse 25 that this "law of liberty" is called the "perfect law" by the author. There is a very interesting parallel by the Apostle John. Notice:

"17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." [2]

There is a striking similarity. James is talking about how we talk to one another. He is saying that we need to speak and act as those who could be judged at anytime. However John, in the same vein, teaches us that we can have confidence in the day of judgment if we display love. One of my previous pastors (Dr. Grant Richison) wrote that "every time we open our mouth, we should utter words consistent with Christianity . . . also we need to control our actions by the law of liberty."[3] I think the law of liberty is the principle that simply means "words and actions" compelled by love (2Cor 5:14). When we speak and act out of true Christian love we will experience liberty, both here and in the judgment.

36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” [4]

That should make us casually concerned.

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1. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Jas 2:12). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
2. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (1 Jn 4:17–21). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
3. http://versebyversecommentary.com/james/james-212/
4.The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Mt 12:36–37). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

The Sport of Religion Bashing

2012-02-09T11:18:00.001-07:00

I have heard (and probably said) on many occasions that Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship. Unfortunately that's only a half-truth. We better stop bashing religion because we will soon learn that the wound is self-inflicted. Jefferson Bethke has a blog post and one of his YouTube videos went wild as he bashed religion. The huge problem for us if we decide to run down this road is that Jesus was very religious. As Kevin DeYoung intuitively writes:

Jesus was a Jew. He went to services at the synagogue. He observed Jewish holy days. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17). He founded the church (Matt. 16:18). He established church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20). He instituted a ritual meal (Matt. 26:26-28). He told his disciples to baptize people and to teach others to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). He insisted that people believe in him and believe certain things about him (John 3:16-18; 8:24). If religion is characterized by doctrine, commands, rituals, and structure, then Jesus is not your go-to guy for hating religion.

Not only was our Lord, Teacher and Savior very religious, His Word commands us to be "religious":

"If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:26-27, ESV).

The adjective in this quote from James (religious) is the Greek word θρῆσκος [threskos]. It actually has ideas of fearing and trembling before God in worship. The Scripture is replete with those ideas. James is pretty clear: a managed tongue; a care for the needy in mercy and compassion; and a pursuit of holiness is God's idea of religion.

So, before we bash religion, let's define our terms. Yes, Jesus did say hard things to the religious leaders of Judaism; and Paul did condemn self-made, man-made religion. But Jesus was religious and His Word commands us to be religious. We better define what we mean when we bash religion.! Religion bashing is not the kind of sport we should engage in readily. I'm tired of hearing it. It's simply not intellectually coherent to suggest that a Christian has a relationship with Jesus but no religion.

My Freedom Ends One Inch From Your Nose

2012-02-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

I was recently interviewed by a newspaper journalist on Conservative MP, Brian Storseth's Private Member's Bill C-304. This bill would repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. One of Storseth's points is that "Freedom of Speech is a fundamental principle in our democracy and one in which Canadians have fought and died for, for more than a century." One of the problems that he identifies is the issue of how the Human Rights Commission may or may not define "hate speech." I was told that in most cases, those who have been found in contravention of hate speech are religious people.   By simply stating some of the prohibitions in Scripture, Christians may be in danger of the charge of using hate language.

I was asked how I might define "freedom of speech."   One of the maxims that emerged from my past was the oft quoted statement that my freedom ends one inch away from your nose. This says it all for me. Let's set the ground rules:

#1. No living person is free or has total freedom. By nature we are creatures, dependent upon the mercy and good graces of our Creator. By nature and choice we are sinners. Jesus said those that sin are enslaved. No one is free.

#2. Free will is a myth. We are all moral agents who are required of God to make responsible moral choices, but none of our choices are made in a vacuum. We all make choices consistent with our nature, our experience, our access to coercion, etc. No one is free. No one makes free choices, per se. We do make choices, though.

#3. Any so-called freedom we exercise is less about living by no restrictions but in fact choosing which restrictions we will live under, whether self-imposed or enforced upon us. As Tim Keller wrote: Freedom then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us." [1]   A train that wants to be free by leaving the rails will end in despair. A fish that wants to be free by living out of the lake will soon find life very debilitating.

For us to live in a country that enjoys "freedom" we must define that liberty in terms that reflect chosen restrictions and restraint. It is only then that we can know true freedom. I enjoy a certain liberty in blogging. My freedom of speech is only free when I exercise such governance that enhances that experience.

Let me offer an autobiographical illustration. I am a preacher. Speech is part of my calling. My speech is only free when it is governed by Divine restrictions. For example Ephesians 4:25 (ESV), directs us to ". . . put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." Again Paul counsels us to pastors to speak ". . . from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." (1 Timothy 1:5, ESV). True freedom only exists when that happens.

Hate speech is not eliminated by failing to tell someone the truth. Hate speech is telling the truth in an unloving manner with an agenda that is less than honorable.

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1. Keller, Timothy (2009-08-04). The Reason for God (p. 47). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

When Desire Meets Lure

2012-02-01T07:52:00.002-07:00

James 1:

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

OK, so I sin! God didn't make me do it. No one else made me do it. I have in me a thing called desire. Put that together with a lure. When the connection is made, sin is conceived. James pictures this little embryonic sin growing in the womb. It starts to take on an identity, features, movement, activity. Then the time is right. It explodes into life but immediately starts to bring death.

Where do you stop sin's development? At conception - when desire sees lure. What is the best antidote to succumbing to the lure? Law? Thou shall not? No! That increases the attraction. No, the answer is to go eat the real thing. Go to the treasure that satisfies. Go to the meat that fills you with good things.

Tongue Twister Extraordinaire - Part 3

2012-01-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder why the Bible refers to some people in the most depreciating way? For example in Proverbs 1:22 (ESV):

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

Fools, in the Bible, are not intellectually challenged. Fools are not stupid. In almost hyperbolic language, the Bible equates "fools" with those who possess knowledge, but don't possess knowledge. It's just like Paul in this tongue-twisting text in 1 Corinthians, chapter 8. It is here that Paul unravels that floppy muscle in the cavity of our mouths and says this: The measure of your knowledge is in direct proportion to the expression of your knowledge. In fact those who don't express their knowledge in the way that God directs are indicted with these words: "[They are] people who think they know so much don’t know anything at all." (1 Corinthians 8:2, CEV). So the question that the previous post left was this: "What will turn presumed knowledge into precise knowledge?" The answer is sandwiched in the text. Note:

" Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up." (1 Corinthians 8:1, ESV)

and

"But if anyone loves God, he is known by God." (1 Corinthians 8:3, ESV)

The first half of the sandwich is this: Knowledge (to be knowledge in reality and in precision) must be expressed in love. This is well-known to us. I remind you of 1 Corinthians 13:2. The second half of the sandwich takes more thought and explanation. Here is the chain of thought:

To be known by God is His foreknowledge or election (Romans 8:29; etc.) -->
To be chosen by God is be humbled by one's inability and inadequacy -->
Therefore: To be known by means all life is by grace therefore ". . . What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

So here's the punchline: For knowledge to be precise it must be birthed in humility and expressed in love. Do I know anything? The measure of my knowledge is in direct proportion to the manner it is expressed.

Tongue Twister Extraordinaire - Part 2

2012-01-30T13:52:00.001-07:00

1Corinthians 8:1-3 is a real tongue twister. Yet when it becomes deciphered, it becomes stunning.

"Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies." (1 Corinthians 8:1, NASB95) . The ESV puts quotation marks around the phrase "all of us possess this knowledge." What the Corinthians "know" is recorded in verse 4. "To paraphrase this: 'We both know that you consider yourself to be thoroughly informed about this matter.'” (KJV Bible Commentary, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1994). 2302.) Paul is employing a bit of sarcasm here. The correction that Paul is making is that behind their knowledge was an unloving attitude.

Their knowledge is true. There is nothing to an idol. Christians know that. There is only one God. But this knowledge had caused them to act in a very unloving way. They were flaunting their freedom to eat food offered to idols and in doing so they were bringing harm to others (see verse 7f).

So Paul then goes on to say, "If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know;" (1 Corinthians 8:2, NASB95). Paul makes this amazing statement. He says that knowledge isn't just a cognitive process. You can know and not know at the same time. You can know something rightly. You can know something with doctrinal precision. But if your knowledge is not expressed lovingly, you do not know anything. This is an amazing truth that Paul is expounding. He is virtually saying that knowledge that does not go further than itself by seeking the well-being, the good, the benefit of others is not knowledge. "With the essential ingredient of love, knowledge is tempered and made the right kind of discerning and compassionate knowledge . . .." (Expositor's Bible Commentary)

In the next post we will wrap this up by asking, "What will turn presumed knowledge into precise knowledge?"

Tongue Twister Extraordinaire - Part 1

2012-01-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Many of us grew up memorizing tongue twisters. "How much wood could a woodchuck, chuck," for example. Or how about the pepper picking Peter? We shouldn't forget about that dear lass that had to sell seashells! I thought of a tongue twister -- a Divine tongue twister as I read Paul's letter to the Corinthians. In the eight chapter of that first epistle he gives us a mouthful. Read this:

" Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him." (1 Corinthians 8:1-3, NASB95)

Did you get that? "If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know!" There's a lot here about knowledge, knowing, being known, not knowing, etc. There's also somethings here that will revolutionize our understanding of knowledge. Over the next few posts I hope to unravel the tongue twister.

Here's one a kid wrote: "A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk."

What is God Seeking?

2012-01-27T11:41:00.001-07:00

I could be wrong which some more extensive research will either prove or disprove but I can find only 2 instances in the Bible that indicates God "seeking" anything. "“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”" (Luke 19:10, NASB95) A second instance records the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman, where he says to her, ". . . the Father seeks to be His worshipers." (John 4:23b, NASB95). God seeks the lost and seeks worshipers. Yet they are not mutually independent. As Dr. John Piper has stated "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t." In R. Kent Hughes book: Disciplines of a Godly Man, he rightly concludes, ". . . We must begin with the realization that worship is the number one priority of the Church . . . God desires worship above all else."

This being so, the heart of God to seek and to save the lost, is ultimately that He might be worshiped.

Psalm 33:8 (NASB95)
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

Praying in a Heavenly Language

2012-01-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

There tends to be an amazing diversity to the Biblical call to pray always "in the Spirit". In the first century this would be interpreted by some Jews as praying in Hebrew. Along the same vein my Dad thought the language of heaven was Gaelic, but I doubt if he thought that Gaelic was praying in the Spirit. Some would teach that when our spirit mingles with the Holy Spirit, one of the outcomes is spiritual prayer. Dr. Sam Storms makes this really practical suggesting that among many things Paul means that we should pray:

"(a) as the Spirit prompts us,
(b) in the strength and power the Spirit supplies,
(c) always asking the Spirit to bring to mind the truths of God's Word that are relevant to the person or subject of our intercession, and
(d) always and ever dependent on the Spirit to cleanse our minds of sin and guard us against distraction and frustration." [1]

Does this dismiss "tongues"? No. The same Greek phrase ( ἐν πνεύματι ) is used in 1 Corinthians 14:13-19 so Paul probably has tongues in mind if one has such a spiritual gift (not all do (1 Corinthians 12:30)). To pray "in the Spirit" as the eminent theologian Charles Hodge points out means to essentially pray "under the influence of the Spirit, and with his assistance, whose gracious office it is to teach us how to pray, and to make intercessions for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; Romans 8:26."[2]

As noted by R. Kent Hughes, "Apart from the Spirit's assistance, our prayers are limited by our own reason and intuition. But with the Holy Spirit's help they become informed by Heaven." Is that not what we want? And would it not be the most logical that in Paul's flow of thought whereby he writes: "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,"[3] that he primarily means for us to use the Spirit-inspired Scriptures to determine the clear will of God and pray by the Spirit for God's will to be done? Thus whenever we are praying for the will of God, we are indeed praying in the Spirit.

"“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:9-10, NASB95)

The language of Heaven is that characteristic style of communication that earnestly desires the will of God, above all things. Let us pray this way!

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1. http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/article/in-the-spirit-18/
2. Charles Hodge, Commentary on Ephesians, electronic ed. (Simpsonville SC: Christian Classics Foundation, 1996). 391.
3. New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation. Ephesians 6:17-18

Ludi Incipiant -- Let the Games Begin!

2012-01-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

A common question regarding Christianity from both non-Christians and Christians alike is the issue of the many denominations and variety of beliefs within the same brand of religion. This is a good question. We offer the world a faith whereby there is one God, one faith and one baptism. It's in the Bible (Ephesians 4:4-6 ) our one source of authority. This all sounds so confusing. Why so many interpretations?

Do you know what else is in the Bible? Well we are told that individual Christians presently only understand in part (1 Corinthians 13:9,12). We also know that sometimes truth takes awhile to dawn on us (Proverbs 4:18). We also have the evidence of church councils wrestling with important issues (Acts 15).

So first of all let's make sure we don't fall prey to a Satanic method of Biblical interpretation (Matthew 4:7) and forget that we shouldn't make a doctrine on solitary passages. "It is also written" is an important inclusion in any Biblical discussion. The truth is we are fallen, dependent creatures and the New Birth does not make us omniscient and all-wise. We will never be God (contrary to some religions!). We will never (including the Final State) have the perfect knowledge that our God has.

Secondly, I somewhat relish the idea that within the confines of true and unabashed Christianity well-meaning Believers can still debate differences of opinion. If you think about it, in our world of pluralism and relativism, where everybody is right and right is whatever you think it is, we may be experiencing a generation of people that truly are living the last and final great debate.

Now let it be known that there are subjects that are so blatantly clear in the Bible that debate is futile if not insubordinate. But when I debate infant baptism with my Presbyterian brothers, or tongues with my Pentecostal friends, or eschatology with all my other Christians, we are entering into a sphere of discussion that our relativistic neighbors seldom enjoy.

I think instead of showing contempt for our intramural differences we ought to count it a distinct privilege. People who hold to cardinal truths of Christianity get to differ, debate and defer to one another in a spirit of Christ-likeness that is unknown in many other religious systems.

So the next time you have a friendly argument with a fellow believer on ... say: the impeccability of Jesus, stop to give thanks that you still can do that. Stop also to thank God that He has determined others to be a help to your faith. Stop also to worship a God that in infinitely wise and true; and that the joy of knowing Him is in the journey.

Ludi incipiant.