There’s a lot of end-time speculation that is simply that: speculation. What year will Jesus return? Will the antichrist be a European atheist? A Middle Eastern Muslim? An Israeli Jew? And what about the Temple in Jerusalem? Will it be rebuilt? If so, how and when?
These are all interesting questions. But for the most part, they don’t affect the way we live today (unless you happen to believe Jesus is coming today – in which case, why are you even reading this article?).
But there are larger, end-time scenarios that do affect how we live today, including those that set dates for Christ’s return.
Before getting into specifics, though, let me paint a picture for you.
Let’s say your family is not religious, so you’re not inclined to believe in (or, look for) miracles.
Your mother, now 80, has been diagnosed with cancer, and you’re told that it is in an advanced stage and there’s nothing that can be done.
How do you respond?
Probably, you get another serious medical opinion, looking for some ray of hope. But once you’re convinced that there’s nothing that can be done – no surgery, therapy, or alternative treatment – you maximize the time you have together and try to make your mom as comfortable as possible in her last days.
You’ve been told there is no hope for the future, and that affects how you live today.
In the same way, if you were convinced that the world was getting worse and that there was nothing you could do to change that, would you be involved in the culture wars? Would you invest time and energy and income in fighting against abortion? Would you seek to restore marriage as God intended it? Or would you simply tell as many people as you could about Jesus, knowing that everything around you was collapsing?
To be sure, we should all our do best to be faithful witnesses and share the gospel with everyone we can. And we should live with a sense of urgency since we only have one life to live for the Lord, and every day, other lives hang in the balance.
But if you truly believe that we are living in the last generation and that things will only go downhill from here, why bother to bring about change? Why bother to combat the darkness if things will only get darker?
To compound the problem, what if you believed that, before things hit rock bottom, Jesus would rapture us out of here? What if you believed that things, indeed, were getting dark, but before they got really dark, we would be rescued?
What, then, would your attitude be to declining morals? To spiritual backsliding? To cultural collapse?
Perhaps something like this:
“These are the signs of the times Jesus spoke of! Everything is about to collapse! We’ll be out of here any moment!”
I remember hearing these very things as a new believer in Jesus in the early 1970s. Not only were the major prophecies lining up – especially when it pertained to Israel – but the final apostasy was here, the great falling way.
And it was easy to think like this.
First, the events surrounding the restoration of the State of Israel were of great spiritual and prophetic importance. There’s no denying that.
Second, America went through a sudden and dramatic cultural shift in the 1960s, and it was easy for many to think we were in the very last of the last days.
I’m talking about the difference between Leave It to Beaver and the Beatles singing “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road.” Or the difference between Father Knows Best and Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire – as if engaging in a sexual act – at Monterrey Pop. Or the difference between Ozzie and Harriet and the Stonewall Riots.
“Yes, these are the prophesied last days, and we’ll be out of here any moment. It’s all going down from here!”
Unfortunately, those who had different expectations than many of us – such as radical feminists and homosexual activists and sexual revolutionaries and anti-Christian educators and Eastern religionists – were working hard at changing the culture in a lasting way. In the words of one gay activist, they wanted to write the revolution into law. And they did. Dramatically and spectacularly.
As for many Christians looking for the any-minute-rapture, it never happened, and here we are today, grieving over our culture’s demise. Worse still, it is our children and grandchildren who have inherited the mess.
Personally, based on my study of Scripture, I believe that the end of the age will be marked by great light and great darkness. By a great harvest of souls and by great rebellion. By an outpouring of the Spirit from above and a wave of deception from below.
I also believe that light ultimately triumphs over darkness and that, from a New Testament perspective, the light is shining brighter while the darkness is losing its grip (see John 1:5; Romans 13:12; 1 John 2:8).
I also believe that we, as God’s people, are destined to overcome whatever opposition comes our way, especially in terrible times (see John 16:33, and read all of Revelation!).
And, on a totally pragmatic level, regardless of what we believe about the final generation, we will not know for sure that we are part of it unless Jesus comes. That means that we should stand up and do what’s right in every generation, simply because it’s right. And we should relieve suffering whenever we can, because that’s always a good thing to do.
Otherwise, we can easily become paralyzed and fearful, looking for a way of escape rather than looking to be agents of change. (Can you imagine what the world would look like today if the generations of Christians before us believed theirs was the last generation and everything was getting worse? Why combat evils in the Roman empire in the 300s or slavery in America in the 1800s? “It’s all coming down and we’re out of here any second!”)
Regardless of your end-time beliefs, I believe the book will stir your faith and give you courage. After all, in Jesus, you are an overcomer (1 John 5:4) called to make disciples of the nations, under the total authority of Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20). Isn’t that more than enough to keep us strong and full of faith?
Three weeks ago I blew the trumpet for “Planting a Passion” to waken a dream in you of being a part of spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples by starting a new, strong, God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, missions-mobilizing, soul-winning, justice-pursuing church somewhere else in the Twin Cities. I pray that this vision of Planting a Passion is simmering in all of you.
The Call for Justice-Pursuing, Coronary Christians
Then in the last two weeks, we fleshed out some of what it means to be a justice-pursuing church. We focused two weeks ago on racial justice, and we focused last week on justice for the unborn. And in general my plea was that God would create justice-pursuing, coronary Christians at Bethlehem — not adrenal Christians. Christians who keep on pumping the blood of life hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade into a Cause bigger than yourself or your family or your church. Marathon Christians, not sprinters. William Wilberforce-likeChristians who gave all his life to defeat the slave trade in Britain two hundred years ago.
One of his adversaries said, “It is necessary to watch him as he is blessed with a very sufficient quantity of that Enthusiastic spirit, which so far from yielding that it grows more vigorous from blows.” In other words, knock him down and he gets up stronger. There are not many people like that in America today. Most people who get knocked down for righteousness’ sake feel sorry for themselves, then they ask where God was, and then they take someone to court. A coronary Christian learns from the defeat, gets up, sets a new goal, and presses on in the cause.
Coronary Christians Fight Warfare Against Their Sin
Now, this morning we have returned to Romans 8 to pick up where we left off on December 16th. But I am still trumpeting Planting a Passion, and I am still working to build “justice-pursuing” churches, and I am still pleading for God to create coronary Christians, because that is what verses 12–13 help me do.
If you are going to be the kind of person who gets up when you get knocked down and instead of planning revenge, plans fresh strategies of love; and instead of questioning God, submits to his wise and good sovereignty; and instead of whining, rejoices in tribulation and is refined like steel, then you will have to learn to kill the sins of self-pity and pride and grudge-holding and loving the praise of man. In other words, coronary Christians who joyfully press on in some great cause of love and justice don’t come out of nowhere. They come out of the fiery furnace of warfare with sin — fought mainly in their own souls.
Let’s look at verses 12-13: “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh [literally: we are debtors not to the flesh], to live according to the flesh — for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
If you are going to be a coronary, justice-pursuing, passion-planting Christian — or, for that matter, any kind of Christian who inherits life and not death — Paul says you must not be the debt-paying slave of the flesh — that old rebellious, insubordinate, self-sufficient nature we all have (Romans 8:7). “Brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh” — we owe the flesh nothing but enmity and war. Don’t dally with your destroyer. Don’t be a debtor to your destroyer. Get out debt to the flesh, don’t pay for your own destruction.
How, we ask? That’s what verse 13 describes. If you are going to be a coronary, justice-pursuing, passion-planting, free-from-debt-to-fatal-flesh Christian, you must be skilled at killing your own sins. This is dangerous language here, so be careful. Don’t think about other people’s sins. Don’t think about how people wrong you. Think about your own sins. That’s what Paul is talking about. Verse 13b: “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of [your!] body, you will live.”
John Owen on Mortification of Sin
The great teacher of the church on this doctrine is John Owen. Nobody has probed it more deeply, probably. He wrote a little 86-page book called Mortification of Sin in Believers. “Mortify” means “kill” in 17th century English. Today it just means “embarrass” or “shame.” But Owen was talking about this verse. In fact, his whole book is an exposition of this verse — Romans 8:13. He put it like this: “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
My mother wrote in my Bible when I was fifteen years old — I still have the Bible — “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.” Now Owen says, based on Romans 8:13, “Be killing sin or [sin] will be killing you.” We will see that these two mottos are very closely connected, because Romans 8:13 says that we are to put be putting sin to death by the Spirit: “If by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” — and what is the instrument of death wielded by the Spirit? The answer is given in Ephesians 6:1: “the sword of the Spirit, the word of God.” This book will keep you from sin — this book will kill sin.
I just want you to see how everything in these recent weeks is connected. We thought we were taking a detour from Romans since December 16, but it turns out that we were really simply giving application of what happens when Christians put to death the deeds of the body. They become coronary, marathon, God-centered, Christ-exalting, justice-pursuing, passion-planting Christians.
So now what would be helpful to know in order to experience what Romans 8:13 is calling for? Well, I see four questions that would be helpful to answer so that we can be about this crucial duty of killing sin.
“If you have been justified by faith you will be glorified.”
What are “the deeds of the body” when Paul says, “If by the Spirit you kill the deeds of the body, you will live”? Surely not all the deeds of the body are to be killed. The body is supposed to be an instrument of righteousness. So what are the deeds of the body that are to be killed?
What does killing them mean? Do they have life that we should take away? What will killing them involve?
What does “by the Spirit” mean? The Spirit is himself God. He is not a lifeless instrument in our hands to wield as we wish. The very thought of having the Spirit in my hand gives me the shivers of disrespect. I am in his hand, aren’t I? Not he in mine. He is the power, not me. How am I to understand this killing of sin “by the Spirit”?
Does this threat of death mean that I can lose my salvation? Verse 13a: “If you are living according to the flesh, you must die.” This is spoken to the whole church at Rome. And death here is eternal death and judgment. We know that because everyone — whether you live according to the flesh or not — dies a physical death. So the death this verse warns about is something more, something that happens only to some and not to others. So the question remains: can we die eternally if we have justified by faith? If so what becomes of our assurance, and if not why does Paul threaten us all with death if we live according to the flesh and tell us to be about the business of killing sin?
So let’s start here with this last question and then take up the others in two weeks. What we should take away this morning is a general sense of how justification relates to sin-killing; and how crucial it is that we do it.
Does the Threat of Death Imply We Can Lose Our Salvation?
You know my answer: no, someone who is justified by faith alone apart from works of the law cannot die in this sense of eternal death. One of my main reasons for believing this is found in this chapter in verse 30. In this verse, Paul argues that salvation from beginning to end is a work of God with every part linked to the other in an unbreakable chain.
Romans 8:30: “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Here the link between justification and glorification is certain. If you have been justified by faith you will be glorified. That is, you will be brought to eternal life and glory. The chain will not be broken: predestination, calling, justification, glorification.
Killing Sin Is the Result and Evidence of Justification
So the question then is why does Paul say to the church in Rome — and to Bethlehem — “If you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live”? The reason is this: Putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit — the daily practice of killing sin in your life — is the result of being justified and the evidence that you are justified by faith alone apart from works of the law. If you are making war on your sin, and walking by the Spirit, then you know that you have been united with Christ by faith alone. And if you have been united to Christ, then his blood and righteousness provide the unshakable ground of your justification.
On the other hand, if you are living according to the flesh — if you are not making war on the flesh, and not making a practice out of killing sin in your life, then there is no compelling reason for thinking that you are united to Christ by faith or that you are therefore justified. In other words, putting to death the deeds of the body is not the way we get justified, it’s one of the ways God shows that we are justified.
And so Paul commands us to do it — be killing sin — because if we don’t — if we don’t make war on the flesh and put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit — if growth in grace and holiness mean nothing to us — then we show that we are probably false in our profession of faith, and that our church membership is a sham and our baptism is a fraud, and we are probably not Christians after all and never were.
Killing Sin Is the Effect, not the Cause
This is a good place to review and reestablish the great foundation for our call for coronary, justice-pursuing Christians. Are we calling for you to live this way so that you will get justified, or are we calling for you to live this way because this is the way justified sinners live? Is the pursuit of justice and love “by the Spirit” with life-long perseverance the cause or the effect of being set right with God?
Let Wilberforce answer. Here was a man who had a passion for holiness and righteousness and justice greater than anyone in his day perhaps. When he wrote his book, A Practical View of Christianity, to trumpet this passion for justice and for political engagement in the cause of righteousness, here is what he said,
Christianity is a scheme “for justifying the ungodly” [Romans 4:5], by Christ’s dying for them “when yet sinners” [Romans 5:6–8], a scheme “for reconciling us to God” — when enemies [Romans 5:10]; and for making the fruits of holiness the effects, not the cause, of our being justified and reconciled.
“If we died to sin by being united with Jesus in his death, we can’t stay married to sin.”
We have spent almost four years laying the foundation for understanding Romans 8. The first five chapters of Romans demonstrate that the only way for us sinners to be declared righteous in God’s sight is by having righteousness reckoned to us — credited to us, imputed to us — by grace, through faith, on the basis of Christ’s perfect life and death, and not on the basis of our own works. God is just and justifies the ungodly who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26).
With that stunning and unspeakably wonderful foundation laid, Paul has to ask in chapter 6, two times: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase” (verse 1)? “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace” (verse 15)? And all of chapters 6 and 7 is written to show that justification by faith alone apart from works does notand cannot lead a person to make peace with sin.
Paul answers his own question in Romans 6:2, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” We can’t. If we died to sin by being united with Jesus in his death, we can’t stay married to sin. The faith that unites us to Christ disunites from his competitors. The faith that makes peace with God makes war on our sin. If you are not at odds with sin, you are not at home with Jesus, not because being at odds with sin makes you at home with Jesus, but because being at home with Jesus makes you at odds with sin.
Therefore, I call you and urge you, for the sake of being God-centered, Christ-exalting, soul-winning, justice-pursuing, passion-planting, coronary Christians, don’t live according to the flesh but “by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body.” Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.
Yale has found a roundabout way to blacklist legal and nonprofit organizations that don’t adhere to Yale’s understanding of gender identity.
April 1, 2019 by Aaron Haviland
Several weeks ago, I wrote about the challenges of being a Christian and a conservative at Yale Law School. A few days ago, the law school decided to double down and prove my point.
After the Yale Federalist Society invited an attorney from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a prominent Christian legal group, to speak about the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, conservative students faced backlash. Outlaws, the law school’s LGBTQ group, demanded that Yale Law School “clarify” its admissions policies for students who support ADF’s positions. Additionally, Outlaws insisted that students who work for religious or conservative public interest organizations such as ADF during their summers should not receive financial support from the law school.
On March 25, one month after the controversy, Yale Law School announced via email that it was extending its nondiscrimination policy to summer public interest fellowships, postgraduate public interest fellowships, and loan forgiveness for public interest careers. The school will no longer provide financial support for students and graduates who work at organizations that discriminate on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.”
Yale based its decision on a unanimous recommendation from the school’s Public Interest Committee. The committee explained: “The logic of our broader recommendation is that Yale Law School does not and should not support discrimination against its own students, financially or otherwise. Obviously, the Law School cannot prohibit a student from working for an employer who discriminates, but that is not a reason why Yale Law School should bear any obligation to fund that work, particularly if that organization does not give equal employment opportunity to all of our students.”
The law school also thanked Outlaws for raising this issue.
Too Vague and Broad
Conservative students who read the announcement were outraged. At first glance, the policy looks like it applies to organizations with disfavored policy positions. A student working for ADF, for example, would not receive school funding because ADF advocates for natural marriage.
In private emails to students, however, the Yale administration has been presenting a narrower explanation of the new policy. The school’s funding restrictions will only apply to organizations with disfavored hiring practices.
While admitting that there are still many details to be worked out, Yale currently says it envisions a self-certification process for employers. For a Yale student to receive a summer public interest fellowship, the employer must certify that it is in compliance with Yale’s nondiscrimination policy. If an organization does not self-certify, then the student will receive no financial support from the law school.
For organizations like ADF, this presents a problem. ADF employees must sign a statement of faith in which they affirm—among other principles—the Christian sexual ethic. This ethic teaches that “all forms of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, polygamy, polyandry, bestiality, incest, pornography, and acting upon any disagreement with one’s biological sex) are sinful and offensive to God.”
When asked specifically about ADF, Yale officials claimed they do not know enough about ADF’s hiring practices to make a determination. However, they admitted that if ADF does not certify that it will comply with Yale’s policy, then students working for ADF will be ineligible for public interest fellowships and the loan forgiveness program.
Discriminating Against Christians Is Totally Acceptable
When questioned about this new policy, Yale officials act puzzled as to why religious and conservative students and alumni are so worried. There are several reasons to be concerned.
First, Yale’s only assurances that the policy will be limited to hiring practices, and not applied to policy positions, are private emails sent to individual students. This is not enough. What ultimately matters is the text of the policy. Behind-the-scenes promises about how the policy will be interpreted and applied are not binding. The law school’s public position is too vague.
Second, even if this new policy is limited to hiring practices, it’s still deeply troubling. The policy was obviously a response to ADF. Yale made this clear when it thanked Outlaws for raising this issue, which was in the context of a protest against ADF. And in announcing the new policy, Yale said, “while the law governing nondiscrimination against LGBTQ people is subject to contestation, the Law School’s commitment to LGBTQ equality is not.”
Without naming ADF, Yale has found a roundabout way to functionally blacklist them and other organizations that do not adhere to Yale’s progressive understanding of gender identity. Law students and graduates will still receive funding to work at organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union that defend abortion, for example. But if students and graduates want to work for ADF or other similarly situated religious or conservative organizations, they will get no help.
Finally, Yale has already caved to one progressive demand by restricting financial support for conservative students. Who is to say that the school will not cave again and start denying admission to conservative applicants? There were certainly calls among the student body to do so. Progressive students are attempting to shrink the Overton Window of reasonable public discourse, and Yale seems all too willing to comply.
I still believe that there is plenty of good at Yale. As Justice Kavanaugh said, we should all strive to be “on the sunrise side of the mountain.” I am incredibly lucky to be here and am determined to leave this school without any anger or bitterness. But they’re making it hard.
Aaron Haviland is a student at Yale Law School. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Cambridge, and he served in the Marine Corps.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
The question we will tackle today is how do people who have experienced the miracle of the new birth deal with their own sinfulness as they try to live in the full assurance of their salvation? That is, how do we deal with the conflict between the reality of the new birth, on the one hand, and our ongoing sin, on the other hand? How do you balance the danger of losing assurance of salvation and the danger of being presumptuous that you are born again when you may not be? How can we enjoy the assurance of being born again, and yet not take lightly the sinfulness of our lives that is so out of step with being born again?
John’s first letter, more than any other book in the Bible, seems to be designed to help us in this practical, daily battle. Consider 1 John 5:13: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” This book is written, he says, to help believers have the full assurance that they have been born again—that is, that they have new, spiritual life in them that will never die. John wants you—God wants you—to experience something in this letter that makes you profoundly confident that you have passed from death to life.
First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life.” Jesus says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” So John and Jesus are jealous for us believers to know that judgment is behind us, and death is behind us, because our judgment happened when Jesus was judged in our place, and our death happened when Jesus died in our place. And therefore, new life is in us and this life cannot perish and cannot be taken away. It’s eternal. That’s the assurance John and Jesus want for you. “I write these things to you . . . that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).
The Folly of the False Teachers
But something is going on in the churches that John is writing to that concerns him deeply. Whatever it is, it threatens to destroy this assurance. There are false teachers who are saying things that may give the impression of good news and strong assurance, but will have the very opposite effect. In dealing with these false teachers, John shows us how to deal with our own sin in relation to fighting for assurance. What were these false teachers saying?
First, they were saying that the pre-existent Son of God, Jesus Christ, had not come in the flesh. They did not believe in the full union of the pre-existent Son of God with a fleshly human nature like ours. Here is what John says about them in 1 John 4:1-3: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”
Disconnecting Christ and the Flesh
There is a lot we could go into about this early Christian heresy, but I only want to focus on one thing. These false teachers disconnected Christ and the flesh. See that in verse 2: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” They did not like the idea of the pre-existent Christ being united with human flesh.
Now here is the reason that’s relevant for our question today. This view of the person of Christ not being united to physical, bodily, flesh evidently had a practical, moral effect on the way these false teachers viewed the Christian life. Just as they disconnected the person of Christ from ordinary physical life, so they disconnected being a Christian from ordinary physical life.
Disconnecting Christians and the Flesh
One of the clearest places to see his is here in our text: 1 John 3:7. John says, “Little children, let no one deceive you [so he has the false teachers in view]. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.” What’s he saying? He is saying beware of the false teachers because what they say is that you can be righteous and not practice righteousness. “Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous.”
In other words, John opposes not only their view of Christ, that they disconnect his person from his ordinary bodily life of doing things, but he also opposes their view of the Christian life when they disconnected our person from our ordinary bodily life of doing things: “The flesh didn’t really matter for Jesus; what mattered was that somehow, in a spiritual way, he was the Christ and there was no real union of the pre-existent Christ and the physical man Jesus. And our flesh doesn’t really matter either; but somehow, in a spiritual way, we are born again, but there is no real union between that new creation and our physical life that does righteousness or does sin.” Which led directly to the error that John points out in 1 John 3:7, that you can berighteous in some spiritual way, and yet not do righteousness in your ordinary physical life.
Now John has three responses to this false teaching.
Christ’s Incarnation Lasts Forever
First, he insists that the flesh of Jesus and the person of the pre-existent Christ are inseparable. First John 4:2: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Notice it does not say “came in the flesh,” as though that union with flesh and bones happened for a while and then stopped. He says “has come in the flesh.”
This incarnation lasts forever. The second person of the Trinity will forever be united with human nature. We will always know him as Jesus, one like us, and infinitely above us—the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8:29). God did not, and does not, despise the physical creation that he made. He has comein the flesh. And the Son of God remains in the flesh forever. So John’s first response to the false teaching is to set straight their view of Christ. His physical being is not a mirage. It’s not secondary. It’s not unimportant. That he has a body marks and identifies him forever.
Christian Doing Confirms Being
John’s second response to the false teaching is to deny emphatically its teaching that spiritual being can be separated from physical doing. John, in fact, insists that spiritual being must be validated by physical doing, or else the spiritual being is simply not real. That’s what we saw in 1 John 3:7: “Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.” The deceivers were saying: You can be righteous and yet not practice righteousness. John says: The only people who are righteous are the ones who practice righteousness. Doing confirms being.
That is what John says over and over again in this letter. For example, in 1 John 2:29, he says, “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.” In other words, the doing of righteousness is the evidence and confirmation of being born again.
Not Practicing Sin: Evidence of the New Birth
Or consider 1 John 3:9: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” The practice of sin is the evidence and confirmation that one is not born of God. Doing confirms being. Not practicing sin is the evidence and confirmation of being born again.
And the reason the new birth inevitably changes the life of sinning, John says, is that when we are born again, “God’s seed” abides in us, and we “cannot keep on sinning.” That’s how real the connection between the new birth and daily physical life is. The seed may be the Spirit of God or the Word of God or the nature of God—or all three. Whatever it is specifically, God himself is at work in the new birth so powerfully that they cannot keep on practicing sin. God’s seed cannot make peace with a pattern of sinful behavior.
These false teachers who think they can separate who they are spiritually from who they are physically do not understand either the incarnation or regeneration. In the incarnation, the pre-existent Christ is really united with a physical body. And in regeneration, the new creation in Christ has real, inevitable effects on our physical life of obedience.
Rejecting Any Notion of Sinlessness in the Born Again
John’s third response to the false teaching is to reject any notion of sinlessness in born-again people. Evidently, the way this false teaching was working was that, by disconnecting “being righteous” from “doingrighteousness” (3:7), they were then able to say, “Well, even if your body does some things that are sinful, that’s not really you. The real you is the born again you; and that real you is so above daily physical life that it’s never defiled by sin.”
So this disconnection that the false teachers made between who you are and what you do had led them, evidently, to say that Christians never really sin. How could they? They’re born of God. They’re new creatures. They have the seed of God in them. So John levels his guns at this error three times. It’s important that you see them.
1) There Are No Sinless Christians.
First John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” We! We born-again Christians. In other words, don’t let the deception of these false teachers work its way into your own self-deception. There are no sinless Christians.
2) The Born Again Have an Advocate.
First John 2:1: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” In other words, John does not assume that if you sin, you are not born again. He assumes that if you sin, you have an Advocate, Jesus Christ. And only those who are born again have this Advocate.
3) There Is Sin That Does Not Lead to Death.
First John 5:16-17: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.”
Notice that last clause: “There is sin that does not lead to death.” This is why you can see your brother committing sin. He is your brother. He is born again. And he is sinning. How can this be? Because there is sin that does not lead to death. I don’t think he has particular kinds of sins in view, but rather degrees of rootedness and habitual persistence. There is a point of confirmed sinning which may take you over the line of no return and you will be like Esau who sought repentance and could not find it (Hebrews 12:16-17).
How Do the Born Again Deal with Their Sin?
Now we come to the question we raised at the beginning: How do people who have experienced the miracle of the new birth deal with their own sinfulness as they try to live in the full assurance of their salvation? My answer is: You deal with it by the way you use John’s teaching. John warns against hypocrisy (claiming to be born again when your life contradicts it), and John celebrates the Advocacy and Propitiation of Christ for sinners.
The question is: How do you use these two truths? How do you use the warning that you might deceive yourself? How do you use the promise, “If we do sin, we have an Advocate”? The evidence of your new birth lies in how these to truths function in your life.
Here’s the way they function if you are born again:
1) Fleeing Presumption, Flying to the Advocate
You are slipping into a lukewarm, careless, presumptuous frame of mind about your own sinfulness. You are starting to coast or be indifferent to whether you are holy or worldly. You are losing your vigilance against bad attitudes and behaviors—and starting to settle in with sinful patterns of behavior.
When the born-again person experiences this, the truth of 1 John 3:9 (“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning”) has the effect, by the Holy Spirit, of awakening him to the danger of his condition so that he flies to his Advocate and his Propitiation for mercy and forgiveness and righteousness. He confesses his sin and receives cleansing (1:9), and his love for Christ is renewed and the sweetness of his relationship is recovered and the hatred of sin is restored and the joy of the Lord again becomes his strength.
2) Fleeing Despair, Flying to the Advocate
You are sinking down in fear and discouragement and even despair that your righteousness, your love for people, and your fight against sin are just not good enough. Your conscience is condemning you, and your own deeds seem so imperfect to you that they could never prove that you are born again.
When the born-again person experiences this, the truth of 1 John 2:1 has the effect, by the Spirit, of rescuing him from despair: “My little children [he wants to be tender with their consciences], I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
John’s warning of hypocrisy calls you back from the precipice of presumption. John’s promise of an Advocate calls you back from the precipice of despair.
The Redemptive Power of God’s Word
New birth enables you to hear Scripture and use Scripture helpfully, redemptively. New birth doesn’t use the promise “We have an Advocate” to justify an attitude of cavalier indifference to sin.
New birth doesn’t’ use the warning “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning” to pour gasoline on the fires of despair. New birth has a spiritual discernment that senses how to use John’s teaching: The new birth is chastened and sobered by the warnings, and the new birth is thrilled and empowered by the promise of an Advocate and a Propitiation.
May the Lord confirm your new birth by both of these responses to the word of God. May he grant you to embrace both the warning and the comfort and put them to proper spiritual use in preserving the full assurance of your salvation.
A Christian representative in the Pennsylvania legislature has been denounced over the prayer she offered on March 25 during a swearing-in ceremony for a Muslim lawmaker.
During her prayer before the swearing-in of newly elected Democrat Representative Movita Johnson-Harrell, who is a Muslim, Republican State Representative Stephanie Borowicz (shown) invoked the name of Jesus over a dozen times, and also offered thanks for President Donald Trump’s support of the nation of Israel.
Calling herself Jesus’s “ambassador,” Borowicz declared that Jesus is the “King of kings and Lord of lords, the Great I Am,” and the “One who is coming back again.” In her prayer Borowicz asked God to forgive America for losing its spiritual bearings. “Jesus, we’ve lost sight of you,” Borowicz prayed, as Johnson-Harrell and the rest of her Democrat colleagues squirmed uneasily in their seats. “We’re asking you to forgive us…. Jesus, You are our only hope.”
Borowicz went on to pray for the state’s and nation’s leaders, and concluded her prayer “in the powerful, mighty Name of Jesus.”
Response from Democrat lawmakers and the governor was predictable in its condemnation of Borowicz and her Christian sentiment. Democrat House Whip Jordan Harris called Borowicz’s prayer “inappropriate,” offering himself as a model of correct comportment. “I am a Christian,” Harris solemnly intoned. “I spend my Sunday mornings in church worshipping and being thankful for all that I have. But in no way does that mean I would flaunt my religion at those who worship differently than I do. There is no room in our Capitol building for actions such as this, and it’s incredibly disappointing that today’s opening prayer was so divisive.”
Similarly, Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf claimed to be “horrified” by Borowicz’s prayer. “I grew up in Pennsylvania,” Wolf pointed out, and “Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn on the basis of freedom of conscience. I have a strong spiritual sense. This is not a reflection of the religion I grew up in.”
For her part, Johnson-Harrell called Borowicz’s invocation “offensive,” saying that “to use Jesus as a weapon is not OK,” and “we cannot weaponize what’s going on with Israel and Palestine.”
She added that the prayer “blatantly represented the Islamophobia that exists among some leaders — leaders that are supposed to represent the people. I came to the Capitol to help build bipartisanship and collaborations regardless of race or religion to enhance the quality of life for everyone in the Commonwealth.”
The Muslim lawmaker complained that Borowicz’s prayer amounted to “a political statement, and I think we need to be very, very clear that everybody in this House matters, whether they’re Christian, Muslim, or Jew, and that we cannot use these issues to tear each other down. And not only that, it was made during my swearing in.” She also called for Borowicz to be censured, “because we need to be promoting inclusion, not division.”
Somewhat ironically, reported CBN News, “another Muslim lawmaker, Rep. Jason Dawkins … opened the session on Tuesday by reading from the Quran. His invocation was followed by applause.”
Among those stepping up to defend Borowicz was Republican State Representative Daryl Metcalf, who pointed out that his colleague was merely “walking in the footsteps of our forefathers who would have prayed a prayer very similar.” Added Metcalf: “That the newest member, who is a Muslim, would attack her and say that [Borowicz’s prayer] was an example of Islamophobia, should be offensive to every Pennsylvanian.”
Evangelist Franklin Graham also weighed in to defend Borowicz, insisting that “she doesn’t need to apologize,” for her Christian prayer. “We don’t change who we are or what we believe because someone who is present may believe differently than we believe…. I always appreciate anyone who has the guts to stand up for Jesus.”
Nigerian Christians Under Siege: Attacks Claim 120 Lives Since February
by Steve Warren
At least 120 people have been killed in a series of alleged attacks by the Fulani militia on Christian communities in the Adara chiefdom of southern Kaduna in Nigeria since February, according to the nonprofit group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
The organization reported 52 people were killed and 100 homes were destroyed last Monday in the latest attacks on Inkirimi and Dogonnoma villages in Maro, Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA). The victims included women and children.
Survivors of the attack told CSW that their assailants divided into three groups. One group shot and killed people, another set fire to homes as people ran away, and the third waited in the bush to intercept fleeing villagers.L
Later that same day, dozens of people were injured and 43 houses were destroyed in another attack by militant Fulani herdsmen on another village.
The Fulani herdsmen, also known as the Fulani militia, are a semi-nomadic group herding cattle over vast areas, living in the central regions of Nigeria. The majority of the herdsmen are Muslim and have fought with Christian farmers over grazing land for centuries.
Disagreements between herders and local farmers over land, grazing areas, and water are said to be the major source of the ongoing conflict between the two groups, according to the BBC.
Thousands of people have left their homes as a result of the recent violence. The governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el Rufai, ordered a dawn to dusk curfew.
CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas appealed to both Nigeria’s state and federal governments to bring a quick end to the violence.
“The relentless death and destruction is a sad indictment of the continuing failure by both levels of government to fulfill the primary mandate of protecting all its citizens impartially,” he said in a statement.
Militant Fulani herdsmen killed thousands of Christians last year, The Christian Post reports.
As seen here at CBN News. Posted here with permission.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ask yourself why none of the sewagestream media reports the barbaric persecution and murderous attacks on Nigerian Christians?
You can be assured that if the victims were Muslims, the media would be all over the story, but since the victims are Christians, they remain silent.
It’s because the media and other liberals care little about Christians because Christians tell the truth and oppose their radical socialism.
If the victims had been Muslims, the United Nations would probably get involved, but since the victims are just Christians, the United Nations, like the media and Democrats, remain silent.
Now, ask yourself if your Christian faith is strong enough to endure similar persecution? It’s easy to say it is, but think hard. Would you willingly endure torture and being brutally murdered for the sake of Christ? Do you truly live the life a Christian, following Christ’s teachings day and night? Are you more of a Sunday social Christian who goes to church on Sunday and then spends the rest of the week living like everyone else and doing things they wouldn’t do in church?
History shows that when facing life threatening persecution, many Christians will denounce their faith in order to save their lives. This fits with many reports that estimate that many people who attend Christian churches are not true Christians. Are you will to die for Christ?
J.C. Knowles writes a short column titled, North Carolina Minute, which provides some of the most interesting tidbits about North Carolina history and other interesting topics which pertain to the state.
Not long ago, Knowles wrote about what it’s like for employees in the North Carolina Vital Statistics Bureau. You might think their job would be a boring one, but it’s anything but boring, says Knowles. Their main work is recording all births and deaths in the Tar Heel state.
“Many of the birth certificates which have to be recorded bring chuckles or down-right belly laughs,” he writes. “Some of the things that they must by law record, they wonder what in the world was going through the minds of those sending in the certificates.”
Here are a few the examples he gives:T
“There was a child born and given the name…Jessie James Outlaw. Some of the other names that had to be recorded were; No More Cross, Tiny New Year, and Make Eugene Punch. Believe me, these were real names, no joke. There were twins listed with the Bureau and their names were; Kate and Duplicate, Victor and Victoria, Alpha and Omega. And finally, this takes the cake; Wunzie One and Wunzie Two.”
Several years ago I was asked to officiate the funeral of a man I didn’t know. I was horrified to learn his name was Vermin, which is a word commonly understood to refer to objectionable little animals, or lice and fleas. My administrative assistant said he once heard of children named, Ima and Ura Hogg.
In Bible times, names were generally considered very important and meant something. A name often spoke of an individual’s character or role in life. For instance, the name Abraham meant, “father of many nations,” the name Jacob meant “supplanter,” the name Solomon meant “peaceful,” and the name Peter meant “rock.” But there is no name ancient or modern, which has more meaning than the name Jesus.
Many people have been given the name Jesus, before and after the biblical Jesus. But the name, which essentially means “Savior,” has never signified as unique an identity or mission as that of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures say:
“There is salvation [salvation from sin] in no one else. God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
One would think that the name of Jesus would be, as St. Bernard said, “honey in the mouth, music to the ear, a cry of gladness in the heart” of everyone, but it isn’t. We’re living in a time when that name is ousted from the public arena for so-called reasons of diversity and inclusion.
Although in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified that prayers in Jesus’ name do not violate the Constitution, the High Court, would not hear a North Carolina case, Lund v. Rowan County, which would have addressed whether elected officials could offer prayers in Jesus’ name. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said such prayers were unconstitutional, while the Sixth Circuit ruled just the opposite.
What does it really mean to pray in Jesus’ name? Is it something just to be tacked on the end of a prayer, as if it were some magical, spiritual, incantation? Should Christians seek to avoid offenses by not praying publicly in that name? No! Just as Jesus’ name means something, praying in his name means something too.
O.H. Hallesby, one of Norway’s leading Christian teachers, notes that in every religion but Christianity there is this deeply imbedded notion that our prayers can make God interested in us. They can influence him to be kindly disposed toward us, so we can get what we want from him. For several millennia prayer has been perceived as a means of winning the favor of the gods and inducing them to give away some of their divine surpluses.
But to pray in Jesus’ name means that we have access to God on the basis of His merits, and not our own. The Bible teaches that everyone has fallen short of what God commands, but Jesus lived the perfect life that God requires of us. Though he was innocent of sin, his death on the Cross was a substitutional death, where he took the punishment for our sins. Our sins were buried away with Him in the tomb. He bodily rose again to life and ascended to God where he intercedes for us, which means we don’t need a priest, or one of the saints, to help us reach God. Nor do we have to go through various spiritual gymnastics to make us worthy enough to be heard.
Hallesby rightly contends praying in Jesus’ means that we come to God with an attitude which prays:
“I do not have a right to pray…Much less do I have any right to receive what I ask for. Everything which Thou seest in my heart, O Lord, is of such a nature that it must close Thy heart to me and all my supplications. But hear me, not for my sake, nor for the sake of my prayer, and not even because of my distress…But hear me for Jesus’ sake.”
In other words, hear the words of this prayer, God, because of what Jesus has done so I might bring my petitions before you, with confidence and assurance that you are profoundly interested, intensely good, and extremely disposed toward anyone which believes in Jesus.
Steve-O said that when he was a boy, he loved the heavy metal rock band, Motley Crue. He was only thirteen when they came to his city to play. So he called every city in the Yellow Pages for a room reserved in the name of their manager in hopes of meeting the band. He finally got through because the manager’s brother answered the phone. It is because we can pray in Jesus’ name, God’s own Son; that we can get through to God.
Now does this suggest that one must always add Jesus’ name to the end of their prayer for these privileges to be effectual? Certainly not! Therefore, wouldn’t it be better to avoid offenses when praying with a religiously diverse group by omitting Jesus’ name from the prayer? Certainly not!
To pray in Jesus’ name is a vital witness to the unique identity and mission of Jesus to the whole world. It is a tremendous and necessary witness to God’s plan of inclusion and diversity. What is more, it is a testimony to the truth that our access to God isn’t based on our station, our strengths or achievements, but that we are equally helpless before God. This witness is core to the Gospel message, and unavoidably offensive, to many.
No one should ever be denied their First Amendment right to publicly pray in Jesus’ name or the name of the god they worship. That right shouldn’t even be denied when, as Justice Anthony Kennedy warned in his majority opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway, that certain prayers that “denigrate nonbelievers, or religious minorities, threaten damnation or preach conversion,” might be ruled unconstitutional. Such prayers are not a government establishment by the United States Congress of a particular religion. Moreover, it is a most egregious infringement of religious liberty to insist that if one prays publicly, it must be to the state’s generic God.
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