Forgive us as

Forgiveness is something we all stand in need of. We’ve all missed it and we’re all messed up.

No matter how hard modern man or woman tries, guilt still runs deep. We still stand in need of redemption.

Down through the centuries humanity has sought to deal with it and it’s consequences, above all the need for absolution, to be freed from guilt and blame, and released from the consequences, obligations or penalties.

Yes we all need it, we still need it. The modern world may well want to excise us of it, but we cannot run from the reality of it or excise ourselves of it, and the Lord’s prayer reminds us that as much as we need our daily bread we also stand in need of the daily mercy and grace of God.

As someone once said, “forgiveness for man is the plainest of duties but for God it’s the profoundest of problems.” We should forgive as we are all on the same level, but for God to forgive is another matter.

In the heart of the triune fellowship of the Trinity the Son volunteered to come and deal with the guilt and blame, to release us from the consequences, obligations and penalties of our sin.

In time Jesus came and lived the life we should have lived, and then died the death we should have died, the Just for the unjust that we might be reconciled to God.

Today, from the death and resurrection flows the gospel proclamation, calling all to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. It was and still is the emancipation proclamation!

All sin, every sin is covered, past, present future, the word stands true – there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, none, period. Hallelujah!

But because we still fall short, we still mess up, there needs to be the daily appropriation of it to our lives.

We’re not perfect and we need to admit it; own up to the fact that we haven’t arrived, that we still fail, sometimes bigtime – yes, confession is good for the soul.

“As we forgive….” It shocks us to hear those words, it sounds like a condition, but no it’s the kingdom, as we pray it in ourselves experiencing the massive mercy and extreme grace of God the natural outcome is to forgive. There is a wonderful cycle going on here, the two are tied together. The person who can’t forgive hasn’t understood the forgiveness they receive. For the kingdom to come as we pray, we need to be both forgiven and forgiving.

Yes, God’s grace is that big, it truly is hyper-grace! It covers all our sin, at the same time it extends it through us to others also!

What if Jesus hadn't come?

I found myself wondering the other day what would the world be like if Jesus had never been born, and the more I thought about it the more I began to realise it would be a vastly different place to what we know now and certainly not a better one.

Unfortunately the liberal West loves to blame Christianity for many of the world's ills and keep people ignorant of the positive and profound impact Jesus, and consequently, those who have believed in, and followed him, have had upon the world.

Let me list a few...

The coming of Jesus has transformed lives, relationships and communities.

It has brought liberty and justice, education, medicine and health care to the masses.

It has brought deliverance from false and futile religion and dark satanic practices.

It has provided relief to the poor, lifted the downtrodden and broken the yoke of the oppressed.

It has impacted politics and law and given dignity and rights, freedom of speech.

It has been a stimulator and contributor to the whole arena of science.

It has given dignity to work and the rights of employees.

It has contributed enormously to music, literature and the arts.

It has provided the biggest season of goodwill the world has ever known.

And so we could go on....

Which reminds me, not so long ago I read a report that had come out of atheistic China that said that all that is good (note that) about the West derives from Christianity and therefore from Jesus. That is some statement!

Yes, if Jesus had not come into the world it would have been a far worse and poorer place.

Praise God, Jesus did come!

God Couldn't Just Turn Up - Israel's Role in the Incarnation

The incarnation didn't just happen, as we observed in the previous post God took a long time preparing for that first Christmas, and for very good reason.

There was indeed much to be done, God couldn't just turn up. For God to come in Christ as he did, he needed to prepare the way, to prepare peoples hearts and minds that they might truly know him, his ways, and how they could relate to him.

That's where God's calling and dealings with Israel come in. To that end the story of Israel is one of the revealing of God to those whom he had created - the breaking in of God upon the hearts and minds of humanity, a humanity broken, distanced and separated by sin.

For that reason he chose Abraham, a man from a  pagan background, and no special individual. He gave him a family, and from that family chose and brought forth the people and nation of Israel, a people who were no more special than any other nation on earth, the least of all people's, and as it turned out, a stubborn, rebellious people at that.

Over a period of time God made himself known to them in different and varied ways, ways that would distinguish him from the non gods of the surrounding nations as the only true and living God, a God worthy of their praise and devotion.

Part of that was a variety of rules and religious rituals, rules and rituals that may seem strange to us today and somewhat of a palaver, but they were all a necessary part of how he revealed himself to them and how he educated them in their knowledge of and relationship to him.  They enabled them to understand exactly who he was, the difference and distance between them and God, and how they should relate to him.

It would tell of his undeserved covenant love and faithfulness, his unending mercy and grace, the nature and depths of sin, the way of redemption, forgiveness, atonement, salvation. It would tell of prophet, priest and king, and the promise of Messiah which would ultimately lead to the womb of a young virgin girl and the incarnation of the Saviour God.

A Celebration and a Wedding

The church had been through a tough time, it had suffered heavily and the cry had gone up, ‘how long O Lord?’

As we saw in the last post, the Scarlet Beast and the Harlot were none other than historic Rome and unfaithful Israel. It was they who had been the cause of the suffering, including the bloodshed and death of the saints… but the time for judgment came. Yes God is patient, but his patience does not last forever – there is a day of reckoning, for every man and woman, be they emperor or everyman, prime minister or pauper, educated or not…..

Unfaithful Israel had rejected the One they should have known and received – their Messiah, the saviour Jesus. Their house was left empty. 40 years had passed, but they were not for turning. The glory had departed. There was ritual but no relationship. Now she stood judged and found wanting, and God uses the ‘powers that be’ to execute his judgment – Rome sweeps through the land exercising a scorced earth policy, and those who know the prophetic words flee – just as Jesus had said.

Jerusalem was devastated, the Temple and all it represented destroyed.

BUT…

It was the beginning of a new era. The old had gone and the new had come. A celebration was in order. “Hallelujah! Salvation, glory, and power belong to our God, because his judgments are true and righteous, because he has judged the notorious prostitute…” (Rev. 19:1,2). God had decisively acted, God had powerfully saved, for all glory and power are his. This was some party!

Then immediately following unfaithful Israel’s judgment we have the announcement of the marriage of the Lamb – with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the church becomes the Bride of Christ. This is not future, this is a past and ongoing event, as many people believe in and are joined to Christ.

As verse 8 puts it: “She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure.” Notice that, ‘given’. But the next verse muddies this in most modern traslations by saying that the “fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints.” If that’s the case, it’s not given, it’s what I’ve done or put on. It’s better to stay with the old translation here and read, “the righteousness of the saints,” in other words as the Reformers liked to put it, an ‘alien righteousness’, something outside of, and given to them – imputed righteousness. As Paul says, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness. Now to the one who works, pay is not considered a gift, but somehting owed. But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who declares the ungodly to be rightoeus, his faith is credited for righteousness.” (Rom 4:3-5).

The words of Zinzendorf come to mind….

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
’Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in Thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

This spotless robe the same appears,
When ruined nature sinks in years;
No age can change its glorious hue,
The robe of Christ is ever new.

O let the dead now hear Thy voice;
Now bid Thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.

Halellujah!!

The Scarlet Beast and the Harlot

This chapter like much of Revelation has intrigued many - what is it about, who is the Beast? who is the harlot? Is it past or future?

Having been taught and myself taught a dispensational, pretribulation, premillenial rature (wow that's a mouthful!) this was all about to come, or already taking place before our very eyes (I remember the excitement, these were the last days, any moment now Jesus would come and we would be gone!) - a revived Roman Empire (the Common Market come European Union) and Roman Catholicism or the World Council of Churches, or some such church that was in league with the powers that be.

Time has a way of proving one right or wrong, and how frequently those who held such approaches have had to reasses and adapt, only to reassess and adapt again, and again - something which mars the witness of the church, and demoralises the saints. As I have studied Revelation it's been interesting to read of a number of dispensational Bible teachers and preachers who've become disillusioned with this approach and begun to ask whether they were interpreting it correctly, and as a result of ufrther study, adopting a partial fulfillment approach.

And this is where I'm at, and when we do, chapters like this are no longer a matter of specultion, or puzzles to be solved, but a realisation of the fulfillment of the prophetic words of Jesus regarding unfaithful Jerusalem (Matthew 23 and 24).

The Beast can be no other than Rome, the city of seven mountains or hills (17:7, 9), and the harlot who sits astride the beast (therefore diferrent from the beast) is Jerusalem, unfaithful Israel.

God had no trouble referrring to his people as a harlot in the Old Testament (see Jeremiah and Hosea). And logically it doesn't make sense to use the phrase of a heathen nation. It has to do with a people who have been unfaithful and played the harlot - exactly what Israel had done both in Old Testament days and at the time Revelation ws written.

This alone make's sense of John's words, "When I saw her, I was greatly astonished" (17:6) - to have said that of Rome just wouldn't. It was the unexpected one, the one who belonged to the Lord, who had defiled herself and become enamoured with and cosied up to Rome. The one who had conspired to crucify Jesus her Messiah, had persecuted his church, and become drunk as John puts it "on the blood of the saints and the witnesses of Jesus."

The angel said to John, "she will be hated," and "made desolate and naked," solemn, serious words. Her house had been left emplty (Matt. 23:38), and judgment had come. Read the history, watch the documentaries - it happened literally.

The prophetic word given to John, was never about speculative ideas regarding the end times, but prophetic diagnosis and remedy which could lead to one of two responses, repentance or rejection.

Unfaithful Israel rejected and were rejected and judged.

What God says he means.

Scripture repeatedly shows God's patience and mercy, but it will not last forever. Thoughout Revelation is a gospel theme, and an opportunity for response, but there comes a day when the door will close.

The Beatitudes

Be attitudes?
Sometimes we hear it said that these are the be attitudes, as if its our job to fulfill them.

Well the answer might shock you.

The beatitudes are not the 10 Commandments of the Sermon on the Mount but door openers to the Kingdom of God. They are not conditions to be fulfilled but blessings pronounced on those whose experience they are. This is why they are so shocking to the religious mind. Jesus was opening the doors of the kingdom to the people the religious folks wanted to keep out!

A Re-transaltion/Paraphrase

With that in mind I have paraphrased or re-translated them:

Blessed/happy are the downtrodden, the worthless, those hanging on to life, for the kingdom of the heavens is for them.
Blessed/happy are those without status, whom the world looks down upon, they shall be lifted up, strengthened and comforted.
Blessed/happy are the lowly, the exploited of this world, those who have no say; the earth shall be their inheritance.
Blessed/happy those who hunger and thirst for justice; they will be satisfied.

Blessed/happy are the ones showing mercy; they will receive God’s lovingkindness.
Blessed/happy are those with an undivided heart, who are committed; they shall see God.
Blessed/happy are those who are peacemakers; they will be heirs of God.
Blessed/happy those who suffer for the cause of God’s justice, theirs is already the kingdom of the heavens.