Essential Goodness or Total Depravity?

Sin, not a word or a subject we are comfortable with – we’d rather talk about love and grace. We’d rather be affirmed than convicted. Patted on the backed rather than challenged and corrected.

Following my last post re Steve Chalke’s article in Christianity calling for a new understanding among Christians with regard to homosexual relationships – an article that received widespread attention from the press – I’ve found myself thinking more about the doctrine of sin.

The world has never liked it (that includes you and me).

Evolution has no place for it.

Psychology frequently has no place for it, or what follows – guilt (a religious idea).

And frequently there have been those in the church who have wanted to downplay it, or reclassify it in order to be accepted by those around them, and with the hope of reaching others – albeit mistaken.

It’s a doctrine that confronts and levels us all, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, advantaged or disadvantaged, the haves and the have-nots, etc.. The Bible doesn’t play with words, or feelings, it tells us ‘we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory,’ and that we sin because we are fallen – that there is a ‘natural’ leaning in all of us to do what is wrong, something that is evidenced in one of the first words a child utters: ‘No!’ and said with emphasis! Something that I’ve observed you never have to teach a child to say, in fact parents spend their lives attempting to teach their children what is right and providing discipline and correction when the line is crossed – you never have to teach them to do wrong, they do it!

One of the problems with the current debate is the focussing on one particular sin as if it has a category all of its own, to the neglect of other sins and the thing ‘sin’ in particular.

Some Christians talk of it in terms of Total Depravity, a strange couple of words perhaps to modern ears, words which seemingly imply that someone has ‘lost it’, and capable of no good at all. In reaction to this, some theologians and preachers have attempted to rework things and talk of the ‘essential goodness’ of humanity – having observed that we are not all that bad, that some people who are not Christians have done some very good things.

The problem is that isn’t where the Bible goes, quite the opposite. Yes we are capable of some good things, but the Bible makes it clear that even the good that we are capable of is no more than filthy rags in God’s sight – they may benefit others, but they have no merit with him. Sin is ingrained, and contaminates everything in such a way as to condemn us all.

If we undermine the doctrine of sin, we undermine the very Gospel itself, and the existence of the church and it’s mission is at stake – such liberal theology has a history of emptying churches, not filling them.

Perhaps we all need to go back to the Bible and rediscover exactly what it has to say.

A Conversation or Authoritative Word

Last week Steve Chalke a British Evangelical came out in favour of giving God’s blessing to homosexual relationships.

There were a few problems with his arguments….

1. He referred to his pastoral concerns being a guiding influence. I understand these concerns, but the reality is that this amounts to nothing more than deciding what’s right or wrong by the way you feel over an issue and is an extremely dangerous approach to ministry (interestingly Brian McLaren has moved in the same direction). The problem is that our feelings however strong are the wrong place to decide what is right and what is wrong, whoever you are, whatever your desires might be. Feelings are very subjective, not only that, they can fluctuate. What I feel is right and wrong you may not. These things need to be governed by something or someone higher than ourselves. For the Christian that means they must be submitted to and governed by the Word of God. The abandonment of the Christian values found in the Word of God by the world has led to relative moralism, sadly, it’s now entering the church.

2. Steve Chalke referred to the Bible as a conversation between God and man that is still in progress, and as time goes by we are learning what’s right and wrong for our generation, adapting and changing as our understanding progresses. Now this is not what Christians and churches have believed down through the centuries. For the majority the Bible has been the God breathed, authoritative word, totally sufficient for faith and conduct, something that we submit our minds to, rather than stand over it in judgement.

3. His so-called thorough examination of what scripture teaches was anything but, it was more a dance around some scriptures, drawing in anything that he could lay his hands on that might be used to bolster his argument, rather than looking at the subject in detail. In many ways it is reminiscent of cult teaching where we keep moving to maintain the argument, but don’t stop to examine the subject in detail.

These are serious things, perhaps it’s part of a wider problem, where we speak of the scriptures as the Bible rather than the Holy Bible; where the Word is not read and listened to as God’s Word. Where it is no longer preached and expounded as the authoritative Word of God but a place of good ideas.

Studying scripture recently I was amazed at how much the Word played in the revivals/renewals of the Old Testament, not by making them feel good and right about themselves, but how they had sinned and fallen short of God’s standard.

Brothers and sisters, have we become so ‘free’ that we’ve forgotten what it is for the word of God to search us and convict us?

Have we forgotten what it is to ‘tremble at the Word’? (Isaiah 66:5)

The Fellowship of The Three

I wonder what resolutions you've made, if any? I wonder what your hopes and aspirations are, even your prayers for yourself and others? Are they just need based, problem solving, helping etc.?

Paul's pray for the Ephesian Christians was the opening of their eyes that they may know God (1:17).

God, you say, haven't they come to know him? Isn't it obvious?

The reality is no it is isn't:

1. Some have started out with false or inadequate images of God,

2. The enemy is always contending it, and

3. Many of God's people stall in their knowledge of God. It's like getting saved and knowing I will go to heaven when I die, is it, a transaction. Oh, and we can pray, as if God were there just to respond to needs, requests etc..

Fact is, there's a whole lot more to it than that. God saved us not only that we might live with him eternally, but that he might live with us in time - wow! Staggering thought! Staggering truth! He's not way over there, out there somewhere, as it were, in some other dimension, but he's right here, we can know him in this dimension. God had always designed to dwell with man.

Jesus said that he came not only to bring us salvation and reconcile us to God but that God might come and dwell within our very hearts. Paul in his letters to the churches speaks of both the individual and the corporate body of believers as the temple of the Spirit, the dwelling place of God, both a sobering and an exhilarating thought/truth. The question is what do we know of it?

Too often it can be just words, whether in song or creed, affirmations of what we believe about God, but not personal experience, not relationship - God known and encountered day by day.

If there's something I would want to encourage as a new year resolution or prayer, it is growth in the knowledge of God, not as an intellectual exercise (and yes that will be part of it), but as a very real experience. Growth and relationship with God especially as Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

That means we need to be open to all God's word (are you - or do you read the sections you are comfortable with?), and open to all his personhood - Father, Son and Spirit. In the measure that we close off part of our experience of God, so will our worship and walk and well as our relationship with him in some measure be affected or restricted.

Do you find yourself just praying to one member of the Trinity? Do you find yourself using the names interchangeably (as if they are all the same)? Do you struggle with the idea of God as Father? Do you know the continual saving power of Jesus? What about the Holy Spirit - are you scared off by what you've heard?

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him...." (Eph 1:16-17)

Israel - adding a third dimension

Well it's been two or three weeks since I posted.

Last Saturday 4th August Pam and I returned with 30+ others from a 10 day trip to Israel, and what a trip it was. I've known and heard people talk of the difference such a trip made to them but never really imagined it would have that impact - it really does!

It was a tremendous privilege to walk the land of the Bible, to observe and feel its dimensions, to observe and feel the history - the reality.

It was a tremendous privilege to walk where Jesus - God in the flesh - lived, walked, talked, healed, delivered, saved, died and rose again!

There was just sooo much! It was action packed all the way! When people have asked what was your favourite, rather like our team leader Steve, I find I have lots of favourites - in fact I started to write a list and I found it would be too long for a post! So many things brought the Bible, it's stories and teachings to life in a new way - it's like it added  a third dimension.

Probably the saddest things was to see and feel something of the division and tension in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and to see those for who Messiah came, still looking and longing for him.

The weirdest, laying on the Dead Sea and then putting your legs down in order to stand up and finding they just bounced up!

The most moving was to hear the testimonies of a Palestinian believer - how he came to Christ in prison, the trials he faces day by day, his vision for the gospel, and that of a converted Jew in Nazareth, how he had come to a saving knowledge of Messiah and how he was now seeking to make him known.

Another important aspect was the group we went with from various parts of the UK and the world, mostly unknown to one another but like a family by the end - sharing food, fellowship and fun truly helped to make it - and the collective memory at the airport as we waited for our flight certainly helped to fill the gaps in our memories and diaries!

HiStory is His story, the Bible tells us God is behind and in the story of planet earth, his great love for those he made in his image, and how he has a plan to redeem a people from every tribe, tongue and nation unto himself - a story of God's amazing grace to people who just don't deserve it!

The unfolding of that story took place in a very small corner of the earth, today it takes place on an international scale as Jesus continues to build his church as His Spirit moves across the nations of the earth and gets behind every barrier that man can raise whether of the mind and heart - or a very physical wall, to bring men and women to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ!

When the Christian life is not working

I’ve been continuing to think about different aspects of Christian life and growth.

On the evangelical spectrum, it can be all about the Word – just believe it, confess it, act on it and everything will be all right.

On the charismatic front, it can be all that we need is more of the Spirit – get filled, get anointed, and everything will be all right.

Well, you may have been there, I certainly have, and though both have there place, both can miss it, leading to disappointment and discouragement and even to departure from Christian life and the church.

You see each can miss the dynamic of our own interior lives, and end up with a super-spiritual and superficial Christian experience.

God in the business of saving us, isn’t simply interested in getting us to heaven, but transforming us here on earth, and no amount of believing the Word or anointing of the Spirit will do anything for us if we are not prepared for God to get on the inside of us, and deal with our interior lives.

For years I ignored my internal life, I believed the Word, I experienced the Spirit, I served, I ministered, but something wasn’t working, and the fault wasn’t God’s. Then I hit the wall. Got got my attention. I was a perfectionist. I was angry – it was suppressed. Most would never have known.

I slowly began to realise what was going on, and I didn’t like it, but I also began to realise that if I didn’t recognise and come to terms with my interior life, and allow God to deal with it, I was heading for a crash. For years I had lived as a kind of Christian ‘android,’ thinking and acting as a cool evangelical, knowing the power of God as a Spirit-filled Christian, but something was missing, something just wasn’t working.

Praise God that has changed, God is so gracious.

What about you, is your Christian life real and authentic and growing, or are you stagnated and frustrated and you don’t know why?

Have you ever checked your interior life?

Maybe the disappointment and pain you are experiencing is actually God wanting to get to you in order to change you -you’ve believed, you’ve prayed, you’ve been prayed for, you’ve sought more of the Spirit, but nothings changed – it’s time to let God speak and act through the disappointment and pain.

Saved Sinner or Saint - Part 3

Thinking further about whether we see ourselves as 'just sinners saved saved by grace or saints,' I've been thinking that another part of our problem is speed. Today there seems to be pressure to produce disciples overnight - as if knowledge and maturity is something that can just be taught in just a few lessons; but life is not like that.

In the natural realm growth takes time, and part of that growth is the knowledge of who we are. A child may well be born into a family with a given identity, but they don't immediately realise who they are. It is only as time goes by that that begins to sink in as they grow up into it.

Then again when people are born again/become Christians, we tend to want to get them involved in doing something, but there is a very real danger in doing before being. It buys into the world's way of thinking that our identity is found in our doing rather than our being.

The fact is we need to slow down... . .  .  .  .   .     .       .         .            speed kills - it kills the spiritual life.

The Bible talks about "waiting on the Lord" (some Psalms and Isaiah comes to mind), but it's interesting and concerning that some modern versions are now translating this as "trust in the Lord" - now that is a part of it, but waiting on God is more than that.

Too many of us are spiritual Martha's - we are too busy, we don't know how to stop, we don't know how to wait, and so we don't know who we really are because all that we are is wrapped in in what we are doing. Take that away, and we are lost.

Waiting on God involves stopping and spending time with Father, listening to him and learning about his love and care for us as his children - as it says, "Beloved, we are now the children of God..." - Mary had it right, she knew when to stop and how to stop.

Is your Christian life just too busy? Is it more about doing than delighting? More about rules than relationship? Getting things done than grace? Then stop, get into the Father's presence, go to the scriptures, search them, listen to the Father's voice, you'll be the better for it.

A Sinner saved by grave or a saint? Part 2

Following on from last week here are some further thoughts…..

So if we are more than ‘sinners saved by grace’ why is it that we struggle with being called ‘saints’?

Here are three possible reasons:

• We look the same – we have not been noticably transformed or are identifyably any different, we don’t suddenly have ‘halos’ or possess a ‘holy auror,’ or walk around 6 inches off the ground.
• We don’t necessarily feel like it. We have some measure of a ‘born again’ experience. I say some measure, because for some it’s more dramatic than others, yet no less real – some can name a date, for others it happened over a period of time and they are not sure when they actually crossed the line; for some it was a dramatic experience, for others it wasn’t…..
• We still find ourselves struggling with sin. I mean if I am a new creation why is that? Perhaps you think, what changed? Did anything change?

If we are to move forward it helps us to remember something of how life works in both the natural and the spiritual:

• In some ways becoming a Christian is a bit like moving from one country to another and then becoming a citizen of that country. You may well take on the new identity but you you still have memories and thinking patterns that reflect your previous history or citizenship.
• Then there is the matter of growth in knowledge and understanding.  A child doesn’t understand immediately who he or she is, but over a period of time learns who they are, and grows into it.
• Then theres the not so small matter of experience. It’s not just knowledge and understanding but the working out of it through decision and action. Such decision making and action can confirm or work against our knowledge of who we are.
• Lastly Christians are in a ‘war zone’ and the enemy will contest everything. Even as Satan confronted Jesus as to who he was, so he will confront those who believe in and seek to follow him.

Where are you  on the spectrum?

Have you crossed the line into the kingdom? If not I urge you to believe in him who lived and died that you might have a new identity, and know the power of the life to come.

Are you still a babe in Christ? It’s time to start growing – feed on him and his word; draw on the new life he has given you.

Are you taking responsibility for your decisions and their consequences? It’s time to start behaving as well as believing.

Are you caught in the battle, your shield is down and you’ve dropped your sword – it’s time to pick them up again and start fighting for your spiritual life.

Have you dropped out of the battalion – the local church – you need to get back into it, find your family and fellow soldiers.