Choose Life

In my last post, I mentioned some of the blessings of obedience that we have as Christians. While all the Old Testament promises don’t transfer directly to us, we can learn an important lesson from Moses’ last words to Israel: “I invoke as a witness against you _⌊today_⌋ the heaven and the earth: life and death I have set _⌊before you_⌋, blessing and curse. So choose life, so that you may live, you and your offspring, by loving Yahweh your God by listening to his voice and by clinging to him, for he is your life and the length of your days.” Break this out: “Choose life so that you may live… by loving God and listening to His voice… for He is your life.”

Lest you think this too is uniquely an Old Testament truth, hear the words of Jesus, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Whereas Moses may have brought up images of literal, physical death (which the Israelites suffered repeatedly), the Apostle Paul carried the message into the New Testament by using death as a symbolic state of being – symbolic, yet just as dire in its consequences. He says time and again that all of us were dead in trespasses and sins before we were made alive in Christ. He also uses the metaphor to encourage Christians to put to death the things of the world that remain part of our nature after we have been redeemed. Like Moses, the Apostle sets before us life and death.

Here is a blessing of obedience I failed to mention in my last post: life. I don’t mean brain waving, heart beating warm flesh type of life. The Greek language of the New Testament has several words that can be translated life. The one most often used for life in Christ, indeed, the one Jesus used in John 17:3 is the word zoe (ζωή). In our English versions, this word is often preceded by the word “eternal” to indicate its unique characteristics. While the eternal nature of zoe is part of its meaning, we miss an important aspect of zoe-life if that’s as far as we take it. It has immediate benefits for those who choose it.

When Paul was explaining to the Romans why they should abandon their former lives of sin, despite the fact that grace covered those sins, he used the picture of baptism to make his point. “Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we may live a new way of life.” The life he referred to was zoe, and he qualified it with the word “new.” Greek has two words for new; one refers to time – new as in not old. The other one, the one Paul used here, speaks of new as a different quality. The life we have after being rescued from death (after baptism into Christ) is a different kind of life. Zoe life.

There are several aspects to this new life we have. One I have so often repeated that my regular readers may be tired of hearing it, but it is so essential I must say it again. It’s found in Jesus’ statement: “This is life (zoe): that they may know You.” Knowing God is essential to new life. When we were dead, we couldn’t know God. Paul made this clear when chastising the Corinthians for being too unspiritual (Soulish is the word he used.). He told them the things of God are spiritually discerned, and the human mind – the dead mind, the soulish mind – is unable to grasp them. So, one indispensable blessing of life in Christ is the ability to hear and know the truth – the spiritual truth contained in Scripture as well as the whispered truth in our inner being (our spirit).

The benefits of this blessing cannot be overstated. Without the ability to hear from God we are left saddled with the results of our own devices. Paul details these consequences for the Corinthian believers in the next chapter. The Apostle tells them that soulish works – things done in the flesh (aka not Spirit led) – would not earn any eternal reward. In fact, he uses the imagery of the fires of judgment which everyone must go through, even Christians, to picture soulish works being burned up while works done in the Spirit are purified like gold, silver, and precious stones.

Thankfully, Paul does not say that believers who work in unspiritual ways will perish. He says that their misguided efforts will be burned up, but that they will enter eternity smelling of smoke. I would much rather soar into eternity on the wings of a Dove than to scrape by with singed tail feathers. Notice also that the unspiritual actions Paul referred to were not wicked; the Corinthians behavior may even have seemed righteous. They were arguing over relative status of the preachers they knew. It almost sounds like typical church disagreements today: what color carpet in the auditorium, what type of music in the services, stained glass or plain windows, are the people in the church down the road truly our brothers? I like the way J.B. Phillips words Paul’s rebuke: “For you are still unspiritual… you are living just like men of the world.”

Paul said elsewhere that believers are all baptized into one Spirit. If we are all listening to that one Spirit, there can be no dissention. Agreement to disagree maybe, but that is done in a loving way without rancor. And the other blessings of zoe-life come into play. Paul listed some for the Ephesians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self control. The fruit of the Spirit is a benefit of life in the Spirit –zoe-life. The next time you are about to make a decision, whether it is in the church or in the grocery store, pause to consider its backdrop. Does it flow from the Spirit, or does it come from things of this world; are the results likely to be gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, hay, and stubble? Remember: things of this world lead to death; things of the Spirit are life – zoe-life.

 

Blessings of Obedience

Every time I read the blessings of obedience found throughout the Books of Moses, especially Deuteronomy, I am struck by the apparent simplicity of the equation: if A then B. It seems as though God told the Israelites that if they were obedient, then He would bless them. I suspect that is true; in a perfect land, perfect people would be perfectly obedient and be perfectly blessed. Israel was not perfect, so we get patches of blessing and patches that were not so blessed – like draught, pestilence, conquering armies and captivity to name a few.

On this side of the Cross of Calvary, it is an academic exercise to wonder if the equation was as simple as it seems. It is also true that from our New Testament vantage point, we no longer look for the same blessings as the nation of Israel. Under the Old Covenant, God promised demonstrable, physical prosperity; read Deuteronomy 28. In the New Covenant, our blessings are first spiritual and only physical secondarily. Certainly we have Jesus’ promise that if we seek the Kingdom of God our physical needs will be met. But notice that Jesus’ promise of “all these things” referred to food and clothing, not unlimited physical blessings.

We cannot honestly look at the life and writings of Paul and draw the conclusion that obedience should bring health and wealth. The Apostle certainly didn’t expect it. He spoke of the tribulations he experienced as par for the course. He considered his trials a badge of authenticity for a servant of Christ. When writing about the “thorn in the flesh” he suffered with (by God’s hand), he chose to boast about it as it magnified the power of Christ in him. Surely, Paul is a stellar example of an obedient follower of Christ, yet far from expecting blessings, he insisted that he was content with whatever circumstances he found himself in.

As I have said before, the so-called prosperity gospel gets it wrong. (See Abraham's Promises = Solomon's Rules) The proponents of the health and wealth message speak of the Old Testament economy as if it still applies with no alterations. They miss the message of Hebrews which announces that the new covenant comes with new and better promises. What is better about the new covenant is precisely that it is NOT physical. Jesus, our true high priest, serves in the true temple, of which the earthly temple was only a shadow.  He intercedes for each one of us personally and perfectly. In place of the physical presence of God in the pillar of fire or cloud, we have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Instead of making annual sacrifices to atone for our sins, we have the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ which assures us of our salvation. That assurance may be the best of the new promises; the resurrection to glory is guaranteed. Old Covenant saints had no clear picture of what to expect when they died.

While these spiritual blessings are tremendous, and it is wonderful that they come to us not through anything we have done, we are not to presume that the way we live our lives is unimportant. God has work for us to do. We are His instruments to bring others into His family. We are agents of His love and grace in a troubled world. And we have a larger purpose as I have written in “Necessary Obedience:”

“I believe that there is another elemental factor in the necessity of works as part of our relationship with God. One of the first responsibilities God gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden was to work: “And Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it.” We know that God’s original plan was for Adam and Eve to spread the Eden-like quality of creation across the globe. Sin, of course, interrupted that, but God is still working toward His original goal via the plan of redemption of man and Earth through the Cross of Christ. The first Adam’s boo-boo is erased, and the Kingdom of God (Eden) is accomplished through the works of the followers of the Second Adam.

I developed the idea of Christians as agents of God’s original plan more fully in “Bringing the Kingdom” and “It’s Not All About You,” but I want to repeat here that our individual salvation is part of a much bigger operation that has truly cosmic dimensions. We are supposed to be agents who fulfill the request found in the prayer Jesus taught His disciples: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Our salvation is, quite literally that we should work towards God’s ultimate goal: Earth as Eden.”

There is some indication in Scripture that God intended Israel to accomplish that goal. They were supposed to be a light to the nations. They failed. At their best they were insular and exclusive; at their worst they were downright wicked. Now it’s our turn. Jesus called His followers to be the light of the world. Having been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son, we must set our minds on things above; we must not use our freedom as an opportunity for physical gratification; we must make the most of our time because the days are evil; we must count all our physical accomplishments as loss compared to the excellency of knowing Christ. We must share Jesus with the world. It is a blessing that God gives us that responsibility. There’s your blessing.