New Testament Archives - Page 161 of 208

Ascension Humility (Ascension Sunday 2015)

Joe Harby on May 17, 2015

Introduction

On Ascension Sunday, we mark and remember the coronation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This crowning was the coronation of the ultimate example of humility. Now the Bible teaches us that in Christ, we are kings and priests (Rev. 1:6; 5:10). We will rule with Him, and in Him (Rev. 2:26-27). And the Scriptures also teach that our path to our little thrones will be just like His path to His great throne (2 Tim. 2:12). This means that we need to make a point of studying what actual humility is like, and how it actually desires what God promises us.

The Text

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5–11).

Summary of the Text

We are told in the previous verse that our gaze should be outward—we are not to spend our time gazing on our “own things,” but rather on the “things of others” (v. 4). In doing this, we are not starting from scratch. We should have a mind within us that was previously in Christ Jesus (v. 5). If pressed for an explanation of what He did, Paul explains that though he was in the form of God (morphe, characteristic shape), He did not consider His equality with God something that He should grasp (v. 6). Rather, He emptied Himself and took the form (morphe) of a servant, that servant form being the likeness of men (v. 7). And being found in human shape (schema), He humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross (v. 8). As a consequence of this great act of obedience, God has exalted Him highly and given Him a name that is above every name (v. 9). The result of this gift is that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow—in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth (v. 10). Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and this in turn will redound to the glory of God the Father (v. 11).

Humility is Ambitious

If God did not want us to be motivated by thought of reward, then why did He offer so many of them? In this passage, God sets before us the exaltation of Jesus, pointing to that as part of the story. When we are told to imitate Him in His humility, we are being directed to the glorious destination of all such humility. Jesus didn’t tell us to ban seats of honor at weddings; He taught us a trick for how to get into them (Luke 14:7-11). But there is a trick within the trick. The trick is that we have to die. Jesus didn’t say to rip out the chief seats in the synagogues—He pointed out the inglorious behavior of those who loved those seats (Luke 20:45-47). He promised us long life in the land if we honored our fathers and mothers (Eph. 6:1-4). But we have to pursue our inheritance of land the way He instructs (Luke 14:25-26; Mark 10:29-31). So we honor our fathers and mothers rightly by hating them rightly.

So humility is defined by what we are ambitious for, and not by whether we are ambitious. Those who pretend to want nothing at all are those who have entered on a deep course of self-deception. “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:42–43, ESV). There are two, and only two, possibilities for us. We will either love the glory that arises from man, or we will love and seek after the glory that comes from God. We were created to pursue glory, and so we can do nothing else. Because we are fallen, it is easy to pursue the wrong kind of glory—but the problem is not that it is glorious, but rather because, at the end of the day, it is not glorious.

“Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath” (Rom. 2:6–8).

In short, there is a way of striving for glory, seeking it, that is not self-seeking. It is to follow the path that Jesus established.

So Humility is Not Craven

Humility is a perfection of grace, and so it is not surprising that the devil wants to counterfeit it. Just as he offers counterfeit glory, so also he offers a counterfeit path for getting there. But true humility does not crawl; it is not a quadruped. C.S. Lewis captured the biblical view perfectly when he said this: “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” Remember our text—we are to be thinking of the things of others. That is not the same thing as thinking of our “own things,” provided we do it with a morbidly self-critical eye. The egoistic self has an enormous gravitational pull; it is an ego-centric black hole. And so it is that we find the possibility of someone thinking about himself all the time, and believing for that entire time that he is being humble. But this self-focus is arrogance and pride, not humility. If you are in the center of that little television screen in your brain all the time, it does not matter if you see a creeping little worm or a glowing celebrity. The problem is pride.

Back to the Ultimate Example

Jesus did what He did for the joy that was set before Him (Heb. 12:2). The glory that Jesus now has is the glory that we have been promised. We are not told to wait and think about something else until the glory is dropped on top of us. No, we are told, commanded, summoned, to pursue that glory. And that is how we can understand affliction rightly. The Puritan Thomas Bridges said it well when he said that affliction is nothing but a dirty lane leading to a royal palace. And that lane is one that Jesus walked down, and He summons us to pursue glory by following after Him.

Ephesians: A Great Mystery

Joe Harby on May 10, 2015

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One Body

Throughout Ephesians, Paul has been using the image of a body to describe how the church and Christ relate to one another. Now he points out another place where this happens – marriage. In a marriage, the two become one body (Gen. 2:24, 1 Cor. 6:16). This has implications for how a marriage is to work.

Wives, Submit to Your Own Husbands v. 22-24

In the marriage, a wife is called to submit to the leadership of her husband, who is her head (Col. 3:18, 1 Pet. 3:1-6). There are many ways of dodging this. You can mistake domestic achievement for submission. Or you can make it entirely theoretical, without ever actually having it happen. But Scripture is clear, a Christian marriage is one where the wife is called to submit to her husband. This isn’t a claim about an innate superiority to men (Gal. 3:28, Luk. 20:35). It’s a claim about how two become one.

Husbands, Love Your WIves v. 25-29

Paul continues to explain the implications of what it means to be one body. The head is not separate from the body. In fact, the head is utterly dependent on the body, and therefore should give himself to the body. This means that the authority of the head is on display in his self-giving love (1 Pet. 3:7, Col. 3:19).

A Great Mystery v. 30-33

Throughout the last section, Paul has begun to have trouble staying on topic. He swerves back and forth between talking about what a husband does and what Jesus has done. This is because the one-flesh union of the marriage is one of God’s favorite pictures, a teaching aid, for explaining our salvation. A marriage is a picture of the Gospel.

This is why we should not be surprised that the secular world is particularly taking aim at the institution of marriage. The two becoming one, as they do when a man and woman unite themselves, is a picture of the Gospel. It is in the submission of a woman to her husband, and in the glad assumption of responsibility of a husband for his wife, that we see what Christ has done for the church.

Ephesians: Walk in Love, Light, and Wisdom

Joe Harby on May 3, 2015

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Introduction

Paul has been telling us how, as a result of what God has done for us, we should now live our lives. And one of the dominating images that he has used has been the action of walking. “Walk worthy. . .”(4:1) “No longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles
walk. . .” (4:17). And now he tells us how we should walk. We should walk in love (5:2), light (5:8), and wisdom (5:15).

Walk in Love v. 1-7

Children imitate their parents. Walking faithfully is a matter of remembering who your Father is. Are you a child of God (5:1) or a child of the enemy (5:6). There are two ways of living contrasted here – a life of giving yourself away (5:2, cf. Gal. 2:20) or a life of resenting what others haven’t given you (5:3). Christ has modeled for us self-emptying love that God has for us. This is the sweet aroma of Christ (5:2), which we become when we give ourselves away to others (2 Cor. 2:15).

Walk in Light v. 8-14

The judgment given in the last section, that no fornicator, unclean person, or covetous man will inherit the kingdom of God, comes across as pretty extreme. But now we see that this is a judgment that includes forgiveness (5:8, cf. 1 Cor. 6:11). Paul reminds the Ephesians once more that they have passed from death to life (5:14), but adds to this the image of “light.” Christians must walk in the light (cf. 1 John 1:5-10).

And light will expose the things done in darkness (5:11). This does not mean we are called to “darkness sting operations” (although we are called to confront sin – Mat. 18:15, Gal. 6:1). Light does not run from darkness, rather darkness flees from light. By being light in the world, the darkness of the world is expose or made manifest.

Walk in Wisdom v. 15-21

Again, Paul gives us two ways of living. There is a dissolute lifestyle, characterized by drunkenness, foolishness, and dissipation (5:17-18). There is a trajectory to this life. It begins with foolishness, that is giving in to not thinking about the result that your actions are causing or cultivating the habit of giving up half way through the math problem. It gives way to dissipation, that is wasting away all that you have. And it ends with a self- centered aloneness.

On the other side, we see Paul describing a pursuit of wisdom, which corresponds in a certain way to drunkenness (cf. Acts 2:13). But it is an intoxication that leads to wisdom (instead of foolishness), to a wiser use of all things (instead of dissipation), and to a deep union with your fellow saints (instead of the self-centered aloneness).

On Christian Disobedience #2

Joe Harby on April 26, 2015

Introduction

With regard to our duties of civil obedience and submission, we have to consider the express teaching of the Bible. But we must do this in context, which means we have to set a contextual stage. This context is important in two respects—the broader context of doctrine and theology, and the second is the context of express examples.

The Text

“And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard’” (Acts 4:18-20).

The Idea of Covenant

Apart from an understanding of the concept of covenant, no sane understanding of the relationship between church and state is possible. The covenant is the theme which ties all Scripture together, and so if one does not understand how to think covenantally, the Bible will always remain a disjointed series of inspirational passages, or a monstrosity jerry-rigged into an alien system. Understanding the covenant is central to an understanding of our civil duties for obvious reasons. For example, the word federal in the phrase federal government comes from the Latin word foedus, which means covenant. How did this happen? The reason this is crucial is that covenants have stipulations and terms. (There is also a Latin homonym foedus which means stinky, but that is another sermon for another day.

Under the Old Covenant

The examples of Scripture on this subject are manifold, and we do not have time to consider all of them. But before considering any, however, we must remember what the Bible tells us what such examples are for. We are sometimes too glib in telling some of our hermeneutically loose brethren that we should not make doctrine from narrative. Actually, we should not make doctrine from narrative lightly (Rom. 15:4). While we may not do it foolishly, we are required to do it. Consider . . . Ehud—in the days of Ehud, the people had been oppressed by the Moabites for eighteen years. But the Lord raised up a deliverer for them ( Judg. 3:15-25). Deborah—this godly woman was raised up as a judge during the time when Jabin, king of the Canaanites, had ruled over Israel for twenty years ( Judg. 4:1-7). At her command, an army was gathered to revolt. Gideon—the Israelites had been oppressed by the Midianites for seven years. Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide his livelihood from oppressive taxation. The angel of the Lord appeared to him there and hailed him as a mighty man of valor ( Judg. 6:11), showing that angels can have a sense of humor.

David—this mighty man refused to raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed (1 Sam. 24:5-7). But he also refused to do what the Lord’s anointed wanted him to do (1 Sam. 19:16). Jehoida—an evil woman Athaliah had made herself queen by murderous means. But Jehoida was a godly priest and he defied her de facto rule. He secretly raised the surviving heir and in a coup d’etat had the boy Joash crowned (2 Kings 11:13- 16). Of course the tyrant called his behavior treasonous.

Under the New Covenant

But too many Christians are still infected with the idea that the Old Testament has nothing to do with New Testament saints. But this is infection, not biblical doctrine, and besides, nothing changes in the New Testament. God rather than men—great issues are involved in all of this. Obedience to men must be first and foremost obedience to God. If it is not, then obedience to authority is defiance of Authority (Acts 4:19). And this is where we find the principle so well-articulated in the American War for Independence. Resistance to tyrants is submission to God. Peter’s jailbreak—nor are we bound to just simply take whatever punishment is meted out (Acts 12:5-8). Evading arrest and running road blocks—we also have the freedom, under Christ, to resist by hiding (Matt. 10:23; 2 Cor. 11:32-33).

The Sovereignty of God

This issue is too important for us to approach in a piecemeal fashion. We must understand all our duties in the light of God’s revelation to us. Exhaustive sovereignty—nothing occurs outside God’s purposes, plans, and authority. No ultimate earthly authority— certain things follow from this. If God is immanent in His authority (and He most certainly is), then no human authority or sovereign is ultimate. All are under covenantal constraints. The immediacy of our duties—it also follows that we must render obedience to God directly in every aspect of our lives. We obey the authorities over us because He says to, not because they do. We always are to obey, when we obey, in the Lord.

Ephesians: The New Man

Joe Harby on April 19, 2015

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No Longer Walking as the Gentiles Walk (v. 17-19)

Because of what Christ has done for you, there is no longer any good reason for you to act like the unsaved Gentile. This is a life characterized by the futile mind, darkened understanding, alienated from God, ignorant, blind, past feeling, lewd, unclean, and greedy. But you are these things “no longer” (v. 14, 17).

As Peter tells us, you’ve spent enough time there (1 Pet. 4:1-3). Now it’s time to be done with the lusts of the world and to give ourselves to the will of God.

Put Off, Put On v. 20-24

The Christian motivation for obedience is the result of understanding who you are (1 Pet. 4:1, Rom. 6:4-7). The lusts that want to rob you of Christ are deceitful. They enslave you by telling you lies. Remembering who you are in Christ will always be one of the most powerful weapons for putting to death the works of the flesh.

But we are called to put off that old, dead man. Put him off and put on the new man in true righteousness and holiness.

The New Man v. 25-32

Remember that we have been seeing Paul continually bring up this image of a “man” or a “body” throughout Ephesians. At one moment this man is Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. But at other moments, the “man” or “body” being described is the church.

When we think of putting on the “new man,” we tend to think of private, spiritual disciplines that happen in the secret places of our hearts. But it is interesting to note the disciplines that Paul lists when we are putting on the “new man.”

Don’t lie to one another. Don’t get angry at one another. Don’t steal from one another. Instead, look for ways to give to each other. Speak with edification to one another. Get rid of bitterness and anger. Forgive one another.

These are all disciplines for living within the corporate body of Christ. The new man that we are putting on is simultaneously Christ and the Church. We shouldn’t pit the individual renewal against the corporate manifestation of this renewal.