Zacchaeus

Zacchaeus was a stumpy, rich little extortionist and knew it. I wonder if the tax-collector in the parable in Luke 18:13 was actually him. It was certainly at least true of him. Jesus is coming through Jericho and Zacchaeus is going to miss seeing him if he doesn’t do something quick, so he climbs up a nearby sycamore tree in Jesus’ path. He gets a better view than he expected, though, when Jesus stops at the tree and invites himself to his house for dinner. Then a miracle Jesus has done manifests itself.

Verse 6: “So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.”

…

Really? The guy that’s been skimming from our taxes all these years? Many of the people looking on see this as reflecting on Jesus’ character.

Verse 7: “they all grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’”

But Zacchaeus has been waiting to meet his Lord, and he is ready to repent. He has been rich through unjust means for a long time, and he knows from first-hand experience that riches don’t satisfy. He wants what does satisfy. He’s willing to give anything for it:

Verse 8: “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’”

And Jesus gives it to him:

Verse 9: “And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.’”

Now, the ground given for salvation coming to his house sounds a little strange, and it would be even more strange to the Jews looking on. Zacchaeus was chief tax-collector, so he was a Jew in the pay of the Roman empire. Ethnically speaking, he was a son of Abraham.  But Jesus stresses it like it’s a new thing, saying he’s going to be saved because he is also a son of Abraham, and the Pharisees (as stated last chapter), aren’t…

The answer is given in Romans 9:6-8. “Not all are children on Abraham because they are his offspring… it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” Zacchaeus was a child of God by grace alone through faith alone, and the self-righteous Pharisees were not:

And in John 8:39-47:


39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,
40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.
41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

Back to the story. We’re at the end now, and Jesus is implicitly explaining why he’s going to eat with this unrighteous tax-collector (ew).

Verse 10: “For ['all this because'] the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Zacchaeus wasn’t righteous. He’s been stealing from his fellow Jews, and overseeing others doing the same thing. It was accepted that he was a sell-out to the Romans, and that when the Messiah came, these people would be the first to go as he setup his reign on earth and prepared to kick out the oppressors.  For many in the crowd, this was the last straw, and confirmation that Jesus couldn’t be the Christ. “The real Christ would be showing me special attention, because I keep God’s law. He would know what this man is.”

But Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Those who think they are made righteous by their works, beware.

Do you think you’re pretty good? Maybe if you had a few small (or big) sins removed you’d be righteous? The Pharisees knew they sinned (nobody’s perfect, right?), but they also “took care of it” regularly with their sacrifices. They were clean, as far as they knew, because of their own obedience.

Jesus was seeking people who were willing to admit they had strayed from the straight and narrow path, and wanted desperately to get back on it. He wanted people who would acknowledge their record and plead for it to be expunged. He wanted broken, humbled, desperate people who knew there was no other way. Those are who the gospel is for (Luke 18:14, Matthew 23:12, Mark 2:17).

“Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” – 1 Corinthians 10:12

2009
09/26
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
Write comment

Ezekiel 14

The problem with the elders of Israel was that they had “taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of iniquity before their faces,” and yet they were in this passage coming to Ezekiel for a word from God. God says, “Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them?” And half the chapter is God answering that question.

Initially, it seems like the answer is an all-encompassing ‘yes’:

4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols,
5 that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.

But God will not accept those who would merely use him – those who would come to him with an unrepentant heart, expecting blessing:

6 Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
7 For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself.
8 And I will set my face against that man; I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

And then God includes in his judgement the prophets who prophesy falsely when the elders consult them, with a twist:

9 And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
10 And they shall bear their punishment —the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike—

OK, false prophets deserve judgement, and the Bible everywhere has God “causing” people to do horrible things in his judgement (eg. Lamentations 2:20), but… if God deceived the prophet, why is God bumping him off? Doesn’t that mean it’s not his fault?

Apparently, it is his fault. He willfully sinned against the Most High God, regardless of the most fundamental cause, and God never lets people that disobey him off the hook without punishing their sins. God himself cannot speak falsehood (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18), so we know his agency in this matter is not active the way God’s ordinance of, for instance, good things for the saints is (Romans 8:28). God is, however, obviously causing it in some way. Behold the kindness and severity of God.

Speaking of kindness, what’s the purpose of all of this judgement? It seems to be to protect all Israel from destruction, and bring the larger population to himself: Verse 11: “that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord God.”

Verses 12-20 is God explaining that when a land sins against him, he nukes them, and the few righteous people that may be in the city can only save themselves by their righteousness, and no one else. “They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate.”

Now, the contents of the following verses, 21-23, is the reason I chose to write about this passage today. Here, at the end of the prophesy, God reveals his purpose. God always has a purpose, and we are told that we will see his purpose in the survivors.

22 But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it.
23 They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.

My take:

All the Scriptures points to Jesus, right? (Luke 24:27, John 5:39, Acts 17:11, 18:28) When Jesus comes back, he will come for judgement (Revelation 19:11-16). If he hadn’t done something to save for himself a remnant of his people, their sin would condemn them all to this terrible judgement. But he did do something, and here is one reason why.

22 But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it.
23 They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.

It was to save for himself a people, made righteous by his actions. They broke covenant with him on their own, and he judged most of them. But for some, he punished their sins in another to purify for himself a people set apart.
“Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.” (Romans 11:22)

2009
09/24
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Bible study
Write comment

Luke 15

Beautiful.

Jesus ate with “tax-collectors and sinners”, the most reviled of first century Jewish society; people who had strayed far from God and knew it. They wanted to come back.

The Pharisees and scribes, who trusted that their law-keeping and tradition-following made them righteous “didn’t even know” they had strayed from God, and they grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them,” meaning “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of people these are, for they are sinners.” (~Luke 7:39)

Jesus replies with a parable, asking these self-righteous people if, having a hundred sheep, they wouldn’t leave ninety-nine to go looking for one lost one, and having found it, rejoice. Then Jesus makes the point explicit:
Verse 7: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Then Jesus tells them another parable, to the same effect. A woman with ten coins will go to a lot of trouble to find even one lost one, and rejoice when she finds it, right? Verse 10: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The third and final parable in this thread is one of the most well-known parables in the Bible, and for good reason – the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). I’ll summarize for the purposes of my own meditation.

A man has two sons. The younger son requests and receives his inheritance early from his father and goes and parties it up in the big city. He does what so many movies and advertisements encourage us to do: He “lived the life” (John 14:6), he “lived for the moment” (1 Peter 1:24-25), he “did what felt right” (Proverbs 14:12), he “followed his heart” (Jeremiah 17:9), and just generally screwed himself over (Ecclesiastes 2:1) until he had nothing left and envied even the pigs he was feeding to make a living, because at least they got fed regularly. Then he realizes that even his father’s servants eat well, and decides to go throw himself at his father’s mercy so that maybe he’ll let him become a servant.

His father sees him coming from a long way off, and in an act that could only come out of a heart full of love, this dignified old man, a property owner and head of a large household, lifts up his skirts and runs to meet his lost son. The son tries to make his plea, but immediately the father clothes him in splendor and throws a huge party, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to celebrate.” (Verse 24)

I’ll pause here to talk about this heartbreakingly beautiful image, which is God running towards his wayward children now returned to life, embracing them and celebrating their return. In the previous two parables, Jesus said that there is more joy in heaven over a single repentant sinner than a hundred who “didn’t need repentance,” and now he illustrates it again. This man, the younger son, has squandered his fathers wealth on trivialities. He has insulted him by essentially saying “I wish you were dead” in asking for his inheritance early. He has come back with nothing, in disgrace, looking to become a servant so he won’t begrudge the pigs their slop. His father’s response to this is to run to him, and with open arms, to accept him back not even just as his son, but in celebration, “killing the fatted calf.”
If you’re a Christian, this is you. God saved you, a sinner (1 Timothy 1:15), and when you despaired of yourself and came to him, he ran to you with those open arms. He welcomes you (Luke 12:32), dresses you (Revelation 19:13), cleanses you (Hebrews 9:14), and rejoices at your return.

Remember that Jesus is telling these parables to scribes and Pharisees. The father’s grace in the parable isn’t for them. The young man in the story has an older brother. That older brother hears music and dancing and comes to see what’s up. He gets the news from a servant and is infuriated enough to refuse to go into the party. His father comes out of the party to entreat him. The older brother’s response is that all these years he has served him, never disobeyed, and yet was never thrown a party, but when this miscreant son comes home, who has devoured his father’s property with prostitutes, his father kills the fatted calf! How is that fair?

But fair is not the point. The older brother needs the mercy of the father now as much as the younger. The father’s only reply, and the end of the parable, is this:

31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’

The older brother stands for all of us Pharisees, who claim we want justice. “I did well, so I deserve to be rewarded. He has been sinning all his life and now you will give him the same reward and throw a celebration to boot? That’s not fair.”
But like in the parable of the laborers in the vinyard (Matthew 20:1-16), it is God’s prerogative to distribute his blessing as he wishes. And the last will be first, and the first, last.
If what the older brother said is true, then he’s never really broken any of the rules. He has always obeyed the commands, and he believed it made him not only righteous before his father, but deserving of special reward. His sin, and ours, was that his heart was in the wrong place. He had developed a sense of entitlement.

O, soul, get this straight if you get nothing else! God looks at the heart, and is not fooled by external appearances. In the end, you will not be judged or rewarded solely according to whether you followed all the rules and checked all the boxes. The state of your heart towards God determines the value of your actions.
Obey the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-38).

2009
09/22
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Bible study
Write comment

Luke 14

Luke 14 seems to be about caring for the poor, crippled, lame and blind, positioning yourself rightly before God, and more generally, living the truly God-centered life. It’s diverse, so this’ll be a long post.

It begins with Jesus more or less trouncing the Pharisees on the issue of doing good on the Sabbath. It says they were “watching him carefully”. A guy with “dropsy” (my study notes say it’s probably a form of edema) comes up, and Jesus asks the Pharisees if it’s lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Then he heals the guy, and asks them if any of them wouldn’t pull their son or ox out of a well if it fell in on the Sabbath. They don’t say anything.

The point (cheating a bit by looking at Matthew 12:12): It’s lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Do all the good you want on the Sabbath. And given what’s contained in the following passages, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s even a duty of God’s people to do good to those in distress, even on the Sabbath.

Next it says that when Jesus saw the guests jockeying for the places of highest honor at the table, he tells them they’ve got it backwards: They should be choosing for themselves the places of least honor at the table. The reason for this is that if you choose the high positions, somebody more distinguished may come along and embarrass you be displacing you. If you choose the low places, however, your host will come and move you up higher, exalting you in front of all the guests.

The point: This parable isn’t simple about where to sit at dinner time. Jesus means us to induce a general principle from this. Specifically, the first shall be last and the last, first. God’s economy is an inverted economy. It’s not the most talented, most powerful, most charismatic or most prominent who are exalted, but rather the weak (Mark 9:35, 1 Corinthians 1:27) and the humble (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5). Paul bears witness to this fact about the Kingdom of God by boasting only in his weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9). Remember, God does everything he does so that he will be exalted, not you. Those he will exalt will be those who best display his own strength, power, wisdom…etc. – the weak and the humble.

Right after saying this, Jesus turns to the guy who invited him and tells him that he shouldn’t invite friends to banquets, but rather the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind because they can’t repay him. Verse 14: “…and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” This sounds just like Matthew 6:1,4: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven … And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

The point: How many people do I know that act like this? Not very many… I know I want to be recognized for my super-awesomeness, but there are two problems with this. The first is that it’s not my super-awesomeness to begin with (1 Corinthians 4:7), so I’m stealing God’s glory, and he doesn’t take kindly to that kind of behavior. The second thing is that I’m actually cheating myself out of maximal reward. Matthew 6:2, 5 and 16 all say that people who do things that look righteous so that others will see have already gotten everything they’re going to get. It’s short-lived and puny – a ridiculous mismanagement of our resources.
Compare that to Luke 12:33-34:

33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Moneybags that do not grow old! Treasure in the heavens that does not fail!
Besides the fact that it lasts forever, (and even a single chicken wing that last forever is better than a hundred meals that only last as long as they’re fresh or we eat them), it’s also superior to earthly treasure in it’s abundance:
Matthew 19:29: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

Excellent… A hundredfold the chicken wings, they’re eternal, and would you like eternal life with that?
EDIT: I realize the treasure in Heaven isn’t chicken wings but probably rather closer fellowship with Jesus… That’s not my point here.

We’re even told why we want to give away our stuff in this life – because where our treasure is, there our hearts are also, and we know that God looks past external appearances and into our hearts:
Luke 16:15: “And he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God…’”

At this point in the conversation, Jesus’ host and the rest of the guests were apparently feeling pretty uncomfortable. I imagine an awkward silence after Jesus tells the host he should have invited completely different guests, and then in verse 15 someone shouts out a common saying of the time to break the awkwardness, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Jesus, a master of discourse, plays off this, and tells them just what sort of people will be eating that bread. He tells them a parable that illustrates his last point about inviting the poor, crippled, lame and blind, where a King does just that, after the original guests were too busy with other things to come to the feast. He ends with, “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.” Ouch.

A crowd of people had followed Jesus to the party, and he addresses them now. Nobody is off the hook.

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…”

The point: Don’t sterilize this with happy-clappy Christian excuses. If you go to church and yet your life looks just like the lives of those who don’t believe Jesus is God, you are being addressed here. If, however, you realize you’re screwed up beyond human intervention and are willing to throw yourself upon divine mercy, go back and read that parable about the people invited to the feast (Luke 14:16-24). You could be one of those poor, crippled, lame and blind that were invited when the original guests rejected their invitations.

Jesus then essentially tells them to count the cost, and make the best decision.

The chapter ends with another of Jesus’ intensely uncomfortable challenges:

33 “…So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
34 Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?
35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The final point: Don’t play games with repentance and salvation. If you know you’re sinful, waste no time. Throw yourself on the only one who can save you. Don’t assume you’re ok simply because other “Christians” look like you. You answer to Jesus.

2009
09/21
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Bible study
Write comment

Psalm 50

Ah, this is a God I can follow! Psalm 50 reminds me of the Newsboys song “Who”, which is probably taken from this psalm:
“… I’m not following a God I can lead around…”

It’s easy, reading the OT from our modern perspective, to confuse the biblical sacrificial system with the sacrificial systems of pagan religions, thinking that when you sacrifice according to God’s law you manipulate him into smiling down on your perverse actions. This psalm blows that idea out of the water. You don’t manipulate God. Rather, God didn’t even want their sacrifices if they weren’t from the overflow of a full heart towards God. That’s why Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s wasn’t.

You think you’re giving God something when you sacrifice to him? You think you’re supplying his needs?
Verse 10-11: “…every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.”

This is my favorite part, verses 12-15:

12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

God does everything he does to bring himself glory. He is the only being in the universe for which this is an act of love. But -

Verse 16-17:

16 But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to recite my statues
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.

We don’t get to play Christianity. God sees our hearts, and is not fooled by how we sing in church, or whether we raise our hands and close our eyes or not. He knows who are his and who aren’t.

His true children keep his word:
Luke 11:27-28:
27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

And his true children love:
1 Corinthians 13:3:
“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

And most importantly, his true children worship in spirit and truth rather than merely in word and deed:
John 4:23:
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

In closing, verses 22-23:

22 Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!

2009
09/20
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Bible study
Write comment

Ezekiel 8-9

I was a day behind in this book, so I read chapters 8 and 9 together. This actually turned out to be a good thing, as the persistent idolatry in chapter 8 is the ground for the severe judgement in chapter 9.

Chapter 8 begins a new vision, apparently the second of four dramatic visions according to my study Bible. (This one doesn’t end until 11:25, so I’m sure I’ll be adding to this little narrative later.) Ezekiel is apparently hanging out in his house with the elders of Judah for some reason when “the hand of God fell upon [him] there”. He sees someone that looks like a man, but with some really spectacular differences who picks him up by his hair and leads him through several snapshots of the idolatrous abominations of the people of Jerusalem.

He was shown an image (presumably of some foreign god) set up in the entrance to the city, some people (said to be representative of the elders of Jerusalem) worshiping various different pictures of creatures, a group of women engaged in ritual mourning for their god (a practice of a particular cult), and “about twenty-five men” standing in the entrance to the temple worshiping the sun. After each time but the last, the angel (I assume) told him “you will see still greater abominations”. These things are obviously pretty bad, and God, the real God, says, in words and actions, just how bad they are.

In chapter nine the vision continues with a summons by God for “the executioners”. Six guys with weapons come forward, as well as a seventh guy with a writing case. God tells the guy with the writing case to mark all the people who are grieved by all the abominations going on in the city. That is, he’s told to mark the people still faithful to God. God tells the six other guys to kill everyone else. Ezekiel is distressed by this, and cries out to God, lamenting that God is going to “destroy all the remnant of Israel”. God’s reply is that their guilt is great, and they pretend that he can’t see them, so he won’t spare them. “I [God] will bring their deeds upon their heads.” Chapter 9 ends with the guy with the writing case coming back and reporting that he did what he was told.

OK. My take:

1) Our God is a God who will not tolerate sin.
There are passages elsewhere in the Bible that make it abundantly clear that God has a really long fuse, and there are passages like this that show that if anyone tries him all the way to the end of that fuse, he will nuke them. This passages details a vision of Ezekiel’s, so there’s even still time for Jerusalem at this point, but if they don’t repent, God will blast them off the face of the earth.

2) I sin like this all the time
I can’t think that just because I don’t worship the sun or participate in ritual prostitution that I don’t commit idolatry. Paul tells us that covetousness is idolatry, and I want all the time. The very definition of idolatry makes worship of anything other than God idolatry, and make no mistake, everyone is always worshiping something. Our actions reveal what it is. What am I making sacrifices for? What consumes my thoughts?
“What do you talk about most? There’s your god. What do you think about most? There is your god. What do you have your eye set upon? There is your mission, and your god, and your heart, and your treasure.” — Paul Washer

3) God is crazy gracious, crazy merciful, and crazy loving, and we never deserve it.
The only difference between the people that get blasted and the people who don’t is that the people who are spared are repentant. It’s not even clear that they weren’t participating in these freaky religious practices themselves. Even if they weren’t, the definition of idolatry hasn’t changed since the beginning of time, and these people were not innocents (Romans 3:10-18). God spares them, though, because he has promised to leave a remnant to Israel who will be his people forever, and because it is as much God’s character and as much glorifying to him to be loving, gracious and merciful as it is to be righteous, just and wrathful. This is a glorious instance of God’s divine forbearance in the Old Testament as God passes over sins in anticipation of their future justification (Romans 3:25).
Note that the chapter and thought – I checked, since chapters and verses aren’t inspired – ends with the guy with the writing case coming back and saying he’d finished marking the faithful. Just to remind us that some survived, I guess.

All of the characteristics of God displayed here are evident in his very name, which he tells Moses in Exodus 34:5-7:

5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Finally,
I submit to you that we serve an awesome God who does what he pleases and yet out of his incomprehensible love and mercy spares us from the wrath that his righteousness and justice demand. He did this by the only means that would allow him to be both just and merciful to us: by punishing our sin in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26)

2009
09/19
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Bible study
Write comment

gotta write more

I would love to get into the habit of writing about my Bible reading.
Trying to cast my thoughts into written form always involves some pretty intense refinement, as well as some good hard meditation, which is exactly what my Bible study needs. I’ll be experimenting with this over the next few days and see if I like it.

2009
09/18
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Bible study
Write comment

First post since my transition to WordPress

Hey all. I’ve transitioned my blogware from Nucleus to WordPress. I’ll eventually port all the old stuff I wrote into this blog, but for now I’m just going to write new stuff.

I wanted to switch to WordPress because it’s so much better, and I want to actually start writing things. It’s hard to do that when your blogware is awkward.

2009
09/18
POSTED BY
Daniel
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
Write comment

Recent entry

Archive

Category