Wow! I was really impressed and stirred by Rick's study on Sunday morning. All week I've been thinking about Gal. 5:13: "It is for freedom that Christ set us free..." and also Gary's parable about kids in the yard. When I'm tempted I just say to myself, you are free to go to Japan! And then I realize how good it is near to home. My last mental picture was seeing a poster of Jeff Hutcheson pointing a finger at me and telling me not to sin. This was predicated on the idea that you don't sin as much when someone's there watching. But it broke down at certain points.
Rick really hammered the fact that Christ became sin for us and that we--our new man, the true us--no longer sin, but it is sin doing it. Great connection between II Cor. 5:21 and Romans 6-8. I have been experiencing the freedom all week and just haven't seemed to have the desire to sin. Temptations come and then they go. Because...I can go to Japan! But I don't want to! I am thankful to be at home!
Paul
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Rick did a great job "facilitating" and the Holy Spirit seemed to lead. I was edified with a renewed mind as a result.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I wanted to bring up relates to Pauls point about finger pointing. I wonder sometimes how effective accountability groups are based on this freedom we have. Does the accountability approach work or is this just another chain the wild man wishes to break?
Another issue I want to deal with is the hideous doctrine. For me this was a bit of a disconnect. Having the freedom in Christ to respond in love I catually feel fear and guilt from that writing. DO others feel the same? It makes me question a lot of things such as the difference between fear and perfected love.
ReplyDeleteBut there are other questions. Does God, who is love and who is eternal, put a time limit on the grace which came at such a great price? Am I compelled by love to rescue souls from a situation that God "justly" put them into? Will my love for human souls change to something else when they are in eternal torment?
This is a can of worms that might never die, and I am sure I will be putting out fires from here to eternity, but I want to bring the whole issue into question. Where do we start?
My answer to Gary's post is this: I think that we often err by too quickly moving from the grace of salvation to rules that put us back under a "law-like" obligation. I think we need to first and always understand our freedom, salvation and forgiveness.
ReplyDeleteBut that is not all the Christian life is about. Right after Paul signals freedom in Christ in Gal. 5:13 he immediately warns not to use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Similar warnings exist elsewhere as in Romans 6--"Shall I sin so that grace increases? May it never be!"
There is a value in accountability groups. It consists in the very community that it provides. The primary function should not be finger pointing, but as part of love, the voluntary confession, humility and vulnerability of a loving church. "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed."
Certainly it can devolve into that. We can be checking up on one another and making each other follow rules to the exclusion of grace and freedom. We can be petty and have false motives.
In general, however, I find isolation, selfishness and pride to be problems at least as large as legalism. We must work to overcome these weaknesses of people who have become individualists that have no need of the group.
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ReplyDeleteTo the second question: Those are provoking questions, Gary. It does help to be a Calvinist. The better question is why didn't God send everyone to hell for their rebellion? Why did he choose to have mercy on those whom He might have so justly punished? I'll leave it at that for now.
ReplyDeletePaul, you make important points; especially that we are not to use freedom as a license for sin. But a license mentality is of the law. A license is issued by law. So a person will say, I am not guilty no matter what I do. THat is legalism and once again the source is the old man. THe point of freedom is to be free from the old nature which includes "Do"s and "do not"s.
ReplyDeleteWith accountability I am more focused on what it does to the renewed mind. I could be missing something but it seems to be an effort to conform rather than be transformed. If I focus on weakness,"sinner-liness" and the like, I may actually corrupt my thinking as the new man. If we are trying to control habits and faults, this dose not seem to rise to the goal of a regenerated mind and transformed life. It may have gotten us so far but cannot take us further. THe new man is a new order.
So I suggest that our accountability is to edify one another presenting each one perfect in Christ and no longer seeing one another according to the flesh.
God is sovereign and not limited by our rebellion. We are limited and unable to help ourselves out of our fallen state, into which we were born, not of our own choice but of God's choice, who is sovereign:
ReplyDeleteRom 11:32 For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all. 33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!
Why did God bind all men to a nature of disobedience? This is his doing. We are subject to his will. But it says all are bound under disobedience so that all might receive mercy.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all will be made alive.
I like your focus on edification and the new nature in the accountability process. I think the watchword is "acknowledge and move on." Go and sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.
ReplyDeleteI'd hate to be part of a group who met just to review wrongdoing for the week and made that the focus. On the other hand, Whitefield and Wesley were part of a group remarkably similar to that: the Holy Club, where they formulated lists with rules for behavior. And when I mention this I don't mean to justify it, but to wonder about the why and how of it for men who God used so mightily. And I, a very insignificant man on the world scene must always take a humble approach to great men of God.
Great men can have great flaws. Remember the Billy Graham video? Perhaps they were the Billy Grahams of their day.
ReplyDeleteWhile training wheels keep us from wrecking, they also keep us from learning to ride.
Great quote!
ReplyDeleteWe had a really good meeting last night, Gary. We prayed the last half hour for both Sunday night and Sunday morning.
ReplyDeleteWe debated about the underworld and Jesus' visit there for the first half hour. :-)
What did you conclude?
ReplyDeleteOK. I don't think I have succeeded in opening up a can of worms yet. Let me try again (I know I can do it).
ReplyDeleteLet me propose that the use of eternal, everlasting and forever in scripture are not always justified or consistent. In other words I am suggesting that aeon and aeonian (Strongs 165 and 166) do not always necessarily mean unending duration. I can give some examples where it makes no sense.
Rom 16:25 Now to him that is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.
Contradiction: If the gospel has been kept silent through eternity, then it has not been and never will be proclaimed. Eternal times do not end.
2Ti 1:9 who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal. ALSO see Tit 1:2
Contradiction: If eternity runs infinitely forward as well as backward, what can possibly take place before eternity begins?
Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Contradiction: Does Christ for ever and ever (by the way, (how many evers are there)?
1Co 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, *until* he hath put all his enemies under his feet.
The last point should ask, "Does Christ reign for ever and ever?" (no way to edit!)
ReplyDeleteGary,
ReplyDeleteWhat is the bigger picture here? Before I get into defining aeon, what is the issue?
To look more closely at the doctrine of eternal torment.
ReplyDelete