Now As I Was Saying...

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Oops! It seems that I recall just a couple of weeks ago wrapping up my devotional thoughts with the words - "But that's another subject for another day! Maybe next week..." Then the following week we were off spoiling our grandchildren rotten, so I ended up writing about the joys of being a grandpa. Thus, "maybe next week" never became a reality. Finishing the thought that I began two weeks ago, then, is the focus of this week's devotional!

First of all, let me suggest that you scroll down and re-read the entry for March 31st entitled "Sin Imputed or Sin Imparted?" When you have done that, then you will recall that God in His wondrous mercy "imputed" or charged to the account of the Lord Jesus Christ our very sinfulness. Though He did not become a sinner Himself, He did bear our guilt and shame vicariously to the cross of Calvary and paid the full price of God's holy justness, forever satisfying the demand of the Father's holiness.

But that was only one-half of the transaction, beloved, and the second half is not only the focus of this week's thoughts but is a truth most glorious! By imputing our sinfulness to the sinless Christ, God made it possible for us to have "imputed" or charged to our account the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Very simply, He did not deserve our guilt and shame, but received it anyway and bore the awful wrath of holy God in our place. Likewise, we did not deserve His righteousness and the approval of holy God, but received it anyway and became members of God's divine family.

Charles Wesley, prompted by the wonder of this divine transaction of pure grace, felt compelled to write of that wonder as it unfolded to his own heart and mind. We should all be able to identify fully as believers today with Wesley's amazement and loving response to God's grace as found in the following lyrics to a beloved hymn written in 1738. Here are the words of the 3rd stanza which describe beautifully the sacrifice made by the Son of God and also the impact of that sacrifice on the life of every true believer:

He left His Father's throne above - so free, so infinite His grace -
Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam's helpless race;
'Tis mercy all, immense and free, for O my God, it found out me!

As a result, beloved, you and I are forever free from the dread of sin and its eternal consequences. Wesley went on in the final stanza to describe for us the resulting "grace in which we stand" (Romans 5:2).

No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head, and clothed in righteousness divine;
Bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own.

As Wesley himself has put it, beloved - "'Tis mercy all!" To that we can only add "Amen and amen!"

Ron

The Joy of Being a Grandpa

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate" (Psalm 127:3-5)

I have been reminded recently of the humorous statement that says: "If I had known that grandchildren were so much fun, I would have had them first!" Our oldest daughter has just come down from Virginia for a visit, bringing with her our youngest daughter and her three children who are visiting from California. Not only are Bev and I enjoying spending time with our daughters again and seeing them together, but we are reveling in the pleasure of being "Bebe" and "Pop" to three of our nine grandchildren. If parenting is a wonderful gift from God, beloved, and certainly the psalmist made it clear that it is, then being a grandparent is the icing on top of the cake!

In the verses above the psalmist declared boldly that when it comes to children "blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." I have never met a granddad or grandmom who was not immensely proud of their grandkids, and I can assure you that Bev and I do nothing at all to change that statistic! Tomorrow we are to travel back to Virginia with our daughters and three grandchildren to spend time with our son and his family as well. For the first time in quite a long time we will be together with all three of our children and all nine of our grandchildren! So you can see that to Bev and me, children are definitely a gift of the Lord.

Today I had the pleasure of taking these three grandkids to a driving range and letting them do what they have wanted to do since they arrived - hit golf balls! When we got home, I had to make a quick run to the recycling center to drop off some accumulated cardboard. Only the youngest and oldest wanted to make that trip with me, so off we went. On the way back home, I listened intently as they sang to each other in the back seat. And what were they singing? The books of the Bible in sequential order! Both Old and New Testament books and they did not miss a single one. Want to know if this old grandfather-preacher was proud? You know it! What is such a blessing to my heart, beloved, is the knowledge that my grandchildren, not only these three, but all nine of them, are being raised in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The psalmist said here that parents will have no reason to be ashamed, even in the presence of their enemies. Our children are not only fully committed to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, but they are clearly training our grandchildren to know Him personally and to love and serve Him as well.

So this week's blog is a little bit more on the personal side, I know, but I just wanted to share my heart with you, not so much as a preacher, but as a father and grandfather who is so very thankful for the blessings of God. For Bev and I, our "quiver" is full and we could not possibly be happier. To God be the glory!

Ron

Sin Imputed or Sin Imparted?

"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I was on the treadmill this afternoon, beloved, and doing what I do best when logging miles without going anywhere - reading a good book! The one I am working my way through right now is all about "forgiveness" and it is excellent. As I read, the glory of the mystery of God "imputing" our sins to Christ came into view and I felt overwhelmed by the wonder of His grace.

The truth of imputation we find above in Paul's words to the saints in Corinth - "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us." The New Testament word describes a legal reckoning or charging of something belonging to one to the account of another. In other words, when God imputed our sin to the Lord Jesus Christ, He charged Him with the sin that rightly belongs to each one of us. But Jesus only became guilty in a purely legal sense. And that is the difference between something "imputed" and something "imparted."

Some mistakenly believe that somehow Jesus Himself became a sinner when our sin was laid upon Him or that it was "imparted" to Him. If that had been true, then Jesus would have taken on Himself our sinful nature, His character radically and negatively changed. Had that happened, then Jesus would have borne the guilt of His own sin nature and He Himself would have needed a Redeemer. Very simply, Jesus could not have died as our substitute for who, then, would have died for Him?

Scripture itself makes abundantly clear that the imputation of our sins to Christ was legal in nature. The following are examples of how clear this truth is:

"He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5)

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross" (1 Peter 2:24)

The guilt that Jesus bore for us was our guilt, beloved, not His. But God still treated Him as if it had been His own and He felt the full wrath of the Father's hatred for sin as He bore the guilt that we rightly bear. That is the wonder of "imputation" and of Jesus Christ becoming sin for us! It was an act solely of grace and borne of love, the love of God for the sinner even as He hated the sin. And as a result, you and I are forgiven by God and cleansed of all unrighteousness. And the other side of that coin is that the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ was "imputed" to you and me so that we are fully acceptable to God. But that's another subject for another day! Maybe next week...

Ron

Jesus: A Taste of New Wine

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins" (Mark 2:22)

I will readily admit that I know next to nothing about wine, beloved, other than participating one time in a Passover Seder. But you do not have to be on speaking terms with wine to discover and appreciate a wonderful lesson Jesus taught His disciples using the wine of their day as an illustration.

In Palestine wine was commonly made at home by families. This "fruit of the vine" when fresh was stored in new animal skins so that both the mixture and the skins themselves could expand together. The wine gave off gases as it hung on the wall in the animal skin bag and, thus, caused it to stretch. New wine that was stored safely in the animal skins could be enjoyed by the family, then, to the last drop.

But as Jesus so clearly stated the obvious, no one who knew anything about making and storing wine would ever store it in an old animal skin bag. Animal hide that had become dried out and brittle had lost its capacity to change and to expand and would only rupture with the inner action of the wine and cause its contents to be spilled and lost.

So what was Jesus' point for His listeners and what does this verse reveal to us about our own lives today as Christians? It should be apparent to all of us, beloved, that Jesus is Himself the "new wine" about which He was speaking. When He comes into a believer's heart by faith, He is the "new wine" that is given to us as a sacred deposit. He is the "treasure" stored in our "earthen vessels" (2 Corinthians 4:7) and as such His working within us is to cause us to spiritually "stretch" and "expand." He comes in with a new vitality and needs for us to be so in harmony with His divine presence within that our thoughts and words and deeds are as one. Do you recall what the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Rome?

"Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4)

"Newness of life" is what the "new wine" of Jesus' life within is all about! We as believers must be in harmony with Him, then, as He seeks to bring about within us this newness of life.

By contrast, I believe that the Pharisees were themselves clear examples of the "old wineskins" about which Jesus cautioned His listeners. They had become so ceremonially religious that their spirits were "brittle" and their hearts "dried out" by their many man-made traditions and by their estimation of their own piety. They could not see Him as their Messiah, God's gift of "new wine," because they were not looking for One who would change them, but for One who would change for them. Consequently, the "new wine" that He brought for them would do them no good. They wanted no part of who He really was!

Today, beloved, we discover a much needed emphasis on the "new creature" (2 Corinthians 5:17) Jesus wants to make us as He comes into our hearts by faith. We cannot be saved and remain the same people we were before we met Him! He is looking for us to change and grow, to stretch and expand in our faith and to be transformed by the presence of the "new wine" that He is within us. We have this Treasure in earthen vessels, beloved! Is yours soft and pliable and moldable, or is it brittle and dried out?

Ron

The Wonder of Servant-hood

"Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God" (Romans 1:1)

Servant-hood is such an elusive issue among believers today, beloved! And I am convinced that one reason is surely that we would rather focus more upon our "freedom" in Christ than upon our calling to follow Him as servants. Circumstances in life have recently brought this critical issue back to my mind afresh and with a sense of urgency I want to share what I have discovered in God's Word about it with you.

First of all, here in the verse you see above, the Apostle Paul had no problem whatsoever referring to himself as a "bond-servant" of Jesus Christ. Familiar to all of his readers because of the Roman system of slavery in that day, the word that Paul chose is the Greek doulos and commonly referred to one who was an unwilling and permanent slave to the one who was his master. His will was not his own, his goals were not his own, his words were not his own, and his purpose in living was not his own. In every sense, he lived at the whim of and for the betterment of his master. As those ourselves who are douloi in the 21st century, we should never focus upon our own "rights" or upon our own agenda. Our goal should be and must be to seek the advancement of the One who holds our heart and life in His blood-stained hands.

"Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Corinthians 4:1)

Though translated virtually the same as the word we find in the Roman letter, beloved, in actuality Paul chose an entirely different word in this setting. The Greek huperetes meant literally "under-rower" and was a reference to the Roman galley ships powered by slaves who manned the many oars. And this word did not only refer to slave-rowers, but to the lowest level of rowers. The huperetes found himself manning an oar in the lowest part of the ship. His was the most dangerous and most demeaning level of servitude that one could render. I find in Paul's use of this word, in part at least, a focus upon oneself in relationship to other believers in their service. The apostle's view of himself was always that of ranking himself lower than his brothers and sisters in Christ. As "under-rowers" today, beloved, we are not called upon to think poorly of ourselves but rather not to think of ourselves at all!

"What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one" (1 Corinthians 3:5)

Once more the word in English seems to be very much the same, yet again the apostle has chosen an entirely different one. Here the Greek diakonos was commonly used to refer to a "table waiter." As doulos seems to focus upon the believer's relationship to his Master and huperetes the believer's relationship to other believers, so diakonos seems to focus upon the actual service rendered. Very simply, beloved, no one of us should ever feel that any service for Christ is beneath us. It is the nature of true servants that we do not ever seek the spotlight but are rather satisfied to serve.

Thus, as a doulos of Christ I accept that I am not my own, but that I live at the pleasure of my Lord and Savior and for His glory alone. And as a huperetes I accept that all others are more important than I and I live to push them to the front and to serve them in any way that I can. As a diakonos I am content with my place in the vineyard and find my great joy in the simple act of serving my Lord. What room is there in my life, then, for self-seeking and self-glorification? There is none! That was not the way of a servant of Paul's day and that is not the way of a servant of Jesus Christ today. The service itself is the glory and the glory belongs to Christ!

Ron