Territorial Spirits

I don't have much time to post this week but I wanted to shoot a question out there and get some feedback. The book of Daniel speaks of the "Prince of Persian" resisting the angel that was to bring a message to Daniel...and this apparently continued until Michael the Archangel stepped in.

Recently in my Cross-Cultural Missions class we have been discussing territorial Spirits governing regions or areas on the Earth. We do know that there is a supernatural evil governmental structure often refered to by Paul as "principalities and powers."

My question is, "How much weight to we give to these things as we consider our war...that is, our war with sin?"

I don't want to talk things too far, yet I don't want to be ignorant or arrogant either by downplaying their significance. Here is my final thought, " there seems to be much more emphasis placed on the sin within us sometimes called the "flesh" by Paul and how we need to violently battle with it"; compared to the teaching on Spiritual warfare or even dem0ns.

Scalise

Three Kinds of Men

C.S. Lewis has a little 2 page article which is not very well distributed, but is, I believe, one of his most important works. The article is called "Three Kinds of Men." You see, here in England, there is a popular evangelistic program called "Two Kinds of People." And the thrust of the evangelistic encounter is this: You go up to a non-Christian and say Listen. There are only two ways to live. You can live man's way - always trying to be good enough, always seeking after acceptance, always being led around by your sin, and always looking after me, me, me. Then the evangelist will say something like, You can either live like that - man's way, or you can live God's way. If you live God's way your life will suddenly have purpose; you will be truly selfless; you will be heirs of the kingdom, etc. (You can find an example of this argument here.)

I am not just criticizing the British on this point, American Christians, while maybe not having the formal program, use this same argument. In fact, I would argue that underneath and behind nearly all the preaching done in America (even by solid orthodox churches) lies this assumption and thrust. And, of course, there is nothing on the surface wrong with saying there are two kinds of people in the world. There are. You are either a Christian or you are not one. You either have a Biblical worldview or you don't. But Tim Keller (and Lewis through Keller) has been very helpful to me on this point. He argues that when we preach and do evangelism instead of presenting "two kinds of people" we present "three kinds of men." What are the three kinds?

Tertullian, an early church Father, said, "Just a Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors. These thieves that Tertullian is speaking of are hedonism (or relativism) and moralism (or legalism). So here you have it:

1. Moralism / "Religiosity" is the view that you are acceptable to God (and everyone else) as long as you are good enough. You see moralists in orthodox churches all the time. Moralists view God as holy and just, and this will lead them to feel completely inferior (because they can't live up) or completely superior (because they do a better job a keeping the rules than others do). Moralists are very religious and very involved in Church, but they have never experienced the joy of the Gospel
2. Antinomianism / Relativism is the view that it doesn't matter if you keep the rules. They just want to be tolerant of other people. Everyone, they say, needs to determine right and wrong for themselves. Relativists wouldn't frequent conservative evangelical churches - they would go to more liberal churches. God accepts just because He is welcoming and loves everybody. Not because he demanded justice for sin which was paid through Jesus.
   
3. Thirdly, there is Gospel. The Christian worldview is neither conservative nor liberal on the typical political spectrum. Instead it is radically conservative and radically liberal at the same time! The Gospel tells us that God is so holy that nothing short from complete payment of sins and perfect righteousness of Christ can satisfy. God is more conservative than the moralists god who can be satisfied by "trying hard." And at the same time, the Gospel tells us that God is so loving that we - even now - received Jesus' perfect righteousness and are beautiful, perfectly accepted in God's eyes. So God is more liberal that the liberal's God because it cost our God something to love us. It cost him his son, death, the depths of hell.
   

So you see, there are indeed three kinds of men. And it is important to talk about all three. If non-Christians here us talking about two kinds of men they assume we want them to become "religious" moral people. Even if we say, "Jesus did it so you don't have to," they are going to hear, "Stop sinning and be moral like me," or, "stop voting democrat and start voting republican," and that's simply not the Gospel. Our God is radically conservative and radically liberal. Let's celebrate him as such!

God's Grace > Your Sin

In James we have a wonderful promise of wisdom from God if we simply ask for it.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (Jam. 1:5)

The Bible is full of God's promises. There are promises of wrath against unbelieving disobedience (Deut. 11:16-17), and there are promises of great blessing for those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:28). The amazing thing about the latter group of promises is that they are not based on personal merit or works (Eph. 2:8-9). Unfortunately it is easy to forget this. James goes on to define what a true request is in the verses following.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. (Jam. 1:6-8)

I used to think that these verses referred to someone who was so self absorbed that they only wanted wisdom from God in order to help them get ahead in life. It is true that these verses encompass that type of person; one who is vain and cares more about what God can give them, then what they can do to glorify God. However, there is another type of person here who is equally as self absorbed. I refer to the person who asks without believing that God can fulfil His promise because of their sin. I refer to what I have only just now realized that I have become.

It can be a great temptation of ours to focus on our own sin and wretchedness, and assume that God's grace is not sufficient to cover our transgressions. It is true that our sin is great, but it is also irrelevant. It is true that we are undeserving of God's grace and mercy, but equally as irrelevant. This is a sin of self-righteousness under the guise of humility.

My sin cannot, and will not ever outweigh the infinite Grace that was poured out on Calvary the day that Jesus was crucified. If I have truly been born again, then the price for the promises of God have already been paid for and I have but to ask faithfully to recieve them (John 16:24). Even times of chastisement from God for disobedience are a promise of blessing to Christians (Heb. 12:3-17).

Father God, grant us the wisdom to see you as we should see you. Do not allow us to regard our own hand mightier than yours, or our sin greater than your Grace. Create in us a single mind in our walk with you, focusing on the greatest promise of all that was secured for us by your son Jesus Christ.

Compromise And Cowardice, A Confession...

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. (James 1:14)

I am a coward! I say this because I know it in my heart to be true. I have faltered in my walk with Christ. For some time now my outward appearance, and my actions have been "moral", but my spiritual life has been pathetic. I have compromised the sacredness of the glorious gift of my salvation by giving my time and attention over to worldly pursuits. The time I have spent in the Word is shameful, and I spend most of my prayer life apologizing to God for my lack of spiritual leadership in the home.

I started with that particular verse because it reminds me of my cowardice to admit my sins. I know I have faced some difficult times emotionally, but at the end of the day I have only myself to blame for my lackadaisical attitude towards Christ. I have spent months disgusted with myself because of this behavior, and I have cried out to God for help. However, I have been lazy, obstinate, and disobedient in my response to His Holy Spirit.

I have been so lazy that I didn't post last week, or this week. I am a coward because rather than expose myself to my trusted friends, I simply chose to avoid the situation. I started this Blog because I wanted it to be about accountability and integrity, but I am a hypocrite. I write now to confess my sins before the group that I might ask their forgiveness in the matter, and that I might receive their prayers.

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16)

Pray that I would put away worldly, meaningless distractions. Pray that I would be unashamed in my Biblical studies (2 Tim 2:15). Pray that I would become the spiritual leader of my family that I am called to by God (Eph 5). Pray that I would allow the Spirit of Christ to consume me in all aspects of my life.

A Gospel Hermeneutic

Scalise raises an interesting question, and it is important that we deal with it in order to really understand the Gospel which I promised I would begin writing on. When we ask ourselves the question how do we understand Scripture our best bet is to look to see how Jesus uses Scripture. When we look to the Gospels, we see that:

1. When Jesus reads the Bible he presupposes Scripture as being God's very words (Jn 5:37-40, Mt 19:4-5, Jn 10:34-35)
2. When Jesus reads the Bible he speaks of it being all about himself (Lk 24:44-45, Jn 5:39-46).
   

This last statement about Jesus is the most remarkable to me. He says, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me." How can Jesus say that Moses wrote of him? Jesus makes the amazing claim that everything - I mean everything in the Bible is about him.

As we approach Scripture, the question now becomes not is Scripture all literal or is it all metaphorical, spiritual, symbolic, etc. (For Scripture take on all those different forms at different times.) The question is now what does this tell me about Jesus. What is the telos (purpose) of the text? This is important, because if you believe the Bible is only to be interpreted as literal, you will read a narrative like David and Goliath and say that the point of the story is that we, like David, should summons up enough faith and courage to fight the giants in our lives. The story becomes a story about me.

However, if we read David and Goliath and ask, "Why did the Holy Spirit have this account preserved in the Bible?" then, taking what Jesus told us (that all Scripture is telling us something about him and our salvation through him) we can see that David was just a forefather of Jesus. You see, when we put the David story into the Bible story - the big story - we notice some amazing similarities:

• Like David, Jesus came to his task weak, not strong
• Like David, Jesus fought in the place of his people to bring about their victory.
• Like David, Jesus saves his people by grace, giving them a victory that they didn't raise a finger to earn for themselves.
• But unlike David, Jesus did all of this not merely at the risk of his life, but at the cost of his life.
• And unlike David, Jesus delivers us not just from the giant of our physical captivity, but from the giant of sin and death itself.
  

The story of David and Goliath is primarily about Jesus and my salvation through him. And it is to the degree that I grasp and rejoice that Jesus fought the real giants for me - giants of sin death, law is the degree to which I will be able to fight the small giants in life - gaints of suffering, depression, failure, criticism, etc.)

Ed Clowney says is best:

There are great stories in the Bible...but it is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss the Bible story. The Bible has a story line. It traces an unfolding drama. The story follows the history of Israel, but it does not begin there, nor does it contain what you would expect in a national history... If we forget the story line...we cut the heart out of the Bible. Sunday school stories are then told as tamer versions of the Sunday comics, where Samson substitutes for Superman. David...becomes a Hebrew version of Jack the Giant Killer. No, David is... the Lord's anointed... God chose David as a king after his own heart in order to prepare the way for David's great Son, our Deliverer and Champion...

Baptism in the Spirit?

So my thought for this week revolves around much research I have done lately. Two main points: first, how do you approach Scripture and Second, is the phrase or concept "baptism of the Spirit" used equivocally or univocally in Scripture.

Regarding the first point I would love if we could really wrestle with this one for some time. Here is the rub for me: I usually fall in the literal category (ofcourse allowing for figurative or symbolic language where the bible uses it that way: I.E. in Revelation when John is writing about the dragon in the next verse it is called "Satan, the devil, that serpent of old". The dragon is a symbol for satan) but in some of the more difficult passages I have caught myself leaning towards a spiritual understanding of something...in other words I am not being consistent in my approach to Scripture. This is very dangerous because if I spiritualize or allegorize or symbolize something in Scripture because of whatever reason then why can I not now spiritualize Jesus death on the cross? In other words, basically making Jesus' historic event nothing more than a figurative symbol for how all humans should be self-sacrificing for one another. Don't get me wrong on this point, I do believe Jesus is a perfect demonstration of this but the historicity of the cross and the God-man Jesus the Messiah communicates so much more beyond only that. For instance there is heated debate concerning the Kingdom of God...many would site Luke 17:21 which states "nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you" to say that there will be no future physical kingdom. Now not even going into the fact that Jesus was talking to Pharisees what do we take from this? Does that fact that Jesus said this redefine the hundreds and hundreds of passages in the OT regarding the kingdom promised to the Jews? And if so how can Paul make the argument in Romans that the word of God does not fail (Romans 9:5)? Because if the Jews now get no kingdom then how can we trust that God is going to give us a kingdom or heaven...because quite frankly there is a whole lot more Scripture regarding the Jews and their kingdom/ inheritence in the OT than there are passages regarding the Church and her inheritence in the NT...unless of course you read the Church back into the OT passages which breaks almost every rule of exegesis not to mention makes God look like He was playing a cruel joke on the Jews for thousands of years. But this cannot be so, not that I don't think God can't do whatever He wants but because of the goodness of God that is always tied to His soveriegnty; for God is light and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John)...and there is not shifting shadow with out God (James). And though He has a hand in all that happens--good or ill--He is not malicious in those seemily unfair things that He does; in other words He is not like a murderer when He destroys someone (Eze 33:11).

Take another example for instance: I don't know how many times I have heard that the Song of Solomon should be understood allegorically of Christ and the Church...but if I do this even though there is no evidence from the text to do this then I could just as easily allegoricalize Jesus' death on the cross couldn't I. But let's just say for a minute that I do understand the Song of Songs as allegory...would I not be much more in tune with the OT and chronology to under Song of Songs, not as Christ and the Church but Yhwh and Israel?(Hos 2:16-19, Eze 16:32, Jer 3:20). Anyway the rubber has met the road because I must be consistent, lest I adapt to the ways of post modernity and the realitivism that is so characteristic of it. There is only one place in the Bible that states it is in allegory, and that is Gal 4?? maybe starts in 3. Inconsistency lends to instablity and we are not to be those who build their house on the sand but the rock.

Why "Jesus is Lord" is not the Gospel

I want to explain something about British evangelicals: Most conservative Bible-believing Church of England evangelicals are more or less "Reformed" in their theology. But sadly, I have my doubts as to how many of these men actually know the Gospel. If you ask the average British Christian who has gone through pastoral training nonetheless, what the Gospel is, they will say, "The Gospel is simply this: Jesus is Lord." I have a problem with this.

Okay, of course Jesus is Lord. And of course the Gospel says and proclaims from the mountain tops that Jesus is Lord. Of course if Jesus wasn't Lord the Gospel wouldn't be the Gospel. But the problem I have - the frustration that I have with British evangelicalism is when you define the Gospel as "Jesus is Lord" then that becomes to very motivation for everything you do.

What, then, is the implication of this? If your motivation for being a good Christian is "Jesus is Lord" then doesn't that mean the only reason you obey Jesus is because...well, he's Lord? And when you're telling others about Jesus you're doing it because he's Lord, and he commands you to. And you're telling the non-Christian to believe in Jesus not because Jesus lived the life they should have lived and died the death they should have died so that they could become children of God. We're telling non-Christians to believe in Jesus because Jesus is Lord and if you don't act accordingly (i.e. live a moral life) it's going to be a rough ride. If "Jesus is Lord" is you're very motivation for everything you do, you're motivation is not the free grace of Jesus, it is legalism.

What is the flip side of this? If "Jesus is Lord" is not an adequate definition of the Gospel, then how do we define it? Let's take a look at evangelism. Evangelism is a hard thing to do. It is often times uncomfortable and non-Christians usually don't like being "preached" to. Now, as we have seen, if our motivation for evangelism is "Jesus is Lord," then we're evangelising because he tells us so and we if we don't evangelise Jesus will be mad. In other words, we are trying to gain Jesus' approval by obey him. We are trying to save ourselves by being good Christians. BUT, if our motivation for evangelism is the Gospel it's going to look different. Let me explain: God is a missionary God. God longs for the nations to be saved. In Psalm 2 the Father says to the Son, "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." The Father radically sends his only Son into the most hostile mission field ever to die for the sins of those who rejected him. The Jesus sends the Holy Spirit as a missionary to the hearts of Christians everywhere. Yhwh is a missionary God! We evangelise - not so much because he commands us to - but because it's in his very character. We evangelise not because we should or have to, but because Jesus lived the life we couldn't live, and died the death we deserve to die. And he did all of this despite the fact that we rejected him, and despite the fact that we will remained only marginally faithful at best. He did all of this so that we could become sons and daughters of God - righteous in the eyes of the Father - perfectly accepted; perfectly loved. You see if that is your motivation then you don't have to feel like you "have to" share the Gospel - it's not a burden anymore. You share the Gospel simply because it's the best news in the world. There's nothing more exciting than it. There's nothing that will fulfill and satisfy the life of the non-believe like the Gospel does. You see, Jesus took the ultimate persecute for sharing the Gospel so that now we can face our little persecutions.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to expound on the Gospel a bit more. What exactly is the Gospel? How do we communicate the Gospel in the 21st century? And what are the reaches of the Gospel? I know the purpose of this blog isn't exactly to set up "themes" as such to cover in a period of time, but I believe we should lay some ground work. The Gospel is that ground work - the very basis of the Christian's faith, the very basis of the Christian's life.