I have a thesis, and it is not newly formed. The thesis is that those who obey God and choose to discipline themselves — albeit imperfectly — are those who will have fellowship with God.
For there are two errors. One is to consider that what we do does not matter: that the laws of this earth no longer apply to the flesh: our bodies. The second is a belief that cold regulation can alone achieve salvation. Both are wrong.
But in these times the preaching of this passage could be considered a hate crime. it is not politically correct: because when one examines this passage you find your conscience speaking about what you should reform, unless you have let some stupid ideology sear that God-given natural law away as a sacrifice to the idol you worship. And if that is the case, the spirit of Christ is not in you, and the Bible will read like hate speech.
1We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – 2this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us – 3we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
5This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
In Kirk yesterday the sermon was on maturity. One of the signs of maturity is not knowledge, but humility. It is not a pride in one’s credentials, or the knowledge you have, but a deep and abiding understanding that there is a lot you do not know.
The current illustration for me is that I will have to go through 50 odd clinical trials this week and comment in detail about the papers. Most of them are poor — the first paper was published in 1977 and the last in 2004 (From memory) and during that time the way studies has been reported has been standardized. We have had a student analyzing reasons for variations in these papers… and the more I know about them the less impressed am I with the data — and this is the second or third year that I have been working on this: the protocol was published in 2012. At the end of this, our group will be thought of having expert knowledge. However, I know where the gaps in the data are: they are very big, and they will probably remain so, since most clinical trials are done for regulatory reasons, not to answer some of these questions.
The more I know about scripture, the less neat it is. The systematic theologians, with their “problems of ….” miss the point: the models of theology we have are not God. We cannot comprehend God. We can trust his word, and the propositions he makes in his covenants with us. We can trust him for our salvation.
For my conscience, without Christ would damn me as surely as a ruined building cannot hold water.
So preaching repentance and Christ is not hate speech. It is the only way for salvation. There is no other.
And a society who considers the truth hate speech will be destroyed, for they have chosen foolishness: there may indeed be a great amount of ruin within a nation, but nations are ruined, frequently, by the polities and policies they choose, in a false search for comfort, when the only correct response to that crisis, to that circumstance is blood, sweat and tears as one changes direction towards righteousness and it’s handmaiden, functionality.
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