{"id":489,"date":"2021-01-20T11:43:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T11:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.18\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=489"},"modified":"2021-02-21T17:55:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T17:55:45","slug":"saved-to-be-spent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=489","title":{"rendered":"Editorial – Saved to be Spent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Holiness is not \u2018done with mirrors\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s undone with mirrors. Be sure that your forgiveness never flows backwards!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have forgiven her and that makes me the better person\u201d \u2013 I was saddened to hear this statement from the lips of a young Christian woman recently. Sadly, this is not untypical of the twisted views held by many Christians today whose \u2018faith\u2019 is influenced more by their peers on Facebook than by God\u2019s Word. Her confident self-assertive statement would no doubt have impressed her expensive \u2018life-coach\u2019 \u2013 but not her Saviour\u2026 Her self-justification is as deadly to her eternal welfare as if she had not forgiven\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her \u2018forgiveness\u2019 is terrifyingly false. She has not, in fact, forgiven anyone if she needs to use the offender to boost her self-esteem \u2013 that\u2019s \u2018justification by blame\u2019. She feels justified because\u2026 the other woman is not! The deception becomes apparent when we realise that her \u2018forgiveness\u2019 is actually flowing backwards into her own credit balance, leaving the supposedly forgiven woman still in her debt!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Christians are not self-made by our own moral superiority; we are made by the kind mercy of God \u2013 and by no other means. This is school-book Christianity \u2013 so basic that any Christian should understand \u2018justification by faith\u2019. Yet there she was, all kitted out with the latest worship songs, comfortable in her large \u2018successful\u2019 Christian social circle \u2013 and feeling superior to someone who needed her forgiveness! \u201cIf then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!\u201d<\/em> (Matthew 6:23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the letter to the Galatian churches becomes urgently pertinent to today\u2019s believers, the modern Church is showing clear signs of \u2018advanced regression\u2019. When Paul wrote to the Galatian churches he had planted on his first missionary journey (across what we now know as Turkey), he was steamed up that the believers had been \u2018bewitched\u2019 so readily by the false ideas of legalists and he pronounced a curse on the peddlers of such false teaching. Don\u2019t blanche\u2026 Only the true Gospel confers a blessing, so any false \u2018gospel\u2019 is a thief and comes with a curse inbuilt. Paul was merely voicing the reality that today\u2019s \u2018nice\u2019 Christianity would prefer to leave unspoken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hideous similarity\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If the young woman of our story was familiar with Paul\u2019s teaching to the Galatian believers her understanding was well concealed. His fiery passion to protect the young churches even dispenses with the usual greetings and salutations of his other letters. Even when he wishes \u2018grace and peace\u2019 to them, he\u2019s attacking the false teachers. If you can earn your good moral standing with God through being circumcised (or forgiving others) or any other good deeds of your own, then \u201cChrist died for nothing!<\/em>\u201d (Gal 2:15 \u2013 Phillips), thus you nullify the grace of God by your own \u2018merit\u2019. But if, as Paul shows, it is through \u201cbeing justified by faith<\/em>\u201d that we are \u201cat peace with God<\/em>\u201d (Galatians 5:1), then you have no peace with God if you are justified at the expense of anyone other than Jesus! Our Christian righteousness is the gift of God (1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 2:8), not the accumulated achievement of our good works. If anything will lift today\u2019s Churches out of their hideous similarity to the surrounding culture it is this nuclear truth. Nothing similar to this heavenly doctrine exists in the world; in fact, it is completely against society\u2019s natural concept of religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natural religion (religion as generally understood) works on the \u2018nothing for nothing\u2019 assumption. Consequently, divine favour and the acquisition of things money can\u2019t buy (like eternal happiness) depend on personal moral performance. The underlying assumption is that it is somehow possible to make God the debtor in the relationship; that by your moral accomplishments you accrue \u2018something on account\u2019, a debt that you can call in from heaven\u2019s bank. The concept of salvation as a GIFT, wholly undeserved and entirely an act of divine mercy was offensive to the religionists of the first century \u2013 and it is no less offensive to their 21st century heirs. By nature, religious people assume that access to heaven is gained by those who are \u2018deserving\u2019<\/strong>. By contrast, Jesus taught that our good deeds glorify not ourselves but our Father in Heaven; they are evidence of his mercy to us, not of our having earned His admiration!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s not be too quick to consider this subject so basic as to be unworthy of our more mature Christian minds \u2013 because there\u2019s an aspect to this \u2018faith vs. works\u2019 conflict that cuts to the heart of our sanctification. We know that sanctification \u2013 the \u2018holying\u2019 of the believer, a shorthand for being \u2018conformed to the likeness\u2019 of God\u2019s Son<\/em> (Romans 8:29) \u2013 is God\u2019s will for every believer (1 Thessalonians 4:3), but do we stop to consider how radical are the implications? The life generated by the indwelling Holy Spirit is life in the opposite direction to our default<\/strong>. It\u2019s the difference between the outflowing, land-blessing, nation-refreshing Galilee and the take-all, give-nothing-back sterility of the Dead Sea. It\u2019s the difference between the self-expending life of Jesus and the self-preserving life we all live by nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The danger to the young Galatian churches from legalism was that it peddled a religion which made believers preoccupied with their own whiteness; a religion in which personal spiritual development was an end in itself. The nagging underlying question of all such religion is \u2018how am I doing?\u2019 Peace with God is always something to be achieved, never enjoyed. As Warren Wiersbe says: \u201cLaw says \u2018Do!\u2019, grace says \u2018Done!\u2019\u201d \u201cThere is no peace for the wicked\u201d precisely because they are too proud to receive it as God\u2019s gift of mercy to the ungodly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economical mercy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s return to the young Christian woman whose fake forgiveness flows back towards her own credit with no blessing whatever for the one who is supposedly forgiven. We are forced to one of two conclusions \u2013 EITHER she does not have the Spirit of Christ (in which case she is no Christian \u2013 Romans 8:9) OR she is grieving the Holy Spirit by being as economical with her mercy as God has been extravagant with His\u2026 Clearly she feels \u2018loved little\u2019 by God and therefore \u2018loves little\u2019 \u2013 both her God and her debtors. (Luke 7:47).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This speaks right to the heart of Christian sanctification. It is the work of the Holy Spirit who indwells every true Christian to encourage and empower both our growth into the character of Christ and our testimony to His Gospel. In the Kingdom of God testimony is not something separate from character \u2013 and the primary \u2018characteristic\u2019 of the Lord Jesus is SELF-EXPENDITURE. This is why the worldly notion of holiness \u2013 where the supposedly \u2018holy\u2019 person withdraws from the world to preserve their own purity and deepen their own communion with God \u2013 is nothing more than a caricature of true holiness. Jesus left His glory and the deepest possible communion with the Father to earn Himself the nickname of Friend of Sinners, to be seen constantly in \u2018all the wrong company\u2019 and to take upon His own person all the filth and darkness of humanity\u2019s sinful rebellion against God \u2013 without once devaluing His holiness. In true holiness He spent Himself for us sinners to bring all who trust Him back to God (1 Pet 3:18) \u2013 and He predicted that, for anyone who became His disciple, the entire flow of life would change to match His own: \u201cWhoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, \u2018Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.\u2019<\/em>\u201d We are meant to take special note of the word \u2018out\u2019\u2026 (John 7:38)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He could have promised us personal fulfilment, moral excellence, spiritual maturity \u2013 all the things we, by nature, would put to the credit side of our ledger. But He didn\u2019t promise these because He had planned something far better: His own righteousness as the gift of God. It\u2019s shocking that many Christians think God\u2019s amazing grace extends no further than the forgiveness of our sins; but God has done infinitely more than clear our debit balance, He has added to our empty account the glorious righteousness of His Son! Let the Scriptures testify: \u201cBut now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it \u2013 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe<\/strong>. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus<\/em>\u201d (Romans 3:21-24) \u201cAnd because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption<\/em>\u201d (1 Corinthians. 1:30).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His promised \u2018rivers of living water\u2019 relate not to our personal development, but to our personal expenditure. \u2018Out\u2019 is the only direction that bears witness to His beating heart within the believer. Such a little word, but still fit to describe the natural direction of infinite love: \u201cout of his fulness (literal) we have all received grace upon grace<\/em>\u201d (John 1:16)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our 12th Foundations gathering this autumn has taken the theme \u2018Holiness: The Great Disconnect?\u2019 It\u2019s a wonderfully plastic sort of title that permits several equally valid meanings. Is holiness the great deficit of today\u2019s impotent church because of the \u2018disconnect\u2019 with her Head, Jesus Christ? Probably. Does true holiness require disconnection from the world? Yes indeed. Is the disconnect negative or positive? Both. Holiness requires disconnection from the world for the world so that the children of God can\u2019t be mistaken for Babylonians and the true God can\u2019t be misrepresented as a \u2018Great Pal in the Sky\u2019 whose cosmic dementia now enables Him to smile indulgently on every abuse of His rainbow \u2013 amongst the multiple tantrums of our rebellious nations\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tsunami of kindness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When the Church \u2013 when we \u2013 are rightly connected to Our Head, out of our heart (His heart within us) will come a vast and uneconomical expenditure of every blessing we ever receive. Every self-interested little dam within us will burst with irresistible compassion. Rivers of life, overflowing their banks; catching the guilty unawares with unexpected and unearned mercy \u2013 a glorious torrent of heavenly surprise as the God of Grace is seen to favour the guilty who need Him. This tsunami of kindness need be feared only by the self-righteous \u2013 their flimsy houses of fake forgiveness and mirrored walls for self-admiration will be swept away in an instant; their eternal future too terrible and their earthly \u2018rewards\u2019 too fragile to make the journey with them\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God forbid that we who have been forgiven so much would practise forgiveness that flows backwards to our own pathetic little credit. The \u2018better person\u2019 is a complete fake \u2013 a fake risking eternal loss. The only Better Person is the Lord Jesus, the Holy Son of God \u2013 the One whose holiness can only be seen in its outflow through His Church. May God give our nations a newly revived Church \u2018lost in wonder, love and praise\u2019 \u2013 preoccupied with Jesus, ripped out of her sterilising self-interest and glad to spend and be spent to make Him known\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holiness is not \u2018done with mirrors\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s undone with mirrors. Be sure that your forgiveness never flows backwards! \u201cI have forgiven her and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}