Is The Word Becoming Flesh? (2)

 

On December 4 I posted Is the Word Becoming Flesh? In it, among other things, I wrote of my desire to see the People of God submit to the Word of God, thus being transformed into the image of God, thus living in the continuing Incarnation of Jesus Christ; there is a sense in which as “the Word became flesh” in Jesus Christ, that in us the “flesh becomes the Word” as we partake of our Lord Jesus Christ and submit to His Word.

 

After that post, I wanted to demonstrate what it looks like when we attempt to force the Bible to submit to us, and so I turned our attention to Judas Iscariot and then the fear of the LORD, giving examples of what submitting to the Biblical text can look like, as opposed to attempting to force Scripture to submit to our ideas and images (I might also have given examples of us justifying sinful actions and thoughts).

 

Let me quote the conclusion to the December 4 post:

 

“Along with a deep desire for us to know and obey the Bible as the Living Word of God, is a desire to see us put distance between ourselves and the lawlessness of this present age. For if we are not obeying holy Scripture, if we are not drinking from the cup of obedience to the Bible, then we are drinking from the cup of the serpent, and this is the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:3; 1 Cor. 10:21; 2 Cor. 6:14). It is especially disturbing to me to see professing Christians engaged in disrespect of legitimate authority, to hear vicious vitriol, to see us engaged in toxic “culture wars” when we are not called in Christ to any such thing – but rather to be witnesses to Him, as individuals and especially as an identifiable People, as His Bride, His Church, His Temple. How sad to see professing Christians enabling and affirming lawlessness both in the professing church and in society. (Please consider 2 Timothy 2:24 – 26; and James 3:13 – 18. Are we displaying James 3:17 and 18?)

 

“We do not have the capacity to live autonomously; we will either serve God or we will serve the devil – we will either surrender our will to Jesus Christ or to the destroyer of the souls of men. The only lasting antidote to lawlessness is a life of obedience to Jesus Christ.

 

Let me ask you to please consider Proverbs 28:4, 7, 9; and 29:18. What do you see? We’ll come back to these verses in a future post.”

 

How do we live in a lawless society? How do we live within a professing church that is lawless? We are morally, ethically, and spiritually lawless. We are often legally lawless. Lawlessness has become a way of life. “Christian” leaders have become lawless in their own lives and they justify lawlessness in others – in political leaders, in mobs, in insurrectionists.

 

Organizations which were once dedicated to the Gospel have abdicated that dedication and prostitute themselves in lawless men and movements of this evil age. This especially confuses our witness to the world when one minute we are supporting politicians and political agendas and the next minute we are supposedly proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One minute we are making the kingdoms of this world our focus, and the next minute we are supposedly talking about the Kingdom of God. Even worse, we attempt to place the Kingdom of God in the service of the kingdoms of this world – is this not prostitution? Isn’t this whoredom? Isn’t this lawlessness? Aren’t we going the way of Balaam? Aren’t we enthroning Jezebel?

 

If we are to counter lawlessness in society and in the professing church, we must first beseech God to help us counter lawlessness in our own souls, hearts, and minds. If my soul is lawless, then I can hardly hope to help my neighbor or my congregation or my earthly nation.

 

“Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive with them.” Proverbs 28:4. The Bible is the Word of God, it is the Law of God. This is not to be confused with the Law of Moses, or what we call the Levitical Law, or the Old Covenant – as we might normally understand it. And yet it indeed does include the Law of Moses if we understand that the Law of Moses, as it is transposed upwards, reveals Jesus Christ (Luke 24:27, 44, 45). I will use the Word of God and the Law of God interchangeably, keeping in mind that Jesus Christ, Himself, is the Word of God, the Law of God, the Logos of God – the perfect Image and Way of God, for He is God.

 

And let us keep in mind that the word “law” need not refer to written, or codified laws, but that it can also refer to laws such as gravity and other laws discerned in creation. There is also “common law,” a concept ingrained in English (and hence American) law, this acknowledges that there are unwritten laws and practices that have their roots in the deep past and which have the power and effect of governing law.

 

Paul provides us with an overview of what we call natural law in Romans 1:18 – 2:29; something which the West is doing its best to obliterate in our time, with elements of the professing church sadly either overtly enabling or incrementally succumbing to this dismantling, the latter usually the result of pragmatic concerns and a false sense of self-preservation.

 

When we forsake the Law of God in any of its forms, whether written on paper or written in our hearts, minds, and consciences – we praise the wicked. When we hypocritically condemn others for their thinking and behavior, and practice lawlessness in our own souls, we not only destroy any testimony we might have had, but we enable the wicked to continue their assault on humanity.

 

On the other hand, if we live lives of keeping the Law, loving the Word of God, obeying the Word of God, submitting to the Word of God, living by and in the Word of God; allowing the Word of God to live in us and be the arbiter of our lives…then we strive against the wicked, we stand against the lawlessness of our age. For as long as there is a faithful remnant, as long as there is one woman or man or young person who is keeping the Word of God, guarding the Word of God…then, my friends, there is hope, then there remains a light within the Light of the world.

 

Let me be clear about the stakes involved, if we drink from the cup of lawlessness we drink of the cup of Satan and the antichrist. Our Lord Jesus is a holy Lion and a holy blameless Lamb, who submits to the will of the Father on the Cross and lays down His life for the world. Rebellion is from the abyss, and those who imbibe its poisonous gasses will die in the rebellion. (1 Cor. 10:14 – 22; 2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1; 2 Thess. 2:3 – 12; James 3:13 – 18; Jude 1:8 – 16).

 

Well, this is likely enough for one post. I’ll try to follow this up quickly. Please consider the above passages.