Lately, I’ve been dwelling on John 5 a lot, in which Jesus delves into His nature & His co-existence with the Father. But my last piece was a departure from this; for it was intended solely as a sermon separate from this line of study. “The Existence of Evil” was written with the intention of informing the mind & stirring the soul to accept “the hard fact that we are not so good”. To me, this is a theologically shallow concept; it is primitive in comparison to understanding the nature of Jesus Christ as taught in places like John 5.
So I would say that I was a little dismayed by the measure of affirmation for the piece among mature Christians. I thought “This is kindergarten Christian teaching.” Nothing is more rudimentary to salvation in Christ than the egregious nature of our personal sin in the face of God’s holiness. I thought “I’ve taught much more profound pieces on this. Why is this so well received?”
As a church body, we recently went to see the movie “Fireproof,” wherein the protagonist is having marital issues. He is told to press on in studying his wife to know her beyond the level he knew her when they were dating. The line went something like “If you had a high school diploma in “Catherine” when you were married, you need to keep going- on to a bachelor’s, master’s, & a Ph.D.”
You don’t stop trying to understand more of the ones you love.
So it is with Christ. We press on to know Him better through His Word, illuminated to our mind through teachers inspired by His Spirit. But in thinking about this movie’s protagonist, in his wider experience of saving his marriage, I realized he needed something more than a degree in “Catherine”. He also needed a fundamental understanding of himself- a degree in “me”. Regardless of how well he understood his wife, the relationship would go nowhere until he perceived & started to come to terms with his own nature- particularly the evils that lurked within & expressed something other than love to his beloved. He knew & carried out all manner of works that should have pleased his wife, but they would in fact would not please her. All that effort was for naught as long as he coldly & unrepentantly persisted in doing the things that offended her.
So I am again made to understand that no matter what measure my understanding of Christ’s nature rises towards, I must continue to pair that understanding with the understanding that I was a sinner worthy of nothing but Hell’s fire before He saved me. What’s more, I continue in sin today. My only prayer is that God would grant me ability towards ever greater repentance- for as Luther said “To do it no more is truest repentance.”
It is a dual major we are studying for; the degree in “Jesus Christ” is but worthless parchment apart from the degree in “me”.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Existence of Evil
The atheist poses many a query concerning the nature & existence of God. Most commonly, they center on the basic concern “Why does a good God allow evil to exist?” But as they endeavor to challenge the existence of God, or at least indict God as being less than good, they pass over the much more poignant & personal probe “Why does a good God allow mankind to exist, when man commits so much evil?”
The response the first question is simplistic- obviously, evil exists because man exists & perpetrates it. The atrocities of Auschwitz occurred because men consciously perpetrated them. The Cambodian genocide of the 1970s’ was not committed by an unseen force; it clearly had direct human causes. Even today, colossal evils go unchecked in many places- most notably Darfur. It’s man’s inhumanity to man, as the textbooks call it, but as it can be attested that there have been major events such as these across the entire span of man’s recorded existence, it should be seen as more typical than atypical behavior. As such activity would appear to be normative for humans, maybe it should be re-termed “man’s humanity to man”.
And the fact that the Darfurian tragedy continues to play out makes the rest of the world complicit in its evil. If we see a crime taking place & just obliviously carry on with our day, we give our consent to the deed & are therefore guilty of collusion. Most of us are appalled at the evils of Auschwitz in retrospect, but at the time it apparently didn’t bring great conviction- for Allied forces had intelligence on the death camps, but chose to allow them to continue operating unfettered. At the very least, they could have disrupted their ghastly operations by bombing the rail lines leading to them. This speaks to the evil lurking within even the hearts of the (comparatively) “good guys”. We see “bad” even in the hearts of the “good”. We may say that we were good because we chose to fight against the agreeably evil regimes of the Axis powers, but truly, no Allied power arose to fight the demonstrably evil Axis powers until they themselves were threatened. We, as a populace, were largely oblivious to the plight of suffering Asians, Africans, & Europeans until Pearl Harbor. It was much more self-preservation than altruism. As an ancillary to the mindset that would pose “Why does a good God allow evil to exist?”, we should in turn ask “If man is so good, why does he allow evil to exist?”
The hard fact is that man is not so good. We truly are not anywhere near as good as we think we are. When atheists, agnostics, or even Christians are befuddled by the supposed riddle of “Why does a good God allow evil to exist?”, they demonstrate an inherent proclivity to judge others without judging themselves, in violation of Matthew 7:1-5. The point of Jesus’ words here is that our ability to rightly judge the measure of another’s wrongs is constrained by our inability to judge evil at its closest proximity- within our very own soul. In other words, how can we rightly judge from afar (the heart of another), if we are incapable of rightly judging that which is very near?
The prisons are filled with people who have little, if any, conviction concerning their crimes. The petty thief thinks himself to be good for not being an armed robber, the armed robber thinks himself good for not hurting anyone, the murderer thinks himself good because he only killed one person, the rapist thinks himself good because, “you know, she was really asking for it”… the problem is the convicted have so little conviction concerning their crimes against humanity. But this attitude is not constrained to prison populations. How many of us have overlooked our own sin in the mad rush to judge another? I know I have been passed by the guy doing 90 MPH in a 70 MPH zone & indignantly thought “What a nut.” Sometimes I would be pleased to come upon him pulled over by a police officer a few miles later & would be contented as I thought “He got what he deserved”. But, thankfully, God would bring conviction to me as His Spirit asked my heart “But when will you get what you deserve?” God reminded that I was in fact doing 80 MPH when he passed doing 90 MPH. I had to slow down when I saw the officer too. While his sin was clearly greater than mine, I was most certainly a transgressor, worthy of punishment, as well. This is what Jesus meant when He said “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” A man blind to his own depravity cannot rightly decry the depravity of another.
Psalms 7 “A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite. O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, (2) lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. (3) O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, (4) if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, (5) let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah (6) Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. (7) Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. (8) The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. (9) Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous-- you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! (10) My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. (11) God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. (12) If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; (13) he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. (14) Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. (15) He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. (16) His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends. (17) I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.”
David responds to evil intent of his pursuers by asking for God to be involved. He wants God to intervene & cease the evil being perpetrated against him. But in verses 3-5, David is well aware of the possibility of evil within his own actions as well; for that reason he seems to have the understanding he would also be caught up in the very judgment he desires for others. He clearly has judged his own actions in regards to this situation, & considers his own integrity first. But just as clearly, David’s sins are easily witnessed in the larger scope of his life. He was not confidently calling for God’s final judgment of His life overall, for he knows he has no integrity in that larger scope. He simply desires a righteous Judge to intervene & make a judgment as to the improper persecution he feels he is suffering. He is not asking any obtuse philosophical questions about why evil generally exists; he knows it exists, & first of all wants to repent of it within himself.
The atheist wags his finger at God for His supposed delay in judging evil, but is ignorant of the truth of the matter. This riddler enjoys his mock trial of God, so ignorant of the only thing staying the Lord of all from calling the real trial into order- the one where the riddler is the defendant- is God's awesome mercy. Man always has a ready indictment for the evil of others instead of himself, & the atheist is only taking this blind, hypocritical insolence a step further when he accuses God.
God’s desire for mercy all that restrains His “whetted sword” & His “readied bow” of fearsome judgment.
The atheist desires to judge God, but two things are required to make a right judgment concerning another- having understanding concerning the nature of sin that only comes by contrasting the standard of God’s Word with the deplorable inner reality & a repentant attitude concerning said reality. While there are many who hesitate at the doorway of repentance, most in the world never accept the validity of step 1: accepting God’s standard as the standard for judging what evil actually is. We lie to our bosses, cheat (& speed) if we think we won’t get caught, fornicate, & abide passively while all manner of evil goes on around us, yet moan about a God who allows evil. What hypocrites we are! If God ever decided put a stop to evil, Jesus would be returning to completely barren world, for no one would survive past the age of two!
The Lord declares to all “lower courts” of judgment:
Job 40:8 "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
If the riddler’s convictions regarding evil began with an honest scrutiny of the evil actively lurking within himself, his question would morph into the most poignant & personal probe: "Why does God allow me to exist, given that I have done wrong?" Try as we might, we cannot divorce the question of evil’s existence from the question of our own existence. Again, it is quite simply apparent that evil exists because we exist. All have sinned & fallen short of God’s standard of sinlessness, so that begs the real question: “Why does a good God allow me to live after my first evil thought or deed?”
Mercy.
Our focus would thereafter not be entranced upon the alleged inactivity of God regarding evil, but upon our own inactivity regarding our own evil.
I say “alleged inactivity” because God in fact has been very active. Those that think God to be inactive in regards to evil show that they have never accepted the splendor of the Person nor the cross of Christ.
John 3:14-21 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (15) that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (18) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (20) For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (21) But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."
Two thousand years ago, God was so deeply concerned about the problem of evil in the world that He Himself came down to deal with it face to face- literally. He confronted evil Himself time and again, yet, unlike us, it never was able to enter into His nature. This proved that Jesus alone was worthy to take on the punishment for our every evil deed.
Romans 8:24-28 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? (25) But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (26) Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (27) And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (28) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Note the present tense language here, praise God, He did not cease interceding in man’s affairs with Jesus’ departure; no, God gives us His Spirit as a daily intercession against the influence of evil in our midst.
The response the first question is simplistic- obviously, evil exists because man exists & perpetrates it. The atrocities of Auschwitz occurred because men consciously perpetrated them. The Cambodian genocide of the 1970s’ was not committed by an unseen force; it clearly had direct human causes. Even today, colossal evils go unchecked in many places- most notably Darfur. It’s man’s inhumanity to man, as the textbooks call it, but as it can be attested that there have been major events such as these across the entire span of man’s recorded existence, it should be seen as more typical than atypical behavior. As such activity would appear to be normative for humans, maybe it should be re-termed “man’s humanity to man”.
And the fact that the Darfurian tragedy continues to play out makes the rest of the world complicit in its evil. If we see a crime taking place & just obliviously carry on with our day, we give our consent to the deed & are therefore guilty of collusion. Most of us are appalled at the evils of Auschwitz in retrospect, but at the time it apparently didn’t bring great conviction- for Allied forces had intelligence on the death camps, but chose to allow them to continue operating unfettered. At the very least, they could have disrupted their ghastly operations by bombing the rail lines leading to them. This speaks to the evil lurking within even the hearts of the (comparatively) “good guys”. We see “bad” even in the hearts of the “good”. We may say that we were good because we chose to fight against the agreeably evil regimes of the Axis powers, but truly, no Allied power arose to fight the demonstrably evil Axis powers until they themselves were threatened. We, as a populace, were largely oblivious to the plight of suffering Asians, Africans, & Europeans until Pearl Harbor. It was much more self-preservation than altruism. As an ancillary to the mindset that would pose “Why does a good God allow evil to exist?”, we should in turn ask “If man is so good, why does he allow evil to exist?”
The hard fact is that man is not so good. We truly are not anywhere near as good as we think we are. When atheists, agnostics, or even Christians are befuddled by the supposed riddle of “Why does a good God allow evil to exist?”, they demonstrate an inherent proclivity to judge others without judging themselves, in violation of Matthew 7:1-5. The point of Jesus’ words here is that our ability to rightly judge the measure of another’s wrongs is constrained by our inability to judge evil at its closest proximity- within our very own soul. In other words, how can we rightly judge from afar (the heart of another), if we are incapable of rightly judging that which is very near?
The prisons are filled with people who have little, if any, conviction concerning their crimes. The petty thief thinks himself to be good for not being an armed robber, the armed robber thinks himself good for not hurting anyone, the murderer thinks himself good because he only killed one person, the rapist thinks himself good because, “you know, she was really asking for it”… the problem is the convicted have so little conviction concerning their crimes against humanity. But this attitude is not constrained to prison populations. How many of us have overlooked our own sin in the mad rush to judge another? I know I have been passed by the guy doing 90 MPH in a 70 MPH zone & indignantly thought “What a nut.” Sometimes I would be pleased to come upon him pulled over by a police officer a few miles later & would be contented as I thought “He got what he deserved”. But, thankfully, God would bring conviction to me as His Spirit asked my heart “But when will you get what you deserve?” God reminded that I was in fact doing 80 MPH when he passed doing 90 MPH. I had to slow down when I saw the officer too. While his sin was clearly greater than mine, I was most certainly a transgressor, worthy of punishment, as well. This is what Jesus meant when He said “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” A man blind to his own depravity cannot rightly decry the depravity of another.
Psalms 7 “A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite. O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, (2) lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. (3) O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, (4) if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, (5) let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah (6) Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. (7) Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. (8) The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. (9) Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous-- you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! (10) My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. (11) God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. (12) If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; (13) he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. (14) Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. (15) He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. (16) His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends. (17) I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.”
David responds to evil intent of his pursuers by asking for God to be involved. He wants God to intervene & cease the evil being perpetrated against him. But in verses 3-5, David is well aware of the possibility of evil within his own actions as well; for that reason he seems to have the understanding he would also be caught up in the very judgment he desires for others. He clearly has judged his own actions in regards to this situation, & considers his own integrity first. But just as clearly, David’s sins are easily witnessed in the larger scope of his life. He was not confidently calling for God’s final judgment of His life overall, for he knows he has no integrity in that larger scope. He simply desires a righteous Judge to intervene & make a judgment as to the improper persecution he feels he is suffering. He is not asking any obtuse philosophical questions about why evil generally exists; he knows it exists, & first of all wants to repent of it within himself.
The atheist wags his finger at God for His supposed delay in judging evil, but is ignorant of the truth of the matter. This riddler enjoys his mock trial of God, so ignorant of the only thing staying the Lord of all from calling the real trial into order- the one where the riddler is the defendant- is God's awesome mercy. Man always has a ready indictment for the evil of others instead of himself, & the atheist is only taking this blind, hypocritical insolence a step further when he accuses God.
God’s desire for mercy all that restrains His “whetted sword” & His “readied bow” of fearsome judgment.
The atheist desires to judge God, but two things are required to make a right judgment concerning another- having understanding concerning the nature of sin that only comes by contrasting the standard of God’s Word with the deplorable inner reality & a repentant attitude concerning said reality. While there are many who hesitate at the doorway of repentance, most in the world never accept the validity of step 1: accepting God’s standard as the standard for judging what evil actually is. We lie to our bosses, cheat (& speed) if we think we won’t get caught, fornicate, & abide passively while all manner of evil goes on around us, yet moan about a God who allows evil. What hypocrites we are! If God ever decided put a stop to evil, Jesus would be returning to completely barren world, for no one would survive past the age of two!
The Lord declares to all “lower courts” of judgment:
Job 40:8 "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
If the riddler’s convictions regarding evil began with an honest scrutiny of the evil actively lurking within himself, his question would morph into the most poignant & personal probe: "Why does God allow me to exist, given that I have done wrong?" Try as we might, we cannot divorce the question of evil’s existence from the question of our own existence. Again, it is quite simply apparent that evil exists because we exist. All have sinned & fallen short of God’s standard of sinlessness, so that begs the real question: “Why does a good God allow me to live after my first evil thought or deed?”
Mercy.
Our focus would thereafter not be entranced upon the alleged inactivity of God regarding evil, but upon our own inactivity regarding our own evil.
I say “alleged inactivity” because God in fact has been very active. Those that think God to be inactive in regards to evil show that they have never accepted the splendor of the Person nor the cross of Christ.
John 3:14-21 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (15) that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (18) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (20) For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (21) But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."
Two thousand years ago, God was so deeply concerned about the problem of evil in the world that He Himself came down to deal with it face to face- literally. He confronted evil Himself time and again, yet, unlike us, it never was able to enter into His nature. This proved that Jesus alone was worthy to take on the punishment for our every evil deed.
Romans 8:24-28 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? (25) But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (26) Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (27) And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (28) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Note the present tense language here, praise God, He did not cease interceding in man’s affairs with Jesus’ departure; no, God gives us His Spirit as a daily intercession against the influence of evil in our midst.
Friday, September 5, 2008
The Righteous Judge
John 5:15-23 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. (16) And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. (17) But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." (18) This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (19) So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. (20) For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. (21) For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (22) The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, (23) that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
John 8:15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.
Scripture alternately has Jesus stating that all judgment is His, but that He came not to judge. We accept the Word as fully true- never contradictory, but sometimes paradoxical to our spiritually myopic & sin-hardened mind. “Well, ‘We have the mind of Christ’ ” you say, & you are correct; but understanding must foundationally begin with the Bible, for there are many deceiving spirits in the world (firstly, our own natural man). Because He has stated “He will never leave us nor forsake us”, the treasure of God’s Word was given & passed down to us- so that we can understand the things we need to understand. God has not left His children as spiritual orphans- in His Word, He has given us all we need; if His children would just dwell there, His Spirit would open their minds to all they need to know.
All Scripture should be taken in its immediate context, as well as its larger context of being just one part of the composite teaching we call the Bible. Above, when I quoted John 8, I purposely did as many false teachers do & parceled it from its context- to illustrate the danger of listening to the “one verse” teacher. Many lies are taught by men such as these. Now read it in context:
John 8:2-26 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. (3) The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst (4) they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. (5) Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" (6) This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (7) And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." (8) And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. (9) But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. (10) Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" (11) She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
Jesus does not judge her to be “not guilty”- based on His next statement- “sin no more.” She was guilty, but He adjudicated a judgment of no condemnation upon her. This was foretelling the adjudication for sin He would be giving all the elect of God, for all their sin- the “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Adjudication is defined as “a judge making an official decision about a problem or dispute” & this speaks to Christ’s power as both Savior & Judge. The problem is God has pure holiness & righteousness- & we do not. We are in dispute with His nature with our every transgression. This is why the Father “has given all judgment to the Son”; for it is the Son who suffered for our transgressions. If the Father were to be our judge, every one of us would be destined for Hell, for His desire for mercy cannot simply trump His demand for purity. More than all else, God is a holy God. It is the Son alone who paid the price for our sin, who was the propitiation for our iniquity, so only He alone can bestow merciful forgiveness for said iniquity. If Christ did not retain both titles- Savior & Judge- He would lack the authority to commute sentences for sin. A judge who simply dismisses a case against the guilty, without a penalty being paid, could not be called a righteous judge. He would be derelict in duty as he disregarded criminal activity. But a merciful Judge blessed with ability to foresee the criminal activity of His friends could pay their penalty in advance; certainly this is what took place as Jesus foresaw “the joy that was set before Him”. He “endured the cross & despis(ed) the shame”, looking forward to that day when He would be “seated at the right hand of the throne of God”, rightly able to dispense mercy to all those entrusted to Him. “The joy that was set before Him” was the ability to truly put our sin “as far the east is from the west”.
The Judge will not lose any of God's children to Hell because the Judge Himself paid the price to save them from Hell.
(12) Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (13) So the Pharisees said to him, "You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true." (14) Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. (15) You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. (16) Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. (17) In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. (18) I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me." (19) They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." (20) These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. (21) So he said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come." (22) So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself, since he says, 'Where I am going, you cannot come'?" (23) He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. (24) I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." (25) So they said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. (26) I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."
Note that when we take in more of His message, we see in verse 26 that Christ will judge (in the future). When Jesus says "I judge no one", He is speaking in the present tense. It reflected the nature of His current ministry at the time- a suffering servant dedicated to His future “joy” of granting mercy to those He loves. Jesus sums His mission on earth in John 3:
John 3:16-21 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (18) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (20) For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (21) But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."
See, there is a judgment to come, & Christ’s primary mission was to have the authority to rightly adjudicate the case against the ones He loves.
John 8:15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.
Scripture alternately has Jesus stating that all judgment is His, but that He came not to judge. We accept the Word as fully true- never contradictory, but sometimes paradoxical to our spiritually myopic & sin-hardened mind. “Well, ‘We have the mind of Christ’ ” you say, & you are correct; but understanding must foundationally begin with the Bible, for there are many deceiving spirits in the world (firstly, our own natural man). Because He has stated “He will never leave us nor forsake us”, the treasure of God’s Word was given & passed down to us- so that we can understand the things we need to understand. God has not left His children as spiritual orphans- in His Word, He has given us all we need; if His children would just dwell there, His Spirit would open their minds to all they need to know.
All Scripture should be taken in its immediate context, as well as its larger context of being just one part of the composite teaching we call the Bible. Above, when I quoted John 8, I purposely did as many false teachers do & parceled it from its context- to illustrate the danger of listening to the “one verse” teacher. Many lies are taught by men such as these. Now read it in context:
John 8:2-26 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. (3) The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst (4) they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. (5) Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" (6) This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (7) And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." (8) And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. (9) But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. (10) Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" (11) She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
Jesus does not judge her to be “not guilty”- based on His next statement- “sin no more.” She was guilty, but He adjudicated a judgment of no condemnation upon her. This was foretelling the adjudication for sin He would be giving all the elect of God, for all their sin- the “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Adjudication is defined as “a judge making an official decision about a problem or dispute” & this speaks to Christ’s power as both Savior & Judge. The problem is God has pure holiness & righteousness- & we do not. We are in dispute with His nature with our every transgression. This is why the Father “has given all judgment to the Son”; for it is the Son who suffered for our transgressions. If the Father were to be our judge, every one of us would be destined for Hell, for His desire for mercy cannot simply trump His demand for purity. More than all else, God is a holy God. It is the Son alone who paid the price for our sin, who was the propitiation for our iniquity, so only He alone can bestow merciful forgiveness for said iniquity. If Christ did not retain both titles- Savior & Judge- He would lack the authority to commute sentences for sin. A judge who simply dismisses a case against the guilty, without a penalty being paid, could not be called a righteous judge. He would be derelict in duty as he disregarded criminal activity. But a merciful Judge blessed with ability to foresee the criminal activity of His friends could pay their penalty in advance; certainly this is what took place as Jesus foresaw “the joy that was set before Him”. He “endured the cross & despis(ed) the shame”, looking forward to that day when He would be “seated at the right hand of the throne of God”, rightly able to dispense mercy to all those entrusted to Him. “The joy that was set before Him” was the ability to truly put our sin “as far the east is from the west”.
The Judge will not lose any of God's children to Hell because the Judge Himself paid the price to save them from Hell.
(12) Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (13) So the Pharisees said to him, "You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true." (14) Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. (15) You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. (16) Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. (17) In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. (18) I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me." (19) They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." (20) These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. (21) So he said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come." (22) So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself, since he says, 'Where I am going, you cannot come'?" (23) He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. (24) I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." (25) So they said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. (26) I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."
Note that when we take in more of His message, we see in verse 26 that Christ will judge (in the future). When Jesus says "I judge no one", He is speaking in the present tense. It reflected the nature of His current ministry at the time- a suffering servant dedicated to His future “joy” of granting mercy to those He loves. Jesus sums His mission on earth in John 3:
John 3:16-21 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (18) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (19) And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (20) For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (21) But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."
See, there is a judgment to come, & Christ’s primary mission was to have the authority to rightly adjudicate the case against the ones He loves.
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