Since my last post touched on semi-pelagianism, I wanted to further elaborate on God's rejection of anything originating in man. I want to make this post more practical than the last one, if possible, because even if we are not and have never been semi-pelagian in our theology, we all tend to be so in our attitudes and actions. We often confess the truth, but only later does it really work its way into our hearts and begin to influence attitudes and actions.
The first portion of Scripture I would like to consider is Leviticus chapter 15, which was doubtless given to promote physical health among the Israelites but also could be summarized as saying that anything issuing from within man defiled him. One of the main complaints made by God against the false prophets to Jeremiah in Jer. 23:14-26 is their prophesying out of their own heart and own mind. Since the carnal mind is always at enmity with God, anything originated by it will have evil and not good consequences. The writer of Hebrews brings out the thought of the rest of God and writes in Heb. 4:9-10, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his." So this rest is essentially ceasing from our own (ie. self-initiated works). This passage compares well with Isaiah 58:13-14, "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." Notice the repetition of the phrase "your own." To delight in the Lord in the fullest sense we have to first forsake what is our own.
Next I would like to look at the Tabernacle of Moses. The tabernacle is important because it was the means which God ordained to meet with His people for a period of roughly 400 years. Also it had a heavenly counterpart into which Christ entered with His perfect sacrifice (Heb. 9:23-24). Since the Tabernacle had to show certain eternal realities, it had to follow the eternal pattern and thus both the idea of having a Tabernacle and the way it should be were given to Moses directly by God (Ex. 25:8-9, 40). Thus the tabernacle was of God. It is also worth noting that the making of the tabernacle and it's furniture was placed under the care of two men who specifically enabled by the Spirit of God to do it (Ex. 31:1-6). It is also interesting that those chosen did have natural skill in this area (v.6). It is not that natural skill is to be despised, on the contrary God gives us talents and abilities and we should develop them. However, to accomplish anything of true eternal value, such as the tabernacle, we cannot rely on human talents alone, but must have them enabled by God's Spirit. Thus the Tabernacle was made through God's power. It was made to God for His dwelling place and that having been done His fire fell and consecrated it. The tabernacle really epitomized Rom. 11:36.
Carrying on with the theme of human insufficiency, we come to the injunction of Exodus 20:24-26, which referred to altars outside the tabernacle and temple made out of stone. The stone had to be natural, as formed by God and the forces He created, not shaped by man, because that polluted it. It is good to remind ourselves often that in every offering of worship we bring to God it is only accepted if offered through the Spirit. The more we rely on the Spirit the more our worship will carry His anointing. Our offering can also only be accepted if we are first accepted (Gen. 4:3-5 – notice the order unto Abel and his offering… unto Cain and his offering), so we are in constant need of the blood of the Lamb to make us acceptable to draw near to God.
The Apostle Paul clearly felt insufficient for his task as a Christian. "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:14-17). If as these verses imply we are carriers of Christ's fragrance and as such bring a separation in our lives between those who love Christ and those who do not, how can we be sufficient to do this? We are talking about eternal destinies of human souls. Only God in us can produce the fragrance of Christ, when that is in us then people's attitudes and actions towards us reflect their response to Jesus. May we be careful never to put people off of Christ by our bad conduct. May we also be careful never to lull them into a false sense of security. This is only possible by the aid of the Spirit.
If you feel unable now, good. Now let deep call out to deep. Only infinity can fill infinity, and only an infinite God can fill the infinite hell of the human heart and make it worthy of Him. Let the depth of your sorrow call out for the depths of His joy, the depth of your weakness call for His strength and the depth of your sin for the depth of His holiness. Let Him lift you up give you feet like a deer's and set you on your high places. Amen.
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