Chapter 10
Economic and
Ecclesiastical Angst
The Despair that takes
the Air
The Confidence that is
not Cavalier
Power in Parables,
like reflections of mountains
in lakes,
found in the roar and reality of what they reflect
Here in Rippling Mood
Matthew 20 and Luke 7
A. The LABOURERS
and the EMPLOYER
In Matthew 20,
there is a completely fascinating parable. It concerns people who were taken on
as day commenced, and left when it was closing down, and were paid as agreed,
the daily rate. There is nothing remarkable about that. It is the rest of the
story which is arresting, a great teaching lesson coming with seeming
simplicity, and complete directness.
Thus, later
in the day, the employer finds men waiting for work, ready to work, but without
a call, so he summons them also to work, agreeing to pay them what is “right”.
He repeats these labouring increments throughout the day, until only an hour or
so remains for working. To each the same: what is ‘right’ will be paid. If they
want to work, here it is.
As night approaches,
the payments are made. He wishes to pay those who came to work last, the first.
So these short-time workers are presumably amazed or at least delighted to
receive a full day’s wage. When however he comes last of all to settle accounts
with the first, those whose services he hired early in the day, there is a lure
for them. These have managed to work up an appetite for MORE than the
agreed rate. Why ? Was it not agreed ? Yes, to be sure, as the employer
explained to them, but they felt that others who worked less having been paid
the full DAY’s rate, then they would be paid more, through a ready comparison
with the amount of their labour, with the shortened toil of the latecomers.
Because
your eye is evil, is my goodness to be attacked! the employer effectually asks.
If I wish to give of my own freely, is that not my affair. Can he not be
generous without their being greedy ?
Some might
say, Ah yes! This is the parable about divine grace, how we
never could earn our way in the kingdom of heaven, and it shows
that God presses upon us of His abundance; and this is called grace!
However
this surely misses the major thrust of the parable. In fact, the early workers
had been developing an angst, a desire, excited, hopeful, but in the end
frustrated. Their minds were working, their cogitations agreeable, their
computations satisfying to greed. Could they not expect MORE, some enhanced
sort of payment by simple comparison with these who came so late to the field ?
Might not bounty reach them in measure as it reached the others – so swelling
their reward ?
Perhaps as
they watched the preliminary payouts to those who came late, all a full
day’s wage, the scenario struck their soiled spirits, and they imputed
not mere generosity, his heart drawn to those who had not managed to be
employed earlier, on the part of the employer, but a liberality towards
themselves other than that agreed as well.
Nevetheless,
to the latercomers, ‘what is right’ was the agreement. To the early labourers,
the normal rate.
Was it then
right in the sight of the employer to redeem the day of the shorter-term
labourers, who had earlier in the day waited in vain, and received no job offer
? Yes it was. That was his compassionate and liberal mind, so that he WANTED to
pay for them for the whole day through which they had been available, not
merely the part in which he had the convenience of their ready services. HIS
MOTIVE was clearly JUSTICE WITH MERCY, realism mixed with consideration,
lovingkindness in business, a beautiful concept! This is to be seen sometimes,
but not so often as one might wish.
Was it
right in the sight of the employer to give what was AGREED for a full day’s
work, to those with whom the agreement was made ? Yes it was. Nothing
extraordinary had happened to these workers, only to their minds, vying and
seeking, greedily gasping for more, in effect acting as if it were their
own money, and as to their employer, their greed would be his morals!
Hence
Christ in this parable calls their attitude EVIL.
How then
does this relate to the teaching which follows, that
many who are first will be last, and the lat first ? It is
clear that the stratification in view, the first and the
last, is in terms of eminence in the kingdom of heaven, for it was
the musings of the disciples on these points which led to the parable. What
then is in view ? It is this: MOTIVATION. If the workers who in this little
play, this parable, were greedy are to be seen as evil, then in terms of the
definitional point in view, these are so for their greed. There is a stirring,
a whirring, an ambition for gain, a sizing up of the situation with imagination
and thought that is hungry, disquieting. WILL he
really give them more for working longer (not than was agreed, but
than the others) ? HOW MUCH more ?
As this
surge of earnest musing occupies their thoughts BEFORE the payment is made to
them, the last in the queue for payment by the employer’s decision, so
protestation and disappointment occupies them after it is made.
The acts of
angst have been at work in its agents. Here then is depicted that querulous
unrest that is so typical of it, that seeking not of truth but of
triumph, not in spiritual things, but in temporal things, not in morality or
nobility or grandeur of love, of mercy, of honesty and integrity, but in mere
easy gain. It is a form of anxiety and mobilising of mind, of hope and
frustration, of instability and variation from truth. It is rather like a
sudden lesson in economic angst moving speedily to post-angst.
But is the
spiritual side of the application of the parable much better ? Just before this
parable, had not the mother of James and John appeared with her suit for her
sons to be seated in glory at the right and left hands of Jesus ? Jesus
was tasteful and indirect, but exceedingly clear in meeting this. Is it much
better to want to be FIRST in the CHURCH, eminent in its glory, adored or
adorable or gurued or something similar in the church, in the kingdom of heaven
indeed, to be an important administrator, a knowledgeable rule-book expert, a
disposer of other men’s spiritual appointments and the like ? However, it is
not what you are doing so much as the MOTIVATION for your doing it!
Thus the
chief point of the parable appears to be this: you must WANT to serve, to be
effective for Christ, to glorify and honour Him, and accept whatever HE
appoints, knowing full well that whether in the ECONOMIC, the wealth of
this world, or in the ECCLESIASTICAL, the testimony to spirituality in this
world (as the formal level), it is not appearance and eminence that matters. It
is the love and kindness, the mercy and truth, the zeal and the humility, the
sincere commitment in consecration to Christ the Lord, it is the
trustworthiness and the purity, it is the fervour of the server and the
motivational honour which is important: not the assumed power or the sought
glory.
In any
case, ONLY ONE is Master in the Church (Matthew 23:8-10), and this is One called
JESUS CHRIST. It is difficult to see how all being brethren, as He declared,
and HE only the CHRIST, some other masters, some set of masters or
self-appointed zealots wanting to be authorities in the church, can find place!
They are not He; these brethren – if they be that at all – are minted in
creation, not eternal in the heavens. For these, they are all
sinners, just as they are all brothers. Let them never have sinned,
and we could consider it prima facie. Let them have existed from
eternity, and this would help. Let them, oh let them be equal with God as
Christ was and is (Philippians 2), and this would further the propriety of
their desires.
Yet even
this, it is far from the requirements for ecclesiastical eminence, glory and
grandeur in the church. You have not only to be all of this, but also to STRIP
yourself of it, except your identity, and GIVE yourself as a ransom for others
(Matthew 20:28), as Christ taught was the acme of the process. How do
this, however, if they be sinners ? Your OWN sin would be your death in itself
(Romans
In other
words, in this parable of Jesus Christ, it is not only the economically
grasping worldling who is in focus, the one who has a monetary fetish, and
wants to play his/her power as a spiritual substitute, purchasing power (which
cannot buy God or goodness) in exchange for life. It is ALSO the
ecclesiastically grasping churchperson who wants to say, Well, I have surrendered this world to itself, but not myself
to my Lord, for I would like to play the important person in the kingdom of
heaven, and have spiritual riches to distinguish me from these others (and HOW
I thank God I am not as other men/women in the church!). I shall play the
church pool and have my self-appointed glory here.
In fact,
this is the most direct result of the parable’s teaching in the setting of
James and John; for it was an ecclesiastical glory in particular that they were
seeking (Mark 10:35). Thus the chief point of Christ’s parable about the
employer and the time of being called on to serve, is not the incidence of
divine grace, though this assuredly figures. It is the motivational horror of
seeking not to serve, or in serving not to serve God, but wholly or partially,
to serve ONESELF! To revert to the parable: Long service does not entitle to
special privilege.
Did you do
it in love ? Why then do you seek extra reward ? The entire concept of
self-seeking as an option INSTEAD OF spirituality, is in view.
Christ goes
on to make it clear immediately afterwards, that HE came to give His life as a
RANSOM, not to make shrewd spiritual investments for an enduring and indeed
eternal return disproportionate to the input. This is merely sin in saints’
clothes, with no spirituality at all. For the saved soul: To you it has been
given, and you GIVE; and the aim is to give. To be sure, your eternal salvation
is assured (John 10:9,27-28), but this is of the nature of pleasing God, in
being brought back into reality, fitted for the lot for which you were born, as
human, and having the infinitude of payment which Christ made in His own life
delivered to death, with all its limitless glory, made applicable to yourself.
This is a
matter of repentance and restoration to the will of God by the love of God in
terms of mercy which He is delighted to show, even to the sacred blessedness of
the death FOR sin. This He made WITH sin, not from within, but from without
(Isaiah 53:6), to clear the accounts for many.
When
however this is done, then to seek to use a NEW LIFE received ONLY BY GRACE
(the workers did not earn their wages in the parable, and the wages
of sin is death, whereas the GIFT of God is eternal life – Roman 6:23) as a
gambling chip for greater spiritual gain is mere egocentricity. Who wants the
rat-race in heaven ? Not Christ. It is munificence not in GIVING TO GET, this
merely shrouded selfishness, but in giving because spiritually this is the
glory of God and the way His love acts; and this is a matter of being
maintained as it pleases Him (Hebrews 7:25). It is this which here is to the
point. “AS IT PLEASES HIM!”
That is the
second point in this parable. The employer was pleased to pay this and that to
these and those. WHAT HE SAID, He performed. What His heart desired, He then
did. Thus motivation in the employes is exposed on the one hand, and His grace
on the other; whilst any sense of self-seeking and trying to “make
something out of the kingdom of heaven” is sternly rebuked as “EVIL”!
Angst
figures in these things as that uncertain desire, that mixture of motives, that
sense of apprehension on the one hand, and expectation on the other, that
non-quietus of quest which proceeds with morals in shreds and hope in its best
clothes, pondering with ambiguous expectation and guilty repression, the lie of
the land. As to angst: it is normal for it, whether in its other mode of
depression or in its anxiety circuit, to want to find what is not there, and to
try to have it there by putting it there, while being frustrated that this
cannot be done! It is like trying to put the gleam into sunbeams! the bloom on
peaches. This is what they have, and it is something you receive, but do not
seek to reproduce.
Actually, saintliness is a result of
the indwelling presence of God in the convicted, converted, consecrated comrade
of Christ, so that His will, word and work are in the heart, in the life and in
the surveyal of horizons. Godliness means being near to God ON HIS TERMS, not
stipulating YOURS! not with greed seeking to exploit grace to your spiritual
one-upmanship! That is the pith of the parable.
Thus
in Matthew 20:28, in His response to this error of James and John. not only
does Christ pursue the point to HIS OWN voluntary humiliation (the opposite of
seeking to RISE in the ecclesiastical stakes, far less to be FIRST, to be pope
on the right hand, or president on the left, or eminent church leader on some
other hand if you can only find one!), showing in personal principle the power
of this passion. Rather He does more: He then freely heals someone of
blindness BEING SIMPLY ASKED (Matthew
What then
of His following triumphal entry into Jerusalem …with a motorcade of Cadillacs,
a fleet of Boeing 737’s, atomic explosions in space and the like, to signal His
signal majesty, who has it and had it from the first and to the last, as
the Word of the eternal God ? It is not so written. Not at all in this way or
any like it, did He act. In fact, He chose the COLT of an ass (Matthew 21), and
sitting on this had the makeshift saddle of old clothes, and the red carpet ?
It was people’s odd clothing, tossed in front of the ass! It was not even a
neighing horse, far less a snorting one, a creature of dignity and war! There
was no signal of power, except in service: there was no glamour or
self-exhibition, either as He went to RANSOM, as He has just earlier
declared, through debasement and criminal-tagged death, or when He proceeded to
HEAL in mere mercy.
It is this
which the world had; it is this Spirit and this Word. It is this which this
world had and has sought to void. It simply DID NOT desire this in the courts
of the church and of the nation (cf. John
The world
has not changed. It simply DOES NOT desire it now. In the United Nations, it is
too interested in diplomatic manoeuvres now, as then, to be concerned about so
small a thing as the truth, as the Christ, or as the pardon of God. It does not
desire that power of peace which comes from pardon and purity in the light of
the loving sight of God who made it.
Not at all: not such is this world. THEIR concern is some other desire, some
phase of angst in its satisfaction now and for me: a phase of
human clasping and grasping, which though it never works, they seem to be
trying to secure. To activate by mere numbers and mortal, human power, they
press, alas, but to the pit! (cf. Isaiah 14). They did something like
that last time with Caiaphas and Pilate; and the combination of
international ‘church’ bodies and political groupings continues as
fascinatedly DISMISSIVE of subjection to God now as they were then (cf. News
121, 122). The first shall indeed be last in this domain of religious groping
and grouping, making their religion as they go, by remoulding what is or buying
it up through the dissipation of truth in the cultural containers, which bring
in the polluted waters of distant streams from the industrial wastes that for
so long have made new gods that having neither life nor power, die with the
ages which beget them.
Many who
are persecuted by churches that have made their peace with the ruler of this
world, will be first, for the wilderness of wildness is then gone, and the
righteous shall shine forth as the sun in its brightness, in the kingdom of
their Father (Matthew 13:43): for it is HE who is their Shield, and the
Lord who is their glory, and in Him they are content, whose brightness shines
about them.
Alas for
the ‘last’, who seek their pay in this world, pressed down and flowing over, in
their cloisters and their international committees to mould man. They talk gods
and cultures, nations and races, mooting anything, doing everything, as if the
true God had never sent His word, His Son, His prophecies or His truth into
this summarily self-serving world. They act as if they and not He, were the
compassionate, the knowledgeable, the comprehending intelligence over and for
man.
But let
this be modified. It is not ONLY itself that this world is serving; but as we
see from Christ’s own words in John 14:29-30, it is the Prince of this World.
It is of course he who is the prime minister of the sinister, the great, the
deceptive, the spiritually diseased adversary, Satan, who himself is being
ULTIMATELY served. How is this done ? It is done by an outage, using this
devious delusion to seek to short-circuit effort the grandeur and grace of the
divine, in favour of the pompous pride and pretension of the human. And this ?
it is the mere butt and victim of is vapid affair with exaltation.
And the
human, thus so to be elevated ? It is of course anything but human, this
collection of cultures, this prey for vultures, this terrain of the defeated,
this ransacked residue of successful assault. It is immersed in hatred, lives
by war, praises the arbitrary, the outrageous and the destructive, whether in
the physical, the mental or the spiritual realm. It is covered with the blood
which is like a dim mist not of green or blue, as in the disappearing mountain
ranges, which merge, set on set, into the distance of beauty. It is rather,
instead, like a red mist rising from the outpourings on the earth.
Man without
the living God always descends in the end, to mere violence of one kind or
another, since he has violated the truth: oppression of liberty, compression,
contortion or distortion of truth, or its weird dismissal; and yet they
complain, as if the MERE FORGETFULNESS of the way of the God who cares, has
come and has won, were a bagatelle, like the mist on the wind-screen in driving
rain.
From time to time, many realise this and man has been
warned, as we see from Isaiah 59, in two excerpts, below, the first at the
commencement of the chapter:
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your
God;
And your sins have hidden His face from
you,
So that He will not
hear.”
….
“The way of peace they
have not known,
And there is no justice in their
ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.
“Therefore justice is far from us,
Nor does righteousness overtake us;
We look for light, but there is darkness!
For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
We grope for the wall like the blind,
And we grope as if we had no eyes;
We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
We are as dead men in desolate
places.
We all growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We look for justice, but there is
none;
For salvation, but it is far from us.
“For our transgressions
are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And as for our iniquities, we know
them:
In transgressing and lying against the Lord,
And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of
falsehood.
Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands afar off;
For truth is fallen in the street,
And equity cannot enter.
“So truth fails,
And he who departs
from evil makes himself a prey.
“Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased
Him
That there was no justice.
He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no
intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,
And was clad with zeal as a cloak.
According to their deeds, accordingly He
will repay,
Fury to His adversaries,
Recompense to His enemies;
The coastlands He will fully repay.
“So shall they fear
The name of the Lord
from the west,
And His glory from the rising of the sun;
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord
will lift up a standard against him.
“The Redeemer will come to
And to those who turn from transgression in
Jacob,”
Says the Lord.
“ ‘As for
Me,’ says the Lord, ‘this is
My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I
have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of
your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,’ says
the Lord, “’from this time and
forevermore.’ ”
So it was
to be; and thus it is.
Thus we
return to our parable, from the lips of the Lord. It is NOT POSSIBLE to fit the
concept of the first workers into some idea of grace only, for while many
received what they did not work for, yet those who did WERE EVIL, and so in the
context of first and last, were enemies of God. They SEEMED to be the first;
they WERE the last.
HOW then
could you be LAST in any evaluative sense, just because you started
young, or early ? Is this the teaching ? Of course not: then of what does it
consist ? It is the MOTIVATION, not the CONTINUATION which is called into
question in this parable; and then condemned. Thus many with these maladies of
mind and spirit will say in that day, LORD, LORD,
and ask for their wonderful works to be considered; but He will say (as He
declares in Matthew 7:21ff.), Depart from Me, you
workers of iniquity, and this, I never knew
you!
The WILL of God has not been done when the spirit is a
soiled worldly byproduct, merely masquerading as God’s. Not thus are His
children; not with this did He work when He washed with the waters of
regeneration (Titus 3:5); not for this did Christ come in the kindness of God,
and present a glorious gateway of access to heaven. Not into this spirit did
the “new man” arise, after the image of Him who created him (Colossians
You come into His kingdom, and you both see it and its ways,
and are empowered to proceed. It is no delusion of perfection on the one hand,
or of imagination on the other. What substantially is, does what it is. Faith
without works is a dead image and a delusion of desire. Works from faith are as
natural as wheels turning.
PART of this relationship to God, is the fealty to Christ
and the focus of His Spirit in the heart. Humility is not an effort of pretence
for perceptive deployment for social or ecclesiastical advantage, then; but
part of the clothing which is natural to the new nature. Eyes see; Christians
find this nature and this love of it, for in this way, served the Christ*1. People are forever trying to draft
Christ to social unrest, to revolution, to spiritual sauna baths, and such use
is simply this world having a go at making Him go on its own way; or stealing
His name, or His people. However, the continuation of His people continues with
His countenance beholding them (Psalm 17), and their testimony is the one which
by its insistence on His word and suffering if need be to blood, endures.
Counterfeit
Christs are numerous as foretold for this era (Answers to Questions Ch. 5); and
counterfeit Christians and counterfeit churches are merely outcomes. The income
of Christ to His people continues, and the world congratulates itself on its
erosion of much. What is not eroded is the body of Christ, His people who rely
not on churches or nations, on powers or philosophies, but on Him; and IN
churches they continue to stand fast and faithful, knowing that the end for
this Age, like that for Him in crucifixion, is one of the uttermost challtenge
for which they are to the uttermost ready to pay. This is how it was to be, and
increasingly, this is how it is (Revelation
The
Spirit of God continues His blessed ministry in Christ, and what He told the
disciples, and showed them does not alter. The principles are together dutiful,
beautiful and practical. Nothing else works since man is FROM THIS SPIRIT.
B. THE LOVING MUCH AND
BEING FORGIVEN MUCH
With
these things the parable in Luke 7, concerning the bad woman and the good
perfume she used, have special blending effect. Both concern attitude and actuality;
and both of these relate to the spiritual condition of those
concerned.
Here the
story is simple. A woman evidently a prostitute, decided to anoint Christ’s
feet with fragrant oil gained from the breaking of an alabaster flask. Long she
poured tears and perfume on His feet. Since I came in, said Christ, she has not
ceased. But the host, a Pharisee, did not even perform the customary act of
grace, in washing His feet as He came in from the hot desert, or anointing His
head with oil. Where she excelled, exceeding all custom, he, the host was
niggardly, parsimonious with his friendliness and hospitable graces.
When
therefore Christ was criticized for not EXCLUDING so bad a woman from His
company, He replied with the observation that it is LOVINGKINDNESS and MERCY,
the saving of the sick soul, not the buttering of the basted beauties of the
upright, that He had come to work. Citing from Hosea 6:6,
“I desire mercy and not
sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings,” He rebuked the industrious
religiosity of his urbane host.
This leads
to the thought that of course, since the Pharisee was MOST upright in external
appearance, and in a class where this ornate show was often a superficial, a
shallow thing, indeed a whitewash in contrast with the drab and dirty inward
dross in the heart (Matthew 23:23-26),. Thus Christ deemed them to be
like whitewashed tombs.
He even rebuked his Pharisaical host, even in contrast with an admittedly
grossly sinful woman, for being unfeeling where she at least sought Him with
sorrow and grace.
Thus the
need was twofold. First the sick had to realise their condition, as this
Pharisee did not; and then, as soiled, take the cleansing of Christ. In that
respect, harlots and publicans (tax-collectors for the conquering Romans,
amongst the Jewish subject race!) would go into heaven BEFORE these
self-righteous proponents of their own righteousness (Matthew
This
denunciation in fact was part of the teaching which Christ made in the period
following that with which we began this chapter, namely that in Matthew 20.
There was, and is, no use in being so pure in your own eyes that you do not
take a spiritual bath. Realism is required by reality; integrity by truth; and
the innocent man does not exist among the children of man. ALL have sinned. ALL
hearts need reconstitution. ALL need to find and to know God. There are NO
Exemptions (Romans 1-3).
Our interest
now turns, however, in terms of angst, to a special teaching about the fallen
woman who had bathed Christ’s feet. It was the fact that the one who LOVED MUCH
was FORGIVEN MUCH!
In what way
does this principle teach and direct the often uncertain and wavering, the
querulous and quavering, the depressed or abrasive spirits of sulking man ? It
meets it clearly, but as an additive which is nevertheless one of the utter
nature of the love of God.
HOW could
she be forgiven much BECAUSE she loved much ? That is, if she were finding in
Christ the utterly necessary atonement for her sin, and had found it, and so
loved, why or how can it then be said that she is forgiven BECAUSE she loved
much ? (as in Luke 7:47).
The answer
at the outset, is simple. Christ declares, after the protest of some about His
being able to forgive sin (and WHO BETTER, since HE had to bear it! cf. Mark
2), that she should go in peace, pardoned, because “YOUR
FAITH HAS SAVED YOU!”
Her faith,
as the medium of reception of the atonement, to which He was proceeding, as
predicted for a thousand years was in Christ. It is He who was the object of
faith. In what way does this contain pardon when so received ? It was to be as
it is: Christ crucified, yes, rather risen (as was also predicted cf. Joyful
Jottings 25). It was in HIM that
the saving faith was placed.
In what way however did it all fit together, the love, the faith and the
pardon. Where does her LOVE fit into that ?
The order then, is this:
FAITH IN CHRIST yields
Salvation which yields
Cover of many sins which yields
Much love which yields
Much evidence of much forgiveness,
which attests
A thorough work in the heart, of
repentance, not concealed or congealed, but actual and so
A thorough and authentic new birth.
Thus MUCH
LOVE in this context where FAITH SAVES, faith in Christ, is simply AN INDEX of
the fact that the pardon has come to faith, because it is in Him
and in His work which He has done; and as in INDEX, it testifies to the presence
of the ground on which Christ’s pardon comes. The index attests the fact, and
the fact is the faith which she held in Him. The index being extreme, and
unmistakeable in the setting, it is like an open door attesting the use of the
key.
Thus, the
faith is in the fact of Christ, received, believed and acted on. The love is
the outcome. As sure exhibit in this decisive event, of the faith in the One
who could and did pardon, the much love is not the sufficient cause of the
forgiveness, but the sufficient attestation. Because of it, it is true that she
is forgiven. As to the operative cause (“your faith
has saved you”), that precedes; but as for a sufficient condition of the
presence of this invisible faith (which nevertheless He as Lord could and did
know), the love served.
Let us
pursue further the ‘quantitative’ aspect. The “MUCH” is the attestation that it
is not some cursory glance down the throat on the part of some cancer
specialist which has been made. A thorough magnetic resonance patterning has
been made, if you will, an exhaustive and clear testimony has been made, and
the woman, thus divinely accosted (as in John 16:8-12), is convicted of sin
(hers), of righteousness (His cf. Psalm 71:16, Psalm 51, Romans 3:23ff.,
Galatians 3, 5) and of judgment. As to this last, it is an indictment pending
and impending, unless the sole avenue to its cancellation is taken.
Due to all
who are not covered by the objective Christ in His objective ransom on the
objective Cross and His objective resurrection in which He dowers His gifts
thus attained cf. Romans 5:25ff., 10:9, I Cor. 15), this judgment position is
now changed. Faith has worked; its object, Christ has worked and provided the
foundation of forgiveness; its fruits are now received. Thus mercy smiles in
the face of judgment (James 2:13), or “rejoices
against judgment.” Her sin as deep as life, has been covered; her life
as deep as sin has been redeemed, brought up to the upper air of hygiene and
holiness; her expectation is only from HIM, and her merit is thus irrelevant.
Since His is adequate and this alone trusted in, hence she is simply,
completely, categorically, publicly and indubitably forgiven! It is as in I
John 1:7-2:2.
What then does
this have to instruct us, in terms of her feelings before and afterwards, in
the matter of angst ? Before the free pardon, she was oppressed, concerned at
her condition, and seeking Him, became unconcerned at the sanctions of society,
its hypocritical mockings, its tongue lashings and its pretence and pretension.
Being driven to faith, what did she find ?
Uncertainties
assailed her; certainties of guilt disported themselves before her. Sadnesses
at her condition affronted and confronted her. Seeing the Saviour and in the
mighty and majestic grace of God caused to realise this, she being convicted,
is convinced; and being convinced, is casting her life on the rock which is
Christ (I Cor. 10), and no other (Psalm 62). It is no more a question of that Rock
falling upon here (Matthew 21:44), but making her place stable, spiritual, sure
beneath here. Thus her initial turmoil becomes the intimation of truth as
it finds it place in Him (Matthew
Thus as HE
being REAL AND LOVING, God in form, LOWERS Himself to FIND such as she was, she
being reached is RAISED by the One who He is. The aspiration is not
celebration, but Christ. The object of faith is not upward motion in society of
angels or any other, but Christ. The friendship in view is not that of the
world or an admiring church, but Christ. To be sure, she would want to WORK IN
the church, and humbling herself, help its ministry; but not in order to help
herself! Those who are Christ’s, says Paul, are CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
(Galatians 5:24 cf. I Corinthians 15:29ff.).
How in the
world could a CRUCIFIED person be intent on some kind of selfish advantage,
position or primacy!
JOY COMES IN THE
MORNING, but FIRST THERE COMES MOURNING
Thus does
angst finds its answer, not in contorted strivings, not in imaginary arrivings,
not in sententious epithet construction, or guru-ish jibes, but in the God who
made the mankind which being divorced, sometimes feels like it; and would like
marriage, but being unsure that it would really like, if you will, its husband,
goes on looking for some other source of comparative quietus. This of course
being pure, or more aptly impure illusion, does not satisfy, so leading to the
cynicism, assertiveness, sadness or even mourning that so often throngs; or
even to the depression which is the cancer of angst.
However
when it is MOURNING INDEED, and not just regret, then we may come the full
circle; for then it is found that BLESSED ARE THEY WHO MOURN! and if this
mourning moves from frustrated selfishness and self-fulfilment to seeking for
God only for truth, for mercy and for righteousness, then is the way becoming
clear. It is then seen that it is Christ who IS the way, for there is no other
who meets even the most distant of the necessities of truth, declaring God with
power and purity, prophecy and satisfied scenario, even exhibiting in advance
the methods to be used by His enemies, and the date on which they would do
their lethal but futile task (cf. SMR Chs. 1-3,
6, 9, Joyful Jottings 25,
Highway of Holiness Ch. 4, Repent or
Perish Chs. 2, 7, That Magnificent Rock, Biblical
Blessings Ch. 15, *2,
Appendix IV).
None other
fulfils the specific predictions of God, which embrace the ages (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9), or deploys the visible to attest the
invisible, the power to pardon in God’s own name.
Imagination
merely aggravates angst when it is placed in the mouth of God, and tries to
make an echo sound as if He uttered it. What He has said, attests itself. He IS
the Rock (cf. II Samuel 22:32), and His words stand unrepentant at the assaults
of multiplied centuries of waves! In all science, there is nothing which has
been so clear from the millennia, so maintained to the end, unrevised, correct
in perspective, connotation, denotation, verification.
The
leisurely plan is in marked contrast however to the passionate performance of
it. In the interstices of history, love met hate. Christ was surrounded by a
buzzing flight of bees, stinging, stinging (Luke 11:53-54, John 11: 47ff.,
Matthew 21:46, Luke 20:19, John 7:1).
The more
they hated, the more His love showed; the worse their penalties, imposed in
scurrilous haste, the more His suffering spoke to man of man’s sin; the more
they refused justice to Him (cf. John 18-19), the more His judgment rose like a
vast and massive wave; and the higher it rose, the more could some become aware
of the epochal masterpiece of folly, killing the very source of goodness and
the master of life.
The more
this was realised, the more became Christians (Isaiah 53:10), forsaking the
dread angst of judgment, and the futilities of lurching searching without
wisdom or possible truth; and finding rest (Matthew 11:28ff.). In this, was
Christ satisfied (Isaiah 53:9-12). His love was to give, not get, and in this
it was given.
So was the
plan of God, forecast for millennia, performed in time, even in the midst of
enemies so long warned of His plan, made to look asinine, as sin does make man
look, for their pomposities of belligerence against their own Maker (cf. Acts
2:23ff)! it is not enough to feel vaguely inadequate in the face of these
facts.
What then
of the mourning for sin, which rests in regret, and finds but feeble heart,
looking to man, to his customs and his ways, for some sort of escape. There is none.
Offence against man is merely the beginning. Misuse of equipment and history in
the wrong motivation, this continues against God; and in the end, the whole
offence rests on Him, for ALL is His property! (Psalm 51:4) ?
What of
this ?
There is
the very heartland of angst, anxiety, depression, uncertainty, contingency
plans, unfulfilled hope, arrogant assertion contrary to evidence, leaning to
one’s own understanding, submergence in darkness, looking for dawn at midnight
and the aerial combats of spirit which reduce but do not bless: it is the
energy of defeat poured on the earth in mingled protest and impotence.
If, then,
the mourning is mere depression, cynical regurgitation, then it is merely a
matter of the despair which takes the air. It aches and it assaults, is
repressed, comes out differently dressed; it impresses and it distresses. It is
this to which Christ refers in Luke 21, together with “distress
of nations with perplexity”, when He indicates that men’s hearts will fail them for fear, in the tartan of events which
announce His near return (Luke 21:28). It is this which was to be, when
They look
down the barrel of a 16 inch gun, or into the stomach of a cyclotron and
understandably, can find no comfort; nor does courage remake the world; nor can
it; for it is polluted past all power of man, in heart and mind, in environment
and culture, in selfish ambition and in loathsome deceits. Even morals can be
manufactured with address, addressed to this world and its endurance, to man
and his pretentious pride, as if he could ascend (as in Isaiah 14) to the very
heavens and vie with God, though merely derivative, and at that, denatured by sin.
God alone
can make the crooked straight (Isaiah 40), and of gods, there is but ONE (cf.
Genesis 1, Exodus 20, Ephesians 4:4, and see SMR Ch.
1). Of truth there is but one, and without its absolute Basis, for your
faith, you merely resemble pickled herring in a tin; and this, it has no
future, and could it feel, it would not do well to imagine it anything good!
What
attracts is the sheer goodness; what works is the sheer willingness; what is
pure is divine truth; what is blessed is the sheer loving favour, not bound to
empty convention or tradition, but unbound from the very heart of God. What is
written stands; and is not to be revoked, but performed (Matthew 24:35); and it
is done with a demolition of hope of those who seek to exterminate all memory
of God from the memories God made (cf. TMR Ch.
1).
It is quite
certain that man without this is merely making towers of Babel (Genesis 11), so
that the sheer extravaganza of destitute pomp and impotent pretension will
break them down from within, even where they are not at length, put under the
judgment of the God whom they ape, monkeying about with His divine glory, as if
they could INVENT it from Nature. Monkeys however do not have the spirit or the
mind of man (cf. SMR pp. 10ff.); nor do they share his responsibility. Pigging
it with food is no excuse for greed; aping it with God is no excuse for the
spirit we possess. It does not change what we are any more than a child can become
invisible by putting its hands over its eyes.
NOTHING can
EVER make anything right or good, because something happens. Indeed, it cannot
even make anything at all (cf. TMR Ch. 7).
SO they
worship nature which merely asserts its Maker, and does not make itself! Will
it legislate a law for them, make a code ? Will the stony hearts find their
feelings inscribed with law ? However, to describe is not to prescribe; to want
is not to make rightness. Descriptive tenacity does nothing for decreeing the
right principles. It happens ? and then ?
Rightness
is from one source only (cf. News 19): that of the
very power of morals to find place in contention with desire, with culture, with
civilisation or any other misfit which presumes to announce itself the
criterion. Men will not and do not rest in anything, but God; and there only
because it IS rest which is truth. There IS no criterion but God, for actual
right, or good or truth. Your desires are just that; your priorities are just
that; your obvious assertions are merely that; your hopes are just that; you
are just meaningless junk, and your mind is mere banter in the stars, without
God (cf. SMR pp. 99-100, 999ff., Chs.
1-3; Sparkling Life in Jesus Christ, Ch. 4)
Travelling
without His certification is like going on a road for 200 kph minimum travel,
with a wheel barrow of your precious belongings in front of you. It is not so
much ridiculous, as an ache of soul. It achieves nothing, is based on nothing,
confronts actuality and if not blind, might have less angst if it were! That
however would not reduce the impact of reality.
Small
wonder that angst in its myriad forms attacks so many. They are as due for it
as is he who works underground for 40 years, in clammy condition with polluted
air, ready for tuberculosis. This world is thus not really being exploded by
bombs so much as by the belittling of God by the little and the exaltation of
the little into god-like status, which being totally without any possible
meaning but pride, comes where the unrealism of that clammy mockery that mars
man, simply deserves. Without mercy, there is and can be only justice. When you
hit reality, rest assured, there is no rest.
But love ?
and loving much ? working with the relish of being in the will of the Redeemer
? These things are the total traverse of that downward slope. Though vested in
grace, work has its place as OUTWORKING of the goodness of God (Titus 2).
It is the
UPWARD CALLING to which Paul refers (Philippians 2-3, Colossians 1,3). It DOES
take effort; but then what is effectual precedes it, just as the GOOD tree
bears fruit because it IS good (planted by God cf. Isaiah 61:3, Matthew 15:13,
John 3). It is just not the case that it produces its version of fruit and so
gains admission to the class of ‘good trees’. The root is back of the fruit.
You need to be planted by God. Fruit is the product, not the cause.
Fruit as an
admission ground to heaven is at the root of the problem: there is no root.
Rootless trees are rotten, if they get so far in their superficial spread.
The root must
be in the Redeemer, where it belongs, where truth lies and pardon is to be
found. Putting it in man or nature is merely putting it where pollution is, and
truth is not. As to truth, if you want to manufacture it, that is fine, so long
as you name is that of Almighty God, to whom alone is the absolute naturally
available. Since it is not found except in HIM, without HIM all that is found
is mere occasion for angst, issues of bleeding, evidence of failure, product of
pride. In the end, man in these modes always makes himself the criterion
(anything he erects is simply an extension – you need what is actually there);
and being without assessment, he assesses himself, rather like a student who
marks his own papers. It is not so much guilty, as mirthful; and not so much
mirthful, as spiritually dead. But guilty it is, in the highest measure.
Its penalty
is just; and just as unnecessary as just. Since Christ has covered the case,
His unsearchable riches of redemption, adequate for all, are by no means dispensed
or dispersed to ANY who do not receive Him (John 8:24). HOW could you receive
from HIS hand what you conceive unavailable, because you do not believe (John
8:40-44). Will you stretch out your hand to the stones, or the sky ? Will
wisdom be found there ? (Job 28:20ff.), or meaning ? (Isaiah 48:6-13, 48:10,
Jeremiah 9:12-13, Matthew 5:17-20, Romans 3:31, 5:1-12, John 14:21-23).
Ponder Job 28:20-28:
“From where then does
wisdom come?
And where is the place of understanding?
It is hidden from the eyes of all living,
And concealed from the birds of the air.
Destruction and Death say,
‘We have heard a report
about it with our ears.’
“God understands its way,
And He knows its place.
For He looks to the ends of the earth,
And sees under the whole heavens,
To establish a weight for the wind,
And apportion the waters by measure.
When He made a law for
the rain,
And a path for the thunderbolt,
Then He saw wisdom and declared it;
He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out.
And to man He said,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom,
And to depart from evil is
understanding.’ ”
Will events instruct you on duty ? will ignorance teach you
your responsibility, or blindness inspire you with sight ? Will the absence of
truth teach you either what it is or how to obtain it ? Will you fall before a
myth, or operate in the presumption of some inspired nonsense, which attributes
to nature, or man, what they never do (Jeremiah 23-27), because they are not so
made, and hence do not provide, though you tickle them with X-rays, and provide
every technical support (cf. TMR Ch. 1)!
Will you calibrate mentality with mentality, mark your own work and become your
own god ?
Will you inhabit eternity and make time? Will you become
naturalised to the universe, part of it, and then subdue it to your
all-conquering knowledge, without even knowing its beginning or its end ? Will
conquest be your name and obliteration of dependency your aim ? Is
sacrilege your species or your own choice ? Will you be the absolute, and
source everything in your own knowledge, though you die tomorrow and were born
yesterday, and time is your master, except you know Him whose is eternity
?
Will man then submit his name disrespectfully to
the awesome realities in which he was formed, to the linguistic specialist
whose words are his DNA, whose construction is his genome, whose intelligence
he has derivatively as from adequate source, and to whose judgment in his own
construction he must bow, whether he likes it or not, since he is FORMED of it
and by it, however wantonly he presumes and pretends to autonomy! (cf. Barbs,
Arrows and Balms 6 ff.,A Spiritual
Potpourri Chs. 1-9,
Licence for Liberty, Predestination and Freewill).
Such aspirations are asinine; but man does not
lack intelligence. It is his heart which chafes at his derivation, chides at
his limitation and imagines things …
These things, they merely blow the harder with the bigger
knowledge, to make the puny pollutions of spirit the powerful defilements of
the universe (II Corinthians 10:12, 11:15ff., 4:1ff.). They advance in regress;
in regress, they tower in strength: the tower collapses, the stack of cards
with names but not strength, and has done for millennia of arrogant
presumption. They hasten the pit by faster digging. It is not wise.
But when
you believe in Him, the result is as sure as is the injection from the doctor
in whom you believe medically. He is demonstrably there, and you are beside
him, and the matter needs no further description. The results of the treatment
moreover take away the fuzziness of mind, and all things at last have their
light, place, with nothing left over (cf. SMR Ch. 5, Tender Times for Timely
Truth esp. Ch. 11).
THAT ? It
is the correct place for nothing! That, it is the ONLY place where nothing is
prime in the place of verification!
NOTE
In parallel, Abraham
found in God, his shield, in God Himself, his exceedingly
great reward (Genesis 15:1, Moses walked “as
seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews
Ø “Whom have I in heaven,
but You ? And there is none on earth that I desire, beside you,” in Psalm 73:25, expecting that God will
Ø “guide me with Your
counsel and afterward receive me to glory,” while David reveals his desire (Psalm 27:4):
Ø “One thing have desired
of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in
His temple.”
Thus he will go
Ø “to the altar of God, to
God, my exceeding joy”
(Psalm 43:4), while Peter sings in the chorus at the honour of His majesty,
saying –
Ø “whom having not seen,
you love; in whom, though now you do not see Him, bet believing, you rejoice
with joy unspeakable, and full of glory” ( I Peter 1:8).
Thus
“crowns” are important because they are from His hands themselves - which did not
cling to glory (Philippians 2), but to the cross - symbols of blessed
companionship, for the works of value are wrought through, with and from God,
BECAUSE one belongs to Him (John 14:12), so that the elders in Revelation 4:10 “cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘you are
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for you have created all
things, and for your will they are, and were created.’ ”
v
Salvation
is free (Romans 3:23ff.,