Will God Get Glory in 2016?

Isaiah opens with a clear message of intention from God, who will establish His house in the latter days on Mount Zion (2:1, 2). All the nations will make their pilgrimage to it. It will be a glorious thing. He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in them as He wills that we should.

That goal is to be accomplished by His sovereign work. It is a clear fact that His creatures, created in His image, do not do so now. The land is filled with idols because every admonition from God concerning them is resisted or ignored. However, the day is coming when “The haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away” (Is. 2:17, 18).

As a church and as individual members, we want the Lord to be exalted in our midst. Sadly, pride often seems to get in the way, and we end up taking pleasure in the very means we choose to exalt him. For example, we want to build church membership, and, if we are successful, we take pride in that success and the plan we used to accomplish it. A really successful effort is usually led by some charismatic individual. That person gets invited to share his plan with others who also want the same result. A book is published detailing the plan. A million copies are sold, and hundreds of churches testify to dramatic growth. Conferences are held, which are “must-attend.” But who gets the glory?

The desire to glorify God often ends up focusing on the means and/or the one who developed the means. The glory goes to the means. This applies to everything that we use—preaching, music, programs, revivals—everything. It is this way even when we sincerely desire it to be otherwise. That is because we are naturally prideful. Pride is an idol maker. We want to serve Christ, but in our present condition, our best service is full of idolatry because we start taking pleasure in the service, not the King we are to serve.

God has given us all things to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17). Nevertheless, we tend to take those good things and abuse them in our effort to find fulfillment in the things given rather than in the Giver. The angel’s warning in Revelation 14:6, 7 is that all God’s creatures must fear God, give Him glory, and worship the Creator. Idolaters worship the creation.

An example of this is sex, a very powerful and precious gift that comes with very clear rules. Because humans are selfish and prideful creatures, the gift gets abused, and idols are proliferated. What was designed by God to enrich the lives of married couples becomes an abomination, wrecking lives and destroying nations. Fallen creatures cannot control their urge to find pleasure in gifts while spurning the Giver and His rules.

The great and glorious hope that must drive us is that because of the first coming of Jesus Christ, we are going to see the day when He will come again. Our pride will be humbled and our idols will pass away. When that is done, the glory will go to God alone. He alone will be exalted in that day. May that day come in 2016!

A Glorious Name (Matthew 1:21)

“She [Mary] will bear a son, and you [Joseph] shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Joseph was bothered by the news that his betrothed Mary was pregnant with a baby that was not his. He was a just man, however. Deuteronomy 22:21 required that a woman caught in adultery be stoned to death. That law, however, was seldom carried out. (The incident in John 8:1–11 may offer us a reason for that reluctance.) The Jews opted for public humiliation; however, Joseph did not want even this lesser penalty, just a quiet end to the betrothal. He knew that she would be subject to scorn and ridicule anyway.

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and encouraged him to follow through with the marriage. Mary’s condition was the work of the Holy Spirit. She would bear a Son and Joseph, as acting father, was to name the child. Names held great significance to the Jews, either reflecting character or signifying purpose and calling. In this case both aspects are evident. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Yahushua (from Yeho, the abbreviated form of the Divine name, Yahweh, and shua, savior—Yahweh Saves). Jesus was indeed Yahweh, the only Savior (Isa. 43:3; 45:21; Acts 4:12).

The angel also revealed the purpose and calling of Jesus: “He will save his people from their sins.” To reinforce the significance of that statement, Matthew adds that all this was to fulfill Isaiah 7:11. Isaiah also records another name, Immanuel (God with us), which also signifies God’s purpose to dwell among His people as their God and Savior (Ex. 29:45; 2 Cor. 6:16).

Book Two of the Psalms (42–72) is filled with lament and distress at Israel’s condition due to sin and rebellion, discipline and exile to Babylon. It was designed to raise expectation and hope that Yahweh would save His people (44:1–7). This collection ends with a psalm attributed to Solomon that is regarded as the epitome of royal theology. It expresses the purpose of God to fulfill the promise to Abraham that his Seed would one day bless the whole earth. “May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! . . . May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!” (vv. 8, 11).

Isaiah 62 expresses this longing for restoration. “The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give” (v. 2). That new name is Jesus and Joseph was commanded to call Him that. Psalm 72 joins this desire for God’s glory and His fame (name) in a unique phrase used only twice (Neh. 9:5; Psa. 72:19). “May his name endure forever, hisfame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed! Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory!”

Fear No Evil (1 Peter 3:18–22)

The passage before us has raised some interesting questions. Why does Peter bring up “spirits in prison” (v. 19)? Who are they? Why was it important that Jesus preached to them? What does this fact have to do with our suffering (v. 14)? How does this event relate to baptism (v. 21)? What does Peter mean when he declares that baptism saves us? How does baptism save us? Why does Peter bring in angels, authorities, and powers (v. 22)? One thing is clear; those to whom Peter wrote understood what he was saying.

Context is extremely important to proper interpretation. Also, we must keep an open mind and let Scripture interpret Scripture. The overall emphasis is to encourage the elect saints in their struggles to live holy lives in the midst of an evil world. Compromise is always a temptation when one is threatened for standing for what is unseen and tangibly uncertain. We are truly “strangers and pilgrims” as we live among the Gentiles (2:11). We must never retaliate with evil for the evil inflicted upon us (3:9). We are to turn away from the evil and pursue peace because the unseen Lord sees and hears the righteous (3:11–13).

Ordinarily, no harm should come to those who always do what is good (3:13). However, righteous people will suffer for righteousness’ sake (because of God’s standard of right). That is, the evil doer hates God and His righteousness as seen in His character and in His law. Thus, he will hate the godly also, and the godly will likely suffer in some way for it. So, since the Lord sees and hears all, the godly must have no fear of evil doers or be troubled by their threats and persecution (3:14). Instead, through deliberately setting the Lord Christ apart in the heart as holy, His people are to prepare to defend their steadfast (but seemingly futile) hope (that God will reward them for doing His will) in a reasonable way (v. 15). In this, one keeps a good conscience while he suffers for doing what is right.

That is the way Jesus acted (v. 18). In doing what was good in the will of God, He, the righteous One, suffered once for all in the stead of the unrighteous ones in order to bring them back to God. In His death and before His resurrection, in the spirit, He went and proclaimed (announced) something to “spirits” in prison (v. 19). These spirits are not human souls in hades, waiting for the resurrection and judgment. The Bible never uses spirit to refer to a human soul, especially those who are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1; 1 Cor. 2:14).

There are some clues here to identify these spirits. First, they are in “prison” (literally, “to be kept under watch”). They are being kept because “they did not obey,” but we are not told the nature of their disobedience. We are told when they were imprisoned—when “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah” (v. 20). What does this mean? The obvious reference is something that occurred in Noah’s time and in connection with the flood.

More on this to follow.

Proving the Worth of God (1 Peter 3:18–22)

Peter concludes his summary of the argument that we, as followers in Jesus Christ, have been called by God to suffer, even wrongfully (1 Peter 3:8-17). “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (v. 17).

Why would it be God’s will to suffer wrongfully? The simple broad answer is the cosmic conflict between God and Satan. God’s soldiers are His people on earth, living out the gospel in the grace and power of God. Satan and his minions will do everything that they can to defeat God’s army through compromise, deception, discouragement, and persecution.

Yet, there is an even greater purpose for suffering than warfare. John Newton, the famous slave-trader-turned-preacher and author of the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” had a profound understanding of suffering and its purpose. He saw trials as heavy weights on a grandfather clock, necessary for the Christian life to operate properly. We are sinners, but heaven is our home. We are as ships on the open sea, navigating to our destination. Everything we encounter has been appointed by God and made subservient to our sanctification and happiness.

Tony Reinke* has gleaned ten specific things from Newton’s letters about God’s sovereign design in our trials. I offer three. First, trials reveal the hidden idols of our hearts that we tend to overlook and think less vile than they really are. Trials smoke out these vile and evil vipers. Reinke writes, “Trials make us feel the power of the sins residing in our hearts, and such awareness is essential to the cure.”

Second, suffering drives us to prayer. We have a natural aversion to prayer, and we make every excuse to avoid it. We find it a chore to commune with the Almighty. Our praying is often mindless and remote. As Newton saw it, “We are dragged before God like slaves, and we run away from prayer like a thieves.” Suffering breathes necessity and desperation into our praying, bringing new energy to our seeking after God.

Third (number 8 in Reinke’s list), trials reveal God’s grace in our lives. Suffering reduces life to the bare essentials. It drives us to Christ and His Word, and we see just how much we need Him and how tightly we cling to His promises. In that hour, when all the artificial supports are gone, we begin to understand that our lives are anchored in His grace. We could not survive without it. That realization is massive to our faith and confidence. We see that He never fails us, and that is strong medicine in our most painful hours.

One of Newton’s favorite metaphors was to compare the suffering saint to Moses’ burning bush (Ex. 3:2). Christians are called to a disproportionate amount of suffering so that they might be a spectacle of grace to the world. Those outside the church will see them as burning, yet unconsumed. Only God’s amazing grace enables this miracle. It is this perseverance of faith by which Christians prove the worth of God in this sinful world.

*Newton on the Christian Life, by Tony Reinke © 2015, Crossway, from chapter 9, “Discipline in Trials.”

Ready to Shame Revilers (1 Peter 3:8–17)

In Acts 16, leaving Phrygia and Galatia, Paul and Silas were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into Asia Minor. They turned to go north into Bithynia but were stopped there also. In Troas, Paul had the vision urging him to cross the Aegean Sea into Macedonia and Greece. Arriving at Philippi, they found no synagogue of Jews but spoke to a few women gathered at the riverside for prayer and worship on the Sabbath. A stranger, Lydia, from Thyatira, a city in the forbidden Asia Minor, was the first convert to Christ.

Returning to the place of prayer, the company was met by a slave girl possessed by a demon of divination. Her supernatural skills brought great profits to her owners. For some reason, this girl began to follow the apostle, loudly proclaiming that he and his helpers were servants of the Most High God. After many days, Paul, greatly annoyed, commanded the spirit to leave the girl, which, of course, meant that the girl was useless to her owners’ fortune-telling enterprise. They seized Paul and Silas, had them arrested on trumped up-charges, beat them with rods, and turned them over to the Roman jailor to imprison them. Bruised, bloodied, and bound, they sat in the darkness of the inner prison, no doubt, confused and questioning God’s purpose. However, instead of complaining, protesting their ill treatment, and demanding that their rights be upheld, they worshiped the Lord in prayer and song for all to hear.

The Lord wanted a Roman jailor for His kingdom. The means He used to secure him was the odd behavior of two strange prisoners and an earthquake at midnight. All of this illustrates Peter’s instructions in 1 Peter 3:8–17.

Summarizing his argument developed from verse 3 in the first chapter, Peter reiterates the point made in 2:20 and 21. We have been called to suffer wrongfully, and as we respond in a godly way, God uses our testimony against sinners. Thus, Peter repeats his command that his readers to be unified, sympathetic, loving, tender-hearted, and humble (v. 8). With this state of mind, we are to face persecution and tribulation. When wrongfully treated, we are to bless, just as Jesus instructed (Luke 6:28; Rom. 12:14).

Peter quotes Psalm 34:12–16 for support because this kind of response is not natural. Even those who are guilty of the crimes for which they are being punished will loudly protest their treatment as unfair and excessive. On the other hand, what harm comes to those who are good and do good?” (v. 13). The natural law of fairness demands that those who do good be rewarded in kind. However, what are we to do when we suffer for righteousness’ sake? We are to honor Christ the Lord, ready and able to make a defense to any who would ask a reason for the hope in us—that living hope unto which we were born again (1:3). We must do so for the sake of our good conscience and as a testimony to shame those who would revile our good behavior.

Called to Endurance and Faith, Part 2 (1 Peter 2:13–3:6)

To pick up where we left off, Peter tells us that the reason we are called to “do good” to those in authority who abuse and hurt us is because God wants to use us to “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). We should also note that the Greek term found here (agathosune) refers to God’s moral character reflected in us (Mark 10:18). Saints cannot “do good” naturally because, when God is ruled out of the equation, “no one does good” (Rom. 3:12). The flesh profits nothing. However, when one is born of God, he takes on the character qualities of God, practicing righteousness—doing good because he is born of God (1 John 3:10).

In other words, Peter calls upon the believers to behave toward those who spitefully use them or abuse them with kindness and gentleness by doing good to them. Good in God is essential, absolute, and consummate. God is the only good. No one can do good who is not of God. Thus, the good that believers do is morally honorable, pleasing to God, and beneficial.

In this fallen world where “no one does good, not even one,” how do we account for the apparent goodness around us? The world often puts the church to shame by acts of sacrificial generosity. It takes discernment to understand the root issue, which is, who gets the glory? That is why we are not to be “conformed to this world” but by being “transformed” so that we may, by testing, prove “what is the will of God, what is good” (Rom. 12:2). Why do we do “good”? Is it to promote self or glorify God? “Whoever serves, let him serve by the strength which God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11).

If one retaliates to wrongful treatment, he proves that he is self-driven. When one responds with goodness, he proves that he is empowered by God. David is an example here (1 Sam. 25:9–39). Rebuffed by Nabal’s demeaning rejection of his plea for assistance, David sought revenge in anger (vv. 13, 22). His personal expectation of respect as Israel’s future king had been met with disdain and contempt (v. 10). His pride hurt, David thought that he had a right to retaliate. However, to do so would have tarnished the throne he was to occupy (v. 26) and would have brought dishonor to his God (vv. 31–34). God graciously intervened in the person of Nabal’s wife, Abagail, who did good to her foolish husband by humbling herself to David and assuaging his anger. Abagail saved Nabal’s life by owning Nabal’s folly in her own person. What sounds to western ears as criticism (v. 25) was, to a near-eastern woman, an admission of her own status. In a godly act, she owned that she was the wife of a fool by degrading herself before David. In that, she “put to silence the ignorance of foolish [David].”

Called to Endurance and Faith (1 Peter 2:13–3:6)

How are believers to behave in oppressive, difficult, or dangerous situations for which they are not at fault? Peter tells us that these situations are in the will of God for saints in order for Him to deal with “the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). Foolish people are those who refuse to give God His rightful place in the order of things (Psalm 53:1). Their ignorance is willful rejection of good due to moral blindness. That ignorance often makes their response to Christians quite hostile. So, how do saints cope with such people? It is by the saints’ continuing to do good. It is to this that they are called (v. 21). Christ Himself is their example. When reviled, He would not match their ignorance. Instead, “He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly” (v. 23). He accepted the wrong by understanding that God would set it right eventually.

Revelation 13 makes it clear that God is sovereign because “the beast was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.” Satan and his beast-minions are on a leash. They need permission to do anything. Thus, when God allows them to make war on the saints, He has a glorious purpose in their being beaten down and conquered. The saints should not be discouraged by this because Christ was beaten down, and through it He conquered Satan, sin, and death. So, the question is, why does He continue to allow the evil one to make it difficult for saints? John does not reveal the reason for this allowance; he informs that “here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints” (vv. 7, 10). In their patience and trust, they commit themselves to “Him who judges justly.”

Peter, however, does give us the answer to the question. It is to “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). As we have stated, the means of doing this is through “doing good.” This is a problem because Paul makes it clear that “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:12, citing Psa. 53:1–3). Psalm 53 states that the foolish person says no to God. He rejects God. He does not want to acknowledge God because he chooses evil. Thus, the psalmist writes that “they are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity.” Corrupters are those who spoil, ruin, and destroy. In Romans, Paul puts it that they have turned aside and become worthless. They are of no use to God’s kingdom, but they make a lot of noise. That is, “there is none who does good.” Good, in this text is a quality of morality that reflects the very character of God. Jesus told the rich young ruler that there is none good but God (Mark 10:18). Only those who are of God do good by being kindly disposed to others, especially those who oppose and abuse them.

(To be continued.)