Tag Archives: Truth

The Medicine for Sin

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“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance,
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
(1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV))

I heard the comedian Brian Regan joke recently about getting to pay for his Doctor to insult him.  You know what it’s like; who else do you visit who requires you to wait for 30 minutes just for the privilege of having him tell you that you need to lose some weight and probably ought to do something about that mole on your face.  And we pay him for the insult.

But in all seriousness, I’d rather have the Doctor tell me the truth about my health than lie to me just to protect my feelings. The truth is, I am overweight and need to exercise more and shed a few pounds.  If there is a cancerous growth, I want him to tell me, then recommend, though difficult and painful it may be, the best remedy so that I might live a good long life with my family.  I want my Doctor to care enough for me to tell me the truth and to make me take the hard medicine that comes with it.

If you think about it, that is the job of the church as well.  The priority of the church is to proclaim the gospel, which is the message of the good news of God’s love and forgiveness from sin in our Savior Jesus Christ.  As Paul’s letter to Timothy reminds us, Jesus came to save sinners – that was his mission, that is our message.  Jesus said to the crowd that stood by in disbelief when Jesus entered the house of Zacchaeus the tax collector, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).  All sinners, regardless of the sin, are welcome, invited, to hear the Savior’s bidding, and to find salvation and hope.  The blood of Christ washes away sin, defeats sins power over us, and in His Spirit we are given new life to live for the glory of God in holiness and peace.  It has been said before, and I wholeheartedly agree, that the church is the hospital for the sin-sick soul, and the gospel is the medicine that has been entrusted to the church. 

Yet it seems that for a while now the Church’s medicine cabinet has been closed and locked.  The church has begun to tell the world, “You don’t need medicine.  You are sick.  The sickness is the judgment that made you think you were sick in the first place.  What you need is simply reassurance, God loves you just the way you are.”  That’s like my Doctor saying, “Your ballooning waste line is nothing to worry about, keeping eating the pizza and drinking the root beer and you’ll be fine.  See you next year.”

To get to this point in the church (or at least in my particular denomination, the PC(USA)), there have been three subtle shifts that have taken place.  First, there has been a Redefinition of Sin.  The old moralistic and puritanical definition of sin as those thoughts and actions that either disobey or neglect God’s word no longer qualify.  Instead, in a more enlightened age, sin is now that which brings harm, either interpersonal, environmental, social, or personal.  Sin is the oppressive force that subjugates the weak.  To that end, the progressive church has also Relocated Righteousness and Salvation.  Righteousness and salvation are now less of a personal issue, and are more focused on social righteousness and justice.  Salvation is from the oppression of cruel and unjust practices of those in power, and true redemption exists when we learn to live in peace and acceptance of one another.  At the heart of these two changes is the most important: a Reimagining of Scripture.  Setting aside the teaching of the Authority and Inspiration of Scripture, the church no longer says that it is the Truth, but that it “contains the truth.”  No longer do you hear preachers say before reading the Bible, “Hear now the word of the Lord,” but rather something more ambiguous like, “Listen now for a word from the Lord.” 

In a desire to be found acceptable by a dying and broken world we have taken away the one thing that the world needed most; the truth of the gospel for salvation from sin.  The hospital for the soul is still open, but we’ve stopped treating the patients.

I say this with all confidence: God’s Church, the body of believers in Jesus Christ, will not be diminished by the faults and failings of this assembly we call the church today.  Denominations will rise and fall, congregations will come and go, but Christ’s Church is victorious.  We must “be vigilant lest while the pious snore the wicked gain ground and do harm to the church” (2nd Helvetic Confession).  We must, with renewed compassion and diligence, boldly proclaim the gospel message, that whatever the sin (addiction, sexual sin, pride and self-righteousness) – Christ is the cure.  Yes, let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream (Amos 5:24), and at the same time let us confess our sins to one another and pray that we be healed (James 5:16).  Let us never forget that wherever the gospel is faithfully proclaimed and humbly heard, God’s true church will flourish and grow in righteousness and grace.

Grace and peace – and truth – be with you!

SDG

A Knowable Truth

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“Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth.’”
(John 18:38 (ESV))

What is truth?  Sometimes we really don’t want to know.  “Tell me the truth, honey…”  A guy hears that and he knows he’s in trouble.  We don’t like the truth that the mirror tells us every morning.  We don’t like to hear the truth when the doctor comes in to give us bad news.  We look for truth in reporting and advertising and in government accounting and always come up shy.  “Truth is all a matter of perspective.”  Or as Obi-Wan said, “What I told you was the truth, from a particular point of view.”

And so we’ve become so jaded and burned by the lack of truthfulness in the world.  “Truth” has become a suspect word.  Those who say that know the truth are ridiculed as either simpletons who couldn’t possibly understand the complexity of truth in any given situation, or arrogant know-it-alls who want to impose their way of thinking on everyone else.  “What’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me” so we say, and truth becomes a subjective thing that we define from our own experience. 

This carries over into all aspects of our faith and life.  The Westminster Confession is famous for its often abused principle of the Freedom of Conscience.  The famous quote, “God alone is Lord of the conscience” is heralded by every progressive movement within the church today.  The way it’s used goes something like this, “Only God can tell me what’s right and wrong.  No church council, no pastor or committee, no cultural ethos.  If I am convinced that it is right, I will do it.”  So from the Westminster Standard, “God alone is Lord of the Conscience,” we have deteriorated into the most anarchic of thoughts, “I am Lord of my conscience, I will do what I think is right.”  In this way of thinking, there is no real truth, it’s all open to interpretation.  There is no authority, everything is subject to my understanding, even the very Word of God.

This abuse of the Standard is a result of the neglect (intentional or otherwise) of the rest of the statement.  To quote in full:

“God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship.”

God is the Lord of the conscience.  We are not the lord of our own minds.  Rather, our minds, our consciences, are subject to the authority of God’s Word.  The very last phrase, “in matters of faith and worship” some would say are just the matters that pertain to the church.  In reality, faith and worship, what we believe and what we do with our lives as living sacrifices in spiritual worship (Rom 12), entail every aspect of our being.  Everything that we are – the food we eat, the games we play, the way we dress, and what we say – is subject to, bound by, the Word of God.

The Word of God is authoritative because its author is God.  With God as the giver of the Word, the Word of God is without error, and it will effectively bring about the purpose and will of God.  The wisdom and glory of God are contained and revealed throughout His creation, but never more clearly than in His revealed Word.  To know Him, we turn to the Word.  To know ourselves, we turn to the Word.  The Word of God is the source of all truth. 

As the world continues to ask Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” the church stands ready to show the one who was full of both grace and truth (John 1:14).  We make Christ known, and in Him we find the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  As the maddening crowd clamors for something to believe in, some solid ground on which to stand, holding to the Authority of Scripture gives us a firm foundation. 

There is truth, it is knowable.  We do not define the truth, it defines us.  The truth of God is not subject to our interpretation, it is not relative to our point of view, it is objectively true, unchanging, and powerful.  May you know the truth, and may that truth set you free.