Tag: The Gospel

Let the Wicked Be No More

by Andrew Micah, posted in creation, reflection, theology

I was reading Psalm 104 in my daily devotions today, and was startled and provoked to reflection by the last verse. Psalm 104 is a hymn of celebration for God’s greatness and goodness displayed through his creation of the earth. It’s a poetic survey of all that is beautiful in earth and sky and sea, and how all these contribute to the praise and pleasure of God. God is revealed to us as we ponder with the Psalmist God’s care for creation.

But all this ends with a fierce declaration of desire that, at least to our contemporary sensibilities (I really can’t speak to the past in an informed way) seems completely out of place. We read these words: “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” (Psalm 104:35) Put that up on the closing screen of your National Geographic featurette. If I wasn’t unconditionally committed to biblical inerrancy, I might question the inspiration of this line, simply on a poetic level. There is no leading up to this expression, no setting of the table for the challenging course of coming to terms with God’s consuming justice. It just appears, at a moment when we are completely caught off guard. But it is there for a reason, and in answer to my own prayers for understanding, I believe God has given me some insight into why a cry to God for the destruction of sinners was the only appropriate way for the Holy Spirit to conclude this Psalm.

Creation is in no need of redemption, at least, not in the sense that we typically use that word to speak of the restoration and reconciliation of a moral transgressor. There is nothing morally wrong with creation. Creation has not sinned; it was submitted to the dominion of man, and when man sinned, creation was cursed for his sake. Because of this, creation groans, waiting for rescue from the dominion of corrupt humanity that was the cause of the curse. Creation longs to be restored the freedom and liberty that will come when dominion is restored to people under God who receive power from Him to rule and restore. As we hear and see creation groaning, we should ourselves be groaning for the fullness of redemption that will be accomplished when Christ returns. (Romans 8:18-25) The fulfillment that we now experience as laborers in God’s creation doesn’t compare to that which is coming, and the sufferings imposed on us and on creation as a result of the curse of sin do not compare with the glory that is coming. What creation longs for, per Paul’s words in Romans 8, is for our full redemption, soul and body, so that creation herself can enjoy the freedom and fruitfulness of life under God’s perfect dominion through us. The longing of creation should inspire us to long for the second coming of Jesus where we will be set free forever from the body of sin and made fully alive in Him, not just for our sake, but for creation’s sake also.

With all this in mind, as I look back on Psalm 104 I’m surprised by the rosiness of the picture painted. It’s not the kind of rosy suggested by “nature red in tooth and claw.” There is an acknowledgement of the presence of death (Psalm 104:29), but on the whole, creation is set forth as good, bringing joy to its creator even in the fallen state (v. 31). Why in response to this does the Psalmist cry or for the destruction of the wicked?

I think the answer is clearly this: the sin of man is all that has defiled and desecrated God’s creation. We cannot love the beauty of God’s creation without hating the sin that has caused all the brokenness in the world. If we are led by creation in worship of a wise and loving Maker, we must also with creation groan and testify against the evil that has brought such a hurtful curse on God’s good creation–the sin of man, the sin that lives in us. Sinful mankind is the one foul thing that exists in the midst of all the fair works of God, and it is the one thing that mars His creation.

When we cry out for God to consume the wicked from the earth, we cry out against our own sin with hope in the redeeming work of Christ, for though we ourselves are spared by His death and resurrection, the effect and purpose of His work is to do away with sin. He took our sins on Himself; He took on the identity of our sin. And then He was cut off from the land of the living. (Isaiah 53:8) Because of him, our sin is consumed from the earth and our wickedness is no more. It has been definitely accomplished by the work of the cross, it is being progressively realized by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, and it will be fully realized when Christ returns to fully redeem our bodies. This is the marvel of the work of Christ, that it reconciles God’s determination to save sinners and His determination to wipe out wickedness from the earth. He made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for all of us. To stand in the place of all the sinners and all the wicked people who would turn and put their hope in Him. He was crushed, He was cut off, He was consumed, He was no more. And when sin had been destroyed in His body, He rose from the grave, so that we might walk in a newness of life even now that is only a shadow of the newness to come. Because of this, we can lift our voices with the groans of all creation, crying out “let sinners be consumed from the earth.” If not for Christ, we could not speak these words without calling out for our own destruction. Because of Christ, it becomes a prayer for our salvation. Because of Christ, we can praise God for His justice. We bear witness with creation against our own sin that has subjected creation to the curse, and receive from Him transforming mercy instead of consuming judgment, because Jesus was consumed for us. Perhaps there is in this a fundamental idea about what repentance is–that it is taking the side of God and creation against our sin with hope in the redeeming work of Christ.

What Acts 1-9 teaches about the gift of healing

by Andrew Micah, posted in reflection, theology

In my morning times with God I’m working through the book of Acts (among other passages). I’m only through chapter 9 as of this morning. I’ve been looking forward to ask because I’m hungry right now to understand better what the Bible teaches regarding signs and wonders. I’m a continuationist, which means that I believe all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today. But I also want to understand and pursue those gifts in the way that the Holy Spirit guides and commands through the faithful written word of God which was given to us by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What follows here is a few thoughts, centered mostly around healing miracles, that I’m gleaning from my time in the book of Acts. All scripture references are from the book of Acts unless otherwise noted.

1. Healing miracles depend on the power and authority of Jesus operating through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The disciples began healing people through the power of Christ after the Spirit was poured out in Acts chapter 2. Stephen was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and it’s because of this that he did many signs and wonders (6:3,5,8)

2. Signs and wonders aren’t limited to the twelve apostles. While it’s true that the twelve apostles of the early church were involved in the ground-floor building up of God’s people to an extent that no-one today is or needs to be, that doesn’t mean that they accessed the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ in a way that’s not available to the rest of us. In Acts 6:9, we’re told that “Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.” Stephen was one of seven deacons appointed by the apostles to look after the ministry to widows and settle the dispute between the Hebrews and the Hellenists. He was a man “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” even before the apostles prayed for and laid hands on him (6:5). And it seems that when the apostles prayed for him, they weren’t praying that he’d be used by God to perform great signs and wonders, but rather that he would be enabled by the Holy Spirit to carry out the specific ministry that he was being appointed to. Stephen didn’t receive his “anointing” through the laying on of hands by super-spiritual giants. He received power through faith and the indwelling Holy Spirit. No doubt, the example of Peter and John inspired him to pursue God by faith for the performing of signs and wonders. But it’s not at all as though Stephen received his gift of signs and wonders through the apostles. He got it from Jesus through Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit. Another example is Ananias, who laid hands on Paul to restore Paul’s sight (Acts 9:10-19). Ananias was singled out by God to do this, even though he was not one of the apostles. So it’s not really biblical at all to say that signs and wonders were limited to the first-century apostles because of their foundational role in the establishing of the church. It’s better to say that their involvement on the ground floor of God’s new temple (His people) meant that it was important for them to be especially active in signs and wonders. But part of the foundational role they play is in exemplifying to us how to be vessels of God’s power for God’s glory. Not to make much of ourselves, but to worship Jesus and help others see Him as He is. Which leads to the next point:

3. Healing miracles are a powerful tool of God to provoke people to hunger for the message of redemption in Jesus, and to establish the faith of those who are hungry. This is clear even in the example of Paul’s healing from blindness at the hands of Ananias. But it’s even more obvious from the healing of Aeneas and Dorcas (for which see the conclusion of Acts 9). We are told that “all the residents of Lydda and Sharon…turned to the Lord” and that in Joppa “many believed in the Lord” as a result of these healings. The evangelistic value of the sign gift of healing should not be minimized or discounted. There are many people who are in heaven now because God drew them to Himself through a healing miracle.

4. On the flip side, healing miracles reveal the hard-heartedness of those who refuse to come to Jesus, and provoke more forceful opposition. The message of Jesus preached by Peter and John was perceived as such a threat by the religious leaders because it was backed up by undeniable signs and wonders. (Acts 4:16) The rulers, elders, and scribes were forced to act because there was no room for reasonable doubt that authentic miracles had taken place. For the religious leaders to deny those miracles, they would have to destroy their own credibility. But instead of being moved to repentance and faith, they were filled with jealousy which led to the imprisonment and beating of Peter and John (5:17,23,40). A similar series of events led to the murder of Stephen. Authentic miracles may lead to intensified persecution. How is a powerless word going to provoke anyone? But when the power of Christ is demonstrated through the preaching of the Word, those who wish to preserve their own satanic social and religious power have to act decisively against Him. That power is often demonstrated in the book of Acts through signs and miracles that set the stage for the preaching of the Gospel. All the miracles and signs we read about in the book of Acts were beyond reasonable disputing to those who witnessed them, to establish the Gospel as a truth beyond reasonable dispute. If we’re going to seek after miracles, let’s seek after miracles that leave no room for doubt.

5. God doesn’t give us healing miracles to rescue us here and now from a world of suffering and hardship, but to point us all to the coming salvation so that we’ll put our trust in Him and give our lives to Him. When Peter and John were beaten, and when Stephen was stoned, no attempt was made by any of the followers of Jesus to reverse injury and death through the performing of further miracles. Following Jesus means submitting to the realities of a broken world, and specifically to the suffering of persecution. It means embracing suffering as a gift and an honor if through suffering we are able to experience union with Jesus and put Him on display. There is room for grief in the midst of victorious hope (8:2). While there is a time and place for raising the dead (9:36-43), ultimately we lay to rest those that have died in the Lord until He returns to make all things new. The purpose of signs & wonders, then, is not establish heaven here on earth right now, but to give a foretaste of heaven. It is not to usher in the recreation of all things, but to signify that such a recreation is coming, and to allow believers and unbelievers to experience it in whatever temporary extent permitted by the Holy Spirit, so that we would all put our confidence fully in Jesus and persevere in this broken and sinful world in the hope of a coming inheritance. Future hope is the center of our faith and supplies the necessary context for miracles. Why should those who have been raised with Christ submit to death and suffering, unless there is an even better resurrection to come?

6. Signs and wonders are for the glory of God! Those who performed miracles through the Holy Spirit’s power gave all the credit and the honor to Jesus. (3:12-16, 4:10, 4:30) It was a desire for His glory that moved them to seek miracles in the first place. When those who witnessed their miracles began to make much of them, they jealously defended the preeminence of Jesus, saying “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus…and His name–by faith in His name–has made this man strong” (3:12-16). Even though we are to some extent filled with the same Holy Spirit that indwelled and empowered Jesus, there’s a difference between the miracles that He performed and those that we can perform through Him. The miracles He performed were for His glory, to display both His divinity and His identity as the human mediator, prophet, and King over all God’s people. Jesus’ miracles were done for His glory because He is God. The miracles that we do in the name of Jesus are for the same purpose: to display the power and authority Jesus has received from the Father for the glory of God. It’s not wrong to speak of miracles being “done” or “performed” by a person (5:12, 6:8) but even in using that language we should be careful to give all the glory to God and to not insult Him by promoting people for the things they do in God’s power. Even when we “do” miracles, it’s really Jesus doing them through us, the members of His body united to Him by faith (2:43, 4:16, 4:30).

7. Signs and wonders are for the promotion of the Gospel of repentance and reconciliation through the blood of Jesus. Often in today’s “signs and wonders” movement, alleged signs and wonders are used not to point people to the redeeming work of Christ, but to offer power to people as a means for them to gain immediate transcendence over difficult circumstances in their lives and the lives of their friends. People are told, “receive the Holy Spirit and you can do miracles just like us–just like Jesus!” This way of talking about signs and wonders is misleading because it obscures their true purpose. Signs and wonders are not given to us so that we can experience here-and-now transcendence over pain, sickness, financial hardship, or difficult people. The purpose of signs and wonders is to add power to the preaching of the Gospel of deliverance from power of sin and from the punishment that sin deserves through the finished work of Jesus, so that we become children of God who live our whole lives in the hope of the coming restoration of all things. It’s not so that we can be magicians of some kind. There was a magician named Simon who was fascinated with signs and wonders as a means to self-promotion. (8:9-24) He even wanted to help other people! (v. 19) But because the gospel hadn’t registered with Simon’s heart (v. 23), he could only see God’s power as a means to his power. He wanted to separate signs and wonders from their God-intended purpose, to comfort the hearts of believers and rescue the lost. Whenever Peter, John, and Stephen performed miracles, they followed it up with the preaching of repentance from sin and faith in the redeeming and reconciling work of Jesus (3:17-26, 4:8-12, 5:29-32, 7:2-53). The power to perform miracles was never offered to the lost as a reason to come over to Jesus’s side.

8. Miracles are not just for unbelievers, but also for believers! While the book of Acts really seems to emphasize the evangelistic value of healing miracles, we also see that healing miracles can bless and edify the church. For example, the resurrection of Dorcas (9:36-42) gave back to the church at Joppa one of its most valuable servants, bringing great comfort to the widows who were blessed by her ministry. God not only provides real blessings to the church through the gift of healing, but helps make the future healing we’ll experience at the return of Jesus real to us by allowing us to experience that healing in a momentary, temporary way. God doesn’t serve our unbelief by performing miracles on demand, but He does perform miracles to strengthen, encourage, and guide a faith that’s already alive.

Thanks for reading! Hope this helps you as you seek to discern God’s will and be full of the Holy Spirit.

-Andy

The Fear of the Lord and the Comfort of the Holy Spirit

by Andrew Micah, posted in family of God, grace, reflection, theology

“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria has peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” (Acts 9:31)

As John Newton wrote in his timeless hymn, “’twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” At the foundation of the Christian life is a composite awareness of two realities. The first is that God is great and terrible and holy, that He is more fearful than anyone or anything else. His present goodness and His present power should make us tremble to do anything that displeases Him or is against His character. The second reality is that God in His great love has redeemed us and rescued us from all ungodliness, not first by transforming our character, but by changing our identity from “sinner” to “set apart” through the finished work of Jesus. We’ve become members of His family. We are unconditionally loved by Him. All this is made real to us by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit helps us to trust. The Spirit calms our fears. The Spirit makes the bed on which the believer rests securely.

The fear of God, without the cross of Christ, would certainly crush our spirits and make us miserable. But in light of the cross, what we know of God’s dangerous goodness, awesome dignity, and unmatched power inspires us to deeper love and worship, because we understand what an act of grace it is for God to redeem us, and because we can trust that whenever He appears to come against us in our sin, He is simply breaking down our pride so that we’ll be humble enough to receive His goodness and power in our hearts so that we can grow in His likeness. Without the fear of God, the comfort of the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean much. But without the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the fear of God can’t do accomplish anything good in our hearts. “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”

Blessed is the Man

by Andrew Micah, posted in encouragement, reflection, theology

I had an epiphany a couple of weeks ago about Psalm 1. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in the Psalms (which I feel is appropriate for a worship leader). It’s really important that the theology through which we interpret the Psalms is robust and biblical. The New Testament reads so much of the Psalms as prophetic about the person and work of Jesus Christ. I’ve been praying to be able see the Psalms through new eyes in light of this.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

I came to Psalm 1 having just spent some time with John 15, and it hit me that the blessed man who is the subject of this Psalm isn’t just a godly person generally, but the Lord Jesus. Our acceptance with God and our assurance of blessing doesn’t come from our obedience. Instead, it comes from the obedience of Jesus, whose whole human life was lived in the pursuit of God’s righteousness. He is the true tree that bears good fruit, and we can’t bear good fruit unless we abide in Him–meaning, unless our hope of life and acceptance with God is His finished work for us. Our rootedness isn’t in our obedience (although obedience by faith strengthens our faith) but in our union with Jesus. He is the head, we are the body. We are one with Him spiritually. This is why Jesus considers things done for or against His people as things done for or against Him. (Matthew 25:31-45). This is why when Jesus confronted Saul on the Damascus road, he didn’t say, “Saul, why are you persecuting my people,” but, “Saul, why are you persecuting ME?” There is a legal covenantal union in heaven between us and Jesus. We are blessed in Him.

I am planted by streams of water and I am able to bear fruit not because I try really hard to listen and obey (although that’s important) but because Jesus planted me firmly in Him. I am rooted and grounded in love through my union with Jesus.

-Andy

From The Rare Jewel by Burroughs: Enjoying earthly blessings as children of God

by Andrew Micah, posted in culture, encouragement, theology, Uncategorized

I mentioned on the blog on Saturday that I read a book last week called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by the Puritan pastor Jeremiah Burroughs. I want to quote a passage from that book which really struck me in how it encourages us to interpret our experience of temporal blessings on this earth in terms of the realities of eternal life and eternal death. This is from chapter 3:

“A godly man may very well be content, though he has only a little, for what he does have he has by right of Jesus Christ, by the purchase of Jesus Christ. He has a right to it, a different kind of right to that which a wicked man can have to what he has. Wicked men have certain outward things; I do not say they are usurpers of what they have; they have a right to it, and that before God, but how? It is a right by mere donation, that is, God by his free bounty gives it to them; but the right that the saints have is a right of purchase: it is paid for, and it is their own, and they may in a holy manner and holy way claim whatever they have need of.”

Unbelievers, he says, can own things in a sense. You can say of someone who doesn’t have Jesus, “this is his wife, this is his house,” etc. But these things aren’t properly his because his relationship with the giver of all good things is fundamentally broken. Whatever state of blessedness an lost person enjoys is doomed to fall away from him permanently one day. But there is something different in the relationship that a child of God has with God’s blessings.

Burroughs continues, “a child of God has not a right merely by donation; what he has is his own, through the purchase of Christ. Every bit of bread you eat, if you are a godly man or woman, Jesus Christ has bought it for you.

You go to market and buy your meat and drink with your money, but know that before you buy it, or pay money, Christ has bought it at the hand of God the Father with his blood. You have it at the hands of men for money, but Christ has bought it at the hand of his Father by his blood. Certainly it is a great deal better and sweeter now, though it is but a little.“What a thought, that the blessings we experience in this life are actually something which are ours by right in Jesus Christ! Here’s an idea that is rarely conveyed by modern preachers. Burroughs can say this because he understands two very important theological truths: one, that God is the author and giver of every good thing, and two, that those of us who are in Christ have a rightful claim on God’s blessing.

For some folks this sounds too proud of a way to talk about the blessing of God. They would say that everything God gives them is an unmerited gift of grace and not a response to any rightful claim of theirs. This would be true if we were all left to our own works, our own resumes, and our own reputation in our relationship to God. In and of ourselves, the only thing we have any right to claim for ourselves from God is the punishment that our sin deserves, which Paul calls “the wages of sin” in Romans 3:23.

So when Paul goes on in the early part of Romans chapter 4 to say that “to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation,” he is making a point about what attitude we should have toward God’s blessings. In this world, a person who does work under a contract can lay claim to his wages as one who has a right to them. The employer can’t act as though he’s doing anything generous or magnanimous by paying up; he’s just paying what he owes the worker. What Paul is saying is that the salvation that God offers us in Jesus doesn’t operate on these terms, because we are all already sinners who fall short of God’s glory. We haven’t earned our salvation. How, then, does it end up that we have any rightful claim upon God’s blessings?

It’s because of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 when he lays out for us the great legal exchange that has taken place between us and Jesus on the cross in these terms: “For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus didn’t just become sin for us on the cross; we became His righteousness before God.

We know that Jesus lived a perfect life. He “knew no sin.” Because of Jesus’ perfect life, He has a claim on God’s blessings by way of right. Jesus deserves God’s blessing. But He willingly abandoned that condition on the cross so that we could have it, so that He could be punished in our place, and so that we, in His place, could claim God’s blessings as though we had all lived perfect lives. When we say that we are saved by grace, not works, lest any man should boast, what we mean is that we are saved by Jesus’ good works which are put to our account by God’s free grace instead of being saved by our works. We didn’t do anything to earn the rights of access to God and His blessings that we have, but they are absolutely ours, now and forever, by faith in Jesus. If salvation was just God being good to us in spite of no good we’ve done, there would be no firmness to our present and eternal hope.

And while we do not experience in this life the perfection of blessing which Jesus earned for us in His perfect life and gave to us on the cross, we do experience a kind of firstfruits of our eternal inheritance in Jesus. Even if we have less than the people around us who are not in Christ, we can actually get our hopes up and really get into and enjoy God’s blessings, because we know that for us, while earthly blessings may come and go, whatever we do have is (as Burroughs goes on to say) “an earnest penny for all the glory that is reserved” for us. That is to say, it’s a down payment on our eternal inheritance.

What a better way to look at music and marriage and good food and all the things we have to enjoy on earth than to a. try to find the ultimate fulfillment of our hopes in them or b. deny ourselves or despise what God has given us in this life because we are concerned with “heavenly” things! There is a “foretaste of glory divine” in earthly blessings, and we can consider them ours by right through the rights that grace has given us.

How does all of this help us in contentment? Should knowing that God’s blessings are ours by right in Jesus make us more demanding of immediate blessing? I would think not. If we can see our eternal inheritance not set up against but instead through the smallest of earthly blessings, how can we not be content, even though our earthly blessings may be small, as God has through them conveyed a sight, however dim, of what we will enjoy for eternity? (I want to explore these thoughts further both in comparison and contrast to so-called “prosperity Gospel” teachings, but that will have to wait for another time.)

Burroughs concludes:

“Just as every affliction that the wicked have here is but the beginning of sorrows, and forerunner of those eternal sorrows that they are likely to have hereafter in Hell, so every comfort you have is a forerunner of those eternal mercies you shall have with God in Heaven. Not only are the consolations of God’s Spirit the forerunners of those eternal comforts you shall have in Heaven, but when you sit at your table, and rejoice with your wife and children and friends, you may look upon every one of those but as a forerunner, yea the very earnest penny of eternal life to you. Now if this is so, it is no marvel that a Christian is contented, but this is a mystery to the wicked. I have what I have from the love of God, and I have it sanctified to me by God, and I have it free of cost from God by the purchase of the blood of Jesus Christ, and I have it as a forerunner of those eternal mercies that are reserved for me; and in this my soul rejoices. There is a secret dew of God’s goodness and blessing upon him in his estate that others have not.”

~Andrew

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