Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Sexuality, Purity and Glory

Sex in marriage is necessary for purity and glory. In this statement I do not intend to separate purity from glory or glory from purity. The word “and” does not function in this sentence to separate these two ideas but to make them dependent upon one another.

We often focus on the necessity of sex in marriage as a protectorate against sexual immorality or impurity. We read in 1 Corinthians 7:2, “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” To “have” one’s own wife or husband is to be participating in the good gift of sex in the context of marriage. Therefore Paul seems to be saying that God has provided this gift to protect the church from sexual immorality. In other words if the wife and husband are satisfying one another in the joy of giving (1Cor.7:3-4) then the wife and husband will not be going outside of the marriage to satisfy their sexual desires. Paul also says, “ …but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control.” (1Cor.7:5). Here again it seems that sex in the context of marriage, “come together again”, is necessary for purity, to protect one another from temptation toward sexual immorality. Therefore based on what Paul is saying here we instruct couples in the church to have sex in their marriage for the purpose of pursuing marital fidelity or purity. As the writer of Hebrews commands, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Heb.13:4) Sexual purity is necessary to see God and not suffer his wrath. Therefore the Scriptures teach us that sex in marriage is necessary for purity.

However, I do not think that the Scriptures are teaching us that sex in marriage is necessary for purity alone. Purity is not the end glory is. When purity is the end it drives sex in marriage out of the realm of heavenly glory into the realm of earthly duty. This thinking on purity without glory lends us toward asking questions like, “How many times a week should we be involved in sexual intimacy?” or “Should I give in every time he / she asks?” I am not against such questions but they tend to focus on sex in marriage as a duty we must fulfill for the husband or wife in order to keep them from impurity. We tend to separate sex in marriage from the glorious when we see purity and protection from impurity as the end. Therefore sex in marriage is necessary for purity and glory.

Glory is the end of purity and purity leads to glory. Why is Paul interested in sexual purity in the church in Corinth? Is he worried about unwanted pregnancies? Is he concerned about sexually transmitted diseases? Is he upset over the breakdown of the traditional family and the effect it will have on coming generations? Is he concerned about the prostitution in Corinth and the degradation that brings to the city and its people? Is he concerned about their reputation? What is Paul’s concern?

Paul is jealous for the glory of God and that the church would know and live in that glory. When Paul speaks against sexual immorality in chapter 6:12-20 he does so around the glory of the gospel. He tells them to flee sexual immorality in the glory of the resurrection (6:12-14), in the certainty of their union with Christ (6:15-17) and in the glory of redemption (6:18-20). Sexual purity is next to the glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sexual purity in marriage is a metaphor for the purity and glory of God’s covenantal love to his own people (Ezek.16:1-14, 59-63; Hosea 2:14-20; 3; Song of Solomon; Eph.5:23-33). When a man who is united to Christ is brought together by God (Gen.2:22, 24; Mt.19:8) to a woman who is united to Christ there is a picture of God’s glory in Christ in the gospel. That man and that woman are not only participating in the purity of God but also the glory of God. The husband whose heart is satisfied in all that God is for him through the gospel of Jesus Christ can live in love toward his wife in the joy of giving to her in the purity of their marriage bed and the wife in Christ can give in the same joy and participate in the same purity and glory. It is this purity and glory that protects the husband and wife from all the self seeking glory that leads to impurity and brokenness.

Paul knows that everything, including sex, is from God, and through God and to God for his own glory (Rom.11:36). Paul knows that sex is a gift from God that is for his glory (1Tim.4:3-4). Paul knows that everything we do is to be done for the glory of God (1Cor.10:31). Therefore Paul knows that God’s creatures are created to know and enjoy his glory in everything. And when those creatures exchange the glory of God for a lie and worship and serve the creature and the creation they suffer under God’s wrath and participate in impurity (Rom.1:18ff). Sexual immorality and impurity leads God’s creatures away from the glory they are designed for into a world of lies and shallow dead end pleasures. Sex in marriage is necessary for purity that leads God’s people to glory. The sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God (1Cor.6:9-10), They will not taste and see that God is good (Ps.34:8). They will not know that God is their best portion forever (Ps.73:26). They will not know that in God’s presence is the fullness of joy forevermore (Ps.16:11). They will not know glory and they will not lead their wives and husbands into that same glory through purity in the joy of giving in sex in marriage.

Sex in marriage is necessary for purity and glory. Many in the church are broken by sexual self seeking and sexual impurity. The restoration of sex in marriage for purity and glory is discovered and lived in the knowledge and enjoyment of the glory of God in Christ. The joy of giving in the purity of the marriage bed is a participation in glory.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Sexuality and the Knowledge of God

In a culture where, “God is dead”, sex is a god that enslaves. In a culture where “god is love”, sex is an expression of one’s freedom for the glory of self. In a culture where god is known but as a god of the churches own making, sex is perfunctory and misused. However in the Kingdom where God is known and loved through the gospel as he reveals himself in his Word, sex is a beautiful gift of God enjoyed in the context of marriage for the knowledge and enjoyment of God.

In the next several weeks in our exposition of 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 we will be faced with the uncomfortable reality of thinking about sex. It is one thing to think about sex in the privacy of your own home, but God brings this topic into the context of corporate worship where he speaks to his own from his Word, and I think this brings the issue of sex into it’s proper perspective, Soli Deo Gloria, for the glory of God. Living in a sex crazed culture the church has lost its ability to think and talk rightly about sex. But the Scriptures are not silent on the subject. Therefore the church should think and speak clearly about this subject in a culture that is in rebellion to God who created sex for the good of his children and the glory of his name.

Sex outside of marriage is a misuse of God’s gift. Sex in the context of marriage is designed for our knowledge and enjoyment of him and the protection of his creatures. Sexual immorality is described in the Scriptures as porneia. To the prophets and apostles this includes using the gift of sex outside of the context of marriage. It is a misuse of sex in adultery, fornication, lust, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, rape etc.. These kinds of sexual sin are the result of suppressing the knowledge of God. The apostle Paul seeks to lead the Corinthian church out of sexual sin through an understanding of God and his salvation in the doctrines of the resurrection of Christ, union with Christ and redemption in Christ (1Cor.6:12-20). Paul also writes in the book of Romans that it is the suppression of the knowledge of God that leads men and women to a debased mind and the doing of what they should not do (Rom.1:28). He says in the same chapter that the exchanging of the glory of God in worship to worship the glory of the creature and creation leads to the impure sexual life (Rom.1:23-24). In Ephesians 4 we see Paul connect impurity to not knowing God when he says, “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!” (Eph.4:19-20). Sexual immorality is practiced with the mind, the heart or the life where God is not being known, trusted and loved in Christ Jesus.

At this someone may object and say, “Look at all the sexual immorality in the church and by the leaders of the church!” However, because people are in the visible church or leading the visible church does not mean that they are knowing, trusting and loving God in Christ as he reveals himself in his Word. This is why the apostle confronts the sexual immorality in the church not by only telling them to stop doing something (1Cor.6:18), but by founding that command in the knowledge of God in Christ (1Cor.6:14, 15-17, 18-20). Therefore if sexual immorality is the result of suppressing the knowledge of God, then the way to sexual purity is through the knowledge of God in Christ. If we are going to see God turn the tables on a sexual revolution that is destroying culture, then the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ must necessarily be revealed and applied. Jesus told his disciples that it is the truth that will set them free and it is in abiding in Christ’s word that his disciples know that truth, that setting free truth (Jn.8:31-32). Sexual impurity is not an expression of freedom. It does not matter of the mutual consent of the parties involved or the supposed love between the two people. Sexual impurity is sin. And sin is slavery. Knowing God in Christ truly through his Word revealed by the Spirit is God’s design to guard his own from sexual immorality and guide them in sexual purity in the context of marriage. Growing in the knowledge and enjoyment of God in Christ is very practical right down to our own sexuality.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Ideas Have Consequences

“Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something.” These are the latest “profound” words from British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. It is in Hawking’s latest work that Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion”, claims, “it finishes off God. Darwin kicked him out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace” But what does this physicist and atheist mean by his theory of “spontaneous creation”?

I will allow the brilliant man speak for himself in these recent words from a British publication. “The universe created itself out of nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going”-Stephen Hawking, The Times. There it is brilliance at the height of Godless science or maybe we should call it foolishness. Richard Dawkins speaks foolishly about it when he says, “I know nothing of the details of physics, but I had always assumed the same thing”. Since Mr. Dawkins is ignorant on the subject of physics he is glad that Mr. Hawking agrees with him. Be careful that you do not question their brilliance and be found among the backward of the world believing God created everything from nothing. Mr. Dawkins is looking for a theory from the school which David Robertson calls ABGism – Anything But Godism, and he has found it in biological theories and now in Mr. Hawking’s physics. Mr. Dawkins chooses aliens as the depositors of matter that evolved into the earth we now inhabit and Mr. Hawking chooses nothing to create the something of the universe.

But how does Mr. Hawking get something from nothing without an agent acting? He explains, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing”. Laws such as gravity or motion are descriptions of the created order being acted upon under certain conditions. The law does not do anything. Sir Isaac Newton can sit under an apple tree all day and wait for the law of gravity to do something but it will do nothing all day because the law is not the agency. The law of gravity is observed under the condition that an apple is acted upon by a force called gravity and it falls from the tree. We can take a baseball and a bat place them on the ground and wait for the law of motion to do something, but we will be waiting all day until a person lifts the bat and ball tosses the ball into the air and swings the bat striking the ball and sending it through the air. The law of motion is observable when there is agency. It is this kind of logic with this kind of science which caused Isaac Newton to believe that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have sprung out of chaos. But Mr. Hawking prefers chaos and foolishness to God and wisdom. Does all this really matter?

Yes it matters! Scientists like Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and writers like Phillip Pullman and Christopher Hitchens are motivated by a common radical atheism that is bent on an anti-theistic revolution through science and free thought. Hawking says, “Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous design of living forms could appear without intervention by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine-tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit…this makes us in a sense the lords of creation.” In these theories that Mr. Hawking puts forward the “science” is undergirded by thought that is free from any logic and sound reasoning. But as long as it accomplishes his purpose that does not matter. It matters because ideas have consequences.

The apostle Paul in Romans 1:21-22 says, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,” Foolish free thinking scientist ignore the invisible attributes of God in his divine nature and eternal power from what they clearly perceive in all of creation and suffer the wrath of God as they suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom.1:18-20). Ideas have consequences. Adam and Eve believed the lie in the garden and fell into sin, misery and death bringing all creation into that same futility. Ideas have consequences. However, the same God that created all things from nothing and let light shine out of darkness has sent his Son into the world to redeem the world from the futility of sin, misery and death. And it is through faith in the Son that redemption and restoration is secured. Ideas have consequences. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1Jn.5:12). Believing and acting on those ideas have life and death consequences.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Rest

“Oh, to find rest, sweet repose. Why must we grind out our lives in search of vain glories when all that is wanted is home?” Sadly, these were the thoughts from Stephen Crane that came at the end of a short life of twenty eight years that were wasted in debauchery. His popular moralistic novel, The Red Badge of Courage, was actually a picture of this truth when in the end the idealistic Union soldier, Henry Fleming, finds that a simple life of rest is a virtue rather than a vice. It is this rest that all men were made for.

When we come to the greatest Book in all the world, the Bible, and read the first few chapters of it’s beginning and then rush ahead to read the last few chapters of it’s conclusion we find a life of rest for some. In the beginning we find a wonderfully adorned garden with two characters walking in the cool of the day with the Creator and Sustainer of all of life. In this garden of rest they have a relationship of sweet repose with one another in the perfect rest of love. They have lives that reflect the glory of the Creator in righteousness and holiness with a growing knowledge of his glorious nature that allows them to live in his rest. In the closing chapters of the conclusion of the Book we are brought into the rest of the garden city of God. The Lord of Heaven and Earth is there to dwell with his people and be their light by day and night. He wipes away every tear so that there is no more but only perfection of love and joy in his rest. There is a city in the garden more grand and exquisite than any can imagine with a river of life and a tree of life that brings healing and rest to all the nations that dwell therein. This ancient Book of life which is the Scriptures with it’s book of beginnings, Genesis, and it’s conclusion, Revelation, is where is revealed the promise and fulfillment of rest that we as God’s creatures were made for.

We know we are made for this rest when as children we climb trees to hide or sneak off into a corner to read or cuddle up for a nap. We know we are made for this rest when we find that we actually are enjoying moments of “boring”. We know we are made for this rest when we find ourselves longing for a weekend or a “holiday”. We know we are made for this rest when we plan and save to go to a secluded vacation spot. We know we are made for this rest when we realize we have left our cell phone at home and we smile about it. But greater than all these natural indicators that tell us we were made for rest are the words of Jesus from the gospel of Matthew, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Mt.11:28-30).

Those earlier chapters of rest in Genesis are followed by a chapter (3) of toil and futility brought on by the sin of our first parents. It is here that we find the beginnings of all our unrest in sin which causes us to be those who “labor and are heavy laden” under the load of sin and misery that lead to the condition that is antithetical to rest, death. However in the midst of that chapter is the promise of God for rest in his salvation as he promises one who will come from the seed of the woman to crush death forever (Gen.3:15). Therefore the unfolding of the Book is the fulfillment of this promise to restore his creatures in the rest he made them for in Himself. These words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew reveal that he is the seed of the woman who is also the “Son of Man who is lord of the Sabbath.” (Mt.12:8). He is the ruler of heaven and earth (Son of Man), the true Son of God who he is the lord and ruler of rest (Sabbath). Therefore he can make this kind of promise to all that come to him to find rest from the weight and penalty of sin through his forgiveness by his death and to find rest in his righteousness through his life and resurrection that is imputed to all sinners who come to him by faith believing that he is God and the rewarder of all who seek him.

The rest that we were made for is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in him that we can find that “sweet repose” and the home in glory that we are created for. It is Christ in you that is the hope of glory (Col.1:28). There are many Stephen Cranes in the world and some of us may find that we are playing out a life like Stephen Crane or Henry Fleming. It is to the Son of Man, the Lord of Glory that we must come and find rest. There is rest in his salvation, rest in sitting at his feet and learning from him, and rest in walking with him as his disciple in obedience to his will, even if he leads us right up to the gates of hell that others may find their rest in him. In coming to him by faith we will receive the promised rest we were made for.