Season for the Reason: Picking Jesus, Not Cherries

Note: This is the first in what I hope will be a series of blog posts dealing with some common objections that are raised against Christianity, some of which even Christians get confused on at times. (I certainly get confused on them too.) However, I firmly believe, as Chris Rice once wrote, that God has "an exclamation point for every question mark." And I believe The Bible addresses every issue we face, whether directly or indirectly. While this certainly isn't comprehensive and won't be definitive, I hope these posts will be helpful in explaining why Christians believe some of the things that we do and that they will do so in a loving way that does not seek to denigrate other beliefs, put merely present the teaching of Christ in His Word. These are based on questions that have been personally raised to me and I thought it might be helpful to talk about these topics here, as they reflect concerns and questions that many seekers and agnostics as well as skeptics share. [And as I said earlier, Christians also wonder on these things at times too, I do believe. Or at least this Christian has at times.] Let me also state that I do not believe in arguing or convincing anyone into Heaven; only the Holy Spirit can change someone's heart and bring them saving faith in Jesus. So I don't expect to convince anyone with any brilliant logic here, especially since I know that I don't have that much of that. ;-) (If there is anything brilliant or good in here, it's from Jesus, not me.) But 2 Timothy 4:2 commands us to be prepared in season and out of season in preaching the Word and to correct, rebuke encourage- with great patience and careful instruction. And I do want to do that, as I seek to always have an answer for the reason that I have hope, as 1 Peter 3:15 says. :-)


          

For the first point raised, this is a common question that comes up that even many Christians get confused about as well, but it is one that is well addressed by The Bible. I will talk about ye olde problem of the seeming disconnect between Old Testament law and New Testament law and why it seems that Christians seem to cherry-pick which rules to follow at times. Since this objection is often raised as a counterpoint when the topic of homosexuality comes up and The Bible's prohibition against it, please note that this piece will focus on that topic as a backdrop for this question regarding the Old Testament and New Testament.  I will include a link for further reading if you’re interested, but I never like just posting a link without at least trying to address the issue some myself. (Otherwise I just feel like I’m shuttling people off because I don’t want to confront the topic myself and I never want to do that.) [Here is said link- http://thecripplegate.com/shellfish-mixed-fabrics-and-homosexuality-picking-and-choosing/]
            Jesus states in Matthew 5:17-20 (ESV)- “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
           

This is an important point here. It cannot be emphasized enough that Jesus upheld the Old Testament. What I should have explained further is the reason why Jesus upheld the Old Testament and its laws. The key word in verse 17 is “fulfill”. Jesus Christ fulfilled all the demands of the Old Testament laws. This gets to the crux of the matter of salvation in Christianity. It is coming to the point of realizing that we have done wrong and can never live up to God’s standard for living. (Which is absolute perfection- Leviticus 11:45- God states it here and Jesus reiterates this in Matthew 5:48- “Be perfect therefore as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”) Of course, as Psalms 14:1 and Romans 3:23 and a number of other verses state, there is none righteous. There is no one who has perfectly kept all of the law. Thus, we are all imperfect sinners and wrongdoers who fail to meet God’s standard. God says in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death- both physical death and spiritual death. (i.e. eternal punishment in hell.) However, the same verse also says that the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God knows that no human being can meet His standard. And He also knows the consequence of this. And as one of the most famous verses in The Bible tells us- God loves us so much that He intervened and sent His Son Jesus to rescue us. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17) And Romans 5:8 confirms that God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The very thing that I most celebrate as a follower of Christ- Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday- this is where the literal crux of Christianity lies- in Easter. Because Jesus died to pay for all the sins ever committed in the world and He rose again- He paid once for all the payment for sin- and in the process, He defeated death, sin, the devil and hell- and our sinful nature that we are all born with.
           

When we put our faith in Christ to forgive us of our sins and to submit to following Him as Lord and Savior, a metaphysical, supernatural transaction takes place. God The Father sees our plea for Jesus’ forgiveness and credits us with Christ’s righteousness. Though we ourselves are spiritually and morally bankrupt as Romans 5:12-14 states (the sin of Adam and Eve tainted the entire world), Jesus is perfect and He imputes that righteousness to us at the moment of conversion. Romans 5:15-21 goes on to talk further about this- how just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, one Man’s righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. As Romans 6:14 states, once we have received Jesus as Savior and Lord, we are no longer under the Law system anymore- but we are now under the New Covenant Jesus came to establish through His blood (as Christ mentions during The Lord’s Supper to His disciples)- and that is the New Covenant of grace. In the Old Covenant of the Law, the Israelites followed God by endeavoring to obey all the commandments- including the dietary laws and other ceremonial laws that were aimed specifically at them. However, there are other moral laws (which is where the prohibition against homosexuality falls) that were given to them and that are still in place in the New Covenant of grace.
          

Galatians 3 puts it this way- (starting in verse 19)- “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” (That was verses 19-23). [My parenthetical here- indeed, as The Bible notes elsewhere, the law is what shows us just how much in the wrong we really are and how much we need a Savior because we can’t keep all of the law perfectly ourselves.]
        (resuming in verse 24)- “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”
             The point I am trying to make here is that the Old Testament law served as our guardian until Jesus came. When He came and fulfilled the Law, we were no longer bound by the Law. We trust that He fulfilled all of the Law and put our faith in His righteousness to forgive us our sins and to make us presentable before God in Heaven. No one enters Heaven but by the righteousness of Christ, for as Isaiah 64:6 makes painfully clear- even the righteousness we think we have of our own account is nothing but filthy rags in comparison to the supreme holiness and righteousness of God Almighty.
      

Galatians 3:1-6 is also important to note in understanding this point. Here Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, berates the Galatians for abandoning their walk of faith by the power of the Holy Spirit and instead looking again to their own righteousness (i.e. the flesh) for perfection. The whole point of the Law is to show us just how futile our own efforts are and to show us our need for the Savior. Thus, in the Christian faith, we must always lean wholly on Jesus for all our righteousness.
                Hebrews 8 explains this point quite well. It calls Jesus the High Priest of a better Covenant- the New Covenant, which Jeremiah 31:31-34 prophesied would come. Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy. (See also Hebrews 9:11-14, which emphasizes the ceremonial system of sacrificing animals that the Israelites did is no longer necessary- this includes the prohibitions against eating shellfish and mixing fabrics, etc. However, the blood of Christ purifies our conscience from dead works (i.e. the flesh) to serve the living God. Again, we rely on Christ’s completed work and not any of our own.) (The whole book of Hebrews is an excellent New Testament companion book to read alongside Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It gives a lot of insight to how the Old Testament covenant of the Law compares to the New Testament covenant of grace in Jesus Christ- and it explains how we are no longer under the law, but under grace instead.) In fact, on this point, I have read Tim Keller has said that for a Christian to try to live out all of the Old Testament law is an insult to Jesus and a demonstration of a lack of faith. Because I have faith that Jesus has completed all that is necessary for salvation through His death and Resurrection and perfect upholding and completion of the law, I know that I don't have to try to keep all the Old Testament law- and in fact, I cannot. Jesus has done it for me and I trust His completed work for salvation. Of course, as James 2 points out, true saving faith is always accompanied by works AFTER faith has been put in Christ's redeeming work. And as Ephesians 2:8-10 makes clear, God intended for me to do good works all along anyway. After having been saved by grace through faith, I strive to do the good things that Jesus commands me to do out of love and gratitude and obedience to Him- not out of a misguided attempt to pay Him back or somehow earn something that has already been given to me for free. I can never earn it- I must only freely accept it. But when I do, as 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, it makes me a new person in Christ and God transforms me to be the person He made to be all along.
               

Now here is the caveat I want to make sure is clear. Part of following Christ is being molded more and more to His character. The Bible uses the image of a potter and clay many times, with God as the Potter and us as the clay. We are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27)- and of course, Adam and Eve’s sin tainted that image. God has provided for the restoration of that through Christ’s death and Resurrection. Through putting our faith in Jesus, we begin undergoing the process of sanctification, being made like Christ (the personification of perfection.) Romans 8:4 instructs us that now we must walk according to the Spirit (i.e. God the Holy Spirit) and no longer to the flesh. (i.e. our own sinful nature.) Romans 12:1-2 calls for us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, which is our spiritual worship. We are to no longer be conformed to this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that by testing we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Again- we are reminded that God’s will for us is to be like Him- perfect. (Leviticus 11:45, Matthew 5:48). However, even as Christians we still fail and fall back into sin at times. And God promises in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Thus for Christians, it’s an ongoing process of being made more holy each day- a process that ultimately reaches its culmination when we enter Heaven. (Philippians 1:6)
          

While the ceremonial laws of the Israelites no longer apply to us, the moral laws most certainly do. In the case of homosexuality, even if we were to put aside the prohibitions in Leviticus for the moment, we still have the prohibitions in Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:10. And those commands are all part of the New Testament covenant of grace that we are under- and that we are expected and commanded to follow. Part of the reason homosexual acts of any kind (no matter what the relationship status is) are condemned is because they fall outside of God’s revealed character. God is the One who created marriage and ordained it as an institution. This is a point where Jesus spoke to the issue of homosexuality in Matthew 19 when He upheld God’s standard for marriage- the union of one man and one woman for life. God has designed men and women to relate to each other in the context of marriage, which is symbolic of the relationship He desires to have with us. Just as the husband and wife become one flesh and become united, God desires to be united with us and indeed- Galatians 2:20 and Colossians 3:1-4 speak to this exact unity that we have with Christ- where I no longer live [my old life centered on just myself is dead]- my new life centered on Christ is my real life now. We ultimately enjoy that full unity with God when we are back in His presence again- in Heaven. And as I said before, God’s standard for entry into Heaven is absolute perfection- a standard only met by Jesus Christ. We can gain entry into Heaven (and thus an escape from our default sentence of punishment in hell because of the separation that comes with our sin) only through faith in Jesus. As Jesus Himself said in John 14:6 “I am The Way, The Truth and The Life. No man comes to The Father but by Me.” It is also worth noting that God uses the picture of marriage specifically to speak to His relationship with us- He extensively used this as an object lesson in the book of Hosea with Hosea and Gomer representing Himself and Israel (Hosea 2 is a beautiful picture of the love God has for us and His plan to redeem us and take us back as His own, even though we have rebelled against Him)- and the picture is also used in Revelation 21, which describes Christ as the bridegroom and His church as His bride.
  I know that was a rather lengthy explanation and even after typing it, I feel I still could say much more on it, but I hope that helps with the first point.
                A good example occurred to me that may help illustrate the point about the Israelites having ceremonial and dietary laws that pertained only to them that modern-day Christians no longer follow, though we do still hold up the moral laws as Israel did as well. Why is it that we restrict the sale of alcohol in America? It almost seems rather discriminatory that we forbid persons younger than 21 from consuming or purchasing alcohol. Society as a whole frowns upon it in general and we have a law on the books for that purpose. However, this seems a mere compromise in comparison to previous laws. Why is that we as Americans pick and choose when it comes to upholding the laws on our books? Doesn’t the 18^th. Amendment, ratified on January 16, 1919, prohibit the manufacture, sale, transportation within, importation or exportation of alcohol? Why do we not hold to that law anymore? Why is that we freely allow the manufacture, sale, transportation within, importation and exportation of alcohol now? Aren’t we picking and choosing which laws to follow? Of course, the answer to that is that we are not picking and choosing. We uphold all of the laws on the books- including the 21^st. Amendment (ratified December 5, 1933) which repealed the 18^th. Amendment. Thus, we are no longer bound by the 18^th. Amendment. However, even so, we still hold to a remnant of that law to some degree. We still hold to some of the spirit of the law in that we restrict the sale of alcohol to only those who are 21 and older.
         In the same manner, Christians are no longer bound to the Israelites’ dietary and ceremonial laws because the New Covenant of Grace repealed the Old Covenant of The Law. (See 2 Corinthians 3 for a great discussion of this point. The New Covenant is WAY, WAY better, by the way.) Thus, Christians are not bound to the dietary and ceremonial laws, even though there are still some general moral principles that the laws are based on that we do uphold. And we still strive to maintain the moral laws, but now it is not out of guilt or our own self-effort as a means of salvation- it is out of love and gratitude to our Savior Jesus Christ, as He works in us to shape more into His image of perfection. He has fulfilled all the laws for us and we rely on His perfection to get us into Heaven- not our own. We rely on the perfect completion He brought when He died and rose again to seal the deal for us. And that is why it is not a matter of picking and choosing. I pick and choose Christ and He picked all my sins off of me and chose to bear them on Calvary. Christ has set me free from the law and free to be a slave of grace.
 

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