America and Corinth

Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun." (Eccl. 1:9 NKJV) When it comes to human behavior it is hard to argue that anything has changed since Solomon's day well over 2,000 years ago. Human pride and arrogance just seem to roll on from one generation to the next endlessly. I was reminded of that today (4/6/2015) when I was reading from 1 Cor. 5, Paul's letter to the church at Corinth.

"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father's wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you." (1 Cor. 5:1-2 NKJV)

While America is certainly not a church it seems it has much the same attitude toward sin that the church at Corinth was displaying. There is no mourning in America today over adultery, homosexuality, fornication, lying, deception, malice, drunkenness, you name it. In fact, for some politicians their sins make them more popular with the public. Bill Clinton was one notorious example of that. Bill Bennett's book, The Death of Outrage, was written as a direct response to the public's reaction to that sordid episode.

Being caught in a lie no longer disqualifies one from holding even the highest office in the land. We have lied so much and for so long people no longer think much about it and it no longer seems to taint your character in the eyes of the public at large with but few exceptions. Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, just admitted lying about Mitt Romney not paying any taxes for 10 years but where is the public outrage? There is very little of it.

There is little difference with other sins. The quickest way for an actress to gain fame and fortune seems to be to take her clothes off and display herself publicly, maybe even get into pornography, and as for drunkenness, why everyone does it do they not? There is no shame in America anymore. If you are on your fifth live-in arrangement, so what? Who really cares? We will tolerate anything in America. Sounds like Corinth to me. We will in the name of toleration tolerate the very things that will lead to our personal and national destruction.

What outrage we do see today is against Christianity, not against sin and evil doing. We are experiencing the evolution of morals in America where we now call evil good and good evil. It is a destructive evolution for God has said, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness." (Isa. 5:20 NKJV)

But why have we become this way? I think the following remark from Bill Bennett's book, The Death of Outrage, is on the mark:

"Why have we been drawn toward a culture of permissiveness? My former philosophy professor John Silber was correct when he spoke of an 'invitation to mutual corruption.' We are hesitant to impose upon ourselves a common moral code because we want our own exemptions." (Page 120)

We in America like to blame our leaders for our problems as a nation, but the problem lies within us, each of us. We have become proud, puffed up, much like the Corinthians. Add to that we enjoy our own personal sins and do not want to give them up. Living righteously no longer matters to us. We will set our own standards and they are far, far more lenient than God's standards for we like it that way.

The answer to our problems lies within each of us. While it is true "there is none righteous" (Rom. 3:10 NKJV), we are not righteous on our own, don't you think we might all be better off and our nation be better off if we made an attempt to live godly? The desire to do so has been lost but God has given us free will. We can change if we will just will to do it. With God's help, it is not impossible for men and women to live godly, righteous lives. If there is not a change, a sort of national repentance, we are doomed as a nation. On a personal level Jesus put it bluntly, "Unless you repent you will all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3 NKJV) "God is not mocked." (Gal. 6:7 NKJV)

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Free Will and God's Foreknowledge

Did God know Adam and Eve would sin? The answer is yes, but it is a hard answer for some to accept, for they cannot understand how mankind could keep from sinning if God foreknew they would sin. Did they, Adam and Eve, have free will; that is the question being asked? If God knew we were all going to need Jesus and his blood for salvation even before our existence, what choice did any of us have but sin?

That question does not bother me. Why not? Because God by definition is supernatural. His understanding is infinite. What seems impossible with man is possible with God (creating the universe, the virgin birth, raising the dead to life again, walking on water, walking through closed doors, knowing man's thoughts without being told, disappearing into thin air, etc.). "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:14 NKJV) "Is there anything too hard for me?" (Jer. 32:27) "His understanding no one can fathom." (Isa. 40:28 NIV) Because a matter is too deep for my own understanding does not mean it is too deep for God.

Now for the scriptural truth that God did indeed know Adam and Eve would sin, I will just quote the appropriate scriptures and leave it with you.

In 2 Tim. 1:9 the scripture says God has "saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began." (NKJV) You did catch that, did you not—"before time began"? John refers to Jesus as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." (Rev. 13:8 NKJV)

In Eph. 1:4 Paul says we Christians were chosen "in him before the foundation of the world." (NKJV) The prior verse (verse 3) makes it clear Paul is speaking of "in Christ." In the same book, we read of "the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Eph. 3:11 NKJV) If it was eternal, it was before the earth was created.

The kingdom was prepared for us "from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 25:34 NKJV) Paul speaks of "the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory." (1 Cor. 2:7 NKJV) Did this wisdom have anything to do with Jesus and salvation from sin? So, yes, this wisdom that was ordained before the ages dealt with the salvation of man.

We read in Titus 1:2 of the "hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began" (NKJV), but, of course, eternal life depends on Jesus and his sacrifice for man, so again, the answer is yes; God did indeed know man would sin before creating man.

Finally, we close with Peter who says Christ was "foreordained before the foundation of the world." (1 Peter 1:20 NKJV)

Our duty before God as believers is to believe and not fret about how God can do things that seem impossible to us. God knew we would sin before we were created. But, don't you think God also knew mankind could love? "God is love." (1 John 4:8 NKJV) We were made in God's image (Gen. 1:26). Perhaps, just perhaps, we were created in part to be loved by God and to love God back. "We love Him because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19 NKJV) Every person desires to be loved. Is God any different?

Jesus said the first commandment, the one with top priority, is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30 NKJV) Perhaps love is of such great and wonderful value as to be worth some pain. God knew some would reject him and continue on in sin, but he also knew some would love him and be loyal to him. To love God is a wonderful thing. Just maybe it was worth creating man.

I conclude by saying I cannot know God's motives in creating man, and so I have speculated. Take it as that. But, I have to believe that God saw value in the creation of man, or he would not have created us. And, I also know, God could have created a robot rather than a man had he desired to do so. A robot has no choices about love, or hate, or anything else. A robot cannot receive love or give love. It can give no satisfaction to the hearts of spiritual beings.

This is making a case for free will. A robot, I suppose, could be programmed to go through the motions of loving you, but it would all be artificial, programmed into the wiring, without choice. We love God because he chose us (1 John 4:19). We love our husbands or wives because they chose us. That was and is very meaningful. They didn't have to do it. We were not the only man or woman on earth. Their choice of us was special. It had and has real meaning. So, God had to give us a choice if there was to be a meaningful relationship with him. That meant some would not choose him. But for those who did and do, that is special.

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Anger

"But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, 'Raca,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." (Matt. 5:22 NAS)

When Jesus spoke these words he was speaking to a Jewish audience that was then living under the Law of Moses.  Living today 2,000 years after the fact we read this passage and it brings questions to our minds wondering exactly what he meant in some of the things said here and what if any application the passage might have to us today.  I suspect most of us have at one point in time or another just read over the passage and gone on.  That is what we often do with passages we really do not understand.  Yet, if there is a lesson for us in the passage as there was for those who first heard it we need to learn it.  I begin with the subject of anger, the first clause of this paragraph.

Does Jesus completely forbid anger?  Are we never to be angry?  Some translations add, after the word angry, the words "without a cause."  Most scholars and most translations omit the phrase believing the evidence is against its inclusion.  Be that as it may, the question remains—does God forbid all anger?  Is that what the first clause of this passage teaches?

Jesus was angry in Mark 3:5 with the Pharisees in the synagogue, "And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored." (NAS)  We are all familiar with the passage in Ephesians 4:26, "Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger." (NAS)  The first part of that verse is a quotation taken from Psalm 4:4.  We all experience anger at one point in time or another.  Of course, some grow angry much easier than others and certainly there are degrees of anger.

Does God want us to be angry?  Of course not, but he made a provision for anger so that it would not become sin to us—Eph. 4:26 just quoted.  Do not let anger linger.  Rid yourself of it quickly.  While it is impossible to keep from becoming angry at times one does have the ability to cast it aside and not dwell on it, one has the ability to let go of the anger.  

Does God mean we must literally cease being angry by sunset?  What if you become angry at the midnight hour?  What if someone has just beaten or murdered your son or daughter?  What if your spouse just walked out on you and took the children to go off with another?  Not all anger can be rid of so easily or quickly so I don't think God is telling us there is a time limit on anger like if it is two minutes before sunset when something happens to anger you that you only have two minutes to get over it but I think he is saying rid yourself of it and do so quickly, don't nurture it.  That is my take on the verse as an uninspired man, one man’s thoughts.

The very next verse, Eph. 4:27, reads, "and do not give the devil an opportunity." (NAS)  Eph. 4:26 and 27 are all one sentence and the idea is if you stay angry it is likely going to lead to other things because staying angry is giving the devil an opportunity.  After anger comes hatred, malice, vengeance, and many other evils.  We know this is true and thus we know we cannot remain angry long without worse things to come.  Anger ends up destroying the one who has it for it becomes a cancer within growing into things that destroy the soul and that make life miserable in the here and now.  

Paul closes the 4th chapter of Ephesians from which I have been quoting by saying, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." (Eph. 4:31-32 NAS)  In Col. 3:8 he says to put aside anger.  James says to be "slow to anger" (James 1:19 NAS) and that "the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." (James 1:20 NAS)  So we come back to our question—is it a sin to be or become angry?  The scriptural answer seems to be it depends on how you handle it.  You cannot retain anger and please God even if you had just cause for indignation.  

Anger held onto becomes sin.  Paul says to put it away and thus if we disobey that Holy Spirit inspired command it becomes sin to us.  And then there is the question of why we are angry and over what?  Often there is no real cause for anger and the problem is not that which comes from without a person to arouse just indignation but a problem from within the person, a problem of personal character flaws and of the heart.  God certainly does not condone unjustified anger even for a short while.  If we have a short fuse and are ready to fight at a moment's notice over the littlest thing, if we are ready to perceive a slight when most men see nothing, then the problem is within us and the anger is totally unjustified.  

The KKK in this country in the days of segregation would lynch a black man occasionally because he was black.  A white man who had done what the black man was alleged to have done would never have been lynched.  Are you angry at a man over the color of his skin?  Surely this is not the type of anger that God would allow a man to hold even till sunset and declare it sinless, so the cause of the anger must also enter into the equation.  Of course, one could argue that this type of thing is not anger but hatred.  I would not debate that for I think you would be right but anger can turn into hatred and thus is be gotten rid of immediately before it is allowed to grow and develop.  Anger can lead to hatred but the hatred may also come before the specific anger (racism being a prime example). 

"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." (1 John 3:15 NAS)  We ought to run from anger lest it turn into something far worse.  Remember one can become and be angry up to a point without sinning (Eph. 4:26) but there is a fine line we dare not cross. 

We all know we are not happy when angry, when we are mad.  There is no joy in anger.  The wise person will forgive and forget even if the original anger was somewhat justified in that he/she was truly wronged.  By forgiving and letting go of the anger one is allowing themselves to be happy again and is thus doing self a favor as well as doing God's will.

It is good to also remind ourselves of what we already know.  No one likes to be around an angry person.  If we say we can hide our anger I would say I know we may try but it is easier said than done.  When you are mad inwardly, even though you are hiding it, you are generally not much fun to be around, a person of a sour disposition.

We must learn to control our tempers so we do not become angry easily.  As James said, quoted earlier, be "slow to anger." (James 1:19 NAS)  The NKJV uses the word "wrath" whereas the NAS uses the word "anger."  The Old Testament has several passages that teach and warn us about anger:

"Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools." (Eccl. 7:9 NAS)

"Do not associate with a man given to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man." (Prov. 22:24 NAS)

"A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, But the slow to anger pacifies contention." (Prov. 15:18 NAS)

"A man of great anger shall bear the penalty, For if you rescue him, you will only have to do it again." (Prov. 19:19 NAS)

"Like a city that is broken into and without walls Is a man who has no control over his spirit." (Prov. 25:28 NAS)

Man can and must learn to control his temper and thus his anger if he is to be happy, if he is to please God, and if he is not going to bring himself to ruin.  Anger destroys love, family, and relationships, and endangers salvation so it must be mastered.

In closing, we ought to deal with this question of how the angry man in our text, Matt. 5:22, shall be guilty before the court.  I used the New American Standard Bible in preparing this article.  Most translations use the word “judgment” whereas the NASB uses the word “court” in Matt. 5:22.  I will just quote it here beginning with Matt. 5:21 going through Matt. 5:22, the verse in question, and do so from the Christian Standard Bible so you can see what I am talking about.

“You have heard it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.  But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment … .”  I think that clarifies the matter quite a bit.  Anger is no little thing.  It is a very serious issue in a person’s life if it resides within them.

John Gill (1697-1771) says on this passage, and I quote, "in danger of judgment; not of any of the courts of judicature among the Jews, as the Sanhedrim of three, or of twenty three, or of seventy one, which took no notice of anger, as a passion in the mind, only of facts committed; but of the judgment of God."

Do not allow anger to abide in you for if you do surely it will become sin to you and you will be judged for it.  Anger against another will, if held onto, eventually turn on you and destroy you.  So the Bible teaches.  So it is.

This article was written in view of a person's anger against another individual or individuals.  We ought to be angry against sin and evil every day but love the sinner.  God wants us to hate sin.  You will find no verses in the Bible teaching you to love sin, not one.  We ought always to hate the evil we see being done in the world but have sympathy for the souls of lost sinners and desire their repentance and salvation.  We have all been guilty of sin and it is by God’s grace that anyone can be saved.

I will deal with the rest of this Matt. 5:22 passage in later articles.

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Abuse Of The Old Testament

There are many things practiced in the name of Christianity today that have no scriptural basis in the law of Christ, the new covenant. The Old Testament, at times, is appealed to as the source of authority for things practiced in the churches. Does the Old Testament have the same authority for Christians today as the New Testament? How should Christians today relate to and handle the Old Testament scriptures? These are questions we all ought to be interested in for we are saved by truth, not error.

God has commanded us to rightly divide the truth (2 Tim. 2:15) and Peter says that the scriptures can be twisted to our own destruction (2 Peter 3:16) thus we must be careful and not make assumptions or just give our opinion. We can only rightly divide the word of truth by following what God has said about how to do that. Only then are we on safe ground.

That the Old Testament scriptures have value for us today there can be no doubt for Paul says, "For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." (Rom.15:4 NAS) We thus learn that we can receive instruction from the Old Testament scriptures and encouragement that combined with perseverance gives us hope.

No better example can be given than what James said in illustrating this point. He says, "Behold, we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful." (James 5:11 NAS)

Hebrews chapter 11 is another good illustration. We are taught by the examples of Old Testament characters what faith is and what it means to have faith. We are encouraged to persevere as we see what some of those men and women were willing to do and endure to be faithful to God. We compare our trials with theirs and ours seem but little things and we are given the strength to go on and not give up. The Bible speaks of these as being those "of whom the world was not worthy." (Heb. 11:38 NKJV)

We are told to remember Lot's wife (Luke 17:32). We are told, in so many words, that we ought to learn from the fact that "anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses" (Heb. 10:28 NKJV) and consider that in relation to our treatment of the Son of God (Heb. 10:29) where the punishment will be worse. This list could be extended but the point has been adequately made that there is much to learn from the Old Testament as the New Testament reveals lesson after lesson we ought to learn from the more distant past.

Furthermore, much of what we learn about God, who he is, his character, his attributes, his expectations for man, and his purposes are found in the Old Testament. We find in the Old Testament the history of man. We find the history of God's chosen people. We see his eternal purpose set forth both in historical development and in prophecy.

And then there is the book of Psalms. Who is there among God's people who have not gone to the book of Psalms time and again to find comfort and hope, especially in times of sadness and sorrow?

Want to learn how to pray? Read David in the Psalms to see prayer from the heart, and learn how to praise God in prayer, and how to petition him for his blessings. Learn how to thank God. All of this can be learned by close attention in reading the Psalms.

Need wisdom? Go to the book of Proverbs. Many, many New Testaments that one can buy also include, as an addition, the books of Psalms and Proverbs. They are books that are often consulted by men today and rightly so.

I have said many good and true things in praise of the Old Testament scriptures. I believe everything I have said has been scriptural and so much so that I do not believe anyone who calls himself a Christian would disagree with me to this point.

However, we have now come to the time where we need to divide the word—the old from the new--and make a distinction. The Bible is very clear that the Old Testament is not meant for us today as law. We readily see this when it comes to animal sacrifices but we too often want to bring in from the Old Testament other things that should have been left there as well.

The Hebrew writer says, "For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law." (Heb. 7:12 NKJV) Read in context the argument has been that Jesus is now our high priest and he is not of the tribe of Levi as were all the priests under the old Law of Moses. Jesus was of the tribe of Judah.

But, our point is that the inspired writer tells us as clearly as words can make it that the law has changed. There is now a new law. The Law of Moses is gone, fulfilled, completed, and is now history. There is now a new law, the law of Christ. In Gal. 6:2 Paul says, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." (NKJV)

Everyone readily admits that Jesus gave man commandments to obey. A commandment is nothing other than a law to be obeyed. Disobey a law of God and you sin. As the old King James translation puts it in 1 John 3:4, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." In our day the law that is transgressed, bringing sin, is the law of Christ, not the Law of Moses.

Hear God the Father speak from heaven on the Mount of Transfiguration when Peter wanted to make 3 tabernacles, one each for Moses, Elijah, and Christ. "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" (Matt. 17:5 NKJV) Christ was not to be put on an equal plane with Moses and/or Elijah. Neither was to be heard any longer as present-day authorities. Henceforth, Christ was the one to be heard and followed.

In Hebrews 3 the Hebrew writer has been talking about Moses and Christ and how Christ is superior to Moses and then in verses 7 and 8 says, "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: 'Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts." (NKJV) The day of hearing Moses is over as regards law to be followed. Hear the voice of Christ which is the voice of God. Hear it today. Jesus says, "the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me." (John 14:24 NKJV)

Paul says of himself in Gal. 2:19, "For I through the law (a reference to the Law of Moses--DS) died to the law that I might live to God." (NKJV) He goes on to say "if righteousness comes through the law (Law of Moses again--DS), then Christ died in vain." (Gal 2:21 NKJV) And in Rom. 7:4 "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law (Law of Moses--DS) through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead." (NKJV)

And, then, in Gal. 3:24-25 he makes it clear enough that an older elementary school student ought to be able to easily understand it. He says, "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." (NKJV) The law (the Law of Moses) was our tutor; we are no longer under a tutor, thus no longer under the law. (For that matter the Gentiles were never given the law anyway nor were they under it. The law was for God's chosen people, the Jewish nation.)

Part of the problem the Galatians were having was that they wanted at the very least an admixture of the old Law of Moses with Christ. Paul called it a perversion of the gospel of Christ in chapter 1 verse 7. Some were going so far as to want to go back to the Law of Moses for Paul says, "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law." (Gal. 4:21 NKJV) The desire was wrong. Remember, God said this is my beloved son, hear him, not Moses (the Law of Moses).

Paul goes so far as to say that being under the works of the law (reference to the Law of Moses) is a curse. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them." (Gal. 3:10 NKJV) He says, "Do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1 NKJV)

I could go on and on with proof texts for the book of Galatians and the book of Hebrews both deal extensively about the change of the law telling us clearly that we are not under the Law of Moses today. The book of Romans also gives us much the same. But, my main interest is making an application as to how all of this affects us today as Christians and believers.

The idea seems to be prevalent today that the Old Testament gives us authority to worship in ways we please if we can find an example for our practice in the Old Testament. But, does it?

Paul says of certain Galatians, Gal. 5:4 (NKJV), "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." They wanted to bring over into Christianity circumcision, a requirement under the old covenant. "Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law." (Gal. 5:2-3 NKJV)

The only way these people could justify themselves, even in their own eyes, was by an appeal to the Old Testament scriptures, justification by Old Testament law. It won't work. Why not? Because it is not a part of the law of Christ, not a part of the new covenant. We do not have a problem with the issue of circumcision today but we often seek to do what that group was doing. We attempt to justify our practice that cannot be found in the law of Christ, the New Testament, by an appeal to the Old Testament.

We are given a choice of whose law and authority we will live by. Will it be Moses' law or Christ's law? We cannot mix them. What Christ wanted from the old law to be observed today he brought with him and had it recorded in the pages of the New Testament. We can go back to Moses or we can move forward to Christ. That is our choice.

There are things that seem so right to a man, how can they be wrong? The writer of Proverbs says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." (Prov. 16:25 NKJV) God speaking in Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV) says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.'" We greatly err when we think that because a thing pleases us it is automatically going to please God.

We also need to learn from this that we ought not to just accept without question the things that have been handed down to us from men who lived in the past but whose teachings have come to be accepted as a sort of a standard--it doesn't matter whether the man was Calvin, Luther, or the Pope, or whomever it might be. Isaiah said in Isa. 2:22 (ESV), "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?" Good question. I think Isaiah answered his own question, did he not?

Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 "offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them" (verse 1) and the Bible says "so fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD." (Lev. 10:2 NKJV) They had no authority from God to use profane fire or as some versions put it "strange fire." (NAS)

What is the application? To Nadab and Abihu worship was worship as long as it was directed to God and meant for his praise. It seemed right to them. Who could object to worshiping God? Well, we found out. God does not think as man thinks.

What Nadab and Abihu did was no different than what we do today when we add to the worship things we cannot find in the law of Christ, the new covenant, the New Testament. Col. 3:17 reads as follows, "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." (NKJV) How does one do a thing in the name of the Lord Jesus about which the Lord Jesus spoke nothing?

A careful reading of 1 Chron. 21:18-19 will show you that the phrase "in the name of the Lord" means by the Lord's authority. The angel of the Lord had commanded Gad to go speak to David about building an altar and verse 19 says, "So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord." This clearly shows that "in the name of the Lord" means by the Lord's authority and that authority is expressed in his word, not outside it. We are to do what we do "in the name of the Lord Jesus," by his authority found in his word. Now reread Col. 3:17 and you will see this involves everything we do in religion and most assuredly in our worship.

Nadab and Abihu were doing a thing in the name of God which God had spoken nothing about. Nadab and Abihu were not condemned for doing a thing that was written but for what was not written or not given, and doing it anyway, because it pleased them. Do you think for a single moment that Nadab and Abihu thought it would matter? You know they didn't.

Peter says, "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God." You will need an oracle of God to do that. When you have to go outside the word of God for your practice it is because there is no oracle.

The New Testament tells us exactly how far we are allowed to go. We can go that far and no farther. How far? In 1 Cor. 4:6 Paul says, "not to exceed what is written" (NAS)--"not to go beyond what is written" (ESV). John says, (2 John 1:9 NKJV), "Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God." When we step outside what Christ has said, his written word, we step outside his doctrine and adopt the doctrine of man. On the Day of Judgment you do not want to find yourself trying to explain to God why you did that.

Today all kinds of things have been brought into the typical worship of churches for which man cannot find a New Testament book, chapter, and verse for and we all know that. I am not telling anyone anything they do not know. Most will readily admit it. They say God will not care. It makes no difference. It is still worship to God they say. It pleases him. But what do you do with John 4:24 that says, in part, that worship must be in truth and then John 17:17 which says God's word is truth? You then search the New Testament and cannot find a word about your practice, what then?

Sometimes they say they did it in the Old Testament; Moses did it or David did it so it has to be okay. Instrumental music in worship is an example. Which law did Moses and David live under? Instrumental music was a command of worship under the Law of Moses (see 2 Chron. 29:25), that is to say during that era or under that dispensation of time. Does one seek justification by an appeal to the Law of Moses? God said to those with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, "This is My Beloved Son. … Hear Him!" (Matt. 17:5 NKJV)

(You are aware that the church we find in the New Testament existed for hundreds of years before man brought the instrument into worship. This in itself tells you where it came from, God or man.)

But, the things brought from the Old Testament over to us today go far beyond just instrumental music. Things like the special robes and/or priestly attire worn by those who are considered to be somewhat in the church, the idea that there are two classes of brethren--one priests and then the rest of us, the ritualism we find often in the churches, and so on all from the days of the Law of Moses and none of which can be justified without an appeal to it. Will we hear Moses or Christ?

So how do we abuse the Old Testament? How is that done? It is by seeking justification from it, especially in the realm of public worship. That is not where you will find justification, not today.

I close with the words of God the Father on the Mount of Transfiguration. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" (Matt. 17:5)

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