Many sermons have been preached on the temptations of Jesus and how to combat them, but most of the time, they end up being just a practical application for us. Matthew and Luke describe the account in detail, whereas Mark just skims over it with a sentence or two. A summary of the account goes as follows:
After being baptized, Jesus was driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness where for 40 days He fasted and was tempted by the devil. Three temptations are described: turning stones into bread, throwing Himself off the temple mount so angels could catch Him, and receiving the pleasures and rule of the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worshiping the Devil. Matthew and Luke have different orders, but that order is based on emphasis rather than chronology.
These three temptations were not all Jesus faced, but they cover the three major categories of temptation: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All temptations and sins we deal with can be sorted into one of these three categories. Jesus was tempted in other ways, too. Because He was tempted in all ways known and common to man, we have hope in overcoming them. So yes, Jesus did deal with sexual temptation, celebrity temptations, poverty temptations, food/drink temptations, peer pressure temptations, all of it. He did not deal with every application or version of temptation but every type or kind of temptation. Jesus did not deal with “internet porn” or “football addiction,” but He did deal with prostitutes, and as any other teen in His era, He would have faced questions about marriage and having a family. Of course, they had entertainment then, too. Jesus faced every type of temptation we can face, and the three emphasized here encompass all the major types of temptations.
But let’s dig into the mind of Christ and what He was thinking and doing throughout this account. First off, He had just been baptized, and this is when the Holy Spirit came upon Him and dwelt within Him, something that occurs to every believer at the moment of regeneration. But once He had the Holy Spirit, He was then driven to the wilderness. Jesus didn’t “choose” to go fast for 40 days. He was compelled to go. He was commanded to go. One of the first things we will face when we go into a new level in our walk with the Lord is a new wave of temptation and spiritual battles. The devil is going to test us to see if we are going to be legitimate threats or not. Jesus proved to be a legitimate threat.
We have to be careful about blaming the devil for everything wrong that goes on in our lives or for the difficulties we face. Both with Job and with Jesus here, it was God who chose to put His champions on the pedestal. But it was to be a proving ground. Jesus needed to demonstrate that He was not going to do the ministry by seeking the flesh and bodily needs. He needed to demonstrate He was not going to play the popularity game and do miracles for a show. He needed to demonstrate that He would not be motivated by any political, financial, or religious position by which He could influence anyone. While Jesus’ baptism was a declaration that He would not operate by the flesh, the temptations were the demonstration and proving of His claims. God knew Jesus would come through and helped Him through it, but claims are just claims until they are backed by actual practice. The baptism of Jesus was a public declaration that He was going to live and operate by the Spirit, not by His own flesh or desires, and the temptation of Jesus was the demonstration that He would live that way.
One thing I hate in myself is when I constantly fail to live up to the claims I make. It comes with the territory of being in a sin-cursed body, but it doesn’t mean we should accept it. In my writings, I drive home the point of living in accordance with God’s standards and not relying on self. Yet so often, I am guilty of doing just that. It is so easy to make declarations of faith, but until we actually get tested on them, they are just proclamations and noise. This is the severe problem we have in the American church. While the freedom of having no persecution has been awesome, there is no cost to being a “cultural Christian.” Real faith always has a cost. Jesus could have been baptized and gone straight into ministry and been fine because He was without sin. However, He had to go through the wilderness experience to prove that self was indeed stripped from Him. Likewise, we are going to have to go through tests to see if our faith is real.
In our culture, the primary testing will be through peer pressure and acceptance, especially regarding academia. There is a reason why “young earth creationists” are mocked and ridiculed. The enemy owns the academic centers (because the Christians literally handed them over due to fear of being seen as being “unloving”), and He will readily allow any origins model as long as it is not the Biblical one. When I was doing a long-term sub position for physics at a different school, during a planning meeting, the Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate was brought up, and I laughed at how Nye bombed everything and clearly didn’t do his homework. I got three hard death stares, and because I didn’t want to turn the whole meeting into a debate, I let it go. But I would have cleaned all three of those physics teachers’ clocks if I got turned loose… and then I’d have likely been out of a job. Has your faith been tested? I had a more intense sifting like wheat when I sought to witness to a co-worker back in 2007, and I ended up stirring a demonic stronghold in his life that started to manifest. That was a turning point for me, and it only made my faith stronger. It was so intense that I took the whole encounter and put it straight into my novel Call to Arms.
Jesus was tempted to prove His commitment, and He proved it. He would then spend the rest of His ministry living the lifestyle that His baptism proclaimed and the temptations that failed to deter Him. Next week, we’ll look at Jesus’ first teachings, primarily at Nazareth.
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Have you ever heard that argument that “my sin only affects me”? Or ever used it? Do you think that your sin will only affect you and you can choose to sin freely without anyone bothering about it? Naivety is the only nice word I can think of to describe such foolishness, because our sin does way more than affect us individually. It affects everyone around us and can even have lasting effects around the world.
The deception of thinking our sin only affects us is a deadly vice. The worst part of it is that this deception actually carries the subtle claim that the person making it thinks he/she will not face any consequences for their sin, and even if they do, they don’t care. It reminds me of the crowd and the Pharisees calling for Jesus to be crucified. They wanted Jesus dead so much that they even cursed themselves with Jesus’ blood upon them and their own children, never once actually realizing their own curse. And the Jewish people have, as a whole, not recognized their Messiah for the last 2000 years as a result (other than Messianic Jews who do). But I have noticed a trend that those who want to blatantly sin simply do not care about the consequences of their choices. They want to be left alone, and so they throw out this foolish lie that it’s their choice and their choice alone and don’t bother telling them about it.
The sin that most people use this argument for is regarding sexuality, specifically the sin of pornography. Pedophiles are renown for telling their victims that their sexual engagement was a secret between them. Potipher’s wife sought to seduce Joseph, and I am certain she said many times it would be their little secret and no one else would know. Porn watchers think they are just getting entertained in their bedrooms or on their phones, but they soon lose track of the fact that on the other side of the camera are real people degrading their bodies for such people’s entertainment, arousal, and pleasure. Not all of those people are doing it by choice. The stronger the lusts, the darker they go, and it goes from willing adults to children enslaved to such acts, both in the receiving and participation in such things. Here in El Paso, TX, we are known for drugs and the bars, but the sex industry is actually a bigger money maker. You cannot drive in or out of the city without coming across the adult stores. It’s a huge industry and to say that it only affects you is total naivety.
Besides Adam and Eve and original sin, there are two accounts I will bring up that showcase the severity of how one’s sin affects many others. One account is the unbelief of the 10 spies sent into the Promised Land and the other is Achan. Let’s look at the 10 spies.
When Moses sent 12 spies to the Promised Land to check it out, two of them, Joshua and Caleb, said that the land was ripe for the taking because they believed in their God. The other 10 feared the giants and the walls and did not see God at all, despite just a year earlier having seen God wipe out Egypt, the most powerful nation in the area. Note that Egypt had economic control over this region too, which is why Rahab reported that Jericho was so scared of Israel at their doorstep. But these 10 spies did not believe, and it caused a great uproar among the people to the point of mutiny. So, God chased them back to the wilderness for 40 years for the whole generation to die off.
Think about that. Everyone in the camp who was 20 or older in that camp had to wander for 40 years so their carcasses would not even be found. All adults were doomed to death, and only Joshua and Caleb would get to live beyond it. Now think about this. What about those teenagers in the camp who were old enough to see what God did in Egypt and actually did believe? We aren’t told of such people, but God has always had a remnant of believers. If any adults believed Joshua and Caleb, they didn’t speak up, so they perished too. But those teenagers who were promised freedom and a land of their own were so close and had to wait 40 years before going in. They were robbed of 40 years of enjoyment of the Promised Land because of the unbelief of others. And think of Joshua and Caleb themselves. They believed and were ready to go and they too were robbed of 40 years of land they wanted. You really think your sin only affects you? Some of you boys or men addicted to porn are costing your wife or future wife time of true pleasure and it may be preventing you from having kids too. Your sin prevents others from getting their blessing, not just you from yours.
And what about Achan? Achan, along with all Israel, went to conquer Jericho and yet God told them not to touch anything in the city. No spoils because God wanted them to trust Him more than spoils of war. Yet Achan saw some clothing and some gold, and he took it and hid it in his tent. What happened? Israel went to take on the tiny town of Ai and lost 36 men in a rout. It was public defeat and total shame. One man’s sin cost the nation 36 men their lives and public shame. Joshua came to confront him, and it cost Achan his and his family’s lives (mostly likely because they knew of the sin and did not report it). Again, Achan’s sin affected more than just him.
It does not matter what the sin is, it has long-reaching affects. This does not even address those sins that come back to visit us years down the road. The nice thing about the sins of the 10 spies and Achan is that there were immediate consequences. Many sins, however, do not come with immediate consequences, so we don’t think twice about it. Do not be deceived! God is going to deal with it all, and He knows precisely how to deal with it, too. David did not see the consequences of his sin with Uriah and Bathsheba for a year, and then later it came to full fruition with Absalom’s rebellion. Don’t think it will be any different with us. Our sins will come and find us out, and they will cost others as well.
Fortunately, the Gospel is able to provide an answer to this all. The Gospel not only deals with our sin, but it can save those our sin affects. The rapist and the murderer affect not just the sinner but the victim; the Gospel will either save the sinner or condemn him, but also save the victim. That is why we must give the Gospel to all people. Every person is both a sinner and a victim of other’s sin. We have all be hit by other people’s sins, too. We all need the Gospel. Only the Gospel can resolve it. Trust the Lord and He will set all things right.
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Many of us know Psalm 14:1: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” I was reading through the Psalms some time back in the Legacy Standard Version and saw something interesting. The LSB uses the New American Standard Bible as the base and sought to get an even more accurate word-for-word translation to include using “Yahweh” for “Lord” and “slave” instead of “servant.” But in Psalm 14:1, it includes the term “wicked.” The LSB says “The wicked fool says in his heart…” That caught my attention.
One thing I know about Scripture, it does not distinguish between “wicked” and “fool” here. The addition of “wicked” is simply an additional descriptor of a fool. There are not “wicked fools” and “righteous fools.” Fools are wicked, period. That is one of the points here. Psalm 14:1 is not merely talking about full atheists who openly and abjectly reject God’s existence; it also includes those who DO believe in God but live their lives as though He is not around to see and assess each word, thought, deed, and motive.
Let me be clear. Every one of us has been such a fool and lived as such a fool. Read the very end of the verse: “There is none who are good.” We are all wicked in our sinful state that is in such defiance of God that to even acknowledge His existence makes us cringe. And in the pride and stupidity of mankind, people have bought the lie that to deny God’s existence and role is “enlightenment.” The most “educated” people that the world praises think they can figure things out without God; time and time again they prove to be utter idiots. They are constantly wrong, always changing their story with “new evidence” but absolutely refusing to consider the time-proven truths that have always remained.
Look at how the Bible describes the sin-cursed mind.
"The shocking discovery can be best grasped in the following twelve different negative New Testament words that describe the ruin of man's intellectual capacity.
1. Romans 1:28: debased
2. 2 Cor 3:14: hardened
3. 2 Cor 4:4: blinded
4. Eph 4:17: futility
5. Eph 4:18: darkened
6. Col 1:21: hostile
7. Col 2:4: deluded
8. Col 2:8: deceived
9. Col 1:18: sensuous
10. 1 Tim 6:5: depraved
11. 2 Tim 3:8: corrupted
12. Titus 1:15: defiled
- Richard Mayhue: Think Biblically! page 39
This is the mind of the “wicked fool” of Psalm 14:1, and this is the mind of each of us apart from Christ. And yet, as a Church today, we have so embraced the “academic” of this world that we have failed to see this is their mind. It does not matter how many degrees they have. All education is capable of is instructing one fallen man by another fallen man on what fallen men think they have discovered. In reality, education to a sinful person just makes him more sophisticated in his ability to sin. That’s not true learning. And yet we have been so conditioned to listen to these people without question that when the Bible says one thing, the knee-jerk reaction is, “What about all these scientists? How can they be wrong?” The answer to that is they are nearly ALWAYS wrong. They are almost never right. And the few times they are right is when they are forced to admit what a CHRISTIAN has revealed and they have no alternative way to explain it. This is true in science, history, archeology, and everything. Most of the time, the only time the consensus ever says something correct is when they are forced to agree to what an individual discovered, most of the time by those seeking the mind of Christ in what He did and how He did it.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones saw the dangers in this over 70 years ago in his sermon “The Narrow Way”:
"The Christian Church in her utter folly during this present century has been recognizing a new authority, and the new authority, of course, is the man of knowledge, the man of culture, and particularly the man of scientific knowledge; and the church has been at great pains to do everything she can to please this new authority.
This man of learning must never be offended, and in order to please him and duplicate him, the church has been ready to take things out of the Bible. She rejects and throws out the whole of the first three chapters of Genesis. Much of the other history throws out all the miracles. She'll throw out anything in order to make her message pleasing and acceptable to this new authority, the man of knowledge, the man of learning, the man of science."
Yet what does the Bible say about this “man of knowledge”? It calls them all foolish, blind, and ignorant. And guess what? These so-called “great intellectuals even admit it. Listen to this:
“The practice of real-life science is much like figuring out the correct passageway through a maze. Not those printed mazes where you can see from the start where the exit lies, but one that you find yourself inside of, where the exit can only be found by experimenting with different routes.”
- The Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth, page 177
Talk about blind people leading blind followers! I’m listening to these guys and thinking, “How can anyone take this seriously?” And then I realize the depravity of man and the desperation to hear anything except what God says no matter how irrational it is. It is foolishness to leave God out of the equation. There is no rationality in any knowledge apart from God.
God is omniscient. He knows everything. – literally everything. He cannot learn because there is nothing for Him to learn. There is no one who can teach God. God has made sure that every single person has innate, pre-programmed knowledge of Him. No one has any excuse. As I have watched many people make their arguments either against God’s existence or without God’s input, I hear people who know full well that God is there, but they just don’t want His say on the matter… and yes, that includes many professing Christians. We have all done it. Some of us still do it. We need to repent of that mindset, especially if we want to be actually intelligent.
Don’t be fooled by the idiocy of the self-proclaimed intellectual. They do know what they speak of and unless their claims have their roots in what God has revealed, it will not only be wrong but it will be out of sin and wicked rebellion against Him. The wicked person may be able to say something correct from time to time, but the Bible is crystal clear we are not to sit at their feet or take any counsel from such people, and we will be blessed if we do not. Trust the Lord; do not rely on your own understanding. Doing the latter is not worth it.
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Repentance is the second part of brokenness. One will not repent unless he has first been broken over his sin. And if he does not repent, he has not been broken over it. Brokenness leads to a disgust of sin because that is where we taste the death it produces, or we see what it does in someone else and we decide we don’t want to go that way.
What is repentance? The short answer is that repentance is the turning away from doing one thing and going to do something else. It is the changing of both mind and will regarding a particular topic. To be more specific, repentance is not the mere ceasing of engaging in a sinful action or behavior but developing a loathing for that sin and a desire to have nothing to do with it. When David repented of his sin with Bathsheba, he never committed adultery again. He never slept with anyone else besides Bathsheba (she was Solomon’s mother). When he was dying, a young virgin was given to him and David refused to sleep with her. David’s famous prayer of repentance and penitence in Psalm 51 was backed by a total disdain for that sin.
David is one of the few pictures we get of true repentance in the Old Testament; throughout the Old Testament, we continually see the people going right back to their old sins. We see more repentance in the New Testament. Zacchaeus, Peter, and Paul are very clear examples of repentance. Zacchaeus met Christ and completely changed his way about his job as a tax collector. Peter denied Christ three times and he never would do that again, even taking a crueler death to not die like Jesus did. Paul was a persecutor and murderer of Christians and then became a Christian himself. There is no one in history who illustrates what the Christian life is and is about better than Paul.
People often ask if repentance is a work or a fruit. Is repentance something we do to earn salvation? No. Though it is something we do and we are responsible for doing, God does not save us IF we repent, as though repenting makes God owe us salvation. A murderer can murder once, instantly and forever regret ever doing it, but it doesn’t make him any less a murderer. He is still guilty and still in need of a Savior. But at the same time, why should God save anyone who wants to continue in sin? John Bevere shares his testimony in being delivered free from pornography, and the turning point was when he finally gained a total disgust for it instead of a thrill from it.
So does that make repentance a fruit, a result of God’s work on us? Actually yes. But at the same time, it is also a work. It is both. When God works in our heart and that process changes our heart of stone into a heart of flesh, we begin loving the things of God more and hating the things of sin more. While repentance was a command given by John the Baptist and Jesus to do prior to receiving the Gospel, it also is a work of God in a person.
But repentance is something more than that. It is a work that we do that doesn’t earn us salvation but rather prepares us for salvation. It is a fruit that results in the work that God has done in us. It also a third thing: it is a gift. Repentance is something that God offers. God pleads with us to repent, and He gives us the opportunity to do so. Keep in mind, repentance does not happen without brokenness. Brokenness only happens through the conviction of the Holy Spirit that we have grieved Him. Without that, we would not care about our sin, and we’d ride it straight to Hell, fighting God the whole way there. Yet God cares about us so much that He draws us to Him and uses the pain and sting of sin to bring us back to Him. Repentance is a gift in which we have a responsibility to use and follow the directions, which also produces fruit in our lives.
But here is something else repentance is not: a momentary thing. Repentance starts in a moment, but it is a continual practice. One thing that most unbiblical these days is the “altar call.” I am not talking about responding to a sermon due to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I am talking about the preacher summoning people to come up to respond to emotion. I am talking about “Who would like to ask Jesus into their heart? I see that hand.” While there are some who do genuinely begin the process of repentance at such events, the going up the aisle, getting prayer from someone, saying a prayer, and being declared saved is not repentance. That’s just emotional hype. Statistics have shown that 95% of those who do such things walk away unchanged. I can tell you right now and many will agree: if you walk away from that altar unchanged and you go right back to what you used to do and be like, you never encountered God nor were you convicted of any sin.
We need preachers preaching repentance again. We need them preaching what it is, what it looks like, how it behaves, and how it continues. We need to not merely preach that sinful things are sinful, but that there is so much more than what sin offers. We need to preach that there is a way out from those sins and that life in Christ, while it will be difficult, is far more satisfying than anything this world has to offer. Christ is the only One who DOES satisfy.
There is one more thing that preaching a correct response to the Gospel deals with: faith. Throughout Jesus and the Apostles’ ministries, they taught two responses: repentance and faith, or repent and believe. Let’s look at that next week.
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The reason why so many evangelicals today have turned to “seeking the sinner,” to “watering down the Gospel,” and even to “lowering the bar” to enter the faith as low as possible is because they find the actual message that must be preached is too offensive. Most people would say we need to preach repentance and yes, we absolutely must preach repentance, but people will not repent Biblically until they are broken. Brokenness and repentance are attached at the hip. You need one before you can get the other, and often by hitting the topic of one, if done correctly, you will get the other.
Growing up, I was extremely averse to the notion of being broken over my sin. I decided that I would rather be moldable and let God work my sin out gradually and more gently. The heart of seeking to be Christ-like and to follow Christ is still there, but I am coming more and more to the realization that we will not break through unless God breaks us. The two most powerful sermons on this topic I have heard are Voddie Baucham’s “Brokenness” and David Wilkerson’s “A Call to Anguish.”
Brokenness over our sin and brokenness over the sins of others and this world are what drives us to action. Look at any good movie or book. There is always a point where the protagonist is faced with a choice to go on the journey or not. The protagonist will nearly always refuse it until something triggers him and drives him to action. Usually, it is a personal tragedy or loss that strips the protagonist of his ties to the common lifestyle and drives him to the journey. And the reason why this works so well in stories is because this is the Gospel. The Gospel calls us to be broken over our sin, to have our ties to that sin to be broken, and then to be driven by that separation onto the journey with the Lord.
So, what is brokenness? Brokenness is the coming to the end of your rope. Brokenness is the coming to the realization that you truly have nothing left. It is the moment of complete, total, and utter defeat that has no visual or realistic chance of making a comeback. Brokenness is coming to understand and realize one’s fate and to come to the point of acceptance. Brokenness is the full realization that any hope you have must come from an outside source and that you are truly dead without that hope.
Brokenness has a sister description: conviction. Here I am not talking about a such strongly held belief that nothing can sway you but rather that deep guilt and realization of how evil and wicked one is and the weight of what that means hits them full force. When Nathan confronted David regarding Bathsheba and Uriah, David was convicted, and he was broken. He understood the total severity of his sin. So did the woman caught in adultery who was thrown to Jesus’ feet to be condemned. So was the crowd during Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. So was the Philippian jailer. In each of these cases, and there are many others, the weight of the sin pressed so heavily on them that their only option was to turn to the Lord and plead for His mercy.
We need to preach brokenness again. We need to preach sin again. We need to preach the holiness, righteousness, and justice of God again. I heard someone say that we can’t do “standard preaching” anymore because 70% of the youth are leaving the church. I replied that hardly anyone is even preaching at all anymore. Because of watering things down to be sinner/seeker friendly and to get as many in the door as possible, there is no preaching going on. There are TED talks. There are motivational speeches. There are feel-good messages. I’ve sat in some churches where this takes place, and I’ve sat in secular motivational speaker audiences before as well. The ONLY difference between the two is that one slaps God’s name on it and promises that God will deal with the problem. What did I get out of them? Absolutely nothing because there is no power in any of them.
The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Preaching is the God-chosen method by which that message is proclaimed. And yes, the world does reject it. So what? They are chasing after the motivational talks and are not getting anything from them either. But when a preacher gives a sermon that has the power to convict, that has the power to pierce that heart of stone so that it may shatter that hardness and reveal the beating heart of flesh on the inside, that is when the world gets turned upside down. But too many people don’t want to preach the Gospel correctly because chances are very high that they have their own sins that they don’t want to let go of. People do not want to hear messages that preach brokenness because they know they would be the one broken. They love their sin and want to stay in it, but they also want the free gift of eternity at no cost to self. They don’t want to rock the boat; they know that when the Gospel hits full force, nothing is the same and it’s like a bomb blew up. But every time the Gospel has done this, the aftermath has always been good.
But brokenness is not the end. As Baucham put it, repentance is the exit off a highway towards sin and Hell and brokenness is the off-ramp. Brokenness is just a short, small step in a much bigger process. It is brokenness that brings us to the feet of Christ; once we are broken, then we can get back up and live as Christ would have us live. Brokenness is the first step in the proper response to the Gospel, and repentance (a lifestyle of turning from sin) is the next. Repentance is not a one-time thing, nor is it something you do when you go forward down the aisle at church, say a prayer, and you are saved. Repentance is a fruit of God, a word needing to be done by man, and a gift from God. We’ll talk about that next week.
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This is the topic that triggered me to write this series. It was a comment made by my church’s teaching elder that the Gospel is not merely for the repentant sinner but also for those who have been sinned against. Understand first that every single person has sinned and therefore every single one of us does, in fact, deserve to suffer the effects of that sin. So let me get it on the table here that there are no such people as “innocent victims.” No one is innocent. Bad things only happened to one good person and His name was Jesus of Nazareth. Every one of us has sinned, and most of what we deal with and face is usually a result of our own sin and our own stupidity. We need the Gospel to deal with that.
However, this post is particularly for those who have been sinned against. Again, to reiterate, every single one of us has sinned and every single one of us has sinned against others. This is why the Gospel is the only valid solution to all of it, not mere vengeance. What kind of sins are we dealing with? We have all dealt with people lying to us, not keeping promises, stealing things from us, ignoring us, mocking, slander, etc. It is to the point where we mostly brush those things off our backs because it happens so frequently.
But for this post, I want to talk about the really deep wounds. I want to address those wrongs that are so painful and grievous that we really do want to see that person dead for justice reasons, not mere anger. The rape victim is violated for life and their body will always recall what happened to it. A murder victim is a lost life, and those attached to that victim will bear those scars for life. A kidnapping victim, especially one that endures physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse during that captivity, will always remember. It is bad enough when a stranger does these things. It is so far worse when this is done by a trusted person, either in the family or worse than that, a pastor. When those closest to you and those whom you trust the most betray you, it is the deepest and most brutal wound that a person could receive. They would endure years of the brutality of strangers rather than face such betrayal and deception.
I am not a counselor. I am not a victim of such horrific experiences. So, I truly cannot emotionally relate to those who have such experiences, nor will I try. But first, this is the wrong way to address it. A few years ago, an author sought to deal with such things, and he did so via a book titled The Shack. I applaud William Paul Young for being willing to tackle such things, but that is where my praise for him ends. This book, coming from an “Emergent Church/Progressive Christian” worldview in which universalism is a key unwritten doctrine, completely butchers the nature of sin, the character of God, and how righteousness and justice would win in the end. Those who have been severely wounded, like the character Mack had been when his daughter was kidnapped and murdered, would have a difficult time with Young’s solution, because all it boiled down to was, “You can’t say he did wrong, and he will be saved anyway.”
The solution to such severe wounds is not handwaving off the sin and letting it go. It is not “everyone gets to heaven.” It is the Gospel that will heal such wounds. Getting revenge will not heal such wounds. Even God executing justice will not heal such wounds; it only deals with the bad guy. The Gospel heals such wounds. We cheer the hero’s victory over the villain, however the wounds are often still there. It takes the healing power of the Gospel to close those wounds, disinfect them, and heal them. There will be scars, at least for this life, but there will be healing. One of the biggest problems we have are people who don’t want healing because their gaping wounds give them an excuse for their anger and their problems, so they can play the victim. God does not want us to play the victim but the victor, and we can only have victory by walking in the victory that comes from the cross and the resurrection.
It is Jesus who heals these wounds. Let me emphasize here that Jesus is the only one who truly understands the suffering of an innocent victim. Because He shed His innocent blood for us, who are not innocent, He is able to heal us. Isaiah said that by His stripes we are healed. Each of us has sinned, and God has allowed sinful people to act sinfully. It is not the victim’s fault that someone sinned against them; it is the sinner’s fault they sinned. But if God were to prevent the child rapist from raping, in His righteous justice He’d have to stop the victim of child rape from his or her own sin, too. It is not wrong to want justice when someone commits a crime. But we have to remember that each of us is guilty, too. While most reading this will not have murdered or raped or betrayed, actually we have. We have all broken each of the commandments either in deed or in the heart. Just because God has restrained our sin more than He has restrained others’ sin does not mean we are better people. Each of us deserves the death of the rapist, the murderer, or the traitor. And the Gospel is the only answer for both the culprit and the victim. We have all been victims of grievous sins in some way, shape, or form, and we have all been the culprits of such sins. None are innocent. If God were to deal with us “fairly,” we’d all be in Hell.
If God can save a lying, stealing, cussing, murderer and adulterer at heart like me, he can save those who do such things to me as well. I know our sinful tendency is to seek revenge. But it is also the tendency of those we betrayed to want revenge against us as well. For many, they do not know what they are doing, and only the Gospel can solve that problem. The very people whom Paul betrayed and murdered would be the first to welcome him into heaven. But those who commit such sins and do not repent, well, the Gospel has a message for them and it will not be a message of comfort. Yes, the Gospel reaches out to the hardened reprobate sinner and accomplishes its work in them, too. That is for next week.
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One of the first things Jesus did to begin His ministry was to proclaim liberty to the captives. Very little can describe an addiction better than being a captive of that addiction. Let’s cut straight to the brass tacks here: every single one of us has addictions. There is something our physical body or our mind is enslaved to that is not Jesus Christ. Some have it more blatantly and more obviously than others. Some can’t hide it; some are masters at hiding it. But every one of us has our addictions that we face, and Jesus came to set us free from them.
There are plain and obvious addictions, such as drugs and alcohol. Pornography is finally being recognized as a serious issue. Tobacco, smoking, etc. are also on the list. Once someone gets on the drug, they cannot get off, and if they do, they literally go through a withdrawal phase. David Wilkerson started Teen Challenge to help teenagers get off drugs and off the streets and get them real help. His biography The Cross and the Switchblade gives quite a few details about what goes on with a drug addict. Most of us know or have heard about the problem with alcoholism and how that drink so controls a person, like the town drunk who repeatedly and regularly makes a fool of himself. Josh McDowell was the son of the town drunk where he grew up, and that combined with the oft-repeated sexual abuse he endured by a farmhand drove him to bitter hatred against God. Yet, God redeemed him and saved him and his father.
Pornography deserves its own category because it is so severe today. Pornography is much more than looking at naked women. It is more than watching videos of people having sex. It is more than homosexual porn. It is more than looking at the extreme stuff. It is more than looking at naked children or watching adults do evil things to them or forcing them to do the evil deeds themselves. It also includes masturbation and getting yourself “excited” without involving another person physically. The physical acts of watching this stuff are so rampant that if you can find an honest person who has not struggled with this, you truly found a rare gem. But many people can control the opening of a browser window, the flipping through a magazine, or the reading of graphic accounts. It is what goes on in the head that is even more sinister. Many call it “fantasy porn.” It is what the imagination does in between those viewings. I remember hearing a mom catching her 10-year-old son having found such videos on his phone’s history. It started as innocent searching and then he found the dark stuff, and he cried to his mom saying he could not get those images out of his head. It is truly addicting, and it does not go away.
There are other addictions too that are less notorious because they are not inherently evil. Sports is one. Someone addicted to following a certain team is always looking at how that team is doing at any chance they get; they are always looking at the latest talk and updates, especially when their team is doing well. Video games and reading can be additions to the point where one cannot think or process without playing the next game or reading the next book. Binge-watching falls under this category, too.
Some addictions include family. There are some people, parents, grandparents, in-laws, etc. that have an addiction to knowing every little thing going on in the family and then being the solution. Some addictions include work or your job. Many people do not know when to take a break and they do not know when to say no. They become absentee parents because they are working well beyond their kids’ waking hours. Even sleep can be an addiction, telling the body when it is supposed to get up before what is natural.
There is one addiction that has only been identified scientifically just recently: dopamine, the biochemical that gives us “pleasure.” The Bible calls it the lust of the flesh. ALL addictions can be grouped together in this category. It is the search for pleasure, or at least started that way, and even when one tries to stop it, the brain, body, and mind demand that which is pleasurable. This was part of what Eve saw in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She saw the fruit as being pleasurable for eating. She was going to defy God and enjoy every minute of it – or so she thought. And ever since, she and Adam and mankind have had a desperate craving for pleasure, comfort, and the things that God promises, but not in God’s form, His timing, or even His distribution of them. Every single one of these addictions, even with things that are not sinful, are chains that will weigh us down and rob us of the true riches that God has for us.
Jesus came to break the chains of addictions. He came so that we may be freed from seeking our satisfaction in all these temporary things that only last for a moment. The creations of man can be used correctly, in moderation, or not used at all. There is a place for the use of the right drugs and even alcohol. Paul told Timothy to drink some wine from time to time to deal with his health issues. There is a place for sexuality, in the proper context of the marriage bed, and seeing the spouse in their glory instead of as toys of pleasure. There is a place for sports, work, sleep, hobbies, activities, family, etc. There is pleasure that can be acquired from them, but they are not our sustenance; Jesus is. When Jesus is our sustenance, we can truly enjoy those good activities. One of my friends, Steve Lillis, is a professional pool trick shot artist, and there was a season in his life when he compromised his faith and chased after fame and fortune, obsessed with pool. Then God broke him, and he literally laid down his cue stick, giving up the game so he could serve Christ. He never plaid again for 12 years until God gave him an opportunity to start using the sport to preach the Gospel. He and I connected very quickly because I did the same thing with fencing, and he founded his ministry on the exact same day I started fencing. So again, there are many addictions that are not sinful, but they can be if they get in the way of Jesus.
Jesus came to break us free from addictions so we can get our true pleasure from Him. As with any addiction, to break the habit, one must not only cease that activity, but he must also replace it with something else. Sadly, so many of us cease our activity with God and replace Him with something far less than. But the Gospel is for those who are addicted to the things of this world and to sinful pleasures – breaking those chains and giving them a much better source: Jesus Christ who truly can sustain all our needs. Jesus came to break the chains of the enslaved, but the enslaved need to recognize that they are indeed slaves and need to be rescued. And when the chains are broken and the door is open, we need to walk out and live the life of liberty. So few do that because the life of slavery is known and comfortable; a life of freedom otherwise is strange, foreign, and scary. But Jesus is a good master and all we need to do is put our trust in Him, and He will give us what we need for this life.
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Over the past few weeks, I have been explaining the major portions of the Gospel: God’s message to mankind on his malady of sin, the severity of it, and the solution, the way out. Now I want to get to the heart of what triggered this series: who does the Gospel reach and how does it affect their lives in those areas? I want to make clear that the Gospel is for everyone, in every type of situation. The Gospel exposes every one of man’s problems with one word: sin. It reveals the solution to that one problem: Jesus Christ. Sin is the thinking, actions, and lifestyle of one’s own way instead of God’s way. Salvation is the surrender and denial of self and submitting oneself to Jesus Christ.
The first group I will address that the Gospel reaches is the most obvious one for those in Christian circles to identify: the repentant sinner. The repentant sinner is someone who has realized the severity of their sin and the consequences of it. They understand they have broken God’s law and thus offended the Lord of Glory and made themselves a stench in His nostrils. They also understand the severity of the consequences and realize that they will not just spend eternity in hell for it, suffering most greatly, but they will never have any chance of fellowship with God ever again. They will never be able to experience life to its fullest. The repentant sinner understands he has already done this, and it grieves him so much to the point that he will literally change his lifestyle and his thinking to get away from it.
The result of a sinner who has realized the severity of his sin is sheer brokenness. The sinner will have reached rock bottom, realizing and understanding that he is in a pit with no hope of getting out of his own. He is at the end of his rope, the end of his pride, the end of any self-effort, and in total desperation, he will cling to the only hope that is offered. If he arrives at this point, he will also very likely have tried all other options already. To be broken like this will mean he will have either experienced it himself or seen it in others to know that the other routes will not work. He will not try alcohol or drugs. He will not go to any false or pretense of religion that merely tries to sweep away the guilt he feels. He will go to the very one he offended the most: God the Father. The clearest example of this is David in Psalm 51 where he confesses his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah before God.
To reach this state of brokenness, it will be God who bears such witness to his guilt, and it will drive him to his knees, if not his face to the ground. Paris Reidhead speaks of John Wesley in England and John Wesley Redfield in Yale, CT, that when they preached their multi-hour sermons about the holiness of God and the severity and depravity of sin, that hundreds to even thousands of people would be so weighted down with the guilt of sin that it drove them to unconsciousness. This was the impact of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” There was nothing special about these preachers’ delivery, but it was the preaching under the anointing from heaven to bring sinners into brokenness so they may repent. Unlike the crusades of today, people did repent and changed their lives.
The Gospel changes lives. Jesus died so that the just punishment we deserve for our sins was taken upon Himself in our place. He put His own righteousness upon us as though we never sinned to begin with. But this exchange is not a “Get Out of Hell Free” card. It is also an exchange of mindsets, an exchange of lifestyles, and an exchange of interests, drives, and motivations. The sinful lifestyle is to be put to death as Jesus died. In its place, the new life of Christ is born in us and comes with the resurrection of Jesus.
No clearer example of this can be seen than the Apostle Paul. He was an evil man who thought his religion was sufficient to make him right with God. He sought to arrest and murder those who professed the name of Christ, the very messiah his own faith proclaimed. Then Jesus knocked him on his backside and blinded him. In that state of brokenness, when Paul met Jesus, he saw his own sin and he became a new man. He would no longer be identified as Saul of Tarsus but as Paul the Apostle.
But there is something else about Paul that marks someone who has been saved after having his sin fully exposed and coming to know Jesus Christ. The repentant sinner is not crushed by his own sin just one time; he is repeatedly and ever increasingly aware of his sin and its severity. Paul started out boasting about how great a Savior Jesus was, but he continually became more aware of just how severe his sin was and would consider himself the chief of all sinners. Paul knew his weaknesses, and he also knew how much he sinned AFTER he became a believer. And he bemoaned himself how he could be saved from sin, how he could know what right and wrong truly was, and he would still sin. And he recognized that it was never in and of himself that he could ever do right, but only Christ in action, through him, that he could be saved. Paul’s rant in Romans 7 is not that we are hopeless in our sin, but that in our own strength we are hopeless. That is why we need a Savior, and we need to rely on Him wholly and completely. We will never overcome sin on our own even after salvation. Only Jesus can overcome sin. And only by denying self and dying to self on a daily, hourly basis, will we see victory.
Jesus died for the repentant sinner. He died for those broken by the weight of their sin and who know their only hope is found in Jesus. He died for that prodigal son who came to his senses and realized his sinful lifestyle destroyed him and shamed his family’s name. He died so that these people may have a new life, that their sinful past may be a thing of the past, and that they may now live new lives in the hope and glory of the King.
But the repentant sinner is not the only one whom Jesus died for. The Gospel is God’s message to mankind, and it will not return void. There are others whom the Gospel reaches too. Stay tuned for the next few weeks as there are more for whom the Gospel comes to save.
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If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
- 2 Corinthians 2:5-11
In the section of his letter right before this passage, Paul wrote about feeling pain, causing pain, and avoiding more pain in the future. He also ended verse 4 with a statement about not wanting to grieve the Corinthians but instead desiring that they know his love for them. This passage echoes those same themes.
Scholars debate whether Paul is writing about a certain individual in this section or whether it’s general commentary. Paul does not name names, but some think that this refers back to the person guilty of incest in 1 Corinthians 5. However, others disagree with that as this letter is too far removed from that situation. Paul does not name any particular person he may or may not have had in mind.
In verse 5, Paul shares that for anyone who has grieved (or caused pain to) the Corinthian church, the result is not that Paul is caused pain but that everyone in their congregation is caused pain. One person’s sin against the congregation will be felt by the entire congregation, and Paul too as he feels responsible for them, though to a lesser extent.
Verse 6 gives us insight into discipline within the church at Corinth. Whatever Paul is writing about that was disciplined was clearly a public matter within the congregation. We don’t know what methods they used for discipline then, whether it was some kind of formal gathering, whether the punishment had been decided upon by a few people or a general vote, etc. But Paul indicates that the punishment was inflicted “by the majority,” and that punishment should be sufficient. We often like to keep reminding people of their wrongs, even after they have been appropriately disciplined, and Paul is cautioning against that here.
Discipline should serve not just as a punishment for a wrong that was committed but also to change the person. Paul emphasizes this in verse 7, instructing the people to forgive and comfort the individual. The point is not for that person to continue feeling sorrowful for what he did but rather to learn from it and be able to move on with life. Forgiveness involves healing from whatever wrong was done rather than continuing to remember and bring up the incident to continually punish the offender.
Another part of forgiveness is affirming love for the offender, as Paul writes in verse 8. If there has been a public discussion of the sin and a public punishment handed down, then there should also be a public reaffirmation of love to reinstate that individual back into the community, after he has been appropriately disciplined. This would also affirm God’s forgiveness in that person’s life. The community of the church would show God’s forgiveness in a tangible way to that individual by showing him their forgiveness.
In verse 9, Paul reveals that he was testing their faith and commitment. If the Corinthian church responded properly in carrying out discipline, then Paul would know that they were following his teachings and therefore working toward becoming better disciples of Jesus Christ. They would both need to start and end the disciplinary act appropriately in order to pass this test and prove that they view Paul as an authority over them to give them instruction on how to carry out such matters. It appears that the Corinthian church had passed Paul’s test.
Since they acknowledged that they do see Paul as an authority to teach them, Paul also needs to express forgiveness to the individual who requires this discipline (verse 10). But he also notes “if there was anything to forgive,” which implies that this may or may not have been an actual situation; it may have been general teaching rather than addressing a specific issue with a specific individual. Paul brings up Christ when discussing forgiveness, as it was Jesus who taught multiple times that forgiving one another is essential to living out the Christian faith. Forgiveness must be granted to keep unity in the church and for the sake of their relationships with one another.
Another purpose for this forgiveness is so that they do not give in to Satan’s evil schemes (verse 11). Withholding forgiveness from an individual who has repented and received appropriate discipline would bring disunity and grudges into the church, which are of Satan and not of God. Satan already had a hold on the individual when he committed the sin, and a lack of forgiveness would only increase that. There must be punishment for sin, but it must be administered in love and for the sake of correction, not just for punishment’s sake. The goal is reconciliation and repentance through forgiveness.
This is a powerful section of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians because it has great practical implications for our lives today. Paul urged the Corinthians to forgive and comfort the person who had caused grief with this sin. We, too, are called to heal broken relationships by extending forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
We are to reaffirm our love for them, even when it’s difficult because of how others have treated us. This reaffirmation of love is essential to build a community that is known for its love and unity. As Christ has loved us, so are we to love those in our Christian community.
Spiritual warfare is still a real thing in our world, as Satan seeks to lure us into sinful actions, which could then drag down an entire community if we’re not careful. Paul warns the Corinthians not to be ignorant of Satan's schemes. Unforgiveness and division within the community can create an opportunity for the enemy to hinder God’s work through us. Forgiveness is a spiritual weapon against the forces of evil, and we need to remember to use it.
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No story works well without a villain or without a dark trial to overcome. The Gospel is the greatest story ever told, and the reason why so many of these great epic stories resonate with us so well is because they actually encompass the Gospel and reflect the true epic of the Gospel. I have discussed the author of this epic (God) and the setting of this epic (creation which includes mankind), and now I’ll deal with the villain (sin).
Many debate who the original sin was done by, Adam or Lucifer, but this misses the Gospel. The Gospel is for man. Only man can be redeemed; the angels cannot. God gave no provision for the salvation of the angels because the angels were not made in God’s image. So even though Lucifer fell before Adam sinned, his sin does not count when considering the Gospel. Lucifer’s sin makes him the primary villain of the whole Gospel account for being the instigator, and his final judgment will be executed as prophesied in Revelation 20. However, Lucifer (Satan) is just an instigator. He has no real power or authority. He has no legal right to rule anything. He is called “the god of this world” or “the prince of the power of the air,” but he actually has no official position. He is a lowly worm, and when God fully exposes him for who he truly is, we will all gape in awe as to how this little worm could wreck the whole world so well with his craftiness and deceptions. And yet it was this craftiness and deception that tricked Adam and Eve to rebel against God and thus bring all of mankind into sin and rebellion against God.
I am not going to go into the whole account of Genesis 3 here, but I want to emphasize what their sin did. Adam and Eve’s original sin was more than just a personal choice. That is why we are not held responsible for their actual, physical decision to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We are instead held under a “federal headship” law that is passed down to us. We understand this notion in government where decisions not made by us are imposed upon us by our government. Adam acted as our federal head, our “governor” in this regard, and when he sinned, he submitted all his progeny to the law of sin of death. We each have this propensity towards sin that we inherit from Adam. This propensity towards sin is actually not full-blown immorality as many tend to think. It can more accurately be described as the desire and longing to do things your own way and to replace God as the ruler of your life. And because sin is the desire to go against what God says, all immoral ideas and actions are full game.
Because our nature is to sin, God will deal with that one way. However, we are directly responsible for our own transgressions. We know full well what God’s standards and His commands are, and we intentionally defy them anyway. That is why Adam’s sin was so treasonous. It was not a mere eating of a fruit; it was a direct defiance of God. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, God is holy, righteous, and just. He will not and cannot let that go without dealing with sin. And deal with it, God did. That very day. He confronted Adam and Eve, cursed them for their sin, and yet did not slay them on the spot. He instead gave a promise for a Savior and then demonstrated how that Savior would do His work by slaying an animal and using its skins for clothing, giving the first picture of the substitutional atonement.
God did not leave Adam and Eve to their own devices. However, sin had entered the world, and it would be permanently cursed. God will destroy the whole universe and rebuild it when all things are said and done. Sin escalated quickly with Cain and Abel, the first prototypes of the reprobate sinner and humble believer. Cain sought to do things his own way, and when that did not go his way and Abel was doing things right, it burned him and he murdered Abel over it. The world would get excessively worse to the point where only Noah and his family would be spared when God chose to wipe out all life except for those on an ark that Noah built.
As we continue through the Old Testament and world history, we see continual depravity growing and a departure from God’s ways. But we always see a group, a remnant, some who submit to God and His ways. It started with Abraham and continued through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Moses continued the line of faith but as we get into the Judges and Kings, again, only a few of God’s people would remain walking with Him. Everyone still sought their own things, their own ways, doing what was right in their own eyes, and rarely giving God a second thought. As a whole, it has only gotten worse with each generation, however, with each generation there has been a group loyal to God. God has brought nations to judge other nations, used natural disasters to destroy armies, and made generals commit horrible blunders they would never make otherwise to steer the course of history and to protect His people. And the day will come when God will return in His glory and put an end to the rebellion once and for all.
Man is desperately wicked. I know personally what my own propensities are, and I am at the mercy of God to restrain them because I cannot. I know if God were to turn my sin loose and let it run its full desire, I’d easily have people seeking my head for the things I’d do. I am not the hero of my story. I may be a “protagonist,” but I am no hero. I can hardly call myself a damsel who needs to be rescued. I am a villain. I am an anti-hero. My story on my own will only bring death and destruction. And no one is different. Our hearts are so wicked and deceitful and beyond saving that it is simply a miracle of how the patience of God and His longsuffering to save us. But didn’t I say we cannot be saved? Yes, I did, and that is the Gospel. That sinful heart has to be put to death, removed entirely, and replaced. This is why Jesus said we have to deny ourselves to follow Him. The sinful self is judged and will be judged, and yet, God still seeks mercy and restoration. How does he do that? Though Jesus Christ. That is for next week.
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There is only one tale of slavery that depicts the brutality of man upon another greater than our typical image of the US/European slave trades: the slavery of Israel in Egypt. The account of Israel’s slavery in Egypt is one that stands out above all others. It is the primary account of a nation who came and blessed another nation, only for the host to turn on them and enslave the whole without conquest or a fight. It is also the only account of an entire nation being delivered from slavery without conquest or a fight. The history of Israel going to Egypt (the most powerful nation on earth at the time), being enslaved, being miraculously delivered by God, and then their journey from slavery into the Promised Land is meant to be a picture of the Christian life. Only instead of being enslaved by a nation, our slavery is to sin. I’ll deal with that as the series goes, but today, we’ll focus on Israel.
Israel came to Egypt through Joseph. Joseph was kidnapped by his brothers, sold into slavery, arrived in Egypt where he served Potiphar, was falsely accused of rape and imprisoned, and then interpreted several dreams, the latter of which was Pharaoh’s and brought him into the Prime Minister position. When the famine hit, Joseph’s father Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) sent his sons to Egypt to get food. After testing their hearts for a while, Joseph could not restrain himself any further and revealed himself. He brought his whole family to Egypt where they were given the best land, Goshen. Through Joseph, Egypt was made a powerful nation and survived the famine.
Yet, Israel got comfortable in Egypt and did not return to Canaan. They grew and multiplied and made Egypt afraid. So Egypt, who refused to remember what Joseph did for them many years earlier, captured Israel and enslaved the nation with brutal force. Israel lacked the strength of man or the leadership to leave. Again, they were comfortable in Egypt. Goshen was lush, and they had all the food they wanted. There were hardships from slavery, but they tolerated the slavery, having little clue of what was waiting for them in the Promised Land. There was something else that happened while in Egypt: they began adopting the Egyptian culture and the Egyptian gods. This is why they turned to create a golden calf just months after leaving Egypt at Mt Sinai. They had even taken altars and images of Molech through the wilderness.
When the time was right, God raised Moses to be educated in Egypt so he would learn leadership skills, language, law, etc. God sent him to the wilderness for 40 years to teach him true humility, and then God called him to deliver Israel from Egypt and lead them right up to the entrance to the Promised Land. In performing many miraculous signs, Moses proved he was God’s spokesperson and eventually Pharaoh finally broke. Through the account of the Ten Plagues, we see several things about Pharaoh, who represents sin.
Pharoah, when challenged, set his foot down and went on a power trip. He took away the straw from Israel but would not reduce their workload in making bricks. He refused to even acknowledge God, let alone obey Him. No matter how much damage he took, he was not going to let go of his slave work force. Sin does not care what the loss is; it is determined to keep its grip on you. When sin has a person, you can discipline them until you are blue in the face, but they won’t budge. Pharaoh’s own officials recognized it early and quickly, but Pharaoh would not quit. The plagues were also a judgment upon the gods of Egypt. Each plague was a blow against the major deities of nature that Egypt worshiped, including the frogs, the bugs, the sun, the crops, and the animals. God wasn’t just judging Egypt for enslaving His people; He was taking down the idols to prove that He was God and none other.
Then upon leaving Egypt, God destroyed the Egyptian military by burying them in the Red Sea miracle. Israel was saved from the physical nation of Egypt, but they weren’t totally saved. God had pulled Israel out of Egypt, but then He would need to take Egypt out of Israel. Through the wilderness for 40 years, God would use the desert to strip Egypt from Israel. Israel constantly complained about the wilderness and wanted to get back to Egypt. Why? Because there was food and comfort there. It sure is amazing how selective our memory is about past times. Just ask a parent. They love to talk about when the kids were younger kids, relishing the fun things, but they selectively don’t remember all the battles of the terrible twos, the tantrums, the messy, smelly diapers, the rebellion, etc. The same is true about Israel. They remembered the dates, the figs, and the onions, but they forgot the left the whips, the chains, and the deaths. They also forgot what was promised but not yet realized. They wanted instant gratification, much like our current generation.
Because Israel refused to let God work Egypt out of their system, because they refused to let go of their sin and refused to serve God, God forced that generation to die in the wilderness. And the children, all of whom were under 20 and still alive and understood what was happening, were forced to endure 40 years in the wilderness while their unbelieving parents died off. One thing we can learn from Israel: many rescued slaves actually don’t want to be rescued. They would rather continue in their slavery because they know and understand it. A journey with God is scarier than facing the wrath of their masters. Can you believe it? Israel cried out to God to be rescued from the bondage of Egypt, and when they got it, after witnessing many miracles and God’s goodness, they preferred Egypt to the temporary journey towards the Promised Land. In hindsight it is easy to see, but how are we any different?
Israel’s time of slavery was meant to be a clear physical picture of our slavery to sin. The deliverance of Israel in the Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea are pictures of what Jesus did on the cross and the baptism into the new life. Yet many of us still have “Egypt” left in our systems, and many of us are not willing to let go of the former master that “fed” us all the while beating and torturing us. It was said that people once asked Joseph Stalin how he kept the people in line. He grabbed a chicken and violently ripped out its feathers, leaving it scarred and bloodied. He then began to toss some food to it, and it soon began eating the food and following Stalin. Stalin said that all he had to do was feed the people just enough and house them just enough to get them to think he was their source, and no matter what he did to them, they would still follow him. The same is true about Egypt, and the same is true today for many people who follow the government no matter what they say just so they can get a tiny morsel of food from them. Next week, we’ll start looking at modern slavery – a slavery without chains but with much stronger bonds.
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“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
- 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
The problem of sexual sin was clearly a big issue for the first-century church in Corinth, as Paul continues to address it in his letter to them. In the previous verses, Paul included sexual sins among a much larger list of sins, indicating that the people really needed to change their ways in order to live in a way that honors Christ. Here, he further addresses changing their mindset.
Some of the believers in Corinth believed that they were allowed to do anything (verse 12). They likely took that idea of freedom in Christ too far, claiming that they could do whatever they wanted because they would be forgiven. While we don’t have dates on Paul’s writings, scholars believe that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians before he wrote Romans, so they would not have had the beginning of Romans 6 to refer to, telling them that they should not go on sinning just so that they could receive more grace.
But the questions the Corinthians should be asking are whether an action is beneficial for them and whether that action could become their master. We are allowed to do whatever we want; God has given us that free will. But that does not mean that we should do whatever we want, because sinful actions are not beneficial, and they can very easily become our master and control our lives.
It appears that the Corinthians were using the argument that the act of eating has no bearing on Christian morality, so why should what they do sexually matter (verse 13)? Paul agrees that eventually, we will have no need for food or our stomachs, but sexual immorality is different so they cannot make that parallel. Eating is a natural process, but sexual immorality is unnatural. Our bodies are meant to glorify God and to be used in the ways that God intended, and sexual immorality goes against that.
So along with asking whether something is beneficial and may become a master over our life, we should also ask two additional questions. Will the action be glorifying to the Lord and to the intended purpose of our bodies? Will the action support the fact that the Lord has redeemed our bodies through his death and resurrection? Just because we can do an action does not mean that we should, and as people who strive to glorify God with our lives, we should carefully weigh every action with these questions.
In verse 14, Paul goes on to show the connection between God and our bodies. God’s power raised Jesus from the dead, and that same power of God will raise us one day too. We will be raised out of corruption from our sin into perfect eternal life, which was bought and paid for by the death of Jesus.
Because of that, our physical bodies “are members of Christ himself” (verse 15a). We should treat our own physical bodies as we would treat Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Because of that, Paul gives additional warnings in verses 15-16 that we should not unite our bodies with a prostitute because that would be the same as uniting Christ with a prostitute. Paul reminds them, quoting Genesis 2:24, that having sexual intercourse unites the two bodies together into one flesh – whether they are married or not. We should treat our bodies as we would treat Jesus, who we claim to honor and glorify.
Then Paul takes it one step further and says in verse 17 that, “whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” Uniting our bodies physically also results in the uniting of our spirits. The body and spirit are connected; when one is united, so is the other. This is a good unity when it is in the proper context of marriage, but outside of that, it is immoral.
Paul gives them a clear command in the first part of verse 18: “Flee from sexual immorality.” He then gives more explanation as to why he’s talking so much about sexual sin – because it is a sin against one’s own body. All other sins are committed outside the body, but this is a sin against our bodies. Sexual sin actually defiles the way our bodies were created to function and be in unity with one another and with God.
But when we’re told not to do something, it’s always helpful to also look at the positive side of things. In verses 19-20, Paul shares that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We have one person of the Trinity of the holy God dwelling inside of our bodies! If we profess any kind of allegiance to God, that alone should make us want to honor God with our bodies. He is literally living inside of us! If the person Jesus was going to come to your house for a visit, wouldn’t you do everything possible to clean up and make your home look perfect? The same should be true with our bodies; we should do everything possible to honor God with our bodies because He is living in them.
We do not own our bodies; they were given to us by God. Not only that, but He bought them at a price – that price was the blood of His Son Jesus. Because of all of that, we should desire to honor God with our bodies, especially when it comes to sexual sins. We must remember who our bodies should be united to, both physically and spiritually. Just because we are permitted to do things out of freedom, that does not mean that we should do those things that do not honor God.
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Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
This passage is often cited to condemn many kinds of sexual sins, but it’s important to remember its context, which goes all the way back to the beginning of chapter 5. There, Paul begins to warn the people about the sin of sexual immorality, specifically incest, that was happening in their congregation. Then, Paul gives them stern warnings not to associate with people who willfully sin like that – they should not be a part of the church until they repent. Paul takes a slight diversion into lawsuits among believers, and then he ties it all together with the concluding thoughts that we’re looking at today.
Many people just want to jump right into this passage to bring about condemnation on people who commit these sins, but that’s not the model that Paul gives us. He provides warnings and instruction not to the person who is sinning but to the church! Paul’s responsibility as God’s messenger is to the believers who have faith in Jesus, not to pronounce judgment on those who do not have faith in Jesus.
So, now that we’re aware of the broader context, what does this particular passage say?
In verses 9-10, Paul gives a very stern warning that those who practice these acts of wickedness will not inherit the kingdom of God. If they are willfully doing these things, then they’re not following the ways of Jesus at all. While Christians are human and we do sin, there is a difference between repeated, intentional sinning and other times we fall into temptation.
So, what’s on Paul’s list of sins here? Sexual sin, idolatry, adultery, male prostitutes, homosexuality, stealing, greed, being drunk, abuse, and cheating. This passage is usually used for its inclusion of specific sexual sins, but it’s important to note the other sins listed in there too. Idolatry is really the root of all sin; we sin because we are worshiping someone or something other than the one true God. (For more on that, check out the blog post series beginning with this post by Charlie Wolcott.) Along with idolatry, two specific sins that made God’s top ten list (i.e. the Ten Commandments) are also included in this list: adultery and stealing.
But, the sexual sins are often what gets focused on in this passage. There are generally two angles that people take: using this passage to condemn others, or using this passage to try and justify whatever sexual sin they’re committing because it’s not specifically named in this list. So, what is on this list?
“Those who indulge in sexual sins” is from the Greek word pornos, which is where we get our English word pornography from. Various Greek dictionaries have given further definitions of this word as a fornicator, whoremonger, a man who practices sexual immorality, a male whore/prostitute, or a political entity hostile to God. This word is different from the word for an adulterer.
The word translated as male prostitutes (malakos) has also been defined as soft, fancy, or luxurious when referring to cloth. But when referring to a person, it can mean a homosexual, a homosexual pervert, mild, fair, being in a same-sex romantic relationship, effeminate, men and boys who are sodomized by other males in a sexual way, or a general sexual pervert.
Then how should we translate the word we see as “practicing homosexuality” (arsenokoites)? Various dictionaries give it the definitions of a male sexual pervert, a man who has intercourse with a man, or a male who engages in sexual activity with a person of his own sex. One prominent Greek dictionary gives the difference between this term and the previous one as the malakos (“male prostitute” being the more passive one in a homosexual relationship, while the arsenokoites (“practicing homosexuality”) is the more dominant one.
Now, note that while all these terms are specifically listed with the male gender, the male gender grammatically can also refer to both men and women. The text is not specifically clear on that. But again, remember that this list is not just about sexual sins; there are many other sinful lifestyles included as well!
The same phrase “not inherit the Kingdom of God” is used at the beginning of verse 9 and the end of verse 10. This serves to emphasize the point – Paul didn’t just say it once but twice, showing it is of great importance.
But, it is very important that we don’t get stuck on the list of sins and that we move on to verse 11: “But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” While some of those in the Corinthian church may have been living those sinful lifestyles he mentioned, they are not living that way anymore! There is a strong “but” conjunction there to indicate the transformation they had experienced.
Paul lists 3 actions that occurred during this transformation: they were cleansed (as in baptism; Matthew 28:19, Titus 3:5-6), they were made holy (set apart as God’s people; 1 Peter 2:9), and they were made right with God (God declared them righteous; Romans 3:23-26). All of these were not done by their own power but through the power of the triune God – they were made right with the Father through the name of the Son Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The point of this passage is not to provide a list of sins to avoid but for Paul to show the Corinthians how they are all guilty of such things and need to change their ways. They were being influenced too heavily by the pagan society around them. As believers in Christ, they needed to live their lives in a different and more God-honoring way than the people around them. Their lives have been transformed by the sacrifice of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, and they should live in a manner that reflects that radical transformation.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
