Ruth: 3:10-13; A community without lies. The God who cannot lie; the Christian who cannot lie.Tuesday April 17, 2018
Title: Ruth: 3:10-13; A community without lies. The God who cannot lie; the Christian who cannot lie.
Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
Rom 1:19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Rom 1:21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Rom 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.
The lust of the heart is never fulfilled, not even temporarily.
Rom 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
The lie – the body of thinking determined by the creature (angels and men) that attempts to define good and evil.
2Th 2:8 And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;
2Th 2:9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders,
2Th 2:10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
2Th 2:11 And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false [the lie],
2Th 2:12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
The irony is that God called the ones He would give to the world apostles, which means to be sent with a commission. Here the word send is pempo, which is a general word for send, used of Christ being sent to the world, as well as John the Baptist, Elijah, and angels.
“The truth” in context is the gospel. Rom 1:21 – received foolishness. 2Th 2:10 – did not receive the love of the truth.
They did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. God no longer corrected the lies that they beheld. The gospel is still around them and even in their memory, and so they are always savable, but they continue to live in a very deluded state.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.
Rom 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
The phrase, “God gave them over” is repeated two more times. It is emphatic that God has left them to their own ways – lusts of their hearts, shameful passions, depraved mind.
This is an exceedingly sad phrase. The first time we read it, it is in reference to the lusts of their hearts.
The second time we read “God gave them over” is unto shameful passions. Homosexuality is revealed as being more degrading than the burnings of ordinary lusts like adultery and harlotry.
It would seem to me that God had, for some period of time, either protected them from certain aspects of darkness or revealed the error in it. This would be a way in which the Creator was revealing Himself, but they traded that revelation in in exchange for the darkness. God alone would then determine when it was judicious to “give them over.”
Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
Rom 1:27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
Deliverance from all sin is in Christ and whosoever may believe. The Bible reveals that man can proceed from bad to worse, becoming more callous, and abandon natural function for the unnatural, but it does not say that there is living person who has gone so far as to not be savable.
Yet, the Bible does reveal a certain path that can lead to the point of no return.
Hos 5:3 I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from Me; For now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot, Israel has defiled itself.
Hos 5:4 Their deeds will not allow them To return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, And they do not know the Lord.
The world wants the church to agree with it that such things are natural and normal, but to do so, the church would be doing a great disservice to the world and negate the reason why she is here.
If the church in any way condones or agrees with lusts of the heart, shameful passions, or depraved mind, she would be giving ground to the lie.
You do not negotiate with the lie. You cannot give ground to the lie and think it will stay satisfied. All it will do is smell weakness and demand more and more until the truth is dead.
The church is a beacon of light, the gospel, truth, and righteousness. None of them are to be compromised or they lose all their power to save and deliver. To do so is to do the worst disservice to the world that Christ died for.
Hos 5:11 Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, Because he was determined to follow man's command.
This doesn’t mean that we run around condemning sinners or that we isolate ourselves from them. We judge not. We show the love of Christ to all men. You don’t have to compromise with sin to do that; Christ didn’t. He dined with sinners.
The third “God gave them over” is to a reprobate mind.
Vs. 28 is written with irony in the Greek: “Because they reprobated the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” [Alford]
By not approving the knowledge of God their lives became something not fitting to human creatures created in the image of God. Again, Christ is the only One who can break this pattern.
Rom 1:28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
Rom 1:29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
Though it may not be the most exciting or loved object to go through each of the words on this list, it would be beneficial. However, most of these words are well known to us, and reading them here is reminder enough. All of these things are terrible enactors of pain, death, deep sorrow, and profuse shame.
It is a glimpse of what all of us as believers in Christ have been delivered from. We were all born into this stock of humans and all of us were capable of the darkness revealed here. If you can say that you are saved from it, then you can only thank the incorruptible God who saved you through His cross.
Rom 1:32 and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
What becomes clear in this revealing passage is that God made Himself evident to the human race, that they can seek and grope for Him and He will bring them to Himself, yet there are some of them who have exchanged the glory of God for a lie. Some received the love of the truth (Christ, the gospel) and some received foolishness.
Buying the lie leads every man to a depraved mind and doing things that are not proper, yet somehow, they know the ordinance of God, which again, I believe to be the conscience within them. Made in the image of God they have the knowledge within them that those who practice such things are worthy of death.
There is no life in it and somehow, they know this, but the conscience has become callous enough that any feeling is ignored.
Eph 4:17 This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
Many of the Christians in Ephesus are from Gentile stock. They have come from a pagan world. But for them that world is the old world and their heathen flesh is the old man.
Eph 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;
Eph 4:19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
We would add lying to this list of ignorance, callousness, lasciviousness (unawed by shame or fear, without regard for self-respect, for the rights and feelings of others, or for public decency), impurity, and to top the list, covetousness or greediness.
Paul then states the simple and the obvious, but poignant none the less. Such things have nothing to do with Christ.
Eph 4:20 But you did not learn Christ in this way,
This is not the kind of lesson you learned in the school of Christ, meaning, from the word of truth.
Eph 4:21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,
Paul is sure they have heard Him [first class condition].
Paul’s wording of this phrase [first class condition] shows us that he is sure that they have heard the truth of Christ. Many of them have heard it right from Paul, but naturally there will be newer converts among them, whom Paul addresses as well.
Eph 4:22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
Eph 4:23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
Eph 4:24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
“Put on” and “lay aside” are infinitives which can be either imperatives (commands) or indicatives (you have laid aside and put on). Be and live as you are in Christ.
It cannot be determined if these infinitives should be taken as imperatives (put them on and off) or indicatives (you have put them on and off). Remember that the word of God is inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and so, God knows this ambiguity and leaves it as it is. This, coupled with the indicative of Col 3:9-10, reveal that He has both in mind. He is saying, “You have put off the old man and you have put on the new man, and so now know, this is the only life for you. Walk in such a manner.”
The same expression in Col 3:9-10 clearly states the aorist participle which means that they have put off the old man and they have put on the new. To the Colossians, Paul writes of the old and new man in view of regeneration at the moment of salvation, when, through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we became new creatures (we put on the new man) and the sin nature was crucified (we put off the old man).
In Ephesians, the construction is different from Colossians, but it fits the context of this section of the letter, which is a call to the ethical life of the new creature in Christ. By using the infinitive in vv. 22 and 24 Paul seems to be drawing our attention to the fact that we have put off the old man and put on the new at salvation, and we are to purposefully walk in a way that corresponds to that truth and reality.
The call to conduct in Rom 12-13 is much the same. It is a call to living as Christ and it is summed up in the phrase, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” which is the same as putting on the new man, for the new man is essentially the Lord.
Rom 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
Gal 3:26-27 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
|