Sunday, March 3, 2019

Lord's Day 37


Thoughts on Devotions – LD37

Q. 101 But may we swear an oath in God's name if we do it reverently? Q. 102 May we also swear by saints or other creatures?

DeYoung, in The Good News We Almost Forgot, notes the issue of oaths was an important topic at the time of the reformation. One issue was whether people were bound by monastic oaths and oaths sworn to saints – they were not. These “rash” oaths were made for wrong reasons and should be their making should be repented. The other issue was whether any oaths were lawful – the answer is yes. While the Anabaptists use Matthew 5:33-37 to forbid all oaths, the Reformers pointed out that there is multiple mention of proper oaths in the Bible – e.g., God swears by himself to guarantee his promises (Hebrews 6:13).

Monday: There are times when a solemn vow is required because the issue at stake is so important. A person swears to tell the truth in court; an elected official vows to fulfill the duties of office.
Genesis 21:22-24 At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. Now swear to me right here in Godʼs name that you will not deceive me, my children, or my descendants. Show me, and the land where you are staying, the same loyalty that I have shown you.” Abraham said, “I swear to do this.”
Romans 1:9-10 For God, whom I serve in my spirit by preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness that I continually remember you and I always ask in my prayers, if perhaps now at last I may succeed in visiting you according to the will of God.

Tuesday: God swore by himself to fulfill his promises since there is no one greater than himself. God never lies so there technically is no need for him to swear an oath, but necessary oaths that we might take vows by God (submitting to his judgment) that what we are doing is honest and true.
Hebrews 6:13-18 Now when God made his promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you greatly and multiply your descendants abundantly.” And so by persevering, Abraham inherited the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and the oath serves as a confirmation to end all dispute. In the same way God wanted to demonstrate more clearly to the heirs of the promise that his purpose was unchangeable, and so he intervened with an oath, so that we who have found refuge in him may find strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us through two unchangeable things, since it is impossible for God to lie.

Wednesday: We may not swear by anyone other than God – that is because we are calling for one who can judge our hearts and inner thoughts to be true. To swear by anyone else is to put them in the role that only God can properly take.
Deuteronmy 6:13 You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name.
Deut. 10:20 Revere the Lord your God, serve him, be loyal to him and take oaths only in his name.

Thursday: Law courts and political ceremonies no longer require people to swear by God's name. Now people are just asked to solemnly swear to tell the truth or carry out responsibilities. God speaks only truth and hates falsehood; God's people must similarly must love truth as God loves truth.
Luke 1:18-20 Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old as well.” The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will be silent, unable to speak, until the day these things take place.”

Friday: Even if oaths are not required, God's children should always speak truth to be like their heavenly Father.
1 Chronicles 28:9 “And you, Solomon my son, obey the God of your father and serve him with a submissive attitude and a willing spirit, for the Lord examines all minds and understands every motive of oneʼs thoughts. If you seek him, he will let you find him, but if you abandon him, he will reject you permanently.
Psalm 44:20-21 If we had rejected our God, and spread out our hands in prayer to another god, would not God discover it, for he knows oneʼs thoughts?
Romans 2:16 on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.

Saturday: God's children must love and speak truth as God does. If we promise or make an oath we must follow through even if it is difficult or costly. We should, therefore, be careful about making promises in the first place, but if we do promise we should show that our word can be trusted because that is what our Father, God, is like.
Psalm 15 Lord, who may be a guest in your home? Who may live on your holy hill? Whoever lives a blameless life, does what is right, and speaks honestly. He does not slander, or do harm to others, or insult his neighbor. He despises a reprobate, but honors the Lordʼs loyal followers. He makes firm commitments and does not renege on his promise. He does not charge interest when he lends his money. He does not take bribes to testify against the innocent. The one who lives like this will never be upended.

Reading between the lines...

God declares believers in Jesus “Saints” through Paul and other NT writers. A saint is a “holy one” - there is nothing in our natural circumstances or our behavior that would define us as a saint, but we are declared saints purely through the work of the Holy One, Jesus Christ. How does God view us? It is not like a dimmer switch – it is either on or off, like an ordinary switch. We are either in Christ or not – if we are in Christ, even though we are still sinners, God sees us as holy – saints!
Romans 1:7 To all those loved by God in Rome, called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Ephesians 1:7 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 1:21-22 And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him

A law unto themselves” usually means someone who does not follow convention. Scrivener describes Gentiles who now have the law written on their hearts by the indwelling Holy Spirit as “a law unto themselves”. They have escaped from under the law to be good from the heart.
Romans 2:12-15 For all who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous. For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them,

Hope against hope is the hope you have when there is no hope. Paul uses Abraham as an example of this. He shows that salvation comes through God's grace, not through our goodness or faithfulness. Salvation is from the Lord. Abraham can do nothing other than trust in God's promise. The context for faith is a hopeless, barren place – it is a confrontation between the deepest human weakness and the greatest Divine strength. Faith is trusting the Lord's Word and not our capability. We trust God to do the impossible. Trust that God will do what God has promised.
Genesis 18:11 Abraham and Sarah were old and advancing in years; Sarah had long since passed menopause.)
Romans 4:18-22 Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarahʼs womb. He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

God forbid” might better be translated “may it never be”, but it has become a statement of indignant resolve. It occurs 26 times in the Bible, with the majority by Paul who uses it as a rhetorical device – he voices a possible rejection to his teaching and then rejects it firmly - “God forbid!” Sometimes salvation is thought of as an impersonal thing given to us, a blank check, and then we run off to live our lives. God does not given an impersonal thing – he gives us Christ! A person with whom we have become united – in his death and in his resurrection. We are not individuals with a “get out of hell free” card, we are members of Christ himself in whom our sin has been dealt with, once and for all. We have been brought through sin, death and judgment and out into new life. We have been saved from sin, free to live a new life. We think that to make people good, we need to add conditions – but conditional love causes us to turn from the lover to other things and increases sin. Jesus says we have an unbreakable bond, an unconditional love that, as we come to know it, makes us hate sin more and more.
Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
Romans 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
Romans 11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
1 Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!

This verse reminds us of 3 contrasting pairs: wages vs. gifts; sin vs. God; and death vs. eternal life. People usually view God as a taskmaster who requires us to strive to meet high expectations in order to be acceptable. Paul says this is a condemned view. Instead, God is about giving salvation freely. From all eternity God has been giver. The second pair is about 2 paymasters – sin pays out a wage; God gives a gift, he comes into the world to give life to sinners. The third pair shows us death as the loss of everything while eternal life is fullness and fulfillment. Sin is the legalist, God is the gracious one; sin demands that we work for a wage, God offers a gift; sin is death dealing, God is life giving.
Romans 6:23 For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

According to Paul there are 3 tenses of salvation: 1) Christ has saved us – completed! 2) we are being saved 3) we will be saved. Paul as makes a distinction between spirit (saved the moment we believed in Christ), mind/soul which is being renewed and body which will be saved when Christ returns. We have the flesh of Adam even as we have received the Spirit of Christ. The struggle that this causes should give us confidence that we have the Spirit of Christ within us. Paul's final word comes in Romans 8:1, that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ!
Titus 3:4-6 But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Romans 5:9 Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from Godʼs wrath.
Romans 12:1-2 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice - alive, holy, and pleasing to God - which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God - what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.
Romans 7:14-25 For we know that the law is spiritual - but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. For I donʼt understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want - instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I donʼt want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul calls people to live at peace with people even when subjected to evil and we might feel angry and vengeful. We need to leave revenge and pay back to God. Miroslav Volf states that the ability to respond in non-violence requires the belief in a God of vengeance, and that the only time violence is legitimate is when it comes from God. We do not have to take vengeance into our own hands, we can trust that Christ will judge perfectly. Having this knowledge can even inspire pity for those who inflict violence on others. It is the vengeance of God that creates peacemakers.
Romans 12:17-21 Do not repay anyone evil for evil; consider what is good before all people. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people. Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to Godʼs wrath, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Rather, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing this you will be heaping burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.