Survey of Biblical Theology - Lesson 18

So, we're really continuing this theme of what it means, we're kind of diving down, what it means to live out our lives as Christians and this eschatological tension. And another way to think about this is to think about pulling paranesis. I mean, paranesis is a big word, but paranesis just stands for exhortations, commands.

So, yeah, I have this German book here by Wolfgang Schrage, which I think is a very good book. Most of you probably don't read German, but if you do, this is a good book. I'm translating it, The Concrete Individual Commandments and the Pulling Paranesis. 

And then there's a book by Thomas Data, New Covenant Morality. Both of those books I think are really excellent. So, we're thinking of commands and on the one hand, there's a danger of a Mishnah.

Now, what's the Mishnah? The Mishnah is a Jewish book compiled in around AD 200. And I have that book. My copy is about 600 pages and it's just full of detailed commands.

Maybe some of you have read it, really detailed. Well, I think that's a danger, right? God's commands aren't like that. They're like a rule for every situation. 

That's not how pulling paranesis works. So, that's one danger, right? A rule for every situation, just incredibly detailed commands. And sometimes, you know, our churches can start to lean in that direction, giving rules for everything. 

Others have wanted to say, well, we don't need any commands. We just need the Holy Spirit. The great scholar, and I love him, the great scholar FF Bruce, kind of leans in that direction. 

All we need is the Holy Spirit. We really don't need commands. But I think Paul strikes a very good balance in this regard. 

And I want to say spiritual people, that is people who have the spirit. That's what I mean by spiritual people, who are spiritual people. People have the spirit. 

Spiritual people are Christians. Spiritual people need exhortations. Paul says in Galatians 6.1, you who are spiritual, restore those who are overtaken in a trespass with a gift, with a spirit of gentleness. 

Now, when Paul says you who are spiritual, I would argue he means all the Christians. I don't think he's saying those of you who are really the great Christians among you, you restore a person. I think he means those of you who have the Holy Spirit, restore those who are overtaken in a trespass. 

My focus in this verse here isn't on the command, but that a command is given. Paul doesn't only say you'll just be led by the spirit. He gives them a specific command. 

This is what you're to do. You have the spirit, but here's a helpful piece of advice. You need to restore these people in a particular way. 

Or in 1 Corinthians 6.12-20, there Paul tells us that our bodies, our individual bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. But in the same passage, he gives us exhortations regarding sexual purity. So, he doesn't just say, well, you have the spirit, you'll know what to do with your body. 

He says, you have the spirit, don't have sex with a prostitute. That's wrong. Don't use your bodies sexually in a way that is contrary to God's will. 

So, one of my favorite passages in this regard is 1 Thessalonians 4. Paul says to this church, brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus that as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God. So, Paul gave instructions to believers on how they should live and please God. He didn't give them a mishnah, but he did give instructions. 

And he said, as you're doing, do this even more. For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. So, we did give you commands.

There are commands in the Christian life. So, what's my point here? Why am I even talking about this? That's not contrary to life in the spirit to say, there are certain commands where you to obey that doesn't violate life in the spirit. But Paul says in verse 9 of 1 Thessalonians 4 about brotherly love, you don't need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. 

In fact, you're doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you brothers and sisters to do this even more. Did you notice the kind of paradoxical wording of this? I don't need to write you to love one another because you have the new covenant. 

You're taught by God. I think he's actually referring to a text we already looked at, Isaiah 54, 13, which I think is a new covenant text. Then all your children will be taught by the Lord. 

So, you're taught by God to love one another. I don't need to talk to you about that. But then he does say love God even more.

He says you don't need a command. But in one sense, you don't need a command because it's written on your heart. But in another sense, you do because he says do this even more.

By the way, can I just say a pastoral word here too? I think this is a great way to address congregations. There are times which congregations need severe rebukes, but I think those are rare. I really like the model Paul has here. 

The model Paul has here is you're doing really well. You're doing great. Do better. 

Isn't that interesting? He's very affirming of this church. You are doing this, but you can do better. I was in a church years ago in which the pastor, he was a good pastor in many ways, but the pastor would talk about going to Sunday night service like this. 

He'd say we're having Sunday night service today and many of you don't want to come because you're selfish. You're selfish people and you don't want to come and you want to stay home. Well, that's not the way to encourage people to come Sunday night, right? It was just very guilt-inducing kind of motivation.

Instead, you just encourage people to come to a Sunday night. I think we see that pattern with Paul, right? He's encouraging and affirming them and saying you're doing well. Do better, but he gives them commands, right? He says, remind them of my ways in Christ, right? The specific commands I give. 

We've already seen, right? Christians can fall into sin. Don't let sin reign in your mortal body. Watch out lest you fall. 

We're not yet perfect. So, commands play a role and sometimes even specific commands. Paul says 1 Corinthians 7, don't get divorced. 

That's a very specific word. He says in 1 Corinthians 6, don't fall into sexual sin. So, sometimes a specific word is needed.

1 Corinthians 7.39, he says, don't marry an unbeliever, right? Only marry somebody in the Lord. So, sometimes he gives very specific commands. Ephesians 5.18 and Colossians 3.16. Ephesians 5.18 says, be filled with the Spirit. 

Colossians 3.16 says, let the word of Christ richly dwell in you. Did you notice in those passages what follows is basically the same, be filled with the Spirit. You'll be thankful, joyful, singing. 

Husbands and wives all have a good relationship, parents and children, masters and slaves. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with singing, thankfulness, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. So, being filled with the Spirit means being filled with the word, right? The two belong together.

There are some people out there that say, all you need is the word, essentially. Just study the Bible, put it on a projector, you know, get the truths into your head, whatever. Just download the information, that's all you need. 

But the problem with that is the word without the Spirit is not life, right? We need the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person. But there are other people who want to rely on the Spirit without the word. 

And they become fanatical, right? And strange, right? Because they get untethered from the word. And then they begin to say all kinds of strange things because they feel like, well, they appeal to the leading of the Spirit, but they begin to say things that contradict the word. But no, the word and the Spirit work together in the Christian life, right? So, that fits with what we're saying. 

Spiritual people need commands, word and Spirit. Spiritual people fulfill God's law, which is fundamentally what the command to love one another. And so, you know, what Paul's commands are, they're not always in great detail, are they? You know, what kind of commands are they? We're to love each other. 

We're to be gentle, kind, humble. A lot of the commands are really pretty general, but they are still commands, aren't they? We're to be renewed in our mind. Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 23, be renewed and transformed in your mind so that you will live a new life that is pleasing to God. 

That means, doesn't it, that we need knowledge and understanding to understand what God's will is. Knowledge is important. Paul says, test to determine what is pleasing to the Lord. 

I think that's a very interesting verse. It's not always immediately apparent what is God's will. We're to decipher it, test it, prove it, consider it. 

I've been an elder in churches for many years. Sometimes we're faced with situations that come up as elders that are extremely difficult. And what do we do? We do this together. 

We test and try to determine and assess what's pleasing to the Lord in that situation. We ask him to help us, but there's not always just a simple solution to every problem. I think Paul recognizes that. 

We seek God's word. We seek his will to determine what is right. When we talk about ethics, we must remember the situation addressed. 

The Corinthians tended to be libertines, emphasizing their freedom. There's a lot of exhortations in 1 Corinthians because they tended to emphasize their freedom and were falling into sin. The Galatians tended to be legalists. 

So Paul emphasizes there more the spirit and to beware of being focused on legalism. So again, we see no formula here, right? Living the Christian life is we need the Holy Spirit. We need each other. 

As I've said, we need God's word, but we can get out of balance. The Corinthians got out of balance in one way, the Galatians in another. So we just need to keep into account all that God says in his word.

I'm not going to go over these. We have many exhortations. We have lists which talk about what it means to please God. 

Paul has many vice and virtue lists. Quite interesting, right? He'll just list off what's right and wrong. These are not legalistic lists. 

They just help us discern what does it mean to walk in the spirit or what does it mean to walk in the flesh? The fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh, that's a good example, isn't it? What does it mean? What are the works of the flesh? We can categorize those. Well, he mentions idolatry, sexual sin, and then he lists eight sins that have to do with dissensions, factions, anger, shouting. So a lot of sins of strife. 

And then he mentions things like drunkenness and carousing, right? Those are the four categories, right? What does it look like to live a life that's pleasing to God? Well, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, right? So that's not a legalistic list, is it, right? They're the fruit of the spirit. But if I'm not exercising patience, I personally struggle with being patient. If I'm not exercising patience, I know, oh, I read the Bible. 

Hey, I'm sinning, right? I'm not trusting God. I'm not being patient at this time. So those lists help us discern, are we really walking in the spirit? So I'm saying external commands don't necessarily quench the spirit. 

Sometimes people say, well, don't lay that external command on me. That's really quenching the spirit. Well, not necessarily. 

Maybe. It depends on the situation, right? How it's said, what's being said. If somebody has forgotten the gospel, if they're just giving rules, yeah, that can quench the spirit. 

But it could be, you know, we've done something wrong and God's word reminds us, hey, you're not walking in the spirit. There's some objective criteria here. The most important thing of course, is love, isn't it? Love, love is the heart and soul of Paul's ethic. 

First Corinthians 13, famous passage, Ephesians 5.2, walk in love. He says, just as Christ loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice and offering to God. It's not surprising in Galatians 5.22, that the fruit of the spirit begins with love. 

In first Corinthians 8, they're having this debate over food offered to idols. The knowers, he actually doesn't call them the strong, the knowers are mistreating the weak. How are they mistreating the weak? They're not loving. 

So love is central. You know, love without right affections and right motives is worthless for Paul. Isn't first Corinthians 13.3 interesting? You can die for something and give all your money to something and it not be loved.

Wow. That's what Paul says, right? You can give your life, you can give your money and it not be loving. Sometimes people say, well, love is just the external action without, it doesn't have anything to do with the motives or affections. 

Well, that's not true, right? Because you can even give your life so you'd be praised and not God, right? You can give your money so people think I'm super generous. So motives matter, don't they? We're not perfect in this world, but we ought not to say our motives don't matter at all. It's just the right actions. 

No, the scripture doesn't say that. But love is central. Love is the bond of unity.

I think he's saying there in Colossians 3.14, love binds all the commands together. Love fulfills the Old Testament law. Paul says in Romans 13, maybe we ought to look at that.

That's a great passage. Don't owe anyone anything except to love one another for one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commands don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't covet, and any other command are summed up in this commandment.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. 

Love is the heart and soul of Paul's ethic, but commands are important, right? I say here, love cannot be exhausted by commands, but neither does it transgress them. So you can't say, I'm loving, but I'm murdering. I'm loving, you know, I'm going to divorce my wife and commit adultery with another person because I'm so much in love. 

Paul said, that's not love. You can call it love. That's not love.

Love doesn't transgress the law, right? So the commands are there. What are the commands there for? To save us from sentimentality, right? From saving us from false expressions of what love is. The commands tell us, this is what love looks like. 

Love doesn't steal from somebody else. And of course, there are many other commands, but love can't be exhausted by commands. You know, I don't know about you, but I'm not tempted to steal today, but I can still be unloving to my wife, right? I'm not tempted to commit adultery today, but I could still be unkind to my wife. 

So we can keep commands, a lot of commands and still be unloving. Love goes beyond the commands in one way, but in another way, right? The commands help us see whether we're loving. I'd like to think of love like a river. 

Love is like a river. You know, I just saw the Mackenzie River recently, and then that river was flowing with such power and beauty. It was just so lovely to watch. 

But the commands are kind of like the banks of the river, right? They keep that river on course. If you don't have the banks, the river's in trouble. It's going to disperse and lose its power and beauty. 

And so too, you know, with the commands, if we start violating commands, we know we're not living a life of love. Another way I want to put it, Paul's ethic is not casuistic. Paul did not have a rule for every situation. 

In fact, I want to say, when you look at all Paul writes, and really this is true of the whole Bible and the New Testament, the commands are really very, mostly very general, right? Be kind, be humble, be patient. Those are very general commands. They're very challenging commands, right? Love your enemies. 

What does that look like exactly? He doesn't tell us, but we're told here's the motive of our heart. So, and we now, I just want to return to this at the end. We can't keep these commands on our own. 

We need the Holy Spirit. When we come across these commands, we recognize we need God's power. Many of these commands were also held to by people in the Greco-Roman world. 

They believed in many of these commands as well. I don't want to linger on that now. I am not going to talk about this part, living between the times by the power of the Spirit. 

I'm not going to talk about it because I think I've emphasized already that we do this by the power of the Spirit. You can read those notes on your own. When I teach this class, which I've taught many times, I don't always cover every page in the notebook. 

But the next thing I want to talk about is I want to talk about that new perspective on Paul, because that's had a big influence, and I think that's a really important subject for us to consider together. So, we'll be talking about that and justification for quite a while now. I have a question about love. 

We have a friend who says that love is the key quality of God, and everything else exists underneath it, as opposed to God as a God of love is also a God of wrath against sin. Do you think of love as this overarching thing that everything exists under, or is love one of many qualities of God? Well, that's a great question. I am not a systematic theologian. 

I mean, you know, the systematic people say you can't separate God's essence and His attributes. So, typically, right, in typical Reformed and Protestant systematics, they don't isolate out the attributes, right? God's holiness and God's love are finally non-competition, but two different descriptions of the same thing. I don't think, I would say, I don't know if I'm answering the question, and I don't know if I have the best answer. 

I don't think wrath is an attribute of God. I think love is. Wrath is an expression of God's holiness. 

Holiness is an attribute of God, but I don't think wrath is an attribute of God, because I don't think anger is an attribute of God. God's wrath is a consequence of His holiness. So, in that sense, I think I agree, but I also want to say holiness and love, you know, some people want to say, probably more in the Protestant tradition, holiness is the key attribute. 

I just want to say, I think holiness and love belong inseparably together, but I just want to say I'm not a systematic person. I don't know if I gave the best answer there. No, that helps. 

I mean, maybe wrath wasn't the best illustration, but is God more loving or more holy, or is He equally loving and holy? Yeah, I think there, I know that the, any traditional systematic would say equally, equally, yeah, because you can't pit the attributes against each other, right? He's infinitely holy and infinitely loving at both, right? So, yeah.