Courage To Feel

26 March, 201611 April, 2016Marissa

I recently finished reading, and then immediately re-reading, Fill These Hearts by Christopher West. It’s a powerful rebuttal to the lie that Christianity is a joyless religion of laws and suppressed desires. West touches on many points regarding marriage and the plan of God that I hit in my book God’s Love Story, a subject you know is dear to my heart. I could probably write half a dozen posts inspired by Fill These Hearts (I already quoted from it in last week’s post), but here’s the part I want to focus on today:

Christianity is the religion of desire — the religion that redeems eros — and its saints are the ones who have had the courage to feel the abyss of longing in their souls and in their bodies and to open … all their desires for love and union to the Love and Union that alone can satisfy. … the saints have learned to open eros (their yearning for love) to Eros (God’s passionate love for them).” (p. 39)

Seeing God’s love described as Eros might make you a little uncomfortable at first (it had that effect on me). Eros is the Greek word for passionate or sexual love. This word doesn’t even appear in scripture, although erotic love is alluded to. The word we usually associate with God’s love — and rightly so — is agape. Read more →

What Does “Not Under The Law” Mean?

19 March, 20165 May, 2024Marissa

There are a few verses in the New Testament that tell us we “are not under the law” (Rom. 6:15; Gal. 5:18). Though some use this as permission to act however you want so long as you’ve confessed Jesus, most Christians realize that God’s commandments are still in effect. Jesus did not come “to destroy the law or the prophets … but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17, WEB), and Paul said his own writings “establish the law” rather than repeal it (Rom. 3:31, WEB).

So why do these passages tell us we’re not under the law? I’ve heard many explanations, and touched on some myself, but none of them really answered the question of why Paul would use this phrase. They focused more on trying to say “that’s not really what he meant” than on trying to figure out why Paul chose these words to argue his point. Recently, though, I came across the best analysis of the phrase “not under the law” that I’ve ever seen. It was just a short passage in a little book called Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing by Catholic writer Christopher West.

Image of five bibles on a table, with hands touching the pages overlaid with text from Rom. 6:14-15, NET version: "For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not!" — Image by Inbetween from Lightstock

Freed from Bondage to Sin

In Fill These Hearts, West writes about our desires, saying that we can either deny them and go on a “starvation diet,” indulge them in this life like “fast food,” or direct them toward God and partake in His “banquet gospel.” When addressing the idea of freedom in relation to desire, he says,

The Apostle Paul writes that those who “are led by the Spirit .. are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18). They’re free from the law — not free to break it (that’s license); they’re free to fulfill it because they don’t desire to break it. Christ didn’t come into this world to shove laws down our throats. He came into the world to align the desires of our hearts with the divine design so we would no longer need the laws
West, Fill These Hearts, p. 140

This isn’t just West’s own particularly theory; it’s a solid reading of the Biblical text. Basically, he’s just summarizing in modern English what Paul was explaining in Galatians 5 and putting the phrase “not under the law” in its proper context.

This verse in Galatians is preceded by a discussion of two covenants. The Old Covenant is described as one that “gives birth to bondage” (Gal. 4:24, NKJV). When the people broke that covenant, they bought a death penalty on themselves. Jesus paid the price of that broken covenant and freed us from sin with His sacrifice, then mediated and established the New Covenant (Heb. 8:6).

Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage
Galatians 5:1, WEB

Paul is telling us that if we go back to studiously keeping every aspect of the law as if that will save us “Christ will profit you nothing … You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:2, 4, WEB). We can’t treat the Old Covenant as our way to salvation. That does not, however, grant license to sin.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh,but through love serve one another.For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galatians 5:13-14, NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Lev 19:18)

“Love” in this verse is agapao–the divine, selfless love of God. When we start becoming love as God is love, we will keep His laws from the heart instead of by compulsion to an external system.

But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want.But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Galatians 5:16-18, NET

That is, we’re no longer held in bondage to a cycle of sin and death. Christ pulled us out of that and set us on a path of walking in the Spirit. If you keep reading verses 19 through 21 you get a list of the “works of the flesh.” All these works are sins under the Old Covenant and under the New Covenant “those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!” (Gal. 5:21, NET). Someone walking in Jesus won’t act like this. They will shun things prohibited by God’s law because those things are anathema to God’s character. We get a list of God’s character traits and the “fruit” He’s looking for in our lives in verses 22 through 25.

Image of a woman reading the Bible overlaid with text from Rom. 13:89, 10, NET version: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. ... Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." — Image by Pearl from Lightstock

Freed to to Fulfill the Law Through Love

The early chapters of Romans discuss this same subject with slightly different wording. First, Paul sets up a connection between sin and the law. He explains that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23), but we wouldn’t know that without the law to tell us about sin (Rom. 4:15; 5:13; 7:7). The law let us know we were enslaved to sin.

We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. … So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires.
Romans 6:6, 11-12, NET

When Jesus died, He paid the penalty for all sin, which was exposed by the law. When we accept Him, are baptized, and commit to walking in relationship with God, we also “die” in a figurative sense. We’re freed from sin. It’s not supposed to shackle us anymore, and we don’t have to obey its pulls.

For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!
Romans 6:14-15, WEB

Here’s Paul saying the same thing West was about freedom not being license to sin. Those who are “not under the law” still aren’t allowed to break the law. In fact, the more we become like God the less we’ll want to break His rules.

Image of a man in the woods reading the Bible, overlaid with blog's title text and the words, "We're not freed from the law so we can do whatever our fleshly nature urges, but rather so that we can live-out the fullest expression of God's divine law by imitating His character" — Image by Anggie from Lightstock

In Romans 7, Paul draws an analogy between being under Old Covenant law and a marriage. Marriages end when one of the married people dies (Rom. 7:1-3). The Old Covenant represented the first marriage between God and His people. That Covenant ended at Christ’s death and, through Him, we died to it as well.

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.
Romans 7:4, NET

Now, we are betrothed in marriage to Jesus Christ. We’re being transformed on the inside to become like Him and our heavenly Father. We’re not “under the law” because we’re becoming like the Lawgiver (Is. 33:22; Jas. 4:12; 1 Jn. 3:1-3). We’re marrying the One who fills the law to its fullest extent.

God is love. As we become like God we learn to “be love” as well, and that leads us toward fulfilling the law (Rom. 13:8-10). We’re not freed from the law so we can do whatever our fleshly nature urges, but rather so that we can live-out the fullest expression of God’s divine law by imitating His character. The law isn’t how we receive eternal life, but because we love God we still keep His law on our way to eternity.

Featured image by Chris Mainland from Lightstock

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Bridging The Gap

5 March, 20166 March, 2016Marissa

In the beginning Adam and Eve had a face-to-face relationship with God. They they sinned, creating a gap between them and their creator that was renewed each time a human broke God’s law. God was still there, but we kept moving farther and farther away.

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. (Is. 59:1-2)

Throughout the time period covered by the Old Testament books, it appears few people had a relationship with God. In every case, that relationship existed because God stepped across the gap and initiated the relationship. He called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob into covenant with Him. He spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. He chose David as king over Israel. He called the prophets individually.

Today, God also has to take the first steps in any relationship we have with Him. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6) and also, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). To have a relationship with Yeshua we must be called by the Father, and to know the Father we have to go through Yeshua.

Several months ago, there was a handout at my Messianic congregation with a “Thought Of The Week” printed on the back talking about just this topic. It started out discussing Jacob’s ladder, then human attempts to bridge the gap between God and man by building things like towers. Such attempts are futile, but

The same might be said of all our religious impulses. The stars are always beyond our reach. God is far distant. Man’s best attempts to bridge the gap fail. … If we are to ascend to God, we must ascend upon a ladder that He Himself has extended to us from above.”

We can’t do anything that will make us worthy of God’s attention. All our “religious impulses” — going to church every week, singing worship songs, preaching, or even doing works like healings — aren’t going to make Jesus let us into the kingdom (Matt. 7:22-23). The only thing we can do is respond when God extends us a way to know Him.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed (Rom. 3:23-25)

Jesus is the ladder “extended to us from above” by God the Father. He “came down from heaven” (John 6:38) to pay the price for our sins and “draw all men to” Himself (John 12:32). Because we could not reach Him, he came to us.

The Hebrew word for “bless” also means to kneel. No matter how many good works we climb up on or how hard we stretch toward heaven, we won’t reach God. Yet He blessed us by kneeling down to our level and welcoming us into a relationship through Jesus Christ.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Rom. 5:1-2)

Because of what Jesus has done and is doing, we can reach God. Through Him, we “have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). We can come to Them with absolute confidence that They love us and want a relationship with us. They’ve proved that time and again throughout history by making covenants with people, building friendships with men like Abraham (Jas. 2:23), pleading with Their loved ones to come back, kneeling down to die in our place, and now living and walking with us.

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:14-16)

Jesus bridged the gap once and for all with His sacrifice that “perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). He gave us access to God and “boldness to enter the Holiest” by making us holy (Heb. 10:19-22). “Now we are children of God” (1 John 3:2), and we can come to Him just as a child who knows their loving Father always has time to pick them up and listen to their concerns.

Weightier Matters

27 February, 201617 August, 2016Marissa

The scribes and Pharisees had a lot going for then. They were well-educated, well-respected, and held positions of authority in the community of believers. People thought they were important, and they were. Then this guy Jesus showed up and started condemning them for not following God correctly.

Can you imagine how this looked? Here are these men who’ve been the authority on worship tradition for years confronted by a young carpenter who just appeared out of nowhere. He didn’t even go to a good school! Worse, they know He’s right. But if they admit it, they lose their power.

weighty_matters — photo credit: Michael Coghlan “It Hangs in the Balance,” CC BY-SA

A similar thing can happen in our churches today. When leadership is focused on maintaining church tradition, there’s a danger of developing a Pharisaical attitude. A certain amount of resistance to change is needed to keep from forsaking sound doctrine, but often church tradition isn’t rooted in the Bible at all and if that’s the case it’s fair-game for reexamination. We can also, as the Pharisees did, error in emphasizing certain doctrines to the neglect of others. Read more →

Searching For Balance

22 February, 201622 February, 2016Marissa

I’ve been rather preoccupied with the idea of Balance lately, both in the world around me and internally. A lack of balance frustrates me so much and yet many people seem to gravitate toward polarities rather than searching for middle ground.

Searching For Balance | marissabaker.wordpress.com — scales credit: StockMonkeys.com

Let’s look at Christianity for a quick example. I’m not sure if this is the case in your churches, but in the groups I attend the question of Sacred Names comes up every once in a while. One the one hand, you have people who only use the Hebrew names like Yahweh and Yeshua and claim others “have rejected the name of their God.” I’ve even heard of people who won’t talk with other Christians unless they can pronounce the sacred names “correctly” (which varies depending on who you talk with). Then on the other hand, you have people who say Sacred Namers have fallen into “a satanic doctrine that leads people into idolatry.”

It just seems so ridiculous to me. To the first claim, if God wanted us all speaking Hebrew He wouldn’t have confused the languages at the tower of Babel. Read more →

Covenants of Righteousness and Mercy

20 February, 201616 December, 2020Marissa

This isn’t the first time a Bible study has brought tears to my eyes. Usually that happens when I’m studying God’s love, but there’s also something inspiring, humbling and wonderful about His righteousness and mercy. They’re aspects of God’s essential character, and the more I learn about who the Father and Yeshua are, the more inclined I feel to just sit here in awe.

In Matthew 5:48 Jesus said, “you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” We have a responsibility to grow toward perfection, developing God’s character inside us. If we’re going to mimic His character, we have to study and learn about who and what He is, so we can display those traits as well.

I’ve already written many posts on this blog about “God is love” (there’s even a whole ebook free if you click here), so that’s not what we’re going to focus on today. Instead, I want to spend our time together this Sabbath focusing on two key character traits that are aspects of God’s love.

The Lord is Righteous

If you search for the phrases “the Lord is …” and “God is …” trying to find descriptions of His character, the first you come to is in Exodus.

And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “I have sinned this time. The Lord is righteous, and my people and I are wicked. (Ex. 9:27)

Even a pagan ruler on the receiving end of God’s judgement recognized that “the Lord is righteous.” In Hebrew, the word is tsaddiyq (H6662). For human beings, righteousness involves fulfilling the commands of God. It “consisted in obedience to God’s law and conformity to God’s nature” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, entry 1879). Like love, righteousness isn’t just something God shows toward us — it is one of His essential character traits. We define righteousness by pointing to God’s standard.

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Jer. 23:5-6)

Not only is God Himself righteous, but all our righteousness is found in Him. This prophecy points to Christ’s role as the one who makes us righteous. Only by following in Yahweh Tsidkenu’s footsteps can we continue in righteousness.

As we’ve seen, God’s righteousness is closely connected to His law. It follows that as a Being of righteousness He must institute penalties for disobedience as well as rewards for obedience. Daniel recognized this in his prayer for the exiles.

As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice. (Dan. 9:13-14)

It is righteous for God to let evil befall a nation that broke their covenant with Him. Covenants aren’t just about the good things both parties get out of the agreement — they also include consequences for breaking the covenant, which is what we do when we sin (Dan. 9:4-5). Because God is righteous, He keeps the entire covenant — including the part that stipulates consequences for sin.

The Lord is Mercy

Daniel also calls on another of God’s essential character traits; one that goes hand-in-hand with righteousness.

And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. …

O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face … because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. (Dan. 9:4-5, 7, 9)

If God was not mercy as well as righteousness, we would be in grave straits indeed. We have all sinned, and if God righteously rewarded us for that we would all be dead (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). Yet Jesus Christ took on Himself the death penalty required by covenant. Instead of rewarding us as we deserve He offers mercy, as He did to “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man” who became the Apostle Paul (1 Tim. 1:13).

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) (Eph. 2:4-5)

Mercy is as much a part of God’s being as love and righteousness, and it has always been this way. Back in the Torah, Moses makes a prayer for Israel very similar to Daniel’s plea. The people have rebelled, and Moses is asking for God’s mercy to mingle with His righteousness.

And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying, ‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” (Num. 14:17-19)

Moses is directly referencing God’s own description of Himself in Exodus 34:6-7. These are the character traits of “God is love” which back-up the covenant God makes with His people

In the Old Testament verses we’ve been quoting, “mercy” is translated from the Hebrew chesed (H2617). The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament points out that this word is often connected with covenant — most likely in that God’s covenant is a result of His chesed and includes the promise of His loving kindness. As those in covenant with God, we’re expected to show mercy as well.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. (Matt. 5:7)

In Greek, “mercy” is elos (G1656). It’s different from grace, which is a special kind of gift from God that consists of removing the penalty for sin. Mercy goes along with that and takes a step farther by alleviating the miserable consequences of sin (Zodhiates Key-Word Study Bible).

Jesus has compassion and mercy on us because He sympathizes with our weakness, having experienced what it’s like to be human even though He never sinned (Heb. 4:15-16). We, too, should exercise mercy towards others. As sinners ourselves, we’re in a unique position to respond to the suffering we see in others with loving kindness rather than condemnation. We must learn to follow God’s example of mingling righteousness and mercy. We never forget or ignore the covenant laws and our commitment to righteousness, but we also remember to always act out of mercy and love.