New Thoughts: (11/06/15-11/08/15)
Throughout this section, Paul is focused on sexual sins. It may have seemed as though he’d moved on, given that last part dealing with lawsuits, but he hasn’t. He’s still focused on this issue, because it’s a big issue. Just looking at the number of parallel passages that come up to bolster his point, or consideration of how often sexual sins top the lists when Scripture reviews what God finds displeasing should give us a clue that this is a big problem for us.
It has always been a big problem, and we might suppose it has been more of a problem for the male of the species than for the female. I’m not entirely convinced of that, but I do notice this: Every one of those items listed by Paul in verse 9 pertains to a male participant. The fornicator is primarily a male prostitute. The adulterer is the male who has taken another’s wife. The effeminate is the passive male partner to the homosexual. Now, to be sure, every one of these has their female counterpart, and we might suppose Paul is using male terminology in a more widely inclusive fashion. But, I do find it telling that he chooses the masculine form of every item on this list, both in verse 9 and in verse 10.
Is this a reflection of patriarchal thinking? Perhaps. Is it a reflection of human behavior? Certainly. Men are readily attracted to pursuit of physical, sexually charged pleasures. It takes so very little to turn our heads, and it takes rather a large amount of social pressure to prevent us simply acting upon those impulses head turning stirs up. Again: Women are equally prone to such head-turning, urge-inducing temptations. But, historically, they have been less in a position to follow through. Blame it on what you will, or be thankful for the more effective restraints on sin’s urges. The situation remains unchanged.
For whatever cause, Paul has chosen a very masculine list of crimes. Those things in verse 10, while not of a sexual nature any more, still tend to be activities we would primarily associate with male rather than female. Sure, there are women who curse like a sailor, but it is somehow more shocking to us than to discover the sailor doing so. No doubt, there are women who will rob you blind, take your goods by force, and drink to excess. But, even such neutral terms, as they appear to us in English don’t make you think of women, do they? No. It’s men who come to mind.
What are we to make of this? Paul is addressing a populace that dwells in a city known for its temple prostitutes. The temple of Aphrodite was central to the city, and they shopped far and wide to supply women for the thriving business of that temple. Sex was commerce, and commerce was the prime reason for Corinth. Sailors came in from the seas and wanted something. Merchants came in, and they wanted something. Such was the culture of the time, that nobody really thought much of it. Business is business, and the gods are apparently pleased. What’s the problem?
The problem is that the leaven of sin spreads. It is never satisfied with its little bit of corruption. It must corrupt the whole. So we have male prostitutes. Who were they servicing, and in service to whom? Was this temple-related activity as well? Given the immediate connection with idolatry, it may well be. But, then it moves further: Adulterers taking another man’s wife; men lying with men. There is not one of these things that could be accounted legitimate in the sight of God. There is not one of these things that should be accounted legitimate in the eye of man or woman. All popular sentiment to the contrary, prostitution is not a victimless crime. It is a violation of a most holy act.
Let s turn to another passage on this subject. I was struck by Hebrews 13:4, which says, “Let marriage be honored among all, and the marriage bed undefiled. God will judge fornicators and adulterers.” Notice the particular ones coming under judgment here: Fornicators and adulterers. We’re back to the same list. Prostitution, by its nature, defiles the marriage bed, and not solely as practiced by a married customer. Adultery clearly defiles the marriage bed, for marriage is to be between one man and one woman, they being joined in a one flesh relationship. Paul will pursue this point more fully in subsequent verses, but stop and take that point now.
The temple prostitutes up at Aphrodite’s place were defiling the marriage bed. So, too, were those men who had taken to lying with men. Where there were women lying with women, the same must hold true, but there is something that is somehow more graphic about the male act. There is a clear, physical enacting of that ‘one flesh’ concept which really doesn’t apply in the counterpart.
There’s a reason why this is so important to God. When He created the order of humans, He created them man and woman, and He did so with the full intention that man and woman would be united in so close and intimate relationship as caused all others to fade. I could almost say a relationship so close as to exclude all others, but it’s not quite that. It supersedes all others. In this, the intent was to set forth a living parable of the Godhead. Elsewhere, Paul speaks of this correlative aspect of marriage as a great mystery (Eph 5:27), because what marriage is truly intended to demonstrate is the relationship of Christ to His church. We are His body. We are to be as in a one flesh relationship with Him, with no room for emotional involvement with any other, no place given to any other who would threaten to defile that relationship.
Idolatry is clearly in that place of defiling man’s relationship with God. The Old Testament is filled to overflowing with examples. What is telling is how often those idolatries involved sexual components. It’s like the deceiver was amusing himself by putting the Lie right out there in plain sight. And, he knew it would work. It always does. Advertising agencies picked up on this long ago. Nor do I think it required the reach of modern mass media to make this the case. It goes back much farther than that. It goes back to the practices of Greek and Roman religionists. It goes back to the Canaanites. It goes back, quite frankly, all the way to Eden. The attack hasn’t changed. Neither has the defense.
In verse 11 the charge is driven home: This is you! Paul is kind: Such were some of you. The reality is more likely, such were all of you. I keep coming back to something I either read or heard recently regarding the place of coveting in the Ten Commandments. On all other charges we might manage to think ourselves acquitted. But, when we arrive at covetousness, nobody is left room to escape their guilt. All of us are hypnotized by the thought that we deserve better, to borrow from Steve Taylor’s song. The truth is we deserve far worse, as the list of crimes against heaven’s King remind us. We know it in our better moments. But, those moments slip away, and once again we find ourselves convinced that we are deserving of better things, great things!
This is the challenge of faith. I find the same forgetfulness hits me when it comes to God’s Providence. I know, know with utmost certainty, that there is no such thing as coincidence, and that God arranges every moment of every day for every creature on every planet. There is none who slips from His management. There is nothing that comes about in my day that ‘just happened’. And yet, particularly when I would prefer the coincidence, I will refuse to see any point, any higher purpose to events. It needs constant awareness of the Truth to keep oneself rooted in the Truth. Even when coincidence would be preferable as an explanation of events, the Truth remains that I walk in God’s Providence. He arranges. He orchestrates. I experience and respond, and even that response has been known to Him since before I was born.
So it is with these past matters, as well. We’ve been in the church long enough that we hear these sorts of charges, particularly the set in verse 9, and think it so far from our experience that we shudder at the very thought. How could anybody think this was acceptable? Never mind those in the Church. How can society at large be so utterly off course? What happened? The reality of the matter comes as a cold slap in the face. You’ve forgotten! You were just like them! You were them! Some of you still are them, truth be told. That’s why we’re having this discussion. Pride has blinded you to your past and your present. Recall that pride has been at the root of things since this letter started, and when it comes to the way we assess our spiritual progress, pride remains at the root of the problem.
Pride just got KO’d here. You were like that, and still are, if in lesser degree. The old ways cling like a rash you just can’t eliminate. You let down your guard for but a moment and those same old sinful habits rear right up, don’t they? You think you’ve got them beat, but they come back. Why? Has faith failed? No. Am I falling away? Probably not, if it’s causing you concern. Was I fooling myself, thinking God called me His own? Again, the fact that you care whether He did or not is already evidence that He did. But, we grow forgetful. We become complacent. We are easily duped by our own sinful proclivities into thinking what we’re doing is okay when it’s very clearly not. We are willing to suffer our brother to sin because we’d just as soon not get called out on our own sins. But, that way lies spiritual destitution.
We walk a very fine line. On the one hand, pride convinces us we’re doing better than we are. On the other hand, excessive focus on our sinfulness leads to such despair that we just throw in the towel and walk away. Paul points us to the narrow way down the middle. You were like that. But, something’s changed. That is not a subjective, maybe it did maybe it didn’t comment. That’s not wishful thinking. It’s a statement of cold, hard fact. Something changed. You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified.
Time for some syntax, I think. All three of these statements are made as Aorist Indicatives. The Aorist Tense looks at these activities as whole, completed actions, generally having been done in the past, particularly in the Indicative Mood. The Indicative Mood declares them all certain. The action is not subject to disproof. There is not maybe, as there might be were we looking to future events. There is no if clause involved. It’s not that this is true of you if you have successfully set all that junk behind you. It is already the fact of your existence. It was done, and what’s done remains done, particularly where it’s God’s doing, for He changes not.
What is interesting is that two of these three facts are stated in the Passive Voice. Sanctification is given as something done to you. You are the passive recipient of this work. The same holds for justification. You weren’t involved. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t cooperate in it. It was done to you. But, that first step: You were washed? That’s in the Middle Voice. That Middle Voice gets hard to assess sometimes, both because it has no direct corollary in English, and because it covers a wide range of possible uses. Wheeler’s lists five primary categories of meaning here. First, there is the direct, or reflexive use where the subject acts on himself. Thus, it would combine Active and Passive meaning. That does not appear to fit here. It’s not a case of ‘you washed yourself’.
Then, there’s the indirect usage, where the subject is again the actor in the action, doing something for his own interests. That is not so far different from the first category, other than that the action may be directed toward another in spite of it being done in self-interest. Romans 15:7 is given as an example of this use, where Paul calls on the congregation to ‘accept one another’. It’s an outward directed action, but done with an inward perspective.
How about the Permissive Middle usage? Here, the subject allows the thing to happen to himself, or causes it to be done for himself. Now, if Paul’s reference is to baptism, I could see this applying. We don’t coerce baptism, at least not in a credobaptistic understanding of that sacrament. If we are baptized, it is because we have permitted it to be done to us by another. We cannot baptize ourselves. The mere taking of a bath or a shower does not, cannot constitute baptism. It requires another, outside agent, just as our being lifted out of death unto life requires another, outside agent.
Perhaps what we have is a Deponent Middle Voice, where the verbal form is Middle Voice, but it is understood in an Active Voice sense. But, that cannot fit, for if we apply an Active Voice sense, we are right back at the Direct Middle, where we are acting on ourselves. That would certainly describe the normal act of bathing, but it doesn’t fit the message here.
We are left with the Reciprocal Middle, wherein tow subjects are involved in the effort. That, I would have generally thought applicable to the sanctifying activity. But, Paul has set that firmly in the Passive. God is doing it, and you are gaining the value thereof. Washing, on the other hand, allows of you and God working together to achieve the result. And note: Even that is proclaimed a done deal by this verse. You did your part! Together, you and God washed you up.
Now, the Calvinist in me would look at that and say Paul is stating things in reverse order. First came the justification, and from that flowed sanctification by which you were washed. To state it otherwise, you could not hope to take part in the washing until God had already accomplished justification and sanctification in you. Here, though, I wonder if we aren’t suffering a certain imprecision of terms. Sometimes, it seems to me, Paul uses sanctification in a fashion that would more properly belong to salvation. That is to say, in a passage such as this, sanctification would seem to stand in for salvation, with washing taking the role normally referred to as sanctification. I cannot say for certain that this is how we should understand the matter, but I would insist that the overall plan of the Gospel, and even the overall preaching of Paul, makes it clear that we have a part to play in sanctification. It is not a lay back and let God do the work matter, but a working in the knowledge that unless God works with us, we’re getting nowhere matter.
I go back to that footnote in Harper’s Study Bible for Nehemiah, which I’ll paraphrase thus: Work as if God would do nothing, pray as though you can do nothing. Somehow that feels a lot better than advising we work knowing full well our greatest efforts can achieve nothing. That’s true, apart from God. But, we are not apart from God. We are with God, or more critically, He is with us. Thus, we have the tension of Philippians 2:12-13. Work out your salvation (which I would say is standing in for sanctification now), in fear and trembling; because God is at work in you, so that you can be willing and can work for His good pleasure. You see what I mean about salvation and sanctification. The terminology gets blurry. As we work on sanctification, and see that through God we are indeed making progress, even if we find ourselves despairing to see how far we have to go, we are made certain of our salvation. It’s not that salvation was ever in doubt. It’s that we were doubtful of that reality. We need the evidence. God doesn’t. He already knows, since He decreed it. Your fellow believers don’t need the evidence, nor does the world at large. You do. You need it because salvation is so hard to believe. What? God, You know who I was, who I am. How can You declare me just? How can You accept me? How can You even stand to be around me?
So, we are blessed with this process of sanctification, of washing up, in order that we may see that He is indeed at work in us, that we are cleaner than we had reason to expect from our effort at scrubbing. Progress is being made, and it’s stunning to look back across our lives and discover just how far we’ve come. We need this backward perspective. We need it to recognize our own progress. We also need it to prevent our becoming hardened against those unwashed lost souls we are supposed to be reaching with the Gospel. You were them. You are them. Love them. Help them to wash up, if indeed they are willing to be cleansed. Perhaps they can be you. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
This is your story, captured in three short verses – one, really. You were this. Now you are that. Sins have been remitted in that washing. Your fellowship with the world has been exchanged for fellowship with God in that sanctification. Holy: Set apart; dedicated to God’s exclusive use. It’s the first thing we forget come Monday, isn’t it? You are His. He has made it so. How, then, can we consider going back to old ways? We do, but it ought to be unthinkable. And, even when we do, here’s the most marvelous of truths: You have been acquitted of all charges!
Now, there’s a clarification I think needs to be made on that point. God does not simply pretend those things never happened. God does not declare you innocent of all charges. Oh, no. You were quite guilty, and He’s not going to lie about that. God is Truth! He cannot lie. That’s Satan’s game, who I suspect is all but incapable of speaking truly. What God has done in in justifying you is that He has taken Christ’s payment on your behalf. You are acquitted because the full penalty due from you on account of your sins has been paid in full. Notice the clause Paul gives us here. “You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Understand, it’s not because you shouted, “Jesus!” It’s not that you seal your every prayer with the “in Jesus’ name” tag, making it somehow operational. No, it’s that your justification comes about in light of all that He is, all that He was authorized to do, and all that He fully accomplished.
Your sins had, and continue to have one penalty: Death. Every sin, though they do indeed vary in their severity and heinousness, draws the same penalty from the court. Death is the price to be paid in every case. Does that seem unjust? It is assuredly not. Every sin is against a holy, eternal God. Every sin is against the very One who gave you life. It is against the only One by whom your life is maintained. Every sin rejects Him, and it is only just that He should in turn reject you. Every sin, being against an eternal God, bears an eternal penalty. There are, I dare say, only two eternal forces: Life and Death. Those who enter into Life enter into eternal life. Those who do not, enter instead into eternal Death. It took an eternal Death to settle your eternal debt to the courts of the Most High God. Christ, the Eternal Son, paid that price. The death of an Eternal was given for your eternal crimes, in order that through His sacrifice, your crimes could be fully atoned for in God’s sight. In Him, you are acquitted, because in His payment, your penalty was marked down as, “paid in full.”
This, too, is your story, assuming you are among the elect. You were this. You are not that. It is not by your doing, but His. It is maintained not by your effort, but His. It is guaranteed not by your attempts to stay clean, but by His finished work. It’s done. You still feel the weight of the process ongoing, and it is. You still take part in that process, and you should. But, it’s happening because He has done it. This is the two-word summation of the Gospel, and it’s happening daily in your life and mine: “But, God!” I have blown it again, but, God. I have got down in the mud again, but God. I was just like that, but God. In myself, I know I am thoroughly capable of going even lower next time, I can out-sin any of you, given the chance. But, God!
Listen! If we can just lay hold of that middle proclamation, how we shall shine! “You have been sanctified.” You are set apart, holy, for God’s exclusive possession. You are a peculiar people – not weird or bizarre – uniquely set aside to be a royal priesthood for God. You, like Aaron, have this message emblazoned on your forehead for all to see: “Holy unto the Lord.” You represent. You either do so actively, intentionally, or you do so incidentally and unconsciously. But, you represent. You are an ambassador of heaven, and there is no moment in the day when that fails to hold true. Walk like every person you meet can see just that plainly that you are His ambassador, a priest in His service.
I think of the clerical collar that priests will generally be found to wear. My father, when he was pastoring in some official capacity, would wear the same white tab in his collar, marking him out as God’s servant, at least for that time. But, shouldn’t we all gladly bear exactly such a sign upon ourselves? We are to be a nation of priests unto our God. We ought gladly to mark ourselves out in that capacity, to bear it as a badge of honor, as a reminder to ourselves, and to others. Here is a representative of holiness. Perhaps it would aid us to act accordingly, although I rather doubt it. We are, it seems to me, beyond any ability to maintain what we should be, however firmly reminded we may be. But, we can at least become more open about our faith, less inclined towards hiding it away from sight – as if we could.
The reality is that we cannot. The world knows that we are not of its number, however we may try to fit in. If we would but realize that, perhaps we could stop trying to fit in with the world, and start seeking to serve our true purpose in the world. It will not be easy. It will not be pleasant. It will, however, be incredibly fruitful, should we prove willing to take up the task.
How powerful a message we bear! There are those out there who feel the weight of their fallenness. They sense the gloom of that darkness in which they live. But, they feel utterly powerless to escape. If we come to them with the message that they are utterly unacceptable in God’s sight, I suppose we speak truly enough, but we don’t serve God. If we look upon them as too reprehensible for there to be any hope for them, then we forget ourselves, let alone the God who called us. But, if we can, with compassion, come to them and say, “I’ve been there. I know where you’re at. But, God!” Here is the Gospel! Here is hope. Can we assure them that they are called? No. But, we can show them the Light that penetrates darkness. We can introduce them to the only One capable of destroying the chains that have bound them. It’s His call, whether He will indeed do so, but it’s our duty to make the introductions.
What the passage demonstrates is that these two natures are irreconcilable. The you were can have no place in the you are. As I have been saying, this does not prevent the you are from trying to make its way back in. As such, the point becomes clear: Guard that work which God has done in you. Strive the more to be done once for all with past habit. Understand that you are in a process, but don’t let that fact prevent you from furthering the process. Don’t let it become one step forward, six steps back. Watch yourself. We can argue about whether you have a right to judge others, but there’s no question about self-check. You need to do so. You need to do more than check. You need to take part in the process – active part. You need to be aware that your sin nature is a lurking menace, just waiting for opportunity to reassert itself yet again.
Let us once more feel the full power of Paul’s first assertion as well as his last. You were not going to inherit. Nobody comes to faith with inheritance in hand. Every one of us came here from the place of being utterly disowned – a godless people; a people with no god. None of us has any cause to be proud. We can’t point to pedigree. We can’t point to time served. We can’t point to current state. We have nothing to boast of but Christ. The thing is, as we lose sight of this first fact, the latter fact loses its power to move us. “You were not going to inherit. But, God! God justified you. He sanctified You for Himself. He got you washing up, working with Him on this whole sanctification business.” You didn’t even care until He came along. You were a filthy mess and you reveled in it. Only now do you see what you were. Only now can you be what you are. Oh! The joy that comes of finding oneself picked up, cleaned up, and set on this new course!
Those we once traveled with don’t understand. They see our new condition and think all the fun’s gone out of us. Peter points this out, doesn’t he? “They are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation, and they malign you” (1Pe 4:4). We, in turn, forget that we were like that, and may slip into maligning them. We have no cause to expect the fallen to act in any other way but as fallen beings. Even where they manage to do good, yet they cannot be construed as godly. Even if their works put our own to shame, it is no cause to exalt them, but only to up our own game.
You were this. You are no longer. God has made this the truth of your condition. Now is the time for you to step up your effort. It is not the time to try and earn what is already yours. That’s not the point, and if we make it the point, we only pollute our efforts by doing so. No. As I have been preparing for this morning’s class, this is but a reflection of the duty of assurance. We have every cause to be assured of our salvation. Yet, we all know times when our assurance is shaky. We look at what we’ve done – again – and we wonder if it can really be that God forgives us, that God loves us. We need assurances. But, our assurances aren’t going to come in some spiritual hug. They aren’t going to be mere feelings, although our feelings will surely be involved. This process of sanctification, the part we have in our own washing, comes as a means of assurance. We are granted to see the contrast between past and present. We may see our failures, but we are unable to deny His successes. We see by our taking upon ourselves the duties of maintaining our assurance that we have every cause for assurance; not because we are working, but because He has worked.
Lord, I pray that I would never lose sight of this. I am what I am because You are who You are. You have loved me, and that is all my claim. You have saved me, and that is all my assurance. And, what assurance it is! What more could I ask of You? What more do I need? You have provided all, and I am, it seems, a singularly ungrateful recipient most of the time. Yet, I am grateful. Where would I be, if You had not saved me? I know the answer pretty well, at least in part. I know the paths I was walking before You got hold of me. They weren’t going anywhere good, that’s for sure. And now? Who am I, Lord, that You should have me in this office? Who am I but Your servant? Use me as You will. Shape me as You must. Grant that I might be the more mindful, moment to moment, that I do indeed bear the stamp of sanctification: “Holy Unto the Lord.” It is my reality. Let it be my life. This, I cannot do except You do it in me. This, You will not do except I join You in the doing. So be it. Work within me, Lord, that I may be not only willing but able to the task before me.
