"Not By the Will of Man"

Joh 1:11  He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. Joh 1:12  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, Joh 1:13  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Passage above is full of important truth and those that ignore it have developed all sorts of doctrinal errors that have caused damage for Christianity.  Primarily it tells us to whom we owe the new birth.  The first 18 verses of the Gospel of John are a prologue to the book in which John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word of God, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.  He also is telling us of Jesus’s mission and that the Jews did not receive him.  In verses 12-13 it seems that thinking about the Jews not receiving him makes him think about how it is that anyone does receive Jesus as the Messiah.  And so under the inspiration of the Spirit he makes it crystal clear that Jew and Gentle alike will always reject Jesus unless God intervenes. 

In verse 12 he states that all who receive Jesus are given the right to become sons of God.  In Pauline vernacular we would say that one is saved through faith (receiving) and that one cannot believe until they are regenerated (born again)

And then in vs. 13 he gives us one of the most important truths in the Bible for understanding to whom we owe our salvation.  He goes on to explain that we don’t become born again when we believe, but we must be born from above so that we can believe.  Verse 12 alone sounds like our salvation is just a matter of whether we decide to believe or not, but the Bible never teaches this.  And so verse 13 removes any idea that one is saved by any manmade faith apart from the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. 

He lists three things that have no part in our spiritual birth.  First of all blood; our ethnicity, genealogy or any family connection has no bearing on whether we get saved or not.  Just because my parents are Christians or being a Jew vs. a Gentile has no bearing on the election of grace.  God saves from all people groups, Rev 5:9  And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Secondly, my will did not cause me to be born again.  It is amazing how many people refuse to accept the clear teaching from the Scriptures on this point.  Until God overrides our sinful nature and rebellious will and gives us a new heart, we will never choose him.  Even though Romans 3 says, "None is righteous, no, not one; Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God. Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one”, so many must think that they are the exception; that they can understand and choose what is good.  One can never understand the necessity of the sovereignty of God in salvation until they realize that they are dead in sin and under sin’s dominion and so will never believe until enabled by the Holy Spirit.  What could be more clear than, Php 1:29  For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.  So by now it should be clear that the new birth has to precede faith or this whole passage makes no sense.

Thirdly, John says not by the will of man.  At first glance this might seem redundant but experience has taught us that there are some that think they can force others into the Kingdom of God or they can bring someone into it without the other’s consent, so this is referring to someone else’s will.  Roman Catholic “missionaries” would be the first to come ashore when the conquistadors or some Catholic conquering force would overtake a new land.   The newly conquered people would be forced to pass before the priest and be “baptized” into the Catholic Church.  It clearly wasn’t the will of the “converted” but the will of the Church but this verse tells us that such forced conversions are still the will of man and does not bring anyone into the Kingdom. 

Another example of this is baptizing babies.  In this case it is obvious that the infant is not exercising faith because the infant has no ideas what is going on, so the adults are doing something to bypass true conversion and forcing salvation on them.  Never mind that there is no instance of this in the Bible, John 1:13 says that one cannot enter the Kingdom of God by the will of another person.  Only the will of God brings about the new birth and the resulting faith in Christ. 

Until the Lord comes back, the fact will always be that there will be different denominations and Christian groups who see things differently and therefore worship separately.  That is fine and no doubt one reason the Lord allows this is because it keeps us searching the Bible and defending the faith.  But I wonder how fewer false Christian sects and cults there would be if just these two verses were taken at face value?  If they would bow the knee to the sovereign God without whose work we would all be lost.  There would certainly be far fewer denominations, sects and cults than we have today.

The Power of the Word of God

Isa 55:10  "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, Isa 55:11  so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Rom 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The above passages are familiar to all of us but it is amazing how often we all need to be reminded not only of the power of the Word of God but because of this power we don’t need to interact with the world with their reason and logic.  Instead we can rely on speaking the Word to them whether they believe it or not.

I was recently reminded of this when I heard that the ProLife leaders in America who for the most part claim to be Christians also openly state that they refuse to use the Bible or religion as the basis for their arguments against abortion.  The thinking comes down to that since abortionists don’t believe in the truth of the Bible why argue from it because it won’t hold any weight with them.  It is no wonder this society doesn’t take Christianity seriously anymore.

I have to assume that a lot of this type of thinking comes from bad theology that doesn’t realize that God is sovereign and can overcome all resistance to his will and revelation.  But what should be strikingly obvious is that this approach to any issue of sinful behavior fails for at least a couple of reasons.

First of all it reduces the abortion issue and all sin to merely behavior modification.  It says that we don’t care if you repent before God and are saved and we don’t care why you quit sinning and we don’t care if God gets any glory in this or even whether he is involved in this at all; we just want you to change your behavior.  But any action not done for the glory of God is still sin.  It is tempting to say, “Well, who cares as long as they stop murdering babies”.  While that is a good thing, it basically says that God has no part in this, just stop for the babies’ sake but who cares how God fits into all of this.  I believe it is a flawed approach. Because of the second reason such argumentations fail.

The Bible is very clear that when dealing with sin and sinners the only reason we are to demand change is because it is all men’s duty to obey God and live for his glory.  Just because they refuse to acknowledge this doesn’t mean we are to argue from other world views other than the one God sets forth in his Word.  Let me give you three different examples from Scriptures that should prove this.

First of all the OT prophets.  They were sent to a people who did not want to hear God’s Word nor did they accept that they had a duty to obey it.  Because of this the prophets were laughed at, persecuted and killed but God told them to speak exactly what he said anyway and not change a word.  Can you image a prophet saying that because the people wouldn’t listen to the word from God that he would try to reason with them as to why it might be better to turn back to the Lord and quit all their sinning which included at times murdering children.  No, because the Lord wasn’t just interested in the people stopping their sinful actions but the whole point was to return to the Lord and start serving him from their hearts.  In fact he several times makes the point that he would not accept the good deeds they did because their hearts were far from him.  There is no hint that the prophets were to change their approach just because the people were offended and scorned the Word of God.

Secondly we have Paul and all the Apostles.  They didn’t go into a city, even pagan ones like Athens and start trying to get people to change their behavior.  When Paul went into Athens, he spoke to men in the epicenter of human reason, logic and wisdom that still influence the way the world thinks.  Yet he plainly told them that there was a God that had claims on them and it was their responsibility to know and serve him.  Act 17:30  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, Act 17:31  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."  Many laughed at him but he didn’t change the message.

Finally, we look at Jesus who is the supreme example to the Christian in how to serve God.  The Jewish leaders in his day wouldn’t listen to anything he said but he never changed tactics.  It wasn’t that the Jews weren’t living moral lives on the outside but that is never enough for God.  Jesus told them until they get right with the Lord nothing they did on the outside mattered.  This is why he called them “whitewashed tombs”, Mat_23:27  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.  The reason people sin is important to him.

The ultimate example was when Jesus was tempted by Satan.  If there was ever anyone who did not accept the authority of God’s Word it is Satan.  But the only way Jesus would deal with him was by quoting the Scriptures, not by trying to get him to quit doing evil things.  Even Satan only has one option which is to do right because God demands it; any other reason won’t do. 

Understand that I want abortion to be illegal as much as anyone.  But leave it the ProLife people who are lost to use human reasons to argue their case.  Christians are here to change people hearts through the gospel.  That in turn will change behavior.  In the days of the Prophets society was every bit as evil as it is today and the only thing God told his people to do was to lay the claims of their Creator on them that they might repent and believe. 

Christ commissioned the church to go into all the world and preach the gospel and teach them all that he commands us.  He didn’t say that when the world becomes so secular that it pretends that I don’t exists and doesn’t want to hear the gospel then go ahead and try to get them to just be good people by any line of reasoning that works.  God’s Word will do the job or it won’t get done.  Let me remind all of us of Paul’s words above, “The gospel is the power of God”, not clever arguments.  And Isaiah’s, “It will not return unto me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose”.  We aren’t living by faith if we don’t have confidence in the very thing we are to have faith in.

Arming Ourselves for Battle

1Pe 4:1  Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

1Pe 4:2  so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

We live in a fallen world of sin and resulting dangers.  Because of this it is necessary to guard ourselves and families against such things as hunger, thirst, poverty, slander, those who would harm us, disease, etc.  While all these things can be harmful the Bible is clear that our worst danger is sin both within us and without. 

One of the evidences of how sin can destroy us is seen in how we tend to think of physical harm as more dangerous than spiritual dangers.  How many parents will work long hours to make sure that their family has enough to eat and wear and adequate shelter but leave themselves and their children completely open to spiritual attack by not having them under the ministry of the Word of God.  How much money has been spent on alarm systems or guns or some such things in the effort to protect their physical lives and property but little time was spent teaching them of the Gospel with the hope of saving their souls from eternal damnation?  How much effort is spent on encouraging our children that they must go to college and be indoctrinated by the world in order to have a career but not near as much time and energy was spent to indoctrinate them in the Word so that they would be able to defend themselves from the lies of this world?

It is easy for us to live like the most important things are temporal and that all we need is a casual understanding of the Bible, an arm’s distance relationship with the Lord as long as we are “saved”. We assume that is good enough.  At the same time we think that no amount of money and energy is enough to keeping our children “safe” from not having everything they want.  It is the danger of living in affluence that causes us to see poverty as a worse evil then living a nominal, powerless Christian life.

Peter in the text above tells us to arm ourselves with a new way of thinking found only in the Bible.  It is to think as Christ did in which he only cared about doing what pleased the Father and if that brought suffering and death then that was okay.  He understood that the worst thing that could happen to him was to not please the Father in everything he did even if it meant he had no place to call his own and lay his head down at night or no bank account, etc. 

Peter then says that if we come to think like this we will cease from sin.  The idea is that sin will no longer dominate us and we will be able to not fall under its power as easily because we no longer see our temporal life as more important than serving the Lord.  We are crucifying ourselves daily, which means we get up in the morning with the understanding that we are here for the Lord, not for ourselves and so we can say no to those things our bodies might want for greater, eternal rewards.  It isn’t that we will no longer sin at all but we will never be able to have victory over sin until we start thinking like this.

It is a little like the guy who is going to be executed at daybreak; he isn’t worrying about the kind of car he is going to buy because there are more pressing matters.  The father who really cares for his children is by far more concerned for their salvation and relationship with God than he is for their physical wellbeing even though that has its place.  The godly father understands that God and his truth are our protection.  One controls the battlefield or the circumstances of our lives and the other controls our mind so that we know how to fight the good fight.

I will close with an example of understanding how our relationship with Christ must be given precedent over our physical well-being.  John Paton was a missionary to the New Hybrids which was a cannibal infested area in the South Pacific.  The first couple of missionaries there were killed and eaten within a few minutes of landing on shore.  When a Mr. Dickson warned him that he would be eaten by cannibals if he went there he said, Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.  He understood that nothing he could have in this life could compare to having Christ in the next life! I read where they packed their belongings in ready-made caskets as their suitcases for the trip to the New Hybrids!  When told he would die if he went ashore, he said, “We died before we ever left England.”  This is arming yourself for great reward.  The world says such thinking is foolish but Jesus said what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul in the process.

To work for safety and possessions in this life for yourself and families with little effort for securing the next life is the most irresponsible thing you can do for those you say you love.

The Beginning of False Religions

Gen 4:3  In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground,

Gen 4:4  and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering,

Gen 4:5  but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

Gen 4:6  The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?

Gen 4:7  If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it."

The account of Cain and Abel is not just interesting but full of theological lessons.  For one thing it proves that everything God said would happened if Adam sinned did happen as Cain, the firstborn of Adam, shows that he was conceived in the image of his fallen father.  It also shows us the beginning of all false religions as Cain attempts to approach God on his own terms and by his own works.  There are only two religions in the world, works and grace, and Abel comes to God on the basis of another’s work which is grace and Cain comes with the fruit of his own labor which is a religion of works.

As the NT tells us, the spirit of Cain is alive and well today and always has been.  Anyone who teaches us to live for ourselves and not the Lord is merely reflecting Cain’s sinful attitude, 1Jn_3:12  We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.

Jud_1:11  Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.

Another way this attitude is seen is in those who tell us that as long as our motives are right then God doesn’t care how we approach or worship him.  There are those that say that Cain was rejected because his heart wasn’t right; God didn’t care about his sacrifice.  But the NT tells us this is wrong, Heb_11:4  By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

Certainly Cain’s heart was not right with God but it was the sacrifice he brought that proved it.  God discarded his vegetable tray for a couple of reasons:

His sacrifice was not just the works of his hands but grown in the ground that was under a curse.  Cain was telling God to accept him for what he has done and the problem was that all the works we do are tainted with our sin.  All our works arise from sinful hearts and cannot be seen as righteous before a holy God.  Yes, he was acknowledging God and that there was a debt to pay but the payment was totally inappropriate because it was mixed with human effort. 

Both Cain and Abel obviously had been told to approach the Lord with the sacrifice of a substitute but Cain wanted to bring something he had done because his heart was full of himself.  So both his heart and therefore his sacrifice were rejected by the Lord.  And this leads to the second reason God had to reject Cain.

His vegetable tray ruined the OT types of Christ.  Every once in a while God makes an object lesson of someone who thinks he could approach God in a way that didn’t point to the finished work of Christ.  Moses wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land because he struck the Rock a second time when God said to merely speak to it.  Christ only had to die for our sins once, peace was made and now we approach the Father through this finished work and we can speak to God because Christ has already been struck by death and gained victory over it.

Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, learned this lesson with their lives.  Instead of burning incense on the golden altar with fire that came from the brazen altar they used a common fire.  The point is that prayers and service must arise from the sacrifice and anything done that is not based on Christ’s work is unacceptable.  Again, God took these types seriously since he was teaching that no one can be justified nor can do any act of worship and service until they have been purified through the blood of Christ.  Like Cain, Nadab and Abihu decided they could serve God any way they wanted.

Cain no doubt brought a beautiful sacrifice to the Lord but it was totally inappropriate not only because it was an act of rebellion towards God’s will but it didn’t rely on God’s work but on his own.  Had Cain first come to the Lord with a lamb and by such faith been justified then it would have been completely appropriate for him to bring his produce as a sacrifice of praise and thankfulness.  But he got the cart before the horse and was rejected.  And such religions do the same thing today when they teach that we can be right before God apart from anything other than faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.  And no doubt the churches are full of people putting money in the offering plate thinking that this is earning them brownie points with God instead of getting right with God through the Son and then giving offerings based on what God has done for them in Christ.

Is Your Boss a Tool for the Lord

Gen 3:17  And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; Gen 3:18  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. Gen 3:19  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Isa 53:11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

One of the curses sin brought on man is that everything becomes more difficult.  It might be the difficulty of maintaining loving relationships such as in marriage as God told Eve in Gen. 3:16, To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."  Or it might be the difficulty of trying to make a living and feeding your family as in verses 17-19 above. 

So it seems that the sweat of labor reminds us that work will be difficult and unending all of our days and it will also not be as fulfilling as it should.  Sin causes everything temporal to never reach its desired end or pleasure.  Life just will not be what it was meant to be. 

Yet the truth that makes life bearable is that Jesus has defeated every aspect that sin has brought upon us.  It is no accident that the Gospels record Jesus’s work on the cross in such a way that we can clearly see him taking the effects of sin upon himself so that we can be freed.  He bore a crown of thorns as he became cursed for us; he was stripped naked as he bore our shame so that we can be clothed in his righteousness.  We even see him sweating profusely as he begins his work in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

The difference with his sweat and labor from ours was that what he was trying to accomplish was completed fully.  Unlike our labors that never find satisfaction and perfection and in this life, never finding rest for these labors, his brought complete satisfaction and accomplishment in defeating sin and redeeming his church and once he said, “It is finished”, he rested from his labor for it was perfect.  We see his satisfying work in Isa. 53:11 above, Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  And nothing says a work was done right the first time like not having to do it again, Heb 10:12  But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

Not only have our sins been completely paid for so they can never be held against us but Christ’s work now gives our work on earth the satisfaction it could never have otherwise.  The lost will labor and pursue pleasure all his days only to never find the fulfillment that he is looking for and then he will leave it all behind and suffer total loss, Mat 25:29  For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Mat 25:30  And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  But we have the opportunity by the grace of God to do all things for his glory and in so doing we are given meaning and reward for even the most mundane jobs and the same holds true in suffering patiently for the Lord’s sake.  Now there is no excuse for any saint to not find life fulfilling and rewarding because our work for the Lord brings great satisfaction and ultimate reward.  Christians have the promise that it will be worth it all, that our lives are not worthless but have great value, great reward and that perfect rest is coming. 

I will close with what I think is a practical example.  You might have a boss who is incompetent or who is mean and unfair and doesn’t treat you according to the work you do or might not pay you a fair wage, etc.  For many this brings frustration and discontent and they might wonder what is the point of working.  But Christ’s work of redemption changes everything.  That mean boss is actually a means by which you can gain great reward if you bear it patiently, if you love even him, if you continue to exhibit Christ to your co-workers.  If we returned kind for kind, we just end up frustrated.  But if we use every opportunity as a tool to glorify the Lord, then we can look at such people in a whole new light. 

Col 3:22  Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Col 3:23  Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,

Col 3:24  knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

Col 3:25  For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

Engaging the World

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Mat 28:19  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mat 28:20  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Luk 6:27  "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Luk 6:28  bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Eph 4:28  Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

One of the things the above verses have in common is that they all command us to actively engage others.  When Paul tells us to aspire to live quietly and mind our own affairs in 1 Thess. 4:11-12 he isn’t telling us to go off into monasteries or communes and not engage the lost; to try and isolate ourselves from sin and wait for the Lord to come back and rescue us.  Such verses are telling us to be good citizens, don’t cause trouble and work so that you aren’t dependent on others.  Let me quote these verses in their entirety, 1Th 4:11  and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 1Th 4:12  so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 

This isn’t my point in this article but it might be worth pointing out that it is not the Lord’s will for his people to live off charity and welfare as a rule of thumb.  These things can be helpful and there are times when we all need help but it is to be our goal to take care of ourselves as the Lord allows and not assume that somebody else owes me what they have worked hard for.  I say this because as our country turns more and more socialist Christians can get caught up in the idea that people don’t have to be held accountable to work and do their share to support the economy.  Our goal should be to enable people to work, not see how many can be dependent on the government.  But we will press on.

The point I want to make in the above verses is that we have been called to engage this world, to live among the lost and not just mind our own business so we don’t have to get involved in people’s lives and problems.  As the verse in Eph. 4 says, it is not enough that we don’t steal but that we work to have money to help others.  Here we see a contrast to the 10 Commandments that basically tell us what not to do but under the New Covenant we cannot stop there but must love and do good; we cannot just “not do harm”.  We are not to just not commit adultery but love our wives as ourselves, we don’t just not murder, we love and help, don’t just want peace but pursue peace, etc. 

So we are told in Matthew 28, for instance, that the church is not to just mind its own business, worship in your heart, keep to yourself, but we instead are to go to those who don’t want to hear and lay the claims of Christ on them in the preaching of the Gospel. 

Why this matters especially today is because Christians are being told to keep their religion to themselves.  We are free to believe what we want but if it is out of step with today’s morality then we must keep silent.  There are many Christians that are happy to oblige them and there are many in the church that are also saying that we must fall into step with the social mores of the day regardless of what the Bible says.

But the problem with this is that Matthew 28 commands the church to proclaim the Word of God to the lost whether they want to hear it or not.  The call today to keep our religion to ourselves is just another attempt by Satan to keep us from telling this world about the cross of Jesus Christ.  It is an attack on Christianity itself which cannot be silent and to do so is to blatantly disobey the Lord.  The church propagates itself not by running from the world but by attacking it with the Gospel.  This is historic and biblical Christianity and we dare not be diverted from it.  We are to go into all the world, not hide from the world.  May God give us the strength in these uncertain days to be faithful to him and not fear the culture around us because it will soon be gone but the Word of God abides forever.

Let's not be Pharisees

Mar 7:8  You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men."

Mar 7:9  And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

Having been raised in Fundamentalism it is not difficult for me to see a connection between it and Pharisaism.  I want to be clear that I am not saying that all Fundamentalist are hypocritical legalists, but the system lends itself to some similarities.  Also, some of the things I am going to point out are things that we all must be on guard for because it is easy for any of us to miss the point of biblical principles and go to one extreme or the other.

I remember my pastor of a large Fundamental church saying on more than one occasion that if the world moves away from biblical principles in some way, we Christians must move the other way.  So for instance, if the dress hems moved up I guess our women’s dress hems should move down, if the world drinks we must be teetotalers, etc.  This preached well in such churches because Fundamentalism tends to over react to the world around them.

And in that we can see a connection to the mindset of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were so concerned that God’s Law not be broken that they went too far the other way and made up laws so that they wouldn’t get near to God’s actual law and then taught that these man-made laws were equally important as God’s laws.  Of course, the result was that they became judgmental because they assumed that if you didn’t live like they did you were not as holy as they were; your standards were lower than theirs.

Growing up we would hear a lot about keeping your standards high and your convictions uncompromised; to lower them was to compromise with the world.  This is all well and good if your “standards or convictions” were biblical.  But if your standards are a result of over-reaction to the standards of the lost then you are in danger of making up things in order to be different from the world in ways that God has not commanded. 

In the above illustration, if I am living as best I can based on my understanding of God’s Word and the world moves further away from God’s standards; why do I have to move at all?  To move in the opposite direction is to do something similar to what the world has done; it is to do things my way rather than trust that God knows best.  If I am living biblically then to move either way is to move away from that which is biblical.  So I end up making up my own list of rules in an effort to be holy which is exactly what the Pharisees did.

This results in my becoming “more holy than Jesus”!  The principles laid out in the Bible aren’t enough to be a good testimony of the grace of God so I need to develop stricter standards than God thought necessary.  And the real problem here is that I then must assume that those who don’t do as I do are sinning and so I can see myself as a “better, more committed” Christian than those compromisers out there.  And, again, this is exactly what the Pharisees did. 

To be sure the Bible doesn’t give us detailed commands in every area of life.  It sets forth principles to guide those that love the Lord and want to honor him in the way they live (which describes every true believer, by the way).  So we consider these principles, such as “Do all for the glory of God” and we decide what is wrong for us and right for us in gray areas or subjects that the Bible doesn’t speak to directly.  What should happen is that we can agree to disagree with other saints in these gray areas and work and fellowship together in service to the Lord.  But when we have a spirit that what I think is right is right for everyone, even in those things that the Bible doesn’t address, then I begin to judge everyone else’s hearts and motives and I become a Pharisee.

One way this is practically important is because if I don’t have this level of maturity it will be impossible for me to fellowship with people who don’t agree with me on secondary and tertiary matters and the church becomes even more splintered than it is anyway.  I have yet to be in a church in which someone (usually a husband and father) who assumes he knows it all and so if the church leaders don’t see things his way, it is his responsibility to take himself and his family away from the ministry of God’s Word because evidently only he knows the truth in every matter and so only his views are safe for his family.  Evidently the pastor will lead his family into all manner of sin if he lets anyone else but himself lead them. 

We all have to decide what is right and wrong for us according to the principles of God’s Word but we can’t make such things into laws that we then expect everyone else to live by.  Such legalism only divides and it is making obedience to the Lord more than the Bible teaches; it is being “more godly than Christ” and that, of course, is nonsense.