What’s Wrong With The Solas (keep reading)?!

As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs.” Ever heard those words? They form one of the outrageous claims of the 16th century Roman Catholic cleric John Tetzel. Some people quote the last phrase in the claim as saying, “another soul from purgatory springs.” Tetzel was put in charge of raising money for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome through the sale of “indulgences,” and he became famous (better, infamous) for being good at the job. The          wacky idea of indulgences is that a full or partial remission of the punishment of sins could be procured, even for dead people, by contributing money to the church. The teaching was popular, especially among the rich! To be fair, the official position of the Catholic church is that they never sanctioned indulgences. Sanctioned or not, Tetzel sold them. Ray Cavanaugh said Tezel was “peddling purgatory relief” (“Peddling purgatory relief: Johann Tetzel” @ nconline.org). The idea that forgiveness and grace could be bought and merited by human payment stirred the ire of Martin Luther who became the seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. He rejected some teachings and practices of the Catholic church, and in particular disputed the sale of                indulgences. Rejecting the idea sinners could earn or buy forgiveness, Luther taught that salvation is by “sola fide,” Latin for “faith alone.” So it is that phrase and the phrase “grace alone” have been around since Luther’s day in the early 1500's. In our time preachers are heard saying, “We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed by Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.”                                     

But let’s hold our theological horses for a minute! Our tweety world loves to use cliches and sound bytes in an attempt to squeeze huge, vast ideas and subjects into a few catchy words, even in religion. The problem with that is well stated by David Servant in these words: “It isn’t easy, however, to summarize all that God has revealed about salvation in Scripture with four Latin words. In fact, it is impossible. That is one reason why God gave us an entire Bible, and not just four words” (“Grace Alone and Faith Alone: What is Wrong With the First Two Solas?” @ davidservant.com). The Bible is clear we are saved by grace (Romans 3:24) and justified by faith (Romans 5:1). But it never says we are saved by “grace alone” or “grace alone through faith alone.”

In Galatians 3:6-12 the apostle Paul affirms we are, indeed, children of Abraham, if we exercise the trusting, obedient faith he did, as opposed to believing we earn or merit salvation by perfect performance and rule keeping. The spectacle of God’s bloodied, battered Son on a cross is proof enough we could never do that. Add to that the words Servant said above, “God gave us an entire Bible.” It is most unwise to try and squeeze the Bible’s doctrine of how God saves into a few selected verses and words. The    Bible says in Hebrews 11:8, “By faith Abraham obeyed ...” (see James 2:21-24). Let us say what Scripture says in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” But let us also affirm what another inspired writer said at Hebrews 5:9 (speaking of Jesus): “He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” Bible writers stiffly opposed the idea sinners can ever earn or merit salvation. But they never taught we are saved by grace alone through faith alone. They taught that faith obeys God’s commands. We will teach that, too, if we teach what they taught.

       by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN  

Our Only Hope!

 

"The power of hope defines the psychological victim and psychological survivor. If I could find a way to package and dispense hope, I would have a pill more powerful than any antidepressant on the market. Hope is often the only thing between man and the abyss. As long as a patient, individual or victim has hope, they can recover from anything and everything.” Those words were written by Dr. Dale Archer, M. D., in an online blog @ psychologytoday.com (“The Power of Hope,” posted July 31 2013). The doctor also said, “However, if they lose hope, unless you can help them get it back, all is lost.” 

        I don’t know if Dr. Archer is a Christian or even a believer. What I do know is that our world needs hope. Unless you just arrived from another planet, you don’t need me to tell you why. Another thing I know for sure is that the New Testament and the church described on its pages are unequaled when it comes to hope and the power that comes packaged with it. Hope is standard equipment when you buy into the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ’s apostles heralded the message that Jesus Christ is “our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1). They believed people outside of Christ had “no hope and [were] without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). The apostle Paul referred to God as “the God of hope” who can “fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). We are saved in a hope that cannot yet be seen and we “eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (8:4-25). The early church preached Jesus as the “one hope” we have for overcoming sin and death (Ephesians 4:4). The apostle Peter describes the Christian hope as “a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3), grounded not on wishful thinking or a hunch or luck, but in the rock-solid reality that Jesus Christ died on a cross, went into a tomb, but three days later got up and walked out of it alive, never to die again (Revelation 1:18)! The writer of Hebrews 6:18b-19 urged Christians to “lay hold of the hope set before us”, and that, “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence [of God, that is] behind the veil.” That hope anchors our souls in Heaven even as our ship is battered and tossed by earthly winds and storms that beat into our souls here on earth. Edward Mote expressed it this way in his beautiful song “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” (1834: "In every high and storm gale, My anchor holds within the veil ... When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.” For that reason, it is wise to “put on ... as a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8b).

This verse suggests hope in Jesus Christ is like a “helmet” to cover the head, protecting against the mind’s proneness to wander and providing spiritual protection against the vagaries, doubts, and fears we often encounter as human beings, and even as God’s children. Terri Guillemets said, “I still believe in some faraway place where it’s all okay.” It’s not all okay here on Planet Earth. The Bible’s message is that in this devil-dominated, sin-saturated world, it never will be okay. But there is a place where all is okay. A place where “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying ... no more pain ...” (Revelation 21:4). A place “where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). Is there any other hope of being forgiven of sins, defeating death, and being with God forever? The world denies it, but the Word of God says Christ is our only hope. That being the case, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He is faithful who promised” (Hebrews 10:23).

        by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Senseless Christians?

 

Sometimes it seems we humans just “park our brains” or at least sound that way. A man named Jack Ray illustrated the point with a humorous piece in the March 2004 edition of the Readers Digest (p 76). He wrote: “The trouble with being a landlord? Tenants. Especially those who write letters like these: * The toilet is blocked and we cannot bathe the children until it is cleared. * This is to let you know that there is a smell coming from the man next door. * Will you please send someone to mend our cracked sidewalk? Yesterday, my wife tripped on it, and she is now pregnant.” Sometimes the “funny” things we say or hear are just funny. But at other times not so funny. It may be that the senseless-sounding things people say sound “senseless” because they are senseless — that is, the people saying them aren’t “thinking it through” and aren’t being fair and reaching a logical conclusion from the facts.

A passage written by the apostle Paul in Galatians 3:1 accuses some first century Christians of being mindless, that is acting on and / or believing something without thinking logically and reasonably. In a very blunt approach, Paul asked in Galatians 3:1, “O foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?” When is the last time you heard a preacher address his congregation that way?! These days, Paul would be chewed up and spit out on social media as being harsh, judgmental and non-inclusive. But I digress. We don’t have space here to lay it out in detail, but in essence Paul is accusing them of being mindless! Through Paul’s teaching they were people “before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified”!             

Throughout the letter Paul juxtaposes two opposing ideas. First, being saved from sin by faith in Christ and by the grace of God expressed supremely through the death of Christ for our sins (2:16; 1:3-6). The second idea (the one Paul sees as totally senseless and foolish) is the idea that keeping what in the original context was “the works of the law” of Moses (2:16), including circumcision (5:2-3), somehow merits and qualifies sinners and puts God in their debt. No way, Paul says, suggesting such an idea means he has “set aside the grace of God (2:21). Think carefully now, it’s not that Paul thought that seeking to obey God’s teachings and commands wasn’t important or even necessary for God’s Old Testament people who lived under the Law of Moses or for those under the New Covenant who were saved by grace. Later at 3:26-29 this same apostle who is arguing so vigorously we are saved by God’s grace through “the faith of the Son of God who love me and gave himself for me” (2:20) — that same grace-preaching apostle in this same letter shows that being saved by grace through faith does not negate the fact we must be “baptized into Christ” if we are to “put or” or “be clothed with Christ,” thus belonging to Christ and becoming a spiritual descendant of Abraham! At the same time the cross of Christ is Paul’s ultimate argument against the notion anyone can merit, earn and deserve salvation from sin to the point God owes it to us without Christ. George Washington Robertson said, “God gave us two ends, one to sit on and the other to think with. A man’s success depends on which end he uses most. It is a case of heads you win, tails you lose.” God grant us to be fair with His word and not be senseless in what we believe. The success of our very souls depends on it.

        "These were more fair-minded...they searched the Scriptures to find out whether these things were so” - Acts 17:11

   by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN      

Does Jesus Know You Love Him?

        What would you do if you were worth $3.2 billion? When media mogul Ted Turner found out in    late September 1997 his wealth had grown from a paltry $2.2 billion to $3.2 billion in a year, he decided to give away a billion. On September 25, 1977, Turner electrified an audience in New York City when he announced he would give away one billion dollars to the good works program of the Nations — a hundred million dollars a year for the next 10 years. A Newsweek article entitled “Why Ted Gave It Away” (September 29, 2997, pp 29-32) referred to his gift as “... the largest pledge in philanthropic history.” The article went on to describe the audience as “stunned.” Why did Ted give it away? No one but he and God knows for sure. Maybe he sincerely wanted to help people. The article pointed out he would get tax benefits and that after the gift he would still be a billionaire two times over. 

        Turner’s gift was a stunning one by any measure. But be sure to know — his $1,000,000,000 gift was neither the largest nor most stunning one in history, not even close. That trophy was claimed 2,000 years ago when God, “when the fulness of the time had come, sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). In the most familiar verse in the 31,102 verses of the King James Version of the Holy Bible, John 3:16 still says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The cross of Christ is the place where the greatest, largest, most stunning gift in the history of man was given. There God’s sinless Son suffered and died for sinners, giving us what can only be described, in the words of 2 Corinthians 9:15, as an “unspeakable” or indescribable gift! Now, if it is not clear what moved Ted Turner and what moves other fabulously rich people like him (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet have given away multiple billions), the Bible leaves no doubt as to why Jesus died on a cross. Romans 5:8 says God “demonstrates His love toward, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” First John 3:16a declares, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”                                                                           

        Another verse about the love of Christ is Galatians 2:20 — “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” That verse is often used to call us to deny ourselves and take up the cross of self-denial as Jesus taught (e.g., Luke 9:23). Appropriately so. Romans 6:1-7 is clear before sinners can “raised to newness of life” and "freed from sin” they must first “die to sin” (in repentance) and then be “baptized into Christ Jesus ... buried with Him through baptism into death.” So, it is Galatians 2:20 teaches us the what behind Paul’s intense devotion to Jesus – Paul had died to self and Christ lived His life out through Paul. But don’t miss the last dozen words of that verse — “the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Those 12 words reveal the why behind Paul’s love for Jesus and ceaseless efforts to bring others to Him! Paul knew Jesus loved him because Jesus gave Himself for Paul. Jesus knew Paul loved Him because Paul gave himself for Jesus. You know Jesus loves you, but does Jesus know you love Him? 

       by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

An Apostle Called on the Carpet!

A guy said, “I once had a goldfish that could break-dance on a carpet. But only for like 20 seconds.” My apologies to goldfish and those who love them. This little article is about a Bible passage in Galatians 2:11-21 where the apostle Peter is doing a little dancing of his own. Not on a carpet, mind you, but around the truth of the Gospel. To use the words of the apostle Paul’s inspired indictment at verse 13, Peter “played the hypocrite”! Incredible thought — one apostle accusing another of being, for the moment, a hypocrite! And so Paul, as we say, “calls Peter on the carpet.”

Back to that passage in a few moments. According to website @ grammarist.com, to “call on the carpet” is an idiom meaning “to reprimand someone, to be criticized, scolded or blamed for some sort of mistake or infraction.” Early on the idiom was “walk the carpet” and came to describe a servant being called before his mistress or master in order to be scolded or blamed for a mistake. The idea is that the servant has been called out of the kitchen with a flagstone floor, or the servants’ quarters with wooden floors, into the quarters of the master of the house where the floors are carpeted. Today the phrase “call on the carpet” may be used to describe a reprimand to anyone, from anyone, but it is often a superior who calls a subordinate on the carpet.

The passage mentioned above in Galatians chapter 2 records an incident between two equals. Two apostles of Christ, that is. Peter was one of the original 12 apostles chosen by the Lord and Paul’s call by Christ came later in dramatic fashion (see Acts 9, 22, and 26) “as one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:8b). Both Paul and Peter had preached the same gospel — salvation and justification through faith in Christ, not by keeping the Law of Moses or circumcision, Paul preached mostly to Gentiles and Peter mostly to Jews (Galatians 2:6-8), and the two were in full fellowship (2:9). But alas, Galatians 2:11ff relates a sad day in Antioch (of Syria, some 300 miles north of Jerusalem) when Peter began to backtrack and “play the hypocrite.” Read carefully – when no other Jews were around, or at least when leading, influential ones were not, Peter did as the Gentiles did, having table fellowship with them (vs 12a). But when influential Jews (that is, Jewish Christians who still preached circumcision) showed up, he gave in to peer-pressure and did as the Jews did. He “withdrew [from the Gentiles] and separated himself from them, fearing those who were of the circumcision” (vs 12). It was then that Paul “called Peter on the carpet” and charged him with hypocrisy (vs 13). Paul “withstood him to his face [note, not on Facebook!], because he was to be blamed.” He challenged Peter’s conduct “before them all” (vs 14), not behind Peter’s back or in a tweet.

Here’s the point — while the apostles’ message was inspired, their manner of life was not. To quote Edward C. Wharton in his commentary on GALATIANS, “The apostles were not super-human beings. They had to fight sin and self.” Peter lost one battle but not the war. No doubt Paul and Peter cared for each other as brothers and fellow soldiers in and for Christ. But Paul and Peter also knew their Hebrew Scriptures said in Psalm 141:5 – “Let the righteous strike me; It shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; It shall be as excellent oil; Let my head not refuse it.” Consider: do we fear people too much to “call them on the carpet” when the need arises? God help us always be sensitive and kind but have a stiff spine to stand for the truth.

by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

The Sure Way To Forfeit Forgiveness!

        A grudge was apparently held by Mark Twain when he wrote about someone who died: “I did not attend the funeral, but I wrote a nice note saying I approved of it.” Twain’s words remind us it is easy to “nurse a grudge.” But nursing a grudge is never easy on us. As Ken Kesey said, “The man [or woman] who seeks revenge digs two graves.” English poet Alexander Pope [died 1744], in his “Essay On Criticism” (1711), reminds us there is a better way with the familiar saying, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” The saying echoes the Bible’s teaching that all accountable human beings sin (even Christians – Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8-10), and that God forgives when people meet the conditions He laid out in the Gospel (Acts 2:37-38; Colossians 2:10-13). Pope’s saying hints at something Jesus taught clearly and forcefully – if we want forgiveness, we must work at having a forgiving spirit. The Lord said in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not  forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you.” That’s blunt stuff.  Jesus didn't qualify what kind of trespasses. He didn’t say, “You have to forgive other people of the easy and lightweight stuff or the stuff that’s easy to get over.” Instead, He jars us with one the toughest demands He ever laid out for those who would genuinely follow Him – if we forgive, God forgives us. If we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive us. That’s how you forfeit forgiveness. And before you decide God will let you off the hook for being unwilling to forgive, recall the cross where God’s beaten, bloodied, battered, blasphemed Son, with not a single sustainable charge of sin against His pure and innocent soul, prays, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). A few weeks later the Father did forgive many of them who complied with Gospel conditions (see Acts 2:36-41). Does what you see at the cross suggest to you there was anything easy as God, through His Son, brought to completion His ages-long plan to be able to righteously and justly forgive your sins and my sins and everyone else’s sins? I think not.

         Elizabeth O’ Connor reminds us, “Forgiveness is a whole lot harder than any sermon ever made it out to be.” One clear message from the cross is that forgiveness is horribly difficult and costly. To forgive us cost God His Son, and cost the Son excruciating physical torment and agony, let alone the unimaginable spiritual pain and torture He suffered there in His soul. If it proved that costly to God and His Son to forgive our sins, why would we expect it to be easy to forgive others who have trespassed against us? By the way, before I forget to say this, can you imagine how costly it would have turned out for us if God and His Son had been unwilling to pay the price to forgive us? Yes, to forgive is sometimes very, very difficult. As some sage noted, “To err is human, to forgive is unusual.” It may be unusual for those who don’t know Christ to offer forgiveness. But the call for those who claim to follow Jesus could not be more plain or direct – “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Burton Coffman’s commentary on this verse provides a succinct if sobering summary of the New Testament’s teaching on God’s demand that we be forgiving – “The watchword for Christians, and for all people, is, ‘Forgive or forfeit forgiveness.’” The sure way to forfeit forgiveness is to refuse forgive.

       by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN 

A Church of Velvet and Steel!

A very unusual tribute was paid to Abraham Lincoln by American poet and biographer Carl Sandburg. He wrote, “Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.” You may or may not agree with that assessment of Lincoln. But one thing is sure — the kind of character Sandburg describes is all too scarce in human beings. And, may I add, rarer in the church than we should hope.

 Jesus Christ was a man of velvet and steel. He was tough and He was tender, depending upon what different people and different occasions might call for. To those who had been done in by the devil but who were open to His teaching, guidance, and forgiveness, Jesus was tender as a loving mother and / or father. In John 4 He encountered a woman at Jacob’s well who had been married five different times to five different husbands, and Jesus reminds her the man she is currently living with is not her husband John 4:18). And yet, and yet — He didn’t write her off.  He didn’t castigate or scald or scorch her for living in sin.” He deftly and directly but gently spoke to her about “living water” and His desire to provide it for her (verses 10-14). Read the whole account and you will see how tenderly Jesus dealt with her as He sought to lead her to faith in Himself as the long-awaited Messiah. Another example of Jesus’ tenderness is found in John 8:1ff where the Pharisees sought to trap the Lord. They brought Jesus  “a woman caught in the act of adultery.” They urged Him to be hard as steel and tough in dealing with her, reminding Jesus, “Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? You can read His response in John 8:6-9. With skill He turned the tables on these religious hypocrites, and His tender response to the woman is, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She answered, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you” — but then tough words followed as He urged her, “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:10-11). Even a casual reading of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life shows Him to be a man of velvet softness when dealing with hurting people and suffering sinners, but hard as steel when it came to truth.

 The apostle Paul gives more than advice or a suggestion with his directive in Ephesians 4:15 that Christians be “speaking the truth in love.” Any Bible student knows the apostle Paul was anything but soft on the truth. At great personal cost to himself he preached it up and down the first century Roman Empire. He had an iron will when it came to preaching God’s truth. In Galatians 2:5 (we don’t have space to get into the context), Paul made this unbending statement about some people who attempted to change the teaching of the gospel: “to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.” But before that book ends, we hear the apostle calling for tenderness between Christians — “... through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:13b-15)!” Let every Christian take notice — God        wants a church characterized by velvet and steel. Velvet when it comes to dealing with people and their problems and sins. But a will of steel when it comes to holding fast to the truth of the gospel. 

  Dan Gulley, Smithville TN