Slavery, Abolitionists, & Compassion: Part 2

In the first part of this post we established that all unrepentant sinners are slaves to sin as Jesus points out in John 8:34. Slavery to sin is far worse than any physical slavery mankind has ever employed. Jesus as the true abolitionist, is the one who fights against slavery and he is the one who ultimately brings true freedom (John 8:36). As Christians we also work in this ministry of freeing people from slavery, a slavery we were under once. 

We also saw that Jesus combated slavery to sin by calling some slaves the “sons of the devil” and this action was an act of compassion on his part.. Jesus’ compassion took the form of opposing slavery in every facet he encountered. To those entrapped by sin and who hated their slavery he showed tender mercy pointing them to freedom via repentance and belief in him. To those who were arrogant in their slavery, who claimed to be free, he took out his verbal baseball bat and started to swing also calling them to repentance and faith. The method changed, but his heart motive, compassion, remained the same.

So this leads us to the question, as little abolitionists who are working for the true abolitionist, “How do we show compassion to those enslaved by sin?” Let’s start with a list of what would not be compassionate:

• It is not compassionate to walk up to a slave and to affirm him in his slavery. Our world tells us we are to accept and affirm people for who they are, in bondage and all. By this world means to affirm them and encourage them to continue on in their sin, no matter the consequences. If we view sin correctly, as Jesus did, we would recognize that affirming someone in their sin is like approaching a slave on a plantation and saying to them, “Slavery is good for you. It is the core of your identity. I accept you as a slave. Carry on.” This is a far cry from compassion.

• It is not compassionate to approach a slave and to say their slavery brings out that person’s true self. We as a culture are told to place ultimate confidence in our own view of ourselves. The finest shifting sand around. To be holy in this culture, it is our job to build up other’s in their pride by seeing them primarily by their own self-identification. But if this self-identification is actually slavery, if it will actually lead them to death, how should we respond? We must not approach the slave to sin and say, “Those chains around you really bring out the colors in your eyes. They make you look so beautiful, they display your strength and that you are true to yourself.” This again is not compassion, this is in fact the opposite, this is hatred toward the slave.

• It is not compassionate to accept or support the laws and societal forces which are arguing for and enforcing slavery upon the masses. Can you imagine if the abolitionists of the 1800s walked into Congress and said the laws put in place to further slavery were good things? Can you imagine if the abolition movement had turned a blind-eye to the legal forces in place in America that legalized slavery? Would such actions be compassionate? Would such actions have helped those trapped in slavery? But yet we are told time and again to do just that. Love would dictate that we oppose all the forces which seek to further slavery in our society.

• Finally, it is not compassionate for a former slave who is now free, who knows the way to freedom, to refuse to show those in bondage the way to freedom. The success of the Underground Railroad, and of people like Harriet Tubman, is displayed as people, even former slaves, cared for those who were suffering so much that they risked life and limb to lead them to freedom. We too are former slaves to sin, we have been set free by Christ, and in turn we are to lead others to freedom.

The analogy of sin as slavery is important to keep in our minds. As we war against this wretched form of slavery there are many battlegrounds we must fight upon. We must expose the forces of this world which argue for slavery for what they are—lies which lead to bondage and death. We must oppose the laws of the land which seek to normalize and promote slavery and which at the same time seek to prevent true freedom. We must also look with sympathy on those trapped in slavery and show true compassion by pointing them to freedom, even when they are so deceived they think they are already free. This is the example Christ gave us. This is true compassion. 

Slavery, Abolitionists, & Compassion: Part 1

As the sexual revolution continues to spin out of control before our eyes, Christians are faced with a dilemma, “How do we oppose this evil and remain compassionate to people?” Much of the online dialogue has divided Christians in two camps: those who want to speak out against the action and those who think we should instead focus on showing compassion to individuals. Interestingly enough, those arguing for compassion often do not show that very compassion to their fellow Christians they are disagreeing with. 

As I have thought on this I am more and more convinced that this idea that both opposing the sexual revolution and showing compassion is not opposed to each other, but rather that opposition to this wickedness is true compassion. How did I come to this conclusion? The words and actions of Jesus Christ. Jesus is our example of love and compassion which we are to follow.

Jesus hung out and ate with some sinners, but he also rebuked and fought with other sinners. What was the difference? Why did he respond differently to different people? It is safe to say that in both scenarios Jesus was acting out of love and in both responses he remained compassionate (even if to our politically correct eyes it doesn’t appear so) even though his tactics changed depending on the context. 

The main factor for Jesus’ different actions appears to be how the sinner views his sin. To those who were under the burden of sin, who were oppressed by it, and who saw no hope for change, to those Jesus shows tender mercy by welcoming them and showing there is hope in him through repentance and faith. 

But there is another type of sinner, the one who loves his sin and thinks there is nothing wrong with his actions. To those sinners who call themselves righteous, those who celebrate and embrace their own wickedness and who call it ‘good,’ to those who further wickedness and its oppression of others,  Jesus’ compassion takes the form of hard rebukes in an attempt to get them to see their sin and to find healing through repentance and faith in him. His tactics changed, his goal did not. 

The difference between these two types of sinners is that one is humble and the other is proud. And this makes a world of difference. Jesus tells us as much in the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee who go to pray at the temple. The tax collector is humble and admits he is a sinner, the Pharisee is proud and he thinks he is notsinful. In the end, the humble one is forgiven, and the prideful one is not (Luke 18:9-14). Your relationship to your own sin makes a world of difference.

In our culture, the attitude of the Pharisees is found in the secular left. They believe themselves and their actions to be inherently good, even unquestionably good. They are proud and even celebrate their wickedness as something which is to be accepted, praised, and advanced. Moreover, they ostracize and marginalize anyone who lives out true righteousness by labeling them immoral, uneducated, bigoted, and simpletons. The parallels between the actions of the secular left in adherence to their holiness code and that of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day are rather striking.

So how do we show compassion to the prideful sinner? We must be like Jesus and rebuke him. That is compassion. We must oppose that which is wicked all-the-while remembering that these people are people whom we are trying to direct toward salvation. In rebuking them we must maintain the attitude of humility by refusing to become prideful ourselves knowing that we are saved by God’s grace alone. We are must not come to think of ourselves as righteous in ourselves as they do. Humility is important. This does not negate that compassion dictates that we oppose evil and slavery and we do so vehemently even as Christ did himself. 

So what does this have to do with slavery? Jesus in John 8 has an interesting encounter with a bunch of prideful Jews who believe they are righteous because of how they were born (in Abraham’s line). Jesus will have none of their thinking. This exchange is even more interesting because this group of Jews is said to have initially “believed” in Jesus (8:31), though it was not a genuine belief. 

Jesus says to these Jews they need to know the truth because it will set them free (8:31-32), but they object because they believe themselves to be free already (8:33)! Jesus is talking about spiritual freedom from sin, as he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (8:34). These Jews were enslaved to sin, yet they refused to acknowledge  they were in slavery.  These slaves were so full of pride and their love of sin that they thought they were free. They thought they were morally right, sinless, and that Jesus was in the wrong! This leads Jesus to tell them they are of their father (8:38)  who is not Abraham as they claim, but in reality is the Devil (8:44).

See the form Jesus' compassion takes—he says to a bunch of sinners, who are slaves to sin, that they are the children of the Devil. This is how his compassion worked itself out in this situation. Jesus was willing to publicly call a spade a spade. Why did he take this tactic? Surely one reason was because this group of Jews was self-righteous, they denied they were sinful and thought they were morally justified because of how they were born! Couldn't Jesus just get in line  and treat them with more civility and affirm how they were born? But Jesus says, "You are not free, and you will never be free as long as you serve the Devil and reject the truth that freedom is only found in me." His compassion is found in that Jesus offers these slaves freedom by point out the truth of their situation. 

Jesus is the true abolitionist offering passage from the plantations of the South to the free states of the North, but these slaves love their slavery more than freedom. In their arrogance think their bondage is freedom. They thing right is wrong and wrong is right. This leads them to oppose true freedom (Jesus) and to promote slavery for themselves and for others!

The compassion of Jesus acts in such a way as to call out this wicked nonsense and be bluntly honest that they are so far gone that they are working for the ultimate slave master—Satan himself. It is here that Jesus throws his verbal punches in hopes to shake them to the core so that they may repent and find true freedom and that others may not be captured by this slavery. 

If your conception of Jesus is not large enough to include Jesus as he is found in John 8, then you have fallen prey to a false Jesus. He is our model of love and his love had a backbone and it had teeth. Jesus hates slavery to sin, and so should we. Slavery to sin is far worse than any form of physical slavery mankind has ever dreamed up. 

Jesus is the great abolitionist, and we are under his charge to continue the fight for freedom from sin by following his example and preaching the gospel, even when the sons of the Devil don’t want to listen  because they think  they are already free. Humility reminds us that we were once there as well and we are only free because someone confronted us about our own slavery. 

In part 2 of this blog post I will apply what this means for us today as we seek to battle the slavery of our day—the sexual revolution which promotes promiscuity, homosexuality, transgenderism, gender fluidity and others forms of wickedness. This ideology is enslaving millions of people around the world and yet it has the audacity to masquerade around as freedom. The Christian must be able to respond to this slavery with compassion of Christ and not mere sentimentality. 

Born Again this Way

Slogans are important. They tell in a short, pithy way what defines a movement. Slogans are also powerful because they make an argument which is asserted as an ultimate truth. Throughout history, slogans have empowered great movements. For the Reformers, it was the five alones, by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone, under scripture alone and glory to God alone. It was these slogans which the Protestants rallied around as the core of the gospel and what distinguished them from the Roman Catholic Church. In the American Revolution, the slogans were equally powerful: no taxation without representation and don’t tread on me. Slogans identify the core beliefs of a movement.

As our world continues to change at an alarming speed, we continue to see the use of slogans. The slogans of our secular society lack the nobility and veracity of the ones listed above, but their power in public discourse cannot be denied. The Christian must be ready to engage these secular slogans by confronting them with the truth of the gospel.

One such slogan used to justify the sexual deviancy of homosexuality is, “I was born this way.” This slogan asserts homosexuality is not wrong, but that it is morally praiseworthy because it is “natural.” As the argument goes, the fact that homosexuals are supposedly born this way makes it above any type of moral judgment.

This slogan rests upon the idea that if someone is born a certain way, then that is to be embraced, praised, and affirmed as morally good. Such an ethic is not a solid foundation for morality, and it becomes absurd rather quickly the more it is applied.

For example, let’s consider the pedophile. He too could make the claim he was “born this way,” and if that is the grounds for establishing what is right, then we should not object his pedophilia. Take as another example the serial killer; he too can claim to be “born this way” with a desire to kill, in fact, if we are truly living in Darwin’s world marked by the survival of the fittest, who are we to judge such an action? Or take for example, the habitual thief, he too could say, “I was born with a desire to take what is not mine, who are you to judge?” And again, he would, in essence, be making the same argument as those arguing for homosexuality today. If an action is natural to me at birth, it must be good!

I am not saying that all of these actions are morally equal because they aren’t. I am saying that just because someone may or may not be born with a certain desire does not mean that desire is right, acceptable, or praiseworthy. In fact, many of our “natural” desires are wrong.

Scripture teaches us that all of us are born in sin. This means each and every person is born with sinful tendencies and desires. We all are born bent toward evil. As we grow older, those sinful desires become clearer and clearer as we chase after the desires of our heart. For some that desire is theft, while for others it is anger which leads to murder; and still, for others it is sexual immorality via heterosexual promiscuity or homosexuality. The existence of a sinful nature is true of all humans, and it is not a morally good thing. Natural does not necessarily equal good. In fact, it is unmistakably a very horrible thing that we have these sinful desires. Our physical births are not the standard of morality; they cannot be. Unfortunately, our culture trusts very much in physical birth as a moral justification.

Since “I was born this way” is not a legitimate foundation for morality, how is the Christian to respond to this slogan? John 3 helps us here. The good news of the Gospel is found in Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus and other Jews wanted to rely on their physical birth, how they were born, in order to be counted as righteous before God. Those who are promoting sexual immorality today also point to their birth, though in a different way, as to proof of their righteousness. To Nicodemus, secular liberals, and everyone else, Jesus says, “You must be born again.”

I was born a sinner, and I am in need of a new birth. It is only through this new birth that I can be righteous before God and enter into his kingdom. So while I too was “born this way” into sin and death, as a Christian, I have been “born again this way” in holiness and righteousness leading to eternal life. What is the solution to my sinful desires and my sinful flesh which I was born with? The answer is to be born again by the Spirit of God through the work of Jesus Christ.

For those who have been born again, we now live in two realities. We still have our old sinful nature, but now we also have a new nature made in the likeness of Christ. As we grow in the faith, we become more like Jesus and less like our old self. So Christians should say to the world, as Jesus did, “You were born this way, but you need to be born again in a new and better way.” The second birth is more powerful than the first birth as it breaks the hold of sin and death in our lives.

So Christians are born again this way—in the image and likeness of Christ. This means we are opposed to sinful lifestyles, including our own, and we are constantly directing ourselves and others to Jesus Christ through who we can be born again. To their slogan, “I was born this way.” We should respond we our own slogan, “I was born again through the Holy Spirit, and you can be too!” There alone is hope for salvation, change, and new life. We all need to be born again this way.

Levi J. Secord

Love is Not the Answer

Our culture is all about “love." We place so much hope in it, yet our cultural understanding and definition of “love” is more floaty than it is concrete. As Pastor Joel pointed out a few weeks ago our culture generally talks about love as one of two things: romantic love or a love which is based on unconditional acceptance of everything and everything (except Christians). It is in these two definitions of love that our culture places its hope for the future. We are told, “Love is the answer to the world’s problem.” But there is no hope to be found in the secular understanding of love. Let me give a few examples of how this is playing out in our culture today.

Romantic love is viewed as that which can change people by bringing about permanent positive change. The television show, Once Upon a Time, has consistently put forward “true love’s kiss” as that which overcomes the problems of this world. This past week this “true love’s kiss” was between two women. Nevermind such an act is immoral and as such cannot be loving. 

Morality, right and wrong, has nothing to do with romantic love in our culture. If you “love” someone then that makes it moral!  “Love” as our culture conceives it is always morally right.  This perversion of romantic love revolves around our own ever-changing feelings and emotions. Such a foundation is far from stable. How can that which changes from day-to-day be the basis for “true love”? It cannot, because we are often tossed to and fro by our own emotions and circumstances. One day I may “love” my wife, and the next day she does not give that feeling anymore and I fall in “love” with someone else. There is no hope in such an understanding of love as it is all about my feelings, emotions, desires, and lusts. 

This is a dangerous lie. Romantic love is not ultimate and it will not cause someone to change. We see this evidence every day as marriages fall apart because a spouse believed that their “true love” would bring life-altering change to their spouse. This is a thoroughly destructive lie. We cannot make people change. Romantic love cannot make people change. Only God can change people (yes he often uses a Christian marriage to mature and change his people, but this requires a relationship with God). 

Christian women in particular need to hear this, “You cannot change your man. Only God can. You can love him and be an example of godliness, but only God can change him.” Single women (and men) need to hear this, “Do not go into marriage expecting it change your soon-to-be spouse. Such an idea is a recipe for disaster.” There is no hope for this world to be found in the secular idea of romantic love because it is actually more of a self-centered lust than it is true love.

The second type of love our culture bows down to is the all-accepting kumbaya-singing love of secular liberalism which accepts everything without passing any moral judgments (except for Christians because their moral standards are morally unacceptable). Over the last month two prominent figures have argued that the solution to our current issues, especially terrorism, is such a “love.” The first came from Pope Francis and the second from  Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg.

While “Use the weapons of love” may make for a nice slogan, it falls utterly flat in confronting the moral ills of our world. It was not this type of morally ambiguous love which brought down Hitler. What has brought down evil empires and movements throughout history has been a strong moral understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Accepting everything dos not defeat evil, it furthers it. Contrary to this secular understand of love, it is by rejecting evil and clinging to good that evil is thwarted. In order for that to happen we must understand what is good and what is evil—that means we need a moral foundation. 

The answer is not secular love. The answer is found in the true understanding of love which is inseparable from holiness and moral judgments. As 1 John 4:10 explains, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Love is chiefly displayed in Christ satisfying the moral standards of God on behalf of his people. Love always conducts itself in a moral manner. That means it cannot  accept evil, it must reject it for what it is (Romans 12.9). This is why the Christian has hope rooted in the love of God where our world is drowning under the false pretenses of the lies of this age. 

Hope for the Christian is found in two spots. Hope for the now, for individuals to change, is found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his act of love we can be made into his image and walk in obedience and true love. You want to see change? You need to encounter the holy-love of Jesus Christ. You need the gospel. That is the only way for true lasting change is to be made a new creation in Christ. 

Hope for the future, for evil to come to nothing, is found in Christ’s return. The evil of terrorism and  the other injustices of this world will come to nothing and punished when Christ descends as a conquering king. Then true love will end evil as Christ ushers in his Kingdom of peace which will last forever (Rev. 19:11-21). When Christ returns, his love will be evident, and it will be displayed by the reality that it is not all-accepting but that his love is holy and pure. This love is the answer to our problems. This love changes people and this love will bring an end to evil through Christ’s victory over it. 

My God, My God, Why Have You Accepted Me?

Holy Week is a time for Christians to refocus on the Cross of Jesus Christ. We are called to do this daily, yet Easter magnifies this need in our lives. As we seek to refocus on the Cross this week, I would like us to ponder the words of Christ from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)

We know these words too well that sometimes we gloss over them without thinking through what they mean. Theologians call this the Cry of Dereliction, a cry of abandonment.  How could the Father “forsake” the Son? How could the perfect unity of the God and Son which existed from eternity past be disrupted? How could the sinless God-man take upon himself our sin? These are the questions which lie behind the Cry of Dereliction.

At that moment on the cross the Father poured out the wrath justly due to us upon the sinless Son of God. That perfect unity between Father and Son became separated so that which was separated (us) may be united again. So it was that Jesus willingly separated himself in some mysterious way from the Father. It is this unexplainable separation which leads  Jesus to cry out in agony. This cry is at the heart of Easter and it is at the heart of the Christian faith. 

I would like us to ponder this familiar statement from a new perspective—what does it mean for us? What do those words have to do with our relationship to God? Recently I came across the song, Mystery of Mercy by Andrew Peterson. In this song Peterson takes this famous cry and rewords it to apply it to us, “My God, my God, why hast thou accepted me?” This is the other side of Jesus’ cry of being forsaken—we were accepted through no merit of our own but because he was forsaken. Jesus was cut-off and separated so that we might be brought-in and united with God.

In our society we often think highly of ourselves. We may think, “Of course God will save me! Why wouldn’t he?” But the message of Jesus’ words from the Cross led us to the exact opposite conclusion—why would God save me? What could possibly motivate such an undeserving action of mercy? 

We should ponder this question during Holy Week, “My God, why have you accepted me?” And as we ask this question we should hear the cry of our Savior from the Cross in response, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” It is truly a mystery of mercy that the perfect Son of God was cut-off and separated so that wicked people like you and me are accepted in Christ. It is all of grace and as odd as it may appear, Christians should find great comfort in Jesus' cry of abandonment. May our hearts meditate on this wonderful reality throughout Holy Week that we are accepted because Christ was forsaken