Saturday, August 28, 2010

Holiness? part 2

Okay, yesterday I began laying out a method by which Christians are able to determine what we should do in any given situation.  Because of the length of the post I decided to divide it into two parts.  The part yesterday discussed how we take a story we find in Scripture and derive a principle from it for the sake of application to our own lives.  I noted that the method I am using is called the analogy of faith, and that it is an old method that has been passed down for hundreds of years.  However, I want to clarify a little bit on the use of that term.

The term, "analogy of faith" most properly understood means that Scripture interprets itself.  What I mean by this is that Scripture does not ever contradict itself.  Therefore, the analogy of faith, in its purest form means that when we read one passage of Scripture we interpret that passage in light of the rest of Scripture, so that there is no contradiction.  So, if there is a passage, such as James, that says you are saved by works, but there is overwhelming evidence throughout the rest of Scripture that works do not save you (as is the case) we are either left with a contradiction, or we are misunderstanding the text.  The normal resolution in the above example is that what James meant when he said you are saved is that your faith is proven true, that is that faith must necessarily lead to works, or it not a true saving faith.  This means that James is using the term "saved" differently than Paul.  Whether or not you find this convincing (and I think it is if you read James' argument in context) will be based on whether you hold that all of Scripture is inspired by God, and therefore cannot be contradictory.

However the term "analogy of faith" has a broader meaning also, meaning that which conforms to the teaching and doctrine of Scripture.  In other words, when we rightly apply Scripture we must use an analogy of faith, so that our practice is not contradictory to the teaching of Scripture.  Because Scripture, rightly understood, cannot contradict Scripture, our lives also ought not contradict what is in Scripture.  This holds true because the same God that inspired Scripture has called us to live like Christ.  Because Christ is the incarnation of the Word of God, the life of Christ conforms to the teaching of Scripture, therefore our lives ought to conform to the teaching of Scripture as well.

As I said initially, for a Christian "holiness" and "morality" are basically interchangeable ideas.  Holiness means living lives set apart to the glory of God.  If we are to be moral we must be holy, because God is the absolute measurement of all that is good.  So, when we seek to be moral we must determine what best reflects the perfect goodness of God, and do that.  Being moral alone may not necessarily lead to holiness, but seeking holiness will require us to live morally.  Therefore, when we come across a principle in Scripture that shows us, "This is what God would have of his people" we need to apply that principle to our own lives and live in light of it.

Previously we discussed how to apply the analogy of faith to what we read in Scripture, specifically looking at a single narrative example, and even then looking at only one part of that narrative example.  We could have asked additional questions of that narrative, like, for instance, if we recognize that adultery is wrong based on the story of David and Bathsheba, what should we do if we are already in an adulterous relationship?  Well, in order to answer that question we could look at the end of the story and see that David repented, and so we should also repent.  But, then we would need to determine what repentance means in our instance.

If we were to ask this question it would be like the second situation I mentioned yesterday, what if you were faced with the option of cheating on your taxes to avoid paying the government some money?  I'm assuming you are in a position where you could get away with the cheating, that you are sure you won't get caught and therefore the question is a purely moral question.  Am I allowed to do this based on Scripture?  In order to answer these kinds of questions we need to have either some familiarity with the Bible, or we need to know how to do a bible search for relevant passages.  After all, if we want to follow the analogy of faith we need to know what Scripture teaches in order to conform our behavior to Scripture.

In all reality, these are likely going to be the more nagging questions than "What does this section of Scripture teach?"  If we come to a section of Scripture we don't understand we can always mark it and come back to it later, but when we are faced with a real moral choice we cannot always postpone the decision to come back to it later.  Thus these questions will be more pressing, and more nagging because we may wonder for some time afterward if we made the right decision.  So, let's address these questions.

First, we need to know what Scripture says.  So, for the tax question, we can turn to Romans 13:6-7 and Matthew 22:15-22.  We can use these two sections of Scripture because they both speak directly the issue of paying taxes.  Paul says that we should pay taxes to whoever taxes are due.  Jesus says we should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.  Now, in the case of the second example we have to take a small step and move up from "Caesar" to "whatever government is in power."  But, we can see the principle at work in Jesus words, and Paul basically distills that principle down for us, giving it to us directly in Romans 13.  So, Scripture commands us to pay our taxes, therefore we can't cheat on them.

But, what if we are already in an adulterous relationship?  Well, we see that David begs for God's forgiveness, but he doesn't divorce Bathsheba.  Should I continue to sleep with a married woman, or sleep with a woman who isn't my wife as long as I recognize it is sin and ask for forgiveness?  What does Paul say about sin, in general?  If we look to Romans 6:1-2 we see that Paul tells us that if we have died to sin, that is if we are in Christ, then it is abominable that we should continue on in sin.  Likewise James gives us a principle we can apply here in James 4:17, "So, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."  What we are left with then is that if we know that adultery is a sin, and we know that we are called to stop sinning, it is not enough to simply know it is wrong and ask God to forgive me, I have to stop the relationship.

This principle, that a Christian should not continue on in Sin, but that we should do that which we know to be good is the foundation of our morality.  John says it like so, "but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.  By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked." (1 John 2:5-6)  We are called to walk like Christ, and that means we must conform our lives to Scripture.  To this we may add Christ's words, "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."  The Christian ethic conforms to the ideal of love.


Indeed this ideal of love is why we should read Scripture.  For if God has written Scripture to instruct us in righteousness, and we are called to love God, shouldn't we desire to be righteous?  Shouldn't we, therefore, make a point of studying Scripture, so we might know how to live in a way that is pleasing to God?  We fulfill thus the law of love in not sinning against our neighbor, in not sinning against God, and in not continuing in any sin in ignorance.  Reading Scripture is part of the way we fulfill our obligation to love God and our neighbor, doing to them what we would have them do to us.


So then, in order to live a holy life, we must understand how to apply Scripture to our lives.  That means we must know how to determine the principles that are in Scripture, and that we must know Scripture and search it out when we are confronted with moral questions.  But, living a holy life also means that we need to be informed about modern issues.  For instance, I have written on stem cell research, homosexual marriage, even politics (though I still have that one pending to post to the blog) and honoring mothers and fathers.  But while most of those things may be discussed in Scripture, there is certainly nothing in the bible about stem cells, rocket fuel, cars, alternative energy, democratic government, or even computers and blogs, does that mean that we cannot make moral statements about any of those things?  No, instead we must know what Scripture says, what principles are in Scripture, and we must understand the issues that face us in the modern day, that way we can know what principles from Scripture to apply to whatever issue we are facing.


For instance, I argued against embryonic stem cell research based on the fact that the only way to generate those cell lines we would use for experimentation come from destroyed embryos.  Thus, I held that because we are destroying a human life (not a potential human life, but an actual human life) we are sinning to do so, and any research that is done must necessarily be tainted by the immorality of that action.  But, my position is only correct if I'm right that embryos are human lives.  Therefore I am making a biological claim based on the scientific information available to me: embryos are human lives because as soon as a sperm and an egg meet the resulting entity is a new human life.  The only way I can make that claim is to first understand the science that is being discussed.


Our obligation to live lives of of holiness means we have to live those lives in the times and places we live.  I cannot live in A.D. 300, because this is A.D. 2010.  I have to live a life of holiness today, and that means I have to engage with my culture as it exists today.  We are obligated to know Scripture, and our own current cultures as much as is reasonable, so that we can know the right thing to do in every situation with which we might be confronted.  Christian morality is hard, because it requires us to be informed, it requires us to use logic, and it requires us to be willing to take positions that might be unpopular, if that is what we are called to by the Word of God.


But remember, James promises us that God will give us wisdom if we ask him, believing that he is good and gives good things to those who seek him.  James also says that if we will humble ourselves God will give more grace.  If we make a mistake we still have Christ as our savior.  The love of God is not limited to saving only those who sin willfully.  But, we need to always be seeking wisdom from God, and asking him to reveal our sin, that we might be holy, no longer continuing in sin, but walking in the light of Christ.

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