Does the promise of the king of Assyria through the
Rabshakeh sound familiar, "each one of you will eat of his own vine, and
each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his
own cistern…" His promise is that
he will give as the Lord Himself has given but somewhere else, a land he will
show them. The path to this land is to
make peace with him and he cites the failure of so many other nations and their
gods to stop him doing what he intended.
Israel then should be wiser than these nations whose gods have failed
them and they should seek peace with him and submit to him. Hopefully, the language he chose reminded
them of the promise the Lord made to them and fulfilled in giving the land and
hopefully they remembered that in its day, the day of the Exodus, there was
another great nation like Assyria, Egypt, and a great king like the Assyrian
king, the Pharaoh of Egypt and the Lord had delivered them from him. These memories could have been awakened in
the people as they heard this boasting and could have given them an
"Aha" moment that called them to prayer in repentance and remembrance
of their God. Do we hear in advertising
claims some of these same things, promises by others to give what the Lord has
promised?
Is it possible that people through whom wondrous signs and
miracles are done could be left out of the kingdom? Jesus says the answer to that question is
yes. What looks like fruit is
compromised because they were workers of lawlessness. The Law has gotten a bad name in our
day. We don't quite know what to make of
it in the evangelical and Pentecostal world.
There are modern day anti-nomians among those who would take the name of
Jesus. The law has a place in our lives,
as a general guide to conduct, both moral and ethical. Jesus taught that the demands of the law are
higher than their plain sense but the words have always been intended to be
interpreted in more than their plain sense but never less than that. Workers of lawlessness would pertain to those
who would throw out the law in part or in its entirety such as happens today in
some churches. If we are honest with
ourselves I would bet that we could all find some places where we are choosing
not to submit God's will in our lives. Remember
the end of the Great Commission, "making disciples…teaching them to obey
all I have commanded you."
Paul's claim to apostleship with the Corinthians is
particularly strong for two reasons, he shared the Gospel first and he shared
it freely. Their very faith, their
salvation, is because he shared the Gospel with them, he was the bringer of
Good News. His other claim is that he received
no gain for having shared it. It cost
them nothing therefore he could not have deceived them because he had no
benefit from doing so. It was not a
scam. He begrudges no one a living based
on preaching the Gospel, he recognizes that to be scriptural, but he did not
claim such a right among the Corinthians.
He preached not himself or his wisdom but the cross of Christ and
because he did they now have concluded that it wasn't only free it was also
cheap and they have made much of others who have taught some other gospel, one
that goes lightly on certain sins like the sexual issue in chapter 5. What they have received freely they are now
being taught is somehow based in something other than the cross, the cross plus
something. We enter always by grace and
mercy, the cross, our work adds nothing to the work of Jesus. He said it best, "It is finished." Communion is our recollection of what He has
done for us and that we don't need anyone else to save us and we can't save
ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment