The wrath of God is such that nothing will be left, no
gleanings, no grapes the harvester forgot, nothing. He commands, “Pour it out upon the children
in the street, and upon the gatherings of young men, also; both husband and
wife shall be taken, the elderly and the very aged.” Does it seem horrible that this should happen
to the children in the street, the elderly and the very aged? No one can lay claim to righteousness, not
even these, all are corrupt, like in the days of Noah. The prophets and priests are as corrupt as
all the rest, proclaiming “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. There is always a temptation to heal the wounds
of people lightly by rushing to proclaim peace when everything hasn’t been
dealt with and no real peace exists.
Peace between God and man was established by dealing honestly with sin
in the sacrificial system. When we gloss
over sin, between us and God or in our interpersonal relationships, we won’t
get to peace, only détente and that is choosing only to postpone the inevitable
rather than averting it.
This entire scene is strange to say the least. Jesus is in a Gentile land, in the tombs,
with a demon-possessed man. The man
cannot be subdued yet when he sees Jesus he comes and bows before Him, begging
Jesus not to torment him. Apparently,
both the man and the demons recognized Jesus not only as the Son of the Most
High God but that His power was greater than that which they possessed. The spirit, identified as Legion, begs Jesus
not to send them from this country, which tells us that it found a happy home
there among these Gentiles, in a place where the Jews thought the gates of hell
to be. The spirits bargain with Jesus to
cast them into a herd of pigs which they then drive over a cliff into the sea,
two thousand pigs! The people of the
town then come and beg Jesus to leave after they see what He has done, His
power at work. They choose to have the
power of darkness over His power. The
man, however, is not allowed to accompany Jesus, he remains there as a
witness. They can’t just conveniently
forget what has happened this day.
Paul is very clear that sexual immorality is a serious
sin. Everything else, he says, is sin
“outside the body” while sexual immorality is a sin against the body
itself. The body matters, we are not
dualists who believe that the body is an accident while the soul is
eternal. Yes, this body will ultimately
be exchanged for a heavenly and glorified one, this one is a body of
death. That does not mean, however, that
these bodies lack significance, the incarnation of Jesus, taking on this flesh,
tells us otherwise. Sexual sin is the
uniting of our bodies in a way the Lord has not ordained. Marriage is ordained by Him for a purpose and
when we unite ourselves with another who is not our spouse, we violate both
bodies and the covenant we have with Him.
Marriage is the submission of this covenant relationship with one
another to the prior covenant with Him.
It does not break our unity with Him but this “one flesh” issue matters
deeply. How do we deal with this sin in
our lives in such a way as to reconcile with God, restoring that essential
unity?
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