Ethics

Although faith seems like a very nebulous tenant as THE norm under the AUN it is the only possible candidate. Nothing else fits. I can not keep the law, my love is far from perfect, and I can not adopt God. The only response that anyone can have to the AUN, Be Holy, is “Lord I believe!” I believe that Jesus died on the cross as me because I was both alienated from God at birth and I had personally chosen to refuse to submit to God both of which are capital crimes but If I had died for myself I would be dead. Even God could not have brought me back. Jesus though he died could not be held by death, He had never sinned, so He rose back to life again and carried me with Him. “I am crucified in Christ never-the-less I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Gal 2:20 How does God want us to live? We worry that we have to figure out where to put each foot as we walk forward in the Christian life and justify each and every thought and action as being legally, morally, and ethically correct. How could we know how to live if we are hedged in to only faith? Isn’t the injunction ‘live by faith’ like saying put both hands out in front of you and put your foot forward very very carefully and hope like ___ that what God promised is out there? It would be if we were putting our faith in any thing or any one but God. If we really trust God, No it is not!

can't get much better

on my way to work -
This morning was a really, well one of those mornings .. special beautiful A nice morning. On one side the sun was comming up and the sky was really nice. Not bright flashy colours but soft and subdued, and on the other side the full moon was shining amid the pastel blue and purple and pink, while Tom Alen on CBC was playing Jupiter and Mars from the planets by the London Symphony, and I was just rolling along the highway in the middle of it all. It is hard to discribe, words fail when I try to put it down for someone else to share. I can only hope that any one who reads this will have experienced this sort of morning so they know what I am trying to say. "Who will take this beautiful morning and put it in a box for me?" There are a few other outstanding mornings in my memory box. It had rained the night before, we had left camp with the barges and everyone all packed up for a day out on the island. I was at camp HE HO HA the handicap camp on Lac Isle west of Edmonton. We had five or six tents full of people and all the wheelchairs and other paraphanalia sitting around. At three in the morning humm three thirty likely I woke up and got up and went down to the lake. It was absolutely calm. It was absolutely calm. I repete it was! That is the first special thing about that morning, after a rain the air was clean and fresh and it was soooo calm and quite. Lac Isle is away from roads and traffic and other busy people sounds. I could see all the way to the other end of the lake and there was not a ripple on it. I stepped out onto the dock and caused ripples even though I tried to be as careful as I could. It took a long time for the ripples to settle down but they did. There is me floating in space, the clear water under me and the sky all around me it felt like I was standing on nothing, just being there. Then a duck came flying leasurly in with a quack quack it slowed down and skimmed the surface of the water for a hundred feet and then sort of plopped down beside another duck with an absolute minimum of splash. I watched the circle of ripples spread out till they reached the shore opposite me and till I could not see them any more down the length of the lake because they were too far away. It was breath taking.
Yesterday was a four deer day. They were all together and unfortunately on the other side of a field. Going to have to keep one pair of binoculars in the car with me.

Two day Today

As I was driving north I passed the omlet of Alcomdale, make that a ham let. I rattled over the tracks and spotted a couple of critters gamboling around in the stubble field on the east. For exactly one one thousanth of a second I thought they were horses, but wait horses don't gambole; they prance, they dance, they kick up their heels, but they don't gambole. It was moose. Two moose. First time that I have ever seen two of them together. Screech. Pull over. Watch. Too bad they were half way across the field and it was getting dark and I did not have binoculars - I couldn't see nearly as well as I would have liked BUT I can say that I have seen two moose in the same place at the same time. They stopped gamboling around when I pulled over and broused for a while then they wandered off, away from me, till they went over the hill.

Christian Ethics, the system

Christian Ethics System
(How God expects human people to live)

AUN (Absolute Universal Norm)
Be Holy
The Bible teaches Absolutes.

Defined
“As I am holy” as spoken by God.

-To know what Holy is we need to know God and what He is like.
-A person is Holy or not; there is no such thing as partial holiness or degrees of holiness. James 1:17 “...the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Every one every where must be Holy all the time. To be Holy is to live according to a high moral code or system. There is no superlative quality to Holiness as we describe comparisons, that is Highest, because there is only Holy; there is nothing less than that. It is to be right, just, good. The Holy person must be above reproach; there must not be even so much as a question or doubt as to the character of the person who is Holy. That person must display all the traits, thoughts, actions, characteristics, and attitudes of one who is totally morally irreprehensible.
-Holy is ‘set apart’. It is, to be distinct. While that implies being different ‘from’, it is to be set apart ‘to’. If there were only one person and that person was human and therefore there was no one else to be differentiated from, that person would still be required to be set apart to God. To be Holy is to be set apart to God.
-Holy includes God as the moral standard, and also all the other things that God is; Love, life, light, truth and so on.
-There is the idea that one who is holy is not necessarily innocent. Many say that A and E lived in the garden in innocence before the fall which is true, some say that A and E had to sin for God to bring salvation, in other words they had to experience sin and not be innocent anymore before God could provide confirmed holiness for people. It is true that God had to provide some other mechanism for A and E and people in general to become confirmed in holiness forever than just hoping that they would never decide to disobey Him. The length of time God waited before they fell would not have affected confirmation in Holiness other than to prove that it had not happened. There had to be a guarantee that they would never sin, but it is not true that they had to sin so that God could send Jesus to the world to save people. God has never sinned, He has never experienced being bad, yet He being innocent in that respect is Holy. In fact a person Must be innocent to be Holy. One sin no matter how innocuous and small and insignificant is cause for death, eternal incarceration. “the soul that sins it shall die”, therefore the person who sins once is dead not Holy. Nor can even God bring that person back and make that person holy (except by the one way that He did implement).

Free

EX 21:2-6 Deut 15:12-17
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him to the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or to the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever. And also to your maidservant you shall do likewise.
Jer 34:14
At the end of seven years every man shall let his brother, a Hebrew, who has been sold to you go; and when he has served you six years, you shall let him go free: but your fathers did not listen to me.

In the Sabbath year, the year of rest, there was freedom for a Hebrew slave. Jesus died and rose again to give us rest, to free us from slavery to sin but not to the freedom of our own devices. In choosing to accept salvation from Him we choose to be His servant forever. Heb 3:7-4:13 “There remains therefore a rest to the people of God”

Jhn 8:32,36
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

The freedom that Jesus is referring to is that freedom from sin. The freedom to please God. The freedom to really live life. Our freedom is not to do as we want; if our life does not show holiness chances are that God does not know us and we are none of His, we never did believe Him!

Rom 6:6,7,12
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Rom 6:14,18,20,22,23
Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord. You are not under the law, but under Grace.

The objective of the plan of salvation in Christ is Holiness, without it, it is impossible to please God,or to be reconciled with Him, but there are two stages to the plan. In stage one the legal details are taken care of and we assume a new identity in a new family tree, new birth. Stage two“this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality”, a new body. The difference between A and E before the fall and us under the NT is that we WILL end up eternally confirmed in holiness. Without that we could not live eternal life. Do not fret for A and E. God would have found a way to confirm their holiness AND it would NOT have required that they sin! Our salvation does NOT depend on their sin! Neither our Justification or our Sanctification depend on our obedience. (the CS solution in ‘Perelandra’ is NOT adequate!)

Rom 7:23-25
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

God will keep my new good name clean for me, in Christ. In the mean time “I keep my body under” because it never wants to fall in line with the new me on the inside. When we come up against an apparent conflict of norms (laws) which will we do, try to figure which law takes precedence and keep the law or trust that God will keep us clean? He will make a way for us to do what we know we should do without breaking ANY of the rules!

Rom 8:2
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

The law of sin and death says quite simply, “the soul that sins dies”. The christian life is on the other side of death; the rules are different Rom 6:6 Gal 2:20. You can not require a dead man to keep the law OR accuse him of breaking it! When we are born again we Have eternal life, this is our position in Christ.

Gal 5:1
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

You can’t TRY to be a christian! It is not automatic but it is not achieved by anything that we can do, including and especially obedience - keeping the law.

Rom 4:4-6
“To him who works the reward is not reckoned of grace but of debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. David described the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works Ps 32:8. The Bible recounts two men who’s faith was ‘counted for rghtsnss’. Abraham and Phinehas. Num 25:6-15 Ps 106:30-31 “Phinehas executed judgment and that was counted to him for rghtsnss”. Abraham did nothing but believe Gen 15:6. When you look closely that is what Phinehas did as well; his actions show that they were the consequence of his belief. It was not the judgment per se that ‘earned’ him rghtsnss; his action showed that he had believed before he did anything. Gal 3:3 “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit (by faith) are you now made perfect by the flesh (by working for it)?” We are not called to obedience in the NT, we are called to faith, trust, rest! When Jesus told the man with the withered hand to stretch it out who did the work? When Jesus told the man to pick up his bed and take it home who carried it? Do not get the cart before the horse. Abel believed God who accepted his offering, Cain did not believe. It was Not that Cain’s offering was bad. Remember the disastrous results of Moses’ endeavor to do a little work for God? He knew that he would be the deliverer of Israel so he slew an Egyptian and where did it land him? If A had tried sacrificing I before God challenged him to do it what would have happened? “Faith without works IS dead” Jms 2:17 it is true BUT do not stop reading there. “I will show you my faith BY my works” Jms 2:18. The prime law under the NT is “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”! When A offered I he showed the world that he believed God. He showed the world that he believed that God could and would Keep him clean in spite of the apparent impossibility, how could he be clean if he murdered his son? There are those who would say that God ordered A to do it however that is not the case. Please take careful note, A had already been declared rghts when God told him to sacrifice I. God was not testing A, He already knew! A could have demurred, erring on the side of right ‘you shall not kill’, and if he had we would not have the best illustration in the Bible of how our salvation works! We would lack an adequate understanding of how God can save a sinner like me and remain rghts even in doing so! We would not have one of the greatest illustrations that there is of what it means to ‘believe God’, that is to trust Him – to Rest in His promises! (what has God promised you?)
Freedom!

Let us talk Love:

Dictionary.com
1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling (Incapable of being expressed, indescribable or unutterable) of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
3.
a. Sexual passion.
b. Sexual intercourse.
c. A love affair.
4. An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
5. A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
6. An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
7.
a. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
b. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
8. Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
9. often Love Christianity. Charity.

One day a man went for a walk, back in the days when that was the way to get from one place to another. A band of thugs accosted him and left him lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Now it happened that a Jewish priest was passing along the same pedway but when he saw the man he passed by hugging the far wall. See priests were not allowed to touch a dead body. Then a Levite came and although he paused he too passed by. See he didn’t what to get unclean because it took a whole lot of ritual and time to get clean again and he might miss his turn to minister at the temple. Along came a Samaritan whom the Jews righteously kept away from because their doctrine was all screwed up and he helped the man and paid for his recovery.
So if you were the priest which do you do? Keep the law for sure by doing what the priest in the story did, or take the chance of breaking the law just in case the man was still alive so that you could show him love?
God is love. Define God
The rich young ruler kept the law - Jesus did not castigate him for not - and Jesus loved him BUT “one thing you lack” Jesus said “go sell all that you have and come follow me” ie show your love for me by giving up all that you hold dear. It happens all the time, as with sincerity, we think that someone is showing love, they are not doing all the things that one is not to do and they are doing all the things that one is to do to show love, or sincerity, and bang . . . !
Even the dictionary says that you can not define love – “ineffable”! We can say what it is not, we can say a lot of things that it includes but ‘when the rubber meets the road’ we can NOT define love. We all know what it is and we all know when we are not doing it (it is even hard for us to be sure ourselves, often enough, when we really do love someone) we can all get pretty close when we decry someone else’s claim of love . . . Tomorrow we talk about Honesty.
My suggestion is - the Reform definition of love (basically it looks like you are saying love is keeping the law) is why they can come up with the rule “No occasional hearing” Which is more important, me not getting unclean for the brothern or sistern or me loving them by fellowshipping and eating at the boss’s table with them? ? ? (when we all agree that they are indeed Christians)
See when you are working on an ethics system one of the things that you must address carefully and in great detail is – what happens when there is a conflict of norms?! I was talking about stress, Ray G brought to up, and how we create a lot of stress for ourselves with unnecessary expectations. (for me the prytry reform oath WOULD be a very BIG stress BECAUSE I TRY to do what I say) Now why ever did Jesus pick a priest as the number one ‘bad’ guy? Didn’t He know that the law said “NO EXCEPTIONS a priest shall not make himself unclean because of a dead body even wife or kids!? Why bring up such a controversial situation? Did Jesus mean that Love takes precedence over that law?
Sorry but I do not think that the Bible anywhere says that the law was given to define love. Not at all saying that the negative side positive side thing about the law is wrong, the reason given in the Bible for the law is to convict the guilty. NOT to make anyone guilty – to convict those who are already guilty. When Paul said “without the law there is no sin” he did not mean that suddenly because a law was introduced that says ‘do not steal’ there are a bunch of criminals. (like the drug company moving the definition of high blood pressure down ten points and thus creating millions of new patients that need drugs) He meant without a law the criminal can not be convicted. The reason for the big ten in the Mt Sinai covenant was, besides providing the way to convict, to make the people realize that they could never get in favour with God without the Messiah! The law Does define some of the parameters of love especially when the positive aspects of it are also considered. Love is bigger than the law negative and positive! Living is MUCH bigger than the law negative and positive. Love and living are the trip, the law is only the road signs. True the only means at my disposal to ‘convict’ someone of not loving is the law.
My point is that the church does not have the mandate to convict anyone including its own members. Sorry, I do not see where the NT says if someone is clearly not being Christian after due process call the elders together and draw up a formal writ of excommunication and legally expel them from membership. NB in my next church there will be an annual membership renewal. Each member will have a form that says ‘I subscribe to the constitution of this local congregation’ and each year the board will put them all on the table at the back of the church for two weeks only. Each member who does not personally sign and date it will automatically be dropped from the role PERIOD. No formal declaration necessary, spiritual discernment required, after due process – Matt, tell two then tell the whole church -, someone who is demonstrating non Christian activity will get ostracized. Politely told not to come back without demonstrable change of behavior and a convincing apology. There would be no membership problem; one year max and it would automatically be taken care of. That does not require a formal gov’t with derived authority, a set of rules with which to convict someone, and a formal order of procedure for due process!
When I went to college the guy from the room next to me in the dorm came running in one day all excited. His girl friend had written “Je tu ami tres bien!” on the bottom of his most recent letter. He came from the US and since I am Canadian he assumed that I could translate it for him. I warned him that I could give only a literal word for word translation; “I you like very much”. That evening while we were busy scrubbing pots and pans on the same crew I turned to the Frenchman in our midst and asked, with no preamble, to whom would you address the phrase “Je tu ami tres bien!”? He laughed and replied; “ you would say that to your dog”. When he found out the particulars of the case he said “oh, you want to say ‘I love you’ well in French you say …. half and hour later he was not finished (oh to have a romantic language). Do we all know that she meant, “I love you very much”?

Keep your Eye Fixed

CG discussion


CG If the Protestant Reformers really believed that the Regulative Principle of Life was as narrow as the Regulative Principle of Worship, we would all be wearing uniforms as a natural consequence.
IF True! Just like Muslim women with their head scarf (or brethren? Or amish or hutterite or PRCE women) I am saying that Reform theology is an unnecessary spiritual straightjacket because of the prytry gov’t and the required oath, unnecessary and also hummmmmmm unbelief, sin, Fear, - not ligit - I’m not sure what word to use; because the gov’t system and the ‘required’ oath negate what Jesus died and rose to accomplish!.
Sure I know I am leaving the door open to a big messsss! (I am not leaving a door open that God intended to keep shut) Exactly what has happened in evangelical churches and Pentecostal – though the reasons for each of those being in a mess include other reasons and different than each other and than just this – However prytry reform churches are also in big trouble ! ! ! Someone suggested that Evangelical churches were in trouble because they did not have their theo written down – Reform Prytry Calvinist does but the reformation did not out last the first generation . . . . What I am saying is NOT that the theological ‘errors’ are THE problem. I am saying that they are A root problem and with careful analysis you can see that there is a difference in the problems that each of these three groups have Evang, Penta and Reform. Doctrine makes a difference. Are you afraid that God and the Lord Jesus Christ contrary to their claim “the Lord will build the church” cannot keep Christians true to Himself? ? ? We have to demand that people swear an oath to conform? I thought that the Mt Sinai Cov’t proved that people will not follow God even if it is legislated. I thought the book of Job proved that God is NOT in the business of legislating OR bribing loyalty “does Job serve you for nothing?”! What is the purpose of Christians in a local area gathering together on a regular basis?
True or not true. God Himself has given me an absolute guarantee of one hundred percent holiness? I say that this is what Jesus died and rose for. Without it I will NEVER become anything other than God’s enemy destined for eternal incarceration. There ARE lots of ‘parallels between the Mt Sinai covenant and the NT however there are some BIG contrasts as well. One of the contrasts is exactly that in the Mt Sinai covenant, Holiness on the part of the people depended on them whereas under the NT my holiness DOES NOT depend on me Gal 3:3 “what, you started by faith and you think that now you have to try?”.
True or not true. The church is a group of peers in a family?
CG Keeping the law is not a matter of salvation, but sanctification. How do we know that we are being conformed more and more to the image of Christ? Isn't it because we are starting to practice habitual righteousness instead of habitual sin? Isn't it because we sin less.
IF NO! Sinning less is a by product of sanctification. True, it IS a progress indicator but it is not the goal. The goal of sanctification is to trust HIM! Keeping the law was/is a matter of Justification. The min that I am born again I am on the other side of death, things are different now – I AM a new creation in Christ! Life functions on a whole different plane than before I was born again. Once I am born again I DO NOT practice habitual sin by nature any more. That is what being born again is all about! Rom 5,6,7,8 “Mortify the deeds of the flesh (read it carefully - NOT the deeds of the old man, the old sinful nature) We know we are being conformed when we trust Him! Believe it, if you trust Him He WILL lead you in paths of holiness (without having to legislate it or bribing you).
CG We must have a standard to measure ourselves against, not for salvation purposes, but for determining if what we are doing is pleasing to the Lord.
IF We must? Sorry to put it this way it could get personal . . . Think of THE time that you know was THE time when you most displeased your parents. Did it break a law that your parents had written in concrete? Were your parents abashed that you broke one of their laws or was it a case of their love, you broke their heart? Why did it break their heart? I don’t know your parents but I’ll ask if it wasn’t that they were crushed and defeated and personally made unclean and so on and on BUT because they love you and were concerned about what you were doing to yourself ? Did you know at the time that you were not pleasing them? How did you know? This is the biggest reason that I am saying that our personal relationship with God is THE rule of life and practice for the Christian. The Bible is our only hard copy memory reference true, but we are in a living personal relationship with God through Jesus’ death and rsrctn. True I have left the big barn door open again – I am not talking about conscience but about the indwelling Holy Spirit. How do you define the ‘still small voice’? I can’t. But we can experience it. Something which alack I wish with all my heart for more/better experience of.
Didn’t you read God said “Israel (the nation) has NEVER sinned” back in the OT? How Could He say that ? ? ? Being that I am in Christ, God does not see sin in me! True? Like the king who hid under the woman’s shirt to escape assigns I am covered by the righteousness of Christ ! ! ! Halleluiah ! ! Why do I NEED a standard? I have a standard – the AUN (absolute universal norm) BE HOLY. JESUS. What else do I NEED? I also have the standard “Love God - love one another (Christians)”.

CG But if you are saved, you will give evidence of it in your life. And that evidence means you are trying not to sin
IF It is very true that if my life does not show holiness my salvation is suspect ! ! ! It is true that if I am saved I WILL give evidence of it in my life (holiness as well as other things like love, trust . . .). It is true that the Bible is my reference for how well I am doing BUT not just the law, the law does not, can not define either love or personal relationship! ! The best that the law can do is tell some of the things that they are not. True? It is really quite impossible to define them. The Bible illustrates them both. It is Not true that that evidence means that I am “Trying not to sin”. The one DOES NOT follow from the other. Please see the book of Hebrews. “There remains therefore a Rest to the people of God” Jesus did not raise from the dead so that I would be constantly looking over my shoulder to see if I am keeping in line or not! ! ! My dad teased my sister – they were seeding peas and dad was following the tractor with a hand plow. He told her to pick a spot on the fence line and drive toward it; she fixed her eye, he said, on a cow that was headed up to the barn for a drink of water. This is what is wrong with Reform theo. It is built on the OT Mt Sinai covenant and focused on the death of Jesus and on the law and on what I am doing wrong this time. What is the Rest that Hebrews is referring to? Is it not trusting in the power of Jesus rsrctn? Fix your eyes on Jesus. “We have an anchor within the veil, Jesus Christ the rghts” Hebrews again. “IF any sin we have an advocate . . . “ I will NEVER make it if I have to TRY to be good ! ! ! When I read the NT this is what I read. And I experience that the more I try and the more I promise to be good the less I am! But I ALSO read that in Christ I DO NOT HAVE TO TRY! This is what sets true Christianity apart from all the religions of the world! This I tried to teach to the people in the two churches we were at and this I have tried to teach to my wife . . . am trying to teach our kids . . . tried to point out to others . . .

IF The regulative principle of life IS the regulative principle of worship. Personal and corporate 7/24. The regulative principle of life is, fix your eye on Jesus “Looking unto the author and finisher of our faith . . .Heb 12:2”.