Thursday, March 28, 2024

You Must Be Born Again (John 3:1-21)

“… unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Paul makes a profound proclamation at the end of his discourse on lawsuits between believers. He reminds the Corinthian church that fornicators, idolaters, homosexuals, etc. will not enter the kingdom of God. Then he says, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” In other words, the Corinthians had been born again, cleansed from their sins, and sanctified, set apart to be a holy people in obedience to Christ. Because this is the path all must take to enter the kingdom of God, we will explore what it means to be born again in the next six studies.

First, we must understand that it is absolutely necessary to be born again in order to inherit the kingdom of God. “To inherit the kingdom of God” means to be adopted into the family of God as a coheir with Christ, to reign with Him as the son or daughter of the King, to be a subject in His eternal kingdom where holiness is the rule and righteousness reigns. In our natural state, we cannot be a part of this kingdom because instead of being righteous, we are unjust. Instead of being holy, we are wicked and ungodly. Instead of being subjects to the laws of Christ’s kingdom, we are subjects to the laws of darkness. Instead of being slaves to righteousness, we are slaves to sin.

As we learned earlier this month in our lessons on the image of God in man, man once walked with his heavenly Father in paradise, pure and innocent. But because Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit, they were cast out and plunged into the depths of sin and depravity, dying a spiritual death. As a result, all human beings since have been born into sin, into spiritual darkness. Their hearts are hard, cold, dead. Only by God’s power and by His grace can their dead hearts be made alive again. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’ ” (John 3:5–7).

Read the passage for today. Why is it so necessary that a person undergo spiritual rebirth in order to be saved? Why can we not simply conform to the external commands of the law? What is it that God does for us to make us acceptable in His sight?

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Warning a Sinful Church (1 Corinthians 6:7-11)

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" (1 Cor. 6:9)

If a dispute cannot be settled within the confines of the church, should the wronged party suffer loss rather than go before an unbelieving judge? That is exactly what Paul says. The victim should be willing to take a loss rather than degrade the church of Christ by bringing a suit against his Christian brother. This is a hard saying but reinforces the seriousness of the offense. Paul, however, does not leave the matter to rest there. He goes on to say that if the Corinthian Church had not been so unashamedly sin-ridden in the first place, they would not have had to deal with lawsuits.

Commenting on Paul’s warning that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, Hodge writes, “The tendency to divorce religion from morality has manifested itself in all ages of the world, and under all forms of religion. The pagan, the Jew, the Mohammedan, the nominal Christian, have all been exact in the performance of religious services, and zealous in the assertion and defense of what they regarded as religious truth, while unrestrained in the indulgence of every evil passion. This arises from looking upon religion as an outward service, and God as a being to be feared and propitiated, but not to be loved and obeyed.

“According to the gospel, all moral duties are religious services; and piety is the conformity of the soul to the image and will of God. So that to be religious and yet immoral is, according to the Christian system, as palpable a contradiction as to be good and wicked. It is evident that among the members of the Corinthian Church there were some who retained their pagan notion of religion, and who professed Christianity as a system of doctrine and as a form or worship, but not as a rule of life. All such persons the apostle warned of their fatal mistake. He assures them that no immoral man,—no man who allows himself the indulgence of any known sin, can be saved.” If the Corinthian Church had remembered the high calling of the Christian, they would not have had all the problems that had led to division and lawsuits. Paul reminded them, as each of us needs reminding, that as Christians they were to put those sins behind them because they had been washed and set apart to serve God in holiness.

Read the list of sins in verses 9–10. What does this list tell you about the Corinthians? What does this list tell you about God’s grace in covering our sin? Are you guilty of committing any of these sins, not only in practice but in your heart? Confess your sins to God today and pray that your church be purified from sins such as these.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Courts of the Unrighteous (1 Corinthians 6:1-6)

"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?" (1 Cor. 6:1)

Up to this point in his letter, Paul has charged the Corinthians with two evils: causing divisions and failing to expel the immoral brother. Now he moves on to a third charge, that of bringing their disagreements to the tribunal of heathens instead of settling their disputes among Christian brethren. Paul is greatly distressed by this practice because it lowers the esteem of Christians in the eyes of the world and undermines their dignity as coheirs with Christ.

Paul was not simply rebuking the Corinthians for taking their disputes before judges who were unjust but for taking them before heathen judges. “The reason why the heathen as such are called the unjust, or sinners, is that according to the Scriptures the denial of the true God, and the worship of idols, is the greatest unrighteousness; and therefore the heathen, because heathen, are called the unrighteous,” Hodge wrote. The complaint against the Corinthians was that they appealed to heathens, to unbelievers who were unrighteous in the scriptural sense of the term. It was not the moral character of the judges that was in question, but their religious status. The problem was not that heathen judges would be unfair in making their judgments, but that the Corinthians were acting unworthily of their dignity as Christians in seeking justice from men who denied the ultimate source of truth and justice. It was not wrong to appeal to magistrates for justice as Paul did before Caesar. But it was a sin and a disgrace for Christians to appeal to heathen magistrates to rule on matters among themselves.

Paul reminds them that the reason they are acting beneath their status as Christians was because Christians will one day sit in judgment over the earth. Should they who will one day be rulers of the world seek justice by those who reject Christ and dishonor God? Of course not. The Corinthians had not thought through what it meant to be Christians, that Christ, who is the ultimate judge is the head and representative of His people, in whom they reign and judge. As coheirs with Christ, they will rule with Him in the new heavens and new earth. This being the destiny that awaits all Christians, we should decide matters among ourselves instead of going to the world to air our dirty laundry.

Make a list of practical ways you can put this lesson into practice. For example, treat other Christians with dignity and respect, settle even personal matters among yourselves, not to gossip about any Christian brethren to the world (or to one another), and not to complain about your church to unbelievers who have no understanding.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Put the Evil Person Away (1 Corinthians 5:19-13)

"I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people" (1 Cor. 5:9).

Before writing this letter to the Corinthians, Paul had sent another to them commanding them to separate themselves from sexually immoral brothers. The Corinthian Church either misunderstood Paul or they tried to avoid the issue by distorting his command, claiming that it was impossible to obey because Christians cannot avoid contact with profane, wicked people. To clear up the confusion, Paul writes the Corinthians again to clarify his point.

Paul commanded the church to separate themselves, not from the world, but from those in the church who claimed to be Christians but lived as fornicators, extortioners, and idolaters. While Christians cannot help doing business and communicating with unbelievers, they can do something about the professed Christian in their midst who lives like an unbeliever.

The commands expressed in this passage are very clear and yet are often overlooked in many churches today. Paul makes it undeniably clear that a Christian cannot continue to live in sin while enjoying the benefits of church communion and Christian fellowship. Those who are sexually immoral, who want things they do not have, who extract gain through unjust means, who carry out practices or beliefs that are idolatrous, and who are drunkards, such people cannot continue to be embraced by the church. Paul also makes it expressly clear that the church must not tolerate such behavior, but that it should put away such people from their midst and not even eat with them. These are hard words, but they are necessary for the good of the church and for the individual that has yet to live as he or she professes.

Matthew Henry wrote, “as to members of the church, they are within, are professedly bound by the laws and rules of Christianity, and not only liable to the judgment of God, but to the censures of those who are set over them, and the fellow-members of the same body, when they transgress those rules. Every Christian is bound to judge them unfit for communion and familiar converse. They are to be punished, by having this mark of disgrace put upon them, that they may be shamed, and, if possible, reclaimed thereby: and the more because the sins of such much more dishonor God than the sins of the openly wicked and profane (those of the world) can do.”

Is there anyone you associate with who claims to be a Christian but lives like an unbeliever? If so, you need to confront them with their sin and if they refuse to repent, remove yourself from their company. Maybe you are living in some kind of sin that brings dishonor to God. If so, confess your sin, repent of it, and bring glory to Christ.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

The Extent of Man’s Sin (Ephesians 2)

"For by grace you have been saved through faith …" (Eph. 2:8).

One of the most hotly debated subjects in Christian history has been the extent of man’s sinfulness. The reason for the fervor is that the doctrine has direct bearing on salvation. If sin has not totally corrupted your nature, then you do not need God’s grace in salvation, or at least you are not solely dependent upon God’s grace to put your faith in Christ.

Throughout this historical debate, there have been three views: Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, and Augustinianism. Pelagianism, named after the fourth-century monk Pelagius, says man has the natural ability to be righteous. Pelagius unabashedly argued that man can obey God perfectly without divine help. He rejected Augustine’s view that original sin has so corrupted man that he is unable to be righteous by his own effort. Because Pelagianism undermines the work of Christ in salvation it has always been considered an heretical doctrine.

In opposition to Pelagius, Augustine maintained the biblical doctrine of total depravity. “No one is good, not even one.” According to the Scriptures, man is so fallen, so darkened in his heart, mind, and will by sin, that he is unable to turn from sin and embrace the truth of the Gospel and obey God’s commandments. Only by God’s grace, only by divine intervention in changing the nature of man’s fallen soul, is a person able to put his faith in Christ and set his mind on what the Spirit desires. According to Augustinianism, salvation is all of grace from beginning to end. God initiates our salvation, not fallen man, and even our faith is a gift from God.

The final school of thought is called semi-Pelagianism. Those who hold to this doctrine maintain that man needs God’s grace to be saved, but that man has the ability within himself to accept or reject that grace. According to semi-Pelagianism, mankind is not dead in its sin, only sick. Fallen man still has a remnant of virtue hidden in his soul whereby he can accept God’s offer of salvation; or he can reject it. This view makes salvation, not totally dependent upon God’s grace as does Augustinianism, but ultimately on man’s own choice. It elevates man’s responsibility above God’s sovereignty in redemption.

If you still have questions about the extent of man’s sinfulness, begin a biblical study of the doctrine with the verses below. Next, find some books or pamphlets that deal with the total depravity of man such as Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther.