Posts in ‘Commentary’
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Structure over Flexibility
From February 25, 2010 @ 8:35 am
At one time or another, someone thought that each of the following control structures was a good idea:
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- Ability to have the program generate code on the fly and then execute the code it just wrote.
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At one time, each of these ideas was regarded as acceptable or even desirable, even though now they all look hopelessly quaint, outdated, or dangerous. The field of software development has advanced largely through _restricting_ what programmers can do with their code. Consequently, I view unconventional control structures with strong skepticism. I suspect that the majority of constructs in this chapter will eventually find their way onto the programmer’s scrap heap along with computed _goto_ labels, variable routine entry points, _self-modifying code_, and other structures that _favored flexibility and convenience over structure and the ability to manage complexity. – Steve McConnell. Code Complete 2e
I guess Mr. McConnell isn’t too much of a fan of Lisp. Especially considering that everything he finds wrong with these strange control structures seem to be what Yegge and The Wizards seem to appreciate about the language, although I suppose that Lispers would argue that their language allows them to be far more expressive and semantic about what the crazy things they invent to solve their unique problems are than crummy goto statements…
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Someone on the Internet is wrong.
From February 11, 2010 @ 6:00 am
On May 22, 2009, someone on the Internet made fun of the Donut Hole.
On May 22, 2009, someone on the Internet was wrong.
This is nothing if not awesomeness:
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Having eyes, they don’t see.
From February 05, 2010 @ 7:53 am
People look without seeing, hear without listening, eat without taste, touch without feeling, and talk without thinking. — Leonardo da Vinci
This quote is widely attributed to da Vinci but in the 3 seconds I searched I couldn’t find where it actually came from. Anyway, I feel like it’s a rehash of many other quotes I’ve heard. One notable one that comes to mind at the moment is a quote that I believe I heard in high school but now can’t seem to find with my relatively weak GoogleFu. A monk is visiting New York for the first time and the Westerners showing him around expect him to be very impressed. They show him Times Square and take him to Macy’s and after a few hours he turns to his escorts and says, “It’s so strange. With so much wonderment all around them, all anyone in this city can seem to do is to look at the ground 3 feet in front of them.” In fact, one of my wife’s favorite teachers in high school (who’s blog is currently on hiatus) would purposely attempt to watch the ground rather than look around because he thought that it was the people who were looking around that were instantly marked as tourists and easy prey for sales pitches and pick pockets.
It has always been my personal goal to have this not be true of me. I desperately don’t want to drift through life eating and drinking, laughing and scratching, sleeping. I want to deeply engage with the time I have here. I’ll tell you how I did when God gives me my grade…
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That’s the trouble with falling in love.
From February 01, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
Try as many ideas as you can in pseudocode before you start coding. Once you start coding, you get emotionally involved with your code and it becomes harder to throw away a bad design and start over. – Steve McConnell
I love this quote. I’m amazed every time I do anything how sold I get to the way that I started doing it. Just this past week I was working on a problem and I began in a certain way without too much thought up front. 3/4 of my way into the day with almost no progress having been made, I was still hacking away at the same solution, convinced that I was just too close to the problem or just another half a dozen lines of code away from solving it. What I should have done is stopped 2 hours into it and said, “This isn’t working. I can’t see why it should be this complicated. It must be the ’solution’ I came up with. Reset.”
This works in other areas of life as well. Taking the time to do a little analysis and design up front can save you boatloads of time and frustration, not just because you shouldn’t make as many mistakes during the actual implementation of whatever adventure you’re going on, but because it really is hard to give up on something once you feel committed to it.
This is probably why most people are still at the jobs they are.
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Dinosaur Brains
From January 29, 2010 @ 4:04 pm
These lizard-like behaviors are inherent in the wiring, not in the higher-level cognitive thought processes. Thinking takes time; these actions and reactions work more quickly than that, and with less effort.
That’s yet another reason why email is so pernicious.
In the old days of letter writing, the time it took to write longhand and the built-in delay before sending (awaiting the postal carrier) both allowed the cooler neocortex to intervene and remind you that perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea.
“But Internet time short-circuits the neocortex and exposes our reptilian responses. It allows you to fully vent your initial visceral reaction, whether it’s in an email, a blog comment, or an IM. Although that fast, violent reaction might be a fine thing when faced with a predator in the jungle, it’s less helpful when trying to collaborate on a project with co-workers, users, or vendors (well, it might help with predatory vendors…).
I’m about a centimeter away from no longer communicating through e-mail.
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Come, You Sinners
From October 28, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
As part of leading worship at Open Arms, I’m working my way through the songs we sing in order to explain them and promote thoughtfulness in our worship. One of the ways that I’m doing that is by doing commentaries on the songs. This’ll hopefully be the first installment in quite a large number of posts commentating on the songs we sing.
Theme
The theme of this song is clearly seen in the title and chorus. The song bids sinners, those poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick, sore, incapable of achieving salvation, to come. Come to what? To Jesus’s saving power. Jesus stands ready to save all who come to him, full of pity, love, and power. We respond to the summons, joyously arising and going to Jesus who has paid our debt completely through his atoning sacrifice. We go in great boldness, for there is no condemnation through the blood of Jesus. We can do this by no other means than the blood.
Observations
“Come” is the most frequently used word in this song. It is the chief aim of the song to both invite and to tear down every argument against responding to the call.
This song pulls no punches describing the sinner. However, it is easy for those who are self-righteous (saved and unsaved) to feel that they are simply calling others, sinners unlike themselves. This couldn’t be further from the case. This song glories in the reality that we are, this side of eternity, nothing more than beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.
The chorus of this song attempts to transition from the verses which are what makes the song so easy to not identify with for the self-righteous into an explicit call to identification with what you’re singing. “Let us arise and go to Jesus. His sacrifice our debt has paid…” The repetition of this should temper the strong tendency to sound simply like we’re calling people who aren’t like us. We are all still in desperate need of mercy for and grace to overcome sin.
This song glories in the work and character of Jesus. Jesus is portrayed as ready (eager?) to save us, full of pity, love, and power. His work of atoning and propitiatory sacrifice is displayed in detail. “View him prostrate in the garden, bloodied on the tree.” It is this in which we come!
Verses
The Garden Account (Luke 22.29-46):
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Come, I will give you rest (Matthew 11.25-30):
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Self-righteousness (Luke 18.9-14):
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt; “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collecter. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
God’s great love (Ephesians 2.1-10):
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Method
By far the most extensive discussion of the sinner, the opening verse relentlessly attacks all honest consciences with a knowledge of their absolute poverty before the holy and righteous judge of all the earth. It moves quickly though, to the lamb who was slain to make a way for us. He stands ready to save you from your pitiful state, recognizing the very pity of it, loving you in it with his great love, and full of the very power by which to effect it.
View the wonder of his atoning work. The maker of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, the omnipotent, the omniscient, the all sufficient, Holy, Holy, Holy one, weeps tears of anguish and sweats drops of blood as he faces the cup his father has set for him. The price of our infinite offense against God is an infinitely worthy sacrifice. The Son made a way for us. Yes! This does for all suffice!
Though an honest conscience will feel nothing but shame and condemnation facing the weight of the sacrifice that was needed to save him, though the self-righteous may dream that the sacrifice was not for him, and though a weary sinner may think longingly of an imagined state in which it would be appropriate for him to begin his pilgrimage toward God, all is foolishness. Jesus’s sacrifice made a way for us through which God’s requirement at the start is simply our ‘weak yes’. Our realization that we have no hope apart from him. And our hearty faith towards the work he did.
We express faith in Jesus work by joyously moving towards him. We joyfully glory in his sacrifice which paid all our debt and made a way for us to glorify him and glory in him. There is no more condemnation through his blood!
Commentary
Come, you sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore.We begin by calling all sinners to come. We sinners are poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick and sore. Poor in that we come with nothing to offer to God; needy in that our predicament before God is desperate without every grace that God pours out to us; weak in that we are unable to bridge this gap, to present ourselves to God, to enact any saving activity on our own; wounded by sin to the point of death, weakening daily as we bleed out; sick mortally with our sin; sore, continually buffeted by the reality of sin, beaten by the accusations of the devil, condemned by our own consciences before this holy God.
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Jesus, though, is ready to save us. Not only from the first when we realize our adoption but to the last, when we step into the glories of our full adoption and our unmarred, radiant reflection of the glories of Christ.
Full of pity, love, and power.
He is full of pity, understanding our state having experienced it personally upon the adding of humanity to his divinity, being a good high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, love, expressed perfectly on the cross, making us to be of infinite worth through his suffering an infinite punishment through no merit of our own at all, and power, able to save to the uttermost.
Chorus
View Him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your maker lies.See this terrifying beauty of Christ’s passion! The maker of heaven and earth, unknown of sin, possessor of infinite power, worth, magnificence, glory, union with the Father and Spirit, wisdom, lies weeping on the ground. Crying tears of anguish at the cup that’s being passed to him. Sweating great drops of blood as his disciples sleep a stone’s throw away, unable to stay awake despite his groaning. This one who’d never known pain or indecision struggles in his humanity to own the will of God for himself. Everyone has abandoned him, and will abandon him still more before the end.
On the bloody tree behold him;
Remember the cross! Never forget the cross! It is the matter of first importance. If Christ had not died and risen, our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins! We are to be pitied above all men for having such a ridiculous hope. Our end would still be to burn in hell for ever, never knowing the joy of the Father in the face of the Son through the power of the Spirit. We commit a grave error when we relegate the cross to the beginning of our lives as Christians instead of realizing its overwhelming pride of place in every day of now and eternity. God’s justice and mercy perfectly displayed once and for all; his glory finally vindicated; his justice fully exonerated; his great love for us perfectly known.
O Sinners, this does for all suffice.
Praise God! For yes, this does for all suffice!
Chorus
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;Come boldly to this mercy seat. Not because your conscience is clear, for all honest sinners are condemned continually by their conscience. Nor because you believe you have a right to be there, as the dishonest sinner is prone to do, believing somehow that they have been good enough to relate to God. Do not commit the error of believing that you’re too bad for God to save you, or that you’re too good to need God’s salvation. On the one hand, you make God a weakling, too impotent to overcome your sins. On the other, you make God’s worth paltry, and you make the sacrifice of his Son overkill.
All the fitness he requires
Is to feel your need of him.This is all! Know your state. We are all on a level playing field before this holy God. The best of us, the worst of us, the mediocre; all stand condemned on our own and yet justified by his Son.
Chorus:
Let us arise and go to Jesus.
His sacrifice our debts has paid.We respond to all these things by arising and joyfully going to Jesus! What greater news is this, knowing our state, that our state is covered and washed and that we now have boldness of access to our Father’s throne. In fact, with Jesus, we approach the very bosom of God and lay our head on his breast, like John at the table with Jesus, listening to his secrets, exchanging our affections. Our debt is paid! Hallelujah!
And there is now no condemnation
Through his blood. Only through his blood!By this, through this, and only this do we come uncondemned. Jesus, thank you for the blood!
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There should be no controversy at all over the Pope’s comments regarding the efficacy of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS.
There’s been an explosion of controversy over pope Benedict XVI’s comments during his first visit to Africa regarding how effective condoms actually are at stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Responses seem to range from abject rage to flippant humor. To be honest, this whole controversy has baffled the heck out of me and I hope that Benedict holds his ground on what is really a no-brainer. The fact that so many intelligent people can be so blind to their own inconsistencies confuses me deeply. I wanted to take some time then to outline what really happened (rather than the sound-byte-ism that already seems to have set in amongst the popular media) and then discuss why I feel it’s so ridiculous. Hopefully we can reason this out because, when it all comes down, this is not and should not be a controversy; It’s just plain facts.
Benedict’s Actual comments
I looked up the actual quote in order to be sure that the media wasn’t intentionally distorting what the pope said in order to have a sensationalist story. The comments (according to the article published by Catholic News) are as follows (with the preface by the CNS for the context):
Lest it be taken out of context, here is the exchange that took place on the pope’s plane. The question’s premise was “The Catholic Church’s position on the way to fight against AIDS is often considered unrealistic and ineffective,” and the pope responded
I would say the opposite. I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant’Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS … and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.
I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money — which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, (money) doesn’t help.
One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.
The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.
Therefore I would say this is our double strength — to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one’s own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. … I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this.
OK. No exaggeration as far as I can tell. He says it. “On the contrary, [condoms] increase the problem.” What I haven’t seen reported anywhere though is his reasoning behind the statement, which is rock-solid sound as far as I’m concerned.
The apparent position of pro-condom parties
The fact is that the apparent position of the pro-condom constituency seems to be the same position of current public school sex ed curriculum designers, namely that people are going to have as much sex as possible with as many people as possible so the most we can do to stem the flood of STDs (such as HIV/AIDS) is to make them impossible to transmit during, well, sex. At least, that’s my best estimation of the current situation. If I’m wrong, please correct me (’cause I just hate being wrong).
In other words, the entire hope of the secular humanist agenda regarding solving the STD (and, oh God, the pregnancy) problem rest firmly on making sexual activity consequence-less. If people are going to have sex we must make it painless in every possible way. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few short years a company has come out with a drug that makes the feeling of regret and violation one often feels when they’ve slept (or had intimate relations of any sort) with someone they’re not truly connected with go away (either that or we’ll have so forcefully acted against our conscience that we’ve stamped that impulse out). However, right now, we have physical fish to fry, like millions dying of a disease in Africa.
The terrible justice in the presence of these diseases based on the intention of God for sex
I hate to appeal to logic here but I want to nonetheless. Briefly, though, lets cover God’s position on sexual relationships. Sex is a gift to be experienced between one man and one woman in a marital relationship, monogamously and singularly, for the life of an individual. There, that’s settled.
Oh, and, I know how to cure AIDS.
Actually, not only AIDS. I know how to cure every single STD on the planet. Guess how long it would take me? One generation or less. Here’s my prescription. Every single person follows God’s plan outlined above for sex. People who are already infected with sexually transmitted diseases should only be able to get married to people who also have STDs. Once this generation (of infected and non-infected) pass away…
Bam!
Done.
Finito.
Adios.
You see, the reality is that there is a terrible justice in the rise of the STD problem. God has a plan for sexual relationships! We broke the plan. And oh my gosh! Something bad happened!?
Well… Yeah.
God has never gotten himself into the position of making sin painless. Instead, he tells us very clearly throughout the whole of scripture that there is a consequence for sin, namely death. We want God to make sin painless for us because we love to sin. Sinning is our natural bent! It allows us to make a god out of whatever we want.
To be clear, I don’t believe that God magically created AIDS in order to punish the homosexual community (or the heterosexual community for that matter). I’m not one of the crazy Christians who go and picket the funerals of homosexuals who have died. I also don’t believe that we should not extend mercy to those who are suffering and hurting. On the contrary, it’s our duty to love all who are oppressed and enslaved (meaning, of course, all of us). But that’s where the logic of the pope comes in that I agree so deeply with and that all of these incredibly smart people that I like so much seem to be blind to.
I’m not a great lover of the pope, by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t even really believe that the Catholic church is particularly great with issues of philosophy and logic (I mean, they really miss some blindingly clear interpretations of Scripture). Despite that, on this point they are dead on. The STD problem (and unlike pregnancy, it really is a problem) is a direct function of our behavior as sinners. It has nothing at all to do with condoms except that condoms are a way to make sinning “consequence-less”. Please notice the quotes around “consequence-less” (<- there, I did it again just in case you missed it the first time) because I mean it be sarcastic. There are consequences for sin, no matter how much we attempt to cover them over. The fact is that we’re facing an epidemic of STDs all around the world because of our behavior, and condoms do nothing but exacerbate that behavior!
It’s like the Internet and porn. Before the Internet, there was most certainly pornography. However, it wasn’t the industry it is today back then. Why? Because most people weren’t bold enough in their sin to be seen walking into an adult bookstore! But now that we have an enabler (our ISPs) that allows us to “anonymously” sin (or, “consequence-lessly”), the industry has exploded. Before there was social pressure around porn. There still is, but it’s easier to skirt around. In other words, the direct consequences of the sin were taken away (social ostracizization, face to face contact with people who now knew you were into porn, reputation in your local town, etc.) and the sin exploded (because we wanted to do it all along, but now it was less painful).
And that’s the pope’s point. Condoms help to enable the behavior that’s the true cause of the problem. Throwing more condoms at it and making sex less painful won’t solve it. The world is broken like this (disease, death, wars) because of sin. Enabling sin, no matter how good we get at it, will always produce consequences that fit the crime. And, God forbid, if we’re successful enough to truly artificially wipe out STDs, the final judgement will be the only warning many receive that their lifestyle was an offense to their creator that deserved punishment.
There is no debate here. Please, live up to the intelligence that you display in so many ways elsewhere.
Addendum: A glaring contradiction?
But. But! You may say, isn’t your own belief in the forgiveness of sins a direct contradiction of your premise that we should get what we deserve? No, I don’t believe so. For one, the forgiveness of sins is an act by a merciful God who is giving us something that we in no way deserve. He does this so that his kindness might lead us to repentance, not so that we could sin all the more so that grace may abound. As believers we are to relieve suffering wherever we can, but never in a way that makes sin more comfortable. Always we are to be contending for the morality and ethic that God ordained the universe to express. And please don’t join the crazies who are saying the the Pope doesn’t want to relieve the AIDS epidemic in Africa. He clearly states that he does. What he disagrees with is the method. In effect, he’s saying that we should not relieve suffering in a way that encourages the sin that ultimately causes it. I think that covers my bases… :\
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Reflection on Hebrews 9:11-14
Mine:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then by the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Real:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Unified Diff (A little boo this time, the Emacs fill had unfortunate splits. Oh well.):
2,7c2,7 < come, then by the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, < that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the holy < places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of < his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the < sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and < with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the --- > come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with > hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the > holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by > means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if > the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls > and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the 9c9 < spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience --- > Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscienceI think the phrase that hit me hardest in this particular section is:
If the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
The reason I love this so much is that it speaks to the fact that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance and allows us to serve him whole heartedly.
The fact is that under the old covenant and the law (which we are always judged by, and in fact even more strenuously so (Matthew 5-7)) you lived with the constant weight of the need to perform. And the problem was that you were always failing. There was never anyone who didn’t have to show up at the yearly Day of Atonement with offerings for the sins that they had committed. Everyone, every day (depending on how honest they were with themselves), sinned in various ways, and each of the sins warranted punishment of some kind. If I was under that system, I can tell you exactly how I’d feel: hopeless.
But God was gracious and gave the sacrificial law so that people could be cleansed from their sins. Despite that, that system gave rise to the most self-righteous people, the Pharisees. These were people who felt like they didn’t really sin. Maybe they had some little petty sins here or there, but for the most part they were perfect, and everyone who couldn’t man up like they had was a sinner and deserved judgement.
But you see the thing is that if our conscience isn’t clear before God then we lose our energy to serve him. Why serve someone who’s constantly mad at you unless you do something? It’s exhausting living in a relationship like that. When someone’s love for you is predicated on your ability to do what they want, and you can’t ever do what they want, then you’ll just give up, even if they give you a systematic way to receive their forgiveness that you can do fairly easily.
That’s where the covenant that Christ inaugurates improves so much upon the old covenant. Under the new covenant, our sins are forever abolished and thus we are freed from dead works and stale religion. Instead, secure in the knowledge that through Christ we are delighted in and over by God, we can serve him with our whole heart knowing that when we fail, it’s been paid for. It’s both our conscience and our flesh that Christ purifies with his blood. Amen!
I find the juxtaposition of Christ’s purification of our conscience from dead works and the serving of the living God intriguing. The problem with the gospel of mercy is and has always been that it can lead to licentiousness. People have always taken the knowledge that God will not judge us for our sins any longer and used it to say, “Well then I can do whatever I want!”. This of course is a confusion of the gospel. I say again that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Without repentance, we haven’t understood the gospel at all.
I’m not sure if I’ve written about this here before (A quick google search didn’t turn up anything.) so I’ll just introduce it like it’s new. One of the ways that I’ve come to understand the gospel most clearly is a concept that I call Graceful Failure.
To understand the gospel it’s very important to understand the seriousness and gravity of sin. One sin is worth eternal, literal, conscious damnation under the active wrath of God. It’s useless and audacious to attempt to argue against the goodness of God because of this. God defines goodness and reality and we who are fallen and finite can’t hope to understand his reasoning. Suffice it to say that any blaming of God for our sin is a useless exercise. We sinned. We deserve judgement. End of story.
But God, in his inestimable mercy, chose to not give us what we deserved. Instead, he promised that one day he would make it right. This is unbelievably important. Notice that in the first gospel preached (Genesis 3) God takes upon himself the responsibility of making things right again. He doesn’t say, “Here’s the steps to make this right. Good luck. Maybe I’ll help.” but instead says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise [Hebrew crush] your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”.
In the interim he institutes the first covenant through Moses, in which he defines everything that he had always expected of us. This was to make it clear and without question that we are sinners who deserve judgement. However, Christ hadn’t come yet. So he instituted the sacrificial system so people could serve him without dying. But they still weren’t able to serve him whole heartedly.
But then Christ came! He lived the life we couldn’t live, died the death we should have died, and rose to give us the righteousness that he obtained. Suddenly, we can be washed in his blood (and we are) and we become pure before the God of the universe.
But to what end? To have license to sin? Of course not! In fact God makes greater demands on us than ever before through Christ (Matthew 5-7). But things are different now. Now the sacrifice has been made. I can enter boldly into the presence of my holy God because through the blood of Christ I am seen as holy, no matter what I’ve done. But it’s through this that I’m struck to the core with a love for him who saved me. Because I know what I deserved (at least in part), I’m aware of how great a love God has for me, because he pardoned my great debt to him. It is this realization that makes me want to serve him so badly. He owed me nothing, and yet he’s given me mercy. Amen.
This is where my term, Graceful Failure comes in. When I fail now, I can with confidence press on, forgetting what lies behind me, because I know that God has as well. I don’t have to wait to serve him again. All I need to do is reapproach his throne without shame, knowing that I stand clean in the blood of Jesus. Thus I am able to work again for God. Where as before I was crippled with my guilt, now my conscience is free to attempt to obey God in everything knowing that he doesn’t count my sins against me.
So we see, there is no contradiction. Yes, we no longer are slaves to dead works that lead us to destruction, so we work with our whole hearts to serve the one who made that possible.
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Reflection on Hebrews 6:17-20
From February 11, 2009 @ 6:00 am
Mine:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner after becoming a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Real:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Unified Diff:
8,9c8,9 < forerunner after becoming a high priest after the order of < Melchizedek. --- > forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after > the order of Melchizedek.One thing I really dig about this passage is God’s mercy and kindness towards us. As an example of this I’d take you over to Judges 6-10 for the story of Gideon.
Gideon floors me every time. The issue is that God seems to be really harsh sometimes (such as Moses and the exodus account) and at other times he’s unbelievably merciful. For instance, Gideon clearly does not have much intrinsic worth for the purposes of throwing off the oppression of the Midianites: He is not fighting but instead participating in the cowardly activities of the people around him, he isn’t strong, he’s not of a good tribe, etc. However, God calls him (his ‘might’ is that he longs to see the things that God had done in the past; he realized the nation’s barrenness!) anyway. But, then he questions it! First he’s too fearful to even destroy the altar of Baal and the Asherah tree in the daylight, then he refuses to go out against the Midianites until God confirms it to his doubting heart, twice, and then after his army’s reduced to 300 men, he gets a 3rd supernatural confirmation! Unbelievable!
In the same way the author of Hebrews is telling us about a mercy that God extends to us, which is that he’s not unwilling to prove himself to us. God, who has no intrinsic reason whatsoever to give us anything and who was ultimately betrayed by me and all of us, actually looks at our weak and doubting hearts and says, “I’ll give you assurances so that you don’t have to doubt”!
I love the connection with Jesus and us here. It’s such an awesome picture of his union to us through his atoning work. Jesus died on the cross and as a man (which he will be forever), as our high priest (which he will be forever), he entered into the place where we would never have been able to go on our own strength and merit and made a way for us to come after him. And, he did this on our behalf! Sw33t. ^_^
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Oh, that’s just bitter…
From January 25, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
I have directed my staff to reach out to those on all sides of this issue to achieve the goal of reducing unintended pregnancies. They will also work to promote safe motherhood, reduce maternal and infant mortality rates and increase educational and economic opportunities for women and girls.
- President Barack Obama – Statement after rescinding the Mexico City Policy
2 parts of this quote should be viewed side by side:
- “reducing unintended pregnancies”
- “reduce maternal and infant mortality rates”
I wish people who find abortion to be acceptable would take their convictions to their logical conclusions and just come out and say that human life is only worth protecting when it’s convenient and safe. Why the double speak? Why are infants worth protecting but the unborn baby not? Please… We’re all more intelligent than this…
I pray that wisdom and steel would be placed in the hearts of those on every side of this debate. Let every one of us have courage to speak our convictions to the full that all would not have to wonder at these vague ambiguities that we introduce through frivolous attempts at being ‘nice’ or ‘politically correct’.
