Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, addresses the matter of the passing perishable (and its necessity) to the putting on of the imperishable. He speaks of death, sin, and law in their relationship to one another for the stirring of hope in their being delivered from through Christ. There is no other way of deliverance Paul has always stoutly maintained and, of course, remains unrelenting to this premise throughout. Christ alone is able, has done, does, and is the only source of such deliverance to the believer. Reliance upon anything other will only show the vanity that under girds such misapprehension.
That this must be settled to us as not merely “Paul’s stance” but made to us as true in all, God will patiently show…even through any or all of our own misadventures. And only in following God’s Christ do we truly begin to learn and see both our own folly and the strongholds of such “other thinking” that run so deep; that we may come to know only the miracle of new birth severing at root the natural and its inclinations, is sufficient to us. Yet, we are to be renewed in mind from a, even that, life giving spirit that is Christ. We must be trained to “think anew”.
We learn a significant part of that training is a rebuke to our old ways, not yet enlightened by spirit. We might like to have it some other way of ourselves…but this is not, and cannot be so. In one sense God has allowed for us to “make our own mistakes” that such learning be real to us and that rebuke, once a thing so strenuously sought to avoid is itself even changed to comfort through the Lord’s word.
“As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent”
And what would one exchange for the knowing of such love? Is the seeming comfortableness of “no rebuke”…worth it? God forbid! Therefore we needn’t hold pretense with or among one another that “some of us” have come to anything apart from a trail of often painful correction(s). As though “we got it” or get it, either better, or in some other fashion than another.
God forbid we lie to one another or accept to ourselves some better station that has exempted us. Indeed, one may be so bold, if one could do so apart from accusation of “other brothers” to note that those chosen of very foundational ministry (apostles) have their own stories to tell of their own mistaken-ness, and that without shame.
One may begin to see the wisdom of Christ in such calling and choosing of such men…not to be seen as “always” paramounts of virtue, loyalty, clear thinking and astute spiritual insights…but rather as example of what Christ can do with “the most common of men”.
But I dare not sound as though by such they are “brought down” in accusation…but that only each would come to understand, teach, lead by example of being a product of the miraculous power of God…that He can take what is most common…and transform.
That I bang this drum loudly and often is a must for me, a man so easily given to think himself so “very special” as to have heaped all manner of griefs to himself by such silly presumption. Yes, for me it is safe. To be reminded that only God can make a man, and it is enough to be one, despite all my occasions of trying to be “more”. Or see myself, or present myself…as “more”.
In one sense God finds in me a full time job, yet I have never found Him growing weary in it. He is always ready, willing…and quite able…to rebuke. It’s almost like He has a pleasure to show someone other than the one I so naturally gravitate toward for viewing. Nah, forget “almost like”…it is that He has a great pleasure in showing someone other than me…to me. Yes, for me it is safe. And the “who” he shows instead has never left me disappointed.
So looking “through” Paul to see Christ (and I am persuaded Paul was fully joyous in being made able to “look through”…as transparent) I find a strange turn of phrase in his exposition about law, sin, and death. He says this in one place:
“The sting of death is sin”…[and the power of sin is the law.] 1 Cor 15:56
At first glance I think otherwise, or tend to want to. Shouldn’t it be otherwise?
“The sting of sin is death”?
Isn’t death the sting? But that is not what is written, and this all despite our understanding of the wages of sin, how it “pays out” (even to death) so that death would seem the ultimate unwanted consequence in all? That is where the “sting” is made known, no? Yet he writes
“The sting of death is sin”
Have I been “all wrong”…again? Or what is being said…in order to be understood in better light?
Might it not be that Paul, in his wisdom learned, his revelations given him saw something quite differently…but true nevertheless, that is to be considered?
Could he possibly be saying in my “getting it wrong” about death being the sting, the totally “unwanted thing” that must be refreshed, renewed? It must be. It cannot…but be.
If we take death as the “signal” of wrongness, that is sin, then dying is the immutable proof of sin’s presence. And this is not inconsistent with the necessity of the flesh’s death, surely. But on the other hand we dare not let go of the Lord’s promise of deliverance from sin (and even death)…that even such promise given to what is, and while in, these earthen tents.
Is it therefore, not merely possible…but true, that there is a death that does not speak of, nor indicate the sin of the “dying one”?
Of course! But whose alone is it? Who died a true death…yet not in consequence of His own sin…having none? Ahh…do we not see a blessedness held out? A promise even there that dying need not hold all pointing to the shame of sin in us? Yes, we accept the consequence of being in a perishable tent (didn’t He?)…but if or when we come to such compelling in us to hold to the Lord’s glory alone, that even He be glorified in our mortal bodies by His alone quickening spirit…do we see that there is an acceptance of “a” death that is not pointing to sin in the embrace of it? And this, not only so as something to grasped at, evolved to…but actually already given us in Christ!
Oh, I know how silly I sound…that almost every child can repeat:
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Yes, it is true…and often so very widely accepted and repeated, as well it ought to be.
But now the reality of “a” death apart from pointing to the shame of sin is made ours, is made real…a death so precious (if indeed it is precious to us to even glorify the Lord in a temporary tent) that all our falling short in any or whatever sense…is not being held to some ultimate end of showing all our imperfections as indicated by the suffering of death.
To those of whom this may seem “old news”, that are very well exercised in the Lord’s death as to be ho hum about it, no doubt I sound a fool. But for a man who is all too familiar with his own failings, his own strivings, his own utterly failed and failing attempts to appear “more than a man” (even thinking that that the Lord might be rightly served in this)…it is a glorious relief. A “christian” man, a “spiritual” man, whatever kind or sort of man is held out with illusory promise of making one “better” that the shame of his failings be not “so obvious”…has hope! A man…no more than a man. And never called to be other…but to learn, as only through One, how OK it is to be “just a man”. And that only God…can make a man…when all illusions of being “self made” are being shown for the folly they are.
What a relief to not seek to be a “better” man. There is no such thing. But there is God’s only begotten Son…who alone is “true” man. A man so good and true in all He does not withhold His death from sharing as though clutching it to Himself to hoard all glory to Himself.
But this man:
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
And He was sent…to die…without shame. He gloried in it.
His Father’s will.
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