Sunday, March 20

Jesus said, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” John 15:26

Theme for the week: The Truth about Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Perhaps you’ve heard it said, It’s all in the past. There is nothing you can do about it.  Life is about moving ahead. Get over it. Declare bankruptcy and start over again. That is not the gospel. That is not the biblical story. After the fall of Adam and Eve the biblical account of salvation history is all about dealing with the past and the sins of the past and the debt we owe God for breaking his commandments and the covenants he made with us. The past, our own individual and collective pasts, like the ancient serpent, keeps nipping at our heels.

Perhaps there is no better example than credit card debt for illustrating humanity’s hopeless position regarding the past and the consequences of sin. If you have ever gotten into credit card debt you know all about the past nipping at your heels. Every time your statement comes not only does it have your current purchases on it but also unpaid expenses from the past accompanied by finance charges. If you do not make your minimal monthly payment, then you get a late fee on top of everything else. Credit card debt can become a bottomless pit of hopelessness. Some people work for years to get their debts behind them. Others give up and try to move on after declaring bankruptcy.

Our debt keeps mounting as we keep on sinning, and there is no hope that we can ever climb our way out of the pit by doing good. Declaring bankruptcy—that we are headed in a hopeless direction and totally unable to meet our past debts and therefore unable to move into any kind of imaginable, positive financial future—is what repentance is like. Repentance, however, is more than saying we are wrong, more than asking for forgiveness, more than admitting we are sorry, more than wanting to get on a new path forward. It is recognition of our hopelessness and total inability to do anything positive for ourselves in regard to sin. Repentance, the kind of repentance that Jesus calls for, is what we see in the parable he tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector: God, be merciful to me, a sinner!  Jesus tells us that this man went home justified because the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

So, is that it? Is that all we have to do? Humble ourselves before God, admit our sins, ask for mercy, and then we are okay again? And if that is the case, then why did Jesus have to die on the cross for our sins? Where is the truth in all of this?

Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). There is something more according to Jesus. There is he. The way to salvation is through him. The truth of salvation is in him. And the life of salvation is in him. It takes Jesus to get us on the way. It takes Jesus to tell us the truth. It takes Jesus to give us the life. And in the middle of the way and the truth and the life that Jesus gives to us is the cross. We may declare our bankruptcy to God, but there is a cost to setting the record straight.

Before examining the cost, let us look at an interesting passage Paul wrote to his understudy, Timothy, to understand biblical repentance more fully:

The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

According to Paul, repentance is granted to Timothy’s opponents by God. In other words, it is God who grants us repentance, who changes our hearts, leading us to the truth about Jesus. The word perhaps indicates that not everyone receives this change of heart from God. Without this change of heart we cannot understand the truth about Jesus because our senses have been taken captive by the devil whose will we do until our hearts are changed.  A question that naturally arises is, Does this understanding of repentance, leading to knowledge of the truth, align with what Jesus teaches?

Before answering this question it is helpful to look at Paul’s own conversion to help understand what happened to him.

The Conversion of Paul (Saul)

Paul’s conversion story is recorded in Acts 9:1-19 and 26:12-18 and referred to in Galatians 1:11-24. In all three accounts Paul acknowledges that God revealed his Son to him. No part of Paul’s conversion was of his own doing, his own understanding, his own faith. It was all the work of Jesus. After knocking him to the ground, Jesus asks, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

In his own conversion, Paul turned from darkness to light—Jesus literally darkened his eyes until Ananias laid hands on him and prayed for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit—from working in the power of Satan to persecute followers of Jesus to working in the power of God to bring others to faith in Jesus, from being blinded to the truth of Jesus to know him as God. It was Jesus who converted Paul by changing his hateful heart and revealing the truth about himself to Paul, and it was all done for his divine purposes. This was good news for Paul, the gospel Jesus gave him to share with others, so that their eyes may be opened and their own sins forgiven. It was all predicated, however, on the Holy Spirit transforming Paul’s heart to be open to the truth of Jesus, leading to a full-blown conversion. In Paul’s case the two seemed to have happened simultaneously. As soon as Paul understood he was persecuting God, his heart was transformed. Three days later he was baptized and began giving witness to Jesus as the Son of God.

Something of interest in Paul’s conversion is that after knocking Paul to the ground, Jesus asked him, Why are you persecuting me? This question must have surprised Paul because he had been persecuting the followers of Jesus. Why didn’t Jesus ask Paul, Why are you persecuting my followers? Yet Jesus had directly accused Paul of persecuting himself. This revelation must have awakened Paul to the understanding of the intimate relationship between Jesus and his followers, leading to Paul’s understanding of the body of Christ language he would later use in his letters. This also must have strengthened Paul, knowing that wherever he went, Jesus was with him.