June 21: Although the sin which so easily besets me and weighs me down grieves me, I am assured by such unconditional promises as John 3:15-18. At the same time, I’m greatly troubled about those who are so unable to forgive themselves that they end up constructing anti-biblical frameworks to blame God for their sin, or worse, redefine their sin to claim it is acceptable to God despite his explicit condemnation of it. In simple form, we have the rebellion of Cain after being discovered: am I my brother’s keeper? My depravity is more than I can bear. What had been God’s counsel? “If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” Through these besetting sins, satan means to master us; we must learn to subdue them instead.
2 Samuel 22: This chapter parallels Psalm 18. Verses 21-25 (Psalm 18:20-24) are jarring, given what we’ve just gone through with David and his family. He claims his righteousness and cleanness were the reason God rewarded him. He claims to have kept the ways of the LORD and to have not departed from His judgments or statutes. “I was also upright before Him and have kept myself from mine iniquity.” (v. 24) Does that hint of an acknowledgement of iniquity, which David is himself deliberately forgetting, as Jeremiah 31:34 tells us the LORD will do?
John 3: Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, and undoubtedly a member of the Sanhedrin. Is Jesus’ allegory of the new birth deliberately opaque for the same reason the parables of Matthew 13 are to the other Pharisees? Did he move to direct clarity as Nicodemus responded with repentance to what He said? If so, the “problem” with this passage disappears:
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. (Matthew 13:10-17)
If it’s true that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), and that, as 1 Timothy 2:4 says, He “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth,” the challenge for us is to see how making something impossible for someone to understand squares with that. According to Luke 12:48 and Matthew 11:20-24, great revelation brings great responsibility; and, seeing the hardness of their hearts, Jesus mercifully kept them from the worst. The encounter with Nicodemus shows His approach with a Pharisee who instead turns in faith. (v. 9)
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