“Test and evaluate yourselves to see whether you are in the faith and living your lives as [committed] believers. Examine yourselves [not me]! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves [by an ongoing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test and are rejected as counterfeit?”
2 Corinthians 13:5 AMP
A Christian life is the resurrection life. To walk in the Spirit of the Lord isn’t to stay mired in sin, shackled by the power that once dominated us, but to lean more and more of our personalities, habits, actions, and thoughts upon His holy and life giving word. The counterfeit Christian is found not in immaturity, but in hostile opposition to God’s word and the authority it carries.
Note that the Pharisees opposed Jesus because He was a threat to their power; His authority was clear simply by the power of His mighty signs. As the formerly blind man who could now see said to them in John 9, God doesn’t listen to sinners. But their arrogance was such that after Lazarus was raised from the dead, it didn’t cause them to pause. We note also the tendency of sin, like King Saul and with Judas, to be dominated by anger and depression over what they want in life. All false believers have this in common: they want the blessings of God, but not God. They desire the privileges of His kingdom, not the righteousness (and humility) that comes from faith (Romans 1:17). If when we examine ourselves we aren’t led to repentance over sin before the thrice holy God, but instead plead our own innocence and hold grievances against others, we’re likely in serious trouble of judgment.
“I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.” 2 Corinthians 13:6-10 ESV
The agitators in the Corinthian church were “experts” on everything that was wrong with Paul. They were black belts in the specks in the eyes of others and tragically unaware of the beam in their own. This is the way of sinful pride. The church today is shot through full of this sort of false righteousness. It’s easy to criticize the folly and sin of the world – especially in politics – and say, “see how bad they are!” But the one who compares himself to others rather than God is lost because it’s only perfect righteousness that gets us into the King’s presence…and that is only possible via the imputation of Christ’s righteousness via faith alone. The critics of Paul wanted to test, test, and test regardless of the clear miracles he’d performed via Christ, not to mention his miraculous conversion on Damascus Road. They wanted power so badly that they were only concerned with getting him out of the way. But Paul loves them anyway. Just as Christ died for the sins of His people! The heart of the Christian is humble submission to the holy God and fervent desire that others – just as undeserving of grace as oneself – are saved too.
Jean Paul Sartre said that “hell is other people.”
The Bible doesn’t necessarily disagree with this and that’s the irony. We often have problems with others…that’s an obvious fact of life, indeed. But we have this problem for a simple reason we’d like to ignore, or forget: we’re sinners and so are they too. And all of us sinners are living in a fallen world!
This means there will be lots of challenges and frustrations. How we react to them is the definition of our lives and faith. Are we covenantly faithful, following King Jesus or do we succumb to our frustrations and seek to ameliorate our circumstances by our own power? Frustration grows into bitterness within and endless strife without when we refuse to follow the Lord.
The truth is that wherever sin goes there goes trouble and conflict too.
Sartre also said, about the human condition, that we’re “condemned to be free.” This is another tremendous observation that isn’t false. When we read the observations and complaints of the great philosophers we very often read the truths that Christians know but are afraid to admit. We get hoodwinked into thinking faith is some kind of saccharine thing and that Jesus Christ is a sort of cosmic Santa Claus rather than the holy, holy, holy Lion of Judah who is the greater warrior of all. Indeed, He’s the warrior that died so that His followers would live.
So, Sartre’s metaphysical angst is understandable in that he, like all unbelievers living outside of God’s will and using their own autonomous reasoning as life’s final standard, sought to find truth without Christ. But remember, whoever created the world literally owns it and He alone is authorized to set its rules. If nothing created the world – or, for that matter – no thing and what’s ultimate is impersonal matter or some kind of non-personal force (somewhere out there), then there’s no meaning to truth. There’s just raw factuality. Or, more to the point, there’s just brute force in a brutal world where life is brutally hard and short.
The Stoic philosophy seems to be ascendant today. Many young men, rejecting the woke leftism, have turned to a sort of “broicism.” It’s a Broic philosophy that eschews tough matters like metaphysics and epistemology and simply wants practical advice. But Gordon Clark once said that all practice is the practice of a theory. Practice without theory, therefore, is blind. A Stoic like Epictetus saw life governed by an ultimate force; it was impersonal…a divine logic the Greeks referred to as logos.
Of course, as Christians we often miss the impact of John’s gospel opening with saying that in the beginning there was the word and the word – the logos – was with and is God. The Stoics sought to live by reason – that is, in harmony with the divine logic of life. Virtue wasn’t a reward unto itself so much as it was the best way to live in reality. Stoicism was a system of thought that sought a logical integration with the world around us. It appears manly to today’s coddled generation because it sought disciplined harmony with life rather than mealy-mouthed complaining and escape. The philosophical quotes by Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and the aforementioned Epictetus that proliferate on social media resonate with those who seek to live in the real world. It’s not a tough philosophy but a realistic one that seeks to live logically in a tough world.
To this end we get the angst of Sartre on one side and the stoic realism of the Greeks on the other. “Hell is other people” on one side and “it is what it is” type of determinism on the other. To all of this Christ says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The use of authority in the church is to restore and build up in Christ, not dominate or tear down. Sin seeks self-advancement, but Paul prays for his critics and the troublemakers to be saved. Hell is not other people to Paul…hell is hell and that’s where other people will go unless they repent and turn to Christ. The Christian is Christ’s man or woman who sees others as they really are – as immortal beings – and yearns deeply for all to be reconciled to Him. The resurrection life is love dominated even amidst the pain and the heartbreak. Yes, people can be hellish. Yes, they can betray you and hurt you in horrible ways, but to pray for their restoration is the authority each Christian has the great privilege of in this present age. If we aren’t praying for this, if our hearts are hard, we must repent.
The fact of our lives is the reality of the empty tomb and power of the cross. We are, offensive as it sounds to modern ears, slaves to Christ and this means that we were literally bought by Him and for Him. And for what? For life! For mercy! For love! If we give people “truth” and they reject it and we hate them for it, or hold bitterness against them, then we didn’t give them truth at all, but selfishness. We sought to control them for whatever reason, not bring them to Christ who is the truth. Wishing that others fail or that God judges them is anti-Christ. “Father forgive them…” should bleed out of our pierced hearts like we’re sheep to be slaughtered. This is the test of our souls. And this is the love that can truly change the world.
Now, of course, some of us have had serious traumas and great wrongs have been done. Indeed…Sartre would agree. But these pains, provided they’re legitimate and not the consequence of our sin, should be brought to God in deep prayer! If we find ourselves nursing the “little” sin of bitterness against others we may soon discover that it’s killing us. Saul’s struggle with depression and bitterness against David was really a result of his refusal to repent of his sin and turn to the Lord in faith. Let us all test ourselves as such then. The Lord already knows the truth and wants us close to His heart. Our treatment of others and prayer for them is that which either builds walls or draws us into His loving embrace.
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