Following Judah's Lion

Handling the Oracles of God

Rom.3:1-2 - What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

Paul has just taken the end of chapter 2 to explain the spiritual nature of salvation, specifically solidifying that true salvation is not found in being an ethnic Jew, and that the claim of being a “child of Abraham” holds no favor in the redemptive sight of the Father God. As a matter of fact Paul dismantles the pride that sometimes accompanied (and still does) the adherence to the law, and throughout Paul's writings and ministry in general he will be anointed by God's Spirit to break the yoke of the law of Moses from the hearts of the Jews and Gentiles in order for them to be married to Christ.

In Romans 7 Paul uses the metaphor of marriage to teach us how we are to be dead to the Old Testament law so we can be, by faith, married to Christ. Paul restates the law in saying that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives and if she marries another while her husband is still alive she shall be called an adulteress. So he says the law must be dead to us in order for us to be wed to Christ. What a glorious picture of the sinner abandoning his worthless attempt at gaining his own salvation through the filthy rags of his own works and by faith he throws himself upon the finished work of the spotless Lamb of God, Jesus the Christ.

But as Paul begins chapter 3 he rhetorically asks the question that if all these things be true for salvation then of what benefit is it to be a Jew? The next verse is tucked away in the obscurity of this Pauline book that contains many verses we all know and remember, but this one gets overlooked. And yet this is an incredibly important verse that carries with it panoramic implications for today's evangelical crisis. Paul says that aside from any personal salvidic benefits of being a Jew there is a premier, a chief accolade that has been conferred upon the Jewish people by God Himself. Think about this, the Scriptures tell us that the Jews were God's chosen people and with that came many blessings that were given to them. But Paul says one blessing, one divine responsibility, stands above all the rest in their legacy. They were given the infinite responsibility of receiving, protecting, and proclaiming the "oracles of God", which means God's Word on earth.

Stop and digest that for a moment because as the Spirit reminded me of this verse and its implications I was brought to an altar of meditation and reassessing of what that meant for today. God could have said that the primary responsibility that God bestowed upon the Jews was the lineage of the Messiah, but He didn't. God could have said that the primary responsibility that God bestowed upon the Jews was the blood sacrifice system, but He didn't. God could have used many responsibilities upon which He entrusted the Jews, but among all of them He said the crown jewel was that they were entrusted with His Holy Word. God considers His Word of such sacred importance that He places His committing His Word to the Jewish people as the single most important event in all of Jewish history, and perhaps all history until Bethlehem. And Paul reminds the Jews of this heritage and with it the implications it has for us today.

Rom.2:29 - But he is a Jew which is one inwardly...

Notice the ramifications of what Paul taught concerning being one of God's people. He says you must be a child of God from the inside, not the outside, and in many places we are the New Testament Jews in a manner of speaking, although God seems to have an end times plan for Israel. So if we are the "Israel of God", or the grafted in Jews, what legacy and divine inheritance must be ours in connection to the Jewish people? It leaped out to me by God's Spirit and began to fill in all gaps. Unto us as well has been committed the oracles of God, and the same divine esteem that God gave to that commission in the Old Testament He gives to us in the New Testament. We have no choice, we must receive, protect, and proclaim God's eternal Word. This is not an option, this is the most solemn command of all.

I Pet.1:24-25 - For all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls away, But the Word of the Lord endures forever.

Everything is changing. We are seeing dramatic changes in every area of our lives, how we live, how we think, how we do everything continues to change according to the dictates of this present world. And the church world has not escaped, no, we also have knowingly and unknowingly conformed our worship and even the way we think about our Lord distilled through the prism of this present world, as did almost every other generation. So what seems to be different about our generation? Two things.

One is that we now embrace ecclesiastical change without much if any discernment or resistance, and there is very little challenge to its edifying power when held to the standard of God’s Word or the fruit it produces. The only standard today seems to be does it work, and by that we mean does it gather people and keep them coming, and can it build buildings. Do people enjoy it enough to come and keep coming, and will they give money to keep it going, that is what passes as the approval of God on a western Christian ministry. And as grievous as that is, it isn’t the deepest departure from the plan of God that is taking place today in the church.

The most serious abrogation that continues to gain unbridled momentum today is directly connected to that little verse in Romans chapter 2. The Oracles of God have been committed to us and we are not treating them with carefulness and honor, instead we have imprisoned them to cultural interpretations and are in the process of not only changing their meanings, but changing their very nature. Even referring to them as the “Oracles of God” would seem strange and antiquated to many today who desire the Scriptures to be more of a modern “how to” manual than the very redemptive truths of Almighty God. Salvation is treated as either an equal step in a spiritual journey or a process of higher spiritual education. God has spoken and He has used man to write what He has said, and with that being the essential element of Scriptures we must be careful about how God’s Word is handled and taught. Very careful.

So reading this verse that illuminates God’s view of how He desires His Word to be handled has painted the picture even more clearly concerning the mess that the church has made of God’s Word. These writings that we call the Bible are not just a collection of moral sayings that are addressed generally to anyone who chooses to listen, no, these are God’s Words sent from heaven and miraculously contained in human writings and also miraculously translated into different languages which are again miraculously taken by God’s Spirit and fed into the human spirit as revelation. It is an enormous miracle from beginning to end. But without that as an agreed upon backdrop they become points of interest for semi-inquiring minds and moral guidance for an overall society that believes in god. And the quest for political morality has added to the confusion over God's Word since the issue must always be Jesus the Christ and not morality. And the books of men have not only taken the place of Scripture, they have questioned their meaning by the clandestine use of thought provoking philosophy disguised as religious discourse. And we are no longer in the beginning stages, a new and eager generation is now at the helm with a recognizable energy that feeds the post modern appetite for “new”. These men are brilliant and equipped with original language credentials and with literary and oratorical gifts with which to disseminate these new teachings.

It is a heart grieving experience to stop and see the streams of Christian thought and practice today, and there seems to be no real lines anymore of concrete orthodox teaching. And if you think you will find some unified solace in the discernment ministries do not get your hopes up for there is as much entrenched mess there as anywhere else. The abundance of new ox carts, designed by the proletariat to meet the itching ears of the bourgeoisie, continue to deliver the Word with palatable ineffectiveness and wrapped in very little power. An entire generation of professing believers will never have seen tears of repentance coming from their preacher, much less the pew dwellers. The entire world is heading for a Christless eternity and the congregation sheds no tears and we feel no convicting power of the Spirit. We have made the Word understandable, colorful, enjoyable, and communicated in even the basest of language and yet where is the sacrifice that shines from its disciples? And the born again experience, where a sinner is dramatically changed during one anointed church service is becoming more rare every day.

And we who see a departure are having church as usual, no solemn assemblies called for fasting and prayer, and within our acoustically friendly walls is felt the carnal assurance that we have identified the leaders of this departure and we are satisfied with shouting at its darkness. The mocking, the names, the smirks, the satire, the jokes, the disdain, and all the many invectives produce no more spiritual power than a Sunday morning special sung by Barney Fife. We who see it will give the greater account, and especially when God has gifted us with a spiritual vision that comes only from His grace, the Sovereign will require more than frustrated words. After all He has given to us can we not return to Him the multiplied talents He has entrusted to or care? His Word, people, His Word. As the Patriarch David remarked, “Is there not a cause?”

Arguing will just keep us immobilized, and even discourse must be with wisdom. Dialogue seems to be one of the ways in which error gains credibility, and we will be, we should be, called closed minded at times because there will be many times where God will direct us to close our minds to be "simple concerning evil and wise concerning good". Frustration must never pass for boldness and grace must be the seasoning that authenticates our boldness. We must endure criticism, endeavoring not to respond in like kind, and if faithful, God will bring us to a place where will can humbly rejoice when men say things about us. This battle is not ours, we have been called to it, it was waging long before Adam inhaled God's own breath. It is a privilege to be used of God but it is all for His glory and none of ours - spiritual words but contained in them is a continual sifting, repenting, forgiving, meekness, and a constant awareness of His presence and guidance. Ask God to loose you from the competitive spirit in our discourse so that His truth may shine free from the dross of our own flesh. Contending for God's truth is many times easier than contending for our own personal conforming to the Savior.

I am a certified nobody, but I have given an honest ear to some of the more controversial movements in the church today and I have found little or no surety upon which to place my Scriptural foot, in fact I have become grieved over what I see, read, and hear. And even when there is some teaching of benefit it becomes as I have said before, like finding a nickel in a spittoon. It is bad enough to see that most Christians enjoy the most sensual and carnal of entertainment venues without a shred of conviction, but the deepest wound is to watch as followers of Christ who know a measure of God’s Word give an ear to the most blasphemous teachings as if that man had something to say. And it is a bona fide deception, not from God’s hand as some self righteous would-be theologians would have you believe, but it is the spirit of the evil One blinding the eyes of the church as well as the world.

You as a New Testament believer will be held accountable by God as to what you did with His very Oracles, and make no mistake that day looms large on the horizon. And the greatest challenge will be to discern the Spirit’s command through Jude to “keep yourselves in the love of God” and the Apostle Peter’s admonition to be “clothed with humility”. We have no God given right to change God’s Word concerning ourselves when confronting others who are changing that same Word, no, we must "strive lawfully". You and I must pray until our hearts become an alabaster box, broken and poured out in obedience before Him. If we have no tears we have no anointing. If we have no compassion we will not have God’s blessing. If we spend more time enjoying this world than we do in the prayer closet we are only living for ourselves. If we love our doctrines more than we love Jesus and His people we are pretending. If we have no humility we are just noise. And if we have no love we are nothing.

But if we refuse to take an uncomfortable stand for God’s Word; if we allow shallowness to dull its sharpness; if we entertain false teaching about His Oracles; if we remain silent about the move away from uncompromising redemptive truth as revealed eternally through the glory of God’s immutable Word; then at the very least we have dishonored our Heavenly Father and worse yet we stand as candidates for deception itself. In these days we will even have to separate from some things that seem authentic but still do not ring completely true in our spirits because they are tethered to other teachings that we know are false. And finally brothers and sisters, flee from those who say that these are not perilous times and that the church is not falling away but is opening new doors of understanding concerning these Oracles of which I refer. Pray for them but humbly flee, they themselves are part of the perilous times.

We are living in days of great opportunities for deception as well as reward, let us continually ask the Father to direct our paths to His glory for as His child that is our very life.

Ps.119:89 - For ever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in heaven.