The Privileges of the Apostate
By John Fast
For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. – Hebrews 6:4-6 (NASB)
In the last study I began examining the passage of Scripture, Hebrews 6:4-6, that will serve as the foundation for this series of studies into the nature and causes of apostasy. In this passage the author of Hebrews attributed five privileges to those who had apostatized from true Christianity, two of which we examined in the last study, namely, they “have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift”. When I first gave myself the task of writing these series of studies, I knew they would be read by very few. They are not the product of a popular, but of an ordinary and obscure pastor with at best average gifts, nor do they appeal to the modern mind and to the tastes and beliefs that are preferred by the bulk of contemporary Christianity which has elevated feeling over fact. Although there is much today that goes by the name of ‘Christian’, and much that is done under the auspices of ‘Christianity’, yet the spirit and power of it is greatly vanished away. This is a truth made all too obvious by current events to warrant any discussion or debate. Instead, the spirit of the world has insinuated itself into and now permeates both the message and methods of contemporary evangelicalism. Modern Christianity in general is at this time thoroughly leavened by the spirit of the world. The salt has long ago lost its saltiness. Modern Christianity is impotent to restrain the evil and immorality that now saturates and characterizes our government, judicial and educational systems, and society in general. How does salt lose its saltiness, that is, its ability to prevent decay, putrefaction, and corruption? By losing its purity. How does it lose its purity? By failing to keep itself unstained by the world (Jm 1:27; cf. 1 Tm 6:14; 2 Pt 3:14).
That this is the case with modern Christianity is self-evident by the fact that, more often than not, professed Christianity, no matter what outward form it takes, sides with the world, thereby rendering it impotent to testify of the world that its deeds are evil, to expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness, to convict the world of sin and judgment, or to provide the only remedy for the disease that infects fallen men and women, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ that calls sinners to forsake sin, die to the world, deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ. In siding with the world, they reveal (regardless of any profession to the contrary) that they are really lovers of the world and the things in the world, thereby proving that the love of the Father is not in them (1 Jn 2:15). Institutional Christianity has reached the point where it can have many members, followers, and adherents, much money, political influence, and the favor of the world, or it can be doctrinal, biblical, and faithful to Scripture, but it cannot be both. When the word ‘Christian’ becomes inclusive of everything from Roman Catholicism to that which openly embraces the most perverse evils and ideologies of the world, then it is obvious that all meaning has been washed out of the word and the salt has lost its saltiness.
The world will always side with the world. No matter how irrational, contrary to fact, self-destructive, immoral, depraved, and ungodly it is, the spirit of the world will always side with the world against Jesus Christ, His Word, His doctrines, His principles, values, and wisdom, and His gospel. Current events have made this even more evident as more and more professing ‘Christians’, churches, denominations, religious leaders, and ‘Christian’ businesses, schools, entertainers, and organizations are rushing to side with, join, promote, and are associating, participating, and sympathetic with organizations and movements that are openly wicked, depraved, and anti-God. Organizations that, under the pretext of seeking social and racial justice, openly and fanatically support and promote the most rebellious, wicked, depraved, demonic, anti-God, anti-gospel, and anti-family agendas and ideologies in existence today. Many today are bemoaning the fact that the church has failed to address a particular sin, namely, the sin of racism, but ignores the equally true fact that for decades it has ignored and glossed over the nature and sinfulness of sin in general. Under the banner of a false charity and for the sake of some superficial unity, the bulk of professed evangelicalism has for decades increasingly tolerated sin and accumulated error, false teaching, and false teachers, making it guilty of the same sin. The true Christian is to expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness, not participate in them (Eph 5:11); “what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Cor 6:14). It is only the true Christian whose mind, heart, and life is not dominated by the spirit of the world, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God,” (1 Cor 1:12). The spirit of the world is that which is hostile toward and stands in opposition to the law, commands, and will of God. It is the spirit that rules and governs the mind, will, and affections of all those in whom the Spirit of God does not dwell.
What was once confined to apostate liberal ‘Christianity’ is now universal, namely, the notion that the purpose of Christianity is to improve the social and economic condition of mankind. For most today, it is the moral example and ethical teachings of Jesus that are the essence of Christianity. With rare exceptions, modern Christianity has rejected as invalid and unworkable in modern society the historical and biblical disjunction between the sacred and the secular, the holy and the common, the church and society, and the Christian and the world. If the new purpose of Christianity is to improve mankind’s condition in this world, then it shifts from being redemptive to humanitarian, from Christ-centered to man-centered, from setting the mind on things above to setting the mind on the things of this world. In other words, it shifts from being spiritually-minded to having the mind set on the flesh, and “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God;” (Rm 8:7). It is hostile toward God because, “it does not subject itself to the law of God,” (Rm 8:7), and therefore, it takes on the spirit of the world and calls it Christianity. In refusing to be governed and ruled by God’s law, we refuse to be ruled by His will, and in disowning God’s will as a rule, we disown the nature and character of God revealed in His will, and apostatize from the true knowledge of God. How can anyone truly believe there is a God, who despises Him as a ruler? How can they believe God and His Word to be a guide, when they disdain to follow and obey Him? To imagine that we love and believe in God, without submitting and conforming to His commands, is a vain and futile imagination, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me…. He who does not love Me does not keep My words;” (Jn 14:21, 24); “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments,” (1 Jn 5:3); “And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments” (2 Jn 6).
The unregenerate world harbors a hostility against God and His Word that it does not have toward the gods and scriptures of any other religion, because the spirit of the world is the spirit of antichrist, which “is already in the world” (1 Jn 4:3). The spirit of the world is not the spirit of anti-Allah, or anti-Buddha, or anti-Mary, or anti-atheist, or anti-god in general, or anti-false Jesus’, or anti-false gospels, or anti-humanitarianism, but the spirit of anti-Christ. The world hates Christ and His Word because He testifies of it, that its deeds are evil (Jn 7:7). Only the Bible reveals the world for what it really is. When siding with the world goes against conscience, the religious worldling will appease their conscience, and justify and defend their siding with the world by giving their allegiance respectable and spiritual-sounding names and pious-sounding motives, and define it by means of terminology borrowed from Christianity to which they give their own meanings. The god of this world, under whose power the whole world lies (1 Jn 5:19), cloaked his first temptation to rebel against God with spiritual-sounding motives, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gn 3:5), and his children, in siding with the world, do no less. The religious worldling will always cloak their unbelief, rebellion, and siding with the world in pious and spiritual-sounding words and motives. King Saul attempted to justify his disobedience with pious motives (1 Sam 15:13-23). Herod the king concealed his true intentions from the magi to murder the infant Jesus under the pretext of a desire to worship Him (Mt 2:8). Judas concealed his greed and avarice behind a pretext of concern for the poor (Jn 12:5, 6). If the gospel, the law of God, and the nature of Jesus Christ were compatible with the interests and desires of self and the world, they would be warmly accepted and honored by all people, but self-interest is the measure and standard used by the world in all its actions, even its religious actions. While God is professed to be the object, and the interests of Christ and His gospel the motive, self is the ultimate rule and end (Zech 7:5). The reason we are so opposed to the will of God is because the will of God is so opposed to self and the world, and the reason why we hate the will of God so much is because we love ourselves, our sin, and the world so much.
There is a natural hostility in the heart of fallen men and women against the doctrine that teaches us to deny ourselves, ungodliness, and worldly desires (Tit 2:12), and to be under the rule and dominion of another. Had the dogmas, theories, and implications of evolution, the principles of psychology, the current political, social, and moral ideologies, and the message, means, and practices of contemporary evangelicalism been against self and the world as much as the law of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, they would have long ago been scorned and rejected by the world. In seeking to develop a Christianity that is compatible with the modern mind and the ever-changing morality and norms of society, modern Christianity may have made itself more attractive and compatible to the world, but in the process, it has made itself incompatible with the Christianity of the Bible. The profession of a strict biblical, historical, and doctrinal orthodoxy is today deemed the mark of a mean and narrow-minded spirit, whereas reinventing Christianity, integrating the wisdom of man with Scripture, denying sin and judgment, and siding with the world is proof of an open, compassionate, and enlightened mind. It is easy to side with the world. Such a wide and easy path to popularity, success, acclaim, and self-preservation is sure to be a full and well-traveled path.
The spirit of the world is a short-sighted spirit. It cannot see beyond its own worldly, carnal, and commercial self-interests. It treats symptoms as if they were the disease, thereby allowing the disease to get worse and worse. Heavenly things, the things that are above, and heavenly truths are too far distant to be discerned by it. It loves, pursues, and greedily longs for things present, but the things to come and the things of God, are out of their sight. Modern evangelicalism has all but abandoned setting its mind on the things above, the immortality of the soul, and the hope of the resurrection, and instead has made this world and the betterment of society the focus of their attention. In using Christianity and the gospel as a means for solving social ills and injustices, it has drifted away from the true redemptive gospel of Jesus Christ (Hb 2:1), and is in total contradiction of the demands made by Jesus which require absolute and exclusive loyalty to Him and His kingdom (which, by the way, is not of this world), even to the point of “hating” father and mother (Lk 14:26). By making Christian truths and doctrines subservient to specific worldly and social ends, Jesus Christ and His gospel have become merely the means to an end, not an end in themselves.
Those who are of this world are obvious, because they side with the world, especially when their self-interest is at stake. They greedily hunger and thirst after the world, not after righteousness, holiness, and conformity to Jesus Christ. They are citizens of this world, not citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20). They strive to be friends of the world, and to appease the world. When they taste of the things offered by God and of those offered by the world, they greatly prefer that which the world offers because it is compatible with our fallen human nature. There is a correspondence between fallen, sin-cursed human nature and the fallen, sin-cursed world, “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them” (1 Jn 4:5). This is the great advantage that the world has over the hearts and minds of men and women. The world tempts them with what they love and like, with what they prefer, with what they want to believe, and persuades them to follow their natures, lusts, desires, inclinations, preferences, self-interests, and own understanding, and to find in the world what will please them the most, often under the guise of some form of godliness. As long as their Christianity is accepted and admired by the world, does not interfere with and legitimizes their pursuit of the things of this world, and is not antagonistic towards self and the world, they are content to be known as a Christian, but when their Christianity is condemned by the world, when they must deny self and choose between siding with God or being scorned by the world, they readily side with self and the world and seek to justify their actions with pious-sounding motives and to give them respectable names. To cite current examples of this presents no difficulty. We are inundated with them. The difficulty lies in selecting, not finding examples. Many today cannot side with the world fast enough, and are terrified of even the perception that their beliefs and convictions may contradict and condemn those of the world. They go out of their way not to offend the world, but show little if any concern for offending a holy God.
It is evident that men and women have made the world their goal and end when the world’s values, priorities, opinions, approval, esteem, philosophies, causes, profits, and pleasures are the things they value most, and everything that would threaten their worldly interests is a cross too heavy to bear. All that would profit their souls they can easily live without, and what is a snare, stumbling block, and deadly to their souls they can easily accept, accommodate, justify, and embrace. What serves, promotes, hinders, interferes with, and threatens their worldly self-interests are the things that stir and motivate them. If they truly hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and if they truly loved God, the cause of Christ, and His Word, then what pleases God, advances the kingdom of Christ, and leads to eternal life would be the only things their hearts would diligently seek after.
There is a reason why the true Christian keeps themselves unstained by the world and the things of it (Jm 1:27), just as there is a reason why unbelievers and false professors side with the world and keep away from the power, holiness, obedience, truth, and love of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a reason why nominal ‘Christians’ backpedal, apologize, appease, shrink back, and capitulate to the world at the first sign of danger to their worldly interests, their idol of success, and when faced with the possibility of suffering loss for the sake of righteousness. They may take a stand against some particular sin or another which is, for the time being, socially unacceptable, but when that sin becomes accepted by society in general, then they shrink back from exposing the unfruitful deeds of darkness. They all of a sudden see the “error”, “ignorance”, “prejudice”, and “narrow-mindedness” of their former beliefs. They become more “understanding”, “inclusive”, “tolerant”, and “accepting”. They become willing to listen to and agree with the world. They do all this because they have no power to stand firm against the world and the schemes and temptations of the devil, or to endure and persevere in the face of threats, pressure, and hostility from the world. By siding with the world, they show that they are under the dominion of the world and servants of the world and its interests, not of Christ. They have no power to overcome the world; rather they are overcome by it; “for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved” (2 Pt 2:19).
The true Christian is no longer of this world (Jn 15:19), but has come out from the world, and whoever or whatever is still under the dominion of the world and conforms their mind and life to this world, is not Christian. As long as people look to the world as the source of their happiness, help, contentment, security, acceptance, prosperity, and success, they will submit themselves to it as their ruler. Worldly means, worldly men and women, and worldly institutions cannot deliver us from the power, dominion, or fate of this world. How obvious it is that virtually all that professes to be Christian today is overcome by the world, and are captives of the world rather than conquerors. Modern Christianity compares very poorly with historical, doctrinal, and biblical Christianity. For those whose god is self and this world, the law and rule of God is burdensome. Many who at one time appeared to be strong and stalwart Christians now appear to be as weak as water. They are strong when in the sunshine and calm of public moral consensus, but surrender their convictions at the sight of every enemy to their self-interests. Their beliefs and principles must be steered by their interests and safety. They protest against this or that iniquity, injustice, and inequality, yet would rather sin and side with the world than suffer. The true Christian trembles at the Word of God (Is 66:2), yet stands firm and immovable against the world, “The arrogant utterly deride me, yet I do not turn aside from Your law”; “I am small and despised, yet I do not forget Your precepts” (Ps 119:51, 141). The person of the world trembles at the world, sides with it, and is easily moved away from the Word.
In a world of constant flux and change, absolute truths must make way for values, beliefs, and opinions that continuously adapt to changing social norms and popular culture. Biblical, historic, doctrinal Christianity directly collides with the way the contemporary mind understands the world. To avoid the loss of prestige and the charge of being ‘irrelevant’, Christianity must periodically reinvent itself, and in so doing it apostatizes from the true. For almost 150 years, theologians and clergy from all denominations and branches of Protestantism have been busy overhauling Christianity in an attempt to accommodate widespread shifts in the culture and to retain the favor of the world on which it depends for its numbers and worldly success. Modern Christianity avoids, and more often than not, denies, the reality of sin. Instead it exhibits and maintains, even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, an optimistic view of human nature and a supreme confidence in human goodness. It fails to accept or comprehend the depth of the depravity of human nature – even when the depth of its depravity is on public display for all the world to see – and the greatness of the hostility which the mind set on this world has toward God, His will, His Son, and His gospel. The conception of God espoused and propagated by modern evangelicalism has reduced the sovereign Creator, Ruler, and Judge of the universe to an indulgent, vacillating, apathetic, permissive, and undisciplined modern parent who would never inflict pain on His children, much less permanent and eternal pain. In other words, modern evangelicalism, while still sometimes giving lip service to them in their church doctrinal statements, has lost sight of, and virtually abandoned, the two great presuppositions of the Christian message – the true nature of the living God and the reality of sin.
The solution to the problem of sin and its destructive and eternal consequences does not rest in the ability of man to better himself and to come together to solve his own problems, but in a supernatural and miraculous act of God in regenerating the sin-cursed heart and mind of sinners. The more we attempt to solve and remedy the symptoms of sin by our own worldly efforts, the worse the disease itself, and therefore its symptoms, will become, until both the disease and its symptoms are incurable, “Why do you cry out over your injury? Your pain is incurable. Because your iniquity is great and your sins are numerous” (Jer 30:15), and like the apostate ancient Assyrians, who at one time had repented at the preaching of Jonah, but a hundred years later had forgotten and rejected God and His law, “There is no relief from your breakdown, your wound is incurable,” (Nah 3:19). Advances in technology, science, business, education, social, political, and economic reforms and actions, or judicial rulings cannot cure the disease of sin.
Our society today in general no longer possesses the foundations for moral and spiritual truth. Godlessness and immorality have today become institutionalized and an integral part of our existing social system, infecting more or less every class and level of society, and which stares us in the face no matter where we turn. Consequently, the minds and consciences of people in general have become blunted and desensitized by their familiarity with evil, and have long ceased to regard it with the abhorrence, revulsion, and shame which it deserves. The consciences of most people today have been shaped by lies not truth, the family has been decimated, dismantled, and redefined, and the church has lost its light and saltiness. In other words, society in general has divested itself of those graces that God has put in place for the purpose of restraining fallen men and women from expressing their depraved and evil natures to their utmost, until we have reached a point of rebellion and apostasy unprecedented in this nation. Pornography, blasphemy, ungodliness, immorality, lawlessness, and lies are allowed to run rampant, but spiritual and moral truth is censored, good is called evil, God’s Word is deemed “hate speech”, and merely stating the obvious fact that men are not women will get you removed from social media. If such things are indicative of the current values and standards, how can any true Christian side with that which endorses and promotes these standards? Only the world will side with the world. What the prophet Isaiah said of Old Testament Israel is equally true not only of this nation in general, but of modern Christianity in particular, “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord; who say… ‘You must not prophesy what is right, speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions. Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel’” (Is 30:9-11). Christianity has been reduced to a vague kind of good will toward men, and to abstract and self-defined notions of “justice”, and sentimental and man-centered ideas of the love of God. The Jesus of twenty-first century Christianity is above all else the ultimate humanitarian, and it is primarily on this account that He is deemed worthy of admiration and of being the object of trust as the means by which we can improve mankind’s lot in this world, especially the lot of those oppressed and underprivileged segments of mankind.
Biblical Christianity has today, for all intents and purposes, been substituted by the world’s ideal of what Christianity ought to be – an ideal determined by the fallen and depraved minds of worldly men and women. This ideal is then substituted for true Christianity, and then given its name, even though it utterly repudiates the Christianity taught by Jesus Christ and His apostles. The only connection this ideal has with true Christianity is its use of some of the same terminology to which it gives its own meanings. The process is very simple. “Our ideal” is most certainly Christianity because “true” Christianity is, of course, “our ideal”. Everything else by which the Bible defines true Christianity is discarded and rejected because it does not conform to “our ideal”, and therefore, it cannot be Christian. Just how “our ideal” is true Christianity when it is indistinguishable from the world and practical atheism, devoid of any of the biblical marks and fruit of true Christianity – its love, faith, hope, holiness, obedience, self-denial, perseverance – and is an apostasy from its truths, commands, doctrines, and power, is not ever explained. Just saying it is true is enough to make it true. The essence of “our ideal”, however, is decidedly humanitarian, man-centered, naturalistic, self-pleasing, self-empowering, and self-salvific; whereas the essence of true, historic, doctrinal, biblical Christianity is Christ-centered, supernatural, self-denying, and redemptive. “Our ideal” exalts self and human nature, whereas the Christianity of the Bible debases human nature and humbles self. “Our ideal” is independent of the facts of history and the doctrines of Scripture, whereas true Christianity, from its inception, is dependent upon historical fact (1 Cor 15:12-19; Hb 11:3; 2 Pt 1:16-21). “Our ideal” is hostile to the law, commands, doctrines, and will of God, whereas for the true Christian, His yoke is easy and His commands are not burdensome (1 Jn 5:3). People in general are unwilling to receive any truth that leads to God, because it leads away from self and the world. The disparity between the “ideal” of modern Christianity and the Christianity of the Bible could not be more conspicuous, as the great Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield made clear when, a little over a hundred years ago, he exposed the apostasy of another fraudulent form of Christianity,
“Jesus did not organize His community; He founded no church in His earthly labors. But the Christian Church is an inevitable product of the declaration of the expiatory effect of His death for many. For those who have experienced redemption and reconciliation through the death of Jesus must by virtue of this gift of grace draw together and distinguish themselves over against other communities. There is indeed no alternative. The redeemed in the blood of Christ, after all is said, are a people apart. Call them “Christians,” or call them what you please, they are of a specifically different religion from those who know no such experience. It may be within the rights of those who feel no need of such a redemption and have never experienced its transforming power to contend that their religion is a better religion than the Christianity of the Cross. It is distinctly not within their rights to maintain that it is the same religion as the Christianity of the Cross. On their own showing it is not that.”[1]
On their own showing the mass of professed Christianity today, in siding with the world, demonstrates that it is not the Christianity of the Cross; rather it is an apostasy from it – an apostasy described by the text which forms the basis for this series of studies, the examination of which we will now resume.
Made Partakers of the Holy Spirit
The third privilege which these persons are said to have received is described by these words, “and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Hb 6:4), (kai metochous genethentas pneumatos agiou). This is placed in the middle of all the other privileges, two preceding it and two after it, as the source and empowering activity of them all. They are all the effects of the Holy Spirit, and so depend upon His participation in them. This language of participation was used previously by our author when he earlier referred to the recipients of this letter as “partakers of a heavenly calling,” (3:1), and as “partakers of Christ” (3:14), that is, provided that they hold fast their original belief and obedience firmly to the end (3:14). He then reminds his readers of the Israelites whom God, by His mighty acts of power, brought out of Egypt and led in the wilderness (3:15-4:7). They too had been made partakers of the marvelous works and power of God, yet they perished in the wilderness, “And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief” (3:19), unbelief which manifested itself in disobedience to God’s commands, “And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient?” (3:18; cf. Dt 1:29-33; 9:24). No sooner had the Israelites recovered from one disobedience, but they rebelled into another, thereby showing how hard it is for mankind’s fallen nature to be made capable of conforming to and obeying the will of God. The rebellion of the Israelites is but a pattern of the nature of unregenerate mankind, and “were written for our instruction” (1 Cor 10:11). We have the same hearts they had.
Being made a partaker of God’s mighty acts does not produce saving faith, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Lk 16:31). Jesus cleansed ten lepers but only one returned to give glory to God (Lk 17:11-19). Just as Israel had been made partakers of the powerful acts of God in their deliverance from Egypt, in the same way the Holy Spirit was powerfully active in the founding of the early church, with various gifts being bestowed by Him to confirm, testify, and serve as conclusive proof of the historical reality of the truths of the gospel, “After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will” (Hb 2:3, 4). It was these gifts, signs and wonders, and various miracles performed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by which God bore witness to the truth of the gospel, of which these apostates had been made partakers. They had had a personal experience of the Holy Spirit, an experience shared by, or in association with other Christians.
People can be made partakers of the Holy Spirit in two ways. They can be made partakers of His gifts and works, and they can be made partakers of His saving grace. We are made partakers of the Holy Spirit as we receive Him, either as to His spiritual operations, or His indwelling and personal inhabitation. Simon Magus is an example of the first sort of reception of the Holy Spirit. He, along with many of the Samaritans, believed at the preaching of Philip, “and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip; and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed” (Ac 8:13). Simon was impressed and obsessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. His faith was a “miracle faith”, like those in John 2:23-25, not a true saving faith in Jesus Christ. Not until Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid hands on these new converts did they receive the Holy Spirit (Ac 8:14-17). It was this apostolic gift witnessed by Simon which he thought he could buy with money (Ac 8:18, 19), thereby exposing his false faith and causing Peter to declare to Simon that his “heart is not right before God” (8:21), and that he was still “in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity” (8:23). In other words, Simon, despite having been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit, was not a true believer. He was still “in the gall of bitterness”, that is, he was still hostile in heart and mind to the truth and demands of the gospel, and he was still “in the bondage of iniquity”, or, in the language of the apostle Paul, he was still “a slave of sin”, not “a slave of righteousness” (Rm 6:17, 18). He was still of the world, and acted and thought as the world. His mind was still set on the flesh. He wanted the power of God so he could still be known as “the Great Power of God” (Ac 8:10); therefore, Simon had “no part or portion in this matter” (lit. “this word, teaching”), “for your heart is not right before God” (Ac 8:21). Self and self-empowerment was his motivating interest in the Holy Spirit; therefore, he was not able to receive the Holy Spirit and be made a partaker of His indwelling and personal inhabitation, because the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth and be made a partaker of His saving grace (Jn 14:17). The world is hostile to the truth of God and to the gospel of Christ which demands and requires that we deny self and the world, and to the true Christian who, rather than siding with the world, testifies that its deeds are evil, and, rather than participating in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, exposes them.
Simon’s response to having been made a partaker of the Spirit’s power has been repeated over and over throughout church history. Wherever and whenever the gospel is preached and the Spirit of God is at work convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, there will be not only genuine faith, but also spurious, false, and counterfeit. Many who are made partakers of the Spirit’s power and gifts are never made partakers of His saving operations and grace. To be made a partaker of the Holy Spirit is to have a part, a share, a portion in what He graciously gives by way of saving faith, the fruit of the Spirit, and spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:11; Rm 12:6); it is to have a share in and benefit from His indwelling and personal operations; therefore, the apostates described by our author, like Simon the magician, were not in this sense partakers of Him. So, in what sense were they made partakers of the Holy Spirit?
They were made partakers of the Holy Spirit in that they had “once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift”, and enjoyed all the rest of the privileges listed by our author, since they all depend upon and are but instances of it. In all these things they were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, which only serves to emphasize the enormity of the sin of these apostates. This description also expresses their own personal interest in these privileges. They had been made partakers not only objectively, as they were taught these things by those who had heard them spoken through the Lord (Hb 2:3), but also experientially as they in their own persons had witnessed their confirmation “by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Hb 2:4). It is one thing for a person to benefit from the spiritual gifts and fruit of the Spirit bestowed on a true believer, and another for them to be personally indwelt and endowed with His gifts and fruit. This privilege also serves as a reminder to our author’s readers of the special privilege they had under the gospel which they could never have had in their Judaism and under the Old Covenant.
It is only under the New Covenant that God has declared He would “give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezk 36:26, 27). Therefore, there can be no greater aggravation of their apostasy than the fact that they at one time had “been made” (aorist tense, indicating an action that took place at a point in time) partakers of the Holy Spirit. As Moses once told Israel, “Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? Or has a god tried to go and take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him” (Dt 4:33-35). None of this participation, however, produced saving faith in the Israelites, “But for all this, you did not trust the Lord your God” (Dt 1:32). The same was true of these apostates. If they had been made partakers of the Holy Spirit’s saving and indwelling operations, they could not have sided with the world and shrunk back to destruction; nothing or no one could snatch them from the Father’s hand (Jn 10:29).
Have Tasted the Good Word of God
The fourth privilege which our author attributes to these apostates is they “have tasted of the good word of God” (kalon geusamenous theou rhema) – a description in which the author emphatically repeats the metaphor of “tasting” which he previously used when he stated they had “tasted of the heavenly gift”. This description requires the answering of three questions, (1) What is meant by “word of God”, (2) In what sense is it “good”, and (3) In what sense did they taste of it?
First, rhema refers to the spoken word, and when applied to the Word of God refers to the Word preached and declared, “When He had completed all His discourse (rhema) in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum” (Lk 7:1); “For He whom God has sent speaks the words (rhema) of God; (Jn 3:34); “the words (rhema) that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (Jn 6:63); “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word (rhema – the spoken and preached word) of Christ” (Rm 10:17). It is “through the foolishness of the message preached” that God saves those who believe (1 Cor 1:21). The “word of God” is the word of the gospel that had been preached to them, and points back to when they first heard the gospel of Jesus Christ declared to them (cf. Hb 4:2). We might ask, when they were still in Judaism, did they not hear the Word of God? Indeed they did, but not the gospel. They heard Moses, not Jesus preached, “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath” (Ac 15:21). They heard the Word, but they did not understand it, “For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him” (Ac 13:27). The Jewish leaders searched the Scriptures because they thought that in them they had eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Jesus, yet they were unwilling to come to Him that they might have life (Jn 5:39, 40). They rejected this Jesus of Nazareth as their long-awaited and promised Messiah, yet, beginning from Isaiah 53:7, 8, it was this Jesus that Philip preached to the treasurer of Ethiopia (Ac 8:35), a truth which the Jews and their leaders were blind to in their Judaism, “for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;” (1 Cor 2:8). Concerning Israel, Paul declared, “But as for Israel He says, ‘All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’” (Rm 10:21; cf. Is 65:2). For the Jew, a crucified Messiah was a stumbling block (1 Cor 1:23), and, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense;” (1 Pt 2:8), because they looked for a political and social Messiah; one who would save them from oppression, injustice, discrimination, and racism, and who would improve their life in this world, not one who would save His people from their sins.
Second, this preached Word is said to be “good” (kalon), that is, it is intrinsically good and excellent in its nature and characteristics. It is not, as taught by Neo-orthodoxy, made good, or become good when it is believed and received, but it is good by nature. Being good by nature means its goodness is timeless and unchanging. Its goodness is not dependent upon its being agreeable to the modern mind and to the tastes of unregenerate people, or to the values, wisdom and prevailing opinions and morality of the world that calls evil good. The “good” shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. The “good” tree, because it is good by nature, bears good fruit, but a bad, defective, and inferior tree will bear bad, defective, and inferior fruit. Therefore, it is impossible that a good tree would bear inferior fruit, or vise-versa, because it would be contrary to the nature of the tree. Only when what is preached is the true Word of God, is that preached word truly “good”. Only the true meaning of Scripture is Scripture; therefore, only preaching that declares and explains the true meaning of Scripture is “good”. Preaching that hides, distorts, corrupts, denies, dilutes, ignores, or in any way perverts the true meaning of Scripture is not “good”, but bad, defective, and inferior (2 Cor 2:17; 4:2; 2 Tim 2:15). This describes the bulk of what passes for modern Bible teaching, because the starting point for determining the true meaning of Scripture has today shifted from the original text and historical setting of Scripture to something else, as Dr. Robert Thomas once explained,
“Marxism as an ideological system is the hermeneutical starting point for liberation theology. Another proposed contemporary starting point in hermeneutics is natural revelation. John S. Mbiti sees natural revelation deposited in African religions as equal in authority with Scripture and the controlling principle in studying biblical revelation. Bruce Narramore places natural revelation through secular psychology on the same level of authority as biblical revelation and interprets the Bible through the eyes of secular psychological theory. Other controlling interests are proposed. This brief survey reflects the opinion of many that the traditional starting point in hermeneutics – that of the original text – is no longer an acceptable control in interpretation, if it ever was. Criticisms of the grammatical-historical method of interpretation are often direct and uninhibited. It is clear that the hermeneutical focus has shifted dramatically from the original setting of Scripture to a variety of contemporary starting points and interpretative controls.”[2]
These various modern methods of Bible interpretation have done nothing but introduce a bewildering array of interpretations, many of which are self-contradictory, along with massive confusion over the doctrines and truths which the Bible actually teaches. The motive, however, behind all of these various modern methods of interpretation remains the same as the one identified by the great Puritan Steven Charnock,
“Many desire an acquaintance with the law and truth of God, with a design to improve some lust by it; to turn the word of God to be a pander to the breach of his law. This is so far from making God’s will our rule, that we make our own vile affections the rule of his law. How many forced interpretations of Scripture have been coined to give content to the lusts of men, and the divine rule forced to bend, and be squared with men’s loose and carnal apprehensions! It is part of the instability or falseness of the heart, to “wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction” (2 Pt 3:16); which they could not do, if they did not first wring them to countenance some detestable error or filthy crime…. We shall never tell what is the [meaning] of a precept, or the [meaning] of a promise, if we impose a sense upon it contrary to the plain meaning of it; thereby we shall make the law of God to have a distinct sense according to the variety of men’s imaginations, and so make every man’s fancy a law to himself. Now that this unwillingness to have a spiritual acquaintance with divine truth is a disowning God as our rule, and a setting up self in his stead, is evident; because this unwillingness respects truth.”[3]
Whatever the mind and heart believe to be good, that is what a person will cling to until a higher and greater good presents itself. In siding with the world against the will and Word of God, the worldling shows that they believe the world to offer the greatest good. Such was Demas, who “loved this present world” (2 Tim 3:10). The world is their treasure. It is all they know and have. Before anyone can renounce, forsake, and die to the world they must first be bought out from the world by that which they consider to be more dear, valuable, and good than all that this world has to offer. No one will let go of life in this world unless they are convinced there is one better; one for which they are willing to suffer the loss of all things in this world and count them but rubbish. Preaching and teaching that integrates and substitutes the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God, or that teaches a false gospel and Jesus for the true, or a false theology of regeneration in place of the true, or that majors in light, humorous, man-centered, ego-boosting, ‘uplifting’ messages devoid of doctrine, or that redefines biblical words and doctrines, or ignores the true nature of sin and mankind, or that makes the practice of some sins compatible with being a Christian, or that makes Christianity all about improving life in this world, is by its nature bad, inferior, and defective, not “good”.
The goodness of this preached word may be considered two ways; (1) In general, as to all the truths and doctrines which are taught and declared by the Word of God, and (2) In particular, the good news declared in the gospel of Jesus Christ in which God fulfilled His promise to send a Savior to redeem His people from their sins. It is this second way that is primarily intended by our author. It is this “word (rhema) that was preached to you”, or more literally, this “word that was preached as good news to you”, which the apostle Peter equates with the Word of the Lord that abides forever (1 Pt 1:25). God’s word of promise in particular is called His “good word” in Jeremiah 29:10, “For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place”. The bringing forth of “a righteous Branch of David” who will “execute justice and righteousness on the earth” is in fulfillment of God’s “good word” of promise to the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jer 33:14, 15). The gospel is identified as the “good news” of Isaiah 52:7, which was quoted by Paul to that effect in Romans 10:15, “And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things’ ”. It was the message that, “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses…. Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified” (Ac 2:32, 36). After his conversion the apostle Paul, “began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Ac 9:20). The good word of the gospel that was preached to these one-time converts from Judaism was that the despised Jesus of Nazareth, the same Jesus whose crucifixion was demanded by the Jews, was the fulfillment of God’s good word of promise to send a Savior who would save His people from their sins; something they could never be saved from in their Judaism, and in which they strove to establish a righteousness of their own (Rm 9:30-10:3).
Third, they are described as having “tasted” of this good word, just as they had “tasted” of the heavenly gift. Our author repeats this expression on purpose to indicate that while these may have tasted of the good word, they had not by faith really received, hungered for, and lived on Jesus Christ as presented in the gospel as the Bread of Life (Jn 6:35, 49-51, 54-56). Like Old Testament Israel, these apostates had had good news preached to them, and like Israel, “the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard” (Hb 4:2). From what has been observed thus far from this description, we can draw two implications:
First, there is a goodness and excellence in the Word of God to which the minds of people are attracted, yet who never come to a sincere love and obedience to it, and,
Second, there is a specific and particular goodness in the word of promise concerning Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the fulfillment of this promise in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Nature of this Goodness
The nature of this goodness and excellence of the Word of God consists in its spiritual and heavenly truth. Whatever is true is also good. While “true” is one way to consider something, and “good’ another, they are inseparable attributes of the same object, as stated by the apostle Paul, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute…let your mind dwell on these things” (Phil 4:8). Just as truth is good by nature, so is its effects on the minds of people; it gives light, understanding, peace, joy, and contentment. Lies, errors, falsehoods, misrepresentations, distortions, and fabrications are evil in themselves, and fill people’s minds with uncertainty, fear, confusion, prejudices, false hopes, vanity, and bondage. It is only truth that makes the soul free from the bondage of sin, lies, errors, and the world, “and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn 8:32). The Word of God is the only pure, authoritative, inerrant, and dependable truth, “Thy word is truth” (Jn 17:17); “The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times” (Ps 12:6). It is only by “the pure”, not by the diluted, adulterated, and corrupted “milk of the word”, that the true believer grows in respect to salvation (1 Pt 2:2). It is only by means of the truth that we are sanctified and conformed more to the image of Christ (Jn 17:17). Lies, falsehoods, fabrications, and errors only conform us to this world.
A popular phrase that has become almost cliché is, “all truth is God’s truth.” This truism has become the mantra for those who attempt to justify integrating knowledge from secular disciplines with the truth of Scripture, a practice known by the oxymoronic name of “evangelical syncretism”. While this saying may be true, it is not the whole truth. All truth is indeed God’s truth, but not all truth is equal. Not all truth has the same degree of certainty. Many beliefs that were once considered true have since been proven to be false. Many new discoveries are reported with tentative “if, then” statements; “if this proves to be correct, then such and such is true.” Scientific theories are constantly being revised. The wilderness of evolution and psychology are littered with scores of discarded and fossilized theories and models whose presuppositions were found to be faulty, but whose skeletons are still occasionally unearthed and reintroduced in new skin. How many false and contradictory “truths” have we been told concerning the current COVID-19 pandemic, or ‘climate change’? Today we can believe almost nothing with any degree of certainty that is said by the media, by politicians, by scientists, by public health officials, and, sadly, by much of professed Christianity.
Neither does all truth have the same authority. No absolute authority exists in the field of medicine, and many functions of the human body are still a mystery to physicians, physiologists, and biologists. No secular discipline has within its ranks those who are the final authority in their respective field of study. Therefore, to place the knowledge discovered within secular disciplines on a par with the truth of Scripture is to make an unjustified and extremely arrogant comparison. It places the fallible discoveries of men and women on an equal footing with infallible Scripture. It is man assuming for himself the authority that belongs only to God. Some have gone so far as to call nature ‘the sixty-seventh book of the Bible’, that is, the truths we learn from observing nature are just as authoritative as God’s revealed truth in Scripture. How blasphemous! Scripture tells us that when man looks at nature he suppresses the truth it contains concerning God in unrighteousness (Rm 1:18-23). In most other things, people wander in the wilderness of endless theories and conjectures. Only the truth of God’s Word is infallible, stable, immutable, and trustworthy, which gives rest to the soul. As one of the great evangelical preachers of the nineteenth century, and one of the great French-speaking preachers of all time, Adolphe Monod (1802-1856), once wrote,
“If faith has not for its basis a testimony of God to which we must submit, as to an authority exterior to our personal judgment, and independent of it, then faith is no faith….The more I study the Scriptures, the example of Christ, and of the apostles, and the history of my own heart, the more I am convinced, that a testimony of God, placed without us and above us, exempt from all intermixture of sin and error which belong to a fallen race, and received with submission on the sole authority of God, is the true basis of faith.”[4]
Monod’s staunch defense of biblical truth eventually led to his dismissal from his church by the French government, becoming the first pastor for which no specific cause was given by the government for his removal. He understood that the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible is a “God of truth” (Ps 31:5; Is 65:16), and “the only true God” (Jn 17:3). Therefore, He and He alone is essential truth, the revealer of all truth, and the spring and fountain of truth unto all other things. His Word is the only infallible and authoritative revelation of truth, and “no lie is of the truth” (1 Jn 2:21). How excellent, how superior it must be to all else that claims to be true. What a goodness it contains that is to be desired above everything else, “I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12). As it is the “good word of God”, it is infallible truth which gives light to the eyes and rest to the soul. It is the apostate who, after having tasted of the good word of God, shrinks back and sides with the world against the truth of Scripture, because for the apostate, the world is their greatest good.
This goodness and excellence of the Word of God consists also of the doctrines which it contains. Among these are those doctrines that declare the nature, will, and attributes of God. A worldly-minded person can have no true love for spiritual truth. To be worldly-minded and devoid of the Spirit are inseparable, “worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit” (Jude 19). Natural men may indeed study the law and truth of God, but without any love for it; rather they study to bend it to the wisdom of the world and their own corrupt will. If they take any pleasure in it, it is only intellectual and as knowledge, not as it is truth and a rule. Natural men and women desire to know God and some parts of His will and law and truths, not out of any love for them, but out of a desire for academic knowledge. Any delight they have is in the act of knowing, not in the object known, or in any of the obedience that flows from that knowledge. Many have a natural and academic knowledge of God and His will, who have no love for Him or His will.
Apart from God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture, no person has ever come to a true knowledge of God, “the world through its wisdom did not come to know God,” (1 Cor 1:21). Every idol is simply what the mind that created it imagines God to be like, or wants Him to be like, or wishes He were like. If the greatest good is to know, love, and fear the one true God and Jesus Christ His Son, and if knowing, loving, and fearing God is infinitely better than having and enjoying the whole world and all that it offers, then that word which reveals the one true and living God must be the highest and greatest good. No one can truly love who they do not know truly, and who we truly love we want to know better. Therefore, the word which reveals the nature, will, and attributes of God must be the highest good for all who truly desire to know and love God and do His will. People whose conception of God is one of all love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness have a one-sided, impoverished, and erroneous knowledge of God. In describing liberal Christianity’s conception of God, B.B. Warfield also described the conception that now governs almost the whole body of modern evangelicalism,
“It is a Pelagianism, you see, which out-pelagianizes Pelagius. For Pelagius had some recognition of the guilt of sin, and gave some acknowledgement of the atoning work of Christ in making expiation for this guilt. And this theology does neither. With no real sense of guilt, and without the feeling for the disabilities which come from sin, it complacently puts God’s forgiveness at the disposal of whosoever will deign to take it from his hands. The view of God which is involved, some one has not inaptly if a little bitingly called “the domestic animal conception of God.” As you keep sheep to give you wool, and cows to give you milk, so you keep God to give you forgiveness…. It is thus that our modern Liberal theology thinks of God. He has but one function and comes into contact with man at but one point: he exists to forgive sins.”[5]
It is to our peril that we forget and ignore that God has also revealed Himself to be, “A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies” (Nah 1:2); and the Lord Jesus as one who, when He returns, will be, “dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Th 1:7, 8).
This true knowledge of God includes His existing as a Trinity of Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Without this knowledge of the nature of God, no other spiritual truths can be understood in a right way, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him (Jn 1:18); “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30); “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?’” (Jn 14:9, 10); “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him,” (Jn 14:16, 17). Not one saving knowledge can we have of God except it be understood in the existence of God in a Trinity of Persons and their various roles and functions with respect to us. It is a “good word” by which this mystery is revealed.
This true knowledge of God includes the dual nature of Jesus Christ and the mystery of the incarnation, namely, that Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is two natures existing in one Person. Only God could perfectly fulfill and satisfy the righteousness of God, and only one who is fully human could be the substitute for and redeem sinful humans, “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6, 7). The incarnation necessitated God the Son to humble Himself. It involved an almost total eclipse of the splendor, the majesty, and the glory which He had with the Father before the world was (Jn 17:5). The glory which Isaiah beheld, the glory which caused Seraphim to cry “Holy, Holy, Holy”, the glory which caused Isaiah to say, “Woe is me, for I am ruined” (Is 6:1-5: cf. Jn 12:41), was so veiled, clouded, and debased that He did not look like Himself. He did not look like God Almighty, like the Creator and Sustainer of all things, in whose presence mountains shake and angels hide their face. Three of His disciples, Peter, James, and John, were given the unparalleled privilege, for a brief moment, to be “eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Pt 1:16) on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt 17:1, 2), but to the rest of the world, He was found in appearance as a man, and even then, scarcely a man. He didn’t come as an attractive, appealing, desirable man; rather His appearance was devoid of any majesty or desirability whatsoever (Is 53:2). His appearance was marred more than any man (Is 52:14). He didn’t come as a popular, likeable, winsome man, but as a man who was despised and forsaken of men (Is 53:3), whose own brothers did not believe in Him (Jn 7:5), and, at best, considered Him to be deluded (Mk 3:21).
Jesus’ humiliation involved more than just taking on human flesh and assuming a human nature. He didn’t come in the likeness of man before the fall, but “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rm 8:3); flesh that had all the infirmities, the weakness, the miserable effects of sin upon it such as hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, sorrow, and mortality under which we groan every day. Though He did not have a sin nature, His body bore the effects of sin. Though He was not a sinner, He looked like one and was accused of being one. He assumed a human nature in which sin had already blotted out its original glory. O, what a humiliation was this! To be begotten in the likeness of sinful flesh, the flesh of sinners, rebels, and haters of God; flesh that though not defiled by sin was miserably defaced by sin.
But Jesus suffered even greater humiliation than this in His incarnation. Not only did He assume a body marred by the effects of sin, but He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave (doulos)” (Phil 2:7). He voluntarily made Himself the object of scorn and ridicule. He blotted out His honor and reputation. Those who saw Him would never have taken Him for the Son of God apart from a revelation from God (Mt 16:16, 17); rather He was scarcely afforded the honor of a man. “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own and those who were His own did not receive Him” (Jn 1:10, 11). What astonishing and incomprehensible self-denial and self-humiliation, that He who from eternity past enjoyed the smiles and honor of His Father would voluntarily subject Himself to the scorn and hatred of wicked, sinful man; He who is adored and worshiped by angels would allow Himself to be trampled under the feet of rebels. His selfless humiliation made Him contemptable.
Jesus reached further depths of humiliation by taking His flesh from such an obscure birth to such obscure parents in such an obscure town. The circumstances of His birth made even His conception an object for town gossips and derision, “we were not born of fornication” (Jn 8:41). His flesh was not the flesh of nobility, but of a poor girl of Israel, betrothed to a carpenter, under all the disadvantages imaginable. He didn’t keep for Himself the dignity of being born in a house, but humbled Himself to be born in a stable. He wasn’t born in a glamorous city, but in a town too little to even be named among the clans of Judah (Mic 5:2). He did not grow up in a highly regarded and fashionable community, but in lowly and despised Nazareth, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (Jn 1:46). We are told that God must humble Himself just to behold the things done in heaven and on earth (Ps 113:6). What a humiliation then for Him to have actually taken on flesh and dwelt among us. What a pattern for self-denial is here established for the Christian. What a pattern of love for and obedience to the will of the Father is here given for us to follow. If Jesus humbled Himself to wash His disciple’s feet in order to leave them an example, how much greater example of humility and submission to the will of God is His incarnation?
Did Jesus stoop and we cannot? Did Jesus humble Himself and make Himself of no reputation to exalt human pride and to boost our self-esteem? Did He take on the form of a slave so we could live like kings? Did He make Himself despised and hated by the world so we could be praised, admired, and loved by the world? Did Christ stoop so low as to make salvation only a possibility for all, or will not such a great humiliation actually save all He intended? The greater His humiliation was, the more full and complete was His satisfaction. Is it not our great wickedness, our great helplessness, and our great need that required such a great humiliation? Did Christ humble Himself so much for us, but we cannot even humble ourselves enough to submit to the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of His Word, or to be ruled by His will? Must we preserve our own pride by inventing schemes whereby we can claim some credit for our own salvation? Must the church invent gospels that exalt man, extenuate sin, and debase Christ’s humiliation? As one church father so excellently said, “What more detestable, what more unworthy, or what deserves severer punishment, than for a poor man to magnify himself, after he has seen the great and high God, so humbled, as to become a little child? It is intolerable impudence for a worm to swell with pride, after it has seen majesty emptying itself; to see one so infinitely above us, to stoop so far beneath us.”
What more would we have Christ do for us? How much lower must He stoop? Must He also preserve our pride? Must He also cater to our lusts, our desires, and our personal preferences? Must He also relinquish His holiness, His righteousness, His justice, and His sovereignty? Must He also allow us to dictate our own terms? Must He allow us to reinterpret and rewrite His Law and His Word and invent our own worship? Must He fulfill and gratify all our worldly goals and ambitions? Must He allow us to serve two masters? Must He permit and approve of our siding with the world? Must He allow us to be as God? The apostate would have Christ sink lower still, they would trample the Son of God under their feet and insult the Spirit of grace (Hb 10:29). For such people there is reserved, so the author of Hebrews tells us, something far worse than dying without mercy (Hb 10:28, 29). Did the Son of God humble Himself so low in becoming a man to save us? Then those who perish under the gospel must perish without any excuse other than their own obstinacy for refusing to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God and submit to being ruled by His will, instead of by self and the world. It is a “good word” which reveals the humiliation of the Son of God in the incarnation.
This word is “good” with respect to its regenerating, transforming, purifying, and sanctifying effects. It is the gospel that “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” (Rm 1:16) It is the truth of God’s Word that sanctifies, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (Jn 17:17). It is by “the pure milk of the word,” that we “grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pt 2:2). It is on this account that the psalmist declares that the Word of God is “more desirable than gold, yes, than much gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb (Ps 19:10), and that God’s Word is “that which produces reverence for You” (Ps 119:38), and that God’s “commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine” (Ps 119:98). There is an incomparable goodness and excellence in this “good word”, and anyone who does not discern this goodness and excellence in the Word of God is a stranger to all the real benefits derived by it.
I had intended to conclude this study by examining the various ways in which apostatizing persons taste of the good word of God, but given the length to which this study has grown, I will save that for the next study in which I hope, by God’s grace, to finish examining the remainder of these five privileges which our author attributes to these apostates.
[1] B.B. Warfield, ‘The Essence of True Christianity’ in Christology and Criticism (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, Reprint 2003), 444.
[2] Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics: The New Versus the Old (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002), 87. 88.
[3] Steven Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, Reprint 1996), 105, 106.
[4] The Life of Adolphe Monod, Published by his family, 1885, 224, 357
[5] B.B Warfield, The Plan of Salvation (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2000), 42.