Questions and Answers on the Christian Life

Thank you for coming out tonight. And I find that these are some of the better times to really explore things that maybe have troubled us, questions that we have about how to live the Christian life.

Sometimes as Christians that are in positions of leadership are asked questions or asked to give counsel. And at times the questions that are asked or the counsel we are asked to give is difficult because we just can’t quite either explain a portion of Scripture or apply it to the particular occasion in which we’re dealing.

And so I think as we look at these questions tonight and as we think about just what it is that we would like to ask, I think it would be good to think in terms of questions that relate first of all to the Christian life, how to live the Christian life, the struggles that we have in the Christian life.

Now the first question we had tonight is, “How is a Christian to cope with recurring bad habits?” And since the book itself does an excellent job of answering really that question along with many others, but it’s a question that is really dealt with directly in the book, I would encourage you to read the book. And we’ll spare Zane having to deal with that question at this time because it really requires attention that I think would involve a lot of things that he spelled out in the book, The Six Secrets of the Christian Life. And that book is still available back there. We have copies at $4.50. And after tonight they go up in price. So if you want to get them for Christmas gifts or whatever, grab all you can.

The other questions that we have, there has been some discussion occasionally in our church over the sense of singing and addressing Christ as our King when in reality He has not yet begun to reign over the Earth. And yet there are Scriptures that seem to clearly address Him as king. And so in what sense, the question is, in what sense is it appropriate to think, speak, and sing about Jesus Christ being our king, the king of the Jews and the king of all creation. And there are some Scriptures mentioned there: John 18, Acts 17, 1 Timothy 1, Revelation 19.

The next question has to do with what are the dangers of new movements like Christian spiritual direction. “Spiritual direction” is in quotation marks. And I know Zane has done some work in that area and I’m sure he’ll be able to give us a very good answer.

And then there were a couple questions that I had that have come up, one in Bible study and the other in my counseling occasionally, where I’ve had situations where someone has been involved in an adulterous situation. They bring up the passage particularly in light of harlotry in 1 Corinthians 6 where Paul says,

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or, “Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two,” he says, “shall become one flesh.” “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”

And that passage, I’m asking Zane to maybe throw a little light on it if he is able to from his studies of 1 Corinthians.

The other passage has to do with 1 Chronicles 22 when David wants to build the Lord a house, the temple, and the Lord says you can’t, you shall not build the house because you have much blood on your hands. And yet the blood that he shed was in the context of doing what God asked him to do. And so why would that prevent him from building the house of the Lord? At least that’s the appearance that we get from the passage. Maybe I’m not reading it right or sensing it right. Maybe Zane can throw some direction on that.

So there’s four questions that we’d like Zane to maybe start off with tonight. And while he’s answering those things that may jar your memory or your mind in terms of some other things that would be of interest to you, and you can ask any question you want. We are trying to keep the emphasis on our Christian life or our Christian beliefs in general. So whatever you’d like to ask we invite you just to feel free to ask that. He’ll answer these four questions and maybe give you a chance to respond to those as we go through it. And then after that, like we did last week, it’ll just sort of open up for anything you want to ask.

With that in mind, let’s have a word of prayer.

Our gracious God and Father, we thank You for this opportunity we’ve had to hear our dear brother and friend Zane as he has brought to us Your word these last two Sundays and has taken the time to answer some of our questions. And we pray tonight, Lord, that You would give him wisdom that he might respond to these in a gracious gentleness that may help us and encourage us and help us to be the kind of people that You want us to be. And Lord we pray that we would have light and insight into Your word and that we’d be able to use it more effectively in our life and in our walk and in our outreach to others. And again we just thank You for the privilege of having him here with us. Bless him this evening and bless us as well. Enrich our lives in Jesus’ name, amen.

Zane, thank you, Arch.

And as far as those questions are concerned, thanks a lot. We’ll do the best we can on those introductory questions. And I’d like to run through some answers to those questions if I can. I notice they’re not all listed up here. Are they all listed up here, Arch? Two of them aren’t but I’ve got them here. Okay, too bad but we’ll come. No that’s right. If I don’t remember what they are I’ll consult you on it. Okay good.

The first question that I have here is, in what sense is it appropriate to think, speak, and sing about Jesus Christ being our king, the king of the Jews and the king of all creation. Well it seems to me at least that John 18:37 settles the issue of whether it’s appropriate to address Him as king. Pilate says, “Are you a king then?” And He says, “You have answered rightly.” Oh he does. It’s upside down. Oh it is. Maybe that was the best position for it. You remember the famous 18 and a half minute gap on the Nixon tapes. Something was there apparently that he didn’t want posterity to have. So hopefully that was all lost there.

Let me go back over it again however. Pilate says to Him, “Are you a king then?” And He says, “You have answered rightly.” Certainly we can address the Lord Jesus Christ and sing to Him as king. It seems to me that there are multiple senses in which He is king. He’s king in all the senses in which God is king. And He is the king designate for the world and for the throne of David. There is such a thing as prophetic ways of referring to people in anticipation of their future positions. But He’s a king now of course. He sits on the throne of God at the right hand of God. So I don’t see a problem with addressing Him as king. We may not be able to understand all the ins and outs of this title but certainly it’s a legitimate title for Him.

The second question that I have here is what are the dangers of new movements like Christian spiritual direction. To the extent that I’m familiar with this movement I connect it with the so-called contemplative spirituality movement which is a movement that is stressing meditation and mystical contact with God. In this country in particular it is largely promoted by what I would call the progressive wing of the Roman Catholic church. And they are very fond of appealing to the long mystical tradition of their church. But it also has a very significant ecumenical aspect in that those who are in this movement are also appealing to the mysticism that is present in most other major religions such as Buddhism, Islam. Sufism is the form of mysticism most prominently associated with Islam.

I think that the movement has gained traction among Christians partly because we’re not assessing it in the light of Scripture and partly because in many churches there’s a kind of a spiritual barrenness that this seems to meet the need that is expressed in that barrenness. And it would be much better for us under the direction of biblically literate pastors to seek a solution to spiritual dryness in a biblical fashion rather than in a kind of a quasi mysticism that can’t really be defined from Scripture. And if it is appropriate to all religions it’s hard to know in what sense it can be called Christian.

Arch, what’s, let’s leave the Corinthians question to last and give me the next to the last question.

The question here pertains to David in the building of the temple in 1 Chronicles 22:7 to 9. We are told that David was told by God that he could not build the temple due to the amount of blood he had spilled and the wars he had fought. So the question is if David was following what God had commanded and was cleansing the land of the Canaanites why would this have prevented David from building the temple. All right. And of course in contrast to that the Lord Jesus Christ who will lead the armies of Heaven against the armies assembled at the battle of Armageddon will shed much blood as well and will nevertheless be fully qualified to build the temple.

My own suggestion about that is that the difference is that David was a human being and Jesus is the Son of God. And that as a human being I think it is impossible to shed a lot of blood without having a measure of sin involved in that. In fact in all of the good things that we do there is very often a sinful element involved even when we serve God. As we were saying this morning it is possible to have that contaminated by impure motives. I don’t see how a political leader like David could have done all of this without tainting himself sinfully in some way or other. That doesn’t mean that the shedding of the blood was not ordained by God but it simply means that no human can carry that out in a sinless way. But the Lord Jesus Christ obviously can.

The questioner here asks what was it about Solomon. It’s not like he was very good. No but he didn’t have the kind of sin on his hands that would have been associated with David in the shedding of blood. So we can make war. We can’t make war but we can have 300 wives and 700 concubines. Are all right? Well I don’t know that Solomon had all those wives when he built the temple did he. I don’t think so. You’re right. Go ahead.

In any case God obviously regards Solomon as qualified for it and David as unqualified. And He specifies the lack of qualification in David not as being his general sinfulness but the shedding of blood. So we have to ask the question why was that a prohibitive factor for David. And that’s my suggestion. I don’t have an answer from a biblical verse but that would be my suggestion about it. Sounds reasonable.

The other question was where God in 1 Corinthians 6 said that every sin that a man commits is outside the body but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Can you explain that? I’m going to read the text and then try to say something about it.

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two,” he says, “shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

My approach to this would make use of two terms which I’d like to set out first. One of which is the term de facto and the other is de jure. When we talk about something being de facto we mean that there’s some fact that makes the situation true. For example a person may be living on land that no one owns and operating that land and farming that land. He’s the de facto owner of the land but not the de jure owner of the land because he doesn’t have a legal claim to it. If he takes out a title deed and gets it properly authorized out at the courthouse then he’s the actual de jure owner. Those terms are used in many contexts.

What I think Paul has in mind here at least is that the person who has sexual relations with a harlot has a de facto marriage with her for the simple reason that the sexual act is an act that consummates marriage from the very beginning as God ordained it in Genesis. That would mean of course that at a de facto level a man is married to all of the people that he has had sex with who are still living. But that’s a de facto situation and not a de jure situation.

De facto marriage is for the most part displeasing to God obviously. Relations with a harlot or relations with someone to whom you are not in fact legally married, somebody else’s wife, something like that. So de facto marriage is simply looking at the reality that you’ve had a consummation that is in God’s sight a marriage consummation. But it does not suggest that the consummation was good or that a de jure marriage exists.

In de jure marriage however, and I’m thinking in terms of the biblical picture, in de jure marriage the marriage is sanctioned by the word of God not necessarily by the state. The state may sanction marriages that God does not sanction and does in fact sanction many such marriages. But I’m thinking here de jure of something that is sanctioned in the sight of God, a legitimate and biblical marriage. So the idea here would be that we are to stay within the de jure marriage and to realize that if we work outside of that realm we are working in an area that involves marriage at a de facto level. That’s about all I want to say about this and you can take that home and think about it for what it’s worth.

Okay let’s open it up for further questions. Yes Bob. Is that a Reds jersey you’re wearing Bob? Yes it is. My youngest son, it’s his little league team. Oh okay. And I’m not a fan but I’m very upbeat about them today because they’re tied for first. So by all means I want to hear your question.

About on the question from 1 Corinthians 6 about fleeing sexual immorality because every sin that a man commits is outside the body. Yes. What do you think about, you know in 1 Corinthians 6:12 they have a couple sayings that they believe were like mottos of the Corinthians you know, “All things are lawful for me,” but you know like that was like a quote. They wonder if that wasn’t a quote. And then Paul’s response is but not all things build up or you know not all things are helpful. Well here I’ve wondered when I was reading through this myself if “every sin that a man commits is outside the body” if that could not be a Corinthian motto also. And then Paul’s response is but the immoral man sins against his own body. What do you think? Is that a possibility?

I won’t say it’s not a possibility. I kind of doubt it. I think what Paul means here is he’s talking about overt sin. Now we know that we can sin inwardly with wrong attitudes and wrong motives and all of that sort of thing. But he’s talking here about every sin that a man does. I think he means every sin that a man commits overtly. And he is saying that immorality is a sin. It’s an overt act but it’s against your own body. I think that’s what he means.

You think it’s true then that that statement “every sin that a man commits,” you know performs overtly is outside the body? Yeah well that’s by definition what an overt sin is. It’s something committed outside the body, something that you do. But we’re saying that this is the kind of sin that he has in mind when he says every sin that a man does. I think the word is poieō there. But that’s not the same as saying that you can’t have sinful attitudes that need to be confessed. But that’s not something you do. Those are not actions. They’re certainly not overt actions. They may lead to overt actions but in themselves they are not overt.

Thought you handled that really well. Say somebody else. Okay Mike. I have a question regarding I guess the third secret in your book which basically speaks to the aspect of the inner man being perfect and being a slave to the law of God. So the question would be in what sense are the inner promptings that we have in our life that coming from the Holy Spirit working in it versus our inner man wanting to do what is naturally right.

That’s a very good question. And I think one of the things we want to remember here is that everything that we are conscious of requires participation by the body including emotional reactions, mental reactions, mental processes. All of these things are physically mediated to us. We are not conscious of any of them unless the body’s functioning. Somebody knocks us over the head so that we lose consciousness. We don’t any longer have these feelings or thoughts until we reawaken.

So what we are not saying in the book is that the inner man is identical with our conscious life. We are saying that the inner man contributes to the conscious life and that the physical body also contributes to the conscious life. And that what we actually experience in our heads and in our hearts is a combination of the two influences. And so what we have to do is to find the biblical route to overcoming the input that the body gives to us from our sinful nature and allowing the Holy Spirit to bring the input of the inner man to fruition by His power and working in us.

It’s easier to say it than it is to understand it because I don’t think any of us fully understand it. But the way I like to illustrate it in public ministry is to compare it with a computer. There is a sense in which after we are saved we’re like a person who has been plopped down in front of a pre-programmed computer that we don’t know how to operate. And in our initial efforts to operate the computer we find the computer is programmed contrary to our instincts, contrary to our wishes. That I punch buttons and the computer does things I did not want the computer to do. On the other hand there are things which I want the computer to do that I can’t figure out how to get the computer to do.

Since I have in relatively recent years been dragged kicking and screaming into the computer age I’ve had a little experience with that, the frustrations that a computer can cause for new users. So if we use that as a kind of a general analogy it seems to me that what the Lord is doing is after He saved us with the assistance, teaching, and enablement of the Holy Spirit He teaches us how to reprogram our inner life. And as a result of reprogramming the inner life to be transformed in terms of our outer life. But I find the computer analogy while not perfect, no analogy is completely perfect obviously, but while not perfect it helps me to understand what’s going on.

The body is what frustrates Paul in Romans 7. He can’t get it to do the things he wants the body to do and he cannot stop it from doing things that he doesn’t want it to do. He hasn’t at that stage of his spiritual experience developed the spiritual capacity to draw upon the power of the Spirit and have an effective Christian life. But that’s all part of growth. It doesn’t, you know one of the things we emphasize in the book is that this is a process of transformation. I don’t learn, you know I learned how to use the word processing section of the computer before I learned how to use the email section and I still have some frustrations with email and so on. And there are other computer aspects that I don’t even begin to know how to operate. But hopefully if I come back in 10 years I’ll know a few of those. And I think the Christian life is like that.

So we have to recognize that we have been plopped down inside what is for us an insoluble problem which is a wrongly programmed physical body in terms of its moral and spiritual program. It’s wrongly programmed. And the Christian life is a process by which the Spirit enables us to reprogram what we are inside and what we are outside.

So is there a two-prong approach that where Paul talks about transforming, you indicated transforming the mind but also a sentence which he talks about bringing his body under subjection, since you know enabling the new man, the inner man to transform our consciousness, our behavior, enable us to do what God wants us to do but also to in some ways to bring our body under subjection through what would be spiritual regulations or things that help us to do the right thing that maybe have no spiritual value but they help us at least to bring our body under some kind of subjection?

That’s close to what I would say although the passage that you’ve quoted about bringing my body, buffeting my body and bringing it into subjection, I don’t think he’s talking about quite the same thing we’re talking about. I think there Paul is talking about imposing restrictions on the body of the type that I would impose on my body when I decide to follow a certain diet or something like that. But that I think is not the same thing as he’s talking about when he’s talking about transformation.

And as I understand the passages on transformation what’s involved here is that how we behave in the long run depends on what we’re like inside. And when God transforms us on the inside that affects how we behave. But God starts at the inner level. He changes how we think about things. He changes how we feel about things, how we respond to things. And when He really changes us on the inside then the changes occur on the outside too because now we are expressing the new perspectives, the new insights, all of these things through our physical self.

So I don’t think we can, it isn’t just a matter of sitting there and saying all right I used to do this but from now on I’m going to do that because what we really find is that unless we’re truly changed inside we still do that because we had within the sinful programming of our physical bodies we had reasons that were superficially compelling for doing that. Nobody commits a sin which they absolutely and totally hate unless somebody’s got a gun to their head. And when we commit sins it’s usually because there is some form of gratification that we believe that we’re getting from those sins. That’s true of anger. That’s true of envy. That’s true of all the whole range of sins and the overt acts that go with those attitudes.

And if God makes us for example a person who doesn’t get angry at the wrong things then we will not respond angrily in the wrong way. That’s what that amounts to. But if the change doesn’t occur inside it’s not going to occur in the behavior. But I think when Paul is talking about the transformational process he has that whole process in mind. He isn’t just talking about what happens on the outside nor is he just talking about what happens on the inside.

You know in Romans 12:2 there is a kind of a differentiation that maybe is appropriate. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove,” I think the word dokimazō there means put into effect, experience something like that. I’m paraphrasing. “That you may prove in experience that you may work out in experience the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” So there the thought is the change in the inner man leads to the realization of the will of God in and through the physical body. But these two things it seems to me are Siamese twins and they occur always together. That’s a very good question.

I have a question here I’ll throw out while others are thinking. There was a book written back in the 1980s called Decision Making and the Will of God by Gary Friesen. Are you familiar with that? I am. I think I had a blurb on the cover at one stage of its life. Oh you did. I didn’t know that. In any case there’s been an ongoing debate among a few of us here in the church regarding that and whether there is some kind of a specific will of God for things like what car should I buy, you know what schools should I go to, that we need to discover that through a process where we have inner promptings and seeking peace or whether it’s something where we are as Gary Friesen points out free to make a decision as long as within the parameters of the word of God. And I just wondered if you’d like to weigh in on the subject a little bit.

Clearly your question is would I like to weigh in on the subject. That would be an easy question to answer no. But will I weigh in on the subject? Will you weigh in on the subject? Let’s put it that way. Okay we can do it that way.

I certainly did feel that Gary Friesen’s book made a definite contribution to the church’s thinking. As the years have passed I now wish, and this is not his fault any more than mine, but I now wish that the place of prayer had been emphasized more than it was in the book. While that doesn’t change the general conclusions of the book it does affect the way in which we reach decisions because when we’re praying about things that we need to make decisions about then what we’re asking for it seems to me is any wisdom that is available to us through the word to apply to the decision in hand. And if I just simply barge ahead without any kind of sense of dependence on God and I make big decisions without reference to the word of God it would not be surprising if I made enormous mistakes as a result of that.

So I feel like that the one thing that maybe was lacking in that book was a stress on prayer. At the same time I have never felt or bought the idea that God tells me what I should do outside of the Scriptures as if I’ve heard people say the Lord told me to do this or that. And they usually say it in a context where I can’t grab their arm right away. But I would like to say how did God tell you that? Was that a feeling you had? Did you hear a voice? Did you get a revelation? Just exactly how did God tell you that? I think we would probably get a variety of answers to that question none of them particularly biblical.

When we see God speaking to people in the Bible we almost always see, I don’t know of any exceptions, we see verbalization of what God wants to the individual involved. When Philip goes down to Gaza and sees the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch God said, the Spirit says to him, “Go join yourself to that chariot.” We are certainly reading in the text if we draw the conclusion that Philip got an impression that he should go join himself to that chariot. He didn’t get an impression. He got a direct command from God just as he had also gotten a direct command from God to go to the desert area in the first place. And when God wanted to remove him God did that supernaturally. So there’s no evidence there or anywhere else that I can tell that somehow or other we have this mystical sense that God is leading me and therefore I make decisions on it.

That kind of gets us back to the contemplative spirituality movement. You can justify anything if you want to say I had a very strong feeling I should do this. Well maybe you did but how do you know that feeling came from God? Now in our circles, I’m talking about evangelical circles, there has been a strong strain of what we call pietism. And in pietism you have that semi-mystical attitude toward our relationship with God. And that’s one of the reasons evangelicals are sometimes vulnerable to the false mystical ideas that are circulating. But if you already have a feeling that God leads me by my feelings or he gives me some very strong impression that I should do this or do that then you’re kind of set up for this type of process. But you don’t have a biblical basis for it.

Hopefully I can verbalize the question well but how would you respond to a critic of the Bible who would say that we see two different types of God, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I’m thinking particularly of today’s passage and how Jehu was instructed to kill so many of the whole family of Ahab. And you have such a this image of wrath in the Old Testament versus mercy and grace in the New Testament. And yet we try to present to people that God is never changing. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. And so how do you respond to someone who is critical of God because of what they read in the Old Testament.

That of course is a very good question and is an issue that is often raised and has been raised since the earliest years of the church by the way by individuals early in church history. What I think we say to our contemporary audience is that we have read our own concept of God into the Bible and that the concept we think is contradicted by the Old Testament is not even the New Testament concept of God. What we have developed in Western society over many years of poorly functioning Christianity is a concept of God as a kindly old man upstairs. I’m exaggerating this but you understand what I mean. That he’s a kindly old man upstairs who just loves to forgive anybody and everybody and he doesn’t get mad and he certainly doesn’t execute serious judgment against the wickedness of man.

So if we have a concept of God like that we have a concept of a God that doesn’t exist, doesn’t even exist in the New Testament. In the Book of Revelation for example we have in the end times the people and the great men of the earth going into the caves and the dens of the earth saying, “Save us from the wrath of God and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to escape?” We’re scared now because the wrath of God is falling upon us. Who’s going to preserve us from this?

I might also say that by diminishing the judgmental righteous side of God we’ve also diminished His grace by making it cheaper. In the sense not in the sense in which lordship people use that term but we have made it so much a fundamental part of His character that there’s no counter tendency which should prevent Him from exercising grace. It’s only when we see that if we got what we deserved each and every one of us we’d be dead. We’d be in hell. And it is the mercy of God and the grace of God that prevents that. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.

If you read Romans chapter 1 you will find a vivid description of the descent of mankind from the place where they knew God, didn’t glorify Him as God, didn’t express gratitude. And then we have a long list of the vices and wickedness into which men have fallen. And when we get to the end of Romans chapter 1 what we have is this, “Who knowing the judgment of God that they who do such things are worthy of death not only do them but have pleasure in them that do them.” We now have dismissed from our mind the idea that those who commit serious sins deserve to die for that. So adultery in the Old Testament was punishable by stoning. Homosexuality was also punishable by death. Murder was punishable by death. Because the God of the Old Testament is the God of the Bible and He’s a God of righteous wrath and judgment. He has every grounds for His wrath. He has every grounds for His anger with men.

And what we see in the confusion around us in our age and time is an expression of that wrath because Romans 1 is describing not future wrath but it’s describing the present condition of mankind under the displeasure of God. Because God does not approve of the way man conducts Himself and man is conducting himself in a way that really merits death. That’s what Romans says. That’s not what the Old Testament says. That’s what Romans says. The great epistle of justification.

So we as evangelical Christians dare not lose our concept of the God of the whole Bible as a God of righteousness and of judgment and of wrath. And we believe that the day of His wrath is coming and that the world merits the wrath that God has predicted will fall upon it. If we go to Jehu who we were talking about this morning the family of King Ahab was extremely wicked. And Ahab magnified the wickedness of everything by marrying Jezebel a pagan woman. And under the influence of Jezebel he permitted the Baal worship to get its roots down into Israelite soil. In other words the whole process undermined the law and righteousness of God in Israel and degenerated God’s people.

So when God comes to Jehu he says my judgment on the house of Ahab is that they all be wiped out. That’s what they deserved. I want you to give it to them. And that’s what Jehu did. We may not like that in our day and time but that’s the way God operates. And whether we believe it or not God is leading this world in the direction of a final period of catastrophic judgment. And that should be one of the motives for which we preach the gospel and rescue men from the wrath to come.

So I think you know that question is a very excellent question on your part and a question frequently raised. And what we need to do is not to apologize for the God of the Old Testament but to reassert the side of God that is neglected and rejected in our day and time. Till we do that we are not doing justice to the biblical revelation of God. People may not like to hear that preached but we’re not out there to please people. We’re not out there to win their approval. We’re out there to preach what God wants us to preach and to win His approval whether they like it or not.

Remember that in calling Ezekiel to the ministry God says you know they’re not going to listen to you but you tell them what I have said for you to tell them. You’ll be like a person singing a beautiful song to them and they’ll listen to it and like it and ignore it. But you go and tell them what I’ve said. That’s our job as servants of the Lord to go and tell the world in which we live what God has said whether they like it or whether they don’t, whether they receive it or whether they don’t. That’s our message. And the God of Jehu is the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There it’s exactly the same God.

Okay John has a question down here. Philippians 3:10 and 11 is a passage that many raise who have certain difficulties on gospel issues and that. But I’m not raising it for that reason but I’m raising it because not too long ago I heard a different approach to it and would like your take on it. It’s something that I think consideration. Paul says,

To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if somehow I may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

Now the interesting thing in that last phrase “the out-resurrection from the dead” it does not have a genitive pronoun going with “out-resurrection from the dead” and it’s normally taken as Paul’s out-resurrection from the dead. The suggestion was made that perhaps instead it would be attaining to Christ’s out-resurrection from the dead because within the context Paul is talking about knowing Him, knowing the power of His resurrection, being conformed to His death. And within that for Paul to be identifying with Christ’s sufferings that could perhaps be connected also with or basis for attaining to the resurrection power lifestyle that Romans 6 develops at length.

So in other words the fact that there’s not a genitive pronoun there to specify whether it’s Paul’s out-resurrection or Christ’s out-resurrection leaves open a possibility that I find rather interesting. Zane could you interpret that for the congregation?

You another question. I think you’re talking about that the question relates to the interpretation of the resurrection out of the dead or the out-resurrection from the dead. And as I’m understanding John, can correct me here, I’m understanding John’s question this does not necessarily refer to Paul’s personal resurrection but to the resurrection of Christ and attaining I presume the lifestyle appropriate to that resurrection.

I think that is essentially the idea. And I’ve held for a long time that this is not a reference to whether or not Paul will participate in a future resurrection but whether in fact he can attain the level of resurrection life here and now as a result of the knowledge of Christ and sharing His sufferings, being conformed to His death. The next step would be to experience a lifestyle that is like the resurrection life of Christ would bring us back to Romans 8:10, the verse that I built the six secrets around. So yeah I’m right with that. That makes sense to me.

In other words you’re taking this as a supporting passage of your basically your principles there laid out in the beginning of the book. Since this is so controversial a passage I’m not sure I would use the word supporting. This is a complementary passage and I think should be understood in the light of Romans 8:10. Good. Okay that helps a lot. Good question.

Next we got five minutes to solve all the rest of your problems or to retreat to Dallas. I let you solve them yourselves. The gentleman right here. When the Scripture says is it the Lord Christ whom we serve or it says whatever you do do all to the glory of the Lord. Maybe this relates to one of the opening questions you had in the beginning about how we should think of Jesus Christ as king or serving Him. Because in one sense you know Paul will say I thank my God through Jesus Christ our Lord or Jesus will say you know when you pray pray to my Father and to pray in my name. And it just seems like when Christian conversation so often gets these days is that people are seeming to steer one’s direction so often toward the Lord Jesus Christ in a sense where they are seeking to please Him versus seeking to please our heavenly Father in the sense of you know all good gifts come from Him. Or so my question relates to like in the middle of our whole situation where we’re looking to please the Lord Jesus Christ we’re looking to be with Him and to look forward to Him our blessed hope. But yet you know we’re trying to please the Lord Jesus Christ who is our King but yet we have our heavenly Father whom we address and whom we pray to in Christ’s name. The balance between serving the Father versus serving Jesus Christ. Where would you draw that balance?

I hear what you’re saying but I don’t really think that problem exists to any significant extent in the circles where I’ve moved. And I think we have also the testimony of Scripture. For example John 5 that all men might honor the Son as they honor the Father. He that has seen me has seen the Father. I think we cannot draw that kind of distinction. If we had stopped talking about God the Father that would be one thing but I don’t sense that our emphasis on the person of Christ is in any sense detrimental to the honor that we give to God the Father. At least if that is happening I haven’t heard it or if I’ve heard it I haven’t picked it up. But I don’t sense that as a real problem in the church at least as far as I know it.

I think we are much more in danger of diminishing the person of Christ in the interest of a concept of God than the other way around. It doesn’t usually work the other way around that way. But obviously we need to stay within the scriptural parameters and we should not lose our balance but we should test our balance whether it’s a biblical balance or not. But I think there can be no doubt about it that when we honor Christ appropriately we are also honoring the Father who sent Him.

You know I think the kind of questions we’ve heard answered tonight and last week would make a great article in one of the theological journals. I mean these are questions that I think have troubled people for a long time and I think you’ve given some outstanding answers and I really appreciate it on behalf of our congregation. Thank you Zane very very much.