FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP
THE FIRST
PRINCIPLES – XVIII
THE WORD
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS - 2
Hebrews 5:13 For every one that uses milk is unskilful in the word of
righteousness: for he is a babe.
Last week we ended with this
comment:
This Scripture reveals that the primary thing that keeps
believers as spiritual infants is their inexperience with “the word of
righteousness.” Entire books have been written on the subject of righteousness;
and yet most believers do not even know what it is.
Whenever
preachers take up the subject of righteousness, it seems their first objective
is to make an emotional connection with their audience, to get the people
excited and aroused so they being yelling “Amen!” after every sentence or two. That way, the preacher can preach on a
subject upon which he has little or no revelation and still make everyone think
that they just heard a powerful sermon.
Of course, no one walks away benefiting from the message other than
having had their emotions manipulated and maybe they felt good for a half hour
or so.
The
problem with the “word of righteousness” today, is that the masses (including
the pastorate) have little experience with it.
The overwhelming majority of believers are “nepios.” They are babes who remain babes because they
have no real understanding of this matter of righteousness. So, what do babes do when they get
together? They make a lot of noise and
have a good time. When it’s over, they
look forward to the next time they can get together and play. For most, this
has become the typical church model.
Righteousness: (dikaiosune) is a word that is much easier to
understand if we drop the use of the religious term altogether. It was not called “righteousness” until the
early 17th century; and in this form, it is seldom ever used in any
context other than religion. Without a
secular application, it is not easy for one to understand what the word
means. It is a compound word combining “that
which is right” (morally correct, good, proper, straight, just, fair) and “way
or manner.” It is the way or manner of being right. Technically, it means
“to move in a straight line.”
IAUE
is unchanging. His nature is true and
right, morally correct, pure, honest and perfect continuously without
alteration. He “moves in a straight
line” because He is the standard by which all is deemed to be right,
moral, pure, honest and perfect. Who, and how IAUE is, defines that which
is straight. In like fashion, anything that is not perfectly in
sync with the nature of IAUE is that which is wrong, not right, corrupt, not
moving in a straight line.
Whatever
IAUE thinks, feels, desires, wants and decrees is right, because His thoughts,
feelings, desires, wants and decrees emanate from a nature that is incapable of
being otherwise. The nature and the will
of IAUE are the life and the path of righteousness. The nature and the will of man, on the other
hand, are not.
This
illustration is more in keeping with the nature of man. A straight line is impossible for him for such
living is not in his nature. His being
does not exude that which is morally correct, pure, honest and perfect. It is warped by his own will that is
alienated from the nature of IAUE.
Let
us revisit the matter of sin. Most
people, whether or not they are believers, think of sin from a horizontal
perspective, from its impact within the social order; and they feel guilt in
direct proportion to the hurt their words or actions have caused to others, or
their own perception of the degree of violation of the social order in one’s
own moral code or values they have committed. (It is interesting to note that
man essentially never considers anything that he thinks to be sin. It does not become a sin in man’s assessment
until he acts upon his thoughts. Of
course, we know from the Sermon on the Mount that IAUE believes otherwise.)
When a person hears the contemporary gospel message (which is not the gospel),
and learns that Messiah died to forgive them of their sins, their minds connect
with the sins for which they feel guilt; and that rarely involves any actions
that are defined by their disobedience to the will of IAUE. In other words, they relate to forgiveness
only for what they believe within themselves are their sins, the things for
which they feel guilt because of having violated their own moral codes. It does
not even necessarily include mans’ laws they have broken. (For example, if one
drives 65 mph in a 55 mph zone, there is no sense of committing sin. Instead, man thinks the speed limit should be
65 instead of 55 in that area. One could even drive 85 or 90 mph on that same
road; and as long as they are not caught and ticketed by the police, sleep
comes easy that night for there is no sense of guilt; because in their minds
they have done nothing wrong. In their minds, they have driven efficiently, not
sinfully.) Man does not recognize that his very nature (that which cannot walk
in a straight line) is at the root of the forgiveness that IAUE brings to him.
Man
does not sin against man. He may wrong
him, hurt him, deceive him, undermine him, etc., but man sins against IAUE and
against IAUE alone. Something is sin
only if it is disobedience to the will of IAUE.
This is the vertical perspective that rarely grips the heart of man; and
that is not unusual because until IAUE illumines the heart of man to see how he
has rejected Him and revolted against His right to rule his life, man is truly
incapable of evaluating his behavior from a vertical perspective. This is the difficulty that besets man when
it comes to this “word of righteousness.”
The frame of reference to understand it must be revealed to man. Otherwise, it is just words. One may develop a doctrine regarding it; but
he will remain “inexperienced in the word of righteousness.”
Consider
this illustration. If a man produces a
glass of pure water, then drops a single drop of the deadliest of poisons into
the glass…let’s imagine it to be like a drop of black ink into the glass. Would you then drink from the glass? Of course you wouldn’t. If the man then pours some of that water into
another glass of water, and then a portion of that glass into another glass of
water, and he repeats this process through 30 or 40 glasses of water, then he
tells you that the nature of the poison is that it reproduces its potency no
matter how many times you transfer some of the corrupted water from glass to
glass, would you ever be willing to take a drink from a glass of water that
proceeds down the line from that original glass? Of course you wouldn’t. Why not?
It is because every glass of water descended from the first, and the
death in the first glass has been passed all the way to the last.
This
illustration depicts the nature of man.
From the moment of Adam’s fall, his disobedience to the will of IAUE
transformed the pure nature of his life before IAUE to something filled with
death and disobedience. When Adam’s
offspring were born, he was not capable of passing on to his children the pure
nature, for he had forever lost that. He
could only transfer the nature that he possessed, one with poison in it. Adam
had a drop of black ink in his water, and this deadly ink became the inheritance
of all who descended from Adam. If man
is “altogether conceived in sin” and born void of the nature of IAUE, alien to
the straight path of his Creator, how can he recapture what was lost? He cannot will himself or discipline himself
to be right again, for every thought, every word and every action of his life
emanates from that black ink within him.
His nature is not pure, so nothing that proceeds from him is pure, nor
can become pure. Man’s best efforts to be good, honest, kind, loving,
humanitarian, etc., all emanate from death and do not attain unto
righteousness; for righteousness may only proceed forth from a nature that is
right, otherwise no matter how good it may appear to be, it is merely a
lifeless copy of that which is true.
This
is man’s dilemma. There can be no return
to the presence of the holy and pure, perfect and righteous Elohim by any works
or effort of man. It is impossible to
produce anything pure when it originates from water with black ink in it. That which is impure is incapable of
producing that which is pure. Since man
cannot help himself to achieve the restoration of relationship and fellowship
with IAUE that was lost in the Garden of Eden (righteous man standing before his
righteous Creator), man’s remedy must come from outside himself.
Next
week: Man’s help – the Word of
Righteousness.
Kingdom
heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the
performance of the will of IAUE.
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