No 15: To Make us Holy, Blameless, and Perfect

This is an inspiring chapter.  Among Piper's own comments, I like these two particularly: 'The good news is that being on the way is proof that we have arrived.'   'In other words, we should become what we are.'  St Paul and the writer to the Hebrews, and Piper, all find themselves having to use the same word to describe different things.  For instance, 'perfected' means something already done by Christ for us (Hebrews 10:14), but also something yet to be completed in us (Philippians 3:12).  We are already 'unleavened' but apparently there is leaven still to be cleared out (1 Corinthians 5:7).  Another example is how Jesus spoke of the Kingdom as here and now, but also yet to come.  These illustrate the limitations of language.  The Bible is full of such paradoxes because all we can do, and all each writer and editor of the Bible could ever do, is "... see but a poor reflection as in a mirror", as St Paul beautifully wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12.

I have to try and keep the balance of both meanings in a sort of tension, and this is a powerful instrument the Holy Spirit uses to wean me off my addiction to rational systems and push me towards a new way of seeing.  I do believe that this is what is meant in Isaiah 55:9:  "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

A major thread in my personal testimony over the past 5 years has been a deep engagement in the process of "cleansing out the old leaven", and becoming the man God saw before He created anything.  This has involved letting the Spirit examine my heart and examine my past and show me where anything ungodly has taken root (cf Hebrews 12:15).  I can then confess it and bring it to the Cross where Jesus takes it away together with all other sin.  I teach children to visualise the Cross surrounded by a sort of rubbish heap, to which we can add what we've just admitted; or to write it secretly on a piece of paper and drop that in a bin beneath a crucifix.  I find it helps to do the same - to become "like little children" (Matthew 18:3) in these things.

We discover many things have taken root and provide a stronghold for Satan, and this explains our repeated failures or fears in certain areas.  It is usually a mixture of things I have personally done wrong and wrongs done to me - and God wants to take both kinds away.  I might remember harsh, unfair words spoken over me as a child; but then the Spirit also reveals the resentment and judgments I formed as a result.  These are vital to confess and get free from, because I shall be reaping evil consequences until I do.  When ready, we are taken a step further by God to consider what may lie in previous family generations.  In 2010, my wife and I had the great privilege of hosting a day in our church when Mike Preece confronted us with the fearsome Masonic vows which our forefathers had made, and we very thoroughly spoke them off ourselves with the authority we now possess in Christ.

I was surprised to find that this process of inner healing is thought controversial by some evangelicals, and I have been challenged even within my fellowship here.  Their reasoning is that "... if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).  This brings me back to where I started.  Yes, in the Spirit St Paul sees our perfected creation and wrote these amazing truths.  On another occasion, taking a different perspective, he also wrote: "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Ephesians 2:10).  God's work in us is both finished and in progress.  I still think the wisest name to give our faith was the first one: the Way (Acts 9:2, 24:14).