In Christ Alone - Exodus 20:25

“And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.”

Whether it be in a church we attend, in a denomination, or in the exercise of our own religion or worship, there is a propensity to, and significant danger in, adding to the completed work of Christ.  For example, one might say where you were baptized is critical for your salvation, or maybe they say the day on which you worship is indicative of whether or not you have received the Holy Spirit.  There are more – maybe you can list a few in the blog post comments section below.

What is it about human nature that makes us want to add to what God has completed?  If God has completed a work, it is perfect.  How can we improve upon that?  Even in the Old Testament, we see the need for God to warn His followers to refrain from adding any human element to His design.  The answer in a word:  pride.  It is in our fallen nature to want to take control, to make things fit to our own desires, wants, and limited understanding.

“God's altar was to be built of unhewn stones, that no trace of human skill or labour might be seen upon it. Human wisdom delights to trim and arrange the doctrines of the cross into a system more artificial and more congenial with the depraved tastes of fallen nature; instead, however, of improving the gospel carnal wisdom pollutes it, until it becomes another gospel, and not the truth of God at all. All alterations and amendments of the Lord's own Word are defilements and pollutions. The proud heart of man is very anxious to have a hand in the justification of the soul before God; preparations for Christ are dreamed of, humblings and repentings are trusted in, good works are cried up, natural ability is much vaunted, and by all means the attempt is made to lift up human tools upon the divine altar. It were well if sinners would remember that so far from perfecting the Saviour's work, their carnal confidences only pollute and dishonour it. The Lord alone must be exalted in the work of atonement, and not a single mark of man's chisel or hammer will be endured. There is an inherent blasphemy in seeking to add to what Christ Jesus in His dying moments declared to be finished, or to improve that in which the Lord Jehovah finds perfect satisfaction. Trembling sinner, away with thy tools, and fall upon thy knees in humble supplication; and accept the Lord Jesus to be the altar of thine atonement, and rest in Him alone.”  (Charles Spurgeon)

The desire to add to the completed work of Jesus Christ does not come from above.  While it may seem harsh to state that such actions are blasphemy against our Holy Creator, the Word of God reveals that such actions are profane to Him.  There are some passages in Scripture that are hard to take, but that does not mean we are at liberty to use any tool of modification upon them.

If we fail to resist our fallen nature’s tendency to control, modify, or otherwise adjust the Word of God and/or what God says is required for salvation and for obedience, then we are actually putting more stress upon ourselves.  It is more stressful because we live without the power of Christ, we live on our own strength trying to be holy and trying to serve God.  We are living with ‘another gospel.’  It is profane to God and it will be unfulfilling as well as unfruitful.  Trust in Jesus when He said “It is finished” (John 19:30).  Surrender to our Savior, the Coming King.  Jesus will take it from there.

“There is among Christians far too much inclination to square and reconcile the truths of revelation; this is a form of irreverence and unbelief, let us strive against it, and receive truth as we find it; rejoicing that the doctrines of the Word are unhewn stones, and so are all the more fit to build an altar for the Lord.”  (Charles Spurgeon)

“In Christ Alone” is a wonderful song in which the authors (Keith Getty – music; Stuart Townend – lyrics) describe the power in the finished work of Jesus Christ.  You can hear the song by clicking here.   Alternatively, the lyrics follow:

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! - who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand:
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Says Townend of his song: “The lyric [of this song] excites me because it places our hope, our assurance, our eternal destiny in the right place—on the solid foundation of Christ. I know in my own life I need reminding continually not to live by my feelings or my circumstances, but by the unchanging truth of the gospel.”[i] 

This song has been covered by many different artists.  It has even made it to hymnals.  One large denomination modified the copywriter’s preferred lyrics of “Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied” to instead read “Till on the cross as Jesus died the love of God was magnified.”  If you do not see the irony in the changing of the lyrics at the protest of the author, please read this post over from the beginning.

May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His pure and unpolluted Gospel.

---

[i] “Song Story: In Christ Alone,” by Debra Akins, Crosswalk.com

Did You Really Fast For Me? – Zechariah 7:5

“Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me – for Me?’”

According to scripture, God ordained specific days for feasts and one day for a fast.  For example:

*  Feast of Passover – Leviticus 23:4-5; 14th day of first month (Nisan)

*  Feast of Unleavened Bread – Leviticus 23:6-8; 15th day of Nisan; a week-long celebration, shows purity to walk in after the blood deliverance

*  Feast of Firstfruits – Leviticus 23:9-14; the day following Passover’s Sabbath

*  Feast of Pentacost/Feast of Weeks – Leviticus 23:15-21; 50 days after the Feast of Firstfruits; at the completion of the wheat harvest

*  Feast of Trumpets – Leviticus 23:23-25; Rosh Hashanah; first day of 7th month (Tishri 1); trumpets blown to gather God’s people for a holy convocation

*  Day of Atonement – Leviticus 23:26-32; 10th day of 7th month (Tishri 10); a fast; a time of humble recognition of one’s sins and the need for atonement

*  Feast of Tabernacles – Leviticus 23:33-44; 15th day of 7th month (Tishri 15); rejoice in God’s deliverance and provision for Israel in the time of the wilderness wandering

The feasts were times of remembrance, a time to ponder all the wonderful things God has done for His people.  The only fast for these people to keep that was ordained by God was the Day of Atonement.  It was a solemn time to remember sins, a time to recognize that the wages of sin is death.

But the people had created their own fasts for their own purposes.  The exiles were mourning the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of Solomon’s temple, and the massacre of men.  During their time of captivity, they continued to mourn on these days so that it became a ritual, a tradition.  Over their seventy years of captivity, this tradition became a part of their religion.  This was always a part of worship for the younger generation.  It became “the way it has always been done.”   

Thankfully, one day after the captives were freed, a group of people sent a delegate “to ask the priests who were in the house of the LORD of hosts, and the prophets, saying, ‘Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?’” (Zechariah 7:3)  Oh blessed be the day when people ask why they are doing some ritual.  If we prayerfully seek the answer from scripture, we will get the truth directly from God.  Precious truth.  If we find it is ordained by God and the reason and purpose, then the next time we experience it, it will have greater meaning and bring us to an entirely new depth of worship.

God had not called a fast after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.  The fast was something the people established because they were sad, because they wanted God to make it better again.  They hoped God would hear their plea and fix things.  The people were not fasting for God, but for themselves – and God called them on it.  God explained through Zechariah that the people had been in captivity not because they did not fast, but because they and their fathers did not heed his instruction to “Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.  Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.”  (Zechariah 7:9-10) 

God explained what he wanted from the people, and what is described is a decent, loving and caring society that lives in awe of God.  Instead the people “refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear.  Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.  Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.”  (Zechariah 7:11-12)

I have to admit, this sounds familiar.  Have you ever noticed some people that go to church and carry on with traditions and still have the hardest of hearts?  It would seem that these hard hearted folks would rather have their heart burned up by the heat of the sun than have it melted to serve in one act of kindness for their brother and sister in Christ – much less to love the unsaved. 

Rituals and tradition do not bring peace.  They are empty, unfulfilling.  Only a personal relationship with our Creator can bring peace.  And a personal relationship is what He wants.  Stop and think about the things any of us do in the name of worship, whether at church, home or elsewhere.  Test these things against scripture.  To be blunt, if it is not in scripture, it is not something God ordained and therefore not something in which He will delight.  The amazing God of the universe wants you to have a personal relationship with Him, not with unscriptural traditions or rituals.  Scripture is showing that if God has not ordained it, He is not listening to it.  “’Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,’ says the LORD of hosts.”  (Zechariah 7:13)  If this verse was all you read, it would break your heart.  But we know from the previous verses that the people were calling out for themselves.  They were crying out to God when they had, all the while, refused to hear or keep God’s commandments. 

What traditions are we keeping?  Take some time to contemplate them for yourselves.  Even if it is ordained by God, knowing the answer, He will still ask are you doing it “for Me – for Me?”   Below are just a few traditions to consider:

Passover – Ordained by God.  We first see it in Exodus 12:11, then also in Exodus 34:25, Leviticus 23:5 and much more.  We see Jesus keeping the Passover in Matthew 26:17-20.

Lent – This ritual/tradition is not in scripture.

Lord’s Supper – Ordained by God.  Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in the upper room as described in Matthew 26:26-30.  He said “do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19b)

Baptism – Ordained by God.  Evangelism and baptism were commands from Jesus in Matthew 28:19.  Jesus Himself was baptized by John the Baptist, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.” (Matthew 3:13)

Friends, rituals cannot save you.  Fasting has its place but it does not save you.  We do good deeds because of what was done for us.  Only by faith in the cleansing blood of Jesus through the grace of God can you be saved.  Do you want to please God?  Do you want God to hear your prayers?  Then be obedient to Him.  Jesus summed it up for us “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.  And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  This is the first commandment.  And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.”  (Mark 12:29-31) 

God has put it as simply as He can for us.  We must trust in the saving grace of Jesus Christ for eternal salvation.  If we want to live in the love of Jesus, Jesus said “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”  (John 15:10)  If we want to show Jesus how much we love Him, He told us:  “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15)  It is a very consistent message.

“Jesus always emphasized the worshiper’s heart.  He felt disgusted by those who displayed their ‘devotion’ in a pompous, attention-getting manner.  Whether it is praising, giving thanks, singing, praying, or giving financially, the issue always comes down to motivation.  Fulfilling your purpose of worshiping Him satisfies your very being, and it helps you build intimacy in your relationship with Him.” (Charles Stanley)  It is so incredible that Almighty God wants intimacy with each of us.  Do not let anything or anyone come between you and that intimacy with Him.  Jesus tells us “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.” (John 4:23)

May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.