Christ, Our Goodness

Luke 6: 27-36

27 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."

One must skip forward to verse 35 in order to get all of these exhortations and commands into the right perspective. To love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us and so forth is to manifest the grace of God. This is what God shows Himself to be like in the Bible and in history.

We know from Romans 3 and Psalm 14 that no one seeks after God and that each has turned to his own way. Men universally ignore the One True God. Sure, they have gods - objects of their own imagination and invention - crafted in order to bring about some personal satisfaction. But the God of the Bible as He reveals Himself in the Bible is hated. That is because He alone is truly God.

Men will not hate a god of their own invention. Such a god is knowable, changeable, manipulable, appeasable and manageable. Such a god is the focus of human efforts, both in its manufacture and in its worship. Man invents a god who can be pleased by unregenerate man’s efforts. The One True God cannot. And that is why He is hated.

True God leaves nothing to man. He provides all Himself - but man must come to the acknowledgment of his own impotency arising from his own corruption. This is the very last thing he wants to do. But God nevertheless forbears. He does not cause any to perish, and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

Were not all the saints at one time enemies of God, just as the rest of the world? And while we were still sinners did not Christ die for us? He didn’t wait until we repented before dying, did he? No! With His death He bought even the repentance of those that are His sheep.

This sermon is given in the world, to the world of men - but it is, in a special and deeper sense, for the sheep. The lost sheep of the house of (true) Israel hear the voice of the shepherd and they respond. Why? Because the Holy Spirit who was upon Christ without measure (the same Spirit that inspired the writing down of the words) is the very Spirit that is at work in the hearts of His sheep bringing them to faith, repentance and obedience.

And as He does this, He comes in bringing the very life and character of Christ to both impute and impart. It is no longer I, but Christ lives in me. {Ga 2:20} It is this life which manifests the Word of God because it is the Living Word of Christ Himself dwelling in me by the Spirit.

Do I see this for its true meaning? Do I understand that it is not me of myself responding to an external instruction and finding the gumption to imitate Jesus? God forbid that I should arrive in such a place where I assume unto myself the fruit that can spring only from the True Vine Himself. O, dive deeper, my soul and see that He is the source, the mover, the producer, the alpha and omega of all righteousness, including that which He exhorts and commands of me. Thus I can plead with Augustine for God to "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt".

How else could any human being bless a person who was cursing him? How could he do good to those who hated him? That is not natural for fallen mankind. These are not things we ordinarily would choose to do. It is not what we are like in and of ourselves. I suppose it is possible to find a true altruist who ostensibly does the unexpectedly gracious thing - and yet who is not a professor of the faith. The doctrine of the "total depravity of man" does not exclude such things. It merely asserts that even the most altruistic of human motives is tainted with sin and thereby unable to gain God’s approval.

Therefore, something "unnatural" must happen for any man to act as God Himself acts - and to do so willingly and consistently. But what? Why, nothing less than that the very nature of God himself is imparted to those those who have been granted true faith. They have been born anew, from above, of the Spirit of the Living God - and Christ has come to dwell in their hearts through faith. They have been granted the goodness of these acts, by the grace of Jesus Christ, through the obedience of their faith in Him. {Eph 2:8-10}

The goodness of God is shone forth in the hearts of the obedient saints. It is not their own goodness. It is a goodness granted and imparted through their willing participation - having been regenerated, drawn and made willing by the love of God.

Do I see that God loves His enemies, whether elect or not? Do I see God pouring out blessings daily upon those who curse Him? Did Christ not pray for forgiveness for those who abused Him by nailing Him to the cross? Does God not provide for the needs of the many even though they receive all those things as if such things had never belonged to God? Do we not all, in fact, steal from God in our hearts whenever we treat goods and provisions and health and life itself as our own? Yet does not God forbear the presumption of each and every one of us a thousand times every day? One could go on. But the thrust is clear - that these commands reflect the nature of the God Who alone can grant and give the grace to keep them.

Does not God wish that all men would come to repentance, and so treat Him with honour and respect? And in this desire is not God merely wishing to be regarded and treated by us the same way He treats us, His creatures? God is not a man, nor are His thoughts our thoughts. But there is surely a sense in which He desires that men treat Him as He does them. Not that He only commands, like some cold remote autocrat - but that He truly desires with passion that men would love Him as He loves them.

Nevertheless, we can’t go beyond what the whole counsel of scripture reveals - that He is also judge, that He is holy and that He is indeed the sovereign God of salvation. God can desire what He does not will, though we are not necessarily privy to His reasons. Thus some can read and apply here "God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" {2Pe 3:9} (though this is a misapplication of the text of which you can read here) and still have to see that God’s willingness (desire) that none perish in no way prevents people from perishing by the billions. So He must desire what He does not will or else we would have to become either universalists or open theists.