Pastor John,
I hope I didn’t get too wordy here. I was feeling something from the Isaiah readings and tried to express it.
In the morning reading of Isaiah several days ago, Damien mentioned how men often quote the following verse from the Gospel of John, emphasizing Jesus’s words, “It is finished,” in an effort to (erroneously) show how no spiritual work is required of men when it comes to the saving of their souls (salvation):
- And then, when Jesus received the wine vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he gave up the spirit. (PJV John 19:30)
You then added, “Everything depended on the Father in Heaven saying ‘OK’. Everything depended on that, and that didn’t happen until the day of Pentecost [when God’s Spirit was poured out on the faithful disciples waiting in the upper room.]”
I thought about that verse and how it was “finished.” Jesus’s work was finished, just as Jesus said, but men’s work had just begun (or soon would begin when the Spirit was poured out on men at Pentecost).
That way of thinking, that nothing is required of men by God, seems to be foundational to the religious system of Christianity. It seems that message is included in every mainstream Christian teaching. Yet, that error is what Isaiah was talking about. It is the absence of men’s work, the absence of man’s response to God, that is the whole point of the book of Isaiah that we are reading right now. God used Isaiah to tell his people that all their calamities resulted from their sin and from their failure to respond to God when He chastened them for sin. Isaiah was only talking to Israelites… so, being God’s children (Israelites) was not enough. God required that His children obey His word.
You taught us decades ago (and the lesson continues) that God is always the actor (the one who acts first), and we are merely the reactors in our relationship with God. A proper response to God is really the only thing we have to offer God. We know nothing of Him until He acts first and reveals Himself and His will to us. So, what a strange thing it is for religious men to try to persuade their flock that nothing is required of mankind in response to God. The entire Bible is a collection of stories and testimonies of God revealing himself to men and them being blessed if they properly responded (obeyed), or cursed if they did not.
Jerry