For a description of the (Y2) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Rom. 8
If God has saved us from sin, why do we still fall prey to it? Paul addresses this question here. “But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.” (Rom. 8: 10-11). Paul goes on to say that we, along with all of creation, “wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom. 8:23b). This, Paul says, is the hope of our salvation.
I think a good way to look at it that I learned long ago is to break down our salvation from sin into three parts. There is the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and the presence of sin. We are freed from the penalty of sin, though not always its more immediate consequences, the instant we accept Jesus as our atoning sacrifice. God then gives us His Spirit so that we can begin to overcome the power of sin in our lives. Ultimately, we will receive freedom from the very presence of sin, which will end its power in our lives completely. This is the redemption of our bodies that is the hope Paul speaks of.
However, Paul is careful to point out, “Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Rom. 8:24b-25). So Jesus offers us His righteousness now. The Spirit then helps us walk in that righteousness until the day that God makes it our own. Until then, we hold steadfastly to that hope through the highs and lows of this life, patiently waiting for God’s promise to come to completion.
Ezek. 13-14
False prophets were a problem in Ezekiel’s day. What was God’s word to them? Do you know of any false prophets today? How can you tell if prophecy is false or true? God had some harsh words through Ezekiel for the false prophets of Israel. He calls them fools, saying they build flimsy, whitewashed walls that cannot stand. Reading through God’s condemnation of them here brought to mind Jesus’ condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders. Here are some of the thoughts this passage triggered:
- God’s declaration of, “Woe to the foolish prophets” (Ez. 13:3) brought to mind Jesus’ declarations of woe to the Pharisees and teachers of the law. They, like the false prophets in Ezekiel, were hindering people from coming to God.
- God called out the false prophets for building flimsy walls and concealing the poor work with whitewash. This is very similar to Jesus’ condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders as whitewashed tombs. They looked beautiful on the outside but were full of filth and death. This also calls to mind Proverbs 28:13a, which says, “Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper”.
- God told the false prophets that the flimsy walls they built would not stand. He promised to tear down their walls in His wrath, which He compared to a storm. “Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth.” (Ez. 13:11b). This took my mind straight to Jesus’ analogy of the wise and foolish builders. “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matt. 7:26-17).
We tend to think of prophets as those who tell the future, but that’s not entirely accurate. Though God often used prophets of old to reveal future events, it is not their primary purpose. Most simply put, prophets are those who speak the word of God. So when Jesus and His followers spoke of false prophets in the New Testament, they referred to any who declared a message that was not God’s truth as being from God.
That wicked and foolish practice still goes on today. Such people deceive others into believing they are worth listening to and following. They deceive people into thinking they are building something solid and good. But such people are a lie. They grieve the righteous and encourage the wicked. They, “have not gone up to the breaches in the wall to repair it for the people of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD.” (Ez. 135). Woe to those who draw attention to themselves as leaders and fail to build up God’s people in truth.