Lies #3 - Why the truth matters pt1.

In my next few posts in this series I'm going to work a few different angles on bits of Scripture that show how important truth is.  So hopefully there'll be a few of these, in quickish succession, but they should each be reasonably short.

The first angle I'm going to work from is that that the ethics of creatures proceed from their Creator.

So, who is our Creator?

God is not a man,a that he should lie... (Num 23:19 NIV)

He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie (1Sa 15:29 NIV) 

God, who does not lie... (Tit 1:2 NIV) 

...him who is holy and true... (Rev 3:7 NIV)

Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. (Rev 15:3 NIV)

... is called Faithful and True. (Rev 19:11 NIV) 

But do we need to try and be like God in this respect?  Or is truth an 'incommunicable' attribute of God?  One that He possesses, but we're not commanded to emulate?  Well, Colossians specifically combines the command not to lie with the destiny of the believer to be like his/her Creator:

Do not lie to each other,a since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. (Col 3:9-10 NIV) 

This is not only our future, but also the expectation of the character of our lives now:

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.  24 God is spirit,a and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." (Joh 4:23-24 NIV)

 And this in anticipation of our future.  As John sees in Revelation:

Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. ... No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless. (Rev 14:1-5 NIV) 

So while we may not necessarily act truthfully instinctively, honesty is the direction the Christian must be pointed towards because it's what conforming to the image of his/her Creator looks like.

Our ethics flow from the nature of our Creator.

What's going on inside (part 2 of 2)

See part 1 here.

This helps us to understand something about ourselves and sin.

When people talk about 'working out who you are', my answer was: I know who I am, a dirty, rotten sinner and pathetic to boot. So the process of self-discovery isn't actually a beneficial one.

Using the tripartite view of a Christian that we looked at in part 1 means that we can now investigate something of person 1 from the messed up combination that we have now become.

Example: A person has a strong desire to lust sexually. Now the devil never created anything good, but only twists something good that God has made. My hypothesis is that the desire for something wrong has its basis in a good desire that's been twisted.

It's like archery. When you shoot and hit the bullseye, it's fun for everyone. When that good thing gets pointed in the wrong direction, someone's bum gets an extra hole.

So, the process of trying to work out your God-given passions becomes a process of working out something: What good thing am I desiring that my sinful nature is twisting and making evil?

So, in the case of lust, an example could be that the person desires a fulfilling and intimate relationship, but is reaching for something else to scratch that itch, or reaching for it in a wrong way.

I find this way of thinking helpful because it allows me to give my humanity, sin and redemption the full recognition they deserve:

1. My humanity, because I recognise that God created me so well.
2. My sin, because I have messed up so thoroughly something that was so good.
3. My redemption, because it ... (this is a fuzzy area in my thinking, so I'll leave it until I've sorted through the implications of my thoughts.)*

Lastly, it helps me to work out how I can rightly 'be myself'. It doesn't mean just doing what I feel like. It means unravelling the threads that have been knotted by sin, correcting yourself and working to be the man I was created to be with the help of Holy Spirit.

Thoughts?

*Yes, the redemption part hasn't been well-worked in this theory. Contributions towards that would be appreciated.

What's going on inside (part 1 of 2)

Over the last year or so, I've been reflecting on how I've often heard about the two natures struggling within us. That is, our sinful, fleshly nature and our new life in Christ by the Spirit. What I've realised is that I think that I've not heard as much as I should have about the third nature that we have, and how it relates to the others. That is, my original creation in the image of God, sustained by His common grace.

What I'm getting at is that:

1. I was created good. *
2. The good image of God was twisted in sin, and more as I sin more. **
3. I died to the second life, and was raised with Christ into a new life. ***

Thus, I actually have 3 natures, in a way. With me so far? I'll go further on the significance of this soon. (Or you could just spoil it for yourself and see what Simone reckons here. Or you could be patient and wait 'til tomorrow. I'm not going to decide for you.)

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* Insert trite prooftexts here.

** No prooftexts required for an evangelical readership.

*** Also, perhaps, able to be viewed as a redemption of the initial nature, though exactly how that works is as yet unclear to me.