“TO THIS END HAVE I BEEN BORN”

"To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should ear witness unto the truth" (John 18:37).

Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world, was as much misunderstood in the first century as it is today. While celebrations abound, they reflect a zeal for God, yet void of the knowledge of His righteousness (Romans 10:2-3). Ignorance of God’s will is not new. Both Isaiah and Hosea attributed it to God’s people in their day (Isaiah 5:13; Hosea 4:6). Many can quote scripture from memory, yet their understanding of those passages in the context of God’s eternal purpose is still a mystery to them (Ephesians 3:3-6).

In the first century, it was believed that Jesus would set up an earthly kingdom, of the nature of David and Solomon (cf. Luke 17:20; 19:11; Acts 1:6) This, in turn, was due to a misunderstanding of the prophecies of God about ‘restoring all things’ (Acts 3:21).

Jesus plainly stated His reason for coming: to “bear witness to truth”. Yes, this involved redeeming man from His sins, for everyone had sinned (Romans 3:23). Jesus came to take away sin, yet He was equally plain in teaching that man was in sin through disobeying God’s words. We must repent of this disobedience, and Jesus taught that plainly (John 15:22-25).

Jesus also said to Pilate, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37b). What did Jesus mean by these words? Jesus was speaking of obedience. Notice:

John 8:47 – “He who is of God hears the words of God”

John 10:27 – “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

2 Thess. 2:10 – “They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth in order to be saved.”

1 John 4:6 – “he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

Why was it hard for Pilate to see the truth about Jesus? For people today, the same question is in order: ‘Why is it hard to see the truth?’ Jesus taught why there is difficulty in seeing truth in His parables. In Matthew 6:19-21, He said, “...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Truth is hard to 'see' when one’s real desire lies elsewhere. For some, truth is not their treasure; there are other things in this life that is worth more to them. Truth will reveal where a person’s ‘heart’ is. The truth about your heart’s treasure is declared when you disobey God’s word. Truth will exact a high price of you. Jesus said plainly in Luke 14:26-27 – “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” 

Truth is the most important discovery you will make in your life. For the Christian, every relationship and all future relationships will be defined by the path of truth. Consider these four things: 

1. Your associates will be determined by truth. (Psalm 1:1-4)

2. Those whom you have fellowship with on a religious basis will be determined by truth. (Ephesians 5:8-13)

3) Your relationship with God will be determined by truth. (1 Peter 3:10-12)

4) Your eternity will be determined by truth. (1 John 4:1-6)

Consider a quote from H. L. Mencken: “For the truth-teller and truth-seeker, indeed, the whole world has very little liking. He is always unpopular, and not infrequently his unpopularity is so excessive that it endangers his life. Run your eye back over the list of martyrs; nine-tenths of them stood accused of nothing worse than honest efforts to find out and announce the truth.”

What has the truth cost you? Anyone who begins the course of pursuing “UN-denominational Christianity” will quickly discover that most religious people have no interest in such a stand. When others see that you are willing to sincerely question long-held religious practices, you will become a perceived threat to them. Those who cannot defend their practices based on the truth will often “justify” themselves by a slanderous attack on you personally. 

When you make a firm commitment to seek and stand upon the truth, then you will find those difficult occasions where you must choose between relationships with men and the truth of God. You must decide to live by principle and righteousness (Joshua 24:15). If you live by what is right, God will be with you (1 Peter 3:10-12). While many people observe Christ's "birthday", few observe His precepts...for 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments. Jesus was plain as to which "observation" defines discipleship (John 14:15).

“UNDERSTANDING FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE”

A most essential need in Bible study is to distinguish between literal and figurative language.  We will begin with a brief look at metonymy. Metonymy is a figure of speech that involves the exchange of nouns or verbs, where one noun or verb is put for another related noun or verb. The word “metonymy” comes from “meta”, indicating change, and “onoma”, a name (or in grammar, a noun).

Metonymy is a common figure of speech with a wide variety of usages. “The White House said today…” is one contemporary example in which the President of the United States and his staff are represented by the building they occupy. When we say, “Give me a hand,” it is by metonymy that “hand” is put for the many useful was the hand can help.

As we will see, metonymy is integrally involved in understanding many of the verses that seem to make God the direct and active cause of negative circumstances. Metonymy has many forms, and the Biblical examples that concern us here are those related to the concepts of cause and effect, permission and prophecy. In the Old Testament, God often revealed himself as the author of both good and evil. Thus “God” is often put by metonymy as the cause of events that were actually engineered by the devil.

To get a better understanding of the complexities of cause and effect, let us consider the case of “Mr. Smith,” who gets drunk at a party one night and then heads home in his car, driving well above the posted speed limit on a two-lane highway. An oncoming car makes a left turn in front of him, but Mr. Smith’s impaired perception causes him to misjudge the distance and swerve to avoid the other car. He loses control of his car, hits a concrete bridge abutment, and is killed.

A policeman arriving at the scene might say that excessive alcohol was the cause of Mr. Smith’s death. Mr. Smith’s family might say the driver of the other car was the cause. The corner’s report would probably conclude that he died because he flew through the windshield and his head hit the concrete abutment.

In a sense, each of the statements is valid although the coroner’s report seems to most accurately reflect why Mr. Smith actually died. But did the concrete kill Mr. Smith? Not in the active sense in which one person kills another. Yet the concrete was the final cause of his death, for if he had driven into a huge pile of mattresses instead of an immovable object, he might have survived. Nevertheless, we understand that the actual cause of his death was something other than the abutment, which did not jump into his path. The actual cause was whatever made him lose control of his car, which in his case was his heavily impaired faculties and judgment.

It has been said that one cannot break God’s laws, but only breaks himself against them, because they are immovable objects. God has set up the universe to function according to many laws and principles, which He said were “very good” (Genesis 1:31). In reality, physical laws cannot be broken. A farmer who disregards the principles of soil fertility will eventually go broke. The window cleaner with a cavalier attitude toward safety, whose worn-out rope breaks while he is dangling from the roof of a high-rise office building will, because of the law of gravity, be rudely introduced to an unsuspecting pedestrian.

There are spiritual laws also. For example, you reap what you sow; evil associations corrupt good ethics; sin separates man from God. When we break these laws, whether knowingly or unknowingly, we are not actually breaking them; rather we are breaking ourselves against them. Is God to blame because he set these laws into place? No more than a state highway department is liable for fatalities caused by drunken motorists driving into concrete bridge supports.

 

In the Bible, most especially in the Old Testament in regard to the cause of evil, sin, and suffering, we find numerous records where the subject of a sentence is said to be the cause of an event, when in reality something else (another subject) is the cause. This is the figure of speech known as ‘Metonymy of the Subject’, in which one subject is put in place of another subject with which it stands in a definite relation.

A good illustration of how one subject is put for another is found in comparing the two seemingly contradictory biblical accounts of the death of King Saul. Remember that in the Old Testament, as we have noted, God was perceived as the ultimate cause of both positive and negative circumstances, and as sovereign in the sense that He controlled everything that happened. In 1 Samuel 31:4-5, the word of God states that Saul died by committing suicide, falling upon his sword. Yet, 1 Chronicles 10:14 says that “the Lord put him to death” for disobeying the word of God and for enquiring of a familiar spirit.

How do we reconcile these apparently conflicting statements? We do so by recognizing that the latter statement is the figure of speech ‘Metonymy of the Subject’. The actual subject, Saul (as stated in 1 Samuel 31) is exchanged for another subject, God, with which it stands in a definite relation. The relation between Saul and God is that it was God who gave Saul His commandments, and Saul disobeyed them. Thus God can, in one sense, be said to be the ‘cause’ of Saul’s death. By breaking God’s laws, Saul broke himself against them.

By his own choice, Saul separated himself from God and His blessings, and therefore faced the consequences of his actions without the benefit of God’s grace and mercy. Because of his own sin, Saul found himself in a hopeless predicament, and killed himself. Only in the sense that God’s Word was the “immovable object”, against which Saul rebelled, could it be said that God “put him to death”. In concluding this chapter, we will see why God used this figurative language in the Old Testament.

Just as there is a relation between Saul and God such that “Saul” can be exchanged for “God” by Metonymy of the Subject, so there is a relation between Satan and God such that they can be exchanged by Metonymy of the Subject. This relation is explained later in this chapter.

For the most part, God’s ability to alleviate for people the effects of sin is directly proportional to their obedience to Him. For instance, Romans 1:24 and 26 say that God “gave up” those who turned away from Him in the same way Jesus gave up his life, as an act of will (John 19:20). There are situations in which God reaches a point at which He knows it is fruitless to continue to attempt to convince people who are no longer willing to change their behavior. God lets them go on the road to self-destruction, to learn by experience apart from His grace and mercy, much like the father did in Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).

Why are people “permitted” to turn away? Because God highly values man’s freedom of will. If one wills to continue in his sinful disobedience, he will suffer the consequences of his unwillingness to listen to God. God is not in the business of forcing obedience, which then becomes meaninglessly mechanical. He does, however, honestly declare the consequences that result from sin so that all people have a genuine choice. Without choice, there can be no true freedom. God’s desire is that His people be set free by knowledge, understanding, and wisdom so they can make informed choices. He is fundamentally an educator, not an autocratic puppeteer.

“HE WHOM THE LORD COMMENDS”

 

Having the ‘capability’ to perform or carry out an action does not necessarily mean that one has the legitimate right to do so. Neither does having the ‘desire’ to do it, mean you are authorized to do so. Furthermore, the authority for you to undertake a task is not based upon the ‘irresponsibility’ of someone else. Assumed responsibilities do not always equate to authorized responsibilities. Many problems have arisen because of assumed rights based upon these very reasons. Having the ‘right’ to do something depends upon authorization from the proper source.

One of the most obvious examples of ‘assumed’ responsibility is seen from the action of King Saul in 1 Samuel 13. The prophet Samuel had earlier instructed Saul to go to Gilgal and “wait seven days until I come to you and show you what you should do.” We find in 1 Samuel 13:1-7 that the Philistines had come out against Saul and the army of Israel in great numbers. The appointed time came, yet Samuel had not arrived. The army of Israel began to scatter. Saul’s desire was to entreat the favor of Jehovah. But his motivation was fear of the Philistines, not reverence for Jehovah. So, he ‘forced himself’ to offer a burnt offering (1 Samuel 13:8-12). Finally, Samuel came and said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you…” (1 Samuel 13:13-14). Saul had been given responsibility and authority to act in the capacity of KING, not as PRIEST! Although he had the capability and desire, he did NOT have the authority to offer sacrifices. THAT authority and right belonged to the (Levitical) priests. In his desire to do Samuel’s responsibility, Saul also failed in his responsibility as king.

It is also important to recognize the relationship between authorization and responsibility. A person can be a responsible person in the sense that they are reliable and trustworthy. However, being responsible does not entitle one to self-authorization. Again, apply this to the situation of King Saul. No matter how honest and sincere, no matter how strong his desire to keep the people united was, Saul, being a Benjamite, would never be given the right and responsibility of performing that which was given to the Levites: the priesthood.

The apostle Paul dealt with those who sought to be regarded as apostles. In 2 Corinthians 10-12, Paul wrote at length in defending his apostleship against false charges. One such charge was being ‘unskilled’ or ‘rude’ in speech. (On a side-note, even if this rudeness would have disqualified Paul, it did not make someone else qualified to take his place. Such rationale has been used by those who seek to justify women to usurp authority over men in the matter of public teaching, praying, and in preaching the gospel on the basis that “men won’t”, or that there is no man available or ‘qualified’). Again, desire and capability to act, or the failure of another in being faithful to his/her responsibility, does not give permission for self-authorization. Authority simply cannot be self-imposed. Authority must come from God, in His word. (1 Timothy 2:8-15).

Another ‘disqualification’ charged to Paul was, of all things, his refusal to take support (2 Corinthians 11:7-8). Paul had the ‘right’ (authorization) from God to do so (1 Corinthians 9:14-16). He explained why he refused this in 2 Corinthians 11:12, “…so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting. 

The matter of self-imposed authority is the seed that will sprout the fruit of division in every facet of society. For example, in regard to a most vital God-ordained relationship – MARRIAGE, it is often entered into without any consideration of God’s word as to whether one has the ‘right’ to marry, as well as ‘who’ one has the right to marry. The decision is generally based solely upon one’s desire, or upon an assumed personal right to act as he/she chooses.

The same thing is often true in regard to becoming a parent. Becoming a parent obviously requires reproducing, and God made man capable of such. But becoming a parent without regard for WHY God made man capable of reproducing has consequences both for the parent and the child. The decision to both marry and start a family needs to be made in view of man's purpose for existence (cf. Ecclesiastes 12:13).

God gave authority and responsibility in the home, the government, and in the church. These three institutions are separate and distinct. Negligence of a spouse or a parent does not ‘authorize’ the government nor the church to take over the responsibilities God assigned to the home. Let us remember Paul’s admonition: “For it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends” (2 Corinthians 10:18).