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This is the American Christmas Season and across our land Christians and Pagans both are busily shopping for gifts, preparing great family feasts, decorating their homes and businesses, taking their children to the Christmas/“holiday” program practices at school and church, and generally buzzing about in the exciting seasonal Christmas activities added onto their normal-life things. Christmas is a happy time of year when brotherly love for total strangers just wants to burst out from somewhere deep inside… but the overloaded schedule of Christmas-things-to-do seems to change the nature of that heart-felt joy by the time it actually exits the mouth.
How is it that we really-- and I mean really-- want to be happy and loving and joyful at this time of year but the person you find yourself being is not at all what you intended?
“Where did that sudden anger come from? Why did I snap at that person? How come I cannot seem to make this Christmas thing work the way I really feel that I want it to?”
This is not an unusual personal scenario, and the disparagement between these desires and conditions is growing yearly at an alarming rate; two years ago the feeling was just irritation, last year it was agitation, this year it is actual anger… a scary kind of anger that seems like “it’s someone else not me!” Why?
* * *
The Rat Race:
Have you ever had a pet mouse or gerbil or such? Even if you haven’t, everyone is familiar with the signature round-exercise-wheel found in most every cage. It’s rather interesting to see your mouse climb onto the wheel and spend several minutes running in place before tumbling to a stop and climbing off like a six-year-old from a merry-go-round.
Do you suppose the mouse has intelligently decided that his paunch is getting a bit flabby and he needs to exercise for a few minutes to stay in shape? Why does he run? If you bought him a little set of running clothes would he put those on before exercising? What’s actually going on in that little mouse head?
It’s my unscientific observation that leads me to believe that curiosity moved him to climb on, just as it led him to climb onto the top of the empty Clean-x box you put in there too.
And because of the nature of the wheel it began to rotate as he moved around looking at stuff. As his weight shifted, it rotated, and he found himself stepping forward to maintain balance, and so it rotated more, etc. The mechanics of animal nature combined with the rotating wheel just drew him into running an unplanned exercise; “Why not run?” Cooped up in that cage he perhaps found himself just feeling good about running, and when he got a bit tired he felt just as good to stop running… “But how do you just stop?”
Now of course I don’t speak gerbil, but watching a first-time runner it is almost audible to see him contemplate his situation as you observe his obvious desire to stop while he continues to run. Eventually he just gives up running and finds himself doing “a cat in the clothes dryer” for a few revolutions until it comes to a stop and he climbs off to go look at something else like the toilet-paper cardboard tube over there; “I wonder if it chews?”
The “rat race,” as it’s commonly called for a reason, is the same way. We are just naturally inclined to step forward in the effort to maintain our balance and the wheel of life just rotates as a natural reaction. So we step again, and so it rotates just fast enough to keep us a little behind. We don’t know why we find ourselves running, it just seems like we have no choice, and we kinda like the adventure of it anyway, so we keep running. But the more we run the faster it spins and the faster it spins the faster we run, more and more, faster and faster. But unlike the mouse, somehow we have allowed the rules of society to tell us how long we must run before climbing off; 65 years. Run, run, run, you’re not there yet. So we run.
Why?
Even the simple-minded mouse knows that a crashing tumble is undesirable.
* * *
The Sunday Rest:
The LORD’s Sabbath was God’s very kind intrusion into that regimented schedule of compelled running, where as long as the obedience to our God was premiere in our lives we would not... No; we could not, allow “someone’s” rules to keep us running non-stop; “God’s commandment says I really need a regular rest from the running, sorry.”
But somewhere along the way
“I really want to reach the recommended 3120 revolutions before I break” says the mouse.
To make a long story short, after fully corrupting the actual intent of God’s Rest (carefully laid out in the practical application instructions of Isaiah 58:13 for the express purpose found in Isaiah 58:14), we choose to alter the use of “the rest” to more suite our own goals;
“If the rest is for my best interest then why not “adjust” it to better serve my interests?”
Eventually Saturday just didn’t work out well as a Sabbath, for a number of practical reasons, so we switched our Sabbath to Sunday and chose to rest from our work by finding pleasure in non-paid labor and other activities that we deem rest;
“God’s happy because we get a day off of work, and we’re happy because we learned how to say ‘No’ to a day of employment, which allows us to do things we really want to do; It’s a win-win!”
But God doesn’t really see it like that. Let’s review the rules:
“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:”… Isaiah 58:13.
“Are you kidding me?” You reply, “What are we supposed to do then? I’m just not wired to do nothing!”
It really does seem that with such tight restrictions on your Saturday activities there is just no way you can possibly call the Sabbath a delight without lying… I mean SATURDAY of all days! Why demand my Saturdays? UGH!
LOL, Who’s Saturdays?
Have you considered that without God’s law it would just be another of the 7 days a week that you would be required to labor at your job. In fact you have so corrupted God’s Sabbath that you honestly believe that it’s YOUR day!
“How unfair of God to demand the ONE day I have to myself! Let him have Sunday if he wants a day so badly but Saturdays are MINE!”
So before we get too worked up here, let’s step back a bit and reason this out.
God gave you six days of the week to do whatever you felt pressed to do with your life… WHATEVER you feel pressed to do. Do you want to ignore your family and spend all six days at the office? Go ahead (though I wouldn’t recommend it!) Do you want to be a bum and spend all six days with your family and friends? Go ahead (though I wouldn’t recommend that either). You see it really doesn’t matter what you do with your six days (though the consequences will be yours to collect or pay), God requires the seventh day to be His…and since God is the one who made up the week, he gets to determine which day is the Sabbath, and… uh… contrary to all the explanations, the Sabbath has always been Saturday not Sunday. I’m just sayin’. (Genesis 1:1-2:3, Exodus 16:26,29-30, 20:9-10, 20:11, 31:13-17, 35:2, etc. etc.).
The funny thing is that if we actually figured that Saturday was off-limits to our own ideas of how to spend it, that would restructure our minds to figure out how to better order the six days that do belong to us. Maybe I shouldn’t spend six days at the office because my family needs me to give them at least one day a week (kinda like I need God to give me his attention at least one day a week, wow, what a thought…). And in such a possible “restructure option” it may be that I am much more able to give my labor a full vigor in the five days left over to schedule for it.
You see, if the increase of mammon is not the driving force that runs your life, but instead God and family, then your job really just gets the leftovers after the important things are taken care of off the top. Funny how God “accidentally” Typed that into his requirement of paying tithe first and of our best (Leviticus 27:30+ Exodus 22:29, 23:19+ Malachi 1:8) leaving the remainder for us to use as we see fit.
Go back through this chapter of Isaiah and we see this “cause and affect” principle described several time by various promises in several lifestyle commands. God is not selfish or greedy or a tyrant that wants to ruin your Saturdays; God is the God of all wisdom and His Sabbath is indeed for your best interest to obey, if for no other reason than to teach you by experience how to easily stop and climb off the exercise wheel without a regular bruising. This regular practice can diminish our slavery to the wheel that cries; “Run, run, run or you’ll crash!”
And this simple practice of obedience to God without debate is why Satan, through your own corruption of God’s Sabbath-- albeit encouraged by society-- has made Saturday seem like the only day of the week that is yours, and God as a merciless tyrant wants to take it away!
But since you gave up all your six days to your god of increase, you now want to take from God the one day that was not yours to give up and use that for giving to your family. How easily we turn everything fully upside down; Saturday is the only day NOT yours!
Do you want a day of the week? Go get it back from your god of increase and then learn how to deal with life without so much increase… you and your family will be surprisingly far better off for it!
“Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” Isaiah 58:14.
Do you even know what the heritage of Jacob is? No? Then this promised reward is hardly an incentive is it? And if you don’t know what you aint got, then who cares? “PARTY ON SATURDAY AT THE BEACH! We’ll rest up on Sunday and make us all happy, isn’t that what Jesus’ grace is for?”
* * *
The Pork Roast Dinner:
As a child, in our house we had Turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It was nothing to even contemplate otherwise; it was traditional; “it’s just what you have on those holidays.”
Later in my life I discovered that many Christians instead have a large Pork Roast on those holidays with the same perspective of traditionally “nothing to contemplate as an option.” Apparently it’s really just a matter of family traditions.
And since the grace of Christ has eliminated the law, allowing us to pick our own day of rest and how we choose to use it, then what you choose to eat on the holidays is really irrelevant to God too, what matters to him is your heart of worship as you eat it, right?
“Isn’t that the real meaning of the grace of Jesus Christ?”
But let’s contemplate this a little with an open heart and mind: Why pork?
“Well, because it’s cheep, and it REALLY tastes good!”
Fair enough.
But is that any kind of legitimate justification for a possible breach of the law? I mean my neighbor’s wife sure looks tasty and with her husband out of town she sure would come cheap (Proverbs 7:7-21).
So, since we are pretty sure that Christ’s grace is not intended to cast away that law, what makes us use the same ridiculous excuse for breaking a similar law? Give me another good reason; Why pork?
Nothin? Then please allow me to continue with a contemplation:
Of all the clean and unclean animals distinguished as such in the law (Leviticus 11:1-8), I don’t think that even a casual reader of the scriptures can claim that they don’t see swine as a uniquely unclean animal to God (Leviticus 11:7, Proverbs 11:22, Isaiah 66:3, Matthew 7:6, Luke 15:15, etc.). In fact with all the scriptures that specifically address swine, I have little qualms in declaring that God would rather see you cook up a nice horse rump or even your own pet schnauzer for a Christmas Dinner rather than a pork roast.
Am I being legalistic? Not if I say any other unclean animal would be better!
Have you actually studied even a little of what the scriptures have to say regarding God’s feelings toward pork? No? Then how can you be so quick to already know the right answer, and mine is not it? Give me an honest ear before your determined doctrine writes me off as a legalistic ignoramus of Christ’s grace. Contemplate my actual argument before you decide.
Has God offered a New Covenant salvation to the Gentiles? Sure (Isaiah 42:9,16, 43:18-19, Jeremiah 31:31-33, Hebrews 8:7-8,12-13=Hebrews 12:22-24, I John 2:8-10, Acts 13:47, 14:27, 15:3,7-9, 26:19-20, etc.). So does that mean that all Gentiles are equal in that offer? Hardly. It seems to me that God declared a special and eternal hatred toward one specific brand of Gentile:
“As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” Romans 9:13 referencing Malachi 1:2-4.
“…the people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever” Malachi 1:4b.
But in our very thin cosmetic veneer (*1) of Christ’s Grace, we just cast away the law and love everybody into the kingdom under Jesus’ blood, contrary to not only the whole witness of the scriptures but even many very specific passages and verses (Luke 18:17-23+ Romans 1:32, 2:2-3, II Peter 2:20, Ephesians 5:5-6, I John 2:4, 3:6,10,18, Matthew 5:17, etc., etc., etc., *2).
So tell me again, why of all flesh do so many Christians eat a Pork Roast on Christmas? There is only one reason, (it comes with many complexities); but simply put, it is that Satan giggles gleefully with pleasure because we are so gullible as to “choose” pork because it’s cheep and it tastes sooo good, and because conveniently Christs’ grace let’s us get away with it “Scott Free” (Acts 11:9).
Maybe that’s good enough…
Maybe.
But if we review the unclean animals on the sheet, which God now called clean (Acts 11:5-6), we really have no idea what specific animals were included that Peter saw! Are you so sure that pigs were among them? Hold that thought.
* * *
The ChristmasTree:
Drive through most any subdivision in America, walk through most any store, stop by most any Church, and you will find a beautifully decorated evergreen ChristmasTree displayed quite prominently in most every window; It’s Christmas!
Christmas and ChristmasTrees just go together like Easter and EasterEggs; you just can’t have the one without the other. And besides, it’s just a harmless tree; a decoration, it has no significant value one way or the other; it’s not like Santa Clause who competes with the Christ Child for the glory of the Holiday; it’s just a tree.
Perhaps.
I know by now you have probably heard all the contending origin-stories of the ChristmasTree and somewhere among them all might be an element of truth, but today none of that really matters because we don’t even know what that truth is let alone see the decorated tree in that perspective. Maybe the Babylonians did set it up as a god or something, but that has virtually no influence on me today, it’s just a pretty and aromatic decoration that significantly adds to the Christmas joy.
Right?
But just how significant: Somewhat? A little? Irreplaceable?
Try Christmas without it and you find that Christmas is just not Christmas. Break the Mary figurine in the Manger Scene on top the TV, and though a bit disappointing, Christmas goes off just fine without the display this year. And if the summer rats have made a nest in your box of Christmas-stockings, any old stand-in socks will perform so well that it almost adds to the novelty as you hang them over the hearth. But a happy family Christmas without a ChristmasTree? FORGET IT!
Why?
“Well, because that’s where we put all the presents.”
I see.
So Christmas is all about the presents?
“Well, not really… but ya, if I’m going to be honest, it is.”
Of course we all know that Jesus is the main theme of Christmas, but look around. Do you see Jesus anywhere as the actual main theme of your Christmas and not just a token? (*3)
“Well, Jesus is a concept; the spirit of “Jesusness” just fills the whole house, it’s not something you can display.”
I see.
But while we don’t actually see anything “Jesusy” in your family Christmas, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a displayed tree? Can’t you just have the spirit of a ChristmasTree without displaying one… like you do with Jesus?
Why does it so easily work the one way but so doesn’t work the other?
As a child, my Christian family celebrated Christmas with a central ChristmasTree like everyone else... sort of.
But even as a child I had such an education of faith from my Dad, that the ChristmasTree, though quite central to the joy of a child’s Christmas, never was mistaken for Christmas itself.
In time this “theoretical perspective” became noticeably fact as we saw the ChristmasTree make it’s first appearance in the foyer of our Church. I don’t remember how old I was but walking through the doors to see that tree standing there in the Church, the ChristmasTree instantly screamed; “I am a god.” Its grand “nothing to do with Christ” display, just didn’t belong in the Church.
That afternoon at home we talked about it and why it made me feel uncomfortable there, but not at home. It was not at all hard to see that the very prominent and singular purpose of a Church is to proclaim Jesus Christ the Son of God come to Earth for the Salvation of mankind. Christmas is like the quintessential focus of the church’s whole purpose. And while there were garlands at the ends of every pew, candles and green bows in every window, they all without explanation just pointed to the very special day that Jesus came, we call it Christmas.
But a ChristmasTree in the foyer? That just screamed Pagan; the tree without words, in that place, glorifies itself and all the presents of covetousness that it encompasses in its skirt of bows. By its presence alone, the special ever-“green tree” (I Kings 14:23) standing in the holy house, passively contests Jesus Christ as the center of Christmas, while at home, our daily lives are just by existence not so sanctified holy as is the Church, and the stark contest is not as easily noticed among the other “not so obviously Jesus related” stuff.
This concept of “holy contest” is confirmed when within a few years the tree suddenly appeared on the sanctuary platform no longer content to remain in the foyer. The shock was again as strong as when it first appeared in the church at all.
Yet the preacher still preached, the Christmas Pageant was still about the Christ Child, and life went on as always… but that ever-present tree, standing as a silent unmoving sentry that moved, now suddenly on the side of the front platform like a Weeping Angel when we blink, seemed to be the encroaching symbolic presence of Satan’s representative standing in the “Most Holy Place” (Exodus 26:34, Daniel 8:24-25, Matthew 24:15 = Mark 13:14).
“And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries” Daniel 11:21.
“But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,)…” Mark 13:14.
Now obviously I am not saying the ChristmasTree is the Antichrist… but as a probable Type we can really see how this guy creeps in to take such a powerful hold… on Christians! So maybe the ChristmasTree is an Antichrist type after all!
And if it is, what are we doing comfortably allowing its encroachment into the most holy place? Today, not many years later, the preaching has been watered down, the pageant has been replaced by “a play” at best, and life is just not the same… just not the same. But the tree is still there.
Hmmm.
* * *
What’s it all mean?
In a panic we can go all legalistic and burn our pickup trucks in case they might somehow represent the Philistine cart on which they transported the Ark of the Covenant, but that doesn’t get us any closer to understanding why God was angry with the Jews for using that technological example of modernized transportation (II Samuel 6:7).
Am I recommending that you rip out your ChristmasTree six days before Christmas? Am I suggesting that you toss your Pork Roast in the dumpster and go buy a turkey for Christmas dinner? Am I implying that you cancel all your scheduled Saturday activities and reschedule what you can for Sunday?
How do I simply answer that simply, besides a simple “Yes.”
The answer is not simple. And doing these three things will not cause God’s anger to asswage (*4). It’s the reason why these three things are even an un-discussible presence in your life that is the cause of God’s anger (Acts 8:22-23). If you don’t fix the reason, the solution is no solution at all… Except; According to I Samuel 15:22, to obey is better than sacrifice, and so by understanding, though terrifyingly sounding blasphemous, obedience is better than even Jesus’ sacrifice (*5). The problem is that you feel absolutely no compunction to obey. And you’re using Jesus’ sacrifice to justify it!
Now of course by these three existing breaches of the law alone, you are obviously not in obedience… so you need a sacrifice. Jesus’ sacrifice then is pretty important isn’t it?!
Jesus’ sacrifice cleans your slate of wrong as the price has been thereby paid; and that is some serious grace! But now that you’re clean what are you going to do? Continue in sin that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1).
Hmmm. (Romans 6:2).
* * *
Which is better: A metaphorical shower, or avoiding the need for a metaphorical shower?
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. (Period. New Sentence.) And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” I John 2:1-2.
So does this mean that the whole world is run under the blood of Christ and we’re all good now?
Hardly.
John declares that his purpose for what he writes is so that we do not sin.
This is not hard to figure out; he makes this very clear. But if we begin to dissect his meaning through the microscope of the Dirty Grace doctrine that commands us to sin as sinners, then we must torment the data until it complies with our doctrine.
But lay your pre-determined doctrine lens aside for just a moment and read the very short book of I John with unbiased eyes, and tell me how it’s purpose can be anything other than a very clear warning NOT TO SIN.
The trouble is that your doctrine of Dirty Grace makes Jesus’ sacrifice a holy shrine as the end itself and not the means to an end. But is not our Lord’s sacrifice intended for the very purpose of making us clean? Is not our cleanliness the very goal? But your doctrine will not allow us to be clean! You actually wallow in the filth for the very purpose of glorifying Christ’s sacrifice that cleans you! What kind of pointless insanity is that?!
You bring the neighbors over and show them how it works; Dive off your back deck into the opened septic tank and then run into the bathroom and shower with a quick; "dear Jesus, please forgive me" and Vwa-La! “check this out, I’m all clean!” then run back out and dive in so you can show them again; “Look at that, I’m all clean again!” and you go back at it again, and again, and again.
How long will it be before your friends wander off to watch football, realizing that you just want to play in the septic tank?
Your shower has no purpose unless you get dirty and so to glorify the shower you can’t stop! So while you are out swimming in the septic tank renewing your filth, your Godless friends are not getting any filthier by watching the game. And frankly, you smell a whole lot worse than they do! (II Kings 21:9, Ezekiel 5:6).
The shower is not the point! It’s not the end goal. Sitting on the sofa watching the game without stinking is the goal of the shower!
And periodically if you have a need to work on the septic or even if you just happen to fall in, we have a shower that can clean us up, in fact it can clean up all your friends, even their less stinky BO.
Do you have someone sitting on the sofa that smells like he just climbed out the septic? Show him to the shower! But you know? You don’t have to personally demonstrate it’s cleaning-power every time; that’s why God gave us speech. You TELL him how the shower works and how it worked for you, You SHOW him that even though you were once in the septic tank yourself, you don’t stink anymore! (I Corinthians 6:11).
If the goal of salvation through Christ’s blood was to allow us to continue swimming in the tank, then he would have put the TV and sofa in there too. But God called us out of the septic (II Corinthians 6:17, John 13:9-10), he doesn’t want us in the septic, he wants us to be cleansed from the filth of the septic (I Corinthians 6:11). In fact, even with a regular shower, if you spend too much time swimming in the septic tank your gonna get a disease! (Romans 1:32+8:6,9) The shower is not designed to hose off a disease that you contracted because you went back into the tank! (Hebrews 10:26,29,38). Read I John and tell me I’m wrong!
“My little children, I write these things so that you do not sin… SO DON’T SIN!”
Does the shower work if you need it again? YOU BET IT DOES! (John 13:10, I John 2:1). How hard is this to figure out?
Are you going to go to hell if you eat a pork roast for Christmas dinner? That all depends on if you have contracted a septic disease yet! (Romans 2:12, 8:6, 10:2-4, James 1:20-22, Hebrews 12:15-17,10:26, etc., etc.), but the fact that you are so determined to continue with your traditions without a serious investigation to the validity of my cry should tell you that the disease is already quite likely taken hold:
“They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof” Ezekiel 7:14.
America could not be in the fallen state that it is if Christians were walking as Jesus commands! (II Chronicles 7:14). So although I cannot wish America a Merry Christmas this year because of her sins (II John 1:8-11), may Christ actually find his way paved into yours for the purpose of making it his:
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” Isaiah 40:3.
* * * * * * *
(*1) Swine’s Flesh:
(Deuteronomy 14:7-8, Isaiah 65:3-5, 66:15-17 = Proverbs 11:21-23, Isaiah 66:3-4, Matthew 7:6, 8:30-33, Luke 15:14-16, etc.) I hope to later develop this line of thinking, but suffice it here to note that by the almost clean; cloven-hoof-but-not-cud-chewing-nature, Swine represent the Romans 1:18 men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. The Edomites of Esau (Hebrews 12:16-17) are the Type of these swine people who call themselves Jews but are not (Revelation 2:9, 3:9). Christians who continue in sin have the cloven hoof appearance of the clean animal but don’t bother to ruminate on God’s word (Psalm 119:11, Hebrews 5:14, Ezekiel 2:8b-3:3). The Swine is in the short-list category of unclean animals for this reason, but because he physically appears to be clean he is indeed the worst of the unclean (the “almost” of Hebrews 9:22), different from the others who internally chew the cud but are obviously not presenting themselves to be clean animals (Deuteronomy 14:6-8, John 5:39) though the camel puts on a good show.
By your Paganized abandonment to eat whatever you want in the freedom of grace, you have not bothered to consider the unchanging point that God intended by his law in the first place. On the contrary, while by ruminating on God’s word the righteous discovers that intent, and so finds himself free from the law and able to be inoffensive to God and man when invited to Christmas Dinner of Pork Roast or gratefully receiving a gift from under a tree (Mark 2:16, Acts 15:29+ I Corinthians 10:27-28). The point is that the righteous knows an unclean animal when he sees one, while you just think you do. In fact, he can close his eyes and smell one! Even with a cloven hoof it smells like septic.
(*2) Veneer: 1. A thin sheet of a material; specifically: a. A layer of valuable or beautiful material for overlaying an inferior one, especially such a thin leaf of wood to be glued to a cheaper wood.
(*3) Original “Where’s The Line to See Jesus?” by Becky Kelly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qowxxEFuuPg) before the message was diminished by the glory of being commercialized (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OExXItDyWEY), (i.e. made merchandise).
(*4) Asswage 7918 shakak; a primitive root; to weave (i.e. lay) a trap; figuratively, (through the idea of secreting) to allay (passions; physically, abate a flood):-- appease, assuage, make to cease, pacify, set. (Genesis 8:1).
(*5) BLASPHEMY! I am in good company (Mark 14:63-64).
Yes, I suppose I have opened a door and then refused to walk through by explaining it at this time. But this is not a random and thoughtless statement and is quite pivotal to the whole argument between Clean and Dirty grace, which I have covered extensively. Those who cling so tightly to the shrine of the cross have made a religion of that cross no different than the brass serpent (Numbers 21:8) that King Hezekiah eventually brake in pieces to end the worship of it, calling it “a thing of brass”(II Kings 18:4). Neither of these “brass serpent” or “slain body” worshipers are different than those ignorant souls who so worship the scriptures as to actually miss the Christ that they reveal (John 5:39-40). Was it a chunk of brass in the desert that gave life to the bitten, was it a dead body on a tree? Was it ink in the pages of a book, or was it the resurrected living Word of God in Power? Salvation is simply the means to a greater purpose! Stop camping on salvation! (Hebrews 6:1-3).
So if I have ended my play in the septic tank years ago, why do I still feel the importance of a daily shower? Because there is a sin not unto death (I John 5:17). Even sitting on the sofa, a guy by nature just starts to smell bad and he needs a shower. And, having stepped straight from the shower, to ensure he is not offensive to anyone, he puts on the aftershave of righteousness (Romans 5:21).
Jesus’ footwashing of his disciples explains this difference of sins as the dirt of their daily travels through this earth gets on their feet. This is effectively (but not completely) my example of sitting on the sofa watching the game. And while an unattended BO can really start smelling rank, it is not quickly the same thing as a swim in the septic tank.
“Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth (5532) not (*5b) save to wash his feet, but is (nonetheless) clean every whit (3650): and ye are clean, but not all (of you are, there are swine among you)” John 13:10.
(*5b) No Needs:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want (2637)” Psalm 23:1.
Want 2637 chacer; a primitive root; to lack; by implication, to fail, want, lessen:-- be abated, bereave, decrease, (cause to) fail, (have) lack, make lower, want.
Needeth 5532 chreia; from the base of 5530 or 5534; employment, i.e. an affair; also (by implication) occasion, demand, requirement or destitution:-- business, lack, necessary (-ity), need (-ful), use, want.
Whit 3650 holos; a primary word; “whole” or “all”, i.e. complete (in extent, amount, time or degree), especially (neuter) as noun or adverb:-- all, altogether, every whit, + throughout, whole.
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