- There are different levels of fellowship; as we
actually know from our own experience. There are some we are 'in
fellowship' with whom we don't feel so close to as others. John says
that he wanted to declare to them the depths of the understanding of
Christ, " that ye also may have fellowship with us" (1 Jn. 1:3), even
though they were already technically 'in fellowship'. And so it is with
our communal life. A close binding together in the depths and heights
of the Lord Jesus leads to ever higher experiences of fellowship. It
may be that there are even different levels of fellowship between men
and God. Thus God’s original intention was that His presence in
the Angel should go up to Canaan in the midst of Israel; but because of
their weakness, He went in front of them, somewhat separate from them
(Ex. 33:2,3). Likewise the glory of God progressively distanced itself
from the temple and people of God in Ezekiel’s time.
- The Lord's comment that "If thy brother shall
trespass against thee" (Mt. 18:15) then one could take the matter to
the church was immediately picked up by Peter when he asked: "Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven
times?" (Mt. 18:21). The Lord's reply was that Peter should forgive his
brother to an unlimited extent, each and every day. It seems to me that
the Lord was saying that the 'one-two-out' attitude which He had just
described was very much the lower level of response; He wished His
followers to take the higher level, of unconditional forgiveness.
Indeed, the whole passage where He speaks about going to see your
brother and then telling the church is wedged in between His teachings
about grace and forgiveness. It's so out of place that one wonders
whether He wasn't saying it very tongue in cheek, perhaps in ironic
allusion to the synagogue discipline methods. At the very least, He
seems to intend the contrast between His surrounding words and those
about 'one-two-out' to sink in, to the point that we realize, as He
told Peter, that there is indeed a higher way.
- There are degrees of sin. Paul seems to reason that
sexual sin involving the body of God’s creation is especially
culpable. Num. 32:14 speaks of ‘augmenting yet the fierce anger
of the Lord’ by premeditated sin, as if there is a scale of
offence to God.
- There will be different degrees of reward in the
Kingdom. Are these not a reflection of the different levels which men
have served God on in this life? One star will shine brighter than
another; one will rule over five cities, another over two. There is
entry into the Kingdom, and an ‘abundant’ entry (2 Pet.
1:11).
- It seems that the record is prepared to accept that
some achieved a valid faith in Jesus, even though they didn’t
confess Him (Jn. 12:42). And yet there are abundant reasons for
understanding that unless we witness to our faith, it isn’t a
faith that’s worth much. And yet the record still accounts these
who didn’t testify as they ought to have done as
‘believers’. This is a comfort for us in those times when
we know we chose a far lower level than we should have done, and simply
kept quiet about the wondrous hope within us.
- It would have been no sin for Ezra to ask for an
armed guard to escort him back to Judah from Babylon. But he chose not
to, because he wanted to show the power of God’s saving arm to
the Gentile world through which he would pass, as well as to the
Babylonians (Ezra 8:22). In other words, the concept of living on
different levels inspires spiritual ambition, of which we have written
elsewhere in these studies.
- There are many links between 1 Thess. 4,5 and Mat.
24,25. The wise virgins slumbered and were sleeping at the time of the
Lord’s return. Paul matches this by saying that the unworthy
will be slumbering and we ought to be awake and watching at the time of
the Lord’s return. And yet, the parable teaches that those
slumbering wise girls will be accepted. This is a glaring paradox
within the Lord’s own teaching- for had He not taught that the
faithful servants will be awake and watching when their Lord returns?
Yet the paradox is there to flag a major message- that even though the
last generation of believers may well not be ready and watching as they
should be, their humble recognition of the very likelihood of their oil
running out would be their saving grace. And within 1 Thess. 5:6-10
this same paradox is brought out: “Therefore let us not sleep, as
do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep
sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the
night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the
breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of
salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain
salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake
[s.w. watch] or sleep, we should live together with
him”. The same Greek words are italicized. The contrast is
between those who watch and those who sleep. And yet Christ died to
save both those who watch / are awake, and those who sleep, as the
‘wise’ virgins slept when they ought not to have done. Both
those who watch and those who sleep [after the humble pattern of the
wise virgins] will be saved due to the fact that Christ died to save
sinners, to save the sleepy as well as the more lively- if they are
truly and humbly in Him. Likewise the Lord’s parables generally
include two types- the self-righteous rejected, and the accepted, who
have something spiritually the matter with them. They either enter the
Kingdom with splinters in their spiritual vision / perception, or are
totally blinded by planks in their vision and will be rejected.
- The Lord seemed to accept that men would live His
Truth on different levels. He told the people concerning John: " If ye
will receive it, this is Elias" (Mt. 11:14). It's as if He wasn't sure
whether they could rise up to the level of realizing that Malachi's
prophecy had a primary fulfilment in John, notwithstanding its
evidently future application. And John records that some Jews believed,
although they didn’t confess Jesus as Lord openly (Jn. 12:42). It
took the crisis of the cross to bring them up to a higher level.
- The Jews could have taken the spoil of those whom
they killed at Purim. But they didn’t, thereby chosing a higher
level (Esther 8:11; 9:10).
- When "the children of Joseph" complained that they
didn't have enough territory, Joshua could've told them to go and drive
out Canaanites and take their territory- this was clearly God's ideal
intention. Instead, Joshua said they could go to some virgin forest and
cut down trees to provide more territory for themselves (Josh. 17:15).
- The structure of the law of Moses seemed to almost
encourage this idea of serving God on different levels. After much
study of it, the Rabbis concluded that there was within it “a
distinction between holy and holy just as much as there is between holy
and profane”. Take the uncleanness laws. They basically said:
'Don't touch an unclean animal. If you do, there's a penalty. If you
carry the carcass, there's a more serious penalty. And if you carry the
carcass home and eat it, there's something more serious (Lev. 11). The
highest ideal was not to touch the unclean thing. But there were
concessions to weakness for those who either couldn't or wouldn't make
the effort to attain the highest level of response to the will of God.
Another example of different levels of service is in the legislation
about Levites. They could choose to go and serve at Jerusalem, and
therefore sell their possession of land which they had in the local
area (Dt. 18:6-8). By doing this, a number of principles were broken,
in order that the highest level- serving Yahweh in the temple- might be
achieved.
- God told Israel that He wanted altars made of earth;
but He knew they would want to make altars of stone like the other
nations, and He made allowance for this (Ex. 20:24,25). The Law has
several examples of this living on different levels. " Ye shall let
nothing of (the Passover) remain until the morning; and that which
remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire" (Ex. 12:10)
is an evident example. God foresaw their disobedience to His stated
principle, and made a concession and provision. Or take the Law’s
ruling about tithes: “...neither shall he change it: and if he
change it...” (Lev. 27:33).
- When the Lord Jesus gave His commandments as an
elaboration of Moses' Law, that Law was still in force. He didn't say
'When I'm dead, this is how you should behave...'. He was showing us a
higher level; but in the interim period until the Law was taken out of
the way, He was opening up the choice of taking that higher
level, even though making use of the concessions which Moses offered
would not have been a sin during that period. Thus He spoke of not
insisting on " an eye for an eye" ; even though in certain cases the
Law did allow for this. He was saying: 'You can keep Moses' Law, and
take an eye for an eye. But there is a higher level: to simply
forgive'.
- Likewise Paul taught his hopeless Corinthians that
they ought not to be taking each other to court in the world, but
rather should get brethren to settle disputes between brethren. But
then he offers the higher level: don’t even do this, but
“rather take wrong...rather suffer yourselves to be
defrauded” (1 Cor. 6:7).
- The Lord's teaching about judging does not in fact
say that the act of condemning our brother is in itself a sin- it's
simply that we must cast out the beam from our own eye first, and then
we can judge our brother by pointing out to him the splinter in his
eye. But the Lord tells us not to judge because He foresaw that we
would never completely throw out the beam from our own eye. His command
not to judge / condemn at all was therefore in this sense a
concession to our inevitable weakness (Mt. 7:1-5).
- The Lord Jesus could’ve called upon legions of
Angels to help Him; but He chose not to (Mt. 26:53); He could have
taken power there and then in His ministry and declared Himself King-
but He walked off to the hills instead (Jn. 6:15). In these examples we
see what we could call a renunciation of power. Time and again we are
called upon to decide whether we will renounce what power we have, or
use it or abuse it for our own selfish ends. A parent faces this issue
so often with a young child. The parent has more power; but how and for
what reasons should she / he use that power? We can use
‘power’ in many ways in the trivia of daily life; but
actually in most of those micro level decisions we are challenged with
a choice as to what level of spirituality and unselfishness we are
going to show.
- God had prophesied that He would restore Jerusalem
at the time of the return from Babylon, and would be " unto her a wall
of fire round about" (Zech. 2:5). Therefore Nehemiah's rebuilding of a
physical wall for defence can be seen as taking a lower level of faith,
living on a lower level; and yet God worked with him in this, putting
the idea into his heart and strengthening him in the work (Neh.
2:12,18,20).
- We are presented with the possibility of being "
slow to wrath" , being angry, and yet not sinning. However, these
passages are both in the context of warnings against the wrath of man
(James 1:19-21; Eph. 5:26). Surely the point is, that 'righteous anger'
is not in itself wrong (witness the Lord's anger in the temple); but
whilst this is allowable for us, the more sensible level for us frailer
men is not to be angry at all.
- According to 1 Chron. 21:5, there were 1,100,000
“men that drew sword” in Israel. According to 2 Sam. 24:9,
there were 800,000 “valiant men” in Israel, according to
the same census. There is no contradiction- rather the Samuel record is
perceiving that there was a higher level of commitment, as. There were
the enthusiasts, and those who merely could draw a sword. They were all
living on different levels.
- " Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against
the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself" (Lev. 19:18). But they could avenge, and provisions
were made for their human desire to do so (Num. 35:12; Dt. 19:6). These
provisions must also be seen as a modification of the command not to
murder. The highest level was not to avenge; but for the
harshness of men's hearts, a concession was made in some cases,
and on God's prerogative. We have no right to
assume that prerogative.
- It was forbidden by the Law to keep a man’s
outer garment overnight (Ex. 22:26,27). But the Lord taught whilst
the law was still in operation that we should be willing to give
it up, and even offer it (Mt. 5:40). The threatened man could have
quoted the Law and kept his clothing. But the Lord bids us go to a
higher level, beyond using God’s law to uphold our own rights.
And in this He raises a vital if difficult principle: Don’t
always enforce what Biblical rights you have against your brother.
Don’t rush to your own defence and justification even if
Scripture is on your side. Live on the level of true love and
non-resistance to evil.
- We get the impression that God was very strict about
the offerings. He was. But He made concession to the man who couldn't
bring what he ought to: " If he be poor, and cannot get much...two
young pigeons, such as he is able to get" (Lev. 14:22). If
they were blemished in some way, and even though they were not the
animal God desired, God would accept such as the man was able to get.
Likewise the offerings had to involve the shedding of blood; but God
was prepared to accept a food offering if a man really couldn't get an
animal. The eagerness of God to accept what a man can do
rather than the insistence on legal principles really comes over. He
recognized the Israelites would be living on different levels. Such an
eagerness involved accepting a lower standard of adherence to God's
ideal principles. In harmony with this, the Passover ‘lamb’
could be either a sheep, or if necessary, a goat (Ex. 12:5), even
though the use of a goat would somewhat spoil the foreshadowing of
Christ.
- In the face of sin amongst His people, there are
levels of God's withdrawal of His presence. The way the glory
progressively departed from the temple as recounted in Ezekiel is a
graphic illustration of this. Under the Law, Aaron initially could come
at will within the Most Holy. But after the blasphemy of his sons,
apparently for being drunk on duty, he was only allowed to come once
per year, and only after an elaborate ritual emphasizing human
sinfulness (Lev. 16:2 ff.). Likewise it seems that God's original
intention was that the Angel of the presence should travel in the midst
of Israel in the wilderness. But after the golden calf apostasy, God
announced that He was still with Israel, but His Angel would " go
before thee...for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a
stiff-necked people: lest I consume thee in the way" (Ex. 33:2,3).
- The slayer of innocent blood was to be slain without
pity: " thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel,
that it may go well with thee" (Dt. 19:13). But David seems to have
stepped up to a higher level when he told the woman of Tekoah that he
would protect her son from revenge murder, after he had slain another
man (2 Sam. 14:8-10). The woman pointed out that if her son was slain,
the inheritance would be lost in her husband's name. Here was a case
where two principles seemed to be at variance: the need to slay the
guilty, and the need to preserve the inheritance. The higher level was
to forgive the slayer of innocent blood, even though the Law
categorically stated that he should be slain.
- Elisha with the eye of faith knew that the mountain
was full of invisible Angels, ministering for him as he did God's will.
But his servant didn't have such faith. And therefore " Elisha prayed,
and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the
Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw" the Angels. But
Elisha didn't ask this for himself. He could have done. But he chose
the higher level. The Lord in His final agony did this time and again
(see Study 7.11).
- There are several examples in the NT of where Paul
could have taken a certain course of action, or insisted on acceptance
of a certain doctrinal position, knowing that Truth was on his side.
But he didn't. Thus the council of Jerusalem established that Gentiles
didn't need to be circumcised, but straight afterwards Paul circumcised
Timothy in Lystra out of consideration to the feelings of the Jewish
believers (Acts 16:1-3). He could have stood on his rights, and on the
clear spiritual principles involved. But he stepped down to the lower
level of other believers (e.g. by keeping some of the redundant Jewish
feasts), he made himself all things to all men that he might try to
save some, and by so doing stepped up to the higher level in his
own spirituality.
- God wanted to speak directly with Israel at Sinai;
and yet they urged Moses personally to go and hear what God wished to
say, and tell them about it: "Go thou [you singular] near and
hear" (Dt. 5:23,27). Moses urged them not to fear, and told them that
this was all a test from God for them (Ex. 20:20). But they didn't rise
to it. Yet God accepted this lower level, so did He wish to communicate
with them. And He used Moses as a mediator through whom He spoke His
word to His people.
- Paul could have taken wages from the Corinthians for
his service. But on that occasion he chose “not to use to the
full my right in the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:18 RV); and he uses the
same word in 1 Cor. 7:31, in teaching that although we have to
‘use this world’ we are to ‘use it to the full’
(RVmg.). As God operates with us on different levels, accepting
non-ideal situations, so we are to deal with each other. Paul could
have used his power in the Gospel more sharply than he actually did
with the Corinthians (2 Cor. 13:10)- and note how he earlier uses those
two words "power" and "use" in saying that he could have demanded
financial support from them, but he chose not to use that power /
authority which he had (1 Cor. 9:12).
God works like this because He is prepared to accept
that different people will make something different of His Truth. The
parable of the sower shows that; the " good ground" brings forth 30, 60
or 100 fold. Some believers respond three times as actively to the
Gospel as others; yet they will all be accepted at the end. I see a
connection between this parable and Christ's words to the rich,
righteous young man: '" If thou wilt be perfect..." sell what
you've got; and then you'll receive 100 fold in this life,
and eternal life in the Kingdom' (Mt. 19:12,21). Presumably, that man
at that time was (say) in the 30 or 60 fold category. Christ wanted him
in the 100 fold category. But if that man didn't sell all that he had,
it doesn't necessarily mean that Christ would have rejected him
ultimately. In this context, He says: " Many that are first (in this
life) will be last (least- in the Kingdom); and the last shall be
first" (Mt. 19:30). Those who don't sell all that they have will be in
the Kingdom, but least in it. The poor of his world, rich in faith,
will be great in the Kingdom (James 2:5). We need to ask ourselves
whether we really accept the parable of the sower; whether we are
strong enough to let another brother be weak, to accept that even if
he's in the 30 fold category, he's still acceptable to his Lord, just
living on a different level. Indeed, it isn't for us to go very deeply
at all into how exactly Christ sees others; because we can't know. The
point to note is that God wants us to rise up the levels of commitment.
Paul was persuaded that the Romans were “full of goodness, filled
with all knowledge”, but he prayed they would be filled yet
further (Rom. 15:13,14).
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