“for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
1 Peter 1:24-25 ESV
What we see in this world isn’t the ultimate reality. God is ultimate and His word is eternal. Think about this for a moment.
Let’s stop obsessing for a moment over the moments.
Let’s consider the fact of facts that His word is life and that if for a moment, a single fraction of a second, He let go, our universe would tumble dreadfully into utter destruction.
This is an important thing to understand – more so that we’re first inclined to think. That all flesh is like grass, passing away, withering and falling, while the Lord’s word abides forever is the core of the Creator-creature distinction. In other words, no part of God’s creation should ever be confused with God Himself. To that end we avoid all the great conundrums of historical/secular philosophy. Metaphysics and epistemology are lost, utterly and comprehensively, when we reject, replace, reduce or sidestep the Creator-creature distinction. It’s not just the realization that we’re all going to die someday, but also the realization of the deeper truths this yields.
George Berkeley, the philosopher and bishop (1685-1753), is known as a subjective-empiricist. His theory of knowledge was that man couldn’t truly know anything except his own mind. Like other rationalists and empiricists, Berkeley fell prey to the underestimation of the Creator-creature distinction. In doing so, his epistemic theory (on the nature and origin of knowledge) became hopelessly man centered rather than God centered. Thus it is with all non-Christian (born again) epistemologies.
It is the realization that we’ve been saved from sin and death that frees us from living in the futility of the “secular” philosophy. What is that futility exactly? It’s the belief, no matter how varied, nor diverse, that God isn’t the origin and goal of all life’s endeavors. Skepticism and nihilism are the rule of the land that seeks its own glory and ideological truth. Workaholics and self-glory seekers (self-soteriology) are the result of men forgetting/suppressing the rule of God’s eternal and man’s derivative natures.
Okay…I know this can all sound rather abstract, so let’s narrow it down.
Peter’s theme, which is hammered home in the first chapter of his letter, is that what’s been done for us in Christ hasn’t merely changed our eternal destination. More and more we’re to set our minds upon and seize the great truths of the Spirit! No longer must we walk in the futility of the secular nonsense of the old philosophy, with its contradictory premises. On the contrary, now we’re encouraged to evaluate all things according to the principles of the Spirit of life that’s alive within us. Peter is saying that we should and must live in gratitude and the reality of our salvation. We are a royal priesthood, totally dedicated to the reality that God’s glory is all and everything and in Him we find ourselves. And our happiness.
You see, it’s common to seek our purpose and, therefore, fulfillment, in what we do rather than in the love of God. Find a single verse of Scripture that commands, suggests, or even hints that a man or woman’s life is measured by their success…that is, worldly success! You won’t find that anywhere. Let’s get that straight. In the chapters to come Peter is going to set forth a group of principles of living that will underwhelm us if we aren’t first established in the correct premise of the Creator-creature distinction. To “be saved” but unchanged in one’s principles of thought is to be deluded. Much Christian pain of life is due to our abject refusal to take hold of the manner of thought that is ours in Christ – to set our minds on the things of the Spirit.
Living after the flesh is still possible even for the saved Christian! It’s a horrible tragedy, yes, but very much a common one. Donald Grey Barnhouse speaks about this subject in his commentary on Romans. He says that the Christian may still walk in the flesh and, therefore, bring death upon himself, along with a host of other miseries.
“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!””
Romans 8:5-8, 12-15 ESV
Barnhouse explains that this passage isn’t, in fact, speaking of unsaved persons. Why change subjects so abruptly, he asks? Why go from Romans seven and the struggle against sin to talking about unsaved people? There is no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus, Paul wrote in the first verse of chapter eight. That’s undeniably true and a core tenet of salvation by faith alone. But there’s a mystery at work just as there is in all things with God (Romans 11:33-36), lest we become boastful. The mystery is that our sanctification, powered by the Spirit insofar as we set our minds on God over against the principles from which we’ve been delivered. Christians can incur the punishment of illness and even death for living in a manner unworthy of the holiness into which we’re saved. Consider:
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”
1 Corinthians 11:27-32 ESV
To partake of the Lord’s supper while holding a planned sin in one’s heart is in mind here. We’re called to be holy, just as He is holy. The man or woman who forgets that God is God and that He’s holy can easily slip into a manner of life in which he/she walks in the principles of the flesh. God will then set up a series of stop signs warning the Christian to turn back. Pastors will preach sermons that are ignored. Christian counsel – maybe from friends or family – will be avoided. The fleshly mind will barrel through the stop sings, run the Spirit’s red lights, and even swerve through blocked intersections until – as with the above verse – the Lord has mercy by punishing the sin. Sometimes, if we persist in deliberate and destructive sin, our correction will be severe.
The principle of the flesh will be rooted out only by the mind that’s set on the Spirit and approaches the chapters to come with the utmost humility. The mind that’s set on the flesh forgets that it is like the grass. It seeks self-glory and pleasure over against that of the Lord’s. It tries to write its own story upon the pages of history, forgetting that He is Lord and to obey Him is the goal of all history.
In the passages to come, Peter, his pen powered and directed by the Holy Spirit, will provide us with the contextual particulars of living our lives in the Spirit, not the flesh. Let us pray that we’ll listen.
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