Defiant Repentance

The scene is Exodus 32.

Here's the command:

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God."

Exodus 20:3-5a 

Here's the transgression:

"So Aaron said to them, 'Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.' So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf."

Exodus 32:2-4  

Notice how deliberate Aaron is. Aaron is leading the charge! He orders the gold. He collects the gold. He carefully fashions the gold with a graving tool!

Here's the confession:

"And Moses said to Aaron, 'What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?' And Aaron said, 'Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, 'Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' So I said to them, 'Let any who have gold take it off.' So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf."

Exodus 32:21-24 

You're kidding, right? "and out came this calf"!?! It is clear throughout Exodus that although Aaron doesn't play the role to the people that Moses does, he is still an identified and established leader. In the absence of Moses, it is understood that Aaron is the default leader. That's why Moses approaches Aaron and Aaron alone when he comes down off of Mount Sinai. Aaron does a couple things:

1) In his confession, Aaron shifts the blame. He attempts to slide out from the weight of condemnation by pointing his finger at the people. They made me do it! he says. You know how stiff necked they are! You can't blame me!

 2) Aaron uses passive voice in describing active transgression. "He received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf." Aaron fashioned. Aaron made. With a tool. "And out came this calf." Now, according to Aaron, the calf fashioned itself, made itself, and emerged from the fire itself.

How often is this true of us? Even if we recognize our sin, we pad our confessions to God and to others with language that makes us feel better about it. We get just about as close as we can to our true discomfort zone--the zone that makes us squirm when we realize God's holiness and our sinfulness--and then press the eject button and float down to "safety" as we rationalize our failure through circumstance and comparison.

That's not what David did.

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my other conceive me."

Psalm 51:1-5 

No hedging. No pretending. No pointing fingers at anyone but himself. No comparing. David Unabashedly recognizes God's holiness and his inadequacy. This is defiant repentance. David defies every impulse in the human heart to slide out from the weight of condemnation. Its almost as if he's digging through the garbage can of his soul and flinging all of it at God. I think if we could watch David read James 5:16 he would explode in joy and affirmation.

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed."

YES! EXACTLY! David would say. The upside-down world of defiant repentance tells us that if we try to slip out from the inescapable anvil of condemnation like Aaron, we will feel its weight for eternity. Rather, if we call out to God like David and say, "hey, this is really heavy. Can you help me out here?" We will never feel so much as a feather of its weight because Christ bore it for us. Eternal condemnation for eternal joy. Because of Christ.

Romans 5:8. Romans 8:1.

Genuine repentance. God-granted growth. Effective sanctification. Effervescent Joy.





 

Will Not Let Us Go

George Whitefield:

"Nothing could possibly support my soul under the many agonies which oppressed me when on board, except a consideration of the freeness, eternity, and unchangeableness of God's love to me.

I need not fear the sight of sin when I have a perfect, everlasting righteousness wrought out for me by Jesus Christ....

May he enlighten me more and more to know and feel the mystery of his electing, soul-transforming love. There is nothing like it, to support us under present and all the various future trials. But the Lord has apprehended us and will not let us go. Men and devils may do their worst; our Jesus will allow nothing to pluck us out of His Almighty hands."

HT: Dane Ortlund

The Majesty of God

"Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”

Calvin, Institutes. I.I.III

Defiant Grace

"Like a bad back that needs to return repeatedly to the chiropractor for straightening out, our understanding of Jesus needs to be straightened out over and over again as our poor spiritual posture throws our perception of him out of line--domesticating him and conforming him to our image, rather than transforming us into his."

-Dane Ortlund, Defiant Grace

Galatians 2:11-16

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I id not receive it from any man, nor was I thought it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me..."


No explanation needed.

Church Planting, Heroes-->Idols

The Church Planter’s Rude, Great Awakening


Certainly guilty of this.

Your Own Making

"The depth of the wound is your own making" -Tim Keller

Whatever you are going through in life--whatever consumes your thought, soul, and deed in a negative way, is ultimately, our fault.

All external factors in this life can and will impose themselves on us, yes, in a negative way. The particular action--job loss, failure as a parent, failed class, broken relationship, unrequited love, broken or troubled marriage, general anxiety, physical illness, general disappointment, faulty finances, overworked, etc.-- may have been imposed on us in an unjust way to the point where we are the victim by any standard.

But-- to the extent that we let that event ravage our soul, to the extent that our okayness--our feeling of being justified--is linked to that particular event is our fault. 


The depth of that wound is a direct reflection of our distrust in Christ's sufficiency. Every time we are met with a form of struggle, we must filter it through the gospel. The world imposes it on us and it may be unjust, but the moment it reaches us the gospel is thoroughly sufficient to ease the anxiety of our souls.

Here's the beauty. The only thing that will ever span the chasm of our wounds are His wounds. Isaiah 53. period. Our hope is external. Our idolatry--no matter how rampant--cannot cannot cannot affect our ravishing hope that is in Christ Jesus. If it were up to us to apply that filter, we would be absolutely wrecked. Christ makes his glory and mercy so evident that he directly intercedes on our behalf. If it were up to me, I'd be screwed. Seriously. Praise be to God.

1 Peter 1:3-9 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes through it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Repenting Of Our Good Works

Repenting Of Our Good Works

Keller. Prod God. Gospel. Yes.

Not What We Do In Order To Earn Forgiveness

"The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance,  rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace."

-Brennan Manning