afterWORD 1 John 1:1-4, "backsliding"

LifeTruths Families,
What a blessing it was for me this morning, great discussion in Proverbs and 1 John.

John says it all starts with the Eternal God, and He chose to become flesh and dwell among us, to be a high priest who in all points could feel what we feel, yet without sin.  He chose to bring many brethren into the house through suffering like us. 

Therefore, John tells us there was a sound that hit his ears, that he could understand. He looked with awe, came near it, studied it, reached out with full power of his hands and held it, experienced it with power, not just an experience but life, the life of Eternity.  And God is glorified as we are satisfied with a God who desires that we visit, that we come boldly, that we put our hands in His hands and His side, a God that desires not only to visit His people but desires to be touched by His people, and we are satisfied most fully with joy when we cling to Him.

Ok, several asked me at the end of class since I didn't get back to Prov 14:14 about "backsliding" so I thought I'd put a few words in email. (yeah, right).  I'll try to be succinct. I'm open to discussion and different opinions.  Please do let me know if any of this blesses you.


Proverbs 14:14 The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways : and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.
"backslider" in English (use KJV for standardization) only appears here.  "backsliding" appears in Jeremiah 2:19, 3:6, 3:8, 3:11, 3:12, 3:14, 3:22, 5:6, 8:5, 14:7, 31:22, 49:4 and Hosea 4:16, 11:7, 14:4.  Of significant note, Hos 14 says "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him."  (gee, wonder why...maybe Isaiah 53?)

The word in Prov 14:14 is cuwg, pronounced "soog", it s a primary root word meaning to flinch. (Oh, wow!) It can literally mean to go back, retreat, or figuratively mean to apostatize.  In general it is translated "backslider" here, in other places to drive back, go back, turn back or turn away.  I wonder if we joked across a fellowship supper to another Christian saying,  "oh you apostatizer!" if they'd finish their cornbread or just pick up their tea and leave (stopping of course for a piece of cake, especially if it's on a paper plate).

Just to nail it down, that word cuwg, shows up in 14 places in the OT. Try Isaiah 42:17, "they shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods."  But it's different than not ever knowing about God, for Zeph 1:4-6 says "I will consume man and beast...and them that are turned back from the Lord and that have not sought the Lord nor inquired for Him."

A bunch of places is Psalms where it ties enemies, shame, and confounding. Like Ps 53:3  "Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."  David asks God that He not let us flinch:  Ps 80:18 says "we will not go back from Thee: quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name."  (He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life")

There is no soft word like this in the New Testament. Closest is what we're coming to in 1 John, "apostate". 

But Ps 53:3 is quoted in Romans 3:  there is none that seeks after God, no not one.  So in a sense, "backsliding" is all of us before He quickens us.  Now the closest description of the full language of Pr 14:14 applied to someone in the church is Hebrews 6.  "it is impossible to taste and turn back..."  The good seed was planted and it brought up thorns (do a search on "thorns" and see how many times the Bible speaks in this way).  Some say this means we should all be moving forward in maturity, others think it means you were a Christian and denied the faith, or you turned back.  Others say the thorns are false converts, not having ever received with joy in the first place. (parable of the guy that buried his talent, or the parable of the sewer where the seed that fell on wayside, on rocky ground, or among thorns.) These were not prepared to receive the seed with everlasting, life altering joy.  Initial excitement, maybe, but not lifetime joy like in 1 John 1:1-4.

"For that which is from the beginning...lifetime...joy..." is the formula , as He sees fit: "for you were once dead in your sins, but God hath quickened you..."

One last point, PR 14:14  the words "shall be satisfied from himself" are there for vernacular in our language. They don't exist in the transcript.  There are only 6 words in the verse:
"flinch"
"heart--feelings, intellect, will, center of being"
"filled to satisfaction"
"a trodden road or course of life"
"good (in the broadest sense)"
"man"

glad I'm not a translator.  But if you were looking at ancient writings of prose, they like to compare.  So it would make sense to me if it says

"apostates at the core of their being are satisfied with the trodden path, a good man is satisfied not by the path but in [being, doing, having, pursuing, living] good..."

Hmmm, sounds like Matt 7:13-14:  Enter by the narrow gate, for broad is the gate and wide is the path that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter in by it; but narrow is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life, and there are few that find it.

The satisfaction is not the road but the Master we walk with all the days of our life.  "And to them that believed, He said, 'if you continue in My word, then you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:28-32).

I love you folks. I pray today you find the satisfaction of your very souls to filling. Now pass the tea and let's get some cornbread and pie. no, seriously...

afterWORD Malachi 3 Depth Perception

LifeTruths family,
Sorry we didn't get to do the full survey of the minor prophets in class. There were so many amazing things we discovered this quarter, it would have been great to have recapped at least some of them.  And so many critical ties to the Old and New Testaments in these little messages, oracles, burdens.

One thing I thought would be valuable as a transition from studying the end of the Old Testament to the study of the end of the New Testament is to link you to some very interesting diagrams I mentioned in class by Clarence Larkin. He was an American Baptist preacher who studied, taught, and wrote a lot of interesting detailed descriptions, tying together various prophetic images and times tables through books like Isaiah, Daniel, Malachi, and into Revelation. 

The "mountain peaks" I so terribly drew Sunday is listed on the left side of this page:

http://clarencelarkincharts.com/

Worth a look anyway. It's interesting when you read some of the prophecy of the OT and there is little to no distinction of two comings of Christ, it's just one event, the great and terrible day of the Lord.  And in pockets where they saw something of the first coming (Ps 22, Is 53), the suffering servant, to look upon the One whom they pierced, the receiver of the full brunt of the wrath of God, they couldn't get a full grip on its meaning let alone the depth of its eternal power.  I can't, and it happened.  How could they?  Blessed are they that do not see and yet believe...

You could say they had a depth perception problem.  Of course, we have the same thing looking back. Even Pastor Ray said in his sermon on Sunday that "as far as the east is from the west...if you are traveling east, you never go west."  I wonder if that is at all tainted by the fact that we had Pythagoras, Ptolemy, and Eratosthenes and many others to convince us the world was round, but the Psalmist in writing that line knew only a flat, finite world.  Is it possible to view the NT without having to first acclimate ourselves to the knowledge that the prophets of the OT had when they received their visions?  Maybe perhaps time is not just mountain peaks but itself has horizons like a sphere, and we can only see so far in one direction, whether forward or backward, without losing perspective.

If you click in the middle of that page and see the chart on the Revelation, he tries to line up the various images of prophecy and the full spectrum of human history.  Mind boggling.

One last thing I'll mention as a close of the Minor Prophets (named that by the length of the books, not by the value or extent of their vision), and that is the tie between prophecy, the gospel, and the church.  Malachi heard clearly from the Lord that our righteousness is imputed, about being spared from wrath and remembered as His "own son who works for him" (Mal 3:16-18).  He spoke of the need of an intercessor and revealing His own arm of salvation. He talked of a book of remembrance of those who feared the Lord.  He spoke of giving His people spiritual discernment of those who serve and those who don't, what is of God and what is not of God. These things captured in a mere 3 verses in Malachi will take all of the letters of John, Jude, and Revelation to unpack.

Very exciting! My email signature from Jonathan Edwards captures it in one line what just took me a whole blog to say:
"Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected."