I wonder what they were thinking as Paul warned them that there were two species of wolves. Those wolves that would come from outside the flock to destroy them (like Paul had been before he met the risen Jesus), and the other wolves that would come from within in order to draw a following of their own (see most of the New Testament Epistles).

I am sure that if the Ephesians were like most elders in the church today they would have been shocked to hear of wolves coming from within the flock—wolfish sheep. Typically people in our churches (leaders or not) believe wolfish behavior is a danger from outside of the church. It is easier to assume that this predator, who is totally other, will come from a foreign place to destroy the faith with strange and foreign “gospels.”

While the outside-wolf is dangerous and has been present throughout the story of the church, the most consistent and dangerous threat to the church is from wolfish sheep. The church consistently produces heretics who bend the words of the Gospel. Often their goals are not to destroy the flock, but to “twist things” that they may gain a following.

The danger of these wolfish sheep is the subtlety of their message. Just a twist here or an addition there, and they can absolutely destroy the whole council of God. Yet these deformities are so small the counterfeit is overlooked and it is appealing, which often leads to a mass following.

What do I mean? Well just as there’s little belief that a wolf can come from within, it’s also assumed, “If there’s any false teaching going around in the church
(broadly speaking), it can’t be in my tradition.” We assume our tradition is free from these “twisted gospels.” But I’d say if it could happen with the Apostles (Galatians 2:11-14) and the early church, then it can surely happen even to the most biblically devoted of churches.

Why is this? Well, I would point to our sinful flesh. We, by nature, posses a gravitational pull that leads us away from the Gospel. We falsely believe that we are autonomous beings created to be responsible choosers. So therefore any teaching that puts the burden on our back, especially in the sense of becoming godly and meriting reward, will draw us quickly toward it. It’s natural, it makes sense, and therefore many traditions are marred by the subtle twists and worldly passions that appeal to our flesh.

Before I say more let me offer a biblical example of these wolfish sheep. Judaizers, or the circumcision party, were a major problem for the early church. This heresy that Paul addresses repeatedly in his letters (Galatians, Romans, Titus, Colossians, just to name a few) taught that keeping the whole Law had a central role in the life of the believer. That is, they believed we are justified by faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus, but for our justification to be complete, we are made righteous or sanctified by our individual effort to obey the Law. This was a gospel twist that Paul insisted must be “rebuked sharply” (Titus 1:13) because it doesn’t correspond to the Gospel revealed in Christ and received by the Spirit. Rather, the addition of the Law to the Christian life is to follow the “elemental spirits of the world” (Col. 2:20ff), to “deny God” (Titus 1:16), to be bewitched (Gal. 3:1), and to sever yourself from Christ (Gal 5:4).

In other words, to look to our own effort by following ascetic rules or regulations of “do not handle, do not touch” are indulgences of the flesh and remove you from Christ. Paul said in Titus 1:10-16, that the people who would teach these things are “insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers”, who are “defiled and unbelieving”, and therefore in desperate need of correction. Consequently, anyone who teaches that keeping the Law is a means to being sanctified not only destroys the Law and the Gospel, but also must be silenced for the protection of the church and for the salvation of their very souls.

Calvin said it better in his Institutes, “Attention to one’s own righteousness also nullifies the promises.” See, if faith is “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promises in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit,” then anything directing us away from this is disbelief.

Here is where it gets serious. How often to you think that you have to make yourself right for God to like you? How often to you think that you can make yourself more spiritual by some discipline, listening to a sermon, or reading your Bible? We have a wolfish heart that tells us that we must do something to make God love us more or for us to become better people. This is no different that the Judiazers that Paul chastises throughout Galatians.

We truly can’t do anything apart from God! It’s not that we are empowered to keep the Law by God. Rather, Christ purchased the very life and good for us on the cross that we might have the promised Spirit (Gal. 3:10-14). If anything draws us away from complete dependency on the Spirit, from walking by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, and having the Spirit produce fruit in us, then it’s another message and it’s not from heaven.

Life in Christ continues just how it started, looking to Christ for life through the Spirit, by faith. Directing our gaze, building our righteousness, or easing our anxieties by keeping any rule or Law, instead of living by faith in God’s promise that we have life in Christ, is not the Gospel.   Paul states it so much better:

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.   I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Gal 2:19-20)

May we follow the true teacher, and not the wolfish desires of our flesh, nor even the non-gospels often taught in our churches.

The post Wolfish Sheep first appeared on Cor Deo.

So what am I getting at?

I love history, and am an American living in England, so I often catch myself thinking how idealistic it would have been to live several hundred years ago. But when one of my children gets sick and I rush them to the hospital in my car, I quickly drop all sense that living in the 17th century would be something I would enjoy.   I have no idea how many times my children’s lives have been saved because the quality of life I take for granted.

The great blessings of modern medicine and living standards have created the strange reality that we are rarely reminded of our mortality. We waste time with our amusement, live with no sense of urgency (at least for eternal things), and forget that every moment matters because we think we’ll live forever. Maybe, at the very least, we assume we’ll make it to our 80s, therefore we have time to waste.

This, I believe, has great consequences for those of us who call ourselves Christians. Unlike Paul in Philippians 1:23-24, we don’t have the desire to leave this life and be with Christ.   We don’t actually look forward to death. Yes, we don’t look forward to death.

Now, it may seem strange to say this, but let’s try to look at it from a different angle. My wife and I have come to find out that 10 days or so is about as long as we can handle being apart from each other. Just a couple days away and we are looking forward to seeing each other and begin to prepare for our reunion as a family. It’s not a duty or an obligation to prepare, we just delight in one another, and it’s natural to miss the other.

Shouldn’t we be like this with Christ, our Bridegroom? Do we delight in Christ so much that we can’t wait for his return, so we get ready for him? Or, because we know to be with Christ is best, we desire to go be with him? We all know it would be strange for a “devoted spouse” not to yearn for their other-half to return or to go be with them. Yet, so often we live as though either Christ isn’t going to return, or we don’t look forward to the passage that brings us to Christ–death.

Please hear me, I’m not advocating that we don’t live healthy lives or somehow force death upon ourselves. Rather, I want us to see that we can look forward to heaven because Christ is heaven. We can look forward to the next life and live for the next life because Christ is the next life.   Looking forward to death is like looking forward to the end of a long business trip and returning home to reunite with your spouse.

For our brothers and sisters who lived 400 years ago, they needed to hear this as well but for other reasons. Facing death, plague, and famine on a regular basis could only make one to think of the time where there would be health, happiness, and no tears. The hope of health and happiness could very well become an idol. That heaven could only be the escape of difficulty. Richard Sibbes said it beautifully in a sermon called Christ is Best:

“Why does [Paul] not say I desire to be in heaven? Because heaven is not heaven without Christ. It is better to be in any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself without him.   All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet. Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnness. What is all without Christ? I say the joys of heaven are not the joys of heaven with out Christ; he is the very heaven of heaven.”

We don’t look forward to heaven because maybe our comfort, security, and amusement has lulled us into believing we can have “heaven” now. We don’t look forward to death, or we hold tightly to this life, because we don’t delight in the “very heaven of heaven.”

Maybe it would be best to leave you with the same thoughts that the heavenly Dr. Richard Sibbes left with his listeners:

“Therefore, if we desire to end our days in joy and comfort, let us lay the foundation of a comfortable death now speedily. To die well is not a thing of that light moment as some imagine; it is no easy matter. But to die well is a matter of every day . . . To die well is the action of the whole life. He never dies well for the most part that dies not daily, as Paul said of himself, ‘I die daily,’ I Cor. 15:31; he labored to loose his heart from the world and die daily, how easy will it be to die at last! He that thinks of the vanity of the world, and of death, and of being with Christ forever, and is dying daily, it will be easy for him to end his days with comfort. “

May we desire for God to set our hearts on having the best here and now, the very heaven of heaven, Jesus our Husband.

The post Looking Forward to Death first appeared on Cor Deo.