SHOW HIM YOUR HANDS
Like millions of other believers I'm big on doctrine! I'm
big on truth. Arthur Holmes is right: all truth is God's truth and it
doesn't matter if it's truth about biology, botany, celestial mechanics
or the brain capacity of a salamander. Like millions of other believers I
hold that the truth of and about God as it has come to its climax and
fulfillment in the person and work of the Lord Jesus is what gives all
the others truths their place and worth. So I'm for "getting it right"
and that calls for commitment to and study of the biblical witness which
is not about itself but about God who superintended the
production of the Bible. It's a complex business—Bible study I mean—and
that means we need wise men and women, gifted by God, to help us. It's
important that we get the non-negotiables right. It was right in the
middle of a doctrinal presentation that Paul said, "Bad companions
corrupt good morals." So there's a fundamental need to get a correct if
not exhaustive grasp of the non-negotiables that are the indispensables
of the Story of God. I get that! I see that! But I see this also—our
commitment to Jesus-like behavior is part of the calling to which God
calls people who will make up his NT elect who will by their very
existence, doctrine and adoring of that doctrine bear witness to God and
his eternal purpose for and love of the human family.
I mentioned this in a little book called Jesus: Hero of Thy Soul. Mary
was barely more than a child when the parents split, the father
vanished and the mother died. She was left to raise her brothers and
sisters. When she should have been making daisy chains she was washing
clothes, when she should have been pushing a swing she was scrubbing
floors, when she was making food she should have been served food. She
slept too little, ate too little, worried too much and died exhausted
and guilt-ridden. Dear God, she was just a child. She was afraid to meet
God because she was sure she hadn't done enough to please him and
didn; to know what she'd say to him when the time came to meet him. Can
you credit that?
One of her little brothers who sat stroking her trembling hands said to her, "You could show him your hands."
I don't know what that boy's theology was or what it became but he
was on the right track with some aspects of the God and Father of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I can't abide a religion that dismisses all this with
immediate warnings about "salvation by works". Bless me, who doesn't
know that salvation is by the holy generosity of God as it was/is
expressed in Jesus?
Listen to Mary's little brother and hear the voice of Jesus in it and think of Acts 10:38-39