Some Christians naively assume that love requires us to maintain personal relationships with all sorts of people without any kind of discrimination. It is often pointed out that Jesus was “a friend of sinners” who spent time building relationships with the tax collectors and prostitutes.

While this is undoubtedly true of the Lord Jesus, it is often conveniently omitted that Jesus was seeking to call such people to repentance (Luke 5:32). Nevertheless, the idea prevails that Christian love demands indiscriminate relationships with all kinds of sinners.

I want to submit to you that this is a completely unbiblical idea.

The Bible unequivocally teaches us to avoid certain kinds of people. For starters, take the situation of an excommunicated church member in 1 Corinthians 5. We are told “not to associate” with such a person (1 Cor. 5:9, 11). The avoidance called for in these verses includes not even eating with such a person (1 Cor. 5:11). This would surely be denounced as unloving by many in the church today and contrary to the spirit of Jesus. Attempts would be made to explain away the force of the words. But there really is no way to discount the plain teaching of Scripture in this regard. We are commanded by the Lord: do not associate with the professing Christian who stubbornly refuses to repent of sin.

Another example can be found in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 which speaks about the wickedness that abounds in the last days.

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

This description of ungodly times sounds all too familiar. And notice how Paul tells us to relate to these kinds of people. He says, “Avoid such people” (2 Tim. 3:5). Notice that there is nothing here to indicate that he is referring to excommunicated persons which was the case in 1 Corinthians 5. Here he is speaking in general about people who are wholly given over to wickedness. We need to remember that total depravity does not mean that every single human on the planet is equally depraved. There are degrees of sin, and there are degrees of being given over to sin. We need wisdom therefore to discern the kinds of people we must avoid.

We are given one primary reason for avoiding such people. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.” Spending time with ungodly people shapes our thoughts, beliefs, actions, and general character. Personal relationships are highly influential on one’s life. Bad friendships and associations can be cancer to the soul. This was the general reason to avoid wicked people in the Old Testament. The Psalter opens with these words:

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”

Here there is a clear summons to avoid ungodly company. How foolish it is to appeal to the example of Jesus to overturn this clear scriptural teaching! Jesus is the blessed man par excellence. Our Lord affirms and upholds the wisdom of separation from ungodly society.

The book of Proverbs is full of warnings about entertaining relationships with those who would corrupt our character. Consider the example of Proverbs 22:24: “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man.” It is supremely unwise to think that we can befriend every man. While we should seek to do good to all men and should not harbor bitter feelings toward any person, we are not called to maintain personal relationships with those who are destroying themselves and are likely to bring us down with them.

We also have exhortations to disassociate with false teachers and those who bring division into the church. When Paul wrote to the Romans, he said,

“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them” (Rom. 16:17).

And when writing to Titus, he said,

“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (Titus 3:10).

There is an interesting account from church history that illustrates this point. Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna and was a disciple of the Apostle John. He relates the following story about how the beloved apostle interacted when he encountered a false teacher:

“John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerenthus within, rushed out of the bathhouse without bathing, exclaiming, ‘Let us fly, lest even the bathhouse fall down, because Cerenthus, the enemy of the truth is, within.’”

We may object to John making a scene, but his attempt to flee from a false teacher is in keeping with the spirit of the biblical theology of avoidance. It does not reveal a lack of love or harsh bigotry.

Our personal relationships call for great wisdom. We should not be guilted into thinking that we are bound to maintain relationships with all sorts of people. There are people to be avoided like the plague. This is not unloving or contrary to the spirit of Christianity. In fact, holiness demands it! What is unreasonable, unwise, and unbiblical is to teach Christians that they should associate with ungodly people because it is the loving thing to do. The Holy Spirit says,

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:6-7).

 

There is a disturbing political trend emerging among some evangelicals in 2020: support for a Biden/Harris ticket. For one of several examples, Tremper Longman III, a former professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, has recently encouraged Christians to vote Biden/Harris in 2020.

Without question, the 2020 Democratic Platform is passionately pro-abortion. The DNC platform states, “We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion” (pg. 32).

The Democrats are so zealously committed to the pro-abortion cause that they speak about it as a matter of “justice” and favor the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which seeks to prevent federal funding (read: your taxpayer dollars) for abortions. Surprisingly, Biden originally supported the Hyde Amendment before the radical leftists convinced him to change his mind—yet another example of how our culture is not merely drifting left but is being driven left, as Al Mohler recently observed in his excellent book, The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church.

Dislike for Trump appears to be the primary reason for these evangelicals to be losing their minds—and possibly their souls. To be fair, as certain as it is that the Democratic Party has become the Pro-Abortion Party, it’s equally certain that President Trump has an unflattering history of indiscretions. So let me be clear. To maintain, as I do, that Christians shouldn’t vote for pro-abortion candidates isn’t an endorsement of Trump’s character, though I do believe we live in the unfortunate reality of a two-party system, and Christians must consider the most good they can do with their vote. Nevertheless, nothing will change the fact that followers of Christ cannot in good conscience cast a vote for a political platform in direct opposition to God’s moral law. Have we lost our minds?

God’s commandment is clear: “You shall not murder.”

Westminster Assembly’s exposition of the sixth commandment accurately summarizes our duty: “The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreations; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness, peaceable, mild, and courteous speeches and behavior, forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiring good for evil, comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.”

If you cast a vote for Biden/Harris in 2020, you are supporting their promotion of “safe and legal abortions.” That’s a fact. And that’s a fact completely inconsistent with the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Should any of these things really even need to be said?

Voting for this pro-abortion platform means that you are voting for a lie. Abortions are not “safe.” They are not safe for the women who have them. The psychological damage of murdering your baby is overwhelming. Nor are abortions safe for the little children who have their brains sucked out and are dismembered in the womb. And that’s not to mention the precious babies that survive botched abortions who some Democrats refuse to protect. Consider the Democratic opposition the Born-Alive Abortion Survivor Protection Act. Your hands are full of blood!

This also means you are voting for an unjust law. Isaiah says, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression” (Isaiah 10:1). The DNC platform’s invocation of the word “justice” with regards to a woman’s right to choose (complete the sentence) to murder her baby is downright sickening. “I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands” (Psalm 119:158). Of course, when you reject God and His Word, you can twist language to suit your agenda because there is no longer any restraint on your God-forsaken heart and mouth other than your own seared conscience.

Instead of asking, Should Christians vote for pro-abortion candidates? perhaps we should be asking, Are Christians who vote for pro-abortion candidates even…Christians? “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15).

I’m well aware that many Christians—and certainly many wishy-washy evangelicals—will say that pastors should stay out of politics. “This is an indifferent matter where good Christians disagree.” Honestly, such a perspective is truly astounding given the state of things in our country today.

This isn’t a political issue. It’s an issue of basic Christian morality. God’s true children are opposed to murdering babies. If you support murdering babies, then you are an evil person. If you support a leader who wants to protect the act of murdering babies, you are joining hands with the wicked to do evil. Your disdain for Trump doesn’t justify a vote for the most pro-abortion ticket in the history of this country. If you simply cannot vote for Trump in good conscience, I respect that. Vote for a third party, but, I beg you: don’t cast your vote for those who favor the shedding of innocent blood. It simply isn’t a Christian option.

“Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” –Romans 12:11

Apathy is a deadly spiritual disease. It gradually weakens zeal for God’s glory until there is nothing left but mush. What’s worse, the disease is highly contagious. When it begins in an individual saint, it soon spreads throughout the entire community, weakening the spiritual vitality of God’s elect people. Apathy steals away all concern about ultimate reality. The apathetic person couldn’t care less about what really matters. Eternity is far from his mind.

We must shun all false remedies for the plague! Enthusiasm devoid of doctrine is a false cure. Worked-up emotionalism is of no spiritual and eternal value. Fanaticism is simply the vice on the other extreme of apathy. Zeal without knowledge is a poor substitute for a heart aglow with the Spirit. The true cure for apathy is godly zeal, a needed virtue in today’s church but a rare gem to find.

Is anything more incongruous with Spirit-filled Christianity than apathy? May the Lord deliver us from this malady! Apathetic souls are unmoved by the present crisis, unconvinced of their own sin, unstirred by sound preaching, unimpressed with Christ’s glory, uninterested in God’s Word, and uncaring about lost souls.

An apathetic soul is a dead man walking. As such he is a contradiction in terms. Although having the reputation of being alive, he is dead. It takes a true miracle to reverse the spread of apathy once it has taken root in a congregation. Only the Holy Spirit of God can rouse sleeping saints!

Therefore we must pray for the Holy Spirit and be on guard against all spiritual declension in our lives. Preachers must be willing to blow the trumpet in Zion! They must sound the alarm to the apathetic. Only the most piercing truth will have the desired effect. Without fervent prayer and powerful preaching the church will become a graveyard, and generations to come will wonder why more dramatic measures were not taken to stop the spread of Satan’s lethal pandemic.

Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is a well-known source of wisdom for those in the world of business. Although the book is mostly self-help and pop psychology, many of the principles are gems from the realm of God’s common grace, truth accessible to believers and unbelievers alike. One of the book’s lessons has always gripped me: Begin with the end in mind. This means that highly effective people are goal-oriented. They know what they want to accomplish, and they tailor everything in life to achieve that goal. Well, this is certainly a biblical concept. We are called by God to live our lives with a teleological mindset. Since God created the world for His glory, life has a goal, an end. Students of the Westminster Shorter Catechism know the goal well. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” When it comes to the doctrine of salvation, glorification is the ultimate goal of God’s saving work in our lives. It should astound us that God saved us so that we might be glorified.

            Glorification is the final link in the golden chain of redemption. “And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified” (Romans 8:30). God saves His people, effectively bringing all His elect from grace to glory. In context, this glorification is to be fully conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29). Jesus Christ fully reveals the glory of God as the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), and He is the pattern into which God will weave the tapestry of our lives. All other saving benefits (election, calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification) are aimed at this goal: the glorification of the redeemed sinner. This is where God is taking us.

            When Jesus looked into heaven as our great High Priest and prayed for all His people, he said, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that You have given me because You loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). How we need to grasp the sublime joy of Christ’s prayer for us! The Father and Son enjoyed a loving fellowship in eternity past. God the Son beheld the glory of His Father in perfect beatific vision. There wasn’t the slightest break in the integrity of that divine fellowship. And yet Jesus prays that we might share in that glorious fellowship and vision. Glorification entails being with Jesus where He was before the foundation of the world. It means that we share in the fellowship of the Trinity, basking in the glory of the great salvation Christ won for us at the cross.

            Again, this glorification is the goal of Christ’s saving work. “But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that He, for Whom and by Whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering “ (Hebrews 2:9-10). If we ask, “Why did Jesus come from heaven to earth, become a little lower than angels, and suffer on the cross?” The answer is ready: “to bring many sons to glory.”

            Like election, calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, and sanctification, glorification is the result of the free grace of God. When we arrive in heaven and are “saved to sin no more,” we will praise God for His grace to all eternity. Not one beam of our glorified state with shine from man’s merit. It is a reflected glory. God is like the sun, and we are moons. All the glory comes from Him and goes to Him. Our glorification is not the result of man’s cooperation. If it was, man would have grounds for boasting. However, we shall be glorified by free grace “so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 2:7). It will take an eternity of ages to exhaust the inexhaustible grace of God! “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’ve first begun.” When Jesus returns and our glorification is complete, it shall only be on account of the fact that He comes with grace. This is why we are told to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at His Second Coming (1 Peter 1:13).

            Glorification comes in two stages. Taking our cue from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, we understand that we receive certain benefits at death and others at the resurrection.

“What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection” (Shorter Catechism, Q. 37).

The first stage of our glorification is the glorification of our soul immediately upon death. When the believer dies, he instantaneously passes to the realm of the “spirit of the righteous made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23). Sanctification is now complete. Sin is gone. Holiness has ripened into perfection. We must stress the fact that this happens immediately upon death. There is no layover in purgatory. Jesus told the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Elsewhere Paul makes it clear that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6, 8). The Scriptures tell us very little about this intermediate state (the state of the soul after death but before the resurrection). However, we can be sure that it is “far better” (Philippians 1:23) because we are with Christ.

Years ago my wife and I went to visit her brother and his family in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. While we were there, I insisted that we take a trip to Princeton Cemetery in Princeton, New Jersey. I wanted to see Jonathan Edwards’ grave. Well, not far from where I found Edwards’ grave was the resting place of Charles Hodge (1797-1878), the great Calvinistic theologian of old Princeton. And the inscription on his tombstone: “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

But the benefits of glorification are not complete at death. There is more. . .

“What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity” (Shorter Catechism 38).

God’s saving work in our lives is holistic. God redeems us body and soul. Although the Fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery, God’s grace restores nature. Salvation is re-creation; God makes all things new (Revelation 21:5). This means that the perfection of soul that happens immediately upon death doesn’t bring the work of salvation to an end. God desires to restore our bodies and vindicate our persons at our public acquittal at the Day of Judgment. This is when “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 12:43).

The glorification of soul happens immediately at death; the glorification of our bodies happens at the return of Christ and general resurrection. “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17). This passage makes clear that when Jesus returns, He will raise the dead. Those believers who are alive when He returns will be instantaneously changed. This change is described as occurring “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:52). Here the perishable puts on imperishable and the mortal, immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53).

The nature of this resurrection body is the subject of large chunk of 1 Corinthians 15 and is a topic large enough to be covered in a separate study. Suffice it to say, though, that this resurrection body is a real physical body. Paul does indeed refer to it as a “spiritual body” in 1 Corinthians 15:44, but Paul doesn’t use the word “spiritual” to mean non-physical. Instead, it means permeated by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our resurrection bodies will be free from sin and all the effects of sin. Our resurrection bodies will be incapable of sin, sickness, disease, aches, pains, and death.

In terms of glorification, we will be part of the show when Christ reveals His glory on the last day. “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). Our glorification is not inherent. At the same time, we shall share in the glory of Christ by way of reflection. We shall appear glorious only in Him. Like all the other saving benefits, our glorification is through our union and communion with the Lord Jesus. The Apostle of love tells us that “when He appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). The Second Coming in conjunction with the Beatific Vision instantaneously transforms all the elect of God. And this hope of glorification is an incentive to holy living for John continues: “And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). We should daily live, then, with an awareness of our blessed future. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself (Philippians 3:20-21).

            Since glorification is God’s work, it’s a sure work. The power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself is the same power that He will utilize to save us completely from sin and sin’s effects. He shall not fail to bring us from grace to glory. “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Let us never forget that God began the work, and God shall complete the work. He finishes all His projects. He never fails to accomplish any of His purposes. And this is greatest of all God’s purposes. It is, to borrow a line from Jonathan Edwards, “the end for which God created the world.” This is goal of the entire created universe. It is why the whole creation is groaning for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:19, 22). God is seeking to glorify Himself by saving a people for Himself, and He shall bring that people from grace to glory. SDG