Faith and Allegiance (6) Effective

Why does the blood of Jesus work for us? Why is someone else’s blood effective for me?

The New Testament says that God reckons it as meeting his requirements (Rom 4:24). But it does not explain why God was able to credit Jesus righteousness and death to us.

The answer is that we belong to Jesus. We are his property. When we give allegiance to a king, we becomes his property. The king can direct his subjects to do whatever he chooses. The king can take his subject’s property, because it belongs to him. He can send someone who has pledged allegiance to him to die in battle. The subject’s life belongs to the king. His life is not his own.

People who have given allegiance to Jesus belong to him. As his subjects, we are entitled to everything that he gives to us. Because we are his property, we are part of him, so his righteousness applies to us. When he died, his subjects died with him, because they are part of him.

Jesus blood is our blood, if we belong to him.

Giving intellectual assent to the truth of the gospel is not really enough, although it is important. It does not make us Jesus’ possession. Likewise, believing that Jesus died is probably not enough, because it does not make us his subject.

We have to give him allegiance. By agreeing that his is my king and I am his subject, I make myself his property. Allegiance makes his blood my blood, because I am committing to dying with him for him.

Faith and Allegiance (5) Sin

Sin means “falling short”… The Greek word for sin is “harmartia”. It means missing the mark. The Hebrew word is “chata”. It means “falling short” or “missing a goal”.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they were not committing idolatry, as many claim. It was not doing bad things, the more popular understanding of sin. Rather, they broke their allegiance to God. He had created them, so he deserved their loyalty. Up until then, they were on God’s side. They had been with him all the way.

By listening to the serpent, they were choosing to be free agents. They would give casual allegiance to the one who offered the best deal. Unfortunately, in a spiritual world, it is impossible to be a free agent. By making a decision to withdraw their allegiance to God, they submitted themselves to the Satan.

If sin is withdrawing allegiance from God, then falling short or missing a goal is a good way to describe it. Adam and Eve did not go all the way with God. They fell short, by withdrawing their allegiance to God and listening to the serpent.

Therefore, when God offers to restore us back to the position we lost, switching allegiance is the appropriate thing to do. Just believing that Jesus died and rose again is not enough (although it is important). Humans withdrew from allegiance to God, so they need to switch allegiance back to God to regain what they lost.

Faith and Allegiance (4) Switching

Matthew Bates has a long discussion about the link between continued allegiance and good works. Good works is expressed allegiance.

I think that there should have been more emphasis on the act of giving allegiance. We become a Christian by switching our allegiance from the world to Jesus. We are actually switching from unwitting allegiance to the spiritual powers of evil to allegiance to Jesus.

A switch in allegiance is a pivotal moment with permanent consequences. Once Simon the Zealot switched his allegiance from his zealot group to Jesus, he could not go back. If he had tried, they would have perceived him to be a spy and tried to kill him.

If a soldier in Saul’s army went to live with David in the Cave of Adullum and switched allegiance he could not go back. If he tried to meet with his old friends in Saul’s army, they would kill him because he was a traitor. If he were a senior officer, they would have tried to kill him anyway, because he would know too much.

Switching allegiance is a life and death issue.

When give allegiance to Jesus, we are withdrawing our allegiance to the spiritual powers of evil. They are not happy.

Faith and Allegiance (2)

The Greek word translated faith is “pistis”. The related verb is “pisteuo”. It is often translated as “believe”. In his book called Salvation by Allegiance Alone, Matthew Bates explains that the word “pistis” is much broader than faith, although it sometimes does mean faith. He explains that the pistis has three dimensions.

• intellectual agreement
• proffessed fealty
• enacted loyalty.

Bates says that intellectual agreement with the gospel is not enough. God expects allegiance to Jesus.

I would put it this way. The Greek word for faith included the following elements.

• Intellectual assent to the truth of the gospel
  Jesus is the son of God.
  He died on the cross,
  rose from the dead
  and ascended into the spiritual realms.
  He is now seated at the right hand of the father,
  far above all spiritual authority.
  The person choosing to follow Jesus must believe these facts about Jesus are true. This is belief.

• Trust in the reliability of God
  We decide to trust God
  He can be trusted to do what he says he will do.
  He is good, so he will do good things.
  He has the power to do what he says he will do.

• Transferring allegiance to Jesus
  We are saved by giving our full allegiance to Jesus.
  We renounce all other loyalties,
  to the world and to the spiritual powers of evil.
  We give ourselves to be be subjects of Jesus.

We can give allegiance by declaring, “Jesus is Lord” or “Jesus is King”. This is a bit problematic, because the words “Lord” and “King” do not have much content in the modern world. We also declare our allegiance by baptism. That is why baptism is so important for getting free from the spiritual powers of evil. A person being baptised is renouncing any loyalty to them. They are declaring to them that they now fully belong to Jesus.

Faith and Allegiance (1)

When I wrote a summary of the gospel last year I used the word allegiance to describe our relationship with Jesus. Here is the good news in in my words.

Good News
God has installed a new government. Jesus came to earth and lived a good and generous life. He amazed the people with his wisdom and healed broken lives, but he was killed by the political and religious leaders. However, God raised him from the dead and gave him a place of supreme authority in the spiritual world.

Jesus new government is different from any government that we have known. Human government have always exercised authority imposed from top down with police and military power. This makes them vulnerable to the spiritual power of evil, who picked off the people on the top and then manipulate them to wreak havoc on earth. This is why human governments have been so disastrous, and so many have been evil.

The government of God is based on love, not power, so all authority will be freely submitted freely from below to those the people love and trust. This leaves no room for the powers of evil to work, because Jesus death on the cross set those who trust him free from their power.

Challenge
God’s new government has come. He is calling people all over the world to shift their allegiance to Jesus, and become part of his new government that his emerging on earth.

My Response
Jesus has done a lot for me, so I have chosen to follow him and do his will by following the voice of his Holy Spirit.

So I was intrigued to see that Mathew Bates has just released a book called Salvation by Allegiance Alone. I have just finished reading this book.

I like Bates’ approach to allegiance and faith. It reflects my experience in choosing to be a follower of Jesus many years ago. I was not buying a ticket to heaven. I was switching my allegiance to a new leader. I chose to give allegiance to Jesus because I trusted what he had done and the wisdom of his Spirit.

A switch in allegiance is a pivotal moment with permanent consequences.

However, allegiance is tricky concept in the modern American world, where the predominant allegiance is to flag and the political system. Not many want to switch their allegiance from that to Jesus. Most want to serve both masters, so split allegiance becomes weak. More on this in the next few posts.

Unrighteous Wealth (7) Allegiance

The shrewd manger was making a shift in allegiance from the rich man to the people who owed him money. This represents the shift in loyalty we make when we become a Christian. The shrewd manager understood that a person shifting allegiance must make a total break.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other (Luke 16:13).

Many Christians fail to do this. They hang onto some of the things that were important to them in their old life. This divided loyalty is dangerous.

We are ambivalent about the shrewd manager, because we think that he was dishonest to change the values of the debts owed to his master, but we do not understand the situation.

The shrewd manager knew that most of the wealth of the rich man was “unrighteous wealth”. It was stolen from other people, through various tricky activities by him and his parents. Therefore, the shrewd manager was not robbing the rich man of his wealth.

The wealth he took from him had been stolen from someone else. The shrewd manager had worked for the rich man, so he knew how he had gained his wealth. He was not stealing from the rich man, because the wealth of the rich man was unrighteous wealth. He was making restitution on his behalf. As the agent of the rich man, he was doing what the Torah required.

The shrewd manager had given his allegiance to the wrong person. He seemed to be in a good place, but when he least expected it, the rich man turned against him for no reason. That is the way it is for those who give allegiance to the devil. Life seems good for a start, but when they are vulnerable, the devil attacks ruthlessly and tries to destroy them. They need to shift allegiance as soon as they can. Changing allegiance means getting rid of everything linked to the old life, including unrighteous wealth.