I was greatly blessed at our men’s study Tuesday night. The fellowship was encouraging and humbling; the questions were sharp and perceptive; and the discussion was edifying. I look forward to next month!

During the discussion that night, the question of “high-handed sin” came up. After some exploration of the topic, I promised to look into it further. I had not prepared anything on that particular topic, and though I remembered looking at the question in the past, I thought it would be best for all of us if there was a little more study put into the question: under the Law of Moses, was atonement possible for premeditated (“high-handed”) sins?

Numbers 15:29-31 says: “You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.”

So there are two categories of sin spoken of here. There is the “unintentional sin.” The context of these verses, Numbers 15:22-31, gives a summary of sacrificial procedure to atone for sin – but only for unintentional sin. This is further underlined in Leviticus, where the qualification “unintentionally” is applied to: 1) all four levels of the sin offering (Lev. 4:2, 13, 22, 27, and also 5:1-13 where the statement “it was hidden from him” refers to unwitting sin); 2) the guilt offering (Lev. 5:14, 18).

Bottom line is that the guilt and sin offerings are specifically for unintentional sins. The text repeats this so often that it cannot be ignored.

The other category of sin spoken of in Numbers 15 is that of “high-handed” sin. What does that mean? Interestingly, we could define this idea in two different ways, and each gives a different answer.

The first way we might define it is by looking at those sins which are excluded from those qualified as “unintentional.” The easy answer is that, therefore, a high-handed sin is anything intentional or premeditated. That is the classic answer. However, there is a problem with this way of defining the answer, and that is found in Leviticus 6:1-7.

In this passage, which is a continuation of the instructions for the guilt offering (which started in Lev. 5:14), a list of sins are described. What they have in common are three things. First, unlike the sins described immediately previously in 5:14-19, which deal with sins against the Lord’s holy things and specific violations of his commands, all the sins in 6:1-7 have to do with sins against others. Second, these sins are all property offences. Third, these are all sins that appear to be intentional and premeditated –despite the fact that the section they belong to, Lev. 5:14-6-7, begins with the qualifier “unintentionally.”

How can this be? How can an intentional sin be “unintentional”?

But I said there was another way to define the meaning of the term “high-handed.” And as it turns out, it solves the problem of the first at the same time!

In Numbers 15:30 and 31 God specifies the true nature of a “high-handed sin.” It “reviles the LORD” (30) and “despises the word of the LORD” (31). So this suggests that it’s more than simply deliberate and premeditated, though it is that. It is, in fact, a conscious, willing, and rebellious act of defiance before God. These are the sins for which there is no atonement.

That leaves us with the problem in Leviticus 6:1-7. We seem to have a “grey area” between sins that are unintentional and sins that are flagrant and rebellious acts of defiance. Leviticus 6 seems to describe sins that were not unintentional – they were deliberate. But there’s a difference from the flagrant and rebellious sins, and it’s seen in Leviticus 6:4. It reads, “If he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took…”

It’s been pointed out that another summary of the law found in Numbers, chapter 5:5-7, deals with this idea of restoration and restitution as well. But this text adds a crucial difference: “Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the Lord, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed.”

Both texts have the idea of restoration in mind: the sinner, having come to a conviction of his sin, is willing to restore, with interest, what has been taken. And Numbers adds the idea of confession – the person must confess their sin before atonement can take place. But even Leviticus has a glimmer of that idea when in 6:4-5 he is described as “realizing his guilt” and then acting to reverse the situation – a tacit and implied confession in Leviticus, one made explicit and verbal in Numbers.

So it seems that a deliberate and intentional sin may, by God’s design and mercy, be “counted” in the same way as an unintentional sin and covered with a guilt offering if and only if confession and restitution takes place. Or, in other words, God will move the person’s sin from the “high-handed” to the “unintentional” category if he demonstrates genuine repentance, and so make atonement possible.

The scholars I looked at in studying this question left the issue there – they saw this as a very attractive and sensible way to solve the question of whether atonement for high-handed sin is possible. Basically, it’s not the deliberate sinner who is high-handed, but the unrepentant sinner, they say. And that fits very well with Hebrews. I like it too; I think it resolves most of the question.

But not all. And what's unresolved is what we'll look at next time.

Until 2007, there was a website called “Little Geneva,” run by a charming fellow by the name of Harry Seabrook. The website advocated various ideas and teachings such as “Kinism,” which is defined (on a Kinist website) as follows:

Kinism is the belief that the God-ordained social order for man is tribal and ethnic rather than imperial and universal. Mankind was designed by its Creator and Law Giver to live and to thrive in extended family groups, and all other “alternatives” to this pattern are inhibitory of the chief end of man, which is to Glorify God and to enjoy life with Him forever.

What do they mean by that? This:

[We] believe that our White peoples have an inalienable, that is God-given, right and duty to seek their own prosperity and existence as distinct nations, apart from all other genetic and ethnic families. 

The Kinists, and Little Geneva, and Harry Seabrook, are white supremacists masquerading as Christians. They condemn marriages between people of different races; they advocate anti-Semitism; and they pervert the Word of God to promote the very opposite of what the Second Great Commandment intends.

Now this site came in for a great deal of criticism, and eventually Seabrook yanked the site. However, it was soon back in a different form, called “Spirit Water Blood.” A quick look through Google shows that this site is featured positively on white supremacist web forums (take my word for it; don’t look yourself, it’s no fun at all).

Another such tale is that of Westboro Baptist Church. This “church,” an "independent Baptist church," is led by a man named Fred Phelps and composed mostly of his extended family. The group has gained notoriety in recent years for everything from picketing military funerals and their vicious tirades against homosexuality to boycotting Swedish vacuum cleaners (because of a Swedish prosecution of a Christian pastor for preaching against homosexuality).

While the Bible certainly teaches that homosexuality is abhorrent to God, this group takes opposition to it to an entirely different level. A church member is on record as saying their mission is to “spread God’s hate.” And they have added anti-Semitism to their list of distinctives, picketing the National Holocaust Museum, calling it a “monument to Jewish mendacity and greed” and saying “Jews are the real Nazis.”

What do these two reprehensible organizations have in common? Not only do they profess to be Christian, but both of these groups claim to hold to the five points of Calvinism and a Calvinistic soteriology.

Now I would be the first to declare that these groups are not Christian in any genuine sense of the term, and that their doctrines are not truly Calvinistic or Reformed in any theologically consistent or historically faithful sense. But I have no reason to doubt that these people are truly convinced that, say, God elects certain people to salvation, or that our final destiny has been predetermined in eternity past by God.

And so we need to draw a vital lesson from these two examples for ourselves: the Five Points are not enough.

Those who first discover the doctrines of grace are often so enthused about this incredible perspective on life and existence that they are tempted to think that all the church needs is a recovery of Reformed distinctives. If they would only see the truth of election and predestination, and forsake the idea of free will and human autonomy, all will be well. I know I thought this way when God first opened my eyes to the beauty of Reformed theology. And it’s immature; I’d like you all to avoid this.

These examples are an (extreme) demonstration that this attitude is naïve at best. Properly understood, Reformed theology should guard against such extremes – the method of interpretation required to arrive at the doctrines of grace will also, if consistently practiced, reject such perversions as anti-Semitism and a church mission to spread God’s “hate.” But no Christian is perfect, and none of us have yet arrived at a point where we are totally theologically consistent. Indwelling sin means that our minds are still struggling with distortion and darkness, and so there is no guarantee that a straightforward adoption of Calvinism will automatically and easily result in a sound overall theology and ethic.

Furthermore, this attitude, that the Five Points are all we need, actually ignores their own teaching on regeneration. One must be born again before he can truly believe. Yet these examples demonstrate that even the unregenerate can in a sense understand and even proclaim the doctrines of grace. In this sense, we need to remember that it isn’t the bare proclamation of predestination that the Spirit uses to regenerate, any more than the bare proclamation of the Ten Commandments or the bare proclamation that God made the world and everything in it. Rather, it is the proclamation of the Gospel that saves and changes lives.

That’s why the Gospel is at the heart of what we do at our church. You probably won’t hear the Five Points from the pulpit every Sunday; you may not even hear an explicit reference to the sovereignty of God (though it’s always there, even just implicitly). But you will hear about the sinfulness of man and the sufficiency of Christ constantly, in our preaching, teaching, and singing.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son… (John 3:16a)

John 3:16 may just be the most well-known verse in all of Scripture. It contains a precious promise: God gave his one and only son so that “all the ones believing” (literal translation) would not perish but have everlasting life.

Unfortunately, this passage, like any other, also tends to be used to justify questionable theological agendas. One outstanding example I’ve heard a lot is those preachers who deny the sovereignty of God in election and predestination. Such preachers often appeal to John3:16 – “you see, God SOOOOOOO loved the world!” Part of this passage’s vulnerability to such actions comes from the fact that the way it is translated in most modern English Bibles is based upon its traditional translation in the 1611 King James Version. The problem lies in the fact that the English language has evolved in the four hundred years since then, but modern translations have been skittish about changing a translation that is so firmly established in the popular mind.

The issue is the meaning of the word translated “so” in most English translations. Modern English-speaking Christians are tempted to read the verse in the following sense: “God loved the world so much, that…” (In fact, that’s exactly how the New Living Translation puts it). Our own language leans us this way; modern English tends to use the word “so” in that way (“I am SO over that,” or “He SO wants to get that job”).

Is that what the passage means? I don’t think so, for three reasons:

1.         The Greek word rendered “so” in most translations, houtos, is most commonly found in the New Testament with the sense of “thus” or “in this manner.” While it can carry a sense of degree (“so much”), this is not nearly as common. So the meaning of the term cannot simply be assumed; in fact, the burden of proof lies on those who want to translate it as “so much.” We have to determine its meaning from the immediate context.

2.         The immediate context of John 3:16 has a focus on God’s actions (the mechanics and manner of salvation). God sends the Son in order that believers are saved. John 3:14 refers to the manner in which God healed the Israelites in the wilderness – by a serpent on a pole. In John 3:14-15 Jesus draws a comparison between that instrument and the Son’s being lifted up, with the result that believers attain eternal life. A summary of this section might read: “In the same manner that the serpent was lifted up for the salvation of Israel, the Son shall be lifted up in like manner for the salvation of believers. For this is the way God loves the world – he sends his only Son….” The emphasis throughout the passage is on how God’s actions bring salvation, and so the love spoken of in 3:16 is a love that must be interpreted in light of the thrust of the context.

3.         An interesting parallel is found in 1 John 4:11. Here, the same author (John) is speaking on the same topic (God’s love for human beings) using virtually the same words (not just houtos, but also the same word and form for “loved” in combination with “God.” In the immediate context of this verse, John is clearly discussing the manner or form of God’s love as being God’s sending the Son into the world. Verse 9: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world.” He then points out not the extent of God’s love but its fact and expression. Verse 10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” So when John says in verse 11, “If God SO loved us,” it’s hard to argue against the context and say John is talking about the degree or intensity of love. And if John is talking about the manner of God’s love in 1 John 4, using the same language and the same examples, it’s much better to say that in John 3:16 Jesus is talking about the manner of God’s love for the world.

So what about John 3:16, then? A more accurate sense would be, “For this is how God loved the world,” as a footnote in the English Standard Version points out. The Holman Christian Standard Bible renders the phrase this way: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son…”  (Another translation I found that renders it properly is the NET Bible: “For this is the way God loved the world”). In other words, John 3:16 is not trying to tell us how much God loves the world (contra the NLT, the Contemporary English Version, and the Message), but in what way He loves the world.

Once we understand this difference, we realize that God’s actions are not simply the effects or results of His love. They are, in fact, expressions of that love itself. We are shown that God’s love for us, far from being a mere feeling or inclination, is an active love. God’s love is deeds, not just words or feelings.

Think about that! Love, while it is certainly an emotion, is so much more than that! This view of love has far-reaching implications for Christian living. When Jesus commands us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself,” how do we do that? Elsewhere, he gives an answer: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). So one way we love God is through obedience. This is one reason why so-called “no-lordship salvation” (which denies that it is necessary to accept Jesus as Lord and repent of sin for salvation) is heresy – it essentially declares that it is unnecessary to love the Lord.

This extends to every area of life. How does a husband love his wife? The same way Christ loved the church – by “giving himself up for her.” How does a wife love her husband? By obeying God’s command to “be subject to your husband.” How do we love our neighbor? By doing what the Samaritan did – tending to their needs, including their most urgent need: sharing the Good News of salvation in Christ.

We see that God’s gift of Christ to the world was more than just a reflection or expression of love – this gift is love itself, love made real and concrete. It’s not enough to love sentimentally.

Hollywood is wrong: love is not a simplistic, shallow, fluttery, exciting feeling in the heart. Love is expressed through concrete action. Let us love like God loves, with deeds as well as feelings.

Some of you may know that the Latter-Day Saints are building a temple here in Calgary. This is actually quite an important event, both for the Mormon community and in its implications for Christians. Why? Understanding the importance requires a quick overview of Mormon doctrines and seeing how they relate to temples.

Christians do not build “temples,” because the body of Christ is itself a temple to the Lord (Ephesians 2:19-21, 2 Corinthians 6:16). This itself points to the fact that Christ himself is a “temple” (John 2:19-21) fulfilling the temple motif that runs through the Old Testament, pointing to his own ministry as bringing the presence of God himself to dwell among the covenant people. Furthermore, in biblical theology a temple was where sacrifices for sin took place, but since one sufficient atoning sacrifice has now been offered for all time (Hebrews 9 & 10), we have no need for a physical and earthly temple. Bottom line, to build a real temple to the Lord (we’re not talking about simply naming a meeting-place or church building, say, “Glenmore Temple,” but building and consecrating an actual, liturgical, ritual temple in the Old Testament or even pagan sense of the term) would be, in essence, a denial of the sufficiency and uniqueness of Christ.

But such a denial actually is the very essence of Mormonism. Mormonism is a polytheistic religion that believes in the existence of innumerable gods. As such, its claim to be a “Christian” sect falls flat; Christianity is uncompromisingly monotheistic, as the Bible teaches there is only one God.

Fundamental to Mormon polytheism is their “Doctrine of Eternal Progression.” What this means is that all of the gods were once themselves human beings, and that every human male can, through obedience and the performance of specific rituals, attain to “godhood.” It is eternal in that this line of man/gods goes back to eternity. Therefore, the Mormon “gods” are not unchangeable, eternal, self-existent beings. This doctrine is fraught with biblical and logical problems, but lies at the heart of most of their theology.

This is where the Mormon temple comes in. We need to understand that an LDS temple is different from the meeting-houses (“stake” or “ward” centres) that are found across our city. The LDS community meets regularly at the meeting-houses for worship, but the Temples are reserved for special rituals. There are three important rituals that require a Temple:

Endowment ceremonies, which are considered necessary to advance along the path of eternal progression. These ceremonies are highly secretive (it’s offensive to Mormons to ask about it), and in them the Mormon in good standing is given a new name and symbolic gestures and passwords, as well as “temple garments” that Mormons are expected to wear day and night for the rest of their lives. These endowments are prerequisites for celestial marriages, service as missionaries, and other things.

Celestial marriage. In the Mormon scheme, marriage is eternal and is considered a requirement for exaltation to the highest level of the afterlife (godhood). These marriages can only take place in a temple with Mormons in good standing in attendance.

Baptism for the dead. Mormons are famous for their genealogical research, and this is because in Mormon theology, a Mormon relative of a dead person (even a distant relative) may secure for the deceased the opportunity to be admitted to paradise. These dead people are “preached to” by Mormon missionaries in the “spirit-prison” of the afterlife that unbelievers are sentenced to, and if the dead person responds to this preaching, and has had a living relative baptized on their behalf, they can go to paradise after all.

Temples are ornate and extraordinarily expensive structures. Having a temple built in a community is a sign or recognition of the strength and influence of the Mormon community in that region – or, an expression of intent on the part of the LDS church to increase its influence in the area. Either way, the temple will serve as a liturgical and ritual centre to Mormon life in the region.

Calgary’s temple is a testament to the size and strength of the local LDS community. It is also a reminder of the depth and urgency of our evangelistic and apologetic task.

It’s important to realize that this building is no mere meeting place, much less a Christian church. Opportunities will likely arise in the coming months to explain to unbelievers, Mormons and non-Mormons, why this is no Christian temple and why the Gospel we preach is radically different from theirs. Let’s not waste this opportunity.