A Foolish Leap in the Dark!
1 Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
Lately I must be eating the wrong things before going to bed. I have had some nightmares. Usually I don’t remember my dreams, but one I had recently I remember vividly. It had to do with someone I know trying to jump from a roof high above a cement parking lot. Why he jumped, I don’t remember, but I do remember what happened when he hit the ground. After he jumped, I kept thinking “How foolish!”
There are people in this life that are just as foolish. They are taking a leap in the dark when it comes to eternity. Apparently, Paul knew some of these people. They claimed to be people of faith, but they didn’t know the Lord. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:34 that there were some in the company that did not have the knowledge of God, he is not saying that they didn’t know all about God. He is saying that they didn’t personally know God. They were not in a relationship of trust with Him. Did they know that they were unbelievers masquerading as believers? In the first epistle to the Corinthians, I think they did. Why anyone would claim to be a Christian in that day of persecution when they knew that they did not believe in the Lord and His resurrection is something I don’t understand. But apparently, they had come into the company of the saints to corrupt them. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.’” The company we keep affects the way we think and act. The Corinthians had a lot of problems with the way they were thinking and acting and apparently unbelievers masquerading as believers among them, was one of the reasons that they were having problems.
At the end of the 2nd epistle, Paul again approaches this subject. Only now he is being very personal. The problem may not be “others.” The problem may be each of us individually. Some think Paul is just saying that if they examine themselves, they will find out that they are real and that will be the proof of the reality of Paul’s ministry. But the second verse makes me think otherwise. It says, “I have told you before, and foretell as if I were present the second time, and now being absent I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare.” Paul seems to think that there are sinners who need to be dealt with in that church. And I think he is saying that everyone should examine themselves to make sure they aren’t among those who need to be judged. Then Paul goes on to say that in spite of criticism leveled against him personally, He is real and will stand the test.
I am always reluctant to write about this problem of “false profession.” The reason being that those who are saved and have a tender conscience often began doubting the reality of their conversion, and they wonder if they have “missed something.” If a person “knows” the Lord and “knows” that the Lord died for them they are saved and will not perish. That is what the Lord says in John 3:16. Paul is writing to a class of people who are proud, self-confident and brazen about sin. And I am afraid that the ones who should be examining themselves are usually not the ones who do.
It appears that there are some people who like to call themselves Christians or “followers” of the Lord who really have no interest in the eternal aspects of the Gospel. In some cases they use “religion” to make money. In other cases they like to use religion to control people. In some cases they just like to see if they can convince those who are real to use their liberty to sin against God and against their own consciences. I think most of these people know what they are doing. We need to be careful not to associate with people whose doctrine is divisive as in the Galatian epistle and whose lives prove that they have no conscience about sin. This is the case in 1 Corinthians 5 where Christians are told to put away from them that evil person.
Once we separate from those professing Christians who are not real we need to pray for them. Apart from a real change of mind, one day they are going to jump from a roof and land on the pavement. Of course, I am speaking of taking a spiritual leap in the dark and dying without ever trusting in Christ.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of September 8, 2013