CHRISTIAN ETHICS – The costs and the benefits

CHRISTIAN ETHICS?

The costs and the benefits.

Are we, the Church, to strive to reclaim the “high ground” God has given us as a nation and a people? If so, then we, the people who are called by His Name, must humble ourselves, pray and seek Him, and turn from our wicked ways. (see 2 Chronicles 7:14)

Even then, don’t mistake or forget these important realities:

1. It is a fact that we are exiles, living in a foreign land. (1 Peter 1:1).
2. It is a fact that our citizenship is in heaven. (Philippians 3:20).
3. It is a fact that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. (Ephesians 6:12).
4. It is a fact that we are to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel. (Philippians 1:27-30).
5. It is a fact that we are to live in a manner worthy of our calling. (Ephesians 4:1).
6. It is a fact that we are to be going, and making disciples and teaching them. (Matthew 28:16-21).
7. It is a fact that we must walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Our “high ground” is defined in these 7 realities. Our “high ground” is the Kingdom of God, and the highway leading there is the clearly marked by God’s Standards – The Laws of Christian Ethics, if you will.

At this point, I will say that you can go to any internet search engine and look up “Christian ethics” and find any number of definitions. I did, and it left me wondering why there are so many variations of the term? As a result, I prefer to go to the Bible and get the truth on this matter. I have found that this can be a daunting task! But I will do the best I can.

NOTE: The reason this is important to know and even more important to understand is that we, the Church, are being inundated and compromised with worldly views, attitudes and mindsets, and we must identify what the Bible and the Gospel says, identify how far we have drifted from our Spiritual roots and find our way back home – time is growing short and God has called us as ambassadors of Christ to lead the way home. “As the Church goes, so goes this nation and the world”.

One of the earliest examples I found of a type of “God-centered Ethos” and humankind’s violation of God’s Ethics, is in Genesis 2:15, Here it seems, God has established a rule or a law for Adam and Eve to obey:  “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, Verse 17, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Subsequently, we see in Genesis 3:1-13, that the serpent (Satan) uses deceit and lies to convince Adam and Eve to sin (what could humorously be called ‘unethical behavior’); Eve disobeys God’s instruction (a sin of disobedience and rebellion toward God (i.e., what could be called ‘unethical behavior’); Adam and Eve hide from God in shame and fear; Irresponsible blaming follows – Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent for their ‘unethical’ or sinful behavior:

Verse 6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (they, like many in our churches today, reasoned that if it feels good to me, then it must be okay, so they sinned, or, what could be called ‘unethical behavior’). Verse 7. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Verse 8. “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Verse 9. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” Verse 10. And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” Verse 11. He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you not to eat?” Verse 12. The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Verse 13. Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Theologians call this ‘The Fall’. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. (Romans 5: 12–13)

And, it is still going on to this day!

Now we see how sin (a.k.a., transgression, or, ‘unethical’ Christian behavior) entered the world and how it was imputed to all people. We can also see that sin ‘was not counted without a law’, in other words, people could not distinguish ‘sin as being sin’ without the establishment of a standard of right and wrong, that is, a standard defining what is good and what is evil, what is ethical and that which is unethical behavior – in other words, standard as “a law”.

The foregoing scripture does not mean that our ignorance of the law excuses us as being innocent when breaking the law. Quite the contrary. Sin pre-existed the law, and this simply means that without the standard of a law people were ignorantly unaware they were violating God’s law, and therefore guilty of sin and suffered its consequences.

So, God gave a law and that law, as described in Galatians 3:24, was necessary as a tutor or schoolmaster and guardian to bring us to Christ, as our means to be justified by faith, and to guard us against the devastating effects of sin.

So, in this regard, The Law is good! Very good! But an even better way, a ‘more excellent way’ was coming, and His Name is Jesus.

I would like to pause and say that if you agree with and act on what is being written here, you likely will be considered a ‘legalist’ or called a ‘fundamentalist’ by some Christians, as in a pejorative sense. But this would just be another sign of ‘my-way-or-no-way’ Christianity.

But for now, back to The Law. For simplicity (if that is even possible at this point), the Ten Commandment is the most referred to and the most concise description of The Jewish Law (The Torah) – which is the basis for our Christian Ethos. (Remember, The Torah Law was given as a tutor or schoolmaster and guardian to bring us to Christ at a future time, as our means to be justified by faith, and to guard us against the devastating effects of sin at the time it was first given.

By this, we can know it is at the very least, ‘unethical’ and harmful to people, by God’s standards, to hold to any other god than the LORD; or, to use the name of the Lord in vain, to fail to keep the Sabbath holy, to dishonor your father or your mother, to murder, to commit adultery, to steal, to lie, to covet.

But it does not end here. Moses goes on to describe the self-destructive severity of violating “God’s Law” and the extreme advantages and blessings one receives by following and obeying The Law.

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

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