No. 49, June 2001

 

WHAT DOES ABEL’S BLOOD SAY?

 

            . . . the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel – Heb. 12:24

 

            Even though the writer of Hebrews makes scores of references to the Old Covenant scriptures and characters, this reference to the blood of Abel is curious. In drawing a dramatic contrast between the old Mosaic system and the New Covenant in Christ, the writer tells the Jewish believers that they have not come to Mt. Sinai but to Mt. Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

 

            They have not come to the terrifying sights that not only frightened the people who gathered before the smoking, trembling mountain, but even Moses himself. They have rather come to a festive gathering of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn ones whose names are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.

 

            All this, while profound, is understandable enough, but he concludes these contrasts with an obscure reference: “and (you have come) to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.” Or as the New Jerusalem Bible puts it: “to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel’s.”

 

            The “blood of sprinkling” is clearly the purifying blood of Christ, and the writer says this blood speaks better – or more insistently – than Abel’s blood. Here we have the oddity of blood speaking or bearing witness.

 

            The story of Cain murdering his brother Abel in Gen. 4 does indeed have Abel’s blood speaking. Once Cain lures his brother into the field and kills him, God brings Cain to judgment with the haunting question, “Where is Abel your brother?” That is when Cain shows criminal indifference: “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

 

            God did not expect Cain to be his brother’s keeper, but to be his brother’s brother. They were the world’s first brothers. Their mother Eve exulted that she had produced life. The boys played together in the environs of the Garden of Eden, only to grow up to be the first murderer and the first to be murdered. That the first person born into this world grew up to despise and kill his own brother says something about the human race.

 

            God’s riveting words must have deeply pierced Cain’s heart: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Abel’s blood speaks or pleads insistently – but for what? The writer of Hebrews sees a dramatic contrast between what Abel’s blood said and Jesus’s blood. If Abel’s blood called for vengeance and retribution, Christ’s blood called for mercy and forgiveness.

 

            It is a sober lesson in brotherhood. We can “kill” with cruel indifference and neglect, with icy rejection and the party spirit. Paul’s questions in Ro. 14: 10 are akin to what God asked Cain: “Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother?” And John uses even stronger language: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 Jn. 3:15).

 

            The writer of Hebrews is telling us that in coming to Christ we hear a new voice for brotherhood. We are not to be of that spirit that “lures a brother into the field” to be written up in some war bulletin or to be called all sorts of unlovely names. Or to put the worst possible interpretation on what he says or does.

 

            If Abel’s blood speaks of spite, jealousy, hate, and competition, Christ’s blood speaks of love, forbearance, compassion, and understanding. It speaks of that “love that is never glad when others go wrong, love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient,” as Moffatt renders 1 Cor 13:6-7.

 

            But the Cain/Abel story says even more. Cain deserved and expected quick retribution. He realized that he deserved to die. But God showed him mercy. When God expelled him to be a fugitive and a vagabond, Cain saw this as the death penalty –”Anyone who finds me will kill me.”

 

            God put a protective mark on Cain – “Whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” Cain lived on, took a wife, reared a family, and founded a city. Grace!

 

             (It is just as well for us not to bother about all those people that might have killed Cain, one of which he married. They were not supposed to be around! Tight logic is not necessarily a tool for biblical interpretation.)

 

            God doesn’t always behave like we think God should. Grace for a murderer, even of his own brother? And to give him a fruitful future? Abel’s blood called for vengeance. but God showed mercy.

 

            This may be what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Abel’s blood speaks of God’s grace, even extravagant grace. But Christ’s blood speaks better still, for it points to the Cross. which quietly proclaims, This is how God loves! – Leroy

 

 

 

THE TRUTH THAT SETS US FREE

 

            It is impressive that our Lord would link freedom and truth the way he does in Jn. 8:32: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” He is saying, No truth, no freedom, but not the reverse of that, No freedom, no truth. We cannot be truly free without truth, though we might know the truth and not yet be free.

 

            Many heroes, knowing the truth, have labored all their lives for freedom that never came for them. That is the beauty of Jesus’ promise: freedom will indeed come, later if not sooner, as one pursues truth. It will come for future generations, if not one’s own.

 

            Freedom from tyranny, from poverty, from legalism, from sin may come slowly and gradually, but it will come. But it will come only in reference to truth. We must first know the truth. “Free at last, free at last, thank God, we’re free at last.” That refrain implies that truth came first – and worked in human hearts – and at last produced freedom.

 

            What can we say about the nature of truth that will help us in our pursuit of freedom? These propositions about truth are listed for your consideration.

 

            1. While truth itself is absolute, centered in God himself. our understanding of truth is relative. We know only in part. So, truth’s first task is to free us from a dogmatism that assumes we can know anything at all absolutely, and the egoism that goes with it.

 

            2. While all truth is equally true, all truth is not equally important. Some truths are essential, some are important but not crucial, some are trivial. It is the nature of the truth that matters. That Jesus was the risen Lord is far more important than that he was born in Bethlehem, or even that he was born of a virgin. The truth about one’s character towers far above the circumstances of his birth.

 

            3. A person is responsible only for the truth available to him or – her, and that is reasonably understood. What is clear to us may be beyond the reach of others. This is sometimes called “the principle of available light.” God requires no one to do what he or she doesn’t know to do, and has had no opportunity to know. At the same time we can believe that when we walk by the light we have, God gives us more light. Too, we are responsible for such light as we have, and we all have some light, as In. 1:9 points out.

 

            4. We must distinguish between the disbeliever and the unbeliever. To disbelieve is to reject truth that is clearly understood. The unbeliever does not believe because he has never heard or because he is sincerely confused. In Scripture it is always the disbeliever that is condemned, never the unbeliever. Translators do not always make this distinction.

 

            5. The more truth we learn, greater is the awareness of our ignorance. This led the wise philosopher Socrates to avow “I know nothing.” He likened knowledge to a circle. The larger the circle of knowledge, the larger is the area that touches the unknown. So the more one learns the more he realizes how much there is that he doesn’t know. This is why truth is humbling and disarming, especially the haunting truths about ourselves.

 

            6. It is one’s passion for truth that is the measure of his or her life, and this is the basis of all judgment. To hunger and thirst for truth is the ground of acceptance before God. It is not how much truth one has, but one’s hunger for it, that counts. “This is the person to whom I will look: he that has a humble and contrite heart, and that reverences My word” (Is. 66:2).

 

            7. The human predicament is that we all know far more truth than we act upon. This is our sin, we know but we do not do. The Bible spells it out: “Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done” (Ro. 1 :28).

 

            And yet in his mercy God reaches out to us. This is grace, wholly undeserved on our part. This is the truth that sets us free, but it is also the truth that brings us to judgment – Leroy

 

 

 

            Though not agreeing at all, with some of their opinions and practices, I nevertheless preach amongst all, having seen for many years how greatly the heart of the Lord Jesus must be grieved by the disunion that exists among His own true disciples. On this account, therefore, I have sought (in my feeble measure) to unite all real believers: but, as this cannot be done, by standing aloof from our brethren in Christ, until they see eye to eye with us, in every point, I have gone amongst them, and have united with them in so far as nothing has been required of me which I could not do with a good conscience. – George Muller

 

            By the Holy Spirit I mean that which dwelt in Jesus, that Spirit of God which animates the body of Christ, that promised Spirit which dwells in the church of the living God. This is the spirit of holiness which is received in consequence of our union with Christ, after we have put on Christ in immersion. – Alexander Campbell. Mill. Harb., 1830, p. 357

 

            There should be in the life of the Christian a certain calm. A worried Christian is a contradiction in terms. A Christian is by definition a person who has that inner strength which enables him to cope with anything that life can do to him or bring to him.– William Barclay

 

 

 

JESUS IDENTIFIES HIS TRUE FAMILY

 

Who is My mother, or My brothers? – Mk. 3:33

 

            There may have been an uneasy relationship between Jesus and his natural family, possibly including his mother, at least early on. Jn. 7:5 reveals that Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him, and the context shows that the Lord was aware of this.

 

            Early in his ministry Jesus became more and more involved in what his family saw as abnormal behavior. They sought to kidnap him and deprogram him. As Mk. 3:20 puts it: “When His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, ‘He is out of His mind.’” This may not have included his mother. But it may well have included her since she is named only a few verses later when the family makes further effort to reign him in.

 

            This matter of Jesus’ own family seeing him as mentally disturbed was an embarrassment to the early church. No more is said of it. While both Matthew and Luke had access to Mark and jointly copied much of his gospel, they did not report this. They did, however, report what came both before and after this episode!

 

            This may explain our Lord’s response when his mother and brothers call for him from outside a crowded house where he was teaching, which Mark, Matthew, and Luke all record. As Mark 3:31 puts it: “They sent in a message asking for him.” The crowd passed along the words that seemed urgent, “Look, your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.” They must have expected him to make a quick exit to greet his family, but the record indicates that he ignored their call.

 

            If Jesus’ apparent indifference toward his family surprised them, what he went on to say must have surprised them even more. He used the occasion to identify his true family. His true family was not the ones calling for him. It is indeed a remarkable scene, one that a fabricator would never invent.

 

            After raising the question “Who are my mother and my brothers?,” Jesus looks at those in a circle around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers,” which must have amazed the crowd. Not the woman calling for him outside, but the disciples gathered about him were his real mother!

 

            Our Lord went on to state what we can accept as an enormous truth: “Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother” (Mk. 3:35).

 

            He is saying that spiritual relationships overshadow physical ones, but he is saying more. Doing God’s will is what really matters in this world! And he is saying that we grow closer to Christ as we seek out God’s will for our lives and do it.

 

            This should help us with a question that we have asked all these years, Who is a Christian? We get bogged down in definitions. Following our Lord in that crowded house, we might ask a more answerable question, Who is Jesus’ true family?

 

            We have a clear-cut, pointed answer with no ambiguity: Anyone who does the will of God!

 

            One may be a “Christian” and still not be within Jesus’ true family. He might be a preacher or and elder and not be Jesus’ true mother. Multitudes in the church may fall short of Jesus’s simple requirement of being his true brothers: submission to God’s will. And might there be many “in the world” who qualify as his true family?

 

            Jesus is inferentially saying: All those who do God’s will according to their understanding and opportunity are my true family.

 

            God never requires one to do what he doesn’t know to do or has had no opportunity to do. Paul worded the principle succinctly: “It is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have” (2 Cor. 8:9). One can act only upon the knowledge of God that she has. Those who sincerely seek God’s will and faithfully follow such light as they have are his true family.

 

            Jesus relates this truth to the judgment scene in Mt. 25. The righteous ones who entered into eternal life were those who fed the hungry, clothed the destitute, and ministered to those in prison. In helping others they were doing it to Jesus, the Lord explained. But they didn’t realize they were doing it to him – or that they were doing God’s will. They were doing God’ will without even knowing it!

 

            Not exactly well-informed church folk! They were nonetheless invited into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Jesus’ true family! – Leroy

 

 

 

Between Us . . .

 

            Ouida and I sometimes describe our way of life in our advanced years as “cheating,” for old folks like us are not supposed to live as if the years do not matter. We can still fly a thousand miles or drive for several hundreds, and be gone from home two weeks at a time, without thinking much of it. On our last outing together we did “Board”’ at the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville, which is always a delight since we get to do history with such exciting people. We then rented a car and drove to McMinnville. Tn. to visit with James/Sammye Dillon. which included fellowship with their home study group. That Lord’s day I addressed the Forest Mill Church of Christ in Manchester, Tn., a delightful church that I frequently visit when in the Nashville area.

 

            We then drove to Johnson City, Tn. to visit with Jack/Heather Holland, recently from our home church here in Denton where Jack served on the staff. Once he took his Ph.D. from an area university, he joined the staff of Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, where we have many dear friends. The Hollands had a dinner party for us at the seminary where we had a joyous reunion with dear friends, both from the ESR faculty and the town. We rejoice that Jack, the only noninstrument Church of Christ member on the faculty, is already appreciated for what we’ve long known him to be. While in the area we visited two historic towns, Jonesborough and Elizabethton.

 

            From Johnson City we drove to Birmingham, Alabama by way of Chattanooga (7 hours), enjoying delightful scenery all the way. In Birmingham we visited with longtime friends James/Clovis Ledbetter, who also had a dinner party for us, inviting still other dear old friends. Clovis bears Alzheimer’s with grace and dignity. We knew her when she was a young, dedicated schoolteacher of uncommon talent.

 

            We drove on to Montgomery, Alabama where we took a motel room only a block from the state capitol, which we visited in detail. One is pleased to see blacks serving as clerks and secretaries in the executive suites, as well as in the legislature itself. That was not the case when Ouida and I lived there for awhile over 50 years ago. I was surprised to see a statue of Lurleen Wallace in the center of the rotunda, welcoming all visitors. An oil painting of her also graces a gallery of Alabama greats. She was not only wife to Gov. George Wallace, but was for a time governor herself, dying of cancer while in office. Out on the capitol grounds is an amazing display of all the flags of the 50 states, impressively arranged in a large half circle. The Confederacy is still present. An elegant statue of Jefferson Davis graces the grounds and across the street still stands the first capitol of the Confederate States of America, before it was removed to Richmond. All this is in balance, for only a block away is the Dexter Ave. Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. served as pastor when he launched the bus boycott that began the civil rights movement. An historic marker identifies it, as one does at King’s old home, also nearby. It is an appropriate mix, Jeff Davis and Martin Luther King facing each other! This business of trying to erase the Confederacy from our memory is to be untrue to our history. It is part of who we are, the good and the bad together.

 

            The next day we returned our rental car and joined Dallas Burdette in a drive to DeFuniak Springs, Florida (3 hours) where I did a weekend of studies with the Oakwood Hills Church, a congregation that is growing both in numbers and in Body ministry in that they joyously share their faith with each other and with the community. We were guests in the home of Levar Small, recently single again, who entertained us royally in his home that backs up to a lake. Levar does something I had never seen before. So as to keep his lovely home smoke-free, he repairs to his garage to smoke!

 

            All this glory was crowned with a short visit with Allen/Brenda Dennis of Troy, Alabama, who took the trouble to meet us in a town near their home on our way to the airport in Montgomery. Counting the churches we visited, it was a trip that touched hundreds of lives, friends new and old. How God does bless us!

 

            Nonetheless, Ouida decided to sit out my next trip the following weekend to Dyersburg, Tn.. far west Tennessee this time. I was met in Memphis by Bob/Carol Miller, who minister to the Tucker St. Church in Dyersburg, which for decades has been a harbor of refuge for many pained Church of Christ folk who credit me (and Carl Ketcherside) with launching them on their pilgrimage of freedom. I stayed with longtime friends Howard/Boots Fike who live across the Mississippi in Caruthersville, Mo. When I first visited Caruthersville over three decades ago, we took a ferry across the Mississippi to Tennessee. The man who owned the ferries was a friend and a brother in the Lord! Now a bridge spans Old Man River that would impress Third World folk as an architectural wonder. It impresses me that way!

 

            You will notice that we have a new e-mail address, listed above your name and address. We will be glad to hear from you.

 

            We once had thousands of back issues of Restoration Review, which I edited for 40 years. Now we have but a few hundreds, which we are disposing of at 15 different back issues for $5 postpaid. Or we’ll send you one copy of all that we have, about 70 in all. for $15 postpaid. They may all be gone by year’s end.

 

            The ACU Press has served us well in recent years in publishing titles that have proven challenging and edifying. The titles that we especially recommend that are still in print are: Distant Voices: Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church (Leonard Allen), $13: The Cruciform Church (Leonard Allen), $13; Will the Cycle Be Broken? (Doug Foster), $13; Discovering Our Roots (Allen Hughes), $13; and most recently The Crux of the Matter (Childers/ Foster/Reese), $14. All prices postpaid.

 

            Leonard Allen’s New Leaf Books is also serving us well. Two titles are particularly noteworthy: Communings in the Sanctuary, a reprint of Robert Richardson’s communion meditations, $14 postpaid; A Church That Flies (Tim Woodroof) is a call for meaningful change in Churches of Christ, $16 postpaid.