No Fault Guarantee
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. Jude 24 NASB
Blameless – This is a word that comes from the ritual of sacrifice. It is amomous. It means, “without a blemish or spot.” It describes someone who has been declared “not at fault.” It is the perfect word to use when we cry out, “Wait. It’s not my fault!” The only problem is that when it comes to personal sin, it is always our fault. So this word is also connected to another picture. It reminds us of the sacrificial lamb of the Passover, an animal that had to be without external or internal impurity. Yeshua’s sacrifice was the fulfillment of that Passover pattern. He was the completely pure substitute sacrifice for our sins. Now Jude tells us that because of this sacrifice, God will enable us to stand in His presence as if we were completely pure. Because of Christ, we will be considered “not at fault.”
The biblical text divides all humanity into two categories; just two, no more. We are either guilty or blameless. Standing guilty before God is not a happy affair. Isaiah recognized his unworthiness when he encountered God. He shouted out, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips.” In the presence of God, the prophet Isaiah recognized he was guilty and if a man chosen to be the prophet expresses that kind of unraveling, how do you suppose we would fare? We are all unclean. The stain of sin carries severe penalties. But Jude tells us that there is another way. It doesn’t happen because we erase all those impure things from our lives. Our attempt to “make up” for our failures doesn’t erase anything. We can’t erase past disobedience and present rebellion. We are declared blameless because Christ makes us blameless. And, just like the Passover lamb, the only way that we can be made blameless is for something to die in our place.
Won’t it be nice to be blameless some day? Won’t it feel good to know that all those bad things we did, all those nasty words we said, all those hurts we caused will all be cleaned up and washed away? Can’t you just imagine how liberating that will be to stand before God without fear? But wait! That has already happened. Being blameless before God is the status we already have the moment we turn life over to the Messiah. He didn’t die so that some day in the far distant future we can come before God as pure. He died so that we can be pure now! Yes, I know, those old memories of terrible deeds still linger. But they are just memories, not present reality. We don’t have to hide from God anymore. We can stand up and say, “Father, here I am, all cleaned up because of your Son. Use me the way You wish.”
If you know the liberating power of being clean, you have no fear in front of God. You can enjoy His presence. He welcomes you. You get His “no fault” guarantee.
Topical Index: blameless, amomous, no fault, Jude 24
Halleluia!!!!
Amen and amen!
WOW! Cool! I feel better already!
Skip,
The Hebrew idiom and phrase that Isaiah uses during this vision of YHWH as exalted King, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” simply means that everything that Isaiah and his people had declared about YHWH up to this point had been a total misrepresentation of the character of YHWH!
After the seraphim had touched his mouth with a cleansing burning coal from the altar, YHWH asked a question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” We hear Isaiah’s response, “Here am I! Send me.”
Cleansing and then a sending of Isaiah to faithfully speak and proclaim the true character of YHWH.
I wouldn’t go this far in interpreting Isaiah’s idiomatic expression. The expression could be only an acknowledgment that Isaiah sees the chasm between his words and the holiness of God. All human communication is ultimately insufficient, but that doesn’t mean it is a total misrepresentation. Partial is not total. While we can never capture the full majesty and truth of YHWH in human words, to suggest that NONE of what we say is correct is to drive human communication into mysticism where silence is all that is left.
Skip,
Thanks for your response.
Sorry for the delay, we were away on a community retreat.
This was a moment where Isaiah encountered the holy, holy, holy, YHWH of hosts. This was HIS response to the One true King!
Here is a specific Scriptural passage that is about the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the exalted King and his subsequent cleansing and sending that uses very particular words to highlight the nature of the event. “Unclean lips” would seem to indicate not set apart and not faithfully representing the character of YHWH. Would this indicate a total misrepresentation? Notice where the seraphim placed the burning coal from the altar of YHWH, Isaiah’s mouth!
We probably need to take a deeper look at the context and how this particular passage starts out “In the year king Uzziah died.” Do you not think that the vision came at a strategic and critcal time in his life? Isaiah is feeling the failure of the King. The reason is because of King Uzziah’s pride in trying to burn incense before YHWH, which caused him to become LEPEROUS/UNCLEAN until the day he died, and he was in a seperate house and excluded from the house of YHWH. (2Chronicles 26:16:21) Do you not think that Isaiah’s words are perplexing and powerful? When we encounter death, do we not become acutely aware of our own and others failures? Did he consider his lips and the lips of the people as leperous? Would not leperous lips or words be a total misrepresentation of YHWH? Just some thoughts.
Skip,
I was not advocating that all of our words are total misrepresentation and that we all should sink down to silence and mysticism. My emphases was on the prophets experience. Isaiah was considering his words and the words of the people of Israel as not worthy to approach what the burning ones were proclaiming about the One True King of the Universe. Was the prophet and the people words a total misrepresentation? Maybe that was the wrong use of phrasing, but this is an event extraordinaire and the nature of idiomatic phrasing is to communicate forcefully. It seems this passage is about an event of cleansing and sending of the prophet Isaiah and must be kept within that tension.
I do agree that we cannot grasp or express the full majesty of YHWH in human experience or words. At the same time, we are called to be a witness for Him in deeds and in words. Our lack of grasping and expressing does not disqualify us for partnership with the King in the power of the Ruach HaKodesh. Cleansing and sending is still in the protocol of the King.
By the way, David Wolpe has a book called, In Speech and In Silence. Highly recommend.