Like Father, Like Son, Like Me
If you know that He is righteous, you know that every one also who practices righteousness is born of Him. 1 John 2:29 NASB
Righteous – This is about as close as John comes to describing “born again.” But John’s focus is not on the experience of forgiveness. He focuses on the practice of righteousness. If you are like the Son, then you are “born of Him.” The Greek verb is gennao. It means “to be born, to beget, to bear” and with the added preposition (anagennao) it means “to be born again,” a verb used only in Peter’s first letter (and not in John 3:3). John draws attention to the common human relationship between father and son. The son looks like the father. In this case, what this means is that the Son displays the same character and behavior as the Father. The righteousness of Yeshua is a duplicate of the rightouesness of YHWH. In the same way, we know that we are the offspring of the Son when we display the same character and behavior. This is what John calls “practicing righteousness.”
This begs the question, “What does it mean to practice righteousness?” The answer can only be a reflection of the character and behavior of YHWH in the Tanakh. Yeshua gives us the paradigm example of this reflection when He says, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Of course, He cannot mean we have physically observed the embodied God. He means that God is a verb and seeing the performance, action, execution, behavior and accomplishments of Yeshua is equivalent to seeing the character, intentions and execution of the Father. The verbs are the same.
So what does that mean for you and me? It means that if we claim to be followers of the Messiah and He reflects the heart of YHWH, our behaviors must be of the same kind as His. We need to judge ourselves according to His standard. We need to do a serious analysis of our actions, intentions and desires based on YHWH’s self-declaration in Exodus 34:6-7 coupled with the observable demonstration of the Son. If you want to know what it means to be righteous, stop pretending that a one-time decision imputed righteousness to you forever and start living a life that constantly expresses the character and will of the Son and the Father. The proof is in the pudding, in this case, in the continual choices and actions. May I be so bold as to suggest that according to John no man is saved because he wants to be. A man is saved because, with the aid of the Spirit, his life is radically changed and it shows!
The second part of John’s statement confirms this conclusion. Who is born of the Son? The one who practices righteousness. The one who does the will of the Father. The one who lives according to God’s instructions. Righteousness is dikaiosyne. There is absolutely no scholarly debate over the direct connection between dikaiosyne and torah.[1] Linguistically, historically and culturally John can only mean Torah. When you read what John says to the followers of Messiah HaMashiach, can you imagine that he could mean anything else?
Ah, so now we face the question: If John means that righteousness is Torah observance, where did we come up with the theological notion that Torah no longer applies?
Topical Index: Torah, righteousness, dikaiosyne, Exodus 34:6-7, I John 2:29
[1] “It is a basic tenet in the OT that God posits law and is bound to it. Recognition of this is a unifying factor in Israel’s faith. All law comes from God, and hence God’s authority extends to all Israel’s historical relationships. God’s law is an order of life that cannot be changed or challenged. It is righteous because he is righteous. His ways are right; they thus give us life and security.” G. Schrenk, TDNT, Vol. 11, p. 178.
Again the call to examine ones self and see if you reflect the Messiah in your actions. This is where so many lack understanding about a changed life. This idea of cheap grace is part of a death spiral as far as I am concerned. To follow Messiah is to be changed into that new man that is spoken of. One cannot remain the same once the true journey is begun.
Excellent words today Skip! So important to hear and so foundational for all. This idea that we can dismiss everything that Messiah was about is purely evil and will cost many everything they never had.
Shalom brother.
“A man is saved because, with the aid of the Spirit, his life
is radically changes and it shows!”
Man, alone, cannot do what only the Spirit of God enables
him to do.
Yes, each of our desires and conscious acts of righteousness
are accounted to us, but only through God’s will do we
willfully do them! ( And, yes, we can will not to do them.)
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you
that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should
remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may
give you. These things I command you, that you love one
another.” Jn 15:16-17
To come to a saving faith as little children, ready to learn with a clean slate, without preconceived ideas about salvation. Too often salvation is sold as fire insurance instead of opening the doors to a new family, a royal family, with rules and obligations. What king allows his children to be ignorant? Instead does he not appoint teachers over them? What family does not have chores for their children to instruct them in the basic life skills? If you love your children you train them so that they can be a blessing to the world and not a burden. The same is true for God, only on a much higher level.
If you think about how when you children were babies, it was more about doing for them, training them, dealing with the tantrums and behavioral issues, teaching them to be obedient “because you said so”; as they grow into adulthood (mature) they become more like friends, you can show them the wonders behind why the rules are what they are. Because they understand the foundational things and are obedient there, they are able to make rational decisions about other things in life.
Beginning and ending each day with the Shema (in English so you can understand what you are saying) is a great way to remember to do what the Lord instructs. Most of obedience starts with remembering…
“Praying with Lior”
http://www.prayingwithlior.com
Watched this on Netflix yesterday.
What a great joy to step in to the life of this family and davining son.
Lior’s attitude is infectious, simple, pure, and sweet.
An example of simple and fully living life.
His father says of his son, Lior, “He isn’t stupid, he’s retarded.” He said it in the truest sense of the word.
His Down Syndrome changes things. Makes him ‘different’ than us.
Yet, watching Lior, I wish I was more like him rather than the other way around.
Watch it. It simplifies many the many questions of life and enlivens the mediocre parts of life.
Like Lior, just live and pray with zest, enthusiasm, fidelity and gusto. Just do it and enjoy the happiness of it.
Hi Michael,
I had the privilege of spending 20 years working with retarded/handicapped folks and let me tell you–they taught me a lot more than I taught them in retrospect. I was pretty young when I started this work and lacked some respect I should have had however, over time things changed.
A more simplistic view of life and truly enjoying the moment with gratitude to our Creator is simply awesome. I wake up every morning with the this thought….what do you have for me today Lord? My plans for the day get changed quite often and I have learned to simply go with it and see where the Lord leads me next. This has seriously reduced the stress of life for me!
I will watch the movie too at some point. Sounds like an encouragement to me.
Thank you for sharing with us.
Thank you Michael, for sharing. We are able to watch Praying with Lior since we have Amazon Prime.
Who is born of the Son?
Hmmm
Like Mr Anderson in the movie The Matrix
They are made by modeling themselves
On one man, the Son of God, aka Sons
I have read enough sci fi to try to keep up with my children’s view of the world, and I have found something interesting: it is a composite creature called a symbiont. A symbiont is a creature that is totally merged with someone else. You can no longer tell where one leaves off and the other begins. What I see is a longing in the world for connection on that level. I think it is a hard wired condition of the heart. Otherwise, why would something like the concept of nirvana or merging into a communal consciousness appeal? Of course, with these other modalities, you have to be willing to give up your identity, and even your existence.
This gives a fantastic platform for evangelism. We have a much superior answer to this need. A Christian can become a symbiont with the Godhead by becoming MORE of themselves, not less. You don’t have to give up anything! What a deal!
“A symbiont is a creature that is totally merged with someone else.”
Hi Laurita,
A symbiont would seem to be some form of the romantic ideal
The desire to merge completely with the person that you love
I always thought that “becoming one” sounded very attractive
Maybe that’s why I ended up living alone 🙂
In science fiction we can find asexual beings who are created by man
These beings are referred to as Androids
And they have been programmed by their creator
To follow his commands
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K Dick
Comes to mind
Keanu Reeves plays Neo, the new man who must save the world
From the Androids
Oops,
I meant in the movie version of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
Called BladeRunner
Harrison Ford plays the man who must save the world
From Androids
The movie called The Matrix also contains “androids”
Probably a good deal of the ‘romance’ of symbiotic relationship fallen us can come up with has to do with thinking that we can get away somehow with less responsibility somewhere in the deal. That is also the dirty little deal I think I see in the backs of some people’s minds when they convince themselves they will somehow be ‘better off’ dropping the personality baggage at some point along the way to ‘unity’. But in the kingdom of heaven, I think I see us getting ever more real and unique and the load of responsibility of our personality growing astronomically through the ages. In human relations here on earth, too, if they are founded on true love…
Hi Skip,
That was an extremely powerful article. Your definition of practicing righteousness as following the character and behavior of the Father; and of “seeing the performance, action, execution, behavior and accomplishments of Yeshua is equivalent to seeing the character, intentions and execution of the Father” is very strong. I do have a question for you. What do you mean by “Torah observance?” If this means you now revert to keeping the Torah commands and laws as your definition for righteousness, it seems you have greatly weakened your earlier definition. A person can observe the Sabbath and be far from righteousness if their heart is judgmental, proud, etc. If I dig into the Torah and find the “character, intentions, etc. then I will discover true righteousness or which Torah observation is only an example for our learning and meditation…for the purpose of finding the character of God hidden within His commands (as David did).
It seems in the various articles of yours I have read that your decision to emphasize Torah observance over the deeper issues that Torah brings out, weakens articles that are otherwise very strong. If I use the Torah to discover the character, methods, goal, heart of God, then I have used the law, lawfully. Comments?
One other comment. That passage in John is more than a little bit vague as to who is being referred to. I would think that we are the sons of the Father, and not of Yeshua. ???
Stan
Hi Stan,
Nowhere in the Tanakh is there any suggestion that practicing Torah mitzvot without heart commitment is righteousness. That myth was propagated by the early church (not the New Testament assemblies) in order to drive a wedge between Judaism and Christianity. I am sure you will agree that faithfulness to God’s instructions is never accomplished by hands and feet alone. Even the prophets castigate Israel for its failure to submit with the heart. Therefore, a true understanding of Torah observance does not and cannot separate heart from act (as you suggest). Yeshua demonstrated the proper alignment. To follow Him is to do Torah correctly. There is no weakness is claiming that to be like Him is to do what He does with the heart that He shows. In fact, I would argue that heart commitment WITHOUT hands and feet submission is not biblical. Just as the Scriptures demand performance of the commandments with heart and hands, so they also condemn those who think heart alone will satisfy.
Let’s see if I can better state my concern. Paul says that the law of God is good. The law itself contains an expression of the character and desires of our heavenly Father, in a very condensed form. However, the law, by itself, is inactive until there is some sort of motivating force that turns the law into action. There are only two motivating forces: the flesh and the spirit. If the flesh motivates the law, the person ends up with actions based on the letter of the law. They do what is required but they do that because the flesh is driving them to use the law for the purpose of getting approval, control, or gaining security (the three basic drives of the flesh). So instead of a purely fleshly man, who used to claw his way to the top and step on anyone in his way to get what he wanted, now we have a religious man who through self-righteousness, judgmental spirit, rigidness achieves “success” in his religious environment (church).
Or, the law is energized by the person’s connection to the other tree (the tree of life) and the works of the law that they perform are a stepping stone to a deeper relationship with God.
With the first example, the person is mainly interested in doing what people can see; with the second, the person is deeply interested in the WHY of the law…what is God getting at, and so they meditate on the law and the result (in David’s case) is the Psalms.
Here is an example: God’s law says not to have two different sets of weights and measures, one for your buddies, one for your inferiors. So, the religious person, working from the flesh, will made absolutely sure that everyone knows they have only ONE set of measures (however that works in their business). But the person approaching the law from the spirit of life will discover that God is concerned about honesty, about truthfulness, about living open-faced in all our relationships, about not judging others, about condescending to men of law estate, and on and on and on. God wants us to use His law to discover who He is and to discover those areas within us that are still motivated by the flesh (since the law is an excellent revealer of the flesh). This is what I see missing in most of Hebraic roots; the emphasis is on keeping the law instead of meditating on the law to discover the character of God and revealing where we fall short of that character.
Another example is the Sabbath. It is nice that Sabbath is a time for physical rest but a true Sabbath also forces me to consider the constant pressure from the flesh to do do do; and Sabbath is a time to learn to rest from the slave driver within and move from trying to have control over my life to living by faith (and so on with the other drives).
So I would love to see you emphasize the deeper aspects of the law rather than just the natural observations, the spirit not the letter.
I appreciate your point but I am sure that I often speak about the underlying motivation and the deeper issue of consciousness of the Father. Maybe I missed it this time. I’ll try to do better.
That said, I am a bit concerned about your dichotomy of “flesh” and “spirit.” At times it almost appears as if you are following Plato. I realize there are biblical (Scriptural) themes involved here, but be careful not to import a Greek dualism when you give your examples. In Hebrew to obey is to use both heart and hands.
thank you; you are correct, we need to be careful not to separate thinking and doing. Heart thinking equals action (as a man thinks in his heart, so is he).
Oh my, oh my. I haven’t had to pick my lower jaw up off of the floor for a while. Thank you, Stan! Can
t you just keep going a little more; I mean, are you sure you quite said it all? Awesome!
To me, the Law is about relationship in three dimensions: with G-d, with myself, and with others. If what I am ‘doing’ does not actually accomplish that, then I am deceiving myself. It is about restoring connection, and about turning away from anything that fractures relationship. Dumbed down for us earthlings, it can only be a faint shadow of what we are to represent and accomplish in ever-widening circles, if you like, through all eternity. C. S. Lewis observed that heaven and the new earth are places people who do not love the Law would want to be, because it is going to be so PUBLIC. Eternity is where we are going to know even as we are known. That sounds like being sent to the principal’s office permanently to many people. I think we must like the illusion of ‘privacy’ that we are skating on when we grab our G-d-given sovereignty and RUN instead of freely choosing to submit it back to Him in adoration and obedience. At the Second Coming, I notice that we, not the Lord, are the ones who call for the rocks to fall on our heads to hide us from the returning King. The Law is His gaze on us here. Time to get used to it.
Hi Laurita,
I wasn’t quite sure if you were serious about me saying more, or it was a bit of humor about my long windedness. I’ll make a few more comments but, since this is Skip’s website, I want to be careful not to take unfair advantage of Skip to present my own ideas, except as they relate directly to his article. (You can contact me at ingertson49@gmail.com if you want to go further with the discussion.
I strongly agree that the law is about relationship and about connection, with God and others, and in the case of most of us, also about connection to who we really are (since most of go around with various cloaks, veils, and other coverings that hide us even from ourselves. And I loved your comment about the law being our chance to get used to a life lived without the illusion of privacy.
God’s use of the law is very much multidimensional. On the one hand, He uses our reaction to His law to show us the forces that are at work within us. He also uses the law to hide Himself, since He is very fond of hiding treasures and giving people the honor and privilege of digging them out (Prov 25:2). This is why meditating on His law (digging) is so important. He uses His law to give us simple ways to improve our natural life…and many other uses.
The issue with just telling people to observe the law is that we have a built-in natural life force that doesn’t understand spiritual things; in fact, it can’t (1 Cor 2:14). So when it reacts to the law it either perceives it as a threat to its authority in our lives and gets angry and defensive, or it sees the law as an opportunity to accomplish its own agenda, in which case a person flaunts their keeping of the law to gain position, or make themselves a secure part of some group. There is also the huge overarching reaction of the flesh to the law: keep the law and so appease the angry God and obtain His favor.
The purpose of Christ was to move the world from appeasement (the heart of most religions and much of Christianity) to relationship. One purpose of the law is to point out this difference.
I liked your idea about the illusion of privacy. How foolish we are to think we can hide our true being from an almighty God. David used the law to develop a relationship of openness, a “search me” relationship with God. I believe that, in Christ, God places us back into a “garden” experience where we can learn to understand and then take care of the precious things He gives us. It is a relationship where we can be “naked and not ashamed” before God. We can fall down and get up and go on because we know we are securely held in His hand (Ps 37:34).
I believe it is essential that we have a deep understanding to go with our knowledge (Paul prayed that so powerfully in his letter to the Ephesians). To most people, the “flesh” is just a religious term, but God intends for us to know that force so completely that we see its influence coming a mile away and “keep” (guard) our precious relationship (our garden experience). If you wish to discuss this at length, email me.
Finally, your prior comment about symbiosis shows a deep understanding of what God is after. This is not about God being the big IT; it is about a two-way relationship that creates abundant life. Yes, the “body of sin” must be torn down, but that is to make room for a new and glorious creation in a beautiful state of oneness with the Father.
I am humbly grateful to both you, Stan, and to Skip for this subject. I like both your notes: they sound like a good harmony to me, and, hey, in tune, too! This is an amazing place, (and all you marvelous folks who actually say something real: wow!) and Skip has to be my new favorite servant of the Most High.
Thank you for your email, too.
Just a quick side note. Yeshua did not come to move the world from appeasement to relationship. He came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and Israel knew full well that God did not demand appeasement. The pagan world may have thought of the gods in this way, but the Jews certainly did not. Everything in the Tanakh points toward the active grace of God, not toward His wrath. The idea of appeasement required by YHWH arises only after Yeshua’s message was converted to a universal perspective of forgiveness for all. But listen to the words of Yeshua Himself. He calls Israel back to its origins, to its design, to its divinely ordained intent. Why? Because if Israel does what God intended, the world will know the love of the Father. Forgiveness isn’t a means of appeasing God. It is accepting God’s active role in redemption and acknowledging that I cannot redeem myself.