Freedom and Responsibility

Reading

1 Corinthians 8

Introduction

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that life, at times, can be quite challenging. Particularly, perhaps, when we encounter change or something out of the ordinary.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to Bruges for a few days. It’s a beautiful place, and we really enjoyed our visit to a different country, but there were a few differences we had to contend with.

• We were envious of the quality of European trains in comparison with ours: they were clean, spacious, comfortable, smooth, and on time.
• The money’s different, so you’re never quite sure how much something really costs.
• They drive on the wrong side of the road, so you have to take extra care when crossing over.
• The whole place is overrun with bicycles, and cyclists think nothing of threading their way, at speed, through milling crowds. I even had to pull Hilary out of the way of one who bore down on us shouting, “Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!” through snarling teeth

We heard last week about marriage and singleness. Getting married is a bit like moving to a new country. There are lots of adjustments to make.

• We knew a recently-married couple who had a disagreement about dirty washing. He was used to putting it in the washing machine; she wanted it in the laundry basket.
• And then there’s the eternal problem of the position of the toilet seat.
• As someone once said, ‘When you’re married you have someone who’ll stand by you through all the problems you wouldn’t have if you’d stayed single.’

Becoming a Christian is a huge change. You’re moving to a new world! You’ve been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light.

It’s an exciting, challenging voyage of discovery as you learn what God is like, what pleases him, and realise that a whole lot of stuff from your old way of life has to change.

The believers in Corinth were encountering just this situation for themselves. Just as a reminder of their situation, Corinth was an important hub in the ancient world. It was:

• a Roman colony and the administrative capital for the region it was in;
• at the crossroad of important land and sea trade routes, which made it very prosperous but also a melting pot for all manner of pagan beliefs;
• overshadowed by the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and the sexual promiscuity of the city was notorious, even by the standards of the day.

Despite all that, Paul, over a period of around 18 months, established a thriving church, made up of some Jewish converts but mainly former pagans.
 

Perhaps you can imagine the huge reorientation Christian converts were facing, given the society they were embedded in. They had problems and lots of questions. So, after Paul had left, they wrote to him about various issues, and much of 1 Corinthians is Paul’s response to their questions.

The Issue

Today, we’re looking at Paul’s response to their question about eating food sacrificed to idols.

Now, this would perhaps be an issue for us if we lived in India, but it doesn’t seem very relevant in the 21st century United Kingdom. The Corinthians were perhaps hoping for a yes or no answer, but Paul’s response embodies a principle that applies in all kinds of circumstances where individual freedoms and personal responsibilities come into conflict.

So, what gave rise to the question?

In Corinth, pagan people took animals to temples to be sacrificed in worship to their idols. The priests made the sacrifice and the meat was served to the worshippers. The temples were popular places to eat. If there was surplus meat, the priests sent it to be sold in the market, a place where Christians bought food.

Some Christian believers thought you should have absolutely nothing to do with such food; others thought it was OK as long as nothing identified it as having been sacrificed to an idol; some, who’d been used to eating in temples in their pagan past, would’ve been confused about what was right or wrong for them now.
 

Paul develops his response through a series of contrasts, the first of which gives us a hint of the direction He’s heading in.

1-3: Knowledge cf Love

Paul puts it like this:

‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up… Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.’

 

Knowledge is a wonderful thing that enriches life. I read Physics at university, so my head got stuffed with a whole pile of knowledge. Perhaps that seems impressive, but it doesn’t help you much (and I’ve forgotten most of it anyway!).

[Blow up balloon and hold it]

Here’s my head, stuffed with knowledge.

And, however much I may have studied, my knowledge is incomplete and faulty. There’s always more to learn, and things we’re certain of can turn out to be wrong. Around the start of the 20th century, much of physics was turned on its head by new and startling discoveries.

There’s every chance that could happen again!

[Release balloon]

So much for what I know!

[Hold up brick (which has the word LOVE embossed on it]

My good friend X has lent me one of his very precious bricks. It reminds me of you! We’re all bricks in God’s temple. Each of you is a brick with LOVE written on it.

Unlike the hot air in my balloon, this brick is solid, dependable, and durable.

... knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

With Love we can build. If I love my neighbour as I love myself, that’s good for my neighbour. It builds my neighbour up.

In his letter to the Galatians, who had their knowledge about law-keeping and circumcision in a mess, Paul wrote,

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Knowledge alone isn’t enough – even perfect knowledge; love shows the better way. 

[Put brick down with LOVE to front]

4-6: Idols cf God

Paul affirmed some of the knowledge the Corinthian believers held to:
 

… we know that ‘An idol is nothing at all in the world’ and that ‘There is no God but one.’

 

Much is said in the Old Testament about the futility of idols: they’re not real gods, they’re just fashioned lumps of wood or stone or metal—they can’t hear, they can’t see, they can’t do anything. 

But Paul reminds the Corinthians and us that God the Father is the origin of everything, he made all this vast universe; he’s the one we live for, who gives us purpose. 

And Jesus was the Father’s agent of creation, and the one who gives us life. 

Every day, devout Jews would’ve recited the Hebrew Shema, which begins: 

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength …

 

That phrase, ‘the LORD is one’ carries the sense that the LORD is the only God.  I’m sure Paul taught that fundamental and foundational truth in Corinth. And here in the passage, the point is made:
 

Idols count for nothing and God is all-in-all.

7-8: Fact cf Conscience

These facts being the case, what difference does it make that a piece of meat has been offered to an inanimate object? In verse eight Paul makes it quite clear that eating or abstaining from food makes no difference to our relationship with God. He can’t love us more, and he won’t love us less!

So, the Corinthian Christian armed with this knowledge can eat with a clear conscience, whatever the source of the meat. And in chapter 10, where Paul revisits this issue from a different angle, he says:

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.’

But not everyone was armed with that knowledge. For some, eating food sacrificed to idols was just plain wrong; the meat is tainted in some way.

Now, if you know something is sin, you know you shouldn’t do it.

If you believe something is sin (although, actually, it isn’t), then you also shouldn’t do that. If you act contrary to your conscience (even though it’s not actually wrong), your kind of saying, ‘I don’t really care what God thinks about this.’

When I became a Christian at the age of 17, I soon discovered a lot of unwritten rules about what Christians shouldn’t do: don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t dance, don’t go to the cinema or theatre, etc.

When I went to university and mixed with Christians from different backgrounds, I was puzzled by behaviour of some of them. They did some of the things I believed were sinful.

Had I followed their example at the time, I probably would’ve had an almighty guilt trip. I’m very good at beating myself up.

Alternatively, having apparently got away with it, I may have found it easier to do something that actually is wrong. And once you’ve taken one step—who knows where it may end?

As it happens, the sin I fell into was not doing something I thought was wrong but passing judgement on the others!

As my faith and understanding grew, I learnt to recognise the rules that were just legalistic human rules: some of the knowledge I held was wrong!

In case you’re wondering, none of them was eating food sacrificed to idols, but the principle Paul sets out here applies more broadly than to just this one issue.

Doing a genuinely OK thing can create a stumbling block for someone else who thinks it’s wrong.

9-13: Rights cf Righteousness (Freedom cf Responsibility)

Imagine you’re a Corinthian. You know there’s nothing to an idol, and eating food that may have been sacrificed to it can’t harm you. So, you’re quite happy to eat it. In fact, you have a right to eat it if you want to.

And this is where knowledge puffs you up! You know your rights! But if you always insist on your rights there’s a real danger that you could harm someone else whose conscience you know is more easily bruised.

Paul uses a strong word:

So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.

If they know it’s sacrificial meat, and see you eating, and it’s a problem for them, they may think, ‘It’s OK. I can do this.’ So they eat it too, and then suffer the agony of a guilty conscience.

Or, being emboldened by their action, they may think it’s OK to eat at temple feasts, and they end up getting get entangled again with idol worship.

But in chapter 10, Paul makes clear that Christians cannot participate in worship at pagan temples because what the pagans were actually worshipping were the demonic powers behind the idols.

In the end, it would have been better for them, and you, if you’d abstained from eating. Paul says,

When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

Love, Paul tells us, builds up, and he ends the passage with,

Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.

To be clear, Paul isn’t declaring himself a vegetarian. He’s saying:

• Love doesn’t engage even in a legitimate action when offence is possible.
• Love will lay down its rights rather than cause harm.
• Because (1 Cor 13:7) ‘Love always protects.’

 

We are called to be Christ-like.

• Who had more rights than Jesus?
• Who could have called for 80,000 angels to save him from the cross?
• Who laid down his very life for his friends?
• Who bore our sins in his own body on the cross?
• Who said, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’?

Apparently, Bob Dylan once said, "I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

In Christ we have incredible freedom. But we are accountable for how we use our freedom.

Being right is never more important than doing right.

Summary

• Knowledge alone isn’t enough; [pick up the brick] love shows the better way.
• Idols count for nothing and God is all-in-all.
• Doing a genuinely OK thing can create a stumbling block for someone else who thinks it’s wrong.
• Being right is never more important than doing right.

The answer to the Corinthians’ question seems to be, In principle, it’s OK but whatever you feel at liberty to do, always consider the consequences for others. Let sacrificial love guide your actions.

In chapter 10, Paul puts it like this:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble …

And with the supreme example of Jesus in our minds, let’s end this sermon with prayer.

Offerings

Reading

Leviticus 1:1-14, 6:8-13

Introduction: Questions

Children ask interesting questions, don’t they? The most frequent and most annoying one is: Why?

Adults often don’t know the right answer or choose not to give the right answer.

• Where do babies come from?  Apparently, I was found under a gooseberry bush!
• Why are frogs green? Er… Ask your father.
• Where does God live?

We might answer that one with, “God lives in Heaven.” But the Israelites had a different answer. They would say, he lives in that big tent, just over there.

Can I go and see him now?  NOOoooo!!!!

As Luke so brilliantly illustrated for us last week, having God live next door is not without its problems. He’s not like us. We’re sinful and rebellious, he’s holy; so holy that no-one could look at him and live.  Like CS Lewis’s Aslan in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, he isn’t safe—but he is good.

When we get older we have a different set of questions. What’s life all about? What am I here for? Is there any purpose or meaning?

The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts the question like this: What is the chief end of man?

The answer it gives is: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

The answer’s a general summary of this whole book. We were made by God and for God; he desires to live among us, and he wants us to live in joyful communion with him. But how is that possible?

Sacrifices and Offerings

As we’ve journeyed with the Israelites through Exodus, we’ve seen part of the unfolding story of God working to bring about the fulfilment of his great desires.

Leviticus starts as Exodus ended.  The glory of the LORD has filled the tabernacle and Moses, who’s had many personal encounters with God—but has never seen his glory—dared not enter the tent.  How can the Israelites enjoy the presence of God?

From inside the tent God explains to Moses how to overcome the obstacles. We’re introduced to the idea of sacrifices and offerings.

Some of the offerings strike our modern minds as strange if not downright horrible but these things weren’t alien to the people of the day. People sacrificed to their gods to induce favourable behaviour from them: ‘I’ve done this for you, now you do that for me.’ Their sacrifices were very much a transactional affair.

The five offerings introduced here are entirely relational in their purpose; none of them is an attempt to twist God’s arm.

• God has already rescued his people.
• He’s made himself known to them in spectacular ways.
• He’s already committed to their well-being.
• He’s made his dwelling among them.

These offerings show:

• how the people can express their devotion to God,
• how to put their relationship with God right when things go wrong,
• and how they can enjoy his presence.

You’ll be relieved to hear that we won’t be looking at all the offerings in detail, or we’d be here for a very long time! We’ll look at just one of them and skim the rest.

We have:

The burnt or ascension offering was about giving your whole self to God and being accepted by him. We read instructions about this offering earlier.

The grain or tribute offering was firstly to acknowledge God’s sovereignty over all aspects of life, and secondly to express thanks for his gracious provision

There were no animals involved in this one. The main component was fine flour, which could be offered uncooked or baked in various forms along with oil, incense and salt, but never with yeast or honey.

Part was offered on the altar, along with the oil, salt and incense. The rest belonged to the priests.

The fellowship or well-being offering, could be used to express thankfulness, or to confirm a vow, or just because God is good and has blessed you.

This one did involve animal sacrifice, and there are specific instructions on what animals can be used, how the offering was to be handled, and what accompaniments were needed.

Specific parts of the animal were to be burnt on the altar; certain parts were to be given to the priest for food, and the rest was to be eaten and shared with people from the community, near the tent of meeting.

It was like sharing a celebratory meal with God.

All of these offerings could be brought by anyone and were entirely voluntary.

The last two are obligatory acts of atonement. There’s:

The guilt offering that dealt with serious violations of God’s holy things. It has a lot in common with the sin offering but also included an element of restitution for wrongs done to others.

The sin offering, which we’ll look at more closely.

The Sin Offering

Sin always causes a rift in our relationship with God. When we sin, we try to hide it from God and to hide it from others. The ultimate penalty for sin is death.

The sin offering provides atonement, a remedy for the offence, and removes the rift to restore the relationship.

(4:2) It’s for ‘When anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’s commands – ’

To try and get a handle on what ‘unintentional’ means, Bible commentators look closely at the words used in the original language. They come up with a couple of ideas:

• inadvertant sin
• we can be in ignorance of the law
• we can lack awareness of the offensive nature of sin

•  going astray, wandering
• human weakness
• I know this is wrong but… 
• human frailty
• some trauma makes you take leave of your senses

The ritual of the sin offering is similar to what we read about the burnt offering. But there were some differences, depending on who was bringing the offering—the sin of some people has wider consequences.

Our sin affects not just us but also the person we’ve sinned against, and it can have a knock-effect to those closest to us, and those we have responsibility for.

For example, if a someone got caught in an act of gross misconduct at work, they’d lose their job, their livelihood, quite possibly their pension; they could even go to prison. Their family would suffer because of their sin.

And,

• If you were a priest, your sin would be an offence to the holy places in the Tabernacle, and how could you then speak on God’s behalf to the people, or to God on behalf of the people.
• If you were a leader in the community, your sin would’ve had consequences for the people you were responsible for.  Just think of the notable Christian leaders in recent times whose sins have come to light, and the impact that’s had on their congregations.
• If the whole community went astray, that’s clearly more serious than the sin of just one person.
  

In dealing with your sin, humility is needed.  You’d have to recognise that you’ve broken God’s law and that you can’t live anywhere near the presence of God without a remedy. But God, who loves you, has graciously prescribed a remedy: the sin offering. Let’s see what that looks like.

The Ritual

First of all, there’s the selection of the animal to be sacrificed.

• If you’re a priest, or the whole community has sinned, the victim must be a young bull.
• If you’re a leader, a male goat.
• If you’re an ordinary member of the community, either a female goat or a female lamb.

There are some exceptions.  If you were poor and couldn’t afford a lamb, you could bring two young pigeons. The blood of one would be used as your sin offering and the other would be burnt on the altar.

And if you were so poor you couldn’t afford that, you could bring about 3.5 lb of finest flour.

No-one is excused the cost of the offering, but these exceptions mean that no-one is denied the opportunity for atonement and forgiveness.

You have to bring the best you can to God, so you carefully choose the appropriate animal, making sure it’s without blemish or defect.

You lead the animal to the tent of meeting. At the entrance, you put your hand on its head to signify that you’re presenting it to the LORD as your sin offering. In essence, you lay your sin on the head of the animal.  If you won’t bring a sin offering—on your own head be it!

You might like to think that the priest would take over at this point, but no. Your next act is to take a knife and to slit its throat: it bears your sin and it’s life is given in place of yours.

It’s a horrible image, but it highlights the offensiveness of sin and the reality of its penalty.

Now the priest steps in and collects the gushing blood in a bowl and takes it into the tent.

If the priest were making this offering for his own sin or dealing with the collective sin of the people, he would first dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times on the curtain that separates the holy place where he’s standing from the holiest place where God lives.

Then he would dip his finger again and put blood on the four corners of the altar in the holy place where incense was burnt. He’s a priest. He has regular access to these holier places, and he has to preserve them against any desecration.

In all cases, he would dip his finger in the blood, and put some of it on each of the horns of the altar of burnt offerings just outside the tent. The rest, he pours out at the base of the altar.

The animal’s blood stands in for your blood; for the Hebrew, the life was in the blood.

Meanwhile, your next job is to butcher the animal. You have to remove all the visceral fat, the kidneys and the liver, the fat around the tail. You have to wash all this: you can’t offer God unclean things, and it reminds you that what God really wants from you is cleanness in your inner being.

The priest would then arrange these washed parts on the altar and make sure they’re burnt completely.

If you think back to our reading, you’ll recall that the fire on this altar was never to be allowed to go out. And that reminds you that God stands always ready to receive your offering as atonement and to forgive you.  God doesn’t want to lose you!

The rest of the animal becomes food for the priests, so it’s not been just a wasteful exercise in blood-letting. The only exception to this is for bulls offered for the sin of a priest or the collective sin of the people: the remains of that animal are to be taken to a ceremonially clean place outside the camp and burnt in a wood fire on the ash heap. Why? Because nobody can expect to profit from their sin.

Your offering now complete, you’ll remember the LORD’s words of assurance repeated multiple times about this offering: “In this way the priest will make atonement for them for the sin they have committed, and they will be forgiven.”

Leviticus is the first time in scripture where it’s made explicit that your sin can be atoned for through the ritual sacrifice of an animal. The theological term is substitutional atonement.  

A Better Sacrifice

What’s set down in Leviticus is important for the Israelites of the day but really these things are only pointers to a greater, better sacrifice that’s hinted at all through the Bible.  

Imagine the edge of the platform is a timeline for the history of the world.

So this bit here might be the Garden of Eden, but this is not where the story begins.

[Leave the room.]

The story begins out here. You can’t see me because I’ve left the realm of time and space.  I’m standing in Eternity.  

Peter, writing in the New Testament, says,

“¹⁸For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. ²⁰He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”

[Enter the room, stand at LHS.]

Before God created the world, he already knew we’d mess it up. Before any of us existed, before any of our sins had been committed, he chose his sacrificial lamb, God the Son, without blemish or defect, who would one day offer himself, his life for ours, his blood for ours.

And so God created the world.  He created human beings in his own likeness.  For a while, we don’t know how long, all was well.  Adam and Eve enjoyed the presence of God who walked with them in the cool of the evening.

[Step right].

Then—disaster!  Satan, allegorically called the serpent, tempted them and they disobeyed God.

• They discovered they were naked.
• They tried to hide from God but that didn’t work.
• They tried to make coverings for themselves from leaves but that wasn’t good enough.
• They were ejected from the presence of God before the damage got worse, they couldn’t remain in intimate contact with God.  
  

But God made them coverings from animal skins to cover their nakedness.  Blood was shed, pointing forward to the real sacrifice that would be made thousands of years later to cover our shame. 

[Step right. 4 or 500 years]

God still wants to be with people.  He calls Abraham, promises him the world, but Abraham has no heir.  So God gives him a son, Isaac.

God tests Abraham’s devotion.  ‘I want you to sacrifice your only son, Isaac, whom you love.’  Human sacrifice may not have been unheard of in Abraham’s time but he may have been surprised that his God asked for it!

Abraham and Isaac go of to make the sacrifice.  Isaac, not knowing what’s going on, says, “We’ve got fire and wood but where’s the lamb?”

Abraham replies, “God himself will provide the lamb.”  

Just as he’s about to kill Isaac, God stops him, and there in a thicket is a ram caught by its horns. Abraham offers that in place of Isaac, the ram’s life for his.

This points forward to the time when God’s only Son, whom he loves, would offer himself in the place of all of us.

[Step right. ~ 600 years]

We come to the Passover when God rescued Abraham’s descendants from Egypt.  The Passover lamb died in place of the Israelite first-born sons.  

This points forward to the time when God’s firstborn would die in our place to rescue us from the slavery of sin.

[Step right.]

In Leviticus, we have the sin offering we’ve thought about, pointing forward to the sacrifice of God’s chosen Lamb in a time yet to come.

[Step right. ~ 800 years.]

The Prophet Isaiah writes about a mysterious servant:

53 ⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

And

⁷... he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, …

Isaiah points forward to God’s lamb who would one day be slaughtered for the sins of his people, bearing their punishment.

[Step right. ~700 years]

Enter John the Baptist, who,

(John 1:29) … saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'

[Step right.]

A few short years pass and we come to Calvary.  Jesus has been arrested, tried, beaten.  A crown of vicious thorns has been smashed onto his head.  

It makes me think of the hand being laid on the head of the animal in Leviticus.  But for Jesus, it’s the hands and the sins of all who will come to him in faith. My hand. Your hand. My sins. Your sins. How could we do that to him?!  And yet …

He’s nailed to a cross and left to die outside the city, his blood staining the wood.

He is not just our sacrificial lamb. He is also our high priest.  He enters into the heavenly realms with his own blood, and remembering the words from Leviticus, “In this way [our high] priest [made] atonement for [us] for [every] sin [we’ve] committed [or ever will commit], and [we are] forgiven.”

[Step right.]

And that’s not the end of the story!  Paul writes in 2 Cor. That “… God was reconciling himself to the world in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.”  God still wants to live with people.

Jesus rises from the dead—sin and death are defeated—and God sends his Holy Spirit to dwell in each and every believer as “a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.”  

[Step right.]

And the best is yet to come! “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Beyond the wall there’s an eternal realm where we’ll fully realise our chief end: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

[Centre stage]

The best is yet to come but we can begin getting to know God here and now.  As Paul writes, “… Now [we] know in part; then [we] shall know fully, even as [we] are fully known.”

Meanwhile, our response to all he’s done for us, as Paul tells us, is to “offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.”  

This is our true worship – to live our lives in holiness because our God is holy, to find our true purpose in living for him.

I wonder,

• is there someone here caught in a sin, feeling ashamed or unworthy?
• or, you believe, but without assurance that your sins are really forgiven?

Charles Wesley expressed truth powerfully in his famous hymn, O for a thousand tongues to sing my great redeemer's praise:

[Jesus] breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

See all your sins on Jesus laid:
The Lamb of God was slain,
His soul was once an offering made
For every soul of man.

Just sit in quietness for a moment reflecting on what Jesus has done for us.