This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Pastor Foley

The titles of the three parables in Luke 15 are usually listed in study Bibles as “The Parable of the Lost Sheep”, “The Parable of the Lost Coin”, and “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”. These titles focus our attention on the “lost” thing or person. This is symptomatic of our tendency to focus on ourselves and not on the Lord.

These days, when people say that they are proclaiming the gospel, what they usually proclaim is something along the lines of “God loves you so much”. They portray Jesus as on an urgent mission to tell people how much God loves them and how precious they are to God.

But in fact, Jesus’ reason for telling these three parables is as a specific response to a specific comment from a specific group of people. We see this in Luke 15:1-2:

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”

The Pharisees and the scribes had been carefully watching Jesus since Luke 5:17-26. Jesus healed a paralytic in the presence of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, pronouncing his sins forgiven. On account of this, they begin to suspect Jesus of blasphemy.

Later, Jesus called the tax collector Levi and began to recline at table with tax collectors and others. At this, the Pharisees and scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

The Pharisees and scribes’ question is not a question focused on themselves: “What does Jesus think about me?” Their question is: “Who does this man think he is?”

The parables of Luke 15 are Jesus’ reply to that question.

Who does Jesus say he is in these parables?

In the first parable, he hearkens back to Ezekiel 34 and claims to be the true shepherd of the sheep, the Lord God, who looks for the lost sheep which have been lost by the neglectful shepherds of Israel.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law think that Jesus is a blaspheming man, the crowds who are following him are sinners, and they themselves are God’s servants. But in Jesus’ parable, he identifies everyone differently. In Jesus’ parable, Jesus is the good shepherd, the crowds are the sheep who belong to him, and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are hypocrites who only serve themselves.

God’s search for us is not driven by our value. Our love and God’s love are different. We love things that are valuable. But God loves his enemies and, by his love, we become valuable. Having turned away from God to idols, we have become worthless (cf. Jeremiah 2:5).

The early church leader Athanasius said that we were created in the image of God. But sin destroyed that image in us. God the Son becomes incarnate and restores the image of God to humanity so that all who Christ calls who enter his death through baptism will also be restored to the image of God on the last day when he raises them from the dead.

This is what it means to be saved. It means that we are rescued from worthlessness and restored to the image of God.

God does not save us because we are worthy. Our salvation is what restores our worth. This is why Jesus did not say, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what is valuable.” Instead, he said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

In Jesus’ parable of the coin, the coin is not valuable; the coin is lost. The coin is restored to value by the woman who searches for it and finds it.

This is why Jesus’ message to the crowds was not, “I have come to die for you because you are so precious.” Instead, the message that Jesus preaches—the gospel—is that the day of final judgment is coming soon. God will come in person on that day—in Christ—to judge and punish his enemies. A short time remains, during which time God is offering his mercy through Christ to save anyone who is willing.

The problem: few are willing!

Jesus laments over Jerusalem that is was not willing (Luke 13:34). And, in the parable of the great banquet, the invited guests were not willing, so the master of the house invited anyone who could be compelled to come (Luke 14:12-24).

That is who we are— the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame, who have been compelled by the master and his servants to come to the banquet because there is space available.

That is why the characteristic attitude of the authentic Christian is not that we know how precious we are and thus we love ourselves so much. It is that we know how worthless we are and thus what great mercy we have received from God.

These days there is a counterfeit gospel that says that our problem is our lack of self-acceptance. We don’t love ourselves. In this false gospel, God’s love is God’s acceptance of us, which enables us to accept ourselves. This then enables us to accept others.

But in the actual gospel, our problem is not a lack of self-love but idolatry. There is something or someone (or a bunch of things) in place of the one true God in our lives. Christ comes not to accept us but to warn us that God’s judgment against us will come suddenly and fully. He dies not because we are so valuable and he doesn’t want to live without us. He dies because his death and resurrection is how God makes a way for us to be saved from our idolatry. This, says Jesus in John 3:16, is how God loves the world. We love God because he shows us this mercy. We love others because of the mercy God shows to us. As for loving ourselves, we, along with our other brothers and sisters in Christ, have been made the permanent temple of God and the bride of Christ, and so we treat our bodies, souls, and spirits accordingly.

One question remains which still needs to be resolved in today’s scripture is this: Why do the Pharisees and scribes look at the crowd and call them “sinners”?

The answer is very important: The Pharisees and scribes understood sin as a moral issue. They believed that what made someone a sinner is that that person broke the law and is not in good standing with the temple because they have not made the proper sacrifices there to atone for their sins.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law believed that only God could forgive, but that God had given them the list of what counts as sin and put them in charge of administering the system of how we repent and receive forgiveness for those sins.

According to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law—and then also for the temple authorities, as we will see later in Luke and then also in Acts—the crowd that gathered around Jesus had not repented. They had not taken the right steps to receive forgiveness for their sins. Those steps were only available through the law (as interpreted by the Pharisees and the teachers of the law) and the temple (using the sacrifices administered by the temple authorities).

But beginning with John the Baptist, God revealed that that system could no longer make people right with him. It no longer mediated his presence. In the beginning, in the time of Moses, God gave the law and the tabernacle as the means by which his presence could go with the people. But over time, the law and the tabernacle no longer mediated his presence. It obscured and distorted it. That is because those who interpreted the law and those who operated the temple claimed to be representing God, but they were actually representing themselves and their interests. They claimed that the tax collectors were bad, but they themselves were no different than the tax collectors. They were driven by greed and a desire to exploit their positions for their own power.

In the book of Ezekiel, God’s presence left the temple. The religious authorities had distorted the law and the temple so much that, when Christ came according to God’s promises, the authorities called him a blasphemer and put him to death.

Jesus is the way that God comes. He sent John the Baptist ahead of himself to baptize and let people know that the law and the temple were temporary mediators until God came himself in Christ. From that point, repentance would be mediated through Christ alone.

Through Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus was revealed to be God through the voice of the Father and the Holy Spirit’s descending on him. And the fact that he was baptized together with sinners (unlike the religious authorities) revealed that he came to seek and to save the lost (cf. Luke 7:24-34).

The religious leaders were blind guides who could not see who Christ is or what God’s purpose was for themselves. They could only follow Jesus around and grumble. They were like the children of Israel in the wilderness.

When Christ came, he revealed the true nature of sin. Sin is not a moral violation. It is not a breaking of the law. Sin is the breaking of relationship with God. It is the rejection of God and replacing God with something or someone else. It is idolatry.

So how does someone repent? They receive Christ when He comes to them.

Christ’s coming signals the end of the age. The present age is characterized by God’s mercy and man’s disobedience. This age, the age of mercy, will end on the Day of the Lord. That is the day on which God’s enemies will be punished and condemned and the people of God will be saved, raised bodily from the dead, and restored to life on the renewed earth.

Keeping this in mind, the parables in Luke 15 make perfect sense. All three parables are about Christ searching for and finding the lost. To be lost means to be out of connection with Christ. That disconnection is caused from the human side, not from God. It comes from human rebellion and idolatry.

When someone is out of connection with Christ, the connection can only be restored by Christ.

IIn times past, the connection with God was mediated by the law, the prophets, and the temple. But in these last days, God has come in Christ, as the fulfillment of the law, the prophets, and the temple. Those who had gathered around Christ were forgiven because they had repented, which means that when Christ came to them, they welcomed him and followed him and recognized him as Lord. They were no longer lost. Their sins were forgiven.

We don’t come to Christ and then confess a list of moral sins. In the so-called “Parable of the Prodigal Son”, the lost son tried to come to a list of sins to confess to his father. But the father cuts him off and receives him. This is because sin is not at root a moral problem, but repentance is at root a restoration of relationship.

Christ has come to you today, directly. He comes to you in his word. His word is his own direct speech. His word does not require me or the study notes in your Bible to mediate it for you or explain it to you. He teaches us directly, through his Holy Spirit, who was given to us at our baptism. He comes to us in the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is not mediated by pastors or priests. It does not require a special people to consecrate it or to serve it to you. At that table Christ comes to you directly. That is what a sacrament means: Christ’s direct presence without mediation. And when he offers himself through his word and through the Lord’s Supper, and you receive these in his name as his very word and his very presence, then you are no longer lost.

And your sins are forgiven. 

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If we understand death wrongly, then we understand salvation wrongly

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Pastor Foley

Paul said that “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14). But why does it matter whether people believe that they go to heaven as spirits when they die, or whether there will be a bodily resurrection of all who have ever lived? What makes it “useless” when people deny the resurrection of the dead, as long as they believe in Jesus’ resurrection?

It is useless because if there is no bodily resurrection of all who die, then Jesus did not defeat death. He simply escaped from it and helped others escape—though only partially, since their bodies would still be in death’s possession. But Christ conquers death. Death must give back everything. Everything.

If you ask a Christian, “Are you saved? From what are you saved? When were you saved?” They may answer, “I was saved from my sins when I prayed the sinner’s prayer.” But this understanding of salvation is not found in scripture. When scripture talks about salvation or justification, it is talking about more than being saved from our sins through a special prayer. It is primarily talking about being saved from the curse of death which came to us through Adam’s disobedience. So, the answer to the above question, according to scripture, would be, “I possess the sure and certain hope of the resurrection from the dead on the day of judgment, when I will be justified and declared righteous by the Lord himself, with whom I will live forever in my Spirit-animated physical body on this earth, which will be made new by God.”

Caption: Salvation Mountain in Niland, California

Because the Lord is coming to earth to make his home among those whom he resurrects and justifies, the earth, which was previously polluted by sin and death, has to be purified (cf. Numbers 35:33-34). It must give up her dead. According to Paul, the earth is pretty excited about that, because at the coming of the Lord, “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

At the present time, we have the “firstfruits” of salvation through the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, and we receive both of these when we are baptized (cf. Romans 8:23). The Holy Spirit then teaches us directly and reveals Christ fully to us through the word (cf. John 16:13-14, Jeremiah 31:31-34). So salvation has begun and will be brought to completion at the coming of Christ Jesus. This, says Paul along with all the Apostles, is “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).

 Some Christians say that it is not possible for people to “lose their salvation”. But this way of talking views salvation as something that is already fully possessed. But scripture talks about salvation as something that is presently underway, that we can drift away from if we do not pay attention to the gospel and hold tightly to the word but instead ignore it (cf. Hebrews 2:1-3).

This is what Paul was warning the Corinthians about in 1 Corinthians 15, and it is also what we need to warn the Christians of our own time about. Many Christians believe that salvation from sin is a past tense matter and can be safely set aside from our daily deliberations. They believe that at issue today is the salvation of our nation and of our Christian way of life, and that Christ’s focus today is on raising up specially anointed political leaders to wage this battle. The focus of Christians, they say, is to support these leaders and win this battle at all costs.

But to do so is to ignore the great salvation of the Gospel and to go backwards from the New Covenant to the Old Covenant.

In the New Covenant, our present citizenship is in heaven and we are a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). God is not saving nations. He is raising up a holy nation from among all nations.

In the New Covenant, God is not raising up anointed political leaders but rather “there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5).

In the New Covenant, “Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.” (Matthew 23:10).

In the New Covenant, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to” Jesus. (Matthew 28:18).

In the New Covenant, Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Many Christians gladly affirm these things as spiritual truths but believe they are not political realities. But scripture does not distinguish in this way between spiritual truths and political realities. The Lord Jesus has all power in every realm. Jesus did not die so that we could rewrite the laws in our country. Jesus died so that he could write his law on our hearts.

Christ did not leave the Kingdom of God in the future to be lived in after death. He brought it back to the present in seed form. And those who do not receive it as a seed in the present, watering it and caring for it, will not see it sprout in them in the future. If we do not live the way of the Kingdom in this life, Christ warns us that, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (Matthew 21:43).

Christ already holds all authority in heaven and on earth. So Christ even uses the politicians who oppose him to accomplish his purpose. So we should never worry that a politician can be raised up who can destroy God’s work—this is impossible.

This present evil age is seeking to destroy us not only through governments but also through our flesh-and-blood families and even our own flesh because these things are all hostile to Christ’s kingdom. In Galatians 1:4 Paul says being saved from this present evil age requires Christ’s active work on our behalf today.  

So if Jesus is not focused on saving our nation, what is he focused on today? And what does he expect us to focus on today if we are not focused on supporting certain political leaders?

He tells us in Matthew 10:8:

“Freely you have received; freely give.”

He directs us to pass on the love for enemies, opening his home, sharing his bread, etc. which is the grace he himself gives us daily. If we receive these things from him and what we extend to other people is not that same grace, even the grace we have received will be taken away.

A simple illustration: My wife loves to give clothes, food, and tools to other people. But, when she finds a year later that what she has given to other people is still sitting in the closet and not being used, she asks for those things back in order to give them to someone else who will use them. The kingdom of God is like that. Grace that is not passed on to others is grace that is received in vain (2 Cor 6:1).

We cannot receive mercy from Christ and give others judgment. We cannot receive love from Christ and hate our enemies. We cannot receive hospitality from Christ and close our homes. We cannot receive bread from Christ and let others starve. If we do this, we reveal ourselves to be tares and not wheat and we will be plucked up and burned on the last day, even if we call ourselves Christians and seek to save the nation in his name during our lifetime.

It is absolutely true that nations cannot turn the other cheek to people who attack them, open their home to strangers, or cancel debts and give freely. This is why we are not called to disciple nations. Governments are not instruments of God’s grace, they are instruments of God’s wrath to punish wrongdoers (Romans 13:1-5).

So Christ calls us to discipleship people, not governments, and he calls us to teach people to obey everything he has commanded. Some Christians may say that it is not practical or realistic to live according to Christ’s commandments in this world. What they mean is, “If I obey everything Christ commanded, then my nation and my present way of life will be lost, not saved.”

Jesus responds like this, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). And “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25)

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The teaching that makes the gospel–and your faith–useless

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Pastor Foley

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Corinthians 15:20)

In 1 Corinthians 3:10, Paul wrote that he laid the foundation of Jesus Christ in Corinth but “someone else is building upon it”. We do not know who this “someone else” is, but we can get a sense of what they were trying to tack on to the gospel when we read 1 Corinthians 15:12. This person was denying the “ἀνάστασις”, or the bodily resurrection of the dead. They were denying that we will all be raised again with bodies of flesh and blood, some to eternal life on a renewed earth and some to the second death, at the second coming of Jesus Christ.

In the church today as well, many “someones” are spreading the same false teaching. It is an unfortunate fact of modern Christianity in the West that the default Christian hope is to “die and go to heaven”. But the scriptural Christian hope is to be resurrected in a physical body of flesh and blood and bones which will live forever on a renewed earth in the presence of the Lord. As Paul says, “we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.” (1 Corinthians 15:15).

Then what does Paul mean in 1 Corinthians 15:44 when he talks about a “spiritual body”? Paul is not talking about what material our bodies will be made of. He is not saying that we have a material body now but will be resurrected as a spirit. Instead, Paul is distinguishing between the life source that animates our bodies. In this world, our life source is “natural”, that is, it comes from our parents (cf. John 1:13). But when we are resurrected, our life source will be the Holy Spirit, thus making us “spiritual” bodies.

In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul teaches us that Christ’s resurrection body is the pattern of our resurrection body. And Christ’s body was not a ghostly body, but a material body. In Luke 24:39, the resurrected Jesus says, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” (Luke 24:39). He has flesh, blood, bones, and he ate fish. This is the kind of body that we will have when we are resurrected.

Our understanding of the resurrection will strongly shape our understanding of two key concepts: death and salvation. As we’ll see, a wrong understanding of the resurrection always gives rise to a wrong understanding of death which always gives rise to a wrong understanding of salvation.

So we must understand what “death’ is according to scripture. In scripture, death is not when the spirit and body are separated–a Greek concept. Genesis 3 shows that death is a curse from God for disobeying his word.

Originally, humans were created in a state of blessing in the Garden of Eden. This does not mean that there were no steep cliffs, fierce animals, or sharp stones that could have afflicted Adam. It means that such things posed no threat to Him because God’s blessing on him ensured that these dangerous things served him (cf. Psalm 91:12).

But due to Adam’s sin, the things which previously served him became his master and thus a threat to him.

The ground which once served to nourish him became a grave for him and for every human who followed—a curse on the ground for which it was never purposed (cf. Genesis 3:19). In the Old Testament, God describes the ground as a prison in which people await punishment (cf. Isaiah 24). And God prophesies the resurrection, saying, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light and the earth will give birth to the dead.” (Isaiah 26:19).

Right after Jesus says that He goes to prepare a place for us, Jesus is crucified and buried—he goes into the ground (cf. John 14:2-3). In doing so, Jesus reverses the curse and provides a “room” in which he invites us to take refuge from the wrath of God. This we do by being baptized into Christ’s body (cf. Isaiah 26:20).

When people who are not in Christ die, they do not go anywhere. Their soul and body stay in the prison of the ground, awaiting the judgment at the return of Christ. But, for those of us who die in Christ, we remain with Him even when we die. But this way of being in Him is not the end. It is temporary until He returns on the Day of the Lord and takes us to be with Him by resurrecting us bodily from the dead.

As for the day of judgment, it is spoken of even in Isaiah 25:21, saying, “For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.” This is why Paul writes in Romans 8:19-25 that the “creation waits with eager longing” and even “we ourselves” wait for the day when the curses on creation are reversed and we are resurrected bodily.

This is why the Christian hope is not the slipping off of our bodies like banana peels while we go on to eternal life as spirits. The Christian hope is that the curse will be reversed, the ground and the sea will give up their dead, and the resurrected dead will be judged, the creation will be redeemed, and those who are in Christ will live forever with him on a renewed earth, in flesh and blood bodies animated by the Holy Spirit.

This is the gospel hope.

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