As
Christians, we’re in a bit of a conundrum when it comes to rebellion because
there are two aspects to our rebellion.
The first is obvious and is the very reason for why we need Christ: we
sin. From the very beginning, mankind
has continuously rebelled against God and it did/does not matter if it was King
David or King Nebuchadnezzar, if it was Peter or Judas, it doesn’t even matter
if we are being saved or are perishing; unless you are Christ, you have sinned,
therefore you have/will rebel against God.
It could be a rebellion against the Ten Commandments, the lessons from
the Sermon on the Mount, or- as James says- “know[ing] the right thing to do
and fail[ing] to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). We can be fully aware of our sin or it may be
something we do inadvertently, but they are both rebellions- the only
difference is that we can learn from the former. As hard it is, when it comes to rebellion, it
makes little difference if we are Christians because we still continue to rebel
by sinning (but if you are a Christian, you don’t make a “practice of sinning”
[1 John 3:8]). What matters is that
Christ has died because of everyone’s rebellion and you have chosen to believe
in His grace.
So we may be Christians and we may
be rebels, but a Christian is hardly what the world thinks of as a rebel. To them, the stereotype of a devoted
Christian is a “goody two-shoes” who goes to church, prays on the behalf of
others, doesn’t swear, doesn’t drink alcohol, doesn’t go about partying, but
does go on mission trips, homeless shelters, etc. To the world, Christians live according to
the rules of the Bible and the law and therefore, are not rebels. The stereotypical image of a rebel is someone
who looks tough with his beat-up, raggedy clothes, his face expressing no
emotion like he doesn’t give a darn what others think, and goes around doing
what he wants, when he wants; not allowing rules, parents, law, school,
friends, even the world to tell him what he’s going to do. He does what he wants because he wants to do
it and he thinks it benefits him; for the most part, no other motive is
necessary.
This is not a rebel. This “rebel” is doing exactly what the rest
of the world is promoting and enacting: they are living their lives exactly the
way they want to and the way they see fit.
In truth, these “rebels” are going right along with things the world
promotes: it could be a student that only wishes to study and earn good grades
or a person devoted to their work so they can move up in the corporate ladder
and make more money. Though these things
can certainly be glorifying to God, the world does not do it for God, but puts
the emphasis on you.
You do these things to make you feel good, you do these things so you can have lots of money, you do these things because you want to do it.
This is the second aspect of
Christian rebellion. Christians must
rebel against this ideology, we must “not love love the world or the things in
the world. If anyone loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires
of the eyes and pride in possessions- is not from the Father but is from the
world. And the world is passing away
along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1
John 2:15-17). The world, especially America, preaches for you to do what you
want and, though there is sometimes the exception, the emphasis is upon You and
you idolize You; no doubt this is a reason for the rise of atheism in our
country because it promotes Man being in control of himself, nothing greater
than him. “Therefore whoever wishes to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4b). Christians, therefore, are in a paradox: we
must rebel against the standards of the world, yet we continue to live in this
world and must serve God whilst doing so.
And I only made mention of the world’s emphasis on selfishness because I
thought it the most general category that opposed Christian ideology. There are, of course, several ideas that the
world conveys that a Christian must rebel against as well.
The basis behind all that the world
preaches and practices is not simply because one person came up with the idea
to do what they wanted to one day and the rest of the people thought, “You
know, that guy might just be on to something there and he’s not such a bad guy
either.” The world has developed its
habits because it is human behavior: it’s natural for us. “Each person is tempted when he is lured and
enticed by his own desire. Then desire
when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings
forth death” (James 1:14-15). I probably
could have pulled a handful of verses regarding mankind’s sinful nature from
Romans, but James makes it almost eerie with his personification of sin. It’s born, it grows, it’s a living
thing. Yet what is it ultimately that
gives it life and keeps it alive, practically through nourishment? The answer is mankind, not Satan, not the
world. Satan may have been the first to
rebel against God and may have tricked man to sin in the beginning, but our sin
is created by man- it is a man-made thing, or a being as James probably would
have put it.
Therein lies the root behind the
conundrum we Christians face with our rebellion. We have the Holy Spirit, a “guarantee” from
God (2 Cor. 5:5) so we have God within us all.
Yet, God can know no sin, but we continue to sin even with the Holy
Spirit (again with the stinking paradoxes).
For this, we have to look at man’s creation in Genesis. God spoke the world into being and it is
subject to His will, but man was created by God putting His own time into
creating Adam. The way in which He did
it is important because He created man with the “dust from the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). We are created from the dust of the earth
“and to dust [we] shall return” (Genesis 3:19).
We have a nature to return to the ways of the world because we are of
this world and, considering how we are constantly exposed to the world no
matter how hard we may try to separate ourselves, it is extremely difficult to
oppose it because we come from it- it’s in our making. Nonetheless, we were made by God, we breathe
the breath of life from God, Christians have the guarantee of the Holy Spirit,
and even the earth that we were made from was made by God, despite its
opposition. No matter our roots, we were
entirely meant for God, to be loved by God, to love God. However, He does not make us love Him, He
gives us the free will to love, otherwise it would not be loved.
Therefore, if you are a Christian,
you have a choice to make: you can choose God or you can choose the world. But this decision is dire; whichever one you
choose, you also choose to rebel against the other. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other”
(Matthew 6:24). If you follow Christ,
the world will mock you, scold you, hate you, torture you, anything to make you
succumb to it’s ways. But always
remember this, because if you do succumb to the ways of the world, God will not
know you. It’s one or the other.
Rebel wisely.
