Nov
7
May it not be charged
Filed Under Around the Church, Christian Living, Ethics, Family, Prayer, Psalms, The Church
I have been walking the familiar paths of Paul’s letters while keeping my eyes open for things along the path I have not noticed before. I had one of those moments the other day while reading the end of what we reckon is Paul’s final letter: 2 Timothy. He is writing some closing thoughts (and 4:6 suggests that Paul considers his execution a fait accompli) and warns Timothy about the treachery of Alexander the coppersmith. Paul takes comfort in his assurance that the Lord will certainly deal with Alexander according to his deeds (v.14-15). In the following verses, Paul recalls, At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. Those words deserve some further review.
You can read the commentators’ speculations on exactly what this first hearing incident was among his various encounters with the Roman legal system. Let’s be candid: it’s not that important. At a previous court appearance, Paul felt the disappointment of desertion by friends. He expected some support; instead, no one came. I think back over the last seventeen+ years I have been involved in the gospel ministry, and, while I’ve never faced arraignment before a court, I can identify with Paul to some degree. People let you down. They misunderstand you. They won’t stand with you in the face of opposition. They become hypercritical. They are fickle.
In one case, Paul speaks of enemies in the spirit of the imprecatory psalms–you know, Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun [Psalm 58:8]. In the other, he speaks of friends–people who ought to know and do better–who to a man deserted him at an hour of crisis. But he doesn’t lower the boom on them. Of them he says emphatically, May it not be charged against them! For one party he asks the Lord to repay with vengeance; for the other he seeks their pardon. May it not be charged against them! Paul asks the Lord to repay one to the last penny; to the other he asks the Lord to write the whole thing off.
Calvin comments on this difference:
He desires God to forgive the others, because they had fallen through fear and weakness, for we ought to have compassion on our brethren’s weakness. But Alexander had risen up against God with malice and sacrilegious audacity and was openly attacking the truth he had once confessed, and such wickedness deserves no mercy.
In times past I have been deserted and disappointed by church folk. Maybe there’s been an Alex Coppersmith in my life, but right now I can’t recall. But I can think of many deserters. No unbeliever has ever done me so much harm as fellow believers have. I don’t expect unbelievers to ‘get it.’ When they oppose, that’s par for the course in my book. But when insults, misrepresentations, slander, backbiting, and plain-old meanness and spinlessness come from within the family, that hurts!
Just when I am ready to start singing and praying the imprecatory psalms, I hear the words of Jesus: whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses [Mark 11:25]. Isn’t all of life worship? No, Jesus says. There are times when you stop whatever you’ve been doing to the glory of God and you stand still, and you enter (as it were) the temple of God, and you address God. Then forgiveness becomes a big issue. How often does Jesus speak of the need of his people to forgive those who have sinned against them? Very often. Always he mentions it in the context of our assurance that God has forgiven us. The forgiving heart is a forgiven heart. If we’re not forgiving people then we’ve no reason to believe that God has forgiven us. Jesus teaches this in the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, pray saying, “forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us”. The Lord makes the peril spectacularly clear, that if you forgive men when they sin against you your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you don’t forgive men their sins your Father won’t forgive you your sins. A man in Georgia said to John Wesley, “I never forgive.” Wesley said to him, “I hope you never sin.”
Was it a sin for certain individuals to hang back in the shadows while Paul stood alone defending himself? Absolutely. They prized convenience and safety more than standing with a brother in the midst of hardship. Did Paul ever confront all of these folk about it? Maybe. We don’t know. The loving rebuke of sin is a good thing. Regardless, Paul didn’t write them off. He didn’t savor the offense. He apparently didn’t refuse fellowship with them. On the contrary, he wants the Lord to deal with them as if it had never happened.
I once heard Geoffrey Thomas ask a group of ministers in a sermon, ‘Why do we feel the need to be vindicated all the time? Why the need to be so quick to defend ourselves? What of the glory and honor of Christ suffers when we are misunderstood or criticized?’ I’ll admit, I don’t necessarily like the right answers to those questions. As much as I want to claim to defend truth and righteousness, I am so much more eager to pursue them when my own skin is involved. I am often much more interested in advancing my reputation than that of Christ and his kingdom.
Praise be to God, for he will bring justice to the wicked and avenge the blood of his saints. He alone knows who the subjects of Satan are and when and how he will judge them. We can pray with Bonhoeffer, ‘God, now step in and destroy your enemy. Use your power, let your righteous wrath blaze forth.’ And we must also pray for others, saying, ‘May it not be charged to them. Forgive them for their weaknesses and ignorance and feebleness.’
For me, there can be no grudges. I thank God that he is still at work in me to will and to do of his good pleasure-so much so that I can say more and more, when I remember brothers and sisters who have let me down, May it not be charged to them!
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