Rev.
Richard D. Phillips • Question Box
Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia • July 28, 2002
Copyright reserved • Internet access via www.tenth.org
Tonight I am going to briefly handle three questions that have come to me recently. The first asks, “Why was it such a great sin for King David to order a census of Israel?” This refers to 2 Samuel 24:1-17, where God’s anger burned against Israel because David took a census of the fighting men. Even Joab, David’s thug general, knew this would bring trouble, saying, “Why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?” (24:3). As soon as David did it he, too, knew it was a sin. God’s wrath was so stirred up that 70,000 people died as a result. But, interestingly, the biblical account never explains why this was a sin.
What makes this more interesting is that the chapter begins by saying that the LORD incited David to do this, apparently by giving Satan permission to tempt him. The parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21 says, “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.” The record in Chronicles places this right after a great victory over the Philistines, so the sin was probably related to a problem with pride and self-reliance. A census was preliminary to a draft of soldiers and a levying of taxes. It seems, therefore, that David’s intent was to increase the royal power in a way that contrasted with humble reliance on God. As Deuteronomy chapter 17 so strongly insists, the human kingship of Israel was to be noticeably dependent on God’s divine kingship. For Israel’s king to build up the same kind of power common to pagan kings was tantamount to repudiating God’s over-kingship. This seems to have been the nature of David’s sin so that God was angered and acted to nip it in the bud.
This sin is repeated today when churches rely on marketing and salesmanship to gain success. There is nothing wrong with prudent surveys about how the church may better serve its people, or how practical matters may be improved. But when the church takes surveys of felt needs and desires so as to identify consumers and convert them into customers—paying customers, of course—by redesigning its worship and message, then, like David in his census, the church repudiates its reliance on God, places its own prowess in the place of his provision, denies the gospel by implication, and angers God so that he judges it and allows it to spiritually wither. This is, in my view, the very thing the church in America is suffering from today.
The next question is: “What does the Bible say about deviant sex? Is there any reason to feel guilty about using handcuffs, role-playing, or experimenting with dominant/submissive games?” I hesitate to deal with a question like this in a setting like this, but it troubles me so much that Christians could so lack biblical discernment that I think that I should. I also think that, given the debauched stated of sexuality in our age, we ought to be eager for opportunities to speak on this subject.
One of the purposes of sex is recreational. For those who practice sex within the safe confines of marriage, God intends it to be a source of enjoyment. There is no reason to insist, therefore, that sex be boring or mundane or routine. But it is always the devil’s desire to corrupt things that God has made pure and good, and in a sexually debauched age like ours we ought to protect our sexuality from filth and sin.
Hebrews 13:4 says to keep the marriage bed pure. Surely that means more than having only one partner; it also means that the way we love should be pure and chaste. Love-making is an exercise in mutual-servanthood. It is ministering to the physical and emotional needs of your mate, and involves a spiritual union. It is impossible for me to imagine how domination games fit in with this. You should never ask your spouse to do anything humiliating or harmful. We do not make sex exciting by degrading one another but by nurturing love through selfless ministry and cherishing the husband or wife God has given us. If you are married to a Christian, the person with whom you have sex is a daughter or son of the Heavenly Father. Keep that in mind and honor the gift that he has given.
Finally, and more upliftingly, one writer asks, “Would you please explain the use of terms such as ‘heirs,’ ‘co-heirs with Christ,’ ‘inheritance,’ and ‘coming into your inheritance.’ Does this not suggest we are waiting for God to die to gain our inheritance?”
These expressions describe our relationship to God through union with Christ. The apostle Paul, in particular, uses it to describe, first, that God has great blessings that await us; second, that we are to promote the interests of the family business, that is the kingdom of God, through godliness and evangelism; and third, that all our blessings in Christ belong to us by right as a family heritage and not as an attainment that we have to acquire and protect. The point is the nature of our relationship to God and his blessings. Unlike servants who receive their wages, we are sons who take possession as heirs (Gal. 4:7).
The metaphor is not intended to be perfectly technical, however. Mainly, Paul sees us entering into our inheritance after our deaths. This is how he uses the term in Romans 8:17, where we are heirs with Christ as we share in his death and resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:50, our inheritance is linked with our future bodily resurrection. Jesus passed through his death and entered into his maturity, as it were, and hence into his inheritance, we likewise will do the same in him.
There is one reference that speaks of us inheriting because of God’s death. Hebrews 9:15 says that Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, so that by the ransom of his blood we “may receive the promised eternal inheritance.” The idea is somewhat different here than in the apostle Paul’s writings. The writer of Hebrews means that just as the death of a benefactor provides an inheritance to those who are named in his will, Christ’s death also provides forgiveness for sinners who are joined to him through faith.
That reminds us that the great treasure we receive from God is the forgiveness of our sins and acceptance into his loving presence. I think of Jesus telling his disciples not to rejoice that they received power to cast out demons, but rather to “rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Lk. 10:20). That is our great inheritance, full possession of our membership in God’s royal family and a place in his love, and from this greatest and most costly treasure imaginable every other heavenly blessing flows.