Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 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.

• 1 Corinthians 8:9-13

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.

• Hebrews 12:14-17

For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

• John 17:2

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

• Ephesians 2:8-9

“To an idealistic way of thinking, it may sound a little odd that a Christian ethic first speaks of rights and only then of duties. But we follow not Kant but the Holy Scripture, and for that very reason we must first speak of the rights of natural life—that is, of what is given to life—and only then of what is required of it. God gives before he demands. In the rights of natural life, it is not the creature but the Creator who is honored, and the wealth of his gifts is recognized. There are no rights before God, but the things given to human beings in nature become their rights. The rights of natural life are the reflection of God’s glory as Creator in the midst of the fallen world. They are not simply what people can sue for in their own interest, but what God himself guarantees. The duties, however, spring from the rights themselves, as the tasks do from the gifts. They are included in the rights. Thus, when in the context of natural life we speak first of the rights and then of the duties, we are making room for the gospel in natural life.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You (devotion for August 19, devotions compiled from his writings)

Bonhoeffer has an interesting point here.  We are given rights by being called sons of God.  Salvation is by faith.  If duties came first, then we would connect our salvation with the works.

I have heard it repeatedly of late.  God loves the sinner.  God accepts the sinner into His kingdom, but then God works in that person’s life to remove the sin.

We accept God, not to get away with the sins we commit.  We accept God because we are sinners, and we are incapable of cleaning up our act.  God then grants us eternal life, but if we have truly accepted Him, He places in our hearts a burning desire to repent of that sin, and He grants us the power in which to resist that temptation.  It rarely happens all at once.  God chips away some obvious issues at first, and then some take a while to get resolved.  We will never be perfect.  If for no other reason, we would become extremely self-righteous and smug.

Thus, obtaining our rights comes first, but as Bonhoeffer states, on the heals of those rights are the duties.

Among those duties are a couple of Scriptures above that mention rights.  First Corinthians 8 talks about eating meat that was sacrificed to idols.  Meat is meat, but if a person of weak faith sees you eating that meat, they could stumble.  Thus, a duty is to set a good example.  The Hebrew 12 passage speaks of a duty that we should guard our rights.  Esau’s birthright was sold for a bowl of porridge.  Hebrews mentions that Esau was godless.  He, indeed, married women who were locals, worshipping false gods, so Esau did not much care.

Our right to be called a son of God (not gender specific) carries the duty to be true to that distinction.  Thus, we should strive to repent and set a good example, but the other commands come into play.  Jesus told us to love one another, and He gave us the Great Commission, to tell others of the wonderful gift God gave us.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.