shame: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Gen 3:21). This robe that covers the shame of man is also mentioned in the story of Noah’s drunkenness: “And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness” (Gen 9:23). The robe of righteousness is to cover nakedness (Ezek 18:7, 2 Cor 5:3–4, Rev 3:18, 16:15). It is white (Rev 3:5).
This robe of righteousness is pure and washed clean by Christ’s own blood (Gen 49:11, Rev 7:14). We cannot add anything to this righteousness because our own righteousness is as a filthy rag (Isa 64:6). Aaron and the priests wore this robe of righteousness as a visible picture of Christ’s perfection (Exod 28:2, Lev 6:10). In Isaiah this robe of righteousness is called the garment of praise (61:3, 11). It is also called “the righteousness of saints” since it becomes ours through faith (Rev 19:8). It is also called the “wedding garment” because we must have it on to be acceptable to the heavenly wedding (Matt 22:11–13). If we wear the filthy garment, we need to have it taken off and be clothed with the pure garment (Zech 3:3, Gen 35:2).
To believe as a child
We know that we must be as a little child to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:15). We also know that God has hidden his mysteries “from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes” (Matt 11:25). David says he is as a child (Ps 131:2). When Naaman was converted, his flesh became as a child’s (2 Kgs 5:14). And we, as little children, want to be brought to Jesus, and receive the pure milk of the word (1 Pet 2:2). For children are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 18:1–4).
The Bible also says that there is such a thing as being childlike in the wrong way. We are being childlike in the wrong way when we are ignoring the study of the Word (Heb 5:12–13). For we all know that little children do not study the Word of God because they do not know how to read. This is because they do not need to. They have perfect faith. But as they get older, they need more weapons to battle against the wiles of the enemy. And so God has given us his written Word, and he has also given us the ability to learn to read, and schools to go to learn in. God gives gifts in his congregation so we can learn his Word and not be as children “tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14).
So let us heed the Word, and study it diligently. “Brethren, be not children in understanding. Howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men” (1 Cor 14:20).
Peter’s exhortation to us
Peter says that as long as he is in this body, this tabernacle, he will use his time to stir up the others. That is, to incite them, to provoke them unto love and good works, as it says in Hebrews 10:24. Consider the verb “stir up.” You stir up a fire, for example, when it is getting low, and it flames up once again. You stir up a pot every so often, so that what you are cooking doesn’t congeal, or burn. It has to heat up, but it must not burn. After you stir the pot, it is fine for a while. Then you have to go back a little while later and stir it again. Then it is fine for a little while longer. In the same way, you stir up people who are lethargic so that they can pay attention when danger comes by.
I often think that we stir ourselves up every Sunday and every mid-week day that we go to services or go visiting or go to Bible Class. It helps us at the time, but we still have to go the next time and the next time, to keep ourselves from congealing.
To stir up is to provoke, to urge. Peter says he goes around stirring people up—that is his pastoral work. He exhorts, comforts, rebukes, reminds, consoles. These are his acts of love and good works. For when we come together to visit, or to look into God’s Word, or to hear it preached, we are never learning anything new. Paul writes: “But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another” (1 Thess 4:9). Why does he say “you do not need that I write to you” and yet he writes it to us? Because we forget. And so we have to exhort each other and tell each other the things that we already know but are always in danger of letting go of, of forgetting, of slipping from (Heb 2:1). This is what Peter says he does. He says: “I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth” (2 Pet 1:12). For we are instructed and know, but we must re-know, we must be reminded, we must be made sure again. The gospel writer begins his gospel, explaining why he wrote it and why we must read the gospel. He says that it is so that “thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed” (Luke 1:4). We are certain, but we need to always be made more certain.
Because we have the Holy Spirit abiding in our hearts by faith, we already know: “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20). But we get distracted by other things, as the parable says (Luke 8:14), and we wax cold, and our flesh gets in the way. And thus we do not do the Word, and we even forget what we have heard and know. But Jesus reminds us: “If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them” (John 13:17). And the Holy Spirit in us, even as we tire and forget, still knows what is right, and reminds us in our heart: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Cor 2:12).
So may God help us, and stir us up and provoke us continuously through our brothers and sisters, as it is written: “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you” (1 Thess 3:12). For it is also written: “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbor, ‘Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give,’ when thou hast it by thee” (Prov 3:27–28).
Blind people
If you sat down to dinner with a blind person, would you mock his groping for a fork? Would you wonder why he makes a mess all over his shirt? Would you laugh at him if he tipped over his cup of milk? You would not. Why? Because you understand that the person sitting across from you is blind. They cannot see. Because they are blind, great compassion and help is shown to them.
Why then, I ask you, dear Christian, do you not treat people who are spiritually blind with the same compassion, with the same heart of help? Instead of being compassionate, we feel superior to the other one. We think: good for me, I know, and this other person, he sure is an idiot—he doesn’t know even the things that are obvious and easy.
Do you see our error, dear Christian? Do you notice that Jesus never had the smug and superior attitude that we have towards those who are blind? He knew that they were deaf and dumb and blind and that they didn’t even realize it. For every person in the natural world who is blind knows that he is blind. But the devil has caused the supreme blindness in those he has deceived. He has convinced them that, in fact, they see (John 9:39–41).
So let us look on those who are not of us as beloved of God and as possessed by the power of the wicked one, as Jesus did. Jesus “rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him” (Mark 9:25). Notice that in this example Jesus isn’t even speaking to the individual human being. He is speaking to the foul spirit that possesses the heart of the human being. Jesus is so sure that the problem in the person is the evil that owns the person, that reigns in him. The human being himself is dear, beloved, and to be pitied. When people of the world threw themselves into the fire, or foamed like lunatics, Jesus knew it was the devil, and rebuked the devil (Matt 17:18). Thus, again, the person was separated from the power that had held him in thrall, the wrongness, the lies. The Bible explains to us how we are to understand those who do not believe. It says they are in “the snare of the devil,” and “are taken captive
