ENCOURAGEMENT NOT COMMANDMENT

I have often wondered how the exhortation passages in the epistles fit into the law/gospel paradigm. If the apostles say that they ‘law kills’ and the ‘commandment brings death’, then why do they command the churches to do so many things at the end of their epistles? Don’t the apostles know that the saints can’t perfectly keep all these commands? Their tact seems to contradict one of the great apostolic truths that law – any law - cannot enable anyone to obey. The law can only show men and women their sin and drive them further into despair.  If that is true than why do the apostles give so many imperatives to their respective audiences? I have personally struggled to understand the back end of the epistles for a very long time. How could Paul write so clearly about the impotence of the law to change a heart and then proceed to lay heavy commands on his audiences as if they must keep them? Then I realized that in order to understand what the apostles were doing I had to understand the difference between two concepts: exhortation and command.  Exhortation and its cousin encouragement are words that connote the idea of running alongside someone who is already moving in the right direction. Both words mean essentially the same thing. They come from roots that mean to give courage (thus encouragement) or strength to another. This tells us that these words are given to those who already desire to do what is right and who are moving in the right direction but are growing faint. Encouragement and exhortation are designed move others along not impede them. They are words of strengthening not warning. The one encouraged does not resist the help for the encouragement aligns with his desires. We all know that when someone comes beside us to encourage us it inspires us to lift up the hands that hang down and to strengthen the weak knees.  We see this principle of encouragement in the world of sports. There is a person in the running world known as a pacemaker.  The pacemaker runs alongside a superior runner to maintain a certain pace so that the better runner keeps to his running strategy. The pacemaker is not there to win, but to impart to the superior runner an internal strengthening to run better and harder.  This is way different from law which tells us to conform to a difficult standard ‘or else’. Commandments threaten people to do the impossible. We as Christians know this, having already been slain by the law and having run to Christ who has already kept the commands for us. To drive Christians to keep commandments is to prop up something that has long ago died. Christians don’t need commandments that have already been fulfilled in Christ; what they do need is for others to come around them and help them keep the pace. Those who bear the gifts of encouragement are a great gift to the church.  They can be spotted easily because they attract (not repel) Christians who are struggling in their faith. They give words that energize and comfort others rather than drain. They are not legalists. They know that all Christians fall short of God’s standards. Theirs is not to remind people of that obvious fact, but to run alongside their brothers and sisters to hasten them along the road to glory.  May their tribe increase!

Commands are of a very different family. A commandment is to lay a heavy duty upon someone with a severe penalty for non-compliance. Commandments are not given to those who are already running in a right direction but to those who willfully run the other way. Commandments serve either as barriers to stop some behavior (civil use of law) or as reminders that the demands of law are infinitely higher than one can fulfill (evangelical use of the law). The common feature of both of these is that they address an unwilling soul; and in each case the recipient feels an inner repulsion to obey the command.  One thing that cannot be said of commands is that they change one’s heart.  The command may move someone to compliance, but the inner man stays as it was before. So goes the old adage, ‘he who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.’  Commands are like the settlers of old who pushed stubborn mules along the track but never changed the mules desire to obey.  So it is with commandments.  They demand everything, accomplish nothing and change nada.

The apostles wrote letters to churches filled with people who knew the Lord and desired to do his will. They were moving toward the celestial city.  What they needed was a apostolic encouragement to step up the pace in the direction they were moving.  The apostles did not threaten.  That wasn’t their goal.  They served as pacemakers to run alongside their brothers and sisters and to encourage them to keep running the Christian life. They apostles ran with not against.

This reminds us all that the perfect runner, the perfect pacemaker came alongside us as we faltered along life’s path. But this pacemaker was different. He actually ran to win the race. But that is not all. He ran to win so that all He ran alongside would win also.  He ran the perfect race for us and achieved the crown. But he also came to run alongside us that we might win a crown also.  Every day when we as Christians wake up may we look to Jesus who has already won the race at Calvary’ cross.  We are winners! And may we also see that Jesus is also running alongside with us, not to bash, not to impede, not to threaten us, but to exhort us to keep running with Him.  And as we run together with Him in intimate fellowship His presence will continually impart to us a strengthening grace that will enable us to run the race harder than ever before. So look to Jesus, believer; look to Him who runs as the Author and Perfecter of your faith and who is also the Strengthener of your faith by the presence of His mighty Spirit.  He, then, is the great encourager of the saints and He alone will unfailingly bring all of his runners safely home.