KASPARS OZOLINS | Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
My family and I recently returned home from two months away in Europe for the summer break. We spent some time in our former home (and my place of work) at Tyndale House, a lovely Christian biblical research center in Cambridge, England. But most of our time was spent in our native Latvia, a small country in Northern Europe along the Baltic sea. We go home every summer and enjoy typical Latvian summer activities such as swimming (in the sea, as well as in lakes and rivers), eating delicious food, experiencing long daylight hours, and many other things. This year we spent an especially long time away from home, living with relatives on my side and my wife’s side, as well as visiting friends. Our summer travel plans are now also more complicated than before, since we drive from our Kentucky home to the east coast in order to visit friends and relatives there before taking a far cheaper flight to Europe.
All in all, our summer was quite busy, and we all felt a great relief when we finally reached our own home again. It feels great to be able to be a family in our own place.
A summer of reflection
In addition to being a long summer, there were lots of ups and downs for our family and for me personally. As our relatives and extended family grow older, times of transition inevitably come. This summer felt like that, with discussions about long-term future plans for relatives on both sides of our family.
Additionally, there is usually the tricky matter of navigating Adventism, since virtually all the people we know in Latvia (both relatives and friends) are Adventists. Sometimes this barrier made me feel rather lonely, if I’m honest. In short, while there were sweet moments for us this summer, to some extent the challenges we faced left me and my family emotionally drained.
I look back on this summer as one in which God made me more acutely aware of how much there is that remains in me which is sinful and selfish. I’m not the father and husband I had hoped to be by now. If I’m honest, so many of my motivations are skewed and not fully devoted to God.
Along with these dynamics, I look back on this summer as one in which God made me more acutely aware of how much there is that remains in me which is sinful and selfish. I’m not the father and husband I had hoped to be by now. If I’m honest, so many of my motivations are skewed and not fully devoted to God. These two experiences—my sinfulness and the sadness sometimes experienced —reminded me of the wonderful book by Dane Ortlund with its very probing title: Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. Our human experience (both as believers and unbelievers), is one in which we both sin against others and are, in turn, sinned against by others. We sometimes inflict unjust suffering on others even as we experience suffering (both natural and human-caused) from others.
The insight I derive from this reality is the following: the fact that I experience suffering does not diminish my culpability as a sinner in any way. Or, as our Lord Jesus put it: “Do you think that these Galileans [whom Pilate had murdered] were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2-3).
From Adventism to Christianity
As an Adventist, I dealt with the reality of my sinfulness mainly in one way: I downplayed the justice that God demanded. I had a very grandfatherly, Santa Claus-notion of God, whom I imagined looking at my sin and dismissing it with a wave,
“Boys will be boys.”
I would never have admitted that, but my views on a host of theological subjects betrayed the reality of that understanding of God. For example, I refused to believe that the sin of Adam and Eve was really what led to all of the misery that we see in this life, and I even taught this doubt in Sabbath School. (“Just one piece of forbidden fruit? C’mon.”)
Furthermore, I found it simply unbelievable that God would condemn a decent-hearted jungle dweller who had never heard of Jesus. (“Could that really fit with a loving portrait of God?”) Above all, I dismissed as completely unreasonable the idea of any kind of eternal hell, something I found utterly at odds with my understanding of Jesus. But those rationale never gave me peace with God. I could never truly get rid of my fear of death, and I dreaded what awaited me in eternity. These rationalizations, mingled with a deep-seated fear of death, plague anyone who does not have a biblical worldview including those who hold to official Adventist doctrine.
…the clarity and forcefulness with which Scripture speaks about human sinfulness would drive any person insane and therefore must be suppressed by the heart somehow. But thanks be to God, when He showed me my actual sinfulness, He did not leave me in my despair…
As a matter of fact, the clarity and forcefulness with which Scripture speaks about human sinfulness would drive any person insane and therefore must be suppressed by the heart somehow. But thanks be to God, when He showed me my actual sinfulness, He did not leave me in my despair, for He was simultaneously pleased to reveal to me His precious Son (Gal 1:16). All those rationalizations disappeared in a flash when I saw that the cross laid bare the ugly reality of my sin yet also finally and totally dealt with it.
I always tear up when I sing that line from “Before the Throne of God Above”: “When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within; upward I look, and see him there, who made an end to all my sin?” When I became a Christian, I discovered who I truly was because I found out who God really is. He is the “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).
Looking Unto Jesus
As we were nearing the end of our time away from home this summer, the Lord brought to my mind two passages, one from the New Testament, the other from the Old. At the very end of the first letter of John, the beloved apostle closes with an unexpected line:
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”—1 John 5:21
At the same time, I also recalled that Ezekiel had been given a vision of the coming new covenant which included some very specific promises. God says:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.”—Ezekiel 36:25
The older I grow, the less confident I am in my own growth in holiness. I’ve stumbled far too many times. But at the same time, I know I’m not the same person I used to be. My confidence in my own abilities is growing dimmer by the day. But my confidence in the One who is mighty to save grows more and more.
I recently went back over the Heidelberg Catechism, surely one of the most beautiful and encouraging statements of the Christian faith in all of church history. There are few things I know well in this life, but I want to cherish and hold onto the most important ones.
Question 60: How are you righteous before God?
Answer: Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, of never having kept any of them, and of still being inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinner nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me if only I accept this gift with a believing heart.
Question I: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
Answer: That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven, in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, also reassures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.†
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