Guileless

II.

The Lord Jesus was “sinless.” You would think to say this should be enough, because sinless means sinless. This should go without saying to those who know Him. Had He been any less we would probably have never heard this name we now know to be above every name. We also would be without a Savior. However, the word “sinless” seems to roll too easily off our tongues. This is one “burning bush” that should cause us along with Moses to remove the sandals from off our feet, for this truth is an awesome and “holy ground.” Jesus Christ was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Only He was sinless. Most rush by this truth too quickly and fail to realize what an amazing wonder this is. The Holy Spirit was not satisfied to leave it at that, but gives us more by showing us one more “less.” We are told that He was also guile-less. This is very important to understand. While He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, He never was tainted by them. Of all the sins that could have been singled out, the Holy Spirit points to the absence of “guile” in describing who Jesus was. (1Pet 2:21-24) Jesus is pure. The best silver and the best gold have some impurities. Silver is refined seven times (Ps. 12) to get the tin or lead out. The best of us are impure. Some have more impurities than others. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Some require many trips to the furnace and many trips to the refiner’s pot. Not so the Lord Jesus. He was without any trace of impurity in motive, thought, or intention. There was no guile in Him.

Guile perhaps does not seem so dark or deadly until we take a closer look at it. The word guile means “deceit.” This evil spirit was found lurking in the Garden of Eden. Satan uses deceit when he “baits his traps.” The woman was “deceived” (1Tim. 2:14; 2Cor. 11:3). Deceit is listed among the devil’s many weapons of mass destruction. (Rom. 1:27; Mk. 7:20-23). In Mt. 13 the Lord warns of the deceitfulness of riches. Are we still in danger of being deceived? If we are “touched” with it, are we also in danger of being “tainted” by it? In salvation we are saved by what Christ did for us “at the cross.” In sanctification God goes from the cross to the dross. It is one thing to be “beguiled” (Col. 2:4,18; 2Pet. 2:14), it is another to have guile. Will Rogers once said, “I would rather be the guy that bought the Brooklyn Bridge, than the man who sold it.” Sin is deceptive. (Mt. 26: 14-16; Mk. 13:10; Lk. 22:1-6; Jn. 18:5; Ps. 35:14; Ps. 41:9).

We live in a world governed by a “liar.” (John 8:44). We live in a world filled with deception. Someone is trying to deceive us every single day. Unscrupulous salespeople, crooked politicians, evil workers, slave traders (they still exist today), dope dealers, and many other demons too numerous to mention. To be deceived is to be “fooled,” to be “tricked,” to be “bamboozled.” The world is filled with deceivers. Jesus was so unlike this evil spirit that permeates our planet. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Truth. There is not a trace of falsehood in Him. He is guileless. To be guileless is to be open and transparent. He had no hidden agenda. He prayed in secret, but He never “plotted” in secret. No secret of selfish motive was found in Him. There are no “hidden clauses” in His contracts; there are no “hidden charges” with His wares; we need not worry about the “fine print” (as we say) difficult to read or understand. The same cannot be said of Satan.

The word guile in the Hebrew comes from the root Ramah, which means to hurl, shoot, delude, cause to fall, betray, deceive, that which involves treachery.

Proverbs 26 gives a graphic picture of what it is to have guile. It speaks of a silver pot that is really just clay, coated with silver dross. So too the sinful human heart is called deceitful (Jer. 17:9) above all things.

We are called to purity (1Tim. 5:22). Both repentance and revival are precipitated and preceded with an awareness of a need to be purged. It happened to Moses, it happened to Isaiah, it happened to Peter (Lk. 5:8). The Lord Jesus said of Nathanael, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” (Jn. 1:47). May He say that of us. David was full of guile and was in “denial” until Nathan shattered the King’s self-delusion as he pointed his finger and declared “thou art the man.” Psalm 51 is the refiner’s pot in which we may witness God burn out the dross in David. “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

The church has been purchased, but it has not been purged. It is true that “it is finished” when it comes to Christ’s payment for our sins on Calvary, however God is not finished with us yet. There is still a goal for every soul: to be pure… “even as He is pure.”