Changed By Glory

The Everyone in Everyone

Note: View Discretion Advised

Backstrom, a new crime drama from FOX, follows a cynical, disgusting, somewhat comical, and brilliant detective in the city of Portland bearing the name of the show. My wife and I watched the pilot, one, because we enjoy crime shows and two, because the role of Backstrom is played by Rainn Wilson, better known as “Dwight” from The Office.

I don’t normally search for things that are very deep in a show like this, but a couple of quotes from Backstrom stood out to me as important from a Christian, Gospel-centered worldview. Clearly these quotes are significant to the character development of Backstrom and are meant to give the viewer an insight into his mind. There is one quote in particular that drew my attention. But before I get to it, I will give a little background….

Backstrom is cynical. He shows up at a crime scene and begins to make very confident and harsh judgments about people, much to the exasperation of his optimistic, psychology-major partner. And at one point after he makes a number of stinging accusations against a suspect prior to there being substantial evidence, his partner declares, “You see the worst in everyone!”

Backstrom responds flippantly, “I see the everyone in everyone.”

Such a line is meant to show just how deep his cynicism and negativity run, with hints of emotional baggage from his childhood. I am no prophet but I estimate that this is meant to be the beginning of his character trajectory. The writers will pull him over time out of his negative estimation of mankind to the point where he will have to admit that there is good in some, if not in everyone. Again, that is my guess, and considering how cliché network television tends to be, I would stake money on it.

As soon as those words escaped Backstrom’s mouth I thought of just how biblical what he said was. In fact, Jesus Christ himself would have agreed with this statement! For as the Apostle John records, when the crowds began to be attracted to Jesus,

“Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” (John 2:24-25 ESV)

Jesus did not see the worst in everyone, he saw “the everyone in everyone”. He knew that, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12 ESV)

Was Jesus a cynic like Backstrom? The answer is no. Jesus is a realist. Jesus knows what is.

Furthermore, while Jesus saw “the everyone in everyone” and Backstrom saw “the everyone in everyone”, the trajectory of that truth is very different in the case of Jesus’ story.

Backstrom is being shown by his words to be an extreme cynic. This provides the foundation for his character to develop, growing in confidence in his fellow man, seeing that there are exceptions to his rule.

But Jesus came precisely because of “the everyone in everyone”. This truth is foundational to the trajectory of Jesus’ story, but that story moves in a completely different direction than Backstrom’s. Jesus story, the Gospel, has a trajectory marked by grace and redemption so that “the everyone in everyone” will not remain what it is.

Jesus came because of “the everyone in everyone” so that every one of his people could have in them that which is uniquely good, namely the unique goodness of Jesus himself. He did not come to draw out the good in mankind, but to give of his goodness so that “the everyone in everyone” would not have the last word.

Jesus is not a cynic. He is a realist. And the reality is that there is an “everyone in everyone” and it is called sin. But Jesus came and as a man was the exception to the norm, he died for those under that norm, and then he rose victorious over it. And by this he set the trajectory for the day when that reality would be no more.

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.” (Colossians 1:19-22 ESV)

January 26, 2015 0

God is not Wilfred

It is not uncommon for art to take shots at God. Perhaps some of the most profound pieces of literature, music, and film are those that really take aim at the idea of God. More than a few films take subtle (or not so subtle) shots at the Divine, usually exalting humans as the ones who are kind and good, who need to be freed to exercise their independence. But more often than not, these attempts to dethrone God reveal that God’s harshest critics don’t really know him.

Last year I watched a film that was very well done called Snowpiercer, written and directed by Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong. Please note before you go watch it that it was violent and contained language, but it was clearly one of those films that was aiming to wax eloquent as a parable of mankind’s struggle against the idea of God.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where the globe is frozen and devoid of life, a few thousand survivors for nearly two decades have been aboard a self-sustaining train that circles the globe, never stopping. As long as the train keeps moving and all of its systems are functioning humanity survives. The builder of this train, named Wilfred, is viewed as divine, with hymn-like songs written in his honor. He is worshipped as being sovereign and benevolent, at least by the privileged. The train is divided into two classes, the poor crammed into the back of the train and the rich near the front. These people are seen to be in their place by the predestined plan of Wilfred, fulfilling their place in the order that keeps the train going.

The movie centers on the people in the back of the train who want equality, they want to get to the front of the train, to the “divine engine” and take it over. So on an appointed day after much planning, they revolt. In the process they capture one of Wilfred’s cruel lackeys, a pathetic, sycophant of a woman named Mason. And this is where the story gets interesting….

The people from the back of the train are about kill Mason who had been an executor of injustice so many times. But she reasons with them. Up to this point it has been clear that the divine Wilfred, creator and sustainer of the train, sovereign predestinator of everyone on board is Bong’s rendering of God and some aspects of how he is portrayed, though crude, seem to be reflections of the sovereign God of Scripture. It seems maybe this artist is building a convincing case against God, but then words. Words that reveal something very important about Bong’s conception of God.

On the verge of being put death Mason proclaims that “Wilfred is divine! Wilfred is merciful!” So Curtis, the leader of the people from the back of the train says to her, “Call him. See if he’ll save you.”

In the clutches of these desperate people at the back of the train, she responds.

“He won’t come here. He won’t leave his engine.”

Ah. Pause and think about it.

There it is.

Maybe the caricature of God would hold true for the many gods out there. Deities that are echoes of the hissing of serpent in Eden….

But as a Christian I can gladly proclaim, “God is not Wilfred.”

Why?

Because the God of the Bible came to the back of the train so the he himself could lead those captive there to the front of the train.

Mankind had no lack. No want of anything in the universe that God created. But they believed a lie, much like the lie put forth in the movie, that God is not good and that he is holding out something good from us. This plunged mankind into bondage to sin and death. But God promised that what he had made would not remain like this. He would send his Son to the back of the train, to suffer with all the rest and for all the rest. He would take the punishment for their rebellion and he would open all the doors all the way to the front of the train where they would enjoy fellowship with the sovereign Lord forever.

Many would watch the movie Snowpiercer and consider it to be so profound. But it is only profound in the sense of how accurately it shows the God satan tells us is there, rather than the God that is there in reality. The God that is is indeed the sovereign predestinator of all things. He is the Creator. He is high above his creation. But he is also the God who in love came to his creation to rescue, to redeem, and to do so not by just “paying a visit” but by humbly suffering and dying and rising so that he could lead a host of captives to his eternal dwelling.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10 ESV)

January 19, 2015 0

Deborah: A Case Against Complementarianism?

Complementarianism is the view of gender roles which teaches that men and women, while equal in dignity and honor, being created equally in the image of God, have differing, complementary roles in the created order to bring about God’s ordained purposes. The difference between man and woman is not merely a matter of biology, but is rooted in the good creation which God made to display his glory. It was not good for man to be alone. Because God is good his creation must be as well, so God made woman and together man and woman were good.

On the other side is the egalitarian view which says that there is basically no role distinction between men and women.[i]

Opponents of Complementarianism are many, especially in western and some far-eastern cultures. And one of the cases often brought against the Complementarian position that only men can be pastors/elders in the church has to do with Deborah, the woman judge of Israel found in Judges 4-5. The argument is made that if Deborah could be a judge then surely God has no problem with a women exercising proper authority over a man.

The most common response I have heard to this argument from the Complementarian camp is that the time of the judges was an extraordinary time when Israel was practically leaderless and often straying, therefore Deborah is seen as a sort of exception and even an indictment of the men who were failing to lead.

I think the answer is much simpler than that.

I am not ruling out this answer as a possibility, but it does seem a little complicated, making assumptions, just like the assumptions that are often made regarding the quintessential Complementarian text, 1 Timothy 2:12-14[ii]. The answer to the Deborah question, in my point of view is because on the one hand God appointed Deborah as a judge over Israel and on the other hand has determined that men should be the ones exercising authority in the church, we simply see that the role of judge must not be analogues to the role of elder. It is really that simple. In fact, we see in 1 Timothy 3[iii] that the role of elder is likened to the role of a father in a house. This is a much closer analogy, which are shoes Deborah could never have filled. The leadership structure in the church is related to the good, created order which God originally set for the family, one that has a father as the leader. It should be noted at this point that without women the picture is incomplete, but men are still called to lead.

If such reason is not enough to deter the Deborah “clause”, then we need only to look to the male judge, Samson. He is found is Judges 13-16 and a brief comparison of his life to the qualification of a church elder in 1 Timothy 3 quickly shows that Samson was never qualified to be an elder, therefore confirming even more that the role of elder is not analogues to the role of judge. Women could be judges. Many women are blessed with tremendous leadership gifts that they should be encouraged to use to build up the body of Christ and bless society – but just not as elders in the church.

This can be hard for us to grasp, and it can even be abused, but as people of God we want to see that the way he made things to be is good, just as he is good. And if we can trust him in that we will experience the joy of seeing him glorified as men and women, complementing one another, work to see his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

___________

[i] There are varying degrees of this argument

[ii] The argument is made by many that this text is speaking only to a certain situation unique to the church in Ephesus that Paul is addressing. This is pure conjecture and is not a plain reading of the text which roots the argument not in the current situation but in the events of creation and fall in Gen. 1-3

[iii] Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. (1 Timothy 3:2-7 ESV)

September 7, 2014 0

(Another Reason) Why We Practice Communion Every Week

We hear it every week here. The bread represents the broken body and the cup represents the shed blood of Jesus the Christ. Bound up in the significance of body and blood is the source of our unity as a church. Throughout the week we are tempted, like every family, to allow selfishness and pride to create schism. Pursuit of unity is one of the things we are called to as a church[i], but it is probably one of the most difficult things to maintain. We practice communion every week at Immanuel Fujairah because we believe, in part, that these symbols represent the basis of our perseverance in unity.

The bread that is broken is a reminder of the body of the Lord Jesus which was broken for his church[ii]. There is a significance here beyond the breaking, it is the fact that there was anything broken at all! Jesus Christ, God himself, stepped into time, the Word made flesh was not an apparition.[iii] He took on a body. Corruptible. Susceptible to decay. Prone to suffering. The fact that there is a body and there is God in one glorious, mysterious union shows us an important aspect of the body of Christ we visualize in the sacrament of communion. That is that “Since therefore the children [of God] share in flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same things… he had to be made like his brothers in every respect….”[iv] Indeed his body was broken on this cross, but that body already bore the exhaustion and the scars of life. He became one of us so that he could not only suffer for us in crucifixion, but so that he could suffer for us in temptation.[v] So that he could be a man, the only sinless man, sinless because that is what all of us should be and it is what all of us have failed to be.[vi] When we see the bread we are reminded of the totality of his righteous life for us. Our souls, starved of righteousness, depleted of virtue, weakened by impurity, look to the bread – substance of righteousness, justice, and holiness. It is extended to us to be received by faith. The bread is only significant in the breaking if we see the glory of the bread itself – the incarnation – the thirty years of perfection in the flesh for us.[vii]

We come to the table each week then, often times either feeling depressed by our failures and inability to measure up to God’s standard or we come proud with a sense that we have done well, quick therefore to be critical of others. The bread reminds both groups of people of their common source of righteousness. It reminds us of the one who became like us so that he could become sin for us and give us the very righteousness of God.[viii] This lifts the heart of the downcast and it humbles the self-righteous.

This reminder of our common righteousness reveals anew our lack of it and it highlights our sinful actions, thoughts, and motives. And it is here that we see the unifying significance of the cup. There is no sliding-scale of penance when we come each week with our various sins, there is only the blood. And in communion we are reminded of its sufficiency for sin in all of its disturbing variety. The cup is a reminder of the gory price that our sin required – small or great in our eyes.[ix] It is at the same time disturbing and comforting. Beautiful and macabre. It reminds each of us with our unique transgressions each week that all of our sin demanded the same brutal penalty before God’s tribunal. We want to think that a lesser price was paid for our pride or gossip than was paid for someone’s adultery or murder, but the cup testifies that the cleansing is the same. The cup will not allow us to tear our gaze from the bloody cross where Christ secured the cleansing of your murder and my “harmless” deceit. The cup reminds all of us as a church that there is no hierarchy of sins before the transcendent holiness of God. This unifies us. It “puts us in our place”. A place of honesty, humility, and therefore mutual understanding.

One of the reasons we take communion every week is because it reminds us that as diverse as we are we have two things in common – we need an alien righteousness that is perfect and we need a cleansing from sin that is of infinite worth. Only the unique God-Man, Jesus Christ, can provide these. Every time we gather we will be tempted to divide. We are quick to forget. Communion points us afresh to what we all have in common – common guilt, common hope. Through a common righteousness and a shared cleansing we are united to Christ and therefore we are united to each other. We need to be reminded of that every week.

[i] Eph. 4:3

[ii] i.e. 1 Cor. 11:24

[iii] 1 John 1:1-2

[iv] Heb. 2:14,17

[v] Heb. 2:18

[vi] Rom. 3:23

[vii] Phil. 2:6-11

[viii] 2 Cor. 5:21

[ix] Heb. 9:22

August 17, 2014 0

Christian Ministry & The Death of Uzzah

And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:6-7 ESV)

And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. (Exodus 25:14 ESV)

And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, lest they die. These are the things of the tent of meeting that the sons of Kohath are to carry. (Numbers 4:15 ESV)

There is probably no story in the Bible that I have found harder to wrap my mind around than the story of the death of Uzzah. It is a display of the holiness of God that leaves us stunned and even terrified. Even though it is a story from which we may be tempted to quickly avert out eyes, it may do us good to look intently at this display of the wrath and justice of God, because in it we find important lessons for life and ministry.

The first lesson that I want us to see applies to Christian ministry. The message that sounded loud and clear from Uzzah’s lifeless form was that God’s word stands and any deviation from it, however well-intentioned, is inviting wrath and disaster. From our perspective, and apparently from David’s as well[i], this reaction of the Lord to Uzzah’s attempt to steady the Ark was a little excessive! Doesn’t God see the heart? The answer is that God does see the heart and what he saw beneath all of that good-intention in Uzzah was someone who had a cheap enough view of His holiness to regard his commandments as being open to exception.

When we hear preachers taking liberties with the Gospel many times we will defend or at least excuse them by saying say, “I think their heart is in the right place.” I can appreciate that humility and we certainly need to have grace, while also recognizing with trembling but God doesn’t see it that way. As I have meditated on Uzzah I have trembled. As someone who regularly stands in a pulpit and handles the sacred word of God, I am reminded at how much care I must take and am painfully reminded of the times when with quite good intentions I have been less than careful with God’s word.

Now, I want to recognize that we are under a new covenant now. One where in Christ we have bold access into the holy presence of God[ii], but this entrance into his presence through Christ’s blood does not diminish his holiness, but rather makes it more clear. The cross of Jesus gained us access into God’s presence, his perfect righteousness shields us from the blaze of his glory, but God himself does not change. Our right standing before God does not give us license to take less care with the Word of the Lord, rather the Gospel unfolds with greater clarity the holiness of the One to whom we as Gospel ministers will give an account.

This leads to the second and more positive thing we see in Uzzah’s execution in light of the cross. If the slightest disregard for the glory of God, the smallest deviation from the commandment, incited such wrath, how much more so our daily disobedience and defamation of God? As good-intentioned as Uzzah was, he disobeyed the Lord. He deserved judgment, just as we do. But there was one who did not deserve to be struck down – that was God himself, united to flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He always brought glory to God and always obeyed -perfectly. Yet, such was God’s love for us that he poured out his judgment on Christ – a judgment much worse that Uzzah’s. If the holiness of God seen in the story of Uzzah is severe, much more severe is the holiness seen at the cross where the sinless Son suffered for us. But if the holiness of God in the execution of Uzzah is terrifying, the holiness of God in the execution of Christ is beautiful, for it shows the depth of love he had for his people, that though we deserved the death of Uzzah, God himself satisfied the demands of his holy justice. Uzzah’s execution highlights the glory of the cross.

Therefore, in Christian ministry we should see in the cross a holiness that is even more severe than that which was seen on the threshing floor at Nacon. And it should leave us trembling as we handle the holy things of God, lest in our good intentions to see fruit or to be “successful”, or to labor well for the Lord, we be found tampering with sacred material. The execution of Uzzah should drive us to our knees and deeper into the Scriptures, taking great care in preaching and teaching, lest we treat the holy Word of God as being open to exception and manipulation.

There is never a good enough reason to tamper with or disregard the Word of the living God.

[i] 2 Samuel 6:8

[ii] Eph. 3:12, Heb 10:19-22

August 4, 2014 0

(One Reason) Why We Practice Communion Every Week

Last week I preached from Mark 6:1-6, where we see Jesus is held in contempt by his own kindred in Nazareth. The title of that sermon was “Familiarity Breeds Contempt.” One of the main themes in the message was that the people Jesus grew up around thought they knew him so well that they failed to see him for who he really was. They had a low view of him, therefore their hearts were full of unbelief and they were offended at his teaching.

When we get so used to something that it begins to lose value – at least in our eyes. A precious, diamond ring is often no less valuable several years down the road, diamonds are diamonds and gold is gold, but the woman wearing may indeed get to the point that she does not even notice it is on her finger. We tend to devalue the things that we are familiar with. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe, just maybe, that woman with the diamond ring does catch its glimmer on a regular basis and she is reminded of the faithfulness and care of her loving husband that it represents. You would have to kill to get that ring off of her finger. It is a sacred sign of a precious union and love that is relentless through the good and the bad.

One of the reasons that many churches do not practice communion each week is the fear that familiarity will breed contempt for the blood of Christ. I admit that this may very well happen, but it doesn’t have to and it shouldn’t stop the church from having the Lord’s Supper when they gather as the local body. Paul says in I Corinthians 11:26 that “As long as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Since, therefore, I make it may aim to proclaim the death of the Lord in word each week, why would I not also proclaim it in sacrament?

There are a number of things that should be happening when the word is preached in the assembly of the brethren each week; things which appropriately culminate in the visible “proclamation” of the death of Christ. In the preaching of the Scriptures we encounter the holy character of God, this holy character reveals to Christians our calling as those “predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ”[i], which means that we are coming face to face with our sin each week in light of who God is and what God demands.

If we are coming face to face each week with the holiness of God, the height of our calling, and the depth of our sin, we should be longing for God ordained means of being reminded of our only hope – the death of Christ. The blood of Christ, spilled, and the body of Christ, broken, secures not only my hope of pardon, but my hope of perseverance which is dependent on God’s covenant faithfulness. After a week in a fallen sinful world, we should long to gather and partake of the bread and cup, symbols of the blood and broken body which testify that we are forgiven and secure. The demand for perfect holiness has been met, both in life and death, and our future glorification is now certain in the new covenant.

We come to the table of the Lord together each week from a world full of things fighting for the preeminent place in our affections. At the table we look ahead, facing a coming week where other “suitors” will flirt and vie for our love. And like a beautiful wedding band, we look at and partake of the sacred signs and we remember the love, strength, and faithfulness of our husband – which is Christ. Each week at the table of the Lord we solemnly abandon other lovers and proclaim that Jesus Christ is more precious to us than all the fleeting treasures and pleasures of this world.

In short: if we faithfully preach the Gospel – the holiness of God, the depth of our sin, and the preciousness of the Savior – then communion never gets old. It never becomes mere ritual. Familiarity does not breed contempt. I know that even I have such a small view of my sin, but yet I can’t help but feel my need to see with fresh eyes of faith, through what Christ has ordained, what is my only hope as I face another week and eternity beyond.

[i] Romans 8:29

August 3, 2014 1

New Covenant Singleness

A recent conversation about singleness on a podcast I listen to called The Reformed Pubcast [i] sparked some consideration in my mind with where I stand on that matter. Specifically the tension that there seems to be in conservative Christian circles between Paul’s writings on the issue in I Corinthians 7 and the Genesis 1 & 2 command that a man should cleave to a wife and be fruitful and multiply.

The direction that is often taken, especially in the setting I grew up in, is to respond to Paul’s words in one of three ways:

We “hmm-haw” about it and tend toward the side of Genesis 1.
We use 1 Corinthians 7 as a comfort for those that are “unfortunate” enough to not be able to find a husband/wife.
We take the heretical approach and state that Paul was simply speaking his opinion here and these words are uninspired (please don’t do that!)

I think that there is a real danger in not simply taking Paul at face value, as difficult as it may be to swallow.[ii] And further, I don’t think there is a tension here between Paul and Genesis. And the best way to see that a tension does not exist is to view the issue of singleness through theological lenses.

Let me lay out that theological lens which must be considered. First, it is my view that the Scriptures reveal that God interacts with his Creation through various covenants. And second, I am also “baptistic” in the sense that I believe that under the new covenant the covenant “children” are those that are born-again, exhibiting repentance and faith, thus making them the rightful recipients of the covenant sign, which is baptism.[iii] You may be wondering what that has do with Genesis, 1 Corinthians 7, and singleness. But trust me! We will get there.

The Bible teaches that, from my viewpoint, Adam was under a covenant.[iv] Like all covenants, this one had terms[v] and responsibilities[vi]. Among the responsibilities was that man was to be fruitful and multiply.

Had Adam not transgressed the covenant by eating from the forbidden tree, his children would have been covenant children – fellows in this mission to fill and subdue the earth. The same seems to be the case with the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, where children born to families under those covenants were given the covenant sign of circumcision and were expected to “be fruitful and multiply”.

Now we come to the New Covenant, ushered in by Christ and sealed with his blood, where there is an important shift. Children are no longer born into the covenant people “by the will of the flesh, nor the will of man” but are born “of God” into the covenant people.[vii]

Just as God in Genesis 1 gives authority to man to subdue the earth and commands him to be fruitful and multiply, with the dawning of the New Covenant God gives authority to his covenant people –the church- and also commands them to be fruitful and multiply.[viii] There has been a shift in categories of covenant offspring from the strictly biological to the spiritual[ix] and therefore a shift in the paradigm of “be fruitful and multiply.”

So now we get back to Paul in I Corinthians 7. Paul, I believe, understood this distinction in what makes someone a child of the covenant. Just read Romans and Galatians. Paul even refers to Timothy as his “true child in the faith.”[x] Paul believed that in his singleness he was obeying the covenant duty to be fruitful and multiply. Just like Old Testament saints he understood that just as God opens and closes the womb he also opens and closes the heart[xi] and he made it his aim to “procreate”. Paul saw, under the New Covenant, that he could better pursue fruitfulness as a single man because he would be freer to scatter the seed of the Gospel which God may be pleased to spring to fruit.

Under the new covenant, therefore, there is a dignity and a purpose to singleness like never before. Our union with Christ and his church means that we are not robbed of meaningful fellowship outside of marriage. We are not defined by our ability to have sexual intimacy, but rather by our inseparable, intimate marriage to Christ as a member of his bride – the church.

What this means is that marriage is good. Marriage is honorable. Marriage is pure. But it is not better than singleness in the eyes of God. The new covenant removes that tension.

So if the Lord has called you to singleness this is my admonition: Jesus is enough. Now, pursue fruitfulness and multiplication by sowing the seed of the Gospel in broad and daring ways that you never could if God had called you to be a husband/wife, father/mother.

The command stands. The paradigm has shifted.

[i] A Christian podcast about theology, pop culture, and beer.
[ii] I speak as someone who is happily married and wish many were as I.
[iii] I don’t have time to get into all the details of this. For more info message me and I can suggest some reading.
[iv] Hosea 6:7
[v] Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16)
[vi] Subdue the earth and be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28)
[vii] John 1:13
[viii] Matthew 28:18-19
[ix] I understand this is something my Presbyterian brothers will disagree with.
[x] 1 Timothy 1:2
[xi] Genesis 29:31, Acts 16:14

July 28, 2014 0

A Glimpse Beyond The Veil

What are the miracles of Jesus supposed to tell us? Today stories of the supernatural works that he did seem to dazzle some people and make others suspicious. The response to the works that Jesus did was the same in his time on earth. They created hype and they created criticism. They brought fame and they brought infamy. Neither of these were the aim of Jesus in what he did. Jesus was not interested in creating a following or entertaining a crowd.

Why the miracles then? The most common answer is correct, that is to show his authority. But I believe that the answer is more specific than that. It is authority to do something in particular. The works that Jesus did were not meant to dazzle and confound, but were meant to incite praise as people saw what had long before been promised. They were meant to cause people to look at the Scriptures and look at Christ and have an “Aha!” moment. The miracles of Jesus were a glimpse beyond the veil of time. They were meant to say, “This is the one who can fix the sin and brokenness in the world.” The miracles of Jesus showed that he was the one who would make all things new.

When the blind saw and the lame walked, the people that Jesus came to, rather than being entertained on one hand and being skeptical on the other should have thought of the many passages that prophesied of redemption and realized who was in there midst[i]. They should have thought of Isaiah 35, a sample of which says:

“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;” (Isaiah 35:3-6 ESV)

In Isaiah we see prophecies with temporal application carrying with them eschatological meaning. The works that Jesus did were not merely supernatural wonders meant to get peoples’ attention and to show God’s power in general, they were a glimpse beyond the veil of sinful history to the time when by the work of Jesus Christ all would be made new. A sample of the time when every blind, deaf, and maimed child of God will be healed. Every daughter of the King who was raped will be loved and comforted. Every son who was abandoned will be secure. Every hurt will be forgotten. Every demon will be damned. Every fear will be overcome. Every tear will be wiped away. This is what the miracles of Jesus showed – they showed that not only did he have authority – he had authority to restore what was broken through Adam, to overthrow the devil, and to replace the tyrannical reign of sin with the gentle reign of righteousness.

The miracles Jesus did were not part of a divine side-show, but were displays of authority packed with eschatological meaning. Every person Jesus healed got sick again and every dead person he raised died again, but all those works said loud and clear that permanent healing and permanent raising were coming – Just as Christ coming once brought the assurance he would come again. God through Christ was giving a glimpse of Eden restored, a glimpse of the final result of the Son of God bursting the bonds of death.

More could be said here and I dealt with this matter in more detail in a sermon a few months ago. But next time you read about the miracles that Jesus did, don’t just skim over them as neat stories, but see them in the light of redemptive history. See what they mean for you amidst temptation, sickness, pain, and death. They point to a day when he will make all things new. We all face suffering in the world, so see the miraculous works of Christ as a glimpse beyond the veil of time when he brings to finality what he has begun.

[i] Some did (ie. John 1:49)

July 26, 2014 0

A Good Thing Gone Bad – Introduction

Introduction

The warfare that we wage, is a spiritual warfare. One that is primarily a matter of truth and falsehood, according to the Scriptures.[i] It can be surprising how much of the material in the New Testament is polemical and how often the exhortation is to stand firm on truth, hold fast to doctrine, to make a good a confession. Since that horrific day in Eden that mankind was plunged into depravity there are forces at work, taking truth and twisting it, taking something that is good and misusing it, drawing people into this cycle of taking what God has created and morphing it into something that is a god itself. God gives us a monument of his glory in the Gospel and we take it as a token of our worth.

The history of the church is littered with extremism and complacency, with antinomianism and legalism, with passiveness and judgmentalism. Every revival has resulted in residual excessiveness and strange doctrine –ranging from the bizarre to the coldly indifferent. Every reformation has resulted in radicalism – both to the side of legalism and antinomianism. The reason for this is the war that we wage. In fact we should expect heresy to grow around the triumph of truth and for foolishness to arise around Spirit-driven fervor. Why? Because since the Fall there has been a war against truth. We have a real enemy who is “the father of lies”[ii]. And he is a liar who knows truth when he sees it and will stop at nothing to undermine it. He is subtle. He is cunning. And he is sinister. He is the enemy of the truth.

The church harms itself when it thinks that spiritual warfare is primarily about what goes bump in the night. The enemy knows he cannot beat God, so he tries to rob glory from him, and what is the greatest display of the glory of God? It is his Gospel, “the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.”[iii]

In the garden, Satan went after the ones made in God’s image, meant to reflect his glory. Defacing those images was the closest thing that he could do to diminishing the unfaltering, unapproachable glory of God himself. Since that time God has been unfolding his magnificent plan of redemption, by which to restore those fallen image bearers into monuments of his glory, a glory that would shine more brightly than ever could in Eden – the glory of his grace.

When Jesus came on the scene he shone with the radiance of the Father’s glory.[iv] Satan tried to deface that too and when he was unsuccessful he tried to outright destroy the image, but in doing so he unleashed with fury a light beyond compare. The perfection of God’s love and justice in a single, macabre scene on a Roman cross in Palestine. As the temple veil tore and the ground shook the enemy likely knew he was doomed, especially as fallen man looked on and said, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”[v] God’s glory was vindicated and his triumph guaranteed when on the third day following this crucifixion for the first time in history the incarnate Son of God burst the bonds of death with immortality, never to die again. Truth would prevail. God’s purposes were relentless and his glory would not be diminished.

In the coming days under the New Covenant the apostle were keenly aware that they had a foe that until the final battle would not cease his attacks on the glory of the Creator. Paul warns with certainty the Ephesian elder that wolves will come and devour the flock.[vi] The warfare would continue to be a warfare between truth and error. For it is in truth, namely the truth of the Gospel, that the glory of God is displayed in brilliant purity. Paul urged with passion for Timothy to guard the Gospel.[vii] He rebuked the Galatians for accepting another “gospel”.[viii] Until Christ returns the church has been given a deposit to proclaim, to live, and to guard. It is the Gospel. And every assault of Satan, at the end of the day, is an assault against this Gospel. Why? Caught it yet? Because it is there that the glory of God is most fully seen.

In the midst of this battle, the church which is a “pillar and buttress of the truth”[ix] is not without its scars. The study of church history shows two things: that there is a war against truth and that truth ultimately prevails. We see the warfare against truth in that with every true reformation in the church there is extremism on one hand and stagnation on the other, with every revival there is excessiveness on hand and coldness on the other. This is not the fault of the Gospel, in fact, it proves that the Gospel is still going forward because war is being waged. Wherever truth is, there will be the battle.

And that is the topic of this book or blog post series or personal rant, whatever it turns out to be. I believe that the truth is going forward, as it should, but there is a battle being raged. In some places the battle is very obvious, but actually those engagements, while important, are not the things that are the most troubling. In fact, those great battles grow out of the covert operations which go not only unnoticed, but applauded. It is the battle fought by those “clothed as angels of light” preaching another gospel[x], it is those wolves dressed in very convincing sheep’s clothing. It is those who believe they do God a service with what they preach. And most tragic is the damage done by those sheep that are charmed, duped, and downright deceived into swallowing Gospel that has been laced with poison.

We rejoice that the Gospel goes forward, but if we are not alert, we could end up doing more harm than good.

[i] II Corinthians 10:4-6
[ii] John 8:44
[iii] II Corinthians 4:3
[iv] John 1:14
[v] Mark 15:49
[vi] Acts 20:2
[vii] 1 Timothy 6:2
[viii] Galatians 1:6
[ix] 1 Timothy 3:15
[x] Galatians 1:8, II Corinthians 11:14; We will deal later with what makes something another Gospel.

July 21, 2014 0