New video: "Why Believe The Bible?" now online at TruthMill.org.
No matter what type of discussion one might encounter about the Bible,
eventually the talk will boil down to one thing: is it something that
should be believed?
In my experience as a Christian I have heard many, many reasons that
folks give as to why we should believe the Bible - as well as many why
we shouldn't. In this episode I give my own take on that question, but I
try to do it from the standpoint of the world around me.
What that means, is that out of all of the reasons why I personally
believe the Bible to be true - what do I think are the ones that are
best received and understood by non-Christians?
The Apostle Paul once wrote that to the Jews under the Mosaic Law, he
became like a Jew. To the Gentiles outside of the Law, he became like a
Gentile. He did this so that he might save some by the simple human
act of identifying with them where they were.
That is my goal in this episode: to examine this subject of the Bible
first like one without Christ - then like one in Christ, so that I might
save some.
Twitter Updates
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Introverts In The Church
While surfing around yesterday evening I came across a blog post over at Patheos.com called "Introverts In The Church" that I wanted to share. It's based on yet another blog post by Richard Beck entitled "A Walk with William James, Part 8: Introverts in the Imago Dei?"
Being a card carrying introvert myself (about half the people in the US are introverts by the way), I was very interested in both posts and in the related comments.
This whole topic is something that has bothered me for a really long time and I was very glad to read that I wasn't along in being so bothered. Funny thing for an introvert to write? Not really.
One of the golden lines from Richard Beck's piece is this: "Introverts are very, very relational. They just aren’t sociable."
I'm not sure that extroverts will even catch what that really means, but I understand it completely. What it means is that introverts pretty much abhor your garden-variety, social-butterfly chitchat and interaction, because to us it is pretty much meaningless - and to force ourselves to try and engage in it is just about one of the most dishonest and 'fake' things we can do in public. If we get stuck in it, it makes us feel badly about ourselves. We get put into these situations where we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.
If we can't escape, we're damned because we end up doing things that are fake so basically we end up lying not only with our mouths, but our whole bodies - but if we don't, we're damned for being uncaring, unfriendly, or *gasp*, unspiritual.
So we try and avoid such situations like the plague, and if we get trapped we do our best but in most cases our best isn't nearly good enough. Pretty much we suffer though it as best we can and just hope it doesn't last very long.
But at the same time, we are very, very relational. What does that mean? It means we value meaningful relationships very, very highly. A meaningful relationship is one where someone has thought, written, or said something that is actually worth spending some time on receiving... and hopefully, giving back to them as well. Or, it's time spent with someone who really needs our time for empathy, comfort, reassurance, etc... in other words, meaningful things.
We all get a limited number of seconds upon the earth. A meaningful relationship is such that one doesn't mind giving up some of those precious seconds to listen to what this other type of person has to say, or to offer them ourselves if they need us.
So just to put a practical note to that, here are some things that I'd like to suggest to your average, American Evangelical church - and I know statistically about half the people reading this won't agree, but it's just a reach out to those that operate our churches that more than likely, you are alienating about half of your actual or potential congregations - and I do apologize for the parts of this that will sound snappy - I'm not trying to be rude, just clear:
1. Instead of having Bible study classes that are basically adult versions of everything about 50% of us loathed in high school, how about having some honest to goodness Bible study classes? You know, things that actually resemble "classes" but where God's Word is studied in-depth and where seeking folks can ask questions and get answers that don't start with very nervous eyebrows and stammered speech?
It's pretty lame to walk into a "Bible study" class that has very little study and very little Bible.
2. There isn't anything wrong with Christian fellowship classes, but why not just call them that? Why not have a group of meetings that are largely social and unapologetically so, and other meetings that are unapologetically serious? You know, like the level of gravity that permeates the pages of Scripture?
3. Why must evangelical church services start out with something that more closely resembles a pep-rally at a public school rather than people saved by Grace praising God out of the thankfulness of their hearts? It seems to me like the focus is often to get people on their feet, get them pumped up, get them energized (yes, the dreaded "clap along with us" - must we ape the little wind-up monkey toy with the cymbals?)- rather than simply pointing out through song what God has done for them, and then allowing the Holy Spirit to energize them. Isn't this latter thing what the church is supposed to be about?
I would really love to see hymns make a comeback in the music portion of the church. To my way of thinking, hymns have it all: they typically are condensed theology whose writers penned most of them in extremely trying times in their lives - thus they come from deep meaning, talk about things that are deeply meaningful, praise the Lord for all of His attributes, and hold out hope and encouragement to those who sing them as only deep and meaningful things can. Isn't that what the church is supposed to be about?
The typical saccharine stuff that passes for music in church these days just doesn't have the same effect. I would never say it should be all hymns, there are great new songs too, but just compare in your head the witness of a modern take on church music verses the message communicated to a visiting lost person by something like "Amazing Grace" or "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing". Isn't communicating these things what the church is supposed to be about? Does anyone even remember that we are to communicate the Gospel?
And by the way, I don't believe these things would ever be seen as boring or uninteresting to someone outside of Christ when sung by those in Christ. Personally, I can't read or sing either of those two old hymns without sobering up because they are my personal testimony to the faithfulness of God in the gift of His Son.
I think by basically lobotomizing the musical portions of our services we are doing a great disservice to the lost among us who wander in our doors. Instead of showing them what only God can do, we show them what they can see anytime at your average motivational conference at a local convention center.
4. Then there is the preaching. Oh my. No doubt I've already shot my mouth off enough as it is, so I'll really have to watch myself on this one.
Why does so much of the preaching in our modern churches have to be so bad?
Here's a news flash for preachers that were never really called to preach or have checked out of their calling: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive. It isn't offensive because there is something wrong with it. It's offensive because there is something wrong with us. People need to hear about sin. People need to hear about God's judgment upon sin. People need to hear about love bought atonement. People need to hear about repentance, faith, and a new creation. They need to hear about reconciliation with God, why it's needed, and how it's possible. And they need to hear about this every time the Word is preached.
Lately I myself have been guilty of omitting some of these things as well, so I'm not pointing a finger out without pointing a finger at myself. We can do much better and we had better.
When did true gospel preaching get replaced with sanctimonious, saccharine blather? When did the Word of God get replaced with liberalism with a veneer of Christianity? When did convicting speech cease to flow from our pulpits? When did it stop being God centered and instead become congregation centered?
When did preachers start thinking that what they have to say is more important than what God has to say?
True preachers from ages past have voiced an observation over and over again, and that is that unconverted (unsaved) ministers are the clear and present danger to the church in any time. It's still true today and I think it explains much about what is wrong with our modern churches.
May God give us churches that are welcoming to all types of people, and worship and preaching that are worthy of God's salvation.
Being a card carrying introvert myself (about half the people in the US are introverts by the way), I was very interested in both posts and in the related comments.
This whole topic is something that has bothered me for a really long time and I was very glad to read that I wasn't along in being so bothered. Funny thing for an introvert to write? Not really.
One of the golden lines from Richard Beck's piece is this: "Introverts are very, very relational. They just aren’t sociable."
I'm not sure that extroverts will even catch what that really means, but I understand it completely. What it means is that introverts pretty much abhor your garden-variety, social-butterfly chitchat and interaction, because to us it is pretty much meaningless - and to force ourselves to try and engage in it is just about one of the most dishonest and 'fake' things we can do in public. If we get stuck in it, it makes us feel badly about ourselves. We get put into these situations where we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.
If we can't escape, we're damned because we end up doing things that are fake so basically we end up lying not only with our mouths, but our whole bodies - but if we don't, we're damned for being uncaring, unfriendly, or *gasp*, unspiritual.
So we try and avoid such situations like the plague, and if we get trapped we do our best but in most cases our best isn't nearly good enough. Pretty much we suffer though it as best we can and just hope it doesn't last very long.
But at the same time, we are very, very relational. What does that mean? It means we value meaningful relationships very, very highly. A meaningful relationship is one where someone has thought, written, or said something that is actually worth spending some time on receiving... and hopefully, giving back to them as well. Or, it's time spent with someone who really needs our time for empathy, comfort, reassurance, etc... in other words, meaningful things.
We all get a limited number of seconds upon the earth. A meaningful relationship is such that one doesn't mind giving up some of those precious seconds to listen to what this other type of person has to say, or to offer them ourselves if they need us.
So just to put a practical note to that, here are some things that I'd like to suggest to your average, American Evangelical church - and I know statistically about half the people reading this won't agree, but it's just a reach out to those that operate our churches that more than likely, you are alienating about half of your actual or potential congregations - and I do apologize for the parts of this that will sound snappy - I'm not trying to be rude, just clear:
1. Instead of having Bible study classes that are basically adult versions of everything about 50% of us loathed in high school, how about having some honest to goodness Bible study classes? You know, things that actually resemble "classes" but where God's Word is studied in-depth and where seeking folks can ask questions and get answers that don't start with very nervous eyebrows and stammered speech?
It's pretty lame to walk into a "Bible study" class that has very little study and very little Bible.
2. There isn't anything wrong with Christian fellowship classes, but why not just call them that? Why not have a group of meetings that are largely social and unapologetically so, and other meetings that are unapologetically serious? You know, like the level of gravity that permeates the pages of Scripture?
3. Why must evangelical church services start out with something that more closely resembles a pep-rally at a public school rather than people saved by Grace praising God out of the thankfulness of their hearts? It seems to me like the focus is often to get people on their feet, get them pumped up, get them energized (yes, the dreaded "clap along with us" - must we ape the little wind-up monkey toy with the cymbals?)- rather than simply pointing out through song what God has done for them, and then allowing the Holy Spirit to energize them. Isn't this latter thing what the church is supposed to be about?
I would really love to see hymns make a comeback in the music portion of the church. To my way of thinking, hymns have it all: they typically are condensed theology whose writers penned most of them in extremely trying times in their lives - thus they come from deep meaning, talk about things that are deeply meaningful, praise the Lord for all of His attributes, and hold out hope and encouragement to those who sing them as only deep and meaningful things can. Isn't that what the church is supposed to be about?
The typical saccharine stuff that passes for music in church these days just doesn't have the same effect. I would never say it should be all hymns, there are great new songs too, but just compare in your head the witness of a modern take on church music verses the message communicated to a visiting lost person by something like "Amazing Grace" or "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing". Isn't communicating these things what the church is supposed to be about? Does anyone even remember that we are to communicate the Gospel?
And by the way, I don't believe these things would ever be seen as boring or uninteresting to someone outside of Christ when sung by those in Christ. Personally, I can't read or sing either of those two old hymns without sobering up because they are my personal testimony to the faithfulness of God in the gift of His Son.
I think by basically lobotomizing the musical portions of our services we are doing a great disservice to the lost among us who wander in our doors. Instead of showing them what only God can do, we show them what they can see anytime at your average motivational conference at a local convention center.
4. Then there is the preaching. Oh my. No doubt I've already shot my mouth off enough as it is, so I'll really have to watch myself on this one.
Why does so much of the preaching in our modern churches have to be so bad?
Here's a news flash for preachers that were never really called to preach or have checked out of their calling: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive. It isn't offensive because there is something wrong with it. It's offensive because there is something wrong with us. People need to hear about sin. People need to hear about God's judgment upon sin. People need to hear about love bought atonement. People need to hear about repentance, faith, and a new creation. They need to hear about reconciliation with God, why it's needed, and how it's possible. And they need to hear about this every time the Word is preached.
Lately I myself have been guilty of omitting some of these things as well, so I'm not pointing a finger out without pointing a finger at myself. We can do much better and we had better.
When did true gospel preaching get replaced with sanctimonious, saccharine blather? When did the Word of God get replaced with liberalism with a veneer of Christianity? When did convicting speech cease to flow from our pulpits? When did it stop being God centered and instead become congregation centered?
When did preachers start thinking that what they have to say is more important than what God has to say?
True preachers from ages past have voiced an observation over and over again, and that is that unconverted (unsaved) ministers are the clear and present danger to the church in any time. It's still true today and I think it explains much about what is wrong with our modern churches.
May God give us churches that are welcoming to all types of people, and worship and preaching that are worthy of God's salvation.
Revelation 3:14-19 (Amplified Bible)
Rev 3:14 And to the angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the trusty and faithful and true Witness, the Origin and Beginning and Author of God’s creation:
Rev 3:15 I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!
Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth!
Rev 3:17 For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Rev 3:18 Therefore I counsel you to purchase from Me gold refined and tested by fire, that you may be [truly] wealthy, and white clothes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nudity from being seen, and salve to put on your eyes, that you may see.
Rev 3:19 Those whom I [dearly and tenderly] love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten [I discipline and instruct them]. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent [changing your mind and attitude].
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
The Early Church Fathers And Tradition
I came across a good article talking about "sola scriptura vs solo scriptura", and as the course of events would have it the role of the early church fathers and tradition in the church came up as a topic.
The orignal blog post is here: http://www.tillhecomes.org/sola-scriptura-solo-scriptura/.
My comment is listed below:
---------------------
What I find quite amusing is that my Calvinist friends always start with Augustine but very rarely ever want to quote anything from those before him: the fathers of the first three centuries of the church. It seems to me they usually just ignore them.
I believe one of the reasons is because several of the 'core' calvinistic beliefs were called out as heresy by the earliest church fathers. For instance, the idea of a strict determinism concerning salvation (the calvinistic interpretation of predestination & election). It's not that this idea wasn't known by the church... it was. But the issue is that it was only known OUTSIDE of the church for the first three centuries. It was a belief held by several of the gnostic groups, but not by the church. The same kind of thing is true for a limited atonement, unconditional grace, total depravity, inability to forfeit salvation, etc. - in other words, in every place where classical Calvinism departs from God's Word.
It is quite an interesting read in the early fathers though. The exact same arguments the gnostics put forth to explain their beliefs are the same teachings you hear today in calvinistic circles. It makes me sad that those things crept in to the church, but they did and we must deal with them from the standpoint of God's Word. And in line with this blog post, tradition plays a part in that too simply in looking at the first three centuries of the church and understanding that they would be aghast at some of the beliefs that are claimed as 'orthodoxy' - both immediately following their time and from the 1500s onwards.
Many trumpet their beliefs as, "...the truth once for all handed down to the saints", but these Christians from the first centuries would be forced to ask, "which saints?", because those things certainly didn't come from them. These weren't the truths which they defended in speech, ink, and for many of them - with their own blood. They were drug behind horses until they came apart, burned slowly at the stake, beheaded, flayed alive, grilled alive on sheets of metal, pressed to death slowly between weights - all of this because they proclaimed that Jesus was their Lord (Iesous Kurios and not Kaiser Kurios!) and the Apostles and the Spirit were the disseminators of God's truth concerning His Son Jesus to mankind. And they, in their turn, sought to do the best they could to carry on the Apostle's teachings that they heard from them directly or from the men that came directly after them.
My opinion of them is that they would be just as appalled at Reformed Theology as they would Roman Catholicism. I believe they would see the former as corrupted with certain gnostic beliefs that slander God's character and make Him out to be a liar, while the latter would be seen as so corrupted by paganism that it basically boils down to rude idolatry sprinkled with certain Christian beliefs.
Certainly the fathers weren't perfect. They were dealing with understanding God's word through the Spirit just like us. The Greek fathers did have the benefit of being native speakers of Koine Greek and growing up in Koine speaking societies with all of their idioms and patterns of speech. I do wonder why more weight isn't sometimes given to their understanding of Scripture (which was written in their native language) by those in our time and before who only learned Koine academically. It seems fairly arrogant to so diverge from three centuries of native language interpretation in favor of that which was learned in a classroom separated from the real use of language and culture by millennia.
Personally, my biggest issue with the early fathers is that several of them took a turn towards works based salvation, or so it seems to me. Some of that can be cleared up by understanding that in their times there was a huge, cultural war between the concepts of vice and virtue (things were so bad that even some of the pagan philosophers were appalled), and they spoke to that from a Christian perspective that sometimes seemed to sanction works based salvation when instead they were simply drawing contrasts between how they behaved vs. the pagans. But other times it seems some of them truly did believe that they played a part in earning salvation, although in other places these same authors denied it.
But then I have to examine my own heart and confess that when I look to myself and not to Christ, when willful sin begins to harden me because I have let it in, I too can begin to fall into legalistic, self justifying modes of thought and behavior. In this area, as in all areas of sin in regards to those who are indwelt by Christ, The Spirit always corrects me and snaps me out of myself, but can I look at these early Christians and claim that I am any better? Certainly not.
I believe the best use of them is to acknowledge how poor their writings were when compared to Scripture. But I believe in God's providence He has used that to show how truly special and unique the writings of the New Testament are - that they were inspired by Himself and not simply the writings of pious or pietistic men.
The earliest fathers were often somewhat naive, somewhat childlike in some ways, but those qualities enabled them to hold on to the truth they had learned from the Apostles and apostolic men with a ferocity that I doubt would be much reflected in our day under similar persecutions.
Although I disagree with much of what they wrote, the more I read them the more I love them. Most of them found themselves embedded in a sinful society that was so bad it makes our culture look like a self righteous meeting of the hair shirt, stick as a chair club. But in that most dire of times the Spirit worked through them to turn the world upside down for the kingdom of God. And at the end of the day, the vast majority of them would attribute their salvation to God's grace rather than anything they had done to earn salvation.
I believe their final self examination at the end of their life would have been: did I remain faithful to the Lord Who was so faithful to me? And in that they would certainly be Apostolic indeed:
Galatians 6:7-10 (NIV)
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
(Grace is not a license to sin. It is a license for Holiness. It is a license to become more and more like God until we are taken up when He returns or taken out by death)
2nd Timothy 2:11-13 (NIV)
11 Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
( I hear so many Christians that take v 13 as a comforting promise, when in actuality it is a most solemn warning - God has made salvation available by His extension of Grace through faith that He enables in us by revealing Himself to us. Those that give up on faith are those that give up on the benefits of Grace, for being faithless is to consider God either unworthy of trust or unworthy of our endurance in the faith He has enabled for us. It requires a daily dying to self and daily suffering at the hands of our sinful nature against which we strive. Anything less than that is only a child playing with fire).
Hebrews 3:5-19 (NIV)
5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. 7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' " 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15 As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed ? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
God bless ya'll from Texas. Take care, /Scott.
www.truthmill.com
@truthmill (twitter)
truthmill@yahoo.com
---------------------
The orignal blog post is here: http://www.tillhecomes.org/sola-scriptura-solo-scriptura/.
My comment is listed below:
---------------------
What I find quite amusing is that my Calvinist friends always start with Augustine but very rarely ever want to quote anything from those before him: the fathers of the first three centuries of the church. It seems to me they usually just ignore them.
I believe one of the reasons is because several of the 'core' calvinistic beliefs were called out as heresy by the earliest church fathers. For instance, the idea of a strict determinism concerning salvation (the calvinistic interpretation of predestination & election). It's not that this idea wasn't known by the church... it was. But the issue is that it was only known OUTSIDE of the church for the first three centuries. It was a belief held by several of the gnostic groups, but not by the church. The same kind of thing is true for a limited atonement, unconditional grace, total depravity, inability to forfeit salvation, etc. - in other words, in every place where classical Calvinism departs from God's Word.
It is quite an interesting read in the early fathers though. The exact same arguments the gnostics put forth to explain their beliefs are the same teachings you hear today in calvinistic circles. It makes me sad that those things crept in to the church, but they did and we must deal with them from the standpoint of God's Word. And in line with this blog post, tradition plays a part in that too simply in looking at the first three centuries of the church and understanding that they would be aghast at some of the beliefs that are claimed as 'orthodoxy' - both immediately following their time and from the 1500s onwards.
Many trumpet their beliefs as, "...the truth once for all handed down to the saints", but these Christians from the first centuries would be forced to ask, "which saints?", because those things certainly didn't come from them. These weren't the truths which they defended in speech, ink, and for many of them - with their own blood. They were drug behind horses until they came apart, burned slowly at the stake, beheaded, flayed alive, grilled alive on sheets of metal, pressed to death slowly between weights - all of this because they proclaimed that Jesus was their Lord (Iesous Kurios and not Kaiser Kurios!) and the Apostles and the Spirit were the disseminators of God's truth concerning His Son Jesus to mankind. And they, in their turn, sought to do the best they could to carry on the Apostle's teachings that they heard from them directly or from the men that came directly after them.
My opinion of them is that they would be just as appalled at Reformed Theology as they would Roman Catholicism. I believe they would see the former as corrupted with certain gnostic beliefs that slander God's character and make Him out to be a liar, while the latter would be seen as so corrupted by paganism that it basically boils down to rude idolatry sprinkled with certain Christian beliefs.
Certainly the fathers weren't perfect. They were dealing with understanding God's word through the Spirit just like us. The Greek fathers did have the benefit of being native speakers of Koine Greek and growing up in Koine speaking societies with all of their idioms and patterns of speech. I do wonder why more weight isn't sometimes given to their understanding of Scripture (which was written in their native language) by those in our time and before who only learned Koine academically. It seems fairly arrogant to so diverge from three centuries of native language interpretation in favor of that which was learned in a classroom separated from the real use of language and culture by millennia.
Personally, my biggest issue with the early fathers is that several of them took a turn towards works based salvation, or so it seems to me. Some of that can be cleared up by understanding that in their times there was a huge, cultural war between the concepts of vice and virtue (things were so bad that even some of the pagan philosophers were appalled), and they spoke to that from a Christian perspective that sometimes seemed to sanction works based salvation when instead they were simply drawing contrasts between how they behaved vs. the pagans. But other times it seems some of them truly did believe that they played a part in earning salvation, although in other places these same authors denied it.
But then I have to examine my own heart and confess that when I look to myself and not to Christ, when willful sin begins to harden me because I have let it in, I too can begin to fall into legalistic, self justifying modes of thought and behavior. In this area, as in all areas of sin in regards to those who are indwelt by Christ, The Spirit always corrects me and snaps me out of myself, but can I look at these early Christians and claim that I am any better? Certainly not.
I believe the best use of them is to acknowledge how poor their writings were when compared to Scripture. But I believe in God's providence He has used that to show how truly special and unique the writings of the New Testament are - that they were inspired by Himself and not simply the writings of pious or pietistic men.
The earliest fathers were often somewhat naive, somewhat childlike in some ways, but those qualities enabled them to hold on to the truth they had learned from the Apostles and apostolic men with a ferocity that I doubt would be much reflected in our day under similar persecutions.
Although I disagree with much of what they wrote, the more I read them the more I love them. Most of them found themselves embedded in a sinful society that was so bad it makes our culture look like a self righteous meeting of the hair shirt, stick as a chair club. But in that most dire of times the Spirit worked through them to turn the world upside down for the kingdom of God. And at the end of the day, the vast majority of them would attribute their salvation to God's grace rather than anything they had done to earn salvation.
I believe their final self examination at the end of their life would have been: did I remain faithful to the Lord Who was so faithful to me? And in that they would certainly be Apostolic indeed:
Galatians 6:7-10 (NIV)
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
(Grace is not a license to sin. It is a license for Holiness. It is a license to become more and more like God until we are taken up when He returns or taken out by death)
2nd Timothy 2:11-13 (NIV)
11 Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
( I hear so many Christians that take v 13 as a comforting promise, when in actuality it is a most solemn warning - God has made salvation available by His extension of Grace through faith that He enables in us by revealing Himself to us. Those that give up on faith are those that give up on the benefits of Grace, for being faithless is to consider God either unworthy of trust or unworthy of our endurance in the faith He has enabled for us. It requires a daily dying to self and daily suffering at the hands of our sinful nature against which we strive. Anything less than that is only a child playing with fire).
Hebrews 3:5-19 (NIV)
5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. 7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' " 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15 As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed ? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
God bless ya'll from Texas. Take care, /Scott.
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@truthmill (twitter)
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Friday, September 30, 2011
Grace, Fear, And Trembling
Dr. Augustus Neander (1789-1850) from his "Scriptural Expositions on the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians" - Second Section pp 80-87 (PDF available here):
It is customary with Paul to commence his letters with a recognition of whatever is praiseworthy in the church to which he is writing. In this appears his wisdom as a spiritual guide.
The confidence of men is far more easily won, and a hearing secured for whatever one has to say in the way of admonition and rebuke, if it appears that he nowise overlooks or undervalues what is good in them, that he does not willingly find fault, but is ready to acknowledge every real excellence with cordial approbation.
Good and bad, moreover, stand frequently in close connection with each other. The good lies at the foundation; but the evil mingles its disturbing influence with the good, and hence it is through the latter that we can best reach and remedy the former. It is in the clear perception of this relation, and in the skillful use of it for the correction of error, that Paul manifests his wisdom.
Of this a striking example is furnished in the first epistle to the Corinthians. Thus Paul regards whatever of real value he finds already existing in the churches, not as something produced in them from themselves and by their own agency, but wrought in them by the Spirit of God, that Spirit which has begun to transform them into new men. Hence he feels himself constrained to thank God for that which He has wrought in their hearts and in their lives by his grace, before he offers to Him the prayer, that what He has already wrought in them He will more and more purify, carry it forward, and bring it to perfection. Upon the good which already exists in them he builds the hope that they will ever continue to advance in goodness, even unto perfection.
Not indeed upon the good as a work of man can he rest such a hope. He knows too well the weakness of man, too well how subject is everything human to constant change. But this is the ground of his hope: that in this beginning of the Christian life he sees not the work of man but the work of God. He thus builds his hope upon the truth and faithfulness of God, who will certainly carry forward what He has begun, through all conflicts and trials, safely to its consummation. It is not God's way to do things by halves. Thus too does Paul begin his letter to the Philippians; thanking God for their living fellowship in the gospel from the beginning up to the present hour; and then expressing the confidence, that He who has begun in them the good work will also carry it on to its completion.
In this it is indeed always presupposed by Paul, that they likewise will do what belongs to them, by yielding themselves to the power of God which works nothing without man, albeit man without it can work nothing; as in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans (v. 22), he represents the continued manifestation of God's goodness in men as conditioned on their continuing in His goodness, and thus susceptible of the grace of God by truly yielding themselves up to its influence.
It is on this connection between the divine and the human he founds the exhortation," to work out their salvation with fear and trembling”; for he adds, "it is God who worketh in you both the willing and the doing, of his own good pleasure."
It is here assumed that the salvation of man is conditioned upon his own conduct. He is himself to work out his salvation. And yet Paul always represents the salvation of man as something which can be accomplished only through the grace of God, as the work of God in man. But he adds, in this passage, a more exact designation of the temper of heart with which they should work out their salvation, viz., "with fear and trembling."
This would not be appropriate if he were speaking of what lay merely in the hand of man, in which case all would depend upon his own strength. It is because Paul is conscious of the weakness and insufficiency of all human strength, because he presupposes that man can do nothing without God, and must constantly watch over himself, lest through his own fault he lose the aid of divine grace, without which all human efforts are in vain; it is for this reason that he designates this temper of mind as one of fear and trembling, as the feeling of personal accountability and helplessness, of insecurity and instability in ourselves, by which we may be ever admonished to continual watchfulness, and to ever-renewed waiting upon God as the fountain of all our strength.
Hence, as the ground of such an admonition, he appeals to this consciousness that we can of ourselves do nothing, that it is God who alone bestows upon us the power to will and to perform what is needful to our salvation; that all, indeed, depends upon his sovereign will.
This feeling of dependence, the ground-tone of the Christian life, is ever to be maintained. It is this which must combat the presumption of a vain human self-reliance, which, finding itself deceived in the result, so easily gives place to dejection and despair.
All the admonitions which Paul gives the Philippians in reference to the Christian walk are comprehended in this one; that they should "walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ." And what is required of them in their position, in the midst of a corrupt world, he points out in chapter ii. 15-16. Inasmuch, he says, as they are called to live as children of God in the midst of a corrupt world, they are called to maintain unsullied, amidst all the defilement of surrounding pollution, that divine life of which, as children of God, they have become participants, and to show forth its glory in contrast with the perverse generation in which they live.
The terms "crooked and perverse," in which Paul describes this wicked generation, have reference to the perversion of the original godlike nature, which can be restored only through the new creation. So also, as children of God, they are to shine as lights, as radiant luminaries in the world of darkness. Whilst all around them is darkness, here alone shall all be light. So indeed does Christ say to those who belong to his kingdom, that they are to be the lights of the world, just as He is the Sun who sends his light into this dark world, its light in the highest and only true sense. Thus what He is, is communicated to those who enter into fellowship with him, and they too through him become the light of the world.
This light shines in the holy walk of Christians, and thereby do they testify of Him who is light itself, and in whom is no darkness - thereby do they glorify him and lead others to acknowledge and honor him as Christ himself has said: "Let your light so shine before men, that they seeing your good works may glorify your Father which is in Heaven."
They are to testify of that which is life, to show forth the true life in this world of death. Everything which men, in accordance with the revelation of the law written in their consciences through the impulses of their moral nature, are accustomed to account moral and virtuous belongs also to the peculiar stamp of this new divine life, in which the children of God manifest themselves as such. All must find its fulfillment here; only that is done away which proceeds from the disturbing influence of sin; as Christ says, that he "came not to destroy but to fulfill."
Hence it is the conclusion of Paul's exhortation that their minds be directed only to "what is true” - (true and good being in the biblical sense one and the same, the truth here appears as that which penetrates and gives direction to the whole life; all has its root in the truth, the true is the divine) to “what is becoming, what is upright, what is chaste, what is lovely, what is of good report, whatever is virtue and whatever is praise." Thus it is implied by Paul, that the divine life must manifest itself in an amiable form before men; and he appeals to what they had learned from his instructions, and had witnessed in the example of his own life. Although, as we have seen above, he was far from holding his life to be entirely pure and perfect, yet he could with confidence assume the essential correspondence between his life and teachings, and that his conduct did not give the lie to his instructions.
And thus he was able, without untruth or self-exaltation, to hold up to the Philippians the example of his own course among them as an admonition to them. Self-exaltation is the less to be attributed to him here, as he was himself fully conscious, that whatever in his own conduct he proposed as their example was only the work of grace, the fruit of the new creation in him.
So may the Christian when made aware, by a comparison of his earlier and later life, of having gained the victory over the old nature in any of its sinful tendencies, be fully conscious of this and freely rejoice over it; for this is no self-exaltation. He knows that it is not to his own nature or his own strength that he is indebted for it; that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ has wrought this in him; and therefore the consciousness of his victory only impels him to praise and to thank Him through whose power he has attained it. And at the same time, he feels himself constrained to acknowledge how much still remains for him to contend with and with the Apostle, whose words we have quoted, to forget what is behind and press continually forward.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Some Words From Augustus Neander
Some Words From Dr. Augustus Neander Regarding:
As part of a lengthy commentary on 1st John, Neander (1789 - 1850) writes:
1st John 2:1-2 (NIV)
(1) My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
(2) He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
As part of a lengthy commentary on 1st John, Neander (1789 - 1850) writes:
History teaches us to estimate aright the deep significance of this christian truth, here developed from the words of the Apostle. The entire dependence of all Christians alike upon this one advocacy, to the exclusion of every other, being based upon this truth; we accordingly see that whenever it became obscured in the christian consciousness, that dependence was again, as in the ante-christian period, transferred to a human priesthood and to a multiplicity of mediations, and again the distinction between priests and laity, between spiritual and secular, found admission.
And thus will it ever be, when this reference of the religious consciousness in all believers, to the one mediation through Christ, is cast into the background, is obscured or misunderstood.
The Apostle has thus shown, that at the basis of the ever-continuing mediation by Christ, there lies the reference to what he once wrought for the reconciliation of man with God, to that one all sufficient offering of himself. He accordingly now directs attention specially to the fact, that He is "the reconciliation for our sins," - referring to that once-accomplished and still abiding and operative work of redemption.
For he it is through whom man has been made free from sin; through whom that sin which pressed down humanity, separating it from God and his fellowship, and intercepting the communications of divine love, has been taken away, has become as if it were not; so that henceforth, all mankind should appear before God as freed from sin by this self-offering of Christ, - as in him pure in the sight of God.
This, which according to the divine plan, the purposes of divine grace, the yearning love of Christ who bore all mankind upon his heart, should embrace all, is realized in those who open their hearts to its reception, who believingly appropriate the redeeming grace thus offered.
It is so realized when they first enter into christian fellowship, renouncing the former standpoint of a life of worldliness and sin; it is this which marks the boundary between the old and the new life.
But as John here shows, although this boundary has been once fixed, yet in the conflict with the remaining influence of that former state, there is still need of the ever renewed appropriation of this reconciliation, which is Christ himself. When this reconciliation, as the all-sufficient agency for the progressive and ultimately complete sanctification of the redeemed, and the constant appropriation of it as such, have ceased to be recognized in their connection and become obscured in the christian consciousness, new methods of atonement and purification have then been resorted to, as necessary for sins committed after baptism.
But when John speaks of the reconciliation for OUR sins, he feels constrained to guard against every limitation of the universal reference of the work of redemption.
He calls to mind such words of Christ as those respecting the one fold and the one shepherd, and his vision widens to embrace all humanity; to behold in Christ not alone the reconciliation for those who already believe, but for those also who as yet know nothing of Christ, who as yet belong to the world.
The reconciliation of Christ has for its object all humanity in its estrangement from God; all which belongs to the world, as it stands opposed to the kingdom of God. Humanity as a whole is to be embraced in the reconciliation with Christ, is to be thereby separated from the world and incorporated into the kingdom of God. The reconciliation, once instituted by Christ, continues its uninterrupted work until it shall have achieved this its glorious consummation.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Did Jesus Claim to be the Jewish Messiah?
Did Jesus Claim to be the Jewish Messiah?
This is a question that pops up from time to time, and frankly that is normal and expected from non-Christian groups.
What isn't expected is for someone purporting to be a Christian pastor to make the claim that Jesus never claimed to be the Jewish Messiah! But just such a claim has been made by pastor John Hagee in a pitch for a new book. You can view a short, 1 minute video here that contains this problematic claim.
To give an answer to this question to someone who claims unbelief in Christ is a great privilege. I have no problem at all with these types of questions because they are a teaching and witnessing opportunity, and to make things even better - this is to people who have been thinking. Sometimes a rare breed indeed.
But I have no idea what John Hagee has been thinking, and frankly that isn't the most important question. The most important question is the one that is the topic of this post: Did Jesus claim to be the Jewish Messiah? Other questions about John Hagee aren't my place to answer, they're Christ's.
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To answer our question one first must discover the things that were supposed to identify the Jewish Messiah. This would be the items of prophecy out of the Old Testament that looked forward to Messiah, and I believe (as an armchair theological historian) they would also have to include what the people and religious leaders believed about Messiah. The first part is the truth as it is from God, but the second item is important because it simply address the situation on the ground so to speak in first century Israel. Knowing both of these things helps us put Christ's words and deeds in context.
So to me the question becomes two-fold: In light of Old Testament prophecy & New Testament history, did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? And second, in light of what men and women believed about Old Testament prophecy, did Jesus claim to be the Messiah?
The first answer is the full and complete answer to our question, but the second answer touches on the issue as to whether or not the folks in first century Israel could have recognized the Biblical Messiah when He appeared based on what He said and did.
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So, what were the things out of Old Testament prophecy that were supposed to identify Messiah? Well, that list is quite a long one and I can't cover all of them (this is a blog post, not a book), but I just want to list several of them and then narrow my focus to show that indeed Jesus absolutely claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, that He did so publicly, and that He did so in a manner that would have been understandable by anyone wanting to know the truth in first century Judea.
Some Prophecies Of Messiah Fulfilled In Jesus Christ (provided and documented in the Hebrew Old Testament over a time-span of 1000+ years)
What I wanted to do first was lay some groundwork so that it would be understood that no person could simply read Old Testament prophecy about Messiah and then fulfill them by their own effort. I hope that was clear in the list above.
Which of us decided our own genealogy? Which of us decided the place we would be born? Which of us decided (as a small baby you understand), that we would be carried off to another nation under dark of night to live as exiles until it was safe to go back home? The answer is, none of us because it is impossible.
There have been statistics published regarding the large body of Messianic prophecies in light of the life of Jesus Christ, and how likely it would be for a human to be born that would fulfill all of them exactly. That turns out to be such a reality of long odds that often the premise is pared down to just seven or so specific prophecies. When that 'simplifying' is done, the number comes out to something on the order of 10 to the 36th power. That's 1 in 10 followed by 36 zeros. It looks like this:
Odds that a person would fulfill just seven specific prophecies concerning the Jewish Messiah by chance: 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (see this site for the rundown and the math).
In other words, it would be more miraculous if Jesus WASN'T the Messiah!
Anyway, what about our specific question - Did Jesus indeed claim to be Messiah?
I want to answer that by looking at the last two items I mentioned above for Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus Christ: the fact that Messiah would be preceded by a forerunner and that He would perform certain miracles.
I'd like to take you to Matthew chapter 11 and show you where Jesus claims to be the Jewish Messiah in no uncertain terms. Now to us, reading all of this 2000+ years after the fact and outside of a first century Jewish context, it doesn't seem like Jesus made this claim as strongly as He actually did. But if you understand that in first century Judea, with the Jews oppressed under the hobnailed boot of Rome and literally looking all over - literally crying out for Messiah - you'll see that He did make this claim and that He did so in a particularly Jewish way.
(In the next section, Jesus answers John through the men that had been sent, but Jesus doesn't simply say "yes". He instead proves His claims in light of what the Old Testament prophesied about Messiah.)
Verse 5 shows us what Jesus did in front of these men. He told them to go back and report to John not just what they heard (from Jesus or anyone else), but also what they saw with their own eyes. And what was that? The literal fulfillment of Isaiah 35:4-6, and Isaiah 61:1-2:
Right in front of these men Jesus performed these miracles. They then left to report back to John the Baptist, and Jesus then turns to speak to the crowd that had also heard His words and witnessed the miracles He had just performed.
Here Jesus gives witness to the fact that indeed John the Baptist was the prophesied forerunner (Malachi 3:1) of Christ Himself, the Messiah. Jesus shows that His ministry follows John the Baptist's below in verses 18-19.
Verse 17: "We played the flute for you (mocking a wedding), and you did not dance; we sang a dirge for you (mocking a funeral), but you did not mourn."
We have this picture of children seeking to illicit certain reactions and being frustrated by their lack of results.
Jesus in verses 18-19 then shows that God did actually meet with them on these terms, but they rejected His offers of salvation. In verse 17 God is basically saying that sometimes the Jews wanted a Godly representative who was happy and playful, perhaps like a King David figure. But at other times they wanted a stern faced, serious leader who was all work and no play - perhaps one like the long line of Old Testament prophets.
In verses 18 and 19 Jesus shows that God in fact met with them on both of these terms but to no avail. No matter what God did, they refused to accept Him.
John the Baptist was the last in the line of the Old Testament prophets. He could in no means have been described as a happy, playful person. He was serious to the nth degree. John, if you will, came as the asked for funeral dirge, but the Jews didn't go along with God's offer.
Jesus on the other hand was much more lighthearted than John. He used a sharp sense of humor in His teachings, and He hung out and ate with those that the religious people shunned. Jesus loved and sought out the company of sinners, so that He could help them. Indeed He came as the asked for wedding - the happy event, but the Jews didn't go along with God's offer.
John came in a decidedly Old Testament manner, neither "eating or drinking" - a Jewish euphemism for enjoying life and what it has to offer. But the Jews accused John the Baptist of being demon possessed because of his severity.
Jesus came differently. He came "eating and drinking". But the Jews said that He was a glutton, a drunk, that he hung out with the enemies of the Jews (tax collectors for Rome), and that he hung out with the enemies of God (sinners).
And lastly Jesus says, "but wisdom is proved right by her actions".
If what He had already said and done wasn't enough, Jesus adds this last part to show that He is Messiah.
Just a question for the ladies. Ladies, say there are two men and they both say they "love you". But one of the men washes himself, his clothes, and his car before he comes to pick you up. He opens the door for you, he puts you in the car and makes sure nothing is in the way of the door before he closes it for you. He buys you dinner. He actually listens to what you have to say. He compliments you and respects you. He drops you back off at home and walks you to the door. He doesn't expect you to 'pay' for dinner in any way. He calls you at odd times during the day just to hear your voice. He thinks ahead about the things you like and tries to have them for you. He respects you enough to tell you gently when he thinks you're wrong or endangering yourself.
Between the two men, one that professes love and one that acts out love - which one really loves you?
Words are cheap. As sinners we should all understand that. But actions are costly. Words are merely pronouncements, but actions show true commitment and a willingness to personally pay for the words that come out of one's mouth.
This is why Jesus not only quoted Messianic prophecy to John's disciples - He actually showed them in the flesh all of the miracles that had been prophesied about Messiah. He didn't want there to be any doubts as to who He was, and He doesn't want there to be any doubts in your mind as to who He is.
In the first century, Jesus put the proclamation of being the Messiah in first century Jewish terms. In the 21st century, He has sent little nerd preachers like me to explain the Bible so that you can understand exactly what He did and Who He was.
He was a human like any of us, but He was also God. He was also the Jewish Messiah and proved it through things that not one of us can control for ourselves, and He proved it in both word and deed.
You need to consider that and listen to what He has to say.
This is a question that pops up from time to time, and frankly that is normal and expected from non-Christian groups.
What isn't expected is for someone purporting to be a Christian pastor to make the claim that Jesus never claimed to be the Jewish Messiah! But just such a claim has been made by pastor John Hagee in a pitch for a new book. You can view a short, 1 minute video here that contains this problematic claim.
To give an answer to this question to someone who claims unbelief in Christ is a great privilege. I have no problem at all with these types of questions because they are a teaching and witnessing opportunity, and to make things even better - this is to people who have been thinking. Sometimes a rare breed indeed.
But I have no idea what John Hagee has been thinking, and frankly that isn't the most important question. The most important question is the one that is the topic of this post: Did Jesus claim to be the Jewish Messiah? Other questions about John Hagee aren't my place to answer, they're Christ's.
------------------
To answer our question one first must discover the things that were supposed to identify the Jewish Messiah. This would be the items of prophecy out of the Old Testament that looked forward to Messiah, and I believe (as an armchair theological historian) they would also have to include what the people and religious leaders believed about Messiah. The first part is the truth as it is from God, but the second item is important because it simply address the situation on the ground so to speak in first century Israel. Knowing both of these things helps us put Christ's words and deeds in context.
So to me the question becomes two-fold: In light of Old Testament prophecy & New Testament history, did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? And second, in light of what men and women believed about Old Testament prophecy, did Jesus claim to be the Messiah?
The first answer is the full and complete answer to our question, but the second answer touches on the issue as to whether or not the folks in first century Israel could have recognized the Biblical Messiah when He appeared based on what He said and did.
------------------
So, what were the things out of Old Testament prophecy that were supposed to identify Messiah? Well, that list is quite a long one and I can't cover all of them (this is a blog post, not a book), but I just want to list several of them and then narrow my focus to show that indeed Jesus absolutely claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, that He did so publicly, and that He did so in a manner that would have been understandable by anyone wanting to know the truth in first century Judea.
Some Prophecies Of Messiah Fulfilled In Jesus Christ (provided and documented in the Hebrew Old Testament over a time-span of 1000+ years)
- That Messiah would be the seed of a woman - or in other words, that Messiah would be human. (Prophesied in Genesis 3:15 and fulfilled by Jesus in Matthew chapter 1, Luke chapter 2, Galatians 4:4, etc. Basically all of the New Testament)
- That Messiah would be a descendant of Abraham, and of Issac, and of Jacob (in other words, that Messiah would be Jewish), that he would be from the tribe of Judah and also a descendant of King David. It narrows even more in that Messiah was to be an heir to David's throne. (Prophesied in Genesis 12:1-3 (re Abraham), Genesis 17:19-21 (re Isaac), Numbers 24:17 (re Jacob), Genesis 49:10 (re Judah), Isaiah 9:7 (re heir to the Davidic throne). These were fulfilled by Jesus in Matthew 1:1 (re Abraham), Luke 3:34 (re Isaac), Matthew 1:2 (re Jacob), Luke 3:33 (re Judah), Luke 1:32 (re heir to the throne of David), Matthew 27:11 (Jesus admitted He was the king of the Jews - something in this time that could only be true of the Messiah)
- Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. (Prophesied in Micah 5:2 and fulfilled by Jesus in Luke 2:4-7)
- Messiah was to somehow also be called out of Egypt (Mizraim) even though he was to be Jewish and born in Bethlehem. This was a very odd prophetic word when it was given. (Prophesied in Hosea 11:1 and fulfilled by Jesus in Matthew 2:13-23)
- Messiah would be preceded by a forerunner that would prepare the way for Him and His message. (Prophesied in Malachi 3:1 and fulfilled by John the Baptist and Jesus in Luke 7:24-27, John 1:1-8, 19-34 - among others)
- Messiah would speak in parables and perform many miracles. (Prophesied in Psalms 78:2-4 (re parables - about 900+ years before Jesus) and Isaiah 35:3-6 (re miracles - about 700+ years before Jesus), Isaiah 61:1-3 (re miracles) and fulfilled by Jesus in Matthew 13:34-35 (re parables), Matthew 15:30-31 (re miracles), Luke 4:18-19 (re miracles), and many other places - literally the whole of the Gospels.
What I wanted to do first was lay some groundwork so that it would be understood that no person could simply read Old Testament prophecy about Messiah and then fulfill them by their own effort. I hope that was clear in the list above.
Which of us decided our own genealogy? Which of us decided the place we would be born? Which of us decided (as a small baby you understand), that we would be carried off to another nation under dark of night to live as exiles until it was safe to go back home? The answer is, none of us because it is impossible.
There have been statistics published regarding the large body of Messianic prophecies in light of the life of Jesus Christ, and how likely it would be for a human to be born that would fulfill all of them exactly. That turns out to be such a reality of long odds that often the premise is pared down to just seven or so specific prophecies. When that 'simplifying' is done, the number comes out to something on the order of 10 to the 36th power. That's 1 in 10 followed by 36 zeros. It looks like this:
Odds that a person would fulfill just seven specific prophecies concerning the Jewish Messiah by chance: 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (see this site for the rundown and the math).
In other words, it would be more miraculous if Jesus WASN'T the Messiah!
Anyway, what about our specific question - Did Jesus indeed claim to be Messiah?
I want to answer that by looking at the last two items I mentioned above for Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus Christ: the fact that Messiah would be preceded by a forerunner and that He would perform certain miracles.
I'd like to take you to Matthew chapter 11 and show you where Jesus claims to be the Jewish Messiah in no uncertain terms. Now to us, reading all of this 2000+ years after the fact and outside of a first century Jewish context, it doesn't seem like Jesus made this claim as strongly as He actually did. But if you understand that in first century Judea, with the Jews oppressed under the hobnailed boot of Rome and literally looking all over - literally crying out for Messiah - you'll see that He did make this claim and that He did so in a particularly Jewish way.
Matthew 11:1-19 (NIV) (my notes in parenthesis):(John the Baptist has been imprisoned by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great that had tried to have the baby Jesus killed. It appears that John, as great as he was, is like all of us that possess the Holy Spirit: sometimes we have doubts. John was going through a period of doubt about Jesus and His claims, so he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask this great question: "Are you the one who was to come", meaning the Jewish Messiah - "or should we expect someone else?")
(1) After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.
(2) When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples
(3) to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
(In the next section, Jesus answers John through the men that had been sent, but Jesus doesn't simply say "yes". He instead proves His claims in light of what the Old Testament prophesied about Messiah.)
(4) Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see:
(5) The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
(6) Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”
Verse 5 shows us what Jesus did in front of these men. He told them to go back and report to John not just what they heard (from Jesus or anyone else), but also what they saw with their own eyes. And what was that? The literal fulfillment of Isaiah 35:4-6, and Isaiah 61:1-2:
Isaiah 35:4-6 (NIV)
(4) say to those with fearful hearts,“Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” (5) Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. (6) Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
Isaiah 61:1-2 (NIV):
(1) The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, (2) to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
Right in front of these men Jesus performed these miracles. They then left to report back to John the Baptist, and Jesus then turns to speak to the crowd that had also heard His words and witnessed the miracles He had just performed.
(7) As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
(8) If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces.
(9) Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
(10) This is the one about whom it is written: “ ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,who will prepare your way before you.’
Here Jesus gives witness to the fact that indeed John the Baptist was the prophesied forerunner (Malachi 3:1) of Christ Himself, the Messiah. Jesus shows that His ministry follows John the Baptist's below in verses 18-19.
(11) I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.Here Jesus shows that John was indeed His forerunner, but He also gives a warning in how these ministries are received. Jesus talks about the then current generation of people that were witnesses to both John's and Jesus' own ministries. Jesus said that this generation of Jewish people, by and large, were like children playing mock weddings and mock funerals.
(12) From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.
(13) For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.
(14) And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.
(15) He who has ears, let him hear.
(16) “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
(17) “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
(18) For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
(19) The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”
Verse 17: "We played the flute for you (mocking a wedding), and you did not dance; we sang a dirge for you (mocking a funeral), but you did not mourn."
We have this picture of children seeking to illicit certain reactions and being frustrated by their lack of results.
Jesus in verses 18-19 then shows that God did actually meet with them on these terms, but they rejected His offers of salvation. In verse 17 God is basically saying that sometimes the Jews wanted a Godly representative who was happy and playful, perhaps like a King David figure. But at other times they wanted a stern faced, serious leader who was all work and no play - perhaps one like the long line of Old Testament prophets.
In verses 18 and 19 Jesus shows that God in fact met with them on both of these terms but to no avail. No matter what God did, they refused to accept Him.
John the Baptist was the last in the line of the Old Testament prophets. He could in no means have been described as a happy, playful person. He was serious to the nth degree. John, if you will, came as the asked for funeral dirge, but the Jews didn't go along with God's offer.
Jesus on the other hand was much more lighthearted than John. He used a sharp sense of humor in His teachings, and He hung out and ate with those that the religious people shunned. Jesus loved and sought out the company of sinners, so that He could help them. Indeed He came as the asked for wedding - the happy event, but the Jews didn't go along with God's offer.
John came in a decidedly Old Testament manner, neither "eating or drinking" - a Jewish euphemism for enjoying life and what it has to offer. But the Jews accused John the Baptist of being demon possessed because of his severity.
Jesus came differently. He came "eating and drinking". But the Jews said that He was a glutton, a drunk, that he hung out with the enemies of the Jews (tax collectors for Rome), and that he hung out with the enemies of God (sinners).
And lastly Jesus says, "but wisdom is proved right by her actions".
If what He had already said and done wasn't enough, Jesus adds this last part to show that He is Messiah.
Just a question for the ladies. Ladies, say there are two men and they both say they "love you". But one of the men washes himself, his clothes, and his car before he comes to pick you up. He opens the door for you, he puts you in the car and makes sure nothing is in the way of the door before he closes it for you. He buys you dinner. He actually listens to what you have to say. He compliments you and respects you. He drops you back off at home and walks you to the door. He doesn't expect you to 'pay' for dinner in any way. He calls you at odd times during the day just to hear your voice. He thinks ahead about the things you like and tries to have them for you. He respects you enough to tell you gently when he thinks you're wrong or endangering yourself.
Between the two men, one that professes love and one that acts out love - which one really loves you?
Words are cheap. As sinners we should all understand that. But actions are costly. Words are merely pronouncements, but actions show true commitment and a willingness to personally pay for the words that come out of one's mouth.
This is why Jesus not only quoted Messianic prophecy to John's disciples - He actually showed them in the flesh all of the miracles that had been prophesied about Messiah. He didn't want there to be any doubts as to who He was, and He doesn't want there to be any doubts in your mind as to who He is.
In the first century, Jesus put the proclamation of being the Messiah in first century Jewish terms. In the 21st century, He has sent little nerd preachers like me to explain the Bible so that you can understand exactly what He did and Who He was.
He was a human like any of us, but He was also God. He was also the Jewish Messiah and proved it through things that not one of us can control for ourselves, and He proved it in both word and deed.
You need to consider that and listen to what He has to say.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A Portrait of the Early Church
The following is a small snapshot into the life of the early church from Tertullian.
He was an early church father who lived from 160AD to 230AD. He was a member of the church at Carthage in North Africa and wrote numerous works explaining Christianity to the pagan world around him, defending Christianity from heretical groups that sought to destroy it, and encouraging Christians in their faith.
The words below are taken from his work entitled, "The Apology" - Chapter 39. In these words Tertullian is defending against false ideas that were being spread about Christianity, and in so doing he compares the Christians to the pagans around them.
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He was an early church father who lived from 160AD to 230AD. He was a member of the church at Carthage in North Africa and wrote numerous works explaining Christianity to the pagan world around him, defending Christianity from heretical groups that sought to destroy it, and encouraging Christians in their faith.
The words below are taken from his work entitled, "The Apology" - Chapter 39. In these words Tertullian is defending against false ideas that were being spread about Christianity, and in so doing he compares the Christians to the pagans around them.
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I shall at once go on, then, to exhibit the peculiarities of the Christian society, that, as I have refuted the evil charged against it, I may point out its positive good.We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation (judgment).We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful. However it be in that respect, with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate our hope, we make our confidence more steadfast; and no less by inculcations of God's precepts we confirm good habits.In the same place also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered. For with a great gravity is the work of judging carried on among us, as befits those who feel assured that they are in the sight of God; and you have the most notable example of judgment to come when any one has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the congregation and in all sacred intercourse. The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honor not by purchase, but by established character.There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God. Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price (membership fees).
On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God's Church, they become the nurslings of their confession.But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they [the Christians] love one another, for [they] themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they [the Christians] are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.And they are wroth with us, too, because we call each other brethren; for no other reason, as I think, than because among themselves names of consanguinity (deep friendships and connections) are assumed in mere pretence of affection (claimed, but unreal affection).But we are your brethren as well, by the law of our common mother nature, though you are hardly men, because [being] brothers so unkind. At the same time, how much more fittingly they are called and counted brothers who have been led to the knowledge of God as their common Father, who have drunk in one spirit of holiness, who from the same womb of a common ignorance have agonized into the same light of truth!But on this very account, perhaps, we are regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no tragedy makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another.All things are common among us but our wives. We give up our community where it is practiced alone by others, who not only take possession of the wives of their friends, but most tolerantly also accommodate their friends with theirs, following the example, I believe, of those wise men of ancient times, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends the wives whom they had married, it seems for the sake of progeny both to themselves and to others; whether in this acting against their partners' wishes, I am not able to say. Why should they have any care over their chastity, when their husbands so readily bestowed it away?O noble example of Attic wisdom, of Roman gravity--the philosopher and the censor playing pimps!What wonder if that great love of Christians towards one another is desecrated by you! For you abuse also our humble feasts, on the ground that they are extravagant as well as infamously wicked. To us, it seems applies the saying of Diogenes: "The people of Megara feast as though they were going to die on the morrow; they build as though they were never to die!" But one sees more readily the mote in another's eye than the beam in his own. Why, the very air is soured with the eructations (belching) of so many tribes, and curiae (groups of people), and decuriae (sub groups of people) (through the Roman's riotous feasting).The Salii (priests of the god Mars) cannot have their feast without going into debt; you must get the accountants to tell you what the tenths of Hercules and the sacrificial banquets cost; the choicest cook is appointed for the Apaturia (an annual Greek festival stressing common relationship), the Dionysia (annual Greek festivals honoring the god Dionysus), the Attic mysteries; the smoke from the banquet of Serapis will call out the firemen. Yet about the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made.Our feast explains itself by its name. The Greeks call it agape, i.e., affection. Whatever it costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good things of the feast we benefit the needy; not as it is with you, do parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious propensities, selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful treatment,--but as it is with God himself, a peculiar respect is shown to the lowly.If the object of our feast be good, in the light of that consider its further regulations. As it is an act of religious service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste (to enjoy but not to get drunk). They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is one of their auditors (listeners).After manual ablution (washing after dinner), and the bringing in of lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the holy Scriptures or one of his own composing,--a proof of the measure of our drinking (the Christian's singing was worshipful and controlled – not the uncontrolled singing of the drunk pagans).As the feast commenced with prayer, so with prayer it is closed. We go from it, not like troops of mischief-doers, nor bands of vagabonds (wandering hoodlums), nor to break out into licentious acts (unrestrained sexual conduct), but to have as much care of our modesty and chastity as if we had been at a school of virtue rather than a banquet.
Give the congregation of the Christians its due, and hold it unlawful, if it is like assemblies of the illicit sort: by all means let it be condemned, if any complaint can be validly laid against it, such as lies against secret factions. But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies?We are in our congregations just what we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what we are individuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody.When the upright, when the virtuous meet together, when the pious, when the pure assemble in congregation, you ought not to call that a faction (as Christianity was called), but a curia--[i.e., the court of God.]
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
How Many Gospels Are There?
How many Gospels are there?
From time to time, people come along and say that other Christian 'gospels' have been discovered. These documents are at odds with the Old and New Testaments, and certain types of people then seek to use these texts to undercut the authority of Scripture. If that succeeds, they then proceed to introduce ideas about God, His Son, and salvation that are at odds with the revelation God has given us.
They often point to various Gnostic manuscripts like those found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt among others. The issue is that the ideas in these documents are not new and unknown. Rather they are old and known and were refuted by the early church when these false ideas first originated. They don't always go by the same names as documents such as those found at Nag Hammadi, but the methods employed and the beliefs held are the same.
This short article deals with the number of the Gospel writings... how many are there? If the Gnostic writings mentioned above are true, there are many gospels. If the Bible is true, there are only four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
What is the testimony of the early church against the first heretics and their ideas? Please consider:
From time to time, people come along and say that other Christian 'gospels' have been discovered. These documents are at odds with the Old and New Testaments, and certain types of people then seek to use these texts to undercut the authority of Scripture. If that succeeds, they then proceed to introduce ideas about God, His Son, and salvation that are at odds with the revelation God has given us.
They often point to various Gnostic manuscripts like those found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt among others. The issue is that the ideas in these documents are not new and unknown. Rather they are old and known and were refuted by the early church when these false ideas first originated. They don't always go by the same names as documents such as those found at Nag Hammadi, but the methods employed and the beliefs held are the same.
This short article deals with the number of the Gospel writings... how many are there? If the Gnostic writings mentioned above are true, there are many gospels. If the Bible is true, there are only four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
What is the testimony of the early church against the first heretics and their ideas? Please consider:
Irenaeus (early church father - Bishop of the church at Lyons (130AD - 200AD) writing about 180AD)
"Against Heresies" - Book 3, Chapter 11, Section 8:
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground" of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh.
Same author, same book and chapter - Section 9:
These things being so, all who destroy the form of the Gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious; those, I mean, who represent the aspects of the Gospel as being either more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer. The former class that they may seem to have discovered more than is of the truth; the latter, that they may set the dispensations of God aside.
Tertullian (early church father (160AD - 230AD) writing about 207AD)
"The Five Books Against Marcion" - Book 5, Chapter 2
We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has apostles for its authors, to whom was assigned by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the gospel. Since, however, there are apostolic men also (disciples of the apostles), they are yet not alone, but appear with apostles and after apostles; because the preaching of disciples might be open to the suspicion of an affectation of glory (pretending to be authorized Scripture), if there did not accompany it the authority of the masters, which means that of Christ, for it was that which made the apostles their masters. Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards. These all start with the same principles of the faith, so far as relates to the one only God the Creator and His Christ, how that He was born of the Virgin, and came to fulfill the law and the prophets.
Same author - Book 4, Chapter 5
I say, therefore, that in them (the churches founded by the apostles and all churches that are truly in Christ) that Gospel of Luke which we are defending with all our might has stood its ground from its very first publication; whereas Marcion's Gospel is not known to most people, and to none whatever is it known without being at the same time condemned. It too, of course, has its churches, but specially its own--as late as they are spurious; and should you want to know their original, you will more easily discover apostasy in it than apostolicity, with Marcion forsooth as their founder, or some one of Marcion's swarm. Even wasps make combs; so also these Marcionites make churches. The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage--I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew--whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter's whose interpreter Mark was. For even Luke's form of the Gospel men usually ascribe to Paul.
Origen (early church father (185AD - 255AD) writing about 228AD)
Commentary on the Gospel of John - Book 1, Chapter 6:
Now the Gospels are four. These four are, as it were, the elements of the faith of the Church, out of which elements the whole world which is reconciled to God in Christ is put together; as Paul says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself;" of which world Jesus bore the sin; for it is of the world of the Church that the word is written, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."
The Gospels then being four, I deem the first fruits of the Gospels to be that which you have enjoined me to search into according to my powers, the Gospel of John, that which speaks of him whose genealogy had already been set forth, but which begins to speak of him at a point before he had any genealogy.
For Matthew, writing for the Hebrews who looked for Him who was to come of the line of Abraham and of David, says: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."
And Mark, knowing what he writes, narrates the beginning of the Gospel; we may perhaps find what he aims at in John; in the beginning the Word, God the Word.
But Luke, though he says at the beginning of Acts, "The former treatise did I make about all that Jesus began to do and to teach," yet leaves to him who lay on Jesus' breast the greatest and completest discourses about Jesus.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
A Short Little Thing About Faith
Romans 11:29 tells us that God's gifts and His calling are irrevocable. And they are. God never sets aside His gifts of grace (charismata) or His invitation to salvation (klesis).
And among all of the gifts of grace God has given us lies one that has to do with our very composition: we are made in the image of God Himself (Genesis 1:27). This means many things: that we are spiritual (part spirit), that we are eternal - but it also means that we are willful, moral creatures. God has given us a will that is capable of weighing evidence and making decisions, and He has given us moral sensitivity so that we can exercise our wills in the realm of righteousness.
But something horrible happened on the way to the party so to speak, and it caused our willfulness and our morality to be corrupted. This was the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Genesis chapter 3 lays out the sordid details.
Because of this, the Bible tells us that we are all sinners and that this sin has left us dead spiritually. Please consider:
Because of the effects of sin, some have said that it is impossible for us to respond to God at all. Dead means dead, blind means blind, crippled means crippled. And they do.
Because of this some have said that unless God basically saves us first in a process called regeneration, we will remain dead in sin and unable to respond to Him. And because of this, and the fact that not everyone is a born again Christian, they say that this must mean that God has decided who He will save (by regenerating them), and who He will allow to die and go to Hell unsaved (because He made the choice not to regenerate them).
This change can't be resisted they say because we are in fact dead. We can't respond any more than can a corpse, nor can we resist God's work for the same reason.
That makes sense logically, but is it rational? If a particular argument is "logical", it means it has a subjective, internal consistency and truth: within the context of itself - it makes sense.
Rationality is a step further out from this. If an argument is "rational", it means that it has an objective, absolute truth. From the outside in, the argument makes sense. A rational argument is one that has a foundation of truth.
How can we judge if the argument above is rational in addition to being logical? Well, we have to go to the very source of truth regarding sin and death, and that is God's word the Bible. The Bible bears testimony to the inside pieces, but does it bear testimony to the argument as a whole.
As it turns out, it doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is because of God's power and God's will. Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37) and that is a very good thing because we are all sinners.
So I've made some bold statements - where is the proof? The proof is found in the very person that is called the father of all those saved by faith in God's Word: Abraham.
Please read this carefully. Abraham at this time is an elderly man and his wife Sarah is elderly and barren (unable to have children), and God has just told them that Abraham, through Sarah's womb, would father a son who would be his heir, and through this child via natural means Abraham's descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Quite a thing for God to tell an old man with a barren, elderly wife - as God describes it: Abraham's body was as good as dead, and Sarah's womb was dead (Romans 4:19 below).
How did Abraham respond to this? Was he even able to respond with trust (faith) in what God had said? How could he since Abraham was dead in sin just like all of us? If God made Abraham believe as the above view holds, then we really wouldn't be talking about Abraham's faith would we? We couldn't if his will didn't make the decision. We would be talking about God's will and His will alone.
Is this how God describes events, or does He give another view? It turns out He gives another view:
Here are some notes on this to bring my own argument to a close:
So back to the beginning... how does all of this happen to creatures that are dead in sin?
The answer is that God is life and nothing is impossible for Him. This whole account of Abraham is about the dead being brought back to life. It is about life being produced from the inability brought about by death. God shows us things like this quite often: He teaches spiritual truths through physical reality.
The death in sin that you and I face is just like Abraham's and Sarah's bodies that were nearly dead - and in fact were dead as far as having children was concerned. But to God death is never the end of the story. He can bring life anywhere and at any time He wishes. He is the resurrection and the life. You can believe that with all of your heart.
And just like God enabled Abraham's faith by revelation, He has done the same thing for us through the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus said that when He was lifted up, He would draw all men unto Himself (John 12:32). And just like John the Baptist was given so that men might believe in Jesus (John 1:6-7), He also said that when He was back with the Father the Holy Spirit would come with not just a mission to the saved, but to the lost: to convict and convince them of the truth of God's word (John 16:6-16).
God has made this same revelation available to us as well, and it is the very thing you have been reading: the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whenever the Gospel is presented God's revelation is made known. Whenever the Gospel is presented faith in that Gospel truth is enabled. What you do with that faith is up to you.
You may choose to let it weaken and die, in which case God may never enable it for you again. Or instead you can choose to strengthen it and follow it to the point of accepting Christ as your Savior.
My prayer for you is that you, like Abraham, will take God at His word and trust Him:
Romans 10:8-13 (NIV)
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
11 As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,
13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
And among all of the gifts of grace God has given us lies one that has to do with our very composition: we are made in the image of God Himself (Genesis 1:27). This means many things: that we are spiritual (part spirit), that we are eternal - but it also means that we are willful, moral creatures. God has given us a will that is capable of weighing evidence and making decisions, and He has given us moral sensitivity so that we can exercise our wills in the realm of righteousness.
But something horrible happened on the way to the party so to speak, and it caused our willfulness and our morality to be corrupted. This was the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Genesis chapter 3 lays out the sordid details.
Because of this, the Bible tells us that we are all sinners and that this sin has left us dead spiritually. Please consider:
Romans 3:9-12 (NIV)
9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better ? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.
10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
1st John 1:10 (NIV)
10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
Romans 8:6-8 (NIV)
6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Because of the effects of sin, some have said that it is impossible for us to respond to God at all. Dead means dead, blind means blind, crippled means crippled. And they do.
Because of this some have said that unless God basically saves us first in a process called regeneration, we will remain dead in sin and unable to respond to Him. And because of this, and the fact that not everyone is a born again Christian, they say that this must mean that God has decided who He will save (by regenerating them), and who He will allow to die and go to Hell unsaved (because He made the choice not to regenerate them).
This change can't be resisted they say because we are in fact dead. We can't respond any more than can a corpse, nor can we resist God's work for the same reason.
That makes sense logically, but is it rational? If a particular argument is "logical", it means it has a subjective, internal consistency and truth: within the context of itself - it makes sense.
Rationality is a step further out from this. If an argument is "rational", it means that it has an objective, absolute truth. From the outside in, the argument makes sense. A rational argument is one that has a foundation of truth.
How can we judge if the argument above is rational in addition to being logical? Well, we have to go to the very source of truth regarding sin and death, and that is God's word the Bible. The Bible bears testimony to the inside pieces, but does it bear testimony to the argument as a whole.
As it turns out, it doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is because of God's power and God's will. Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37) and that is a very good thing because we are all sinners.
So I've made some bold statements - where is the proof? The proof is found in the very person that is called the father of all those saved by faith in God's Word: Abraham.
Please read this carefully. Abraham at this time is an elderly man and his wife Sarah is elderly and barren (unable to have children), and God has just told them that Abraham, through Sarah's womb, would father a son who would be his heir, and through this child via natural means Abraham's descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Quite a thing for God to tell an old man with a barren, elderly wife - as God describes it: Abraham's body was as good as dead, and Sarah's womb was dead (Romans 4:19 below).
How did Abraham respond to this? Was he even able to respond with trust (faith) in what God had said? How could he since Abraham was dead in sin just like all of us? If God made Abraham believe as the above view holds, then we really wouldn't be talking about Abraham's faith would we? We couldn't if his will didn't make the decision. We would be talking about God's will and His will alone.
Is this how God describes events, or does He give another view? It turns out He gives another view:
Romans 4:18-5:2 (NASB)
18 In hope against hope he (Abraham) believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “so shall your descendants be.”
19 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb;
20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God,
21 and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.
22 Therefore "it was also credited to him as righteousness".
23 Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him,
24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
25 He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.
1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.
Here are some notes on this to bring my own argument to a close:
- In verse 18 is God saying that God believed *for* Abraham, or that Abraham in fact believed for himself? God says that Abraham believed and this is born out in verse 22.
- In verse 19 we see that Abraham wasn't exhibiting blind faith... saving faith, because of its nature, can never be blind. There is something (someone actually) that it must see in order to be real saving faith. Just as grace requires an object (a target), faith also requires a target. Without a target grace cannot exist, nor can faith for the same reason. Abraham was going into this trial with his eyes wide open. He was thinking about his own body and his age - not to mention the age of his wife and the fact that she was barren. All through their marriage she had been unable to bear children.
- In verse 19, Abraham takes in all of these obstacles to God's word and he has a choice to make. He can let the realities on the ground weaken his trust in what God had just told him, or instead he could cling even harder to what God had said - for the very reason that it was God that had said it.
- In verse 20 we see which choice Abraham made. He took the door of strengthening his own faith. Rather than allowing his and Sarah's human circumstances to undercut his faith in what God had said, he allowed the fact that God was the one making the promises to instead strengthen his faith. And in this strengthening of his faith that he accomplished based on the revelation God had given him, he gave all the glory to God. This is a great truth about real faith in God, and it is one that many miss.
- Although he strengthened his own faith he didn't view that as some type of work of merit or something of which to be proud. Instead he gave all the glory to God. You see, these two things are not mutually exclusive. The only reason Abraham, or any of us, can have faith is because God enables it by revelation (by showing us Himself). Faith needs a target, and when God shows us Himself and His actions faith is automatically enabled. Once God does that it is our faith and we can do with it what we choose. We can grow it, or let it die - and God reciprocates in kind. But the only reason we can have it at all is due to God, and the only reason we can strengthen it is all about God too - by realizing Who it really is in which we are trusting. Thus at one and the same time it truly is our faith in every sense of the word, and all of the glory for that personal faith is due to God Himself. He enabled it, and without Him it would have no target and thus no real existence.
- In verse 21 we get more detail on how this actually works. Abraham, instead of looking to himself or Sarah for a solution, instead looked to God. And he was "fully assured" that what God had said He would do, He could in fact accomplish. Abraham knew God was all powerful, so He could not fail in any task. And he knew God could not sin by bearing a false witness as to His own abilities and intent. That is the anchor to which our faith clings: God's nature and His plan for our lives. The part that our faith plays is this: our faith must take the things that are not yet (God's promises), and treat them as if they are. We must take the promises to be the reality.
- When we do this God reciprocates. Not because He owes us or we are controlling Him... all of this is God's plan through and through. But when we do the part God has set for us, He completes the action. In verse 22 we see the "therefore". When you read that in God's word, always ask what it's there for. It's there because of all the preceding verses we've just studied. Because Abraham didn't let his faith weaken, but he strengthened it in light of God's character; and because he trusted God and took the things that were not as if they already were, God did the same. God took the thing that was not yet (Abraham's personal righteousness), and He credited it to him as if it really existed. "Therefore (because Abraham trusted God) it was also credited to him as righteousness".
- Verses 23-25 are beautiful and they are salvation. This wasn't for Abraham alone, but it was for us also. Everyone who trusts God's word about His one and only Son, and accepts Jesus' sinless life as their own, and His death on the cross as their own, and His resurrection and glorification as their own - will receive the reality of those things themselves through their faith in Christ.
- God takes the things that are not (our personal sinless life, our personal death to sin, our resurrection as a new creature, and our glorification and final deliverance from sin) - and He credits them to our account as if they really were. And all of this for Christ, and through Christ - because of His great and undying love for us.
- And because of this (chapter 5 verse 1), we have peace with God through Jesus. He is our safe harbor - He is the ark for the faithful to protect us from God's wrath.
- And this new relationship with Christ introduces us to God's grace, and we continue to grow in that grace until we are taken up when Jesus returns, or we are taken out to be with Christ through death.
- And verse 2, we exult in the hope of the glory of God. In other words, the thing we look forward to after this (after being credited with righteousness), is the actual fact of righteousness made real in us: the hope of God's glory.
So back to the beginning... how does all of this happen to creatures that are dead in sin?
The answer is that God is life and nothing is impossible for Him. This whole account of Abraham is about the dead being brought back to life. It is about life being produced from the inability brought about by death. God shows us things like this quite often: He teaches spiritual truths through physical reality.
The death in sin that you and I face is just like Abraham's and Sarah's bodies that were nearly dead - and in fact were dead as far as having children was concerned. But to God death is never the end of the story. He can bring life anywhere and at any time He wishes. He is the resurrection and the life. You can believe that with all of your heart.
And just like God enabled Abraham's faith by revelation, He has done the same thing for us through the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus said that when He was lifted up, He would draw all men unto Himself (John 12:32). And just like John the Baptist was given so that men might believe in Jesus (John 1:6-7), He also said that when He was back with the Father the Holy Spirit would come with not just a mission to the saved, but to the lost: to convict and convince them of the truth of God's word (John 16:6-16).
God has made this same revelation available to us as well, and it is the very thing you have been reading: the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whenever the Gospel is presented God's revelation is made known. Whenever the Gospel is presented faith in that Gospel truth is enabled. What you do with that faith is up to you.
You may choose to let it weaken and die, in which case God may never enable it for you again. Or instead you can choose to strengthen it and follow it to the point of accepting Christ as your Savior.
My prayer for you is that you, like Abraham, will take God at His word and trust Him:
Romans 10:8-13 (NIV)
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
11 As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,
13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Monday, September 05, 2011
A Little Perspective on a Big Gospel
This evening early on I was sitting in our 'office' playing around on twitter and making new friends (follow me if you don't mind: @TruthMill) when a loud crash came from the kitchen - followed by screaming.
My wife and I both rushed in and found our little three year old Joshua surrounded by broken glass. He had been trying to get a drink and had grabbed a glass and then dropped it on the tile floor. As it turns out he was just fine because he froze. We got him out of there without a scratch on him and he's okay although he got quite the scare. So did mom and dad.
But this little adventure got me thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how this situation with little Joshua pictured it so perfectly.
He knew he needed something and had tried to help himself and gotten into trouble in the process. After the trouble hit, if he had tried to do anything else to help himself: run, walk, pick up the glass, you name it - he would have gotten hurt, perhaps badly - depending upon his actions. He needed someone bigger and more capable than himself to see his need and to rescue him from himself and the trouble he had created.
This is exactly our situation before God in regards to our sin, and what we often do to try and help ourselves. Because of inabilities that we bring to the party, we can't help ourselves out of our own sin. We just can't, and when we try God says that we make it much, much worse.
God tells us to just freeze and to let Him do the work. Then He asks us to trust in the work He has completed for us on the cross. We look up with little scared eyes, and reach up with little trusting arms, and He lifts us up to safety in arms that never fail (and in fact, cannot ever fail).
The gift of the cross is what is called God's grace. Grace has been given a twisted definition by many inside and outside of the church. Some say grace is only for the pretty people, or the rich people, or the smart people. Some say God dispenses His grace simply by His own whim and that it has nothing to do with us at all - that it is only about God.
All of these ideas about God's grace are wrong. As it turns out, God's grace is for people that need it. In fact, the whole of Romans chapter 5 points this out: the cross of Jesus Christ was for everyone who has been cursed with sin. That's all of us, so the cross was for all of us too.
When the Holy Spirit was speaking through the Apostle Paul in his writings to the early churches, He directed Paul to a very specific word in Greek to describe God's grace. That word is "Charis" (or Xaris). Aristotle, in his large treatment of the art of rhetoric (argument) gives this understanding that all Greek thinkers and writers understood (including the Apostle Paul):
Aristotle continues:
This is the exact picture of God's grace to us in the cross of Jesus Christ, and it was the perfect word for the Holy Spirit to direct Paul to inscribe within the pages of what would become the New Testament.
Please don't try to help yourself in regards to your standing before a just and holy God. You will not make it. You cannot make it. You are defeated before you start and more defeated after you've done your best.
God has provided the cure and it is in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Please don't let it go to waste.
Everything that God does require from you is relatively passive. He asks that you recognize your sin before Him, and that you then turn from it and to Him. Then He will take care of the rest. Our job is to admit our trouble and to reach up in faith. God takes care of moving us from the place of danger to the place of safety.
Ask God to save you through the work Jesus accomplished on the cross - ask Him to be the Lord of your life, and your life will never be the same.
My wife and I both rushed in and found our little three year old Joshua surrounded by broken glass. He had been trying to get a drink and had grabbed a glass and then dropped it on the tile floor. As it turns out he was just fine because he froze. We got him out of there without a scratch on him and he's okay although he got quite the scare. So did mom and dad.
But this little adventure got me thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how this situation with little Joshua pictured it so perfectly.
He knew he needed something and had tried to help himself and gotten into trouble in the process. After the trouble hit, if he had tried to do anything else to help himself: run, walk, pick up the glass, you name it - he would have gotten hurt, perhaps badly - depending upon his actions. He needed someone bigger and more capable than himself to see his need and to rescue him from himself and the trouble he had created.
This is exactly our situation before God in regards to our sin, and what we often do to try and help ourselves. Because of inabilities that we bring to the party, we can't help ourselves out of our own sin. We just can't, and when we try God says that we make it much, much worse.
God tells us to just freeze and to let Him do the work. Then He asks us to trust in the work He has completed for us on the cross. We look up with little scared eyes, and reach up with little trusting arms, and He lifts us up to safety in arms that never fail (and in fact, cannot ever fail).
The gift of the cross is what is called God's grace. Grace has been given a twisted definition by many inside and outside of the church. Some say grace is only for the pretty people, or the rich people, or the smart people. Some say God dispenses His grace simply by His own whim and that it has nothing to do with us at all - that it is only about God.
All of these ideas about God's grace are wrong. As it turns out, God's grace is for people that need it. In fact, the whole of Romans chapter 5 points this out: the cross of Jesus Christ was for everyone who has been cursed with sin. That's all of us, so the cross was for all of us too.
When the Holy Spirit was speaking through the Apostle Paul in his writings to the early churches, He directed Paul to a very specific word in Greek to describe God's grace. That word is "Charis" (or Xaris). Aristotle, in his large treatment of the art of rhetoric (argument) gives this understanding that all Greek thinkers and writers understood (including the Apostle Paul):
Aristotle's Rhetoric - Book II - Chapter 7 (my explanations in parentheses):
"Now let gratuitous benevolence (Grace) be "that conformably(Grace is from the one who has the power, to the one who needs it, but not for anything to be paid back to the giver - it is a free gift of mercy and love that is about the one in trouble - it is for the needy that grace even exists. In fact, without the needy grace cannot exist because for grace to be grace it requires an object, and by definition that object must need the actions of the bestowed grace)
to which he who has the power is said to confer a
benefit on one who needs it, not in return for anything,
nor in order that any thing may accrue to him who so
confers it, but that some benefit may arise to the object."
Aristotle continues:
"But it (grace) becomes great (even higher) should it be conferred on one
who is in extreme want, or if the boon be great and
difficult of attainment, or at a crisis of a certain
description, or if the giver has bestowed it alone, or
first, or in a greater degree than any other."
This is the exact picture of God's grace to us in the cross of Jesus Christ, and it was the perfect word for the Holy Spirit to direct Paul to inscribe within the pages of what would become the New Testament.
Please don't try to help yourself in regards to your standing before a just and holy God. You will not make it. You cannot make it. You are defeated before you start and more defeated after you've done your best.
God has provided the cure and it is in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Please don't let it go to waste.
Everything that God does require from you is relatively passive. He asks that you recognize your sin before Him, and that you then turn from it and to Him. Then He will take care of the rest. Our job is to admit our trouble and to reach up in faith. God takes care of moving us from the place of danger to the place of safety.
Ask God to save you through the work Jesus accomplished on the cross - ask Him to be the Lord of your life, and your life will never be the same.
Friday, September 02, 2011
Friday Before Labour Day
Just thanking the Lord this morning for all the myriad ways He has preserved and protected me and my little family. Through much suffering, yes. Through the death of two of our children, through hardships of various kinds - He has never let us hit bottom. And in fact, He has used those things in our lives to bind us to Him - just where we want to be.
Sometimes God shows His love for us by preserving us from disaster - the things that He knows are too big for us. Sometimes God shows His love for us by comforting us through calamity that He has allowed into our lives. In all ways, He knows best and does the best. He can do no other for He is God.
I was just noticing this morning the faces in a news photograph of folks standing in an unemployment line: some sad, some mad - some desperate, some with the stone face of resignation - nobody smiling or hopeful.
So many are suffering and out of work. If you have a job don't be like the nine that ignored what God had done for them. Be like the one who came back and offered worship and praise born from a thankful and repentant heart. And share out of what God has given you with others.
It's best to do it in person if you can. God works through eyes, hands, and hearts. But if not, give to a Christian charity of your choice that not only helps people materially but more importantly teaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Samaritan's Purse or BGEA would be good places to use.
/Scott.
--------
Luke 17:12-20
12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" 14 When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."
Sometimes God shows His love for us by preserving us from disaster - the things that He knows are too big for us. Sometimes God shows His love for us by comforting us through calamity that He has allowed into our lives. In all ways, He knows best and does the best. He can do no other for He is God.
I was just noticing this morning the faces in a news photograph of folks standing in an unemployment line: some sad, some mad - some desperate, some with the stone face of resignation - nobody smiling or hopeful.
So many are suffering and out of work. If you have a job don't be like the nine that ignored what God had done for them. Be like the one who came back and offered worship and praise born from a thankful and repentant heart. And share out of what God has given you with others.
It's best to do it in person if you can. God works through eyes, hands, and hearts. But if not, give to a Christian charity of your choice that not only helps people materially but more importantly teaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Samaritan's Purse or BGEA would be good places to use.
/Scott.
--------
Luke 17:12-20
12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" 14 When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Will The Real Christianity Please Stand Up?
Will the real Christianity please stand up?
Just thinking about true and false Christianity this morning and about how the church is supposed to be the body of Christ when a funny mental picture hit me:
Religion has a long nose that it likes to look down at those that don't meet its standards.
Christianity has long arms that it uses to reach out to people that need Christ.
Religion is concerned with meeting certain standards and imposing them on other people. It wears nice clothes, neatly pressed, and smells great. Predominately it lounges in judgement.
Christianity is concerned with the mission given it by God Himself. It wears overalls and durable shoes. It smells dusty and sweaty from its labor of love. Predominately it gets its hands dirty and works.
The life of the religious person lives in their mouth and in their skin. They have a choice they can make as to whether or not they will exercise love.
The life of the Christian lives in their heart. They have no choice but to exercise love because God has remade them from the inside out.
The religious person is an actor that has even fooled himself. He plays the part he does on the stage of life because he believes it will serve him best. His ultimate goal is his own well being.
The Christian is a person who is no longer their own. They do what they do because they believe it best serves the mission God has laid upon them. Their ultimate goal in all things is simply God.
Just thinking about true and false Christianity this morning and about how the church is supposed to be the body of Christ when a funny mental picture hit me:
Religion has a long nose that it likes to look down at those that don't meet its standards.
Christianity has long arms that it uses to reach out to people that need Christ.
Religion is concerned with meeting certain standards and imposing them on other people. It wears nice clothes, neatly pressed, and smells great. Predominately it lounges in judgement.
Christianity is concerned with the mission given it by God Himself. It wears overalls and durable shoes. It smells dusty and sweaty from its labor of love. Predominately it gets its hands dirty and works.
The life of the religious person lives in their mouth and in their skin. They have a choice they can make as to whether or not they will exercise love.
The life of the Christian lives in their heart. They have no choice but to exercise love because God has remade them from the inside out.
The religious person is an actor that has even fooled himself. He plays the part he does on the stage of life because he believes it will serve him best. His ultimate goal is his own well being.
The Christian is a person who is no longer their own. They do what they do because they believe it best serves the mission God has laid upon them. Their ultimate goal in all things is simply God.
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