The Best Hermeneutic

"The Bible is not targeted at experts, yielding its meaning only to priests and scholars. You don't need rows of commentaries to understand it. You don't need to go to a theological college. If you are a Christian, it is for you. Hunger, it has been said, is the best hors d' oeuvre; and spiritual hunger is the best hermeneutic. If we come to the Bible as needy sinners ('poor in spirit,' as Jesus Himself put it) then we'll understand it because we'll find it speaks to our condition."

--Donald Macleod, A Faith to Live By (p. 21)

Let There Be Light

As I was preparing my BSF teaching lesson tonight on Acts 2, the warmth of the early followers of Jesus really struck me. "... And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved" (vv. 46-47).

This joy, gladness, and deep communion is nothing less than the "fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 13:14), that is, the reciprocal participation in one another's lives and in the joy the Spirit gives through the gospel of Jesus Christ. These were all those who had seen their own complicity in the Messiah's death and had received the gospel that in Christ their sins were washed away forever, and they had receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (vv. 36-41).

The image that keeps coming to my head is that of an incandescent lightbulb. When the switch is turned on and the metal connection is restored, the circuit allows electricity to stream from its source through the bulb's tungsten filament, causing it to glow and radiate warmth and light. In the same way, in the life of the repentant sinner who receives Christ and the forgiveness that comes through him, he is restored to connection with the very life of God--his Spirit, his Breath--who is poured out into the believer's soul and acts upon him in such a way that he cannot help but radiate joy, peace, and love over the grace of his God. "On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." ' Now this he had said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:37-39).

But even though this Spirit and the grace that comes through the message of the cross can be found even by a man alone with the Bible, how often do we rather encounter the life-giving, joy-producing Word through the prayers, consolation, hymns, and encouragement of other Christian brothers and sisters? As we've received, so we freely give to others. And so the church glows brighter, with the result that the Lord will add to her number day by day those who are being saved.

Human Sacrifices and THE Human Sacrifice

No matter how many times I come across examples in the Old Testament, I am continually shocked at the accounts of people sacrificing their children to deities, often by burning them as offerings to the Ammonite god Molech (see Lev. 18:21; 20:2ff.; 2 Kings 16:3; Jer. 32:35; Ezek. 16:21). In our age of Western "enlightenment," we all see human sacrifice--whether voluntary or not--as an ignorant, if not brutal, act. So when I read that this is still being practiced in many sites around the world, particularly among African tribal peoples, it shocks me.


But should it?


Human sacrifice has been practiced for thousands of years, from the earliest of human times. Though we modern folk deride and decry it--and Christians rightly hate it for the evil, life-desecrating work of Satan that it is--there are innate truths in human sacrifice that perhaps many of us today have forgotten.


Some people sacrifice themselves or another member of their community as an offering of devotion to please their god(s). They rightly see that the greater powers deserve nothing less than all that we can offer to them, and that a life given in their honor is the supreme gift. Do we even think about the fact that we owe our lives to a higher being?


Other cultures sacrifice those who are thought to bear curses. (Here is a sad story of Ethiopians who kill off children who are mingi, or "cursed," and who thereby endanger their communities--and of how Christians' hope in Jesus and love for their neighbors is redeeming this situation.) Only by removing the accursed person can prosperity be restored to the community. In some situations the sacrifice himself isn't considered cursed, but the community as a whole is, and amends can only be made by placating the deity's anger with sacrifices. Do we today feel any sense of guilt before the Divine for our wrongdoing?


Strangely enough, these motives for sacrifice point us to the Gospel, the message about the one true and final human sacrifice: Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. He lived an unblemished life and "knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21) and willingly "gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2 NIV). He held back none of himself in perfect submission and devotion to God.

But of this same man it is written, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us [i.e., in our place as a substitute]--for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'--so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:13-14). Jesus' untarnished dedication to God both motivated him and enabled him to become a worthy, once-for-all-time sacrifice who took upon himself our guilt and accursedness as his very own so that we might be absolved and welcomed into the family of God (2 Cor. 5:21).


So while human sacrifices can point people toward the gospel, by themselves they only lead to despair. Such offerings must continually be repeated because they inevitably fall short of the wholehearted consecration God desires and the extent of sacrifice he justly requires--because these can only be fulfilled in the God-man Jesus. But the wonderful truth is that they have been fulfilled! And everywhere this good news spreads--as it did to the Celts--people will begin to joyfully offer up sacrifices of a different kind: praise and thanks to God in Jesus' name and charity and generosity toward mankind (Heb. 13:15-16).

Hope for a Dad-To-Be

The school year is only two weeks old*, yet with devoting two hours plus each day to cross country, I'm already finding myself falling behind. As such, it's easy for me to get freaked out about the difficulties of becoming a parent amid "real life." (In case you don't know, we're expecting our first child in early January, Lord willing.) But the truth is that there has never been a single parent who didn't live in a messy, pressure-laden, sin-filled world. Everyone has had to work to put bread on the table, to trust that the heavens will rain at the right time, to strain to find the energy to keep going, and to fight the battle (both within and without) to live wisely and nobly. That's true of all God's saints too.

I often think about how much easier it would be amid a tiring schedule to settle for the path of rearing well-groomed kids who are well-behaved yet whose righteousness is only skin deep--"whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness" (Matthew 23:27). The vigilance, time, involvement, patience, prayer, instruction, reproof, and encouragement needed to shepherd their hearts and to guide them to the cross will be so great. When Olivia and I are tired, frustrated at our lack of control, or ashamed of our kids' behavior, it would be so much easier to meet their neediness and stubbornness with anger and irritability or cheap rewards--or give up in complacence and defeat--than to press on another day in hope that the Lord will faithfully be at work in their lives.

But God will have none of that! As I've been reading Hosea and Proverbs, God has been showing me how he justly and consistently disciplines his wayward children while continuing to pursue them in tender, consuming compassion. "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?" (Hosea 11:8). Because he has created marriage, in large measure, for the sake of raising godly children (Malachi 2:15), he has delegated his own authority to parents. And because he has given us this authority in his image to rule, lead, teach, and guide our children as he does his own people, he will empower and teach us to be parents like him: sober-minded and watchful, consistent in discipline, faithful in presence, patient in hope, fervent in love, speaking truth and wisdom to transform the heart.

But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and his righteousness to [their] children's children. (Psalm 103:17)

"And as for me, this is my covenant with them [those who receive the Redeemer and turn from transgression]," says the LORD: "My Spirit that is upon you, and the words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring," say the LORD, "from this time forth and forevermore." (Isaiah 59:21)
_____________________________
*I actually posted this on September 15. For some reason Blogger tags the date the first time I write anything at all on a post.

Can There Be Christian Homosexuals?

Okay, from the get-go, this is not a systematic theology of homosexuality. I don't plan on doing that here. I sort of thought that, being part of a confessional denomination that does not ordain homosexual people, I'd never have to come face-to-face with this issue. But as I daydream about seminaries with good Christian education programs, Calvin Theological Seminary stands out. The problem is this: CTS belongs to the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), a relatively conservative, confessional denomination which, since 2005, allows for the ordination of homosexual clergy. Here's the CRC's official position statement on homosexuality:

Homosexuality is a a condition of disordered sexuality that reflects the brokennes of our sinful world. Persons of same-sex attraction should not be denied community acceptance solely because of their sexual orientation and should be wholeheartedly received by the church and given loving support and encouragement. Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, holy obedience, and the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices [elders and deacons] and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as to heterosexual Christians.

Homosexualism (that is, explicit homosexual practice), however, is incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. The church affirms that it must exercise the same compassion for homosexuals in their sins as it exercises for all other sinners. The church should do everything in its power to help persons with homosexual orientation and give them support toward healing and wholeness.

Like many church bodies, they get it mostly right. Homosexuality is a "disorder"--not so much in the sense of a disease (though it may have valid biological associations), but in the sense that in "the brokenness of our sinful world," people have cast God and his truth out of the center. (I love John Piper's analogy that just as the planets' orbits are held in line by the massive gravitational field of the sun at it center, so too do our lives only work rightly when the weight of the glory of Christ is at the center.) The CRC is right in affirming that "Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, holy obedience, and the use of their gifts in the kingdom" and that engagement in homosexual practices is against God's will. It's also 100% true that just because someone has struggled with same-sex attraction--perhaps even a lifelong struggle--that they can still be genuine believers and should be welcomed into the fellowship of the church (Gal. 3:28; Isa. 56:3-5).


The real problem is this: The CRC, like many others I'm sure, defines homosexuality as "a condition of personal identity" (see URL above). Though they define a homosexual as "a personal who has erotic attractiosn for members of the same sex and who may or may not engage in homosexualism," the problem exists in the church when people are viewed as "Christian homosexuals" instead of as "homosexual Christians." The issue is one of nature and identity, and it's not just a battle over semantics.


Saint Paul explained to the Galatians that "you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neighter Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26-28). Similarly he proclaimed to the Colossian church, "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:11). "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:3-4). It's true that faith in Jesus is what defines and unites believers, not sexual orientation. We're all broken, guilty sinners of one ilk or another, justly deserving God's wrath--but instead receiving his mercy and love through the cross of Christ.


But this is precisely where the CRC's logic breaks down. There is no such thing as a "Christian homosexual." This makes "Christian" and adjective describin the noun "homosexual." Thus being a homosexual is what defines a person; it's who they are. But for all of us baptized into Christ, we must acknowledge that "Christ is all, and in all," and that "Christ ... is your life." Our old identities and defining standards according to the world--even according to our own eyes--are dead and buried. We have died with on the cross, and Christ is now our life, our identity, our core being. Christ is in us and we are in him. "I have been crucified with Christ," Paul testified elsewhere. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). New creatures in Christ are not homosexuals, and they should not view themselves that way. Yes, our perceptions, how we see ourselves and the world, are very strong. They die hard. But God's Word teaches that they all must go. Paul thus wrote off all he once was and cherished (Phil. 3:3-10). He knew that in fellowship with Jesus, the old way of evaluating ourselves and others from an external, worldly perspective had to be discarded (2 Cor. 5:16-17).


So what this means is that for humans made in the image of God, especially those united to Christ by faith, "homosexual" is an adjective, not an identity. When I was in high school and college, being a cyclist was pretty much my identity. Heck, I even shaved my legs as a badge of my commitment to the sport! (It does feel pretty cool when you slide on a pair of pants.) But I was wrong. Yes, homosexual feelings may be all someone knows, but it's not who he is. In the same way, no Christian is an alcoholic or a sex addict or a compulsive liar or whatever. There are lying Christians, alcoholic Christians, and sexually addicted Christians. But it's not the final word on their lives. If it is, then this is what's true of them: "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor theives, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10; cf. Rev. 21:8). For such people, their sins are their very identity, something that cannot be given up in a life of discipleship to Jesus in submission to his Spirit's renewing work. But for others, Paul can continue with the good news, "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11). God takes sinners, even "the sexually immoral" and "men who practice homosexuality," and gives them a new name, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom their lives are irreovocably hidden, with grace-abounding glory to come.

Founded on Better Promises

Ah, summer: muggy weather, mosquitoes, sweet tea, grilling, baseball, and . . . weddings. I went to four of 'em this summer in a six-week span, even standing up in one as a groomsman. Not all the couples were disciples of Jesus, and this was evident in one of the ceremonies. The prayer was made to a generic "God," but not in Jesus' name. And rather than being joined to one another in self-giving love, the vows and readings reflected a very self-oriented approach to marriage: "You can have my love, but you can never have my soul, for my soul must remain free." "You must accept me as I am, not expecting or hoping to change me. It is respect for our individuality that unites us and makes marriage possible."

While this deeply saddened me, for "love is not self-seeking" (1 Cor. 13:5), it gave me peace to know that my marriage with Olivia is "founded on better promises" (Heb. 8:6). We have chosen to embrace our own need for change and death to our old selves and personal desires so we can become "one flesh" in glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, forever praised; and we know that we need each other as partners mediating God's Word and grace toward that end. We know that we will never part until death, lest we incur God's strict judgment. And we know that sacrificial, giving love is the greatest blessing of all, for in it Christ abides with us. All this really gives me peace, knowing the wholeness and stability it brings to our lives, the shalom reflected in Psalms 128 and 144. So often it's hard to see the joy and rest of embracing the cross and going against the grain of the world, but I sure realized it that day.

I know our marriage vows aren't so wonderful, though, because we are great promise-keepers. Far from it! Rather, we know we can make such commitments with confidence because our own lives have been founded upon the better promises God has made to us and fulfilled in Christ: the promise to forgive us of all our sins, so that we too can admit our wrongs and forgive one another; the promise that we would see our own brokenness and unloving ways, so that we can embrace change and growth; and the promise to be for our good and carry us always, so that we can ever depend on him for strength to love and bear challenges until death do us part.

The Gospel Builds the Church AND Her Pastors

What are the riskiest jobs in America? Firefighter? High-rise construction worker? Street cop in Compton? Believe it or not, being a pastor can be a job fraught with perils, if only spiritual. Mark Galli writes about the dangers of pastoral ministry, namely, that due to the way American churches often function pastors lose sight of their calling as shepherds and personal caretakers as their congregation swells--a sure sign of ministerial "success." Concomitantly, they also succumb to pride in a number of ways.

When a church is edified (numerically, if not also spiritually) by her pastor, it's easy for her members to associate themselves with pastor So-and-So, that it's his church to which they belong. "The inadvertent effect of all this is that pastors have become the heads of personality cults," notes Galli. "Churches become more identified with the pastor . . . than with anything larger. When a pastor leaves, or is forced to leave, it's devastating. It feels like a divorce, or a death in the family, so symbiotic is today's relationship between pastor and people."

I know a thing or two of this. From 2004-05 I was a member of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, when Kevin DeYoung first arrived from Iowa as our new senior pastor. Back then he was a lanky, somewhat nerdy, and unknown guy--but one who could preach the Word with clarity and conviction, and who had a deep love for the church and for right doctrine. DeYoung is now known among evangelical circles nationwide, he has published several excellent books, and URC is growing. I recall with fondness my time at URC, mostly for different reasons (the loving people there and the way they taught me godly living), but it's easy for me to think I'm somehow cooler because I belonged to the church over which he was (is) pastor.

In light of this, I think there are a few important truths both pastors and the church need to keep in mind.

1. Christ Jesus alone is the Head of the church, and all good and growth belongs to him. "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I [Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (1 Cor. 3:5-7). The church's Chief Pastor is none other than Jesus (1 Pet. 5:4), who bought the church for himself at the price of his blood (Acts 20:28). Consequently pastors are only undershepherds participating in the work God is doing among his people. All credit, all thanks, always goes to God alone through Jesus Christ.

2. It's the Word that is preached, not the preacher, that builds the church. Scripture tells us that we were called to God and are built up not by a sermon per se, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace of God proclaimed in that sermon. It is through this message the Spirit kindles faith and nurtures growth (Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:2, 5; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23-25). "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith" (Heb. 13:7). In times of change, when leaders come and go, the thing to trust in isn't that leader himself, but to have hope that the very word of God they taught is still present and available. Success in life and as a church therefore comes not from having a particular pastor, but from living out the same faith that they had--faith in Christ, who never leaves or changes. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (v. 8). In part this is why I favor churches in which multiple elders take turns preaching, so the church knows it owes thanks to the gospel and not to one particular leader.

3. The church is more than a pastor. "From him [Christ] the whole body . . . grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Eph. 4:16 NIV). When you join a local church, you're joining a group of people, a spiritual family. You're not just a spiritual lone ranger, or a solitary knight pledged to his lord and no other. And it's through the loving service, care, and concern of the church family that each individual Christian and the congregation as a whole is strengthened and edified.

4. Pastors are temporal, but the church is eternal. God keeps raising up new men and women to lead his flock in each generation. They don't last forever. But what they're working toward does endure, which is the same as Paul's goal: "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2). One day our faith will give way to sight (1 Cor. 13:8-13), and the great Wedding will come. The church will no longer need pastors. But the church herself will live on into blissful eternity.

5. We should thank our pastors and pray for them, but not exalt them yet. Paul warned the Corinthian church to regard him and his fellow workers merely "as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). The Corinthians lauded Paul and Apollos, but Paul knew that any human judgment is irrelevant; it is God's evaluation that matters (1 Cor. 4:1-7). We should be serious about praying for our pastors, and they need our verbal encouragement. They're human, just like us. They need to be thanked and picked up. Pointing out the good in someone isn't sinful; just read Paul's letters. But in doing so, we need to be careful to prevent any boasting in human achievement. Everything good any person has done is simply an undeserved gift received from God (v. 7).

6. Even when pastors sin in pride, lovelessness, or impurity, the gospel is every bit as much for them as for their congregations. In writing a letter to the elders and shepherds of churches in modern-day Turkey, Peter reminded these leaders that God gives grace and bears their burdens, and he encouraged them to stand firm in the grace of God (1 Pet. 5:5-7, 12). This grace isn't just for rank-and-file Christians, after all; it's for pastors too. Jesus' blood and righteousness covers even their sins. His open arms and nail-pierced hands welcome with joyful tears every pastor whose pride has led them to stumble and stray from their Savior. So when we hear of a pastor or priest succumbing to sin, don't wag your finger at them. You're a sinner too. Just as one of the greatest displays of gratitude and love a child can have is to care for his parents when they are old and weak, it's wholly appropriate that we also pray for our spiritual fathers, that they would know the love and forgiveness of God for them, even taking our turn to speak the Word of life to them in their need.

The True Church according to The Belgic Confession

We believe and confess
one single catholic or universal church--
a holy congregation and gathering
of true Christian believers,
awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ
being washed by his blood,
and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

As for those who can belong to the church,
we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians:
namely by faith,
and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness,
once they have received the one and only Savior,
Jesus Christ.
They love the true God and their neighbors,
without turning to the right or left,
and they crucify the flesh and its works.

Though great weakness remains in them,
they fight against it
by the Spirit
all the days of their lives,
appealing constantly
to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus,
in whom they have forgiveness of their sins,
through faith in him.

--from the Belgic Confession, articles 27 & 29

An Abundance for Every Good Deed

I've been thinking a lot about fear and provision the past few weeks (see the previous two posts). One consistent lesson I've been learning is that fear reveals our answers to these related questions: Whose kingdom am I living in? Whom am I trying to exalt? Who is calling the shots around here?

I know that might sound weird, but hear me out. When it comes to fear in this life--fear of death and the next life might be something different--aren't we often afraid of the loss of something because we think we need that thing to live a happy, fulfilled life? My latest snags have been a fear of how we could live on a low income, and a fear (or perhaps frustration) that I'll never be good enough at my job to earn some kind of positive recognition and accolades. In other words, what I really want is to have our own home, to be able to pursue graduate school or seminary (to feel knowledgeable and competent?), and to have some tangible affirmation that I'm not just some mediocre teacher and coach good enough to hang onto his job, but someone who excels. If these things don't come my way, or something threatens their arrival, then I start fearing failure and all the question marks of what life is going to look like down the road. What would it be like to rent my whole life long? Will I be ineffective in serving the church without more education?

The real problem, I think, is that I'm viewing my own desires and wants as what I really need. Without knowing it, I confuse "God's will for my life" with my own picture of how I think things should work. Then when my picture of life is threatened or doesn't come about, I'll twist that into believing God isn't really meeting my needs or isn't able or doesn't listen to me, so then I feel like life is out of (my) control. When God is at my beck and call, life is great. But when he's not, that turns into either grumbling or panic.

This is just what the Israelites did in the wilderness. They longed for meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic--their own idea of real provision from God--when they were oblivious to the manna God faithfully sent them every day. "There is nothing but this manna to look at!" (Num. 11:4-6). They wanted "the good life" now when in fact they hadn't yet entered the Promised Land. They wanted rest and prosperity when they were still sojourners and pilgrims. Believing then that the Lord was against them (read: he wasn't their servant), they concluded that God had ditched them to die in the wilderness (14:1-4), when in fact God was giving them all they needed. However, it was according to his own terms, with the purpose of testing their hearts and refining their trust in him (Deut. 8:1-3). This is why the godly men Caleb and Joshua equated fear of failure with rebellion against the Lord (Num. 14:9, 11-12).

Our fear doesn't come because life is actually out of control. It's simply shows that it's out of our control. It's not enough for us to know that whatever we have or don't have, it's because God ordained it to be so. We want to have it our own way, on our terms. So we accuse God of being unjust, or playing favorites, or hiding himself, or whatever. Fear is just God knocking out our throne from under us so that we can rest on the infinitely more expansive and solid foundation of his throne.

The fact is, God will never fail to provide for us what we need to obey him and to do his will. "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (Eccles. 12:13). Our fear is transformed to trust only once we recognize that our purpose in life isn't to reign over our own little kingdoms, but to live as servants of our heavenly King. "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed" (2 Cor. 9:8 NASB). Notice that word sufficiency. God gives us what we need. And he gives it abundantly for doing good deeds that result in his praise (vv. 11-15). "God is faithful, and will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you maybe able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13). God will provide what we need for doing his will and obeying him in the moment he calls us to do it. But if we have other desires for life on our terms apart from what God says is necessary, why should we expect him to open his wallet and shell out for those? He isn't into funding his rivals' campaigns.

This is why Jesus teaches us to pray first, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Only when we have subordinated our desires to his can we then pray rightly, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt. 6:9-10).

So if in the end our finances only allow us to rent, then it's because God wants us to rent, and we'll be able to do whatever he asks us to do from our meager apartment. If I can't afford seminary, then he's simply calling me to be faithful in serving others with the knowledge and skills I already have, and I need to be content with that. If I don't receive accolades at work, then he's not calling me to live in the limelight; he's just calling me to be faithful and do my best and receive my praise from him alone. If our children don't end up being athletic, good-looking, intelligent, and popular, that's fine. Even if they're brace-faced Trekkies on the robotics team, God's calling me to recognize that what matters is their character and their love for him, and that I love these kids with all my heart and not some out-there ideal.

Mammon Cannot Serve You

On Saturday morning I was praying through Psalm 27, asking God to give me confidence in him so that I'd trust him alone when fears and worries arise. What I didn't expect was that God would, during that time, bring me face to face with one of those worries! Someday if/when Olivia and I have children, we'd ideally like to have her stay home to raise the kids. But whenever I think about the extra cost of children on half the income, all I think about is how this is impossible. How difficult it would be to afford appropriate housing, medical care, food, education, and the like! (And I can kiss graduate school goodbye, too, or so my mental logic tells me.)

But as I prayed, it dawned upon me (through the Spirit of God, no doubt) that if I fretted over how difficult it would be to have such provisions due to a lack of money, I wasn't trusting or looking to God to be our provider. I was hoping in Money itself to provide all these things. And money isn't the living God. It's simply a piece of woven fabric and paper, or a nugget of metal, or a series of binary ones and zeroes in an electronic file in cyberspace. Of course I had reason to worry! Since when could a hundred-dollar bill ever hear my prayers or make dinner or otherwise act on my behalf?


Jesus says, "You cannot serve both God and Money [Greek Mammon, a personification of wealth as a deity]" (Matt. 6:24). But it's also true that Mammon cannot serve you, either. It is a worthless, lifeless, vain thing--made by human hands and obtained only through hours of hard labor! "You will always be running scared," warns Ed Welch, "if you worship other gods, because idols can't deliver on their promises" (Running Scared, p. 176).


Even long before this, the prophet Jeremiah explained to the people of Judah the errors of trusting in anything other than God for their provision (Jer. 9:23-10:16).

Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."

Riches or wisdom or power aren't living, active things to trust in for blessing and security. Only knowing the living, almighty God as Father, Shepherd, King, who relates to you in his constant "steadfast love, justice, and righteousness" is a source of rest and boasting. Trusting in anything else is a foolish form of idolatry. Idols (such as money) are simply products of human craft , and as such, they are impotent (Jer. 10:1-5, 8-9, 15). "Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good" (v. 5). Despite what our everyday experiences tell us, money is absolutely powerless on its own to bring us any good. So why worry about how much of it you have?

What matters is whether or not, through faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have God on our side.

But the LORD is the true God;
he is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth quakes,
and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. (Jeremiah 10:10, 12)

It is not an inanimate object, but a Person, who secures your future, someone you can know and who relates to you in love and concern. If such a God is your God through faith in Jesus, you have a God who hears your prayers and knows your every need. You have a God who speaks to you (Jer. 10:1). You have a God who is wise enough to order and direct the entire cosmos, your life included. You have a God who can count every star in the sky and every hair on your head. You have a God mighty enough to stretch out the heavens and to also carry your burdens (Isaiah 46:3-4). And you have a God who "practices steadfast love" (Jer. 9:24) on your behalf. This is the great hope of those in Christ.

Seek First His Kingdom

Over the past few years, the Holy Spirit has shown me I'm a fearful person--and that means an idolatrous person too. First it was the fear of moving to Chicago. Then once I got there, I feared that if Olivia and I broke up, I'd be stuck alone in some new place where I didn't know anyone. This year I went through all kinds of unrest over my supervisor's disapproval of me and whether or not I'd have a job next year. So why is that idolatry? Because it means I'm ascribing to something or someone else the power and value in my life that only God Most High deserves.

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. . . . But seek first [your heavenly Father's] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:24-25, 33)

It wasn't until reading Running Scared by Ed Welch that I realized how verses 24 and 33, which frame Jesus' teaching about God's daily provision meeting our worries and anxieties, really fit the whole teaching. Jesus says that the solution to worry is to seek God's kingdom and his righteousness. But what exactly does this mean?

Like the father of the ancient Near East, the king's task was to love, protect, and bless his subjects so that the kingdom--his kingdom--prospered. Subjects of the realm, for their part, acknowledged their allegiance to the king and demonstrated that allegiance by living according to his laws.

In the kingdom of God, the King has made extravagant promises to us--promises of protection, liberation, and peace. We respond with our allegiance, which we typically call faith or trust. The essence of faith is not that we trust without evidence but that we choose sides: In whom do we trust? (p. 120)

This was mind-blowing to me. In essence, if we have fears about financial loss, it's not because our bank account is too small or our employment is unstable. We have anxieties because we've set up Money as a god who can provide peace, security, food, shelter, comfort, health, and the like. Hence Jesus says that Money (Greek Mammon) is a master we often choose to serve opposed to God (v. 24). Because we cannot serve two masters, and should serve God alone, "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry . . . ."

Or perhaps it's not money itself we hope in, but rather it might be the very comfort, peace, friends, or self-image that money can provide for us that have become our gods, the things we value more than God himself. When potential for their loss looms and we grow anxious, that shows we're valuing and hoping for something else more than God. "Worry, therefore, is not simply an emotion that erodes our quality of life or a pain to be alleviated. It is a misdirected love that should be confessed. It is trying to manage our world apart from God. It is making life about our needs, desires, and wants" (p. 163).

Seeking God's kingdom, then, is about acknowledging his reign over your life. It's his purposes and plans that must prevail, not your own. But while this might sound like cringing before some Machiavellian overlord, we need to remember that it is our heavenly Father whom we are serving as King (v. 32). If we doubt God's goodness, Jesus comforts us with this corrective: "If you, then, though you are evil [in comparison to God's pure and generous love], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matt. 7:11). "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

God-the-King's faithful, generous, gracious provision and protection is what the Old Testament often means by describing his righteousness. It's his just and good reign over his people, exercising his delivering power in loyal love toward those who've entrusted their welfare to him (see Psalms 4, 5, 96-98). When Jesus encourages us to seek God's kingdom and righteousness above all else, he calls us to acknowledge first God's glad benevolence toward his people and his power to carry out his good intentions for them.

O King, you are mighty to save! Forgive us all the times we've exalted good gifts from you to a place of desire and status above you, the Giver. And forgive us the ways we trust in bosses, paychecks, and the economy for our future, rather than praying for eyes to see your open hands. Help us in our unbelief to know that you have not withheld your only Son, but delivered him up to death for our sake; how will you then withhold any lesser thing that is for our good (Romans 8:32)? In Jesus' name, Amen.

Secondary Causation and the God of Creation

After some time away, you've noticed that I couldn't help but jump back into my seemingly futile quest to get at the truth of the (perceived) Evolution-Intelligent Design debate. (See my previous post.) I've believed for a few years now that if both sides would really listen to each other, the two ideas aren't irreconcilable. Both rely on philosophical assumptions that cannot be empirically tested or proven (namely, whether or not a theistic presence superintends the world). Both lack much in the way of direct observation and rely on inferences instead--which is scientific, mind you. (Otherwise Einstein, Dalton, Kelvin, Schroedinger, Planck, et al. didn't do "science.") Evolution--by which I mean the idea that all living species are descended from earlier, shared ancestral species and have been modified through natural selection--typically functions by relying on positive evidence at hand. ID generally reverses this, saying that when evolution breaks down and there's lack of evidence for it, the only possibe alternative is conscious design. (This is a non-sequitur, a false conclusion.) Thinkers in both camps rely on gross caricatures of each other, and both arrive at hasty hyperboles: "Nothing in biology makes sense apart from evolution!" "If evolution is true, then all life is meaningless!" It sort of makes me sick and tired of it all. (Of course if you've been a faithful reader of this blog, then you were probably thinking the same thing of my incessant posts on Calvinism and baptism!) But alas, I'm a biology teacher by trade, so I can't avoid it.

While I'm hardly an expert in paleontology, genetics, or molecular biology, I find a few strands of evidence almost irrefutably tip the scales in favor of evolution: vestiges of common ancestors that show up in leftover traits, atavisms, and pseudogenes. (I'll let you take the time to look these up, if you wish. Jerry Coyne's admittedly biased book Why Evolution Is True is a good place to start.) But I don't think ID and evolution are totally irreconcilable. Michael Behe, William Dembski, and Stuart Pullen have done much thoughtful research about the mathematical probablities involved in constructing useful molecular knowledge and complex systems which would seem to have no adaptive vantage apart from near-instantaneus development. This would seem to favor ID.* But given theism, it should be no shock or surprise simply to say that everything that has ever occurred in the universe's history has been by God's design and involvement. Christian theists don't need to argue or look for special evidences of "intelligent design" because the Bible repeatedly affirms God's providential hand in every single event in history, even those which may appear to us as "random" or purposeless.

Wayne Grudem provides a helpful definition of this providence in his Systematic Theology:

God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes. (p. 315)

Let's examine each of these briefly (I'm largely following Grudem here):

(1) God upholds and maintains all that he created. We see this in Scripture in Jesus' active sustaining of the universe (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3), in God's preservation of the cosmos (Neh. 9:6; 2 Pet. 3:7, 10-12), in Paul's speech at the Areopagus (Acts 17:28), and in death as a result of God withdrawing his Spirit (Job 34:14-15; Ps. 104:29). Similarly, the properties of the world continue as they do in an act of God's grace upon sinners so that we can live in a reliable, predictable world (e.g., Gen. 8:22; Jer. 31: 35-36; 33:20-26). Consequently, whatever is happening in the natural world today can be assumed to have always been happening. Atoms will always behave as atoms do; erosion keeps eroding; matter always warps space-time; entropy of closed systems always increases; etc.

(2) God cooperates with created things and directs their endowed properties so that they act as they do. Scripture says that God brings about all weather phenomena on Earth and even the movements of heavenly bodies (Job 37:6-13; 38:22-30; Ps. 104:4; 135:7; 148:8; Jer. 31:35; Matt. 5:45). When animals eat, they are said to be fed by God (Job 38:39-41; Ps. 104:27-29; Matt. 6:26). Flowering is caused by God (Matt. 6:28-30). All of these may have "natural" or "scientific" explanations based on properties of matter and energy apart from any reference to God. But Scripture affirms that these properties were endowed by God and are directed by him, so that whatever happens in nature is an "act of God." (I hope insurance companies aren't reading this.) In a similar vein, even "random" events are attributed to God. "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Prov. 16:33).

(3) God works purposefully in providence. Ephesians 1:11-12 says that God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will . . . for the praise of his glory." God's will is that ultimately through the church and through the subjection of all things to his Son Jesus Christ, the Father will be glorified (Eph. 3:10; Phil. 2:10-11).

So perhaps we can summarize the biblical data with Calvin's famous maxim: "The will of God is the necessity of all things." In other words, if anything has happened, it has happened because God wanted it to happen at that time, in that way, for the sake of his wise goals. It didn't happen by itself; it was dependent upon God. It didn't happen haphazardly, randomly, or accidentally (though it may appear so to us); it was purposeful. The unveiling of that purpose might await, however, the final judgment and renewal of all things. It is not necessarily for us to know now (Deut. 29:29).

This view of God's sovereignty is a much higher view, in my opinion, than to say that God only acts or shows up in the "miraculous." In this latter schema, if something is truly an act of God, then it cannot have any human or natural explanation. Rather than exalting God's power, I think this view actually reduces God from being actively, caringly, and judgingly involved with every moment of everything to a semi-deistic God who only intervenes in his world here or there, like the Greco-Roman pantheon. The biblical view of God's action, however, can be seen in passages such as Acts 2:23: "This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge;"--though to the common observer he was handed over by Judas Iscariot and the Sanhedrin--"and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to a cross." Wicked men put Jesus to death, but yet it was also "by God's set purpose" and by Jesus' own will (John 10:17-18). Likewise, later in Acts we read that when the people conspired against Jesus, by their own volitional actions they "did what [God's] power and will had decided beforehand should happen" (4:28). God's planned action (primary causes) works through the agency of his creatures, through the abilities and properties with which they were endowed (secondary causes).

So what does this have to do with evolution? Everything. It means that we don't have to run from evolution when much evidence seems to confirm it (though some phenomena are still incongruent with it). We can instead view evolution and other natural phenomena as a window into the grand design of God. Yes, evolution is God's unfolding design in action. Behe, Dembski, et al., might be right: evolution in many ways may be mathematically impossible. But "all things are possible with God" (Mark 10:27). And even if it's found that such mathematical leaps aren't indeed necessary, then we can still rest in the knowledge that just as rains and seasons and nightfall are both naturally-caused and God-caused, so too is life on planet Earth. Accordingly, then, in opposition to evolutionary atheists, evolution does not mean that life is meaningless. Rather, life is incredibly meaningful. We have each been put in our time and place, with the world around us as it is, specifically as the stage for our humanity to be worked out, along with our own participation in the salvation and redemption of the world as we know it.

_____________
*As I see it, there is one flaw with these approaches toward calculting the probability of a given gene (and its resultant protein) being assembled. ID folks assume that if there is no known beneficial purpose for protein, then that entire gene could not have been preserved within the genome. Therefore if the protein exists, its gene--all hundreds or thousands of its DNA nucleotides--must have arisen all at once. But that's not necessarily true, and the likelihood of proteins arising stepwise by modifications of preexisting amino acid sequences greatly enhances their probability.

May 21 and the God of the Gaps

May 21, 2011, has come and gone. Which means that Jesus didn't return bodily yet (though he is ever present by his Spirit). I feel bad for the people who staked their hopes, even their faith, in such a misguided interpretation of the Bible. Even Jesus himself said no one will know the date of the End--not even himself (Mark 10:32-37)! I hope these people, however many among them are sincere Christians, have not lost their confidence in Christ and in the Bible simply because their interpretation didn't pan out.

On the other hand, we know there are a lot of people mocking them. Every time someone makes a Doomsday prediction that fails to come true, they're left with egg on their face--a false prophet, if you will. Unfortunately, many will wield a faulty ad hominem argument against everything else they have to say: "They were wrong about X, so they must be misguided about everything."

This is one of the critical dangers of wholeheartedly embracing Intelligent Design. The problem with ID is that it doesn't use positive evidence, but rather relies on looking for holes or gaps in Evolutionary explanations. If a biological phenomenon is judged impossible by means of natural selective pressures favoring certain genetic traits, then it must have been due to a designer! An example of this is "irreducibly complex" features such as the blood clotting cascade, whose parts are so complicated and interdependent that it could not have arisen progressively over time. It must have therefore originated all at once, in an immediate, supernatural creative act.

While it's true that God is the providential Creator and Designer of all life, what happens when those "holes" get filled by further data and new explanations? As the body of scientific knowledge grows and viable explanations expand to fill the gaps so prized by ID, what will happen to claims for theism and for God's action in his world? I'm afraid that, at least in some respects, ID is only as strong as our present ignorance. (It's possible, however, that future gains might actually steer us away from Evolution toward ID, or perhaps toward another explanation altogether.) When legitimate, "natural" explanations arise for phenomena once deemed irreducibly complex or mathematically impossible, then the credible witness of Christianity in the sciences shrinks. We do need to study the Scriptures and stand upon our convictions, for whenever we betray our conscience, it is sin (Rom. 14:23). But we need to also know when to flex and when to give, in order to give God his place as the only Wise and Sovereign, and to give the Gospel more room to be heard in others' lives.

Easter: Good News, Bad News . . . and More Good News

JESUS IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Today is Easter Sunday, the day on which the Church celebrates the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. What does this historical fact mean?

First, the good news of Easter:

Jesus' resurrection confirms that he is in fact the Son of God, the long-promised Savior of God's people. "His Son . . . was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:3-4).

Jesus' resurrection shows that God approved of Jesus' finished work of atonement, his wrath-deflecting death for sinners. He fully bore the punishment due upon sinners, and having completed it, was vindicated (justified) by being raised from the dead. "Jesus our Lord . . . was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25). "By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I [God] will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong" (Isaiah 53:11-12).

Jesus is the living, secure source of sure forgiveness of sins for all who turn to him, now and for eternity. "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:46-47). "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (Romans 5:10). "The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he [Jesus] holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:23-25).

Jesus defeated death, opening up a new future for God's redeemed humanity. For all in Christ, death is not the final word. "God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it" (Acts 2:24). "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as all in Adam die, so also shall all in Christ be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. . . . The last enemy to be destroyed [by Christ] is death" (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 26). "Our Savior Christ Jesus . . . abolished death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10).

Believers in Christ will one day share new bodies like his. "What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:20-21). "When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4).

Those who belong to Christ already possess new life and victory over sin's guilt, shame, and power by the same Holy Spirit, a foretaste and a down payment confirming the glorious new life to come. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. . . . For the death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God" (Romans 6:3-5, 10-11). "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-6; see also Colossians 2:13-15).

Many people, feeling either an internal need for religion or desiring an external show of false piety, only attend worship services on Christmas and Easter. These motives even drive many people to church week after week. Perhaps you are one of them. It is a blessing indeed to hear of the Good News, the gospel of Jesus and his resurrection. But Easter isn't all good news. Here's the rest of the story:

Being raised from the dead and exalted as God's Son, Jesus is also the King who commands our obedience and submission. "The LORD said to me, 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you. As of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.' Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him" (Psalm 2:7-12). "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" (John 3:35-36).

As the Living One who holds the keys to death and hell, Jesus will come again to judge all people. "I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades" (Revelation 1:17-18). "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).

As terrible as the sufferings and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth were (and are) to witness, at least if you only come to church on Good Friday, you are left with only a dead man. If the last word about Jesus was his burial in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, then we are left with a benign Judean rabbi -- a man of love and power, to be sure, but one whose love and power are no longer active for us today. But in fact Jesus has been raised and demands the obedience of faith from all people. We can either be honest with ourselves and God about our wretched condition, our sinfulness, and the failures in trying to live life on our own terms--and the just anger of God due to us because of that. And we can turn to Jesus and embrace him as the Living One, the sure Savior whose death has paid for all our sins and removed God's wrath, and who opens to us eternal, new life in fellowship with him and all his blessings. The same love, forgiveness, power, healing, wisdom, and compassion Jesus embodied and used for good in his earthly life can be yours today if you commit yourself to him and receive him as our Rescuer and Master. The good news of Easter will become your good news. Or you can choose to remain indifferent to this Jesus, perhaps gambling upon the chance at a later day to take him seriously.

Just as Jesus asked his dear friend Martha, so he asks all of us today: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26). If you do believe this, here is a possible prayer you can use:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, you are alive today, and that gives me great joy and hope! Your death has paid for my sins and secured my forgiveness, and I know you call to me now to receive you and cross over from death to new life. I am a needy sinner, but in unfathomable love and grace you gladly and fully meet all my needs, both now and forever. I turn from my ways and trust you as my Savior and my King. Take me to be yours, and reign in my life--because I have no other hope. You are trustworthy and true, and I know you will do all this for me. Amen!

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

"Just watch my servant blossom!

Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!

But he didn't begin that way.

At first everyone was appalled.

He didn't even look human--

a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.

Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,

kings shocked into silence when they see him.

For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes,

what was unthinkable they'll have right before them."

Who believes what we've heard and seen?

Who would have thought GOD's saving power would look like this?

The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling,

a scrubby plant in a parched field.

There was nothing attractive about him,

nothing to cause us to take a second look.

He was looked down on and passed over,

a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.

One look at him and people turned away.

We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

But the fact is, it was our pains he carried--

our disfigurement, all the things wrong with us.

We thought he brought it on himself,

that God was punishing him for his own failures.

But it was our sins that did that to him,

that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins!

He took the punishment, and that made us whole.

Through his bruises we get healed.

We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.

We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.

And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,

on him, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured,

but he didn't say a word.

Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered

and like a sheep being sheared,

he took it all in silence.

Justice miscarried, and he was led off--

and did anyone really know what was happening?

He died without a thought for his own welfare,

beaten bloody for the sins of my people.

They buried him with the wicked,

threw him in a grave with a rich man,

Even though he'd never hurt a soul

or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along,

to crush him with pain.

The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin

so that he'd see life come from it--life, life, and more life.

And GOD's plan will deeply prosper through him.

Out of that terrible travail of soul,

he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.

Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,

will make many "righteous ones,"

as he himself carries the burden of their sins.

Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly--

the best of everything, the highest honors--

Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,

because he embraced the company of the lowest.

He took on his own shoulders the sin of many,

he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

--Isaiah 52:1 - 53:12, The Message

Costly Marriage

Our pastor has been preaching through the Old Testament book of Ruth, a beautifully-spun narrative about how the light of God's active providence and steadfast love dawned upon the darkness of two insignificant widows. In chapter 4, the story comes to a head as the young Moabite widow Ruth finds a husband who is willing to marry her despite the financial burden it will bring upon him in losing part of his inheritance to Ruth's children. (Under Jewish law, a kinsman was to marry his relative's widowed wife and produce children for her. However, the children would be reckoned as belonging to the deceased husband, and they would be required to receive a separate inheritance.) Boaz, Ruth's redeemer and a "man of great wealth" (2:1 NASB), acted out a love that was not only perhaps romantic, but also sought out her good even at his own cost. In binding himself to Ruth all his gain would become hers, her offspring's, and her mother-in-law's--the cure to their poverty--but he would also take on her baggage. He'd lose part of his inheritance. He'd have to deal with the emotional pain of a widowed bride who probably often longed for her previous husband, even if only in memories. As a Moabite, he would have to train her in the faith of Yahweh. He was taking on a lot by binding himself to her and her to himself. Martin Luther reminds us that our Boaz--our redeeming husband--is Jesus Christ, who, "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). At the cost of his own humiliation, scourging, mockery, and agonizing crucifixion he bought us for himself, to make his people, the church, his radiant bride (see Eph. 5:25-32; Rev.19:6-10). (Please bear with this; though lengthy, it's some of Luther's best.)

The . . . incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom [1]. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31-32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage--indeed the most perfect of all marriages, since human marriages are but poor examples of this one true marriage--it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Let us compare these and we shall see the inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?

Here we have a most pleasing vision not only of communion but of a blessed struggle and victory and salvation and redemption. Christ is God and man in one person. He has neither sinned nor died, and is not condemned, and he cannot sin, die, or be condemned; his righteousness, life, and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, omnipotent. By the wedding ring of faith he shares in the sins, death, and pains of hell which are his bride's. As a matter of fact, he makes them his own and acts as if he himself had sinned; he suffered, died, and descended into hell that he might overcome them all. Now since it was such a one who did all this, and death and hell could not swallow him up, these were necessarily swallowed up by him in a mighty duel; for his righteousness is greater than the sins of all men, his life stronger than death, his salvation more invincible than hell [2]. Thus the believing soul by means of the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of Christ its bridegroom. So he takes to himself a glorious bride, "without spot or wrinkle, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word" [cf. Eph. 5:26-27] of life, that is, by faith in the Word of life, righteousness, and salvation. In this way he marries her in faithfulness, steadfast love, and in mercies, righteousness, and justice, as Hos. 2[:19-20] says.

Who then can fully appreciate what this royal marriage means? Who can understand the riches of the glory of this grace? Here this rich and divine bridegroom marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, "If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his," as the bride in the Song of Solomon [2:16] says, "My beloved is mine and I am his." This is what Paul means when he says in 1 Cor. 15[:57], "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," that is, the victory over sin and death, as he also says there, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" [1 Cor. 15:56].

-- On Christian Liberty (Augsburg Fortress, 2003), pp. 18-22

____________________ 1. It appears that Luther is using "soul" here as a sort of generic, gender-neutral pronoun. He was no gnostic who saw sin only on a spiritual plane. 2. Notice how Luther relies on the Christus Victor model of Athanasius, Chrysostom, and other church fathers (that by virtue of the Incarnation, Jesus' God-life destroyed and overcame all that afflicted mankind, to whom his deity was united). But he employs this model as part of the way Jesus bore our sins to carry out on a vicarious, substitutionary atonement that bore the condeming wrath of God due to sinners. They are not mutually exclusive perspectives on the atonement.

We Do Not See Everything in Subjection to Mankind

In my last post, I aimed to show that a chief goal of the Bible is to expose our sinfulness and our own need of rescue--the rescue that was promised throughout the Old Testament and became a manifested reality in Jesus' incarnation--and thereby turn us in repentance to Christ. But I also want to point to the flip side of this fallen world: Yes, there is sin in me, but there's also sin in others as well. How does that point us to Christ?

Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, 'What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.' Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:5-9, citing Psalm
8:4-6)

God's original design was for humanity to be stewards of the earth and co-regents over it. Nothing would be outside of man's dominion--not even tectonic plates that cause earthquakes of 8.9 on the Richter scale. But we don't see that glory and honor yet because of man's fall into sin. Now it seems like everything goes wrong. Instead of bearing God's image in "the righteousness and holiness of the truth" (Eph. 4:24), humans worldwide and historywide suffer from ignorance of God and rejection of his revelation (truth). They lack purity of love in relationships with one another and toward God (holiness). And they fail to exercise wisdom, justice, and creative power in work and government (righteousness).* As a curse on our sin, the world doesn't obey us anymore: there was an earthquake of 8.9 in Japan last night. And instead of using things to worship God and serve others, we use things and eachother to serve ourselves. With the Fall comes a really good chance we're going to get stepped on by others, and our lives will seem more often ruled by chaos and uncertainty than by order and peace.

But the author points also through the fallenness of others and of our world to the good news of Christ: "But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor." In his incarnation, Jesus became the true Man and the new Adam, the Head over God's new creation. Thus through him we are being remade in his image (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10) and the world is being transformed under his reign. So we are pointed through the Fall to our new Head, Jesus--our deliverer from the woes of this life.

__________
*I owe these categories for "God's image" in mankind to Dennis E. Johnson, Him We Proclaim.

Discerning the Thoughts and Intentions of the Heart

In the previous post I wanted to show from the book of Hebrews that the aim of Scripture is to "make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" by exposing our sinful condition in need of redemption and by pointing us to God's gracious provision of a Redeemer, Jesus Christ. In this post I hope to examine the first purpose a little more thoroughly.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:11-13)

In 3:7-4:10 the author (Barnabas? Apollos? Paul?) provides an exposition of Psalm 95:7-11, which was written to teach Israel not to follow the example of their forefathers who, though they had been led out of Egypt's bondage and had had good news of deliverance and restoration preached to them, nonetheless refused to trust and obey God. As a consequence that whole generation died in the desert and failed to reach the Promised Land. "So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief" (3:19). The author of Hebrews embraces the idea that God the Holy Spirit still speaks today, calling us to turn from the hardening deceitfulness of sin and to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ "firm to the end" of our pilgrimage on this earth (3:7-15). The ultimate goal of faith is that by it we "share in Christ" and enter and enjoy rest from our works, even an ultimate "Sabbath rest" for the people of God.

But in order to hear the good news that has come to us (4:2), we must constantly know our danger. The deceitfulness of sin continually hides in the shadows, not as an external enemy, but as an enemy within--"an evil, unbelieving heart" (3:12-13). We today in the age of the Second Exodus share in the same fallen condition of those of the First Exodus. Therefore we are urged not to "fall by the same sort of disobedience" (4:11). Temptations to sin are the same today as they were 3400 years ago; they are "common to man" (1 Cor. 10:13*).

Our sobering need, then, is to allow the word of God to do the painful work of a surgeon's scalpel, piercing through our defenses and facades to our innermost places of idolatry and unbelief. As we read the Scriptures, the Scriptures read us, showing us who we really are, "naked and exposed" before the God from whom we cannot hide. The word judges "the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

How do we do this? Using Bryan Chapell's language, we must first identify the "Fallen Condition Focus," the sinful attitudes and behaviors--or general brokenness--that prompted God to speak or act in that passage. This involves identifying both personal or communal sin (wrong belief, idolatry, etc.) or brokenness of our world due to sin (death, disease, pain, injustice, etc.).

It's easy to identify behaviors that contradict God's law and nature. But the real matter is seeing through external behaviors (sins) to the heart attitudes beneath them (sin). Jesus himself taught that wrong living is the overflow of a wrong heart (Mark 7:20-23; Luke 6:43-45). The behavior is the "fruit," whereas the heart is the "root." In order to free a garden of weeds, the roots have to be removed. And because we are susceptible to "the same sort of disobedience" as Israel, we too must examine our own hearts.

So if we see in Scripture Israel trying to shore up security against Assyria by forming an alliance with Egypt (fruit), we have to recognize the root: a desire to exercise tangible control over their circumstances rather than releasing themselves to the hands of the Sovereign Lord. They not only craved control--an exercise of unbelief in their good and powerful Father--but they also were in effect usurping God's role as controller of destiny. They were setting up themselves as gods, a subtle but insidious idolatry. As we read, we need to ask: Where am I doing this same thing? Do I get mad at my kids when they don't follow my orders? Do I slam my fist and curse when yet another Virginia driver putters along in the left lane or merges onto the expressway oblivious to the presence of other cars around him? (Seriously, what is with drivers in this state?) Prohibitions against lust reveal the worship of pleasure as god and a vain quest for satisfaction apart from the living God. Fearing others' judgments and criticism may mean either too high a view of yourself or an inappropriate fear of people rather than a fear of God.

In the end, if we're reading the Bible rightly, we ought at many times to see ourselves as hopeless sinners, knowing that no behavioral regimen or list of dos and don'ts will be enough to save us and set us on the right path in life. We ought to be left craving deliverance from without--and that's exactly what the Bible does, giving us hope by revealing and proclaiming to us Jesus the Savior.

____________
*In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Paul uses the same idea that Israel fell in the desert because of idolatrous hearts set on evil, just as what threatens the church today. He says that the whole of Israel's history was written as examples to train the New Testament church in wise living.

How to Read the Bible, According to the Author of Hebrews

I've been asked to consider leading a teaching time at my church on how to read the Bible. In prepareation I started mulling over passages about God's Word itself for direction. One important passage is Hebrews 4:12, which says that "the word of God is living and active, sharter than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." I've thought about this verse many times, but I never related it to its actual context in the letter. So I went back and read chapters 1-4 of Hebrews, and the following structure emerged:


1. (1:1-7) In the past God spoke through the Law and the prophets, but "in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son." The reference to Jesus' superiority over angels is likely a nod to the Jewish notion that angels were the intermediaries through whom the Torah came to Moses. So in saying Jesus is better than the angels is saying he reveals truth more clearly than angels and that he himself is greater than the Law.


2. (2:1-4:11) The Old Testament and Israel's story is an example intended to point us to the rest and peace that come through the obedience belonging to faith--a "Sabbath-rest" for the people of God greater than of Israel in Canaan. The history and practices of Israel are meant to be shadows of greater things to come, namely, the era of the Messiah and the worship of his new covenant people. The author is explicit to say that, like Israel, "good news has come to us" (4:2)--the news of Jesus the superior head (2:5-9) and priest (2:10-17)--but it must be met with faith and obedience. The gospel is God's very voice speaking to us, and we should not harden our hearts to it (3:7-4:11).


3. (4:12-13) As a gracious warning to us, the word of God serves to discern the wrong beliefs and idolatrous, sinful heart attitudes that lead us astray from clinging to God, receiving the news of his salvation, and obediently trusting him through this life. The Scriptures serve to "leave us naked and exposed" in God's presence.

4. (4:14-16) Rather than leave us laid bare as hard-hearted and dull-eared sinners who are doomed to fail to reach God's rest, the word of rescue comes again, pointing us to Jesus, our great high priest and mediator before God, through whom we can draw near to receive grace and mercy to help us in time of need. Our redemption lies not in a behavioral program, but in a person.

In other words, the aim of the Bible as we read it is twofold: (1) The warnings and examples contained in the Law and in the narrative history of Israel and the nations are meant to expose not only their sin and fallenness, but ours as well. The author to the Hebrews is insistent that historical texts still speak today by the Holy Spirit to all who hear. So it is God's word which also points us to our own need for rescue. (2) The Rescuer and Redeemer pledged in the promises and foreshadowings of the Old Testament has come in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. As the word expounds, he is the one who perfectly meets our needs, and we are directed to trust and follow him.

In other words, the "sacred writings" are meant to "make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15). More on this to come.

He Who Is Forgiven Little, Loves Little

If you're a true Christian, you've surely found yourself, like me, wanting for love and enjoyment of God, a love that overflows into selfless service and adoration. We want to be full of love for God and our neighbors, because we know that's what will truly satisfy us. But the moments where such delight and zeal become reality are all too few and fleeting. How, then, can we overcome this conundrum?

One day, Jesus went to dine with Simon, a leader in the religious sect called the Pharisees. Contrary to the normal custom of honoring a guest by greeting him with a kiss and washing his feet, Simon received Jesus with neither. As dinner went on, a woman renowned for her promiscuity interrupted the meal to anoint Jesus' feet with perfume. Even more, she began to wash Jesus' feet with her tears and--gasp!--she let down her hair (a gesture reserved only for lovers and husbands) and wiped his feet and kissed them (Luke 7:36-38). I bet you could hear the handfuls of chickpeas and bread drop to the floor. Simon then sneered at Jesus in his heart, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner" (v. 39).

Jesus responds with a parable pointed at his smug, ingracious host to illustrate the simple fact--so simple that even Simon caught it--that the extent to which our burdens have been relieved and our guilt is pardoned determines how grateful our response is. "I tell you [Simon], her sins--and they are many--have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love" (v. 47, NLT). Then he turned to the woman and assured her, "Your faith [in me as loving Rescuer] has saved you; go in peace."

In other words, the extent to which we love and adore God is determined by the extent to which we appropriate the forgiveness he bestows through Jesus. The praise, adoration, and service that were once drudging obedience are transformed into glad reflex when we experience the God's grace, his free removal of all our stains and shame, and calls us "My beloved child, with whom I am well pleased."

It's true that the believer is freely, fully, and forever released from the condemnation of his sin from the moment he embraces the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ as his Savior (Romans 8:1). But that doesn't mean that the experience of our forgiveness lasts forever, or that we stop sinning and needing God's forgiveness. Accordingly, we must continually and openly bring our need to God. Only to the extent that we open up, get honest, and expose our dirt to the God Who Sees and to some brothers and sisters we trust, will we experience the faithfully-forgiving, never-failing love of our heavenly Father. And when his forgiveness and his Word of justification penetrate our souls and lift them out of despair and out of the deluding fog of self-justification, we will find worshipful, obedient gratitude right there as well.