It seems to me that from beginning to end the Bible deals with righteousness in two different ways. In the normal affairs of men and nations, it's the deciding factor, the "plumb line". God taught mankind to develop laws and to regulate the consequences of breaking them. 'Justice' is a towering and passionate theme in His conversation with us, for He suffers out of His love for the oppressed, the scorned, the victims of the stronger. And then time and again, He seems to switch His perspective and talk to us about mercy and forgiveness, and His intention to forget completely whatever we've done wrong:
"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:8-14).
Of course, He isn't being inconsistent. The difference lies in what we are experiencing. When I am determined to ignore God and go my own way, my inherently flawed nature brings me to grief and the consequences are bitter. But if I give up on myself and throw myself upon His mercy, then He restores our relationship together and He holds absolutely nothing against me. That's God: He can. But us: how very difficult it is to accept that. It seems so unfair. Even while I am delighted to hear His words of forgiveness to me, deep down I doubt. I'll probably keep judging my brother and placing some moral conditions around forgiveness. You know, things like 'You can't be right with God if you are gay'. And I'll remain, maybe only at an unconscious level, doubtful of such unconditional grace.
It's only our beholding and embracing the crucified Son of God, with heart and soul and strength, which finally frees us from these doubts and fears and completely "cleanses from a guilty conscience" (Hebrews 10:22). There on the Cross, He totally identifies with our state, whether pitiful or vicious, and shows there's nothing about it which deters His love.
'OK, Lord, I can accept that if the books are balanced and You punish Jesus instead of me'.
'Hush, My child, My love keeps no record of wrongs. They require no satisfaction - that is still your unhealed heart speaking.'
Jesus tried in all kinds of ways to communicate this truth to us, as He told stories to the common people, taught His disciples, and finally demonstrated it on the Cross.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
No 10: To Provide the Basis for our Justification
This chapter is an awfully complicated bit of reasoning, and I do wonder what my fellow church members make of it. I have a word from the Holy Spirit for the perplexed: "It's OK if you don't understand it, or even like it."
There seems to be little flaw in our evangelical DNA which comes out as an anxiety, or insecurity about, believing the right doctrines. I'd like to pass on God's permission to you to accept St Paul as God accepts him, whilst being honest with yourself that the way he sees some things just doesn't always 'float your boat'. He'd be the first one to agree - there's great wisdom in Romans 14. But that too is wrapped up in a very Pauline way, which may put some off.
It's a miracle of God's grace that the first apostles apparently stayed united - especially when St Paul bursts in on the scene. The tensions and difficulties they had surface a number of times. St James pretty well goes head-to-head with St Paul over salvation by faith alone (James 2:24). Martin Luther was so passionately attached to St Paul that he said James was 'a letter of straw'! St Peter and St Paul seemed to have agreed a modus vivendi whereby they kept to separate mission fields (Galatians 2:9). You can sense all these human issues in St Peter's closing words to his second letter: 'Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes in the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand ...' (2 Peter 3:15-16). And then St John! The apostle for the contemplative, mystical believer. It's very rare to hear a preacher majoring on St Paul, weaving in anything from St John, or vice versa. Yet St Paul's mystical side is second to none.
Ideally, we shouldn't say "I'm for Paul", or "I'm for John". But be kind to yourself, like God is. Don't beat yourself up about being baffled or put off Paul for now. Honour the place where you are now, throw yourself passionately into the relationship God has given with Himself and His truth now. Remember, every point of view is just that - a view from a point. Relish and live your spiritual life to the full at the point you are now.
I've realised that it's the only option actually. I see, experience and understand only a tiny part (1 Corinthians 10:9), and what I can now won’t be what I will tomorrow. I’m certain of that, because I can look back to see how far I’ve repented and changed.
There seems to be little flaw in our evangelical DNA which comes out as an anxiety, or insecurity about, believing the right doctrines. I'd like to pass on God's permission to you to accept St Paul as God accepts him, whilst being honest with yourself that the way he sees some things just doesn't always 'float your boat'. He'd be the first one to agree - there's great wisdom in Romans 14. But that too is wrapped up in a very Pauline way, which may put some off.
It's a miracle of God's grace that the first apostles apparently stayed united - especially when St Paul bursts in on the scene. The tensions and difficulties they had surface a number of times. St James pretty well goes head-to-head with St Paul over salvation by faith alone (James 2:24). Martin Luther was so passionately attached to St Paul that he said James was 'a letter of straw'! St Peter and St Paul seemed to have agreed a modus vivendi whereby they kept to separate mission fields (Galatians 2:9). You can sense all these human issues in St Peter's closing words to his second letter: 'Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes in the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand ...' (2 Peter 3:15-16). And then St John! The apostle for the contemplative, mystical believer. It's very rare to hear a preacher majoring on St Paul, weaving in anything from St John, or vice versa. Yet St Paul's mystical side is second to none.
Ideally, we shouldn't say "I'm for Paul", or "I'm for John". But be kind to yourself, like God is. Don't beat yourself up about being baffled or put off Paul for now. Honour the place where you are now, throw yourself passionately into the relationship God has given with Himself and His truth now. Remember, every point of view is just that - a view from a point. Relish and live your spiritual life to the full at the point you are now.
I've realised that it's the only option actually. I see, experience and understand only a tiny part (1 Corinthians 10:9), and what I can now won’t be what I will tomorrow. I’m certain of that, because I can look back to see how far I’ve repented and changed.
Monday, 27 February 2012
No 9: For the Forgiveness of Our Sins
I often find it helps me to look for a different word in place of a very well-known one, because when I examine my thought processes, I see a tendency when a subject becomes familiar to stop thinking about it! Using a variety of Bible translations can help refresh our thinking, or commentaries which delve into the wider meaning of an original word. It is a most precious skill of a teacher to help us see things with 'new eyes'.
Yesterday, visiting another fellowship to see a friend baptised, I fell into conversation with someone. When I described some of the things my daughter had been doing on the Toronto School of Ministry, and my youngest son on his Holy Spirit adventuring in Estonia, her face clouded, and I was listening to a lady who was racked with fears and anxieties over being deceived. At every turn, she asked me: "But is that in the Bible?" Afterwards, I thought again how we use the word 'saved'. What was so clear to me was that she did not feel safe. Surely, feeling safe is the obvious result of being saved? This is what I mean by trying out a diffferent word. Maybe instead of enquiring of each other whether we are saved, we could ask: 'Are you safe?'
The one I tried this morning was to say 'forgivingness' instead of forgiveness. As I shared previously, I now appreciate far better the life-long process of repentance, conversion and forgiveness, and I also appreciate the witness of scripture to all these long before the coming of Christ. I've never been a great one for theories. I like St James, who exposes people who rely on some kind of abstract 'faith' when there are no signs of it changing them (James 2:14-24). We make 'mustard seed' beginnings, which may even be invisible to our conscious minds (Mark 4:27). But now, I know I am repenting because my mind and intentions are changing; I know I am being converted because God is increasing revelation of His thoughts and feelings; and I know I am being forgiven because I am being led into greater freedom and safety. I don't look back to some moment when I believe I 'got saved'. It's what happens along the Way which counts. "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans" (John Lennon).
This morning, I'm giving myself a rest from atonement theory. My readers will know that I see things quite differently from Piper. God's forgiveness is enough. Of course, our sinful actions carry consequences here on this earth: David and Bathsheba were forgiven but their first child still died. Legal systems manage our social transgressions. But God is not so small and limited that His glory can be injured or His honour offended. Listen to how St Paul describes what God is really like:
"God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Yesterday, visiting another fellowship to see a friend baptised, I fell into conversation with someone. When I described some of the things my daughter had been doing on the Toronto School of Ministry, and my youngest son on his Holy Spirit adventuring in Estonia, her face clouded, and I was listening to a lady who was racked with fears and anxieties over being deceived. At every turn, she asked me: "But is that in the Bible?" Afterwards, I thought again how we use the word 'saved'. What was so clear to me was that she did not feel safe. Surely, feeling safe is the obvious result of being saved? This is what I mean by trying out a diffferent word. Maybe instead of enquiring of each other whether we are saved, we could ask: 'Are you safe?'
The one I tried this morning was to say 'forgivingness' instead of forgiveness. As I shared previously, I now appreciate far better the life-long process of repentance, conversion and forgiveness, and I also appreciate the witness of scripture to all these long before the coming of Christ. I've never been a great one for theories. I like St James, who exposes people who rely on some kind of abstract 'faith' when there are no signs of it changing them (James 2:14-24). We make 'mustard seed' beginnings, which may even be invisible to our conscious minds (Mark 4:27). But now, I know I am repenting because my mind and intentions are changing; I know I am being converted because God is increasing revelation of His thoughts and feelings; and I know I am being forgiven because I am being led into greater freedom and safety. I don't look back to some moment when I believe I 'got saved'. It's what happens along the Way which counts. "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans" (John Lennon).
This morning, I'm giving myself a rest from atonement theory. My readers will know that I see things quite differently from Piper. God's forgiveness is enough. Of course, our sinful actions carry consequences here on this earth: David and Bathsheba were forgiven but their first child still died. Legal systems manage our social transgressions. But God is not so small and limited that His glory can be injured or His honour offended. Listen to how St Paul describes what God is really like:
"God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Sunday, 26 February 2012
No 8: To Become a Ransom for Many
Let's think for a bit about ransom. It's a very accessible picture for all of us, for we can immediately think of stories from past and present where a ransom is paid. Someone is captured by his enemy, who demands a ransom from his friends to release him. Every effort will certainly be made by his friends to rescue him without paying the ransom, and sometimes they do outwit or overpower the enemy and get him back without payment. The size of the ransom depends - a 'king's ransom' has come to mean some stupendous sum, because the king is the most important person in the realm.
All Piper's arguments fall in the face of this simple truth: ransoms are always paid to an enemy. I am baffled how famous, subtle thinkers can miss something so well known.
The most distressing aspect of Piper's atonement theology is that it turns our loving Father God into our enemy - God forbid! This cannot of course ever be spoken about, for it goes against everything we need to believe about Him. So it is pushed deep down into our hearts, beyond the reach of our conscious minds. But like all repressed attitudes, though, it affects us - we do not experience intimacy with our Father, and then to feel OK about that we prefer images of Him in His majesty, power and sovereignty. The character of the Father seems different in our minds and hearts from that of Jesus, and we feel more comfortable praying to Jesus who gives us the compassion and intimacy we crave.
No, our enemy is Satan. Search the scriptures, and you will never find God described as our enemy. What happens is that we turn ourselves into His enemies (James 4:4, Romans 11:28), because we side with Satan. In Christ, God intervenes to rescue us, paying Satan more than a king's ransom - for you and me, just one among millions. But on the third day, that ransom melted like water through Satan's fingers: Christ was raised back to life! In the end, Satan got nothing. He was absolutely defeated.
I recommend reading again the final chapters of C S Lewis' 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. It is a wonderful retelling of Christ's Passion: the price of his own life which Aslan paid the Witch for Edmund, and her very short-lived triumph.
All Piper's arguments fall in the face of this simple truth: ransoms are always paid to an enemy. I am baffled how famous, subtle thinkers can miss something so well known.
The most distressing aspect of Piper's atonement theology is that it turns our loving Father God into our enemy - God forbid! This cannot of course ever be spoken about, for it goes against everything we need to believe about Him. So it is pushed deep down into our hearts, beyond the reach of our conscious minds. But like all repressed attitudes, though, it affects us - we do not experience intimacy with our Father, and then to feel OK about that we prefer images of Him in His majesty, power and sovereignty. The character of the Father seems different in our minds and hearts from that of Jesus, and we feel more comfortable praying to Jesus who gives us the compassion and intimacy we crave.
No, our enemy is Satan. Search the scriptures, and you will never find God described as our enemy. What happens is that we turn ourselves into His enemies (James 4:4, Romans 11:28), because we side with Satan. In Christ, God intervenes to rescue us, paying Satan more than a king's ransom - for you and me, just one among millions. But on the third day, that ransom melted like water through Satan's fingers: Christ was raised back to life! In the end, Satan got nothing. He was absolutely defeated.
I recommend reading again the final chapters of C S Lewis' 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. It is a wonderful retelling of Christ's Passion: the price of his own life which Aslan paid the Witch for Edmund, and her very short-lived triumph.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
No 7: To Cancel the Legal Demands of the Law against Us
This morning's reflections are about two trees and two sons.
The start of the start of the Bible - edited into eighty verses and three chapters by unknown lovers of God - is revelation which is so wondrous that it continues to reshape my personal spiritual landscape, and I expect it will go on doing so until I die. Perhaps that's because it carries the same young, wild, fecundity with which God created all things - so brilliantly imagined in C S Lewis' book 'The Magician's Nephew'.
The whole system which St Paul refers to in the verse quoted by Piper - debts and credits, good and bad deeds, and the laws we make to manage them - had its origin in our first parents' decision to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in preference to the the tree of life; and, to compound things, to decide disobediently. They had no real clue about the consequences, but this much they knew: it was not what God wanted for them. (I wonder what it previously felt like for them both as they ate from the tree of life? I'm doing so now, but in a fallen world. Oh Holy Spirit, take me back in the Spirit to those times in Eden!) Nevertheless, into their hearts crept a seed of distrust, and they thought they knew better than God and they could get something to their advantage. The result must have been a terrible shock: "They realised that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7). Mankind has been traumatised ever since, as St Paul saw: "Many died by the trespass of one man" (Romans 5:15).
I don't doubt that God intended that the first family would eventually eat from both trees, when they were ready to do so. He withholds no good thing; all He created is good, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But at that point, Adam and Eve were not ready. Stripped of their trustful and loving relationship with God, they were indeed naked. They began to need clothes - laws - instead.
In Jesus' story about the two sons (Luke 15:11-32), we see two very different young men who are each in their own way trapped in this "law of sin and death" - the prodigal one as much as his brother. The former suffers some tough lessons in the university of life and realises how futile his life has become - great. But what are his thoughts? "I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men" (Luke 15:19). He can only see himself in terms of his good or evil deeds: that's his value and identity in his eyes, and he has decided the matter for himself. The other son is of course just the same.
We all know that in the story, the father is our Father. He simply doesn't care about all those good-and-bad calculations; he cuts his son's pious spiel short. There seems nothing even to forgive - he is all only compassion and love. He makes no demands of either son, legal or otherwise. Now remember when this story was told: this is what God has always been like. He didn't become like that after Jesus died.
So how has Jesus changed things? Thinking about the story again: the extravagant party may have convinced the younger son of his Dad's love and forgiveness - but would it have altered his feeling of unworthiness? And would the father's patient words to his other son have soothed his sense of grievance? I don't think so. The difficulty lay not in God's readiness to be reconciled, but in their inability.
It is we who clutch at the comfort of rules about worthiness, and it is we who cannot tear our hearts from the law of sin's deceptive embrace; for very deep down, we are not sure we would be safe with God if we lived nakedly without it. The only thing which will heal my trauma is to see God Himself come and take my place and be judged by the same rules - and come through triumphant. Mysteriously, that works. Now I am sure, and safe.
The start of the start of the Bible - edited into eighty verses and three chapters by unknown lovers of God - is revelation which is so wondrous that it continues to reshape my personal spiritual landscape, and I expect it will go on doing so until I die. Perhaps that's because it carries the same young, wild, fecundity with which God created all things - so brilliantly imagined in C S Lewis' book 'The Magician's Nephew'.
The whole system which St Paul refers to in the verse quoted by Piper - debts and credits, good and bad deeds, and the laws we make to manage them - had its origin in our first parents' decision to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in preference to the the tree of life; and, to compound things, to decide disobediently. They had no real clue about the consequences, but this much they knew: it was not what God wanted for them. (I wonder what it previously felt like for them both as they ate from the tree of life? I'm doing so now, but in a fallen world. Oh Holy Spirit, take me back in the Spirit to those times in Eden!) Nevertheless, into their hearts crept a seed of distrust, and they thought they knew better than God and they could get something to their advantage. The result must have been a terrible shock: "They realised that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7). Mankind has been traumatised ever since, as St Paul saw: "Many died by the trespass of one man" (Romans 5:15).
I don't doubt that God intended that the first family would eventually eat from both trees, when they were ready to do so. He withholds no good thing; all He created is good, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But at that point, Adam and Eve were not ready. Stripped of their trustful and loving relationship with God, they were indeed naked. They began to need clothes - laws - instead.
In Jesus' story about the two sons (Luke 15:11-32), we see two very different young men who are each in their own way trapped in this "law of sin and death" - the prodigal one as much as his brother. The former suffers some tough lessons in the university of life and realises how futile his life has become - great. But what are his thoughts? "I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men" (Luke 15:19). He can only see himself in terms of his good or evil deeds: that's his value and identity in his eyes, and he has decided the matter for himself. The other son is of course just the same.
We all know that in the story, the father is our Father. He simply doesn't care about all those good-and-bad calculations; he cuts his son's pious spiel short. There seems nothing even to forgive - he is all only compassion and love. He makes no demands of either son, legal or otherwise. Now remember when this story was told: this is what God has always been like. He didn't become like that after Jesus died.
So how has Jesus changed things? Thinking about the story again: the extravagant party may have convinced the younger son of his Dad's love and forgiveness - but would it have altered his feeling of unworthiness? And would the father's patient words to his other son have soothed his sense of grievance? I don't think so. The difficulty lay not in God's readiness to be reconciled, but in their inability.
It is we who clutch at the comfort of rules about worthiness, and it is we who cannot tear our hearts from the law of sin's deceptive embrace; for very deep down, we are not sure we would be safe with God if we lived nakedly without it. The only thing which will heal my trauma is to see God Himself come and take my place and be judged by the same rules - and come through triumphant. Mysteriously, that works. Now I am sure, and safe.
Friday, 24 February 2012
No 6: To Show His Own Love for Us
What a lovely chapter to wake up to - thank you John. What has it stirred in my heart?
I see again the invincible ability of God to reach all human beings with His love; but I feel again shock at watching God laying aside His reputation and His Kingly position to do whatever He must to reach us, each individual one of us. All my conventional notions of God are turned upside down.
Personally, this has to keep happening for me all the time - repenting is continuous, as my mind is renewed (Romans 12:2) and my heart is healed (Ezekiel 36:26). I didn't start off as a Christian with a massive change of heart. I didn't run to Jesus, burdened with a deep sense of sin. But I was powerfully attracted by Who He is, and by what some brothers were like, who followed Him. So for me, it has always seemed a natural idea that real conversion happens as a life process, and that the very essence of spiritual growth is change.
But: if you let God keep changing you, you may face criticism from the defenders of church traditions. That needn't surprise or offend us, because it happened first to Jesus - it almost seems the mark of a true prophet and servant of God. Piper quotes St Paul : "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25); and St John: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Christ was not just doing this for Christians who would later believe in Him; He was doing it for the church then, crowding into Jerusalem for the Passover, and about to turn on Him viciously. Because they were all His own (John 1:11).
I see again the invincible ability of God to reach all human beings with His love; but I feel again shock at watching God laying aside His reputation and His Kingly position to do whatever He must to reach us, each individual one of us. All my conventional notions of God are turned upside down.
Personally, this has to keep happening for me all the time - repenting is continuous, as my mind is renewed (Romans 12:2) and my heart is healed (Ezekiel 36:26). I didn't start off as a Christian with a massive change of heart. I didn't run to Jesus, burdened with a deep sense of sin. But I was powerfully attracted by Who He is, and by what some brothers were like, who followed Him. So for me, it has always seemed a natural idea that real conversion happens as a life process, and that the very essence of spiritual growth is change.
But: if you let God keep changing you, you may face criticism from the defenders of church traditions. That needn't surprise or offend us, because it happened first to Jesus - it almost seems the mark of a true prophet and servant of God. Piper quotes St Paul : "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25); and St John: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Christ was not just doing this for Christians who would later believe in Him; He was doing it for the church then, crowding into Jerusalem for the Passover, and about to turn on Him viciously. Because they were all His own (John 1:11).
Thursday, 23 February 2012
No 5: To Show the Wealth of God's Love and Grace to Sinners
All my Christian life I have centred myself around this revelation given to my namesake, John the Baptist: "Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Whatever we think sin is, or what our sins amount to, the consistent assurance throughout the Bible is that God forgives us for them. He hasn't changed His mind on that matter: whatever the Cross means, it doesn't mark a change in attitude or intention on God's part. One of the most memorable of Jesus' word pictures is the one of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:10-14). Here, I just want to point out that the tax collector receives forgiveness - more, justification - with none of the conditions we assume to be necessary, like being a Christian and knowing that Jesus died for my sin.
"You are a sinner, but that is not your true identity". (Wondering how to go from here, God has just spoken this word to me! I'll never tire of the joy of His conversation.) I can see what He is getting at, saying this. It is explaining to me why the way Piper puts things in this chapter leaves an unease in my heart. Because the most recurring subject God patiently teaches me, again and again, is my value and preciousness to Him, the good plans He has for me, His delight in being my Creator, and His intention to share all the riches of heaven and earth with me. It's not that my sins don't matter. The closest words I can find to express His attitude have just come to mind: "Come now, let's talk about this together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ..." (Isaiah 1:18).
God knows our frailties. Especially He knows that our brokeness is beyond something personal - we were born broken. This is why He blesses the just and the unjust, and He gives wisdom without finding fault. This is why He heals the world of sin and I find myself ceasing to judge whether I am worthy or not. I discover I have always been His workmanship, barely aware of how highly He values me.
"You are a sinner, but that is not your true identity". (Wondering how to go from here, God has just spoken this word to me! I'll never tire of the joy of His conversation.) I can see what He is getting at, saying this. It is explaining to me why the way Piper puts things in this chapter leaves an unease in my heart. Because the most recurring subject God patiently teaches me, again and again, is my value and preciousness to Him, the good plans He has for me, His delight in being my Creator, and His intention to share all the riches of heaven and earth with me. It's not that my sins don't matter. The closest words I can find to express His attitude have just come to mind: "Come now, let's talk about this together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ..." (Isaiah 1:18).
God knows our frailties. Especially He knows that our brokeness is beyond something personal - we were born broken. This is why He blesses the just and the unjust, and He gives wisdom without finding fault. This is why He heals the world of sin and I find myself ceasing to judge whether I am worthy or not. I discover I have always been His workmanship, barely aware of how highly He values me.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
No 4: To Achieve His Own Resurrection from the Dead
I hope you are enjoying my beautified blog. My son Anthony has been round to show me how to make it as good as his. If you are struck by the picture on the left, let me explain where we saw it. On Sunday we went to the exhibition in the British Library 'Royal Manuscripts, the Genius of Illumination', and spent two hours feasting upon one astonishing, precious illustrated manuscript after another. Because they were protected inside books, their colours have remained as fresh as the day they were painted. I was deeply moved to be so close to these wondrous creations by Christians who lived so long ago. I worshipped God for my place in His communion of saints, and I felt humbled by my brief appearance in time, and by the passion and devotion expressed in these images. This picture of the Creator forming the universe dates from 1411, and is to be found in a copy of the Grande Bible historiale completée, a French translation of the Bible by Guyart de Moulins done in 1295. Yesterday morning I placed the exhibition catalogue open at this image, to inspire my imagination at prayer.
This morning's reason turns for the first time to the resurrection. You know, I am struck how swiftly the first apostles always got to this great announcement, which was clearly always uppermost in their minds, burned upon their hearts from their recent encounters with the risen Christ. They almost rush past the facts of His death. But of course, even in the brief time-span of Acts and the epistles, we see the understanding of the Cross grow. Nevertheless, I need to keep examining my heart, in case Good Friday is eclipsing Easter Sunday.
I believe that the resurrection was the greatest work of faith ever witnessed. I often meditate upon this truth. We know how the story ended on that first Easter morning, and that can make it difficult to appreciate that the only certainty Jesus had when He carried His cross to Golgotha was His faith that His Father would raise Him up. He was walking in noone else's footsteps, to get encouragement from their example. He had testified to His faith very publically in the Temple (John 10:18). While He lived, demons submitted, wind and waves obeyed Him, legions of angels were at His command - but when He went to His death as just a mortal man, what would happen?
The reason why it is so important to meditate upon Jesus' faith, is that this is how a "like, precious faith" becomes imparted into us. In Galatians 2:20, St Paul reaches down into the deepest, mystical reaches of spiritual experience. In one sentence of it we have been poorly served by the NIV translators, and better by those of King James: "This life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Not 'faith in', but 'the faith of'. It is God's delight to transfer His faith into us - He has never expected us to muster it up through our own efforts.
This morning's reason turns for the first time to the resurrection. You know, I am struck how swiftly the first apostles always got to this great announcement, which was clearly always uppermost in their minds, burned upon their hearts from their recent encounters with the risen Christ. They almost rush past the facts of His death. But of course, even in the brief time-span of Acts and the epistles, we see the understanding of the Cross grow. Nevertheless, I need to keep examining my heart, in case Good Friday is eclipsing Easter Sunday.
I believe that the resurrection was the greatest work of faith ever witnessed. I often meditate upon this truth. We know how the story ended on that first Easter morning, and that can make it difficult to appreciate that the only certainty Jesus had when He carried His cross to Golgotha was His faith that His Father would raise Him up. He was walking in noone else's footsteps, to get encouragement from their example. He had testified to His faith very publically in the Temple (John 10:18). While He lived, demons submitted, wind and waves obeyed Him, legions of angels were at His command - but when He went to His death as just a mortal man, what would happen?
The reason why it is so important to meditate upon Jesus' faith, is that this is how a "like, precious faith" becomes imparted into us. In Galatians 2:20, St Paul reaches down into the deepest, mystical reaches of spiritual experience. In one sentence of it we have been poorly served by the NIV translators, and better by those of King James: "This life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Not 'faith in', but 'the faith of'. It is God's delight to transfer His faith into us - He has never expected us to muster it up through our own efforts.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
No 3: To Learn Obedience and Be Perfected
Ah, Hebrews. The two quotations which preface this moving chapter have always stood out in the Bible for me, and the whole letter is so dear to me. Are we not drawn back again and again to meditating upon the mystery of suffering? Is it not one of the first questions seekers put to us? That was certainly my experience when Susan and I had the privilege of running Alpha courses for several years. One of my favorite teachers, Richard Rohr, writes: "Two universal and prime paths of transformation have been available to every human being God has created since Adam and Eve: great love and great suffering. Only love and suffering are strong enough to break down our usual ego defences, crush our dual thinking, and open us to Mystery. In my experience, they like nothing else exert the mysterious chemistry that can transmute us from a fear-based life into a love-based life. None of us are exactly sure why. We do know that words, even good words or totally orthodox theology, cannot achieve that by itself. No surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position."
But I also live this truth too: my redemption is God offering love from a crucified position. Can it be, that God suffers? Is not heaven, His dwelling place, full of praise, joy, celebration, worship - sheer happiness? I remember Him once saying to me: "Come and join Me in My happiness". But long before Jesus showed us the full extent of the Father's grace and love, Isaiah heard this from God: "I dwell in a high and holy place, but also with him who is crushed and depressed" (Isaiah 57:15). Every one of us still struggles to really see God in this way: as the One who has always taken Himself into the same place as every broken, lost, suffering human being. Part of God's 'otherness' from us is this mystery: that His suffering and His happiness are not opposites. He is always perfectly happy, whilst feeling every possible prison of suffering.
But to dwell completely inside the agonies of our human condition, one step remained for God to take: to experience what it was like not to be God. "He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Phil 2:7). Once He had done that, there would remain nothing separating us from Him.
There is nothing now separating me from Him - this is simply how I live now, these last five years. But just like Jesus, I learn obedience through what I suffer.
But I also live this truth too: my redemption is God offering love from a crucified position. Can it be, that God suffers? Is not heaven, His dwelling place, full of praise, joy, celebration, worship - sheer happiness? I remember Him once saying to me: "Come and join Me in My happiness". But long before Jesus showed us the full extent of the Father's grace and love, Isaiah heard this from God: "I dwell in a high and holy place, but also with him who is crushed and depressed" (Isaiah 57:15). Every one of us still struggles to really see God in this way: as the One who has always taken Himself into the same place as every broken, lost, suffering human being. Part of God's 'otherness' from us is this mystery: that His suffering and His happiness are not opposites. He is always perfectly happy, whilst feeling every possible prison of suffering.
But to dwell completely inside the agonies of our human condition, one step remained for God to take: to experience what it was like not to be God. "He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Phil 2:7). Once He had done that, there would remain nothing separating us from Him.
There is nothing now separating me from Him - this is simply how I live now, these last five years. But just like Jesus, I learn obedience through what I suffer.
Monday, 20 February 2012
No 2: To Please His Heavenly Father
I would like to say a few things before looking at the next chapter, for I've had someone question the wisdom of my blog. I am writing my personal reflections, and I keep these rooted in my personal testimony of what the Holy Spirit is teaching me, by direct word, through the Bible, and through my sisters and brothers. I approach God's presence and revelation reminding myself that every one of us sees but a small fraction of God; but the main thing is to hear and agree with what He tells us so far, and trust Him in how He makes us His workmanship, and makes our testimony a blessing to others. There is a bracing freedom about the Bible - God delights to be questioned, He wants us to test everything (1 Thess 5:21), and He has made us with a need to sharpen each other (Prov 27:17). He has commissioned me to set others a good example of doing these things, praise be to His Holy Name.
Like I imagine every Christian, I return again and again to Isaiah 53 and am amazed at the perfection of its words about Jesus' Passion. I love the way it is a meditation - we are invited into the very heart of this prophet, listening in on his questions, reflections and then what he hears back from God. So like the rythms of my conversations with the Father, so like David's spiritual dramas so perfectly captured in the poetry of the Psalms. And of course, this, like nearly all of Isaiah, is poetry of unsurpassed quality - I hope that will spur some readers to learn Hebrew! Its savour and sound and brevity beckons me into a different realm of awareness.
I find verse 4 incredibly poignant, as the prophet compassionately sees how we will completely misunderstand what is really happening: "... yet we considered Him stricken by God". Of course we would: just like Job's friends, we would not be able to imagine how such a disgraceful fate could be other than a sign of God's disfavour. We would not be able to conceive that God could leave His Holy Servant in His utter vulnerability to suffer what the worst in men did to Him. But God reveals to Isaiah that it wasn't God, but it was our iniquities, oppression, judgment and transgressions which engulfed Jesus.
And, oh most amazing truth of all, just so shocking for its first hearers: there would be no consequences for us for such a crime. Jesus would absorb everything. It was actually God's loving plan. God would rejoice, and we would emerge, blinking, into perfect freedom and intimacy.
Like I imagine every Christian, I return again and again to Isaiah 53 and am amazed at the perfection of its words about Jesus' Passion. I love the way it is a meditation - we are invited into the very heart of this prophet, listening in on his questions, reflections and then what he hears back from God. So like the rythms of my conversations with the Father, so like David's spiritual dramas so perfectly captured in the poetry of the Psalms. And of course, this, like nearly all of Isaiah, is poetry of unsurpassed quality - I hope that will spur some readers to learn Hebrew! Its savour and sound and brevity beckons me into a different realm of awareness.
I find verse 4 incredibly poignant, as the prophet compassionately sees how we will completely misunderstand what is really happening: "... yet we considered Him stricken by God". Of course we would: just like Job's friends, we would not be able to imagine how such a disgraceful fate could be other than a sign of God's disfavour. We would not be able to conceive that God could leave His Holy Servant in His utter vulnerability to suffer what the worst in men did to Him. But God reveals to Isaiah that it wasn't God, but it was our iniquities, oppression, judgment and transgressions which engulfed Jesus.
And, oh most amazing truth of all, just so shocking for its first hearers: there would be no consequences for us for such a crime. Jesus would absorb everything. It was actually God's loving plan. God would rejoice, and we would emerge, blinking, into perfect freedom and intimacy.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
No 1: To absorb the wrath of God
My goodness, straight into theology! I'm not a theology wonk myself, but I gather what Piper is arguing here is called 'the penal substitution' theory of the atonement. My own testimony is that when God started to move dramatically in my life and that of my family in 2007, and I found He wanted to speak to me about everything at any time we settled down together to do so, then two important themes keep recurring which the Spirit has been urgent to teach me about. One of those has been: who God is. And He has changed my mind about what He was doing through the Cross. I have repented, and He has healed me, from thinking of my Father as a distant, exacting figure who is determined to punish me for my sins - and from thinking of Jesus as more loving and Who protects me from getting punished by God. Later, after I had written down in my journal what God was teaching me instead, my better-theologically-read son Daniel explained the various theories of the atonement to me; and God arranged for me to 'chance upon' the repudiation of the 'the penal substitution' theory in one Christian teacher after another, from all over the family of traditions. I certainly took heart to discover that Steve Chalke has 'come out' as an evangelical who no longer holds with this doctrine - occasioning a big debate in the Evangelical Alliance as to whether he could still be accepted as a sound evangelical!
The trouble with what Piper writes, is that it presumes to place conditions around God, to subject Him to his theological rules as to how God must act to be both loving and just. Piper - probably as a consequence - sees God with a mind deeply trained by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Piper has trapped himself, and he traps God, in zero-sum, reward-and-punishment, reasoning - what Paul calls "the law of sin and death". Remember, Paul experiences being free from that (Romans 8:2) and daringly teaches that without law, questions about sin don't arise (Romans 7:8).
The offence of the Cross is that God forgives, unconditionally. No 'ifs' and 'buts'. Man's reason and his hard-wiring to reward and punishment can't compute this. Therefore, theologians developed this big qualification around God's forgiveness: He was still actually doing the necessary punishing - to Jesus; and we get back into His favour with a kind of 'pass card' provided we are go under Jesus' protection. If you think for a moment, you will see that this isn't really forgiveness. This isn't 'remembering their sins no more', or casting them from Him 'as far as the east is from the west'. It isn't really divine love.
But what about the 'wrath of God'? I have woefully misunderstood that, confusing it with human emotions. Whatever His wrath means, we know that love is His abiding and defining attribute - they aren't opposites. God doesn't stop loving, to be wrathful. Clearly, like God's love itself, his wrath lies outside all categories of human experience. The analogy He has taught me comes from His natural order. If I am walking along a cliff and fall off, I will experience violent consequences because of gravity. Nature isn't angry with me, gravity isn't vengeful. But I am being punished for my action. If you're fortunate to have had the time to learn Hebrew, as I have, then going to some of the original words is very helpful. The word commonly used (eg Exodus 20:5) is p-q-d. Its wide range of meaning covers both positive and negative aspects, unlike the wholly negative meaning of 'punish'.
Piper makes a lot of the word: 'propitiation'. The Greek is ilasmos, which generally means some action to appease, reconcile, propitiate. It's a huge jump for Piper to say it means 'the removal of God's wrath by providing a substitute'. I promise you: the word simply doesn't! The underlying Hebrew is helpful, again. Jews picked ilasmos to translate kippur (as in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement). That word described the cover of the ark - the 'mercy seat'.
To pull all this together, and it's already got too long, God isn't divided. He is One. He wasn't punishing Jesus - or Himself. He was moved only by love and mercy, like He always has been. What was unique about what He did on the Cross is that it 'draws all men to God' (John 12:32). Somehow, mysteriously, as all believers know, it works. I am face to face and unashamed with my Heavenly Father, and nothing now separates me from Him - not even my sins.
The trouble with what Piper writes, is that it presumes to place conditions around God, to subject Him to his theological rules as to how God must act to be both loving and just. Piper - probably as a consequence - sees God with a mind deeply trained by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Piper has trapped himself, and he traps God, in zero-sum, reward-and-punishment, reasoning - what Paul calls "the law of sin and death". Remember, Paul experiences being free from that (Romans 8:2) and daringly teaches that without law, questions about sin don't arise (Romans 7:8).
The offence of the Cross is that God forgives, unconditionally. No 'ifs' and 'buts'. Man's reason and his hard-wiring to reward and punishment can't compute this. Therefore, theologians developed this big qualification around God's forgiveness: He was still actually doing the necessary punishing - to Jesus; and we get back into His favour with a kind of 'pass card' provided we are go under Jesus' protection. If you think for a moment, you will see that this isn't really forgiveness. This isn't 'remembering their sins no more', or casting them from Him 'as far as the east is from the west'. It isn't really divine love.
But what about the 'wrath of God'? I have woefully misunderstood that, confusing it with human emotions. Whatever His wrath means, we know that love is His abiding and defining attribute - they aren't opposites. God doesn't stop loving, to be wrathful. Clearly, like God's love itself, his wrath lies outside all categories of human experience. The analogy He has taught me comes from His natural order. If I am walking along a cliff and fall off, I will experience violent consequences because of gravity. Nature isn't angry with me, gravity isn't vengeful. But I am being punished for my action. If you're fortunate to have had the time to learn Hebrew, as I have, then going to some of the original words is very helpful. The word commonly used (eg Exodus 20:5) is p-q-d. Its wide range of meaning covers both positive and negative aspects, unlike the wholly negative meaning of 'punish'.
Piper makes a lot of the word: 'propitiation'. The Greek is ilasmos, which generally means some action to appease, reconcile, propitiate. It's a huge jump for Piper to say it means 'the removal of God's wrath by providing a substitute'. I promise you: the word simply doesn't! The underlying Hebrew is helpful, again. Jews picked ilasmos to translate kippur (as in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement). That word described the cover of the ark - the 'mercy seat'.
To pull all this together, and it's already got too long, God isn't divided. He is One. He wasn't punishing Jesus - or Himself. He was moved only by love and mercy, like He always has been. What was unique about what He did on the Cross is that it 'draws all men to God' (John 12:32). Somehow, mysteriously, as all believers know, it works. I am face to face and unashamed with my Heavenly Father, and nothing now separates me from Him - not even my sins.
Fifty reasons why Jesus came to die
This book by John Piper has been recommended by our church pastor for reading through Lent - one chapter, one reason, per day. I'll set myself a modest task: to put down my personal reflections upon it, day by day. Apparently I should have started last Thursday in order to finish on Good Friday; so I may occasionally have to do two, to catch up with the rest of you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
