21 posts tagged “jesus”
I have talked about this before, but I thought I would bring it again.
In the next few months, there will be more proselytizing and religious furor that any other time until four years from now. There are two large religious rallies going on in the US right now, one in my hometown. They are the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Each says that they have a vision for making America better, and it will only happen if you choose their Saviour and Lord: Either McCain or Obama. I was just watching the DNC (and I'm sure the RNC is similar) and to see the cheering and the speaker behind the podium, you would think CNN is showing a church service. Which it is, it just happens the center isn't Jesus, its Obama.
And who said Americans are anti-religious? We worship just as much. It just so happens we worship politicians and sports teams instead of Jesus. Just something to think about.
During my mini-workout this morning, I was listening to Sinclair Ferguson preaching on 2 Corinthians 4. The text, which I have read many times, particularly struck me today. The passage that most penetrated my heart was that of verses 7-12, which is below:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
I want to focus today on the first verse in this passage, 2 Cor. 4:7. "This treasure" that Paul is referring to is mentioned in the preceding verse, as "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," or simply the Gospel. And so we store this beautiful glory in ourselves, as jars of clay. Why do we do so? "to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us."
Too many teachers today (particularly the health and wealth preachers) are trying to paint the jars of clay. To make us look better than we are. When I go to a church service and the pastor says something to the effect of "we are all good people," I want to throw up. That is not God-glorifying, claiming that we are good people. We need to continually acknowledge, as Jesus did, that only God is good (Luke 18:19). In direct contrast to this, Paul refers to us as "jars of clay."
Jars of clay have no particular beauty to them. Sure, they are made for a purpose, for storage, but they are not very aesthetically pleasing, and certainly no one would attribute great glory to them. For it is what is inside that counts when it is a clay jar. It could be the most hideous jar ever (as my days in various ceramics classes produced), but if something is glorious inside, then we value that treasure. This is what Paul is saying. We do not have any particular glory ourselves (other than the dignity, value and worth in being created in the image of God). But inside, we hold the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ultimately, jars of clay are brittle, and easily broken. When we are broken, we are always shown for what we are. Even the "super apostles" who espouse health and wealth theologies will be shown to be merely human when they are broken, in death or otherwise. But if we have inside of us the Gospel, in all its glory and saving power, when we break, it is actually more profitable to the kingdom than if we do not. God works much more often through weakness than strength, because man's strength adds nothing to God's strength, but God's strength in man's weakness adds to God's glory.
Let us remember that the surpassing power belongs to God, not to man. Let us hold dear to the Gospel of Christ's life, death, burial and resurrection. And let us take heart, when things push in from every side, that Jesus went through the same thing. That as we might be crushed, he was crushed. And that through these momentary afflictions, God might win even more glory to his name, because when we break, then the Gospel of Jesus Christ will shine forth from the rubble of our jar of clay.
So help us. Amen.
I was reading through Revelation today (don't worry, I am not saving up any canned goods and I don't have a chart showing exactly when Jesus is coming back to take the elect back...), and I came to the message from God to the church of Laodicea. Each of the letters has a different introduction and description of who Jesus is. This description was "The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation." It intrigued me that Jesus would be called "the AMEN," because it is such a rich word. Turns out, thanks to my free bible software (shameless plug you can get it with the journaling ESV bible from crossway), 2 Corinthians 1:20 has a similar description of Jesus, saying, "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory." This letter was written to the church at Laodicea, a church that verses later will be called to account for being neither hot nor cold. And why were they lukewarm? Because they didn't understand fully who Jesus was. And so God sends this description of Jesus to them: the AMEN. The fulfillment of all of the promises of God. Every promise made in the Old Testament is fulfilled by Jesus. That the promises God makes find their Yes, their Amen, their accomplishment in Jesus. Paul writes to the Romans that Jesus became a servant "in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs."
J.I. Packer, in "God Has Spoken," defined faith as taking hold of the promises of God, believing that he will deliver on his promises. In order for this to happen, for us to receive this kind of faith, we must comprehend that Jesus is the AMEN of God. Through Jesus all things are accomplished. While God elected some for salvation, it was Jesus who accomplished this, purchasing the elect on the cross. While God spoke the worlds into being, it was Jesus who accomplished this as well, as we are told in John 1.
And so let us declare Jesus to be the AMEN of God. Whenever we pray, let us utter AMEN knowing that Jesus is our AMEN, and that he is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask, think or even imagine.
AMEN. God help us. AMEN
First of all, tip of the hat to the geniuses at the Marginal Revolution blog, as I appropriated their common blog title for my own (theirs is markets in everything). I hope to make False Saviors in Everything a regular installation, basically whenever I see a culture setting up a false savior.
Second, I want to make clear: This is not a knock on any particular candidate for the Presidency. I do not endorse any candidate, I will vote, I just don't know for whom.
Yesterday I have the privilege to attend an Obama rally (I was told there would be free food), and I began to notice how Obama had become a false savior. I got into the rally, which was held in our campus chapel, and there was a large sign in the front with a picture of Obama and the word "HOPE" below it (not unlike our cheesy Christian bookstore posters with the permed-hair Jesus). Then one of the Senator's from Oregon got up and shared a story about Obama, showing what Obama has taught (similar to preaching of a parable from the Gospels). He asserted, "America wants change" and "Obama will make things better."
You see, the hopeful people at this rally are scared of another 8 years of "bad president hell" and "hillary clinton hell." (I will stay out of the debate from both of these...).
So where do we turn? We turn to Barack Obama of course! He is our savior from our self-defined hell.
The senator at the rally ended his speech by telling us that we should tell our friends to vote for Obama, sharing the "good news" of his presidency hopeful (not unlike the strategy taken up by youth groups when their numbers are down).
It was asserted that Senator Obama is "going to win." (As opposed to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ [1 Cor 15]).
Then, after the speaker, some volunteers ran to the front to throw out t-shirts. The lead volunteer, a friend of mine, yelled, "how much does this side love Obama?" which gave me vivid flashbacks to church camp, when some random Oriental Trading Company piece of junk was being thrown to someone in the crowd, presumably to the area that yelled the most for Jesus.
After the throwing of t-shirts, one of the acapella groups at our school, who renamed themselves Barackapella for the events on campus, served as the Church of Obama choir. Their final song was an acapella rendition of "yes we can," the famous Obama speech that has become the slogan of his campaign. What struck me during this song was its opposition to the Gospel (big G), that "Jesus will." No longer is Jesus the center, but we, as a society, can make things better if we just elect the right candidate and try hard enough.
The assertion throughout the afternoon, explicitly and implicity, is that Obama will make life better. But the Gospel stands in direct contrast to that: Jesus doesn't just make life better; He is better than life (Ps 63:3).
The hilarious thing to me was that while the acapella group was singing, people began to clap in unison. Now these are the same people, many of them, who think it completely weird that Christians sing in church. It was semi-spontaneous that they began clapping, but I bet none of them would clap in church, because it would be "weird." Which is utter ridiculousness.
The group's final song was 525,600 minutes from Rent, which they said reminded us for the real "reason for the season," which is clearly Love. Ultimately, two things stood out: that Love is God, and that the rally was an utter praise of the human ability.
Juxtaposed to that is Jesus. He came to show, once and for all, that we aren't good enough. That HE ALONE is the Saviour of all humanity, for there is no other name under heaven by which men are to be saved. Political leaders are fine, but we need to remember that they are temporary; Jesus is eternal. We gain joy from that which we praise. If we praise something other than God because it will give us pleasure, we aren't getting more pleasure; we are getting less. Because there is only so much to praise, until we begin to praise God, who is infinite, and then we can gain eternal joy from praising him, because he rightly can be praised eternally. We do not settle for less joy when we begin to follow Christ; We gain more. We gain more than we could ever imagine.
And now, to him who can do immeasurably more than we can ask, think, or even imagine, who lived, died and rose, and then ascended to the right hand of the father. Let us praise him forever, and put our hope in nothing but him.
Amen, so help me, Amen.
Much ink has been spilled about the proper administering of the holy sacrament of baptism. While this is of utmost importance, being one of the sacraments of the church, I have been meditating and ruminating on the view of baptism as a preparation for death. The common liturgy for the administering of the baptism is “participating in the death of Christ in baptism, and raised again in the newness of life.” (I don’t have this exactly right, but bear with me or let me know what it actually is in a message). While baptism as a public confession of faith is very important, I have been ruminating about baptism as a spiritual discipline.
I have been thinking that the attitude of baptism is necessary for all of life. Let me set this up for you scripturally (because if I don’t, you shouldn’t listen to me). Baptism was an ancient Hebrew practice of cleansing. The temple scribes, as I understand it, would go submerge themselves in water before writing the name of the Lord (YHWH). Then John started baptizing people in the wilderness outside of Jerusalem in a spiritual revival. Jesus is baptized, and then passes on the sacrament of baptism during the Great Comission. It becomes the way that believers publicly proclaim their faith. On the subject of baptism, Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 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.” (Romans 6:3-5, ESV)
In a similar fashion, Jesus commands us "Then If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25) We are called into a discipline of dying continually to ourselves, which means continually being baptized in the Holy Spirit. When we first become a Christian and then become baptized, we participate in Jesus’ death. And then every day after that, after we are confirmed in the faith, we pick up our cross, denying ourselves and declaring ourselves functionally dead (I have an earlier post on the subject of taking up your cross), and we follow Christ. Daily we die to ourselves, being regenerated daily in the flesh. We bury ourselves daily in a baptism of sorts, and then daily we participate in the Resurrection, walking in the newness of life. How glorious it is!
Then, finally, when it comes time for us to be called home by the Father in Heaven, we do not fret for our future. We have been dying every day for years; this is simply the culmination of all of our spiritual discipline. We approach the door to Heaven, and Death, which used to have so much power which has been neutered by Jesus, opens the door to Heaven. Our final death is our most glorious, as we suffer with Christ so that we might also be glorified with Christ. (Romans 8:17) No longer is death the great beyond…it is the normal. When we continually die to ourselves, our final death should come almost as an afterthought, but with great expectation, since we will finally fulfill the prophecy of our baptism, and “we were buried therefore with him [Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the death by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Finally our flesh will be thrown off, and in heaven we will participate in a newness of life with the Creator and Source of all Life. How amazing that day will be, how glorious our Father is, and how wonderful is the Son for mediating for us as our great high priest in order that we might gain access to this grace in which we stand, through faith, so that we might rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2) How deserving of our praise! Amen.
This morning I was reading through Matthew 8, and I came to the familiar story of the faith of the centurion. Now, I am sure that men more capable than me could devote their life's work to this story, but I want to focus on one word in the entire story.
Matthew records, "When he [Jesus] entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly."
I want to first observe that this is a centurion, a commanding officer in the Roman army. He answers to the emperor.
The background of this story is that, in order to supress the Jewish people, the Roman Empire declared that all must attest that "Caesar is Lord," drawing on the word addonai from the Jewish people, which is how they read the "name of God" (In the old testament, the name of God, usually in all capital letters in english translations, is written in the hebrew YHWH, and instead of reading it, the Jewish people will say addonai instead, or Lord in Hebrew).
And so this centurion, who must answer at the end of the day to the Roman Empire, walks up to Jesus and says, "Lord." Calling Jesus, not Caesar "Lord." He was likely with other Roman soldiers, and if they went and told their commanders that this centurion called this Jesus of Nazareth "Lord," the centurion would likely be executed for treason. He is not just asking for a healing. He is risking EVERYTHING on this. And it isn't like it it a slip of the tongue on his part. The next thing he says to Jesus, he precedes with the title "Lord" as well. This is astounding, that this centurion would risk his very life for his servant.
The word Lord has lost much of its meaning in this day and age. We need to reclaim its ancient forbidden nature. We need to acknowledge that everything is vying for the position of Lord in our life, and that only Jesus ought to occupy this role.
And so let us call Jesus "Lord," risking everything by saying it, because we risk the whole world by declaring that Jesus, this crucified (but then resurrected and glorified) man, the Accursed One, might be the God of the Universe.
This is probably the first book review that I have done on my blog...soo, here goes nothing.
I have long heard critiques of Brian McLaren and other leaders in the Emergent Village, and have been worried about what I have heard that their theology is doing. However, I decided that this winter break I would go straight to the horses mouth, and read McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy, so that instead of disagreeing four times removed, I can at least know first-hand what his theology is. This book goes through why he is missional, evangelical, etc., and so is a manifesto of sorts about what the Emergent Village stands for.
Instead of immediately laying into McLaren, I believe it is important to acknowledge the good things that he has done with this book. First, he has reminded us that true Christianity must care for the environment. We were charged from the beginning to rule over creation, and since we can only understand that through the lens of the way Christ rules, by serving, we must then serve and protect the environment. I also like how he draws from different Christian traditions, acknowledging that there is some good in almost every branch of the church. I also agree with his emphasis on being missional: understanding God's mission and our sent-ness, so that we might engage the culture, not syncretize with it or thoroughly reject it either.
However, there are many places where McLaren is too generous, forgetting all about the importance of orthodoxy, or reading the Bible in general. The first is where he spends almost a page apologizing for the use of masculine pronouns in reference to Jesus and God. For some reason, God chose to reveal himself as the Father. I am not going to apologize for that. I am going to seek to understand that, but to apologize for what the Bible says is a rejection of Scripture.
Also, throughout the book, it seems as if he is reacting to a small percentage of Christianity on the hard right end of the spectrum, and pushes so hard that he ends up on the left. Most of his critiques of Christian culture and beliefs I agreed with, but he shares them as if they were brand-new things (even though the majority of Christians have realized these faults a long time ago).
Furthermore, through most of the book McLaren will implicity let things slip, but never explicitly state his opinion on a certain thing, so as to not be so obvious where he has gone astray of an accurate theological picture. Instead of giving answers, he simply asks questions, which has led mankind astray since a serpent simply asked questions in the garden of Eden, never explicitly contradicting God, but allowing the questions to lead to contradiction.
Probably the best example of what I am describing is when McLaren is critiquing fundamentalism. He writes in his chapter on the subject:
"Their [fundamentalists'] five fundamentals were largely chosen because they represented battle lines with theological liberals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the virgin birth, the inerrancy and verbal plenary inspiration of scripture, penal substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the imminent return of Jesus. Of the five, only two (virgin birth and bodily resurrection) were rooted in the creeds."
Do you see what he just did? He just implicitly chucked the innerrancy of scripture and penal substitutionary atonement. He doesn't come out and declare them wrong or incorrect. He simply lays them aside quietly, hoping no one will notice.
I want to go on a side note here. It seems as though the emergent church has tried to seem orthodox by appealing always to the creeds, Nicene and Apostles. However, in doing this McLaren chucks the penal substitutionary atonement (for a "brief" description of what that is, check out my post about it). There are many reasons it was not in the original creeds. For one, creeds are written to address heresies in that time period. But there was no such heresy denying penal substitutionary atonement at that time (the Nicene creed written in the late 4th century and the Apostles' creed written between the 1st and 5th centuries), because every pagan temple around them upheld the same basic idea of propitiating the gods. Also, it is clear not just in the Christian New Testament, but in the Old Testament, that penal substitutionary atonement is a theme of the entire Bible, from Genesis 22 through almost every epistle that Paul writes, and the letters of John as well.
Where then does McLaren leave us, by ditching the penal substitutionary atonement? It leaves us unforgiven. Without Jesus dying in our place to satisfy the justice of a righteous God, we are still under condemnation from God, and so we ought to tremble, for the wrath of God still stands over us.
The good news is that, while McLaren would throw away the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, he is not above the Bible and above Jesus. Instead, the doctrine stands, and we can rejoice that Jesus would take our sin onto himself, becoming sin on the cross for us so that we might be free from sin, if we fall at his feet, trusting him with all that we are.
And now to him who can do more than we would ever ask, think, or even imagine. Amen.
While not talked about a lot in churches, the process of sanctification is important. Pastors (not all the time, but generally) focus on the justification of the sinner, or on the glorification of the Christian at the end of time. The middle period, sanctification, is usually left out.
I had such a period of sanctification over the last month, as usually occurs under a high stress time such as finals. God began tearing sin in my life and putting it right in front of my eyes, and I had to realize how totally wretched I am.
The first incident, or set of incidents, was with my roommates. I usually drink coffee in the evening, and I had obtained a new blend, later known by my friends as the crack coffee, and I had a mug at about 7pm, which is usually ample time for coffee to run my system and get out in time for bed at midnight. However, this blend was much stronger, and I ended up getting to sleep at around 2am. I was so frustrated at one point, because my roommate was quietly talking outside, that I yelled some choice words that I should have not chosen, out of frustration for not being able to go to sleep.
About a week later, while finals were in full swing and Call of Duty 4 was our outlet to rest from studying for finals, I got really frustrated when things didn't go my way when I asked to play, as if I had some moral right to play the video game. I realized my sins of anger and pride quite clearly in that, although I did not learn my lesson about pride until later.
I learned that lesson when I was in the math department studying for both of my math finals, and a girl that was taking abstract algebra, a class my girlfriend was also in, was doing her take-home final (by the way, if any teachers read this, especially math teachers, never give take-home finals, that is horribly evil). She was talking to another professor about how tough it was and how she was only 3 or 4 problems in. And I am sitting at the next table thinking, "ha, my girlfriend is through almost all of it, finally the Christians are winning." And next time I look over, I see this girl breaking down in tears because she is so stressed out about all her finals. And it struck me how utterly prideful I was being. I leaned back in my chair, and said to myself, "I am the worst person ever."
Pride and anger are sins that I have always struggled with on some level, and I have certainly not overcome them. However, I pray that with the enabling grace of God, I might be free from the bondage of my sins, and I look forward to when I can shed this mortal coil and go to be with Jesus. That day can't get here soon enough.
I was recently at an a capella concert at my school, and one of the groups on campus regularly performs "Chicago" by the much acclaimed indie artist Sufjan Stevens. Now, I have listened to the song before, and when they have performed it, and it clearly refers to Jesus. The irony and sadness of the whole thing was that almost no one in the audience realized it. Most Christian artists have tried to make their music more blatantly Christian. Sufjan ups the ante by making his much more subtle, with the notable exception of Seven Swans, and album written earlier in his career.
So I am sitting there, listening to them sing the first verse, and it gets to the chorus:
you came to take us
all things go, all things go
to recreate us
all things grow, all things grow
we had our mindset
all things know, all things know
you had to find it
all things go, all things go
The gospel was being sung in an a capella concert at a very antichristian school. It was amazing. Jesus came to take us and then remake us in his image. And the way that they sung it. The chorus wasn't just sung. It was exalted. It was amazing. I found myself wishing we could sing Sufjan on Sundays at church.
The final verse of the song was the cry of so many people at my school, and myself as well.
if I was crying
in the van, with my friend
it was for freedom
from myself and from the land
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
I made a lot of mistakes
We cry for freedom. From ourself, from the pain on earth. And we have made a lot of mistakes. And so let us find our rest of the nailed feet of Jesus. Let us look to him. Who can do more to recreate us than we could possibly imagine.
p.s. Below is the video. Thank God for youtube as well.
Recently I was meditating Moses' song in Exodus 15, after the Israelites were delivered from the hands of the Egyptian military, and I was wondering at the meaning on the second verse, which says, "you are my strength and my song; you have become my salvation." (15:2) I focused on the last phrase: you have become my salvation. Now, in a strictly theological sense, I know that salvation is God's deliverance of the sinner from his slavery to sin into a new life with Jesus. But what does God becoming my salvation look like? How is God my salvation?
While normally translated salvation, another (sometimes more appropriate) translation of the Hebrew would be deliverance. This is actually where Paul receives his theology of salvation. It is not (as sometimes proposed), from the pagan slave trade, but from Israel's deliverance from the Egyptian bondage. But does God simply deliver us from the bondage of sin? I believe that to truly understand this theology of salvation, we must develop a fuller picture of God's deliverance for us.
The greatest news is that God delivered us from Satan and sin and hell and death. But a fuller picture of salvation brings in many of the other aspects of Jesus' work on the cross. As I meditated on this verse, I realized that God delivers us from much more than simply our sin:
- God delivers us from our past
- God delivers us from our defilement
While some of our soul's defilement is certainly our fault, God delivers us from the defilement that others have caused. Commonly known as expiation, this is wonderful news for a woman who has been defiled because of rape, or a child who has been nearby during a parents murder. God delivers us from the defilement of our souls.
- God delivers us from our present situation
Many times we are in situations that would cause us to stumble. But God is our salvation. He will "provide a way out, so that we might stand up under it." (1 Corinthians 10:13) Sometimes we cannot help the situation that develops around us, and so we must fall to God, asking him to deliver us.
- Ultimately, God's deliverance is in Jesus alone
The Hebrew word which is translated "salvation," is transliterated yeshua, which was a common name around the first century A.D. In fact, this name would then be translated into Greek as the well-known name "Jesus," literally meaning "the Lord saves." This connection becomes most poignant at the close of the Last Supper, when they sing a hymn (Matthew 26:30), which would traditionally be the end of the Hallel, which is sung throughout the Jewish Seder. The final Psalm of the Hallel is Psalm 118, which says, "you have become my salvation (yeshua)." (v. 21) After this was uttered, Jesus began his passion, thus truly becoming the salvation of all who believed. If we want salvation, we must turn to Jesus, for Peter spoke truly in front of the Sanhedrin when he said, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
If we look for salvation, it can only be found in Jesus. And so let us fall to his feet, for he is our deliverer.
