9 posts tagged “religion”
Unlike the first I AM statement in John, I am going to leave most of the context out of this one. I am going to focus, as Calvin does in his commentary, on the final four verses of John 8. Here goes.
This passage is primarily concerned with the patriarch Abraham, the father of our Faith. Jesus declares, and rightly, that "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." (John 8:56, NIV) We tend to see the Bible as split into quite different theologies and dispensations. The Old Testament was about the Law, and the New Testament is about Jesus. But that isn't true. Instead, the Old Testament looks forward to Jesus' coming, and the New Testament looks forward to his second coming. We all rejoice at the thought of seeing the day of our Lord, when we may fall on our knees and be finally redeemed. We yearn for that day...yet how many times have we balked when Jesus has shown up in our lives? We proclaim his name and then we skirt the issue when push comes to shove. Let us not rejoice simply in the thought of seeing Christ present, but let us also rejoice when Christ is present. The word used by Jesus in this context is agalliao, which quite literally means, "to jump for joy," denoting excessive or ecstatic joy. Why are we not this ecstatic about Jesus' coming? If we live with the view of Abraham, and the faith of Abraham, we ought to be this fanatic. Let us go through the streets and show the world where our JOY comes from.
Jesus continues, in declaring that Abraham, "saw it and was glad." I tried to make sense of this by looking at multiple translations, but all five translations I looked at said the same thing verbatim. "He saw it and was glad." Although I am sure I am not encompassing the entire purpose of this phrase, I think it is meant to accentuate the value that this Christ had for Abraham. He looked forward to the days of Jesus as something to be most highly valued. Let us pray that we would value Jesus and his coming most highly, and that we would know that we must make the most of every opportunity.
After the Jews challenge his claim that Abraham could have seen Jesus (for this particular group had not the ability to understand how one sees with the eyes of faith instead of the eyes of the body), Jesus claims his divinity once again. He says, "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58, ESV) Not only does Jesus claim that he is divine, referring back to Exodus 3:14, in claiming the name of God, but also he claims his supremacy over everything. If he is, in the present eternally, then he must be supreme to those things that come and then go in a temporal manner. Everything in our world is temporal, except for our Lord Jesus Christ and the Triune God in which he resides. How satisfying, how beautiful, how wonderful it is to know that our God is presently with us. We put our hope in something; let us put our hope in the eternity and supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else will pass away, but the WORD of God, our Jesus, will never pass away.
Now let us praise him who can do immeasurably more than we can ask, think, or even imagine. In his glorious, eternal, and supreme name, amen.
This week, I was listening to a sermon by Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and a man that I greatly respect for knowing his calling as a pastor and a man of God. He was admonishing the men to be more like the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Now, I know that patriarchy gets a bad rap, but stay with me here. I don't have the time nor the space here to defend the importance of men who are patriarchs. But honestly, it is important. Part of being a patriarch is being farsighted; not thinking in terms of days and weeks, but of decades and generations. When I heard this admonition, it struck me to the core. The calling to pray for the generations after you that bear your name. Not that salvation is generational or associative (unless you count associating with Jesus), but it is clear in the Bible that sin is indeed generational. And so being a patriarch is realizing that your actions of moving towards or away from Christ do not just affect you, but instead that they affect ten and twenty generations of men after you. I realized that I did not want to have my children and my childrens children and their children, etc., suffering under the same shackles of sin that I am opressed and entrapped by. And so I threw myself at the feet of Jesus, and began taking my role as a patriarch seriously. I needed to become farsighted, and make decisions for ten and twenty generations of men that bear my name.
While I was discussing this with my girlfriend, I realized something kind of all of a sudden: In regards to Christian men, we are divided into two distinct categories (I realize it is not this clean, but still its darn close). There are men who act like Lot and men who act like Abraham. Now Lot was still delivered by God in the end, but his life was hardly devoted to God as much as Abraham's was. He went and lived near Sodom (Gen. 13:12), but not to seek the transformation of the city of Sodom, but to indulge in it. I think of all the times where I have been places, not because I wanted to share the transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with the people around me, but instead to indulge in the "pleasures of life." Even if it was innocent and not technically sinning, my heart was in the wrong place, and my sins of omission were great. Then there are another group of men: those who realize that they are not living for themselves, but for the many generations that follow their family line. They share the name of "Abraham," which means, "father of many nations." These men are called to a higher standard, and fall to the feet of the Lord asking for help and power and the ability to see it through. It is not that, in sotierological terms (in terms of their salvation) they are any different. God delivered both of them from many trials and dangers. But their overall legacy is quite different. Lot was literally one who "himself was saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." (1 Cor 3:15) However, Abraham is the father of our Faith, the first man to be found righteous because of his faith. From him spans the chosen people, the Israelites, and then finally the Saviour of the elect, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ. What greater legacy could have Abraham had? And how short did Lot sell himself by indulging in the "pleasures" of Sodom, whatever they may have been.
I want to urge those men who are following the path of Lot: the most peaceful and sombering, and yet Spirit-filled trail lies not with his way. Follow the footsteps of our great patriarch, Abraham, for we are called children of Abraham if we love Jesus (John 8) We are called to a higher standard. Realize that whatever you do affects not only you, but sets a precedent for many future generations to come. Do you want the men of your line to be like you? Most likely not, and I can tell you that I do not want the men from my line to suffer the same entanglements of sin. We are called to a higher standard as men of God. Let us step up, and become farsighted patriarchs, teaching our sons to love the Lord Jesus Christ, and loving our wives (or future wives) and setting a precedent for men around us.
And rest knowing that we must rely on the Lord Jesus, who can do more than we can ask, think, or even imagine. In the name of Jesus. Amen. So help us. Amen.
Today, on one of my many visits to my favorite bookstore downtown, I came across a book titled How Good Do We Have to Be?. It caught my eye, mostly because I am a theology nerd and it was on sale. But upon further inspection, all I could do was slap my head. I fully realize I am in semi-rant mood. But I'm sorry. I can't sit idly by on this one.
The book's title gave away most of its purpose. It was focused on morality, and the question itself implies that we ought to settle for something lower. It is born out of a true frustration: religion that simply makes everyone feel guilty and bad. But if you are doing bad things, then you ought to feel guilty. If you don't, you are a sadist.
I thumbed through the book and looked at the chapter titles, which just made me frustrated. The first chapter was titled, "God Loves You Anyway." Which is true. But also dangerous. The theology that God will love you no matter what always seems to leave out the fact that love sometimes requires punishment. This doctrine has more people sitting in front of their TV's praising God with Joel Osteen and thinking that they are very strong Christians, not remembering that Christ calls us to STOP SINNING. Forgiveness is the first step. We are saved TO good works. Not because of, but to. The thought that "God loves you anyway" breeds a complacence that is one of the central reasons that the Church in America is declining. There are as many Christians in China, where it is illegal, as in the United States. We are complacent, because we think that just because God loves us, we are free to do whatever we want. I have said this before on this blog: God's love is fierce. He loves us and calls us to change. It is not the senile love of a grandmother who always bakes you cookies, even after you gave your brother a bloody nose. This is a fierce God.
I continued on in the book. The next chapter was titled "I Thought I Had to Be Perfect." Which is another great lie. Whenever we try really hard to be good, we get depressed. Because WE can't do it. WE are bad. But God is Good, all the time. And so its not that we have to be perfect, but that we have to let God be perfect through us. Whenever we try to be merely moral, it is like we are "dirty rags" in front of God (Isaiah 64:6). The Hebrew literally means rags used for menstration. We are THAT dirty, when we try to be moral. Because we spurn the goodness of God. We tell God we can do it on our own, when God knows that we can never do anything on our own. So let us not think that we have to be perfect by our own doing. But that we must be perfect because of God. For from him and through him and to him are all things.
And so I continue to the last chapter title, "Choosing happiness over righteousness." The premise was that when we make righteousness our primary goal, we are always unhappy, because we realize that we are unrighteous. Which is true. But that hardly means that we ought to then decide to become hedonists. The truth is that if we choose ANYTHING over God, it becomes a demon. This is why the humble plumber is more holy than the pious poet, and the contrite electrician more holy than the proud priest. We must choose God. If we choose righteousness before God, we are not really choosing righteousness. We are mistaking the essence for the being. If we choose happiness before God, we will receive quite the opposite: eternal suffering. That is why God continued to say I AM GOD. Because nothing else can take his place. And if anything does, it becomes less of itself.
Essentially, the book's tragic error was that it focused on the self. Everything is confusing when we are focused on self. Let us not think of what we can do, but what God can do. For he alone is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the supreme in every way. Let us love God first, and then through that learn how to love others.
This last week, I was reading through the lectionary, and Ezekiel 37 came up. Thankfully, I was in a medtitative mood, because I have read this passage before, and I would have read right past it otherwise.
The passage begins, saying, "The hand of the LORD was
upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in
the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?""
I stopped after reading this question and thought to myself, "what would I have answered?" Personally, I sat there and thought, "no way. God, duh, its a valley of dry bones." And then I realized that my school is a valley of dry bones. My school is something like in the top five for schools where god is likely to be ignored. Then my answer was so much more important. God was asking me, "Theodoulos, can these bones live?" He has led me through the valley through this past year, and he has shown me the breadth of the destruction. What was my answer?
So I looked at Ezekiel's answer: "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know." No just LORD, but Sovereign. All-powerful. Ruling. Somehow, God is sovereign on my campus. I must proclaim, "God, its up to you." For then, he charged Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones. And so this is the message I must bring to my campus:
'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.'
And in the end, there is a "vast army." I believe that there are a vast army of elect at my campus. But I must prophesy to my campus. And love them.
I was recently at a coffee shop catching up with an old friend who has departed from the Christianity of her parents. My heart bleeds for her, and I have a deep pain in seeing her abandon God for a life of death and loneliness. One of the things has stuck with me, as I asked about the situation with her parents. She said it was ok, but that her parents “Wouldn’t accept my lifestyle.” My retort was, “why should they?”
Why should her parents, who love her deeply, accept the destructive life that she has chosen? Can their love allow them to stand on the sidelines and simply hope for the best? Although this story is about just one particular person, it speaks to our entire culture. Cries such as, “That’s just how I am,” and “It’s a natural impulse,” are plentiful, as our culture strives for a limp-wristed love of a grandmother, who never disapproves of anything and bakes you cookies at the day’s end. Too many people live with the false hope that the perm sky-fairy Jesus won’t condemn them, that he lacks the conviction and hopes everyone can stand in a circle and sing Kumbya. This hope will eventually destroy us.
Our hope that the wrath of God is not coming stems from a pithy saying that is quoted even at Bible studies as Scripture. This quote is that “God loves the sinner and hates the sin.” Oddly enough, this does not appear anywhere in the Bible, but instead is from the mouth of Gandhi, not exactly the most biblical of theologians. Its like we are over here, and our sin is over there, and God looks at our sin and says, “I really hate that, but I love you.” This is no new heresy, but began as early as whenever 2 John was penned. At the time, the Gnostics, and later the Armenians and Manicheans, proclaimed that there was an essential divide between soul and body, so that Death Cab for Cutie would have been yelled at for deciding that indeed, “Soul Meets Body.” This allowed them to say that the body was sinful, but since it did not interact with the soul, it is not dirtied by the actions of the body. There are a few problems with this view. Primarily, it views Sin (big S) as a set of actions instead of a condition. Sin as a condition is a separation from God, who alone is our life. And so our soul is dead, and so it matters very little what happens with our body, since our immortal soul is eternally dead. Also, where does our soul reside during our life? In our body. Our body is our tent in this life, where our soul resides, and so the dirtiness of the body dirties the soul. Furthermore, this boils down the an essential distinction. The question is this: whether we are what we do, or do we do what we are? If we are what we do, then by changing actions, we can change our identity. If we do what we are, our bad actions stem from our badness, and there is no hope. Truly, the heart is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23) and so we do what we are, thus we are left hopeless without the cross.
We also think that hate and love are mutually exclusive. But this is only because our definition of love is not sufficient. We think of love as sentimental, where you are in love and you write love poems to each other and that is it. But true love, fierce love, demands amendment of disgusting things. This is the fierce love of a parent: that they do not accept the life they know is bad for their child. This is the fierce love of a spouse: the anger that is experienced when they see their wife or husband sleeping with another person. The burning anger is only present with the burning love. The soft fluffy bunny love of the grandparents that no one has is a horrible heresy. As long as we see Jesus as the guy strolling through the temple tipping over tables and cages, we will never understand the wrath of God. When we see Christ on the cross, we can understand both the love and the wrath of God. That we would not settle for what is our “character,” but instead what God has for us after he has redeemed us. When we stand at the foot of the cross, we know that we are not good enough. Not only should your friends not accept your problems and sins; you shouldn’t accept your problems and sins, but instead turn to Jesus, as he proclaims, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
This may sound like me ranting, but I am not. This is my true hope for Christianity in the future.
In Portland, there is this amazing church, that has been there for one hundred and ten years. It has a gorgeous steeple, and takes up an entire city block, half of which is a garden, half which is the cathedral. The inside is amazing too. An organ takes up the entire front of the church, there are gorgeous stained glass windows, and the designs in the rafters are amazing. It truly takes my breath away, and every time I get a chance, I go inside. I went to a service, not because I am a fan of traditional churches, but because I wanted to see a service go on in this amazing building. It is the home of First Presbyterian Church in Portland, and I have a deep respect for the church and the preacher, who is actually a very good speaker and teacher of the Word.
I tell this story to make a point: Christianity has lost its place in culture, particularly in art. Not saying the Christianity ought to be strictly cultural; indeed, many heresies have from immersing the church in culture. But the Church has forgotten how to inspire the awe of the Lord through art. Many of the churches I see now meet in warehouses and old supermarkets. Although it is very functional, so were cathedrals. I am not saying that we should return to cathedrals; instead, we need a new generation of Christian-led architecture. A great example is the chapel on Seattle University's campus, as seen below. It isn't old and stuffy, like old chapels. It is new. It redefines architecture
But this doesn't stop with art. It goes to science as well. Christian culture has created this rift with it and science, and so many Christians, even if they have the aptitude, turn their nose up to science, because it is a "godless study." But in history, it was Christians who defined science. Galileo was a devout Catholic. We hold him up as this victim of the Catholic Church, but it was the Catholic Church, and God, to which he bowed. Christians used to be at the forefront of almost every discipline. Great writers were produced, with insightful novels and theological works; now we have Your Best Life Now and Purpose-Driven Life, not exactly a Chesterton or Lewis or Tozer.
I ask, and admonish Christians, to push to the forefront of their disciplines. Glorify God in your work. In your church buildings. Help us soon forget when we built church malls instead of a new kind of cathedral. Let everything we do smell and appear of Christ. Let people stand in awe of churches, and then fall on their knees to the God being worshipped there.
I received a comment tonight with a few questions that are very necessary to the Christian faith, and so being a theodoulos (slave of god), I gladly will answer them. Thank you poptart for asking them, nothing makes me more happy than answering questions I know have been asked.
- "Why would Christ, who is now God, as many people say, pray to himself?"
To understand any answer to this question, we must first understand the nature of God. God lives in community: he exists eternally in three persons as one Godhead- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is very hard to grasp, no matter how long you have been a student and disciple of the faith. The best tactile example I can give you is that of marriage- indeed, in Genesis, it says, "he created them in the image of God." When male and female are united in marriage, this is the closest equivalent to the Trinity we have. They exist "as one flesh." They are two distinct people, but united. Now take this to the next level. Three personalities, three spirits, the Trinity, who are closer than a man and woman can ever be. Indeed, they are so close, that they constitute one person. (Most of the description I used was gleaned from A.W. Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy or C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity)
And so Christ is only on part of the Godhead. Christ is the Son. In the beginning, before Genesis 1:1, there existed God, in three persons, each glorifying the others. And so Christ praying to the Father (which is what he almost always refers to him as, either that or Lord), is nothing out of the ordinary - it is what He has been doing for all eternity. Because prayer is first and foremost a glorification of the object of that prayer.
So Christ, who was always God the Son, prayed not to himself, but to the Father. I hope that is satisfying. If it isn't, push me harder, and I will search for better answers from more learned people (maybe who actually have a degree from a seminary).
- "If he were God, and knew what was to happen, being a God, why not just wipe the slate clean?"
This is a very important question, because if not properly answered, it could call into question God's justice. First of all, let me begin with an analogy - a chess match. If my opponent wants to take back an errant move, and as an easy going person, I let him take it back, that is all well and fine. But imagine if he could take any move back that he wanted. Imagine if I allowed him not only to do this, but to move my pieces if they got in his way. We would no longer have a chess match. It would be nothing. If God had miraculously intervened to offset any effects of the Original Sin, and then did it again and again with each new sin, there would be no choice. There would be a choice for good, and a null choice. And this would not be a freedom of will. This would be tyranny.
Also, if God just wiped the slate clean and said, "its ok, no worries," he would not be just. Bad actions demand punishment. And these actions must be punished. This is where Christ and the third question come into play.
- "What's the need with the blood sacrifice?"
First I want to address the necessity of sacrifice in general. What did Jesus accomplish on the cross? It is impossible to address every single accomplishment of the cross, and so I will focus the propitiation on the cross. For a more detailed overview of the Cross, see Mark Driscoll's series of sermons entitled Christ on the Cross.
I am going to focus on penal substitutionary atonement. Let me lay this out.
First there was God and then creation and paradise. Then we sinned. Because of our sin, God's just response is wrath. In fact, if you piled up the verses about wrath of God and the verses about love of God, you would probably have more about the wrath of God. His just response to our sin and disobedience is wrath. It is not unlike the situation if I was married, and I walked in on my wife sleeping with another man. My first response, and just response, would be wrath. Anger. The same thing has happened- we have been whoring ourselves around with everyone but God. We were meant to be in communion with God. And so he is wrathful, as he ought to be. He is disgusted by sin. Which is why in the Old Testament, there was a copious amount of blood everytime a sin offering had to be performed. It is disgusting. It is meant to be that way. God is trying to demonstrate how much sin disgusts him.
Enter Jesus. He dies on the cross, as a substitute for our sins. Just as a lamb was slaughtered as a substitution in ancient Israel, The Lamb was slain as a substitution for men (Calvin says limited atonement, Jacobus Arminius says unlimited atonement. But we must first choose Jesus). When on the cross, the wrath of God was wiped away. This clearing of the wrath of God is known as propitiation, and it is so important.
So why did there have to be blood sacrifice? - because sin is disgusting, and God wants us to know that. Let us kneel at the foot of the Cross, for surely, the blood of the Lamb will wash away our sins, atoning for our misdeeds, sins of omission and comission. Let us cling to Jesus.
- "Some say he didn't know what was going to happen, that he was a
confused son of man, falliable in such a state, but then... was he
really God, or just a servant?"
There are a lot of issues in this question. First I must say that Jesus was full God and fully man. If he is anything less, he cannot mediate between God and man, and so we have no hope from him. But thanks be to God, for he is, and so he can mediate between man and God, as Job yearned for in Job 9.
The argument that Mark Driscoll makes regarding this is that although Jesus was God, he never leaned heavily into his God character, but instead relied on the Holy Spirit. He was surely not a confused son of man, and proved his sovereignty through his prediction of his betrayal, Peter's denial, among others. Did he know exactly what was going to happen? I don't know. Did he know in the Garden that he was going to be crucified - why else would he be sweating blood? He was under immense stress (which is how one sweats blood), and so he knew how it was going down. We cannot call Christ fallible, for this means that he can be wrong, which he never was - he was the Lamb without spot or blemish. He had no sin. He was mutable (changing), because he had taken on a human body, but not fallible. Finally, he was really God, and also a servant. Because, as I said earlier, his life was a contiual glorification of God the Father, he continually submitted himself to the Father's will, to the point of death on a cross, the most horrible way to die. He was fully God the Son, serving God the Father fully for his entire life.
If there are any more questions, or any clarifications (after all, it is 2am here), I would be more than happy to answer them.
Let us remember to cling to Christ. For hope from Him does not dissapoint us.
While wasting copious amounts of time linking to all kinds of different facebook groups, I came across a group that is titled, "I make mistakes in life, does that make me a bad person?" The whole purpose of the group, from what I gathered in my quick surveillance of it, is to claim the basic good of people. I noticed it had Christian undertones throughout its description. And this concerns me. First of all, let's look at what the common argument is:
"Just because I do bad things sometimes does not mean I am a bad person." What if this were true? What would a bad person be like? C.S. Lewis notes that a man who is good at tennis might miss a shot every once in a while, and rightfully call it as out of character. But a poor tennis player could claim the one good shot they made the entire game was what was truly theirs. And so it seems that the tonnage of actions are important.
Now lets look at an everyday action that we go through. Even Christians will start the day off by dedicating the day to God, but then by the time we are down the stairs and off to work, our mind is in another place. Why would our minds incline away from God, if God created us? God would certainly not make creatures that would so readily forget their source: indeed, it seems as if something terribly wrong has occured, a essential change in our nature. As if we have gone bad... Sure, we may continue to do some good things, but they are almost as accidents.
This "Christian" idea, that we are good people essentially, is a terribly heretical position. If we are essentially good people, why do we need Jesus? What is the point of Jesus coming, if we were good? Indeed, it is impossible for a good person to do bad, for in doing bad, they become a bad person. This idea of our goodness is not Christian, and has come to under the Christian heading through heretical, Humanist teaching. Our essential goodness is not supported by any Church father, nor any commentator, nor the Bible. We were good earlier, in the Garden of Eden; But in doing bad, we became bad, and now, instead of essentially good, we are totally depraved, until Christ restores some of us into goodness in his kingdom.
In saying this...Jesus makes us new. Not good because of us, and we can never say that we are good, but instead that Christ is good in us. And so although we are bad, as Psalm 73 says, let us cleave to God. For in Christ, we are made perfect, by his imputed righteousness. But let us never claim that it is us that are good.
When I came to Lewis and Clark, I was not a big fan of hippies. I didn't like liberals very much, nor conservatives that much either. I stood in condemnation of alternative lifestyles, sneering openly at whoever semi-endorsed it. I made fun of people in the dining hall with my friends, and certainly did not show the love of Christ. I was, and am, a horrible missionary and missiologist. I wish I could have this semester back. Until tonight, hearing Tim Keller speak about the Sufficiency of Christ in a post-modern world, I stood in contempt of most of the college. I rolled my eyes at the hippies and liberals in my economics and core classes. And then God spoke to me through a man named Tim Keller, who I have never met, when he said, "We [the church] are in the city, but we do not love the city." I was listening to it and just got stunned. I couldn't believe it. That was me. I didn't love the city I have been placed in. I have no doubt God wanted me here at Lewis and Clark. But I haven't loved the city.
On another note from the same lecture by Keller, he noted that the entire gospel and Bible can be summed up in Jonah 2:9, which says, "salvation is of the Lord." Keller said that he was describing the gospel to a woman and she said, "that seems so dangerous. If it was works based, it would be like I had payed him, and so God could only ask so much of me. But if God just gives us salvation...there is no limit to what he can ask of me." Do I really understand that salvation is from God? Do I? If I did, I wouldn't have been dissapointed when a ministry I tried to start, the bridge, barely got off the ground and had at most 10 people show up, 4 of them leaders. I was trying to be saved through my work for God. But if I have already been saved, then attendance wouldn't matter. Keller described religion as obedience and then acceptance. But in Christianity, first you are accepted through the atoning work of the Jesus Christ on the cross, and then you obey. I was looking around the coffee shop, thinking to myself, "what does God want me to do that I wasn't listening too?" I love God. But I don't understand the good news of the Gospel. I need to rediscover its glory and power and sufficieny. And LOVE PEOPLE. I apologize to the three people who are reading this: if you are from Lewis and Clark or I have met you at some point and did not love you to the utmost, I am fallen. I am insufficient. Know that Christ alone is sufficient.
