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Published on Leave a comment on When was Christ Begotten – and For Why??

Jesus is God's Son. And there was never a time when He was not God's Son.  Equally, there was never a time when the Father was not Father of His eternal Son, Jesus.  Wind back the clock into the depths of eternity and no matter how far back you go you will always find this: The Father possessing His Son in the Spirit, The Father pouring His life into the Son by the Spirit.  The Son receiving His anointing from the Father.  The Son determined in the Spirit by the Father.  The Father and Son have existed in a Begetting-Begotten relationship eternally.  Such relationship is not simply what our God does, it's who He is.  He is this eternal fellowship of the Three.

When was Christ begotten?  The early church rightly answered He is 'Eternally begotten of the Father.  God from God.  Light from Light.  True God from True God.  Begotten not made.  Of one being with the Father.'

Well then Psalm 2 throws up an interesting issue.  Always and everywhere in Scripture Psalm 2 is said to refer to Jesus.  And no matter how you get there, I hope you'll agree that it does.  Well verse 7 is the Son speaking and He says this:

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

Well now, how do we cope with the Son of God saying such a thing?  What is the 'today' on which the Son is said to be begotten?  Doesn't this just collapse into Arianism?  Perhaps we think the Father should have said 'Today I declare what has always been true of You - You are My Son, eternally I beget You'?  But he doesn't say that.  He says there's a day of begetting.

Well what day is that?

Answer: Easter Sunday.  Paul correctly identifies the 'today' for us.  In Acts 13:32-33 he tells us that David's intention here is to prophesy Christ's resurrection:

We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: `You are my Son; today I have become your Father.'

The resurrection of Jesus is the 'today' in which the Father begets the Son.  The Father and Son exist in a Begetting-Begotten relationship.  And Easter is the Day on which that relationship is (and here I'm reaching for words) manifest?  - too weak.  Concretized?  - closer.  Established?  - too far?

Well if we think that's too far, perhaps we also think Peter went too far in Acts 2:36.  Again speaking of the resurrection he says:

God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Jesus is made Lord and Christ through the resurrection.  He already was Lord (v34) and Christ (v31), yet the resurrection 'made' Him Lord and Christ.

One other Scripture to consider.  In Hebrews 5, the writer sees the resurrection of Psalm 2:7 as Christ's calling to the Priesthood.

No-one takes this honour upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was.  So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father."  (v4-5)

God calls Jesus to the Priesthood by raising / exalting Him.  And yet at the same time Hebrews had introduced us to the eternal Son in already priestly terms (Heb 1:2,3).  The Son's mediation in creation, revelation and providence is already priestly, and yet He is called to this priesthood on the basis of His death, resurrection and ascension.

This co-ordination of eternal priestliness and His historical calling continues in chapter 5.  Verse 6 reminds us from Psalm 110 that Jesus is a 'priest forever in the order of [beginningless] Melchizedek'.  Yet almost straight away we are told He is 'designated' priest on the basis of His suffering perfection and exaltation. (v10).

So which is it?  Is Jesus eternally begotten or begotten on Easter morning?  Is Jesus eternally Lord and Christ or made so by resurrection?  Is Jesus eternally God's Priest or called Priest on the basis of His suffering perfection and exaltation?  The answer is yes. 

How do we put words to this?  Well Ben Myers has done a pretty good job here as he summarizes the argument of Adam Eitel:

God's being can thus be described as a kind of being-towards-resurrection; the resurrection of Jesus is the goal of God's eternal self-determining action. In this historical (or better, this history-creating) event, God becomes what God eternally is - and this is just because God eternally is what he becomes in this event.

UPDATE: By the way, this is by no means an endorsement of Hegel.  God's being is not constituted by any God-world dialectic.  Rather it's the Father-Son relationship in the Spirit that constitutes God's being. 

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Published on 3 Comments on The Glory of the Bloodied God

Here's a hymn.  Not sure it's finished - not happy with switch to first person in final verse.  Critique happily received (very new to this).

It fits with any common metre tune - maybe one of these: Worcester, Moravia, Martyrdom, Manoah, Leicester, Faith, Dundee, Dunfermline, Crimond, Cheshire. Burford, Bradford. Belmont

 

The glory of the bloodied God
His fruitfulness in shame
Stooped lower than all men have trod
In torment in the flame

The writhing worm, disjointed dry
Rejected from His birth
Thrust groaning into Satan's sky
Accursed by heaven and earth

Hell's blackest cloak enfolds with death
From Pinnacle to pit
To choke the Source of Living Breath
Extinguish all that's lit

The Mighty Man at war cries out
It echoes ‘gainst the sky
Resounding as a futile shout
Within a victory cry

Creation torn from Head to toe
His body out of joint
The Rock that splits is split in two
Creation to anoint

Our Jonah hurled as recompense
Into abysmal depths
The beast that swallows Innocence
Is swallowed by His death

Divine appeasing blood poured out
Divinely pleasing scent
While man appraises with his snout
Declares it death's descent

Crowned in curse, enthroned on wood
My God nailed to the tree
The reigning blood, that cleansing flood
Is opened up for me.

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Published on Leave a comment on Some more kids songs

Here's a song I wrote for a holiday club for 7-11 year olds. We called it Shipwrecked. 

We turned the church into a desert island and we were all washed ashore having run our ship aground.  The Captain had put us in charge of his incredible ocean liner - he'd built it with his son.  He gave us the wheel and said he'd see us when we got to Paradise Isle, all we had to do was sail straight.  Of course we chose to head off to Dead Man's Cove instead and we came unstuck.  Mercifully, the Captain decides to send his son through the treacherous waters to rescue us and bring us home.  The question is, will we trust the son?

We based the week around John 3:16 and had studies in John each day. 

One thing I really liked about the week was how sin was taught as unbelief.  Basically we taught about our dire position before God - shipwrecked through not trusting Him in the first place.  But then we taught salvation and then the big sin was rejecting the rescue.  On the final day we had one of the castaways deciding to stay on at Dead Man's Cove and make the best of it while others go with the son.  The order of teaching was essentially:

Creation

Fall (which was essentially caused by unbelief),

Rescue

then

Sin (as rejection of rescue) or Salvation (as receiving rescue)

I found this to be a refreshingly Johannine way of teaching the gospel.  Note how John 3:16 goes on:

16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 

There is a condemnation already for not believing in Jesus but it remains as we remain in unbelief (same thing in v36).  The question we are left with is not 'what have we done with the law?' but 'what have we done with the Saviour?'  See Jesus' definition of sin in John 16:8-9:

...when the Spirit comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:  concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

Sin is unbelief.  It's not, finally, the ins and outs of how you shipwrecked yourself on Dead Man's Cove.  At the end of the day, sin is your inexplicable preference for Dead Man's Cove over the Son, your Rescuer.

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Anyway, here's the song - sound's not brilliant but you get the idea.

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Going to a faraway country.
Sailing to a faraway land.
Captain say "See you in paradise,
I'll join you just as fast as I can."

But then we thought we knew better.
Then we thought to change our tack.
Then we sailed our ship into Dead Man's Cove
Don't think we'll ever make it back.

We are shipwrecked, Oh shipwrecked
Nothing here to make us smile
We are shipwrecked, o-oh shipwrecked
Stranded on a desert isle.

Captain send word to greet us.
Can't believe we went off track.
Now he send his son to meet us.
He said he's going to bring us back.

We are shipwrecked, Oh shipwrecked
Nothing here to make us smile
We are shipwrecked, o-oh shipwrecked
Stranded on a desert isle.

The son came a long, long distance,
Fight through many a trial.
He stood on the shore, said "Climb aboard,
I take you to paradise isle!"

We are rescued, O rescued
Covered in a beautiful smile
We are rescued, o-oh rescued,
Sailing now to paradise isle.

God so loved the world,
He gave His only Son.
Whoever believes in Him receives
Eternal life and shall not die

We are rescued, O rescued
Covered in a beautiful smile
We are rescued, o-oh rescued,
Sailing now to paradise isle. 

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Also, here's an arrangement of a three-part round to teach John 3:16.  It sounds quite good when you get all three parts coming together but the recording's just got me, so you'll have to try it out yourselves.

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Published on Leave a comment on Bible Overview

Go buy this book.

 

Okay it's one of the least inspiring book titles ever conceived, but it does exactly what it says on the front.

Steve Levy has written it with Paul Blackham.  It's 336 pages.  There are 11 sections:

What the Bible says about itself

Creation to new creation

Father Abraham

Redemption

Promised Land

Kings to Exile

Latter Prophets

The Writings

The gospels

Acts and the church

The church in Revelation

 

Loving what I've read so far.  I reckon this is the book I'll be giving to anyone wanting a grounding in Christ-focused biblical theology.

Here's a provocative paragraph early on:

"When you are reading any of the Old Testament books, whether Numbers, Leviticus, Kings or Chronicles, you are reading about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  You are not reading an illustration of the gospel, you are not reading stories that can be reinterpreted in the light of the gospel.  You are reading God's clear word about Jesus.  That is how the Bible sees itself."  (p22) 

I'm sure I'll be posting quotes as I go.  But seriously - go and buy this book!

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Published on Leave a comment on New Wineskins

Some thoughts generated from a sermon on Mark 2:18-3:6

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In Mark 1:40-2:17 we saw three stories about the people of Jesus' kingdom.  And this was the shock: The people of Jesus' kingdom are the lepers, the paralytics, the tax collectors and their spiritual equivalents.  Jesus calls sinners.  Sinners.  Not the righteous.  Jesus' people are not the people religion expects. 

In Mark 2:18-3:6 we continue with this revolution.  In these three stories the focus is on practices - in particular fasting and Sabbath observance.  And again, Jesus' practices are not the practices religion expects.

Jesus does not fit our religious moulds.  And so over the top of the three stories stands Mark 2:21-22 where Jesus gives us this mental image:

"No-one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no-one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."

People are looking at Jesus and struggling to fit Him into their way of thinking.  But Jesus is saying:  It's not that I don't fit into your religious expectations.  Jesus says I won't fit into your religious expectations.  It's impossible to contain Jesus within moulds that aren't already designed with Him at the centre.

Jesus and His practices are like new cloth and if you try to patch them onto any old cloth it will tear apart the garment.  Jesus and His practices are like new wine and if you try to contain them within any old wineskin it'll burst the thing apart.  Whatever spiritual forms that exist in Jesus' kingdom they must consciously and explicitly be oriented to Jesus Himself.  Christ refuses to be just one more ingredient in a human religion.  You can't just take a bit of this spirituality and a bit of that philosophy and add a twist of Jesus.  You can't take your own common sense, your own culture's moral code and then expect Jesus to fit in.  Jesus demands a complete revolution.  If we haven't already, we have to begin afresh with Jesus.

In Jesus' kingdom, if you fast, you fast because of Him (you experience the absence of your Bridegroom - the true meaning of the Yom Kippur fast).  If you feast, you feast because of Him (you anticipate the presence of your Bridegroom).  If you observe Sabbath you do so 'to the Lord'.  If you don't, that's also 'to the Lord' (Rom 14:5-9).  Whatever forms of spiritual practice that exist in Jesus' kingdom are to explicitly relate to the Person of Christ.

Now apply this to any spiritual practice.  The question is not whether nor is it which practices you perform, not in the first instance.  The most pressing question is why.  More specifically the question is how is Jesus Himself the centre of this practice?  Think, for instance of bible reading.  Is reading the bible a spiritual practice of yours?  Why?  Because that's what Christians do?  Because advancing the bookmark makes you more holy?  Well you've just stripped Jesus out of this spiritual practice and turned it into human religion. 

Jesus spoke to the religious of his day who clung onto the scriptures as an old wineskin, yet they had no place for Jesus:

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.  (John 5:39-40)

This is simply an extension of the wineskin principle to the Scriptures.  Without Jesus consciously at the centre of this practice it becomes an old wineskin - unable to cope with the reality of Jesus Himself.

Now of course the Scriptures, viewed truly, already have Jesus at the centre.  In the same way fasting and Sabbath, viewed truly, always ought to have had Jesus at the centre (hence Jesus' consistent appeals to the Old Testament in Mark).  But it's entirely possible that proper looking religious practices - even biblically mandated ones - can miss the whole Point.  The danger is always that we hold onto spiritual forms and neglect our spiritual Centre.

What spiritual practices do we need to re-examine in this light?

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Read the sermon here

Listen here

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Published on Leave a comment on Too far?

Is it too much to say "Jesus is the abolition of religion" as I did in my last post?

Thanks to Marc who commented with this:

Glen, this “religion” as a dirty word is tiresome and misleading, don’t you think? Jesus came to abolish man-made religion and false religion, sure. He calls us to true religion of the James 1:27 sort, no?

Here's a couple of thoughts in response:

You could say the same about "righteous acts" (Isaiah 64:6).  Should righteousness be a dirty word?  Well not when it's the LORD's clothing of me (Isaiah 61:10).  But when it's me clothing myself, it's a filthy rag.  

Now the point is not so much that there's bad religion and good religion and the LORD steers us from one to the other.  As He has just said in Isaiah 64:4 - He is unlike any other god since He works for those who wait for Him.  He is the abolition of this kind of working religion for He does the work.  This being the case, it's not simply that the LORD calls us away from establishing a filthy righteousness and into establishing our own pure righteousness.  To establish my own righteousness at all - even by God's law is filthy (cf Rom 10:3-4).  And this is what I mean by 'religion'.  And this is why I use strong language about it.

If this is so, then it could actually be misleading if I only decried one kind of religion.  It's not as though the gospel says 'Don't establish your righteousness like that, establish your righteousness like this.'

The religions of the world can squabble about which path to tread - the gospel comes from above, not as one more path but as the abolition of that quest.

Religion (defined in this sense) is man justifying man before a watching god.  The gospel is God justifying God before a watching man.

So there's something very radical to be upheld when we proclaim the gospel.  And we reach for strong language to do so.  We say things like "faith alone" and we say it strongly even though there are true and right ways in which James seems to deny them (James 2:24).  Strongly proclaiming "Faith alone" might appear tiresome or misleading to some - but we passionately stand behind that phrase knowing the explanations we'll have to make down the track about what James means and how 'works' is a redeemable word in certain contexts. 

Equally, when we say "the gospel is not about do but done" - we say that boldly even though we know we'll need to explain at some stage that there is much for the Christian to do. 

In the same way - to radically uphold the complete reversal of the gospel - I think 'Jesus is the abolition of religion' is in that kind of category.  It provokes people in such a way that they see the radical nature of the LORD who works for those who wait (rather than the other way around).  If it does that, then it's done a useful job I think. 

What do you think? 

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Published on Leave a comment on Jesus: the abolition of religion

Adapted from a sermon on Mark 1:40-2:17

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Jesus' teaching.  Jesus' followers.  Do you ever have trouble putting those two things together?

In a sense that's the problem the Christian faces as they seek to follow Him.  And it's the problem the non-Christian has as they look on.  How do Jesus' teaching and His followers go together??

Think about it.  With Jesus we hear righteous teaching like the world has never heard.  And yet, who flocks to Him?  The scum, the low-lives, the outsiders, the sinners.

Jesus teaches the hardest line on good living ever imagined.  He even says at one point "Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt 5:48).  Jesus raises the spiritual temperature to nuclear - and who flocks to Him?  Not the priests?  Not the religious types.  Not the goody goodies.  Those guys, in their long flowing robes are standing on the edges of the crowd, arms folded, plotting to destroy Jesus (Mark 3:6). 

The LORD Almighty walks around 1st century Palestine.  The Son of the Living God is calling His people and who is His entourage?  Unrighteous, disreputable outcasts.  It's a tremendous shock but it's at the heart of what Jesus came to do. 

As He says in Mark 2:17 "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  Jesus is the abolition of religion.  All human religion says "God calls the goodies not the baddies."  Jesus says "I call the baddies not the goodies."  Jesus is the abolition of religion.

The religious types stand on the fringes plotting to do away with Jesus.  But Jesus is at the centre doing away with religion.  These verses (Mark 1:40 right up until 3:6) are a fight to the death between Jesus and religion.  Religion is working to kill Jesus but Jesus is working to kill religion.

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To read the whole sermon go here

To listen go here

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Published on Leave a comment on Some Kids Songs

UPDATE 2016: Here are my most current kids songs. (Below is from 8 years ago)

 

I've been dipping my toe into writing Kids Song recently (see bottom of sidebar).  I've recorded them all as wma's on a little handheld speech recorder and the quality on every level is dodgy.  But some people have enjoyed them.  So...

Go here for my Jonah song featuring the greatest guitar chord ever: E7#9 (otherwise known as the Jimi chord).

And here's one called the Egypt Song.  I wrote it for some friends who were moving as a family.  The idea is that Jesus had to move to Egypt and back as a kid.  And now that He's moved to heaven, the One on the throne knows what moving's like.  That kinda thing.  I think we need to sing more about Christ's vicarious humanity and the ascension - so here's my attempt:

When Jesus moved to Egypt land
A long long time ago
His mum and daddy took him there
And so He had to go

When Jesus moved to Egypt land
The bad guys tried to chase
So they took Him down to foreign town
A very strange place

When Jesus moved from Egypt land
Back to Galilee
He had to make some brand new friends
And learn new ways to be

When Jesus moved to heaven's throne
He went there as our friend
He hears us when we speak to Him
He loves us to the end

So as you go to another place
You'll never be alone
The One who knows what moving's like
Is seated on the throne.

So when your scared or when your sad
You know just what to do
Tell your Friend upon the throne
Cos He knows sad times too.

 

Here's the audio.

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