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Category: Cross

Published on Leave a comment on Exodus 32

It was 3 days from the arrival at Sinai to law-giving. (19:11)

1 day later the blood of the covenant was sprinkled on the people (24:4)

6 days after that Moses enters the glory cloud on top of the mountain (24:16)

For 40 days Moses receives the instructions for the tabernacle (24:18)

So when Moses descends the mountain we have a kind of a Pentecost - a 50th day.

But it's a reverse-Pentecost.  The nations are repulsed (32:25).  3000 people die (v28), cf Acts 2:41).  And all because they didn't wait for the LORD (v1, cf Acts 1:4).

The people have always wanted (and needed) someone to go before them.  The Unseen LORD had promised His Divine Angel to fight at their head (23:20ff).  He was the One who had commissioned Moses (3:2) and brought them out of slavery (14:19) on eagles wings (19:4) to serve God Most High (3:12).  Moses and the elders have seen Him and eaten with Him (24:9ff).  Yet He obviously wasn't moving according to the people's timetable.  So in impatience they settle for counterfeits - a religious substitute for Christ.  (Notice the same sin again in 1 Samuel 8:20 - this time the Israelites seek a political substitute for Christ - one 'to go before them').

In contrast to the free and liberal giving for the tabernacle, Aaron demands offerings for his false gods (v2).  False religion is always compelled, true worship of the LORD is always free.

The plunder from the Egyptians (3:22; 12:36), instead of being pressed into the LORD's service, is made into a golden calf.  But this is idolatry no matter how much the LORD's name is invoked (v5).

Why a calf?  Well Psalm 106:19-20 clarifies that this is the calf of an ox.  Now when you put Ezekiel 1:10 and 10:14 together you see that cherubs are like oxen.  And we all know who the guardian cherub is (Ezekiel 28:14ff).  Here is worship of Satan!  Within a month of being sprinkled by the blood of the covenant and solemnly vowing to uphold it, while Moses is on the brooding fiery mountain with God Most High, here they are worshipping the devil.  Notice how "the LORD" is invoked in their Satan worship - a salutary lesson that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" is truly serving Him!

These people deserve the burning wrath of the LORD out of the heavens (v10; cf Gen 19:24).  But just as Moses had interceded for wicked Pharaoh (e.g. 8:8) now he intercedes for wicked Israel.  The LORD had called Israel "your people" (v7), Moses responds to the LORD - they are "your people" (v11) and implores the LORD to turn (shub) from wrath and have compassion (naham) (v12).  The LORD does indeed have compassion / is sorry but this is not the end of the matter.

Moses descends the mountain with the same burning anger as the LORD Himself (v19).

Through the priests he executes a judgement on the people - this is the Levites' ordination!  (v29) They have always been blood-thirsty men: "their swords are weapons of violence." (Gen 49:5)  When you came to a Levite to confess your sin, you were coming to a violent man with a sword.  As he plunged that sword into the animal substitute you would be left in no doubt that this blood-shed is precisely what you deserved.

But even after this blood-shed, Moses realises there's still a work of atonement to be performed:

I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. (v30)

Here's what he offers to the Father:

Blot me out of the book you have written. (v32)

He doesn't offer the blood of goats or bulls, he doesn't offer the blood of the guilty.  He offers his own blood - the blood of the innocent, the blood of a Levite, the blood of the people's ruler.

Would Moses himself be the promised Lamb to be provided on the mountain to make atonement?  Genesis 22:1-14 has been promising just this atonement for centuries - the Lamb on the mountain as a burnt offering.  And Abraham is certainly on Moses' mind (v13).  Would Moses be the One to make atonement?

No.  God Most High declines Moses' offer.  Instead He reminds him of His Angel - the true leader of the people (v34).  The true Warrior and Commander at their head was indeed going before them.  They must continue to wait for Him and to trust in Him.

One day He would descend from the heavenlies, the Divine Angel and Saviour, an Intercessor for the people, a Priest in the order of Melchizedek, the Ruler of rulers and a true Innocent.  He would be handed over to death by Levites, killed by piercings and blotted out of the Father's book.  And right there in bloody sacrifice the true God is on show for the whole world.  Not a golden calf.  More of a bronze serpent.  But this is the real God.  Every other god is a counterfeit.

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Published on Leave a comment on Gethsemane [Thawed out Thursday]

He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death."  (Matt 26:37-38)

He fell with His face to the ground and prayed.  (Matt 26:39)

"Abba, Father," He said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."  (Mark 14:36)

Being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:44)

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death  (Heb 5:7)

"My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done." (Matt 26:42)

Perhaps no bible story has had more impact on me than the account of Jesus praying in Gethsemane.  It haunted my teenage years especially.  It said to me: 'This is what honouring God looks like.  This is the epitome of religious devotion - overwhelmed to complete prostration, loud cries and tears, commitment to the point of death.'

And I attempted to emulate this.  Not in practical, daily 'thy will be done' service - no, no!  Instead I would attempt to re-enact Gethsemane.  I'd sneak out of the house at night and find somewhere really scary - a forest in dead of night was best.  And I would literally fall on my face and ask God to take my life, to make me His servant, to do whatever He wished with me.  (Of course I imagined that His wishes would be awful, dark and painful).

Nonetheless Gethsemane had taught me that this was the way and so I'd try (unsuccessfully) to work myself up into some kind of hyper-serious state of emotional sincerity.  I was massively aware that I was falling short of offering the required... what?  devotion?  gravity?  sacrifice?  Whatever was needed, I was painfully aware of lacking it.  But I made my dramatic teenage offering and waited for the results.  But no angel came to comfort me.  No spiritul blessing was poured out.  No command from heaven.  Just an overwhelming sense that heaven was silent and my devotion was clearly not sufficient to rouse Him.

And, over time, my response to this was 'God doesn't want me, I don't want Him.'  I wandered from Him for years.  But it was Gethsemane that brought me back.  Because all of a sudden I saw what should have been most clear all along.  I'm not at the centre of Gethsemane! I'm sleeping with Peter, James and John.  I'm the weak, flesh-driven, good-for-nothing follower who cannot stay awake even for one hour.  But Christ!  He prays to the Father.  He intercedes for His worthless, pathetic friends.  He offers to drink their cup.

And suddenly it all fell into place.  Christianity was not about me burying my face in the dirt for Him.  He buried His face in the dirt for me.  It's not about me stooping low enough to be worthy.  It's about Him stooping lower still because I'm not.  I don't offer my life to a silent heaven.  The Man of heaven offers His life for a silent, sleeping, sinful me.

Gethsemane is good news.  There's so much more to be said.  But perhaps it's said best by my favourite preacher on this my favourite passage:  Click here for Mike Reeves on Gethsemane.  Well worth the free registration!  Check it out.

Or here's a men's breakfast talk I did on the subject.

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Published on Leave a comment on Exodus 12:1-30 – Luke Ijaz

Luke Ijaz is a minister at Holy Trinity, Wallington. He recently preached this cracker of a sermon -  "Do not worry" - at Farm Fellowship.

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Read Exodus 12:1-30

The plagues had threatened the unravelling of creation (10:21), and in their wake a mighty empire had been brought to its knees.  There could not have been a person alive in Egypt who did not now know the power and the name of the true and living God (9:16).  And yet their Pharaoh would still not bow down and worship him as Lord.

One thing remained untouched by the enacting of these “wonders” through Moses: the human heart.   It is doubtful that the heart of any – Egyptian or Israelite – had been warmly affected and drawn to Christ.  More likely they were further embittered and made fearful – because all alike were still under judgement.

The LORD must now act in a very different way, if this nation and its inhabitants were not to be consumed completely.  He must perform the very greatest of his “wonders”: the one that will display most clearly his glory to the watching world…

You see, it would not do for Pharaoh to let the Israelites “go”.  Then the generations to come would be in praise of the king of Egypt as ‘the great liberator’; the reformed champion of human rights.    It is for the LORD to become their Liberator and save them when they are still utterly helpless.  Neither would it do for the LORD simply to take the Israelites by the hand and lead them out of Egypt.  Far be it from the LORD to show such unfair discrimination and favouritism!  For him to take for himself a people on the basis of arbitrary choice would have shown him to be a petty tribal deity – certainly not the Lord of the whole earth.  On what basis could the LORD make a distinction between Egyptian sinners and Israelite sinners (11:7)?

Indeed, a great distinction would be made!  The liberation that the LORD would bring about would mean far more than freedom from the darkness of Egyptian slavery.  The Israelites would be brought out into a dawn of a new day – a day so new that their calendar would need to be reset (12:3).  The hearts of everyone in the land would be cut at the deepest level – for good or ill – and in the process judgement would finally be pronounced on the gods of Egypt (12:12), and their stranglehold over the nation broken.  The people would be shaken to the core and truly new possibilities would open up for everyone.

Everything turns on the firstborn.  More specifically: everything turns on the death of the firstborn.  This death will be the fruit of wrath – the righteous anger levelled at a stubbornly rebellious humanity.  But the fruit of this death itself will be new life for a humanity that is perishing.  How glorious!  The Living God has made it possible for those whose lives are forfeit to be re-established.  Blood for blood, life for life.  Now the LORD can make that distinction between those who will turn to worship him and those who will not; between the Israelites and the Egyptians.

But even the Egyptians are not left without a witness to this gospel.  Christ – in his office of Judge (John 5:23) – passed through the land of Egypt that night and, among the Egyptians, “there was not a house without someone dead” (12:30).  Did any of them overhear the instructions that Moses conveyed to the Israelites, regarding the lambs and the blood on the doorposts?  They certainly failed to heed it.  So all the firstborn perished.

The next day the nation was mourning their loss.  And what a loss!  On the firstborn – the inheritors – hung the peoples hopes for the future.  Now, for a time at least, those hopes were cut short.  But why were any of them left alive?  “It should have been me that was taken!”  Yet these parents were acutely aware that the only reason they – and their families – were still alive was because the firstborn had been taken in their place.  For as long as living memory would endure, there was now in Egypt a witness to what is necessary to avert the LORD’s judgement.

In Israel the witness would need to last that bit longer.  Every year on the fourteenth day of the first month – Passover – they were to slaughter again a lamb at twilight, for all the generations to come.  They were never to forget that their security and life was assured only by the shedding of blood.  These evenings must have been emotionally charged as the family gathered around their table – the firstborn right there in their midst – ready to consume this meal.

“The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over” (12:13).

This was more than mere commemoration.  The Israelites could never afford to get smug or become complacent.  They needed the ongoing shelter of the blood.  But one thing that this annual sacrifice taught them by the very necessity of its repetition was its insufficiency.  After all, this was only a lamb that they were sacrificing – leaving them with a longing for something more final.

When Jesus came to share a final meal with his apostles it was at Passover.  But this time there would be a break with tradition and the meal would be celebrated in a new way.  No attention would be drawn to the lamb.  Why?  The words that Jesus speaks over the bread and the wine – “This is my body… this is my blood” – make it clear that he himself sits in the place of the lamb.  And this becomes all the more striking when we realise just who this Jesus is: the Firstborn of the Father, the eternal Judge.   The firstborn is about to die; the Judge is about to be judged.  “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

“Then the people bowed down and worshipped” (12:27b).  This is the first time in the book of Exodus that the LORD has received any worship from the Israelites.  Worship is now the only fitting response of those whose hearts have been warmed by all they have seen and experienced.  For the LORD has displayed to the watching world the greatest of his “wonders” – the glorious way in which he can liberate anyone, even the Israelites.

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Published on Leave a comment on Christ in the Wilderness 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

As we've noted, the temptations of the wilderness were a battle, not the whole war.  Luke 4:13 states, the devil left only to return at an opportune time.

What times were opportune?

Well in Matthew 16 we have another heavenly declaration of Jesus' identity.  This time it comes through the lips of Peter - "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (v16).  But as with the baptismal declaration, this would be immediately tested by the question, What sort of Christ?  What sort of Son of God will Jesus be?

Verse 21: From this time on Jesus begins to show His disciples that He must suffer and die.  As soon as His divine identity becomes clear like this, Jesus immediately seeks to combat our natural theology of glory.  He 'shows' them that He must suffer.  That's interesting isn't it?  He doesn't simply tell them, He shows them - obviously from Scripture.  For the bible has never revealed a theology of glory - it has always revealed the theology of the cross.  Jesus makes this plain.  And Peter, who one minute previously has been a mouthpiece of heaven (v17), is now a mouthpiece of hell.

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you."

Immediately Jesus recognizes the devil's assault:

"Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Peter thought the things of God were the things of power, prestige, safety and comfort.  Jesus says, No, those things are the things of men.  And, shockingly, the things of men are the things of Satan.

It couldn't be clearer could it?  Satan's way is the way of all men - the way of comfort, the way of self, the way of safety.  Christ's way (which is God's way) is the way of the cross, and He calls every follower to it (v24ff).

The next time 'temptation' is mentioned in Matthew is in the garden of Gethsemane (26:41).  Here again the way of the cross was brought into an agonizing contrast with the way of all flesh.  Would Jesus let the cup pass (v39)?  Would He save Himself or save us?  Again He resolved to let His Father's will be done.  This is not something different from His resolve to save us - it is precisely the same thing.

At His arrest, again the chance came for the angels to rescue Him (v53), but the Scriptures must be fulfilled (v54).  Both the Father and the Scriptures speak with one voice - the Christ, the Son of God must suffer and must die.  And Christ submits.

So as He pours out His life on that cross, here is the final 'opportune time'.  The religious leaders called out to Him:

Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, `I am the Son of God.'"  (Matt 27:40-43)

Do you recognize those words?  "If you are the Son of God" began each of the wilderness temptations.  Here is Satan again using his mouthpieces to offer Jesus a way out.  Contrary to Martin Scorcese's imagination, the last temptation of Christ was not some lustful fantasy.  It was the much more seductive, much more truly carnal, temptation to save Himself.  Thank God He resisted.  For He did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.

And when He died, the most unlikely man of all suddenly got it.  A Roman centurion declares: "Truly this was the Son of God!" (v54)

That's been the issue ever since the baptism.  What does it mean to be the Son of God?  Satan threw everything at Jesus to make Him live like Adam, like Israel, like every other son in the history of the world.  But Jesus refuses to live for self.  Instead He dies for others and in this astonishing reversal a power is unleashed.  There's life from the dead (v51-53) and the man most likely to love vainglory and flesh and the way of Satan is turned around.  Even in the eyes of this Gentile, the wonder of the cross becomes the definition of true Sonship.  This is a power to overturn the world.

Satan is crushed.

Part 5

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Published on Leave a comment on Three more thoughts on penal substitution

Further to the discussion here...

1. The early church taught a substitutionary, propitiatory, sacrificial death as the key to Christ's 'sweet exchange' with sinners.

e.g. For Irenaeus, Christ's filling out of Adam's distorted image necessitates a 'filling up of the times of his disobedience' (Ad. Her. III.21.1).  In taking on Adam’s substance, He took on Adam’s curse, satisfying it at the cross, ‘propitiating indeed for us the Father, against Whom we had sinned’ (V.17.1) and ‘redeeming us by His own blood' (V.14.3).

For Athanasius the curse of Genesis 2:17 is key.  The Word becomes incarnate in order to take a body capable of death “so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished." (De Incarn. 8)  Moreover this death is specifically a sacrifice (ch9; 10; 20) made under God’s curse (ch25).

2.  Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) cannot mean a disruption to the Father-Son love since God's wrath is an aspect of His love.  Perhaps if we thought that wrath was some other thing, divorced from love, then we might say that God's wrath poured out at the cross breaks the Father-Son union.  But no, if God is love and if this wrath is a reaction of love to the sin that Christ had become, then there is no danger of breaking the homoousios.

3. PSA means God saves us from God.  It says that the ultimate problem facing humanity is not death or corruption or sin or the devil but God Himself.  Sin is not our real problem - wrath is. We need to be saved from the Judge Himself.  And we can only be saved by the Judge Himself - the Judge judged no less.  Certainly Christ ransoms us from all those lesser powers (and therefore certainly there is a place for Christus Victor etc).  But that's not the ultimate meaning of salvation.  It's a divine curse, a divine judgement, divine wrath from which we must be delivered. PSA takes this with the seriousness it deserves.

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Published on Leave a comment on Atonement – keeping legal and familial together

There are the cold and clinical 'latins' who are all about the 'law court' and 'satisfaction' and 'penal substitution'.

And there are the warm and generous eastern types who speak of 'trinity' and 'adoption' and 'theosis'.

Or if you're on the other side:

There are the faithful and biblical evangelicals who remember God's 'justice' and 'wrath' and 'propitiation'

And there are the wishy-washy liberals (i.e. everyone who's not an evangelical) who never face the problem of sin and judgement.

So which is it?

Matt Finn's post and Sam Allberry's comment show the way forward.  The penal self-substitution of Christ (which is very clearly taught in the Scriptures) only makes sense with a strong doctrine of the Trinity and of union with Christ.  Only if the Crucified One is God Himself intercepting His own judgement, and only if I am crucified with Him does it hang together.

It's just a real pity that those churches that are strong on penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) are often weak on trinity and union with Christ.  And in that context PSA gets horribly twisted.  And so many who oppose it say to themselves "If it's PSA or the trinity, I'll stick with the trinity."

If that were really the choice then I don't think I could blame them.  But it's not the choice.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ...18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.   (Eph 2:13,18)

We've got to hold together the legal and the familial - PSA and trinity/union with Christ.

Perhaps we need to remember JI Packer's three word summary of the New Testament: "adoption through propitiation". And let's hold on equally tightly to both.

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Published on 5 Comments on The meaning of Eid al-Adha

from The Big Picture (see also many other fascinating photos)

Yesterday marked the beginning of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival commemorating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.  Muslims believe it was Ishmael who was nearly sacrificed.  But Genesis 22 is clear that Isaac, the child of promise, was the one to be sacrificed.   And he, the child of promise, was the one who Abraham received back from the dead.

The action took place on a mountain in the region of Moriah (Gen 22:2).  Mount Moriah was where the temple would later be built (2 Chron 3:1).  And so as they ascend this hill the father carries the tools of judgement - the fire and knife.  The son carries the wood.  He asks his father about the sacrifice.  "God Himself will provide the lamb" says Abraham.

On this occasion the Angel of the LORD intercepts the judgement. (v11ff)  He does so from heaven which is very odd for Him - usually He is more hands-on in His interactions.  But one day He would come in Person to this mountain.  And on that day He would intercept the judgement of the whole world.  He would be the Child of promise, the Seed of Abraham and the Lamb of sacrifice.  And on that day the Father would not spare His own Son but give Him up for us all.  (Rom 8:32).

In Genesis 22, a ram is provided as a substitute for Isaac (v13).  But of course, Abraham had prophesied that a lamb would be provided (v8).  And this prophecy was believed and proclaimed throughout the generations:

Abraham called that place "The LORD Will Provide".  And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

The true substitutionary sacrifice, the true promised Son, the true Seed of Abraham would die as a Lamb on that mountain in the region of Jerusalem.

Islam celebrates father Abraham, Ishmael and the sacrifice that saved him.  But this is not the true Eid - the true sacrifice.  All of this points to the true Father who did not spare His Son.  To the true Child of Promise who was willing to lay down His life and to the true Sacrifice that was provided for all.

Here's Mike Reeves explaining it in 10 minutes - an excerpt from a longer talk. (Thanks to Dave Bish for editing).

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Published on Leave a comment on God’s Glory In John’s Gospel

Jesus insists He will not glorify Himself, but His Father glorifies Him (John 8:50,54).  Glory is other-centred - even for God.

John 13:31 - "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified IN HIM."

Let's think about the 'Now'.  The Now is the cross.  The cross glorifies God.  This truth has two aspects, both of which need to be held together:

The cross glorifies GOD.

and

THE CROSS glorifies God.

The first is important, and we'll unpack its trinitarian character below.  But too easily we can trumpet the first without realizing the radical truth latent in the second affirmation.  The cross glorifies God.  God is glorified in His gracious, self-motivated, self-sacrificial, saving action.  Where the Son is lifted up in ignominy, in weakness, in apparent folly - there God is glorified.  What kind of God is glorified by this?  What is His glory, if this is it?  It can be nothing other than His incredible self-giving.

What else to say...

The Father is glorified in the Son and the Son in the Father (17:1-4).  This is an eternal, intra-trinitarian truth.  But it also flows out via the incarnate Son and through His work.

This eternal glory is displayed at the cross. (17:5,24)

It doesn't stand behind the cross, it IS the cross.

The cross is not a bridge or stepping stone to something else called glory.  The cross is the display of God's eternal glory.  Whatever Jesus brings us into at the cross, it is the eternal glory of God.

Can we begin to grasp this?  The cross and eternity, eternity and the cross - Jesus wants us to hold these things together somehow.

The glory of God is not simply locked up in eternity - not simply an impenetrable family secret between Father and Son.  It's not a banqueting hall replete in itself and Christ crucified is merely the door into it.  Christ crucified and the bride He would thereby win is at the heart of it.  The bride is certainly in by grace and not by nature - yet it is God's glory to include us in His eternal life.

John 17:10 - Jesus speaks of His church and says, "I am glorified in them."  (KJV)

Again we need to hold onto both sides of this:

JESUS is glorified in the church

and

Jesus is glorified IN THE CHURCH

Wow.  Just as the Father is glorified in the Son, the Son is glorified in His people.

Wrap your head around that one!  The eternal Christ is glorified in His Church.

Now obviously glory is not a something we give to Jesus.  As He says:

"I do not receive glory from men."  (John 5:41)

We've got nothing to offer in the glory stakes.  So then, how is Christ glorified in His church.  It must be because His glory simply is to give Himself to us in incarnation, cross and exaltation.  In this way He is glorified.  Because His grace is His glory.

We therefore participate in the divine glory.  How?  By receiving it.  (John 5:44).

And so we find ourselves on the receiving end of God's glory, which IS His trinitarian life overflowing in creation, salvation and judgement.

But not only does this glory spread out from Father to Son and Son to Church, such glory is meant to draw in the whole world:

"I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."  (John 17:23)

So then:

God's glory is the cross.

It is other-centred.

It is ecstatic ('ek' - out of; 'stasis' - where you stand) and eccentric (out of the centre).

It overflows to include us.

We do not add to it but it is His glory to make us part of it!

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Published on 38 Comments on Glory is not…

Glory is not a something that God gets.  Glory is the display of who God is. 

And this display, shining out from Christ and Him crucified, reveals the overflowing plenitude of God's being as Giver.

Glory is not what lies behind the cross (the cross considered as a veil or mere stepping-stone).  God's glory is this self-giving cross.

It's not 'the Giver gets the glory.'  It's - 'God's glory is His giving'

Glory is not what God gets.  God's grace is His glory.

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