Jesus is the Word of God
"God's in charge" - sure, so's a prison warden.
"God's got a plan" - mmm, so did Stalin.
Whatever pastoral comfort those sayings have (and occasionally they have some), the comfort does not come from the "in charge-ness" or the "plan". Sovereignty, in some absolute sense, is meaningless.
Everyone - theist or atheist - reckons some power is sovereign. Even if chaos reigns, something's on the throne, so to speak. The key question is Who?
Evangelicals believe in conversion. It's absolutely foundational. The human race is either in or out. We're born out. We need to come in through Christ.
But then, what are we coming in to? Because if you only think in terms of "in or out" then it might start to sound like the Christian community is the safe-house and the world is going to hell. And the church says: "Bring em in, batten down the hatches and ride out the storm." It's us against the world and the godly traffic is all heading towards the safe-house.
This sounds like the conservative Christian picture. But it's missing a key element. God.
You see God is out-going. The Father is a Sender - of His Son and Spirit. We need to be in. But we need to be in on the One who is ever going out. Therefore, with Christ, the church says: "Get on out there, reach into the world in order to bless." It's us for the world and the godly traffic is all heading towards the outsider.
We must, by all means, believe in conversion. But let's understand what we are converted to. We want people in, but we want them in on radical out-going-ness.
So it's not so much in or out, it's in on out.
In Australia I heard a worship song that was new for me: "There is no-one like you."
Not the Dave Crowder one. This one is, almost note-for-note, sung to the tune of "What if God was one of us." To the point where the urge to sing "...just a slob like one of us" became almost unbearable.
Do you struggle with other songs like this? I find it difficult not to break out with "Go West" on the rare occasions we sing "Give thanks". Other examples?
But actually "There is no-one like you" and "What if God was one of us" is an interesting juxtaposition. And quite a biblical one.
Since ancient times no-one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)
What is it that sets the living God apart from every other deity conceived by the imagination of man? This God works while we wait. That's the difference.
Every other god waits while we work. But this God works while we wait. "His own Arm works salvation for Him" (Isaiah 59:16). The Arm of the LORD (Isaiah 52:10) who is the Servant of the LORD (v13; 53:1) - He achieves our redemption for us.
When we think of the utter uniqueness of God, where do our thoughts take us? When we conceive of the transcendent glory of God, what do we imagine? And how biblical are those conceptions?
From "There is no one like you" so often we take a left and descend a flight of stairs to "God is just really, really, completely and utterly different." Ok, but then we cross a barbed wire fence and enter a haunted wood... "He's so totally other, we can't even begin to relate." And we continue wandering down such darkened paths with the especially religious among us revelling in the murk.
People take a similar journey when discussing concepts of "glory" or "holiness" or "transcendence."
Ah yes, now we're talking about the real Godness of God.
Indeed. But if God really is so different then it won't be obvious what that Godness consists in will it? Or don't you believe in His difference after all?!
You can't just take some bog-standard definition of deity, pump it full of steroids, and then call that "glory" or "holiness" or "transcendence". You'll have to study how this utterly different God shows Himself to be utterly different.
And - surprise, surprise - even His difference turns out to be different to how we'd imagined it. His difference is not in some alien detachment but in intimate engagement. His glory is not His self-obsession but self-giving. His holiness is not His shut-off-ness but His committed devotion. His transcendence does not keep Him from us, it's a transcendent love that moves heaven to earth to save.
There is no-one like this God. The God who comes as one of us. Just a Slob like one of us. Just a Stranger on the bus, come to bring us all Home.
That's what makes Him really different.
A sermon on 1 John 1:1-4
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
It was a good meal, good friends, good wine. People were relaxing around the table. One man seemed even more relaxed than the rest. We’re told that
23 the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to Jesus… Leaning back against Jesus, he asked Him a question… (John 13:23,25, NIV)
This is the Apostle John – the author of this letter. And the author of John’s Gospel as well. John remembers this night very well. He remembers leaning back against Jesus. And the Old King James version is a lot more literal about the closeness here, even if it uses old fashioned language. It says:
23 [John was] leaning on Jesus' bosom …
and in the next verse it describes him
lying on Jesus' breast … (John 13:23, KJV)
He’s laying his head on the chest of Jesus.
John was one of the younger if not the youngest disciple. And he calls himself “the disciple Jesus loved.” Clearly he felt completely at ease with Jesus – leaning back on his chest. Jesus had just washed their feet, He was teaching them about His Father and because it was Passover they would have been singing hymns around the dinner table. We can imagine throughout Jesus’ arm around His young friend as John leant back on Jesus.
John knew he could find rest and peace and welcome in the arms of Jesus. But he also knew just who Jesus is. You see John begins his gospel reminding us that this Jesus is God’s Eternal Word, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. The opening line to his gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word.” In the beginning was Jesus. Before the universe – Jesus was there. In fact He wasn’t just there, John chapter 1, verse 18 says Jesus was “in the bosom of the Father.” To use the old King James translation. In the beginning Jesus was in the bosom of the Father.
Jesus had enjoyed for eternity what John enjoyed for those few minutes. Companionable, contented, joy and love. That has always been Christ’s experience “in the arms of the Father” if you like.
And then, without breaking fellowship in any way with the Father, Jesus came down into our world as flesh. As one of us. Fully God and Fully Man. So that we might rest in His arms.
...continue reading "In the bosom of Jesus in the bosom of the Father – A Sermon on 1 John 1:1-4"
From Paul's brilliant Frameworks papers. Check them all out here:
Let’s begin with the question in the form that Socrates asked it in Plato’s Euthyphro.
The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.
Forgetting these pagan gods, we ask of the One Living God, do the Father, Son and Holy Spirit love goodness because it is intrinsically good… or is it that whatever they love is defined as good because they love it?
Do they define goodness or justice or truth or mercy or love… or are they defined by universal concepts of goodness, justice, truth, mercy and love?
Many people, at first, think that the Trinity love goodness because it is good. However, where did that definition of goodness come from if even the Father, Son and Holy Spirit follow it? It sounds as if there is a definition of goodness that ‘exists’ before and above the Living God! All qualities or ‘universals’ would then exist prior to [in a logical sense] the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We would need to first determine these ‘universals’ if we were going to get an accurate idea of the Trinity.
If we thought about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in this way, then we would have to find out which of these universals apply to the Divine Three. We would build up a ‘jigsaw’ picture of God by finding out which of all these ‘universals’ fit the Living God. God would then seem to be a collection of qualities or attributes.
This is not a solution that seems to do justice to the utter freedom and sovereignty and glory of the Trinity as revealed in the Bible.How can the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be defined by these other things?
How can anything stand over or define the Living God?
How can the Living God be described as a collection of attributes? ...continue reading "God and 'the Good' by Paul Blackham"
From Paul's brilliant Frameworks papers. Check them all out here:
Let’s begin with the question in the form that Socrates asked it in Plato’s Euthyphro.
The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.
Forgetting these pagan gods, we ask of the One Living God, do the Father, Son and Holy Spirit love goodness because it is intrinsically good… or is it that whatever they love is defined as good because they love it?
Do they define goodness or justice or truth or mercy or love… or are they defined by universal concepts of goodness, justice, truth, mercy and love?
Many people, at first, think that the Trinity love goodness because it is good. However, where did that definition of goodness come from if even the Father, Son and Holy Spirit follow it? It sounds as if there is a definition of goodness that ‘exists’ before and above the Living God! All qualities or ‘universals’ would then exist prior to [in a logical sense] the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We would need to first determine these ‘universals’ if we were going to get an accurate idea of the Trinity.
If we thought about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in this way, then we would have to find out which of these universals apply to the Divine Three. We would build up a ‘jigsaw’ picture of God by finding out which of all these ‘universals’ fit the Living God. God would then seem to be a collection of qualities or attributes.
This is not a solution that seems to do justice to the utter freedom and sovereignty and glory of the Trinity as revealed in the Bible.How can the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be defined by these other things?
How can anything stand over or define the Living God?
How can the Living God be described as a collection of attributes? ...continue reading "God and ‘the Good’ by Paul Blackham"
On the King's English I've been thinking about a triune creation.
It's really striking me how profligate is the triune God of grace. The Father, Son and Spirit bubble over in love. A unitarian god needs creation. And all relations between such a creator and its creature are quid pro quo arrangements. The triune God does nothing about of necessity. It's all about gift and free overflow.
We can genuinely say "You really didn't have to." And the Lord will reply, "I know, but I wanted to."
So my friend, whoever you are. Know in your heart: You are entirely unnecessary. Entirely. Unnecessary. You are a profligate extravagance, a superfluous addendum, a needless flourish. The Lord, His universe, His church, His kindgom purposes could so easily do without you. You are completely surplus to requirements.
And you say "I need to be needed! If my children don't need me, I'll fall apart. If my church doesn't need me, I'll crumble. If my work doesn't need me, who am I?"
But you don't need to be needed. You only think you need to be needed because you've forgotten you're loved. So let me remind you...
You are wanted. You are desired. And not for anything 'you offer.' You are surplus to requirements. But our God doesn't deal in requirements, He enjoys the surplus. He delights in you.
Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. (Eph 2:4-5)
You are entirely unnecessary, but utterly loved.
It would be tempting to think of theology as a two stage process. First a pure biblical scholar can dispassionately read off the meaning of the Bible through the use of objective interpretive tools. Then a systematic theologian comes to co-ordinate these propositions into a logically cogent order.
But Ben Myers writes brilliantly against such a conception. 'It's theology all the way down', he writes. Theological pre-suppositions and commitments necessarily guide and shape all Christian activity from exegesis to exposition to pastoral work, to evangelism to hospitality to everything.
And yet the idea that the Bible can be neutrally read is so tempting. We would love to conceive of revelation as propositions deposited in a handy compendium simply to be extracted and applied. Yet the Word is a Person. And His book is Personal (John 5:39). It's not something we judge with our double edged swords - the Word judges us. (Heb 4:12)
Now Jesus thought the Scriptures were absolutely clear. He never made excuses for theological error. He never gave even the slightest bit of latitude by conceding a certain obscurity to the Bible. He never assumes that His theological opponents have just mis-applied an interpretive paradigm. If they get it wrong He assumes they've never read the Scriptures (e.g. Matt 21:16,42; Mark 2:25)! So the perspicuity of the Bible is not in dispute.
But Jesus tells the Pharisees why they get it wrong - "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." (Matt 22:29) And, again, "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) They are wrongly oriented to the Power of God and the One of Whom the Scriptures testify - Jesus. This is not simply a wrong orientation of the intepreter but of the interpretation. Scripture reading must be oriented by the Power of God to the Son of God. Within this paradigm - a paradigm which the Scriptures themselves give us - the Bible makes itself abundantly clear.
But this paradigm is an unashamedly and irreducibly theological one. It is the result of exegesis (e.g. studying the verses given above) but it is also the pre-supposition of such exegesis. Theology is not the end of the process from exegesis to biblical studies and then to the systematician!
And yet, I have often been in discussions regarding the Old Testament where theologians will claim an obvious meaning to the OT text which is one not oriented by the Power of God to the Son of God. They will claim that this first level meaning is the literal meaning - one that is simply read off the text by a process of sound exegesis. And then they claim that the second meaning (it's sensus plenior - usually the christocentric meaning) is achieved by going back to the text but this time applying some extrinsic theological commitments.
What do we say to this? Well hopefully we see that whatever 'level' of meaning we assign to the biblical text it is not an obvious, literal meaning to be read off the Scriptures like a bar-code! Whatever you think that first-level meaning to be, such a meaning is inextricably linked to a whole web of theological pre-suppositions. The step from first level to second is not a step from exegesis to a theological re-reading. It is to view the text first through one set of pre-suppositions and then through another.
And that changes the direction of the conversation doesn't it? Because then we all admit that 'I have theological pre-suppositions at every level of my interpretation.' And we all come clean and say 'Even the basic, first-level meaning assigned to an OT text comes from some quite developed theological pre-commitments - pre-commitments that would never be universally endorsed by every Christian interpreter, let alone every Jewish one!' And then we ask 'Well why begin with pre-suppositions which you know to be inadequate? Why begin with pre-suppositions that are anything short of 'the Power of God' and 'the Son of God'? And if this is so, then why waste our time with a first-level paradigm that left even the post-incarnation Pharisees completely ignorant of the Word? In short, why don't we work out the implications of a biblical theology that is trinitarian all the way down? Why don't we, at all times, read the OT as inherently and irreducibly a trinitarian revelation of the Son?
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A Repost
6 Christ Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:6-11)
Divine humility. Sounds contradictory? You don't understand Christmas.
Jesus Christ, existing in the form of God, made a judgement. That's right. Before Christmas morning, Jesus took a decision. (btw, v6 is proof that it's ok to call the pre-incarnate Son 'Jesus' - but that's for another time...)
Now you didn't decide to get born. I'm guessing if you had been offered the chance to get born, you'd have taken it. But Jesus had to choose to get born. And I promise you, if you were in His shoes, you'd never have chosen what He chose. If you were in very nature God, surrounded by the worship of heaven, able to do whatever you pleased, you would not have chosen what Jesus chose. Because this is how Jesus considered things: Being in very nature God, He chose not to grasp at His power or to exploit it. Instead He chose total self-emptying. He chose servanthood. He chose to humble Himself. He chose obedience. He chose death. He even chose the death of the cross - lifted up as an accursed thing. That was Jesus' consideration - being the God that He was.
Question: Would you have chosen that?
Answer: No. Every day I fail to give up even the smallest of comforts. Let alone to give up my very life! Let alone to suffer godforsaken hell - and that for enemies! Would I have chosen this path? No!
Question: Well if Jesus did make this choice, did that stop Him from being in very nature God?
Answer: By no means! He is ongoingly, continually 'in very nature God'.
Question: Well then, is Jesus' self-emptying a major detour from His glory in the form of God?
Answer: No this is what equality with God actually looks like! This is the very expression of the Father's glory - not exploiting but emptying.
Since He is in the form of God so He took to Himself the form of a slave! And in this self-emptying He shows what true equality with God looks like. It looks like the crib and the cross!
Christmas morning and Good Friday are not detours from the glory of God. They show us that divine glory at full strength. In eternity Jesus made this consideration. He chose His history as the incarnate Servant to be that which truly expresses His equality with God. And the Father affirms this choice - hyper-exalting He who hyper-humbled Himself. And into all eternity we will gladly serve the Servant. (And don't forget, He will serve us! Luke 12:37!)
Implication: The baby in the manger, the victim on the cross - this is what it means to be in very nature God.
What is God's nature? Don't simply look to the crown. Look to the crib and to the cross. God's nature is disclosed as one of utter self-giving. Divine humility.
Glorious!
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A sermon by Darrell Johnson on this passage (one of my favourite sermons ever!)
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See other Christmas posts here.
And of course the ultimate Christmas sermon:
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZQcbjTRsA0"]
Continued from here.
UNITED TO THE GOD OF LOVE
INTRODUCTION
Jesus is THE Revelation of God. Not just the Best or the Final Revelation – THE Revelation.
If we want to know God, we need to begin again with Jesus and let Him reshape our vision of God.
When we do that we discover a God totally different to the Omnibeing of western imagination.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: He is full of the Spirit and Son of the Father.
Therefore Jesus reveals to us the Trinitarian God
Trinity is not a maths problem but a simple truth: God is Three Persons United in Love
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Wonderfully, through Jesus, we are invited into the God who is Love.
Jesus became what we are through the crib and the cross.
Believers become what He is as the Spirit incorporates us into Jesus.
We now participate in the Son’s union and communion with the Father
In Jesus we become children of the Father, filled with His Spirit.
Thus we are christs, sons of God IN Jesus – the Christ, the Son of God.
In the words of 2 Peter 1:4 we participate in the divine nature.
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THOUGHT STARTER
“Feelings are feelings, they’re neither good nor bad, what counts is what you do with them.” Discuss.
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...continue reading "Bacon, Bible and the Boys 4 – United to the God of Love"