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Published on Leave a comment on Creation and Salvation – Irenaeus and Athanasius 2

...continued from here...

To know Christ is to know the ‘one Lord… through Whom all things came and through Whom we live.’ (1 Cor 8:6).  Therefore, without a Christological doctrine of creation, it is not simply that Christ’s work will be incomprehensible, Christ Himself will be blasphemed.

Thus, against the heresies of the sub-Apostolic era, it fell to theologians such as Irenaeus (c. 130 – c. 200) and Athanasius (c. 297 – 373) to uphold the continuity of creation and redemption.  They were able to do so precisely because, for them, Christ and His work was not a metaphysical conundrum to be solved - how can the Creator-Word become flesh? Instead, the Word-become-flesh was the Rock upon which they built (cf Col 2:8f; John 14:6; Matthew 11:25-27; Colossians 1:15; John 1:18)

Trevor Hart makes this analysis of Irenaeus:

[he made] the person of the Incarnate Son his dogmatic starting point, rather than the dualistic framework provided by the categories of Greek thought.

(T. Hart, ‘Irenaeus, recapitulation and physical redemption’, Christ in Our Place, Ed: Trevor Hart and Daniel Thimell, Paternoster, 1989. p.179)

Athanasius’ starting point is similarly Christocentric:

The first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word who made it in the beginning.  (De incarn. 1)

These men were not concerned to hold creation and redemption together in an abstract sense (so as to keep a balanced theological ledger).  Rather their commitment to Christ as Beginning and End of all things forced them to think through creation and redemption as the one divine work of the One Divine Word.  The Bishops of Lyon and Alexandria were therefore able to maintain the coherence of creation and redemption in Christ and therefore to guard the gospel that still speaks powerfully today into our confusions.

To begin with, we will look at the confusions of their day as the context for their theology.

 

Heresies

The early Church was assailed on all sides by those who divorced their understanding of Christ and His work from their understanding of the creator God.  Those heresies which were most pernicious were precisely those which insisted on the centrality of Christ to redemption.  Yet immediately the question must be raised ‘Redemption from what? And to what? And by Whom?’

The answers given by Marcion (c.80 – c. 160) were disturbing.  Christ saves us from the Creator God of the Old Testament who is bad (viz. involvement with creation), capricious, legalistic and not the Father of Jesus.  The death of Christ purchases salvation and His soul’s rising from death gives hope for our own soulish afterlife.

The Gnostic, Valentinus (in Rome from c. 136-165), provided Irenaeus with his chief ‘whipping boy’.  He taught that the creator is not the Supreme Being but, as Irenaeus caricatures, ‘the fruit of a defect’ existing in a long chain of deity (the pleroma) which kept the created order at a great (almost by definition, unbridgeable) distance.  Christ is simply one emanation from this pleroma (lit. 'fullness') as opposed to the One in Whom all the fullness of God dwells (Col 2:9).  He came to save the true pneumatikoi (the 'spiritual') from this material world through imparting secret gnosis ('knowledge').

Arius (c. 250 – c. 336), was perhaps the most serious threat to orthodox Christianity because his account of Christ’s saving work was so apparently Scriptural.  The ‘what’ of the cross was set forth plainly.  Yet the ‘Who’ of the cross proved the decisive error.  Arius committed the fundamental mistake outlined in the introduction – that of deciding his doctrines of God, of man and of creation in advance of considering the God-Man Creator.  For him, the Divine Being is unitary and without distinctions, must be un-begotten, can have no contact with creation and can never partake in human (i.e. changeable) existence.  Of course he could subscribe to none of these views if Christ were his dogmatic foundation. Thus it fell naturally to Athanasius, whose Christocentricity we have noted, to defeat this terrible heresy.

All of these heresies fail, not only on the point of Christ’s identity but also on the goal of His redemption.  And such failures have contemporary echoes.  If God and the created order are necessarily incompatible then you may have an earthy salvation but not true fellowship with God (think of Islam where paradise is exceedingly carnal but a place from which Allah is conspicuously absent).  On the other hand you might have a spiritual future but only by escaping the creation (think of Buddhism or the new age movement).  But how do you have both?

You need to affirm what Irenaeus and Athanasius saw so clearly: creation and salvation are part of the one divine work of the one divine Word.

CONTINUED HERE

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Published on Leave a comment on Creation and Salvation – Irenaeus and Athanasius 1

Famously Adolf Von Harnack asserted in the History of Dogma that much of Christian theology betrayed the “work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel.”  Now to be fair, the old liberal didn't have much gospel himself but the observation has something to it.

On the one hand we have the Scriptures beginning with a very good creation, full of promises of land and seed and a Saviour taking flesh to renew heaven and earth.  On the other we have a Hellenizing spirit which pits body and soul, earth and heaven, time and eternity against each other.   When this spirit meets this gospel - and Harnack was right, this is a perennial danger - it always yields bad fruit.

But in this series I want to look at two towering exceptions in the history of theology - Irenaeus and Athanasius.  In their day they resisted ‘the Greek spirit’ and called the church back to the fertile soil of the gospel.  There they found the Fountainhead of those unities which escaped the philosophers of this age.  In Jesus Christ they saw creation and salvation held together as one work performed by one Word.  And from there flowed a unified account of all reality.

In our own day we would do well to hear their voices.  Because we too find it completely obvious to fall for the old dualisms.

In the realm of the body, we see self-harm and eating disorders, promiscuity and confusion over sexual identity, compulsive dieting and body-building, cosmetic surgery and gender re-assignment.  These are problems commonly found in the world but also in our churches.  We seem deeply uncomfortable with our bodily existence.

In the realm of the environment, we see the extremes of those who simply consume the earth and those who worship it.

In worship there are the ritualists who consider their sacramental practice to work ex opere operato and there are the low church minimalists running scared from anything physical.

And theologically, as we consider the relationship of creation and redemption, some mistake political harmony, social justice or economic liberation for salvation.  In reaction, some cut loose creation from salvation with an anti-physical gospel and an escapist eschatology.  And some will dissolve any final distinction between creation and redemption and opt for universalism.

In view of this, the proper co-ordination of creation and redemption (and its attendant co-ordinations of body and soul, time and eternity, etc, etc) is a vital task for us all.

Irenaeus and Athanasius are going to help us massively.  And they will help because they put Jesus Christ at the centre of their thinking.

More to come...

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Published on 1 Comment on Christ: Our Substitute and Representative

Mike Reeves talks about Adam and Christ in these great audios on sin and evil.  Once we frame creation and salvation as the story of two men we see things much clearer.

For one thing we're able to honour Christ not only as Substitute but also as Representative.  And we need both.

You see Christ drinks the cup so that - in one sense - we don't have to (Mark 10:38).  But in another sense we do drink the cup He drinks and are baptised with the baptism with which He is baptised (Mark 10:39).  He does die for us so that we do not face that same judging fire - this is His substitution.  But we also die in Him experiencing it as a purifying fire - this is His representation.

We tend to be good at 'substitution' talk but not so good at 'representation' talk.  Consider this fairly common way of conceiving salvation and judgement...

salvation-judgement1

Here the key players are the saved and the damned.  Christ is not in the picture.  But of course once we've set things up like this, Christ becomes extremely necessary.  But He's necessary in that the cross becomes the accounting tool required to balance the justice books.  Without the cross the story doesn't work.  So in that sense Christ is central.  But in effect, He's a peripheral figure only required because other factors are calling the shots.

When things are viewed like this, Christ is very much thought of as 'substitute' but not really 'representative'.  And, when the details are pressed, even His substitution will start to look very unlike the biblical portrait.

We need a better formulation.  We'll think of 1 Peter 4 and then tie this back to Adam and Christ.

In 1 Peter 4:17 it says that judgement begins with the house of God.  It doesn't say 'Judgement avoids the house of God.'  It begins there.  It begins with Christ, the true Temple of God.  It continues with the church, the temple of God in another sense.  But then it flows out to the world - God's house in yet another sense.

salvation-judgement2

Here humanity is judged.  And this is where Adam and Christ will be so helpful for us.

The LORD pronounces His curse on Adam.  And all humanity is in him.  "Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Rom 5:12)  It is a universal judgement.  No exceptions.  The only path to salvation is the path through judgement.

But Adam is a type of the One to come (Rom 5:14).  He was only ever setting the scene for Christ to take centre stage.  And He does so, assuming the very humanity of Adam as substitute and representative.

salvation-judgement31

Here centre stage is not occupied by the two bodies of people (the damned and the saved).  What's driving everything is the two humanities (Adam and Christ).  And the former is expressly a type of the Latter.  And the Latter expressly assumes the fate of the former.  So that in all things Christ will have the preeminence! (Col 1:18)

These diagrams were originally used in a blog post on judgement and salvation in Isaiah and for a sermon on Isaiah 2:6-22 (listen here).

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Published on 2 Comments on Feeling on top of the world? Hebrews 12:14-29

Hebrews 12:14-29 Sermon.  Audio here.  Text below.

Mountains are often thought of as spiritual.  A mountaintop experience is a spiritual experience.  People say they often feel closer to God or closer to spiritual things when they’re on a mountain.

And the bible begins in Eden which is described in Ezekiel 28 as “the holy mountain of God.”  Genesis 2 says that rivers flowed out of this mountain garden and down to the rest of the world.  So humanity began on high.  And the fall, was literally a descent down the mountain, away from God’s presence.

If anyone were to get back into God’s presence, not only would they have to get past the guardian cherubim, these angelic bouncers with their flaming swords barring the entrance.  They would have to ascend the hill of the LORD (Psalm 24).  And that’s just commonly the way the bible speaks.

The bible speaks of Jesus having descended from the heights.  And as He lived among us He lived the perfect life.  The life of other-centred love and sacrifice that you and I should live but don’t – Jesus did it.  And then He died the perfect death as our sacrifice for sins.  And then, when He arose, He ascended back into the Most Holy Place – heaven itself – and He went there as our perfect Priest.  We have a Friend in very high places.

That’s the argument Hebrews has been making for the last 12 chapters.  Jesus has come and lived our life for us.  He’s entered into the depths of our suffering and struggle and He’s lived the faithful life we never could.  But He did it FOR US.

And then He died the perfect sacrificial death on the cross.  And He did it FOR US.  You and I deserve to die in the depths because of our filth and uncleanness.  But His godforsaken death in the depths is counted before God FOR US.

And then He has ascended as the perfect Priest into heaven FOR US.  We don’t have the right to be in the holy presence of God, but He is there on our behalf.  He represents us in the highest place imaginable.

If we trust Jesus then we get joined to Jesus.  And His life is our life, His death is our death, His ascension to God is our ascension to God.

And after 12 chapters of this kind of argument, the writer says in this section: “Don’t you know where you are?  Do you have any idea where Christ has brought you?”

You are on the mountaintop.  You have reached the summit.

These verses are here to wake us up to our mountaintop experience with God.  And once we realize where we are – where Christ has brought us – then this passage will tell us how to move out into the world from these height.

That’s how we’ll study this chapter.  We’ll begin on the mountaintop.  We’ll appreciate where we are – secure on the high ground.  And then we’ll consider how we’re meant to walk out into the world

But first the mountaintop experience.

...continue reading "Feeling on top of the world? Hebrews 12:14-29"

Published on Leave a comment on Responding to sin [Thawed out Thursday]

How should we respond to sin in our lives?

One response is to think 'Come on Glen, I'm better than that.'

Another is to think 'Come on Glen, Christ is better than that.'

The first may produce a very moral life.  But the devil is more than happy to concede to you a Christ-less morality.  Self-righteousness is a far muddier swamp than unrighteous living.  I am not better than my sin.  I am not even better than the foulest evil I've imagined.

Instead, when I sin I am revealed as the person I've always been.  Psalm 51:5 has often struck me.  Here is David with blood on his hands.  Yet his confession is that the man who committed adultery and murder is the man he had always been.

We think when we've sinned that it was just a blot on our otherwise acceptable record.  The word of God says our sins simply express the person we have always been (Matt 7:17f). My gross sins are not 'out of character' - they are me with the hand-brake off.

No sin can shock me.  Not my own, nor the sins of my brothers and sisters who confess to me.  If the blood of God was shed for my sin (Acts 20:28) - then my sin is infinitely heinous.  No, I'm not better than sin.  But Christ is.

This is true in two senses.

First it's true in the sense that Christ is more desirable than sin.  In the wilderness of temptations, Satan can only offer me a bucket of salt.  Christ always stands before me with living waters (John 4:10; 7:38; Rev 7:17).  The father of lies tells me life is found in this sin.  Jesus tells me it's a broken cistern that can hold no water.  Only His waters are truly life-giving. (Jer 2:12-13)  I forsake even my precious sins because I have learnt that Jesus is more desirable.

But Christ is better than sin in another, much more important, sense. For He is the good person that I fail to be.  He is the reality that stands before the holy Father - not my sin.

My sin, though it clings to my bones and sinks to the depths of my heart, does not define me, Christ does.  When the Father looks to find me, He does not look in the record that stands against me (Ps 130:3; Col 2:14).  He looks to His Beloved Son and finds me hidden there.

Which means even as the diseased tree of my flesh produces in me the very worst fruit, Christ is my Plea, my Status, my Righteousness.  Even as the chief of sinners, even in the act of my worst rebellion, Christ - the One who is infinitely better - defines me and not my sin.

So Christ is better in both these senses.  But - and here's where this post has been heading - without being utterly convinced of this latter sense, the former sense could easily lead to a Pharasaism not unlike the 'I am better than sin' response.

How so?

Well if I respond to sin simply by saying 'Jesus is more desirable' it basically throws me back on myself.  I am left with my own heart and its ability to desire Jesus.  The work of annihilating sin becomes simply my work of destroying my heart idols.  The work of liberation is simply the work of my affections desiring Christ with sufficient ardour.  Where is the locus of this redemption?  Me.

Now do my heart-idols need crucifying?  Yes.  Do I need Christ uppermost in my affections?  Yes.  But by golly, if I found it hard to reform my outward behaviour - how hard is it going to be to reform my inner world??!  Impossible.

So, you say, that's why we need the gracious work of the Spirit and diligently to employ the means of grace, etc, etc.  Well... there's a time and a place for that.  But let's think.  If that's our bottom line, doesn't it sound exactly like the Catholic view of grace?  "It's all of grace" says the Catholic "... supernatural, infused grace worked in us, with which we cooperate, making us better and better over time."  Doesn't that sound very similar to "We fight sin by enflaming our affections for Christ - flames stoked by the Spirit via His means of grace"?

It's not that there's no place for the 'Christ is more desirable' approach.  It's that we must recognize it's true place - i.e. after we're assured of the extrinsic work of Christ.  "Grace" is not basically a supernatural empowerment to work at my salvation or to enflame my Christian affections.  "Grace" is the work of Christ alone on behalf of sinners who contribute nothing.  (This is similar to the points I made here - grace is not so much the bread David provides as the victory David wins).

Therefore my first reponse to sin is this - even in the very midst of sin, Jesus has been carrying me on His heart before the Father.  Even ensnared in the darkest selfishness, the Spirit has been calling 'Abba' from within me.  Even as my heart desired worthless idols, the Father loved me even as He loves Christ.

This is the truth that really changes us.  It reveals to us that not even our sin can separate us from the love of God in Christ.  We realize again that our darkness is not a locked basement to the Lord.  Even our self-willed rebellion cannot remove us from His embrace.  We sin in His face - this drives us down in contrition.  And at the same time He is lifting us up to the Father.

The truth that really changes us is that our lives are not our own.  Jesus has taken possession of us in spite of ourselves and wills to do us eternal good.  The Spirit of sonship is already praying 'Abba' in you.  The affections you are so keen to enflame are already ablaze - and that, even as you quench Him!

Now surrender. Now be conquered. Now receive what is entirely beyond you.  And see if you don't love Him with renewed and supernatural vigour!  But don't begin with your heart for Christ.  Begin with His heart for you.

We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

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Published on 31 Comments on This is The Man’s world

Mike Reeves on a theology of music:

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

ht Dave Bish - click for more resources and good comments.

His basic point is that Christians are generally pretty atheistic when they think about the world around us.  We readily think that Christian truth is a gloss that we apply to the blank sheet of 'nature'.  But no, this is the Lord's world.  Therefore we should be looking to all things (music included) to tell us the gospel of Christ.

After these mp3s, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I listened to a sermon in which the preacher tried a bit of a theology of everything himself.  He remarked, "I'm not sure why we sleep.  I think it's to do with God teaching us humility.  Keeping us inactive for 8 hours a day teaches us who's boss."

Really?  Is that the best he can do?

Which made me think - everyone has a theology of everything.  It's just that they don't often have a gospel theology of everything.  For this preacher, the natural world preaches the bigness of God and the smallness of man - which featured in his preaching much more than the actual gospel.  Strange to think that 'death and resurrection' didn't occur to him...

Anyway, that's by the by.

Enjoy the mp3s!

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Published on 31 Comments on This is The Man's world

Mike Reeves on a theology of music:

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

ht Dave Bish - click for more resources and good comments.

His basic point is that Christians are generally pretty atheistic when they think about the world around us.  We readily think that Christian truth is a gloss that we apply to the blank sheet of 'nature'.  But no, this is the Lord's world.  Therefore we should be looking to all things (music included) to tell us the gospel of Christ.

After these mp3s, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I listened to a sermon in which the preacher tried a bit of a theology of everything himself.  He remarked, "I'm not sure why we sleep.  I think it's to do with God teaching us humility.  Keeping us inactive for 8 hours a day teaches us who's boss."

Really?  Is that the best he can do?

Which made me think - everyone has a theology of everything.  It's just that they don't often have a gospel theology of everything.  For this preacher, the natural world preaches the bigness of God and the smallness of man - which featured in his preaching much more than the actual gospel.  Strange to think that 'death and resurrection' didn't occur to him...

Anyway, that's by the by.

Enjoy the mp3s!

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Published on Leave a comment on True Guilt, True Cleansing – Hebrews 10:1-18

A sermon on Hebrews 10:1-18. 

Audio here (recording failed at church, re-recorded at home).

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

Lady Macbeth’s line is one of Shakespeare’s most famous.  In the first act of Macbeth she helps her husband to murder the King and by the end of the play she is in mental torment and eventually takes her own life.  In her final scene she is before a doctor and cannot cleanse her conscience.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!... who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?   ...What, will these hands ne’er be clean?...Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

The Doctor says

What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charg’d. ...This disease is beyond my practice.

Shame and guilt is a disease.  And it’s a disease beyond the practice of 17th century doctors.  It’s beyond the practice of 21st century doctors.  Cleansing away our guilt and shame is beyond every power on earth.

But it’s what this chapter is all about.  Verse 2 – it’s about being cleansed and no longer feeling guilty for our sins.  Verse 3 – it’s about not being reminded of our sins.

Instead, v10, it’s about being made holy.  Verse 11, having our sins taken away.  Verse 14, being made perfect.  Verse 17 – our sins and lawless acts remembered no more.  Verse 18 – it’s about forgiveness.

It’s a passage all about sin and shame, cleansing and forgiveness.  It’s a passage about whether your sins are forever remembered, or forever forgotten.  It’s a passage about guilt.

Do you feel guilty?

Now as I ask that question there’s a big danger.  Those who should feel guilty, often don’t.  And those who shouldn’t, often do.  So as I ask “Do you feel guilty?” there will be some of you who, personality wise, are virtually impervious to feeling ashamed.  You’re just you and that’s the way you are.  And there’ll be some of you who, personality wise, almost never feel anything but guilty.  Our feelings about guilt are so unreliable, which is why this chapter is so helpful.  Because this chapter will help us to make sure our feelings are anchored in reality, and not just in personality.

But so long as we’re aware that there’s such a thing as false guilt – and that’s wrong – what about true guilt.  Do you feel guilty?

You know there’s a trick that preachers can pull to make you feel guilty.  We can confess to one or two old sins of ours that are embarrassing and we can say – “I’m sure you’ve got embarrassing sins that you keep locked in your basement too, don’t you?”  And I could make you dwell on your past right now and there’d be a handful of things in your past for which you felt shame.  And it would usually be that misuse of alcohol, or that misuse of sex, or that misuse of a friend, or those words you said that you would immediately bring to mind.  Now if you are wracked with guilt about individual sins listen in to this chapter because there is liberation from all guilt here in Hebrews 10.  But the guilt we’re mainly talking about in this chapter is not about that one sin or those half-dozen sins, or even those wilderness years of back-sliding.  The guilt we’re talking about is the all-pervading knowledge that in myself, I am utterly unfit for God’s presence.

Because the context for these 18 verses is all about “drawing near” to God.  It’s not the guilt that comes when you’re doing the washing up and you remember that awful thing you did.  It’s the dread feeling of being summoned, not just into the Headmaster’s office, not just summoned before a magistrate, but summoned before the Judge of all the world.  This is about the problem of guilt not just because it causes unpleasant feelings, but it’s about the problem of guilt because we are summoned into God’s presence.

Look at the last six words of verse 1 – we’re talking about “those who draw near to worship”.  And in v22 he tells us the outcome of all this teaching: “[therefore]... let us draw near to God.”

Drawing near to God is mentioned 7 times in Hebrews.  And at the same time, chapter 10 verse 31:

It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Draw near – but if you happen to be His enemy it’s a dreadful thing.  Draw near – but, chapter 12 verse 29 – our God is a consuming fire.  Draw near – but He is a furnace of goodness, beauty, truth and holiness.  But draw near.

The kind of guilt we’re talking about in Hebrews 10 is the knowledge that when we’re summoned into the presence of the consuming Fire, we’re not up to it.

...continue reading "True Guilt, True Cleansing – Hebrews 10:1-18"

Published on Leave a comment on How to despise yourself

From the very first verse, Job is presented as a blameless and upright man.

The LORD is proud of Job's matchless virtue (1:8; 2:3).  Job fears God and shuns evil.  And even when calamity falls he does not sin by cursing God (1:22; 2:10).  Instead, through all his laments and complaints, the LORD is still able to conclude in chapter 42 and verse 7 that His servant Job has spoken what is right.

And yet, in the verse immediately preceeding this Job has just said:

I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:6)

Uh-oh, we think.  Someone's got self-esteem issues!

But no.  In fact Job hasn't been esteeming himself at all.  He hasn't been contemplating himself.  This is not the fruit of meditating on his sins or even on his sufferings.  He hasn't been berating himself because he's a stupid, fat, ugly, unpopular, awkward, friendless failure.  He hasn't had a thought about himself for four solid chapters.

Because for four solid chapters he has borne the brunt of the LORD speaking out of the tornado.  Job's eyes have been dramatically lifted from himself and fixed on this Warrior Creator Commander called Yahweh.  He has experienced the LORD's unanswerable wisdom in surround sound.  And so in verse 5 Job summarizes exactly where his self-appraisal has come from:

5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."  (Job 42:5)

“I despise myself” says Job.  By comparison with the LORD – upright Job falls flat on his face, confesses himself to be a sinner and says “I despise myself”. And that's a good and right and true and psychologically healthy thing to do.  Not that Job wondered to himself "What would be the correct response to meeting my Maker?" It just came out.  But as it came out it was extremely healthy.

Now there is a wrong despising of self.  There is someone who is not looking at the LORD at all.  Instead they look at themselves.  They are self-absorbed and with their gaze fixed firmly on their belly-button they are despising themselves.  We’ve all been there to some degree or another.  And it’s wrong.  But mainly it’s wrong for where the self-hater is looking.  The object of their gaze is the issue - they must get their eyes off themselves.  Then, when looking to Christ, a true appraisal of self will follow - they are (in Tim Keller's words) more wicked than they had ever realised but more loved than they had ever dreamed.

So there is a wrong despising of self - it's when you’re focussed on yourself.

But... there is a right despising of self – when you’re focussed on the LORD.

Isaiah has a similar experience.  In Isaiah 6, he sees Jesus in the temple seated on the throne (cf John 12:30f), high and lifted up, the angels are calling out ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, the temple is shaking, smoke is everywhere and Isaiah cries out:

5 "Woe to me!  I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Isaiah wasn’t feeling particularly sinful that morning.  He wasn't running through a list of his prior misdemeanors.  No-one was reminding him of past sins.  Isaiah felt no guilt at all that morning... until he saw the King.  Then he said “Woe to me, I’m ruined!”

Or think of Peter fishing with Jesus in Luke chapter 5.  He’s in the boat with the LORD of Isaiah chapter 6.  And they have a miraculous catch of fish. And Luke 5 verse 5 says:

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"

Peter confesses to being a sinner when he sees the glory of Jesus.  Peter hasn’t just remembered some sins from his murky past.  He’s not even thinking about his sins, he is simply looking at Jesus and saying “I do not match up.”

Of course the ultimate place to look to find a true estimation of yourself is to Christ crucified.  That's the sinner's fate.  And that was your death - you died with Christ, the old man crucified.  You will never be able to feel your way towards this verdict.  Preachers, no matter how keenly they focus on individual sins you've committed, can't whip up this sentiment.  And turning to yourself in order to work it up is itself sinful.  Instead I look to the LORD high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1 <=> 52:13).  I allow the cross to be God's verdict on me.  I am co-crucified with Christ and therefore reject the old self completely.  And yet

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

The true and right self-hatred is fundamentally to allow the cross to be God's verdict on the old you.  And your true and right self-appreciation is not gained by trusting in the new you.  No, the life you live in the flesh you live by faith in the Son of God.  Trust His love for you shown decisively right when you were most hateful.

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Published on Leave a comment on Sin is not the problem [Thawed out Thursday]

I was once in a preaching seminar with 15 other young guns.  We were being taught by someone you might call a living legend.  One session I remember was on how to preach Romans 3:21-30.  The point came when the living legend asked us what we thought the application should be.  Now aside from my various misgivings about application I reasoned to myself that if an application was there in the passage it was probably worth flagging up.  I looked down and sure enough I saw what I thought was a pretty clear ""application"" of Paul's teaching:

Where then is boasting?  It is excluded. (v27)

So I stuck up my hand and suggested that the application might be humility.  More particularly it seemed that, since Christ had taken the work of salvation entirely into His own hands (and out of ours), we ought gladly to shut up about ourselves, our morality, etc etc.

"Wrong!" said the legend.  "The application should be 'Repent!'"

"Oh", I said. "Why?"

I immediately regretted asking 'why.'  Dagnammit we're evangelicals, we're supposed to preach repentance, it's union rules.  Besides, I don't want to appear soft in front of the 15 other young guns and this living legend!  The legend was more than a little irked by my question and replied: "Because, dear boy, verse 23 says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Sin is the problem, therefore I would have thought that repentance would be a very good idea!!"

You might be surprised to learn that I didn't answer back to this one.  Oh I wanted to.  But judging by the alarm in the legend's voice and the mood of the room it felt wise not to imperil my standing any further among such sound folk.

But sometimes I fantasize about what would have happened if I'd said what I really thought.  The fantasy goes something like this:

I stand slowly, deliberately, with all the solemnity of the lone prophet.  All eyes are upon me as I bellow with righteous ardour:

"Sin is not the problem!   S i n   i s   n o t   t h e   p r o b l e m !!!"

All hell breaks loose.  Outrage.  Pained howls.  Torn garments.  Hurled stones.  I stand immovable.

"... Sin is not the problem... God's wrath at sin is the problem!  No... better... God's wrath at us in our sin - that's the problem!"

At once they are felled by Truth as by lightning.  Cut to the heart, the stones drop to the floor first, then the men.  One by one they slump to the ground, the hand of the LORD heavy upon them.  In breathless awe they ask: "Brave herald, what is this teaching you bring us?  It resounds from the very heights of Zion against our presumption and folly."

Sporting a fresh cut across my chiselled jawline, I am otherwise unruffled.  Ever magnanimous I continue:

"Dear friends" (the dust in the air has now leant a husky tone to my rich, commanding voice). "Dear friends, let us not define our predicament so anthropocentrically."

I leave this dread word hanging in the air.  The mere mention of 'anthropocentric' elicits groans from the already contrite gathering.  Here was their shibboleth used against them.  It stung.

"I commend you friends..."  They look up nervously - could there yet be grace for them?  "...While many have merely scratched the itch of the modern age, you have refused to pander to felt needs. You have proclaimed the problem of sin and for this I commend you."

I pause.  "And yet... and yet... you have defined the problem so poorly, so slightly.  You have defined the problem from below.  If we define the problem as something lying in our hands then aren't we at least suggesting that the solution is in our hands?  But in fact the problem is above us - just as the solution is.  The problem is not fundamentally our sin, the problem is the Lord's wrath upon us."

"What's the difference?!" cries out one of the younger preachers, "Our sin, God's wrath, it's all the same..."  He is hushed by the legend who slowly shakes his head.  It is clear now how wrong he has been.

He stands, still shaking his head, unable to look at me or the others.  Eventually he speaks, "Glen's right. He's always been right!"  The great one looks like he's been hung from the ceiling on meat hooks.  He exclaims,

"You must understand...  We faced such terrible dangers in preaching.  We still face such dangers.  I wanted, we all wanted, to resist the me-centred pulpit.  I was so sick of hearing about 'filling the Jesus-shaped hole in your life'.  I couldn't stand the invitations to 'let Jesus into the passenger seat of your life'.  I wanted people to turn.  I still want people to turn."

I put a re-assuring hand on his shoulder. He meets my eye for the first time and continues.  "I just thought, if we can show them that 'fulfilment' isn't the issue - that sin is the issue, well then maybe they'd come to their senses.  Maybe they'd see their errors and turn from them."

I give a look to the legend, he nods, "I know, I know, that's the problem."

"What's the problem?" asks one of the young guns.

The legend sighs deeply and turns to the others.  "It puts the focus on us.  If we just preach sin and repentance the whole focus is on us."

"It's anthropocentric" mutters a young gun, latching onto his favourite word.  He looks around to see if anyone else has noticed his firm grasp of the issues.

"I don't get it" another pipes up, "I thought sin and repentance was God-centred preaching?  Isn't that what you taught us??"

The legend is speechless.  I break the silence.  Crouching down to their level, I ask, "If we simply preach sin and repentance how exactly is God at the centre?  He may well be over and above our conceptions of sin and repentance - but how is He in the middle?  In such a sermon isn't God actually on the periphery?  He's hardly the principal Actor!"

At this stage the one who muttered 'anthropocentric' is nodding in the way failed quiz-show contestants nod when they're told the right answer.

I go on, "It's like our passage from Romans 3.  Sin is certainly there!  Sin is certainly a problem.  I mean we've been told from verse 9 that all are under sin.  And we've been told in verse 20 that observing the law will never get us out from under this condition.  But given that this is the case, wouldn't it be strange if Paul then told us that 'repentance' was this new work - better than the old Mosaic works?  Actually Paul doesn't mention any of our works in this passage, not our obedience, not our repentance.  No, what does Paul point us to?  Verse 25, the blood of Jesus - a propitiation for our sins.  Now we all know what propitiation means right?"

Young noddy blurts out "A sacrifice that turns away God's wrath!!"  I gesture with my hands to calm him.

"Ok, yes. Well done.  It turns away God's wrath.  Because that's the real problem.  The problem is, chapter 1 verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against us.  It will culminate in, chapter 2 verse 5, a day of wrath.  And Paul is at pains to say we all deserve it, we are all unrighteous and there's nothing moral and nothing religious we can do to turn aside this wrath.  We are helpless.  BUT, a righteousness beyond us has come.  And He is the sacrifice who turns away God's wrath.  Through His redemption we are justified freely.  That's the gospel.  That's what we preach.  And who is at the centre of this story?  Not us.  Him."

"So we shouldn't preach sin and repentance?" asks another.

"Of course we should.  But those are comprehended within a much more profound perspective.  Wrath and redemption are the deeper truths.  You know I'll bet that all the sermons you hear are about committed sin and sanctification?  You know the kind.  'God says: Don't do X, we all do it, let's ask His help to stop.'  Where are the sermons that major on original sin and justification?  Why don't we plunge them to the depths and then take them to the heights?  Why all this middle of the road stuff that puts us at the centre?"

A couple of young guns knowingly mouth 'anthropocentric' to one another.

I continue "Take Islam.  It's a classic religion of repentance.  God remains far above, it's down to us to clean up our act.  In fact all human religion is man justifying man before a watching god.  But the Gospel is God justifying God before a watching humanity.  He takes centre-stage and we need to move off into the audience to watch Him work salvation for us.  Christianity is not a religion of repentance, it's a religion of redemption.  And that's quite a difference don't you see?"

As I speak, the young guns have been picking themselves off the floor one by one.  The room has been won to the side of Truth.  I look upon them with fatherly benevolence.

"So my friends - now that you know these things: What would be a good application of Romans 3?"

In unison they reply "Humility!"  And for a moment all is right with the world.

Until the harmony is shattered.  One of the young guns speaks up:

"Hey, if humility is so important, how come you're so proud?"

The mood of the room takes a decisive turn.  Another piles in "And how come you've been dreaming us up for the last 10 minutes to feed your ego."

Here's where the fantasy turns pretty nasty.

"What kind of egotist spends his time winning theological debates in his head??"

"Yeah, debates he never actually won in the real world!"

"I think I know 'Where then is boasting?' - he's standing in the middle of the room!!"

At this point the fantasy is basically unsalvagable.  So then, I hate to do it, but sometimes you just have to pull rank.

"Quiet all of you!  This is my fantasy.  Either you submit adoringly to my theological genius or get out now."

Faced with those options they instantly choose non-existence.  One by one they vanish, though somehow their looks of betrayal and disgust seem to linger on.

"You'll be back" I say to the departed phantasms.  "Pretty soon I'll need to feel right about something else and you'll be right back in my imagination, bowing to my unquestioned brilliance.

"Ha!" I say.  The laughter echoes around my empty head.

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