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Published on Leave a comment on Quotes on the New Birth

Many of these come from a helpful article here.

The evangelist D. L. Moody once addressed a group of church workers. After the meeting he was confronted by an angry woman who said, "Mr. Moody, do you mean to tell me that I, an educated woman, taught from childhood in good ways and all my life interested in the church and doing good, must enter heaven the same way as the worst criminal of our day?" "No, madam," said Moody. "I don't. God does. He says everyone who would enter heaven, no matter how good they think they are, or how well educated, or zealous in good works, must be born again."

You don't need Jesus Christ because you are a drunkard. You don't need Jesus Christ because you take drugs. You don't need Jesus Christ because you lie. You don't need Jesus Christ because you cheat on your income tax. No. You don't need Jesus Christ because you do bad things...Whether you have done any of these things is irrelevant. You need Jesus Christ because you were born without the life of God. That makes you a sinner. You don't have God's life in you.

-- Converted gang leader Tom Skinner (Words of Revolution)

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Bishop John Taylor Smith was one-time Chaplain General of the British Army. He was preaching on one occasion in a large cathedral on the necessity of the new birth. In order to drive the point home he said, "My dear people, do not substitute anything for the new birth. You may be a member of a church, even the great church of which I am a member, the historic Church of England, but church membership is not new birth, and 'except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" The rector was sitting on his left. Pointing to him, he said, "You may be a clergyman like my friend the rector here and not be born again and 'except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" Also on his left was the archdeacon in his stall. Pointing directly at him, he said, "You might even be an archdeacon like my friend in his stall and not be born again and 'except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' You might even be a bishop, like myself, and not be born again and 'except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'"

A day or so later he received a letter from the archdeacon who wrote: "My dear Bishop: You have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over thirty years, but I have never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. I never could understand it. Mine has been a hard, legal service. I did not know what was the matter with me, but when you pointed directly to me and said, 'You might even be an archdeacon and not be born again', I realised in a moment what the trouble was. I had never known anything of the new birth." He went on to say that he was wretched and miserable and had been unable to sleep all night, and begged for a meeting, if the bishop could spare the time to talk with him.

"Of course I could spare the time," said Bishop Smith, "and the next day we got together over the Word of God and after some hours we were both on our knees, the archdeacon taking his place before God as a poor lost sinner and telling the Lord Jesus he would trust him as his Saviour. From that time on, everything has been different."

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"I came to Christ with a big bang and Jim came with a slow burn.

-- One woman's description of her conversion experience in constrast to her husband's.

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"If God saves souls in a quiet way I shall be happy; if in the midst of cries and tears, still I will bless his name."

-- Robert Murray McCheyne

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A teenager, who had been well hooked into the drug scene, but who was converted during a Billy Graham Crusade in Minnesota, described his experience:

I felt like loving everybody. It was like on a hot day and you are dirty and take a shower, only I felt the shower was on the inside and it was even more than just getting the mud washed away, it was like something else came in.

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When you cross the border from Switzerland to Italy the scenery doesn't become Italian - it's still alpine in fact. It is only as you go further into Italy that slowly the snow gets left behind and the sun gets warmer and it becomes obvious you are in a different country. The border represents the moment of decisive change from one nation to another, but only as you press on into the new country can you expect to discover just how different it really is.

-- Cliff Richard(!)

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It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We're like eggs at present. And you just can't go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must either be hatched or go bad.

-- CS Lewis

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"During my first week of office as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland when I presided at the Assembly's Gaelic Service, a highlander asked me whether I was born again, and when I replied in the affirmative he asked when I had been born again. I still recall his face when I told him that I had been born again when Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the virgin tomb, the first-born from the dead. When he asked me to explain I said: 'This Tom Torrance you see is full of corruption, but the real Tom Torrance is hid with Christ in God and will be revealed only when Jesus comes again. He took my corrupt humanity in his Incarnation, sanctified, cleansed and redeemed it, giving it new birth, in his death and resurrection.' In other words, our new birth, our regeneration, our conversion, are what has taken place in Jesus Christ himself, so that when we speak of our conversion or our regeneration we are referring to our sharing in the conversion or regeneration of our humanity brought about by Jesus in and through himself for our sake. In a profound and proper sense, therefore, we must speak of Jesus Christ as constituting in himself the very substance of our conversion, so that we must think of him as taking our place even in our acts of repentence and personal decision, for without him all so-called repentance and conversion are empty. Since a conversion in that truly evangelical sense is a turning away from ourselves to Christ, it calls for a conversion from our inturned notions of conversion to one which is grounded and sustained in Christ Jesus himself."

-- Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, New Ed. (Helmers & Howard, 1992), 85-86

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More on this last quote later...

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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 Excellent Evangelistic Video

http://vimeo.com/8355162

And with vimeo you can burn it onto DVD and use it in a small group for instance.

Good innit?

PS - I hope someone washes that black shirt of Rico's.  Get's a lot of use...

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Published on Leave a comment on Evangelists and Apologists note: The six things that have already happened
  1. Through Christ, the Triune God has already revealed Himself unmistakably in every aspect of creation so that humanity is without excuse.
  2. Against Christ, humanity has taken knowledge into its own hands and so barred the door against all claims from above.
  3. In view of Christ, God has handed humanity over to its chosen futility, locking the door from His side too.
  4. In Christ, God has entered this prison and manifested His eternal glory in time and space, even in human flesh.
  5. As Christ, humanity now has a perfect mind with which to comprehend God (and everything else) - one that is not only human but also in God.
  6. Out of Christ, His Spirit has been poured to incorporate us into the Man who knows.

This is what has already happened.

Here's what happens when we forget 1:

We think:

  • That the universe is basically mute (when actually it's preaching day and night)
  • That humanity is not really deaf - they're listening hard but the sermon's too quiet
  • That we, therefore, have to piece together proofs to amplify the sermon
  • That 'evidence' for God exists only in some limited aspects of the creation (e.g. fine-tuning)
  • That there are certain obvious pointers to "God" but 'Jesus' and 'Trinity' are actually pretty obscure
  • Therefore, that evangelism is a three-part process from creation to God to Jesus. (It's the very opposite!)

Here's what happens when we forget 2:

We think:

  • That humanity (or at least some humans) are actually truth seekers
  • That the mind is somehow less fallen than the rest of the person (rather than the centre of our enmity)
  • That fallen humanity is genuinely questing after the capital-T Truth when it makes its enquiries
  • That the way forward is to agree to their own systems of truth verification
  • Therefore that we need to find 'evidence' to submit to their systems

Here's what happens when we forget 3:

We think:

  • Perhaps if our faulty grasping after knowledge was the problem, our true grasping after knowledge will be the solution. (Instead we should realize that the grasping was the problem!)
  • If we now reason properly we can reverse the fall. (But no, God has confirmed our decision and locked the door from His side).
  • Maybe God is pleased by our efforts to ascend to knowledge (rather than thwarting them - catching the 'wise' in their craftiness)
  • Maybe God will aid our efforts to shepherd an unbeliever up the mountain. (In His grace, He might aid the unbeliever but not our efforts)

Here's what happens when we forget 4:

We think:

  • Christ is the cherry on the epistemological cake.
  • We can (or even should) should reason from creation to Christ (rather than Christ to creation).
  • Christ is one relevation among many (rather than the one Lens through which all must be seen)

Here's what happens when we forget 5:

We think:

  • There remains within Adamic humanity a capacity for knowing God (rather than realizing that this capacity lies in Christ alone).
  • That the quality of our conversion, or ongoing knowledge of God, finally depends on our own reasoned response to God.  (At base it relies on Christ's reasoned response to God).
  • Christians are rational individuals raised to a higher intellectual plain (rather than fools united to a Person who is Wisdom).
  • Once we have come to Christ we can know God autonomously.  (No, only in Him by the Spirit can we go on knowing God)

Here's what happens when we forget 6:

We think:

  • Maybe we need Jesus to bring us to God, but it's up to us to get to Jesus.  (No, it's the sovereign work of the Spirit through the gospel word).
  • Maybe there are ways and means to get to Jesus apart from the Spirit-empowered word.  (No.  While the whole universe screams 'Jesus is Lord', the Spirit unblinds our eyes to these things only as He shows us Christ in the word).

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So then, these six events have already happened.  Acting like they haven't happened or they need bolstering by our own efforts betrays the gospel that we proclaim.

The only thing that needs to happen now and the only thing that can happen now to remedy our situation is for the Spirit to sweep the unbeliever up into the Son's knowledge of the Father.

And, lest we divorce the Spirit from the word, the only means by which the Spirit does that is the gospel word.

So get proclaiming.

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Published on Leave a comment on Calling sinners to Christ [Thawed out Thursday]

Here's a hurriedly written essay on repentance and evangelism.  The basic point is this:

Unbelievers can't repent.  Believers must - all the time.

One of the implications is that evangelism is calling sinners to come to Christ just as they are. Two men preaching in the 19th century grasped this very well indeed.

Here is Spurgeon calling sinners to repentance:

Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other than you really are, but come as you are to Him who justifies the ungodly. ...The Gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once for salvation. God justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up where you now are; it meets you in your worst estate. Come in your disorder. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are: filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, you that are the very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your bosom like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask the Lord to justify another ungodly one. (From "Justification of the Ungodly" by C.H. Spurgeon.  A sermon on Romans 4:5 - found in "All of Grace")

And this is from a wonderful piece called Evangelical Repentance by John Colquhoun (1748-1827)

Do you postpone the act of trusting in the Lord Jesus for all His salvation, till you first sit down and mourn awhile for your sins, or till your heart be so humbled that you may be welcome to Him, and so have from your own resources a warrant for trusting in Him? Do you object against coming to Christ because you are not certain that your conviction of sin and your repentance are of the right sort? Do you apply yourself to the exercise of repentance in order to be qualified for believing in Christ, or do you apply your conscience to the commands and curses of the broken law, in order so to repent as to be entitled to trust in Him? Know, I entreat you, that this preposterous and self-righteous course will but sink you the deeper in unbelief, impenitence, and enmity to God the longer you try in this manner to seek for evangelical repentance in your heart or life, the farther you will be from finding it... Do not try to wash yourself clean in order to come to the open fountain of redeeming blood; but come to it as you are, and, by the immediate exercise of direct confidence in the Lord Jesus, wash away all your sins (Ezek 36:25).

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Published on Leave a comment on In praise of "going through the motions"

Isaiah warned us and Jesus repeated it - it's hypocritical to honour the Lord with your lips while your heart is far from Him (Isaiah 29:13; Mark 15:8).  It's something I pray about every Sunday, "As I preach or pray or sing, may my lips and my heart be set on the Lord Jesus."

But there's another danger.  We can react the other way and disdain anything 'external'.  We say to the world: "I reject 'works', I'm all about the inward life."  And so we're constantly taking our spiritual temperatures.  We neglect ritual (as though it always leads to ritualism).  And we start to think of faith as a thing - the one really meritorious work!

The faith-works polarity becomes, in our thinking, an internal-external polarity.  Internal - good.  External - bad.  We start to imagine that mental acts are good old grace while physical acts are nasty old law.

But that's not how it is.  There can be a crippling legalism of the heart (ever felt it?) and there can be a wonderful liberation in gospel rituals (ever experienced that?).

Take communion.

Please.

No but seriously, take it.   Because here is a gospel ritual which, because it is external, brings home the grace of Jesus all the stronger.

We are not (or at least we should not be!) memorialists. Jesus has not left us a mental duty with the bread and wine as mere thought prompters.  We have been left a meal.  To chew.  And to gulp down.  There are motions to go through.  And they are the same motions we performed last week.  And the week before that.

But here's the thing - these motions are means of God's grace and not in spite of their externalism but because they are external.  Here is a gift that comes to you from outside yourself.  And it comes apart from your internal state.  But nonetheless it is for you - sinner that you are.

So take it regardless of whether your heart is white-hot with religious zeal.  Take it regardless of whether you are really, really mindful of the gravity of it all.  And as the minister prays the prayer of consecration and your mind wanders... oh well.  Don't ask him to start again.  Go through the motions I say.  Your heart is meant to catch up with the motions.  That's why the motions were given.  Because our hearts are weak and not to be trusted.

So allow the Word to come to you from beyond.  Allow Him to love you first. Don't disdain 'going through the motions.'  For many on a Sunday -  those grieving or sick or gripped by depression - they need to be carried along by these motions.  And for all of us - if we're going to be people of grace, we need these externals.

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Published on Leave a comment on In praise of “going through the motions”

Isaiah warned us and Jesus repeated it - it's hypocritical to honour the Lord with your lips while your heart is far from Him (Isaiah 29:13; Mark 15:8).  It's something I pray about every Sunday, "As I preach or pray or sing, may my lips and my heart be set on the Lord Jesus."

But there's another danger.  We can react the other way and disdain anything 'external'.  We say to the world: "I reject 'works', I'm all about the inward life."  And so we're constantly taking our spiritual temperatures.  We neglect ritual (as though it always leads to ritualism).  And we start to think of faith as a thing - the one really meritorious work!

The faith-works polarity becomes, in our thinking, an internal-external polarity.  Internal - good.  External - bad.  We start to imagine that mental acts are good old grace while physical acts are nasty old law.

But that's not how it is.  There can be a crippling legalism of the heart (ever felt it?) and there can be a wonderful liberation in gospel rituals (ever experienced that?).

Take communion.

Please.

No but seriously, take it.   Because here is a gospel ritual which, because it is external, brings home the grace of Jesus all the stronger.

We are not (or at least we should not be!) memorialists. Jesus has not left us a mental duty with the bread and wine as mere thought prompters.  We have been left a meal.  To chew.  And to gulp down.  There are motions to go through.  And they are the same motions we performed last week.  And the week before that.

But here's the thing - these motions are means of God's grace and not in spite of their externalism but because they are external.  Here is a gift that comes to you from outside yourself.  And it comes apart from your internal state.  But nonetheless it is for you - sinner that you are.

So take it regardless of whether your heart is white-hot with religious zeal.  Take it regardless of whether you are really, really mindful of the gravity of it all.  And as the minister prays the prayer of consecration and your mind wanders... oh well.  Don't ask him to start again.  Go through the motions I say.  Your heart is meant to catch up with the motions.  That's why the motions were given.  Because our hearts are weak and not to be trusted.

So allow the Word to come to you from beyond.  Allow Him to love you first. Don't disdain 'going through the motions.'  For many on a Sunday -  those grieving or sick or gripped by depression - they need to be carried along by these motions.  And for all of us - if we're going to be people of grace, we need these externals.

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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 Christ in the Wilderness 3

source

As we've seen, Satan's three temptations concern Christ's identity as Son of God.

Round 1:

3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." 4 Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matt 4:3-4)

The devil assumes that Jesus is able to produce miraculous bread in the wilderness.   That’s what the Son of God has always done (e.g. Exodus 16).  And it's what He would do again (Matthew 14 and 15).  But in those cases the Son of God provides bread for others and in so doing proves Himself to be the true Bread, torn apart to feed the world (John 6:48-51).

But Jesus will not feed Himself.  He has come to die – and a death far worse than starvation – to feed others.  And so He says: I entrust Myself utterly to My Father, knowing I can abandon everything to My Father and live.  That’s round 1.

Round 2 is fought along similar lines:

5 Then the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "`He will command his angels concerning You, and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.'"  7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

The devil, like so many of his servants, is a preacher.  And he knows enough of the bible to know that the Psalms proclaim the Son of God.  So he says to Jesus – “Psalm 91, as everyone knows, concerns the Son of God.  Well then if you are the One of Psalm 91, you’ll be able to do this celestial bunjee jump and the angels will catch you.”

In a future post we'll consider Christ's rejection of this kind of PR stunt.

But the bottom line is, Jesus won’t cave.  He has come to hurl Himself down, and not simply to be dashed on the stones of the temple courts.  He had come to hurl Himself into the great Abyss for us.  And explicitly at His arrest He refuses the help of angels to prevent it (Matthew 26:53-54).   As Son of God He must die on that cross and though 12 legions of angels are on 24 hour stand-by, the Scriptures must be fulfilled.  The Son of Man must go as it is written of Him - He must be the One who dies.  Jesus will not test His Father but obey Him, even to the point of death.

Round 2 resisted.

Round 3:

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

Satan is the prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11) - not by right but by popular choice.  The world does indeed follow the devil and his lying, self-serving, death-dealing ways.  So Satan offers Jesus the chance to form a coalition government.  Satan says, "Let’s not be enemies here.  You know what it will cost you to dethrone me (Gen 3:15) – it will cost your life.  Let me offer you another way.  Let’s rule the world together.  Forget the painful business of eradicating evil, compromise with it and you can avoid the whole way of the cross."

But Jesus will receive the Kingdom from His Father, not the devil.  He will not bow to Satan, He will crush Him.  Though it cost Him His life, Jesus will not compromise with evil.  His heart is wholly for God His Father and so His heart is wholly for the cross.

Christ proves Himself to be exactly who the Father had declared.  He is the beloved Son of God because through every temptation to the contrary He resolves not to serve Himself but others.  He will not save Himself but save others.  This is the only power to defeat the ultimate Egotist.  Everyone else in the history of the world has failed Satan's tests.  No-one has ever walked the way of the cross like this. But the True Son of God did.  And Satan must depart.

But as Luke says, Satan limps off only to regather his strength for future assaults (Luke 4:13).  We'll consider these in the next post (here).

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Published on Leave a comment on Jesus is Saviour to all

I just heard again that song: 'Shout to the North' (lyrics here).  Great tune huh?  What do we think about the lyrics?

Years ago I led the music in a church (a very small church you understand, but my knowledge of four guitar chords made me a relative virtuoso).

Well happily enough, Shout to the North has only four chords.  So it went straight onto the 'playlist'.  The only issue was my troubled conscience.  You see, while I only knew four chords of guitar, I knew a whole six doctrines of theology (neat diagrams to boot).  And something grated.  The lyrics say "Jesus is Saviour to all."  Now we can't be singing that can we?

I can't remember, but I think I used to hurry on through that line - Jesus is Saviour to those who call... or something.

Because here's my unexamined, gut-level assumption - Jesus is Lord of all and Saviour of some.  Isn't that what all right-thinking evangelicals believe?  Lord of all, Saviour of some.  Which is basically to say that Jesus is fundamentally Lord but secondarily and more narrowly Saviour.  He's Lord through and through, He's partially Saviour.

And this gut-level assumption is strengthened by the fear of universalism.  (Fear is a wonderful tool to prevent us examining our beliefs).  Surely if we sing "Jesus is Saviour to all" we're demolishing any distinction between saved and unsaved, aren't we?

Well no, that's not how the bible argues.  Jesus is constantly called Saviour of the world (e.g. John 3:17f; 4:42) and Paul says:

We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of those who believe.  (1 Tim 4:10)

So actually Jesus is Lord of all (but especially those who believe) and Saviour of all (but especially those who believe).

There is a distinction.  It's there in the word 'especially.'  But it's not in the scope of Christ's Lordship versus His Saviour-ship.  He is equally both.

This has implications for many areas, but let's just think about evangelism.  If I go with my gut-level assumption, how do I offer Christ to the unbeliever?  Well I can't presume to offer Christ as Saviour can I?  After all Jesus might turn out not be Saviour to this individual.  So perhaps I conclude: it's safer to confront the unbeliever with His Lordship.  And, on this understanding, this is a 'Lordship' that's considered somewhat apart from His Saviour-ship.

So I speak more of His hands raised up against us than His hands stretched out towards us.  I define sin far more as rebellion against His rule than resistance against His grace.  I offer salvation as submission to His sovereignty much more than resting in His rescue.

Now I will certainly mention those latter aspects.  But they are deviations from the norm.  They are potential fringe-benefits - not the main story.

In all this, I understand that there's massive overlap between Lordship and Saviourship.  In fact that's really my point.  When you say 'Jesus is Lord' you are saying 'The Saviour is Lord' (for 'Jesus' means Saviour!)  His Lordship is expressed and established precisely in His cosmic salvation.  Therefore we must not divide these aspects up and we certainly should not favour one over the other.

But if this is so then it can't be true that a preacher is good on 'Jesus is Lord', but not as strong on 'Jesus is Saviour'.  If we're not holding out the Saviour-ship of Christ then we're not properly holding out the Lordship of Christ either.

So what if we took the song seriously?  What if we really believed that Jesus is the Saviour of the world?  Imagine that loved one who you pray for - you desperately want them to turn to Christ for you know that Jesus is their Lord.  Do you know equally powerfully that He is their Saviour too?

In my conservative evangelical constituency we bang the Jesus is Lord drum very loudly.  I'm just not sure we hold Him out as Saviour with equal passion.  And it flavours our evangelism in some unhelpful ways.

Thoughts?

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