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Published on 2 Comments on Christ: Our Substitute and Representative

Here's a reboot of an older post...

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, hidden in our Head and taken through the flames - this is His representation.

We tend to be good at 'substitution' talk but not so good at 'representation' talk.

I can think of a very prominent preacher who I greatly admire. Ordinarily he's excellent at preaching Paul.  But I've noticed that every time Paul speaks of "us being crucified with Christ", this preacher translates it as "Christ pays off our sins for us so completely, it's as if we ourselves died on the cross."

Do you hear what's happened?  Paul uses representation language, the preacher translates it into substitution language. Paul says "We died in him", the preacher doesn't seem to have a category for that, so he simply re-iterates the substitution motif: "He died for us."

Those two things are not the same.  And our lack of a category for "representation" thinking is a great loss.

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.  Yet He's necessary in that the cross becomes the accounting tool required to balance the justice books.  Without the cross the system 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 groups of people (the damned and the saved).  What's driving everything is the two humanities (Adam and Christ).  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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Below I've listed 10 verses on union with Christ in His death.  Meditate on these verses - and reckon yourself dead to Adam, to the flesh, to sin, to wrath, to the law, the principalities and powers and to the world.  For the living, those powers exact a terrible penalty.  But you know what a corpse owes these things?  Absolutely jack squat.

#EnjoyYourDay:

All of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  (Romans 6:3-4)

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin... (Romans 6:11)

Our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with.  (Romans 6:6)

You died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to Another.  (Romans 7:4)

I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live.  (Galatians 2:20)

I belong to Christ and thus my flesh has been crucified.  (Galatians 5:24)

The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.  (Galatians 6:14)

 In Christ you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.  (Colossians 2:11-12)

You died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world (Colossians 2:20)

You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)

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Published on 9 Comments on The importance of “union with Christ” in evangelism

I've been thinking about blind-spots in typical evangelistic presentations.

First I considered the dangers of overlooking Trinity in evangelism.  Then I discussed the evangelistic importance of original sin (the doctrine, not the term).

Finally, let's explore "union with Christ" (again, the doctrine, not necessarily the phrase).  Here's why it's crucial for union with Christ to be a major category of thinking as we evangelise...

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We offer a Person not a Package

The Gospel is God's offer of Christ.  Whatever blessings God might have for the world, they are all to be had "in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3ff).  Fundamentally God's gift is not a thing but a Him.  And what He desires from us is not stuff (we have no stuff worth offering anyway).  For some strange reason, God wants us. 

So the point of the gospel is not a transaction.  It's not like getting a mobile phone contract... you know the deal...  God offers a decent package, some nice extras and an easy payment plan.  We reach into our pocket and dredge up what's required.... no it's not that.

Yet so often I hear the gospel offered in terms of its fringe benefits - eternal fire-insurance, freedom from guilt feelings, a sense of Purpose in life... all for the low, low price of "repentance and faith."

In such presentations God's love is portrayed in contractual not covenant terms.  Which means God's love is not really portrayed.

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We can avoid licence and legalism

People are always saying “If you offer salvation freely it’s too dangerous, because people will just take salvation and then go off and sin all the time!”  I want to say, Wait, which salvation are you talking about?

So often people think of salvation a little bit like those old films set in the middle ages.  Imagine some Lord snootily throwing his bag of silver to a servant girl as payment for a job.  The servant grabs the money and runs off out of the palace to enjoy life with the silver – and without the Lord.

Now if that’s what salvation is, then of course its free offer will mean licence.  They'll take the heavenly blessings and run away from Jesus to enjoy themselves.

But what's the response?  Well the legalist feels they must rein in their gospel offers.  They refuse to offer a "blank cheque" willy nilly.  No, no, they only offer salvation to those who really, really are committed to turning their lives around and submitting everything to God. And probably they should mean it too.  Like, really mean it.

You can understand this approach.  It doesn't sound very much like Jesus' whole approach to gospelling, but you can understand it.  If you think that the gospel offer is stuff, then putting a price on it seems the natural thing to do.  But salvation is not a stuff!

Salvation is far more like the Lord who loves his miserable servant and marries her.  He gives her himself.  And now they are one forever.  That is a very free salvation isn’t it?  It’s a much more gracious salvation than the licentious have  dreamt of!  Immeasurably more is offered in this salvation.  And it’s offered completely freely.  The girl isn’t expected to pay a penny for the privilege.  But she’s not given some blessings which she can go and enjoy elsewhere.  She is given the Lord himself.

Does such an offer make the hearer more likely to sin?  Rubbish. It’s the only power to save someone from sin.  Give them Jesus.  And offer Him freely, because that’s the only kind of salvation He offers.

When we do, we'll avoid both legalism and licence.  Because the offer is not a package but a person.  Therefore the response is, unmistakably, the receiving of a Lord and Saviour.

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"Repentance and faith" are considered properly

As believers in "faith alone", do we have a place for "repentance"?

Is it some kind of pre-requisite for faith?  Or is it an obedience that we add to faith??  Do we call non-Christians to jump two hurdles, one called "repentance" and another called "faith"? That would be an odd position to adopt if we're "faith alone" people.

We've already said that "repentance and faith" are not our payment for gospel stuff.   Well then, what is "repentance and faith."

Well think of union with Christ.  He offers Himself to us like a Bridegroom to a bride.  He says "Be one with me."  If anyone receives Him, what have they done?  They've repented and believed.  Because they've received the LORD Jesus Christ as their Head in bonds of self-abandoning love.  There simply could not be a more all-embracing "repentance".

If the preacher makes clear that salvation is belonging to Jesus (and He to us), then many errors are avoided.  Our hearers won't be tempted to offer their repentance to Jesus as payment for salvation.  Nor should they despair that "they don't have it in them to repent."  They don't have it in them to repent.  New life does not lie in their resolve.  It's in Jesus.  And He's offered to them, even in all their helplessness.  Yet clearly, to receive Jesus is to receive a new life.

 

We do not offer repentance to God as a condition of our salvation.  We are summoned to repentance in the gospel because this is the very nature of life "in Christ".

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We have a gospel that applies to Christians as well as non-Christians

Think of the “Get out of hell free” gospel.  Imagine that you've been evangelised by this and coughed up the requisite response (walking down an aisle and resolving to believe in substitutionary atonement, or whatever).  That gospel is not particularly helpful to me day to day, is it?  At one point, it helped me to get off the judgement hook, but now, I’m basically left to myself until heaven.  Which means "the gospel" and day-to-day living have no real relationship.

I need the gospel to get saved, but I need wisdom and hard work to get by, day to day.

Maybe a little "gospel-law" preacher will come and remind me not to take the mick and to try and be godly.  But their exhortations don't really arise from the gospel, do they?

Once I've trusted such a gospel, it has served its purpose.  It's not for me any more.  It's for unbelievers.

But if "union with Christ" is in view, that's like saying "the wedding ceremony" was everything, I don't need marriage day-to-day.  Bonkers.

The real gospel is Christ graciously given to me in the nitty gritty of my life, for better and for worse.  Which means it bears on everything.  

Which is good because the world rarely asks the question “What must I do to be saved?”  But our friends and family are constantly asking “How do I raise my kids?  How do I handle my anger?  What do I do about these panic attacks?  How could I possibly forgive that person?  Why is marriage so difficult?  What’s the way forward in this family breakdown?  How do I handle this bullying boss?  How can I cope when my dreams are shattered?  Why does food enslave me?  How can I be free of these addiction?  What’s wrong with me?”

The world is asking all of these questions all of the time.  These are the problems of a world that’s condemned already (see previous post).  This is part of the hell on earth that Jesus spoke about.  But Jesus also has a salvation for here and now.  The gospel also brings light and freedom into these pastoral situations.

Which means we can gospel people through pastoral problems and we can bring pastoral healing through the gospel.  The more we grasp this, the more effective we’ll be in gospelling.  Which brings us finally to...

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Ordinary Christians might just realise that they too can evangelise.

If the gospel is a package deal, then it needs sales people.  And, to be honest, the package that most evangelistic presentations offer is so unappealing it really would take a special class of Christian communicator to make it attractive.  You’ve got to have a very good patter in order to sell a package of heavenly blessings.  (Especially if that package is basically: Bow to the Big Guy or burn forever).

But what if, what if, what if.... we offer a Person.  Jesus.

This is what’s helped me most in my own evangelism:  realising I’m not selling some gospel benefits, I’m offering a Person.  Jesus sells Himself.  I don’t need a hundred illustrations and some cracking mother-in-law gags and the gift of the gab.  I just have to talk about Jesus and let His magnetism do the job.

We’re offering a Person, not a mechanism of salvation.  We’re saying – “This is Jesus, let me paint Him in biblical colours for you, let me tell you that I love Him and why, let me tell you what He has done for me, let me tell you my favourite things about Him.  This is Jesus – do you want Him?  He’s yours, have Him.  Receive Him, He’s offered Himself to you, take Him now.’  That’s evangelism.  In a deep sense, that all of what evangelism is.  Just. Talk. About. Jesus.

And if the words don't come then guess what, it's not because "you're not a professional evangelist".  Words often fail me too.  You know why?  Cos I'm weak.  Cos nothing good lives in my flesh.  Cos I'm a sinner.  And if I haven't been receiving from Jesus, the Fountain of Living Waters, then of course the words will dry up.  Because I'm dry.

So then, return to the Source.  Get filled.  Receive again from Jesus, our Heavenly Husband, who loves us in spite of ourselves.  And then the words will come.  Feebly and falteringly.  But genuinely.  Because from the overflow of the heart the mouth will speak. (Matthew 12:34).

And as everyday people lift Him up in everyday circumstances, He will draw all people to Himself.  But it begins by realising this: the gospel's not a package, He's a Person.

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Those are some reasons why "union with Christ" is a vital component of our gospel explanations...

So there you have it.  Three blind-spots in modern evangelism: the trinity, original sin and union with Christ.  If only we had a gospel explanation that gave them proper attention... perhaps one that was easy to memorise and share with friends... And maybe there could be a snazzy video presentation.  And a website with further explanations.  Maybe some tracts.  Heck, why not a book?  A cheap and cheery paperback - a give-away for friends.  One that laid it all out simply... that'd be nice.

i f   o n l y  .   .   .     i   f      o    n    l     y    .        .          .

#StayTuned

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Published on 2 Comments on Identity – Losing our lives to find them

Here's a seminar that Emma and I ran recently for a group of 20s and 30s.

Unfortunately the recorder ran out almost as soon as Emma began to speak!  Not to worry, soon we'll have a couple of different videos of Emma giving her testimony - I'll link as soon as we have them.

We began the seminar with perhaps the key verse on identity:

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39

We then kicked things off with my favourite 4 minutes of stand-up ever!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiUsfEkVRDY]

Death to the Me-Monster in Christ births a redeemed identity.

I speak a lot about Christ's baptism, His identity and our sharing in it.  The stories of Jacob and Esau are very illuminating.  And Luther nails it with this quote:

The Christian lives far above themselves in Christ through faith
and far beneath themselves in their neighbour through love.

The one place we don't live is in ourselves.  No we find our lives by losing them in and for Jesus.

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Audio

Powerpoint

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Published on 1 Comment on Forgiveness in Colossians – Event and Status

 

How do you think of God's forgiveness?

The book of Colossians mentions forgiveness in three places.  Conveniently it's in chapter 1:13f; 2:13 and 3:13.

Let's work our way backwards.  In 3:13 Paul says:

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

We are to ungoingly forgive others in the present because the Lord has once and for all forgiven us in the past.  Forgiveness from the Lord Jesus is an event.  When did it happen?  Colossians 2:13 tells us:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.  (Colossians 2:13-14)

Even as we were uncircumcised sinners we were forgiven.  When?  As Christ was crucified.  On Good Friday, all that stood against us was permanently taken away.  God has forgiven me.  It's not something that hangs in the balance.  It has already happened.  Christ dying was God forgiving.

Forgiveness is not an act behind the cross.  It's not as though the cross clears the way so that now God can forgive me.  The cross was God forgiving me.  It all happened right there at Calvary.  In Christ, me and my sin and my guilt and every accusation against me was put to death.  Decisively.  Irreversibly.

How am I meant to think of my forgiveness now?  That's where Colossians 1:13 comes in:

For [the Father] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)

Forgiveness is the essence of our redemption.  Like the Exodus of old, it is the promised land to which we've been delivered.  Our new Moses has taken us out of the dark Egypt of sin into a new Kingdom.  But in this new Exodus, Christ is not just the new Moses.  He's also the destination.  The very essence of the Kingdom is Jesus.

Therefore the Christian has been transferred from sin and into the Father's dearly loved Son.  This Father has been proclaiming "Behold My Son!" for all eternity and now we have come in on Him.  We are not merely forgiven.  We have been brought into Jesus in Whom we have  forgiveness.  Not just an event, but an ongoing status.

And since the Red Sea was one-way traffic, so now our forgiveness is an unloseable reality.  We do not fall in and out of forgiveness.  We have forgiveness because Jesus has us.  And He's not letting go.

Is this how you think of God's forgiveness?

In our preaching and liturgy I think it's easy to give a different impression.  I'm always thinking of forgiveness as "God wiping the slate clean" (and me filling it back up again!)  But the Apostle Paul puts the emphasis where it should be.  It was an event accomplished at the cross.  And it's a present status, enjoyed forever in Jesus.

Henry Lyte (reflecting on Psalm 103) gets it just right - it's a past tense doing that is also an ongoing declaration:

Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxavNfM6jXw]

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Published on 21 Comments on The importance of explaining original sin in evangelism

Last time we thought about the dangers of overlooking Trinity in our evangelism.  Here we'll examine three consequences of neglecting original sin in our gospel presentations...

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You will place your hearers at the centre

So much of evangelism assumes that the non-Christian is like Hercules at the cross-roads (painting above).  There is Virtue pointing us away (from herself!) in one direction and Vice tempting us in the other - and everything is to play for.  Hercules needs to choose virtue and eternity hangs in the balance.

The gospel is very different. According to the Bible, humanity is lost.  And it has been lost, dead, perishing, cursed and guilty since Adam.  We are born into a broken humanity that has no life in it and no ability to save itself.

Perhaps we don't like preaching this because we assume that, once we've acknowledged man's helplessness, the preacher will have nothing left to say.  Garbage!  It gives our hearers nothing to do, but it gives preachers everything to say!  Because now we can spotlight the true Hero - Jesus.

The unbeliever is not at the centre while we entice their (supposedly free) wills, minds and hearts.  Jesus is at the centre, stepping into a lost situation and turning it around - all by Himself.  Gospel events can take their place at the centre - and not simply as motivational fuel for the business end of proceedings: Decision-Time!

I wonder whether one of the reasons we dislike preaching original sin is because we typically frame our evangelism around the Philippian Jailer's question in Acts 16.  He asked “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  But if we begin our evangelism by trying to answer this question, all the emphasis falls on the hearer.  Suddenly evangelism is about what the hearer must do, not “what Jesus has done”.  We'll only mention His work to the degree that such teaching informs their response.  All emphasis falls on the response.

We don't like original sin because it takes man off the stage and forces us to sit in the audience.  But the good news is that someone far more captivating can now take centre-stage.

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You will radically diminish the nature of sin and judgement

According to Jesus and Paul, judgement is not a future possibility for mankind.  It's a present reality (John 3:18,36; Romans 1:18ff).  In fact, condemnation is in the past tense.  It’s already happened.

Just as eternal life is not merely a future blessing but is a present state (cf. all of John!), so also wrath is not merely a future reality, but a current condition.  Judgement day is a confirmation of what’s already true in life.  Throughout life we have wanted the darkness instead of the light and final judgement involves God saying “Have it your way - Go.”

The world is perishing now.  Hell is on the non-Christian now.  And, to a degree, they know it.  To a degree, we all know it - children of Adam that we are.  We’ve all felt hell. We all know something of the darkness.  We know about disconnection.  We know about weeping and wailing and the angry gnashing of teeth.  We’ve all felt hell, here and now.  Hell in miniature.  Hell in our hearts.  Hell in our circumstances.

That continuity is important when we preach judgement.  You see, if our problem is merely "committed sin", then hell readily appears as a rash over-reaction on God's part.  A non-Christian might feel that their broken relationships, abortion, gossip, etc, deserves some kind of judgement.  But an eternal wrath for temporal sins?  If behaviour X has warranted punishment Y, then why is hell forever?  Asking questions like that (over and over) was the stock in trade of "Love Wins" - but it's founded on the assumption that behaviour (not being) is central.

Yet, if wrath is a state of disconnection from God, then getting confirmed in that state - while being a fearful thought - is not absurd.  It's our being now that matters.  And it's our being in eternity that matters.  Behaviour flows from being - it doesn't lead to being.

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You will (inadvertently) preach behaviour, not being

Martin Lloyd-Jones once said of Romans 5: Think of yourself in Adam, though you had done nothing, you were condemned.  Think of yourself in Christ, though you had done nothing, you were saved.

You know what that means?  It means it’s not about your behaviour, it’s about your being.

Have you ever come across evangelistic presentations that try to convict you of sin by focusing on your behaviour.  A particularly blunt attempt goes something like this:

“Have you ever stolen paperclips from work?  Yes? Then you've broken the law at one point.  And if you've broken the law at one point you've broken the law at every point.  Should law-breakers go to heaven or hell?

Hell!  But...  Jesus paid on the cross and made a way so that you can escape the flames for stealing paperclips...”

Do you hear how petty the evangelist has made God out to be?  How irrational His judgement?  How miniscule is Christ's cross?  (And how Christ merely clears the way for you to make the epic journey to heaven?)

Now perhaps your way of convicting people goes a little deeper.  You manage to uncover some more serious sins than tiny thefts, white lies and lustful fantasies.  But nonetheless, if your approach aims at sins committed you will pervert the gospel.

Our condemnation goes much deeper than behaviour.  It's about our being. We don’t have life in ourselves.  It’s not about convicting people of this crime or that.  It’s saying “You have no life in yourself (your bad behaviour is the fruit of that disconnection), but now get connected to the only life-source.”

I will often confess to bad behaviours in my preaching but only so as to say "You know what's scary? That sin comes from somewhere deep in me.  Somewhere bigger than me.  There's a power that's over me and in me and it comes out in this way and that.  But I can't just choose to do better.  It's not merely what I do, there's something desperately wrong with who I am."

And as the Spirit works on people they realise they have no life in themselves.  They realize that they don’t know God.  They're cut off, estranged, alienated, disconnected.  It's not so much that their sins separate them, it's that their separation leads to sin.

If our sinful acts were the problem then surely righteous acts would be the solution.  But no, our problem was not caused by us, and neither will our solution be.  We didn't have the power to make ourselves sinners, and we don't have the power to make ourselves saved.  Our problem was out of our hands and so is our solution.  Adam has made us perish, only Christ can rescue.

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In all this we see that the way we pose the problem powerfully shapes the solution we offer.  If we shy away from original sin and focus instead on committed sin - we shift the focus from Christ to us, from being to behaviour and we misconstrue our plight before God.

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Much more could be said (perhaps you can add your own thoughts in comments).  But I think these reasons alone mean we should put original sin back into our gospel explanations...

If only we had such a gospel explanation... perhaps one that was easy to memorise and share with friends...

i f   o n l y  .   .   .     i   f      o    n    l     y    .        .          .

#StayTuned

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Published on 18 Comments on Resisting the Devil

Here's a repost from 2010...

Playing around with some thoughts.  Comments welcomed...

Jesus Christ crushed the head of Satan (Gen 3:15); drove out the devil (John 12:31) and disarmed the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame and triumphing over them (Col 2:15).

How?

Through dying on a cross.

He didn't come down from the cross to bust out some ultimate fighting moves on the devil.  It's not that, as He died, the Spirit went to work on Satan behind the scenes with baseball bats and chains.  The cross wasn't Christ's non-violent resistance stunt distracting us while the elect angels went ballistic on the forces of evil.

No, it's all there on Golgotha.  The all-time decisive cosmic face-off did not involve hordes of spiritual forces doing battle in the heavenlies.  It involved a lonely Man on a lonely hill.  The taunts of the devil rang out from the lips of His enemies: "If you are the Son of God, come down now from the cross."  The diabolical onslaught did not come through waves of black magic but through the simple appeal to use power and save self.

The greatest ever spiritual battle involved the simple choice of whether this Man would obey His Father or serve Himself.  The height and width and breadth of the battlefield was that single cross.  The one Victor was that Champion strung up on a tree.  Right there this defenceless Man was crushing, driving out, disarming and triumphing over evil once and for all.

What does that tell you about evil?

Well if it was something like an equal and opposite force, then you might expect a heavenly punch-up.  But it's not.  It's not a created thing but a perversion.  It's a parasite, distorting everything good and pulling it down into oblivion.  (See these Mike Reeves talks on evil for more).

And so the Author of Life enters into this matrix of death.  Christ absorbs this evil at its worst and transforms it.  He does this, not by taking it seriously as a legitimate opponent but by entering it in simple obedience to His Father's will.  As this Man trusts God - even in the jaws of death - He reverses the cycle of self-assertion and self-vindication.  This cycle is the very opposite of God's own life and therefore the quintessence of evil.  So the Source of good goes to the heart of evil and, by turning the other cheek, overturns the whole thing.

Therefore we get the ultimate Genesis 50:20 moment.  Even what Satan intends for evil, God intends for good.

So, again, evil is not granted an existence alongside God and His creation-redemption agenda.  It is a perversion which is then taken up into the purposes of God and made to serve Him.

Well then.  We stand, clothed in Christ and His victory.  And the evil one, thrashing around in his death-throes, fires some flaming arrows our way - some mixture of temptations and condemnations.  And both James and Peter tell us "resist the devil" (1 Pet 5:9; James 4:7) and James adds the promise "and he will flee from you."

That's always seemed to me an extraordinary promise.  Doesn't it sound a little far fetched to believe that I can send Satan scurrying into the night?  Yet that's exactly what "fleeing" means - running scared.  And how are we going to make Satan flee from us?  Simply by resisting him.  That just means 'standing against' him.  He wants you to indulge a craving, you simply stand against it.  Nothing more, nothing less, just resist.  He wants you to wallow in past sins, you simply stand against it.  And the devil runs for his life!  He has met a Christian - a little Christ - one clothed in the Champion and employing those same tactics.

If that sounds incredible to us, maybe we don't properly understand Satan or his defeat.  Recently the devil's been coming at me with some recurring thoughts about myself.  Ordinarily I'd get embroiled in an endless round of indulging the thoughts and then condemning myself for them.  Either way he wins.  I can't explain exactly why but of late I've just known a real freedom to laugh at the temptations - whether I've caught myself entertaining them or not.  Whatever.  I'm not called to engage Satan mano e mano.  That battle's been won.  And I don't get to nip his temptations in the bud - that's not an option.  My job's pretty simple.  Just stand in Christ and refuse to take his temptations seriously.

And maybe to fart at him.

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15

Published on 15 Comments on Nietzsche and Christ – Terry Eagleton

So stimulating.  Read in full here.

Nietzsche claims, humanism won’t plug the gap [left by the "death of God"]. All humanism does is substitute one useless form of transcendence (Man) for another (God). The death of God therefore has to herald the death of Man as well. You can’t just swap one fetish for another. This is why the Übermensch signifies the kind of transformed humanity which would flow from genuinely accepting the death of God. It’s the reckless, exuberant, self-delighting existence of those who are able to celebrate a life without foundations – the cavalier insouciance of those spiritual aristocrats who have the courage to risk a life without guarantees. The Overman or Meta-Man is the one who can peer into the fathomless pit of the nothingness of God without being turned to stone.  He (never a she, for Nietzsche) is the ecstatic creature who sings and dances at the very thought that his existence is every bit as mortal, fragile, ungrounded, arbitrary and contingent as a modernist work of art.

The only problem is that all this sounds rather like Christianity, which isn’t quite what Nietzsche had in mind. For the New Testament, as for Also sprach Zarathustra, the only good God is a dead one. For Christianity as for Nietzsche, the death of God in the figure of a tortured political criminal known as Jesus means not replacing God with humanity, but the advent of a transfigured humanity. For Christianity too, God is an abyss of sheer nothingness, absolutely no kind of entity at all, a groundless ground; and to say that we are created is to say that our existence is absolutely non-essential, that we might perfectly well have never been. Such existence is pure gift, sheer gratuity and contingency, a radical end in itself, a supreme acte gratuite – self-founding, self-grounding and self-delighting. Just as God exists for absolutely no purpose beyond himself, so human beings are fashioned to live in this way too, to be at their best when they are as gloriously pointless as a work of art. A just social order is one which would allow men and women to be in this sense ends in themselves, not means to another’s power or profit. God, as Aquinas sees, is the power that allows us to be autonomous. Thinking that faith in God puts firm foundations beneath your feet, rather than shattering them, is the delusion of fundamentalists...

So Nietzsche and Christianity, those supposedly sworn antagonists, actually agree on an embarrassing amount. (Embarrassing for Nietzsche, anyway). Nietzsche believes that we can’t be free unless we can get out from under the patriarchal Nobodaddy (as William Blake calls him) known as God. But of course the New Testament believes just the same. Seeing God as judge, patriarch and accuser is what is meant in scripture by Satan – the Satanic image of God, the God who will beat the shit out of us. And since we’re all inveterate masochists, cravenly in thrall to the Law, or to what Freud knows as the death drive, this is exactly what we secretly hanker for. We’ll gladly tear ourselves apart as long as there’s enough gratification in it for us. This is the terrible, lethal nexus of law and desire – which is also, as it happens, the chief subjectmatter of psychoanalysis. Those who are eternally trapped in this closed circuit, in which law and desire feed endlessly, fruitlessly off one another, are traditionally said to be in hell. The figure of the tortured and executed Jesus is the overthrowing of the Satanic image of God, for God as friend, lover, victim, counsel for the defence, fellow accused and flayed flesh and blood. It replaces the Satanic God not with humanity at its most triumphant, as rationalist humanism does, but with humanity at its most torn and vulnerable.

And this is what Nietzsche can’t stomach. It’s here, not over the death of God, that he and the Gospel part company most decisively. Because weakness, suffering and mortality for him are simply part of a ghoulish, morbid religious conspiracy to bring low the noble, heroic and life-affirming. He forgets that Jesus never once counsels the sick to reconcile themselves to their afflictions. On the contrary, he seems to regard such suffering as evil, and is out to abolish it. Nietzsche forgets, too, that any power which is not rooted in a solidarity with human creatureliness and fragility, with the raw fact of our bodily finitude, will never prove durable or effective enough. That this is so is one of the lessons of tragedy, an art-form which fascinated Nietzsche himself for quite different reasons.

And so in the end Nietzsche is less revolutionary than the New Testament. Like some demented health-club proprietor, he can’t stop worshipping vigour, robustness and virility, or seeing failure as sickly and shameful. Like those Americans who hate a loser, he doesn’t see that what matters is failure, not success – that Jesus is a sick joke of a Saviour, that in every human sense his mission is an embarrassing, abysmal failure, that the notion of a crucified Messiah would have been a horrendous, unspeakable scandal and blasphemy to the pious Jews of his day. In the end, Nietzsche disowns the deepest insight of tragedy – that, as W.B. Yeats puts it, ‘nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent’.

13

Published on 13 Comments on Beginnings and Before Beginnings

Beginnings

Charles Darwin published the Origin of the Species in 1859.  Up until then, said Richard Dawkins,  atheism was "logically tenable" but from Darwin onwards you could be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (The Blind Watchmaker).  Notice that philosophy might give you tenable arguments, but biology is the place for true intellectual fulfillment... according to this biologist anyway...

With the discovery of natural selection, biologists had a naturalistic explanation for the existence of brilliantly adapted (and therefore apparently designed) species, populating an intricate and flourishing bio-sphere.

Well, for the sake of argument, let's say that the whole thing is explained according to this process (I mean it's a bit like the old saying "If all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail", but let's go with the argument).  Let's imagine it explains the whole variation and adaptation of life on the planet. What we have here is a mechanism explaining the origin of species.

Notice first that mechanism says nothing about agency - a point John Lennox makes well in places like here.

But notice, second, that we're talking merely of the origin of species.  There are other origins questions to ask.  Like - the origin of the cosmos, the origin of life (natural selection assumes the existence of life) and the origin of consciousness.  These are not at all suited to explanations via natural selection and yet they pose even more fundamental questions for us.  So if an atheist claims to have origins questions sewn up, tell them they have, at best, a mechanism to explain one of the least interesting of the origins questions.

Before Beginnings

It's not just beginnings that are fascinating.  What about before the beginnings?  What are we assuming pre-existed these origins questions?

As we've just noted, natural selection assumes the pre-existence of 'life.'  But when it comes to the even bigger origins questions, what about the pre-existence of things like  laws of physics, logic and mathematics.  Every attempted naturalistic explanation for 'beginnings' assumes plenty about 'before beginnings.' Take, for example, Hawking's book from 2 years ago which said:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,"

Besides the logical incoherence of the universe self-creating, we have here pre-existing 'laws'.  We have an ordered, self-consistent reality calling the tune for all the cosmos.  Gravity is chief among the gods as he bosses around lesser deities like time, matter and energy, which in turn war to create the cosmos as we know it.

Now Christians also have beliefs about before the beginning.   We believe in the pre-existence of Persons, of love, of minds, of purpose.  And these Persons have brought forth laws, time, matter and energy.  It was not matter that made minds, but minds that made matter.

When you consider that every minute of our waking life we're confronted in technicolour by the reality of persons, love, minds and purpose.  In fact, everything we hold dear consists of persons, love, minds and purpose.  What should we believe about ultimate reality - about before beginnings?  Gravity reigning as supreme being?  Or love?

We shouldn't fear questions of beginnings.  And we should positively pursue questions about before beginnings.

2

Published on 2 Comments on It HAS cost you – now what?

A re-post about forgiveness...

I've been studying Matthew 18:21-35.  I find it really helpful to put some modern-day figures on the money involved.  Ten thousand talents - let's call that a hundred billion pounds.  A hundred denarii?  Let's call that £5000.  I've cost Christ a hundred billion and He's forgiven the debt.  My friend has cost me five grand.

Now five grand is not nothing.  If you cost me five grand I will be mighty peeved.  But only until I remember the hundred billion.  And that's how forgiveness works.  It's always costly.  A hundred denarii aint nothing.  But first appreciate the hundred billion.  Then cancel the five grand.

But here's where a lot of my problems come from.  I refuse to face the damage done to me.  I dare not stare it full in the face and say "You robbed me of five grand (or even five million!) and I'm never getting it back."  I don't feel I have the resources to take such a hit.  So instead of facing the loss head on and drawing on my resources in Christ I convince myself that the five grand is not gone for good.  It can't be gone, it's all I had.  So I consider it as an outstanding debt.  And I make them pay.  In tit-for-tat and slurs and cold shoulders and the mental equivalent of voodoo dolls.

And whilever they are a debtor making repayments, forgiveness is just not an option.  I've bought into a repayment model and cancelling the debt is unthinkable.  But once I face the debt as a straight out loss I can say "Dang, it's cost me.  Now what?"  And that's really the position of us all when we are wronged.  The devil loves to tell us - "You haven't really lost out for good.  You can recoup your costs here, let me show you how."  But the devil is a liar.  I have lost.  It's gone and it's not coming back except by the redeeming hand of Christ.  But for now I need to appreciate the loss as a loss.  A dead loss.  Not bruised and battered.  Dead.  And it can only become gain in the hands of the Lord of Resurrection.

Because once I've faced the loss I then realise my options.  Bitterness/ hard-heartedness/ revenge is an option which involves its own costs.  On the other hand there's 'taking pity, cancelling the debt and letting them go' (Matt 18:27).

The one option I don't have (and never did have) was recouping the loss. But only once I've faced the loss am I able to make the decision that can free me (and them).  I've lost out and nothing will change that.  Now I've got to choose how to handle that loss.  The devil's way will cost me dearly.  But Jesus says "I know a way of handling this loss that will free you and free them and put you in touch with the power of my cosmic redemption."

It begins by acknowledging my own debt. Feeling the weight of my hundred billion.  Rejoicing in its cancellation.  Then facing the loss of the five thousand.  This is vital.  But it continues in taking pity, cancelling the debt and letting go.  In the end the only way to handle the loss is to realise it really is loss.

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4

Published on 4 Comments on Do you believe in incarnation?
Click for source

Check out this explanation of Mormonism.  What's wrong with this picture?

Too much to mention right?

There's the teaching of faith as a thing contributing towards salvation.  There's the classification of Joseph Smith as a prophet. There's the elevation of personal revelation to a position effectively superior to the Scriptures.  There's our pre-existence, for goodness sakes!

Now all of these things are troubling and profoundly mistaken.  But there's something else that towers above those heresies.  It's their view of Christ.  There He stands - a benevolent well-wisher presiding over our path towards salvation.  This impotent, essentially irrelevant, Christ has been replaced by us.  We are the ones who exist with the Father, who come to earth, pass the test and ascend back to the Father.  We are Christ, working salvation in our own person.  And who is Christ?  An encourager, an example, an empathiser.  But essentially it's all down to us.

Perhaps it's easy to spot the errors of Mormonism, but what about our own Christianity?  What is it that makes our gospel any different?  Is Jesus for us the achiever of salvation?  Is He the One who, not only blazes the trail of salvation, but also carries His people with Him back to the Father?  Does Jesus merely make us save-able, or does He save us?  Does He unite Himself to our humanity and bring us on His heart back to God, or does He wish us well from a distance?

We might feel that we have rejected the Mormon gospel because we've streamlined the path of salvation.  For us there's no belief in the prophet Joseph Smith or "the covenant in the house of the Lord" and yet we essentially believe salvation to be a path that we tread. 

Let's not be reformed Mormons.  Let's be Christians.  Let's be those who believe in incarnation - the Lord Himself has come from heaven, taken our flesh, trod the path of salvation and ascended back to the Father.  He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  And to have Him by faith is to have salvation.

Jesus does not preside over the path to salvation.  He is the path of salvation.  He is its beginning and end.  And we are not those who are on their way - we are in the Way.  That's true Christianity.  Everything else is a cultish heresy.

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