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Freedom

An evocative word.

What does it mean to us?

Usually it means a freedom from some kind of power so that we can realize our true potential.  'I'm free to do what I want any old time.'  That kind of thing.

The question of 'Who is this "I" who can do these things?' is usually considered to be a restatement of the freedom mantra: I am the one who can do what I want.  "I am who I am / I will be who I will be", as Someone famously once said.

The link between such an account of freedom and the divinisation of the self becomes obvious in a thinker like John Stuart Mill.  He said this in On Liberty:

In the part [of the conduct of an individual] which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of course, of right, absolute.  Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

Now notice that Mill is concerned here with conduct that 'merely concerns ourselves'.  He's well aware that the independent exercise of our wills can harm others and diminish their freedom.  He's no dummy.  He has a whole apparatus of 'rights' with which to negotiate the competing claims of our own absolute freedoms. 

When Christians argue against Mill, the argument should not be: "Hey, if everyone thinks they're sovereign they'll ride rough-shod over everyone else."  That would be a very pragmatic objection and one to which Mill has a whole raft of pragmatic solutions.

No, the problem is not what humanity does with their self-rule (they could be thoroughly virtuous with it).  The problem is self-rule.  Mill effectively poses the question, Who has the absolute claim over my life?  He answers: I do.  Mill's philosophy here (which is the air we breathe in the West) is nothing less than the enthronement of man upon Christ's throne.  

But in critiquing such 'freedom' we can do more than simply denounce it as blasphemous.  We would do well also to expose it as the worst kind of bondage.  Why bondage? 

Well let's ask the question,  Who is this self who is exalted to the throne?  Who is the "I" that can do whatever "I" want?

Tellingly, this 'freedom' cannot positively give you an identity.  In fact, to be true to itself, this kind of 'freedom' must refuse to tell you who you are.  All that such 'freedom' can offer is the protection of a sphere in which you can pursue your desires.  It gives you a kingdom (of one!) and a throne and it operates a strict immigration policy.  Yet this border-patrol must not only exclude impediments to your desires, it must also exclude forces that would seek to direct those desires.  It must repel all foreign claims upon you and leave you with an absolute and unquestioned independence.  You have your kingdom and your throne, but who are you?  Well, You will be who you will be.  And so, left to rule your own kingdom, you are a prisoner of your independence.

Consider this piece of advice being given to millions of men and women around the world right now:

"Don't let anyone tell you what to do.  You're your own man / your own woman." 

Now aside from the inherent contradiction on show here, notice how you are to be directed in your sovereign rule.  You must direct yourself.  And the reason?  You belong to yourself.   This is the infuriating circularity

I direct myself.

Who is the I who directs?

The one with power to direct.

or

I belong to me.

Who is the one who belongs to me?

The one belonging to me.

What's missing in all this is an environment in which to exercise our freedom.  We have been treated as though the choices we make in expression of our self-hood are grounded only in ourselves as individuals.  Yet we are who we are in a network of dependent relationships.  The expression of our identity through responsible living and choosing necessarily occurs within an environment.  Divorced from this environment, any experience of 'freedom' will actually take us away from our true selves.

This is the experience of the ant-farm in this famous Simpson's clip...

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qnPGDWD_oLE]

The ants may have longed to be free from their glass case, but 'freedom' from the ant-farm proves to be "horrible" indeed.  It destroys their very selves to be 'free' from the environment supportive of their own life and being.

We are the same. We don't exist as free floating individuals to whom the greatest gift would be independence.  We are truly free when properly related to the environment in which our personhood flourishes. 

And this is why Mill's definition of freedom does not help the exercise of responsible choice, it radically undermines it.  Because I have been stripped of all claims upon me, all direction from outside, all sense of a context wider than me, I am left with a self that can only be defined in reference to itself and its own decision-making capacity.  I have a naked self exercising a naked power, cut free from all that's actually constitutive of my identity.

Therefore, necessarily, I'm going to have to go outside myself in order to live out my irreducibly relational existence.  I need to, so to speak, make an alliance with a foreign kingdom. 

Now our experience of this will feel like it falls into one of two categories:

Either A) I embark on an alliance as a dispensible means towards my self-determined end.  In this case I'll drop it as soon as it's inconvenient -- I'm in charge using you. 

Or B) I genuinely give myself over to the foreign power and am determined by it -- You're in charge using me. 

But the bible says, in practice A) is our sinful intention but it always collapses into B). 

Let's think about Ephesians 2:1-3:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

In our natural state we 'carry out the desires of the body and mind'.  You might think that sitting on the throne of your little kingdom is the definition of freedom.  But no, precisely as we 'gratify the cravings' (NIV) of the body and mind we are following the devil.  Just as we think we are exercising our self-rule, in that act we are being ruled by Satan.  We imagine we're strong enough to pull off A), in reality we have no bargaining power with the world, the flesh and the devil - they're in charge using us.

The similarity between Mill's quotation on freedom and Ephesians 2:3 is chilling.  To exercise 'sovereignty' over our 'body and mind' is not freedom at all.  According to the bible that is slavery. 

If we're going to find a true freedom it will have to be on an entirely different footing.

More on that later...

 

 Rest of series:

Where to begin?

Freed will

Living free

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Check out this poem by D. Gwenallt, translated by Rowan williams - h/t Ben Myers

It's called "Sin"

Take off the business suit, the old-school tie,
The gown, the cap, drop the reviews, awards,
Certificates, stand naked in your sty,
A little carnivore, clothed in dried turds.
The snot that slowly fills our passages
Seeps up from hollows where the dead beasts lie;
Dumb stamping dances spell our messages,
We only know what makes our arrows fly.
Lost in the wood, we sometimes glimpse the sky
Between the branches, and the words drop down
We cannot hear, the alien voices high
And hard, singing salvation, grace, life, dawn.
Like wolves, we lift our snouts: Blood, blood, we cry,
The blood that bought us so we need not die.

Wow!

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3

Do you ever wonder, like this blogger, if Jesus would actually like you?  Not whether some abstract principle of grace covers you.  But the question, How would the radical Jesus of the bible deal with you?

I mean the Guy's fierce.  Totally uncompromising, pure.  No double-standards, no tolerance for double-standards.  He sees you to the bottom.  He knows your heart.  One sentence from His lips will expose you to the world.

More than this He's walking the road to Golgotha and there's only one way to follow - take up your cross and join Him.  On the way, confess His name to the world, stand behind His words, own Him to His deadliest enemies. Love your would-be killers, pray for your persecutors.  Got money?  Give it away.  Got possessions?  Sell them.  Let nothing hinder you.  Don't settle your affairs first, don't even bury your father.  Follow. 

Yikes.

Now think.  Who is surrounding Jesus, following along the Golgotha way?  The religious keen-beans right?  The professionally moral?  No chance.  Those guys are walking away conspiring to kill Him. 

Who is flocking to Jesus?  Sinners and tax collectors.  They run to the Holy One of Israel - the One who could throw them body and soul into hell. 

Try this as a test:  Read the last ten verses of Luke 14.  In it Jesus turns to the crowds and says:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters- yes, even his own life- he cannot be my disciple.  And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple... any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Now read the first verse of Luke 15 (and remember that chapter divisions are not part of the original Scriptures):

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear him.

Huh??  Shouldn't the 'sinners' be running for the hills?  How can Jesus turn up the discipleship temperature to nuclear and at the same time have the most notoriously immoral people draw near??

Well perhaps these words from Jesus will help.  They might just be my favourite:

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17)

Jesus is not the Health Police - enforcing wellness, punishing the sick!  He's the Doctor.  The sick do not run from Him but to Him.  It's the 'healthy' who run away.  The 'righteous' cannot bear His presence.  Ostensibly they worry about Jesus' reputation - eating with sinners.  In reality it is their reputation at stake - eating with the Doctor.  For to share His company is to admit to a deep spiritual sickness and to abandon the 'healthy' facade.

Yet for the sick, they have abandoned the healthy facade.  And they've come to realise that their sickness does not prevent them from coming to Christ.  Their sickness is why they come to Christ.  And so they come and find in Jesus a Doctor for Whom no disease is beyond His healing power. 

Jesus is the Doctor for sick sinners.  And this understanding is at the heart of the question 'How does the radical Jesus of the bible deal with me?'  Not as the Health Police but as the Doctor.  He calls me to Himself in all my sin - in all my inability to follow.  

So Christ's radical call to discipleship goes out.  If I'm seeing things clearly I know three things:

1) Jesus is right, that is the way. 

2) I have no chance of treading that path.  None. Zero. Squat.

3) Jesus is the Doctor - He and He only can take what is natural to me (desertion!) and turn it into discipleship.

In this way I answer Christ's call.  I draw nearer to the One who commands, not because I recognize in myself the strength to answer His call.  But I recognize in Him the power to redeem my weakness.  It's not about seeing health in us.  It's all about seeing healing in the Doctor.

In the future (when I've got some time) I'll look at Christ's actual healings as demonstrations of just this dynamic. 

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Back from holidays now.  While away I was very tickled by this from Saturday's Guardian. 

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One Million Tiny Plays About Britain by Craig Taylor

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Two old women finish their tea at a cafe in Lichfield. One holds the bill...

Anna Oh, you. Now don't be so utterly ridiculous.

Eva I insist. I insist, my dear.

Anna Absolutely not and I won't hear another word from silly old you.

Eva Well, I won't hand it over.

Anna You give it to me right now.

Eva I won't. I won't, and that's the end of it.

Anna I can't have you paying for this, can I?

Eva You paid for the last tea.

Anna And that was nearly a year ago, silly.

Eva Exactly. Just put that wallet away now, you troublemaker.

Anna That's enough. Give it to me.

Eva I'm going to pay and that's that.

Anna Then I'm putting some money in your purse.

Eva You're going nowhere near my purse.

Anna I need to say thank you.

Eva Then a simple thank you's enough.

Anna You know how I feel about this, dear.

Eva Well, fair is fair.

Anna I don't believe it is fair, if you don't mind.

Eva Then you can take me out for a nice meal next time, can't you?

Anna This is my treat.

Eva It is completely my treat and I want to pay. The end.

Anna No. [Pause]

Eva Now sit down. I'm just going to put it on my credit card and we'll go on with our lovely afternoon.

Anna Tell me how much it is.

Eva And we'll see the dahlias out in Biddulph.

Anna I'll sit right here then. I'll just sit.

Eva Well, you're being silly.

Anna You're being silly.

Eva I don't want your money. A simple thank you is fine.

Anna I'd like to give you some money.

Eva Just say thank you now. Just say it.

 

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The anger is palpable.

And notice that their civility isn't actually a cover for their rage - it is precisely the vehicle for it.  Far from hiding their hostility, their manners are the menacing thing.  They will kill each other with 'kindness.'

But what is this 'kindness' that they hurl at each other? 

'Fair is fair.' 'I want to pay.' 'I don't want your money.'

They may as well say 'I don't want your friendship.'  For what friendship is founded on 'fairness' and 'payment'?  No these are not the words of friends.  And this is not a demonstration of good manners.  Here their manners are their weapons.  And they destroy themselves and each other by them. 

What is the essence of this 'friendship'?  What throbs away at the heart of this 'civility'?   It is their refusal to receive in gratitude.  The turning of gift into duty.  A determination to achieve what can only be given.

And by this mentality, however cultured, they despise the gratuity of God's little pleasures and they despise each other.  Here is the clenched fist in the presence of grace.  It is the deepest perversion of all our natures. 

And it's all amply illustrated by two old ladies in a tea shop.

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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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11

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 that 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 preacher.  "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 living 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!!"

Those who know me may be surprised to learn that I didn't answer back to this one.  Oh I wanted to.  How I did want to!  But judging by the alarm in the preacher'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, faithful 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 am immovable in the midst of the storm.

"... 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.  Yet they could not deny that they were indeed guilty of this greatest of liberalisms.

"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 living 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 living legend looks like he's been hung from the ceiling on meat hooks.  As though in great pain 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 living legend, he nods, "I know, I know, that's the problem."

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

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

The living 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 that was 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, trying to calm his wild-eyed enthusiasm.

"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 mouthe '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 now 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, that is, the harmony is shattered.  One of the young guns, no doubt provoked by my impossible smugness, 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!"

Another pipes up: "I think I know 'Where then is boasting?' - he's rstanding 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 you can 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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Recently I was reading John 1:1-18 with some international students who knew next to nothing about Christianity.  I was bracing myself for all sorts of questions about the trinity and the incarnation.  Actually they understood these quite easily. (After all how difficult is the sentence "God is a loving relationship of three Persons" or "the Word became flesh" - these concepts are only difficult if you're committed to a whole other raft of theistic suppositions!).  Here is what they really struggled with:

The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it

Now one issue is the translation of the word for "understood".  katelaben could be translated 'lay hold of', 'take possession of' or in the cognitive sense of "understand" as the NIV has it.  Perhaps the English word "grasp" straddles these meanings nicely?  "The darkness has not grasped the light."

But however you translate it, you have this conceptual riddle: if light shines how come there's darkness?? 

Well there might be some reasonable explanations like, maybe the Light is not very strong.  Well no, the Light is Jesus Christ - the Light of the cosmos! (v9-10). 

Ok, well perhaps the Light is not shining in the right place?  No - the Light shines directly in the darkness, the darkness that is humanity in its unbelief  (v4-5). 

Hmm, well maybe the Light only shines on some but not on others, leaving the darkness unenlightened?  No, "the true Light gives light to every man." (v9). 

This is the riddle:  the Light really shines and shines directly into the darkness.  John even says the Light enlightens every man.  Yet the darkness remains.  Somehow the darkness does not receive the omnipotent Light of the cosmos.

These international students were stumped.  And actually so was I.  This should have struck me many times, but it took their fresh pairs of eyes to see what is really a very great question:  How can omnipotent Light shine and darkness remain?

If this doesn't strike us, it really should.  And we must resist the urge to smoothe the problem away.  The text does not let us off the hook - either saying "He doesn't really shine" or "It's not real darkness."  No, He really shines and there's really darkness.

In fact this has been a riddle from day one.  Literally. 

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day", and the darkness He called "night". And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.

Though verse 2 told us of 'darkness' and 'the deep' (abyss), the Word of God brings a triumphant light.  Yet this light does not extinguish the darkness.  Instead there is a separation of light and darkness.  How strange!  We think of light swallowing up darkness - illuminating it, removing it.  Yet what we see is two realms separated.  The light is clearly superior but the darkness is not obliterated.

Recently 2 Corinthians 5 has come up on two blogs I read regularly - Baxter's Ongoing Thoughts and Halden's Inhabitatio Dei.  In particular the emphasis has been on the fact that "God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ." (2 Cor 5:19).   I heartily agree.  But I took issue with what I see to be the loss of any category for ongoing darkness/alienation/separation.  Paul goes on in the next verse to explain his ministry of reconciliation - he urges people "Be reconciled to God."  Paul goes around this (in one sense) reconciled world and urges people (with a passive imperative - interesting grammar no?!) to be reconciled.  Why?  Because the light shines but (somehow!) darkness remains.

And this makes the darkness not less outrageous but more.  The sin of those in the dark is not that they haven't had the light or not pilgrimmaged towards it.  Their sin is that they are being enlightened minute by minute and yet walk in darkness.  Think of Paul in the Areopagus - he tells the Athenians that they live and move and have their being in God - He is not far from them at all!!! (v27-28).  And yet they must repent (v30-31) because judgement is coming.  This is the great problem - not that they have sinned against a 'god over there.'  Rather, they have rejected the God in Whom is their very life.  The light is shining, they are (in one sense) living in God.  And yet this makes their darkness all the more appalling.

How can we be godless, given how God has lifted the whole creation to Himself in Christ?  How can we shout our 'No' to God given His omnipotent 'Yes' in Christ?  This is an outrageous conceptual problem.  But it is, even more, an outrageous moral problem.  It must not be rationalized or wished away.  God really was reconciling the world to Himself on the cross.  He really has said Yes to all creation. The true Light really does enlighten everyone.  Yet somehow humans remain godless, they shout their defiant 'no', they love and remain in and perpetuate the darkness.

Sin is insanity. There simply is nothing reasonable about it.  We must remember this as we go about our ministry of reconciliation.  (2 Cor 5:18-20).  At the most fundamental level, there's nothing credible about unbelief.  Let's not conduct our evangelism as though there is.

We are to urge the people of this reconciled world to be reconciled. How can they not be!?  That should be the flavour of our evangelism.  How can you not be enlightened by Him who is shining with Almighty power??  That urgency and incredulity and insistence and even moral outrage should characterize our ministry.  Christ shines - how can you not be enlightened??  Christ is given to you - how can you not receive Him??  Christ has reconciled the world - how can you not be reconciled??

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For an example of what preaching like this might sound like - here's an evangelistic Christmas carol talk on Isaiah 9. The concluding challenge in particular is shaped by these kinds of thoughts.

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In talking about Allah as an idol the question comes 'If Allah is a false god, does that make him nothing? something? a demon?'  I think Paul might say yes to all three questions:

"So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." (1 Cor 8:4-6)

Idols are nothing says Paul.  But then he goes on to say they are not just called 'gods' but are gods. And then in chapter 10 he says pagan sacrifices are offered to 'demons'. (1 Cor 10:20).

So are idols nothing? something? or demons?  It seems like Paul is saying 'all three.'  How can that be?  Well it's important that we take seriously the language of 'gods' (little 'g') and 'demons'.  (Ex 15:11, 1 Kings 8:25, Deut 10:17, Ps 82:1; Deut 32:16-21 - thanks Otepoti for these).

I think false gods are demonic. Their 'nothingness' is not a non-existence but rather an ontological lack. They are like a gaping hole - a nothing where there should be a something. A hole is not non-existent but it does have its existence in being a deficiency, a denigration. They are not unreal or non-existent. They are just 'nothing.' Their whole power and being is in being a negation.

Think of how John describes light and darkness. Light is something.  Darkness is not something - certainly not like Light is something.  Darkness is not unreal or non-existent but it still depends on being not light. On one hand it is a terrible power (a fearful something). But in another sense it is nothing - its whole existence is an existence in negation. I think idols are like this.

But again this is not to say the forces behind these dumb idols are impotent. Far from it - they have a fearsome dark power. Think of Deut 32

"16 They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. 17 They sacrificed to demons, which are not God--gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. 18 You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. 19 The LORD saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. 20 "I will hide my face from them," he said, "and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. 21 They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols."

Here these gods 'recently appear'.  They are 'no god' and 'worthless idols' but nonetheless they are 'gods' - 'demons' even.  Can we say then that objects of worship that are not God are nothing in themselves but become spiritual realities when worshipped.  Demonic forces (which, again, are 'dark' forces - having their being in negating what is True) inhabit dumb idols when we invest them with power.  When we seek life in what is dead it is not a neutral spiritual issue - the powers of darkness are involved.

 So yes, idols are nothing.  And something.  And demons. 

What say you?

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In thinking of Substitutes for the Spirit I was surprised at how many I came up with.  But then again, we all know what the Scripture says is the antithesis to the Spirit. Therefore we know that susbtitutes for the Spirit can be summed up in one word - flesh.  Thus we know

  1. These substitutes will be with us from cradle to grave
  2. They will stick to us like skin to our bones
  3. They will pervade every area of life
  4. They will be selfish alternatives to everything the Spirit is trying to lead us to
  5. They will seem far more natural than the Spirit-led path
  6. They will appear as a counterfeit Spirit-led path - (not every spirit is from God!)

In fact they will appear as the seemingly harmless desire to serve myself - whether in moral or immoral ways.  And so they are at war with my soul. (1 Pet 2:11).  It's often occured to me that maturity in the Christian life consists largely of identifying these desires of the flesh as precisely that. 

We can identify Spirit-led passions.  They will be:

  • Christ-centred
  • Word-based
  • other-focussed
  • cross-shaped

 How are we to identify fleshly thinking?  Ephesians 4:22 is interesting:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires

Three questions occur to me regarding the 'old self' / flesh:

  1. What are the desires of your flesh?  What exactly is the 'old self' telling you about what you need / what you should pursue?
  2. How is this old self deceiving you?  Phrase the desire as a blatant lie: e.g. "Your identity/worth/righteousness lies in people thinking you're funny/attractive/clever/'helpful'."
  3. How has this fleshly existence corrupted you?  Think how ugly it has made you.

Always, though, the underlying pursuit/lie/corruption of the flesh is my attempt to establish a righteousness of my own. (Phil 3:1-11).  Ultimately the flesh tells me to be justified before heaven and earth on my own account.  Therefore the power which alone is able to mortify my flesh is the gospel.  Because the gospel tells me 'Before and apart from any works, I am clothed in Christ.  My whole identity, status, reputation, past, present and future is taken out of my hands and hidden entirely in Christ.' 

I was 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)

 To live by this gospel word is to live by the Spirit.  And it is to crucify the flesh.

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