I have threatened such before, but I mean it this time 
I will probably quit blogging for awhile. I even toyed with the idea of deleting this blog, but decided not to do so, at least for the time being. I increasingly think myself to be utterly unqualified to speak on weighty things. I believe I am too polemic, and my blogging feeds this part of me. I also do not want to entertain any narcissism,and blogging can provide a temptingly fertile soil for such. You see, I am a not very good Christian. I am at times self-righteous and and prone to be an idolater. I am often foolish in speech and action and prone to be self-absorbed. I often beat myself up over my sin and shortcomings. But I am redeemed by my Saviour, Christ Jesus. In the end, that is all I got. That is absolutely all I got to cling to, and I have to preach that to myself daily. All I have is the fact that I can stand before my Maker because my Redeemer took upon Himself my sin. He lived a sinless and obedient life for me and took my sins upon Himself on the cross. He rose again, in time and space, in history, and defeated death. Simul Iustus et Peccator (simultaneously sinner and saint) , I am not living my best life now. That comes later. What I am learning, thought, is that I have a great High Priest who intercedes for me. I was dead in my trespasses, but my Redeemer breathed life into me, brought me to faith, to belief, to a trust that He is sufficient. When I am weak, He is magnified. If Christ uses the weak and foolish to confound the strong and wise of the world, then I hope I am His man.
Here are a few perhaps last and disjointed thoughts with which to give what may be the closing punctuation this blog:
- Are we more weighed down by the sins done to us than by the sins we have done to others, or for more importantly, against God? Do we truly ponder the gravity of of our rebellion, even as redeemed saints, in light of a holy, sovereign and righteous God? Without a heart broken and contrite over one’s sin, piety can be hollow and may be followed and fueled by a cold, self-righteous moralism. Each and every one of us is to varying degree a recovering Pharisee with a propensity towards self-pity, self-righteousness, and self-agrandization.
- No matter how bad we think our circumstances, in light of our innate fallen nature, we deserve no better. Why do we Christians complain about our supervisor at work, about our job, our financial worries, our relational issues, our health when each breath is a gift? To do so is to proclaim to God, “I deserve better than what you have given me!” And I am guilty. The lines do not always fall into pleasant places, and God is still sovereign, good, holy, righteous, and merciful. Our Redeemer knows we are made of but dust and our life is but a vapor. He knows, in His absolute sovereignty, how we feel and what we are going through. The Triune God uses trials mold us as a potter’s hand molds a lump of clay. And He gives us good gifts and joy, too.
- Sometimes we have truly been wronged by others and the consequences linger for longer that we think necessary or fair. And sometimes our thoughts linger over such longer than necessary. Grace does not abound in those places.
- When we long for righteousness, when we groan over sin, both ours and that of others, and I hope that is something no saint ever grows beyond experiencing, we know that He is near to a broken and contrite heart. The Messiah, the Word through Whom all things hold together, intercedes for us to the Father. He does not break the bent reed nor extinguish the smoldering wick.
- The one who is forgiven much, loves much.
- I do not think people often meet the Jesus they most profoundly need when all they are presented with is a Redeemer who’s overarching goal seems to be meeting all our felt needs and making sure we are happy and make good decisions.. Sadly, many are satisfied with that misrepresentation of Jesus who has a ‘wonderful plan for your life’. Sadly, I think this is the Jesus presented in many American churches.
- Expanding on that previous bullet point, I just recently listened to three sermons from rather influential pastors. Two of the sermons were on tapping into some inferred, innate leadership ability that resides in all of us. In a nutshell, the sermons go thusly: because we all know Jesus was a great leader, great insight into leadership principles can be gleaned from examining His methods. We need to discover and apply those leadership lessons to our lives as our lives intersect with others.
- (Warning: engaging rant mode) Without exception, in each of the sermons, the pastor spent most of his time elaborating on personal anecdotes and experience as well as referencing secular books on leadership principles. Without exception, and like most every thematic sermon on felt needs, each pastor started off with a pet project and with good intention and then twisted and distorted whatever Scripture was used out of its intended use and context. I am no genius, but I do know how to read. I see when context is ignored. What I see in each of these sermons is a grand adventure in missing the point of the text and jumping off onto pet projects of felt needs, of reducing the grand narrative of the Bible, the story of Creation, Fall, and Redemption through Christ, into a self-help manual to be mined for pearls of wisdom on how, for example, to be, as one pastor stated in referring to a popular book on leadership (titled Purple Cow is the title if memory serves), a ‘purple people leader.’ In one of the few quoted verses, there was a Gospel nugget inside of the inferred leadership lesson. The pastor said something to the effect that he would put the Gospel nugget in the fridge so he can later pull it out and microwave it to be served in a later message
- Here, too, is a portion of a sermon I listened to from the guy who taught ‘purple people leader’ sermon:“
Your God is so great that when Moses asked Him in Exodus 3:14 what’s Your name and who shall I tell the Israelites who sent me, God could not confine Himself to a particular description so he announced His presence by saying “I AM who I AM.” I love that! You can’t box Me in. I AM who I AM. The old King James versions says, I AM that I AM. I think that a good interpretation of that statement into into a modern translation would be…”What ever you need, thats what I AM.” “I AM that. That’s what I am.”
This section of the sermon goes on a bit about how God is there to meet your financial, emotional, and relational needs and then concludes thusly:
“He is. He simply is so maybe we should just say today…God is…. fill in the blank. What do you need. Thats what He is.“
Now, the rest of the sermon was not completely without merit or without Gospel implications, but to say the that God’s ontological disclosure of I AM who I AM means ‘I AM whatever you need me to be’ tends to reduce God to a servant to our felt needs, a God who seems to exist to make us feel good, to make us happy. Rather, we exist for Him, not the other way around. God is not as concerned about our happiness as much as we are. He is more concerned about our sanctification. I think broad swaths of the church makes much of God making much over us almost as much as they make much of God. Whew…..
I would really love to hear these guys try to exegete the book of Jeremiah. If they did, it would probably end up being a sermon on finances. leadership, sex, or marriage Yea, I know I am being a bit cynical, but the only time I heard hard things from these guys is when they preach their ubiquitous messages on tithing, and even then, the message usually ends up massaging a felt need, a desire for financial blessing. Also, what stood out in stark relief for me is how much these guys talk about themselves on stage. Perhaps more than half of each sermon consisted of humorous stories of their childhood or some personal anecdote that was somehow used in sometimes tenuous ways to segue into the theme of the speech. And if they are not talking about their life experience, they often talk about their church and its history. I remember listening to a pastor state that he was going to preach on a passage of Scripture from the Sermon on the Mount, but God told him to preach on the history of his church instead. That was not God, but ego, speaking to the pastor and instructing him that His word is to be trumped by a narrative on the pastors empire.
Without conscious intent, what happens in a purpose driven and market driven church is it ends up personality driven. They often reduce the objective truth of Gospel to a personal, subjective narrative of some nebulous ‘life change.’ And you know what, these pastors seem like truly nice guys. I believe treat their friends and family well. They are kind to animals and pay their taxes. They are well-intentioned. And sometimes God uses such men in spite of their error.
And I am finished listening to bad sermons. I do not know why I subject myself to such other than to practice discernment. I guess too, I am more deeply nourished by and thankful for sermons of substance after having imbibed sugary sermons that in the end do not satisfy.
Rant mode off – no more of those aforementioned polemics - and …… to all the ships at sea….signing off for a while…..
A prayer titled ‘Contentment’ found quoted at Challies:
Heavenly Father,
If I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty,
make my heart prize thy love,
know it, be constrained by it,
though I be denied all blessings.
It is thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants,
for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them.
Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations,
if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil,
and be delivered from it with gratitude to thee,
acknowledging this as the highest testimony of thy love.
When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin
he became more dear to me than sin had formerly been;
his kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny.
Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued
I must not only labour to overcome it,
but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it,
and he must become to me more than vile lust had been;
that his sweetness, power, life may be there.
Thus I must seek a grace from him contrary to sin,
but must not claim it apart from himself.
When I am afraid of evils to come,
comfort me by showing me that in myself
I am a dying, condemned wretch,
but in Christ I am reconciled and live;
that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest,
but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace;
that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good,
but in Christ I have ability to do all things.
Though now I have his graces in part,
I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state
where thou wilt show thyself fully reconciled,
and alone sufficient, efficient,
loving me completely, with sin abolished.
O Lord, hasten that day.
Here is a portion of a post by a church planter/pastor of a relevant church somewhere in Ohio:
DON’T CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN
if you don’t ever share your faith…..ever
DON’T CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN
if you are only concerned with judging people instead of first loving them
DON’T CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN
if you are not investing in the lives of those younger than you
DON’T CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN
if all you do is complain and cause dissension
DON’T CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN
Please understand….I’m not saying you aren’t a christian, I’m just asking you to call yourself something else. You are giving everyone a disgusting taste in their mouth and labeling it biblical. Christ’s church will survive, only through the strength of Jesus shown through an outward focused lifestyle that draws those who are far from “Him”, close to “Him”.
I understand the sentiment and heart’s desire behind the post, and I have ran across quite similar statements/posts from other leaders within contemporary churches on how they do not like Christians who so not seem to act consistently with their profession. There are, however, serious questions are raised by the above quote. First, is a Christian defined more by a state of doing rather than a state of being? Second, are there classes or a hierarchy of Christians? Are some Christians more Christian than others? Is there irony in this pastor telling someone not to call themselves a Christian if they are judgmental? Are some Christians more justified by grace, by faith in Christ, than others?
I think of the Apostle Paul in his approach to the wayward, troubled church at Corinth, a church where people were getting drunk during Communion among other things. Paul:
1 Corinthians 1 (ESV)
Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place e call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as i the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Interesting is Paul’s salutation to the Corinthians. He does not instruct those in the church to quit calling themselves Christians, little Christs. His salutation is warm, though he later gives stern instructions on church discipline so that those in rebellion may be brought to repentance.
I think that what may be found at times is a somewhat underdeveloped understanding of the nature of justification and a lack of understanding that Christians are in different stages of sanctification. It may be, too, that some, perhaps many, who are in self-deception and call themselves Christian my not actually be in Christ. What is not acceptable, I think, is that our status in Christ is based on our performance, our works. How can we instruct others to refrain from naming themselves in Christ unless the one in question denies fundamental doctrines required for salvation?
Though I may have my suspicions, I can’t discern with absolute confidence if a person who claims to be a Christian is really redeemed or not. Sadly, there are people who live seemingly exemplary lives, who are active in doing all the positive things in the quoted list, who perhaps depend on their righteousness to earn God’s favor who will find themselves being told by Christ that He never knew them. There are also immature Christians who struggle with sin, with their tongue, who perhaps doubt their own salvation and feel themselves unworthy to call themselves Christians who are truly redeemed and loved dearly by the Messiah. I cannot see into the heart of a person. I do not always know what baggage, what obstacles to growth in Christ, they bring to the table. I am painfully aware that I have been quite foolish in my life and speech and know there are some who will probably and justifiably be surprised to see me in among the redeemed.
That all being said, Christians are called into a life of holiness, of progressive sanctification, but it is the distinction that we cannot save ourselves by our work that separates us from every other religion. I am absolutely not advocating any kind of ‘easy-believism,’ We are also told in the Word to check ourselves, to make sure of our election. Are we bearing fruit? Some branches may grow slowly, but eventually we will show some signs of sanctification.
If my earthly father gave me my name, no one has the right to tell me not to be called by his name. If I, even though a troubled child, am adopted into the family of the Triune God and my Abba Father calls me by name, can someone instruct me not to be called by my Redeemer’s name? Is that not the height of arrogance?
Which brings us to another issue, that your or my ‘outwardly focused lifestyle’ is what ultimately draws people who are ‘far’ from Him ‘near’ to Him. Perhaps more on that thought later.
I received a gift card to Books-A-Million recently. Looked around for quite a while in the ‘religion aisles”, picked up a few books with intention to purchase, but upon further reflection, I placed them back to where I found them. Many choices, not many very good. Saw a title that intrigued me, a book on the rapture from a less popular perspective.. Skimming through the pages, though, I found nothing that really challenged my current disposition on the subject, and quite frankly, it seemed a bit too universalist in its overarching theme. Though it seem to have some good insights, it erred, from what I picked up in skimming through the booked, in looking to a returning Lamb rather than a returning King. Not even sure if the author looked to a physical return of Christ more than a metaphorical event.
There was also a table set up with the usual titles by Joel Osteen, copies of The Shack, stacks of books with T.D. Jakes face on the cover. Also, I saw a number of titles by Marcus Borg, Dom Crossan, and Bart Ehrman……erudite and apostate. Almost giving up on finding something worthwhile to read, two titles that I had overlooked earlier, and I had skimmed through the selection a number of times, suddenly stood out. One was The Sovereignty of God by A. W. Pink and the other was What Is Reformed Theology by R.C. Sproul.
I purchased both and had about two dollars left on the gift card. As per the previous post, I had been reading Alister Mcgrath’s Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, but honestly, my interest began to wane as I waded through the late 16th century. Skipped through a couple of chapters to get to the 19th century in America. Good reading. However, having started on the A.W. Pink book, I cannot put it down. I will, however, go back and finish Christianity’s Dangerous Idea. By the way, that dangerous idea refers to the Protestant affirmation of the priesthood of all believers, that an individual believer can read and interpret scripture without it being filtered through the Roman Catholic Church. As an aside, I have a few books that I have never finished reading. Used to feel guilty about it, being so fickle about replacing an unfinished book with a new one that seems more interesting.
So far, A.W. Pink’s book is quite good, quite readable, and I think it would challenge the understanding of the Triune God’s omniscience, His sovereignty, of broad swaths of the evangelical American church. Along with an inadequate grasp of the depravity of man, the nature of sin, I think many sitting in the pews have an ill-undefined concept of God’s absolute reign over the created order. I have heard far too many preachers place God’s will into a place subservient to man’s. I have heard too many times God being referred to by pastors as a ‘gentleman’ who would never do anything to subvert our free will. I will not bow to such a god, a god whose will mine can thwart. That is not the God of the Bible. Don’t ever say God tries. Understood is that there are difficult tensions between man’s responsibility and accountability and God’s sovereignty, but such tensions are not contradictions and do not diminish God’s absolute rule over all…. nor is our accountability over our actions nullified by God’s sovereignty. In His meticulous sovereignty, there is no injustice to be found in Him; He is absolutely holy and without sin.
Our will is free within constraints. We are free to act according to our nature. Our nature is one, in its unregenerate state, in rebellion to God. We are free to sin, but even so we are restrained by common grace from being as depraved as we might be. No one, on their own, chooses God. They may choose a god of their imagination, they may desire the gifts of God, but unregenerate man, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, does not choose God.
OK, I see I am going off on a tangent and a rant, but here I go. Going back to that inadequate understanding of the depravity of man, I have heard sin described from the pulpit too many times as a ‘mess-ups’ and as ‘mistakes.’ Far too often the effects of sin are understood only as they effect the sinner. Sometimes in contemporary American evangelicalism, we are inferred to be damaged by our sin, our ‘mistakes.’ We fail to rise to our potential because of our ‘mess-ups.’ I remember one sermon two or three years ago where the pastor had two cars on stage, on one side an an old but serviceable automobile, on the other side of the stage, a Ferrari. The pastor in talked about sin euphemistically as our mess-ups and mistakes and in the process of talking about them, he hits the beater car again and again with a sledge hammer to illustrate the effects of our ’sin’ , our mistakes. The headlights end up broken as well as the windows. There are now dents all over the car. It ends up ugly and broken. On the other side is, again, the red Ferrari. By accepting Christ, by admitting our mistakes, we become this Ferrari. I also remember being encouraged on occasion to try Jesus because He was the best deal going.
Is there anything wrong with this well-intentioned presentation of the Gospel? On whom is it centered? Who is the sin an affront to? Who is sinned against in this analogy? It is, it seems, ourselves. Sin is now diminished to something that needs a therapeutic fix offered by Christ. It is all man-centered. By accepting Christ, we were told, we can now rise to our God-given potential. Is such anything but a tenuous shadow of the Gospel? We start off not as an old, but serviceable beater, we start off dead, in a junkyard and rotted with rust. Our sin is not an affront to our potential, it is an affront to a holy, righteous, and majestic Triune God. I am sure the pastor would agree to that previous statement, but why is the Gospel all-to-often presented as something light, something therapeutic? In another sermon, a pastor used the description of someone trying to text on their cell phone while driving and hitting a mailbox in the process as an analogy for sin. Sin is not dings and dents incurred from mistakes we make, but such is how it is presented by much of the church.
Many pastors state the the problem with the church is one of too much creeds and not enough deeds. They say we know too much but do too little. But if their creed, their understanding of the sovereignty of God is reduced to Him being a ‘gentleman’ who would not thwart our ‘free will’ and their definition of sin is mess-up or mistake that prevents us from reaching our God-given potential, then I would have to say they have misdiagnosed the ills that beset much of the church and do the sheep a great disservice.
In a closing and perhaps parenthetical thought, is the selection of books found in the religion section reflective of something important?
As an addendum of 6-11-09, I want to say that I thnk the aforementioned pastor has, in the last couple of years, become more focused and clear on the Gospel.
…Alister Mcgrath’s Christianity’s Dangerous Idea. Having in the last year or two developed an interest in church history, I find this book to be altogether engaging. It is frustrating to have only fifteen to thiry minutes a day or so to work through the book, but with a long Memorial Day weekend to look forward to, maybe I will find time, even though only about eighty pages through it now, to finsih book and share some associated thoughts.
I have heard people say that you should be careful when you ask God for patience because He might just give it to you. The unintended inference is that God perhaps possesses some malicious attribute in that He will rain down upon the supplicant trials and tribulation to force upon you patience. The implication is this: if you had just kept your stupid mouth shut in regards to your petition, you would not find yourself in the trouble you are in. I hate that. God does not give His adopted ones snakes when they ask for bread.
I affirm God freely gives wisdom to those who ask from a heart of single-minded desire. In the giving, what has become so increasingly and ironically obvious to me is a persistent deficit of wisdom, the very thing I ask for and require. It is a sustained awareness, a tense epiphany. I have no excuses. I see ever more clearly that, without Christ, I bring nothing, absolutely nothing good to the table in approaching the Triune God Almighty, and I am brought to nothing. I cannot honestly view anyone from the loft of self-righteousness.
From all this, I see more clearly that the tongue, more often than one cares to admit, spews out stupidity, idolatry, the overflow of the heart. But…..something core is changing painfully, but necessarily. Out of all this sifting, I understand much more clearly the grace of Christ in the midst of this brokenness and awareness. I become more aware that He is a great high priest acquainted with our weakness. The Psalms, in their breath and depth, in their God-breathed portrayal of the expanse of human experience lived before the presence of God, rings more clearly.
Recently, I find that I speak less and when I do speak, I hope it is with growing thoughtfulness and an increasing awareness of the irrevocable nature of the spoken word. This is the nothing but the work of the implanted Holy Spirit, not a thing I induced, and the work done is sometimes difficult It is done, though, out of Holy Spirit’s work in conforming the elect exiles to the image of Christ. Some lumps of clay, like me, are perhaps more grossly misshapen than others and require more molding by the Potter’s sovereign hands.
So, growth in wisdom is sometimes nourished in ways unforeseen and difficult as if being placed in the heat of the kiln, but it is a good gift from the Father. I cannot change the past or un-speak words no more than a bullet can be recalled after the trigger is pulled. However, I know more clearly that He is absolutely sovereign, even over our troubles, failures, and trials, and will complete the work He began. Most importantly, through all this, Christ will be glorified and magnified.
If I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry, and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. And this to me is the final test. This is how I distinguish between dreaming and waking. When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. The dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams; I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner; I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world; the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I can see it, but because by it I see everything else. – C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry” in The Weight of Glory
HT: Tabula Plena
…Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God by Keith A. Mathison. On Tuesday evenings, a group of men from a church I have been attending gather to read
various books on things of faith and discuss them in light of Scripture. We began reading through the book last Tuesday though my copy did not arrive till the following Saturday. I finished it on Monday.
Before I continue with my thoughts on this book, let me give you a bit of my back-story. I never spent very much time in church growing up, but I did manage to pick up a bit of the ‘culture’ through reading popular books on eschatology (Late, Great Planet Earth, etc), by occasionally listening to teachers/preachers on the radio and television, and by engaging conversations over the years on some of the the issues addressed in Mathison’s book. I came away from these influences with a bit of confusion over eschatology, with an ill-defined understanding that God had a different agenda for the church and the people of Israel (and with a strong leaning towards Christian Zionism), and a with tendency to interpret certain Biblical texts in light of current events rather than by the intent those passages had for the original audience.
I am under the impression that there has been a consensus in the American church, almost monolithic I think, of dispensationalism, a term I really could not clearly define for myself until recently. Also, I affirm that there are many, many godly men and women who affirm this theological grid, so any engagement of dialog must be entered into with grace, humility, and respect. What is in question here is not the character of the adherents of dispensationalism, but the correctness, the Biblical truth of the claims of this theological framework. Also, I affirm that what one thinks about dispensational theology should not be a litmus test for fellowship, for overarching orthodoxy. It is, I think, a subject that one can be in error over, but still affirm the core doctrines of Christianity. However and with that being said, the subject is not without import because to varying degree, I think all major doctrines are interrelated. Perhaps how one thinks about ecclesiology can effect how one thinks about eschatology; perhaps how one thinks about eschatology can effect how one thinks about soteriology. Doctrine matters, especially in a season where so many adhere to a ephemeral, insubstantial ‘deeds, not creeds’ mentality. I hope that in the final analysis we all measure our thoughts on things doctrinal by Scripture as the final authority.
What I appreciated about this book is it’s clarity. It cuts to the chase in it’s defining and characterization of dispensationalism; it is primarily the dividing of the people of God into two groups: Israel and the church. The church is considered a parenthesis, a mystery, a sideline in the Triune God’s plan of redemption. Further, this theology is relatively new, less than two hundred years old. One questions how this grid went without notice by 1800 years of church history. Though dispensationalists define themselves by and strive to adhere to a literal hermeneutic, they are not, in the final analysis, able to be completely consistent in such when interpreting prophetic passages.
Take my meanderings for what they are worth, but my growing understanding of dispensationalism leads me to believe that it interjects discontinuities in the redemptive narrative that unfolds in the Bible. It may, though unintentionally, present God as One who reacts, rather than One Who is absolutely sovereign. Also, and though not directly addressed in the book, I see dispensational thought as introducing two of some things where there only need be one. There are, within the dispensational framework, two (or more accurately, 1.5) returns of Christ, two peoples of God, two fulfillments of much of prophecy, two resurrections, two judgments, and sometimes in hyper-dispensationalism as represented by teachers such as John Hagee , two redemptive paths to God, one for the Jews and one for the gentiles. Though growing increasingly contra-dispensational, I was impressed with the irenic tone of the book. The book is also very clear in presenting the doctrines of grace. All that being said, I will continue to be edified by men like John MacAuthur and Charles Swindoll, both dispensationist. I could ramble on for hours on my thoughts on this book, and perhaps I will do a part two of this review at some point in the future.
Also, this is a rather quickly composed post, so please forgive any errors in grammer, etc.
The Sufficiency of Christ
Let me talk to you about my Messiah, Jesus Christ. Let me open quite controversially. If Christ is just a great moral teacher, He failed, and failed miserably. For all His altruism, His selflessness in serving others, for all His concern for the disenfranchised, for His formidable moral standards, His end is not one that I would consider a glowing endorsement for emulating His life. He was crucified; He died a death quite gruesome and, in death, was associated with criminals. If such is the potential end for emulating Christ the Teacher, then I want nothing of it. If we consider Christ only a moral example, then I cannot endorse Him above the Buddha. I cannot endorse Him above Gandhi. I cannot endorse Him above an Old Testament patriarch. They differ not in kind, but only in degree. His death carries no greater meaning and import than that of Martin Luther King’s. However, if Christ is more than a teacher, if He is who He and His followers claim Him to be, the Son of God whose death on the cross precedes something greater, His physical resurrection, I then must consider Him in an altogether different light.
I read, in the New Testament canon and in early church history, stories of martyrdom. I read, too, of multitudes abandoning the very foundations of their life to turn and follow, often at great personal, and sometimes ultimate, cost, the One whom they believed to be something greater than a teacher. These 1st century Palestinian Jews, the first followers of Christ, had no great need of a Messiah as a life coach, a minister to their finances and marriages. Their lives were, I believe, even if in a time of political tension, quite predictable for the most part. They were tied to the rhythms of the land, of harvest. They were, for the most part, farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen. They were embedded in the life of the synagogue. Too, the individualism, the obsessive focus on self, of contemporary western culture would be, I believe, quite alien to them.
The Messiah that many were expecting and the Messiah that they received were quite different from one another. Again, there was political tension in that time and place. Judea was under Roman rule and before the first century closed, the 2nd Temple would be, as predicted by the Messiah, in ruins. The expected Messiah would be a King, a strong Man who would break the shackles of Roman oppression and return to the Jews self-rule, and Jerusalem, the city of God, would take her place as the beacon of light to all the nations. This did not happen, though. They instead received a Child who would grow up to divide rather than conquer, to turn child against parent, neighbor against neighbor. He would upset the status quo. He would be, for a time, a pauper King, having, as He said to would-be disciples, no place to lay his head. The Messiah was homeless. His family, for the most part, before witnessing the resurrected Christ, did not, I believe, consider Jesus to be anything but perhaps a bit mad. Even his inner circle of disciples could not wrap their minds around Christ’s proclamations about Himself. Rather, they still anticipated a political King who would establish a theocracy. The pre-Easter Jesus, on the cross, left his followers discouraged and defeated. The post-Easter Jesus revolutionized his adopted ones. Easter changed everything.
How can I talk coherently about Easter and find words worthy to address our risen King, words not compromised by cliché? I am humbled by the task. First, Easter is not a metaphysical event having no concrete reality. The resurrection was not just merely a spiritual event; it is more than metaphor. The resurrection actually occurred in time and space. The Creator, the One through whom all things hold together, was willingly brutalized and murdered by His creation. He willingly became our Scapegoat, our blood sacrifice once for all. He is the new Covenant. Everything changed on Easter.
I can give coherent reasons and evidence to help illuminate the reality of the Easter event. It does not, contrary to what most would imagine, require a giant leap of blind faith. I can affirm with as much clarity the physical resurrection of Christ as I can most any event in ancient (and not so ancient) history. Where does this leave me, though? What do I do with this formidable knowledge? What does it mean and to where does it lead? Before we can even begin to address these questions, we must inquire as to the why of the Easter event.
Why did the Word that created cosmos, created humanity, deem it necessary to take on, from the Christmas event to eternity forward, a sinless human nature, and after taking on flesh, have it brutalized and nailed to that tree? Only in the context of that question can we begin to understand the Easter event. Here we find truths both simple and daunting, both compelling and repulsive.
We, as disciples of Christ, are beholden to our Messiah to apprehend these difficult truths to the best of our ability. Because of complacency that often permeates American Christianity, I believe that, as a church, we often worship more a pre-Easter Jesus rather than the post-Easter Jesus. The pre-Easter crowds gathered to the Messiah to receive from Him. The post-Easter Messiah drew to Him those who were willing to die for Him. The followers of the pre-Easter Jesus fell away from Him at the cross. The post-Easter disciples of Christ followed Him to the ends of the earth; they looked to give themselves away, to serve the Messiah, to die to self. I ask myself, which Christ am I following?
