Life of Christ part 33

 John 4.1-3

News of Jesus' growing popularity in Judea had reached the ears of the ever-cautious Pharisees. They’d heard that Jesus was gaining even more followers than the extremely popular John the Baptist. Jesus learned of the Pharisee’s concern, and decided it was time for Him to go back to Galilee. He certainly didn’t leave Judea out of fear of the Pharisees. Instead, Jesus must have calculated that His ministry would prematurely encounter too many obstacles if He remained in Judea. There were many more people to reach and much more work to be done. He could best carry on His ministry in the north, in Galilee.

Jesus' Ministry in Samaria intro

 Jesus’ Ministry in Samaria intro

We can’t be certain how long Jesus stayed in Judea during this first phase of His public ministry. We know  it began in the spring, during the feast of Passover. In the account of the woman at the well, Jesus states that the harvest was four months  away. This may mean that Jesus went through Samaria during the winter time, four months prior to the spring harvest. Therefore, Jesus may have spent several months in Jerusalem  and the Judean countryside. The time came, however, for Jesus to return north to Galilee. He would do so by passing through the middle region of Samaria where He would carry on a brief ministry connected with a woman in the Samaritan town of Sycharf

Life of Christ part 32

 John 3.22-36

Jesus and His disciples left Jerusalem, but instead of returning to Galilee they went out into the Judean countryside. There Jesus spent time with His disciples. This is significant. If we want to understand Jesus we have to spend time with Him. Jesus also engaged in a preaching and baptising ministry similar to that of John the Baptist, although Jesus didn’t actually baptise people, but left that work for His disciples to perform. In fact, John was still preaching and baptising nearby. Some people went to John and told him that many people were abandoning his ministry and following Jesus instead. We might have expected John to become jealous of Jesus’ popularity, but John was truly a man of God. He simply replied that he himself wasn’t the Messiah. Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus must increase in popularity, while John indicated that he himself should decrease. The time had come for Jesus to take centre stage in the unfolding spiritual drama of the ages. Only Jesus can grant eternal life. He alone must be the object of our faith.

Life of Christ part 31

 John 3.1-21

One man who showed particular interest in Jesus was a Pharisee named Nicodemus. We must remember that the Pharisees, while often the archenemies of Jesus during His earthly ministry, were highly respected among the people. These were men of high regard, men who were committed to upholding the law of God in its finest detail. Many Pharisees, of course, took this commitment to the point of disregarding human needs and even disregarding the God they claimed to serve. But some were honest, thoughtful men seeking to know God’s truth. Such was Nicodemus. Nicodemus would have been highly respected by the people because he was highly respected by the other religious and political leaders of Jerusalem to the degree that he had been appointed to the highest ruling council in the land. 

Some have made great claims about Nicodemus’ cowardice due to the fact that he went to Jesus at night, but such claims are far from necessary. The busyness of a man of Nicodemus’ standing and the active ministry of Jesus may have made an evening meeting the best possible time for intimate discourse. We must give Nicodemus credit for seeking Jesus out. He respectfully called Jesus a teacher, or Rabbi, and stated that he and others believed that Jesus had been sent by God. After all, it would take a work of God to perform the kind of miracles Jesus was doing. 

Jesus cut to the heart of the matter. He told Nicodemus that,  in order to see the kingdom of God, a person must be “reborn" or “born again.” This statement seemingly caught Nicodemus off guard, and he asked Jesus how a person can experience a new birth. Surely this couldn’t be a physically possibility. Jesus went on to explain that being reborn is a spiritual reality. We are born physically to enter into this world, but we must also be born spiritually to enter into God’s kingdom. This spiritual rebirth is a work of the Spirit of God in a person’s heart. It is a work of God that comes by faith. Jesus challenged Nicodemus to reflect on these spiritual realities. He also told Nicodemus that He alone, the Messianic Son of Man, had come from heaven and therefore was uniquely qualified to speak of heavenly truths. Jesus also said that He would one day be lifted up for all to see, speaking of the cross, and that anyone who would believe in Him would have eternal life. 

It’s in the context of Nicodemus’ interview with Jesus that we find the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3.16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Faith in Jesus is the key to the new birth. Faith in Jesus is essential to entering into eternal life. Jesus brought spiritual light into a dark world. He shines His spotlight on our sin so that we might look to Him for forgiveness. We must believe in Jesus to be reborn, and we must be born again in order to enter His eternal kingdom. This is the lesson Jesus taught Nicodemus. 

Life of Christ part 30

 John 2.13-25

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover, He found the courtyards surrounding the Temple filled with merchants and moneychangers. After all, it would have been difficult for many of the Jews to transport a sacrificial animal from distant locations to Jerusalem for the Passover, so it had become common practice for merchants to make such animals available for purchase in Jerusalem. In addition, these and other financial transactions invited the involvement of money changers, who likely inflated their prices for such events. That these practices took place was not really the problem. The problem was where they took place. The merchants and money changers had taken over the courts of the Temple for their transactions, making the place of worship a place for financial profit. This disregard for the holy place infuriated Jesus. John's Gospel tells us that He made a whip out of some rope and drove the animals out of the Temple area. Furthermore, He upended the tables of the money changers, sending coins flying everywhere. Like a fiery prophet of old, He zealously rebuked the merchants, accusing them of turning His Father’s house into a marketplace. We must take note that in this dramatic and public inauguration of Jesus' ministry, He referred to the Temple as His own Father’s house, highlighting His unique relationship with God the Father.

Of course, an act like this didn’t go unchallenged. The Jewish leaders quickly accosted Jesus and asked Him by what authority He did these things. They demanded a sign of His authority. Jesus told them simply, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” The Jews were appalled. It had taken forty-six years to build this magnificent Temple in Jerusalem. Could Jesus really think He could do the same thing in three short days? They didn’t realise that Jesus was talking about a different temple, His own body. Already Jesus knew that He would die and raise again on the third day. Already He knew that His ministry would be fraught with resistance. Instead of welcoming His cleansing of the Temple as they should, the religious leaders opposed this purifying act.

After purging the Temple, Jesus engaged in a ministry of miracles. John tells us that many people saw these miracles and believed in Him. Yet, John tells us, Jesus knew that their faith was fleeting in many cases. He didn’t depend on the crowd because, as God in the flesh, He knew the makeup of the human heart. His ministry would draw crowds, but the crowds would one day turn against Him. Jesus knew that He had to change people one heart at a time.

Early Ministry in Judea intro

 Early Ministry in Judea intro

Jerusalem and its Temple, located in the southern region of Judea, was the heart of Judaism. You’ll remember that every year Mary and Joseph took Jesus as a boy to Jerusalem in order to celebrate the Passover. As an adult, Jesus continued to make this annual journey. It was while Jesus was in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover that He publicly presented Himself as God’s Messiah. He did so in a dramatic fashion. 

Life of Christ part 29

 John 2.1-12

It is generally agreed that the first physical miracle that Jesus performed was turning water into wine. John's Gospel describes this event as the beginning of Jesus' miraculous signs. It came about like this. There was a wedding in a small town near Nazareth called Cana. Jesus' mother, Mary, was one of the guests at this wedding celebration. Jesus, too, had been invited, along with His disciples. A wedding feast in ancient Israel wasn’t just a one day event. It took the better part of a week. As the week wore on, the bridegroom’s supply of wine ran out. Some have suggested that the last-minute arrival of Jesus and His disciples contributed to the depletion of the banquet supplies. Possibly the host hadn’t planned adequately, or the family was too poor to make better provisions. All we really know is that there was no more wine. This would have been a tremendous social embarrassment to the bridegroom and his family.

Mary went to Jesus and informed Him of the situation. Did she have some motherly sense that her son, the Son of God, would use this opportunity to reveal Himself to the world? Jesus responded to Mary by asking why she was involving Him in this situation. After all, His time to present Himself as God’s Messiah hadn’t yet arrived. It’s always difficult to conjecture from the printed words alone the tone of voice or the facial expressions involved in such conversations. It’s possible that Jesus, with a smile and knowing wink, responded to His mother in such a way that both knew what was about to take place. After all, Mary immediately told the servants to do anything Jesus asked. 

We read that there were six large stone water jars nearby. Jesus asked the servants to fill these jars with water, which they did immediately. He then told the servants to draw some water from the jars and present it to the banquet host. We can only imagine what was going through the minds of these servants. Why would they present a cup of water to the host who had run short of wine? Was this some cruel joke? Nonetheless, the servants complied with Jesus' request. The host took the cup, not knowing where it came from, and tasted its contents. The cup was filled with wine, and not just any wine, but the best of wine! The host called the bridegroom aside and congratulated him on saving the best wine until the end. The wedding feast would now continue in style. Apart from Jesus and Mary, the servants and Jesus' disciples alone knew the source of this new wine. They must have been astounded. Jesus had a great miracle. He demonstrated His power over physical elements, transforming ordinary water into wine. But He did so privately, not seeking attention nor revealing Himself publicly to the crowd. That time would come soon enough. For now, Jesus used His miraculous power to honour His mother’s request, to rescue a family from social embarrassment, to endorse forever the institution of marriage, and to reveal His glory to His disciples. John tells us that Jesus' disciples put their faith in Him as a result. They would again and again see Jesus perform miracles, and they would again and again grow in their belief in this Man who could turn water into wine.

When the wedding feast was over, Jesus along with His disciples, His mother, and His brothers, left Cana and spent a few days in Capernaum, a fishing village along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Gospels indicate that Jesus had brothers and sisters. He was part of a family, and He spent time with His family. We also know that some of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen who had made Capernaum their base of operation. Jesus, too, would eventually make Capernaum His base of operation for His itinerant ministry. But for now, Jesus simply went to Capernaum to spend time with His family and friends. He would reveal Himself publicly  not in Galilee, but in Judea. 

Life of Christ part 28

John 1.35-51

 

John had impacted the lives of many people with his preaching. Some had joined him in his ministry, becoming his ‘disciples'. A disciple is the student of a master teacher, an apprentice in the things of God. John had disciples, and Jesus, too, would gather a band of disciples to assist Him in His great work.

The day after Jesus had returned to John's place of baptism, John pointed Jesus out to two of his disciples, again describing Jesus as the Lamb of God. These two disciples of John, no doubt with John's blessing, began to follow Jesus. Jesus asked them what they wanted, and they simply asked where Jesus was staying, hinting that they wanted to become His disciples. Jesus openly invited them to follow, saying, “Come and see.” They spent that entire day with Jesus.

One of these first two disciples of Jesus was a man named Andrew. Andrew had a brother named Simon. Andrew went to Simon and told him that he had found the Messiah. Andrew then brought Simon to see Jesus. Jesus took one look at Simon and gave him a new name, Peter. Peter's brother Andrew is often described as Jesus' first disciple. He is also famous for bringing people to Jesus. His first act as a disciple was to bring his own brother, Simon Peter, to the Lord. He serves as a model of evangelism for all Christians.

The next day Jesus decided to leave Judea and return to Galilee. Before beginning His journey, however, Jesus extended an invitation to a man named Philip to follow Him as a disciple. Philip was from Berhsaida, a town along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, as were Andrew and Peter. Philip went to another man, Nathaniel, and told him that the promised Messiah had come. The promised Messiah was Jesus from Nazareth. Nathaniel was sceptical. He doubted that the Messiah could hale from such an insignificant town such as Nazareth. But Philip pressed Nathaniel to come with him and see Jesus. As Nathaniel approached Jesus, without introduction Jesus declared that Nathaniel was a man of true character. Nathaniel, puzzled by this statement, asked how Jesus knew anything about him. Jesus said that He saw Nathaniel under a fig tree before Philip spoke to him. Jesus, in His divine omniscience, knew all about Nathaniel. Nathaniel, impressed with this miraculous display of knowledge, declared that Jesus was the Son of God and the King of Israel. Jesus told Nathaniel that he would witness many greater things than this display of His omniscience. He would see heaven opened before him and angels ascending and descending on Jesus.

Jesus’ work in Judea was completed for the time being. He had been baptised by John. He had overcome intense temptation in the desert. He had gathered an initial band of disciples. His followers included Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathaniel, and one other unnamed disciple. You’ll remember that two of John the Baptist’s disciples followed Jesus. One was Andrew. The other was not identified. But since John’s Gospel alone records this event, and since John the disciple (not to be confused with John the Baptist) never mentions himself by name in his Gospel, it is likely that this other disciple was John. So Jesus, with His first five disciples, left Judea and returned to Galilee. It was in Galilee that Jesus would inaugurate His miraculous ministry.

Life of Christ part 27

John 1.29-34

 

The day after one such encounter with those who questioned John, Jesus returned from His period of temptation in the desert. When John saw Jesus he declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He identified Jesus as the One who was greater. In fact, John said that Jesus existed before he did. We know that John was born before Jesus, so John must have been referring to Jesus’ pre-incarnate existence, His eternal deity. John recognised that Jesus is God, preexistent, eternal God. By John’s own admission it was his privilege to reveal Jesus to the people of Israel. He testified how he had seen the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus at His baptism. God had previously informed John that the descent of the Holy Spirit would be a sign identifying the Messiah. John had no doubt. Jesus was the promised Messiah. He was the Lamb of God who would die for our sins. He is the Son of God who deserves our utmost reverence and worship.

Life of Christ part 26

John 1.15-28

While Jesus was in the Judean desert facing Satan’s temptations, John the Baptist continued to carry out his prophetic work. He continued to testify to Jesus' identity as the long awaited Messiah and Saviour. Some had assumed that John would be that Messiah, or that he was Elijah, or perhaps some other unique prophet who would assume a great role of leadership among God’s people. John denied any such associations. He simply described himself as a voice in the desert who was preparing the way for the Lord. By referring to Jesus as ‘Lord’, quoting from a prophecy in Isaiah 40.3 that referred to God, John was identifying Jesus as much more than a man. Jesus is God in the flesh. John continued to assure the people that Jesus, the One who would come after him, was by far the greater of the two.

 

Life of Christ part 25

 Matthew 4.1-11, Mark 1.12-13, Luke 4.1-13

Before Jesus could begin His powerful ministry among the people, it seems that He first had to display His power in the spiritual realm. Therefore, as Mark’s Gospel tells us, the Holy Spirit sent Jesus out into the desert where the incarnate Son of God would face unparalleled temptation. Jesus fasted for forty days and, according to Luke’s Gospel, Satan tempted Him throughout that entire forty day period. We read of only three specific temptations, but these may have been the final salvos launched by a desperate devil anxious to destroy the possibility of Jesus’ redeeming work. Those three final temptations were, indeed, powerful enticements. But Jesus never flinched. Satan tempted Jesus to satisfy His human hunger by making bread out of stones. He tempted Jesus to test the Father’s love by throwing Himself from a high point of the Temple. He tempted Jesus to avoid the cross and still rescue the kingdoms of the earth by bowing in worship to him. Jesus rejected each and every temptation, citing various scriptures as His weapon against Satan’s enticements. Each time Jesus was tempted He said, “It is written.” It is written that we cannot live on bread alone, that we must not test God’s love, and that we dare not worship anyone or anything but God alone. Jesus proved Himself to be the holy Son of God by defeating Satan in the desert. Later, Jesus would defeat Satan on the cross. When this period of intense persecution came to an end, angels came to Jesus to attend to His needs. Now that Jesus had proven His power in the spiritual realm, He could freely minister to the physical and spiritual needs of God’s people. 

Lent 24 post 22

 Genesis 50.15-21

 

This is a beautiful ending, don’t you think? This moment of brotherly reconciliation. Especially when you remember the jagged turbulence of the early chapters of Genesis following the beautiful beginning in chapters 1-2.

Broken relationships at every level saturate Genesis 3-11. Shame and domination poison marriage. Jealousy and anger lead to a brother’s murder. Corruption and violence blight the whole human race. And nations are scattered in confusion. It’s not just that every individual is a sinner. By the time we reach Genesis 11, sin has brought God’s curse on the earth, pervaded culture, escalated through generations and divided the nations. How can such brokenness be healed, such enmities be reconciled?

So along comes God’s answer in Genesis 12, Abraham and his family, through whom God is going to enable all nations to find blessing like his. But as we read the long chapters that follow, episodes of blessing seem like sporadic relief from the long catalogue of hatred and violence. Can you imagine any more dysfunctional family than Abraham’s, through four generations? Squabbling wives, abused women, lying men, sibling rivalry, trickery and deception, sexual violence, slaughter, murderous hatred, on and on it goes.

The miracle of Genesis is that God keeps going too, repeating his promise to each generation, ‘All nations will be blessed through you, trust me.’ And so the book comes to this gentle conclusion that is movingly beautiful and theologically rich. This is what God truly longs for, it seems to say, reconciliation, healing and peace.

Mind you, it all begins very dubiously, more lies! Out of fear of vengeance (in spite of 45.4-11), Joseph’s brothers invent their dead father’s for Joseph to forgive the wrongs they had done. Twice they admit their sin, twice they ask for forgiveness. That’s a start, I suppose.

Joseph’s response is the message of the whole book in a nutshell. Here are the radical truths on which reconciliation could be based, then, now or at any time.

1, the sovereignty of God (.19). ‘If you want forgiveness, ‘ Joseph is saying, ‘you need to take it up with a higher court.  I may be top guy in Egypt, but I’m not God. Forgiveness is for God to dispense. So don’t be afraid. I’m not the one to be afraid of here.’

2, the providence of God (.20). No excuses. No ‘You didn’t really mean it, did you?’ Just plain truth. ‘You planned evil against me.’ Absolutely. But then comes the redemptive power of God to make evil accomplish his good plans. ‘But God planned it for good.’ And God’s plan, overriding evil to accomplish good, resulted in the saving of lives.

3, the refusal of vengeance (.21). So, if that was God’s plan,  how could Joseph reverse it back into the evil of an endless unforgiving feud between brothers? No, let God’s plan stand.  ‘So, to repeat, don’t be afraid, not only will I not take revenge, I will positively care for you and your children.’

Those last three words, ‘and your children’, were what convinced some Arabic-speaking tribesmen in Chad, when they first listened to the book of Genesis translated into their own language, that Joseph and his brothers were truly reconciled. The translators asked them how they could be sure. It was not so much Joseph’s grand theology, but his promise to care for their children. ‘That’s what brothers do,’ they exclaimed. ‘Of course they are reconciled!’

Joseph’s words and example point us to the cross. Can you see the same fundamental dynamic in the way Peter describes the cross in Acts 2.23-24? That too was planned as deliberate evil, the worst that human wickedness could hurl at the Son of God. But God in his sovereign providence and foreknowledge turned that evil to its own destruction, and brought about the infinite good of the saving of lives, eternally. Radical reconciliation is God’s good triumphing over humankind’s evil.

Lent 24 John Stott quote 5

 In the last days

the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established

    as the highest of the mountains;

it will be exalted above the hills,

    and peoples will stream to it.

Many nations will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

    to the temple of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways,

    so that we may walk in his paths.”

The law will go out from Zion,

    the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

He will judge between many peoples

    and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

    and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

    nor will they train for war anymore.

Everyone will sit under their own vine

    and under their own fig tree,

and no one will make them afraid,

    for the LORD Almighty has spoken.

All the nations may walk

    in the name of their gods,

but we will walk in the name of the LORD

    our God for ever and ever.

(Micah 4.1-5)

The cross not only elicits our worship. . .but it also directs our conduct in relation to others, including our enemies. . .We are to exhibit in our relationships that combination of love and justice which characterised the wisdom of God in the cross. 

But how, in practice, we are to combine love and justice, mercy and severity, and so walk in the way of the cross, is often hard to decide and harder still to do. Take ‘conciliation’ or ‘peace-making’ as an example. Christian people are called to be peacemakers (Mt. 5.9) and to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ (1 Pet. 3.11). . .In pronouncing peacemakers ‘blessed’, Jesus added that ‘they will be called sons (or daughters) of God’. He must have meant that peace-making is such a characteristically divine activity that those who engage in it thereby disclose their identity and demonstrate their authenticity as God’s children. 

If our peace-making is to be modelled on our heavenly Father’s, however, we shall conclude at once that it is quite different from appeasement. For the peace which God secures is never cheap peace, but always costly. He is indeed the world’s pre-eminent peacemaker, but when he determined on reconciliation with us, his ‘enemies’, who had rebelled against him, he ‘made peace’ through the blood of Christ’s cross (Col. 1.20). To reconcile himself to us, and us to himself, and Jews, Gentiles and other hostile groups to one another, cost him nothing less than the painful shame of the cross. We have no right to expect, therefore, that we shall be able to engage in conciliation work at no cost to ourselves, whether our involvement in the dispute is as the offending or offended party, or as a third party anxious to help enemies to become friends again. . .

The incentive to peace-making is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peace-making exhibits the love and justice, and so the pain, of the cross. 

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p341–343

Lent 24 post 21

 1 John 1.5-2.2

‘So that we might die to sins'

Remember this from yesterday (1 Peter 2.24)? But do we? Can we?

It is wonderful to know that when I come to the cross as a repentant sinner, I receive God’s gifts of forgiveness, justification, new birth and eternal life. But what about the rest of my life as a Christian? On the one hand, I am told that I should ‘die to sin' and ‘go and sin no more'. On the other hand, I slip and fall into sin all too easily. Isn’t that your experience too? How are we to cope with this tension? John exposes two opposite dangers, and insists that the atoning death of Christ provides the ongoing answer to both.

Two opposite dangers

1, The danger of trivialising sin. In the community John was writing to, some were making boastful claims. They claimed to be in fellowship with God who is light, yet their actual behaviour (‘walking in darkness') belied that claim (.6). Worse, they claimed to ‘be without sin' (verses 8, 10). This probably does not mean they claimed to have reached a state of sinless perfection. Rather, either they were saying that any sins they might commit after becoming Christian ‘didn’t count', they incurred no further guilt or condemnation (possibly using a text like Romans 8.1). So they felt they could now sin with happy abandon (in spite of Paul’s strong rejection of that implication in Romans 6). Or they were simply denying that some dubious behaviour was actually ‘sin’, they found ways to excuse or redefine it with other harmless words. Whenever we trifle with sin in such ways (and there are plenty more, we know), we deceive ourselves, make God a liar and reject the empathic teaching of his Word. Don’t do it!

John gives us the right response with two ‘ifs’ and two almost identical promises. ‘If we walk in the light' (.7, which is to live with transparent honesty in the light of God’s presence), and ‘if we confess our sins' (.9, as a reality, not a triviality), then not only do we remain within the true fellowship of believers, but we experience the continuing power of the cross. ‘The blood of Jesus', as I’m sure you know, means the sacrificial death of Christ, as it does throughout the New Testament (e.g. Acts 20.28, Colossians 1.20, 1 Peter 1.18-19, Revelation 5.9). So John means that all of our sins, including those committed after conversion, are ‘covered’ by the atonement of the cross.

And here’s another thing. Confession leads to cleansing. It is wonderful that God, in his covenant faithfulness and justice (.9, Deuteronomy 32.4), forgives our sin. But sin defines and virtues us like sticky, clinging filth. Proverbs' question, ‘Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure, I am clean and without sin'?’ (Proverbs 20.9) generates the psalmist’s prayer (Psalm 51.7), and receives God's promise (Jeremiah 33.8, Ezekiel 36.25). Have a glance at those texts, and then see how John turns that promise into an ongoing present experience, ‘The blood of Jesus goes on cleansing us from all sin.’ I have soaked in the warm soapy bath of that verse many, many times. Isn’t it delicious to be clean again?

2, The danger of being terrified by sin. Does John fear that the wonderful truth of verse 9 might lead his readers to feel just a little too casual about sin? (‘Well, I can always confess it and get forgiven again.’) If so, he correct such an inference immediately in 2.1. His whole purpose in writing is to strengthen them in resisting sin altogether, ‘so that you will not sin'! Isn’t that your longing, like every believer, going back to Psalm 119.9-11? ‘But if anybody does sin. . .’, that is the reality for every believer too. What then? Do I stand condemned before God, tormented by Satan the accuser? No! says John. I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus my Advocate and Defender. His righteousness and atoning sacrifice (2.2) drive out the accuser, and will eternally destroy his works (1 John 3.8).

Lent 24 post 20

 1 Peter 2.19-25

‘Your sins are forgiven'

It’s all very well to say the words, but how can it be true? Did Exodus not tell us, ‘God does not leave the guilty unpunished' (Exodus 34.7)? Did God himself not say, ‘I will not acquit the guilty' (Exodus 23.7)? How, then, is forgiveness possible?

Sin has consequences that have to be borne. Guilt cries out for justice to be done. Deliberate evil demands some kind of punishment. Wrongdoing needs to be put right in some way. If those are among our deepest human instincts, how can God’s holiness hold lesser standards?

Yet Exodus also showed us God’s compassion, while Psalm 103 rejoiced in God’s reigning love and forgiveness. We must hold both holiness and love together, for they are both definitive of our God, and they are not in competition with each other.

This vision of God’s holy love will deliver us from caricatures of him. We must picture him neither as an indulgent God who compromises his holiness in order to spare and spoil us, nor as a harsh, vindictive God who suppresses his love in order to crush and destroy us. How then can God express his holiness without consuming us, and his love without condoning our sins?

(John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p155)

Answer, by bearing the consequences of our sin himself. As we saw, Moses asked God to ‘carry’ (i.e. forgive) the sins of Israel, and God agreed to do so. What Moses could not have imagined then was the ultimate cost to God not only of bearing the sin of Israel, but of ‘tak(ing) away the sin of the world.’ He would find out, however, in the conversation on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Moses, Elijah and Jesus would speak of the ‘exodus’ that Jesus would ‘bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem' (Luke 9.31), that greater ‘exodus' redemption accomplished when Jesus ‘(would bear) our sins in his body on the cross' (1 Peter 2.24).

Suffering for Christ and like Christ

Peter is talking here to Christian slaves of unbelieving masters. And he points out that if the slaves get beaten for some wrongdoing, there is nothing Christianly commendable about that. That’s simple, if brutal, justice. You get what you deserve. But if you suffer unjustly while doing good, ah, that is pleasing to God. Why? Not because God takes sadistic pleasure in your suffering, but because such suffering is like Christ's.

But Peter cannot talk about the suffering and death of Christ merely as an example (though it certainly is that). Jesus did not die merely to model how somebody could endure injustice and cruelty without fighting back. No, he suffered ‘for you' (.21). And in those two words, Peter condenses a profound atonement theology that he then expands through several quotations from Isaiah 53. ‘Christ cannot be an example of suffering for us to follow unless he is first of all the Saviour who’s sufferings were endured on our behalf' (I. Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, p91).

To say that Christ bore our sins means that he bore their consequences and guilt, doing so in our place, for us. But who is this Christ? This is the Lord God himself, incarnate. The One who told Moses that he would ‘carry’ sin is the One who now does exactly that in the person of the Son of God. God the just Judge submits to being the unjustly judged. And, in bearing his own sentence, God accomplishes ultimate justice, for himself and for us. Holy love poured out in saving fullness and atoning power, amazing and wonderful.

Lent 24 post 19

 Luke 7.29-50

‘Friend of sinners' indeed! It might sound nice to you, but to me as a Pharisee (Simon by name), no worse accusation could be made against a rabbi, if Jesus could even be called that. But I’d been to hear John the Baptist, and I’d listened to Jesus from the back of the crowd, and they had certainly challenged my thinking. So I invited Jesus along with some of my Pharisee friends for a meal at my house.

So there we are, reclining and enjoying my wife’s food and just getting ready to spring some hard questions on Jesus, when in walks this woman! Or rather, that woman. We all knew who she was and what she was in our village. She walks up behind where Jesus was reclining, and breaks into great heaving sobs, with her tears splashing on to his bare feet. Then (the shock!) she lets her hair down, as loose as she is herself, and kneels down and wipes his feet and kisses them. And then she snaps open the neck of a jar of perfume and pours it all over his feet, and the voluptuous sexy scent fills my pure house. And Jesus? He just smiles, turns slightly, pats her on the shoulder, as if he’d met her before. I mean, surely not.

Well, we’re all frozen into silence. I’m so embarrassed and I’m thinking, ‘Whatever they say, this man is not a prophet and I’ll tell you why. First, if he were a prophet, he’d know what kind of woman this creature is, even if he’s never met her. Second, if he knew, he wouldn’t dare let her touch him like that, she’s a dirty sinner!’ I am about to announce this when Jesus looks over at me, as if to say, ‘I can answer that for you, Simon', as if he'd read my thoughts. And he starts telling a story.

‘There were these two men who owed money to a money lender. One owed about this much,’ and Jesus picks up a rather large melon in one hand. ‘The other owed about this much,’ and he picks up an olive in the other. ‘But the money lender was a kind man' (yeah right), ‘so he said, ‘I know you boys can’t pay me back, so I forgive both of you your debts.’’ And I’m thinking, ‘What has this got to do with the situation here?’ Then Jesus goes on, ‘Which one of the two do you think will love the money lender more?’

See, that’s the annoying thing about Jesus. You come with a bunch of questions to ask him and he asks one single question, and you’re stumped. I wanted to give a clever answer, but in the end, I just mumbled, ‘I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.’ ‘Good answer!’ says Jesus with a smile. Then he swivels round a bit to look at the woman, but he’s still talking to me over his shoulder. ‘Do you see this woman?’ Well, of course, I could see her! Right here, uninvited, in my house. . .’Your house, yes,’ says Jesus. ‘When I came in, you gave me none of the customary tokens of welcome. But she has not stopped treating me like her honoured guest.’

This is totally unfair and out of order.

Comparing me, Simon, with her, and her a sinner! A really big-time sinner, too. . . But Jesus interrupts my thoughts again. ‘Yes, she is indeed. Her sins are many. But here’s the thing. Her sins have been forgiven. That’s the difference. And that’s why she shows me such love and honour.’ Then he turns back, and looks straight at me across the table, ‘But I suppose,’ he adds quietly, ‘someone who thinks they have nothing to be forgiven for will not show much love.’

Was that true? Did I really think I had little or nothing to be forgiven for? I felt myself blushing. This woman might be the biggest sinner in the room, but was she the only sinner? I looked around at my guests. Their eyes were out on stalks, they'd never been so close to a woman like that, and her hair, and the perfume. ‘There is more sin going on right here in my house today than in hers,’ I found myself thinking.

Jesus had turned my question upside down. The point is not, ‘Who is the biggest sinner' but, ‘Which of us knows that our sins have been forgiven?’

Then Jesus turns round fully to the woman, gently lifts up her face and speaks directly to her. ‘They have been forgiven, you know, your sins, all of them, as I told you, remember? Trust me!’ That broke the silence! All round the table, ‘Who does he think he is? Forgiving sins? Only God can do that!’ Well, yes indeed. But Jesus just insists to the woman, ‘Your sins have been forgiven. Do you believe me?’ She nods a smile through her tears. ‘Then your faith has saved you. Go in peace.’

She stands up, and having crept in despised, she walks out with the dignity of the forgiven.

And my conscience-stricken heart is crying out, ‘Jesus, what would I give to have you say those words to me!’

Lent 24 post 18

 Psalm 103

Anger and forgiveness 

Yesterday we saw God punishing sinners in his anger, but also forgiving sinners in his mercy. And we know from our New Testament that only the cross resolves this tension. But how did Old Testament Israelites hold these two aspects of God together? Did they imagine their God as permanently angry (the caricature ‘God of the Old Testament')? Or did they think that God’s forgiveness was a kind of weakness, that he just caved in to Moses' persistent request? Psalm 103 shows that the answer to both is no.

On the other hand, God’s anger is utterly real and justified (Exodus 32.7-10), but limited. He is ‘slow to anger' (Psalm 103.8-9), and it does not last for ever, unlike his covenant love which will (.17). And, on the other hand, God’s forgiveness defines not only his character (.8), but also his universal kingdom (.19). God forgives not with reluctance, but as the exercise of his everlasting power. Since he is the ruler of the universe (did you notice this point at the end of Psalm 103?), he has the strength to ‘carry’ a nation's sin (see Numbers 14.17-20).

He can carry your sin and mine, then. Personal forgiveness flows from God’s throne.

Can you see how the author of Psalm 103 turns the Exodus story into his own personal testimony? God’s acts of righteousness and justice for the oppressed (.6) were modelled in the exodus itself, as Moses and Israel knew well (.7). The psalmist urges his own soul, just as Moses urged Israel, not to forget all that God had done (Deuteronomy 6.12, 8.11). God’s ‘benefits’ for him, as for Israel, included forgiveness (Exodus 34.9), healing (Exodus 15.26) and redemption from the pit of utter destruction (Exodus 32.10,14).

Feeling the heartbeat 

Sometimes it helps us to get at the central message of a psalm if we take note of its structure. This one is beautifully balanced. We can recognise this by the way the writer repeats, in the second half of the psalm, certain key words or concepts in reverse order from the first half. Look for the repeated words which I’ll underline and notice how they occur in both halves of the Psalm. 

Having begun with personal praise (.1-2), he ends by summoning praise from angels, cosmic powers and the whole created order, ending, as he began, with himself (.20-22). This is like an outer ‘envelope’ around the psalm. And then, within that outer circle, there are several inner concentric circles pointing inwards to the central heartbeat of the whole poem,

The saving righteousness of God that had rescued exodus Israel (.6) is the same everlasting love and righteousness that will sustain those who love and fear the Lord in every generation (.17-18).

The Moses of verse 7 is recalled in verses 14-16, where the dust and grass of human mortality echo the Psalm of Moses (Psalm 90.1-6). However, Psalm 103 links the theme to God’s fatherly compassion, whereas Psalm 90 links it to God’s wrath. Both perspectives, of course, are true and complementary.

The compassion of God is first quoted directly from Exodus 34.6 (.8), and then quickly returns, compared to the compassion of a father (.13).

And so we zoom in through these decreasing rings of matching words and phrases to the very centre of the psalm. And what is this core message, this beating heart of divine truth? Can you see it in all its heart-warming assurance in verses 9-12?

Read those wonderful words aloud with thankfulness in your heart!

He will not always accuse,

Nor will he harbour his anger forever,

He does not treat us as our sins deserve

Or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

So great is his love for those who fear him,

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Lent 24 post 17

Exodus 32.30-33.6, 33.12-34.9

 

Why doesn't God just forgive us?

These chapters in Exodus expose the sheer depth of ungrateful rebellious depravity in human sin. And although we hear, with Moses, God own resounding affirmation of his forgiving character (34.6-7), we also know, with Israel, that God cannot ‘just forgive’. Indeed, as we agonise through the suspense of the ‘negotiation’ between Moses and God (is that a fair word for these verses? It certainly sounds like it), we sense that forgiveness is a deep problem for God himself, a problem that only he can and ultimately will resolve. Forgiveness is not something casually dished out on demand, like sweets to a child.

Yesterday, the Lord had simply relented (32.14). Today, Moses specifically asks God to forgive, that is (in Hebrew), ‘to carry', their ‘great sin' (32.32). Somebody has to bear this sin. If the people do, it spells destruction. But if God will carry it himself, then they can be spared. That's the meaning of forgiveness, the offended party carrying the offence rather than inflicting its consequences on the offender.

‘But if not. . .’

Most likely, Moses means that if God intended not to forgive (and so intended to destroy) the people, then he (Moses) has no wish to carry on. Not so much offering to die for the people, as asking to perish with them, if that's what was to happen. Moses intercedes in a way that identifies himself completely with those he is praying for. Do our prayers ever reach that kind of depth?

God gives an enigmatic answer, which goes part way. He will keep one element of the promise to Abraham. Let Moses lead the people up into the land, with an angel to help. But God himself will not be in their midst,  for their own protection (33.1–3). This is catastrophic! Without the presence of God in their midst, Israel would lose all their distinctiveness among the nations. That distinctiveness included the presence of God and holiness of life (Deuteronomy 4.5–8). All of that is now threatened. This won’t do, will it? You might as well cancel chapters 25 – 31. No tabernacle, no ark of the covenant, no atoning sacrifices, no priests, no holy God dwelling in the Most Holy Place. A bleak prospect, if you’d been an Israelite. No wonder they stripped off their ornaments in repentant grief.

Moses wrestles on until God promises unambiguously that his presence will go with his people (33.12–17). Not just an angel up at the front, but God himself at the centre. They will travel together, God, Moses and the people. (Did you notice again in verse 16 how inseparably Moses unites himself with the people he prays for?) Forgiven sinners are sinful still, however, they are ‘stiff-necked’ indeed, as Moses acknowledges in 34.9. That’s why he asks God to go on carrying/forgiving them. God will have a lot more ‘carrying’ to do before this story is over. God must either bear our sin himself, or destroy us. And we will praise God for eternity that he chose the former.

Glory and goodness

But Moses hasn’t finished yet. ‘Now show me your glory,’ he asks (.18). Wouldn’t you think he would have had enough of the glory of God up that mountain for the past month? But Moses wants an even more intimate understanding of his God. God says he will cause all his goodness to pass in front of Moses. God’s glory is his goodness. Or God’s goodness is his glory. Either way, hallelujah!

This good and glorious God then defines himself in classic words that echo through Scripture,

the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving [carrying] wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished . . . (34.6–7)

 

If you want to hear those echoes, feel free to check out, Numbers 14.18, Nehemiah 9.17, Psalms 78.38, 86.5,15, 99.8, 103.8, 145.8-9, Joel 2.13, Jonah 4.2, Micah 7.18-19.

Lent 24 post 16

 Exodus 32.1-14

A brutal shock

If you'd been reading the book of Exodus up to this point, at 32.1-6 you'd feel that the story crashes to earth right here. Here are people who have experienced God's greatest act of redemption in human history (chapters 1-18), until the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ will take place. Here are people who, in the midst of earth-shaking events at Mount Sinai, have received from God their identity and mission to be God's priestly and holy people among all the nations in the whole earth (19.3-6). Here are people who have received God's gifts of grace for a redeemed community, God's law and covenant, to which they have responded by promising three times to obey all that God commanded (chapters 20-24). Here are people in whose midst the living God wants to dwell, and to whom he has given detailed instructions for the tent in which he will do so (chapters 25-31).

In these last seven chapters, you'll have been in the glorious presence of God with Moses on the mountaintop, just trying to visualise the sumptuous beauty, the intricacies of white, blue and scarlet embroidery, the glinting of gold and silver and bronze, the warm glow of oil lamps and the fragrance of incense, all to adorn the place where God wished to dwell.

The fall of Israel 

But in six verses of blatant disobedience and idolatry with a ridiculous calf made of melted gold earrings, Aaron and the people break the first three of the Ten Commandments. They explicitly reject the God who had brought them up out of Egypt (20.2-3, 32.4). They make an idol. And they abuse the name of Yahweh in a blasphemous parody of the covenant ceremony (32.5-6, 24.5,11). It's like committing adultery on your wedding night. It's like the story of the story of the fall in Genesis 3, after the beauty of Genesis 1-2. This is the fall of Israel. 

For here also are the people whom God has created and called to be the means of blessing to the nations (Genesis 12.1-3). But Israel turns out to be just as sinful as the rest of humanity, rebellious, idolatrous, immoral. The people through whom God wills to bring healing to the nations are themselves infected by the virus of sin and rebellion. We should be shocked and depressed. 

What can God do? Well, he could wipe out this bunch of stiff-necked rebels and start again with Moses instead of Abraham (.10). But in the very act of suggesting that and warning Moses to stand aside, God mysteriously pauses for a moment (after all, God could have just acted without telling Moses at all, couldn't he?). God leaves space for grace, the grace of intercession. It almost seems, don't you think, that God wants Moses to speak up. And he does. Fast.

Urgent intercession 

Moses steps into the gap and boldly argues with God, objecting vigorously to the whole idea that God could utterly destroy this people (32.11-13). His intercession is split over two days, and today we see the first vital part, the beginnings of forgiveness. Moses makes three rapid but profound appeals.

1. God's relationship with Israel (.11). Look at verse 7, where God talked to Moses about ‘your people whom you brought up out of Egypt’. But Moses robustly objects. ‘Excuse me, Lord,’ he says,  ‘but they are your people, and you brought them out of Egypt. They belong to you by your own redemption.’ It is God who started this whole covenant relationship. 

2. God's name and reputation (.12). What will the Egyptians think of Yahweh God if he takes so much trouble getting his people out of slavery and then kills them anyway? What kind of malicious or incompetent god is that? Think again, God! 

3. God’s covenant promise (.13). ‘Remember . . . Abraham.’ God could not go back on the oath he had sworn on his own life. In appealing to God to change his mind at this terrifying moment, Moses was actually appealing to God to be consistent with his ancient promise and all it would mean for Israel, and indeed for the world.

Lent 24 John Stott quote 4

 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared

Psalm 130.3-4

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 

Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; 

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Psalm 32.1-5

The loud shout of victory is the single word tetelestai. Being in the perfect tense, it means ‘it has been and will forever remain finished'. We note the achievement Jesus claimed just before he died. It is not men who have finished their brutal deed, it is he who has accomplished what he came into the world to do. He has borne the sins of the world. Deliberately, freely and in perfect love he has endured the judgment in our place. He has procured salvation for us, established a new covenant between God and humankind, and made available the chief covenant blessing, the forgiveness of sins. 

In conclusion, the cross enforces three truths, about ourselves, about God and about Jesus Christ.

First, our sin must be extremely horrible. Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, not the envy of the priests, not the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, cowardice and other sins, and Christ's resolve in love and mercy to bear judgment and so put them away. It is impossible for us to face Christ’s cross with integrity and not to feel ashamed of ourselves. Apathy, selfishness and complacency blossom everywhere in the world except at the cross. There these noxious weeds shrivel and die. They are seen for the tatty, poisonous things they are. For if there was no way by which the righteous God could righteously forgive our unrighteousness, except that he should bear it himself in Christ, it must be serious indeed. It is only when we see this that, stripped of our self-righteousness and self-satisfaction, we are ready to put our trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour we urgently need.

Secondly, God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension. God could quite justly have abandoned us to our fate. He could have left us alone to reap the fruit of our wrongdoing and to perish in our sins. It is what we deserved. But he did not. Because he loved us, he came after us in Christ. He pursued us even to the desolate anguish of the cross, where he bore our sin, guilt, judgment and death. It takes a hard and stony heart to remain unmoved by love like that. It is more than love. Its proper name is ‘grace’, which is love to the undeserving.

Thirdly, Christ's salvation must be a free gift. He ‘purchased' it for us at the high price of his own life-blood. So what is there left for us to pay? Nothing! Since he claimed that all was now ‘finished’, there is nothing for us to contribute. Not of course that we now have licence to sin and can always count on God’s forgiveness. On the contrary, the same cross of Christ, which is the ground of a free salvation, is also the most powerful incentive to a holy life. But this new life follows. First, we have to humble ourselves at the foot of the cross, confess that we have sinned and deserve nothing at his hand but judgment, thank him that he loved us and died for us, and receive from him a full and free forgiveness.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p97-99

Lent 24 post 15

 Romans 5.12-21

We go back full circle to where we began our week, with Ecclesiastes lamenting the crippling, life-blighting enigma of death. It’s all very well, you see, for Dylan Thomas to write his moving poem (much-loved at funerals) ‘And death shall have no dominion (borrowing the words from the Apostle Paul, of course, who was referring to Jesus, Romans 6.9). For the fact is, it does. Death reigns. Genesis 3 proves its truth for approximately two people every second on this planet.

Sin entered, death reigns

And that’s where Paul starts in our passage today, in the Garden of Eden. And with the ‘one man' through whom sin entered the world, bringing death to all because all sinned. Now Paul starts in verse 12 with ‘Just as', but never quite finishes his sentence. He'll do that when he gets to verses 18-21. But his immediate point is that because sin is the universal state of humankind, death is our universal destiny, at whatever point in history you may have lived. Now, by ‘death’, Paul (and God in Genesis 3) means more than merely physical death. It is the spiritual death of expulsion from God’s presence, ‘dead in sins', condemned. It is in that sense that Paul repeats himself, ‘death reigned' (.14, 17), ‘sin reigned in death' (.21).

Kingdom language 

That’s kingdom language, isn’t it? Paul portrays sin and death as twin tyrants, and doubtless he would include Satan as well, over a kingdom that enslaved humanity. But what was it Jesus said? ‘If I by the finger of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.’ And, for Paul, that is the kingdom of grace, God’s grace (.21). And so, as we have seen all week, the battle is joined, two kingdoms in mortal combat, one, the reign inaugurated by the ‘one man' whose disobedience brought sin and death, the other, the victorious reign of the ‘One’ whose obedience brings righteousness and eternal life. 

And where was this victory won?

Our whole week has focused on the death of death through the death of Christ, so you must know the answer! But you might wonder why Paul does not mention the cross in our passage. Well, of course, it is prominent in 5.6-11 and again in chapter 6. But Paul clearly has the cross in mind in the last part of verse 19, ‘So also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.’ Paul is echoing Isaiah 53.11, where the Servant of the Lord, in obedience to the will of his God, would by his vicarious death ‘justify many'. Likewise, Jesus, as the Servant, became ‘obedient to death, even death on a cross!’ (Philippians 2.7-8). Christ’s obedience here, then, means his willing acceptance of his Father’s will, even though the agonizing struggle of Gethsemane. Where Adam rebelled and disobeyed, Jesus the Son and Servant submitted and obeyed.

And where is this reign to be lived out?

Verse 17 is astonishing. We would expect the opposite to the reign of death in the first half of the verse to be that Christ would reign, and of course that is true. But Paul says that those who have received God’s gifts of grace and righteousness, we believers, are the ones who will ‘reign in life through. . . Jesus Christ'.

Lent 24 post 14

 Hebrews 2.9-18

It’s not that I’m afraid to die,’ said Woody Allen. ‘I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’ A lot of people would agree with the second half. We don’t want to go through the unpredictable and potentially painful process of actually dying. But is the first half of his claim sincere? I don’t know, but I doubt it. 

Fear of death 

Judging from the vast range of cultures and religions, the human race has a pretty universal fear of death. And why not? Life is such a precious thing, and death is such a mysterious intrusion from a realm that scares us simply because it is so unknowable, so beyond our customary control. Of course, there are many wonderfully brave people who overcome the fear of death for the sake of others, a country’s armed forces, police, firefighters, emergency and rescue services, medical personnel in lethal epidemics and war zones, bomb disposal officers, lifeboat crews . . . But being willing to face death is not the same as having no fear of death, is it? Good fear makes you careful. No fear at all is foolhardy. 

It’s a kind of slavery, says our text in Hebrews (.15). And we saw at the start of the week that Ecclesiastes would agree. In the midst of this good world and wonderful life, we are imprisoned in the fear of inevitable death. But here’s the thing. It’s an open prison now! We can walk out free! 

Why? Because ‘we see Jesus’ (.9). 

We see Jesus 

The writer to the Hebrews opens his letter with an overwhelming affirmation of the deity of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, exalting him above all the ranks of angels (Hebrews 1). But then we see Jesus as ‘lower than the angels for a little while’, that is, as a man. And why did the divine Son of God have to become fully human? The writer summarizes the point of his whole next section thus: ‘so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone’ (.9). And then he expands on that same reason at the end in verse 17: ‘in order that . . . he might make atonement for the sins of the people.’ In short, God became human in order to die a human death, and in that God–man death to deal with the problem of sin that brought death upon us. 

Flesh and blood 

Can you see, then, the two fundamental points that Hebrews makes in these verses? First of all, we must grasp the full truth of the incarnation. God became wholly one of us in Jesus Christ, subject to our sufferings, our temptations (.18) and our mortality. And this was both ‘fitting’ and necessary. Only God could save us. But God could not save us remotely, from heaven. Only God in flesh and blood (.14a) could take our fallen humanity upon himself and redeem us ‘from below’. 

Battle dress 

Then, second, we see Jesus in battle dress, paradoxically but precisely, in his death. Remember God the warrior last week (Exodus 15)? Remember Jesus overpowering the ‘strong man’ (Luke 11.21–22)? That’s the picture Hebrews has in mind, recalling perhaps the same imagery from Isaiah 49.24–25 and 59.15–20. Jesus in his death took on the worst that human and satanic power could inflict upon him, death itself, and won the victory by taking on himself the sin that gives death its sting and power. 

I think the NIV is right to translate verse 14 as ‘break the power of him who holds the power of death’, rather than ‘destroy’ (ESV). The word means to make ineffective, render impotent. Neither the devil nor death were destroyed at the cross, right there and then. But they will be, when God’s victory is completed at the end (1 Corinthians 15.24–26, 54–57). And, in the meantime, the devil’s power to imprison us in the fear of death is broken. Death has lost its sting for those liberated by the cross of Christ. The death of Christ spells the ultimate death of death itself. 

We should not think that ‘the power of death’ means that the devil can just kill whomever he wants. Satan is a created being whose power is subject to God’s permission and authority. ‘The power of death’ probably means the power that the fear of death holds over us, which the devil can certainly exploit. And that is what God has delivered us from through the death of Christ.

Lent 24 post 13

John 11.1-44

 

I mean, how long does it take to get from up there on the other side of the River Jordan down to Bethany here? A day or two’s walk at most. But he just didn’t come, did he? We sent him a message that our brother Lazarus was dangerous ill, but days passed and no sign of Jesus. And then Lazarus died, our precious brother, and a man still in his prime. Mary and I, we were beside ourselves with grief. It felt as if we’d been widowed. The whole village came round to mourn with us and the house was full of people, weeping and wailing.

And still no Jesus, four days later, and Lazarus’s body now wrapped and in the tomb. Surely he’d heard the news by now. Didn’t he remember how much we loved him, and how much he loved us and our little home? All those times he’d stayed with us and I’d cooked his favourite food. And, in fact,  I was in the kitchen again when a friend whispered through the little window that Jesus had reached the edge of the village. I rushed off to find him, leaving Mary with the mourners.

‘Lord,’ I wailed, ‘if only you’d come on time, my brother would not have died.’ I couldn’t help it. I was hurting so much. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt cross with him, but this was far, far worse. If only, if only.

‘Your brother will rise again,’ said Jesus, just like the mourners back home were saying again and again to Mary and me, trying to be comforting in the usual way.

‘Well, of course I know that, Lord,’ I said. ‘I know he will rise on the last day in the resurrection of all the dead.’ I mean, all of us Jews believe that (well, except those Sadducees). But that’s a long time to wait, and we’ll all be dead by then, and Jesus could have stopped him dying in the first place. My grief was tipping over into anger.

And then Jesus said words I can never forget, ‘I am the resurrection and the life (he stressed those first two words). The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’

It was more than I could take in, but I did say I believed in him. I did and do believe he is the Messiah and the Son of God. But I thought, ‘Mary needs to hear this. It’ll make more sense to her than me; Jesus always did.’

So I hurried back to the house as fast as my skirts would allow and whispered in Mary’s ear that Jesus had arrived. She was sitting on the floor where once she’d sat at Jesus feet, but now she leapt up and hurried to where I’d met Jesus, and fell at those same feet right there. A whole crowd of us followed her, just in time to hear her say, ‘Lord, if only you’d come on time, my brother would not have died.’

‘Er, been there, said that, sister,’ I thought, though I had to wait until later to tell Mary what Jesus answered.

Mary was weeping. Everybody else was too. And then I saw Jesus. His chest was heaving with great sobs and his face was crumpling up in pain. But he managed to ask us where the body was, before bursting into tears himself. Did I tell you how much he loved Lazarus? Everybody could tell. But it actually looked as if he was angry, not just grieved, somehow angry at death for stealing Lazarus’s life.

We got to the tomb and Jesus went straight up to the entrance.

‘Take away the stone!’ he commanded. It looked as if he was going to march right in there and invade the world of the dead, like confronting death in its own realm, just as he confronted and overcame the evil spirits. But I was horrified. Didn’t he know what a body smells like after four days? Well, I told him, but it made no difference.

‘Trust me,’ he said, ‘and you will see the glory of God.’ So, I did and I did!

He looked up and prayed. Then he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ And there he was, shuffling out of the darkness, standing right up straight in the sunlight . . . My brother! Alive!

Mary has helped me understand (she’s good at explaining things) what Jesus meant. You see, Lazarus is going to die again some day, isn’t he, and Mary and I too. But because Jesus is the resurrection, and we believe in him, that won’t be the end. We shall live! And because Jesus is the life, we know we have eternal life already now and will never truly die. Oh, and yes, we know all this because we were there when Jesus himself died on the cross, and we have seen him even more fully raised from the dead than my brother was (but that’s another story).

And that nice young John (whom Jesus loved a lot as well, apparently) says he’s going to put our story in the book he’s writing about Jesus, and end with the very same words that I said to Jesus! Isn’t that good of him? John wants you and everybody to believe, like me, that ‘Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’.

Lent 24 post 12

 Isaiah 25.1-9

Isn’t it a relief, after the gloomy readings of the last two days, to come to Isaiah 25.8 and join in the praise of verses 1 and 9? And it would be even more of a relief if you had just read Isaiah 24 (have a glance). For there, the prophet portrays God’s future judgment on the whole earth as like a single city suffering total destruction. But in the midst of God’s shattering cosmic judgment, he will protect and save his own people and his own city, symbolised as Mount Zion (24.23). That is what today’s reading celebrates in advance.

Salvation in the midst of judgment

There are two reasons for celebration, that God has defeated and destroyed his enemies (.2-3), and that God has been a refuge for the poor and needy among his own people (.4-5). Isaiah uses two vivid images of urgent danger drawn from his own world. A torrential thunderstorm and flash flood could sweep you and your house away (remember Jesus' story, Matthew 7.26-27?), and relentless desert sun could desiccate you to death. You need protection from both, and God provides it. The world will be judged, the Lord’s own people will be safe.

In Israel’s world, when a new king was crowned, or had won some notable victory, he would throw a great party for his people. He would provide food and drink in abundance, and the festivities would last a long time. Put yourself among Isaiah’s listeners, who could well remember such a royal party. And the food! A king could be generous. The Lord God will be no less so. Imagine the best feast of richest food and finest wine you could ever enjoy. What God has in store will go way beyond your imagination (.6).

A feast for all

But this divine banquet stretches our imagination even further. Can you see the paradox between it’s very particular location (‘on this mountain’), and the universal size of the invitation list (‘for all peoples')? Mount Zion was the heartbeat of Old Testament Israel. But the feast God would provide would be not for Israel alone, but for all peoples and all nations. Isn’t that what God promised Abraham (Genesis 12.3)? God’s blessing through Israel will extend to the ends of the earth. That is God’s mission, and God invites all nations to the party.

But, in another sense, it would be literally at Mount Zion, in Jerusalem (or rather just outside its walls), that God would accomplish the ultimate victory on the cross of Christ. For, as Paul famously said, ‘the last enemy to be destroyed is death' (q Corinthians 15.26). And that is the most wonderful of all the ‘wonderful things' that God ‘planned long ago' (.1). For, after all, what would be the point of enjoying a banquet even with God as chef and host if, as Ecclesiastes won’t let us forget, death will be the final course? The whole human race can swallow all the food and drink God provides, but in the end death swallows us, doesn’t it? That’s our universal destiny. But not for ever! says God.

The swallower swallowed 

In the world around Israel, some cultures were obsessed with death and what lay beyond it. In Egypt, pharaohs would spend their lives and treasure preparing for their afterlife in the world of the dead, an obsession that gave us the pyramids to wonder at. God gave Israel a far, far better revelation to wonder at. Israelites believed from an early stage that their God Yahweh had power over both life and death. Ask Hannah (1 Samuel 2.6). But they could not avoid Ecclesiastes dark realism that death eventually swallows everybody and everything. And they knew why, God’s universal curse and verdict since Genesis 3. Only occasionally did they catch a glimpse of a resurrection hope that lay ahead. (Isaiah 26.19, Daniel 12.2-3, 13.)

So Isaiah 25.8 is an astonishing outburst of assurance. It’s not just that God can deliver us from death. It’s not just that God can give us a future beyond death (not that Israel speculated much about that). No, God is going to destroy death itself. That monster that swallows everything? God himself will swallow it up for ever! And when death is no more, then God will set about wiping away all the sorrow it has ever caused. The cosmic Lord of heaven, the Judge of all the earth, stooping to dry the tears on all the cheeks of all the faces. What greatness!

Lent 24 post 11

 Psalm 88

As if the Teacher wasn’t depressing enough yesterday, here I go again, dampening the blog with possibly the most dark and dreary chapter in the Bible. Why? Because we need to grapple with realities. Lent is the time for preparing for Easter, the greatest reality in history, in which God defeated what we might call the greatest ‘anti-reality' in history, death.

Living death?

Like Ecclesiastes, Heman the Ezrahite who wrote this song (if it can be called that) is brutally honest about the reality of what he’s going through. It feels to him like a living death. For death is not just something that happens when you die, is it? There are experiences in life that are deathly in a wider sense. Things that suck the life out of you. Things that crush all the joy of living. Things that make you feel you might as well be dead.

Like depression, for instance. I mean the clinical illness of depression (not just occasionally feeling a bit down in the dumps). And that might be the case for you. I don’t know,  of course, but many of us have a friend or a family member suffering from depression. They tell me that, in its worst depths, depression turns life itself to dust. They say that the lowest pit and the lonely darkness of Psalm 88.6 & 18 tell it like it is for them. This psalm speaks to them and for them. 

‘Darkness is my closest friend’

Psalm 88’s closing words blew me away. Here is no hope,  there seems no faith. It is almost blasphemous, God is meant to be so good that he is our utterly dependable friend. But to claim that ‘darkness is my closest friend’ is to appear to reject God. At the very least, it illustrates a lost confidence in him.

So here is the final paradox. Heman the Ezrahite expresses in prayer to God what it feels like to have no God at all. He prays in despair and because of his despair. Even though that seems like the last thing one should do if there is no God at work. So, to my mind, Psalm 88 is unexpectedly one of the Bible’s most liberating chapters. 

(Mark Meynell, When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend,  p37)

Liberating?

Really? Yes, because of the sheer amazement that such a psalm should be in our Bible at all, that God would allow it to be there. The psalmist knows that God does hear his cry from the depths, even if a big part of his pain is that it feels as if God isn’t listening. And in his opening line, the psalmist still trusts in God’s salvation, even in his desperation and longing and waiting. The emotions are raw and real, he feels close to the pit of death (.1-6), he feels guilty and under God’s wrath (.7, 16), he wants to praise God for his wonders, love, faithfulness and righteous acts, but there’ll not be much chance of doing that in the grave (.10-12), he feels utterly rejected in spite of daily prayer (.13-14), and this seems the story of his whole life (.15-18). Is it not liberating to know that the Bible itself gives you freedom to talk that way, to give voice to such terrible words, if it’s the honest truth about how you feel?

On the lips of Jesus?

I wonder if it’s liberating in another way also. Can we imagine a psalm like this giving expression to the depth of suffering that Jesus endured for us, as he went through the agony of facing death and separation from his Father? We know for certain that Psalm 22 expressed his suffering, since he quoted it. And probably Psalm 69 would have had deep meaning for him too. Try reading Psalm 88 again through the mind and lips of Jesus, and thank God that, if the psalm now or ever expresses your own experience, Jesus has been there too, and has won the victory over such life-invading deathliness.

Lent 24 post 10

 Aren’t you glad, after today’s depressing reading, that Lent will end in the glory of Easter Day? Don’t you wish that you could share yesterday’s reading, and John Stott's reflections, with the writer of Ecclesiastes, just to cheer him up? Nevertheless, even if the resurrection is the ultimate answer (which he could not yet know), we must still let him challenge us with the ruthless honesty of his questions. Our culture tends to avoid thinking or talking about death. Ecclesiastes won’t let us get away with that, so neither will I!

The big question 

The whole book of Ecclesiastes is a journey, a quest, by someone called Qoheleth (‘the Teacher’, NIV), to see if he can find an answer to ‘the meaning of life, the universe and everything’. Basically, here is the controlling question he asks, ‘What do we gain from all the work we have to do in life?’ (1.3 & 3.9). And, since work is an essential part of the way God created us to live, his question boils down to, ‘What’s the point of life itself?’ Does it have any ultimate meaning? Well, how would you answer him?

The big gift

Now the Teacher knows that life itself is good. In fact, he says so empathetically no fewer than seven times in this book.  (2.24-25, 3.12-13, 3.22, 5.18-20, 8.15, 9.7-10, 11.7-9) When he says ‘there is nothing better’ for people than to enjoy the blessings of everyday life (work, sex, marriage, food and drink), he is not being cynical or hedonistic. He means it. These are good gifts from the God of Genesis 1-2, who declared his whole creation good, very good indeed. (3.12-13) And the Teacher has himself explored all of those good things of life, in abundance. But even when you add all these things together, do such things, good as they are, hold the key to the meaning of life itself? No. An awful lot of life and work seems futile, fickle and transient, actually pretty meaningless (his favourite word) when you stop to think about it (and he has done, very hard, just skim through 2.12-23).

The big joke?

And the most meaningless thing about life is, death. Maybe you’ve heard the grim saying, or seen the graffiti, ‘Life sucks. Then you die.’ That gets (most of) Ecclesiastes down to five words. I can see the Teacher sadly nodding his head. Or, as Marilyn Duckworth put it (beloved, I've read, of medical professionals), ‘Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease’ (Disorderly Conduct, p160).

The Teacher keeps coming back to the baffling, inexplicable mockery that death seems to make of life. Of course, it’s better to be wise than foolish. But when you’re dead, will it matter (2.13-14)? Of course, it’s better to be a human than an animal, but we’ll all end up just as dead (3.19-20). Of course, we ought to be good and religious, but can we be sure our destiny will be any different from those who aren’t (9.1-3)? Of course, you may protest, it is better at least to be alive than dead. Sure, but only because while you’re alive you know you’re going to die, whereas the dead know nothing at all (9.4-5). Death makes a macabre joke out of everything we have lived for. We’re leaving the table. We’re out of the game (9.6).

The big tension 

It’s relentless. It’s poignant. It’s disturbing. But above all, it’s honest. Honest, that is as far as the Teacher could see. For what he is describing is the reality of our Genesis 3 world, the world where God told us that death would be the effect of our sin, life would become toil and sweat, and dust would be our destiny. The Teacher forces us to look that world full in the face, even while he holds on, with great effort, to the truth he knows from Genesis 1-2. That is the unresolved tension of the whole book. Life is good. Death is ghastly.

But it is this very tension that drives us to the cross and resurrection of Christ. If only the Teacher could have known what we know! It would not change the miserable facts about death itself. But it assures us that death is not the end. Death is no joke. But death will not have the last laugh.

Lent 24 John Stott quote 3

 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to the pitied.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the renewal dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn, Christ, the firstfruits, then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

‘Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.

(1 Cor. 15.12-26, 54-58)

Through Christ we are no longer under the tyranny of death. . . Jesus Christ is able to set free even those who all their lives have been ‘held in slavery by their fear of death'.

This because by his own death he has ‘destroyed' (deprived of power) ‘him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil'

(Heb. 2.14)

Jesus Christ has not only dethroned the devil, but dealt with sin. In fact, it is by dealing with sin that he has dealt with death. For sin is the ‘sting' of death, the main reason why death is painful and poisonous. It is sin which causes death, and which after death will bring the judgment. Hence our fear of it. But Christ has died for our sins and taken them away. With great disdain, therefore, Paul likens death to a scorpion who’s sting has been drawn, and to a military conqueror whose power has been broken. Now that we are forgiven, death can harm us no longer. So the apostle shouts defiantly, ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ There is of course no reply. So, he shouts again, this time in triumph, not disdain, ‘Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ' (1Cor. 15.55-57). 

What, then, should be the Christian's attitude to death? It is still an enemy, unnatural, unpleasant, undignified, in fact ‘the last enemy to be destroyed'. Yet, it is a defeated enemy. Because Christ has taken away our sins, death has lost its power to harm and therefore to terrify. Jesus summed it up in one of his greatest affirmations, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believe in me will never die' (1Cor. 15.26, Jn 11.25-26). That is, Jesus is the resurrection of believers who die, and the life of believers who live. His promise to the former is ‘you will live', meaning not just that you will survive, but that you will be resurrected. His promise to the latter is ‘you will never die', meaning not that you will escape death, but that death will prove to be a trivial episode, a transition to fullness of life.

This is the victory of Christ into which he allows us to enter.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p283-286

Lent 24 post 9

 Revelation 18.1-3, 18.20-19.9

The war drags on

On D-Day, 6 June 1944, with the Allied invasion of Normandy, the decisive victory of the Second World War began. And by September that year, they had coined the term ‘VE Day', ‘Victory in Europe’ was assured and eagerly anticipated. But the war went on for eleven more months of bloody fighting, and VE Day did not actually arrive until 8 May 1945.

In the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and supremely at the cross, God in Christ won the decisive victory over all the forces of evil. But the end of the cosmic war lies ahead of us still assured and eagerly anticipated, even in the midst of the suffering and persecution and battles that God’s people endure in this interim period between the first Easter and the Lord’s return. 

Throughout this week, I hope you have spotted that we traced the story of God’s defeat of evil from Genesis to Revelation, from the serpent’s injection of evil into human life and history and God’s promise that the serpent itself would be crushed (Genesis 3), right through to the rejoicing of all creation in God’s victory (Revelation 19). What a story! What a plot! What a climactic ending (and new beginning too)!

‘Rejoice, you people of God!’ (Revelation 18.20)

Just as the Song of Moses and Miriam celebrated the downfall of the Pharaoh, so Revelation 19 answers the threefold call of 18.20 to rejoice over the downfall of Babylon. Now you’ll be aware, I’m sure, that in the Old Testament Babylon was an actual city, the centre of an empire that rose to power under Nebuchadnazzer and ruled the Middle East for about seventy years, in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, roughly from 605 to 538 BC. But ‘Babylon’ then became a symbolic word, a code name for all the evil and tyrannical regimes, ancient and modern, that have blighted, exploited and destroyed countless human lives throughout history. And it is in that sense that Revelation condemns ‘Babylon’. Of course, John’s readers in his day would have had no difficulty recognising the Roman Empire in his portrayal. But the evils he describes in chapter 18 (read the whole chapter) could apply to many a regime that has perpetrated social, political and economic injustice and oppression, along with the vicious persecution of God’s people. 

‘Fallen is Babylon the Great!’

Indeed, Babylon by this stage of the book of Revelation has come to stand for the whole world of human and satanic rebellion ranged against God and God’s people, arrogant, boastful, voraciously greedy, devouring and destructive of human life and created resources. 

But not for ever! God will bring her down, and her destruction will be decisive, permanent, eternal (did you spot the repeated ‘never again’ of 18.21-24?). Maybe you find the language of these chapters too graphic and brutal. But remember that God’s final judgment is part of the biblical gospel. It is good news that God will not let evil have the last word. He promised to crush the serpent’s head. He triumphed over evil powers at the cross. And he will ultimately defeat and destroy Satan’s whole regime and all that goes with it. God is the Judge of all the earth who will do what is right (Genesis 18.25, Revelation 18.8, 20, 19.1). God will put all things right before he makes all things new (21.5).

Let the party begin!

And so the hallelujahs ring out in chapter 19, to usher in the greatest party of all time, the wedding feast of the Lamb (19.7-8). Christ will be united with his bride, and she herself will be utterly cleansed, pure and holy, gorgeously beautiful (21.2) and eternally safe.

That’s us, by the way. We’re all invited (19.9). Don’t you just love how God ends this vast epic narrative that we call our Bible in this way? The lover gets his girl. The bridegroom embraces his bride. All the rivals and villains are ousted. God makes his new home with his people (21.3). And (in a way that will be no fairy tale but gloriously true) ‘they all lived happily ever after’.

Lent 24 post 8

 Ephesians 6.10-17

‘The Lord is a warrior'

Do you remember that line from Tuesday’s blog on the Song of Moses and Miriam (Exodus 15.3)? We may not relish the military imagery, but it’s the spiritual truth that counts. Through the whole Bible, God is engaged in a mighty cosmic battle against the powers of evil, spiritual and human. So the metaphor of God himself as a warrior comes naturally, a warrior fighting to overcome evil and defeat all that opposes his good and loving purposes for creation and human life.

And, like a human soldier, God clothes himself with the right equipment. You’ve probably heard preachers say that Paul draws his picture of the armour of God from the Roman soldier he might have been chained to in prison. Very possibly. But, actually, most of the meanings Paul gives to each piece come from the Old Testament, his Scriptures. And they describe either God himself or the coming Messiah.

So, you see, when Paul says ‘the full armour of God', he doesn’t just mean bits of equipment that God hands out like army kit. No, this is what God himself wears! We fight under the protection of the character and attributes of God himself, for he is the God of truth, righteousness, peace, faithfulness, salvation and Spirit-inspired word. And that’s what we need (or rather, who we need), to stand firm in the battle.

‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

That’s what people used to say to one another in Britain during the Second World War, apparently, if somebody was complaining or shirking their duties or just talking too loosely. When there’s a war on, everybody needs to be watchful and prepared to put up with hardships and suffering.

Maybe Paul is saying that to the Ephesians, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ Except that in this war, none of us is a civilian. We are all soldiers on active duty because the whole church is on the front line of God’s cosmic battle. And the enemies of God and the church are legion. Now, of course, Paul suffered at the hands of ‘flesh-and-blood’ human opponents, as the church still does today. But Paul knew that the struggle goes on at a higher level altogether, with his comprehensive list of ‘the spiritual forces of evil'. They are a defeated enemy (as we saw yesterday), but they still fight venomously with ‘flaming arrows' against God and his people.

The full armour of God 

The complete picture portrays aspects of God himself, of God’s Messiah and of the gospel. What greater protection do you need? There isn’t any! The references show what scriptures Paul may have got his ideas from. (They’re worth a quick look.)

The belt of truth. (Isaiah 11.5, the Messiah wears a belt of righteousness, but the whole context speaks of his mission of true judgment and governance) The truth of the gospel holds everything together in Christian life and warfare.

The breastplate of righteousness. (Isaiah 59.17) Paul may be thinking of the saving righteous acts of God (its frequent meaning in the Old Testament), or the righteousness in which we stand through faith in Christ. But there is spiritual protection also in the righteous integrity of life that Paul calls for (4.24, 5.8-9). Living right makes the devil’s work harder.

The shoes of the gospel of peace. (Isaiah 52.7) There’s nothing ‘beautiful' about feet, until they are wearing the running shoes of the messengers of the good news of God’s peace for those who need to hear it (as Paul quotes in Romans 10.14-15).

The shield of faith. (Psalm 18.35, 28.7 etc) The psalmists put their faith in God, to be their shield against all kinds of nasty attacks. So too can we.

The helmet of salvation. (Isaiah 59.17) ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?’ (Psalm 27.1). Enough said.

The sword of the Spirit, the word of God. (Isaiah 11.4b, 49.2) Jesus used the Scriptures to resist the temptations of the devil. And so can we. Fight back!

Lent 24 post 7

 Colossians 2.6-15

Were you,  with the crowd,  amazed yesterday, as Jesus, by the finger of God, liberated one tongue and one pair of eyes belonging to one man afflicted by one evil spirit? (I hope we never lose our sense of astonishment at familiar Gospel stories.) But there are much larger communities of people afflicted by much wider forces of evil.

Captivity of the mind

Whole cultures can be victims of a captivity of the mind and imagination. Hostile spiritual powers corrupt and infiltrated the social fabric of human life, including political structures and authorities, ideologies, world views, even the way people habitually think and act as ‘normal’. 

Things that are in themselves part of God’s good creation, such as our diverse ethnicities and cultures, our sexuality, food and drink, economic activity in the workplace, all of these can be corrupted into idolatries, pervaded by subtle powers of evil. 

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that Christians should be immune to all that. Haven’t we turned from idols to the living God? Haven’t we renounced the evil one and all his ways? Well, yes. But we can so easily be sucked back into the world’s mindset by the sheer pressure of the culture around us (remember Romans 12.1–2). Or even by religious rules that sound so spiritual, but end up suffocating the life out of us. We don’t exhibit any of the Hollywood movie caricatures of ‘demon possession’. But powers of evil that have colonized the world around us shape the way we think. 

Stay free! 

Paul wants the believers in Colossae to be free from all such bondage. He warns them not to get ‘taken captive’ by deceptively plausible ideas that are merely human, worldly and idolatrous (.8). In Paul’s world, that would have included the cultural seduction of Roman power and civilization, and the religious attraction of forms of Judaism that had not accepted Jesus as Messiah. What do you think might fit that description in the world around us these days? 

So how does Paul fight back against such powerful forces? He confronts them with the cross! And he reminds the Colossians of the victory God accomplished there. 

From death to life (.12–13a) 

Paul sees baptism as a symbol of how we share Christ’s death and resurrection. His story is our story. The first half of verse 13 describes the Gentile Colossians (‘you’) from a Jewish point of view, ‘dead in sins . . . and uncircumcision’. Paul expands that vividly in Ephesians 2.11–12. But, like the Prodigal Son, God has brought the dead to life, as alive as Christ himself is. 

From sin to forgiveness (.13b–14) 

But death is the penalty for sin (as we have known since the Garden of Eden). So, to give us life out of death, God must deal with sin. And he has, says Paul triumphantly! He has forgiven us (Paul knows that he and his fellow Jews are as much sinners in need of forgiveness as the Gentiles) all our sins. How? In a vivid metaphor, Paul sees our sin as a massive debt. But God chooses to cancel this debt and nail the accusing document to the cross itself. Which means that God, in Christ, chose to pay the debt himself; the cross was the cost to God of our forgiveness. 

From captivity to freedom (.15) 

But sin and death were not the only powers that God dealt with at the cross. All ‘powers and authorities’ that deceive and enslave, whether working through political and economic structures, or religious systems, or spiritual idolatries, or human ideologies and rules (as in .8 and .16–23), have been exposed and disarmed at the cross. Christ’s apparent defeat was the place of his glorious triumph. And by his victory we are set free. 

Anyone looking at the cross of Jesus with a normal understanding of the first-century world would think: the rulers and authorities stripped him naked and celebrated a public triumph over him. That’s what they normally did to such people. 

Now blink, rub your eyes and read verse 15 again. On the cross, Paul declares, God was stripping the armour off the rulers and authorities! Yes: he was holding them up to public contempt! God was celebrating his triumph over the principalities and powers, the very powers that thought it was the other way round. Paul never gets tired of relishing the glorious paradox of the cross: God’s weakness overcoming human strength. (Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, p. 170–171)

Lent 24 post 6

Luke 11.14-22

‘The Lord reigns!’

That was the closing message of yesterday’s reading, and it is the resounding message of today’s. Yesterday it was the climax of the power encounter between the living God and an arrogant despot. Today, it is an episode in the climax of the battle between the Son of God and Satan.

I wonder what comes to your mind when you hear the phrase ‘the kingdom of God’? Perhaps a mixture of the parables of Jesus? Or an impression of heaven? In the Gospels, however, a key element is spiritual conflict, a cosmic battle. When God comes to reign, evil powers fight back, but are decisively defeated. Jesus may well have had the exodus story in mind as the classic scriptural case of God’s victory over evil when he said, ‘If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.’ For that is what even the Pharaoh’s magicians recognised, as the God of the Hebrews struck Egypt again and again. ‘This is the finger of God,’ they exclaimed (Exodus 8.19)!

Startling proof

And most of the crowd on this occasion thought the same thing. They were ‘amazed’ (.14). Well, there’s an understatement, don’t you think? Here is a man, afflicted by an evil spirit, who everybody knew could not speak, and Matthew tells us he was blind as well (Matthew 12.22). And Jesus drives out the spirit and liberates the man from his demonic prison of silence and darkness. ‘Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see,’ says Matthew. Astonished? Of course they were, the man’s unchained voice was audible proof of what Jesus had just done. He had overpowered and expelled the powers of evil. Who, then, could Jesus be? The promised Messiah, son of David? The one through whom God’s own reign would arrive?

Ridiculous resistance

But for some, that conclusion was threateningly unwelcome, so they came up with their own explanation. ‘You think he’s doing all this by the power of God? That’s fake news! Jesus is driving out demons by the power of the king of demons.’

Sorry, what?

Jesus brilliantly debunks the illogical stupidity of such ‘alternative facts’. And then he challenges the crowd with the only believable truth. If his power over evil spirits (which was undeniable, the healed man was jabbering away over there with all the excitement of his loosened tongue and shining eyes!) is clear evidence that God is at work (by his finger, Luke, or by his Spirit, Matthew), then there is only one conclusion. The kingdom of God has already come among and upon them. The battle is joined, and Jesus wins. ‘The reason the Son of God appeared,’ says John, ‘was to destroy the devil’s work’ (1 John 3.8).

‘Someone stronger’

And that is exactly what is going on here, and throughout Jesus’s earthly ministry. Jesus’s comparison is graphic and decisive. Verse 21 portrays Satan gloating over his prisoners. Verse 22 portrays Jesus in combat, attacking and overpowering, depriving Satan of both his power and his plunder.

Here is the ultimate cosmic war. Jesus and Satan stand toe to toe in battle. The miracles are an audiovisual that Satan’s cause is ultimately lost. He can do great damage, as any enemy can; but the die is cast. He will lose. The picture of the ‘stronger one’ alludes back to [what John the Baptist said in] 3.15–16. The stronger one is the promised Messiah who brings fire and the Spirit . . . Jesus’s work means that Satan is no longer in control of the palace.

(Darrell L. Bock, Luke, p. 211)

And on the cross, Jesus completed the victory that will ultimately expel Satan from God’s universe altogether.