Taking a deeper practical look at worship, as seen through the eyes of Leviticus 9, we find a pattern that occurs throughout the Old Testament. It is a pattern of Initiation and Response. God initiates, and we respond. The pattern of worship begins with God Calling us to His presence. We then respond with Confessing our sins, prostrating our broken souls before the Holy One. God again initiates then with Consecrating us by means of His Word. We respond to His Word by Communing with Him. He then Commissions us to go out into the world, making disciples. We respond by doing so, with His blessing. This is the broad outline to the Drama of God, a High Play by means of which He nourishes and completes His bride, perfecting her, and preparing her for the final wedding day. I want to put forward some practical ideas regarding how this actually would look in the context of our modern day service of worship. By no means do I put these forward with the understanding that this is the definitive, and only correct way to plan a service. In no way do I mean to be judgmental of other ways. These are simply personal thoughts and are very much biased by personal tastes. That disclaimer aside, I do think that these suggestions could be helpful, if done in a loving, gracious manner, for the church body desiring a more mature, rich, and meaningful service. Therefore I will argue for them, and seek to show their attentiveness to Scripture, hopefully shedding light on what it means to worship the way God intended.
The Call
It begins with God initiating the interaction. We cannot come to Him on our own merit, our own terms, our own anything. The only means by which we can approach the Father is through the Son (John 14.6). It is only in Christ that we have the ability to stand before the throne of holiness. It is only in Christ that we can know Him at all. Christ is the living Word of God, Spoken for our good, and for our Reconciliation. Therefore when He calls us, it is only through Christ, and because of Christ, that we have life and breath to respond with. This means when we respond to the Call of God, we come not on our terms, not on our timetable. We cannot simply make room for it amidst a schedule of things to do. This act of responding to God represents the single biggest, eternal component of your life: your status as a child of God. How do we then respond? Here are some thoughts.
1. Dress. How we dress speaks to the world and informs them of our priorities. When we wear pajamas, we are telling everyone we are going to bed. When we wear hiking boots and long pants, we are communicating our recreational destination. Not only do we communicate where we are going, we also tell people how important it is to us. If we show up at a funeral in flip flops and shorts, we are telling people how much we honor and respect the deceased. Our attire communicates much about our priorities and what we hold dear. If the worship of God holds any weight in our lives, should it not be reflected in how we dress for it? Obviously there is a major discussion regarding cultural relativity and appropriateness. In every culture however, there are levels of formality when it comes to clothing. It is simply how God made us tick. Understanding where those lines are drawn in our specific context is part of how we prepare ourselves for responding to the Call of God. Were the President of the United States to send us an invitation to come to the Oval Office, we would prepare long and hard with our appearance, before stepping foot inside the White House. But do we do the same when the Creator God of the entire Universe has called us to His presence? Or has our “familiarity” with Sunday Mornings bred contempt?
2. Reverence and Awe. The writer to the Hebrews commands us to come before the Lord, the King of an unshakeable kingdom, and worship in reverence and awe (12:28). The first part of the verse tells us to be grateful that we have received this kingdom. We do this because our God is a consuming fire. A consuming fire is not something that can be understood as trivial, or common. Moses beheld the consuming fire in the bush, and was consumed with fear and wonder. In obedience he removed his sandals, understanding that where the fire was, was now Holy. God Almighty, Creator of the Universe and everything in it, has called us to Himself, has called us to the Burning Bush, and bids us remove our sandals, for we approach Holy Ground. How do we approach the service on Sunday Mornings? With solemnity and understanding of what we are doing? Or does our familiarity perhaps breed a certain nonchalance that robs the worship of the Holy one of its full depth and life. If we come in a cavalier manner, we do not understand the nature of grace, the nature of the call. The only response to grace is gratitude. Anything else is simply presumption. But we have received an unshakeable kingdom. Does that resonate at all with us? What else can one be but grateful? Here we have the rock of Christ, peace and joy in its richest, fullest incarnation, and we take it for granted. This only testifies to the patience of our Father. Reverence and awe do not mean dour and grim, and fear and trembling do not mean panic and wailing. It is an attitude of honor, and respect, and gratitude that is focused on the reality of what is happening. We, according to Hebrews 12 have now ascended into the heavenly realms, and worship in the presence of the Father, who is a consuming fire. And we can only come on the good name of another, by the power of a third. We have no role to play in coming. We have nothing to offer, except that which has already been given to us. And to come, offering our gifts of praise and prayers, in a frivolous and unfocused, unconcerned, and unprepared manner, is to spit in the eye of God. Do we honor Him as God? Do we give Him thanks? In speech? In actions? In thoughts? In motives? We have much to confess.
3. The Call to Worship. The actual call to worship is an important part of the service. It informs the congregation that it is now, at this moment that we are leaving behind our earthly cares and contexts, and coming as one body, one bride, through the Spirit, on the good name of Christ, coming before the Father, coming to worship, and be fed. The worship of God is a serious, life sustaining ritual we perform every week. For those of us who have grown up in the Church, we know how funny it feels to miss church on Sunday morning. We feel weird, and the week doesn’t feel the same. It is because we have gone seven days without participating in the particular service of our God, ascending to His courts. This is what is initiated in the Call to Worship. The pastor calls us together, and declares that we are now ascended in Spirit and truth. Here a couple practical thoughts on this point.
a. Announcements are often a necessity, even though sometimes awkward and unwieldy in the context of communal worship. It is not inappropriate at all to give announcements, but the transition is where it gets sticky. One minute we are thinking about the potluck next Wednesday and what we need to bring, or remembering that baby shower and that you forgot to buy a gift, and then suddenly the pastor is reading a Psalm, having already begun, leaving you in the dust. Perhaps if there were an interlude, a Selah, for meditation and preparation. This could be accomplished by quartet singing one of the hymns that will be sung in the service, while the congregations prepares. Mind you, this is not a performance. It is an aid in worship. If not a quartet, an instrumental interlude is more than adequate. Giving the congregation that has now gathered, and has quieted down, time to refocus on what they are about to do. It is difficult to come in with an attitude of reverence and awe, with the powdered sugar left over from the doughnut that was on the patio, still clinging to your lips, with hands still sticky from the OJ that finished it off. If the congregation comes from pre-service fellowship times (which is another discussion altogether) straight into the worship of God, it will be very hard for them to transition, and come before the Lord with fear. Therefore a simply Selah, giving time between announcements and the Call for people to grasp what they are about to do, together as one body.
b. The call to worship should be distinct and clear. “Let us worship the Triune God.” It is a declarative statement (and imperative, of sorts) calling us to His presence. At this time it is appropriate for the congregation to stand, symbolizing the act of ascension, as well as the communal aspect of ascending together. We are one body, not simply a collection of individuals. We are a corporate body, a plural made into a singular. When God addresses us, He addresses us as His people. He addresses us as a body, the body, the Body and Bride of Christ. Psalm 95 bids us, “Come, let us worship the Lord.” We are commanded in Scripture to come, and the pastor repeats this command, bidding us come. We have been called. Come. Let us worship the Lord. The silence of meditation before this call, make the call more pronounced, communicating in the stark declaration, that what we are about to do is not only serious and meaningful, it carries weight. What we do is grace. Dangerous and consuming grace.
c. Following the call should be a brief description of what we are doing, why we do it, and on what basis we are doing this. Again this is declarative. It is happening. The pastor is leading us, and does so as the mouth piece of God. He leads, and we respond. This is not a casual performance that we sit back and watch. The congregation is an active part of the service, for we all have come to worship, and we are on stage, not in the audience. Using Scripture at this point is most appropriate. Responsively reading a Psalm, like Psalm 95, which again invites to “Come, let us worship the Lord, let us kneel before the Lord our maker,” has the effect of engaging the people, and drawing the congregation into the act and drama of worship. The readings should be quick and snappy, not allowed to drag and mumble. When a group of people try to read something at the same time, at a slow pace, they will all go at different speeds, trying to accommodate for one another, and it will get slower and slower, until the effect of the antiphonal call and response is lost. But when short segments (following the natural parallelism of the Psalms’ poetic structure) are read with confidence and strength, the responsorial nature is kept intact, and the Psalm is read as a whole piece, by caller and congregation, rather than verse by verse which tends to lose the rhythm and flow of the text.
d. After reading together the Word of God, we respond with praise and thanksgiving. A doxological hymn would fit well here. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” is cried aloud together, reminding us who has spoken. As I have said before, the service we render to our God is filled with the pattern of initiation and response. God initiates, we respond. Do not respond is to show ingratitude. In reading the Word, God speaks to us, and we hear His voice in the Psalm. We in turn respond with words of our own, words that give voice to our utter dependence and gratitude. This completes our ascension, our song joining the song of the seraphim, praising God who indeed is Holy.
Confession
When anyone in Scripture encounters God, is brought into His presence, or has a vision of the Most High, the immediate response is one of complete recognition of sin. Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” He beholds the holiness of God, and cannot stand in His presence. We too, ascend and stand before the Lord God, and are naked before Him. We have been called, but as we enter the house, we must be washed. We do so in confession of our sins. Psalm 95 again, “Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” Our immediate posture upon entering the throne room must be one of prostration. We come and lay our hearts and souls bare before Him, acknowledging His hatred of our sins, confessing them, and grabbing hold of the blood of Christ. I am a fan of corporate confessions, because they again draw attention to the fact that we are a body, and come as such. But there is also a place for individual confession, and time should be given for it. Scripture again is used to confirm our status as sinners and teaching us how to repent. Psalm 51 is a perfect example of what a broken and contrite heart looks like, and we would do well to drink deeply of texts like these. As important as it is to confess our sins, corporately and individually, so it is also important to receive a statement of absolution. In this the pastor speaks the words of God, not finding any power to forgive sins in himself, but simply proclaiming the truth of what God has done. After confession, the pastor might say something to the effect of, “As a minister of the Word of God, having confessed yours sin honestly and before God and one another, I declare unto you, that your sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ.” To this the congregation gives their “Amen!” through a hymn/Psalm of thanksgiving, rejoicing in the fact that we have been made clean.
Of course in participating in a confession like this, I am not suggesting our sins were not forgiven before we confessed them, or before the minister says so. There is no magic in the act of our speaking, only in the act of God speaking. And that happened before time began. However, we follow a pattern like this for two reasons. The first is that, to my understanding, Scripture lays out this pattern in Old Testament Sacrificial practices, which we have already discussed. But secondly, God, in worship, is renewing His covenant with us. He is reminding us of who we are, where we came from, who He is, where He is taking us, how we get there, and what we are supposed to be busy with on the way. Worship is not just a time of superficial praise that leaves us with a good feeling. It is participation in God’s nature, it is being brought into the Triune dance, teaching us, shaping us, molding us, preparing us, and equipping us for taking that Triune dance of life into the world, and making disciples. In this way worship becomes a dialogue, constructed to remind us of every stage, lest we become proud in our status as children, chosen though we may be. We must always confess our sins, and we must always be reminded of our forgiveness. Our worship is full of symbols and acts and rituals that point and lead us to life. We participate in the drama, with all its plot developments, and are nourished.
Following a confession of our sins, it is right and fitting that we confess our faith. The use of one of the creeds of Christendom (e.g. the Nicene Creed) is appropriate as it unifies us with a much broader body of believers than simply the ones in our physical and temporal proximity. I am also a fan of using a catechism to help instruct the congregation concerning our faith. Catechisms such as the Heidelberg, for example, lead the believer through the various points of the faith, strengthening their understanding of what they believe. Again, doing this corporately builds unity, and binds the congregation together as a whole, treating them as one family, which they are. Again, a hymn/Psalm of response allows the congregation to say “Amen!” to what they believe and confess.
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Thoughts on Worship: Part Two
Last time we discussed the relative levity with which we often approach the throne of God. We talked about our natural (old man/flesh) desires to do things that are easy, and come without much effort. We found that we cannot approach “as we are” and live. We need to be re-created in the image of Christ, and be given new clothes in order to stand before a thrice holy God (Zech 3). We talked mostly about why it is important to take seriously our call to worship, and to come ready to be stretched and taken out of our comfort zone. In this essay, I want to throw out some suggestions as to how to worship seriously, with reverence and awe, fear and trembling, and at the very core, real, meaty joy. Worship is at the heart joyful. But not a modern sense of joy, that is synonymous with a happy-clappy idiocy that doesn’t understand the world we live in. I’m talking about real joy, the joy that we defend in the midst of harsh persecution, and the joy we see in all sufferings and trials, the joy that produces steadfastness, and hope. This type of joy is not sentimental, it is not unrealistic, and it is certainly not frivolous. Like glory, it has weight. It is heavy and substantial. It is life altering.
A joyous worship, a joyous sacrifice of praise, sees all things as a gift from the hand of a loving God. Every minute of every day we are receiving from the hand of God. Our response in every such moment, needs to be gratitude. Even more so, gratitude must define our weekly ascension to the courts of heaven, where God meets with us. He visits us in a different way than through the course of the other six days. At the beginning of the week, He comes with a purpose to renew His covenant with us, to remind us that He is our God, and we are His people. He comes to enact on us, to change us. He does this (as pictured in the Old Testament sacrificial system) in three parts. He breaks us down, cutting us, and opening our hearts bare to Him. He then builds us back together, restructuring our hearts, and soothing our wounds with His Word. Finally He feeds us, nourishing our souls, fitting us for ministry, and equipping us for war; war with the flesh, war with the world. Our response at each point is one of gratitude. This is our hope and joy, that God Himself does this to us. We are not strong enough to bare our sin to a Holy God in our own strength. We have not the ability to turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. And we dare not come before the Bridegroom, ready for the wedding feast, in clothes of our own making. But here is the very essence of life, confessing our sin before the Father, being sanctified by the Word, and nourished, sacramentally by Holy Spirit. The gospel is this: the Father, Son, and Spirit give this to us as gift. How can we not but give thanks?
To reiterate thoughts from last time, giving thanks must mean obedience. How can disobedience imply gratitude? We must approach the throne of God obediently. This means doing worship His way. What is His way, you ask? The first 39 books of the Bible go into great detail as to the nature of God, what He likes, what He doesn’t like, how He is to be approached, and how He is not to be approached. And if we really believe that God is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow, we cannot dismiss the Old Testament as simply good, fun reading in between serious devotions in the New Testament. We take the whole Word of God as just that, the Whole Word. Modern Christians are often ashamed of the Old Testament because of all the violence toward minorities, strange temple behavior, and weird names from thousands of years ago. Just give me Jesus, they say. News flash folks: Jesus was Jesus even back then, in the “irrelevant” pages of Scripture. All this is to say that we find much instruction as to how God wants to be worshipped, how He desires to be approached, in the Old Testament.
With that in mind, let’s look at Leviticus. Leviticus was written, as the title implies, as a rule book for the Levites, the nation’s priesthood. Peter says, under the inspiration of the Spirit, that we, as Christians, are a royal priesthood. So it becomes more apparent that Leviticus was written for us, Christ’s priests. Leviticus 9:1-4, 22-24 reads:
On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel, and he said to Aaron, “Take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. And say to the people of Israel, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both a year old without blemish, for a burnt offering, and an ox and a ram for peace offerings, to sacrifice before the Lord, and a grain offering mixed with oil, for today the Lord will appear to you.’” ... Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.
The order of worship we see in both texts (the middle portion is a description of Aaron actually doing it) is the same: Sin offering, Burnt offering, Peace offering. The sin offering was an act of confession, and absolution. The priest took hold of the animal, symbolizing a transfer of guilt and the atonement it would make, and killed it, symbolizing the death of sin. The animal would then be burned and the smoke would ascend to God, who would receive it as sufficient atonement for the worshipper’s sin, and therefore enact forgiveness. “And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven” (Lev 4:35). The sin offering could be and was then eaten, symbolizing an absolution, the worshipper once again being accepted before the eyes of God (Lev 6:24-26). This posture of eating is a posture of gratitude. We receive food (forgiveness), and therefore eat (give thanks). Ungrateful eating is presumptuous and turns the best of foods into ash inside our mouths.
The burnt offering is a mistranslation. The meaning of the Hebrew word, translated as burnt, is really ascension. This is an ascension offering. Burnt is redundant, as most offerings are burnt. What makes this offering different from the others is that the whole animal is burnt, and offered in smoke to the Lord. This symbolizes, especially in coming after the sin offering, the worshipper offering all of himself to the Lord’s service. We recognize that we are not our own, but belong to God, wholly. Therefore we offer ourselves entirely on the altar of living sacrifices, cut up by His Word, transformed by the fire of the Spirit from one state of glory to the next (flesh and blood to smoke), and enabled to ascend as a pleasing aroma, sacrifices of a broken spirit.
The peace offering was an offering of thanksgiving (or for a vow/freewill offering which is another form of gratitude; Lev 7:11-18). Like the Sin offering, it was to be eaten. The worshipper would bring loaves of unleavened bread with the animal that was to be sacrificed. Only in the peace offering was bread and blood combined. Bread was eaten and blood was poured out, together as one offering and as one act of thanksgiving. In this act of peace, God invites the worshipper to dine with Him. God nourishes His people and communes with them. The worshipper eats with God. This is different from the sin offering in that the sin offering is a succession. Man offers sacrifice, God eats, is pleased, forgives, and then the worshipper receives and eats. Here with the peace offering, man eats bread as God eats the sacrifice. They dine at a common table.
God throughout Scripture reveals Himself as Trinity, and does so clearly here. The sin offering is performed for and by the Father. We make atonement with the Father, and He then grants us forgiveness, and restores us to life. The ascension offering symbolizes the work of the Son. In Christ we are dressed and made acceptable to approach the throne as a pleasing aroma. Through the Living Word, we are cut up and transformed from one level of Glory to the next. In the peace offering the Spirit draws us to God, allowing us to dine at His table, filling the very distance that separate creature from Creator. Obviously this is not to say that all three persons are not at work in all three aspects, but God reveals Himself to us in these ways, pedagogically, teaching us who He is.
It is interesting, and very cautionary, that the story of Nadab and Abihu comes directly after the portions of Leviticus 9 quoted above. The moral? God tells Aaron through Moses, exactly how He wants to be worshipped. Aaron obeys, and they beheld the glory of the Lord accepting their offerings in the fire. Immediately after this, it is recorded that Nadab and Abihu offered strange (unauthorized) fire on the altar, with the intention of worshipping the Lord, it must be remembered. Their intentions didn’t hold much meaning in the final judgment. They then beheld the glory of the Lord consume them, bringing judgment on them for their disobedience. You would think that with examples like this we would learn to not be so flippant with how we approach the throne.
How does this all give us practical tools with which to define and design our worship services? The first thing to do is actually read the texts. Study them, imbibe them, and learn to speak Scripturally about all of Scripture. Then we pull out principles. Obviously, Hebrews says we are no longer to offer actual animal sacrifices anymore. But it is equally clear that we are still a sacrificial people, offering sacrifices of praise, and are ourselves living sacrifices. So how do we define sacrifice? How does God define sacrifice? This is why we go to Leviticus. I am indebted to people like James B Jordan, and Peter Leithart for their work in this area. They have dug and we students have been able to enjoy the fruit of their labor. The principles that we have talked about above, with regard to each sacrifice, fall out into five points that help us when it comes to our own modern day service. First, we are Called. God calls us to enter into His presence. He calls us to come before Him with thanksgiving and praise. He calls us to Himself. We cannot come of our own accord. Second, we enter a season of Confession. This correlates with the sin offering. We come before a holy God, and the first thing we do is remove our shoes. God is Holy, and we are not. We come acknowledging this, and asking for forgiveness. In response to repentance, God grants forgiveness, and we receive absolution. Next we are Consecrated. This correlates with the ascension offering. We are made holy and fit for the service of God. We receive His Word, both read and preached. The Word refashions us, restores us, and renews us, equipping us for service in the Kingdom. Following the tearing down, and the building up, we enter into Communion. This correlates with the peace offering. Here we dine at the table of the Lord, and receive nourishment and strength. We feed on Christ, and through the Spirit, dine with the Father. After being equipped and nourished, we are Commisioned to enter the world, fulfilling our calling to “Go and make disciples of all the nations.”
Here we have an outline from Scripture, from God’s own handbook on worship, no less, outlining a progression. We are called, we confess, we are consecrated, we commune, and we are commissioned. This is high drama, full of rising action, climax, and resolution. It is a progression from unsettled fear and trembling, to rest. We come as sinners, we leave as saints. It sounds trite, but that is what is happening. We come in need of cleansing, and leave refreshed and renewed. This is not to say that we are not still sinners when we leave. Or even to say that we are not perfectly accepted in Christ before we come. We are. But God is into picturing reality in actions. The worshipper was alive before he presented his animal sacrifice, a picture of God’s grace. And he certainly didn’t leave the sacrifice free from sin. Same with today. These dramatic pictures are here to involve us in the truth of what God is doing. He wants us not only to know it with specific head knowledge, but to smell it, to see it, to act it, to hear it, and to taste it. On Sunday mornings, God is drawing us into His presence and renewing before our very eyes the covenant He made thousands of years ago, that He will be our God, and we will be His people. That covenant has gone unbroken since Abraham. In Christ, we are the seed of Abraham, and that covenant is a covenant we cannot break. Abraham had no part in it. He was as asleep as Adam when Eve was taken out of his side. God brings this to us each week, to remind us, to cause us to partake in it, to find joy in it. But not only does He do this to remind us. This is His chosen means of grace. This is how He wants to do it. It’s not our deal to play around with. We don’t have the freedom to move it to Saturdays, so we can Sundays off. Nor is it ours to skip if we feel going to the beach is more important. This is our life. This is where God meets with us. He could have chosen any number of ways to commune with His people. But He didn’t. He gave us this. This is His day, given for our good. It would behoove us to pay attention.
A joyous worship, a joyous sacrifice of praise, sees all things as a gift from the hand of a loving God. Every minute of every day we are receiving from the hand of God. Our response in every such moment, needs to be gratitude. Even more so, gratitude must define our weekly ascension to the courts of heaven, where God meets with us. He visits us in a different way than through the course of the other six days. At the beginning of the week, He comes with a purpose to renew His covenant with us, to remind us that He is our God, and we are His people. He comes to enact on us, to change us. He does this (as pictured in the Old Testament sacrificial system) in three parts. He breaks us down, cutting us, and opening our hearts bare to Him. He then builds us back together, restructuring our hearts, and soothing our wounds with His Word. Finally He feeds us, nourishing our souls, fitting us for ministry, and equipping us for war; war with the flesh, war with the world. Our response at each point is one of gratitude. This is our hope and joy, that God Himself does this to us. We are not strong enough to bare our sin to a Holy God in our own strength. We have not the ability to turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. And we dare not come before the Bridegroom, ready for the wedding feast, in clothes of our own making. But here is the very essence of life, confessing our sin before the Father, being sanctified by the Word, and nourished, sacramentally by Holy Spirit. The gospel is this: the Father, Son, and Spirit give this to us as gift. How can we not but give thanks?
To reiterate thoughts from last time, giving thanks must mean obedience. How can disobedience imply gratitude? We must approach the throne of God obediently. This means doing worship His way. What is His way, you ask? The first 39 books of the Bible go into great detail as to the nature of God, what He likes, what He doesn’t like, how He is to be approached, and how He is not to be approached. And if we really believe that God is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow, we cannot dismiss the Old Testament as simply good, fun reading in between serious devotions in the New Testament. We take the whole Word of God as just that, the Whole Word. Modern Christians are often ashamed of the Old Testament because of all the violence toward minorities, strange temple behavior, and weird names from thousands of years ago. Just give me Jesus, they say. News flash folks: Jesus was Jesus even back then, in the “irrelevant” pages of Scripture. All this is to say that we find much instruction as to how God wants to be worshipped, how He desires to be approached, in the Old Testament.
With that in mind, let’s look at Leviticus. Leviticus was written, as the title implies, as a rule book for the Levites, the nation’s priesthood. Peter says, under the inspiration of the Spirit, that we, as Christians, are a royal priesthood. So it becomes more apparent that Leviticus was written for us, Christ’s priests. Leviticus 9:1-4, 22-24 reads:
On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel, and he said to Aaron, “Take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. And say to the people of Israel, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both a year old without blemish, for a burnt offering, and an ox and a ram for peace offerings, to sacrifice before the Lord, and a grain offering mixed with oil, for today the Lord will appear to you.’” ... Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.
The order of worship we see in both texts (the middle portion is a description of Aaron actually doing it) is the same: Sin offering, Burnt offering, Peace offering. The sin offering was an act of confession, and absolution. The priest took hold of the animal, symbolizing a transfer of guilt and the atonement it would make, and killed it, symbolizing the death of sin. The animal would then be burned and the smoke would ascend to God, who would receive it as sufficient atonement for the worshipper’s sin, and therefore enact forgiveness. “And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven” (Lev 4:35). The sin offering could be and was then eaten, symbolizing an absolution, the worshipper once again being accepted before the eyes of God (Lev 6:24-26). This posture of eating is a posture of gratitude. We receive food (forgiveness), and therefore eat (give thanks). Ungrateful eating is presumptuous and turns the best of foods into ash inside our mouths.
The burnt offering is a mistranslation. The meaning of the Hebrew word, translated as burnt, is really ascension. This is an ascension offering. Burnt is redundant, as most offerings are burnt. What makes this offering different from the others is that the whole animal is burnt, and offered in smoke to the Lord. This symbolizes, especially in coming after the sin offering, the worshipper offering all of himself to the Lord’s service. We recognize that we are not our own, but belong to God, wholly. Therefore we offer ourselves entirely on the altar of living sacrifices, cut up by His Word, transformed by the fire of the Spirit from one state of glory to the next (flesh and blood to smoke), and enabled to ascend as a pleasing aroma, sacrifices of a broken spirit.
The peace offering was an offering of thanksgiving (or for a vow/freewill offering which is another form of gratitude; Lev 7:11-18). Like the Sin offering, it was to be eaten. The worshipper would bring loaves of unleavened bread with the animal that was to be sacrificed. Only in the peace offering was bread and blood combined. Bread was eaten and blood was poured out, together as one offering and as one act of thanksgiving. In this act of peace, God invites the worshipper to dine with Him. God nourishes His people and communes with them. The worshipper eats with God. This is different from the sin offering in that the sin offering is a succession. Man offers sacrifice, God eats, is pleased, forgives, and then the worshipper receives and eats. Here with the peace offering, man eats bread as God eats the sacrifice. They dine at a common table.
God throughout Scripture reveals Himself as Trinity, and does so clearly here. The sin offering is performed for and by the Father. We make atonement with the Father, and He then grants us forgiveness, and restores us to life. The ascension offering symbolizes the work of the Son. In Christ we are dressed and made acceptable to approach the throne as a pleasing aroma. Through the Living Word, we are cut up and transformed from one level of Glory to the next. In the peace offering the Spirit draws us to God, allowing us to dine at His table, filling the very distance that separate creature from Creator. Obviously this is not to say that all three persons are not at work in all three aspects, but God reveals Himself to us in these ways, pedagogically, teaching us who He is.
It is interesting, and very cautionary, that the story of Nadab and Abihu comes directly after the portions of Leviticus 9 quoted above. The moral? God tells Aaron through Moses, exactly how He wants to be worshipped. Aaron obeys, and they beheld the glory of the Lord accepting their offerings in the fire. Immediately after this, it is recorded that Nadab and Abihu offered strange (unauthorized) fire on the altar, with the intention of worshipping the Lord, it must be remembered. Their intentions didn’t hold much meaning in the final judgment. They then beheld the glory of the Lord consume them, bringing judgment on them for their disobedience. You would think that with examples like this we would learn to not be so flippant with how we approach the throne.
How does this all give us practical tools with which to define and design our worship services? The first thing to do is actually read the texts. Study them, imbibe them, and learn to speak Scripturally about all of Scripture. Then we pull out principles. Obviously, Hebrews says we are no longer to offer actual animal sacrifices anymore. But it is equally clear that we are still a sacrificial people, offering sacrifices of praise, and are ourselves living sacrifices. So how do we define sacrifice? How does God define sacrifice? This is why we go to Leviticus. I am indebted to people like James B Jordan, and Peter Leithart for their work in this area. They have dug and we students have been able to enjoy the fruit of their labor. The principles that we have talked about above, with regard to each sacrifice, fall out into five points that help us when it comes to our own modern day service. First, we are Called. God calls us to enter into His presence. He calls us to come before Him with thanksgiving and praise. He calls us to Himself. We cannot come of our own accord. Second, we enter a season of Confession. This correlates with the sin offering. We come before a holy God, and the first thing we do is remove our shoes. God is Holy, and we are not. We come acknowledging this, and asking for forgiveness. In response to repentance, God grants forgiveness, and we receive absolution. Next we are Consecrated. This correlates with the ascension offering. We are made holy and fit for the service of God. We receive His Word, both read and preached. The Word refashions us, restores us, and renews us, equipping us for service in the Kingdom. Following the tearing down, and the building up, we enter into Communion. This correlates with the peace offering. Here we dine at the table of the Lord, and receive nourishment and strength. We feed on Christ, and through the Spirit, dine with the Father. After being equipped and nourished, we are Commisioned to enter the world, fulfilling our calling to “Go and make disciples of all the nations.”
Here we have an outline from Scripture, from God’s own handbook on worship, no less, outlining a progression. We are called, we confess, we are consecrated, we commune, and we are commissioned. This is high drama, full of rising action, climax, and resolution. It is a progression from unsettled fear and trembling, to rest. We come as sinners, we leave as saints. It sounds trite, but that is what is happening. We come in need of cleansing, and leave refreshed and renewed. This is not to say that we are not still sinners when we leave. Or even to say that we are not perfectly accepted in Christ before we come. We are. But God is into picturing reality in actions. The worshipper was alive before he presented his animal sacrifice, a picture of God’s grace. And he certainly didn’t leave the sacrifice free from sin. Same with today. These dramatic pictures are here to involve us in the truth of what God is doing. He wants us not only to know it with specific head knowledge, but to smell it, to see it, to act it, to hear it, and to taste it. On Sunday mornings, God is drawing us into His presence and renewing before our very eyes the covenant He made thousands of years ago, that He will be our God, and we will be His people. That covenant has gone unbroken since Abraham. In Christ, we are the seed of Abraham, and that covenant is a covenant we cannot break. Abraham had no part in it. He was as asleep as Adam when Eve was taken out of his side. God brings this to us each week, to remind us, to cause us to partake in it, to find joy in it. But not only does He do this to remind us. This is His chosen means of grace. This is how He wants to do it. It’s not our deal to play around with. We don’t have the freedom to move it to Saturdays, so we can Sundays off. Nor is it ours to skip if we feel going to the beach is more important. This is our life. This is where God meets with us. He could have chosen any number of ways to commune with His people. But He didn’t. He gave us this. This is His day, given for our good. It would behoove us to pay attention.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Thoughts on Worship
The Worship of the Triune God is the single most important recurring event in a Christian’s life. It is in the Worship of God that the Christian learns who he is, what he is, where he is going, why he should go, and how to get there. At the center of this worship we find that the One who sustains all of life, our every breath, and ordains our every step, providing for and protecting us in every way, reveals Himself to us. He reveals Himself in His Word, in the Sacraments He gave us as signs and symbols, pointing to solid Truth, and in His Body, with whom we fellowship. Here is the font of all hope, all healing, all comfort, all peace…and we arrive five minutes late.
There is an apathy-like attitude that we modern Christians have when we gather together on Sunday’s. I am hesitant to go all the way and call it apathy, for most of us are at least well intentioned when it comes to worship. But, well intentioned though we may be, we are prone to taking a lackadaisical view when it comes to our preparation for and participation in the Worship of God. We are content to do things that are comfortable, come naturally, seem easy, or that contain songs and ceremonies that a watching world would find interesting and inviting. But what about coming before God Almighty is comfortable? Is there anything about coming before a Thrice Holy God that comes naturally to sons of Adam, redeemed though we may be? Should worship be easy? What does that say about the importance we place on it? And why should the cares and sensibilities of a pagan, God-hating culture form the tastes and desires that dictate the manner of our Worship? These are important questions, and questions we are sadly slow in answering. But they are necessary to work through if we desire to be faithful to what God has called us to be, and that is homo adorans, worshipping man.
First, Should worship be comfortable? What is there that is comfortable in coming before the throne of the Creator of the universe, especially as we come on the merits of another? We cannot approach on the basis of anything we have accomplished. We can only come on the basis of Christ and His gift to us. How dare we presume on grace and come before the Father on Christ’s back, and then demand our own rights and our own way. But we do in worship. We find many things in Scripture that make us uncomfortable, and rather than trust God with them and embrace them, we shy away and refuse to deal with them. Certain portions of Scripture offend our modern sensibilities (Psalm 139, Song of Solomon, parts of Ezekiel), and so we gloss over them, and do not allow the living and active Word of God to transform our sensibilities, conforming us to the image of Christ. We are afraid of trusting God with the hard things, and therefore neglect being faithful to His Word. Instead, we need to obey and pursue faithfulness in all things, and trust God with the outcome. Worship is not social hour. Worship is not a tea party. Worship is not “Weekend at the folks.” The Worship of the Triune God is an event of cosmic proportions. Think about it soberly for one minute. We are approaching the omnipotent and sovereign God of all times, of all places, of all peoples, on someone else’s good name no less. Where do we get off that there is anything comfortable about this? Just the thought of it should put the fear of God into our hearts, and it is with fear and trembling that we ought to approach the Throne.
Second, Should worship come naturally? Our first assumption here is that God is honored by anything, regardless of what is presented to Him, so long as our intentions are right. But where in Scripture do we see this? Ask Nadab and Abihu if they would agree with that. They were fried by heavenly fire the very minute they offered strange fire on the altar. Strange fire meant anything God did not prescribe in His holy Word. In the Old Covenant, God was very exact with how He was to be worshipped, and gave a very detailed account of how things needed to be. One degree to the left or the right meant death. Do we believe this God has changed any since the Old Covenant? Is He not the same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Does not Christ Himself display this zeal, twice, as He purges the temple of those who were misusing it? With a whip? And we approach this God expecting that the demands His Worship makes will come naturally to us, sinners whose thoughts are far, far below His thoughts. It seems pretty risky, knowing that God was extremely demanding in how He was to be approached, and that those demands are very narrow in nature. Am I to assume that what comes naturally to me will “fortunately” align perfectly with His will? That would sure be nice. It seems more likely, however, that the worship of God does not come naturally to me, and that I need to learn what He has prescribed. Learn who He is, and how he requires us to approach Him. This means study, this means hard work, this means practice, and above all this means humility. I do not have unilateral freedom to decide how I approach the Throne of God, especially, again, on the good name of another. Our second assumption is this: what we learned as a child is the purest and most honest form of worship and therefore is suitable for the rest of our lives. But this flatly denies Scripture. When I was a child, I thought like a child, I spoke like a child. But when I became a man, I put off those childish things. Children grow up. This is the natural order of things. We move on from milk to meat. We cannot remain at our mother’s breast our entire life. We are called to growth and maturity. This again means hard work. It means patience and striving after a goal. It means letting go of blankets and teddy bears, and moving on to cars and houses. We grow up. This should not be a bleak picture either. Our society has placed a great deal of importance and primacy on childishness. This is apparent by the rampant immaturity that surrounds us. Teddy bears and blankets are not a higher form. They are not the peak with life just going downhill from there. With maturity comes deeper enjoyment, richer fellowship, more solid relationships, and a joy that is more real than any childhood experience can offer. This depth is only available to those who dig. You can’t have a diamond without an extreme amount of pressure. You can’t have a mine without a lot of mining. You can’t reach a mature age without living. Growing up is a good thing, contrary to what this country believes. We are built by God to move from milk to meat. And the meat is good.
Thirdly, Should worship be easy? It is a similar question as the one above, but from a different angle. Our economy and our culture thrives on everything that we have created to make our lives easy. Dishwashers, sprinklers, hot water heaters, cars, computers, credit cards, etc. The list is endless of the things we surround ourselves with to make our lives easier. This has trained our thinking to shy away from honest to goodness effort. Instead of doing something ourselves and be rewarded with the satisfaction of accomplishment, we are quick to go online and buy it. We say, “I don’t know how to do that. Shouldn’t I just let someone who knows how to do it, do it for me?” This is our attitude. Rather than learning how to do something, we settle for the work of others. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. I’m glad there are trained police officers roaming the streets. I’m in favor of car manufacturers being highly skilled and trained in what they do, so that I can drive in peace, not afraid of falling apart. But we cannot let this be our automatic response. We are called to be fruitful and take dominion over the earth. The Creation Mandate still applies today. This does not mean that every time I am in a position where something is required of me, I can bow out because someone else does a better job. That is called abdication of responsibility. And it runs wild in our culture. This is something that many Christians would see and lament with me about. But the truth is, a lot of times we approach worship with this same attitude. Learning to sing well is too hard, so we leave it to the choir. Studying the Word takes too much time, so we leave it to the Pastor. Reaching out and fellowshipping with others, sharing the love of Christ with the unlovely, is simply too awkward, so we leave it to the gregarious ones. But we are all called to sing, all called to study, all called to love the unlovely. It is not a responsibility we can push on someone else. We are called to do it. And if it means learning how to do it, that’s what it means. We go and learn. But not knowing how is no excuse for not doing it. What I am saying should not imply that we do not know how to work hard. We do and will work hard when we find something worthwhile. We put the most effort and the most hard work into what we find most rewarding, and most important. How much effort you put into something, how much time, money, or thought, reveals the level of importance that something holds in your life. How do we approach the worship of God? Willing to learn to do things God’s way, even though it may (and will) mean hard work? Or do we come ready to allow others to fulfill our responsibility.
Lastly, Why do we think the tastes and opinions of the world matter when it comes to the worship of God? Why do God-hating pagans get a seat at the table when we decide what Scripture dictates we do on Sunday Morning? Why do we find it necessary to be hip, cool, trendy, “with-it” when it comes to serving our Creator? Is Truth not eternal? Does Beauty change over time? We are called to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Is that just a cutesy phrase we put on our magnets with a picture of a sunset? Or does “the beauty of holiness” mean something? Beauty is defined by who God is. If it is otherwise defined, God would not be entirely beautiful. God is entirely beautiful and therefore the definition of beauty. This means our worship, first of all, is to be consistent with who He is. This should be obvious. We do not worship the God of life, with manners and rituals found in a Wiccan handbook. “The beauty of holiness.” If we are to worship in the beauty of holiness, it follows that we are to worship in holiness as well. Holiness first and foremost means separate, other, set apart. It also means moral perfection, but even that at the root means above and other than what is normal. Moral perfection is not achievable as children of Adam. Therefore He who can, namely God, is different, or other, than the rest of us. Our worship is to be holy. Our worship is to be set apart, different, other, above what is normal to us and our culture. This is why we do not (should not) sing Beatles’ songs in Worship. This is why worship does not consist of reading portions of Moby Dick. Worship is to be holy, it is to be different than what we do elsewhere. It is also to be in the Beauty of holiness, meaning as God defines it, not as we do. So why do we care about what the world says? This temptation to be sensitive to the world’s opinions stems from the idea that Sunday Worship is prime time for evangelism. The primary purpose of worship is to proclaim the gospel to the nations. But that is not the primary purpose of worship. That is what we do Monday through Saturday. On Sunday we come and are fed as the people of God. It is family time. Thus we should not be concerned with gearing the service toward unbelievers. Besides, the essence of worship is going to be foreign to them, no matter how much we dumb it down, unless the Spirit gives them a new set of eyes. The standards the world holds are consistent with their worldview, consistent with their foundation of life, namely, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. As Christians we have been given new hearts and new eyes to see the truth of Christ presented in the Scriptures. Here is where we discover God for who He is. In this discovery we begin to recognize His attributes throughout nature, and realize that Creation reflects its Creator. Here, through the natural and special revelation of the Spirit, we discover who God is, what He is like, how He thinks, as much as He has revealed to us. Here are our standards for life and worship. If God is Beauty, and our worship is to be beautiful, defined by who God is, then our worship needs to rest on the foundation of what is revealed to us about who He is, not in the latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine.
We were created in the Garden to be a priesthood, to minister to all creation, and in turn serve God in obedience and thanksgiving. We were recreated in the Garden City of the New Jerusalem, the Church, to be a royal priesthood, ministering to all creation, proclaiming the Gospel of our Lord, to all nations, and in turn serve (worship) God in obedience and thanksgiving. We were created in the image of God. We are recreated in the image of Christ. We are given the Spirit to grow us, mature us, give strength and ability to obey, and comfort us at all times. It is the Spirit who is at work in us, focusing our eyes on Christ, teaching us that through Him we can approach the Father. But it is through Him, and therefore on His terms. We do not approach with strange fire, or with any sense of entitlement, expecting a comfortable experience, one perfectly suited to our needs. We come on holy ground, removing our sandals, and bowing our heads, for the one we approach is Holy. We come in fear and trembling, for we come before the One who is seated in the temple, high and lifted up. And His train fills the temple.
“Is He dangerous?” I asked. My pursed lips quivered, but not from the pain of fire.
“O yes, quite dangerous,” said the Seraph, still holding the burning coal plucked from the alter. “But He is good.”
There is an apathy-like attitude that we modern Christians have when we gather together on Sunday’s. I am hesitant to go all the way and call it apathy, for most of us are at least well intentioned when it comes to worship. But, well intentioned though we may be, we are prone to taking a lackadaisical view when it comes to our preparation for and participation in the Worship of God. We are content to do things that are comfortable, come naturally, seem easy, or that contain songs and ceremonies that a watching world would find interesting and inviting. But what about coming before God Almighty is comfortable? Is there anything about coming before a Thrice Holy God that comes naturally to sons of Adam, redeemed though we may be? Should worship be easy? What does that say about the importance we place on it? And why should the cares and sensibilities of a pagan, God-hating culture form the tastes and desires that dictate the manner of our Worship? These are important questions, and questions we are sadly slow in answering. But they are necessary to work through if we desire to be faithful to what God has called us to be, and that is homo adorans, worshipping man.
First, Should worship be comfortable? What is there that is comfortable in coming before the throne of the Creator of the universe, especially as we come on the merits of another? We cannot approach on the basis of anything we have accomplished. We can only come on the basis of Christ and His gift to us. How dare we presume on grace and come before the Father on Christ’s back, and then demand our own rights and our own way. But we do in worship. We find many things in Scripture that make us uncomfortable, and rather than trust God with them and embrace them, we shy away and refuse to deal with them. Certain portions of Scripture offend our modern sensibilities (Psalm 139, Song of Solomon, parts of Ezekiel), and so we gloss over them, and do not allow the living and active Word of God to transform our sensibilities, conforming us to the image of Christ. We are afraid of trusting God with the hard things, and therefore neglect being faithful to His Word. Instead, we need to obey and pursue faithfulness in all things, and trust God with the outcome. Worship is not social hour. Worship is not a tea party. Worship is not “Weekend at the folks.” The Worship of the Triune God is an event of cosmic proportions. Think about it soberly for one minute. We are approaching the omnipotent and sovereign God of all times, of all places, of all peoples, on someone else’s good name no less. Where do we get off that there is anything comfortable about this? Just the thought of it should put the fear of God into our hearts, and it is with fear and trembling that we ought to approach the Throne.
Second, Should worship come naturally? Our first assumption here is that God is honored by anything, regardless of what is presented to Him, so long as our intentions are right. But where in Scripture do we see this? Ask Nadab and Abihu if they would agree with that. They were fried by heavenly fire the very minute they offered strange fire on the altar. Strange fire meant anything God did not prescribe in His holy Word. In the Old Covenant, God was very exact with how He was to be worshipped, and gave a very detailed account of how things needed to be. One degree to the left or the right meant death. Do we believe this God has changed any since the Old Covenant? Is He not the same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Does not Christ Himself display this zeal, twice, as He purges the temple of those who were misusing it? With a whip? And we approach this God expecting that the demands His Worship makes will come naturally to us, sinners whose thoughts are far, far below His thoughts. It seems pretty risky, knowing that God was extremely demanding in how He was to be approached, and that those demands are very narrow in nature. Am I to assume that what comes naturally to me will “fortunately” align perfectly with His will? That would sure be nice. It seems more likely, however, that the worship of God does not come naturally to me, and that I need to learn what He has prescribed. Learn who He is, and how he requires us to approach Him. This means study, this means hard work, this means practice, and above all this means humility. I do not have unilateral freedom to decide how I approach the Throne of God, especially, again, on the good name of another. Our second assumption is this: what we learned as a child is the purest and most honest form of worship and therefore is suitable for the rest of our lives. But this flatly denies Scripture. When I was a child, I thought like a child, I spoke like a child. But when I became a man, I put off those childish things. Children grow up. This is the natural order of things. We move on from milk to meat. We cannot remain at our mother’s breast our entire life. We are called to growth and maturity. This again means hard work. It means patience and striving after a goal. It means letting go of blankets and teddy bears, and moving on to cars and houses. We grow up. This should not be a bleak picture either. Our society has placed a great deal of importance and primacy on childishness. This is apparent by the rampant immaturity that surrounds us. Teddy bears and blankets are not a higher form. They are not the peak with life just going downhill from there. With maturity comes deeper enjoyment, richer fellowship, more solid relationships, and a joy that is more real than any childhood experience can offer. This depth is only available to those who dig. You can’t have a diamond without an extreme amount of pressure. You can’t have a mine without a lot of mining. You can’t reach a mature age without living. Growing up is a good thing, contrary to what this country believes. We are built by God to move from milk to meat. And the meat is good.
Thirdly, Should worship be easy? It is a similar question as the one above, but from a different angle. Our economy and our culture thrives on everything that we have created to make our lives easy. Dishwashers, sprinklers, hot water heaters, cars, computers, credit cards, etc. The list is endless of the things we surround ourselves with to make our lives easier. This has trained our thinking to shy away from honest to goodness effort. Instead of doing something ourselves and be rewarded with the satisfaction of accomplishment, we are quick to go online and buy it. We say, “I don’t know how to do that. Shouldn’t I just let someone who knows how to do it, do it for me?” This is our attitude. Rather than learning how to do something, we settle for the work of others. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. I’m glad there are trained police officers roaming the streets. I’m in favor of car manufacturers being highly skilled and trained in what they do, so that I can drive in peace, not afraid of falling apart. But we cannot let this be our automatic response. We are called to be fruitful and take dominion over the earth. The Creation Mandate still applies today. This does not mean that every time I am in a position where something is required of me, I can bow out because someone else does a better job. That is called abdication of responsibility. And it runs wild in our culture. This is something that many Christians would see and lament with me about. But the truth is, a lot of times we approach worship with this same attitude. Learning to sing well is too hard, so we leave it to the choir. Studying the Word takes too much time, so we leave it to the Pastor. Reaching out and fellowshipping with others, sharing the love of Christ with the unlovely, is simply too awkward, so we leave it to the gregarious ones. But we are all called to sing, all called to study, all called to love the unlovely. It is not a responsibility we can push on someone else. We are called to do it. And if it means learning how to do it, that’s what it means. We go and learn. But not knowing how is no excuse for not doing it. What I am saying should not imply that we do not know how to work hard. We do and will work hard when we find something worthwhile. We put the most effort and the most hard work into what we find most rewarding, and most important. How much effort you put into something, how much time, money, or thought, reveals the level of importance that something holds in your life. How do we approach the worship of God? Willing to learn to do things God’s way, even though it may (and will) mean hard work? Or do we come ready to allow others to fulfill our responsibility.
Lastly, Why do we think the tastes and opinions of the world matter when it comes to the worship of God? Why do God-hating pagans get a seat at the table when we decide what Scripture dictates we do on Sunday Morning? Why do we find it necessary to be hip, cool, trendy, “with-it” when it comes to serving our Creator? Is Truth not eternal? Does Beauty change over time? We are called to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Is that just a cutesy phrase we put on our magnets with a picture of a sunset? Or does “the beauty of holiness” mean something? Beauty is defined by who God is. If it is otherwise defined, God would not be entirely beautiful. God is entirely beautiful and therefore the definition of beauty. This means our worship, first of all, is to be consistent with who He is. This should be obvious. We do not worship the God of life, with manners and rituals found in a Wiccan handbook. “The beauty of holiness.” If we are to worship in the beauty of holiness, it follows that we are to worship in holiness as well. Holiness first and foremost means separate, other, set apart. It also means moral perfection, but even that at the root means above and other than what is normal. Moral perfection is not achievable as children of Adam. Therefore He who can, namely God, is different, or other, than the rest of us. Our worship is to be holy. Our worship is to be set apart, different, other, above what is normal to us and our culture. This is why we do not (should not) sing Beatles’ songs in Worship. This is why worship does not consist of reading portions of Moby Dick. Worship is to be holy, it is to be different than what we do elsewhere. It is also to be in the Beauty of holiness, meaning as God defines it, not as we do. So why do we care about what the world says? This temptation to be sensitive to the world’s opinions stems from the idea that Sunday Worship is prime time for evangelism. The primary purpose of worship is to proclaim the gospel to the nations. But that is not the primary purpose of worship. That is what we do Monday through Saturday. On Sunday we come and are fed as the people of God. It is family time. Thus we should not be concerned with gearing the service toward unbelievers. Besides, the essence of worship is going to be foreign to them, no matter how much we dumb it down, unless the Spirit gives them a new set of eyes. The standards the world holds are consistent with their worldview, consistent with their foundation of life, namely, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. As Christians we have been given new hearts and new eyes to see the truth of Christ presented in the Scriptures. Here is where we discover God for who He is. In this discovery we begin to recognize His attributes throughout nature, and realize that Creation reflects its Creator. Here, through the natural and special revelation of the Spirit, we discover who God is, what He is like, how He thinks, as much as He has revealed to us. Here are our standards for life and worship. If God is Beauty, and our worship is to be beautiful, defined by who God is, then our worship needs to rest on the foundation of what is revealed to us about who He is, not in the latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine.
We were created in the Garden to be a priesthood, to minister to all creation, and in turn serve God in obedience and thanksgiving. We were recreated in the Garden City of the New Jerusalem, the Church, to be a royal priesthood, ministering to all creation, proclaiming the Gospel of our Lord, to all nations, and in turn serve (worship) God in obedience and thanksgiving. We were created in the image of God. We are recreated in the image of Christ. We are given the Spirit to grow us, mature us, give strength and ability to obey, and comfort us at all times. It is the Spirit who is at work in us, focusing our eyes on Christ, teaching us that through Him we can approach the Father. But it is through Him, and therefore on His terms. We do not approach with strange fire, or with any sense of entitlement, expecting a comfortable experience, one perfectly suited to our needs. We come on holy ground, removing our sandals, and bowing our heads, for the one we approach is Holy. We come in fear and trembling, for we come before the One who is seated in the temple, high and lifted up. And His train fills the temple.
“Is He dangerous?” I asked. My pursed lips quivered, but not from the pain of fire.
“O yes, quite dangerous,” said the Seraph, still holding the burning coal plucked from the alter. “But He is good.”
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Mystery
There are many things that are wrong with our modern culture. Obviously this is a direct result of the godless lifestyle that our culture (and even much of the church, embarrassingly) has assumed is normal. If modern science is the "god" we say it is, and we really are just a bunch of protoplasm swimming around in epidermal sacks, then the amoral quality of our culture makes perfect sense. But this is simply not the case. We are creatures. That means we have been created. That means there is a Creator. That means the Creator had personal interaction with our coming into being. Not only did He personally oversee our entering creation, He personally sustains our every living moment. Were He to stop speaking us into existence, we would cease to be. We are completely dependent on our Creator for our every next breath. This also means we are bound by the nature and specifically moral quality of our Creator. But that is a separate discussion, though necessary to understand to see where we are going with this present discussion. If we do not take the absolute of God for granted, any number of questions will arise. But Scripture demands the absolute reality and absolute nature of our God, and so we can do no less, regardless of how many bumper stickers tell us otherwise.
This essay's main beef with modern culture is the complete misunderstanding of, and utter disregard for the nature and necessity of mystery between a man and a woman, specifically as it pertains to romantic, intimate relationships, and premarital relationships to be even more specific. Since the fall, man and woman have hid themselves from each other, recognizing, among other things, the shame that is associated with publicly exposing oneself. Hence the tradition of wearing clothes, beginning in the garden, has continued to the present day. This "tradition" of ours is the main contributor to the mystery that fills the spaces between a man and a woman. Co-contributors would be the difference in our hormonal/chemical make-up (fancy words referring simply to the way God made us), and the differences in our thought processes. This mystery that is plain to see, but difficult to understand, is the basis for every single romantic thought, action, development, desire, etc. Without our natural differences, bodily, mentally, spiritually, there would be no "not knowing" and no excitement over "finding out." This mystery is something that our God Himself created, and knowingly bestowed upon us. It is part of how we are made. Therefore we can infer that it is something good, and in essence a gift. It thus demands our attention and our respect.
The modern approach to this mystery stems from the very scientific outlook that gave rise to the descriptor, "modern." This approach says that if there is something going on that we do not understand, or cannot quantify in any objective way, than there is nothing going on. Nothing happens beyond what is explainable by chemistry and biology. Therefore, this mystery, which is necessary for the proper function of relationships, is completely explained away. This opens the door to sexual promiscuity (or sexual experimentation, fulfillment, activity – whatever candy-coated word we want to use instead). If this mystery, that is so obviously experienced, is not regarded as something special, then sex is nothing special either. Sexual tension is the basis of this mystery, and therefore part of the good gift. But when it is treated simply as a biological function, everything except the biological functions is missed.
The modern relationship despises this mystery, this sexual tension, and does away with it by the third date (if we are being generous). Men want the sensations of sex; women want the comfort of being needed and loved. But in this context, they are simply setting themselves up for pain and misery, no matter how far down they hide it. The mystery has a purpose, and here we begin to see the Hand of God. Mystery has the power to attract two people together; it also has the power to bond two people together. Before sexual union, mystery, the sense of unknown, creates a tension which prohibits a man and a woman from keeping their eyes off of one another. Until the tension is broken, the couple cannot be separated. They are constantly together, holding hands, going out on dates, etc. This is all good and holy, given the respect for God’s purposes, and His ways. And properly understood, this mystery drives a couple to marriage, a consecrated, public declaration of life-long commitment and fidelity. In the context of marriage, as the sexual tension is released, and the mystery, as originally perceived, begins to fade to comfort, God uses those differences to unite and bind, in a very unique and special way. In this context, mystery grows into something different, where, as the “not knowing” decreases, the hunger increases. In fact, it is the healthy participation in the rites of marriage that solidifies the bond, and strengthens the union that the couple has committed themselves to. This is only possible, however, in the context of life-long commitment and fidelity, consecrated in the sight of God.
Apart from marriage, when the “not knowing” decreases, the hunger also decreases, and the two lose interest in one another. This is the state of modern relationships. Here is where the disregard of the nature of this mystery has had devastating affects. Men need sexual release, and, not understanding the fruit of self-control, find it in women who are seeking protection, and a sense of being needed. The relationship will only last as long as the participants continue to keep up the appearance of interesting and novel. Thus women are forced to reinvent themselves, or at the very minimum keep up with the hottest, most provocative styles needed to “catch a boy” and keep him interested solely in her. Otherwise, feelings of despair and loneliness would rush in all too quickly. But as soon as she loses her mystery, and the tension that kept him looking at her dissipates, her chances of losing her catch increase rapidly, leading her to despair and loneliness anyway. It is a vicious cycle, destroying lives, and hardening the softest, and tenderest of hearts.
Here is the wisdom of God. Mystery is only healthy when it is tempered by the restraints of God’s law. When it is sinfully explored, it leads to pain and misery. These hard emotions cannot be explained away by science. Lab coats have no regard for the whole man, for the soul and heart of man. But God, who personally sustains us, has structured us in such a way that if we disobey Him, we will be doing things that are detrimental to our make-up. He knows how we tick, for He made us tick in the first place. It is similar to a watchmaker, building a watch, and then, giving it life, tells it to “Go and tick. Be a watch, and keep the hours, as you were made to do.” But the watch, despising the watchmaker, decides to swim in honey, deciding for itself, that honey would be much more pleasant than seconds, and minutes and hours, and days. But it finds that as it frolics in the honey jar, its parts start to freeze up, and the watch no longer works as it should. Had it listened to the wisdom of the one who made it, the watch would have lived a fulfilled and meaningful existence. But as it stands, the watch will simply cease to function, and have any ultimate meaning, or fulfilling experience. It must first be cleansed by the watchmaker, and re-wound, before meaning and purpose can be realized.
Paul tells us that marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church. So how does this idea of mystery play itself out in the meta-narrative? All men are created without excuse for they are witness to creation, and therefore are witness to the works of the Creator. All men are also created with a sense that there is a God, and He has spoken. This is suppressed in the hearts and minds of unbelievers, but is there nonetheless. This is obvious by a universal need for organized religion. Even anti-religious folks and atheistic pagans are religiously devoted to their beliefs. It is unavoidable. There is something in us, some mystery that draws us toward putting faith in something that is larger than our individual consciousnesses. When we explore this mystery and break the tension by participating in its practices, and do so apart from God’s design, we will by necessity, lose interest, and become disenchanted with that particular religion, if not with religion in general. This leaves us bitter and burnt. This does not mean that we will cease to participate in whatever religion we chose. Most unbelieving hearts are more bitter and spiteful of the one true God than of their play-religions, so even though they know deep down the unfulfilling nature of their practices, they prefer it to truth, and so therefore continue in it. But they will do so, disenfranchised and with a hardness of heart.
However, in the context of fidelity and life-long commitment to God’s design, when the mystery and tension is released in the participation in God-given rites (Baptism, Table fellowship), then God uses the decrease of “not knowing” and the excitement of “finding out” to strengthen the bond that unites the participants, namely Christ and the Church. In the context of Faithfulness, and here we mean specifically the faithfulness of the Husband which enables the faithfulness of the wife, unity and devotion grow in direct proportion to the active participation in the marriage rites. It is as we, the children of God, and the spouse of Christ, come and actively participate in the worship of our Lord, the singing of praise, the sitting at His Table, the going out into the ends of the earth, making disciples, that we are nourished and fed, and made able to continue in what we were made to do. Not only does our Watchmaker restore our parts, cleansing us and making us tick again, but He sustains us and continues to uphold us as we live as we were created to live, and do what we were created to do, honoring God for who He is, and giving Him thanks.
This essay's main beef with modern culture is the complete misunderstanding of, and utter disregard for the nature and necessity of mystery between a man and a woman, specifically as it pertains to romantic, intimate relationships, and premarital relationships to be even more specific. Since the fall, man and woman have hid themselves from each other, recognizing, among other things, the shame that is associated with publicly exposing oneself. Hence the tradition of wearing clothes, beginning in the garden, has continued to the present day. This "tradition" of ours is the main contributor to the mystery that fills the spaces between a man and a woman. Co-contributors would be the difference in our hormonal/chemical make-up (fancy words referring simply to the way God made us), and the differences in our thought processes. This mystery that is plain to see, but difficult to understand, is the basis for every single romantic thought, action, development, desire, etc. Without our natural differences, bodily, mentally, spiritually, there would be no "not knowing" and no excitement over "finding out." This mystery is something that our God Himself created, and knowingly bestowed upon us. It is part of how we are made. Therefore we can infer that it is something good, and in essence a gift. It thus demands our attention and our respect.
The modern approach to this mystery stems from the very scientific outlook that gave rise to the descriptor, "modern." This approach says that if there is something going on that we do not understand, or cannot quantify in any objective way, than there is nothing going on. Nothing happens beyond what is explainable by chemistry and biology. Therefore, this mystery, which is necessary for the proper function of relationships, is completely explained away. This opens the door to sexual promiscuity (or sexual experimentation, fulfillment, activity – whatever candy-coated word we want to use instead). If this mystery, that is so obviously experienced, is not regarded as something special, then sex is nothing special either. Sexual tension is the basis of this mystery, and therefore part of the good gift. But when it is treated simply as a biological function, everything except the biological functions is missed.
The modern relationship despises this mystery, this sexual tension, and does away with it by the third date (if we are being generous). Men want the sensations of sex; women want the comfort of being needed and loved. But in this context, they are simply setting themselves up for pain and misery, no matter how far down they hide it. The mystery has a purpose, and here we begin to see the Hand of God. Mystery has the power to attract two people together; it also has the power to bond two people together. Before sexual union, mystery, the sense of unknown, creates a tension which prohibits a man and a woman from keeping their eyes off of one another. Until the tension is broken, the couple cannot be separated. They are constantly together, holding hands, going out on dates, etc. This is all good and holy, given the respect for God’s purposes, and His ways. And properly understood, this mystery drives a couple to marriage, a consecrated, public declaration of life-long commitment and fidelity. In the context of marriage, as the sexual tension is released, and the mystery, as originally perceived, begins to fade to comfort, God uses those differences to unite and bind, in a very unique and special way. In this context, mystery grows into something different, where, as the “not knowing” decreases, the hunger increases. In fact, it is the healthy participation in the rites of marriage that solidifies the bond, and strengthens the union that the couple has committed themselves to. This is only possible, however, in the context of life-long commitment and fidelity, consecrated in the sight of God.
Apart from marriage, when the “not knowing” decreases, the hunger also decreases, and the two lose interest in one another. This is the state of modern relationships. Here is where the disregard of the nature of this mystery has had devastating affects. Men need sexual release, and, not understanding the fruit of self-control, find it in women who are seeking protection, and a sense of being needed. The relationship will only last as long as the participants continue to keep up the appearance of interesting and novel. Thus women are forced to reinvent themselves, or at the very minimum keep up with the hottest, most provocative styles needed to “catch a boy” and keep him interested solely in her. Otherwise, feelings of despair and loneliness would rush in all too quickly. But as soon as she loses her mystery, and the tension that kept him looking at her dissipates, her chances of losing her catch increase rapidly, leading her to despair and loneliness anyway. It is a vicious cycle, destroying lives, and hardening the softest, and tenderest of hearts.
Here is the wisdom of God. Mystery is only healthy when it is tempered by the restraints of God’s law. When it is sinfully explored, it leads to pain and misery. These hard emotions cannot be explained away by science. Lab coats have no regard for the whole man, for the soul and heart of man. But God, who personally sustains us, has structured us in such a way that if we disobey Him, we will be doing things that are detrimental to our make-up. He knows how we tick, for He made us tick in the first place. It is similar to a watchmaker, building a watch, and then, giving it life, tells it to “Go and tick. Be a watch, and keep the hours, as you were made to do.” But the watch, despising the watchmaker, decides to swim in honey, deciding for itself, that honey would be much more pleasant than seconds, and minutes and hours, and days. But it finds that as it frolics in the honey jar, its parts start to freeze up, and the watch no longer works as it should. Had it listened to the wisdom of the one who made it, the watch would have lived a fulfilled and meaningful existence. But as it stands, the watch will simply cease to function, and have any ultimate meaning, or fulfilling experience. It must first be cleansed by the watchmaker, and re-wound, before meaning and purpose can be realized.
Paul tells us that marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church. So how does this idea of mystery play itself out in the meta-narrative? All men are created without excuse for they are witness to creation, and therefore are witness to the works of the Creator. All men are also created with a sense that there is a God, and He has spoken. This is suppressed in the hearts and minds of unbelievers, but is there nonetheless. This is obvious by a universal need for organized religion. Even anti-religious folks and atheistic pagans are religiously devoted to their beliefs. It is unavoidable. There is something in us, some mystery that draws us toward putting faith in something that is larger than our individual consciousnesses. When we explore this mystery and break the tension by participating in its practices, and do so apart from God’s design, we will by necessity, lose interest, and become disenchanted with that particular religion, if not with religion in general. This leaves us bitter and burnt. This does not mean that we will cease to participate in whatever religion we chose. Most unbelieving hearts are more bitter and spiteful of the one true God than of their play-religions, so even though they know deep down the unfulfilling nature of their practices, they prefer it to truth, and so therefore continue in it. But they will do so, disenfranchised and with a hardness of heart.
However, in the context of fidelity and life-long commitment to God’s design, when the mystery and tension is released in the participation in God-given rites (Baptism, Table fellowship), then God uses the decrease of “not knowing” and the excitement of “finding out” to strengthen the bond that unites the participants, namely Christ and the Church. In the context of Faithfulness, and here we mean specifically the faithfulness of the Husband which enables the faithfulness of the wife, unity and devotion grow in direct proportion to the active participation in the marriage rites. It is as we, the children of God, and the spouse of Christ, come and actively participate in the worship of our Lord, the singing of praise, the sitting at His Table, the going out into the ends of the earth, making disciples, that we are nourished and fed, and made able to continue in what we were made to do. Not only does our Watchmaker restore our parts, cleansing us and making us tick again, but He sustains us and continues to uphold us as we live as we were created to live, and do what we were created to do, honoring God for who He is, and giving Him thanks.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Covenant Confusion.
I was recently reading some things on the net discussing the Federal Vision. For those not familiar with this term, in January of 2002, the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Monroe, Louisiana hosted a conference titled "The FV: An Examination of Reformed Covenantalism" speakers at this conference (John Barach, Steve Schlissel, Steve Wilkins, and Douglas Wilson) highlighted the benefits of a covenantal perspective for issues such as the assurance of salvation and child training. Diagnosing a lack of these emphases in contemporary Reformed theology, the speakers presented their lectures as a healthy theological and pastoral corrective drawn from the wells of Reformed covenant theology.
Recognizing the serious need of the body of Christ and all the ways that the church falls short of properly ministering to the body should not be a surprise to anyone. As the Fair Minstrel eluded to in his last post, which has been a while now.....there is a cultural shift on the horizon and some of Modernity's answers to some of the issues we face need correction. That said, I do not believe that the F.V. folks have it right. Obviously this is a huge subject, but I'd like to comment on one statement, actually two, made by Doug Wilson from "The Auburn Avenue Theology"
"Are we asserting no distinction' between the apostate and the faithful son in the decrees? Absolutely not. But we are saying that when it comes to the covenant, the man who stands and the man who falls are distinguished in the standing and falling." Page 5...
"When a man falls away from the faith, there is clearly a sense in which he was never truly in the faith. But when a man falls away from the faith, in some sense he has to have been in the faith in order to fall away from it." Page 231...
I disagree. This boils down to what you mean by "in covenant" the distinguishment is either you are in the covenant or you are not. The falling away is an evidence that you are not. Not the other way around. Just as works are evidence of true faith in the heart, they are not what justifies, but rather evidence of a justfied person.
I do understand what these folks are reacting against, all the ways the Chruch has failed to properly minister to the people. The over emphasis on "personal salvation" at the expense of the covenant community of believers, but you don't have to redefine orthodox covenant theology to accomplish the task. You don't need to convince people that they are in convenant with God to love them and take care of them. We need to just love and take care of people and in the midst of doing that, share the good news of the gospel with them.
Obviously this is a complicated subject and one that requires much more depth than this contenxt allows. With the rise of the "Post-Modern" culture, the church must address a wide spectrum of issues, but what allows the church to effectively operate is not a constant re-definition of our Systematic Theology, but our unselfish application of the love of Christ working in us, doing the work of the kingdom. Correct theology is very important, but it is a means to and end, not the end itself.
We can treat people with dignity, love, and kindness, much better than we do now and accomplish the task without the convenant confusion that seems to be growing.
Recognizing the serious need of the body of Christ and all the ways that the church falls short of properly ministering to the body should not be a surprise to anyone. As the Fair Minstrel eluded to in his last post, which has been a while now.....there is a cultural shift on the horizon and some of Modernity's answers to some of the issues we face need correction. That said, I do not believe that the F.V. folks have it right. Obviously this is a huge subject, but I'd like to comment on one statement, actually two, made by Doug Wilson from "The Auburn Avenue Theology"
"Are we asserting no distinction' between the apostate and the faithful son in the decrees? Absolutely not. But we are saying that when it comes to the covenant, the man who stands and the man who falls are distinguished in the standing and falling." Page 5...
"When a man falls away from the faith, there is clearly a sense in which he was never truly in the faith. But when a man falls away from the faith, in some sense he has to have been in the faith in order to fall away from it." Page 231...
I disagree. This boils down to what you mean by "in covenant" the distinguishment is either you are in the covenant or you are not. The falling away is an evidence that you are not. Not the other way around. Just as works are evidence of true faith in the heart, they are not what justifies, but rather evidence of a justfied person.
I do understand what these folks are reacting against, all the ways the Chruch has failed to properly minister to the people. The over emphasis on "personal salvation" at the expense of the covenant community of believers, but you don't have to redefine orthodox covenant theology to accomplish the task. You don't need to convince people that they are in convenant with God to love them and take care of them. We need to just love and take care of people and in the midst of doing that, share the good news of the gospel with them.
Obviously this is a complicated subject and one that requires much more depth than this contenxt allows. With the rise of the "Post-Modern" culture, the church must address a wide spectrum of issues, but what allows the church to effectively operate is not a constant re-definition of our Systematic Theology, but our unselfish application of the love of Christ working in us, doing the work of the kingdom. Correct theology is very important, but it is a means to and end, not the end itself.
We can treat people with dignity, love, and kindness, much better than we do now and accomplish the task without the convenant confusion that seems to be growing.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Matthew
My wife and I had the privilege this past Lord's Day to sit under the teaching of our former professor, Dr. Leithart, at a local Church, near the Abbey. It was a pleasure to see him again, as we had not for over a year, and he was a friend, as well as an instructor. He spoke on Matthew. It is the substance of that sermon which I wish to share here at the table. So pull yourself a pint of something dark, drag one of those thick heavy chairs from the corner over to the table, and lean back. This might take a while.
Matthew’s aim, as is well understood, in writing his account of Jesus’ life, was to approach the Jewish nation with the Gospel. This is seen in his mentioning of Jewish customs, and not explaining them (23:5), and his constant use if the Old Testament, more than any other gospel (21 times; Mark, 15 times; Luke, 16 times; John, 11 times). Those are just the direct quotes. To understand Matthew well, a thorough knowledge of the whole Old Testament is required. This outline is one step in that direction.
Matthew begins his account of the Good News with a genealogy. This is extremely reminiscent of Genesis. To top it off the opening verse of Matthew, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ...” in the Greek reads, “The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ...” using the same Greek word that the LXX uses to give title to the book of Genesis. And in Genesis 5 (as well as nine other times throughout the book), the exact phrasing is used, βίβλος γενέσεως ἀνθρώπων, compared with Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Matthew is the story of a new creation, and a new “ἀνθρώπων”, Jesus Christ, the Creator God Himself. These are His generations, His “beginnings”. In Genesis, whenever a genealogy is given, the descendents are listed. But here in Matthew, the ancestors are listed. Could it not be that Matthew is hinting that they too are descendants, starting with Christ, and then Abraham? Abraham is a new Adam, the father of faith. Being a new Adam, he himself was a son of God, as Adam was. Abraham is a son of God, and therefore a son of the Son. Here lies a difference between the two genealogies of Matthew and Luke. Matthew starts with Abraham, and lists fathers. Luke starts with Christ, and lists sons. Matthew and Luke are doing two separate things. Luke wants to pick up where Mark left off, “Truly this was the Son of God.” But Matthew wants to show Jesus in a different light than Luke, with a different perspective. Perhaps this is to highlight the unity of the Father and the Son, showing the Jews this was written for, that Jesus is the “I AM” who was before their father Abraham, and greater too. But now we are approaching the skinny branches. What is clear is a harkening back to the first book of the Bible. Matthew wants us to view this story as a new Beginning for a new world, a new order, a new covenant.
The story of Matthew follows closely the story of Israel through their long and sordid history. To begin with, there is the genealogy, then the birth of Christ, His descent into Egypt, and His return followed closely by His baptism. Here we see a recapitulation of the birth of the nation of Israel, their time in Egypt, their exodus from the land, and their “baptism” in the Red Sea. It follows perfectly. What comes next is a time in the wilderness. As Israel wandered for forty years, so Christ for forty days. Matthew sets the stage in the temptation of Christ, showing us that not only is this a new Israel, it is an obedient Israel. Jesus rejects Satan on all the points Israel failed on. The grumbled for bread, the tested the Lord, they desired the kingdoms of Egypt. Jesus proves faithful, when the nation of Israel did not.
The next three chapters of Matthew, 5-7, are a record of Jesus, standing on a mountain, proclaiming to the people a new Law. This is exactly what happens after Israel finished their time in the wilderness. They were brought to a mountain, and the Law was recounted to them, full with blessings and curses. This also alludes to Sinai when I AM gave the law. Here Christ, who is the great I AM, gives the law. At the end of chapter 7 Jesus says this, “And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” This again, is a picture of the house of Israel. Jesus is alluding to their immanent and final fall, as he does more explicitly later in the book.
Then in chapter 10, Jesus gathers 12 disciples officially. He prepares them, and subsequently sends them out into the unconquered lands. This obviously looks like the 12 nations of Israel, being called out, equipped with the word in Deuteronomy, and sent into the promise land, to conquer it. Hence Matt 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Jesus is a new Joshua, coming to bring the sword against Satan and his followers. He is coming to bring the sword against death itself. This also fits with Jesus using the examples of the old Canaanite cities of Tyre and Sidon and Sodom in chapter 11. But the new Conquest of Canaan, is not one of extinction, it is one of redemption. In chapter 11, Jesus tells John the Baptist that “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Canaan is to be given new life. In chapter 12 this is made explicit with the quotation from Isaiah, which ends with “and in His name the Gentiles will hope.” Jesus has come to bring hope to all who are spiritually Gentiles, coming to conquer them, and kill them, but in order that He might raise them up again.
The second half of chapter 12 leads the people to be amazed and wonder if this Man is the Son of David (12:23). The Pharisees think he is of Satan. Jesus responds by telling them that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. And then in chapter 13, Jesus, in concentrated form, is concerned with kingdoms, and explaining the kingdom of Heaven. This fits perfectly with Israel’s history. They conquer the land of Canaan, and not too long afterwards, desire a king. The kingdom of Israel grows to maturity under Solomon, the son of David. Jesus, here, in a very Solomon-like way, gives word-pictures of what the kingdom of Heaven is like. Jesus is the King of the Jews. In chapters 14-15 he acts like a king, providing for His people, bread for 5000 first, and then 4000. To confirm this, and to answer the question posed in 12:23, He is confirmed as the Son of David by the Canaanite woman (15:22). This comes to a climax in the confession of Peter in 16, and the transfiguration in 17. Christ is the ultimate King, the Son of God, and the three witness His glorious majesty. The King theme is carried through chapters 18-20. It reaches another climax in chapter 21, as the Son of David returns to Jerusalem, this time on the foal of a donkey. Jesus assumes the Kingship of Jerusalem, as He is labeled on the cross, and His disciples and worshipers flock to His side. Then in chapter 22 the parable of the wedding feast for the King’s son is given. This is an important parable on two accounts. One, the inclusion of the nations is explicit. Two, a wedding is coming. The Bride is alluded to, made up of every nation, and every tribe, and every tongue. The very final verses of 22 wrap up this Kingship section. It is where Jesus tests the Pharisee’s knowledge of the Psalms. “Who is the Christ,” He asks. “The son of David,” they reply. “How so, in light of Psalm 110:1?” He answers (paraphrase mine). They cant answer, and Matthew leaves it at that. The answer is of course, that the Lord is not simply a descendant of David, He is also the Father of David, and is Himself a greater David. All that David was points to Christ. Pharisees have no eyes to see this, however.
Then in chapters 23-25, Jesus takes a very different tone. He becomes like Jeremiah, standing outside Jerusalem, proclaiming its destruction. The kings of Israel were not faithful, and another exodus was coming. But this time it was back into exile and slavery. Jerusalem would be judged. Here in Matthew Jesus speaks of the final judgment to come on Jerusalem, a judgment that would abolish the old ways, and establish the new. This judgment would bring about a time when the Priest, the King, and the Prophet were all found in one Man, the God-man, the Son of David, the King of Creation, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. The second Moses, the second Joshua, the second Solomon, the second Jeremiah, has come and He is the true Israel, the true seed of Abraham. He has come to make disciples out the rocks of the earth.
Following the prophecy of exile, Jesus Himself enacts Israel’s death. He Himself experiences the departure of God the Father, as in Ezekiel 10. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He experiences the death of Israel, for Israel. But this death is a death of deeper magic. This is a death which brings the death of death. Faithful Israel is brought to life, and is Life Himself, never to die again. Thus we have in chapter 28, the rest of the story. The Old Testament leaves us unsure of Israel’s future. They come home from exile, but are still a mess. They need a lasting death, the death of something greater than bulls and goats. This finds its fulfillment in the Resurrection.
To end it all, Matthew copies the final verses of the Hebrew Scriptures which are found at the end of 2 Chronicles 36. They read, “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’” Does this have a familiar ring? Jesus final words in Matthew, and only in Matthew mind you, are, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Jesus, here, is a greater Cyrus who has been given power and authority and sends his people out, with the purpose of establishing something. The old Cyrus only has authority on earth, where the new Cyrus has authority over heaven and earth. The old Cyrus tells them to establish a specific house in Jerusalem, whereas the new Cyrus tells his disciples to establish a new Jerusalem. Both declare that the Lord their God will be with them, and in the second case, the Lord their God is the one telling them that He Himself will be with them, lo, to the end of the age.
Matthew, with these thoughts in mind, is basically a recapitulation of the entire history of Israel, starting from the Garden. It is structured in such a way that we might catch this connection, and witness the new Israel Himself, live as the old Israel was supposed to. In so doing, this new Israel redeems His bride. He breaks down the walls of nationality, conquering the gentiles by baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that He has commanded. This is the telos of faithfulness. This is the telos of Christ. Here is our call to go.
Again, many thanks to Dr. Leithart for his thoughts and insights. May we all seek to approach Scripture with Scripture in mind. That is the best hermeneutic.
Matthew’s aim, as is well understood, in writing his account of Jesus’ life, was to approach the Jewish nation with the Gospel. This is seen in his mentioning of Jewish customs, and not explaining them (23:5), and his constant use if the Old Testament, more than any other gospel (21 times; Mark, 15 times; Luke, 16 times; John, 11 times). Those are just the direct quotes. To understand Matthew well, a thorough knowledge of the whole Old Testament is required. This outline is one step in that direction.
Matthew begins his account of the Good News with a genealogy. This is extremely reminiscent of Genesis. To top it off the opening verse of Matthew, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ...” in the Greek reads, “The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ...” using the same Greek word that the LXX uses to give title to the book of Genesis. And in Genesis 5 (as well as nine other times throughout the book), the exact phrasing is used, βίβλος γενέσεως ἀνθρώπων, compared with Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Matthew is the story of a new creation, and a new “ἀνθρώπων”, Jesus Christ, the Creator God Himself. These are His generations, His “beginnings”. In Genesis, whenever a genealogy is given, the descendents are listed. But here in Matthew, the ancestors are listed. Could it not be that Matthew is hinting that they too are descendants, starting with Christ, and then Abraham? Abraham is a new Adam, the father of faith. Being a new Adam, he himself was a son of God, as Adam was. Abraham is a son of God, and therefore a son of the Son. Here lies a difference between the two genealogies of Matthew and Luke. Matthew starts with Abraham, and lists fathers. Luke starts with Christ, and lists sons. Matthew and Luke are doing two separate things. Luke wants to pick up where Mark left off, “Truly this was the Son of God.” But Matthew wants to show Jesus in a different light than Luke, with a different perspective. Perhaps this is to highlight the unity of the Father and the Son, showing the Jews this was written for, that Jesus is the “I AM” who was before their father Abraham, and greater too. But now we are approaching the skinny branches. What is clear is a harkening back to the first book of the Bible. Matthew wants us to view this story as a new Beginning for a new world, a new order, a new covenant.
The story of Matthew follows closely the story of Israel through their long and sordid history. To begin with, there is the genealogy, then the birth of Christ, His descent into Egypt, and His return followed closely by His baptism. Here we see a recapitulation of the birth of the nation of Israel, their time in Egypt, their exodus from the land, and their “baptism” in the Red Sea. It follows perfectly. What comes next is a time in the wilderness. As Israel wandered for forty years, so Christ for forty days. Matthew sets the stage in the temptation of Christ, showing us that not only is this a new Israel, it is an obedient Israel. Jesus rejects Satan on all the points Israel failed on. The grumbled for bread, the tested the Lord, they desired the kingdoms of Egypt. Jesus proves faithful, when the nation of Israel did not.
The next three chapters of Matthew, 5-7, are a record of Jesus, standing on a mountain, proclaiming to the people a new Law. This is exactly what happens after Israel finished their time in the wilderness. They were brought to a mountain, and the Law was recounted to them, full with blessings and curses. This also alludes to Sinai when I AM gave the law. Here Christ, who is the great I AM, gives the law. At the end of chapter 7 Jesus says this, “And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” This again, is a picture of the house of Israel. Jesus is alluding to their immanent and final fall, as he does more explicitly later in the book.
Then in chapter 10, Jesus gathers 12 disciples officially. He prepares them, and subsequently sends them out into the unconquered lands. This obviously looks like the 12 nations of Israel, being called out, equipped with the word in Deuteronomy, and sent into the promise land, to conquer it. Hence Matt 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Jesus is a new Joshua, coming to bring the sword against Satan and his followers. He is coming to bring the sword against death itself. This also fits with Jesus using the examples of the old Canaanite cities of Tyre and Sidon and Sodom in chapter 11. But the new Conquest of Canaan, is not one of extinction, it is one of redemption. In chapter 11, Jesus tells John the Baptist that “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Canaan is to be given new life. In chapter 12 this is made explicit with the quotation from Isaiah, which ends with “and in His name the Gentiles will hope.” Jesus has come to bring hope to all who are spiritually Gentiles, coming to conquer them, and kill them, but in order that He might raise them up again.
The second half of chapter 12 leads the people to be amazed and wonder if this Man is the Son of David (12:23). The Pharisees think he is of Satan. Jesus responds by telling them that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. And then in chapter 13, Jesus, in concentrated form, is concerned with kingdoms, and explaining the kingdom of Heaven. This fits perfectly with Israel’s history. They conquer the land of Canaan, and not too long afterwards, desire a king. The kingdom of Israel grows to maturity under Solomon, the son of David. Jesus, here, in a very Solomon-like way, gives word-pictures of what the kingdom of Heaven is like. Jesus is the King of the Jews. In chapters 14-15 he acts like a king, providing for His people, bread for 5000 first, and then 4000. To confirm this, and to answer the question posed in 12:23, He is confirmed as the Son of David by the Canaanite woman (15:22). This comes to a climax in the confession of Peter in 16, and the transfiguration in 17. Christ is the ultimate King, the Son of God, and the three witness His glorious majesty. The King theme is carried through chapters 18-20. It reaches another climax in chapter 21, as the Son of David returns to Jerusalem, this time on the foal of a donkey. Jesus assumes the Kingship of Jerusalem, as He is labeled on the cross, and His disciples and worshipers flock to His side. Then in chapter 22 the parable of the wedding feast for the King’s son is given. This is an important parable on two accounts. One, the inclusion of the nations is explicit. Two, a wedding is coming. The Bride is alluded to, made up of every nation, and every tribe, and every tongue. The very final verses of 22 wrap up this Kingship section. It is where Jesus tests the Pharisee’s knowledge of the Psalms. “Who is the Christ,” He asks. “The son of David,” they reply. “How so, in light of Psalm 110:1?” He answers (paraphrase mine). They cant answer, and Matthew leaves it at that. The answer is of course, that the Lord is not simply a descendant of David, He is also the Father of David, and is Himself a greater David. All that David was points to Christ. Pharisees have no eyes to see this, however.
Then in chapters 23-25, Jesus takes a very different tone. He becomes like Jeremiah, standing outside Jerusalem, proclaiming its destruction. The kings of Israel were not faithful, and another exodus was coming. But this time it was back into exile and slavery. Jerusalem would be judged. Here in Matthew Jesus speaks of the final judgment to come on Jerusalem, a judgment that would abolish the old ways, and establish the new. This judgment would bring about a time when the Priest, the King, and the Prophet were all found in one Man, the God-man, the Son of David, the King of Creation, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. The second Moses, the second Joshua, the second Solomon, the second Jeremiah, has come and He is the true Israel, the true seed of Abraham. He has come to make disciples out the rocks of the earth.
Following the prophecy of exile, Jesus Himself enacts Israel’s death. He Himself experiences the departure of God the Father, as in Ezekiel 10. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He experiences the death of Israel, for Israel. But this death is a death of deeper magic. This is a death which brings the death of death. Faithful Israel is brought to life, and is Life Himself, never to die again. Thus we have in chapter 28, the rest of the story. The Old Testament leaves us unsure of Israel’s future. They come home from exile, but are still a mess. They need a lasting death, the death of something greater than bulls and goats. This finds its fulfillment in the Resurrection.
To end it all, Matthew copies the final verses of the Hebrew Scriptures which are found at the end of 2 Chronicles 36. They read, “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’” Does this have a familiar ring? Jesus final words in Matthew, and only in Matthew mind you, are, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Jesus, here, is a greater Cyrus who has been given power and authority and sends his people out, with the purpose of establishing something. The old Cyrus only has authority on earth, where the new Cyrus has authority over heaven and earth. The old Cyrus tells them to establish a specific house in Jerusalem, whereas the new Cyrus tells his disciples to establish a new Jerusalem. Both declare that the Lord their God will be with them, and in the second case, the Lord their God is the one telling them that He Himself will be with them, lo, to the end of the age.
Matthew, with these thoughts in mind, is basically a recapitulation of the entire history of Israel, starting from the Garden. It is structured in such a way that we might catch this connection, and witness the new Israel Himself, live as the old Israel was supposed to. In so doing, this new Israel redeems His bride. He breaks down the walls of nationality, conquering the gentiles by baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that He has commanded. This is the telos of faithfulness. This is the telos of Christ. Here is our call to go.
Again, many thanks to Dr. Leithart for his thoughts and insights. May we all seek to approach Scripture with Scripture in mind. That is the best hermeneutic.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Diamond in the Rough
Every once in a great while, a piece of pure pop art hits on a grain of truth, and simply knocks it out of the ballpark. One such moment is found in John Mayer’s new hit song “Gravity.” Mayer is known for a deeper, more thoughtful lyric than his contemporaries, and is also quite deft at metaphor, something we here at the Abbey are in favor of. The song reads as such, with a simple beat, and an uncomplicated progression played smoothly on the guitar.
Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Oh Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh twice as much ain’t twice as good
And can't sustain like a one half could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees
Oh gravity, stay the hell away from me
And gravity has taken better men than me (Now how can that be?)
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Ohh.. where the light is!
The first thing of note is the title/first word of the song: gravity. This word is a metaphor for nature, unhindered, unconquered. Gravity normally is an outside force working externally. Throughout this song however, it seems to take on a inward role, something inside the singer, working contra to the desires of the singer. It is “working against me” and it “wants to bring me down.”
The inwardness of this ‘gravity’ becomes clearer as the next stanza is sung. “This man…dream[s] of ways to throw it all away.” Those dreams are coming from the inside, and are not a product of external influences. Note the way Mayer describes the affect of this inward gravity: “I’ll never know what makes this man with all the love that his heart can stand dream of ways to throw it all away.” He hits our human nature square on the head, and speaks clearer truth than most Christians have the guts to even think, and does so unaware (to my knowledge) of our natural state of rebellion in Adam. We have been given far more than we could ever ask or think, and what is our natural response, apart from the grace of Christ? Throw it all away, hoping that we can find something more fulfilling in that pile of crap over there. We receive the God of all the heavens and earth, and despise Him so much, that we bow to the ‘more sacred’ gods of wood, stone, and TV.
The next stanza is an insightful note on our contemporary culture. “Twice as much ain’t twice as good, and can’t sustain like one half could. Its wanting more that’s gonna send me to my knees.” Our culture is a culture of gluttony. Gluttony concerns everything, not just food. Gluttony of every appetite: entertainment, sexual, financial, etc. We want it all, and then supersized. We are gluttons, hard and fast (actually more squishy and slow). We seriously think that more is always, and without exception, better. If one portion was good, two is better. If one woman was good, two is better. If one house was good, two is better. To hell with the cost. To hell with the consequences. Damn the torpedos! Full steam ahead! We are a thoughtless, futureless society. We have no notion of heritage or legacy. How do we live so that our children and children’s children live well? Does it matter how we live? Are those generations effected by our present actions? What is this ‘generation’ that you speak of? What is this notion of cause and effect? These are foreign concepts to my modern mind. Legacy? Isn’t that an SUV or something? Do not get me wrong. I am not on some neo-modern hippie crusade, proclaiming the barefooted good news of dreadlocked organic living. There is just one simple concept that is totally lost on this irresponsible, self-serving generation. That simple concept brings to mind the first command ever given us: stewardship. But that takes too much thought, work, selflessness (fill in the blank with your favorite virtue). That takes learning from those who have gone before, and caring for those who come after. But we have no thought of the past, and no hope in the future. We are a bastard generation, fathering another bastard generation.
The final lines show the fullest amount of common grace found in this song. Even the devil’s own become an unwitting prophet, declaring the way of truth. “Just keep me where the light is.” I doubt Mayer knows the fullest meaning of this phrase (may God grant that he someday will). Our only hope of salvation from this downward spiral is the Light Himself. This becomes our prayer, “Just keep us where the light is.” Who will accomplish this? Gravity? We have seen his trajectory. Furthermore, gravity resides within. Here Mayer makes his greatest insight, wittingly or not. Help must come. And help, in order to come, must come from outside. The line itself is addressing something/someone outside of the speaker. On top of that, help must come from something/someone in which/whom this ‘gravity’ does not reside.
Our only hope is Light Himself. Light is not affected by gravity. Light does not regard gravity as too great a foe. In fact Light comes to conquer gravity. We could almost say that Light is sent by the Sun for just such an errand.
Come Lord Light, keep us where you are.
Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Oh Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh twice as much ain’t twice as good
And can't sustain like a one half could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees
Oh gravity, stay the hell away from me
And gravity has taken better men than me (Now how can that be?)
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Ohh.. where the light is!
The first thing of note is the title/first word of the song: gravity. This word is a metaphor for nature, unhindered, unconquered. Gravity normally is an outside force working externally. Throughout this song however, it seems to take on a inward role, something inside the singer, working contra to the desires of the singer. It is “working against me” and it “wants to bring me down.”
The inwardness of this ‘gravity’ becomes clearer as the next stanza is sung. “This man…dream[s] of ways to throw it all away.” Those dreams are coming from the inside, and are not a product of external influences. Note the way Mayer describes the affect of this inward gravity: “I’ll never know what makes this man with all the love that his heart can stand dream of ways to throw it all away.” He hits our human nature square on the head, and speaks clearer truth than most Christians have the guts to even think, and does so unaware (to my knowledge) of our natural state of rebellion in Adam. We have been given far more than we could ever ask or think, and what is our natural response, apart from the grace of Christ? Throw it all away, hoping that we can find something more fulfilling in that pile of crap over there. We receive the God of all the heavens and earth, and despise Him so much, that we bow to the ‘more sacred’ gods of wood, stone, and TV.
The next stanza is an insightful note on our contemporary culture. “Twice as much ain’t twice as good, and can’t sustain like one half could. Its wanting more that’s gonna send me to my knees.” Our culture is a culture of gluttony. Gluttony concerns everything, not just food. Gluttony of every appetite: entertainment, sexual, financial, etc. We want it all, and then supersized. We are gluttons, hard and fast (actually more squishy and slow). We seriously think that more is always, and without exception, better. If one portion was good, two is better. If one woman was good, two is better. If one house was good, two is better. To hell with the cost. To hell with the consequences. Damn the torpedos! Full steam ahead! We are a thoughtless, futureless society. We have no notion of heritage or legacy. How do we live so that our children and children’s children live well? Does it matter how we live? Are those generations effected by our present actions? What is this ‘generation’ that you speak of? What is this notion of cause and effect? These are foreign concepts to my modern mind. Legacy? Isn’t that an SUV or something? Do not get me wrong. I am not on some neo-modern hippie crusade, proclaiming the barefooted good news of dreadlocked organic living. There is just one simple concept that is totally lost on this irresponsible, self-serving generation. That simple concept brings to mind the first command ever given us: stewardship. But that takes too much thought, work, selflessness (fill in the blank with your favorite virtue). That takes learning from those who have gone before, and caring for those who come after. But we have no thought of the past, and no hope in the future. We are a bastard generation, fathering another bastard generation.
The final lines show the fullest amount of common grace found in this song. Even the devil’s own become an unwitting prophet, declaring the way of truth. “Just keep me where the light is.” I doubt Mayer knows the fullest meaning of this phrase (may God grant that he someday will). Our only hope of salvation from this downward spiral is the Light Himself. This becomes our prayer, “Just keep us where the light is.” Who will accomplish this? Gravity? We have seen his trajectory. Furthermore, gravity resides within. Here Mayer makes his greatest insight, wittingly or not. Help must come. And help, in order to come, must come from outside. The line itself is addressing something/someone outside of the speaker. On top of that, help must come from something/someone in which/whom this ‘gravity’ does not reside.
Our only hope is Light Himself. Light is not affected by gravity. Light does not regard gravity as too great a foe. In fact Light comes to conquer gravity. We could almost say that Light is sent by the Sun for just such an errand.
Come Lord Light, keep us where you are.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The Nature of Grace
Right now I am reading Leithart's new book, "The Baptized Body" (published by Canon Press). So far an excellent read, very thought provoking, and assumption shaking. One thing he reminds us concerns the nature of Grace. It comes as part of a discussion surrounding the usage of the phrase "means of grace" and its reference to the sacraments (which he is not in favor of, the phrase that is. He still likes the sacraments.) The complaint comes from the word 'means.' To speak of grace as needing means, he says, conveys a notion that grace is its own entity, needing transportation. Grace is a passanger in need of a car, such as the table, to get from God to us. But this is not biblical. Grace does not come through the table. Grace is the table. The fact that God dines with men, is Grace. More specifically, "in the sacraments, there is a personal encounter with the Triune God through the particular agency of the Spirit" (pg 18). God shows grace, through grace itself, not through some vehicle created solely for that purpose. The sacraments are holy not because they are tools, ordained by God, to transfer favor to us. They are holy because they are themselves the favors of God, given to His children to bless them.
Monday, June 11, 2007
A Feast of Well-Aged Wine
Isaiah 25
O Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
For you have made the city a heap,
the fortified city a ruin;
the foreigners' palace is a city no more;
it will never be rebuilt.
Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;
cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
like heat in a dry place.
You subdue the noise of the foreigners;
as heat by the shade of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is put down.
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
O Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
For you have made the city a heap,
the fortified city a ruin;
the foreigners' palace is a city no more;
it will never be rebuilt.
Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;
cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
like heat in a dry place.
You subdue the noise of the foreigners;
as heat by the shade of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is put down.
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
There are words that are spoken at the grave. There are words that are spoken in memorial. There are words that wait until the shadow of grief has passed.
Witnessing the death of a family member, someone close and dearly loved, brings out one of two responses. For the one who trusts in the Lord Jesus, and believes the words of Isaiah, it is a strange mix of deep, heartfelt sorrow, and rich, abundant joy. To the ears who have not heard, and to the heart that will not listen, there is nothing but frightening blackness.
This blackness, I can only imagine, produces the deepest feelings of fear, despair, and meaninglessness. What is the point of all of life, after all, if all we are, all we ever become, all we remain for endless days, is simple clay? To watch a loved one enter into oblivion, if there is no hope in Christ and therefore life ever after, must unearth in the very core of a crying man, the terror of mortality. We die. We must die. It is one of the worlds most certain of facts. We are mortal creatures. Witnessing the finality of that aspect, reminds us that this is the case. We cannot live forever, on this earth, and we should not live as if we could. But the heart of man is wicked, who can comprehend it? We want to live as if death were not a factor. Hardened hearts will quickly forget the lessons learned at the side of the grave.
Deep inside every person, there is a God-given instinct, which assures us that we have meaning. We instinctively know that killing innocent people is wrong. We know that death is sad, and final. However, apart from Christ, death obliterates all meaning, putting us deep into the ground, never to resurface. There is no point to life, if there is no point to death.
The "fortified city" in the beginning of the passage above is a metaphor for man. God is the one who brings the man back to a pile of earth, never to be rebuilt again. This is why the peoples and nations will fear the Lord. He is to be feared for He has the power to destroy not only the body, but the soul as well. But our God is a gracious God, and good. He is "a shelter from the storm, and a shade from the heat." This testifies to God's Godness. Were He not God, He would not have the power to save, and bring new life. But He is God, and He desires that not one should perish, but that all reach repentance. In God-given repentance, we find that we will be rebuilt, but not in the same way, nor in the same place. The construction will be eternal, and will shine in the glory of the Christ.
Therfore, death in the eyes of the believer is rich in meaning. It is the doorway to the better country. It is the passage from a sin-cursed world, to eternal glory in Christ the Lord. John 12:24 assures us of this meaning: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Our own passing is a picture of the death of death, the death brought on the shoulders of Christ. In that death, “the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations,” is swallowed up forever. That death is what grants us confidence, assurance, and hope.
Thus we can stand at the side of the grave, and mourn the loss of a friend, but at the same time we see the glory of God reenacted. It is the portal through which we ascend from glory to final glory. It is fitting that God should use the instrument that separated us from His presence in the Garden, so long ago, to bring His children home. By means of the death that entered the young creation, we were expelled from our place of rest. By means of that same death, the recipients of God’s grace are returned to a place of final rest. Rest from sin. Rest from sorrow. Rest from the veiled reality of God’s loving immediacy.
Here we find a mountain where the Lord of hosts has made for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And it will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Not Omnipotent, But Neither Impotent
Well, good Minstrel, you said 500 words or less – and I count more than 900 in your post! That’s a relief, because it gives me license to ramble a bit, since it was your gauntlet and all! This will be a response to your musings on the Evil One; my first contribution to the discussion. Should only be about twice as long as yours. ;)
First off, I think it’s essential to this discussion to properly understand the statement in Revelation 20:3 regarding the binding of Satan. I completely agree with you that this is a reference to the present age, and not some future, utopic Millennial kingdom – whether it be a premillennial or a postmillennial one. It is my belief, from the Scriptures, that this 1,000 year binding of Satan is a reference to the “Church age” – that is, the age intervening the Ascension of Christ and His Second Advent. The age in which we now live. But how are we to understand Satan’s binding during this present age? As you note, John’s words are clear – he is bound “So that he would not deceive the nations any longer”. But this is not the complete context. In order to understand the nature of his binding (what he is prevented from doing), it is critical to understand what he does do once he is let loose (“After these things he must be released for a short time”).
When he is released – Revelation 20:7, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations…” - it is what he does specifically in his deception of the nations that defines the nature of his binding during the 1,000 years (what he is kept from doing during the Church Age). Is it a general, absolute binding, where he is prevented from doing anything? From deceiving anyone to any extent? It can't be, because throughout the book of Revelation, Satan – the Great Red Dragon – is portrayed as being closely allied with the Beast and the False Prophet to persecute and deceive people throughout the Church Age (described also as a period of great tribulation, when the Dragon himself deceives and persecutes the Church, which is sovereignly protected by God - cf., Revelation 12:13-17). Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 – forewarning his disciples of what will come after His death and Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven (between then and His Second Advent) – are, “False christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” This supplies context to John's Revelation, where Satan’s ally, the Beast of Revelation 13, “Performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work … it deceives those who dwell on earth…” So, active Satanic deception is a reality in the Church Age, which is why Paul admonishes Christians to “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil… In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one…”
Satanic deception and scheming is specifically said to go on during this period of time, meaning that though he is bound and kept from deceiving the nations, his deceptive influence is not rendered completely impotent. Again, it is the specific goal of his deception that he is prevented from accomplishing during the Church Age. That specific goal is revealed in Revelation 20:8 as his primary agenda once he is released; “And he will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle…” In other words, in putting these scriptures together, we learn that Satan is active in the Church Age – scheming, deceiving, persecuting, tempting, etc… But he is kept from being able to accomplish his ultimate goal in all of that. He is kept from being able to engender such global rebellion against God and His Church that the nations would band together in an all-out effort to utterly overthrow the Kingdom of God and His Church, and build a counterfeit, Satanic Kingdom. That is the nature of his "binding". It is not an absolute divesting of his power. It is a sovereign limitation of Satan's power in fulfillment of Christ’s promise in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And that binding will remain until God sovereignly releases Satan, allowing him to gather the nations in outright war against God and His Kingdom - the result of which will be Satan's utter, final, eternal destruction when Christ returns (Revelation 19-20).
So, in this present age, even though God has bound Satan, limiting his power, he is none the less prowling about like a roaring lion, seeking whom to devour. He is active in deception and persecution and plaguing even Christians with his scheming and his flaming arrows. I don’t believe that Peter can be said to be speaking of the flesh as the "roaring lion", because he specifically makes reference to the “devil”, and not the “flesh”. (Grammatically, "The Devil" is the subject of the verb, "To Prowl". He - the Adversary - the Devil, is the one prowling. Not us, prowling around like the Devil, or devilishly). The English word "Devil" is a translation of the Greek, "diabolos", used 37 times in the New Testament, 34 of which are masculine nouns which refer to the Devil as a person, Satan. (The other 3 are used in the pastoral epistles with respect to human beings who are described as "malicious gossips", because of the character of their speech. Cf., 1 Timothy 3:11, 2 Timothy 3:3, and Titus 2:3). Elsewhere, Satan’s name is used specifically to speak of his influence in today’s world – he is a “tempter” in 1 Corinthians 7:5, who has designs for our defeat, 2 Corinthians 2:11. He sends messengers to “harass” Christians, 2 Corinthians 12:7, and hinders the ministry of the gospel when he can, 1 Thessalonians 2:18. When the Antichrist comes, it will be because of the “Activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders”, 2 Thessalonians 2:9, again giving context to Jesus’ warnings of Satanic influence in this present age, in Matthew 24. He wields the power to blind the eyes of unbelievers 2 Corinthians 4:4, and keep them in darkness, Acts 26:18.
He is bound, but he is still the powerful "Prince of the power of the air", Ephesians 2:2; the "god of this age", 2 Corinthians 4:4; and the "ruler of this world", John 14:30. He is not omnipotent, but his armies are strong, and we must stand "Against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" - not just those fleshly rebels here on earth. Jesus' own binding of the Strong Man in Matthew 12 did not consist of a complete divesting of Satan's power and influence, but in the casting out of demons so that the proclamation of the Kingdom would be effective. It was a sovereign limiting of Satan's influence, not yet his utter destruction which is still to come (Revelation 20:10). Yes, Satan has been defeated (Hebrews 2:14, Colossians 2:15). But like the flesh which has been crucified (Galatians 2:20), and yet still wages war against God's Spirit within me (Galatians 5:16, Romans 7); So Satan's defeat at the Cross 2,000 years ago doesn't mean that he is no longer at war with God prior to Christ's Second Coming, when his defeat will be consummated in everlasting perdition.
Over and over, God speaks in the New Testament scriptures of Satan having this type of influence now, in this present age, even though he is “bound”. So, his binding is real – and he is kept from accomplishing such rebellion and deception that he would destroy the Church – but his binding is not so absolute as to prevent him from doing anything by way of temptation, deception, persecution, etc… All of these verses refer to him either by name (Satan) or by title (the Devil). If the Apostles wanted to attribute the wickedness of those verses to the flesh only or primarily, they would have said that specifically and clearly. Yes, in Ephesians 4:26 Paul does say to us "Not to let the sun go down on our anger", so as not to "Give opportunity to the devil" in verse 27. This doesn’t mean that it is only our flesh that is responsible for evil – but that the devil actively takes opportunity to propound wickedness on the earth primarily through our flesh. Through tempting our weak, sinful, rebellious hearts. That is the avenue that presents him with the greatest opportunity to rebel against God and His Kingdom in attempting to do what he tried to do the day that he fell from heaven – dethrone the King of Kings and enthrone himself. But he is bound from being able to do it. For all his deceptive, scheming efforts, his purposes will fail and he will eventually be utterly vanquished when, at that climactic battle of Gog and Magog, “The devil who had deceived them [is] thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”, Revelation 20:10.
Does he know my name? He knows enough about me to tempt me strategically, according to the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of my flesh – targeting them precisely with his flaming arrows, Ephesians 6:10-18. In Acts 19:15, the demons know Paul’s name – why not mine? Does Satan know my thoughts? Surely not as God does – but Satan was capable of filling Ananias’ heart with lies against the Holy Spirit, Acts 5:3, and he was able to “enter into” Judas, influencing him to betray Jesus (Luke 22:3). In John 13:2, John says that "The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot... to betray Him". So even if he can't be said to make us sin, Satan does have access to our thoughts and desires in some way, so as to tempt us to do his evil will. At the same time, Satan's estimation of the condition of Job's heart, and of how Job would respond to tribulation proved to be inaccurate (Job 1:9-11) - proving that Satan is not omniscient, and that he does not have comprehensive knowledge of our thoughts.
There is prolific demonic activity recorded throughout the book of Acts – subsequent to Jesus’ ascension, and those demons are clearly personal, intelligent beings who know things about the people they possess or oppress. Satan is not omnipotent, but it is a mistake to argue that he is impotent. He is clearly a powerful, active, intelligent being. Not even Michael the Archangel would speak personally against him, but pronounced the Lord’s rebuke on him in Jude 1:9. Satan's demonic emissaries are manifold – and though they are not omniscient (as only God is), they know a great deal about us and work through Satan’s influence to tempt and pester us regularly. I don’t believe that Satan is capable of knowing my thoughts as God does – but he is extremely crafty and understands the basic roots of evil and the nature of sin far better than I do (he's been at it longer), so as to be able to exploit my flesh through temptation in a highly efficient and effective manner. And we mustn't forget that Satan is a (fallen) angelic, spiritual being. His knowledge and understanding of the spiritual realm, where the true battle is fought, is far superior to our own, and we shouldn't underestimate it. And all of that means that I must be aware of his desire to tempt and deceive me. I must be acquainted with his strategies. I must realize that not only is my flesh wicked, but that I live in a wicked world in which Satan, the Devil, the god of this age and the ruler of this world, is presently active.
But of course the good news is that he was defeated at the cross, rendering his eventual and final destruction an absolute certainty. And, God’s wisdom and knowledge are boundless, and He is sovereign. Sovereign enough to guarantee that all of the resources that we need to resist the schemes of the devil are at our disposal through faith in Christ. Sovereign enough to guarantee that Satan cannot succeed in destroying Christ’s Church, or the life of any soul for which Christ shed His blood. Sovereign enough to promise that if we, "Resist the Devil," He will "Flee from us" (James 4:7) God is even Sovereign enough to utilize Satan’s purposes of deception, temptation, and persecution for His own glorious purposes – to sanctify His people through fiery trials, 1 Peter 4:12. To discipline His people through divine love, Hebrews 12:6. The violence of Satan is even used against him in God’s purposes of judgment, which is – I believe – one of the central themes of the whole book of Revelation. It is one of the primary reasons why evil continues to exist by Satan's agency – because it is inherently self-defeating. By continuing to rebel, Satan is ensuring his own eternal doom, and that of all those who will sinfully cooperate with his rebellious agenda. And that doom will accomplish God's Glory in the demonstration of His justice. In short, even though Satan is active and capable of great spiritual harm, the Christian need not fear - for our comfort is that even though Satan does roams as a ravenous, roaring lion – “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 The biblical doctrine of Satan is not the Persian doctrine of dualistic deities - one good, and the other evil. He is a lion, but he is leashed by the sovereign hand of God.
Through the strength of God's Spirit within us, if we remain faithful - even through the worst that the Devil can throw at us - if we remain faithful even unto death, He will give us the crown of life (Revelation 2:10).
First off, I think it’s essential to this discussion to properly understand the statement in Revelation 20:3 regarding the binding of Satan. I completely agree with you that this is a reference to the present age, and not some future, utopic Millennial kingdom – whether it be a premillennial or a postmillennial one. It is my belief, from the Scriptures, that this 1,000 year binding of Satan is a reference to the “Church age” – that is, the age intervening the Ascension of Christ and His Second Advent. The age in which we now live. But how are we to understand Satan’s binding during this present age? As you note, John’s words are clear – he is bound “So that he would not deceive the nations any longer”. But this is not the complete context. In order to understand the nature of his binding (what he is prevented from doing), it is critical to understand what he does do once he is let loose (“After these things he must be released for a short time”).
When he is released – Revelation 20:7, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations…” - it is what he does specifically in his deception of the nations that defines the nature of his binding during the 1,000 years (what he is kept from doing during the Church Age). Is it a general, absolute binding, where he is prevented from doing anything? From deceiving anyone to any extent? It can't be, because throughout the book of Revelation, Satan – the Great Red Dragon – is portrayed as being closely allied with the Beast and the False Prophet to persecute and deceive people throughout the Church Age (described also as a period of great tribulation, when the Dragon himself deceives and persecutes the Church, which is sovereignly protected by God - cf., Revelation 12:13-17). Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 – forewarning his disciples of what will come after His death and Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven (between then and His Second Advent) – are, “False christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” This supplies context to John's Revelation, where Satan’s ally, the Beast of Revelation 13, “Performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work … it deceives those who dwell on earth…” So, active Satanic deception is a reality in the Church Age, which is why Paul admonishes Christians to “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil… In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one…”
Satanic deception and scheming is specifically said to go on during this period of time, meaning that though he is bound and kept from deceiving the nations, his deceptive influence is not rendered completely impotent. Again, it is the specific goal of his deception that he is prevented from accomplishing during the Church Age. That specific goal is revealed in Revelation 20:8 as his primary agenda once he is released; “And he will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle…” In other words, in putting these scriptures together, we learn that Satan is active in the Church Age – scheming, deceiving, persecuting, tempting, etc… But he is kept from being able to accomplish his ultimate goal in all of that. He is kept from being able to engender such global rebellion against God and His Church that the nations would band together in an all-out effort to utterly overthrow the Kingdom of God and His Church, and build a counterfeit, Satanic Kingdom. That is the nature of his "binding". It is not an absolute divesting of his power. It is a sovereign limitation of Satan's power in fulfillment of Christ’s promise in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And that binding will remain until God sovereignly releases Satan, allowing him to gather the nations in outright war against God and His Kingdom - the result of which will be Satan's utter, final, eternal destruction when Christ returns (Revelation 19-20).
So, in this present age, even though God has bound Satan, limiting his power, he is none the less prowling about like a roaring lion, seeking whom to devour. He is active in deception and persecution and plaguing even Christians with his scheming and his flaming arrows. I don’t believe that Peter can be said to be speaking of the flesh as the "roaring lion", because he specifically makes reference to the “devil”, and not the “flesh”. (Grammatically, "The Devil" is the subject of the verb, "To Prowl". He - the Adversary - the Devil, is the one prowling. Not us, prowling around like the Devil, or devilishly). The English word "Devil" is a translation of the Greek, "diabolos", used 37 times in the New Testament, 34 of which are masculine nouns which refer to the Devil as a person, Satan. (The other 3 are used in the pastoral epistles with respect to human beings who are described as "malicious gossips", because of the character of their speech. Cf., 1 Timothy 3:11, 2 Timothy 3:3, and Titus 2:3). Elsewhere, Satan’s name is used specifically to speak of his influence in today’s world – he is a “tempter” in 1 Corinthians 7:5, who has designs for our defeat, 2 Corinthians 2:11. He sends messengers to “harass” Christians, 2 Corinthians 12:7, and hinders the ministry of the gospel when he can, 1 Thessalonians 2:18. When the Antichrist comes, it will be because of the “Activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders”, 2 Thessalonians 2:9, again giving context to Jesus’ warnings of Satanic influence in this present age, in Matthew 24. He wields the power to blind the eyes of unbelievers 2 Corinthians 4:4, and keep them in darkness, Acts 26:18.
He is bound, but he is still the powerful "Prince of the power of the air", Ephesians 2:2; the "god of this age", 2 Corinthians 4:4; and the "ruler of this world", John 14:30. He is not omnipotent, but his armies are strong, and we must stand "Against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" - not just those fleshly rebels here on earth. Jesus' own binding of the Strong Man in Matthew 12 did not consist of a complete divesting of Satan's power and influence, but in the casting out of demons so that the proclamation of the Kingdom would be effective. It was a sovereign limiting of Satan's influence, not yet his utter destruction which is still to come (Revelation 20:10). Yes, Satan has been defeated (Hebrews 2:14, Colossians 2:15). But like the flesh which has been crucified (Galatians 2:20), and yet still wages war against God's Spirit within me (Galatians 5:16, Romans 7); So Satan's defeat at the Cross 2,000 years ago doesn't mean that he is no longer at war with God prior to Christ's Second Coming, when his defeat will be consummated in everlasting perdition.
Over and over, God speaks in the New Testament scriptures of Satan having this type of influence now, in this present age, even though he is “bound”. So, his binding is real – and he is kept from accomplishing such rebellion and deception that he would destroy the Church – but his binding is not so absolute as to prevent him from doing anything by way of temptation, deception, persecution, etc… All of these verses refer to him either by name (Satan) or by title (the Devil). If the Apostles wanted to attribute the wickedness of those verses to the flesh only or primarily, they would have said that specifically and clearly. Yes, in Ephesians 4:26 Paul does say to us "Not to let the sun go down on our anger", so as not to "Give opportunity to the devil" in verse 27. This doesn’t mean that it is only our flesh that is responsible for evil – but that the devil actively takes opportunity to propound wickedness on the earth primarily through our flesh. Through tempting our weak, sinful, rebellious hearts. That is the avenue that presents him with the greatest opportunity to rebel against God and His Kingdom in attempting to do what he tried to do the day that he fell from heaven – dethrone the King of Kings and enthrone himself. But he is bound from being able to do it. For all his deceptive, scheming efforts, his purposes will fail and he will eventually be utterly vanquished when, at that climactic battle of Gog and Magog, “The devil who had deceived them [is] thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”, Revelation 20:10.
Does he know my name? He knows enough about me to tempt me strategically, according to the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of my flesh – targeting them precisely with his flaming arrows, Ephesians 6:10-18. In Acts 19:15, the demons know Paul’s name – why not mine? Does Satan know my thoughts? Surely not as God does – but Satan was capable of filling Ananias’ heart with lies against the Holy Spirit, Acts 5:3, and he was able to “enter into” Judas, influencing him to betray Jesus (Luke 22:3). In John 13:2, John says that "The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot... to betray Him". So even if he can't be said to make us sin, Satan does have access to our thoughts and desires in some way, so as to tempt us to do his evil will. At the same time, Satan's estimation of the condition of Job's heart, and of how Job would respond to tribulation proved to be inaccurate (Job 1:9-11) - proving that Satan is not omniscient, and that he does not have comprehensive knowledge of our thoughts.
There is prolific demonic activity recorded throughout the book of Acts – subsequent to Jesus’ ascension, and those demons are clearly personal, intelligent beings who know things about the people they possess or oppress. Satan is not omnipotent, but it is a mistake to argue that he is impotent. He is clearly a powerful, active, intelligent being. Not even Michael the Archangel would speak personally against him, but pronounced the Lord’s rebuke on him in Jude 1:9. Satan's demonic emissaries are manifold – and though they are not omniscient (as only God is), they know a great deal about us and work through Satan’s influence to tempt and pester us regularly. I don’t believe that Satan is capable of knowing my thoughts as God does – but he is extremely crafty and understands the basic roots of evil and the nature of sin far better than I do (he's been at it longer), so as to be able to exploit my flesh through temptation in a highly efficient and effective manner. And we mustn't forget that Satan is a (fallen) angelic, spiritual being. His knowledge and understanding of the spiritual realm, where the true battle is fought, is far superior to our own, and we shouldn't underestimate it. And all of that means that I must be aware of his desire to tempt and deceive me. I must be acquainted with his strategies. I must realize that not only is my flesh wicked, but that I live in a wicked world in which Satan, the Devil, the god of this age and the ruler of this world, is presently active.
But of course the good news is that he was defeated at the cross, rendering his eventual and final destruction an absolute certainty. And, God’s wisdom and knowledge are boundless, and He is sovereign. Sovereign enough to guarantee that all of the resources that we need to resist the schemes of the devil are at our disposal through faith in Christ. Sovereign enough to guarantee that Satan cannot succeed in destroying Christ’s Church, or the life of any soul for which Christ shed His blood. Sovereign enough to promise that if we, "Resist the Devil," He will "Flee from us" (James 4:7) God is even Sovereign enough to utilize Satan’s purposes of deception, temptation, and persecution for His own glorious purposes – to sanctify His people through fiery trials, 1 Peter 4:12. To discipline His people through divine love, Hebrews 12:6. The violence of Satan is even used against him in God’s purposes of judgment, which is – I believe – one of the central themes of the whole book of Revelation. It is one of the primary reasons why evil continues to exist by Satan's agency – because it is inherently self-defeating. By continuing to rebel, Satan is ensuring his own eternal doom, and that of all those who will sinfully cooperate with his rebellious agenda. And that doom will accomplish God's Glory in the demonstration of His justice. In short, even though Satan is active and capable of great spiritual harm, the Christian need not fear - for our comfort is that even though Satan does roams as a ravenous, roaring lion – “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 The biblical doctrine of Satan is not the Persian doctrine of dualistic deities - one good, and the other evil. He is a lion, but he is leashed by the sovereign hand of God.
Through the strength of God's Spirit within us, if we remain faithful - even through the worst that the Devil can throw at us - if we remain faithful even unto death, He will give us the crown of life (Revelation 2:10).
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
A New Cosmology
So what about the bad guy? As a disclaimer, these are the thoughts of a layman. My study on this does not reflect years of training, and tomes of reading. These are simply thoughts, though spoken with confidence, sparking discussion and further clarification of my own personal questions.
Lucifer began as an angel, created in the Garden as an archangel, much like Gabriel and Michael. Ezekiel 28 (if we can understand this passage this way) describes him as "full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty... blameless in all [his] ways till unrighteousness was found in [him]." But his "heart was proud because if [his] beauty." Therefore, because he attempted to set his throne on high (Is 14), "above the stars of God," he was cast to the earth, with all his minions. Michael and his angels (Rev 12) defeated the Accuser, and there was no longer any room left in heaven for him. "Woe to you O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short."
In the old times, nations were governed by powers and principalities. Each nation had an angel, sometimes called gods, who guarded, governed them. Michael was the angel for Israel (Dan 10:21). Satan had been given real authority on earth, and had accumulated nations. Daniel 10 describes Michael and the linen clad man (Jesus) fighting against the prince of Persia for 21 days. The Lord's army of fire was very active in the days of the kings (2 Kings 6). The world was full of what moderns call "supernatural" activity, as if anything that we can't see under a microscope isn't natural.
So the world was governed, in a finite sense, by these created, angelic principalities. The Daystar, and the false "Bright star of Morning" was the leader of all these powers, excepting Michael, who was true to his Creator. This is why Satan could tempt Jesus, with some legitimacy, with the kingdoms of the earth, if He would simply bow down and worship him. But Jesus knew that He was receiving the kingdoms anyway, and so remained faithful to His Father. On the Cross, Satan was conquered (Heb 2:14). The strongman was bound, and his goods were plundered. He was cast into the abyss, and the door was shut and sealed. This is for a time, until the thousand years are ended. During this time the Church reigns with Christ as a holy priesthood. The dominions and powers have been cast down, and Christ sits on His thrown, making the nations a footstool for His feet.
So what of evil and the devil now? Satan is bound and "cannot deceive the nations any longer," (Rev 20). Why then are there still evil men? Well that's because there are still men. Our unhindered, unredeemed flesh is one of death and rebellion. Our flesh still wages war against the Spirit. Our flesh still desires power and thrones above the "stars of God." To put it tritely, in an oft used cliche, we are our own worst enemy.
Could not passages such as Ephesians 4:27, James 4:7, and 1 Peter 5:8 be understood this way? Ephesians 4:26 says to not let the sun go down on our anger, and then in 28, to not give any opportunity to the devil. In Galatians 5:13, Paul tells us to not give opportunity to our flesh. Could not the flesh be understood as the one who seeks to devour us, prowling like a lion? Our flesh craves the "schemes of the devil," and it is against the "schemes of the devil" for which we gird ourselves with the armor of God.
What is making me think all this? I am doubtful that Scripture teaches a theology of Satan which says that he knows my name. Why does he know my name? If he knows my name, what is to prevent him from knowing everyone in the world, from every age. Do angels have that kind knowledge, that kind of capacity. Does Satan know the thoughts of my heart? Can angels see into the heart of man? Does Scripture uphold that, and if so, where?
Would it not be wiser to locate our enemy in the old man which Christ bought, and is renewing by the Spirit? Is Satan really not bound and sealed up like Hebrews and Revelation say? Christ says "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house," (Matt 12:29). Which is true? To me, Scripture seems to reiterate that Satan has been vanquished, and bound, though his servants still roam the earth, wrecking havoc. If what I have said is true, which I would not go to the wall for, the current Christian notion of Satan might be causing unnecessary fear and anxiety. If we believe that Satan has the power to know my inward thoughts, and affect them for his own design if we are not careful, there is no end to what oppression that could cause. Now if it is true that he does, our answer is obviously Christ, and the sovereign power of God. In Him alone rests ultimate power and authority. But if it is not true, why do we allow ourselves to think that way? Why would we ascribe to him knowledge that, we thought, God alone had, if he does not really have that knowledge? Again, it is obvious that if it is true, only God could have given him that knowledge. That is not the discussion. The discussion is if our beliefs about Satan are not true, why do we believe it?
Lucifer began as an angel, created in the Garden as an archangel, much like Gabriel and Michael. Ezekiel 28 (if we can understand this passage this way) describes him as "full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty... blameless in all [his] ways till unrighteousness was found in [him]." But his "heart was proud because if [his] beauty." Therefore, because he attempted to set his throne on high (Is 14), "above the stars of God," he was cast to the earth, with all his minions. Michael and his angels (Rev 12) defeated the Accuser, and there was no longer any room left in heaven for him. "Woe to you O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short."
In the old times, nations were governed by powers and principalities. Each nation had an angel, sometimes called gods, who guarded, governed them. Michael was the angel for Israel (Dan 10:21). Satan had been given real authority on earth, and had accumulated nations. Daniel 10 describes Michael and the linen clad man (Jesus) fighting against the prince of Persia for 21 days. The Lord's army of fire was very active in the days of the kings (2 Kings 6). The world was full of what moderns call "supernatural" activity, as if anything that we can't see under a microscope isn't natural.
So the world was governed, in a finite sense, by these created, angelic principalities. The Daystar, and the false "Bright star of Morning" was the leader of all these powers, excepting Michael, who was true to his Creator. This is why Satan could tempt Jesus, with some legitimacy, with the kingdoms of the earth, if He would simply bow down and worship him. But Jesus knew that He was receiving the kingdoms anyway, and so remained faithful to His Father. On the Cross, Satan was conquered (Heb 2:14). The strongman was bound, and his goods were plundered. He was cast into the abyss, and the door was shut and sealed. This is for a time, until the thousand years are ended. During this time the Church reigns with Christ as a holy priesthood. The dominions and powers have been cast down, and Christ sits on His thrown, making the nations a footstool for His feet.
So what of evil and the devil now? Satan is bound and "cannot deceive the nations any longer," (Rev 20). Why then are there still evil men? Well that's because there are still men. Our unhindered, unredeemed flesh is one of death and rebellion. Our flesh still wages war against the Spirit. Our flesh still desires power and thrones above the "stars of God." To put it tritely, in an oft used cliche, we are our own worst enemy.
Could not passages such as Ephesians 4:27, James 4:7, and 1 Peter 5:8 be understood this way? Ephesians 4:26 says to not let the sun go down on our anger, and then in 28, to not give any opportunity to the devil. In Galatians 5:13, Paul tells us to not give opportunity to our flesh. Could not the flesh be understood as the one who seeks to devour us, prowling like a lion? Our flesh craves the "schemes of the devil," and it is against the "schemes of the devil" for which we gird ourselves with the armor of God.
What is making me think all this? I am doubtful that Scripture teaches a theology of Satan which says that he knows my name. Why does he know my name? If he knows my name, what is to prevent him from knowing everyone in the world, from every age. Do angels have that kind knowledge, that kind of capacity. Does Satan know the thoughts of my heart? Can angels see into the heart of man? Does Scripture uphold that, and if so, where?
Would it not be wiser to locate our enemy in the old man which Christ bought, and is renewing by the Spirit? Is Satan really not bound and sealed up like Hebrews and Revelation say? Christ says "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house," (Matt 12:29). Which is true? To me, Scripture seems to reiterate that Satan has been vanquished, and bound, though his servants still roam the earth, wrecking havoc. If what I have said is true, which I would not go to the wall for, the current Christian notion of Satan might be causing unnecessary fear and anxiety. If we believe that Satan has the power to know my inward thoughts, and affect them for his own design if we are not careful, there is no end to what oppression that could cause. Now if it is true that he does, our answer is obviously Christ, and the sovereign power of God. In Him alone rests ultimate power and authority. But if it is not true, why do we allow ourselves to think that way? Why would we ascribe to him knowledge that, we thought, God alone had, if he does not really have that knowledge? Again, it is obvious that if it is true, only God could have given him that knowledge. That is not the discussion. The discussion is if our beliefs about Satan are not true, why do we believe it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)