the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, conformed to his death

The whole of the gospel is intended to train our heart and life in grace.  Yet, if we must press for any particular aspect of the gospel that most frames and forms Christian living it is our participation by grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The gospel makes it plain that the death and resurrection of Jesus are not simply events that we believe and confess, but they are realities in which we share.  The Christian is someone who has died and risen with Christ.  The pattern of cross and resurrection is stamped on our lives.  It shapes our present identity.  Thus Paul’s words,

Phil 3:8-10 (ESV)
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…

But what does this mean?  How for example, do we presently experience the power of his resurrection?  What enables us to ‘take up the cross’ and follow Christ?  Do we sometimes experience the power of his resurrection and at others the fellowship of his cross and sufferings?  Do we experience the power of his resurrection despite embracing the fellowship of his sufferings?

The answer to all the above is this: we know the power of his resurrection in embracing the fellowship of his sufferings by conforming to his death.  Our Christian life is not resurrection or cross.  Neither is it resurrection and cross.  It is resurrection for the cross and in the cross.  If we die to live, and we do, in another sense we live to die.

The only way I can take up the cross and follow Christ is through the enabling power of his  resurrection life in the Spirit.  It is the same Spirit who acted powerfully to raise Christ from the dead who enabled him to live, obedient to the extent of death, even cross-death; it was through the eternal Spirit he offered himself to God (Hebs 9:14).  And it is the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead in resurrection life who works in our hearts, we who were dead in trespasses and sins, have been made alive with Christ that we may be given over to death for him.  To put it as Paul does in 2 Cor 4,

2 Cor 4:10-11 (ESV)
we are… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Again, we die to live and we live to die.  There is a reciprocity, a symbiosis, in death and resurrection.

What is the life of Christ that is revealed in us?  It is his life on earth, his life of cross-bearing, a cross-bearing that began long before he hung upon the cross.  Christ’s whole life was one of cross-bearing, in the sense that his whole life was lived with self-will always held in the place of death.  His personal will was always  determined to do only the will of his Father (although Christ was not attracted to sin, neither was he attracted to pain, suffering and rejection; he embraced these willingly because these were his Father’s will) .  Cross-bearing is death to self (not simply to sin).  It is to die to ‘self’ with all its siren calls for protection, pampering, prestige, power, pleasure and profit.

And so, resurrection life means living in death.   Resurrection power is power in weakness.

We so often hear that God will bless his people with possessions, health, good relationships.  Or that resurrection power is power to overcome or heal sickness and disease.   Sometimes God does bless his people with the good things of  this life, though he never promises this and these gifts if given are the very least of his gifts.  And sometimes he does give people abilities to do miracles revealing his power in visible ways but these are the exception.  Chiefly his power works in our lives by enabling us to put to death our selfish desires and equipping us to endure suffering and rejection for the sake of the gospel.  Paul’s prayer for the Colossians is revealing:

Col 1:11 (ESV)
May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy

Notice it is power to endure.  Power to suffer.  Power to find joy not apart from suffering but in and through suffering.

Look at the Christians you know.  Who  reveal the life of Christ?  It is not those pursuing material comfort, career advancement, and every hobby and sport imaginable, rather it is those who are serving others.  It is those who look not on their own interests but the interests of others;  those who visit the sick, support the vulnerable and needy, have a word from the Lord suitable for the occasion, pray with mourning hearts for the lost, and who suffer deprivation and trial for the gospel.  People whose voices are not raised in the street.  People who do not press themselves, or vindicate themselves.  These are the people you see Christ in.  These are the people where his life is evident.  And these are the people who seem most content and who most know joy in life for it is he who loses his life who finds it.

Such people are rarely life’s celebrities.  We place far too much emphasis on performance.  We think that if we can only get a champion athlete, or a succesful businessman, or an intellectual with a string of letters after his name to front our outreach then people will respond.  We think the big name, the big personality, the big preacher, the big show, band or whatever is where it is at.  We admire these qualities.  We place store on what is superficially impressive – on outward appearances.  We admire the dynamic personality.  We want the clever orator, the one who can hold a crowd in his hand.  Yet big personalities are not what God values.  The way of the cross is not about big names, big personalities, big gifts, or big shows.  It is precisely the opposite.  The way of the cross is the way of weakness.  It is the way of refusing to draw attention to self, to promote self, to display self.  The messenger and the message must be the same.

Paul refused to preach to the Corinthians with impressive words and oratory.  They loved these things and for this very reason he refused to display them.  The power lay not in human giftedness and glory but in God, and was best demonstrated in human weakness and insignificance.

1Cor 2:1-5 (ESV)
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 

When are we going to learn that the weapons of our warfare are not ‘fleshly’ (impressive shows, impressive presentations, impressive preachers, impressive personalities, political muscle) but spiritual; it is in weakness, suffering, humility, endurance, self-giving, patient prayer,and ordinary preaching without glamour, that the power of God’s resurrection life is to be found.  How many people do you know who have been won for Christ through big shows, big concerts, big budget events?  God’s way is not in the impressive, but the humanly unimpressive.

1Cor 1:26-29 (ESV)
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

This is not a plea for laziness, or carelessness, or poor preparation.  There is no virtue in these.  Nor is it a plea for using people for a task who are not gifted for it.  It is a plea, however, for us to place great importance on prayer, on self-giving in the lives of others, and on the simple witness of an ordinary believer.  It is a plea to seek for God’s power in the places he says it will be found and nowhere else.  It is a plea to seek life through death and to seek God’s power through weakness and through things that are normally discounted by human measuring.

uk coalition for marriage

‘Yesterday saw the launch of the Coalition for Marriage and its national marriage petition (sign here). Here is the text of the launch speech given by Colin Hart, Campaign Director for the Coalition. I would like to announce the launch of the Coalition for Marriage. The Coalition has one, very simple aim: To support the current definition of marriage and to oppose all plans to redefine it. The law currently defines marriage as “the voluntary union for life, of one man and one woman, to the…’

The above is cited from the Coalition for Marriage website.  You may find the speech in full here.   If you are a UK citizen you may wish to consider signing the petition.

the samaritan, the law, and grace

We are all, I guess, familiar with the parable of ‘the good Samaritan’.  If we were asked its point we would probably say it illustrates ‘neighbourliness’.  And we would be right.  Jesus says as much in his punchline question.  Here is Luke’s record of the parable.

Luke 10:25-37 (ESV)
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”  But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” 

But there is more going on in this parable than a simple definition of neighbourliness.  Jesus’ interrogator was a lawyer, an exponent of Jewish Law.  For him the Law was everything. Eternal life was earned by law-keeping (and so his question… what must I do…).  The Law, he knew, required love for God and neighbour; it said ‘this do and live’.  And Jesus agrees, it does.  The lawyer then does what all do who try to avoid responsibility before hard facts; he asks an evasive question, ‘who is my neighbour’.  Perhaps he already saw the impossibility of law-keeping.  Certainly this is the first conclusion to which the parable narrative leads.

Those who boast in the law do not keep the Law.  Both the priest and the Levite (two of the main products, exponents and models of the Law in Israel) show no mercy or compassion to the injured man.  Law does not make men compassionate and neighbourly.  Laws, institutions, and commands could not produce neighbourliness.  For sure, the priest and Levite knew they ought to help, but didn’t.  Mere law never produces a compassionate heart and so could never lead to eternal life.  Do this and live is a counsel of despair for sinners.  The Law merely exposes sin it does not lead to obedience.

So how does the narrative progress?  Does Jesus instead call for faith in him?  Sometimes he does, but not in this instance.  Instead he indicates the only route through which ‘neighbour-love’ is achieved and it is completely apart from law.  He introduces a character who had nothing to do with the law – a Samaritan.  He is ‘moved with compassion’ and does all that is needed for the half-dead man.  And he is impressing that only grace at work in a human heart will produce neighbour-love.  The Samaritan does not know the Law but he has the heart of God.  For God is compassionate and merciful.  Grace has given him the life of God in his soul and so he loves and acts.  He doesn’t ask if the injured man deserves help.  He doesn’t ask if he has an obligation to help.  Love simply sees the need and reaches out to help.  This is the power of grace in the heart.  Whatever the need grace sees it and reaches out to help.

Law simply makes the heart look for excuses; it asks legalistic questions like ‘who is my neighbour’.   It looks for ways to do the bare minimum.  Law gives no desire, no love, no motivation, no power.  Grace, however, renews the heart and gives motive and strength.  Grace creates a heart that loves as God loves.  Grace bestows what law demands but can never achieve.  Eternal life is a product of grace: it is not the result of neighbour-love but results in neighbour-love.  It is those who are renewed in grace by the Spirit who fulfil ‘the just requirement of the Law’(Roms 8:1-4).

Finally, it would be a mistake to drag into this parable what it is not addressing.  Jesus’ is not saying here that any who show kindness to another are Christians.  This is simply not the issue of the conversation.  His point is simply the redundancy of Law as a means of neighbour-love and the primacy of grace.

Of course, the true revelation of grace, the true ‘good Samaritan’, is Jesus.  He is the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.  He was God revealed in flesh, in compassion and goodness, and what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God has done through Jesus (Roms 8).  Jesus fulfils the Law but he is much more than the Law.  He is the heart of God revealed in grace healing the sick, freeing the prisoners, enabling the blind to see, binding up the broken-hearted, preaching good news to the poor (Isa 61).  He will reach out in love to the needy not because he must, or because they deserve it, but because this is how grace acts.  It is while we were sinners and without strength Christ died for the ungodly (Roms 5).  Grace sees the need and acts.

Grace alone makes ‘good Samaritans’ and makes them of all God’s people.

genesis… a simple introduction

I am writing a short (very short) introduction to each book of the Bible for a Church Bible exhibition.  Each summary should be accessible to the average 13-year-old (though it is intended for adults).  I aim to have an opening paragraph that is comprehensive if terse and then a further paragraph or two (if necessary) unpacking the first.  Here is my first unedited stab at an intro to Genesis.  I feel it is a little longer than I would like.  Any helpful criticism on content, style etc would be appreciated.

Genesis

Genesis is the first book of the Bible.  Unsurprisingly, it means ‘beginning’ or ‘origin’.  It tells us about the origin of the world, of humanity, of evil and suffering in history, and it tells us too about God’s promise to resolve the problem of evil and how he begins to do so in human history. 

In Genesis we discover that God made and arranged all that exists.  He is Creator-King of the universe.  Humanity is God’s greatest creation made to resemble and represent God in creation.  Tragically humanity chose to rebel against the Creator – choosing self-rule rather than God’s rule.  Much of Genesis is an account of the developing evil in humanity as the inevitable outcome of this choice and showing how human evil led to God’s judgements on humanity in various ways.

However, woven through the dark narrative of the progress of evil and its consequences we have another narrative.  It is a narrative of hope.  God is not only judging evil he is putting in place a plan to save humanity and creation.  The very humanity that has brought death and destruction will be used by God to bring life and blessing.  How is not fully revealed in Genesis but the building blocks are put in place.  In particular, God chooses to work through one man and his descendents to bring blessing to the world.  The man is called Abraham and his descendents are the nation we call Israel.  God’s promise to Abraham is expressed in these words,

The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

 ² “I will make you into a great nation,
   and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
   and you will be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you,
   and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
   will be blessed through you. (Gen 12:1-3)

We meet Abraham and some of his immediate descendents in Genesis but it will be many centuries, many generations and many Bible books later before we discover how God fulfils this promise in the person called Jesus.

grafted life

One of the profound gospel truths is that Christians participate in the death and resurrection of Christ not only in an objective or positional sense but in an experiential sense.  Something very significant takes place at conversion that entirely changes our lives.  We find ourselves in a life union with Christ.  A helpful illustration can be drawn from the world of horticulture.

Graftage (or grafting) is the horticultural procedure whereby the vascular tissues of one plant are inserted into those of another and they become one.  The nursery worker plants some seeds. The seedlings grow but are sub-standard as he knew they would be.  He wants a plant that is the same as a plant of approved quality.  And so he goes to the plant of approved quality, and from it takes buds which he grafts into the seedling. When the graft (life connection) is established, he calls his plant not by the name of the original seed, but by the name of the tree from which the bud was taken, for the grafted bud creates a new plant with a new life and nature, the life and nature of the source plant.

To prevent the tissue of the original plant asserting priority the horticulturist cuts away the old and worthless part of the tree.  He does not allow it to grow and assert itself (he puts it to death).  The only life that is cultivated is that of the grafted bud.  The whole tree must be known by the bud and everything else cut away.

The parallels with the miracle of implanted life in believers are obvious.   The original life is worthless.  That which is born of flesh is flesh.  A new life must be grafted in, the life of Christ through the Spirit.  For only this grafted life of Christ can produce Christ (fruit that delights God) . Only that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.   For the new life to flourish the old must be regularly ‘cut out’.  It must be ruthlessly pruned otherwise it will destroy the new.  We only produce spiritual fruit for God if we are ruthless with the flesh.

Scripture uses the image of grafting.  However, it tends to use it in the reverse way from above.  Rather than the quality plant being grafted to the old, the old wild and sub-standard  plant is grafted on to the quality one so that it may grow and flourish taking its life from the strong parent plant  (Roms 11; Cf. John 15).  The metaphor viewed this way stresses the strength of the cultivated plant and the unity of life that exists in being united to it.  It stresses too that God acts in grace, ‘against nature’ (Roms 11:24).  Grace does a supernatural work contradicting and subverting the natural way of things.

fighting the good fight!

discipline… an initiative of grace (3)

In two previous posts we considered God’s discipline and church discipline in the life of a believer.  It is time to reflect a little on self-discipline.   In reality, God’s discipline and church discipline are only necessary because we fail, as Christians, to discipline ourselves.

Paul comments, in a context where some were sick and had died because of God’s discipline among them,

1Cor 11:31-32 (ESV)
But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

Self-discipline is at the heart of godly gospel living.  It is an integral part of the purpose and product of the gospel.  Paul writing to Titus says,

Titus 2:11-14 (ESV)
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

The gospel ‘redeems’ from the indiscipline of ‘lawlessness’ and trains us to live a life of self-discipline.  This discipline is firstly a putting to death of all that is self-willed (renouncing ungodliness and worldly passions) and secondly an embracing of all that is God’s will ( and living  self-controlled, upright, and godly lives).  God’s grace teaches us to discipline ourselves.

Thus we discover that a prerequisite for an elder is that he be self-disciplined.

Titus 1:8 (ESV)
‘… a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined’

Those who lead in the church must have grown in grace and learned how to discipline their natural impulses and passions.  They must have learned how to live with these in the place of death.  Only when this discipline is obvious may they be leaders among God’s people.  It is this self-discipline that Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount (and repeats in Matt 18).

Matt 5:29-30 (ESV)
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

The language is as dramatic as its advice is drastic.  Of course he does not mean that we ought literally to gouge out our eye or guillotine our hand.  He is calling for us to execute, put to death, all temptations to sin as soon as they arise, however emotionally painful.  It is a call, proleptically, to  participation in his own death and resurrection.  The dominant NT paradigm for Christian living is the death and resurrection of Christ.

We are called to live as those who have died to our old pre-conversion life.  We have, in our death with Christ, renounced ‘all ungodliness and worldly passions’.  We have died to sin and its reign and so we must not ‘present our members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness’ instead, living as we now do to God in Christ, we must ‘present our members to God as instruments of righteousness’ (Roms 6:13).  Such living is but the logic, the inevitable corollary, of grace in our lives; it is the reality of living in the reign and realm of grace (Roms 6:14).  Grace properly grasped will lead us to holy living for grace removes not only sin’s guilt but its grip.  Where holy aspirations are absent and where grace is treated merely as a sedative for a guilty conscience we have neither grasped grace nor been grasped by grace. Grace is not freedom to sin but freedom from sin.  Let me repeat Paul’s words yet again, for they bear repeating,

Titus 2:11-14 (ESV)
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Grace produces godliness: where there is no godliness there is no grace.  Where there is no Christ-likeness there is no Christ.  Where there is no sanctification there is no justification; the grace that declares us righteous also disciples us in righteousness.   Sin is not merely a debt it is also a dominion and grace both pays the debt and breaks the dominion.  Deliverance and discipline go hand in hand; apart from discipline there is only sin’s dominion and death.   Proverbs reminds us,

Prov 5:22-23 (ESV)
​​​​​​​​The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, ​​​​​​​and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​He dies for lack of discipline, ​​​​​​​and because of his great folly he is led astray. ​​​

Paul knows only too well how critical this discipline of grace is.

1Cor 9:24-27 (ESV)
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Now it is difficult to be certain whether ‘disqualified’ means a loss of reward or a loss of soul.  I suspect the latter.  Certainly that is the consistent reason in Scripture why discipline is presented as critical.  We saw this in the previous two posts.  God disciplines his children that they ‘may not be condemned with the world’ (1 Cor 11:31,32).  Church discipline is so that ‘the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord’ (1 Cor 5:5).  Proverbs makes clear that a man ‘dies for a want of discipline‘ (Prov 5:22,23).  And most important of all, Jesus makes clear that the person who does not discipline his wayward eyes will be in danger of being ‘thrown into hell‘ (Matt 5:29, 18:9).

And so, Paul refuses to simply play at being a believer.  He isn’t aimlessly shadow-boxing.  He is in deadly earnest as he fights those inward passions that war against the soul.  He will tolerate nothing that may draw his heart away from Christ for he knows it is not those who praise and profess faith who are safe but those who practise it, those who fight, faith’s fight.  He disciplines himself for he knows what happens to those who do not,

1Cor 10:1-5 (ESV)
For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 

It’s possible to pass through the Red sea (be baptized) and eat the same spiritual food (the bread of communion) and drink the same spiritual drink (the cup of communion) and not enter the promised land.  Thus Paul guards his heart and mind.  He gives no quarter to ‘the flesh’.  He sets his affections on things above and not on things on the earth.  He walks in the Spirit, putting on the Lord Jesus and making no provision for the flesh and its desires.  He says ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions. He rigorously disciplines himself.

The grace of God trains us to discipline ourselves and so we grow in grace.  Grace and discipline are not incongruent.  The expression ‘the discipline of grace’  is not an oxymoron.  God’s grace and godly grit fit hand-in-glove.  Grace is that unmerited, unbounded provision of God for all our needs through Jesus Christ our Lord… including the need to self-discipline.  Discipline is an initiative of grace.

Grace! ‘tis a charming sound,
Harmonious to the ear;
Heaven with the echo shall resound,
And all the earth shall hear.

‘Twas grace that wrote my name
In life’s eternal book;
‘Twas grace that gave me to the Lamb,
Who all my sorrows took.

Grace taught my wandering feet
To tread the heavenly road;
And new supplies each hour I meet,
While pressing on to God.

Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made mine eyes o’erflow;
‘Twas grace which kept me to this day,
And will not let me go.

O let Thy grace inspire
My soul with strength divine:
May all my powers to Thee aspire,
And all my days be Thine.

Philip Doddridge, 1702–1751 (Stanzas 1, 3.)

Augustus M. Toplady, 1740–1778 (Stanzas 2, 4, 5.)

sorrowing, but not as those who have no hope

Some fine reflections here on the passing of a loved one by Trevin Wax.

‘Today will be hard. But today doesn’t have the last word… Tears and laughter today. Only laughter tomorrow.’

carson on church life in great britain

Don Carson gives here a brief survey of evangelical church life in Britain as he sees it.  It should be seen in the context of some rather negative criticisms of British evangelicals made by Mark Driscoll.