CrossTalk: Seeing God

It is certainly true to say that Jesus is God. But there something even more beautiful to be said: God is Jesus. To say this is to see God in the fullness of His glory.

The statement: Jesus is God, immediately brings us to ask: who is God? Here our minds spin off into a thousand directions offering all kinds of theories about who God is and what He is like. Then, each of these different answers are simply imported into our picture of Jesus.

Not surprisingly, we construct in our minds a “Jesus” who is exactly like the “God” that we imagined before we ever knew of Jesus. From this direction, Jesus forever remains in second place and irrelevant to our real understanding of God. That’s a big mistake.

Jesus Himself wants us to turn this thinking completely on its head. “He that has seen Me (Jesus says) has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The Bible teaches that Jesus “is the express image of His (the Father’s) Person” (Hebrews 1:3). If we want to know anything at all about God, we must fix our eyes on Jesus—His words, His works, His personality.

When we take our eyes off of Jesus and seek to know something about God before—or beside—or in addition to Jesus, our view of God will be confused and off the mark. Imagining a God apart from Jesus, we can easily accuse God of being unjust or evil when He warns us against death and hell as He so often does in the Bible. And thinking of God in such terms makes it impossible to put our trust in Him or in His gracious Words.

Such ungodly thoughts, however, simply cannot enter our minds so long as we are standing at the foot of the cross and looking up at God. It is impossible to look upon God as He hangs on the cross and say, “How can you be so evil as to condemn people to hell?” This accusation is unthinkable for the simple reason that you are accusing the very One who is giving His very life to rescue the world from death and hell! Such an accusation can only make sense as long as we are thinking about some other God out there who is not Jesus on the cross or, at least, not fully Him.

This is the reason why the Apostle Paul was determined to know and speak about nothing other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Only in Jesus—and, most especially, Jesus on the cross—does God reveal Himself fully and truly. Jesus on the cross is not only one face of God among many. This is not one way of seeing God among a number of possible alternatives; rather, “Truly, this Man is the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).

We are quickly approaching the observations of Holy Week and Easter (March 28-April 4). These are the most important and oldest celebrations in the Christian calendar. They focus our attention on the main point of the Bible narrative: that Jesus, the God who became a man, came down from heaven in order to suffer and die and rise for you. Keep your eyes fixed on Him and you will know the One True God.

I invite you, this season, to come and hear the very center of the Bible’s message. Have your attention once more focused on Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Here you see the One True God for who He is and what He is truly like. Here you will truly gaze upon the glory of God and be given Life in His name (John 20:31).

CrossTalk: Forgive Us Our Traspasses

Forgiveness is one of those words that is often on our lips but rarely in our hearts. It is regularly heard but seldom understood. So today, let’s seek to understand it.

Forgiving does not simply happen with the passage of time. It is a willing act. Forgiveness is not helplessly waiting for the passage of time to dull your feelings or fog your memory. Nor does forgiveness say, “don’t worry about it,” or “no big deal.” These are excuses to minimize the debt. They say that what you did wasn’t really wrong, it wasn’t that serious, or that you are not to really blame. Such statements are fraudulent forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness says: “What you did was both wrong and inexcusable. But I won’t demand that you pay. Instead, I will pay the debt myself.”

As hard as it is to forgive like this, it is just as hard to be forgiven. For to be forgiven requires you to admit, “I was wrong and I have no valid excuse.” Saying this does not earn your forgiveness (that has to be earned by the forgiver). Rather it makes us want to be forgiven. As long as you want to justify your actions, you cannot want to be forgiven. For this reason, pride is the enemy of forgiveness. Whether you are confessing your sins to God or to another person, pride kills our desire for true forgiveness.

So forgiveness requires two things. It requires us to empty ourselves of all pride when we do wrong. And it requires the forgiver to pay the whole debt. That’s real forgiveness.

But real forgiveness is a rarity. When we are wronged, we usually fake forgiveness but don’t really give it. We file our hurts away in memory banks so that we can use them as leverage on later debts. This way we retain the power to avoid confessing our own sins against others. Thus, instead of living in the peace of mutual forgiveness, we live with temporary and fragile truces. And when we are wronged, we are reluctant to say anything out of fear of upsetting the truce. Without forgiveness, we fear that naming our hurts will only open the flood gates for our own unforgiven sins to be trotted out in a hopeless attempt to “reconcile” accounts—matching up sin for sin, wrong for wrong, injury for injury. Such counterfeit forgiveness leaves behind a string of broken relationships that litters our lives.

But there are worse consequences than these. The problem goes deeper than just poisoning our relationships with one another. The problem strikes at the heart of the Gospel itself. If, in our personal lives, forgiveness is no longer asked for and given in its true sense, we start to believe the lie. And when this happens, the forgiveness of God in Christ becomes just as hollow for us as the counterfeit forgiveness that we offer our neighbors.

Don’t let this false forgiveness color your view of Christ. Instead let the true forgiveness of Christ inform your forgiveness for others. For Jesus always and only deals in real forgiveness. As the true Forgiver, He has already paid your debt by His death on the cross. And as the true Forgiver, His forgiveness toward you is never based on the passage of time, or your good behavior. Nor does He store your sins away to be brought up later as tools of control. Rather, in Christ, God promises you that He will not think anymore of your sins, or bring them up against you, or allow your sins to harm His feelings toward you.

Knowing this we can lay aside all pride and joyfully confess our sins knowing that God will forgive them truly. And so we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” 

Conversations on Christ: the Two Natures and Holy Scripture

The topic for today concerns Scriptures. i.e. writings--not sermons. And Holy writings at that. Special writings in a league of their own (canon). About these particular Writings, we wish to speak of both their divinity and their true humanity. -- Two natures distinct but not separated in Christ.

Writing, first.

The Christian faith is created and sustained by the oral Word. From the moment that God first spoke light into being, this has been the case. Orality is so central, in fact, that there is no indication that Holy Writing even existed before God Himself first wrote on tablets of stone.

From this,  I conclude two things:

•  Scripture serves a different function than preaching.
•  It is not a subordinate function but vital enough to garner God's direct attention.

Post enlightenment theologians often make the mistake of equating the living voice of the Church with the Holy Scriptures. Thus failing to take seriously the unique, God-given purpose of Holy Writ.

And this purpose is to keep the preaching true.

Canon, second.

We speak of Holy Scriptures in the plural. Not one book but a collection. Each book was admitted to the canon through examination and consensus. Today I will not defend each of the 66 individual choices. I simply note that these particular writings have been afforded a special place unparalleled by any other Christian writings--past or present.

To ignore this distinction is to reject 3500 years of Church history. To embrace it is to receive the fullness of what God has given to His Church.

Divinity, third.

These books are God's books like no others. Theopneustos = God-Spirited. Whatever we can say about the truest and best non-canonical writings, we must say that and something additional about the Holy Scriptures.

Filled with God, they are what God is: Creative, most of all. They convey the content of Christianity creatively, not as echo but as source. Pure as God is pure. True as God is true.  Unadulterated by the lies and the deceptions of the devil or mired in the misunderstandings of the world.

They are creating. Given as new wine to burst old thought patterns. Given to restructure our thoughts and not simply confirm them...whether those thoughts be about the world's origins, or about popular morality, or about human nature--it's capacities and limitations. All thoughts are captive to the Word of God and these are God's Words. Even while they were undeniably written by men.

Humanity, fourth.

"To err is human." That's the operative axiom. "If we are going to take the humanity of these books seriously, we must allow that they might contain errors. Otherwise we make Scripture non-human, non-incarnational, non-Jesus."

Post-enlightenment theologians have stressed this point. But no one prior. Because the major premise is wrong. It is not human to err. Error is not part of our humanity itself but rather a corruption of it. Jesus is without sin while remaining fully human.

So too, human language is not intrinsically flawed. It was, after all, given to mankind before the fall, not afterwards. What is human in the Holy Scriptures has nothing to do with error. It has everything to do with Jesus.

Christ in Everything.

In the man from Nazareth we encounter the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In the Holy Scriptures we encounter the fullness of the Godhead verbally.

The words themselves--grammar, syntax, context, culture--reveal God. Personality, perspective, emphasis, mode of speech--reveal God as well. Not just near approximations of God, but the fullness of the Godhead.

There is no more of God to be sought outside of these particular words. Just as there is no additional God to be sought outside of the crucified One. And any so-called wisdom that must deny, alter, ignore or relativize these words is no wisdom at all--merely old wineskins that need bursting.

To extol the humanity of the holy Scriptures is to fix our attention on the actual words. Each one is important. Each one is inspired. None are wrong. This does not imply or assert mechanical inspiration any more than Jesus' sinlessness implies that He is an automaton.

It is simply to stand with the Church of all ages, receiving all that Jesus gives.

P.S. I stumbled across a pretty good essay by Reformed theologian, Harold O. J. Brown (1933-2007), titled: "The Arian Connection: Presuppositions of Errancy" More than any other article, I found, I discussed the Scriptures in terms of the two natures of Christ. It is found in Challenges to Inerrancy: A Theological Response, edited by Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest, paperback 414 pp.

Conversations on Christ: The Two Natures and the Eucharist

Of what is the flesh of Jesus capable?

Can Jesus' body actually be physically present in the Eucharist and still remain truly and fully human? That is the central question of modern eucharistic controversies. That is also the central question of ancient controversies over the two natures of Christ.

Can Jesus' flesh be life-giving while remaining truly human? Everything that needs to be said about the modern controversy was already said in the ancient one. Therefore, I want to address the topic of the day by rehearsing the basic concerns that were reconciled in the Chalcedonian Definition.

The Nicene Creed confessed the core Christian belief that Jesus Christ is true God "of one substance with the Father..." and also true man "incarnate...made man." Thus, by 325ad, any denial either of Jesus' true humanity or of His true divinity was permanently ruled out.

While these basic facts were settled, the deeper question still remained:

Of what is the flesh of Jesus capable?

Can Christ's human nature contain and communicate divine power? Or, must any and all divine power be denied Christ's humanity lest it become something other than truly human? Each side held a legitimate biblical concern. But each side also held the seed of heresy--prone to reject either the divinity or humanity.

Hebrews 2:14 states: As we are "flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same," also 4:14: He is "like we are." If this is not true, our flesh remains unredeemed and unreconciled. But if Jesus' human nature is filled with divinity can it still be real?

Some (like Nestorius) took it that far, denying that any divine power operated through Christ's flesh (echoes of Arianism). But if Jesus' humanity has no divine power, how can He say in John 6:51,  "My flesh... I will give for the life of the world"? Clearly Jesus' flesh is life-giving—an attribute proper to God alone!

Does that make Jesus' humanity super-human—therefore, non-human? Again, some (like Eutyches) so blended the divine and human as to make Jesus' human nature only seem human (shades of Gnosticism)

Language barriers, cultural suspicions, ego and politics all contributed to amplify the divisions and drag out the controversy. But true Christians on both sides of the debate recognized the legitimacy of each concern.

The biblical Jesus must be truly God and truly man. But not only this. These two natures must relate in such a way that Jesus' flesh itself becomes life-giving while remaining true man.  That's the incarnation! We are saved because God is made man.

In 451 both sides came together at Chalcedon to confess: The flesh is filled with divine power while remaining flesh. "We confess that one and the same Christ [has] two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation...in one person."

Jesus' human nature remains pure—neither mixed with the divine nor changed into a half-god. He is one with us in every respect. "without confusion or change" But neither can He be divided into parts. His divine nature is eternally and fully united with the human nature.

Now, wherever the Son of God is, Jesus' flesh is; and wherever Jesus flesh is, there is the Son of God. "without division or separation." Cyril of Alexandria put it thus: "[Jesus'] flesh gives life because it is the flesh of the Word who gives life to all." (Anathema 11) While the flesh of Christ, as flesh, has no power to save. The flesh of Christ as the flesh of the Son of God contains and communicates all of God's life-giving power.

So, of what is the flesh of Jesus capable?

It is capable of containing "the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Col. 2:9) for the "Word is God...and was made flesh" (Jn 1:1,14) It is capable of giving life "to all receive it" (Jn 6) It is capable of doing all of this while remaining truly human because, and only because, it is fully united with the Son of God. For wherever the Son of God is, there also is Jesus' humanity...without confusion, change, division, or separation.

Since Jesus declares His will to give His flesh to be eaten in the Holy Eucharist, His humanity is also is capable of this. So in bread Jesus gives His flesh. And in His flesh, gives us God.

Thanks be to God.

CrossTalk: Who Is My Neighbor

Jesus teaches us to, “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31). So do the apostles (Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 and James 2:8). But this rule did not just begin with Jesus. It was taught by Moses (Leviticus 19:18) and was well known 1500 years before Christ. In fact, one of the clearest statements of this rule came, not from Jesus, but from an expert in the law of Moses as recorded in Luke 10:25-27.

This simple sentence includes everybody and excludes nobody. In fact, it is so overwhelmingly impossible that the law expert asks Jesus a follow-up question: “and who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). This question prompted Jesus to tell the familiar story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35). A certain man was mugged and left for dead. Two religious authorities traveling that way saw him but did nothing. Only a Samaritan (an enemy) stopped to help him, binding his wounds, taking him to an inn and providing for his convalescence.

Clearly the religious authorities were wrong to do nothing. They should have counted the victim as their neighbor and helped him. This point is so obvious that it has been written into our own legal framework for centuries. We have a whole class of laws termed “Good Samaritan” laws based on this parable. You might think that this is the whole point of Jesus’ story. But Jesus takes it in a different direction. Instead of saying, “which of these three recognized the poor victim as his neighbor?” Jesus summarizes the parable by asking, “Which of these three was neighbor to him?” (Luke 10:36). This question turns everything around! Instead of focusing on the one needing help as our neighbor, Jesus focuses on the One who helps as our neighbor!

It’s not that Jesus is discouraging us from being helpful. Certainly not! After all, He concludes by saying, “Go and do likewise.” But Jesus here highlights an even more important point for you. The Good News of the Bible is not just a rehash of all the laws that would have you do good to your neighbor. We already know these and fail regularly. The really Good News is that your creator Himself is your Neighbor who does good to you.

What Jesus comes for is to be your Good Samaritan. You are the one who has been set upon by Satan. You find yourself beaten, stripped, robbed and left for dead. And the Samaritan comes along to help you because you can’t help yourself. He doesn’t come because you have treated Him well (after all, Jews hated Samaritans). Rather, He comes to you because He is Good and because He is your truest Neighbor. In this way, He does for you what no religious teacher, guru or sage can do. They all pass by yelling out encouragement and instructions to you but ultimately leaving you in the same place they found you. Only Jesus actually picks you up and carries you to safety. That’s why we call Him Our Saviour.

This is what the Christian Church is all about. It is that inn where the Good Samaritan takes you. In the parable, the Samaritan leaves behind enough money to provide for the extended care of the victim. In the Church, Jesus provides His washing, His preaching and His feeding for your ongoing care. So as you busy yourselves with all the things that you do in care of your neighbor, never forget who is your truest Neighbor nor pass by an opportunity to be picked up and cared for by Jesus, your Good Samaritan.

Conversations on Christ: The Two Natures and Inclusive Language

The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the entire issue of gender relations. I will ignore him (or her)...mostly.  For today we are discussing the language of Gospel proclamation.

But since "inclusive language" embraces both the nature of language, and the nature of humanity, and since these two converge in the Person of Jesus who is the Word (language) made flesh (human), I have to begin with a nod to the gorilla before turning to language and the incarnation.

And so, three points: 1) humanity is essentially binary; 2) gender is God's language — not man's invention; and 3) God's incarnation interprets both — not the other way around.

Humanity is essentially binary

This simply means, "male and female created He them." (Gn 1:27). Maleness and femaleness go to the essence of our being — body, mind and spirit. Strictly speaking, male and female are two modes of human being — ways of being human.

A female is, in her sexuality, completely and fully human and so is every male. And every human is either a male person or a female person. There is no asexual humanity. To be inclusive of all humanity is to embrace both sexes without denying their distinctiveness.

God is the author of language — not man.

God begat the eternal Word and created by Him (Gn 1; Jn 1; Ps 33). God gave language to Adam and Eve (Gn 2:19-20). God also multiplied languages at Babel (Gn 11) and sanctified them at Pentecost (Ac 2). And not only has He authored all human language, He uses it to reveal Himself.

Yahweh spoke the Hebrew language to Moses — complete with all the masculine and feminine nouns, pronouns and pronominal suffixes. In Hebrew He "called their name ADAM" (Gn 5:1). Both sexes are included in this term "man". Just as both sexes are included when Christ calls us His bride.

Such modes of speech are not cultural accidents of Hebrew or Greek — much less English. Rather, all the gender inflections found in the Holy Scriptures are God's own way of speaking. And to the extent that we ignore His mode of speaking, we also ignore His self-revelation. Conversely, to understand WHY God speaks like this, is to understand Him. And the place to begin this understanding is in the Person of Jesus Christ.

The incarnation of God's Son as a male is the base line.

If either the masculinity of Sonship or the sexuality of maleness bothers us, something is terribly wrong. Our problem is that we are offended by the very "thatness" of God's salvation.

Attempts to mute the gender language or treat His sexuality as interchangeable, only highlight the problem. As long as the details of the incarnation are approached as something to be overcome, we won't get it. For the fullness of the Gospel is located precisely in these concrete facts, namely that:

• Jesus' divine nature is the eternal Son of the Father — masculine, albeit not male.
• Jesus' human nature is pure male — conceived and born of pure female.

Only by receiving this Jesus and understanding everything in Him, will our offense give way to delight.

Conclusions:

Therefore, as the Church seeks to understand these mysteries, we need to hear God's words spoken. The gender language of the Bible should be heard in Church and not muted in any way. And we should listen reverently without imposing our cultural biases of chauvinism or feminism. Instead of attenuating God's gender-freighted language in our zeal to be inclusive, we should attend to it to learn how God's own choice of language reveals the truest inclusivity.

Cultural biases centered on power and exclusion, tempt us to minimize these incarnational facts. But to do so scuttles our only hope of redeeming our culture with the reality of God in Christ. The mystery of the incarnation is the only sure starting point to address both gender and sexuality.

If our understanding of gender clashes with these linguistic realities, it is our modern anglo-centric understanding of gender which is suspect—not the words employed by God. Since it is divinely wrought, you can be certain that beyond the offense and confusion, there is a Gospel-charged, beautiful reality just waiting to be discovered in all these gender distinctions.

God designed both language and humanity with Jesus fully in view—not the other way around. Both humanity and language were structured by God in order to be His own vehicles of self-revelation.

The very nature of most languages (romantic and semitic languages to be sure) makes the expunging of these distinctions virtually impossible. English alone — with it's loss of most gender inflections — makes gender neutrality remotely feasible. We ought to take care that our anglo-centrism not cause us to reinterpret the Bible in ways which not only mute the actual text of the original but also are impossible for our fellow Christians world-wide.

Our own language (English) has lost most inflections, including gender. Our anglo-centric worldview makes it very hard even to know what we have lost in the translation. And it is no accident that inclusive language debates are largely limited to English translations! This ought to give us pause to consider what we have already lost before deliberately losing still more.

Conversations on Christ: The Two Natures and Baptism

Baptism and Creed

We believe in one God, the Father...

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten...
In one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We confess one Baptism for the remission of sins.

That's how we have confessed these things since Constantinople in 381. The unique, eternally-begotten Son is made flesh in One Lord Jesus—one Person. (without confusion, change, division, or separation) And the unity of these two natures constitutes the unity of both Church and Baptism.
"One Lord [Christ], one faith [Church], one Baptism, One God and Father of all" Ephesians 4:5-6.

The 10th chapter of Hebrews fleshes this out. "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all... Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, ...namely His flesh,... Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."

As Tertullian (ca. 190) put it: "The flesh is the hinge of salvation." And Baptism is our new birth into the flesh of Jesus.

Baptismal Types

Before the incarnation of God's Son, baptism had not been inaugurated, only prefigured.

1. At the first creative moment, we see the Spirit of God brooding over the waters and we hear God speaking His Word. (Genesis 1:3) This is the basic shape of Baptism: Water and Spirit and Word.

2. Later God baptized the world with a flood, cleansing it of corruption and violence and saving for Himself a new humanity in Noah and his family. Peter writes:"Eight souls were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—Baptism" (3:20-21).

3. When God freed his children from Pharaoh and made them a kingdom of priests, He drew them out of the Red Sea. (Just as Moses himself had been "drawn out of the water" to become royalty.)
"All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (1 Cor. 10:2).

4. But Moses could not lead them into the Promised Land. Only Joshua could. Joshua put the Ark of God into the Jordan and made it a road (Joshua 3:17). 1480 years later, another Joshua stood in the same place to be baptized by John.

Baptism, John and Jesus

"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son," (Gal 4:4) and exactly at that time John inaugurated a new and unique baptism. Now it is a "baptism of repentance for the remission of sin" (Mk 1:4; Lk 3:3).

John explained: "O brood of vipers! [begotten of serpents]...9 do not think to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father: for I say unto you, that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones" (Matt 3:7-9).

Baptismal forgiveness has to do with fatherhood and children. The Serpent's seed are cut down and true seed of Abraham is begotten by the Father in their place. This is exactly how Jesus describes baptism when Nicodemus came to Him. "Unless a man be generated again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

Then, Jesus explained that it happens in Baptism. "Verily, verily, I say to You, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).

Baptism Today

That's why, "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). Not because Baptism is another washing in addition to the washing of Jesus. But because by it you are reborn into the pure and holy flesh of the Son of God.

As Paul puts it, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Galatians 3:27  You have "received the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!'" Galatians 4:5-6

At Jesus' baptism, while He was standing in the water, the Father declares that this Man, born of the Virgin, is His own eternally-begotten Son. And Jesus still stands in the water.

Just as the Ark's presence in the Jordan made it a road into the Promised Land, so Jesus' continued presence in Baptism gives Baptism it's content.
 -- This is the place were our bodies are sprinkled with pure water...
 -- This is where the Father declares: "You are My son by adoption and grace."
 -- This is where, the Spirit of Christ comes upon you.

And we respond by confessing: "One Lord [Christ], one faith [Church], one Baptism, One God Father of us all..." (Ephesians 4:6)