Thankfulness for Weakness

It’s nearly impossible to escape humility this time of year. We sing and celebrate Emmanuel, the Creator uniting himself with his creation.   I know there’s no need to elaborate how humble that Christmas event was. Let’s just say he arrived in poverty—socially and financially; not with the drama many of us would have planned.

But that isn’t necessarily the case; the truth actually is that we wouldn’t ever have come at all. Even if our arrival were met with “divine” proportions of pomp & circumstance. Why? Because creation would be beneath us, in our pride it would never cross our minds to enter the world to save it. We do something far more convenient, like throw away this old broken world and start all over.

This is where Christmas, or I should say, Christ’s ethic changed the world.

Just think about today, if you live in Europe or the States the ethic of humility has deeply shaped who you are, even if you’re an atheist.  Prior to Christ, in the West power and strength were the cultural good. Weakness was seen to display dangerous vulnerabilities.

Humility was evil, never noble. Not until the Noble King came as a babe, lived in obscurity, and died for the world on a torture device did humility and compassion become virtuous. And we see the effects of that today; we find secularists and atheists with no belief in Christ offer care to refugees fleeing a place where power and strength reaped destruction.

God has clearly demonstrated that the power of his self-less (or humble) love has changed the world. Such charitable actions would not be part of our culture without Jesus. Humility, weakness, selfless love has powerfully altered the world.

This brings me to the main point of this blog. Too many Christians in the West seem not to believe that weakness or humility can change the world.

Why do I say this? Well, do you hear many preachers boast of their weaknesses? I mean real ones, not just “safe” ones. True weakness is reserved for our prayer journals or for our closest confidants. We present ourselves with having it all together. We don’t want anyone to know (even though they probably already know) where we’re weak.

We would boldly celebrate and thank God for our weakness if we actually understood its power, nor feared its “costs.” And I, for one, want to go there.

From my closest family members to those who have known me for any length of time typically describe me as “passionate.” Now some of my greatest compliments and achievements have come from my zeal for what I believe and my love for Jesus. Even before I was a Christian, passion and zeal was a fruitful characteristic of mine.

But, some of my greatest failures and sin have been directly related to my passion and wearing my heart on my sleeve. My greatest strength is clearly my greatest weakness.

I’ve known this for a long time now, ever since my wife pointed it out to me in the early days of our marriage.   All too often my unruly passion can be as destructive as it can be productive. I’ve hated this; it has been a significant source of sin in my life. I’ve asked God numerous times, in all kinds of ways, to take this from me. And my wife would attest the answer to that prayer has been a resounding “No.”

Here’s why I’m starting to think God has kindly said no to me. As I’ve fixed my eyes on Jesus by giving him thanks in all circumstances, I’ve discovered all circumstances include “passionate” moments of weakness.

This doesn’t mean I’ve just given myself an excuse for this weakness in my life and disregard the sin it reveals. Rather, I’m thanking God that I need him in my weakness. Especially when having passion is a positive quality for me—and potentially an “impressive” strength. Instead I find even the positive features of passion remind me of my weakness and my dependence.

I believe only from this place of dependency can we hear the Spirit’s voice communicating the Father’s heart, “I love you, I’m with you, I’m for you, I got this” in moments my passion may be destructive. Only here does the Spirit’s fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control grow from us. Here the destructive forces of sin in my God given areas of strength are thwarted.

Strength is made perfect in weakness. Without the weaknesses in our strengths we’d most likely never actually discover our need for God. We’d become conceited and live as though we don’t need him or anyone else. This is where Paul boasting in his weakness begins to become real and applicable to all of us (2 Cor. 12). Rather than something that we don’t get and so move on; I mean who’s going to boast, “Hey, I’m unkind … don’t you think that’s great!” No one! And it’s not great.

Our weakness in our strengths creates a great opportunity to depend on God in all moments of life. So it’s possible that no matter how much I ask God to take away my uncontrollable passion he’ll reply to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So with Paul I conclude, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Cor. 12:9).” I’m thankful for “when I’m weak, then I am strong (1 Cor. 12:10).”

Hating weakness and sin in our life is just one of the beginning fruits of loving God. But I’m beginning to realize that hating sin isn’t enough. Actually I could easily use that hate to autonomously attempt to fix myself. Hating sin just means you don’t accept it any more. In thankfulness comes dependency and humility. Thankfulness says you’re God, I’m not, and I trust you’ve got this.

To end where I started, God said to Paul, “My power is made perfect in weakness,” don’t we see that in Emmanuel? The Word of God became the perfect Savior through suffering and humility, and in this “weakness” he defeated the prince of this world with all the darkness and power that goes with him (Heb. 3:10; 5:8-10).   God made in the West humility & compassion virtuous, and brute force evil. I’m not only thankful for Emmanuel for giving me life, but I’m thankful for the weakness that ever keeps me in need of him. May you join me in this adventure of being thankful for weakness and being strong in Christ.

Life: It's Black & White

Life according to Jesus, Paul, and John is black and white.  You either love darkness & hate the light, or you love light & hate the darkness.

Where’s the middle ground in all this? Where’s the grey area? Only in our rationalizations that make us believe that “I’m a good person if I do [fill in the blank]” do you find the “moderate middle.” In other words the grey area is really just rationalization of sin.

Now while it’s clear that we’re either sons of darkness or sons of light, there’s a great subtle complexity to this black and white reality we find in the Gospel. That is, once we see and are captured by the love of God revealed in his Son on the cross and poured into our hearts by His Spirit, we enter into the now-but-not-yet tension.  We still reside in the brokenness of this flesh and the realm ruled by the prince of this world, yet we are alive eternally to the Father-Son-Spirit God (Romans 8).   And the truth is, in this place we find ourselves in, we can easily fall back into the ways of the flesh rather than follow the ways of the Spirit.

I might be tempted to go into all the ways we can equip ourselves to conquer our sinful hearts, the things we must do to become fruitful, godly people.  But isn’t that just the way of the flesh not of the Spirit? It’s the way of fear and mistrust to come up with ways of self-improvement; it’s not the way of faith and trust in God to make us good soil that produces good fruit.

When we read or hear someone preach of the Spirit’s fruit (Gal. 5) or the parable of the sower (Mark 4; Luke 8) we automatically think, “I am not good soil”, or, “There isn’t enough good fruit in my life”, and then proceed to plan a way to make ourselves just that.  But again this is the way of the flesh; it’s the way of fear, not faith.

I think, no wait, I know that until we grasp the battle in our hearts in every moment to either live by fear or by faith we’ll never be truly be free in the way Christ came to set us free (Gal. 5:1).  Once we grasp in true absolute humility and helplessness that “I cannot make myself good, improve my life for God to like me more, I am not in control of my life” – only then are we free. Not until we come to the end of ourselves can we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and feel with our hearts the words of Jesus.  Without this helplessness, we’re still bound by the fear of our flesh and love of darkness.

Where am I going with this?

Well in the last few months in my life many significant things have been taken from me, things I didn’t think would happen (unless I messed up big time, hear the fear of flesh?).  But as of a couple weeks ago something happened completely out of my control.  The United Kingdom Visa & Immigration office determined that my missionary organization did not meet the requirements to continue to sponsor work visas. This is very disruptive to say the least! And my family is feeling it as we face saying goodbye to our home and friends.

Now, as we wait, the temptation is to take our eyes off Jesus and to look to ourselves.  It’s a little easier keeping our eyes on Jesus in this sense, we have absolutely no responsibility nor control in this decision by the UKVI.  Yet we are still tempted, motivated by fear, to look to ourselves for the rescue, which leads to anxiety and forgetfulness.   Once you are captured by these motivations it easily leads to all kinds of destructive outcomes: broken relationships, depression, unwise decision that abandon God, etc.

But in a circumstance like this there’s a great opportunity for thankfulness, yes thankfulness (1 Thess. 5:18).  In our helplessness we have the incredible clarity to say to God,  “I’m not God, you’re God, and I’m happy with this arrangement.” As we fear the Lord like this in our hearts we see Jesus.  We see him as a delight to our hearts, therefore the source of our purpose, life, and help. When the eyes of our hearts are captured by him we’re guaranteed to have joy and abound in thanksgiving no matter what.

This is where passages that I’ve taught, memorized, and meditated on come to life.  For instance Romans 5:1-5, it has always been foreign to think of rejoicing in my suffering, but in the midst of a helpless situation and looking to Jesus I can truly rejoice that I have him.   A joy in suffering which leads to endurance, then to character, and then to hope, which will never disappoint.  It’s not on me to do this in a period of suffering, but it’s merely a humble response to God offering his love to my heart by the Spirit.

In all circumstances the way of fear or the way of faith, death or life, evil or good, are placed before us and our choice always reveals our greatest affections: self or Christ.

It’s black and white.

Let me leave you with this thought, a thought that I’ve been blessed with as I’ve wrestled to keep my eyes on Jesus.  How will I face the day of my death? If I fight and claw for my home, my friends, my ministry, my security and stability with fear and anxiety, then what will I be like when I face the most pinnacle moment of faith: looking death in the face?  Will I fight for the last moments of life that I have no chance of keeping, or will I look to Jesus?   I want to live free of Satan’s last grip on my life and peacefully join Jesus in the next life free from this wretched flesh.  So here’s to a life of holding onto everything loosely but holding onto the one I love with all my strength, which he powerfully works in me.

So I’m learning and here’s my invitation to all believers: look to Jesus and live!

Friendship with Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus! John 15:15 is an absolutely astonishing witness to the abundance of God’s goodness, how is it that the One in whom all things hold together wants to be my friend? I’m not just any acquaintance but a friend worthy enough to give his life for mine.   What does this say about Jesus? What does this say about his heart for those who follow him when he says: “you are my friends.”

Just like other labels for relationships, our experience in the darkness of the world can cloud how the Father-Son-Spirit God wants to relate to us. Let’s face it, friends have failed all of us and we have failed our friends. With that in mind, how do we grasp what it means for Jesus to say to us, “you are my friend”?

A good friend of ours at Cor Deo, Richard Sibbes (1577-1535), answered this question by painting a beautiful picture of friendship in general, and with Jesus specifically. Here are a few highlights from what he said about friendship. [All quotes are from Works, 2.36-7]

Friendship: united in love. Sibbes proclaims, “Friendship is the sweetness, intimateness, and strength of love. In our friends our love dwells and rests itself. Marital friendship is the sweetest friendship. All the kinds and degrees of friendship meet in Christ towards his spouse. It is the friendship of husband, of a brother; and if there be any relation in the world wherein friendship is, all is too little to express the love of Christ.”

Did you catch the indwelling nature of friendship? True friendship is a spiritual relationship, where two are in conversation, with the Holy Spirit intimately involved. It isn’t an effort for this love to dwell; rather it dwells restfully, comfortably. This we have in Jesus above all else!

Friends have the same heart disposition. “In friendship there is a mutual consent, a union of judgment and affections. There is a mutual sympathy in the good and ill one of another, as if there be one soul in two bodies. There be mutual friends and mutual enemies. ‘Do I not hate them,’ saith David, ‘that hate thee?’(Ps. 139:21).”

According to Sibbes, friends are in agreement with the things worthy of love and hate. Friends have the same ambitions in life that they must chase after together. At times it may mean holding the other accountable to that ambition, or at another time encouraging the other to keep going. It makes sense; it’s hard to imagine having this kind of friendship described above unless both were mutually in agreement that Jesus was worthy of love. Or it’s inconceivable to be a friend of Jesus while being an enemy of his Father who is Jesus’ ultimate orientation and disposition.

Friends are freely vulnerable. “There is a liberty which is the life of friendship; there is a free intercourse between friends, a free opening of secrets. So here Christ opens his secrets to us, and we to him … It is the office of the Spirit to reveal the secrets of Christ’s heart to us, concerning our salvation. He does not reveal himself to the world.”

Jesus doesn’t reveal the depth of his heart to everyone in the world but only to those who share his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:9-13). When we are united in our loves there’s a free flow of classified information.   Only our closest friends know our most sensitive top-secret thoughts or feelings. This is the case in healthy marriages, loyal friendships, and with our relationship with God. Without love, without trust, without free communication there is no life in a relationship.

Friends like each other! “In friendship, there is mutual solace and comfort one in another. Christ delights himself in his love to his church, and his church delights herself in her love to Christ. Christ’s delight was to be with the sons of men, and ours is to be with him.”

It’s obvious isn’t it? Friends delight to simply be with each other. Spending time with friends is easy, fun, and comforting. Just as we love to spend time with our friends just to be with them, so too Jesus delights to be with us, he likes spending time with us!

Friends mutually respect each other: “In friendship there is a mutual honour and respect one of another; but here is some difference in this friendship. For though Christ calls us friends, and therein in some sort brings himself down to us, yet we must remember that this is a friendship of unequals … He that inspires friendship with others will undoubtedly keep the laws of friendship himself, will count our enemies his enemies. The enemies of the church shall one day know that the church is not friendless.”

Friends treat each other as equals with full honor and respect. There’s no sense of difference or distinction in terms of equality. Obviously there’s differences, that’s what makes friendship and relationships possible and great; we complement each other. It’s not only that we honor and respect our friends, but that we fight for it. To have a friend is to have a friend who will fight for you. He will not let your name be disrespected. A friend may even fight for you when you don’t want him to, by risking relationship with you to communicate things you may not want to hear. Friends are fighters. We have this in Jesus, who gives us his honor and fights for us despite his rightful status as one who is above us.

Friends may fail, but Jesus won’t! “And as his friendship is sweet, so constant in all conditions … If other friends fail, as friends may fail, yet this friend will never fail us. If we be not ashamed of him, he will never be ashamed of us. How comfortable would our life be if we could draw out the comfort that this title of friend affords! It is comfortable, a fruitful, an eternal friendship.”

May you find in Jesus a friend whose love dwells in you, who shares the thoughts of his heart with you, who likes to be with you, who gives you honor and fights for it, and who will never fail you.

Protecting God From Himself

Have you ever heard someone answer a question about Jesus’s nature or his activities by starting with one of these two phrases: “Jesus in his divinity …” or “Jesus in his humanity…”? It may be easy to speak of Jesus this way, but it is unbiblical.  None of the biblical authors speak of Jesus this way.  Also, the ecumenical councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451 AD) did not recognize it as orthodox.

Instead of getting into the weeds and nuances of the various Christological heresies that the church has produced and rejected, let me offer possibly one of the major reasons for this continued problem—the rational notion of incommensurability.   The concept assumes God is a completely different kind of substance than his creation and so he must always be absolutely separate from it.  Just as an artist cannot share her being-ness with her statue, Greek philosophy would have us assume that the “Ingenerate” (God) therefore cannot share his being with the “generated” (creation). Yet a fundamental belief for the Christian faith is that God completely “infleshed” himself in Jesus of Nazareth, who suffered, died, and rose again.

Do you see the clash of human reason and the Bible?  Can you feel the danger of the logical notions of incommensurability?  It clouds the very nature of the Triune God and his love for his people.  But why play with such fire when there’s no biblical reason to protect God’s nature from Jesus Christ?

Let me offer one historical anecdote to answer my rhetorical question.  Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople (428-431), in one sense happily separated Jesus’s two natures.  For instance, Nestorius angrily protected the nature of God’s attributes when he responded to a simple question of why a Christian could not simply call Jesus God, “We must not call the one who became a man for us God … I refuse to acknowledge, as God, an infant of two or three months.”  Yet at the same time he insisted:

Christ is indivisible in His being Christ, but he is twofold in His being God and Man . . . We know not two Christs or two Sons or Only-begottens or Lords, not one and another Son, not a first and a second Christ, but one and the same, who is seen in his created and His increate natures. (JND Kelly’s Early Christian Doctrines, 314)

In the classical sense of “Nestorianism” Nestorius did not follow the heresy named after him, the idea that the two natures of Christ are separable.  He envisaged that the divine nature of the Word and human nature subsisted in the nature of “Christ” voluntarily.  That is, the two natures are in union through a free and mutual love, not natural or hypostatic as Chalcedon would conclude. Nestorius avoided the confusion of the two natures yet held natures as indissolubly one.  But the manner in which he spoke of this union in order to protect both natures seemed to protect God from the cross in an unbiblical fashion.

Nestorius’s Christology was formed by two concepts: (1) the incommensurability and impassibility of God; and (2) the need for Christ to be both fully divine and fully man if he is to save us.  Consequently, one must hold to a single nature in Christ for salvation but at the same time protect God from Christ.  Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that the Father suffered and died on the cross (patripassionism), but the New Testament does not allow for incommensurability because Jesus, the infleshed-God, died on the cross.  Look at Colossians 1:15-23:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,  if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

In Paul’s thought there’s no notion that fullness of the divine must be protected from the suffering that took place on the cross.  Without the God-Man on the cross reconciliation doesn’t happen.

It’s the commensurate God who shares his being with his creation in Christ that makes salvation possible.  Without it we distort the Gospel.  We need God to define his nature in the Bible.  The methodology of human logic only misshapes the Triune God and the Gospel into something that isn’t Christianity.

To hold to the incommensurability of God logically you must protect God from Jesus Christ so that you can protect God from humanity. Such protection makes it impossible to call Jesus, who was an infant, God. You cannot call Jesus, who righteously felt anger, God.  You cannot call Jesus, who wept, God.  You cannot call Jesus, who was tempted, God.  You cannot call Jesus, who prayed in Gethsemane, God. You cannot call Jesus, who died on the cross, God.  And therefore we who worship Jesus Christ misrepresent God, are still dead in our sins, and are people who should be most pitied.

Thankfully this isn’t the case, the story of the Bible is about the commensurate God who came and dwelt among us in order to raise us up to be seated with him in glory!  We worship the God whose exact imprint is seen in Jesus of Nazareth!

So the next time you hear that “Jesus in his humanity did a, b, or c” maybe a good question to follow would be, “Do you think God cannot share his nature with his creation?” Or if you’re not convinced by what I’ve said here, perhaps in your next read through of the Bible you could keep this question in mind.  I trust you’ll enjoy seeing the unprotected God.

Don't you find Jesus boring?

Boredom. It can set in for all different kinds of reasons. I remember as a kid, it was usually because what had previously entertained me became predictable. Overuse (or abuse) of that entertainment meant that playing video games, shooting hoops, watching TV, riding my bike, etc., began to grow stale.   Somehow, in some way, I had exhausted the excitement of that object to the point that I became hopelessly bored.

With no desire to get into all the cures for boredom for kids, I want to ponder why many who call themselves Christians get bored with Jesus.

You might say, I've never been bored with Jesus, how could you say such a thing?

Well, let me answer with a couple questions that I think the vast majority of us can relate to. Have you ever struggled to read your Bible? Have you ever found sport, TV, video games, your job, or whatever, easier to engage than have a conversation with God in his word? I'm assuming you could easily have experienced this at least once in your life, if not consistently. And maybe one of the reasons for this is that your relationship with Jesus has become flat from "overexposure."

Again maybe you've never said this out loud but maybe you've believed the unspoken voice that you know everything there is to know about Jesus. That somehow you've exhausted all that can be known of Jesus in the Bible.

Maybe you grew up in church listening to the same stories every Sunday. Perhaps you had a Christian education from kindergarten to post-grad. Maybe you have heard and even taught all the stories about Jesus. Jesus is boring to you because he's predictable: you know what he's going to say or do next. It is as if your heart says, "Yep, Jesus always seems to heal the sick, love 'the-wrong-kind-of-people,' and offend 'the-right-kind-of-people.' "

Or what about the feeling that you've heard the "Gospel" a thousand times so that now it has grown stale? Again, maybe you never say this, but in your heart you've thought, "How many more times do I have to see or hear about Jesus building a cross-bridge over the gap between myself and God?" Maybe you feel that the "Gospel" is just a juridical get-out-of-eternal-torment card and not much else. And then we are supposed to autonomously self-generate a life of holiness and obedience by our gratitude for this paper-thin gospel.

Is this either the Jesus, or the Gospel, we find in Scripture?

What we find is a Jesus who's utterly shocking and jaw-dropping astonishing.

In Mark 2:1-12, we find a familiar story for anyone who has spent any time in church at all. Jesus heals a paralytic who was lowered through a hole in roof of a home by four men because so many people were crowded in the house to hear Jesus teach that they couldn't get the paralytic to him. It's tragic that so many kids have been bored over and over with this amazing story and are taught that we must do whatever we can to get people to Jesus, primarily by bringing them to church.

But is this really the story or the application? I'd say no! Jesus actually is quite alien to those in the story. Not only does Jesus give of himself and teach people when he'd just returned from a road trip (how many of us would do this?), but he shocks everyone when he sees the faithfulness of the paralytic and his friends. He doesn't heal him, the assumed greatest need of a man who couldn't walk, but rather forgives his sins.

No one in that house was expecting Jesus to say, "Son, your sins are forgiven," not one of them. This is where you can imagine wrinkled foreheads, raised eyebrows, jaws on the floor, and utter silence. They were there to hear Jesus teach with authority and see a miracle. Now with the first one out of the way (they might have thought), it was clear to them what Jesus would say when the paralytic had finally reached the floor, "Stand up and walk." Instead he said, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now, the scribes were starting to make connections in their minds. "Who does this guy think he is? Only God can forgive sins, right? Does this mean that Jesus is calling himself God? And if so, what do we need to do about it?" Jesus sensing this in his Spirit, meets the needs of the skeptics. He says, "So you can know that the Son of Man has authority from heaven to forgive sins on the earth" he turns to the paralytic and says "Rise up, take your bed, and go home." It's Jesus offering the tangible to prove the intangible.

I think most of us, if we had the authority of the Son of Man in Daniel 7, the last thing we'd do would be to prove our authority with meeting a need. Instead we would send the doubters away to be hung, drawn, and quartered. Jesus doesn't do this. He meets the needs of the skeptics and the entire room is gob smacked! Then they give God praise as they watch the man stand up, pick up his bed and walk home.

Jesus redefines all the expectations of those first century people. Without a doubt, the effect would be the same in the twenty-first century. The cultural standards of today would be turned upside down and the expectations of so many in our churches would be sadly redefined.

So let me encourage you: if your relationship with Jesus has grown stale, flat and he seems predicable, then ask God to give you a deep sense of curiosity for him and for his Word. Challenge him to shock you. Plead with him to engage your deepest needs, needs you may not even know you have. Tell him you desire to find him more thrilling at any cost. I believe he'll gladly answer and you'll discover that the goodness of our God will never grow stale.

Can We Stop Saying....?

I learned quickly in seminary that there were two “Sunday School” answers that could be given to almost any question asked in class: “Jesus” or “Context.” Jesus is obvious - he could be the ultimate answer for nearly any question. But it was a shock to me to hear “context, context, context” from every one of my teachers, whether it was in a spiritual formation class, church history, or counseling. It was drilled into me that context is the key to knowing the God revealed in Scripture, living with him, and inviting others to know him in my ministry.

So it was no surprise that my professors had some pet verses that we Christians often quote and teach to new Christians that are taken totally out of context. The most popular to correct was Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” It’s repeatedly quoted as if this is a great proof-text for a small group, or the minimum you need for a church. It’s strange to think the God who promises to live in us would say that we need a couple of other people to guarantee his presence.   You don’t really need to get theological to offer a corrective. After all, the context is about church discipline, not a text concerning the power of group prayer.

Following my professors’ examples, I’ve picked two verses and sayings that no longer work if you look at the context.

“Sanctification is by God’s grace and our effort” — You may not hear these very words all that often, yet I think most Christians in evangelical circles believe God gives us some sort of toolbox called “grace” that allows us to live holy lives by our effort. When I point out that the Bible clearly communicates that we are justified by grace alone and sanctified by grace alone (with grace being the very presence of God’s Spirit in our hearts) it’s not too long before I hear something like Philippians 2:12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Context: For the sake of brevity I’ll attempt to limit my answer to two contextual observations that don’t allow for this to be the case. First, in the ESV there’s a comma after 2:12 not a full-stop. Meaning 2:12 doesn’t make full sense without 2:13, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Did you catch that it’s God who brings the desire and the effort in us to please God. Secondly, the broader context tells us that it’s not individuals Paul is speaking to in chapter 2 but rather a church living in response to having tasted union with Christ and participation of the Spirit (2:1-5). Part of this response is to be united as a body in Christ with the humility that gave birth to their community (2:6-11). So Paul tells the Philippians in a kind, fatherly voice, “As you have always listened to me, live out who you are as the body of Christ, for its God who gives you the desire and the effort to please him.” It’s not your effort to workout your salvation, but rather we are made like Christ only as we humbly cling to him for everything, even our sanctification.

“God doesn’t share his glory with any other” — This is said in order to draw people to God. It’s said to invite people to believe in God’s bigness, to see him in all his power, sovereignty, and majesty. Yet I’m not sure that this God is entirely biblical. Not to say that God doesn’t have these things as part of his being, but the emphasis of the Bible is that the character of his power, sovereignty, and glory is trustworthy and loving. Even as I write these words I know that someone is thinking of Isaiah 42:8, “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other…”

Context: It’s clear that Isaiah 42:8 says that God doesn’t share his glory with any other, so what am I on about? Here’s another example where people want to put a full-stop where there’s a comma; 42:8 finishes with “nor my praise to carved idols,” which as a poetic parallelism clarifies the previous line. In other words, God will not share his people with other gods, who the Israelites have faithfully followed instead of the LORD. It’s not saying that God won’t ever share his glory with anyone; instead he won’t share it with carved idols that his people have loved.

In chapter 42 the LORD promises to give his suffering servant as a covenant for the people so that they will no longer live for false gods. We are Christians because Jesus, this servant, came to give us God’s glory. That is the Gospel!

In John it’s clear that God gives all that is his to us when Jesus says, “All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Just in case you may question whether the “all” in John 16:15 actually includes his glory, let’s look at some of the specifics of the “all” that Jesus prays for in John 17:22-4:

"The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

So three elements of the “all” that we find in John 17 are glory, love, and union. These are what the Son had with his Father before the foundation of the world—that is, being united to the Father in love, which is called “glory” (17:5). The very heart of the Gospel is that Jesus came and died on the cross in order to purchase the gift of his glory: that Father may love us just as he loves his eternal Son.

Please let’s stop saying things that distort God’s character and his Gospel by always pushing ourselves into the context.

Wolfish Sheep

Paul’s heart-wrenching farewell speech to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20) had to have been a life-marking moment never to be forgotten. With tears in their eyes and lumps in their throats, they carefully listened to Paul’s pleas for them to be prepared for fierce wolves that would attempt to ravage their flock.

I wonder what they were thinking as Paul warned them that there were two species of wolves. Those wolves that would come from outside the flock to destroy them (like Paul had been before he met the risen Jesus), and the other wolves that would come from within in order to draw a following of their own (see most of the New Testament Epistles).

I am sure that if the Ephesians were like most elders in the church today they would have been shocked to hear of wolves coming from within the flock—wolfish sheep. Typically people in our churches (leaders or not) believe wolfish behavior is a danger from outside of the church. It is easier to assume that this predator, who is totally other, will come from a foreign place to destroy the faith with strange and foreign “gospels.”

While the outside-wolf is dangerous and has been present throughout the story of the church, the most consistent and dangerous threat to the church is from wolfish sheep. The church consistently produces heretics who bend the words of the Gospel. Often their goals are not to destroy the flock, but to “twist things” that they may gain a following.

The danger of these wolfish sheep is the subtlety of their message. Just a twist here or an addition there, and they can absolutely destroy the whole council of God. Yet these deformities are so small the counterfeit is overlooked and it is appealing, which often leads to a mass following.

What do I mean? Well just as there’s little belief that a wolf can come from within, it’s also assumed, “If there’s any false teaching going around in the church
(broadly speaking), it can’t be in my tradition.” We assume our tradition is free from these “twisted gospels.” But I’d say if it could happen with the Apostles (Galatians 2:11-14) and the early church, then it can surely happen even to the most biblically devoted of churches.

Why is this? Well, I would point to our sinful flesh. We, by nature, posses a gravitational pull that leads us away from the Gospel. We falsely believe that we are autonomous beings created to be responsible choosers. So therefore any teaching that puts the burden on our back, especially in the sense of becoming godly and meriting reward, will draw us quickly toward it. It’s natural, it makes sense, and therefore many traditions are marred by the subtle twists and worldly passions that appeal to our flesh.

Before I say more let me offer a biblical example of these wolfish sheep. Judaizers, or the circumcision party, were a major problem for the early church. This heresy that Paul addresses repeatedly in his letters (Galatians, Romans, Titus, Colossians, just to name a few) taught that keeping the whole Law had a central role in the life of the believer. That is, they believed we are justified by faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus, but for our justification to be complete, we are made righteous or sanctified by our individual effort to obey the Law. This was a gospel twist that Paul insisted must be “rebuked sharply” (Titus 1:13) because it doesn’t correspond to the Gospel revealed in Christ and received by the Spirit. Rather, the addition of the Law to the Christian life is to follow the “elemental spirits of the world” (Col. 2:20ff), to “deny God” (Titus 1:16), to be bewitched (Gal. 3:1), and to sever yourself from Christ (Gal 5:4).

In other words, to look to our own effort by following ascetic rules or regulations of “do not handle, do not touch” are indulgences of the flesh and remove you from Christ. Paul said in Titus 1:10-16, that the people who would teach these things are “insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers”, who are “defiled and unbelieving”, and therefore in desperate need of correction. Consequently, anyone who teaches that keeping the Law is a means to being sanctified not only destroys the Law and the Gospel, but also must be silenced for the protection of the church and for the salvation of their very souls.

Calvin said it better in his Institutes, “Attention to one’s own righteousness also nullifies the promises.” See, if faith is “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promises in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit,” then anything directing us away from this is disbelief.

Here is where it gets serious. How often to you think that you have to make yourself right for God to like you? How often to you think that you can make yourself more spiritual by some discipline, listening to a sermon, or reading your Bible? We have a wolfish heart that tells us that we must do something to make God love us more or for us to become better people. This is no different that the Judiazers that Paul chastises throughout Galatians.

We truly can’t do anything apart from God! It’s not that we are empowered to keep the Law by God. Rather, Christ purchased the very life and good for us on the cross that we might have the promised Spirit (Gal. 3:10-14). If anything draws us away from complete dependency on the Spirit, from walking by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, and having the Spirit produce fruit in us, then it’s another message and it’s not from heaven.

Life in Christ continues just how it started, looking to Christ for life through the Spirit, by faith. Directing our gaze, building our righteousness, or easing our anxieties by keeping any rule or Law, instead of living by faith in God’s promise that we have life in Christ, is not the Gospel.   Paul states it so much better:

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.   I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Gal 2:19-20)

May we follow the true teacher, and not the wolfish desires of our flesh, nor even the non-gospels often taught in our churches.

Conditioned God

When I got married I received all kinds of "helpful hints" on how to have a healthy relationship. Clearly some were more helpful than others, but one in particular was more dangerous than anything else—marriage is about "give and take." We’ve all heard this. Maybe we have come across reasons why it doesn’t work.

In the background of this ‘universal truth’ is the assumption that relationships are primarily contractual. That is, one party promises to provide certain benefits to the other on the basis that certain conditions are met. If either party doesn’t meet these defined conditions, then the contract—I mean “relationship”—is null and void and the deal can then be terminated. Give and take.

Shouldn’t marriage be about unconditional love? Doesn’t our culture yearn for authentic relationships with that foundation?

Well yes and yes but like the bad advice above, there’s a catch - we want to receive unconditional love but we don’t necessarily want to offer it. Because of Genesis 3 we function on the basis that relational covenant is a contract. We’re primarily concerned about what benefits we get and the conditions we need to meet to get what we want. So if someone doesn’t love us unconditionally, or make us happy, we don’t have to meet the conditions we promised.

What’s amazingly sad in all this is that humans actually want to relate to God this way as well.   We take God’s unconditional promises of covenant and turn them into conditional contracts. Think of Genesis 28, where Jacob leaves the land to escape his brother, Esau, and to get a wife who is not from the Canaanites. Before he leaves the land, God visits him in a dream. In the dream God promises Jacob the same promise that was given to his grandfather and father, which is characterized by the words “I will…” God unilaterally promises to bless Jacob, to be with him, and to bring him back to the land. And Jacob’s unbelieving response to God’s word is to turn the unconditional into a condition. “If God will be with me and keep his promises, then the LORD shall be my God.” Did you catch that? Jacob doesn’t believe God’s word but instead tells God that he has to prove it first.

Jacob isn’t the only one. Because of sin we all tend to morph any relationship into a contract with conditions. Often we project our fallenness onto God, expecting ourselves to prove our belief in him so that he might be gracious to us.

Therefore it shouldn’t be a surprise that theological systems do the same thing. For instance, in New England in the 17^th century, Puritans found themselves differing on this very subject. John Cotton emphatically said that we passively receive God’s free grace and promise, but his colleagues said otherwise:

… But to take our first Assurance to arise from the Spirit in an absolute promise only, is not only difficult for us to believe (and therefore desire your grounds) but seems to maintain, as straightening the freeness of God’s Spirit in working and destroying the comfort of many, whom Christ himself doth speak comfort unto, Matthew 5.3. etc. only we add, That God’s free grace may be revealed and received as freely in a conditional (where the Condition is first wrought by Gods free grace and not trust to, as we desire ever to be understood when we mention conditional promises) as in an absolute promise. For it is grace that works the Condition, it is grace that reveals the Condition, it is grace that makes the promise, it is grace that set on the promise; and what danger is there hereby, to a well instructed Christian of going astray from free grace?

Could I be so bold as to answer Cotton’s colleagues with another question? Which God would require a condition (even if graciously provided) in an unconditional promise? Does God really need to be conditioned to be gracious to us?

Their answer does seem to attempt to ease the tension of a God who’s a walking contradiction. You know: a God who’s one thing BUT also another, as if God has attributes that are seemingly in conflict, but are both true of him. Like the response to the 11th question of the Heidelberg Catechism, "God is indeed merciful, but also just...."

This tension does not reflect the Triune nature of God who exists in mutual relationship. The reality is that God is love and greatly delights in himself – He is a Father loving his Son, and the Son loving his Father, by their Spirit. Therefore all his actions such as creation, redemption, judgment, etc. reflect his loving Triune nature.

The walking contradiction attempts to make biblical the Stoic notion that God is primarily the “Contract God” who can only relate in a conditional contract, or as a Lawgiver. For instance, you’ll find people seeing the prayer of John 17 as a God who relates to himself in a contractual deal. So the church is understood to be the reward for Jesus’ obedience to his Father so that Jesus can have a people to rule over. This is very different than seeing the loving Son going to win a people for his Father so that they may participate in the Family of God.

I think the only one who comes to that conclusion has a God who is a “give and take” God, or a contract God, rather than a covenant God. The whole story of God isn’t give and take; it’s rather a story of the Generous Giver. It’s about the One who pursues his people with “all his heart and all his soul” (Jer. 32:41). It’s about the Father who has given us his only Son that we might be his people and He our God. It’s about the Father who has given all that’s his to his Son, so that the Son may give all that he has to his bride.

Bottom line: the Bible isn’t the story of an a-relational God who cannot relate without a condition. He doesn’t require us to clean ourselves up so that we can then be united to Christ. Rather, we are united to Christ who makes us clean. Or in other words, a pauper isn’t required to make herself a princess that she might marry the prince, but rather the prince marries the pauper, which makes her a princess. It’s all about unconditional relationship and promise as the basis for covenant, not a conditional contract.

Exclusive? Is it that bad?

For a moment picture the response of any father who hears a large bang coming from the family room late in the evening. As he rushes toward the room he hears someone tearing down the blinds and the crackling of the broken glass being walked upon. When he enters the room he's startled to find a woman sitting comfortably on the couch as if waiting for someone to welcome her. And before he can even say, "who are you?” she begins a list of demands that go something like this:

"I want to reside in your home and for you to treat me as your daughter in every way, as if I were married to your only son. But with the stipulation that I don't have anything to do with your son! I really don't like him . . . I want to live my life here."

I don't know about you, but I doubt any of us would be surprised to hear a wrathful response full of jealousy for his son.   The audacity to demand the rewards of being his son's wife without any real connection to him, even blatant hostility against him, would deserve her immediate removal. Even by force if necessary!

Another reason that we'd expect a response like this is that we understand there's only a few ways to enter into a family. We don't question that the way into a family is either by birth, adoption, invitation, or by marriage. To say it doesn't offend any of our sensibilities. Family by definition is exclusive. Some are part of your family and others are not. That's the way it goes.

With that in mind, have you ever been asked, or have you ever asked, a set of questions like this:

"How can you believe that God is good when he offers only one way to heaven? Don't you think it’s cruel to keep so many good people from entering into heaven?"

Either as the questioner, or as the one asked the question, I'm sure that the answer included Jesus' words "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and that apart from him no one can get into heaven. While these words are absolutely true, it doesn't seem to reflect the tone or the nature of Jesus' last words to his disciples in John 14.

Now in our post-modern western culture it's apocryphal to claim any views on the nature of truth and goodness that may be exclusive in anyway. The logic goes, "Truth is relative, your truth can be your truth and my truth can be mine. And as long as nobody gets hurt, goodness is relative too." Although the irony isn't lost on me - the intolerance of perceived intolerance - the context of John 14:6 may allow for a more effective method for engaging objections to the exclusivity of the Christian faith (as well as honoring the intention of Jesus' words and the nature of God).

Jesus, to comfort the hearts of his disciples, tells them that they shouldn't be troubled by his coming departure (14:1-3).   Instead, they should believe that he's going away for their benefit that he may prepare a place for them in his Father's house. All the disciples would have noticed the obvious betrothal imagery. At this time in a Jewish culture, a man would propose to a woman (which would be treated just as legally binding as marriage) and return to his father's house to build an addition to the home for the new couple. After his father approved the addition he would then go and retrieve his bride.

And Jesus tells his disciples that they should feel about the news of his departure just as a new bride would respond to her betrothal (14:28). Think about the thrill that the bride would feel as her bridegroom left to prepare a home for their new life and the all-consuming anticipation of his return. This would not have been lost on Jesus’ disciples. They should rejoice and be excited that he's leaving to go to his Father!

It's easy to see why Jesus says to his disciples that they know where he's going (14:4). As they have seen Jesus, they have seen the Father, because he and his Father are one (14:10ff). And to believe the words of Jesus, to follow his way (13:34-5), and to believe on him for life, are the very fruit of abiding in Christ. To love Jesus is to love and know the Father. Therefore, just as the Father has loved the Son, so too the Father loves Jesus' disciples, his "bride" (14:18-31).

Jesus' words then, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," make perfect sense. There's no way to enter into the relationship with the Father and Son apart from being united to the Son because the Father and Son are one. To know the Father is know Jesus. To love the Father is to love the Son. This is heaven!

Heaven is to participate, to join the family of the Trinity by the Spirit who has been in the business of communicating the depths of the Father and Son's love for each other for all eternity (1 Cor. 2).

There's no other way to reside in the Father's house apart from his Son, because they are one. Anything else, any other way, is no different than a random woman breaking through the window and demanding all the benefits of the house without any love for the members of the family that live there. Even in our post-modern western culture the exclusivity of the family remains the same. Forcing one's way into the family apart from accepted modes only leads to removal and maybe even restraining orders.