LIGHT FROM LIGHT (Nicene Creed) 12-28-09

Whatever the actual date of Jesus’ birth the depth of winter, in the northern hemisphere at least, is an apt time to mark the advent of the One who declared himself to be the Light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5). He who came to dispel darkness is almost universally remembered throughout “old Christendom” when homes, churches, and chapels are enveloped in the blackest nights of the year. A glance from the window is a reminder of the necessity and benefit of light. To the ancients, and even up to and into modern times, night can signify loneliness, uncertainty, and danger. To the traveller light affords a sense of safety and perhaps even the prospect of friendliness and the comforts of hospitality. In a natural sense the appearance of light is usually welcome unless evildoers are taking advantage of darkness as a cloak for their nefarious deeds. There is both warmth and warning in Jesus’ use of the analogy of light with reference to his person and purpose.
The creedal statement, “Light from Light”, is perhaps the principal point from which to begin in reflection upon the biblical meaning of Christ as the Light of the world, for it sums up so succinctly all that Scripture teaches about the theme of divine light. God is the source of light and his essential goodness and holiness shine forth in the brightness of his glorious majesty. His splendour is too dazzling for any creature to behold, so he reveals himself in ways that reduce the intensity for mortal eyes. We gain glimpses as he reduces his brilliance before us, and even then we bow our heads and shade our eyes, knowing that we cannot stare directly into the blazing fieriness of his nature without being blinded and consumed in an instant. Our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) and we avert our eyes from the sight and shield our bodies from the heat. We have no protection from the presence of his glory and so he approaches us wrapped in various guises and ultimately, in the Lord Jesus, veiled in human flesh to reveal himself at a level accessible to human understanding and endurance. The incarnation is a point of tolerable and poignant contact between God and man, in which we can survive the encounter and see into the character of God through his affinity with, and affection for, the human race.
Jesus Christ is Light from Light. In him we accurately “see into” the nature of God and gain an apprehension of his ways sufficiently well to know him and trust him — partially but genuinely. Jesus is lustrous with the perfection and power of God and as we gaze upon him our illuminated hearts are filled with admiration for the Lord. Looking steadily and lingeringly at Jesus is in fact a developing acquaintanceship with God, a disclosure of the secrets and actions of his “Being” that build up our confidence in him, and motivate our worship and obedience. From crib to cross Christ embodies and describes the sum of the divine attributes in a beautiful wholeness and harmony. Indeed, the sovereign and Almighty One, humble in his approach to us in his lowly birth, and intense in his love for us in his ignoble and costly death, gives us the deepest insight into his heart through the stricken victim of Calvary. Jesus is the Light from God in human form, the Torch come down from heaven to help us weave our way back through earth’s darkness and danger to Heaven’s welcome, warmth, hospitality, and safety. The Light from Light dispels our ignorance with the light of truth, tames our enmity with the warmth of his love, and banishes our sinfulness with the imparted desire for holiness. His light invades and enflames our being with the knowledge of God in head and heart.
From this knowledge of the Lord Jesus as the Light of revelation there springs the experience of Christ as the Light of hope and consolation, so aptly foretold by Isaiah the prophet (9:2): The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwell in the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.
The alacrity with which Jesus ministers to the most benighted and disheartened is demonstrated in the theatre of ministry he first chose following his baptism. He went immediately to Galilee and the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali (Matthew 4:13) the first areas of Israel’s territory conquered by the cruel armies of Assyria in the 8th century. People of God were deported and dispersed throughout the conqueror’s empire, and a pagan population was brought in to replace them. Jesus’ arrival in the furthermost north of the country was a fulfilment of prophecy as Luke, the non-Jew, recorded, “A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles” (2:32). Where superstition and despair prevailed Jesus was eager to go, characteristically hastening to where he was most needed and least expected. The light that shone in “foreign parts” upon outsiders in human estimation was not dim but great in accordance with the proportion of need and unworthiness. The reality of spiritual death was reversed and the fear of eternal death was dismissed in the gracious visitation of the Saviour. The shadow of gloom in all. its forms was chased away by the powerful and compassionate presence of God in Jesus, hence the Advent blessing, “Christ the Sun of righteousness shine upon you and scatter the darkness form before your path “. Christ is the mighty conqueror of the darkness that afflicts mankind with so many frightening spectres of disaster and death.
The darkness of which Scripture speaks is not merely the absence of light but a malevolent and evil force that opposes God and oppresses men. It emerges from Satan who sinned against light, but poses as an angel of light*, and it inhabits and engulfs the lives of rebellious spirits and fallen men. It is hostile to all that is holy and it resists light with the intention not only to repulse it but also to expel it. It is the malignant spirit of revolt against the sovereignty of God and the establishing of his kingdom. When Jesus came into our world, Light from Light, the darkness moved violently against him as John reported in his gospel, “the darkness did not comprehend it” (1:5). It did not yield or depart but set itself against the light to overcome it. Satan declared war against the Son of God, and moved those in need of grace to reject him (1:11). Evil is ever on the attack and men in servitude to the devil, would prefer darkness to light (3:19). But the light of Christ is the light that gains victory over darkness and it prevails in the gospel (Ephesians 5:8, Colossians 1:13, 1 Peter 2:9). The light still shines, continuously (John 1:5). Sinners may still come for the knowledge of God and the way of salvation. The downcast in mind may still come for consolation. And those defeated by the strength of sin within them and opposed to the ways of God may still cry out for liberation.
With the celebration of Christmas we do not halt at the birth of the Babe but move on to appreciate all that he became. His saving work began by becoming one of us, and showing that he was one with us, but there were serious undertakings to be performed on our behalf. He made amends for our sinful nature through obedience in life and death in his perfect nature. In all that he taught as Revealer, and in all that he wrought as Redeemer, he is the Light that wrests us from the grip of darkness and transfers us to the light of God’s glory in which we shall dwell and delight forever. “And into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no Cloud or Sun, no darknesse nor dazzling, but one equall light, no noyse nor silence, but one equall musick, no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession, no foes nor friends, but one equall communion and Identity, no ends nor beginnings, but
one equall eternity” (John Donne). RJS
* Satan is popularly referred to as Lucifer but he has no right to that title and is not mentioned by that name in Scripture.

BE BORN IN US TODAY (0 Little Town of Bethlehem) 12-21-08

The remembrance of the birth of the Lord Jesus is incomplete and spiritually ineffective without the personal plea expressed by the hymn-writer Phillips Brooks in his famous carol. At first sight it is a strangely worded request, seemingly a little on the mystical side or mere poetic sentiment, but it is simply another way of expressing the desire of the Collect for Christmastide with its essential emphasis on the necessity of the new birth for all those who would enter the kingdom of the new born king: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit. The ultimate intent of the Incamation is to purchase and prepare a chosen people for the kingdom of God (John 17:2) and the grand themes of the gospel are absolutely central to any biblical celebration of the festival of Christmas. This is the occasion for exploring and proclaiming the great doctrines of grace descriptive of the saving purpose and work of the One who ethbodies and applies all the redemptive mercies of God. These are wrapped up in Jesus as a comprehensive gift to all who will receive him. All the favour of God for time and eternity comes to us in the incomparable Person of Jesus Christ and in a pastoral sense, and evangelistic, Christmas is the convenient time on the church’s calendar to ponder the nature and wonder of God’s supreme gift to mankind. We move from history to the here and now and challenge ourselves and others to weigh our relationship to God and assess the reality of our profession of faith before him — are we born of him, are we children of God by adoption, are we renewed continually by the Holy Spirit? These are the urgent issues of Christmas not to be excluded by the commercial and sentimental distractions of the season. Christmas is far more than focus on the crib, and the birth narratives in the gospels, and the best of carols, immediately direct our attention to the cross• and all that it achieves for sinful men - “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call his name JESUS, for he will save his people from their sins” (Mart 1:21), “Born to give us second birth” (Charles Wesley). Christmas is the occasion to outline the whole spectrum of gospel truth and not simply to gaze into the cradle without the explanation of the unique infant’s arrival and the nature of his heavenly assignment. “Therefore, when he came into the world, he said:
‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me’. We have been sanctified though the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10: 5-10). The church calendar is a wonderful pastoral and didactic device for giving a full and balanced account of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, but the subtle danger is that each season on the calendar can be separated off, and viewed in isolation from the whole story, its content (divine grace) and climax (salvation). All the themes of the gospel are to be woven together into one glorious panoramic tapestry depicting the compassion of God in ceaseless activity through his Son, BC and AD, and now as the regnant God-Man in glory.
The believer’s concentration includes more than Christmas past and also embraces Christmas present, the distinguishing reality and experience of “Christ in you, the hope of glory “, as St. Paul expresses it (Colossians 1:27).
The new birth is a miracle, performed in time in individual souls, as much as the Incarnation, and a consequence of it. The human heart is renewed supernaturally through purification and the implanting of a new disposition and holy desires. There is not only a new principle in operation at the centre of the personality of the believer but another Person at home in the heart he has transformed. The Christ who initiates new life also indwells the Christian through his Spirit. The Spirit who regenerates also resides. The One who performed the “inside job” of re-creation, stays on to fulfil the fulltime occupation of constant renewal. The entrance of God into the life of man (The Life of God in the Soul of Man — Henry Scougal) is the equivalent of Christ being born in us. He establishes his reign at the centre of our being and takes up the reins of our personality and directs the course of our life as an internal guide. He actually abides within rather than merely influencing us from time to time from without. His moment of access is as much a real event as his birth in Bethlehem and it is as eagerly to be sought by us as the shepherds sought “to see this thing that has come to pass which the Lord has made known to us” (Luke 1:15). His birth and our new birth are to be tied together, and confirmed by faith, for the completion of a genuine observance of Christmas. Without this actuality, an experiential knowledge of Christ as Saviour, our Christmas celebrations are a preoccupation with the wrappings, soon discarded, and not the gift, a joy forever (Luke 2:10 - we remember Luther’s skilful insertion of the indefinite article at this point, i.e. “I bring you good tidings of a great Joy “, intending us to see that that joy is Jesus and not merely a transient mood).
The great Church Father Athanasius stated that, “God was made man so that we might be made God”. His meaning was that, through redemption, man might participate in fellowship with God once again through purification of his nature that makes him holy and therefore fit for union with a holy God. Born sinful, as we are, it is necessary, in order to be restored to God, that our guilty record be erased and our vile natures be changed. The Lord Jesus has accomplished the twofold work of deliverance, retrieving us from alienation from an offended God, and relieving us from the condemnation that hangs over us until the execution ofjustice on the last earth-day.
Jesus alters our person and our prospects: “Christ is born for us that we born again in him may be” (Christopher Wordsworth). The Adamic nature, which is ours from birth (Article 9), is remade to resemble the perfect nature of Jesus. The process begins through the dynamic power of God, “Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins [God] made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). New birth is a miracle of infinite might and not simply a self- generated change within the mind of man. I do not decide to be born again but begin to make good decisions because I have been born again (Article 10). But there are powerful remnants of the former nature still at work within that have to be countered and conquered only by grace, and that is why the power of the Holy Spirit, who brought about the miraculous conception of the Lord Jesus within the womb of the Virgin Mary, and who raises sinners from the tomb of spiritual death (John 11:43-44), must continue to work effectually in the hearts of believers renewing them daily. He sustains the gracious connection and communion between the redeeming God and redeemed man so “that he may dwell in us, and we in him” (BCP). Salvation is not through self-effort, much less a glibly repeated slogan based on superficial head-knowledge of biblical vocabulary. It is the stupendous emergence of a new creature through the exertion of the power of God, it is a new beginning procured by the death of Christ, and a life in oneness with the One in whose image we have been recreated (alive together with Christ). The Jesus of history — Christmas past — sovereignly and condescendingly enters our personal history — Christmas present - so that the desire of our hearts may be fulfilled. “0 come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.” (Phillips Brooks) Is this cry yours and mine this Christmas?
RJS

THE HONEST HEART OF JOHN NEWTON 12-14-08

“Indeed, if those whom I have reason to believe are more spiritual and humble than Jam, did not give some testimony that they find their hearts made of the same materials as mine is, I should be sometimes hard put to it to believe that I have any part or lot in the matter, or any real knowledge of the life offaith.
John Newton, through the legacy of his writings, is a most candid and extremely competent spiritual counsellor. Allied to a sound Reformational theology is the wisdom of one well acquainted with the sinfulness of the human heart, the ways of our fallen nature, and the ongoing struggles of the believer with the remnants of the old self. Overall, Newton is just about the best guide and soul companion a Christian could consult on the daily path. His insight and application of Scripture are masterly as a result of years-long observation of his own defective thought and behaviour, and the close scrutiny of his own anxious conscience. The expectations of the new believer, and even the more senior Christian, can often be naively unrealistic, and this unfortunate fact creates enormous pressures, huge disappointments, and sometimes even a life of habitual pretence and self-delusion in denial of internal conflict, inconsistencies, and perplexity. The notion of entire sanctification or Christian perfection (i.e. the erasure of all sinful inclinations and exemption from temptation), is not only an erroneous teaching in the popular instruction and life of the people of God, it is almost an automatic assumption that has permeated the consciousness of the church. In such circumstances the testimony of the conscience has to be muted, the awareness and admission of sin blurred through fear of personal dejection and rejection by our fellows.
The command of the Lord, and the aspiration of his folk, is to be holy and without sin or any taint of evil, and there is to be no condonation of anything that is impure or contrary to the will of God. But the co-existing reality of the Christian life is that there is perpetual warfare between the former nature and the new natur created within the person of faith by God the Holy Spirit (Romans 7). There is a gradual process of renewal in the regenerate which includes an experiential awareness of the seriousness and power of sin and an increasing reliance upon God for deliverance from its dominance and the resistance of its allurements. Through conflict within the saints of God are being educated in the helplessness of human nature and the greatness and effectiveness of divine mercy. The purpose of the internal battle is to foster total reliance upon God and the praise of his Name.
The strength, subtlety, and persistence of the old disposition are often underestimated or not even anticipated in the new convert or the ill-informed disciple of longer standing. But the point of the life of faith is to prove the power of grace against opposition and to strengthen the gifts and virtues that grace supplies. The life of godliness and the walk of Taith are strenuous, calling for energy and tireless effort in the denial of sinful, selfish desire and deed. Without a true estimate of indwelling sin and its remaining tendencies the believer is susceptible to a continual sense of despondency and the temptation to make a show of false piety. There is the dread of relentless self-condemnation and the compulsion to keep pace with the perceived and professed attainments and spiritual claims of one’s peers which, of course, may be dubious or perhaps exaggerated for the sake of acceptance or superiority within the fellowship.
Pride or shame can happen to prevent Christians from the inward acknowledgement of their frailties and failings, and sometimes from receiving the understanding and support of trusted fellow believers in honest confession and conversation. The frankness of eminent Christians such as Newton is a strong encouragement to realism in our spirituality and to the striving for avoidance of anything that is for appearances and acceptance only. Genuineness requires that we do not over-estimate or parade our spiritual attainments or deny — to ourselves
- the inadequacies and shortfalls that are present. The continual sight of these insufficiencies keeps the spirit lowly before God and modest before men. We are all encumbered by difficulties and imperfections and can never afford a contemptuous air towards others or an unsympathetic attitude to those wounded in their consciences. Any Christian may stumble at any time and we all have propensities that make us vulnerable to temptations of a certain kind, or prey to infirmities of various sorts.
The endearing admissions of Newton, far from creating negligence or laxity, console the injured and complaining spirit and excite it to firmer resolve and the quest for healing. We see that our case, when discouraged and embattled, is not unique. We share our struggles and regrets in common with many others of the same material. Consciousness of unworthiness, impotence, and culpability heightens the gratitude to God that emerges from the sense of free forgiveness and deepening dependence. There is a delicious delight in that dependence when accompanied by a sincere contrition. We really are cast upon the Lord’s compassion alone.
Part of the problem for contemporary Christianity is that we have such a shallow understanding of sin. It is viewed as simply something incidental in our lives, sporadic in our behaviour, and not as that deep, pervasive, and prevailing infection that our forefathers saw as extending through every faculty and facet of our being from birth, and which they defined as original sin, ingrained in our nature and there from the start. Total depravity does not mean that we behave as badly as we could but rather that at the core of our nature, and entirely throughout, there exists a principle of antipathy towards the holiness of God and an indomitable bias towards the gratification of our every selfish and defiled desire. Our lusts (yearnings and appetites), mental and physical, mean that we are lost to God and goodness and under the control of the mystery and mastery of evil, a dark force manipulated by our captor Satan and our own self-impelled urges for the satisfaction of our own base hearts. Sin holds us in an unbreakable grip by its own power and our preference. It drives us in a direction away from God, in defiance of himself, into depths of self-pleasing and perversion that distort every intention of creation, and result in the ugly deformation of our personalities and all that they produce.
Newton’s knowledge and description of human depravity, its proclivities and performance, is autobiographical as well as obtained form his observations and studies. It is not merely a matter of doctrine or speculation. He knows that of which he speaks from an acquaintance with his own heart that few of us have the candour or courage to share. When we truly capture a glimpse of ourselves before God we are appalled, afraid, ashamed, and anxious for rescue. That authenticity is not cultivated in this era of the church as retailer of self- improvement, self- esteem, and cheap grace. We are plagued with Pelagianism in the pulpit and the pampering of our desire for the “feel good” experience in our worship, so called. To demur is considered to be dour, but the condition of man is dire, and only the gospel in all its brutal honesty can deliver us. We need to return to the candour of “honest” John who in conversation over his sea-captain’s pipe, or with his ready pen, could so accurately diagnose the plight of our nature, as follows:
“I have such a low opinion of man in his depraved state, that I believe no-one has real sincerity in religious matters until God bestows it: and when he makes a person sincere in his desires after truth, he will assuredly guide him to the possession of it in due time, as our Lord speaks (John 6:44-45). My first principle in religion is what Scripture teaches me of the utter depravity of human nature, in connection with the spirituality and sanction of the law of God. 1 believe we are by nature sinners; by practice universally transgressors; that we are dead in trespasses and sins; and that the bent of our natural spirit is enmity against the holiness, government, and grace of God. Upon this ground, I see, feel, and acknowledge the necessity of such a salvation as the Gospel proposes, which, at the same time that it precludes boasting, and stains the pride of all human glory, affords encouragement to those who may be thought, or may think themselves, the weakest or vilest of mankind. I believe, that whatever notions a person may take up from education or system, no one ever did, or ever will, feel himself and own himself to be such a lost, miserable, hateful sinner, unless he be powerfully and
supernaturally convinced by the Spirit of God.”

RJS

THE WORD BECAME FLESH (John 1:14)

Encapsulated within these four words is a truth that is incomprehensible. The apostle John writes of the Word and yet human words cannot encompass his message. Behind his use of the term Word is the concept not only of expression but also of reason or wisdom which gives rise to divine utterance, and yet the reason of man cannot comprehend or gain the measure of the full significance of the evangelist’s statement. Here is a revelation that we can understand only in part and the more we ponder the more we realize that we are taking a mental plunge into mystery. The passage invites us to enter its message with enquiry, we become enthralled with its sentiment (idea), and then we feel exhaustion in the attempt to wrap our minds around it. This is one of the grand assertions of the Christian faith that should govern the life, thought, and worship of the believer and the church much more than it does, and the reason for its under-emphasis is that we simply cannot understand it in essence or come to terms with its dimensions. As with anything to do with the living and true God our minds cannot contain it and our hearts cannot bear the implications as long as we are dealing with human sin. Our intellects would have to be re-proportioned beyond any imaginable capacity, and our hearts totally purified, before we could hope to venture even to the fringe of the extent of the meaning of John’s confession concerning the Lord Jesus and the miracle of the Incarnation. First, there are the wonderful things he avers about Jesus that exalt him and lay human arrogance low. Second, there is the incredible report as to what this glorious Jesus did — he took our nature to himself in being born of the Virgin Mary.
The news that John enunciates puts the mind in a spin but it propels the heart into a state of joy. It is one of the foundational facts of the gospel of our hope and evidence that our God is truly good and really cares. The universe in which we exist, the lives we live, can all make sense, and all irregularities and perplexities can be resolved. Behind and under-girding everything is the wisdom and love of God. For the time being the patience of faith must await the consummation of his purpose when all things will be made plain, but John’s statement is the assurance that in the end all will be well, and in the meantime signs of the coming perfection of God’s reign in his kingdom will be observable in the great things God does for his people throughout history.
Through Jesus as the Word everything came into being. Nothing is accidental and everything will fulfil its intended end. If the vastness of the cosmos is incomprehensible to us, Jesus has it all in hand. If the myriad occurrences in time, within the realm of creation, happen to escape our enumeration and understanding, then Jesus is enthroned as director of them all. Wisdom unfailingly governs the universe, the world, and the affairs of men, and this wisdom is exercised personally by the Lord Jesus.
If creation is through him then all its secrets may be divulged by him to whomever he chooses in the various disciplines to which men have been called, and all true knowledge we have comes from him (John 1:9). Reason and its powers or recognition and receptivity of reality come from him. The mind is his gift and it is our task to use it under his guidance. All truth, science, and sense of the rationality of things come from him. In every mystery before us we defer to him and rely upon him for instruction and discovery. The Word is the Author of reality seen and unseen. His mind and will constitute the reason behind everything. His wisdom lends structure and sense to physical and mental entities that are originally good, true, and beneficial, and simultaneously we recognize that evil seeks to negate, distort, and destroy all that God has made (the darkness that opposed the Word at his coming in the persons of Satan and evil angels and men — John 1:5). The Word is the expression of the divine nature — God himself, his design, and all that he would have us know. He is the communicator of the Father’s foundational purpose and reason through intimacy with him (the Word was with God). The loftiest station is his by right (the Word was God), the universe is his possession and the theatre of his glory and government, and now, by inspiration, John dares to inform us that this Word, source and sovereign of creation, became part of his creation, his domain, by becoming flesh, potentially and prospectively elevating our nature to a status and to privileges we scorned, before we could envisage them, in our revolt in the Garden by listening to, and now continuing to heed, a false word (Genesis 3:4-5, John
8:43-47).
The Bethlehem event is extraordinary. God became man, a visitor to and resident of our own tiny planet which he made form nothing and would mean nothing in the scale of things if he didn’t endow it with the importance of being the arena in which he would display his glory as Creator and Redeemer of a unique race that he would permit to fall into absolute disgrace and then elevate to enormous dignity through grace absolutely. Man who defied God and declared war against him has been destined for exaltation to his favour in his family (John 1:12). As huge as these thoughts and facts happen to be — the vastness of creation, the greatness of the Word, the audacious wickedness of man — they can only testify to the infinite love of God and the sweetness of his condescension towards us in resolving to reclaim us.
The view of pagan religion in its polytheism, and of modem scepticism is that our world, and our affairs, and our predicament would be far too small for the Absolute to notice or care about. Polytheists approach the Absolute through lesser divinities who might pay attention to us if we sufficiently curry favour with them, and sceptiçs deny that the Deity exists. The latter ridicule the notion that the infinite One could even care about the concerns and circumstances of mankind. The stupendous fact is that “the Absolute has a name” (Lecerf), that we may call upon him, that he does provide for the human race in its need and pity us in our plight, and that he came to us compassionately in the birth of Jesus Christ, providing a rescue from our lost and perilous condition that necessitated his suffering and death at Calvary. The heart of God is so hugely kind that he undertakes to do enormous things for the little creatures he loves, and he is not remote, nor does he regard anything that he has made as insignificant. Distance and dimension are not factors in the divine determinations concerning salvation. The pagan labours under an unfortunate error in his conception of God as inaccessible, and the sceptic vainly jousts against caricatures of God and genuine religious response to him (fear, love, adoration, obedience).
Through the Lord Jesus Christ the living and true God addresses man. He is there and he is not silent (Schaeffer). The advent of the Word in the Christmas story signals the fact that God actually has something to say to us. It is an urgent word from our Creator and Redeemer calling us back to himself. We are to remember who made us and to whom we are accountable. John, who presents the Saviour to us as the Word, also describes him as the First and the Last (Revelation 1:17 -18). The ever-living Word who called us into being at the first will also declare our eternal destiny at the last, and in the meantime he woos us from our sinful estrangement through the word of the gospel (1 John
2: 1-2).
RJS

THE HUNGER FOR HEROES 11-30-08

Even the most generous estimate of human nature recognizes that it is flawed and feeble. It is subject to intrinsic limitations and marked by many moral imperfections. A candid and concentrated examination of human behaviour discloses that mankind is capable of the most contemptible and cruel conduct. The extent and enormity of the criminality of our race as recorded in history makes it hard, from a secular point of view, to entertain any confidence in humanity and any optimism for the future — ask Edward Gibbon, historian of ancient Rome*. It is not simply the dramatic manifestations of evil that are disheartening and alarming but the ongoing, everyday nastiness of ordinary human behaviour that destroys happiness and hope — look at British comedy. For all the superficial niceties and civilities of life people are just not kind to each other, except where self-interest or self-love are concemed. Only the naïve are content with the state of affairs in this world, and only they could blithely hope for a brighter future. The serious minded secularists can only become either cynics or comics seeking as best they can to alleviate the ordeal of living by satisfying the instincts of the ego and, if needs be, at the expense of others.
The biblical perspective sums up the situation with sombre accuracy. Human nature is depraved (Gen 6:5), the human heart is evil (Matt 15:19), and hatred is its manifestation (Titus 3:3). The Christian believer can only fully face these facts, and frankly admit their own condition and culpability, because of the facts of the gospel. The deepest pessimism in humankind and its destiny, the dire experience of self-despair, are transformed into radiant and joyous hope through confidence in the grace of God revealed and granted through Jesus Christ. There could be no other solution to human misery. When Christ is truly comprehended there could be none better: 0 happy fault, 0 neces.cary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer! - the Easter Proclamation. The plunge we have taken in the Fall occasions the display of the infinite depth of the divine mercy. Without Christ human life and its prospects are utterly bleak — What good would life have been to us, had Christ not come as our Redeemer? (EP). With him life is bright, beautiful, and boundless in hope and joy. Advent is the pastorally devised season for a straight look at these two alternatives: the hopelessness and helplessness of natural man, and the hope and help found only in the mercy of God.
Given our awareness of the common faults and weakness of human nature it is strange that we have the propensity to idolize our fellow human beings and idealize human nature in figures we designate as heroes, yet know are fallible and riddled with foibles. Many of our heroes are actual, whether living or historical, and we have the tendency to exaggerate their attributes and exploits. But eventually we discover their feet of clay and so better heroes are invented and become well-loved characters of popular or classical fiction, from cheap graphic novels to grand ancient epics. Our craving for heroes is so strong that our devotion becomes obsessive or cultic. It is a temporary diversion from the unacceptable facts of reality. Our heroes, being human or reflections of the human mind that created them, all too soon fail us in some way. Admiration turns to disappointment and disappointment engenders contempt. Our “gods” are eventually toppled from the pedestals erected for them. In all our depravity we oddly demand perfection of them, and standards of virtue and prowess they cannot possibly attain. It is a residual recognition of the original dignity of man and our sense of grief and discomfort at our lost status.
The hope that we shall find something admirable and praiseworthy in man is the lingering memory of the primal purpose of our creation, that is the vocation to bear and show forth the image of God. In that role there is something laudable and lovely, an innate nobility now disfigured by a perverse preoccupation with the creature rather than the Creator, the quest for own ends rather than his.
Man had a righteous beginning, a royal standing, and a lofty destiny, but all has been fouled and forfeited by deviation from the divine will, and now we vainly search for heroes to rescue us from our plight and restore our virtues (as we dimly and crassly perceive them). Man, in Adam, was the privileged companion and deputy of God. In God’s likeness, and in performing his commission, man was worthy and excellent in his being. Man, through Adam’s revolt, is now contemptible and condemned. No hero of normal Adamic descent can possibly rescue our race, restore its reputation, or reverse its doom. He could have neither the ability nor aceeptation to do so. Yet God, in his compassion, has not been outwitted by the devilish dilemma. He has sent a new Adam to restore mankind and re-establish us on course towards our original destiny. The Son of Man, perfect in his origin, nature, and intent, has come as our Saviour, Champion, Representative, Rescuer, and Righteousness to bring us out of our moral degradation and alienation from God, and back to him. Jesus Christ is our true hero, making amends for our failed assignment on our behalf, bravely and lovingly bearing the penalty in our stead, re-establishing our rectitude, dignity, and privileged status, and even enlarging those privileges beyond measure. And all this not simply by his effective action, but by an act of self-sacrifice grounded in justice and love that resulted in his death that ought to have been ours. He not only came down to share human life with us (incarnation, identification and sympathy) but also laid down his life for us (rectification, ransom, and atonement). There was not only a mission of redemption on his part, but also an outpouring of compassion from his heart. Our hero was not only courageous and competent in cool fashion, as heroes are often portrayed to be, but concerned, caring, and kind. There was toughness in his resolve and tenderness in his intent.
Our hero is scarcely recognized in the world he came to deliver. Our race knows things are awry but cannot tell why. Therefore it has little regard for the One who brings a solution. He is a hero beyond human conception and expectation, because worried and grieved by our problems, perplexities, and sorrows, we have no comprehension of their cause and our contribution. Our hero is despised because the world is ignorant of the need for his intervention, and knows nothing of his effort and the cost of his involvement.
There is urgent reason for us to speak up in appreciation and gratitude, to publish his Name, address our plight, and point to our recovery in the promises and saving action of God in Christ, the only hope for man, the only ground of optimism. We are silent because we do not have a true measure of the human tragedy through sin and the divine compassion in grace. We do not see that the human longing for heroism is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus who eclipses all our other vain heroes, excelling them in his power and virtue, and excepting himself from them in his unique purity and holiness. Our heroes are tainted, factual or fictional. They reflect our limitations and moral defects, and they inevitably bear the marks of the old Adam that doom us all. As our hero, Jesus is not only admirable for all his qualities and accomplishments, but adorable for his character of goodness and love. His power and purity redeem us to God. His power is strong enough to reclaim us. His purity -which man has lost- “re-commends” us. We come cleared of our criminality with a clean reputation, and God in his holiness is able to receive us without any condonation of our lapse or compromise of his just nature and law. Our hero worship is misplaced in men and should only be placed in the Son of Man who came to save us and to reign over us for our true happiness and permanent wellbeing. In Jesus, his divinity and humanity, our nature has been united with God, and we who are in Jesus by faith participate in the exaltation of man to co-regnancy with him (Dan 7:14, 2Tim 2:12). The Son of Man will have conferred renewed honour upon believing man by acting righteously and suffering vicariously in his stead, and Son of God and sons of God will live and rejoice in eternity together.
RJS
* “History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

HANDS ON! 11-23-08

The symbol of human superiority and success is the hand. Whatever the mental capacities of other species (and who can tell, for we are more and more amazed as research advances?) they have not mastered and adapted their environment or developed technologies in the way that man has managed to achieve. As regards the primary need for survival the hand is a most effective means of defence, and proponents of evolution note this as significant as life forms compete for nourishment. It can be clenched into a fist to deliver blows, spread out like a claw to scratch and scrape, and it can wield weapons of impact or penetration. When it comes to inventiveness the hand is the supple agent of creativity employed for convenience, comfort, or cultural pursuit. The human hand is the instrument of intelligence and the emblem of authority that God has entrusted to man as manager, manipulator, and steward of creation. Whatever our occupations, whether they be principally mental or manual, we are unhappy as a breed unless our hands are put to good use. Restless hands and idle hands are a worryand people do the oddest things to keep their hands busy in passive or publicly observed moments, from smoking cigarettes to twiddling thumbs. In spite of the prevalence of technology we frequently return to arts and crafts either as a therapy or for the satisfaction of being productive. The movement towards arts and crafts in the 19th century begun by William Morris was a Victorian reaction against modern technology in its infancy and the grimness of the emerging industrial revolution. Our hands are tools to be used in the service of God in various ways and, being made in his likeness, they represent his power delegated to us, and the creative urge he has implanted within us. God’s effective action is described in Scripture as being wrought by his hands, his personal involvement, and our hands are images of his control and contact, which we are to emulate at his bidding for his purposes. All our faculties and functions come from him and are given for the promotion of his glory. Our hands are meant to be his servants. Sin has perverted their use. Because of the Fall the hand can be the symbol of evil.
The hand is not only an ingenious divine invention that makes us more versatile than our fellow-creatures, it is also the source of necessary and even pleasurable information or sensation. The fingertips are acutely sensitive and they can give us intimate contact with the material world that is either in the form of a warning of danger or a comfort. Hands assist us in the avoidance of pain or injury and they yield gratification in facilitating contact with substances that are pleasant to the touch or objects that are beautiful. Hands establish relationships with things, persons, and other living beings. Without hands we would experience a disturbing sense of isolation from all that is around us. Our contact would be more mental and more aloof. Through hands we promote a sense of identification and appreciation. We enjoy a oneness with the physical world and develop a reverence for it as God’s intricate and interesting handiwork. In our increasingly technological world, however, we are in danger of losing our relationship with physical phenomena and activities that make us fully human and capable of expressing association, involvement, and sentiments of sympathy and compassion. Our computer controlled, almost technologically tyrannized life-style makes us less tactile and, accordingly, less tactful in relationships, and we are beginning to operate with a coolness towards each other that is efficiency oriented rather than for the joy of fellowship with others and the opportunity for service. Another great Victorian, John Ruskin, defined all professions, careers, and occupations as avenues of mutual service and not means of exploitation and self-interest. Courtesy and care towards our fellow human beings is diminishing the more we rely on e-mails and text messages, and many note the increasing rudeness and crudeness of our messages through the loss of hand written correspondence and face to face encounter that engender a greater degree of sensitivity and civility towards those whom we are addressing.
Our impersonal and instant means of communication that no longer encourage mental reflectiveness or require any creative effort of the hand have the effect of detachment. It is interesting that the computer expert, Cliff Stoll, once recommended equal time away from the computer in social contact with others for our own health, and mentioned that he used hand written post cards in correspondence with family and friends as a sign of care and affection. For consolidation of relationships we need to reach out with the hand and “sign-on” to our friendships with personally penned notes, letters, and autographs. The quest for celebrity signatures comes from the ardent desire to possess something indisputably from the hand of someone we admire. The hand is uniquely individual as is proven from the absolute singularity of our fingerprints. Our imprint or mark is not repeated by anyone else. The hand is the agent of our commitment and record of our action. It obeys the heart, and at the judgment to come our heart (desire) and hand (deed) will be examined as evidence for what has been done with our lives.
Touch, grip, retention are important and necessary procedures in life, physically and mentally, and the hand is symbolic of what the mind takes to itself. Our first grip on knowledge is through sense, which is our primary “handle” on reality. As e begin to process concepts of what is true the realm of sense can be confirmatory, hence the administration of sacraments to reinforce the truth of the gospel. Material elements confirm the elements of our faith. Physical touch, as in the passing of the peace or other forms of greeting and signs of affection, confirms our fellowship in the faith. We are people of touch. Touch is instinctive and makes a vivid impact upon our consciousness. Jesus’ ministry of touch (Matt 8:3, 15, 9:29, etc) conveyed the nearness and kindness of God and revealed his concern for the needy and the “untouchables” of society. He consorted with the shunned.
Recent remarks from a television anchor as to the pleasure gained in actually handling and smelling a newspaper, purchased for its special and collectible content, recording current events, illustrate the benefit of feeling and holding a source of welcome or necessary information. We can learn from visual or audio media, but we are assured and gratified in a special way when our hands can grip the message in printed form. A greeting card is more lasting than a telephone call. A letter has longevity and can bring enormous pleasure on each re-reading. A book is more permanent than a broadcast. Memory can be at fault and even fade. A text can be treasured always. Books become companions that can be cherished, fondled and opened at any time we desire their company and thirst for their wisdom. In a wasteful, inattentive, and throwaway age we need our books that conserve the riches of the past more than ever. We are in danger of being vain and vacuous without them. Rather than being heirs to a fortune in faith bequeathed to us by our Christian forbears we shall be “airheads” prone to he influence of any false indoctrination the future manipulators of society choose to impose. Books from the ages, that preserve the words of the sages, sustain our identity and guide the course of our future as the people of God. In reading, holding, hugging, smoothing our Bibles each day we are in touch with the tradition of sacred, saving truth — the religion of the Book, the revelation of the living God who made all that is tangible and touches our souls and teaches our minds through it. In using our Prayer Books, hymn books, and manuals of worship we have a felt grip on our history, our identity forged through the ages by the fellowship of the faithful and by the shed blood of our martyrs, and we know that our faith is not cheap, or flippant, or the product of mere 2l century fashion. Sense will confirm that we are the possessors and trustees of a precious faith that is sound and solid, to be handed on to our descendants intact (untouched by deviation or dilution — Article 20: “The church is a witness and guardian of Holy Scripture”).
RJS

ALL OF GRACE: ROOT AND BRANCH 11-16-08

“0 root of Jesse, you stand as a signal for the nations; kings fall silent before you whom the peoples acclaim. 0 come to deliver us, and do not delay.”
(“The Great “0” Antiphons of Advent” - 8” Century)
The yearning, even the impatience, for the return of Christ has been quite intense in different ages of the church — the close of the tenth century is one good example. At times the expectation wanes, at others it is more pronounced depending, perhaps, upon the stresses that the people of God happen to be experiencing. The earnest longing is parallel to the desires of the remnant folk of the former dispensation. Clinging to the promises of the prophets they kept a constant watch for the signs of the Saviour’s arrival, the great coming figure outlined to them through so many names, titles, and symbols that guaranteed the hope of divine mercy on a massive scale and the reality of ultimate redemption that would solve the problem of sin and a broken relationship with God. It is salutary for us to recognize the keenness with which the believing people of Israel hung upon the prophetic oracles over the centuries whilst we
—arepriLvilegedtotness--the-irfu1fi-lment an4 embrace the Promised One with such a full knowledge of his person and accomplishments. The faith of our Old Testament predecessors was heroic (Hebrews 11) and those alive at the birth of Jesus (Simeon, Anna, etc) were exultant with joy at his appearance. The long wait was over. The special child was welcome. Their excitement spreads to us, and now we look forward to the second coming when the composition of the citizenry of the new kingdom will be complete.
The variety of terms used of Jesus under the former, or preparatory, covenant indicate how rich the hope of Israel was, and how vast the range of blessings due to God’s people, summed up in Christ, happened to be. Those blessings have come and are apprehended by faith. Now, on an even grander scale, they are projected into the future, and we await the consummation in eternity when the work of divine restoration has been perfected. The gospel gathers the chosen people in (Matthew 24:31), and soon the kingdom will be revealed. The church of our day echoes the desires of God’s ancient people with its focus on a new dimension in which fulfilment will occur — the Day of the Lord that will close history and “open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers (Te Deum).
The event will be astonishing. The culmination of time will be the cataclysmic separation of peoples — the sheep on the right and the goats on the left (Matt 25:33) — believers will be fully accepted and unbelievers finally rejected, and all that is tarnished with evil will be banished forever. The mission of mercyto the whole eaTth will have concluded and God will receive his church, “elect from every nation “, into his presence. The King will claim his own and enclose them within his care. The sign of Jesse will be fulfilled in that all believers will have been signalled home to enjoy the Lord’s beneficent and universal rule. Jesse points to Jesus, historically the successor, on a grander scale, to David’s throne, but in actuality Jesus is the source of the significance of both Jesse and David, enjoying precedence over them because of his eternal pre-eminence. Samuel Stone’s famous hymn provides the key to Davidic theology. “The Church one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord”, and similarly the House of David’s foundation is Jesus Christ the Lord. This is illustrated in the conundrum Jesus posed to the Pharisees, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call him ‘Lord’ saying:
‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, ‘Till I make your enemies yourfootstool”?* “If David then calls him ‘Lord,’ how is he his Son?”
In point of time Jesus follows David, but in terms of his divinity, preexistence, and role in the plan of salvation Jesus enjoys pre-eminence over David. As a matter of historical succession Jesus springs from the stem of Jesse like a fresh green shoot (Isaiah 11:1), but in Isaiah 11:10 Jesus is referred to as “a Root of Jesse” meaning, as Alec Motyer observes, “That Jesse sprang from him; he is the root support and origin of the Messianic family in which he would be born . . . . the Messiah is the root cause of his own family tree pending the day when, within that family, he will shoot forth “. As root and shoot Jesus is the origin and manifestation of saving grace. He is the source and donor of new life in union and fellowship with God. Jesse and David are signs and instruments of grace. Jesus is the reality. The foundation of grace is Jesus, and saving mercy flows from him to us and he produces the fruit of grace within us. Everything is the consequence of the communication of his life to us.
Here the Isaianic images derived from plant life, of tree, stump, root, shoot, and branch, are bearers of enormous hope to individuals, churches, and nations. Where there is deadness, dryness, or decay God may suddenly and sovereignly introduce life. Into the soil or stump of death he may plant new life in a supernatural way through his infinite power that overrules and cancels the sentence of death. He countermands that sentence calling life out of dead wood, producing children from barren parents, raising living and enfleshed souls from piles of dry bones, creating children of Abraham from stones, bringing into being things that are from things that are not, substituting hope for despair. God reverses death and he ultimately defeated it in the triumph of his Son. God reigns everywhere through his omnipotence, and grace reigns in the sphere of salvation through Christ. When we are stumped by our own or the world’s spiritual deadness and indifference we need never let our spirits slump. Where Christ raises his sceptre of power all his enemies recede, including the “last one” and most daunting - death. Where grace is intended grace is invincible, and life and hope are inevitable, as Isaiah illustrates in a threefold way:
Ch 4:2 - The beautiful and glorious Branch of the Lord represents the grace of God at work throughout the whole earth bringing forth salvation and new life for people of all lands. Ch 6:13 — The holy seed represents the believing remnant of people (Israel initially, the church successively) that will survive the influence of evil and the imposition of judgment through faith in the Lord. Ch 11:1 — The Branch stands for the Messiah who will raise, revive, and rule his people through the exercise of his divine perfections in a perfect environment (Paradise).
The realty addressed through the analogies from plant life is the death and impotence of the human race in sin and alienation from God. There is no hope or help in anything human. Grace flows freely from the heart of God, is embodied and activated in the Lord Jesus, applied to and implanted in us through the work of the Spirit. God is the death-defeater and life-giver in the face of human done-for-ness. The images are appealing and revealing. They cause us to ponder and to wonder. The great truth that they display happens to be this: salvation is all of grace — root and branch — and the planting in the first place, and the fruitfulness in the second is all of God, and we reap the harvest of his goodness.
*Ps ll0:1 RJS

CONFESSING JESUS 11-09-08

The first Christian creed was very succinct, namely, Jesus is Lord. In the initial stages of the church’s life this statement was sufficient to express personal faith and admit one to membership. It was indeed, at the time, a colossal and risky confession. It meant that that the man Jesus of Nazareth was also divine and that he as the God-man had done all that was necessary to reconcile sinners to God and gain heaven for them. Rapidly, as ideas and teachings about Jesus spread, it became necessary to elaborate upon what the church believed and affirmed about Jesus. Errors, denials, and misconceptions appeared and statements of faith had to be enlarged and become more precise. Confessions and creeds arise out of necessity. They are barriers against false teaching, boundaries for the faithful in which orthodox thought can operate, clarifiers of truth contributive to genuine unity. They fulfil a protective andpastoral function and provide guidelines and checks for accurate proclamation. Statements of Scripture alone are insufficient as indications of orthodoxy and integrity as they are capable of being construed in deceitful and idiosyncratic ways that deny the tenor of biblical doctrine as a whole. A proposition from Scripture or a position in theology needs to be explained to ensure its correctness. When the Lord Jesus is confessed “that Jesus” needs to be described. There are many personal views of Jesus that are seriously modified or modelled according to individual preferences and the sweet and saving Name becomes a mere label attached to false content and aberrant conceptions. Jesus becomes a construction of human invention and imagination, indeed “another Jesus” unlike the Son of God and Saviour presented to us in the witness of the Apostles. The historical Jesus becomes separated from the Jesus of faith, and the opening is created for the Jesus of bogus mysticism, rampant superstition, or the distorted views of Jesus adhered to in the sects and cults that plague the Christian world. Jesus becomes a code word for ideas, experiences, emotional states, and spiritual and religious notions that bear no relation to the Christ of the Bible. Thoughts concerning him become unchecked and the Jesus of revelation becomes “my Jesus” in a dangerously subjective or heretical way. The Name and nature of Jesus have titles and attributes, and the Person of Jesus has assignments to fulfil, and the true Jesus is not presented or perceived unless these are identified. We must know and confide in the figure portrayed in the word of God and not the figment of human imagination. Many discussions concerning Jesus and many doubts raised about him scarcely approach the reality of the One we encounter through the sacred text. It’s as if folk focus upon another subject, a substitute for he who has come as God in the flesh who made atonement for sin. Lies and misunderstandings abound. Again, the real Jesus has to be identified and described and our faith in him has to be tested by the evidence of Scripture. One significant scholar has warned about, and succumbed to scepticism because of, the tendency to find a Jesus in our own image, who conforms to our own presuppositions, or those of our culture. Care must be taken in our search for Jesus and our speaking of him. This is why a confessional stance is essential, It must present features with which others may conscientiously concur after their earnest reflection on the biblical testimony, which has to be considered comprehensively and not selectively. Feelings and fancy are no substitute for informed faith that has to give a reason for the convictions it holds. Proof of the truth has to be provided. It is not enough to express sentiments in favour of Jesus, such as “I believe in him” or “I love him” in order to be accepted as an authentic advocate of the gospel, for the questions inevitably arise, “Which Jesus? What do you believe? Why do you love him?” The answers may well disclose faith that is phoney, doctrines that are fallacious, and a Christ that is counterfeit, or even the product of religious syncretism. There are many versions of “allegiance” to Jesus, from various sources, abroad in today’s religious climate. Novelists, philosophers, and adherents of other faiths all subscribe to ideas about Jesus that do not accord with concrete biblical reality.
John Newton, writing to Thomas Scott, recommends statements and confessions of faith as the only defence against the intrusion of false teaching. “The Socinians, for instance (these were deniers of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the fact of salvation purely by grace, and much else*), would readily subscribe a scriptural declaration of the high priesthood, atonement, and intercession of Christ (while they are allowed to put their own sense on the terms) though the sense they maintain be utterly inconsistent with what those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit learn from the same expressions.” Mormonism, whilst also denying the tnunity of God, the uniqueness of Christ, the true nature of the atonement, and salvation purely by sovereign grace, proselytizes very effectively and plausibly by speaking of Jesus in terms of intimate personal knowledge of and fellowship with him that would be quite winsome until the erroneous doctrines to which they specifically adhere are investigated. Additionally, whipped up religious emotion can aver things that are not carefully thought through or sincerely adopted as a matter of genuine conviction. In his own lifetime on earth, for various reasons, crowds eagerly gathered around Jesus, and just as quickly dispersed when the terms of the gospel were discovered.
It is not simply the Jesus of personal preference who can be confessed, or the Christ of doctrinal inadequacy and false teaching who can be embraced, that are problematic, it is also the attitude of Christ plus or Christ minus prevailing in the mind that neutralizes the possibility of genuine saving trust. The dangers inherent in the new perspective on Paul, and consequent notions of law keeping and covenant faithfulness (human performance) contributing to salvation, would be entirely eliminated by going back, in the first place, to the teachings of Jesus himself, his sharp disputes with the Jewish leaders, and the centrality of his atoning work to human rescue and recovery. Anything that suggests “Jesus plus” (the addition of human effort or qualification to his subsitutionary sacrifice and merit on our behalf) is serious misbelief and a distorted presentation of him. Anything that detracts from his divine status, human perfection, and saving efficacy i.e. “Jesus minus “, is a false confession of Jesus and to be repudiated.
Any acknowledgement and confession of the Lord Jesus must be an affirmation of his nature and Person as described in Scripture and an acceptance of all that he has accomplished as our Saviour. Person, worth, and work must be avowed and these can only be verified by an explanation of the meaning of Scripture that accords with the historic conviction of the faithful people of God. We are a community of truth and only possess real unity in the truth — the teaching of the Holy Spirit preserved in Scripture. There is no disagreement between word and Spirit. The mind influenced by the Spirit will assent to the sense of Scripture and possess some capacity, however rudimentary, to explain it that will validate a true confession. Folk intent on deception or destruction in the life of the church, or who are disposed to disturb its tranquillity either knowingly or by undetected force of habit, are capable of much craftiness in constructing their statements of belief, concealing deviations and smuggling alien conceptions into the thought of the believing community. Faith in a formal and personal sense needs to be checked by reference to Holy Scripture and the deliberations of God’s people conserved in the classic creeds and confessions that have achieved a reliable consensus.
In the early church, with the rapid spread of dubious doctrine, letters of commendation became necessary so that a bond of trust could be established between teachers and congregations. Subscription to sound confessional formulanies of faith is our contemporary version of the necessary letter of certification.
RJS

THE LOVELINESS OF THE LORD JESUS (You Are Fairer Than The Sons of Men: Psalm 45:2) 11-02-08

Whatever the believer’s state of mind or spiritual condition in coming to Holy Scripture there is one unvarying constant in his appreciation and appropriation of what he reads, and that is his sense of the loveliness of Jesus. Scripture is interwoven with numerous themes and the eye and intellect follow many trails as they survey the sacred text, but there is one motif that always arrests attention and moves the heart and that is the attractiveness of the Saviour. Revelation rises to its highest register and reaches its sweetest notes when it expatiates on the Person of Christ. There is something sublime and serene about simply gazing upon Jesus and contemplating who he is, and then, as we move on to reflect on all that he has done, our hearts are filled with wonder, and we are compelled to worship, adore, and trust. Our squalid selves are lost, and souls uplifted, in the views of Jesus afforded us in the word of God. Whereverhe is portrayed we pause to admire. The realities of hiiiiãjesty and mercy transfix us. The excellence of his character towers above us and we look upwards in amazement. His divinity causes us to joyfully acknowledge him as the everlasting Lord, to delight in his dominion, and to confide in his sovereignty. His perfect humanity, righteous and compassionate, draws us to him as our companion, sympathizer, and support along the perplexing pathways of life. He is at the same time lofty beyond our estimation and lowly beyond all expectation — infmitely above us and immediately accessible to us. He reigns over all things in unique and awesome splendour and yet he is near as friend and elder brother. He is absolutely supreme yet always at our side. We are to fear him, and at the same time feel the deepest affection for him. It is hard for us to hold all these concepts concerning him together, and to see that seeming opposites are entirely compatible in his precious and incomparable Person.
Jesus is disclosed to us in the offices he fulfils and the tasks he accomplishes, and the prophets in their turn intimate his prospective roles in his future undertakings. A forecast Figure of infinite nobility and effective ability is coming to solve the plight of man and reconnect him amiably to his Master and Creator. The range of Jesus’ responsibilities as Redeemer, accepted so willingly and lovingly, is lengthy, and the prophets touch so eloquently upon each one. Two streams of prophecy thread their way in parallel through ancient Israel’s hope, the promise of the proper man (true man) to put our race at rights with God by making his will known to us and in making amends on our behalf (the successor to Moses predicted by him, and necessitated by our breach of Mosaic law), and the pledge of a divine Rescuer fully able to save us from our predicament and solve the problem of our sinful separation from our God occasioned by our guilty record and evil nature. His honours are intimated, his humiliations indicated, and we marvel that the Prince of Glory condescends to lower himself to servant-hood, suffering, and sacrifice on our unworthy behalf. Messiah, Mediator, and Monarch are successive titles that describe the progressive stages of Jesus’ mission for us, and his great work is summed up in the familiar threefold ascription Prophet, Priest, and King. But there are other names and images employed by the spokesmen of old that make the Lord Jesus more poignantly precious to us and these teem forth from the pages of the prophets and endear him to us as we recognize which aspect of his saving action they represent, e.g. Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), Son of David (Isaiah 9:7), Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53), The Lord our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6), Son of Man (Daniel 7:13), etc.
There are those references to our Redeemer that are particularly tender and affectionate that approach the category of romantic language and which surpass the strength and intimacy of any human bond, especially between the most committed of lovers, mutually captivated man and woman. Jesus stands out as the most desirable partner and companion of all. Love in courtship and marriage happens to be a true but dim image of the delight, enrichment, and permanency of union with Christ. His beauty and appeal is distinct from all others, and all allusions to human attractiveness and relationships are only faltering steps towards and feeble suggestions of the rapture that is ours in knowing him. Surely marriage must cease in heaven simply because each soul there is desirous of being wedded to Christ alone as foremost and firmest love, and all satisfaction is found in him. There can be no rival and others are loved through him and in him. Meanwhile, on earth, his overtures and invitations to us come in the form of overwhelming attraction that sweeps us to his side and into his embrace: “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds” (John Newton — based, incidentally, on Song of Solomon 1:3).
The accolade expressed in Psalm 45 is the compliment of a royal bride paid to her princely husband as they anticipate or meet for the marriage ceremony. It is not a distant, cool, and calculated assessment of pleasing appearance, but a warm, emotional, heartfelt surrender and self-giving to her suitor’s wooing and winning charm. She has been conquered and comes to him eagerly. It is an apt nuptial expression elevated to the purpose of singling out the Lord Jesus as alluringly beautiful beyond all others — as God in possession of divine perfection; as man representing sinless human perfection in every virtue. It is an apt response of the believer to the undeniable loveliness of Jesus, “My lover is mine andlam his” (Song of Solomon 2:16 & 6:3).
If the Old Testament extols Jesus in anticipation of his advent and all that will be revealed as a consequence, the New Testament presents all his features and attributes as they become manifest in actuality. Eyewitnesses attest to the glorious worth of his character, teaching, and action on view for all to observe, and which they discern through the fair-mindedness of faith. Everything about Jesus displays his winsomeness, kindness, rectitude, and purity. He moves among men with unruffled dignity and unequalled goodness of character and conduct. Where there is suffering and want he exercises compassion and concern. Where there is wrong he exposes the crime and convicts the culprit. Where there is hostility and opposition he maintains unfailing composure, and expresses wisdom far superior to his enemies that confounds and enrages them. His very deeds and demeanour evoke the hatred of wicked hearts that prompt retaliatory behaviour in sharp contrast to the holiness he unvaryingly exhibits as the Son of God. In every situation he is exceedingly admirable, without fault, calmly carrying through the purposes of his Father to satisfactory completion in either the exercise of divine power, or the endearing meekness of humble obedience. He alternates authority and submission that combine to witness to the might bestowed upon him and the mildness that is within him. He is strong but not overbearing. He is tender but not a soft touch. He is to be revered and loved. John sums up the mission and message of the Lord Jesus in his vision recorded in Revelation and there we see the traits of the Lion and the Lamb in the Victor who has so successfully routed his foes and rescued his folk with skills that are unequalled in spiritual warfare and spiritual restoration.
Reading the Bible with a quest for the portraiture of Jesus in mind is a transformative exercise. It is a search for the Beloved and by divine grace a series of trysts with him.
RJS

October 26th, 2008 CERTAINTY AND CERTITUDE

The American comic Shelley Berman used to perform a tortured routine based on the character of Franz Kafka vigorously interrogating himself as to “how he knew that he knew”. Certainty is something we crave but many counsel that we are better off and better behaved without it. It is perceived as the root of tyranny and foundation of dangerous fundamentalisms of every hue. Uncertainty, some claim, is a virtue cultivating modesty, kindness, and tolerance. Others allege that certainty is contrary to faith, that it breeds prejudice, and precludes mental openness to the adventure of quest and discovery in the matters of mind and spirit. It would seem commonsensical to conclude that the yearning for certainty within human nature indicates a legitimate need, and that there are “good” certainties and “bad” certainties, and that the certainties we cherish warrant checking out.
Anthony Storr, the recently deceased and highly commendable British psychiatrist, alleges that in the main our most deeply held convictions are formed in the subconscious and rationalized when they reach the conscious mind. Our inmost fears and desires shape our preferences, principles, and prejudices. What we inwardly prefer scores positively and determines how we evaluate evidence, and what we disapprove deep down we deem to deserve a negative rating. The examination of issues of fact and reality is already partial and the process of much argumentation is therefore futile and flawed, and possibly often furious because much of our sense of identity and relied upon perception of the world (what is normal for us) is based on the outcome. We are not “disinterested” investigators because we happen to have a vested interest in the results. We do not wish to be demolished, It is apt that the Cranmerian liturgy for Holy Communion begins with the plea for a clean heart so that the purified worshipper may be enabled to love God and consequently assent to the truths revealed about him that make him majestic and adorable. The word of God has a cleansing effect if the Holy Spirit effectually applies it to the recipient.
It is amusing and sometimes maddening to witness the “spin” that opponents in a debate apply to the material before them. Bias, delusion, and dishonesty prevail to such an extent that the conclusion is often unsatisfactory and opinions hardened, each side claiming the victory. Nor is sincerity a factor in weighing the truth of any position or proposition. Sincerity is subjective as is certitude. Certainty has to emerge from self-evident facticity or reliable authority. Radical scepticism will persist in doubting everything. But a common sense approach will settle for the existence of indisputable facts (e.g. a blow to the head inducing shock and pain is a pretty convincing occurrence) and is inclined to accept accurate information from an expert and trusted source (information that proves itself both by logic and confirmatory experience).
Self-questioning and self-examination are necessary because the self is “set up” to agree with or approve of that which is congenial to its predisposed inward leaning or inclination. We have subconsciously decided what suits us and in a subtle way already resolved as to what our eventual finding shall be. Affections, good or bad, assumptions true or false, have predeternined what our verdict will be. In natural affairs we are already victims of inclination (affections) and choose according “to taste” and temperament. In spiritual matters we are impervious to truth until the perversion at the root of our fallen nature is removed (1 Corinthians
2:14).
It is striking that in religious controversy all sides profess sincerity, a sense of truth, and worthy motives influenced by moral considerations and pious love. Particularly at the Reformation both Catholic and Protestant claimed to be loyal to the faith and devoted to God. Whilst dishonesty and hypocrisy are always in play in human disputation there is no need to doubt that many of “the better” disputants in the 16t11 century (Catholic, Protestant, and sectarian) were equally and honestly convinced that they were on the side of truth and they willingly endangered or laid down their lives in its cause. The issue at stake is, can truth be ascertained and error identified, is the latter due to misapprehension, self -deception, or judicial blindness resulting in captivity to delusion? The alarming fact is that we are each susceptible to error, and continue in it to some degree even after enlightenment received from word and Spirit. We may still waver or wander and we stand in constant need of the monitoring of heart and mind, for the allurements of sin, self- interest, and pride can cause us to stray from the path of truth into the ways of physical, material, or intellectual gratification. The desire for experimentation, a fascination for the novel, and anything that exhilarates the mind or senses in a pawerful way can cause us to deviate from righteousness and truth, and accordingly accuracy of comprehension and conviction become expendable. The adoption of heresy, a frightening term and a serious situation for mind and soul, emerges from something so apparently innocuous as the simple exercise of our own choice over the tradition of revealed truth and the consensus of the faithful. It is a gradual drift commencing from a differing personal opinion that ultimately becomes a serious obsession that allows us to produce an alternative version of the gospel. Pride strives for distinction and originality that sets the self above and apart from the “common herd” of the community of faith. Self-elevation, tempting to us all, creates the desire to be a member of the elite, the cognoscenti, who have special access to knowledge unavailable to the ordinary believer.
Our inbuilt, inherited predisposition to error calls for a merciful ministry of radical contradiction from the word of God and the work of the Spirit. We preconceive the teaching of Scripture and the church in ways that suit us, make us comfortable, and confirm what we have already decided to “be right”. We remodel revelation for our own convenience. A true and loyal ministry of the word has to emulate the commission entrusted to Jeremiah, “I appoint you to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant” (1:10). The process of demolition has to be thorough before the construction of true faith and piety can proceed. In establishing genuine religion among the Cretans, Paul instructs Titus to rebuke and reprove as the necessary clearing of the way for genuine faith and godliness (1:13, 2:15). To Timothy Paul writes, Correct, rebuke and encourage
with great patience and careful instruction” (2Tim 4:2). The ordination services of our own church repeat the same exhortations. John Calvin observes, “To assert the truth is only one half of the office of teaching. . . except all the fallacies of the devil be also dissipated”. The exposure of error is not negative or ill intentioned but a rescue attempt expressed in the vein of the following petition from the Litany: May it please you to bring back into the way of truth all who have erred and are deceived”. Identification and reftitation of error is not to be egotistical and cruel but restorative and an act of reclamation facilitating renewal of mind and heart. It is surgery designed to preserve life and protect the perpetrator and the church in a bid to foster unity in truth with all its wholesome evidences and effects.
Certainty of conviction is gradually arrived at through a God-wrought comprehension of the clear statements of Scripture in a manner that is consistent with immediate context and the rest of the canon. It is rendered more and more firm through prayerfully honest and patient examination and interrogation of the text, in humble reliance upon God and the invocation of the influence of the Spirit of God. The essential saving truth of Scripture will eventually elicit the confession, “I know”, for it is the witness to the truth in and about Jesus who himself personally persuades the conscience that the testimony of the Bible is reliable. Assuredness is his gift. The Indweller of our hearts engraves his impression upon our hearts and it is from the core of our being that our confidence is lodged in the word of God. We become as certain as it is humanly possible to be, in meekness and without arrogance (Luke 1:1-4).
RJS

October 19th, 2008 MASTERY OVER THIS WORLD (Ephesians 6:12)

A recent theological question posed to candidates for high office concerning the reality and scope of evil revealed the inadequacy of mere politics to diagnose or deal with the fundamental dilemma of the human race. Evil is not simply a matter of social conditions, poor policy, or dangerous militarism but the toxic condition of the human heart (Jer 17:9, Mk 7:21-23). Even we who profess Christianity have little idea of the depth, power, and prevalence of evil; its source, influence, and deadliness. Glib references to the divine sovereignty. omnipotence. and victory can cause us to be very superficial in our apprehension of evil. and casual in our condemnation and avoidance of it. If we short circuit the process in our mental and moral grappling with the problem of evil we fail to see the wisdom and strength of God in its defeat and removal and our gospel message becomes trite, resulting in faith that is slight. To appreciate the redemptive power of God we need a proper estimate of what it is that we have been redeemed from. the dominion of evil that held us in its grip, the degree of wickedness that ruled within our will and ways, and the peril to which we were exposed until liberated by the “stronger man”.
We do not. of course. fixate on evil to the extent that we succumb to gloom and pessimism, eventually yielding to fear and what amounts to superstition (perverse worship) in terror of the tactics of the evil one. But we do candidly acknowledge what Scripture tells us for our own safety and for a proper participation both in the protection that God provides for now, and the ultimate glorious conquest. the celebration of which is in prospect at the conclusion of history.
Notions of cheap grace. or shallow conceptions of grace. are the outcome of inadequate views concerning the seriousness of cosmic rebellion against God and the gravity of sin. Our sense of the dimension of the pre-mundane revolt against God, the disaster of the fall of our first parents. the effects of original sin, and the destructiveness of sinful living scarcely impinge upon our daily consciousness, and accordingly the divine act of rescue through Christ is not seen for the massive undertaking that it happens to be. Evil is permitted to play itself Out and affect our lives so that we might comprehend something of the grandeur and mightiness of the divine endeavour in resolving the problem of evil and extracting us from its control and consequences. Christ as Victor. Champion. and Deliverer will loom large before our eyes. and appear wonderful, adorable, majestic, and beautiful in proportion to the extent that we understand the size of the assignment that he undertook through the phases of his ministry from incarnation to ascension. The Warrior of Righteousness, with infinite love in his heart, released us from captivity to Satan, servitude to self and eternal separation from God by powerful exertions and humble self-offering and, by strength and strategy he routed and destroyed the enemy, assigning him to everlasting humiliation, confinement, and punishment. But in the meantime certain facts need to be noted for a full awareness of the course of history and the bewildering occurrences in our personal lives.
Evil is not simply present in our world through exceptional personalities and events. It is not simply a disturbing factor in our own natures that manifests itself occasionally. It is a dominating force permeating every individual, polluting every activity, affecting every entity we can imagine, influencing every enterprise that human kind ventures upon. It is universal. It underlies everything, is increasingly obvious, operates at all levels, and has this world under its subjection. The believer discerns its actuality and activity the more he is aligned with the perspective of God from the vantage point of his word and the lenses on life it provides. Our souls and their environment are darkened and directed by sin. It is a grim reality that human nature tends to ignore when it can, underplay when it sees it, ridicule when it recoils in alarm. We Christians do not regard evil in the way that we should. We resort to pietistic escapism and sentimentality, underrating its presence and power and our own complicity vvith it, or its drastic repercussions in our lives specifically and human experience generally. We do not detect causes or descry effects with accuracy. Things are regarded as a matter of happenstance or fortune, good or bad. We do not see the will of God, the wiles of Satan. and the waywardness of man in day-by-day occurrences, the interplay of powers. divine, demonic, and human. Our native rationalism crude or sophisticated offers an alternative explanation to the one outlined in the Bible.
Perused thoughtfully. Paul’s description of what organizes all that goes on beyond normal human vision is startling and easily dismissed by those who deny the supernatural or entertain cautious reserve. The latter approach is understandable because of the excesses to which some minds and temperaments go in their recognition of and deference to spiritual phenomena. This is no area for undue fanaticism or fear on the part of the people of God. This is information or intelligence about the enemy that the Christian soldier needs to know (Eph 6:10-20). It is accompanied by adequate measures for our defence, and protection is assured by the power of God who is indisputably supreme in every circumstance of our conflict. Panic is not the order of’ the day, but courage and perseverance in a war that has already been won with the guarantee that every believer will surely overcome the enemy and his assaults in the end.
Paul. like John. describes our world as dark (Eph 6:12), dark in the sense of ignorance of God and his truth. but dark also in its implacable aversion toward God. It is so rarely appreciated that human nature harbours a deep hostility and hatred toward God and all things holy (Rom 8:5-8). We are not only alienated from him we prefer the separation and sustain it by a resolute spirit of outright rebellion. We have allied ourselves with the evil forces that Paul mentions, we are under their thrall, and revel in the revolt. It suits us and we desire no other. Darkness as a spiritual condition is not simply defined by the analogy of the absence of light and colour in the physical realm. It is revulsion for and repulsion of anything to do with God. It is a declaration of war in both the spirit and human sphere without relent or regret. And that is our predicament. We are helplessly opposed to God by inbred, inherited inclination (original sin) and such a proclivity must prevail unless there happens to be some radical intervention from outside which alters the bent of our nature (regeneration, thankfully).
Paul avers that the day” is evil i.e. the time-span in which we live on earth with its varying degrees of the intensity and manifestation of evil, alternating from when moments or seasons appear to be relatively calm to acutely criticai. Space and time are the theatres in which evil operates and its concentration is centred upon the human heart turning it in any direction it dictates.
But evil is not simply a principle that affects or influences us as an ever present factor in our existence. It emanates from a vile and superior personality who has gained control over us through the invasion of our persons and who holds sway over all the tendencies of our being. Hearts once open and yielding to God are now occupied territory (cf Bunyan’s Holy War) and in that sense Satan is called “the god of this world” (Jn 16:11, 2 Cor 4:4). He is the tyrant who reigns within our nature driving our wills and wooing us to the wickedness we have also come to desire freely. Our volition steered by perverted affections is not only pressured by’ our evil master. hut depraved in itself so that we are wholly and entirely complicit with what he commands. Our servitude to him has our total consent and so our bonds hold us with double strength (persuasion and preference). We are not free in the moral sense of the word, and nor do we want to be. This is the baleful consequence of our darkened minds and defiled hearts. The offer of the removal of our shackles meets with our steadfast refusal (in 1:5. 3:19-20).
Darkness, devil, demons, depravity ensure that by nature we are under the dominion of evil. It encloses and energizes us. It influences and inhabits us. It prompts us and possesses us. And therefore our situation is dire. The god of this world goads us into sin and yet we go to it eagerly. Twin engines of evil drive us on our reckless course to eternal death. Our destruction is inevitable unless there is some remarkable and merciful intervention. And this is the essence of the gospel. God in Christ has intervened for our rescue. A deliverance from Satan and self has occurred in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Satan’s era of darkness has been terminated. It has been permitted ‘an hour” (Lk 22:5 3), a limited period, to do its worst so that God and good may gain an obvious and glorious triumph and God’s power be revealed in kindness that succeeds in melting the adamant heart (Collect for Trinity’ II). The devil’s vicious sifting of human hearts and lives is allowed in order for God to match his restorative grace to our frailty and failure (Lk 22:31). Satan is not only active and mischievous by divine permission but he has to apply for it (Job 1:6ff). His bullying and bluster are a pretence of power. He functions by licence only and has no real authority of his own. He is a trickster, tweaking, distorting, and destroying what is not his own, a thief, murderer, and liar, a counterfeit and fraud, whose doom is sealed and deceit exposed.
But in the interim between the Saviour’s victory on the cross and the Day of Vengeance when evil will be banished completely and forever we need to keep in our remembrance and prayers the facts of our dark world where blind men do the bidding of their god who makes them rebel and rage against the authority of heaven thus ensuring that our time here is constant exposure to evil until God himself breaks in, breaks our shackles, breaks our obdurate hearts, wrests us from captivity, effectually calls us “out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9), and sets us on the path of life as those “who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (2 Peter
1:5).
RJS

DIVINE SUPPLY October 12th, 2008 (Proportion and Portion)

The goodness of God is what the enemy of our souls would have us most doubt. As a liar and opponent of the Lord the fallen archangel would impugn his perfect character simply to take pleasure in maligning the divine reputation. When lies and slander are abroad we know that the evil one is about and active, for he is the source of lies and industrious in spreading them. Part of our rectitude as believers is to ensure that we are not agents of untruth and cruel calumny, whether consciously or inadvertently. We have a tendency to pick up rumours and opinions too hastily and increase their dissemination in dangerous ways. Pace is important in life and we can at times be too slow or too fast. The speed at which we operate needs to be regulated by the Spirit of God through prayer and sober reflection. Satan is quick to sow doubts and suspicions about God, which was one of his tactics employed in the temptation of the Lord Jesus. The insinuation of “if’ into our minds can rapidly establish a firm negative and we form dim views of our God. We fail to believe in his open —handed generosity and doubt him as the ready source of supply for all our needs, spiritual and physical.
Scripture portrays God as abundantly and indiscriminately generous. “He makes his sun iHe upon the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt5:45, cf Ps 104: 10-115, 21, 27-28. Acts 14:17. Rom 2:4). We are invited and encouraged to seek his blessings, and warned that we are deprived because we fail to lodge our requests (Yet you do not receive because you do not ask. James 4:2). With these sentiments the hymn of John Newton is in accord: Come my soul thy suit prepare: Jesus loves to answer pray ‘r; He himself has bid thee pray, Therefore will not say thee nay. Thou art coining to a King; Large petitions with thee bring; For his grace and power are such, None can ever ask too much.
In terms of proportion the goodness of God is infinite. It cannot be in any way depleted or exhausted. It is as immeasurable and unlimited as God himself. God has, and is, within himself a wealth that can never be diminished. It has sustained all being since the dawn of creation, and we can readily observe that his kindness is not meagre nor his character parsimonious. In many ways we see that his provision is lavish and results in a surplus of supply. He bestows gifts not merely for sustenance but in order that we may richly enjoy his bounty. Of course, when in prosperity and good fortune, we offer our gratitude. When making our requests we ensure that we are seeking the satisfaction of need and not greed, and we defer to his sovereignty to administer or withhold his benefits according to his wisdom and our long-term spiritual wellbeing. God’s promises are conditional upon his will and not our wants, and the statements of Scripture cannot be construed in the sense that heaven is a huge ATM machine doling out benefits when ever we depress the right keys. Prosperity promises are largely prospective and designed for post-temporal fulfilment in the eternal kingdom. Confirmatory instalments may be granted here (the Spirit himself is a down payment or pledge) and in this iife many aLGnd’s best saints have known the constraints of material poverty and discomfort (e.g. Archbishop Edmund Grindal, Bishop Joseph Hall & Thomas Scott). The intimations of proportion and the vastness of God’s goodness suggest possibilities that we are to seek in confidence knowing that the precise outcome is at the Lord’s sovereign disposal that we are to accept with contentment.
On the one hand in the word of God we are told that the resources of the Lord are superabundant and in the extremities and emergencies of life this fact uplifts the heart and quickens hope, for God may help if he deems it best. The portrayal of the Promised Land as a “land of milk and honey”, like other passages, is an intimation of the absolute blessedness and bliss of the Messianic kingdom where want shall be unknown and contentment complete. The two gospel accounts of the feeding of the thousands with much left over are demonstrations, again, of God’s countless benefits bestowed upon the citizens of the kingdom who rely upon God’s continuous supply and can affirm with the psalmist, “1 shall not want” (23:1). In an ultimate sense those who trust in God will enjoy his sufficiency and feel no lack. The flow of his benefits will be continuous and overwhelming and our capacities will be enlarged to receive more and more. In the most prudent fashion the kindness of God to his chosen ones will be extravagant. It is Satan and our own mistrustful hearts that caricature God as miserly and reluctant to release his favours. As supplicants we may come to him expectantly (Matt 6:25-26, 7:7-11). Ours is the God who can say that everything in creation, seen and unseen, is his (Ps 50:10) and he can reach into his storehouse at any time and endow us with any gift, spiritual or material. We gulp at our need and gawp at riches around us that could meet any shortfall, forgetting that everything in view is his property to dispense as he chooses. Even as paupers we are potentially rich for all things are God’s, and we are his, and his purpose towards us may be propitious in ways beyond our imagining (Rom 8:32). We cannot tell what God might send as a necessity or a bonus. We are invited to request and to be ready to receive, always reliant on a sovereignty he exercises with unimpeachable wisdom. If he denies us something, then it would have endangered our souls, perhaps exerting a seductive power we could not have resisted as we pursued wrongful desires to our eventual ruin. A chance at some means of enrichment, improvement in life, or success in achievement, frustrated by providence, may have been due to his protection of ourselves or of others, and maybe also he is teaching us to strive for things of greater worth than those lesser baubles we instinctively chase after.
The norm appears to be that God grants us portions of blessing according to immediate need so that we shall not become pampered, presumptuous, or profligate. How often it is that prosperity reduces our appreciation of true worth. Abundance can skew our sense of what is essential; dire straits can reverse our scale of values. And God’s denial of what we desire may serve to intensify legitimate pleas. In the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness manna was supplied in daily amounts. When Elijah hid for safety by the Brook Cherith ravens supplied him morning and evening meals. When his water supply dried up God sent him to an impoverished widow for provision and both witnessed the miraculous stretching of scant resources for their daily needs: “The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry” (IKings 17). Our model prayer from the Saviour’s lips guides our asking with these words, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Mart 6:11). It is natural for us to become alarmed when familiar benefits are threatened and resources run low, but in the divine economy it is not so much quantity that matters but continuity. In the final reckoning if we only break even we have done exceptionally well. A full storehouse is reassuring but can empty our hearts of trust and tender dependence (Luke 12:15-21).
No one can exaggerate the dreadful poverty endured by the inhabitants of Haiti. It is utterly miserable. The bleakest view possible is that of old and young bodies grovelling about in grimy charcoal pits throughout long arduous days literally raking out a living shovelling scoops of this precious fuel into tiny bags for sale, and then retiring at night to sleep in crude corrugated iron lean-to’s, with perhaps a stray, scrawny chicken for supper accompanied by a mini pancake. Imagine such a hopeless existence. Everywhere want, deprivation, and despair cries out at you and visitors cannot endure the scene for long, relieved at the thought of going home soon. Christians in that nation cast themselves on prayer for daily existence. A wise old pastor to whom many went for help and encouragement suddenly received a generous donation of cash in one large amount. Soon the folk came to him for handouts of money and he eventually came to realize that daily prayer and reliance ebbed away. He had become a bank and not a brother in ministry. It was good to see want alleviated and so it certainly should be. But the bulk of the donation, presumed always to be there, curtailed spiritual vigour. Excess may reduce energy in our encounters with God. We grow complacent.
All good things come from God and he gives them freely to enjoy and share. Reversals are not congenial and they can lead to great inconvenience. Even while a mind is anguishing and a heart is breaking the soul knows it is being refined and breaking with earth for the solid joys of heaven. We cling. It is our nature. But the calling of the new nature draws us under adversity. Priorities are re-ordered. It is never easy to knuckle down under God’s dispensations that are more profitable than pleasurable and which school us in the art of patience. When his generosity appears to wane may his grace grant strength and perseverance. It is common to say that he gives and takes away, less easy to accept. But he also promises a recompense to his children. We simply do not dictate the currency and the circumstances and we know we may call upon him unceasingly. “Who knou’s? He may turn and have pity” (Joel 2:14).
RJS

THE GREAT DEBATE (The Temptation of Jesus — Matthew 4:1-11)
October 5th, 2008
The most crucial debate of all time took place soon after Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan. Newly ordained to his ministry to fulfil all righteousness (Isaiah 53:11) Jesus was despatched to engage in a gruelling duel in the desert. The comfort of the confirmatory words of his Father’s approval (3:17) was immediately followed by the subtle and malicious verbal attack of Satan, meant to insinuate doubt and incite defection. The Saviour’s arduous striving on our behalf had begun: By thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, Good Lord, deliver us (The Litany). The battle for our freedom had commenced. His lifelong labour for our salvation had started so soon after divine affirmation, appointment, and the intimation of God’s favour. The Servant was thrust into conflict. He “was led - by the Spirit - into the desert to be tempted (‘tested) by the devil”. Mark says that he “was driven “. The debate, the intense spiritual struggle between Jesus and the devil, was the ordained, predestined purpose of God, the necessary preliminary to the cross, which foreshadowed the outcome of his ignominious death. The bitter and prolonged encounter was inevitable and inescapable. The devil contrived it but God decreed it. After his call and public compliance with the will of the Father the ministry of Jesus was firmly defined, its direction decided, by his conduct under the pressure of satanic suggestion. Satan made the attempt to crush him at the outset and throw him off course, but Jesus’ defeat of the tempter was the guarantee of the victory won at Calvary. Jesus fought the fight for his elect at the nadir of physical fitness and when he was most spiritually vulnerable. The severe testing consisted of three deeply personal temptations that, had they been succumbed to, would have negated the entire plan of redemption. But Jesus resisted at the point of ultimate human weak.ness to demonstrate the power and protection of the Word of God. For his temptations are paradigmatic of the temptations that assault all the people of God individually as believers and collectively as the Church. The Spirit leads us into battle also, and we, too, only overcome through the Word as both weaponry and armour. The insight into Jesus’ warfare in the wilderness is poignantly autobiographical, for no one else was there, and he informs us of the ordeal to reveal the depth of his commitment to us, and prepare us for our strategy when the devil strikes at us, as surely he will.
Satan is a well-informed and artful opponent. He knows that the greatest gift to man in this life is the Word. It is the vital line of communication between heaven and earth without which we have no knowledge, guidance, or hope in the spiritual realm. If he can disrupt the connection, or destroy our confidence in its message, we are entirely mastered by him and utterly lost in impenetrable darkness. It would be the coup de grace of his evil plan in rebellion against God if he could outwit his Son in the wielding of Holy Scripture and thereby demolish at a stroke the very foundation of divine sovereignty and the structure of the kingdom. The great debate was over the issue of universal government and the inauguration of a new order under God’s rule. The devil was the challenger seeking to depose the legitimate Leader of the cosmos with the intent of foiling his righteous and compassionate policy for his creation. All his evil ingenuity was concentrated upon Jesus and he made each move with deadly deftness.
First, he opened his attack with a seemingly small but infinitely sly manoeuvre that works so well with the bulk of mankind. “if”, he proposes, “you are the Son of God.. .“. The slightest injection of doubt is the devil’s way of toppling a victim from the outset and men tumble over the trip wire continually. Mankind (purely and perfectly represented in the Lord Jesus cannot stand without truth beneath its feet. Satan’s first lunge is to unsteady Jesus with a contradiction of truth and the reality of his divine status and appointed role. Then swiftly he follows through to capitalize on a possible slip by tempting Jesus to take the crisis of his physical hunger into his own hands, abuse his power, and make provision for himself without dependence on his Father. In the extremity of his need the idea is tantalizingly feasible. Good advice in an emergency (often an excuse for abandoning God and resorting to our own devices. Bread in its various senses is the means of alluring us away from God and dependence upon him). But Jesus detects and deflects the ploy. His allegiance to the Father is inflexible, his trust complete (v4). He will not gratifi himself or infringe the prerogatives of the Father but derive his life and all that it entails from God as the only rightful source of reliable supply. The word, the mind, the will of God is the sustenance of man, and man’s true wellbeing and joy consists in obedience and homage to the one true Lord. Satan is a charlatan to be stoutly resisted and repelled by the very word he seeks to impugn.
Next, the evil one intensifies his assault by a false appeal to a right possessed by Jesus and a pledge given by God (v6). If you will not exert your power in your own interests then lodge a claim. Activate divine protection by thrusting yourself into danger. The commitment of the Father to the Son means that he cannot refuse to act in deliverance of his Beloved. But Jesus’ submission to divine sovereignty is firmly intact. He will not resort to the exercise of selfish manipulation. Again, man must depend on the Lord and not dictate. Being absolutely “special” Jesus’ will not use ego- centred “special-ness” to make demands on heaven’s favour (v7). Protection or vindication from God is within his sovereign determination alone and man’s craving for the spectacular and sensational to surround and support him in a sense of unique self-importance is not God’s business to pander to, and he is not at human bidding, but bound to display his own glory. Jesus’ does not share Satan’s enviousness, but is content to rest in the wise and benevolent rule of God, exemplifying a becoming modesty that our race is reluctant to emulate. How often we push and pressure God to promote our own image and ideas. It is the highest insolence on our part, and urged by Satan himself.
Finally, outsmarted by the Son of God, Satan flings away all subtlety and insinuation, and boldly and bombastically reveals his unbridled ambition by a serious misreading of Jesus’ motivation. Satan, in the grip of his own lust for glory, thinks that Jesus might be susceptible to the offer of his own empire if only he will acknowledge Satan as supremo, submit to him, and worship him. The offer is insane, wicked, audacious, and unthinkable. Jesus is resolute. Satan’s desperate madness is the sign of his defeat and with sovereign decisiveness Jesus dismisses him with a ringing condemnation sounding in his ears that spells both an eternal and irrefutable truth - God is Lord — and the devil’s irreversible doom is settled.
Jesus has won the contest through the Word. Satan sought to undermine trust in it, he twisted it, he opposed it, but the Saviour maintained his strength and overcame through
it. He fought off self-gratification, self-importance, and self-aggrandisement, sins common to man and presented as enticements to him. He conquered what controls our nature and won our liberation. He bore the consequences of our constitutional and many sins upon the cross. We attempt our own provision, seek our own protection (security), and crave enormous, self-centred power, as much as we can grasp. Jesus beat the temptations that get the better of us by battling them head on as our Representative and Champion. In dealing with sin the temptation in the desert was round one in the fray. Then he bore the guilt accrued, and the condemnation deserved, through our compliance with temptation by his death on the cross. Tying the temptation and the act of atonement together we see that in order to gain our salvation Jesus devoted himself entirely to our rescue and restoration. He strove and suffered to that end. And at the same time he administered deathblows to the devil negating all his ambition, impudence, and the ill effects of his activity.
Jesus withstood the evil options that confront us daily, and we may grapple with them, and refuse them, only in his strength and wisdom granted to us through the knowledge of his truth and preference for it. The Word can never be compromised for our convenience, conceit, or covetousness. Sin can never be accommodated. The Lord is our only sufficiency. Neither mentally nor actively should we contest his sovereignty by deviating from his revealed will. Expelled from Eden and the total satisfaction and security afforded by the parklands planted by the Lord for our provision, protection, and pleasure we now have the tendency to satiate our natural but perverted desires outside of God’s supply. We make up for the loss of Paradise in so many futile ways — transient and unavailing. We cater to our lesser appetites and carve out our flimsy empires. Christ’s victory, so gloriously gained, proffers better and abiding alternatives — the sense of repletion through the Bread of Life, a sense of home and belonging in the eternal kingdom. Our failure in the face of the first temptation ejected us from the garden into the wilderness. Jesus’ conquest of temptation in the wilderness retrieves us to Paradise.
RJS


FOAM ON THE WATER (Job 24:18 NIV) September 28, 2008

According to translators and commentators the meaning of Job 2418 is notoriously obscure and difficult to determine. However, the graphic rendering of the NIV, considering the character and conduct of the wicked against whom Job is so enraged, is very thought provoking in ways that cannot be against the sense of Scripture.
Job is a man laden with personal affliction and suffering from a myriad of sudden and stunning miseries. These are aggravated by the glib insights and observations of insensitively orthodox acquaintances who do not have the nous to perceive that those who are gripped by intense suffering are in no condition to be able to receive the “golden words” of mere spectators who cannot appreciate the way in which pain and grief affect their victims but delight to reflect upon the sagacity of their observations and oratory. Harsh experience soon whittles away the confidence and calm of mere theory and quickly proves that in the face of tragedy and anguish silence becomes golden and a helpless but sincere sympathy, through fellow feeling, is the only thing approaching consolation.
Yet in his agony how the tortured soul of Job outstrips the compassion (if any) of his callous and cocksure tormentors. His perplexity takes him deep into the issues that exercise the mind and emotions of all who endure adversity of any kind. As Job wrestles with his own series of calamities and discomforts his righteous and noble heart turns to the consideration of the plight of the poor and exploited ones of the earth, the apparent success and prosperity of the wicked, and the seeming indifference of God who delays to execute justice. This ancient and profound poem exploring the bitterness of human experience that strikes the godly as well as the unbelieving becomes pointedly contemporary as we survey the stresses and distresses of our own nation and world. Job is no isolationist merely wallowing in his own misfortune. Wise, formerly immensely prosperous, highly influential, and a dispenser of social justice, Job identifies with the lot of the cheated and oppressed, and ruminates upon the behaviour and rewards of the criminally inclined. His quandary is “where is the fairness of God?”, but in his extreme agony of soul his faith is not too far gone to be unable to affirm that eventually the righteousness of God will be displayed.
Job enumerates the ways in which the unscrupulous take advantage of the weak, the vulnerable, and the poor through theft, deception, exploitation, and acts of cruelty (vv2-4, 13-17). He succinctly sums up the deprivation and devastation that blights the lives of those who are mistreated by the rich and powerful. They are defrauded and abused in every way possible — dispossessed of property, the means of making a living, and the fruits of their own hard labour. Families are torn apart by rapacious lenders who repossess and purloin the essentials of even the most basic of human existences. Such horrors and misdemeanours are not confined to Job’s days, or the savage times of ancient history, or the era of Robin Hood, the age of Victoria, or any century past. They stare us in the face today and disfigure the reputation of every nation and society. Corruption abounds in open view and secret places. Greed drives the human heart in its desire for more than enough to lust for excess. As unprincipled men in high places avariciously grasp all that they can they crush the unsuspecting and the underdog, leaving them bereft of the little that they had, beaten by craft and deception, and bowed down by disappointment and despair. The over indulgence of the privileged, and the unregulated pursuit of affluence repeatedly create the ills of social division and the harbouring of a sense of blatant unfairness: over-expensive provision of life essentials and the emergence of resentment and envy, and these factors, in extreme cases and conducive conditions, give rise to riot and rebellion, which eventually produce the evils of civil breakdown, the possible introduction of tyranny, paving the way for the success of the lies and horrors of monstrous systems such as the recent ugly, atheistic, and dehumanizing phenomenon of Marxist Communism (Pasternak’s Zhivago seems to explain the cause and illustrate the crimes). Heinous sin engenders cataclysmic consequences in private and public life, and always there is a victim of any uncorrected wrongdoing. The woes that we bewail may be the woes that we have caused.
Job’s concern for the poor and oppressed is tender and admirable, and worthy of emulation, and even in his many personal troubles his heart still reflects something of the compassion and justice of God.
But Job also sums up with unerring accuracy the character and destiny of the wicked; “Yet they are foam on the surface of the water “.
By no means are all the ‘great ones” of the earth wicked and corrupt in the sense that Job describes. By the grace of God there are folk of honour and integrity in government, commerce, industry, indeed every walk of life and field of endeavour. But the wicked are there among the great. influential, and successful, often pursuing their selfish ambition, and grabbing whatever gain is within their reach with utter ruthlessness. The results of their greedy and grandiose behaviour are often incalculably damaging to folk who have no means of redress or compensation. Frequently these people do wield enormous influence and acquire reputation, winning admiration from folk impressed by known results alone and lacking in moral discemment. They pride themselves in their talents and takings and walk the earth like gods. In real terms of the development of their humanity and all the finer features of being human they are hollow, shallow, and pygmy-like, empty of any significance, weight, or worth. Before God they are contemptible and candidates for his swift and overwhelming judgment.
This is what Job is affirming. Such immoral and unfeeling rogues are in themselves, their sentiments, aspirations, and accomplishments mere froth without substance. They think themselves something, as perhaps do others for a time, but they are nothing. Jude likens such individuals to “clouds without rain” (v12) and goes on to characterize them in equally disparaging terms that suggest ultimate unimportance and lack of value (13).
Because they lack virtue or substance, and have no regrets or repentance for their ways, Job foresees so vividly that they will be swept speedily away in the torrents of divine retribution. When the tide of divine wrath begins to roll they “will skim past like boats of papyrus” (9:26), too helpless to resist the current that will carry them away into oblivion. It is interesting to see how dismissive the Bible is of historical figures who forget God, their lives are barely noted, and as someone has observed, the Lord cares little for their lineage. Faith is the feature of human nature and life that God recognizes. Wall Street, and all the great financial institutions cannot guarantee the abiding treasures of heaven, and no govemmental or political body can confer membership of the kingdom of God. The Gospel alone ensures absolute and complete security. Sometimes God sends stark reminders that this is so in order that the self- preening arrogance and confidence of man is chastised and reduced. “All men are like grass “, cries Isaiah, “and all their glory like the flowers of the field” (40: 6-8). The Magnificat (Mary’s Song) reminds us of his loftiness, and our feebleness. The only investment that ultimately counts is the entrustrnent of our souls to Christ. To go broke on earth is undeniably painful, as Bishop Ryle could testify. But to gain the whole world, by fair means or foul, and lose our own soul would ensure endless pain without relief or any hope of a bail out (Mart 16:26).
RJS

MOOD AND MAXIM (Denial of the Wrath of God) 9-21-08

We humans are a muddleheaded lot. We like to think u e are rational and straight thinking creatures, logical and consistent, but the material presented to our minds is distorted by prejudice and preference. mood and emotion, circumstance and self- interest. Fair mindedness is not our strong suit because our perception is so blurred; our sight skewed. The most trivial of factors can determine our bias on any issue. Its all part of the age old conflict between fact and feeling and it causes complications and chaos. Head and heart are at odds so often, and a bad heart frequently leads poor heads astray. We are divided within ourselves. Mind and emotion fail to work in concert. Consequently out thoughts, words, and deeds are inaccurate and fall short or wide of the mark (the truth standard), and missing the mark happens to he one of the biblical definitions of sin. Sin is the product of our flawed and conflicted nature and it will continue to flow until the fount within is cleaned up by the puri’ing work of the Holy Spirit. Fundamentally man is not to be trusted and God alone is to be trusted.
That is why he has given us his word to take us out of the fog of feeling and the maze of speculation so that we might see what is right, believe it and follow it. But our internal condition is so awry we are incapable of handling the Word of God aright unless the Spirit of God guides us all along the way. The defective heart and the stubborn mind can still abuse Scripture if the influences of the Spirit are absent. So God’s revelation can neither be read nor understood correctly without prayer towards and dependence upon the Author. The word is the source of truth and the Spirit must sustain us in loyalty to the truth, staving off the effects of sinflil subjectivity that suppresses or twists the content of divine communication. The Bible is not the mirror and confirmation of human wishful or wrong thinking but the medium of divine thought that is not meant to indulge us but reliably inform us of truths that will rock and shock the system once they are apprehended. For the sinner the word of God is a word of contradiction and coaniction; for the penitent the Bible is a message of correction and comfort. It favours none of us in our self-importance or controversy with God but reduces us all to the status of rebels who need to repent with resolution and abruptly quit our wickedness and get right with God through the means he has provided. Before Scripmre educates us it humbles us, evacuating us of our presumed knowledge and tendency to dictate what should be according to the canons of our own partialities. The Bible, effectively wielded by the Holy Spirit, dethrones us as the arbiters of truth and conduct so that we are receptive to its “strange” tenets and transformed by them.
The history of Christian dogma is not simply the story of theology but an account of collective mood swings, oscillations of feeling that have determined the Church’s attitude and expression of its message at different stages of its experience. It has swung between different poles in its presentation of God (benign or niggardly, transcendent or immanent). its interpretation of Christ (human or divine, sweet or warlike), its view of salvation (particular or universal). The emphases rarely reflect the balance and proportionality of Scripture but reveal the pendulum-like motions within human nature that vary between one extreme and another. Sometimes, in spite of clear biblical data, the church has inclination towards one suggested insight and antipathy towards another. It has been in the mood to advocate one belief and not in the mood to receive another. At times proud human philosophy has prevailed and at others crass superstition. Since the eighteenth century and the simultaneous rise of Pietism (personal devotion elevated over confessional doctrine) and the “feeling of dependence” theology of a certain liberal German thinker, subjective selection of what suits us in our belief has gradually taken precedence over submission to the whole word of God, and all that it teaches. Emotion chooses what is authoritative and personal experience (sometimes tailor made and self-generated) dictates over revealed truth. We have become a self-driven rather than a Scripture driven people choosing what pleases us rather than assenting to the way in which God addresses us. It is all so apparent in our toned down theology and entertainment oriented worship. We have abandoned the Lord in order to gratify the cravings of the idol we have actually opted to serve — the idol of our own heart — yet all in the name of Christianity, but under his name we serve a strange god.
Under the guise of earnest theology and faithfulness to Scripture, in terms of vocabulary, a trend has emerged to state something “on the one hand” and then something else “on the other”, a clever theology that is verbose and self-cancelling and which eventually has no meaning hut has the appearance of plausibility and is flattering to the egos that delight to debate it. In the end it is like chewing straw or masticating a mouthful of dry powder. Names will not be cited, but there are certain theologues whose positions are incomprehensible and impossible to define (0, man!).
With the almost universal universalism of the contemporary Church, and the sofiening down of the doctrines of God, sin, and judgment it is considered uncouth and barbaric to speak of the wrath of God, even though a sense of the justice and holiness of God would be in jeopardy if we denied the indignation of God against unrighteousness. It is now a moot point as to whether worshippers register the gravity and urgency of our liturgy when we recite the words of the Confession together which include the fbllowing realization: ‘provoking most justly your righteous anger against us”. And what of the Litany where we ask the Lord Christ not to “take vengeance br our offences” and to spare us ‘from your wrath, and from eternal damnation”? Ah! Now we are able to see the need for recent liturgical revision. Such thoughts are not congenial to the contemporary understanding of the Lord Jesus. But see Revelation cli 6 on the wrath of the Lamb (esp v16). And can we really dispute the validity of the warnings to the sick that allude to his severe mercies (chastenings) in the prayers that constitute The Visitation to the Sick? Our God does not brook evil and he does not pamper his children when their perfecting is at stake.
Fear and affection combined drive us to God, but the elimination of a holy fear and trembling before God in our domestication of his character has made us spiritually sluggish and somewhat cheeky in approaching him, and it has extracted the iron from Christian souls and our public declaration. The compassion of God is far more delicious to our taste when we realize that it springs from the implacable opponent of all sin who defeats it in his strength, gracious or ireful. We cannot follow the fashionable notion of Julian of Norwich in denying the anger of the Lord. In his mercy it is often delayed and mitigated, but it is always there and ultimately the full fury of his holy nature will he levelled against the hardened and wilfully impenitent. The glory and wonder of the gospel of the cross is that this justly deserved wrath is quelled in the sufferings of Christ if we take him contritely as our Substitute.
The wrath of God is a reality we must once again recognize as the vindication of his perfect nature and as a warning to souls in danger. We fail in love and duty if we do not warn of trouble ahead for the despiser of the gospel and those who habitually and carelessly forget God. The neglected witness of Scripture is ample and inescapable in the words of prophets and apostles, and a good concordance will soon bring us to the conviction that this is not a fact to be toyed with.
The fine Old Testament scholar G.A.F. Knight known for his tenderness in proclaiming the word of God accurately observes: “It is on/v a hunian conceit to suppose that God cannot be angry. His wrath it is that produces frar and trembling in man to the end that God’s love might redeem him” (Commentary on Hosea, SCM Press, ch 11:10-il, page 111). The preaching of John the Baptist disclosed the expectation of inmiinent outpouring of wrath upon sinners and in his commentary on Matthew Floyd Filson poses the question, “Does John seem too stern? Jesus spoke with similar sternness; no gospel is needed i/there is no judgment” (A&C Black, p65). Barry Webb’s concise and excellent commentary on Isaiah contains the following observation afier exhorting us not to become passionless in religion, “Our capacity to share God’s anger can be an indicator of how much we really love him” (The Message of Isaiah, IVP, p55).
Scripture condemns the “wrath of man” that is vengeful, ill-tempered, and without just cause. But there are occasions for the expression of righteous indignation when wrong is committed, the innocent wounded, and the Lord’s truth impugned or name blasphemed. Luther freely admits his anger against the perpetrators of evil and confesses that he preaches best when he is angry: “I never work better than when Jam inspired by anger, when I am angn; I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding shaipened, and all mundane vexatious and temptations depart” (Table Talk). The denial of righteous anger in God (always pure) and in his saints (not untainted by sin) is surrender to sentimentality that robs the Word of its pointedness and its preachers of fire. Mawkish feeling should never overrule maxim in the testimony of the Church. It is a principle of Scripture and sound Christian doctrine that God is angry with sin and with sinners, and this anger is to be avoided through the message of the gospel.
RJS

AMENDMENT OF LIFE 9-14-08

The Almighty and inerciflul Lord grant you Absolution and Remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit. Communion of the Sick: BCP

Amendment of life is an essential development in the life of the regenerate. That is indeed the practical aspect and evidence of true salvation. Without the insistence on amendment of life our message is antinomian (against the moral law of God and the life of holiness). Salvation is the translation from sin to sanctity, not merely a convenient exemption from punishment and a ticket to heaven. It is a change of character that leads to a change of life. Amendment of life is the proof of sincere faith expressed in the fruit of the Spirit.
Amendment of life is not self-initiated nor self-wrought. It is incumbent upon us but impossible for us. As God’s rational creatures we are responsible to perform it. As fallen sinners we have forfeited the ability to effect it. The lack of capacity is self-inflicted so the blame is ours. Amendment of life is a gift from God, just as the repentance that precedes it is an enduement of grace. We must do it. We can’t do it. We are culpable. We are thrust upon grace.
Amendment of lfe is necessary. The new creature, the person who is born again, adheres to a new ethic. It is revealed in the law of God (divine wisdom and instruction) and written upon the heart (new understanding and inclination). The true believer actively and sincerely prefers the way of God, desires to please him, and longs to resemble him. Holiness does not emerge from legalism but love. Repentance, connected to faith, is the first move of the newborn soul. Amendment of life begins in the first stirrings of the new nature. The change is a duty (obedience), but also a delight (desire), and, furthermore, it is the fruit that proves that the tree is now good. Holiness is the sign of imparted divine energy, and it is evidential of grace received (Grant from this time forward we may serve and please you in newness of life: Holy Communion). Where mercy has been bestowed amendment of life will be inevitable — perhaps small, certainly gradual, but necessarily present.
Amendment of life is possible. The exhortation and opportunity is evidence of the boundless grace of God towards us. The call to amendment means that we are not abandoned. God is forbearing. He exercises patience. The reversal of the grip of sin, and deliverance from any form of bondage and accustomed behaviour is in prospect for the believer of the gospel. Amendment is available, not through human resolve and self-effort, but by the power of grace. The petition quoted above begins with the plea “God grant “. The admission is the recognition that what is sought is beyond human accomplishment. It must be prompted and sustained by divine enabling ([Almighty God] confirm and strengthen you in all goodness]. The obedience of the Christian is a matter of willing obligation met through grace and activated by the love of God, love for God, and love for all that is good.
In the face of our sins, selfish affections, and susceptibility to temptation the summons to amendment of life is daunting. If we do not hear that summons we must wonder at the presence of grace in our hearts and enquire as to whether it is there. When we hear the call and proffer our assent we must rejoice that God’s purpose is to transform our lives. Perhaps he will do so over a prolonged period of time and through many struggles, but in the true believer the possibility will be fulfilled. The drives and demons we deal with will be dealt with by God working through us and empowering our wills and efforts to war against the tendencies of the past and walk in the ways of the new obedience (Phil 2:13).

The progress towards amendment of life is the experience of mercy. God enables that which he requires. He confers the desire for and then guides us in the direction of holiness (Jer 32:38-40). Our initial indisposition and helplessness is painful. Then when the process towards renewal begins we are conscious of the help of the Lord — not picking us up and propelling us from the point of attainment but lifting us out and carrying us on from our impotence. After all, repentance is a gift (we cannot generate it and we confess that to God), and amendment is the advance of grace at work within our lives. Everything in the matter of salvation is a divine bestowal at various stages of growth and development. We are born again at the divine decision. We believe/repent through his enabling. We change through his renovating power. We persevere because he preserves us. Looking back we can review our life of action but we realize that we have been activated by him and complicit through the resources he has given. Grace initiates our amendment of life, removes our inertia, and ensures our ongoing endeavour. Grace works sovereignly and is evidenced in our works. All is of God and the attitudes and actions of holiness are ours, yet wrought in us. It is miraculous and a source of hope for the impotent sinner. God can do in us what we cannot do for ourselves. The obligation and necessity of holiness, goodness, and obedience is fulfilled through a grant from heaven. God creates the new principle that causes us to concur with his will and working so that we perform what he desires. The pleasure and the power are ours because he donates them.
We need never lose heart. In the matters of repentance and change we feel our impotence and indisposition. But it is the Saviour’s prerogative and promise to give us what we lack and cannot produce. He is the Saviour of our souls and not simply the one who supplements our preliminary exertions. In all honesty we say, ‘Lord, I love my sin and hate your ways and wait upon him with urgent prayers and appeals, knowing that he pities our helplessness and promises a new heart. Salvation starts at the point where we are unable to start or do anything for ourselves. Any act of preparation is his. So our desperation is presented to him who accomplishes the impossible on our behalf:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay/fast bound in sin and nature ‘s night: thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke — the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed thee. Charles Wesley (As John Duncan would ask, “What’s become of your Arminianism now, friend? ‘).
The oppression of sin and hardened habits is not cause for delay or efforts at reform. We come as we are to the giver of grace from new birth to faith and repentance, to amendment of life, to the crown of glory.
Whatever, in any person, happens to be the besetting sin, weakness, ailment, or plight, the ministry of the people of God begins with the plea, “The Lord grant you and then we go on to enumerate the requests in confidence that the God of infinite grace will mercifully hear. Amendment of life is one of these petitions.

RJS

THE THIRD FACTOR (What of the Devil?) 9-7-08

Some years ago one of the major US weekly magazines, Time or Newsweek (more likely the former), posed the question as to the existence of the devil. As Christianity in its liberal form sought to demythologize and make itself more contemporary so it simplified its faith to a “dialogue” between God and man without the complication of a third party who appeared in the Bible as Satan who was both the opponent of God and the oppressor of man. Largely, the Church in the modern era, it was alleged, did not see evil as having its source in a superhuman person but was understood to be a negative and impersonal force operative through the imperfection of creation and the defectiveness of human nature. The notion of the demonic was suggested to be a derivation from the realm of superstition and it needed to be purged from enlightened thought in a scientific age. As the article arrived at its conclusion it was acknowledged that many believers of a more conservative persuasion still professed belief in the literal reality of Satan and G.C. Rerkouwer, said to be the dean of Evangelical theologians at the time, was quoted as maintaining the existence of the evil one and the very serious threat he poses to human souls, and especially the people of God, through temptation, malice, and the mischievous exercise of demonic power.
In the intervening twenty-five years or so, with the increased pervasiveness of evil in very sinister and destructive manifestations, there seems to be a lessening of scepticism concerning the devil among folk who profess to be Christians. The fact of present spiritual darkness and danger, and the sense of looming spiritual conflict seem to be admitted more broadly, and a personal design and influence behind the phenomena of evil is deemed very credible. The evil one seems to alternate between a policy of concealment through the propaganda of rationalistic thought which explains him away, or he becomes audacious and bullying through bold action and the display of scare tactics. Area, culture, and predisposition seem to have something to do with it. Either he silences all sense of alarm so that he may work and gain ground (and souls) surreptitiously, or he stomps about loudly to intimidate and confuse, exaggerating his powers so that his ego may be inflated through the “worship” of terror and the sight of the cowering who dread his every move.
From the human perspective Satan is certainly a superior foe to be aware of, an adversary to be resisted and avoided by the means that God has provided. From the divine perspective, available to us through faith in the Scriptures, the devil is a defeated enemy, utterly inferior to God, and under his sovereign control, but permitted limited scope to wreak his havoc and harm, and harry the human race, particularly assailing the children of God from hatred and resentment towards God and rivalry towards the Son.
Satan’s envy of the Son, and frustrated hubris that failed to usurp the authority of God in his revolt against heaven, fuels the detestation he harbours against the image of God (marred) in the nature of man and the likeness of Christ (incomplete) in renewed man. It is with utter savagery that he molests humankind and mauls the saints, for that is his only method of lunging at the Lord he so vigorously opposes. He is devoid of every shred of morality and totally destitute of mercy. It is God alone that restrains his murderous intent and delivers us from his cruel attacks. Satan is entirely negative in his person and plans. He can only distort or destroy what exists and his procedures can only conclude in death for his victims, his followers, and himself. He would, if he could, dismantle both God’s creation and his coming kingdom. His heart is murderous, his operations vicious, and just as life and restoration is available to man in divine truth, the gospel, so our enemy conceives lies to fatally wound the souls of men.
There is not a truth, nor a benefit from God, that the wicked one will not counter or counterfeit in order to deprive or deceive us. It should not surprise us, therefore, that he does not loiter around the periphery of human affairs and Christian endeavour, but inserts his agents at and exerts his influences from the centre. His aggression is direct, head on, and unrelenting. His arsenal is vast and weaponry versatile. Knowing his ultimate doom his rage is enormous, his appetite for mayhem voracious, his reckless ambition audacious. He will blasphemously pose as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14), plausibly tweak the truth to delude the unwary (John 8:44, Galatians 1: 6-9), and as nearly as is possible replicate the nature and message of the church to entrap the disobedient, the careless and the gullible (Revelation 13). Word, sacrament, worship will be cunningly perverted and dubious wonders will be performed. His schemes will be impressive and convincing. His genius is such as to easily outwit the mind of man and our only defence and preservation is in the pure word of God, closely clung to, and the grace of the Saviour (the stronger man), freely given. The Church of God and all of its members would do well to realize that the environment in which we live is not confined congenially and calmly to the presence of man and the presence of God but includes also the hostile and unceasing operations of the evil one, and that our preoccupation is not only our spiritual welfare but open spiritual warfare. The church will inevitably experience conflict. Its peace and triumph are prospective. It will certainly endure, but not without severe tribulation begun now. Faith can never be naïve about the conditions that prevail around and within us. Our expectations must be realistic and our attitude well prepared. Our motto is “en garde!”. Otherwise, we shall be shocked and easily discouraged, perpetually ambushed by events and enemy action. To overrate the intelligence and power of Satan is a mistake that proves a hindrance to God’s people. He serves the purpose of God. But to underrate his permitted influence is also a fault in thought and preparedness. It also diminishes our comprehension of the dimensions of Christ’s rescue work on our behalf and the power of the gospel in liberating the lives and wills of men. Here, Martin Luther had such a vivid grasp of the realities of sin and salvation, without which we scarcely do justice to the maintenance of truth and the preaching of the word. Our message is scarcely strong enough to turn back the tide of evil and draw folk to Christ. We are really a wimpish lot when we function without the full content of what God tells us both about ourselves, and the power that prevails in our restoration to him. The church shames itself with a diluted version of the gospel. As regards our natural plight, we don’t seem to “get it”. Hence, as regards the understanding of the marvel of divine grace, we don’t seem to “give it”. Taking anything from the truth trivializes it, gratifies Satan, and misleads man. Luther “had it”, at great cost and after much struggle and the study of man and Scripture. “It is plainly proved by Scriptures that are neither ambiguous nor obscure that Satan is the by far the most poi’erful and crafty prince of this world, as I have said. Under his rule the human will is no longer free nor in its own power, but is the slave of sin and of Satan, and can only will what its prince has willed. And he will not let it will any good though, even (f Satan did not rule it, sin itself whose slave man is, would weigh it down enough to make it unable to will good.” What dominion the evil one exerts over the human race! So often we fail to seize upon the fact that Satan has a vice-like and unbreakable grip upon the ungodly; that sin, ingrained in the affections, dictates thought and action; that enmity towards God rules the attitude of the unregenerate (Romans 8: 6-8). God alone can break the threefold bondage — which is why new birth is a resurrection from the dead, the death of sin.
It is time for the church to quit editing and toning down the gospel of God and to flatter man with false notions of his condition and capacities, leaving God helpless until we grant him our consent (always in the thinking of natural man the promises and power of God are contingent upon the permission granted by human assent — this is the false philosophy of fallen reason native to us all and it directly contradicts the thought of Holy Scripture). It is time for drowsy and complacent sinners to awake and realize their helplessness, guilt and danger; to sense that “Satan reigns in them and wars against Christ” (ML). It is time for believers to grasp the magnitude and omnipotence of divine mercy, which we inevitably belittle though believing (partially) in it. It is time for the Anglican Church to cease being soft and man-pleasing and to stand boldly by its confession and not equivocate or obfuscate, but let our cathedrals and churches resound with the thundering proclamation of the Word of God. It is time for all to wonder at the sovereign power and compassion of God that has wrought so great a salvation that renders spectating angels awestruck and open-mouthed. It is time for God to be praised everywhere and by everyone for what he has done in Christ and through the Spirit for our recovery. And as we arrive at an understanding of his greatness, grace and glory, so we look to him for help and refuge crying confidently, in the words of the Litany, and in the assurance that the answer will be fulfilled, “From all evil and harm; from sin; from the wiles and assaults of the devil; from your wrath and eternal damnation, Good Lord, deliver us ... (and) beat down Satan under our feet”.
RJS