One of the great and enduring biographies of all time is Boswell's Life of Johnson. It is a mammoth work but conveniently available in various abridged and edited editions. It is not only an insight into the life and character of Samuel Johnson from the close observation of James Boswell but an entrance into and panoramic view of 18th century life in London with innumerable mini-portraits of and comments upon many of the leading figures of the time. We are treated to succinct accounts of Johnson's opinions on a wide range of topics and from a Christian perspective it is interesting, if not always gratifying, to discover his views on theological subjects (which mattered very deeply to him as an earnest and sometimes anguished believer), and also on well-known personalities such as George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers John and Charles, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, and Richard Baxter. Johnson was a devout if disturbed Anglican and a man of urgent and eloquent prayer in an attempt to allay his anxieties concerning holy living, genuine faith, and his hope for eternity. He towered over literary London as the colossus of his age but trembled in his heart and bowed as a helpless child before the Master of all things.

Boswell's admiration for Johnson meant that he trailed the great man constantly with an uninterrupted fixation upon him, hearing every word, listening to every conversation, witnessing every action, involving himself in all the events and relationships, personal and social, of the Doctor's life to which he was admitted as a reliable recorder and close friend. Boswell's skill as a biographer, his empathy with the subject of his story, his unfailing attention to detail, his enthusiasm for his task, mean that his readers come to know Samuel Johnson well. We meet Johnson through Boswell and cultivate a profound and appreciative acquaintance with him the longer we linger over the author's affectionate recollections. Boswell's knowledge of his hero becomes ours. In our imaginations we hear Johnson's thundering voice in the coffee houses of Fleet Street, his conversations at the meal table, his strong opinions aired among his guests at his parlour gatherings as night time sets in. The large man in physique and mind looms large before us through the pen portraits of his companion and confidante, and Johnson is confident that his ally will never misrepresent him. He can afford to be frank in his presence and unafraid of his memoirs should such a project ever be published.

All this bears a similarity to the much more elevated and important apostolic writing available to us as the Gospel of John. We come to know Jesus through John. Unlike Boswell, John was not the composer of an extensive and exhaustive biography that took thirty years in the making and was inclusive of every fact and event that Boswell could possibly recall and relate. John is studiously succinct and selective in all that he tells us about Jesus but his account is fully informed (and informative), his relationship to the Saviour profoundly intimate, and his effort more than enthusiastically human. John is inspired supernaturally to impart his knowledge of Jesus to us.

On the human and historical level he was cousin, colleague, and companion to Jesus. He was called, converted, and commissioned by Jesus as disciple and evangelist. John walked with Jesus as a close observer of his life, ministry, death, and risen life. John heard his words and teaching with close attention and passed them on through careful retention of all the facts. John watched his Lord with rapt observation of his deeds and demeanour. He witnessed to him with an accuracy designed to give us reliable access to him. The man who laid his head upon Jesus' breast and heard his heartbeat wrote with the intent of uniting our hearts to Jesus' heart and ensuring a mutual indwelling. John was concerned not only to report on Jesus but establish his reader's rapport with Jesus as a lasting reality. He achieves this not only through, or because of, his skilled and eloquent writing as a man but because of the presence and power of the Spirit of Jesus accompanying the message of the text and illuminating the mind of the person whose eyes peruse it. John's literature far excels Boswell's or any other biographer's in its effect, if not its quality, for it is the Holy Spirit's revelation of the life and work of Jesus, indeed it happens to be Jesus' own self disclosure not only through his incarnate life and influence that came to bear upon John as testifier, but though the divine superintendence and support also, that moved and assisted him in compiling both his version of the evangel and his supplementary teaching in his epistles.

The scope of John's coverage of the saving mission of Jesus' throughout the New Testament is brief in terms of composition but broad in conception. It begins at the very beginning, his term for eternity past. Jesus as the Word is the self-expression of God, truly divine and now come among us as man. His human life and saving action are described through various phases until the culmination of the Lord's assignment at Calvary and victory over death in his resurrection and life-giving assurance to his followers, and as John weaves his narrative the affirmation of Jesus' deity is the golden thread that is traceable all the way through. Message and miracle point to the mercy of God in his incarnate Son. He is authorized and able to save all those given to him by the Father. He not only restores them but resides within them. He not only rescues them from condemnation but claims them for fellowship and communion. They are retrieved from evil and alienation for the privilege of perfect and perpetual knowledge of himself. John's purpose is that prayerful and believing readers of his writings should be enabled to enjoy a living relationship with Jesus for ever. The shape and sequence of his gospel is designed to draw us into a reverent, trustful, sanctified and affectionate union with the triune God through the mediatorial work of the Saviour. John's writing facilitates our soul's journey back to God and our ongoing joyous journey "into God" through the gracious friendship that he has chosen us for, and confers upon us through Christ's atonement, intercession, preservation, and presentation of our persons to the Father. Our knowledge of God in Christ is a gift exercised through the gift of faith. Our admission to this relationship is solely through the effort and merit of the Lord Jesus, his work and worth. The combined message of John in his gospel, letters, and recorded revelation of Jesus Christ granted him near the end of his ministry (Revelation) is the invitation and means to an absolutely certain and abiding knowledge of God the Holy Trinity. He begins with the advent of the Promised One, proclaims his action and availability on behalf of sinners, and then showers him with the accolades of heaven as he describes "assignment accomplished" and the ingathering of the redeemed to glory. From glory to glory is John's theme concerning Jesus, and as the God-man travels on his way the glory breaks forth magnificently in grace bestowed upon sinners in the shame and suffering of the cross. There we discover our most delightful insight into the nature of God, and gain the possession of the warmth and purity, freeness and permanence of his love. RJS

(Collect for the Third Sunday After the Epiphany)

January 24, 2010

Often our innate weakness is denied or hidden. We endeavour to counter it with feats of strength or accomplishment to repudiate the fact. We blush at our inabilities and conceal our inadequacies. Nothing is more frustrating or humiliating than to find that we are hindered or rendered impotent by so many restrictions of mind and body – the problem that confounds, and the performance that proves impossible. Many skills and superior strength are not at our command. Our faculties weary under intense exertion or stress, and our physical frame collapses under the strain of extreme exercise. However we may compare ourselves with others of our kind our feebleness as a species is apparent. No doubt the largest lies that we succumb to are the myths of our self-sufficiency and feeling of indestructibility. We are shocked when our heroes fail or suddenly fade away. But life is transient and even those with the strongest constitution tend to wilt under trial. “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall” (Isaiah 39:30).

The honesty of the Bible is amazing and appealing. Its candour and impartiality is a mark of its divinity. The Lord’s servants are never idealized. God’s mightiest men and most noble representatives had their glaring weaknesses and proved to be of mere flesh and blood like ourselves. Their strength lay in the call of God, total reliance, and close obedience. Samson’s physical power and prowess were only equivalent to those of ordinary men when he foolishly permitted his hair to be clipped in contravention of the condition governing his exceptional strength (Judges 16:17). Moses wavered in firmness when supporting Israel in battle with the staff of victory (Exodus 17: 8-16) and sinned under provocation when the people murmured (Numbers 20). David sinned grievously when lured by temptation and committed murder and adultery (2 Samuel 11 &12). Noah lapsed into drunkenness (Genesis 9: 20-21). Hezekiah fell prey to pride (2 Chronicles 32: 24-26). The same king needed a sign to support waning faith (2 Kings 20: 8-11), as did Gideon (Judges 6: 36-40. Elijah caved into despair and resentment (1 Kings 19: 3-50). Abraham’s distinctive exercise of faith was seriously interrupted in the face of certain crises that threatened his safety (Genesis 12: 10-13& ch 20). Great biblical figures evidenced great fallibility at crucial points in their lives when virtue or constancy were necessary but their deviance was designed to disclose the foibles and fickleness of human nature and the need for divine intervention to put and keep things right. The lesson of the Bible, summed up in the attitude of Jesus, is that man is not to be trusted and will only disappoint, and that only God is absolutely reliable. “But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in man.”

The fact and felt presence of our weakness ought to have several effects within us and in the way we deport ourselves in daily life. It ought to establish a humble demeanour before God and man. God knows our feebleness exhaustively, and it doesn’t take long for folk to discover our feet of clay, feet that soon protrude from beneath any cloak of pretence or protectiveness. We all display a different persona in our unguarded private life. Our weakness ought to keep us constantly reliant upon God. Confidence and competence fluctuate and may completely dissolve under certain conditions. The mind is extremely delicate and passes through its various seasons. It can be easily troubled or tilted off balance. Exceptionally gifted persons have been rendered ineffective and unproductive by negative suggestions or incidents. We function, even at the most basic levels, only through the favour of God upon us and his breath and energy within us. Our weakness ought to keep us sensitive and compassionate toward others. Sin is never to be condoned, and we are never exempted from the condemnation we ourselves level against it – a tendency we have when we observe it in others. But human infirmities ought to attract our sympathy and supportive endeavour. Our afflictions and addictions, our confusion and delusions, our fears and anxieties, our quirks and constrictions, our awkwardnesses, handicaps, and annoying traits are symptomatic of a fundamental disease that infects every human heart and haunts every mind. We lost our soul-health when we abandoned God and all of us have our ills as a consequence. We are culpable as rebels, and invalids as a result of self-imposed injury. Pity ought to be mutual and generous among us.

The grace of God is utterly sovereign, undeserved, and uncaused outside of the divine determinations, and yet we see a bias in the Lord towards the helpless and the afflicted because of the leaning of his nature towards kindness. It is the way he chooses to be. We see how he kindles this kindness in human hearts even when judgment is deserved and suffering ensues. Our weakness, Edmond Jacob opines, is surely what moves God to pity, and surely Jacob’s sentiment is sound. We are errant but his care is not erased in spite of our disobedience and recalcitrance. Our badness does not, and cannot, defeat his goodness. God is compassionate; “He forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return” (Psalm 78:38-39). Even when we are aroused by righteous anger (do we check that it is?) we must remember that, “ ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay’, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Only his vengeance is fair and proportionate. When we are oppressed with the strongest sense of our weakness we may take courage in the truth that the Lord’s compassion is abundant. “Mercy triumphs over judgment!”

RJS

January 17, 2010

Matthew 2:1-12

We are well aware of Matthew’s primary concern to convince his own people, the Jews, of the Messiahship of Jesus. Through genealogy, quotations from the Old Testament, references to the promises, and prophetic pointers to Jesus, Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfilment of the hope of Israel. His longing is that that the members of his nation will embrace Jesus in faith and homage as God’s anointed One and Israel’s Saviour. His Gospel compiles reasons, facts, and evidence for confidence in Jesus and acknowledgement of his roles as Redeemer and Ruler of the people of God. But Matthew has by no means forgotten that the Messiah has come for the salvation of all men, that his task is universal and in the interests of Gentile as well as Jew. “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). In his narration of the visit of the Magi Matthew not only recognizes the inclusion of the Gentiles in the saving work of the Lord Jesus, he takes us back to ancient intimations of God’s worldwide purpose and gives us clues as to why Jesus, as the Desire of all nations (Haggai 2:7), was keenly expected and awaited by people faraway from Israel’s homeland.

This is a line of thought that is deeply intriguing and so confirmatory of the scope of divine mercy and the reality of prevenient grace. Whilst God was educating his chosen people in the blessings and obligations of the covenant he was also imparting clues of his intentions towards all mankind, even those who were beyond the boundaries of his covenant provisions. Job and Jonah are two Old Testament books that indicate that folk of other nations come under the saving concern of God, and there are promises and predictions in the prophets that point to the expansion of the kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth and the gathering of all nations to God in a future world of righteousness and harmony. Some of these oracles are stunning in the amazing prospects they affirm, and only God’s miraculous power could bring them to pass (e.g. Isaiah 19: 23-25 – nations which were traditional enemies bound together as the people of God).

In the providential operations of God, in various ways, Israel came into close contact with other peoples and we can only wonder as to what elements of their faith believing and godly Israelites communicated to their neighbours of other nations in the course of their prolonged wandering through the wilderness en route to the Promised Land, and as deportees in exile after the conquests of Assyrian and Babylonian invaders. Occurrences of judgment upon the people and their punitive dispersal among the nations in the eighth century BC, and transportation to Babylon in the sixth century BC, in effect made them missionaries to the folk among whom they lived and it would be impossible to estimate not only the number of their displaced countrymen, but also the converted Gentiles, who came to long for the arrival of Israel’s Messiah. In the days of Moses the non-Israelite soothsayer Balaam issued his prophecy of the emergence of a star from Jacob (Numbers 24:17). Whilst residing in Babylon Daniel and his colleagues were conspicuous advocates of the faith of the Jews (Daniel 9:25) and these men were in a position to commend the hope of Israel with authority. Whether the Magi came form Persia, Babylon, Arabia, or any other oriental location they were heirs of the testimony of the people of God to their God and the promises he had made, and as sharers in the expectation they searched for its fulfilment and followed the sign when it was given. The wise men wonderfully express the hope and homage of a lineage of faith that existed for centuries in regions beyond the boundaries of Israel. The message had travelled by various means and the seeds of the Gentile portion of the people of God had been planted from earliest times. The desire of the nations for the Deliverer was disclosed in the “men form the east”. The pace of the predicted end times was quickening (Hebrews 1:2).

The Magi emerge from a background of mystery - centuries of secret, silent longing and a country unknown. Their origin and exact understanding cannot be fathomed. But the impulse for their journey, and the illumination on their way, were of the Spirit of God. They were driven, drawn, and guided by God. They responded eagerly to the revelation they received, anticipation excited by exiles from Palestine, and light afforded by the leading of the star. The word engendered the hope in their hearts. A special heavenly phenomenon directed them to where the Saviour was to be found. These men of science and sagacity, respected, influential, and affluent in their own society, came in an attitude of humility and simplicity to worship One far superior in status, whose power would far exceed their mastery of strange arts, and whose wisdom would outstrip the knowledge they had gained. Without pride of achievement or any agenda they stooped before the child in demonstration of the fact that only the childlike will ever truly identify him or come to know him, and the gifts they bore not only symbolized his character and mission but represented their submission to the newborn king.

Origen, the church father of the 3rd century AD, and thereafter Christian tradition, have seen in the gifts of the Magi signs of the Saviour’s person and purpose. Gold was given in acknowledgement of his kingship. Frankincense was an offering to God. Myrrh was in token of his manhood and mortality. Together the treasures of the wise men summed up the divinity, humanity, and sacrifice of Jesus, all necessary to our restoration to God. Only his humanity could make amends on our behalf. Only his sacrifice could reconcile us to God. Only his divinity could make his act of rescue effective. But the gifts were of great value and use to the givers. They were rendered at great personal expense. The wealth was the reward of expertise and influence. It was presented in adoration. It was surrendered in personal submission to a newfound sovereignty. They gave precious things, perhaps in renunciation of magical skills and consequent rewards, but also in heartfelt devotion to the king who ruled not only from the skies but within human lives. Their travels were evidence of internal transformation. Their occupation was to gaze into the heights of heaven in search of meaning, but they were lowly enough to discover it in the heaven sent little child.

True wisdom from God, through Christ, comes only to those who are willing to keep their eyes on the star of revelation, the word of God, and bow down (v.11) before the Word made man. Lofty self-importance and deference to human wisdom (symbolized by the indifferent religious authorities of Jerusalem who neglected to seek the Christ child themselves) divert us from the path to Bethlehem and personal encounter with Jesus himself. The scholars from the east had learned a greater “science” than that gained through human research and acumen. The power and probing of man cannot enable him to ascend to God or find him. But God comes to man in amazing self-abasement and accommodation to his need.

RJS

January 10, 2010

One of the loveliest stories attesting to the value and efficacy of The Litany of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is related by Edward Morgan one of the earliest biographers of Daniel Rowland the great Welsh preacher of the 18th century who played such a prominent role in the Evangelical awakening of that period. Morgan records a noteworthy occurrence in the ministry of Rowland that had such a remarkable effect within the life of his parish. “While he was engaged one Sunday morning in reading the church service, his mind was more than usually occupied with the prayers. An overwhelming force came upon his soul as he was praying in the most melting and evangelical words, - ‘By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy glorious resurrection and ascension, and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.’ This passage is more emphatic in the Welsh language, by reason of an adjective going before the word ‘agony’, signifying ‘extreme’. The words, if translated would run thus, - ‘by thine extreme agony’. As he uttered these words, a sudden amazing power seized his whole frame; and no sooner did it seize on him, than it ran instantly, like an electrifying shock, through all the people in the church, so that many of them fell down on the ground they had been standing on in a large mass together, there being no pews in the church.”

This vivid anecdote reinforces the vital truth asserted in the Litany that the whole life, and every experience, of the Lord Jesus was saving, and part of the great work that wrought redemption for us. All that he did and endured was on our behalf, making amends for our failure and accruing merit for our acceptance with God. He lived a life of unblemished righteousness, and died the death we deserved, in our stead to put us right with God, and so all through his time on earth he was striving, suffering, achieving for our sakes to avert our destruction and attain our eternal welfare. No detail in Jesus’ life should be missed. It happened in the way that it did for the benefit of sinners to teach us of his grace and accomplish our rescue. One absolutely perfect life had to be offered to God for our recovery and acceptance. One pure sacrifice had to be offered for our reconciliation to God, and to procure our pardon. Every breath, thought, word, action of Jesus was part of the exact compliance with the divine will that won us the divine approval we could never achieve for ourselves. Every moment of time in Jesus’ sojourn among us was spent in mending and restoring our relationship with God. His character had to be flawless, his behaviour impeccable, his obedience entire, else our salvation would have been impossible. His representation of us was constant, untiring, demanding, and utterly selfless. His dedication was costly from the smallest denials of self-pleasing to the death he suffered. His life was the correction of the life we had misspent. His death was the punishment due to us. Salvation becomes ours through the contrite acknowledgement of our desert and accompanying reliance upon his performance and passion in our place. He did our due service and duty to God over again. He fulfilled our obligation. He bore our condemnation. He absorbed the consequences of our criminality. It is amazing to trace the life of the Lord Jesus and realize that in all things he was pleasing the Father, appeasing his wrath, and attracting his favour towards us. In Jesus God was quenching his anger, assuaging it in his own bosom, and opening his heart of love towards us. Propitiation was God’s desire accomplished through his Son as our Substitute. A propitious future is his donation to us in his Son as our surrogate. Everything necessary on the negative side has been borne by him. Everything required by righteousness has been fulfilled by him. “It is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 2:15). He has removed every barrier to God. He has opened wide the way.

The Litany enables us to cherish, through its summary of the Saviour’s experience, every aspect of his progress through life and the endurance of his final ordeal. Every event is an essential contribution to the triumphant outcome. It had to be so, for every step of our lives has been sinful and a departure from God. He had to “backtrack” on our behalf and retrieve us to God by erasing our missteps and perfecting our performance. The plea of the Litany starts at the very beginning where Jesus remedies the infection of our original (birth, inherent) sin. “By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting and Temptation, Good Lord, deliver us.”

Jesus’ life was the rectification of ours. He bestowed upon us his own carefully wrought rectitude. “This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). We are born putrid. He was born pure. We emerge rebellious. He emerged in rightness. We arrived as aliens, having forfeited all fellowship with God. His circumcision was the sign of the covenant (arrangement through grace) that reunites us with God. Our natures are tarnished by evil. His baptism pledges him to our renewal. We are careless about our plight. His fasting revealed his absolute dedication to our deliverance and dependence on divine strength alone. We yield to temptation and even invite it. He resisted it and repelled its author foreshadowing its defeat on Calvary. We surrender to wickedness and are its captives. He agonized in the perpetual conflict with Satan and the wretched, cruel sinfulness of mankind. The contest climaxed in the intense anguish of Gethsemane. The toil of the fray, and the terror of the Father’s strokes upon him (Isaiah 53:4), caused him to sweat more than saline moisture from the pores of his skin, but drops of blood that preceded the eventual outflow that gushed from his “riven side”. Gethsemane began the torture of the cross. And his passion continued overnight and into the day of blasphemous ridicule and harsh ill-treatment until the culmination of suffering on the cross too horrid to comprehend or describe. But the hellishness of it all was our desert and he diverted it from us by interposing himself between us and the just indignation and fury of God. The death and burial were to be our finale (bitter end in judgment) and exposure to the second death in conscious abandonment by God. But he took death on and defeated it, annihilated our judgment, and rose again for our justification. He ascended to the Father to win and guarantee us life, preserve us in grace, and bring us to his glory. And he sent the Spirit to enable us to participate in his risen life now as new creatures, and fight our way through to victory over every foe within and without.

His life and death together put away all our offences, giving us a clean record to hold before our Judge as a certificate of perfect innocence. He pioneered our way to Paradise, going before us in his glorious ascension, having removed every obstacle and all opposition. He continues to go with us by the indwelling Spirit. The Litany points out with such clarity what we can so easily miss or dismiss through inattention and ignorance, through that lack of a panoramic, comprehensive view of Christ’s vicarious offices and roles. Reference to the Litany reminds us of the full scope of Christ’s involvement with us, and achievement for us. It focuses our petitions and increases our gratitude by expanding our awareness of the dimensions of our need and the corresponding completeness of all that the Saviour has done for us.

RJS