A Smooth Gem

Thanks to Jeol Willits at Euangelion for a quote from NT Wright on Christ being applied very early to Jesus as a title appropriate to him.

Here's the quote:
But, as I say, even if this is not so, it merely tightens the screw of the argument even tighter, because clearly it would mean that the very early Christians used the word so frequently for Jesus that it had worn smooth (557, The Resurrection of the Son of God, N T Wright).

Read Joel post here.

The Jewel: The way of the cross (Matthew 16:21-28)

An example
Children are copycats. Unfortunately when we grow up we stop copying those wiser than ourselves and start make our own mistakes. And then we copy ourselves, repeating our mistakes. Almost always these are mistakes others have made before us and we could have avoided, but we’re such copycats.
The Lord Jesus is our example as he tells us in John chapter 13:15 in relation to feet washing, but surely he is an example to us in many other ways also. He is an example for us in his work on the cross.

The way Christ walked
The Lord Jesus kept his eyes fixed upon the cross. He taught his disciples that his way was the way of the cross.
Knowing what lies before him the Lord Jesus lives in obedience to his Father’s will. This is what he must do; this is what he does.
In all that he suffered he was personally innocent and suffered unjustly. And yet he endured patiently this unjust suffering. He could have escaped and avoided this suffering, but he did not.
He really was crucified, dead and buried. There is no greater self-denial than dying for another. He gave up everything for us.
This is the way of Christ that he calls us to follow.

The way we follow
In Matthew 16:24 the Lord Jesus takes each of these three examples and directs them to his disciples.
Disciples don’t lead, they follow. This is self-denial. Serving others first is the way we must follow our Servant King.
Disciples patiently endure unjust suffering, there is no plotting revenge, no exploding with rage. ‘Father forgive them’ is the prayer of the disciple following the Servant King.
Disciples obey their Lord and master. Learning what the Lord Jesus says disciples commit themselves to obedience, to learning the way of the Servant King.

The way of the cross
This is the example Christ has set us, this is the only way anyone can follow as his disciple. Will you follow him today?

The Jewel: Christ our Substitute (Galatians 3:1-13)

Substitutes
We all know what a substitute is. With the amount of sport on TV it would be difficult not to be aware of substitutes. In one of our Easter hymns we sing together, ‘Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned he stood.’ The Lord Jesus is our substitute.

A legal picture
The only way to understand Jesus being our substitute is to realise this is a legal picture. The law which God has given us is conditional: if you keep the law you live, if you disobey you will not live. Our human condition is that no one can keep God’s law. We need a substitute; someone who will take our place and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Christ our substitute
Christ, who does not deserve to be cursed, becomes a curse for us (Gal 3:13). We deserve the punishment which falls upon him. This is why the word penal can be used when referring to Christ's work as our substitute.
But we must remember Christ is innocent; he is perfectly obedient doing all his Father’s will. He is obedient for those who cannot obey: you and me.

The benefits of Christ’s substitution
All that we need to do to be right with God Christ has done for us. By faith we swop places with Jesus. Now that Christ has paid our penalty God will not demand a second payment from us. All that we need to be right with God is found in Christ, and is ours by faith in Christ, as we are united with him.

A great jewel
What will you do with such a precious jewel?
When you look at it remember that you have God’s promise. God promises to make you right with him in Christ, because of all that Christ has done for you.
Do you remember, gazing upon this jewel, that God loves you, loves you so much that Jesus came and died for you. God loves you this much, Jesus took your place.Will you keep this jewel to yourself? Will you not rather show it off to all whom you meet, telling them how much God loves you, and if you, how much he loves them? What a gracious and loving God we have. ‘Hallelujah, what a Saviour!’

The Jewel: Christ the obedient second Adam (Romans 5:12-21)

Adam and Christ
Decisions once made can be unmade. Mistakes can be corrected. As the light catches another face of that jewel, which is the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see reflected Christ the obedient second Adam.
Adam is a pattern, a foreshadow, of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the climax of God’s creation Adam was to have dominion over creation. God gives great promises to Adam. When he falls Adam falls from a great height; when he falls, we all fall with him.

Repeats in reverse
Where Adam disobeyed in every way Christ obeys. But in reverse. Christ works over the story of Adam, repeating Adam’s fall in reverse. All that Adam should have been, but wasn’t, Christ is.

Restoration
As he works over Adam’s story the Lord Jesus restores all that Adam has lost. And this not only for himself, but for us all. In place of death Christ works for us life. In place of condemnation, justification. In place of alienation from God, now there is a renewed fellowship with God.

Realisation
The Adam story is told using the language of covenant; God has made promises to Adam. What would have become true for Adam had he not fallen this is made true for us in Christ. The promises, the blessing are for now through Christ Jesus for those found in him.

Cash it in
No, it isn’t ungrateful to speak of a cash value for these things. What we believe, what God has done for us in Christ Jesus is for our lives today. The free gift of God is beyond price, our greatest treasure and our joy. Where Adam fell before enemies he could not defeat: sin, the devil, death, Christ triumphed and united with Christ we share his victory over every enemy.

A display of love

I'm preparing a sermon for Sunday night on 1 John 3:11-24. In the midst of this section we read the following:

1 John 3:16-18 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

I've just written down for my sermon, 'Love is not a word to define, but a deed to do.'

In the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross God displays his love for us. The death of the Lord Jesus is self-giving, self-sacrificing, so that we might know the love of God for us Christ held back nothing of himself but gave everything for us.

This becomes for us the example we are to follow as we love one another, self-giving, self-sacrificing that God's love might be known by many in and through us.

I'm re reading N T Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God. If you haven't read it then give it a try, it is well worth it.

His section on Burton L Mack (and the Question of Q) pages 35-44 is interesting as it connects with a post on reading the bible I made earlier.

Wright suggests that Mack has allowed his antipathy towards late 20th Century American Christianity colour his reading of the gospel of Mark in a major way. Mack reconstructs a Jesus who resembles a 'Cynic sage, spinning aphorisms designed to subert his hearers social and cultural worlds' (p. 37) Mack achieves this by excluding from his consideration of Jesus any material that is apocalyptic or eschatological. Well if you leave out half the gospel material no wonder you end up with a view of Jesus quite different from that presented in the gospels!

In my earler post - On Bible Reading, Sat 7 March - I was challenging that way of reading the bible which ignores passages or material which the reader doesn't like, or doesn't want to submit to. One of my Professors, the late Bob Carroll, was fond of saying 'Read the text', all of the text. If at the end of an exposition there was surplus text left lying on the table Bob would be hugely critical. (And those who knew Bob would not know him as a conservative Biblical scholar!).

We simply cannot read the parts of the bible we want to read and ignore all the rest and then claim to be scholarly, or historical, or whatever. This is not to exclude the valuable work of textual criticism which highlights for us passages we should rightly be suspicious of, e.g. the endings of Mark's gospel. What the Church has always needed is a commitment from her members to the whole word of God: to read with faith and reverence, to study with all the tools and ability God has given us, to obey in lives given to following this Jesus who is both Christ and Lord.

Lent

One of the things I do at Lent is to change my desktop picture. This is the Grunewald Crucifixion from the Isenheim altarpiece, from 1515.

Unlike other works of art from this period the artist is not searching for a portrayal of beauty, but has given over his work to provide 'a sermon in pictures'.

The figure of Christ upon the cross is in agony, suffering all the torments of this moment, notice the gesture of his hands.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is in widow's clothing, Mary Magdalene, with her jar of ointment is wringing her hands in sorrow. John the Baptist stands beside the ancient symbol of the Lamb that was slain, proclaiming, 'He must increase, but I must decrease.'

I read somewhere that Karl Barth had a print of this altarpiece above his desk.

It is towards the cross, that place of atonement where by his sacrifice Christ turned onto himself all the wrath of God, that it might not fall upon us, towards the cross every figure in this work looks, and we journey there during Lent.

A Poem for Today

I've been reading The Jesus Way by Eugene H Peterson and finding it a most wonderful book, there will be more posts on the themes from this book soon.

Today I came across a poem Peterson quotes of George Herbert, a seventeeth century priest. The poem is called 'Aaron' and is a study of priesthood. Peterson uses the poem to illustrate the anonymity of a genuine priest, an 'anonymity which suggests their authenticity.' (page 226)

I hope you find this poem helpful and challenging.

Aaron - by George Herbert

Holines on the Head
Light and perfections on the Brest,
Harmonious bells below, raising the Dead,
To lead them unto life and rest,
Thus are true Aaron’s drest.

Profanenes in my Head,
Defects and darkenes in my brest,
A Noise of Passions ringing mee for Dead
Unto a place, wherer there is no rest,
Poore Priest thus am I drest.

Onely another Head
I have, another hart and brest,
Another Musique, making live not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest,
In him I am well drest.

Christ is my only Head
My alone onely hart and Brest,
My onely Musick, striking mee even Dead,
That to the old man I may Rest,
And be in him new Drest.

So Holy in my Head,
Perfect and light in my deare Brest,
My Doctrine tun’d by Christ, (who is not Dead
But lives in mee, while I do Rest)
Come people; Aaron’s Drest.

Italics and spelling as in Peterson.