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Copyright 2007 Christ the Truth |
[1] The parable of the land mines.
There was once a farmer in a
war-torn land. He had ten fields, yet he couldn’t farm any of them except for a
small plot of land around his one-room shack.
This was because the whole farm was riddled with land mines.
Years earlier his father had
tried to clear the first field. Tragically, he set off a mine and died in the
blast. The farmer was left all by himself
with only the smallest patch of safe ground where the mine had detonated. As time wore on, the farmer eeked out a
pitiful hand-to-mouth existence. He
soon realized that unless things changed, a slow starvation awaited.
One day some army officers passed
through the country. They had a special
piece of equipment that could defuse all the farmer’s landmines. The farmer was overjoyed as the soldiers
passed their device over each of the ten fields. In a single day, every deadly mine was made safe.
The next morning, the farmer
awoke eager to get to work. He took a
spade in hand as he ventured out beyond the ‘safe area’ and onto dangerous
ground. His heart skipped a beat as he
heard a clicking sound underfoot. He
had stepped on a mine. He closed his
eyes and prayed as he removed his foot again and… nothing. Floods of relief! The land was truly safe.
He set his shovel into the ground with glee as he dug up this old
foe. He held the heavy metal
contraption in his hands with amazement and disgust. Here was something with the power of death, something that had
made him a prisoner on his own land. And here it was – defused, benign. With a feeling of exultation he threw the
mine into the corner of the field, beginning a pile that would mount up over the
course of the next two weeks.
After a fortnight, the
farmer had cleared the mines from the first field around his shack. As he surveyed the land he felt a deep
satisfaction he’d never before known. Yet the work did not end there – it had
only begun. Once the mines were dug up,
then there was the clearing of thorns and thistles that had grown over the
un-tilled ground. Just to clear the
weeds took him another six weeks of exhausting labour. Next came the breaking up of the soil and
the sowing of new crops. Every night
the farmer climbed into bed with aching muscles, blistered hands and cuts and
bruises all over his body. Before the
mines were defused he had only known frustration and a dull hunger. Now he was alive, he had purpose, and never
had he hurt so much!
After a year the farmer ate
the produce from the first field.
Others may have eaten grander banquets with richer food, and perhaps the
farmer would eat better in the future, but for now – this was the most extraordinary
feast he had known. As the sun set on
his harvest supper he surveyed his land.
Much accomplished but so much to do.
One field cleared, nine still ravaged by thorns and thistles. Perhaps next year he’d open up the second
field. Perhaps he would soon turn a profit
and build a bigger house. Perhaps he’d
get help in. Would he ever clear the
whole farm? Probably not. Would there be set-backs? Plagues? Illness?
Certainly. But now the farm and the
farmer were released. The work had
begun. Praise God it could
begin. And praise God that now he could
suffer in ways not possible a year ago.
Hardship had not ended – far from it.
But, from now on, all his suffering would be enduringly fruitful.
[2] Love is putting your happiness in the happiness of
another (Jonathan Edwards).
It’s like we have a whole
control panel with levers which most of us spend all day pulling. Things like
ensuring we have enough rest, enough “me time”, enough satisfaction in our
work, enough affirmation and approval by others. But love is leaving your own control panel and moving over to
someone else’s and helping them pull their levers. You leave your own well-being and invest yourself in another’s.
Of course, the only way you’ll do this is if you think someone is going to take
care of your levers. We only love because God first loved us.
To love selflessly is to be first secure in the love of God
(1 John 4:10). Then you can give away
to others the love that you’ve received (John 13:3-5). Otherwise you’re just feeding your need to idol
worship (Jer 2:13) - this a) dishonours God (Ex 20:3); b) it puts immense
strain on the relationship and c) gives them the power of God over you -
to destroy you if you don’t get the love you’re looking for.
[3] The Bubble Ring:
The creation was like the
Father breathing His omnipotent Spirit through Christ like a bubble ring. It all came through Jesus. Everything
is defined and shaped by His character and personality.
[4] What are our qualifications for speaking of
Christ? A certain degree of learning? Proper schooling? No: Acts 4:13 “Now when [the ruling council] saw
the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common
men, they were astonished. And they
recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Being an educated man is
nothing compared to ‘being with Jesus’!
[5] The upper room discourse in John gives us three
picture of the way the love of the Father relates to Jesus and to us:
In John 15:9 we have the
‘waterfall effect’: ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.’ Here love cascades from the Father over the
Son to us.
In John 16:26-27 we have the
‘divine promotion’: Jesus does not have to ask the Father for us, we can ask
ourselves for what we need for ‘the Father Himself loves you.’ In Jesus we have been promoted to His
beloved status – shoulder to shoulder with Jesus in enjoying the divine love.
Finally in John 17:26 we have the ‘internal compass effect’:
The love the Father has for the Son is placed in the believer. Thus the Father’s own ‘true north’ setting,
which places all His affection on Jesus, is put within the Christian – now the
Father has reached into the Christian and set their love-compass on Jesus. He has placed His divine love for Christ in
us. We now love Jesus with the
Father’s own love (the Spirit!). Inconceivable!
[6] The grace at the end of 2 Corinthians provides a
wonderful basis for enjoying the Persons of God. Grace of Jesus, love of God, fellowship of
Spirit. It’s similar in Jude 20-21:
prayer in the Spirit, love of God and mercy of Jesus. Do we know the Persons in their distinct personalities? The Father’s love, the Son’s grace and
mercy, the Spirit’s intimate fellowship.
[7] The human problem is not so much sin but God’s anger
at sin. In fact we ought not to define
it as a human problem but a
predicament to which God has bound us - Rom 11:32. The problem is wrath.
Back in the garden, Adam’s
problem wasn’t so much his nakedness and shame – his problem (and his one great
Hope) was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and about to confront
him.
It is the LORD’s response to
sin and not simply ‘sin’ that is our problem.
If we see the problem as human-centred then at least notionally the
solution could be man-centred. (Like
Islam’s solution to Adam’s nakedness: ‘Clothe yourself in good deeds.’) But no - the problem is God’s and God solves
it. God propitiates God while we look
on. If we see the problem of sin from man’s side then all our applications to
the problem of sin will be “repent” rather than “stand back and watch God
justify God.”
[8] Christianity is not a religion of repentance but of
redemption. This flows directly from
the point above, that the problem is God-centred, not man-centred.
[9] Human religion is man justifying man before a
watching god.
The gospel is God justifying
God before a watching humanity.
[10] Substitutes for the Spirit.
We have endless substitutes
in our thinking for a true pneumatology, here’s a sketch of just a few off the
top of my head. It’s possible to live
out a form of discipleship that looks to all the world like a Christian walk
and yet it is not Spirit-led.
Beware these imitations. Of
course, many of these are means by which the Spirit works yet if they are cut
off from the Source they have no life in them:
[11] Faith is simply receiving. Rom 4:18ff is Paul’s
example of Abraham’s faith. The
occasion for Abe’s faith strengthening was the impossibility of the task. There
could be no contribution towards its accomplishment. But we trust the God who justifies the wicked, who raises the
dead, who calls into existence the things that are not. He is the God of the
impossible. The God of Paradox whose
grace shatters men. Faith is receiving!
[Influenced by John
Piper] And if faith is receiving and we
live our lives “by faith” “from first to last” (Rom 1:16) then all of the
Christian life is receiving. There is
not a single moment where you repay God for His kindness. This is the debtors ethic (or gratitude
ethic) - e.g. “It’s a cross for a cross, a life for a life.” All that God is able to do in our lives He
does through us. It is all by
grace. We never turn from grace to
repay God. The whole Christian life is
about going deeper and deeper into debt.
“Who has ever given to God?” Acts 17 - God is not served. Mark 10 - the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve. Beware lest you
switch places with the Son of Man! All
those crap analogies about faith then works must be rooted out. It’s not like a marriage where my gratitude
towards my wife makes me do nice things out of love. It is more like a marriage where my wife’s giving in the past
leads me to want to take more from
her in the future. Human analogies
don’t work because God is the all sufficient Giver (Acts 17). And the Giver gets the glory. How dare we valiantly lay down our lives in
service of God as if this is we’re repaying God! Only He can give us the strength to do this! How dare we ‘render’ it to Him! This steals away His glory. The giver gets the glory. We glorify Christ by taking, taking,
taking. The whole Christian life is the
empty hand of faith which brings to Christ only our filthy sin and takes all
His grace and righteousness and peace and life.
Note John 3:19-21 - those
who come into the light can only do so because God has done His good deeds
through them. If we present our own
deeds, they are filthy rags. Those who
present good deeds on the last day will be presenting the Spirit’s own good
deeds back to Him - HE GETS THE GLORY.
Application: Radical
dependence on God’s grace. We cannot
breathe unless He is pleased to grant us another lung-full. This is what excludes boasting. And God gets the glory!!!!
[12] We know sin only when we know Christ, against Whom we
sin (John 16:9) Therefore we do not
appeal to a sinner’s natural guilt. We proclaim the gospel and only then they
can appreciate their sin and the Holy Spirit work conviction. There is no natural knowledge of sin. Yet how much evangelism assumes this!!?
[13] There is no point of contact with unregenerate
humanity. The gospel quickens a
conscience and the gospel enlivens a heart.
The gospel is not the diamond shown up by the black velvet of the
law. The gospel is the revelation of
God’s wrath and His love. The needs
that a sinner feels are never her real needs.
Our preaching must convict them of their need and the solution simultaneously. There is therefore no preparation for the
gospel. There are no aspects of a
theological understanding (outside of Christ and Him crucified) that can draw a
person towards Christ and Him crucified.
Just preach the gospel!!!
[14] Evangelists let the gospel
shape their message - they ought to let it shape their methods too! The gospel ought to be the backbone of our
evangelistic strategies. Unfortunately
pragmatism/entrepreneurialism/worldliness seems to be at the heart of our
strategy. 2 Cor 4, for one passage
seems to show a gospel shaped method of evangelism - being slaves of our
hearers and setting forth the truth plainly.
Mark 4 seems to be utterly anti-strategy - who sows on the path?? The cross must be not only the content of
our preaching but the pattern – the wisdom of folly, the strength of weakness
(1 Cor 1&2). Fundamentally we must
trust the Spirit not strategy.
[15] From Job 1; 2 Thes 2:8-12; Rev 2:8-11 - the devil is
under the sovereign power of Christ.
Christ lets him loose on a leash which He controls. The devil (looking through the wide angle
lens) serves God’s purpose. And that purpose?
To test people to the point of death.
It seems (and I await contradiction gladly) that the devil has license
to test believers to the point of death as to their faithfulness (Rev
2:10). This serves Christ’s purpose -
He wants followers who count all things rubbish compared to Him. We will be tested on this! Is it true for us??
[16] The grace of God means His amazing generosity but
also His transcendental ownership. When
the father says to the older son in Luke 15 - “all that I have is yours” - he
also must mean by that “everything you have has been given to you by me.” God’s grace expresses His mercy and kindness
but also His divine claim on our life.
This is why it triumphs over licentiousness as well as legalism. It forgives the sinner but it also judges
the moralist who would try to offer to God something as though it were not His
already (namely, a righteousness of their own). I once ran an evangelistic bible study with a woman in it who was
just beginning to understand grace. She
said, “Religion is where you try to control God. Grace means you can’t control Him anymore.”
[17] We would far rather be dependable than
dependant. Far rather be reliable than
rely. Far rather be trustworthy than
trust. But that is what the gospel
demands - faith. In being the Reliable
One, the Dependable One, the Trustworthy One, Christ gets the glory. Our response to His grace (see paragraph above)
must be to be needy beneficiaries, not strong benefactors. See beatitudes.
[18] Psalm 147:10, 11 - here is a wonderful explanation of
assurance. Our assurance of salvation
is included in our saving faith. To put
your hope in God’s unfailing love is to know with certainty that His love will
not fail. (See Rom 8:37-39). Assurance
is part and parcel of true gospel faith.
[19] Faith is not a spiritual power. It is not like a vial of sacred elixir which
God bestows on some and not others. It is not a divine property which courses
through only certain people’s veins.
Faith is recognition of a total lack
of spiritual power. Faith is facing the human impossibility of a
situation. (Rom 4) It is a denial of
the flesh’s ability to achieve anything.
Faith is a trust in the spiritual power of Another. This is why a mustard seed measure of faith
can achieve so much. Not because the
faith is powerful but the One who is believed is powerful. So faith is not something that comes to us
like a light shining down from heaven.
Faith is recognition of the power of Christ. Seeing is believing. To
be more precise - hearing is believing (Rom 10). To get faith we look to the All-Sufficient power and glory of
Jesus. Once we are assured of this -
that is faith. As Anders Nygren puts it
- faith is when we are conquered by the gospel.
[21] 2 Thes 2:10 - the reason a person ends up in
hell? They refuse to love the truth and
so be saved.
[22] People have difficulty with the concept of
appropriating grace. Often we tell the
enquirer to simply receive grace as a free gift. They, naturally, wonder what on earth that looks like. Generally we reply with greater vigour 'Just
receive the free forgiveness and trust that you have been forgiven.' But this is not the way the Bible presents
it. In John 3:16 - the gift we are to
receive is Jesus. Grace is not a
concept in the Bible - He is a Person.
Doesn't this (literally) put flesh and bones on the concept of receiving
grace as a free gift. We're really
asking the non-Christian to receive Jesus - the gift of His Father. Rev 3:20!
There's not a 'free gift' standing at the door, waiting to be opened
(with a gift tag: IOU 1 eternal life). There
is Jesus standing at the door and when you let Him in - He doesn't just hover
in your lobby assuring us of our forgiven status. He eats with us in intimate fellowship. THAT is what saving faith looks like. That is how a person
becomes a Christian - not by assenting to a concept of forgiveness but by
receiving the Person in Whom forgiveness and life is offered.
The same point is made in
Colossians 1:13, 14. It is the Son in Whom
redemption is offered – the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is redemption –
the transference of a person (who is still a sinner!) from the kingdom of
darkness into the kingdom of Christ.
This deliverance is offered IN Jesus.
We must be introducing people to the person of Jesus not the concept of
change (or even of redemption or deliverance).
We don’t believe in redemption per se – we believe in the
Redeemer.
[23] Reading through 1 and 2 Samuel – the emotional life
of David etc is so much richer than ours.
He hates and avenges with such passion – and he loves (Jonathan etc)
with such intimacy. He is surely
reflecting the Living God far better than our stoic modern cynicism.
[24] We will win the floor for Christ-centred theology by
loving better than anyone else. It is
commonly said of certain churches or bible colleges ‘Such and such has great
theology – they’re just not very loving.’
That simply cannot be right! If
they really had the right theology they would be the most loving people in the
world. But because they have stripped
the gospel of the Person, they have stripped themselves of the personal. Their theology consists of doctrines. True theology must consist in Jesus – the
Son who the Father loves. This must
make us radically loving people. Here
is how we’ll win! LOVE.
[25] [Piper again]
Faith is not about thinking – it’s about drinking: John 6:53-57. Assenting to true doctrine is not saving
faith. Savouring Christ is!
We must take advantage of
Christ or we are not saved. (see above).
We must lay our sin on His head, we must take His righteousness freely
given, we must come for His bath, we must feed on His flesh and blood and be
greedy for more. We are not benefactors
– we have nothing to offer Christ except our sin. We are needy beneficiaries.
Faith is being greedy for Christ knowing we deserve nothing but
hell. It is taking – unabashed but
never irreverent or ungrateful. It’s wide-eyed wonder at the generosity of the
Gracious God which expresses its wonder and confirms its abundance by taking
all the more.
[26] In Luke’s parables – the Good Samaritan and the
Prodigal Son are probably the favourites of liberals. They are taught often without reference to Christ. Yet Jesus is the central character in
both. In both, the central character
“takes pity/has compassion/is moved in the bowels” – which is Jesus’ word. It is only ever used of Him in the New
Testament. (The three parable characters who “take pity” are the king in the
unmerciful servant’, the good samaritan and the father in the prodigal son: all
of them are Christ).
The Good Samaritan comes across a man left for dead and heals
him. He pours oil (His Spirit) and wine
(His blood) to revive him. He gives the
hotelier a downpayment for his temporal treatment and goes on a journey (see
parable of talents) before He gives the full amount on His second coming. Interestingly Jesus asks the teacher of the
law to put himself in the shoes of the beaten man: the teacher of the law had
asked: “who is my neighbour”, Jesus
finishes the story by asking “who was a neighbour to the beaten man”. Jesus wants us
first to see that we have been saved from death ourselves by one called ‘a
samaritan’ (John 8:48). Once we have
appreciated the mercy shown to us by the ultimate outsider then we are to go and do likewise.
In the prodigal son – Jesus’
audience is two-fold. There are the law
worshippers and the law breakers (Luke 15:1-2). The law worshippers grumble that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats
with them. Jesus then tells a story
about a law worshipper who grumbles because his father welcomes a sinner and
eats with him. Jesus is the father in
the parable. The application of the
prodigal son is not “if you repent you can come home to the love of the Father
(no need for Christ).” The application
is “you must come to Christ for forgiveness.”
Rev 3:20.
[27] We will always be sinners – therefore we must always
repent. Even (and especially) when we
have been wronged. There will always be
something to repent of – even if someone has totally wronged you (e.g. repent
of finding your identity in the fear of men etc). This is the path to self-forgetful happiness and away from
navel-gazing misery.
[28] How easy it is to turn from a desire to love Jesus
(having caught sight of His beauty and worth) to focusing on your ability to do
so or lack thereof! We make faith a
work! Note Peter in John 13 – he trusts
his love for Jesus rather than Jesus’ love for him – this is the same pride
that leads to his downfall. We must
pursue Christ but as a self-forgetful glad focus above and beyond ourselves. In
fact it can be a problem if we spend too long worrying that our focus is not
all that it might be! How the flesh and
the devil love us to take our eyes off Jesus.
They are content to get us doing that, even if it means admitting our
dryness. Now dissatisfaction with the dryness of our spiritual walk can be a
great work of the Spirit but navel-gazing is out! The fundamental issue is His hand upon you, not yours upon
Him. You will find that the more you
are convinced of this truth, the greater your devotion will be.
[29] All sin is unbelief.
Yet this is not to minimize sin – it is to show it’s utter horror. The response is not “once saved always saved
therefore sin is an inconsequential blip.”
The response is “If I am not fighting sin with the fight of faith, I
know nothing of saving faith and I am headed for hell.”
[30] Note in Gal 5-6 – the works of the flesh are
contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit.
Works just happen – fruit grows.
For years I prayed for the
fruit of the Spirit in an altogether fleshly way. I would ask for the moral character of ‘love, joy, peace…’ as
abstract qualities. I would judge my
own spiritual walk that week by how loving, joyful, peaceful… I had been. In short I had turned the fruit of the
Spirit into works of the flesh. One
morning as I was praying for the fruit, I got an image of the Spirit coming to
my door with a basket laden with choice fruits. My response was to say ‘Thanks for bringing the fruit, just leave
them inside the door and I’ll see you later!’
I wanted the fruit not the Spirit. Yet the fruit are fruit of the Spirit. They grow organically from a relationship
with Him. How quickly we turn gospel
into law, relationship into rules!
[31] [After Spurgeon] We should not measure our
deservingness of hell (or the probability of its existence!) by our
comprehension of our own sin. Rather,
measure the horror of your sin by comprehending the magnitude of hell!
[32] Psalm 2 presents us with the Christ/King/Judge of the
world. He will inherit the rebellious
nations, dashing us to pieces. Yet the
conclusion is that we are to take refuge in the Judge. The Judge is also the Saviour – we are to
run to the Judge. All who run from Him
and take refuge in other things (Rev 6:15-17) will be consumed by the
Judge. All who run to the Judge will
find refuge – He Himself will be consumed for them (see below). Therefore all will come under Christ either
in judgement or salvation. Yet for the
Christian this is re-assuring. If we
are saved by the Judge we are safe indeed.
To take refuge in something
is for that thing to bear the brunt of an onslaught you cannot. The umbrella takes the rain so you
don’t. The air-raid shelter takes the
bomb so you don’t have to. The idea of
the LORD being our refuge is not just a cosy thought – it means He bears the
onslaught for us!
[33] The
sermon of creation is not a minimal thing – it’s maximal (see Rom 1; Col
1). Our blindness to it is not a
minimal thing either – it is maximal.
Note that David trusts in Psalm 19 that the creation daily pours forth
speech in intentional evangelism yet his son in Ecclesiates 1 sees the exact
same heavens and movements and even with all his wisdom, finds it utterly
meaningless. We cannot judge what the
sermon of creation is saying by what we see.
We only see what we want to see.
The
sermon of creation is not a static thing, it’s dynamic, it’s about movement and
action and inter-relation. Literally Ps
19:2 says “Day unto day is a pouring forth of speech; night unto night is a
displaying of knowledge.” The sequence
of day and night and day and night is itself a display of knowledge. The sermon of creation is expressed in
dynamic action, it does not simply speak to us in static snap-shots of
beauty. So often people simply
characterise the sermon of creation as something like “Look at a snow-capped
mountain range, doesn’t it fill you with awe.
Now direct that awe to the God who is big enough and clever enough to
have made it.” That is certainly an
element to what creation is saying, but it’s not what David is drawing our
attention to.
Psalm
19 highlights the progression of day
and night, the movement of the sun
across the sky. When Jesus picks up a
seed in John 12 he doesn’t say “How pretty and how intelligently designed” – He
says “In the action of this seed and its progression the world is told about my
death, resurrection and salvation of the world.” The dynamic sermon of creation tells far better of the Glory of
God who is not a static, unmoved deity simply waiting for people to give Him
glory. The Living God acts and moves
and relates and His Glory, according to the Bible, is His Son acting, moving and relating. The theist will think of the sermon of creation in static terms because
his god is static. The Christian knows
the sermon is dynamic – just like our God.
[34]
The Bible is full of promises to be
claimed! We do not revive our souls (Ps
19:7) by letting the Bible inform our doctrine and then trying to remind
ourselves of that doctrine. For
instance I would always read Matt 11:28 as something that helped me square the
idea of rest with salvation in Christ.
Thereby Matt 11:28 would revive my soul somewhat when I remembered that
as a saved person I really ought to have some measure of rest in Christ. But this is hopeless! How much better simply
to fix our finger on the verse and pray “LORD Jesus You promise that if any are
weary and burdened we can come to You for rest. I’m a’comin’!” That’s how
you read Scripture for the reviving of your soul!
[35] When Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from going to the
cross He replies: “Get behind me Satan, you do not have in mind the things of
God but the things of men. (Mark 8:33)”
Man believes that the things of God involve power and status. If anyone in the street were to stop and
imagine the things of God they’d undoubtedly imagine majesty, austerity, power
and authority. Jesus re-defines all our
thinking. To display power and exercise
privilege are the things of men – in fact the things of Satan. The very stuff of God is to come, to stoop,
to suffer and to die. We are closest to
the things of God when we conform our thinking and action to the cross. To suffer and to give all for the life of
others – that is to reflect the things of God.
[36] For Jesus to be the Way (John 14:6) is for Him to be
the point of departure, the point of arrival and everything in between. Jesus fills the universe. We must be very wary of talk about our
spiritual journeys or pilgrimages. If
we are in the Way (in Jesus) then we are also in the destination. We are not those who progress towards God –
the gap has been entirely closed by Christ and we are in Him.
[37] The ascension ought to revolutionize our prayer
lives. Jesus, our Great High Priest sits
at the Father’s right hand – the place of the beloved, the place of honour and
power. And we are in Him. Therefore the privilege of prayer is not so
much that we have a hotline to heaven – we are there!! Our words do not ascend to heaven – Christ
has ascended. We do not yell up to the
throne room, we are at His right hand, whispering into His ear. And just as we ask all things in Christ, so
the Father will answer all our petitions as He would for His beloved Son. While we know the Father can and will say
‘no’ to His children in sometimes very painful ways (Gethsemane!) we also know
that every ‘no’ will be for our good and no good thing will be withheld.
[38] No-one really reads the Bible - everyone to some
extent reads the Bible of their own imagination. We come to the Word with a whole web of fleshly, blasphemous,
sin-justifying, man-exalting, Christ-denying thinking. Our only hope is that
the Word comes to us – in an unveiling, miraculous encounter. We must pray every time we come to the Word
that the Word would come to us. We
should pray that rather than us thinking through the Word, the Word would think
through us – reshaping and moulding us, tearing down idolatries and building up
truth.
[39] The executioner never makes friends with the one to
be executed. We will trample Satan and
his minions under our feet (Rom 16; 1 Cor 5).
How can we share a joke with evil – we’re on the road to the gallows!!
[40] Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for
anything. We often twist the statement
‘salvation is by grace’ into ‘salvation is by renouncing works.’ Thus it is, supposedly, the grace-fuelled
response to renounce robes or ritual or circumcision. Yet Paul is clear that uncircumcision is also
nothing. What counts is a new
creation. Renouncing works is every bit
as much a work as any other fleshly activity.
Apply
this to robes. The evangelical position
is not ‘No Robes!’ The
evangelical position is ‘robes’ or ‘no robes’ means nothing, what counts is a
new creation.
[41] People can become quite good at using the gospel to
define sin and then the law to counter-act it.
It is a horrible inversion of the Lutheran law-grace dynamic but is more
common than you might think. What
happens is that sin is defined well – not in Pharisaical external terms.
Instead, rightly, sin is seen as unbelief and thus the subterranean workings of
the human heart are exposed. Then –
unfortunately – the remedy is diagnosed: Repent of these myriad, subterranean,
subtle idols. Instead, surely the
gospel should also provide the solution: you are thoroughly wicked, yet
the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.
You are therefore, simultaneously, thoroughly righteous.
[42] Eph 4:23 – three great questions to ask to diagnose
the operation of our sinful natures: what are the desires? How are they
deceiving? How are they corrupting?
[43] Paradoxes at the heart of the Christian faith:
God-Man
The
Three who are One
Impassible
suffers
Immortal
dies
Glorified
in shame
We
choose God – He chooses us
Dead
people turn to Christ
God
is holy, God is gracious
God
hidden in revealedness, revealed in hiddenness
Scholastic method – cannot
handle paradox. In its better
formulations it allows some (but not others).
How to distinguish? Reason hands
to itself the power of judgement. That is
the problem – as long as it’s in the equation it will never budge. Even if you worry that it hasn’t handled
biblical truth well in any one instance it will always make another distinction
in order to uphold its own place. Scripture contrasts reason and Christ – who
are we to co-ordinate them? If Jesus is
the Truth then we cannot judge Him by our truth. Instead we must be
given Truth by Him. Therefore we are
not irrationalists – we simply believe that Jesus is our Logic (not Aristotle)
[44] Suggested
title for my first internationally best-selling Christian paperback: “Don’t be
man-centred, don’t even be God-centred, be God-Man centred.”
[45] Do not reify faith.
Faith is not a thing – a possession by which we make claim to
salvation. Faith is the absence of a
thing – the confession of a complete lack.
If you make faith into a thing you either have to make it an imputed
substance which God grants arbitrarily (in order to uphold sovereign grace) or
a factor brought into the equation by man contributing to our salvation. This sounds very much like some
Calvinist-Arminian debates! Both sides make the same mistake (the reification
of faith) but one side spins this out to divine caprice, the other to a form of
self-salvation.
[46] Daniel 4 – pride is killed by the Trinity! The Spirit
gives all (v9), the Son is the Lowliest of men (v17), worship of the Father
truly humbles (v32-37).
[47] The offer of salvation is the Gospel. There is not a higher, more ultimate and controlling
truth that straight-jackets the Gospel-offer.
The economic reveals the
immanent, therefore... above. See also
next thought…
[48] The grace of the Gospel is not the grace of
absolute sovereignty. Absolute sovereignty dictates that no credit can be given
to man because God has worked it all.
This account of grace could allow for a salvation by works – provided
that these works are given by God. i.e.
you could say salvation is by pilgrimage to Bognos Regis, but so long as you
maintain that such pilgrimages are, from first to last, empowered by God, then
you could say that salvation is by grace.
Would this be salvation by grace as the bible understands it? No.
Not in the slightest.
The grace of the Gospel is
the grace of Jesus living and dying for us.
Sola gratia is not an abstract concept but one intrinsically tied
to solus Christus. The correlate
of grace is faith and this kind of faith in the grace offered in Christ
is anathema to works of any kind.
Cf Rom 4:16 – salvation is
guaranteed by grace because it depends on faith.
[49] [Luther] The gospel is wholly outside yourself. Meditate on this. Now, realise that for this reason, gospel living is living wholly
outside yourself. The gospel frees you
from yourself. And this freedom works
out as a freedom for others. See
Galatians! Gospel freedom (chapters
1-4) means Gospel service (chapters 5-6)
[50] We fight sin NOT by thinking ‘I am better than
that.’ We are not better than
that. We are entirely capable of much worse
than that. We are not better than sin –
we are worse. But Jesus is better. Much better. That’s how to fight sin.
[51] As the curse works out (John 3:15-20) we see that all
men are cowards. All women are
controllers. (Eph 5:21-32) Our redeemed
humanity is for men to become sacrificial heads and women to become submissive
nurturers.
[52] Spiritual and material (i.e. money, buildings etc) is
a dangerous division to make – not least because it makes you think that what
you do with the material is neutral – a-spiritual. Our spirituality is wholly expressed through
the material (even if unseen). It’s not a case of spiritual or material but
material used good-spiritually or bad spiritually.
[53] Luke 12:32 – we think of ourselves as battle-weary
soldiers, securing the kingdom for a grudging commanding officer. The Good Shepherd calls us little sheep who
are given heaven and earth by a happy and generous Father! Now if that doesn’t revolutionize prayer and
worship, nothing will!
[55] It is possible to reverse the Lutheran law-grace
dynamic. People often use the gospel to
diagnose sin: you can really penetrate the heart of sin when defined as
unbelief (John 16:9) and idolatry. The
problem is that so often is gets left there and the implication is that
repentance of these subterranean idols is the solution, i.e. law! So the gospel has been used to condemn and
the law is cast as our Saviour! Surely
it’s the other way around! Having been
confronted by our sin we must say, “And we are helpless – sinners to the
core. But Jesus goes deeper!!”
[56] Matthew 14:22-33 – Jesus walks on water – treads on
the abyss. But Peter walks as Jesus
walks (cf 1 John 2:6). How? Notice he doesn’t just step out. He asks for Jesus to command him. He’s been in a storm with Jesus before, so
he knows the power of Jesus’ word – His word is obeyed! So Peter wants a word from Jesus to command
him. And the word is powerful to enable
that which it commands (Jesus’ word is like that). Peter does the impossible because Jesus commands it. Of course he sinks (looking at the waves and
not looking at Christ). But in His
grace, Peter only ‘begins’ to sink.
(This is not gravity acting on Peter or he’d sink like a stone. How
slowly Jesus lets him down!). When
Peter calls out Immediately Jesus saves.
His words of rebuke tell us how we can walk like Jesus: ‘You of little
faith, why did you doubt?’ Peter did
not doubt that Jesus could walk on water.
He doubted Himself. More
correctly, he doubted Jesus’ word to him – the word which commands and enables
response. Peter doubted that he truly
had been made into the person Jesus said He had – one who walks like He walks. Faith always must have this self-referential
component. Faith in Jesus always
includes faith that I myself share in Him.
Just like saving faith includes assurance, so faith in Christ includes
the belief that I am now the man God wants me to be – one who walks as Jesus
walks.
[57] The problem with saying ‘Not I but God’ is that is
automatically throws the spotlight onto me. It’s similar to saying ‘it’s not works, it’s not works, it’s not
works.’ Suddenly ‘not doing works’
becomes the work by which a true believer is identified. But no – neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
counts for anything. Saying ‘not works’
is counter-productive. What we must say
is ‘grace’. And we must define this –
not as the absence of works – but as the positive self-giving of God. Only then will we truly be able to renounce
works. Same with humility. To say ‘not I’ continually is to be Uriah
Heap (‘Oim ever so ‘umble’) – it is to be self-obsessed. The only way to avoid the trap is to take
all leave of self – even of self-renunciation (self-renunciation can be
incredibly proud – look at Islam!) and to be God obsessed. To be obsessed with the God whose very being
is giving-in-love. See thought 46 on
Daniel 4 - how to fight pride.
[58] A giant poster on the tube held me captive for
months. It was a portrait by Modigliani
of a very beautiful naked woman. Every
time I passed it my heart got very heavy.
I either looked – lustfully – and passed on feeling defeated and
perverted, or I stared straight ahead trying desperately not to look and
probably appeared to anyone else who saw me like an obsessive compulsive rabbit
trapped in the headlights. Either way –
she had a real hold on me. Then one day
I saw her when I wasn’t expecting to – and instead of the heaviness of heart,
there was an initial thought of ‘Oh!
She is actually very beautiful.’
Although I’d seen the picture around many times I never admitted to
myself perhaps the most obvious truth about it – this was a beautiful portrait
of a beautiful woman. And for a second
I was just able to rejoice in Jesus our Creator who had made us after His own
image. Suddenly the picture wasn’t a
threat – suddenly it was a proclamation of the glory of God. And from that point on, the picture has had
no hold on me whatsoever.
[59] How sad that the Muslim account of the cross exactly
reverses the gracious work of Christ.
For them, sinful man (Judas) is substituted for the righteous one – for
it was necessary for the unjust to be punished and the just to escape. This is the judgement of human
religion. Yet the truth is the exact
opposite of this very human sentiment.
Instead, the righteous one – JESUS – was substituted for sinful man
since, in His overflowing and free grace He determined to be the Just One punished
so that the unjust may escape.
[60] We all try to absolutize the means of grace so that
they become not means but ends in themselves, and not grace (i.e. His
initiative) but works (i.e. ours!). We
see these acts not as ways that God reaches down but as ways we reach up. In this way we put God in a box bounded by
our sacrament of choice.
So the stereo-typical
catholic sees the eucharist not as a means of God’s encounter with man but
rather the moment in which they make God manifest. When the ritual is performed well/reverently/at all, Christ’s
presence is enjoyed. Christ is not present through the sacrament but
rather the performance of the mass is Christ’s presence. The mass
becomes the point. The stereo-typical
charismatic views ‘singing… spiritual songs’ in the midst of the congregation
not as a means of grace but as the time when ‘God’s in the house’. When the band are playing well, God shows
up. God then is not present in and
through ‘worship’ but ‘worship’ is equated with the divine presence. Worship becomes the point. The stereo-typical evangelical views preaching
of the word of God not as a means of grace but as the hearing of God’s
voice itself. The Proclamation trust
even states ‘When God’s word is taught, God’s voice is heard.’ (cf John 5:37-39!). To simply expound a biblical passage or
theme (correctly) is itself the encounter with God – ex opere operate. Preaching becomes the point.
Yet surely, Christ is the
point. And the Lord’s supper and
worship and preaching are ways that Jesus can and does make Himself
known to us, among us and in us. Yet He
will not be brought down by our performance of these acts. They are His means (note means) of
grace (note: grace!). He always
remains free in His self-giving – in the bread, in our corporate life, in His
word. That’s why it’s often great to
hear a catholic preaching well, or an evangelical leading ‘worship’ or a
charismatic presiding at the Lord’s table.
For then, they are less tempted to see the simple operation of this act
as the point but as a means of making Christ known – He is the point.
[61] Some brilliant features of Hebrew language:
Elohiym = plural noun taking a singular verb!
Jerusalem is a dual (there is a counterpoint to the
earthly Jerusalem!)
Single
words are comprised of three root letters – the three constitute the one.
‘land’ (as in Israel) also means ‘earth’
‘Man’ is Adam and humanity
‘Seed’ is singular and plural
Nasa’
is a verb that tells the gospel: it
means ‘He carries, He lifts up, He bears the weight of, He raises, He
forgives.’ The Nasi (the One who carries…) is very cool! (Ez 34; 37;
40-48)
[62] Emotional life of Christian:
Raw brokenness
Vulnerable dependence
Grateful joy
Other-centred compassion
We pervert into:
Self-protecting survival
Self-reliant posturing
Self-pitying pride
Self-indulgent sloth
[63] The LORD’s prayer takes in the whole sweep of
emotions for a life lived before God:
Our Father in Heaven
A
knowledge of God’s fatherly care which extends beyond all our circumstances and
into the throne room itself!
Hallowed be Your Name
An
awareness and love for the holy, committed, dedicated Gospel-character of the
LORD
Your kingdom come
A
desire for the in-breaking of the King’s dominion and care in our own lives,
the lives of others and our communities.
Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven
A
passion for Christ-likeness in obedience – to manifest the Heavenly Man here on
earth. ‘I want to be like Jesus in-a-my heart’
Give us today our daily
bread
The
knowledge that we depend on God for every need, however small, and a spirit of
supplication – ‘Please give me what I need Father – supremely give me the Bread
of Life – or I die!’
Forgive us our sins
Our
sense of complete indebtedness to the Holy One of Israel. We need the LORD’s forgiveness applied to us
daily, minute-ly!
As we forgive those who sin
against us
We
will be sinned against – daily – we must bear with each other and forgive as
the LORD has forgiven us.
Lead us not into temptation
The
devil prowls around like a roaring lion – every encounter, every goal, every
obstacle, every idle moment, every busy season – provides opportunity to sow to
the flesh or to the Spirit. ‘Lord, keep
temptation out of my way.’
But deliver us from the evil
one
This
is not a place where righteousness dwells, but we await a new heavens and a new
earth – the home of righteousness. Sin
and suffering mark these last days – at times they will appear to have the
final word. But God has a Word that is
ultimate. ‘Deliver us! Come Lord Jesus.’
There is not a moment of my day
when one or other of these sentences is not only an appropriate prayer, but a
desperate necessity. At every point of
every day at least one of these lines is to be my mantra, my plea, my hope. Perhaps this is how I am meant to ‘pray
continually’.
[64] In our therapeutic culture we ignore sin as the
problem and treat disorders as disease. The out-of-control person is then
diagnosed,definitionally, as a victim (and the rest of us are apparently free!)
and therapy will treat the problem purely as sickness. When Jesus calls Levi (Luke 5:27-32) He
calls him as a sinner. He calls him to
repent and follow Him. But in that
diagnosis Jesus also reveals that He is the true Doctor of the sick. Our therapeutic culture is not wrong to see
us as victims of sin (John 8:34). We
mustn’t react against these trends and bellow out ‘we are responsible moral
agents, we can choose etc etc’ If we do
that, so quickly man comes right to the centre and the Gospel exits
stage-left. Instead we must call people
to Christ as sinners. But as we come to
Christ (admitting our culpability AND our helplessness!) then we will
know His Doctor’s care.
[65] The starting point for discussion of freedom is
usually the garden of Eden. But if we
start there we have the wrong garden.
Our starting point should be the garden of Gethsemane. If we begin in Eden we think of freedom as
the ability to choose good or evil.
Adam and Eve are free because they can disobey. Yet if we follow this trajectory, human
freedom is exalted above divine freedom!
Is Jesus free? Yes – He is the
Son (not a slave), therefore definitionally free! Does His freedom consist in
His ability to do evil? No! His freedom
is expressed in a determination never to be enslaved by evil. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus expresses
a clear and distinct will from His Father.
Yet He actively submits His will to His Father’s, and in this decision
He manifests His relationship to the Father as Son. His existence as Son determines both His freedom and His
obedience. The two do not compete but
perfectly express one another. Freedom responsibly uses the will in relation to
God. The capacity for evil cannot
create or increase freedom but only thwarts the responsible use of the will. Freedom is forfeited in the choice of
evil. It is only mantained in obedience
to God.
This is why in John 8 Jesus
does not assume that we are free by nature.
As sons of disobedience we are enslaved to sin. A person is not free and therefore able to
choose Jesus. Jesus redeems us from
slavery, purchases us for Himself and thereby makes us free. As we consider our position in Christ we ask
ourselves ‘Am I free?’ One answer:
‘Absolutely, “Free indeed!” We are
released from slavery to sin, set on our feet by Jesus, brought to the Father
in righteousness, enabled to move forwards in sanctification.’ Ask the question again, ‘Am I free?’ Another answer: ‘Absolutely not! I am ransomed, bought, owned, enslaved by
Christ.’ And yet His service is perfect
freedom.
We must demolish all
thoughts of individualistic ‘freedom’ from our heads. Freedom exists in relationship – it is not a self-directing
autonomy. Freedom to ‘do what I want, any old time’ is not freedom. There lies the serpent’s deception – the
whole fall of humanity. There lies the
bondage of the will! The world’s
concept of freedom is really our ability to ‘gratify the cravings of the
flesh’. Yet Ephesians 2 tells us that
such living IS to be led by this world and its ruler – i.e. to be
enslaved. When Jesus redeemed us, He
entered into our bondage and led us out – with no assistance from us (or our
wills!) whatsoever. He set us on our
feet and made us responsible moral agents before God and the world. Freedom was the gift of our redemption not
our birthright in creation. Therefore freedom
means living out our salvation – being the sons and daughters whom the
Son has set free. Freedom means finding
ouselves in obedience to God, in union with Christ, in being led by the Spirit,
in serving the body. To act otherwise
is to renounce the responsible moral agency Jesus purchased with His own
blood.
Where the rubber hits the
road: In struggling with lust, I’ve found that one dominant thought behind my
thought-life is a deep-seated belief that there is a sphere of private property
in my inner world where I am free.
(Of course I define freedom here – as does the world – as the ability to
do what the heck I like, and no one can stop me). With this mind-set, to deny myself a lustful indulgence will mean
not only overcoming the idea of ‘I know it’s wrong but it feels good.’ More fundamentally, it has to overcome the
much more subtle and destructive idea: ‘Deep down in here it’s my world and I
will not have my own private sphere prescribed – I’m free dammit!’ I have found that the most effective thing
to work on this wicked thinking is the thought: ‘Yes I am free. And that’s why I mustn’t allow myself
to be enslaved to sin. For the sake of
freedom, look away. For the sake of
freedom, switch it off.’
[66] That’s the thing with sin – sin always appraoches you
like a servant, promising to give you what you want. In reality it is always a slave-master. If you want to be free – FLEE!
In the name of freedom, cut off your hand and gouge out your eye. The price of freedom is eternal
vigilance, so don’t begrudge vigilance in your thought-life. Such vigilance is really to protect your
personal freedom, not to interfere with it.
[67] Every marriage should be full of HUGS. My prayers for being a husband are:
Headship: Ephesians 5:23ff The husband is the
head of the wife.
Pray to take leadership of the marriage for the sake of her
holiness
Understanding: 1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, husbands, live
with your wives in an understanding way.
Pray to understand your wife – you’ll need
supernatural help!
Gentleness: Colossians 3:19 Husbands, love your wives, and
do not be harsh with them.
Pray for gentleness, the Lord changes us
through His kindness (Rom 2:4)
Sacrifice: Ephesians 5:25 love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her,
Pray that you will pour out your time,
energy, emotional resources, your very life for your bride.
If anything’s up with the
marriage, no matter how my wife is acting, the situation could always be
improved considerably if I took these four points seriously!
[68] To balance the imperative with the prior indicative:
‘What God has joined together…’ (Matt 19:6) – God is the source of marriage
union – not us, not sex, not communication techniques, not the strength of our
love. Our union is given to us from the
outset. Marriage (as with all of gospel
living) is about living out what we already are!
[69] ‘He who loves his wife loves himself.’ (Eph 5:28).
This is not only terrific marriage advice (I’m always keen to know how
best to love myself, this verse tells me how!)
More than this, in its context, it shows us what divine love is
like. The way the Bridegroom looks out
for His own glory is not in self-centred, self-interested, self-directed
activity. Jesus pours Himself out in
love for His bride. Away with any
doctrine of God that trumpets the self-love of God. Such thinking is putrid.
It almost always stems from a functionally unitarian theology. It completely fails to consider Jesus. Jesus can only be said to be self-interested
in the sense that He has invested His entire Self in His bride – now He has no
glory except the glory that comes to Him in and through the church. He has raised the church to Himself so
completely that His self-emptying love for her can actually be considered
self-love. This is not a point about
the ultimate self-glorification of God, it is a point about the miraculous
other-centredness of God. He is so
other-centred that His unrelenting commitment to His bride unites her to
Himself. Now all that He does for
Himself is really done for her and all He does for her is really done for
Himself. To derive from this a self-centred
doctrine of God would be to get completely the wrong end of the stick.
[70] Nicea was not simply about the deification of the
Son. Every bit as much it is about the
Christianization of the doctrine of God.
Imagine two scenarios:
Scenario
1) Arius sits down at the table with
Athanasius et al and says ‘God is a simple, undivided, unchanging, utterly
unique, self-sufficient, mathematically singular, divine monad, do you
agree?’ Athanasius says ‘Agreed’. Then Arius says ‘And you believe that Jesus
is not only of like substance but the same substance with this God who is defined
as a ‘simple, undivided, unchanging, utterly unique, self-sufficient,
mathematically singular, divine monad???’
Athanasius’s head begins to throb…
Scenario
2) Arius sits down at the table with Athanasius et al and says ‘God is a
simple, undivided, unchanging, utterly unique, self-sufficient, mathematically
singular, divine monad, do you agree?’
Athanasius says ‘No, you nincumpoop! We do not define God from
philosophy and then ascribe those very same attributes to Jesus (and the
Spirit) and call it a Trinity!! Arius,
you and I do not simply disagree about the identity of Jesus. We fundamentally disagree about God. You do not have the basic doctrine of the
one God correct and only fail to grasp the trinitarian nuances. Because you do not recognize Jesus for who
He most manifestly is you simply don’t know the first thing about God.
Again I say, Nicea was not
simply about the deification of the Son.
Every bit as much it is about the Christianization of the doctrine of
God. Agreement on the deity of the Son
is not actually a later stage in the argument about God. We do not first agree on some kind of God
and then introduce His Son. Any concept
of the one God that does not from the outset include the mutual
relations of Father-Son, begetting-begotten etc, bears no relation to the
living God. It is Arian. Heresy.
[72] It would be possible to build your spiritual life
around Romans 8:28 without being particularly Christian at all. Muslims believe in in sh’allah. Hindus believe in karma. Pagans believe that everything happens for a
reason and it will all work out in the end.
Rom 8:28 must not be the bedrock of our faith (it can be a wonderful
supporting structure but not the bedrock!). It can’t be the last thing we say – for where is Christ? Rom 8:32! That’s where! We must face suffering hand in hand with the
Suffering Servant. That’s a Christian
approach to hard times.
[73] There is a dangerous tendency in some charismatic
circles to substitute ‘an experience of the Holy Spirit’ for salvation. Non-Christians are told they must be filled
with the Spirit more than / instead of being told they must submit to Christ as
LORD. The Spirit’s work is divorced
from Christ, the fruits of regeneration divorced from conversion and experience
substituted for Gospel assurance.
Ultimately the focus becomes on you as the anointed one, not on
Christ – the Anointed One! Only in Him
– our High Priest – does the anointing oil run over the Head and onto the body
(Ps 133).
[74] God has Wisdom.
And His Wisdom is Jesus.
God has Truth. And His Truth is Jesus.
God has Grace. And His Grace is Jesus.
God has Glory. And His Glory is Jesus.
God has Love. And His Love is Jesus.
God has Judgement. And His Judgement is Jesus.
God has Salvation. And His Salvation is Jesus.
God has a Plan. And His Plan is Jesus.
God has a Champion. And His Champion is Jesus.
God has a Goal. And His Goal is Jesus.
God has a King. And His King is Jesus.
God has a Prophet. And His Prophet is Jesus.
God has a Priest. And His Priest is Jesus.
God has a Temple. And His Temple is Jesus.
God has a Sacrifice. And His Sacrifice is Jesus.
God has a Covenant. And His Covenant is Jesus.
God has a Law. And His Law is Jesus.
God has a Gospel. And His Gospel is Jesus.
God has a Command. And His Command is Jesus.
God has an Obedience. And His Obedience is Jesus.
God has a Call. And His Call is Jesus.
God has a Response. And His Response is Jesus.
God has a Word. And His Word is Jesus.
God has an Image. And His Image is Jesus.
God has a Face. And His Face is Jesus.
God has a Son. And His Son is Jesus.
God has a Man. And His Man is Jesus.
God has a Name. And His Name is Jesus
Turn into Negro Spiritual?
God’s got Truth. His Truth is Jesus.
God’s got Glory. His Glory is Jesus.
God’s got Grace. His Grace
is Jesus.
Oh, Lord of my soul
Ain’t
got nothin if you ain’t got Jesus
Ain’t
got nothin if you ain’t got Jesus
Got
nothin if you ain’t got Jesus
Oh
Lord of my soul
God’s got a Plan. His Plan is Jesus.
God’s got a Purpose. And His Purpose is Jesus.
God’s got a Point. His Point
is Jesus.
Oh, Lord of my soul
God’s got a Priest. His Priest is Jesus.
God’s got a Prophet. His Prophet is Jesus.
God’s got a King. His King is Jesus.
Oh, Lord of my soul
God’s got a Temple. His Temple is Jesus.
God’s got a Lamb. His Lamb is Jesus.
God’s got blood. The blood
of Jesus
Oh, Lord of my soul
God’s got a Promise. His Promise is Jesus.
God’s got a Law. His Law is Jesus.
God’s got a Gospel. The Gospel is Jesus.
Oh, Lord of my soul
God’s got a Word. His Word is Jesus.
God’s got an Image. His Image is Jesus.
God’s got a Face. His Face is Jesus.
Oh, Lord of my soul
God’s got a Son. His Son is Jesus.
God’s got a Man. His Man is Jesus.
God’s got a Name. His Name is Jesus
Oh, Lord of my soul
[75] As preachers we do not have to make a bridge
between the Bible and our hearers. The
Spirit is entirely capable of that thank you very much. The Word itself, in the power of the Spirit,
does not so much accommodate itself to a distant audience as raise up its
hearers so near that they actually participate in the story. The Word forms the hearers themselves into
those who can and do hear (and those who hear into those who belong to
this Word (cf Rom 6:17)). The Word
itself unblocks the ear, softens the heart, opens the eyes, reveals to the
mind, the Glory of Christ.
[76] Jesus said if you think about adultery, it is adultery. And if you think violence towards a person,
it is violence. (Matt 5:21-28)
You might object to this saying ‘At least I didn’t go through with it.’
Notice 1) the objection itself puts the thought and the action on the same
continuum (all Jesus is saying is that being on the continuum at all
is sin). 2) the things stopping you
performing the crime are, more than likely, sins themselves. What stops me carrying through? Fear and pride. Fear that I’ll get caught or start something I can’t handle. Pride that I don’t want to be (seen as) the
sort of person who does that kind of thing.
And when the only thing stopping you from ‘sinning’ is other sins then
you may as well put your hand up as a sinner!
[77] Trinity and Election:
Once you determine not to divorce the work
of any one Person from the others and once you determine to know the will of
God by looking alone to the Triune economy certain things fall in place.
First you’re not tempted to
suppose an arbitrary and abstract will of one of the Persons. Thus the Spirit blowing where He wills or
the Father choosing whom He will, will not be thought of as a controlling force
outside of the gospel economy.
Rather the Persons in their sovereign freedom work together in the
triune economy – an economy set on salvation.
This is the second
implication – if we determine to know God only as He has manifested Himself in
Christ and by the Spirit, then God really and most definitely is for us. To the depths of His being He is for us. In Christ He is none other than the One
reconciling the world to Himself. There
is no dark corner of the divine being that stands above or outside His nature
revealed in Christ. He is as He is
towards us. And towards us He is for us
(through cross and resurrection! but nonetheless and in fact in this, He
is for us.)
[78] There are two ways to respond to sin in your
Christian walk. 1) ‘I’ve sinned – that makes
me a bad person (at least for that week).
Responding in this way reveals that you believe act to constitute
being. Your actions have made
you bad (at least at that moment). To
think this way will lead to minimization of sin and self-reliance. You will minimize just how bad these acts
are (because, if you can help it, you won’t want to be bad to any great
extent or length of time). And you will determine to act differently in the
future so that you become a different being – a better person. If being that
person is a question of right actions, then this project is within your grasp,
hence the self-reliance. There is
another way to think though. 2) ‘I’ve
sinned – that reveals the evil that I really am (at least in the realm of the
flesh, my Adamic personality, my old man).’
Responding this way reveals that I believe my being is prior to
and shows forth in my act. My
bad actions have simply revealed the evil that is always latent in me. (cf David who commits murder and adultery
and then recognizes that the person he was when he performed those acts is the
person he had always been (Ps 51:5)).
To think this way leads to contrition and faith. I am humbled mightily to think ‘I don’t just
do bad, I am bad.’ And from this situation I realize that my only hope
must come from outside myself: ‘Who will rescue me from this body of
death? Thanks be to God through our
Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Rom 7:24f)
[79] Time management: I neglect the everyday stuff (paying
bills, responding to emails, running errands) because I’m self-important. I have a total disregard for the minutiae,
deferring everything to the far horizon to which I stare in a heroic, messianic
manner. My eyes are on bigger issues,
so I tell myself. Well, let us think
about our Hero, the LORD Messiah, for Whom every moment was important, every
encounter an opportunity. Even when the
cross beckoned within hours, Jesus stoops to the minutiae of His friends’ dirty
feet and He washes and dries each one of them.
Jesus – even with His face set like flint for Jerusalem – truly
lived in the moment.
‘This is the day that the
LORD has made. We will rejoice and be
glad in it.’ (Ps 118:24). Today is
the realm of God’s creation. To fix
your eyes on tomorrow is to take flight from the sphere of God’s dealings with
His creatures. To live today is to
accept your status as a creature. To
play the long game is to play God – and at the very same time to usurp
God. He has the future in
hand. Don’t worry about tomorrow –
today is the arena in which we live before God.
For the Christian there are
really only two days to worry about – today and the last day. I wait expectantly for the last day, I
embrace today and I forget about every other day. Pray God, I will live before Him today and embrace every
opportunity He brings my way. To
address the everyday, the minutiae, IS my calling. Every email, bill, errand, etc is significant – such things are
really the only way I can live out my calling before God. To neglect these for the sake of ‘the bigger
picture’ is to attempt to do God’s job and to absent myself from mine!
[80] Ps 34:7 – ‘The Angel of the LORD encamps around those
who fear Him.’ We fear many things in
life – the One we should fear is Christ (cf Luke 12:5). Yet He is the One who encamps around us,
shielding us from all other dangers.
When I trust this, I know that every threat that comes into my world is
one that has had to get past the Divine Doorkeeper – Christ. He will not let anything through that I
can’t, in His strength, handle.
Therefore I should be ready to embrace every encounter and challenge
that comes my way, knowing that it has passed the rigourous border control of
Jesus. It comes from His hand and
exists within my borders by His permission.
I cannot therefore choose to erect another encampment, to consider
claims made on me as illegitimate impostors.
Jesus may well wish me to say ‘no’ to the things He allows into my
path. Yet the request is not a threat
but a Christ-ordained opportunity.
Christ’s encampment around
does not then make me inwardly focussed.
On the contrary it actually makes me more open to the world, since I
know that all that comes my way is intended to be dealt with within the
security of Christ’s fortress.
[81] Is there
any sense in which we can profitably read non-Christian philosophy, science,
psychology etc? Can those world-views,
expressed in opposition to Christ, ever yield true insights into the nature of
Christ’s universe? Many theologians say
yes by pointing to ‘general revelation’ – the idea that God has deposited truth
in the created order that is accessible to all, independently of their
relationship to Christ – the Truth. ‘All
truth is God’s truth’ they say, meaning that ‘truth is truth wherever you find
it, so let’s recognize it even when pagans inadvertently stumble across
it.’ Thus, truth can be discovered
through studying non-Christian thinking because truth is truth – an absolute
and given in creation.
This cannot be right. Christ is the Truth and He gives Himself to
us in salvation (not by nature).
Truth is not brute facts and ideas left in discrete parcels throughout
‘nature’. Only in Jesus is anything
true. Yet saying this does not mean we
are unable to read pagans profitably.
We can commandeer their thought not because truth is less relative than
modern culture thinks but because it is more relative – i.e. it is
related to Jesus. In its own context,
non-Christian concepts can only be idolatry and wicked lies. Yet such lies exist within Jesus’ world and
even in their rebellion are related (by opposition) to Him. With Spirit-granted wisdom we can arrest
these thoughts and take them captive in obedience to Jesus Christ (2 Cor
10:5) – their proper context. Such a
project is not to identify truth in the non-Christian world, it is to identify
truth only in Jesus. We can plunder the
Egyptians only because we press their wealth into Christ’s service, not
because of any value they possessed in the service of Pharaoh.
[82] The way of the LORD has always been forming, then
filling. The filled-out reality is
there by anticipation even in the forming.
The intention for filling is included in the forming. But still the
order is ‘form, then fill.’:
In Gen 1:2 – a formless and
empty creation is then formed (days 1-3) and filled (days 4-6) as the Word of
God is revealed (Gen 1:3ff). (This is
similar to both the tabernacle and the temple where first it is formed, then filled
by the Glory of the LORD).
Adam is formed (from dust)
and then filled (by the breath of the LORD God). Humanity as male and female is first formed in Adam and then
filled out in Eve’s creation and their consummation.
Ultimately the first Adam is
filled by the Last.
The people of Israel as the
seed of Abraham are filled by Christ, the Seed of Abraham.
The law is the form of the
covenant and is filled by the gospel events.
In all this we remember that
the intention for filling is already anticipated in the forming. The very
forming reveals a long intended desire to fill. The forming sets everything on a trajectory towards something
beyond itself.
Is it too much to suggest on
this basis alone the supralapsarian tendencies of the Living God? I’ll do it anyway! Eden is not the point.
Adam is not the point. Adamic
humanity is not the point. Israel and
its worship is not the point. All these
things are forms, intended to be filled-out by realities to which the forms
themselves point but which they do not themselves contain. The intention is always to move through Eden
and beyond to the New Jerusalem; through Adam and beyond to the Heavenly Man;
through Israel (and its worship) and beyond to the Church of Jesus Christ.
Tellingly, this movement goes
through death and out the other side to resurrection:
Thus the day is not always
bright (as it will be in the new creation). Instead it goes from darkness into
light.
The tree is not first, first
comes the seed (John 12:24; 1 Cor 15:37)
There are not blessings and
curses for Israel as alternative present tense realities but rather the
blessings come after the curse. (see Deut 4:23-31; Deut 28-29 culminating in 30:1ff).
The cross comes first and
then resurrection.
The LORD makes the old
covenant and then the covenant renewed. (though the new covenant reality is
grasped by faith long before both old and new covenants purchased).
The LORD makes the old earth
and then the earth renewed.
First comes my body of flesh
and then my spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:44)
The Christian therefore
knows two incontrovertible facts: First, all things are forward-looking. The
best is yet to come (let’s never yearn for Adam, for Eden, for Israel, for old
covenant). Secondly, the path to better
things is through suffering: the road to resurrection blessing always goes
through the cross.
[83] Is the angel who visited Joseph in Matt 1:20 the
Angel of the LORD? Obviously if this
were true then the one in Mary’s womb (Christ) could not be The Angel. However, the definite article does not ever
appear in the NT apart from in v24 where there is an anaphoric use, picking
back up on ‘the angel’ mentioned in v20. While it is true that the genitive construction usually picks up
the definiteness of the head noun this is certainly not always the case. It seems like in LXX they sometime translate
‘hw"±hy> %a:ôl.m;’ or ‘~yhiÞl{a/h'
%a:ïl.m;’ with article:
(Gen
16:8,9,10 (anaphoric?); Num 22:31,32,34; Judges 2; 6; 13; 2 Sam
24:16f; 1 Kings 19:7; 1 Chron 21:15,16 (anaphoric?)); ,
sometimes without:
(Gen
16:7; 22:11,15; Ex 3:2 Judges 2; 6; 13;
2 Sam 14:17,20; 19:28 (‘God’ is with article, ‘angel’ emphatically
not); 2 Kings 1:3,15; 19:35; 1 Chron 21:12, 18, 30; Ps 34:7; 35:5f; Zech
3:1).
See
for instance the pattern in Judges 2; 6 and 13 where it begins without the
article and then the article is used afterwards in the passage (anaphorically).
Note
the ‘like the angel of God’ verses where article is never used (2 Sam
14; 19; Zech 12)
Note
interchangeability of Angel of LORD and Angel of God in Num 22 (LXX)
Check
out textual issues on Judges 2:1-4
Notice
that LXX sees Exod 4:24 and Dan 3:25 as ‘aggeloj kuriou’! Certainly in Exod 4, the Angel is referred
to since (presumably) the LXX translator considers him a lesser figure than the
LORD.
Notice
parallels of the 185 000 Assyrians event: 2 Kings 19:35 (‘hw"±hy> %a:ôl.m;’ = ‘aggeloj
kuriou’); 2 Chron 32:21 (‘%a:ôl.m;’ = ‘aggeloj kuriou’); Isaiah 37:36 (‘hw"±hy>
%a:ôl.m;’ = ‘aggeloj kuriou’)
My hypothesis: many LXX
translators did not have the highest view of the Angel (that He was a divine
person). They certainly know how to
de-emphasize the definiteness of the Hebrew
(as in 2 Sam 19:28) and they know how to make the definiteness shine
through (as in 2 Sam 24:16). The ‘like
the angel’ verses are uniformly translated ‘aggeloj kuriou’ (2 Sam 14; 19; Zech 12) and may well reflect a lower (anarthrous)
understanding of the angel. Thus the
use of ‘aggeloj
kuriou’ in the NT does not necessarily
mean The Angel of the LORD. If the NT
had wanted to particularize this referent the ‘hw"±hy> %a:ôl.m;’ there are uses of the article they could have employed yet chose not
to. The translation “An angel of the
Lord appeared to Joseph” is therefore entirely possible and, theologically, to
be preferred by far.
[84] I meet many people who claim a theological
high-ground over my theology, yet the one ground upon which our theologies
ought to be judged (the cross – cf 1 Cor 1&2) is decidedly low. Many people I know have the human nature of
Jesus (and emphatically not the divine nature) dying before an impassible
Father for a limited number of sins and sinners. For me, this is to take the low ground!
[85] Jesus’ teaching on the log-in-their-eye /
speck-in-your-eye principle is brilliant. (Matt 7:3-5) It means that your
neighbour’s sin is never an occasion for pride but always
self-examination. Naturally to our way
of thinking, our neighbour’s sin is the log and ours is the speck. But here that’s reversed. We’re not being asked to believe that for every
sin we ever confront in others, ours is always objectively greater. It’s that for us our sin is
greater. (And isn’t that true in the most goldy people – they always know
themselves to be the worst sinners (cf 1 Tim 1:15!)). Even if your sin is adultery and mine is lust. Even if yours is murder and mine is
anger. My anger is the plank which, if
un-acknowledged and un-dealt-with, renders me incapable of
confronting/helping/healing you. Notice
that Jesus doesn’t want us to leave the speck in our neighbour’s eye. He wants us getting radical with one another
about sin. But such community concern
for holiness begins with ruthlessness regarding our own sin. Ours is always the
bigger problem. So next time there is a
scandal about some church leader – may it lay the sense of our own sin heavy in
our own hearts. It’s not even, ‘there
but for the grace of God go I…’ but ‘That speck is in my own eye – but for me,
it’s a whole plank!’
If we really believed
thee words they would revolutionize our church life, our work life, our home
life – marriage??!
[86] Anger is to be like God. God is Lord of Wrath “hmx l[b” (Nah 1:2).
He expresses His anger every day (Ps 7:11; Rom 1:18-20). His anger is part of a righteous verdict
upon the unrighteousness that provokes His holy Name. For us to be angry is to take on such a
verdict ourselves – to claim to be like God.
Now, as with many things, claiming to be like God can have a very good
connotation (Eph 5:1) (when done in relationship with Him) and a very bad
connotation (Gen 3:5) (when done in independence from Him). Anger can therefore sometimes be a righteous
sharing in God’s wrath at evil. But most often it is a proud assertion of a
divine right made independently of God.
Note the LORD’s words to
Jonah (NIV – which I think is a good translation here): “Do you have a right to
be angry?” (Is it well with you to be angry?) Anger is the assertion of a right – a divine right. There is always an immense pride at the root
of anger. When we’re angry, we are passing
a verdict on a situation as though we are God.
We are saying of a situation – “This ought not to be! This ought not to exist in my world.” Yet it is His world and, very often in these
situations, there are great and divine reasons why this situation really ought
to exist. Anger is playing God. (see
thought 96 on worry)
[87] Note also the self-pity that goes along with anger
here with Jonah. It is the same with
Cain (Gen 4). It is the same with Saul
(1 Sam 15-18ff). We play at being God,
but don’t like the responsibility, so we become a very sullen god indeed. We shake our fist as though we’re
all-powerful but also sulk, knowing ourselves to be powerless. What pathetic creatures we are! What a contrast to the True Man who accepted
the cup from His Father’s hand and did it, not angrily, not sullenly, but for
the joy set before Him (Heb 12:2).
Child-like dependence and grateful joy are invaluable weapons against
anger and self-pity.
[88] Remember that Nicea comes before Chalcedon. This is not simply a historical truism – it
is important for our theological method.
We begin by confessing that Jesus of Nazareth is homo-ousios (of
one being) with the Father. The Person
of Christ (no discussion of human nature / divine nature is had yet) exists within
the divine circle of what it means to be God.
There is no suggestion that some part of Jesus (e.g. His divine
nature) lies within the circle (and, by implication some other part (His human
nature) lies without it). Rather the
Person of Christ – more particularly the Person we meet in the economy of
salvation (which is what takes up the bulk of the whole creed!), is fully God –
a full member of that communion which defines the Godhead. Then comes Chalcedon. Here we seek to explicitly confess and uphold
the humanity of Jesus. We are not
docetic (thinking Jesus only seems to be human). We are not Nestorian (thinking that Jesus
has a God-bit and a human-bit that are really quite separate existences). Instead we confess the One Person of Jesus Christ
who is both fully God and fully Man.
This One Person is homo-ousios with the Father and also homo-ousios
with us.
In all this we do not begin
our theology with two natures (as though either divine nature or human nature were
obvious in advance of encountering Christ!).
We encounter the One Person of Jesus.
He tells us who God is and He tells us what humanity is. And He doesn’t do so with two different
revelations. The Son of Man IS the Son
of God. To look at Jesus of Nazareth IS
to see the Father. The One Person of
Christ is our starting point. Let’s be
Chalcedonian by all means, but let’s not begin with two natures. To begin with two natures makes it
impossible to end up with One Person (you end up Nestorian). Let’s consider Chalcedon as it has always be
considered – an important ring-fence in determining what can be said in
christology. A ring-fence is not a
foundation.
[89] In the storms of life (Luke 8:22-25) let’s remember:
1) Who sailed you into them. (v22) – Jesus set sail for this storm. It has not blown up out of nowhere, Jesus
thrusts you into it. Notice though that the same word that says ‘Let’s go over
to the other side) is both a determination to enter the storm AND a promise to
get you to the other side. Remember 2) Why He sailed you into it. To know Him (v24; cf Phil 3:10). Did the disciples know Jesus before the
storm? Sure, in a sense. Did they know Him afterwards? They marvelled at Him. Jesus has a purpose in sailing you into this
storm – to know Him better. Don’t waste
your suffering. It’s an opportunity to
fellowship with the Suffering Servant.
Remember 3) How the storm is calmed. The word of Jesus (v24).
In Luke 8 the word of Jesus creates believers, defines the family of
faith, casts out demons, heals the sick, raises the dead and here, flattens a
tornado. Will you let the word of Jesus
speak into your storm? The Bible must be central to how you negotiate this
storm.
[90] You have to love the full-orbed grandeur of Jesus’
personality. In Luke 5:27-32 we see the
Commander-in-Chief, summoning Levi; the Master of the Banquet,
the life of the party and the Doctor of the Soul, healing sinners. He is not simply the Commander in Chief
sternly indifferent to His soldiers. He
is not simply the Master of the Banquet – ignoring the depth and pain of
life. He is not simply the Doctor of
the Soul – dispensing the cure and then leaving us to ourselves.
He is the Commander in Chief
who joyfully leads us to forgiveness and cleansing. He is the Banquet Master who is strong to lead and tender to
heal. He is the Doctor who rejoices
with us in His cure and leads us on in health and wholeness.
The Commander has a
brilliant sense of humour and a deep knowledge of the human heart. The Banquet Master, has an irresistible
strength and a tender compassion for the broken-hearted. The Doctor has all
authority to make us well and the very best bed-side manner.
[91] It is common to hear preachers who readily ‘detour’
for large portions of their sermon to discuss ‘the reasonableness of believing
in miracles’. They claim to do so
because the subject has ‘arisen from the text’. This is not at all the case.
The text simply proclaims the miracle, in unflinching, unembarrassed
starkness. The preacher does not follow
suit. His detour arises, not, as he claims, because of the doubts of the
listener, but because of his own! He
doubts the most fundamental miracle – the miracle that under-girds and
justifies all his preaching. He doubts
that the Word can defend itself. He
rushes to its aid, bringing to bear his finest powers of argumentation:
refutations of Hume, illustrations from experience, quotations from CS Lewis
etc. All the while he demonstrates in the plainnest way possible his unbelief
in the miraculous power of God. God
Himself authenticates His Word. He
bridges the hermeneutical gap, the historical gap, the credulity gap. He makes His Word alive in the ears and
minds and hearts of the hearers. The
Word of Christ that raised Lazarus does not need to be guarded around with
qualifications or propped up with further justifications. It needs to be allowed free course to do its
work. Then, by its own power, it
becomes not only credulous but living reality – something the preacher’s
arguments can never achieve. Spurgeon’s
word on such apologetics remains the best: ‘Defend the Bible? Why I would rather defend a lion. Let the
Bible out of its cage. The Bible will
defend itself.’
[92] There are no categories outside of the Triune God to
which both He and we are subject. There
is not, for instance, a concept of ‘Ethics’ which is an umbrella term against
which we can measure both the Most High God and humanity – as though we
naturally exist on some continuum with Him.
If we did this then He would be guilty of murder – killing (unashamedly
and unrepentantly! Dt 32:39) over a hundred thousand each day. In fact if the Most High did answer to an
over-arching concept called ‘Ethics’, He would clearly be called the ultimate
Mass Murderer, inflicting genocide in unparalleled measure. Yet it is not ‘Ethics’ that stands above God
but He is the over-arching reality and His character in the triune
relationships both ad intra and ad extra are what define ethics
for us.
This is true for all
language and categories of thought.
There are no higher concepts (e.g. of freedom, love, power, physics,
time, etc) that can be consulted in order to co-ordinate our sense either of
similarity or dissimilarity to the Almighty.
Even if our intention is to posit the strongest possible disjunction
between ourselves and God, the use of an independent criterion will not get us
to God at all. If these ‘benchmarks’
have been posited from our side then, even if we declare in the strongest terms
that God is the infinity of this quality, we have simply shouted ‘Man’ in a
loud voice. (Karl Barth’s criticism of his contemporary neo-Protestant
liberals). To imagine ‘inifinite
transcendence’ has not brought us to the living God. He must come to us – and He does so in infinite condescension in
the Lord Jesus. In Jesus we are given
the benchmark, the similarity and the dissimilarity. In the God-Man is the proclamation of God-talk to man and the
possibility of man-talk about God. In Him is concretized any notion of freedom,
love, power etc etc. And this concrete
reality shows up all human suppositions about transcendence for the arrogance
and hopeless guesswork they are.
[93] I’d rather convince someone of supralapsarianism than
original sin. I believe in both 100%
yet I think the former – though initially sounding much scarier – actually
places original sin in a proper context.
Let me define terms:
Supralapsarianism: before the foundation of the world, the Triune
God’s will to redeem/elect comes logically before His permission of the
fall. He therefore wishes to redeem men
as men and not simply as fallen men.
The fall comes (logically) after this desire to redeem.
This quote from Irenaeus
captures the view well:
“The
Word – the Creator of all – prefigured in Adam the future economy of his own
incarnation. God first sketched out the
ensouled human being, with a view to his being saved by the spiritual
human being. Since the Saviour
was already in existence, the one who was to be saved had to come
into existence, or the Saviour would have been Saviour of no
one.” (Adversus Omnes Haeresies. III.22.3,
italics and underlining mine.)
What this boils down to is
this: the Father and Son desired before all ages the glory of the cross (cf Rev
13:8; John 10:17; 17:5) as the way in which a bride would be won for the Son.
(cf Gen 2 where the bride and the man are consummated only after the man’s
death-like sleep, pierced side and raising up.) On this account, the fall looks to be an inevitability flowing
from the prior will to redeem (and therefore to have something needing
redemption). This is why I said it is a
scary view.
A countering view to this is
infralapsarianism. That is that
the Triune God’s will to redeem/elect comes logically after His
permission for the fall. The Father
desires to redeem sinners through His Son, not simply men as such. The cross is a response to
fallen-ness – a fallen-ness that is nonetheless permitted by God.
This would mean that the
Father wills first and foremost for a good creation in which people naturally honour
the Son. The fall then
necessitates the redemption (incarnation, cross, resurrection, ascension) so
that things can be returned to the proper natural state. To put it simplistically, the infralapsarian
looks to Eden restored (or possibly some translated state if Adam did not fall
but rather gained maturity) but the redemption (and therefore fall) is not
inevitable. The supralapsarian has
always looked ahead, through the fall, the cross, the resurrection and
return, to the New Jerusalem.
Original sin: every person is born united to Adam as the head of
their humanity – a guilty humanity that has been in rebellion against God since
Adam sinned (Gen 3; Rom 5:12). We
sinned in him and are therefore by nature sinners, by nature under God’s
judgement (Eph 2:1-3).
If original sin is put in
the context of God’s over-arching, over-riding desire for the glory of the
cross, then we see that God has established these things not for
damnation but for salvation. God does not hand over His creatures to a deeper
evil than that from which He has already desired to rescue them. As deep as our natural depravity goes, Jesus
has gone deeper – in fact He has only thrust us down so that He can take
on the burden of the sin and suffering of the whole world. If original sin is hard on anyone – it’s
hard on Christ. But more than this, in
a supralapsarian light, original sin actually preaches the gospel. If the supralapsarian is right then Adam is
not the point – the point is the true Man, Christ. Therefore, our union with Adam is not simply the bad news but,
much more, it is the pattern of salvation that we can enjoy in union with
Christ. Meditate on Rom 5:12-21. Think of yourself in Adam (the type Rom
5:14), though you had done nothing – you were united to him in his guilt
and condemned to hell. Now think of
yourself in Christ (the anti-type, the One who was always to come Rom 5:14),
though you have done nothing – you are united to Him in His righteousness and
predestined to eternal life.
[94] Tools often used to avoid the plain teaching of the
bible, or…
Well-worn ways of
way-laying the Word
If
ever you find a verse uncomfortable to your pre-supposed theological position
here are a few ways to get yourself off the hook!
Sometimes
it’s entirely valid to invoke these.
Sometimes it’s a total cop-out.
·
Accommodation:- “Though
the bible speaks like this it is merely the lisping of God – not speaking as He
normally would but condescending to speak in terms not proper to the things
themselves. Instead He stoops to speak
in ways that are not literally true but accommodated to our finite minds.”
o
Anthropomorphism – the
portrayal of God in ‘man-shaped’ terms.
§
Of course the real
truth is that we are ‘Deo-morphic’ – in God’s image!
o
Anthropopathisms – the portrayal
of God’s emotional life with ‘man-like passions.’
§
Again, it is the other
way around. God is passionate, we share something of His emotional life
because He’s made us like Him.
§
We cannot go behind the
word in order to find out what is truly possible with God. We must trust that God is as He is towards
us, that is, in His revelation. To say
anything else is to feign an ascent into hopeless presumption.
·
The prophets spoke
better than they knew
o
‘It doesn’t matter how
Messianic an OT verse may be, it tells us nothing about the beliefs of the
ancient church – they unwittingly said all kinds of things.’
§
Can you demonstrate
this from Scripture? Why don’t we
assume that they knew what they were talking about?
·
Different stages in
salvation history
o
‘That’s the OT, that
doesn’t count.’
§
Are you honouring the
continuities and discontinuities that Scripture lays down, or imposing a
pre-supposed biblical theology?
·
Different stage in
human history and the progression of thought
o
‘Contra this verse, we
now know X about history, psychology, biology, therefore…’
§
Is the Word sitting in
judgement on the world or vice versa?
·
We must honour the
intention of Scripture
o
‘It’s not a science
text-book, therefore let’s ignore the parts that impinge on a scientific
understanding and honour the ‘spiritual’ aspects.’
§
The bible does not
divide itself up this way.
·
We must take the genre
seriously:- this so often translates as ‘some genres’!
o
‘Poetry is not seeking
to convey literal truth.’
o
‘That’s just Pauline
hyperbole!’
§
Let’s read genres
appropriately but let’s not have a pre-supposed concept of what a genre can and
cannot convey. Let’s take seriously
that a statement could be both poetical and have genuine and literal
correspondence to an historic truth or eschatological reality.
·
Unstated context:-
Either the author or recipients of the letter/prophesy etc were in a specific
setting which is not explicit but, when understood (or posited!), casts the
passage in a very different light.
o
e.g. we interpret the creation
accounts in the light of the contemporary near eastern myths.
o
e.g. we need to know
about Corinthian burial plots before we understand 1 Corinthians 15.
§
If Scripture is
sufficient then it is sufficient to provide the interpretive context. If there are such crucial details required
to intepret correctly, the Spirit is competent to give them!
·
Canonical argument:-
“Yes it seems to be saying this here, yet we cannot accept this because other
parts of the bible seem to say otherwise.”
§
Scripture should interpret
Scripture yes. It must do so – we have
no higher authority to interpret by.
Yet this must not become Scripture negating Scripture.
[95]
Forty Three things I’ve learnt from cold-contact evangelism (e.g.
door-to-door, street preaching, conversations with strangers etc):
·
Cold-contact doesn’t
have to be cold! Even the shortest meeting with a stranger can provide
opportunities to show concern and Christian love
·
Christ needs no help in
gaining an audience. Jesus rules the
cosmos – that’s my authorisation to speak.
I don’t need a special excuse, I don’t need to earn the right, I don’t
need a clever bridge into the culture.
By God’s grace I have had many many significant gospel conversations
begun simply with something like, ‘My name’s Glen. Who do you say Jesus is?’
·
In 2006, evangelistic
organisation Bridgebuilders did a survey of 538 recent converts. 58 of them said a conversation with a
stranger was ‘significant’ in their decision to accept Christ. 23 said that a
conversation with a stranger was the only contact with a Christian they
had before coming to Christ!
·
You regularly meet
people – British people as well as foreigners – who don’t know even the first
thing about Christ. It is a privilege
to be pioneer missionaries to such people!
Yet it is also very sobering.
There are millions even in this country who have not heard the gospel
explained. There are simpy not enough
Christians around for friendship evangelism to reach the nation or the
world. Stranger evangelism is many
people’s only hope!
·
The streets are not
spiritually neutral places. They
proclaim spiritual values constantly.
Christians are not the ones cluttering up public spaces with religious
talk. Religious talk already abounds. We are simply vocalising the Truth. We must not abandon public spaces to the
gods of this age. The streets would
suffer without us.
·
Apologetics simply
helps the non-Christian avoid the claim of Christ on them. It will divert the
conversation into countless unfruitful cul-de-sacs. Speak of Christ!
·
Always be praying for
wisdom and for the Spirit’s power to attend the Word.
·
Always be thinking what
this person needs to hear and believe next.
Think of (and have to hand) appropriate literature for them to take
away. (Remember in many contexts a bus, train, phone call or friend could drag
them away at any second).
·
You can be the
fragrance of life and the stench of death in a single afternoon. I’ve had a number of people look me in the
eye and tell me they’d rather go down to the devil than be with Jesus. We mustn’t be shocked by this. We are, in a very real sense, being Jesus to
these people – we are His ambassadors and whoever receives us receives Him. We will get the kind of reactions He got if
we’re being faithful. That means not
only rejection but also, wonderfully, life and hope.
·
There ought to be a
good dose of announcement to your outreach.
Conversations are great – earth-shattering at times. But God has given us news to proclaim, not
simply advice to share. Even if people
don’t hear what you’re saying, it is a gospel witness to have truth declared
publicly. It says to people – there is
an authoritative story to be told and it stands over and above the to-and-fro
of life.
·
Prayer is incredibly
powerful. The best times of open-air
and door-to-door are so often preceded by concerted times of prayer. Pray intentionally, fervently, particularly,
expectantly. Pray big beforehand. Pray continually throughout. And pray
afterwards for protection (Satan loves to get a foot-hold after we go into
battle) and for the word to be powerfully at work in those to whom we’ve
spoken.
·
Pray for and seek to
establish good relations with the local churches. You will be a blessing to
them, getting the gospel out to people who have not yet entered their four walls
and hopefully bringing some of them in.
Get them praying for you and perhaps providing members for your outreach
team so that you can invite the people you meet to their nearest good church.
·
The gospel is
simple. Jesus lived and died for you,
will you surrender to Him? All difficulties come from distractions and
complications. Speak of Jesus.
·
Pray that ‘from the
overflow of your heart your mouth will speak.’ Pray that there would be a
tangible love for Jesus evident in your words about Him. Pray that people would know you’re not a
propagandist for a religion but the beloved of a Saviour!
·
Don’t dis-enfranchise
anyone from hearing! The most unlikely
looking person is someone infinitely precious to Christ and someone who should
(and so soon could) hold Christ to be infinitely precious to them. Don’t by-pass anyone and don’t be any the
less prayerful as you speak to the ‘unlikely ones.’ Faith is always a miracle.
·
Don’t divorce Word and
Spirit in your thinking. We do this in
all sorts of ways but one is when we pray that God’s Spirit would open and
prepare hearts long before the Word comes to them. God may well grant this prayer, but we know how God’s Spirit
works – He works through the Word. The
power of God for salvation does not come and then the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. God has told us how He unblocks ears and
softens hearts – it is through the gospel proclaimed. It would be terrific if God softened up someone in advance of our
preaching, but to be focussed on finding the pre-softened non-Christians is to
forget what power we have as we proclaim.
When we proclaim, then the Spirit unleashes His power to effect not just
softening but life from the dead! We
can meet someone who is completely ‘un-prepared’ for the gospel, but the gospel
itself has the power to save that person in an instant. We must go into our evangelism convinced of
the power that is unleashed in the preaching of the gospel. The Spirit works through even our weak
words.
·
Christ crucified looks exceptionally
weak to the world. Our preaching will –
in fact must – look similarly weak – 1 Cor 1&2!
·
There are Roman
Catholics and Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians with wonderful and humbling
faiths in Jesus. There’s such a thing
as being too suspicious!
·
Having said that, for
Catholics and Orthodox, the question of assurance is a key way into the gospel.
·
For the Christian religious
people, challenge them to be born again.
Take them through John 3, tell them Nicodemus was from a religious
background with a religious job – he needed to begin again with Jesus. And so do we.
·
If you meet believers
from a Pentecostal background, it’s often good to ask what they find hard in
the Christian life and to empathise with them in this. Many have been fed a
steady diet of prosperity gospel and don’t even know it’s ok to suffer. You could be a life-line!
·
When I began doing open
air I was told three questions to ask people which I’ve never been able to
improve on as hooks to hang the discussion on: Who is Jesus? Why did He come and die? If God were to ask
you ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you reply? Give them the
bible’s answer at each point.
·
Having said that…
Different strokes for different folks!
Don’t simply trot out the same spiel to everyone. On the contrary the Spirit has given me some
very unexpected verses to bring to bear on conversations that have proved
incredibly effective. If you want a
watch-word: it’s the Spirit not strategy!
·
Printing up your own
tracts is probably best if you’re going to be using them lots. In bulk, printers can do them for around 20p
each and they will have your details on them and all the information you want.
·
Two Ways to Live is not
a great tract for Muslims. The first
three boxes will all too easily be seen by them as a fair summary of Islam
anyway. Box 4 brings in Jesus half-way
through the story, described expressly as ‘the man Jesus Christ’ and solving a
problem He’s had nothing to do with.
·
If a Muslim says that
Jesus is just a prophet, ask them if they know anything He prophesied. Almost unfailingly they won’t. Tell them that prophets speak – that’s what
they do. You can’t honour a prophet
without hearing His words. Take them to
an outrageous claim by Jesus and get the conversation going. I like to use John 17:5 – you get Jesus’
pre-existence and the cross in one verse!
(It’s handy to be in John for when you back up the pre-existence
point. Go back to the prologue, get
them interested then give them the Gospel to read for themselves.)
·
If a Muslim says the
bible has been corrupted, ask them ‘when?’
They can’t say before the Quran was written because the Quran says to
read the Injil (the Gospels) and to consult the people of the book (Jews
and Christians). If they say it was
corrupted after, tell them you’ll take them to the British Library where you
can see two complete bible manuscripts from well before Muhammed’s time. But of
course…
·
The real proof for the
bible’s authenticity is that in it God actually does speak. Have gospels with you. Introduce them to some aspect of their
teaching as you speak with the person (I often use John’s gospel and take them
very quickly through the prologue).
Then as the conversation winds down, give them the Gospel with the page
that you were discussing marked.
Challenge them to read the Gospel for themselves…
·
But don’t just get them
to read it. Perhaps say something like
this: ‘If what I’m saying is true about the bible – that it’s God’s own word –
then reading it is a spiritual thing. So because it’s a spiritual thing, the
best thing you could do would be to pray to God as you open up the Gospel. Say, ‘Dear God, please show me if Jesus
really is who He says He is.’ You can’t lose with that kind of prayer – if He’s
not there He won’t answer. But if He is
there, there’s nothing more important than meeting His Son.’
·
The great majority of
people who say ‘I don’t speak English’ can actually have a decent conversation
with you (after all they got to the train station, street corner or wherever
else you’ve set up! This is obviously
not as true if doing door-to-door). I
usually say ‘Oh where are you from?’ which invariably gets the conversation
going. After a bit I say ‘And what do they think of Jesus in your country?’
·
Use your testimony.
Lots.
·
The phrase ‘… Now if
that’s true then …’ can be useful in laying out both the gospel truth and the
implication. It doesn’t cast doubt on the gospel truth but draws out its
meaning for everyday life. Once you’ve
explained the implication you can return to the gospel truth having shown how
crucial it is.
o
E.g. “After Jesus rose
again He went back into heaven, now if that’s true then it means the One
sitting on the throne of the universe, the One I can pray to each moment, is my
Brother who loved me so much He died for me.
Now if that’s true then ultimately things are going to work out.
God is going to hear my prayers, forgive my sins, receive me into eternal life
all because Jesus – His Son and my Brother – sits in heaven on my behalf. Ultimately, whether I’m going to make it in
life depends on who this Jesus is and whether He really did do these
things. Have you ever taken the time to
investigate Jesus and His work for us?”
Do
you see how the phrase ‘if that’s true’ actually throws all the emphasis back
onto the gravity of this truth claim?
Of course the unbeliever doesn’t believe this truth, but assuming its
truth for the sake of argument can help you in all sorts of ways. The unbeliever is left saying ‘But I’m not
sure that that is true.’ And you
say ‘How clever of you to identify the key issue! Yes indeed, you need to investigate this truth very seriously. A
lot depends on it!’
·
In street preaching,
music, theatre etc can be great ways of drawing a crowd and augmenting your
preaching. After all Jesus spoke in
memorable ways, used stories, illustrations, current affairs, crowd
interaction, visual aids etc etc. Using these means is not a betrayal of 1
Corinthians 1&2. But if you do go
for such performances, work hard at them.
It doesn’t work to use performance art with crummy performances and not
much art! You may as well stick to
unadorned preaching if you’re adornments are going to put people off. The gospel is offensive enough without cringe-worthy,
unrehearsed, badly performed side-shows.
If you’re not good at these things – that’s absolutely fine, just get on
and preach. Problems arise when people
(I can think of many of my own failed attempts!) have a go at these in a
half-hearted way justifying it by saying there’s honour in being ‘fools for
Christ’. We will be fools enough for
peaching the gospel, no need to be a fool for incompetence too!
·
Having said all this 1)
The LORD can use even our feeblest efforts, 2) cracked jars can often show
forth the shining treasure since people are not tempted to look at the outward,
and 3) you never know if you can pull these things off unless you try. As John Piper says ‘Risk is Right!’
·
Using amplification
will raise your message above the noise of the street but also make it easier
for people to stay at a distance.
Speaking at a normal level draws people in.
·
Challenge people to a
decision. This means a) people have a
chance to repent and believe and b) it models to everyone the fact that the
gospel is a divine summons not just another life-philosophy. We are not simply offering another
world-view, we are calling people to Christ.
·
When it’s appropriate
ask, ‘What’s stopping you giving your life to Christ right now?’ Again, this flows out of the divine summons
point above. It also shows that
conversion is not about lengthy rituals of penitence but a free offer of life.
·
There’s nothing wrong
with praying with people on the streets.
I suggest praying yourself, having told them what you are about to pray
(checking for understanding). I would also
encourage the person to add their own prayer, making it their own response to
God.
·
Invite them to church
(have details of good churches nearby ready).
The Church is God’s evangelistic mission to the world – our outreach is
not done behind the backs of churches, in contempt of them. We love church! We pray that we will be a blessing to the local churches. We refuse to draw any distinction between
inviting a person into the life of the kingdom and inviting them into the life
of the church. To do the former is
necessarily to do the latter. Make it
known throughout your outreach that there are whole communities of people where
these truths are openly discussed and lived out and that they would be so
welcome to come and investigate.
·
By all means meet up
again! Before church for a coffee would be great. If they’re not yet keen on church perhaps offer to meet at a café
and go over the first chapter of the gospel you’ve just given them.
·
Be sensible about
male-female issues. If they are of the
opposite sex, seek to introduce them to a same-sex member of the team. Make sure the team is aware that this might
happen.
·
I’ve used this phrase a
lot (got it from a veteran!): ‘Do not stop short of anything less than a
personal and direct encounter with Christ.
Anything less and you are eternally short-changing yourself!’ Again, it’s driving home the point that this
is about encounter with Christ, not philosophical sport!
·
In short: smile, pray
continually and speak of Jesus!
[96] Worry is an attempt to assert a control you do not
have. When you feel the most out of control about a situation, the one straw it
seems like you can grasp at is worry. Even if you can’t affect the outcome, at
least, you think, you can stew about all the possibilities. You are taking on a God-like omniscience
over the situation, presiding over events as though omnipotent. Yet you are far from omnipotent. Far from omniscient. Jesus says you can’t change the colour of a
single hair or add a single cubit to your height. You’re acting like God with none of His power and none of His
wisdom. What you’re actually doing is
the only thing you can do in the absence of God’s power and wisdom. The only thing, that is, except trust
Him. When we find ourselves worrying,
we have come to the place where we are forced to admit our poverty and
helplessness. This could be a wonderful
opportunity for faith – surrendering all control to our faithful Father. Instead we choose a sham substitute –
becoming our own gods and having the corrupt pleasure of at least presiding over
our misfortune. This is why fear and
faith are always contrasted in Scripture (cf. Isaiah 8:12-13 or Mark
4:35-41). Fear is the option we take
when we assert our control rather than submit to His. To relinquish worry is to
relinquish our ridiculous attempts at at deity. The solution to worry is to cast our care on the One who really
is in control. (1 Pet 5:7)
[97] A meditation on bosoms from John’s Gospel.
The One in the bosom of God
(1:18) has become flesh and dwelt among us (1:14). He remains and always will remain in the bosom of God. And He
remains and always will remain in the flesh.
The heart of God, now and forevermore beats in a human breast.
The beloved disciple of
Jesus leant on this bosom at the Lord’s supper. (13:23) The bosom-buddy
of Jesus rests on the bosom of God – enfolded in an eternal embrace. Bosom fellowship with the Father is opened
up to us in Jesus.
[98] Deacons in Acts 6:3 are chosen because they are ‘full
of the Spirit’. This was on the
selection criteria – a tangible, testable characteristic of anyone who would
serve in this way. Would we put this on our CV’s? Would we dare? Would we
be selected on the basis of our Spirit-filled-ness? Must pray earnestly for the Spirit’s fullness – a tangible, testable,
evident fullness.
[99] I deny myself all sorts of big things (a more
financially rewarding career, freedom of life-style, all the things that go
with a life in full-time paid ministry), but not a glance at the dodgy
magazine on the rack. I will think in
terms of sacrifice in the big issues but I notice in myself a casual
acceptance of license with the small stuff.
Why? Surely there is, lurking in
me, a fleshly works righteousness that considers my rule-keeping in the
external, observable matters to be the focus of my obedience. This leaves the internal, hidden matters of
the heart as a domain for my own control.
I’ve gained my righteousness with the big, visible stuff and thereby
earned a small sphere for my own dominion – my private thoughts, private lusts,
private jealousies. Of course this is Pharisaism. I am a white-washed tomb.
I must remember that my big stuff has not earned me a whisper of
righteousness. And my small stuff is
deserving of the pit of hell. In fact
my self-righteous attitude to the whole thing is demonic in the extreme. I do not relate to God on the basis of my
performance – this is the heart of my wrong-thinking. The LORD Jesus has seen me to the bottom and, nevertheless, loved
me to the stars. My ‘private’ world is
already exposed, atoned for and reconciled with God before I’ve brought forth a
single work. It’s already His. It’s not – ‘make sure the outside of the cup
is clean, the inside can be kept how you want it.’ It’s – ‘the inside is filthy as hell but it’s been dealt with
because God wants in.’ If this is true
– then my inner world – the small stuff – that’s the important realm. God wants my heart infinitely more
than my works. He doesn’t want things
from me, He wants me. The more I
meditate on this truth and the wonder of fellowship (not performance!) the more
my inner life will be pleasing to God.
[100]
Meditations on Rom 3:24-25 – three pictures
from Scripture to be explored: the law court (justification), the slave market (redemption),
the temple (propitiation):
Close your eyes and relax
your breathing. Feel the weight of your
body in the chair. Feel the heaviness
of your eyelids, your arms, your legs.
You are in court. Seated in
the dock. There are guards behind you on
your left and right. The court room is
very impressive, very intimidating. It is hostile towards you. You feel extremely out of place and you
dread the verdict that is about to be announced. You know that your very life hangs in the balance.
The judge reads out these
words. As he reads, you know that every
charge is unquestionably true:
You are not righteous.
You have no understanding.
You do not seek for God.
You have turned away.
You are worthless.
You do no good.
Your throat is an open grave.
You use you tongue only to deceive.
The venom of vipers is under your lips.
Your mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
Your feet are swift to shed blood
Ruin and misery mark your way.
You have not known the way of peace.
There is no fear of God before your eyes.
The whole court-room is
silent but the words ‘not righteous’, ‘no understanding’ and ‘worthless’ still
ring in your ears. Your mouth is
stopped. You cannot answer a single charge. It’s all true and the weight of condemnation
is crushing.
The judge raises his
gavel. There can be only one
verdict. The hammer crashes down. The judge declares it:
I find you not guilty.
The court-room changes in an
instant. Smiles everywhere. The judge
steps down off the bench to congratulate you… How do you feel?…
Large doors are opened and
great light comes in. The guards usher
you through the doors and out into the light.
The scene has changed.
You find yourself in a
first-century Palestinian market-place.
You are hungry. You have no shoes.
Instead you walk in iron shackles.
You are led by a cruel slave-master as you have been your whole
life. Your master stops to buy some
fruit and is briefly distracted. You
take your chance. Pushing your master
over, you run past him down the crowded alley-ways of the market. The shackles bite hard into your ankles as
you run as fast as you can. You look
left and right to find a way out of the market. As you hesitate you feel a sickening blow to your head. Your master has caught up with you. You drop to your knees as your master comes
around into focus. You dread what comes
next.
But just then, as your
master raises his arm to strike you, someone holds his hand. Your eyes re-focus. You see a man. He’s not angry. He’s not
afraid. And he stands between you and a
terrible beating.
Your master speaks angrily
to the man. The man is calm. He produces a bag full of money. It’s a lot.
He gives it to your master. “I am redeeming him” he says “Set him
free”. Your master is amazed but takes
the money. The man says “Release his
shackles.” The master bends down at
your feet muttering. He takes off the
shackles. “Now leave” says the man to
the master. The master aims one last
blow in your direction, but again the man stops him. “He’s mine now!” says the man.
With that, your old master slinks off and you are left with your
redeemer. He puts his arm around you
and says, “Come with me. There’s so
much I want to show you.”
How do you feel?
The scene changes again. You are in the outer court of the Jerusalem
temple. It is full of people bringing
animals to the priests for sacrifice.
You can smell burning fat. The
priests are laying their hands on the heads of bulls and goats and lambs,
confessing the sins of the people over them.
The altar is glistening red as the blood of each sacrifice is thrown
against the altar. The blood overflows
down the sides of the altar and into channels running red. The animals in the queues are troubled, the
people are solemn.
The altar is in front of a
large curtain leading into the Holy Place.
Only priests are allowed there.
Through this sanctuary is the ultimate curtain – the entrance to the Holy
of Holies. There the LORD Himself sits
enthroned in majesty… But out here,
there is commotion, the cries of animals, the contrition of people, the prayers
of the priests. Until, that is, the
LORD speaks and everyone is silenced.
‘Get out’ He booms. Everything
stops, the priests turn and face the curtain. ‘Get out’ repeats the voice. ‘My time of redemption has come. There is no
one to help me, no-one to intercede, no-one offer to sacrifice. My own arm will work salvation. Get out.’
The priests usher everyone out of the courtyard – man and beast. Eventually, everything is quiet. Then the LORD emerges through the
curtain. In His strength He strides
towards the altar. He calls the High
Priest back in. The High Priest
confesses over the LORD’s head the sins of all the people, all their sins. Then the High Priest reaches out his hand
and takes the knife to slaughter Him.
The knife falls and the LORD is slain for sin.
How do you feel?