Books and More Books (3)

 

Have you read Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman? It is a must read. Considering it was published in 1985, I can only imagine what Postman would say today, were he still living. If you want to read some real prophecy, read this book. This is an example of prophecy and discernment birthed by common grace and general revelation and God-given common sense, and it far surpasses most of what is marketed as prophecy by many pastors, teachers, and “Christian” authors.

 

“It is my intention in this book to show that a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense.” Postman, page 16.

 

Not just public discourse, but discourse within the professing church.

 

“Television is our culture’s principal mode of knowing about itself. Therefore – and this is the critical point – how television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged. It is not merely that on the television screen entertainment is the metaphor for all discourse. It is that off the screen entertainment is the metaphor for all discourse…Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other.” Postman, page 92.

 

“What all of this means [our show business culture] is that our culture has moved toward a new way of conducting its business, especially its important business. The nature of its discourse is changing as the demarcation line between what is show business and what is not becomes harder to see with each passing day. Our priests [and pastors, and worship leaders, and evangelists, and small group leaders] presidents, our surgeons and lawyers, our educators and newscasters need worry less about satisfying the demands of their discipline than the demands of good showmanship. Had Irving Berlin changed one word in the title of his celebrated song, he would have been as prophetic, albeit more terse, as Aldous Huxley. He need only have written, There’s No Business But Show Business.” Postman, page 98.

 

“…it is not that religion has become the content of television shows but that television shows may become the content of religion.”  Postman, page 124.

 

It seems as if Postman is hitting the nail on the head. Here’s one more that speaks not just to advertising, but to much of the professing church:

 

“The television commercial has oriented business away from making products of value and toward making consumers feel valuable, which means that the business of business has now become pseudo-therapy. The consumer is a patient assured by psycho-dramas.” Postman, page 128.

 

Whereas Dorothy L. Sayers wrote that, “The beauty is in the dogma,” we now preach that the “beauty is in the mirror of self.”

 

Well, if you want to get a clue or two about why we are Biblically illiterate in the professing church, Postman’s book provides valuable framework.

 

I recently had a church elder tell me, after I suggested a book to him, “I don’t read.” Once, during my annual review by church leadership, I was criticized for expecting the leadership to read material I was giving them. Considering that elders are to be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:1) and that deacons are to be “holding the mystery of the faith” (1 Tim. 3:9); where do we get this idea that we are not supposed to read?

 

Yes Mr. Postman, we are indeed amusing ourselves to death.

 

 

 

Books and More Books (2)

 

When reading the Bible throughout the year I try to read from the Gospels and Acts, the Epistles (including Revelation, which is a letter), the Psalms, Prophets, books of Wisdom, and then the Pentateuch and history books at any given time. The number of places I read varies from time to time, but my point is that I want to read in such a way as to keep me continually exposed to all genres of the Bible so that the Word speaks to me as a whole rather than piecemeal. The Bible is a symphony and all the instruments are meant to play together, not in isolation. One reason that Revelation is usually misread and misunderstood, and that Hebrews is seldom read and nearly always misunderstood, is that we read them in isolation, we read them devoid of what is called “intertextuality.”

 

I suppose intertextuality is a fancy word which, in our context, means that we read any given Biblical passage in the context of all Biblical passages, that we participate in a dance of all Scripture and behold Isaiah interacting with Ephesians, and 1 Kings with Daniel, and John with Genesis and Psalms. This is not about using a concordance, though it does not rule out a concordance; it is rather about insights and concepts and “seeing” in and through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus Christ.

 

That is, methodology is not enough, for learning without the Holy Spirit makes us scribal people on the one hand, and antinomian people on the other…and I suppose everything in between. So when we read the Bible we cover the breath of the Bible, the genres of the Bible, so that the Holy Spirit can use the seed we’ve sown, by God’s grace, to reveal Jesus Christ to us. As Proverbs tells us, “He who tills his land will have plenty of bread.” When we read and meditate in the Word, we can trust our Lord Jesus to provide us with plenty of bread, and of course He is the Bread of Life.

 

What has all of this to do with reading books other than the Bible? Well, just as the Bible contains many literary genres, there are many genres in the world of literature and writing in general and it just may be a good idea to varying our reading diet, both within the religious world and the world at large.

 

One of the points in all of this is that we should be reading for a lifetime and not so much reading to meet an immediate need; not that the former doesn’t have its place, but it should be a secondary place. Yes, I realize that our culture, with its deemphasis on character development, does not value much that is long-term; if there is no immediate gratification or result then something has little value. However, this runs counter to the Biblical theme of pilgrimage, of being on a journey to the City of God, of growing in our faith and character, and of transformation into the image of Jesus Christ.

 

And here is a warning for preachers and teachers, if we are not taking those we serve on pilgrimage, but rather feeding them piecemeal on Sundays and Wednesdays and at other times, if we are in effect “channel flipping” in our presentations, if we are not constantly referring back to previous teaching and seeking to integrate thinking and vision…then perhaps we have adopted the world’s ways. There may be times in life when we do need to sprint to accomplish a goal, but the fabric of a life of growth and character is that of a marathon – are we teaching others to run a marathon?

 

Are we reading as those running a marathon? Are we planting the Word of God deep within our souls? Are we helping one another in this planting?

 

 

 

Books and More Books

 

Yesterday a dear friend gave me the idea that I should mention that Vos’s message on Heavenly – Mindedness is available in a little book titled Grace & Glory, by Vos with an introduction by R. Scott Clark. This is a collection of six sermons preached at Princeton’s chapel. While I have not read all six sermons, what I have read is rich, rich, rich. The book is available on Amazon. If you don’t want the book, you can find a PDF of the sermon Heavenly – Mindedness on the internet.

 

If you want a high intensity workout with Vos, there is his The Pauline Eschatology. WARNING, this is a heavy – lifting book and it can be slow going. On the other hand, I felt like I was in a classroom with Vos when I worked through it. I actually did skip one section because it was focused on things Vos was dealing with in his own historical situation and I didn’t want the material to slow me down, so don’t feel guilty if you too decide to jump over a section. On the other hand, Vos displays his thinking and how he reads the Bible in such a way that, once again, I felt like I was in his classroom.

 

Another WARNING with this book. It ain’t the candy cotton genre of material on prophecy that is so prevalent today, a mile wide and ¼ inch deep. It is comprehensive Biblical thinking with Christ as its center rather than speculation, nationalistic impulses, and fanciful schemes that seem to change with the headlines.

 

Discipleship on the Edge, by Darrell W. Johnson, is the best accessible book I’ve read on Revelation. If you are ready to look at Revelation with Christ as its center rather than speculation, this is the book for you. I highly recommend it. While I appreciate Vos’s The Pauline Eschatology, I’d go with Johnson first to help me with a framework prior to working with Vos.

 

The Divine Comedy, Dante. I really like Dorothy L. Sayers’s translation, which comes in three volumes. Sayers remains faithful to Dante’s poetic structure and the commentary and notes she supplies help the reader immeasurably. When Sayers died in the midst of translating Paradise, her friend and Italian scholar, Barbara Reynolds, finished the work which Sayers gave much of her latter life to.

 

Dorothy L. Sayers, Her Soul and Life, Barbara Reynolds. This is the best biography of Sayers that I’ve read, and it is by someone who knew her first professionally, and then in the bonds of friendship.

 

Creed or Chaos, Dorothy L. Sayers. This is a collection of essays and speeches by Sayers in which she remarkably and succinctly challenges the reader to think about the fundamentals of our faith, as Sayers said, “The beauty is on the dogma.”

 

I’ll have some more books in a day or two.

 

Heavenly Mindedness (79)

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

 

“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:16.

 

Let’s remind ourselves of the two verses which Vos took as his text for his sermon, preached at Princeton Seminary chapel, Hebrews 11:9 & 10:

 

“By faith he [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

 

In his conclusion, Vos says that “the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.”

 

Can this be said about us?

 

Do we have what Vos styles as a “personal love” for God? Or is our love a religious love, a “love” that is cautious, lest others thing we are making too big a thing of Jesus Christ? Is our love measured, lest we love God too much and miss out on the things of this world? Is our love more of a love for a Christian lifestyle, a love of being with nice people, of having a reputation as a nice Christian man or woman, than it is of having a reputation within and without the professing church of being someone who loves God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and who loves his neighbor as himself?

 

Are we attempting to live in two cities, the City of God and the city of man? Do we think we have some type of dual citizenship? Is our love and allegiance divided between the things of this world and the things of God?

 

Do we have a homesickness for God? This homesickness means that we realize that we are not who the world says we are, but rather men and women and young people whose true genealogy is in God, whose destiny is in God, who were elect and chosen before the foundation of the world to travel home to our heavenly Father in and through Jesus Christ. This homesickness means that we realize that we are not accidents looking for a place to happen but have been called by Jesus Christ to follow Him from this age into the next as the daystar rises within our hearts.

 

Is God “not ashamed to be called our God”?

 

Jesus says in Matthew 10:32 – 33; “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Then in Mark 8:38 we have, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

Vos writes of “the city of their desire.” What is the city of our desire? Where do we desire to live today? Tomorrow? Forever?

 

Do we desire a city of pleasure? A city of materialism? A city of political power? Of sports power? Of entertainment? Of economic power? Of religious power?

 

Or is the city of our desire that city whose architect and builder is God? Is it the City where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light, life, and delight?

 

Are we living the life of the heavenly – minded?

 

Below is the final section of Vos’s sermon. I have included it so that we can read it again and catch the challenge and beauty of his conclusion. Can we say with Paul in Philippians 3:13 – 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”?

 

“Finally the highest thing that can be spoken about this city is that it is the city of our God, that He is in the midst of it. Traced to its ultimate root heavenly-mindedness is the thirst of the soul after God, the living God. The patriarchs looked not for some city in general, but for a city whose builder and maker was God.

 

“It is characteristic of faith that it not merely desires the perfect but desires the perfect as a work and gift of God. A heaven that was not illumined by the light of God, and not a place for closest embrace of Him, would be less than heaven. God as builder and maker thereof has put the better part of Himself into his work. Therefore those who enter the city are in God. The thought is none other than that of the seer in the Apocalypse:

 

“I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. And that city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the throne of God and the Lamb are therein: and his servants shall do Him service, and they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.”

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.

 

“It was because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos

 

AMEN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heavenly Mindedness (78)

 

“And the faith is the faith of the Psalmist, who spoke: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Here it is impossible for us to tell how truly and to what extent our relation to God is a relation of pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake. There, when all want and sin-frailty shall have slipped away from us, we shall be able to tell.” G. Vos.

 

 Before we leave the above penultimate paragraph in Vos’s sermon, I’d like us to please consider what Vos means by “pure, disinterested love in which we seek Him for his own sake.” Is the idea of “disinterested love” familiar to you? What does it mean to “seek Him for his own sake”? We could also phrase this, “love Him for his own sake.”

 

This concept is perhaps unfamiliar to us, both in terms of loving God and loving others. Must I have self-interest in order to love someone? In order to love God? Vos writes of “pure, disinterested love,” is such a thing possible? If I never received anything from God, would I still love Him? Would I still seek to love Him more deeply every day? Is God worthy to be worshipped for who He is, and not from what I may receive from Him? In other words, if I never received anything from God would I still worship Him?

 

These questions and this idea of “disinterested love” have been with us a very long time in the history of the Church, and while we may not be familiar with the subject of disinterested love, I suppose we could probably find it written about and taught in every generation prior to our own. When Paul writes in 1 Cor. 13:5 that love “does not seek its own,” what does he mean? What does this look like in our relationship with God? With others?

 

Can we find a foundation for this idea in Jesus’s call to discipleship in Mark 8:34ff in which we are called to deny ourselves? Is there a glimpse of this in Galatians 2:20 and its “yet not I, but Christ”?

 

What can we learn of love from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13? From the First Epistle of John, which is a kaleidoscope of love with myriad patterns?

 

From what I’ve written in previous posts you know that I don’t think we can know to what extent we may have pure love, nor do I think it is healthy to live in a house with mirrors on every wall – preoccupation with “self” distracts us from Christ and others. We must trust God with our growth, our transformation into the image of Jesus Christ, and with all that that entails.

 

On the other hand, as we meditate on God’s love and on love as it is revealed and taught in the Bible, we would do well to ask our Father and Lord Jesus to search our hearts, to teach us to love as the Trinity loves. I do think that living with an awareness of our love for God and others is vital – for is this not the Great Commandment (Mark 12:28 – 34)? I have a friend who says, “I want to love Jesus more today than I did yesterday.” I like this, I like this a lot and I often make it a prayer of mine.

 

I usually begin each day asking God to teach me to love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love my neighbor as myself. I ask Him to teach me to love Him with all that I have and all that I am. I ask our Lord Jesus to teach me to love my wife as He loves the Church, His Bride.

 

One of the great joys of my life is that in the last years of my business career I came to love my employees deeply and joyously. This is not something I was consciously working toward, it was not something I was aware of as it was developing within me, but I came to realize that it was indeed a transformation within me, and I was so very thankful to our Father and our dear Lord Jesus as I realized how much I loved the people I worked with every day. Whenever we gathered as a group, I made it a point to tell them that I loved them. I loved them not from what I could get from them, I loved them to simply love them.

 

To be sure, the idea of disinterested love runs counter to our culture, including our church culture. This has always been the case, but in our blatantly narcissistic culture with its marketing and personality cults and preaching and teaching and song lyrics focused on the self rather than God, disinterested love isn’t likely to attract an audience. And yet, Jesus clearly calls us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.

 

And yet, Vos plants these words at the end of his sermon, “pure, disinterested love.” These are carefully chosen words, they are words with a history stretching back ages, they are words of many who are termed “mystics,” and of others who refuse to remain where they are in this world but insist on pushing forward on pilgrimage to the City of God. Vos, the professor; Vos, the theologian; Vos the man who carefully chooses words and phrases, uses these words and this ideal of “pure, disinterested love” as he arrives at his conclusion of Heavenly – Mindedness.

 

How does Vos want us to engage this ideal? Why does he place it penultimately in this sermon?

 

In the event you wish to pursue and experience “disinterested love,” I will tell you two things; the first is that it will be worth it and that it will glorify God. The second is that as simple as it may seem, that it has its complexities, its enigmas, its paradoxes, its mysteries. This is something to be worked out over a lifetime, and it is never to late or too early to begin. Indeed, if we preached the Gospel as it should be preached, such notions would be foundational.

 

If you pursue this you will likely find some writers who speak to you, and others who don’t; isn’t this to be expected? The Holy Spirit will lead you in your quest.

 

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” Job 13:15.

 

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:16.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.”

 

Heavenly Mindedness (77)

 

Continuing from the last post with the question, “What role do verses 12 and 13 play in Hebrews Chapter 4?

 

Remembering that there were no chapter or verse divisions in the original text of the Bible, Hebrews Chapter 4 is a continuation of Hebrews Chapter 3, and in Chapter 3 the author introduces Moses and the people of Israel, contrasting Moses with Jesus and comparing his readers to the people of Israel; as we ponder this passage we ought to be identifying with both the people of Israel and also with the original readers and hearers of Hebrews, for what is written about Moses and Israel was written for us as well as for the first century church. What are we supposed to learn from Moses and Israel?

 

Central to this passage is the idea of rest in the Promised Land, faith in the Word of God, and obedience and disobedience to God’s Word. Israel and the recipients of the letter that we call “Hebrews” both had good news preached to them (Heb. 4:2), but Israel did not believe God’s Word, His promises, while the recipients of the letter we’re reading did believe (Heb. 4:3).

 

Much of Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 is anchored in Psalm 95 which is quoted in 3:7 – 11, 15; 4:3, 5, 7. The author is arguing that since God through David in Psalm 95, who lived long after Moses and Joshua, is speaking of a “rest” for His people, that therefore “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). His reasoning is, “For if Joshua has given them rest, He [God] would not have spoken of another day after that” (4:8).

 

While there are many treasures in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, for our purposes I want to focus on 4:8 – 16.

 

After making the case that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,” we read in verse 10, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” Note 4:3b – 4, “…although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.’”

 

A defining characteristic of the Sabbath rest that God has for His people is that we rest, or cease, from our own works. Is this not at the heart of the Gospel? Christ does everything and we can do nothing. We enter into the finished works of God from the foundation of the world, most especially those works manifested on the Cross, and we also come to know resting in Christ, abiding in Christ, living in Christ, as our Way of Life (John 15:1ff; Galatians 2:20).

 

As with many elements of the Word of God and our life in Christ, there are enigmatic dimensions to it, for we are told in Hebrews 4:11, “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience” [as seen in the people of Israel in the Wilderness]. This is followed by, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword…” That is, here our core verses 12 – 13 come into play. Why?

 

I think there is a similar paradigm in Philippians 2:12 – 13 in which we’re told to work out our “own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” In much the same way, we are to be diligent to enter the Sabbath rest which God has for us, but how do we do this?

 

I believe we do this by allowing the living Word of God to work deep within us; this means that we submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ through His Word – a Word that penetrates deep within us and reorders our inner person; both encouraging us and bringing to light elements of our lives and inner beings that need to be confessed and put to death at the Cross. We see in verse 12 that the Word judges “the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

 

Enigmatically there is a Sabbath rest in this transformative process, for Jesus Christ is indeed our Sabbath, He is our rest, and while we rest in Him and submit to His Word we are being transformed into His image. The “work” belongs to Christ and not to us, we are indeed, by His grace, participants – but Jesus Christ is the lead partner on the dance floor.

 

But what do we do when the living Word reveals elements of our lives that are too much for us to bear? What do we do when we “see” elements of our core person, things in our hearts and souls, that are disgusting and vile? How do we respond when we realize how we have hurt others, used others, and look into the abyss of our selfishness?

 

Here what follows Hebrews 4:12 – 13 comes into play:

 

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Heb. 4:14 – 16.

 

In other words, when we are tempted, including when we are tempted to despair when we see the depths of our wickedness and sin, when we need spiritual and holistic healing of the inner person – Jesus our High Priest awaits us. Yes, His Word can and will wound us, but He wounds us to heal us; He reveals the cancer of sin in order to remove it. He shows me my narcissism in order to drive me to the Cross for forgiveness and deliverance and transformation into His image.

 

The living Word which we see in 4:12 – 13 is doing a deep work within us, it is not dealing with superficialities, it is dividing soul and spirit and joints and marrow – it is doing a work which counseling (Christian or not) cannot do, it is doing a work which man cannot do, it is doing a work that the best intentioned “iron sharpening iron” cannot do (though God may certainly use our relationships with others in these matters).

 

The living Word of God will bring us into the Sabbath rest of God in Christ, it will keep us in that Sabbath rest, and our High Priest Jesus will be with us throughout this process, this pilgrimage.

 

This is a dimension of what it means to be heavenly – minded and on pilgrimage to the City of God; for only God can call us, protect us, transform us, and ultimately bring us to our destination. This is why it is critical that we know the Bible, live the Bible, breathe the Bible, submit to the Bible, and allow the living Word to work deep within us – we, in and of ourselves, are not capable of any of this. We are not capable of really and truly knowing ourselves, and if we had such capacity, it would kill us. God alone knows what we can stand to see of ourselves and He alone knows how to heal us as He reveals things within us – and He knows not only how to heal, He knows how to transform us into the image of His Son.

 

How is Hebrews 4:12 – 13 working in my life? In our lives? In our congregations?

 

In your life?

Heavenly Mindedness (76)

 

Continuing from our last post, 2 Peter 1:3 – 4:

 

“…seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

 

When we come into a relationship with Jesus Christ we are new creations, new creatures, we have a new nature, and that nature is the nature of God, for we are birthed by the Holy Spirit as His sons and daughters, as the author of Hebrews styles this, “both He [Jesus] who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one [Father]; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:11).

 

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God…” (1 John 3:1).

 

In 2 Peter 1:4, Peter tells us that as the Word of God works in us, and as we respond to this working, as the promises of God operate within us, that we partake of the Divine Nature, we commune with it, we experience koinonia with the Trinity.

 

There is much mystery surrounding all of this, and sadly people tend to go one of two ways with this mystery; they either become self-focused and arrogant and forget that no matter how grand the promises of God are to us, that God is still God and that we ain’t God. The promises are grand and glorious because they are God’s promises, and they will always be God’s promises, and in the infiniteness of eternity, in the depths of eternity, God will remain the great I AM and we, as glorious as we shall be in Jesus Christ, will always be His sons and daughters; we will never be the Alpha and Omega, we will never be the I AM, we will never be the Creator…we will always “be” in Him, His glorious Nature will always “be” in us, indeed it will be ours (if we can speak in such language) – but let us not be fools, the glory of the New Jerusalem is centered in the glory of God and of the Lamb.

 

The other sad response is that we simply refuse to believe what the Bible clearly teaches, that we are partakers of the Divine Nature, that we are no longer sinners but are now saints, and that we are called to live as the sons and daughters of the Living God right here and right now. We may preach about being born again but we don’t really believe it, not as a way of life. We are called to life in the Trinity but we much prefer to live in the Old Covenant – this is a tragic irony; preaching the new birth on one hand, and then refusing to believe that it really happened by inculcating a “sinner” mentality on the other hand. We bind the Word of God in one another (writing in human terms).

 

Well, what I’d like us to see is that we are born again by the Word (1 Peter 1:23); that we are continually and expansively saved by the Word (James 1:18 & 21); and that we are made partakers of the Divine Nature by the Word (2 Peter 1:3 – 4). This brings us to Hebrews 4:12 – 13, where we see that the Word works within us to give us rest, to convict us, to cleanse us, and to progressively transform us into the image of Jesus Christ as we seek Him, our Great High Priest.

 

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Hebrews 4:12 – 13.

 

We cannot really know ourselves, we can only know what God reveals to us about ourselves. This knowledge can come through common grace as well as special grace given to us via the Word of God made alive by the Holy Spirit. The man or woman who embarks on an expedition to search the depths of his or her own heart may make some legitimate but limited discoveries, and will likely encounter both despair and self-deception, but we really don’t have the capacity to consistently discern the difference between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and to make sound judgments about the thoughts and intents of our hearts.

 

We must place ourselves in the hands of the Great Physician, trusting Him to convict us, encourage us, and reveal to us what we need to see, when we need to see it – both with respect to ourselves and with respect to His unfolding transformative glory in our lives.

 

At one and the same time we are partaking of the Divine Nature through the Word of God (2 Peter 1:3 – 4) while that same Word is working deep within our beings to convict, convince, and lay us bare before God and our Great High Priest. This Divine dynamic is complementary and bears witness to the incredible love that our Father has toward us, the same love with which He loves the Firstborn Son (John 17:23).

 

Here is a gentle observation; we may note that in Ephesians 6:17 that the Word of God is styled “the sword of the Spirit.” That is a powerful image, an image that we see in Revelation 1:16; 2:12, 16; 19:15. I have often heard Christians refer to their Bibles as swords. I have been in Christian meetings in which we’ve been told to lift our “swords” up so everyone can see them. What I want to say is that this sword is not ours to manipulate, nor to treat as some sort of spiritual power or weapon at our beck and call; rather, this sword calls us to submit to it and only the man or woman who submits to this sword can learn to wield it with the Wisdom of God. Otherwise, we more often than not resemble children playing some sort of war game.

 

The woman or man who would learn Ephesians 6:17 would do well to first learn the ways of the Word in Hebrews 4:12 – 13; for, among other things, it is good for us to engage with the “sword of the Spirit” in the spirit and not in the soul – much in the professing church in done in the soul, hence much in the professing church carries the hand of man and not the hand of God. (Note Paul’s treatment of the spiritual man and the soulical man in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, and of carnal Christians in Chapter 3).

 

What role do verses 12 and 13 play in Hebrews Chapter 4?

 

We’ll look at this in the next post in this series.

 

John Owen and Our Nature in Christ

A few hours after yesterday's post I was reading John Owen's Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ. Below are some quotes regarding our nature. 

This wonderful book is in the public domain.

Quotes:

 

“For if our future blessedness shall consist in being where He is, and beholding of His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory?”

 

“He it is in whom our nature, which was debased as low as hell by apostasy from God, is exalted above the whole creation.” [Italics Owen].

 

“…but those who have received the light of faith and grace, so as rightly to understand the being and end of that nature whereof they are partakers, cannot but rejoice in its deliverance from the utmost debasement, into that glorious exaltation which it has received in the person of Christ. And this must needs make thoughts of Him full of refreshment unto their souls. Let us take care of our persons, - the glory of our nature is safe in Him. For – In Him the relation of our nature unto God is eternally secured. We were created in a covenant relation unto God. Our nature was related unto Him in a way of friendship, of likeness, and complacency.” [Italics Owen].

 

“Heaven and earth may pass away, but there shall never be a dissolution of the union between God and our nature anymore.”

 

“…this nature of ours is capable of this glorious exaltation and subsistence in God.” [Italics Owen].

 

“Our nature in Him is passed through these aspectable heavens, and is exalted far above them. Its eternal habitation is in the blessed regions of light and glory; and He has promised that where He is, there we shall be, and that forever.”

Heavenly Minedness (75)

 

Continuing from our last post, before we consider “pure, disinterested love,” I’d like us to please ponder Hebrews 4:12 -13; 2 Peter 1:3 - 4;1 Peter 1:23; and James 1:18, 21, though our focus will be Hebrews 4:12 – 13.

 

1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18, 21; and 2 Peter 1:3 - 4 provide us with a context for Hebrews 4:12 – 13. It is helpful, even vital, to understand the “nature” of a thing if we are going to have some understanding of it, if we are going to know how to think about it. Yes, usually this understanding unfolds as a result of our thinking and experience, and often the more we ponder and engage the richer our understanding becomes – so understanding the essence, experiencing the essence, or at the very least engagement in some fashion is critical to our thinking and experience, to how we engage with a person, an animal, a thing, and how we see ourselves.

 

I will frankly say that the fact that most Christians, at least in the West, do not know who Christ is in them and who they are in Christ, is a toxic problem. They do not believe that Jesus Christ has placed a new nature within them, nor do they often have an understanding of the death – dealing activity of the “old man” or “old person” (see Romans 6) and of our need to see ourselves as “dead unto sin but alive unto God.” For all of our talk of new birth and being born again, we display little awareness of this glorious truth in Jesus Christ. We call people to come to Jesus Christ and then we teach them to live like sinners – we just want their sin cleaned up so it won’t be so bad – when Jesus calls us to lose our lives, we teach one another to save them.

 

In 1 Peter 1:23 Peter writes, “…for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God,” and then in 1:25 he writes, “the word of the Lord endures forever.” What is the “nature” of our new birth? It is the Word of God, the living seed of the Word of God. Kind produces kind and the Father through the Son brings many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10 – 13), the Father has purposed that the Lord Jesus Christ should be the “firstborn among many brethren,” (Romans 8:29). Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1) and He lives in us.

 

James tells us that, “In the exercise of His [the Father’s] will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” Can we see the similarity here with 1 Peter? Can we see the activity of the Word of God, the “Word of Truth”? Also note, that as the Firstborn Son is a first fruit, so we collectively comprise the first fruits.

 

Then James tells us, “Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” What does the phrase, “the Word implanted” say to you? The idea that the “Word implanted” is able to “save our souls” can be hard for us in the West to understand because we have reduced the concept of salvation to being saved from hell to go to heaven – this is most assuredly not the Biblical picture of salvation and our failure to understand this has led to anemia and toxicity within our souls and within the professing church.

 

Biblical salvation is holistically expansive and includes every area of life, both individually and collectively, and even includes the redemption of creation. The purpose, the trajectory of Biblical salvation for us as individuals and as our Father’s sons and daughters is koinonia, fellowship, communion with the Trinity (John chapters 13 – 17); it is no less than union with God and manifesting that union on this earth, right now, in this time and place – individually yes, but most especially as His Body, His Temple, His Bride, His Flock.

 

Heavenly – mindedness is looking for that City, it is not a “Jesus and me” proposition, for without my brothers and sisters, without that City, there is no fulness of fellowship with Jesus Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ died for me and gave Himself for me – and we see this in Galatians 2:20; but it was to bring “many sons to glory” that He came, and it is the Father’s desire and purpose that Jesus be “the Firstborn among many brethren.” Is God’s desire my desire? Is my Father’s heart my heart? Is the prayer of Jesus in John 17 my prayer and my purpose in living? O what a foolish people we are, how blind to the Way of our Father.

 

Back to James; as we receive the Word into our souls it works salvation, wholeness, holistic growth in Christ – because the Word becomes engrafted…its Nature works its way into us (can we note the similarity here with John 15:1ff?). Progressively we are transformed into His image so that we learn that we must abide in Jesus Christ and that without Him we “can do nothing” (John 15:5). We learn not only to say this, we learn to live it in Jesus Christ, we learn to draw our total life from Him.  

 

What do you see in 2 Peter 1:3 – 4? How do these verses relate to the ones we’ve pondered in 1 Peter and James?

 

We’ll pick this back up in our next post in the series.