The Cost of Witness (1)

 The Upper Room – The Cost of Witness (1)

Our next section, or movement, in the Upper Room is John 15:18 – 16:4 (remember that chapter and verse numberings were not in the Bible as it was first written). As we prepare to explore this passage, it will be helpful if we read it again, and again, and again. It may also be helpful to read it in multiple translations to allow the central thought of what Jesus is saying to soak into us. Don’t get hung up on individual word choices in the translations, rather pay attention to the theme. 

That is, look at the entire tree, at the shape of the tree. Only after we “see” the tree can we appreciate its branches. (I can’t count the number of Bible studies I’ve been in where folks get so absorbed in individual branches that they never see the passage they are reading, they never see the tree, they never get the point of the passage. If we don’t see the tree we really can’t see the role the branches play.)

How does this passage fit into the entire Upper Room (chapters 13–17)? 

What role does it play in its immediate context (15:1–17 and 16:5–22)?

Why might Jesus have included 15:26-27?

How might this passage have played out in the lives of the disciples who first heard it?

How has this passage been expressed in the Church through the ages?

What does this passage look like in our congregations?

What does this passage look like in my life?

In your life?

Our Last Battle (6)

 Six – Not A Tame Lion?

While Lewis titles chapter three, The Ape in Its Glory, I think the question for the reader is, “What do I see happening as a result of the Ape having such glory?” That is, what do we see happening on the inside of people as a result of the Ape’s words and actions?

Here is the second phase of Our Last Battle, while this phase was introduced in Chapter Two, it comes into focus in Chapter Three. It is a phase that is deeply ingrained in the professing church of our own day, whether it styles itself conservative, progressive, liberal, or with, I suppose, any other label – including the label of “no label.” 

In Chapter Two, as the King and Jewel are rejecting Roonwit’s warning not to believe that lie that Aslan has returned, Jewel argues that Aslan need not be consistent with the stars that Roonwit points to because Aslan is not a Tame Lion. At this Tirian cries, “Well said, well said, Jewel. Those are the very words: not a tame lion. It comes in many tales.”

Then in Chapter Three, as Tirian and Jewel deal with their shame over the murder of two Calormenes, who were unarmed, and struggle with how it is possible that Aslan would decree the enslavement of Narnians, the destruction of Narnian trees, and an alliance with the Calormenes, Tirian says again, “He is not a tame Lion.” 

Later, when Jewel and Tirian are brought before the Ape and witness the Ape’s interaction with the crowd, we see a Boar asking Shift why the people can’t actually see Aslan and talk to him. The Boar points out that in the old days, when Aslan appeared, people clearly saw him and spoke to Him face to face. 

The Ape responds by saying that times have changed and that Aslan will “teach you to think he’s a tame lion.” 

A Bear then says, “We want to hear Aslan speak for himself.”

A young lamb then asks how Aslan could be friends with Tash, a god who is worshipped with human sacrifice. Then the Ape gets things out in the open with the statement, “Tash is only another name for Aslan…Tash is Aslan: Aslan is Tash.” 

Finally Tirian comes to his senses, “Ape,” he cried with a great voice, “you lie. You lie damnably. You lie like a Calormene. You lie like an Ape.”

This phase of Our Last Battle can be thought of as knowing Aslan, or knowing Jesus – as opposed to believing and accepting a caricature of Him. This includes seeing the perfect harmony and correspondence between Aslan and the stars, or more perfectly, between Jesus and His Word. 

Let’s explore a few of the threads inherent in this phase of Our Last Battle. 

The first thread has to do with the idea that Aslan is not a Tame Lion, an image we find in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Mr. Beaver had warned the Kings and Queens concerning Aslan, “He’ll be coming and going. One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down – and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.” 

What does this mean? What doesn’t it mean? How did Tirian and others misunderstand this? 

There are six books that precede The Last Battle in the Narniad. Each of these stories reveal Aslan, and in revealing Aslan they reveal His character, His Nature. We see Aslan’s loving self-sacrifice, His kindness and gentleness, His righteousness and justice, and His forgiveness and mercy. We also see that while He is not a tame lion, that He is approachable and trustworthy and safe to be with. We might say that while we do not tame Aslan, that Aslan tames us by teaching us to trust Him and obey Him in love and truth and righteousness and courage. 

In The Last Battle, not only do the King and Jewel reject Roonwit’s appeal to the message of the heavens, but the King, Jewel, and many of the King’s subjects reject the testimony of previous generations concerning Aslan. They are duped into believing lies. They actually believe and accept the caricature of Aslan as portrayed by the Ape. Those few Narnians who take issue with the Ape’s message are quickly shouted down and are not supported by their fellow Narnians. 

This entails more than believing lies, it also attributes evil to Aslan, the Christ figure. This is what occurs when we do not really know Aslan, when we do not speak to Him face to face. This is how we can be led to attribute evil to God when we don’t know the Nature and Character of God. When we don’t know the Word of God, when we don’t know Christ as revealed in the Bible, then we can only rely on hearsay, on what others have told us as opposed to what we have experienced. 

In Scripture we are told that Jesus, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He become poor. Is it likely that this Jesus would send us a message that we ought to accumulate wealth? That we ought to seek bigger and bigger houses, jewels upon jewels, exotic automobiles, and hoard more money than we will ever need? Does it make sense that this Jesus would send messengers, pastors, priests, archbishops, prophets, evangelists who are not transparent about their (and their churches) finances, who make displays of wealth when people are starving and homeless? Who lay up treasures on earth when people need Jesus and food and shelter and medical care? 

Jesus says that we are to allow the little children to come to Him. Does it make sense that this Jesus would tolerate the abuse of children? That He would cover it up? That He would enable abusers to continue their evil practices? The Jesus of the Gospels provided a safe place for women. Do we not think it strange that institutions that purport to be from Him perpetuate the abuse of women, making excuse after excuse for the practice. 

Jesus said that we will know trees by their fruit. If a system, if an institution, is producing sinful and evil fruit – how can we think that the Ape is actually representing Aslan? 

Jesus teaches us that we are His brothers and sisters, that we are the daughters and sons of His Father. Jesus teaches us that we can know Him, speak to Him, hear Him, abide in Him and have Him abide in us. Yet, we are often taught that we cannot come near Him, but that we must have others speak to us on His behalf. In fact, we are often taught that He no longer speaks to us, in spite of what Jesus Himself tells us in His Word. 

Some teach us that nationalism should share the stage with Jesus. Others teach that this or that economic system has been sanctioned by Jesus and that we ought to propagate it. Others teach us that there is a certain way to look at the world, they call it a worldview, and they make it equivalent to the Gospel. 

But the Jesus of the Bible is transcendent, and He makes us citizens of heaven. Jesus calls us to be His Ekklesia, His Church, His Body, His Bride, His Temple – there are no national flags or national constitutions within the Temple of God – there is the Father and the Son.  

There are those who claim to be messengers of Jesus who keep people in slavery to guilt, they measure the effectiveness of their so-called ministries by how guilty their people feel from week to week. They pay lip service to the New Covenant, but they practice the guilt-ridden Old Covenant where there is a constant reminder of sin. (Actually, the men and women of faith under the Old Covenant knew the blessedness of forgiveness – see Romans Chapter 4). Yet, the Jesus of the Bible comes to forgive and cleanse us once and for all (see Hebrews Chapter 10; 2 Cor. 5:21). 

If we don’t know the Nature and Character of Jesus, as displayed in Scripture, we will be duped by the Ape and dead lion skins. 

People will say, “Well, He isn’t a tame lion,” and we will take that to mean that the Bible can be superseded by our whims and fancies and pragmatism. 

An element of Our Last Battle is whether we know Jesus or whether we have bought into a caricature of Him. Are we attributing evil – including religious evil - to the spotless and holy Lamb of God? Are we following dead lions’ skins? 

“I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). 

In our next reflection we'll consider what it means that Aslan is not a tame lion on the positive side. 

The Royal Inclusio – Love (12)

 This is our concluding reflection on John 15:12 - 17. Our next movement in the Upper Room is John 15:18 - 16:4. 

We have asked three questions regarding the love of John 15:12 – 17: What does this look like in the church? What does this look like in my own life? What does this look like in my family? Having pondered the second and third questions, we’ll now consider the first question (though we touched on it in our previous meditation). 

Are our congregations (and denominations and movements) laying down their lives for others? Is my local congregation laying down its life for its community, for the world, and for other congregations? 

The term “doctrinal distinctives” is often used to delineate one group from another, indicating what beliefs or practices set groups apart from one another. As I ponder this, I wonder where we get this mentality of defining ourselves by our differences, and I wonder how we justify such thinking. I wonder why we don’t emphasize our common faith in Jesus Christ and our call to unity in Him. How have we arrived at such fragmented thinking? 

Jesus tells us that we are to have two distinctives, one is that we love one another as He loves us, the other is that we are One as the Trinity is One. Both of these distinctives are contrary to our cherished doctrinal distinctives – our doctrinal distinctives separate the Body of Christ, the Divine distinctives of sacrificial love and unity “perfect us into one” Body (John 17:23; Ephesians 4:1–16).

Whatever our doctrinal distinctives may be – and I think we should acknowledge that whatever they are, they are likely imperfect and incomplete – the test of their validity is whether they are Christocentric, rooted in Christ. Since we cannot be rooted in Christ without also being rooted in His Body, any doctrinal distinctives that do not result in service and preference for the Body of Christ lack validation. 

Consider a wheel with many spokes. Are the spokes leading to the hub or away from the hub? When we seek to emphasize our unity, the spokes lead to the hub, Jesus Christ. When we emphasize and identify with our so-called distinctives, we move away from the hub. 

Nowhere do we see Jesus teaching us to move away from Him and our brethren, in fact, throughout the Bible we are taught to live for one another in Christ. How is it that we have come to celebrate division? How is it that pastors see no need to know one another and to lead their people by example into the glorious fellowship of the Body of Christ? 

On the congregational level, are we collectively living sacrificial lives for others? How are we spending our money, our time, our resources? I have often shared the story of a trustees’ meeting in which I said, “I would not want to appear before Jesus with this budget and financial statement. It is all about us.” 

I have known folks who thought that if they volunteered so many hours a month at church that they would not need to give money. I have known others who thought that if they gave money that would not have to give time or talent. Where does this thinking come from? We are either living for Jesus and others or we are not. We are either living in relationship with the Trinity and others or we are not. 

Years ago there was a church in Richmond, VA in the midst of a building program. They were ready to begin the next phase of the program and they had the money for the project. However, they had also promised a church in Haiti that they would provide funds for a building. They only had enough money for one project. The church gave their funds to their Haitian brethren. That, my friend, was the turning point for the Richmond church. The church became a center for outreach to the world, supporting churches throughout the world, sending missionaries, and (the last time I had contact with them) sending about 25 short-term mission groups every year. Because they put others first God was able to use them for His Kingdom. (Also, as I think about this particular church, even though it was a member of a denomination, it never had a denominational feel to it, it had the feel of the Body of Christ.)

Just to be clear, I am not talking about being “non-denominational,” whatever that means. I think whether or not a congregation is associated with a denomination is like circumcision, the Bible says it doesn’t matter whether you are or you aren’t, what matters is that we have “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6; 6:15). We are all products of traditions and practices and ways of looking at things, and folks who make a big deal of being non-denominational are ignoring the obvious and often leading their people in ways that lack foundation, that have no continuity with the transcendent Body of Christ. Of course, this disconnect with our past is the norm across most congregations and institutions, even those who profess otherwise – we are so “in the moment” and reactionary that our congregations are ships without rudders and navigational charts. We are more like bumper cars than vessels on a carefully charted course. 

What does the Royal Inclusio look like in my life? In your life? In our marriages? Our families? Our congregations? Our denominations and movements?

Are we laying down our lives for others in love as Jesus laid down His life for us? 

Our Last Battle - (5)

 FIVE – THE KING’S ANGER GROWS

As Tirian and Jewel contend with Roonwit over the centaur’s warning of not to believe the lie that Aslan has returned, their ears are arrested by a Dryad’s wailing, crying for justice from the King. Her brothers and sisters, Narnian trees in Lantern Waste, are being cut down, murdered. Tirian’s reaction is to draw his sword. 

Note that the King has gone from putting his hand on his sword in anger toward Roonwit, to now drawing his sword in response to the Dryad’s news.

When the Dyad falls dead in great pain, indicating that her tree in Lantern Waste has also been cut down, Tirian’s grief and anger are so great that he can’t speak. Then, when the King calls on Roonwit and Jewel to come with him to Lantern Waste and confront the enemy perpetuating the murders, Roonwit counsels, “Sir, be wary even in your just wrath.”

Roonwit further counsels Tirian to wait until they gather reinforcements, for after all, there are only three of them and there are likely many villains to confront. Tirian, however, will not wait, but as he and Jewel make their way to Lantern Waste, he sends Roonwit to Cair Paravel for help. 

Lewis tells us that as the King hurries to help the Narnian trees that he is muttering to himself and clenching his fists, his anger is burning, he is driven by anger. When they ford the cold waters of a river Tirian is so angry that he hardly notices how cold the water is. Again, he is propelled by anger, fueled by anger. 

After an encounter with a Water Rat who tells them that their arch enemies, the Calormenes, are the ones felling the trees, Jewel and the King both become so angry that they can’t think clearly, which leads us to a key statement by Lewis in this chapter, and indeed in the entire book: “But much evil came of their rashness in the end.” 

The chapter concludes with Jewel and Tirian killing two Calormenes who have enslaved a Narnian horse. “The King’s sword went up, the Unicorn’s horn went down.” Jewel gored his opponent and Tirian beheaded his enemy. 

Note the progression of Tirian’s anger with his sword; first he lays his hand on the sword in his anger toward Roonwit, then he draws his sword in his anger at the news Dryads are being murdered, then he beheads an enemy with the sword to conclude the chapter. As noted previously, Tirian’s anger is mentioned at least ten times in this chapter, which is titled The Rashness of the King. 

Tirian rejected Roonwit’s counsel not to believe the lie about Aslan. Then the King rejected Roonwit’s counsel to be wary of his anger. Much evil would come of Tirian’s rashness, much sorrow, and much harm to his people. 

O dear friends, can we learn from Lewis’s warning about anger? Anger propels us on a trajectory of sorrow and hurt. When we become people of anger we hurt others in our self-righteousness, we ingest poison into our souls, we spread toxicity to those around us, we communicate spiritual and moral disease and death. 

The People of Christ are to be those who belong to the sacrificial Lamb, the Prince of Peace. We are called to be peacemakers. Our gentleness is to be known to all people. We are to "follow the Lamb wherever He goes” rather than take the lead in anger. We are not to call down fire on others, but we are to remember whose Spirit lives within us. 

The Scriptures teach us that Christ has made us a royal priesthood, we are kings and priests in Christ. If this is so, then we ought to be aware that godly kings do not rule and operate out of anger, but in peace and equity and wisdom. 

When we find ourselves drunk with anger we need to check ourselves into a detox center, and the detox center focuses on Christ Jesus the Lamb and our submission to His Word. The detox center reminds us of the character of our Father and Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, it reminds us that we are not of this world. 

The cup of anger is the cup of Satan, the cup of deceit. The alcohol may be mixed in sweet fruit punch so that we won’t taste it, it may be easy for us to drink, we may justify a drink here and a drink there, but before we know it we have turned the jug upside down and we no longer control the drink, the drink controls us – we are fools. 

Our Last Battle includes our battle with anger. If anger wins, then we lose. If we learn to submit to the peace of Christ, allowing His peace to rule in our hearts (Colossians 3:15), then we have hope and the possibility that we can help others, that in Christ we can save others from the chaotic hell around us. 

Tirian’s anger blinded him to the character of Aslan, it blinded him to the wise counsel of Roonwit, it blinded him to the Word of Aslan as portrayed in the heavens, it blinded him to good judgment, it impeded his ability to save his people. We cannot see clearly when we are angry; we hurt ourselves and others and bring shame to Jesus Christ when we act like fools.

The people around us need the peace of Jesus Christ, they do not need our self-righteous anger, be it religious or political. 

Many of us are fond of quoting Isaiah in saying that a time will come when people will call good evil and evil good. Yet, we do the very same thing when we call anger good and peace evil. Why don’t we see this? It is because we are losing our Last Battle, it is because we are drinking the cup of the enemy and we are too drunk to know it. Isn’t it about time we sobered up and began living for Jesus and others? 

Godly courage is exemplified by the Cross, not by the sword. 

“And they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony [of the Lamb], and they did not love their life even to death [just as the Lamb]” (Rev. 12:11). 

“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24 – 25). 

How are we doing with our Last Battle with anger? 

Do we really want to live and die as an angry people? 

The Royal Inclusio - Love (11)

We have asked three questions regarding the love of John 15:12 – 17: What does this look like in the church? What does this look like in my own life? What does this look like in my family?

We’ve pondered the second question, now let’s consider the third. There are two elements to the question of what loving one another as Jesus loves us looks like in our families. The first is obvious, the second may not be. 

Do we, within our families, love one another as Jesus loves us? Do we practice laying our lives down for one another? At the same time, we should ask whether our families, as family units, are laying their lives down for others outside their families. 

What I mean is that just as individuals are called to love others as Jesus sacrificially loves them, so families are called to love others as Jesus sacrificially loves them (and of course the same is true of congregations and denominations and other associations in Christ). Self-centeredness within families and congregations is idolatrous just as self-centeredness in individuals is idolatrous. The Nature of God is loving and self-giving, therefore if the Nature of God abides within us and in our relationships in Christ, then those relationships ought to display the self-giving and sacrificial love of God, the love that lays down its life for its friends. 

This can be a difficult thing to wrestle with in our self-centered culture, for we have been taught, within and without the professing church, to rationalize our selfishness. We have erected our own images of spiritual health and success in place of the Lamb of God. We have substituted our own images of righteousness for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. There have been many things God has given us for our good that we turned into bronze serpents.

Rather than on mission to share Jesus Christ with the world, our mission has become our own self-improvement, our own blessing, and perpetuating our own kingdoms. Our center of gravity is us as individuals, is us as families, and is us as congregations (and denominations and movements). 

This, my friends, is opposed to our text (John 15:12 – 17), it is opposed to the Upper Room, the Gospel of John, the life of Jesus Christ, and to the Message and Call of Scripture. 

The Good News is that because our heavenly Father knows each of us, and because He loves us so deeply, He will guide us out of our individual and collective self-centeredness if we will ask Him for help. And let’s remember, it must always begin by looking in the mirror – it must begin with me, always with me. I must never look at another person, whether it be my wife, other family members, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and think, “If only that person would change!” 

O my how we lie to ourselves! My love for Christ and others, and my obedience to Jesus Christ, is at the core of the Royal Inclusio. I am called to lay my life down for others, I am not called to manipulate others to lay their lives down for me. 

Let’s make no mistake that we are talking about the Cross of Jesus Christ working itself out in our lives – and the Cross means crucifixion. We must not spare ourselves, our families, or our congregations from the Cross – not if we truly love them. We must not be like Peter when he attempted to shield Jesus from the Cross (Matthew 16:21–23). Do we realize this? O pastors, you are doing your congregations no favors when you shield them from the Cross of Christ. We are called to participate with Jesus Christ in His crucifixion (Galatians 2:20; 6:14; 2 Corinthians 4:11–12; Romans Chapter 6). 

When the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross ceases to be our center of gravity, and is displaced by self-centeredness, including familial, congregational, institutional, and political and nationalistic self-centeredness, we have made our own golden calves. 

Radical? Why of course it is radical. It is radical because the love of Jesus Christ is radical. This is the Love that is our calling into eternity…and if we are not living for eternity then we are a foolish people. Are we ashamed to live for eternity? Are we ashamed to live for Jesus?

Are we not a collective expression of the Rich Young Ruler? Unwilling to give what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose? 

If we are not teaching our families this love by the way we live, why not? If our families are not teaching others this love by the way they live, why not? If our churches and denominations and movements are not displaying the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, why not?

Jesus will teach us His Way of Life, His Way of Love, His Way of giving. We can trust Him to teach us today, tomorrow, and into eternity. He calls us into the deep koinonia of the Trinity, a koinonia of sacrificial love and kindness and grace and joy. We cannot do this in and of ourselves, but as we abide in the Vine, O yes, as we abide in the Vine, He will teach us to lay down our lives for others as He laid down His life for us. 

There is no greater love than this!

The Royal Inclusio - Love (10)

 

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you …This I command you, that you love one another.” John 15:12, 17. 

Do we understand what Jesus is saying? Do we understand what this is? Do we understand, at least in some measure, what Jesus is offering us? 

There is no one as glorious and as beautiful as Jesus Christ. We have never seen or heard anything in creation, or anything produced by man, as beautiful as Jesus Christ. The sum of all beauty and all wonder and all glory and all joy falls short of Jesus Christ – He is truly beyond comparison and description. 

What is it like to be in the Presence of Him who is altogether Wonderful? What is it like to know friendship and koinonia with Him? To touch Him and be touched by Him? To know joy with Him, to laugh with Him, to enjoy singing and music with Him? What is it like to know Him as the Elder Brother and to enjoy a relationship with our Father with Him? 

When Jesus commands us to love as He loves, to lay down our lives as He laid down His life, He is inviting us to know Him in the depths of His Being (if we can use such language). He is calling us to have the image of God restored (actually beyond restored in the sense of beyond what Adam knew) within us. Jesus is inviting us to know the glory which He had with the Father before the foundation of the world (John 17:5, 22–24) and to which our Father is calling us (Hebrews 2:10–13; 2 Thess. 1:12). 

When Jesus calls us to love as He loves, He is calling us into the beauty of the love of God. “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him” (1 John 4:16). 

Let’s recall that the Upper Room begins with Jesus washing feet, including the feet of Judas the betrayer. Jesus calls us to live such a life as we live in Him. Jesus loves as no one else is capable of loving, and He calls us to live in that love and to love with that love as we abide in the Vine and as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit abide in us. 

When Jesus calls us to love one another as He loves us, He calls us to live in His beauty and wonder and glory and joy. True and enduring courage is found in His love, it is found in Him as we love. This is a love that is intercessory in nature, self-giving, that suffers gladly for others, that bears their burdens and sorrows and infirmities – spiritual and physical – and offers itself as a living sacrifice. 

To know Him in the koinonia of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10) is to know Him in His inexpressible beauty and love and glory. This is to be captured and held tight by the love of God, a love from which nothing can separate us (Rom. 8:35–39). 

Now friends, here is the thing, if we are only living as if this life is all there is, then who cares about any of this? It is a sweet story, or a story for fools – call it what you will, but it doesn’t matter, or at least it matters no more than baseball or Wall Street. 

But if we are indeed the sons and daughters of the Living God through Jesus Christ, then loving as Jesus loves forms our souls for eternity and draws us into the depths of the Trinity. Furthermore, God draws others to Himself through us. Also, God uses us to bear the burdens and sufferings of others, He invites us to share the sufferings of Jesus Christ, to serve alongside Jesus our High Priest (Col. 1:24). 

Jesus says, “Come be with Me where I am. Come and love as I love. Come and give as I give. Come and serve as I serve. Come and suffer as I suffer. Come and rise as I rise. Come and ascend as I ascend. Come and know our Father as I know our Father. Come and behold My beauty and know My joy and bask in the warmth and security and glory of My love.”

There is no greater command than, “Love one another as I have loved you.” There is no greater command in terms of importance, in terms of promise, in terms of invitation, and in terms of glory and destiny. There is no greater command because it calls us to unity with Jesus Christ. 

The Royal Inclusio – Love (9)

“This I command you, that you love one another.” John 15:17. 

Here is the completion of the Royal Inclusio that began in verse 12 with, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” 

Love forms the beginning and the end of the Upper Room (another inclusio), we saw it in 13:1, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end,” and we will see it in John 17:26, “So that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” 

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

Now I suppose there are at least three things we ought to ask ourselves: What does this look like in the church? What does this look like in my own life? What does this look like in my family? 

When I ask, “What does this look like in my family?” I am asking two questions. The first question is the one most people likely hear, the second question is one we likely do not hear. What are the two questions? We’ll come back to them.

Since it is always good to begin by looking in the mirror, let’s ask ourselves whether we are keeping this royal command of Jesus Christ. Am I loving others as Jesus Christ loves me? Am I laying down my life for others just as Jesus Christ laid down His life for me? I must not look at others, I must not look at the church, until I have first looked at myself in the light of God’s Word. 

Is my center of gravity Christ and others, or am I the center of my life? Is my life about self-preservation, is it about my wants and needs and agendas, or is it about Jesus Christ and others? 

Now I realize that this is a hard saying, but I wonder why it is hard. After all, the call of Jesus to follow Him clearly includes the call to lose our lives (Mark 8:34 – 38). Why then should we be surprised at the thought that we are live for Christ and others? 

If I am a student, I am in school for others. If I am at work, I am at work for others. If I am engaged in recreation, I am there for others. If I am involved in social or civic activities, I am involved for the benefit of others. In other words, there should be no sphere of life in which I am not living for Jesus Christ and loving others as Jesus loves me. This should also, naturally, include participation in church. Would it not be novel to see churches whose members love one another as Jesus loves them? (More on this later). 

Yes, this Way of Life is radical, but this is the Way of Jesus. Jesus is quite clear, we are to love one another as He loves us, and this means laying down our lives for one another. 

As we will see in the next section of the Upper Room (15:18 – 16:4), there is a price to be paid for living this Way, but it is an honor and glory to pay such a price.  This is the Way of the Cross, and it is also the Way of Resurrection (Romans 8:12 – 25). 

Do we tell ourselves lies to excuse ourselves from following Jesus? 

Do we say, “That was Paul, Jesus appeared to him.  Peter and John were with Jesus, so they could live like that. I am not a pastor (and for sure pastors have their own excuses!). Jesus understands that I must be practical in my life. My family and friends and coworkers will not understand if I am obedient to Jesus. Why should I love people who do not appreciate me? Once I achieve my goals, once I have financial security, I’ll do better about obeying Jesus and loving others." 

What other lies do we tell ourselves to justify not loving others and not laying our lives down for them? 

The glory we forfeit when we refuse Jesus’ command to love one another is the glory of Sonship in Him. Our Father has a grand and glorious eternity awaiting us, and it is His desire that we enter it knowing Jesus in the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His suffering, being conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10). 

Are we members of the koinonia of the Lamb? Are we following the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:1–5)?

Can we say with Paul, “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:11–12)?

O dear friends, how foolish to think that our lives are to be measured by success or bank accounts or possessions, how foolish to use this world’s measurements in our lives, how short-sighted to compromise with the surrounding culture of self-centered evil – including elements of the “church culture.” We are called to live as a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:4–10; Rev. 1:6), belonging to and serving with our High Priest Jesus Christ.

The core of our lives is to be the love of Jesus Christ, it is to be loving one another as Jesus loves us, it is to be the Greater Love that lays down its life for its friends. Jesus gave His life for us, for our brethren, and for the world; we are to give our lives for Him, for our brethren, and for the world. 

Is this the pattern of our lives? 

Is my way of life His Way of Life? Am I living a life of love for others?

What about you? 

Our Last Battle (4)

 Four – Anger at Roonwit

As Jewel parries Tirian’s anger at Jewel’s suggestion that the reports of Aslan may not be true, the centaur Roonwit thunders onto the scene, sweating profusely, having galloped long and hard to reach the King. 

Note that Roonwit drinks to “Aslan and truth” first, and then to the King secondly. 

Roonwit has come to warn the King that the stars, which he reads with wisdom and understanding, say nothing about the appearance of Aslan. Quite the contrary, the stars indicate disaster. Roonwit warns the king not to believe the news that Aslan is in Narnia, for the stars proclaim not good news, but rather warn of terrible events. Roonwit says concerning accounts that Aslan is in the land, “It is all a lie.”

On hearing those words, Tirian lays his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

When Roonwit says that the stars don’t lie, Jewel interjects that Aslan does not serve the stars but the stars serve Aslan and that Aslan can do what He wants to do. Tirian laches onto that argument, for Tirian’s mind is made up, he will believe the account of Aslan being in the land. 

First Tirian is angry at his dear friend Jewel, then he is angry at the majestic Roonwit to the point where he reaches for his sword. In the six pages of Chapter Two, Tirian is angry at least ten times, hence the chapter’s title, The Rashness of the King. Tirian’s anger blinds his judgment and leads to sorrow and confusion. His refusal to heed the stars, and his insistence on placing his own feelings above the message of the stars, hinders his ability to save his people and point them to the true Aslan. 

While the central warning of Chapter Two concerns anger, we are also warned about the danger of failing to heed God’s Word, in this case, the stars. Our feelings ought to be subject to God’s Word, God’s Word is not to be subject to our feelings or thinking or agendas. Nor should we make the terrible mistake of believing that God will contradict His Word; in the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God and His Word are One. 

Our own Last Battle includes both our own anger, as opposed to submitting to the peace of God, and whether we will submit to God’s Word or insist that God’s Word submit to us. In both instances our submission to Jesus Christ is at the heart of the matter and battle. 

We are commanded to allow the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts (Colossians 3:15).  We are supposed to be subjects of the Prince of Peace. Peacemaking is to be a characteristic of the sons and daughters of God.

Anger is a third rail that will kill us, even though we deny it in the midst of our own electrocution. Anger makes us crazy and induces spatial disorientation, it makes us forget who Jesus Christ is and who we are in Him. Anger made Tirian forget that he was a Narnian King and also subject to Aslan. Anger is no substitute for wisdom, understanding, peace, or self-sacrifice. 

I don’t think we care much about the Bible, not really. We are good at lip service to the Scriptures, but we aren’t good at obeying the Word. Just ask the world, ask the people around us. Francis Schaffer pointed out that Jesus gives the world the right to judge us based on what it observes about our love and our unity (John 13:34–35; 17:21–23). 

We’ve one group of professing Christians who have repudiated the Bible’s teaching about the image of God, and we have another group who are repudiating what the Bible teaches about caring for the stranger and the widow and the orphan and the poor. In the same communities we have churches who are affluent and churches whose members lack necessities, such as health care, decent housing, affordable groceries, and safe schools (see 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 and then explain to me why we ignore this passage). 

We have one group of churches that criticizes what it terms the “social gospel,” while that very same group goes all in on a political agenda that endorses violence and makes excuses for the violation of the rule of law, basic morality, and ethics.

Whether we look to the right or the left, we are hardly people who take the Bible seriously unless it is as a smoke screen. C. S. Lewis did not so much take issue with theologians or pastors who did not believe the Bible – except to say that they ought to be honest and find another line of work. In other words, believe what you want to believe, but have the honesty not to make your living from the church if you don’t believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The problem isn’t so much that discrepancies exist between what the Bible teaches and how we actually live, the problem is that we either fail to recognize the gaps or that we justify our thinking and behavior. 

Since the anger of man is contrary to the righteousness of God (James 1:20) and has its roots in the demonic (James 3:9 – 18), the fact that so many professing Christians engage in anger and vitriol in the public square is shameful and troubling. 

Professing Christians do not want to hear what the Bible teaches. They do not want Roonwit showing up to bother them with the truth of Jesus Christ. They would much rather follow a dead lion’s skin – for health and wealth, for self-righteousness, for economic gain, for political and social advantage, for nationalistic agendas, for entertainment, for personal therapy…what can we add to the list? And we certainly don’t want our anger to be placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. 

When it is convenient we want to attack authority, and when it suits our purposes we insist that others bow to our authority. We are drinking from a cup other than that at the Lord’s Table. 

There are dead lion skins all around us.

The Royal Inclusio – Love (8)

 

“…that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give you.” John 15:16.

We see the relationship between fruit and answered prayer in both John 15:7–8 and John 15:16. Our Father is glorified when we bear much fruit (v. 8) and thereby demonstrate that we are disciples of Jesus. If we consider that prayer is communion with God, and that it is only as we abide in Christ the Vine that we can bear fruit (15:4–5), then we see that fruit flows from communion with the Divine, indeed, it is a natural result of us abiding in the Trinity and the Trinity abiding within us. If the Trinity is fruitful then where the Trinity abides is fruitful (consider also Revelation 22:1–2). 

Jesus, the Firstborn Son, displays the image and pattern of abiding in the Father and of asking in prayer. In Matthew and Luke Jesus teaches a pattern of prayer in a broad sense, for He teaches in public. In the Upper Room, Jesus teaches the sons and daughters of His Father to pray in intimacy, an intimacy in which they offer up themselves as they pray for their brethren. The offering up is to God and for their brethren (John 17:9, 19).

Just as we have learned to pray what we term the Lord’s Prayer of Matthew Chapter 6, we are to learn to pray the Prayer that Jesus Prayed of John Chapter 17. Just as we are called to be the incarnation of the prayer of Matthew Chapter 6, we are to become the Incarnation of John Chapter 17. This is our high calling in Jesus Christ. 

The Prayer that Jesus Prayed is the Life that Jesus Lived; we are to Live this Life and Pray this Prayer as we abide in Him. 

The Lord willing, when we arrive at John Chapter 17, we will explore the glory of the Holy of Holies in Christ, the glory of participating in the Prayer that Jesus Prayed, flowing from the life that we have in Him. 

It is our Lord’s desire that we bear a particular kind of fruit; it is to be a fruit that remains. Are we interested in such fruit? 

My sense is that we are more concerned with fast food than food promoting sustained growth. Fast food is eaten quickly and is often eaten “on-the-go.” Since we are an on-the-go people in an on-the-go society we fashion our teaching and preaching accordingly – and then we wonder why we lack character and depth in Jesus Christ, then we wonder (perhaps) why we are consumers and not producers. 

Our attention spans are dwindling to nothing, and we are catering to the insanity, in so doing we are desecrating the image of God in Christ. The Scriptures teach us to meditate on the Word (Psalm 1), not to blithely gulp a verse or two down via a “verse of the day” or thought for the day or pithy saying for the day – we are called to holy communion with God, we are not called to “honk if you love Jesus.” 

The prayer teaching of the Upper Room is not about getting things from God to consume upon ourselves, it is about living in holy koinonia with the Trinity and our brethren and receiving from our Father so that we may bear fruit for His glory and for the sake of our brethren. The life of prayer portrayed in the Upper Room is a life born of “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

The prayer teaching of the Upper Room is about costly prayer, we enter it through the Cross of Christ, we maintain it in the Cross of Christ, we share it flowing from the Cross of Christ. 

Jesus deeply desires you to know Him intimately; He already knows your heartbeat, now He wants you to know His heartbeat. Our Lord has removed every barrier to you knowing Him, to your abiding in Him and experiencing His Life in you, He simply calls you to “abide in Me.” Jesus knows that you, in and of yourself, cannot possibly live the Christian life, He does not ask you to try, He does not ask you to attempt such a task; He does call you to abide in Him, the Vine, and to learn to allow Him and the Father  and the Holy Spirit to live within you in daily fellowship, in the very koinonia which you will experience in eternity. 

Why wait until the future to experience what your dear Lord Jesus desires you to experience now? He calls you to unbroken friendship and communion with Him as your Way of Life. He loves you so very very much, so deeply, and He loves you with overflowing eternal joy. 

How to begin? Just ask Him in your own words to draw you deeper into Himself. Speak to Him and then listen and watch for Him…throughout the day. He will come to you, again and again and again. Those who know to look for His coming see Him coming throughout their lives, and He is glorious. O yes, sometimes we may miss Him, but He is gracious and do not be surprised if He says, “Didn’t you see Me when you saw that person in need? Didn’t you see Me when that man needed a word of encouragement? Didn’t you see Me when that woman expressed a prayer need? I was there to touch them through you.”

Jesus is our patient Teacher. 

You might also consider meditating in John chapters 13 – 17 for a season of life. Reading and meditating on a small portion each morning, reading aloud, listening for Jesus, visualizing yourself in the Upper Room with Jesus, seeing Jesus with you…for of course He is with you. Allow Jesus to draw you into the holy fellowship of the Trinity, allow Him to take the lead, as Reepicheep in Narnia says, “Let’s take the adventure that Aslan gives us.”

You are not an accident looking for a place to happen, you are a son or daughter of the Living God and He loves you so deeply, He cares for you so passionately. 

Why not live today in the incredible love and life of Jesus Christ? 

Questions, comments? robertlwithers@gmail.com

Married to Jesus, Faithful to Him (2)

 How To Biblically Read History

One of the heresies that is enveloping the professing church is a skewered way of reading history, including the history of our own nation, the U.S.A.  

The fundamental way to read and interpret history is through Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” We simply do not want to believe this when it comes to our own nation, we want to read history through various lenses that support our nationalistic, political, social, or economic notions. Since followers of Jesus are supposed to be citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20) and since we are supposed to be pilgrims and strangers on earth looking for our home City which God has prepared for us (Hebrews 11:8 – 16), when any lens other than Jesus Christ is promoted, within the church, as the way to view history we have heresy. It is heresy because our hearts are to belong to Jesus and only to Jesus, we are to be His faithful Bride (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3). There is no room in our marriage to Jesus for another husband, another suitor, another lover. When we gather as the Bride of Christ, do we really want to invite other lovers into our Divine Bedroom?

The primary image of unfaithfulness to God in the Bible is that of adultery, it is not idolatry per se, but spiritual adultery. How have we lost sight of this? Is it because our hearts no longer belong to our heavenly Bridegroom?

This makes movements such as Christian Nationalism and the New Apostolic Reformation especially egregious for it encourages us to give our hearts to a nation, rather than give them to Jesus; these movements have an affinity with past movements that have brought tragedy on their churches and nations. God’s People are called to serve others, not to dominate them. These movements are founded and perpetuated on a false reading of history, a reading that cares nothing for the truth and which spins false narratives to accomplish their own ends. (Yes, yes, to be sure there are other movements within the professing church that are also dangerous, but I am addressing those with whom I am more likely to have a shared history.)

Now, should you take offense at the above, I will ask you why you should be offended? Why would a married person take offense at someone encouraging them to be faithful to their spouse? Why would a married person take offense with someone encouraging them to love their spouse with all that they have and not to share marital love and conjugal relations with anyone other than his or her spouse? 

When we are told by our Father not to have other gods before Him, He means that there are to be no other gods in His Presence; yet often our “worship” is syncretistic as we introduce flags and patriotic songs and political agendas into the bedroom of the People of God, the Bride of Christ. Of course, in a sense these things, as they have normally been practiced, pale before the super-charged nationalism engulfing much of the professing church. We have all but wrapped the Cross in the flag, and thereby obscured the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross. 

The above is only Biblical common sense. After all, Jesus says that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and the Scriptures are clear that the nations are opposed to the Father and the Son and that they will all be brought low as the Rock fills the earth (Psalm 2, Daniel 2). Just as we are prone to sin as individuals when we think we are exceptions to the Bible, so we are prone to sin collectively when we think our own nation, whichever nation that might be, is an exception to the Bible. 

So again we come to Romans 3:23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If this is true of an individual, it is certainly true of a collection of individuals. 

Now I’m going to ask you to think about a few more things before I close this reflection. I’d like to ask you to consider the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived in a time when the rulers, the government, the priests and most prophets were teaching the people, “Look at our foundation. God established us and we are His special people. God will preserve us. God favors us. We are exceptional people above all other nations.”

However, Jeremiah was saying just the opposite. He was saying, “This is what God is saying. Don’t look backwards at your forefathers and think that somehow God will overlook your wickedness. Judgment is coming on you in the form of the kingdom of Babylon. Surrender to Babylon and God will spare your lives and your cities. However, if you do not surrender then God will destroy you in judgment.”

Jeremiah was persecuted and imprisoned and almost lost his life because of his faithfulness to God. 

Let me ask you a question, Who was patriotic in this scenario? Were the rulers and priests and prophets who had a false and arrogant trust in Judah’s exceptionalism patriotic? Or was it Jeremiah who told the truth at the risk of his own life? O dear friends, what is popular is seldom the truth. 

I am reminded of G. K. Chesterton and his opposition to the Boer War. Chesterton argued that Britain betrayed its values in this war, and most certainly in its treatment of Boer civilians. Approximately 30,000 Boer women and children perished in British concentration camps - this is not a typo. When Chesterton was accused of not being patriotic, he countered by asking what a true patriot is. Is a true patriot someone who loves his country enough to speak the truth, even if it means rejection? 

Do we love God enough to be faithful to Him? Do we love those around us, including those in our nation, enough to be a distinctive People in Christ as His Bride? Do we love our nation to the point where we will confess that it is sinful as all mankind is sinful? Will we read history through Romans 3:23? 

About the same time that Chesterton was speaking out on the Boer War, there were citizens of the United States speaking out about a military conquest our own government was engaged in. I am sure we have all read about it and were taught it in school. Of course I am speaking of our conquest of the Philippines. (You were taught it, right?) While Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish – American War, “A splendid little war, begun with the highest motives” (a statement highly suspect), and while we have been taught about Teddy Roosevelt and San Juan Hill and Commodore Dewey and the Battle of Mobile Bay, I don’t recall being taught about our conquest of the Philippines. Were you taught about the Philippine – American War?  

How is it that we, people of the land of the free and the home of the brave, did not free the Filipino people after the war with Spain? How is it that we simply replaced the Spanish as lords of the Philippines? How is it that we, when the Filipino people sought their independence, in essence said, "Our own Declaration of Independence is window dressing, we don’t really believe it, and if you have any doubts, look down the barrels of our rifles.”  

According to the U.S. Department of State’s Historian, not only were about 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants killed in the fighting, but as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famines, and disease. 

When we read history through Romans 3:23, we read all of history, and when we read all our history, we can say with the Bible, “There is none righteous, no not one.”

Would you be faithful to your spouse even if everyone around you was unfaithful to their spouses? Will you be faithful to Jesus even if everyone around you is seduced by “God and Country” or economic agendas and lovers or social agendas (whether from the right or left) or entertainment or sports spinning out of control or academia having lost it mind (including seminaries).

Will you have a monogamous and exclusive relationship with Jesus Christ? 

And here is what it seems we just will not see, even if all the lies being told were true (of course they are not, they are lies), they still would not be the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they would still be a false lover and a false god. Our hearts are to belong to Jesus and Jesus alone and the people of our home nation and all nations need Jesus Christ. 

To borrow an image from C. S. Lewis and The Last Battle, dead lion skins are being used to deceive much of the professing church, and because we are not looking at the real Aslan, we are being duped into worshipping false gods. 

Are we reading history through Romans 3:23? Psalm 2 and Daniel 2?

Is not Jesus Christ enough? 

Mark 8:34 – 38.

Our Last Battle (3)

 Chapter Two is titled, The Rashness of the King, and in it Lewis presents a warning for those who will pay attention. This warning presents us with the first phase of our Last Battle. 

The chapter begins with two friends, King Tirian and the unicorn Jewel. Unlike Shift and Puzzle in the first chapter, these are true friends whose friendship has been tested and proved through life – threatening perils, they had risked their lives for each other. Jewel and Tirian love each other, they have a true friendship – they have been willing to lay down their lives for one another. 

It is some three weeks after the events of Chapter One. The scene is a woodland setting, away from Cair Paravel, the royal capital. The king likes to live simply, away from the protocols and finery of the capital. As we are drawn into the chapter, we hear the king telling his friend that he doesn’t feel like doing any work or sport because of the glorious news that Aslan is in the land. As Jewel replies that the news is indeed wonderful, he adds “if they are true.”

Tirian responds with incredulity, “How can they choose but be true?” The king goes on to list the testimony of birds and squirrels and a stag (who had seen Aslan from afar) and a Calormene, and a badger. In Tirian’s response we see the first sign of his great danger, that of anger. He will believe what he has heard, and he will countenance no suggestion that what he believes isn’t true, even from his dear friend Jewel. Jewel hasn’t said it isn’t true, but he has expressed the possibility that it might not be true. There is a sense in which Jewel is saying that the report of Aslan ought to be verified. Jewel hopes it is true, he wants it to be true, it will be glorious if it is true. The king will have none of it, it has to be true and that is that.

Why was Tirian still at his hunting lodge? Why wasn’t the king back at Cair Paravel with his people to meet Aslan? Why wasn’t the king, as the leader of his people, seeking Aslan? If the king had responded to the first reports of Aslan, our story may have unfolded in a very different manner, much heartache and tragedy may have been avoided, he may have been able to protect his people. 

Dear friends, we can be comfortable, or we can be faithful, but we cannot be both. Yes, you read the words correctly, we can be faithful to Jesus Christ and others, or we can choose to live comfortably, but we cannot have both. This is not to say that we cannot enjoy good things in life when we are able, by God’s grace, to do so (Phil. 4:12), but it is to say that the race we are called to run and the battles we are called to fight require constant engagement and vigilance for the benefit of those around us. While we may have respites at Tirian’s lodge, our place of service is at Cair Paravel, it is where people are. Jesus Christ came for people, not pleasure; He has called us to serve Him and people, not pleasure. 

Paul writes Timothy that he is to “endure hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” and that he [Paul] “endures all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” (See 2 Timothy 2:1 – 13).  Jesus’ call to follow Him is a call to self-denial and a call to lay our lives down for Him and others (Mark 8:34 – 38; John 15:12–13; 1 John 3:16). 

Francis Schaffer predicted that the two greatest dangers to the church, at least in the West, at the end of the 20th century would be personal peace and affluence. What Schaffer meant was that our attitude toward the world would be, “If you leave me alone to have my own space and my personal peace, and if you allow me to enjoy the things I can accumulate and experience, I will leave you alone. I will not bother you with the Gospel and we as a People will not bother you with a distinctive unified witness to Jesus Christ.” 

While Tirian was enjoying his time with his friend Jewel in the woodlands, his people were being deceived by the Ape and poor Puzzle in a dead lion’s skin. 

What about us? Where are we living and how are we engaged? Is our own selfish welfare at the center of our decisions? Does personal peace and affluence determine our words and actions and decisions? Is life all about us and our families and our wellbeing, and even our congregations and religious traditions? As Haggai the prophet put it, are our own houses at the center of our lives while the House of God (Eph. 2:19 – 22) lies in ruins? (Haggai Chapter One). 

Oswald Chambers wrote that every morning when we wake up, that we wake up on a battlefield. While Tirian was enjoying his time in a pastoral setting and believing a lie, his people were being deceived and enslaved.

In Chapter Two we see that our Last Battle includes the battle of personal peace and affluence as opposed to a life in Christ of self-denial and sacrifice for others; it also includes whether we will live in anger or in the peace of Jesus Christ. As we will see, the battle with anger unfolds in Chapter Two and the rashness of the king leads to much harm. 

We’ll consider the entrance of the majestic Roonwit in our next reflection, a centaur who has much to teach us. 

The Royal Inclusio – Love (7)

 

“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you…” (John 15:16).

We often make much of our choices and our own wills in the wrong way. Rather than focus on the choices we have made, ought not we to focus on the choice that Jesus Christ has made? Regarding our will, isn’t the critical thing about our will that we surrender it to Jesus Christ? 

We are hardly independent autonomous agents, we are either dead in trespasses and sins, or we are alive in Christ, and if we are alive in Christ it is because He has called us from the dead as He called Lazarus from the dead (see Ephesians 2:1 – 10). We are either slaves to sin and unrighteousness or we are slaves to righteousness and holiness in Jesus Christ (see Romans Chapter 6).

If we have made a choice to follow Jesus, it is only because He first chose us to follow Him and enabled our choice as He enables our obedient following. Therefore Jesus makes the clear statement, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” 

Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (6:44). Paul writes of the assurance that “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the “Author and Finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). What Jesus begins, Jesus completes, bringing it to maturity and perfection. 

O dear brothers, if the primary choice is ours, then we can doubt our choice; but if the choice is that of Jesus Christ, who can doubt the choice of God? 

If the choice is ours, then the foundation of our faith rests upon ourselves, and if it rests upon ourselves it rests upon that which is changeable and mutable, subject to the vicissitudes of life. Ah, but if Jesus chose us, if the choice is His, then our foundation is the immutable God, the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. No matter how the structure of the building may be battered by the storms of life, it will remain because it rests upon a sure foundation. 

If the choice is ours, then we must be preoccupied with ourselves for if our beginning is of ourselves, then the working out and completion rests upon ourselves. O but if the choice belongs to Jesus, then we can trust Him to work within us for our perfection and maturity and we can focus on Him and on being a blessing to others (Phil. 2:13).

Does this not bring us back to the Vine and the branches? (John 15:1–8). We are, in fact, still in the same passage, and what we read in verse 16 flows from what we read in verses 1 – 8. Without Jesus we can do nothing! (15:4–5).

When we learn to live in the security of knowing that Jesus chose us and we did not choose Him, we can lay our lives down for the brethren. When we know the security of living in Jesus Christ, we can face persecution and pressure; consider that the very next section of the Upper Room deals with pressure, opposition, and persecution (15:18–16:4). Insecure people tend to cave into peer pressure, secure people tend to stand firm. Insecure people look to themselves and their own resources, secure disciples in Christ look to Him and His care for them, overcoming by confessing Jesus and living in Him as He lives in them (Rev. 12:11; 1 John 4:4).

A realization that what Jesus Christ began He will finish, a realization that we are His friends, that He chose us, does not, as the uninformed allege, give us license to do what we want, but rather makes us bondservants of Jesus Christ, for we realize that we have been bought with a price, the blood of the Lamb. 

To hear the Voice of Jesus Christ in the Upper Room is to hear the call of Jesus to live in Him and to participate in Him in His life in the Father. To realize that Jesus chose us and we did not choose Him, allows us to hear His call to live in Him in His betrayal, torture, crucifixion, bearing the sorrows of others, in His resurrection and ascension, and in His sitting at the Father’s right hand. We can wash the feet even of our betrayer when we are secure in Jesus Christ. 

The response to “If anyone will come after Me” (Mark 8:34) is a response to the choice of Jesus Christ, to have an ear to hear this call is a gift of God, to respond to this call is a gift from God, to be faithful to this call is a work of God. 

The disciples in the Upper Room may have thought that they chose Jesus, but Jesus wanted there to be no misunderstanding about who initiated the relationship, and so He says, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” 

I imagine there was no argument about the statement. I imagine that when they heard it that the disciples looked at one another and, after a moment or two, said to one another, “You know, He’s right.” 

Can anyone, in whom the True and Living God is doing a work of grace and salvation, ever attribute to himself the least amount of credit and glory? Can anyone who has been drawn into the koinonia of the Trinity ever look God in the eye and say, “I am here because of me, not because of You”?

“But by His [God’s] doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:30–31). 

Married to Jesus, Faithful to Him (1)

Tension – What to Write? What to Say? A Dilemma. 

A friend once asked me, “What do you really enjoy writing about?”

I immediately replied, “The love of God.” 

I love sharing the love of God in Christ with others. I love pondering how much our dear Lord Jesus loves us. I have found that the greatest need in the world, and most certainly in the professing church (Ephesians 3:14–19), is for people to know the depths of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. There is a reason John 3:16 was once the cornerstone of our message to the world and to one another within the professing church. I don’t think I ever heard Billy Graham preach without quoting John 3:16; there was a reason for that too. Yes, there is nothing like sharing the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

If my friend had also asked me, “What do you least like writing about? Is there anything you avoid writing about?” I would probably have responded, “False teaching, heresy, and teaching which I wouldn’t term “heresy,” but which is enough off-base to affect others negatively, obscuring Jesus and the fulness of His life in us and our life in Him.”  

Now if you have either listened to me or read much of what I’ve written you won’t be surprised when I talk about the fact that we are not sinners but saints in Christ, nor should it surprise you if I say that we tend to live under the Old Covenant and teach the Old Covenant even though Jesus Christ is our New Covenant High Priest. Nor will you be surprised when I write about our pragmatic approach to the Bible and church life as opposed to living as the sons and daughters of God, or when I speak of us being people who are 100 miles wide and an inch deep. 

Whether you agree with me on these things, whether or not you see them the way that I do, I hope you do know that I love Jesus with all of my heart and that I want to love Him today more than I did yesterday. Presumably if you are reading this there is something God has given me to pass on that is helpful in your relationship with Him and with your relationship to our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

I think it is only by beholding Jesus that we are transformed into His image. Therefore, I want to focus on Jesus (1 John 3:2; 2 Cor. 3:17–18; Rom. 12:1–2; Col. 3:1–4).

Yet, what to do when false teaching and heresy permeate the church? What to do when dangerous thinking and practice deceive and tear down the People of God? What to do when these things are popularized? 

How to be faithful to our dear Lord Jesus in the midst of a tsunami of destruction? 

I would like to think that simply preaching the incredible love of Jesus Christ would bring professing Christians back to their senses, but the Bible does not teach this nor does experience demonstrate this. In the Gospels we witness conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment, with Jesus clearly denouncing the teaching and practice of the Pharisees (see Matthew 23). In the book of Acts there is conflict between legalists and those preaching the Gospel. Virtually all the New Testament letters address false teaching, some more than others. 

One of the benefits of preaching and teaching the books of the Bible is that we cannot avoid the hard passages about false teaching, we can’t cherry pick what we preach…well at least I hope we don’t. A steady diet of topical preaching and teaching eventually loses its way, Jesus is no longer its center and interpretive lens. Topical preaching seduces us into self-centeredness; our wants, our needs, our desires, our priorities. 

Why do I not care to write about false teaching? 

The first reason is that I want to focus on Jesus, always on Jesus. Again, it is in Jesus that we are transformed.

The second is that it is easy to get sucked up into negativity when thinking about false teaching and false teachers. I don’t want to be defined in terms of what I do not believe, I want to be defined in terms of what I do believe, I want Jesus and His love to define me. Another way to put it is that I want to be known for what I am for (Jesus Christ!) and not for what I am against. 

There are folks who style themselves as heresy hunters, always looking for what they think is error and being quick to criticize others. A steady diet of this distracts us from our Lord Jesus Christ, plus I think it sickens our souls. 

Then there is a very selfish reason why I avoid dealing with false teaching, it is a burden to me, it entails a heaviness. To ponder the works of darkness is hard, only a fool takes these things lightly. C. S. Lewis expressed relief when he completed The Screwtape Letters, and it took him a while to recover from the experience. Lewis paid a price for touching the realm of the enemy to help God’s People, that was the only way he could tell the story. 

Yet, to be faithful to Christ and His People we need to point out that the messengers of the enemy can transform themselves into apparent messengers of light (2 Cor. 11:13–15). O that it was not so.

I have tried both ways as a pastor. I have not said anything much about false teaching and practices and have hoped for the best, and then I have made a point of dealing with them in some measure (I can’t truly say that I have been completely straightforward – I tend to be oblique too often) and have also hoped for the best. I wish that I could say that one way or the other made a difference, but I can’t…I just don’t know. 

In the last church I attempted to pastor, there was such an ingrained heresy when I arrived that I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, other than keep pointing folks to Jesus and His Word. While toward the end of my time there I did try to illustrate the problem and point to Jesus as our Way out of it, the heresy was too ingrained. Jesus was simply a mascot, a tool of nationalism, there was no difference between the national flag and the Cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the spokesperson for a political agenda and He was the sanitizer for a nationalism where might makes right and we need not consider morals or ethics or the widow and orphan or stranger in the land. 

Above all else, the thought that Christians are citizens of heaven and that we are pilgrims and strangers on earth (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 11: 8–16) was a Biblical teaching stoutly rejected. 

From a young Christian I have known Ezekiel 33:1–9. This passage has been a burden to me, you could almost call it a “curse.” I can hear Paul say, “For if I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). 

So what am I saying and why am I writing this? I’m writing this to clarify my thoughts and seek direction, and I am saying that while these things are not easy and that they are fraught with tension, that for the sake of the Gospel I am going to write a thread dealing with false teaching and certain heresies. You see, dear friends, it truly must be all for Jesus or nothing for Jesus – are we not bought with a price? The blood of the precious Lamb of God.

So the Lord willing, on this blog we'll continue with the Upper Room, The Last Battle, and now this new thread, which I'm calling Married to Jesus, Faithful to Him. Much love! Bob

Journeying On - A Prayer

 Journeying On

Lord of the cloud and fire,

I am a stranger, with a stranger’s indifference;

My hands hold a pilgrim’s staff, My march is Zionward,

My eyes are toward the coming of the Lord,

My heart is in thy hands without reserve.

Thou hast created it,

redeemed it,

renewed it,

captured it,

conquered it.

Keep from it every opposing foe,

crush in it every rebel lust,

mortify every treacherous passion,

annihilate every earthborn desire.

All faculties of my being vibrate to thy touch;

I love thee with soul, mind, body, strength,

might, spirit, affection, will,

desire, intellect, understanding.

Thou art the very perfection of all perfections;

All intellect derived from thee;

My scanty rivulets flow from thy unfathomable fountain.

Compared with thee the sun is darkness,

all beauty deformity,

all wisdom folly,

the best goodness faulty.

Thou art worthy of an adoration greater than my dull heart can yield;

Invigorate my love that it may rise worthily to thee,

tightly entwine itself round thee,

be allured by thee.

Then shall my walk be endless praise.

From “Valley of Vision” a collection of puritan prayers, pages 198 – 199.

Our Last Battle (2)

 I'm going to ask you to hang in here as we work through The Last Battle. I've been deferring this for a few years. Do we have the courage to face The Last Battle? Do we have the courage to face anything?

The Pilgrim Church, by E.H. Broadbent, (forward by F. F. Bruce) provides a nice historical background. 

My goal is to do one posting a week on the Last Battle, and continue to focus on the Upper Room. 

Love,

Bob

Two – By Caldron Pool

In Chapter One we meet the ape Shift and the donkey Puzzle. They say that they are friends. When Puzzle says it he means it. When Shift says it he says it to manipulate Puzzle, for Puzzle’s desire for friendship blinds him to the fact that Shift has only one interest in him, to use him and to abuse him. Shift is always reminding Puzzle how he knows better than Puzzle and only wants the best for Puzzle. Shift also plays off Puzzle’s emotions, making Puzzle feel guilty and sorry for the way he treats Shift when we fails to do Shift’s bidding.

One morning, as Puzzle and Shift walk alongside the Caldron Pool, the Ape spots something yellow floating in the water. After manipulating Puzzle to retrieve the object, they both realize that it is a lion’s skin. As Puzzle frets about the former occupant of the skin, Shift’s bent soul is at work, devising a plan to benefit from this sudden find. Here is a contrast between Puzzle’s sympathy and Shift’s narcissism, between Puzzle’s simplicity and Shift’s subterfuge. 

Puzzle wants to give the lion skin proper burial, for even if it is not the skin of a talking lion of Narnia, out of respect for Aslan Puzzle honors all lions. However, Shift reminds Puzzle that he isn’t good at thinking and then announces that they will turn the lion skin into a nice coat for Puzzle. How thoughtful and kind of Shift, always thinking of others. Then Shift has an even better idea, for since Puzzle will look like a lion when wearing the skin, he might as well pretend to be Aslan and speak to others as if he is Aslan. 

The balance of the chapter portrays the back and forth between Shift and Puzzle, Puzzle feeling uncomfortable with wearing the lion’s skin and pretending to be Aslan, and Shift insisting that this is Aslan’s plan and that they will be able to do much good for others. As Shift reminds Puzzle again and again, donkeys are not very good at thinking and he really should leave the thinking to Shift. 

The narrator reminds us that if you had seen a real lion that you would not have been taken in by Puzzle, but that if you had never seen a real lion, and if you only saw Puzzle at a distance, and if you couldn’t clearly seen him, and if he didn’t make donkey noises, that it is possible that you could be deceived into thinking that he was an actual lion. 

Puzzle’s instincts told him one thing, but he was so intimidated by Shift and was so convinced that he was stupid, and that Shift knew best, that he allowed himself to be led into a tragedy. Was it that Puzzle so wanted to have a friend that he kept accepting Shift’s deprecating evaluation of him? Had Puzzle become so brow beaten that even when his instinct for truth was strong, that he didn’t have the courage to break away from the malicious Ape? 

When the dead lion’s skin, after being tailored for Puzzle by Shift, was fitted on Puzzle, things were even worse, for Puzzle had become a captive to the skin of a dead lion and the Ape had even more control over him.

I wonder how we might be manipulated to wear the skin of a dead lion. How might we be induced to wear a Christianity that has no living relationship to the life of Jesus and the Gospel portrayed in Scripture?  If, after all, we don’t have an intimate relationship with Jesus, if we don’t know Him as our Friend and Brother, if living with Him is not our daily Way of Life; then is it not possible that we can be manipulated into accepting an image of Jesus that is not that of Scripture, that is not really the Word made Flesh? 

Since we are donkeys and not wise apes, this could be possible. But would we know it? 

In John Chapter 9 Jesus heals a man born blind. The Pharisees are angry about it for it was the Sabbath, and as we all know, God does not like it when people heal other people on the Sabbath (well, that is what the Pharisees taught about God, of course that isn’t the truth). After an extended back and forth between the Pharisees, the man’s parents, and the man who was healed; and after the man refused to denounce Jesus, the Pharisees said to the man, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?”

Then the religious leaders did the man a favor by putting him out of the synagogue.

Just as Shift belittled Puzzle, so the Pharisees belittled the man born blind. Unlike Puzzle, the man born blind had to wherewithal to say, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 

The manipulators of life, including in the religious world, exalt themselves and belittle others to maintain their power and deception. They may do this with smoke and mirrors – with prophetic utterances, with ever unfolding interpretations of events, with creating bogey men to evoke fear, with raw emotionalism; or they may be subtle and sophisticated, making pronouncements from the heights of exalted learning, or by convincing us that we need therapeutic ways of thinking and self – analysis.

         Then there are those who promise health and wealth and success and affluence. There are yet others who so browbeat their people and burden them with guilt that the people become prisoners of a sick relationship. Whatever the case, no matter the genre, they are smart apes and we are dumb donkeys; we were born in our sins and we cannot possibly teach them anything. We ought to be quiet and to accept whatever dead lion’s skin they fashion for us. 

Jesus said that you can’t put new wine in old wineskins. Do we believe that? Wouldn’t we rather change the chemistry of the new wine to make it compatible with the old wine skin? Don’t we really want the Holy Spirit to work within our status quo? 

C. S. Lewis wrote about inner circles, about closed groups who desire to control others. He had an aversion to these groups. He portrays such a group in That Hideous Strength. Lewis saw such groups as a schoolboy. He saw such groups in the world of scholarship.

        Do we see such groups today?

        Are others trying to fit us with dead lion skins?

        Would we know it if we were wearing dead lion skins? 

        Are we trying to induce others to wear the skins of dead lions?

        The best protection against being duped by dead lion skins is to know the real and true Aslan. 

The Royal Inclusio – Love (6)

 

“All things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15b.

What does Jesus mean? If this is true, should we have thousands of pages of His teaching? Does the Father have so little to say? To teach? Are the Gospels all that the infinite God has to teach us? 

Certainly in the Divine koinonia from eternity the Father must have infinite glories to share with the Son. In the mystery of the Incarnation there must be wave upon wave of wisdom and insight and understanding for the Father to open to the Son. 

How has Jesus made known to us all things that He learned from the Father?

All things that Jesus learned from His Father are contained in what He has taught us. They are discovered in “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” 

All things that Jesus learned form His Father are hidden in all things that Jesus has taught us, they are discovered in the life of Jesus Christ - in what He said and in what He did. The life of Christ then (2,000 years ago) is seen in the life of Christ now; the life of Christ now flows from the life of Christ then. 

The life of a grand oak tree began in an acorn. Within the acorn was all we now see and experience in the majestic oak tree. Of course we can trace the acorn back to another tree, to another acorn, to another tree, and so forth. 

Little wonder that Jesus also says that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all the truth and that He will glorify Jesus, because “He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you” (John 16:12 – 15). Jesus says, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). 

On the one hand, in John 15:15 Jesus says that He has made known to us all things which He has learned from the Father. On the other hand, in John 16:12 Jesus says that He has many more things to say to us. On the one hand Jesus has given us the acorn, on the other hand Jesus wants to talk to us about the great oak tree. 

Therefore, the Holy Spirit is given to us to continue to teach us, to continue our conversation with Jesus Christ. The friends of Jesus are in communion with Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit; and with one another. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to us, directly and through one another. The Holy Spirit takes the Word that Jesus has spoken and causes it to grow and expand and deepen, stretching into the eternals. Friends talk with friends, and our conversation with Jesus continues from generation to generation. How foolish to have a conversation frozen in time, whether frozen 2,000 years, or during the Middle Ages, or during the Reformation, or during a renewal movement of the past 200 years. 

The table we sit at for the conversation extends beyond our own time and space, it is the communion of the saints. Our Road to Emmaus is populated with pilgrims from all places and ages and languages and times and seasons – and we can joyfully mix with them, joyfully encounter Jesus Christ with them. We live and romp and sing and learn among a great cloud of witnesses, within the Family of families. 

I see Jesus introducing us to one another and I see His pleasure as we get to know one another. When our friends meet our other friends we have joy, image the joy of Jesus! Imagine the joy that Jesus will have on that Great Day!

So, dear friends, Jesus continues to speak to us today. When we gather as our way of life, whether in large groups or small groups or to have coffee with one or two, we can gather in expectation that Jesus is continuing to speak to us, that the Holy Spirit is disclosing more and more of Jesus – to us as individuals, as marriages, as families, as congregations, and as the greater Body of Christ. 

Since we are His friends, He has much to say to us…are we listening? 

The Royal Inclusio – Love (5)

 

“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15). 

Again, Jesus uses the word “friends.” Is it too much for us to think ourselves the way that Jesus thinks of us, as His friends? Is it too much for us to think of ourselves as His brethren? (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:10–13). It is good to have a brother, and it is good to have a friend; how wonderful it is to have someone who is both your brother and your friend!

It is one thing to see the outside of things, it is another thing to see and understand the inside of things. Consider Psalm 103:7, “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.” The People of Israel saw the works of God, Moses saw the ways of God. Israel saw the outside, Moses saw the inside. Because Moses knew the ways of God, because he knew the character and Person of God, he was able to intercede for Israel and save the people from a consummating judgment. Moses knew that “the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness” (Psalm 103:8). 

How tragic to spend all of one’s life learning about Jesus but never knowing Him as our Friend. How many Sunday school classes have I observed, how many small groups, in which my brothers and sisters speak of Jesus as a stranger, as a “subject” to be studied and speculated about, as we might speak of Lincoln or Caesar or Shakespeare or Buddha. The triteness and low expectations of our curriculum acknowledge this, whether it intends to or not. How many church leadership meetings have I attended in which we think and act as if Jesus could not possibly be in the room with us. – as if He is no more than an image on a wall or in a stained-glass window. We proclaim “He is risen” on Easter, but it seems to be a momentary confession. 

Why this does not trouble us is something I have never understood. 

Jesus desires intimate relationship with us, with all of us and with each of us. He is our good and tender Shepherd who so desires to hold us close to Himself. Jesus says to us, “I don’t just want you to see the things that I do, I want you to see Me and know Me and understand why I do the things I do. I want you to know Me and My ways. This is why I have said, I Am the Way.”

The New Covenant is the Covenant of the Inward Way, and that Way is Jesus Christ. “I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My People…for all will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.” (See Hebrews 8:7–13; 10:1-18.) 

The Father and Son bring their Way into us as they come to abide within us, as we learn to abide in the Vine, drawing our life from Him. 

Ah, but we are taught to see the outside, to live by the outside, to value appearances, to conform to outward religious and social expectations – which can only bring heartache and condemnation and alienation from one another and from God. We are taught that the New Covenant is not really for us, and so we live as if the veil still separates us from the Holy of Holies, we live as if our sins are not truly forgiven, we live as if intimacy with Jesus is impossible. 

A child refrains from doing something because the parent has said not to do it. A son or daughter refrains from doing something because they know it is against the Nature of their Father who lives in them. A daughter or son knows to do something as a Way of Life because they live in intimacy with the Father, a child must be told to do such and such, and can only do so with limited understanding. 

A daughter or son knows that laying one’s life down is a Way of Life in Jesus Christ, whether in family, in civic community, at work, at school, or within the Church. A child might not steal because of a commandment; a daughter or son will not steal because it is against the Nature of the Father who lives in them. They further know that to steal is to drink the cup of Satan, they know that to steal would be to allow poison into the Body of Christ. 

Are we living as children or as sons and daughters? Are we living as servants or as friends of Jesus?

We’ll continue with John 15:15 in our next reflection in the series.  

Our Last Battle

 

Our Last Battle

 

Reflections on The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis and our pilgrimage in Christ.

 

Robert L. Withers, 2024

 

One – What Does It Mean?

 

            What does Lewis mean by the title, The Last Battle? Our response to the question seems simple at first; surely we find the answer on page 738, “And then the last battle of the last King of Narnia began.” Maybe this is what he meant by the title, maybe this is all he meant by the title, but maybe it isn’t. If it is all that he meant, then he wrote more than he knew – which is probably the way it should be, for the story and its images are not simply linear and one dimensional, anymore more than Lewis was one dimensional and linear – anymore than the Bible is flat. [I am using the one volume edition of the Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis, Harper Collins].

            When we birth life we do not know where the life will go, how it will grow, how it will be transformed and transform those around it. Tolkien did not care for the Narniad, he considered its images incongruous, for example, what in the world was Father Christmas doing in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? What has Father Christmas to do with a witch or an Aslan figure of Christ? Tolkien wanted Lewis to follow the congruity of The Lord of the Rings, he wanted Lewis’s creative life to mimic his own creative life.

            How likely was this to happen? After all, Lewis said that for many years he had an image of a faun carrying a package, and that it was from this image that life took the form of Narnia – an unlikely progression to our natural eyes, but who knows the mystery of creation and birthing in our souls? I think only Christ Jesus.

            After decades, The Lord of the Rings is still giving life, likely in forms that Tolkien did not anticipate, as is the Narniad, likely in forms that Lewis did not consider. Authorial Intent can be a poor primary hermeneutic, and Lewis argued that we ought to encounter the creative work of the author rather than the author, and indeed Lewis and others, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, were disgusted with the trend of knowing personal details about authors – including themselves – they thought that creative work ought to be encountered on its own merit. 

            While my sense is that they both went a bit far on this, my point is that to encounter the Narniad is to enter into Narnia and to allow Narnia to enter into us – it is not to primarily ask, “What did Lewis mean?” We might well ask this question when reading The Problem of Pain or Miracles, but we ask it because we acknowledge the genre of what we’re reading – both of these books are didactic and tightly reasoned, whereas the Narniad is imaginative with imaginative seeds sown everywhere and cross pollinating. To enter into the world of Narnia is to “take the adventure that Aslan gives us,” an adventure taking us “further up and further in.”

            For the past few years I have been pondering The Last Battle and wanting to write about it. My motivation is simple, I love Jesus and I love His People and I think that The Last Battle is a message of both warning and encouragement. I have come to see that the question of just what the last battle really is, is a bit more complex than we might think. Is the last battle found on page 738, or is it found throughout the book?

            I think that the last battle on page 738 is found within the true Last Battle which occurs throughout the book, which is to say that the physical battle that commences on page 738 is but a component of the battle that commences at the beginning of the book, or at any rate that commences no later than Chapter 2, when Tirian and Jewell digest the news of Aslan’s appearance.

            You see, we all have a last battle. We have this battle as individuals and as a People, and the battle centers around “What think you of Christ?” That is, “Who do men say that I am?”

            Most of the Narnians bought into a caricature of Aslan, a caricature which grew and grew, which twisted and twisted, until their faith was transferred from Aslan to Tashlan. In other words, the Narnians believed the worst of Aslan. Of course they couldn’t see it, because once they stepped on the slippery slope their descent accelerated.

            There would have been no last battle on page 738 had not King Tirian first fought his own last battle, had not Tirian come to see the gross caricature of Aslan in the deceitful work of the Ape.

            But what of us? Do we worship the true Jesus Christ, or have we so twisted Him that we’ve created our own Tashlans – our syncretistic idols? Are we parading our theologies and politics and worship styles and nationalism and materialism in the skins of dead lions, convinced that we have the true Jesus? Do our hearts belong to Jesus? As the deer pants for water brooks, are our souls panting for Jesus?

            I have a dear friend who graciously invited me to preach his installation sermon – it is one of the highlights of my life. My text was 2 Corinthians 11:2 – 3:

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.  

 

            The hallmark of all Christian ministry ought to be leading Christians into a monogamous marriage with Jesus Christ; a pure and simple marriage to Jesus, in which Jesus is our All in all. We ought to be teaching others to love Jesus, we ought to be encouraging one another to love Jesus, we ought to have eyes for Jesus and only for Jesus. Jesus is not a capitalist, a socialist, a nationalist, a materialist; nor He is “red” or “blue” or of a particular religious tradition or denomination or of a church that claims to be exclusive. It seems we have many variations of dead lion skins that we parade shouting and teaching, “This is Jesus, this is Jesus!”

            It is frightening to me that we even cloak the Bible in dead lion skins – what hubris!

            It also seems that we are in competition to see who can produce the most authentic looking dead lion skin. We have become adept at making dead lion skins look alive, and it really does not seem to bother us…I find this puzzling.

            So many of our “Christian” books, our nationalistic pronouncements, our song lyrics, our teachings on “End Times,”  our Sunday school and small group curriculum, our emphasis on money and possessions, and the way we often “do” church – seem to me to be dead lion skins, for they do not point us to Jesus and only to Jesus, and they require artificial life support, otherwise they will die quickly. They also require marketing, manipulation, pressure to conform, and a return on investment. They must make economic sense.

            Well, I trust you will forgive me for the above, I am simply sharing my heart and the impact of The Last Battle. There is a simplicity in Jesus that our sophistication has left behind, there is also a directness in His call to discipleship (Mark 8:34 – 38) that we avoid, but which Bonhoeffer captures when writing, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

            We like to quote Jim Elliot’s, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose,” but we don’t really want to live it out in our lives – we don’t really want to encounter the true Aslan, the son of the Emperor across the sea – for while Aslan is good, He is most certainly not tame.

            I hope you will join me in reflecting on The Last Battle. Every time I walk through this last book of Narnia it tears my soul but it also gives me hope, for I know that I will see Aslan and be with Him, going further up and further in…always with Him, always in Him.

Much love,

Bob