Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (20)

 

 

“Wherever one member happens to be, whatever one member happens to do, it always takes place ‘within the body,’ within the church-community, ‘in Christ’” (page 216).

 

Bonhoeffer follows the above with brief comments on the following Scriptures: Phil. 4:13; 2 Cor. 13:4; Rom. 16:9, 12; 1 Cor. 15:58; Phil. 4:4; 2 Cor. 2:17; Phil. 2:1; Rom. 16:2; 1 Cor. 7:39; Phil. 1:13, 23; 1 Cor. 7:22. (I hope we see how Scripture is embedded in Bonhoeffer and how Bonhoeffer is embedded in Scripture.)

 

Then he writes, “The whole breath of human relationships among Christians is encompassed by Christ, by the church-community” (page 216).

 

(The more I ponder Part 2 of Discipleship, the more convinced I am of the benefit of reading Bonhoeffer’s Life Together alongside it, for in Life Together Bonhoeffer succinctly lays out the foundational principles and actions for sharing daily life in Christ.)

 

On page 216 Bonhoeffer tells us that all members of the Body of Christ ought to participate in all facets of life together, not just in communal worship. He writes that if we limit the participation of others, the sharing of others in our communal life, that we sin against the body of Christ, we sin against our Lord Jesus. We are to share our daily lives with one another, and sharing our daily lives means sharing our resources.

 

“To deny them [those in need] the provisions necessary for this earthly life, or to leave them knowingly in affliction and distress, is to make a mockery of the gift of salvation and to behave like a liar. When the Holy Spirit has spoken, but we still continue to listen to the voice of our race, our nature, or our sympathies and antipathies, we are profaning the sacrament” (pages 216-217, italics mine).

 

How does Bonhoeffer challenge us? How should he challenge us? How should Scripture challenge us?

 

Let me suggest that sharing our resources entails more than simply material goods and money. While money and material goods are an integral part of our resources, there are other critical resources as well, resources which can only be shared through relationships. These are the resources of life experience and knowledge.

 

Some of us have been exposed to areas of life which are foreign to others, I’ll take banking and financial management as an example. Most of you reading this think nothing of walking into a bank to open an account, yet we have many brothers and sisters in our own land who have never been inside a bank, or are intimated by the thought of going to a bank to open an account or deal with a problem. When they need to pay a bill with other than cash, they often go to a convenience store to purchase a money order.

 

We also have brothers and sisters who fall victim to predatory lending practices because they don’t know any better.

 

When I was in property management, I sadly saw instances of predatory landlords who intimated their tenants, employing unlawful and unenforceable policies which the tenants accepted because they didn’t know any better. Had the tenants been acquainted with the world that many of us live in, they would have known that the policies and practices were likely illegal.

 

We ought to all learn from one another, everyone has something to teach the rest of us; walls of separation stifle the glory of the Body of Christ.

 

Biblical church-community is more than a weekly, or twice weekly, gathering. Also, while it ought to certainly be in the context of a local congregation, it must go beyond the local congregation into the town or city, region, country, and world – we ought to be a “church without borders,” a church without national borders, denominational borders, economic and sociological borders, racial and ethnic borders; in Jesus Christ we are One People, One Church, One Temple; Christ has One Body and only One Body. We ought not to accept anything less…and yet we not only accept it, when pressed we justify it.

 

Living in church-community must be more than what we think of as worship gatherings, it must be a shared way of life in Christ. One toxic result of our failure to live in the community which Christ offers us is that we find our identity elsewhere: in political movements, national movements, economic and social movements, and in so much more. The current situation in the United States bears testimony to this, the church has no distinct testimony, no “space” as Bonhoeffer terms it, we cannot be identified with Jesus Christ as a heavenly people, we are not living in communion with one another. Our brothers and sisters come to us for refuge, and we either politically participate in their violent rejection and expulsion, or we quietly acquiesce. Those of us who do attempt to help the “stranger” according to Biblical commands, are overwhelmed with opposition within and without the professing church.

 

Bonhoeffer writes within the milieu of Christian nationalism, let us not forget that. Are we profaning the sacrament?

 

On pages 217 and 218 Bonhoeffer explores in detail Paul’s letter to Philemon. I am not going to work through Bonhoeffer’s thoughtful analysis of Philemon, I hope you will do that on your own. Here is a quote from that section, “We see each other exclusively as members of the body of Christ, that is, as all being one in him,” (page 218).

 

“The church-community can never consent to any restrictions of its service of love and compassion toward other human beings. For wherever there is a brother or sister, there Christ’s own body is present; and wherever Christ’s body is present, his church-community is always present, which means I must also be present there” (pp. 218 – 219).

 

O dear friends, we must be the Body of Christ before we are anything else. We are, after all, citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20).

 

The Name

 

 

Consider the place the Divine Name holds in the Holy of Holies:

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me” (John 17:6).

 

“Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me” (17:11).

 

“I was keeping them in You name which You have given Me” (17:12).

 

“I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (17:26).

 

Why does Jesus manifest the Name of the Father to us? So that the love of the Father will be within us, so that Jesus Christ Himself will live within us. One of the reasons it is important that we keep this in mind is that it guards against esoteric and gnostic ideas of the Divine Name. Too often professing Christians get caught up in signs and wonders and so-called special knowledge, these distract us from Jesus, His Cross, and deep relationship within the Trinity.

 

A friend once asked me what I thought about two “blood moons” happening within a short time of each other. It seems that a prophetic snake oil teacher was hyping blood moons. I told him that I wasn’t aware of the impending phenomenon. Actually, the only reasons I might care about blood moons are to admire God’s creation, to note how easily distracted from Jesus we can get, and to marvel how quickly so-called teachers can make a buck in the prophetic teaching industry. The same principle is true when it comes to people seeking hidden meanings in a divine name, our Father is interested in relationship, that is the whole point in Jesus declaring the Father’s Name to us – our dear heavenly Father is not going to give us some secret divine code by which we unlock deep secrets which are hidden from others. Our Father desires relationship, not people who think they are elite, not egotists; as we “see” Jesus we come to know the Divine Name, His Essence, His Name.

 

Now, for sure there are hidden treasures and wisdom, but we find them in Jesus. “In a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2 – 3; see also 1 Corinthians Chapter 2). Life is really a matter of who we know (Jesus Christ), not what we know. If the “what we know” flows from knowing Jesus, it has life; if the “what we know” is learned apart from a relationship with Jesus, it is death. There is much lifeless Christianity, but thankfully, there is also much life in Christ.

 

I will also note that throughout the Bible God uses names to reveal Himself, His Essence, His Character. He uses names to reveal His Name. These names are not magical, they are not given to us so that we can use them in religious incantations; they are meant to draw us into relationship with Him, ever deeper into Him. As we meditate on His names, by His grace, we can see His beauty and glories and love Him ever deeper and fuller, beholding the wonder of His Nature and His incredible love for us.

 

All the names which God uses in the Bible reveal Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ reveals the Name within the names.

 

“For both He who sanctifies [Jesus] and those who are sanctified [us] are all from one Father, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, ‘I will proclaim You name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise” (Hebrews 2:11- 12).

 

From the very beginning of His ministry, in word and deed, Jesus proclaimed the Name of the Father to His brothers and sisters.  Jesus’ teaching revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ care and compassion and mercy revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ healing and deliverance from demons revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ feeding the multitudes revealed the Father’s Name, Jesus’ touching the untouchable revealed the Father’s Name, Gethsemane and Golgotha revealed the Father’s Name, the Resurrection and Ascension revealed the Father’s Name.

 

Jesus continues to reveal the Father’s Name to us (John 17:26); let us not be distracted by lesser things that pose as the Gospel, as Biblical Christianity. Let us not be distracted by the things of this world.

 

Jesus came to proclaim the Father’s Name to us, His brothers and sisters. We didn’t know who we were, we didn’t know who our Father was, we didn’t know His Name, His Nature, nor the glory of our calling to Him in Jesus Christ, the Father’s only begotten Son and our elder brother (Hebrews 2:9 – 18; Romans 8:12 – 39).

 

But now we know and are coming to know. As Jesus reveals the Father’s Name to us, we in turn are to reveal the Father’s Name to others, as we abide in the Vine.

 

I’m going to close this with some thoughts I sent to a friend this morning on Hebrews 2:12:

 

As I have been pondering Heb 2:12...I have a picture of Jesus and the disciples beneath a canopy of stars...and Jesus singing. Also Zeph. 3:17...and elsewhere.

 

O yes...singing elsewhere...at the Temple, in synagogue...but one who sings, who really sings...sings as a way of life...yes?

 

I think so.

 

Did Jesus teach them new songs?

 

Did He teach them to sing Bible passages they never thought of singing?

 

Did those songs resonate with them until their last breath?

 

O to sing a song, just one song, with Jesus.

 

Shall we do so today?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (19)

 

 

On page 214 Bonhoeffer asks whether visible physical space for proclamation, worship, and order is enough for the church-community, and the answer is that space is also required for the daily lives of its members – we must have space to live together, what he terms elsewhere, life together. (Bonhoeffer’s little book, Life Together, is highly recommended for individuals, churches, and small groups. Its patterns and principles apply to all times and places for they are rooted in Christ and Scripture.)

 

Jesus’s koinonia with His disciples reaches into “all areas of life” (page 214), and our entire lives are to be lived “within the community of disciples.” Bonhoeffer reminds us that “We belong to Him.” We also belong to one another.

 

In directing our attention to Acts 2:42ff and 4:32ff, Bonhoeffer points to the depth of the visible community.

 

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to koinonia, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). Bonhoeffer notes that community (koinonia) finds its place between teaching/proclamation and sacrament (the breaking of bread, the Lord’s Supper). “The community springs ever anew from the word of proclamation, and continues to find its goal and fulfillment in the Lord’s Supper” (page 214). Community “begins and ends in worship” (page 215).

 

“And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them…For there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:32, 34).

 

Bonhoffer writes, “Even the material things and goods of this life are assigned their proper priority. Here a perfect community is established freely, joyfully, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, a community in which ‘there was not a needy person’” (page 215).

 

This is a hard truth for those of us in the West to absorb, most especially for those in North America. We immediately become defensive and seek to dismantle Bonhoeffer’s call to obedience to koinonia in Christ. We argue that the early chapters of Acts portray a special circumstance in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church and that it is limited to that time and place.

 

Such argument is counter to the Nature of Jesus Christ, the One who lives in His Body; He emptied Himself for us all, and for “our sakes He became poor.” Beyond that, as Paul demonstrates in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9, with his incorporation of the Old Testament, financial and material care for one another is to be found not only in our immediate setting, but is to extend across national, ethnic, and social boundaries.

 

It is a shame that we have Christians struggling for food, health care, housing, and basic necessities in our own land, when minutes away are other Christians who have more than enough, but who live in isolation from their brethren in need. It is a shame that within congregations our so-called Christian family ties are only to be found for an hour or two on Sunday or perhaps an hour or two during the week, beyond that we are strangers…and we certainly want our bank accounts to be strangers.

 

Perhaps the greatest shame is that we are not honest enough to admit our rejection of Scripture, not honest enough to acknowledge our selfishness, and not truthful enough to say, “Yes, the Bible does teach that none of us should be in need, but we choose not to obey that teaching and live in such community in Christ.”

 

I am ashamed of my own life as I read Bonhoeffer, the Bible, and write these words. I am a man under conviction.    

 

Let me point out, with respect to Acts and 2 Corinthians, that while the local expressions of koinonia were different, that the underlying principle was the same. In Acts there was a large community fund from which the needs of those in want were met. Since this fund included proceeds from the sale of land, we might think of it as a “superfund.” In Corinth Paul extends the vision of the local church across the sea to Judea, encouraging the Corinthians to join with the Thessalonians (who were in poverty) in providing for the Christians in Judea. In doing so, Paul invokes Israel’s experience with manna in the Wilderness, all of God’s People are to be provided for – both near and afar. This is what we should expect from the Body of Christ, this is the Nature of Jesus Christ.

 

While our local expressions and methods may be different, the principle and result should be the same, we are to care for, and serve, one another. We are stewards of what God has given us, we are not owners.

 

In the United Sates, we think we are free, but we are actually prisoners of consumption, of “mine, mine, mine,” and of isolation from one another, as individuals and as people groups. When we try to find community we cannot do so, for we have built our own prisons.

 

What to do?

 

It seems to me that we must begin with an admission of individual and collective guilt. Beyond that, what can we do but cry out to Jesus Christ to help us and to show us His Way? Perhaps we could simply ask, “Lord Jesus, teach us Your Way of koinonia, of loving and caring for one another, of truly living as Your Body on this earth for the short time we are here. May we love others more today than we did yesterday, may we give more today – of ourselves and of the resources that You have given us – than we did yesterday. Teach us, dear Lord Jesus, to be faithful to You and to others.”

 

Of course this takes courage. Courage to cry out to Jesus. Courage to respond to Him. Courage to give of ourselves and our resources. Courage to be vulnerable. Courage to reach out to both those we already know, and to those we don’t know. Courage to cross economic, social, ethnic, racial, and geopolitical divides.

 

Well, for sure, in Christ, we can be “strong and very courageous,” trusting in Jesus, always trusting in Jesus (Joshua 1:6 – 9).

Everything from the Father

 

 

“Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You.”

 

In John 17:6 – 8 we see that the disciples realized that what Jesus was giving to them, the Father was giving to Jesus. The disciples received Jesus’ words, they understood that Jesus came from the Father, they believed that the Father sent the Son.

 

Notice the emphasis on their understanding and believing that Jesus came from the Father. As imperfect as their faith was, the disciples had a bedrock recognition of where Jesus came from, and from whom Jesus came from. Even Peter who would shortly deny Jesus, even Thomas who would refuse to believe the Resurrection, had this bedrock recognition which would ensure that the house would stand against the flood about to assail them (Matthew 7:24 – 27).

 

For some 3 ½ years the disciples had been “receiving” the words the Father had given to Jesus. Jesus Himself, His words and His deeds, along with the Holy Spirit, validated these words, the Word, Every day the words of Jesus were validated, every day the words of Jesus grew within the disciples (all but one), with their eyes, their ears, their souls, their hearts and their minds, they received the words of Jesus.

 

No doubt the disciples, even more so than the crowds, “Were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt. 7:29).  

 

As Peter expressed, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

We might recall the Parable of the Sower, which might better be termed the Parable of the Soil, for the soil determines the growth of the seed. Seed planted in shallow soil may initially appear good and healthy, but it will soon wither and die. Seed planted on rocky soil will soon be snatched away by birds. Seed planted among thorns sprout but are choked and unfruitful.

 

We see in the good soil of the eleven disciples that the growth process has its challenges; this includes moments of unbelief, even moments of apparently taking the side of the enemy (Mt. 16:23), and moments of desertion and outright denial. We note, for example in the life of Peter, that this process continues after the Resurrection (Acts 10, Galatians 2), as indeed we can expect in all of our lives.

 

Consider Paul’s words to the Thessalonians, “We also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

 

And then Peter, “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).

 

Then James, “Receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

 

Can we “see” that the Word is alive and working within those who receive it in good soil? Can we see that the Word is not data, it is not “information,” it is not human knowledge, it is not even moral and ethical wisdom (though it does have ethical and moral wisdom of the highest nature), the Word is mysteriously Divine (John 1:1-5, 14 – 16) and we can no more explain or define the Word than we can the Incarnation, Baptsim, the Eucharist, or the Body of Christ.

 

And here is the difference, the great divide, between the good soil and all other soils, the good soil, as the Thessalonians, receive the Word “not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.”

 

The Word performs its work in those who believe, in those who allow its roots to grow deep (which often occurs in times of drought), in those who allow the Word to live within them and become their Way of Life (see Psalm 1).

 

The Word must be received not as the word of men, but as the very Word of God. Also, as Peter writes, “Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God” (1 Peter 4:11).

 

Sadly, we live in a time in which many false “Christian” teachers speak with authority, and in which many who actually teach the truth speak as the scribes, apologetically, passively, without authority.

 

Too many good men and women do their people a disservice when they fail to decisively proclaim the Word of God. False teachers have no problem speaking with authority, and people follow them, masses of professing Christians are following them as I write this. Yet, good women and good men do not speak or act as if the Word of God is indeed the Word of God…perhaps the reasons are many, perhaps they think things will get better, that people will come to their senses.

 

I doubt the masses of professing Christians will come to their senses. However, if they do, it will not be because of those preachers and teachers and professors who held back and did not proclaim the Word of God. If they don’t, then those who have failed to proclaim the Gospel will be accountable and will have missed the glorious opportunity to follow the Lamb wherever He goes, they will have missed the koinonia of the sufferings of Christ (2 Tim. 4:1 – 5; 2 Cor. 5:9 – 15). As has been pointed out many times over the generations, God has not called us to success, but to faithfulness.

 

But of course this is about all of us, not just about the disciples in the Upper Room, not just about preachers and pastors and teachers and professors, it is about all of us who claim Jesus Christ as Lord, who profess to belong to Him. Are we receiving the words of Jesus as they truly are, the Word of God? If so, are we speaking that Word to those around us, as it truly is, the Word of God?

 

We can hardly blame others if they do not believe us if we speak as the scribes, without authority. We can hardly blame others if we are apologetic about what Jesus says. We can hardly blame others if they see through our religion and see that we do not really believe what we say, if they see that we are not sold out for Jesus.

 

But others can certainly blame us for not sharing with them the life-giving news, the Gospel, of Jesus Christ. For as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus has sent us, He has sent you and me – and our choice is between obedience and disobedience, there is no middle ground, there has never been a middle ground and there will never be a middle ground (Mark 8:34 – 38; John 17:18; 20:21).

 

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we only have warrant to speak His Word, we are not to add to His Word nor detract from it. The Gospel is not Jesus plus this or that, no matter how important we may think “this or that” to be. When we add “this or that” we adulterate the Gospel and we soil our hearts. Jesus only spoke what He heard from the Father, and we are called to only speak that which Jesus Christ has spoken. We are citizens of heaven, dear friends, citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:30).

 

Do we know that everything that Jesus speaks is from the Father? Are we living like we believe this? Is there evidence to convict us of our belief? Does this evidence include our speaking the Word of God to others, with authority and not as the scribes?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (18)

 

 

On the bottom of page 213 Bonhoeffer briefly deals with heresy. He writes that while heresy may not be always easy to identify, that once it is distinguished that it and its teachers must be confronted, and that means that the teachers, if they do not repent, must be “cast out.” Bonhoeffer cites Gal. 1:8; 1Cor. 16:22; Titus 3:10; and 2 John 10ff.

 

“The word of authentic proclamation must therefore create both unity and separation in a visible way” (page 214).

 

This is a tough issue for most of us to negotiate, as it should be. It should be tough because we ought to care about people, and this means that we care about them knowing Jesus and living in Him, we care about them being in Christian community, we care about them treating each other in love and truth, and we care about the results of our actions and the actions of our community. We want people to understand Biblical teaching and why heresy cannot be tolerated, why discipline is Biblical and necessary. Confronting heresy is not an option, it is obedience to Scripture.

 

It is also tough to negotiate because we all face dangers when confronting heresy, not the least of which is a prideful attitude, our actions and attitudes must always be in submission to Jesus Christ and His Cross, we must be ever conscious that we serve Him and not ourselves.

 

My own sense is that if we are always looking for Jesus, desiring to hear Jesus, to exalt Jesus; if Jesus is truly the center of our teaching and preaching and koinonia; if we glory in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ; if the entire and holistic Bible is our biosphere in Him; if we are indeed living in community (as Bonhoffer will continue to explore); that our ability in Christ to discern heresy, and thoughts and actions that may lead to heresy, becomes finely–tuned as individuals, families, and church – communities.  

 

The best examples of confronting heresy are found in the New Testament. Many of the epistles (including Revelation) deal with heresy and false teachers, they teach us what to look for and how to respond. It is like foraging for mushrooms with an expert, we learn to identify what is poisonous and avoid them, warning others of them.

 

We are not called to be heresy hunters; we are called to follow Jesus. Our eyes are to be on Jesus, not on evil. We focus on the legitimate, not the illegitimate. If our focus is perpetually on evil, on the counterfeit, we will exhaust ourselves and others, play whack-a-mole, and eventually lose our discernment. We can only discern as we behold Jesus and live by His life in koinonia with others.

 

I have known, and known of, heresy hunters who seem to have lost all sense of grace and mercy and kindness. As James writes, my brothers and sisters, this ought not to be.

 

We should recognize that there is a difference between heresy and imperfect understanding. We all, I think, have areas of imperfect understanding, areas in which our knowledge and understanding and participation in Christ and His Word is growing. In fact, I can’t think of any area of my own life which is not imperfect in understanding, in which I am not (at least I hope I am) growing in Jesus.

 

This is one reason why we need one another, both in local community and in broader Christian community. It is a shame that denominations and movements and traditions don’t crosspollinate; a shame with respect to John Chapter 17, and a shame in that we could learn so much from one another. To those traditions who teach that they have perfect understanding, and that they are the one legitimate voice of God and the Church, all I can ask is, “Really?” Of course, a group need not make such a proclamation to nevertheless act as if they think so.

 

A discussion of heresy seems out of place in America in that there is little appetite for the Bible with professing Christians. Sure, we pay lip service to Scripture, but we don’t really know and breathe the Bible. Many churches have outright rejected obedience to the Bible, other churches are more interested in Sunday morning group therapy sessions, or what amounts to entertainment events, or political and social and worldview movements, or in tantalizing “prophecy” speculations and games.

 

Is community, as Bonhoeffer and Scripture speak of it, vital to the average professing Christian, pastor, seminary professor, and denominational leader?

 

We can forget that heresy often looks very good, it feels good, it promises results…all the time seducing us away from a monogamous relationship with Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3). As a pastor, my challenges with heresy typically were not with fringe teachers and authors, but with popular (often best-selling) authors and teachers who people were attracted to without seeing the foundational errors in thinking and practice, errors what would eventually lead others far away from the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ.

 

O that we would truly know the Nicene Creed.

 

The fundamental question is always, “Where is Jesus Christ?”

How Can This Be?

 

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me” (John 17:6 – 8).

 

Is this true?

 

What evidence is there that this is true?

 

Shortly the men Jesus is speaking of will abandon Him. Before the night is over one of these men will deny Jesus three times. These men will soon lock the door of the Upper Room, the very room where Jesus has been revealing the Father to them; they will lock the door in fear and they will cower in fear. In three days these men will disbelieve the testimony of Mary Magdelene, that Jesus has risen from the dead.

 

If we were observers, and knew no more than what transpired between the Upper Room and Easter morning, what would we think of Jesus’ description of the men whom the Father gave Him?

 

Let us note that Jesus is not praying in the future tense but is stating the condition of the men in that moment. “They have kept Your word.” They have received the words of Jesus, which are the words of the Father. These men have believed that Jesus came from the Father. These men have received the manifestation of the Father’s name which Jesus has given to them.

 

Considering the forthcoming actions of these men in abandoning and denying Jesus, how can Jesus say these affirming things about them? How can this be?

 

I’m reminded of Luke 22:31 – 32:

 

“Simon, Simon, behold Satan has obtained permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

 

Then we have John 16:32:

 

“Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”

 

Jesus sees the forthcoming actions of the men, but Jesus has also prayed for Peter, and no doubt for the rest, just as Jesus prays for us (Heb. 7:25).

 

Jesus does not see as we see, but we ought to learn to see as Jesus sees. We ought to be learning to not look at the visible but at the invisible, we ought to be learning to not see people according to the outward, but rather the inward (2 Cor. 4:18; 5:16).

 

Jesus sees us in our completeness and perfection in Him (2 Cor. 5:21; Col. 2:10; Heb. 10:10, 14).

 

A friend of mine recently wrote about “a narrative of failure” as opposed to a narrative of redemption, reconciliation, and fellowship. We are called, as priests of the Most High God, to proclaim the Narrative of Reconciliation and Redemption in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). We can only do this if we see as Jesus sees, if we see the End from the Beginning in Him – always in Him.

 

This means that our reconciliation and fellowship with the Trinity is an assured reality, even though we may act otherwise, just as the apostles acted.

 

This is the same dynamic that we see with Paul and the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:1 – 9, in which Paul addresses the people as sanctified, thanking God for the grace given to them, thanking God that in everything they are enriched in Him, that they are not lacking in any gift. Then Paul writes that Jesus Christ, “Will confirm you to the end, blameless.”

 

Just as John 17:6 – 8 makes no sense if we read it “in the moment,” so 1 Corinthians 1:1 – 9 makes no sense if read in “in the moment.” That is, if we continue reading 1 Corinthians, we see how messed up the people were. They were tolerating and practicing immorality, they were riven with division, there was confusion in their gatherings – these people were the opposite of Paul’s description of them in his introduction.

 

Furthermore, if we continue into 2 Corinthians, we see that they were also being seduced by false teachers who were leading them away from the pure simplicity and devotion which they had in Jesus Christ.

 

How could Paul be so affirming? Would not such affirmation give the Corinthians a false sense of security?

 

Paul saw them in Christ, he saw Christ’s prefect and complete work in them, he saw Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega of their salvation. Paul was assured that what Jesus had begun, that Jesus would complete (Phil. 1:6).

 

To be sure there are stark warnings in Corinthians, discipline is to be received and implemented – but they are given, and are to be received, within the Person of Jesus Christ and His perfect work, His complete work, His assured work of salvation.

 

This is one on of many reasons why it is imperative that we use Biblical language and images when speaking to one another, when preaching and teaching. The Bible is clear that those in Christ are saints and not sinners any longer, why do we not believe and teach this? Why do we allow what we see on the outside to determine our language, when God the Father sees us in His Son?

It is ironic to me that I have friends who criticize Pentecostals and charismatics for relying too much on experience, when they themselves rely on experience by insisting that we are still sinners because of our actions, rather than teaching what the Bible teaches, that we are saints in Jesus Christ, perfect and complete in Him, always in Him. We only grow into Christ as we behold Christ, not as we look at our own navels.

 

We would have no hope if Jesus Christ did not see us, speak to us, and have koinonia with us, based on His perfect love, grace, mercy, and work of salvation. This is how we ought to be with one another, it is how we need to be when we look into the mirror – we need to learn to see ourselves and others in Jesus Christ.

 

Let me please share a story from my life to illustrate this. I am anything but proud of this story, but because it may help someone, I’ll share it. Occasionally I have shared this, but not often, it is just too painful, and I am ashamed of it. Yet, as I hope you will see, I am deeply thankful.

 

I once went to work for a firm as COO in which was a woman, I’ll call her “Susan,” who had known me for many years and who was excited to be working for me. The firm was not doing well financially or organizationally, and the pressure was immense. As I look back, I did some things well, and some things not very well at all. This is my nature, I can always see things I could have done better, see things I did that were just stupid, and then, sadly, see things I did that were plain wrong.

 

After I had been with the firm between two and three years I terminated Susan’s employment. This was wrong, I should not have done this.

 

I could share some things that led to this decision, I could share about pressures, I could write about our business relationship, but I don’t want to mitigate the fact that I was wrong. I was morally and ethically wrong. If I did not see this at the time, I most certainly should have seen it.

 

A few years later I needed a job and I needed it badly. Vickie and I had been abandoned by the church we served and had it not been for friends we may well have been homeless. It was a terrible time for us. After many months of trying to find employment, virtually any kind of employment, I found a job in community association management, the kind of work I had done decades earlier. While I was deeply thankful for the job, it wasn’t a good fit.

 

After about a year a position opened at an apartment management company that I thought was a possibility. My age was against me, I was sixty years old. Two people within the company became advocates for me, one was Gloria who had known me for years, the other was Susan. Yes, you read that right, Susan.

 

I was hired and spent the last few years of my business career in a wonderful environment, with a great boss, terrific colleagues, and a group of team members who worked for me that I dearly loved and still very much love.

 

I once asked Susan why she went to the president of the company and advocated for me after I had terminated her with our previous company.

 

She replied, “I knew that the Bob Withers who fired me was not the real Bob Withers.”

 

 Susan saw beyond the moment when I fired her, as shocking as that was for her. Somehow, by God’s grace, she looked beyond my actions and into my soul and saw something worth forgiving and extending grace and mercy to. Susan saw me when I couldn’t see myself.

 

Jesus can say the things He says in John 17:6 – 8 because He sees us beyond the moment, beyond our actions, beyond our fears and uncertainties, even beyond our denial and abandonment of Him. Jesus, our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and End, sees us in Him as perfect and complete.

 

O that we would learn to live in this assurance, and that we would learn to extend this assurance to others.

 

Given By The Father

  

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” (John 17:6).

 

There are four major threads in the Upper Room in this verse. Can you see them? Read the chapter again, and again, and again, keep reading it and meditating upon it. The Light that is refracted never ends, and its combinations never cease.

 

We see the Name of the Father, Jesus disclosing the Name, the giving of those who belong to the Father to Jesus, and the enigmatic faithfulness and belief of these men whom the Father has given. I write “enigmatic” because it is a mystery, at least to me, how Jesus can make such statements about them. As you read John 17, can you see these four themes? How are they woven together? What other themes do you see?

 

In this meditation I want to explore, “the men whom You have Me out of the world.”

 

We first saw this in 17:2, “that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.”

 

How might we think about this? Let’s be careful and consider what we know, rather than what we don’t know. That is, let’s focus on what Jesus says rather than on our curiosity, or what others want us to think about. Perhaps we would do well to consider John 6:37 – 40:

 

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

 

What parallels do you see between John 6:37 – 40 and John Chapter 17?

 

Let’s also note 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

 

The Father has given us to Jesus. The Father has taken us out of the world and has given us to Jesus. The Father has drawn us to Jesus. Jesus will lose nothing that the Father has given Him.

 

Above I cautioned us to focus on what we know, not on what we don’t know Let me attempt to explain what I mean.

 

What questions do people normally have when they read the above passages?

 

In my experience, they have two problems; one has to do with “free will,” and the other has to do with “what about those not included?” That is, what about those who have either never heard of Jesus or whom the Father has not given to Jesus?

 

Did Jesus address these questions in these passages? I don’t see that He did.

 

Can we draw logical conclusions to our questions? I don’t see that we can, for our logic is faulty and fallible and our knowledge and understanding are limited.

 

Jesus tells us what He tells us, both in John Chapter 6 and John Chapter 17, so that we might know what He tells us, not so that we may know what He doesn’t tell us. Our problem is not that our curiosity is not satisfied, it is that we don’t believe and live according to what Jesus tells us. Were we to live in the knowledge and reality of what Jesus tells us about our calling and assurance in Him, laying down our lives for one another, loving one another, we would not have the time nor the inclination to engage in perpetual speculation nor would we care to satisfy our curiosity. We would not desire to see every question answered, and we would most certainly realize our cognitive limitations in our current state in this world (the noetic effects of sin).

 

In some way, shape, and form, in some mysterious and Divine fashion, we belong to the Father, we are not of the world. The Father has given us to Jesus. The Father has drawn us to Jesus. Visualize this please. You have belonged to the Father, the Father has taken you and given you to Jesus. The Father has made a gift of you to Jesus.

 

Jesus has received you as a gift from the Father. Jesus has given you eternal life by showing Himself and the Father to you. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (17:3). “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life” (6:40).

 

Eternal life is relational. You have been called into a relationship with God. The Father took you out of the world, the Father gave you to Jesus. Will you live in this reality?

 

“What about free will?” you ask.

 

Jesus speaks of the will of God, Jesus does not speak of your free will. This is God’s Story, you are incorporated into the Father’s Story, into the Son’s Story, into the Spirit’s Story – your story is enveloped in the Trinity and in the Body of Christ within the Trinity.

 

Consider the total and complete assurance that Jesus gives you by telling you that you are where you are, in a relationship with Him, because the Father gave you to Jesus.

 

“O but I want this to be about me!” we cry. Ah, but this is not about us, this is about Jesus and the Father. To be sure we are in the Story, but we are not center stage, this is not the Good News about you and me, it is the Good News about Jesus Christ. O for sure, it is Good News for us, it is Good News for us all, and as we realize the glory of what Jesus is telling us about the Father giving us to Him, we have the assurance we need to lay our lives down for Him and others. As we realize that Jesus keeps what the Father has given Him, that He guards us, O the assurance and peace and security we have in Him!

 

This also means that, just as Jesus, we need to be about our Father’s business!

 

A fundamental truth and reality of our life in Christ is that we do not belong to ourselves, we have never belonged to ourselves. There are those Christians who live in this knowledge, and those who don’t. Those who do not live in this knowledge live independently of Christ, those who do live in this knowledge live as the possessions of Another, in other words, Jesus Christ is truly Lord of their lives.

 

One of the enigmatic realities of the Father giving us to Jesus is that Jesus the Lamb had to shed His blood and die for us to purchase us (Rev. 5:9 – 10). The Father gave us to Jesus, Jesus gave us the gift of eternal life.

 

What are we giving to others?

Esther, Where Are You?

 

 

As I witness the sellout of the Gospel to political, social, economic, and national interests and idols, and as I wonder where men and women of courage are to be found among those who claim to be servants of Christ (though does anyone claim such a title anymore?), I wonder if there still might be an Esther or two “for such a time as this" (Esther 4:13 - 14).

 

If there are such women and men, there is but one promise for them, and that is the Cross. Rest assured, it is not likely either the “right” or the “left” will spare them, for the otherworldliness of the Cross and Christ cannot be tolerated, no opposition can be allowed to remain.

 

The Son of Man had no place to lay His Head 2,000 years ago, and He has no place to lay His Head or His Body today. There is no political, economic, political, social, philosophical, or national place where the Body of Christ can rest; we will find rest only in Him, only in Jesus, only in our Good Shepherd.

 

Esther was able, with the help of Mordecai, to overcome her initial reluctance to risk her life for her people. She could choose to be the instrument of God’s deliverance, but “if not” Mordecai promised her that God would raise up someone else. I am not sure about our own time; I am not certain of two things.

 

The first thing I am not certain about is that there will be any temporal “deliverance,” in whatever form that might take. This then means that it may be that there are no “deliverers” in the normal sense of the word.

 

We are seeing a great falling away from the Person of Jesus Christ, from belonging to Him, from the Biblical Gospel and call to His Kingdom, to the prostitution of the professing church in the name of Christianity, of so-called Christian worldviews which are Nehustan; they may have had worthy beginnings, but they have been formed into idols.  (A. W. Tozer identified the tragedy of Christians not actually knowing Jesus in The Pursuit of God almost 80 years ago.)

 

Many of those who still profess a Kingdom perspective, seem to think that if they play whack-a-mole long enough that the fog will eventually lift, the sun will shine, and we can go back to the way things used to be (though why we would ever want to go back to that which paved the way for our present insanity is beyond me).

 

When I write “whack-a-mole” I mean a preoccupation with religious (including Evangelical) and gnostic playthings which allows us to avoid speaking a clarion Word to the Church of Jesus Christ and society.

 

I wonder if these folks (those who know better) realize that as long as they avoid calling for complete and total faithfulness to Jesus Christ, as long as they avoid Mark 8:34 – 38 and 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 31, that they really don’t know what they have in their congregations, institutions, denominations, and movements. Or perhaps they do know and don’t want to confront the reality.

 

If the fabric of a congregation can be rent by calling for total fidelity to Jesus Christ, if it can be torn asunder by calling for the Bride to leave behind the movements of this world and be in a monogamous relationship with her Bridegroom (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3), if calling on professing Christians to leave behind garments of “red” and “blue” for the pure white garment of Christ’s righteousness and to be a City set on a Hill – if such preaching is sure to create upheaval – then what do we really have? We have dishonesty built on fear and intimidation; we do not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

On the one hand we have preachers who have left the Gospel of Christ and the only call that they really have, the call to present the Church as a pure Bride in a pure marriage to her one Husband. On the other hand, we have the people at the foot of Sinai insisting on golden calves to worship.

 

Is deliverance in such an atmosphere possible?

 

I don’t think so. I may be wrong, I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think so. I don’t think we would stand for returning to Jesus Christ. I don’t think we’d stand for pastors and teachers and other leaders insisting on us returning to Jesus. I think that, having mounted the beast, we now must ride the beast until the beast devours us. (Is it possible to have renewal outside old wineskins?)

 

As Revelation demonstrates, there are times when the only way to victory, to irenic and ironic victory, is via martyrdom. To be sure witness, martyrdom, takes many forms, but none of these forms are pleasant.

 

This means that any Esthers among us must walk alongside Daniel’s three friends, and that their credo must be, must always be, “But if not” (Daniel 3:18). It means that deliverance likely lies on the other side of this life, in that City where Christ and the Father and the saints await us. It means that the faithful “consider the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” or Wall Street, or Hollywood, or Capitol Hill, or than anything this world offers.

 

It means that we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims and that we are seeking a country of our own (Hebrews 11:13 – 16). Such a testimony is in opposition to political, economic, and social movements – for it recognizes the kingdoms of this world and their systems for what they are, opposed to Jesus Christ (Psalm 2; Daniel 2; 1 John 2:15 – 17; Revelation chapters 17 – 18).

 

We seek good for all mankind, but we do not deceive ourselves as to the systems of this wicked world.

 

The overcomers of Revelation overcome by the blood of Lamb, by their testimony (of Jesus), and by not loving their lives, even unto death (Rev. 12:11). Run from any preacher, any pastor, any teacher, any professor, any fool who would tell you otherwise! Run, run, run from those who would spare you the Cross of Christ, and run to Jesus, embracing Him and His Cross (Matthew 16:21 – 23). O dear friends, if we are not learning to die with Jesus, then we are not learning to live with Him (2 Cor. 4:12; Gal. 2:20; 6:14).

 

If a man or woman meets God, it is not likely that person will ever be the same. Since Jesus is God, how is that we are still of this world, when we claim to be Christians? How is it that we dress ourselves in “red” and “blue” and seek to destroy one another? O dear friends, there are only two reasons why professing Christians act this way, the way of the enemy (James 3:13 – 18); it is either that we have never really met Jesus Christ and surrendered our lives to Him – living under His lordship, as His possessions, or it is that we have left our first love (Rev. 2:4).

 

To be faithful to Jesus Christ means that we must “go outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13). This is the religious camp (both on the “right” and the “left”), it is the political camp, the nationalist camp; it is the camp of the world – it means that we identify with Jesus and preach Jesus and Jesus alone…and to be sure, that will incur the enmity of the world around us, in all of its forms…and yes, we will likely find ourselves put out of the synagogue (John 9:22, 34).

 

And yet, and yet, there will be those who see Him through the darkness and vitriol and hatred and cacophony…and on that Day those men and women and children will say, “Thank you. Thank you for showing me a better way, the Way of Jesus, the Way of the Cross. Thank you for showing me Jesus.”

 

One thing we can say with surety concerning potential Esthers, those who seek to spare their lives need not apply.

 

“As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).

 

What about you?

 

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1 – 2).

While my intention is to call us back to Jesus, and only to Jesus; if I have offended you, then I have made my point. Let us return to Jesus, He awaits us, He will restore us so that we can restore others. The Cross is always offensive, so that we might come to the end of ourselves and find Jesus. 

 

“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” (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3).

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (17)

 

On page 210 Bonhoeffer tells us that the Body of Christ takes on visible form in the preaching of the word, in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper; all three of these are sacramental, all three of them mediate Christ Jesus, and community in Christ, all three form us as Christ’s community. While forgiveness of sins is indeed present in the sacraments, Bonhoeffer writes:

 

“Nether the gift of baptism nor the gift of the Lord’s Supper is fully understood if we interpret them only in terms of the forgiveness of sin. The gift of the body conferred in the sacraments presents us with the Lord in bodily form dwelling in his church – community” (page 211).

 

On pages 211 – 213 Bonhoeffer touches on expressions and forms of the visible church – community. He does this both quickly and in-depth, yes, this seems like a contradiction. He does it quickly in that he points us to a number of Biblical considerations in just three pages, but he also does this in-depth if we will read and ponder the Scriptures to which he points us. There is no point in reading Bonhoeffer is we are not going to read the Bible, if we are not going to read and ponder, in context, the Scripture passages which are his frame of reference and his authority.

 

“This community is a differentiated whole. The body of Christ as church-community includes both differentiation and a common order. These are characteristics essential to the body itself. A body lacking differentiation is in the process of decomposition” (page 211, italics mine). Bonhoeffer cites Romans 12:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:12ff.

 

Bonhoeffer is saying that the visible church-community will have common expressions everywhere it gathers, and that it will also have expressions peculiar to its time and place. These expressions ought to all originate in Christ and be sustained by Christ, and we can anticipate that they will change over time – after all, the visible church-community is the Living Body of Christ; it is a Person, yes, a unique Person, but nevertheless a Person.

 

On pages 211 – 213 Bonhoeffer cites around 30 Scriptures to help us see the visible Body of Christ and understand the Holy Spirit’s working within us as God’s People. He emphasizes that the “order” of the church is of “divine origin” and that it is intended to serve and not to be served. The offices of the church are appointed by God within, but not by, the community. “Even where the church-community itself assigns offices, it does so in complete submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:2)” (page 212).

 

Bonhoeffer holds that “different congregations require different offices or ministries.” This is, I think, a high view of the organic Nature of the Body of Christ and the Headship of Jesus. Bonhoeffer trusts Christ to lead and care for and form His Body – that is a higher trust than most of us are likely to have ourselves and tolerate in others. Bonhoeffer writes that the “specific form [of our visible expression] is open to change” (page 212).

 

Can we imagine a local church climate in which congregations are seeking to sense and respond to the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus as a way of life? A climate in which we are open to changes in the forms of our expressions, in ministry offices, in the forms of our gatherings?

 

Bonhoeffer sees all ministry offices and gifts as functioning “for the benefit of the church-community,” and as being “servants of the church-community” (page 212). This is hardly a picture of the clergy – laity dichotomy that we see today, or of the sacred – secular dichotomy.

 

A visible church-community is more than a group of people who gather to listen to others, to give money, to pray as they are given permission, and to whom baptism and the Lord’s Supper is a routine.  We are to be living and vibrant expressions of the Incarnation, members of one another and members of Christ Jesus. We are to each share the grace of God and the life of Christ with one another – we all have faith and hope and love to share. We ought to be encouraging one another in the koinonia of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:14 – 16).

 

There is always a cost of discipleship, both as individuals and as a people. Those who follow the Christ of the Cross will always be a minority among professing Christians, as will those groups of disciples who seek to be expressions of the Body of Christ – new wine cannot be contained in old wineskins.

 

The Church of Jesus Christ must always be separate and distinct from the world, for its Nature is Christ and He is transcendent.

 

Bonhoeffer’s German contemporaries sought to maintain the status quo, most of them rejected his Biblical teaching as they sought alliance and accommodation with the social and political and military forces around them.

 

Just as we are doing today.

Glorify Together

 

 

“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

Jesus’ communion with the Father begins, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (17:1).

 

The glory of the Father is the glory of the Son, and the glory of the Son is the glory of the Father. As we will see in verse 22, the glory of the Trinity is given to us in Christ. Sadly, much of the story of humanity is the story of us, “exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Rom. 1:23). Do we not see this today in our society? Do we not worship the image of man, of ourselves? The conflicts we see within nations and among nations is a conflict about which idol we will worship.

 

Jesus seeks no glory apart from the Father, in fact, the Father is the glory of the Son. Jesus recalls the glory He had with the Father “before the world was.” This not only takes us back to the very beginning of the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being,” but it also takes us through the Gospel of John.

 

“’My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.’ For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (5:17 – 18).

 

“I Am the Bread of life” (6:35).

 

“I Am the Light of the world” (8:12).

 

“I Am the Good Shepherd” (10:11).

 

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25).

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I Am,” (8:58).

 

One of the mysteries of the “I AM” statements is that, while the glory of the Father was pouring in and through Jesus in the Incarnation, the bestowal of the “glory which I had with You before the world was,” was yet to come.

 

This takes us to Philippians 2:5 – 11 in which we see that “He [Jesus] emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Hebrews 2:9 – 18 also speaks to us of Jesus being “made like His brethren in all things.”

 

As Jesus Himself asked the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).

 

Jesus is emptied, in a fashion we cannot understand, in the Incarnation, and He is restored to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was through suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. We behold elements of this in Scripture, we see refracted Light through this, we even participate in this mystery ourselves, but I think it beyond our comprehension – such is the greatness of the glory of God and of His Story, for this is truly the Story of the Lamb – He includes us in His Story, but He is the Story, the Message, the Gospel – the Lamb is the Light, not me, not you, not us.

 

We are called to enter into His glory as we participate with Him in His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is a Divine koinonia (Phil. 3:10), this is our inheritance (Rom. 8:16 – 18). Mystery of mysteries, in doing so, in touching the eternal glory, in receiving the glory which Christ bestows on us (John 17:22), we touch the I AM THAT I AM, and in touching Him we touch the “glory which I had with You before the world was.”

 

Well, as Paul writes, there are some things which are not lawful to talk about (2 Cor. 12:4). I think this is because of our propensity to profane and make merchandise of the holy, and also because some things are simply too beyond us for human words. But then, what do I really know?  

 

Let’s consider that we are changed into the image of Jesus Christ “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18) and that this occurs in the liberty of the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17). This resonates with the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in Romans 8:21. Let us also consider the progression we see in Romans 8:30:

 

“These whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called,  He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

 

The Father is indeed “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

That which we had lost and fallen short of (Rom. 3:23), is now being restored in us, in Christ, always in Christ (Rom. 5:1 – 11).

 

As we look forward into eternity, we see that the Bride has the glory of God (Rev. 21:10) and that the glory of God illuminates that Holy City (Rev. 21:23).

 

If you ask me what the “glory” is, I cannot answer you. O for sure it is the Presence, the all – enveloping Presence of God. For sure, His holiness and purity and Otherness, His love and mercy and grace, His Essence. But who has words for the Ineffable? We must fall on our face speechless at times, at other times we can but raise our hands and hearts and cry, “Holy, holy, holy.”

 

I think this, that only fools merchandise and sell such things, and for sure there are fools aplenty within professing Christianity. Wise men and women are circumspect in touching and communicating the Holy, they fear to take liberties with holy things, with sacred things, for they are servants and not masters, they follow the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain.

 

I also think this, that one touch of the Shekinah is worth a lifetime of “worship and praise” songs, for when the Other touches you, you know you have been touched – and you know you had nothing to do with it – you were touched because it pleased Him to touch you.

 

You can no more speak of these things than you ought to speak of that which transpires between a husband and wife in their sacred chambers…but we have so profaned our religion and made merchandise of it that it challenges us to conceive of such things…well, the Song of Solomon may help us with this…perhaps.

 

O that we would return to our purity of devotion to Christ! (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3; Rev. 2:4).

 

John 17:1 – 5 is the first movement in the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17. As you mediate on these words of Jesus, allow the Holy Spirit to draw you into the heart of your High Priest, into the Presence of the Lamb, into the glory of the Father.

 

As you read this passage aloud, can you hear the Voice of Jesus?

 

Can you see Him speaking to the Father?