Those who “freed science from Moses” rejected true science.

One of the most underrated aspects of theology is the importance to God of legal witness. Not only is it rarely spoken about in evangelical circles but it is rarely mentioned as an answer to the scientistic objections of the day.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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In Deep Comedy, Peter Leithart compares the Bible’s essentially comic and hopeful view of history with the Greco-Roman view, which is essentially and irredeemably tragic.

In Paul’s estimation, anyone who thought that the new life through Jesus pertained to some realm outside this history was simply an unbeliever. For the gospel says otherwise.

Certainly, discerning this new life at work in the world is an act of faith, but faith is not irrational or a leap into the dark against evidence. If the gospel is true, if new life was unleashed in the world on Easter morning, then we would expect there to be some signs that this is the case. And, as the church fathers were at pains to point out, we do.

Athanasius noted all the pagans turning from their idols, all the warring tribes become brothers, all the swords being beaten to plowshares, and used these things to expound the effects of the Incarnation. Paul, however, means exactly what he says, the coming of Jesus, and particularly the resurrection of Jesus, means that death and sin are themselves doomed, and life is already on the march to conquer death. Darkness is being dispelled because Light has come and the darkness could neither comprehend nor overcome it (John 1:5).

This account of the comic shape of biblical history and the gospel narrative has been challenged by a number of theologians and biblical scholars in recent years. Biblical scholars have attempted to show that the Bible’s stories fit into the generic categories of ancient drama or poetry, and have tried to show in particular that certain biblical narratives can be classified as tragedy. In my view, these are not successful efforts either in general or in detailed treatment of texts. In her Tragedy and Biblical Narrative, for instance, Cheryl Exum emphasizes the struggle against fate/gods/God as a key element of tragedy:

Tragic heroes have the hubris—sometimes in authentic greatness, sometimes in delusion—to defy the universe, not in a stoic defiance but in an insistence on their moral integrity (justified or not). Because they refuse, they will be broken … It is not that there is “no way out whatsoever,” as Jasper asserts, but that there is no way out without denying oneself. Saul refuses to acquiesce, he will hold on to the kingship at whatever the cost, rejecting the easy way out. There is a “way out” and Saul’s son Jonathan, by yielding his right to the throne to David, shows what it is, but at the cost of his identity, which as we shall see, becomes submerged into David’s.

It is true that Saul is tragic in the sense that Exum uses the term, but it is also clear that his tragedy is the result of his own intransigence. The story clearly endorses precisely the “easy way out”—the way of Jonathan, the way of self-denial—which is, of course, the very difficult way out, since it means effacing (but also eventually finding) one’s own identity before Yahweh and before the “rival,” David. Jonathan, characterized by self-denial and even “discipleship,” is manifestly the hero of the story.  One can say that the Bible presents Saul as “tragic,” but only if we are willing to give up calling him, in any sense, a “hero.” Again, as in Jeremiah and the gospels, Saul’s story leaves one with an intense sense of loss precisely because there was a way out, precisely because life was a real option.

Further, Exum emphasizes that the tragic hero struggles particularly to understand the fate that brings tragic consequences. Oedipus is a titanic figure because he relentlessly pursues the truth of his situation. Again, the Bible has a “tragic dimension” in the sense that it irecognizes the reality of this kind of struggle, yet the Bible does not reckon this as a heroic struggle—a struggle to be commended and supported. The titanic desire and need to know is the desire to be as God, to know as God, the lust to have the complete and finished story as God does.

Put differently, it is a refusal of faith, a refusal to trust that God, however random and wild He may appear and be, will do right. It is a refusal to learn the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. From a biblical perspective, the tragic hero is simply a character who refuses to trust that God knows what He’s on about with His universe, and will accept his “fate” only if he can see all its causes and ramifications. The tragic protagonist longs to live by sight. Job, faced with “tragic” suffering, demands to know the cause. Yahweh appears and answers no questions; the revelation of Yahweh in a whirlwind is sufficient to stop Job’s mouth. The tragic pursuit of knowledge is a refusal of Solomonic wisdom as expressed in Ecclesiastes, the wisdom that rejoices in limitation, rejoices precisely because this vaporous world is not under our control.

Peter J. Leithart, Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, & Hope In Western Literature, pp. 26-28.

Credo ut intelligam.

Psalm 33

If you feel spiritually barren, that is a good thing. It is because you are, and because God has shown it to you. However, a barren heart cannot praise God. So often we rock up to church with empty hearts and attempt to feel “worshipful.” Well, we are commanded to worship, but must we draw water from dry wells?

The spiritual can only follow the death of the natural. I think it was George Mueller who said that reading the Bible beforehand helped him to pray. Every act by the saints, including the “Acts” of the Apostles, is in fact a response to the Word and an act of the Spirit. Attempting to whip up the crowd into a fleshly frenzy is flogging a dead horse. We all need to hear and meditate on the Word first, then our praise will be the most natural thing in the world. The song of the Bride is always a response to the Word of the Bridegroom. [1]

Psalm 33 is the first psalm to mention musical instruments for praise. It begins with a command to praise and reasons to fear God (forming) but continues with reasons to praise God (filling), because if we fear Him, we have nothing else to fear.

A first glance at the Psalm shows the matrix order of its general subject matter. We have:

Praise

…..Righteousness / Waters

…..…..Counsel of the Lord

…..…..…..God’s eyes

…..…..Armies

…..Deliverance for the Faithful

Hope for the Future [2]

After defining the basic thematic structure, it’s a matter of observing the flow of each of these seven sections. The authors seem to use repeated key words to make “Covenant pattern” allusions. This strategy really shines in the Psalms.

What is really interesting is the way that each line has to have a double reference. For instance, line 5 of stanza one has to be a combination of Maturity within a “house” of Creation. My favourite example of this is when Isaiah needs a “Pentecost” within a “Trumpets.” What does he do? He refers to the battle of Midian, a military reference with flaming torches. How smart is that?

Praise:
Initiation – Word – Light – Day 1. Cycles often begin with a command or someone speaking. It focusses on the Lord (Transcendence)

TRANSCENDENCE (Sabbath)
Rejoice in the LORD,
…..O you righteous!
……….[For] praise from the upright is beautiful.
……………Praise the LORD with the harp;
……….Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.
…..Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.

Notice the “upright” at Ascension and “ten strings” at Maturity. At Conquest/Atonement, there is a new song. The Day of Coverings made everything new. This corresponds with the angels in Revelation 5 and the redeemed Jews in Revelation 14.

“And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation…”

Righteousness / Waters:
This is a combination of the chosen Hierarchy and the waters of Day 2. The Lord also gathered the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan into heaps, but it goes back to the “waters above” being “kept in store” for Noah’s day of wrath.

In the structure of the Psalm, it’s the opening of the Red Sea. But within the stanza itself, it is the opening of the Veil for the people of God on the Day of Atonement, followed by their ministry to the nations. This is played out in history as the dividing and plundering/gathering of the Gentiles into the house of God as a crystal city at the feast of Booths.

HIERARCHY (Passover)
For the word of the LORD [is] right,
…..And all His work [is done] in truth.
……….He loves righteousness and justice;
……….The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.
……………By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,
……….And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
…..He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deep in storehouses.

The next three steps are the Ethics of the Covenant. I’d expect to find symbols relating to 1) The Law given 2) the Law opened 3) the Law received

Counsel of the Lord: the Lord speaks. The Land rises up on Day 3. Notice the double hit on Ascension for Altar and Table (Land and Firstfruits) and also the mention of generations at Succession (Glorification). As the Ascension stanza, we have a reference to “standing” at Ascension (the Covenant Head) and also at Conquest, where the now-vindicated Mediator stands qualified before God with His bride.

ETHICS 1 (Firstfruits)
Let all the Land fear the LORD;
…..Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
……….For He spoke, and it was [done;]
……….He commanded, and it stood fast.
……………The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
……….He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.
…..The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
The plans of His heart to all generations.

God’s eyes: the Lord sees and considers.
He watches over men as the Lampstand.

ETHICS 2 (Pentecost)
Blessed [is] the nation whose God [is] the LORD,
…..The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.
……….The LORD looks from heaven;
……………He sees all the sons of men.
……….From the place of His dwelling He looks
……….On all the inhabitants of the Land;
…..He fashions their hearts individually;
He considers all their works.

The “hearts” are those of the men who face God as Mediators, the Land of Israel.

Armies: Here, trust in military strength is an ungodly replacement for the Law.

ETHICS 3 (Trumpets)
No king [is] saved
…..by the multitude of an army;
……….A mighty man is not delivered by great strength.
…..A horse [is] a vain hope for safety;
Neither shall it deliver [any] by its great strength.

Notice that line 5 of stanza 1 had a military allusion (fives and tens are military numbers). So the rest of the Psalm is actually a “germination” of the seed of stanza 1.

It is interesting that this stanza and those following only seem to have five lines. These are the “Bridal” stanzas, and they are Covenant scrolls that are yet unopened, un-”filled.” This is a song of an Israel which fears God and is waiting on Him for resurrection.

Deliverance for the Faithful: The theme here is Mediation, Mercy, and the Day of Atonement. There is usually a reference to blood. Here it seems to be deliverance from famine, which Jordan observes was a judgment from God for the shedding of innocent blood. This is the Covenant Sanctions.

SANCTIONS (Atonement)
Behold, the eye of the LORD
…..[is] on those who fear Him,
……….On those who hope in His mercy,
…..To deliver their soul from death,
And to keep them alive in famine.

Hope for the Future:
Succession is the “future orientation” of the faithful.

SUCCESSION (Glorification)
Our soul waits for the LORD;
…..He [is] our help and our shield.
……….For our heart shall rejoice in Him,
…..Because we have trusted in His holy name.
Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us, Just as we hope in You.

This final stanza moves from the Covenant Head, the Lord, to the Covenant Body, the people. Israel has plenty to praise God for, but the architecture of the Psalm contains another subtle message: Israel was to be a clean house awaiting the Shekinah. She had not yet been filled, but she had the promises of God, and they were enough of a reason to praise Him.

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[1] In the Lord’s service, Praise appears at Ascension, but this follows the Confession and Absolution at Division. So we certainly have something to sing about.

[2] This analysis resulted from a discussion which included John Barach questioning why I arranged these verses in a “chiastic” pattern when there are no obvious “mirror matches” in the layouts. That is a very good question! The answer is that the underlying matrix structures are chiastic.

This is not an exact science, but it is far more exact than the analysis of any other poetry I’m aware of. The authors have an existing chiastic trellis and the vines they come up with to grow on it are amazing. The vines aren’t necessarily chiastic, but laying the text out like this is a simple way of identifying what is going on for those familiar with the pattern.

ART: Firmament by Estelle Carraz-Bernabei

“…life should still feel a bit more like chaos. It should feel more like the downside of the roller coaster. The life of faith flips the stomach. The Trinity is the God of surprises. Asses talk; water catches fire; the sun reverses; demons cry. And the God-man unhinges all of medicine by walking out of His tomb. Christ holds everything together, but He’s known for living on pinnacles. He doesn’t like to tell us the end of our stories. He’s teaching us how to live in the Trinity.”

Art: Brooklyn Museum – Jesus Carried up to a Pinnacle of the Temple (Jésus porté sur le pinacle du Temple) – James Tissot

Hebrews 11:1-16   |   Sermon Notes 24 July 2011

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Introduction

Movies and TV teach our children a lot about faith. “It doesn’t matter in what or in whom you have faith, even if it’s in yourself, just as long as you have faith.”

Modern Christians go one step further and tell us to have faith, to trust in Jesus to save us. That’s a big step in the right direction, and a saving one, but it doesn’t give us much practical help in the day-to-day trials and temptations of life. The reason for this is because moderns do not understand biblical Covenants.

Chapter 10 ends this way:

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while,

“He who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.”
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

What is the context here? The writer is showing the parallel between Israel in the wilderness and the church in the first century. Their respective journeys to the promised rest follow the same pattern.

Sabbath – Ministry of Moses/Christ
Passover – Death of firstborn/Christ
Firstfruits – Ascension of Moses/Christ
Pentecost – Testing the Spirits
Trumpets – A New Generation: Acts to Ad60s
Atonement – Jericho/AD70
Booths – Canaan/A Jew-Gentile church

Hebrews was written to Jews who were tempted to go back to the Egypt of the Herods. The “faith” required here was the faith to enter the Land and possess it, to patiently inherit it. Faith is explicitly tied to the promises of God — by COVENANT. Those who truly believe will persevere, and those who persevere are true sons, and those who are true sons will inherit the promises.

TRANSCENDENCE – Who’s the Boss?
HIERARCHY – Who’s put in charge?
ETHICS – What are the rules?
SANCTIONS – What do we get?
SUCCESSION – What’s next?

Exposition

1   Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

-  The distress expressed in the Psalms is mostly due to the fact that being under Covenant with God involves purification, transformation. As soon as God gives us His word, that word gets challenged by Satan. God wants to see if we will turn to false gods when under pressure. Faith without testing is not faith.

-  Suffering is common to all mankind, and God often uses it to draw us to Himself. But the Bible paints a picture of Covenant suffering as a deliberate choice.

-  Living for and witnessing to the truth of the Gospel is offensive to sinners because our words and deeds condemn them. Our witness opens the Law, with its Ethics and Sanctions, and they are reminded of their accountability to men and to God. Our obedience — in the power of Christ — is the evidence of unseen things. It is also the evidence God will use to condemn the wicked.

2   This is what the ancients were commended for.

-  As the Word of God softens and transforms our hearts, true faith produces works. These works condemn the world. So faith without works is not true faith. Faith will always bear fruit, and a tree is known by its fruits.

3   By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

-  We understand this because God tells us in Genesis 1. Without the Word of God, we cannot interpret the world rightly. We judge by sight and come up with all sorts of deluded interpretations. We can only understand the world with the Word of God.

4   By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

-   Cain judged by sight. He did what was right in his own eyes, and was offended when God accepted Abel’s offering, an offering that was obedient to God’s requirements. Cain’s offering made perfect sense to him. When God offered him mercy after the murder of Abel, he sinned again by refusing it. Cain could not understand grace.

5   By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.

-  From Adam to Noah follows the same “slavery to Sabbath” pattern, and the annual feasts. Enoch was taken as the Firstfruits offering. But the Law opened at the following “Pentecost” was the murderous law of Lamech.

6   And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

-   Belief in the existence of God is only the first step. The demons believe and tremble. We must seek God with determination, fulfilling what He has commanded by Covenant so He can bless us as promised.

-  Many people today have turned from God and the Bible because of some sort of controversy. Many turned away from Jesus when He purposely made the going tough. True seekers will not let a personal hurt or a “Bible contradiction” make them stumble. They will keep searching until they find the answer that vindicates God, led by the Spirit within them. The Spirit leads them to heed God’s warnings, and take His cutting remarks to heart. True faith cannot give up.

-  Under the Old Covenant, blessing depended on obedience. Nothing has changed under the New. The difference is that those who are truly redeemed will be obedient. And the redeemed also shelter under the obedience of Christ, the true “Amen.”

7   By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

-   We understand that Noah believed God, despite the craziness of God’s words to him. But notice that it says Noah’s obedience condemned the world. Noah’s faithfulness got the faithful out of the world, just like the angels got Lot’s family out of Sodom, and the apostles got the faithful out of Jerusalem, so that God could pour out His judgment. By our obedience, and by our prayers, we are a two-edged sword. With every act, every breath, we both redeem and store up vengeance.

-  The inheritance comes once the wicked are judged. Perseverance pays off. The inheritance of Jesus is the nations. And Jesus is patient.

8   By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

-   God continually “showed” Abraham, through various means, what he would inherit. The tests grew more and more intense, until the final request to offer Isaac. Just so, Jacob was tested in greater ways than Abraham, and Joseph in greater ways than Jacob. Abraham could not have conquered Egypt the way Joseph did.

9  By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

-   Esau is not mentioned because he despised the promise. He was not interested in the Covenant, as shown by his selling of this birthright. Isaac was initially foolish in his desire to hand the Succession to Esau. Later on, God opened Isaac’s spiritual eyes.

10   For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

-   The true city of God is Jerusalem, a city of peace, of rest. The earthly Jerusalem was only a picture of it. Paul says in Galatians that the earthly city was made barren, given no Succession history, like Lot’s wife, like Michal. She became the great harlot, and was burned with fire. The true Jerusalem is the true bride, the Jew-Gentile church of God.

11   By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.

-   Covenant Succession is always God’s way of guiding history. Under Abraham, Succession was by flesh and blood. God used physical fruitfulness to teach us about spiritual fruitfulness. The Succession is now spirit, not blood. The blood was presented in heaven as Firstfruits and then Jesus sent the Spirit. Succession is now by Spirit, through the preaching of the gospel. The emphasis is no longer on physical genealogies.

12   And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

-    Stars are heavenly mediators. Sand mediates between Land and Sea on earth. In the social realm, God’s people are a new heaven and a new earth. One day, there will also be a new physical heaven and earth, and God is preparing us for it. He will put us into the Garden City as He put Adam into the Garden. But we will be wise as serpents.

13   All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on the Land.

-   To understand these references, we must understand God’s architecture. Israel was the Bronze Altar, the earthly country, outside the Tent. The church is the Golden Altar of Incense, the heavenly country, inside the Tent. Abraham and all the Old Testament saints—plus the New Covenant martyrs—inherited the heavenly country in AD70, at the end of the Old Covenant.

14  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

-    Our desires are to be focussed on the future. It doesn’t mean that the world doesn’t matter. God expects us to transform it for Him. Heaven is just a waiting room. At the end of history, the saints will inherit, not just heaven, but the earth.

-   So, what are you hoping for? Faithful children? Then that will show. A larger congregation? Then that will show. A holy life? Then that will show. Just like God, we are all driven by desires, by LUSTS. God desires US. If we desire HIM, we will desire what He desires. He will fill us with zeal for His house, just like Jesus. Christianity is not about throwing cold water on desire. It is about replacing ungodly desires with godly ones. Without God’s vision, we will have no godly desires. God’s vision comes from God’s promises.

15  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

-    What are our minds fixed on? Bringing people to Christ? The future? We are often tempted by our old desires. We must fight fire with fire. This means getting into God’s Word and being encouraged by the saints.

16  Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

-    Adam was created but Eve was constructed. She was a picture of the bridal city. The Old Testament saints are already there, as God’s royal court. And when we assemble together in Jesus’ name, by faith, we are there also, as His legal witnesses, testifying to His perfect justice and His unspeakable grace.

We are a house built by invisible hands. The wicked see and hear us and tremble. One thing I have noticed is that it is often those who are most opposed to the gospel that get converted. The Spirit is at work on them, so don’t be discouraged by such opposition. It vindicates the power of the gospel.

Personally and corporately, we are a grand work beyond the explanation of men, the evidence of things unseen. And men hate that. They hated Noah, Jesus and Paul, and they will hate us, if we are living faithfully.

‘OPEN THEISTS’ TEACH THAT GOD CANNOT KNOW THE FUTURE. He gave human beings a true free will, so if God knows the future, human beings cannot truly be free. The Old Creation (the Old Testament) and the New Creation (a new humanity beginning with Christ) were thus both gigantic g ambles on God’s part. Does God g amble? After all, He commanded His priests to “throw the d ice.”

Tabernacle Two-up

The Urim and Thummim were basically a set of d ice: a black stone and a white stone, yes and no. [1] God promised to speak through this arrangement, which can be boiled down to a simplified “heads or tails.” It was Tabernacle Two-up.

For us, the future is unknown. It is a risk. We can identify and quantify all the variables and speculate on the outcomes, but never be entirely sure of how they will combine to produce the end result. If we could, we wouldn’t need crash-test dummies. We wouldn’t need insurance cover.

The Old Testament looks like a lot of risky business. Men fail Him time and time again, but God just keeps on betting the farm. What many theologians and commentators fail to notice is that as the process continues, God actually brings humanity to greater and greater maturity. He builds a house of worship out of people, brick by brick, and then bets it all—every chip—on the newcomer—His Son. To us, it seemed insane. To God, it was a sure thing. Was there ever any chance that His Son would fail?

Thrills and Spills

There is a certain thrill in risk. Gambling is addictive to some personalities; adultery and embezzlement to others. Stolen waters are temporarily sweet, but sweet nonetheless. We must remember that God actually asks His people over and over again to take ridiculous risks for Him. We will take risks for pleasure, and often the pleasure is in the risk. But will we take risks for the kingdom?

I had an online debate with some anti-religionists recently (they believe in intelligent design, but not the God of the Bible). One wrote:

“Don’t you think I have implored God/Jesus/Allah whoever to come into my heart and please, please, please help me understand? More times than I can count. I have never in my life seen or experienced an event that could be undoubtedly supernatural. Never. And believe me, if I did, I would recant every negative thing I’ve ever said about God. Maybe we all find out when we die. I don’t have a clue.”

Many Christians want the thrills without the spills. If you really want to see miracles, you have to take some risky steps of faith first. Like Peter, you must step out of the boat. Like the priests with the Ark, you have to step into the overflowing Jordan. Like Jesus, you have to NOT throw yourself from the Temple pinnacle. Missionaries get to see the miracles because they take obedient risks. In the kingdom of God there is a miracle at the centre, and miracles at the frontiers. [2]

I have a friend, who, with his wife, (both in their late 50s) came to our church with a presentation on how they were going to be missionaries in [a pacific island nation] to Hindus. The Mu***ms were seen as too difficult. A year later, everything they had planned to do had been accomplished, but not among the Hindus – among the Mu***ms. People were having dreams that brought them to Christ, and there were many miraculous occurrences, including an incident where the Spirit told someone where to fish! Hundreds if not thousands became Christians. This gent said he just felt like a spectator at what God was doing. He is a down-to-earth non-Pentecostal who doesn’t go for this sort of thing at all. And I know these people well enough personally to believe they weren’t making it up. They had pictures of new churches to prove the results. There were hardships, opposition, and miracles.

The Urim and Thummim wasn’t God’s Casino. It was a ritual of obedience that was a “calculated risk” of faith, a faith based on the Covenant. All the Old Testament risks follow the “Bible Matrix,” the Covenant pattern. Here’s a down-to-earth illustration:

At a men’s meeting at a local church, one father asked if there were any guarantees with Christian parenting. He has two daughters. One is an extremely faithful and dedicated Christian. The other threw it all away. The girls are close in age and had identical upbringings. The best answer I could think of was a reference to farming. Planting and watering is the only way to achieve a harvest. But there is no guarantee that a storm or a fire or some pestilence won’t wipe out your crop. We are just called to be faithful, to take the risk. Where the little white ball lands on the r oulette table is up to God. But He knows exactly where it is going to land from the beginning. The only guarantee is that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Resting On the Bosom of Jesus

As I think I have written around here somewhere before, the Urim and Thummim were a picture of the Holy Spirit-filled man. They were used right up until the disciples had to choose a replacement for Judas. Immediately after this, Christ sent the Holy Spirit from heaven to indwell them. They didn’t need the “dice” any more. Just as the “elder-gems” on the chest of the High Priest “surrounded” the quirky “pouch of fortune,” when the disciples gathered together, Jesus was there in their midst giving them the white stone. When we gather together, He does the same for us.

“We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” 1 John 4:6 (NKJV)

Our endeavours might look like risky g ambles, and there will be apparent failures (the history of church is a long series of victories disguised as disasters after all!). But since Pentecost, God is the ultimate match-fixer. [3] History is open in one sense (which is pictured in elective credo-baptism [4]). We have been freed from our heredity to carry out the Covenant commands in the power of God: freed to rewrite the Old Covenant history of Adam. There are risks and variables, thrills and disappointments. But we are free to play the table, work the room, attempt great (and risky) things for God. That is the freedom of Man under a sovereign God. It is a freedom bound by Covenant.

For us, that Covenant is an open scroll, but one day, Jesus will roll up it, hand it back to the Guy in charge, and sit down again.

The end is determined from the beginning. When we are united, the table is rigged in our favour. Our Father owns the casino. The last judgment is yet to come, but as far as the Father is concerned, the case is already closed. As the New Covenant comes to an end, as all Covenants do [5],  there will be the inevitable blessings and curses. And every knee shall bow. It’s a given.

We can take crazy risks—like missions, or doorknocking, or teaching the Bible to unbelieving high school students—g ambles that make the world think we have lost our minds. Returning to the insurance metaphor, we have a reliable policy, underwritten by God, with a clause for every possible contingency. The cover provided was dark red.

Open Theists might have open minds but they have closed Bibles.

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[1] See the harrowing history of the Day of Atonement ritual after Christ’s ascension in A White Stone – 3 (under the subheading The Word is ‘Yes’).
[2] See Bloody Throne, Blood Frontiers.
[3] See Jesus Rigs India Election.
[4] See An Atheist Gets Baptism.
[5] See Three Resurrections – 3.

“Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens…” Hebrews 8:1

Conservative Christian people know and understand that we deserve to be brought low. We know and understand the Law of God. We know our own sinfulness. We are very aware of how we fall short in many ways. We know that the holiness of God casts us down. This is all good, as far as it goes. This is healthy, as far as it goes. This is much needed in our day, as far as it goes. But we need to follow God’s purposes all the way out.

We need to understand what God is up to. We need to understand the narrative arc. We need to understand the story, and the story is: death and resurrection; humiliation and exaltation: ascension to the right hand of God the Father.

God humbles us, which we deserve. But He also exalts us, which we do not deserve at all. And this is often the point where we stumble. This is the point where we don’t go along with God’s purposes. This is the point where we often rebel against the Good News, where we kick against the Gospel.

In his great hymn to the obedience of Christ, the apostle Paul urges us to have the same mind in us that Christ had in Him. When this is presented to Christians, many think, “Jesus humbled Himself, so we need to humble ourselves. Jesus was brought low; we must be willing to be brought low.” This is true, but Jesus, as it says in Hebrews, did all this for the joy that was set before Him, for the exaltation that was coming. But we don’t want to have that mind in us, and that’s the problem.

If you don’t understand the process of death, resurrection, ascension and enthronement, you don’t understand the Gospel. When Paul says the mind of Christ should be in us, he is talking about the whole thing. We can’t just take a snapshot of Christ doing one thing and make it a screensaver. You must have the mind of Christ in the whole story.

We do not just follow Christ to Jerusalem to die with Him, as Thomas was willing to do. But Thomas did not yet have the mind to follow Jesus to life. Death is the doorway to life. Thomas did not understand what Jesus was talking about, and many Christians do not understand what Jesus was talking about. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son. God is up to something, and He is taking us all the way through.

Christians tend to say, okay, I admit that I’m a sinner, God has forgiven my sins, I’m cleaned up and now I’m back to square one. We are like the prodigal who wants to be forgiven and restored, but only to the level of a servant in the house. The prodigal son was not expecting the fatted calf to be killed. He was not expecting a party to be thrown. He was not expecting his father to hire a small jazz band… and neither was his older brother. He wasn’t expecting to be exalted. He was expecting to be restored at the bare minimum.

This is where our faith staggers. We expect to be forgiven. That’s God’s job. But even though we read and sing about it, and Christians have done so for two thousand years, we still don’t expect the robe, and the ring still surprises us.

Adapted from Doug Wilson, Christkirk sermon podcast May 18, 2010.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:4-9)

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Hebrews 12:11)

It becomes apparent that every one of God’s curses in the Bible sooner or later turns out to be a blessing. Every judgment has one eye on the present, which is usually grievous, and another eye on the future. Every discipline is a pruning to bring greater fruit. You just want to make sure you are one of the good figs, not a bad one. God’s justice is always visionary.

“There’s no such thing as a dead-end job. There are only dead-end people.”
—Zig Ziglar

Work seems like a curse, but even before the Fall there was work. After the Fall, work was a curse-cloud with a silver lining. Imagine a world where people didn’t have to work? Imagine what all those idle hands would get up to? There are places in the world where this is the case; depressed places where nothing ever changes, nothing improves; where people look at our western rat race with envy.

By faith, we understand that all employment is part of the glorification of the world.

Many Christians view work as something holding them back from ministry. This is not only incorrect, but a terribly gnostic way of viewing the world. Our work is actually not only central, but something extremely important to God. I read this old article I posted in Be Still years ago, adapted from a book by Dallas Willard. I have one of the best jobs in the world and I still grumble, so I really needed to hear this again. Here’s an excerpt:

Let us become as specific as possible. Consider just your job, the work you do to make a living. This is one of the clearest ways possible of focusing upon apprenticeship to Jesus. To be a disciple of Jesus is, crucially, to be learning from Jesus how to do your job as Jesus himself would do it. New Testament language for this is to do it “in the name” of Jesus.

Once you stop to think about it, you can see that not to find your job to be a primary place of discipleship is to automatically exclude a major part, if not most, of your waking hours from life with him. It is to assume to run one of the largest areas of your interest and concern on your own or under the direction and instruction of people other than Jesus. Most professing Christians today are left with the prevailing view that discipleship is a special calling having to do chiefly with full-time religious activities.

But how, exactly, is one to make one’s job a primary place of apprenticeship to Jesus? Not, we quickly say, by becoming the Christian nag-in-residence, the rigorous upholder of all propriety, and the dead-eye critic of everyone else’s behaviour. This is abundantly clear from a study of Jesus and of his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.

A gentle but firm noncooperation with things that everyone knows to be wrong, together with a sensitive, nonofficious, nonintrusive, non-obsequious service to others, should be our usual overt manner. This should be combined with inward attitudes of constant prayer for whatever kind of activity our workplace requires and genuine love for everyone involved.

As circumstances call for them, special points in Jesus’ teachings and example, such as nonretaliation, refusal to press for financial advantage, consciousness of and appropriate assistance to those under special handicaps, and so on, would come into play. And we should be watchful and prepared to meet any obvious spiritual need or interest in understanding Jesus with words that are truly loving, thoughtful and helpful.

It is not true, I think, that we fulfill our obligations to those around us by only living the gospel. There are many ways of speaking inappropriately, of course—even harmfully—but it is always true that words fitly spoken are things of beauty and power that bring life and joy. And you cannot assume that people understand what is going on when you only live in their midst as Jesus’ man or woman. They may just regard you as one more version of human oddity.

I knew of a case in an academic setting where at noon one professor very visibly took his Bible and lunch and went to a nearby chapel to study, pray and be alone. Another professor would call his assistant into his office, where they would have sex. No one in that environment thought either activity to be anything worth inquiring about. After all, people do all sorts of things. We are used to that. In some situations it is only words that can help toward understanding.

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One who does not know this way of ‘job discipleship’ by experience cannot begin to imagine what release and help and joy there is in it.
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But, once again, the specific work to be done—whether it is making ax handles or tacos, selling automobiles or teaching kindergarten, engaging in investment banking or holding political office, evangelising or running a Christian education program, performing in the arts or teaching English as a second language—is of central interest to God. He wants it well done. It is work that should be done, and it should be done as Jesus himself would do it. Nothing can substitute for that. In my opinion, at least, as long as one is on the job, all peculiarly religious activities should take second place to doing ‘the job’ in sweat, intelligence and the power of God. That is our devotion to God. (I am assuming, of course, that the job is one that serves good human purposes.)

Our intention with our job should be the highest possible good in its every aspect, and we should pursue that with conscious expectation of a constant energising and direction from God. Although we must never allow our job to become our life, we should, within reasonable limits, routinely sacrifice our comfort and pleasure for the quality of our work, whether it be ax handles, tacos or the proficiency of a student we are teaching.

And yes, this results in great benefit for those who utilise our services. But our mind is not obsessed with them, and certainly not with having appreciation from them. We do the job well because that is what Jesus would like, and we admire and love him. It is what he would do. We “do our work with soul [ex psyche], to the Lord, not to men” (Col. 3:23). “It is the Lord Christ you serve” (v. 25). As his apprentices, we are personally interacting with him as we do our job, and he is with us, as he promised, to teach us how to do it best.

One who does not know this way of ‘job discipleship’ by experience cannot begin to imagine what release and help and joy there is in it. And to repeat the crucial point: if we restrict our discipleship to special religious times, the majority of our waking hours will be isolated from the manifest presence of the kingdom in our lives. Those waking hours will be times when we are on our own in our job. Our time at work—even religious work—will turn out to be a ‘holiday from God.’

On the other hand, if you dislike or even hate your job, a condition epidemic in our culture, the quickest way out of that job, or to joy in it, is to do as Jesus would. This is the very heart of discipleship, and we cannot effectively be an apprentice of Jesus without integrating our job into the kingdom among us.

Adapted from The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard. (Adaption PDF)

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Other friends also have a business. They are well past being ready to retire and have been trying to sell their business for a couple of years. Their prayers seemed to be answered but the buyer dropped out. What is God doing?

The hidden God has you where you are for a reason. The bad things in life crush us to show us what we are. If good comes out, it is a fragrance that blesses and encourages everyone. If bad comes out, and we are like a lanced boil, we can still use it as a step towards obedience and healing in our lives and others. It’s better to be like the son who verbally disobeyed his father then thought better of it.

Mike Lawyer’s exhortation at ChristKirk on March 7 is encouraging:

The Bible tells us that until Jesus comes there will always be suffering. People close to us will die; as we grow older we will have to deal with impaired health; people will sin; there will be opportunities for you to become angry, battle evil desires, put up with frustrations, hide from fears, flee immorality, be confused, become defensive, suffer the cruelty of others, have interpersonal disasters, live in unstable conditions, be confronted with misery, have friends who are caught up in various kinds of substance abuse, and to be anxious about everything that the world throws at you.

The Bible also tells us that these events can be seen as opportunities to become victims, and to whine and grumble against the Lord. You are a victim. I don’t want to paint an inaccurate picture of what is happening to you or to those around you. You are suffering. You are indeed a victim.

But you may be suffering the onslaught of Satan, as Job was. You may be suffering the unjust treatment of your friends as David was. Or you may even be suffering the results of your own stubbornness and rebelliousness as the Israelites did over and over again throughout the Bible.

But the Bible never leaves the people of God in the role of a victim. The Bible tells us that God places these events in our lives as tests to see if we will serve the living God or if we will rebel and run to other gods.

One Greek word is translated test, temptation and trial. What this means is that every event we encounter can be used to drive us away from God or to draw us nearer to God.

This is why James tells us that we should consider it all joy when we encounter various trials. He says that coming through the trial in a victorious way will produce steadfastness and in the end will make us perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Paul tells us that we are to rejoice in our suffering because suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

How should we suffer? How should be live in the midst of an evil generation? How shall we respond to the misery we see around us? Turn to Jesus. Jesus has gone through all the same kinds of suffering you face. He knows what you think and feel. He is our High Priest and He intercedes on our behalf to the Father of lights. Turn to Jesus. Tell Him your troubles. Ask Him to strengthen you; to give you a new heart; to bring you comfort; to lift you up.

Take a friend with you. Take two friends. Jesus went to the garden with His friends and poured out His heart to the Father and in the process offered Himself to God as a fragrant offering. “Not My will, but Thy will be done.”

When everything goes wrong and God seems to have abandoned you, three certainties remain: God will never allow you to pass through something you cannot bear; your faithfulness or unfaithfulness will influence those around you; and if you belong to Him you will come out the other side as pure gold. Untested faith is not faith.

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Subscribe to the Christkirk podcast at www.christkirk.com

Some great quotes from an interview by Barbara Demarco-Barrett with author Mary Karr:

“[My young son] came flouncing in in his Power Ranger pyjamas and said “I wanna go to church.” I said “Why?” and he said, “To see if God’s there.” It was about the only sentence he could have said that would have gotten me to go. So we did this thing we called God-a-rama in which we went to various temples and mosques and zendos. I had no interest in going to church so I brought a latté and a paperback.

I was praying at the time. I was sober and the only way I seemed to be able to get sober was to pray. But I was praying to some kind of vague, I don’t know, what native Americans would call the Great Spirit but what Catholics would call the Holy Spirit; a force for good in the universe would be about all I could call it. So I was still a long way from conversion.”

“[At university] I went to every other church but the Catholic church due to its stance on choice for women, the fact that women can’t be priests… I guess I thought of it in very medieval terms. I thought of it solely in terms of the hierarchy and probably the Spanish inquisition! I had figured I would go for some free-wheeling, breezy hippy deal or something.

We went to a Midrash, a conservative temple, a zendo—which really wasn’t the place for an eight year old. But we ended up at the Catholic church. I don’t know what happened. I just stopped bringing a paperback. A couple of the Protestant churches I had gone to were so vague. It was kind of like, you know, “Today’s gospel is from Glamor magazine… It was like little hopeful things you might find in the Reader’s Digest, and I thought, well, there’s not much God here. And the episcopal church, which had women priests and so forth… the fact that they didn’t believe in evil, theologically… in a way that was more horrifying for me than the Spanish Inquisition! How can you not believe in evil? I knew I believed in evil long before I believed in any force for good.”

“What I loved about the Catholic church was the carnality. First off, the fact that there is an actual body on the cross. It’s so… meaty? You realise what a hunk of meat you are from the minute you walk in. And also (and I know this sounds incredibly nuts) but the way you kneel and stand up and pray. Everyone moves and says the same words the same way, you pray with other people in concert, breathing the prayers and saying them together. A lot of “cradle Catholics” complain about that stuff—you’re a sheep in a herd—but for me it was strangely comforting. Just going through the motions to be polite, kneeling and standing up—even with my cup of coffee and paperback—I realised, “My body bends the way these people’s bodies bend. I’m not so different than they are.” I found that when you read a poem that someone wrote a long time ago that you are breathing the way that person breathed. You are taking their words into your body. I guess it was a eucharistic quality even then that I was attracted to.

Also, it wasn’t the ritual. It was the faith of the people. When they would ask people to state their prayer intentions… I was very moved by people bringing their suffering and their hope together into this public place. I guess I really did think that when you spoke those things together, that it was something sacred.

Again, it was still very vague. I didn’t have much to do with Jesus at the beginning. When I stopped bringing the paperback and visited the peace and social justice committee, I noticed that the people who brought people over from El Salvador and did the prison ministry and ran the soup kitchen all talked about Jesus a lot. They were really into Jesus, and I thought, gosh, these are really nice people. They’re trying to get cribs for these people who don’t even speak English and trying to help them find jobs. They’re running an HIV hospice and bringing meals to people who are gay for God’s sake! I saw a lot of the lay tradition among the poor… which is not peculiar to Catholics, but I guess I just saw it first hand up close.”

You can hear the entire interview at the Pen on Fire podcast.

No, I’m not heading for Rome, ever. I have just found that Catholics often have a much healthier sense of the poetic “earthiness” of truth. Cerebral Protestants might understand sola fide better, but they don’t do mercy ministry like Rome does. There is much good in Rome despite its twisted doctrines and errant traditions that we must recover for Protestantism, or whatever this becomes. Much of it has been ditched by Protestantism since the Reformation, so I guess that is really what we should be drawing on. But who is living it out, in the flesh? This razor-humoured, delightful lady, who has been through some very tough times, experienced a miraculous work of God through some very godly people.

Disgraceland

BY MARY KARR

Before my first communion, I clung to doubt
as Satan spider-like stalked
the orb of dark surrounding Eden

for a wormhole into paradise.
God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,
injected by my dad’s smart shoot.

They swapped sighs until
I came, smaller than a bite of burger.
Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done

then the Lord sailed a soul
like a lit arrow to inhabit me.
Maybe that piercing

made me howl at birth,
or the masked creatures whose scalpel
cut a lightning bolt to free me.

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed
and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show
my fingers grow past crayon outlines,

my feet come to fill spike heels.
Eventually, I lurched out
to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,

and sulk around. Christ always stood
to one side with a glass of water.
I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough to ask,
a clear stream welled up inside,
some jade wave buoyed me forward,

and I found myself upright
in the instant, with a garden
inside my own ribs aflourish.

There, the arbor leafs.
The vines push out plump grapes.
You are loved, someone said. Take that

and eat it.

Source: Poetry (January 2004).