Where Are You Getting Your Life?
Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.—Jesus (John 5:40)Each one of us is born with a deeply rooted question: Do I matter? It comes in so many varied forms: Who am I? Do I make a difference? What is my worth? Am I significant? Our hearts are ever hungry, searching to find out, “Do I matter?”
” … earnestly I seek … I thirst … my whole being longs … in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”—David (Psalms 63:1)
Our very fall in the beginning revolved around an endeavor to, having been deceived about the character of our God, get “life” from a source other than the source we were originally intended to get our life from (i.e., eat and get life from our knowledge of good and evil).
In today’s Western individualistic culture, this reaching after, this hunger for worth, value, identity, and security (life) seeks to find its satisfaction from myriad different sources. Today folks seek to get life from either their success, their family’s approval, their social strata, possessions, sex appeal, and for some, even their religion. (Not God per say, but the way in which they worship, believe, or behave in relation to “God.”) Sadly, for many, it’s an endless pursuit of always feeling “hungry.”
One of the elements of the Kingdom Jesus came to establish was that this Kingdom offered a new source for humanity to get its worth (value), security (assurance), identity, and LIFE!
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”—Jesus (John 10:10)
“I am the way and the truth and the life.”—Jesus (John 14:6)
“Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”—Jesus (John 4:14)
This life would be rooted and grounded in a revelation of God and His character of Love (John 17:3) that would also speak volumes about our personal worth and value to God, which in turn would give us security and assurance, as well as meaning, purpose, and identity. This revelation of how deeply we are in the heart of God would begin to define us, and it would be this “getting life” from God’s estimation of every person on this planet that would characterize those who were a part of this new Kingdom. (I’ll speak more about this before we are done here.)
I want to take you through a little exercise and I want to encourage you to really put some effort into this. I want you to look at the following statements and try and decipher where the people in these situations are currently getting their life. Are you ready? Here goes:
• A couple with two kids purchases a bigger and more luxurious house than they need, even though it means they’ll both have to work more and see each other and the kids less.
• A Hindu woman prays to a shrine of Vishnu three times a day.
• Despite failing health, one of the world’s 950 or so billionaires continues to work fifteen or more hours a day and rarely takes vacations.
• A middle-aged man leaves his wife of twenty years to move in with a woman half his age. He also starts smoking cigarettes and driving a Harley.
• A perfectly normal-looking middle-aged woman spends a year’s salary on breast implants, a face lift, a tummy-tuck, and thigh reductions. She then becomes unsatisfied with the size of her lips and nose.
• A “Christian” group carries signs like “God hates fags” as they picket the military burial of a gay Marine.
• Despite having a sexually transmitted disease, a young woman compulsively engages in sexual intercourse with virtual strangers on a regular basis.
• One teen stabs another at school in retaliation for being publicly insulted.
• A pastor habitually gossips about others.
• A husband and father puts his family in financial distress by continuing to pursue his gambling addiction behind their backs.
• Even though she is a widely successful adult, a middle-aged woman cannot seem to break free from the tremendous need within her to continually gain her parents approval of all her activities.
Were you able to list some of the sources these people are using to try and get their life? In Jesus’s day, although sinners were wildly attracted and drawn to Jesus’s offer of a new source of life, the religiously conservative leaders were very strongly opposed. See if you can decipher where they were getting their life:
“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”—Jesus (John 5:39–40)
These well-meaning religious folks were seeking to get life from the rightness of their belief or the rightness of their behavior and religion, and when Jesus came offering Himself instead, they were so invested in the deceptive nature of religion that they rejected the very One who could have satisfied their hearts’ deepest longings. Jesus was calling us not into a religion, but a relationship. He came to establish a Kingdom.
As I close out this week, I want to ask you two separate but related questions:
1)How do you know how much something is worth?
Say a car, a house, or a work of art. How do you know how much it’s worth? Isn’t the worth of an item simply what someone is willing to pay for it?
2)How much would you say God is worth?
This is the tricky part. We can’t measure God’s worth. It’s infinite, immeasurable, even inestimable. But this is just the point. Dear reader, how much was God willing to lay on the line to risk to ransom YOU? Did not He empty Himself, risk it all, give up all, to save YOU? What does that say about you? How much was God willing to pay to get YOU? I submit to you this week that God gave all He was for you. That means, quite simply, that you, whoever you are right now, regardless of belief, race, gender, orientation, behavior, social strata, success, possessions, intelligence (or lack of it), or appearance, YOU right now at this very moment are worth everything to God. God made a statement on the Cross about You! Not only does the Cross reveal the truth about God, it reveals the truth about what your worth is to the God of this Universe. If God was willing to give all He had for you, that means simply, by the answer to question number one above, that YOU, in God’s heart right now, are of infinite, immeasurable, inestimable worth! Let THIS define you! THIS is the living water! Jesus told that lady at the well that day, “I know everything there is to know about you, and my offer is still on the table. You cannot quench what is in my heart for you.” When your heart grasps this truth, all other sources of life become “broken cisterns,”—empty, obsolete.
Understanding what God said about not only Himself but also about YOU, dear reader, is a foundational element of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a member of His Kingdom. This week, don’t fight it, don’t argue with it, just submit to it. Let what God says about YOU and your worth to Him on the Cross define you! Don’t settle for competing identities. Live in the Love that rages in God’s heart for you, and may it become a well spring of love that changes how you see and relate to all who are around you. Because, although He gave all just for you, He did the same thing for everyone else too. No wonder sinners were attracted to Jesus. And no wonder the religious people of His day crucified Him.
This week, in light of the value, worth, security, assurance, and identity Calvary’s Cross bestows on each one of you, bask in this love and reflect it to the world around you.
Keep building the Kingdom.
I love you guys (and God does so infinitely more),
Herb
An Easter eSight
“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” (1 Corinthians 15.1-8)With the majority of Western Christianity getting ready to celebrate Easter this upcoming weekend, I want to take some time this week and give an honest look at the resurrection. This is also one of the advantages of the Christus Victor Paradigm we have been looking at for the past few weeks. Contrary to Anselm’ penal substitutionary satisfaction, which tends to focus exclusively on Jesus’ death as the means or our salvation, the Christus Victor paradigm of the early church embraced a more holistic view that included the saving and atoning work of Jesus life, death AND resurrection!
I want to be upfront from the very beginning. The resurrection is probably the most difficult aspect of the whole Jesus story for me to embrace intellectually. I’m not saying I don’t believe it, I do. I’m just saying that believing it, on an intellectual level, doesn’t come easy for me. Personally, I have never met anyone who has died and come back to life. Death, in my experience so far, has been permanent. But, if I were not to believe Jesus’ resurrection to be true, by inference, I would either have to believe the Disciples were either lying about Jesus’ resurrection or that the Disciples were simply passing on something that had become exaggerated, something of a “legendary” nature.
After open mindedly considering what we do know, in light of the evidence that we do have, I find it even more difficult to believe the disciples were lying, and even more difficult than that is to believe they were simply passing down something that had become another legend. Difficult as it may be to believe the verity of the resurrection, to believe the story is a lie or a legend, I find, when compared with the evidence, even more irrational. I’d like to share with you, briefly, why I feel this way.
When it comes to Jesus’ resurrection, we have every reason possible, even though it is contrary to our postmodern naturalistic worldview, to believe it historically took place. Let me explain.
First of all, I’m not assuming that Paul and the Four Gospels are the inspired word of God, but I’m simply looking at them as ancient documents. We must remember the standard rule of historical methodology. When you are dealing with ancient documents that claim to write history and read like history, treat it like history. If a historian thinks that an ancient document that claims to write history and reads like history is not reporting history, then the burden of proof lies with the historian to prove it wrong. The burden is not on the document to prove itself right. If this were not true then our history books would be a lot thinner. Most of what we know happened in history only comes from one source and cannot be collaborated by another source. For example, almost everything we know about Ancient Judaism comes from only one source, Josephus, who wrote about his subject close to a century later. Almost everything we know about Alexander the Great comes from only one source, Arrian, who wrote four centuries (400 years!) later. Everything we know about the Persian Wars comes from just one source, Herodotus, who wrote about them 70 years later. Almost everything we know about the Middle Ages comes from just one source, St. Bede, who wrote 200 years afterward, as well. Pliny, Tacitus and Josephus tell us Jesus existed. Josephus mentions both James and Ananus. Josephus and Celsus tell us Jesus was a “wonder worker”. Josephus refers to Jesus as a wise man and teacher. Pliny tells us that Jesus’ followers considered him to be Divine. Tacitus, Lucian, and Josephus record the crucifixion. Tacitus and Josephus mention the role played by Pontius Pilate. Thallus even mentions the three-hour darkness that occurred during the crucifixion, which we spoke of in part four of our Christus Victor series. But, when it comes to Jesus’ actual resurrection, we have something very exceptional by historical standards. We have five accounts in the first 20 to 60 years, and 11 accounts within the first century.
The earliest account is Paul’s, that we began with above. This was written between 53-55 A.D. A hint of its early date is that Simon is referred to, not as Peter (later Greek) but as Cephas (early Aramaic). This could in fact indicate a very early origin. There are a few notable features of this account as well:
First, Paul uses the phrase, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance.” These words are technical rabbinic terms indicating Paul is passing along what is established holy tradition by this time. The vast majority of New Testament scholars affirm that this passage is an old creed that goes back as early as Paul’s visit to Jerusalem around 36 A.D., when he spent a couple of weeks with James and Peter (see Galatians 1). This places the resurrection as actually being something held as “Creedal” (confession of established belief) within only 2 or 3 years of the crucifixion itself. Within 2 or 3 years of occurring, the resurrection was already established early Creed. This makes the theory that the resurrection was a later exaggerated/legendary development highly improbable.
Second, Paul here states that Jesus appeared to more than 500 at the same time, most of whom were still living and could attest to the truth of what Paul was saying here. This makes the claim that the sightings of Jesus after the resurrection were mere hallucinations not just implausible, but impossible. I mean, 500 people see the same hallucination simultaneously?
In closing this week, I want to consider the words of the Apostle John himself. You can find John’s own account of the resurrection in John 20, but what I want to draw your attention to is John’s words in 1 John 1.1-5:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”
What makes John’s account striking is that this isn’t something John is claiming was passed down to him. This is his own first hand account of what he claims he himself saw. This is not legend. What John is passing on to us is either truly what he saw or, quite simply, John is lying. And honestly, as difficult as it is to believe that some guy came back to life, to believe that John is purposefully lying, when one considers the historical evidence (See the presentation online Why Think This Is True?), even secular scholars agree is highly implausible. To say the 11 were lying about all this, even secular scholars believe, is very unlikely. This is why many secular scholars believe that Gospel is “Legend” rather than “Lie”. (Yet the “Legend” theory, when viewed along side John’s statement above, is, in my opinion, equally irrational. It’s either true or a lie, but you can’t say the resurrection is legend. There are too many “eye witness” testimonies for this to be a Legend. You also don’t have enough time for a legend of this size and nature to develop. And you don’t have the kind of culture (First Century Monotheistic Jewish Palestine) that a legend like this would need in order to find fertile soil to grow and develop almost overnight. It can’t be legend. And almost all secular scholars agree that these early Jewish men weren’t lying. So if it’s not legend, and it’s not lie, something else has to be driving the rejection of the story of Jesus. (This, I believe, is the manner in which the story of Jesus has been abused throughout history by those who claimed to be believers, which is an entirely different, but much needed article.)
When the early accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are historically analyzed they exhibit every quality that sets them apart from legendary documents (minor differences in the details of the accounts, irrelevant details, counterproductive details, historically significant details, etc.) To simply reject the story of Jesus’ resurrection as legend instead of fact because it contains the supernatural, is in my opinion, biased. The Naturalistic Worldview (the absolute rejection of the supernatural or miraculous) is a theory. Natural laws are a description of what we generally find in nature. Natural laws are not prescriptions of what we must always find in nature. In other words, we all agree that the world generally runs in accordance with natural laws. But on what basis can anyone argue or even prove that it does so exhaustively, without there ever being exceptions to these so-called laws. Naturalism is not a conclusion that is based on evidence or reason, for neither evidence nor reason is exhaustibly available to warrant such an absolute conclusion. Naturalism is rather an assumption, a presupposition. The words of R.G. Collingwood in his book, The Idea of History, I believe are very applicable to the Naturalistic Worldview’s rejection of Jesus’ resurrection; “To the extent that one’s research and findings are based on prior dogmatic assumption, such research cannot be considered critical or scientific research.” (p. 139) The supernatural or miraculous, although difficult to explain, if it occurs, is an exception to natural laws, or something that, from our current vantage point, is beyond what our natural laws can explain. But they are not a contradiction to natural laws as some claim. There is much in this world that Science admits it cannot, yet, explain. (Light, entangled electrons, the relative nature of time, objects that, of recent, we have now discovered travel at speeds greater than the speed of light.) A truly open minded scholarly approach would be that when all available naturalistic explanations become implausible, we should consider explanations that go beyond our known natural laws.
With this in mind, it is my prayer that even someone who holds a generally naturalistic worldview (I am one, I will freely admit), might be able to embrace the plausibility of the resurrection of Jesus and all that this resurrection means to us today. But what does Jesus’ resurrection mean?
In the words of New Testament authors:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1.3)
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2.14, 15)
For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive . . . The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15.21-26)
If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6.5)
But it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Timothy 1.10)
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.7-14)
I want to be clear this week. I am not validating the way the story of Jesus has too often been used by the Christian religion throughout history to oppress others. I, too, am opposed to the abusive uses the story of Jesus has been victim to. It’s about a person, not a religion. What I am saying, the Christian religion’s history aside, the verity of the resurrection possesses greater plausible ease than any of its alternatives. And if Jesus’ resurrection be true, the resurrection of Jesus reveals a love that even death itself could not silence, could not kill, could not destroy, could not keep in a grave. Whoever you are, right now reading this, regardless of your race, gender, status, orientation, occupation or evaluation, you could not possibly be more loved than you are at this very moment. This week, in light of God’s indescribable, unquenchable love for you, live in this love! And go build the kingdom.
And for those of you who will be celebrating this weekend, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.”
All my love to you all,
Herb
Christus Victor (The Victory of Christ) – Part 4
At about three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (This means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) Matthew 27.46Part 4
This week I’d like to wrap up our four-part miniseries on the Christus Victory paradigm of understanding the purpose of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This has been an amazing journey for many of you. I can tell from the numerous paradigm shifts that have been expressed in the multitude of emails that have come in to the ministry over the last few weeks. I’m so happy for you. Truly, God is beautiful if we can only see Him as He really is.
This week, I want end by focusing on the Crucifixion narrative itself, especially the last three hours Jesus spent on the cross. We must remember that he was there for six hours. Most of what we know happened during the first three hours. When it comes to the last three hours, the Scriptures are strangely silent. I have a hypothesis about this, but it is far from being conclusive. I believe Jesus’ suffering on the cross had two dimensions; one was largely physical while the other was deeply psychological and emotional. It seems to me that during the first three hours on the cross, there was a concentration on the physical dimensions of His suffering. The disciples perceived and passed down to us what humanity was doing to Jesus on a physical level. But in the last three hours, something much more dark and sinister took place. This was suffering the disciples were not privy to because it took place in a realm beyond what they could perceive by merely observing externals. The only thing we know about these last three hours is that a haunting darkness enveloped Christ during that time. Then in the climax of this darkness, Christ cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He then whispered, “It is finished. Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.” And then He died. What are these last three sentences spoken by Jesus whispering to us? For me, this is the greatest and most meaningful revelation of the Christus Victor paradigm.
Closely follow the Crucifixion narrative concerning the last three hours:
From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land (Matthew 27.45).
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon (Luke 23.44).
What was this darkness? John provides a hint:
The light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1.5).
The personification of this darkness is striking. John adds that the darkness could not overcome Jesus. Luke’s record of the temptations of Jesus add another key element:
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from Him until an opportune time (Luke 4.13).
Jesus fully knew when this opportune time would occur. He saw the event on the cross as a time during which He and the strong man who claimed you and me as his possessions would meet again face to face, but this time, the controversy would be settled . . . forever. Notice, one final time, Jesus’ own interpretation of the purpose of His death:
“I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me . . .” (John 14.30).
“When a strong man, armed to the teeth, stands guard in his front yard, his property is safe and sound. But what if a stronger man comes along with superior weapons? Then he’s beaten at his own game, the arsenal that gave him such confidence hauled off, and his precious possessions plundered” (Luke 11.21,22, The Message).
“. . . now the prince of this world will be driven out” (John 12.31).
Paul also understood that this was the purpose of the cross:
There [Calvary] he disarmed the cosmic powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2.15).
This is what I believe these final three hours on the cross were all about. For three hours, Satan wrung the heart of Jesus with feelings of the Father’s disapproval, anger and abandonment. I want to be clear. I do not believe the Father Himself abandoned Jesus during these three hours for one moment. I do not believe the Father hid His face from His Son. But the Father’s reconciling face was hidden. I do believe the Father permitted this to be done, but this was done by the Enemy. The feelings of the Father’s disapproval, anger and abandonment were not the result of the Father’s activity, but that of the Enemy.
Imagine with me the amazement the angels felt as they witnessed the Savior’s struggle with the Enemy. Satan in these hours had only one goal: to break the will of Jesus at any cost. But why? Satan hoped he could force Jesus into a psychological corner where Jesus would choose to abandon you and me to him (our Accuser) in order to save Himself. In that thick darkness, the Accuser hid the Father’s presence from Jesus. And in that dreadful hour, Christ was made to feel as though He were completely alone without the comfort of knowing the Father was with Him. But it was to get even worse than this.
In this darkness, the agony and horror of His Father’s apparent abandonment, inflicted by the Enemy, wrung the heart of Jesus. No human eye could pierce the darkness that surrounded the cross, and none could penetrate the gloom that enshrouded the suffering soul of Christ. The angry lightning seemed to be hurled at Him as He hung upon the cross. Then “Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ or ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27.46). Jesus’ cry of abandonment is a direct quotation from Psalms 22 where the author of that Psalm himself also wrestles through feelings about the complete abandonment of God. As the outer gloom settled about the Savior, many voices exclaimed, “The vengeance of heaven is upon Him. The bolts of God’s wrath are hurled at Him because He claimed to be the Son of God” (cf. Matthew 27.43). He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for He said, ‘I am God’s Son.’”) Many who believed in Him heard His despairing cry. Hope left them. If God had forsaken Jesus, in what could His followers trust? Jesus heard all these words and their cruelty did it’s work.
The Father was there all along. However, Jesus had to face the Accuser alone. The Accuser must be given a chance to prove his accusations against God and us. The Father had to allow the Accuser to have his way with Jesus. And although the Father longed to break through with the assurance of His presence, acceptance, and love, Satan had to be permitted to pierce the soul of Jesus with feelings that the exact opposite was occurring. Again, why was it necessary that this be allowed to happen? The Accuser must be allowed to lead Jesus to a psychological and emotional place where Jesus would, according to the Accuser, choose to abandon us (to be the possession of our Accuser and with him, meet his fate) in order to save Himself(to escape an eternal death and separation from His Father.) The Accuser worked with all his might to break the will of Jesus and force Him to release His hold on us. Over and over the words had been repeated to Jesus through human voices that day; “Save Yourself!” (Matthew 27.40) Would the Accuser be proven right? If God is put into a corner, would He choose Himself over us? Selflessness is the very attribute the Accuser hates. He denies its very existence, both in God and in us. His claim from the beginning has always been that other-centeredness does not exist. And this was his chance to prove it!
How deep was this mental torment inflicted by the Accuser? Another Psalm provides this hint:
“. . I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, and they are cut off from Your hand . . .” (Psalms 88.4-5).
The Enemy made sure that the Savior could not see through the portals of the tomb. The Enemy made sure that hope was not present for Jesus to foresee His coming forth from the grave a conqueror. The Enemy enveloped Jesus both physically and psychologically so that nothing would be permitted to tell Him of the Father’s acceptance. The Accuser made Jesus fear that sin was so offensive to a holy God that if He chose to stand in solidarity with us, Jesus would be “separated” from His Father forever. And although this was a lie, the Accuser must be allowed to make Jesus feel this separation would be eternal.
And what resulted from this three hours of darkness? Pay close attention, because this is the reason that I am a follower of Jesus today. In this moment, Jesus looked down from the Cross into the eyes of one of the soldiers, holding the very hammer that had been used to drive the nails into His broken body. But in the soldier, Jesus did not just see this man alone. Jesus perceived us all, each of us, every member of the human family, including . . . me. In the human voices that had cried out for Barabbas over Him, in the demanding shouts screaming, “Crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him,” in the exclamation, “We have no King but Caesar,” He heard not just their voices but mine. He heard me. And even seeing all of this, including my total state of rebellion and rejection of Him, He understood that I was deceived. He understood that I “did not know” what I was doing. (Luke 23.34) And in those final moments when He was faced with the choice of His apparent “eternal separation” from His Father or abandoning me to the claims of the Accuser, for a reason I will never comprehend, He looked down, saw me, with the hammer in hand, and noticed “me” more than the “hammer,” and His love for ME surged. He knew what He must do. He did the only thing His heart would allow Him to do for me. He cried out, “It Is Finished! Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” He said those words with me in His heart. What do I believe He meant by those words? I believe He was saying:
“So be it. If it is to cost Me everything, even never seeing my Father’s reconciling face again, saying goodbye to life forever, even if I don’t come through the portal of the tomb in three days, even if it is to cost me my own eternal existence, I will not abandon you, Herb, to the Enemy. Even though on this day you have rejected me, I will NEVER reject you. I will never abandon YOU to him. You do not know what you are doing. And even if it costs me everything, I will not let go of my hold on you. You, Herb, could never quench what is in my heart for you (Song of Sol. 8.6,7). I love you, Herb; even with that very hammer in your hand, you matter more to me than that hammer in your hand. You cannot quench what is in my heart for you. Even if Heaven and Earth shall pass away, even Heaven itself is not a place that I desire to be if it requires abandoning you to your Accuser, leaving you to him. If I am faced with the decision of abandoning you to eternal ruin in order to save myself or saving myself by letting go of you, my decision is cast. It is done. It is finished. I will not, at any cost to myself, abandon you. If the enemy wants me, fine, let Him have ME, but I will not let Him have YOU!” And He bowed His head, for me, and died.
I have never, in all my years, seen such utter and complete self abandonment for me as I see revealed by this man on a Roman Cross. And if this man, hanging there is God? (John 14.9) I am left without words. Take heaven and hell away from me, these are motives far too small. Give me just one life to live, and, based on the beauty of His love for me that I see in Him hanging there, I would spend that life, with every waking moment, endlessly endeavoring to love Him back with the same reckless abandon that He so beautifully loved me.
We must remember that God did not die to spend eternity with you and me. He died to free us from the Enemy so that we could have eternity instead of Him. He bowed His head and died in the most extravagant, radical, other-centered, self-sacrificing act in all of universal history. God became us and did not see Himself as having greater importance than ourselves. And through this selfless act, He utterly and completely defeated the Enemy. The Enemy’s claims were undone. God received acquittal from the Accuser’s charges, and we were also acquitted of the Accuser’s charges (Romans 5.18, REB). The Enemy was disarmed and became a public spectacle in both facets of His work that we have entertained in this miniseries. (Colossians 2.15). Three days later, defeating even death itself, Christ was raised, incorruptible (Hebrews 2.14). The Devil’s power broken. The Kingdoms of this world were now the Kingdom of our God. And although the coronation was still yet future, Christ was raised, forever victorious. He is, to me, forever Christus Victor!
I love you, Jesus! Thank you, thank you, thank you for how You selflessly love me.
Whoever you are reading this right now, whatever you are or whatever you have done, you could not possibly be more loved than you are at this very moment. He loves you will everything He has. You have been ransomed my dear friend! You have been REDEEMED!
Let your excuses for not believing be crucified. Choose, right now, to live in the radical, other-centered, self-sacrificial love that dwells in God’s heart for you. Surrender to it, and surrender also to being a conduit of that love for others around you, and go build the Kingdom!
Long live Christ the Victorious! He is my Savior, my Redeemer, my God, the Lover of my soul, forever, my . . . Friend.
I am overwhelmed.
I love you guys.
I’ll see you next week.
Christus Victor (The Victory of Christ) – Part 3
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.—Hebrews 2.14.Part 3
This week, I thought I was going to be concluding a three-part series, but I’ve decided it needs at least one more eSight next week, so this is part three of what is now our four-part eSight series on the Christus Victor paradigm of interpreting the purpose of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. If you’ve been with me for the last two weeks and you’re still with me, let me first say thank you for taking an interest in this subject, and I pray that what I am about to share will “click” for you, the coin will drop into the slot, and your heart will grasp, on a deeply profound level, how radical, self-sacrificial, and other-centered God’s love for you truly is. Let’s begin.
First, I want to start with the purpose for what theologically is called the Incarnation. In-carne. It means “in the flesh”. What made God “become flesh” (John 1.14)? First and foremost, I believe the answer is given to us by the author of the book of Hebrews:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil. Hebrews 2.14.
We must go all the way back the beginning, to the Genesis narrative. Here we find a man, a woman, a snake, and a tree. Now, I know the problems this story produces for my brothers and sisters out there with a post-modern, naturalist worldview (talking snakes and all), but whether you believe this story is to be taken literally or whether you believe it’s there simply to teach a spiritual lesson, all will agree that there is a truth within this story to be grasped. The snake says to Eve, “Can you not eat of the trees of the garden?” Eve then proceeds to explain, “No, we can eat of all the other trees; we are simply not to eat of just this one, for God has said we are not to eat from it or touch it or we will die.” The response of the snake to Eve’s explanation is where we pick up their conversation:
The serpent then says to the woman, “You won’t die. God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Him, knowing good and evil. . . . she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3.4-6.
Remember from the last two eSights that Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil (1 John 3.8). What exactly was the Devil up to in this story? As we said last week, the Devil’s work was two-faceted. The first facet was to corrupt our picture of God, our belief in what type of a being God was. Then, the second facet would be easy. Based on this underlying deception regarding God’s character, the Devil would lead us to rebel against this “God” and follow him instead. And it worked! Consider the claim that the Devil made to Jesus in the wilderness:
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me [by Adam and Eve long ago in the garden], and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Luke 4.5-7 (emphasis added).
Jesus does not dispute the Accuser’s claim over us here. Jesus himself repeatedly refers to the Devil as “the ruler of this world”:
“. . . now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” — John 12.31
“. . . the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” — John 14.30
“. . . because the ruler of this world has been judged.” — John 16.11
The apostle John calls him the Accuser, who accuses us before God day and night, accusing us of rebellion against God, of following him, and therefore, belonging to him.
Revelation 12.10, 11 — “. . . the Accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night. . .”
This is where we enter the subject. Once again, meditate on the following passage:
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2.14).
We shared last week how Christ death destroyed the first facet of the Devil’s work. But how did the Cross destroy this second facet of the Devil’s work (1 John 3.8)? What I am about to share with you I will freely admit has been abused by some when used within Anselm’s penal substitutionary paradigm. However, when we seek to understand these same realities from within the Christus Victor paradigm of first-century Christianity, they reveal that the Cross was a dramatic rescue mission which in turn shines bright with brilliant rays the beauty of the radical, other-centered, self-sacrificial love of our God in His Son, Jesus Christ.
The answer to our question is actually hidden right there within our passage. God would share in our flesh-and-blood humanity. But not just as another son (or daughter) of Adam. No, no, God would join us as a new, a second, the last “head” of our flesh-and-blood human race. God would become incarnate not just as one of us living among us. Our incarnate God would come to us as the “Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15.45).
Follow carefully what this really means. There is a sense, within the culture of the Old Testament, that ancestors and their descendants were connected as one. Two Biblical examples will suffice to illustrate this:
“The children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’ So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger’” (Genesis 25.22-23).
The Lord does not tell Rebekah that she has “twins” and that these two “twins” are wrestling within her womb. The Lord tells Rebekah that she has “two nations” in her womb. Forgive the crudeness of my illustration, but either this woman is the largest pregnant lady ever seen (literally two nations inside her womb?) or something else is at work here. Look closely at my second example:
“One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham” (Hebrews 7.9).
Levi is Abraham’s great grandson, but when Abraham gives tithes to the priest Melchizedek, Levi is considered as having paid tithe to him, too. This is how the author of Hebrews proves that the priesthood of Levi is subservient to the priesthood of Melchizedek (see Hebrews 7, where Christ, a priest of the Melchizedek priesthood, is shown to be of a greater priesthood than Levi’s, but this is a tangent to our present discussion).
But what does all of this mean when we apply it to God’s becoming incarnate and coming to us as the new head of the human race? It means that all of us are, in a sense, connected to God now, too, with him being our new “Adam.” Watch how Paul puts it and please keep in mind the two nations, represented by Esau and Jacob, as well as how Abraham represents even his great-grandson Levi.
“For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Corinthians 5.14).
Whatever God incarnate as our “Adam” (Jesus Christ) did, please don’t miss this: you are seen as having done it, too. You see, just as Jesus Christ was a living revelation of God as a being of radical, other-centered, self-sacrificial love, Jesus Christ was also a living revelation of what you and I (the human race) would have been had we not been deceived in regard to our understanding of God in the garden long ago. The difference between Jesus and us was not that he wasn’t human but, rather, that he was a human with the right understanding of God’s character left intact. It was His understanding of His Father’s character that caused Him, even though He was human, to live a radically self-sacrificial, other-centered life, (John 5.19) even to the point of death, even death on a cross:
“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be held on to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human likeness, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2.6-8).
Note that Jesus did this not only as a revelation of God’s character but also as a revelation of what humanity would have been had they not been deceived regarding God’s character. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13.1). Again, this not only shows how radically other-centered and selfless God really was but also how radically other-centered and selfless we too would have been had we not been lied to and deceived concerning “God.” The Cross reveals not only God but the truth about you and me as well. And what was the result?
“It follows, then, that, as a result of one misdeed (our original Adam’s) was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act (our new Adam’s) is acquittal and life for all” (Romans 5.18).
Did you catch that? The Cross resulted in acquittal for all. Acquittal and pardon are not the same. Pardon means you are guilty of rebellion but pardoned. THAT is not acquittal. If someone is acquitted of charges that have been brought against them, they are shown to be not guilty but innocent. They are shown to be not deserving of punishment. Our Accuser, who accuses us before God day and night, is accusing us of rebellion against “God” and of following him, thus deserving to share in the same fate. What Jesus proved is that, yes, humanity has rebelled, but humanity’s rebellion is different. It is one thing to know God truly and rebel. It is quite another matter to be deceived by the Accuser about the character of God and to rebel thinking that the lies you’ve been told about God are true. An example of this is modern atheism in the wake of the misrepresentation that Christianity has also given regarding what kind of a person God really is. What Calvary proved is that humanity’s rebellion against “God” and choice to follow Satan was rooted in deception and, therefore, cannot be proven to be legitimate or genuine. Remember, acquittal means that the charges have been dropped, accusations regarded as unfounded. Our rebellion has been shown to be based on deception rather than truth; therefore, it is invalid. The human race is to be forgiven its rebellion, not punished for it, for that rebellion has been, from the very beginning, based not on reality; rather, “they did not know what they were doing” (see Luke 23.34). Again, look carefully at Paul’s words in Colossians 2.14-15:
“He has canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross, having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2.14,15).
He “cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness.” He showed the charges against us by our Accuser to be false. He showed us to be deserving of acquittal rather than punishment. He proved the Accuser’s claim over this world, including us, to be invalid. Far from forcing us to suffer our penalty, He cancelled the legal charges that we were even deserving of a penalty to begin with, thereby disarming the Devil and making a public spectacle of him, triumphing over him by the Cross! What the Cross proved was that the “sale” of this world and its inhabitants by Adam to the Devil was based on a lie; therefore, the sale is seen to be invalid and, therefore, cancelled. The property will now be taken back from the Devil and returned to its rightful owner.
“When a strong man, armed to the teeth, stands guard in his front yard, his property is safe and sound. But what if a stronger man comes along with superior weapons? Then he’s beaten at his own game, the arsenal that gave him such confidence hauled off, and his precious possessions plundered” (Luke 11.21-22, The Message).
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down’” (Revelation 12.10).
Look closely at how the first-century church understood this:
“And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2.9-10).
“Jesus Christ, who is now at the right hand of God, having entered heaven and received the submission of angels, authorities, and powers” (1 Peter 3.21-22, REB).
The prophecy had been foretold, “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3.15). In the narrative of the Cross, we see this prophecy come true. God, through the person of His Son Jesus Christ, “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves” (Colossians 1.13).
This facet of the Christus Victor paradigm, I believe, profoundly affects us in three very real ways. First and foremost, it dramatically affects what we begin to believe is really in God’s heart toward us. Notice Paul’s insight in the following passage. Up until the cross, God had left us, according to Paul, unpunished for our rebellion. God knew that our rebellion was not genuine, but this would not be proven until the Cross. Up until the Cross, you must picture the Accuser, face to face with God, claiming dominion over us and, therefore, deserving his same fate. These were the Accuser’s demands and yet God continually refused to punish. This would lead the Accuser to also then accuse God of being unjust in leaving us unpunished. Remember, “justification” or “to justify” is a legal term that means a declaration of innocence, not deserving of punishment, not guilty. Now read the following passage:
“God did this [the Cross] to demonstrate his justice [in leaving our sins unpunished], because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it [the Cross] to demonstrate his justice [He wasn’t ignoring our rebellion, rather He knew our rebellion was not founded on truth but deception] at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies [declares not guilty, innocent, and not deserving of punishment] those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3.25,26).
God’s heart toward us has always been one of forgiveness, for He has known all along that we did not know what we were doing (Luke 23.34). For clarification’s sake, we must not go too far and say that the Cross proves that, if we all knew the truth, we would all love. If we all knew the truth, we would still be free to return God’s love or to refuse it. What the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus proved is that humanity is capable of emulating God’s radically other-centered love if we can only see what the truth concerning who and what our God really is. Again, the Cross demonstrated what humanity would have been had we not been deceived into rebellion in the garden long ago. Thus, it cancels all accusations of the Accuser.
Second, and this is truly life changing, it changes the way we look at everyone else around us, too:
“For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died . . . From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view.” (2 Corinthians 5.14-16, emphasis added).
We do not have the capacity to know how much others are really accountable for and what they are not. How much do others really understand and know about what they are doing? None of us asked to be born, much less to be born into the situations that many of us find ourselves in. Each one of us has a life story. It is not simply that God tells us not to judge one another; if the revelation of the Cross is true, then we don’t even have the ability to judge one another correctly. Society may need to put some of us away to keep us from hurting others and ourselves, but in the larger scheme, God only knows how much each person is really accountable for and how much they are not. This is the root of why he tells us not to judge but, rather, to love as indiscriminately as the sun shines and the rain falls (see Matthew 5.44-45).
Finally, a healthy interpretation of the Christus Victor paradigm, affects how we see ourselves, and this is where the truth concerning both God and you at the Cross has the ability to save you from the intrinsic death that sin produces. Listen to me carefully. If God can forgive you, can’t you forgive yourself, too? Let it go. Do not allow your guilt and shame to define you any longer. God isn’t defining you by your past mistakes, so why should you? He loves you. He forgives you. It’s time for you to forgive you, too. He knows that humanity’s rebellion is rooted and grounded in the reality that our picture of God has been corrupted and that we do not really know what we are doing. It’s time for you, too, to let go of your guilt and embrace His acquittal. “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9.14, emphasis added.)
The God of this universe became us not simply to defend our innocence but to take on our Accuser face to face and prove it. He not only challenged the Accuser’s claim over us but won the challenge! We are no longer the claim of the Enemy. We have an Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous! He is our matchless Savior! He is Christus Victor! Christ, the Victorious! Christ our rightful King!
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power . . . His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed” (Daniel 7.13-14, emphasis added).
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies [declares innocent, not guilty, not deserving of punishment]. Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us [against our Accuser]. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers [cf. Colossians 2.15, Ephesians 6.21], neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8.31-39, emphasis added).
He gave Himself as a ransom for you, dear reader. Go live in His radical self-sacrificial love this week, and GO BUILD THE KINGDOM!
I love you guys. We’ll wrap this up next week with one final facet.
Herb
Christus Victor (The Victory of Christ) – Part 2
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.—2 Corinthians 5:19Part 2
This week, I’d like to address what I consider to be the first facet of the Christus Victor paradigm. Remember from last week, this paradigm, rather than interpreting the Cross as somehow appeasing something within God, views the purpose of the Cross (and Jesus’ entire life) as “to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8) Notice the event of the Cross itself was according to God’s purpose or plan. Where this produces not a few philosophical questions that need answered under the “punishment” paradigm of viewing the Cross, the following text about the physical details of the Cross becoming increasingly meaningful when you realize that God’s purpose or plan was to defeat the Devil.
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” (Acts 4:27,28)
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a Cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” (Acts 2:22)
Again, notice the focus of intent in the following statement by Jesus regarding what God was up to in the death of Jesus:
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” (John 12:31)
The Accuser claim’s to possess the dominion (to be the ruler) of this world.
“And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.” (Luke 4:5,6)
This was done in the decisions made in the garden long, long ago. Satan’s work is two-fold: 1) Corrupt our picture of God so that 2) we rebel against that “God” and follow him instead. And it worked! (See Genesis 3:1-6) Notice the way the Apostles and Jesus put it:
“The whole world is under the control of the evil one.” (1John 5:19)
“. . . the prince of this world . . .” (John 16:11)
“I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me.” (John 14:30)
The work of the Devil is two-faceted and therefore so must be his defeat. Jesus’ entire life was spent with this sole endeavor: not to appease an angry God so that we could be let into heaven—no, no—but to defeat the Devil and it would climax in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission.” (Luke 13:32)
Jesus knew full well what He was doing:
“When a strong man [the Devil], fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger [Himself] attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.” (Luke 11:21,22)
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:52-53)
Remember the first work of Jesus was to destroy the lies, concerning the Father, the Accuser had spread throughout humanity and which lay at the foundation of our “rebellion.” Remember, our rebellion was not like the Accuser’s. Our rebellion against God was based on a belief in God being something that God is not. It is one thing to know God and then rebel. It is quite a different matter to be deceived about the character of God and rebel thinking those lies to be true. All of us have been deceived. And it was toward breaking the power of this deception that Jesus first turned.
“He [Satan] is a liar and the Father of lies.” (John 8:44; cf. Genesis 3:1-6)
“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I came to this hour. ‘Father, glorify Your name [character/who you really are].'” (John 12:27,28)
“Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You . . . This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do . . . I have manifested Your name [character / who you really are] . . .’” (John 17:1-6)
It was to manifest God’s glory that Jesus was first and foremost going to the Cross. God’s glory is simply His love put on display. And love would shine brightest hanging on a Roman Cross. But just what would the Cross reveal about God? Space here does not permit me to go into detail at length, but I would recommend going back and re-reading the eSight which began this discussion and the need for this current series of eSights dated January 31, 2012.
Remember, Jesus did not portray the Creditor in Luke 7 as going out and finding someone to pay the debtor’s debt in their stead. Rather, Jesus portrayed the Creditor as simply and frankly forgiving them their debt.
“And when they [two debtors] had nothing to pay, he [their creditor] frankly forgave them both” (Luke 7:42 KJV)
Some see the purpose of Jesus’ Cross as the means whereby Jesus could pay the Father for our sins. But a crude illustration of this kind of logic will suffice to show just one of the multiple philosophical questions this creates. Say you steal $1,000 from me. And my wife contacts you and assures you that she will take responsibility for what you have stolen. She assures you that she will pay me back the amount you stole. Then she takes our joint checking account, the account where she and I are financially “one,” and writes a check to me, in the amount of $1,000, places your name in the memo, and signs her name on the bottom of the check. She then rips the check out of the checkbook and hands it to me and says, “There. $1,000 repaid.” Because she and I are financially one, I still have not been “repaid” anything. I’m still out $1,000. Jesus said:
“I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
We are not to look at Jesus as doing something to the Father, but rather, whatever we see Jesus doing, we are to see the Father doing that very thing IN Jesus.
“Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you are not just My own. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work.” (John 14:10 NIV)
Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
This changes everything about the Cross. Ponder for a moment what you know about the nature of forgiveness. If 100 people steal money from you and you choose to forgive every single last one of them, how many people would suffer? Just one. And who would it be? Would it be those who had stolen the money or would it be YOU the one who is forgiving them for the money they stole? “But why?” someone may ask. Because whenever you choose to not count what those 100 people have done to you against them—when you choose to forgive them—what you are really saying is that you will simply bear their theft so they can go free.
When you choose to forgive, you choose to pay the intrinsic cost of letting them off the hook. In this case, it would be the total amount stolen by all 100 people. Ponder for a moment the nature of what forgiveness really is. Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone—when you want to do so with all your being—is agony. It is a form of suffering. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it, completely on yourself instead of taking it out on the other person. It hurts terribly. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way: “Everyone who forgives someone bears the other’s sin.”
Now apply this to the following statement from the apostle Paul:
“God was in Christ [Christ was not doing something to the Father, nor was the Father doing something to Christ; rather the Father was actually in His Son in the events we see on the Cross] reconciling the world to Himself [Remember we were the ones who had rebelled against Him. We were the ones needing to be won back], not counting their trespasses against them [revealing that His heart toward them had always been one of Forgiveness]. (2 Corinthians 5:19)
Again:
“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32) (emphasis added)
Suspended between heaven and earth, Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). Jesus understood that being deceived is a valid basis for extending forgiveness. We do this for those around us every day, too. What Calvary reveals, in contrast to the lies of the Accuser, first, is that God is not the Tyrant demanding our punishment that He has been purported to be. In Fact, God has always been looking at the human race with eyes full of forgiveness. Let us note that God does not forgive us because of the Cross. He neither needed the Cross to move Him toward forgiveness nor did He need the Cross to allow Him to forgive us. No, God instead was at the Cross demonstrating His forgiveness.
We must also not limit God’s forgiveness to simply the event of the Cross. Rather, the Cross is a revelation to us of the forgiveness that has been in God’s heart toward us from the very inception of our rebellion. God’s attitude toward us has always been of forgiveness, for we did not know what we were doing. The revelation of God we get, when we allow the light of Calvary to dispel all of the lies of the Accuser, is that God looks like Jesus.
In Jesus, we do not see a God demanding the death of His enemies, but rather, we see a God dying at the hands of His enemies with a heart overflowing with forgiveness toward His enemies all the while. God is neither severe nor unforgiving. In Jesus, God is neither a harsh judge, nor an exacting creditor. The God in Jesus is a God of radical, indiscriminate, non-condemning, other-centered, self-sacrificial love. (I think I just heard the angels break forth in song.) If any of us are lost in the end, it will not be because we didn’t do enough to convince God to forgive us—it will be because we never believed how truly and genuinely, in the heart of God, we had been forgiven. “Believe not God is in your heart child, but rather that you’re in the heart of God.”
The Cross was not necessary for God to forgive us. Instead, the Cross was necessary to defeat and destroy the works of the Devil.
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.” (Hebrews 2.14)
Again, this is only what I consider to be the first facet of how Jesus was victorious (Christus Victor) over the Accuser. Remember, just revealing the truth to us would not be enough. Even if we did see our deception and repent, the Accuser would still (because we have “rebelled” against “God” and chosen to follow him) claim dominion over this world, including us.
“And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.'” (Luke 4:5,6)
“When a strong man [the Devil], fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger [Himself] attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.” (Luke 11:21,22)
It was to defeat the Devil in regard to this second facet that we turn next week.
Keep living in God’s radical self-sacrificial love. Remember we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Keep building the Kingdom.
I love you guys.
Herb
Christus Victor (The Victory of Christ) – Part 1
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” — John 12.31Part 1
I have gotten so much positive feedback from last week’s eSight! I’m so humbled by the encouraging emails that have come in. Also, I’ve gotten a lot of really good and very thoughtful questions. Most of the questions, I have noticed, have one thing in common: they are rooted and grounded in Anselm’s paradigm of defining the Atonement by contrast to the paradigm I was writing from, hence the questions. Let me quickly and simply explain what I mean by this. Within Christianity today, there are actually three acceptable paradigms in which to interpret the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection on our behalf. The oldest paradigm, going all the way back to Jesus, the Apostles, and the first few centuries of Christianity, is the paradigm of Christus Victor. (Latin for Christ is “Victor”, I’ll explain what this is at the end of this eSight.) The second paradigm appeared in its fully developed form in 1097 in a book written by Anselm of Canterbury, a Benedictine monk who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. It must be noted that, although he was a latecomer to the party (a thousand years after Christ and the Apostles), his views regarding the purpose of Christ’s atoning work would become the central belief in medieval Christianity and much of the theology of the Protestant Reformation. His teaching regarding the purpose of Christ’s death is the paradigm many Christians are raised in. Many mistakenly believe that Anselm’s way of interpreting the Cross is their only option and, in all fairness, Anselm’s views are not all bad. Many have come to a deep abiding love and appreciation for Christ and His Cross through Anselm’s paradigm. However, in an effort to be very honest as well, many have been driven to atheism by Anselm’s views, too. Anselm’s view came to be known as penal substitutionary atonement (I’ll explain this a little more in a moment). It is important to realize that Anselm’s theories are not the only acceptable Christian option when it comes to interpreting the purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection. Finally, in the seventeenth century, a reformer named Hugo Grotius developed a view that interpreted Christ’s suffering as being for the purpose of God revealing to us the consequences of sin with the hope of inspiring holiness in living. The cross, according to Grotius, preserved God’s moral government. Therefore, this paradigm is called the moral government theory. Other views have existed in Christian history (such as Abelard’s moral influence theory) but these three (Christus Victor, penal substitutionary atonement, and the moral government theory) are acceptable ways of interpreting Jesus’ death and resurrection within Western Christianity today.
Again, most of the questions that came in to RHM last week were a result of trying to understand many of my statements from within Anselm’s penal substitution model rather than from within the paradigm I myself subscribe to, which is the early Christian Christus Victor model. I want to be clear: I do not think that those who subscribe to Anselm’s penal substitution model are any less in love with Jesus or any less committed to Him. I deeply believe that our fellowship with one another should be based, first and foremost, on our common love for Jesus and our commitment to love and serve Him and others. Doctrinal agreement is secondary and something we are all in the process of reaching. On a personal level, I have what I consider fundamental and philosophical questions concerning some of the presuppositions that Anselm’s views are based on. I vowed years ago never to teach or preach something if I did not, at the very minimum, first have, at the very minimum, my own questions answered concerning it. I feel most at home understanding the statements made by the New Testament authors (including Paul) when I read them from within the Christus Victor paradigm. However, many of you have sincerely shared that you are not familiar with this model, having been raised, much like I was, with Anselm’s theory as the only explanation available. Therefore, I’d like to spend this and the next two (maybe three) eSights sharing with you what the Christus Victor paradigm actually is and some of the truly revolutionary and heartwarming reasons that I feel it most eloquently brings forth the beauty of God’s character of love. I will be keeping this simple rather than involving the complexity that is usually associated with atonement theory comparisons. I also want to say that, although I will give careful consideration to an appeal to reason and intellectual honesty, these next few eSights will be addressing this topic from the point of view of why-it-matters, a “heart” level of discussion, rather than strictly the typical dry, cerebral, and intellectual one that puts many of us to sleep within the first few sentences. So buckle your seat belts; here is a brief introduction, to be continued next week.
First, Jesus saw Himself going to the cross primarily to confront the Devil. He saw His mission to destroy Satan and his works.
John 12.31 — Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
John 14.30 — I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me.
Luke 11.21,22 — When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.
I want to be very clear here. I know the problems that this view produces for many of our post-modern, naturalistic thinkers in today’s society. As a follower of Jesus, I continue to revisit the historical evidence that I myself have come to base the intellectual foundation of my own faith in Jesus upon. And although I will be the first to agree that, yes, a belief in the devil or Satan has been grossly abused. Many accuse Christians of inventing the devil to absolve themselves of guilt (“the Devil made me do it.”) However, as a follower of Jesus, I cannot deny that Jesus Himself taught that there actually is an Enemy, and it was defeating this Enemy that His entire ministry was centered on and that His death and resurrection would climax in. This is the Christus Victor paradigm. The penal substitution model focuses exclusively on the theory that Jesus’ death was a payment of God’s penalty for sin (sin that I couldn’t help but participate in ? no one can go from birth to the grave without sinning at least once ? a situation I didn’t ask to be born into; a situation that I can’t save myself from, and yet a situation that somehow I am supposed to be punished for. If this doesn’t make sense to you, welcome to the club. This is my most significant question personally about what Anselm taught). The Christus Victor paradigm takes very seriously the claims and accusations of the “Accuser” and presents the death and resurrection of Jesus as God’s means of overthrowing both (Revelation 12.10). In Anselm’s view, the purpose of Jesus’ death was to appease God. In the Christus Victor paradigm, the purpose Jesus’ death and resurrection was to overthrow and destroy the work of the Devil. This is how the Apostles put it:
1 John 5.19 — We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
Ephesians 6.12 — For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
1 John 3.8 — The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
Colossians 2.15 — And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Hebrews 2.14 — Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil.
This understanding of the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection goes all the way back to the beginning in the Genesis narrative:
Genesis 3.14, 15 — So the LORD God said to the serpent, “. . . He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
This, again is the purpose, in Jesus’ and the Disciples’ view, of Jesus’ ministry:
Luke 13.10-15 — On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
Acts 10.38 — How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
Again, this, in Jesus’ view, was the purpose of His death and resurrection:
Luke 13.32 — He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission.’”
THIS is the Christus Victor paradigm. Throughout the centuries, those who have held this view have always been united in the notion that this was the purpose of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection. How Jesus was victorious over the enemy has not always met with such a unified understanding by those who hold this view. In my personal understanding, there are two ways in which Jesus destroyed the work of the Devil. On one hand, Jesus’ life and death centered on revealing the character of the Father in opposition to the lies that had been propagated concerning Him by the Enemy (the Accuser). One the other hand, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection also revealed something very significant about you and I that would defeat the accusations of the Enemy and his claims over us as well. With both hands, the accuser was disarmed and made a public spectacle of (Colossians 2:15). Both of these facets of defeating the accuser contain radically life-transforming insights into God’s radical, self-sacrificial, and other-centered love. Both of these leave the human heart in awe, saying, “Behold what manner of love the Father has for me.” Both of these facets awaken in the believer the deeply profound longing to “no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us and rose again” (1 John 3.1; 2 Corinthians 5.14).
It is to the first of these two facets that we will turn our attention next week.
Remember this week that YOU are loved far more than you will ever fathom. In the light of God’s radical, indiscriminate, selfless, humble, and other-centered love, love like this.
Keep building the kingdom. I love you guys.
I’ll see you next week.
Herb
Forgiveness versus Payment (Part 2 of 2 – Appendix)
“He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted, But . . .” (Isaiah 53.3,4)I have a dear friend named Ian who sent me this tonight in response to today’s eSight article. It resonated with me on such a deep level that I though I would pass it on to you. This is a systematic chronology compiled by my friend. I pray it moves you as it did me.
The Systematic Rejection of Jesus Christ
Three Years Before His Death
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20-21)
Two Years Before His Death
For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:18)
One Year Before His Death
When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? they asked. Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor. (Matthew 13:53-57)
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. (Matthew 12:13-14)
While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.” (Matthew 9:32-34)
Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.” (Matthew 12:22-24)
When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. What do you want with us, Son of God? they shouted. Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time? Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region. (Matthew 8:28-34)
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (John 6:60-66)
Nine Months Before His Death
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (Matthew 16:21)
When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. (Matthew 17:22-23)
Six Months Before His Death
After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. (John 7:1)
For even his own brothers did not believe in him. (John 7:5)
“Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?” (John 7:19-20)
I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. (John 8:37)
As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. (John 8:40)
Two Months Before His Death
Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matthew 20:17-19)
Last Week before death
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (Matthew 21:45-46)
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. (Matthew 22:15)
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Matthew 22:33-37)
3 Days before death
When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. “But not during the Feast,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people. (Matthew 26:1-5)
Then one of the Twelve the one called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. (Matthew 26:14-16)
21 Hours before death
And while they were eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.” They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely not I, Lord?” Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “Yes, it is you.” (Matthew 26:21-25)
Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” “But after have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” He went away a second time and prayed, My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. “Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Matthew 26:31-46)
16 Hours before death
“But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. (Matthew 26:56)
9 Hours before death
Now it was the governor’s custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.” But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered. “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!” “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood, he said. “It is your responsibility!” All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:15-25)
From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, “If you let this Man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” (John 19:12)
But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. (John 19:15)
5 Hours before death
Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, I am the Son of God” In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. (Matthew 27:38-44)
Minutes before death
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
My friend Ian wrote,
“The soldiers were surprised to find him dead and pierced his side to make sure it was true (John 19:33, 34). The blood and water that came out indicated that his heart had physically ruptured from the emotional rejection and stress he experienced. Pilate was also surprised that Jesus was dead (Mk 15:44,45). Episodically, Jesus was valued by individuals and the crowds but eventually he was emotionally rejected by ALL. He died the loneliest death ever witnessed on the planet. His death was not the result of physical torture, extreme as it was, but emotional heart break or dark depression. It was not a mechanical execution like a lamb being sacrificed, but the total destruction of an emotional being by insecure sinners who were threatened by His love for them. ”
Now read the below two passages and I pray the lights turn on:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:2-4)
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3-4)
“Dear Jesus, I’m so so sorry. I’m sorry for my continual denial and rejection of You. I’m in awe of how you never stopped loving me for one moment through it all. You’re only response was, ‘Father don’t hold it against him, for he doesn’t know what he is doing.’ I’m yours Jesus, you have won me on such a deep heart level. You have won my heart. YOU have won my heart” – Herb Montgomery
Forgiveness versus Payment (Part 2 of 2)
When a strong man, who is fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. Nevertheless, when a stronger individual attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor that the man trusted and divides up his plunder.—Luke 11.21,22
This week, I want to address some of the responses I received from the eSight a couple of weeks ago when I asked, “Did God punish our sins in Christ, or did He forgive our sins in Christ.”
First, I would like to address what a few people have shared regarding things in Isaiah 53 that they felt contradicted what I shared in the eSight. I would like to draw attention specifically to verses 3 and 4 of Isaiah 53 because they are the foundation upon which the rest of the chapter (even verse 10) is based and the lens through which we should interpret everything else that is said in the following verses.
“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.” —Isaiah 53.3,4 (emphasis added)
Whatever we believe about the “punishment” of Jesus on the cross and however we interpret that “punishment”, our understanding must be influenced by the fact that the “punishment” so to speak, came from US, not God. This truly changes everything in Isaiah 53.
“But He was pierced through [by us] for our transgressions, He was crushed [by us] for our iniquities; The chastening [which we inflicted upon him] for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging [which we inflicted upon him] we are healed.” (Verse 5)
Someone might question how this could be. Remember, we are the ones who rebelled against God based on an inaccurate understanding of His character that we believed. This is how God designed to win us back.
Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. (Acts 4.27, 28)
“People of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” (Acts 2.22, 23)
Notice this emphasis on and interpretation of Christ’s suffering or “punishment” in these verses. First, it was what WE did to him. Christ suffered that which was inflicted upon Him by our hands. Second, this was God’s will, purpose or plan (a mystery hidden from ages and generations. See Colossians 1) But why was it God’s will for Jesus to suffer at our hands? Remember, Jesus purpose was to destroy the work of the devil. Jesus purpose was to reveal to us the truth of God’s character of radical, other centered, self sacrificial love. (See John 12:27,28 cf. 1 John 3.8) How was this to be done? It was all to be seen in how Jesus would respond to being crucified by us. How would God respond to man’s ultimate sin and rebellion? We would endeavor to murder God Himself in human flesh, and how would God respond?
He would turn the other cheek.
He would love His enemies.
He would reveal that God’s response to our over all rebellion was the same as His response to it at this very moment, “Forgive them, for they never have understood what they were really doing.” (Genesis 3:1-5; Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-38; Luke 23:34) Remember, this was all for the purpose of bringing us back to God from our transgression and rebellion. Isaiah 53:
“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity [rebellion] of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted [by us], Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.” (Verses 6 and 7)
God visibly and universally responded to our rebellion and displayed the grand principle that we see in Proverbs 15.1:
“A gentle answer turns away wrath.”
This is exactly how Peter interpreted Isaiah 53:
But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, WHO
COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.—1 Peter 2:21-25
I cannot locate any writer in the New Testament who interprets Isaiah 53 in the way that modern Christianity interprets it. It might be in the writings of the New Testament’s authors, but I simply cannot find it.
“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”—Colossians 1.21,22 (emphasis added)
“And in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” —Ephesians 2.16 (emphasis added)
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. [Not punishing us in Christ, but by dropping the charges against us in Christ] And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are, therefore, Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” —2 Corinthians 5.18-20 (emphasis added)
I would be much less reticent to embrace the idea that God vented HIS wrath against Jesus in our stead on the cross if I could find a New Testament author who placed the same emphasis and importance on it as I see being done today. The wrath of God is a clear concept in the New Testament that is taught, but nowhere do I find the cross explained by the apostles as primarily being an event wherein God vented His wrath against Jesus in my place, rather than against me. Do a quick search for the word “wrath”, and you will see immediately what I am saying. If being a recipient of God’s wrath in our stead is the primary way we are to view the historical event of the cross, I find it odd that the apostles never clearly say it.
Ok if you are still with me at this stage, I’m impressed! If you are barely hanging on, you can skip to the last paragraph of this eSight. If you are a die hard and you want some more history on why there are so many different views of what the Cross was all about, keep reading!
Here is a little bit of history on the subject:
Within Christianity, since the eleventh century, there has been a dispute over what the reconciliation of the cross means and how it was achieved. The early church emphasized how Jesus’ death and resurrection defeated Satan and, consequently, set humankind free from his oppressive rule. This view is commonly referred to as the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ the Victor”) view of the atonement. Whereas no Christian ever denied that Christ’s death and resurrection defeated Satan, this understanding of the atonement became less prominent after the early Middle Ages. Today, I praise God for the fact that we are seeing a resurgence of and interest in this view once again as portraying the primary significance of the atonement in the New Testament. This was the understanding of the early church.
In the eleventh century (1,000 years after the crucifixion), Anselm of Canterbury, a Benedictine monk and philosopher, offered the view that Jesus’ death resulted in “satisfaction” between God and humanity by paying the penalty for humanity’s sin. This view is usually referred to as the satisfaction view of the atonement. As the term was used in Anselm’s day, “satisfaction” did not refer to a subjective emotion. Rather, it referred to the reparation that was due to someone after he or she had been wronged. In Anselm’s view, humanity owed God infinite reparation because sin against God is an infinite crime. Therefore, either humanity would have to pay for its wrongs by suffering eternal hell, or God Himself would have to pay for the wrongs. God did the latter by becoming a man and dying on the cross. Only those who reject God’s sacrifice now need to suffer eternally. Although the influence of Anselm’s satisfaction theory is apparent among some today, few Christian scholars currently embrace it on its own as an adequate way to express the Bible’s view of Jesus’ death.
Then, in the twelfth century, Peter Abelard, a French philosopher, theologian, and preeminent logician, brought a new dimension to the atonement based on some of the writings of Augustine. He argued that the primary significance of Jesus’ life and death is that they serve as examples of how we should live. The perfect love Jesus expressed, especially in his willingness to die for others, is a model for us to emulate. This view of the atonement is sometimes called the subjective view of the atonement or moral influence theory. To be fair to Augustine, his beliefs were a hybrid of the previously emphasized Christus Victor and what later became moral influence theory. Whereas all concede that Jesus’ life and death are models for us and that they should evoke obedient love toward God, few Christians identify this as the primary significance of the atonement.
In the sixteenth century, John Calvin and Martin Luther advocated for a view of the atonement that was somewhat different from all of these. Their view was a reaction to Abelard’s teachings in favor of a view that looked more like the Benedictine monk Anselm’s view. Although their view differed in some areas from Anselm’s view, Calvin and Luther believed that Jesus bore the punishment that humanity deserved. Only in this way, they argued, could humanity be reconciled to an all-holy God. Although it was similar to Anselm’s view, this view stressed that Jesus actually bore the sin of humanity and took the punishment that humanity deserved. Once again, this view failed to capture the emphasis and interpretation that the early church gave to the Cross of Calvary. This view is called the penal substitution view of the atonement or the substitutionary view of the atonement. This is the view that is most frequently embraced by evangelical Christians in North America.
In the seventeenth century, a reformer named Hugo Grotius found the penal substitution view to be objectionable for a number of reasons. He argued that Jesus did not literally take on the sin of the world and suffer God’s punishment on behalf of humanity. Grotius taught that God does not have a quota of judgment that has to be poured out on someone, namely His Son, in order for Him to love and forgive sinners. That is, God does not consider people to be holy because of what Jesus did. He actually wants us to live holy lives. This is the central reason for the cross. According to Grotius, Jesus did suffer the wrath of God as a demonstration of God’s wrath against sin. This act was done to teach humanity about the consequences of sin and to inspire us to engage in holy living. Therefore, the cross preserves God’s moral government of the world. As a result, this view is called the moral government view of the atonement. It, too, has gained support among some scholars.
I detest labels because once someone label’s you they feel they can simply write you off now, as if you had nothing left to say. But if I were to allow myself to be labeled, I would have say that I feel most at home in the Christus Victor view. I see Paul saying that Christ defeated Satan in the cosmic, heavenly controversy over God’s character of radical, self- sacrificial, other-centered love through forgiving our sin in Christ, rather than through punishing our sin in Christ.
“He forgave us for all of our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And thereby disarming the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” —Colossians 2.13-15
“When a strong man, who is fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. Nevertheless, when a stronger individual attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor that the man trusted and divides up his plunder.”—Luke 11.21,22
I am not dogmatic about any of this though. I am open to discussion and more than willing to allow each of us to disagree. All of the views mentioned above are currently held by individuals who have expressed love for Jesus and are committed to following and serving Him. What I shared in the eSight two weeks ago was my view as opposed to Anselm’s view, to which most Christians today subscribe with regard to how they interpret the atonement. (Unintentionally I believe, through traditionally based means, and based on a what I consider to be misinformed definitions of terms). Anselm’s theology was a late development within Christianity; it was not the view held by the early Church. This is a historical fact agreed upon by all, rather than a personal opinion held only by me. Anselm’s views were also the product of a picture of God that was rooted and grounded in the Middle Ages era of Christianity, which I strongly oppose. I love each of you dearly, including the few of you who disagree with me. We must remember that the topic we are discussing is multifaceted. Arguments have raged within Christianity for centuries over these very issues. I am happy to speak with anyone about this matter. We might not settle it in the present; we might have to use extreme tolerance of each other’s views. However, when I consider that the atonement will be our study throughout eternity, I am quite content to say that all of us, including myself, know nothing as we yet will. I am happy to walk beside each of you for whatever distance time and circumstances permit in our “eternal” study of this topic in the here and now.
Keep living in God’s indiscriminate love for all (Matthew 5.44,45) and keep building the kingdom.
I love you guys, and I will see you next week.
Herb
Jesus and the GLBT
When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem; and He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” And they went on to another village. Luke 9.51-56This week I want to share some thoughts on the above passage that I believe are becoming more and more relevant to us as followers of Jesus in our current cultural climate. There are a few points I’d like to focus on as a foundation for this week’s eSight. James and John viewed the Samaritans as sinners or outsiders. The Samaritans were in a state of rejecting Jesus in this story and thereby provoked James’ and John’s response. James and John had an Old Testament story of God reigning down fire on the Samaritans as justification for their feelings toward the Samaritans and also as a basis for how they, too, should treat them. (See 2 Kings 1, where God rains down fire on the Samaritans through Elijah.) Here’s the kicker though. They were Biblical in assessing the Samaritans as objects of God’s wrath, but even while being Biblical, they were dead wrong about how God felt toward Samaritans. Jesus rebukes them, and says, “You don’t know what spirit you are of.” Their spirit toward the Samaritans didn’t reflect God’s attitude toward them at all. James and John’s attitude toward and treatment of the Samaritans, was more like that of the Accuser than it was God’s. They had an Old Testament story that they used to decide how they thought God felt toward the Samaritans but God Incarnate was standing right in front of them revealing that He felt very differently than they assumed He did. God had not come to this world to destroy people’s lives, but to save them. As His followers they were not to seek to consign people’s lives to destruction, but rather through humble servant love seek to save people’s lives as well.
But how does this all apply to us today? Here is my point, but I want to warn you ahead of time to, regardless of whether you agree with me or not, please just first hear me out. In love, please first listen before you judge what I’m saying.
Today when it comes to gays and lesbians, are we mimicking more the spirit of James and John or that of Jesus? Yes, we too have an Old Testament example of God raining fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah (See Genesis 18, 19; see also Ezekiel 16) that we use as a basis for assuming how God feels toward the LGBT community. We too have an Old Testament justification and basis for our feelings toward and treatment of a group of people we have judged as sinners and outsiders. But are we making the same mistake as James and John today? In deciding how we relate to homosexuals, are we too giving greater weight to an Old Testament story than we are giving to the life, work, and ministry of Jesus?
This week, I’m not debating what is or what is not sin. I’m not debating why Sodom was destroyed or not. These topics at this stage are irrelevant. Regardless of how we define sin, the greater question is what is the example Jesus set before us in relating to others regardless of how we morally evaluate them, whoever they may be? The Pharisees possessed a holiness that repelled sinners. Those judged as “sinners” or “outsiders” in Christ’s day steered clear of the Pharisees for fear of being judged. Jesus had a kind of holiness that attracted sinners, the outsiders, the marginalized.
We have to let the following question confront us. Today, are those we have judged as being “sinners” and “outsiders” being drawn to us because of our radical, self-sacrificial, other-centered, humble, servant love? Or are they to a large degree (praise God for the few exceptions) steering clear of us too? May we collapse our defenses and allow the Spirit to impress on us the conviction that we, in our treatment of those who may be of a different orientation, we have unintentionally but very clearly nonetheless, imbibed more the spirit of the Pharisees, more the spirit of James and John, more the spirit of the Accuser, than we have the spirit of Jesus and thus God. As followers of Jesus, we are not to seek to consign people’s lives to destruction, but rather through humble servant love seek to save people’s lives instead.
What am I trying to say this week? In short, stop using Sodom and Gomorrah as a justification for our treatment of gays and lesbians. Just stop. We don’t know what spirit we are of when we do this. It brought about rebuke for James and John, and it places us in a position to be rebuked by Jesus and the Father, too.
Life and people are complicated. Compassion should be given freely and not earned. We have no right to judge anyone, but to pass judgment before we have even stopped to hear their story, is demonically ugly. Everyone has a story and, before we condemn, we must stop and listen. And lastly, you don’t have to legitimize somebody’s lifestyle to love that person, to be brother or sister to that person, and to stand up for that person.
As a follower of Jesus, to those of you who belong to the LGBT community, who receive our emails regularly, I’m so sorry for where I have not been Jesus to you.
This week, I choose to look at those around me, regardless of gender, race or even orientation, ask myself how Jesus would reach out to them, and then ask myself, “Do I want to follow Jesus?” Who’s with me?
Keep living in love, and keep building the Kingdom.
Thank you for listening.
I love you guys,
Herb
Forgiveness versus Payment (Part 1 of 2)
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both.” — Luke 7.42, 43This week, I would love to pose a question to you that was revolutionary when I confronted it years ago. I was just finishing up a presentation to a very large group of people, and on the way out of the meeting, someone in the audience reached out and grabbed my hand. Looking me in the eyes, with the utmost sincerity, he asked one of the most profound questions I have been asked in all my years of speaking. “Did God punish me for my sins in Christ or did God forgive me for my sins in Christ?”
Punishment is defined as inflicting a penalty or sanction on someone as retribution for an offense or a transgression of a legal or moral code. Forgiveness is defined as refraining from imposing punishment on an offender or demanding satisfaction for an offense, to release from the liability for or penalty entailed by an offense, to not demand punishment or redress.
Many of the theological quandaries we get into over the cross stem from looking at Calvary as an act of punishment rather than forgiveness. But what if the lens we should be looking at the cross through is not how God found a way to punish our sin and still let us live but, rather, how God found a way to forgive our sin without immortalizing it?
In the passage quoted above, Jesus doesn’t say that the creditor went out and found a slick way to have someone else pay for the debts instead of the debtors themselves. Jesus said that the creditor forgave the debt.
Pay close attention to the wording of the following passages:
That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5.19, emphasis added).
Did you catch it? God was not in Christ counting our sins against us in such a way that we could still live; rather, God was in Christ NOT counting our sins against us.
Again:
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Ephesians 4.32, emphasis added).
Paul is too clear to be mistaken here, but even if he were, he gets even clearer in the next text:
He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2.13-16, emphasis added).
The Greek word for canceled here is “exaleipho”. It means to obliterate, wipe out, or do away with. It’s as if God on the cross was saying to the world, “The charges have been dropped.” Calvary, rather than revealing a God who punishes sin in Christ, reveals a God who who, having been wronged, refused to press charges.
Was your sin punished or was your sin forgiven?
“What about subsitution?” some may ask. Substitution is extremely problematic when we look at it through the lens of punishment. How can someone pay for the crimes of someone else? But when we look at substitution through the lens of forgiveness, we realize that every act of forgiveness is an act of substitution. Substitution becomes liberated from its legal entanglements when we see what the nature of forgiveness actually is. Every time I forgive someone, I choose to bear what he has done to me, to suffer in his stead, and to set him free from his offense. Only one person has the right to set him free from it, for he is the one who will have to bear the loss. It must be done voluntarily, of his own volition. This is what I see God doing at the Cross. Read thoughtfully the following words of Deitriech Bonhoffer: “Everyone who forgives someone bears the other’s sin.” When God decided to forgive us rather than punish us for all the ways we have wronged him and one another, he went to the cross in the person of Jesus Christ and died there.
What does this mean for us? First, it means that God is radically more forgiving and embracing than perhaps we have yet realized. Second, it means that we stand not in a state of condemnation but in one of full and free forgiveness. If any are lost at last, it will not be because we did not do enough to convince God to forgive us but that we never truly believed how forgiven we really were. And third, it’s a call for those who have believed this to take up God’s forgiveness not simply as a “message” to those around us but as a way of life. We are called to be living conduits of this forgiveness to those around us as well. We are called to imitate God and life a life of this kind of love.
What does this look like? Forgiveness means refusing to make others pay for what they’ve done to us. And it is true that refraining from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out on the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say that it feels like a kind of death, a Cross. But it is a death that leads to resurrection. Not only are those we forgive set free but we too are ushered into the healing freedom that forgiving someone brings instead of lifelong bitterness and cynicism.
We cannot forgive others by trying to forgive them. Only by being forgiven is forgiveness awakened. Only those who are forgiven much forgive much. This week, take some time to meditate on how deeply you are in the heart of God. Take some time to ponder how forgiving He has been of you. Picture yourself emulating that kind of forgiveness with those in your life and then take your first step. Dedicate the next seven days to simply praying for those in the world you like the least. Just pray for them.
In the light of God’s indescriminate love this week, go love like that and thereby, keep building the Kingdom.
I love you guys,
We’ll see you next week.
Herb
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