Christ's Presence in the Eucharist

I read an article today from Grace to You detailing what they consider the "gruesome" and "biblically indefensible" idea of Transubstantiation (the Catholic doctrine that the Lord's Supper, during Mass, becomes the literal body and blood of Christ, while maintaining the physical appearance and attributes of bread and wine). The problem with the whole article, and indeed with many a protestant's objection to the idea, is that the argument is presented with bold, emotional language while very light on scriptural support, as though saying that it ought to be plain to any sane man that Jesus certainly could not have meant it literally when he said "Take this and eat it, for this is my body." (Matthew 26:26, NLT)

The typical protestant line is to regard the Eucharist entirely as a memorial, as though Christ had set up a figurative tombstone for himself by so that believers everywhere could see and remember his sacrifice.  That alone strikes me as puzzling, since the whole of the Gospel that we preach is entirely consumed by the death and resurrection.  Why, if it is no more significant than a ritualistic act of remembrance, would such a thing be bothered with?  Especially why, if this is all that it is, is it treated with such gravity in the rest of the scriptures?  Why does Paul, when writing to the Corinthians say "So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord." and "That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died." (see 1st Corinthians 27-30)?  Why the stress upon this particular act of sacrilege, as though of all the manners in which one might lightly deal with the things of God, beware lest you deal lightly with this?

I do not know that I believe in the strictly Catholic view of transubstantiation, but I do consider that the weakest support of all lies with the doctrine that the Eucharist is nothing more than symbols, no more than a memorial.  There is too much stress, too much significance placed upon the thing in scripture.  There is some manner of mystery present within the Eucharist, and I stand with Martin Luther who wrote:

"Who, but the devil, has granted such license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? Or, that is is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposes upon us by these fanatical men. Not one of the Fathers of the Church, though so numerous, ever spoke as the Sacramentarians: not one of them ever said, It is only bread and wine; or, the body and blood of Christ is not there present.

Surely, it is not credible, nor possible, since they often speak, and repeat their sentiments, that they should never (if they thought so) not so much as once, say, or let slip these words: It is bread only; or the body of Christ is not there, especially it being of great importance, that men should not be deceived. Certainly, in so many Fathers, and in so many writings, the negative might at least be found in one of them, had they thought the body and blood of Christ were not really present: but they are all of them unanimous.” (Luther’s Collected Works, Wittenburg Edition, no. 7 p, 391)

The Dark Path of Spiritual Empowerment

Growing up charismatic, a lesson I learned all-too-well as a child was one of empowerment; that because I was a child of the King, I had power over devils, to cast them out, as well as to “bind Satan”, a common phrase that was often doled out during prayers and which essentially meant that you tied Satan up (spiritually of course) so that he could no longer take a part in whatever particular situation you were praying about.  This was hammered into me from multiple pastors at multiple churches, and as a child I accepted the theological ideas wholesale.  I was quite the little charismatic kid, and accepting that this was how the spiritual landscape worked, and that I was a little soldier boy in a vast, cosmos spanning spiritual war with the devil, I prayed continuously, every day, casting devils out of the shadows, binding Satan over everything I could think of, and asserting to Satan, like Sarah standing before the Goblin King Jareth, “you have no power over me!” (sorry, Labyrinth reference.  RIP David Bowie!)

The whole thing was a shame.  Sure, I received lots of praise from other students at church who commented that I prayed like a pastor, and teachers who thought that I was quite the little prayer warrior.  I absolutely believed in what I was doing, and there was no insincerity in my heart about any of this; regardless, this entire theology of spiritual warfare that I had been handed left me, as a child, altogether empty and absolutely terrified of the spiritual forces around me.  This was not something that I spoke of to anyone.  Occasionally I would have conversations with my mom in which I would reveal some of my insecurities, but for the most part I kept them to myself because I felt that, if this was how things were, then all of my fears and uncertainties were the result of my lack of faith.  That frightened me most of all, because, you know, “it is impossible to please God without faith.”, which is part of Hebrews 11:6.  I say part, because I've ripped it entirely out of context, but as a child what did I know of context?  Actually, as an adult I've come to discover that this entire theology I had been taught as a child had been based on scriptures ripped out of their context.

Now, not to blow my own horn here, but I was really a pretty sharp kid growing up.  I've always had an analytical mind, even from a young age.  As child, though, I accepted what I was being taught from my pastors and teachers because they were adults (and supposedly subject experts) and as such they were supposed to know this stuff and I was simply supposed to learn from them.  I had my own Bible but the idea of reading scripture in context was foreign to me.  Unlike other books, the Bible was taught to me by men and women who opened it and simply picked out verses.  The Bible simply seemed more like a dictionary of disjointed spiritual ideas rather than a cohesive narrative work.  Given this shaky foundation it’s natural that, when analyzing the problems I encountered with the theology I was being taught, I didn't come to the correct conclusions, and so I placed the blame on myself.  But I knew there were problems.  I was taught, and believed, that there were demons all around us, constantly seeking to bring about our destruction.  Demonic possession was a common thing, and every church, pastor (and occasionally kid) I met had their own personal story of encountering someone who was possessed.  Although believers themselves could not be possessed, there was this other thing sometimes referred to as demonic oppression which was kind of the version of possession that Satan dished out on believers, where a demon couldn't enter your body and take control, but they could follow you around all day filling you with despair and fear and all manner of spiritual ill.  I also learned that demons were specialists: you had your demons of sickness, of poverty, of “heaviness” and every other ailment, whether spiritual or physical.  Anything that was wrong in the world, you had a demon to blame, and if you had a demon to blame, you had a demon to target.  Enter the prayer warrior, dressed in the armor of God, ready to wage spiritual warfare, binding and casting out the evil one!

I very quickly learned that binding and casting out demons was perhaps the emptiest spiritual experience I have ever had.  I was told I was empowered because I was an heir of Christ.  I was shown verses from scripture that explain that if I resisted the devil, he would flee from me.  Taught from the Bible that I could lay hands on the sick and cast out devils and perform miracles, and all I had to do was stand up and proclaim it all in the name of Jesus.  So I stood, I proclaimed, I invoked the name of Jesus, and I absolutely hated the fact that God had placed such responsibility on me.

You see, this is where my analytical nature kicked in.  If devils were in the shadows making me afraid and I stood up and cast them out, shouldn't I be less afraid?  But rather than feel any sense of relief when I was scared, I only felt that if there were demons watching me from the shadows, they were laughing at me.  I would ask God to forgive me because I did not enough faith, but more faith never came, and I wondered if God was angry, or if he was listening at all because of that same lack of faith.  I felt hopeless, because I knew that all I had to do was have faith and proclaim that faith, but when I did, I felt that nothing was happening, which only meant that I didn't have faith after all.  In this manner I went around and around, guilty, afraid and confused.

It wasn't just my childish fear of the dark that had taken on such a confusing spiritual tone.  When I was young, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was undergoing chemotherapy and often sick and stuck in bed.  This may have been frightening enough for a child, but what made it worse is that I fully understood the risk involved, because just before my mother was diagnosed, my aunt had been diagnosed and died of the same illness.  Learning that my mom had the same cancer was not just unsettling, it was terrifying.  I didn't know if my mom was going to live, and every day I had the horrible thought that my mother could die.  However, I had been taught all about faith and healing and casting out demons of sickness, and so my prayers were continuously turned towards my mom.  The problem was, she wasn't being healed.  I prayed, I proclaimed, I tried ever so hard to believe that she was healed “in Jesus’ name!”  but she wasn't healed.  There was no miracle, no instant faith healing like individuals the likes of Benny Hinn were selling (TBN was a common fixture at my grandparents’ house).  Again I recognized that, this being the spiritual reality of the world, if nothing was happening, then it was my own fault.  After all, God had made all the tools available, therefore the problem was clearly my failure to use them.  God desired his children to be healthy and prosperous (also a staple line in the churches I attended) and therefore I could not accept that God didn't want to heal my mother.  No, the fault was my own, because I did not have faith to declare her healed.

Now, it should be apparent that one of the major issues with this “faith” theology is not just the utter ineffectiveness of it, but the fact that God had ceased to be a father.  He was more like a blacksmith, like the Greek Hephaestus, hammering out spiritual weapons and giving them to us to wield.  He may desire our wellbeing, but rather than seek it himself he simply gives us tools and tells us to use them in faith.  I believed with all my heart that there was no reason for Mom to have cancer, because if I had faith and did not doubt I could declare her healed and she would most certainly be healed, altogether in an instant, just the same as Peter taking a lame man by the hand and bidding him walk.  But I was in despair because she was not healed, and if she was not healed then I did not have faith.  Mind you, I was not at this point concerned for myself because of my lack of faith, but in absolute despair because she was still sick and might even die.  I was in despair because I knew that I could heal her if I could just believe, but her continued sickness was evidence of my failure.  I was not failing myself, not only failing God, but I was failing my mother, and because I could not simply make myself have more faith, I felt that there was no hope at all.  Eventually I began to withdraw from prayer, not privately, but publicly for others.  I didn't want to pray for people, because I began to recognize that even when I was at my best, my prayers did not move mountains, did not bring healing, did not do much of anything so far as I could tell.

In the midst of all of this I never turned away from God, for I recognized that Jesus was the only source of salvation.  But I knew that if we were engaged in spiritual warfare as I had been taught, that I was an altogether useless soldier, unskilled and ill-suited for war, and God was probably very unhappy with me.  Perhaps, being so weak and faithless, I would never see Heaven.  Thankfully, God, in his mercy, grace, and providence, pulled me out of this mire of theological confusion and slowly helped me to see the fallacy of it all.  He helped me to realize that he is in control of my life and my destiny, as well as that of everyone around me.  That he, as a father, has a purpose even in the unpleasant things that he allows his children to experience, to train us and to teach us what is right and wrong, and to rely solely upon him.  He taught me that he is not a blacksmith crafting weapons for us to wield, but a caring, divine parent who will himself protect us when the need arises, even when we do not call upon him at all, because he loves us more deeply than we can ever imagine.  He taught me that the burden of faith does not lie with me, because it is his gift which was to me when he granted me to believe on his son Jesus.  He taught me that my prayers for my mother were not unanswered, but misguided, because the burden of healing was never on me, but always a part of his divine plan (I am pleased to report that my mother is a cancer survivor and still with me today).  He taught me to let go of the responsibilities of so-called spiritual empowerment, saying, as he said to his disciples years ago, “don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)

Now I myself am a father, with a beautiful little girl who just celebrated her first birthday.  If there is one thing I would teach her, it is to rest herself fully in God, to trust in him to care for her and seek her good.  I hope that my own parenting will model this lesson for her, so that as she learns to trust in and rely upon me, she will find it an easy lesson to apply when she considers her heavenly Father, who loves her even more than I.

A Consideration of Purgatory

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.  For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.  If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” -1 Corinthians 3:10-15 ESV

The doctrine of purgatory is an interesting and divisive point between Protestants and Catholics.  The idea being that after death, believers, prior to entering into the presence of God in Heaven, undergo a final act of cleansing, wherein they are purified from any remaining sin that clings to them after death.  Leaving, for the time being, the argument of whether or not the scriptures directly reference a state of purgatory, the Protestant argues that this “cleansing after death” diminishes the work of Christ on behalf of the believer, as though Christ had only provided us with a down-payment for our souls, after which we must then pay the rest ourselves in this intermediate state after death.  Catholics, on the other hand, make the argument that it in no way diminishes Christ’s work, which bought and paid for our salvation, but is part of the processes of sanctification in the life of a believer, the gradual work of the Spirit to conform us to the image of Christ.  We still commit sins, and God punishes His children, not as an unbeliever subject to Hell, but as a Father disciplines His children when they do wrong.  “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” (Hebrews 12:7, ESV)

The argument from the Catholic perspective is quite rational when one takes a larger look at the course of a man’s life.  As Protestants, we seem to believe that although men are sinners now, and continue to sin after Christ has redeemed us (though we are subject to discipline from God), once we die we are immediately purged of all traces of sin, as though someone entered a dark room and suddenly switched on the light.  Perhaps Protestants believe that all sin is somehow tied to our mortal bodies and that, once they are removed, our saved spirits will shine without trace of wrongdoing.  I cannot accept this, as one look inside of myself reveals that sin is ever present within my heart; not the physical one, but my spiritual heart, which remains broken and damaged, even though it has been claimed by Christ and is undergoing His work of sanctification.  Indeed, the Bible tells us that the heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV).  I cannot allow myself to believe that all my sins can be blamed upon purely physical causes.  Christ did not die to save me from my physical body, but from a spirit that was altogether dead in sin.

With this in mind, that Catholic teaching on purgatory is simply an acknowledgement that sanctification, the process of becoming like Christ, of being made holy in Him, is gradual and may be observed to work over the course of a person’s life, but rarely, if ever, is it seen to be completed within that life.  So what of the process after death?  Does the man who has walked with God for many years, whose life shows remarkable transformation, enter into the presence of God directly?  What of the man who has only been saved for a short time, whose life is still filled with many unclean things?  Do they both alike enter into God’s presence altogether purified, without any further process of sanctification, merely through the accident of their death?

It may be so, and my point is not to argue for purgatory directly, only to point out that it is not an irrational concept by any means.  As we must be holy to enter into the presence of God, purgatory simply acknowledges that we may not be altogether sanctified at the time of our death, although we have been altogether purchased by the blood of Christ.  One noted Protestant apologist, C.S. Lewis, in his book “Letters to Malcom”, argued for the existence of purgatory by suggesting that without some manner of final sanctification after death, it would be as though we were to enter into Heaven welcomed, loved, fully accepted, clothed in a white spotless garment, and yet still with faces smudged in dirt and offensive breath.  Purgatory, he argued, would be merely the state of having a final wash after arriving from a long journey.  By no means would we be less accepted or loved in heaven, but would any of us, having arrived, desire to enter into the presence of God without first visiting the nearest sink to wipe the last bits of dirt from our faces?

Sometimes purgatory is suggested as a terrifying vision of punishment, somewhat akin to a Hell which only differs in that the believer may eventually leave, whereas the sinner may not.  This cannot be further from the truth.  Indeed, if there is any form of purgatory, it must necessarily be a place of hope and rejoicing, even though it is a place of purification (that is to say, discipline).  The best view of purgatory that I have read is in the second part of Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”.  Many are familiar with the first part of this poetic work, “Inferno”, but few seem to realize that his depiction of Hell is only the first of a three-part work which goes on to speak of Purgatory and Paradise (Heaven).  Purgatory, in Dante’s imagination, is a mountain leading upwards to Heaven.  Along the way as one climbs, the faithful are disciplined for all remaining traces of sin within them, so that they will be altogether free of its stain and influence when they reach the top.  No discipline is pleasant, but the believers rejoice, thank God and praise Him all the while because they know that without fail they will reach the top and enter into the presence of God, and so every moment that passes only serves to increase their joy.  Indeed, with the promise of God visibly before you and the knowledge that nothing can take it away, it would be impossible to have anything less than continual praise upon your lips and joy in your heart, no matter how difficult the circumstances of getting there may be.  I am convinced that if there is a purgatory, it is a silly thing to live in fear of it; when you stand before it, you will want nothing more than to pass through it.

This is not to say that although we should not fear purgatory, as one may fear Hell, we ought to live with a cavalier attitude toward sin.  Anyone who has been reading this blog will realize that I am a full believer in Reformed doctrine (i.e., Calvinism), after years spent defending Arminianism (which is, under observation, a close bedfellow to Catholic doctrine).  As such I firmly believe in the perseverance of the saints, which is sometimes referred to as “eternal security”.  This doctrine teaches that all true believers, having been redeemed, will necessarily remain redeemed and have Heaven as their guaranteed, unalterable future.  It does not, as has historically been accused, mean that one may sin as much as one wishes without fear of consequence.  Indeed, the believer is still subject to God’s discipline and His work of sanctification.  What it does mean, however, is that these processes are sure and will, without fail, ultimately meet their goal in the life of the believer.  However slow the process, the believer will certainly be conformed to the image of Christ.  Much like the souls in Dante’s Purgatory, the believer now may rejoice in all circumstances because the end is altogether sure in their sight, and every moment, however hard, draws them closer to the presence of God.  This future can never be altered.  However, although the end is sure, the severity of God’s discipline in sanctifying the believer depends upon the believer’s cooperation with God.  As His children, God will see us sanctified, but that may be with little discipline or with much, depending upon our obedience to Him.

So it must be with purgatory; one may live without fear of the outcome, and rejoice in the security of salvation, but one must also consider whether one wishes to enter into Heaven after a period of long and severe discipline, or more gently, as obedient children.  It is not necessary for us as believers to experience harsh discipline from God, but if we behave as obstinate children, we certainly will, for He will by no means allow us to pass into His presence unsanctified, any more than He would ever cast us away and disown us.

Upon these reflections, perhaps purgatory is not such a strange idea.  Indeed, as it is a time of being sanctified, perhaps we, as believers, are in it already, as God works within us and disciplines us in order to make us holy in Him.  And what if there is a form of purgatory after death?  Consider the passage in 1 Corinthians 3 which opened this article.  It speaks of a time of judgment for the believer, not for his eternal destiny, which is secure, but judgment of the works one has performed, some of which are described as being burned up by fire.  This may or may not be purgatory in the Catholic sense, but it is certainly a type of purgatory as, at the last, the believer is faced with the reality of their works and how empty many (in some cases all) of them have proven to be.  The believer is saved and is welcomed into the arms of Christ and into eternal bliss, yet is said to “suffer loss”.  It cannot be that loss or regret will enter into the eternal state with God, but certainly there is a very real sense in which, at that moment, they will experience loss prior to entering into their eternal bliss.  It may be that, in addition to simply not receiving a reward for works that will last, they will experience the loss of pride and a sense of true humility before God as they see that all of their actions on earth go up in flames when brought into the light and perspective of eternity, and certainly this will be a final act of sanctification, when the believer sees themselves in proper light before God, and is left with nothing more but to fall upon their knees in exaltation of Him.

On the Loss of Salvation According to Hebrews 6

"For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt." -Hebrews 6:4-6 ESV

One thing that is doggedly defended by Arminians is the idea that a Christian can lose (or, if you prefer, reject) their salvation after it has been granted.  Having previously accepted Arminianism for the greater part of my life, I understand first-hand the furor with which this point is defended.  Regardless, I think you will find yourself very hard-pressed to find a believer who accepts Arminianism and who also accepts the above verse at face-value and will admit that a person who “backslides”, that is, one who falls from grace after having received it, is incapable of returning to Christ in repentance and once more receiving salvation.  Indeed, my experience growing up with Arminianism is that churches are filled with stories of backsliders who return to Christ.  Unfortunately, the above passage doesn’t seem to allow for this at all.

As a former Arminian turned Calvinist, I have no problem with the above passage.  Although on the surface it does refer to the loss of salvation, there are two ways of understanding it.  One (which I do not accept, but will lay out anyway just to be thorough) states that those who have “tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit” were never believers to begin with, but only had a direct and undeniable understanding of the truth and then rejected it.  To me this seems to be stretching the text in order to avoid the idea that it deals with a true “falling away” from grace.  Indeed, how else does one deal with the statement regarding the impossibility of restoring them again to repentance?  How can they be turned again to repent if they had not already truly repented before God already?  The language in the verse is strong, and I can only conclude that it refers to someone who truly shares in the grace of God, not someone who only understands it.  This brings us to the second possible interpretation: that the passage does indeed refer to a true believer rejecting the salvation given, turning from the Holy Spirit who indwells him.  This I accept entirely, as it seems an obvious interpretation of the statements given.

Now as to doctrine, the verse is not a pronouncement that people will turn from God, but is in fact a hypothetical situation intended to make a point.  In the verses prior to this passage, the writer of Hebrews states that the believers should mature in Christ, and not be continually re-laying the foundational doctrine of repentance and salvation; in effect, he’s saying “you know this much, you understand, you’ve accepted and are saved, now let’s study and learn more of God instead of continuously re-hashing the point where you started; after all, if a believer should reject the salvation given, it is impossible for them to turn and repent again, so now that you have been saved let us move deeper into the things of God.”  By no means does this mean that rejecting salvation after receiving it is possible, but it is a hypothetical statement; if it were possible, and someone did reject their salvation, there’s no hope left for them, so in either case, as believers, move on in your walk with God and seek to learn more than just the fundamental doctrine of salvation, which you already know, accept, and walk in.

Indeed, the difficulty this passage presents is not a difficulty for the Calvinist, who regards the idea of rejecting salvation as a peculiar, illogical notion (how can the new creation become old again?), but it is a difficulty for the Arminian, who must come to terms with the finality of the verse’s pronouncement: if a believer should reject their salvation, then it is impossible, according to the Scripture, for them to be brought back to repentance again.  This means that for one who has truly backslidden, they have, in effect, committed the “unforgivable sin” and the doors of grace are no longer open to them.  What does one do with this?

Of course, any given supporter of Arminianism may come up to me and say that they do in fact believe that if someone rejects their salvation, it is absolutely final.  I have simply never met the believer who rejected eternal security and yet accepted this idea that eternal damnation necessarily follows the “loss” of salvation.  But if we choose to soften the argument, to say that one may fall into sin (indeed, we all sin at various times, and are all still prone to weakness), but that this does not mean that salvation is therefore lost to us, I say bravo, and agree.  The Spirit of God draws His children back to Himself, urging them to repent, and will discipline them in order to restore them to a right relationship with Him.  This is absolutely true.  But at no point in that process do those children cease to be children because of this.  This is not a case of rejecting salvation at all, and so that argument has no bearing on Hebrews 6.

As past defender of Arminianism, my own response to this verse was to pretend that this pronouncement of the impossibility of restoring such a person to repentance (without which there is no salvation) was to ignore it.  It was a fearful prospect, and so I simply hoped that there was something else here that I was missing.  Certainly I couldn’t live under this assumption, especially since my own father was a professed Christian who turned from his faith shortly after marrying my mom.  The idea that he could never be saved was a frightening thought that I simply could not accept.  In the end, my father did return to Christ, and has been following Him now for years.  What do I make of this?  Well, as a Calvinist, I can only conclude that either his professed faith before was never truly within his heart, or else that he never truly lost that salvation but was simply living as a disobedient child for some time.  If the former, then at some point in his life (as many others have openly testified of their own lives) the truth of the Gospel suddenly became real, whereas before it had only been an intellectual acknowledgement or a ritual they had been trained to march in.  If the latter, then his life simply shows the incredible patience of God with His children, whom He by no means rejects but will always restore back to Himself without fail.  But if for any moment I accept that his prior salvation was genuine and his falling away equally genuine, then his restoration would have been impossible according to Hebrews 6.  I thank God that this is not the case.

Indeed, I thank God for the promise of His salvation that was not granted on the basis of my actions, nor can be sustained by them.  If I do good, it is not through myself, but because the same God who turned my heart to Him is also at work in me, “both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13, ESV).  To will, that is, to desire to follow Him, and to do, that is, to perform the actions that please Him.  Remember that Galatians 5:22-23 details what the fruit of the Spirit is, not what the fruit of our own efforts are.  It is the Spirit who bears the fruit of good works and virtues within us, so that those who are saved will necessarily show the grace of God in their actions as He works within them.  It is not our own effort that produces good within us, but the good that our lives produce is a direct result of the eternal salvation He secured for us, a salvation that was given when we were altogether lost so that we might never be lost again.

The Liturgy of Love

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." -Hebrews 13:8, NLT

I love my wife.  I love the small, daily rituals we have, the continual, domestic liturgy of laying down together at night, kissing whenever we first meet after work, sitting down to watch TV in the evening. It is in these small moments of ritual, not in a continual splash of new experiences, that I feel closest to her, that my heart is free to be itself and simply enjoy and relish her presence.

Love is not hindered by ritual, but thrives in it the same way a rose thrives in the day to day sameness of morning, noon and night, water and sunshine.  The ritual itself is not love, but it is within the comforting familiar that our hearts relax.  Those who seek thrills are not seeking love, because ultimately love always settles into a kind of comforting sameness, and thus the thrill-seeker must constantly be running to new "loves" all the time to keep the spark of newness alive.

As believers, we do well if we consider this principle as we approach God.  It is fashionable within churches today to pounce upon anything deemed "religious" as a kind of Pharisaical heresy, a legalistic wall to be torn down.  Liturgy, ritual and traditions are dashed and, despite scriptural uses of the word "religion" being used to describe our faith (as in James 1:27), we treat the word as though it were comprised of only four letters.

If, as believers, we approached the Lord with half the reverence shown by our more devote (and liturgical) Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran brothers and sisters, we would do well.  Unfortunately, the fashion is to chase after new experiences, or after revivals to refresh us and pep us up for another spiritually draining year, or month, or week.  For my own part I put little stock in these things.  We shouldn't be seeking after experiences, thrills or revivals; it is enough to simply know the God who is the same "yesterday, today, and forever."

To know that the same God who commands the day and summons the night, calls forth the seasons in their turn and causes the flowers to grow, to bloom, to wilt, and then to grow again; this God who keeps the world moving by His direct, tireless and continual thought, who never grows weary of making the grass grow or the cycle of the rain continue onward throughout the years; to know, I say, that this same God looks down upon me, a man, a beast, an ultimately insignificant speck in the vast universe He created, and does so with the same tireless, unending, continual love, fills me with awe, as it ought to fill each one of us who are called by His name.

So continue to wake, kneel by the bedside and pray to your Father, without concern for whether your prayers are the same as yesterday, for He hears them with the same constant care today as He did then.  Sing your songs of praise without bothering to worry if your Heavenly Father is bored with the lyrics, for He is overjoyed to hear the voice of His child singing to Him.  Walk throughout your day without seeking for newness, without looking for sparks, but instead resting in the continual comfort that comes from knowing that He is near, never taking His eternal, loving gaze away from you.  Within that endless comfort, let our hearts rest and delight themselves in Him.

Avoiding Spiritual Adultery: Preaching an Offensive Gospel

"You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God." -James 4:4 (NLT)

One manner in which we as believers court friendship with the world is in the endless striving to be "relevant" to the world around us, and to make the Gospel message palatable to unbelievers.  This behavior is not left to some fringe of the church, nor is it the sole property of "seeker sensitive" churches; this attitude can be observed in all walks of life and in all manner of churches, from the most liberal to the most conservative, and it can truly appear as a wolf in sheep's clothing as it operates in the name of that most noble goal: saving souls.  How can this be?

If you examine the lives of the Apostles presented in the New Testament, you will find that the message of the Gospel is always presented in a direct, some today might argue "insensitive" manner: It is the message of Jesus, come down from Heaven, his body nailed to a cross and hung out to die in the sun, bleeding and in tremendous pain.  It is also the message of his incredible resurrection; that being God, the grave could not contain Him.  This alone raises eyebrows, not just today, but back then as well.  It is a bloody story about a savior given an ignoble death, and...resurrection?  Even Paul was mocked when he preached that Jesus rose from the dead (see Acts 17:32), but preach it he did, and said with confidence that "The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18 NLT)

But it does not stop with the bloody and incredible story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection; no, the reason for His death is the sinfulness of man, and this is the most offensive point of all.  You see, "He [Jesus] personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right." (1 Peter 2:24 NLT)  Jesus died because of our sins...not us as a collective race of animals strutting about on the planet, generally being good but occasionally mucking things up, no, he died for my sins, and for your sins.  We are each, individually, inescapably, sinners before God: "For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard." (Romans 3:23 NLT)

People don't like to hear that they are sinners.  In today's cultural and philosophical climate, all assertions of morality, in particularly the assertion that people may be less than upstanding, is seen as judgmental, condemning, and evil in its own right. Suggest that someone is a sinner, and you have labeled yourself a sinner of the most heinous sort: a man who passes judgment on others.

Faced with this cultural pressure to be inclusive and non-confrontational in our religious convictions, it is easy (oh how easy!) to soften the message to appeal to modern ears.  Indeed, we may soften the message without thinking to ourselves that doing so will avoid social ridicule; we may soften the message, instead, in an attempt to be heard, an attempt to ease our way through people's psychological walls. We rationalize that if we start right out with the cross and the resurrection and (how much worse!) the sinfulness of our hearers, they will shut their ears and immediately walk away. So instead we begin by speaking of God's love, of His gentleness and mercy and of His deep, passionate desire to have a relationship with us.

All true, and all generally meaningless to those who are without Christ.  The culture already spreads a message that, if there is a God, He must be a kind of gentle universal grandfather who loves us and just wants to see us happy.  When we focus entirely on the love of God without ever touching on His justice, we gut the crucifixion of all meaning, and indeed make the incarnation itself an exercise in futility; apart from man's fallen, altogether helpless, wretched state before God, there was no reason for Jesus to die, and apart from faith in Jesus' death and resurrection, there is no salvation at all.  Paul wrote "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9 NLT) There is no good in talking of Jesus' resurrection if you do not also speak of His death, and that death was meaningless if not to pay the penalty for the sins of every human being who places their faith in Him.

Indeed, it is only when we recognize our great sinfulness that the true love of God can be seen.  Every man and woman must first humble themselves and admit their own sinfulness before they can comprehend the magnitude of the love of God for them, for "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8 NLT)

Thus, if we are to preach the Gospel, if we are to truly place God at the forefront of our lives and seek His will, and not adulterate ourselves by seeking the friendship of the world, then we must preach as Paul preached, as all the Apostles preached: We must preach Christ, and Him crucified (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). And if we preach Christ crucified, then we must also preach that all men are sinners, under the just condemnation of God, for it is in this message that God's love and mercy in Jesus shine out.  We must affirm with the psalmist "God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!" (Psalm 53:2,3 NLT)

Someday, someone may stand before you and ask (and people do), "Do you think I am going to Hell?" That is an inflammatory, confrontational question; nevertheless, as sure as there is a Hell your answer must be "Yes." Anything less than this only serve to affirm to the unregenerate that, in fact, there may be some merit left within them, some means of escaping condemnation apart from the work of Christ; that they still have a chance on their own and need not worry too much about the message of Jesus and this awful business about crucifixion, about denying oneself, taking up one's cross and following Jesus (per Matthew 16:24).

Brothers and sisters, it is not judgmental to affirm that someone is hopeless and lost apart from Christ, altogether dead in sin and incapable of gaining favor with God; indeed, it is the most loving thing that we can proclaim, because along with this message we proclaim the tremendous, magnificent news that despite our wretchedness, God loves us, sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins, and offers us eternal salvation. That is the Gospel, and that is what we are called preach to all.

True Spiritual Power: Teaching as Jesus Taught

“Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” –Matthew 28:18-20 NLT

The passage above is commonly known as the “Great Commission”.  It was the final command that Jesus gave to His disciples before He ascended back into Heaven.  Note that Jesus did not merely command His disciples to go and baptize people…anybody can be dunked or sprinkled or what have you, but His command is that they make disciples.  Furthermore He elaborates that they are to teach those disciples to obey all the commandments of Jesus.  It’s interesting that He commands the disciples to teach the new disciples, because to be a disciple means to be a student, and it follows that if you are a student, then you are being taught.  But Jesus specifies, lest there be any doubt, that these students that they are to teach are to be taught what Jesus taught.  They are not to make disciples of Peter, or disciples of John, they are to go out any make disciples of Jesus, teaching them the same things that they learned from Him.

What did Jesus teach?  Well, a good place to start is with Jesus’ answer to a question posed in Matthew 22:

“’Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’ Jesus replied, ‘”You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.’” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Jesus taught that God, and the love of God, was supreme, and that our second goal was to love others with the same care and concern that we show for ourselves.  Notice also that these two items are not put up in opposition to the rest of the commandments of scripture; no, Jesus says that these two commandments are most important because they are the foundation of all scripture.  The scriptures are good and profitable and important, as the Apostle Paul points out for us in 2 Timothy 3:16 when he says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”

Jesus did not come to earth to establish a new religion.  Christianity itself is not a new religion, but is the fulfillment of Old Testament Judaism; it is the unfurling of God’s plan which He set in motion from the beginning of time, a plan he offered glimpses of throughout the Old Testament, even as far back as the book of Genesis when he pronounced a curse on the Serpent (that is, Satan) who had deceived our mother Eve, and told him that there would be hostility between the Serpent and the woman’s offspring, that “He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15).  This was not a pronouncement of aman crushing the head of a mere snake, but a prophetic foreshadowing of Satan, who had taken on the guise of a serpent, being crushed and defeated by the woman’s most significant offspring, Jesus Christ, who at some point in the distant future would be born into the world.

Throughout the Old Testament, God revealed to His people more prophesies concerning the coming of Jesus, perhaps most clearly in Isaiah 7:14 where we read “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).”  So it should be clear that when Jesus came into the world, when He died and rose again and commanded His disciples to go and make disciples themselves, teaching them to obey His commandments, He was not telling them to establish a new religion, but to teach the same religion that had been taught throughout the scriptures and now had found its ultimate fulfillment in the person of Jesus: that there is a holy God, that He is worthy of all of our love and our praise, and that we, fallen mankind, stand condemned before Him, but that He would make a way through sacrifice for us to be reconciled to Him.  Now, all sacrifice in the Old Testament, sacrifices of bulls and rams and goats, was but a foreshadowing of God’s ultimate plan in Jesus, the one sacrifice that would provide permanent and lasting satisfaction of God’s justice and open the door of fellowship to His chosen people of all tribes and all nations.

Thus it is critical, if we are to make disciples, that we teach them as Jesus taught them.  It is critical that we lay out the scriptures before them, from the Old Testament to the New, explaining and pointing out the truth of God’s Word, showing the work, the love, the justice, and the grace of God from the beginning of creation to the present day.  Indeed, there is a tendency today for many in the church to look upon the Old Testament as though its importance were diminished now that Jesus has shown up on the scene, but it is this very same Old Testament that taught who Jesus was, and which Jesus Himself used when explaining about His coming and resurrection to some of His followers who, on account of His death, had begun to doubt.  Jesus’ response to them was “’You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.  Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?’ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)

These is a great need in this world for people to be taught the scriptures, to be taught the commandments of God and all His history and plan as He has revealed these things to us in the scriptures.  Sadly, many churches and ministries are wandering away from the faithful teaching of scripture.  I am sorry to say that I have heard churches referred to as “teaching churches”, as though these churches were more academic, more prone to digging into the Word of God, than other, more progressive churches.  Yet the sad part is that this was not being offered as praise of one style of church over another, but just as a point of distinction between what is apparently considered two perfectly acceptable forms of church ministry: teaching and…well, not teaching, I suppose.  In many cases I would say, simply from observation, that those churches that are not “teaching” churches are often what you might think of as “power” churches; churches with lively services where supposedly God’s power continuously flows in miraculous ways, yet often leaves little time for the traditional, somewhat drier practice of sermonizing and expounding on the many words of an old book called the Bible.

The problem with that is that a church or ministry that is not primarily concerned with teaching the plain truths of scripture, faithfully, carefully and with integrity, truly has no power at all.  I don’t care how many miracles are performed, how many signs or wonders take place or how many “decision cards” are filled out; that ministry is failing to uphold the commandment of Jesus, and because they are not upholding His commandment, they cannot be considered a legitimate ministry.  They may be made up of people with the best of intentions, but they are nevertheless spiritually immature and show a shocking lack of understanding, and they themselves need to be taught the fundamentals of the faith they claim to represent.

It is worth saying that one man, in one small corner of the world, who is faithfully teaching the scriptures to others, will do more to promote the Gospel in the world at large than ten thousand men and women who travel the globe performing signs and wonders.  The latter may stir up a lot of excitement, may boast of quite a collection of “converts”, but the lone man in his quiet corner is fulfilling the commandment of Jesus, whereas the others, who lay claim to signs and wonders as the hallmark of their ministry, indeed have little to stand on, for these things do not in themselves show favor or approval from God.  Remember that Jesus Himself told His disciples:

“On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” (Matthew 7:22,23)

It is critical if we, as believers, desire to draw closer to God, desire to fulfill His commandments and desire to make disciples and spread the Gospel, that we dig more and more into His Word; that we study it, meditate on it, and make it our primary goal to teach it to others.  In so doing we will truly fulfill the Great Commission by making genuine disciples, disciples who have been taught the commandments of Jesus and who are themselves equipped to teach others.  We will find as we study the scriptures, as we are taught and as we ourselves teach, that they are not dead, that they are not lifeless, and that they do not require embellishment to be relevant to the world around us, for indeed they are already supremely relevant to all people in all walks of life. If we feel that this is not the case, it is only because we have grown so cold and distant from them that we no longer understand them or know them as true disciples of Jesus should.  Indeed, within the smallest, quietest church that you can conceive, if the scriptures are taught in truth, taught with integrity and held up as God’s revealed Word to mankind, there is true spiritual power, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.