The Incarnation

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The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:14, 17-18)

The Word is more than a pattern of vibrations originating in divine windpipes, traveling through a medium to be received by our eardrums. This Word has resounded eternally in the living being of the Triune God. This Word is “the radiance of the glory of God, and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3), “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), the perfect pattern and true communication of deity. If you have heard this Word, you have heard and known God himself, because God is a speaking God, and this Word reveals who he is and what he is like.

The Son is more than just one particular manifestation out of many possible combinations of traits derived from a genetic source. This Son is the eternally-begotten Son, the only-begotten God, of one substance with the Father. This Son is in the Father, and the Father is in him (John 14:10-11). This Son shares his Father’s glory (John 17:5), even as he and his Father share the one Spirit. If you have seen this Son, you have seen and known the Father (John 14:7, 9), because the Son makes him known (John 17:26).

Before the man Jesus Christ there was this Word, this Son. Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). This Word, this Son has always been, before all worlds. Then, in history, in the created world, this Word, this Son “became flesh and dwelt among us,” Jesus of Nazareth, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. This is the Incarnation. “Everything in Christianity centers on the Incarnation of the Son of God” (Thomas Torrance, 1913-2007). In the Incarnation, this Word was not muffled; this Son was not disguised or disowned. He remained the eternally-resounding Word and the only-begotten Son. He continued to be God. Yet he added to himself a created human nature, to be this Word and this Son also as a human. Since the Incarnation, he-who-was-and-is-and-is-to-come is in a new way of being.

Now, as a human, as Jesus Christ, this Word, this Son has made God known to us and continues to make him known. He does not make God known in spite of his humanity, but in his humanity, in his flesh, in his Incarnation. What we see in the man Jesus Christ we know is true of God himself, because he is the true God and the whole God. What kind of glory have we seen in him? What kind of God has he revealed to us? In Jesus Christ we have seen the glory of the God of love. In him we have seen the union of the divine and the human, the union of what we suspected must be two diametrically opposed natures—apparently not so incompatible after all.

In one Person we find the whole divine nature and the whole human nature in harmony, and it is very good. In Christ we see that true humanity was created for glorious compatibility with divinity. And in Christ we see true divinity—the God who would do such a thing, who would create such a compatible being and take our humanity to himself forever. In the Incarnation we know the God who would stoop low and bend and condescend for such a union. His capacity to do so is his glory, and we have seen it. Speculation is unnecessary. The enfleshed Word, the Incarnate Son has made God known to us.

So we know that God has willed for his own identity to be defined in relationship to humanity. He became flesh, flesh that he created. He has taken our name, a name that he created. He is in inextricable solidarity with us, his creatures. This is no temporary humiliation from which he will emerge by discarding our flesh. He will not be identified apart from humanity. He is God With Us. Such humility is his divine glory; it is who he really is to be humble. “He is not untrue to himself but true to himself in this condescension… He is as man, as the man who is obedient in humility, exactly what he is as God” (Karl Barth, 1886-1968).

The one man Jesus Christ—the union of the divine and human natures in him—is the connective tissue that holds together the entire universe, the beating heart at the core of all reality. “The meeting ground between God and man is the flesh of Christ” (St. Cyril of Alexandria, c. 376-444). Just as he is the only mediator between God and humanity, so also he is the only glue for our human relationships. “There is no hope at all except for the hope of the Incarnation” (Augustine, 354-430).

The Incarnation utterly relativizes, as approaches to establishing relationships, things like holiday meals shared, gifts exchanged, treaties signed, policies adopted, statements released, services rendered, or even quality time spent together. The God of union has his cosmic masterpiece in the Incarnation. Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. If men can know God for communion through Jesus Christ, then, also in Christ—and only in Christ—men can dwell together in peace. If God can truly have his being in solidarity with us, we can be in solidarity with one another in all our differences, in all our sufferings. No matter how many generations long the warfare. No matter how sharp the betrayal. No matter how incessant the quarreling. No matter how destructive the enmity. The Incarnation demonstrates once and for all the unifying power of the God of love, and the compatibility of humanity for such a union in Jesus Christ. Amen.

“In God, The Father”

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For many reasons, it is impossible for people truly to conceive of God as Father apart from his revealing himself to us in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. But once he has so revealed himself, we cannot ignore it. The Fatherhood of God is of first importance in the Christian life. Jesus taught us to pray to his Father as “Our Father.” David Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “The essence of true prayer is found in these two words, ‘Our Father.’ If you can say from your heart, whatever your condition, ‘Our Father,’ in a sense your prayer is already answered.” The point of the Apostles’ Creed is to distill out the biblical essence of what it means to be Christian, and to be Christian means knowing God as “Our Father.”

We know God as “Our Father” because he is “The Father.” We have this relationship with him because he is who he is. (In fact, we have such things as fathers because he is who he is—the Father.) In his being, God is personal and relational. He is the kind of God who has relationships with his creatures, who makes himself known to them as their Father, because he is the kind of God that is Father even before creating anyone else to be children. God has revealed that he is not just father-like, and not just a father, but the Father. Before all things he is God, the Father of the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit. “Father” is the proper name of the first Person of the eternal Trinity. “Father” describes more than what he does in the world, but it describes his nature, who he is, all worlds aside. This Father would love his Son in the Spirit even if there were no universe; his fatherly love is the reason for the universe; and his fatherly love rests upon the Church—upon you, if you are a Christian.

How do we know that God is Father? What are some reasons why it may be counterintuitive for people to consider God the Father as he truly is? Why is it difficult for you to hold on to that truth? Has this foundational tenet of Christianity changed your life? If so, how? How can this understanding of God correct our wrong conceptions of religion, even as Christians who already believe the Gospel? Compare and contrast this God with the gods of other major religions. Does your belief in God the Father influence the way you share your faith with others?

Introduction To The Song Of Songs

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The Song of Songs is a literary masterpiece, unsurpassed in elegance, intricacy, and depth of meaning. It is a work of art, and I’ll be so bold as to call it the best poetry ever written. It is, after all, divine poetry, written by the Spirit of God himself, who inspired the human author. More than poetry, it is a song. Like other Hebrew idiomatic superlatives (Holy of Holies, King of Kings), the title declares that it is the Very Best Song, the Most Sublime Song, the Godliest Song. What if this is not hyperbole? Truly, this is the Song with all the gravity of Eternity that is sung at the heart of the Cosmos, the singing of which is the point of all Creation.

The simple facts that this is a song, and that it is biblical—part of the canon of Holy Scriptures—helps us to understand and interpret it. “It is neither narrative nor didactic, but lyrical, theology intended to be perceived obliquely and savored for its images and allusions; the beauty of these poems is part of their theological meaning” (Robert Jenson). This is theology that sings. By canonizing the Song, God reveals something about himself that we need to know.

“Poetry is by nature deliberately evocative & suggestive… The poetry [of the Song of Songs] causes us to long for the experience of the beauty detailed by the book” (James Hamilton Jr.). Reading Lewis or Tolkien makes me want to write. Hearing Handel or Bono makes me want to sing. Seeing a Van Gogh makes me wish I could paint, wish I could visit those places, experience those things, see everything the artist sees in his subject. Artists impart their vision of reality, and the effect of good art is a longing to share that vision.

The vision imparted in the Song is a vision of true wisdom. It is wisdom literature, and it teaches a surprising and unique kind of wisdom, both in its subject matter and in its very form. It creates in us longings for the good, the true, the beautiful, the divine. It gives expression to the longings that often elude our articulation. It gives us insight into God’s kind of wisdom. The Song sings of the deep things of the world that are hidden in plain sight. The Song sings of Lovers, and of the whole world as a world of their Love.

“The Song sings for what we would long for in our hearts if we knew how to hope for heaven… The Song sings a melody rich with reminiscent beauty, a beauty that resonates with us, a haunting beauty so sharp it sometimes cuts us open and lays us bare with a longing for what we do not now have. The beauty of the Song of Songs has an Eden-like loveliness. It has a harmony, a radiance, a shining innocence with a man and woman gazing on one another’s glory, without an indication of any shame… The closest we get back to the Garden of Eden in the rest of the Bible is in the poetry of the Song of Songs” (Hamilton).

Beauty. Desire. Fiery love. These are the facets of divine wisdom that the Song reveals. “The highest wisdom about the world—all skill in living is tied to sexual wisdom. Sexual knowledge is the model of knowledge, the eschatological knowledge, because at the end the world will be Bride” (Peter Leithart). What kind of God does this Song reveal to us? What kind of God wants his creatures to enjoy him and each other in marital bliss? What kind of God tells us that marital union stands at the heart of true wisdom? The God whose eternal being is three Persons in love—not dispassionate, stoic “love,” but delighted, ardent abandon. He made us in his image with the capacity for his own ardent love. We have such strong desires because we have been made like him, and for him. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you” (Augustine).

Ultimately, the Song of Songs is about Jesus Christ, the Beloved, the King, the Bridegroom, the Finest among Ten Thousand, whose love is the very flame of the Lord, stronger than death. As we come to this Song, we come to him for life as he offers it in the Gospel. The Song must be interpreted spiritually—that is, with the Spirit’s help as we pray for illumination, understanding the Spirit’s intent in all the Scriptures to point us to Jesus Christ, and enjoying the community of the Spirit who brings us together around Christ. “It is everywhere love that speaks. If anyone hopes to grasp the sense of what he reads, let him love. Whereas someone who does not love will hear or read this song of love in vain” (Bernard of Clairveaux). The love of Christ is the interpretive key that unlocks the Song of Songs.

Thanksgiving

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Family and food. That’s what most folks think about when they think about the Thanksgiving holiday. We try to conjure an atmosphere of warmth and celebration. Maybe you’ve felt more like a slave than a celebrant, hurried and worried. Hurried to get the house and meal ready on time. Worried that you or someone else might ruin the group’s expectations for the day. Maybe you’ve struggled to connect prayerfully to God in gratitude, or to participate and serve from a place of joyfulness. Maybe you’ve felt conflicted about just taking a day for fun and feasting, as if true thanksgiving should be characterized by austerity for the sake of charity.

Think about this: the Bible is full of celebrations and feasts. When God calls his people to offer thanksgiving sacrifices to him, he has them eat the sacrifices themselves. Our gratitude to God is somehow directly connected to our enjoyment of his gifts. Delight and thanksgiving go together. If you’re not enjoying, you’re not grateful. This is how we are made, in God’s own image. The Triune God dwells eternally as Giver (Father), Gift (Spirit), and Thankful One (Son). Being created in God’s image means that we have the capacity to receive, enjoy, and be thankful for the gift of God himself, and the world in him.

You can try to enjoy without being grateful, which ultimately undermines your enjoyment. What if you are thankful for something, but not thankful to someone? “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank” (Chesterton). And you can try to be grateful without enjoyment, which ultimately undermines your gratitude. The “disinterested spiritual person” who dutifully offers thanks to God without appreciation for the beauty of God and his gifts isn’t truly thankful. We really should keep delight and thanksgiving together, like God tells us to do (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

You might think that the best and highest form of thanksgiving would be to enjoy God himself and to be thankful to him for his self-gift to you, apart from enjoying his gifts. You would be almost correct to think this way, except for the fact that God tells us that he has given us everything—himself and the whole world—for our enjoyment and gratitude. Our thanksgiving to God really is to include our delight in his gifts, not just in mystical prayer or asceticism.

Here’s a great quote from Robert Capon:

Let me tell you why God made the world.

One afternoon, before anything was made, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit sat around in the unity of their Godhead discussing one of the Father’s fixations. From all eternity, it seems, he had had this thing about being. He would keep thinking up all kinds of unnecessary things – new ways of being and new kinds of beings to be. And as they talked, God the Son suddenly said, “Really, this is absolutely great stuff! Why don’t I go out and mix us up a batch?” And God the Holy Spirit said, “Terrific! I’ll help you.” So they all pitched in, and after supper that night, the Son and the Holy Spirit put on this tremendous show of being for the Father. It was full of water and light and frogs; pine cones kept dropping all over the place, and crazy fish swam around in the wineglasses. There were mushrooms and mastodons, grapes and geese, tornadoes and tigers – and men and women everywhere to taste them, to juggle them, to join them, and to love them. And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and said, “Wonderful! Just what I had in mind! Tov! Tov! Tov!” And all God the Son and God the Holy Spirit could think of to say was the same thing: “Tov! Tov! Tov!” So they shouted together “Tov meod!” and they laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for beings to be, and how clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing. And for ever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti, and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeculorum, Amen.

It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I’m afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can.

Capon is no heretic. His is an “orthodoxy,” a “true glory” that we need. God has made us so that he might give to us himself, and the world in him. This is the gift of family and food. It’s simple, but profound: fun and feasting. Our delighted participation is our thanksgiving, patterned after the nature of our Triune God in his own eternal Thanksgiving.

Per omnia saecula saeculorum, Amen.

Spiritual Warfare

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“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:10-11)

Ephesians is Paul’s theological treatise on the Trinity, salvation, and the church. It’s about the most important things in the universe. He grounds our love for one another in the deepest underpinnings of all being: the community and operations of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The three Persons of the Triune God are in every passage as the foundation for our life together. Salvation means being restored to relationship with this God, and knowing this God means transformation in our daily relationships. It’s a letter about unity on a fairly mundane level—yet, we discover that this unity has cosmic significance. Unity in Christ is the point of all reality.

The devil is against our unity. Throughout the Scriptures he seeks to drive a wedge between God and his people. In order to dismantle the community that God is working to build, the devil looks to tear down God’s reputation in our sight. The word “devil” (Gk: diabolos) means slanderer or liar. When he comes after us, to destroy us, he aims at obscuring or slandering the truth of who God is. As the serpent in the Garden, he could have harmed the woman physically, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as destructive as tearing her apart from God. In accomplishing that he would also ruin her relationship with the man. The devil’s real goal is division. He hates true community and intimacy. And he wins when he gets us to join his side in his war against God, when his propaganda convinces us that God should be distrusted. If we’re disconnected from the Heart of Love that stands at the center of the cosmos, everything else falls apart, to the devil’s delight. By nature now (as sinners) we are his allies… or, rather, his children… or, rather, his slaves.

“Satan establishes his moral lordship mainly through lies” (David Powlison). The only way the devil can really hurt us—drive a wedge between us and God and bring serious division among us—is by painting a false image of God for us. He is against our knowing God as he truly is. So the devil wants you to believe that God is out to get you, that he’s a cruel, sadistic, oppressive tyrant, which means you should be suspicious of his authority, and run. Hard. Pursue autonomy. Take matters into your own hands. Live like a good resistance fighter, a rebel.

The devil wants you to believe that God has abandoned you, that—even if he does exist—he’s withdrawn, distant, uncaring. You should resent him like a disowned child, and live however you want to live.

The devil wants you to believe that God is just so boring, a complete killjoy. If it’s pleasure you’re after, you really should look elsewhere.

The devil wants you to believe that God is like a disappointed boss. You can keep your position around here if you’d just try a little harder.

The devil wants you to believe that God is sappy sweet, so affirming that he’ll let you get away with anything. It really isn’t that big a deal when you sin.

Then, when you do sin, the devil wallops you with a fearful image of God as so strict, so unforgiving, that you—being entirely unworthy—could never hope to find acceptance with him. So you’d better hide from God. In fact, hide your true self from everybody. Including yourself. That’s what’s best.

The devil wants you to believe that God is not for you. So you’ll need to be entirely for yourself. Look out for Number One.

The devil wants you to believe that repentance is out of reach, that it’s actually unhealthy for you to deny yourself, deny your desires, deny who you are. Living for the kingdom will just suck the life out of you. You should just follow your passions and be true to yourself.

The last thing the devil wants is for you to confess your sin, because he knows that God is merciful, and he doesn’t want you to discover his forgiveness and acceptance and love.

The devil doesn’t want us to stay together and love one another. He wants us to be suspicious of each other, to find reasons to distance ourselves from each other. He delights in estrangement and divorce. He achieves his goals when he cuts our tether to the God of love. When we walk away from each other, he rubs his hands together and dances.

Ultimately, the devil wants you to believe that you cannot truly know God. Sure, maybe God sent his representative to be “the face of the divine,” but you can’t actually be sure what God is really like, behind the Name, behind “the mask.” His craftiest lies are to separate Jesus and God in our understanding, to take the deep and wonderful doctrine of the Trinity and spin it in order to remove God into the impenetrable mists of unknowability.

But the devil’s got a weakness: the truth. “One little word shall fell him.” He would paint for us a false image of God, which means all we need to do is fall back on the truth. In our wrestling with the devil we are locked in mortal, desperate, hand-to-hand combat with an enemy far greater than we could possibly handle on our own. But the truth is, we’re not on our own. God is for us. God is with us. In the Lord Jesus Christ we have the victory.

Paul is solving for Genesis 3 when he shows us how to stand against the devil and his schemes. The devil has us in his grip when he convinces us of his lies about God. We are his willing accomplices against the truth and love of God. But God promised to put enmity between us and our evil ally, to crush the devil’s power through the Seed of the woman. Because God is who he is, faithful and true to his Word, he sent his own Son to be born of a woman, the virgin Mary. We were under the devil’s thrall, but “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). He took our human nature, he gathered us to himself through his Incarnation and Baptism, to rescue us from the evil one. He stood fast as our Champion against all the deceits, temptations, and accusations of the devil. He wore God’s own armor—because he is God—and won the day, which meant our reunion with God and, ultimately, cosmic unity. Now, in spite of the devil’s best efforts, there is the Church. Community, intimacy, and love are at work in the world.

Now we know the truth. Because of Christ we know what God really is like—exactly what the devil can’t stand. Jesus Christ is God’s good and true Word, the knowability of God. “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him… Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:7, 9). The doctrine of the Trinity means that God is preeminently knowable; in himself he is the Knower and the Known One in Glorious Mutual Knowledge. And we know him to be good, reliable, wonderful, delightful, gracious, forgiving, and loving—even to his enemies. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). The one, true God was willing even to sacrifice his own Son to repair the breach we caused when we sided with the devil against him. The devil can lie about it, but he can’t change the reality of God’s love for you. We believed the lie, and withdrew from God when there was no good reason to do so; but the truth of the Gospel is that God drew near to us, even when he had every reason not to do so. “Christ being our friend, it is no matter who is our enemy” (Richard Sibbes).

So we know how to prepare for battle. Don’t be caught off guard, finding yourself in a fight with the devil without God’s own armor, the armor that he wore in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” It might sound strange, being strong in another person’s strength, but it’s the way God means for us to live—in Christ. We look to the Lord Jesus as our Champion, and we live in his victory, vicariously, through faith. We can’t handle cosmic powers of evil on our own, but we’re not on our own. We are in Jesus Christ, who has already ascended “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph. 1:21). In him we have “the belt of truth,” to protect us from the devil’s lies. In Christ we have “the breastplate of [God’s own] righteousness,” to ward off his accusations that God would never accept us sinners. In Christ we have “as shoes for [our] feet… the readiness given by the gospel of peace,” so “let all condemnation cease! Let guilt have no more claim! Let the devil lose all dominion!” As we take up “the shield of faith,” through which we are united to Christ, we have a refuge in him; our life is hidden with him in God, unassailable in heaven. With “the helmet of salvation” we “keep our heads” in battle, our focus deliberately fixed on the Triune God of our salvation. And we have “the sword of the Spirit… the Word of God,” which shall fell the slanderer.

Now, the result of our salvation isn’t so that we may stand individually against the devil, but that we may stand together, with God and with each other in the Church. It is this community, after all, that the devil opposes. Because God has stood in solidarity with us in the Person of his Son, we stand in solidarity with each other. It is a beautiful expression of humanity in Christ that directly reflects the nature of the Trinity, where each Person is in, with, and for the Other. A commitment to solidarity is exactly the thing the devil hates. We stand in solidarity with each other in the truth of the Gospel when we pray with and for each other.

“… praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel…” (Eph. 6:18-19)

For Paul, “the mystery of the gospel” is the revelation that, in Christ, God has restored our unity. It’s the truth we must hold to, corporately… the truth the devil wants to rip away from us. It is only as we are gathered around the truth of the Gospel as we have it in Word and Sacraments, gathered by the Spirit in common prayer, that we may stand together against the devil and his schemes. So we resist exclusivity and elitism. We pursue transparency and vulnerability. We confess our sins to God and to each other, and we help each other to be assured of God’s forgiveness and true reconciliation in Christ. We spur one another on to love, good works, and Gospel proclamation for the sake of the spiritually untethered, that all may be re-grounded in the God of love. And in doing so, we stand. And the devil has lost his game. Amen.

2016 Theological Readings

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If “doing theology” is a good thing, how about reading some good theology books in 2016? Below is a list of books I plan to tackle, hopefully in conversation with others. It’s a pretty aggressive schedule, and some of these books are difficult reading. You’ll notice authors from different Christian traditions—no one will agree with everything each author says, but the readings are meant to get you thinking about aspects of theology that should be important to the broader Church. One pastor friend told me, “What I like about your list: it’s so entirely focused on personhood in relationship with God.” So, maybe you’ll only use this list for ideas for your own personal reading, or maybe you’ll want to join the (mostly) monthly conversations about what we’ve read together. (If so, let me know and I’ll keep you posted about the meeting schedule.) Either way, I hope it’s helpful to you!

January 2016 – In One Body Through The Cross: The Princeton Proposal For Christian Unity, edited by Carl Braaten & Robert Jenson

February – Holiness, by John Webster

March – Worship, Community, & The Triune God Of Grace, by J. B. Torrance

April – Life In The Trinity: An Introduction To Theology With The Help Of The Church Fathers, by Donald Fairbairn

May – For The Life Of The World: Sacraments And Orthodoxy, by Alexander Schmemann

(June off)

July – Being As Communion: Studies In Personhood And The Church, by John Zizioulas

(August off)

September – Incarnation: The Person And Life Of Christ, by T. F. Torrance

October – The Promise Of Trinitarian Theology, by Colin Gunton

November – Man And Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body, by John Paul II (or the “Plain Language” version here)

(December off)

“I Believe”

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What does it mean to be a Christian, a member of the Church? What exactly is Christianity? These are great questions, and it’s interesting that we hear a variety of answers. It’s interesting because, for almost 2000 years, and almost everywhere the Church has existed, we’ve shared a common confession, the Apostles’ Creed, the simple summary of the essential and profound teachings of the Scriptures. You can memorize it and confess it with the Church on a weekly basis. It is, in so many ways, the statement that distills Christianity for us. And it starts with the words, the declaration, the commitment: “I believe.”

“I believe” (credo in Latin) is what makes the Creed a confession. We are personally and publicly committed to a truth, a reality that is revealed to us in the Scriptures, a disclosure made by God, a Word spoken by God. That truth is God himself, the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Creed has a Trinitarian structure, the first Article confessing God the Father, the second Article God the Son, the third Article God the Holy Spirit (and our spiritual inheritance guaranteed with him).

So, as to the question, “What is Christianity?” the Creed answers with a statement of belief in a revealed, historical, divine, relational reality. Christianity is not primarily about what I do, or even who I am; it is a matter of belief. Nor is Christianity an empty “belief” untethered from an object; it is a matter of belief in… The object of our faith, the God we trust, is the vital part of this Creed. It’s like walking out on to the ice; how tentatively you crawl or how boldly you stride makes no difference, but the strength of the ice. Our belief is merely our response to the dependable God we proclaim, our placing of our trust in him, our declaration that he is trustworthy.

Our unbelief, our distrust of God, is at the heart of what is wrong with our humanity. Jesus Christ alone is the True Believer, the Faithful Witness, the one whose trust in God is itself the restoration of our humanity. His faith in God makes our faith possible. Our salvation is worked out in us as we believe the Gospel.

Christianity, then, is a life of personal faith in the Triune God who has made himself known for relationship through Jesus Christ. Christianity is the giving up of living in-and-of-and-for ourselves, and living outside ourselves in Christ. Christianity is living in biblical history, living in a new personal story given to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a free gift of God’s grace. Christianity is living in a new humanity that is intimately and irreversibly united to the divine life of the Trinity as we live vicariously in the One who unites humanity and divinity in his own Person, Jesus Christ, by faith.

Does this make sense to you? Does it resonate with your understanding of Christianity? Does it describe your own personal participation in Christianity, your own confession, your own allegiance? How important is this confession to you? What are some ways it changes your life? How have you heard others define Christianity differently, and how might you engage with them using the Creed?

Authority

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Nobody likes authority. It isn’t just “ruggedly individualistic” Westerners (though we in the West have managed to cobble together a “society” that maximizes autonomy pretty well). No, suspicion of authority is something that goes right down to the roots of all our nature as those in rebellion against God. In our self-orientation and self-direction it became expedient to doubt and dismiss God’s good intentions concerning us. He cannot be trusted; he obviously doesn’t have our best interests in mind.

That much is confirmed everywhere for us, isn’t it? He who allows such suffering in our lives, who issues such warnings of death and judgment for disobedience must be a cruel tyrant… right? Really, there’s no question. It is actually impossible for sinners to interpret, or even imagine, God’s authority as loving. His authority is a threat to be resisted and fled. One must protect himself from God’s authority, even if it means absurdly denying God’s very existence in the face of the cosmic evidence for it.

But when we view God’s authority as a threat we’re misinterpreting his authority. We are not right to be suspicious. We are suspicious only because of our unnatural self-centeredness. Actually, we are projecting our own conception of authority on to him. We just cannot see his authority for what it really is. So we need it clearly, specially revealed.

Enter Jesus. He taught as one having true authority. He exercised authority and power over the forces of nature, over spiritual forces, over death itself. He even demonstrated authority over hell when he proclaimed the forgiveness of sins. All authority was his. And, just so we didn’t miss it, he taught about authority, to make explicit what God’s kind of authority really is like:

“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)

Jesus reveals God to us because he is God, and because he is the perfect human created in God’s image. And what Jesus reveals about God’s authority is this: his authority is the power to give himself in humble, loving, self-sacrificial service. He is able even to give himself in love to people who would destroy him and usurp his rule in their foolish rebellion.

“I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:17-18)

In Christ we see that God’s authority is his absolute freedom to be for us, even when we are against him. His authority is no threat to us, because his authority is one of love. The suffering servant is the fullest revelation of God’s kind of authority, and it’s good news, even for rebels like us.

Now, because of Jesus, we can trust and submit to God’s authority, even when he brings things into our lives that are easily interpreted as threatening. The Father’s love for the Son is everywhere attested, which informs our interpretation of the Son’s own sufferings as perfecting discipline (Heb. 2:10) rather than cruelty. And, if we know what the Father’s authoritative love looks like in his Son’s life—bringing many sons to glory through death and resurrection, to the eternal praise of his Son—we can trust that our sufferings aren’t punishment either, but perfecting discipline.

“The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (Heb. 12:6-7, emphasis mine)

His authority, his discipline in our lives, is meant to make us to love like Jesus, to love with perfect freedom, to exercise the same kind of authority as the suffering servant himself. He shares his own authority with us, the love that leads to glory. So, you don’t have to be suspicious of God’s authority. It might not always make sense to you, but it’s for your good. Guaranteed.

Psalm 133

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[1] Behold! How good and sweet it is
when brothers dwell together in unity!

Inspired, David sings the praises of something too rarely tasted by us. Familial, heavenly communion is elusive, despite our best efforts to capture it. Holiday gatherings are strained; church meetings are polite but dry, awkward; even the best friendships seldom know the delighted unity of this Psalm. In fact, so little do we know of true unity that we despair of it. It is easier to believe, with Sartre, that “Hell is other people,” that permanent togetherness is intolerable, that mutual vulnerability is preposterous. We’re caught and pulled in different directions; we want unity, but we cannot imagine it… but we must have it. We would wither and die without it. As another singer laments, “I can’t live with or without you.”

David did not always taste unity. He sings of it, proclaims its goodness; and he sings for it, yearns for its sweetness. The health and wholeness of true communion characterized his life and relationships too little, but he thanks God for what he has seen. He sees it as more than the proximity of friends. It is spiritual and divine, the meeting place of God and his people.

[2] It is like the good oil on the head,
descending on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
descending on the collar of his robes!

As the priest, Aaron represented God’s people as he went into God’s presence. He wore holy garments for glory and for beauty. On his skillfully crafted shoulder pieces were two onyx stones, set in gold, engraved by a jeweler, with the names of the tribes of God’s people. Aaron bore their precious names before the Lord. And as he was consecrated for this service, the rich, fragrant, holy anointing oil was poured on his head. The Psalm sees the unity shared by God’s people as the purifying grace of God lavished upon us together, descending upon us, from the head down.

The New Testament knows Jesus Christ to be the Great High Priest, the head of his body, the church. At his baptism, as he pledged himself to us as our Priest, Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit—the very Love of God himself. He was anointed on our behalf, and he was anointed in order to anoint us with the same Oil of Gladness, the same Love, the same Spirit he received from God his Father. Just as the holy oil—a unique blend of liquid myrrh, sweet-smelling cinnamon, aromatic cane, cassia, and olive oil—was not to be poured on the body of any ordinary person but was reserved for those consecrated to God’s service, so the Holy Spirit is not bestowed upon just anyone but upon the saints, the holy ones who serve God in his living temple. Now, because our Priest lived and died and rose again for us, and because he has poured out his Holy Spirit upon the church, we have divine unity as a spiritual reality. We have familial, heavenly communion with the Triune God and with each other. It is a free gift of his grace.

[3] It is like the dew of Hermon
descending on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing:
life everlasting!

This gifted, Triune communion is the essence of everlasting life. Jesus prayed to his Father, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” This gift is found where God has commanded the blessing: among his people. The church’s unity has descended upon her from heaven, where to love is to live forevermore, because God is the ever-living God, because God is love, and he gives himself to us.

Anyone in the church may enjoy spiritual unity by faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The dews brought refreshment and life to otherwise arid and barren places, so that orchards and gardens grew in the desert. The dews that fell on Hermon, on the highest mountain in Israel, also fell on Zion—just a humble hill, but the meeting place of God and his people. In Christ, we no longer wither and die for lack of unity; we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit! Now we can attest that Heaven is other people, bound together by divine love, sharing in delighted peace, flourishing in glorious intimacy forever. Because of God’s gracious love, we look at one another—here and now, in the church—and we no longer taste hell, but heaven itself.

Behold! How good and sweet it is
when brothers dwell together in unity!

The True Tale

20150803

The Dragonslayer journeyed
to the captive,
disfigured,
sleeping
Princess.
He fell.
He kissed her.
He rose,
with her,
alive,
beautiful,
free,
and brought her home to His Kingdom.

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