Author: GlennDavis

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Resurrection: An Event of Love

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An Event of Love

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Peter 1:3 (NLT)

The astonishing event of the resurrection of Jesus is essentially an event of love: the Father’s love in handing over his Son for the salvation of the world; the Son’s love in abandoning himself to the Father’s will for us all; the Spirit’s love in raising Jesus from the dead in his transfigured body. And there is more: the Father’s love which ‘newly embraces’ the Son, enfolding him in glory; the Son’s love returning to the Father in the power of the Spirit, robed in our transfigured humanity.

Pope Benedict XVI, “Christ Cures Humanity’s Festering Wounds,” Easter Address, March 23, 2008, Zenit: The World as Seen Through Rome website, available from; http://www.zenit.org/article-22147?l=english.

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Long Live God!?!

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The Eternal God

From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done.

Is 43:13 (NLT)

By definition God belongs to eternity, not to time, and so is intrinsically immortal. The last Archbishop of Canterbury but one, Dr. Ramsey, appeared not to realize this when, to my amazement, at the end of a performance of Godspell, he rose to his feet and shouted, ‘Long live God,’ which, as I reflected at the time, was like shouting ‘Carry on eternity’ or ‘Keep going infinity.’ The incident made a deep impression on my mind because it illustrated the basic difficulty I met with when I was editor of Punch [magazine]: that the eminent so often say and do things which are infinitely more ridiculous than anything you can invent for them. That might not sound to you like a terrible difficulty but it is, believe me, the main headache of the editor of an ostensibly humorous paper. You go to great trouble to invent a ridiculous Archbishop of Canterbury and give him ridiculous lines to say and then suddenly he rises in his seat at the theater and shouts out ‘Long live God.’ And you’re defeated, you’re broken.”

Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 13.

HT: Raymond Ortlund

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A Cross and a Throne

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Do We Remain King?

And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again

2 Cor 15:5 (KJV)

In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of Mansoul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.

A. W. Tozer, Quotable Tozer, Volume One, ed. Harry Verploegh (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1994), 50.

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All Blessing Flows from the Cross

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“How Marvelous the Power of the Cross”

And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” He said this to indicate how he was going to die.

John 12:32-33 (NLT)

How marvelous the power of the cross; how great beyond all telling the glory of the passion: here is the judgment-seat of the Lord, the condemnation of the world, the supremacy of Christ crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

Lord, you drew all things to yourself so that the devotion of all peoples everywhere might celebrate, in a sacrament made perfect and visible, what was carried out in the one temple of Judea under obscure foreshadowings.

Now there is a more distinguished order of Levites, a greater dignity for the rank of elders, a more sacred anointing for the priesthood, because your cross is the source of all blessings, the cause of all graces. Through the cross the faithful receive strength from weakness, glory from dishonor, life from death. The different sacrifices of animals are no more: the one offering of your body and blood is the fulfillment of all the different sacrificial offerings, for you are the true Lamb of God: you take away the sins of the world. In yourself you bring to perfection all mysteries, so that, as there is one sacrifice in place of all other sacrificial offerings, there is also one kingdom gathered from all peoples.

Dearly beloved, let us then acknowledge what Saint Paul, the teacher of the nations, acknowledged so exultantly: This is a saying worthy of trust, worthy of complete acceptance: Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).

God’s compassion for us is all the more wonderful because Christ died, not for the righteous or the holy but for the wicked and the sinful, and, though the divine nature could not be touched by the sting of death, he took to himself, through his birth as one of us, something he could offer on our behalf. The power of his death once confronted our death. In the words of Hosea the prophet: Death, I shall be your death; grave, I shall swallow you up (Hosea 13:14). By dying he submitted to the laws of the underworld; by rising again he destroyed them. He did away with the everlasting character of death so as to make death a thing of time, not of eternity. As all die in Adam, so all will be brought to life in Christ (1 Cor. 15:22-26).

St. Leo the Great, Sermon LIX (On the Passion, VIII.: on Wednesday in Holy Week.)

HT: Universalis

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Biblical Humility

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Humility Equals Dependence on God

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

1 Peter 5:6-7 (NLT)

Humility is seeing yourself as God sees you: dark yet lovely (Song of Songs 1:5), weak yet strong (2 Cor. 12:9), and poor yet spiritually rich (2 Cor. 9:8). Humility is not thinking less of myself, but thinking less about myself. Humility is not denigrating myself by making myself out to be less than the total person that God has gifted and called me to be as his servant. Humility is admitting my weaknesses, calling out to God for help, and depending completely on his strengthening grace. Humility is surrendering myself to God the Father by allowing him to do in my life whatever he pleases irrespective of what others might say about me or do to me.

God is brilliant, yet he speaks to me in simplicity and with great tenderness. God is all-powerful, yet he waits for a response from me to his love. God is perfect, yet he does not expect perfection from me. God is all knowing, yet he never grows impatience with my ignorance and inability to understand. God is truly humble: he became God incarnate in human flesh in order that you and I might know him.

A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God’s power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God’s wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.

Jonathan Edwards, Christian Quote of the Day, January 16, 2007; available from http://www.christianquote.com/.

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Today’s Humility

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Today’s Humility Doubts God

So humble yourselves before God.

(James 4:7 NLT)

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert-himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason. . . . The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it’s practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . . The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957), 31-32.

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Apostolic Succession: Is It for Real?

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Apostolic Succession Defined

Apostolic succession is historic continuity with the apostles imparted through the laying on of hands in ordination; thereby, receiving the apostles’ authority while simultaneously experiencing the Holy Spirit’s anointing to embody apostolic character and teach apostolic doctrine.

This ancient succession grants to the bishops the same authority, commission, and responsibility as the apostles. Also, an apostolic anointing extends special grace and authority to the clergy from the Holy Spirit to advance the gospel throughout the world. Succession is a gift which must be lived as well as believed.

As our blessed Lord ordained the twelve to be his representatives when He left the earth, so the apostles chose others to take their place when they in turn were withdrawn by death.  . . . During this long period, successors of the apostles, first receiving, and then in turn handing on the divine power and authority which Christ gave to the twelve, have never been wanting. The apostolic succession is the link or bond that connects the Church of the 20th century with that of the 1st century.

Vernon Staley, The Catholic Religion (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Press, 1983), 15.

The doctrine of apostolic succession has both Petrine and Pauline qualities. Petrine in that the bishop’s consecration and ministry must be in historic continuity with the church catholic and Pauline in that the bishop should be governed by the Holy Spirit and has an individual (not individualistic) walk with the Lord exemplified by the “faith that works through love.” If a bishop is not Pauline then he is not apostolic. In other words, no matter the fact of his ordination, he is not a representative of the church if he is not living a holy life and does not believe the historic doctrines of the apostles. However, when a bishop is Pauline and not Petrine, he lacks authority in his ministry. That deficiency keeps him from speaking from and to the church. As one presbyter stated,

When I received Christ, I discovered the grace of God. When I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I discovered the power of God. When I received the laying on of hands in apostolic succession of the government of God, I discovered the authority of God.

Ed Wills, “Sensitive to the Holy Spirit,” Sursum Corda (November 1994), 2.

Yes, the doctrine of apostolic succcession is for real: not magic, just the gracious work of the Holy Spirit empowering his church to be the Church.

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The Cross-Filled Life

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The Table Reminds Us of Christ’s Sacrificial Life


But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

(Matt 20:26-28 ESV)

The one true fulfilled and meaningful life is not the life of acquisition, power, fame, sexual freedom, consumerism, or materialism but the cruciform life. The spiritual life is lived out of the crucifixion. It is a willing, voluntary choosing to give oneself to others, to endure suffering for the needs of others, even, if necessary, to the point of death. Table worship (i.e., Holy Eucharist) nourishes this commitment because it discloses the meaning of life as the act of giving up self in order to do the will of God for others.

Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 143-144.

HT: Webber Quote of the Week

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By His Permission and Appointment

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God’s Permission

Does not the Most High send both calamity and good?

Lam. 3:38 NLT

Now it seems to me as if you and I are enclosed in God. An arrow comes from the enemy’s bow. A man hates me writes an anonymous letter. Someone defrauds me. Some woman sets an unkind story afloat about me. The evil travels toward me. If God liked, He could let the arrow pass this way or that. But if my God opens and permits the evil to pass through His encompassing power to my heart, by the time it has passed through God to me, it has become God’s will for me. He permits it, and that is His will for my life. I do not say that the man will escape his just doom. God will deal with him. I am not going to worry myself about him. In early days, I have taken infinite pains to avert the evil that men wished to do me, or perhaps to repay them, or to show that the evil was perfectly unwarranted. I confess that I have ceased to worry about it. If you silence one man you will start twenty more. It is ever so much better for peace of mind to accept the will of God, to accept His permission and His appointment, to look up into His face, and say, “Even so, Father.”

F. B. Meyer, The Christ-Life for Your Life (Chicago: Moody Press, no date), 121.

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Isn’t the Christian Life Suppose to Be Easy?

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No Pain, No Gain

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

(Rom. 8:16-17 NLT)

Why should we expect our Christian life and service to be easy? The Bible never gives us any such expectation. Rather the reverse: the Bible says again and again, no cross, no crown; no rules, no wreath; no pains, no gains. It is this principle which took Christ through lowly birth and suffering death, to his resurrection and his reign in heaven. It is this principle that brought Paul his chains, and his prison cell, in order that the elect might obtain salvation in Jesus Christ. It is this principle which makes the soldier willing to endure hardship, the athlete discipline, the farmer toil. Do not expect Christian service to be easy.

John Stott, “God’s Man: Studies in 2 Timothy” in The Keswick Week 1969, ed. H. F. Stevenson (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1969), 83.

HT: Langham Partnership International