Category: The Cross

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Noxious Weeds

 

The Noxious Weeds of Self-Sufficiency

He died for all, fthat those who live might no longer live for themselves but gfor him who for their sake died and was raised.

2 Cor. 5:14 ESV

We all do it. We all fall back into it. We try to earn God’s acceptance and approval by our good performance (Gal. 3:1-3). We think if we will be a good little boys or girls, then God will be obligated and have to bless us. God will see our sincerity, our best efforts, and our decent morals and accept us, forgive us, and honor us. Our goodness will earn for us freedom from suffering and hardship–true salvation. We grow secure in our own goodness by our own efforts.

However, the Cross of Christ rejects our self-sufficiency. The Cross declares our efforts null and void (Rom. 3:10-12). The Cross shouts from Golgotha, our best efforts are morally corrupt, intrinsically selfish, and ultimately self-deceiving (Gal. 3:13). Our self-centered sins are noxious weeds that choke off life, joy, and hope.

In our faces, the Cross declares our need for a savior. The Cross is our most precious treasure for it frees us from ourselves (2 Cor. 5:15). The notion that we can save ourselves is destroyed. We see that our best efforts for salvation are absurd and ridiculous.We look upon our suffering Savior and recognize that our sin and selfishness put him there. That ultimately, Jesus is bearing on the Cross our just punishment for our sins. Our own selfishness, our desire to be first and foremost, our self-absorption, self-concern, and self-conceit put Jesus there (Rom. 4:25).

The Cross breaks us of our pride as we witness God’s love poured out in Christ. We see that our best efforts are nothing. Our choice: accept God’s grace in Christ or continue to flounder, waver, harden our hearts, and be destroyed by our pride and selfishness (1 Cor. 15:10).

The Cross does not have to be a stumbling block!

Our sin must be extremely horrible.  Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the cross.  For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, nor the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, cowardice and other sins, and Christ’s resolve in love and mercy to bear their judgment and so put them away.

It is impossible for us to face Christ’s cross with integrity and not to feel ashamed of ourselves.  Apathy, selfishness and complacency blossom everywhere in the world except at the cross.  There these noxious weeds shrivel and die.  They are seen for the tatty, poisonous things they are.  For if there was no way by which the righteous God could righteously forgive our unrighteousness, except that he should bear it himself in Christ, it must be serious indeed.  It is only when we see this that, stripped of our self-righteousness and self-satisfaction, we are ready to put our trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour we urgently need.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986), 83.

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Shrinking to Our True Size

At the Foot of the Cross

Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross .

Gal. 3:1 NLT

Spent several hours yesterday studying and reflecting on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Love the Apostle Paul’s personal directness, powerful conviction, and moral clarity in proclaiming the gospel vis-a-vis the law, that is, performance orientation. The earliest heresy of the church was not Gnosticism, but moralism.

Moralism promises the approval of God and the receiving of God’s righteousness to sinners if we only behave and commit ourselves to moral improvement (i.e., doing better and trying harder). Moralism is not the gospel. We cannot fix, improve, or renovate ourselves. Only by Christ’s cross and the Spirit’s enablement can our hearts be changed and our sins forgiven, forgotten, and overcome. Only by trusting Christ’s finished work on the Cross can we be accepted by God.

I repeat, moralism is not the Gospel. The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, died for our sins and rose again. Christ was, is, and forever will be triumphant over all his and our enemies. Because of Christ’s work on the Cross, no condemnation exists for those who believe, but only everlasting joy now and forever. The Gospel shrinks us down to size, it declares to us that there is nothing in ourselves that can save ourselves.

This is the gospel Paul preached in the letter to the Galatians:

Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is here, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.

John Stott, The Message of Galatians (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1968), 179.

 

 

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The Theologian of Glory

The Heidelberg Disputation

[Jesus] gave up his divine privileges he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Phil 2:7-8 NLT

The years of 1517 and 1519 are of the utmost importance in the life of Martin Luther. The latter date is the famous debate with Johannes Eck in Leipzig and the former date is the posting of the 95 Theses on indulgences in Wittenberg. The middle year is often thought of as the silent year, that of 1518. However, a significant event occurred in the history of theology of that year, it is called the Heidelberg Disputation. In April of that year, Johannes von Staupitz, the vicar-general of the Augustinian order of which Luther was a monk, invited him to discourse on his new ideas. Every year the Augustinian order would meet for a public disputation in Heidelberg. Staupitz instructed Luther not to discuss his more controversial views about the Pope and Church Authority, but to share his new understanding of the righteousness of God. This was Luther’s first great opportunity to share his insights, which he called the theology of the cross. Crux sola est nostra theologia is in opposition to what Luther called the theology of glory.

The “theologian of glory” calls the bad good and the good bad. The “theologian of the cross” says what a thing is. . . . Without a theology of the cross, man misuses the best things in the worst way.

Martin Luther, Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenburger (New York: Anchor Press, 1961), 503.

The theologian of glory prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and in general, good to evil. . . . God can only be found in suffering and the cross. . . . Therefore the friends of the cross say that the cross is good and works are evil, for through the cross works are dethroned and the old Adam, who is especially edified by works, is crucified. It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his good works unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows that he is worthless and that his works are not his but God’s.

Martin Luther cited in Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 81.

 

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The World Upside Down

 

Christ Is All

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Col 1:19-20 NLT

Love the work of Timothy Keller: wonderful Cross-saturated sermons and insightful God-glorifying books. As a writer, Keller is a late bloomer with all but one of his books published later in his ministry (it gives me hope). The Reason for God is an apologetic (not an apology) for an orthodox Christian faith that is being attacked on every side by a skeptical press, the new atheists, post-modern doubt, and the stresses of modern life. Keller skillfully and adeptly answers objections concerning suffering, Hell, Bible trustworthiness, Christ exclusivity, and Christian ethics. Not only does Keller engage the critics, but also, he affirms, defends, and proclaims the life-affirming truths of the Christian faith: sin, the gospel, the cross and resurrection, and heart relationship. In many ways, Keller’s book is a 21st century simplified version of C. S. Lewis’s famous work, Mere Christianity. Pick-up a copy of The Reason for God, you will not regret it.

The cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable — it is wrong. Jesus’ death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born — God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.

Timothy Keller, The Reason For God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 193.

The pattern of the Cross means that the world’s glorification of power, might, and status is exposed and defeated. On the Cross Christ wins through losing, triumphs through defeat, achieves power through weakness and service, comes to wealth via giving all away. Jesus Christ turns the values of the world upside down.

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 196.

PS: For members of Lamb of God Church, our Young Adult Home Group will be studying the companion DVD starting next week.

 

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Forgiveness: Another View

Forgive If He (or She) Repents

So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

Luke 17:3-4 NIV

Forgiveness is a controversial subject in today’s psychologized world. You would not think it would be, but it is. Two views of forgiveness are predominant: therapeutic or biblical.

The modern therapeutic approach states that we are obligated to forgive even if the person who wounded us shows no remorse over their actions. It is said that as Christians, we must automatically forgive every offense. Modern psychology says that forgiveness is about releasing the anger caused by the unjust action, letting go of the resentment caused by the emotional pain, and eliminating the desire for tit-for-tat retribution. Forgiveness is privatized and personalized. Forgiveness is about resolving our internal conflicts and dealing with our negative feelings over others’ hurtful actions.

The biblical view of forgiveness is different. Yes, we should maintain an attitude of forgiveness no matter who it is or what they have done and we should give to God our pain and disappointment. But primarily, forgiveness is about two parties. Forgiveness is about releasing the debt caused by others’ sinful actions. The Bible speaks of sin creating a debt and a forgiveness which releases that individual from that specific debt (Matt 6:12). Forgiveness given is dependent on repentance offered. Forgiveness is not just about me and my feelings, but it is also about the offending party’s relationship with God and their acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Forgiving in this privatized, automatic kind of way has become far less than what the Gospel requires . . . . Automatic forgiveness packs unforgiveness. It redefines forgiveness as far less than what it means biblically. It hardens hearts with bitterness, isolation, and pessimism. In contrast, conditional forgiveness centers on the Cross. It offers the Gospel to all, recognizes that because of Christ any offender can be forgiven, believes that all relationships can be redeemed, and rests knowing that justice will be served.

Chris Brauns, “Packing Forgiveness” reformation21 website (August 2009).

Biblical forgiveness is a conditional: forgiveness is released dependent on true repentance (Luke 17:3-4). Christians are called to forgive others as God has forgiven us (Matt 6:12; Eph. 4:32). By example, God forgives those who confess their sins and repent of their actions (1 John 1:9). The forgiveness of God is not unconditional: God requires faith and repentance. Like God, we should be ready to offer forgiveness to all, yet also require genuine remorse and a change in behavior. Therefore, we should only forgive those who truly repent and look to the Cross for grace and help in their time of moral failure (cf. Psalm 51:4).

One last observation remains: forgiveness of an unrepentant person doesn’t look the same as forgiveness of a repentant person.

In fact I am not sure that in the Bible the term forgiveness is ever applied to an unrepentant person. Jesus said in Luke 17:3-4, “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” So there’s a sense in which full forgiveness is only possible in response to repentance.

But even when a person does not repent (cf. Matthew 18:17), we are commanded to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us and do good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27).

The difference is that when a person who wronged us does not repent with contrition and confession and conversion (turning from sin to righteousness), he cuts off the full work of forgiveness. We can still lay down our ill will; we can hand over our anger to God; we can seek to do him good; but we cannot carry through reconciliation or intimacy.

John Piper, “As We Forgive Our Debtors” Desiring God website.

Modern psychology defines forgiveness narrowly as the personal release of anger and resentment. However, Biblical teaching combines both a heart of forgiveness with the release of the debt of sin. Biblical forgiveness is public between two or more persons and is released under the shadow of the Cross.

Grudge-bearing and a clenched-fist refusal to grant forgiveness to the repentant knows nothing of the mercy and grace of God in the gospel and has no acceptable place in the household of God. Likewise, profligate forgiveness without repentance knows little of the gravity of sin’s offense to God and the eternal anguish Christ suffered on account of sin and must be purged from Christ’s people.

We debase the cross of Christ by petty refusal to forgive the sins of those who repent, but we also debase and cheapen the death of of Christ by unprincipled granting of forgiveness to individuals who remain unrepentant for sins they have committed against us. We prize the cross and live out the gospel when we bestow forgiveness of sins only to those who confess and repent and when we do not diminish the grace of forgiveness by granting it to the unrepentant but instead beckon them to repent lest they perish.

A. B. Caneday, “A Biblical Primer and Grammar on the Forgiveness of Sin”

Conclusion: As Christians, we should always have an attitude of forgiveness, but having this attitude this does not mean that we automatically forgive (i.e., release the debt of sin). The release of forgiveness is dependent on true repentance.

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Crux Sola Est Nostra Theologia

The Cross Alone Is Our Theology

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Col. 2:8

This blog is dedicated to Christ and his finished work on the Cross. Paraphrasing the words of Martin Luther, the Cross alone is this blog’s theology. Why? The Cross is our victory over the oppression and enslavement of sin (1 Cor. 15:57), our justification that satisfies the penalty of sin (Rom. 4:25), our adoption which grants us the legal status of a son of God and an heir of the kingdom (Rom. 8:17, 23), our reconciliation which restores our broken relationship with God (2 Cor. 5:19), our forgiveness of offenses as a result of his pain and suffering on Calvary, our ransom paid to free us from the captivity of sin (1 Cor. 6:19), our healing from brokenness created by our sin (Isa.53:5), our representative bringing us all the privileges of the new covenant (Rom. 5:17), our participation in all the benefits of his death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6), and our substitution for he took upon himself our punishment, guilt, and shame (Rom. 4:25).

Christ died for us (substitution) now we are controlled by Christ’s love for us and our love for Christ (motivation). As a result, our hearts are changed (transformation) and therefore, we can now live fully for the Christ who died for us (surrender).

Crux Sola Est Nostra Theologia.  And I shall never forget the first time I encountered those words of Martin Luther.  I have arrived at Cambridge in 1978, fresh from the study of theology at Oxford, and had begun a process of total immersion in the field theological literature of the Reformation.  Having cut my theological teeth on Karl Barth, I decided to deepen my knowledge of two fundamental forces of modern religious thought Martin Luther and John Calvin.  It was during the spring of 1979 that I came across those words. They seemed to leap of the page, ‘The cross alone is our theology.’ I stopped taking notes and paused to think.  Luther’s declaration seemed electrifying charged with power, potential, and challenge.

It also seemed absurd.  How could a past event have such present day relevance? And why should it be this event? Why conceivable justification to be given for this collective attention, this concentration upon the cross? To demonstrate how that focus arose within a Luther’s theology in spiritual malady was one thing; but how could the cross function as the core of Christian theology in a dominated by the insights of the Enlightenment? Molded as I then was by the English liberal theological tradition, I eventually dismissed Luther’s approach as outdated and obsolete, of interest only to historians of doctrine in early Reformation Theology.  They could have no place in modern Christian Thought.  I resumed taking notes.

Nevertheless, his words remain in my mind.  Somehow they seem to capture something that I intuitively felt was indefinably wrong with the gentle theological liberalism with which I then identified myself.  Looking back on the development of my thinking since then, Luther’s brief phrase proved to be the rock, which my liberalism floundered.  The ‘theology of the cross,’ through which Luther challenged his own age to allow the cross of Christ to assume center stage proved able to challenge modernity!

Alister E. McGrath, Spirituality in an Age of Change (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 75-76.

 

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The Marvelous Scheme

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). 

This blog is dedicated to the work of Christ on the Cross. Why? Without equivocation or hesitation, the Christian faith proclaims Christ’s death and resurrection to be the most important event in human history. To the skeptic, Christ’s death is meaningless–the tragic death of an innocent man. To the secularist, Christ’s death is futility–a death that could have been avoided. To the naysayer, Christ’s death is an example of the silliness and stupidity of religion.

Yet, the believer knells at the foot of the cross and weeps for he or she knows that Christ’s bore the suffering they deserved. Christ took their place and bore the punishment for their sin. Christ gave his life that we might live. But the cross is not just a place of repentance, but also a place of rejoicing: our greatest foes have been defeated. Christ is risen: death and Satan could not hold him down.

Yes, the very cross that seems folly to some is yet the wisdom of God. It is the marvelous scheme by which God satisfied both His justice and His love, and reconciles sinners unto Himself. And the cross that seems so weak and so futile to men–just a dead man hanging on a tree–is yet the power of the living God, by which He awakens the conscience and melts the heart; by which he wins the rebel, and justifies the ungodly, and brings the forgiven sinner first to holiness and then to glory.

J. R. W. Stott, “The Calling of the Church,” Daily Thoughts from Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings, ed. Herbert F. Stevenson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 362.

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Advent Waiting

Advent Waiting

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3 ESV

Advent waiting is the prayerful longing for God’s Holy Spirit to pour upon us. In preparation for the coming church and secular year, we yearn for the transformation of our hearts. Advent waiting is gratefulness for Christ’s first coming while eagerly expecting Christ’s second coming in glorious majesty. Advent waiting converts our personalities as we await Christ’s physical appearance in the skies.

In this present world, we endure while calmly trusting the Holy Spirit to be Christ in us in the midst of a fallen and decadent world.  In hope, we look forward to seeing our blessed Savior face-to-face. Oscar Romero, martyred archbishop of San Salvador, points to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a model for Advent waiting:

Even when all despaired
at the hour when Christ was dying on the cross,
Mary, serene,
awaited the hour of the resurrection.
Mary is the symbol
of the people who suffer oppression and injustice.
Theirs is the calm suffering
that awaits the resurrection.
It is Christian suffering,
the suffering of the church,
which does not accept the present injustices
but awaits without rancor the moment
when the Risen One will return
to give us the redemption we await.

Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, trans., James R. Brockman, S. J. (Farmington, Penn.: The Bruderhof Foundation, 2003), 27.

The season of Advent begins this Sunday, November 28th.

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Living the Normal Christian Life

Living the Normal Christian Life Begins at the Cross

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Rom. 7:24-25

The Christian life is lived at the foot of the Cross; there, forgiveness is found, grace received, and victory gained. In Christ’s death, we died to sin. In his burial, our sin is put away. In his resurrection, sin’s bondage is broken. We are saved at the foot of the Cross and we are transformed into Christlikeness at the foot of the Cross. At the foot of the Cross is where normal Christian living begins.

No one can really live the normal Christian life until he has begun to recognize the fullness of the work of the Lord Jesus on the Cross. We have touched on four aspects of that work: let us mention them again.

(1) OUR SINS. No one can be a Christian whose sins have not been dealt with and cleansed in the Blood.

(2) OURSELVES. Not only have our sins been dealt with by His death, but our old man has been crucified with Him. It is possible to be a Christian without seeing this fact, but it is only possible to be a very miserable Christian!

(3) OUR WILLS. The will has also been dealt with by the Cross, and once we definitely accept this, in an act of unqualified yielding to the Lord, we are no longer governed by self-will, and are ready for Him to work out His will in us.

(4) OUR NATURAL LIFE. When the Cross has delivered us from the law, we see that the Lord has dealt with our carnal powers, and we reach a point where we dare not trust ourselves at all, but acknowledge that of ourselves we can do nothing whatever to please God.

These four points are fundamental and we cannot live the normal Christian life without seeing them, and seeing them experimentally. “Who shall deliver me?” is the cry of Romans 7, but Romans 8 gives us the answer. Paul’s shout of praise is: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). So we learn that the life we live is the life of Jesus Christ alone. The Christian life is not our living a life LIKE Christ, or our TRYING to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving US the power to live a life like His. It is Christ Himself living His own life through us: “no longer I, but Christ” (Galatians 2:20).

Watchman Nee, Twelve Baskets Full, Vol. 3 (Hong Kong: Church Book Room, 1969), 97.

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When the Darkness is Great

Return to the Cross When the Darkness is Great

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

2 Tim. 4:3-4

Sin is selfishness and rebellion caused by our choices and by being a descendant of Adam. Sin turns the world upside down: it says that everyone and everything should revolve around our desires, needs, and wants. Sin releases darkness: a darkness that blankets our soul, spirit, and mind with doubt and discouragement. Sin spreads its darkness beyond ourselves to our families, friends, and associates. Sin affects others making life harder for them to enjoy Christ and trust in his goodness.

The Cross of Christ is the remedy to sin’s darkness. The Cross startles us with sin’s treachery and tragedy, yet the Cross awakens us out of that blackened stupor by stunning our spiritual sensibilities with God’s grace and love. At the Cross, the darkness is rolled back, our sin is forgiven, our spirits are healed, and enabling grace is dispensed for living a holy life.

The Cross of Christ is the light that will illuminate the present darkness. We need a fresh revelation of sin, for it is through sin that we have lost our way, and it is through Christ’s death on the Cross that we are won back and restored to God. See I Peter 3:18, “Christ . . . hath once suffered for sins . . . that He might bring us to God.” The reason why many lose the sense of the sinfulness of sin is that they get away from the reality of Christ’s atoning death, for it is only at the Cross that we get a vision of the depths and misery of sin.

Watchman Nee, “Back to the Cross,” The Old Paths Magazine (Issue 17, July 2007), 3.