Christians understand in principle that Jesus Christ died for their sins. We read our Bible and watch Christian movies, and are saddened to see someone brutalized and murdered who did not deserve it. But there are many things that make His death seem as merely a historical event, an action taken by God, and not something of personal import. There are several reasons that is so.
Christ's crucifixion occurred over two thousand years ago. It occurred long before we were born, and certainly we were not there to witness it or even have anything to do with His trial and execution. Most people alive today cannot even relate to World War II, occurring only seventy years ago. Although Christ's atonement was the most significant occurrence in the history of all mankind, it is difficult to relate personally to any event that happened so long ago.
Secondly, although His death was ordained by a sovereign God, so are all historical events. This can seem like simply another page in history, a matter of fact, no different than the building of the Pyramids of Giza or the burning of Rome. It was part of God's plan all along and decreed by His will.
Lastly, in the Bible itself His upcoming execution is often described in general and impersonal terms. In Matthew 16:21 we read, "...Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and raised the third day." That sounds rather clinical, doesn't it?
Jesus is a little more descriptive in Matthew 20:18, although He refers to Himself in the third person, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify. And the third day He will rise again."
Jesus rarely uses the word "I" in verses alluding to His death; He usually refers to Himself as the "Son of Man" when referring to His crucifixion. Even when He tells us why He is going to do this, as He states in Matthew 20:28, "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." He becomes a little more personal when He states that "I am going away" in John 8:21 and in 14:3 "I a go to prepare a place for you." The one place where he does use the word "I" in direct reference to His upcoming death is in John 10:15 "...I lay down My life for the sheep."
So, all in all, Christ's death can seem like an ancient historical event, a done deal long before we were born, something that we had no role or part in. It was part of God's plan for our salvation, and for Calvinists God has sorted that out before the beginning of time, eons ago. Christ made some largely general proclamations about what was going to happen and what He was going to do, but we weren't there to hear them. It was all over thousands of years ago.
If you truly embrace the Gospel and all that message contains, you are aware of your sinful nature. You know of the sins you committed before your salvation and the ones since, the big ones and the little ones. I myself sit upon a veritable mountain of accumulated sin. Now suppose that Jesus Christ were sitting beside you. Here is a man who did not sin, who lived a life of generosity, compassion and healing. Perhaps you have come to realize that not only is this God's son, but God Himself, who created the universe and everything within it. Yet He is also a man, fully human, your friend and brother, and He looks at you squarely and says, "I am going to die for you."
Your first reaction would be to be startled. His statement would not make any sense. "Excuse me, what did you say?"
"I am going to die for you."
"You can't be serious. Why would you do that?"
"You have sinned, and will continue to sin while you live. You cannot enter My Father's heaven because of your sin; He cannot allow sin into heaven. I will go and die for you, and My Father will accept My death as payment for your sin."
Now that is personal. This perfect, sinless man, who has never wronged anyone, been untruthful, lusted, coveted, or robbed in any way, is going to die a horrible death. For you. Is it any wonder that Peter, in Matthew 16:22 tried to rebuke Jesus, saying "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" Would you also try and rebuke Jesus? Would you try and discourage Him from doing this for you?
After Jesus was scourged, beaten and flayed, as you watched Him bleeding and battered carry His cross outside of Jerusalem to Calvary, on His way to be affixed to that cross with nails through His flesh, would you cry to Him, "Stop! This is wrong! Don't die for me! You didn't sin, I did!" You know that you were commanded to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, yet have failed to do so. The bloody man struggling up the hill did, yet God will take His life, not yours. Would you offer up an anguished prayer to God the Father, "Don't do this to Him! I am the one who coveted and lusted and lied and did not honor You! God, you are making a mistake!"
I think it helps us to understand what God gave us and what Christ did for us when we can somehow, some way erase the two thousand years between then and now. Yes, it was an historical fact, decreed by God, but it was very personal and you do have a role in it. Because you, a sinner, born in sin, filled with sin, and living in sin, will get to live forever with God in heaven. You will not deserve this, nor have earned or merited it. God will take in trade the death of Christ for your mountain of sin. God never makes mistakes, and certainly not with salvation. I confess a doubt, however. Some question God's goodness because of suffering in this world (a topic for another day). I question God's wisdom at letting me into heaven.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Christ the Baker?
Believe it or not, I think there is real hazard in approaching problems with the question, "What would Jesus do?" The safest way to use a biblical approach is to use the Bible, and a more correct question would be, "What did Jesus say?" We are indeed left with the vast teachings of Jesus, and He pretty much covered all of the Ten Commandments as well as other aspects of the Law. To try and use "What would Jesus do?" outside of what He said requires us to use subjective human imagination and speculation. When people do this, all manner of doctrinal error may result, as they say, "Well, I believe that Jesus would do this or that." "Image" and "imagine" come from the same Latin root (imago), and it is a very human tendency, a failure of fallen man, to try and remake God in our image, to imagine that He would think the way that we do.
There were some matters that Jesus did not address specifically, and for those we have both the Old and New Testament instructions from God to lead us in our decision-making. Unless Christ directly changed a practice, such as Jewish dietary law, then the Old Testament principles still stand. What also changed with the New Covenant is that we no longer live in a theocracy, and the power to make and enforce laws, with the power of the sword, is granted to civil government, and civil authority is ordained by God. We are to live our lives by biblical principles, yet obey the civil authorities unless to do so would violate God's commands.
We are now seeing a huge divergence, a widening gap, between what our Holy God instructs us and what our lawmakers legislate. And the majority of people in this country will now no longer turn to the Bible to decide which is correct. Their opinions are shaped and formed not by Scripture, but by what the general public wants-- popular opinion, and this is a derivative not of objective moral law handed down by God but assembled from a morally relativistic framework. Forget God, the Bible, and the Constitution, it is Judges 21:25 all over again, "...everyone did what was right in his own eyes." The Supreme Court issues Roe versus Wade, and regardless of what the Bible teaches, that becomes the law of the land and legitimizes abortion in the minds of those who believe that it is government that decides and grants rights, not God.
We have recently seen conflict between those who are in states that legally allow for gay marriage and those who are Christian who do not wish to participate in a ceremony that they believe is a sinful union. Laws have been passed to provide religious freedom in some instances, but in other cases there are bakers who have been disciplined for not making wedding cakes for gay weddings, photographers in trouble for not providing wedding photography for these ceremonies, and caterers who have been attacked for not participating in such events. The Christian, who follows the Golden Rule, does not wish to discriminate unfairly, but neither can he accommodate sin. What would Jesus do? Let's look at what Jesus said.
First, Jesus did not retreat from calling out sexual sin of any kind, and He did not condone it. In John 4, He meets the woman at the well and explains that He knows of her adulterous relationship. Later, in John 8, when the adulterous woman is presented to Him, He turns the angry mob away, yet does not condone her adultery. He instructs her, ".. and from now on sin no more."
Secondly, Jesus did not disagree with His Father's pronouncement of judgment on sexual immorality. In Matthew 10:15, referring to towns that would reject the Apostles, He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." Likewise, He did not express disapproval in Luke 17:29 when He refers to the fire and brimstone that "destroyed them all."
Thirdly, Jesus was emphatically clear on what marriage means to God in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6, "And He answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, "'For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" There can be no doubt about what Jesus said here and His full agreement with his Father on what constitutes marriage.
Finally, Jesus held us to a higher standard, not a lower one, than the Old Testament teachings on sexual immorality. Matthew 5:28: "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." To lust for anyone, outside of a God-defined marriage, is sexual sin. Any other arguments about what someone thinks Jesus would do or what God desires for marriage are invalid. Even if such an argument comes from a pastor, minister, bishop, or priest.
How would Jesus deal with gays? Remembering that homosexuality was an offense punishable by death (just as adultery was) openly gay people would have been unheard of, and that would likely explain the lack of biblical accounts of such an interaction. We know that Jesus mixed with a wide variety of sinners, even dining with them (Matthew 9:10 and Mark 2:13.) I believe He would associate with them, teach them, preach to them, and heal them. But would Jesus bake them a wedding cake?
Jesus was not a baker. But there was a time in His life when He did provide ordinary services to others. In Mark 6:3, He is identified as a carpenter: "Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon?" So what would happen, what would Jesus say, what would Jesus do, if He was approached and asked to make a gay couple a wedding chest? At the risk of ignoring my own admonition, using my own subjective human imagination and speculation, here is what I think would happen.
Jesus would not hesitate to identify sexual sin. He would not repudiate His Father's works in dealing with it. He would stay true to God's definition of marriage. He would hold people to the higher standards He set. He would not turn the gay couple away; we do not see Christ shunning those who sought Him out, even those in spiritual error. I believe He would very plainly and simply state, "I will make for you a chest, but it will not be a wedding chest. For what you have is not a wedding."
Christ lived a sinless life, and was would never participate in or approve of an activity opposed by His Father, or contrary to His own teachings. He would not attend a gay ceremony, cater it, or change their water into wine. This would be a line He would not cross. Although Jesus declared Himself a servant (Mark 10:45), He would not allow His service in any way to run contrary to the clear Word of God.
As Christians in these morally straining times, we must hold fast to the Bible as our source of real and objective truth. We should strive to serve others within the bounds of God's Word, and Christ was the Word Incarnate. A group of people declares, "All we want is to be treated equally." We must treat all people as made in the image of God, but we cannot treat all behavior equally. We are not to treat people badly or unfairly, regardless of who they are, but standing on biblical truth is not bad or unfair. The Golden Rule does not in any way permit sin; do unto others as we would have them do unto us does not mean to help others to do whatever they wish.
There were some matters that Jesus did not address specifically, and for those we have both the Old and New Testament instructions from God to lead us in our decision-making. Unless Christ directly changed a practice, such as Jewish dietary law, then the Old Testament principles still stand. What also changed with the New Covenant is that we no longer live in a theocracy, and the power to make and enforce laws, with the power of the sword, is granted to civil government, and civil authority is ordained by God. We are to live our lives by biblical principles, yet obey the civil authorities unless to do so would violate God's commands.
We are now seeing a huge divergence, a widening gap, between what our Holy God instructs us and what our lawmakers legislate. And the majority of people in this country will now no longer turn to the Bible to decide which is correct. Their opinions are shaped and formed not by Scripture, but by what the general public wants-- popular opinion, and this is a derivative not of objective moral law handed down by God but assembled from a morally relativistic framework. Forget God, the Bible, and the Constitution, it is Judges 21:25 all over again, "...everyone did what was right in his own eyes." The Supreme Court issues Roe versus Wade, and regardless of what the Bible teaches, that becomes the law of the land and legitimizes abortion in the minds of those who believe that it is government that decides and grants rights, not God.
We have recently seen conflict between those who are in states that legally allow for gay marriage and those who are Christian who do not wish to participate in a ceremony that they believe is a sinful union. Laws have been passed to provide religious freedom in some instances, but in other cases there are bakers who have been disciplined for not making wedding cakes for gay weddings, photographers in trouble for not providing wedding photography for these ceremonies, and caterers who have been attacked for not participating in such events. The Christian, who follows the Golden Rule, does not wish to discriminate unfairly, but neither can he accommodate sin. What would Jesus do? Let's look at what Jesus said.
First, Jesus did not retreat from calling out sexual sin of any kind, and He did not condone it. In John 4, He meets the woman at the well and explains that He knows of her adulterous relationship. Later, in John 8, when the adulterous woman is presented to Him, He turns the angry mob away, yet does not condone her adultery. He instructs her, ".. and from now on sin no more."
Secondly, Jesus did not disagree with His Father's pronouncement of judgment on sexual immorality. In Matthew 10:15, referring to towns that would reject the Apostles, He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." Likewise, He did not express disapproval in Luke 17:29 when He refers to the fire and brimstone that "destroyed them all."
Thirdly, Jesus was emphatically clear on what marriage means to God in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6, "And He answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, "'For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" There can be no doubt about what Jesus said here and His full agreement with his Father on what constitutes marriage.
Finally, Jesus held us to a higher standard, not a lower one, than the Old Testament teachings on sexual immorality. Matthew 5:28: "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." To lust for anyone, outside of a God-defined marriage, is sexual sin. Any other arguments about what someone thinks Jesus would do or what God desires for marriage are invalid. Even if such an argument comes from a pastor, minister, bishop, or priest.
How would Jesus deal with gays? Remembering that homosexuality was an offense punishable by death (just as adultery was) openly gay people would have been unheard of, and that would likely explain the lack of biblical accounts of such an interaction. We know that Jesus mixed with a wide variety of sinners, even dining with them (Matthew 9:10 and Mark 2:13.) I believe He would associate with them, teach them, preach to them, and heal them. But would Jesus bake them a wedding cake?
Jesus was not a baker. But there was a time in His life when He did provide ordinary services to others. In Mark 6:3, He is identified as a carpenter: "Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon?" So what would happen, what would Jesus say, what would Jesus do, if He was approached and asked to make a gay couple a wedding chest? At the risk of ignoring my own admonition, using my own subjective human imagination and speculation, here is what I think would happen.
Jesus would not hesitate to identify sexual sin. He would not repudiate His Father's works in dealing with it. He would stay true to God's definition of marriage. He would hold people to the higher standards He set. He would not turn the gay couple away; we do not see Christ shunning those who sought Him out, even those in spiritual error. I believe He would very plainly and simply state, "I will make for you a chest, but it will not be a wedding chest. For what you have is not a wedding."
Christ lived a sinless life, and was would never participate in or approve of an activity opposed by His Father, or contrary to His own teachings. He would not attend a gay ceremony, cater it, or change their water into wine. This would be a line He would not cross. Although Jesus declared Himself a servant (Mark 10:45), He would not allow His service in any way to run contrary to the clear Word of God.
As Christians in these morally straining times, we must hold fast to the Bible as our source of real and objective truth. We should strive to serve others within the bounds of God's Word, and Christ was the Word Incarnate. A group of people declares, "All we want is to be treated equally." We must treat all people as made in the image of God, but we cannot treat all behavior equally. We are not to treat people badly or unfairly, regardless of who they are, but standing on biblical truth is not bad or unfair. The Golden Rule does not in any way permit sin; do unto others as we would have them do unto us does not mean to help others to do whatever they wish.
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