April 16, 2020
Because of particular circumstances I am not able to write a devotion for today. However, I gladly pass along to you the following wonderful meditation from Matthew Henry.
Mark 1:29-39
And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
“Wherever Christ comes, he comes to do good. He cures, that we may minister to him, and to others who are his, and for his sake. Those kept from public ordinances b sickness or other real hindrances, may expect the Savior’s gracious presence; he will soothe their sorrows, and abate their pains. Observe how numerous the patients were. When others speed well with Christ, it should quicken us in seeking after him. Christ departed into a solitary place. Though he was in no danger of distraction, or of temptation to vain-glory, yet he retired. Those who have the most business in public, and of the best kind, must yet sometimes be alone with God…
“How powerful the Physician was; he healed all that were brought to him, though ever so many. Nor was it some one particular disease, that Christ set up for the cure of, but he healed those that were sick of diverse diseases, for his word was a soothing grace – a salve for every sore. And that miracle particularly which he wrought in the synagogue, he repeated in the house at night; for he cast out many devils, and suffered not the devils to speak, for he made them know who he was, and that silenced them.”
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
Malachi 4:2
* Henry’s reference to ministering to Christ was not an unusual expression in the Puritan era. It was a way of expressing a desire to give the Lord that which he is worthy of; of loving and properly honoring him.
April 15, 2020
Genesis 12:10-20
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
In the first half of chapter 12 Abraham is the recipient of God’s sovereign grace. Though a pagan living in a pagan land, God nevertheless drew Abram to himself and made with him his everlasting Covenant of Grace (12:1-3). Abraham would be the one with whom God would formalize the promise he made in Genesis 3:15 to send the Messiah and redeem his people. The Covenant of Grace will be further revealed and ratified by ceremony in chapters 15 and 17. The rest of the Scriptures unveil how God directs all things (providence) in keeping that covenant and bringing it to consummation with in Person and work of the Lord Jesus. The Lord promised to give Abraham the land of Canaan where he would be provided for. So Abraham journeyed from Ur and traveled the length and breadth of the Promised Land (12:4-9).
And then, after these glorious works of God’s grace and provision we read in 12:10, “Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.” It’s as though all the wind comes out of our sails. The signs of amazing grace seem to give way to bitter loss.
But is this not the perplexing pattern in which God’s providence so often seems to unfold? What begins with such blessing soon turns to dismay. In this case, no sooner does God give Abraham the land than famine strikes that very land. Lest we think that this is unusual or should be unexpected, let us remember the example of our Lord. In Mark’s gospel Jesus enters his public ministry introduced by John the Baptist as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. And then as Jesus is baptized the voice of his Father proclaimed so that all may hear, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (1:11).
That revelation of the Triune Godhead, fulfilled prophecy, and the divine nature of Jesus is followed immediately with the account of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness. Plenty is followed by a season of barrenness. Promise is followed by testing.
Consider the Apostle Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12 he recounts (humbly, in the third person) his extraordinary experience of being caught up into Paradise seeing what cannot be expressed in words (vv. 1-4). In the very same chapter Paul tells of the “thorn” which came to him ultimately from the hand of God; a source of acute pain meant to keep him humble. And there again is God’s perplexing providence.
God’s Word does not mislead us into believing that there is a way to find an untroubled life in this world. But no matter how great the trials, God’s grace will always be sufficient and his promises will never fail.
The great poet and hymn writer, William Cowper struggled throughout most of his life with repeated seasons of deep despair. In 1773, believing another bout with depression was upon him, he wrote God Moves in a Mysterious Way.
God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sov'reign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust him for his grace;
behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding ev'ry hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flow'r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain.
April 14, 2020
Philippians 1:3-7
“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”
Following his greeting to the Philippian believers (vv. 1-2) Paul included an introductory word of thanksgiving. This is a common feature of Paul’s epistles as it was in most correspondence of the day. It is clear that Paul had great affection for the Philippian congregation. One commentator points out that Paul’s thanksgiving in this letter “is distinguished by emphatic repetitions and emotional intensity” (Silva, 45).
While Paul utilized the common format for correspondence, at no time did he waste words on meaningless pleasantries. Even the introductory words of thanksgiving are laden with theological depth. Indeed, Paul’s words of thankfulness foreshadow the letter’s most important themes.
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
The Philippian church was made up of a variety of different people, with different backgrounds. There was a successful business woman named Lydia. There was a Roman guard who no doubt would have had more than a few rough edges here and there. These were former pagans whose lifestyles would have to go through a radical change. This is not easy soil for a pastor to work. There’s nothing convenient about a church like this. Add to this the fact that even to this healthy church Paul must correct two feuding members, Euodia and Syntiche.
But far from drudgery, this is joy for Paul. He gives thanks for being witness to God’s redeeming grace in the lives of these men and women. Paul has finely tuned spiritual eyes. He sees everywhere the grace of God in every life changed, in every kindness given, even in every trial that Paul endures he finds cause for joy.
Even now as he writes with shackles on his wrists or ankles what pours forth from him is joyful prayer. Paul is not unrealistic and he’s given neither to sentiment nor denial. His joy was hard won. It is certainly the fruit of God’s grace in his life above all else. But it is also true that Paul was a man who’d gotten over himself. Paul was not impressed with himself. He was not impressed with his resume. He was content to be the slave of Christ and the servant of Christ’s people.
Paul knew he was replaceable. He didn’t demand that people and circumstances conform to his preferences beyond what was demanded by God. As far as Paul knew his latest imprisonment could be the last. This may be the time when Rome finally decides to rid itself of this pesky preacher.
But Paul’s life, even in Roman chains, is suffused with joy. Philippians is Paul’s most joyful letter and yet is written during one of his most significant trials. Sixteen times in Philippians, Paul will use the word joy or one of its derivatives. He doesn’t merely talk about his own joy either. He urges joy upon the Philippians as normative to the Christian life.
“I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me” (2:17-18).
“Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and it is safe for you” (3:1).
“Rejoice in the Lord. I say it again, rejoice” (4:4).
“Genuine godly gratitude works itself out in praying for others by freeing us from our self-sufficiency and self-absorption in order to recognize the grace of God at work in other’s lives” (Harmon, 80).
“It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart…”
What tenderness characterizes Paul’s feelings toward the Philippians believers. Certainly Paul held great affection for all of the churches he served. But it is also true that the Philippian church held a special place in his heart. No doubt his imprisonment and their faithfulness to him in those terrible circumstances peaked his affection for them.
Have you noticed that God uses times of trials and suffering in your own life to stoke the fires of love in your heart for particular people? In Paul’s case, he must have been deeply moved by the willingness of the Philippian Christians to publicly identify with him even though he was under Roman scrutiny. To identify with Paul at that point was a risky prospect.
“…for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”
Paul’s gratitude was no perfunctory literary convention. To read Paul’s thanksgiving in Philippians is to be taken into his inner world of deep affection for these who shared not only God’s gracious salvation in Jesus Christ but also were his partners in advancing the gospel through their material and spiritual support.
In reading Philippians we are not merely eavesdropping on a pastor’s letter to a church. Paul is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so his letter to the Philippian church is simultaneously an expression of love from Jesus to us today. “Paul’s thankful heart shows that as we entrust ourselves to Jesus, he gives two gifts: a love that stretches our hearts to embrace others, and a joy that places our pain into perspective, enabling us to see our suffering in the context of God’s comprehensive plan to make us more like his Son” (Johnson, 22).
April 13, 2020
1 Peter 4:1-6
“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.”
In his first epistle the Apostle Peter seeks to instruct his readers concerning their identity in Christ so that they may live faithfully in a world in which they ultimately do not belong.
In chapter 3 Peter explains that suffering – even to the point of death – is not a sign of weakness or failure: “But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled” (3:14). Now he encourages his readers to arm themselves with the same attitude or way of thinking as that of Jesus. Specifically, believers must arm themselves with the mind of Christ in terms of how they understand their various sufferings.
“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” (vs. 1)
Referring back to the previous section, Peter mentions the suffering of Christ for the sake of sinners: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit…” (3:18). Now he points out that Christ’s suffering includes both its central redemptive concern (covering the sins of God’s people) and a pattern of living for those who are saved.
The military language in verse 1 (“arm yourselves”) indicates that courage and grit are needed for the Christian life. This is particularly true in light of the various sufferings that will come our way for the sake of Christ.
Peter is not stating that physical suffering is a mystical pathway to sinless perfection (“for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin”). His meaning is quite simple: When Christians, armed with the mind of Christ, become willing to suffer for the sake of righteousness they demonstrate that sin no longer rules them. So the clause “ceased from sin” is to be understood in terms of resolve. A willingness to suffer for faithfulness to Christ demonstrates that sin’s ruling power has been broken.
Suffering is not the goal of the Christian life nor is it something that should be sought after. However, anyone desiring to follow Christ in this sinful world will suffer from one degree to another. Therefore, suffering, while not the goal of the Christian life will often serve as an indication that one is pursuing holiness and righteousness and truth.
“With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.” (vs. 4)
Christians who are willing to suffer loss for the sake of Christ have gone to war against sin. They have, in essence, declared that they are through with sin. And because of this they stand apart from the world. Their fight against sin makes them stand out to the point that they become objects of derision.
As one New Testament scholar puts it:
These attitudes toward contemporary Roman customs and morals, combined with the Christian’s refusal to burn incense to the emperor – a gesture of civic gratitude intended to assure the well-being of the empire – earned Christians the reputation of being haters of humanity and traitors to the Roman way of life.
“But they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” (vs. 5)
The holiness of Christians serves as an indictment against the very ones who malign them. God is just and not even death can change his vindication of the righteous who heard and believed the gospel during their lives. This is the meaning of verse 6: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.” This is not about postmortem conversion. The Apostle is referring to those who heard the gospel proclaimed and believed during their life but are now dead. The opponents of Christianity would point to the deaths of Christians as an indication of failure or defeat (“They die like everyone else!”). But Peter’s point is that even though they are “judged in the flesh” like everyone else (i.e. they died) they have received an eternal reward of life in the presence of God which began the moment they died.
Of these verses John Calvin wrote:
“We see…that death does not hinder Christ from being always our defender. It is a remarkable consolation to the godly that death itself brings no loss to their salvation.”
April 10, 2020
Hebrews 2:9
“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Once the public ministry of Jesus commenced the pressures upon him, the ways in which he would suffer seem to begin immediately. He suffers in the desert through the unrelenting attacks and temptations of the evil one. In Hebrews 4:15 we are told that Jesus was tempted “in every way” that is common to us. And let us not sentimentalize this. For his entire life Jesus was dogged and harassed by Satan. I think we can be sure that Jesus, the Son of God, was battered with outward temptations unlike any man has ever known.
But Jesus was also the subject of more common sufferings as well. He was a man whose physical appearance was nothing to desire. We have no record of Jesus laughing. Did he ever laugh? I imagine he probably did. But the fact that we don’t know for sure highlights the very sobering circumstances of Jesus’ life. He did not have the luxury to be lighthearted or frivolous. Jesus bore the heavy weight of his mission every day.
Jesus was poor. He had no permanent home. He had to humbly rely upon the kindness of friends and strangers. Can you imagine the humility of the King of Creation voluntarily requiring the assistance of others?
Jesus was treated as a circus performer by many to whom he had shown great kindness. They demanded constant signs but showed no interest in following him as Lord. Those for whom he labored so diligently to teach remained willfully ignorant. Even his closest followers failed to believe his clear instructions. In his greatest moments of need they failed him.
Jesus was misunderstood by his family who for a time, figured he must be mentally ill. He was constantly pursued by people who had enormous needs. He was followed and stalked by the religious leaders who slandered him and plotted to kill him.
His whole life followed a pattern of rejection – rejection in his hometown, rejection by the religious authorities, rejection by the public who sought only to use him, and rejection by his disciples who all fled at his time of greatest need. Add to all of this the fact that Jesus, the Holy One of God, the eternal Son, chose to live among the sinful and immoral and corrupt. The One who is holy, holy, holy pitched his tent among the profane.
But the greatest burden Jesus bore was the knowledge that he came to die. Jesus would be executed as a criminal and blasphemer. And beyond the obvious physical tortures of crucifixion was the spiritual torment of the event.
Remember God’s command to Abraham – “Take your son, your only son – Isaac…and sacrifice him…” (Gen 22:2). But before the act could be completed God intervened and offered a substitute. Jesus came to be our Heavenly Father’s Isaac. And this time there would be no stay of execution. This time there would be no substitute in Jesus’ place because Jesus was the substitute. As John announced at Jesus’ baptism – “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
Jesus taught his slow believing disciples this repeatedly – “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” (Mark 8:31-32)
In Martin Hengel’s classic work on crucifixion in the ancient world we learn that crucifixion was practiced by various cultures. It was such a brutal and degrading form of execution that by the time of Jesus the Jews had rejected it as a form of execution. Crucifixion continued to be practiced by the Romans and other cultures precisely because it was recognized as both unusually painful and degrading. Hengel writes that in crucifixion “the caprice and sadism of the executioners were given full rein.” (p. 25). He wrote that it “satisfied the primitive lust for revenge and the sadistic cruelty of individual rulers of the masses.” (p. 89) Crucifixion, “is a manifestation of trans-subjective evil, a form of execution which manifests the demonic character of human cruelty and bestiality.” (p. 87)
And yet even in crucifixion the Father placed certain restraints upon the indignities that would be suffered by His Son. Once Jesus breathed his last – once he cried out “it is finished” the indignities came to an end. Jesus’ body was honorably entombed rather than being thrown to the dogs. His body suffered no decomposition. He was dead for the briefest way to calculate three days.
But the details of Jesus’ death were as harrowing as any death ever was. As one Scottish theologian put it – “Jesus was not crucified in a Cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on a town garbage heap…at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble.” Jesus was executed on a well-worn killing ground polluted with the decay and detritus left behind by countless executions.
In Mark 15 we are told that Jesus was offered wine mixed with myrrh – a common practice among the Romans to offer the condemned a way to reduce some of the physical pain. Jesus refused the offer. We’re not told why. Perhaps it had to do with Jesus’ commitment to drink the full cup of God’s wrath for sin.
All the while Jesus is taunted by some of his torturers and even by one of the men crucified next to him. “If you’re the Son of God come down from the cross!” And what they didn’t see was that he was nailed to a cross precisely because he was the Son of God. Donald Macleod writes: “Moment by moment he must repel Satan’s insidious suggestions, summon all his own strength, choose the pain and continue his journey into the terrifying unknown.”
There could be no relief for Jesus because we are told in Hebrews 2, “He must taste death.” What an important choice of words. Jesus did not come merely to die but to “taste death.” He was to experience it in the fullest sense. His death was a cruel and long process. He died un-anesthetized. He daily walked, as we do, through the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus’ life did not ebb away slowly and peacefully. His death was not sudden and accidental. His whole life was a long tasting of death which culminated on the cross.
But the final words he uttered ensure that we know the death of Jesus was not a tragic loss but a deliberately planned victory. His last words were not ones of anguish and defeat. Jesus did not offer up his life in angry dismay. He offered up his life with a shout of victory – “It is finished!” – and in that moment dismissed himself into the loving hands of his Father. Jesus did not die as a pathetic victim. He died the Victor in the long war for the souls of God’s people.
In my place condemned he stood
Hallelujah, what a Savior
April 9, 2020
John 12:27–36
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
All four Gospel accounts – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – tell us many things about the life and teachings of Jesus. We learn in those accounts about the nature of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We learn about how the world treated our Lord. We learn how to walk as followers of Christ. But the primary purpose of all four gospels is to tell us about the cross – Jesus’ death for sinners. The gospel of Mark for example devotes 8 of his 16 chapters to Jesus’ fateful journey to Jerusalem. Fully one fifth of Mark is devoted to the crucifixion itself. We see the same thing in Matthew whose narrative makes the journey toward Jerusalem – the journey toward the cross – the central pivot of the whole story. In Luke’s Gospel, Peter makes his famous confession – “You are the Christ the Son of the living God” – in chapter nine and at that point the whole narrative is focused on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the cross. John gives no reference to such key events as Jesus’ baptism, his temptation in the wilderness, the transfiguration, and the Lord’s supper. But from chapter 7 onward the focus is on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. John chapters 13-17 are devoted to the last night of Jesus’ life and chapters 18 and 19 on the crucifixion itself.
The gospel accounts were never intended to be conventional biographies. For instance, there is only a brief mention of Jesus’ childhood and then nothing until he is about 30 years old. The gospels, while treating the teachings of Jesus with earnest seriousness, nevertheless are not primarily a catalogue of quotations. The gospel accounts are written in such a way as to cast Jesus death and resurrection as the axis point, not only of Jesus’ life but of human history.
“Now My soul is troubled.”
What an amazing statement to come from the lips of Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God. In just two chapters Jesus will say, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am there you may be also. Let not your hearts be troubled” (14:1-2).
And yet as Jesus’ appointment with the cross looms nearer he confesses that his “soul is troubled.” In those words, so full of pathos, we are given insight into the extent to which God became man in Jesus Christ. This is the mystery and miracle of the incarnation. We do not need to guard the impeccable divinity of Jesus by denying his true humanity. Without a Savior who was God and man we would still be in our sins.
“Father, glorify your name.”
After acknowledging that the agony that awaited him had troubled his soul Jesus said, “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour” (vs. 27). The cross was not an accident of human wickedness. It was not an unforeseen tragedy. The cross was the very purpose for Jesus’ coming. The entire trajectory of Jesus’ life, indeed for all of human history, was a deliberate movement toward the cross.
Notice then the connection Jesus makes. After stating that his death for sinners was the very purpose he came into the world, he prays, “Father, glorify your name” (vs. 28). Jesus understood that there was something fundamentally God-glorifying about his coming death. The crucifixion of the Son was an accomplishment of the Divine will; God’s eternal decree. By Jesus’ death, the Father would be glorified.
Specifically, God was glorified in Jesus’ death in at least two ways. First, because “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (vs. 31). Through the dying of Christ, God cast down Satan and his demons. Through the cross God has “[canceled] the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:14-15).
Secondly, God was glorified in Jesus’ death because through it God accomplished the salvation of his people. Jesus referred to this salvation by saying, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (vs. 32). Jesus did not die as a martyr. He did not die merely as a victim of wicked men. On the cross Jesus knew he would be faced with the holiness of God and that he would do so with the full weight of our sins upon his shoulders. Moses trembled on the mountain as he received the law of God. But think of Jesus on the cross. He appeared before the bar of Divine justice not to receive the law but to suffer its curse. He paid the full ransom price of every one of God’s people down through time beginning with Adam and Eve.
He left His Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself [because of] love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race;
'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me.
Amazing Love how can it be,
That though my God should die for me?
April 8, 2020
John 13:1-5
The final week of Jesus’ life is filled with remarkable events. Each moment seems to be charged with meaning. And that is as it should be. After all, human history has been waiting for this very week. All of creation has been groaning for what Jesus would do on that fateful Friday and glorious Sunday. The fulfillment of the first gospel promise, that God would send a deliverer (Genesis 3:15) has finally reached its fulfillment.
Yet before the terror of the cross Jesus shared a final meal with his disciples on the day typically remembered as Maundy Thursday. In the midst of the meal Jesus did something that shocked his disciples. He wrapped a servant’s towel around his waist, took a basin of water, knelt down and began to wash their feet.
The Apostle John records it this way:
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (13:1-5).
I love how F. W. Krummacher reflects on the scene:
The Lord Jesus, although he was then clearly conscious that his hour of return to the bosom of the Father was near at hand, and although he had already lived more above than on the earth, and heard from a distance the hymns of praise, amid those echoes he was soon to reascend the throne of divine Majesty – yet he did not forget his followers, but still retained so much room for these pilgrims in this vale of death, in his affectionate solicitude and recollection.
And yet how much sorrow of heart had these very disciples occasioned him only a short time before, by their lamentable strife for precedence, and especially by their conduct, when Mary poured the costly ointment upon him. You remember the mild and gentle reply which our Lord then gave them; but so far was it from humbling them, and causing them to acknowledge their fault, that it created discordant feelings within them and even closed and estranged their hearts from him for a season. And yet – O comprehend this depth of fidelity and compassion! And yet – the evangelist writes as if the tears were bursting from his eyes – and yet “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them to the end.” For it was to this end – is the apostle’s meaning – that he associated with sinners, that he might bear them eternally on his heart. Those whom his Father had given him were more the objects of his affection than the holy angels around the throne of God, and his love to them increased as the end drew near. O how he loved them when he took their sins with him into judgment, and cast himself into the fire which their transgressions had kindled! How he loved them, when his own blood did not seem too dear a price to be paid for them, although it was they who were the transgressors; he loved them to the end; and to this day he loves them that are his in a similar manner. If a feeling of heavenly rapture thrilled through the apostle John at such a thought, let our hearts vibrate in like manner![1]
[1] F.W. Krummacher, The Suffering Saviour (Banner of Truth: Carlisle, 2004) pp. 29-30
April 7, 2020
Romans 3:21-26
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
That Jesus had to die raises difficult questions for some. For instance, among unbelievers and theological liberals the idea of God sacrificing his Son in the place of the guilty (substitutionary atonement) is tantamount to “divine child abuse.” How can justice be served by the death of an innocent? Others object to the idea of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice for sinners on the basis that it portrays God as wrathful. Why would God need to punish sin? Isn’t God love? Couldn’t God have forgiven sinners without requiring a sacrifice?
The answer to these objections is found in understanding both the nature of God and the nature of sin.
It is very difficult to explain the necessity of the cross in a society where sin has been trivialized. Perhaps you have noticed lately how much advertising is turning to lighthearted and funny depictions of sin to sell products. Recently I saw adultery used as a funny punchline to promote a product. We are immersed in this sort of wink-and-laugh posture toward sin. Cars, perfume, shampoo, cable service, wine, vacations – you name it – increasingly appeal to our taste for transgressing God’s law to sell their products.
A number of years ago an article entitled “Are You Sinning Comfortably?” observed that people no longer avoid sin because sin does not exist as a serious idea in modern life. The idea that particular acts and attitudes offend God is lost entirely because we have privatized God. We have imagined him to be our divine and private talisman. He is a lump of magical clay which we mold and shape in our own image and according to our own preferences. As one theologian has observed – “Man with his own private deity has nothing left to sin against.” (Wells, 68).
I read an article recently about young people growing up in Great Brittan. The writer laments the steep rise of the unbelieving. But what has replaced their belief in God – specifically Christianity – is not substance but triviality. The author writes:
Sociologists have coined a term for these young adults. They call them ‘nones’ because the ‘nones’ believe in ‘nothing’ – of course, nones believe in diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism and intersectionality, but believe in nothing transcendent, eternal, or ultimate. Above all, they believe that life is all about ‘having fun’…For the first time in history a continent has jettisoned its God. Christianity is dead. You’ve won. We’ve lost.
And then he quotes the famous John Lennon song: “Imagine there’s no heaven. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today! Yes, John Lennon, and they are living to ‘have fun.’”
This reality seems at times like an impenetrable wall to belief in the Christian message of sin and forgiveness. And so clarity and honesty about the moral catastrophe of sin is as needed as ever. We must be clear and honest about the pervasiveness of sin in our own lives and the damage that has wrought. Do we have a good and merciful God? Oh yes! He in infinitely merciful and good. But God is also infinitely just and righteous. Indeed, God would not be good were he not just and righteous.
A truly good God cannot treat sin as a small matter. For sinners to be rightly related to God then something objective must take place to satisfy the demands for justice. We intuitively understand this. For instance, when someone has wronged us there must be something to cover over that wrong in order for the relationship to continue as it had before the offense. When someone breaks the law, the requirements of justice must be met, a debt must be paid for that law-breaker to be rightly related to society once again. We know this to be true. And yet when it comes to how we think about God we tend to jettison all notions of justice and expect the Holy and Righteous LORD to simply overlook sin like an indulgent grandfather.
Here is where we must understand that above all else, sin is Godward. That is, sin is always an offense against God. In every form and expression, sin is rebellion against God. Certainly sin damages and defaces us. We need look only briefly at ourselves and the world around us to see just how catastrophic sin has been to humanity. Sin is also against our neighbors. We rarely commit sins which damage only ourselves. But sin is ultimately directed against God (Psalm 51:4). It is breaking his law and setting oneself against his justice.
One theologian calls sin “a triple block to the relationship with God and man because it involves a debt to God, alienation from God, and crime against God…Sin as relational is inherently illegal, the violation of God’s will as revealed in Scripture and creation.” We are told in Scripture that because of sin we are enemies of God and in need reconciliation (Ephesians 2:1-3).
The wages or payment for sin, the Bible says, is death (Romans 6:23). The Bible teaches us that death is not natural. Rather, it is a function of divine justice. It is God’s judgment imposed upon sinners.
For sinners to be rightly related to God required that something be done so radical that their status be changed. Sinners would have to be made righteous. This change of status required a remarkable act on God’s part. It required that God put forward a propitiation – a sacrifice in our place to satisfy the justice of God (Romans 5:9).
B.B. Warfield wrote, “If we have not much to be saved from, why, certainly a very little atonement will suffice for our needs.” But we have much to be saved from. Therefore, we needed a Divine Propitiation. This is the heart of Jesus’ work of atonement. Jesus quite literally had to be a sacrifice for sinners. He had to die in our place. And of course the sacrificial system that God placed at the heart of Israel’s worship was meant in part to train their minds to understand their need for an innocent substitute.
The act of God reconciling sinners to himself is called atonement. It reminds us that as sinners we are not equipped to repair the damage that has been done. To be reconciled to God; to have peace with God, sinners needed a holy Substitute. We needed a perfect keeper of God’s law. We needed one to stand in our place who was like us and unlike us; who knew our frailties but also stood apart from us in utter perfection.
Through the dying of Christ the legal charges which stood against us have been satisfied. Justice has been done. Jesus’ death on the cross vindicated the righteousness of God so that God’s forgiveness of sinners is based on actual justice. Through Christ, therefore, we have been pronounced innocent, not on a technicality or because the prosecution could not make its case. Rather, we have been declared innocent through the shed blood of our Savior. “There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
Rejoice Christian! What God required, he gave. And through Jesus Christ the righteousness of God has been vindicated, “so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
April 6, 2020
Matthew 26:36–39
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
“My soul is very, sorrowful even to death…”
The week leading up to Resurrection Day is one which gives us opportunity to meditate upon the suffering and death of our Lord. After sharing his last supper with the disciples, Jesus led them to the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed and prepared himself for the events soon to take place. In that dark night of the soul we see the humanity of Jesus manifest as he experiences fear, anxiety, and sorrow; a sorrow so great it bent him to the ground.
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me…”
Here we see glimpses of that deepest of all mysteries, the incarnation. Jesus was God in the flesh. The Eternal God became a man of blood and bone. Jesus, the eternal Son of God took on a human nature without giving up his divine nature. In the Garden he prayed out his humanity, identifying with his human creatures, that he might avoid “this cup.” The cup to which he was referring was the cup of God’s wrath. In that moment full of awesome mystery, God positions himself, through the Son, to be the object of his own wrath. In seeking to describe such ineffable realities, the limits of human minds and language is exposed. Nevertheless, this much we know: That Jesus, the eternally begotten Son, is preparing to take upon himself the just wrath of God. The Holy One will be treated as if he was vile. The Innocent One will be treated as if he was guilty. Indeed, the guilt of every one of God’s sinful people will be heaped upon the head of the Savior.
The cross was not merely an expression of God’s sacrificial love. To be sure, the cross displayed God’s love in ways that cannot be adequately described or even imagined. But if love only is what hung Jesus on the cross then we are still in our sins. No. On the cross the wrath of God was poured out in the most terrifying display of justice ever witnessed. And being God, Jesus knew this. He knew that what faced him on the cross was not only the guilt of sinners but the justice of God.
In the classic The Shadow of Calvary, Hugh Martin writes:
From this we may see that the cup which the Father gave him consisted substantially in the imputation to him of a criminal’s guilt, and the assignment to him of a criminal’s position and destiny. No sooner is the mysterious transaction of Gethsemane over than the secret and spiritual nature of what was there determined immediately begins to manifest. From this moment, onward to the resurrection, Jesus is seen among men no more in any other character than that of a criminal. Every step now in his history is that of the history of a criminal. The whole may be summed up briefly thus: He is arrested – libeled – judged – condemned – executed. This whole series of his successive positions and endurances as an offender, a transgressor; so immediately begun, so completely sustained and perfected; was the cup which he finally drained upon the cursed tree. This cup, Peter would have had him to renounce; when he set himself against the first element of it, in his Master’s arrest. Jesus refused to resist his seizure, on the ground that this were refusing the cup which the Father had given him to drink. Can there be any difficulty, then, in understanding what that cup was? That whole treatment of his person as the person of a malefactor, of which the arrest in the garden was the first step, constituted the cup concerning which the sorrows and wrestlings of the garden had been conversant…
[If] we look beneath the surface into what infinite wisdom meant in righteousness to shadow forth by the things which the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God determined should thus be done, we will find that, even as to hear of Christ drinking the cup of wrath, is but to hear in a figure of the atoning sufferings of the surety; so to see him arrested, accused, condemned, and led to the death of a special malefactor, is in like manner only to see in a figure, to see as in a mirror, the successive footsteps of the avenging justice of the highest, as, armed with a valid commission to arrest, and a terrific scroll and handwriting of ordinances to accuse, and the warrant of the judge of all to condemn, and the everlasting sword of Heaven’s wrath to avenge…Every position in which he now stands, whether as a captured criminal in the hands of constituted power, or accused at the tribunal of authority, or condemned by the highest voices in the Church and State, and led away bearing the cross, and crucified between two malefactors, one on either side – every one of these positions, however unrighteous as assigned to him by man, is but an index and an emblem of a corresponding and true and righteous position or relation now assigned to him and which he now assumes, towards the Judge of all the earth.
April 3, 2020
2 Timothy 4:6-8
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Christians long to be in Heaven. At least that is the way it is supposed to be. Certainly the Apostle Paul longed to be in that place where there is no more sin and death. He hungered to be with Christ which is “far better” than even our best moments in this life (Philippians 1:23). This desire to be with Christ in the age to come is not escapism or cowardice. It is a function of being aware that we were not made for a fallen and sinful world. We were not designed to thrive in a place marked by rebellion against God. This is why Paul could say, “For me to live in Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
Jesus warned us that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33). Indeed, this life is a veil of tears. The joys are routinely punctuated by sorrows. But this reality whets our appetite all the more for our Lord’s appearing. We bear the momentary troubles of this life because to do so is the will of our Father in Heaven. We bear afflictions faithfully because at this very moment there is being stored up for us “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). What great rejoicing there will be when we see our Lord for the first time! What unmatched gladness we will know when at last he wipes away all our tears. In that moment we will know that it was true all along that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed at the coming of Christ Jesus (Romans 8:18).
Maurice Roberts observes:
“Faith in Jesus as Savior involves the willingness to suffer in this life. We gratefully endure all the miseries of the life of faith during this present age out of a desire to have Christ forever when our present trials will be over. It is often said, ‘No cross, no crown.’ We cannot expect to have Heaven without first going through ‘the suffering of this present time’ (Romans 8:18). Or, as Acts 14:22 says, ‘through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.’
“An old Puritan said this present life is the only hell that a believer will have to experience. That view of life may be foreign to Christians today. Many would rather think of having Heaven some day as well as Heaven upon earth along the way. That may be true, in a sense. But it is unbliblical if the phrase suggests that Christians will only have good times in this life…
“The saints of Scripture and history chose to suffer here with Christ so they might reign with him hereafter. They were prepared to go through life with suffering, pain, loss, and even death as their constant companions. They were willing to suffer because they loved Christ more than comfort.”[1]
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all!
[1] Maurice Roberts, The Happiness of Heaven (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009) p. 84
April 2, 2020
Psalm 77
In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord…
The Bible is remarkably honest about the troubles and sorrows we will face in this life. Any expectation that Christians may expect to avoid or somehow rise above suffering and sadness in this life is inconsistent with God’s Word. It is understandable why such empty promises have always found an audience. Our hearts long for that land where there are no sorrows. But we do not live there yet. Even though, by God’s grace, we do experience many joys, this life is a veil of tears.
Only God’s Word offers an adequate answer as to why this is. The entire created order, ourselves included, has been corrupted by sin. Because of this the whole creation groans and we ourselves with it (Romans 8:18ff). Whether because of disease, disaster, or disobedience each of us experiences the heavy weight of this fallen world. But God has not left us alone in our sorrow. Indeed, he has prepared for us a weight of glory in the life to come to which our present pains cannot be compared (Romans 8:18).
Until then the Lord has provided for his people a prayerful and worshipful language in which we may express our sadness and dismay. This language is called lament. One writer has called lament, “a prayer in pain that leads to trust.”[1] To lift up a prayer of lament is an act of deep trust in the Lord. It means we know things are not the way they are intended to be. Also, when we lift our lament before God we are acknowledging that only he can offer our souls the comfort they crave.
Lament is not the opposite of praise. It is a part of praise uniquely fit for a fallen world while the redeemed wait for the dawning of the age to come. “Lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment. The space between brokenness and God’s mercy is where this song is sung…It is the path from heartbreak to hope.”[2]
I cry aloud to God.
There is nothing discreet about the Psalmist’s prayer. There is no pretending in him at this point. His anguish is so great that he quite literally gives voice to his complaint. He cries out aloud. But this is not some undirected cry of abandonment. He cries out “to God.” His anguished cry is a prayer to God. His days of trouble were days of prayer. Likewise, our days of trouble should be days of prayer. Our mourning, our sighing, our complaint does no good until we lift that anguish up to the throne of God. Christian lament is anguish lifted to God; to the only One who can do anything about it.
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah
The questions the Psalmist raises (vv. 7-9) may seem risky to those who have not suffered much. But the suffering Psalmist has no more room for pretending that he is not dismayed by what seems like a disparity between who he knows God to be and his present desolation. His questions focus on God’s favor, his love, his promises, his grace, and his compassion. These are all related to one another. Essentially, the Psalmist is asking whether God will remember his covenant, his steadfast loyal love. Is it possible, the questions imply, that God has forgotten his promise to love and keep his people?
However, the questions, while reflecting real pain, actually anticipate a negative response. And this is the cause of the Psalmist’s dismay. For he knows that the Lord does not abandon his people. He does not remove his love from his chosen ones. He does not forsake his covenant. How then, the Psalmist wonders, can he reconcile that knowledge with his present pain?
I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
I will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is great like our God?
“The memories which at first brought only tormenting comparisons are resolutely re-examined, no longer colored with the present despair but allowed to shine with their own light and speak with their own logic. By the end of the psalm the pervasive ‘I’ has disappeared, and the objective facts of the faith have captured all his attention and all of ours.”[3] In short, after a long look at himself and his pain the Psalmist now lifts his gaze to the Lord and his mighty works.
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Here we have echoes of God’s deliverance of the people through his judgement upon Egypt. God redeems his people, not by denying justice, but in its fulfillment. Ultimately, God saved his people not by ignoring the due penalty of their sin but by redirected that penalty to and absorbing it in himself in the Person of the Son. When Jesus died on the cross he experienced the flood waters of God’s judgment. He absorbed the fire of Divine justice so that sinners could be delivered from their captivity to sin, decay, and death. In our dark night of suffering let us remember above all things the love and justice of God so brilliantly displayed on the cross.
Only when we gaze upon the cross of Christ will we remember the unfailing faithfulness of God. Christian lament terminates in hope precisely because the Father spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all (Romans 8:32). How will he fail us now? How could God ever forsake us when he has already given us his most precious gift? In looking to the cross, our present sorrow may not end, but we will know that we have a Savior who sang songs in the night just as we do. When we look to the cross we can rest in the knowledge that God’s justice has been satisfied so that our present sufferings, though real and painful, can ultimately not be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us as the children of God (Romans 8:18).
[1] Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds Deep Mercy (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019) p. 28
[2] Ibid
[3] Derek Kidner, Psalms (Downers Grove: IVP, 1973) p. 277
April 1, 2020
In these days, I find myself drawn more than usual to those passages of Scripture which help me to lament. I gravitate particularly to the Psalms which give language for lament and grief and even complaint. The Psalms are not embarrassed by our moans of sorrow and protest. Indeed, John Calvin wrote that when we enter a time a crisis, “we are all too apt at such times to shut up our affliction in our breast – a circumstance which can only aggravate the trouble and embitter the mind against God.”
As Carl Trueman observes:
The psalms as the staple of Christian worship, with their element of lament, confusion, and the intrusion of death into life, have been too often replaced not by songs that capture the same sensibilities – as the many great hymns of the past did so well – but by those that assert triumph over death while never really giving death its due. The tomb is certainly empty; but we are not sure why it would ever have been occupied in the first place.[1]
The point, of course, is that we rush past any careful consideration of lament over sin and the curse. We long for pronouncements of victory but end up trivializing that victory because we have not wept over what has been lost.
Our current crisis should be a megaphone blasting forth the news that things are not the way they are supposed to be. Men and women were not created in order to become sick and die. But neither were we created to sin. The magnitude of suffering in the world ought to be testimony to every human both of the moral weight of God and the moral disaster of sin. Man has rebelled against his Maker, the Judge of all the world. And since God is infinitely holy, sin is infinitely disastrous.
And so in times when the consequences of sin are seen in such bold relief as they are today, let us not hold back our cries of grief. Let us not be silent when our hearts are swollen with hard questions and dismay. Godly men and woman have had moments when the only prayers they could muster were “Why O Lord?!”
Christians can pray that way because ultimately our prayers do not end in a place of dismay (even if they do for today). No matter how sorrowful may be in the night, we know that joy comes in the morning for God has built within his creation a calculus of redemption. That is, God, who is sovereign over all things, people, and events, has made a way for what was ruined by sin to be remade through the triumph of Jesus Christ.
In his wonderful book Rejoicing in Lament J. Todd Billings writes:
We trust that even though God is not the author of evil, God’s governance will bring what was intended as evil to good ends, even as God did with the evil intended by Joseph’s brothers; more significantly, God brought redemption through the evil act of the soldier’s crucifixion of Jesus Christ…In the words of one Reformed confession* about the “ordaining” or “willing” of God, “God does not ordain evil in the same way that God ordains good – that is, as something pleasing to God – but as something God hates.” Yet God freely permits the evil of creatures, “and in a wonderful way uses [it] for good.” God hates evil, yet the world is in God’s governing hands to such an extent that we can lament and blame God when he wills to permit evil. We don’t know why God permits evil – in general or in particular circumstances. Yet with the psalmist we can come before a God who is good and trustworthy, powerful and loving, with lament, petition, and praise until Christ’s kingdom has fully come.[2]
* The Reformed Bremen Consensus (1595)
[1] Carl Trueman, “Tragic Worship,” First Things, June/July 2013, p. 20
[2] J. Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015) p. 69
March 31, 2020
Romans 11:33-36
Paul’s epistle to the Romans is the most complete single explanation of the gospel in the Bible. By the time we reach the end of chapter 11 we have read about the comprehensive nature and consequences of sin, the gospel as the vindication of God’s righteousness, the imputation of Adam’s sin and Christ’s righteousness, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, God’s sovereign election, the necessity of conversion, and sanctification. After writing such a wealth of glorious doctrine Paul ends chapter 11 with a doxology:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (vv. 33-36)
Paul begins his doxology with an acknowledgement of God’s fundamental “otherness.” That is, God is not like us to the extent that he is “inscrutable,” which means that he is beyond our understanding. Whatever we know about God we know because he has chosen to reveal it to us in his word and his works. Paul then asks three rhetorical questions: Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? and Who has given him a gift that he might be repaid? These questions are meant, at least in part, to establish God’s radical independence. He is never in need of his creation. He does not exist in a give-and-take relationship with anything in creation.
God is entirely in and of himself. He owes nothing. He owns everything.
What follows, then, is a three-fold statement concerning the nature of God’s ownership of all things. God’s ownership can be understood as a cycle wherein all things come from God, are sustained through God, and will be returned to God. In this one doxological statement we are given a window into the purpose of all things. Nothing in all creation is excluded from this flow of Divine ownership.
The daily assessment of our lives ought to be that we are from God, through God, and to God. God is our Maker, our Source, and our Owner. From, through, and to describes how we live in relationship to our Lord.
It is clear from Paul’s description, that God’s ownership is dynamic rather than static. That is, there is movement to the way in which God owns. This distinguishes God’s kind of ownership from that which we see in the rest of creation. Remember, in verses 33-35 Paul has already established the otherness of God. This otherness is seen not only in God’s essence but in his acts, including his acts of ownership. The ownership of God over all things in creation is a life-giving movement out of which all things are from, through, and, ultimately, to Him.
And because God is eternally self-existing and self-sufficient, his way of owning is never leveraged to add to himself something that is missing. In other words, God’s way of ownership is expressed in lavish generosity. God’s ownership is animated in giving. Indeed, God is the great Giver. Everything we have comes from his hand. He withholds nothing from his children that they truly need.
John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in his should not perish but have eternal life.”
James 1:17 – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Acts 17:24-25 – “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
Romans 8:32 – “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
March 30, 2020
Romans 15:13
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
That is a prayer found near the end of Romans just as Paul begins to round out his greatest letter.
Christians have always been in awe of the magisterial theology of the book of Romans. But I wonder if we are always aware of the practical impact of all of the rich theology. In many ways, Paul’s prayer in chapter 15 sums up the living implications for all the doctrine he has unfolded beginning in the opening words.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace…”
Who doesn’t want joy and peace? Even the most cynical unbeliever desires joy and peace. Mankind has always sought the remedy for his spiritual ills. He has bowed down before idols, indulged in every imaginable lust, sought security in money, and even tried to imagine a world without God or heaven. But mankind, made in the image of God, cannot avoid the cry of his soul. So he carries on searching through empty wells for the water that will satisfy.
Notice how Paul modifies his prayer that God would fill his readers with “all joy and peace.” It is “in believing.” In believing what? Certainly in believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ. But even more specifically Paul is referring back to everything he has just labored over in this epistle. Romans is the most comprehensive and, yes, systematic expositions of the gospel in the Scriptures. Joy and peace are never detached from theological depth and precision. Joy and peace are not the fruit of sentimental journeys or spiritual techniques or sensate pleasures. Joy and peace are the fruit of being reconciled to God through the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus. And Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome aims to take us into the depths of our Lord’s redemptive work.
Notice that being filled with “all joy and peace,” does not seem to be an end in itself. Rather the Apostle attaches a purpose clause: “…so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
As I write these words there is continued war and unrest in the world with no promise that it will get any better but every indication that it will get increasingly worse. Right now, the world shudders in fear of an unseen virus which has brought economic powerhouses to a stand-still. Fears of sickness, death, and financial ruin loom over countless households. And not even the most respected experts can give answers as to when this will draw to an end. But even when it does draw to an end, what then? Will there not be another crisis? Will not wars and rumors of wars persist? Will not hostility toward the people of God continue? Will not the world’s mockery of Christ carry on?
In times like these we see that God has engineered us for hope. Given that God has made us ultimately for another world, hope, by definition is as essential to the Christian’s heart as breath is to the lungs. Christians can be honest, therefore, about the tragedies of this life and the uncertainties of tomorrow because of hope which is simply confidence in what God has promised (Hebrews 11:1).
God has hard wired us to need hope; to look forward to happier days, to dream of better things to come, to want good to continue and what is bad to end, and to long for a future that is better than the past and the present. As Andy said to Red in The Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Without hope, the soul collapses.
Immanuel Kant said that one of life’s three basic questions is, What may we hope for? And of course, he was right. Where do you look today for hope? It won’t be found in politics. It won’t be found in money or material possessions. It won’t be found in physical health or a career that feels significant.
For many of us the most frustrating thing about hope is not its periodic absence but its seeming elusiveness when we feel we need it most. How comforting it is then that the Apostle reminds us that our Heavenly Father is “the God of hope” who has given us the Holy Spirit that we “may abound in hope.”
Think about the title that Paul gives to the Lord: The God of hope. God does not need hope. Indeed, he is never in need of anything for he is completely sufficient within himself. So that fact that he is the God of hope means that by necessity that he is the God who gives hope. The God who made us to live on hope in this fallen world will not leave us without hope. Indeed, God’s reservoir of hope is so deep that the supply leaves us abounding in it. The hope that God supplies does not merely moisten the edges of our hearts but leaves us filled to overflowing. “The power of the Holy Spirit” is marshalled toward that end!
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:18-25).
March 27, 2020
Philippians 1:12-14
“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”
Philippians is a friendship letter. In keeping with this, Paul makes mention of his own condition (vv. 12-20). Paul is writing from prison and the church in Philippi was understandably concerned about his wellbeing. Is he healthy? Is he cold? How great is the threat against his life? They would certainly have been concerned about the ramifications of Paul’s imprisonment on the spread of the gospel in general. If the apostle Paul can be imprisoned and silenced then what does that mean for the gospel mission? Certainly, they were concerned about Paul’s heart, how he was holding up spiritually. In this section of the letter Paul seeks to address these concerns.
In the course of it, he teaches us something about the sovereign providence of God in our personal calamities. Something very deep is being excavated for us in this text. Suffering and calamity are part of God’s design to advance the gospel. Certainly there are categories of suffering such as that which results from our own sin and foolishness in which we ought never to boast. But Paul was able to lift up his chains so to speak and see something far beyond Roman cruelty and the hatred of his own people. He was able to see the glorious purpose of God.
The main body of the letter to the Philippian church begins with a note of solemnity: “I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me…” (vs. 12). Paul is sensitive to the fact that his brothers and sisters in Philippi desired to know how he was doing in captivity. They no doubt had great concerns about his health and safety. Ever the pastor, Paul seeks to comfort them with his own confidence in God’s good purposes.
What happened to Paul, of course, had been going on for over two years. His life was under constant threat from Jewish conspirators who sought to kill him. He had been in Roman chains in Judea. Now in Rome, still in chains, he awaited his appeal before Caesar. It would have no doubt been a great source of sadness for Paul that he was required to appeal to a pagan Emperor against the false testimony of his fellow Jews.
“I want you to know brothers…”
Paul certainly knows what at least some of them are thinking: “Why God?”
“Why would you allow your apostle to be held in chains for three years?”
“Why would you allow your servant to be shut down like this?”
So you see what is behind Paul’s disclosure here. “I know what you’re thinking, but this is what is actually happening…” The next clause is remarkable for its brevity and lack of drama: “…what has happened to me…” What a small, seemingly insignificant reference to such a great personal calamity. Paul could have woven a very dramatic tale of his sufferings and drawn the sympathy of the Philippians. But he remains self-effacing.
Alec Motyer sums up the events that led to Paul’s unjust imprisonment:
“He was made the subject of unjust and unprovoked insult and shame (23:2), malicious misrepresentation (24:5; 25:6f.), and deadly plot (23:12ff.; 25:1ff). He was kept imprisoned owing to official craving for popularity (24:27), or money (24:26), or because of an over-punctilious facade of legalism (26:32). The deceit and malpractice and vilification that surrounded his person were past belief . . .”[1]
But Paul just calls all of that, “what has happened to me . . .” Paul did not believe in coincidence. He rejected any notion that God’s universe was given over to the impersonal forces of fate or random accident.
Paul assured them that his captivity in Rome (and therefore everything that led to it) had “really served to advance the gospel” (vs. 12). These words communicate design. Paul was confident that his chains were serving a particular purpose that accorded to the plans of God. That purpose was the advance of the gospel. The Sovereign God who works all things according to the counsel of his will (Eph 1:11) had designed Paul’s captivity to spread the gospel among the Palace guard and even to members of Caesar’s own household.
The word “really” is interesting. A strictly human assessment of Paul’s situation would conclude that his imprisonment would be an impediment to the work of the gospel. But Paul assures his brothers and sisters that his circumstances “really” are accomplishing God’s purpose.
What an extraordinary thought! What a comfort! That God can and does use our suffering and the calamities that befall us as a means to advance the precious gospel of Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul boasted in his weakness and sufferings. No. We do not boast in that suffering which is due to our own sin. But Paul was able to lift up his chains and see something far beyond Roman cruelty. He was able to see the glorious purpose of God.
[1] J. Alec Motyer, “The Richness of Christ” (Inter-Varsity Fellowship, London, 1966) p.33