New Thoughts (02/25/08-03/03/08)
Kingdoms in Conflict (02/26/08)
There’s a theme that has run through the entirety of this encounter between Jesus and those who had come seeking Him. I’m thinking about something beyond the line of Jesus’ preaching, although related in a way. Jesus is, as ever, preaching the kingdom of God, the good news of reconciliation, and of a living God actively involved in the lives of His people. From another angle, though, what we are witnessing is kingdoms in conflict.
Israel was expecting her Messiah, and they expected that this Messiah would bring military primacy and a restoration of the glorious kingdom of Israel which David had built up in his time. Well, here’s something we may miss as readily as they: the Messiah did come bringing military primacy, and He did restore the glorious kingdom. What Israel missed at the time was that the glory of David’s kingdom did not lay in strength of arms, nor in the riches taken in tribute, nor even in the security of the land he ruled. The glory of David’s kingdom was that his kingdom belonged to the kingdom of God and he knew it. He rejoiced in it, knowing that his authority was delegated to him by God and that he was therefore responsible to God for his leadership of that country.
What Israel misunderstood was that Jesus did not come with Israel first in His mind. He did not come with earthly kingdoms and powers first in His mind. He came with God’s kingdom first in His mind and last in His mind and occupying every thought in between. He came as the ruler of that kingdom, and He assuredly came as a victorious warlord on behalf of that kingdom. In appearance, He seemed to us but a humble servant, little more than a slave as we measure the standing of man. In truth, He bore forward the standard of God’s kingdom and planted it in the very midst of the enemy’s camp. “Behold, I have overcome the world!” As incongruous as it seems, when He submitted Himself to the death of the cross, He won the final victory over sin and death. Though we have yet to feel the full benefit of that victory in our flesh, yet we can live in the assurance that the battle has been won.
Coming into this conversation Jesus has with these ‘seekers’, we see the conflict between the kingdom aspirations of man and the kingdom purposes of God. Augustine wrote at length on this conflict. Though I have not read the text, his book “The City of God” is a lengthy exposition on the subject. Really, though, this theme of kingdom conflict runs through the pages of Scripture. It is as constantly present in the narrative as is the scarlet thread of redemption. It has to be, for the need for the latter is wrapped up in the rebellion of the former. If man were not so dead set on establishing himself as the rule, as a law unto himself, he would not run afoul of the God Who Rules over all.
This conflict between kingdoms finds its seeds right there in the Garden. It begins with that first temptation: “You will be like God. You will know good and evil” (Ge 3:5). Let me translate that for the slow learner: You will decide for yourselves what is good and what is evil. You make the rules. You be the king. And the battle has raged ever since, as the rebel son of man seeks to prove himself free of the rule of God.
It must be granted that the kingdom of man has by and large given up any thought of heaven. We are, as a rule, perfectly satisfied to own the horizon. At least, that’s the appearance we put on the thing. The reality is that the kingdom of man seeks to destroy the kingdom of heaven, as impossible as that shall ever prove to be. Somewhere in the heart of the rebel, there is recognition that a true destruction of heaven is beyond our capacity, so we seek instead to define it out of existence. Oh, there is no God. There is no spirit. Everything is but flesh, bone and DNA. The cosmos goes on unguided as it ever has been, a huge, even magnificent accident utterly devoid of meaning. We are what we are. We are what we make ourselves.
That is the sum of philosophy in this kingdom of man. You can hear it preached from the pulpits of atheism. You can hear it declared from the halls of science. You can hear it in the empty promises of the political class. You can hear it in the deadly threats of the tyrant. It is all of one accord: We make the rules. We will make the most of this short life, because there is nothing else.
You can see the effect of this mindset on the generation that is arising. Raised on such a philosophy, they have inevitably turned the equation on its head. If there is nothing else, they reason (and rightly so, were the premise correct), then what’s the point? Do what you want because nothing really matters. It doesn’t matter what you do to others, the worst penalty that could come would be an early death, and what is that but the ultimate in early retirement? It doesn’t matter if you destroy your body or your mind. You were going to die anyway. You’re just helping the process along. If life is significance-free, then why prolong the agony? This is the effect of the kingdom of man seeking to throw off the God who created man. Talk about your Pyrrhic victory!
Now, turning back to Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, we see this same issue playing out, just in a somewhat less violent form. Through this whole thing, Jesus has been seeking to turn the attention of His listeners toward God’s kingdom. He has been seeking to get their minds off of the limited issue of earth. But, however well He aims for heaven, their thoughts remain wholly earthbound. Are they stupid? No. A more likely answer is that they are stubborn. They do not want to let go of their own kingdom and be subject to God again. Oh, they were willing enough to borrow His military champion to lead their own campaign, but they were not really willing to submit to His rule. No, they had their own kingdom to establish, thank you.
Recall that we who have given up the rebellion and come to God as His servants; we do not fight against flesh and blood. Our weapons are not things of steel and gunpowder. The battle we have enlisted into is a battle in the spirit, of the spirit and for the spirit. We fight for the soul of a man. We fight for his heart and for his mind, that he might be freed from the bonds that keep him earthbound, keep him enslaved in this petty kingdom which is the city of man. We cry for him as we cry for ourselves. “Set my spirit free to worship Thee.” We cry for him, because we know only too well what binds him. We seek to sever those bonds as our Lord and Savior sought to sever those bonds. And that is exactly what we find Him doing here.
You came for lunch, but I’m telling you, that there is something more important, more critical to your survival even than bread, even than water, even than breathing. You look to the manna, and you give Moses the glory. But, I tell you Moses did nothing. God did all. And, Moses knew it. You look to the manna, and you think, “free meal!” You cannot think beyond your belly! I tell you that something greater than the manna is come! I tell you that the manna was only a type, a shadow, but now the real bread is here. Men ate manna and yes, it nourished them for a time; but, only for a time. They died just as dead as any other, in spite of eating the bread of angels. Now the fulfillment of that type stands before you. Now, the True Bread of Heaven is here. I AM not like that manna which only fed for a day. I AM not like the Temple sacrifice that only covers your sins for a day. I AM the Life! Take! Eat of Me, and – though your body may die – yet you will live forever! Refuse Me, and you can be just as certain that when your body has died you will die forever. Not the blank nothingness of the nihilist. No. Not even the mindless zombie state that so many movies have shown you. No, this is an eternity of conscious awareness of your own death, an eternity of paying the price of your rebellion.
You have been caught up in the kingdom of man. You have forsaken all thought of heaven. You have traded your birthright for a pot of lentil soup! Don’t you see? What feeds the stomach will be digested in a short time, and will then serve the body no useful purpose. In fact, however well you feed your body, it’s going to die anyway. No matter how many times your physical maladies are healed, you’re going to die anyway. To every man it comes, however fit or however frail. This mortal coil will be shed. But, here’s the thing that you have kept hidden from your eyes: The soul lives on. The spirit remains. The spirit is eternal and it bears the eternal price of your earthly record.
Now, hear the victory speech in what Jesus is saying! Do you know how little this physical body is worth in the scales of eternity? I am giving it up for your sake. Go ahead! Take this body. Take what temporary satisfaction you can from My destruction, and I will gladly suffer it. Do you understand why? I will suffer it because I know that by My suffering I have procured your eternal forgiveness. I know that by My suffering I have ensured the life of every last person that My Father is giving to Me. The sufferings of this flesh, of this life, are as nothing when put on the scales against an achievement of such great worth!
All flesh must die in time. Whatever advances science is making, still the body fails. It is a sentence no man survives. The whole thing Jesus is stressing here is that, knowing that this is the case, our attention should really be focused on that which will live on. Is He saying that we should just stop eating and get it over with? No! He’s simply saying that we’ve let the kingdom of man capture our attention and rule our lives long enough. That way lies death, death just as real and eternal as the life He offers is real and eternal.
Engaging the Student (02/27/08)
What is more shocking than the message Jesus delivers in this passage is the fact that He delivers it. One might expect Him to soften the message, to offer a different illustration that would help His listeners understand. Instead, He simply amplifies what He has already said. If anything, He makes it harder to take than it was. “He who eats Me shall live.” This was supposed to help? On the surface, it seems like He is going out of His way to offend. That might almost be believable, at least in the case of those who did not stand in the ranks of the called. But, as the following passage makes clear, His own disciples were listening as well, and He did not have reason to seek their offense for its own sake.
More believable is the idea that by amplifying the offense of His message He is seeking to make it more clear that the message is not something to be taken literally. He is, as a good teacher should, seeking to engage the students with the subject He is teaching. He is looking for active participation in the process of learning. Those who insist on being spoon fed the Truth, will soon find the Truth to be most unpalatable. So, He pushes the imagery to make the ones who really want to learn move from the image to the underlying Truth. He is forcing them to ask themselves what He really means. Otherwise, if they are to take Him at face value, they must surely declare Him insane or worse.
The end result, as we see in the verse following this passage, is that even His disciples were finding the message impossible to understand. “Who can listen to this?”, they ask (Jn 6:60). Remember that we are dealing specifically with listening in what amounts to a classroom setting. It’s not that they’re going to plug their ears and refuse any further nonsense. There were probably some in the crowd that were feeling this way, but I shouldn’t think we’d find them amongst the ones marked out as His disciples. It has more to do with understanding. Who can make sense of what He is saying? It’s beyond us to figure it out. If that’s the case, what’s the sense of continuing with Him? What use is a teacher we can’t understand? What use is a lesson that we cannot absorb? In our day and age, we’d declare the teacher the problem. Clearly, He can’t teach.
In our day and age, much like theirs, the real problem lies with the student in the majority of instances. They think themselves poorly taught if the lesson is not simply handed to them. They think themselves poorly used if they have to participate in their own learning. So, when the Teacher begins to teach in a fashion that requires effort, they complain about His ability rather than look to themselves. “Who can listen to this?” In simple terms, the answer is apparently that those whose ears the Master has opened are able. Were I to add to that, I would note that those same people will discover in themselves a patience that empowers them to await a clarifying lesson. We will see that in the next section, so I think I shall set it aside for now.
Let me, then, settle for pointing out that many in Israel really did consider Jesus dangerously insane. John 10:19-21 notes that the Jews were of mixed opinion in regard to Him. Some – and I would argue this largely consisted of those same ones who simply would not get their minds off the physical present – heard in His teachings evidence of insanity, evidence of demonic possession. Others, just as perplexed by His teaching, could at least recognize that their own faculties were hardly fit for judging the wisdom of God. They may not have understood, but they understood at least that what He was teaching was intended to be heard on a higher level. They also understood that, if the words were incomprehensible, the signs were not. The signs offered clear indication that He was sent by God. As such, however hard His message, it behooved them to do their utmost to lay hold of it.
As something of an exam question for the student, let me leave this topic with the question Jesus had for Martha, for it is a question that we all must grapple with at some point. There outside the grave of her brother, Jesus speaks to Martha. “Everyone who lives believing in Me shall never die,” He reminds her (Jn 11:26). Then, He asks her, “Do you believe this?” I tell you (and I say this based on her own answer) that simply saying, ‘yes’ doesn’t answer the question. Martha’s reply showed that she understood and believed only in part. Yes, yes. In the sweet by and by. That’s great, God. But I’m in the here and now. She’s not that far removed from this crowd hearing Jesus now, stuck in the here and now, unable to look beyond the evidence of the senses. Neither are we ever all that far removed from Martha.
Martha has the theology, and she has the sound doctrine, taught by the Object of theology and the Source of doctrine. But, she has not yet trained herself to look at the implications of her theology and her doctrine. Like those who would only consider the Law in its most literal interpretation without considering what all was included under its headings, she understands resurrection, but she doesn’t really yet understand her Master – the power and source of resurrection. She has not figured out that the Source of Life, the Bread of Life is standing before her. He who has life in Himself can give of that life to whom He chooses. That part hasn’t registered yet. But, it will, won’t it?
For us, I think the question is even more critical, because we are not living in an age when Jesus is a physical presence amongst us. We are seemingly far removed from the age of miracles, and we have a social order that would seek to remove us further from it in our thinking. We have theologians who reject the miraculous and yet claim to represent the Miraculous One. It becomes critical for us to ask ourselves repeatedly and with great earnestness: “Do you believe this?” Our answer must consider far more than the historicity of the Gospel record. It must consider far more than the future hope of the Second Coming. Do you believe this in all its implications? Have you even considered the implications? Have you yet chewed upon this and digested it so as to recognize all that is implied in what your Teacher has just taught you? Have you taken ownership of that message, and made it part and parcel of who you are? When you can answer, “yes” to all of this, then alone have you truly answered “yes” to the first. Welcome to the active engagement of the disciple.
What Does He Mean (02/28/08-02/29/08)
It’s interesting that many of the newer translations try to suggest that it was only those who were opposed to Jesus who were arguing. Rather than leaving the text untouched, they change ‘Jews’ to ‘Judeans’ or go even farther, changing it to ‘evil people’. Let’s face it. If we had been there we would have been just as clueless as they. As for arguing vociferously, that is assuredly a cultural matter. It signifies little to hear men of the Middle East discussing things so heatedly. It mostly means they are engaged with the subject.
To suggest that it was somehow the Judeans alone who took issue with this statement is to push one’s knowledge of later events onto the translation. Look. The scene is Capernaum. In Galilee. Were there Judeans present? Perhaps. But, I would note that at John’s baptism, that point was spelled out with great clarity: Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem, clearly not to be confused with the locals. I would suggest that the lack of any such clarification here should lead us to take the term at its face value. In other words, the general attitude of the crowd was one of confusion and offense. They didn’t understand His point. Some had an idea of what He might mean, and others had other ideas. They certainly couldn’t agree as to what He was getting at, and it’s doubtful that many were even close to an accurate understanding, given the displayed insistence on keeping their thoughts on the ground.
It behooves us to try and do better. We have, to our benefit, the text of that message from start to finish that we may draw into consideration. We have the things Jesus explained later to His disciples that we may consider. We also have the record of earlier teachings which can help us to understand this one. One key factor we must bear in mind s that which Jesus says to His disciples later. “The flesh profits nothing. The Spirit gives life, and what I have just spoken; those words are spirit and life” (Jn 6:63).
This must surely guide our thinking. I AM life. What I speak is Life. Bread gives Life. I AM the Bread. Is He, then, simply teaching that we must really study His teachings deeply, and that this will bring us into eternal life? I don’t think so. His word is Life, that is true. That is True because He is the Living Word, the Logos, come down out of heaven. It is True because He has Life essentially, free of external cause, in Himself and it is in His Authority to give of that essential Life to whom He will. But, it will take more than good study habits to obtain that from Him.
So, when Jesus declares that His flesh is the bread, we need to be careful not to be drawn back into a merely physical understanding. Note well that He incorporates the declaration that this flesh, this bread, is that which He shall give for the life of the world (Jn 6:51). With that in mind, the sacrificial aspect of His mission is brought to the fore. This is all of a piece with Paul’s teaching that we all participate in that crucifixion. For apart from participation in His crucifixion – which is to eat and internalize that which He offered on the cross – we are unequipped to participate in His resurrection. As I heard in R. C. Sproul’s message this month, the Resurrection was God’s seal of approval upon the Atonement, the sacrificial offering His Son had made of Himself. The Innocent had been accepted in the place of the sinful, and by His acceptance, He had made His own righteousness available to the sinful. Those who had been trapped on the road to an inevitable and eternal death had found in His sacrifice the road to an equally inevitable and equally eternal life.
What had they found, but Christ’s own righteousness made available to them? Again and again, as I look at this difficult message of eating flesh and drinking blood, I am returned to the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:6). How is that to be? They shall be satisfied by the flesh of the Son, by His sacrifice which has opened the only avenue to righteousness, and to the only righteousness which will hold in the sight of God. They shall be satisfied by availing themselves of that which was purchased by the blood of the Son, drinking in that cup which He holds out to them, that they may be cleansed of their own sins, their accounts cleared in the courts of God, and they, themselves, washed clean and made presentable, that the Father might look upon them with favor. Blessed indeed are these hungry, thirsty people, for they are the very ones the Father is drawing to His Son (Jn 6:44), and they are the ones of whom the Son says, “I shall lose not a one. I shall raise you up on that last day” (Jn 6:39).
For all the rest, there remains another certainty: “I shall lay you low on that last day.” This is uncomfortable to hear, I know. We don’t like to accept that there are those for whom God has determined that there is no hope of salvation. Yet, the testimony of Scripture is clear. Pharaoh would not be given to repent. He would be given opportunity. Yet, God declares about him, “I will harden his heart, lest he repent.” Judas, likewise, was a vessel committed to destruction. In spite of all he experienced, yet he would sell out his savior. He would come to know remorse, it is true, but he was not given to come to repentance. He was not drawn by the Father. He was not drawn to the Son.
It is apparent from this dialogue I have been studying that the great majority of those attending synagogue that day were likewise not drawn to the Son. Even those crowds that had come looking for Jesus; they weren’t drawn to Him, and certainly not by the Father. They were drawn by hope of another handout, another free lunch. They enjoyed the show, but they had no benefit from it. They had already received everything they came looking for, and no matter how patiently they listened now, there would be nothing more. They were not fish for the Son’s net. There were those among them who were, but they themselves were not.
If we accept this, and we have every reason to, then we should also pay close attention to the example of our Teacher. He did not refuse them the Truth. He seems clearly aware that they are not numbered amongst His gift, yet He offers them His wisdom. This is the model for every preacher, every teacher, every believer in the Church today. We do not have His knowledge regarding those we introduce to the Gospel of His kingdom. We cannot know with certainty that this individual or that is on the exclude list. Further, by Jesus’ own example, even if we did know that with absolute certainty, we would still be constrained to make His Gospel known to them.
It is a hard thing, but it is a True thing. The Gospel message is delivered as a double-edged sword. It’s leading edge brings salvation. When it strikes the heart of one truly drawn by the Father to the Son, it meets residing in that heart the very Spirit of God, already present, awaiting word to awaken the soul to its true heritage. It’s trailing edge brings justice. When it strikes the hardened heart of the unbeliever, it marks him out. Here is one on whom God shall glorify Himself by making His justice manifest. He will display His great and unflinching devotion to righteousness and justice by punishing this one, even as He will display His great and unflinching devotion to lovingkindness and mercy by accepting the ones He has drawn to His Son, the ones for whom His Son has paid the debt owed His court. Righteousness and justice are upheld in either event, and His perfection is magnified in either event. And, in every case, the whole source of that magnification remains in Him. His will has been done.
Word Made Flesh (02/29/08-03/01/08)
Here’s an interesting bit of holy timing. Last night, my wife was asking how we are to meditate on the word of God. Well, my immediate response was: study. That is an answer, yes, but it is only a partial answer, as my notes for my own study this morning remind me. Study is a necessity. We cannot satisfy that hunger and thirst for righteousness by speed-reading through the Bible. We cannot satisfy that hunger and thirst by memorizing this passage or that. Using the imagery we are given in this passage, I would say that is to do no more than lick the bread that is offered, to swish the water about in our mouth and spit it back out.
The point is made that Jesus brings out this term that speaks of really chewing hard, that sort of crunching, grinding, gnawing mode of eating that is necessary for fresh vegetables and for tearing meat from the bone. That takes more effort. That takes more time. That begins in the place of studying, really spending time with the message, seeking more to understand it than to memorize it. But, it cannot stop there.
It should be clear that even a deep, intellectual understanding of His message will not suffice. There remains a need to actually put all that learning into practice, making it part of oneself. Consider: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 110:10). Pretty much everybody knows that passage. Pretty much everybody stops at knowing it, without looking much farther. They may think to wonder what exactly is meant by fearing God. But, look just beyond that quote. “A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.” That is, at least in part, the definition of fearing God. Now, notice the sequence of thought here. There is a beginning of wisdom in doing what one has come to understand as God’s way and God’s will. That’s really the sum of the message we find in that verse. When we hear about wisdom from the Teacher, as Solomon took to calling himself, we hear this: “The beginning of wisdom is: acquire wisdom. With the wisdom you acquire, acquire also understanding” (Pr 4:7). Again, he writes, that whereas fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge of Him is understanding (Pr 9:10).
Consider, then, the example of Solomon, the wisest of all men. We hear that wisdom reflected in these advisories about wisdom and understanding. We know that they come from a man who knew what he was talking about. And, yet, as we look to the latter days of that man, we find that he failed of following his own sage advice. Oh, he had great knowledge of both man and God. He had a deep understanding of how to apply the truths he knew to the situations that were brought before him. And yet, for himself, it seems he couldn’t put all that he knew and understood into practice.
Solomon is hardly unique in this. It may be more shocking to see such a failure in someone so magnificent, but it is by no means unique. Why else the need for our own proverbs like, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” or, “Do as I say, not as I do”? A large portion of our Christian experience can easily be wrapped up in those two messages. We are all emulators of Solomon. We spend time with God, as best we know how. We study His Word. We seek to discern the deeper meanings of that Word. We even understand how it applies; not only to those around us, but to ourselves. We have attained to the beginning of wisdom, or so we would like to believe. Here’s where we seem to fall apart: Actually doing those things we have come to understand.
But, this is exactly where Jesus takes us in this passage. It’s not enough to smell the Bread of Life, or to lick it. We must chew on it, gnaw on it, masticate it until it is so fully and completely digested that it has become an integral part of us. Isn’t this how digestion works? We chew to begin the process of digestion. We ingest into the stomach, and that process continues. But, what is the whole point of digestion? It is to extract the value from what we have stuffed into our mouths and transfer that value to our own body. In other words, it is to make that food a real, physical part of ourselves.
Just so, we are called to make the Word of Life a very real, wholly integral part of ourselves. It’s not enough to know what God commands. It’s not enough to understand why He commands it. If this isn’t followed by the act of doing as He has commanded, then all else has come to naught. Look again at David’s words. “A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.” Until we reach that point, we may have understanding, but it is not yet a good understanding. Wisdom, which we also consider applied understanding – i.e. knowledge put into practice – requires that our deeds reflect our character, and that our character reflect the God we claim to reverence. It’s really not enough to say, “I love You, Lord.” It’s an empty, hollow, vanity of a proclamation if our character and our actions don’t reflect that love we profess.
The point bears repeating. Men can study the message that is contained in our Bible. They may well see the wisdom of what is there. Realistically, one can recognize the influence of that wisdom on most of judicial history, and not only that of the West. The things which are prohibited by the commandments that Moses received are, by and large, things that any member of any society can and does recognize as wrong. They are things that, by and large, any governing body would rightly prohibit amongst those they govern. It is a measure of a society’s decadence that they no longer see the obvious correctness of these precepts. So, yes, the wisdom is recognized, if the Authority is not acknowledged. And that is precisely my point. The deepest understanding of Scripture proves nothing. Nothing!
Listen, the devil was fantastically well-versed in quoting Scripture. He was more accurate in his quotations than any of the apostles, even more accurate than Jesus tended to be. But, that accuracy only went as far as rote quotation. He could go word for word, every tense and inflection perfect. But, when it came to what it meant? Well, yes, he understands the meaning. He has to. Otherwise, how could he do as he likes to do; teaching a twisted form to lead the unwary away from that true meaning. In other words, his knowledge of God is deep, deeper than any man’s. But, there is no wisdom in him, for he does not make that knowledge his own. He does not seek to model his character after that which he has learned. With all he knows, he remains a very, very dead devil. His eternity of death remains sealed. The wrath of God abides upon him.
If it is true for one as vastly superior to us in knowledge and power as he, should we not be concerned for our own record? If his depth of knowledge is insufficient to bring life, what of us? All the study we may do, as worthy and as truly necessary as it is, will leave us just as dead unless something more is added. I can chew my food as long as I like, but if I keep spitting it out after I’ve chewed it, I will eventually starve myself to death. I will have expended more energy in that chewing and spitting than I will have obtained by it. So, the Word. It must be swallowed, else it has done worse than nothing.
Do you see that reflected in the instructions Paul gives when it comes to the Lord’s Supper? Those emblems of His church, so reflective of this very message, are given to us as reminders of the Life He procured for us by His death and resurrection. Yet, many, Paul wrote, were making it the cause of their own death because they did not come in reverence and obedience to that sacrament. “Examine yourselves,” He pleads. Judge yourself and do as judgment requires before you come to this sacrament. It is because they do not do so that so many are weak and sick among you. Some have even died. But, if we would only be accurate in our self-assessments, we would not be judged by heaven’s court. His judgments necessarily lead to His discipline, but that discipline comes to us that we might not find ourselves condemned utterly, along with the rest of the world (1Co 11:28-32). Look at the end of that! “Don’t come because you’re hungry. If you’re just hungry, then stay home and eat” (1Co 11:34). Wow! How that echoes of what Jesus was telling this crowd! “You didn’t come for understanding. You came for your stomach.”
Alright, on this subject of flesh and blood: I have considered as best I can the flesh, the Bread of Life. But, I would note that it is a rare individual who does not take drink along with his meal. The meat of the Word, as I have said, requires complete ingestion, and, as with a meal at table, that which we drink assists in the process. Here, we are encouraged to drink of the very blood of Christ. Before we pursue why that is, we must first come to grips with what that is. I would maintain that it is His righteousness. I will maintain that it is His righteousness and only His righteousness that can and does bring us into a full reconciliation with God. Apart from the sacrifice of His blood, the offering up of His righteousness, there was nothing but the punishment of eternal death that could satisfy the demands of Justice against us.
Men after God’s own heart have ever and always been those who hungered and thirsted after a righteousness that would be pleasing in His sight. I would note, though, that these same men have been forced by honest self-assessment to recognize that the very best of their efforts at achieving such righteousness have not only failed, but failed miserably. The best of the best that man can do in his own power is, in the final balance, just filthy rags. It is no offering fit for a pauper, never mind for the King of all kings! Men after God’s own heart, as much as they will strive and labor to be all that they were created to be, know that it’s going to take something more than they have to really achieve their goal. It requires outside help, and they know it. They also know the one place where that help comes from, because the God they seek to please has made it perfectly clear.
There is one way to receive the righteousness that can truly clear your legal debt in the courts of heaven. There only one Way. Behold, the Son of God, the Lamb of God, offered up by Him for the sins of the world, that those He draws to His Son, the Lamb, may draw upon His own Life, His own Righteousness as the sustaining provision for their own! Empowered and enabled by the blood of His sinless sacrifice for a sinful world, we are enabled to not only learn from Him as our Teacher, but we are empowered to do the things we learn. Oh, we will assuredly stumble in our practice of these things. We will remain far from perfect all the days of our earthly life. But, we will progress, and our progress shall be the greater the more we feed upon the prescribed Bread of Life, and drink of His Righteous blood. Behold! Jehovah Jireh, our Provider, has become our very provision! And now, by His gift of Life, we know that even though this body is almost certain to die; I would maintain that it is absolutely certain to die, even if we remain here at His return, for it is not fit for immortality as is; even so, we shall live and we shall live for an eternity, joyful and reverent in the ever present glory of the Lord. Then shall all things be shalom – restored to the way they were intended to be.
The Living God (03/02/08)
The way in which Jesus refers to the Father in this passage is unique. He refers to the Father and His Father often enough, and one can find numerous references to the living God. But, this is the sole occasion on which God is referred to as the living Father. As much as we can be excited by the number of times a particular word or phrase arises in Scripture, and find importance in the repetition, I think it would behoove us to stop and consider the significance of such a singular naming of God by His Own Son – by His Own Self.
We might start with recognizing that Jesus had already overturned the standard vocabulary when it came to God. No other man in all Israel would have dared even to think of God as ‘my Father’. They might have considered Him as ‘the Father’, although even that looks doubtful, given the record of Scripture. But, to think of Him as ‘my Father’ was just unthinkable! Of course, nobody listening to Jesus could hear the capitalization of the Name. So, He explains it further, lest they mistakenly think He is talking about Joseph of Nazareth. They may know Him as Yeshua bar Joseph, but really, He is Yeshua bar Yahweh. It is to this end that He reminds them that the Father of Whom He speaks is in heaven, not in the hill country.
It is to an even greater end that He speaks now of the living Father. Yes, this would establish a connection of thought in His listeners. They would of course hear a connection to the living God of Torah. Well, why was He called the Living God? Yes, there’s the obvious connection that they called Him this because He lives. Beyond that, though, this was a title that set Him apart from every other God, and still does. He alone is a living God. Having declared Him thus, there was no need for a further distinction. No other god fits the description. Everything else is no more than inanimate clay, stone, metal or wood; lifeless objects fashioned by the hands of man. God alone is alive. What’s more, God alone, with His own living hands, fashioned man and made man a living being.
Now, we are starting to approach the point Jesus is making. God is the living God, the living Father. More important, even, than the fact that He lives, whereas every other god is lifeless, He is the source of life. That is absolutely the point being got at here. The living Father is the source of a life He gives as a gift to His Son. It is because He gives that the Son lives. The clear connection we are to draw is with the living Bread from out of heaven (Jn 6:51). Just as Jesus has His life in the Father, so we have life in the Bread, which is Jesus. He is our source of life. He is the sustainer of life. Well, behold, O Israel! The Lord, our God, He is One!
We must hear this claim, then, in what Jesus has just declared: I AM the living bread, come from out of heaven. I, therefore, AM the living God. There can only be one being whose life is that essential, in whom life exists independent of any outside cause or support. There can be but one Source of Life. The I AM which makes that claim as the living bread must necessarily be making the very same claim to being the living Father. This remains true and necessarily true even as He speaks of being sent by this living Father and living because of this living Father.
Admittedly, this comes across as though Jesus were declaring His essential life force dependant upon that of the Father. That sense, however, must be set aside in light of the declaration that in Him is the fullness of the Godhead. That sense must give way to the overall message of God the Trinity, the Tri-Unity. The Lord, our God, He is assuredly One, and remains so in the three distinct persons in which He presents Himself to man. This is not the place to attempt an exploration of the Trinity in all its significance. I will settle for the rather poor analogy of the man who is at the same point in time a father, a son and a husband. In each of these roles, that man takes on a different set of obligations and holds a different sort of authority. As a son, he will always be called to acknowledge a certain authority his father has over him. At the very least, he is called to maintain in himself an honor for his father. Though the bonds of marriage may modify that paternal relationship, it does not so thoroughly sever it as to nullify all obligations.
I draw upon this particular analogy simply because what Jesus presents to us is a father / son relationship. While He is truly and essentially one – I don’t even want to say ‘with the Father’; He simply Is One – yet, at the same time, He stands in obedience to the authority of the person of the Father. He is not yet wed. There is no conflicting allegiance. (Indeed, there never shall be a conflicting allegiance, any more than our own married state need conflict with our paternal allegiance.) The point that I find Jesus stressing here is that His presence here on earth in this physical body, born into this human condition, is a matter of the Father’s ordaining. He has commanded and the Son, in obedience, has heeded the command. He lives, in that particular time and place, because the Father has caused this to be, in accordance with His perfect plan and will.
This should be a foundation for our understanding what it means to eat as Jesus tells us we must eat. Yes, He is absolutely the source of life, and we can take that quite literally. In Him we live and move and have existence (Ac 17:28). These were the things the Greek philosophers sought the source for, knowing that the source must ultimately define God. Paul was simply telling them that the god they sought to define was already defined and declared. He is pretty much saying, “Here is that One you’ve been looking for!”
Jesus, though, is talking about more than just the biological function of being alive for a time here on this planet. He is talking about matters of eternity, of a life that goes beyond mere day to day existence. He is discussing the life of the soul, the life that survives the grave. Here, He is even more certainly the sole and absolute source. What He has just defined for us, though, is what that life consists of. Remember what I was just saying about the relationship He declares between Himself as the Son and Himself as the Father. The former walks in determined obedience to the will of the latter. This, He then says, is the very same relationship that must exist between you who eat and the Son. Those who have eaten, truly eaten and made that meal an integral part of their own being, will come into obedience to the One they have eaten and entered into. Thus, we are referred back to that sense of abiding, dwelling in with permanence.
Abiding in God (03/03/08)
This abiding, this dwelling with permanence, what shall we understand it to mean? We speak often enough of being indwelt by the Spirit. We can look to that whole passage about abiding in the Vine which is the Christ. But, this abiding: what does it really mean? Of course, the connection with abode is clear enough. Well, yes, we dwell within our homes, and the homes are our own. Pursue that idea just a bit farther, though. The longer we are dwellers within our own homes, the more those homes begin to reflect our particular personalities. When first we moved in, the color scheme, the plantings in the yard, the choice and placement of appliances, all these things may well have been settled by a previous owner. In the short term, we let these things stand. But, as time moves on, we may find that certain bushes do not strike us as being particularly sightly. As the paint job ages and it comes time to do something about it, we are as likely as not going to choose something completely different, something more reflective of our own tastes.
In some degree, this provides us with an analogy for understanding what it means to abide in Christ and He in us. Notice right away that it is a bidirectional abiding. That’s important to keep in view. Indeed, I think we must understand that this relationship of mutual abiding beings with Christ taking up His residence in us. It is only after He has begun to refashion our lives after His own tastes that we begin to feel at home in Him. Now, here we must set the boundary upon my analogy, for if we begin in turn to refashion the Christ we honor after our own tastes then we have left the place of faith and walked head on into idolatry. This second step is a constant plague upon the Church, for more often than not, those who profess belief believe only in a Christ of their own manufacture. They lay claim to the name of Jesus, but they refuse the authority which is found in His name. Let us be clear, however, that those who insist upon this idolatrous sham Christ were never truly indwelt by the True Christ of God.
We might also find some usefulness in the analogy of the marriage relationship. Here we have the beneficial example of two lives that having been joined together in such close bonds begin more and more to resemble one another. There remains, to be sure, manifold evidences of individuality in both husband and wife. There remain certain things about each that mark them out clearly as being the same persons they were before their union. But, there are also many ways in which they begin to reflect one another, mannerisms that may have come into the relationship with one partner, but have become characteristic of both. Here, again, the analogy breaks down if we seek to find in it a model by which the believer changes that in which he believes. But, what I do wish us to take from it is the sense of how, as that couple abides one with another, there is a transformative power to that relationship. Some will speak of it as the fruit of a one flesh relationship. It is, as it were, an outward manifestation of the close union of these two lives.
That aspect we can surely carry over directly to the relationship of the believer to the Christ. Here, we are called to just such a close union. Here, we are called to really fulfill the significance of that one flesh relationship. Here, we discover that the covenant of marriage, which God clearly tells us He cherishes above most other things, is cherished by Him precisely because it points us to this fulfillment. In the marriage covenant, we discover that we have been living out a type of Christ and His church.
In that covenant relationship, we are called to love one another in an exclusive manner. We certainly must also love God, and we must certainly love our fellow man. But, this love, the love which is solely to be found between husband and wife, is of a different nature and obeys different rules. Our love for God we can and should gladly share with any who share in our faith. Our love for mankind we surely desire for one and all to partake in. Oh! What a world would it be if this were so? But, the love we have for this covenant partner: no. I may consider it wondering strange that everybody doesn’t see in my wife what I do. I may conjecture that one and all ought to have a love for her as great as my own. But, the reality is I should be deeply upset if they did. The reality is that they shouldn’t. It is a one flesh relationship that we share, and we share it to the exclusion of all others. Let them find their own partner for such a relationship! This one is already complete, thank you very much.
This is absolutely a model for our relationship with Messiah Jesus. As with any model, it is imperfect; especially when we attempt to model the heavenly. But, yes, we are called to enjoy just such exclusivity of relationship with Him. The love we share with Him is to be of a sort that will allow of no other object. There can be not other who receives that love. Oh, we shall still have love for our earthly spouses, for our families, for people in general, and doubtless, even for those things which we are particularly attached to. None of this need be considered evil, so long as it remains within proper bounds. But, none of this can rise to the level of our love for Messiah. “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex 20:3). “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind” (Mt 22:37). Those alls don’t leave room for anything else, do they? And yet, we are immediately told to simultaneously love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Mt 22:39).
Well, either we are being told to love nobody, ourselves included, and reserve every ounce of love for God alone, or we are being told that we are to love everybody including ourselves in light of the love we have for God alone. Clearly, we are to understand the latter. Clearly, the love we have for God because of the love He has so clearly demonstrated towards us, cannot help but spill over into our treatment of these others around us. They are, after all, the manufacture of our Beloved’s hand. If we had no other reason to love them, surely this would be enough! But we know from our own experience that the one who is in love needs no further impetus to love everything and everybody. It is the natural outflow of love discovered.
Oh, those days of budding romance! We walk through the world as through a wonderland. Every color is now more brilliant, every scent more sublime. Every creature we see is suddenly worthy of love, though not quite the love we have just discovered for that particular one who has won our affections. Oh, they are deserving of such a love, but not from us. Our fondest wish in that state of mind is that everybody everywhere should be enjoying that very same state of mind. Let one who is downcast come into our presence when we are in such a state, and it cannot dismay us; only elicit our sympathy and compassion. But, the most severe downpour could not, in that place, cause us any discontent.
And so, we find Jesus admonishing His Church: “You have forgotten your first love” (Rev 2:4). You are no longer in that place. You have, as time went on, allowed that love to become a thing taken for granted, and likewise the object of your love. You no longer abide, you merely coexist.
What is truly wonderful about this Messiah, this only worthy object of such a love, is that He has explained to us exactly what it means to abide in Him, exactly what shall serve as evidence of Him abiding in us. Not surprisingly, He has chosen John to record these guidelines for us. The first thing we learn is that those who walk in this relationship of mutual abiding, mutual indwelling, keep His commandments (1Jn 3:24). Here, again, is the echo of the marriage relationship, which we have traditionally worked into our own wedding vows. To love, honor and obey. That is our promise to our spouse, isn’t it? Surely, we owe at least as much to our eternal Husband. Now, John follows this up by saying “We know He abides by the Spirit He has given us.” Actually (and this is important for our understanding of what John has said), he writes, “And we know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit…” In other words, our obedience to His ways, His rulings, offers evidence not so much for others to see that we are His, but as assurance for our own souls that we are truly His.
I don’t think there’s a believer out there who has not at some point wondered about his salvation. Is it really true? Am I really secure in this? It doesn’t really matter whether that believer subscribes to Calvinism or Arminianism, whether he accepts predestination or insists that all has been by his own choice. The time will come when doubt creeps in. Looking at his own mistakes and failures, it is impossible not to be struck by the wonderful improbability that God accepts ‘such as I’. “Who am I, O Lord, that You have brought me this far?” (2Sa 7:18). David, that man after God’s own heart, was always in this place of wonder, always finding himself shocked that God should still love him. There he was, wedded to a woman he had taken by murder – nay, to two such – and still God looked upon him with favor! How could this be? Moses, handed his mission to go rescue Israel from out of Egypt, couldn’t fathom that God would entrust even a sheep to him, let alone a nation. “Who am I, that I should be Your choice?” (Ex 3:11). Any believer with the least bit of self-awareness and honesty must surely find himself wondering the same thing. Who am I, God, that You choose to love me, that You choose to save me, that You choose to once again pick me up and dust me off?
Indeed, if we look at the evidence John has just offered for this relationship of abiding we may find ourselves coming up so short against that measure that it puts us in just such a state of doubt and wonder. If obedience is evidence of Him abiding in us, then what evidence does our seemingly inevitable disobedience give? Surely, then, all is lost! Do you not see, though, that this is exactly why John brings the Holy Spirit to bear? The one who abides in His abiding love keeps His commandments and this is the evidence of that relationship: And, we know that this is our relationship by the Spirit He has given us (1Jn 3:24). Yes, because as much as obedience is the outward manifestation, the outward evidence, it is imperfect. God knew this, and He has accounted for it. This is a portion of the purpose in sending the Spirit. He is there to give assurance to our heart when the flesh gives cause for doubt. Yes, you have blown it again, but not so severely as to negate that covenant you entered into. He, with Whom you have covenanted is Faithful and True. He shall remain so, even when you have failed on your end. He will not suffer this covenant to be broken.
Now, hear John expand upon this a bit. The very fact that He has given us His Spirit is evidence enough that we have entered into this relationship of mutual abiding (1Jn 4:13-16). His Spirit in us speaks within us, informs our own spirit of His presence in ways both gentle and stern. Here is the way we know that we are in this relationship, he continues: we have confessed Jesus as the Son of God. Now, this must clearly mean something more than having spouted some words, aping the man up front who says, ‘repeat after me.’ No! Look at the record! There were demons galore who said as much. Yes, this Jesus, He is the Son of God Most High. Does that mark those demons as saved? By no means! Jesus rebuked them severely and sent them fleeing from His presence. Words are not enough. Not by a long stretch! The confession John speaks of here is not a matter of words, but a manner of living.
Hear the last bit of that message John is delivering. “We have come to know the love God has for us, and we have come to believe it.” It is after all, unbelievable that God should love us so. It’s beyond reason that in spite of our utter hatred for Him, our constant rebellion against Him, our continuing refusal to live in full accord with His commands, yet His love for us remains unchanged. How can it be? Well, John tells us, God is Love. It can no more help but exude from Him than the feelings of ‘first love’ can. As that love pours out upon us and into us, we find ourselves in much the same condition. The abiding love of God poured into our lives cannot be restrained by the vessel of flesh. It must pour out of us, as well. So, we discover that abiding in God is abiding in this love. The love of God begins to infuse into our being, to become an integral part of our very self, for we have entered that one flesh relationship with the God of Love. Do you see how this comes right back to the whole picture of eating and drinking? If we are what we eat, what better meal can we look to than this God who is love?
Now, while we gladly confess that God is Love, we dare not lose sight of the fact that He is simultaneously Wrath. God is Mercy, but He is also Justice. Each of these things is just as certainly and completely a matter of His essence as the others. We are tempted, to be sure, to read more into this unique statement that God is Love than is fit to be understood there. We will not find it written anywhere that God is Wrath, and yet it remains just as true of Him as the recorded attribute of Love. God, the self-Existent One, the only living being Who depends on nothing else for His being, is the Source. He is the Source of Love. He is the Source of Wrath. He is the perfection of these things because He is the very definition of these things. He must be, for apart from Him they cannot exist at all, let alone in perfection!
So, while we acknowledge His love upon us, we must also acknowledge what seems to us His darker side. John had to. This man we look to as the beloved disciple, the apostle of love, with all that he understood and depended upon this love of God, still understood that wrath. He had learned it from that other John who served as the forerunner to God’s Love Incarnate. “The Father loves the Son,” he said. “He has given everything to His Son. Everything! He who believes in His Son has eternal life. But that one who does not obey the Son shall not see life, for the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn 3:35-36). Everything is given into the hands of His Son, both His love and His wrath, both the power to save and the power to judge.
This ought to strike a holy fear into the hearts of those who do not believe, for it strikes me that the power of His wrath to abide is just as great as His the power of His love. See, if He holds all of these manifold attributes in perfection, He likewise holds them in equality, in equilibrium. We may tend to think of one more than the other, to hold one up as ascendant over the others, but it is our own fabrication, not anything of His. We hold up the Love and the Mercy because they appeal to us far more than Wrath and Justice. Yet, if we present God stripped of those less appealing attributes we no longer present God. We present our own idol. Doing so, we do a disservice to God, to ourselves, and to those we present this not-god to. This, my friends, is not love. This is murder most foul.
