New Thoughts (01/30/11-02/05/11)
Settle in, folks. We’re going to be here awhile! There is so much in this exchange that really deserves to be dwelt upon. One could very nearly take it two verses at a time and spend a good week contemplating each couplet. But, I’ll try not to be quite that longwinded in my considerations.
Here is a point that we do well to take to heart. Jesus, I trust we are fully convinced, lived out a perfectly sinless life. If He did not, then the whole of the Christian faith must be set aside as devoid of value. And yet, as we see here and elsewhere, Jesus had His moments of doubt, if you will. He was troubled, as we have it here. He was in such a state of emotional turmoil as causes the stomach to rumble, the intestines to churn. That’s the sense the word conveys, and it’s a sense I have no doubt we are well familiar with from our own experiences. If this is not enough, we can look forward to that time of prayer out in Gethsemene, when we are told that the depth of that trouble He was feeling led Him to do what He would not do here, ask for a means of escape (Jn 13:21). In fact, good doctor Luke tells us, He was so agonized by the realization of what lay ahead that He sweat, as it were, drops of blood (Lk 22:44). Whether, as we know to be physically possible, this was literally the case, or whether it was but a figurative expression, as Luke seems to suggest, I will not say. It’s not pertinent to the point, in any case.
The fact is that sinless Jesus knew how to doubt. He knew an anxious thought or two. This would seem, at a glance, to stand at odds with Scripture’s admonition to us to ‘be anxious for nothing’ (Php 4:6). But, then, that verse continues, “Let your requests be made known to God.” It would also seem to stand in contrast to Jesus’ own teaching. “I say to you, do not be anxious for your life,” (Mt 6:25). “When they come to arrest you, don’t be anxious about what to say” (Mk 13:11). Yet, here is an apparently anxious Jesus, knowing what lies ahead in this, His hour, and not all that thrilled to go through it. Determined, yes, but not thrilled. Hardly thrilled. Yet, for the joy set before Him, He endured (Heb 12:2).
Somehow, we have moved from what Paul teaches in Romans 14:23 into a place utterly counter to the evident message of Scripture. In that passage, Paul is teaching on matters of scruples. The overall message is largely, “To each his own.” These are not issues of salvific import, but of personal conviction, and so long as one acts in accord with their convictions, it is well. In that sense, he writes, “He who doubts [as to the propriety of eating food processed on behalf of idols] is condemned if he eats, because his action in eating does not accord with the faith and beliefs. Whatever is not from faith is sin.” It’s that last clause we focus on: Whatever is not from faith is sin. But, what should we really hear there? Isn’t it simply this: that, not certain in yourself whether righteousness allowed of such an action, you determined to take it anyway. That is the sin of the thing: You were willing to chance a breach of God’s law to satisfy your fleshly hungers.
The issue is not that you had doubts. The issue is not that you were, perhaps a bit anxious as you considered your options. And, the issue was certainly not that you were frustrated or unhappy with the immediate fallout of God’s plan for you. The issue was that you essentially thumbed your nose at God and said, whatever! I’m doing what I like, and hope You don’t mind.
Here, however, is a far more powerful message delivered by the Son of God Himself! All those other issues I just noted? These are no obstacle to God’s working in you and through you and for you. You have doubts? So did Jesus! You’re feeling anxious as you see what lies ahead for you? So did Jesus! You’re a bit scared to face death? So was Jesus! Oh, understand this! This is no heresy, it’s the record of His journey to the cross. The glorious fact is that He persevered in spite of His feelings. The glorious fact for us is that because He did so, we can as well. We, too, can face the future, however dark, for the duration of this earthly life because He has been there before us.
I type that, and I am put in mind of one of the songs from Iona’s recording, “Beyond These Shores”. This concerns the voyage of Saint Brendan. Actually, it’s the title song of that recording which I’m thinking of, the closing statement as well. I think I’ll simply quote the whole of the lyrics, for they are of value and applicable here.
Beyond these shores into the darkness;
Beyond these shores this boat may sail.
And, if this is the way, then there will be a path across this sea.
And, if I sail beyond the farthest ocean or lose myself in depths below,
Wherever I may go, Your love surrounds me.
For, You have been before beyond these shores.
It’s that last line that really makes my point.
You, Lord Jesus, have been through this before me. You have known my troubles, You have felt my doubts. You have faced my pains. And, You, having done all this, have triumphed. You have triumphed not only in and for Yourself. You have triumphed on my behalf! How wonderful, that I can abide in this assurance! How marvelous that, when even this assurance is not enough to quiet my fears, yet I can count on You to walk with me and to hold me.
How have we arrived at this pattern of thought that condemns us for our worries, our doubts? Does Jesus stand condemned for His? Does David? Oh! Arise from this crippling misconception! Cease from disparaging the very character of God by such thinking! Why will you weaken yourself in faith because you are human? Why will you reject the strength of the Lord, Who gave all for you that you might stand in Him? Jesus was troubled, and this was no sin, for He is sinless. Don’t you, then, suppose it is worse for you to be troubled than it was for Him! Who are you, O man, that you would think so highly of yourself?
Listen to the tribute given Him by the author of Hebrews: While He was among us, He offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and with tears, praying to the One (the only One) able to save Him from death. And He was heard because of His piety (Heb 5:7). That crying, those tears: They were not always the outworking of compassion only. We see it here. We see it in the garden. Sometimes, the twisting of His inner parts in anguish was for the very real, very fully experienced, pain that assuredly lay ahead. “And He was heard because of His piety.” His fear – yes, let’s call it that – did not somehow negate His righteousness. Neither do our doubts, our preferences for some other course of life that maybe wasn’t so painful, negate His righteousness in us.
He was heard. Indeed, He knew full well that He would be. I take you back to that earlier prayer outside the tomb of Lazarus. “I knew already that You always hear Me, but for the benefit of these around Me I said it, in order that they would believe that You sent Me” (Jn 11:42). Test my anxious thoughts, David wrote (Ps 139:23). He wasn’t giving God permission to do a virus scan on his thinking. He knew full well that he had anxious thoughts. Who doesn’t? David, as I seem to repeat perhaps more often than I need to, was a man who revealed himself willingly to God. He held nothing back. He didn’t try to butter God up, or to couch his thinking in religiously acceptable phrases. No! If he was in the mood to see his enemies destroyed, he said so. If he was feeling a bit mistreated for the way this whole anointed king business was working out so far, he said so.
Look! God knows your thoughts anyway. David understood that. Jesus certainly understood that. We really ought to know as much, ourselves. “Search my heart, test my anxious thoughts.” These aren’t said as if He hadn’t long since done so. They are more a request that He, having seen what’s there, address the issues with us. Point out to me those places in my heart that we need to be working on, Father. Where my thinking’s gone off into unnecessary anxiety, remind me of who You are, Daddy God. You know and I know how easily I deceive myself as to my condition, both for better and for worse. If I’m not doing as well as I think, show me that I might improve. If I’m not as bad off as I like to believe, show me that, as well, that I might rejoice the more in Your goodness.
Now then: There is another common thread in the prayer life of David and the prayer life of Jesus. Both of these men knew to be real with God. Both of them also knew to allow the God Who hears to be the God Who speaks as well. In David, we find that however vindictive he may be, there is always a return to the grace of God. In Jesus, it is more stark. I would prefer not to go this way, Father, but if that’s the path You have laid, so be it. That’s the clear message here, and it’s the clear message in Gethsemene. I’d really love it, Papa, if You could come up with a different plan to reach Your goals; one, maybe, that wasn’t going to cause Me so much pain. Yeesh! Who could be thrilled with what’s ahead? But, praise be to God, there is in His Son that, “Nevertheless”. “No, Father! Not My comfort but Your glory! Not My will, but Yours be done!” Tomorrow, I think I shall dwell further on this thought which opens the section before us.
[01/31/11] If I am dwelling at length on this first verse of the passage in hand, it is because it deserves much attention. Yesterday, I explored the comfort of seeing that Jesus, the Son of Man, the epitome of man, knew what it was to be troubled and anxious. Today, I would begin to consider the response our great Teacher teaches us to have to these sorts of worries. Before I get fully into the power of that response, though, let me first consider a couple of terms that arise in His response.
The first term I should like to explore briefly is ‘save’, sooson or, in root form, sozo. Here is a concept that is so central to the Christian faith and yet, as often seems to be the case, it’s a term whose meaning turns out to be a bit fuzzy if we ask after the significance. I trust that on the most significant of its meanings, all of Christianity is in accord. As applied to us, the greatest aspect of the word is when it points to our having been made a partaker of salvation by Christ. (I am borrowing much from the definitions provided in Thayer’s Lexicon, although likely with a good deal of my own phrasing.) Consider that: We have been made a partaker of what Jesus the Christ is here looking towards with such trepidation.
Already, with that small piece of meaning, I raise up a point that some would see fit to debate, and that is whether we have been made partakers, or we have chosen to be partakers. I’m not going to spend a great deal of energy on that point here. It has been unsettled ground for me in the past, but it is well established in my understanding of the Scriptural message now that indeed, we are made partakers, that our salvation is by His choice, and we are in many ways the passive recipients of His gracious gift. Only after receiving that gift to we begin to take an active interest in the process of sanctification. Enough on that point.
Of greater interest are some of the other meanings that may apply to this matter of saving. Let me just offer the list here:
- To keep safe and sound, or to rescue from danger and destruction,
- To make well, to heal, to restore health,
- To preserve from present danger, so as to bring forth safe,
- To deliver from the penalties of Messianic judgment,
- To rescue from such evils as would obstruct the preceding deliverance.
The first question we need to ask, then, is do all these meanings apply at all times? I should hope that our own usage of the English word would give us immediate answer. No. The skydiver whose parachute has failed, as he cries out to be saved from the crash that must end his dive, is not seeking a restoration of health (although he might well do so if he survives the immediate concern). Somebody seeking to be saved from the ravages of cancer, or of its treatments, is probably not thinking in terms of Messianic judgment, or being freed of obstacles to a spiritual salvation. Likewise, Jesus, as He speaks of being saved from this hour, is not thinking of His health. He is not concerned, I shouldn’t think, with anything that would block Him from His own salvation. It doesn’t even make sense when applied to Him.
The point is this: While the term sozo can have all of these meanings, it is unnecessary and improper to suppose that it always has all of these meanings. This is where it seems to me that some of the more ethereal branches of our faith have strained the point a bit. Yes, to save may be a matter of restoring health, but it is not always so. Yes, there is this matter of deliverance. But, I would note, it is deliverance from Messianic judgment. This is a fine shading, I admit, but the deliverance, at least in this case, doesn’t seem to be applied to possession, but rather to the due penalty of our own sins. That, in the end, is what we need to be delivered from. Admittedly, there is that other point of being rescued from such evils as would obstruct deliverance from our own due penalty. Does this, however, point to demonic possession? I should think that such things are more symptom than disease. The issue at the root of the problem is sin. No. Actually, I think I must dig deeper still. The issue is the seed of faith not taking root.
I tread carefully here, because I would not wish to lead our thinking down the road of supposing that our faith is (a) ours, or (b) a thing that needs our input to become strong. To the first point, Scripture makes painfully clear that even faith (at very least, faith unto salvation, if indeed there be distinctions of faith) is a free gift from God, which He gives to each man according to His measure. As I have explored on several other occasions, even in the course of this Gospel study if I am not mistaken, faith is far more an on/off switch than a gas tank or a muscle. It is or it isn’t, and in the end, the determination of which state applies lies with God, not with you or me.
But, if there is a particular evil from which we need rescue so as to be delivered from the penalties of Messianic judgment, unbelief has got to be high on the list. If we are not rescued from the blindness which is unbelief, there is no hope of developing a repentant and humble heart of contrition. If we cannot arrive at repentance, we are given no cause to expect forgiveness. Sin will not be dealt with in a fashion that leads to Life, which leaves but the one option: The full penalty of the Law.
Here, as Jesus speaks of being saved Himself, I think the point is reasonably plain: To be rescued from danger or destruction. That is, after all, what lies ahead and well does He know it. If He didn’t, there would not be that troubling of His soul. There is a very real and present danger ahead for Him. To be saved, in this instance, would be to brought forth from that danger safe and sound.
Given the benefit of our historical view of these events, one could argue that indeed, He was brought forth safe and sound. In an ultimate sense, this is very true. But what lay between His present and that bringing forth was hardly a set of events we could look at as representing saving or safety in any sense.
I am reminded of a point often made in regard to our own walking out of faith. There is that Psalm that most of us quite likely memorized in childhood, David’s Psalm 23, which reminds us of our Shepherd. Focus on verse 4, where David relays this thought: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for You are with me.” Notice that: I walk through. I don’t go around. I don’t walk away. I don’t seek alternate routes. I walk through. It seems to me that we have a particular issue, in our day and age, with an inclination towards instant gratification. It’s not enough for us to know there is this ultimate salvation at the end of our road. We want the good stuff now. We have, perhaps, found some more pious way to say it, but that’s really what we’ve become. Jesus, it’s not good enough. Yes, You died for me, and yes, because of You I can expect an eternity of blessing beyond the grave. But, that’s not enough. I want perfect health and a life of ease now! Seriously, how can we even think this is reasonable to ask? And we don’t even ask. We demand, as if it were somehow our right. As if we were in any position to demand anything of God! How can anybody read the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Lk 16:19-31), and come away wanting to be the rich man? That’s what those demands arrive at. I want it now, and to @#*$ with eternity. Away with such thinking!
The other term I would spend a bit of time on is this ‘hour’. This is another word that has certain shades of meaning. It can be as mundane as the English hour which derives from the Greek we have in the text. It’s a convenient division of the daylight portion of the daily cycle, even then having the general sense of being a twelfth of that portion. But, clearly, Jesus is not asking to reschedule an appointment here. Not at all! In this context, the term takes on a significance nearer to kairos. It is an appointed time. Now, in kairos, the focus is more on what the time provides for the accomplishment of. Poor English, I know, but so be it. Try it this way: Kairos points towards what it to be done with the time. Houros points to the time at which it is to be done. Both may have this sense of appointment to them, but they look at two different aspects of the matter.
Houros also takes on a sense which is uniquely its own. It has the idea of the time of one’s death, the appointed hour, if you will, at which the number of one’s days reaches its terminal count. In the highest application of this particular usage, it points to the day of judgment, the end of this age. If you can’t hear that shade of meaning in what Jesus is crying here, then, well, what shall I say?
Yet, there remains a significance greater still, which likewise applies. In the more mundane utilization, houros bespeaks the ‘that time when one must meet his God-appointed destiny’. I would again stress the must of that definition. One must meet that destiny for the very simple reason that it is God appointed. His word does not fail. He doesn’t do reschedules. He has decreed it, therefore you must. For Jesus, this really was no different, though the Godhead was in Him with fullness. Even so, perhaps particularly so, He must meet the hour of His destiny. “For this I came.”
Here, too, there is a higher application in the same general sense. The houros, as it points to he day of judgment, also points to that time when all predictions are fulfilled. After all, is that not rather a precursor for the end of the age, that every prophecy be brought to completion?
It is possible, to be sure, that Jesus has one particular sense of the term in mind as He speaks here. I find it equally plausible, however, that He has several of them in view. This hour is indeed His destiny, His purpose. For this He was born a man. This hour is, as He notes shortly thereafter, the mark of judgment, the ushering in of that final day. This is an aspect we tend not to think on, yet it is there. It shall be the fulfillment of the great body of Old Testament prophecy, and it will be the terminal count of His days on earth. All of this is wrapped up in this particular hour, and well does He know it.
With that groundwork laid, perhaps on the morrow I can consider the full scope of the lesson imparted in this first verse, a lesson that we do well to take to hear as regards our own, far less difficult journey towards home. If I were to reduce the thought Jesus expresses to it’s most fundamental, I might arrive at something like, “What shall I say, ‘rescue Me’? No! ‘Thy glory, Father!’” This is powerful. This is, as I have listed in preparation, the key to the whole passage. Jesus faces His God-appointed destiny, knowing that part of that destiny requires not just laying down His life, but doing so in the most painful way known to the time. And even this does not constitute the worst of what He will face. The worst is found in that agony of separation from One He has known intimately for all eternity. The worst is found in tasting for Himself that very definition of damnation, even for such a brief period.
Yet, what is His response to the pain and anguish ahead? In spite of any doubts, in spite of the twisting of His inner parts at the thought of it, He faces it with one determination: To see the Father glorified. Rescue Me? No! Glorify You! At one level, this is but the natural outcome to that flow of thought that began back in John 12:24. Actually, that flow of thought has been with Jesus for years, but this verse will provide sufficient anchor to my point. “I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains no more than itself. But, if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jump to verse 27, which is part of this same comment, really. “Shall I, that grain of wheat, pray to the Father that He would keep me from falling and dying? No! That falling and dying is the very purpose of My life. If I will not do this, then the whole of this life has had no meaning at all. I need not have bothered. So, I shall pray as I ought, ‘Father! Glorify Your name!’” I will spend more time on that concluding prayer shortly, but stick with the choice made for the time being.
I said there is a lesson here for us. I should hope it’s already clear enough, but I shall bring it forth nonetheless. We, no less so than Jesus, are created for a purpose. Life is not just a happenstance collection of choices made by us. Life is not just a passing of time between birth and death, with maybe some significance if we choose to be significant, but otherwise, of little more meaning than the life of a fly. No! We, my friends, are His workmanship! We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, things which God prepared beforehand for us to accomplish (Eph 2:10). This is something we share with Jesus, if not on the same magnificent scale, then at least with the same infusion of value into the course of our lives.
I think we must understand it as nigh unto a guarantee that the purpose of our lives in Christ will cause us to face challenges that, if they do not involve facing death head on, will feel very much like they do. “In the world you will have tribulation…” (Jn 16:33). In the world, if we are going to be true to the calling God has placed upon our lives (and don’t think that’s something reserved to the clergy! No, my friend, all who have believed, having received of His grace, have a calling upon them), then we can expect to face situations that will challenge the strength of our convictions. We can expect that there will be times when to stand with Christ is to face ridicule. We can expect that there will be times when to stand with Christ will prove costly. It might have an impact on our employability. It might – almost certainly will – have an impact on the social circles in which we can comfortably travel. It might, just might, become a matter of life and death.
We have this relatively comfortable Christianity over here in America, I know. Yet, it’s not unheard of, is it? It’s not unheard of that somebody snaps, and decides they have a one man mandate to physically remove the Church from off the face of the earth. It’s not unheard of for mass murders to happen in the midst of Sunday service. Nor, if we take the view of history, is it unheard of for those of sound Christian convictions to be abused and even executed by those who by rights should have been their brothers. Go and consider the history of the Reformation period. Go, for that matter, and read a bit of the history of New England, for in part and for a season, we utterly failed to learn from the very persecutions that had led to our settlements.
These are stories of those who saw with the same eyes Jesus sees here. I am not going to suggest that all of these heroes of the faith were men who knew no doubts, never entertained the least concern for what lay ahead. But, they were men who, seeing what lay ahead, refused to be bent from their course by it. They were men, who, even with all the power of man arrayed against them, even with the tinder of their executing fire laid at their feet, did not beg and plead with God to rescue them, but only that He be glorified. They asked no more than the strength to remain true to Him in spite of it all, that the world may know.
What are you facing today? What trials afflict? I would say there is great likelihood that the words of Hebrews 12:4 apply to you as they do to me. “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” Do you recognize that this is exactly what our Lord and Savior is looking towards in this prayer? This is what is appointed for Him: To resist sin to the uttermost, that by His shed blood He might vanquish sin once for all. What are your troubles when measured against that? What are mine? Oh! Let me assure you, I have not come near to attaining to this standard. I say that to my shame, but also for your comfort.
No, no. I am terrible in this regard, far too ready to complain of the least inconvenience in my circumstance. I have become terribly conditioned to comfort, and have a particularly low tolerance for anything that disrupts my preferred course of action. Well, Father! Here’s a clear call to take action, no? Yes, I could comfort myself in the old adage that knowing the problem is half the battle. But, then, half the battle never won the war, did it? Resisted unto shedding blood? I’ve barely ever broken a sweat, truth be told. I have been far too inclined to immediately jump to that very prayer that Jesus rejects here. “God, rescue me from this.”
My inclination is to do the same for those I love. My heart goes out to my wife, for example, with the constant and repetitive agonies of her condition. And yes, particularly when she is brought low by this thing, reduced to tears of despair, the natural response of my heart cries out to God to rescue her, heal her, restore her to the health and vigor that I, frankly, have never really known in her. I’ve seen her stronger, but never free of this thing, and Oh! The joy I would surely experience to see her blessed by the miracle of God’s healing hand! Of course I cry for just such a thing. But, am I right to do so? That is a much more difficult question. That is a husband’s agony.
I am forced, particularly given the portion of the Gospel story that I am encountering here, to really consider the nature of my prayers in this regard. Do I say, then, that I ought not to pray for her healing? No; at least, not with so rigid and conclusive a sense. But, there is this: “Thy glory, Father!” What, I need to ask myself, would change in the nature of my praying if this were my focus? I have railed against the idea of ATM prayers often enough, but when push comes to shove, when the desperation of suffering or witnessing another suffering enters the picture, ATM is where we go. God, give me. God, rescue. God, change the channel on my life. But, nowhere in that train of thought is there any least bit of consideration given to what God is doing.
Indeed, the evidence of these prayers is evidence of distrust. These are, for all that we give God a shout out, for all that we tack our ‘in the name of Jesus’ on in hopes that maybe that will do the trick, prayers of unbelief. Oh, we try to work ourselves up to believing that this time He’s going to do it. Why? Well, because we’ve been taught often enough that our unbelief keeps God from acting. What garbage! Do we really think we’re so strong as to prevent God from pursuing His agenda? Sadly, yes, yes we do. We really do think we’re bigger than God. Stupid us. And, we think that if we just believe hard enough, wish hard enough, He’s got to answer and He’s got to answer according to our desire. We’ve confused Him with Peter Pan. We haven’t a clue as to Who it is with Whom we have to do.
This is the place we are called to be, right exactly where Jesus is. “Father, glorify Thy name.” It is no different than what He taught His disciples (which we are) to pray. “Thy will be done” (Mt 6:10). And, to strengthen it that much further, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And, though I don’t suppose He did so with the intent of hammering home His point, yet that prayer in the garden of Gethsemene does just that. “Father, if there’s another way, I’d really love it, but if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done” (Mt 26:42).
See the balance here. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with letting God know we’d prefer something different. The wrong comes in supposing we can demand it. The wrong comes in stopping with the voicing of our displeasure and neglecting to seek His pleasure. The wrong comes in giving ourselves the final word.
I want to come down this question: What would change in us if… What would change in us if we faced our difficulties, our challenges, our disappointments with that same attitude that we see in Jesus? What would change in us if the whole focus of our prayer life reflected what He taught us? Too much of that prayer life is focused on ‘me’. Make my world better. Improve my life. You’re not being good enough to me. How much more powerful might that prayer life become, if it were focused, as Jesus is focused here, on ‘Thy glory, Father!’?
Maybe part of the problem is that, like His name, we have only a foggy concept of what His glory means. As to His name, we settle for supposing there is some mystic power invested in the word Yahweh or Jehovah or Jesus. As to the last, one would think that the several people we meet who share that name, or the name Joshua from which it stems, would be enough to point up our foolishness. No, there is no other name like the name of Jesus, but it’s not the word that makes it so. Had He been named John or Joe or any other name, there would still be no name like His.
Why? Because the name isn’t the word. The name is the summation of all that He is. It is the Authority that is in Him. It is the Purity and Goodness and Mercy of His character. It is all those omni characteristics we’ve been considering the last few Sundays at church: His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence. It is all the marvelous perfections of God. It is God enthroned and perfectly in control. It is God the Judge of all mankind, perfect in His judgment. It is the depth of the sacrifice of the Lamb, and the eternal efficacy of His blood. All of that and more is to be understood when we think of His name. To pray ‘in the name of Jesus’ is not, then, just to tack on His signature as some sort of authorization to our request. It is to pray in one accord with His will. It is to pray with that mindset of, “Thy will be done. Thy glory be known.”
As to that glory: I would hold that the best application we might find for that word in this instance is, “cause your majesty and worth to be clearly seen.” If I might expand on that just a bit, it would be: Let all the world see, through this, everything that is wrapped up in Your name. Let Your magnificent perfection of character shine out! Make of this event, this purpose towards which You have sent me, such as will give evidence, incontrovertible evidence, of Who You Are.
So, consider again: Do you think having such a focus to the requests of our prayers might have an impact on what our prayers sound like? Do you think that having such a focus to the content of our prayers might bring us to the place of truly praying prayers that availeth much? Listen! It’s not incantation. It’s not a matter of convincing ourselves. It’s not a matter of cajoling God into acting, as the priests of Baal tried to do in the face of Elijah’s challenge. It’s praying with understanding, that understanding lying primarily in knowing that we serve God’s will, not the other way round.
[02/02/11] Moving on to the Father’s response to the prayer of Jesus, we read in verse 28 that there was an audible and intelligible response. And yet, amongst those present, many heard nothing more intelligible than thunder. Others were able to recognize that this was a sound beyond nature, but apparently they could not understand the message either, as they presume it to have been an angel speaking. What angel ever answered on the Father’s behalf with words such as these? Never has it been, nor ever shall!
I bring this to the fore so as to contrast it with what Peter tells us in the second of his letters that we have preserved in Scripture. There, Peter says, “When He received honor and glory from the Father, the Father spoke to Him. This is what He said: ‘This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased’” (2Pe 1:17-18). Now, this is the thing I want to take notice of: Peter continues, saying, “And this I heard from heaven myself, when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” Note the difference. Peter (and James and John as well), heard that Voice and they knew what it was He said. These folks listening to Jesus heard the Voice but could not make out one syllable of the message, weren’t even clear that it was a voice at all.
The sum of this is that the Voice could be understood, but it could be understood only by those to whom it was given to understand. The Voice is, in that regard, as much as parable as those things Jesus taught. Recall that He taught by parable in order that those listening might hear but not understand (Mt 13:13). With that, Jesus turned to explaining the parable of the soils, which explains this very situation. “When somebody hears of the kingdom but doesn’t understand, the evil one comes and takes what was sown in his heart. This is the meaning of the soil beside the road” (Mt 13:19). In this case, they have not only been hearing of the kingdom, but hearing from the King, hearing the very Voice of God! They have the Word Incarnate before them and the Word on High sounding around them, and none of it registers. The evil one comes and takes away understanding.
Later, Paul would write to the church in Corinth in a similar vein. “The god of this world has blinded the unbelieving minds so that they won’t see the light of the gospel of Christ’s glory, He Who is the image of God” (2Co 4:4). Notice that in both cases, it is the enemy of God, the devil, who is the perpetrator of this deception, this maiming of the mind. Yet, we ought ever to balance this observation with the recognition that these things do not happen because this devil, this enemy of God is so powerful that he can cause God’s plan and purpose to fail! No way! The Cross of Christ is the most painfully obvious refutation of any such way of thinking. Even the murder of the very Son of God did not cause God’s plan to fail, but rather served to bring that plan to perfect conclusion. What this implies for the matter of those who listen without hearing, who have been blinded by this enemy, is that the result has been permitted and even decreed by the Father.
Such things bother our tender sensibilities, and yet, He Himself proclaims it without any hesitance. The whole opening act of Job makes it very plain that Satan is able to perpetrate his evils only with the permission of God and only within the proscribed limits God sets. Consider what God Himself declares through the prophet Isaiah. “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these” (Isa 45:5-7). Pay heed to the end of that passage! I cause well-being. I cause calamity. I do all these things! Oh! That we might bear in our minds that the God Who is Love is simultaneously the God Who is Wrath. The devil may be the agent of all manner of evil, but his agency remains under contract to God Most High. It is God Most High who is in control, absolute control, perfect control.
This is cause for every manner of joy in the believer, in that one who has been called unto salvation by this very God. For, to such a one as this, the reality of Romans 8:28 applies. Such a one knows, “that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” I love this verse so very much. I love that Paul stresses that we know this. We have full knowledge of the facts, as Vine’s would distinguish the form of knowing in that verse. Zhodiates would suggest that we are considering an intuitive as opposed to an experiential form of knowing. I think that in this case the distinction made by Vine suits better. This is not something that we ought still be in the process of figuring out. It should be settled in us, a matter of which we are fully aware, that He Who saved us, being as He is All-Powerful and All-Wise, has so ordained the course of life for us that even our trials and our sorrows – even the worst machinations of the enemy of our soul against us – are caused to ultimately work out as being for our good.
Just consider the story of Joseph, in whose life this principle plays out so magnificently. Yes, he underwent any number of injustices. Some, it could be argued, he brought upon himself, such as the jealousy of his brothers which he fed in his youthful pride. Others, he underwent for reasons beyond his control, such as his imprisonment for an adultery he never committed and indeed ran away from. Yet, all of this, as painful as it surely was to him that he had to endure it, was set in place that he might be elevated to the position in which he could become the preserver of life to those very brothers who had put him in the way of death. And, not only his family, but the nations of the region found their lives preserved by the wisdom of God worked out through this one man. Was this to make Joseph’s life pleasant and easy? No. It was to see God glorified.
I say again that this matter of God’s control over the course of existence, even down to the worst ploys of the devil, is cause for unceasing joy in the believer. It is likewise cause for interminable terror to the unbeliever. For, though it offend the mind to think it, their unbelief is as fully and irrevocably determined as is our salvation. If we would be confident of the one, we must accept the other as the necessary result. It is either true for both cases or true for neither. And, for that, the overarching testimony of Scripture is that indeed, it is true. If God is not in control, then He is not God at all, and we need have no further to do with Him. If He is in control, then the surety of Romans 8:28 applies, and it applies with exactly those limits that are there stated.
I wonder if we might not be hearing some of this very truth in what comes next in our passage. Jesus, hearing the theories put forth by this crowd, says, “This Voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.” The term which we have translated as ‘for sakes’, is actually the same term translated as ‘for purpose’ back in verse 27. It is a tiny little word, almost a prefix, really. Dia – as a prefix, it would typically take on the sense of ‘through’, of indicating the how, the who, the means of action. When connected to an accusative, as it is here, dia can also have the senses we see in translation here, that of indicating the reason of an action. Within that reason, there is room for a range of understanding: By will of, as a favor to, because of, for the sake of, to the benefit of.
The translators, in this case, have opted for “for the sake of”. I wonder, though, given what follows, if it would not be more properly understood in the sense of “because of”, at least as it applies to the crowd. In other words, we might take the sense as “This voice didn’t come for My benefit. It came because of you.” Jesus, to be sure, did not need this reassurance. He knew. As to the people, their failure to understand the Voice leads me to suppose that it did not come for their benefit, or as a favor to them. Indeed, as I step into what immediately follows, I think we might connect the Voice and the Judgment.
Jesus continues to this thought: Now judgment is upon this world. Why? In most immediate connection, I would propose that it is because this world cannot and will not recognize or understand the Voice. It cannot and will not acknowledge the Word. It cannot and will not glorify the Name.
Let me step back into what I was saying as regards God’s control of all creation. We must recognize that while His perfect knowledge and power direct the course of our history, we remain free agents. The fact that the devil can only work within the limits imposed by God does not change the nature of his actions, nor does it modify the reasons the devil chooses to pursue those actions. That enemy of our souls is most assuredly bent on destroying us, on doing everything in his power to bring about the downfall of God, and if he cannot do that (which of course, he cannot), then to inflict as much sorrow on God as he can. This he does by seeking ever and always to wreck the creation God made, and by seeking to mislead man, the pinnacle of creation, into acting contrary to God, into denying God, into lifting himself up rather than his Benefactor. This, as I say, can only succeed as God allows it, but that fact changes nothing as regards the devil’s guilt.
Likewise, we must understand that God’s Sovereign management of our lives does not alleviate us of responsibility. We can walk in the assurance that He Who began this work of salvation in us is absolutely faithful to complete it (Php 1:6). Count on it! Yet, we remain under the call to work out that salvation with fear and trembling (Php 2:12). It never ceases to amaze me that the reason Paul gives us to be so diligent in pursuit of what is already ours is the very assurance that “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Php 2:13). You work because you know He is working.
This is, I believe, a recognition that our very real gift of being predestined unto salvation does not relieve us of our moral responsibility as agents with free will. Our choices matter. Our words matter. No, our words do not fashion our reality. We do not speak our way into health or disease, as some would like us to believe. That’s but new age nonsense and nothing more. We cannot create. God creates. But, our words do matter, as being the expression of our will. And, our will matters not in that it can even hope in any real sense to achieve what is counter to God’s decree, but in that we are called, as His children – nay, as His sons – to shape our character and our will by what we see of His character and will. Like our eldest Brother, we are to train ourselves to say and to do only as we see the Father doing, only as we have had it modeled for us by that very Brother, Jesus the Christ, our Lord and King. For, He is a true Leader. He is One Who has led by His own example, that we might follow, that we might emulate that One Who walked in the perfection of Man.
So, these who could not hear the Voice of God with understanding can truly point to the devil as having caused their incomprehension. And yet, it is no excuse. The guilt of their blindness remains their own. We could, I suppose, pry beneath this reality and seek to understand why it is that God assigns this one to destruction and that one to salvation. But, as has often been said, it is enough to marvel that any of us has ever been assigned to salvation. It is enough to dwell on the miracle that I have been granted to possess ears that hear and eyes that see. It is well, even knowing this, to labor after such things as confirm to me that this is indeed the case, lest I reach the end of my days only to learn that what I thought were seeing and hearing were in reality the duplicitous hallucinations of a hardened heart.
So, then: the Voice is come to usher in the certainty of judgment upon this world. And this is the judgment: That the Light is come and men loved the darkness instead of the Light, for their deeds were evil (Jn 3:19). This is the judgment: The Voice spoke, but men preferred not to understand the words, to write it off as something ignorable. The Voice came because of you. But, behold! Behold the outworking once again of Romans 8:28! The Voice came to usher in judgment, but it also came to make this good thing certain: The ruler of this world (that very devil through whose agency the guilty have filled the measure of their guilt) will be cast out. It remains future, but it is certain. It is realized. The statement comes with an irrevocable guarantee. God is working all things for the good of those who love Him. Do you see it? The Cross looks horrible. The Cross is horrible. The death of the very Son of God is a crime more heinous than anything perpetrated before or since. Frankly, the horrors of the holocaust do not compare. The millions upon millions of innocent lives lost to abortion factories do not compare. Though the evil of these acts and others like them defy us to comprehend, yet the death of God’s own Son outstrips them all for evil. But, God, having had this plan in place from before the beginning, determined that it would be to our good. He took upon Himself that which was demanded of us for our insufferable failings, that we might live. That we might Live.
Moving on to verse 32, we come to “If I be lifted up…”. This is a well known phrase for us, and one we celebrate. Rightly so, for if He had not been lifted up, then we would be without hope in this world, still on schedule to face the full penalty of our sins and without the least expectation of mercy. Our tendency, however, is to think of this in a different light, to think of His being lifted up in the Ascension as opposed to His Crucifixion. In fact, so strong is this tendency that even certain of the more paraphrastic translations reads that understanding into this passage. “And as for myself, when I am lifted up out from underneath the earth, all men I will draw to myself.” That’s the way the Wuest translation chooses to render Jesus’ words. Yet, John moves immediately to make clear that what Jesus had most directly in view was the manner of His death. Yes, that death was part of the course laid out by which He would reach both the lifting out from underneath the earth and the lifting up to the throne of heaven, but in the most immediate sense, He’s pointing to the cross by which He is about to pay the price for our sins.
In fact, so clear is His meaning here that those listening were rather hoping that maybe they had misunderstood Him. For to them, if they took His meaning as seemed most obvious, then it shook their sense of who He is to the core. Are You saying You are about to be crucified? Well, then, how is it You maintain Your claim to be Messiah? We know what is written of Messiah, that He will never die. So, either You must mean something different with this lifting up business, or You must be confessing that You are not Messiah after all. Which is it?
At the very least, then, we must start from the understanding that John makes plain, and that the crowd plainly heard. Jesus is talking about how He is to die, and it is the most gruesome, most debasing form of death then known. There are any number of sermons that have explored the full scope of what Jesus would be undergoing as He died on that cross. I am tempted to say more than enough has been said on that topic, but then, I’m not sure enough could ever be said. We do well to bear in thought just how deeply our Savior suffered for our salvation.
For our purposes here, however, I am more focused on the scandal, if you will, of such a death. This was something reserved for the worst of criminals, the lowest of the low. If there was anything that might cause a person to be ranked as even lower than a tax collector, this might well be it. Of course, there might also be a bit of the heroic martyr in some cases, as this was also the price paid for treason against Rome. But, the ignominy of this thing! There is nothing about it to suggest glory.
There is, however, an explanation from near to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry by which we understand the significance here. In John 3:14, Jesus also speaks of this being lifted up, and makes it clear that this is the fulfillment of what was done by Moses out in the desert when he made the serpent staff. What was the point of that act? The nation was being punished with a sickness unto death, and Moses, the great prophet, was acting upon God’s instructions to preserve a remnant. Thus he had this serpent staff fashioned, and thus he instructed his charges that those who looked upon the staff being lifted up there in the desert would be saved.
I have explored on another occasion, at least one, the sad result of that staff; how it degraded from a tool of grace to being an idol. I have also pondered what we might learn from that as regards our own view of the symbol of the cross. That being the case, I shall not do more than mention the notion here.
What is clear is that Jesus, in being hung upon this cross, fulfilled the type of the serpent staff. Thus, those who looked to Him in such a humiliated state and yet trusted in Him would be saved. What the serpent staff had accomplished for a physical plague (albeit with heavenly cause), Jesus accomplished for a heavenly plague (albeit with earthly repercussions). The effect of that staff in the desert was temporary, much like those healings Jesus performed during His ministry. The effect of the Cross is eternal.
The point of that act is well summed up in 1 John 2:2. “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not just ours, but the sins of the whole world!” Paul also explains that event for us. “He died for all, so that those who live might stop living for themselves, instead living for the purpose of Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2Co 5:15). Well! That rather shifts our focus, doesn’t it? Let me explore these two explanations just a bit.
John spreads the efficacy of Jesus’ atonement to the whole world. Paul also expresses that His death was on behalf of all. Thus, we have the ever raging battle amongst believers as to whether those who fail to attain to the benefits of atonement fail of their own free will or fail because it is predetermined. For those in the former camp, everything hinges on that all. We see it many times in Scripture, that Jesus died for all; that God wills that none (which is all in the negative) should be lost. And yet, it is clearly evident that all are not saved, that some are lost. It is so evident as to be a given.
So then: These who are lost, did they make a choice to be thus? Well, in so far as they remain morally culpable for their actions, yes they did. Like Pharaoh of old, they acted according to their own will, made their own choices. And yet, like Pharaoh of old, it could be maintained that those choices were made as God hardened their hearts. Indeed, Paul rather insists on the point as he sets out the definition of sound doctrine for the Romans. Further, we have some very clear declarations made by Jesus in this regard, not least of them, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (Jn 6:44).
This same selectivity is clear in the explanation Jesus provided for teaching in parables, as we considered earlier. It is clear in the fact that the disciples could understand the Voice but those hanging about here could not. God chooses. This does not in any way reduce the effectiveness of what Jesus accomplished. Not in the least! His blood is infinitely able to serve as the propitiation for sin, even as John says in his letter. Within the bounds of its limitations, I could say the same of that serpent staff. If all Israel had opted to look to that staff for deliverance from the plague, then it was doubtless sufficiently powerful (being God’s agent) to deliver all Israel. But, all Israel did not look up. Jesus, lifted upon that Cross to die, and having died, lifted from the grave to live on forever, is surely able (being not just God’s agent, but God Incarnate) to deliver all mankind through all ages past, present and future. But, all mankind will not turn to Him. How is that? Well, I think we must come back to Jesus’ own explanation: The Father did not draw them. As to the why of it, I suppose we shall have to bring it up with Him when we get there, if we still find any cause to be curious about such matters then.
I want, however, to consider that shift of focus that Paul provides in his explanation to the church in Corinth. He died for all, yes, but in order that they might stop living for themselves. Whoa! But, by His stripes we are healed. How is being healed for anybody but the one thus healed? I mean, look at that serpent staff. Those Israelites who looked, they received physical healing. And, that’s a type for Christ, right? So, why shouldn’t I chase after healing from on high? Well, Paul says, that’s not the point. At the very least, it’s not the highest point. The point was that we, like Him, would not live for ourselves, but for the purpose of God. Jesus died because that was the Father’s purpose for His life. “For this purpose I came to this hour.” Jesus is our Teacher, our Model. We who are His servants are no greater than our Master. We, too, are called to count our lives as no longer our own, but His to array as He so chooses. If it serves His purpose that we die, we die and do so willingly. If it serves His purpose that we live, but live bearing with afflictions of the body (as Paul was required to do), then we bear with those afflictions willingly, even gladly, knowing that His kingdom is being served even if we know not just how that service is to be found in our suffering.
On the other hand, it can as well be said that if He so chooses to vest in us abundance and health, this also ought to be born willingly and with gladness. There is no more intrinsic holiness in being destitute against His will than there is in hording against His will. The point is not in the circumstances of life. The point is in the life no longer lived for self, rather for His purpose. This is kingdom focus, a phrase I have likely used too often. Yet, it is a phrase we need repeated because we will otherwise swiftly return to being self-centered and therefore weak.
If, then, we have come to the Cross for no greater reason than that we might avoid the penalty of our actions, and having thus come, have never changed as to our motivation, we have not truly come to the Cross. We have deceived ourselves. We are no more His sons than the most evil of men. We have no cause to suppose that penalty has been removed. We are yet living for ourselves, and that is the greatest insult we might possibly hurl at this One Who Saves. We claim the benefits of His salvation but refuse the duty of gratitude which follows. This is yet another cause for Paul to encourage us, even command us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Php 2:12). Do what you must to assure yourself of your salvation. What, then, shall we do? Die to self interest. Live to serve God’s purpose even if it be to your hurt, as we measure hurt in this life. Store up your treasure in heaven and cease from behaving as one who values this brief life above all else. It is for this He died, that we, by living for His purpose, might have Life.
Go back to John 6:44, where Jesus made the equation of His death to that serpent staff. There’s more in that verse. “Those who come, I will raise up on the last day.” We might say that He will lift them up. We might say that because He is lifted up, those who are His will be lifted up. There is that adage that a rising tide lifts all boats. Well, what we find in Christ is that a Risen Savior lifts all the redeemed. With that thought in mind, I think we can safely infer that Jesus, though He speaks most immediately of the nature of His death, has also in mind the results of His death. He speaks of the Cross, but He also speaks of what lies beyond the cross. In saying this, I am thinking of more than the fact that He would be lifted out of the grave. That is of great import, as Paul makes clear, for His restoration to life was the evidence that the sacrifice of His life had been accepted by the Father. But, there’s more. The ultimate sense of that lifting up is found in the Ascension.
That same term, after all, by which He speaks of being hung above ground level is also used to signify exaltation. There is a sense to the word that speaks of being raised into prosperity, dignity and honor, of being set in happiness. Why, these are in some sense what it is to be glorified, aren’t they? It was the joy set before Him that strengthened Him to endure the cross and despise the shame (Heb 12:2), to the end that He is now seated forever on the throne. “For this purpose I came.”
In spite of that, however, it remains true that those who were listening heard only the part about the cross, the death, and did not see beyond that. Indeed, as we look at the questions they raise, it is clear that they knew the immediate sense of what He meant by being lifted up. It is also clear that they knew what He meant by claiming the title Son of Man for Himself. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that He was declaring Himself Messiah. Go back a bit in the text. Go back to John 12:23. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Then in verse 28, it’s Father, be glorified. A connection is established. In that the Son is glorified the Father is glorified. Then in verse 32, this very Son of Man says He’s going to die. And, suddenly, their understanding is in the ditch. What? Wait a minute. Everything up to that point was sort of making sense to us, but this doesn’t fit with everything we know, with what we’ve heard You saying.
Their train of thought just ran off the rails. There’s a big “Bridge Out” sign ahead and their mental brakes aren’t working. Choose your metaphor. This has wrenched from them whatever they thought they understood. This has shaken away all the hope they had vested in their conception of Messiah. Hmm. This has perhaps seeded the sense of betrayal on their part that would lead to their joining the chorus shouting, “Crucify Him!”
You can hear it in their question. “We were so sure You were the Messiah, but if You die and Messiah does not, then we must be mistaken, so tell us plainly: Who are You?” And in reply, Jesus pretty much says, “I AM the Light.”
Considering His answer in more detail, it is needful to both understand what He means with His use of light and darkness and also what His hearers would understand. For my part, it seems like another case of Jesus answering in a fashion that would seem to be ignoring the question. This is, of course, not the case. It is a response that comes of being culturally removed from the scene. We are peering in on a conversation between foreigners, between people whose thoughts travel different channels than our own.
I go back to the example of love and hate that colors our perceptions of John 12:25. We have a sense of those terms being at rather the extremes of the emotional range. Oh, we are familiar enough with hearing how so and so loved this show or hates that group, which are clearly applications that don’t immediately suggest that there is an idolatrous degree of devotion on one hand or an irate response on the verge of violence on the other hand. But, our general sense is that these applications are unworthy of the words applied. It’s like the child who says, “I love you forever,” when given a gift or a privilege, but will as immediately say, “I hate you,” when refused a request. Neither word bears much meaning. The point is that to properly understand John 12:25, we must understand the sense those words bore to the culture into which Jesus spoke. There, we learn, the terms are far nearer in use to the examples we think unworthy of the terms. It’s a simple preference or lack thereof. Jesus isn’t demanding that we so despise this life as to allow it no purchase at all in our awareness. He’s not suggesting we become determined to ignore the needs of life as beneath us. He’s indicating where our priorities ought to be. Things of this life are needful, but they are matters of indifference. Most certainly, where this life conflicts with eternal life, eternal life should have our deeper concern.
So, this same need to recognize the culture applies as we consider light and darkness, lest we find we have simply assumed our own concepts apply. For our part, we tend to view the significance of light as it applies to reason and logic, the capacity for rational thinking. This is largely due to the influence of Greek thought on the development of Western culture. But, we’re not dealing with Western culture here. We’re dealing with an Oriental culture. There, the significance of light has more to do with ‘the highest human good’.
Can I stop right there for a moment? Consider that significance in the beginning of Jesus’ response. “For a little while longer the light is among you.” Filter for the local ears: “For a little while longer the highest human good is among you.” Do you hear it? There is the immediate answer to their question. “Who is this Son of Man?” “The highest human good.”
OK. I’m going to take this opportunity to shift my focus onto that title, Son of Man, before I continue on the path of the Light. I believe I have covered the topic on at least one other occasion during the course of studying the Gospels, but it’s been a long study, and I don’t recall for certain where I might have done so. There are aspects of this title for Jesus that strike me as particularly relevant to this passage. To begin with, the whole evolution of meaning that the phrase underwent during the course of the Old Testament is at the very least intriguing. We trace it from a very derogatory sense in which it was used to contrast the low estate of man with the all powerful God who created him. It was a sense of being put in one’s place. In some degree, this sense carries over into the use of that phrase by God in addressing the prophets, particularly Ezekiel. There remains that sense of being put in one’s place. Remember who you are, Ezekiel, and Who I AM, and then consider what I am showing you, heed what I am telling you, and be swift to do what I am commanding you.
It is only when we arrive at Daniel’s vision that we find this phrase lifted to a more positive significance. There in the clouds of heaven Daniel saw “One like a Son of Man” who was given eternal dominion (Dan 7:13-14). Were it not for that eternal dominion part, we might be inclined to restore the phrase to lower case. I saw one like a son of man (that worm) presented before the Father. But, then, we would find cause to expect nothing more than swift correction of such a one to follow. Instead, we have exaltation, and therefore we find cause to invest the phrase with the significance of a title, a statement of office.
Why, we might well ask, did Daniel choose this phrasing? Surely he was as aware as any man of this phrase’s humble beginnings. Surely, he would hear in it that sense of contrast to God, that diminution of the one so labeled. Yet, it is clear that he sees nothing like a diminution of this One in his vision and still he calls that One ‘Son of Man’. You can sense a certain failing of vocabulary in that he feels the need to say this one is ‘like’ a Son of Man. He can’t possible be a son of man, for what cause would God ever find to exalt such a low creature as man? Particularly given the times in which Daniel lived. The chosen were in mid-punishment. They had proven century upon century that they were every bit as despicable as that phrase had originally implied. Worms, every one of them! Not even worthy of God’s contempt, as if He should waste so much as a thought on such low beings.
But, this! This is the revealing of something new. How, then, was this One like a son of man? Well, the obvious answer would be that Daniel saw in this One, a being that looked like a man. Contrasted with the imagery by which Ezekiel had described the God he encountered in vision, this was marvelous indeed. If the people here found cause to wonder who this Son of Man was, I have to imagine Daniel found greater cause yet. Here was the lowest of the low being lifted to the highest of honors: to hold the throne of creation for all eternity! Whoa! Such things are too marvelous for me! Too wonderful! How shall I describe this One?
He is like a son of man in appearance, but He is exalted on high. He is in the image of a man, and yet, He is so much more. One aspect that I think must be understood here is that significance of ‘son’ which bespeaks a nature characterized by that which the ‘of’ points to. This One that Daniel sees, then, not only looks like a man (shocking enough), but He also displays a character that is wholly identifiable as man. I might be accused of reading the Greek back into the Hebrew here, but then, as title, the phrase is particularly common in the Greek New Testament. Whether such distinctions were made in Hebrew, I cannot as yet say, but certainly in the Greek, there is ‘son’ as a child of the parent by dint of nature, and there is ‘son’ as legitimized by displaying the same character that parent had.
In a negative sense, this characteristic use is seen in the phrase, ‘son of the devil’. Such a one does not trace his physical lineage to the devil, of course. But, his character demonstrates the character of that evil liar. Likewise, we come to understand that the son of Abraham is not so by physical descent but by an affinity of character and spirit. The sons of thunder, James and John, were not being attributed with having been born to some phenomena of nature, and certainly not to some god of the pantheon in charge of those phenomena. No! It was that they were men of thunderous character, given to outbursts in their outrage.
So, this son of man, this Son of Man, is One whose character demonstrates conclusively that He is, indeed a man. He is not merely being described as one born to man, but as one of a shared character with man, one who wholly identifies with man. In this exaltation that Daniel saw, it would be safe to say that in Him, Daniel saw One who not only wholly identified with man, but One who most fully identified what man was intended to be. There is that restoration of the image, the reversal of every failure of Adam. The dominion which Adam threw away, this One is taking back. There, indeed, is Messiah! And, it is by this that the people with Jesus recognized the connection. Son of Man, the title Jesus keeps applying to Himself, is a clear claim to be that One who fully identifies what man should be. It is a clear claim to being that One who will take back the dominion Adam lost. It is a clear claim to that eternal throne. And yet, He speaks of dying. We might pardon their confusion.
Back to the Light, then. Do you see the way in which Son of Man and the Light share a common significance? The Son of Man wore the title because He demonstrated all that Man could and should be. He is the Light standing there amongst men, demonstrating the ‘highest human good’. Here, then, is the very pinnacle of Truth. Here is the Word, the Logos, the Light and the Life. Here, in one frail being, is the epitome of mankind. Indeed, here is the federal representative of mankind, or at least of that portion of mankind which Augustine counted as being of the city of God, rather than the city of man.
What is that ‘highest human good’? In some cultures, it was the power of reason. I don’t think it would be much of a stretch to say that in our own day, the power of reason, the capacity of man to figure things out, which is counted as the highest good of man. Look what we are able to do, to make, to fix! Marvelous are we! But, to the people of God, there is something greater, and that is the wisdom to be shaped and constrained by God’s standards. Moral truth trumps the cold, scientific fact. That we can do something is not to say that we should. Being able does not automatically mean being wise to do so. We might, then, wrap up in this idea of the ‘highest human good’ the capacity to recognize that even the most mundane of activities bears spiritual significance. R.C. Sproul has for years written a monthly column in Table Talk entitled “Right Now Counts Forever”. As we make our approach to this pinnacle of human goodness, we must begin to recognize that every moment is included in that “right now”. There is no act of ours which flies below the radar of moral truth. There is nothing insignificant about our day. There is nothing insignificant about our labors, about our relationships, about our habits. Every aspect is included in that “counts forever.”
Darkness, as the exact opposite of light, bears the exact opposite significance. It is, in short, the absence of human good, the absence of moral truth. There may be ever so much intellectual activity in the one who is in darkness, but it is even worse than vanity and wind. It is, by the absence of good, evil.
There is another contrast which may or may not have bearing on the message before us. Darkness has this association with misery and adversity, which are the natural companions of immorality. Where moral truth doesn’t reign, there is no particular thought given for the care of others, only for taking advantage thereof. Where moral truth doesn’t reign, man is all about himself, and will take what he pleases at whatever cost to those around him. This association of such behavior with darkness comes in part from the darkness of the countryside, where the presence of bandits was far more likely. Their work, after all, is made easier when darkness hides their approach.
By contrast, the streets of the city tend to be lit, and they speak to us of the nearness of home and hearth. Thus, the light comes to bear a signification of joy and safety. On a well lit street our fear of assault is lessened. Light, we might almost say, suggests community. There is too much risk of being observed for the bandits to ply their trade here. We are safe. And that community in which we are safe promises the joy of fellowship as well.
Now, then, let us come back to what our Lord is saying. For a while longer, the Light is among you. For awhile longer, you have this model of the highest good. For a while longer, you can enjoy the safety of being with the Light, the joy of fellowship with those who, like you, are with the Light. But, the darkness is coming, with all the misguided, immoral, antisocial activities that are common to that darkness. Walk, then, while you have the light, lest darkness find you still on the way.
Here, I am hearing that sense of the darkened roadway with its threat of bandits. Get thee home to thy hearth in the safety of the day, lest the darkness prevent you from ever reaching home again. Those who make their way in darkness cannot see where they are going. They are without direction. This is, after all, what becomes of us when our moral compass is gone missing. We cannot any longer even perceive that there is a right or wrong, let alone choose the right!
Jesus then arrives at His conclusion, the point of it all. While you still have the Light, believe! Believe in order that you may become sons of Light. Listen up! First and foremost we should understand that these folks were making the connections. Jesus: Son of Man: Messiah: Light. They got it. They knew what He was talking about. It may have offended them, for they may well have already considered themselves sons of light by their very being as the chosen people. This was, of course, a view that they needed to be disabused of. They neglected that sons are so not by simple physical fact, as had become the common view, but by character demonstrating association. This is a rebuke, and it’s one that was understood by the rebuked. There’s a reason Jesus found it needful to depart and hide Himself after this point was made.
Those who suppose themselves ‘good enough’ are not happy when they are informed that no, they are not good enough, but are yet completely in darkness as to their own peril, their own failure. This is not something unique to the Jews of the first century. It’s every bit as true today. The unbeliever is not keen to hear about his danger. The devotee at the church of science is not pleased to be told that his faith in man is horrifyingly misplaced. The one who is convinced that he is moving mankind towards his destiny, and damn the moral cost, will not be interested in learning the true moral cost of his determination. The sons of darkness prefer to remain in the dark. To be brought into the light will require change, will require effort. Far easier to remain in blissful ignorance.
For, the fact is that those in darkness, when informed of the Light, have an innate understanding of the Light. They recognize the truth of what they are being told. They just prefer to continue in their comfortable lie, for they are sons of that liar, the devil, by character. This is the state of the reprobate. Theirs is no condition of ignorance, but a condition of having determined in themselves to avoid the Light, remain in the dark. Even as we are called to “Celebrate the Child Who is the Light”, there are many who instead celebrate the remaining shadows in which they can yet hide.
There is a great deal that could be said in regard to the Light, and the refusal of darkened minds to accept Him. However, I would like to consider, before ending my reflections on this passage, the more positive application of Jesus’ closing words. “While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of light.” Sons here is that same huios term we have in Son of Man. So, we can hear in what He is saying, “Be characterized by the character of the Light.”
Jesus told the people, “I AM the Light of the world” (Jn 8:12). This was established. He further spoke of the benefit to His followers. “He who follows Me doesn’t walk in darkness, but has the Light of Life.” Compare this to what He just said. “He who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going.” The corollary that would apply to those who believe is that they do know where they are going, since they aren’t walking in the darkness any longer. This is our story! This is my confidence! I’m not going on best guesses any longer, I can see the road to heaven, and I can see my Shepherd leading the way hence. Whatever may befall me in this life, it does not change this simple fact: I know where I’m going.
This confidence, however, cannot lead to callousness towards the sins that still beset me. It is not a free ride. It is not a security that allows me to continue doing just as I please, unless I am pleased only to please Him. To do otherwise would be to fall into the same error that was forever causing grief in Israel. Let me take you to a message from Jeremiah. “Give glory to your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble in the mountain dusk, and He deepens the darkness into gloom even while you are hoping for light” (Jer 13:16). Here, we must hear that, “give glory to your God”, as a judicial call, a demand to be truthful. So, we could have it as, “Confess before God before He brings darkness.” This bringing of darkness – spiritual ignorance and the outworking of sin’s results – is amplified, and spoken of as coming like a mountain dusk. Have you ever experienced a mountain dusk? It’s particularly brief, isn’t it? One moment, daylight, the next deep shadow. To be caught on the trail in that transition is a horrible thought, particularly if the trail be narrow and the drop-off deep. Here, we’re talking about a trail that a mountain goat would have issues trying to follow, and the drop-off is straight into the depths of hell. And, you can’t even see your feet. That’s the sort of danger Jeremiah is bringing to mind. And all the while, what does he say, “you are hoping for light.”
Well, to be sure, if I were in such a predicament, I would be wishing for light, praying even. But, the word here, qavah [OT:6960] bespeaks expectation. It’s got that same confident and definite sense that we know hope indicates in our Greek texts. It’s not wishing for a light. It’s fully expecting it. You might say it’s looking at the provision of that light as a matter of covenanted agreement; as if God owed it to you, as if you could demand it of Him. In spite of this confidence of yours, Jeremiah says, He makes the darkness deeper. Yikes! But, be very sure of this: What applied to the Jerusalem of Jeremiah’s day is just as applicable for us in our day. There is a place for confidence, but we need to be careful to know that our confidence is well placed. It’s one thing to say you believe in Christ. It’s another to actually live it, to bear out in practice what your words claim. And, I should note that in the course of seeking to live out that faith, we are yet plagued by a heart that is deceptively wicked. I will further note that this wicked deception operates in both directions. Our hearts, it seems, are determined to tell us either that we are far better than we are in reality, or failing that, to tell us that we are far worse.
But, this Jesus! This Jesus was the True light which enlightens every man in having come into the world (Jn 1:9). This is again a thing of wonder and joy to those who believe, but it is simultaneously the removal of every last shred of an excuse from them who do not. If He has enlightened every mind, then the mind which would still prefer darkness is doubly condemned. There can be no whining that it was only the blinding efforts of Satan that kept you away. No! You were enlightened by the living Christ as much as any other. But, you chose the darkness, and now that darkness shall be yours unto eternity. For the living, though, this is marvelous good news. Even if you be alive but have not yet come to Christ, this is marvelous good news, because there is yet time for you. You cannot, however, know the span of that time which remains, so it would be well to choose Life while there is yet opportunity.
Let me take you to one more verse as regards the coming of Light and its impact for us. “I have come as Light into the world, so that all who believe in Me may not remain in darkness” (Jn 12:46). I’m cleaving pretty tight to the NASB for this. My focus is upon that ‘may not remain’. Here we are seeing an aorist subjunctive phrasing which might be thought to indicate some doubt. In other words, we might be tempted to look at this and say that while the believer may not remain in darkness, there’s still the possibility he might. But, I would note one small point about the subjunctive mood. Sometimes, the only uncertainty present is in the fact that it has not yet happened. In other words, it remains future. That future having been spoken to by the One Who knows the end from the beginning, is there truly any doubt in the outcome? I think not! He Who began the work (for we cannot believe in Him except the Father has called us, beginning the work) is faithful to complete it.
Even so, we have the encouragement of the Apostles to spur us to effort. John writes to us that if we claim fellowship in Him but still insist on continuing in darkness we are liars who don’t even practice the truth (1Jn 1:6). Let’s be clear here. God did not fail. His promise did not come up short for such a one. No! His claim was a lie from the outset. This, we might say, applies to the so-called social Christian, part of the visible church, but with no part in the invisible.
Then, there is Paul; Paul who was painfully aware of his past even as he was joyfully confident of his future. This gave him a certain sympathy for the Gentiles to whom he most often preached. “You used to be darkness but now, in the Lord, you are light. So, walk like sons of light” (Eph 5:8). There we are, right back at what Jesus tells us here. But, Paul gives us a bit more confidence. From him, we are hearing, ‘you are. Now, act like it.’ This echoes the ‘walk worthy’ that he writes elsewhere. The long and short of it is, if you would be known as sons of God, then act like Him, demonstrate that you are of the same character as He is. Don’t fall into the same game Israel played, thinking that being born a Jew was enough. Don’t suppose that your having been baptized or christened in your youth is enough. Indeed, even if you were baptized as an adult, the act itself is not insurance. If it was not the outward demonstration of what was already your inward reality then it was just an act, and the previous point from John’s first letter applies.
Oh, but you, my brothers are not in darkness such that the dawning day should overtake you like a thief! NO! You are sons of light, sons of the day. We are neither of night or of darkness (1Th 5:4-5). We were, most of us. But, we are no longer. You had time enough for that stuff before you saw the light, Paul says to us. Set it behind you. You are sons of the Light, now act like it! Obey this One you say you love, and be characterized by the character of that child who is the Light.
Father, I surely cannot claim to have attained to this goal. Would that I could. But, I would be lying were I to make that claim, and that I cannot do before You, however I may try on occasion. Oh, too well do I know my propensity for supposing myself better than I am in Your sight. Well, too, do I know my capacity for self-condemnation where no such thing should be. You are my Light and my Life. I could as easily move the stressors in that statement and say that You are my Light and my Life. It is as true. Yet, so much of me yearns to better satisfy this call to be characterized by Your character. Simultaneously, I feel those points within me that would just as soon be granted permission to continue stumbling in the dark. Oh, Holy Lord! I know I am not condemned thereby, but still I would that You would work the more swiftly upon this poor soul, that I might at the very least know an all consuming desire to be fully in Your light. Then, there is the more cause for hope that my desire will be satisfied. No. No, not more cause for hope, for my hope is anchored in Thee, and there is not the least doubt in my mind that you will indeed satisfy that desire. But, oh! That the progress might be swifter. Nevertheless, Lord, I well know that Your timing is sure and Your choices as to my progress best fit for my benefit. Glory to Your Name!
