Extreme measures, dire situation

by Dan Phillips

(Excerpted from The World-Tilting Gospel, 77-79)

Our eyes open on an operating room.

We've never seen such a scene. Impossibly complicated machines are busily engaged. We see blinking, flashing, pulsing; we hear beeping, buzzing, throbbing. A dozen measurements display on a dozen monitors. Tubes, wires, even arcing electricity fill the room.

One full complement of antiseptically garbed professionals rushes about, working intently on a patient in the center of the surgical theater. Instruments flash, experts lean in, all attention is riveted on this figure and the controlling machinery surrounding him. Off to their right stands another complete team, uniformed and equipped, waiting for their cue to dive in and begin their specialized assignment. On the other side, to the left, another squad reclines on cots, resting.

A clock on the wall reads Time elapsed, and gives a figure of eighteen hours, forty-seven minutes, nineteen seconds . . . twenty . . . twenty-one . . .

And we gasp, Good heavens, what a desperate ruin this poor soul must be, that such a massive-scale operation was necessary!

Blink. Our eyes open again on a garden.

It is nighttime. Before us, we immediately recognize the figure of Jesus Christ—but we are seeing Him as no one has ever seen Him. This man who has stared down thousands of hell’s foulest demons without blinking, who has shut up storms with a curt word of command, who has reduced the human powers to babbling, loose-bowelled nonsense—is falling down in horror, and He is pleading with His Father.

Listen. What does He ask?

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36).

The Father has never through all eternity denied a request of the Son. Surely He will grant this! Yet Christ pleads it once . . . twice . . . three times. There is no answer. The Father says nothing.

Another first—and an alarming one.

An angel appears. We hear no words. But the Son rises. He squares His shoulders. He goes forth, meets a jittery and heavily armed crowd. He allows Himself to be arrested.

Too horrified to look away, we watch from afar as He is led off, as He is subjected to atrocious and repellent mockeries of justice; as He is beaten, whipped to a ragged walking corpse; as He is mocked,
condemned, and sent off carrying a cross.

To that cross He is nailed. On that cross He bleeds. He groans under glowering, angry, darkened skies. Our gut clenches and we gasp to hear Him cry out in prayer once again, this time to the silent heavens, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He lets out a loud cry . . .

And He—the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth, the life; the bread of life—dies.

Nauseated with horror, through numb lips we murmur, “Dear God, why? What a desperate ruin must we be, that such a massive-scale operation was necessary!”

For, you see, the Bible is clear that the miserable, lonely death of the Son of God was absolutely necessary for the recovery and redemption of men and women. If such extreme measures were an absolute necessity—and they were—then the ruin from which we needed to be rescued must have been far worse, and far more comprehensive, than many imagine. As we are about to see, the cross of Christ underscores the truth of what we just learned about man, and our need for what we are about to learn...

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The particular-redemption-believers-can't-know-Christ-died-for-them dodge (NEXT! #18)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: If you don't believe that Jesus atoned equally for all the sins of every individual without exception, you can't call anyone to Christ for salvation, or even know that He died for you.

Response A: Hunh. Well, I guess that's true... in a way. I mean, apart from Jesus calling all men to come to Him, saying that none can come except the Father should draw Him, promising that He would never cast out the one who did come to Him, identifying these ones as the ones the Father gave Him to save, assuring that they would never perish nor be snatched from His hand and that the Father loves them just as He loves Christ — apart from that, I guess we really don't have anything solid to stand on. You know, beyond Christ's specific, conditional promises.

Response B: Hm. But if you do believe He equally atoned for the sins of Judas, the Beast, Peter and you, you don't have any assurance that your sins won't send you to Hell. Poor trade-off, that.

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

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Great Things He Has Done

by Frank Turk

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

You know: many of you are enthusiastic followers of Mike Horton and his cohorts on the White Horse Inn. And let's face it: good on ya. There's a lot more good than harm eminating from their call for a modern reformation, and I myself am capitaved by their little chats.

I've been listening to the 14 June 2009 podcast all summer, which is titled "God's Story vs. Our Stories". And if I had to sum it up in one sentence, I'd say that podcast is seeking to make the point that the most important story in the Christian life is God's story.

I mean: fair enough, right? That's what Paul is saying here to Titus to a large degree: The grace of God has appeared bringing salavation, giving us the blessed hope of the return of Jesus, and who purified us by redeeming us from lawlessness. The message is Jesus; it is not, "I cleaned up my life and now God loves me," or any other such twaddle. Our purification is because Christ died for us, not because we do better now.

There's a parallelism, btw, with our sin state here: we are not made sinners by our sinning, but in fact we are sinning now because we have the nature of sinners. It is our state as being in love with sin which makes us do sinful things, and our sinfulness is what makes us revolt against God. Because we are not pure, we do unpure things. Out of the overflow of the heart, as they say, the mouth speaks.

But it is exactly that parallelism which puts me off what our friends at WHI said in that podcast. In Mike Horton's view -- and in the view of his cohorts there -- somehow the consequence of "purified by redemption" doesn't have the necessary implication "his own possession who are zealous for good works".

Here's what Prof. Horton said:

Now when you run into "emergent", what's called the "emergent churches", even the "emerging churches" which is a broader category, often what you hear is, "well, now we what to see people live it, and enough creeds: it's time for deeds." And "really, the thing that's keeping Christianity from being taken seriously in our culture is that people really aren't living it." Don't you think that this -- first of all, there's nothing new or post-modern about that; I grew up with that, my grandmother grew up with that --do you think that that actually undermines the Gospel? that is it actually the very opposite because the Gospel, the Scriptures say, is the power of God unto salvation, not my living the Gospel. There's one person that lived the law, and that is the Gospel.

Yes: that is the Gospel. He is right that the active and passive obedience of Christ, his life and his death, followed by His resurrection as God's sign that He will keep His promise, is the Gospel.

But there are two things here which the White Horse Inn-mates (it's a joke; relax) are overlooking, and almost tragically so.

The first is that the Gospel is for someone. The Gospel is not just a spectacle but a gift, a grace which God gives to someone -- namely, His people who have faith. It is done, but it is for us. cf. last week's post on this passage: that's why it ought to be proclaimed -- to call out those for whom it is given.

But the second point is at least as important: It is not either deeds or creeds, but deed and creeds, or better still deeds as a necessary consequence of what the creeds say and mean. The creeds are not a law unto themselves; they are an enumeration of in whom we have faith and what He has done. They are not the faith but a limited description of the faith. And in that, if we believe what they say, we will live, as Paul says to Titus, as his own possession who are zealous for good works.



I love my wife, y'all. Without overstating this theologically, I love her because she loves me first. It's easy for me to go the extra mile for her when I have to because the name of Mrs. Centuri0n is "lovingkindness".

Now, that's sweet of me to bring it up, I know. I mention it because it is true. But what if you followed me around for a few days, and I was acting like Jon Gosselin -- or worse, that I was constantly calling her and checking up on her, making sure she wasn't cheating on me or leaving the kids unattended? Would my confession that Mrs. Cent is a wife of lovingkindness make any sense, or carry any credibility? Would my actions adorn the doctrine of Mrs. Cent?

Or would my actions prove I don't believe a word of it?

See: the doctrine of Mrs. Cent can be true objectively, but as Rod Rosenblatt points out so cunningly, maybe nobody believes it. Maybe nobody believes the good news of Mrs. Cent -- particularly her husband for whom she has done all these great things.

Here to Titus, Paul makes the equally demanding point that it is not enough to merely declare that truth that Christ is a Savior who has done great things; we must be a people for whom great things He has done. A people for whom great things have been done will not be an unchanged people. And in the same way that our sinners' nature has caused us to sin, our savior's redemption and purification will cause us to love what is good, and do it.

And you, dear pastor reader, must preach this. You must teach this. And you must live this. Your people will not be perfect, but they are purified. Teach them to live because that is true.

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Angels: fixed attention

by Dan Phillips

[NOTE: this is a reworking of this post from my blog, from 2007]

We know a lot about angels, and that we don't know a lot about angels. There is a great deal of Biblical material, on the one hand; but there are many gaps, holes, and lacunae.

We know that angels are spirit beings of great knowledge, antiquity and power. They can move quickly (Daniel 9:21; Luke 2:13), can appear on earth (Genesis 18:2), or in the throne room of God (Job 1:6). They are spirits (Hebrews 1:7), but can take tangible form and interact with matter (Daniel 10:10). They have consciousness of self and of others (Luke 1:19).

Artists have represented angels often, but almost always clearly wrongly. The effeminate—indeed, often female!—angels of the painters are dead wrong in almost every respect. Angels are never certainly depicted as female in the Bible, and virtually always depicted as definitely masculine. Not merely masculine, but awesome and fear-inspiring. Artists' angels look as if they're about to say "Please, may I have another chocolate?" Real angels usually have to start out with saying, "Dude, dude — try not to die!"

I surmise that there's a reason for that.

What fills an angel's day, though? The Bible seems to indicate various classes or even species of angels, with differing functions or specialties. As to the angels' potential scope of interest and activity, perhaps one can be forgiven to reflect on the information we have.

Being spirit, angels presumably wouldn't be limited by any need for a particular atmosphere or temperature-range, or gravity. They'd not need food or water. They could travel wherever they needed to, within the will of God.

So, in theory at least, an angel could choose to make a study of marine life at the ocean's depth, or the life of the most distant glittering star; of the tiniest atom on the highest mountain peak, or the rotations of Jupiter or Neptune. They could equally wander the Gobi Desert or the Milky Way, watch a homeless man in New York, or a prince in the Middle East or Europe.

But unlike Tolkien's angelic Istari such as Gandalf the Grey and Radagast the Brown, who study hobbits or animals, real angels are mostly interested in God. Usually, they're seen functioning as their title indicates: as God's messengers. We observe them characteristically running errands, carrying messages, sent on missions.

Still, the Bible does give us strong indication as to what fascinates angels. Both Testaments indicate that angels are particularly fascinated with our redemption.

Consider Exodus 25:18—"And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat." Isn't it interesting that they are not described? It is as if Moses says, "Okay, you know what cherubim look like, right? So, make two of them, and...." Wouldn't it be interesting to know what they knew about cherubim, and how they knew what they knew?

But if that were important, God would have given the details. A crucial rule of interpretation is to make much of what God makes of (and the converse). So what is of interpretive importance to us is that the cherubim's appearance is not of interpretive importance to us, or else they would have been described. God tells us what matters about them. What matters about them is that they are of hammered gold, they are at the two ends of the mercy seat, and that...

...[t]he cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be (Exodus 25:20)

So what are the cherubim looking at, as they face inward? They are depicted, by command of God, as forever fixing their unblinking gaze upon the mercy seat, the kapporeth, the solid gold lid to the chest of the covenant.

What is the significance of this lid? Yahweh appears and speaks there (Exodus 25:22), and bloody atonement is made there, on the great and highest holy day (Leviticus 16, especially vv. 14-15). This locus is the focus. The angels' two objects of fascination are closely tied to it: Yahweh, and believers' blood-bought redemption. The turning away of Yahweh's wrath by means of blood atonement absorbs them fully, as they are depicted as frozen in rapt attention towards that spot.

Does Peter possibly have this in mind as he writes? The apostle tantalizingly remarks, as it were in passing, that angels intensely desire to bend over and get a good look [παρακύψαι] at the truths of the Gospel that we preach (1 Peter 1:12). It is an object of great interest and perhaps curiosity to them. God constituted the church as an eternal exhibit of His grace and wisdom — for the angels (Ephesians 3:8-10).

Think of it: angels know nothing of redemption themselves, except as spectators. Some of their number fell into rebellion, and not one of that company will be redeemed. The others stood fast with the Triune God, and not one of them needs redemption. Angels experience nothing of redemption. They either have no chance of it, or they have no need of it.

That Yahweh Himself would undertake to set His love on filthy rebels, would design an intricate tapestry of pointers to that redemption, would come in person to effect that redemption — these are great mysteries to the angels, and are objects of intense fascination to them.

Reflect just a moment longer. Once again, can we even imagine the vantage-point of the angelic mind? Thousands of years old, unclouded by sin, mighty in power and great in knowledge — what couldn't they study, if they wished to and God permitted? Planets, suns, comets, meteors, processes we can scarce imagine; all these are tomes available at the angelic library for their casual checkout.

But what draws angels and holds them is the drama of redemption.

And here we can't but tarry one moment longer to wonder if there isn't even a greater mystery to the angels — an absolute bafflement, in this case?

We know what fascinates them. But as they observe us (1 Corinthians 11:10; 1 Timothy 5:21), what do they see fascinating us? As we gather together, ostensibly in the name of Christ, what is it that occupies us, that draws us, that fascinates us? Is it the truths of redemption: its Author, its plan, its unfolding, its implications, its consummation, its celebration, its communication? Is it the Word that ALONE reveals these truths?

Or is it games, pageantry, frippery, triviality, entertainment, froth, foam, and inanity?

We must be much smarter than the angels, mustn't we, to yawn and shrug at what so absorbs their vast attention?

Yeah. Right.

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