Gratitude to God

Ray Ortlund post:  Do you believe in common grace

Now and then a commenter asks why I post music videos that are not devoted to God.  Most inquiries are courteous.  A few are not.  In any case, here is my answer.

I  believe in common grace.  John Calvin taught me that it is God who lavishes giftedness on his human race.  We may therefore enjoy it wherever we encounter it, with gratitude to God (Institutes 2.2.15).

That gives me three categories of music — since music is what we’re talking about here.  First, music devoted to God.  Hopefully, this is great music everyone will fall in love with.  Second, music opposing God.  Hopefully, this will be rotten music people cannot stand.  Third, music neither devoted to God nor opposing God.  If it happens to be good music, by God’s common grace, I for one will enjoy it.  Good music does not have to be devoted to God for me to be okay with it — though if it were devoted to God I’d be thrilled.

One thing I love about the gospel is its promises about heaven.  In eternity, God will not delete all the culture-creating we’ve done throughout human history; he will redeem it.  The Bible says that, in the New Jerusalem above, “the kings of the earth will bring their glory into [the holy city]. . . . They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.  But nothing unclean will ever enter it” (Revelation 21:24-27).

The glory and honor of human cultures — the music, the clothing, the literature, the dance, the languages, the customs, the humor, the traditions, and so forth — it will be cleansed and brought in.  So Eric Clapton’s blues guitar, for example, is a preview of coming attractions.  The blues will be brought into heaven.  But there it will be even better.  It will be perfect.  I only hope and pray Eric himself will be there too.

Eric, if you’re reading this, thanks for the great music.  Moreover, there are some valuable resources throughout this website on how you can trust Jesus to get you into heaven.  I hope you’ll check it out.

Unconditional

Tullian Tchividjian post:  "Ifs" Kill

One of the problems in the current conversation regarding the relationship between law and gospel is that the term “law” is not always used to mean the same thing. This is understandable since in the Bible “law” does not always mean the same thing.

For example, in Psalm 40:8 we read: “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Here the law is synonymous with God’s revealed will. A Christian seeking to express their love for God and neighbor delights in those passages that declare what God’s will is. When, however, Paul tells Christians that they are no longer under the law (Rom. 6:14) he obviously means more by law than the revealed will of God. He’s talking there about Christians being free from the curse of the law–not needing to depend on adherence to the law to establish our relationship to God: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4).

So, it’s not as simple as you might think. For short hand, I think it’s helpful to say that law is anything in the Bible that says “do”, while gospel is anything in the Bible that says “done”; law equals imperative and gospel equals indicative. However, when you begin to parse things out more precisely, you discover some important nuances that should significantly help the conversation forward so that people who are basically saying the same thing aren’t speaking different languages and talking right past one another.

In an attempt to be a little more precise, here are some thoughts (big shout-out to my friend Jono Linebaugh who has helped me tremendously in thinking these things through).

When, for instance, the Apostle Paul speaks about the law he routinely speaks of it as a command attached to a condition. In other words, law is a demand within a conditional framework. This is why he selectsLeviticus 18:5b (both in Gal. 3 and Rom. 10) as a summary of the salvation-structure of the law: “if you keep the commandments, then you will live.” Here, there is a promise of life linked to the condition of doing the commandments and a corresponding threat for not doing them: “cursed is everyone who does not abide in all the things written in the Book of the Law, to do them” (Gal 3.10 citing Deut 27.26). When this conditional word encounters the sinful human, the outcome is inevitable: “the whole world is guilty before God” (Rom 3.19). It is the conditionthat does the work of condemnation. “Ifs” kill!

Compare this to a couple examples of New Testament imperatives. First, consider Galatians 5.1. After four chapters of passionate insistence that justification is by faith apart from works of the law, Paul issues a couple of strong imperatives: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore stand firm (imperative) and do not be subject (imperative) again to the yoke of slavery.” Are these commandments with conditions? No! Are these imperatives equal to Paul’s description of the law? No! The command here is precisely to not return to the law; it is an imperative to stand firm in freedom from the law.

Or take another example, John 8.11. Once the accusers of the adulterous women left, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Depart. From now on, sin no more.” Does this final imperative disqualify the words of mercy? Is this a commandment with a condition? No! Otherwise Jesus would have instead said, “If you go and sin no more, then neither will I condemn you.” But Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” The command is not a condition. “Neither do I condemn you” is categorical and unconditional, it comes with no strings attached. “Neither do I condemn you” creates an unconditional context within which “go and sin no more” is not an “if.” The only “if” the gospel knows is this: “if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous” (1 John 2.1).

The reason Paul says that Christ is the end of this law is that in the gospel God unconditionally gives the righteousness that the law demands conditionally. So Christ kicks the law out of the conscience by overcoming the voice of condemnation produced by the condition of the law. As I said in my previous post, the conditional voice that says “Do this and live” gets out-volumed by the unconditional voice that says “It is finished.”

When this happens, we are freed from the condemnation of the law’s conditionality and therefore free to hear the law’s content as a description of what a free life looks like. In other words, the gospel ends the law’s role as the regulator of the divine-human relationship and limits the law to being a blueprint for the free life. So, the law serves Christians by showing us what freedom on the ground looks like. But everyday in various ways we disobey and stubbornly ignore the call to be free, “submitting ourselves once again to a yoke of slavery.” And when we do, it is the gospel which brings comfort by reminding us that God’s love for us doesn’t depend on what we do (or fail to do) but on what Christ has done for us. Jesus fulfilled all of God’s holy conditions so that our relationship to God could be wholly unconditional. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The gospel, therefore, always has the last word over a believer. Always

For Martin Luther, it is within this unconditional context created by the gospel–the reality he called “living by faith”–that the law understood as God’s good commands can be returned to its proper place. Freed from the burden and bondage of attempting to use the law to establish our righteousness before God, Christians are free to look to commandments, and “imperatives, not as conditions, but as descriptions and directions as they seek to serve their neighbor. The law, in other words, norms neighbor love–it shows us what to do and how to do it. Once a person is liberated from the commonsense delusion that acting righteously makes us righteous before God, and in faith believes the counter-intuitive reality that being made righteous by God’s forgiving and resurrecting word precedes and produces righteous action (defined as serving our neighbor), then the justified person is unlocked to love–which is the fulfillment of the law.

Lord and Messiah

Kevin DeYoung post:  Straight in His Face

Then there came-at first from very off-sounds of wailing and then, from every direction, a rustling and a pattering and a sound of wings.  It came nearer and nearer.  Soon one could distinguish the scamper of little feet from the padding of big paws, and the clack-clack of light little hoofs from the thunder of great ones.  And then one could see thousands of pairs of eyes gleaming.  And at last, out of the shadow of the trees, racing up the hill for dear life, by thousands and by millions, came all kinds of creatures — Talking Beasts, Dwarfs, Satyrs, Fauns, Giants, Calormenes, men from Archenland, Monopods, and strange unearthly things from the remote islands or the unknown Western lands.  And all these ran up to the doorway where Aslan stood.

 The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter and brighter as they drew nearer and nearer to the standing Stars.  But as they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each of them.  They all looked straight in his face, I don’t think they had any choice about that.  And when some looked, the expression of their faces changed terribly – it was fear and hatred. . . .and all the creatures who looked at Aslan in that way swerved to their right, his left, and disappeared into his huge black shadow, which (as you have heard) streamed away to the left of the doorway.  The children never saw them again.  I don’t know what became of them.  But the others looked in the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frightened at the same time.  And all these came in at the door, in on Aslan’s right (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle).

No matter what you think of him now, one day you will stand before Jesus. And on that day you will not see him as a little baby or as a dying man on a cross. He will stand before you as the glorious and exalted Son of Man. You will see the nail marks in his hands, but instead of a crown of thorns, a crown of glory will rest upon his brow. He will be more dazzling than you imagined, his splendor more radiant than you thought possible.

There will be no mistaking who he is at that moment—the Lord, the Messiah, the image of the invisible God, the Word made flesh. No one will wonder if there might be other gods besides him.  No one will speculate about the plausibility of this or that historical Jesus. No one will dare to think that some clandestine council or some rogue disciple concocted Jesus the Christ. There will be no atheists at that moment. No skeptics on that day. Every knee will bow.  Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  It will be the immediate and unavoidable conclusion for everyone who sees him.

And as you stand before this Christ you will do so alone. You will not be able hide in a crowd. You will not have your family or church or well-wishers to stand in the gap. Just you. Your name will be called and you will rise to stand before him.

At that moment what your parents thought of you will be inconsequential.  Whether you were popular or rich or intelligent will make no difference. Your diplomas will be of no use to you. Your talents and earthly treasure will not matter. When you see Christ as he is, for who he is, you will not be neutral. Your response will not be tepid. No one will equivocate or find some middle ground. You will either thrill to realize that this is the One you have loved and have longed to look upon, or you will hate to look on One so lovely when you’d rather be looking at yourself.

Food for our Souls

Henri Nouwen Society:  To Let the Word Become Flesh


Spiritual reading is food for our souls.  As we slowly let the words of the Bible or any spiritual book enter into our minds and descend into our hearts, we become different people.  The Word gradually becomes flesh in us and thus transforms our whole beings.  Thus spiritual reading is a continuing incarnation of the divine Word within us.  In and through Jesus, the Christ, God became flesh long ago.  In and through our reading of God's Word and our reflection on it, God becomes flesh in us now and thus makes us into living Christs for today.

Let's keep reading God's Word with love and great reverence.

Holding Out for Grace

Tullian Tchividjian post:  Grace Prevails

When talking about “the law”, we need to make an important distinction. We can call it big “L” Law and little “l” law. Big “L” law comes from God and is outlined in the Ten Commandments, reiterated in the Sermon on the Mount, and summarized by Jesus as the command to “Love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength…and love our neighbor” (of course, one could say more but that’s the gist of it). But there’s another law (little “l”) that plays out in all kinds of ways in daily life. Paul Zahl puts it this way:

Law with a small “l” refers to an interior principle of demand or ought that seems universal in human nature. In this sense, law is any voice that makes us feel we must do something or be something to merit the approval of another. For example, what we shall call “the law of capability” is the demand a person may feel that he/she be 100% capable in everything he/she does–or else! In the Bible, the Law comes from God. In daily living, law is an internalized principle of self-accusation. We might say that the innumerable laws we carry inside us are bastard children of the Law.

No one understood the dynamic of how the accusation of the law functions in the human psyche better than Martin Luther. He characterized the Law as, “a voice that man can never stop in this life,” one that can be heard anywhere and everywhere, not just on Sunday morning. It takes any number of forms, but its function remains the same: it accuses. Indeed, the “oughts” of life are as numerous as they are oppressive: infomercials promising a better life if you work at getting a better body, a neighbor’s new car, a beautiful person, the success of your co-worker- all these things have the potential to communicate “you’re not enough.”

The other day I was driving down the road near my house and I passed a sign in front of a store that read, “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” Meant to inspire drivers-by to work hard, live well, and avoid mistakes, it served as a booming voice of law to everyone that read it: “Don’t mess up. There are no second chances. You better get it right the first time.” Again, Paul Zahl chimes in insightfully:

In practice, the requirement of perfect submission to the commandments of God is exactly the same as the requirement of perfect submission to the innumerable drives for perfection that drive everyday people’s crippled and crippling lives. The commandment of God that we honor our father and mother is no different in impact, for example, than the commandment of fashion that a woman be beautiful or the commandment of culture that a man be boldly decisive and at the same time utterly tender.

The world is full to the brim with law. Not just laws of Scripture, laws of science, and tax codes, but lesser, subjective laws. And they cause us enormous grief. Indeed, identity is an area of life frequently mired in legalities: “I must be __________ kind of person, and not ___________ kind of person if I’m ever going to be somebody.”

An environment of law, as we all know, is an environment of fear. We are afraid of the judgment that the law wields. Or as the poet Czeslaw Milosz describes in his poem “A Many-Tiered Man”: “[Man] frightened of a verdict, now, for instance, or after his death.” We instinctually know that if we don’t measure up, the judge will punish us. When we feel this weight of judgment against us, we all tend to slip into the slavery of self-salvation: trying to appease the judge (friends, parents, spouse, ourselves) with hard work, good behavior, getting better, achievement, losing weight, and so on. We conclude, “If I can just stay out of trouble and get good grades, maybe my mom and dad will finally approve of me; If I can overcome this addiction, then I’ll be able to accept myself; If I can get thin, maybe my husband will finally think I’m beautiful; if I can make a name for myself and be successful, maybe I’ll get the respect I long for.”

The law stifles and causes us to second-guess ourselves. Have you ever found yourself writing and rewriting the same email over and over again? Or procrastinating on making a phone call? The recipient almost inevitably has become a stand-in for the law. We put people in this role with alarming facility.

The idea of “law” simply makes sense, and universally so. The Apostle Paul even claims that it is written on the heart (Romans 2:15). In fact, those that don’t believe in God tend to struggle with self-recrimination and self-hatred just as much as those that do; no one is free of guilt—the law is not subject to our belief in it. Some of us even compound our failures and suffering by heaping judgment upon judgment, intoxicated by the voice of “not-enoughness”, not content until we have usurped the role of the only One who is actually qualified to pass a sentence. In a 2005 interview with journalist Michka Assayas, U2 frontman Bono spoke eloquently about Law and Grace in terms of Karma:

At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. What you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics, every action is met by an equal and opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff… I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

Against the tumult of conditionality–punishment and reward, score-keeping, Karma, you-get-what-you-deserve, big “L” Law, little “l” law, whatever name you choose—comes the second of God’s two words, His Grace. Grace is the gift that has no strings attached. It is one-way love. It is what makes the Good News so good, the once for all proclamation the there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). It is the simple equation that Jesus plus Nothing equals Everything.

The Gospel of Grace announces that Jesus came to acquit the guilty–he came to judge and be judged in our place. Christ came to satisfy the deep judgment against us once and for all so that we could be free from the judgment of God, others, and ourselves. He came to give rest to our efforts at trying to deal with judgment on our own. The Gospel declares that our guilt has been atoned for, the law has been fulfilled. So we don’t need to live under the burden of trying to appease the judgment we feel; in Christ the ultimate demand has been met, the deepest judgment has been satisfied. The internal voice that says “Do this and live” only get’s outvolumed by the external voice that says “It is finished!”

Yet there is nothing that is harder for us to wrap our minds around than the unconditional, non-contingent grace of God. In fact, it “defies our reason and logic,” upending our sense of fairness and offending our deepest intuitions, especially when it comes to those who have done us harm. Like Job’s friends, we insist that reality operate according to the predictable economy of reward and punishment. Like the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal son, we have worked too hard to give up now. The storm may be raging all around us, our foundations may be shaking, but we would rather perish than give up our “rights.”

Yet still the grace of God prevails! His gracious disposition toward us thankfully does not depend even on our ability to comprehend it. When we finally come to the end of ourselves, there it will be. There He will be. Just as He will be the next time we come to the end of ourselves, and the time after that, and the time after that.

Peace Be With You

Excerpt from John Piper sermon:  The Risen Christ - His Peace, Power and Purpose

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Three Gifts in What Jesus Says

So that’s the way he acts as the risen, living Christ. Now what does he say? And what we see is that in this first appearance to the disciples he says three things (or four, depending on how you count them). And these three things turn out to be three gifts to you: the gift of peace, the gift of power, and the gift of purpose. The opposite of peace is conflict. The opposite of power is weakness. The opposite of purpose is aimlessness.

Many, many lives are ruined by conflict, weakness, and aimlessness. Jesus did not come into the world and die and rise again to ruin your life. But to save it. And what we will see is that he saves us from ruining our lives by becoming himself our peace and our power and our purpose. I am praying that God will do this for you: Make Jesus your peace. And Jesus your power. And Jesus your purpose.

"Peace Be With You"

So what did he say?

Two times he said, “Peace be with you.” 

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.”

Before Jesus says anything about power or purpose he wants to establish peace. The order here is really important. The peace that Jesus gives is before and underneath any of our empowered actions or any of our purposeful deeds. We don’t initiate peace with Jesus by our actions. He initiates peace with us.

The apostle Paul — who wrote 13 of those 21 New Testament letters — explains it like this: “He [Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made us both one [Jew and Gentile] . . . and reconciled us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Ephesians 2:14–18).

A Peace Accomplished

The peace that Jesus offers the disciples is peace that he accomplished when he died for them on the cross. That’s why in verse 20 he says, “When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.” I am the one who died. I am the one you abandoned. And I am the one who was “pierced for your transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5). And the reason I can offer you peace is because by my blood I have covered all your sins.

If you trust me they won’t be held against you. The wrath of God is turned away. That’s what Paul meant when he said, “Christ reconciled us both to God through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” All the hostility between God and us was absorbed on the cross. Here, look at my side and my hands. I made peace with these. Justice was satisfied with these. Peace between you and God (and me) was established with these.

Where Peace Comes in Your Life

So there are five relationships where the crucified and risen Christ brings peace into your life:

1. Peace between us and him. That’s the first and most obvious meaning: he is standing there among them offering them himself as a friend and helper, not a judge.
2. Peace between us and God. That’s why God sent him — so that God’s justice and wrath could be satisfied another way besides eternal punishment. God makes peace with us by substituting his Son’s suffering for our penalty. Now he comes to us as a loving Father.
3. Peace between us and others who are in Christ. To be reconciled to God is to be reconciled to all who are reconciled to God. No hostility vertically or horizontally. No racism. No ethnocentrism or classism or sexism. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
4. Peace between us and our own souls. The New Testament letter to the Hebrews says, “The blood of Christ . . . will purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14). O the precious peace of a clear conscience. How many people labor under the misery of a defiled, guilty conscience. I read on Thursday the testimony of a woman who had an abortion 8 years ago and who said, “I cannot forgive myself.” I wrote, “That’s what Good Friday is for!”
   
   Peace with yourself doesn’t mean that you start seeing past sins as desirable. Peace doesn’t mean that past sins cease to be painful. It means they cease to be paralyzing. The pain may not be taken away immediately, but the penalty is taken away immediately through Christ. And that makes it possible to heal. And to move on with hope-filled life while you do.
5. Peace with the world. Yes, when Jesus died he did what needed to be done (Colossians 1:19–20) so that someday, in God’s time, all evil will be cast into outer darkness and the entire new creation will be full of peace and righteousness. “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end . . . with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isaiah 9:7).

Peace with Jesus. Peace with God the Father. Peace with others in Christ. Peace with ourselves. And peace with the world. It was an amazing achievement.

How Do You Receive This Peace?

And how do you receive this? Everybody doesn’t have it. It’s a gift of God. We receive it. Or we walk away from it. Or better to say: we receive him. Or walk away from him. He is our peace. If you have the risen, living Christ as your Savior, and Lord, and Treasure, and Friend, you have the peace that he gives — the peace that he is. “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

Jesus offers you that. I offer that on his behalf. It is free. I hope you receive it.

I’ve spent most of our time on the gift of peace because it is foundational. If we don’t have peace with God we will take all his other gifts and use them to try to make peace. And it never works. Peace is first. And it is free. Everything else is the effect of peace, not the cause. It is fruit. Peace is the root.

So let me just point in closing to the power and the purpose Jesus gives. Both are mentioned in verses 21–22,

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” [the purpose] 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” [the power]

Power by the Spirit

Jesus was going to pour out the Holy Spirit when he ascended into heaven (Acts 2:33). That happens about seven weeks after his resurrection. We read about it in the first chapter of Acts. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). The work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives is that he makes us able to do what we are simply not able to do on our own. He gives us power.

So here in John 20: 22 Jesus performs a kind of acted out parable. “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” He didn’t say, Receive him at this very moment. He said in effect: realize that my breath, my life, my word will be in the Holy Spirit. We’ve seen this before in John 14. Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18). The risen, living Jesus has come to us. He has sent us the Holy Spirit. His Spirit. He has breathed on us.

This person — this power — is our only hope for accomplishing the purpose he has for us. And he gives that purpose in verse 21b: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” I want you to live in the world as my representatives. My ambassadors. I want you to take my peace and take my power, and glorify my Father the way I have (John 12 :27-28).

Our Central Purpose for Existence

Jesus comes to us and gives us his peace with God. Then he gives us power to do the kinds of things that mere humans can’t do — like defeating our own selfishness, and loving other people, and treasuring Christ above all. And then with that peace and that power he gives us our central purpose for existence: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

I’m sending you to extend my peace and my light and my truth and my life in the world. I am going to my Father. But I give you my Spirit. I am the power in you. So go and glorify me in this world. That’s our great purpose — in the peace of God, by the power of God, to do the will of God for the glory of God, and for the good of others.

And if you are puzzled by verse 23, here’s what I think it means. It’s a good way to end. Jesus says to the disciples: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

What he means is this: When you tell people about what I have done, speaking my word, about my work, in the power of my Spirit, I am the one speaking through you, so that if anyone believes your word, I forgive their sins. And if any does not believe your words, I don’t’ forgive them. And since you are my voice and my truth, I speak of you forgiving them, and you withholding forgiveness.

Which simply means that right now: what you make of this message from this fallible, sinful, human messenger will decide whether you are forgiven or not. As an ambassador of Christ, I urge you be reconciled to God: receive as a free gift his peace, his power, his purpose. In the name of Jesus. Amen.