Pictures of Holiness and Grace

February 20, 2023February 19, 2023Todd R 2 Comments

A picture can be, as they say, worth a thousand words. To make an impression, sometimes God uses pictures or images, and one example is how He lets us know just how holy He is.

When calling Isaiah to be a prophet, God gave him an image in Isaiah 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” In this vision of a throne room, why bother to mention that “the train of his robe filled the temple”? Because in this image of God’s presence, there is no room for anything that isn’t holy. If anyone tries to walk into the temple, they will tread on the Lord’s robe with their dirty feet, and any lord would be immensely offended at that. James Boice commented on the verse, that: “This suggests that there is room for no one else at the highest pinnacle of the universe. It is not just that Jehovah reigns, therefore, but also that no one else reigns beside Him or in opposition to Him”[1]

A similar picture of holiness comes from Revelation 15:8, which says: “and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.” Until God’s judgment was complete – both on the unrepentant and on the cross for His people – there would continue to be no room in the sanctuary for anyone but the Lord.

A third picture, which was not just a vision, but built in actual, physical form, is the “Holy of Holies.” During most of the Old Testament period, priests implemented an elaborate sacrificial system to illustrate God’s requirements for meeting with sinners: an innocent creature had to die. These animals symbolized the later sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But the “Holy of Holies” was the ultimate statement of how serious approaching God is.

This innermost room of the temple was only entered once per year (on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur), and only by the high priest, who only can enter after hours of preparation. Once there, the high priest would sprinkle the blood of a sacrificed bull on and in front of God’s “mercy seat”, the cover of the ark of the covenant and a sign of His presence. Later Jewish tradition (not found in the Bible) indicates that others would stand outside the room holding a rope that was tied to the high priest, who also had bells tied around his waist. If those outside heard the bells jingling, followed by silence, they would assume the high priest did not atone properly for the sins of the people, died in God’s presence, and needed to be dragged out by the rope. God’s holy presence was to be taken seriously.

So Isaiah, presented with God’s holiness, cried out “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Isaiah’s “Woe” comes down to current times in the expression “Oy!” Isaiah knew instinctually that being in God’s temple was a bad idea. However, God provides redemption for His people, which He pictured for Isaiah like this: “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”[2]

Isaiah was not saved by a burning coal, but by what it represented: the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In God’s steadfast love for His people, He offered Jesus once for all, and the only sacrifice necessary and sufficient for us to know God. Therefore, there is no longer a barrier to His holy presence for God’s people, so the writer of Hebrews says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”[3]

Yes, God is holy and must be honored as holy, but when we feel insufficient or feel like yelling “oy!” when things go wrong, we can come “with confidence” to Jesus in His temple and ask Him to reassure us of His provision for our sin. That we may know, like Isaiah, that “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Amen

[1] From “May 9.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment. (2017).
[2] Isaiah 6:6-7
[3] Hebrews 4:16

All You Need is Love, But What is Love?

February 15, 2023February 13, 2023Todd R 1 Comment

A recent survey said that only 9% of American adults have a “biblical worldview.” I’m generally skeptical of polls unless I know how they were done. After looking into this one, I wonder if I fall in to the 91% of American adults who don’t have a “biblical worldview.” Why? In their definition of “biblical worldview” the word “love” was nowhere to be found. Maybe they thought “love” was too hard to define to base a survey on. If so, I can understand because love is a complicated thing.

In this survey, “love” was not in the definition, but “absolute moral truth” is, which bothered me not because truth is a bad thing, but because moral law is what condemns us. Moral law would still exist if Christ had not died for us. The Gospel, or Good News, of Christianity is that we can be saved despite failing to follow the law. Truth without love is like describing Easter and leaving out the Resurrection. If we have not love, we have nothing but condemnation. Love is essential.

But what is love? Love means many things to different people and is a word people like to leave undefined or use to mean whatever sounds good. Often people agree that “we should all love each other” without knowing what exactly they’re agreeing on.

^{Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash}

Confusion about what love is has been around for a long, long time. The Bible itself talks about several different kinds of love, making a “biblical worldview” definition harder. In English translations of the New Testament, the word “love” shows up over and over again, but the Bible wasn’t written in English. I’m no Greek scholar, but what follows is how I personally understand “love,” and I hope it clarifies rather than confuses.

In Greek, there are at least 4 words for love, including these three:

Eros – sexual or passionate love
Phileo – this is a root of “Philadelphia”, literally the city of brotherly love. Loosely, phileo means an affection for people who are “brothers,” who we like because we admire something about them, or because they are like us.
Stergo – This is a love toward kindred or family, typically between parents and children. This love is like a loyalty to those we are related to by blood.

These words and ideas were part of the culture in which Jesus lived, died and rose again over 2,000 years ago. However, the writers of the New Testament Bible couldn’t line the meaning of these words up with what they wanted to say about Jesus. Therefore, they took a little-used word – agape – and poured new meaning into it.

A Better Love
Agape is epitomized by the act of Jesus dying on the cross, but also by His selfless love for others repeatedly demonstrated in the gospel records of His life. Agape is putting the interests of others above the interests of yourself, even if there is no benefit to yourself, or even if there is a significant cost to yourself. Even if those others don’t love you. Agape motivates acts of benevolence or charity.

Why is love so important to a Christian worldview? Not only because if God didn’t love the world, He wouldn’t have sent His only son, but also because if individual Christians leave love out of their worldview, they use “absolute truth” as a reason to judge. Love that requires sacrifice may be less popular than love that doesn’t, but without it there is no cross.

As I see a Christian worldview, this kind of love is absolutely essential. From it comes a framework of the entire history of God’s relations with man in three phases: love rejected, love redeemed, and love restored.

Love Rejected
While vague “love” is popular, true agape love is not. When I took a college class on Interpersonal Psychology, one of the topics was the multiple meanings of love. The professor explained the multiple Greek words used for “love”, but when he got to “agape” he asked if anyone in the class could explain because he didn’t “understand” it (or so he said). I raised my hand, answered by describing the self-sacrificial love of Jesus, and was snickered at by much of the class. The professor smiled at me and moved on to the next topic. He probably set up the same situation every semester. So, yes, not only does the world often not know what “love” means in a Christian sense, but they actively ridicule it when it’s explained to them.

From Adam and Eve right to the modern day, agape love is the bonds that mankind seeks to break and find their own way. In an earlier post, I wrote that the “bonds” and “cords” that the world tries to break free from in Psalm 2 are the laws of love for God and for our fellow man. Jesus summarized all the commandments of the Bible as: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[1]

I recently wrote that “the problem with every person individually is that they are unable, no matter how much external pressure is put on them, to treat other individuals the way they should be treated.” People like to ask or demand that others practice agape love, but usually for the benefit of themselves. It is not in our nature to demand it of ourselves first whether or not anyone else reciprocates.

Love Redeemed
People also usually like the idea that every person gets what they deserve – but we are less likely to talk about that for ourselves than for others. The justice of God demands that anyone who refuses – at any time – to love Him and to love their neighbor should get what they deserve. He does not miss anything but is perfect in His justice. Jesus had to live the perfect life of agape love, under the loving guidance of Our Father, not so we won’t have to, but because we can’t. Without Christianity and without love, the world would never be able to overcome the “Love Rejected” stage.

Christianity is not judgement, but the only way of escape from it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). If man had not rejected love, Christianity wouldn’t be necessary; but also, if Christianity does not restore mankind to agape love, it’s pointless. Jesus, by willingly giving the ultimate sacrifice of Himself, satisfied God’s perfect justice and perfect love simultaneously.

By rising from the grave, He is able to share with us the power of agape love, which governs and redeems the other loves:

Eros – So many of the personal and societal problems in the world are driven by unconstrained eros. In agape, God provides boundaries within which eros benefits, rather than harms, humanity. See an earlier post on Godly Offspring for how God prevails over unconstrained eros even when we fail.
Phileo – Unconstrained phileo, which can become what we call tribalism, is behind a lot of the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other group conflicts in the world. This also is nothing new – God through His Son will redeem us. I wrote about agape overcoming tribalism in an old post about Jesus reaching out to Zacchaeus the tax collector.
Stergo – Families might be expected to be the easiest places to love each other, but they are often where passions run hottest. James 4:1 says “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” Only agape provides what is needed to bridge the divide, a love to govern stergo.

A Christian in our world has a restored relationship with God but is only able to practice agape love imperfectly while awaiting a new body in a new heaven and a new earth.

Love Restored
The Bible does not contain a lot of specifics about the eternal life that Christians inherit and it is often misunderstood. For example, those who think of Christianity as a set of rules that make us “perfect” think they are right to ignore the hope of heaven. C.S. Lewis says sometimes “our notion of Heaven involves perpetual negations: no food, no drink, no sex, no movement, no mirth, no events, no time, no art.”[2]

But thinking of heaven as love restored helps understand it better. Elsewhere Lewis reframes heaven as: “When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.”[3] By obedience he means obedience to loving God and man, and in heaven every person’s ability to love will be as the laws of nature, as reliable and predictable as the rising of the sun every morning or the return of leaves to the trees in the spring.

Also, we will not become something entirely other than what we are now, like an angel, but will be transformed and perfected, while retaining our individuality. Pastor Tim Keller explains that “Our future, glorified selves will be continuous with who we are now, but the growth into wisdom, goodness, and power will be infinitely greater.”[4]

This is a future worth having.

How to Have This Love
For those who agree that the agape love we lost is the love we need back, Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He offers a world where every individual person uses their individual talents, gifts and creativity in the best interests of others. All you have to do is agree to do the same, redeemed by His sacrifice and empowered by His Spirit to do the will of the Father.

How do we accept this offer?
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Romans 10:9-10

If you haven’t already, ask Him to be your Lord and Savior.

Nobody is more or less Christian than Jesus makes them. No doctrine or experience can replace a loving, personal relationship with our Maker and Lord, who guides and empowers us to love as He does. If we have not love, we have nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Fortunately, in Christianity we have His agape love if we will accept it above all other, lesser loves. Christianity is not Christianity, and we are not fully ourselves, without it.

[1] From Matthew 22:37 and 39
[2] Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory (1941). P. 107
[3] Ibid. P. 43
[4] Keller, Timothy. Making Sense of God (2016). P. 170

Forgetting What Lies Behind

February 8, 2023February 7, 2023Todd R 1 Comment

Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from a Roman jail, to encourage them to continue forward in the faith. In it, he wrote: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made [Christs righteousness] my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”[1]

In Paul’s life, “what lies behind” includes overseeing the stoning of Stephen recorded in Acts 7:57-58, and “ravaging the church, and entering house after house, [dragging] off men and women and committ[ing] them to prison.”[2] We all have different shameful things in our past, but God forgets them. His purpose is to always make us more like Christ, even when we struggle to move forward. The prize is worth it, therefore we “press on toward the goal,” even if our current situation is discouraging and seems hopeless. After all, Paul knew that even prison was temporary and God could wash away all the sins of his past, present, and future to make him righteous like Christ.

[This Rewind Wednesday post is revised from Dec 2021]

[1] Philippians 3:13-14
[2] Acts 8:3

Today is Mo Gaba Day

January 26, 2023January 25, 2023Todd R 2 Comments

Today my local public school system is celebrating Mo Gaba Day, in honor of Mosilla “Mo” Kingsley Gaba, born on January 26, 2006. Who is Mo Gaba? If you aren’t a Maryland local, you likely don’t know Mo’s amazing story, but it’s worth telling!

At 9 months old, Mo had his first cancer diagnosis and soon lost his sight completely and permanently. Over his life he fought cancer in his brain, bones, legs and elsewhere, but even with these challenges, Mo became a local celebrity because of his unquenchable enthusiasm for the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, and for life in general. At 9 years old, he began calling local sports radio shows in secret while his mother was at work, sharing thoughts about his teams, and about life, that seemed way beyond his years. To listeners, he was known as “Mo from Glen Burnie.” Over time, people also learned of his health issues and his attitude became an inspiration to, and friend of, many, including then-Orioles player Trey Mancini, who had been diagnosed with colon cancer in early 2020. Tragically, 14-year-old Mo Gaba died on July 28, 2020, after spending 75% of his life in hospitals, but he remains inspirational to many.

Two years later to the day, the Orioles held their first Mo Gaba Day, and something amazing happened: “Mancini hit an inside-the-park home run with a runner on base that started as what appeared to be a routine sacrifice fly. However, the ball deflected off the glove of Tampa Bay right fielder Josh Lowe after he lost it in the afternoon sun and hit him in the face, allowing Mancini to score…Trey commented about Mo playing around in the clouds so that he could score.”[1] As Mancini rounded the bases, there was hardly a dry eye in attendance at the game, or watching on TV. The Orioles won 3-0.

I don’t know much about Mo’s private life, the source of his hope and personality, or his religion, but share his story in the spirit of Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Can followers of Christ provide hope as Mo did?

Lastly, below is what I posted to Facebook the day after hearing of his passing.

“RIP Mo Gaba, age 14.

Who is Mo Gaba? A few years ago I started hearing him on the radio, calling in to the sports talk show I listened to in the car on my drive home. He would have been about 10 when I first heard him. Kids don’t call in much and the hosts usually aren’t patient with them so I wondered what was the deal with this very informed, very enthusiastic kid. He loved his Orioles and Ravens!!! Later I found out he was blind and had been fighting cancer his whole life. He was confined to a wheelchair. But he was so endearingly positive at all times. The talk show host (Jeremy Conn) became a big advocate for him and his family, raising money to support him. Other local sports figures and celebrities also began to support this kid who had an amazing personality in spite of his health problems that would crush many peoples spirits. for example, “In 2019, Gaba became the first person to announce an NFL draft pick in Braille when he announced the Ravens’ fourth-round pick.” Yesterday he was in the news (below) for getting into the Orioles Hall of Fame and today he’s gone.

We can all learn a lesson from his attitude in the face of adversity. His joy was infectious.

May we all experience joy as the world has become so negative and in turmoil! A world that in some ways is teaching us to feel nothing but guilt and helplessness. We are not victims in God’s eyes.

“In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him” – Ecclesiastes 7:14”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-mo-gaba-hall-of-fame-20200728-5kcctc4q6zeefbzkw6ahq2xg7q-story.html

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trey_Mancini