Tag Jesus

The Cross and the Fury of God

Todd R 2 Comments

Shortly after the death of King David, the kingdom was split into two: 10 of the twelve tribes becoming Israel, and the remaining 2 (Judah and Benjamin) becoming Judah.  Much of the OT history and prophets tells the story of how these 2 kingdoms – first Israel and then Judah – fell away from worship of the true God into idolatry.  But the prophets also emphasize that idolatry resulted in social sins – God’s people not treating others the way He wanted them to treat them.  In both nations, religious observance became an exercise in trying to buy God’s favor so people could live however they wanted to, but God condemned this empty religion, saying instead that:

“He has told you, O man, what is good;
            and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
            and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

God wanted His people to love people the way He loved people.  But our God is also a God of justice, who cannot overlook any violation of His commands to love Him and others.  When Israel and Judah failed to live as they should, God’s wrath and anger was poured out on them, in sometimes shocking ways.  The book of Ezekiel is full of alarming images and revelations about the sins of God’s people and His vengeance on them, and in Ezekiel 5:10-12, the people are told what the consequences of their sin would be:

“Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds.  Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.  A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them.”

God’s people would suffer siege conditions so severe under their enemies that cannibalism would be the only way to survive!  And most who survive the siege will be struck down: a third by pestilence and famine, a third by the sword, and the last third would be scattered, torn away from the Promised Land God had given to them.  God’s people would go into exile: Israel to Assyria and Judah to Babylon.  These nations would be instruments in God’s hands, executing His judgement on His people Israel and Judah.  As Hebrews 10:31 says: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and the Old Testament does not shy away from how horrible this can be.

The next verse in Ezekiel (5:13) says: “Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the LORD—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them.”  Through conquest and exile, the LORD was determined to show His people that His justice and His fury are real, and He is not to be trifled with.  When He commands His people to do something, He means it.

Photo by Anderson Rian on Unsplash

Which brings us to Jesus and the cross.  The New Testament tells us that the fury and wrath of God toward all of mankind – not just the ancient tribes of Israel and Judah – was spent upon Jesus on the cross.  God the Father poured out all of His fury on God the Son, on our behalf.  The anguish Jesus must have felt comes into a bit more focus when we consider the venting and satisfying of God’s anger in the Old Testament relative to what Jesus had to endure on the cross.  His suffering had to be enough to fulfill the justice necessary in God’s eternal, unchanging character.  Instead of our sin leading to our own suffering, He took our suffering upon Himself.

Jesus went to the cross and died that we may be forgiven and restored to a right relationship with God, but did God pour His wrath on Jesus so we could just continue living as we choose to live?  Certainly not!  God still wants from His church what He wanted from His people in ancient times:

“He has told you, O man, what is good;
            and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
            and to walk humbly with your God?”

Consider how much God hates sin and consider why.  It’s because sin is the opposite of people doing justice, being kind, and being humble toward the God who loves them and commands them to love others.  Sin harms us and harms other human beings.  Sin repeats Adam and Eve’s determination to live their own way, no matter what God has to say about it.  Sin tarnishes God’s reputation and glory.  Sin even damages our world and environment.  Sin deserves wrath for these reasons, but God has always preserved a remnant of people who would be sinless in eternity.  People who would live the way they were intended to live.  People who would not deserve wrath because they would be sinless.  People who would glorify Him.  These people are His church.

Are we willing to accept Jesus’ sacrifice for us so that we may live this life?

Pray that we will. Amen.

What You Have Forgotten Today He Can Supply

Todd R Leave a comment

The Gospel of Mark records two miraculous feedings of multitudes.  The first was mainly a Jewish crowd of about 5,000 in Mark 6:30-44; the second was a mainly Gentile group of about 4,000 in Mark 8:1-9.  These two stories are very well known, but if you read on Mark adds this about Jesus’ disciples in 8:14 – “Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.”

On this verse Warren Wiersbe remarks: “It must have grieved Jesus that His hand-picked helpers were so spiritually obtuse. The fact that He had multiplied bread on two occasions and fed over ten thousand people had apparently made little impression on them! Why worry and argue over one loaf of bread when you have Jesus in the boat with you?”[1]

When well-known Bible stories have little impact on us, remember that these disciples knew the story even better than we do – they were there!  Jesus did not give up on them and will not give up on us.

Have you forgotten to trust Jesus with something today?  He desires to be “in the boat with you” in constant fellowship.  Ask Him to take your anxiety and to supply your daily bread.  He never forgets.

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Diligent (Mark) (1987).  P. 97.

Only Christ Can Practice What We Preach

Todd R 1 Comment

We all know the phrase “practice what you preach.”  It’s a way to call someone a hypocrite, and at the same time tear down what the other person claims to believe in.  These beliefs may be political or moral philosophies, but they may also be religious beliefs like denominations or theological systems.  For this post, I’ll call all of these “isms.”

The history of Christianity has been a constant conflict between and competition among different “isms.”  Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Methodism, and others.  Even the ones that don’t use the actual letters “ism” at the end are still “isms.”  So much of being a Christian involves figuring out which “ism” we belong to, and also figuring out what’s wrong with the other “isms.”  I see this no more clearly than on social media, where the competing camps are so clearly identified, and people write others off for being in the wrong camp.

We put a lot of time and effort into being as good at our chosen “ism” as we can.  If we can go with the flow according to that “ism,” we can feel like we are pretty good Christians.  We may be able to do a decent job at following the “ism” that we preach, and in many cases following our “isms” isn’t a bad thing.  All denominations have their pros and cons, and they often attract people with similar strengths and weaknesses.

In God’s eyes there aren’t
different types of Christianity.

But as we seek to be the best at our “ism” that we can be, are we practicing Christianity?  Jesus confronts us with this in Matthew 19:17 – “And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’”

We may think of our “isms” as varieties or types of Christianity, and in a cultural way they are.  However, in God’s eyes there aren’t different types of Christianity.  There is only one Christianity – the life that Christ lived is the only practice of Christianity that will ever be good enough.  Even if I perfectly practice what I preach as a Presbyterian or Baptist, for instance, I’ll still fall far short of God’s standard for “good.”

“Isms” are unavoidable in this world, and they often point us in the right direction, but they don’t get us all of the way there.  We seek to please God as we best know how, but none of our “isms” are enough.  They aren’t enough to save us, and they’re also too much for us to perfectly practice what we preach.  We can’t meet our own, lowered, standards.

This is why the apostle Paul wrote “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” in 1 Corinthians 2:2.

Preaching Christ crucified is the only thing we can preach that was ever practiced perfectly, because it wasn’t practiced by us.  It was practiced by the only One who was ever perfect, and it’s better than all of our “isms.”

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12

Confession: The Blessing Nobody Expects

Todd R 2 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

What comes to mind when you think of confession?  Think about it for a moment.

For some, the thought might be a simple private prayer, or for some a confessional booth.  For others, no specific images might come to mind, but just a feeling of someone “out to get you.”  I expect some of you thought of the Spanish Inquisition, or at least the Monty Python skit making fun of it[1].  Where do these ideas come from?

The blame belongs in many places: secular culture, bad experiences with church, an emphasis on external over internal religion, and even Monty Python comedy skits.  My fantasy baseball league even has a team named “Spanish Inquisition” because the manager of that team thinks no one expects him to win – not even himself.

The mocking of secular culture aside, confession is an uncomfortable topic even for sincere Christians.  In Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, he shares the tension over confession between Tolkien and his then-fiancée Edith.  Tolkien was a practicing Catholic, while Edith was a member of the Church of England.  They had agreed as a couple to be Catholic, but Edith “began to dislike making her confession.  It was therefore all too easy when she was worried about her health (which was often) to postpone going to mass. She reported to Ronald [Tolkien] that getting up to go to church early in the morning and fasting until she had made her communion did not agree with her.”  She insisted “my health won’t stand it.”[2]  In my own Protestant church, we have a weekly prayer of confession, which the pastor regularly defends the importance of.  Few of us probably look forward to confession, whatever form we practice it in.

Photo by Shalone Cason on Unsplash

This discomfort with confession seems to be a shared part of mankind’s fallen nature, but if we look at well-known Bible verses on confession, we find that it is really about restoration, a rebirth of man’s relationship with God and a renewal of man to his ideal nature.  It is as different from God being “out to get you” as it could be.  1 John 1:9 encourages confession, because: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  God wants to give us forgiveness and cleansing, not condemnation and guilt.  Isaiah 1:18 explains this cleansing more poetically:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
            they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
            they shall become like wool.”

Confession doesn’t need to be a dirty word.  The word “confess” means loosely to say the same thing about something, so confession means we agree with God (say the same thing he does) about sin – that it is bad.  But confession also applies to the rest of 1 John 1:9, that God “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Full confession includes agreeing about the steadfast and dependable character of God, His faithfulness and justice, as well as His desire to forgive and cleanse.  If we doubt this desire, consider what He voluntarily suffered on the cross to provide for this forgiveness, and to demonstrate His enduring love.

By adding confession about the good things of God to our confession of our sin, our confession does not make us miserable about our own condition but shows us how different we are from what God wants for us, how deeply our sin needs to be corrected, and how wonderfully God has provided for the removal of sin.

But this does not come easily.  Referencing Hebrews 4:16, which 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,” Puritan preacher Thomas Watson wrote that “Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace.”

Why is this?  Could it be that we have trouble whole-heartedly confessing that “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”?  Monty Python joke that “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” but do we fully expect God’s throne to be one of grace when we come to confess?

[1] If you’re not familiar with the skit, here’s a 4-minute example: https://youtu.be/Cj8n4MfhjUc
[2] Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography.  (1977).  P. 68-69.

A Reminder of His Love

Todd R Leave a comment

Dear fellow travelers,

How do we measure how much Jesus loves us?  We may say that His love is endless or infinite.  We may say that He loved us enough to take on human flesh and become a servant.  We may say that He loved us enough to suffer and die for us.  These are all true and there are good verses to tell us all of them, but I think His suffering communicates His love in a way nothing else can.  We get an example at the end of Isaiah 49:13-16, which says:

“Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
            break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
            and will have compassion on his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
            my Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
            that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
            yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
            your walls are continually before me.”

Verse 13 tells God’s people to rejoice, but in verse 14, they say they have been forsaken by God.  During the exile in Babylon, we can’t blame the people of Judah for thinking this way.  The symbols and institutions of their religion had been destroyed, and they had been forcefully removed from the land God had promised to them.  What can God say to reassure these people?  What can God say to the exiles of Isaiah’s time that could comfort the spiritual exiles of our time?

Isaiah begins with the image of a woman and her young child: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?”  God had bound Himself to His people as their Father, through His covenant which was based on His character of steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6).  Unless God stops being loving (which He won’t) He won’t abandon His people.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

But the more powerful image for us today might be verse 16: “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”  While this might have been enigmatic to Isaiah’s contemporary audience, who had no point of reference for anything “engraved” on God’s hands, today we know what marks God has on His hands: the scars of His crucifixion in the body of Jesus Christ.  The scars that He willingly received on our behalf.  Isaiah 49:16 suggests that these scars are a permanent reminder of God’s steadfast love that He has for His people.  “Your walls” would be the walls of Zion, the eternal city of God, and since God says these are “continually before me,” like the scars they are also a permanent reminder.

The Bible tells us Jesus kept the scars in His resurrected body before returning to heaven (Luke 24:39-40, John 20:27), as evidence to His followers that He really was the resurrected Messiah, but also as a reminder of His love for His people.  While it is debated whether Jesus will still have scars on His hands and feet in heaven, many believe He will, but even if He doesn’t, He will remember them.

So, if at times you feel like the people of Zion in verse 14: ““The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me,” then remember “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”  He hasn’t and won’t forget you.