COLOSSiANS 1.13-20

Paul's hymn about Jesus in Col 1.15-20 is filled with ideas and thoughts that are almost too wonderful to comprehend. For example,

He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

How does that work? How do all things, living or non-living, have their ongoing sustenance in/by Jesus? Or here's another one,

All things have been created through him and for him.

So, Paul, you're saying that not only did this Jesus cause all that is to come into existence, whether the seemingly infinite galaxies or the subatomic particles, but all things are somehow for Him? Hmmm. Wow.

While the majority of this passage is masterful and elegant in content, style, structure, etc, Paul ends in 1.20 on a minor chord. He says that Jesus

Made peace through the blood of His cross.

Now if you're living in the Roman Empire in the first century, the cross is not cute or even religious. The cross was for guilty criminals whose heinous deeds were known to all. Crucifixions were done publicly so as to shame the guilty. People were more than welcome to mock those being crucified to make themselves feel better.

If one was to think of the cross in light of the Roman Empire, they would think of it as the dark, dirty underbelly of justice. Those people were getting what was coming to them. The cross was a symbol of retribution. No one would ever dare think something as dumb or demented as peace being made through the cross. However, this was precisely the case.

This cross is saying something about the depth of the stain of sin [1.14, 21-22]. This cross is saying something about the greatness of the love of the Father [1.12-13]. There is something so radical and counter-cultural about the cross of Jesus that it changed Paul's thinking to its very core. It must effect the same in us.

conflict and the cross

Perspectives from Peacemaker Ministries on Vimeo.

happy monday

From William Rees [1802-1883]:

On the mount of crucifixion
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide
Grace and love like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above
And heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love

Tozer [on the cross]

Tozer spoke about the "new cross" and the "old cross." He said that this "new cross" that many Christians look to is only superficial in its likeness to the "old cross."

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect.

LiMiTED ATONEMENT?

It was fun introducing this to my Systematic Theology classes. They had never heard of such a heretical, arrogant, and narrow-minded doctrine.

However, when they understood Jesus' claims in Jn 10, who Jesus said the "world" was in Jn 3.17 [17 generally follows 16], Paul's language in Ac 20 and Eph 5, and Paul's "us" and "we" language throughout his epistles, they realized that they had more to think about. We also discussed those texts which hint at the universality of the atonement [2 Pe 2, Heb 2, 1 Tim 2, and others]. Like a good rookie teacher, I left them confused for now. We are going to discuss it more in a few weeks. Still, there are a couple of things that I wanted them to draw from this.

First, cute and shallow evangelicalism sees the work of Jesus on the cross as merely an opportunity. Now it is all up to us. This is wrong; this is massively humanistic, anthropocentric, and far from the minds of any NT writer.

The cross is an accomplishment. It actually DID something. The cross is not just God kicking open a salvation door. It is God kicking open a door and, through His Son's death and resurrection, DOING a saving work. Even our Lord's dying words hint at this, "Tetelestai" ["it is finished"]. The cross and resurrection are more than a possibility, they are an accomplishment.

Second, after I gave them the options of limited or unlimited atonement, I told them that there are four things on which both sides would agree.

• Not all people will be saved.
  
• The gospel must be freely offered to all.
  
• The cross is sufficient for all.
  
• The cross is efficient for those who believe.

Some would even seek to rebut these four. That's pure pride. To me, there is a beauty to the fact that something actually happened on the cross - something definitive [Jn 17]. And at the same time, we are encouraged to dutifully and delightfully share the gospel with all peoples. Those who feel no tension here are the ones who just might have it wrong :)

GENESiS 22.6

This verse simply says that Isaac carried the wood on the way to Mount Moriah. However, I just purchased a Jewish study Bible at Barnes & Noble. These are modern, liberal Jewish commentators who have no concern for the claims of Jesus. The study note in this Bible on Gen 22.6 reads as follows:

The image of Isaac's carrying the wood on which on which he is to be burned adds enormous power to the story. A midrash relates this to a Roman method of execution that was sometimes used on Jewish martyrs: "It is like a person who carries his cross on his own shoulder" [Gen Rab 56.3].

[more here on the binding of Isaac]

summer camp.

I got to speak for a youth group last Thursday night. It was their last night of camp. You know how interesting those are. Actually, it was pretty sweet.

One reason I loved it is that it was a really small group. There were only 20 kids. Here's the best part... Four black kids. Four metal-heads. A few good ol boys and girls. A few Christian school kids. And everybody else was in between.

I gave them a quick running commentary on Rom 3.19-26. We talked about the pervasiveness of human guilt in the courtroom of God [3.19-20], the wrath that belongs to each of us ["propitiation" in 3.25], and how God is the Just and the Justifier [3.26] for everyone who is trusting Jesus. Then I explained how all of these collide in the cross of Jesus. Luther said that 3.21-26 is the center of the whole Bible. It sure feels like it sometimes.

After this, I talked about right and wrong ways to live the Christian life. We normally think that we have to have God in the story of our lives to make it better, to make us feel more spiritual, or to be psychologically satiated. We tend to think we need more of Him in our lives as well. Some of those thoughts might be close to right, but the reality is that God has called us into His story. We are now a part of what He is doing to redeem humanity and creation.

Lastly, I told them that the key that unlocks both becoming His and living as His is the same. The cross.

At the cross, Jesus became our substitute, our example, our wrath-bearer, our victory, our healing, and much more.

I genuinely felt the Holy Spirit there. He was working, moving, and making Jesus look good. God is faithful, ya know.

the ontological reasons i want JESUS to come back

Being and doing are a package deal. You can't have one without the other. However, one necessarily precedes the other. The pure existence of a thing is the most logical starting point to that thing fulfilling its role.

Examples:

Jesus is not the Savior of the world because He died on the cross. He is the Savior of the world; SO He died on the cross.

You don't breathe, eat, poop, sleep in order to be a human. Because you are human, you breathe, eat, poop, sleep. This is also what would qualify us as human beings.

In Exodus 3, this is why God reveals Himself to Moses as the "I AM" and not the "I DO" or the "I WILL" [more here].

I just feel that our 742 TV channels, 26 drive-thru restaurants down the road, 9 remote controls per living room, damning materialism, and iThis and iThat are all uniting to subtly betray the purity of this paradigm: being always births doing. I feel like the culture I live in daily whispers to me, "Do A, B, and C and then you can be X, Y, and Z." I guess these feelings come from the fact that I'm not home yet.

Maranatha.

"for My own sake"

"You have not heard. You have not known. Even from long ago your ear has not been open because I knew that you would deal very treacherously and you have been called a rebel from birth. For the sake of My name, I delay My wrath. And for My praise, I restrain it from you in order not to cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act. For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another" [Is 48.8-11].

But God cannot ignore sin. It spits in the face of His goodness and makes His character as mud caked in shoe tracks. Our pride and rebellion fly in the face of His beauty and holiness. Just as He chose to restrain His wrath under the Old Covenant, He chooses to do so now as well. The reason for His restraint, however, is the same. It is the cross. For everyone who is believing, Jesus bore the wrath of God that belonged to them.

"This [the atonement] was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" [Rom 3.25-26].

And lest we think that we're worth dying for, we must remember - He did this for the sake of His name. How humbling?

You know, if you're a Jew, you don't have exclamation points, bold, caps-lock, or italics. So, when you want to emphasize something, you say it twice. Like "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" in Acts 4.4. Or like Jesus' words from the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" in Mt 27.46. Thus, in Isaiah 48, when YHWH repeats Himself concerning His intentionality in restraining His wrath, it is most assuredly and undeniably for His great name and fame.

"I AM LEGEND" and the atonement

There's not a profane word or a scantly clad breast in the whole thing. So, it could be a family flick in that regard. But not so much. You will be on very the edge of scared for quite a while, rarely pushed over, but always engaged. My wife likes to call this a "jumpy" movie. A "jumpy" movie is something in between an intense drama and a horror made for the masses. If you know my Sara, this is funny. But best of all....

"I am Legend" is a flagrant construal of the sweetness and need for a blood-based substitutionary atonement. I'm glad the cross isn't an allegory. I'm grateful that it is theologically and historically true and spiritually and eternally my only hope.

ROMANS FiVE

So how does "justified by faith" [Rom 5.1] relate to "justified by his blood" [Rom 5.9]? Moreover, in broader Pauline thought, how do the above two relate to "justified by his grace" [Titus 3.7]? All three of these are the same in Greek [aorist passive participles from dikaiow]. It is clear that both the blood and the grace are acts of God. The context of Romans 5 shows that faith is an act of man. Another way to view it is that the blood is objective and historical; in slight contrast, genuine faith is ongoing and subjective. At what point do all three of these converge? It has to be the cross. I do not know how intricately it all works together, but God forbid if I boast in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ [Gal 6.14]. Paul wished to know nothing among the Corinthians except the cross [1 Cor 2.2]. It is here that faith can be grounded on blood that was spilt and both can find their source in the grace that saves.

the cross

Regarding our Lord Jesus’ work on the cross, Luther calls it the FONS SALUTIS… salvation’s Gospel spring that has been opened to refresh sinners.

Calvin calls it the CARDO SALUTIS… the hinge in which our salvation turns.