It’s Time to Take a Stand Against Catholicism’s Push for Unity (YouTube)

How to tell if someone is a Christian?

I came across this video on YouTube, which features seven people who claim to be Christians in conversation.

The point is that only six are professing Christians and one is an atheist masquerading as a Christian. Through questions, the participants try to guess who is the imposter and vote them out. It is an interesting exercise.

Personally, I have some doubts about the credibility of some of the others who claim to be Christians as well, but that's beside the point.

Of more interest is to ask, how would we try to determine if somone claiming to be a Christian is genuine?

I don't think the questions asked in the video were very good. No one seemed to ask or talk about God at all. No one mentioned Jesus or the Holy Spirit. No one referred to prayer or Bible reading. At least not in the edited version we see in the video.

These are the kind of questions I would probably ask in this scenario:

• What led you to become a Christian?
• What kind of church do you attend?
• What Bible translation do you mostly read?
• What's your favourite Bible verse?
• What's your favourite hymn or worship song?
• Do you serve in any capacity at your church?

Of course, someone deliberately setting out to deceive could probably come up with answers to these, so who knows. In my experience, most Christians are very willing to accept someone's profession of faith as genuine.

More important than our personal "tests" is to see what the Bible says about what makes a Christian. Some relevant verses are the following:

• A Christian is someone who has been born again by the Holy Spirit. The phrase "born-again Christian" is a redundancy. See John 3:3-8.
• A Christian is someone who has faith in Jesus to save them. See Acts 16:30-31, John 3:16
  
• A Christian is someone who seeks to follow Jesus in obedience to his teachings. See 1 John 2:3-6.
• A Christian is someone who confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised him from the dead. See Romans 10:9
• A Christian is someone who seeks to turn away (repent) of their sins. See Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:15, Acts 2:38, 2 Peter 3:9.

The folk in this video seem to associate being a Christian with going to church and maybe having some kind of spiritual experience. I was quite shocked that none of them mentioned a personal relationship with Jesus or God the Father or the Holy Spirit.

Our Questions and God's Answers

I am happy to say that I have a new, short, e-book published on Kindle. This one is a basic presentation of the gospel in a series of questions and answers, mainly using the Bible directly to answer the questions

The book was very much inspired by an old tract written for soldiers during World War II by the American Presbyterian minister, Gordon MacLennan. I have re-written, modernised and expanded MacLennan's work in this new e-book. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have previously written about and shared the original tract because it was what led be to become a Christian when I read it some 35 years ago.

I had hoped to make this book available for free, but Amazon insists on a minimum price being set. 

You can find the e-book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Questions-Gods-Answers-James-Miller-ebook/dp/B0C28RVHBH/

Man's Questions and God's Answers

For me, this is the greatest evangelistic tract I have ever read. It was written by Dr A. Gordon MacLennan of Philadelphia, and was included in a series of small booklets for the troops during the Second World War. Why the greatest? Not because it is necessarily the best, or the most eloquent, or the clearest, or the easiest to read, though I do not find it deficient in any of these respects, but because the Lord used it to save me when I first read it just before Christmas 1987.

I have only edited it slightly where one or two illustrations for the 1940s are now obscure or misleading.
 

Man is constantly asking questions. One of the most hopeful and encouraging signs in the mental development of a boy or girl is the habit of asking questions. The person who really succeeds in this world in material things is the one who is constantly, inquisitively, and persistently asking questions. The one who takes everything for granted, and receives it just as it comes will generally move along in that type of life all his days, but the person who wants to know the why and wherefore of everything is the one who makes the most of the circumstances which surround him in life.

So our subject is one which concerns every man; and I do feel that the topic, as I have noted it, is one that is particularly applicable to the man who has not yet satisfied himself regarding the great facts of the spiritual life and the spiritual experience.

To each of the questions which I want to bring to you, there is a simple form of answer, all of which are absolutely definite, simple, and easy to understand. They are not obscure questions of the hour, but are entirely practical for you and me, and altogether important, because they have to do with a man's eternal destiny, and a man's experience in all the ages yet to be.

The first is one which every man who believes that there is a God, infinite, eternal, and unchanging, must necessarily stop and ask:

Am I Accountable to God?

Must I answer to Him? Is there a day coming -- and I insist that we keep the question practical -- when you and I in a very real manner shall stand before God and give an account?

This is the fundamental question; this is an important question, and one well worth considering and thinking over: Am I accountable to God? We like to boast of our independence, and we like to say we are not answerable to anyone; but are we definitely, personally accountable to God? Listen to the answer from Romans 14.12: "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."

Your question and my question is a definite one: Shall we give an account to God? God answers it just as definitely: "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." That settles the matter! It is a statement on the authority of God Himself. And it is just as foolish to try to escape the dawning of a day as it is to escape giving an account to God.

The second question:

Does God Know All About Me?

This one, too, is important. Aye, on the basis of the first, it is tremendously important! Now that I have to give an account to Him, does God know all about me?

Those I associate with see merely the outside. They hear what I say; they see my actions, but the inner man they know not. My thoughts are veiled and hidden from the knowledge of my friends. Does God know all about me? God gives answer to this question in Hebrews 4.13: "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

Notice the third question:

Does God Charge Me With Sin?

This becomes more and more important upon the basis of the preceding two questions and their answers. I shall give an account of God, and God knows all about me. (Let us keep it simple and practical.) Does God, to whom I am to give an account and who knows all about me, charge me with sin? It is all recorded against me? It does not matter how well I can excuse myself to some other person. It does not matter how other people regard me. Here is the important question: Does God charge me with sin?

Let me merely read the answer from Galatians 3.22: "But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin." And again, from Romans 3.23: "For ALL have sinned." This is God's charge: "All have sinned." It is an utter impossibility for any man or woman to escape the all-inclusiveness of that little word of three letters, A-L-L. From the prince in the palace to the waif in the street, from the highest to the lowest, from the east to the west -- "all have sinned."

And it does seem as if it would be wise for any man, if these answers are true and correct, to sit down and face them as he would face any question of his daily life or his business life.

The fourth question:

Will God Punish Sin?

Now God's answer to the question just preceding this is that you and I are charged with sin. Therefore, will God punish sin? I realise that there are those who say that God is too good to punish sin. But, notice, this statement originated with men, and not with God. There is no place in all the revealed Word of God where it says He will not punish sin. All the way through God says that He will punish sin.

The answer to that question is found in Ezekiel 18.4: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Notice, also, Romans 6.23: "For the wages of sin is death." It is not mere physical death, the death of the body; it is eternal death, the second death.

The fifth question, following naturally after this is:

Need I Perish?

Is there no way I can escape the punishment and judgment for my sins? I am accountable to God. He knows all about me. He does charge me with sin. He will punish sin. But need I perish for my sins?

Let me read God's answer in 2 Peter 3.9: "The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

The sixth:

How Can I Escape?

There is running through the midnight darkness of the coming judgment a ray of hope. God is not willing that I should perish. How then can I escape? How can I get away from the coming judgment on sin? That, too, is a practical question.

The answer that God gives is just as plain and definite as the question. In Acts 16.31 we read: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

The Gospel is the most simple thing in all the world. There is, first of all, the great, stupendous, inescapable fact of sin, and that we are linked with it. Then there is the fact of Christ, and salvation through Christ. Is it not simple? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

Notice the seventh question:

Is He Able to Save Me?

God says, in answer to the question as to how I can escape, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." The thing I am concerned about next is whether He is able to save me. Has He the power, has He the ability to rescue me from the punishment of sin and the judgment to come? You will find God's answer in Hebrews 7.25: "He is able to save them to the uttermost that unto God by Him."

Now that we know on God's own authority that He is able to save, the question, the eighth, would be:

Is He Willing to Save Me?

Oh, how many of us are able to do things, but we are not willing! We are face to face with the great facts of sin and judgment. We have discovered on God's authority, in answer to our questions, that He is not willing that we should perish; that He has provided a way of escape by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ; and that Jesus Christ is able to save. Is He willing to save now? The answer is in 1 Timothy 1.15: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

When you think of the Babe in the manger of Bethlehem, of the dying form of the Son of God on the Cross of Calvary, and of the empty tomb, dare you ask, "Is He willing?" He undertook the journey to earth from Glory, and went through all the anguish and suffering on Calvary's Cross, the guilty to save. Then He is willing: He is willing!

Let me take the ninth question. This is one in which so many people seem to become involved, and yet God's answer is very clear and very plain. It is a simple question, a practical question, and an important question:

Am I Saved by Merely Believing?

God's answer is in John 3.36: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life."

There is no other condition of salvation but faith of Jesus Christ as Saviour. May I use just one illustration.

You remember when Jesus hung on Calvary's Cross there were crucified with Him two thieves, one on the right hand, the other on the left. One thief joined with those around in ridiculing Christ, but the other thief rebuked him for it, and said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." And Jesus said to him, to the thief who was dying on the cross, "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." He had no work to do so that he might gain salvation. He only had a criminal record. But on the cross, with his last breath, he believed. He was saved by merely believing on Jesus Christ.

In following the natural line of questionings, the tenth would be:

Can I Be Saved Now?

It is God's answer I am concerned about, and it is God's answer which means everything to you. Listen, then from 2 Corinthians 6.2: "Behold, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."

Now is the time to decide. You know not about tomorrow, and yesterday is gone. "Believe (NOW) on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Let me take the next question:

Can I Be Saved as I am?

Without preparation, without getting ready, without making myself better in character in appearance? Can I be saved just as I am? With all my sin, with all my stains, with all my filthiness?

Let me read the answer from John 6.37: "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."
No matter how filthy your garments, no matter how stained by sin and bruised by many a fall--"Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

The twelfth question:

Shall I Not Fall Away?

If I do come, and if I am saved, what if I shall fall away again?

In Jude 24, God answers: "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling."

The thirteenth question:

If I Have Been Saved, How Should I Live?

If I have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, how should I live now? God's answer is from 2 Corinthians 5.15: "They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them."

And here is a question which has made strong men tremble, and brave men weak. It the question which has broken down the reserve of many a man as he has stood at the edge of an open grave:

What About Death and Eternity?

Let me give the answer of Jesus Christ himself: "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14:2-3)

Is it not true that, as I have passed from one question to another, I have touched all the great questions that man has to ask? And is it not equally true that to every question of man's there is the definite, plain answer from God himself?

God's Question

Over against man's questions and God's answers, I want to put the one great final question that God asks of you. And God waits, the angels wait, all heaven waits for your answer! God has answered your questions. What will you do with God's question? How will you answer it? He has one single question to ask. And I challenge any man or woman who has not yet done so to face it, and give answer! This is God's question to you, my friend: "WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH JESUS, WHICH IS CALLED CHRIST?" God has answered all the questions you can ask. How will you answer him? What will you do with Jesus, which is called Christ? Will you say--

"Here and now I accept him as my own and only Saviour?"

How to treat someone like a pagan or tax collector

In Matthew 18, Jesus has just taught the parable of the lost sheep and concludes it with an insight into God's purposes and desires: "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish" (v.14).

At first glance it might seem that Jesus then suddenly changes subject and speaks about how to conduct church discipline and possible ex-communication of a persistent sinner within the church:

"If your brother or sister sins go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.^' If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." (Matthew 18:15-17)

My argument is that this apparent "switch of subjects" is nothing of the sort. What Jesus is doing is explaining an important point for how we deal with the "lost sheep" who goes astray and, in one way or another, leaves the flock. We often think of the Parable of the Lost Sheep about bringing new people to faith in Christ, but it seems to me the parable is also about someone who was in the flock and then went astray.

The key aspect here is getting a right understanding of what it means to treat someone as "a pagan and a tax collector".

If we consider that "pagan" is practically synonymous with "Gentile" and "Tax Collector" is akin to a Jew who has turned against his own people to help the pagans, we may begin to see what is going on here.

A pagan is, in the Jewish terms of the day that Christ is adopting here, someone who is completely outside the sphere of the people of God. A tax collector is essentially a Jewish traitor, someone who grew up within the sphere of God's people, but who has turned against his own people to help the pagans.

I would argue that in modern church terms, these could be compared to someone with a completely unchurched background and someone who grew up in the church and then turned against it.

Contrary to how some people might view a verse like this, Jesus is not teaching that we are free to shun, ignore or even hate someone who persists in sin, fails to accept church discipline and is put out of fellowship. We can be certain of this because that's not how Jesus treated pagans and tax collectors. He loved them, befriended them and sought to bring them into the Kingdom of God.

What Jesus is really saying is that if someone fails to accept church discipline, we must treat them as if they were not one of Christ's sheep and then go and seek to bring the lost sheep back into the fold. Never are we to abandon them or have a "good riddance" attitude.

Once we remember that our attitude to someone who is not a believer—however they got to that place—is to love them, tell them of Jesus Christ and the gospel of forgiveness and restoration for sinners, we see that sometimes church discipline, followed by ongoing love and seeking to care for the lost sheep, is Christ's chosen method for making sure that none "of these little ones should perish."

Without Jesus

What are we without Jesus?

By "we" I mean those of us who claim to be Christians, those who believe in him, who try to follow him.

And by "without" I don't mean separate from him in a way connected to salvation. I mean when we try to be Christians without his spirit, without his example, without his teaching and without his grace.

First, we can be moralists. We can become obsessed with doing right (or more often doing wrong) and our faith can quickly become a soul crushing weight of things to do and things to avoid doing. And that's just when we look at ourselves.

When we turn that same attitude on other people. we can be judgemental. The same obsession and fear of anyone doing something we consider wrong can ruin relationships and block opportunities there might have been for genuine gospel conversations.

Taken to an extreme, we can become the religious thought police. The phrase was coined by George Orwell in 1984 but the same attitude is present in many Christians. Whereas moralism and judgementalism often manifest themselves with regard to ethics and behaviour, the Christian thought police are more interested in people's beliefs and doctrines. Rather than appreciating that, on many secondary or fringe issues, there are a range of legitimate viewpoints among Christians, the thought police pursue a narrow path of what they consider orthodox and oppose anyone who disagrees with them on any doctrinal point.

As an evangelical Christian myself, I think it fair to say that these three tendencies are all dangers that evangelical Christians are sometimes drawn towards when they take their eyes off Jesus and how he lived and dealt with others.

But there are also dangers in acting "without Jesus" for our liberal brothers and sisters

We can become amateur social workers or aid workers whose activities while laudable in helping those in need can become indistinguishable from their secular counterparts. Jesus and his good news of personal salvation, social change and cosmic renewal are the only distinct things we have to go people.

In a similar fashion, liberals can become political activists with their eyes totally focused on the political and economic problems in this world and little thought of the spiritual problems that beset us all as human beings or that the only way to really address those issues is by the renewal of the Holy Spirit and faith in Jesus Christ.

At times evangelicals have been guilty of teaching a truncated gospel which is all about the next life with little to say about the current state of the world. But liberals too often, if they teach anything substantive at all, teach an equally truncated gospel with little to say about sin, atonement and salvation—in short a "gospel" without the good news of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us.

Jesus taught the truth, Jesus wanted people to live good lives, Jesus helped people without falling into any of these traps.

All we have is Jesus. And the gospel—the message of who he is and what he has done—is the only distinctive thing we have to give people.

You know the old Oxfam proverb: 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

We need a similar motto as Christians. 'Tell a man how to live, and you alienate him for one day; give a man Jesus and you change him forever.'

The James Bond Gospel

I don't know if you like Bond movies? They used to be a staple on British television over the festive period, though maybe not so much these days. The plot in most of the Bond films is quite straightforward. For me, Goldfinger is the archetypal Bond film and most subsequent Bond films use the same basic plot. An evil genius has a plan to take over the world and James Bond has to stop him (or her? though I don't think there has been a female Bond villain yet).

This plot line is actually a pale reflection of the reality of what the Bible tells us has happened to the world. An evil super-villain, a spiritual being called the devil or Satan, rebelled against God at some point before human beings came into existence. Later, when the first human beings were created, he schemed successfully to lead them into rebellion against God as well and give up their position of God's stewards and viceroys over creation to come instead under his evil influence, control and ownership as slaves of sin. Satan's work was like unleashing a terrible virus into the atmosphere that would then infect and poison the whole of creation.

Something is wrong with the world and with us. Deep down we know it. All human beings are "not quite right." We're not the people we feel we should be. Often we're not the people we even want to be ourselves. The Bible tells us we're right to feel that way. We're not imagining it. And the Bible calls the thing that's wrong with us is a deadly disease called "sin."

Sin is like a virus that infects and affects every part of us - our bodies, our brains, our hearts - and all their functions including our thoughts and our feelings. It is a disease that is, humanly speaking, incurable, and it only has one prognosis - death. In biblical terms, "death" is not just physically dying, but an eternal state of "un-life." Not only that, the symptoms of this disease ravage our behaviour and manifests as pride, cruelty, anger, hatred, lust, envy and many other utterly horrible human traits. All the particular evils trace their origin back to the disease of sin that has infected humanity, and we every single one of us catches the disease from birth. It is inevitable for everyone born into this world that they will be infected, even if there is a latency period during childhood before the disease goes "full blown".

Another horrible aspect of the disease is that it is completely debilitating. We are paralysed by sin. Unable to find a cure. Unable to even want to be cured.

That's the position we all find ourselves in. That's the way the world has always been right from the earliest period of human history.

The story of the Old Testament in the Bible is largely about God calling on one nation, Israel, to be the people through whom the disease of sin would be dealt with and through whom the world would be put right. It is also the story of how that people failed again and again in their mission, finding out that they themselves were infected with the same disease as all the other nations.

The New Testament tells the story of how God came to earth himself, which it turns out had always been the plan, in the person of his Son, his "second self" who was born and lived as a faithful Israelite called Jesus of Nazareth. He showed the character and the wisdom of God, and then in his death he took on himself the entire disease, to rid the world of it once and for all, thereby defeating the Evil Mastermind who was behind it all. He rose from the dead so that not only would the disease have no more power over him, but that the cure he had created and the immunity from it he had gained could be passed on to everyone who wants it for themselves. Not only that, but once we are given the medicine, the power of the disease is broken and we start the long process of recovering from the effects of the disease, knowing that one day we will be totally free of it and able to live forever, even though our body goes through death.

So how do you receive the cure? It's very simple. You trust in Jesus to save you and ask him come into your life and cure you. When you ask him, he will do it. Then you become his friend and stay in a loving friendship with him forever, getting to know him, learning to see what a life without the disease looks like and trying to copying him in your life. You'll also find that there's a great crowd of people who have also been saved and now live in a new kingdom. The group is called the church, which means "the gathered ones." The church gets together to thank Jesus, meet his Father who is now our Father too, and to be energised by his Spirit to live as we should and deep down really want to live. Among other things, we continue to work to help other victims of the disease in practical ways in this world and spread the good news that there is a cure available for everyone.

The Gospel and the Message of Salvation

You would think that one of the simplest questions that any evangelical Christian would be able to answer is this: What is the gospel?

After all, isn't that the very defining aspect of everyone who identifies himself or herself as an evangelical, that they are committed to the evangel, the gospel?

A number of scholars have pointed out that what evangelicals usually call "the gospel" is not quite the same as what the biblical writers meant by "gospel". Examples of this would include N. T. Wright and Scot McKnight among others. Evangelicals tend to think that the gospel is exactly the same thing as the message of salvation – a step-by-step guide for how sinners can be forgiven, find peace with God and start a new life – but these scholars distinguish between what is specifically meant by "the gospel" itself in the New Testament and the message of salvation which is always one of the New Testament's great implications of the gospel. But the call to trust and follow Jesus in order to find salvation is not the "gospel" itself as narrowly and specifically defined in the New Testament.

The gospel or good news is the proclamation or announcement of a fact, the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the King of Israel, died for our sins and has risen from the dead to be the rightful the Lord and Saviour of the world. The gospel is in fact the story of Jesus which shows that he is the King and Saviour of the world.

The message of salvation is obviously closely linked with the gospel, but not identical to it. The message of salvation for us flows out of the story-fact that Jesus came to earth as Saviour and Lord.

The salvation message is that no one is right with God as they are, everyone needs Jesus to save them because he is the King and Saviour of the world, and Jesus is willing to save anyone who comes to him. The gospel or good news is the proclamation of who Jesus is and what he has done. Both parts are important because it is only because of who he is that he could do what he did and it is only because of what he did as well as who he is that his gospel can then become our gospel – good news for people like you and I who are not right with God and need salvation.

The King Jesus Gospel

The King Jesus Gospel
Scot McKnight
Zondervan 2011

In this challenging, radical, yet somehow comforting book, Scot McKnight tackles the centrepiece of evangelical theology - the gospel itself - and makes the stark claim that evangelicals have often failed to understand or preach the full biblical gospel. In fact McKnight takes us back to basics by asking the question: What is the gospel?

Now this is a question that evangelicals think we know the answer to. It's our question. Par excellence. We feel we own it.

McKnight argues that evangelicals have traditionally answered this question wrongly because we confuse the gospel with the plan of salvation. We have often been content with a partial gospel about our own personal salvation instead of the gospel preached by the apostles and by Jesus himself which was much bigger than just answering the question "How do I get saved?"

To borrow a telling phrase from theologian Dallas Willard, we have reduced the gospel to being about mere "sin management"rather than being about Christ's lordship over the whole world and all of life. And we have too often concentrated on making converts rather than - as Christ and the apostles focused on - making disciples. In this respect, McKnight says what we call evangelical Christianity would really be more accurately dubbed soterian Christianity or salvationist Christianity.

The trouble is that a soterian approach leads to a soterian culture instead of a genuine gospel culture. Church life becomes all about getting people into the "saved club" rather than Christ's lordship of all of life and church life being about all of life. A gospel culture's focus - just like the New Testament's focus - is about making disciples, not just converts. Rather than focusing on getting people in, the focus is on what to do with people once they are in.

I found McKnight's analysis convincing. I think he is right that there is a tendency to separate the plan of salvation from its biblical moorings in the Story of Jesus which is in itself rooted in the Story of Israel. McKnight makes the point that the plan of salvation is not the gospel. It exists. It is biblical. It emerges from the Bible's Story. The plan of salvation is dependent on the gospel, but it not the gospel.

It is well into the book before McKnight finally answers the question. The gospel is the Story of Jesus as culmination and resolution of the Story of Israel. The gospel is the announcement that God's King (Jesus) has now come to rule God's world.

He shows that this is the gospel Paul preached, regarding 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; 20-28 as the essence of the gospel:

• Christ died for our sins
• Christ was buried
• Christ is risen from the dead
• Christ has appeared to people
• Christ is victorious over his enemies

It is the telling of this story that is the gospel proclamation and it is the telling of this story that brings people to salvation. Salvation flows from the gospel.

This means that the four books we call "the Gospels" actually are the Gospel. They are therefore not mere story books before we get to the theology of the Pauline letters. They are preeminent. They are the gospel. That's why they are each called "The Gospel [singular] according to..."

This also means the ancient creeds are the gospel. I have heard evangelicals say they believe the Apostles' Creed but are disappointed it doesn't deal the gospel - by which they mean the plan of salvation - but if the gospel in summary is about who Jesus is and what he's done, then the creeds are very close to the 1 Corinthians 15 passage.

And therefore we can also agree that Jesus himself preached the gospel. (It is surprising how many evangelicals would deny this, thinking that we don't get to the gospel before the book of Acts and the letters of the New Testament.) Yes, Jesus preached the gospel because as the Messiah he is the very embodiment of the gospel in his actions as well as his teachings.

On this view, the Jesus of the Gospels with his Kingdom of God emphasis is in total harmony with the Christ of the Epistles. As McKnight shows, Paul's gospel was also Peter's gospel and all the other apostles, and it was also Jesus' gospel. One of the great things about McKnight's understanding is how it really brings the whole New Testament together.

It will come as no shock that I really liked The King Jesus Gospel. I have a feeling that because Scot McKnight challenges the heart of what we evangelicals think we are about he will be attacked for this book and these insights. It is now predictable that this will be so. The same people attacked proponents of the New Perspective on Paul (with which McKnight's views have much in common) for the same reasons. The truth is that McKnight's gospel does not take anything away from us. It gives us a whole lot more. Whether we like the more - the need to build communities of disciples rather than clubs of the saved - is another question again.

Evangelical Resistance to the Gospels

An interesting piece this by Tim Gombis on how we as evangelicals tend to spiritualise what Jesus asks of us in order to avoid actually doing it!

http://timgombis.com/2012/04/26/evangelical-resistance-to-the-gospels-how-why/

I think he's on the money and will be hitting a few raw nerves with this too (if I can mix my metaphors like that).

Epiphany

Today is widely celebrated in Christianity as "Epiphany" (from the Greek meaning "manifestation" or "sudden appearance") where we reflect on the fact that Jesus came not just for the Jews but for the whole Gentile world also. This was first shown not long after his birth when he was visited by the Magi or wise men in Bethlehem (Matthew 2).

We tend to think of the visit of the wise men as part of the nativity story. But the fact that Jesus was born in a place where animals were kept, but the family were in a house by the time the wise men arrived, strongly suggests that some time had passed between the two events. So perhaps the couple of weeks between Christmas and Epiphany is not so daft.

In the ancient world the division between the science of astronomy and the magical belief of astrology was blurred. The Magi were probably from modern day Iran or Iraq - we don't know if there were three of them - but they must have journeyed a long way and for many months to arrive in Palestine.

The Magi story is one of my favourite passages of Scripture. It tells us so many important things. Most of all it tells us that God's love and God's salvation is for everyone. It's for Gentiles as well as Jews. It's for people whose lifestyle the Scriptures do not approve of (astrology is condemned in the Old Testament as a pagan practice). It's for educated, sophisticated, intellectual people, not just for simple shepherds - the Magi were part of the intellectual elite of Persian culture. And it's for the wealthy as well as the poor - the Magi could afford to present Christ with lavish gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh - very expensive, luxury items of the ancient world.

Christ is for everyone. That's the central message of Epiphany. Isn't that a good reason to celebrate today?

Paul for Everyone: Romans

Paul for Everyone: Romans (2 Vols)
Tom Wright
SPCK 2006

Tom Wright's For Everyone series fills a necessary gap that is very difficult to fill. The books are neither simply devotional reading nor are they commentaries (technical or otherwise). Instead they attempt to be readable by any Christian and get to the heart of the message of the book or letter it deals with. They are the kind of books that are easy to read as they have Wright's own New Testament translation printed at the beginning of each chapter.

Paul's Letter to the Romans is one of the most important sections of the New Testament, for there Paul gives the richest and fullest treatment of his gospel. Tom Wright is an acknowledged expert on Paul and Romans in particular. As well as this popular-level work he has written a major commentary on Romans in the New Interpreter's Bible series.

That's all positives about the book. The negative for many will be the fact that Wright is a proponent of the still-controversial New Perspective on Paul, and NPP and some of Wright's other more idiosyncratic views dominate his interpretation of Romans. This is not to say his insights have no validity, but rather than the reader needs to be aware of where Wright is coming from.

His treatment of Romans comes in two volumes dealing with chapters 1-8 and then 9-16 respectively. This alone lets the reader know that this is a much fuller treatment of Paul's extended argument in this letter than Wright has devoted to almost any other New Testament letter.

I found Wright's treatment of the letter to be very readable and understandable for the most part. There are times I think he raises more questions than he answers. I suppose for readers who feel like that, there is always the big commentary.

Much of what Wright says here helped allay my fears about some of his doctrines. For example, in this book Wright makes it quite clear that though he believes in present justification by faith alone and in final justification on the basis of the whole life lived in the Spirit, he is very clear that the present verdict always anticipates the same final verdict. In other words, Wright's doctrine does not undermine assurance in tender Christian believers. For Wright it is impossible for someone to be justified now but finally lost. It was interesting that I read these books at the same time as Wright was clarifying his position at the ETS meeting where he clarified that final justification on the basis of works really means "in accordance with works". This brings Wright much closer to the evangelical mainstream as reformed theology has always affirmed the final judgment is in accordance with our works. The Westminster Confession of Faith xxxiii.1 says as much:

"God has appointed a day, wherein He will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil."

I thought Wright's treatment of chapters 1-6 and chapter 8 were excellent. I was glad to see he argues for 'propitiation' in Romans 3:25 and his handling of Abraham in Romans 4 is excellent too. However, I remain unsure about his interpretation of Romans 7. My own view has always been that it represents the 'normal' Christian life and our battle with sin. Wright takes a very different view and sees the "I" of chapter 7 not as the apostle Paul describing his experience either pre-conversion or post-conversion (my view) or post-conversion but pre-baptism of the spirit. In fact it is not Paul at all, but a rhetorical device to describe Israel's history under the law. I didn't find this convincing to be honest. But I will read the big commentary and see more of his arguments there.

Similarly in the second volume, I enjoyed most of Wright's treatment, however I think he was very weak in his handling of divine election in Romans 9. Wright fails to see that though it describes God's choosing of the elect within Israel (and the elect have responsibility and not just blessings), this doesn't mean the chapter does not have a more general application to how God chooses any of his people.

At times, these books seemed much more technical than Wright's handling of the gospel narratives in other books in the series. It is not a simplistic treatment of the letter, but then Romans is not really a book that can be handled with simple devotional sentiments. Paul's argument is so tightly constructed that it won't really lend itself to that.

I enjoyed the books very much. Few preachers would fail to benefit from reading this. In this series, the "hooks" that Wright uses to draw the reader into his argument are a masterclass in gaining the reader's or hearer's attention. The ones used in Romans are no exception.

The Way of Holiness

This is the text of a sermon preached at the evening service on 29 November 2009 on Isaiah 35:1-10.

I have a confession to make. I’m what’s affectionately known as a ‘Trekkie’ – I love Star Trek. I’m a moderate Trekkie though – I don’t actually dress up as Captain Kirk or Mister Spock, though when I was younger, I did own a set of Spock ears. But I do love Star Trek. In the second Star Trek film, The Wrath of Khan, there’s this thing called the Genesis Device. It’s like a torpedo that is fired from space onto a barren and lifeless planet or moon. And as soon as it hits, the surface of that planet is transformed: seas appear, an atmosphere and clouds, dry land, plants and trees. The place is transformed in a few minutes from a lifeless desert into a paradise capable of supporting all kinds of life.

That’s the kind of picture that came to my mind as I was reflecting on this passage in Isaiah 35.

There’s a very close relationship between the land of Israel and the people of Israel in the Old Testament. It persists to this day in the minds of the Jewish people. That’s one reason there’s so much political turmoil in Palestine, because of disputes about who owns the land.

In the chapter preceding this one, Isaiah has spoken of the LORD bringing desolation to the land of Edom, destroying the whole earth in judgment actually. He talks about the sky being rolled up like a scroll and the sun and moon turning to dust. He talks about God’s sword coming down from heaven and slaying so many people that the sword is covered with fat and blood. He talks about the land becoming barren. Isaiah 34:9-10 – ‘The rivers of Edom will turn into tar, and the soil will turn into sulphur. The whole country will burn like tar. It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it forever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again.’

It’s against that dark background that the scenes pictured in Isaiah 35 are shown up in all their brilliant colours. There are three things I’d like us to look at tonight:

• The physical changes that take place in the land
• The changes that happen to the people
• The road of holiness

And then to finish, we’ll have a think about what these things mean for us here today, especially as we enter advent and look forward to Christmas.

So, let’s look at these three things in turn.

The first thing for us to notice is the physical change that takes place in the land. Verse 1: ‘The desert will rejoice, and flowers will bloom in the wilderness.’ Or more literally, in the NIV: ‘The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom, Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom.’

Isaiah has left his readers picturing a world of smoke and tar and destruction. Now, there’s a change. The empty and lifeless land comes back to life. Plants grow again. The desert becomes as fertile and green as the fields of Carmel and Sharon (verse 2). Carmel and Sharon were well-known as two of the most fertile areas of Israel, where many valuable crops could be grown.

The same images are carried forward into verse 7 – ‘The burning sand will become a lake, and dry land will be filled with springs. Where jackals used to live, marsh grass and reeds will grow.’

We live in a wet climate, so we tend to moan about rain and look forward to dry sunny weather. But in hot arid countries like Israel, it’s the opposite. There rain, rivers, lakes are prized as blessings from God. That’s the key to understanding these verses. The change in the land from desert to garden symbolises God’s blessing the land, and God blessing the land is a sign for God blessing his people who live in the land.

Isaiah 35 harks back I think to Genesis 2, before sin entered the world, where human beings and God lived in peaceful harmony and happiness (reading from Genesis 2):

When the LORD God made the universe, there were no plants on the earth and no seeds had sprouted, because he had not sent any rain, and there was no one to cultivate the land; but water would come up from beneath the surface and water the ground...Then the LORD planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he put the man he had formed. He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit...A stream flowed in Eden and watered the garden.

These verses are a picture of a renewed and restored earth. They look forward to the new heavens and earth that the Bible promises will come at the end of time.
Human influence on the earth results in fertile land being turned into desert. It takes the work of God to make a desert become a fertile paradise.

The whole thing is a picture of a new age dawning, when the earth will be radically different from it is now. It is a time when the curse that came upon the earth as a result of Adam’s sin is reversed, and the previous paradise garden of Eden is restored – indeed, a greater paradise than Eden is created. For then it was but a garden in one place on earth; in the future, the whole earth will be a garden paradise where God and his people live together.

But, it’s not just the land being changed that is described in this passage. The second thing to notice is the change that is effected among the people.

Look at the end of verse 2: ‘Everyone will see the Lord’s splendour, see his greatness and power.’

Today, in fact all through human history, it’s only been a minority of people who have recognised God’s glory, his greatness and his power. Many don’t see him at all. Some don’t think he even exists. But at the time Isaiah foresees, everyone will see God’s glory or splendour. Everyone.

Next, Isaiah recognises that in this life, we can get tired; we can feel a bit down, we can feel worn out. But at the time when the world will be transformed and everyone will come to see the glory of the Lord, people will be changed. Verses 5 and 6 portray this in terms of miraculous healings: the blind will see, the deaf hear and the lame will leap and dance. People’s bodies will be restored to full health.

Isaiah calls on his readers to look forward to that time that will come and in thinking about how things will one day be, draw strength and encouragement for the here and now.

The third thing to notice in the passage is what the Good News Bible calls ‘The Road of Holiness’ in verse 8. Most other translations call this, ‘the Way of Holiness.’ This road is called a highway. And the picture is literally of a high-way. A raised road across the land, something like a railway embankment, with a road running along the top of it.

And notice what is said about that road: Sinners are not allowed to walk on it, but those who the Lord has rescued, or more accurately, the redeemed of the Lord, are allowed to walk on it. And note also in verse 9 that although there are dangerous animals in the land, like lions, they cannot harm those who walk on the highway because it is raised high and they can’t get up on it. The third thing to notice is where this highway goes. Verse 10 – it is a road to Jerusalem, or more literally, it is the road to Zion. In other words, this road leads the holy city where the covenant God dwells in his temple and meets his people.

So what is being said here? What does all this mean? And what does all this mean for us?

Well, the key to the incredible changes to the world and to people described here is in verse 4. Verse 4 explains what it is that leads to all this happening. In the Good News Bible it says: ‘God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.’ In the NIV it reads, ‘Your God will come, he will come with vengeance, with divine retribution he will come to save you.’

The commentaries on Isaiah tell us that the Hebrew in this verse conveys the meaning that not only that God will come to save you, but that God himself will come to save you. And that’s emphasised strongly here.

Notice the two-fold promise of this verse. God will come to save his people and to punish their enemies. The message is one of comfort – you will be okay, God is telling his people. I will look after you, he tells them. But the message is also one of hope – that justice will come and will prevail. Those who have despised and persecuted God’s people will face God’s own vengeance. As Paul wrote in Romans 12: ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’

But although judgement, in the sense of justice being done, is part of this great visitation of God upon the earth, the emphasis is not on judgment here, but on God’s blessings poured out on his people and on the whole earth.

As the years passed, God’s people began to see in this passage that God was promising to come to earth himself to save his people. And they also began to recognise that the road or way that Isaiah spoke about was a symbol referring to God’s Saviour-King, the Messiah.

I think this view is confirmed by Jesus’ own words in John’s Gospel. ‘I am the Way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,’ Jesus said. ‘I am the Way.’ The Greek word is hodos. Literally, Jesus is saying ‘I am the road.’ And it is interesting that the Greek word hodos used in John 14:6 is the same word used in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, here in Isaiah 35 for the road of holiness.

As we enter the season of advent, and look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas, let us remember that he is indeed the way of holiness. He himself is the road we are to follow. And that road leads to Zion – to God’s own city, and to God’s presence in heavenly city – the New Jerusalem.

But there’s a problem here, isn’t there? After all, if Isaiah 35:8-10 is looking forward to Christ. If Christ is ‘way of holiness’ talked about here – if he is the way that protects us from wild animals and lions (remember the devil is pictured as a lion in the Bible), then how come the other parts of Isaiah 35 haven’t happened? How come there are still deserts? How come there are still droughts? How come there are still people who are blind, deaf and disabled?

Well, the first thing to say is that there is no doubt in my mind that Christ himself is the way mentioned here in Isaiah 35. We have not only Christ’s own ‘I am the way’ words in John 14, but we also have the book of Hebrews that quite obviously draws on this image in Isaiah 35 of a safe road for God’s redeemed people to travel on to Zion. In Hebrews 10:19-20 it says: ‘We have, then, my brothers and sisters, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place,’ (that is the place where God dwells in the temple in the city of Zion), ‘by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain – that is, through his own body.’

No, for me there’s no doubt that the road mentioned in Isaiah 35 is looking forward to the Messiah and represents the Messiah.

So, if that’s true, what about the restored land, and the end of human suffering? Why hasn’t that part of the prophecy happened too?

The answer lies in a very important principle that will help us to understand the prophecies of the Old Testament, and it’s this: many prophecies have a three-fold fulfilment at different times of human history.

The first fulfilment refers to events at the time when the prophecy was first written. At that point, the imagery of a desert coming into bloom was interpreted symbolically. The desert was a moral desert where Israel was disobeying God. The blossom in abundance a symbol of a people restored to God and living for him.

The second level of fulfilment takes place when the Messiah comes and refers to the life and work of Jesus Christ.

The third and final level of fulfilment takes place, because of the second, at the end of time when the Messiah will come again to end this world and begin a new heaven and earth.

In effect, the road to Zion that is Christ has come, and God’s redeemed people, sinners saved by grace, travel on it, into God’s holy city. The paradise that is described has started to arrive, but has not come fully yet. This again is an important key to understanding the Bible. There is a tension between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ for many of the Bible’s ideas and promises. Christ the living way of holiness has come already. God’s promised King has come. We celebrate his birth two thousand years ago each Christmas. Christ the King has come and his Kingdom has begun also. Christ did make the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk. Indeed, he mentioned those things as evidence that he was the Messiah when John the Baptist asked him if he was the One. All that has happened already, but there is also a ‘not yet’ part of Christ’s kingdom. Still to come is the renewal of the universe, the final removal of evil and suffering from the universe, and the beginning of a new eternity of blessedness with God’s people living directly in God’s own presence, perfect and glorious, forever and ever.

The new age, the age of Christ’s Kingdom has already started to grow, but has not yet reached its zenith. Isn’t that the point of Christ’s parables, such as the parable of the mustard seed. The Kingdom grows from a tiny beginning until it fills the whole universe.

So, to finish off, we need to ask ourselves, what does this passage mean for us, who live in this in-between ‘already come but not yet complete’ period of history, this gospel age? And what does this prophecy mean for us? What can we learn from it?

The first thing is that we should be encouraged. Many of us are like the people mentioned in this passage. We are tired. Our knees tremble with weakness sometimes. It would be quite accurate to translate verse 3 as ‘Give strength to hands that are tired and to people with wobbly legs.’ We get scared and discouraged. To us, God says: ‘Be strong, and don’t be afraid!’ He doesn’t call us to find strength from within ourselves, but to draw strength from God himself.

Secondly, we should also be filled with hope. This new world that Isaiah and the whole Bible look forward to is not some vague dream of a few religious nutcases. It is a sure and certain hope. We know this because Christ has been raised from death. The resurrection proves that the new world is coming, and Christ is the first of us to have entered it. But he won’t be the only one. The Bible says he is merely the ‘firstborn of many brothers and sisters.’

Lastly, we should live our lives here with an awareness that we are part of God’s great plan to re-create the universe and dwell on earth with a new humanity of his own making. We are that new humanity, that new people, whom God has chosen to inhabit the new age to come. And Christmas was the beginning of the last stage of putting that plan into action.

Isaiah promised that God himself would come. The New Testament confirms that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us, and he is the way, the road we travel on by faith.

The great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, wrote:

Engineering has done much to tunnel mountains, and bridge abysses; but the greatest triumph of engineering is that which made a way from sin to holiness, from death to life, from condemnation to perfection. Who could make a road over the mountains of our iniquities but Almighty God? None but the Lord of love would have wished it; none but the God of wisdom could have devised it; none but the God of power could have carried it out.

This is our God. This is our great Saviour King, Jesus. His kingdom stands and grows forever and in his gospel he calls us all to turn from other paths to take his narrow way, the road of holiness that takes us safely through life and into God’s presence in Zion, where we will, truly, live long and prosper.

Total Church

Total Church
by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis
Inter-Varsity Press

I have been reading a number of books about "doing church" recently and have enjoyed each one, but Total Church is probably the best of them. I think if more of our churches looked like the portrait of church this book describes, our city and our nation would be transformed by the gospel. That's a big statement to make, but I really do believe that.

The key concept in Total Church is that our churches have to live by two key principles: gospel and community. For Chester and Timmis - and I would suggest for the New Testament writers - these two concepts go hand-in-hand and the church is weakened if either is downplayed. The writers suggest that many of the so-called "emerging churches" are good at community, but bad at gospel content. On the other hand they point out the weakness of many evangelical churches which are good at the gospel but poor at doing community. I would say there is truth in both sets of statements.

The proposed solution is to do gospel and community together. This approach certainly chimed with Mark Driscoll's book Radical Reformission, which I've also read recently, which calls for us to live reformissional lives rather than doing evangelism now and again.

So how are these two principles (gospel and community) fleshed out in the book?

First, the gospel. Total Church insists that the church must be gospel-centred and mission-centred. Church has to be focused on the word of God where we find the content of the gospel, and it has to be focused on communicating the gospel in mission.

Second, community. Total Church argues that we are to share our entire lives with each other as Christians, as a true family of God. It also argues that this community should be a place of welcome and belonging for unbelievers so that they can see Christianity in action and so be attracted to find out more, come to the Saviour and take their part in the gospel community.

The writers then take these two principles and apply them to a number of areas of church life including: worship, evangelism, leadership, discipleship, world mission and church planting.

It seems to me that this approach seeks to take the best of our "standard" evangelical churches and combine it with the best bits of "house churches" or "emergent churches" to give a potent blend that better mirrors the church as it was in the New Testament. It is a transforming message that church is not something we do among other activites, whether we are Sunday-only people or involved in midweek events too, but rather church is our lifestyle, something we simply are 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This is radical stuff, but it is biblical radicalism that our lukewarm, pale churches need. I believe it is a message we need to hear, ponder and act upon if our churches are not to continue to decline.

In Christ Alone

In Christ Alone
by Sinclair B. Ferguson
Reformation Trust Publishing

I am biased of course. I've read many books by Sinclair Ferguson before and have both enjoyed and profited from each one. And I have heard him preach in St George's Tron on quite a few occasions and on mp3 too.

For me, Sinclair Ferguson represents all that is best and warmly heart-felt in classic Reformed, Scottish Presbyterian theology and spirituality.

So, it will come as no surprise that I think this collection of short, pithy theological articles is great. Covering material mostly from Romans and Hebrews, Sinclair Ferguson takes us through the real nitty-gritty of the Christian life. Very practical, with that warm pastor's heart and keen sense of humour everyone who has heard Sinclair preaching will recognise. This book would make excellent 'devotional' reading at quiet times, but make no mistake, it is underpinned by rock-solid Reformed theology and Puritan spirituality.

Thoroughly recommended.

The Messiah's Rescue Mission

The following is a sermon preached on 27 July 2008. It has been lightly edited for publication. The Bible passages read during the service were Isaiah 61:1-3 and Mark 2:13-17.

The story we read from Mark chapter 2 is in a simple form we frequently find throughout the gospels. Like every story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is the set-up – the situation which forms the backdrop to the spiritual points being made in the story. Here it is Jesus calling Levi to be one of his disciples, and the subsequent celebratory dinner held at Levi's house to mark his becoming one of Christ's people and to which Jesus and his other disciples go along to, joining in the celebration. The middle is the conflict when the Pharisees object to what Jesus is doing and make an accusation that Jesus is somehow not acting as a good and faithful Jewish rabbi should be acting. The ending is the resolution, when Jesus shows up his opponents by an authoritative statement, a word of wisdom, that resolves the issues and destroys his opponents’ arguments against him.Such is the story - the true story - that we're going to look at tonight. As I read this passage in preparation for tonight, I was struck by the very different attitudes we find in the different characters. Much of the interest and value in the story comes from seeing how those different attitudes play out and either work together or come into conflict with each other.There are actually three different attitudes that the various participants in the story display.

1. The attitude of the Pharisees.
2. The attitude of Jesus towards the Pharisees and towards Levi and his friends.
3. The attitude of Levi towards Jesus.

At the end of our time, we'll spend a few minutes drawing the various threads together and hopefully gaining some kind of insight into our own attitudes - to see where those attitudes need to be nurtured, encouraged and strengthened and perhaps where they also might need to be looked at, challenged and changed. Okay, so let's begin by looking at the attitude of the Pharisees to Jesus.

One of the key themes running through Mark’s Gospel is the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time. The disagreements time and time again boiled down to two things: the true nature of God and the truth about God’s acceptance and forgiveness of sinners through faith in Jesus.

This is the first time the Pharisees are actually mentioned in Mark’s Gospel. I think it will help us to understand their attitudes if we understand a bit about what the Pharisees believed and why they acted as they did.

The Pharisees were a strict, zealous, highly religious group within the Judaism of Jesus’ time. They took obeying God’s laws very seriously. So seriously in fact that they added on extra, even more strict rules on top of God’s laws to make sure that in their behaviour they never even got close to breaking one of God’s own commandments. Jewish scholars determined that there were in fact 613 commandments in the Old Testament (248 positive ones – the “thou shalts” so to speak – and 365 negative ones – the "thou shalt nots"). The Pharisees added other rules on to top of these 613 commandments as extra “hedges” designed from stopping them falling into sin.

One example of the Pharisees’ adding onto God’s laws to give “extra protection against sin” so-to-speak, was that Pharisees would only eat with other Pharisees. Because otherwise, so their thinking went, how could you be sure that the person you were eating with had obeyed God and tithed a tenth of the produce to God? How could you be sure you weren’t being tainted by this other person’s sins?

Not only would Pharisees not eat with anyone who wasn’t a Pharisee, they regarded anyone who wasn’t a Pharisee as morally suspect. They would freely call everyone who didn’t agree with them “sinners”. That’s exactly what we find in our passage. When the Pharisees learn that Jesus is in a house eating with sinners they question it.

“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they ask.

The questioning of the disciples probably happened when the meal or party was breaking up and everyone was leaving the house to go home. Do you see the mentality of the Pharisees here? If you are a religious person, you don’t mix with non-religious men; and if you do mix with non-religious people, then by definition you are not a religious person. They knew that Jesus was a rabbi – a religious teacher – so why was he eating with “these people”?

After all to sit down to a meal with someone in that culture was a sign of acceptance and camaraderie. It’s not that different now is it? If someone asks you out to a meal, you would probably be reluctant to go unless you accepted that person as a friend or at least a trustworthy acquaintance, someone you were happy to spend time with. Even the special meal we share as Christians, the Lord ’s Supper, is a visible sign of our unity and mutual friendship in Christ, isn’t it?

So, the Pharisees ask, how could Jesus have a meal with tax collectors and sinners? In their eyes, these people were sinners without God, and this Jesus claimed to have come from God and yet he eats with them. They couldn’t understand it. To them it looked wishy-washy. It looked like a compromise with evil. And the Pharisees hated compromise. Really, they are accusing Jesus of not being as holy as them. To be pure and holy in their eyes means staying away from sinners.

Now of course, Jesus challenges this attitude of the Pharisees in what he says. His criticism of the Pharisees isn’t because they want to take God’s law seriously. There is nothing wrong with being zealous and wanting to obey God. That’s not their problem. After all, we know that Jesus himself obeyed God’s law perfectly in his life – he never sinned.

No the problem with the Pharisees was their attitude. They might have scored high marks for their moral behaviour, but according to the great teacher in Israel, Jesus, their report card showed they had a bad attitude. To quote an old song: It ain’t what they do, it’s the way that they do it.

What Jesus objects to in the Pharisees’ attitude, it seems to me, is two things. One of them is what I mentioned before. The Pharisees added things on to God’s law. They tried to out-do the strictness even of God’s perfect law! They added extra things on based on their own traditions and particular interpretations and then they labelled and condemned people as sinners who couldn’t or wouldn’t accept those extra bits and pieces.

The other problem I think Jesus’ finds in the Pharisees attitude is that they get all hot and bothered about minor wee points and forgot about the most important things that God commanded. They use the excuse of wanting to avoid being tainted by sin so that they don’t need to actually get on with loving their neighbours and seeking their good always.

In other words, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, “Guys, let’s get things in perspective here. Sure the little things are not meaningless, but you have to get the big things right first or obeying God in little things is totally pointless and hypocritical. Later in his ministry, in Matthew 23:23-29, Jesus is scathing in his criticism of the Pharisees on this same point:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence…Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

In Jesus’ eyes, the Pharisees had a terrible attitude. His own attitude is so different. Jesus not only has a completely different attitude towards the sinners than the Pharisees did, but he also has a completely different attitude regarding what it means to be righteous and holy. Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus teaches that sinners need love, grace, mercy and forgiveness most of all, not condemnation and rejection.

Jesus’ attitude is so clearly shown in the answer he gives to the Pharisees’ question. They ask him, “What is he doing eating with sinners?”

He answers: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

As the commentator, Donald English says:

“Put bluntly, Jesus is saying that you would expect to find a saviour among those who need to be saved. You would not look for a doctor among the well but among the ill.”

For the Pharisees, to be holy means avoiding contact with sinners. Jesus turns this attitude on its head. It’s important to realise what Jesus is saying and what he isn’t saying if we’re going to get his point here. Jesus is not saying that holiness isn’t important. He isn’t playing down the need to be pure and avoid sin as Christians. No, he says that it is precisely because he is the Holy One, God’s Messiah, that he can get close to sinners, to socialise with them, to show them his love and care and to save them. Jesus’ exemplifies what Craig Blomberg calls “contagious holiness”. In other words, true holiness isn’t about steering clear of sinners, but in getting so close to sinners that our holiness, our Christian beliefs and lifestyle rub off on sinners, so they are changed and saved too.

Picture a surgeon. He gets scrubbed up before an operation. He makes sure that all the medical instruments are sterilised and disinfected. But this is not an end in itself for him. He has everything spotlessly clean so he can use the instruments to make people better. In the same way, Jesus gets close to sinners not because he wants to take part in their sins, as the Pharisees allege, but because he wants them to catch his holiness. He wants them to catch the cure for sin – his gospel of repentance and faith.

What Jesus is doing here is fulfilling his mission as God’s Messiah. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus read out in the synagogue the passage from Isaiah that we read tonight and applied it to himself. He told his listeners that the passage was being fulfilled in their presence as he spoke the words.

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour."

Jesus’ work as the Messiah is to preach good news to the poor, not ignore the poor. It is to bind up the brokenhearted not condemn them for their weakness. It is to proclaim freedom not condemnation for people who are captive. It is to release prisoners, not lock them up in a prison of man made religious rules. It is to proclaim God’s grace and favour, not judgment and damnation. And that’s what he’s doing in that party at Levi’s house.

The lesson that Jesus gives the Pharisees is that to be holy is not to cut yourself off from sinners. To be truly holy is to get alongside sinners and help them. That is Christ’s attitude always.

The third character whose attitude we need to look at tonight is Levi.

The tax collector is named Levi in this passage in Mark’s Gospel. In Matthew’s Gospel, the same incident is recorded but there the tax collector is called Matthew – the same Matthew who wrote that gospel and who was one of the Twelve Apostles. We need not get too worried about this apparent discrepancy. It could either be that the same man had two names. Or another possibility (this is what I think is more likely), was that the man’s own name was Levi but when Jesus called him, he acquired or was given a nickname that stuck, just as Simon was named Peter by Christ. You see “Matthew” means “the gift of God”.

The fact that Jesus called a tax collector to be one of his closest followers is highly significant. Who Jesus called tells us a lot about Jesus and his attitudes. He calls someone who worked in a toll booth collecting taxes or toll charges on behalf of the hated Roman occupiers of Palestine. Sitting beside the Sea of Galilee, he was probably taxing trade passing along the trade route between Syria in the north and Egypt in the south.

The problem with tax collectors in those times was not just that people didn’t like paying taxes. The tax man now is still not a popular figure, but this is nothing to how they were viewed by their fellow Jews in Jesus’ time. As a tax collector, Levi was technically in the service of the puppet king, Herod Antipas, but in reality a tax collector would be viewed very much as a collaborator with Herod’s political masters in Rome. And tax collectors weren’t aversed to taking a bit more tax than they should have. They had about the same reputation as dodgy loan sharks have in poor neighbourhoods now. They weren’t allowed to vote and they weren’t allowed to be witnesses in courts. They were viewed both as traitors and as thieves by everyone in their society. As one commentator puts it:

“[Levi] sat near the lake at a table. Around him were piles of money, and account books, and fish, but few friends.” (Hargreaves).

But it’s precisely this outcast, despised man that Christ comes to seek and to save.

Although it might appear from Mark’s account that this happened to Levi out of the blue, it might have been that Levi knew of Jesus already and this decision to abandon his career to follow Jesus was merely the culmination of an interest in Christ that had been gradually building up. We don’t know for sure either way.

What we do know is that Christ chose him, Christ called him – all the initiative in the relationship was with Christ. And Christ chose someone the world despised. From this we can be assured that no one is “not the right kind of person” to become a Christian. God’s grace and the Christ’s gospel are for every conceivable kind of person. Levi was almost certainly a cheat and thief and seen as a traitor to his own people. But Christ chose him to be one of his own.

So what was Levi’s attitude? Well, reading between the lines of Mark’s account, I don’t think it is unreasonable to conclude that after being called to follow Christ, and after realising that Christ had good news of salvation even for a sinner like he knew he was, Levi was so filled with joy and thankfulness, that he wanted to celebrate the event by having a party with all his friends, and with his fellow believers, at which Jesus and his disciples were guests of honour.

Tom Wright makes an interesting point:

“Levi had been working for Herod who thought of himself as King of the Jews. Now he is going to work for someone else who has royal aspirations…[for] Jesus is the Messiah, the [true] King of the Jews.”

Levi wasn’t just going through the motions. Christ really had changed his life. And so he wanted to honour the Saviour in his home. He wanted to spend as much time with his new friend and master as possible. He wanted to share his joy with others. He wanted to just have a brilliant time because he couldn’t contain himself he was so happy.

That’s the attitude of someone who knows they are a sinner, the attitude of one who knows they don’t deserve God’s blessings and so one who responds with joy to the grace and peace they have received from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Levi’s attitude is that of someone overwhelmed by the experience of salvation and Christ’s love.

We’ve seen three lots of attitudes. All very different. I suppose the last question we need to explore is what does it have to do with us here tonight.

Well the first question is what is your attitude to Jesus? Do you know him as your Saviour and Lord? If the answer to that is no, then there is hope for you in this passage tonight. Christ’s calling Levi says that God’s grace can reach you, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done. The grace of God is boundless, choosing, redeeming, pardoning and saving any sinner who hears his call to follow Jesus Christ. Everyone who comes to Christ will share Levi’s experience of sharing a meal with the Saviour. Christ says in Revelation 3:20:

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

If you are a Christian, then Levi’s attitude is perhaps one we should take note of as our example. Do we try to spend as much time as we can with the Saviour in prayer and reading the Bible? Are we eager to have him as a royal guest in our homes and in our lives? Do we celebrate and enjoy ourselves when we worship God? Is going to church for us like going to a party? If we truly know the good news, let’s celebrate it.

But the real conflict in the story is between Christ’s attitude towards the sinners and the Pharisees’ attitude. I think we all need to look at our own hearts and our own attitudes on this. You see Christ and the Pharisees actually typify two very different approaches to life.

The Pharisees wanted to stay away from sinners to protect their holiness and they got caught up in petty details while forgetting the most important things in life, like loving our neighbours and having an attitude of mercy and care towards those in need. In their zeal to obey God, they also added things on top of God’s laws and insisted everyone obey those traditions too. Jesus says they were wrong, dead wrong.

What about us? Do we keep ourselves to ourselves and away from people whom God is calling us to get alongside, to seek and bring to Christ? Do we think that we can use the excuse of not wanting to be tainted by socialising with “sinners” to avoid obeying Christ’s call to go out into the world to make disciples? This passage indicates that such an attitude is not true holiness, but a distortion of holiness.

Do we add things on to the gospel that make it more difficult for people to believe than it should be? Do we have extra requirements that people must meet before we will accept that they are a Christian? Are people suspect in our eyes if they don’t go to church as much as we’d like or as often as we do? Or if they spend their leisure time in ways we don’t think is right for Christians? It could be a hundred different things. For every one of us it might be different things. But I think it is something each of us needs to be on the look out for and guard against. “Beware the attitude of the Pharisees” I think Christ says to us all.

Christ says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Are we adding extra burdens on to people’s backs? It might be by insisting that only certain kinds of worship are allowed, or certain kinds of hymns should be sung, that other people find hard to understand. It might be that certain “good works” or acts of service as we define them must be done that other Christians don’t think are that important. What traditions do we cherish and making tests of fellowship? Which ones do we need to let go of in order to open up the door to Christ’s Kingdom to sinners?

The kind of attitude we need is the attitude of Christ. We need to be willing to “get our holiness dirty” if I can phrase it that way. We need to be willing to get close enough to sinners, to touch them in their lives, that our contagious holiness is passed on.

The situation is not so much that we are to go out and find parties to go to where we can enter evangelism mode and launch into a gospel presentation to anyone we can corner. Some well-meaning Christians do things like that, and tend only to be resented and ridiculed by other guests. And I honestly don’t think doing that kind of cringe-worthy gospel presentation in social situations is what Christ is calling us to do here. No, Christ’s call is both far more challenging and far more effective than that. Remember the party Christ is attending is a celebration thrown by Levi after he has become a Christian. Christ was celebrating with his people at that meal, and getting close to sinners as a doctor gets close to patients. He never engaged in cheesy evangelistic techniques. He was always real with people and drew them to himself by his absolute sincerity and genuine compassion.

To be his disciples, to pass on his contagious holiness, we need the spirit of Christ in us. We need to imitate our King and Saviour in every kind of social contact we have with people in our daily lives.

The Cross Centred Life

The Cross Centred Life
by C. J. Mahaney
Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs 2002

The Cross Centred Life is a short book on a very important subject. C. J. Mahaney reminds us here that the gospel of Christ's saving work on the cross is not only the main thing we need to grasp when we become Christians; the cross is also the main thing we need to keep focused on in order to live as Christians.

In essence, the purpose of this book is to help readers think through what it means to live by the gospel, what difference the knowledge that Christ died for you makes to how we should live our lives.

In seven short chapters and under 90 pages, the author covers a range of important subjects including: why our lives should be centred on the cross, the dangers of legalism, how to overcome a life full of guilt and condemnation, and the problem of living only by our feelings. There are then chapters on daily life focused on the cross and a final chapter on how there is not "something else to move onto" beyond the cross in the Christian life, however much we grow through learning and experience.

The book is not heavy reading in any way and could be read by profit by new Christians from mid teenage upwards. It could also be used as the basis for devotional reading over a week or so for any Christian.

Though fairly basic, I found it refreshing and challenging to be reminded once again of the glory of the cross and my need to live a cross-centred life every day. I could imagine myself coming back to it from time to time when I need to remind myself again of these vital truths.

I totally agree with Mahaney's comment: you can put this book away on your shelf, but never put away the message of this book.

The Suffering of the Cross

The following is a sermon preached on Good Friday, 23 March 2008. The text has been lightly edited before being put on the Web.

I wonder if I start by asking a question. What does the cross mean to you?

All this week we’ve been looking at the Cross of Jesus Christ from different perspectives. Like a precious jewel with many facets, the cross can be looked at from a number of different viewpoints. We’ve looked at how the cross was always the fulfilment of God’s plan to save his people, how the cross shows God’s love, how Christ’s death was a sacrifice, how Christ’s death is the basis of our justification, among other things. And now we come right to the heart of what the death of Christ means as we look together at the suffering of the cross.

If you read the New Testament, even the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion such as we read this evening, actually it is striking that the physical suffering that Christ endured is not really the primary focus. Our minds fill in the blanks a bit, don’t they? We see Christ’s torn flesh from the floggings, we see the nails being hammered in, we hear his groans and cries as the cross is lifted up and he hangs there, in unbelievable physical pain and suffering. And maybe every reader who has ever read this passage in Matthew has filled in those blanks. Maybe Matthew felt he didn’t need to spell out the details – everyone would get it. But I don’t think it’s just that.

The focus in the Bible is not on the physical suffering, as if that were an end in itself. It certainly isn’t. Christ wasn’t a masochist and God the Father is not sadist. As the hymn puts it:

“Inscribed upon the cross we see,
In shining letters, ‘God is love’.”

And in the Bible, the focus on the cross is on the spiritual meaning of that suffering that Christ endured.

Tonight, I want to look at three aspects of the suffering of the cross we find highlighted in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion.

First, that the suffering of the cross is a suffering that Christ chose to bear. It is suffering by divine choice and not merely by human infliction.

Second, that the suffering of the cross is inflicted on Christ in the place of sinners. That Christ suffered as our substitute, in our place, on the cross.

Third, that the suffering of the cross satisfies God’s justice and turns aside God’s wrath against sin, so that sinners can be saved.

So first, that the suffering of the cross is a suffering that Christ chose to bear. Yes, Christ was taken and put to death by wicked men, but he was always in charge of events. He was put to death because he allowed that to happen to himself and for no other reason. The right perspective on the cross is not Christ as hapless victim caught up in events beyond his control. No, the right perspective is captured in the words of the hymn:

“For Christ the cross ascended,
To save a world undone.”

He went to the cross like a king ascending his throne as God’s anointed King and the Redeemer of his people, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and chosen as that Lamb from before the foundation of the world.

Christ predicted his death many times to the disciples before it happened. The night before the crucifixion, he told them about it when he instituted the Lord’s Supper with its symbolism of broken body and blood poured out, and then later that night he prayed in the garden, asking God to take away the cup of suffering he knew he was about to drink, but also saying “yet not my will, but yours be done.” He knew what was coming. He knew what was coming from the day he rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. Indeed he knew for a long time before that what was coming. He from eternity, when he and his Father God entered into a covenant with each other for the Father to give the Son a people to be his very own, and for the Son to agree to come to the earth as a man to rescue and save them. He always knew it would come to that day when he would go to the cross. He knew and he chose the path of suffering deliberately and with tremendous courage and integrity and his eyes wide open to what would happen and what he would achieve by it.

We even see glimmers of it in our passage tonight if we look at some of the details.

Verse 34 – “There they offered Jesus wine mixed with a bitter substance; but after tasting it, he would not drink it.”

They were offering the victim of the execution a drink laced with a drug that would dull the pain – from Mark’s gospel we know the drug was myrrh – a natural pain killer that would lessen the suffering, but Jesus wouldn’t take it. He wouldn’t take it, because he knew what his suffering was going to achieve, and he knew that in order to bear the punishment in the place of those for whom he died, he couldn’t lessen his own pain and suffering. What does that tell you about the strength of will and courage and the greatness of our Lord’s love for us? He chose to suffer to the uttermost for our benefit.

Then again in verses 39 and 40 where the crowd stand around jeering him. “Save yourself if you are God’s Son! Come on down from the cross!” they shout. And in verse 41 even the so-called religious leaders join in: “He saved others, but he cannot save himself…If he comes down off the cross now, we will believe in him!...let us see if God wants to save him now!”

And whether they realised it or not, they were closer to the truth than they realised. If Jesus had wanted to, he could have come down from the cross. He could, with a word, have summoned an army of heaven’s angels to come down and save him. He chose to remain on the cross to save us, rather than to save himself.

Jesus himself said in John 10:17-18:

“The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again. No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my Father has commanded me to do.”

Jesus could have saved himself, but again and again and again he chose the path of suffering, he chose the suffering of the cross, to complete the rescue mission he had been sent into the world to accomplish.

The second aspect of the suffering of the cross I want us to think about tonight, is that in the suffering he undergoes, Christ is standing as our substitute, as our perfect substitute. For Christ’s suffering on the cross is in our place, a perfect sinless person, dying in the place of sinners. At its most basic level, it is a very straightforward, simple idea. God’s justice demands that sin must be punished, but if someone suitable chooses to receive that punishment on someone else’s behalf, then justice has been satisfied because punishment has been carried out, and this means the person who should originally have been punished is spared the punishment and can instead go free.

The idea that a substitute can be punished in another’s place, is so prevalent in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, that it’s almost impossible to ignore it unless you throw the Bible away altogether.

For example, substitution, is really the idea that underlies the entire Old Testament system of animal sacrifices. In the Old Testament God commanded his people to make different kinds of animal sacrifices to make atonement for the people’s sins. The first five books of the Bible have many passages dealing with this system of animal blood sacrifices. The New Testament teaches us that these sacrifices were symbols pointing God’s people towards the one true sacrifice that deals with the sins of the world and that’s the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. But the animal sacrifices point the way and contain the principle of substitution of one for another – one punished for sin, so that another can go free.

In that great chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, Isaiah 53, the notion of the suffering servant – one man being the substitute for others – begins to take shape. Here it becomes clear that God’s messiah will take the punishment that should have been inflicted on others, and this idea substitution comes out numerous times.

“He endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne (verse 4)…Because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did. We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received. (verse 5)…The LORD made the punishment fall on him, the punishment all of us deserved (verse 6)…He was put to death for the sins of our people (verse 8)…My devoted servant, with whom I am pleased, will bear the punishment of many and for his sake I will forgive them (verse 11), says the Lord.”

Then in the New Testament, the idea again is taught over and over again in a great many passages. How can we understand any of these well-known verses without that idea of Christ dying as a substitute, in the place of others, being very much in mind?

At the last supper, Christ said: “This is my blood, which seals God’s covenant, my blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)

In John 10:11, Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd, who is willing to die for the sheep.”

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul writes: “For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time that God chose. It is a difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves us – it while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:6-8).

It always seemed to me that if there was anyone in Jerusalem that day who understood that Christ was dying in his place, that person would be Barabbas. Remember that the Romans had a custom to free one prisoner at the Passover? And Pontius Pilate asked the crowd which of two they wanted to be set free: Jesus Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth. Barabbas was a criminal. Under Roman law, his crimes merited the death penalty. He deserved to go to the cross, like the thieves who were crucified with Jesus. But the crowd called for him to be released and so he went free while Jesus Christ died literally in his place.

And again in the mocking of the crowd, there are hints of this idea of Christ the substitute in the passage we read. Isn’t it there in the taunt, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself”? Little did they know that the very way in which he would indeed save others is by NOT saving himself, but being punished and put to death instead of them!

As we sang earlier:

“Behold the man upon a cross,
my sins upon his shoulders;
ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held him there
until it was accomplished.
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that is it finished.”

So, we’ve seen that Christ chose the suffering of the cross, and we’ve seen that in the suffering of the cross, Christ stood as our substitute, bearing our punishment so that our sins could be taken away.

Third, consider that the suffering of the cross is God’s judgment falling on sin, and that Christ’s death satisfies God’s justice and turns aside God’s wrath against sin, so that sinners can be saved.

I wonder, what makes you angry? For some people it’s not getting their own way or being frustrated that they can’t do what they want. For some people it’s when people hurt them or others they love that they get angry. For some people it’s things about themselves that make them the most angry or things they’ve done in the past that makes them angry.

But God’s anger is different from all these kinds of human anger. God’s anger isn’t God losing his temper. It isn’t God reacting emotionally.

It is something like the anger we might feel when we see animals tortured, or children being allowed to starve, or women raped: it is a righteous anger. Even our “best anger” if I can put it that way is at best an imperfect anger because we aren’t perfect. But God’s anger isn’t a mixture. God’s anger is pure holiness, righteousness and justice in action.

Romans 1:18 says:

“God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known.”

The word in Greek for “anger” here comes from a word meaning “to swell”. It is the same word used to describe the bud on a flower growing and swelling, coming to maturity as it bursts into a colourful flower. God’s anger is like that – imagine the sap of justice rising, and swelling till it comes to a point when it will burst forth in God’s judgment. God’s anger is a constant and settled disposition against evil and a desire to see justice done, not an emotional losing of temper.

Now, what’s all this to do with the cross you might be wondering? Well let’s see.
Sometimes, I think we read the gospels and miss out on a lot of what the gospel writers are trying to communicate to us because often they do not say what they are teaching straight out – they do it more subtly by symbols and images. In the New Testament letters, yes, the teaching is explicit and plainly stated, but in the gospels, it is more often more implicit.

There are a few clues in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion that tell us what’s going on there on the cross.

For a start, did you notice some of the things that were going on that afternoon of Good Friday? Some pretty strange stuff.

Verse 43 – “at noon the whole country was covered with darkness.”

Verse 51 – “the earth shook, the rocks split apart, the graves broke open…”

These things are full of meaning when we read them in the light of Old Testament prophecy. Darkness and earthquakes in the Old Testament are often events accompanying and symbolising God’s judgment, symbols of the prophets usually call the “Day of the LORD.”

Amos 5:20: “Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?”

Ezekiel 38:19: “In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.”

So the day of the crucifixion was a day of God’s judgment, God’s anger being poured out. Okay, we might say, “Yes, we can understand that. The Father is angry because of the wickedness of men in putting his Son to death.” That may be an element of what’s going on, but it’s not really an adequate explanation. Because, look at what Jesus says:

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

And it’s in those words – in that agonising cry – that the full, terrible, wonderful picture of what was happening on the cross suddenly becomes clear. Yes, the day of crucifixion was a day of judgment. Yes, the day of crucifixion was a day of God’s anger and fury flowing out to accomplish their holy purpose. But in Christ’s heartbreaking words of abandonment and isolation, we realise that God’s anger and punishment were being poured out not on his murderers, but on the person of his own dear Son himself.

Why did Christ feel for the first time not only in his earthly life, but for the first time ever in all of eternity, that he was no longer the beloved Son in whom his Father was well pleased, that he was separated from his Father’s presence?

It was because at that moment, Christ was bearing the load and the guilt of your sins and my sins on the Cross. It was because at that moment, God’s anger was being poured out on Christ to satisfy God’s justice, so that God could pour out his grace and mercy on us, account us as righteous even though we are by nature unrighteous, so that eternal life in heaven could be given to us, even though we are sinners who deserve to go to hell.

The apostle Paul summed up what the suffering of the cross achieved for us like this in Romans 3:25 (NIV margin):

“God presented him as the one who would turn aside his wrath, taking away sin, through faith in his blood.”

Our hymn puts it so well:

"How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns his face away,
As wounds which mar the chosen one,
Bring many sons to glory."

I started with a question and I’d like to finish with it too. What does the Cross mean to you? Does Christ choosing to suffer on the cross, in the place of sinners, to take away God’s anger, really mean much to you?

We can ignore the cross. We can be like those people there that day who with chilling words, Matthew tells us sat down to watch Christ on the cross, like people watching a spectacle for entertainment. We can watch and do nothing, or worse turn against Christ and ridicule his cross by our words and our actions.

Sure we can say, “Whatever happened there, whatever it meant, it has nothing to do with me. I don’t need whatever this Jesus claims to offer me.” You can say that. If you do, one day you will stand before God and he will ask you why you didn’t accept his salvation when it was freely offered to you. Can you really claim that you have led a sinless life? Really? Then you’re really trampling the blood of Christ under foot and saying his death wasn’t really necessary. You are saying you can save yourself. I can’t say that – I know I sin every day. I know I cannot go a single day without breaking the two greatest commandments. I don’t love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind. Neither do I love my neighbour as myself. I try to, but I fail. Every day.

Will you be able to look God in the eye and say to him, “I have led a sinless life. I deserve to enter into heaven”?

If you know you won’t be able to say that to God, then you do need the Saviour, Jesus. And the cross has everything to do with you. If that’s you, you need to come to Christ, to trust and follow him, and rely on what he did on the cross to take away your sins and turn aside God’s wrath. You need to be like that centurion in our reading who saw the events of that first Good Friday and came away saying, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.” I believe that soldier’s life was never the same again because of the cross and because of the Christ he met that day.

And if you are already a Christian, whose sins Christ has taken away and the Father has forgiven, then aren’t you fired up to rededicate yourself to a life of trust and thankful obedience to Christ? Doesn’t Christ’s suffering inspire you to take up our cross and follow him. Doesn’t it make you want to tell other people about Christ and his cross? Can we really experience the power of the cross and remain unchanged by it, or be content for our church to be unchanged by it in it’s mission to spread the gospel? I don’t think so!

I’d like to share the words of a modern worship song by Stuart Townend with you as I draw to a close. It’s called “The Power of the Cross” and it goes like this:

Oh, to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev'ry bitter thought,
Ev'ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
"Finished!" the vict'ry cry.

Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

CHORUS:

This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath
—We stand forgiven at the cross.

Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus, thank you for choosing to go through the suffering of the cross for us. Thank you for dying in our place. Thank you for bearing God’s wrath and satisfying God’s justice so that we could be forgiven and saved. Help us to live in the power of your cross always. Amen.