Christ

The Ongoing Priesthood of Jesus Christ

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

The kingdom of Christ and the kingship of Christ have received most scholarly attention in recent years.  (In truth, the kingdom of Christ has rightly received great emphasis since the Christ declared that the kingdom of God was drawing near).  Comparatively, the priesthood of Jesus Christ has often been slighted, misrepresented, or put in second (or third) place behind Christ’s status as king or prophet.  However, this ought not be so.

The New Testament frequently displays Christ doing priestly activities (atonement, intercession, teaching, etc.), and in places like Hebrews, the author displays him as the high priest par excellence.  On this important role, John Murray provided an insightful reflection on the “inter-permeation” between Christ’s priesthood and kingship.  While Christ’s kingship is often affirmed, it is often disfigured because of its separation from Christ’s kingdom.  Murray nicely unites the two.

In context, he points to 1 John 2:1-2; Rom 8:34; and Heb 7:24-25 as places where Christ’s ongoing priesthood is explicitly mentioned.  He argues that Christ’s priesthood should be recaptured if we are to fully appreciate the exalted work of Christ. Here is his main argument.

Truly Christ executes his kingly office as head over all things to his body the church. But Christ is a priest upon his throne, and we must not allow the consideration of his kingly office to eclipse that aspect of Christ’s heavenly activity with which we are now concerned. There is here an inter-permeation of the various offices. What we are concerned with now is to recognize that his specifically high priestly ministrations are more operative and pervasive in the church upon earth than we are frequently disposed to to appreciate. And when his specifically priestly function is duly appreciated, new perspectives are opened up in the interpretation of the activity of our exalted Lord. . . . This adds new richness to our conception of the relation he sustains to his people and enhances our understanding of the significance for us, as individual believers and as members of the body which is the church, of the activity which Christ in heaven continues to exercise in reference to God on behalf of those whom he has purchased with his blood (John Murray, “The Heavenly, Priestly Activity of Christ,” in Collected Works of John Murray, vol. 1 [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976], 47).

In light of the attention given to the papal election of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church’s confused understanding of priesthood (and kingdom), it is vital that Protestants recapture a biblical understanding of priesthood.  It begins with understanding what Murray has argued.  We must understand how the ongoing priesthood of Christ, the priesthood of believers continue to this day and how those two realities are related.  Murray’s article is a helpful starting place.  Hopefully, in the days ahead, Protestants will be better equipped to affirm the finished work of Christ’s atonement and the ongoing work of his intercession and royal-priestly session.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Beauty of the Incarnation

/ davidsschrock

When God created the world, he filled it with splendor and beauty.  The sky above flashes a myriad of colors, and the world below is covered with majestic mountains, lush valleys, winding rivers, hidden lakes, and fields filled abundant wildlife.  All of which highlight the wise creativity of our God.

The beauty of our planet is so pervasive, that many give their lives for the preservation of the environment or the thrill of filming the most exotic locales.  Yet, God’s beauty is not just seen in creation.  The pages of history, while smeared with darkness and death, display a redemptive beauty that in the end will swallow death.  Aside from the death-defeating resurrection itself, nowhere is the jaw-dropping beauty of God’s sovereign story-telling more evident than in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Thus, as we think about aesthetics and the beauty of God in creation, history, and redemption, we must behold Christ’s humble beginnings.

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George Smeaton on Christ’s Own System of Hermeneutics

/ davidsschrock / 5 Comments

Ever wonder how the apostle’s developed their particular brand of Christ-centered hermeneutics?  This has been a frequently-discussed and hotly-debated subject over the last few years.  Numerous books have addressed the subject.  For instance, Greg Beale, ed. The Wrong Doctrine from the Right Texts?; Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period; Dennis Johnson, Him We Proclaim; Sidney Greidnaus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament are a handful of them.

Yet, perhaps the best answer I have found goes back nearly 150 years.  In the opening pages of his book, The Apostles’ Doctrines of the Atonement, nineteenth century New Testament theologian, George Smeaton, answers this question: How did the apostles develop their hermeneutics.

Without batting an eye, he turns to the forty days that Jesus spent with his disciples between his resurrection and ascension.  He posits that the “Lord’s system of hermeneutics” was passed on to these inspired authors and that in every instance where the disciples spoke of the terms, concepts, and types found in the Old Testament, they did so as learned pupils of their master teacher–Jesus Christ.

Smeaton’s quotation is lengthy, but well worth pondering.

But the fresh instruction which they received from personal interviews with the Redeemer subsequently to the resurrection must next be noticed.  This oral instruction received from the lips of the risen Lord is certain as to the matter of fact, and on many grounds was indispensably necessary.  Nor was it limited to the eleven alone.  Paul, too, received it at a later day, when he took rank among the apostles as one born out of due time.  How far the oral instruction of the risen Redeemer extended, it may be difficult for us to say.  Whether or not it comprehended all the great articles of divine truth, it certainly extended to the atonement (Luke xxiv. 25).  This was to be the substance and foundation of all their preaching [1 Cor 2:2], and it was indispensably necessary for them to possess the most accurate knowledge of it.  One object, therefore, which the Lord had in view during those forty days’ sojourn with the disciples after His resurrection, was to open their understandings in the course of these personal interviews, to apprehend with all possible precision the nature of His death–its necessity, consituent elements, and efficacy; against which, in every form, they had long entertained the most invincible prejudice.  He now made all things plain, showing that the Christ must have suffered these things.

How they were introduced into the theology of the Old Testament is specially worthy of notice.  A due consideration of this point serves to bring out one most important fact, viz. that Christ’s oral expositions are to be taken as THE MIDDLE TERM, or as the connecting link between Old Testament records on the one hand, and the apostolic commentary on the other.  In a word, He was Himself the interpreter of Scripture, and of His own history, in the course of those oral communications.  In the book of Acts, and in the epistles, we find numerous interpretations of the prophecies, as well as of the types and sacrifices which owe their origin to this source.  The evangelist Luke relates, that on the first resurrection-day, upon the Emmaus road, in order to instruct the two disciples with whom He entered into conversation, the Lord, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27); that is, He led them to a full survey of the typology and of the prophetical system of the Old Testament Scriptures.  The same evening He reviewed the whole subject not less fully in presence of the eleven and other disciples, expounding them how the Old Testament Scriptures received their fulfillment in Himself, and  opening all that related to His death and resurrection. . . . The evangelist [Luke] mentions that His exposition extended to the Law of Moses, to the Prophets, and to the Psalms.  The allusion to the Law of Moses recalls the whole range of typical theology–the sacrifices, the priestly institute, and the temple services.  The allusion to the prophets reminds us of the wide field of Messianic prophecy, form the first promise in the garden of Eden to the last of the prophets.  The allusion to the Psalms recalls those utterances which were put beforehand into the mouth of the suffering Messiah in a series of psalms in which the Lord Jesus found Himself.  He thus, in all these three divisions of Scripture, supplied them with the key which served to unlock what had never been so fully understood before in reference to His atoning death.

These invaluable expositions, which may be called in the modern phrase the Lord’s own system of hermeneutics, formed the apostles to be interpreters of the Old Testament, directing them where and how to find allusions to the suffering Messiah.  Hence the certainty and precision with which they ever afterwards preceded to expound those holy oracles in all their discourses.  Although these comments from the lips of the Messiah, have not been preserved to us in a separate form, they are doubtless to a large extent wrought into the texture of Scripture; and under the apostle’s allusions to the Old Testament we may read the Lord’s own commentary.  These expositions, whereby He opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures, introduced the apostles into the true significance of the Old Testament (Luke 24:44), throwing light on the two economies [Old and New], and thus bringing in the authority of Christ to direct them in all their future career.  His sanction is thus given to the apostolic interpretation of the Jewish rites; and we are warranted to say that we see the Lord’s own commentary underlying that of the apostles, whether we find allusion to the types, or to the prophecies, or to the Psalms, in their sermons and epistles.  These expositions made the apostles acquainted with the doctrine of the atonement, in its necessity and scope, in its constituent elements and saving results.  The apostles received the fullest instruction from the lips of their risen Lord; and on this theme it appears that the instruction was subject to none of the reserves which checked their curiousity upon another occasion, when they would make inquiries as to points bearing on the future of His kingdom (Acts 1:7).  (George Smeaton, The Apostle’s Doctrine of the Atonement, 4-7)

If you are not familiar with Smeaton, you should be.  He is a model exegete and a learned theologian.  In his day, he was the foremost New Testament scholar in Scotland and maybe beyond.  His two volumes on the atonement of Jesus Christ are excellent as is his reading of the gospels and the epistles.

May we continue to see Christ in all Scripture and faithfully show others how the Old and New Testaments are united in him.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Getting to Know Friedrich Schleiermacher (3): Theology Proper, Sin, Redemption, and Christ

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, we began to review the liberal theological approach of Friedrich Schleiermacher; today we will examine Schleiermacher’s view on theology proper, sin, redemption, and the person Christ.

Theology Proper

For Schleiermacher, God is unknowable.  Again, Kant’s influence is most evident in theology proper and cosmology.  He states that God is creator, and then defines creation as an ongoing preservation.  Because the world is absolutely dependent on God, he becomes the eternal, omnipotent cause of all things. These are the two greatest attributes of God, with omniscience and omnipresence working as corollaries (of omnipotence).   John Cooper has described Schleiermacher as a panentheist, and for good reason.  He does not make a clear distinction between Creator and creature: man is so dependent upon God, that the boundaries of God and human blur.  This is odd because of how Schleiermacher appropriates the phenomenal-noumenal divide.

Sin

Schleiermacher defines sin as a lack of God-consciousness.  He rejects a historic fall, and makes sin the product of every single individual.  Though a Reformed preacher, he does not address the issues of Covenant theology, and the imputation of Adam’s sin to all the human race because of his federal headship.  But he says enough to know that he denies the imputation of guilt to the human race.  Instead, he explains that in every man there is both animalisic and sensual desires and also a God-consciousness.  Both of these exist in humanity.  Sin is the employment of the former and the ignorance or disuse of the latter.  In the case of Jesus, he was ‘sinless’ because he was always conscious of God.

Based on his view of God, the cosmos, and sin, Schleiermacher has a hard time explaining the origin of sin.  Since God is causal in all ways, he will assert that God is responsible for sin; but then he takes that back to say that evil in the world is the result of sin, and that sin originates with men who do not absolutely depend on God.  In the end, he brings an unsatisfactory answer that God caused sin in the world in order to bring about grace, which for Schleiermacher is a large consideration.

Redemption

In time, redemption begins with the conviction of sin which is the experience of pain over a lack of God-conscience.  It is not caused by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), as much as it is encounter with the perfect Christ.  Since Christ as a perfect man reveals what true God-consciouness is, the message about Christ reveals to men how men have failed to be God-dependent.

Key for the idea of redemption is regeneration.  Like nearly all technical terms in Schleiermacher, regeneration is the corporate idea of regenerating all of humanity.  Like a pebble thrown into a pond, Christ, as the first true man, has the effect of bringing regeneration to all the human race.  He asserts that regeneration happens one-by-one, but it is more a force that hits the whole world that individuals being converted by God.

Christ himself is a Redeemer, but not as the divine Son who dies on the cross to pay for the sins of the world.  Rather, he is an utterly unique man, one who is perfectly God-conscious, who functions much like a charismatic, political figure (or Joel Osteen) who inspires people to live a more God-dependent life.

As it concerns sin and redemption, it is interesting to see the way Schleiermacher selectively chooses to interact with church history.  Under this loci, he denies Manicheeaism because sin and evil are not simply perceived; they are a real things.  And he also rejects Pelagianism, because man cannot save himself.  He needs effectual grace, which is deposited in the soul of a man in his election—which is another convoluted doctrine to be mentioned below.

Christ

For Schleiermacher, the person of Christ is never considered metaphysically.  Again, there is nothing metaphysical in his work.  He is a functional savior, who is part man, part God.  The God-part is simply the God-consciousness that he perfectly exhibits.  In this way, his nature just like the rest of humanity.  Schleiermacher admits that Christ could have sinned-there is nothing naturally impeccable about him—but he did not sin because he perfectly embodied dependence on God.  Schleiermacher is concerned heretical views of Christ—namely Docetism and Ebionism but he does not see how his own views contradict Chalcedonian Christology.

The Cross of Christ

On the Atonement, Schleiermacher advocates a moral exemplar view.  His work is prophetic not priestly.  Jesus shows the world his great love for God and his willingness to die in order to show how far he was willing to show his love for men.  However, he rejected Catholicism’s “wounds-theology” which focused too much on the suffering of Christ.  He also denied vicarious substitution (penal substitution), because it made God look like the one who ordained the death of his Son (which he did, Isa 53:10; Acts 2:23), and because it required retributive justice—something that Schleiermacher opposed, as is evidenced again in his assertion of eventual, universal salvation.

Schleiermacher’s doctrine of salvation is also reworked.  While maintaining language like justification by faith and union with Christ, his understanding of faith is not belief in some objective work done by God in Christ. Rather, it is the subjective appropriation or (self-generated) feeling that one is a child of God.  Once again, Schleiermacher shows incredible consistency in wrapping every doctrine around the personal subject.  Likewise, sanctification for Schleiermacher is never positional.  It is only progressive.  In one section, he makes a Romans 7-like case for an interior struggle for Christians, but this struggle is not the flesh and the Spirit (aka Paul), but the wrestling between God-consciousness and sense-experience.

Tomorrow, we will look at Schleiermacher’s view on the church, eschatology, and the Trinity

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

A Beautiful, Scandalous Night

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

A number of years ago The Smalltown Poets—who remain one of my favorite CCM bands—covered the song, “A Beautiful, Scandalous Night.”  It is a powerful meditation on the horrific and glorious reality of Christ’s death.  Here is a video to the song, done by the original artist, The Choir.

As you approach Easter, may the truths of this song flood your heart with joy and thanksgiving. The tree which brought Jesus death has brought us life.

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

Follow Christ to the holy mountain
Sinner, sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flows
For you and for me and for all

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night

On the hillside you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross justified
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours
From our blessed Saviors side

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by his blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Five Questions on Discipleship: (2) What Is a Disciple?

/ davidsschrock

Answering the question “What is a disciple?” is not as easy as it might first appear.

First, there is a shift in the meaning of the term disciple from the gospels to the book of Acts.  For instance, in John 6, many of Jesus’ “disciples” leave him.  These are the ones who follow him to hear his teaching and to eat his bread, but when he calls them to eat his flesh and drink his blood, they can go no further.  In this situation, disciples are simply those who followed and learned from him, but were not saved by him.  Likewise, you could say of Judas, that he was a disciple in one sense (he followed and learned from Jesus), but not a disciple in another sense (he failed to follow Christ until the end and he betrayed his master).  Thus, in the Scriptures themselves, there is some ambiguity in the term.

Why does this matter?  Well, the other day, I heard a radio preacher stating that the disciples in the Bible are just like us.  Yes and no.  There is much similarity between the followers of Jesus in his day, and in genuine believers today.  However, there is dissimilarity too.  Few are called to leave their fishing nets behind to become Christ’s disciples and none are called to to follow a wandering Nazarene through the hills of Israel.  Likewise, at a more doctrinal level, many of the followers of Jesus did not abide in him, and thus were not saved (cf John 6:66).  But this reality should not form the basis of our doctrine of discipleship.  True disciples today are those who are born again, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and will not fall away because through the Spirit and the Word, God will preserve them even as they persevere in faith.

That is the first qualification, but there is another. In popular Christianity, there interpretations of discipleship.  Perhaps two of the most helpful explanations of discipleship today to explicate these differences are Michael Wilkins, Following the Master: A Biblical Theology of Discipleship and Jonathan Lunde, Following Jesus The Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship.  Gleaning from their observations, I would posit a few ways that disciples are defined today.

(1) Disciples are COMMITTED believers.  Salvation is one thing, discipleship is another.  There are Christians and then there are disciples.  This posits a two-tiered system in the Christian life–with the saved and the sanctified.  The problem with this is that it rips apart the unified work of salvation, and it does not fit with biblical language.  In Acts 4:32, the church is described as a band of believers; but Acts 6:2 describes the church as “the full number of disciples.”  Disciples are believers; believers are disciple.  No tiers!

(2) Disciples are ministers.  Like the twelve, disciples are called to a special ministry of service.  This results in a view where churches  have clergy and laity, disciples and congregants.  This separation is often found in special dress for the clergy, or unhealthy veneration of church leaders.  By contrast, the Great Commission calls all people to discipleship and to disciple others.  Church work is for everyone.  Disciples are ministers, but if I am reading Ephesians 4 correctly, we are all called to various roles of ministry in the church.  Christianity is not a spectator sport.  Jesus calls us to join him in the work.

(3) Disciples are Christians.  Christians are disciples.  While we are at different phases in our journey with Christ, Christianity is not two-tiered, any more than your families are two-tiered.  While wisdom cautions against young disciples leading, there is no two-stage approach.  Rather, as in any family, there are babes, children, young adults, and mature adults.  The same is true in the church, and every age are called disciples.

A Definition of Discipleship

In light of these previous observations, here is an attempt at a definition: A disciple is a man or woman who is a new creation in Christ that no longer lives for self, but who has (a) believed on Christ for the forgiveness of sins, (b) possesses eternal life, and (c) lives to learn, follow, and imitate Christ in all areas of life.

To say it another way, if we take our cues from the Great Commission: (a) Disciples identify themselves with Jesus Christ in baptism; (b) Disciples learn AND practice all the words of God has given us; and (c) Disciples serve our Lord, going into the world to herald the message of Christ and to reproduce disciples.  This is the Great Commission.  This is what the twelve did, this is what Paul did (Acts 14:21), and this is what Paul called his followers to do (2 Tim 2:2).

Another place to get our bearings for defining a disciple is Mark 3:13-19.  There we find that discipleship goes all the way back to Jesus, and that three things stand out.  Those whom he calls to be disciples (and apostles– a calling that makes the twelves position different than our own), he gives three requirements:  First, the twelve are to be with him so that they might learn from Jesus, copying him, imitating him;  Second, the twelve are sent to preach.  So they are not passive learners but active servants.  Third, the twelve were given authority to cast out demons as is witnessed in the Gospels and Acts.

Now, on this last point, we may think that this is only for them, after all we do not cast out demons.  But I would suggest, that the calling we have to win souls and to nurture them in the grace and truth of the gospel is even greater than the commission given in Mark 3.  Just listen to John 20:23:  “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”  In the gospel, we have been given authority to declare forgiveness and eternal life.  We are not simply casting out demons, we are calling men to eternal life, and by God’s design, the effectual call that converts a man is conveyed through the general call of God’s human witnesses.

Thus, according to Mark 3–if we can use this text in any sort of prescriptive way–Scripture shows that disciples are those who are with Jesus, who serve at Jesus commission, and who are involved in Christ’s ministry of making other disciples. Certainly, more can and should be said, but this is a start.

Tomorrow, we will consider in more detail who is able to make disciples.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Jeremy Lin’s Faith: Keeping Our Heads in the Midst of Linsanity

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

“Gods come pretty cheap these days.  You can make one by putting a leather ball through an iron hoop.”

Those classic words, spoken by Barbara Hershey in the movie Hoosiers embody what has taken place in the life of Jeremy Lin in the last 72-hours.  In less than half a week, he has gone from being a skilled bench warmer to an NBA superstar who just schooled one of the league’s best basketball players, Kobe Bryant.

However, it seems that Lin would want nothing less than to make him into an idol.  Instead of using basketball as a means of promoting himself, it seems that his greatest aim is to make much of Jesus as he plays basketball.  Give a listen.

It is doubtful that Lin, at the time of this interview, could have anticipated what took place in Market Square Garden last night.  Just a few days ago, Kobe Bryant had never heard of Jeremy Linn–and neither had the rest of us.  Today, Kobe and the basketball watching world knows all too well about the sensational point guard who came out of nowhere to outscore Kobe and to send the Los Angeles Lakers back to the West Coast with a defeat.  Here are the highlights.

As I watched the highlights, I was–and still am–amazed.  In four games, Lin has become a household name, scoring and 25, 28, 23 and 38 points–not to mention averaging over eight assists in those games. Because I have a fondness for basketball and underdogs, the Jeremy Lin story is great. Unrecruited out of high school and undrafted out of college, Linn’s success is even more amazing than the Heisman-winning, two-time national champion  Tim Tebow.

But there is more.  Not only is Lin a great ball player.  He rightly sees basketball as a gift from God, and he desires to use it as a platform for ministry.  To get a sense of this, read Timothy Dalrymple‘s eye-opening interview with Lin when he was still a college player (March 3, 2010).  In it Dalrymple asks Lin about how his Christian faith and basketball intersect. His interview, is called “The Faith and Fate of Jeremy Linn” (Part 1, Part 2).

A FEW REFLECTIONS

Now in all the media hype of today, fittingly entitled, “Linsanity,” let me offer a few sobering reflections.  As with Tim Tebow and other outspoken athletes, politicians, and public figures–especially underdogs whose rise is meteoric–it is wise to not hang our hopes on them.  Consider the case of Josh Hamilton, another Christian-athlete who recently admitted to breaking his vow to never drink again.  See Evan Lenow’s helpful post “When Heroes Fail,” as he issues a similar caution.

Trust in the Gospel, not media giants. While we ought to give thanks for the way God raises up modern-day Joseph’s (and Esther’s), we should be slow to trust in man (Ps 20:7-9; 118:8-9).  Often times, Christians get more excited about the craze of attention public Christians get, thinking “this is how we are going to make a difference in the world.”  And to be sure, God uses public figures with large platforms to advance the message of the gospel.  But ought we to think that these extraordinary means are what we need for Christian impact to take place?  I think not.

God uses great and small alike.  God usually uses slower, more mundare means of sending his message–like mothers and fathers imparting the gospel into their children’s lives as they pray bedside for years.  No one sees it.  Many surely wonder of if something more spectacular is needed, and yet by the slow process of gospel witness and example, children are brought to faith. Don’t miss it.  In the interview, Lin gives attention to the impact that his parents had on him in that regard.

Let the outspoken faith of public figures spur you on, not slow you down.  While Christians have every reason to cheer on this brother in Christ, we must be careful not to make people like him and Tim Tebow our evangelistic replacements.  Every member of the body of Christ is called to evangelize, not to fall prey to the idea that God has raised up big names to do our work for us.  In comparison with Lin, it is tempting to distrust our own ability to influence others for Christ.  The temptation arises: If only I had a greater testimony, than I could be useful.  But such is not the case.  The power of the gospel has never been in the vessels who herald the message, the power is always in the word itself.

Rejoice in Lin’s heavenly status more than his earthly stats. At the same time, we should remember that Lin’s superstar career is four-games old.  He has shot into the NBA like a comet.  It is possible that his career and impact will be just as brief as a shooting star.  Or it may be God’s good pleasure to make Lin a perennial all-star.  Whatever the case may be, might we give thanks to God that his name is written in heaven on the testimony of his faith, more than the fact that a good, moral brother has his name written in lights.

Pray. Last, pray for Jeremy Lin, for Tim Tebow, and others who are under enormous pressure to perform, constant scrutiny, and for all their fame are in grave danger of isolation and narcissism.  May God protect their purity, their biblical fidelty, and their hearts from pride.  Pray for their families and their churches to reach out to them and to draw be a safe environment for these Christians to understand better what God demands and promises, instead of being bombarded for another autograph.

In the end, I find the Jeremy Lin story compelling.  It has my attention. I look forward to seeing how the rest of the story goes.  But as I watch I will be praying that God will make the light of Jesus in his life outshine his own newfound fame.

MORE

For more on Lin’s life and faith, see Michael Luo’s “Lin’s Appeal: Faith, Pride, and Points” (HT: Jim Hamilton)

For a rap video on Lin’s approach to the game of basketball and some thoughtful reflections on Lin’s potential to impact Asians for Christ, see my friend Owen Strachan’s post “Linsanity! Ex-Ruff Ryders Rapping & Asian-American Christianity.”

Another post on this story is also Owen Strachan, who fills in as a sports writer for by The Gospel Coalition.  His latest is called, “The Basketball Star No Body Wanted: Jeremy Lin’s Unlikely Triump.”

David Mathis and Tony Reinke provide a nice quote from Jeremy Lin, where he talks about what God has taught him from Philippians 3 about basketball and the greater prize that is found in Christ — All Spheres of Life — Even Pro Basketball”

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Crash Helmet or Christ Helmet? Reflections on a Paragraph

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

I do not know who Annie Dillard is, but by her impressive CV and the list of honors she has received for her writing, I feel like I should. From her self-description, I suppose there are many things I would disagree with her about, but her singular quote is so striking that I would love to talk to her about her experience with Christianity, Christians, and Christ. One more qualification: Since I have never read her work (Teaching a Stone to Talk), I am completely in the dark as to the context of this quotation, still it is worth citing and thinking about.

On the whole I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs [Annie, might you include Chinese believers who suffer under Communist rule or Middle Eastern Christians who willingly accept beheading rather than forsake Jesus?], sufficiently sensible of the conditions.  Does anyone have even the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke?  Or, as I suspect, does no-one believe a word of it? . . . It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church, we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping god may awake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to a place from which we can never return (Quoted by Bruce Milne, The Message of Heaven and Hell, 32).

Do we Christians really have a clue as to what we are talking about, when we speak of heaven and hell?  Why do we live with such urgency in this life, and so little care about the next?  Do we really know the God of the Bible?  These are penetrating questions.  If we take the Bible seriously, we learn quickly: God is the One who created you and me and everything else; who consumes mountains with raging fire, who causes the earth to swallow men and the sea to drown the world’s strongest army, who disembowels dictators with worms, who demands perfect holiness from all men, such that without it, no man shall enter his presence.  This is the One, True, and Living God. He is the God who is full of wrath against man’s sin.  Your sin!  My sin! And thus Annie Dillard is right, we should wear helmets when we come to church.  Too often Christians make church a social club, a fellowship of the moral, instead banqueting hall for beggars, addicts, pimps and whores.

Still, God is patient!  That doesn’t mean that he has changed from the days of the Old Testament.  The most powerful images of judgment are found in the New Testament, after all.  It simply means that in this age of evangelism, God is patient with his world, in order to redeem his sons and daughters.

And yet, he is the God who also poured out his wrath on his Son, so that men and women who pay too little attention to him, might still find grace in order to stand in his judgment.  Indeed, the kingdom is not entered by religious zealots–liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican–it is entered by those who are born again.  Those who have been born from above trust not in their religious works nor fear their spiritual lethargy; they trust in the Son and exalt in his work alone.

Heaven and hell are realities that those in church and out of church take too lightly.  But Christ has a message for both groups. If you have the Son, you have eternal life in heaven; if you don’t have the Son; then hell awaits. Annie Dillard is right that such a God demands that we wear crash helmets when we come to church or go anywhere, but indeed a crash helmet will do nothing to protect us from the blast of God’s nostrils.  We need a Christ helmet, and indeed that is exactly what God offers us in Jesus.  Ephesians 6 says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.  Put on the whole armor of God . . . the helmet of salvation.”

Today,  may Annie Dillard’s words make us think soberly about heaven and hell, but instead of putting on a crash helmet, may we put our trust in Christ, the one whose sacrifice protects us from the wrath of God, and whose resurrection promises his imminent return.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

On the Incarnation: How Should We Talk About Christmas?

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, I preached from John 1:1-5 on the eternal Son of God who came to be God with us.  One of my main points was the fact that while Jesus had a beginning, the Son of God did not. The Son takes on flesh to become fully human, but in no way does God the Son lose or set aside his deity.

Today, Matt Smethurst says something very similar in his post at The Gospel Coalition.  In his article, “God Plus or Bust: Lose the Incarnation, Lose It All,” he helpfully points to an article by J. I. Packer called “The Vital Question” which articulates two kinds of Christologies.  Matt’s synthesis of Packer’s article points out that “All Christologies . . . can be boiled down to two basic brands: “Man Plus” and “God Plus.”  He unpacks this saying,

“Man Plus” Christologies almost unanimously agree that Jesus was an utterly unique figure. He was no ordinary man. He was man plus a number of things—a unique sense of the divine, uncommon personal charisma, unfettered religious devotion, God-given insight, and so forth. Jesus of Nazareth was a godly man, perhaps even the godliest man ever to walk the earth. Nevertheless, the idea that Jesus was God is a myth. It doesn’t correspond to space-time fact, nor does it really need to.

“God Plus” Christology, on the other hand, is the orthodox position. It’s the view that Jesus of Nazareth was actually—that is, historically, publicly, objectively, necessarily—God incarnate. He was divinity plus humanity. Wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger was the eternal second person of the Trinity.

Understanding the nature of the Incarnation is vital–not just for the seminary lunchroom–but for all believers.  Knowing who God is and how he has come to rescue us is vital for our faith.  Celebrating Christmas as a holiday that commemorates a special child born in a manger who just happens to be divine–whatever that means–sets the believers faith in a vulnerable position. Such a belief is true as far as it goes, but it is little different than the “man plus deity” of liberal theology.  By contrast, knowing that God himself took on flesh–that he added something to his deity, namely a human nature–in order to save his people with the full power of Deity Incarnate, gives vitality and endurance to believe that what God started two millenia ago, he will finish at the end of the age.

Much praise is due to God for all that he is especially for the fact that Jesus is not just “man plus.”  He is “God plus,” “God with us!”

Soli Deo Gloria, dss