The Plan of God 4: Christ and the Idol Powers
Reading: 2 Cor 6 https://youtube.com/watch?v=HKYFB49LGec&si=Yzb5IQq5ovm4Lq5C
Introduction
At the start of Revelation, Jesus summarises his own personal ministry, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore” (Rev 1:17) unapologetically speaks of power. Hebrews puts it like this, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Heb 1:3). When the glory of God is absent, there can be little manifest power, because the act of Incarnation itself, that of the Word adopting weak human flesh (John 1:14), is an act of divine power, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35). As God’s act of pure holiness (cf. Luke 4:14; Isa 61:1; Matt 12:28; Acts 10:38), both then and now, Jesus brought opposition to all paganised demonic manifestations. The final purpose of God’s power has never been to “big note” himself, but to outwork his eternal saving love (cf. 1 John 4:8, 16).
There are many contemporary confusions about “power”. In our Fallen world, power can easily be treated as something a neutral or dangerous quality, which is how modern people conceive it to be in nature, “a powerful storm’”. But in a world sovereignly ruled over by Jesus, “all things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:16 cf. Acts 10:36), this is a fatal mistake which easily slips into various idolatries. We must understand, through divine revelation, that God Almighty who rules all things “is love”(Rom 11:36; 1 John 4:8, 16), ultimate power is always a function of the love of God. This essential/inner connection can never be understood apart from a revelation of the Gospel news of the death-and -resurrection of the Son of God. The Old Testament may prophesy, “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God” (Ps 62:11; 2 Cor 4:7; Rev 19:1), but the intelligibility of power belongs to the God revealed in the death and resurrection of his Lamb (John 1:29).
Since Satan [as a distortion of his created status] only exists in opposition to God, evil powers [and their minions], ceaselessly and restlessly seek to justify their guilty rebellion and misuse of force by ascending to ever “higher levels of power” (cf. Isa 14:13-14). Among Fallen people, there is a conviction that power covers a multitude of sins (cf. Prov 10:12; 1 Pet 4:8), for all power-hungry mortals, from dictators to angry spouses, are insecure people whose consciences fear death as a just punishment for their sins (1 John 4:16-18). Victimisation and abuse are signs of this national and global moral plague spreading everywhere in our time. Rivalries break out, not only across fallen families, tribal groupings and nations but even across the churches of Christ. The truth of the famous slogan, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ” (Lord Acton) has only a single exception to its universal rule, the crucified and glorified power of Jesus.
History of idolatry parallels history of Revelation
Romans 1:18-32 outlines the human distortion of the power of God in creation, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” The result of our rebellion against a loving Father is the inexcusable monstrosities fashioned by limitless human ingenuity and idol creation. (The human heart is an “idol factory”. (Calvin) Everything which reveals the Creator through the beauties of the creation ( https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/) has been disfigured through the depravity of the human heart (Gen 6:5-6). If this was not enough the Israelites, God’s own chosen people, abandoned the special revelation in the Law and the prophets and continually preferred idols to the one true God. “See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.” (Eccl 7:29). The prophets despair, they “say to a tree, ‘You are my father’, and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their back to me,” (Jer 2:27). People worry about AI, but various forms of power, no matter how extended, are infinitely inferior to spiritual power, which is able to achieve effects impossible in the natural world
This was manifest in the Gospels with the “powers/works of power/mighty works/miracles” (Matt 11:20; 13:54, 58; 14:2; Mark 6:2, 5, 14; Luke 5:17; 6:19; 9:1; 10:13 cf. Acts 6:8; 8:6-8, 12-13; Gal 3:5) energised in Jesus. All of which are now subordinate to the resurrection of Jesus into the heavenly sphere beyond temptation and all possible idolatry. Christ dwells in a sphere beyond testing in extreme safety, confidence and overcoming and we, as his Bride, dwell there with him (Eph 1:18-23; 2:6; Col 3:1-3; Heb 12:18-23).
Beauty and Glory, the Unsurpassable Revelation of the Person of God in Christ
It is the beauty of our Maker to make his power accessible to humanity in the one Person in God who alone is Fully God and Fully man ( vere deus vere homo (Chalcedonian Creed; John 1:14ff.). If all previous revelations of God, in creation and the history of redemption, were distorted by our total depravity into idols, e.g. like how the power that parted the Red Sea became the “golden calf” whom they called their saving gods (Ex 14; 32:1ff.), the form of God’s power in Christ is alone accessible in grace and love to sinful humans. The Spirit testifies through the anointing [on all genuinely regenerated people (1 John 2:20.27 cf. Acts 10:38)] that only the form of a crucified and resurrection Lord and God (John 20:28; Rev 5:6) can save us. Since the glory of the resurrected and ascended Christ is beyond our ordinary reception, God helps us in our weakness to believe by various divinely given types and symbols. One of which is the splendid robes of the High Priest given “for glory and for beauty” . From heaven, Jesus is the One clothed with final, eternal, divine glory majesty and beauty (Rev 5:12), who pours upon his Bride his Spirit that he “might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:26-27).
Power Transition
Only the holy power broken in the cross and its dark alien forsakenness (Mark 15:34; 2 Cor :5:21; Gal 3:13; 1 Pet 2:24), then restored and made new in resurrection and ascension back to heaven (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Rev 21:5) can ever be received by sinful humans. Paul boasts. “For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.” (2 Cor 13:4). The apostle unashamedly boasts (Gal 6:14) of the illimitable power and authority (Eph 1:19-21) given by God, first to his Son, then through him to us his beautifying Bride (Rom 1:4-5;1 Cor 1:18; 2:4-5 Phil 3:10).
Spirit- Power
The Bible never promises the Church power-as-such, for mature sons of God “share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” (2 Ti 1:8 cf. 2 Cor 8:3; Eph 3:7; Col 1:11, 29; Heb 7:16). As a young believer we used to heard from out older mentors texts like, “And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”” (Luke 24:49), “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”” (Acts 1:8) and the letters of the New Testament extolling the working of miracles in the power of the Spirit. (Rom 15:18-19; 1 Cor 2:4; 1 Thess 1:5; 1 Pet 1:12; Heb 2:4). However, these elders in the faith, rarely were presented to us as broken men and women being made whole in the Spirit of Christ.
Church- Power
The Church in its secularised response to weakness, forgetting it has no strength outside of grace, struggles to pray, but works to mobilise all the wisdom it can muster and strategies it can employ to reach her nominally “Christian” goals. But powerful men and women, in a mix of flesh and Spirit, cannot disempower “a strong man, fully armed, who guards his own palace”, his goods are safe, but “when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armour in which he trusted and divides his spoil.” (Luke 11:21-22). This points us to the cross where Jesus, in his utter humiliation and weakness (1 Cor 12:25; 2 Cor 12:9; 13:4) has successfully entered the domain of the devil and stripped him of his power (Col 2:15; Heb 2:14-15). This is the destiny of those who are filled with the fruit of the Spirit and his power (Isa 11:1-10; Gal 5:22-24) who will turn aside from all selfish Babylonian ambitions, large or outwardly small (Dan 4:30), and every form of the prosperity cult, ancient or modern, and turn only to the Lamb slain and raised as the one adequate hope of the world. As salt and light (Matt 5:13-16) we should embrace our minority status with joy and expect visitations of the holy power of God. We are “exiles” dispersed across the planet (1 Pet 1:1) who have been placed exactly where we are (1 Pet 2:9-12) to radiate the glory of the Lamb to a lost and perishing world.
Hurt People
The global Church is going through a major paradigm shift. After centuries of “Christendom”, the favoured status of Christianity across the Western World, we are being returned by our sovereign Father to the normal condition of being a minority group in a population beset by s idol powers. I am old enough to recall the age when the average Aussie believed they were “Christian”, simply because they were not Jewish/Muslim etc. I remember from the 50’s and early 60’s, without fondness, when even government schools had their school prayer and everyone except me (it seemed at the time), could recite the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer by heart. The idea of a “Christian Australia”, is nothing but a lingering myth [being defended by conservative groups like the AC/ACL and some Pentecostals]. Having been permitted by God to effectively tame the Church in the West, by stripping her of apostolic foundation of signs and wonders and sustaining prayer (Acts 1:19; 2 Cor 12:12), the devil, who can never exercise the spiritual fruit of self-control (Gal 5:23; 2 Tim 1:7), and in his “great wrath” (Rev 12:12), as the end of his time draws closer, he cannot restrain his efforts to break the power of Christ in the Church. This is the spiritual meaning of the advance of all sorts of “woke-liberalism” in the West. Such a demonic scheme (2 Cor 2:11) will precipitate and ignite the greatest weapon of the Church, flowing from the pattern of the life of Jesus, the unity of the Word and Spirit filled prayer e.g. Luke 3:21-22; 4:1-15; Acts 6:4. It will bring about an empowering of an unified post-denominational Body (Acts 1:14; 2:1-4; 4:31) by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit impelling (2 Cor 5:14) the communication of the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Ps 2:7; Acts 1:8). Whilst the first emissaries of Jesus “turned the world upside down”, Christendom has done its best to turn things back to their original ordering. Soon, we will see a retune to the glories and tribulations of the first Church. This is something the Lord will sovereignly perform in his time for his singular honour, praise and glory (1 Pet 1:7).
Conclusion
The Church has ignored the instruction of her Lord expounded in the order, ““All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matt 28:18-20). We have steadfastly refused to expound in word and example the sufferings of Christ, ““O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27). Paul, being a part of the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal 1:12 cf. Rev 1:1), was not ashamed to declare the scars, within and without, that he bore for his Saviour (2 Cor 7:5ff; Gal 6:17), and to preach the need to “share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God” (2 Tim 1:8 n.b. v.7 cf. 2 Cor 13:4). Whatever the claims of apostles today, the New Testament foundation of the Church had a cosmic vision that could not be accommodated within any idolatrous system! Hence, many were martyred for the Lamb on the throne.
What unifies all things in true power,[against all false ungodly demonic unity, whether that be political or ecumenical/ecclesiastical, is the suffering sacrificial love binding Father, Son and Spirit together from eternity to eternity (Rev 13:18; 22:13). Lamb-likeness is the beauty that has saved the world (Dostoyevsky cf. Isa 3:2). This is the love which is the destiny of all things to be unified in the Church as the one true image of God in the world (Col 3:15 cf.1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:13-18; Col 3:11).
Despite sincere, but futile, attempts to make the message of Jesus “relevant” today, it is the unsurpassable power of his death-and -resurrection which alone brings “life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:10). All genuine Spirit-born believers know the “gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16), and the validity of the Gospel according to God’s will depends on the validity of our faithful testimony to Jesus, particularly his saving acts in death-and-resurrection (Rev 19:10) [This has nothing to do with the bounded-set mentality of denominationalism, Fundamentalism, Sacramentalism, Classical Pentecostalism, Social Activism or any limited Christian vision. All such approaches limit the vision of power to a certain group and are a contradiction of the universal gift of the Word and Spirit to anyone who believes in the name of the Son of God (John 3:18).] The impact of total forgiveness always flows into rich and dynamic gratitude and never ceasing submission to the kingdom purposes of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Luke 7:47; 2 Pet 1:9). Looking at the Church in Perth today, I fear that there is so much failure to be grasped by the riches of God in Christ (Rom 2:4; 10:12; 11:33; Eph 1:18; 2:7; 3:8, 16; Col 1:27; 2:2; Tit 3:6; 2 Pet 1:11), that if we are graced by a powerful outpouring of the Spirit, the radical deficit of the Word in our midst will necessarily lead to a deformed, even if perhaps enlarged, Body. Let me finish with a modest quote from The Church Today and The Power of God, by Geoff Bingham, “Where such (riches) are lacking we must quietly repent, and set about in faith and obedience to know and proclaim the Gospel of Love, seeking the power of the Spirit in order to do so.”