The Mystery Is Christ

A Testimony of Jesus

 

 

 

 

John C. Yates

 

Preface

Over the decades, various well-meaning Christian people have encouraged me to write a book. Several friends and some of my past students have written books. Some have requested I read and comment on a first manuscript, others have asked me to write a commendation for their book which would appear on its cover. I’ve given a talk at the launch of a book and even written a { Foreword } to a book. Until late last year, however, I never had any sense from the Lord that I should write a book myself.  This all changed in October 2018 when, on my third visit to Myanmar, I had a witness from the Spirit that something was maturing.

This is a book written in response to that witness. It is a book written in English for translation into Burmese to be used primarily for the service of the Church in Myanmar. Now when I say “the Church in Myanmar” it is not some part of the Church, such as Baptist, Reformed or Pentecostal. These are all names we’ve given ourselves over the centuries. This is a book for the Bride of Christ in Myanmar since there are no denominations in heaven.

However hard it see or to live these things out, there is only one Church in Myanmar. It is His body composed of all born-again believers whatever their denomination. This book therefore is for anyone who confesses with their mouth, “Jesus is Lord” and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead (Rom 10:9) is a part of this Bride.

If you belong to Jesus you are called to love him, “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37). This however raises quite a big problem. Some Christians seem to know Jesus in a much more intimate way than others. Is this because they have more faith than other believers?  Do they try harder, pray longer, memorise the Bible better or are they more committed than the rest of us? Or are there vital things about Jesus that tend to be covered over in the pace of normal Church life?

My life with Christ has persuaded me that this is the real issue. It is a subject to do with what the New Testament calls, “the mystery of Christ” (Col 4:3). And so this little book is humble attempt to unveil something of this mystery for the glory of God so that the Church might grow up into Jesus him in every way as he intends (Eph 4:5).

May God bless you with a revelation of Jesus as you read and absorb the teaching presented here.

 

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter  1. The Mystery

Chapter  2. Where the Mystery Begins

Chapter  3. Christ the Mystery

Chapter  4. Seeing the Mystery

Chapter  5. Beholding the Beauty of the Mystery

Chapter  6. The Mystery of Election

Chapter  7. Resting in the Mystery

Chapter  8. The Mystery of Worship

Chapter  9. The Mystery of Wisdom

Chapter 10. Disciplined into the Mystery

Chapter 11. The Mystery of the Word of God

Chapter 12. Praying in the Mystery

Chapter 13. The Mystery of Israel

Chapter 14. The Mystery of Marriage

Chapter 15. Prophets and the Mystery

Conclusion

Appendix

 

 

1. The Mystery

If I had not been called by Jesus over 40 years ago now, I probably would have locked myself away in some quiet science laboratory. Or if the Lord had not kept speaking to me after he saved me, I would have happily been a research theologian. You might guess from these two scenarios that by nature I am not a, “people person”. Thanks to God however, I am today always connecting with people and often speaking deeply into their lives. This is a marvel to me and remarkably, this can happen very quickly. I am not sure how, but I think it has something to do with being a “watchman”.  I keep watch over the city in which I live, and in some ways, beyond this. I certainly watch over the souls of many people. But going back to 1971 my own soul was in such a state of confusion no-one, except Almighty God, could have predicted what I would be doing today.

I know that have come a long way since I first acknowledged God working in my life back in 1972. At the time I would have said that I was seeking answers to life, but now I know it was the Lord who was calling me (John 6:44). During my lifetime I have moved from one Australian state to another to another and then to yet another. I have been, first a Pentecostal, then a Baptist, then an Anglican, then in non-denominational house churches, then independent Evangelical, then Churches of Christ, then Lutheran, then back with the Anglicans. In addition to this I have Catholic and Orthodox friends whom I consider brothers and sisters in Jesus. You may think that this journey may have led me to become a very mixed up person but instead, by God’s grace, I believe it has enabled me to see and be a part of His plan in wisdom to mature his Church (Eph 3:10).

Towards the end of my first year of a science degree something begun to happen that I never even imagined could happen to me, I lost all motivation to relate seriously with my friends and was no longer interested in girls, parties or alcohol.  Gradually I found myself slipping into a depression and a deep sense of the meaninglessness of life enveloped me.  Around this time, I started to develop some physical symptoms indicating something was really wrong inside my life.  First there was a skin condition that kept breaking out over an extended period of time. The skin on my face kept on peeling off for no obvious reason. This was diagnosed by a skin specialist as stress related.  Then there were chest pains – the university GP referred me to a cardiologist who did an ECG that showed up normal.  This was good news in the sense that my dad had a chronic heart condition, but not so encouraging for me when I was told the problem was psychosomatic.  The heart doctor was saying I had a mental problem that was causing me heart pains. None of these doctors suggested any help for my mental issues. I was still living at home at the time, but mum and dad were really quite simple people, so I didn’t see any sense in telling them what was going on.  I certainly didn’t want to be judged by them, which was quite possible.

As I began to feel worse about life, I did feel dreadful.  To deal with this I decided to cut myself off from all sensitivity and enjoyments.  I reckoned life without feeling anything had to be better than a life in pain.  So, I deliberately withdrew from all social engagements. I also stopped eating all sweet things and persuaded myself that we are no more than complex conditioned animals.

By this stage my whole life consisted of nothing more than driving from home to university and back again.  Irrational fears started to creep in until I was too frightened to walk down a public street or visit the local shops.  The more I tried to live without emotions the more my moods became dark. I was certainly clinically depressed.  There was no hope or joy in my life. The only thing I was striving for was better results at university. Then the totally unexpected took place. (They do say God’s grace is always surprising.)

One day as I was sitting in the basement of the university library and feeling particularly bad, a line of thought started to form in my head (I prided myself in being logical and scientific).  It went something like this: If there is meaning in life there must be life after death, for if there is no life after death then it doesn’t matter what happens in our lives now. Whether we are rich or poor, healthy or sick, if it all comes to nothing in the end then when we die it’s all meaningless.  If there is life after death this will require a miracle.  (As a biology student I was convinced of this as a fact.)  If there is a miracle then this requires a God. If there is no God then there would be no miracles.  My next thought was that I should read the Bible sometime as the Bible is meant to be about God.  This is where the internal dialogue ended for the day and I thought nothing more of it.

The next day when I returned home from university I discovered a box full of books sitting on our kitchen table.  These had been sent down from a neighbour and were ours to keep or throw out.  Sorting through the books, most of which were cheap novels, I discovered a modern translation of the New Testament.  Immediately I snuck it off to my room, not wanting anyone, especially my father, to know that I intended to read the Bible.  (He was an atheist and negative about religion.) Over the next nine months or so I read the scripture in secret and having obtained a full Bible from the university library ended up going through the whole of the it twice.  This was for me a powerful and transforming experience.

This was because as I read the Bible I was deeply persuaded of two things, first, that God had always loved me but that I had never loved him.  I began to call this, “sin”.  Second, and at the same time, I had a terrible fear. Inside I knew that if I happened to die in this state I would be outside of the experience of the love of God forever.  I could only call this a most dreadful fear of hell and I would never want anyone to feel as I then felt. Almost all of this was happening as a private experience; I didn’t share my feelings with anyone. Finally, I was utterly desperate to do something about my disturbed state – it was so horrible.

An opportunity came at university where a Christian group was advertising its meetings. I was determined to make contact and ask for help.  Setting off boldly one lunchtime I arrived at the door of the meeting room fully determined to enter, but I couldn’t.  A wave of paralysing fear swept over me and it was like an invisible force field filled the doorway.  There was no way I could go forward and I found no release from fear’s grip until I turned back.  Over the next week the tension grew even stronger. There was a raging inner battle between a fear of being without God forever and the fear of initiating contact with this strange group of Christians.  This time I managed to make it through the door and I presented myself to them honestly as someone who wanted to become a follower of Jesus.  Well this was a great relief to have come this far!  Never again would I experience the depths of depression and hopelessness that had dogged me as a young man but other traumas were to yet to come.

As I began attending church, Bible study and other Christian meetings. I then had a new circle of friends who took care of me. Repeatedly however weird things were happening. I would be in a meeting and my breathing would become very rapid, “pins and needles” would come over much of my body and I would shake uncontrollably. Sometimes I would briefly lose my sight. On various occasions older mature Christians would take me through a deliverance session, casting our demons (such as the demon of fear). This did bring immediate relief to the physical symptoms, but the problems kept coming back.

Finally, someone took me to see a Pentecostal pastor who seemed to have a lot of wisdom. Instead of commanding the demons to set me free, he used the Bible to teach me a foundational truth. The passage was from James, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” (1:22-25). He basically taught that I needed to remember who I was now I had become a Christian.

The ministry was not outwardly spectacular, but I never had the symptoms of demonic oppression again. Though I wouldn’t have had the vocabulary at the time, I was being taught about my identity in Christ. I was being instructed to depend on the finished work of Jesus. Over the years I have found that this is the most effective course of action to use with Christian people who are being assaulted by the devil.

Right from these early beginning the Lord was trying to share something about himself that took me a long time to understand. I couldn’t understand these things until I had a lot more life experience however. Many of these experiences will be shared in this book. Not because the book is about my testimony. In fact, as I said, it is a testimony to Jesus. As we move along I pray that it will become clearer that it is a testimony to how Jesus has shared his glorious story in my own little story.

This way of thinking was first presented to me as a new Christian by the teaching of an Australian Bible scholar, author, preacher and revivalist Geoff Bingham. (More on Geoff later.) This passionate man taught that all Christian life and ministry should reflect, “the testimony of Jesus”. This emphasis became more important when I entered pastoral ministry and started to preach regularly. Such an insight intensified when I started to sense a prophetic call on my life beyond teaching and pastoral work. A call influenced by the volume, Is Prophecy for Today? In it, at the conclusion, Bingham stated, “To bear testimony to Jesus means to have his testimony within us, and to have it as the primary consideration within our lives. The propagation of this is the very purpose of our lives” (see http://www.newcreationlibrary.net/books/pdf/089_IsProphecyForToday.pdf.)

This novel approach seemed then to sum up the call of God on my life and it still does today. This is why you will find many personal life episodes in this book. Not because they testify to my own spirituality, but because they illuminate who Jesus is and who is in himself the whole reason for the existence of everything. (Romans 11:36) This is the great mystery of which we shall be speaking in the pages to come.

 

2.  Where the Mystery Begins

This could well be the most difficult chapter in the book to understand so please bear with it. This is not because I think the concepts are harder than in other chapters but because the way of thinking seems to be the complete reverse to normal common-sense logic. For a moment then please hand your common-sense over to the Lord.  Pray that he will speak to you through this chapter, and especially consider the parts of the Bible it quotes. We must first undo some of our thinking and begin in fact where God begins.

As you will read the main thrust of this book is that in Jesus is to be found as the simple yet profound answer to every legitimate question of life and meaning. There is a saying that Jesus Christ himself is the very centre and circumference of all true thinking about God. To say “the centre and circumference” reminds me of a mathematical joke from my school teacher wife. She says what this really means is that Jesus is, “the whole point”! Do you get it?  Mathematically speaking a perfect point is also the circumference. They are one and the same. Similarly, all truth about God is a truth about Jesus and so there is no knowing God without Jesus.

Now doubtless every Christian will heartily agree with what I have just said. In practice however the centrality and sufficiency of Christ is often denied. As a result we stray off into ways of thinking and behaviours that do not look like Jesus at all.  Let me use a contemporary example to illustrate there is no knowing God without Jesus.

There is no knowing God without Jesus. 

I was recently visiting a church on a Sunday as it’s guest preacher. Before I preached one of the opening songs was the popular song titled, We Are The Reason. Here are the words of a key verse, “We are the reason that he gave His life/ We are the reason that He suffered and died. / To a world that was lost He gave all He could give/ To show us the reason to live.”

Think about these words. Are they true?  Well, actually, in a sense, no, they are not. Christ certainly did come to die for us, but if we make us poor lost people the ultimate reason why God became a human being and atoned for our sin then we miss the greatness of Christ’s coming. We have displaced him from the centre. All of life’s problems come from moving Jesus out of the central place in the plan of God. This simple but profound truth will hopefully become clearer as the teaching of my testimony progresses. However hard it might be for self-centred people like us we need always to move ourselves away from the centre and recognise that Jesus himself is the first, last and best thought the Father has ever had.

Jesus himself is the first, last and best thought the Father has ever had.

If we read the Bible carefully, we will see that the Son of God would always have become a human being, even if sin hadn’t entered the world.  My old friend Geoff Bingham would talk about this in two ways, one very simple and the other more complicated.  First the simple way. In saying, “God never said, “Oops””, he meant that the sin in Eden didn’t take God by surprise and that the coming of Jesus isn’t a backup plan to save the world when God’s original plan didn’t succeed. No. We need to be very clear that Jesus was always in God’s original plan ! (I will provide a range of Bible verses below to show this is true.)

Now the more complex way. Bingham says the coming of Christ, “was not an expediency to meet a contingency”. By this he means Jesus is much more than a solution to the problem of sin. To make Jesus simply an instrument or a solver of the human problem of sin is to diminish who He really is. If all this talk sounds too speculative or philosophical let’s turn to the testimony of scripture.

I was talking to a pastor friend the other day and mentioned to him that we read the Bible in different ways. Immediately he knew what I was getting it.  “You read the Bible backwards.”, he replied. I agree that I do read the scriptures like that for I firmly believe that God’s original plan only becomes fully clear at the very End of things. This is why the book of Revelation has been placed at the end of the Bible. This book is indispensable to our understanding of the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13).

The book of Revelation is an apocalyptic letter written by John to the seven churches. It begins by describing itself as, “The revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1; see also 1:2, 9, 12:17; 19:10; 20:4). Notice that this letter is therefore so much more than a revelation from Jesus. It is meant to be received  as a revelation of Jesus. It is Christ’s own self-revelation to us of who he knows himself to be. At the end of the letter, Jesus describes himself in the most amazing way. Using the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet he testifies; “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”” (22:13). Here he actually repeats God the way the Father describes himself earlier in the book, ““I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”” (1:8). This clearly shows us that in Revelation the man Jesus Christ is testifying of himself that he is one with the eternal God.

The Revelation is Christ’s own self-revelation to us of who he knows himself to be.

Some of the significance of what this means for understanding the nature of God comes out elsewhere in the book of Revelation in a most surprising way. It speaks of “the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8). This profound mystery is very much a part of the apostolic testimony. In his first letter the apostle Peter teaches, “you were ransomed… with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 20 He indeed was chosen before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Pet 1:18-20). Since Jesus is the Lamb slain before creation there must be, “an eternal cross in the heart of God”.  God is in his eternal nature a self-sacrificing God of love. His acts in time in Jesus reveal to us the essential self-giving character of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Since Jesus is the Lamb slain before creation there must be, “an eternal cross in the heart of God”. 

Paul likewise has an insight into eternity, “God has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Tim 1:9). What is crucial here to understand is that the death of Jesus wasn’t something God thought up after sin entered into the world!

Reading these verses of scripture should expand our thinking about who Jesus is. There is no higher, deeper, longer or broader way of understanding God as love (Eph 3:18) than his revelation in Christ crucified. We must begin to think about Jesus where God begins and even if it looks mysterious to ordinary thinking, the Lamb crucified and raised (Rev 5:6) is at the very foundation of creation. This is why Old Testament scholar Graeme Goldsworthy said, “If we can imagine God drawing up the plans for the universe before He created it, and if we could examine these plans, we would not see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but Jesus Christ in the Gospel”. If God is the “high and lofty one…who inhabits eternity” (Isa 57:15) he is Lord over time. Just because Jesus came after Adam within the created order doesn’t mean that he came after Adam in the mind of God. To grasp this biblical way of thinking, we need to put aside our common-sense way of thinking about time as a straight line and stay focussed on what the Bible says about Jesus.

The death of Jesus wasn’t something God thought up after sin entered into the world!

When Paul says, “Adam, who was a type/pattern of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14), he means that the blueprint for the first created human was Jesus Christ. Similarly, in teaching on resurrection life the apostle startles our normal way of thinking. “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.” (1 Cor 15:45-46).  At creation a different kind of body than one subject to mortality was already in view, the “then” Paul speaks of is the resurrection of the dead.

Resurrection was in the mind of God when he created the world and he always planned that it would be through Jesus, the “last Adam”. Jesus is the “end-times Adam” through whom God would raise the dead into glory.  This was never a role God had in mind for the first Adam when  he created the world.

Resurrection was in the mind of God when he created the world and he always planned that it would be through Jesus

These are mind stretching thoughts, but great preachers have always understood them and so must we. We should pay careful attention to the words of the famous Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. “Do you not know…what God’s estimate of the gospel is?  Do you not know that it has been the chief subject of His thoughts and acts from all eternity?  He looks on it as the grandest of all His works”. Spurgeon proclaimed that the gospel was greater to God than the scope of the universe or the most exalted angelic power. This is because he understood that the gospel is all about Jesus. The gospel is a lot lot bigger than having your sins forgiven and getting to heaven.

When we, “read the Bible backwards” through the light of the gospel and the coming of Christ it begins to make sense to us that the fulness of the image of God was never found in the Garden of Eden (Gen 1:26-28). Adam and Eve were truly in the divine likeness but were not united to the life of God in such a way as to be imperishable. They fell into sin and “lost the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) with the weakened image of God subject to corruption. Worshipping idols became a universal human problem so that the minds of all humans were moulded in ways destructive to our humanity and offensive to the Lord (Exod. 20:4; 34:17; Rom 1:18-32). The fulness of the image of God awaited the coming of God-as-a-man in the person of Jesus.

The perfection of the likeness of God shines through the humanity of Jesus.

Jesus is the perfect image of God; “the visible image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). The perfection of the likeness of God shines through the humanity of Jesus. He has brought the image of God into the eternal glory of God (John 17:5) through his life, suffering, death, resurrection and exaltation into heaven. Only in Christ is the full glory revealed. Scripture testifies about, “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4), the Son “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3). Humans were made for a boundless glory that could never have been contained in the boundaries of the little Garden of Eden or in the lives of ordinary people. Billions of people aspire to reach the bliss of the Muslim Paradise or the Buddhist Nirvana or the Hindu heaven. These highest of human conceptions of eternity are way too small for God’s plan. Only in “the inexhaustible riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8) do we have a measure of what it fully means to be human. In everything, including understanding the glory of heaven, we must be guided by the life of Jesus.

Only in “the inexhaustible riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8) do we have a measure of what it fully means to be human.

The second century Church leader Irenaeus once famously said, “The image of God is a living man, and the glory of God is a man fully alive.”  Only a human being fully alive to God, someone who has reached perfect completion in their relationship with God, can contain all the splendour and majesty of the living God. This, of course, is Jesus. When we ponder why God created the world and human beings in his image we are on the threshold of a great mystery. It is a mystery we can only understand, through Jesus.

The Bible is quite clear that God created the world for his own glory; “thus says the Lord…. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory”” (Isa 43:6-7). The normal response to the assertion that God created the world for his own glory is to think that he must be a very selfish person. This is an understandable response which would be true if we didn’t have Jesus. The glory of God is his excellence, praise, beauty and goodness in the relationship enjoyed between Father and Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. As God has infinite love, value and delight for himself this is what he shares with us in Christ. The Father created the world to share with us his enjoyment of Jesus.

Traces of this appear throughout scripture. “Eden” means “delight”. Paul preaches to the pagans, “Yet God did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”” (Acts 14:17), and tells us, “God…richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” (1 Tim 6:17). The meditation in Proverbs 8 is a charming reflection on divine wisdom in creation. “I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.” (8:30-31). God’s fullest wisdom is Christ (1 Cor 1:24; Col 2:3). The life of Christ revealed in the gospel is the fullest revelation of the divine wisdom to share the greatest possible joy with his creatures.

Peter can speak of “praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus” when he comes again.  Then he continues the note of salvation in great joy, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pet 1:7-9). Creation is all about God sharing his inexpressible glorious joy with us. This is the joy that Jesus himself experienced as a human being in perfect union with the Father in his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. On this scripture is plain.

The life of Christ revealed in the gospel is the fullest revelation of the divine wisdom to share the greatest possible joy with his creatures.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and cis seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12:2).

It was the prospect of endless infinite joy with the Father that empowered Jesus’ faith to endure the tortures of crucifixion. Joy, not only for himself, but, “in bringing many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10). Looking forward to sharing this joy was what motivated Christ’s life. To meet the resurrected Jesus was to meet Joy. The apostles were “filled with joy and wonder” at seeing Jesus (Luke 24:41).

The purposes of God are always forward-looking purposes. This means that human beings in God’s image are made to look forward as he does, we are creatures of hope. “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.” (Rom 8:20-21). Human beings can endure anything, as long as they have some hope or purpose at the end of it. We need never lose hope; “hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). The Spirit as hope-bearer is the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. But since, “Suffering is not the cost of glory but the means of glory.” (Bingham), we must reflect on how the cross brings us into uncrushable joy and hope.

Jesus had to lose all hope on the cross so that he might be raised from the dead and we might never lose hope in him. The most puzzling word that Jesus expressed from the cross is the so-called cry of dereliction, “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:33-34).

Jesus had to lose all hope on the cross so that he might be raised from the dead and never lose hope in him.

I was listening to a sermon by a Lutheran preacher some years ago who was proficient in Hebrew. He pointed out that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22:1 and claimed this text was a “questioning of purpose”. Christ was not passionately praying, “For what past cause have you forsaken me?”, but “For what future goal have you forsaken me?” So important did this forward looking interpretation seem to me that I consulted the Hebrew lecturer from a local seminary. He confirmed this interpretation was correct, citing uses in Gen 12:18; 1 Sam 1:8 and Job 7:20. As Jesus “became (our) sin” and darkness on the cross (2 Cor 5:21) he could see no outcome from his suffering that would ever please God. as our sacrifice he was totally stripped of all the glorious joy for which God had created the world and made humans in his image. He entered into a sub-human condition; “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people” (Ps 22:6). Jesus was plunged into total hopelessness on our behalf. This was so that through obedience to the Father he might go on to the fully realised hope of being raised from the dead (Acts 23:6; 24:15; 26:6-8). Paul boldly states that “Christ Jesus (is) our hope” (1 Tim 1:1). In Christ there is fullness of hope. Living in Christ means nothing is without a good purpose, and that purpose is to become more and more like him, “conformed to the image of his Son…the firstborn among many brothers.” (Rom 8:29).

If we begin where God begins we will end where he ends. For the Alpha and Omega are the one person, Jesus Christ (Rev 22:13). Whether we see it or not the fate of the whole universe has been assured by Jesus’ resurrection. The “new creation” has already come in him (2 Cor 5:17). Most translations have the popular, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” A better and much broader translation is, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”

God’s future plan for the world is completely assured. For when scripture testifies, “he upholds the universe by the Word of his power” (Heb 1:3) it is referring to Christ as God’s Word. This is the Word who has already gone through the depths of every hopeless condition and entered into glory and everlasting joy in God’s plan. This is a great truth, but it involves a mystery that God doesn’t share easily with everyone. “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27). We must go on to talk about this glorious mystery in Christ.

 

 

3. Christ the Mystery

There have been several major shifts in my preaching since I began ministering across the churches in 1979. These shifts, all been in the same direction, began when I read one of the most famous preachers of the Early Church, St John Chrysostom, the “golden-mouthed”. Here is one little example of his ecstatic style from an Easter sermon;

“O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown! Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life reigns! Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb! For Christ, being raised from the dead, has become the first-fruits of them that have slept. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.”

Although I didn’t recognise it at the time Chrysostom was an excellent example of a prophetic preacher. Prophetic preaching upholds by strong, bold and picturesque language, “the unsearchable/boundless riches of Christ”” (Eph 3:8). From the time of being impacted by Chrysostom, I began to realise that all my talking about Jesus was under-stated. It’s simply not possible to exaggerate Christ’s greatness and his glory.

Listen to Paul when he speaks of the magnitude of God’s plan in Christ,

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:24-27);

“Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.” (1 Tim 3:16).

Or when the apostle piles up dimensions to express something of a reality beyond our comprehension.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:14-19).

Likewise, when the host of heaven sing out to the Father and to Jesus, they use the strongest possible language. “And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!” (Rev 15:3).

It’s simply not possible to exaggerate Christ’s greatness and his glory.

I am constantly distressed by the way the Church in my country, Australia, “miniaturises” Jesus. No genuine Christian intentionally down-sizes the status and significance of Jesus, but in practice this happens all the time. Let me give a couple of examples. A relative of mine and his wife returned from a number of years working in the Third World. They experienced culture-shock when they caught up with their old church friends who seemed much more interested in talking about their investments than sharing about Christ. Or when two pastors got together and one of them was so focussed on getting ideas about how to increase the size of his congregation that he didn’t seem at all interested in talking about Jesus. Or, when I was in a prayer meeting and a mature-aged man from one of the largest churches in Perth confessed he was part of a Body had that been far more interested in seeing the hand of God in miracles than in seeing the face of God in Christ. How can things be so terrible? How do we manage to marginalise the Lord? The Bible’s answer is constant, idolatry.

I spend a lot of time speaking to people about the idols in their lives. An idol is anything in our hearts which has become more important than our fellowship with God in Christ (Ezek 14:1-11). Common idols are family, children, pleasure, houses, land, money, ethnic group, church and ministry. Church and ministry are two of the most stubborn idols because without spiritual insight no-one believes that we worship what we do for the Lord more than we worship him. In a later chapter I will suggest that burn out in ministry is a clear sign of such idolatry.

When I was a young pastor I was definitely suffering from this sort of false worship. I remember preaching on idolatry at a couple of Christian meetings when people stood up deeply moved by the message with visions from God. In each case they could see a human heart that had within it little stone statues representing things that had become more important than Christ. How dreadful! But such idols are very common in the comfortable, affluent, easy-going sort of nation of Australia. The Lord long ago promised, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezek 36:26 compare Deut 30:6; Rom 2:29). How does the Lord free us from our idols? Especially since they are usually hidden.

My old mentor Geoff Bingham used to say, information leads to revelation leads to participation. By which he meant when we teach about Jesus we can trust the Holy Spirit to give revelation of Jesus which brings sharing in the life of Jesus. There’s no shortage of good teaching available in our day. (John Piper, for instance, is usually very reliable in expounding the Bible; see https://www.desiringgod.org.) But it’s very possible to have information without revelation.  The key factor in growing in Christ-likeness is what the New Testament calls “the revelation of the mystery” (Rom 16:25).

It’s very possible to have information without revelation.

The Greek word mysterion (μυστήριον) from which we get the English “mystery”, has a meaning in the New Testament very different from its common usage. In popular culture a “mystery” is something hidden, a puzzle of some sort to be solved by a clever person, such as in a “murder mystery”. But in the New Testament, especially in Paul (Rom 16:25-26; 1 Cor 2:7; 4:1; Eph 1:9; 3:3-9; 6:19; Col 1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3), “mystery” always means something once hidden in God but now revealed in the coming of Jesus Christ. The greatness of the “mystery” is not to be sought in terms of what Jesus does for us but who Christ himself is. It is “the mystery of Christ” (Eph 3:4; Col 4:3). To understand this mystery we must truly have a share in, “the mind of Jesus” (1 Cor 2:16). Thankfully this is, “ours in Christ Jesus” (see Phil 2:5). Apostles and prophets have been given to the Church with a special a grace of insight to make known the mystery (Eph 3:6). Of the many possible approaches to understanding the mystery of Christ, I believe  one verse stands out as containing a key to the revelation of the mystery.

The greatness of the “mystery” is not to be sought in terms of what Jesus does for us but who Christ himself is

This comes at a climactic turning point in the story of God’s plan in the book of Revelation. A holy angel has just shown the apostle John a vision of Jesus’ wedding to the Church, a scene so thrilling that a countless multitude breaks out in never-ending rapturous “Hallelujahs”. Then we read, “The Angel said to me, “Write this: ‘Blessed are those invited to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.’” He added, “These are the true words of God!” 10 I fell at his feet to worship him, but he wouldn’t let me. “Don’t do that,” he said. “I’m a servant just like you, and like your brothers and sisters who hold to the witness of Jesus. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”” (Rev 19: 9-10). Revelation is God sharing with us who he knows himself to be. So “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1) is Jesus sharing with us from the deepest part of his being who he knows himself to be. The Holy Spirit is the power of this sharing in God.

Revelation is God sharing with us who he knows himself to be.

Jesus said, “But when the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, the will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness…” (John 15:26-27). Paul understands this work of the Spirit. “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” (1 Cor 2:9-11). The Spirit searches the innermost being of God where the Son of God has always been immersed in the love of the Father. with the coming of the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14), the revelation of the mystery is that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and God is his eternal Father (Acts 9:20).

Sonship is at the heart of God’s plan for it is the highest expression of his own life and the greatest gift he can give to humanity as his image-bearers. The Old Testament prophets sensed those “created for God’s glory” were his “sons” and “daughters” (Isa 43:6-7). The New Testament testifies that the first man, Adam, is “the Son of God” (Luke 3:38). And at the very end of the Bible we read, “The one who conquers will have this inheritance, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (21:7). From beginning to end (Rev 22:13) God’s plan has been to have sons in the likeness of his Son (Rom 8:29). Whatever the Spirit reveals to the Church (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 14:13; 22:17) it will always be for the purpose of our sharing in Christ’s Sonship. There are no exceptions to this, for the Spirit we have received is, “the Spirit of adoption….the Spirit of God’s Son” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6).

Sonship is at the heart of God’s plan for it is the highest expression of his own life and the greatest gift he can give to humanity as his image-bearers.

Whilst the teaching I have given in this chapter may be rather difficult, it is certainly solidly biblical. Sadly, I hear two terrible errors amongst the people of God. Let me share a simple but profoundly disturbing example of this.

Australians love outdoor barbeques and recently a group of believers who some years ago were in a Bible study together met for a reunion. At the close the evening we prayed together, and to my grief one person began her prayer in a way that has become common across the Church. She prayed, “God….”. Not “Almighty God” or “Merciful God”, or a description of God used in traditional church prayers drawn from scripture, but just “God”. Is this the same God as the “God” of the Moslems or the “God” of the “man in the street” who believes in some “higher power”? You might think I’m making some very fine distinctions as theologians love to do. But Jesus taught us to pray to “Our Father” (Matt 6:9) for a very profound reason.

To know God as “Father” is the greatest breakthrough in the spiritual history of humanity.  This breakthrough is only “in Christ” (Acts 4:12). Our salvation is sharing Jesus access to the Father (Eph 2:18). That sinful human beings could be in such an intimate relationship with God as to call him by the same name as the eternal Son of God is indescribably wonderful (2 Cor 9:15)!  How exciting it must have been for the recently faithless disciples to receive a message from the risen Lord indicating to them that all had been forgiven.  “Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ” (John 20:17). Throughout the New Testament God is now “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 15:6; 2 Cor 1:3; 11:31; Eph 1:3; Col 1:3; 1 Pet 1:3). God is now defined as the Father of Jesus. Since the Son of God shed his blood to make us children of God (John 1:12) it is appalling to hear the redeemed sons and daughters of God ignorantly call him something less than “Father”. This grieves the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30) making it seem that the cross has lost its power (1 Cor 1:17). This leads me to the second of the two terrible errors amongst the people of God today.

To know God as “Father” is the greatest breakthrough in the spiritual history of humanity. 

If vague “God-talk” diminishes “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:4), it is even more destructive to speak of God as “Father” in a way that reflects our experience of our own natural fathers. The writer to the Hebrews hints that this could be a problem when in praising the discipline of the Father in our lives he says, “we have had fathers of our flesh who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” (12:9). The Old Testament prophets attack this issue head on. “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’” (Jer 2:13, 27). Since there has never been a perfect human father, or mother, we must not imagine God the Father to be like our earthly parents.

In pastoral ministry I can remember grieving parents of rebellious children claiming, “How could they do this. We’ve only shown them unconditional love”. Upon a little further investigation, it became very clear that the love had been far from unconditional. Only God’s love is truly unconditional. Only the sinless, spotless Jesus, the perfect Son of God, can reveal to us exactly what his Father is like. This topic is very important to me, but not primarily because I find confusion about the character of God the Father to be a very common pastoral problem. It is so important because of the healing that has come into my own life.

Only the sinless, spotless Jesus, the perfect Son of God, can reveal to us exactly what his Father is like.

I recall a psychologist who was a member of our congregation visiting me around 1990. She spent a lot of time telling me how angry I was. Then she went on with stories about how damaging Evangelical preaching was to her emotional health as a child. It’s very hard to hear what God might be saying to you about roots of anger in your own life when the person speaking to you has the same problem. But the Lord did use her to prepare me for a great spiritual breakthrough.

A week later a professional counsellor who was also part of our fellowship came to see me. Instead of telling me what was wrong with my life she testified, “God has sent me to help you with your problems with your father.” Since she came under the authority of God, I listened to what she had to say very closely. Even if at the time my human father had been dead for many years and I had no awareness I had any psychological or emotional issues with my dad. Some of the rest of the story can be found online at http://cross-connect.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Images-and-Intimacy.pdf. But after much counselling and prayer I was delivered from deep heart fears inherited from my human father, and mother, of God as a Father who is distant, angry and impossible to please. Almost from the beginning of the process of healing the Lord started to send me men with whom I could pray with for the healing of their hearts.

I remember within a week of the healing process starting a man came to see me who couldn’t seem to connect intimately with God. It turned out that his mother was the mistress of a wealthy man who always promised he would leave his wife and marry her. But he never did. Needless to say, this dear man had no trouble in believing in God as a material provider but in his heart couldn’t connect to the promise-keeping Father whose love is tender and unfailing. With great power the Lord delivered this man from all his false idolatrous thoughts of God as Father.

Before going on to further biblical exposition let me share a personal experience that illustrates how our experience of human fathering can distort the knowledge of the one true Father. Some years ago I was struggling with what seemed at the time to be the impossible demands of the Christian life. Marriage and family life were OK and the church was growing. But at the back of my mind there always seemed to be a sense that God’s demands were impossible to satisfy. I kept asking in my heart, “How do you meet the expectations of a perfect person (Deut 32:4) like God?”  I started to call out to the Lord for help and then one of the strangest experiences of my spiritual journey took place. Projected in front of me, almost like a hologram or 3-D image, I saw an image of the demands of my own earthly father. I knew instantly that what I had been feeling about the impossible demands of my heavenly Father were expectations from my earthly dad I had laid up in my heart. Immediately I repented of my hopeless efforts to please this idol and asked the God and Father of Jesus to forgive me. A short time later I had a most marvellous experience of the goodness of God filling all the creation.  A sense of the tender fatherly presence of God in all things had been restored.

Since that time, I have learned to redefine, “perfection” through the teachings of Jesus. ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”” (Matt 5:43-48). According to Jesus, the perfection of the Father is not seen in his moral blamelessness but in his kindness to his enemies. This is such a relief from the useless demands we place on ourselves, or let others place on us, and it is a great assurance of complete acceptance and forgiveness.

As I read the scriptures and reflect on my own life experience and ministry to others, I am led to an uncomfortable conclusion. I believe that at the hidden level of the heart all those sincere believers who struggle to relate to God as “Father” fear the wrath of God. The Bible unashamedly speaks of the “wrath of God” (John 3:36; Rom 1:18; 5:9; 12:19; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6; Rev 14:9; 15:1, 7; 16:1; 19:15) but it nowhere speaks of the wrath of the Father. Why is this? Ultimately it is because the Father never had any reason to be angry with his perfectly sinless Son. And the very good news is that your heavenly Father can no more be angry with you than he can be angry with Jesus! The scriptures witness that we, “have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3), and “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he (Jesus) is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” (1 John 4:17-18)

How remarkable, how wonderful. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Rom 8:15-17 compare Gal 4:4-7). In Christ we are completely safe. But just how are the witness of the Spirit to our adoption, sonship and inheritance related, and how do they grow in us? This is the subject of the next chapter.

 

 

4. Seeing the Mystery

This chapter contains a number of my more prophetic experiences. In each case they have given me a grander view of who Jesus is. They are a basis for, “prophetic theology”.

One of my ongoing pains is how the Church so easily “down-sizes” Jesus. But this is something I did for the first twenty years of my Christian life. Despite a theology degree and then a Master’s and even a Doctorate I had somehow not understood that in Christ, “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.” (Col 2:9-10). Whilst my vision of the Lord was certainly bigger than having sins forgiven and “getting to heaven” it was in many ways quite bound by the limits of my intellect. This all began to change in 1994. And it shifted not because I was reading the right sort of books or going to the right conferences or all was working harder at my spirituality. It’s simply that the Lord sovereignly moved in my life. Within 18 months of a revelatory encounter with the Lord my ministry radically changed direction. I moved from a local church pastor-teacher role to someone who became much more prophetic. “Prophetic”, primarily in the “forthtelling” rather than the “foretelling” sense.

Towards the end of 1993 a small group of zealous believers decided it would be pleasing to the Lord if we engaged in 7 Days of Prayer in January 1994. To be honest, I wasn’t that keen on praying between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. for a week, but I was too embarrassed to say that. The  group did meet and pray for a week and a very interesting time it proved to be.  We found a vacant office space close to the Perth central business district and a whole lot of people, many unknown to me beforehand, came and went. There was no speaker or set format and we trusted the Spirit of Christ to lead us day by day. Very soon I recognised that I was “hearing God” in a manner that was very unusual for me. But it was the seventh day which proved to be decisive (see http://cross-connect.net.au/jesus-at-the-centre.)

This day was like no other. Some people went outside to chat, and when quizzed replied, “Nothing is happening in there.” By which they meant God was not doing anything. Then, at one stage when we were zealously praying, everyone suddenly went completely still and silent. Then some quiet laughter began to break out – we all had a sense that God had heard our prayers and would send his Spirit. Then one of the brothers came in from outside picked up a vacuum cleaner and began to criticise us. He pointed to the brand name on the cleaner, which was “Elite”, then accused some of us of elitism. This was a nasty experience, but since no one agreed with his accusation the meeting went on.

Then quite suddenly I found it very difficult to pray. It was like some terrible weight was pressing on me and to stay in prayer I was laying face down on the floor gripping the carpet with both hands. Nothing quite like this had ever happened to me before, I was in deep inner torment trying to hold in there with God. Then a scripture was firmly placed in my mind. It was Peter’s preaching about Jesus;

“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” (Acts 3:17-21)

Then I received an indelible visual impression, I hesitate to call it a vision, but it was “visionary”. Jesus was in heaven far above the earth and he was putting everything on earth into its proper order and place as he ruled over it as Lord. I could sense all these spheres of becoming subject to Christ; education, health, marriage, art, media, politics, law etc. All of life and culture was being brought into submission to his Lordship. My thinking about Jesus could never be the same again. I could see how over the centuries the Church has tried to take hold of Jesus and make him our captive. Training for “ministry” has become training for serving in the church, the time of many committed believers is taken up with church meetings, most of the money given to the church goes to maintenance and not mission and so on. The risen Lord had commanded us to, “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:18-20) but instead of discipling people groups we had made so much of discipleship about one’s own private personal disciplines. I started to get a perspective on scripture that I hadn’t had before.

I was familiar with the “five-fold” or “ascension gift” ministers of Eph 4:11, i.e. apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. But instead of seeing them as Church-centred ministries I now had a new and expanded framework in which to understand their role. Here is what Paul actually said;

“But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” 9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?2 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:7-13).

Jesus went back to heaven in order to fill “all things” with his glorious presence and the role of “ascension gift” ministers is to equip the people of God to bring Jesus into everything. This is a much greater vocation than filling the Church with God’s presence. In the beginning God has commanded the first people to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28) with his image and likeness. Sin ruined that calling, but it has now been restored and elevated in Christ.

By sending me a picture of his ascended presence over all things, Christ was commissioning me to give testimony, that is to prophesy, to his Church that he passionately desires to “fill all things in every way” (Eph 1:23). Jesus wants to bring his glorified life and wisdom into every sphere of human existence (1 Cor 15:28).  He wants his life to be poured into the classroom, into the kitchen, into the factory floor, into the office, the football field, the halls of parliament and wherever human beings live and move and have their being. We need to stop thinking of the Lord Jesus, “from a human point of view” (2 Cor 5:16).

Jesus wants to bring his glorified life and wisdom into every sphere of human existence

Many years ago, famed Bible translator J.B. Phillips wrote a book titled, “Your God is Too Small”. The crisis of the contemporary Church as I know it is that our Jesus is too small. As Juan  Carlos  Ortiz  so memorably said, Jesus is no longer, “the bearded sandaled one of the Gospels” (https://crossingtheriver.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/livingwithjesustoday.pdf.) Jesus is the same person and character, but having returned to the eternal glory of his Father in heaven (John 17:5) he is no longer limited by space and time as he was during his earthly years. He now rules over space, time, and death, and all his enemies are being placed under his feet (1 Cor 15:25, 27; Eph 1:22; Heb 2:8).

The resurrected Jesus comfortably talked, walked and ate with his disciples (e.g. Luke 24:13ff; John 21). But when the ascended Christ gave a revelation of his from heavenly glory Paul was blinded and John fell down at his feet as dead (Acts 9:1-9; Rev 1:12-20). This is the Jesus we will be like when we see him (1 John 3:2). All of this is breathtaking, but it can become just another set of high ideas. It takes something very special for the Lord to release us from centuries of Sunday focussed Church-centred tradition.  This “something” generally leads to misunderstanding and conflict.

Shortly after that 1994 Week of Prayer a few of us decided we should meet regularly and keep praying for revival. The first time we met to pray something very strange and quite embarrassing happened. I was in silent prayer on one side of the room and my friend was on the other. (We both had postgraduate degrees in theology, which is an important bit of information in understanding the following conversation.) He approached me first and said, “Check this out, I have the (Latin) phrase communicatio idiomatum (“communication of properties” in English) running through my mind. It means the sharing between the divine and human natures of Christ, doesn’t it?” To which I replied, “Yes it does, and the strangest thing is in my mind as well. It’s a line from The Athanasian Creed (an ancient creed on the Trinity) about the two natures of Jesus, “Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by taking of the Manhood into God.””

We knew immediately that the Holy Spirit had given us words of wisdom and knowledge and he was redirecting our attention to something much more important than praying for revival. We needed to pray to better understand the identity of Jesus. This proved to be a massive turning point in my life. Over the next few years we spent 6 hours a week asking God to teach us about Jesus. My understanding about “revival” was being totally transformed from God doing powerful things to people to God filling everything with the life of Jesus. I hear about many prayer meetings for revival, but very few about “learning Christ” (Eph 4:20). What a tragedy.

We needed to pray to better understand the identity of Jesus.

Reading books on marketplace Christianity, city-reaching, The 7 Mountains of Influence etc. can help. But, each of us needs a personal revelation of greatness of Jesus if we are to obey his call to the full. At this point I agree with Ortiz, “We  have  to  know  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  we  have within  us  all  the  resources  of  the  One  who  upholds  the  universe.”   What might this look like?

Back in 1995 some friends rang up unexpectedly and offered me a considerable amount of money to go to South America and witness what God was doing there. Even though I was reluctant to become a “spiritual tourist”, when they said I could still have the money even if I didn’t go overseas, I was quite moved. This seemed like the generous Spirit of Jesus. I did go because I was passionately longing, though with zeal mixed with ignorance (Rom 10:2), to see the Lord move in Australia.

From the moment I stepped off the plane in Argentina things were different. I could sense the voice of the Holy Spirit in a way that had rarely been my experience back home. Every question I asked of the Lord seem he answered. Either through the scriptures or by the witness of the Spirit or through one of the speakers at the conference. It was a remarkably prophetic.

In the midst of the intensity of that time a Japanese apostle and evangelist named Paul Ariga prayed something over me that seemed very puzzling. “The mystery is Christ in you the hope of glory.” God seemed to be saying that “the mystery” of the indwelling Christ, rather than the spiritual power I was seeking, was the key to the open display of his glory in the world. “Revival” is all about Jesus. What struck me about Ariga was his humility of spirit. He was often up on stage asking forgiveness from those people groups, like the Chinese and English, who the Japanese had treated very badly during World War II. His devotion to Christ was intense and he was up in prayer at 4 a.m. every morning. Because he was manifestly a man of God his words never left me. Then the conference came to an end.

“The mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

A few days later I was in one of the most spectacular and scenic locations in the world, the Iguassu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil. The Spirit was very clearly moving in my heart during this time. As I was praying for a massive outpouring of the love of God I felt led to ask for a “secret” revelation. Early the next morning I found my way to the hotel rooftop and found myself overlooking an awesome scene. The river valley was covered by a fine cloud of mist that had condensed overnight from the spray of the falls, whose ominous roar could be heard in the background. The falls themselves were covered completely by mist. As the sun started to rise brilliantly above the hills a strange atmospheric phenomenon took place. In every direction I looked into the mist a series of concentric circles in all the colours of the rainbow appeared in their cloud. I was puzzled as to why a human shadow (mine) always appeared at the centre of the circles of glory. Wherever my shadow went the circles of rainbow colours appeared, but nowhere else. I was receiving a prophetic sign of the many splendoured wisdom and glory of God expounded in various parts of scripture (http://cross-connect.net.au/mystery-of-god.)

“Revival” is all about Jesus.

The key passage is Ephesians 3:7-10:

“Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

This passage teaches that in the present time, before Jesus returns to finally destroy all evil spiritual powers, the Church is the radiant light of his glorious victory in the world. This part Ephesians has a rich background which helps illuminate for us how the Church declares the triumph of Jesus in the world by her very existence.

The Greek word in Eph 3:10 translated, “manifold wisdom of God”, or, “wisdom of God in its rich variety” (ἡ πολυποίκιλος σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ) relates back to a word used in the Greek Old Testament for Joseph’s coat of many colours (Gen 37:3 LXX  χιτῶνα πο ποικίλον .) His “rainbow coat”. Joseph is a prophetic type of Christ on many levels. His coat was a sign that he was the especially loved favourite of his father Jacob. For this he was persecuted by his brothers, sold into Egyptian slavery, suffered many injustices but was exalted by God to be the deliverer of his people. Jesus is the true favourite of the Father betrayed by his brothers in Israel and finally put to death, for their deliverance and the deliverance of all humanity.

Only in the resurrected and ascended Jesus can we see the fulness of glory, honour, power and blessing for which human beings were created in the beginning. The physical radiance that shone into the midst at the Iguassu Falls in every direction I moved did so because I was acting as a lens that bent the light of the sun. Prophetically, the Church can radiate his splendour into the world because Jesus dwells in us as, “the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). Christ is the single lens of human meaning. Our vocation as Christ’s Body and Bride is to allow his light to illuminate the world through us; “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”” (Acts 13:47). This cannot happen whenever we make something more important than Jesus. idols in our hearts stop the radiance of the glory. The only way the Father purifies us from our idolatries is to share with us the sufferings of the cross (1 Pet 1:10-11). This is the most beautiful thing imaginable.

The Church can radiate his splendour into the world because Jesus dwells in us as “the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).

 

5. Beholding the Beauty of the Mystery

The key to understanding what God is doing is to see where he is going. “What God plans first he performs last.” This is why we must pay careful attention to the climax of human history is a marriage; that between Christ and the Church. Since it has been wisely said, “Every bride is beautiful”, beauty is at the heart of why God created the world. As a young believer I can recall hearing sermons on the Church as a Bride from the King James Version,

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:25-27).

This image of the people of God as a radiant betrothed woman was interesting, but perhaps because I wasn’t yet married it never gripped me.

“What God plans first he performs last.”

Decades later when I was lecturing theology my interest was attracted by a Ph.D. thesis of a companion lecturer on, “The joy of the Lord”. He argued that Paul’s exhortation, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” (Phil 4:4), meant that Christians are called to share in God’s own joy. Or more specifically, to be united with the joy Jesus has. This seemed to me correct. Reading the thesis took me spiritually deeper through its discussion on the beauty of God. This argued that if the glory of God is pleasant, desirable and attractive it is beautiful. The thesis quoted Karl Barth in a way that indicated God’s beauty was practical. “God’s beauty embraces death as well as life, fear as well as joy, what we might call the ugly as well as what we might call the beautiful.” This clearly pointed to the cross, and I was reminded of a book of Christian poetry written by Word War I army chaplain G.A. Studdert-Kennedy about suffering and the crucifixion.  It was called The Unutterable Beauty. The teaching of the thesis on divine beauty was fascinating and I sensed it was important; but it seemed beyond the reach of my experience.

Then in 2010 I was in Jerusalem where one of the most profound experiences of my life happened in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the site of Jesus crucifixion, burial and resurrection). I had long seen myself called to be a “prophet of the cross” and so before entering the church I was very much asking the Lord to speak to me there. Once inside, the place was thronging with people from all over the world there on pilgrimage. Filipinos singing in Tagalog, Germans praying the Lord’s Prayer in German, the atmosphere was very intense. Then the Lord spoke to me unexpectedly through an external symbol. When you enter the chapel that stands over the site where Jesus was crucified a large painting faces you. It shows Jesus stripped and nailed horizontally to the cross. As I looked at the face in the painting something strange and wonderful happened. My heart was filled with a precious awareness and I could clearly sense the Father was saying; “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” As Christ was crucified the Father saw a beautifying love for himself and for the lost world of a degree that he had never witnessed before. Here at last was a Son, a human being, perfectly submissive to his will. This is the glory of God; this is what makes God proud to be a Father of “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).

As Christ was crucified the Father saw a beautifying love for himself and for the lost world of a degree that he had never witnessed before.

The Old Testament has many prophetic pointers to the coming inexhaustible beauty of Jesus. The robes of the High Priest were “for glory and for beauty” (Ex 28:2). Only Jesus the true eternal High Priest (Heb 6:20; 7:28) possessed a holy character at one with such splendid outer garments.  The psalmists speaks of worshipping the Lord in “the beauty of holiness” (29:2; 96:9), something only the perfectly holy deeds of Christ could achieve. Isaiah prophesied of the “king in his beauty” (Isa 33:17) and Psalm 45 pictured a royal wedding between, “the most handsome of the sons of men” and an, “all glorious” princess bride (Ps 45:2, 13). These are portraits of the sheer splendour of the Jesus and the Church. A beauty that springs from the cross. In the Old Testament the total destruction of “whole burnt offerings” ascended to God as a “pleasing aroma” (Gen 8:21; Ex 29:18; Lev 2:2; Ezek 16:19 etc.) because they represented the total sacrifice of something precious and valuable. All of which was a sign of the death of Jesus. “And walk in love, las Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph 5:1).

The heart of God was totally satisfied with the sacrifice of his Son on the cross, on our behalf. This is a very powerful reality. I am reminded of being in prayer one day in the church building where I had been pastoring. Things were tough going there and the people had become increasingly critical of my ministry. Then I had a truly surprising sense the Lord was saying, “I am satisfied with these people.” More than that, he was calling me to tell them of his satisfied heart the next Sunday as I preached, which I did. It wasn’t that the Father was satisfied with their character or behaviour, which became worse as time went on, but that being “in Christ” they were located in God’s heart set at rest by the blood of the cross.

The heart of God was totally satisfied with the sacrifice of his Son on the cross, on our behalf.

A few years after my ground-breaking revelation of the beauty of the death of Jesus in Jerusalem my wife, Donna, and I travelled to the ruins of the cities of the 7 Churches of Revelation and on to the island of Patmos. This was where the aged apostle John was imprisoned “on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 1:9) and received the visions of the book of Revelation. What happened to me on Patmos was a real share in the relationship between Jesus the Bridegroom and the Church his Bride. But before sharing this testimony it’s important to give the biblical background.

The Old Testament freely speaks about Israel as the Wife of God, though she is unfaithful to her Husband (Isa 54:5; Jer 3:1-14; Ezek 16:1-63; Hos 2:2ff etc.). The prophets therefore speak of a new day when the marriage between the Lord and his people would be without blemish (Isa 62:1-5; Hos 2:16). The “mystery” that is unveiled in the New Testament is that God’s people are to be married to his Messiah, who is Jesus.

Paul teaches, ““Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5:31-32). The husband of the Lord’s chosen people, the Church, is God and man.  Every marriage is called to share in and reflect the glory and beauty of this marriage between Jesus and the Church. The depths of the mystery that connects a husband-wife to Christ-Church is that we are together inside the new covenant with a new humanity created by the blood of the cross (Matt 26:28; 1 Cor 11:25). A Christian couple (in this case my wife Donna and myself), really share in the Spirit in the relationship between Jesus and his Bride.

When Paul instructs, “as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” and husbands to “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:24-25), his counsel is deeply real. He doesn’t mean that the submission and love in my marriage are in parallel or merely image the relationship between the Church and Christ. We share in that end-time spiritual reality. Paul teaches that human marriage was created for, and draws its life and meaning from, the end-time marriage of Christ and the Church. Since “everything was created through Jesus and for Jesus” (Col 1:16) it could not be any other way.  This is a profound mystery which points to the reason why God created the world as unveiled in Revelation.

Knowing these things I knew that if I was ever going to visit Patmos I needed to have my wife with me. I was at the breakfast table with Donna on our first morning on the island, as Jesus will dine with the Church when he comes to marry us (Rev 19:6-10). Suddenly I was aware that though the apostle John was on Patmos as a prisoner for his faith it was for him an island of extreme joy.

“Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give him the glory. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. 8 She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.” For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people.” (Rev 19:6-8).

I started to sense what he saw in a vision when he was there almost two thousand years before. John saw that his presence on Patmos made it a bridal chamber, that the area of the 7 churches to whom he wrote was also a bridal chamber, and in fact the whole cosmos is one vast bridal chamber where the people of God are being prepared for their marriage to Jesus. God the Father’s plan is for the whole of creation to be filled with endless and indestructible marital bliss. And he will bring this to pass because of the power of the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14; 12:11).

“the whole of creation is to be filled with endless and indestructible marital bliss”

The blood of the cross is the foundation upon which the Father builds his plans for eternity. John proclaimed Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus has taken away the sin of the world. In Jesus the world has been reunited with God, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor 5:19), “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.” (Col 1:20). In Christ the victory of God is already complete, even if it is not yet completely manifest to the world. The universe as we know it will be a new creation free from all mourning, crying and pain (Rev 21:4). The “Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev 21:9) will radiate the glory of Christ throughout the whole of created reality forever without distortion of dimness. All because, remember my Jerusalem encounter, of the beautifying power of the cross. The prophetic Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky rightly sensed, “Beauty will save the world.” The beauty of the Lord Jesus limitlessly radiates the truth, goodness, justice of God.

The beauty of the Lord Jesus limitlessly radiates the truth, goodness, justice of God.

When Christ cried out from the cross ““It is finished”” (John 19:30  Τετέλεσται ) he used a word which conveys the sense of accomplishment and is related to a word often translated “perfected” (John 17:23; 2 Cor 12:9; Heb 2:10; 5:9; 10:14; 12:2). And the tense of the verb used means “completed for all time”. John’s commentary on the death of Jesus goes on to help us understand what has been accomplished. “But one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe.” (John 19:34-35). John’s testimony in his Gospel is often a highly symbolic one.

The water that flows from the pierced side of Jesus symbolises the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (compare John 4:13-14; 7:37-39) which would soon rush through the Church into the world. Water then is a symbol here of the Spirit’s power to make us holy (John 22:16; 1 Cor 6:11; Tit 3:5). But water came out of Christ after blood. The shed blood of the cross is God’s public testimony to the world that its sins have been paid for and cleansing is available in Christ. The blood of Christ “cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). This is very powerfully conveyed in the words of Revelation about the saints of God, us, ““These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (7:14).

Paul sums up this amazing purifying dynamic with his bridal imagery, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might make her holy, 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 5:25-27). To ordinary human sight the death of Jesus was grotesque. He had “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa 53:2). But in the sight of the Father Christ’s death was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen (Ps 116:15). The result of his death is that it beautifies us in Christ into an incorruptible immortal existence.  In the resurrection therefore, “those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (Dan 12:3).

Since such extraordinary things are true for us, why does the life of the Church, so often, seem so ordinary? Some preachers speak so often about money you could be forgiven for thinking that the spirit of the Great Prostitute of Revelation has invaded the Bride of Christ (Rev 17:1-5). And in some places, it has! What is missing? The answer is both simple and difficult. Jesus was perfected in his power to beautify the Church through suffering, and the Church grows into this beauty as she shares “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil 3:10). We have minds capable of seeing the glory of God in all things when we share the mind which took Jesus to suffer on the cross and on into his glory.

The Church grows into this beauty as she shares “the fellowship of his sufferings”

Many Christians love Paul’s exposition in Romans on the cry, “Abba Father” and how “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ”.  But few of us treasure his next words; “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:16-17). In consoling the Ephesians from his prison cell the apostle shares deep wisdom, “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” (Eph 3:13). Peter too understood these ways of Christ. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7); “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” (1 Peter 4:13-14).

Suffering is not the cost of glory but the way of glory

Since “suffering is not the cost of glory but the way of glory” (Bingham) it is suffering with Christ that opens our hearts to the spiritual realm of beauty. This vision of beauty is something Christian people can share in together. It is a vision represented by the diagram below.

 

 

The origin of this diagram is very important. There used to be in Perth a 24/7 prayer centre called The Furnace. Its inside walls were plastered with paintings, poems and prayers and a table stood by covered with art supplies. I am not in the habit of sketching, but on this occasion, I was drawn to pick up some pencils and sketch. That I began with a cross wasn’t very surprising, I have long desired to be a “prophet of the cross”; but it was what happened next that surprised me.

I found myself placing a red dot at those points on the cross corresponding to where Jesus was pierced by nails or thorns; his head, hands, feet and side, the red spots represented his blood (John 19:2, 34; 20:20). Then I was moved to connect the bloody points with straight lines, the result appears as a prism. The diagram was completed when I drew white light proceeding through the prism from the left and emerging from the right in all the colours of the rainbow. The white rays symbolise the holy light of God (1 John 1:5), and the spectrum the glory of God (Rev 4:3). When God reveals his holiness we see his glory. Many people would call this revival. There were however other layers to this image which I hadn’t yet seen.

Some time after receiving the rainbow diagram I felt the Lord asking me to seek help in setting up a website that could receive all my teaching articles plus those of other people from Perth whose work I trusted as Christ-centred. This leading was confirmed when a very technically gifted man asked to see me and offered his services wherever I thought he might be able to help. The result was http://cross-connect.net.au. With the spectrum diagram on the Home page of the website I sensed a more practical prophetic application of its symbolism.

As I continued to pray about the prism at the centre of the image, I sensed that it had to do with a network of people across the city of Perth. In principle this could be any suburb, town, city, state or nation. This would not be a formal or organisational network but connections God would sovereignly bring about. The bloody points of the cross represent men and women, to quote Paul, who bear in their bodies “the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:7). These are men and women who know what it is like to have been “crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20) and who can authentically testify with Paul, “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” (2 Cor 4:10-12). These are mature Christian people who in real ways have suffered for Christ and have been purged of selfish-ambition. They are holy people who are no tempted by money, sex or power. The Holy Spirit can sovereignly bring such people together in partnerships that can be entrusted with the manifest glory of God. some would call this “revival”.

Such networks would naturally involve pastors to equip God’s people for works of service (Eph 4:13). But since the ministry of the people of God is in “all things” that belong to Jesus (Eph 4:10), we should expect to see such holy relationships of unity for the glory of God amongst believers in politics, the arts, media, law, science, education, business and so on. the controlling passion of such groups must be, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14). We know that this is “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). This is a great vision, but for its progressive realisation much needs to be put to death.

 

6. The Mystery of Election

This chapter covers a topic that has caused divisions in the Church over many centuries. However, this shouldn’t keep us from looking at the scriptures together, for our unity is in Christ (Gal 3:28), not in interpretation of the Bible.

The more controversial a Christian teaching the more likely it is to contain an important revelation of Jesus. Having just come to Christ I was invited to attend a Bible study at the university being run by a Reformed Baptist pastor. Suddenly I found myself in the midst of a debate over the topic of predestination and election. The pastor was in the middle of teaching from John 17, and it was when he came to this section below that the trouble began.

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.”

I learned from this man that there were two types of Christians. Calvinists, who followed the teaching of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, and Arminians, named after the anti-Calvinist theologian Jacobus Arminius. Calvinists insist that there is no such a thing as free will in lost people and it is God not man who chooses (elects) who will or will not be saved. Arminius, and in the eighteenth century the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, insisted that God gave enough grace to all human beings to be saved, if they so willed. Salvation can be lost.

To be quite honest, I found the assertion that God had chosen me, rather than I had chosen him, quite offensive. Even if the Rev. Porter had quoted Jesus, “You did not choose me, but I chose You and appointed You that You should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide” (John 15:16), I though this must be about apostles, and I wasn’t an apostle. Anyway, having argued unsuccessfully about this in the Bible study I, with another zealous friend, set about to search the scriptures and prove that Calvinism was wrong. What happened instead was that as I read the Bible I found that words were leaping out of the page. Like, “For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy.” (Rom 9:15-16), or, “”And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”” (Acts 13:48). Finally, against the desire of my own will, I gave up the fight and accepted that the difference between why I was saved, and why, for example, my father never accepted Jesus, wasn’t my free will but God’s unconditional grace and mercy. Why God had chosen me I had absolutely no idea (compare Deut 7:6-8) and I am still, when it comes to conversion, a “Calvinist”.  But today I have a very different framework in which to look at these things. This involves the mystery of Christ.

Generally speaking, the heated debates between Calvinists and Arminians bear little fruit for God’s kingdom and are diversions used by the devil to destroy Christian unity. The Arminians see the Calvinist emphasis on God’s sovereign power as setting him up as a dictator or tyrant. Whilst the Calvinists believe the Arminian emphasis on human decision robs God of the glory of salvation. The big problem for both these positions, as they are usually put forward, is that they are not adequately Christ-centred. They both see Jesus as essential to human salvation and the conveyor of God’s grace, but neither of them make Christ the foundation of their teaching on election and predestination.

My thinking about election started to turn around when in theological college I was exposed to the teaching of the German theologian Karl Barth who made the doctrine of election the centrepiece of his understanding of the identity of God. God is the One who, in the unity of Father and Son, chooses to save and who, in Jesus, is the Chosen One of God. This means that Jesus Christ is both the God who chooses to save and the chosen human being. The Father’s choice to save us is one with Jesus choosing, in eternity, to be Lamb of God chosen for our salvation (2 Tim 1:9; Rev 13:8; 1 Pet 1:20). Since God’s sovereign power is located in the Lamb it does not crush us or rob us of a real choice any more than it robbed Jesus of his freedom to choose.

Jesus Christ is both the God who chooses to save and the chosen human being.

In contrast to dry doctrine or cold logic, the teaching on election in the Bible is always exhilarating. I used to set a tutorial question for my theology students. They were to take note that everywhere Paul teaches on election and predestination he breaks out in a doxology, a hymn praise to God (Rom 11:33-36; Eph 1:3-14). The test was whether their understanding of predestination and salvation led them to praise God like this. If it didn’t lead them to worship, then their understanding must have been false. And I charged them to find out in what way their understanding was in error.

Paul excitedly says, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” (Eph 1:3-4).  This means that the Father and Christ agreed in eternity on our salvation and we were always included “in Christ”. We were never left out of God’s saving plan; even if this only became true in our experience at some point in time after we heard the gospel.

Let me put this another way. When we read in Romans 8:29, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”, this means that God had a relationship with us before we had a relationship with him. His relationship was as a Father to us in Jesus. The terror of election is taken away through its centring on Jesus. God’s election is our adoption in the Spirit of his Son. Nothing is scary about that.

God had a relationship with us before we had a relationship with him.

That Messiah will be the Chosen One of God is prophesied in the Old Testament. “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” (Isa 42:1). That Jesus is this chosen person became clear as his life unfolds in the Gospels, commencing at this baptism. “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Luke 3:21-22). The words of the Father are saturated with Old Testament prophecy. “beloved Son” echoes Genesis 22:2 where Abraham is commanded to, ““Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains””. This points to the cross. The sonship language also draws on Psalm 2 about the triumphant messianic king who is elevated by God. “I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”” (2:7-8).

As those who have been baptised into Christ (Rom 6:3), and who are his sons, we were included in God’s eyes in Christ’s choice to go to the cross. That’s why all the favour and delight that the Father has in Jesus’ baptism graciously comes to us in Christ. Jesus heard these words and received them by revelation as the power of the Holy Spirit descended upon him. This places fatherly adoption in the Spirit at the heart of election. To be chosen by God as a son in his Son is an extraordinarily wonderful thing. This comes across in other major events of the life of Jesus. The Transfiguration is one of these events.

“And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem….34…a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”” (Luke 9:29ff.).

Once again, Jesus is on his way to the cross, and resurrection. This is his exodus from Jerusalem. The Son is still choosing to submit to the Father. The glory which surrounds him is the radiance of his pure and sacrificial Sonship (John 1:14), and the voice of heaven, “This is my Son, my Chosen One” reinforces what Jesus had already heard at his baptism. From Psalm 2:7-8 he is the elevated Son of God and messianic ruler of the world. But he is the also the favoured Servant of the Lord from Isaiah, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him” (Isa 42:1). This Servant is by the Spirit of God and will suffer and be exalted (Isa 42:1; 5213-53:12). These notions of Spirt empowered elevation as a Son doing the will of God become even more emphatic in the Garden of Gethsemane. Once more Jesus is on the way to the cross.

“And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.”4 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:34-36).

The language of “very sorrowful” is a prophetic fulfilment of Isaiah 53: 3, the Chosen Spirit-anointed Servant is, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. Although the Holy Spirit is not openly mentioned in the Gospel accounts of Gethsemane, the letter to the Hebrews tells us, “Christ…through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God” (9:14). And the same writer intimately connects the Sonship of Jesus with his agonies in the Garden; “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (5:7-9). The perfection of Sonship, the reason why Christ was chosen, blessed and anointed by the Spirit as God’s King, comes only as Jesus submits his will to the Father in extreme agony. It’s not as though Jesus ever disobeyed the Father, but he grew as a child of God as he obeyed the Father through his anguish. His Sonship is being glorified to the highest degree. It is only in Gethsemane under the most extreme pressures of body and soul (compare John 12:27) that Jesus prays, “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36).As his will is perfectly united with the will of the Father the Son senses his closeness and union with God like never before.

The key events of Jesus’ life were times when his human will was brought into deeper and deeper conformity to the will of his Father. Remember the old saying, “That which he has not taken upon himself he has not healed.” Jesus took on a will like ours and perfectly restored it to obedience to God in our place. Our wills can be empowered to say “Yes” to gospel because Jesus always said “Yes” to the Father in our place. The climax of Jesus “Yes” to God comes in death and resurrection.

What was most important to Jesus’ identity was having God as his Father.

What was most important to Jesus’ identity was having God as his Father. His identity was being the Son of God. This comes across in Christ’s response to Peter. “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 16:13-17).

When Peter confesses that Jesus is God’s Son the Lord was thrilled. He sensed that the Spirit is revealing his deepest identity to the disciples and drawing them into his loving relationship with the Father. Later, Peter and all the other disciples fell away from this high point of spiritual insight. But Christ’s death and resurrection would bring them all into the fellowship of God in such a way that they could never fall again.

When Jesus was on trial, he remained silent until the High Priest posed a question which spoke to the depths of his heart. It was not a question about his miracles, or his teachings, or his followers or political ambitions. It was a question of identity, ““Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”” (Mark 14:62). It was Jesus affirmative to this question, ““I am”” that led to his conviction under the charge of blasphemy (Mark 14:63-64). Christ could not deny his identity as God’s Son. The cross wasn’t just a cruel form of execution. It was designed to prove that Jesus cannot possibly be God’s chosen Son. He couldn’t possibly be the elevated messianic King who brings delight to his Lord.

This is why the Jewish rulers mocked Jesus as they did. ““He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’….“He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”” (Matt 27:43; Luke 23:35). In the opinion of the Jewish rulers, men very familiar with the prophecies about God’s anointed King and Servant, it was impossible that Jesus, hanging on the cross, could be the Lord’s Chosen favourite.

Those who condemned Jesus knew the words pronounced by God about covenant breakers. ““And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.” (Deut 21:22-23). As they saw it, through the scriptures, it was impossible for a crucified man to be the Elect or favoured of God. Such a criminal was outside the covenant of God, disinherited and no longer a child of God.

This verdict seemed verified when Jesus cried out in utter anguish, “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34). Since in every other place Jesus addresses God as his “Father”, this must mean that in his darkest hour Christ is being completely stripped of any experience of the Spirit of Sonship. This is Jesus “becoming sin” for us (2 Cor 5:21 compare 1 Pet 2:24). In my opinion the most insightful explanation of what was happening to Jesus on the cross is given in the dramatic language of Martin Luther. He is expounding Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—”. Here is what Luther said in his commentary:

“And all the prophets saw this, that Christ was to become the greatest thief, murderer, adulterer, robber, desecrator, blasphemer, etc., there has ever been anywhere in the world.  He is not acting in His own Person now.  Now He is not the Son of God, born of the Virgin.  But He is a sinner, who has and bears the sin of Paul, the former blasphemer, persecutor, and assaulter; of Peter who denied Christ; of David, who was an adulterer and a murderer, and who caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord (Rom 2:24).  In short, He has and bears all the sins of all men in His body – not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these sins, committed by us, upon His own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with His own blood.”

Jesus can carry away the sin of the whole world because he is God and his divine nature connects him to all humanity (John 1:29).  But it is as the Son of God that he is most intimately connected to fallen sinful humanity. It is as a Son that Jesus takes responsibility for our sins. This is because at the deepest level sin is the rejection of God as a loving providing Father.

At the deepest level sin is the rejection of God as a loving providing Father.

Adam was created as God’s son (Luke 3:38) and he enjoyed access to the Lord in freedom and without fear. By grace he possessed the glory of sonship, intimacy with God as Father (Isa 43:6-7; Rom 9:4). When Eve and Adam listened to the devil and followed his teachings they accepted him as their spiritual father (John 8:44).  And so, they lost the glory of knowing God as an all providing Father (Rom 3:23). In their shame and fear they hid from the Lord who they now could see only as a harsh Judge. Fallen people have no abiding sense that God is their Father-Creator, let alone a “Father” to them in the sense that Jesus meant by this word.

Only the one true Son of God who had enjoyed eternal intimacy with the Father could bear our sins. For Jesus to “bear our sin” (Isa 53:12; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 2:24) means he carried the consequences of our sin. All the consequences of sin flow out of not knowing the glorious presence of the Father. Without the abiding knowledge of the Father’s love and power human beings feel alone in a hostile world and experience fear, anxiety, loneliness, confusion, guilt, shame and many other ills. We suffer as spiritual orphans, Fatherless, in this dark world.

Thankfully, Jesus promised his frightened disciples, ““I will not abandon as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:18). Jesus can fulfil this promise because on the cross he took our state as abandoned orphans. The Father never stopped loving Jesus, the Father was certainly not angry with Jesus. But for God the Son to take into himself the consequences of our rejection of God as Father he must endure the loss of the presence of God as his Father. Jesus took our lost condition on the cross and he took it away. Let me use a personal example to apply the power of the cross.

Before I came to Jesus, I had a fear of people so great I couldn’t even walk down a public street. This was both a psychological condition and a state of demonic affliction over which I had no control. The crucial question is, “Did Jesus take this sort of fear into himself on the cross” so that he could deliver us from all our fears?” He did take our fears. Without the presence of the Father’s Spirit he had no control over the dark forces that were surrounding him. To quote Paul about what must have been Christ’s experience on the cross, “we were so utterly unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.” (2 Cor 1:8 compare Isa 53:5, 10). Jesus’ fear of the consequences of being without the Father was total. Unlike our fears his fear was a godly fear. It was the fear of a human being enduring the power of evil without the presence of the love of God.

Fear might not be your problem. Your crucial question might be, “Did Jesus take my confusion, loneliness, anxiety, shame, guilt, powerlessness etc. into himself on the cross?” The answer in every case is that he did. But no matter how much despair and pain were in the cross, the death of Jesus was a complete victory.

The cry of dereliction, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” is a cry of a Holy Son (Luke 1:35) to a “Holy Father” (John 17:11) and it compensates for the cry that none of us ever made to know God as Father. This means that whenever any Christian person calls God “Father” they are heard just as if Jesus himself was speaking.

Whenever any Christian calls God “Father” they are heard just as if Jesus himself was speaking.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Rom 8:15-17).

If the cross is God’s “No” to all our “unsonly” living, then the resurrection is his “Yes” to the Sonship of Jesus on our behalf.  Furthermore since the pain of sin on the cross was Fatherlessness then the resurrection reaffirmed to Jesus that he was the all pleasing Son of God.

Resurrection is Christ’s reinstatement as Son. The familiar language of elevation and Kingship that we encountered in the Gospels comes back in the apostolic preaching of the resurrection. “And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’” (Acts 13:32-33). Christ “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 1:4). The glorification of Jesus in resurrection was the Father’s declaration to him through the Spirit of adoption that he was the perfected Son. This brings us back to predestination and election.

If the cross is God’s “No” to all our unsonly living, the resurrection is his “Yes” to the Sonship of Jesus on our behalf.

Far from being mysterious and scary the biblical teaching on God’s choosing us for salvation is wonderful beyond words. What was from eternity most precious to Jesus, being the Son of the Father, has been brought to our humanity through predestination, election and adoption in the power of the Spirit. We have been made sons of God in the Son of God (John 1:12; Rom 8:15; Eph 1:5). We have been brought into the very centre and heart of the life of God, which is love. “In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Eph 1:4-6). All praise to God for such a wonderful plan. The mystery is great.

 

7. Resting in the Mystery

“Busyness” is a dominant feature of life in twenty-first century Australia; and it is surely a sign that we as a nation are under the wrath of God. After all, sinners in hell, “have no rest, day or night” (Rev 14:11). Times have changed, and for the worse.

When I started going to Church in the mid 1970’s it was quite common for committed believers to attend twice on a Sunday. Over the decades this became once a week and now on average it’s once every two weeks, or less. And it doesn’t seem to matter what brand of Christianity. People will always tell you they are “busy”, busy at work, or with social media, or with friends and family. In a sick fashion people in my part of the world celebrate busyness. Pastors have to deal with a culture that is, “too busy for God”.

I remember sending an email to someone asking if we could meet to talk and pray. His reply said he was “VERY busy” and we couldn’t meet. I felt a little bit hurt about being rejected but got over it pretty quickly. A little later I heard the brother share his Christian testimony and he came across as one of the angriest men I’d heard for a long time. Which all makes sense in the light of the teaching I will give below.

I find that the Lord sends folk to me who are possessed of a religious sense of responsibility that is wearing them out. But often they receive the approval of other Christians because of their zeal for the Lord. This is not wise, because Jesus made a firm promise,

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”” (Matt 27-29).

His own personal assurance of rest came from the revelation that “all things” were under the control of his Father and so he need never strive to get things done. The Message version of the Bible brilliantly translates this passage in an unforgettable way.

““Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.””. The “unforced rhythms of grace” sounds so wonderful. My mind goes straight to what Jesus said about his own pace of life; ““Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19). The Son was never ahead of the Father or behind what his Father was doing. Neither lazy nor rushed, this is the true tempo of the Christian life. But very few believers I know get to live like this. Why? Let me say some things about my own life journey in this respect.

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

As a teenager I was quite lazy at school and relied on my natural intelligence to get me through. In fact, in my first attempt at my final year of high school I was quite proud that I never did any home work. During those years I didn’t know God, and since neither of my parents had even reached high school they had no idea of how hard I should be working. I subsequently failed my final exams, and then just passed the second time around. I was still someone who only worked hard when they needed to. Going to university my old habits started to undermine my results and I became very frightened that I would fail again and be forced to leave university and find a job. This fear moved me to change course dramatically. I stopped going to parties, stopped drinking alcohol, stopped associating with friends and became a “study-machine”. Of course, my results climbed higher and higher but the underlying insecurity about performance remained in my heart. No one told me about such things when I became a Christian.

When I was a young Christian it looked like I was often in a hurry for God. But it wasn’t really for God, it was to try to settle my own conscience and insecurity about failure. In fact, no-one can ever be in a hurry for God because Jesus was never in a hurry to please his Father. But there never was an older more mature Christian around speaking into my life to help me get free from my desire to achieve things. I was very un-fathered in the spiritual realm. I find this lack of fathering is a big problem wherever I go in the world.

No-one can ever be in a hurry for God because Jesus was never in a hurry to please his Father.

I remember saying to my wife when I started theological college that I needed to study hard in case I failed. She told me, and I should have listened to her, that it was impossible that I fail. She of course was right, God knew what he was doing when he called me to study. The next three years I studied like a maniac ending up becoming the top student in the nation for my course. Things only became worse when I entered into pastoral ministry

As an assistant minister in a large country parish I had regular preaching engagements, started several Bible studies and so on. This might have been manageable, but the senior minister pulled out a huge stack of cards from the local hospital with the names and addresses of people who’d registered as Anglican and asked me to visit them all. This is when the pressure really came on. I ended up visiting 1000 homes in the next 9 months. This put me into constant exhaustion.  No-one however could correct the insanity, in fact it was applauded by the church, especially my boss.

From there I went on to do my master’s degree and doctorate in under the minimum time. It’s not like God never spoke to me, he did. I recall being in Brisbane studying on a student allowance, half of which went on rent, and having to feed four small children. Just before my allowance came in each fortnight I used to go to the shop and purchase bread that was a day old and half price; things were really tight.

Stressed about our economic situation I remember going out to pray one morning and coming to a large clearing where birds were happily flying about. The teaching of Jesus clearly came to mind,

““Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”” (Matt 6:25-34).

This really settled my heart that the Lord would provide for our family needs. In his faithfulness he did, he even sent a dream to a lady telling her to give us money. Praise the Lord.

Still I didn’t learn, such is the stubbornness of the human heart. In my next ministry placement, I was praying for up to 100 people by name daily. And they were all in separate categories. My sermons were long and meaty and had dozens of Bible references in the margins. Such a drive to achieve quite tragically led to me competing with the senior minister of that Church. At an unconscious level his laid-back attitude made me think he was lazy. In truth, he had a much better grasp of the grace of God than I did.

Regretfully, I remember a member of the congregation visiting me one day and telling me that I was “striving”. By this he meant I was trying to do God’s work in my own strength. Although he was quite experienced in ministry I disagreed with him, because I had become blinded by an ambition to grow the church whatever it took. My drivennness only started to melt away when I was healed of false images about Fatherhood. Distorted approaches to ministry are a very common problem.

I remember speaking with a locally based missionary about his experience at a dynamic Pentecostal church in the city, which he hoped to make his home base. When he went to see the pastor about his missionary vision he was told in no uncertain terms that he would have to fit into that leader’s vision for the church. There was no place for him there. My response to the missionary’s story was that the pastor must have unresolved issues with his human father. Information came back to me then, and more recently, that this is correct. Many high-profile high-performance Christian leaders, including in business are striving for approval from other human beings.

Jesus warned his hearers, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44). In their hearts those who seek the approval of others don’t know what Paul is describing when he speaks in intimate family language. “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ” (1 Cor 4:14-17). There is a huge difference between true fathers in God and pretend fathers.

There is a huge difference between true fathers in God and pretend fathers.

I remember a self-labelled “apostle” describing in his newsletter how people could support his ministry by giving financially so he could purchase a plane. This clearly violates the scriptures, “children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” (2 Cor 12:14). No-one should ever ask people to give to their ministry. There is far too much controlling and manipulative behaviour in the Church when it comes to money. Restless, driven people, so-called Type A personalities and Alpha males can never impart the rest of God to their hearers in the way Jesus promised. I recall listening to a testimony by a reformed drug addict. He moved from being a successful drug dealer to a world champion in martial arts to a multi-millionaire. The tempo of his life seemed unchangeable, because in his drive to success to succeed he simply moved from one form of addiction to another. I sent him one of my teachings on success (http://cross-connect.net.au/success-in-the-son/), but sadly, blinded by his status he shrugged it off. We must look again at how it is that Jesus promises us rest.

Firstly, in the Gospels Jesus confidently stated that his work was completed. Even before the cross by faith he saw the victory was his and prayed in confidence. “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” (John 17:4-5). Jesus knew he was heading back to heaven where all is completed and, “God rested” (Gen 2:1-3). But first he must go through the cross to deal with our restlessness.

When the Lord cried out, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34) he had entered fully into the state of the wicked. “But the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt. 21 There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”” (Isa 57:20-21). Whilst Jesus’ words about being forsaken come from the first verse of Psalm 22 the very next verse says, “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” On the cross Jesus is baptised into a state of our restlessness; the endless agitation of hell where “men weep and grind their teeth” (Matt 8:12).    But the restlessness of evil could never destroy the obedience of the Son of God. With his dying breath and the cry, ““It is finished”” (John 19:30), Christ knew his earthly work was accomplished and the rest of eternity was now his.

On the cross Jesus is baptised into a state of our restlessness

We need to take space out of our busy schedules to meditate on what the resurrection meant to the Lord. Throughout the Old Testament “rest” was gift from God after the defeat of Israel’s enemies (Deut 12:10; 25:19; Josh 21:44; Judges 5:31; 7:1,11; 1 Chron 22:19; Neh 6:1). This means that through his victorious death and resurrection Jesus has entered into his eternal rest. He presently is seated in heaven whilst all his enemies are being made “a footstool for his feet” (1 Cor 15:25; Heb 1:3). Jesus has received his rest via the power of the indestructible life and limitless authority given by his Father (Matt 28:18; Heb 7:16).

This realm of rest is not easy for us labouring human beings to understand, but I think it explains the unusual character of some of the miracles in the Bible.  In the book of Acts deliverance and healing comes to those afflicted by evil powers by a mere word of command (3:1-11; 9:33-41; 14:8-10; 19:11-12; 20:9-12). The apostles don’t even pray, they simply speak the word as God speaks. This reminds me of a ministry incident in central Australia some years ago.

It was the first night of an Indigenous Christian convention on an oval in Alice Springs and as soon as the event started all hell broke loose. The first thing that happened was that a young lady stood up in full view of everyone and started to strip, then two very big drunken men began to brawl. I felt well and truly out of my comfort zone but seeing no one was dealing with these blokes and sensing I needed to act like Jesus I went to these guys and gently escorted them off the oval. When I laid hands on them and prayed for them in the name of Jesus, they both fell to the ground under the power of God. When they got up I prayed again, and they fell down under God’s power once more. They became like peaceful lambs! While this is amazing we need to remember that acts of power are not the greatest gift of the rest of God in Christ.

John testifies to a wonderful truth too great for words; “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.” (John 1:18). Since our own lives are, “hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3) we are in the heart of the Father. The beautiful promise in the prophet Zephaniah about God’s feelings towards his people have become true for us in Christ, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will rest in his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zeph 3:17) A singing rejoicing Father is never wrathful or dissatisfied with us. Be sure that although you may grieve the Spirit of God (Eph 4:30) the Father is never disappointed with you. How could he be, you are united with his glorious victorious Son!

Further than this, we are “seated with Christ in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:20; 2:6). This means that we are with him in the place from where he exerts his Lordship over all things (Acts 10:36; 1 Pet 3:22 etc.). As we rest in our position in Christ the scriptures settle our hearts. “28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28). It is as we come to terms with what comes next, “that we might be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29), that we will remain rested. We enter into the rest of God whenever we by faith believe that whatever our circumstances, easy or painful, God’s goodness is working to make us more like Jesus. Which is why he created the world.

We enter into the rest of God whenever we, by faith, believe that whatever our circumstances, easy or painful, God’s goodness is working to make us more like Jesus.

Do you believe that the teaching of Ephesians 2:8-10 is true for you? Everyone loves first two verses, but few rest in verse 10. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” As Jesus only ever did what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19), we can place our feet into the footsteps of Christ as he goes ahead of our lives. With faith for steps that are not too large, running ahead of the Lord, or steps too small, getting behind God, we can enjoy the “unforced rhythms of grace”. How wonderful.

The rest of God also has powerful dimensions far beyond the personal level. A friend of mine is a professional meteorologist. He was at an international conference on climate change when he was approached by a senior politician. She blurted out without introduction, ““Are you afraid?”?” He immediately thought of the words of Jesus, ““And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; 26 men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”” (Luke 21:25-26). He didn’t share the unbeliever’s alarm because in Christ he is above the earth and its distress. Whether it is climate change, terrorism, a global financial crisis or something much more local the rest which is ours in Christ is a tremendous testimony to who Jesus is as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev 19:16). The tribulation in this world are opportunities to “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). We can rest as a “kingdom and priests to our God” (Rev 5:10).

The supernatural stillness that came over the group praying for revival at the end of The 7 Days of Prayer was a share in the promise of Psalm 46 verse 10, ““Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!””. This was a prophetic sign to us of the nature of the working of God in true power. I have observed many moves of God over the last forty plus years, some of them quite far reaching, like the Toronto Blessing, or the Brownsville Outpouring, to local moves of God, some very spectacular, such as the Elcho Island Revival in the very far north of Australia amongst Indigenous people (https://renewaljournal.blog/2016/02/27/pentecost-in-arnhem-land-bydjiniyini-gondarra.) Nearly all of these mighty spiritual workings, like the most famous revival of last century, the Welsh Revival (1904-1905), died out after a few years.

From what I can understand these glorious moves burnt out amidst competition, immorality, division and greed because none of them stood in the rest of God. I believe the preciousness of the rest of God holds us back from taking any personal glory from what God is doing. All the glory must go to the one who was crucified for us (1 Cor 1:12-13). When we forget this God judges us. For this reason, I want to share an unusual experience I had some years ago on the opposite side of Australia to where I now live. It is written specifically for my city, but I believe its truth can be applied anywhere.

The foreshore at Trinity Beach Cairns terminates on the southern end with a rocky outcrop and forested hill. A path leads up to a point where the ocean stretches to the horizon in the east. A cement seat faces the ocean.

On my first morning at Trinity I walked past all these features as I was fixated on climbing the hill behind the beach. I was in a hurry. I did manage to climb the hill, though it was very hard work and I bruised some ribs in the process.

The next time I headed towards this section of the beach I was in a much less driven frame of mind and was much more sensitive to the Spirit of prophecy. I sensed that the Christ who dwells is the seated Christ of the post-ascension accounts of the New Testament. I realised that the Father, not simply “God”, is at rest. He is anxious about nothing; he rests fully in the perfected humanity of Jesus. In Jesus his Father-heart is beautifully restful. In this state of sensing the beautiful divine presence I started to see things that were already there.

Firstly, I saw that a word had been painted in capitals on the back of the cement seat, this word was PERTH. (Cairns is 3247 air kilometres from Perth.)                                                     Secondly, I observed a cross painted on the rock above the seat, the cross pointed to the seat. (Then I felt moved to sit on the PERTH seat.)                                                                 Thirdly, the horizon stretching out in front of me took on a new meaning. I recalled that the English word for “horizon” derives from the Greek term prooridzo  (προορίζω  e.g. Rom 8:29) used in the New Testament for “predestination/foreordained”.

God was sending a message to the Church: the finished work of the cross points us to the present position of Jesus resting on the judgement seat of God at the Father’s right hand. From this exalted position Jesus is going to bring to pass all that his Father has ordained for the city of Perth. This includes all his promises to you and me about the destiny of our city.  This will not happen through our striving but through abiding in God’s rest in Christ. As we (spiritually) sit with Jesus in a posture of rest on his seat of judgement and look to what the Father is doing we will see his purposes come to pass.

The finished work of the cross points us to the present position of Jesus resting on the judgement seat of God at the Father’s right hand.

 

8. Worshipping in the Mystery 

The topic of “worship” is one of the most misunderstood spiritual realities in the life of the global Church. The largest and most famous Australian Church, Hillsong, is a worldwide trendsetter in music. It certainly isn’t a leader in holiness, sacrificial lifestyle, justice for the needy or solid teaching and preaching. Something is clearly wrong there.  Is it possible to have a “worship style” like Hillsong, or similar churches, and to be genuinely centred on Christ in a biblical way? This is a very old question for me.

As a young Christian I was very zealous for the Lord, but not always with understanding (Rom 10:2). The first church I attended was a traditional Pentecostal one; there was a half hour prayer meeting before the service, usually attended by 40 or so people, the services often went for two hours. People were keen to sit up the front near the preacher, everyone brought Bibles, there were many baptisms and inspiring testimonies etc. All this was great, and it was the place the Lord wanted me to be at that stage of my Christian journey. However, after I had been there for a couple of years I remember coming out of the service with a friend of mine, who’d become a Christian through my witness, and we spontaneously said to one another, “We come here Sunday by Sunday and say, ‘Praise the Lord, Hallelujah’ and we are not changed.” We had stopped growing as Christians. This was a shocking realisation at the time, but we didn’t know what to do about it! No-one was teaching us that worship wasn’t about the intensity or sincerity of our efforts to praise God but about growing in the life of Jesus as the one true worshipper. But before I go on to talk about Jesus the worshipper, I need to say a few things about the vocabulary of worship in the Bible.

In English, the word “worship” means recognising someone else’s worth and giving them due honour. So in a court room the judge has traditionally been addressed as, “your worship” or “your honour”. This is close to the biblical meaning of “worship”. Unfortunately, today the word “worship” immediately brings to mind people in church singing. This is not a proper biblical understanding of worship, for worship is about offering up the whole of life in service to God. One of the most important scriptures in the Bible about worship comes at the beginning of Romans 12; “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Rom 12:1). The “therefore” at the start of this exhortation means Paul is following on from his teaching in the first eleven chapters of Romans about “the power of the gospel”. Worship flows from out from the wonders of justification from sin, holiness over sin and a revelation of what it means to be chosen by God (chapters 4-11). An experience of gospel power is a precondition for transforming our lives so we can fittingly worship the Lord.  I know of many cases, including so-called “worship leaders”, turning up to church on a Sunday after a rather prayerless, or quite sinful, week thinking they can somehow “worship” God. They may have a high emotional experience during the congregational singing but that’s not worship.

An experience of gospel power is a precondition for transforming our lives so we can fittingly worship the Lord. 

Jesus spoke emphatically about the real character of worship; “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” (John 4:24). Since Christ understood himself to be the truth of the Father (John 14:6 compare Eph 4:21), the truth about worship must mean to worship the Father like Jesus did. Which was hardly to spend his life singing!

The focus in today’s churches on community singing as “worship” conforms to the dominant Old Testament pattern of devotion to God. This centred on acts of sacrifice at various holy sites especially the temple in Jerusalem. The theme of worship at, “the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there” (Deut 12:5, 11, 14, 18; Josh 9:27 etc.) is central to old covenant devotion. This can be expressed in touching language, “For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.” (2 Chron 7:16). Despite such wonderful promises from God, Old Testament worship is formal and ritualistic with patterns dependent on special times, places and gifted worship leaders (2 Sam 12:20; 2 Chron 20:18-19; 29:28-29). These old covenant patterns of worship have become obsolete because Jesus is now “the place” where God’s name and glory dwells (John 1:14). Christ is now the temple of the Lord (John 2:21), and in union with him God’s people are a spiritual dwelling place (1 Cor 3:16-17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21).

Jesus is now “the place” where God’s name and glory dwells

Sadly, sinful human beings continually revert to traditional ways of doing things, because they are manageable and predictable. It is much “safer” to have a church “service” controlled from up the front than to allow the Holy Spirit to run things. Rare is it to find a major Sunday church meeting where there is any space given to the Spirit to inspire God’s people in the way Paul describes, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or tan interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” (1 Cor 14:26). Since the gifts of the Spirit are an expression of the Lordship of Christ (1 Cor 12:3) they belong in regular corporate worship. There is no excuse for the abandonment of such gifts. When I started attending a Pentecostal church back in the 1970’s there was a space opened up each Sunday for prophecy, tongues, interpretation, words of wisdom and knowledge and so on (1 Cor 12:7-11). These things have been pushed out of gatherings by more and more time given to singing. I cringe when I visit a church and the pastor starts to speak of, “the house of God”, and he’s referring to the physical building. God’s house is his people (2 Cor 6:16); “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5).

At times I come across Christian groups obsessed with owning their own church buildings. Whilst there may be some practical advantages for this, the obsession certainly isn’t from the Lord. It seems easy for much of the contemporary Church to forget that for the first three centuries the people of God assembled in ordinary domestic homes (Acts 2:46; 16:40; Rom 16:3, 5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Philemon 1-2). Meeting in a home in the presence of Jesus is as godly as meeting with Jesus in a cathedral or megachurch. How have we come to miss these things and so often fall back into the traditions of men (Mark 7:8; Col 2:8)? There is only one answer, we have pushed Jesus out of the centre of worship. There’s a world of difference between coming together to worship Jesus, or God for that matter, and joining in Jesus’ own worship of the Father. I really appreciate the sentiment behind Matt Redman’s song The Heart of Worship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD4tB1o6YLw, especially given that it came out of losing a child. He is completely correct to say, “And it’s all about You, all about You, Jesus”. But I’m not at all sure he understands our worship is a share in the intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father.

Worship is a share in the intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father.

My framework for understanding the dynamics of worship was radically reoriented some decades ago when I attended a seminar by Professor James Torrance. He helpfully explained that there are two ways of understanding worship. The first and dominant approach to worship is that it is about what we do, it is our response to God. The second and much rarer understanding is that worship is sharing in what Jesus is doing in his worship of the Father. Worship isn’t about us, it’s about Jesus. True Christian worship doesn’t start with me, but in the perfect heart of love which the Son always had for the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Most Christians, probably because of teaching about baptism, grasp that we have been united with Jesus in his death and resurrection (Rom 6:1-4; Gal 2:20 etc.). But we fail to comprehend that we have been united with Jesus in all the aspects of his life and godliness. And since Jesus is a real human being he is the true and complete worshipper of God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. We can only conform to Paul’s command, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1), because Jesus has first “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14). His sinless offering makes our very flawed offerings in praise and thanksgiving acceptable to the Father. Christ is the one non-rebellious human being who has offered himself totally to God in worship. This sacrifice is “good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2); “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

We have been united with Jesus in all the aspects of his life and godliness.

Our worship is not simply parallel to Christ’s worship. We are truly united in the Spirit to Jesus’ eternal offering of himself to God in heaven.  This is what Peter means when he says, “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5). This has powerful implications for every Christian person. Years ago a respected brother suggested to me that I should sing more quietly and let those with beautiful voices take the lead. This of course was quite painful, so when I received an email from a brother saying he struggled to enter into the praise at church because, “my singing voice is dreadful”, I knew how he was feeling. However, it’s not about his feelings, my feelings or the feelings of our critics, it is about how the Father feels about Jesus. And since the Father is thrilled with Jesus and can never desire anything more than the passion and love offered him in Jesus, on our account, the Father is thrilled with our worship. No matter what it sounds like to human ears.  This is why I can enter into a delightful and powerful rhythm of singing to the Lord as I go out to pray on the streets each morning, and as I return home. I must confess that I don’t sing anywhere as much in the car as I used to, but perhaps part of the reason for that is my listening to the Bible on CD.

We are truly united in the Spirit to Jesus’ eternal offering of himself to God in heaven.

I have a close Christian friend who is very committed to the Lord. But he deeply struggles to participate in singing in church; it somehow doesn’t penetrate into his heart. At a theological level I think he suffers from a problem common to most of us. It is very easy to imagine Jesus as a human being as presented in the Gospels. Christ walking, talking, eating, suffering, dying. But when he ascended into heaven out of our sight we tend to think that his humanity was somehow absorbed into God. This is not biblical, Paul for example says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). The scriptures testify that Jesus continues to have a rich worshipping life at the right hand of God. To understand the essential nature of worship in Christ it will help us to look at the whole journey of his humanity as a worshipper in Spirit and truth, especially as it relates to his singing.

We first encounter Christ as a singer just after the Last Supper. “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 31 Then Jesus said to them…” (Matt 26:30-31). The Last Supper was a Passover meal which included special hymns known as the Hallel Psalms (“Praise” psalms). One of these is particularly powerful in the context of Jesus’ journey to the cross:

“The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.4 Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”….8 For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; 9 I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living….12 What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? 13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord….16 O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. 17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.” (Psalm 116:3-4, 8-9, 12-13, 16-17)

As Jesus heads out into the night, knowing he is soon to be arrested, tried and crucified, he sings with his disciples one of the great psalms of God’s faithfulness in delivering his servants from death. This Word of faith in his mouth gives strength to his heart to obey the Father. If the sacrifice of the cross itself was the ultimate act of worship the resurrection was the ultimate vindication of the faithfulness of God to those who worship in Spirit and truth. Jesus didn’t stop being a worshipper when he went to heaven. Paul applies David’s victory psalm to Jesus; “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the nations, and sing to your name.”” (Rom 15:8-9 from 2 Samuel 22:50, Psalm 18:49). As the triumph of the gospel of Christ extends through the world God receives praise through lives offered up to him (Rom 15:16; compare Phil 2:17; 2 Tim 4:6). This includes, but is not restricted to, singing.

If the sacrifice of the cross itself was the ultimate act of worship the resurrection was the ultimate vindication of the faithfulness of God

The scriptures teach us that Jesus goes on singing to his Father in the Church. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”” (Heb 2:10-12). The word translated “congregation” in Hebrews 2:12 is ecclesia  (ἐκκλησία) is the usual New Testament word for “church”. This means Jesus is singing the praise of God in the midst of the family of God today. The quotation in this passage from the Old Testament is drawn from Psalm 22:22. The first verse of this psalm was spoken by Jesus from the cross, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34). Following  Jesus’ experience of the suffering on the cross and the delivering power of God resurrection, he is found today in the Church speaking from heaven of what the Father has accomplished in his life. He is declaring the delivering power of his Father and ours whenever we meet together. Christ is singing through our singing. This is an essential part of “the testimony of Jesus” and the mystery of God.

Paul teaches, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col 3:16-17) The “word of Christ” is more than a word about Christ, it contains Jesus’ own living presence and his experience of victory over tribulation. Through the Lord and his assembled people singing along together the delivering power of God in the gospel is conveyed to the Church. In union with Jesus’ song the Spirit reveals the wisdom, goodness, victory etc. of God in the life of Christ. Jesus is declaring through our praises his Father’s victory, and by inspiration from heaven we declare this on earth to each other. In this way our hearts can be tremendously strengthened to go on obeying the Lord; that is, being living sacrifices which is our “spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1).

A friend of mine was working with a Christian non-government organisation some years ago in Afghanistan when it was ruled by the Taliban. One day the whole group were taken captive and imprisoned for 100 days for evangelising Moslems. Her team were released only when the Americans stormed the country after 9/11. In prison under conditions where death was a daily possibility the fear of the Lord and his holy presence were intensely real. The team grew spiritually and in boldness as they daily met to worship the Lord in praise and thanksgiving. This is like what we read about in Acts 16, “The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God” (vv.22-25). Worship in the context of suffering is a powerful testimony to Jesus. A proper biblical study of worship can reform the Church.

Hebrews tells us that Jesus is, “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a minister in the sanctuary” (8:1-2). It uses a word for “minister” (Greek leitourgos, λειτουργός ) that means someone who understands and leads in the service of God on behalf of others (Neh 10:39; Isa 61:6; Jer 33:21). In other words, Jesus is the “heavenly worship leader”. You will search in vain in the New Testament to find a ministry category called “music pastor”, or “worship minister”. There may be men and women gifted in the Spirit of God who inspire others to adore the Lord. David was for example was “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam 23:1), and the Levites performed a special function in the temple with musical instruments and song (1 Chron 15:16; 16:4; 25:6; 2 Chron 29:25-30). Our problem however is that we tend to turn such people into a new class of anointed priests who somehow are treated as having access to God beyond the rest of us. This is unbiblical and can be quite dangerous.

I remember being at a large conference in the city where the singing was led by a highly talented musician from one of the largest churches in Perth. After a while I noticed that all of the songs were about the intensity of our spiritual devotion and not one of them mentioned Jesus or his saving work. I said to the brother sitting next to me, “We need to get down on our knees and pray, the spirit of antichrist has taken over this meeting.” Around that time people started to do weird physical motions in response to the “worship”. Later I received several emails from mature Christians asking me to confirm that something spiritually strange had invaded the meeting. There is another dimension to worship that is often neglected.

Western culture is escapist, and some people go to church because they enjoy the “feel good” mood, especially in the singing. I was reading recently about a student revival in Ethiopia in the 1970’s when the country was under a communist dictatorship. The Spirit moved the young people to write their own songs, some of which were designed to help believers overcome the evils of secularism and Marxism. Why aren’t our contemporary song writers exhorting us to beware the temptations of pleasure seeking, materialism, greed and sex outside of marriage? How about prophetic songs about loving and forgiving one another and taking care of the poor? The contemporary Christian music scene needs to go through a spiritual reformation if it to empower believers to overcome the idols of this world. It’s no accident that the most musical book in   the New Testament is the book of Revelation. It is saturated with hymns or fragments of songs (Rev 4:8; 4:9–11; 5:9–10; 5:12; 5:13; 7:10; 7:11–12; 11:15; 11:16–18; 12:10–12; 15:2–4; 16:5–7; 19:1–4; 19:5; 19:6–8). This is a book written to a small persecuted Church oppressed by a powerful evil empire and in danger of compromise with idolatry. We need this sort of literature today as part of “the testimony of Jesus”.

I believe that there is a real “worship war”. Not between those conservative parts of the Church who want to stick with hymns and songs about the facts of the gospel and the more charismatic parts of Christianity who emphasise experience. But a war between worshipping “the creature rather than the creator” and worshipping God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. That is, worshipping in the mystery. Everyone’s a worshipper, it just depends on what or who we are worshipping. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to give us a greater share in the devotional life of Jesus. This is the place where we will find deep healing. The worship of the Father is drawn out of the heart of Jesus through a revelation of the wisdom, beauty, love of the plan of God to save the world through himself (Eph 1:10). May God grant us insight into such wonderful things and turn us into worshippers in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

The worship of the Father is drawn out of the heart of Jesus

 

9. The Wisdom of the Mystery

I will never forget my encounter with an Aboriginal prophet in the desert west of Perth in 1997. I had never seen him before, or since. As he prayed over me he correctly discerned that I was in a dark place carrying many burdens. But as he concluded his message, he predicted that in a few years the Lord would open a new door and give me “unparalleled wisdom”. This was a completely unexpected word, but something inside of me sensed it was true to the direction of God on my life. Since that time I have often prayed for “unparalleled wisdom”.

I remember a conversation about 1987 with theologian Graeme Goldsworthy about his book Gospel and Wisdom concerning how he was able to see the fulfilment of the Old Testament wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) in terms of the gospel. My reading in theological college struggled to fit these books into the covenant history of God with Israel. He answered my question wisely, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). I knew this had to be true, but at the time I certainly didn’t have the maturity or insight to live out its implications. It would be many years before I could receive the understanding that wisdom is a Person, the Son of God. Wisdom is at the very heart of the mystery of God in Christ and God does not make finding it easy.

         Wisdom is a Person, the Son of God.

Ultimately, the wisdom of God must be the way the Father has a plan for his Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have hints of this in the book of Proverbs, which begins with, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Prov 1:8).  Jesus’ submission to the ways of his Father is the essence of wisdom. Learning wisdom is learning the life of a S/son. This understanding of wisdom takes us back to what we have already seen about the will of God in eternity. That Jesus as the ransoming Lamb, “chosen before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet 1:20 compare Rev 13:8) is the embodiment of the wisdom of God. This is “a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor 2:7). “Hidden”, because it is, “in God” far beyond the reach of the human mind (Eph 3:9; Col 1:26), but even more so because the nature of the cross is the exact opposite to anything humans call “wisdom”. This can be true even of Christians.

I recall making a decision I believe was from the Holy Spirit to move my family from Victoria to Queensland to do my Ph.D., a distance of around 1500 kilometres. We had four small children and no ministry position or source of income in Brisbane and knew no-one there. I remember being offered a salaried position by the senior mister where I was working on the same level as himself, and a very distinguished academic offered to be my doctoral supervisor in Melbourne. In the natural there were no good reasons to leave, in fact one of the more respected leaders in the church came straight out and told me I was being “foolish” in putting my family at financial risk. (We saw him not so long ago). He’s a very wealthy man but has not grown in God because he has never understood that the wisdom of God will always involve risks. Someone else, one of the more prayerful people in the church, rang me shortly before we left and as she wept telling us that our journey would involve many tears. I simply replied that the Lord had indicated we should go. She probably did hear from God that our time in Brisbane would involve great suffering, which it did, but failed to understand such agonies can very well be the way of the wisdom of the cross.

Agonies can very well be the way of the wisdom of the cross.

The Lord however is unfailing in his goodness. As we went to say goodbye to one family, we were given a significant amount of money with the following explanation. “I have just been paid for a recent job and our business really needs the money. I was on my tractor and I felt God say, “Give the money to the Yates’s.” I really didn’t want to do it but here it is.”  By the time we reached Queensland the Lord had changed many things inside and outside my heart. If God’s wisdom leads you somewhere his grace will keep you in that place, no matter how tough things may be.

The wisdom in which God created the world was exceedingly wonderful. Proverbs 8 is one of my favourite passages in the Old Testament; “The Lord fathered me (wisdom) at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there….when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. (Prov 8:22, 27-31). God’s fathering through wisdom always has joy as the goal. But in this creation divine wisdom is contested.

From one angle the whole of the Bible is about the conflict between the goodness of God’s wisdom and the “wisdom” of evil. James speaks of a wisdom this is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist…” (3:15-16). The essence of this evil wisdom is always to put oneself first, take care of “number one” You can see this wisdom operating in Satan’s message to Eve in Eden. The temptation in Eden is all about what sort of wisdom will rule humanity.

The devil approaches Eve with an irresistible proposition about eating of the tree of knowledge, ““You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Gen 3:4-5). This temptation struck a deep chord in Eve, and later Adam, because they had been created in the “image and likeness of God” in order to rule over the whole creation (Gen 1:26-28). What Satan is proposing seems like a short cut to complete God-likeness and dominion, even over the power of death. If Adam and Eve had insight into the mystery of God’s plan in Christ, they would have truly understood that to be fully in the image of God and immortal was the Lord’s plan for humanity. This revelation was hidden from them at the time of their creation (1 Cor 2:7; Eph 3:9; Col 1:26) because what is “in God” is only revealed when he is feared and obeyed. The glory of the wisdom of God only comes into the open after submission to his revealed will. Adam and Eve sinned in Eden, and with them the whole human race (Rom 5:12-14) because they did not fear the Lord.

The devil deceived Eve (2 Cor 11:3) because he spoke with a voice of authority that contradicted everything their heavenly Father (Luke 3:38) had commanded. God had said if his creatures ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would die, but the rebellious serpent was very much a “living creature” (Gen 1:24-25). And in his assertion that God was lying about disobedience leading to death he spoke with a boldness (compare 2 Thess 2:4; Rev 13:5-6) that was very persuasive. It seemed that the serpent really did “know” from his own experience “good and evil” like God did. The wisdom of the devil always presents us with a plausible plan that seems to be to our own advantage, and in a limited sense it may be, but he completely lacks, “the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 9:10). Eve, and then Adam, were overwhelmed by the devil’s fearlessness before God.

The wisdom of the devil always presents us with a plausible plan that seems to be to our own advantage.

Let’s pause for a moment here to reflect more deeply on the depth of confusion into which Adam and Eve plunged in Eden. What guarantee did they have that the devil was not lying? And if, as the serpent insisted, God was a liar and they would become more like God through eating of the tree, surely that would mean they would also become liars. If they had been able to see clearly they would have seen that they were being enclosed in a circle of deception. But in refusing to submit to God’s word not to eat of the tree of knowledge they could no longer see clearly.

In accepting the satanic counsel as if it were true fatherly advice (John 8:44) and becoming children of the devil (Matt 13:38; 1 John 3:8, 12) there is now “no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3:18). In failing to fear God human beings have been handed over to utter foolishness, “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.” (Rom 1:23). Fallen human beings don’t just think and act foolishly, they are fools. “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”” (Ps 14:1; 53:1).

The height of our foolishness is to think that we are wise. God takes this matter very seriously, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! (Isa 5:21). This is one reason I find myself praying on most days that the Lord will give me the low place. All the wisdom writers warn us against being wise in our own eyes, for them this is the essence of foolishness (Prov 3:7; 12:15; 26:5, 12; 28:11; Rom 12:16). Why? Because those who are wise in their own understanding submit only to themselves. In the way they live life they have no heavenly Father or spiritual fathers and mothers. This is a very dangerous place to be, and unfortunately the society in which I live is getting more and more like that.

We all want to make something out of our own lives that we can be proud of, but when they played the popular song, “You are Amazing”, at my youngest son’s High School Graduation I was appalled.  Naturally speaking, races, nations, sports teams, individuals, denominations, churches, families and individuals find so many ways of telling themselves, “I am the greatest” (Isa 47:8; Zeph 2:15; 2 Thess 2:3; Rev 18:7). This is not “the meekness of wisdom” or the “wisdom from above” (James 3:13, 17) which pleases God.

We need to pay careful attention to the repeated exhortations of the wisdom writings; “And he said to humankind, ‘Truly the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28), “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the holy one is insight.” (Prov 9:10; cf. 1:7; 15:33), “The fear of the LORD is the goal (N.I.V. “beginning”) of wisdom; all those who practice it have good understanding.” (Ps 111:10).

These inspired men understood something that is easy to miss in the days of “Doctor Google.” God intentionally hides his wisdom from human sight; ““But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living…. From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air.…And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’” (Job 28:12-13, 21, 28 compare Isa 45:15). The importance of fearing God did not come from observing the natural state of the world, it was a revelation that true wisdom belongs only to the LORD. Men like Joseph and Daniel were truly wise because they credited their insight solely to the God of heaven (Gen 41:25, 39; Dan 2:19ff, 47). Godly wisdom will always point beyond itself.

God intentionally hides his wisdom from human sight

To understand that God hides his wisdom is a gift of insight. If Jesus could warn us, ““Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” (Matt 7:6), then surely his Holy Father is careful about opening up his treasures. This is not easy medicine to take.

I have often taught that God hides himself and have at times prayed out this key scripture in meetings, “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.” (Isa 45:15). People have criticised me for this testimony. But it is certainly true when we come to think about the hidden wisdom of the cross.

So far, I have largely referred to the Old Testament teaching about wisdom. Essential as this is it is necessarily incomplete. A striking example of the limited nature of old covenant wisdom is Solomon. Scripture testifies of the generosity of God towards Solomon in his request for wisdom, “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, 30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.” (1 Ki 4:29-30). Yet at the end of his reign Solomon was corrupted by his wives and became a worshipper of idols. God’s wrath fell upon this “wise man” and his kingdom (1 Ki 11). As distressing as this story is it is in scripture as a warning that success can make us forget the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 30:8-9). If perfect love casts out all fear of judgement (1 John 4:17-18), then perfect fear of judgement must cast out all deception. This points us to Jesus.

Success can make us forget the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

Isaiah was given a wonderful prophecy about the coming Messiah, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3  And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” (Isa 11:2-3). Delighting in fear may sound to us a strange combination, but it is the secret to the perfection of wisdom in Jesus.

Christ’s teaching broke open hidden things from heaven in a way that irresistibly drew to him those who were longing for “the treasures hidden in darkness” (Isa 45:3) and “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 13:11). The Lord’s public ministry is full of a unique prophetic wisdom; “Jesus…said nothing to them without a parable…to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”” (Matthew 13:34-35). And he went on to explain the sort of people who could receive his insights, ” he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.””(Luke 10:21). The arrogant of this world receive nothing from the Lord, but the little ones see more and more of the wise counsel of God. By the grace of God alone this is my experience; is it yours? Jesus promised to share his sort of wisdom with us; when we need it.

If you find yourself on trial for Jesus his testimony will shine through your testimony to him. ““they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”” (Luke 21:12-15).

This reminds me of the great wisdom God gave to an Australian friend of mine in a perilous situation. He had led many mission teams into China, but one day he and his team were all arrested for evangelising. They brought an expert down from Beijing to cross-examine him, “Why are you trying to make converts in China when you know it is against the law.” “I came to know Jesus through a Chinese man”, he said, which was true, “I owe so much to the Chinese people I want to repay them by sharing the good news about Christ.” His interrogators were totally speechless. Praise the Lord.

The wisdom which Jesus had in his teaching ministry was unmatched, but it was not yet perfected. This would require the total submission of the cross. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,” (Heb 5:8-9). No one at the time possessed the wisdom to understand what must happen to Jesus for God’s wise plan to reach its fulfillment.

“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”” Jesus immediately understood the demonic nature of the worldly wisdom which was operating through Peter, ““But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.””” (Matthew 16:21-23). The cross represents the ultimate scandal to all who consider themselves wise in this world (1 Cor 1:18-25). “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor 2:7-8). Sometimes I see blindness coming upon those who are revered in the Church.

Some years ago a group of men and women describing themselves as apostles and prophets called the pastors and leaders of the Church in Perth to come together under their banner. I attended their first meeting and listened with interest. I was however quite bothered by the way the group saw themselves as especially influential in the city. After each had spoken in turn, they opened the floor up for comments. The first person up was an aged pastor-teacher friend of mine who called us to repentance. His comments were soon dismissed because confession of sin was already being practiced. Then I sensed I needed to say something, which proved to be even less well received than the previous speaker. I remarked that something seemed very much out of order in the spiritual realm when not one of the leaders had mentioned God the Father even once. How was it possible to be a spiritual father/mother to the Church in the city without following the leading of the Father? It’s impossible and despite many efforts this group’s efforts have not progressed.  Interestingly, when I sat down one of the younger pastor’s sitting next to me said, “You aren’t afraid of anything.” This of course isn’t true, but “knowing the fear of the Lord” (2 Cor 5:11) I always pray in advance of any meeting to be faithful in sharing the testimony of Jesus. Sharing what I think I can hear the Spirit saying to the Church (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). This approach has not made me popular.

Let’s return to the perfection of the wisdom of God in the cross. In being crucified Jesus became part of a long tradition where the enemies of the Lord, wise in their own eyes, mocked the messenger of God (Job 17:2; Ps 22:7; 35:16; Prov 19:28; Jer 20:7 etc; Mark 15:16-20, 26-30). Though compassionate toward his persecutors (Luke 23:27-31, 34), the mockery of the multitude and their leaders had no impact upon Christ’s obedience to the will of God. Having prayed in Gethsemane, ““Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:36), his submission was complete. And Jesus knew by faith that his submission to the hidden will of God would bring the Father’s glory and goodness out into the open. The writer to the Hebrews had insight into these things, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).

Jesus knew by faith that his submission to the hidden will of God would bring the Father’s glory and goodness out into the open.

At the peak of the sufferings of Jesus’ sufferings and forsakenness (Mark 15:34), the wisdom of the plan of God was completely hidden even from the Son of God. This hiddenness of wisdom is an essential part of the wisdom of God in Christ and sets Christ-centred wisdom apart from much Old Testament wisdom and the practical wisdom invading much of the Western Church. Sections of the Book of Proverbs (Prov 22:17-24:22) can be paralleled in ancient Egyptian literature with its common-sense sayings. But there is nothing like the death of God for sinners outside of the pages of scripture. Which is why it’s folly and not wisdom to run churches as if they are businesses. I remember being shocked when I visited a pastor in his office and the journal he had in plain view on top of all others was the Harvard Business Review. No one can come into the light of the resurrection without passing through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23:4).

there is nothing like the death of God for sinners outside of the pages of scripture

Through resurrection the wisdom of God that suffering precedes glory comes into open view (Luke 24:26). It is the resurrection that reveals how much Jesus’ suffering meant to the Father. Proverbs rightly testifies that submission gladdens a father’s heart; “My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad.” (Prov 23:15 compare 10:1;15:20;23:24; 27:11). It was the joy of the Father which so powerfully raised Jesus from the dead and vindicated his sacrificial way of wisdom (Heb 12:2). The gospel is an open publication of the wisdom of God that submission leads to glory. This means that in every crisis of life we can learn the way of the cross that leads to God’s glory.

It is the resurrection that reveals how much Jesus’ suffering meant to the Father.

After almost 20 years fathering missions in India a fire engulfed the print shop of William Carey (1812) causing £10,000 in damages ($7m dollars in today’s value). It destroyed dictionaries, grammar books, sets of type for 14 eastern languages, and whole versions of the Bible. With great maturity, Carey said, “The loss is heavy, but as traveling a road the second time is usually done with greater ease and certainty than the first time, so I trust the work will lose nothing of real value . . . ‘We are cast down but not in despair’.”   His quote from 2 Corinthians 4:8 reveals he was a man who understood the wisdom of the gospel and that in everything God was working the fruit of the cross into his life.  In fact, news of the devastating fire brought Carey’s mission work a new profile and released greater funds and more volunteer labour.  The wisdom of the cross and the power of the resurrection are the wisdom and power of the gospel.

The wisdom of the cross and the power of the resurrection are the wisdom and power of the gospel.

A great praying friend of mine used to love quoting this part of Proverbs. “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; ⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” (Prov 24:3-4). Whilst this may be about family life, it is ultimately a statement about how God builds both his first creation and the new creation in Christ. Paul never boasted of his exploits, but he could openly testify, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.” (1 Cor 3: 10). Over the decades I have seen many Christian ventures come and go. Some of which I launched myself. Many have collapsed through division, immaturity or immorality. Only a Christ-shaped wisdom brings security in ministry.

Only a Christ-shaped wisdom brings security in ministry.

Everyone will acknowledge that God always builds through his own wisdom, and many that the Church desperately needs God’s wisdom today. Far fewer can accept that the shape of the wisdom of God is the life of Jesus. Death-and-resurrection experiences in the service of Jesus are the substance of the wisdom of God through which he builds a house that will stand (Matt 7:24-27). Paul was one that thoroughly understood such things,

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.” (2 Cor 4:7-12).

Because following Jesus is both glorious and difficult many Christian leaders struggle to accept the Lord’s way of wisdom.

Derek Prince was a well-known Pentecostal teacher of another generation. I remember him visiting Australia and teaching on the cross at a time when a high-profile American pastor had been exposed for sexual immorality. As Prince put it, there will be a time in everyone’s life and ministry when the Lord will ask them to place on the altar of sacrifice what they value most. Much like Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his beloved Son Isaac (Gen 22). Sometimes the Lord will put a vision to death, and then raise it, as was the case with Isaac, who was a type of Christ’s death and resurrection (Heb 11:17-19). But sometimes he will just take the vision away. This has happened to me many times and I hope I no longer have a desire to “hold onto” anything.

As a young Christian I was approached by my honours supervisor about doing a Ph.D. in biology. This was something close to my heart as I wanted to prove to everyone I was “smart”. I really wanted to achieve at the highest level to cover over my embarrassment at having to do my final year of high school twice. But even while my supervisor was asking me to consider this pathway, even before I had space to pray, I could sense the Holy Spirit saying this direction was not God’s will and I had to surrender it. This was very painful. Such pain came back some years later after I had finished my doctorate in theology and had been in pastoral ministry for several years.  There were lots of tensions between me and the senior minister and a full-time lecturing position came up in my old theological college in Melbourne which I confidently thought I would get if I applied. This would fulfil an ambition I had held for many years. But as I prayed over this, I could sense the Lord blocking this pathway, but for no obvious reasons at the time. I obeyed God by faith alone.

Many sincere believers can never let go of what they believe God has called them to when in fact it is only a personal ambition. I’ve known sincere men who were convinced that they were called to “make money for God” but ended up bankrupt. People have told me they are apostles or prophets, but only through suffering did they finally realise this was their own personal ambition.  I recall a zealous believer coming to speak with me and the principal of the theological college where I was lecturing in order to test his call. His heart was totally set on becoming a “senior pastor”. We gently tried to correct him, affirming he would make a good assistant minister but we didn’t see the gifting in his life to take on the senior responsibility. He cried quite a lot over our counsel because it hurt him very deeply, but he refused to believe we had God’s wisdom in his life. He did end up senior pastor of a church, and it was a complete disaster.

There is a lot of popular teaching across the Body of Christ which when put to the “Jesus test” sadly proves to be bad teaching. I tend to avoid controversies unless I am directly asked to comment on a situation. Some months ago a pastor in the city asked me to look at Bill Johnson’s (Bethel Church) teaching on Jesus as “perfect theology”. The English word “theo-logy” comes for the Greek words theos = God and logos = word. Since Jesus is the Word of God and Jesus is perfect then by definition Christ must be “perfect theology” (John 1:1-14). But what do Bill Johnson and others mean by “perfect”.

Since Jesus is the Word of God and Jesus is perfect then by definition Christ must be “perfect theology”

In commenting on Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians 12 Bill Johnson said that those commentators who considered his “thorn” to be some sort of physical affliction were teaching “another gospel”. This is a serious charge, for Paul uses this expression to refer to false teachers who are not true to the message of Christ (Gal 1:6-7). Paul places such people under a curse (Gal 1:8). Johnson’s authority for rejecting the possibility that Paul’s thorn could be an illness comes from his position that Jesus never taught or modelled that God could afflict his children in this way. Where is the wisdom in this debate? Given the Bible’s counsel to “test everything” we must look closely at the passage under discussion.

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Cor 12:7-9).

The first thing to notice is that Paul remarks that a thorn “was given”. This is an example of what is called the divine passive. Someone is placed under a certain condition because of the action of God. For example, on the road to Emmaus, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16 compare Luke 9:45; 18:34). This means the thorn, whatever it was, comes through an action of God. Apparently God allowed the devil to afflict the apostle in some painful way. Then he received an explanation for his sufferings, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” The perfection of power is the perfection of Jesus’ presence in Paul’s life. This means that the Lord Jesus was intensifying his power in Paul in the same way as his Father’s power had been perfected in his own life. This was through the sufferings of the cross. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering….Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb 2:10; 5:8-9).

Bill Johnson is correct in saying Jesus didn’t model perfection through God ordained suffering. Jesus is far more than a “model” of such things, he is the foundational spiritual reality.  He is perfection through suffering. Many popular preachers today fail to understand the cross-shaped wisdom of God. Does this mean that every Christian person must have a “thorn in the flesh”? I’m not sure about that but I believe I have one.

The perfection of power is the perfection of Jesus’ presence in Paul’s life.

Some years ago, there were lots of problems in the leadership of a church where I was pastoring. Amongst them were serious differences concerning the nature of my ministry. I tried to convince the leadership God was calling me to a more prophetic role in the city, but they wanted to keep me as a pastor. So eventually we called in a well-known prophet for divine wisdom.  Here is part of what he said to me, “there is an anointing going to come down on you and you shall speak fire and the fire you shall speak shall burn in the hearts of the people. Thus saith the Lord, “Some shall say it is true and they will turn their hearts and they shall repent, and behold others shall shout and say “no” and they shall want to stone you for the things you shall speak……..O you’re going to get into trouble but he’s going to love you for it. But he says, “don’t worry, it’s not you.” He did it, they’ll only blame you but He did it!” Six months later everything this man said came to pass in a near riot in a Sunday church meeting in response to some of my preaching.  Someone stood to his feet passed a negative comment and walked out, others joined him, people were breaking down crying, another man stood and loudly shouted with his finger pointed at me, “You’re in ministry for the money, for the house, for the car”. I could describe more, but it was dreadful.

To make a long story short, I have never fully recovered from this particular incident. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder I haven’t enjoyed a sound night’s sleep for about 25 years.  I’ve had lots of prayer for this and a couple of really helpful interventions by the Lord, but he has never told me I will be fully healed of this trauma. I see it as a “thorn in my flesh” which keeps me humble and God-dependent. I am far from morally blameless but with such an affliction it’s very hard to be self-confident. Most mornings I wake up early like a zombie, but when I go out on the streets to pray the Lord speaks with me again and again. This is wonderful and it’s a constant testimony to my heart of the goodness of the wisdom of God. I have been stripped of idol after idol so that I might, like Paul, accept that the “one thing” (Phil 3:13-14) the Lord has for us that is infinitely better than all else is himself. When we accept the wisdom of God may be to allow painful trials in our lives so we keep growing in him through the pain other Christians can see Christ shining more brightly through us.

“One thing” the Lord has for us that is infinitely better than all else is himself.

It is no accident that many spiritual giants have had long term suffering in their lives. People like the pioneer missionary David Brainerd who died slowly of tuberculosis, the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon and his persistent depression, the Catholic saint Mother Teresa and her darkness of the soul, my friend Geoff Bingham and his war wound, the Argentine evangelist and promoter of Christian unity, Ed Silvoso, and his chronic illness, and so on. In the world’s eyes such suffering is useless, but in the eyes of God it contains the pearl of great price, the wisdom of the way to share in the sufferings of Jesus (Phil 3:10; Col 1:24). The Church of God needs always to hold fast to the wisdom of God revealed in Christ. She is the agency for the revelation of this glorious wisdom in the world (Eph 3:10).

If the Bible story is really a story about two competing wisdoms, the wisdom of God and the wisdom of evil, we need to pay close attention to how this conflict ends. The book of Revelation is written with the precise purpose of encouraging the afflicted children of God to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Responses to the book of Revelation seem to swing between two extremes, I know Christians who have never read it, thinking it is too hard to understand or two “scary”. Others have become obsessed with what they see as the predictions in the book about the Second Coming of Jesus. When I was a new Christian a book by an American author Hal Lindsey was very popular, it was called, The Late Great Planet Earth. It has sold over 28 million copies, but it is definitely not a book I can recommend. It predicted that the Russians and Chinese would invade the Middle East and that Jesus would most likely return in 1988. The book terrified me, but it has obviously proved false, not primarily because its predictions are wrong but because the Bible isn’t about predictions, it’s about Jesus.

At the time Revelation was written the apostle John was part of a small persecuted Church in danger of being overwhelmed by the might of the Roman Empire. The people of God are under great tribulation (Rev 1:9; 2:9, 10; 7:14), threatened by supernatural powers in the form of dragons and beasts (Rev 12-13) and a Great Prostitute “drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev 17:6). The biggest threat was false teaching from within the Church (Rev 2:14-15, 20-23). Only by the impartation of a holy wisdom could God’s people survive and grow through “the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world” (Rev 3:10).

To inspire such wisdom God gave to John what I think is the most awesome intense vision of Jesus in the scriptures.   John had been an intimate friend of Jesus during his life on earth, he is called “the disciple whom Jesus loved” sitting next to Jesus (in Greek, “reclining on Jesus’ bosom”)” (John 13:23). Like the other apostles he had encountered Jesus after his resurrection (John 20-21). But when Jesus is revealed to John in all his ascended glory all this familiarity ends. He recounts,

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. 19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.” (Revelation 1:17-19).

The book of Revelation was therefore written in an atmosphere of awesome holy fear and great assurance (compare Isa 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-10; Acts 9:1-18).

Only in an end-times atmosphere of the intense presence of God in Christ can the Church fully function in the wisdom of the Lord. Those who daily live in this spiritual climate of the great things of God will press in repeatedly to the Lord for the gift of unparalleled wisdom. Sadly, too may believers struggle to receive the promise in James, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” (1:5). Revelation is a book that can help us understand that our Father enjoys being asked by his children for more wisdom.

Only in an end-times atmosphere of the intense presence of God in Christ can the Church fully function in the wisdom of the Lord.

The exhortation, ““Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”” (Rev 14:7), is a message addressed to us. The more we have a holy fear the greater our openness to receive heavenly wisdom. It is not by accident that the angelic command, ““Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.”” (Rev 19:5), appears immediately before the passage on the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-9). A faithful Bride will submit to her Husband “in the fear of Christ” (Eph 5:21) so that she might hear from him and grow through wisdom to be more like him. A holy Church appreciates deeply that in the mystery of God “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are hidden in Christ (Col 2:2-3). A pure Church knows such protected treasures can only be accessed through reverence. For me, the high point of Revelation in encouraging the quest for wisdom comes in chapter 5.

The more we have a holy fear the greater our openness to receive heavenly wisdom.

“Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne ha scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, 4 and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slaughtered, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.” (Revelation 5:1-7).

The Lamb is Jesus, his “standing” is a symbol of resurrection, and his “slaughter” a symbol of the cross. In a few words we have concentrated the central message of the New Testament; for the content of the gospel is victory through sacrifice. This is the eternal wisdom at the heart of the plan of God which in the End will triumph totally over all evil powers. But John has more to see and hear of the revelation of Jesus.            

“Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!”” (Revelation 5:11-12).

The host of heaven cannot mean that the Lamb standing in heaven and ruling the universe can personally gain more wisdom, his wisdom is already limitless.  What they want to see is the wisdom of God’s way in the Lamb, the way of the Father with the Son, recognised and released more and more in the universe. This must be our earnest prayer. That whatever the cost, through the Church the “wisdom of God in its rich variety” (Eph 3:10) may spread into all the dimensions of life and culture. Now and forever. Amen.

                      The content of the gospel is victory through sacrifice.

 

10. Disciplined into the Mystery

Australians are people who pride themselves on an easy-going attitude. Unfortunately, this approach to life has a negative impact on the Church; especially in the area of “spiritual disciplines”. The average Australian Christian no longer attends church weekly, rates of Bible reading have gone down and down, and many sincere believers struggle to find solid time for prayer. A lack of personal self-discipline is a symptom of something far deeper. We are not submitting to the discipline of God in our lives. One of my favourite texts in this area is Hebrews 12:5-11,

“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6   For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and punishes every son whom he receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits land live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

This is a passage that I have used countless times in my mentoring conversations with men who are wanting to grow in Christ. I have found this passage so valuable because it deals directly with God’s discipline. Before expounding on this subject let me say what discipline is and is not. God’s discipline must not be confused with anger or wrath. While human parents may punish their children because they are angry the heavenly Father is never wrathful towards us, because we are “in Christ”. Hebrews 12 is a statement about receiving the wisdom of the Lord. The first two verses are a quote from Proverbs, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, 12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” (3:11-12). This is powerful language, God’s discipline on our lives is a sign of his favour and acceptance rather. When our Father in some ways causes us pain this is a sign of his love, not his rejection. He doesn’t enjoy our suffering, but many times pain is for our good and true love always seeks the highest good. Jesus could say, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline” (Rev 3:19). I soon learned as a high school teacher that the students understood fair discipline was for their good, it was the teachers that never disciplined them that they didn’t respect.

The heavenly Father is never wrathful towards us, because we are “in Christ”.

Human beings have always struggled to believe that God’s discipline is good for them. Adam and Eve in Eden were put under a discipline through being prohibited from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). They sinned because they wanted to break free of the boundary the Lord placed on their lives. The goodness of divine discipline is well understood in the Old Testament. “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word…. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” (Ps 119:67, 71). Through tough discipline Israel confesses her past wrongs, ““You disciplined me like an unruly calf, and I have been disciplined. Restore me, and I will return, because you are the Lord my God. 19 After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.”” (Jer 31:18-19). The most intimate setting of discipline is in marriage. The Lord as a jealous Husband disciplines Israel as his Wife; ““For this reason I will fence her in with thornbushes. I will block her path with a wall to make her lose her way. 7 When she runs after her lovers, she won’t be able to catch them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’” (Hos 2:6-7). One discipline passage has even become a famous text for revival,

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn;  he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:1-3)

The discipline of God, though difficult to receive, always brings forth good fruit.

Not to discipline children, natural or spiritual, is a sign of laziness and proof the parents don’t really believe in the discipline of the Lord. There are several disastrous examples of this in the Old Testament. Eli the High Priest knew his sons were stealing from the offerings to God and having sex with the women at the sanctuary, but he did nothing to stop them (1 Sam 2-3). God was deeply offended and allowed the Philistines to conquer Israel and capture the ark (1 Sam 2:30). In the next generation the prophet Samuel was aware his sons took bribes and corrupted justice. He did nothing (1 Sam 8:1-5). Finally, from the time that the great king David refused to punish his oldest son for rape (2 Sam 13:21) his whole life turned into chaos. Whenever discipline was withheld God’s judgement followed.

I recall an encounter with a well-liked pastor. I had to challenge him to step outside of a “nice” middle class approach to conflict. He was managing things in an agreeable way so that no-one felt hurt. He did indeed repent of his, “niceness” and has had more authority in ministry ever since.

There is in the Old Testament a thread which leads us to Jesus. First, Moses sums up God’s ways with Israel through the wilderness years in terms of a father-son relationship, “Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.” (Deut 8:5-6). Later, God makes a promise about a son of David, the Messiah. “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.” (2 Sam 7:14-16). The fulness of this promise comes in Jesus who the New Testament identifies as this Son of David (Acts 13:23; Rom 1:3; Heb 1:5). If Jesus was sinless (Heb 4:15) why did he need to be disciplined? The shortest  answer is, for us.

The Father never disciplined Jesus because he was under the penalty of sin, but to grow him into an ever-deeper submission and holy life.

“God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many sons into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. 11 So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters…. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb 2:10-11; 5:7-9).

Jesus was always in the image of God, but he had taken on a fallen nature like ours (John 1:14; 1Tim 3:16). Only when this nature had been destroyed (Rom 8:3) and purified could the full glory of the Father shine through the humanity of the Son of God. This was what the universe was predestined for.

The truth about how the Father matured Jesus applies to us. The more we are disciplined and submit the more we become like Christ and the more we reflect the glory of God. It is because the Father can see his likeness in us in Christ, that he disciplines us. “If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” (Heb 12:8). Paul, who suffered so greatly under the hand of God in following Jesus understood life is about growing in glory, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:17-18). The writer to the Hebrews calls this growing glory, “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (12:11). Discipline is a tremendous encouragement because it is a sign we will not be “condemned along with the world” (1 Cor 11:32).

  The more we are disciplined and submit the more we become like Christ

Our Hebrews 12 passage contains a unique and wonderfully tender expression, “Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.” (12:9-10). Human fathers give very imperfect discipline. My dad, whose own father died when he was four, did his best to discipline me but at times he made some big mistakes. I remember being very small, before school age, being chased down the passage to my room where I was hit by my father. For something I didn’t actually do wrong! This gave me a very warped understanding of fatherhood and I lived after that with a terror of fatherly punishment. Our heavenly Father never makes such mistakes because he is “the Father of spirits” (Heb 12:9). As our creator (Ps 139) and our “Holy Father” (John 17:11) he knows us intimately and can never be abusive towards us in a way that would crush our spirits. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Ps 34:18). We have all been damaged by the sinful disciplining of our earthly fathers, or authority figures, even by church leaders who threaten, bully, manipulate (1 Pet 5:1-6).  Without revelation from heaven we can never fully open our hearts to the discipline of the Father. Such revelation of God’s safe heart for us comes only through the cross.

Without revelation from heaven we can never fully open our hearts to the discipline of the Father

The prophet Isaiah speaks of Jesus’ suffering on the cross in this way, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed…. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.” (Isa 53:5, 10). Because Jesus was crushed under the weight of God’s wrath on our sin, we need never fear the Father’s hand will crush us. Through the terrible cry taken in our place, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34), we know the Father will never abandon us. No matter how strong his discipline may be. Paul’s, “we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself”, did not lead to hopelessness but to a greater share in Christ’s resurrection power (2 Cor 1:8-11). Spiritual maturity depends on accepting and applying the wisdom of divine discipline. This can require some discernment.

I recall a few of us counselling a devoted Christian brother who was going through a hard time. After advising him to look for what the Lord was doing in his situation he testified with deep humility, “I’ve been trying to resist the devil, but it’s actually God’s purpose I have been resisting.” How can we tell the difference between the purposes of Satan to destroy us and the purpose of our Father to mature us? The answer is simple, but it does depend on prayer and some knowledge of the scriptures. If your struggles are leading you towards Jesus then the Holy Spirit is at work, if they are somehow leading you away from Jesus you need to ask the Lord to deliver you from the deception of the devil. The discipline of God is wonderful, but it’s sometimes not well understood, even by pastors.

If your struggles are leading you towards Jesus then the Holy Spirit is at work

A little while ago I was catching up with a senior Christian leader in the city who mentioned the difficulty in forming spiritual sons who stick with you as their father-in-God. This man has a reputation for treating his staff harshly, but I sensed that wasn’t what he needed to hear at the time. Instead I told him that if we apply godly discipline to men’s lives from the beginning of our relationship with them the bond will last. After all, Jesus’ first words to his disciples were, ““Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Mark 1:17-18). To follow Jesus meant to leave behind the security of this world. In order for me to exercise the distinct ministry to which I have been called the Lord has had to disciple me strongly.

In the midst of the 7 Days of Prayer in January 1994 an old prophet came up to me and grasped my right hand saying, “This is the Word of God”. Then he seized my left hand, “This is the Spirit of God.”. Then he brought my two hands together prophesying, “The Lord is going to bring his Spirit and his Word together in your life.” This was an exciting word and one I immediately harmonised with in my heart. But then for quite a long time he went on and on…about how God would discipline me. He even said the Lord would “sit on me”. The first part of the prophecy was easy to take, the second much more difficult to accept. But believing it was of God I submitted to it in prayer. Has God disciplined me strongly as the prophet declared? Definitely. I could list incidents of betrayal by trusted friends, being asked to resign for reasons which were unreasonable (the lead elder of that church later asked for my forgiveness), the riot which led my post traumatic stress and so on. By the grace of God these trials have led me closer to Jesus, which is what it’s all about. If I hadn’t been so strongly disciplined by my Father, I would never be able to father others. Which I keep doing as the Lord sends folk to me to help in Christ.

In closing this chapter, I need to reflect a little on shame. I think shame is the root obstacle to becoming a mature Church that understands and administers godly discipline. The judgement of God on Adam and Eve meant handing them over to the loss of his fatherly glory. This is why they felt shame between themselves and were afraid in his presence (Gen 3:7-8). Shame has become central to the human story. Shaming people is the most common form of discipline. People are always trying to do something to get rid of their shame, their sense of not being all they could be. Whether it’s by gathering possessions and university degrees, dulling shame through drugs, alcohol and sex or religious observances, sporting achievements, looking good on social media etc., a huge amount of human energy is spent in seeking honour in the place of shame. I see this very often in the Church when men boast of their titles, the size of their congregations, the number of countries around the world in which they have ministered and so on. Where there is sin there is shame.

Jesus takes away all our shame by making us blameless and so shameless in him (Eph 1:4; Phil 1:10; 2:15; Col 1:22; 1 Thess 3:13; 5:23; Jude 24; Rev 14:5). When Jesus spent time with tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, lepers and poor people he was spending time with the shamed people of his society. And in constantly talking to them about his “Father” he was showing them, that through him, “God is not ashamed to be called their God” (Heb 11:16). It is the power of the cross which dissolves our fear of being shamed. In the wisdom of God Jesus must die like a Gentile outside the city (Heb 13:12) and under the curse of the law (Gal 3:13). In our place Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2). All this for his great achievement in bringing us into the family of God, “God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many sons into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. 11 So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters” (Heb 2:10-11).

Jesus takes away all our shame by making us blameless and so shameless in him

If you know Jesus as Lord and Saviour God is proud to be your Father. The discipline of God on our lives can be dreadfully difficult, but its fruit is always sweet. This is my testimony, because it is surely the testimony of Jesus. Praise the Lord.

 

 

11. The Mystery of the Word of God

There are various ways of understanding the expression, “Word of God”. Most commonly in churches “Word of God” means the Bible. In the Anglican tradition, to which I presently belong, after each Bible reading we hear, “This is the word of the Lord”. But the scriptures themselves testify that the Word of God is essentially a Person, Jesus. This is particularly clear in the writings of the apostle John.

The Word of God is essentially a Person, Jesus.

John sets this out at the start of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son4 from the Father, full of grace and truth…. grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:1-3, 14, 17). In John’s Gospel, the foundation of the world is found in the Word of God, who would come as Jesus. In the book of Revelation John identifies the completing of God’s plan for the world in terms of the return of the same Word, Jesus.

In the context of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, John has a vision.

“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and min righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” (Rev 19:11-16).

It is as the Word of God that Jesus is, ““the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”” (Rev 22:13). As God created this world through the speaking of his Word, the repeated, “God said” of Genesis (1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26), so he will bring the present form of this fallen world to an End with the return of the Word.

The How and Why of all things can only be known through God’s Word. Or, to put the same truth in a different way, through Jesus as revealed in the scriptures. This is why it’s impossible to exaggerate the importance of knowing and speaking God’s Word. Since I came to Christ through reading the Bible this was something I deeply devoted to from the beginning. And it was strongly encouraged by the first church I attended, a traditional Pentecostal congregation. The pastors always preached from the Bible and it was expected the whole congregation would follow the sermon by bringing their own Bibles with them. This was not an empty religious tradition but a genuine sign of a move of God in our midst. I was so committed to the scriptures that I made my own summary of them by hand, wrote out many verses so I could memorise them, taped my own voice reading verses I wanted to know off by heart etc. Things have drastically changed in churches however in the last forty years.

About five years ago a survey conducted by the Bible Society showed Bible reading in Australia had reached crisis levels. Only 19% of church attendees reading the Bible daily or on most days, 12% read the Bible a few times a week, 5% once a week, 27% occasionally and 37% hardly ever or never! There are lots of possible explanations for this, including busyness, a movement away from text to image, rejection of authority and so on. These social factors are real, but I think there are much deeper spiritual reasons. The first has to do with an obsession with what “works”.

Many Christian leaders think that if any strategy gets more people into church it must be a good and true thing. It has become popular in some church circles to darken the sanctuary and to use coloured lights and smoke machines during the singing. I call these “nightclub churches”. In these churches there is a much higher expectation that people with have a spiritual encounter during “worship” than through the exposition of the Bible. I was rather shocked to hear recently that one of the pastors of a very large church in our city never takes a Bible into the pulpit with him.

I am not talking about liberal churches. We are talking about denominations and congregations who would affirm the scriptures as the primary authority given to us by God for all matters of faith and conduct. Which brings me back to what I believe is the foundational cause of the decline of Bible reading in the Western Church. People are not hearing the Lord speak to them through the scriptures. The King James Version of Proverbs 29:18 reads, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”. This has become popular where the pastor wishes to set the tone by his/her “vision” for the church. However modern translations correctly read this proverb as saying, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint”. In other words, disorder in the Church, and falling away from Bible reading is one important example, is a sign that people are not hearing God for themselves. There can be no revival in scripture knowledge without the Spirit revealing to us the “prophetic vision” of “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:4; 20:4). The Bible isn’t just a story about God, it is God telling his own story in Christ. The Bible holds together as one precious book because Jesus unfailingly testifies about himself through the scriptures. Not to understand this is a very serious matter.

The Bible isn’t just a story about God, it is God telling his own story in Christ.

With embarrassment, I remember sending a letter to Geoff Bingham asking him to comment about a popular technique doing the rounds of the Church. Some influential leaders of larger churches had gathered other pastors together to talk about “territorial spirits” and “spiritual mapping”. The details are not important to note, but I sent a letter to Geoff seeking his theological perspective. Even though I had decided that this approach was unbiblical by the time his reply arrived, I will never forget the rebuke. He begun by saying he was surprised that a “theologian” like myself was even giving any space to consider this material. But his final words about the “influential pastors” spoke to me deeply as bitter truth. “They are not men of the Word”. I would have to say this has proven to be true, not only about those who had become intoxicated with a strategy about spiritual warfare but about many other popular Christian leaders. Let me use an example that came up in a Bible study just yesterday.

We were discussing the Sabbath and how the coming of Jesus moves us from the Old Testament Law of Moses to grace upon grace (John 1:16-17). A visitor started to share how in his church the small group leaders are required to work through the pastor’s sermon notes from the previous Sunday. They are not free to openly disagree with the pastor’s teaching. This direction isn’t that unusual, but it is deeply unbiblical. For a start, it means that instead of dealing directly with the inspired text of the Bible the group reads scripture through the filter of the pastor’s understanding. In practice the pastor has set himself up as a “little pope”, an infallible interpreter of the meaning of the Bible for the church. Scripture itself holds up the Holy Spirit as the only infallible interpreter (John 14:26).

Then our visitor felt free enough to share an example of the pastor’s teaching which he thinks is wrong. In the Old Testament a storehouse associated with the temple was to receive the people’s tithes and offerings (Mal 3:10). The leaders at our visitor’s church insist that the local church is the spiritual storehouse which must receive the financial giving of the people.  Nothing like this teaching appears in the New Testament.  My point here isn’t about tithing, but that such teaching has left out the key to understanding all the scriptures, Jesus. He is the fulfilment of all the practices associated with law and temple in the Old Testament, and in him the Church is the new temple of God (John 2:21; 1 Cor 3:16). This is a very simple illustration of how in practice many professing Bible-believing churches are not true to the centrality of Christ. “Tithing” churches will not receive kindly criticism of their teaching because to question their assured “income stream” will expose their insecurity. Such insecurity is a sign of building on a foundation other than Jesus (1 Cor 3:11). We need always to go back to scripture seeking Christ.

The Bible is our authority because the Bible centres on Christ. As a young Christian I will never forget the response to my asking a scriptural question of our senior pastor. Lots of people were afraid of this man. I asked him how he reconciled the practice in our church of speaking and singing in tongues without interpretation with the prohibition of this practice in scripture (1 Cor 14:6-23). He gave me a Christless non-biblical reply. “Visitors to the church like it.”  I knew straightaway that the pastor and not the Bible was the real authority in that church. I knew then my days there were numbered.

Never be afraid to question church leaders when they deviate from scripture. Some years ago I was a congregational member in a church which had a very caring assistant pastor. But after a while I noticed that his vocabulary in preaching was unfaithful to, “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Words like “wrath”, “judgement”, “hell”, “perishing”, “eternal punishment” and so on, he never used. But Jesus did. When I raised this with him by email, and then in person, he broke down in tears of repentance. He was a man of God who valued the testimony of Jesus. Only if we have a passion for Jesus as revealed in scripture can we be sure that we are growing in the truth of the Word.

The Bible promises us that we can have, “the mind of Christ” and “the mind of the Spirit” (Rom 8:6; 1 Cor 2:16). This means, though not yet perfectly (1 Cor 13: 12), we can share in how Jesus understands himself through the scriptures. In debate with the Jewish leaders, who were experts on how to apply the Law of Moses, Jesus exposed their inability to understand the message of their own Bible.

“And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, this form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life…. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”” (John 5:37-39, 46-47).

The Pharisees were confused because they did not understand that the Bible was the testimony of the Father to Jesus. They thought they had to choose between what Moses wrote and what Jesus said, but the words and works of Jesus were a fulfilment of everything Moses, and the whole Old Testament, had to say about God and humanity. The Bible is the story of God’s Word in the world.

When Jesus appeared to his confused disciples on the road to Emmaus, “he said to them, “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). Then a little later when all the apostles were together, we read, “he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…” (Luke 24:44-45).

When Jesus refers back to the Law, Prophets and Psalms he means the three divisions of the Jewish Bible of his time. In other words, all the scriptures point to him. It is a mistake to see only a few Old Testament prophetic passages as pointing to Christ. As Jesus “opened the minds” of the disciples to understand how the whole Bible is about himself he can open our minds too. When I finished my theological studies I wrongly assumed I understood the nature of the scripture, this was an arrogant mistake. Only as the Lord used discipline and circumstances to open my heart to his Word did I truly begin to understand the Bible in depth. It was only as my own life became shaped more like the life of Jesus, especially through suffering, rejection and restoration, did I come to understand that the whole of the Bible is “Christomorphic”. That is, “in the form of Christ”. One of the easiest ways to appreciate this is to see the Bible as being like a play with four major acts and Jesus the main actor in each act.

The first act is Creation and Jesus is “the Word of God” through whom the world was made (John 1:3). More than this, scripture teaches, “all things were made through him and for him” (Col 1:16; compare 1 Cor 8:6). Jesus as the Word of God is the ultimate reason why anything exists. The Lord is not only a creator in the past, but he, “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3. Jesus is preserving the entire universe in its ongoing existence.

The second act is the Fall. As “the son of God” (Luke 3:38) Adam was created to reflect God the Son in his glorious relationship with his Father. When God spoke his warning Word to Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge (Gen 2:17) Adam was hearing from the eternal Son of God. After all, Jesus said, ““before Abraham was I am”” (John 8:58). When Adam and Eve sinned they lost their share in the glory of the Son’s relationship with the Father (John 17:5; Rom 3:23). Adam became less than the son and man he was destined to be in the image of Christ (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:45). This must have caused deep grief to the heart of God’s true Son. The curse applied to the serpent, “And I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’” (Gen 3:15), foretold a victory of Jesus over Satan (1 Tim 16:20; Rev 12:9-11; 20:2, 7-10). Commentators have been correct to see God’s provision of animal skins to cover over the ashamed nakedness of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:21) as a redemptive sign. Since sacrifice is everywhere in the Old Testament the first readers of Genesis would have understood that the animal was sacrificed by God and shed its blood for Adam and Eve. This must be understood as a sign of the cross.

The third act is God’s action to save a lost world through covenant. The promise to Abraham that the world would be blessed through him (Gen 12:1-3) was interpreted by Paul as being about Jesus. “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.” (Gal 3:16). The offspring of Abraham were to inherit “the world” (Rom 4:13) because Abraham heard “the gospel” (Gal 3:8). Abraham must be willing to sacrifice Isaac because Jesus will be sacrificed on the cross (Gen 22). The goal of these covenant promises is not Israel in Canaan but Jesus in the gospel. To think otherwise is to have a miniaturised view of God’s plan in Christ.

At every step the story of Israel is foundationally and finally about Jesus. Jude can boldly say that it was, “Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt” (Jude 45). Or as Paul puts it, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and fall drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ….. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed” (1 Cor 10:1-4, 9). The Israelites, in submission to God’s Word, or in rebellion, were dealing with Christ. The Old Testament can be prophetic about Jesus because the Word who was to become flesh was already the Word at work in the history of Israel. The Word in the mouth of the prophets and prophetic books is the Word of Christ.

Throughout the old covenant the Word is speaking about himself. This is perhaps clearest under the Law of Moses. Whether it is land, sabbath, temple, sacrifice, prophet, priest, king or any other detail of the Mosaic covenant the whole structure is a picture of Jesus. (See Table 1. for details). This is filled out in more obvious detail by the many Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah which found their reality in Jesus (2Sam 7:11 – 16; Pss 2; 72; 110; Isa 7:14-17; 9:1-6; 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5;30:9,21; Ezekiel 17:22;34:23;37:24; Mic 5:1-6 etc.).

Throughout the old covenant the Word is speaking about himself.

This means that when the Word revealed in the Old Testament became flesh in Jesus he saw the scriptures as a reflection of his own life. Jesus showed complete devotion and obedience to the scriptures because they were a spiritual mirror in which he saw the form of life which was his identity as Son of God. The earlier inspired writings were no simply accurate predictions, like a fortune teller might make. Jesus saw and heard in them through the Spirit the Truth about who he was and to what he was called. Peter explains, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.” (1Pet 1:10- 11). Therefore, when Jesus read such prophecies the revelation he received through the Spirit must have been perfectly clear. Here is one example.

When he entered into the synagogue of Nazareth and read from Isaiah 61 he said, ““Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”” (Luke 4:21). That scripture, and all the scriptures, existed for him. This truth burned in the heart of the Lord. His very purpose as the God-man was to fulfil the scriptures. According to Jesus, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). His use of, “it is written”, wasn’t a formula like that used by the scribes and Pharisees (Matt 2:5), or even Satan (Matt 4:6). Jesus heard God speaking through the written word with absolute authority. His declaration, “it is written” (Matt 4:4, 7, 10), when tempted by Satan, was unanswerable. The written word must be submitted to. This especially applied to his suffering and death, “the Son of Man goes as it is written of him” (Mark 14:21) as well as to many other elements of his life (Matt 11:10; 21:13; 26:24, 31). Jesus used the word “must” about the fulfilment of scripture, ““For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfilment.” (Luke 22:27 compare Matt 26:54; John 13:18; 17:12). The “must” is not some force pushing Jesus to conform to the Bible, it is the weight of the glory of God’s own being in him as the Word become flesh for the salvation of the world.

This brings us to act 4 of the biblical story, the completion of God’s plan. This is the record of the New Testament and the victory of Christ in the Gospel. The book of Acts opens with, “In my first book (Luke’s Gospel) I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven” (1:1-2). This means that Jesus continued to do and teach things after he returned to the Father. The book of Acts, with the New Testament letters and the book of Revelation are Jesus’ ongoing speaking and acting. It is in Revelation that Jesus as God’s Word with an ongoing testimony is particularly clear.

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants1 the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.” (Rev 1:1). In prophetic last days symbolic language, the book of Revelation pictures what Jesus will be doing up until the time he comes again.

Revelation brings to conclusion the Bible’s great story about Jesus. It is not concerned about our commitment to theories of scriptural authority, but whether we obey the Word (James 1:22). Will we be faithful to the scriptures in their testimony to the faithfulness of God to humanity through creation, Fall, salvation and completion? Will we allow the Lord to speak through his Word so that we become like him? The scriptures are certainly “Christomorphic”, but are we?  Do we speak like Jesus and act like Jesus? Can people read the gospel through our lives? This is a tough call and it demands a total response.

John Calvin was right to compare the Bible to a mirror in which we see God, Christ, the Church and ourselves. As the Holy Spirit illuminates our minds to the difference between what we see of the glory of Jesus in scripture and our own sinful lives we are called to become more like Christ. Through faith and repentance our image becomes more like the image of Jesus (Rom 8:29). I think something like this is behind the biblical metaphor of eating God’s Word.  “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.” (Jer 15:16). This is a lovely picture, but Jeremiah later found that to have the Word inside him was to be indwelt by a power greater than himself. “If I say, “I will not mention the Lord, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jer 20:9). Both the prophet Ezekiel and John in Revelation speak of eating the Word of God, sweet to the mouth but bitter to the stomach (Ezek 3:1-4; Rev 10:9-10). Like all the prophets, these were men intimate with God but greatly rejected by his people.

I once had an experience of this sort. I was in the church building praying for the congregation I was pastoring, and I suddenly and strangely sensed I was eating the Word of the Lord. This was a sweet thing, but in time the prophetic call of God would lead to rejection and great bitterness in that church. (It was the church of the “riot” I have already described.) Anyone who would be true to the Word and would grow in the testimony of Jesus must expect to suffer for him (2 Tim 3:12). This is an essential part of the mystery of being in Christ. But it is totally worth it.

Let me end with an ancient prayer: “Blessed Lord, who has caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them; that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”

 

 

Table 1: Old Testament Types Fulfilled in Christ

 

Theme	Old Testament	New Testament
election	Gen 12:1- 2; Deut 7:7 -8	Eph 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20
covenant	Gen 15:17; Ex 19:5 -6; 2 Sam 7:14; Isa 42:6; 49:8; Jer 31:31 -34	Matt 26:26- 28; Heb 12:24; 13:20
descendants	Gen 12:2; 13:16; 15:5; 16:10; 18:18	Matt 1:1; Acts 3:25 -26; Gal 3:16; Heb 2:10; Rev 5:9 -10
land	Gen 12:7; 13:14 – 15; 15:18- 21; 17 – 8	Heb 11:16; Rev 21:1- 5
exodus	Ex 12- 15; Ps 78; Isa 40:3- 4; Jer 16:14- 15	Luke 9:31; 1 Cor 5:7; Col 1:13
Israel/sonship	Ex 4:22 -23; Isa 43:6; Hos 11:1	Matt 2:15; Mark 1:1; John 1:18; Luke 3:22 -38
law	Ex 20; Lev ; Deut 5; Ps 1; 19	Matt 5:17 -18; Rom 10:4
sabbath	Gen 2:2; Ex 20:8 -11; Deut 5:12 -15	Mk 2:28; Rev 1:10
temple	Ex 25 -31; 1 Ki 5 -8	John 1:14; 2:19 -21
sacrifice	Gen 4:2- 4; Ex 12; 29 -30; Lev 16; 1 Sam 5:22; Ps 50:5	John 1:29; Rom 8:3; 1 Cor 5:7; Heb 9- 10; Rev 5:6- 10
prophet	Gen 20:7; Deut 18:15 – 19;  Amos 3:7; 7:14 -15	Luke 4:16 -21, 24; 13:33; John 4:19; Acts 3:22 -23
priest	Lev 1:7- 17; 13 – 14; Num 1:47 -54	Mark 10:45; John 10:11; Rom 8:34; Heb 2:17; 3:1; 4:14 – 15; 7
king	1 Sam 8:4- 18; 2 Sam 7:14 -16; Ps 89; 132; Isa 9:6 -7; Ezek 34:20 – 24	John 1:49; Mark 15:32; Acts 2:29- 33; 13:23, 32 -34 ; 1 Cor 15:24 -28; Rev 19:16
kingdom of God	Ps 22:28; 24; Dan 2:44; 4:3; 7:13 -14;	Mark 1:15; Acts 14:22; 28:31; Rom 14:17; Col 1:13
Son of David	2 Sam 7:14	Matt 1:17 -20; 20:29 -31; Luke 1:30 -33; Rom 1:3
Son of Man	Ezek 2:1; Dan 7:13- 14	Mark 7:38; 8:31; 13:26 -27; 14:62;  Acts 7:56
Anointed one (Messiah)	Ps 2:2; Isa 61:1; Dan 9:26 -27	Matt 16:16; Mark 1:1; Acts 10:38
Shepherd	Ps 23:1; Isa 40:11; Ezek 34:23	John 10:11; 1 Pet 2:25; 5:4; Heb 13:20
wisdom	1 Ki 3:6- 9; 4:20 – 34; Isa 9:6; 11:2	Luke 2:46- 52; 11:31; 1 Cor 1:20 – 2:16; Col 2:2- 3
knowledge	Prov 1:7; Isa 11:2	1 Cor 2:16; Col 2:2- 3
captivity/exile	Gen 15:13; Jer 1:15 -16; 20:4 -6; Micah 4:10	John 1:14; Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 8:9
restoration	Isa 1:26; 49:6; Jer 30:18; Ezek 36:35; Amos 9:14	Matt 19:28; Acts 3:21

 

 

12. Prayer in the Mystery

The main thing that occupies Jesus time in heaven today is prayer (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25). And the thing that so many Christians feel is lacking in their devotional life is time spent in prayer. The scriptures are full of prayer. In the Old Testament, not counting the Psalms, there are 77 clear references to prayer. In the New Testament there are 94 references which relate directly to Jesus and prayer. The apostles lived like Jesus when it came to prayer. In the book of Acts fifty eight percent of references to the church growing (21 out of 36) are within the context of prayer. There has never been a revival or major missions movement without persistent prayer. Matthew Henry wrote, “When God intends great mercy for His people, He first sets them praying.” This is true because it conforms to the life of Jesus.

I am part of a prayer network in the central business district of Perth. In some ways Perth Prayer is modelled on the 1857 prayer revival in New York. A quiet man called Jeremiah Lanphier had been appointed by the Dutch Reformed Church as a missionary to the central business district. The church was in decline and as a layman he didn’t know what to do. He called a prayer meeting in the city to be held at noon each Wednesday. Its first meeting was on the 23rd September 1857. Eventually, five other men turned up. Two weeks later, they decided to move to a daily schedule of prayer. Within six months, 10,000 men were gathering to pray and that movement spread across America. Within two years there were one million new believers added to the church. This pattern has been repeated again and again in the history of the Church. Prayer changes things. I would like to think that if have a tombstone it will have something like, “He walked with God.” on it; referring to my prayer life. The priority of prayer can however make us feel uncomfortable.

Prayer changes things.

As a young pastor I would often ask church members, “How is your prayer life?” The typical response would begin with, “I know I should be spending more time in prayer, but I….” My approach to the issue of prayer was unwise, because struggling to pray is a symptom of a deeper problem. And the “I” centred responses stimulated by my probing questions just kept people in their guilt and shame. If we are to experience a prayer revolution, we must have a Christ-centred rather than self-centred approach to prayer. In a city where even the largest churches struggle to get people to come together regularly to pray nothing less than a death-and-resurrection experience in the realm of prayer will do. I can truthfully say that my times of prayer are the highlight of my life. But it hasn’t always been like that.

As a young pastor coming out of theological college, where I had done so brilliantly, I thought a formula of Bible study, Bible teaching and the discipline of hard work was a formula for “success” in ministry. Unfortunately, no one had ever really been close enough to father me in a one to one relationship in the ways of Christ. No one had taught me about prayer. But the Lord had a plan to change my life through prayer.

I was at a conference in the mid 1980’s for a single meeting, and they mentioned that next year the main speaker would be Paul Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church. I had a strange sense that I should attend those meetings. Then during the next twelve months I became more and more unsettled concerning my inner spiritual experience. This was very peculiar, as on the outside things were going great. Outwardly, it was the most effective time in my ministry. People had come to the Lord, others had been dynamically filled with the Spirit and small groups were thriving. But inside I knew there was something deeply wrong. I felt like a weak and ineffective Christian who needed some sort of personal spiritual revival. Looking back I can see this was all the convicting work of the Holy Spirit; “For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret” (2 Cor 7:9-10). No human being was talking to me about my prayer life. Then the Lord started to speak to me through resources on prayer. George Mueller’s, “Answers to Prayer”, the amazing story of a huge evangelistic and orphanage ministry that never asked for money but depended solely on God through prayer.  Dick Eastman’s, “The Hour that Changes the World”. A series of tapes on prayer by Peter Wagner. The Lord was speaking to me powerfully about prayer and I had come to a decision that after the summer break I would commit myself to an hour’s prayer a day. The proposed delay was a sign that I had not yet repented of the weakness of my prayer life.

By the time I got to the conference with Yonggi Cho I had supernatural insight that he would speak on the connection between prayer and revival. Sure enough that was exactly the topic he announced. Though many outstanding miracles were occurring in South Korea, and 12,000 people were being added monthly to the fellowship Cho led, he explained prayer was the foundation for it all. He described how the church had daily 4 a.m. prayer meetings, with prayer all night Friday. Cho was once asked by a local pastor why was it that Cho’s church membership was 750,000 and his was only 3,000.  The local pastor was better educated, preached better sermons and even had a foreign wife. Cho inquired, ‘How much do you pray?’ The pastor said, ‘Thirty minutes a day.’ To which Cho replied, ‘There is your answer. I pray from three to five hours per day.’ Cho laid down for everyone at the conference a specific challenge.  One I could in no way avoid without being directly disobedient to God. He said that if you are really serious about knowing the presence and power of God pastors will pray at least 3 hours a day and lay persons one hour. I was embarrassed.

Returning back to parish life I upped my devotional life to 2½ hours a day – 1½ hours in the morning, ½ hour in the middle of the day, and ½ hour before dinner. The results were immediate. A new sensitivity to the Holy Spirit came into my life. Repeatedly I found myself on the doorstep of someone in desperate need and/or who had just prayed for help. I was led by the Spirit to connect with people at exactly the right time without an arranged appointment because I felt led to go to their house. At times I sensed in prayer who I would be seeing later in the day, and even on certain occasions what they would say to me. Then within a couple of months I was out of pastoral ministry and on my way to Brisbane to study. With no church building to pray in the Lord has taught me that walking in the streets or in the bush and (generally) praying aloud is my best mode of prayer. My greatest insights/revelations into the things of God always happen in prayer. Over the years I have started or been involved in numerous prayer meetings and prayer networks. Prayer occupies a place at the centre of my marriage. This has not been without cost.

Out of jealousy perhaps, some of the people who have most opposed my life and ministry have been men and women of committed prayer. One of them “manipulated” a senior elder in a congregation, these are his own words, to have me fired from the ministry. Another godly brother made it known that I had “the spirit of antichrist”. All this was terribly hurtful. So please understand that if the Lord strengthens your prayer life you will experience greater opposition to your ministry.

When asked some years ago to preach on prayer at a church, my first words were, “Apart from being taught to pray by God himself I wouldn’t be able to stand here, I would have given up on ministry long ago.” Without the strength that comes from prayer I would have never been able to continue with the work of God given the battles I had been through over the years. Prayer has certainly been the indispensable foundations for the prophetic teaching ministry the Lord has released me into. But this is not my story with a part for God, it’s Jesus story with a part for me. Jesus is the man of prayer. When Andrew Murray said, “It is the life which prays.”, he meant that prayer is much more than something we do, it is an expression of who we are. And since Christ “is our life” (Col 3:4) our praying is an expression of the life of Christ in us.

Our praying is an expression of the life of Christ in us.

The key to understanding Christ’s prayer life comes from his first recorded words. At age twelve when his parents found him in the Jerusalem temple, Jesus explained, ““Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”” (Luke 2:49). The temple is God’s “house of prayer” (Isa 56:7), and the Son’s primary motivation for prayer was to grow up to become just like his Father.  This happened when the Lord returned to the glory of the Father (John 17:5), but his spiritual growth (Luke 2:52) at every step along the way came through prayer.

At his baptism, in choosing the twelve apostles, in the working of miracles, on the mount of transfiguration, Jesus is praying (Luke 3:21-22; 6:12-16; 9:16, 28-29). Jesus experienced the power of the Spirit and the pleasure of the Father as he prayed; “when Jesus…was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22). “In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” (Luke 10:21). The presence of God in Jesus’ life through prayer sustained him through his demanding ministry (Mark 3:20 John 4:6).

His complete communion with the Father meant he always saw what the Father was doing and perfectly knew the will of God (John 5:26-30 compare 1 John 5:14-15). This gave Jesus complete faith that his prayers would be answered. Standing at the tomb of Lazarus, “Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” (John 11:41-42). The intimacy between the Father and the Son in prayer flowed out in resurrection power to raise Lazarus from death. The most powerful bond between prayer and the life of Christ comes however in the context of suffering.

The prayer highlights of Christ’s life all had to do with the cross. Jesus’ baptism was the beginning of the way to the cross, on the mount of Transfiguration he was preparing for his “exodus” from Jerusalem, and he knew that the miracle of raising Lazarus would move the Jewish leaders to execute him (John 11:53). Christ would never had made it to the cross without finding strength through prayer. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord testifies, ““My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”” (Mark 14:34). As the prophesied “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:3), Jesus has begun to carry the world’s ills and feels he could die before reaching the cross. His response is to pray more. “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44). The author of Hebrews describes the scene like this, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” (Heb 5:7). Jesus prays so intensely because he knows the salvation of the world to the glory of God depends on him. And he knows that prayer is God’s appointed channel for his will to be revealed and released.  Through prayer, Jesus whole life, the life of the infinitely valuable Son of God, is being offered up.

The agony of Gethsemane and the suffering of the cross are punctuated with many deep heart-felt prayers to the “Father” (Mark 14:36; Luke 23:34, 46; John 19:30). The prophet Isaiah saw the whole ordeal of the cross as one great act of prayer. He prophetically describes the cross as a great act of prayer; “he made intercession for transgressors” (Isa 53:12). This comes out most clearly in Christ’s own prayer for others, ““Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”” (Luke 23:34). It was through hearing the prayer of the true Son that the thief next to Jesus was moved to repentance at the thought of going to such a merciful Father in heaven (Luke 23:39-43). Jesus’ prayers contain the fulness of converting power.

If Christ’s prayers are the expression of his deepest heart (Luke 6:45), what are we to make of the cry of dereliction from the cross? This is the one place where Jesus does not speak to God as his “Father”. In deep anguish, “Jesus cried out with a loud voice “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34). He is speaking to “God” but it does not feel to him like a prayer. There is no pleasure of the Father or power of the Spirit present. Without the joy of the Lord he has no spiritual strength (Neh 8:11). This is a scene of the most utter desolation, far more dreadful than any of the biblical pictures of hell. In language sometimes used by people who feel they’re not getting through to God in prayer, “the heavens were like brass” (Deut 28:23). Why? Because the curses for covenant disobedience were coming on the Son of God as he bore the sin of the world. When, “he who knew no sin became sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21), Jesus was cut off from two-way communication with his Father. He entered into what is pictured in Isaiah, “the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” (Isa 59:1).

But because Jesus obeyed the Father in all things (Mark 14:36) the power of sin cannot have the final word. Christ ends his life not with a whimper but with a prayer of triumph. “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46). There are spiritual riches in the prayers of Jesus that are of inexhaustible depth (Eph 3:8). From a “descent into hell” on the cross, when he feels his prayers are totally unacceptable to God, to an hundred percent assurance he is being heard in heaven we see Christ going from hell to heaven for us. And the good news is that Jesus is still praying.

There are spiritual riches in the prayers of Jesus that are of inexhaustible depth

With a heavenly intercessor we can be sure that everything he asked for us while on earth will be answered with a “Yes!”. As Paul says, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed …was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” (2 Cor 1:19-20). The exalted heavenly Lord, “always lives to make intercession” for “those who draw near to God through him” (Heb 7:25). Through Jesus’ prayers we can live blameless lives before God, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Rom 8:34).

When God feels far away the solution is not to try harder to get through to him, or to give up because things are too hard. We need to, “look to Jesus” (Heb 12:2). As our praying High Priest in heaven Jesus “sympathises with our weaknesses” (Heb 4:15). He remembers how hard it is to make connection with the heavenly Father in the presence of the consciousness of sin, and he wants to share with us his experience of the heavenly Father. He is praying that we might share in all that the Father has done for him. Jesus is asking that we might grow in his image in the same way as he grew in the likeness of his Father. He is praying that we might have life in the Father through him. The way in which Jesus’ prayers are answered involves the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Old Testament promised that God would, “pour out…a spirit of grace and prayer for mercy” (Zech 12:10). Jesus himself prayed in this Spirit and asked his Father to send “another Helper, even the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17). The fulfilment of that promise came with the giving of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit teaches us that prayer has nothing to do with religious obligation but is all about sharing in the Sonship of Jesus. Given “the Spirit of adoption as sons…we cry, “Abba! Father!”” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). Knowing the Father in the Spirit as Jesus knows God frees us from accusation and fears of failure in prayer. Prayer becomes indescribably wonderful. This doesn’t mean that prayer is always easy. When I get up and go out to pray in some winter mornings it can be zero degrees centigrade, or it can be rainy and blowing a gale. Sometimes we need the Spirit’s fruit of self-discipline to pray (Gal 5:23).

As the Holy Spirit worked so intimately in the life of Jesus (1 Cor 2:10; Heb 9:14) he will work deeply in us too. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Rom 8:26-27). With such help freely given, with both Jesus and the Spirit praying for us, what might be blocking the prayers of God’s children?

Certainly, an unforgiving heart can grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30-32). Jesus taught us to pray in this way, ““and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.”” (Matt 6:12). He counselled, ““And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”” (Mark 11:25). Unforgiveness towards others is a sign that we don’t believe God has unconditionally forgiven us, and it will choke your prayers (Luke 7:41-43). Or perhaps you are suffering from unbelief. Remember, dear friend, it’s not the strength of your devotion to God that saves you, it’s the strength of Jesus’ devotion on your behalf. If Christ prayed for your forgiveness on the cross the Father has certainly forgiven you, he taken away all his anger and he will listen to your prayers. Jesus said it, “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”” (Luke 11:10-13).

There are spiritual riches in the prayers of Jesus that are of inexhaustible depth

Perhaps the issue is even simpler than that. Perhaps you need to pray about your praying. Simply ask the Father in the name of Jesus to strengthen you to pray. This is surely a prayer that will be answered (1 John 5:14-15). Intentionally cultivate a life of prayer. Saying grace a at meals is a good devotion (Luke 24:30; Acts 27:35; 1 Tim 4:1-5).  Wherever I am able, in my meetings with Christian people, in my home, in coffee shops, on church grounds, I have learned to start and conclude in prayer. I chair several boards, and I have made sure that the business meetings are punctuated with prayer. This is an open sign to all present, and to the spiritual world, of our dependency on God.

Intentionally cultivate a life of prayer.

The point of prayer isn’t to have a good prayer life. God created us with the potential to pray because from the beginning he wanted to share all of his Fatherly love for his Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. To pray isn’t limited to putting requests to God.  To pray is to be in fellowship with the Trinity. This is central to the purpose for which we were made and for which Christ died. It is central to the mystery of God in Christ. Words cannot express the delights and privileges of prayer. “Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess 5:16-18). Can I suggest our first prayer be, “Lord teach us to pray.” (Luke 10:1).

To pray is to be in fellowship with the Trinity.

 

13. The Mystery of Israel

The topic of “Israel” is often a cause of unfortunate disagreement between Christians. Despite this, I have decided to write a chapter on this topic to demonstrate that we must see Jesus as the fullness of the truth of what Israel was always meant to be. “Israel” is a dimension of the mystery of Christ. There is a huge difference between seeing Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, and seeing the identity of Israel in Jesus Christ. One problem we have in speaking of Israel is the long history of conflict between Jews and Christians.

For many centuries, the Church practiced ant-Semitism, this grieved God’s Spirit so keeping many believers in ignorance about the Lord’s call on Jewish people. We must accept that the salvation of Israel, “according to the flesh” (Rom 9:5), is tied up with the mystery of Christ in a way that is not true for any other people group. This has nothing to do with any property the Jewish people possess, quite the opposite (Deut 7:6-8). It is entirely due to God’s electing choice. God by his own counsel chose Abraham and his descendants without any stated cause (Gen 12:1-3). Paul warns us Gentiles, “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” (Rom 11:25). The only way we can clearly see what God is doing for the Jewish people, whether inside the state of Israel or beyond, is to stay centred on Jesus. I hope this chapter will demonstrate that the Jewish people are significant to “the mystery of Christ”, because their evangelising a prophetic priority upon which various end-time promises of God depend (Rom 11:15).

I remember being in a prophetic-prayer meeting some years ago where a division was developing between those who believed that the modern state of Israel was a fulfilment of God’s prophetic promises in the Old Testament, and those who didn’t accept that. Since anything prophetic must be about Jesus, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10), I started to pray that Jesus rather than “Israel” be restored to the centre of the conversation. Then I believe the Lord led me to several scriptures. Since “all the promises of God find their Yes in Jesus” (2 Cor 1:20), it must be that all the Old Testament promises to Israel are answered in Christ. Then, from Hebrews 1:2, “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things”. Jesus is the inheritor of everything. Whatever might be true about a small area of land in the Middle East called political “Israel”, it all belongs to Jesus as the Son of God.

Jesus is the inheritor of everything.

The Sonship of Jesus is the mirror in which the identity and destiny of “Israel” must be seen. Looked at through the lens of Christ the history of Israel is about the shaping of a son. We first need to see Abraham as pointing to Christ, then understand that the gift of the Promised Land was a gift from God to Israel as the Lord’s firstborn son (Gen 12:1-3, 6; 13:15; 17:8; Exodus 33:1; Num 32:11; Psalm 105:9-12).

“Reading the Bible backwards”, we discover Jesus saw Abraham’s significance as someone who believed in his coming ““Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”” (John 8:56). According to Paul, Abraham’s prophetic vision and faith extended to believing his “heirs” would inherit not simply Canaan but “the world” (Rom 4:13; cf. Gen 20:7). The dimensions of Abraham’s faith are revealed in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22). This story unveils the character of the father–son relationship between Abraham and Isaac that is foundational to the identity and destiny of “Israel”.

Abraham obediently took Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him as God commanded (Gen 22). Isaac submitted to this call (Gen 22:6), but at the very last moment God halted the killing (Gen 22:10-12). This is a powerful story in its Old Testament context, but in the light of the gospel of Christ the writer of Hebrews knows Abraham saw things in the Spirit. “By faith…. Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead” (Heb 11:17, 19). The faith to believe God for a supernaturally provided son was great, but the faith to trust God for his resurrection was far greater. It is in this realm of sacrificial obedience and submission that Abraham saw in the Spirit the coming day of the crucified and resurrected only Son of God (Gen 22:2; Luke 3:22; John 3:16; 8:56). God did “preach the gospel” to Abraham (Gal 3:8). We must see the story about Isaac’s (symbolic) death and resurrection as foundational to the whole future history of Israel because it was a prophetic type of Christ. Israel’s history grows out of the faith of the patriarchs because they really did have a covenant faith in the faithfulness of God, as he would later be revealed in Jesus (Rom 11:28). Following the example of Abraham, the relationship between Israel and God has always been one based on faith alone through grace alone to the glory of God alone. The history of old covenant Israel is largely one of unfaithfulness to God.

It is easy to forget that the first use of “Israel” in the Bible is as a name for an individual, Jacob. “Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,6 for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”” (Genesis 32:28). As a true son of God, Jacob knew the fear of the Lord, (Gen 31:42, 53). Tragically however, Israel as a nation would often lack this.

The sonly identity of the people of Israel comes across strongly in God’s commission to Moses, “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Israel is my firstborn son… “Let my son go” (Ex 4:22-23). Though a “son”, Israel almost immediately begins her long history of rebellion against the heavenly Father (Ex 5:21; 6:9; Acts 7:35). Thus began the nation’s long history of revolt; of murmuring in the wilderness, endless idolatries and the persecution of the prophets (Ex 16:3; 32:4-6; Ezek 20:8, 24). None of this could change God’s deep love or undo his choice of the nation; “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1). The fatherly discipline of God took Israel into exile, but little changed. Well after the return from Babylon, the wounded father-heart of God still cries out, ““A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts”” (Mal 1:6).  On the outside Israel had all the signs of the covenant, Law, temple, sacrifices, feasts. But the presence of God’s glory that had defined Israel as a son since the exodus from Egypt (Ex 13:21; 3:14-16; 40:34-38; Lev 9; 1 Kings 8:11) never returned from Babylon (Ezek 11:22-23).

The restoration of the glory of Israel’s sonship awaited the coming of the faithful Son of God, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 ESV). The glory of the Lord was now exclusively present in Jesus. The entire old covenant history of Israel is gathered up and perfected in his life. But Jesus was not a “repair job” to fix up what had gone wrong in Israel’s history. The story of Israel was always destined to be about the true Son of God. The shape of the Old Testament anticipates the shape of the life of Christ.

The shape of the Old Testament anticipates the shape of the life of Christ.

As the first-born males in Egypt were threatened by Pharaoh, the baby Jesus must be rescued from the murderous Herod (Ex 1; Matt 2); the gifts offered to Christ by the wise men, fulfil Isaiah’s prophecy that in the last days the Gentiles will bring up offerings to Israel (Isa 60:6; Matt 2:11); Hosea describes Israel as the son called out of Egypt, Matthew quotes this of the infant Jesus’ return from Egypt (Hos 11:1; Matt 2:15); Israel rebelled in the wilderness and was punished for 40 years. Jesus was faithful for 40 days and crossed the Jordan in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14). Moses ascended Sinai and came down with the Law, Jesus ascends a mountain in Galilee and gives his own kingdom sermon (Matt 5-7), the Sermon on the Mount). The true temple is his own body (John 2:19-22); he is the living bread that comes down from heaven greater than the manna (John 6:51); the people of Christ’s time celebrated the Jewish feast of Hanukkah as the Festival of lights, the Lord proclaimed  himself to be, “the light of the world” (John 8:12); the gathering from east and west is no longer to the land (Isa 43:5) but to Jesus himself (Matt 8:11-12). Jesus is the “true vine” that Israel was always called to be (Jer 2:21; John 15:1). The Hebrew Bible ends with Cyrus proclaiming the LORD has given him “all the kingdoms of the earth” so Israel is commissioned to “go up” to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple (2 Chron 36:23), but at the end of Matthew Jesus has received all authority in heaven and earth and commissions his disciples to “go” and disciple the world (Matt 28:18-20). Jesus has perfectly fulfilled everything that Israel as a son of God was called to be, but as God the Son Christ takes this history to a new level. This involves Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Jesus has perfectly fulfilled everything that Israel as a son of God was called to be.

The controversy between the leaders of Israel and Jesus is over who really is the chosen of God. Are they the shepherds of Israel, or is God present in Jesus as the Shepherd himself (John 10)? The crucifixion is their attempt to settle once for all that Jesus is no true Israelite. In their understanding the cross places him outside of the covenant and under its curses (Deut 21:22-23).  Jesus does take the covenant curses, but he does this on Israel’s behalf (Gal.3:13; 2 Cor.8:9;  Isa 53:8;  Dan 9:26). His terrible lament, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34 cf. Ps 22:1) is one that rebellious Israel refused to utter for herself. She refused to confess her own guilt. As Messiah, and Son of God, Jesus takes upon himself the lost glory and the lost sonship of his people. His is the experience of being disinherited and fatherless on the cross.  As rebellious sons following another father, the devil (John 8:44), the rulers of the Jews could not see that the death of Jesus would be the death of rebellious Israel, and his resurrection Israel’s rebirth in the perfection of sonship.

Jesus both fulfils and removes all the institutions of Israel’s old covenant relationship with God. Christ is the one true Lamb of God replacing all the lambs sacrificed over Israel’s history (John 1:29), he is also the temple (John 2:21), the priest (Heb 8:1) and king (Matt 27:37). The new covenant is in his blood (Luke 22:20). He is the Saviour of Israel,  not only for her, but that the whole world in him might be blessed (Gen 12:3).

Jesus both fulfils and removes all the institutions of Israel’s old covenant relationship with God.

The resurrection means that Israel’s long period of exile without the glory of God has come to an end, in Jesus! Peter preaches about the resurrection, “let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” (Acts 2:36), and Paul teaches, “Jesus…descended from David according to the flesh…declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Romans 1:4 ESV cf. Acts 13:35). In Jesus, “all the promises of God find their yes” (2 Cor 1:20); all the promises to the patriarchs onwards are fulfilled in Jesus. To say that Jesus is God’s “Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things” (Heb 1:2), means that the Holy Land and the whole universe is now given to Jesus. All of Israel’s blessings are in Christ (Rom 9:5).

Why is it then that most Jewish people, “according to the flesh”, cannot recognise Jesus as their Messiah (Rom 9:3, 5; 2 Cor 5:16; Gal 4:29 cf. John 8:15)? A simple but incorrect answer is that the Church has “replaced” Israel. This popular position mistakenly puts the Church in a central place where only Jesus belongs. A Church-centred theology is a confused theology.

Paul, however, beholds a wonderful secret. “Has God rejected his people? By no means! 2 No, God has not rejected his own people, whom he chose from the very beginning.” (Rom 11:1-2). There is still a call of God upon the descendants of Abraham, and this is a call to come to Jesus. But in the history of salvation a deep mystery is working. One which will seem bizarre and unacceptable to the human mind; unless we look through the cross. “Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves…. for I want somehow to make the people of Israel jealous of what you Gentiles have, so I might save some of them.” (Rom 11:11, 14).

Paul’s understanding of God’s mysterious plan is that when the Jewish people see the glory of Jesus in the Church they want to come to him as their own Messiah. When Jewish people look at us they should be able to see that the glory which called Abraham, that Moses saw in the burning bush, that covered Mt Sinai, that filled the temple, terrified Isaiah, etc. is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, shining through us (Gen 15:7, 17; Ex 13:21; 2 Chron 7:1; Isa 6:1-7; John 12:41; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:6; Rev 1:14-16). Israel is meant to find her true identity in Jesus her Messiah through the Church! This is a very high calling.

John Piper is right on track in saying to Gentile Christians, “The whole spirit of our interaction (with Jewish people) should be like the father to the elder brother (in the story of the prodigal son): Come on in to the party. You belong here!” Or, if the father represents the Father of Jesus, perhaps as Gentile Christians we represent the repentant “younger son”. Having received the Spirit of the Father, we must long for the unbelieving older sons (Israel) to return to our Father’s house and complete the circle of family joy. Is this our heart and our prayer?

Tragically, for most of the church’s history Satan has successfully deceived Christians into persecuting Jews. This is a point of intense spiritual conflict and confusion. The Church may have been confused, but the devil has an understanding of God’s timetable revealed in the Bible. Scripture anticipates a great end-time harvest of Israel which will bring about the resurrection of the dead, “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” (Rom 11:15). The mass conversion of Jewish people will signal the End of the world. This will mean the judgement of the devil and this thought he cannot bear. With “great wrath” he will do all he can to block the end-time evangelisation of the Jewish people (Rev 12:12). This is why there is so much confusion about “Israel”.

There is only one way to defeat the devil’s schemes (Eph 6:11). ““Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Rev 12:10-11). Christian people must be willing to suffer, and if need be, even die, so that the natural brothers and sisters of Jesus can be saved in his name (Acts 4:12). Only such Messiah-like love can move Israel to a spiritual jealousy so many turn to Jesus as their Saviour. There surely is a prophetic end-time call on the Church throughout the world today to see, “all Israel…saved” (Rom 11:26). A Church willing to sacrifice for the children of Abraham will see old rivalries put to death, including those between Messianic and Gentile Christians. When Jew and Gentile live together as one family the wisdom of God in his plan in Christ will be powerfully revealed in the world (Eph 3:10).

When Jew and Gentile live together as one family the wisdom of God in his plan in Christ will be powerfully revealed in the world.

We need to join in Paul’s prayers to the Father,

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  (Eph 3:14-19).

Since “every family on earth” is the families blessed by God in Abraham (Gen 12:3), the fullness of God can only fill the Church with his power and love when Jew and Gentile come together under the one Fatherhood of God. This is the gospel theme elsewhere, “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:26-28); “through him (Jesus) we both (Jew and Gentile) have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). The world needs to see that there is only one family of God.

I believe that when the Gentile Church truly accepts that Jesus is the fullness of Israel it will bleed for the salvation of lost Israel. And when Jewish Christians accept that the fullness of Messiah can live in Gentiles, we will see the Lord raise up Messianic Jewish martyrs who will give their lives for the nations. Particularly for Moslems. This will start an end-time move of the Spirit across the world.

The world needs to see that there is only one family of God.

“Israel” is first of all Jesus. He is the true Son God was always seeking in the history of his covenant people. “Israel” is also the Jewish people, chosen and loved by God because of the prophetic obedient faith of their forefathers. Finally, “Israel” is a nation in the Middle East. I do not believe that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 was a fulfilment of biblical prophecy (see pages 54-56 of the document downloadable at http://cross-connect.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Eschatology.pdf.) However, since so many beloved Jewish people live in the nation of Israel it should be a focus for our prayers. And we can support those mission groups working in Israel. Perhaps it’s best to see Israel’s political restoration as a pointer to a much greater spiritual transformation than has yet to take place. We certainly haven’t seen the manifestation of resurrection power in “life from the dead” (Rom 11:15) on a mass scale that Paul predicts.

“Israel” is first of all Jesus.

Let me end with a personal testimony. I have long had mixed feelings about the state of Israel. Some Christians, so-called, “Christian Zionists”, always accept the actions of the Israeli government. But the Lord is never on the side of injustice. For other believers, more to the left of politics, the Israelis can do nothing right. This too must be an error. So crossing the border from Jordan into Israel in 2010 I was asking for a word from the Lord. This is the scripture that came very clearly into my mind, ““Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isa 49:15) God cannot forget Israel as his chosen, if rebellious, son. Neither must we.

 

 

14. The Mystery of Marriage

Married since 1975, I have been through lots of trials, tribulations and wonderful experiences as a married man. As a pastor, I have taken weddings, counselled couples wanting to be married, warned people against getting married. Also, individually, or with my wife, I have counselled marriages in difficulty. I long ago discovered that the old proverb about marriages in crisis, “There’s his story, there’s her story, and then there’s the truth.”, is an accurate representation of the confusion in many marriages. The distortions of how people see their marriages are remarkable. This chapter is not however about human marriages as such. As a prophetic-teacher my interest is in how the mystery of Christ’s covenant relationship with the Church throws light on how human marriages can be places of revelation. That the Bible begins and ends with a marriage shows this topic to be indispensable for understanding the plan of God. Adam and Eve in Eden (Gen 2:18-25) and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb at the completion of the world (Rev 19:6-9) provide an inclusive framework for understanding all God’s holy purposes.

That marriage is included in the mystery of Christ is clear from Paul’s teaching in Ephesians. ““Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5:31-32). Paul is not saying that we can understand Christ’s perfect and selfless love for his Bride the Church by first looking at the love in human marriage. Just the opposite, the revelation of Christ’s love for the Church will empower men and women to love one another like Jesus loves.

Understanding the profound nature of the mystery of marriage requires a depth of spirituality most Christians never seem to acknowledge. This becomes clear when we consider that the greatest teachers on marriage in the Bible, Jesus, Paul and John, were unmarried men. Their celibate status never limited their insight into marriage because they were men of the Spirit.

The revelation of Christ’s love for the Church will empower men and women to love one another like Jesus loves.

This is obviously true of Jesus, who during his earthly life was a Spirt-filled man (Luke 4:14, 18; 10:21; Acts 10:38 etc.). As the giver of the Spirit (Luke 3:16; Acts 2:33) he creates the spiritual bond between himself and the Church and between husbands and wives. Paul too is a man of the Spirit. He is filled with the Spirit from his conversion (Acts 9:17) and the Holy Spirit empowers his life and ministry (2 Cor 6:6). At the beginning of the book of Revelation John tells us, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Rev 1:10). The whole of this visionary book is unveiled to John “in the Spirit” (4:2). Only “in the Spirit” can we see spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14). In the case of marriage this is not so much a supernatural gift as a supernatural wisdom.

If I have any insight into the “mystery of marriage” it doesn’t come out of my careful exegesis of the Bible or reading Christian books. It comes from a living spiritual awareness. Typically, I am in bed with Donna at an early hour, often in prayer, and I sense deeply inside of me a connectedness between my own marriage and the relationship between Jesus and his Bride. God’s presence is very real in these times and somehow imparts an inner knowing.  This mysterious intimate understanding just happens. Insights simply spring into life. This is a highly prophetic reality which stands in powerful opposition to cultural ways of understanding marriage. Many Christian marriages are fairly “ordinary”. But if marriage is really about Jesus and his love for the Church, in God’s eyes no marriage is “ordinary”. I am sure that when the Father looks at a marriage he sees the sacrifice of the cross.

When the Father looks at a marriage he sees the sacrifice of the cross.

This is certainly the only explanation I can give for the healing power that I have seen working in various marriages involving adultery. Examples come to mind of men and women betrayed by their partner and who found strength in prayer to forgive. I think this is a miracle greater than any physical sign or wonder. It is a share in the forgiveness and reconciliation of the cross (Luke 23:34; Col 1:20). The sinned against partner has been true to the essential nature of the covenant of marriage. What is a covenant?

A covenant is not a contract or a simple agreement. Contracts are conditional and limited by their terms. “If you cut my hair then I will pay you twenty dollars.” Contracts are legal, I don’t expect the bank to love me when I take out a loan. Obligations are limited in contracts. God never makes contracts with humanity he makes covenants. He makes promises in love and his promises are unconditional. God made a covenant with Israel (Ex 19:5) before he gave his Law (Ex 20). When God commands Israel to keep his Law, her law-keeping doesn’t create the covenant, it just means she can enjoy the covenant in full.

Marriages, at least in societies influenced by Christianity, clearly reflect the nature of God’s covenants. The wedding vows are, “for better or for worse…as long as we both shall live”. These are promises made by the two parties to love one another unconditionally. The marriage covenant is called to reflect the divine covenant in being total, permanent and exclusive. No limits, no fixed-term, no-one else but the marriage partner. When people treat their marriages like contracts rather than as a covenant everything will fall apart. Things get too hard and one party pulls out. This need never be the case for Christian people if we have insight into the mystery of marriage.  At the centre of the revelation of the mystery of covenant and marriage is the blood of the cross.

Jesus expressly defines God’s new covenant with humanity in terms of his blood, ““This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:20). It is the blood of Christ that brings reconciliation (Col 1:20), peace (Eph 2:13-14) and the forgiveness of sin (Eph 1:7). The blood of the cross cleanses us from guilt and shame (Heb 9:14, 1 John 1:7). This includes the guilt and shame we have from hurting each other in marriage. The blood of the cross has the power to restore relationships for it stands for a love that is willing to carry the pain and punishment the other party deserves. This is a love that willingly carries pain for the sake of a relationship. In other words, it is the mystery of the gospel which is at the heart of the mystery of marriage (Eph 3:6). Any marriage in which husband and wife are willing to carry pain for the sake of each other will be a powerful covenant marriage.

It is the mystery of the gospel which is at the heart of the mystery of marriage

I first saw this sort of love during my engagement. In ways I am too embarrassed to admit, I was very nasty to Donna. If she had walked away from the engagement no-one could have blamed her.  But she didn’t. And never once threatened to break our engagement though she was obviously in a lot of pain. I will never forget that display of unconditional love, and it set a firm foundation for our years together.

Jesus, Paul, and John were men with insight into the mystery of Christ and the spiritual realities of marriage because they were willing to suffer for the Church. Jesus died on the cross, Paul had countless afflictions through his ministry (2 Cor 11:23-29) and John was imprisoned as an old man for his faith (Rev 1:9). Anyone who suffers for Christ and the Church in the power of the Spirit will “see” spiritual truths in the Spirit. If you carry pain for Christ in the “fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil 3:10), you will see that marriage is a very great thing. The mystery of marriage is incredibly wonderful. I have personally said to Donna many times, as well as in public, that there are many spiritual realities I would have never understood if I hadn’t been married.

Perhaps the most basic of these has to do with oneness or equality. If Jesus was not equal with the Father, he could not truly reveal the Father in his innermost being. ““I and the Father are one….Whoever  has seen me has seen the Father…” (John 10:30; 14:9). I have always believed this theologically, but it was my marriage which gave me a deeper revelation of equality.

If Jesus was not equal with the Father, he could not truly reveal the Father in his innermost being.

During the early years of our married life I was the “stand out” person in our relationship. Donna was following me around the country giving birth to and taking care of our five kids, whilst I was completing various degrees, preaching and pastoring. She was always in the background as the supportive minister’s wife. Some decades ago I started to struggle with a deep sense of inner incompleteness. I didn’t tell anyone. As Adam in the Garden felt incomplete without a covenant partner (Gen 2:18), I needed God’s help to grow in my marriage.  I needed to break through a shame barrier with the help of Jesus (Heb 12:2). One day with deep reluctance I swallowed my pride over my “superior” theological abilities and Christian competence. In humility I brokenly confessed to Donna, “I NEED YOU.” At the time I could not have imagined the spiritual breakthrough this would bring, both within our relationship and in my entire life.

Not only has the “one flesh” of marriage intensified (Gen 2:24), but an even richer fulfilment with Christ has come. “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” (1 Cor 6:17). Marriage is the place to learn there is not superior and inferior in God. Marriage is the place to learn humility and dependence on each other. At the centre of the mystery of Christ is that humility leads to exaltation; “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Phil 2:8-9). Today as a human being Jesus feels fully one and equal with God the Father. The Lord has used marriage to teach me the spiritual lesson that brokenness leads to illumination of spiritual truths and a deeper share in the life of Christ.  This is my testimony and it is part of the prophetic testimony of Jesus (Rev 1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4). But the Lord keeps on surprising me with revelation through my marriage.

Marriage is the place to learn there is not superior and inferior in God.

Some years ago, I suddenly I could put a name to what I was feeling about the connection with my darling wife.  Our relationship is a justified one. There seemed to be no basic relational distance between us and I felt we were held together by a basic peace. This is a share in what Paul says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:1). Through the blood of Christ, the conflict between God and humanity has been ended (Rom 3:21-25). In a Christian marriage, Jesus, the supreme Mediator, is always present between husband and wife in his reconciling and justifying power. In this sense, a mature stable Christian marriage grants insight into the Last Judgement.

Brokenness leads to illumination of spiritual truths and a deeper share in the life of Christ

This connects to an experience I had many years ago at Uluru/Ayers Rock in central Australia. After overcoming a very sudden, strange but powerful temptation experience I was strongly directed by the Spirit to go and pray alone that night facing the Rock. As I walked onwards, I could sense that demonic powers were watching. Also, I could sense in the Spirit that many other Christians had prayed at the site before me. Unfortunately, some of these had prayed cursing instead of blessing (Luke 6:28). Arriving in sight of Uluru I really did not pray but was led to repeatedly proclaim something to the spiritual world, “Judgement has been taken away.” In Christ there is no more judgement. This is exactly what should be modelled in marriages of faith.

In a mature Christian marriage you know your partner will never foundationally undermine you by anything they say or do. You know there are no essential barriers to ongoing fellowship. We abide in a consciousness that “(lasting) judgement has been taken away”. We live as justified people with confidence for the future. Donna is not perfect, but the Spirit tells me in the Lord she is blameless.  Why? Because she shares, as I do, in the future of the Bride. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Eph 5:25, 27). This state of justified blamelessness is part of the mystery of marriage which makes it so wonderful. But there’s more to come.

All Christians believe the promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb 13:5), “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20). The Lord is with us because he lives in us by his Word and Spirit. A very important part of this in marriage is when husband and wife pray together on a regular basis. Men in particularly should take the lead in this, as Christ leads the Church. Where men feel too spiritually shy or unworthy to do this, they need to get their eyes off their own spiritual condition and look to the all sufficient sacrificial love of Christ (Eph 5:25). Then by the Word and Spirit the spiritual reality expressed by Paul in his relationship with Christ’s Bride in Corinth can come to pass.

“For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present…” (1 Cor 5:3-4). Paul does not say “as if present”. Though in another physical location he is present in spirit with the church as it assembles. His spirit is in communion with the Holy Spirit who indwells the church in Corinth. If I by faith pray in the name and power of the Lord Jesus for my wife, my human spirit must be present with her through the Holy Spirit. Wherever she is. Sharing in the relationship between Christ and the Church is greater than space and time; in the Spirit husband and wife are not separate from one another. This is part of the mystery of marriage which glorifies Jesus in his love for the Church. But the deepest dimension of the mystery has to do with the cross.

Since the ultimate meaning of marriage is found in Jesus’ relationship with the Church, at the heart of struggles in Christian marriages is the way God shaped his Son into being our perfect loving Bridegroom. This involved his suffering, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” (Heb 2:10). Let me be more specific.

Praying over a soon to be married man recently I sensed the Lord gave me some prophetic words over his life.  Words which actually sum up the gospel. I prayed for him to experience the reality that marriage has a unique crucifying capacity and a unique glorifying capacity. Out of all regular human relationships marriage can put to death your own personal selfish interests and transform you in love into someone like Jesus. This is ultimately what marriage is all about.

Marriage has a unique crucifying capacity because its one flesh intimacy as a total, permanent and exclusive relationship make its sins especially painful. In warning against adultery, the Lord speaks through Malachi in a very touching way, “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?… So guard yourselves in your spirit” (2:15).    When I sin against my marriage partner, I grieve the Holy Spirit deeply. I wound God sharply. As my marriage covenant here on earth is inside of the eternal marriage bond between Christ and the Church, the spiritual concentration is very high. It is much harder to trivialise sin in marriage than it is in other relationships. The exhortation to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed” needs to regularly happen in marriages (James 5:16). Any prayers for revival which overlook revival in marriage are unlikely to be answered, so profound is the mystery of marriage.

Through the lens of the cross we can have a new vision for the wisdom of God in marriage. Sickness, rejection, family problems, money worries etc. are opportunities not for despair, but for joint prayer. Satan will always try to rob Christian marriages of their restedness. He will use worry, dissatisfaction, accusation etc. to break our peace.  There are two great strategies to defeat him, prayer and praise.

Here is a powerful prophetic scripture for a happy marriage; “her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”” (Prov 31:28-29). Husbands need to praise their wives just as Jesus holds up a beautiful image of his Bride the Church (Eph 5:27; Rev 19:7-8). Praise and thanksgiving that husbands and wives direct to and for one another, in the name of the Lord, is a sure sign they are abiding in Christ.

There are many great spiritual truths about Christian marriages but often they are not applied. We please the Lord not by effort in our marriages but by faith in the finished/accomplished work of Christ. This involves abiding in the rest of God. Let me use an example to make things clearer.

A young married man came to see me recently with lots of problems in his marriage. When I asked him how he felt he was doing as a husband he said he was doing poorly. He expected me to correct him, but instead I told him to trust in Christ as the perfect Husband. When all our human efforts to be a good husband or wife have been exhausted, we can come to Jesus. Husbands can only, “love our wives as Christ loved the church” (Eph 5:25) when we receive Christ’s love.  Wives can only submit to husbands as to the Lord (Eph 5:22) when they rely on Jesus who perfectly submitted himself to the will of the Father. When both husband and wife centre on Christ there can be no fundamental conflict in a marriage but only the restful glory of God.

By faith we receive from the perfect marriage between Jesus and the Church which already exists in heaven and will remain in God’s rest forever. If a husband is led by Christ in his decision making in a marriage, he can’t be justly accused of fault by his wife and has a clear conscience before God to lead without fear. If a wife is led by the Spirit in her responses to her husband, she has spiritual power and authority in a marriage. Marriage is a wonderful mystery which can bring so much glory to Christ. Whatever the state of your marriage, stay focussed on Jesus!

By faith we receive from the perfect marriage between Jesus and the Church which already exists in heaven

A Finishing Note:

It’s not unusual to meet Christians, male or female, who long to marry but have no partner. Sometimes this causes them great distress. The worse thing that can happen to these people is for married people to prophesy over them that God has someone for them. If he has a partner for them, he will definitely bring that person along. In Jesus’ day it was normal for a Jewish male to marry. But this was not the will of God for Jesus, or Paul or John. Today, in many societies, a person isn’t thought of as complete unless they are married. This is a clear example of idolatry.

In giving instructions about marriage and singleness Paul is very clear.  “But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift (charisma) from God, of one kind or another…..let each person lead the life…to which God has called him.” (1 Cor 7:6, 17). A Christian is called and spiritually gifted to be either single or married. I made the mistake as a young man of trying to “tell God” I should stay single. The Spirit quickly convicted me of sin about that. Others try to tell the Lord they need to be married. This is just as unwise. Marriage and singleness, like every part of life, are a “call” to serve God’s greatest purpose. That we might “be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” (8:29). Don’t ever depart from centring on Jesus.

Marriage and singleness, like every part of life, are a “call” to serve God’s greatest purpose.

 

15. Prophets and the Mystery

It may be a personal opinion, but I believe that prophets are a very misunderstood group of people. In saying this I obviously believe there are still prophets in the Church. This is part of the Spirit-filled dimension of the new covenant.

Peter quotes Joel on the Day of Pentecost, ““‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18). He proclaims that all the people of God, regardless of gender, age or social status, would be involved in prophesying. This doesn’t make every Christian a prophet, any more than telling others about Jesus makes every Christian an evangelist. But prophecy is an essential part of the life of the last days end-times people of God.

This must be the case, because Jesus is the End-person (Rev 22:13) and the essence of prophecy is to testify to Jesus (Rev 19:10). And given that the ministry of the prophet is, “to equip the saints for works of service” (Eph 4:12), a vital part of prophetic ministry is to release God’s people into prophetic ministry. Any prophet who simply “does their own thing” is not a mature prophet of God, and perhaps isn’t a genuine prophet at all. The whole Church is called to be a prophetic community. This is quite rare today, for several reasons.

The whole Church is called to be a prophetic community.

One is that a division is made between “the ministry” and “the man”. I was speaking some time ago with a well-known evangelist and church planter in our city. He was quite discouraged about the state of the Church and how he had been personally treated. I felt moved to ask him, “Who in the Church has loved you just for who you are, and not for your gifting?” He went silent, apparently no-one had loved him, but many had loved his gifting to grow churches. Prophets are often treated the same way. This is a serious sin. When Paul says, ““When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men…. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers”” (Eph 4:8, 11), he means that the apostle is a gift, the prophet is a gift and so on. The person, and not just what they do, is the gift. This brings me to another misunderstanding about prophets and prophecy.

I remember a well-known pastor saying, “The prophetic always draws a crowd.” I think this is true, but only for one sort of prophecy, the predictive type prophecy which people love because they believe it may give them sure guidance for the future and help solve their problems. In scripture, Agabus represents this type of prophet (Acts 11:28; 21:10-11). This is a powerful prophetic gift, but not always the one needed in a situation. A man with an acknowledged prophetic gift came to see me a few years back, he believed he had been sent by the Lord.  He had well received into the ministry of a large city church until he had a (literal) vision about the future direction of that church. A vision which disagreed with the pastor’s vision. He shared with me his vision, which I believe to be a true word of God. Since the leadership couldn’t accept what God had shown him, he had to leave that congregation. Few pastors are secure enough in the Lord to receive prophets who speak to the structure or government of their churches.

Paul upholds the foundational importance of New Testament prophets. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph 2:19-20). He places prophets with apostles because these men and women infallibly point to Jesus as “the only foundation” on which the Church is to be built (1 Cor 3:15).

A friend of mine was a part of a church led by a very gifted prophet. One day she went to him to inquire how she could help in the church. Straightaway he mentioned money for a church building. (This man clearly isn’t a foundational prophet and is plainly blind to a big idol in his life. Besides which, prophets are usually not the sort of people who you want pastoring a church). Don’t expect home visits from a predictive prophet. A mature prophet will never become entangled in church projects, fall in love with prophesying or set a “fee” for their ministry. I remember being asked about my “fee” by a pastor. Quite frankly, I was shocked. Ministering with money in mind if the surest way to corrupt the prophetic message. (The very early Church document called The Didache says this directly.) I think there are too many of what I call, “court prophets”, in the Church.  In the Old Testament these were prophets paid by the kings to speak messages that suited them (see Amos 7:10-17). It used to bother me that I wasn’t that the predictive sort of prophet, but now I think much more broadly about the nature of prophets.

Ministering with money in mind if the surest way to corrupt the prophetic message

A few months ago, I sat next to a young man at a breakfast for Christian leaders. When I described my ministry, he correctly commented that biblical prophecy is more, “forthtelling”, speaking for God, than, “foretelling”, predicting the future. Very few of our predictive prophets are writing prophets, whereas many of the major prophets of scripture, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the apostle John are writing prophets. I often explain to people that my prophetic utterances are nearly always given through the medium of teaching. (Like this book!)

I am quite clear that my first gift is teaching, my second gift is pastoring and my final gift is prophecy. I became a believer through reading the Bible, and from the earliest days others would ask me about my interpretation of scripture. This became more and more pronounced over the years. But when I finished my theology degree, and my doctorate, I sensed the Lord saying I needed to be working with people more than ideas. During those years in pastoral ministry I grew as a shepherd. Then finally, and in stages, came a call to a prophetic office. Before describing this let me take a step back to explain the essential nature of all ministry.

It’s easy to forget that there really is only one true Minister of God. When I was lecturing on Church and Ministry this was my foundational point. According to the New Testament Jesus is the apostle (Heb 3:1), prophet (Luke 13:33), evangelist (Mark 1:15), pastor (John 10:11; 1 Pet 2:25;  5:4;  Heb 13:20) and teacher (Mark 1:27; John 13:13).  He is the real ‘servant’ (Phil.2:7), ‘deacon’ (Luke 22:27; Rom 15:8 etc), ‘priest’ (Heb 2:17; 5:5; 8:1) and ‘overseer/bishop’ (1 Peter 2:25; 5:4).  All new covenant ministries are a share in the ministry of Christ.  When you hear people talking about, “my ministry” this is probably as sign that ministry has become an idol in their life. Now back to the issue of a call to be a prophet.

All new covenant ministries are a share in the ministry of Christ.

All the prophets have a call. Consider Abraham called from his homeland to a land of promise (Gen 12:1- 3; 20:7), Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:1- 12), the boy Samuel (1 Sam 3), Isaiah in the temple   (Isa 6:1- 13), the prophets Jeremiah (Jer 1:4 – 10), Ezekiel (Ezek 1:1ff.) and  Amos  (Am 7:14 -15). In the New Testament the apostles are the primary successors of the prophets. The apostles Peter, James, John  by the Sea of Galilee  (Mk 1:16- 20; Luke 5:1-11), Saul (Paul) on the road to Damascus  (Acts 26:12 – 18) all had clear calls. There is no record of any human qualification or initiative in these stories. God sovereignly calls without any stated basis for calling the person. In almost every case the called person expresses a deep sense of inadequacy. I’m a poor speaker says Moses, a sinner says Isaiah, too young says Jeremiah, too sinful says Peter, and so on (Ex 3:13; 4:1,10,14; Isa 6:5; Jer 1:6- 8; Am 7:14; Luke 5:8). When confronted by a genuine call of God we naturally feel shamefully disqualified. This is a sign that a person is genuinely called by God into a prophetic ministry because it is given to prophets to understand “the mystery” and the mystery is so great.

This was true of the Old Testament servants of God; ““For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” (Am 3:7 compare Dan 12:7). As well as in the New Testament (Luke 11:49; Rom 16:26; Eph 3:5; Rev 10:10). At the heart of the mystery is the gospel (Rev 10:7; Luke 24:44, 47; Acts 3:21). We should then expect prophets to have gospel-shaped lives, lives that have known suffering, rejection and restoration. What keeps a genuine prophet going when others would have given up is the greatness of what God reveals to them of the things of Christ.

“The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:26-27); “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Tim 3:16). The greatness we see is always Jesus. And it is the greatness of God’s love in Christ which grips us and keeps us moving forward. As Paul says, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (2 Cor 5:14-15). The revelation of the things of God are “too wonderful for me” (Job 42:3; Ps 139:6) and it is impossible to be silent. No prophet “lays hold of God”, God and his Word lays hold of us.  Understanding that our lives are in God’s hands, prophets have no career or retirement plans.

The greatness we see is always Jesus.

I will never forget some comments from Geoff Bingham when he was over in Perth for a conference.  He’d just had a conversation with one of my theology students who remarked, “All of John’s students are afraid of him.” Geoff said to me, “I think it’s because you speak of great things.” All the things of Christ are the greatest things. Now let’s return to various call episodes in my own life.

The first of these came when upon reading some very unbiblical material in an Anglican Church newspaper in Brisbane, I was moved to cry out so loud that Donna could hear me from inside the house, about 20 metres from my outside office. “Where are the prophets.” I shouted. I think this was an example of an experience common to prophets in the Bible and any prophetic people today. We sense simultaneously how bad things are in the present, and how wonderful Jesus and his kingdom are. The difference cause us such great anguish that we want God to do something. Even at great cost to ourselves.

The second time I believe God called me was at the end of the 7 Days of Prayer in 1994. I have already shared this in detail, but since it was a strong revelation of Jesus as Lord of all in heaven it definitely was a call to prophesy. This is clearest when we re-examine the scripture God gave to me that day.

“[Jesus] whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.” (Acts3:21- 24)

When a person is called to be a prophet, or to prophesy about Jesus, they enter into the line of holy prophecy that has existed from “long ago”. Literally, “from the ages”. From Abel on (Matt 23:34-35) men and women have been called to testify to Jesus and will be called until he comes again. Prophets are integrated in the plan of God, “to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10). My final call experience combined elements of the above two call episodes.

Prophets are integrated in the plan of God, “to unite all things in Christ”.

Following the above prophetic callings, I had been strongly rejected in a local parish. This is the episode which caused my post-traumatic stress. Then after twenty years I had a sense that the Lord was re-calling me back into the institutional church to speak for him. I really needed to hear God clearly about this and an opportunity arose to go to Cambodia to pray. As the Spirit had once spoken to me about the mystery of Christ at Iguassu Falls, in Argentina, through the rainbow, so he spoke again.

Early one morning as I was boarding a bus in the seaside town of Kep a rainbow appeared with one end on the land and the other in the bay. Later that day I was flying into the city of Siem Reap; it was raining again and a rainbow came out with one end on land and the other in the huge adjoining lake. A favourite passage came to mind;

“I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven…with a rainbow over his head …He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring…. in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets. Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”…And I was told, “You must again prophesy….”” (Rev 10:1-11).

The rainbow, standing for the mystery of God, and the command, “You must again prophesy” were all clear conformations that I was being called back into a previously bitter situation to speak in the name of Christ. That prophecy is about “the mystery of God” is both deeply compelling but very challenging.

The mystery of God is written into the whole story of scripture through the blood of the prophets. This mystery is that in the wisdom of God the defeat of the righteous on earth by the wicked leads to final judgement. (This of course is all about the death and resurrection of Jesus.) No-one can call themselves to be a prophet because prophets suffer so intensely. They suffer many defeats, with many restorations, because their lives must be “Christomorphic”. Lives shaped like the life of the Lamb of God, “standing as slaughtered” (Rev 5:6). Prophets have lived the “fellowship of his sufferings” and “the power of his resurrection” (Phil 3:10). Prophets have become one with the mystery. This is a really tough call.

Very soon after I arrived to start a new ministry in a church in Perth Donna and I independently received the same scripture from the Lord.

“For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel— 6 not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. 7 But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. 8 Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads….. And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ezek 3:5-8; 2:5).

This was a hard word to receive for a young, foolish and enthusiastic pastor, but it later proved true. I remember coming out of one very fiery church meeting and Donna saying, “If they had stones, they would have stoned you!”  Those who prophesy will always be tested, not to break them but to refine them so they become more like Jesus (1 Pet 1:6-7). Which is what everything is about. Humans beings were made to hear the Word of God, and to know the name of the Word is Jesus Christ. I believe this is why when I was out praying one day, I sensed the Lord saying, “prophetic theology”. Such great things are very hard for the average church leader to digest. Part of the reason for this is a fear that prophetic ministry will destabilise church order.

Those who prophesy will always be tested, not to break them but to refine them so they become more like Jesus

I was criticised by a pastor for a sermon I preached recently because it caused offence to some people and made things hard for him. When I said, “Jesus caused offence, John the Baptist caused offence.” (Matt 3:7; 12:34; 15:12). He replied, “You’re not Jesus or John the Baptist.”  I had to say, “You have no idea how many people in my home city have compared me to John the Baptist.” (So much so that it was one reason I cut off my long hair and beard!)

When a man or a woman gives a Spirit-inspired prophecy something of the presence of the restoration of all things in Christ is imparted to the hearers (Matt 19:28; Acts 3:21). This is a part of “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 1:2, 9, 12:17; 19:10, 20:4). In prophetic preaching and teaching the events in the life of Christ continue in their original power. People really do hear God speaking. Peter is clear, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.” (1 Pet 4:10-11). Paul is transparent, “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” (2 Cor 5:20). The prophetic role is to encourage the Church to share in the testimony of Jesus without ceasing.

In prophetic preaching and teaching the events in the life of Christ continue in their original power.

There is nothing quite like Spirit-inspired prophecy. In being taken into Christ the prophet shares in the agony and ecstasy of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Men and women who might think God is not interested in their lives have a revelation he is intimately and directly concerned. This is the revelation of a love without limits. It is indescribably wonderful. If all of this is true, why do we have so little prophecy in the Church? Or, to put the question slightly differently, why is the Church herself not much more prophetic? Jesus died and rose so all the people of God could know his glory and be filled with the Spirit of prophecy (John 7:37-39). We are grieving the Spirit of prophecy by our sins.  Perhaps there are people we don’t want to forgive. Many people never have a desire to prophesy. This clearly disobeys scripture, “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”  (1 Cor 14:1).

It is a loving thing to want to speak God’s word to others. You don’t have to say, “Thus says the Lord”. Maybe the Spirit will give you a vision, or a dream, or lead you to a Bible verse, or place in your mind a picture. Trust him to speak in the best possible way. If you lack the desire to be a prophetic person, ask Jesus to give you the desire. He really wants to speak to others about himself through you. Perhaps you are frightened about making a mistake or acting like a “false prophet”. There have been times when I’ve corrected people for a testimony that I didn’t think was Christ-centred or biblical. Hopefully I did this gently (2 Tim 2:25) so that these folks grew in the ability to hear God and speak for him. The example below can teach us a great deal.

“And Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you bare not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”” (Mark 8:31-33). Jesus truly prophecies about his death and resurrection. Peter stands in the place of a false prophet and tries to “protect” Jesus. But Christ names him as the instrument of Satan he is. Peter was trying to protect his closest friend, Jesus, from the will of God.

My friend, never try to protect anyone from the will of God.  I know too many Christians who have been “prophesied” to that they will marry, or have children, be healed, or prosper financially, have a fabulous ministry and so on. These things never happened. Those who prophesied welfare were trying to help but in their ignorance (Jer 7:4) failed to discern that affliction is often the way of the cross. Jesus’ correction of Peter brought much good fruit out of his life. And Jesus can share with us through his Spirit about how to correct others in the realm of the prophetic since there are true prophets there are false prophets.

Both the Old Testament (Deut 18:9- 14, 21- 22; Jer14:14-16;5:30- 31;23:23- 32; Ezek12:24- 25 etc.) and the New Testament (Matt 24:23- 27; 2 Thess2:10-12; Rev 13;16:13) warn against false prophecy. And false prophets always work inside the community of God’s people (Matt7:15; 24:11, 24; Mark13:22; Luke6:26; Acts 13:6; 2 Thess 2:3 – 4, 8; 2 Pet 2:1; 1 John 4:1).  But if you are Christ-centred and practice the “Jesus test” you will not be deceived by false prophets and you will not deceive others. Just the opposite.

Some years ago an ex-student of mine was involved in exposing a visiting “prophet” from Africa who made wild claims all of which proved untrue. Whilst others had noticed certain inconsistencies in his stories she was the only one who had the courage to challenge this man’s testimony. Anyone jealous for “the testimony of Jesus” will take action, however uncomfortable this might be!

   If you are Christ-centred and practice the “Jesus test” you will not be deceived.

The remedy for false prophecy isn’t no prophecy but mature prophecy. “Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.”. (1 Thess 5:19-21). The Church always need more prophets and a wider prophetic ministry amongst all the people of God. Without this the Bride of Christ cannot, “be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Eph 4:13). In this way prophets serve the revelation of the mystery.

At the end of this book I have included three of my more recent sermons. You are welcome to put them to the Jesus test.

 

 

Conclusion

Since this book claims to be a prophetic testimony to Jesus, the following scripture applies. “Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.” (1 Thess 5:19-22). Please test this book. One reason for confusion in the Church is that we are often too polite to test.  We should “walk in the light” about everything (1 John 1:7).

I recall in 1988 sending a letter to a bishop in the diocese of Perth about a position I had been invited to apply for. When we met in person he remarked, “This is the only job application I have ever read which gives reasons why the applicant might not be suitable for the position.” In the light of Christ Christians should always be radically honest. Let me suggest how to test the worth of any book, sermon, teaching or prophecy about the things of God.

When I became a Christian, I thought it was because God spoke to me through the Bible about the meaning of my life. Today I understand this is a self-centred way of looking at things. Even if I was too self-centred to see it at the time, the Spirit was speaking to me about Jesus and his plan to make me more like himself. This did involve repentance, faith and conversion, but in a way that was more Christ-centred than I could then recognise. Some Christians want to argue that the Bible is God’s Word because of the support of science, archaeology, history or its testimony to the miraculous. I think the Bible is the Word of God because through it the Spirit speaks to us about Jesus. Not to give us information about Jesus, but through crucifixion and repentance making us more like Jesus (Gal 2:20). I never question the teaching of the Bible, because the Bible has taught me about Jesus. And I believe the witness of the Bible has taught me the “Jesus test”. Have you applied this test to this book? But let me be a little more specific.

The Bible is the Word of God because through it the Spirit speaks to us about Jesus.

One of the key scriptures in this book, following its title, “The Mystery is Christ”, is  Ephesians 3:8-10.

“To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in2 God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

My hope is that this volume has published some of “the wisdom of God in its rich variety”. If it has, then some of the light of Christ has shone through my life for the glory of God. And since the glory of God is good, wise and beautiful, reading this book will have made Jesus more attractive to you the reader.

Reading through any book it’s usual for someone to decide, “That’s a good book” based on the truth of ideas. But since this book is basically a testimony, it shouldn’t be tested on the logic of its ideas but on the fruit of a life. Has the author been true to the teaching of Jesus? ““I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.”” (John 15:5). This book should be part of the fruit of the life of Christ in my life. And dear reader, if you have read this book prayerfully seeking the wisdom and glory of God your reading and response can likewise be bearing fruit for God.

I would be confident that my Burmese readers will learn and grow through this book. As Paul describes his readers in Colossae, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just las you were taught, abounding min thanksgiving.” (Col 2:6-7). I am not anywhere near so confident about any response to this publication in Australia. A devastating example comes sadly to mind.

One of the most influential television programmes of the Australian Broadcasting Commission is called Q and A. When it received lots of complaints that it was consistently biased against Christianity, they had a special session on Church and State. The panel was completely Christian.  Whilst there was some discussion on the teaching of Jesus and Christian ethics, what amazed me was that none of the panel spent any time at all talking about Jesus as if he was today a live person. In other words, there was no, “testimony of Jesus”. There was no prophetic witness. The Australian Church has by and large ceased to be a prophetic Church. A church centred on Jesus is a prophetic church, and any prophetic church will be centred on Jesus.

A church centred on Jesus is a prophetic church, and any prophetic church will be centred on Jesus.

If this book helps you follow Jesus, then it will have succeeded in God’s purposes. But its not easy to follow Jesus.  Paul speaks of, “battles on the outside and fear on the inside” (2 Cor 7:5). In saying this the apostle shows that he knew how to live the way of Christ. Jesus explained, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”” (Luke 24:26). Suffering isn’t the cost of glory but the way of glory (Bingham). If this little book has in fact imparted some of the testimony of Jesus it will increase faith in the Church to suffer for the glory of God in Christ. Does that sound like a hard word? It is, but if it’s a true word in Christ it’s a beautiful word. Let me close with a final story.

Suffering isn’t the cost of glory but the way of glory

Some years ago I was on a winter retreat near Mt Bold which overlooks Perth city to its east, with the Darling Range a set of hills behind the city. I was out prayer walking before dawn and approaching a summit felt strongly led to wait for sunrise. The wait seemed to go on forever, but finally the sun started to come up over the hills in all its undisputed brilliance. Then from east to west all the city lights started to go out. This scripture was pressed into my mind; “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” (Malachi 4:2). In the End the only light that shines in the new creation is the Lamp of the Lamb of God (Rev 21:23). For the Lamp of the Lamb to shine through the church in any part of the world all its lesser lights must be extinguished. Self- confidence in our biblical orthodoxy (Rev 2:2), pride in our denominational tradition (Rev 3:1), personal assurance of being spiritual (1 Cor 14:37) or righteous (Gal 3:5), confidence in our affluence (Rev 3:17), all these things need to be crucified with Christ (Gal 2:20). Any light that testifies to us rather than to Jesus must be put out so only the life-giving Lamp of the Lamb may be seen. This is the way of the cross. “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal 6:14).

Any light that testifies to us rather than to Jesus must be put out so only the life-giving Lamp of the Lamb may be seen.

 

 

Appendix: Prophetic Sermons

More Than Conquerors – St Mark’s 2/12/18 : Romans 8:31-39

Introduction

Audio: https://www.daleappleby.net/index.php/mp3-sermons/51-recent-sermons/901-the-love-of-god-rom-8-31-39                                                                                            

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mv0guVX_A

Our society is dominated by a little game in which there are celebrity “winners” in sport, finances, entertainment etc. and “losers”, people like addicts, the homeless, the imprisoned and many Indigenous people. The “winners” enjoy “success” and the “losers” are thought of as failures. In its testimony that “all have sinned and fall utterly short of the glorious life God wills for us” (Rom 3:23) and that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23) Romans brings God’s verdict on society’s game pronouncing the only victor in life is Jesus. In a day when we have fallen into the culture’s trap of marketing celebrity churches and pastors God in his marvellous wisdom is marginalising Christianity from mainstream influence calling us back to the radical life of the Early Church in which every social norm was crucified and raised with Christ. One Roman critic said, “”only foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and women, and children”, i.e. people without dignity in his culture, become Christians (Celsus). The book of Romans radically redefines life’s deepest meanings; “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” is a prophetic proclamation over every faithful believer. Since, “in all things God is working for the good of those who love him” (Rom 8:28) nothing can defeat God’s eternal purpose to make us like Jesus. Paul placards the triumph of God’s plan in Christ by putting forward a series of unanswerable questions;

Exposition

v.31 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

“God is for us” summarises the whole argument of Romans so far, in justification, sanctification and the gift of the life-giving Holy Spirit our Father (Rom 8:14-16) is totally for us and never against us. Our adversaries can never prevail over us. As David, who knew something about the stresses of life, put it so poetically and powerfully in Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (23:4; cf. 56:9, 12; 118:6-7).

This is a great word but when Christians let their prayers and Bible reading slide and stop regular worship because they life feels too hard in practice they are denying that Jesus has mastered all our struggles. Paul gets right to the very heart of what matters by holding up the cross. v.32 “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Since the Father freely gave Jesus up as a sacrifice (cf. Gen 22:12,16; Isa 53:6, 12 LXX; Rom 4:25) he will surely give to us lesser things as a gift of his grace (1 Cor 2:12; Gal 3:18cf. 2 Cor 9:15). The limitless height, length, breadth and depth of the love of the cross (Eph 3:18) is unconquerable; we need to see that in the End such will surely supersaturate all things. The “all things” we are told God will give us include the “all things” in which he is working for our good (Rom 8:28) plus all present and future blessings of salvation.  At the End we will share with Jesus his Lordship over the whole created universe (2 Tim 2:12 cf. Rom 8:17; 1 Cor 3:21-23). As Jesus was became Lord of all (Acts 10:36) by overcoming in his own life the temptations, conflicts and sufferings which destroy our quality of existence Paul goes on to expound the adversities of the Christian life.

33 “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”

In this court room scene no accusation can ever succeed against God’s chosen people because the Judge has already justified us/declared us to be in the right with him in Christ (Rom 5:1; 8:1 cf. Isa 50-8-9). I know from multiple personal experiences that to be accused falsely can be extremely painful, but in Christ such blamings provide opportunities to receive revelations of the glorious justifying love of God.

34 “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

Demonic powers, human enemies, and even our own conscience’s might try to condemn us (1 John 3:20) but the authority of our Saviour renders every accusing voice null and void. With our sins are covered by the blood of Christ (Rom 3:25) we are free of all condemnation (Rom 8:1). More than this, Jesus is constantly praying for us (Heb 7:25) and seated at the Father’s right hand in heaven (Ps110:1) his prayers cannot fail because his victorious life mediates on our behalf (1 Tim 2:5 cf. Luke 22:31-32; John 11:41-42).

Paul is about to open up to us a God-eyed view of what the Lord is doing in the world. “At the right hand of God” all Christ’s enemies are being placed under his feet (Ps 110:1); and this victory procession (2 Cor 2:14) primarily takes place through the faithfulness of a suffering Church. As Jesus was attacked by sin, Satan, suffering and death it is necessary (Luke 24:26) for us to be attacked in order that we might triumph over these powers for his sake.

35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.””

No adversity can separate us from Christ’s love because his love has proved itself unfailing in death and resurrection. The List of afflictions Paul lists were all part of his apostolic labours in which the life of Christ had proved triumphant (2 Cor 11:26-27; 12:10). In the eyes of the world a Christian may merely be a “sheep to be slaughtered” (Ps 44:22) but through the eyes of faith we know this brings us into glorious union with the conquering Lamb of God ruling from heaven (Rev 3:21; 5:5-6). Suffering for the sake of the gospel (2 Tim 3:12; 1 Pet 4:12-13 etc.) is a normal part of following Jesus.

Recently the Coptic Christians of Egypt were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Last year 128 were killed and more than 200 driven out of their homes because of their faith. Despite numerous brutal attacks and church bombings they have refused to retaliate but pursue peace with all (1 Pet 3:11). By having a cross tattooed on their wrist each Copt is a suffering sign to the world of the victory of Christ.

As Paul expounded earlier in Romans pain faithfully borne doesn’t separate us from Christ’s love, it brings us closer to God, “suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Rom 5:3-5).

37 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Christians don’t just win the battle of life they are “superconquerers”. As Romans 5 testifies about Jesus victory, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20) grace “superabounded”. Astounding victories in all life’s trials e.g. Australian evangelist Nick Vujicic’s life testimony, “No arms, No Legs, (literally!) No Worries”, can come only “through him who loved us”. Now the passage moves to a tremendous climax.

38 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. He has conquered all evil (cf. Ps 139:8; Eph 1:21; 6:12; Col 1:16; 2:15) so that in him we might never be lost from the grasp of God’s love. As Lord of all (Acts 10:36) Jesus is right now demonstrating his victory to a hostile world (Eph 3:10; Phil 2:15) through the triumphs of his people.

In preparing this sermon I was reminded of the testimony of Pastor Samuel Lamb who I met decades ago in China.  He’d been imprisoned for over twenty years under conditions so dangerous that his trainee replacement didn’t survive his training period. Lamb pointed to various mementos, “that’s from Billy Graham, that was sent by Ronald Reagan, that’s from the astronaut Buzz Aldrin” and so on. His sharing held no trace of boasting because he understood himself to be more than a conqueror solely through Jesus.

Conclusion

Through God’s love on our side there’s no situation of rejection, illness, tiredness, ageing, poverty, or whatever, that we cannot conquer in Christ. Paul testifies, “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13 cf. 1 John 5:4-5; Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:12, 21; 12:11; 15:3; 21:7). Christ’s triumphant reign in us grows as we humbly follow him in all our afflictions.  Some years ago I said to a pastor in a church I was working in that after a long string of exhausting disasters I felt that if things didn’t work out there it would be the end of my ministry. Guess how that situation ended…. Catastrophically; but by God’s grace it became another source of overcoming so that the testimony of Jesus was intensified in my life to his honour praise and glory. I have learned that the meaning of life’s struggles is the vindication of the name of Jesus in the world, “making Jesus famous” as some would say.

The meaning of life’s struggles is the vindication of the name of Jesus in the world.

Christians should never whinge, murmur and complain about life just like other people because Romans defiantly testifies that as justified, sanctified and Spirit-gifted we are not just like other people. In Jesus you are not just another human being and you are called to live the life of a super-conqueror (Rom 8:29)! Early this morning I was aware of catastrophic pain – in our family, in our relatives’ families, in the families of our church, a network of underlying pain right across our nation which none of our culture’s games can ever heal. In his death and resurrection Jesus’ has borne, mastered and overcome all our pains. Only Jesus can transform suffering from the sphere of defeat to the sphere of boundless victory. Not by giving us a pain free life but through the supernatural gift of the life-giving Spirit (Rom 8:18ff.) pouring into our hearts the loving presence of God (Rom 5:5) even as we groan.

Since the teaching of Romans about the Christian life is so great we must ask ourselves, “Why are we so stuck spiritually?” Geoff Bingham, who lived in constant pain from a war wound for over 50 years, supplies the answer, “We are overcomers because Christ has overcome us and our rebellion” (2 Cor 2:14). To the degree I have been conquered by Christ to that degree I will be “more than a conqueror through him who loved us”? Let’s choose to be much more conquered today.

 

 

Beautified by the Word – St Mark’s 9.12.16 : Gen 1: 1-31; Ps 19:1-11; Heb 1:1-4; John 1:1-18

Introduction

Audio: https://www.daleappleby.net/index.php/mp3-sermons/51-recent-sermons/904-watering-withering-plants

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=hN5sP_Xn90o

Since I believe Dale’s claim in last Sunday’s message that much of the Church, including St Mark’s, is under judgement, is true, I want to pick up this theme, but from a very different angle. But first I need to warn that any human attempt to preserve the Christian Church in Australia, whether as a religious institution, this diocese, or St Mark’s as a community we all love will fail under the judgement of God because to put the Church first is an act of idolatry. Christ did not teach us to pray, “Your Church come…” but “Your kingdom come…”. To confuse the visible church with the reign Christ did once entangle St Mark’s in lengthy fruitless efforts for the redevelopment of our site in order to survive. But survival is never the God’s will in Christ, his will is resurrection life (John 6:39-40)!

Dale compared the church to a withered plant that desperate needs watering, and quoted John the Baptist, ““the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire”” (Luke 3:9). Wilted plants in the spiritual realm are as easy to recognise as they are in the natural realm. (JY brought 2 branches into the church, one healthy the other withered, from the same tree). If there is no-one who has come to Christ or grown in Christlikeness through my life, then I am a withered branch (John 15:6). As an ageing, illness-conscious church with people leaving our fellowship for no apparent kingdom reason we are a wilting plant. But in the Lord there’s always a way forward no matter what the condition of the tree; read Job 14:7-9.

Christ is calling us into the deep roots of what the Bible calls “the mystery of God” (1 Cor 4:1; Eph 3:9). This means discovering that the absence of spiritual vitality in the Church is a symptom of being inhibited in our union with the spiritual glory and beauty of Christ our Husband. God calls his people to relate as a faithful Wife to Jesus, enjoying what I can only call a nuptial rapture until we see his splendour face to face (1 John 3:2). This is a reality that can be realised in the here and now by the ministry of the Word of Christ. That God’s Word imparts his glory is clearly taught in today’s readings; at climax of the 10-fold “God said” of Genesis 1 “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31). “Very good” in the sense expounded in Psalm 19, the entire creation was declaring the glory of God. Hebrews takes this further by explaining that the word through whom the world was created is, “the radiance of the glory of God” (1:2-3), and as expounded in John 1, this is the glory of the Word made flesh, the “glory of the only Son of the Father” (1:14). All the glory and beauty of creation is founded and finished in Jesus.

The absence of spiritual vitality in the Church is a symptom of being inhibited in our union with the spiritual glory and beauty of Christ

The Offering of Beauty

We must counterbalance the persistent feeling that the world is getting worse with the fact that the world is full of beautiful things. The Church struggles in its partnership with Christ to faithfully release the fulness of such beauties. Donna will insist maths is beautiful, Andrew that music is beautiful, there’s a beauty in theology, and a beauty in cooking, hospitality and certainly in babies and grandchildren. Or, to move closer to the theme of this sermon, no one has ever seen an “ugly bride”. The Church/us may behave like an “ugly Bride” but she can never be in the eyes of Jesus anything but limitlessly desirable. (He is in rapture over the Woman with whom he will spend eternity!) But how are all the beauties of God’s gifts released to dynamically serve Christ’s kingdom through his Church (Matt 16:16-19)?

Some people felt uncomfortable when Dale referenced from Malachi the giving of “tithes and offerings” (3:8-10) to the Lord sending a spiritual watering on the withered plant of the Church. People are so hung up about money because they rarely possess the spiritual depth of revelation to understand how money becomes beautiful through the mystery of God! Is there anything naturally beautiful about money? (JY holds up a $50 note) Not at all. The old term for money as “filthy lucre” reflects this (Tit 1:11 KJV). But money given sacrificially to prosper the kingdom of God creates a sphere of glory which releases heavenly blessings to further the kingdom of God. When the people of Israel brought, “much more than enough” in gifts to construct the tabernacle the glory of the Lord filled the place (Ex 36:6; 40:34); when in Acts those with more than enough sold it to contribute to the needy believers necessarily “great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:32-33); when in the midst of a financial crisis in South Korea believers in a fellowship started selling even their rice bowls to contribute to the assembly we shouldn’t be surprised that they grew to the largest church in the world.

There is no limit to the power of God to beautify even the seemingly most ugly things when they are offered up to him. The wife of friend contracted terminal lung cancer some years ago, but they both became quite excited when the Lord spoke to them through his Word in Ecclesiastes, “God has made everything beautiful in its time” (3:11). Even death can be transformed into something glorious because there is no limit to the transforming power of the beauty and glory of the cross.

The Unutterable Beauty of the Cross

Dale’s image of a withered plant moved my mind to the prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah; “My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isa 53:2) To ordinary sight the cross was sheer ugliness and a repulsive tragedy, but God does not see as we see. And so the death of Jesus became the one thing in which the Church gloried; “But far be it from me” says Paul, “to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal 6:14).

Every time I speak of beauty I am constrained to share (2 Cor 5:14), even if very briefly, my experience in Jerusalem at the site of the crucifixion. Transfixed by a painting of the face of the crucified Jesus I had a completely transparent sense of Father saying, “This was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” The love the Son of God showed in becoming a sacrifice for the Father to save the world was inexpressibly beautiful. Baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection we have been immersed in this eternal imperishable beauty (Rom 6:1-4). Isaiah says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isa 40:18). The Word in which we stand is Jesus and unlike earthly beauties we shall never perish (John 3:16). The word spoken to us in the gospel has unlimited power to water, purify and beautify.

Beauty of the Church: Water and Word

Those ““born (again) of water and the Spirit”” (John 3:5 cf. 15:3; Tit 3:5-6) have the imperishable seed of the glory of eternity in their hearts (1 Pet 1:3-4, 23). And the greatest witness to the beautifying power of the Word in scripture is about our Marriage to Christ. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might make her holy, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:25-27). This extraordinarily lovely image means any unfruitful, wilting, barren church is a Bride resisting the all beautifying power of the Word of Christ. Jesus will Return as our Beloved Husband and Word of God and he will impart to the fullness of the beauty of our Bridal identity so that marital bliss will fill the universe forever (Rev 19:11-16). Then our nuptial rapture will be perfected and everlasting. Hallelujah! What might be preventing us from growing irresistibly into such wonders now?

Ugly Bad Roots

Instead of being “rooted and grounded” in Christ’s love (Eph 3:17) we may have an evil and defiling “root of bitterness” that “causes trouble” (Heb 12:15), or lacking deep roots in the Lord we may have distanced ourselves from him for fear of rejection in the world (Mark 4:16-17). If, as taught last week, the people in Malachi’s time were “robbing God” by withholding their material contributions most contemporary Christians are “robbing God” by not offering to him the best of their time. Too busy to read the scriptures deeply, pray persistently and gather regularly with the saints of God to intercede and study the Bible. Until this satanic strategy is broken the Australian Church will remain crippled and immature.

Underlying all spiritual withering is a chronic unbelief that God’s Word can release his beauty and glory through our own ordinary lives. But the glory in Christ crucified is without limit. Some years ago soon after I had a soul-splitting then joy-releasing experience of the Lord’s powerful presence I took a regular communion service for frail, crippled, demented visibly perishing people in an old people’s home. This time I was granted to see them through the eyes of Christ crucified in the power of his endless love and this haggard bunch were all amazingly beautiful. Loving radiant spiritual beauty covered them breaking in from another world.  Withered though we may be we can be see ourselves as covered in this beauty. But there is a step of obedience most of the Church refuses to embrace. We are of course back to the cross. As soon as any group of believers obeys the call of God to sacrifice precious things a revelation of his glory will appear (Eph 3:10). This is the gospel (2 Cor 4:4).

Conclusion

The mystery of the Church and her fruitfulness and vitality is the mystery of a beautiful Woman loved through immeasurable sacrifice and called by her Beloved (Eph 1:6) through his Word to share in the power of his sacrificial life and enter into his glory and beauty (Eph 5:26-27). When all the wonderful talents and treasures God has given us, with the ordinary and difficult circumstances of life, are placed at the feet of Jesus in living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2) we will be inundated by the beautiful life of Christ. The survival of the name “Anglican” or “St Mark’s” is a very small thing. What really matters is that Christ manifest his presence in Bassendean and beyond through his beautiful Bride, the Church. In the light of the revelation of the mystery of Beauty what will you offer Jesus today to make sure what is withered does not die but springs and sprouts radiant with his life?

 

 

Delighting in Lowliness – Zion Fellowship 30.12.18 : Phil 2:1-13 (NKJV)                      

Introduction

Christians are often short-sighted (2 Pet 1:9) about problems in their own spirituality which they can easily see in secular society. I was reading a newspaper article recently about the feminist push to ban men-only clubs, and the word which kept coming up was “power”. There’s something about power and influence that seems irresistible to those who can access it; the hunger for power is behind the chaos in federal politics in the last year. This is plain, but when many Christian “Leadership” Colleges blatantly promote themselves as centres of excellence and influence we somehow miss out on seeing how this violates the S/spirit of him who said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt 11:29). Until the Church replaces its structures of achievement with lowliness of life it can never impact the foundations of our godless society.

This is the time when such things should be most transparent to us. Preaching last Sunday from John 1 about the Word becoming flesh I was reminded that God’s decision to become human (John 1:14) involved a permanent willingness to serve at the deepest level of his being. The Son of God’s taking on of lowly humanity was infinitely more dynamic than the creation of the world because it was a transformation in God’s own life. Meekness is the medium through which the power of God’s kingdom flows (Matt 5:5) and the channel of our salvation. In seeing the lowliness of God in Christ we are constrained to accept that humility is a property of God’s very being (cf. John 14:9), and quite frankly we struggle to accept this truth because its implications are so profound. Let me use one very public example.

God’s decision to become human (John 1:14) involved a permanent willingness to serve at the deepest level of his being.

Philippians 2:6-7 literally reads, “Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 emptied himself”. But many translations, e.g. ESV, NASAB, NLT, NRSV read, “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself” implying that the humility of God expressed in Jesus was something in contrast to his divinity. No – it’s precisely because he is God that Jesus considered life to be all about giving rather than getting. Sinners don’t associate lowliness of life with God’s essential nature because we are people, to quote Paul, with “lofty opinions” (2 Cor 10:5) and we subconsciously think the Lord must be high-minded like us (Ps 50:21). And living in a society where people are obsessed with defending their our own sense of self-worth most Christians cannot appreciate the glory of humility. All these gross spiritual confusions began when humanity submitted to the Satanic word in Eden.

The Resistance

When Adam and Eve reached out to take the fruit of the tree of knowledge in order to “be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Gen 3:5) they exercised “high mindedness” in the most idolatrous sense. If they had actually to become more like God as he had revealed himself they would have exercised a “lowliness of mind” serving the Lord as he had served them by providing for all their needs. Instead, they proudly chose self-promotion, became “puffed up with conceit and fell into the condemnation of the devil.” (1 Tim 3:6). You may not consider yourself a proud person but whenever you compare yourself to others your pride is showing itself.  Paul warns; “Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.” (2 Cor 10:12). Every act of comparison, whether we place ourselves above or below others, is in fact an act of judgement and Jesus warned, ““with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged”” (Matt 7:2)

The human situation is dreadful because we are ensnared in our own lofty opinions about our capacity to judge God, ourselves and others (cf. Rom 1:24, 26, 28). We make comparisons which lead into competitions that bring wars, domestic strife, envy, jealousy, work rivalries and the like. Only the Lord can deliver us from our dreadful self-afflicted condition. The Lord warned me years ago about the dangers of self-assertion in the Church.

A visitor from interstate gave a prophetic word about a “sandgroper” spirit threating revival in WA. But she had no idea what a “sandgroper” is. The sandgroper is a burrowing insect whose attacks on the root systems of healthy-looking plants can prevent them becoming ripe for harvest. In applying this I believe the Spirit led me to James 3:13-18;

“Who is wise and understanding…? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast… This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

Selfish ambition is the opposite of lowliness of life and leads to conflict, division and the collapse of so many works of God.

The Promise

From the time sin entered the world the Lord has been looking for (Isa 66:2) for someone who understands that the way to share in his greatness is through lowliness. Flashes of this vision appear in the life of king David who testified, “your gentleness made me great” (2 Sam 22:36 cf. 7:18). But by adultery, murder and self-exaltation he failed to sustain this testimony (2 Sam 11; 24). There is in the Old Testament, if we read it closely, a prophetic word of the coming of someone whose sheer lowliness will lead into unlimited greatness. In Isaiah, the Lord God and a man share the exalted status of being “high and lifted up”.  This expression is used three times in the book. First in the vision of the glory of “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (6:1), the second time concerns the coming Servant of the Lord, “that shall be high and lifted up” (52:13) and finally a promise that God’s abiding glory will be shared with the lowly, “thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity…: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (57:15). What seems to have escaped the readers of the Old Testament was that Isaiah’s coming Servant of the Lord would become exalted like God through being pierced, crushed, rejected and put to death in our place (Isa 52:14ff.). It’s all there in the text but that humiliation is the route to exaltation was too much for the proud human spirit to accept.  Only after Jesus had died and been raised could sinners take it into their proud hearts that the lofty Lord on his eternal throne and the humble Jesus of Nazareth are one in glory (John 12:39-41 cf. Luke 1:51).

The Realisation: Incarnation

Only Jesus could say, without fear of contradiction, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”” (Matt 11:28-30). Only Jesus could say this for he alone is lowly in his deepest being. As God in the flesh Christ is all humility. Let me use an example. If you want to know what people think of themselves watch who they talk to. I remember various occasions when it became painfully obvious that certain folk had no time to talk with me because they had “more important” folk to converse with. Who did Jesus chat with? Fishermen, tax collectors, sick and bereaved folk, Samaritans, prostitutes and commoners, as well as Pharisees, centurions and others (Mark 12:37).

When Adam and Eve compared themselves to God in Eden they fell, but when the devil provoked Christ to do a miracle, become ruler of the world, put himself on public display by throwing himself down from the pinnacle of the temple his efforts were fruitless (Luke 4:1-13) because the Son’s sole concern was that the manifestation of the glory of his Father (John 7:18; 8:50, 54). Jesus’ lowly mindedness meant the whole space of his thought life was filled with no other greatness than that of the Father (John 14:28). For this humble mindedness to be perfected in his humanity however (Heb 2:10; 5:9; 7:28) Jesus had to die.

“he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). To proud minds there is nothing honourable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent or worthy of praise (Phil 4:8) in the cross. But the revelation of the mystery of the cross is not found in our minds but in what is going on in the mind of the crucified Christ. His cry of dereliction, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34) is a quote from the first verse Psalm 22, which goes on to describe the tormented thoughts of the afflicted person. “I am a worm and not a man” (22:6). The crucified Jesus entered into the condition of those stubborn unrepentant wretches, to quote both Old and New Testaments, “whose worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” under the everlasting wrath of God (Isa 66:24; Mark 9:48 cf. Ex 16:20; Job 25:6). In his limitless humility as our sacrifice Jesus was plunged into the bottomless pit. Against the cynicism of natural human expectations there is no way that death could be the end for Jesus.

In God lowliness cannot be separated from elevation, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:9-11). It is the glory of the Father (Rom 6:4) to exalt the humanity of his Son into equal place with himself far above all other titles, positions and powers. The revelation of the wisdom of God in the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus should spell the end of all our comparisons and competitions.

Application and Conclusion

Which is why leading into his great Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:5-11 Paul exhorts us to have “lowliness of mind” (Phil 2:3 KJV).  To be genuinely low-minded is to share in the utter unselfishness of the cross. It is therefore a scandal when you go to a pastors’ gathering and one of the first questions asked is, “how big is yours?” Comparisons of the size of congregations, of theological knowledge, spiritual giftedness, the richness of worship and so on a denial that, “Christ is all, and in all” (Col 3:11). It’s understandable that the disciples were arguing over “which of them was the greatest” (Luke 9:46; 22:24) before the cross shocked them into repentance and brought down their lofty opinions (Luke 1:51); but why do we, this side of the death and resurrection of Jesus, “boast in men” (1 Cor 3:21)? Paul knew the way to stop such boasting was to lift up the limitless vision of our inheritance in Christ; “For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (3:21-23).

Are you ever troubled by feelings, as I used to be, that you should be more mature at this stage of your Christian life? Or when you think of the achievements of other believers do you have a sense that you are missing out on something spiritually? What really need is the lowliness of mind that will stop you making such comparisons because lowliness of mind cuts off spiritual depressions and arrogances at their root.

I am afraid that so much of current Christian thinking is all back to front. The greater the vision the deeper the humility. Moses, to quote Scripture, “was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth” (Num 12:3), because he had such a grand vision of God. Because John the Baptist understood the stature of the Lord he pronounced, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”” (John 3:30 cf. 1:35ff).  In the minds of the genuinely lowly there is no room for any other greatness other than that of Jesus.  George Whitefield, who many consider the greatest ever preacher in English, cried out at the height of his fame, “Let the name of Whitefield perish, but Christ be glorified….Let my name die everywhere, let even my friends forget me, if by that means the cause of the blessed Jesus may be promoted.” This is not false humility on the part of so-called “God’s generals”; the power of the cross really can reorder the human mind (Rom 12:1-2; Phil 2:5).  Those who know this power never have to protect their own sense of self-worth by self-promotion.

Lowliness is the foundation for a vision of the glorious riches in Christ. Lowliness will always attract the delighting presence of the Father and the Spirit because in it they always see Jesus (cf. Isa 66:2). Lowliness of mind will release huge material and human resources for God’s kingdom through the Church because no humble person can ever be covetous. How then do we come to grow in and delight in lowliness?

Lowliness is not a virtue we try and cultivate; this would be a recipe for depression or pride, lowliness is a person whose life we are called to share, lowliness is Jesus. As Jesus was crushed by God’s mercy for us we must be crushed for the sake of others; for the Lord creates lowliness of mind (cf. 1 Cor 2:16) by a sense of failure, rejection, brokenness, sheer inability and being crushed (Isa 53:5, 10; 2 Cor 1:8). Only the power of the cross can destroy the arrogance that has been normalised in the life of the Church. I was visiting a website of some pastors I know the other day and was appalled at how they described themselves as passionate, visionary, remarkable and amazing. But Paul says; “far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14 cf. 2:20; 5:24).

Lowliness is a person whose life we are called to share.

I have a sense that we need to respond to what the Lord is saying in two ways. Firstly, to ask his forgiveness wherever we have compared ourselves to others, in any way. Secondly, that we confess on behalf of the Church that where she high-mindedly testifies, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” in reality she is “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17).