Reconciled by the Riches of his Glory 20th – 23rd November 2012 Kampala Uganda
1. The Father of Glory
Introduction
The pain caused by division and conflict in human life is immense, we live in a world torn apart and ravaged by the consequences of human evil at every level. There is the level of inner conflict; temptation exposes our double- mindedness (Ps 119:113; James 1:8; 4:8) and the Bible speaks of the moral dangers of a heart divided against itself (cf. Ps 86:11; Ezek 11:19; 1 Cor 7:35). There are serious divisions between men and women (Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard attacked leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott as a “woman hater” in federal parliament October 2012), conflict between husbands and wives, parents and children, between races, tribes, nations and language groups are simply taken as normal. The full power of oneness is almost unconceivable in a world that has broken away from unity with God. Yet the longing for the wholeness of perfect peace is so deeply imprinted on human nature that its realisation is foundational to the vision of all the world’s major religions, even if it is described in ways as different as the impersonal Nirvana of Buddhism and the Paradise of Islam.
The Bible grounds this vision of oneness in the life of God in a unique way. The foundational confession of faith of the Old Testament is a simple one, ““Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”” (Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV). The unity and identity of Israel as one people and nation depends absolutely on the recognition that there is only one true God who can be loved with all one’s heart, soul and might (Deut 6:5). The New Testament takes up this unified devotion in various ways, for example, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6 ESV). What we call “denominations” today is totally foreign to the thinking of the Bible and a sign that we need to encounter the reconciling power of the gospel once again.
In praying about the issue of reconciliation I sensed that the Holy Spirit was leading me to go back to the very beginning of our understanding of who God is as revealed in Christ. I have often said over the years in my teaching and counselling that the most important/ultimate question anyone can ever ask is this, “Is God a Father, and what sort of a Father is he!” When I am speaking of God as “Father” I am not thinking of what my father was like or his father or any human father at all, I am thinking of what Jesus meant when he called God “my Father” (e.g. Matt 7:21; Luke 2:49; John 2:16 etc.). The relationship between God the Father and his Son Jesus is the key to all reconciliation and unity.
What is the first thing on Jesus’ mind today for us as we gather for this conference? There is a quite popular song we sing in Australia which ends like this, “Crucified Laid behind a stone
You lived to die Rejected and alone Like a rose Trampled on the ground You took the fall
And thought of me Above all”. A friend of mine (actually my friend over here, Peter Nixon) asked me, “Did Jesus really think of us “above all” when he was dying on the cross?” My reply was that he did think of us, but he thought of us “in the Father”. This is the centre of my teaching today, at the heart of Jesus thinking and willing (cf.1 Cor 2:16) is always the presence of his Father. All talk of reconciliation, or being re-united, must take as its point of origin the relationship between Father and Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why I have titled this address, “The Father of Glory”.
The Father of Glory
The expression “the Father of glory” appears in Paul’s great prayer for the Church in the first chapter of Ephesians. “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1:15-23 ESV)
To call God “the Father of glory” is to confess him as the origin of all that is worthwhile – splendid, honourable, holy, beautiful etc. Every human experience of dignity, nobleness, pleasure, loveliness, excellence and value is a share in the glory of God as Father. It is only through the Son can we know this revelation. To honour the Father was the sole motive of Jesus’ life. John recognises this at the start of his Gospel, “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)
John 17 is a favourite passage for many Christians who quote these verses, ““I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”” (John 17:20-21 ESV), but few preachers and teachers go on to examine how Jesus said he would bring this unity to pass, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:22-23 ESV). We can try hard to work on Christian unity, run prayer meetings, conferences, read and write books, encourage one another and so on, but only Jesus can give us the glory which the Father has given him. This was a glory that Jesus always had with his Father. So at the beginning of the great prayer of John 17 we hear Jesus praying,
““I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 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 ESV). In eternity the Son of God lived, moved and had his being in the glory of the Father (cf. Acts 17:28). It is hard to imagine exactly what this means but it certainly means fullness of life – no lack of goodness, wisdom, love, joy, peace and every other delightful experience. Returning to the first chapter of John, “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16 ESV). To illustrate what this might have meant let us look at a few human examples, the psalmist exults, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” (Psalm 23:5 ESV). His life is overflowing in blessing; and he wants to tell everyone about it! This is how we should understand the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son, and it is the reason why God created the world.
Creation is glorious because it is the fruit and perfect expression of the shared action of Father and Son; “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV). The author of Hebrews expands on this by saying, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:1-3 ESV). The splendour of God fills all things (Isa 6:3, ““Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!””) because they were all created through his one and only Son who was the perfect communicator of all the goodness of the life of his Father. Human beings were created to share in this wonderful relationship.
The Father and the Glory of the First Human Creation
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8:3-5 ESV Cf. 1 Cor 11:7). The highest title that God gave us is that we are his sons and daughters, “I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; 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, whom I formed and made.” (Isaiah 43:6-7 ESV). When for example Luke traces the human genealogy of Jesus back to its origins, he concludes with “the son of Adam the son of God” (Luke 3:38). This means that Adam and Eve were created with the purpose and destiny of glorifying God as their Father as the eternal Son of God always had. To live in this way meant to be true to the image of God.
The eighth chapter of Proverbs speaks of God’s wisdom in creating humans like this; “when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.” (Proverbs 8:29-31 ESV). “Eden” means “delight”, and this expresses the attitude of God’s heart to his first creation. We have had our twin grandchildren staying with us recently, and it has been a sheer “delight”. What Adam and Eve experienced in Eden was much like what Jesus experienced at his baptism, “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and 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 ESV). When God looked at his sons and daughters he saw his own magnificent image and this deeply pleased his heart; before they had done anything they were “very good” (Gen 1:31).
The first couple were given a precise blessing and command, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28 ESV). As human beings spread over the face of the planet bringing loving order and harmony into all of nature and culture the great plan spoken of by the prophets would have reached fulfilment; “ For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14 ESV). For the earth to “know” God’s glory required that people carefully obey the LORD’s express command. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” (Genesis 2:16-17 ESV).
All the trees of the garden, including this one, were “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen 2:9). In the plan of God the tree of knowledge was to be the key to the greatest possible enjoyment that humanity could experience, the glory of sharing eternal life with the LORD himself. This however could only come in the way the Creator designed.
After Adam was created, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15 ESV). Adam was no ordinary gardener, the words used for “keeping” the garden find expression elsewhere in the role of the priests of Israel to guard the sanctuary of God (Num 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6). The first Man had a priestly and kingly ministry to be enjoyed in the glorious vocation of being a son of God, his calling was to guard the LORD’s own presence in the garden. Above everything else Adam and Eve were commissioned to guard the LORD’s glory in Eden by being faithful stewards of his Word by which all this splendour had been created. As long as they obeyed the Word not to eat of the tree of knowledge their inheritance in Eden and their future dominion across the entire world was assured.
God’s instructions were totally clear, “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”. There was no physical death at this stage in Eden, but what God meant was surely conveyed by the serious and grievous tone of this Word of warning. In some way to eat of the tree of knowledge would mean not only exclusion from the pleasures of Eden, a frightening prospect in itself, but far more seriously the loss of the pleasure of the Creator’s presence (cf. 1 Ki 9:6-7).
Sometimes people think it would have been better if God made human beings in such a way that they could not be tempted and fall into sin, or if he had kept Satan out of the garden. This sort of thinking is understandable because we all know form bitter personal experience how much pain the knowledge of evil brings. God understands this thinking but it is rather childish for the following reason (1 Cor 13:11). If God’s great purpose in creating us was that we share in the fullness of his glory it was absolutely necessary that men and women align themselves with his holy nature. The tree of knowledge represented an opportunity to pass from childhood innocence into adult spiritual maturity by knowing good and evil as God knows it (Gen 3:22; 2 Sam 14:17). God knows good and evil from the side of the eternal triumph of his goodness over the power of evil. The Lord’s purpose in allowing temptation in Eden was that this truth, fulfilled later in Jesus, the last/faithful Adam (1 Cor 15:45) might be real for us; “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”” (Hebrews 1:9 ESV). The triumph of good over evil is at the heart of the manifestation of the glory of God.
The Loss of Fatherly Glory
Jesus said to the Pharisees, ““You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.””(John 8:44 ESV) This is a description of the story of the Fall in Genesis 3, and it portrays Satan as a false father. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1 ESV). The devil always tells us that God is not a generous Father; here in Eden he accuses the Creator of keeping all the trees from his children. Eve’s reply shows that in her heart she already agreed with the satanic accusation, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” (Genesis 3:2-3 ESV). Eve makes 3 changes to the Word of God that God had spoken to her and Adam (1) She minimised her privileges, the LORD had said, “you may freely eat”, she says, “we may eat”. (2) She minimised the judgement by saying, “lest you die”, where God said, “you shall surely die”. (3) She maximized the prohibition, by adding to “you shall not eat” “you shall not …touch it”. All of this shows that she was already carrying in her heart an image of God as an imperfect Father.
Satan’s reply seems to offer Eve, and Adam, “who was with her” (Gen 3:6), a way to fulfil their deepest desires. ““You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Genesis 3:4-5 ESV). Satan speaks like a kindly and wise father, offering the simplest route to the glory of eternal life through obedience to his word rather than God’s. He understood how much Adam and Eve wanted to keep enjoying the pleasures of God’s good creation, and now here was a way of living in that joy without the discomfort of worrying about what God thinks. (Cf. Ever been somewhere so pleasant and peaceful you wish it could go on forever.)
Paul describes what happened next, “For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (Romans 1:21-23 ESV). Turning away from the glory of God human beings became insatiable idolaters, and the more they created idols the worst things became; for God’s word of judgement is totally clear. “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.” (Isa 42:8); “My glory I will not give to another.” (Isa 48:11). The great folly of Adam and Eve was to think that someone other than their Creator-Father could glorify them as his children. The glorifying of sons is the work of the Father alone.
The Fall in Eden meant the loss of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), the denial of eternal life, the fracturing of all relationships, and being cast out of the garden of delights. Human beings now inhabit a world where the final loss of everything through physical death is assured, and the possible loss of anything at any time is a reality. All experiences of suffering, mental, emotional, physical are a constant reminder that we have lost the security of an eternal inheritance. Humanity in sin outside Eden is in a constant state of trauma and anxiety. Having taken away our share in the tree of life fallen mankind lives in a condition of disinheritance (Rev 22:18-19).
Without Christ, all human beings stand before God, and one another, naked and ashamed (Gen 3:7). Shame is a sense of the loss of the glory of God. If the root cause of shame is disobedience to God and the loss of his pleasure, only the LORD himself can cover shame. Human beings do not react to shame by turning to the true and living God.
Stripped of the spiritual glory of obeying the Word of God by faith, the first couple used whatever resources they could in a vain attempt to clothe their nakedness. The “fig leaves” used for covering in Eden are a symbol for every human attempt to feel better about oneself by covering over our shame. The most powerful “fig leaf” is of course religion, then there is politics, nationalism, pride in race, tribe, family, sport, education as sources of worth. (Rather than opportunities for thankfulness (Rom 1:21).) Naturally speaking there is no end to substituting the glory that men give for the glory of the one true God; Jesus said, “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).
It has been wisely said that at the root of all conflict is idolatry. “The magnitude of the conflict and the obvious consequences of our idol worship may differ but the root cause is often the same: loving, trusting or fearing something or someone above God and punishing others when they fail to meet our expectations and demands.”
http://www.peacewise.org.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=yi43ILgYYvg%3D&tabid=110
James describes this evil dynamic, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (James 4:1-3 ESV). This is the exact opposite of the counsel of Christ, ““Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11 ESV)
Seeking glory from a source other than the Everlasting Father (Isa 9:6) is a recipe for disaster. Everything we place above the Lord spins out of control; in a world of limited material, social and relational resources every sphere of life becomes a competition for power and privilege: husbands versus wives, children against parents, nation against nation, tribe combating tribe, one religion/denomination against another. At the root of the conflicts which call for reconciliation is the loss of the sense that God is the Father of glory whose resources are without limit. No longer having an assurance that we are the inheritors of the earth anxiety, insecurity and panic grips the human heart – do I have enough money in the bank, am I loved, is my job secure etc. (Ps 37:11; Matt 5:5). Only Jesus can restore us to the glory of the Father.
Jesus Restores the Glory of the Father
If the glory that Jesus had with the Father existed from eternity, the plan of God to restore our last glory began with a decision made in heaven. This was the choice of the full one to become empty (Phil 2:6) of the rich one to become poor (2 Cor 8:9) and of the sinless one to become flesh like us (John 1:14). The eternal Son of God who had dwelt forever in the limitless riches of the glory of his Father entered into a realm where he had a nature like ours, prone to the limitations of hunger, thirst, ignorance and pain. The glory of his Father as a Father of love shines through precisely in the weakness and mortality of the humbled Son of God. Unlike us, Jesus never contended for personal popularity, privilege or power. His entire purpose was the manifestation of the life of the Father.
“Jesus said…, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV). Jesus was the one human being who never sought to glorify himself no matter how great the temptation; for example, “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”” (Matthew 4:8-10 ESV). Jesus was not the least bit interested in any honours that took him away from the Father.
It is not as though Jesus was some sort of passive individual who never entered into any disagreements; but the disputes into which he entered were never on his own account, never projections of his personal insecurity, but always on account of the glory of his Father’s kingdom. The confidence he had in ignoring the inducements that come from human beings was through his faith in his Father. Christ was absolutely confident that the Father would prosper his life. Jesus said, “I do not receive glory from people.” (John 5:41 ESV). “I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge….“If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’” (John 8:50, 54 ESV) Christ’s absolute assurance that the Father will honour him comes from his inner knowledge that he is the Son of God. Through the Spirit, Jesus has the revelation that the entire identity of God as Father consists of pouring out all he is and all he has into him as the Son. ““The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.”” (John 3:35 ESV cf. 13:3; 17:2). He knows that the Father will withhold from him no good thing (Ps 84:11). This complete sharing of Father with Son is the glory and unity of God. All this is great for Jesus, but how does it help us? The answer lies in the cross.
Suffering and death are not merely painful conditions for human beings, they are signs of judgement and divine displeasure; the loss of the glory of God. Generally speaking when people suffer, physically, relationally or economically, they are distressed because they feel robbed of their own dignity, honour and blessing. [This goes far deeper than simply a conscious state of mind, for example, situations of the abuse of children.] The suffering of the one true Son of God is totally different from this. I have already quoted Jesus words where he says he does not seek his own glory; but elsewhere he prays about the agony of the cross, ““Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”” (John 12:27-28 ESV). Jesus never sought glory for himself, but he did seek glory in the Father. It is this sort of glory which alone is the source of the true unity of the people of God and the inner power of reconciliation. Yet it is a glory that can only can through absolute loss.
In response to Jesus prayer about “the hour” God will soon glorify himself in Jesus (John 13:31-32) by stripping him of all awareness of sonship. The great cry from the cross, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34 ESV), means that Jesus is absorbing into himself the failure of all human sons and daughters to honour their Father in heaven (cf. Mal 1:6). He is experiencing himself as a failed or illegitimate son who is not acknowledged by his heavenly Father; in other words Christ must go through the hopelessness of disinheritance so that we might regain the inheritance of the Father of glory. He must lose everything so that we must gain everything. The torment of Jesus’ conscience at the moment of his dereliction is that he has no sense that the Father sees his image and likeness in him; no sense that in obeying the will and command of God he has brought any pleasure to his Lord. Even though he prayed so earnestly, “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 ESV)” there is no witness of the Spirit that he is the true Son of God.
Being stripped of glory is the only way that Jesus can “bring many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10), not a glory that can be measured by ordinary human experiences of pleasure, peace and prosperity, things which are subject to dispute, but the glory of knowing God as Father.
Jesus himself was raised from the dead, as Paul says, “by the glory of the Father” (Rom 6:4). At the resurrection, all the pride and pleasure which the Father had eternally planned for humanity was poured out on the beloved Son. The resurrection was the time in God’s plan when he was able with all wisdom to fill and exalt his Son to “the highest place” with a name, that is, a reputation, character, position and authority equal to his own (Phil 2:9-11). This gift of God, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18) means the glory of the Son is one with that of the eternal God. This transformation of humanity in Christ for us is the content of the gospel. That suffering and death is the way back to the presence of the Father is beyond human reason; but after his resurrection Jesus explains to his disciples, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26 ESV).
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead and his exalted return to the glory of heaven (Acts 7:55) are an image of our future inheritance in him. When Jesus returns, he will come with “his glory and the glory of his Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26). Whatever Jesus has received from God he will share with us forever. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2 ESV).
The Father’s Inheritance
The great passage in Ephesians chapter one which describes God as “the Father of glory” makes two profound statements about Christian inheritance. The first is easily understood. “In him (Jesus) we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,” (Ephesians 1:11 ESV). God has chosen us from eternity with the purpose of sharing Christ’s reign forever and ever (Dan 7:27; Rev 22:5). The implications of this for situations of conflict resolution are vast.
This is how Paul convicts the Corinthian Christians. “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!” (1 Corinthians 6:1-8 ESV)
This reminds me of two very different situations. The first involves a missionary friend. He started a ministry in a distant part of the world some years ago; then some wealthy and influential local Christians sought to take control. He had a choice of fighting them both personally and legally, but when he prayed the Lord told him to hand over everything to them. He has peace about all this, it is behind him and the Lord has raised up another helping organisation through his obedience. Contrast this with a high profile leader of a denomination. When he had struggles in leadership he was recommended to come to me for spiritual counsel. I told him that whatever happened he should trust God. When the denomination asked him to move on they offered him a financial package, he refused to accept it and started court proceedings. Sadly, he is still not in Christian ministry.
In the first situation, godly humility released resurrection power, in the second, personal honour led to a loss of the presence of the power of the kingdom of God.
A few years ago I somehow got connected with two brothers involved in the splitting of an African congregation in Perth. One of them, a highly paid professional, took the situation all the way to the High Court, an action which must have cost him tens of thousands of dollars. I tried to get these brothers together in Christ, one agreed the other refused. Something I found out later, which seems to have been important to this tragic division, is that the two leaders were from different tribes in their homeland with a history of conflict. What sort of testimony is such behaviour to unbelieving Australian society and the principalities and powers in the heavenly places? How can they believe that God is really the Father of glory?
The second declaration about inheritance in Ephesians is even grander than the first. Paul prays for the Church, “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,” (Ephesians 1:18 ESV). This text teaches us that God himself has a glorious inheritance and it is us! The sort of terms used here in Ephesians draw on the language of kingship in the Old Testament, for example, “Hezekiah had very great riches and honour, and he made for himself treasuries for silver, for gold, for precious stones, for spices, for shields, and for all kinds of costly vessels” (2 Chronicles 32:27 ESV). As an earthly king values treasuries full of silver and gold, so God values his people as his wealth and honour.
At the very end of Revelation we read of the activity of the heavenly Jerusalem, “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.” (Revelation 21:22-26 ESV). These “kings” are not people who have had special positions on earth, they are people who have been made special by their oneness with Christ, they are us! We are the “gold, silver, precious stones” by which God is building his eternal city (cf. Eph 2:22; 1 Pet 2:5). As Paul says – “whatever you do”, in marriage, family, work, business, friendship, finances…. “do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31).
God’s glorious inheritance Paul says is “in the saints”; by which he means the radiance of Jesus’ wonderful relationship with the Father already shines through the Body of Christ. It is not always easy to see this sort of glory amongst Christians. To my shame I remember being in a church meeting when I was a pastor, and some of us started to have a strong disagreement. One of the more experienced leaders said, “You are starting to shout at one another.” We were all so embarrassed that things calmed down because our annoyance was revealed as unchristlike. Seeing the glory of Jesus in other Christians (cf. Col 1:27) as a revelation of what is our future heavenly inheritance will be like reminds of my encounters with some Chinese Christians.
A few weeks ago a brother called Peter Xu was in Perth talking about training Chinese missionaries. He now lives in America after being released from 3 years in prison in China for preaching the gospel. He spent a lot of time talking about another leader (Simon Zhao) who was imprisoned for 42 years. This encounter reminded me of my meeting some years ago with Samuel Lamb in Guangzhou, who has spent over 20 years in a labour camp. Made to work in a coal mine his life was miraculously saved by God many times. Three months before his release Lamb was asked to train someone to take over his role in loading wagons; the poor chap didn’t survive until Lamb’s release. After hearing/meeting these men I could only say I had been in the presence of “saints”, which literally means, “holy ones”. When you have followed Jesus in such a way eternal things are so much more real than earthly things. Such men know the reality of Paul’s words, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4 ESV). Such men, “of whom”, to quote the letter to the Hebrews, “the world is not worthy” (11:38) are not dominated by a sense of their own rights, they have been purified of those idolatrous things that lead to so many of this world’s conflicts (1 Pet 1:22). The reason why these men are genuine agents of reconciliation is made crystal clear in Paul’s words;
“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!” 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, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”(Romans 8:15-17 ESV), and, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV). As Jesus could only return to the eternal glory of the Father through the purification of suffering, it is only suffering for Christ’s sake that causes a sense of the infinite glory of the Father to penetrate the deepest root of our being. Our awareness of God as the Father of glory (the faithful Father of our glory) – is in proportion to our suffering/dying with Christ. This is a revelation given by the Spirit in the context of afflictions; “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” (1 Pet 4:14)
Paradoxically, this means that none of what I have spoken of today will change anything without our embracing the inevitability of conflict. Not conflict concerning our personal privileges and pleasures, but embracing the understanding which Adam and Eve refused to accept in Eden, that the glory of God is only seen in the triumph of his goodness over the power of evil. In practice this alone can give us the suffering through which the glory of the Father becomes real to us. Tragically but necessarily, his means; conflict at all levels concerning the truth of the gospel such conflict must go on in the cause of reconciliation until Jesus returns.
Conclusion
Before Jesus’ death and resurrection it was quite understandable that Christ’s disciples would argue about who was the greatest (Mark 9:34), but now that our Master has gone before us into the glory of heaven, how dare we argue about limited and earthly things (cf. James 4:1-4). This is how Paul responds to a squabbling church, “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23 ESV).
The only adequate resolution to the many divisions amongst the people of God (from marriages to families to churches to denominations) is a revelation of the all sufficiency of the glory of the Father. Each Christian person needs a personal revelation that that there are no limits to the inheritance we have from God. Let us take to heart the words of scripture which speak about who we are in Christ, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2:8-10 ESV). Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father in heaven” (Matt 6:9), this is not a formula but a statement that he has shared his relationship with the Father with us. These are the words which he spoke as he was about to ascend to heaven, ““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 ESV) Whatever Jesus has with the Father is ours now and forever. For such things to come home to us in a real way however we must deal with our deeply held cultural idolatries.
During the First and Second World War all German army soldiers went into battle with the motto “God with us” (Gott mit uns) on their belt buckles. Which God was that I wonder, was it the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or some other more convenient image of God, the idol of German nationalism? I humbly want to ask, how was it possible in Rwanda for Hutus and Tutsis to pray together in the one church, “Our Father” and the next day for there to be genocide? Things such as this, which have for so long plagued the history of the public profession of Christianity, expose a deep unbelief that God is truly the Father of glory.
What is the idolatrous image that we Australians have that obscures the clear revelation of the glorious Father. Do we dare think that he is laid back like we are, that he shares our “She’ll be right mate/No worries” attitude that things will turn out OK in the end. Probably, but at a rather deeper level everything I know about the mainstream culture of Australian Christian spirituality, its terrible weakness in prayer, its mediocre passion for mission, its general lack of interest in the persecuted church, its indifference to poverty and issues of reconciliation with Indigenous people, convinces me that we live as if God is a lazy Master, “reaping where he does not sow, and gathering where he has not scattered seed” (Matt 25:24), the very opposite of the generous “Father of glory”. May the Lord grant us repentance for all such thoughts.