Posts Tagged christology
Surpassingly Fair Lord Jesus
Beholding Him in His Glory
One of the best ways to write for a public audience is to take what’s written in other mediums and adapt it for a new venue. This post will be the first of several that will be experimental in that regard. Lord willing on Fridays I’ll look back over the week and simply post anything that was particularly thrilling in my personal devotions.
After Theology of Worship last week with Church Steddom, I was processing the revelation of God to the elders on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24), and lo and behold, Exodus 24 was part of the yearly reading program that Nat and me are going through. This started a whole line of thinking regarding what it means to behold the glory of the Lord. What did it look like? Who encountered the glory of God?
Exodus 33:9-10 – Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.
When the 70+ are there on the mountain, they can’t really seem to describe God himself. Peripherally they see God, but they can’t actually describe Him. The actual manifestation of His glory is apparently too much to actually look upon. The ground beneath Him is described, and the manifestation of His glory turns it into “as it were a pavement of sapphire store.”
Isaiah 6:1 – In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Isaiah only describes the Lord of Glory briefly; it’s obvious that he cannot describe him particularly. Instead, all he can say is that “the train of his robe filled the temple.” Again, something peripheral to God Himself is described. Then, Isaiah goes on to describe the seraphim that surround His throne.
Ezekiel 1:26-28 – And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Ezekiel describes one with the “likeness” of a man sitting on the throne, but Ezekiel is not really able to discern his face. The preceding context is all descriptions of the cherubs around God, but there’s a little more detail. The “likeness” of man is “as it were gleaming metal” above the waist, and below the waist is “the appearance of fire.” All similes, not concrete language. Ezekiel is grasping for words to describe what he’s seen.
And then we come to Revelation 1, where John describes one who could only be Christ, but very similar language to the descriptions of Yahweh.
Revelation 1:12-17a – Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
Is this is part of progressive revelation, that in the OT they cannot see the face of God, but in the NT, there’s a progression to actually describing Christ’s glorified features? With the assumption that Christ is Yahweh, there is a connection between this passage and the previous OT passages.
Exodus 24, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, Revelation 1… certainly there were other times that God was seen. Genesis 32, Exodus 33, Matthew 17, 1 John 1 all describe instances of God either in or apart from His shekhinah glory (the visible manifestation of His glory). Some might debate Genesis 32, but the text implies Jacob wrestled with God, who is described as “the angel of the Lord.”
It appears worth noting that as God’s revelation progressed, each divine vision of God in His shekhinah grows more detailed. I wonder: a beautiful picture of the nature of the revelation we’ve been given in the face of Christ? To ponder Him in His shekhinah, or in the Word, and to be changed into the same image of glory (2 Corinthians 3)… not physically, but spiritually as we take on His character… wow. What a God that He would do this for His own renown, but for our absolute delight.
The Institutes (26)
Book 1 Chapter 14 Sections 1-12
Calvin moves into Angelology, offering a somewhat guarded examination of angels. Why guarded? Because, as Calvin readily admits, there’s not a lot of information on angels in Scripture. However,
… to prevent believers from deserting to the fabrications of the heathen, we must depict the true God more distinctly than they do. Since the notion of God as the mind of the universe (in the philosophers’ eyes, a most acceptable description) is ephemeral, it is important for us to know him more intimately, lest we always waver in doubt.
…
[J]ust as eyes, when dimmer with age or weakness or by some other defect, unless aided by spectacles, discern nothing distinctly; so, such is our feebleness, unless Scripture guides us in seeking God, we are immediately confused.
Calvin prefaces all of his remarks about angels with the above for one simple reason: for Calvin, understanding angels is understanding God. This is probably the primary thing about popular conceptions of angels, whether they be in Frank Peretti’s novels or the HBO series that’s named after them. Angels are not operating independently of God, much less existing apart from His knowledge and interest. Instead, they always come as messengers, pointing back to God. This is what is missing from all our conversations about angels. Their interactions with mankind always include God.
Beginning with the creation of angels, Calvin notes that they were all created perfect. It was because of sin that any of them fell. Christians are not dualists, thinking that Satan has equal power with God. His pithy statement comes in the middle of section three. “For the depravity and malice both of man and of the devil, or the sins that arise therefrom, do not spring from nature, but rather from the corruption of nature.” Nothing is naturally evil, in the sense that God didn’t create anything that way. Instead, it was only because of Satan’s fall and man’s fall that evil entered the world.
Calvin’s goal in all this is to head off at the pass any vain speculation. This is typical of his age, when theologians a hundred years later would not easily be stopped by the silence of Scripture. The coming Enlightenment would affect even theology… so depending on your perspective, Calvin’s insistence not to pursue some of these things further is either refreshing or frustrating. For me, I find it to be both. I think he can go farther with some things, and doesn’t with others. Here, though, he seems to be on solid ground.
He points out his objective before launching into the meat of his examination of angelic beings:
The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable.
***
Calvin’s stresses the angel’s role as protector to the believer, and the messenger of and one who “renders conspicuous” God’s majesty. Still, it is we who benefit from them, not God. Angels, as our protector, are meant to
One thing, indeed, ought to be quite enough for us: that the Lord declares himself to be our protector. But when we see ourselves beset by so many perils, so many harmful things, so many kinds of enemies – such is our softness and frailty – we would sometimes be filled with trepidation or yield to despair if the Lord did not make us realize the presence of his grace according to our capacity. For this reason, he not only promises to take care of us, but tells us he has innumerable guardians whom he has bidden to look after our safety; that so long as we are hedged about by their defense and keeping, whatever perils may threaten, we have been placed beyond all chance of evil.
They are agents of grace, under God’s sovereign hand. Calvin may paint too rosy a picture here, as if God will not allow trial or evil to come into our lives. However, Calvin is so explicit on this point elsewhere so as to negate any objection here.
The thing that I’ve seen in American culture, and noted above, is the obsession with angels as good beings. “Touched By an Angel” is probably notable for this, that angels can operate independently of God. So much other speculation has been stirred up so as to make angels the subtle enemies of God, stealing away from Him His rightful glory and honor. Calvin speaks, as it were, into our own time:
How preposterous… it is for us to be led away from God by the angels, who have been established to testify that his help is all the closer to us!
…
God does not make them ministers of his power and goodness to share his glory with them… he does not promise us his help through their ministry in order that we should divide our trust between them and him.
Angels are extensions of His grace, add to His glory, and point back to His throne. Everything about them is entrenched in Yahweh and His Son, Christ, whom they serve and worship (Psalm 91:11-13, Hebrews 1:6).
In the next section, Calvin will explore what Scriptures have to say concerning fallen angels.
The Institutes (25)
Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 25-29
The war continues. Calvin moves from refuting anti-Trinitarian arguments from Scripture to refuting their arguments from extra-biblical sources. As he does so, he provides perhaps the clearest expression of the Trinity I’ve ever read. Isn’t that how it is? The Church grows and is strengthened when it is tested by heresy. This is all throughout history… what a reminder to us in the midst of so much confusion and outright blasphemy!
The essence of all three Persons is deity, not just the Father.
… although the essence does not enter into the distinction as a part of a member of the Trinity, nevertheless the persons are not without it, or outside it; because the Father, unless he were God, could not have been the Father; and the Son could not have been the Son, unless he were God. Therefore we say that deity in an absolute sense exists of itself; whence likewise we confess that the Son since he is God, exists of himself, but not in respect of his Person; indeed, since he is the Son, we say that he exists from the Father. Thus his essence is without beginning; while the beginning of his person is God himself.
… those who want to make a Trinity of these three – Essence, Son, and Spirit – are plainly annihilating the essence of the Son and the Spirit; otherwise the parts joined together would fall apart, and this is faulty in any distinction. Finally, if Father and God were synonymous, thus would the Father be the deifier [sic]; nothing would be left in the Son but a shadow; and the Trinity would be nothing else but the conjunction of the one God with two created things.
The essence of deity is shared by all three Persons; all three Persons are properly God. To be the Son of God is to be God, and to be the Spirit of God is to be God. But, as Calvin infers above, we cannot comprehend all of God in any one of the three Persons. God is not totally synonymous with any of the three; He is more fully understood in the three.
Anti-Trinitarians quote Irenaeus and Tertullian to give their viewpoint some theological cred. Calvin soundly defeats both of these appeals to authority. Instead, he shows how both of these church fathers continually argued for the the deity of Christ. Irenaeus said,
…he who in Scripture is called God in an absolute and undifferentiated sense is in truth the only God, and that Christ indeed is called God in an absolute sense.
Similarly, Tertullian, in refuting a heretic, explicitly declares that there are as many names for God as there are persons.
Finally, Calvin appeals to the judgment at Nicaea, where orthodox doctrine concerning the Trinity was established. Arius was soundly defeated, and Augustine was triumphant. The Trinity as a doctrine was embraced by the whole of the church fathers, and thus should be embraced by us today.
The Institutes (24)
Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 21-24
Finally, Calvin goes to war. Joke. He’s always at war. The Institutes have a perpetual edge, as if Calvin’s arguing against something. Biblical doctrine means firmly holding to and loving truth, and vehemently attacking and dismantling error. There is corresponding love for truth and hate for falsehood in the Christian life.
Here he begins to name specific Trinitarian heresies against which the church should set itself and authoritatively should declare the Word. Part of me was actually left saying: “isn’t Calvin going a bit overboard?” Well, in fact he probably is, as is evidenced by the way he treated Servetus when the latter was captive in Geneva. However one might try, it’s not excusable, although there’s good evidence that Calvin wanted some measure of mercy for the man.
With that in mind, Calvin goes about systematically (surprise!) demolishing the arguments of anti-Trinitarians. He summarizes what he’s going to do near the beginning of the section:
Indeed, if we hold fast to what has been sufficiently shown above from Scripture – the the essence of the one God is simple and undivided, and that it belongs to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; and on the other hand that by a certain characteristic the Father differs from the Son, and the Son from the Spirit – the gate will be closed not only to Arius and Sabellius but to other ancient authors of error.
In short, Scripture is enough to tell us about God. All we must to is show positively what is true about God therein, and all heresy can be confronted, condemned, and brushed aside as such.
He goes about naming particular anti-Trinitarian heresies: Severtus is mentioned for the first time at length. For him, there is no Trinity, but instead a sort of modalism (where God has different modes that He chooses to display Himself through). He thought of belief in the Trinity as a belief in three gods, and that you couldn’t argue for the Trinity otherwise. Specifically, Servetus thought that Genesis revealed God as Creator, and John revealed God as Logos. Jesus was really God, but only came to be at the moment that God the Father conceived Him to be the next expression of His glory.
Calvin begins to refute these things by going straight to John’s Gospel: Jesus Christ always existed as the Word in eternity past. The Word was both with God and was God… and then became flesh. The Word was not just a separate force; He was God Himself. And then the Word became flesh… the Word Who was both God and separate from God.
Calvin moves on to address heresies that promote the Spirit and Christ being finite creations of the Father that He infused with His a measure of His own deity. But Calvin shows that Christ receives worship as if He was the Father. If Christ receives worship, then one of two possibilities exist: He is God, or He is God’s rival.
Calvin points out that this is the same tension in the way the Father treats Christ: in Philippians 2, Christ is so exulted that it is obvious that He is deity.
… unless he had been God manifested in the flesh he could not have been raised to such a height without God himself striving against himself.
It wouldn’t make sense for Christ to be so exulted by both God and man unless Christ was God.
The Institutes (23)
Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 16-20
Slowing down the last few weeks as I’ve gone through the Institutes: been reading through book two, working, and spending time ministering at my church. Hopefully I’ll get to posting once a day again, or at least once every other day.
In chapter thirteen, Calvin is systematically presenting the Trinity as a foundational doctrine to Christianity. One cannot take Jesus Christ to be mere man and still claim His name for themselves. Calvin has taken time to show that the Son and the Spirit are indeed Yahweh in the Scriptures… now he begins to show that there is a unity in their distinction. He wisely cautions:
… Scripture sets forth a distinction of the Father from the Word, and of the Word from the Spirit. Yet the greatness of the mystery warns us how much reverence and sobriety we ought to use in investigating this.
He goes on to quote Gregory of Nazianzus:
I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.
Of all Scriptural mysteries, the Trinity is probably the most impenetrable by our human minds. In the Old Testament, the shema carries so much weight: “hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And yet, Christianity doesn’t abrogate or change anything about the shema. It only clarifies the nature and character of Yahweh as He reveals Himself through the Son and the Spirit. So… if God is One, where do the Son and Spirit come from?
Christian doctrine has attempted to come to grips with the reality of the Trinity over the last 2000 years. The Christian doctrines that deal with this “origin” of the Son and the Spirit are called the eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. What is meant by these? Essentially, both of these doctrines attempt to show that in eternity all three Persons of the Trinity existed. As we can tell, the revelation of the Son and of the Spirit did not take place fully until the New Testament, but in no way does this mean that the Father decided to create the Son or the Spirit at that time, or at any other time.
What Scripture reveals is that the Son is the only begotten of the Father, and the Nicene Creed makes clear that He is begotten, not made. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and yet resided in eternity with them. Confused yet? Hopefully so: the Trinity is one of the most mysterious aspects of God, and yet the Scriptures bear testimony to it, as has previously been seen.
Calvin attempts to harmonize all the Scriptural statements concerning the nature of the Son and the Spirit. His conclusion regarding their nature is classic Calvin:
… this distinction is so far from contravening the utterly simple unity of God as to permit us to prove from it that the Son in one God with the Father because he shares with the Father one and the same Spirit; and that the Spirit is not something other than the Father and different from the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
For instance, some of the proof Calvin turns to is found in John 14-15, where the Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son. Jesus declares that there is “another” who is coming after His departure, one that proceeded from the Father. Thus, the Spirit mentioned was neither the Father nor the Son, but distinct and proceeding from them from them. How does this procession work out in Scripture?
[T]o the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.
This quote seems to show the overarching position that each of the three holds. As concerns our salvation and election, nothing seems better than Peter in 1 Peter 1:2. Concerning our election, he writes:
… according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.
The Father is the source of our salvation in eternity past, the Spirit is the means in the present via sanctification, and the Christ is both the object of our faith in the future and the means by which we are sealed into the New Covenant. All three are active in our salvation. For me, this three-fold description of the Christian faith is more than enough to consider the Trinity to be a reality. God is the only one that brings salvation, and each of these three are labeled God throughout the Scriptures.
The only way to hold these in tension is to admit that Scripture teaches all three are deity, and yet there is an utter an absolute unity between the three. This is the Scriptural mystery of the Trinity.
The Institutes (22)
Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 14-15
It’s not just important that Jesus is God, it’s critical to the Christian faith. As Jared Wilson argues near the end of Your Jesus is Too Safe, the doctrine of Christ’s deity is important because only God can save us from our sins. But what about the Holy Spirit? Is it important that the Holy Spirit is God? What about that He’s a Person, another member of the Trinity? Having argued strongly for the Person and deity of the Son, Calvin turns to (in my opinion) this much more daunting task: showing that the Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit is another Person of the Godhead.
Is it daunting because we must perform exegetical gymnastics in order to prove that the Holy Spirit is indeed God? Not at all, though the Scriptures speak less about the deity of the HS than it does about Christ’s deity. So rather than there being no clear testimony that the Spirit is God, we just don’t have as much evidence. It’s an issue of quantity, not quality. However, where the Scripture does speak to the nature of the Holy Spirit, it is still clear: the Holy Spirit is God.
First, in His work the Holy Spirit is shown to be God. The prophets were sent by and empowered through the Holy Spirit, where elsewhere it is clear that Yahweh sent and empowers them. Regeneration is said to be a work of God, but Paul in Romans attributes our regeneration to the Holy Spirit. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is said to have a will and choice in 1 Corinthians 12. Calvin writes:
If the Spirit were not an entity subsisting in God, choice and will would by no means be conceded to him. Paul, therefore, very clearly attributes to the Spirit divine power, and shows that He resides hypostatically in God.
In this same passage, the gifts of the Spirit are completely sourced in God. It is the Holy Spirit who gives gifts to the church by His own will and choice. This made me think of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5… which are nothing less than Yahweh’s own character being expressed through His servants.
Second, the Spirit is shown to be God by strongly implicit scriptural statements. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 shows that we are called the temple of God on account of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Calvin points out another intriguing passage… blasphemy committed against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, even though blasphemy against the Son will be (Matthew 12:31-32). Could we even blaspheme something instead of someone? The point is clear… Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead, another member of a Trinity of Persons that all have the same essence of deity.
The Institutes (21)
Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 7-13
Do you ever wonder about the deity of Christ? Why must we believe that Jesus is God to be considered an orthodox Christian? The standard answers from my Systematic classes come to mind: He would not have been sinless had He not been God. He could not have done some of the miracles in His own power if He were not God. Etc. And while true, each of these are founded upon one underlying truth. Christ must be God because the Scriptures demand that He is. This isn’t nebulous: over and over again, implicitly and explicitly, this man Himself asserts or is declared to be God by His followers.
Springing from the last section, where Calvin took to task those who denied the Trinity, he now goes about systematically (surprise) proving that Christ is indeed Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament.
Right near the beginning of his argument, Calvin implies that the personification of wisdom in Proverbs is actually Christ (1 Corinthians 1:24 apparently connects back to this). I’m not so sure that I buy this implication, simply because there is nothing explicit to connect the two texts. Maybe this needs to be investigated more… I can certainly see how all the things that wisdom calls herself in Proverbs could be true of Christ. There’s just not a good connection.
When Calvin moves into arguing that the Word is signified to be deity, he’s on much stronger ground. “[W]e see the Word understood as the order or mandate of the Son, who is himself the eternal and essential Word of the Father.” He appeals to the Word’s introduction in John 1 and identification with Christ, and the same chapter’s insistence that the Word is God, followed by the eternality of Christ found in John 17. Not to mention that Jesus says that He shared the glory of the Father.
In the Old Testament, Yahweh is declared to be coming, and the New Testament identifies the one “coming in the wilderness” to be Yahweh Himself. This is the very same Christ Who came in the wilderness. He is labeled “Yahweh our righteousness” throughout the OT, and confirmed as such in the NT. Additionally, the “angel of the Lord” in the OT takes names and worship for Himself that normally only God would. Although we delve into implication rather than explication, Calvin believes (and I would agree) that the instances of the “angel of the Lord” in the OT are indeed God showing Himself. Many argue that these are Christophanies (pre-incarnate appearances of Christ).
In the New Testament, there is ample evidence that Christ is Yahweh. Besides the aforementioned passages in John, Calvin points out so many additional verses to make the question of deity a non-issue. In fact, this is probably the best section in all the Institutes up until this point. From Paul, Peter, James, John… everyone is unanimous, both implicitly and explicitly, that Jesus is the Christ, Who is at the same time Yahweh. You can read the section here. Calvin continues with what he considers to be the coup de grace on the matter: salvation can only come from God.
… why should we search out more testimonies of Scripture concerning this matter, when we come so often upon this sentence: “He who believes in me has eternal life”? Now the prayer that depends upon faith is also due Christ, yet it specially belongs to the divine majesty, if anything else does belong to it. For the prophet says: “Whosoever will call upon the name of Jehovah will be saved.” Another: “The name of Jehovah is a very strong tower: the righteous will flee to it and be saved.” But the name of Christ is invoked for salvation; therefore it follows that he is Jehovah.
He is Jehovah. Through the miracles that He worked by His own power, through the claims that He made concerning His ability to forgive sins, through the whole of the apostles’ testimony of Who He was and is… we know that Christ is God in the flesh, even now at the right hand of God, the promise that redeemed humanity would someday join Him there. Praise God!
Your Jesus is Too Safe: An Interview
I’ve been following Jared for a couple years on his blog, The Gospel Driven Church. At this year’s Gospel Coalition, I happened to run into him while waiting in line for the Band of Bloggers luncheon. And then I won a copy of his new book. So, I figured the least I could do is review the book and interview him. And shamelessly demand his autograph in hope of a future cash-in.
You can see my review of the book here. For more info on the book, see the blog tour that’s currently under way.
Daniel: Give a little general background on yourself, and more specifically what drove you to write a book designed to clarify the biblical Christ.
Jared: The book really came out of a convergence of things in my life. Ten years or so ago a coworker in a bookstore handed me a copy of a book by N.T. Wright called The Original Jesus that really pushed my thinking about Jesus and the four Gospels. I really felt like I was seeing them for the first time. And that kind of began my intellectual journey in the historical Jesus stuff. And then about 5 or 6 years ago I began sort of a Gospel renaissance in my life, sort of a combination of embracing a more Reformed theology, getting under the mentorship of some really gospel-centered writers and pastors, and then a personal crisis the brokenness of which I cannot even put into words as of yet. But all of that left me with the stripped down all-importance of the gospel in my life and the preciousness of Christ.
So the book is sort of the outworking of my interest in the historical Jesus and my passion for gospel-centeredness in my life and in the evangelical church at large.
Daniel: You draw a lot of your thoughts on the kingdom of God from George Ladd. What was your introduction to his writings, and what steered you towards accepting his view of the kingdom of God?
Jared: I came to Ladd’s view of the kingdom completely by accident. I was still in my “end times” cage phase, in the process of trading in the pretrib, dispensational premil of my upbringing and moving to some sort of post-trib, historical premil. And I knew that Ladd was a historic premil guy with a post-trib view. I think I started with his book “The Blessed Hope” about the second coming. And that got me hooked on him. I read “The Presence of the Future” because it was about eschatology, assuming then that eschatology equaled “end times.” Between that book and “Gospel of the Kingdom,” I was hooked, and as Ladd dovetailed into my new reading of N.T. Wright’s stuff, my understanding of the kingdom really grew by leaps and bounds. Actually, I don’t know if I ever thought of “the kingdom” much before that.
And I’m an amillennialist now, so I think I was only an end times junkie by God’s wonderful irony, where he takes our dorkiness and turns it into good.
Daniel: Of the different legitimate portraits of Christ (King, Savior, Sacrifice, etc.), which do you think the Neo Reformers tend to overemphasize? Underemphasize?
Jared: I don’t know if I know who the neo-Reformers are — I once referred to myself as neo-Reformed and somebody (Bill Kinnon, I think) corrected me and said I wouldn’t want to refer to myself that way, as if they are like the Truly Reformed or something — but I think the guys in our tribe — the young, restless, Reformed or what have you — tend to overemphasize Jesus the Lord. Actually, it is not that that is overemphasized. I don’t think you can overemphasize Jesus’ Lordship. (I hope nobody takes that one sentence out of context to “prove” that I think that!) I just think that we can get off kilter when we underemphasize the incarnation, Jesus the Man. Mark Driscoll says some great things about these two opposite errors — focusing on one to the exclusion of the other — in his contribution to The Supremacy of Christ in the Postmodern World.
Daniel: In chapter 9 (Jesus the Sacrifice) you give two examples of persecution outside the United States. Do you see persecution coming to the United States for those who refuse to co-opt Christ into a mammon-mongering society?
Jared: No. Not anytime soon.
Most of us are too busy playing with a Jesus who’d never offend the powers that be anyway.
But I think talk of persecution in this country is extremely premature (and usually immature).
Target not honoring Jesus at Christmas gets whined about (as if we want some corporation commoditizing Jesus anyway) while believers in Pakistan are being burned alive in their homes. Christians in American can be such whiny idiots.
Daniel: In your context (Element and your new church) how have you seen the community of believers resist secularization/marginalization and be a bold light for Christ?
It happens any time we go serve people who aren’t like us. I see it when the Element community served monthly at the inner city after school program and the homeless mission, and when a few of our folks went to secular Japan gospel or to AIDS orphans in Africa.
Where I’m at now, dudes go finish homes for people in the mountains who have run out of money. Not church people. Just mountain people. And we’ve got a couple who run a community theater here that works with lots of kids from not only nonChristian homes but homes where, for instance, there are two mommies and what-not. People where I’m at now (Vermont) are missional without even knowing what “missional” means or that it exists as a word.
Daniel: In chapter 8, you share about your cousin Steve’s family, and how they’ve been drawn closer to Christ through the birth and growth of their son, Colton. Can you give an update on how they’re doing?
Jared: Doing great. Colton is ten now, I think. I know he loves MarioKart and swimming. He is in most ways a typical little boy: precocious, playful, boisterous, although he does use a wheelchair. I know they know God is sovereign, and they are just taking it a day at a time. They see him as a miracle. Because he is!
Daniel: In chapter 1, you state: “The promise is the king himself. The promise is Jesus.” This is an excellent thought: the promise to Christians is God Himself. Do the gloves have to come off to show that this is the true message of Christianity in a world of salvation prayers, prosperity gospels, and general man-centeredness? If so, how does the local church distinguish themselves from and deal with these other gospels within a community?
Jared: I’m gonna come at this question from another angle, if that’s okay. Because I think what you’re essentially asking is this: How do we get this message into more churches (or every church, if that’s possible). And I think that will take, yes, gloves coming off within pastoral tribes. It’s trickle down. Most evangelicals have no idea how big and how central the gospel is, and they won’t know because our sort of tribe for all intents and purposes exists in a vacuum. They don’t know we’re here, and when they do, they see we’re critical of what they’re involved in, so they tune us out. But they love their dynamic, engaging pastors who CEO their big churches. If we could get to THOSE guys, we could revolutionize evangelicalism with the gospel. (Or God would, not us, but you know what I mean.)
The cynical will say it cant’ be done. And they’re probably right. This is why Bible Belt evangelicalism will supposedly be gone in a generation. Or one of the reasons why evangelicalism is collapsing (if you’re an iMonk fan).
But if we could somehow reach and convince all these movers and shakers in other pastoral tribes, we could reach the majority of evangelicals.
I see some positive signs. That Francis Chan and Matt Chandler speak among the Catalyst and Exponential crowd bodes well. And likewise that guys like Driscoll are buddies with guys in the “arena church” crowd. That could be one of the weird benefits of the multi-site church movement. I’m not a fan of the whole video venue thing, but it has caused a blending of pastoral tribes, and I’m hoping the Driscolls, Chandlers, and Chans of the world are having great, respectful, fruitful influence on other leaders. And I hope they’ll be willing to go knuckle to knuckle when the glory of the gospel is on the line.
Your Jesus is Too Safe: A Book Review
Jared Wilson knows how to crack a joke. Never heard of him? Go watch. Then come back.
Needless to say, Jared is not your standard, everyday, run of the mill, grits and butter sort of preacher/teacher. He’s the former pastor of Element, a missional church in Nashville, as well as a blogger over at The Gospel Driven Church. And now, with the publishing of his first book, Jared is a first-class author. How do I qualify this? I mean, come on, how many authors of what is essentially a systematic theology include references to Strong Bad, Die Hard, The Kid, My Buddy, and the Grateful Dead? I mean besides Mark Driscoll, of course. Or Todd Bentley. If he ever decided to write a systematic theology. Which would probably look pretty wild.
The qualification for my above assertion comes in Jared’s systematic presentation of the biblical claims about Christ. Unlike so many who have remade Christ to fit their message, Jared’s innovation only extends as far as the presentation. The Christ of the Gospels is examined from twelve different perspectives (shepherd, promise, sacrifice, etc). As each is considered, a full picture of Christ’s message and mission for His followers comes into view.
Content
The picture of Christ that Jared paints is robustly biblical with some hints of Reformed theology (which, in my view, makes it even more robustly biblical). NT Wright and George Ladd are definitely influences here, the former informing Jared’s thoughts concerning Christ’s mission and the latter shaping his view of the kingdom of God.
In the intro, Jared sets us up by surveying Christianity in America. Each subsequent movement, whether it be the prosperity gospel, the altar call gospel, or the guru gospel, has rewritten Christ to fit their message. As such, Christians that wish to proclaim the true Christ must know Who they are serving in the midst of so many counterfeits. Enter this book.
The book could be a mash-up of Driscoll’s Death by Love and Phillip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew (you can guess which of those two I recommend). This is definitely theology leading application. I’ll highlight what I enjoyed the most, and then talk about a couple potential misfires.
Pros
Jared is at home talking about Christ. Each chapter opens with an examination of the historical background surrounding that aspect of the Savior’s ministry. Thus, the chapter on Christ as shepherd examines what it meant to be a shepherd, or the chapter on Jesus as the promise looks at the Messianic expectations of first century Judaism (Messiah was to come in the wilderness, etc.). After conducting this initial foray into the history behind the theology, Jared examines the text of the Gospels, showing just how radical this Jesus was.
The conclusions he comes to, although not shocking to any orthodox believer, are still penetrating for us American Christians who have never known the kingdom life that Christ talked about in the Beatitudes: Jesus came to bring the reality of God’s kingdom to earth. We’re firmly in already/not yet territory here, which is refreshing to find serious theology at the heart of such a radical presentation of Christ.
His application is taken directly from Christ’s person and work; this isn’t nebulous application that gets pulled out of the sky somewhere. It’s firmly theological, and shows our obligation in light of Christ’s kingship and sacrifice. I was very much reminded of Death by Love, where Mark Driscoll examines the different pastoral applications of Christ’s work on the Cross. This is similar, but expands the examination and application a bit.
His fresh way of writing also helps me understand theology. For instance, when we say that Christ was all God and all man, what we’re saying is that He was fully God and really a man. He had BO, struggled with sexual temptation, etc. Or the way in which God’s kingdom is explained will be helpful for those who are struggling with an overworked version of eschatology.
Cons
There’s perhaps two misfires, and they’re relatively minor… so I’m expecting a second edition. Planning on writing one, right Jared? He does well to fill in footnotes with all kinds of Scripture references; provides good backup for the rest of his arguments. What isn’t so common are the footnotes that support his assertions concerning early Jewish life and other historical background. I remember when the reformed evangelical community lambasted Rob Bell for not providing proof for his points in Velvet Elvis concerning the Judaism of the OT and NT. I thought about this as I was reading… a bunch of backup citations will help those who are doubtful, especially those coming from a Jewish background. A second edition of Jared’s book should include such footnotes.
Also, some of Jared’s thoughts concerning the applications of Christ’s kingdom were too abstract for me. He talks about the “already” gradually expanding into the “not yet”. Partially because I’m weary of a Gospel that takes on more than Scripture mandates, and partially because I’m just too abstract for my own good, I would want to see more clarification of what our part in the ministry of reconciliation is. Are we part of God’s redemption of Creation? How does that fit into Romans 8:19-23? Or are we part of His reconciliation between God and man alone, and He will redeem Creation Himself at His coming? These are all questions that could be worked out in a conversation, and I invite Jared to respond with what this would practically look like.
To summarize: Jared writes a great overview of the biblical Christ. Useful to have before stepping into Systematic Theology at school, or before trying to explain the Gospel’s implications to a new convert. Or a congregation. Very practical and powerful; it’ll likely be our helper to examine Christ at my church’s small group this upcoming fall. There are other books that will dig deeper, but as a popular introduction to Christ I can’t think of a better book.
For more on this book, see the blog tour. To buy a copy, go to Amazon.
Then Face to Face 