The Kingdom of God in Acts From Beginning To End

The kingdom of God is one of the most central themes of the Bible. If you find yourself perusing through the Old Testament (OT) historical accounts of Israel’s kings, it won’t take you too long to come to this conclusion: as the king goes, so goes the kingdom. Let’s consider this reality in the book of Acts.

Luke has the distinction of being the most prolific of the New Testament (NT) authors, if you measure production by the amount of pages written. As the author of most of our NT, we may find it surprising that Luke only refers to the kingdom of God eight times in Acts, when it is such a prominent theme in the Bible. The specific phrase “kingdom of God” occurs six of those times. Here are the relevant verses:

 

Acts 1:3—He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Acts 1:6—So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Acts 8:12—But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Acts 14:21–22—When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

Acts 19:8—And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

Acts 20:25–And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. 

Acts 28:23—When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.

Acts 28:30–31—He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

 

While Luke only refers to the kingdom of God these eight times, it would be a mistake to think it isn’t a major theme in his book. For starters, notice the strategic, fairly even distribution throughout the book. Luke places references to the kingdom at the beginning, middle, and end, with a few one-offs in between for good measure. You can’t go more than a few pages in Luke’s twenty-eight chapter work of theological history without finding yourself confronted by a “kingdom of God” statement that Luke uses to summarize the early church’s work. Let’s zoom in on a couple of those statements

Notice that Luke frames his book with this all important theme. That is, he begins and ends his book with the kingdom of God.

Luke begins Acts with the kingdom of God—He (Jesus) presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Jesus spent forty days moving in and out among his disciples after his resurrection. That’s a good chunk of time. Notice how Jesus used it. Luke tells us Jesus did two things: (1) Jesus repeatedly proved that he was alive, and (2) Jesus spoke to the disciples about the kingdom of God. Luke doesn’t want us to miss this: Jesus’ resurrected life ties directly to the kingdom of God. That’s how he starts Acts. The right question to ask is, “What exactly did Jesus speak to his disciples about regarding the kingdom, and how does that relate to his resurrection?” To answer that question, to the end of Acts we go.

Luke ends Acts with the kingdom of God where he gives us one final account of Paul’s ministry in Rome, writing, He (Paul) lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:30–31). The last sentence in Acts that Luke carefully selects and writes tells us that Paul continued to proclaim two things (1) the kingdom of God and (2) Jesus. Acts 28:23 fills this out a little more by telling us that Paul aimed to convince [those who visited him] about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. This is precisely what Jesus did for his disciples in his forty days.

In Luke 24:25–27, we see Jesus appear to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus. This is what how Luke captures the moment: [Jesus says to them] “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Likewise, when Jesus appears to his disciples later he offers the same message:

 

Then he [Jesus] 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, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:44–48).

 

What exactly did Jesus speak to his disciples about regarding the kingdom, and how does that relate to his resurrection? Jesus’ message to his disciples is essentially this: the kingdom of God is inaugurated and here because the king of God’s kingdom lives and reigns. Peter proves this conclusion for us in his very first public proclamation of the gospel in Acts 2:14–41.

In his Pentecost sermon, Peter climactically heralds that when David wrote Psalm 16:27 he was prophesying about Jesus’ resurrection as the true king of God’s kingdom,

 

he (David) foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses (Acts 2:31–32).

 

And for the final touch, Peter exclaims,

 

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36).

 

Jesus’ resurrection proves he is the rightful king of God’s kingdom. And if the king is here, the kingdom of God is here. King Jesus conquered death and lives forever. And because he lives forever, he reigns forever. And because he reigns forever, his kingdom, God’s kingdom, will never end. As the king goes, so goes the kingdom.

The book of Acts from beginning to end is all about King Jesus reigning over the kingdom of God. This is the story Luke tells. This is the story Jesus’ people, citizens of his kingdom, in Acts tell. And, it’s a story that did not end at Acts 28:31. It continues. If you are in Christ today, this is your story. Go and tell it.

The Power of the Resurrection

[From D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1 (Baker, 1978), excerpted from p. 399-422. These chapters are based on three sermons on Ephesians 1:19-20 preached in 1954; audio of those sermons is available online: first, second, third.]

[The resurrection] is the proof, beyond every other proof, of the fact that every obstacle and hindrance and enemy set in our path shall be overcome. The raising of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is proof positive and absolute, that even the ‘last enemy’ has been conquered and defeated….

Whatever may be true of our experience, whatever may be true of the world and its darkness, whatever may be true of the seeds of decay and of illness and of death that are in our bodies, and howsoever great is the power of the last enemy, we can be certain and confident of this, that nothing can prevent the carrying out of God’s purpose with respect to us. There is no power that can withstand Him; there is no might or influence that can match Him, there is no possible antagonist that can equal Him. The mightiest foes, the devil, death and hell have already been vanquished, and the resurrection of Christ is the proof of it….

Do you realize the exceeding greatness of His power in you? Do you realize the energy of the strength of His might that is already working in you? And do you realize that because it has begun it will continue, and continue until you will find yourself ‘faultless and blameless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing’ in the presence of God?…

It is most important that we should realize that the Apostle is praying here, not that the Ephesians may have more power, but that they may come to know the greatness of the power of God that is already working in them…. We are not Christians and cannot be Christians apart from this mighty working of the power of God…..

The most urgent practical question for every Christian is this: Are we aware of the fact that the almighty power of God is working in us? Do we realize that we are what we are solely and entirely by the grace and the power of God? Do we realize in our own personal lives and experiences that it is this exceeding great power of God that accounts for everything in the Christian life? I press these questions again because I am convinced that the main trouble with most of us is our failure to realize the greatness of the salvation into which we have been brought, and which we enjoy together.…

Somehow or another we do not grasp the idea of this mighty working of God in salvation. Far too often we think of it solely in terms of forgiveness. We think of the Christian life as just a matter of knowing that we are forgiven, and then our living the Christian life as best we can…. When we come to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, do we realize that it was the greatest manifestation of the energy of the strength of God’s might that the world has ever known. According to the Scriptures nothing but the almighty power of God could have raised Him again from the dead, and exalted Him to the high position where He is at this moment at the right hand of God. We forget that He was ‘declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead’” [Romans 1:4]….

Nothing but the power of God can make us believers. But it is also by this selfsame power that we continue in the Christian life. It takes the same power which enabled us to believe to enable us to continue at all in the Christian life. We would not be able to stand for a single hour in the Christian life were it not for this power of God that is working in us….

If you have the life of God in you, if He has started ‘a good work’ in you, He will not give it up, He will bring it to perfection. If you will not be led by Him, you will be driven; if you refuse to be enticed and attracted, you will be chastised. God wills our perfecting, and he will stop at nothing less. The work will go on, the power of God will continue to be exercised in us until we are faultless…. He wills that we should be holy and without blemish in His presence.

Is there anything more important for us than to know all this? We are in the hands of God, and He is working in us. He has given us the power to believe, He is working in us now, fashioning us, molding us, bringing us to perfection. We cannot escape it, we are in His hands and He will go on with the work. Blessed be his name!

Oh that we might know this more and more, and realize the high privilege of our calling, the marvel, the miracle of this new life which is all from God, and which is all by God. My comfort, my consolation, my strength, my assurance, is to know that God is working in me; and that He will never cease to work in me until I stand before Him in glory.

Death is Dead!

Last Sunday we sang the great hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns” by Matthew Bridges. Here is one of the verses:

Crown Him the Lord of life,
Who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those He came to save.
His glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

Jesus died and now lives “that death may die.” This is a major theme throughout the history of redemption: The coming of death into the world, God’s plan to overcome death, Jesus’ victory over death, and the final destruction of death. Here is a selection of key passages on that theme. Read them and meditate on them. May those meditations enrich your worship not only Friday evening and Sunday morning, but throughout your life, as you rejoice in God’s promise: Death will die!

  • Genesis 2:16-17  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.” (The first mention of death in the Bible).
  • Genesis 3:4-6  But the serpent said to the woman, “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.”  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
  • Genesis 3:21  The LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Implying a death took place, possibly the first sacrifice).
  • Genesis 5:5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
  • Genesis 22:10-13  Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”  He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. (The death of a substitute instead of Isaac; this imagery continues to develop in the sacrificial system described in Exodus and Leviticus, and culminates at the Cross.)
  • Isaiah 53:10-12 It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. (The death of the suffering Servant instead of the transgressors.)
  • Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces. (A key verse for the New Testament authors.)
  • John 11:25-26  “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,  and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (Jesus prophesies the death of death.)
  • John 19:30  When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
  • Luke 24:5-7  “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,  that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”
  • Hebrews 2:14-15  Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,  and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
  • 2 Timothy 1:10 Our Savior Christ Jesus . . . abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
  • Romans 5:20-21  Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,  so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • Romans 6:3-5  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
  • Romans 6:9-11 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
  • Romans 6:23  The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  • 1 Corinthians 15:24-26  Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
  • 1 Corinthians 15:53-54  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  (Quoting Isaiah 25:8 above)
  • Revelation 1:17-18 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, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
  • Revelation 20:14  Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
  • Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Another allusion to Isaiah 25:8)

May we indeed crown Him the Lord of life, and rejoice that He has destroyed the last enemy, death itself.

Our Incurable Disease

You have an incurable disease. All humans do. We inherited this disease from our parents, and they from their parents – all the way back to Adam and Eve.

There is no human help for this disease. Oh, we can alleviate a few of the symptoms through discipline, through accountability, through learning more self-control – but this disease is similar to the hydra of Greek mythology. When anyone cut off one of the hydra’s heads, two more immediately grew. When you learn to control one part of your disease – say, bursts of anger – more symptoms of the disease pop up – say, pride and arrogance.

But God in His grace and mercy offers you a cure. The question is: Will you accept it?

Scripture provides us with an apt picture of the way we are prone to resist this cure through telling the story of a leper in 2 Kings 5.

In the ancient world, leprosy was incurable. Naaman, a general in a powerful army, comes down with this disease. An Israelite servant girl in his household tells his wife of a prophet in Israel who can cure the disease. So Naaman’s king writes a letter to the King of Israel, telling him to cure Naaman of his leprosy.

The Israelite king is distraught, thinking the other is looking for a pretense to go to war. But when the prophet Elisha hears of the events, he tells the king to send Naaman to him.

Naaman arrives at Elisha’s place, bearing many gifts – he is a wealthy man and thinks he can pay handsomely for this service. He is an important man, and thinks this prophet will be impressed by his presence.

But Elisha doesn’t even come out to see Naaman. He simply sends a messenger, who instructs the general to go wash in the Jordan River seven times, and he will be cured. Hear Naaman’s response:

But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage (2 Kings 5:11-12).

Naaman’s pride almost causes him to miss this grace from God. But God shows him even greater grace, as He leads Naaman’s servants to appeal to him to try this simple task the prophet gave him. He washes seven times in the Jordan – and is cured.

Just so with us. God offers us healing of our incurable disease if we only turn to Jesus and trust Him with our lives. But so often we are like Naaman: We don’t like God’s plan. We want to prove our worth through some great deed we do for God. Or we want God to perform some grand visible miracle that will call attention to us. Or we want God to cure the disease in a different way, a way that seems better to us. “Just trust Jesus? Why? Why not some other way? Why not many other ways? How simplistic!”

Like Naaman, we can turn our backs and miss God’s grace because of our pride, because of our preconceived ideas about how God should work.

But praise God that He persists in the offer of the Gospel. As in Naaman’s case, He sends others to us to say again and again, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

Don’t despise the miracle of simple faith. Admit you are diseased. Confess that you cannot cure yourself. And throw yourself on God’s mercy offered to you through Jesus Christ.

When you, like Naaman, humble yourself before the One True God, He will save you – through the death, resurrection, and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will discover the love, joy, and peace you have so deeply desired.

Reflections on the Death of a Cat

Tuesday we put down our 19-year-old cat, Madison.

We got Madison from a shelter when he was a few weeks old. He had big eyes, a cute face, and a playful spirit. Our youngest son, Joel, was two. Over the next few years, Joel regularly would throw Madison over his shoulder and carry him around the house. Madison peered at us, wide-eyed, asking to be saved from this terror of a boy – but not scratching, ever.

At age 3, traumatized and in shock after an attack by a large canine, Madison stayed downstairs in our Massachusetts basement for weeks, recovering. After that, I don’t think he was ever sick for a day.

Until Monday. He was sluggish. He wailed. He vomited – first his food, then clear liquid.

Tuesday, he was in obvious distress. The vet thought he knew what was wrong; he could do a series of procedures for an estimated $1000 that he thought would solve the problem. The prognosis was good, but not definite. The problem might reoccur. Madison might only live a few more months. Or he might live several more years. Beth and I spoke on the phone; we put him down. I stroked Madison’s cheek while the vet injected him with barbiturates.

Now, as encounters with death go, this was quite minor. A cat – even a beloved pet – is a cat. In what follows, I’m not drawing any degree of equivalence between a cat’s death and a person’s death. Nevertheless, Madison’s demise prompted me to reflect more widely on the way our culture – and I myself – speak of and respond to death. So here are some thoughts:

I have little firsthand experience with death. I have never been in the presence of a person when he or she died. A few hours before death, and minutes afterward, yes. But never at the point itself.

I suspect my lack of experience is common for Americans. We live sanitized lives. We know death is certain, but, for many, it is hidden, shrouded, filed away from consciousness – something we encounter in theaters and in television and in books, but not in our day-to-day lives. In this way we fail to come to terms with our own mortality: Unless Jesus returns in the next few decades, I will die. Like Madison, my breathing will cease, my heart will stop.  I will die.

Our sanitized lives extend to the euphemisms we use when referring to death – even of our pets. Did you notice the euphemism I used above? “We put him down.” Well. I “put Madison down” when he was “making biscuits” on my thighs, sticking his claws into me. What happened Tuesday was rather more significant than that. And note the use of the first person plural, deflecting responsibility from myself. I could have said straightforwardly, “I told the vet to kill my cat.” But we almost never use such language. We soften the blow.

Scripture usually is quite straightforward about death. “On the day you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Eight times in Genesis 5, we read, “And he died.” Job’s children all die in a building collapse (Job 1:18-19). The patriarchs all die. David dies. Solomon dies. Most of all, Jesus dies.

Thus, “Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man” (Romans 5:17). Yet here in the US for so much of the time we can live our lives pretending that death only reigns theoretically, only reigns in films and television and literature. Even the death of a cat can challenge that pretension.

We use euphemisms and fail to speak frankly about death in order to help those encountering death, attempting to be kind and caring. Yet is it really kind and caring to act as if death is not ever-present, not threatening?

For when we downplay death, we inevitably downplay the resurrection.

For the Bible’s answer to the severity of death, to the horror of death, is not to soften the language and to help people to maintain an illusion of safety and immortality in this earthly existence. The Bible’s answer to the threat of death is to look it in the eye, to admit its horrors – and then to show us God’s plan of redemption, through Jesus’ death and resurrection!

For Jesus was dead, really dead. It was painful. It was horrible. His lungs filled with fluid. His breathing stopped. His heart stopped. He was dead.

And yet: God raised Him from the dead.

Imagine my reaction had I gone out early this morning to Madison’s little grave in our backyard, and found the dirt moved away, the hole empty – and imagine I then felt Madison rubbing against my leg! “He’s alive! He’s here! In the flesh! How did that happen? How can this possibly be? Yet here he is – furry and warm and purring and cuddly!”

How incomparably greater the joy and amazement of the disciples upon seeing the risen Jesus!

My friends, God promises to “swallow up death forever” (Isaiah 25:8). Jesus has
“broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10 NET). If we downplay the power of death, if we downplay death as “the last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26), we downplay the power of the resurrection and the accomplishment of Jesus.

God did not create us for death. For His people, for those united to His Son, for those who believe in His Name, who walk according to the Spirit, He promises: “The time will come when death will be no more. The old order will pass away. I will wipe every tear from your eyes. Everlasting joy shall be upon your heads” (Revelation 21:4, Isaiah 35:10).

Death entered the world because of sin. It is the last enemy.

But we, in Christ, can look death in the eye. We can acknowledge its power.

And we can know that He who mightily raised Jesus from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies, so that we too might have eternal life (Romans 8:11). Praise God for the Gospel.

From Atheism to Truth

Holly Ordway was an English professor, a competitive fencer – and an atheist. She writes:

Life inside the fortress of atheism was good. I thought I could make sense of the world just as well as, or much better than, the people who claimed to have faith. I didn’t believe in God, but I had a worldview that felt perfectly satisfactory. It wasn’t a particularly cheery view, but I preferred truth over comfort any day. . . .

Some fools couldn’t face the darkness, but as for me, I could savor the idea of standing on my lonely precipice, able to recognize my identity as a meaningless speck in an uncaring universe and go on living without the artificial comforts of religion.

Over time, her atheism “gradually hardened into strident hostility.” Christians were fools, satisfying their longings with a made-up God. She dismissed any arguments for Christianity; “I had locked myself into my fortress and flung away the key.”

Yet, even in her fortress, Holly occasionally recognized that the world – and she herself – was stained:

All I had to do was look at myself and the people around me to recognize that anger, jealousy, insecurity, envy, contempt, selfishness, fear, and greed were deeply rooted in the soil of being human.

But she saw no solution to these problems with humanity in what she experienced of Christianity:

The bumper-sticker expressions of Christian affirmation—“I’m not perfect, just forgiven!” “God is my co-pilot!”—and the kitsch art that I saw—a blue-eyed Jesus in drapey robes (polyester?) comforting some repentant hipster, or cuddling impossibly adorable children (none crying or distracted), presented faith as a kind of pious flag-waving. “Look, I’m Christian! I know Jesus!” Well, thanks, but no thanks; this Jesus doesn’t look like he could handle anything worse than a skinned knee. I didn’t know then how to say it, but I was looking for the cosmic Christ, the one by whom all things were made, the risen and glorified Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

From high school, Holly was moved by poetry and loved fantasy literature. Indeed, an analysis of The Lord of the Rings figured prominently in her doctoral dissertation. When she began to teach poetry in her classes, she found herself moved by the faith-filled lines of John Donne, George Herbert, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14 inspired a deep longing in her:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Then Hopkins. He “blazed with intensity, illuminating a dimension to the world that I had not believed existed. I had so carefully honed my defenses of denial, individualism, and rebellion, and here was Hopkins slipping past my guard.” These lines from his poem “Carrion Comfort” hit her hard:

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can:
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

She writes:

Hadn’t I been feasting on Despair for years? And I was starving. I read and reread “Carrion Comfort”. Hopkins spoke what I had never shared with anyone, what I had scarcely dared to admit. He had been where I was—and had not stayed there. Hope, wish day come. . . . Was there such a thing as day for me to hope for?

Holly was surprised to find that her fencing coach of almost a year, Josh, was a Christian. He fit none of her stereotypes.

He was a caring and gentle person—though not a pushover—and there was something different about him, something I had never seen before: a kind of peace. His wife, Heidi, . . . had that same underlying joyfulness. . . . [Josh] cared about me, not as a potential convert, but as me, a unique individual, and he always, always treated me with respect.

One night after a disastrous fencing competition, Holly and Josh talk late into the night. She asks question after question. Her last question was key: “When I die, what do you think is going to happen to me?” Josh initially demurs: “I’d rather not answer that question.” But when Holly explains that she genuinely wants to know his thoughts, he replies:

“I believe that we will come before God in judgment, and he will give each person either perfect justice or perfect mercy.”

I sat in silence thinking about this for a moment. Slowly, I said, “And you believe that it would be better for me to know enough, beforehand, to ask for perfect mercy?”

“Yes, I do.”

And that was all he said. Perfect justice or perfect mercy. At that dim morning hour, and again as I thought about it later, I recognized something important: I didn’t want justice. I considered myself a ‘good person’, but in my heart I was afraid to be judged on the real self behind my outward image. Perfect justice was terrifying.

Following Josh’s suggestions, Holly then begins reading on apologetics. She comes to believe that arguments for the existence of God are more powerful than those against. But eventually she recognizes that, if God is Who Scriptures claims He is, He cannot be analyzed as an object. He is a Person. One day, “without my asking, I encountered the Other, God the Holy Spirit, in a way profoundly different from evaluating him as an idea.”

But she has still not reckoned with Jesus:

Was Jesus who he said he was? There were many miracles that I could think about, but they all paled into insignificance next to the singular miracle of the Resurrection. Had it really happened? Because if it had, then Christianity was true.

Two books were especially helpful to Holly at this point: Gary Habermas’ The Risen Jesus and Future Hope and N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God. Eventually convinced that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead physically, in a glorified body, she had a choice:

I could choose to turn my back, to reject Jesus, and in so doing reject utterly God himself. Pride urged me to do it. This was the voice that whispered: “If you surrender, you lose. Be your own self, no one else’s. Be a rebel.” Or I could accept defeat, lay down my arms and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. . . whatever that entailed.

She did indeed lay down her arms. She ended her rebellion. She submitted to her rightful king.

Holly’s journey to faith in Christ is her own. Her fencing coach Josh showed great discernment and wisdom in the way he gently led her to faith; but that way is not a model for all. Some will follow similar paths; many follow completely different paths.

And her book describes her continuing journey, to Anglicanism and then Roman Catholicism. (With her penchant for considering serious arguments, it would have been helpful had her coach Josh suggested she read Book 4 of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion).

But praise God for His grace and mercy exhibited in the new life of Holly Ordway. Praise God that she is a recipient of perfect mercy. Praise God that He did batter the heart of this rebel against Him, that He did indeed bend His force to break, blow, burn, and make her new. May He work similarly in our friends, our families – and in our own hearts.

Holly Ordway, Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms, (Ignatius Press, 2014).

 

Love, Suffering, Obedience – and Resurrection

What is love?

There are a thousand answers to that question, since we use the word “love” in so many different ways. So let’s narrow the question down:

What is God’s love? And what does it look like when we love with God’s love?

In a recent book – A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships – Paul Miller argues that this type of love is a one-way covenant; we step out in love without needing or even expecting a response. This makes us vulnerable, and often leads to suffering. We rightly cry out in lament over such suffering. But faith holds on to God’s covenant love in the midst of suffering, so that we continue to walk in obedience – we continue to love. In this we are following the path of Jesus’ life – love, suffering, death. But Jesus rose from the dead. And as God raised Jesus, He similarly will bring about a form of resurrection in us.

Miller masterfully brings out these truths from the book of Ruth, following Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz through their journeys of love, suffering, lament, obedience, and resurrection. Consider these selections – and may we follow the path of love.

Love and Covenant

[We learn through the storyline of Scripture that God’s love is a one-sided covenant, His determination to do good to His people, to redeem them, to make them His, despite their rebellion and disobedience. Thus, God’s love is also covenantal. Our love, if it is to be like God’s, must also be covenantal. The Hebrew word most often used of God’s love for His people is hesed. Paul Miller sometimes uses this word as an adjective to clarify that he is referring to that type of love.]

[There is a] modern myth that says, “Love is a feeling. If the feeling is gone, then love is gone.” Hollywood has no resources to endure in love when the feeling is gone. Actually, that’s the point when we are ready to learn how to love. 285

Ruth walks into the city ignored and, in effect, alone. One of the hardest parts of a hesed love is that you can love others, but there may be no one to love you. The very act of loving can make you lonely. . . .

But that loneliness, that dying, instead of being the end of you, can display Jesus’s beauty in you. The moment when you think everything has gone wrong is exactly the moment when the beauty of God is shining through you. True glory is almost always hidden—when you are enduring quietly with no cheering crowd. 809

The question is not “How do I feel about this relationship?” but “Have I been faithful to my word, to the covenants I am in?” As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt. 5:46). In other words, if I love only when I feel like it, then I’ve really not understood love. 923

[After Ruth goes to Boaz’s field:] If you are bent on pursuing personal freedom, you remain frozen hunting for the perfect field, the perfect person. You never land. You have to commit to make love work. We don’t love in general. We love someone, somewhere. Setting our affections on someone always means narrowing down. Election and love are inseparable. This goes against the spirit of our age, which prizes independence and perfection. . . . Often our difficulties with love are simply that we react to the constriction that accompanies love. But that constriction is inherent in love. To love is to limit. . . .

Ironically, the experience of love, of narrowing your life, broadens and deepens your life. The narrower your life, the broader your soul. . . . Love always involves a narrowing of the life, a selecting of imperfection. 1072

Life is a path or pilgrimage. It is lived not in isolated moments, but in trajectories of reaping and sowing. Everything we do now creates the person we are becoming. We do not live in an impersonal, rigid world in which obedience mechanically dispenses reward; we live in our Father’s world, a richly textured world organized around invisible bonds that knit us together. All of life is covenant. 1319

[Consider covenant as a kind of limitation:] Repentance often drives the journey of love. It moves the story forward. Because Naomi returned home, God’s grace will be unleashed in her life. Repentance involves a returning to the box, to the world of limits, that my Father has given me. I stop creating my own story and submit to the story that God is weaving. . . .

Life is like a beautiful garden with a tree whose fruit I can’t touch. That “no” defines and shapes my life in the garden. So my relationship with my wife is like a wonderful garden with a solitary “no”: I cannot touch or develop emotional intimacy with another woman. That “no” narrows and limits my life. It provides a frame for my love to Jill. I am keenly aware that I can destroy a forty-year marriage in five minutes. That limiting, instead of boxing us in, lets the story come alive. 852

Love and Suffering

Suffering is the crucible for love. We don’t learn how to love anywhere else. Don’t misunderstand; suffering doesn’t create love, but it is a hothouse where love can emerge. Why is that? The great barrier to love is ego, the life of the self. In long-term suffering, if you don’t give in to self-pity, slowly, almost imperceptibly, self dies. This death of self offers ideal growing conditions for love. 221

Self-pity, [that is,] compassion turned inward, drives this downward spiral. Instead of reflecting on the wounds of Christ, I nurse my own wounds. Self-as-victim is the great narrative of our age. . . . Enshrining the victim is so seductive because you have been hurt. But self-pity is just another form of self-righteousness, and like all self-righteousness it isolates and elevates. It elevates you because it says you are better than the other person; you are the victim. It isolates you because you live in and are nourished by your interior world, which can’t be criticized. 1677

Suffering and Lament

[We often do our best to hide our suffering. Indeed, sometimes we confuse laments over suffering with lack of faith. But Paul Miller argues that Scripture is full of laments, and that lamentation is a necessary step on the path to hesed love.]

A lament puts us in an openly dependent position, where our brokenness reflects the brokenness of the world. It’s pure authenticity. Holding it in, not giving voice to the lament, can be a way of putting a good face on it. But to not lament puts God at arm’s length and has the potential of splitting us. We appear okay, but we are really brokenhearted. (emphasis added) 693

Listening to a lament is a powerful way of loving someone who is suffering. By being present, by not correcting or even offering our own unique brand of Christian encouragement (“It’s going to be all right – God’s in control”), we give those who are grieving space to be themselves.

This doesn’t mean that Naomi’s judgment of God is correct. God is good and just. He will answer her frustration with more goodness. Naomi was interpreting God through the lens of her experience.

She stopped in the middle of the story and measured God. A deeper faith waits until the end of the story and interprets experience through the lens of God’s faithfulness. Is this something we tell Naomi? No. It is what we tell ourselves. Good theology lets us endure quietly with someone else’s pain when all the pieces aren’t together. It acts like invisible faith-glue. 706

The opposite danger of not lamenting is over-lamenting. Dwelling on a lament is the breeding ground for bitterness. Bitterness is a wound nursed. Our culture’s emphasis on the sacredness of feelings often gives people an unspoken theology of bitterness. They feel entitled to it.727

Faith, Love and Obedience

[Difficult situations compel us to conclude:] You simply do not have the power or wisdom or ability in yourself to love. You know without a shadow of a doubt that you can’t love. That is the beginning of faith—knowing you can’t love. Faith is the power for love. 617

Unlike the Israelites who wanted to return to Egypt, Naomi is obeying, doing the right thing by returning to the Promised Land. Her feelings were all over the place, but she put one foot in front of the other as she returned. We can summarize her response this way:

Bitterness openly expressed to God + obedience  => a raw, pure form of faith

Bitterness openly expressed + disobedience => rebellion

Through a sheer act of will, Naomi continues to show up for life. In C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the senior devil, Screwtape, warns his junior devil of the danger of this obedience.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause [the Devil’s cause] is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy’s will [God’s will], looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. 747

Ruth’s act of loving put her at the bottom of society, but she doesn’t push back on her lowered status. She accepts the cost of love. Like Jesus, she takes the lower place. Love and humility are inseparable.

When serving is combined with humility, the serving becomes almost pleasurable. You are thankful for any gift given you. In contrast, pride can’t bear the weight of unequal love. . . . ride makes others’ joy, or even the possibility of our own joy, feel phony. It is an odd sort of authenticity where we demand that others be as depressed as we are. 1393

Jealousy is extraordinarily deceptive. It is by far the most destructive sin in communities and organizations that I’ve been a part of, and yet, I seldom hear it mentioned or confessed. It always masks itself as something else, creating a hidden chain of slander that drags someone down. A multiheaded hydra, it begins with an inability to rejoice with another’s success, leaks out as gossip, and finally erupts as slander. Jealousy seeks to gain by destroying others, while hesed  [love] loses by giving itself. One is the heart of evil. The other is pure gospel.  1494

Many Christians get stuck trying to grow their faith by growing their faith. They try to get closer to Jesus by getting closer to Jesus. Practically, that means they combine spiritual disciplines (the Word and prayer) with reflection on the love of God for them. But that will only get you so far. In fact it often leads to spiritual moodiness where you are constantly taking your pulse wondering how much you know the love of God for you. Or you go on an endless idol hunt trying to uncover ever deeper layers of sin. Oddly enough, this can lead to a concentration on the self, a kind of spiritual narcissism. Ruth discovers God and his blessing as she obeys, as she submits to the life circumstances that God has given her. So instead of running from the really hard thing in your life, embrace it as a gift from God to draw you into his life. 2095

Obedience and Resurrection

[Miller discusses how the life of loving obedience often follows the shape of a J-curve: Our love and obedience leads to suffering, and so our life seems to get worse. But God brings about the upward slope of the “J” – in ways that we cannot know ahead of time, following trajectories that we never expected.]

[God teaches] us to love by overloading our systems so we are forced to cry for grace. God permits our lives to become overwhelming, putting us on the downward slope of the J-curve so we come to the end of ourselves. I encouraged my friend to embrace the downward path, not to push against it or worry about where his feelings were with his wife. Jesus said, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. . . . No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:11, 18). Seeing the gospel as a journey remaps our stories by embedding them in the larger story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. His normal becomes our normal. 1004

Here’s what I have learned going through the J-curve:
1. We don’t know how or when resurrection will come. It is God’s work, not ours.
2. We don’t even know what a resurrection will look like. We can’t demand the shape or timing of a resurrection.
3. Like Jesus, we must embrace the death that the Father has put in front of us. The path to resurrection is through dying, not fighting.
4. If we endure, resurrection always comes. God is alive! 1021

We can do death. But we can’t do resurrection. We can’t demand resurrection—we wait for it. 1032

 May we love, suffer, lament, believe, obey – and see resurrection!

[Paul Miller, A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships (Crossway, 2014). Numbers after the quotations are Kindle locations.]

 

They All Left Him and Fled

And they all left him and fled (Mark 14:50).

Jesus fed thousands. So many gathered to hear Him, He had to leave the lakeshore and get in a boat to teach. A multitude welcomed Him to Jerusalem, shouting “Hosanna,” proclaiming Him as the fulfillment of the promise of a coming Son of David.

But now, after a show of force by the authorities, Jesus is alone. “They all left Him and fled.” All abandon Him. Not just the crowds. Not just those who saw miracles. But even those who have spent years at his side. Even those who have shared His bread. Even those He loved to the end. Even Peter, who only hours before proclaimed his faithfulness to Jesus until death. That faithfulness lasts only until a servant girl says she saw him with Jesus.

Only Jesus is faithful until death.

Something in us desires to be the hero. We all are tempted to say with Peter and the other disciples, “Even if I must die with you, I will never deny you” (Mark 14:31).

And whenever we try to be the hero, we fall flat on our faces – months or years later, if not (like Peter) that very day.

Only Jesus is the hero.

The Gospel is not the story of great men who do great deeds for God. The Gospel is not the story of heros of the Christian religion who, through tenacity, boldness, and strength conquer kingdoms and overcome evil. The Gospel is not the story of women of great insight and cleverness who outsmart evil oppressors.

The Gospel is the story of a holy and loving and faithful Trinitarian God: The Gospel is the story of God the Father planning and orchestrating all affairs of this world to display His character, His glory. The Gospel is the story of God the Son leaving His throne to become incarnate as Man, living the life God always intended for mankind, and then suffering and dying on the cross so that He might rise to be the first among many brothers. The Gospel is the story of God the Holy Spirit making alive hell-deserving sinners, opening their eyes to treasure God the Son, and empowering them to accomplish good works by faith for God’s glory.

By faith. That is, by looking away from their own abilities and limitations, by looking away from their strengths and their weaknesses, by looking away from themselves and their organizations, and leaning on God and His power to accomplish His purposes.

The Gospel is the story of man’s dependence and God’s independence, of man’s failures and God’s successes, of man’s moral bankruptcy and God’s moral integrity. The Gospel is about Jesus, not us; He must increase, and we must decrease.

Yet as we decrease in our egotistical self-confidence, something marvelous happens. His increase does not result in our fading into obscurity. As we walk by faith and not by sight, He increases, while we revel in our dependence. As we become poor in spirit and meek, we become heirs of the Kingdom; as we delight in His greatness and our weakness, we become the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

So as we consider over the next several days Jesus’ triumphal entry, His arrest, trial, beatings, and crucifixion, and as we rejoice in His resurrection, remember: The Gospel is all about Him. He is the center. Faith is a looking away from ourselves and what we have to offer. He paid the penalty. He rose from the dead. He is at the right hand of the Father. He always lives to make intercession for us. He sent the Holy Spirit to empower us. The Gospel is all about Him.

We must decrease. Praise God! We are dependent. Praise Jesus! We are children. Praise the Spirit! We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Amazing grace! Amazing love!

 

He is Risen Indeed!

He Is Risen!

How do we know Jesus was raised from the dead? And why is this of any importance?

Paul answers both of these questions in 1 Corinthians 15.

How Do We Know Jesus Rose from the Dead?

In verses 5 to 8 Paul present evidence for the resurrection from eyewitnesses. He mentions:

  • Peter (called “Cephas” in verse 5). Peter is one of the twelve disciples – indeed, the apparent leader of the disciples during Jesus’ earthly ministry. But, after boasting that he would die for Jesus, he denies that he even knows Him three times the night of His betrayal. Peter is a failure – yet Jesus appears to him.
  • The Twelve (verse 5) – that is, all His closest companions of the last few years. Yet these too all are failures, for they all scattered in fear after His arrest.
  • More than 500 at one time (verse 6). Paul is writing 20-25 years after the resurrection took place. So while some of these witnesses have “fallen asleep” (meaning they have died), most are still alive. The evidence is there. Anyone can check it out.
  • James (verse 7). This most likely is not either of the men named James who were among the Twelve, but Jesus’ half-brother, who in Acts 15 is prominent in the Jerusalem church. There is no evidence that any of Jesus’ brothers believed Him to be the Messiah prior to His resurrection. Indeed, other passages (Mark 3:20-31 and John 7:5) indicate the opposite. Perhaps it is this appearance itself that leads to James’ faith.
  • All the apostles (verse 7). In order to be an apostle, one must have witnessed the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 9:1); perhaps Paul here is not talking about a specific incident, but a series of appearances to everyone else who is an apostle.
  • Paul himself  (verse 8), to whom Jesus appeared years after He had ascended (Acts 9:1-18).

Paul is saying, “The resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of history, one of the key central moments in God’s plan to redeem a people for himself. Test the claim! Investigate it! Talk to the eyewitnesses! Evaluate their lives; have they proven themselves trustworthy? In fact Christ has risen!”

Note carefully:

  • Paul is not claiming, “We had a vision of Jesus’ spirit, and this vision so inspired us that we are changed men and women!”
  • Nor is he claiming, “We have strong faith, and even His death could not extinguish our faith that Jesus is the Messiah! We know He must be alive!”

Paul instead claims that the physical body of the crucified Jesus was resurrected, made alive, given new life. He is making a historical claim, and encouraging his readers to verify the fact by talking to eyewitnesses. In years to come, Paul himself and many of these other eyewitnesses will face death because of this claim. They could avoid suffering and death if they only say, “What I saw was just a spirit, not a risen physical body.” But they don’t. They die holding to this truth.

He is risen indeed.

Why is the Resurrection Important?

In this chapter, Paul also gives six reasons why the resurrection is vitally important.

  1. Unless Jesus is risen, Paul’s  preaching is in vain, it is pointless (verse 14).
  2. Unless Jesus is risen, the Corinthians’ faith is also in vain, pointless (verse 14). Why? He explains in the third reason:
  3. Unless Jesus is risen, you are still in your sins (verse 17). If there is no resurrection, the Gospel is false. No payment for sins has been made. Note that Jesus’ death is vital; without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sins (Hebrews 9:22). But the resurrection is also vital. A dead Christ is no Christ. A dead Christ does not save from sins, for there is no evidence that the penalty paid is sufficient. There is no evidence that He has any power over death.
  4. Unless Jesus is risen, the apostles and the Scriptures are false witnesses (verse 15). They claim that He rose from the dead, and thus they are liars if He did not. All Scripture is then unreliable (verse 4).
  5. Unless Jesus is risen, those who have died believing in Jesus have perished. They had no hope. No matter how courageously they died, they were fools, for they trusted in a lie. In his own life, I suspect Paul has in mind Stephen, the first martyr, whose death he witnessed (Acts 7).
  6. Unless Jesus is risen, we are of all men most to be pitied (verse 19). We are pitiful fools.

The key item, the item on which all else hangs, is the third. We cannot separate Good Friday from Resurrection Sunday. Jesus’ death and resurrection go together. There is no payment for sins unless Jesus is risen.

All men die. So the fact that Jesus died is not notable.

That He died cruelly and unjustly is notable but far from unique; millions and millions more have died similarly,

That He died for your sin and mine to give us new life in Him is mind blowing and life changing.

But that is only true if He rose from dead. That is only true if He continues as our faithful High Priest who “always lives to make intercession for us” (Hebrew 7:25).

Jesus died for our sins according to the Scripture (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Jesus rose from the dead according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:4). In history. In fact.

He is risen indeed.

(This is an excerpt from Sunday’s sermon. The audio for the sermon is available at this link.)

Preparing for Resurrection Sunday

As you contemplate the death and resurrection of our Savior this weekend, I encourage you to read the passion and resurrection accounts in the four gospels. Justin Taylor has posted part of a chart from the ESV Study Bible that helpfully lays out the parallel passages on the events during the last few days of Jesus’ life, and Resurrection Sunday.

Also, I encourage you to read or listen to an excellent sermon on the cross or the resurrection. I’ve compiled a list from various preachers at this link.