A Plan For the Fullness of Time

                                                                     Ephesians 1: 1-10

 

 

          Today, in our introduction to the Essential Tenets of ECO, we turn to another well-accepted doctrine of the Reformed Tradition; that of Election, both for salvation and for service.

          Presbyterians are identified with election, or predestination as it is also called, more than any other denomination. We particularly get credit ot blame, depending on who is critiquing, for double predestination. There are historical reasons for that. John Calvin, one of our church fathers, wrote about it in his great work called The Institutes. The Westminster Confession of Faith, an important Presbyterian confession, affirms it. But double predestination, the doctrine that God preordains people for both heaven and hell, is only one of several major views about election. It is beyond the scope of this message to consider the details of each. Suffice it to say that each view is supported by Scripture, and that it takes study and discernment to find what God is saying. But what should be said at the outset is that election is a Biblical doctrine. It is not optional. It is as much a part of Biblical teaching as grace and sin and covenant.

          Let’s talk for a minute about what election is not. Election is not some God ordained fatalism that whatever good or bad that happens is God’s will. Election is not why you lost that job or your boyfriend broke up with you. It’s not about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East or any other war. Election is about God’s plan of salvation.

          In Romans 10 and 11, Paul talks about righteousness; about the path to it. He points out the difference between Israel’s pursuit of righteousness through the law, and the Gentiles’ pursuit of righteousness by faith. It is only faith which will succeed.  He says that God makes no distinction between Jew and Greek. Paul says the distinction is drawn by who calls upon the name of the Lord. He speaks that now famous passage about how to be saved: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” [10: 9].

          In Ephesians 1, our passage for today, Paul addresses his letter to the saints who are in Ephesus. In other words, he is writing to the Christian community in that town or region. He goes on to talk about God blessing us in Christ, how we (the church) were predestined for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. He ends this passage by talking about God’s purpose as set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time [1:10].

          In the passage from Romans, Paul is writing about two people groups, the Jews, those chosen by God in the Old Testament, and the Gentiles, which is everyone else. Specifically, Paul is writing about those among the Gentiles who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the passage from Ephesians, Paul is again targeting Gentile Christians, specifically those in the church in Ephesus. In the book of Galatians, Paul closes out his letter by addressing that community as the Israel of God. The point is this: in all three books, predestination as Paul explains it has to do with the election of a community to be the people of God. In every case, Paul is writing to churches, not individuals.  

          ECO states that we lost our freedom in the fall, meaning the fall of Adam, or mankind, into sin. From that, we are incapable in and of ourselves of turning away from sin. Paul reminds us in Romans 3 that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. So now what? How can we be reconciled? In Christ. The grace of Jesus Christ makes that reconciliation possible. How does it start? God draws us to him and opens our hearts.   Jesus tells us in John’s gospel: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” [Jn.6: 44]. God draws us because he loves us. We, the Christian church, are part of the grand design. We are elected in love to be free, no longer bound by sin.

          Guthrie puts it this way, “According to scripture, individuals are indeed loved and chosen by God, but only as they participate in the whole community of God’s people.” We need not fear election. Indeed, we need to embrace it. Election is an assurance, not a threat. If we believe in the saving grace of God in Christ, we will be saved. God predestined us, Christianity, for that salvation. As surely as God’s grace through Jesus Christ is the reason for our election, it is also our assurance for that election (Guthrie, p. 136). Who does God want? Listen to the words of Paul in 1 Timothy: “God our Savior…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [2:4]. Who is elected? Listen to the words of the apostle John: “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” [8:31, 32].

          So we see that election provides a way to salvation for us. But election is a two sided coin.  We need also to recognize that election, while a gift from God, is a form of commission from him as well. ECO’s essential tenets state that the Holy Spirit gives faith, enables holiness through His sanctifying and regenerating work, thereby making us witnesses of God’s gracious presence to the lost. 

          In the servant songs of Isaiah, the prophet hearkens to a time of deliverance by a servant leader. We know these passages as Messianic prophecy. Look how they connect with the subject of election to service. God says; “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations” [42: 6].  Later in chapter 49, God says again that he will make this servant “a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach the end of the earth” [v. 6]. Does this sound like election that limits or election that includes? It is not God, but ourselves, who in our deluded idea of freedom, opt out of God’s plan for our salvation. He not only wants us in his kingdom; he wants us to help him usher it in. He wants us as his witnesses.

            To come to a saving knowledge of God is to receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised his disciples that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” [Acts 1: 8]. You, you who believe—will be my witnesses—to the ends of the earth!

           In his letter to the church in Corinth, the apostle Paul projects the mission of every Christian, the task of every member of the body of Christ. He talks about spiritual gifts, and how each of us has been gifted in our own way to serve the Lord. It is in those gifts singular to us that we are afforded our particular calling for service. And Paul goes on to say that each is essential. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized in one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit…Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” [12: 12, 13, 27].

          We are indeed elected. We are chosen, chosen by God himself. We are elected for salvation, elected for service. How do we know?  We confess with our mouths; we believe in our hearts, that Jesus is our Savior. And we are saved. God calls us to community with him. This is election, “God’s plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

Covenant Life in the Church

                Ephesians 4: 1-7, Acts 22:16, I Cor. 11: 23-26, Matt. 18: 15-20

 

 

          This week we continue in our introduction to the Essential Tenets of ECO. We have previously looked at God’s Word and its authority, the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation and the doctrine of God’s grace in Christ. Today, we will look at a number of long standing Reformed doctrines including adoption, preaching of the Word, administration of the Sacraments and practicing mutual discipline. All of these are part of what ECO calls covenant life in the church.

          Adoption is the first item on the menu. I am an adoptive parent, so I have a very personal view of adoption. During my career as an attorney, I did many adoptions. I had a ringside seat to what adoption means as a legal term. What I can share with you is that legal adoption comes about as close to lining up with theological adoption as mankind is likely to get in lawmaking. In American law in every state of which I am aware, adoption is parenthood. In a legal adoption, the adopted child stands in exactly the same position legally as does a blood child. There is no difference. Even birth certificates are amended in adoptions to reflect the parentage of the adopted child as that of his or her adoptive parents. Whatever differences might exist genetically or emotionally, there are none legally. In my case, I can truly say that the bond I have with my adoptive child is every bit as strong as it is with my genetic children. In fact, it’s just insulting to put the word “adopted” in front of child with me. She is my daughter, plain and simple.

          Compare that status with what the apostle Paul tells us in the book of Galatians: “…for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God, through faith...For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”[3: 26, 27]. He goes on to say that “because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” [4: 6]. In Ephesians, Paul comments to that church on what it means to be in the body of Christ: “There is but one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all…” [Eph. 4: 4-6]. ECO says correctly that we share one Father. We are all brothers and sisters in God’s family.

          Covenant life in the church among those brothers and sisters adopted into the family can be identified by the occurrence of several things, the first of which is the preaching of the Word. Nearing his life’s end, Paul writes to Timothy, his “son” in the faith, and charges him to preach the word, to be always ready to teach with complete patience[2 Tim 4: 2]. He challenges Timothy to continue espousing the sacred writings, the Scriptures, breathed out by God, and able to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ” [3: 15, 16]. Where does Paul get his belief? In the book of Acts, he tells a tribune arresting him and the people who gather to listen that he has been appointed to be a witness for God to everyone of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He ends his speech saying that God called upon him to “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” [Acts 22:16].

          As important as the preaching of the Word is the rightful administration of the Sacraments. ECO’s form of government charges the Session with the responsibility to “provide for the regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper, authorize the administration of Baptism,” and to “exercise due care and provide sufficient education to the congregation and to new believers that the Sacraments may be rightly received as means of grace” [Polity Ch. 1, Sect. 1.0603 b]. Think about that. Our Sacraments, the Lord’s Supper and Baptism—are to be rightly received as means of grace. Jesus received his baptism as a commission from God, and then instituted Holy Communion as a continual reminder of our own baptism—not just into the rights and privileges of the kingdom, but also into the duties and responsibilities attendant to it. Baptism is not only a remembering. It is an immersion, sometimes literally and always symbolically into both the life and death of our Savior. We put on his stripes and try to walk his walk. Yes, we will always fail, but may we fail well and less often as we become sanctified in our journeys.

          Look back at some of the Scriptures we have noted. We talked about adoption, and we quoted Paul in Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  In Ephesians we are told that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” We are called to witness, to preach the Word, as was Paul by God, and in Acts, God tells him to “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” Clearly, we should come to the celebration of the Sacraments recognizing the power that lies in these symbols of God’s grace.

          A few minutes ago, one of our own, a ten year old young man, underwent his own baptism. In our denomination, many if not most of us are baptized as infants. Some youngsters miss that for one reason or another. Their parents are not churchgoers at the time, or belong to another denomination with different practices, or somehow life just gets in the way. There are many reasons. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that each of us, body and soul, comes to a saving belief in the gospel. When that happens, whether for parents who offer their infant child in dedication to the Lord or young persons who come to the baptismal font of their own volition and free will, God is there waiting. And God is there to give to us a generous helping of that thing we call grace, that life changing, living water where belief collides with Sacrament and we are washed with the truth of the gospel. At the Last Supper, Jesus offered a cup as the new covenant made by his sacrificial blood. He tells us that as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes [1Cor. 11-23-26]. Blood, water, Spirit, body, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We are his. We are the children of God. The Sacraments are our regular reminder of this truth.

          Covenant life in the church is also the faithful practice of mutual discipline. We may come to God alone, but we do Christian life together. It is God’s plan. We are not meant to be alone. God started that in Genesis 1. Nor are we meant to walk through this life in accountability to only ourselves. With or without God, we are well aware that society governs itself through a system of laws. In such way, we are reminded of the helpful fences that we erect. There are lines that must be observed, if not for our own benefit, then for the benefit of others. The New Testament is replete with examples of those who could not get it right without help, from Paul to Peter.

          In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples what to do when a brother sins against them. First, we are to engage him one on one, in dialogue and not just in accusation. If that fails, then we are to take one or two others to confront him.  If that also fails, we are to tell it to the church. If he still refuses to listen to the church, then he risks being treated by his own church as a stranger. Where in this advice do we find the words gossip or lawsuit? And Jesus closes with a promise: that if we follow this pursuit of settlement, then he will be there with us. This is an idea so foreign to the western church that it is almost forgotten. We are reminded that it is the advice of Jesus himself for dispute resolution.

         Luke describes the early church for us in Acts 2: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.”  

          Covenant life in the church. It is indeed a way of life. The Greek word for church is ecclesia, or gathering. Christians gather to celebrate the gospel, to take comfort in one another, to worship in Word and proclamation and Sacrament, and to be accountable to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s a covenant that we can live with. That’s what the bride of Christ is supposed to look like. A body of believers working together!

                                  Surrendering to Freedom

                                           Ephesians 2: 1-10

 

          In our journey through the Essential Tenets of ECO, it was only a matter of time before our path merged with the essentials of the Reformed Tradition. Today, we look at the fourth, and perhaps the most sublime, of the Essential Tenets of ECO: God’s grace in Christ. To look at the subject of God’s grace is to look right into the eye of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. To do that is to attempt to answer a very fundamental question. Theologian Shirley Guthrie suggests that in order to deal with grace, we have to ask the question: What does it mean to be a Christian?

          Well, that’s just silly.    We all know the answer to that question. What does it mean to be a Christian? Why, it means that…well, you know, it means that we want to be Christian! I mean, we want to be good. Well, not exactly, but obedient. Don’t we? I mean, you know, Christ died for us and all, and we should be, you know, Christian! We’re sinners, and Jesus fixed that problem. And then, we get saved, Because we believe. Because, well, you know what it means.

          What does it mean? What did Christ do? What did he change? What does it mean to be a Christian? We Christians share a belief in God. In that shared belief, we realize that we sin. We sin a lot. Even when we come to a saving belief in God, we continue to sin. And we are aware of that. So how do we get right with God? That’s another question. How do we get right with God? The more we get to know the nature of God, the more we realize how far we are from it. That’s one of the key points in ECO’s articulation of God’s grace. It states that our world is disordered, that we and all things are subject to evil and misery, that this state comes from our rebellion against God’s will, that no part of human life is untouched by sin, that what is natural to us is not very trustworthy as a marker for Godliness. Put another way, ECO restates Romans 3: 23, that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

           Martin Luther is credited with the start of the Reformation. He was a tormented man who spent his life trying to measure up until he read the Bible for himself. He found the words of Ephesians 2 and other such passages and he finally understood. He understood that his guilt was unnecessary, that his attempts to work his way to heaven were futile. God already had him covered.

          Well, we don’t do that. Really? We Americans take great pride in our work ethic. Look at how hard we work. When we’re not working at our jobs, we work to stay fit, to look young. When that doesn’t make us happy, we can criticize others to build ourselves up, or even criticize ourselves to show our piety. Or we can try to out-good everyone else to show our merit for God. Martin Luther became a monk; we become workaholics or obsessed with our agendas. What’s the difference? Either way, either century, we are trying to do it our way.

          Ok, so we’re wrong with God. Again, how do we get right? We don’t. He does. The apostle Paul named this principle Justification, the act of getting right with God. We can keep reading from Romans 3. Go on to v. 24, which says that we are “justified by his grace as a gift.” Guthrie says it this way: “We are justified—made right with God—not by our own effort to climb up to God but by God’s free grace in coming to us.” We can’t earn it. We can’t buy it. We can’t barter for it. It’s a gift, a gift that we must accept by faith. When we can grasp this, that without God we are reaching for something we will never attain, that without God, all our efforts, all our work, amount to nothing more than grunting and groaning---then we can begin to see the joy and freedom that comes from being justified. And justification brings us freedom. We no longer have to worry about measuring up. We are there by God’s grace. We are right with God.       

But we have to get ready first, right? You can’t get into the club without doing something. Wrong. Read on in Romans 5. Verses 6-8 state that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” He died for us, for me and you, before we ever even acknowledged him as our Savior! ECO says that the union of Christ with the Holy Spirit brings us into right relation with God. We are his children, more surely than our children are our own. We don’t have to believe in God first. It’s not a reward. It’s a gift! How do we get right with God? We are justified—in Christ.

Is that all there is? Actually, no. There is also Sanctification. Sanctification is the process of getting right with God. Now, wait a minute. We just said that Justification is the act of getting right with God, and now you say that there is a process as well. Yes, there is a process, but it needs to be distinguished from the act. When we are justified, we are made right with God by the grace of Christ. Right then, right there. Think of it this way. Because Christ died for us, we are justified. Because we believe in that and choose to live for him, we become sanctified. It is God working within us through the Holy Spirit, helping us to leave the sin in our lives behind and move to the freedom of walking with God. Remember how ECO says that God receives us as his adopted children? That comes from Justification, being accepted by God. Through Sanctification, we begin to live as God’s children.

Why do we need Sanctification since we are Justified through the grace of Jesus Christ? That’s what Paul said, isn’t it? By grace we are saved through faith, not from our own works. True enough. But James tells us that faith without works is dead. How do we balance these competing statements? We don’t, because they don’t compete. The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as Christian faith without Christian action. If you trust in a thing, don’t you act on that trust? Of course.

So…in a way, the difference between Justification and Sanctification is the difference between immaturity and maturity. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that when we were children, we spoke as children, we thought as children, we reasoned as children. That’s Justification. Then, when we became adults, we gave up childish ways. That’s Sanctification. Justification is the acquisition; Sanctification is the development. Sanctification is what we look like when we become grownup Christians, not Christians who are grownups---grownup Christians. Paul tells us again in Ephesians 4: 13: “…until we attain to …mature manhood…so that we may no longer be children.”

How do we get there from here? Follow the leader. We have to get to God. We don’t have the ticket, but Jesus does: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except through me” [John 14:6]. Follow the road. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” [Romans 10: 9]. Jesus is the only way to the adoption which God has promised us.

What does it mean to be Christian? I think it means to follow God. Above all the voices, over all the other roads, we follow our leader. We stay on the road. We need to surrender to the freedom that lies with the grace of Jesus Christ.

By grace, we are saved…through faith.

                           Incarnation: The God-Man

    John 1: 14

 

 

          In our study of the Essential Tenets of ECO, we now arrive at Incarnation. This is the term we use to refer to that which happened in Bethlehem a couple thousand years ago. It was the night when Mary gave birth to her first child. She named him Jesus. She gave birth to the God-Man. Matthew 1:23 calls him Immanuel: God with us.

           The Apostles Creed tells us that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.          Think about that. God the Holy Spirit is the father of God the Son? Jesus has no biological father, as least not in the way we humans define biology.  Jesus is. He never was not. He is God’s only son, but he is begotten, not created or made. The gospels of Matthew and Luke record a virgin birth; that is, birth of the child Jesus, to a virgin named Mary. The father was not her future husband Joseph; he was God the Holy Spirit. And yet, though those two gospels testify to a virgin birth, the genealogies of these gospels trace Jesus not to Mary, but to Joseph. So if their aim was to prove Jesus the Son of God, born of the many prophecies of the Old Testament, didn’t they miss their mark?   Mary is not of the stump of Jesse that Isaiah proclaims. Joseph is in that line, but Jesus does not come from Joseph. The other two gospels don’t even mention the birth of Jesus, nor does the apostle Paul. But John does tell us that

Jesus was there from the beginning of creation, that in the Incarnation, he became flesh and dwelt among us. So what is the virgin birth about? Maybe we should see it for what it is—just one fact of a much bigger picture. So—just what do those stories mean?

          God came down, came down as one of us and stepped into the chaos and the mess and the hate and the injustice and the poverty. He came barefooted and bled with us. He came in a stable in a cave in a one donkey town. The Incarnation could not have had more lowly beginnings and yet, Jesus is the only one of us who can trace his roots to the Trinity of God, Son and Holy Spirit.

          It’s really hard to get your mind around God being human. Maybe that’s why we have some facts, some witness from the gospels. Jesus came on a date. The gospels are specific enough for us to be able to pin down when. We can even pin down where. It was in Bethlehem at census time. There’s geography and politics. His “socio-economic” background? Poor probably covers it nicely.

          Now this is history. No question about it. But there was other history being made at the time, and Jesus didn’t ring the history bell very hard on entry. This is not cellphone video history. It’s not admissible in a court of law. It’s evangelistic history. The shepherds never swore out affidavits. It’s one of those belief things. If you believe, there is a lot of proof. If you don’t, well…there’s room for that too.

            As beautiful as it is, why would God, the God of creation, of the universe, choose to arrive as human on earth, much less aa a helpless baby? Here is one of those God moments from which we can begin to see our Creator. The story of the Incarnation is the story of a radical invasion of God into our world! At least one thing is clear in all the gospels, and perhaps even more particularly in Matthew and Luke, who choose to cover the birth event. The thing is this. Jesus was flesh and blood. He was a baby boy who grew to manhood around other boys and girls. He ate the food, drank the water, even cried, just like the rest of us. John’s gospel reminds us that he was the Word, and that the Word became flesh and lived here, right down the street from you if you were living in the north country of Israel back then.

          Jesus was a Jewish boy growing up in a Jewish household at a time in history when being a Jew was often something to be joked about. In fact, except for that short golden age of David and Solomon, there are few times in history when the Jews have not been laughed at or scorned or mass murdered. In other words, he belonged to a people group. Just like we identify ourselves as southerners or Scots Irish or African American or Hispanic, Jesus our Savior was also a Jew. And he came as a man. He could have come as a woman. The only reason I bring this up is to more completely prove his humanity. It doesn’t matter that Jesus lived on earth as a male rather than a female. What matters is that he was flesh and blood and flesh and blood comes generally as either male or female.

          Jesus was not a spirit. He was as real as you and me. Did he get hungry? Did he get thirsty? Read the gospel accounts of his temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Did he get tired? Read those same accounts about Jesus trying to get away from the crowds to rest. Did he experience emotion? Read the account of the death of his friend Lazarus. Jesus wept for him.

          Jesus didn’t know everything. He couldn’t. For the only time in eternity, Jesus was separate from God, separate from the Trinity. He had to be. He was a man. He was the God-Man, but he was a man. Luke tells us that he grew in wisdom. He didn’t arrive as an infant with the full package.  Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 13 that only God knows the day or hour; that not even he, the Son of Man, knows that time.  In the 15^th chapter of Mark, Jesus suffers on the cross and calls out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yes, Jesus was fully man!  

          And yet, in thirty three years on this earth, fully exposed to every temptation, Jesus did not sin. As an adult, he sought out sinners and ate with them, partied with them. He counted political zealots, tax collectors, social outcasts and harlots among his friends. How did he do this? How could he be constantly exposed to the underbelly of civilization and yet live without sin? He could because he lived it in obedience to God. Theologian Shirley Guthrie says Jesus “fulfilled his true humanity in the image of God.” Think about that. When we do something wrong and say I’m only human, we are dead wrong. What we mean is we are disobedient and selfish. Being human, really human, is acting out in the image of God. That’s how we were created. That’s how Jesus lived on earth without sin.

            If that were the end of the story, it would be a great story. Jesus could take his place among the greats of history as a revolutionary political activist, a moral hero, a role model like no other. But it is not the end of the story. It is, rather, the beginning of the greatest story ever told. The Incarnation, the miraculous birth, of Jesus is a sign. You can’t explain the birth of Jesus, his origin, his life, in ordinary human terms. That is where the Incarnation becomes this powerful engine for driving one of the great supernatural events of history. It is the bookend to the passion story. It is as powerful as the Resurrection. Jesus comes from God! In his own words in John’s gospel, Jesus says to a questioning Philip: “To see me is to see the Father.” He is Emmanuel: God with us.

          The gospels, indeed all the New Testament and the Reformed Confessions and Creeds, make it clear that Jesus was both divine and human, fully God, fully man. That is high theology. We can’t get there from here. No one else has ever been that, ever done that. No one else ever will. The essential tenets of ECO remind us that “His divinity is not impaired, limited or changed by His gracious act of assuming a human nature, and His true humanity is not undermined by His continued divinity.” They state further that, as the Bible tells us, the risen Jesus ascended to heaven “in His resurrected body and remains fully human.”  Lastly those tenets state that it is only through the Holy Spirit’s work in us that we can make these confessions of faith.

          It’s not the virgin birth that is the miracle, though that certainly is miraculous. It’s not that Jesus came to earth with the power of God within him, though that can certainly be assumed.

We can see God in the way Jesus performed so many mighty works and deeds. We can see God in the way Jesus spoke, not by referring to a higher power, but by claiming to be that power, by speaking with the authority of God himself.

          But even these things, these mighty deeds, the claim to divinity, the authority with which Jesus spoke, were imitated by others. How can we tell he is the real deal? Guthrie suggests that we should consider something he calls the great reversal. Look at what Jesus did. Look at how he acted. Look at what he said. He didn’t seek earthly power or acclaim or even recognition. He sought relationship with those he met. He sought connection with who they were and he sought it where they lived. Jesus affirmed our humanity in everything he said and did. He told us in his life that we matter. We matter! He became small so that we come become exalted. That is the great reversal. He is exalted not in his power, but in his humility, his meekness. He can and does accomplish his will not only in his might, but also in his voluntary weakness. Who else has ever done that! Jesus challenges us not only to look for his coming, but to live in his presence!

          Incarnation. Fully god and fully man. Thank them both…for who He is.

                                   Trinity; a Divine Linkage

                                           Romans 14: 17, 18

 

 

          What do you know that’s three things in one? Three identities that are linked, but separate; together but apart? Is there such a thing? I can think of one from the movies and from the toy world and Marvel Comics. There are Transformers that are called Triple Changers. One of my favorites is Broadside. Broadside starts out as an Autobot, but he can convert into an F-18 Hornet (That’s a military fighter plane) and an aircraft carrier. That’s some pretty serious transforming.

          I’m sure there are other 3 in 1 things, but for the life of me, I can’t think of any more. Can you? The thing is, from one set of joints and parts, they can change and morph into something entirely different. Not separate, but different.

          I do know one other 3 in 1 entity. It’s God. Actually it’s way more mysterious than Broadside or any of his Triple Changer friends. For instance, Broadside and his friends, even though they can be three different things, can only be one thing at a time. Not a problem with God. Broadside has to pick where he is at any given time. Not so with God. In the Trinity, God is community. God can be anywhere he wants to be. The Holy Spirit can be in me and you and you and in Joe Smith in Venezuela, all at the same time.

          God is our one and only God. There is no other. Remember the Shema, the centerpiece of prayer for God’s people in Deuteronomy, that says Sh’ma Yisrael  (Hear, O Israel),  Adonai Eloheinu (The Lord our God),  Adonai Echad (the Lord is one).  But our one God is Trinitarian. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. ECO, our new denomination, states that “with Christians everywhere, we worship the only true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who is both one essence and three persons.” We call that the Trinity.

          All Reformed Protestant traditions recognize a Trinitarian God, but not all Christian denominations recognize God in that way. For instance, among those who do not are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christians Scientists, to name a few. Of course, the other main Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, do not recognize the Trinity either. Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopals, Anglicans, Lutherans and most Baptists acknowledge the Trinity, most often in their recitation of either the Apostles or Nicene Creeds.

          Both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds state the triune nature of God. In the case of the Nicene Creed, the co-existence and co-importance of God and Jesus was hammered out in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Some sixty years later in 381 in Constantinople, the Holy Spirit was given equal status by adding something called the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed. In essence, it said that the Holy Spirit emanates from both the Father and the Son. Seminary students study such things in great detail in Church History courses. For us, it’s probably sufficient to realize that the church fathers argued over such details for hundreds of years.

          Why did the church fathers argue? Because they were trying to find the truth and frankly, even today, great world religions divide over what that truth is. For those who find their home in the Reformed tradition and mainline Christianity, the Trinity is well accepted doctrine. And the working understanding behind the language of the Trinity is that the three are one, a single, but Trinitarian, God.

          So let’s take a few minutes to trace some of that line of reasoning. We just looked at the Shema, the line from Deuteronomy that says the Lord our God is one God. Doesn’t that seem to say that God is one? Yes it does, and that theme is uniform throughout the Old Testament. But there are hints along the way that the “one God” arguments don’t completely answer the identity of our Creator. For instance, in Gen, 1: 26, God says to “make man in our image, in our likeness.” In Genesis 3: 22, God says the “the man has now become like one of us.” Or Genesis 11: 7 in the story of the tower of Babel, God says “let us go down and confuse their language.”  There are places that seem to refer to the Spirit as a person (Gen. 1: 2, Neh.9: 20-30, Is. 63: 10). They aren’t conclusive, but they seem to create hints of God as plural in some way.

          In the New Testament, there are clear indications of a Trinitarian God consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here are a few:

 

               2 Cor. 13: 14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of   

                            God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

 

               Luke 1: 35: And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit  

                            will come upon you, and the power of the Most High

                            will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born

                            will be called holy—the Son of God.”

 

               Matt 28: 19: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,

                            baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

                            Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

               Matt 3: 16, 17: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went

                            up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to

                            him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove

                            and coming to rest on him, and behold, a voice from

                            heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well

                            pleased. (Also in Luke 3: 21, 22)

 

               John 14: 16: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you

                            another Helper, to be with you forever.

 

              1 Peter 1: 1, 2: To those who are elect exiles in the

                            dispersion…according the foreknowledge of God the

                            Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to

                            Jesus Christ…

 

               2 Cor. 1: 21, 22: And it is God who established us with you in

                           Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal

                           on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

 

          As you can see, the concept of a Triune God is sprinkled regularly throughout the New Testament, and the above list is not exhaustive, just representative. It’s great mystery. We humans have no counterpart for this, unless you want to count Triple Changers Transformers and, as we have already seen, even they come up short.

          ECO refers to our Trinitarian God in “co’s,” saying the three persons of the Godhead are co-substantial, co- equal, co-eternal, such that there are not three gods, nor are there three parts of God, but rather three persons with the one Godhead. Theologian Don Fairbairn puts it this way: “The biblical idea is not so much that there is one divine essence in which Father, Son and Spirit participate. Rather, it is that there is one God, the Father, but there are also two other persons who are equal to him and united to him and each other in such a way that they are one being, one God” [Life in the Trinity, 44].

          If this is heavy sledding for you, don’t feel bad. The great minds of the church argued over these points for hundreds of years. Even then, they only convinced some, for as we have noted, even today the great religions of the world conflict with one another. But for me, perceiving God through the Trinity is fundamental to my relationship with him. I think this is the way he meant it to be. You see, God is already in relationship. He is in relationship, perfect unity, with the other properties of the Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of those persons seeks relationship with us in profound but different ways. God is Creator, Father, the lover of his creation. God the Son Jesus is begotten but not created. We are the created, created by God and Jesus, and Jesus is also fully man, ascended bodily to the Father, interceding with the Father in our behalf with his unbounding grace. God the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, indwells us, guides us, pricks us, holds us, binds us, brings us to God.

          Listen to this. In the 15^th chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is in the middle of a long, upper room discourse with his disciples. It is Passover, in the future to be called Maundy Thursday. Just a few hours later, Jesus knows he will begin the long night of arrest and interrogation leading to the cross. Jesus talks to his disciples. He says much, and much of what he says is confusing to them. But what he says connects the dots of humanity from the beginning to right now for those who would follow him. Jesus says in part: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love…My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.”  Jesus doesn’t say imitate me. He doesn’t say emulate me. He says remain in me, in my love, just as I have done with my Father. Jesus is in relationship with God. Jesus is in relationship with us. And Jesus asks: Will we be in love? Will we be in relationship with him? To do so is to solve the great mystery. To do so is to cross the bridge from reaching to being. In Acts 2, the Helper that Jesus promised showed up. The Holy Spirit came to rest in the hearts of the disciples. Then they understood! And that is the last puzzle piece. The Father sends the Son. The Son lives in the Father. The Son gives that love to us. The Holy Spirit connects us to the Son, who lives in the Father. And we are one. We are part of God. In the words of my old professor (Fairbairn), “Jesus is tying our human relationships to his relationship with the Father.” I would add that the binding he uses to do this great love act is the Holy Spirit.

          And who is God? He is them and they are he. It is the deepest mystery of Christianity, but it is the warmest: Love, grace and fellowship, all from the most high, sovereign, Creator and ruler of all.

          This is our Triune God: Creator, ruler, lover. Sovereign, father, brother. Forever. Right now. Most powerful. Most meek. Human. Spirit. Trinity! Our divine linkage.

The Book and the Son

                                 2 Peter 1: 19-21, John 1:1, 14

 

 

          Sometime in the next few weeks, we will be shifting over to ECO, our new denomination. It will come with a new set of buzzwords and acronyms to learn as we begin to incorporate the business of our church into compliance with this new denomination. First, let me say that I have been working with ECO for about a year now at one level or another, and everything I have seen so far makes this affiliation not only a breath of fresh air, but a re-charging of my spiritual batteries. I really believe it will be the same for this church as well.

          ECO - A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians - is our new denomination, and it acknowledges a small list of principles it has labeled as its essential tenets. In the next few weeks, we will be looking at those essential tenets. If you find yourself familiar with the spiritual ground, you should. You will hear nothing that Presbyterian and Reformed Christians haven’t been saying for a long time. This is not new ground, but it is fertile ground, and it is at the heart of ECO. What I am finding so far is that ECO says nothing new, but it does say a lot of things well. And unlike some other denominations that seem to want to appeal to everyone, ECO seems satisfied to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the most powerful and clear way that it can find by planting that gospel in every place it can, and let the harvest belong to God.  It is in that spirit that today we look at the first of the essential tenets of ECO, God’s Word.

          ECO states in its literature that God’s Word is the “authority of our confession,” that is, God’s Word is our set of marching orders. It is our authoritative source for what we believe. Everything else is built around that. So what is God’s Word? Before we even answer that question, let’s back up. What is the chief end of man? Think of what you learned in your catechism so long ago and you will be right on point. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. ECO says it this way: The great purpose toward which each human life is drawn is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Some things never change. One of those things is the chief end, the great purpose, of mankind. We glorify God. That’s why we are here.

          So, back to our initial question. What is God’s Word? Amy Grant and other artists sing the song taken from Psalm 119 (v.105): Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. God’s Word illuminates. It shows us the way. Without it, we walk in darkness. So God’s Word will tell us about God. God’s Word is his authoritative self-revelation. God’s Word tells us who God is, and who God is to us.  That’s pretty important, because if we don’t know who God is, we can’t recognize him. And if we can’t recognize him, then how can we receive him?

          What is God’s Word? We intuitively know what it does to us. But what is it? Now, Preacher, you say, don’t try to make this hard. God’s Word is the Bible. Everyone knows that. Of course, you’re right. 2 Peter says this about it:

                   And we have something more sure, the prophetic

             word, to which you will do well to pay attention as

                  a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns      

              and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this

              first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from

    someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was

    ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from

    God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

 

          Peter is telling us that Scripture comes not from the mouths or minds or men, but from the mind of God uttered by men influenced by that guidance and interpreted by the Holy Spirit. John Calvin said that “Scripture, having gathered up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.” Both the great apostle and the great Reformer are saying essentially the same thing, that God reveals himself to us through Scripture, the written Word of God.

          But if we are to properly understand the Word of God, we must understand that Word as not only written, but living. Listen again to the words of the apostle John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word came and dwelt among us.” That’s powerful. The Word lives. It lives in physical form. It moves and walks and breathes. The living Word is Jesus, the Son of God.

          Let me ask you a question. And I’ll warn you before I ask, that it is a trick question, so think before you answer. Do you believe in the Bible?

Let me ask it again. Do you believe in the Bible? Let me ask it another way. Do you believe in Isaiah? Do you believe in Jonah? No, you don’t. You may believe the truths they contain, but that’s not the same as believing in the book or those writers, is it? We save that kind of belief for God himself.

          No, you don’t believe in the Bible. You believe in its witness! There’s a big difference when you think about it. And that difference helps us to understand the authority of God’s Word, both written and living. Who rules? Who saves? Who helps? To whom do you pray? Whom do you trust? The answer is God. The Bible testifies to the identity of God, gives us traction in our quest to know him, but the Bible is not God. Theologian Shirley Guthrie puts it this way: “The Bible makes present to us here and now the self-revelation of God that happened back there and then. In this sense—a secondary sense—the Bible is not only a witness to revelation; it is itself revelation” [Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 63].

            So, we have the written Word of God and we have the living Word of God. Does one take precedence over the other? Yes, of course. One is God and the other is the witness of him. But we don’t need to go there. Perhaps a better way to understand the Word of God is to look at Jesus as God in human form, fully God and fully man, and to understand that presence as the living Word. We then look to the Bible as the divinely inspired witness to that identity. Each of these pieces is a facet of God’s self-revelation to us. What did the apostle Paul say to his protégé Timothy? “All Scripture is breathed out by God…”  What did Jesus say to his disciples? “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  Whether it is the written Word or the living Word of God, he is revealing himself to his creation.  

          There is an order to these concepts. First, there is God. God, the great I Am. He predates history. As God creates, mankind begins to find some understanding about it all and starts to write it down. If we look at God’s written Word, we find a description of God revealing himself, first to the people of Israel and later to both Israel and the world through Jesus Christ. But bear in mind that what we are looking at is a written record of actions and events that God had already revealed to us across the pages of history. That history of God’s revelation was then written down. It becomes a witness to that revelation. It is the written Word, the Bible. But note that God, and Jesus with him from the beginning, was creating and revealing through his living Word so that the written Word could become that witness.  

          We don’t need to pick. We have both the living and written Word of God to guide us, to inform us, to support us, to reveal his identity to us. There is unity in the two revelations, for that is what they are. They are the special revelation of God himself. We see God when we read the witness of Scripture. the Book, through the lens of the Holy Spirit. We see God when we look at the life and death and resurrection of the Son. We can trust them as the authority for our own confession, that God in the Trinity is creator of all, Lord of all, and Savior of all those who believe in him.

          Our great purpose? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. The authority for our confession? The living Word of God in the Incarnation of his Son and the written witness to that truth found in the infallible scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments.

          God’s Word. A lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.