Christianity Explored: clouds, a cry and the temple curtain

We’re on week four of Christianity Explored, the death of Christ. The course study guide makes three points about the crucifixion: the darkness shows God’s anger being directed at Jesus as he is cut off from his Father in heaven; the abandonment of Jesus in his cry of dereliction; the temple curtain torn in two from top to bottom.

On the second point, the study guide takes us to the baptism of Jesus and the transfiguration. In each scene the clouds part and a voice from heaven says “I love you Son”. At the crucifixion, the clouds are dense, impenetrable and Christ’s voice seems to bounce off them. God the Father is seen to cut Christ off.

The third image is of the temple curtain being torn in two, making God accessible to sinners. The doctrine of imputed righteous is found in this image. Before the crucifixion God is behind the curtain in the holy of holies. The temple curtain protects unclean, sinful people from God’s all consuming purity. The torn temple curtain indicates a change. The change is not in God but in those who believe. Christ’s death has made believers holy. All who are in Christ can now approach God without fear of being consumed.

Door to door in the inner city

Three of us from church went out on Saturday to invite people, door to door, to “Back to Church Sunday”. This was the first time since our “Pure Joy” week at Easter 2007 that we’d done this sort of thing. During “Pure Joy” we visited 1600 homes in 3 days with a team of around 16 people. Our aim then, as it was this Saturday, was to raise the profile of the church and to invite people to the events we had laid on that week.

Our team of three this year comprised of me, a Scotsman, our new Ghanaian ministry trainee and a Zimbabwean brother. On the principle of like reaches like we thought we had covered the issue of cultural diversity. In some cases this was true. We met a Zimbabwean family who welcomed us and spoke Shona with our Zim brother. But what surprised our Ghanaian visitor was the extent of the diversity. Most homes were Indian, many first generation who did not speak English (and we have not yet learned Punjabi, though we intend to). We met Jamaicans, Slovaks, Czechoslovakians, southern Irish and Poles. In the case of the Eastern Europeans the language and the cultural barriers were as high as with the first generation Punjabis.

What are we to do? Mission in this sort of demographic is more complex by degrees than any overseas mission. When going overseas, the missioner learns the language and culture of the host nation and shares the good news of Christ. Becoming all things to all people in multi-cultural inner-city Britain cannot be done by a single person. We need to assemble teams of people from all sorts of cultures for the like reaches like principle to work. Yet this is catch-22.

Yesterday afternoon our Ghanaian MT and I went to the Asian Christian fellowship which meets in our small mission hut on Sundays. We discovered that they do door to door in the same area as on Tuesday evenings. So, we’re going to join up and see what happens. Watch this space.

Growth groups to adopt a ministry

We are reviewing our Growth Groups at church using a process developed by Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York. In our groups we aim to cover the four ‘W’s: Worship, Word, Witness and Works of service. We can get stuck in a rut and so we check how we are getting on once in a while.

Something which is coming out of the review process, and other recent developments, is the idea that each group can adopt another ministry. One group has already started taking services at a local nursing home where a lady from the church is in long term care. Around 20 residents attend regular services run by our group and a group from another local church. One of our groups yesterday had the idea of linking itself to our “Cake and Chat” coffee morning. One member of the group already goes to Cake and Chat and another bakes cakes each week. All we need to do is join the dots. There are already ideas beginning to flow for how the growth group could serve and care for Cake and Chat as a whole group. The link also provides a natural pathway for people to move from informal chat to greater involvement in church life.

By establishing these links between growth groups and other ministries, group members can use their collective gifts to build the church. It is great to see these ideas emerging as we go along. It seems obvious to me now that our growth groups can serve in this way.

môt Tämût as execution by royal decree

It’s no wonder Adam tried to hide from God in the garden as Adam expected to be executed as soon as his guilt was established. I first found this understanding of death as execution in Hamilton’s commentary on Genesis 2:17 (you shall surely die, môt tāmût) where he states: “all that môt tāmût clearly conveys is the announcement of death sentence by divine or royal decree.“ (Hamilton, The book of Genesis, NICOT, 1987). I’ve since found that Gordon Wenham agrees in his Word Biblical Commentary. Both scholars cite the use of the term môt tāmût in 1 Kings 2:37 as their justification for this view.

Helpfully, môt tāmût appears eleven times in scripture, though in only eight separate incidents. In the first seven cases the following pattern is observed:

1. A condition or law is stipulated by God or by a king
2. A threat of execution is made should the condition or law be breached
3. When a breach is discovered and guilt established, the guilty party is normally executed.

These last incident in Ezekiel, God gives a more general warning to his people to turn from their wickedness. These are the cases in question:

1. Abraham has let Abimelech take Sarah into his harem. Abimelech has not touched Sarah, but God says in a dream:
Genesis 20:7 Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die [ki-môt Tämût], you, and all who are yours.”

2. In 1 Samuel, Saul makes a rash oath, cursing any soldier who might eat before evening following victory in a battle (1 Sam 14:24). Jonathan did not hear the oath and ate some honey, breaking the king’s oath.
1 Samuel 14:43-44 Then Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done.” And Jonathan told him, “I tasted a little honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand. Here I am; I will die.”
44 And Saul said, “God do so to me and more also; you shall surely die [ki-môt Tämût], Jonathan.”

3. Later, Saul threatens the execution of Ahimelech for a charge of treason:
1 Samuel 22:15-16 Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.” 16 And the king said, “You shall surely die [môt Tämût], Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” 17 And the king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because their hand also is with David,

4. Then again, in 1 Kings, king Solomon tells Shimei to build a house in Jerusalem and to stay there (this is the use Hamilton and Wenham referred to in their commentaries on Genesis):
1 Kings 2:37 For on the day you go out and cross the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall die [ki-môt Tämût]. Your blood shall be on your own head.”

1 Kings 2:41-43 And when Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and returned, 42 the king sent and summoned Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the LORD and solemnly warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place whatever, you shall die [ki-môt Tämût]‘? And you said to me, ‘What you say is good; I will obey.’ 43 Why then have you not kept your oath to the LORD and the commandment with which I commanded you?”…1 Kings 2:46 Then the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck him down, and he died. So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

5. Then there is Ahaziah who enquires of the god of Ekron about his fate following an accident:
2 Kings 1:3-4 But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? 4 Now therefore thus says the LORD, You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die [ki-môt Tämût].’”So Elijah went.

2 Kings 1:6 And they said to him, “There came a man to meet us, and said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you, and say to him, Thus says the LORD, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die [ki-môt Tämût].’”

2 Kings 1:16-17 “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron- is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?- therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die [ki-môt Tämût].’” 17 So he died according to the word of the LORD that Elijah had spoken.

7. And then in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, God warns the people of Judah to walk according to his law…
Jeremiah 26:8 And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! [môt Tämût]

8. The last incident is the charge given to Ezekiel to be a watchman…
Ezekiel 33:8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die [môt Tämût], and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.

Ezekiel 33:14-15 Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die [môt Tämût],’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, 15 if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live; he shall not die.

The pattern is clear. When Adam was told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he knew that this law of God came with the threat of execution by royal decree. If he breached the condition of the oath, and his guilt was established, he could expect to be executed on the spot. In the exchange between God and Adam in Genesis 3:11-12 we are to expect something like:

[God] said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” So God took Adam, struck him down and he died.

But God did not strike Adam down, he let him live but excluded him from his presence. When Adam died at 930 years old, his death was not the one threatened by God. Adam, like all human beings is mortally dead but his soul is alive and waiting to be raised by God to face judgement. The penalty of Genesis 2:17 will be carried out on that day. For some it will fall by faith on Christ, who was executed on the cross for them, but for others the threat remains active and without a gracious and merciful substitute.

Soft pillows or the way of the cross

I was reading Thomas Watson’s exposition of “blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness” whilst sitting comfortably on the day-bed in my study. You can imagine what effect the following excerpt had on my attitude to too comfortable a lifestyle.

Alas how far are they from suffering who indulge the flesh: ‘. . . that lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches’ (Amos 6: 4); a very unfit posture for suffering. That soldier is like to make but poor work of it who is stretching himself upon his bed when he should be in the field exercising his arms. What shall I say, says Jerome, to those Christians who make it all their care to perfume their clothes, to crisp their hair, to sparkle their diamonds, but if sufferings come, and the way to heaven has any water in it, they will not endure to set their feet upon it! Most people are too effeminate. They use themselves too nicely and tenderly. Those ’silken Christians’ (as Tertullian calls them) that pamper the flesh, are unfit for the school of the cross. The naked breast and bare shoulder is too soft and tender to carry Christ’s cross. Inure yourselves to hardship. Do not make your pillow too easy.

Do Hard Things, what the Rebelution means for grown-ups

At our youth group for 14-18 year olds we are reading and discussing Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, using the official study guide. If you’ve never heard of it, here a bit off the dust cover:

THE BIRTH OF A BIG IDEA
A generation stands on the brink of a “rebelution.”

A growing movement of young people is rebelling against the low expectations of today’s culture by choosing to “do hard things” for the glory of God. And Alex and Brett Harris are leading the charge.

Do Hard Things is the Harris twins’ revolutionary message in its purest and most compelling form, giving readers a tangible glimpse of what is possible for teens who actively resist cultural lies that limit their potential.

We’re on chapter two and last night we worked through the cultural expectations felt by our youth. Some were expected to do well at school and that was the only and highest expectation. The other expectations were all negative: to be involved in gangs, spend hours on MySpace or texting, getting into trouble, hanging around, waiting, doing very little.

At a similar age, my rural Scottish culture expected me and my friends to excel at rugby. I didn’t, so I tried athletics (track and field) and competed for Scotland on the same day my school friends were playing at Murrayfield against England in the 1990 grand slam decider. Although the sport was different, there was one uniting factor, we all got there because we were expected to by our culture.

Much of what our Christian youth hear from us is the same emphasis on the negative as they hear from our culture, just in biblical terms. “Love Jesus, follow him, hate your sin, abstain from worldly activities.” This does not work, they need a positive goal. Something like “love Jesus, follow him, hate your sin and do something positive, with your friends, which will make a difference to the world through the kingdom of God all for his glory.” This is putting Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 5:9-10 (your will be done, your kingdom come) before the bit were we pray “deliver us from evil.” (Matt 5:13).

That’s enough from this old buffer. I can’t tell my youth group what they should do. I can say “TNG, I expect great things from you for the glory of God. Go on, rebel against this culture of low expectations.”

I don’t deserve the Lord’s love (a 4th verse)

I’ve had a go at another verse to the prayer I posted yesterday. I didn’t like the sin-Jesus-sin order of the three verse version. With four verses the order can go: sin-Jesus-sin-Jesus, finishing on a positive note of imputed righteousness and perseverance.

So:

I don’t deserve the Lord’s love,
I fail him every day,
In what I think, in what I do
And in the things I say.

But Jesus bore my punishment,
In death he took my place,
God’s love instead of judgement,
The bible calls that grace.

I do bad things most every day
And Jesus calls that sin.
I must repent and change my ways
And put my trust in him.

God loves me more than I could know,
‘Cause Jesus is the way.
He made me right before the Lord,
So in his grace I’ll stay.

As I said yesterday, get the original Colin Buchanan CD, “Follow the Saviour“, it is brilliant. And, while you’re at it, get the other CDs and DVDs.

Any suggested enhancements to the prayer are very welcome.

I don’t deserve the Lord’s love…

There are, as far as I’m aware, two famous Colin Buchanans in the Christian world. One is the former Bishop of Woolwich, evangelical theologian and liturgist. The other is the Aussie Colin, of Aussie Praise for Kids fame. If you have kids or run kids work, then you must get all of his CDs and DVDs. Colin claims on his blog to have been most recently inspired by the “US Happy Calvinists – Piper, Mahaney, Dever, Mohler, Driscoll et al.”

Aussie Colin does his own liturgy. Here’s a prayer we use at tea-time with our kids, with a little adaptation (four extra lines at the end – I hope Colin doesn’t mind me posting his original and adding a bit):

I don’t deserve the Lord’s love,
I fail him every day,
In what I think, in what I do
and in the things I say.

But Jesus bore my punishment,
In death he took my place,
God’s love instead of judgement,
The bible calls that grace.

I do bad things most every day
and Jesus calls that sin.
I must repent, change my ways
and put my trust in him.

The original is on “Follow the Saviour” CD.

Packer on why a big view of God matters

Jim Packer writes that for four centuries European thought has been engaged in a process of “God shrinking” [does anyone know where he wrote that, I can't find it]. The following quote comes from the preface to the 1973 edition of “Knowing God” and is the reason why ordinands and trainee pastors should go to a college with a big view of God (high view of biblical systematics) and why our education syllabus needs a radical overhaul:

The conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God—ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him—lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today. Two unhappy trends seem to have produced this state of affairs.

Trend one is that Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God. The modern way with God is to set him at a distance, if not to deny him altogether; and the irony is that modern Christians, preoccupied with maintaining religious practices in an irreligious world, have themselves allowed God to become remote. Clear-sighted persons, seeing this, are tempted to withdraw from the churches in something like disgust to pursue a quest for God on their own. Nor can one wholly blame them, for churchmen who look at God, so to speak, through the wrong end of the telescope, so reducing him to pigmy proportions, cannot hope to end up as more than pigmy Christians, and clear-sighted people naturally want something better than this. Furthermore, thoughts of death, eternity, judgment, the greatness of the soul and the abiding consequences of temporal decisions are all “out” for moderns, and it is a melancholy fact that the Christian church, instead of raising its voice to remind the world of what is being forgotten, has formed a habit of playing down these themes in just the same way. But these capitulations to the modern spirit are really suicidal so far as Christian life is concerned.

Trend two is that Christian minds have been confused by the modern skepticism. For more than three centuries the naturalistic leaven in the Renaissance outlook has been working like a cancer in Western thought. Seventeenth-century Arminians and deists, like sixteenth-century Socinians, came to deny, as against Reformation theology, that God’s control of his world was either direct or complete, and theology, philosophy and science have for the most part combined to maintain that denial ever since. As a result, the Bible has come under heavy fire, and many landmarks in historical Christianity with it. The foundation-facts of faith are called into question. Did God meet Israel at Sinai? Was Jesus more than a very spiritual man? Did the Gospel miracles really happen? Is not the Jesus of the Gospels largely an imaginary figure?—and so on.

Nor is this all. Skepticism about both divine revelation and Christian origins has bred a wider skepticism which abandons all idea of a unity of truth, and with it any hope of unified human knowledge; so that it is now commonly assumed that my religious apprehensions have nothing to do with my scientific knowledge of things external to myself, since God is not “out there” in the world, but only “down here” in the psyche. The uncertainty and confusion about God which mark our day are worse than anything since Gnostic theosophy tried to swallow Christianity in the second century.

Packer ends with a warning:

If we pursue theological [or cosmological] knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited.” [p21]

Genesis 2:17 and the trial and execution of Christ

In a previous post I drew a distinction between natural death and judicial death at the fall. The same sort of distinction is made in Pierced for our Transgressions:

The nature of death

What is the nature of the ‘death’ threatened in Genesis 2:17? The most obvious answer is that it refers to physical death, for this is the way the term is used elsewhere in Genesis, not least in connection with the death of Adam himself in Genesis 5:5. Physical death is implied also in the imagery of Genesis 3:19, ‘dust you are and to dust you will return’.

Having said that, there are good reasons for thinking that ‘death’ here is not limited to physical death. First, as Augustine noted back in the fourth century, physical death does not come immediately upon Adam and Eve, despite the warning of Genesis 2:17 that (literally) ‘in the day [běyộm] you eat of it you will surely die’ (italics added).” Gordon Wenham draws attention to the use of a very similar Hebrew expression in I Kings 2:37 (repeated in V. 42), where King Solomon warns Shimei, ‘The day you [disobey me], you can be sure you will die.” When Shimei does disobey, he is executed forthwith. Adam’s case in Genesis is strangely different, for by the reckoning of Genesis 5:4, he does not fit physically for at least 800 years after eating the forbidden fruit.

How does this view of Genesis 2:17 relate to Christ’s death? His death is physical but the primary focus in the gospels is that Christ died by summary execution as stipulated in Gen 2:17. This aspect of the death of Christ is emphasised by the evangelists who are at pains to show that the trial before the Sanhedrin was a sham (Matt 26:59-60) and that Pilate believed that Christ was innocent (Matt 27:23) so that the crowd finally and simply insisted that Christ be crucified (Matt 27:23). In effect, his execution was conducted summarily without a proper trial.

Matthew 27:22-23 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!” 23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

This has implications for the way we understand our own death and the second death of Revelation 20:14-15 (see link above). The authors of Pierced for our Transgressions draw the conclusion that the death threatened in Genesis 2:17 is threefold: physical, spiritual and synonymous with eternal suffering in hell (p123). This view takes its starting point as the rest of scripture and reads back into Genesis 2:17. If Genesis 2:17 is taken literally as “execution by royal decree” and this is read forward into the rest of scripture a different picture of the nature of death emerges. More later.