death
Living in the Breath
by Linda Rex
I love it when I drive home from East Nashville and there is a sky full of puffy clouds just starting to glisten with colors from the sun setting in the background. Every time I see the sky, it looks different, and as an artist, I am always amazed by how creative God is as he paints the sky with clouds and color.
Is it possible that our God spends each moment making our world a beautiful and stunning work of art, using all the elements he put into motion millennia ago? What if he intentionally breathes into our world each moment, bringing into our existence his new life in some new form or fashion? What if, while his mercies are new every morning, so are his sky, his clouds, and the breathing of his breath of life on all he has made?
Before Jesus came, it seemed the Spirit’s active intervention in human affairs was only in inspiring particular prophets, priests and kings to do a specific work in preparation for the coming Messiah. But the silent, unobtrusive, self-effacing Spirit was also holding all things together, even though humanity had chosen the path for all things to return to the nothingness from which they had been made.
During the long history of the nation of Israel, God was known as the Helper of Israel (Psa. 146; Isa. 41) In the coming of the Son of God into human flesh, we find Israel’s Helper is present and real here on the earth in Jesus Christ. He lived, died and rose again, and in the ascension which we celebrated last Sunday, we find Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, with all humanity—even all things—reconciled to God in him. Our Helper is the Living Lord Jesus Christ, who is always at work in this world and in our lives and hearts.
The apostle John shares in his epistle: “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). There is an Intercessor present with the Father, intervening for us moment by moment in every situation and circumstance. There is no reason any of us should fear coming before God and sharing ourselves fully with him, even if we have fallen short in some way. We can trust Jesus Christ is praying for us, interceding for us, and helping us no matter how bleak things may look to us at the time.
Here we see the amazing goodness and love of God at work. It was not enough that he would give us his own beloved Son in this way, to help us and to intercede for us. But he also gave us Someone who would be even more intimately involved in our world, our lives, and even in our very being.
Jesus said before he returned to his Father he would send another Helper like himself (John 14:16–17). This would be an Advocate who would intercede on our behalf with God and with others. Jesus returned to his Father and sent us this Helper, the Holy Spirit (John 16:7) to be with us forever.
If the Spirit has been present and involved with creation and our cosmos since the beginning—hovering over the waters and acting when the Word spoke all things into existence—what was so special and necessary for the Spirit to be sent by Jesus? If God has sustained all things for all these millennia, then why did Jesus have to go so the Spirit would come?
We need to pay attention to the details here. This universe would not exist except for the grace and mercy of the living God. The breath of God, the Spirit, gives life. (Acts 17:25; Psalm 104:29–30) Apart from God, all things return to nothingness. The life-giving Spirit is ever and always at work in this cosmos to breathe God’s life into all things.
God in Christ reconciled all things to himself, whether the things he has made, or every one of us human beings—nothing is excluded (Colossians 1:19–23). Even the evil which acts as a parasite on all that is good and holy was taken up in Christ and overcome. Jesus is the Victor over sin, death, and the evil one!
In Christ all things were made new and are being made new—in and by his Spirit at work in the creation. The decay into nothingness has, in Christ, been reversed. And part of that reversal involves us as human beings. We were created for intimate relationship with the God who made us out of nothingness. But we turned away from this God to the creation and to one another, as though we had no need of him. We fell into the evil one’s trap of trying to be lord of the universe ourselves. But God has other plans for us.
Before any of this came into existence, God intended for us to be his image-bearers. We were to bear his image, not only in our relationships with God and with others, but also by having the very presence of the living God within us—in our very hearts and minds. We were to be the bearers of God’s living Presence, the Holy Spirit. And remember, where the Spirit is, so are the Father and Jesus Christ. So God himself was to dwell, or take up permanent residence, within the human beings God would and did make.
God, in Jesus Christ, took on our humanity, in its brokenness, shame and rebellion. God encountered the worst of who we are, even within his being in Jesus, and was not altered in the least. No, in his life, death and resurrection, he translated us from the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom of light. Jesus forged a perfected humanity in which the Spirit would permanently reside. And when he ascended, he poured out from the Father his Spirit on all humanity, so all could receive and participate in this perfect gift.
So we find ourselves in this place, living on this amazing earth, wondering where our next meal will come from, how we will pay our bills, and what to do about the fight we had with our spouse this morning. And we pay so little attention to what really matters—we are living in God’s presence, breathing in the very Breath of God himself. We are God’s children, made in his image, redeemed in Christ, meant to have an intimate relationship with him, and to live in the truth of the humanity forged for us in Christ.
There is a way of living and being we were created for—a humanity we see in Jesus which lives in total dependence upon the Spirit and in perfect obedience to the Father. We can embrace this truth of our being and fully participate in the relationship with the Father by the Spirit Jesus brought us into, or we can stubbornly hang on to our independence of God and our rebellion against his ways of living and being. God protects our freedom to choose.
Either way, the Spirit never ceases to breathe his life into us and the world around us. God’s mercies continue to be new every morning. Every sunset sky is a new expression of God’s creativity. And we never stop having an Advocate and Helper in Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit who also intercedes for us when we cannot express the deepest yearnings of our heart (Rom 8:26).
Our Abba continues to hold a seat for us at his table, loving us unconditionally as he does, and he expectantly watches at the door for us to come over the horizon so he can run to meet us. We have nothing to fear, and everything to hope for. Life in the Spirit through Jesus with the Father forever—it is ours right now.
I don’t know about you, but I’m heading home—there’s nothing in this world worth hanging on to. One day it will all be gone and all that will be left is what God intended in the first place. I’m thinking his plan is a lot better than mine, and a whole lot more fun in the long run. And the best part? Having these amazing relationships and this loving family to hold and embrace for all eternity. Now that is something worth going home for.
Abba, thank you for drawing us to yourself through your two hands of love, Jesus and the Spirit. Thank you for saving us a seat at your table and a place in your heart. Grant us the grace to surrender to your will and your ways, and to turn away from ourselves and the world around us, and to turn to you in faith, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the ground.” Psalm 104:30 NASB
Walking By Faith
By Linda Rex
When my kids were little, one of their favorite Bible stories was the story of Noah and the ark. They loved the idea of this man and his family building a big boat on dry land when everyone around him probably thought he was crazy. The kids especially loved the part about Noah filling the boat up with all sorts of animals. The thought of all those different animals finding their way to the ark captivated their imaginations and mine. What was it like for Noah to come face to face with a couple of king cobras?
Over the years, I have come to see there was a lot going on in this story which we need to pay attention to which is often overshadowed by our focus on the animals and the flood of water. When we look at the comments made in the New Testament about Noah we find he was “an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” In other words, Noah was regarded by God to be righteous, not because of his perfect behavior, but because of his faith. (Heb. 11:7)
In Genesis 7:1, God tells Noah to enter the ark with his family because he alone was “seen to be righteous before Me [God] in this time.” There was a uniqueness about Noah and his relationship with the God who made him and called him to be the “savior” of the human race in this physical way. Earlier, in Genesis 6:9, we read, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless [Margin: Lit complete, perfect; or having integrity] in his time; Noah walked with God.”
Noah did what apparently many other people in his generation didn’t do—he walked with God. In God’s sight he was considered blameless or having integrity because of his faith in God, because of his trusting obedience to God’s direction in his life. He believed God was a good God, a God he could trust, a God Who meant him well, even when God asked him to do something which seemed incredible and impossible to do.
Noah’s amazing life experience was based in his relationship with God, in his walk with God. In the same way, Jesus’ unique life experience had its basis in his walk with his heavenly Father. The Son of God had existed for all eternity in a face-to-face relationship with his Abba, and knew his Father well.
In taking on our humanity, Jesus built an ark for the salvation of every creature he had made and every part of the cosmos which would be renewed through his life, death, resurrection and ascension. And he trusted his Abba would bring him through the flood of evil and death to the other side, along with every one of those who would be saved through him, because he knew Who his Abba really was.
Many times we say we believe in God or believe in Jesus, but our walk with God reflects something entirely different. We say we believe in God, but we act as if he either doesn’t exist or he doesn’t really care about us or the world we live in. We go about our lives making decisions as if it’s all up to us, or as if we are lord of the universe, or as if God were angry, harsh or indifferent, or even nonexistent.
On my way to work in the morning when the sun is just rising over the horizon, I am often caught by the beauty of the sunrise. When I am in communion with the Father, I’m am mindful to thank him for his artistic creativity. He reminds me he did it just for me, for us. How can this be that God in every moment is creating something beautiful just for you and me—for us to see, feel, experience and enjoy?
If I were to really pay attention to the reality of God creating something new in every moment to grace my life, I probably would find myself living differently in response. At least I hope I would. But what does it mean to walk with integrity in my relationship with God and with others? What does it mean to really walk by faith?
In Jesus’ human experience, walking by faith meant taking the difficult and arduous path with us and for us through death and resurrection. He joined us in our human struggles, and experienced the best and worst of us as human beings both within himself and externally. He felt our estrangement from the Father, and wept with those who felt a deep sense of loss as they grieved losing those they loved. Jesus was more than willing to allow the entire flood of our broken humanity to flow over him and immerse him completely. But in all this he never lost his trust in the faithfulness, love and goodness of his heavenly Father.
Jesus never stopped living in the truth of his being as God in human flesh. He never ceased being faithful to Who he was as the Son of God even when everything around him tempted him to do otherwise. Even when the Tempter questioned the goodness of his Abba, Jesus did not listen to him, but stood firmly on the ground of his Father’s goodness, faithfulness and love.
Jesus’ faithfulness to his Father, his overwhelming love expressed through the laying down of his life, and his perfect goodness, teach us first of all we need to face the reality of our human tendency to not live in the truth of who we are as God’s children. In Christ, we see both our brokenness and fallenness, but also the infinite value Abba places on us as those made in his image created to reflect his likeness. In turning to Jesus Christ and away from ourselves, we begin to embrace the reality of the relationship with God we were created for and begin to live in the truth of it day by day.
But this walking by faith is a journey with Jesus. We may find ourselves at times in the midst of our own flood, clinging to Jesus as the ark Who will carry us through to the other side. On other days we may find ourselves, like Noah and like Jesus, the only ones speaking truth into a situation, and so at odds with everyone else in our lives we’re not sure how we’re going to survive.
In every circumstance, though, we do not walk alone—God is in us, with us, and for us. God is a good, faithful and loving God—he is trustworthy. And so we are able to walk by faith, moment by moment, through our lives in loving relationship with him and others in and through Jesus and by his Spirit.
Abba, thank you for your faithfulness, your goodness and your love. Remind us every moment of the truth of Who you are, who we are as your beloved children, and how you are ever present, in us, with us, and for us. Enable us to walk with integrity, and to walk by faith, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;…” 2 Peter 2:5 NASB
“By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Hebrews 11:7 NASB
Do I Believe God Cares?
by Linda Rex
Lately this has been on my mind a lot—do I really believe God cares about that thing I’m wrestling with at the moment, whatever it may be? What do I really believe down to the core of my being about the kind of Person God is?
Intellectually I can say to myself, God is good and he loves me and he cares about the issue I’m having with my car tire, my teeth, or my finances—you name it. But when it comes down to it, how I act with regards to those things says pretty loudly what I really believe about God and his goodness towards me. The difficulties I run into in my day-to-day life and how I engage them demonstrate what’s going on in my heart and the depth of my faith and trust in the goodness of God.
As I grow older I find myself reflecting back on all the ways God has intervened in my life and circumstances to bring good out of evil and to redeem broken situations. He has protected me from certain disaster over and over again. He has provided for me when I did not deserve to be provided for. And he has placed loving, caring people in my life to demonstrate his love toward me and my family.
If I were to say God does not really care about what is going on in my life or about me personally, I would not be speaking with integrity. My experience over the years has been that he does care deeply about me and my dear ones, and is a faithful, compassionate, forgiving God. But I don’t always make decisions or live my life in the truth of that reality. Often I act as though this were not true.
In any area of life we can act as if God just doesn’t really care even though we believe he does care. We read stories in the Scriptures about people who do this very thing. They show our common humanity, our core sinful nature which Jesus came to deal with and to eradicate.
Jesus did come and demonstrated in a deeply significant way God cares about every detail in our lives, even to the point of sharing our own flesh and blood existence. Jesus did not hold himself aloof from any of our brokenness. He touched the leper to heal him. He defiled himself to call a dead man back to life. He lived our life and died our death.
When the untouchable woman touched his garments, he called her, “Daughter.” He did not reject her or condemn her. But rather, he met her in the place where she came to meet him, in her humiliation, her brokenness, her suffering and loneliness.
She must have believed something about the goodness of Jesus to get her to that place where she was willing to brave the crowds who had isolated her. Mark 5:27-28 says, “…after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, ‘If I just touch His garments, I will get well.’” She acted as though this were true, making her way through all the people so she could just touch Jesus’ cloak, and indeed found in doing so, she was healed.
What’s interesting is it appears in this story as though she was hoping to get away without being noticed, to hide again in the crowds. But Jesus would not allow that. He insisted she be a full participant in his life and in her healing.
He cared about her healing, but also about the relational aspect of her life which was missing. Her rejection by others, her isolation, her loneliness, and her shame needed to come to an end. He made a point of connecting with her, of drawing her out, and of bringing her to the notice of those around her. And he encouraged her to be at peace—a peace which was such a far cry from what she had lived with during all the years she had sought healing from every source imaginable.
Obviously, she thought he didn’t care about those things otherwise she may have been more direct in her approach. So we find this woman acted on what she believed to be true about Jesus, but Jesus took her even farther than she expected to go. Jesus met her where she was and brought her to be where he was. He didn’t just heal her physically. He also healed her in many other ways.
We can learn from this and many other stories in the Scriptures about how we deal with our struggles with believing in the goodness and faithfulness of God. We may be questioning God’s love and faithfulness, and be unsure of God’s goodness. But we can still act as if God were a good God who loves us and wants what is best for us rather than acting as if he were not. It is our choice.
Sometimes God allows us to wrestle with this and we find ourselves having to act as if God really does care about the details of our life and our struggles when it feels as if he does not. When we continue to act as if God really does care about what is going on we may find our whole approach towards the difficulty changes. We may find Jesus meets us more than halfway, and carries us through a difficult time to the other side, while helping us to grow in faith, hope and love in the process.
We just need to remember while on the one hand God cares about what we care about, on the other hand, he is more concerned about our growth as his children into the fullness of who he created us to be. He is working to grow us up into the likeness of his Son, and struggles are a necessary part of this transformation. And he will not stop until he has accomplished what he set out to do—that is something we can count on.
Dear Abba, thank you for being a God we can trust and depend on. Thank you for your faithfulness and your tender loving care. Grant us the grace in every situation, no matter how significant or insignificant and no matter how difficult or easy it may be, to act as if you are the loving, caring, faithful God you really are, through Jesus our Lord and by your precious Spirit. Amen.
“Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt.’” Exodus 3:16 NASB
“And He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.’” Mk 5:34 NASB
Just As You Are
by Linda Rex
Sometimes it’s hard to accept the reality God knows us much better than we know ourselves. We like to believe we are good, well-meaning people who will always do or say the right thing in every circumstance we face. We hope we would never do or say anything cruel or hateful. We think in our heart of hearts we would never betray a friend or ruin a friendship because of greed or resentment.
But indeed, God does know us better than we know ourselves. One good example which comes to mind at this time of year is the story of Peter, Jesus’ disciple. Here Jesus was facing his death by crucifixion, knowing the reality of what he would be facing in the next few hours at the hands of people like you and me. He’s giving his disciples his last words, and says, “Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Peter is a good friend of Jesus—a real pal. He says to Jesus, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” (John 13:37) Peter is in earnest. He really means it. He’s going to be the best friend Jesus ever had—he’s going to go all the way with Jesus. He’s just like you and me. We have the greatest intentions in the world to go all the way with Jesus, to go all the way with our family, our friends, our spiritual community.
But Jesus is very pragmatic about our humanity. He says to Peter, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.” (John 13:38) Jesus just calls it as it is—“Peter, you don’t really know yourself as well as you think you do. You’re going to betray me and deny me just like any other human being would.”
Indeed, Jesus knew and accepted Peter’s brokenness as a part of who he was at that point in his life. Jesus knew in a few short hours, he would be on his own, wrestling with the evil one in a spiritual, physical and emotional battle he did not humanly want to fight. He was not unfamiliar with the failures of the human race, but felt keenly the weakness and frailty of his flesh.
It is instructive that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22 during his last hours on the cross. I was reading this psalm again this morning and was struck by the way King David put down in words the way we as human beings would treat the Lord when he came in human flesh. How many times as he was growing up did Jesus hear this psalm read? Did it put him in mind of what he was going to have to endure at the hands of the human beings he came to save? This psalm certainly describes in many ways what Jesus ended up experiencing before and during his crucifixion.
Isn’t it interested how the God who inspired this psalm, knew us better than we know ourselves? In fact, he inspired the writing of this psalm, he ensured it was preserved, and he used it as an instructive tool during his last moments before he died. The Word came to earth, knowing we would do these things to him. He was not put off by our brokenness or our capacity for betrayal and animosity. He allowed none of our human capacity for evil to prevent him from keeping his word to us that he would save us from evil, sin and death.
That the Word who is God would take on our broken humanity expresses the true reality of God’s love. As God, he had the capacity to submit himself to our human experience while remaining pure of heart, soul and mind. Rather than rejecting us or turning away from us, God joined us in our darkness and brought us up and out into his Light.
It is unfortunate that often we portray God as being so offended by sin he cannot be in the presence of it. If that were the case, we all would have been annihilated millennia ago. Seriously—what makes us think God is this way?
I think one thing which makes us think God is this way is we are this way. We get offended by a person’s problems or faults, and so we reject the person who does not meet up with our standards. We draw lines in the sand and when someone crosses them, we count them unworthy of a relationship with us.
But God doesn’t do this. He comes into our brokenness and works from within to transform and change us. He sends his Spirit into faulty human hearts so God can take up a permanent habitation there, healing us and transforming us from the inside out. He comes to the one, who like Peter, betrays him or denies him, and reconciles with him. On God’s side of the equations, there is nothing left standing between us and him.
Because God already knows us so thoroughly and completely, and loves us anyway, we can be upfront and honest about our failures and weaknesses. We can own our brokenness, telling the truth about our “messies” to God and to others. One day there won’t be any secrets—so we might as well learn how to be transparent, open and honest with ourselves and one another—living in the grace and love of God now as we will for all eternity.
Our heavenly Father has not allowed anything to come between us and his love. There is nothing which stands between us and him. This Good Friday we remember the gift of love God gave by embracing us in our broken humanity and drawing us up into life in the Father, Son and Spirit. We are beloved, cherished and held in God’s love and life, both now and for all eternity. Praise God!
Thank you, Abba, for your faithful love and grace. Thank you, Jesus, for being willing to take all our evil and broken ways upon yourself and redeeming them. Thank you, Spirit, for working all this out in Christ and in us. For your glory, God, and by your power, in your name. We thank you. Amen.
“All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations.” Psalm 22:27–28 NASB
Sharing the Gift of Thanksgiving
by Linda Rex
As I was driving through the Tennessee countryside this morning, I was soaking up the inherent beauty of the fall colors in the leaves of the trees and the deep blue of the clear sky. There is such a sense of God’s presence and nearness in his creation, especially when the plants, trees, animals and earth are just being who they were created to be. And how cool it is that we, as human beings and God’s creatures, get to be a part of reflecting God’s glory!
Last night I participated in a discussion at the Highland Heights Neighborhood Association meeting in which we talked about being aware of and sensitive to the needs of the people in the community who are marginalized and forgotten. In the light of this, as a neighborhood group working to improve our community, we asked the question, “Where do we go from here?” and “What can we do to help?”
Truthfully, there are people down the street from our church who live every day in such poverty and squalor they are not able, even if they wished, to soak up the beauty of the Tennessee countryside. They live in housing which is uninhabitable by modern standards, and have little hope for anything better. How, in the midst of the struggle of daily life, can they enjoy the best of life? What does it mean for them to just be who they were created to be? Is it even possible for them?
And indeed, how are they any different from you or me? They have this existence they have found themselves in and they, like you and me, seek to do the best they are able to along the way, trying to find and create life in the midst of death and poverty and struggle. They, like we do, breathe the same air, need the same food and water we do, and long to love and be loved, for that is what they, like we, were created for.
It would be easy to say, for example, that a particular group of people being considered last night as being in need were not part of our neighborhood therefore not a part of our responsibility. But indeed, we must never forget we are neighbor to each and every person in this world in our Lord Jesus Christ. In him we are connected at the center of our being to every other person who exists, no matter whether we like them or not. There is a core relatedness which Jesus Christ created in us and in himself which demands we treat each other as brothers and sisters, not as strangers or aliens.
And this is hard to do, because we as human beings are broken. We have addictions, mental and emotional and physical illnesses, and quirks which make us unpleasant people to be around. We have character flaws which sometimes make it unsafe for others to be around us. We have generational and personal habits and ways of being and talking which do not line up with who we are created to be in Jesus Christ, and they divide us from one another.
This morning I was looking at some photos from around the world taken over the last year which illustrated something significant which happened on that particular day. Most of the photos told the story of people in the midst of struggle—of war, refugees, destruction, natural disasters—all the ways in which people were wrestling with their desire for life in the midst of death and loss. Here and there was a picture of someone celebrating or worshiping, but they were few and far between.
It seems, apparently, struggle is a part of the human existence, whether we like it or not. Poverty, displacement, homelessness, and war plague us no matter where we live. Jesus said at one point, “…You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:8 NLT). There is a reality about our human existence and it is we do not live as we ought and we do not treat others as we ought, and so people end up living in ways they were never meant to have to live. Our human existence today is a reflection of how we seek to find life in the ways which only create destruction and death, and of how our earth is broken and reflects the harm we humans have done to it over the centuries.
It is no wonder the youth of our day sometimes feel a sense of despair and hopelessness. What kind of future do they have to look forward to? And what about our marginalized neighbors who expect to only see more of the same in the years ahead? What hope do they have?
I believe this is where we run into a fundamental flaw in our thinking as Christians. We see all this and can say, things are so bad we must be near the end of the world, so Jesus is going to come and punish all the bad people and establish his kingdom. This conveniently places everything back into the hands of an angry God who will deal with all this stuff so we don’t have to. It removes any need for us to encounter and deal with on a face-to-face basis the suffering of our neighbor right now, today, in our everyday lives.
I thought it was instructive last night that the heads more than once turned towards our end of the table and it was indicated that the churches in the neighborhood were expected to do something about the problems in the neighborhood. At the NOAH meeting, I heard the city officials say the non-profit organizations were the ones who ought to be solving the homelessness problem. Why do communities turn to God’s people with the needs of those who are homeless and poverty-stricken rather than to the government? What is it they believe we have and can do which cannot be found elsewhere?
At this point, I’m not really sure. But I do know this—when God goes to work in a human heart and mind, things change. When God goes to work in a community, things change. When God goes to work in a family, a church, an office or a city, things change. And one of the biggest changes to occur is a change in human hearts and minds.
It seems at times God doesn’t care as much about the poverty of our circumstances as he does about the poverty of our soul. The path to new life is through suffering and death, whether we like it or not. When he goes to work though, as hearts and minds are healed and renewed, circumstances in peoples’ lives change as well.
We as Christians need to realize the magnitude of what we bring to the table in the situations we face in our neighborhoods and in our world. We may have no power to fix the problems faced directly. But we do have the power of prayer and the community of faith. We do have the ability to walk with people through their times of darkness and to share with them the Light of life. We do have the ability to ease their suffering in some ways, even though in other ways we are impotent in being able to help.
The greatest thing we can do for others is to offer them a relationship of love and grace in which Jesus Christ is the center. We can come alongside others and share in the divine Paraclete’s ministry of counsel, intercession and comfort. We can share with others the blessings we have received from Abba so they may also experience the joy of thanksgiving as we do. We can work to help others to be and become those people God created them to be, so they may begin to enjoy the best of life, which is living in loving community with God and one another.
This is my heart and desire for the people of Tennessee, and for all people, for that matter. And I know it is also the heart and desire of our members at Good News Fellowship. We have been given our Abba’s heart of love and grace and we want to share it with others. We want all people to be overwhelmed just as we are with the overflowing joy of thanksgiving for our Father, Son and Holy Spirit who have given us true life in their presence both now and forever.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us all we need for life and godliness, and for drawing us to yourself by your Son and in your Spirit, so we each and all may participate with you in a communion of love and grace both now and forever. Renew in us your heart of love and grace so we may love others with your perfect love and forgive as we are forgiven. In Jesus’ name and by your Spirit we pray. Amen.
“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” Colossians 1:9–12 NASB
The Rise and Fall of Terror
by Linda Rex
I stopped to get gas Tuesday at a gas station near I-24. I sometimes stop here on my way home from Nashville, and have never had any trouble with their service or their gas (which has happened at other gas stations).
On Tuesday the pumps all had a very large sign covering two of the selection buttons which told us as buyers the station was out of everything but the low octane gas. I felt myself to be pretty blessed I could still buy gas because I had heard horror stories of how people had to travel to several gas stations before finding any gas to buy.
As I was standing there pumping gas to top off my tank so I could be sure to have enough gas for the rest of the week, I remembered another time I lived through a gas crisis out in southern California. If I remember correctly, they had gas rationing back then—we had to take turns at the pumps. There seemed to be a lot more concern in those days than there was this week about there not being any fuel. But, I suppose, having a governor declare an emergency due to an oil spill must be some indication of the severity of what recently happened.
Right now I’m extremely grateful, maybe selfishly so. I’m grateful there wasn’t enough of a disaster to prevent people here from buying gas because I really need to get moved this weekend. And without gas to put in the tank, there is no point in renting a truck to move things with. The last thing I need is to be afraid of not being able to do something I’ve got to get done.
I’ve noticed several occurrences recently in my life and the lives of those around me, which could have resulted in some very horrible experiences for those of us who were involved. I won’t go into detail, but the truth is, when you are ministering to broken people, you get to deal with broken stuff, and not all of it is safe and pretty. But in the end, it seems as though these particular situations resolved themselves without a lot of destruction and suffering, for which I am extremely grateful.
Not everyone has been so blessed. Yet I would hazard to guess that many of us have gone through life without ever personally experiencing what people in places like Mozambique or Syria are experiencing right now. Many of us do, however, experience our own little and big disasters in our lives—losing a job, having a health crisis, or having a loved one die, leave or reject us. We constantly face uncertainty and danger in our lives.
I was reading a story on the Web the other day which talked about the most dangerous cities in the world. Who would have thought that St. Louis would be among those mentioned? I guess I’m not really surprised. After all, the people who live in St. Louis are just like the rest of us—broken people who are trying real hard to meet their needs at the expense of those around them and in opposition to the true reality of their humanity and who they were created to be and how they were created to live. We are all in the same boat of humanity and it feels like the boat is headed toward an iceberg or has already hit it and is starting to sink.
I’ve been receiving mail encouraging me to vote for the candidate who will “make America great again.” I’m not real inspired by such advertisements. They actually just create disrespect in me for such candidates, for I believe there is nothing any one of the candidates can do to truly restore America to greatness because America is broken at her core. No matter how godly or good intentioned a candidate may be, he or she cannot change people or control people’s minds and hearts, and force them to live in loving cooperation and peace. They can only coerce, manipulate and attempt to control people in their efforts to create a “great” nation.
I’m sure there have been, and are, leaders well gifted in the art of propaganda and the use of fear and anger and shame in manipulating the masses. But all they do is create more broken people who create more brokenness. Whatever greatness is created in these ways is not the greatness of our true humanity, but rather a sharing in the brokenness of the evil one whose only purpose is to kill, steal and destroy. Its ultimate result is death, suffering and devastation.
Right now the evil one seems to be seeking to create in the hearts of human beings a deep fear. He is working to terrorize us so we are afraid of what might happen, we are afraid of one another, and we are afraid to do anything about what is happening for fear something worse might happen. Those who are stepping into the gap or are by necessity experiencing the worst of it, are paying a heavy price including losing their homes, their human dignities and even their lives.
We need to cling to the reality of God’s love for us which supersedes all of these efforts to terrorize us, to control and manipulate us. We need to experience the truth of the reality of God’s love for us which is immeasurable and boundless, and has existed since before time began. We need to receive from Christ the faith to believe we are held, held so tightly in Abba’s loving arms, the evil one cannot snatch us away or harm us without God’s express permission. We need to live without fear.
God gives us his Son to enable us to do this. And he pours out his Spirit into our hearts so we can be assured of and believe God’s love is boundless, endless and unending. We can pause for a moment throughout each and every day to give thanks to God for his love, for the big and little things he does for us and in us. And we can thank him for watching over us, guarding and keeping us safe in the midst of a dark and dangerous world.
Yes, we’re going to have trials and difficulties. We need to own our part in those problems and surrender to Christ our human inadequacies as well as our fears so he can do what only he can do—transform, heal and bind together human hearts and lives into a loving spiritual community. Jesus holds in himself the faith we need to trust God in the midst of a scary, constantly changing world, knowing no matter what happens, God’s “got it”. He’s holding on to us and to all things, and will bring everything to its blessed, intended end, raising us up as his adopted children to dwell in the midst of his love and life for all eternity. May that day come soon.
Dear Abba, thank you for holding us in your two hands of love and grace, your Son and your Spirit. May your love be perfected in our lives and in our world so we may daily experience great peace rather than fear or terror in the midst of this scary, ever-changing world. In your Son Jesus’ name we trust and pray. Amen.
“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:16–19 NASB
The Divine Aggressor
by Linda Rex
The last thing I would ever want to do would be to make God look like he is an evil monster looking for opportunities to destroy you or me because of our badness. It seems our ways of looking at God and thinking about him do enough of that without my helping them along.
But we do need to understand that God isn’t just a nice, feel-good sort of Person all the time. Just because he is loving and compassionate doesn’t mean there aren’t things he really truly hates. Indeed, God abhors and vehemently opposes anything which mars the beauty he created you and me to reflect—he is passionately opposed to those things which keep us from being the image-bearers of God he created us to be.
This passion of God—this “wrath” of God—is behind all he has done in sending his Son to live, die, rise and ascend on our behalf, and behind his sending of his Spirit to dwell in human hearts. This passion of God has driven him from before time to ensure what he began in us would be completed through Christ and in his Spirit.
There is one who has opposed God from the beginning, and who, with his followers, seeks to destroy God’s work and to undermine his efforts in renewing all things. The adversary opposes all which is good and holy. He labors constantly in an effort to turn human beings against the God who made them, sustains them and redeemed them. Any effort we make to trust in and obey the God who is Father, Son and Spirit is resisted and thwarted by the evil one.
In many world views, good and evil are seen as equal opposites, who must be kept in a constant state of balance for people to be able to exist in harmony and peace. The balance I see being kept in the divine life and love is not of the balance between good and evil, but the perfect harmony and oneness of the Trinity in their equality and diversity. Evil in this worldview only exists as that which opposes the Trinity, and is allowed to exist only because of the freedom of will given to those who are created by God.
God summarily dealt with evil and all who oppose him in our cosmos by taking on our humanity and dealing with it from the inside out. He was very aggressive in tackling the issue of our broken humanity and the efforts of the evil one. In Jesus Christ, God conquered death and Satan, and gave us all a new life in Christ which is ours through the Spirit.
The message we find in Revelation and elsewhere is Satan and death are defeated foes, and we have nothing to fear. In fact, God sent his Spirit and he is systematically penetrating this world with his very life through his gathering of believers (which we call the church) who are the body of Christ. There is a finality about the destruction of Satan, his demons and evil, as well as death. As far as God is concerned, it is already over with. All that’s left is the mopping up. What we experience today of evil and death and suffering is just a temporary blip in the radar, and in time, it will all be gone.
Dr. Michael Heiser, in his book “The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible”, puts it like this:
The theological messaging couldn’t be more dramatic. Jesus says he will build his church—and the “gates of hell” will not prevail against it. We often think of this phrase as though God’s people are in a posture of having to bravely fend off Satan and his demons. This simply isn’t correct. Gates are defensive structures, not offensive weapons. The kingdom of God is the aggressor.(a) Jesus begins at ground zero in the cosmic geography of both testaments to announce the great reversal. It is the gates of hell that are under assault—and they will not hold up against the Church. Hell will one day be Satan’s tomb.(1)
While I may not agree with every detail Dr. Heiser writes in his book, I can appreciate his emphasis on the already, not yet, focus of the establishment of the kingdom of God today. God has invited believers to participate with him in the expansion of his renewal of all things to fill the whole cosmos. He is allowing those who follow Christ to join with him as he aggressively intervenes to bring healing, hope and restoration in many people’s lives all over the world.
We forget sometimes we are at war. We forget our Jesus is a mighty warrior fighting on behalf of all that is just, holy, right and good. And he has invited us to go with him into battle against all his foes—all which oppose the glory he created human beings to reflect.
God is not impotent against the forces of evil at work in this world. But he has invited us to share in the battle, and he has reasons for allowing things to happen the way they do. As the commander-in-chief, who died at the hands of humanity so humanity could be saved, he has a way of dealing with evil which often seems out of sync with our reality. This is why it is so important that we follow the lead of his Spirit and grow in our knowledge of Who Christ is and who we are in him. God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.
The bottom line is to trust him—to believe Abba so loves you and me that not only did he send his Son Jesus to free us from sin and death, but that he also is sending his Spirit to bring to fruition all Jesus forged into our humanity in his life, death, resurrection and ascension. Thankfully, Jesus even took care of our need for faith, by accomplishing in himself our perfect response of love toward Abba. We are held, we are loved, and we are Abba’s beloved children, and God will accept nothing less than this for you and for me. This is his passion and Jesus will see that it is realized by his Spirit.
Thank you, Abba, for your great love and faithfulness toward all you created. Thank you for giving us the freedom to choose, and the privilege of mirroring your glory and goodness. Thank you for allowing us to participate in all you are doing to renew what you created and you sustain. We trust you to finish what you have begun in us through your Son and by your Spirit. In your Name, we pray. Amen.
“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Mt 16:18 NASB
(1) Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (First Edition, pp. 284–285). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
(a) [Note by Dr. Heiser] See the discussion in John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Eerdmans, 2005), 675.
Light-filled World
by Linda Rex
I don’t know if you ever get one of those wierd, wacky questions which come to mind now and then, but I had one come up last night (I was pretty tired). It’s not one of those I have an answer for, but it aroused my curiosity, nonetheless.
I got to thinking: What would it be like to live in a world where there is no darkness, no shadows, and no shade? What if in this different world each person, and each plant and animal, glowed with its own inner light or glory as its sharing in the divine Life and Light?
Many religions stress the importance of keeping all things in balance, and for many, this includes the balance between good and evil. In many world views good and evil are seen as being equals. In the Christian worldview, for the most part, evil is merely the absence of good, or in effect, that which exists in opposition to and in resistance against God and all that he stands for in his goodness, love and truth.
It seems to me that so often religion focuses on the constant battle between good and evil. A lot of time evil seems to be a strong, almost unbeatable foe. Humans are expected to do certain things and not do others so that in the end evil never truly conquers good. Of course, as far as the external evidence we can see, there has apparently not yet been a decisive victory in this battle between good and evil, between light and darkness, and we’re not quite sure there really ever truly be one.
But Paul says there aleady has been one.
For example, the apostle Paul wrote, “For he rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, …” (Col. 1:13). He writes in the book of Colossians as though these things are already so, not as though they are something still to be worked out by us. He speaks as though evil, or darkness, is a defeated foe even now.
Elsewhere we read how Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, has conquered sin and death. In the words of the New Testament writers, light has overcome the darkness–we have nothing to fear.
This work of Jesus which overcame sin and death and ensured for every human a place at Abba’s table, means there is a place waiting for you and for me, by faith, where there is no darkness or death, but only light in the Lord. With there being only light and no darkness, all things must be permeated with God’s light, or there would be shadows. What would that look like? I’m not sure our fleshly eyeballs and brains could handle that much light and intense color.
And what about balance? It seems to me, that the only balance would not be that of good vs. evil, but rather that which would reflect the nature of God. This would be all things in their divine diversity living in their equality together in loving harmony and unity, in perichoretic love.
I’m beginning to understand more and more how we need to be careful not to exclude people from God’s love and life, but to remember they are all included. God is at work in every people and nation to bring them into a complete experience of the life he forged for them in and through his Son. How God by his Spirit brings each person to this place is unique to each one and fits within God’s specific time frame for that person.
There is a glory each of us was meant to shine with. When we are turned toward Jesus, who is the Light, we shine with that same light. When we turn away from the Light, we are still standing in the Light, but now we can only cast shadows. If Christ has given us his glory–and scripture says we share in his glory–then how can we cast any shadows while we are aglow with his Presence?
At this moment we see only with a blurred mirror, but then we will see clearly. It is a walk of faith, of trusting in the perfect work of Christ, that all he has done and will do, is all which is needed for each of us to share in his glory both in the world to come and as we live and walk by faith each day today.
Beginning today and on into eternity, we can truly be ourselves, free from the “dark side” which prevents our true light from shining. To be truly who we are, means we have nothing to hide–we are transparent, free, full of grace and truth. Whatever our brokenness is and has been is now the means by which Christ shines in and through us, and becomes our strength in the midst of our weakness. There remains no room for shadows or shade, no place for darkness–only Light.
Abba, may you shine in and through us even now in your Son and by your Spirit so that we and our world might be filled with your Light. In your Name, we pray. Amen.
Reflections on a Blood Bath
by Linda Rex
It’s always distressing to me to hear about another massacre of innocent human beings, and this week’s event in Orlando was no different. How can we, after all we have received of the grace of God, still turn on one another and steal the life God has given and redeemed? The inhumanity, or shall I say insanity, of such an act is beyond comprehension. I hope and pray this event will not end up trivialized like all the others, and just boiled down into a political or religious statement about gun control, human rights or the moral depravity of humanity.
For all the people who had to arrange and attend a funeral for someone dear to them, this is so much more than that. Such unnecessary and horrific loss! To have one’s world so violently rearranged by someone else creates such unimaginable pain and anger.
Unfortunately, this is not an unusual happening nowadays. It is still somehow so deeply engrained in our humanity to participate in the evil one’s kingdom in which he comes to kill, steal and destroy. Even our ideologies can be at fault when it comes to the taking of other human lives. But we must go deeper even than that.
We can blame radical Islam for this event, but if we were truly honest with ourselves, we would have to admit, that were the situation right, we could do exactly what this man did. Each of us has the capacity to commit horrific acts of evil, because each of us, at our core, is broken. Each of us has our own demons which we fight. None of us is truly innocent.
As Christians, or even as humans of any creed or belief, we need to be really careful not to assume we do not possess the capacity for evil. Too many people have been hurt and crushed by the infidelity or abuse of someone who claimed to be a Christian. History is full of stories of people who said they were godly men or women, but who turned out to be truly evil at their core.
This morning I looked to see how often the word kill was used in the Bible. The Old Testament is full of stories where people killed one another. Yes, sometimes even God allowed or encouraged it, due to the circumstances involved. But this capacity to turn as one human against another began with Cain and has not ceased since.
As I continued to look at the use of the word kill, I noticed there was a change when it came to the gospels. In the gospels, we see Jesus talking about how the Jewish people killed their prophets and telling his disciples the Jewish authorities would kill him too. We see Jesus telling his followers not to fear people who can and will take their life, but to fear, or respect, the God who gives and takes away life. Jesus stressed giving one’s life, not taking one’s life away. He laid down his life for each of us, and calls for us to do the same.
It is instructive that the Jewish leaders of the day worked very hard to be pious, good people, well-respected by others. But their piety was demonstrated by their determined effort to put Jesus to death. The man Saul, who we know as the apostle Paul in his later years and who held the clothes of Stephen as he was martyred, was a clear illustration of this reality. His effort to be God-fearing resulted in his participating in the death of an innocent man, and the killing and imprisoning of many other people in the early church.
The expansion of the early church into the Roman culture came about not because the believers threatened to kill people who weren’t followers of the Way, but because they willingly laid down their lives for the sake of Jesus. It was through their suffering, loss and death that the early Christians impacted the culture around them. Great change came about because of their willingness to suffer and die rather than give up their relationship with Jesus Christ and the blessing of life in the Spirit.
We need to understand the difference between living by a law or moral code, and living and walking in the Spirit while following Jesus. Paul said when talking about the new covenant in Jesus Christ that “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor 3:6) When we are living and walking in our flesh according to some form of ideology, or some moral code, it is easy to justify killing and destroying another human being. But when we are living and walking in the Spirit, participating in the life of Jesus, we have the desire and capacity to give life rather than take it, and may find within ourselves the capacity to lay down our life for another human being who could even be our enemy.
We see the life-giving Spirit of Christ at work in many places and ways in the world. I see the Spirit at work in the hearts and lives of the parents who so faithfully and diligently minister daily to an autistic or disabled child. I see the Spirit of Christ at work in our community as people work to bring about peaceful resolutions to difficult problems. I see the Spirit of Christ at work in the life of the person who works to care for and studies the environment and the wildlife in exotic locations in the world, and in the life of the one who cares enough about the animals in their neighborhood that they make sure they each have safe homes and good health care.
This is the new covenant life Jesus bought for us with his blood shed on the cross and which he made available to us in the gift of his Spirit. We are bathed in his crimson flood so that we can have real life instead of our natural manner of life which so often leads to death. Why should we continue to live life on our own terms when we have been offered something so much better?
In the taking of the Eucharist, in our sharing through the wine and bread of the body and blood of Jesus, we are reminded as Christ wished us to be, that he stands in our place. It is his life, his death, his resurrection, and his life eternal in his glorified humanity which is ours. We are awakened again to the Spirit poured out on us, alive within us, and are renewed in our capacity to share in the divine life and love, even now in the daily ins and outs of life. It is Christ in us by the Spirit who enables us to love the unlovely, forgive the unforgiveable, and to lay down our lives for those who do not deserve it.
Such suffering as is incurred in the terrorist attacks we are witnessing is not going unnoticed. Such destruction and death will not be ignored. It is a violation of the Spirit of life in Christ which we have been given. And Christ promised never to leave or forsake his children—he is here with us in the midst of our pain and suffering and death, and inhumanity of human to human. He grieves and weeps with us, he endures suffering with us, and is hurt and angered by what we do to one another.
But this is also why he came and took upon himself the whole injustice and evil of humanity. This is why he allowed the pious Jews of his day to torture him and crucify him. So every time something like these horrific events happens, we are not alone. He has joined himself to us in our sin and suffering, and has made us one with himself, so we are and can become something we would not otherwise be.
In Jesus we have the hope that evil does not have the last word, and one day will be fully eradicated from our humanity. In the gift of the Spirit, we see Jesus beginning to work his kingdom life out in our world today in the midst of its brokenness. May God grant us the grace to walk by faith, not by sight, looking beyond this broken world and our broken humanity into the true reality purchased for us by the Son of God and made possible for us in the gift of his Holy Spirit.
Dear God, forgive us for all the horrible things we do to ourselves and to one another. Thank you for joining with us in the midst of our brokenness and evil, and raising us up to life with you in Christ and by your Spirit. Please finish what you have begun—do not give up on us. You know how desperately we need you to transform and heal us and our world. May your kingdom come and your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” John 8:37–40 NASB
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 NASB
Back to the Who of Jesus
by Linda Rex
One of the hazards of being a pastor, I am learning, is receiving emails from concerned people who diligently attempt to correct what I believe and teach. For the most part, the emails I have received from these people directly contradict sound theology and attempt to persuade me to believe some esoteric prophecy about the end of the world coming at a particular time in the near future. And of course, none of these things have happened as predicted in these emails.
I received one of these emails recently in which the author boldly declared a new prediction of upcoming events in the light of what occurred with the ministry and death of Herbert Armstrong. I won’t go into what he believes or predicts because it is not worth your time or mine to review it, but I was struck by his statement that with Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Jesus is no longer the Son of Man, but is today only the Son of God.
I’m sorry to hear he believes this. It is a useful belief for him, because in his predictions, saying the Son of Man is Jesus would contradict what he believes. It does away with what he believes is going to happen in the future. Apparently, it seems to me, it is inconvenient for him to believe the risen Jesus Christ is today, both the Son of God and the Son of Man.
Personally, I feel it is very important we understand who Jesus Christ is. Understanding who he is as the Son of God and the Son of Man establishes a basis for our belief in God and who he is, and what he is doing in the world today and will do in the future. If we do not grasp who Jesus is as the God/man who delivered us from sin and death, how can we understand ourselves and who we are? How can we understand who God is, and how much he loves us and desires to have a relationship with us?
Believe me, I cannot be critical of anyone who sees this whole thing differently from me. There was a time in my life when I had no clue of the significance of Jesus being both the Son of God and the Son of Man. I don’t think I even knew what this meant. I had no idea of the fundamental nature of this belief, much less how the early church came, by the Spirit’s direction, to establish the boundaries around this doctrine.
For this reason I am very grateful for my classes at Grace Communion Seminary on the history of the church since the time of Christ. So much I had been taught as I grew up in Worldwide Church of God was not true, or at the least, very misguided. The more I learned, the more I began to see how the Spirit worked to bring the church (and no, back then it was not the Roman Catholic Church or any other specific church. It was just the universal body of believers.) into a unified understanding of the nature of God and Jesus Christ, and the central core beliefs surrounding this truth.
In one of my textbooks, “What Christians Believe: A Biblical and Historical Summary” by Johnson and Webber, the authors quote a rule of faith which appeared at the same time in various parts of the Roman Empire toward the end of the second century. I’d like to quote it here:
“[We believe] in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father.” (p128, 129)
Even back then, while there were still people who were closely related to those who had known, heard and seen Christ, there was the understanding of the humanity of Jesus continuing on after his death into a glorified humanity. It was important to the body of believers to stress this because of the Gnostic heresy which was pressing in upon them.
The authors go on to say, “The rule of faith clearly affirmed an enfleshed God. Jesus Christ, it proclaimed, is no apparition, but a true human being who lived in the flesh, died in the flesh, and rose in the flesh. In this affirmation the church made a statement that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man.” (p. 129)
This, of course, was hammered out then in greater detail as the earlier church fathers met and began to clarify just what the incarnation of Jesus Christ involved, and what occurred before and after his crucifixion and resurrection. And fundamental to this discussion was, “Who is and was Jesus Christ?” The conclusions drawn from the Chalcedon council in 451 A.D. clarified the creed, and spoke of Jesus Christ as having two natures present in one person.
Of course, there has always been some debate as to the nature of Jesus’ person—how can someone be both God and man at the same time? What does this mean? Does he only have God’s will, or does he have a human will as well?
These are all great questions and worth consideration, but we need to consider some of these things pertain to the divine mystery of God’s transcendent being. Subsequent councils discussed and hashed out many things. There were disagreements and contradictions, and errors were made. At times, believers, especially those with more naturalistic or liberal interpretations, have drifted away from this fundamental belief about Who Jesus was.
In recent years, Karl Barth challenged these views and called the church back to an understanding of God being present in Jesus Christ in his human flesh, and in this way drawing all humanity up into true relationship in his resurrection and ascension. In spite of the Gnostic and other heresies which continue to raise their heads, there are believers today who hold to the understanding that Jesus was indeed God the Word present in human flesh, who both was and is God and man, and who has not ceased to be the Son of man now that he is risen from the dead.
I believe it was Athanasius who said, “The unassumed is the unhealed.” If Jesus did not and does not bear our humanity now, as he did then, then we as human beings have no hope. I agree with Johnson and Webber who write, “We stand in the historical tradition and affirm that our Savior was fully divine, for only God can save, and we affirm that our Savior is fully human, for only that which he became in the Incarnation is saved (salvation requires one who is fully man to represent us).” (p. 146)
I worship a God who is so holy and pure and just he is able to take on our humanity and transform it into something completely new. If he had and has the capacity to take on our humanity, to “be sin” on our behalf, he has the capacity to remove our sins and to make us new, uniting us with himself in his own being as Jesus Christ, the God/man. And as Jesus himself said, “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt. 19:6) Let’s not separate God from us as humanity, for he has joined himself to us forever in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Father, for your great love, and your faithfulness in fulfilling your covenant with humanity and with Israel. Thank you that in Christ and by the Spirit, you took on our humanity and transformed it, and you have brought us up in Christ’s glorified humanity to participate in your divine life and love forever. Open our hearts and minds to fully grasp and receive the truth of your loving gift to us of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, who lives forever in glory with you, and your precious Spirit, by whom you dwell in us. In your Name we pray, amen.
“You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.” 1 John 3:5 NASB
“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15 NASB
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” 1 John 3:2 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 