I thought that when I saw Melissa on our wedding day that my categories for beauty were maxed out. “This is it. Wow.”
And three years later I am surrounded by eyes like this. And smiles that put a frog in my throat. Elizabeth and Hannah have not surpassed Melissa’s beauty—they’ve actually amplified it. A white dress and a big cake and heavenly violin music in the background pales in comparison to Melissa as Mom. She only becomes more lovely.
Here God is seen to be God in his radical self-giving, descending to the most abject human condition and, in that human obedience, humiliation, suffering and death, being no less truly God than he is in his cosmic rule and glory on the heavenly throne. It is not that God is manifest in heavenly glory and hidden in the human degradation of the cross. The latter makes known who God is no less than the former does.
The divine identity is known in the radical contrast and conjunction of exaltation and humiliation–as the God who is Creator of all things, and no less truly God in the human life of Jesus; as the God who is Sovereign over all things, and no less truly God in Jesus’ human obedience and service; as the God of transcendent majesty who is no less truly God in the abject humiliation of the cross.
These are not contradictions because God is self-giving love, as much in his creation and rule of all things as in his human incarnation and death. The radical contrast of humiliation and exaltation is precisely the revelation of who God is in his radically self-giving love. He rules only as the one who also serves. He is exalted above all only as the one who is also with the lowest of the low.
Richard Bauckham, God Crucified, 50ff, paragraphing mine
The Apostle states three times in his gospel that Jesus must be “lifted up”: John 3:14-15; 8:28; 12:32-34.
Richard Bauckham writes:
Compared with the passion predications in the Synoptics, in these Johannine sayings the allusion to the Suffering Servant is both more direct and, in its peculiar conciseness (the one word ‘lifted up’), deliberately riddling. Such Johannine enigmas tease the reader into theological enlightenment. In this case, the key is the double meaning of the word. It refers both literally to the crucifixion as a lifting up of Jesus above the earth (as 12:33 makes clear) and figuratively to the same event as Jesus’ elevation to the status of divine sovereignty over the cosmos. The cross is already his exaltation. Its physical character, as a literal elevation from the earth, symbolizes its theological character as the decisive movement upwards to heaven as the place of divine sovereignty. The literal elevation, which Jesus’ executioners intended as humiliation, an exhibition of his disgrace for all to see, John’s readers see, through Deutero-Isaianic eyes, as the event in which Jesus’ divine sovereignty is manifested for all to see, thereby drawing all people to himself (12:32).
But the full significance in terms of Deutero-Isaianic monotheism we can appreciate only when we observe, as hardly anyone has done, the conjunction in 8:28 of the allusion of Isaiah 52:13 (the lifting up of the Son of Man) with the divine self-declaration, ‘I am he’, also from Deutero-Isaiah. This saying is the central one of the three sayings about the lifting up of the Son of Man (3:14-15; 8:28; 12:32-34), and it is also the central saying of the series of seven absolute ‘I am’ sayings. It deliberately brings the two sets of sayings into theological relationship. When Jesus is lifted up, exalted in his humiliation on the cross, then the unique divine identity (‘I am he’) will be revealed for all who can to see.
God Crucified, 48, paragraphing mine
Adam loved his kids Cain and Abel. Lamech loved his other sons and daughters. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Abraham loved Ishmael and Issac. Isaac loved Jacob and Esau.
It was Abel, not Cain. Noah, not the others. Abraham was called out. Issac was the son of promise. Jacob was the one.
The unfolding storyline of the Bible heralds the electing love of the LORD. This is not an issue to shirk away. It is undeniable. It is even thematic. But how should I view the possibility that my children are not elected to salvation?
This is a difficult question. I should view it painfully, humbly, and gratefully:
I should view it painfully because I love my children and I do not want to see them suffer any harm. I love them and I want to protect them.
I should view it humbly because punishment for sin is a punishment that we all should have to pay. My children are guilty. They have sinned against God. The role of creature to Creator supersedes the role of child to parent.
I should view it gratefully because the punishment I should pay has already been paid for me by Jesus Christ on the cross. I should be grateful because he has given children to me as my children–children of parents who embrace the gospel by faith. This is the reality that we live in. I don’t base my theology on the possible-would be-alternative realities. ‘God could do this, he could do that, etc.’ No, no—my theology is based on revelation, what God has done and said he would do, testified to in the Holy Scripture and accomplished in my own life.
God has saved me and my wife. God has given us children. God is making it so that my children hear the gospel all the time from parents who jovially embrace it as the best news in the universe. God has made it–predestined it–that my children have parents who believe the gospel and daily pray that they will believe it too. It did not have to be this way. But this is the way that God has made it. This is the right note that I think paedobaptists and more covenantal perspectives hit on. My children have already received a blessed privilege and everything in reality suggests that they will put their faith in Jesus just like their parents have and continually pray that they will. Everything in this reality suggests that Jesus atoned for their sins on the cross just as he atoned for mine.
Father, please lavish upon my children the grace to worship by the Holy Spirit, glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh. Amen.
Forgiveness in Islam is arbitrary. In Islam, Allah’s forgiveness is not in reference to anything but Allah’s whimsical prerogative. There is no assurance. No referential guarantee. There is nothing to point to, nothing to stand on.
The forgiveness of sins that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is amazingly different. The LORD’s freedom in election is different in that it was a Trinitarian action–a work performed in the mind of the LORD’s intratrinitarian fellowship. For those who embrace Jesus Christ by faith, our election (the Father) was “in Christ” (the Son) for the purpose of “being holy and blameless” (the Spirit) (Eph 1:4). Election was not arbitrary because it does not exist without reference to the death and resurrection of Christ or the perfecting work of the Spirit.
The “who” of election may seem arbitrary as in “that guy and not this one.” But election is not drawing from a hat, nor is it a “pick your team.” It is instead the creative work of God to make for himself a people. It is a work ex nihilo–calling into existence that which does not exist (Rom 4:17). And this creative work of election before the foundation of the world comes into fruition as people all over the world put their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is an integral episode in God’s salvation of sinners, stemming from the creative love of the Father and pointing to the perfecting work of the Holy Spirit.
Guest Post by Nathan McCavery
Decisions. We all have to make them everyday – some important, most trivial. As followers of Christ, we’re desperate to make sure every decision is pleasing to God and might be part of His will for our lives.
One of the subtle dangers of this can be that we overcomplicate, overthink and overanalyse, agonising over every single decision. Wrestling to try and decipher where God would have us go and what He would have us do often leaves us confused, frustrated and spiritually drained. “If only God would show us what He wants us to do and we’ll do it in an instant” we think.
How quickly we forget and become complacent with the amazing miracle that God has revealed Himself to us in the person of His Son, and in His Word He’s given us all that we need as a guide for life! (2 Peter 1:3)
Kevin DeYoung in his book Just Do Something spells out God’s will for our lives.
1. God’s will is that we live holy, set-apart lives: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3)
2. We are to always rejoice, pray and give thanks: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
3. We are to know God’s will so we can bear fruit and know Him better. “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Colossians 1:9)
4. The will of God is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is…be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:17-18)
God’s will isn’t that we struggle with every decision, becoming anxious, fretting for fear of choosing the wrong path and mistaking a lack of activity for piety. Paul tells us that “[God] works all things to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11) Jesus Himself tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33)
DeYoung closes his book with the following paragraph:
So the end of the matter is this: Live for God. Obey the Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do whatever else you like, with whomever you like, wherever you like, and you’ll be walking in the will of God.
If we understand this, it can only have a liberating, peace-giving effect on us. What an encouragement to know that provided we live as the Bible tells us to, we are free to do as we please. So let’s make some bold decisions with confidence that we are walking in God’s will, the way of wisdom, and let’s attempt great things for God’s glory.
It doesn’t matter how messed up you are. That’s what makes grace a controversy. The cry for mercy like David’s in Psalm 51 will not go unheard. This is a holy cry.
We can identify with David because his prayer here must incessantly be our own. The cry for mercy is not only an action of forsaking all other options. The cry for mercy must also be an embrace, a continual embrace. The cry for mercy is confident and focused. It is according to something, that is, according to the LORD’s steadfast love.
What necessitates the life of praying for mercy is not the accumulation of guilt but the absolute extinguishment of it by Another. The cry for mercy is not a license to live in darkness, but a testimony that we have been transferred into the kingdom of light. We don’t ask for mercy because we are enslaved to a life of sin. “Create in me a clean heart! (v. 10).”
The prayer for mercy encompasses our sorrow for sin and our hope in the work of Christ. We ask for mercy in reference to Jesus Christ who bore the wrath we deserved, removed our sins, and freed us from bondage.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;”
Amen.
