Tag Archives: glory of God

More of Jesus: The Christian Life, Unoriginality, and Pressing On

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“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

The realization that he has not yet attained what he desires (3:10) drives him to action: he presses on. He keeps moving. The basis of this action is the work of Jesus Christ in making Paul his own (v. 12). Paul’s “spirituality” is not original. It is entirely responsive. And if our ‘Christian life’ is truly Christian then it must never be more than that.

The one thing that Paul does contains two aspects: forgetting/straining forward. I think that this is similar to repentance and faith. The two are not really two separate acts but are two interrelated elements of one act. Whereas repentance and faith pertain to a turning from sin and an embracing Christ, this forgetting and straining forward pertain to leaving temptations for boasting and yearning for the ultimate reality of God’s call in Christ.

We often do not consider our good moments to be temptations that can derail us from the ultimate end. But they certainly can. Paul does not let us become complacent and think too highly of our ‘spiritual victories’– new understandings, deepened theology, mortification of sin, more vibrant prayer, good sermons, etc. We are not there yet! We are not where we want to be! So keep going, keeping straining forward.

Christ is who we want. Forget everything else, give me Jesus.


God + Creation = God

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The notion of God’s creating the world in order to receive any thing properly from the creature, is not only contrary to the nature of God, but inconsistent with the notion of creation; which implies a being’s receiving its existence, & all that belongs to its being, out of nothing. And this implies the most perfect, absolute and universal derivation and dependence. Now, if the creature receives its all from God entirely and perfectly, how is it possible that it should have any thing to add to God, to make him in any respect more than he was before, and so the Creator become dependent on the creature?

Jonathan Edwards, The END for which GOD Created the World, Sect. 1, Ch. 1

Keep Speaking, Please

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The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. (Psalm 50:1)

… that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deut. 8:3)

… and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb. 1:3)


Feel what it means to be entirely derivative. What is your life? –the consequence of divine causation and utter sufficiency.  Feel what it means that the earth’s orbit and our heartbeat all hangs on the One who must not stop speaking.

Even the prayer for Him to keep speaking is the effect of Him speaking. The prayer for Him to not stop speaking is itself the effect of Him not stopping. Grace, grace, grace.

What Being A Man Has To Do With Phineas And His Spear

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Numbers 25:1-13. The narrative is short but it is one of my favorites… it starts following the LORD’s determination to bless Israel (despite Balak). The people of Israel apostatize. The men whore with the daughters of Moab. The men who were supposed to be leading their families in the worship of the true God have instead  been seduced to go to bed with Baal. The picture in verse 6 seems odd. What that guy did in bringing the Midianite woman along was evil. The text implies that he was flaunting his idolatry.

Then comes Phineas. He rises up to play the man. He chased the couple down and slays them both with a spear. It is a gruesome scene. But Phineas doesn’t waste time. He goes straight for the problem. It is a sober rage. It is a logical fury with the glory of God at stake, and the good of the people (vv. 10-11). The idolatry was putting the previous oracles in jeopardy. They were up to thwarting God’s promise. And where there were no men, Phineas was a man. I want to be like Phineas.

I don’t want a spear and I hate ultimate fighting (it is nonredeemable), but I want to be a man like Phineas. That means, I want to lead my family well in the worship of the triune God. And that means that sometimes you have to slay the inhibitions, you have to put to death those things that contradict the reality of the gospel.

Our situation is not like Numbers 25. But what is it in your camp that is impeding your worship of GOD? What is it in your tribe that is derailing your family from living in light of the gospel? Is it your TV addiction? Is it your disproportionate affection for sports? Is it your preoccupation with Twitter and Facebook? Maybe your lazy? Whatever it is, we all have something in our lives, in the life of our family, that needs to be impelled (metaphorically, of course). We are surrounded by things that aim to knock us off track. Be a man and get rid of those things, for the glory of God and your family’s good.

Day 1: On What is Theology?

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Theology is an office in the Church of Jesus Christ. It is properly undertaken in the sphere of the Church, that is, in the region of human fellowship which is brought into being and sustained by the saving activity and presence of God. Theology is one of the effects of that saving presence; it is one of the activities of reason transfigured by the renewal of human life and history which the holy God effects in his works and makes manifest in his word. The divine works of renewal culminate in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, his exaltation over all things, and his bestowal of new life in the Spirit’s power. Through the Spirit, Jesus Christ the exalted one generates a new mode of common human life, the life of the Church. To participate in that common human life, hearing the gospel in fellowship under the word of God and living together under the signs of baptism and the Lord’s supper, is to exist in a sphere in which God’s limitless power is unleashed and extends into the entirety of human life: moral, political, cultural, affective, intellectual. Reason, like everything else, is remade in the sphere of the Church; and theological reason is an activity of the regenerate mind turned towards the gospel of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the Church’s origin and vocation.

John Webster, Holiness, 1ff.

What is the glory of GOD?

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What is the glory of God? God the holy Father, holy Son, holy Spirit. What is the kavod that Moses asked to see (Exod. 33:18)? What is the doxa that John declares we have seen (John 1:14)?

In the holy dialogue that Moses had with God in Exodus 33, we see that the request in v. 18 was not his first. That request is preceded by what he asked in v. 13, “Please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.” The parallel shows us that Moses’ request in v. 18 is a re-articulation of what he asked to see in v. 13. Moses wanted to see something, God’s ways, viz., God’s glory. The Apostle John’s opening to his gospel affirms that reality of God’s glory. It is seen. John declares that we have seen the glory of God in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, and that glory is full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The kavod and doxa of God is not a distant attribute or abstract description of God’s person. Rather, it is by its nature a manifestation. The glory of God is revelatory.

Moses’ request in Exodus 33:18 is heard by God. He answers Moses’ prayer. “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘the LORD’ (Exod. 33:19). The glory of the LORD is to “pass by” Moses (Exod. 33:22). And so it does in Exodus 34:5-6. The LORD descended and “proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD…” (Exod. 34:5-6). God’s revelation of his glory is the proclamation of his name.

To say that God’s glory is the proclamation of his name is to say that it is the revelation of his “enacted identity” (Webster, 36). Webster continues to say that God’s enacted identity is “God’s sheer, irreducible particularity as this One who is and acts thus” (36). God’s identity, or essence, is utterly incomparable and eternally inexhaustible. And yet this essence is relational. For this incomparable and inexhaustible God is also a God who acts, who reveals, and who makes known inseparably from his essence. God’s doings is his ‘acting thus’ to who he is. The glory of God is the revelatory action of God proclaiming his name by means of all the ways that he acts out of who he is.

God’s glory is the force of his identity. By force I mean that it should have no connotation of being stagnant or distant. God’s glory is active and he is jealous that it be known. That is what he wills in Exodus, that the Egyptians and Israel would know that he is the LORD, that is, that they would know his name, know his ‘enacted identity,’ know his glory (7:5; 8:10, 22; 9:16; 10:2; 14:4, 18; 16:12; 18:11; 20:2; 33:18-19). Such is the motive for God’s action in Ezekiel where he recounts why he restrained his anger. His name being profaned was at stake. That is, his glory was at stake of being undermined. So he says, “I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned…” (Ezek. 20:14). “But I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned…” (v. 22). For he concludes, “I did it that they might know that I am the LORD” (v. 26). The enacted identity of God is an illocution. To expand the biblical metaphor that God is light (1 Jn. 1:5), inasmuch as light corresponds to God’s essence, the radiance of light corresponds to God’s glory.

A Fierce Lamb Then and What It Means for Me Now (By the way…)

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Revelation 19:11-16 is a fierce picture of Jesus. The Lamb who was slain will then be known as the King of Psalm 2. The meek Savior will rule with a rod of iron. The suffering servant will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

This will happen. Now what does it mean for me? If this is my King, the One in whom by grace I take refuge, how do I factor now into this future reality? Here are a few observations:

  1. I must be sure not to confuse the figure of Revelations 19:11-16 to be anyone other than Jesus. It is not me and it is not my example.
  2. The conquerors who belong to Jesus are victors by giving up their lives for the sake of others, not by taking the lives of others.
  3. The judgment that he administers on that last day is a judgment that we all deserve and that we would all experience if not for the sovereign grace to God to call and save sinners.
  4. This judgment is not capricious, but is the display of God’s righteousness–the unswerving commitment to uphold the glory of His name.
  5. I should be jealous for God’s glory, too. But my jealously for God’s glory is not executing judgment, but in giving up my own life out of love for others to display Christ’s worth.

By the way, doesn’t this thwart the intention is Islamic jihadism? How can one make war against those who are bowing their heads in love for the very ones who want to make war against them?

Jesus Saves Us From What?

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A crucial problem with how people conceive the doctrine of Christ’s saving work is the attempt to understand the doctrine apart from the doctrine of God. Until we have a biblical understanding of God and His nature, we are not fit to see the necessity of the cross. Propitiation and expiation and the various aspects of the atonement will be nonsense to us. If we step into this doctrine without a grasp of who God is then we will most likely gravitate to the aspect of the atonement that seems most compatible to our own interests, expectations, standards, etc.

Most people conceive of God to be a God of love. That is not controversial. To most people the caricature of the Divine Being is at least some giant ‘care bear’ in the sky who is nice to people. The “man upstairs” is everybody’s kind of guy. He loves and is comfortably lovable to the point that there is enough mercy to go around when we screw up. But what is  nature of this real love and real mercy?

It should be clear that we would know nothing about love or mercy if there were no such thing as wrath. The meaning of mercy implies an alternative. Mercy is not an independent concept that drops out of an undermined idea of love. Mercy is the response that’s very presence testifies to the fact that it is what should not be. If mercy is to be fully understood then understanding wrath is a necessity.

Unless we get that we really deserve eternal condemnation, unless we get that we really deserve the furious anger of God’s wrath against us forever–unless we get all of that then Jesus’ death in our place is emptied of its glory. How can we appreciate salvation if we don’t know what it is that we are saved from?

Ten Seminary Students and Sword Fighting

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Last night ten seminary students converged for fellowship that was long overdue. We start the semester running and by this point we are coming up on the last lap. Our cohort is scattered–some guys are doing Hebrew, some Theology… but last night, we were all doing the same thing. Meat eating, sword fighting, and bearded tackling.

It was exactly what we needed in preparation for Christian leadership and ministry. It was joy abounding. It was humble. It was glorious.

It was a time together that was bought by the blood of the slain Lamb of God. It was by Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus. How else can ten sinners from all other the country, from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different personalities–how else could these men come together and share in such joy? How else could they come and let their guard down and not care about whether they ‘looked like’ graduate students, husbands, and fathers?

It was not cheap. It was deep. It was the evidence of grace that was bought by Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. We are ten sinners who have been redeemed. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and we want to taste Him more, and more, and more. We want to soak in as much as we can from our studies. We want to treasure Jesus more than anything in the world. We want to be persevering, Spirit-dependent leaders in the church for the glory of God. And, sometimes, we need to grab a Nerf sword and go after one another.

The Glory of God, the Abrahamic Promise, and N.T. Wright

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Knowing God for onself, as opposed to merely knowing or thinking about him, is at the heart of Christian living. Discovering that God is gracious, rather than a distant bureaucrat or a dangerous tyrant, is the good news that constantly surprises and refreshes us. But we are not the center of the universe. God is not circling around us. We are circling around him…

We are in orbit around God and his purposes.

N.T. Wright, Justification, 23ff.

Yes. That is right. That is good. This a good flavor of Wright. I like it. And he should keep that in mind when he thinks about the Abrahamic promise. God doesn’t circle around you and me, and God doesn’t circle around Abraham, either. The Abrahamic paradigm for reading Paul is helpful, but even that needs to be put into a greater context. Keep asking why, why, why.

If God is not doing the circling but everything else is circling around Him, then how did the circling happen? God made it happen. God made things revolve around him. He is the great causation then to all this revolving. His glory is ultimate. His glory is the point. He cares about his glory. He started the circling because he wanted to magnify His glory.

But Wright states:

But the great story of Scripture, from creation and covenant right on through to the New Jerusalem, is constantly about God’s overflowing, generous, creative love–God’s concern, if you like, for the flourishing and well-being of everything else. Of course, this too will redound to God’s glory because God, as the Creator, is glorified when creation is fl0urishing and able to praise him gladly and freely (70).

He admits God’s glory is important, but the flavor is that it is peripheral. He says the main point is “God’s overflowing, generous, creative love–God’s concern, if you like, for the flourishing and well-being of everything else.” Why, though? For His own glory! God’s glory is not “Of course, this too…” It is the point. It is the causation behind the circling.

It is about God’s glory. And that is good news.