You Are Not Good Enough

March 2, 2012 in Discipleship, Gospels with 4 Comments

You. Are not. Good enough.

I abandoned the epistles last week to get back into the gospels. I know that Jesus is the Word, and I love finding Him in new places, but sometimes I don’t want to analyze. Sometimes I just want to sit and listen to Him speak. So I turn back to the gospels. This time I went to John’s.

And I was reading through chapter five recently, when I fell on verse 23:

“He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”

I suddenly found myself thinking about an atheist friend of mine who puts a lot of value on being, “a pretty good person.”

It’s a pretty common exit route:

“I’ve never killed or raped anyone, never stolen large sums of money, never cheated on my spouse. I don’t know if I believe in God – or if I believe that Jesus is the right one – but if I’m wrong I think it’ll be okay. I’m a pretty good person. God will understand.”

I used to think that. I know scores of atheists and part-time “Christians” who think that.

Who wouldn’t want to think that, really? It’s comfy. No one wants to think about death. No one wants to believe in Hell. And we’ve heard countless times that God is love, and Jesus loves us, so if God is real, it will all be fine.

But some of the stuff Jesus says makes that difficult. Like John 5:23.

I can’t help but feel that if a former atheist showed up at Heaven’s proverbial gates with a near-spotless “record,” that he wouldn’t still tremble in complete fear at the revelation that he dishonored the Creator he was about to meet.  Continue Reading…

God As Spirit

March 1, 2012 in Torrey with 6 Comments

A week ago I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book, and you can download a free PDF here. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything! >>>

Torrey starts out with the basics, and I always think about skipping the first little section when I pick up this book, but

sometimes we need to re-learn the basics.

In Book 1, Chapter 1, Torrey establishes:

  1. God is Spirit.
  2. Spirit may manifest itself in physical form.
  3. God has, in times past, manifested Himself in physical form.
  4. What was seen in those manifestations was not God Himself – His invisible essence – but a manifestation of God.
  5. “The Angel of the Lord,” in scripture is a visible manifestation of God.

He addresses a seeming contradiction during Proposition #4. Some scripture says that a person saw God, while others say that no one has seen God. I like the analogy Torrey gives about a mirror:

To illustrate: A man may see the reflection of his face in a glass. It would be true for the man to say “I saw my face,” and also true to say “I never saw my face.” So men have seen a manifestation of God, and it is true to say those men saw God. No man ever saw God as he is in his invisible essence, and so it is perfectly true to say, “No man hath seen God at any time.”

My next thought, though, is what, then, is going on in the throne room?

Revelation tells us that the creatures around the throne look on God, on the throne, and cover their eyes, saying, “Holy, holy, holy …”

Are they really seeing God, or just a manifestation?

I know those aren’t “men,” but per the principle … I wonder.

When this whole thing is over and we each stand before God, when we enter into the rest of eternity and those faithful spend forever in His presence – do we see Him? Or just a manifestation? Can the transformed believer see, on that side of the creation story, what the carnal one cannot, on this side? Or do we only ever see a manifestation, because, really, that’s probably enough for eternity anyway?

Thoughts?

Verb Tense and the Eternal

February 28, 2012 in Gospels with 0 Comments

The opening credits set the tone and establish a kind of expectation for a movie.

John’s gospel is a thing of beauty, and his opening prelude is haunting.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

I couldn’t get away from verses four and five yesterday.

4 In Him was life …

Naturally, because all things were made by Him and through Him. But it’s given in the past-tense. There is still life in Him, of course, so is it here referring to a specific time frame?

4 … and the life was the Light of men.

The writer can’t, then, mean natural life – animated, breathing life – can He? Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth and the Light. The “life” in verse four must be the eternal life that Jesus brought back to us who had forsaken it – the knowledge of the Holy, the way into God.

But then why should it be referenced in past-tense? Eternal life in Christ is still the Light of men. Is it, again, referring to a specific time frame? Jesus’ first bodily visit to Earth, maybe?

5 The Light shines in the darkness, …

Present-tense

The “life” was the Light of men, but, now, the Light still shines in the darkness.

Was that “life” His carnal life, that was the Light of men because He demonstrated holiness in the flesh? Was His bodily life the past-tense life that was Light because in it, and by it, He reclaimed our relationship with God that Adam forfeited?

And now, having surrendered – having poured out – that life on the cross, the “life” is past-tense, but the Light of that life – the result of it, and what it won – continues to shine?

The life that was has become the Light that is.

5 … and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Past-tense, because I’d guess the darkness comprehends it now. I’d guess that about the dawn of the third day, the darkness started to comprehend it.

But in the moment, in those 33 years when the “life” was becoming the Light, and darkness had opportunity to stop it, the darkness did not comprehend it. Satan wouldn’t have filled Judas’ heart to betray Jesus, wouldn’t have brought an innocent Man to death, if he had known what God was doing.

I could turn John 1 over and over all day.

You? Thoughts?

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