Reflecting on the American Presidential election last Tuesday my mind turned to Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal article (11/05/16) that I quoted last week. In particular, note again: But he (God) is an actor in history also. He chastises and rescues, he intervenes in ways seen and unseen…
Perhaps for the first time in Western history, we lightly dismiss the idea of God’s involvement in human affairs. But Peggy Noonan’s words are consistent with how the Bible speaks of God.
In his address to the Athenian intelligentsia Paul says: From one ancestor he (God) made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:26-28a).
A CREATED UNIVERSE
The universe did not come into existence by random chance, Paul is saying. It’s a rather frightening thought, for it reverses what we want to think about our existence. If God exists, we would rather he did our will, and turned up only when we wanted him.
Furthermore, it’s too easy to say that God is distant or uncaring. ‘Not so,’ says Paul. ‘God is near you – nearer than you think. Quoting from a 6th century BC Greek poet, he points out: ‘In God we live and move and have our being.’ When events in our lives turn out very differently from what we expect, we need to pause and ask, ‘What should I learn from this?’
A MORAL UNIVERSE
Paul concludes his Athenian address with: ‘In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now God commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all people by raising him from the dead’ (Acts 17:30-31).
Yes, many today have a problem with the idea of God as judge. However as Winston Churchill observed, there has to be a hell to bring the likes of Trotsky, Stalin and Hitler to justice. And we could add to the list. Paul is saying that in appointing a day of reckoning for us all, God is being just. Indeed, without God’s moral constancy we have no hope of a future of perfect peace.
Elsewhere Paul sums up our human condition: We were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.But that is not the end of the story for Paul continues, But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us… (Ephesians 2:3-4)
Furthermore, he goes on: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
SOLA GRATIA
How easy it is to gloss over familiar words such as grace and faith. What Paul is saying here is complex, profound yet very simple. For in tying grace and faith tightly together, he is saying that God has done absolutely everything needed for our salvation. God’s grace, and the faith we come to have are divinely initiated and gifted. Our salvation, our reconciliation with God, is God’s work through and through.
This was something men like Luther, Calvin and Cranmer rediscovered in the 16th century. For centuries these truths had been overlaid by the doctrines of merit and good works, penances and payments (indulgences as they became known). It was taught that through these means people might be able to gain some acceptance with God.
But Paul’s, and the Scriptures’ clear teaching is that even the faith we have, is God’s gift alone. Every generation needs to grasp this vital wonder. In our human pride we like to think we can contribute to or offer something in the cause of our salvation. Ironically, this offers us no assurance of salvation.
With Reformers like Thomas Cranmer, we today need to be vigilant, ensuring that liturgies we promote are clear with respect to The Lord’s Supper, for example. Yet in many American churches, Cranmer’s second prayer book (1552 / 1662) is overlooked or simply ignored. Yet, it is this second prayer book – the one for which he died – that clearly and unambiguously sets out the central gospel truths of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, inChrist alone, revealed in the Scriptures alone.
In his Homily of Salvation (Works, Vol. II, p.130),Cranmer wrote: “Our justification doth come freely by the mere mercy of God, and so great and free mercy at that, whereas all the world was not able themselves to pay any part towards their ransom, it pleased our heavenly Father, of His infinite mercy, without any of our desert or deserving, to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ’s body and blood, whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled, and his justice fully satisfied”.
Let’s pray for the Spirit of God to awaken us afresh to heartfelt thankfulness to our God whose nature is always to have mercy.
Writing in The Wall Street Journallast week (Nov 5, 2016), Peggy Noonan concluded an article on the election with: A closing thought: God is in charge of history. He asks us to work, to try, to pour ourselves out to make things better. But he is an actor in history also. He chastises and rescues, he intervenes in ways seen and unseen. Or chooses not to. Twenty sixteen looks to me like a chastisement. He’s trying to get our attention. We have candidates we can’t be proud of. We must choose among the embarrassments. What might we be doing as a nation and a people that would have earned this moment?
While it is always disappointing – even shocking – to become acquainted with failings of leaders, we should not be surprised. To quote Malcolm Muggeridge, ‘Christ and the Media’: The depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, but the most empirically verifiable. It is easy to be obsessed with the failures of others while overlooking our own.
Yes, it is encouraging when leaders exhibit a godly integrity, but the reality is, as Paul the Apostle puts it: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
THE GREAT NEWS
The great news is that the living God designed a way to release us from our human tragedy. In Romans 3:21-22 we read, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
The words, But now… speak of a great contrast. What the Law and the Prophets foreshadowed, God has now done: he has provided the way for our relationship with him to be restored. God himself has done it through the faith (or better, the faithfulness) of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the one and only person who has perfectly kept God’s law, provided the means whereby we can be forgiven.
Romans 3:21-27 goes to the heart of what God has done once and for all for us through his Son, Jesus Christ. In verse 25 we read: God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left sins committed beforehand unpunished.
Paul’s language is that of the law court – words like righteousness, justice and just. Because God is righteousness and true in every way, he must judge, and judge justly. He has to do something about the breakdown of the relationship between us and him. If he didn’t he would leave himself open to the charge of moral indifference. He couldn’t do that. So, instead of showing his horror of sin by judging us according to his law, he has displayed the same horror, the same pure justice, by punishing Jesus in our place. Here is the heart of Christianity.
How then do we receive God’s offer?
In Romans 3:25f Paul tells us that faith is the way we take hold of this gift. For some this is the hardest of all ideas to grasp. ‘It’s too easy. Faith alone simply can’t be sufficient.’ But thinking this dishonors God and fails to grasp the seriousness of our need. It also has the potential to turn faith itself into a good work.
‘Where is the boasting?’ Paul goes on to ask. ‘It is excluded’. Faith is not something we offer to God, something he rewards. Rather faith is receiving the gift God offers us through what Jesus has done. Our problem is pride. We don’t like being ‘charity cases’. But that’s just it. We need God’s love, his charity so that we can be forgiven and become his friends.
Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles puts it this way: We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.
Because of Jesus’ death, Charles Wesley could sing: No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all in him is mine; Alive in him, my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throne, And claim the crown through Christ my own.
This is the greatest of all news – something we will want to share. But responding to God’s free gift is not all. Once we put our faith in his promises, it will be our joy to grow in his love and live in his ways.
Let’s not just pray for ourselves, our families and our friends, but also for our country, including our leaders.
Solus Christus (Christ alone) or Solo Christo (through Christ alone) is the phrase the 16th century Reformers used to speak of the unique and necessary work of Christ in reconciling us with God. Yet how often do we glibly pass over the reality and significance of our separation from God?
A central theme bubbling through the Scriptures is that our broken relationship with God lies at the heart of our human dilemma. Too often we align our thinking with our culture, putting our trust in other remedies – thinking better government, better education, better laws, more acts of charity, more equal distribution of wealth, as the solution to our human dilemma. While these things are useful they can never rescue us from our deeper problem: vain-glory.
I am not saying that we should give up on the political process of our democracies – voting for governments that enact laws protecting Christian values. But the Bible tells us we need a radical remedy – not just band-aids.
On March 23 this year I quoted a New York Times article (03/15/2016) where David Brooks wrote of the way a ‘shame culture’ is replacing a ‘guilt culture’. ‘In a guilt culture’, he wrote, ‘people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad’.
Paul the Apostle sees our deeper problem: ‘You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else’. (Ephesians 2:1-3).
‘Nonsense!’ may be our first thought. But Paul sees our inner being, our hearts, through God’s lens. He says that God views us as dead in our relationship with him because of our trespasses and sins. Trespassis a false step – crossing a boundary and stepping away from ‘the right’. Sin speaks of missing the mark – falling short of God’s standard.
‘We have followed the course of this world…’ We like to think we are ‘free’, yet ironically we tend not to have a mind of our own. We are slaves to pop-culture, political correctness, and social trends.
Paul identifies another slavery – theprince of the power of the air. It’s not fashionable these days to speak about the reality of evil, but this ignores the plain teaching of Jesus. All injustice, terror, and violence can ultimately be traced back to an evil power at work.
And there’s a further slavery –the passions of our flesh,…This refers to our flawed, inward looking vain-glory. Paul has in mind, not just sexual lust, but intellectual pride, false ambition, the rejection of truth and vengeful thoughts.
In our natural state we are subject to oppressive influences. Outside us is the world – the prevailing secular culture and its political correctness. Inside us is the flesh – our flawed, self-preoccupied, twisted nature. And, beyond both, but working through both, is the Ruler of the kingdom of darkness who holds us captive.
What then is the solution? ‘We are by nature children of wrath,… But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us…’ (Ephesians 2:3b-4).
We might struggle with the idea of the anger of God. However, careful reading shows us that God’s anger is not like ours. He is not subject to fits of bad temper. His anger is not spite, animosity or revenge. It is his response to evil.
But God who is rich in mercy… made us alive together with Christ. Consider the scene of Jesus’ cross. He was innocent of all charges laid against him; even Pilate agreed. But when Jesus died he didn’t curse. Rather he prayed, “Father, forgive them”.
When one of the criminals near him said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom”, Jesus responded, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’. Today. Not after years of purgatory or some future time. In Romans 3:21-26 Paul sets out the unique significance of Jesus’ death.
In his Homily, On Salvation, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer wrote, ‘there are three things “which must concur and go together in our justification: ‘Upon God’s part, His great mercy and grace; upon Christ’s part, justice, that is, the satisfaction of God’s justice, or price of our redemption, by the offering of His body and shedding of His blood, with fulfilling the law perfectly and thoroughly;… So that in our justification is not only God’s mercy and grace, but also His justice, which the Apostle calleth the justice of God; and it consisteth in paying our ransom, and fulfilling of the law’…”’ (Philip E. Hughes, Theology of the English Reformers, 1965: p.49)
When we turn to Jesus in repentance and faith God promises to pardon and absolve us from all our sins – no matter what we have done. In the richness of his mercy, God in Christ has done, once and for all, everything that is needed to satisfy his perfect righteousness, enabling us to enjoy life with him forever. Hallelujah!
Next Monday, October 31, is the four hundred and ninety-ninth anniversary of the day Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The door served as a university notice board.
Papal indulgences, designed to raise money for the renovation of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, offered a pay-plan for the ‘satisfaction’ element in the church’s teaching on salvation. Grounding his theses on the unique and supreme authority of the Scriptures for our knowledge of God and salvation, Luther questioned the pope’s authority and the abuses in the sale of indulgences.
Today and over the next four Wednesdays I plan to touch on key elements of what is known as the five ‘solas’ or ‘alones’ of the Reformation: ‘Scripture alone’, ‘faith alone’, ‘grace alone’, ‘Christ alone’, ‘to the glory of God alone’.
SOLA SCRIPTURA
‘Scripture alone’ or ‘Sola Scriptura’. Consider Paul’s words to Timothy: But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man and woman of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:14-17).
With these words, Paul the Apostle urges Timothy to remember what he was taught as he grew up. Earlier in this Letter Paul has spoken of Timothy’s mother and grandmother. Clearly he respected these women, not least because they had taught the Scriptures to Timothy.
The word inspired translates the Greek word, ‘breathed out’. We speak of Shakespeare as inspired in his writing, or Bach in his music composition. But this is not how Paul is using the word here. He is telling us that God has breathed out, spoken his mind, enabling the writers of the Scriptures to write his words. God is the author, the writer or composer of this particular ‘music’.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
God didn’t impose his thoughts on the writers’ minds. Rather, through his Spirit he equipped them to pen his words. The Bible is not God’s ideas put into human words, nor is it human ideas enhanced by God’s assistance’. In 2 Peter 1:20f we read: You must understand this, … no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation. No prophecy was ever produced by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. The Scriptures are God’s ideas expressed in God’s words.
God respected and used the personality of every writer. The writers of the Bible were not human typewriters putting God’s words into readable form. God used their personalities to unfold progressively his story. This is why we have such diversity of writing – narrative and history, parable and poetry. We also find the more colloquial Greek of Mark and the more complex literary forms of Luke and Hebrews.
The Scriptures truly are a miracle. But we need always to remember Paul’s words: All scripture is inspired by God…
It may seem rather circular to use the Bible to defend the Bible. However, if indeed the Scriptures are God-breathed, there isn’t any higher authority to affirm this. Furthermore, we have Jesus’ own attitude towards the Scriptures. He regularly quoted them, speaking of them as the Word of God.
We also have Jesus’ promises to his disciples concerning the work of the Holy Spirit: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).
GOD AT WORK
What the disciples said and what they wrote, comes with this authority. They were promised accurate recall and accurate interpretation. Their preaching, their teaching, their writing, is true because the Spirit of God was at work within them. He was inspiring them – breathing into them God’s Word of truth.
The Spirit makes sure that we have what we need. This is enormously encouraging, for it means that I am being brought into a true, an authentic relationship with the living God. My faith is not about some vague, mystical experience that may or may not be true.
All Scripture is inspired by God… And as the Word of God it gives us exclusive information about salvation – making us wise unto salvation.
This is one of the great truths that Martin Luther and the sixteenth century ‘reformation’ church leaders rediscovered.
This Sunday, October 23, St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Wanniassa, in Canberra, Australia’s Capital, is celebrating its 40th Anniversary. From small beginnings St Matthew’s has not only grown in maturity and in number, but has equipped and sent out many to serve the gospel in other places in Australia and overseas.
As I have been invited to preach at the anniversary service, let me take the opportunity to set out some thoughts about church planting from my experiences both in Canberra and in New York.
God’s plan. The establishment of churches is God’s expectation as people respond to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ‘church’ in Jerusalem was formed in response to Peter’s preaching on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:42-47). And churches were established in every place where people responded to Paul the Apostle’s preaching (Acts 13ff).
But churches are not simply formed as an outcome of gospel proclamation. Setting up churches can be a strategic means of reaching into new communities or people groups. In Canberra, St Matthew’s Church was set up alongside the city’s expansion. Christ Church New York City was set up in the context of a crowded, long established city as a strategy to reach more people within the city.
The raising up of ministry workers and the development of churches is an application of Jesus’ words: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).
Colleagues – ‘church planters’. Jesus is saying that because the news of the kingdom of God is for all people, the disciples would not be able to do the work by themselves. Even seventy (or, seventy-two) would not be enough. The work requires far more workers than his followers could have imagined. So, the first task in gospel work is to look, not for converts, but for colleagues. Indeed, the colleagues may form the nucleus of a church that will reach more people.
Prayer. We often forget the picture the Book of Revelation unveils: a vast multitude will inherit the kingdom of God. People, as countless in number as the stars in the sky, will be drawn from every nation and tribe and from every generation. A crowd of this size can’t be reached by a few. Thousands of people will be needed – people who are willing to leave their comfort zones and serve the cause of Jesus Christ. We need to pray to the Lord of the harvest for workers.
Challenges. Jesus is also realistic: ministry will not always be straightforward and acceptable. He warns his first followers that if they and their message are not welcome, they are to warn their hearers of the reality of God’s ultimate judgment (Luke 10:10-11). Ministry can be unpopular, even dangerous work.
Gratitude to God. Luke records the excitement of the seventy when they returned from their mission trip. Many lives had been changed through their ministry. But let’s notice Jesus’ sobering words. As well as alerting his young followers to times of gospel disappointment, he also warned them of the perils of missionary success.
Taking them aside he points out that the arrival of God’s kingdom heralds the downfall of Satan and all his hosts. Preachers of God’s good news will see signs of Jesus’ victory and consequently, changing lives. ‘But’ Jesus says, ‘don’t let this go to your head. Satan fell because of spiritual pride’. ‘Rejoice rather,’ he continues, ‘that your names are written in heaven’ (Luke 10:20).
St Matthew’s Wanniassa in Canberra city is a wonderful example of the way the Lord Jesus Christ works, fulfilling his promise that he will build his church notwithstanding challenges and opposition (Matthew 16:18).
The experience of the small group that came together in those early years verified what the Bible teaches: God uses churches which have effective gospel-centered ministries to reach more people.
Recent research suggests that seventeen percent of the non-churchgoing community would accept an invitation to go to church if invited. Further, thirty-four percent of that number would continue to go to church, many of them inviting others to join them.
Thanks be to the Lord who has mightily provided for St Matthew’s over the years. Despite the challenges and the difficulties at different times – no church is perfect – men and women have come to know the riches of God’s love in Christ. To God Alone be the Glory!
A question we rarely think about is this: ‘What does Jesus expect of everyone who believes?’
A third part of the prayer Jesus prayed on the night of his arrest provides a vital part of the answer. In John 17:21a we read: “I ask … that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”.
The all in this verse suggests that he is including everyone who comes to believe in him, as well as his disciples.
In the flow of his prayer, it is important to notice that he is not praying for ‘unity’ as we often think of it – a structural unity – but rather a ‘confessional’ unity. He is praying for a unity of understanding amongst all his people: the acknowledgment that he is the unique Son of God, sent by the Father to rescue humanity.
In other words, Jesus is praying that the essential truth of his relationship with God the Father will be at the heart of Christian belief. As such, he prayed for a unity amongst his people that reflects the unity of relationship between God the Father and God the Son. The unity that Jesus is speaking of here, is that all his people would receive and respond to his teaching the same way.
CHRISTIAN UNITY AND FELLOWSHIP
Furthermore, there is to be a unity of profound love and fellowship between his people because of their fellowship with God the Father and God the Son. His prayer reflects his teaching that true worshippers will ‘worship God the Father in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23).
And it is also important to notice that Jesus is praying for a ‘missional’ outcome to this unity: “That the world may believe that you have sent me”.
Division amongst men and women is the way of the world. True unity amongst the people of God for which Jesus prays facilitates gospel outreach – ‘so that the world may believe’.
Men and women in the wider world are in revolt against God and the Son he has sent. Yet God has loved, and continues to love, the world and is committed to drawing more and more people to the One he has sent. The unity in the faith of God’s people will be a sign that will draw many to faith.
Now, we need to note that Jesus is not praying here for the amalgamation of denominations. Joining like-minded Christians together might be desirable, especially where buildings and services are often duplicated with a loss of efficiency.
Jesus is not praying for this kind of structural unity. Rather he is praying for the essential union of hearts and minds that respond to the truth of Jesus. Ultimately he is praying that all his people – whether the first disciples, or you and me today – will be with him where he is: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am,…”(John 17:24).
JESUS’ PRAYER
So, the essence of this part of Jesus’ great prayer is that all his people throughout the ages will be with him where he is in the Kingdom of God. His intention for his people is that we all see the glory that the Father has given him, as God’s unique Son, because of God’s love for him. So Jesus continued: “That they may see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24b).
This prayer of Jesus that we have touched on over these three Wednesdays tells us so much about him – his glory, his suffering, and his passion. We see his commitment to glorify God. It tells us about the significant work of the disciples – if they had messed up, we would have no knowledge of God’s extraordinary love and the forgiveness he holds out to us. Further, Jesus’ prayer tells us about us, and our need to work at the unity that springs from a united confession of faith.
Jesus’ prayer is not a ‘God bless…’ prayer. It is a prayer that instructs our minds and touches our hearts with the riches of God’s love.
You might like to pray this prayer: Lord, may we come to love you more and more, with all our mind, with all our heart, and from our very soul, so that you may be glorified in the lives of all who are united in a common confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
