Dead and Dying

Scripturally speaking, Christianity is intimately connected with death. It starts with the assertion that we have eternal life because Jesus Christ has died for us; His death is our life. Really, it's an astonishing thing for us to believe, because scripture refers to Him as "the eternal life that was with the Father" (1 John 1:2), He called Himself "the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:25), and asserted that He could give life even to the dead (John 5:1–40). So we believe that the Son, who can give life to whomever He wills (John 5:21), died to give us eternal life. Scripture takes the principle further, and applies the death of Christ to our life in this world. So scripture teaches not only He died for us, but we died with Him (Galatians 2:20).

Scripture gives at least three aspects to our death with Christ:

1. we have died with Christ (Romans 6:1–11)
2. we are to mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body by the Spirit (Romans 8:13)
3. death works in us (2 Corinthians 4:10–12)

Let's consider those three deaths in that order.

First, Scripture teaches that the believer has died with Christ (Romans 6:1–10; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1–4). This isn't something the believer can do or must do: it is something that has already been done. There is a human responsibility attached to it: the responsibility to "reckon" it to be true (Romans 6:11). What does "reckon" mean? It means to accept it as true. God declares that I have died with Christ, and it is my place to believe it because God has said it.

I am not responsible to die with Christ, but I am responsible to believe God and accept that I have already died with Him.

And let's just mention: I hear a lot about "dying to self" in various Christian circles, but I don't see it in scripture. Scripture simply doesn't talk about "dying to self." From scripture I see that I have died with Christ (Galatians 2:20), I see that I am dead to sin (Romans 6:11), that I am dead to the world (Galatians 6:14), and that I am dead to the Law (Romans 7:4). But I don't see anything in Scripture that says I must "die to self". The teaching of Scripture is not that I must die, but that I have died.

Second, Scripture teaches that I am responsible to put to death "the deeds of the body", my "members that are on the earth" (Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5–6). We notice right away that Colossians 3 connects vv. 5 & 6 with vv. 1–4 with a "therefore". What does that mean? It means that vv. 5–6 are the consequence of vv. 1–4. This is very important! Scripture teaches it's only those who have died can put to death their members on the earth.

So much of "Christian" ministry I hear and read skips over Colossians 3:1–4 and dives into Colossians 3:5–6, exhorting believers to put something or other to death. But the passage doesn't really bear that reading: it is only those who have accepted that they have died with Christ who are in a position to "mortify". We do not die with Christ by mortifying our members. The Scriptural order is the opposite: because we have died with Him, we can mortify our members.

In fact, so-called Christian teaching that skips over our death with Christ isn't really "Christian" at all. But that's another rant.

Romans 8:13 also talks about our responsibility to put something to death, but in Romans it's not our "members on the earth"; it's the "deeds of the body". Romans 8 is remarkable on many, many counts. But one thing that stands out even in this astonishing chapter is that there is a stark contrast between our [fallen] bodies and our [redeemed] souls: the body is "dead", the spirit is "life" (v. 10). There is coming a day when those two things will be reconciled (Romans 8:11, 23), but that day hasn't come yet. Someday the Son of God will come to redeem our mortal bodies (Philippians 3:21), but Romans 8 is all about the life we are to live while we wait for that day to come.

There is a third aspect of our death with Christ, and I confess I only saw it in the last couple years. This isn't our having died with Christ, nor even our responsibility to [by the Spirit] put to death the deeds of our fallen bodies. This is something deeper, more profound, and more painful: "death works in us" (2 Corinthians 4:10–12). Philippians 3:10 refers to this as "being made conformable to His death".

It is God's work to reveal the life of Jesus in our mortal bodies, but there is a cost. The cost of the life of Jesus manifested in my mortal flesh is that death must work in me.

I used to pray, "Lord, I'm ready for you to work in me". Then one day I realized that's almost the opposite of death working in me: by definition, death isn't going to work in me on my own terms. It's not death if it respects my schedule.

Death is a tool in the hands of God to reveal His Son in me. And really, that's what the world around me needs. They don't need to see me, they need to see Him. And God will do it, too: He will reveal Christ in me; but the cost is death working in me. Notice this isn't the "I have died" of Galatians 2:20, it's a different thing. I reckon that I have died: I accept it as true because God says so; but I didn't experience it. 2 Corinthians 4 isn't talking about reckoning: it's talking about the experience of death working in me, with all the pain that implies. It's like the difference between Israel crossing the Jordan (Joshua 3:6–17) and Israel circumcised at Gilgal (Joshua 5:2–9). In the former case they didn't even get wet: in the latter there was very real pain involved.

In the end, God isn't content to let us understand death with Christ, He isn't even content for us to reckon it. He is going to make it true in our experience as well.

Institutes

I've been reading Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. A couple friends have asked me why.  To make a long story short: I've met a lot of people with strong views on Calvin, but few or none of them actually read his book.

That's why I read Collected Writings of J. N. Darby too: lots of people were willing to share their opinions of his writing, but very few of them seemed actually to have read it. (I wrote a little article about that for a friend's blog.)

So I'm reading the Institutes. I'm about a fifth of the way through, and I'm hoping that wasn't the best of the book: I've a long way to go yet.

A Man over the assembly

A couple months ago, the question arose in the Bible Reading whether Moses is a type of Christ. I don't believe he is, because the Scripture generally speaks about Moses in contrast with Christ. That being said, Scripture holds up Moses as the example of a man in communion with God (e.g., 2 Corinthians 3:7–16). I find it interesting to read the prayers of Moses in light of the New Testament: he truly understood what God was intending to do.

One of my favourite prayers of Moses is in Numbers 27:16–23. Every time I read Numbers, it jumps out at me:

16 Let Jehovah, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the assembly, 17 who may go out before them, and who may come in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in, that the assembly of Jehovah be not as sheep that have no shepherd. (Numbers 27:16–17, JND)

In the immediate context of Numbers 27, God chooses Joshua to be that man; but we can see that this wasn't a lasting solution to the problem, because when the Lord Jesus came, He found the people exactly as Moses as feared: like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36).

This brings us back to a central theme of the scriptures: God places men and women in various responsibilities, but His ultimate thought is always that those responsibilities will be fulfilled in Christ. So when Paul refers to Christ as the Man (1 Timothy 2:5), he means it more profoundly than we might first realize. It's not merely a statement that Christ Jesus is truly a Man (although it is that), but it goes to the eternal thoughts of God about His Son. It has been God's intention since before the world began that "all things" would be headed up in Christ.

Moses' description of the "man over the assembly" is interesting: he asked for a man to "go out before them" and "come in before them". This description might remind us of John 13:3, He is the One who came from God and went back to God. More than that, He is the One who can lead us in (Hebrews 10:19–22) to God's presence. And some day He will lead us out from God's presence (Revelation 19:11–16).

The New Testament insists that the Lord Jesus died and rose again: He was dead and is alive (Revelation 1:17–18). So where is He? The Scriptures repeat over and over that He has gone into Heaven and sat down on God's right hand (Mark 16:19; Acts 2:32–36; Hebrews 1:3; 9:24–28). Hebrews 6:17–20 takes it a little further even than that: Jesus Christ has gone into Heaven for us, to represent us to God.

I find this an astonishing thought. The Son who is God eternally, who is with God eternally (John 1:1–5), has come to this earth and has gone back to Heaven (John 17:1–5). As the Son, He has returned to the glory He had with the Father. But the Lord Jesus is also the Son of Man: as the Son of Man He has gone into Heaven in order to represent His people here.

The Epistles represent Christ as both Priest and Advocate. They're not the same thing: the Advocate represents our interests to God, the Priest brings us into God's presence. So when a man sins, he needs the Advocate (1 John 2:1–2); but whether we sin or not, we need a Priest to bring us near to God (Hebrews 4:14–16). It is by our Priest that we approach God in worship and in prayer.

So we have right now what Moses saw the children of Israel needed: a Man over the assembly who has come out and gone in, to lead us out and bring us in.

Whaddaya know?

A few months ago someone shared a link on Facebook to an article about Watchman Nee, accusing him of Gnosticism. I seriously doubt Nee was a Gnostic, but I admit I haven't read all his stuff. So let's just acknowledge that it's an extreme accusation, but it's not impossible that there is a sliver of truth in it.

I sometimes suspect there are some troubling similarities between Gnosticism and some of the authors I read. It's quite true that Scripture speaks about "the flesh" in exclusively negative terms. As J. N. Darby said, "the flesh is always only bad". That's not some puritanical theology speaking: that's nothing more than what Scripture explicitly and repeatedly teaches.

But it's true that it's a pretty short road from the completely biblical truth that we are fallen creatures in a fallen creation, to the Gnostic notion that the material is bad and the spiritual is good. And the next step down that path is a sort of carnal lawlessness where the truth is abstract and spiritual, and not "real" at all.

And here's the painful part: I definitely see a lot of tendencies in myself and in others for all this stuff to get very abstract and not very practical. Scripture has an answer for that too, and it's a truth I don't think I understand very well: we are to "glorify God in our bodies" (1 Corinthians 6:20). So it's not that we have some sort of abstract faith, it's that our mortal, fallen bodies are the arena in which God desires to be glorified.

So here's the thing: there are two seeming opposite truths in Scripture. First, we are in "vile" bodies (Philippians 3:21). Our bodies are the home of sin that dwells in us (Romans 7:21–25), and our mortal bodies are "dead because of sin" (Romans 8:10). Second, the Holy Spirit will redeem those very same mortal bodies (Romans 8:11). We're looking forward to the Son of God coming from heaven to change our vile bodies (Philippians 3:21). In the meantime, it's in those same (unredeemed, vile) bodies that we're supposed to glorify God now (1 Corinthians 6:20).

I remember hearing a brother once mention that it's the will of God that we are stuck in mortal bodies with indwelling sin. I remember him saying it's a hard thing to accept, but it's true nonetheless. And the fact is that he is right: it's the plain teaching of Scripture that God is glorified by revealing Himself in fallen, sinful bodies (2 Corinthians 4:7–12).

So that brings me to the point: on the one hand, we are fallen creatures living in a fallen world, in fallen bodies. On the other hand, we're called to glorify God in them.

And here's the thing I keep thinking about… there's a cost to all this. 2 Corinthians 4 lays it out explicitly: the cost of the life of Christ revealed in our mortal bodies is "death works in us" (2 Corinthians 4:10). I've been meditating on this for the last six or seven months, and I'm wondering how it works in real life. I have some ideas, but I think we can save them for later.

I read a book recently, and it was helpful: True Spirituality by Francis Schaeffer. It was interesting on many levels. One of the best things about this book is that Schaeffer insists on everything taking place in the real world. In fact, his explanation of Colossians 3 was enlightening: it means we should live like someone who has died, gone to Heaven, and was then raised from the dead. Think about that one for a while.

Yeah, there are a lot of points where Schaeffer and I disagree. But in the end, what Schaeffer does is so important: he brings the truth of the Pauline epistles into the "real world". I hate to admit it (I really, really hate to admit it), but I find that perspective a little lacking in a lot of the books tend to read.

Hardening

We've been studying Exodus in the Bible readings. We've spent a while discussing the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. People have been saying the same things I've heard for years: some think God hardened Pharaoh's heart first, others think Pharaoh hardened his own heart first.

I'm starting to think the bigger point is that when God hardened Pharaoh's heart, He got exactly the same results as when Pharaoh hardened his own heart. That is, man of his own will puts himself into the same hardness of heart that God brought to Pharaoh.

Occasionally God offers a divine commentary on Scripture, where one passage is a commentary on another. The story of Pharaoh's heart is one of those stories: Romans 9:14–22 is a divine commentary on the story of Pharaoh's destruction, and it really doesn't help very much. If anything, Romans 9 makes it more difficult.

Exodus 4:21 and Romans 9:14–20 are difficult passages. But the problem isn't that they're difficult to understand, it's that they're difficult to accept. What God actually tells Moses in Exodus 4:21–23 is something like this: "I want you to command Pharaoh to let My people go; and I will harden his heart so that he won't let them go, and then I will punish him for not listening." That's not very hard to understand, but it's really, really hard to accept, because it seems so unfair.

Romans 9 addresses this specific objection:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” (Romans 9:19, NASB).

And what is the scriptural reply to this question? It's very simple: who are you to judge God? (v. 20). That's not a very satisfying answer, but it is a deeply searching answer. It doesn't help us at all to understand Exodus 4, or even Romans 9:19. But it reveals our own hearts. And I have come to the conclusion that until we accept Romans 9:20, we can't really go on to the verses following. It's only after we accept the answer in that verse – that we have no right to judge God – that we can understand the following verses. And what do they say? That God has every right to take one man and show him mercy, while refusing to show mercy to someone else.

So let's go back to Pharaoh. Exodus tells us that before Moses ever spoke to Pharaoh, God had declared His intention to harden Pharaoh's heart "so that he will not let the people go" (v. 21). So yes, it was according to God's "determinate counsel" that Pharaoh did not listen: God was determined to destroy Pharaoh. But before there is any record at all of the state of Pharaoh's heart, the Scripture records his condemnation from his own lips: "Who is Jehovah that I should obey him?" (Exodus 5:2).

And this, I think, is a point we so often overlook in the story of Pharaoh. People who tend towards a "freewill" viewpoint spend a lot of time pointing out that Pharaoh hardened his own heart several times before God hardened it. People who tend towards an "election" viewpoint point out that God had already declared His intention to harden Pharaoh's heart before Moses ever spoke to him. (And as a point of fact, they're both correct.) But this is the bigger point, I think: whether it was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart, or Pharaoh himself (and Scripture teaches both), the result was the same. Fallen men and women may not be capable of coming to Christ on their own, but they are experts hardening their own hearts.

Which takes us back to this: Men and women – sons and daughters of Adam – are not only guilty sinners, they are lost, guilty sinners. I listened to a sermon several times over the last month or so on "The Dangers of Calvinism and Arminianism". It was really more of a long rant about "calvinists" than anything else. What I found interesting was that the speaker kept insisting the Scripture teaches a "whosoever will Gospel". This preacher would doubtless classify me as a "calvinist"; but I, too, believe Scripture teaches a "whosoever will Gospel". The problem isn't that the Gospel is limited, the problem is that men and women in and of themselves won't. The problem is that "whosoever will" is an empty set. No one wills. That's what Romans 3:10–18 teaches, right? None seeks after God. It's not so much that God prevents sinners from believing (although Matthew 13:13–16 seem to indicate He sometimes does), it's that there is no chance anyone would seek after God without His active interference. Which is, after all, what the Lord Jesus explicitly taught in John 6:37–44, but perhaps we'll save those verses for another time.

Judgement

I stumbled across William Kelly's article on wine. I wasn't really looking for it, but it was a fascinating read.

Near the end he discusses the whole issue of the inspiration if Scripture, including this gem:

The practical consequence also is clear. Man sits in judgment upon that word which shall judge him at the last day, and censures with various degrees of incredulity the Pentateuch of Moses, Canticles, Daniel, the Gospels, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. He cannot find what he expects a priori, and at once stigmatizes such and such books as at issue with his ephemeral notions, and therefore not given by inspiration of God. That is, his poor, proud mind, constitutes itself the umpire of what God ought to be and to reveal, and condemns whatever is against or above itself!

Submission

[L]et us remember that the human mind enters a labyrinth whenever it indulges its curiosity, and thus submit to be guided by the divine oracles, how much soever the mystery may be beyond our reach. – John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 13, Section 21