Month: June 2009

Another Helper

We’re going through the New Testament now and we’re trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Much of our time has been spent on the person of Jesus, which is understandable seeing as he is the centerpiece of the New Testament, yet tonight there’s going to be an emphasis on the person of the Spirit. Our text will be John 14:16-18.

16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

This can be seen as a Trinitarian passage with all three persons involved. The Son asks of the Father and the Father sends the Holy Spirit. (If you know to look for these, it can be enjoyable to go through the New Testament and realize when you’ve found such a passage.)

It could be that the word “another” refers to one of the same type. Of course, it could just be this is how John normally says another as he uses a different word for “another” only one time. However, if it means one of the same type, it could be an argument for the deity of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is seen as an advocate and this would be one before the Father. This is what we see going on in Romans 8:26-27 when as we pray, the Spirit himself intercedes with groans that we cannot express. C.S. Lewis spoke of the Trinity at work when someone prays. You have the person praying to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. This is another case of the practical outworking of the doctrine of the Trinity. Prayer is a Trinitarian act.

This counselor will be with them forever. I don’t believe this is meant to get into the debate on eternal security which I don’t really touch here, but just to say the Holy Spirit will be with the church throughout the ages.

The Spirit is also called the Spirit of Truth. Truth plays a large part again in the gospel as the Father must be worshipped in Spirit and in truth. (John 4:24) Jesus has just told us that he is the Truth and now we are told tha tthe Spirit will be the Spirit of Truth. It is he who leads the apostles into all truth. 

The world does not see the Spirit. Of course, this does not refer to something physical as the Spirit is not physical and we cannot see the Spirit. What it means is that the world cannot recognize the work of the Spirit. When sanctification is going on in our lives, the world cannot recognize it. When miracles were taking place in the early church, the world could not recognize that either. Remember that Jesus was even accused of casting out devils by Beelzebub.

The Spirit will also be in us, which is something staggering to think about. God was always seen as beyond man. We noted when we started this series that the average reader would have been stunned by John 1:14. The world of the divine and the world of the human did not interact this way. Now, God would not simply indwell a temple, but would rather indwell many temples, that is, the bodies of men. If you are a Christian, consider this for a moment. The third person of the Holy Trinity indwells you.

I hope you’re stunned by that.

Jesus also tells us he will not leave us as orphans but will come to us. One way to look at that is that Jesus’s presence is made known in the work of the Spirit, though this is certainly not to say that Jesus is the Holy Spirit. Some interpreters also think that this refers to the post-resurrection appearances. Of course, it could be both.

We shall continue with this tomorrow.

John 14:12-14

Hello everyone. We’re continuing our study of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the gospel of John and Jesus is giving the upper room discourse there, probably the longest talk that there is in the gospel of John. Let’s continue going through here to see what clues we can get to the self-understanding of Christ. Our passage tonight is John 14:12-14.

12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Anyone who has faith in Jesus. What’s Jesus talking about? Well faith in the biblical sense is not a blind leap as so many people think it is today. One thinks of Richard Dawkins constantly thinking of faith as believing something without evidence. Faith is actually trust in what has been shown to be reliable.

What kind of faith are you to have? Jesus has already told us in verse 1. Trust in God. Trust also in me. You are supposed to have the faith in Jesus that a Jew was supposed to have in God. Now either Jesus is deity, or the disciples should have taken him out and stoned him for blasphemy at that point. This is once again a time to stop and consider what Jesus really said.

Jesus also said we will do greater works than what he did. Jesus was the one who raised Lazarus from the grave. What’s he talking about? It’s easy for us to look at the raising of Lazarus as the greater works as we are caught up in the extraordinary, but there is a greater truth. Raising a man from the deadness of life is a miracle. Bringing a man back to righteousness with God who was dead in his sins is a greater one.

That is our ministry and it is done through Christ. We do nothing independently of him as we shall see later. We are acting as Christ’s agents, but we are doing a greater work than that of physical healing. We are bringing life to those dead in sins.

The last part is tied in with verse 13. Because Christ is going to the Father, we can do those greater works. Christ will be acting for us all in the presence of the Father and he will do anything that we ask in his name.

Whoa! Did Jesus just give us a blank check?

No. To ask in his name means to ask according to his authority. If it is the will of God, he will do it. The more we are in Christ, the more we will live according to the will of God and the more we will get our prayers answered I believe. By then, we’ve learned to submit ourselves to God and we are more pleased with whatever he does.

So no, this passage does not work for the health and wealth Word of Faith teachers. God is not giving us a blank check. After all, God would not answer a prayer yes that he cease to exist or that I be given permission to fornicate with a beautiful lady or something of that sort.

It’s a shame that in how we’ve seen this passage for ourselves, we haven’t seen what it says about Christ. Christ says that what we ask, he will do it. He will be in essence responding to our prayer. What ought that to tell us about him?

Tomorrow, we shall continue looking at these passages and seeing what other amazing truths Jesus is making.

 


It’s Not A Game

As I was leaving Sunday School at my old church back in my hometown, the teacher made a remark that sometimes we treat Christianity like it’s a game. It’s one of those statements that I’d heard before but there’s a part of me that when I hear such a statement, I want to say “If only we did so.”

Ironically as I was looking last night through C.S. Lewis’s “The Four Loves.” Not for anything for the blog, but just because I wanted to glance through. I had a number of parts highlighted and maybe you’re like me that when you go through a book and see highlighted parts, you want to find out why they were highlighted. (It’s also interesting when you get a used book from somewhere else and you see what the reader highlighted and wonder why he highlighted that.)

On page 90, this is what I found:

It is one of the most difficult and delightful subtleties of life that we must deeply acknowledge certain things to be serious and yet retain the power and will to treat them often as lightly as a game.

I believe Lewis is on to something. I do see Christianity as serious of course, but I often think it would be good if we treated it as a game. I know many people who love to play a game and when they play that game, they take it very seriously, and this includes myself. They want to do the best that they can and they practice. Most people don’t have the same sort of enthusiasm for their jobs.

Would it do us good if we saw Christianity as a game? We often speak of Lewis and Tolkien and how they wrote stories that were meant to point to the greatest story of all. It’s a shame that we love those stories so much, yet so often we fail to enjoy the story that we’re in.

Go out and find the average person on the street. Make a movie out of their life story. If you make it true to their life and know how to write, direct, produce, etc. you will have a blockbuster film no matter who it is. Real life is interesting.

Do we play our lives as if we want to win the game? Do we even see it that way? If you’re playing a game, you do the best you can do at what you do. You don’t want to lose. You don’t want to be defeated. If there comes a challenge in the game, well that makes the game all the more enjoyable. In fact, you go out there and you expect that there will be challenges.

Peter Kreeft once said that apologetics is as close as you get to saving the world. Of course, someone already did that 2,000 years ago, but imagine seeing yourself in your Christian life as playing some role in the plan of God. Now I’m not talking about finding God’s will for your life. I believe there are many possible roles you could play. You have great freedom to ad-lib. However, you are to play a role. 

If only we could really grasp that and I would love to see the church do that. To realize that we are on a mission and maybe we’d fulfill the role of the church better. Now not everyone is in the apologetics field extensively. I realize that. I think everyone should have some skill, but not everyone is going to make this study the basis of their lives. That’s fine. It doesn’t mean my work is completely independent of yours.

I am thankful for the counselors and encouragers of the church and the role they play. I once had someone who regularly told me at my church when he saw me “Be encouraged!” He stopped doing it and that’s too bad because it was always good to hear. There’s something nice about getting a message out of the blue and knowing that someone appreciates you. We’ve all got that (I hope!) at some time in our lives.

What would that mean if we played the game right? If we realized we’re all in this together? There really are things out there that are evil and we really are called to stop them. We are told to be salt and light. We are serving the most awesome and glorious being that there is and he has sent us out there to redeem this world for good.

Stop and think about that. If you’re a gamer like me, consider your favorite RPG for instance. (As I type this, I just finished up awhile ago Final Fantasy IV, The After Years.) You do enjoy playing it and the focus of good conquering evil and maybe you’d like to be the hero of the story. (If you can rename the hero in the story and put in your own, this works even better.) In some ways, you are. This story has multiple heroes however all playing different parts and when we get to eternity, we’ll find out what we did and what rewards we had and they will be based on how well we played the game.

Prayer is not something just nebulous then. It’s talking to the one who is in charge and the one who has the power to help you complete your task. The Bible is not just a lifeless book. It’s a book that can essentially unlock the secrets of ultimate reality to you and by studying it and learning, you can be better equipped. Gaining knowledge is the quest to uncover more of the divine truths the creator has placed in the universe be it in the area of science, philosophy, history, literature, mathematics, etc.

Christianity is not a game. No. It’s serious. Yet maybe we should follow the advice of Lewis and treat this serious object lightly. Maybe we should actually enjoy what we do and realize that serving God is not meant to be a misery as we can often paint it out to be, but a great joy.

Go play!

Jesus Heals?

Okay! I’m back! I look forward to writing again and I’m going to take a little break to write on some thoughts that came to me on the trip that I’d like to dig a little deeper into. The one I wish to write on tonight is a bumper stick I saw as I was driving. It just struck me immediately how odd it was because this driver wished to have one that simply said “Jesus Heals.”

Now I’m not a disbeliever in miracles. I do believe Jesus does heal. I don’t believe it’s miracles on demand however. Instead, it’s miracles based on the will of God. It’s not a guarantee, but if you ask, you really have nothing to lose. If God heals, we should be thankful. If he doesn’t, we should be thankful. I also think one of God’s ways of healing has been through giving us minds that we can treat many of the symptoms. I thank God he created a method whereby someone could perform scoleosis surgery so I can walk today. (Although I do have to wonder, and maybe I’ll look into this, about the first guy who was told, “Hey. We’d like to cut your back open and attach a steel rod to your spinal cord and sew you up again.”)

So it isn’t Jesus healing that strikes me as odd. It’s that someone chose to emphasize that out of all things. Why? Well consider someone driving down the road who is in perfect health and sees that and thinks something like “Good for Jesus and those people he heals. I just don’t need that stuff in my life at all. I take care of myself well and I’m a specimen of health.”

I think the same could be said about Jesus blessing us financially. I do believe he owns the cattle on a thousand hills and can open up the floodgates of Heaven and bless us if he so desires. Again consider if someone saw a corresponding message and thought “I’m very well-off financially. If others are getting money, good for them. I just don’t need that stuff in my life.”

Health is good and being healthy is definitely a good way to be. However, you can be in perfect health, as Christ indicated on the Sermon on the Mount, and still be tossed into Hell. Being in perfect health does not mean that you are forgiven. 

The same goes with money. You can have money like Bill Gates or a rich CEO and still be lost. I must give a word of caution here. While I believe money is a tool that can be used for good or evil, it can be tempting in our day and age to see money as an indication that we are entirely self-sufficient and don’t need God. Possessing money is not the proble but rather, being possessed by it.

Let’s suppose instead that we had “Jesus Saves,” the usual thing people put on the back. Now some people I know are unaware of their state or dispute the claim or dispute the truthfulness of Christianity, but the message is one that does apply to everyone.

To some who did not think they really needed salvation, I would simply say “As you look back on your life, are you telling me you are pleased with everything you ever did? There’s not one thing you look back on and say “That was really stupid to have done that. I wish I hadn’t.” If you are, the second thing I am tempted to say is “Congrats.” The first I am tempted to say is “Liar.”

You see, health is something secondary. If we bring people to Jesus the healer and he heals them, but their souls are still sick, we really haven’t done much for them. Of course, if he heals them, he does have a good reason for it. However, if we bring them to Jesus the savior, and they get saved, then we have brought about much rejoicing in Heaven.

I’m sure this guy meant well with what he was doing, but as I thought about it, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind that the real message could easily be lost. We can get so delighted in what we want God to do for us that we lose sight of what he wants to do for us.

John 14:8-10

Hello everyone. I’d like to start off tonight’s blog by thinking Kelp for his compliment. There are many things it’s easy to overlook because we don’t really think about what the Scripture is saying and I know I am missing things as I do these blogs. Don’t take any to be the final word but take them to be something to start you looking in the right direction.

Also, until Sunday night, this is it. I’m going to be out of town so there won’t be any new blogs. I invite you to check the old blogs I have and also go to the websites of friends and others in service on the side. There is always much to learn.

Now to get back to our study. For those who are just joining us, we’re in the gospel of John as we go through the New Testament and we’re trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Tonight we’ll be looking at John 14:8-10.

8Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

 9Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

There is someone who has said that John 14:9 should be enough for us to convince us of the deity of Christ. We have to handle this one carefully however, as it’s a favorite of the modalists as well.  What exactly is going on in this passage?

Philip has asked Jesus to show him the Father. That’s all they want. After all, Jesus can get them to him so why not just show them the Father now?

But no one can see the Father. It can be known what he is like however. How does one know what the Father is like? They know by looking at the Son. The Son is the one who reveals the Father according to passages like John 1:18, as John repeatedly builds on themes that he’s established at the beginning. 

The main reason we know this isn’t a modalistic verse is through other verses. Jesus has repeatedly made distinctions between himself and the Father. If there is any way that the two are different, then they are not one and the same. The Trinitarian idea is that the Son is the one who is begotten and the Father is not begotten. The persons differ by relationship.

Jesus’s you is quite strong here for saying that what he has just stated should have been known. He tells them that he is in the Father and the Father is in him. The words he speaks are not his own. While some might think Jesus would say “They are from the Father”, Jesus instead points to the works that are being done. The gospel sees a strong connections between the words of God and the works of God. This fits with Jesus being the greatest work of God and the Word of God.

We will discuss more Sunday night. Pray for my safe travels while I’m away.

A Most Hated Verse

Hello everyone. Thanks to CV first off for his comment. I think it’s great if the church is doing something to remind us all that we are supposed to be servants of all. We are continuing our walk through the New Testament and looking for clues of the doctrine of the Trinity. Tonight, we’re going to be looking at a most hated verse of Scripture today if not the most hated verse and frankly, I think it is. That text will be John 14:6.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is the verse Opran Winfrey and several others have a problem with. To Oprah, it’s incredible that the thing God cares about is that you call his Son Jesus. The problem is that if Christianity is true, then God has sent his Son, his only unique Son, to save people from their sins and if you deny that, then you are essentially telling God that you will go your own way and are denying his Son.

What we have to ask of any other system is “Why should I believe that this is a valid way to God?” Do we want to base our view of who God is on our feelings alone? You may feel like you’re good enough so that God will accept you. Fine. Feel that way. The question is, do you want to risk eternity on that? Christianity makes a serious claim and serious claims don’t go away just because you don’t like them. 

Now someone may ask “What about those who never heard?” That’s another question for another blog, but if you’re reading this blog, you’re not one of those. Oprah Winfrey definitely isn’t one of those. I think one reason the Bible never gives a clear answer is because the Bible has plan A as being the Great Commission. There’s no plan B out there given. The Bible wants us to do plan A and not give any reason why we should NOT do plan A.

But there is also great Trinitarian truth in this passage based on what Athanasius said which led to a conversation I had with two Jehovah’s Witnesses that rang the doorbell of my apartment by surprise one day. They wanted to know what I believed and so I went through a long list and I don’t believe they really caught what I had to say.

I believe in truth.

I believe truth doesn’t change.

I believe in Jesus.

I believe Jesus is the truth.

I believe truth is eternal.

Therefore, I believe Jesus is eternal.

They never seemed to notice that last point. (It seems a tendency of Jehovah’s Witnesses to not realize what I mean by eternal.)

This is the way Athanasius argued where he said Jesus is the truth of the Father. If truth is eternal and unchanging and Jesus claims to be the truth, then it is valid to see him in that way. Truth exists in the person of Jesus. He is that good news of the Father and as long as Truth has existed, Jesus has existed, which means Jesus is eternal and if he is eternal and he is a person, then he is fully deity.

In our pluralistic culture, this verse is unpopular, but we need to stand beside it. More and more evangelicals are becoming pluralists and saying there is more than one way to God. There may be many ways to God, but there is only way he’s approved of. One will either arrive and receive judgment or receive blessing. He has shown the way. Let us walk in it.

Trust Who?

We’re going through the New Testament trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. I know there is much being posted in the comments against it, but I do not answer all lest this simply turns into answering critics. Any critics wishing to face what I have said are free to go to theologyweb.com and debate me there. There is a link on the side. Tonight, we’re going to be continuing through the gospel of John. We’re only covering one verse tonight. It’s going to be John 14:1.

 1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”

Let’s set the scene. Jesus has just had the Last Supper with his disciples and he has said that one of them would betray him, who we know to be Judas. Judas goes out and it is night the text tells us. It is more than the time of day but that darkness is rising up to take its stand against the light. The battle of good and evil is about to take place.

Jesus has also told the disciples about how they would fall away and Peter has said that he would be willing to die for Christ. Christ has told him instead that before the rooster crows, he will deny being a disciple.

Now in light of all that has happened, Jesus is telling them that they trust in God. Trust also in him.

Some of us can pass over those words without realizing what exactly is being said.

The Israelites had always been told to trust in God. God is their rock and their shield. He is their fortress. He is their strong tower. He is the one who will deliever. Do not put your trust in men but trust in the Lord instead. The Israelites were to have no foreign gods and they were not to depend on armies, or as the Psalmist said, horses and chariots.

Here Jesus is showing up and telling them that that trust that they give to God also goes to him. He says it so casually as well. It seems to flow perfectly and then we need to stop and look and realize what it is that he has said.

We proclaim Christ as savior, but do we really stop and consider what he said and trust him? Christ said to not worry about tomorrow. Do we trust him? Christ said that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. (Luke 12:32) Do we trust him? Christ pronounced to those he forgave that their sins were forgiven. Do we believe he has forgiven our sins?

If we are to take this verse as it is, then when Christ makes a promise, we should consider it as a promise of God, which it essentially is. Christ does not tell us to trust promises though. He tells us to trust in him, which is something quite different. The promises are reliable because of him. 

Once again, are we really stopping to look at what Jesus said about himself in even the simplest statements?

On The Death of George Tiller

Sunday morning, an abortion doctor was shot and killed in his church. George Tiller was known for being one who did late-term abortions and was well known in the media. We will have to go somewhat political tonight, but there are issues here that must be raised.

To begin with, we are pro-life. We do not like the taking of life. There are some cases where we do believe it is morally justified. This is in self-defense and in the death penalty and for just war causes. Now I know some Christians disagree with me on those three, but I do hold to each one.

We do see the act of abortion as the taking of innocent life and there is no proper mandate for it. The concern that I see with some is that we will become those we disapprove of. We see murder taking place. The solution to it is not more murder. The solution is to do what we can to change the laws.

And I suspect the problem is that Christians just aren’t doing enough.

I’m including myself also.

Roe V. Wade happened because Christians were sitting on the sidelines. We lost our intellectual ground long ago without basis. Christianity has always been an intelligent faith but we fled from the fight and retreated to the area of emotion and feelings. When real political issues came up, emotions and feelings weren’t enough. After all, consider the sexual revolution. What does it take to have a “feeling” that Jesus rose from the dead in comparison to “raging hormones for that hot girl over there!”

I believe that most people here in America are pro-life. I also believe most of them are pro-marriage. Yet on both of these issues, we are acting like we’re on the defensive. Why? It is our opponents who should be on the defensive. Our opponents should have to tell us why they don’t think there’s a human life in the womb and why they’re willing to risk ending one if they’re not sure. Our opponents should tell us why they think marriage should be fundamentally altered.

I do not support the action against the doctor because I do not support us being vigilantes. I believe it would only end with each of us being a law unto himself. I do believe we can change things through the legal process and we are not doing enough. I believe we are not doing enough because we do not see what is at stake.

There are times I wonder something. I am single now. I wonder how many beautiful girls there could have been I could have married but I never got the chance to know them and neither did anyone else. Someone took their life. We can think of several instances like this. Was a cure for a disease lost? Was a new invention forgot? Was a great diplomat discarded? The only reason abortion has been allowed is because it has to do with sex. 

What is the Christian to do? I believe we must recover the truth of morality and Scripture. We must recover the truth of sexuality. We must recover the truth of Christianity. We must recover the truth of what it means to be human and once we find these, embrace them, bury them deep in our hearts, and live by them each and every day.

The world will not be changed by military conquest. It will be changed by the conquest of the kingdom of Heaven through the preaching of the gospel. Let’s get started.