January 2, 2012: Did Isaiah Mean To Predict Jesus' Birth?
Writing around 730 BC the prophet Isaiah said, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14). Hundreds of years later St. Matthew called the birth of Jesus a fulfillment of these words (Matthew 1:22).
But did Isaiah intend to predict Messiah's birth?
If you read Isaiah 7:14 in context it is very hard to come to that conclusion. Read all of Isaiah chapters 7 and 8 and you will see what I mean. Here's a brief summary:
In chapter 7 King Ahaz of Judah is worried. Two kings, Rezin and Pekah, have formed an alliance and are getting ready to march against him. Isaiah approaches King Ahaz and tells him to trust God and not worry about Rezin and Pekah. Those two will never even make it to Jerusalem. Then Isaiah tells King Ahaz to ask for a sign to confirm this prediction - any sign at all.
Ahaz refuses. He will not "do business" with Isaiah, and he will not put his trust in God.
Isaiah bursts out in anger and says, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?" Then he tells Ahaz (in effect), OK you'll get your sign all right - but ultimately it won't be a good one. He says,
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria. (Isaiah 7:14-17)
In other words: "You see this young unmarried maiden here? Well she is going to get pregnant and have a baby boy and call him 'God is with us' [or, 'God's on our side']. By the time that baby is barely a toddler, the two kings you're so afraid of now will be history. (See, I told you not to be afraid of them!) Though now you're worried about a jackal and a hyena, pretty soon those two will be eaten up by an 800 pound lion - the king of Assyria. Then when he's done with them he will turn his attention to you, and he will bring devastation on the land of Judah the likes of which it has not seen before."
And that's exactly what happened.
In chapter 8 Isaiah marries the virgin he referred to in 7:14. She becomes Mrs. Prophet Isaiah. Verses 3 and 4 of chapter 8 read, "Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz ['quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil']. Before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus [King Rezin] and the plunder of Samaria [King Pekah] will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”
Isaiah's prediction in chapter 7 is fulfilled in chapter 8. See 8:8,10 for references to "Immanuel" ("God is with us!"), which remains true of the faithful remnant in Judah even when Assyria is wreaking havoc and besieging the city of Jerusalem itself.
So, given the letter-perfect fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in a few short years, how can Matthew say that Jesus' birth fulfilled it more than 700 years later? (Among other things, what's Assyria doing by then? Answer: nothing. At the time of Jesus' birth, Assyria's star has long faded and now it's all Rome.)
I'll tell you two answers I heard recently that I don't like at all.
A professor from a Bible institute recently told radio listeners that Isaiah's prophecy in 7:14 was not about events then current in Judah! He noted that while in the first part of the verse Isaiah is indeed addressing Ahaz, in the second part the "you" is plural rather than singular. The plurality of the addressee, the professor explained, constitutes evidence that, starting with the word "Therefore," Isaiah is no longer speaking to Ahaz about events in the immediate future but rather is addressing the nation about a Messianic birth many years later.
Anyone who finds this argument convincing may stop here. To the rest, your intuition is correct: this professor's evaluation is a disingenuous outrage against Reason. In order to believe it you must stick your fingers in your ears and sing while the rest of chapters 7 and 8 are read. Never has a poor plural been grabbed by the throat more violently and made to squawk more loudly. To respond: by the use of the plural Isaiah is simply addressing everyone present. That's all.
Then I heard a message at a church I visited a couple weeks ago where, thankfully, the preacher acknowledged the immediate fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. But he also said that Isaiah was making two predictions - one short-term and one long-term. To illustrate, the pastor said, "Suppose I told you who would win the presidential election in 2012. That would be one thing, and if I were right you might think it was a lucky guess. But what if I then told you who was going to win the election in 2712? And I told you his name, his party affiliation, where he would be born, and the circumstances happening in the world at that time. That would be pretty incredible. Well, that's what Isaiah did."
No it isn't. When a preacher says that I wince and hope that no sincere doubting seeker will, after investigating the texts himself, give it all up and conclude that everything the preacher says lacks credibility. The fact is, nothing - nothing at all - in Isaiah 7 and 8 indicates a self-conscious attempt on Isaiah's part to predict an event that he knows will occur in the distant future.
There is a much better way to understand Matthew's use of Isaiah's words. It involves taking a cue from John 11:49-52 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. This approach takes seriously both divine inspiration and the prophet's intent.
In John 11 the enemies of Jesus convene a council in order to discuss what to do about him. Jesus has been gathering so many followers that there is fear that the Roman overlords will take notice, interpret the movement as a political rebellion, and respond by crushing not only Jesus and his followers but the whole Jewish nation. In this discussion the high priest Caiaphas recommends killing Jesus. This will solve the problem: if only this one man dies, the rest of their lives will be spared. Caiaphas says,
You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. (verse 50)
It is very clear what Caiaphas meant. He literally meant that if Jesus would die, others could live. The sacrifice of this one man would save a multitude.
Caiaphas spoke better than he knew. Someone Else was speaking through Caiaphas, manipulating or hijacking his choice of words in order to make him the mouthpiece of a truth far beyond his imagination. In the next two verses John tells us,
He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. (verses 51-52).
I believe God did the same thing with Isaiah. Isaiah spoke better than he knew. When he said, "a virgin will conceive," he simply meant a woman who was a virgin at the time - his fiance, in fact. (By the time they got married and she got pregnant she would no longer be virginal.) But, like Caiaphas, "he did not say this on his own." God inspired, and Isaiah chose, words that would apply so literally to the birth of Jesus that, if you told Isaiah about it, he would drop to his knees in silent awe. One day, a true virgin - still a virgin! - would give birth to a baby boy.
And when Isaiah said the baby would be called "Immanuel" (God with us), to him and his wife that meant, "God's on our side, not theirs. In these upcoming days of conflict, God is with us, not them." But one day, "Immanuel" would be literal. The baby born of a virgin would be God of Very God dwelling in our midst.
Both Isaiah and Caiaphas were "carried along by the Holy Spirit," and, by God's decree, spoke deep truths that neither intended. This principal of prophecy is taught in 2 Peter 1:20-21: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Though Isaiah was a child of God and Caiaphas was a child of the devil, God used them both to speak some of the most profound truths of our faith. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God in our midst. He died so that we might live.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Graciousness 6: Just Ask A Question
(A continuation of an occasional series, see previous posts March 24-April 21, 2009 and May 6, 2011.)
In my last post on this topic I said that gracious people answer your questions directly and sincerely. Recently I noticed something else: gracious people ask you questions. They're interested in what you have to say.
What brought this to mind what was a situation where my wife and I sat at the kitchen table and listened to one person speak for a very, very long time. During a brief intermission my lovely wife - as gracious a woman as the sun has ever risen upon - confessed to me that she was going nuts. Then afterward she begged me to shoot her if advancing years ever turned her into a monologist.
What I noticed mainly was that the person who was talking to us never once asked us a question.
If people know a lot about you, but you know little about them, it may be because you have been filling them in with details about your life and thoughts and opinions and dreams without ever stopping to ask about theirs. Start asking them some questions. Then listen when they respond, and try to remember what they say.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not good at this. I dare to instruct on this matter only because, as a learner rather than as a master, I have to break down into doable chunks the features of gracious behavior that good people know instinctively and practice so effortlessly that they are not aware of it and cannot it explain to you.
I also instruct because I have been privileged to observe some excellent role models.
Before my wife met my brother Dave I warned her, "He will probably interview you." By that I meant that he would ask her lots and lots of questions for no other reason than to get to know her better. He does that to people because he is genuinely interested in them. Something I've noticed too: by being interested in other people and acquiring through questions massive amounts of information about them, you become a more interesting person yourself. Dave is interesting.
My mother was interesting too. At her funeral 10 years ago my friend Bill said to me, "Your mother would talk to high school sophomores as though their opinions really mattered." By reflecting on table-talk from my youth I saw he was right. Mom often did not seem to realize that she was a grownup with authority to pontificate but no obligation to listen. Like a curious peer she would ask my friends things and probe them with follow-up questions, and if she argued it was just a sign that she was taking them seriously.
I know that it is hard to elicit responses from some people. Maybe they just don't want to talk, or maybe they have nothing to say. After a few of their monosyllables it might be best to let them get back to their earphones.
For the rest, try to think of something to ask. Here's a question for any occasion: "Which would you rather be, an ostrich or a penguin?" If you ask that of an interesting person you may get a thoughtful response that reveals the hidden depths of a delightful personality. I'm afraid though that if you ask it of me I'll just look at you blankly and say, "What kind of stupid question is that?"
In my last post on this topic I said that gracious people answer your questions directly and sincerely. Recently I noticed something else: gracious people ask you questions. They're interested in what you have to say.
What brought this to mind what was a situation where my wife and I sat at the kitchen table and listened to one person speak for a very, very long time. During a brief intermission my lovely wife - as gracious a woman as the sun has ever risen upon - confessed to me that she was going nuts. Then afterward she begged me to shoot her if advancing years ever turned her into a monologist.
What I noticed mainly was that the person who was talking to us never once asked us a question.
If people know a lot about you, but you know little about them, it may be because you have been filling them in with details about your life and thoughts and opinions and dreams without ever stopping to ask about theirs. Start asking them some questions. Then listen when they respond, and try to remember what they say.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not good at this. I dare to instruct on this matter only because, as a learner rather than as a master, I have to break down into doable chunks the features of gracious behavior that good people know instinctively and practice so effortlessly that they are not aware of it and cannot it explain to you.
I also instruct because I have been privileged to observe some excellent role models.
Before my wife met my brother Dave I warned her, "He will probably interview you." By that I meant that he would ask her lots and lots of questions for no other reason than to get to know her better. He does that to people because he is genuinely interested in them. Something I've noticed too: by being interested in other people and acquiring through questions massive amounts of information about them, you become a more interesting person yourself. Dave is interesting.
My mother was interesting too. At her funeral 10 years ago my friend Bill said to me, "Your mother would talk to high school sophomores as though their opinions really mattered." By reflecting on table-talk from my youth I saw he was right. Mom often did not seem to realize that she was a grownup with authority to pontificate but no obligation to listen. Like a curious peer she would ask my friends things and probe them with follow-up questions, and if she argued it was just a sign that she was taking them seriously.
I know that it is hard to elicit responses from some people. Maybe they just don't want to talk, or maybe they have nothing to say. After a few of their monosyllables it might be best to let them get back to their earphones.
For the rest, try to think of something to ask. Here's a question for any occasion: "Which would you rather be, an ostrich or a penguin?" If you ask that of an interesting person you may get a thoughtful response that reveals the hidden depths of a delightful personality. I'm afraid though that if you ask it of me I'll just look at you blankly and say, "What kind of stupid question is that?"
Friday, December 9, 2011
December 18, 2011: True Fear Waits
In her book "Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns," Wheaton College Communications professor Christine Gardner maintains that True Love Waits and similar evangelical abstinence programs "are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, 'If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married.'"
Gardner has a point. I imagine that some abstinence campaigners might object to her blunt summary of their rhetoric, but she backs up her claim with research. To be fair to all, it is not a bad thing to make known the data that indicate that, generally, the people who are happiest sexually are those who didn't sleep around before marriage and who are faithful within it. Just as long as everyone keeps in mind that "statistically favorable" does not mean "divinely certain," and that individual results may vary. Some fornicators are very happy, and some godly people chafe under perceived crosses of abstinence and faithfulness.
But there is one thing that evangelicals never talk about as a motivation for pre-marital chastity - at least in my limited experience and observation. We don't talk about being afraid of God. We don't even talk about righteous fear when speaking to ourselves in church environments where we don't need to worry much about offending outsiders. Fear as a motive for obedience is the great taboo.
I take that back - I do know two preachers who regularly mention fear as a motivator in their sermons, but only to condemn it as something that should not move us to obey. These preachers like to couple pride with fear and denounce both as reasons for submitting to the will of God. As one said recently, "Pride and fear will always hinder you from being filled with the Spirit, and will always hinder you from doing the work of God...The gospel cancels out the pride and fear that fills the hearts of men and women."
When I hear pride - a damnable motivator for obedience - linked so fatuously with fear - a godly and biblical one - I feel despair, and lament the sad state of preaching in our churches. I also want to give these preachers a homework assignment: go look up occurrences of phobos, phobeomai ("fear" as noun and verb) in your Greek Bible and read them in context. Then repent of your homiletic sin, and confess to your congregations that you have misled them week after week in sermon after sermon.
A good place to start when exhorting Christians to sexual purity is Hebrews 13:4: "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure." Why? Why should I maintain my purity? Because if I do I will be happier sexually in the long run? Even if that is true, it is an argument the Bible never makes. What the Bible says instead - read the rest of the verse! - is, "For God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Now there's motivation for you. God judges immoral people. If you are immoral (or contemplating immorality), you should be afraid of God's judgment.
The Bible teaches what many preachers today refuse to acknowledge and never tell their congregations - perhaps (ghastly thought!) because they do not really believe it themselves: sexual immorality is one of those sins that provoke the wrath of God. Colossians 3:5-6 says, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming."
The wrath of God referred to here is not manifested in merely temporary things like unfulfilled sex lives or broken relationships or sexually transmitted diseases. It is much more serious than that. God's anger, when brought to bear on an individual, means banishment from his presence. It means being shut out of his realm, or kingdom. Ephesians 5:5-6 says that no immoral person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and that because of such sin, "God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and Galatians 5:9-10 likewise say that immoral people will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Revelation 21:8 specifies that fornicators are among those whose "place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
If you do not fear the fiery lake of burning sulfur and the God who can throw you there, then I'm afraid you are too much of a fool for the Word to benefit you. You must start fearing God. The Bible says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). It may not be the end of wisdom, but it sure as hell is the beginning of it. Preachers who reject fear as a motivation undermine a crucial support that helps bear the weight of godliness. Like blind Samson they push against a strong pillar, and they should not be surprised when the roof collapses around them and leaves a vast wreckage of sexual immorality. By telling sinners not to be afraid they are actually encouraging them to disobey a command of Christ: "Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." (Luke 12:5).
That commandment, and others like it, have been sapped of their power by some teachers who like to maintain that "fear" does not really mean "fear": it just means "respect," or "revere," or "honor." But these softer translations do not withstand scrutiny of the words in the original languages. "Fear" was the right word in the first place. For example, in many passages the Greek word for fear is coupled with physical trembling (see literal translations of 1 Corinthians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 7:15; Ephesians 6:5; Philippians 2:12). In the passage above where Jesus commands his disciples to fear God, he tells them, "Do not fear those who can merely kill the body." Jesus is not telling his disciples "Don't respect or honor authorities who can kill the body": far be it from Jesus to counsel disrespect of worldly authorities! (See 1 Timothy 2:1-3; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17.) No, he meant literally "Do not be afraid of them." They're not the ones who should make you tremble and shake: God is.
So to make this practical:
The next time your boyfriend or girlfriend or date wants to sleep with you without marrying you, say to him or her, "No. I've repented of that. I can't do that any more." And if you are asked why, say, "Because I'm afraid of God sending me to hell."
In her book "Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns," Wheaton College Communications professor Christine Gardner maintains that True Love Waits and similar evangelical abstinence programs "are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, 'If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married.'"
Gardner has a point. I imagine that some abstinence campaigners might object to her blunt summary of their rhetoric, but she backs up her claim with research. To be fair to all, it is not a bad thing to make known the data that indicate that, generally, the people who are happiest sexually are those who didn't sleep around before marriage and who are faithful within it. Just as long as everyone keeps in mind that "statistically favorable" does not mean "divinely certain," and that individual results may vary. Some fornicators are very happy, and some godly people chafe under perceived crosses of abstinence and faithfulness.
But there is one thing that evangelicals never talk about as a motivation for pre-marital chastity - at least in my limited experience and observation. We don't talk about being afraid of God. We don't even talk about righteous fear when speaking to ourselves in church environments where we don't need to worry much about offending outsiders. Fear as a motive for obedience is the great taboo.
I take that back - I do know two preachers who regularly mention fear as a motivator in their sermons, but only to condemn it as something that should not move us to obey. These preachers like to couple pride with fear and denounce both as reasons for submitting to the will of God. As one said recently, "Pride and fear will always hinder you from being filled with the Spirit, and will always hinder you from doing the work of God...The gospel cancels out the pride and fear that fills the hearts of men and women."
When I hear pride - a damnable motivator for obedience - linked so fatuously with fear - a godly and biblical one - I feel despair, and lament the sad state of preaching in our churches. I also want to give these preachers a homework assignment: go look up occurrences of phobos, phobeomai ("fear" as noun and verb) in your Greek Bible and read them in context. Then repent of your homiletic sin, and confess to your congregations that you have misled them week after week in sermon after sermon.
A good place to start when exhorting Christians to sexual purity is Hebrews 13:4: "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure." Why? Why should I maintain my purity? Because if I do I will be happier sexually in the long run? Even if that is true, it is an argument the Bible never makes. What the Bible says instead - read the rest of the verse! - is, "For God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Now there's motivation for you. God judges immoral people. If you are immoral (or contemplating immorality), you should be afraid of God's judgment.
The Bible teaches what many preachers today refuse to acknowledge and never tell their congregations - perhaps (ghastly thought!) because they do not really believe it themselves: sexual immorality is one of those sins that provoke the wrath of God. Colossians 3:5-6 says, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming."
The wrath of God referred to here is not manifested in merely temporary things like unfulfilled sex lives or broken relationships or sexually transmitted diseases. It is much more serious than that. God's anger, when brought to bear on an individual, means banishment from his presence. It means being shut out of his realm, or kingdom. Ephesians 5:5-6 says that no immoral person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and that because of such sin, "God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and Galatians 5:9-10 likewise say that immoral people will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Revelation 21:8 specifies that fornicators are among those whose "place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
If you do not fear the fiery lake of burning sulfur and the God who can throw you there, then I'm afraid you are too much of a fool for the Word to benefit you. You must start fearing God. The Bible says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). It may not be the end of wisdom, but it sure as hell is the beginning of it. Preachers who reject fear as a motivation undermine a crucial support that helps bear the weight of godliness. Like blind Samson they push against a strong pillar, and they should not be surprised when the roof collapses around them and leaves a vast wreckage of sexual immorality. By telling sinners not to be afraid they are actually encouraging them to disobey a command of Christ: "Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." (Luke 12:5).
That commandment, and others like it, have been sapped of their power by some teachers who like to maintain that "fear" does not really mean "fear": it just means "respect," or "revere," or "honor." But these softer translations do not withstand scrutiny of the words in the original languages. "Fear" was the right word in the first place. For example, in many passages the Greek word for fear is coupled with physical trembling (see literal translations of 1 Corinthians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 7:15; Ephesians 6:5; Philippians 2:12). In the passage above where Jesus commands his disciples to fear God, he tells them, "Do not fear those who can merely kill the body." Jesus is not telling his disciples "Don't respect or honor authorities who can kill the body": far be it from Jesus to counsel disrespect of worldly authorities! (See 1 Timothy 2:1-3; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17.) No, he meant literally "Do not be afraid of them." They're not the ones who should make you tremble and shake: God is.
So to make this practical:
The next time your boyfriend or girlfriend or date wants to sleep with you without marrying you, say to him or her, "No. I've repented of that. I can't do that any more." And if you are asked why, say, "Because I'm afraid of God sending me to hell."
Sunday, December 4, 2011
December 4, 2011: Even Jesus Had To Learn Obedience
Some verses in the book of Hebrews sound a little strange to those of us who have an orthodox view of Jesus' moral nature. Hebrews 5:8 says "he learned obedience from what he suffered." What? Learned obedience? Wasn't he always obedient? How can you learn something that you already know and practice perfectly? And Hebrews 2:10 says it was fitting that God "should make the author of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering." Make him perfect? Wasn't Jesus already perfect? When was he ever imperfect?
To understand these passages I think it is helpful to distinguish between sinlessness and perfection.
The Bible definitely maintains that Jesus was always sinless:
2 Corinthians 5:21:
God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 John 3:5:
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22:
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.
(It's worth noting in passing that Paul, John and Peter each expressed Jesus' sinlessness in ways appropriate to their writing and character. Paul the scholar said that Jesus "knew" no sin. John, who liked to speak in broad categories about ways of being, said "in him" was no sin. And Peter, man of action, said he "committed" no sin.)
Sinlessness means simply to be without sin, to have violated no righteous command, to have done no evil. Newborn babies are sinless because they haven't done anything wrong yet. If we call a baby a "sinner" we only mean it in an ontological sense: we mean that the baby has inherited a sinful nature that will soon manifest itself in actual works of disobedience. A baby is like an acorn which has no leaves but does have the DNA to sprout them in due time. It will take a few months for bald acorns and sinless babies to start churning out massive amounts of foliage and iniquity.
In contrast, Jesus remained sinless all his life. He never committed even his first sin. But that does not mean he was always perfect. Perfection - in the sense implied by the Greek word that we translate "perfect" - does not mean "without error" so much as it does "mature," "fully developed," "grown to fulfillment of the intended state." The word in Greek was used to describe a piece of fruit that we would call "ripe." A young fruit, even if it has no worms, blotches or deformities ("sins"!), would never be called "perfect" simply because it is not yet big enough and sweet enough to be picked.
While "sinless" means without sin, "perfect" means much more: it means to be in a state where one has acquired all virtue and resisted all vice. That takes time. No one can be called "perfect" or "mature" until he is old enough to have encountered many temptations and resisted them, and to have seen many opportunities to do good and taken advantage of them.
Please note in the verses above in Hebrews what God used in order to ripen Jesus into perfect obedience. He used suffering. Jesus learned obedience not through things that brought him joy but through things that brought him pain. If this was true of the sinless Son of God, how much more true is it of creatures whose "righteousness is as filthy rags"? We cannot be good except that we suffer. It is virtuous, for example, to respond to cruelty with kindness. But how can we ever know and practice this virtue fully until someone is mean to us, lies about us, treats us contemptuously, laughs at us, lays in ruin all our prospects for joy?
Grievous trials have been allowed to come into your life, in part, in order to make you perfect. If you would be like Christ, you must let them ripen you rather than poison you.
Some verses in the book of Hebrews sound a little strange to those of us who have an orthodox view of Jesus' moral nature. Hebrews 5:8 says "he learned obedience from what he suffered." What? Learned obedience? Wasn't he always obedient? How can you learn something that you already know and practice perfectly? And Hebrews 2:10 says it was fitting that God "should make the author of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering." Make him perfect? Wasn't Jesus already perfect? When was he ever imperfect?
To understand these passages I think it is helpful to distinguish between sinlessness and perfection.
The Bible definitely maintains that Jesus was always sinless:
2 Corinthians 5:21:
God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 John 3:5:
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22:
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.
(It's worth noting in passing that Paul, John and Peter each expressed Jesus' sinlessness in ways appropriate to their writing and character. Paul the scholar said that Jesus "knew" no sin. John, who liked to speak in broad categories about ways of being, said "in him" was no sin. And Peter, man of action, said he "committed" no sin.)
Sinlessness means simply to be without sin, to have violated no righteous command, to have done no evil. Newborn babies are sinless because they haven't done anything wrong yet. If we call a baby a "sinner" we only mean it in an ontological sense: we mean that the baby has inherited a sinful nature that will soon manifest itself in actual works of disobedience. A baby is like an acorn which has no leaves but does have the DNA to sprout them in due time. It will take a few months for bald acorns and sinless babies to start churning out massive amounts of foliage and iniquity.
In contrast, Jesus remained sinless all his life. He never committed even his first sin. But that does not mean he was always perfect. Perfection - in the sense implied by the Greek word that we translate "perfect" - does not mean "without error" so much as it does "mature," "fully developed," "grown to fulfillment of the intended state." The word in Greek was used to describe a piece of fruit that we would call "ripe." A young fruit, even if it has no worms, blotches or deformities ("sins"!), would never be called "perfect" simply because it is not yet big enough and sweet enough to be picked.
While "sinless" means without sin, "perfect" means much more: it means to be in a state where one has acquired all virtue and resisted all vice. That takes time. No one can be called "perfect" or "mature" until he is old enough to have encountered many temptations and resisted them, and to have seen many opportunities to do good and taken advantage of them.
Please note in the verses above in Hebrews what God used in order to ripen Jesus into perfect obedience. He used suffering. Jesus learned obedience not through things that brought him joy but through things that brought him pain. If this was true of the sinless Son of God, how much more true is it of creatures whose "righteousness is as filthy rags"? We cannot be good except that we suffer. It is virtuous, for example, to respond to cruelty with kindness. But how can we ever know and practice this virtue fully until someone is mean to us, lies about us, treats us contemptuously, laughs at us, lays in ruin all our prospects for joy?
Grievous trials have been allowed to come into your life, in part, in order to make you perfect. If you would be like Christ, you must let them ripen you rather than poison you.
Friday, October 28, 2011
November 24, 2011: Can An Act Of Self-Interest Be Called "Forgiveness"?
Some years ago my friend Doug Schmidt wrote a book on forgiveness and sent the galley proofs to Lewis Smedes, author of Forgive And Forget: Healing The Hurts We Don't Deserve. Smedes suggested that Doug include in his final draft some mention of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When South Africa emerged from apartheid, truth commissions were established in the mid 1990s wherein perpetrators of atrocities - even murder - could confess crimes they had committed under the old regime and receive amnesty. Smedes celebrated these commissions as examples of Christian forgiveness.
But were they? In a recent article on the assassination of Moammar Gaddafi ("Libyan Crossfire," Washington Post, Oct 27, 2011) Charles Krauthammer mentions in passing that South African forgiveness was granted in order to avoid civil unrest. He writes, "In...post-apartheid South Africa, it was decided that full justice — punishing the guilty — would be sacrificed in order to preserve the fragile social peace of the new democracy. The former oppressors having agreed to a peaceful relinquishing of power, full justice might have ignited renewed civil strife. Therefore, [this infant democracy] settled for mere truth: a meticulous accounting of the crimes of the previous regime. In return for truthful testimony, perpetrators were given amnesty."
Is that forgiveness? Something seems wrong. If I kill my neighbor in the US in 2011, I get lethal injection or life in prison. But if I raid a shantytown in South Africa in 1982 and kill a black man, all I have to do is say, "Yep, I did it," in 1995, and I get off scot-free? What accounts for the difference between the ways the two cases of murder are handled? Is it really because African Amnesty 1995 manifests grace, mercy, compassion and forgiveness while American Justice 2011 runs roughshod over these virtues? Should our system be more like theirs?
Nonsense. Generally it is right to punish murderers, and it is an abuse of justice to let them go. The exception is when we see that just punishment will result in more pain for us. Then we grant amnesty, though not from the goodness in our hearts so much as from the wisdom in our brains. It is folly to pursue justice at the cost of riots and retaliation and bloodshed. So we calculate consequences and act as righteous counterparts to Pontius Pilate, who condemned a man he knew to be innocent in order to avoid public mayhem. We release men we know to be guilty for the same reason.
Please do not misunderstand - I am not saying that the South African truth commissions did the wrong thing. They did the right, wise and best thing. They even gave the world a model for how to manage painful national transition without upheaval. But let us not put noble labels ("forgiveness," "mercy," "Christian reconciliation") on travesties of justice done mainly to benefit victims. True forgiveness is not quite so self-serving.
I think we often congratulate ourselves (or praise others) for acts of forgiveness whose real motive is mere self-interest. Nearly 20 years ago my guileless mother said she admired Hillary Clinton for the way she forgave Bill and preserved her marriage despite his infidelities. Hmmm. Well. It would not be right for me to say that I know what was in Hillary's heart. But perhaps it is permissible to leave some room for the cynical speculation that the grace she extended to her husband involved a shrewdly calculated plan to keep her own aspirations alive. Would she have forgiven him if he were a warehouse laborer incapable of furthering her eventual career as first lady, senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state? If so, then I take back my unseemly doubts about her motive and confess that Mom was right: Hillary Clinton is an extraordinarily gracious and magnanimous woman.
It is not hard, though, to find some pretty obvious examples of phony forgiveness that cry "fraud!" right in our faces. Consider sports. A college athlete runs afoul of the law, and Coach, after some necessary discipline, reinstates him with fatherly rhetoric about everyone deserving a second chance. Left unsaid is the fact that the athlete has a 40 inch vertical leap, runs the 40 in 4.4 seconds, and can probably help the team win enough games to keep Coach from getting fired.
Please forgive me for finding an especially giddy example of self-serving pardon in the depraved muck of South Park. In one episode Kenny's friends warn him that his new girlfriend is impure - they have heard that she gave certain satisfaction to a former boyfriend. Kenny responds not with dismay but with ecstasy over the prospect that he might be the next target of her favors. When he sees her next, she tearfully acknowledges that the rumor is true, and asks him, "Can you ever forgive me?" Barely able to contain his glee he puts a comforting arm around her shoulder: Of course darling. Of course I forgive you.
In recent years I have noticed in many evangelical sermons that the motive of self-interest for forgiveness is not merely tolerated or winked at but positively extolled. The reason we are supposed to forgive is because of the benefit we will receive. We'll get peace of mind and a joyful spirit and a release from bitterness if only we forgive those who have wronged us. Smedes concluded one of his sermons on forgiveness by saying, "The first person who gets the benefit of forgiving is always the person who does the forgiving. When you forgive a person who wronged you, you set a prisoner free, and then you discover that the prisoner you set free is you...When you forgive, you heal the hurts you never should have felt in the first place. So if you have been hurt and feel miserable about it, our Lord himself recommends forgiving as the only way to healing. I hope that you will try it for yourself."
Smedes is wrong. Jesus never recommended forgiveness as a way to heal your hurts. He commanded it as a way to please God and release others from their indebtedness to you. Smedes' notion of forgiveness is so severely twisted back on itself that the offending party becomes - in some cases - an irrelevance. For Smedes and other preachers I have heard, forgiveness is so much a matter of me getting my peace of mind that it does not even matter if the offender is alive or dead! A couple years ago I heard a well-known evangelical pastor tell his listeners that they must forgive people who abused them as children even if the abusers died unrepentant many years ago. What this preacher fails to understand is that "forgive" does not mean "get over your feelings of bitterness and resentment" but rather "release an offender from the obligations of his indebtedness." Forgiving the dead, then, is neither right nor wrong but simply nonsensical. It is like visiting a graveyard and saying to a corpse buried beneath the tombstone (and I suppose you had better shout pretty loudly), "You know that 100 bucks you owe me? You don't have to pay it back!"
Protestant Christians in particular may understand this point better if it is explained that we are to forgive people under the same kinds of conditions and circumstances that we would pray for them. Ask a Protestant why he never prays for the dead, and he might say (among other things), "Because it can't do them any good." Right then - so, what possible good can it do them to forgive them? None at all, of course. In a case like this, all the benefit of forgiveness goes to the forgiver and none whatsoever to the party forgiven. But to call an act so self-centered and self-focused "forgiveness" is to poison that high and noble word. We are commanded to forgive as God forgives us (Colossians 3:13). When God pardons us, we are the beneficiaries, not he. God will do just fine with or without us, thank you very much. He does not forgive us in order to free himself from the shackles of bitterness that ruin his day and leave him feeling grumpy. He forgives in order to bless us with wholly undeserved favor that cancels our debt and enables our everlasting joy.
Forgive others for their sake, not yours. Let whatever benefit you receive in consequence be a side effect rather than a goal.
The temptation among evangelical believers to frame the topic of forgiveness in terms of self-benefit is part of a much larger problem these days where nearly all the commands of God seem to be held at bay until we can get an answer to the question, "What's in it for me?". Then, only when we know we can defend obedience on the grounds of rational self-interest do we feel safe urging others to submit to God's will. In all the Christian literature promoting abstinence, for example, I dare you to find even one article whose main argument is "Fornication displeases God" rather than "Abstinence is good for you!" Lord willing I'll write more about that larger issue some day.
If you would like to pursue some further thoughts on forgiveness, please see the blog posts for October 27, November 3, and November 10 of 2009. As always, I welcome comments and interaction.
Some years ago my friend Doug Schmidt wrote a book on forgiveness and sent the galley proofs to Lewis Smedes, author of Forgive And Forget: Healing The Hurts We Don't Deserve. Smedes suggested that Doug include in his final draft some mention of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When South Africa emerged from apartheid, truth commissions were established in the mid 1990s wherein perpetrators of atrocities - even murder - could confess crimes they had committed under the old regime and receive amnesty. Smedes celebrated these commissions as examples of Christian forgiveness.
But were they? In a recent article on the assassination of Moammar Gaddafi ("Libyan Crossfire," Washington Post, Oct 27, 2011) Charles Krauthammer mentions in passing that South African forgiveness was granted in order to avoid civil unrest. He writes, "In...post-apartheid South Africa, it was decided that full justice — punishing the guilty — would be sacrificed in order to preserve the fragile social peace of the new democracy. The former oppressors having agreed to a peaceful relinquishing of power, full justice might have ignited renewed civil strife. Therefore, [this infant democracy] settled for mere truth: a meticulous accounting of the crimes of the previous regime. In return for truthful testimony, perpetrators were given amnesty."
Is that forgiveness? Something seems wrong. If I kill my neighbor in the US in 2011, I get lethal injection or life in prison. But if I raid a shantytown in South Africa in 1982 and kill a black man, all I have to do is say, "Yep, I did it," in 1995, and I get off scot-free? What accounts for the difference between the ways the two cases of murder are handled? Is it really because African Amnesty 1995 manifests grace, mercy, compassion and forgiveness while American Justice 2011 runs roughshod over these virtues? Should our system be more like theirs?
Nonsense. Generally it is right to punish murderers, and it is an abuse of justice to let them go. The exception is when we see that just punishment will result in more pain for us. Then we grant amnesty, though not from the goodness in our hearts so much as from the wisdom in our brains. It is folly to pursue justice at the cost of riots and retaliation and bloodshed. So we calculate consequences and act as righteous counterparts to Pontius Pilate, who condemned a man he knew to be innocent in order to avoid public mayhem. We release men we know to be guilty for the same reason.
Please do not misunderstand - I am not saying that the South African truth commissions did the wrong thing. They did the right, wise and best thing. They even gave the world a model for how to manage painful national transition without upheaval. But let us not put noble labels ("forgiveness," "mercy," "Christian reconciliation") on travesties of justice done mainly to benefit victims. True forgiveness is not quite so self-serving.
I think we often congratulate ourselves (or praise others) for acts of forgiveness whose real motive is mere self-interest. Nearly 20 years ago my guileless mother said she admired Hillary Clinton for the way she forgave Bill and preserved her marriage despite his infidelities. Hmmm. Well. It would not be right for me to say that I know what was in Hillary's heart. But perhaps it is permissible to leave some room for the cynical speculation that the grace she extended to her husband involved a shrewdly calculated plan to keep her own aspirations alive. Would she have forgiven him if he were a warehouse laborer incapable of furthering her eventual career as first lady, senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state? If so, then I take back my unseemly doubts about her motive and confess that Mom was right: Hillary Clinton is an extraordinarily gracious and magnanimous woman.
It is not hard, though, to find some pretty obvious examples of phony forgiveness that cry "fraud!" right in our faces. Consider sports. A college athlete runs afoul of the law, and Coach, after some necessary discipline, reinstates him with fatherly rhetoric about everyone deserving a second chance. Left unsaid is the fact that the athlete has a 40 inch vertical leap, runs the 40 in 4.4 seconds, and can probably help the team win enough games to keep Coach from getting fired.
Please forgive me for finding an especially giddy example of self-serving pardon in the depraved muck of South Park. In one episode Kenny's friends warn him that his new girlfriend is impure - they have heard that she gave certain satisfaction to a former boyfriend. Kenny responds not with dismay but with ecstasy over the prospect that he might be the next target of her favors. When he sees her next, she tearfully acknowledges that the rumor is true, and asks him, "Can you ever forgive me?" Barely able to contain his glee he puts a comforting arm around her shoulder: Of course darling. Of course I forgive you.
In recent years I have noticed in many evangelical sermons that the motive of self-interest for forgiveness is not merely tolerated or winked at but positively extolled. The reason we are supposed to forgive is because of the benefit we will receive. We'll get peace of mind and a joyful spirit and a release from bitterness if only we forgive those who have wronged us. Smedes concluded one of his sermons on forgiveness by saying, "The first person who gets the benefit of forgiving is always the person who does the forgiving. When you forgive a person who wronged you, you set a prisoner free, and then you discover that the prisoner you set free is you...When you forgive, you heal the hurts you never should have felt in the first place. So if you have been hurt and feel miserable about it, our Lord himself recommends forgiving as the only way to healing. I hope that you will try it for yourself."
Smedes is wrong. Jesus never recommended forgiveness as a way to heal your hurts. He commanded it as a way to please God and release others from their indebtedness to you. Smedes' notion of forgiveness is so severely twisted back on itself that the offending party becomes - in some cases - an irrelevance. For Smedes and other preachers I have heard, forgiveness is so much a matter of me getting my peace of mind that it does not even matter if the offender is alive or dead! A couple years ago I heard a well-known evangelical pastor tell his listeners that they must forgive people who abused them as children even if the abusers died unrepentant many years ago. What this preacher fails to understand is that "forgive" does not mean "get over your feelings of bitterness and resentment" but rather "release an offender from the obligations of his indebtedness." Forgiving the dead, then, is neither right nor wrong but simply nonsensical. It is like visiting a graveyard and saying to a corpse buried beneath the tombstone (and I suppose you had better shout pretty loudly), "You know that 100 bucks you owe me? You don't have to pay it back!"
Protestant Christians in particular may understand this point better if it is explained that we are to forgive people under the same kinds of conditions and circumstances that we would pray for them. Ask a Protestant why he never prays for the dead, and he might say (among other things), "Because it can't do them any good." Right then - so, what possible good can it do them to forgive them? None at all, of course. In a case like this, all the benefit of forgiveness goes to the forgiver and none whatsoever to the party forgiven. But to call an act so self-centered and self-focused "forgiveness" is to poison that high and noble word. We are commanded to forgive as God forgives us (Colossians 3:13). When God pardons us, we are the beneficiaries, not he. God will do just fine with or without us, thank you very much. He does not forgive us in order to free himself from the shackles of bitterness that ruin his day and leave him feeling grumpy. He forgives in order to bless us with wholly undeserved favor that cancels our debt and enables our everlasting joy.
Forgive others for their sake, not yours. Let whatever benefit you receive in consequence be a side effect rather than a goal.
The temptation among evangelical believers to frame the topic of forgiveness in terms of self-benefit is part of a much larger problem these days where nearly all the commands of God seem to be held at bay until we can get an answer to the question, "What's in it for me?". Then, only when we know we can defend obedience on the grounds of rational self-interest do we feel safe urging others to submit to God's will. In all the Christian literature promoting abstinence, for example, I dare you to find even one article whose main argument is "Fornication displeases God" rather than "Abstinence is good for you!" Lord willing I'll write more about that larger issue some day.
If you would like to pursue some further thoughts on forgiveness, please see the blog posts for October 27, November 3, and November 10 of 2009. As always, I welcome comments and interaction.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Graciousness 5: Just Answer The Question
(A continuation of the series Graciousness 1-4, March 24-April 21, 2009)
The other day I caught myself doing something I hate, though oddly I can't remember exactly what it was. But I remember the gist well enough to write this as a rebuke to myself and as a warning to you to avoid my mistake.
What happened was my wife asked me a question and I answered it - or thought I did. The question and the answer are gone from my memory. It was something very simple like, "Do you know if it is going to rain today?" and I answered something like, "I left the umbrella in the car." That is, instead of answering her question, I intuited a reason behind it, and responded to that. You're asking about rain because you want to know where I put the umbrella. But I was wrong - she was asking for some other reason. If I had simply told her "Yes, it's supposed to rain," or, "No, I think it's supposed to be sunny," then it would have saved her the bother of asking a follow-up question or having to explain her motive.
Some time ago I began to notice that rude, hostile, arrogant, or passive-aggressive people almost never give simple answers to simple questions. Instead they use other people's questions as opportunities to take offense, give offense, show off, demean, express irritation, or heap scorn. Often they will "read the mind" of the questioner in order to tell him what they think he really needed to know. Don't be like that. Let your replies to simple, straightforward questions be simple and straightforward. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
(Of course, it goes without saying that some questions actually expect you to intuit the reason for them. If someone asks, "Do you know where the restroom is?" it would be rude to say "Yes" and leave it at that. I'm not talking about those kinds of things.)
One of my least favorite non-answers is, "You already asked me that!" This is an especially cruel thing to say to an elderly person, or to anyone who fears that his mind or memory are unstable. Yes, I may have asked you before. Please just tell me again as though I were asking you for the first time. It hurts to be reminded that I can't hold on to thoughts the way I used to.
Perhaps you know someone (Lord love you if you are married to one of these!) who responds to a question like, "What time is it?" with
- "You asked me that 10 minutes ago."
- "Is your watch broken?"
- [Silence. She heard you, but is pretending not to.]
- "It doesn't matter if we're late."
- "I thought you got a watch for Christmas."
- "Why do you always have to be so concerned about the time?"
- "They're already closed."
Etcetera. If you ever catch yourself responding like that, stop, repent, and say (in a pleasant tone of voice), "It's 7:15."
To this day I can recall the horror I felt in sixth grade when poor Ricky, a classmate, asked the teacher why, if the sun was a star, we didn't see it at night with the other stars. Rather than answering simply, Mr. Rossi sighed loudly and ridiculed him for asking such a stupid question. He brought Ricky up in front of the class, stood him in front of a globe and spoke in exasperated tones that brought tears to Ricky's eyes and laughter from the class. I believe Ricky learned the lesson, "If confused, don't ask Mr. Rossi."
Be the kind of person who gives such simple and gracious answers that people feel comfortable asking you anything.
The other day I caught myself doing something I hate, though oddly I can't remember exactly what it was. But I remember the gist well enough to write this as a rebuke to myself and as a warning to you to avoid my mistake.
What happened was my wife asked me a question and I answered it - or thought I did. The question and the answer are gone from my memory. It was something very simple like, "Do you know if it is going to rain today?" and I answered something like, "I left the umbrella in the car." That is, instead of answering her question, I intuited a reason behind it, and responded to that. You're asking about rain because you want to know where I put the umbrella. But I was wrong - she was asking for some other reason. If I had simply told her "Yes, it's supposed to rain," or, "No, I think it's supposed to be sunny," then it would have saved her the bother of asking a follow-up question or having to explain her motive.
Some time ago I began to notice that rude, hostile, arrogant, or passive-aggressive people almost never give simple answers to simple questions. Instead they use other people's questions as opportunities to take offense, give offense, show off, demean, express irritation, or heap scorn. Often they will "read the mind" of the questioner in order to tell him what they think he really needed to know. Don't be like that. Let your replies to simple, straightforward questions be simple and straightforward. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
(Of course, it goes without saying that some questions actually expect you to intuit the reason for them. If someone asks, "Do you know where the restroom is?" it would be rude to say "Yes" and leave it at that. I'm not talking about those kinds of things.)
One of my least favorite non-answers is, "You already asked me that!" This is an especially cruel thing to say to an elderly person, or to anyone who fears that his mind or memory are unstable. Yes, I may have asked you before. Please just tell me again as though I were asking you for the first time. It hurts to be reminded that I can't hold on to thoughts the way I used to.
Perhaps you know someone (Lord love you if you are married to one of these!) who responds to a question like, "What time is it?" with
- "You asked me that 10 minutes ago."
- "Is your watch broken?"
- [Silence. She heard you, but is pretending not to.]
- "It doesn't matter if we're late."
- "I thought you got a watch for Christmas."
- "Why do you always have to be so concerned about the time?"
- "They're already closed."
Etcetera. If you ever catch yourself responding like that, stop, repent, and say (in a pleasant tone of voice), "It's 7:15."
To this day I can recall the horror I felt in sixth grade when poor Ricky, a classmate, asked the teacher why, if the sun was a star, we didn't see it at night with the other stars. Rather than answering simply, Mr. Rossi sighed loudly and ridiculed him for asking such a stupid question. He brought Ricky up in front of the class, stood him in front of a globe and spoke in exasperated tones that brought tears to Ricky's eyes and laughter from the class. I believe Ricky learned the lesson, "If confused, don't ask Mr. Rossi."
Be the kind of person who gives such simple and gracious answers that people feel comfortable asking you anything.
Friday, April 22, 2011
April 27, 2011: Perhaps The Three Best-Spent Hours Of Your Life
Last week I promised to guide you to a good preacher whose sermons you can get online. His name is D.A. Carson, professor of New Testament at Trinity International University. I had the privilege of attending some classes he taught at Trinity years ago. You will not find a more knowledgeable or accurate teacher of the Bible anywhere.
There are few better ways to spend three hours of your life than by listening to three messages by Carson, "What Is The Gospel And How Does It Work?" Parts 1, 2 and 3. They're available at thegospelcoalition.org. I'm afraid I don't know how (or if it is possible) to create a link on this blog, so I'll simply write out for you the full web addresses of these sermons. They are:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_1_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_2_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_3_of_3
You will also benefit from his lecture on suffering at
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/how_can_a_good_god_allow_suffering
Anyone who reads my blog will quickly detect my zeal for accurate preaching. I admit my standards are high. But Carson meets the standards of holier men and wiser teachers and more exacting scholars than I will ever be. If I can succeed in moving someone to listen to his sermons, my joy will be like that of getting somebody to read works by C.S. Lewis or George MacDonald. I will feel that by God's grace I have done something good.
Last week I promised to guide you to a good preacher whose sermons you can get online. His name is D.A. Carson, professor of New Testament at Trinity International University. I had the privilege of attending some classes he taught at Trinity years ago. You will not find a more knowledgeable or accurate teacher of the Bible anywhere.
There are few better ways to spend three hours of your life than by listening to three messages by Carson, "What Is The Gospel And How Does It Work?" Parts 1, 2 and 3. They're available at thegospelcoalition.org. I'm afraid I don't know how (or if it is possible) to create a link on this blog, so I'll simply write out for you the full web addresses of these sermons. They are:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_1_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_2_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_3_of_3
You will also benefit from his lecture on suffering at
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/how_can_a_good_god_allow_suffering
Anyone who reads my blog will quickly detect my zeal for accurate preaching. I admit my standards are high. But Carson meets the standards of holier men and wiser teachers and more exacting scholars than I will ever be. If I can succeed in moving someone to listen to his sermons, my joy will be like that of getting somebody to read works by C.S. Lewis or George MacDonald. I will feel that by God's grace I have done something good.
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