Historically Interesting

The other day (the one I wrote my last post on) I stumbled onto an issue, which seems to be a great debating point inside the church-world. My wife and I have done quite a bit of talking about that particular issue (if you want to read about it go here). The comments to my Facebook link are near 100 and are continuing right now (as I write… literally I just saw another notification about it).

This is a world I’m quite familiar with, the one where topics are hotly debated and heretics jump on the chance to have a fight with orthodox Christians (Orthodoxy simply means basic Christian doctrine, the reason orthodox doctrine are basic Christian doctrines are because without them – or even without one of them – we loose the gospel. Things like the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, God as Creator, the virgin birth, heaven and hell’s eternality, the dual nature of Jesus that he is both fully God and fully man among others). But I ignorantly forgot that not all Christians inhabit this world of debates about doctrines.

We don’t all sit around late at night on Facebook or creating websites to advocate for our orthodox or non-orthodox doctrines. We don’t all look at Hebrew and Greek and think, “Ah-ha my point is proven!” only to have the same person comment back for the millionth time. And you might be thinking that is a realm for pastors and kids that still live with mom and don't have jobs, or men in white towers (funny how those last two are in the same sentence).

Yet there is a small child-like faith out there that must be shielded from the wolves of false doctrine by pastors and the kids who love good solid biblical orthodox doctrine and men in white towers. And solid doctrine does not conform to what we want – even, or rather, especially if it hurts - that’s why it’s a shield. It’s cold and is not nice, but what it teaches us is warm and wonderful.

Doctrine teaches us about God, about his character and glory. Good doctrine will always make God scary and glorious, holy and beautiful, loving and vengeful, just and merciful, gracious and tender; it will always end in God getting glory and us getting grace (eternity with him) or exactly what we deserve (eternity in his wrath).

It is always under attack and always being slandered as, “traditionalism”, or “conservatism”, or “the old way of thinking”, or my favorite, “unbiblical.” There’s another swing in history happening, it happened the last time hell was being used to slander God.

Last time is called the Reformation, when the Catholic Church said hell would end if only you paid enough to the Pope; now it is the old re-hashed theory of annihilationism that is coming to town to attack the side of God’s character that is his infinite eternal just wrath on sin.

I’ll end it here for now, but it will be very interesting – I think – to see what becomes of the debate between the orthodox view of hell (the one the Bible clearly teaches) and that of annihilationism. 

John 17's Sermon's End

(Listen to the full sermon here.)

This is the prayer of Jesus for his Church. The Church, the vehicle of God to communicate his great gospel to the people of the dying world; those whom he has chosen out of the world to behold his glory.

You, me, us, we, the Church. Saved, redeemed, sanctified by the sheer grace of God for the glory of God.

Not because we were good enough, smart enough, strong enough, or witty enough; not because of physical beauty or spiritual charm; not because of the way we understand doctrine or study the Scriptures or disciple others; we are not saved by anything we do, say or think.

We, the Church, are saved to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent; To see Jesus’ glory that was given to him by the Father because the Father loved Jesus his Son before the foundations of the world.

So we must see here in the High Priestly prayer that none of this is about us.

It never has been and never will be. The story of redemption is about God. We are the bystanders in our own salvation; we are the dead revived to life by God and for God.

And we should thank God that God is about God! We are now free to hope in him, to have justice in him, to have grace in him, to have freedom in him, to have our refuge be him.

We, men, are not the hope of God and because we are not the hope of God we are free to be free in our radical hope in God.

And so forever we will find out more and more about who God is because God has loved us so much that he has given us himself.

Old Phrase

“Infinite perfections.”

All those dead guys I love to read always use this phrase at some point or another to describe God.

Eventually Jonathan Edwards will drop it (…like it’s hot?) or Calvin will going on and on about how beautiful these “infinite perfections” are, still more Luther will cuss at you while telling you about your stupidity in not seeing the “infinite perfections" of God (Luther is my favorite).

But, I know our language, and I also know we probably aren’t quite sure what to make of a phrase like this.

When I first read it, it was just more words. But now, today, this morning even, they’ve taken on new meaning.

The infinite perfections of God.

He is from first to last utterly perfect. Not a part of his wrath is imperfect. Not a part of his justice is imperfect. Not a part of his grace, mercy, goodness, greatness, grandeur, glory, wonder, splendor, Kingship, wisdom, knowledge, gentleness, kindness, humility, zeal, passion, or love is imperfect.

Think about that. Every bit of every detail of every turn of who God is, is completely and totally perfect - infinite perfections.

Yet still more this quote is deeply true, “We have scarcely begun to see all of God that the Scriptures give us to see, and what we have not seen yet is exceedingly glorious (John Piper).”

Truly what we’ve seen is exceedingly glorious, but what we haven’t seen will add still more and more to the exceeding glory of the infinite perfections of who God is making all of life worthwhile because God is God and we are not.