Hilarious and Somewhat Tragic

"The Digital Story of the Nativity."

The Majesty and Intimacy of the Incarnation

The importance of Jesus' humanity cannot be overestimated, for the issue in the incarnation is soteriological (ie pertains to our salvation). The human problem is the gap between us and God. The gap is, to be sure, ontological.

God is far superior to humans, so much so that he cannot be known by unaided human reason. If he is to be known, God must take initiative to make himself known to humanity.

But the problem is not merely ontological. There also is a spiritual and moral gap between the two, a gap created by humanity's sin. Humans cannot by their own moral effort counter their sin in order to elevate themselves to the level of God. If there is to be fellowship between the two, they have to be united in some other way. This, it is traditionally understood, has been accomplished by the incarnation, in which deity and humanity were united in one person.

If, however, Jesus was not really one of us, humanity has not been united with deity and we cannot be saved.

For the validity of the work accomplished in Christ's death, or at least its applicability to us as human beings, depends upon the reality of his humanity, just as its efficacy depends upon the genuineness of his deity.

Furthermore, Jesus' intercessory ministry depends upon his humanity. If he was truly one of us, experiencing all of the human temptations and trials, then he is able to understand and empathize with us in our struggles as humans.

On the other hand, if he was not human, or only incompletely human, he cannot really intercede as a priest must on behalf of those whom he represents.


-Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd Ed.

Christmas Carols = Bad History, Sometimes Worse Theology

Accepting Imitations

A blog post by Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida and grandson of Billy Graham. It captures the essence of what we have been striving after in our study of Galatians. Freedom from imitations, free to know Christ more fully... Enjoy!

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In his book How People Change (co-authored with Tim Lane), Paul Tripp identifies seven counterfeit gospels– ways we try and “justify” or “save” ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. I found these unbelievably helpful. Which one (or two, or three) of these do you tend to gravitate towards?

Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”

Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

As I said a few months ago in one of my sermons, there are outside-the-church idols and there are inside-the-church idols. It’s the idols inside the church that ought to concern Christians most. It’s easier for Christians to identify worldly idols such as money, power, selfish ambition, sex, and so on. It’s the idols inside the church that we have a harder time identifying.

For instance, we know it’s wrong to bow to the god of power—but it’s also wrong to bow to the god of preferences. We know it’s wrong to worship immorality—but it’s also wrong to worship morality. We know it’s wrong to seek freedom by breaking the rules—but it’s also wrong to seek freedom by keeping them. We know God hates unrighteousness—but he also hates self-righteousness. We know crime is a sin—but so is control. If people outside the church try to save themselves by being bad; people inside the church try to save themselves by being good.

The good news of the gospel is that both inside and outside the church, there is only One Savior and Lord, namely Jesus. And he came, not to angrily strip away our freedom, but to affectionately strip away our slavery to lesser things so that we might become truly free!

Misplaced Hope

This is an excerpt from John Eldredge's book, "Desire." He talks about the danger of placing our hope in the little kingdoms of success and pleasure, and not in the unfading and unfailing hope of heaven. This hope is tested most when our personal kingdoms begin to crumble around us.

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"Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:13). I read a passage like this, and I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

Fully?

We don't even set our hope partially on the life to come. Not really, not in the desires of our hearts. Heaven may be coming. Great. But it's a long way off and who really knows, so I'm getting what I can now. Our search is limited only by our finances, our options, and our morals. Those with fewer misgivings and greater financial discretion go farther with it.

For most Christians, heaven is a backup plan.

Our primary work is finding a life we can at least get a little pleasure from here. Heaven is an investment we've made, like Treasury bonds or a retirement account, which we're hoping will take care of us in the future sometime, but which we don't give much thought to at the present. It's tucked away in a drawer in the back of our minds, while we throw our immediate energies into playing the stock market.

Then God comes in like a corporate raider, ruining our plans as we watch our "stocks" go into a tailspin.

God must take away the heaven we create, or it will become our hell. You may not think your efforts to arrange for a little of what you desire are anything like heaven on earth. I certainly didn't; not, at least, in the more conscious regions of my heart. But some deep and tender part of us gets trapped there in those times and places where have had a taste of the life we long for...

Remember, we will make an idol of anything, especially a good thing. So distant now from Eden, we are desperate for life, and we come to believe that we must arrange for it as best as we can, or no one will.

Ultimately, God must thwart us to save us.

Cast Your Cares on Christ

For those who are plagued by anxiety, I recommend this radio broadcast.

Click Here: Cast Your Cares on Christ

The teacher is Alistair Begg, a native Scottish pastor who has been serving in the greater Cleveland area for over twenty years.

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence.

We come to God because none of us have it within ourselves, except momentarily, to be joyous. Joy is a product of abundance; it is the overflow of vitality. It is life working together harmoniously. It is exuberance. Inadequate sinners as we are, none of us can manage that for very long.

We try to get it through entertainment. We pay someone to make jokes, tell stories, perform dramatic actions, sing songs. The enormous entertainment industry in America is a sign of the depletion of joy in our culture. Society is a bored, gluttonous king employing a court jester to divert it after an overindulgent meal. But that kind of joy never penetrates our lives, never changes our basic constitution. The effects are extremely temporary - a few minutes, a few hours, a few days at most. When we run out of money, the joy trickles away. We cannot make ourselves joyful. Joy cannot be commanded, purchased or arranged.

But there is something we can do.

We can decide to live in response to the abundance of God and not under the dictatorship of our own poor needs.

We can decide to live in the environment of a living God and not our own dying selves. We can decide to center ourselves in the God who generously gives and not in our own egos which greedily grab.

-Eugene Peterson

The Good-O-Meter

Here is the video we showed at church a couple weeks ago. A decent visual analogy for justification. Enjoy!

The Doctrine of Adoption

In one sense, our adoption is not yet final, because we are awaiting the return of Christ and the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23). Some scholars think that this second stage in our adoption corresponds to the Roman practice when a man adopted someone outside his family to be his son. First there was a private ceremony at which the son was purchased; then there was a public ceremony at which the adoption was declared openly before the official.

Christians have experienced the first stage: We have been purchased by Christ and indwelt by the Spirit. We are awaiting the second stage: the public declaration at the return of Christ when "we shall be like him" (1 John 3:1-3). We are "sons and heirs," and the best part of our inheritance is yet to come!

-Warren Wiersbe

By justification the believer is pardoned for offenses against the Father. By regeneration one is given new life in the Spirit. By adoption one is permitted to reenter the Father's family. The New Testament constantly interweaves these three dimensions of salvation teaching.

It is grace alone that unifies the three dimensions: "Convicting Grace" reveals to the sinner the depths of the human predicament, leading to repentance. "Justifying grace" pardons sin and invites trusting faith in the forgiving God. "Regenerating grace" redirects our dominant affections from the godless love of self to the selfless love of God. "Adopting grace" welcomes the prodigal back in the family of God.

We are not sons by creation, but by the new creation; we become sons not by the natural birth, but by the spiritual birth; not by generation, but by regeneration; not by being born but by being born again.

This is adoption. It has redemption beneath it and divine life in it.

-Thomas Oden

Ravi Zacharias on the Trinity

The Father's Heart.. in Art

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." So they began to celebrate. -Luke 15:20-24








When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. -Galatians 4:4-7

Chilean Miners as a Christocentric Metaphor

A Chilean miner's testimony about renewed faith in God

A video which speaks to an even deeper need. A metaphor reminding us that we were all in a similar place as those brave miners.



I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. -Psalm 40:1-3

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. -Titus 3:3-7

Cheap Grace vs Costly Grace

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! -Galatians 2:20-21

One of my personal heroes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, addressed in his book The Cost of Discipleship the same issues Paul was addressing in his letter to the Galatians. Both Paul and Bonhoeffer had a fire in their belly to confront the deceitful distortions of Christ-less religion or Christ-denying consumerism. Paul used language like "setting aside" the Grace of Christ for lifeless religion. Bonhoeffer wrote about the dangers of cheapening God's grace with apathetic antinomianism (aka no law, no holiness).

Bonhoeffer wrote,

Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple must leave his nets and follow him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it call us to follow Jesus Christ.

It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "you were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us.

Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Getting to Know Galatians

Date: Galatians was most likely written between 48-50 AD

Location: Galatians was written to churches in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe (see Acts 13-14); cities that would be located in present day Turkey.

Author: Galatians is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, letter written by the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle’s purpose for writing:
To defend his authority as an apostle, to proclaim the uncontaminated Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to explain the path from bondage to freedom so that Christians can wholeheartedly proclaim, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (v. 2:20).

Two primary accusations made against Paul:
1. He is a Half-Apostle.
2. He is preaching a watered-down Gospel.

Paul’s accusers are Jewish Christians (in theological parlance “Judaizers”) who are spreading a syncretistic distortion of the Gospel. They are requiring all Gentile converts to obey certain elements of the Mosaic Law in order to be saved.