Home » Jesus Christ » Page 4

Tag: Jesus Christ

As a Dying Man to Dying Men

There is an article making the rounds in which David Letterman was asked if he ever ‘said a prayer’ before a show. He mentions an interview with Warren Zevon, who, at the time of the interview, had cancer:

I wouldn’t call it a prayer, but I would sometimes have a conversation with myself in the shower before the show. Warren Zevon was on years ago, and we all knew he was dying. I was at a loss because I couldn’t think of an entry point for a conversation with a dying man on a television show that’s supposed to be silly. “How are you doing? You look great!” doesn’t exactly work. I was really dissatisfied with my part of that conversation. I was ill-equipped to connect with a friend who was going through something like that.

Do you find it hard to imagine that a man who conversed for a living had difficulty talking to a dying man?

I spend more time in hospital rooms, and more time praying for the sick in general, than I prefer. But the lack of preference is for their illness, not for the inability to engage. Do you have something more than your wit to give to the dying?

Anyhow, the only reason I bring this up is because it reminded me of a famous quote from Richard Baxter:

I preached as never sure to preach again,
As a dying man to dying men.

Christ is all the comfort we have to give to dying men – and we are all dying men.

Infinite Inherent Merit

Charles Hodge describes the “orthodox [Protestant] view” of the atonement:

According to this doctrine the work of Christ is a real satisfaction, of infinite inherent merit, to the vindicatory justice of God; so that He saves his people by doing for them, and in their stead, what they were unable to do for themselves, satisfying the demands of the law in their behalf, and bearing its penalty in their stead; whereby they are reconciled to God, receive the Holy Ghost, and are made partakers of the life of Christ to their personal sanctification and eternal salvation.

–Systematic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 563-564

I am trying to make a habit of posting some straightforward theology on Fridays. This is a great summary of the gospel.

Charles Hodge on Christ in the Old Testament

Our Lord commanded the Jews to search their Scriptures, because they testified of Him. He said that Moses and the prophets wrote of Him. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. The Apostles when they began to preach the gospel, not only everywhere proved from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, but they referred to them continually in support of everything which they taught concerning his person and his work. It is from the Old Testament they prove his divinity; his incarnation; the sacrificial nature of his death; that he was truly a Priest to make reconciliation for the people, as well as a Prophet and a King; and that He was to die, to rise again on the third day, to ascend into heaven and to be invested with absolute authority over all the earth, and over all orders of created beings. There is not a doctrine concerning Christ, taught in the New Testament, which the Apostles do not affirm to have been revealed under former dispensations.

-Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 370

Thanks to D.G. Hart’s helpful essay on Princeton and the Law in The Law is Not of Faith, I have begun again to dig into Charles Hodge. It’s been so long since I have dug into the book that I found that the old bookmark I had left in it was an old-school prepaid long-distance phone card. Anybody remember those? I was in my early 20s, and a new Christian, when I first stormed through Hodge’s Systematic Theology, barely understanding a word I read. Anyhow…

This summary by Hodge of Christ in the Old Testament is nearly as eloquent as Calvin’s. I spend a lot of time in the Old Testament. If you’re reading your Bible straight through (and I hope you are), you do as well. We need these sorts of reminders often.

What it Sounds Like When a Camel Goes through the Eye of a Needle

Luke 18 and 19 present the contrasting stories of the so-called ‘rich young ruler’ and the wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus.

After his encounter with the young ruler, Jesus makes the famous statement, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25).

Then comes another rich man, Zacchaeus, who heeds the call of Christ:

“And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19: 8).

Interestingly, the rich young ruler made the claim that he had kept the moral law from his youth; but when called upon by Christ to give up his riches, he “went away sorrowful.” Zacchaeus, on the other hand, was a notorious sinner – not a law-keeper. But he honors Old Testament restitution law in his response to Jesus:

“If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep” (Exodus 22:1).

On top of this obedience to the law (giving fourfold restitution), he was willing to give half of all he had to the poor.

I can’t pin down the source of the quote, but years ago I heard someone comment on this verse saying, “This is what it sounds like when a camel goes through the eye of a needle.”

“What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

Law and Liturgy

Liturgies of the Western Church, by Bard Thompson, has been invaluable to me over the past few years as I consider the worship of the church. One of the more interesting things I gleaned from this book, with the help of a professor, comes from the liturgy of John Calvin’s churches in Strasbourg and Geneva.

Calvin, following Bucer, emphasized what has come to be known as the ‘third use’ of the law in worship:

In the main, however, as one can see in the liturgy of Grund und Ursach, Bucer used the law as Calvin also used it in worship: not to accuse sinners, but to bring the faithful to true piety by teaching them the divine will and exhorting them to obedience (p. 164).

Likewise,

In his Strassburg text, Calvin appointed the Ten Commandments be sung after Confession, even as Bucer had suggested in Grund und Ursach. Here he employed the Law according to its ‘third and principle use’; not to accuse and convict the sinner (in which case the Commandments would likely precede Confession) but to bring the penitents to true piety by teaching them the will of God and exhorting them to obey. ‘In this way the saints must press on’ (Institutes 2:7:12) (p. 191).

This seems like an insignificant point, but it had a marvelous effect on me. My home-church, for years, had a practice which has recently been changed. I really wish it hadn’t been changed; and I fear the reason it was changed was out of ignorance to this point. Let me explain.

During a service that involved the Lord’s Supper, we would recite the Apostles’ Creed followed by the Ten Commandments. Having learned the intentionality of Calvin’s liturgy, this bore a certain weight with me. I would reflect each service on the glory of faith before obedience, of accepting the gospel as the sole enabling for the keeping of the law, and as the sole source of forgiveness in my constant failure to do so.

The problem lies in the fact that many only see the law as either a) condemning and pointing us to Christ or b) something we can keep in our own strength. The Creed before the Law emphasizes that it is faith in Christ that leads to sanctification; that the gospel enables us to keep the law; that all our power for obedience is derived from what Christ has done for us. It drives us to Christ for forgiveness to be sure, but it also drives us to him to gain strength for obedience.

Calvin’s liturgy began with a confession of sin, yet the creed was sung before the law. This reflects a note that is missing in the modern church: the law condemns us and drives us to Christ, but once it has done so, faith in Christ now empowers us to new obedience. As John Flavel, Samuel Bolton, and others have said: the law sends us to Christ to be justified, and then Christ sends us back to the law to frame our way of life. But he never bids us keep the law under our own power. It is only Holy Spirit-wrought faith in him, living, dying, rising, that will empower us.

This is the indicative before the imperative played out in worship: to confess the faith before reciting the law; to confess our sins, to confess our faith, and then to confess the law anew as believers in Christ. Reciting the law before faith and reciting the law after faith are two totally different things.