Thinking Christian

The stage has been set in Parts 1 through 5 (linked below). The human race, meant to be great under God, in worshipful relationship with Him, has fallen mightily by rejecting that relationship. God did not reject us, though. The plan was prepared since before the foundation of the world: Jesus Christ, God Himself, second Person of the Trinity, maker and sustainer of all creation, would come and provide our rescue. His coming was prophesied centuries in advance, here and in many other places:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

Thus this glorious King and and Deliverer comes and breaks into our world–helpless and tiny, lying in a feed trough in a stable.

Nobody ever said Christianity was without paradox and surprise. This is one of the greatest of them. God humbled Himself to become one of us, far more truly so than anyone had ever anticipated. The image here well conveys the stunning reversal. He came because of His love for us, but the glory of that love is completely veiled, so that what we notice instead is Mary and Joseph’s adoration.

Not all His greatness was darkened when He came. The angels announced His coming to the shepherds in great glory. But this, too, is a reversal. Shepherds were of a class not much more respected than garbage collectors in our day. Why did God grant them this great privilege?

One author called Jesus’ rule the “Upside-Down Kingdom,” where humility reigns and the proud fall. This upside-down-ness of Jesus’ way began right at His own beginning on Earth. He laid aside His divine privileges, and as we saw in Part 5, became united with humanity.

What does Christ do for us? This was His first action on our behalf in the human form of Jesus, the person who revealed God by walking among us. His first action was to join with us.

His joining with us would extend to growing up and sharing in human joys and grief, in laughter and in pain, in weariness and refreshment, in friendship and in rejection. Ultimately it would extend to experiencing what none of us should ever face, though too many have: immense injustice, torture, and death.

What Christ does for us is love us intimately, from nearby.

There’s more to come.

Part of a Series: What Christ Does For Us

• Part 1: Our Roots In God’s Plan
• Part 2: Broken Roots
• Part 3: The Extent of Brokenness
• Part 4: Restorations
• Part 5: Who Christ Is
• Part 6: Among Us, Loving Us
• Part 7: Showing How to Live
• Part 8: Death and Resurrection
• Part 9: The Cross, Again
• Part 10: The Resurrection, Again
• Part 11: Life in Christ

Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions. This post elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a very long answer in the form of this series.

Returning to this series after a short break, I’m also taking a short detour. What Christ does for us depends on who He is.

It’s just a few weeks since the Christmas season, and I’m sure readers know about Christ in a manger, born to a virgin. The gospel of Luke tells us He was conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. In human terms he was of the lineage of David. David had been the king of Israel many years before, and to him God had made a promise that his offspring would have an eternal kingship. Jesus Christ, many generations, was God’s fulfillment of that promise.

But Christ was also “conceived of the Holy Spirit,” as the Apostle’s Creed phrases it, indicating His godly lineage; He was and is in fact, God Himself (all references from the English Standard Version):

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

The following context identifies “the Word” with Jesus Christ. He took a dispute with unbelieving religious leaders to a climax with this:

“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30)

And they understood exactly what he was getting at, even though they disagreed:

The Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God. (John 10:33)

He is what no mere man could ever be, the exact representation of God, as spoken in Hebrews 1:2-4:

In these last days he (God) has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

And there we see much more of the greatness of Jesus Christ. He is “heir of all things,” meaning that all creation is to be handed over to Him and put under His rule. He is the One through whom all creation was made (and “without him was not anything made that was made,” John 1:3, somewhat a redundancy but an intentional one for clarity). He “upholds the universe by the word of his power,” He made purification for sins, a topic we’ll return to later as we consider what Christ has done for us. He rules next to God the Father. He is far superior to the angels, with the most excellent name of all.

Paul wrote similarly in Colossians 1:15-20,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

How the superlatives run rampant! And this is hardly the beginning; to do this topic justice would take a book (like this one, for example).

I was listening yesterday to a podcast on this by William Lane Craig (mp3; note also his follow-up on how Christ’s deity came to be recognized by the early church). Craig was making no attempt at raising emotions; he was explaining and teaching, not stirring up anything intentionally. And yet I was moved to deep worship. This man Jesus, whom we know by His life and teachings on Earth, is also the God who holds the universe together! Theologically He is understood as being one person, having both a human and divine nature (more on that here or here). Certainly there are mysteries there about how this can be true, but that it is true is as certain as anything the Bible teaches.*

The greatest passage of all describing the majesty, the sacrifice, and the exaltation of Jesus Christ is Philippians 2:5-11:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We will indeed all bow to Him. We will all, someday, recognize His divine majesty, and part of our worship will be based on recognizing how He sacrificed Himself on our behalf. None of us sees it clearly now, but on the day of his full revealing, it will no longer be a matter for doubt or debate.

As we move later into the story of Christ’s life on Earth and His work on our behalf, this backdrop of His divine identity will be essential at every stage.

Part of a Series: What Christ Does For Us

• Part 1: Our Roots In God’s Plan
• Part 2: Broken Roots
• Part 3: The Extent of Brokenness
• Part 4: Restorations
• Part 5: Who Christ Is
• Part 6: Among Us, Loving Us
• Part 7: Showing How to Live
• Part 8: Death and Resurrection
• Part 9: The Cross, Again
• Part 10: The Resurrection, Again
• Part 11: Life in Christ

Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions. This post elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a very long answer in the form of this series.

*Though this is an apologetics-oriented blog, I reserve the right at times to state what I am convinced is true without explaining each time why I am so convinced. The purpose of this series is not to prove the story of Christ but to tell the story of Christ. That story is powerful in its own right. For those who doubt or question it, by following this series you will at least know better what you are doubting and questioning.

Earlier in this series (see below) I described what Scripture says about God’s original intent and purpose for humankind, and how we fell away from it. God in His love intended that we live in close, intimate fellowship with Him. He gave humans their start in conditions of harmony with the world, with genuine intellectual and moral significance, and in real, closely connected relationships with God, the environment, and each other. They were rightly dependent on God, their Creator, and they acknowledged Him as their loving Master.

We are still dependent on God for every breath, for He still holds everything in His hands. We still experience God in every joy of nature and in every relationship of love. But ever since the first humans chose independence from God, we’ve lost sight of Him in these things, and we’ve especially turned away from Him as the one in charge of His own world.

The loss is ours. God in His love expresses grief over our rebellion, and in His justice expresses what the Bible calls righteous anger over it. But we experience death, distance, alienation, sweat, struggle, all the misfortunes and tragedies that we can never seem to grow accustomed to in spite of centuries of living them them.

God’s purpose since then has been to restore us to the original plan: that we would rightly bow to Him in worship as our Master and God, that we would experience the fullness of love in relationship to Him and to one another, and that our alienation from the rest of the world would be repaired. This is what Christ came to do for us. In very brief outline form:

1. It is through His sacrifice for us, His death on the cross, that we can be brought back into relationship with God, reconciled to Him, forgiven for our sins, made right again in God’s eyes.
2. It is again through that sacrifice that we can recognize God’s glory, know Him as worthy of our worship, and acknowledge Him as Lord (Master, Chief, King).
3. It is also through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit that we can live according to God’s plan.
4. And it is through Christ’s sufferings that the world will be repaired of the curse of sin.

I’m not able this evening to take time to flesh this out fully as it should be. (My daughter is playing trombone in a school concert not long from now.) It seems to me anyway that, since I’ve been taking a narrative approach in the first posts in this series, I ought not stray too far away from that yet. Better to view this list of four restorations as a preview of what we’ll encounter as we continue to walk through the story of what God has done for us through Christ.

Part of a Series: What Christ Does For Us

• Part 1: Our Roots In God’s Plan
• Part 2: Broken Roots
• Part 3: The Extent of Brokenness
• Part 4: Restorations
• Part 5: Who Christ Is
• Part 6: Among Us, Loving Us
• Part 7: Showing How to Live
• Part 8: Death and Resurrection
• Part 9: The Cross, Again
• Part 10: The Resurrection, Again
• Part 11: Life in Christ

Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions — a post that elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a long answer

God created us for relationship with Him, and with genuine moral significance as part of our makeup. We turned away from Him and broke that relationship. Our connection to the true source of life and love was broken, and death and alienation entered our experience. This we learn from Genesis 1 through 3, as covered in the first two posts in this series (see the Series list below).

The first chapters of Genesis illustrate God’s holiness and justice without actually using those terms. The full picture of these facets of God’s character emerges later in His word. God’s holiness speaks of his purity, his righteousness, his perfect moral character. It also connotates separateness from all that is evil or impure. Habakkuk 1:13 says God’s eyes are too pure even to look on evil. It’s metaphorical, obviously, but the point is that God cannot in any way approve evil. In Psalm 5 we read,

“For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.”

God’s justice is that which demands that right be rewarded and wrong be punished; that moral actions have fitting moral consequences; that we do indeed “reap what we sow.” It is on the one hand a source of tremendous hope for those who have been oppressed or wronged. On the other hand it stands in front of all who have done wrong, which is each one of us.

The consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin were given to them out of God’s righteous holiness and justice. (And mankind has been railing against holiness and justice ever since.) This is not all there is to say about God’s character, for He is also a God of mercy, compassion, love, and forgiveness. How he can express both mercy and justice will be the subject of a future post in this series.

Meanwhile we need to take note of further results of the first humans’ rebellion against God. Not only were they separated from God, not only did they become subject to death, they also experienced the curse of their sin. We’ve all been experiencing it since.

For the woman the curse mostly had to do with pain relating to children and men. For the man it had to do with the painful frustration of labor and production. The world would now fight back against these rebels; and people in their alienation would fight each other. When we speak later of what Christ has done for us we will touch on reconciliation between people, which begins when people relate to one another in Christ. Reconciliation with the frustrations of the natural world is yet to come, in a future state after the return of Christ.

The tempter (who later in the Bible we understand to be Satan) was also cursed, and in that curse the first hint of a promised redemption comes to us: the seed of the woman would crush his head. The seed (offspring) of the woman–notably not the seed of the man–was the coming Christ, born of a virgin, whose work would include destroying the works of Satan.

Now, I am fully aware that this exposition will raise questions and objections from some loyal non-believing readers here. My purpose in this post, as in the previous two, has been to present a brief outline of what we know about the root of humanity’s dignity and brokenness, as background for explaining what Christ has done about it. You who may question or object to this, I ask to read this for what it is: an exposition of a belief, a viewpoint on the condition of humanity.

I believe it is a true viewpoint; I know that you do not. I ask that you approach this for understanding and not primarily for dispute. You who object to Christian beliefs, this is your chance for a deeper understanding of their source. I hope your questions will be that: requests for clarification. This is not the time for me to prove to you that Genesis 1-3 tell a true account of where we came from. It is a time to focus on the account itself and what it means, taken for what it is.

Part of a Series: What Christ Does For Us

• Part 1: Our Roots In God’s Plan
• Part 2: Broken Roots
• Part 3: The Extent of Brokenness
• Part 4: Restorations
• Part 5: Who Christ Is
• Part 6: Among Us, Loving Us
• Part 7: Showing How to Live
• Part 8: Death and Resurrection
• Part 9: The Cross, Again
• Part 10: The Resurrection, Again
• Part 11: Life in Christ

Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions — a post that elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a long answer

Yesterday we saw that God created humans to have great dignity, and superior value and worth, above every other created thing. We were in fact created for relationship with God. He has always intended to love us, and for us to love Him. This is not love between equals, though, for God created us to be dependent on Him. The food, the air, the very ground that every human has walked upon–all this has always been provided by God.

And so it was once that humans enjoyed intimate, unmarred fellowship with God. This has been the design from the start. Our ancestors seriously messed it up, though, by pursuing independence from God, which separated them from Him. We each ratify that decision through our own independent attitudes and actions daily. The rest of the story of what Christ does for us tells how God is restoring people to that intimate, properly dependent and at the same time highly dignified relationship with Him.

Let’s slow down again, though, and look at how our roots of relationship with God were broken. The story is in Genesis 3. The first part tells of Adam and Eve’s fateful decision.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

The lie that Eve accepted was that she could have her own independent wisdom, apart from God’s; she wanted to “be like God” herself. Adam’s error included all that as well as placing his wife ahead of God. Both of these were moves of independence and rebellion. The result was a break in their relationship with God. God had warned them that disobedience would mean death. They did not physically die that day (although it was at that time that they first became subject to death). That day marked their separation from God, though; it was an immediate spiritual death. They hid from God. We’ve been hiding ever since.

This had no effect whatever on God’s love for us. It did not decrease our worth in God’s eyes one whit. Later we’ll see that even before the foundation of the world He knew this was coming, and He planned the sacrifice of His own Son on our behalf, even before we were created. He would not do that if we were of no value in His eyes.

This provides more background for a question doctor(logic) asked two days ago:

I don’t see how it can be both ways. On discussions on this blog, humans have been described as infinitely evil compared to God, worthy of suffering, death and eternal torture. How is something worth a lot, and yet worthy of death and suffering?

Aaron answered this already:

This is where basic philosophical categories and distinctions come in handy. Something cannot be both A and non-A in the same way and at the same time, right? Well, the sense in which humans have worth (in virtue of what they are and were created to be) is different than the sense in which they are worthy of punishment (in virtue of what they have done).

Our value in God’s eyes is undiminished. But we who were created to live in loving, close, dependent relationship with Him chose to try an independent route, and death was the consequence. It’s quite a natural one: it’s impossible to live separated from God. It’s impossible for us to be our own gods, as if we could sustain ourselves apart from His creation and provision. And to cut oneself off from the only true source of life and love is to walk into one’s own death.

I have not yet spoken of God’s holiness and justice, which also enter into this equation. That will come up in a future post in this series. The groundwork laid so far shows what God intended, and how the first humans turned their backs on His intent. We all do the same, still, today. There’s no understanding of what Christ does for us without this background.

Part of a Series: What Christ Does For Us

• Part 1: Our Roots In God’s Plan
• Part 2: Broken Roots
• Part 3: The Extent of Brokenness
• Part 4: Restorations
• Part 5: Who Christ Is
• Part 6: Among Us, Loving Us
• Part 7: Showing How to Live
• Part 8: Death and Resurrection
• Part 9: The Cross, Again
• Part 10: The Resurrection, Again
• Part 11: Life in Christ

Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions — a post that elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a long answer

I shouldn’t have been too surprised to discover that this post on how we need Christ needed more explanation. I’m actually pleased to have this occasion arise; it gives me a chance to reflect on what Christ has done for us in the past, and what he does for us still.

The objection doctor(logic) raised began:

The thing that bugs me about this is that it’s so anti-humanistic. Humility I can understand, but, to me, this is perverse.

When people achieve difficult objectives, they ought to get credit for doing so.

I hate the way Christianity tells people they’re nothing, makes them feel bad, then offers them a convenient promise to soothe their soul. And to top it off, Christianity takes credit for any success those people have at solving their own problems.

To address this adequately we have to begin with some background on who we are and where we come from. It begins, naturally enough, in Genesis. The first mention of humans is in Genesis 1:26-31:

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Two initial observations: First, God is Creator. God is preeminent. God decided, and one result of God’s decision was humankind. It’s not the other way around. Humility before God, recognizing that He is Master, Creator, and Lord, is just recognizing reality.

Second, humans are significant nevertheless. God created us in His image. In this passage we see him blessing the first humans and giving them significant responsibility. In Genesis 2 God gives them moral significance by providing them with choices that matter. He seems almost solicitous toward Adam’s need for a suitable companion. There is real relationship there: even though “God is love” has not yet been articulated, His love toward humans is already evident.

Genesis 3:8-9 tells of God walking in the Garden. This is God’s condescending to them, allowing Himself to be apparent among them in a form or manner to which they can relate. It seems likely that He did this regularly, for they were expecting Him. This time, though, they hid from Him. More on that in the next post, but for now we can take note again of God’s personal interaction with them.

Anti-humanistic? In the Bible, humans certainly do not have the highest and most exalted place of all. We >do have the highest and most exalted place among created things, though. God is love, and his love is especially directed towards humans. (We won’t go into it here, but in Hebrews we learn that humans’ position is even higher than angels’.)

This is just a start, but it’s a necessary one for what will follow, as we continue later to look at what Christ does for us.

Part of a Series: What Christ Does For Us

• Part 1: Our Roots In God’s Plan
• Part 2: Broken Roots
• Part 3: The Extent of Brokenness
• Part 4: Restorations
• Part 5: Who Christ Is
• Part 6: Among Us, Loving Us
• Part 7: Showing How to Live
• Part 8: Death and Resurrection
• Part 9: The Cross, Again
• Part 10: The Resurrection, Again
• Part 11: Life in Christ

Related: How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions — a post that elicited a short question, to which I’m writing a long answer