Thinking Christian

It all revolves around one man: Jesus Christ. Either he was the greatest person of history, the unique Son of God, or he is nothing at all to us today. What kind of man was he really?

We’ll have to take this one topic at a time, starting with this startling claim:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

Had he not been able to say that, Jesus would have stood in quite precarious position. The Law of which he spoke includes this:

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul…. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God…. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Jesus was a prophet giving signs and wonders. If he had been turning the people away from their God, he would have stood condemned for it. Indeed, he was killed on account of his claims.

Let’s back up a moment, though, and consider just that one statement of his, that he had come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, what Christians refer to as the Old Testament. Judaism in Jesus’ day was thoroughly imbued with these writings, along with a considerable body of rabbinical commentary. The Jews of the time were as monotheistic as any culture in history. Several hundred years prior, they had suffered exile for their idolatry and chasing after pagan Gods. The exile cured them: they never fell into sin of that sort again. Still, they knew their Scriptures said it would be hard to follow their God; that they would have to fall on his mercy, for they could not claim any personal righteousness before him.

In the midst of this milieu, then, Jesus says he has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He meant it in two senses. First, that he would follow their commands fully; second, that he would complete them.

The audacity of the claim is astonishing. He said he would live the way no one had lived–not Moses, not Joseph, not Daniel, not Esther, not any of the best examples of Hebrew saints. Maybe you would like to try this: walk up to any strongly religious person and say that you expect to perfectly live out their religion’s tenets. See what kind of reaction you get! The crowds who heard him “were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.”

Jesus’ fulfilling of the Law and Prophets is explained most fully in the New Testament book of Hebrews. There had been an elaborate sacrificial system in the Hebrew religion. Animals were slaughtered in huge numbers daily for the sins of the people. Hebrews says all of this was a foreshadowing of Christ. When he died on the cross, his death was sufficient to cover what virtually infinite numbers of animals could not–the guilt of all the people. He finished the sacrifices, by his one sufficient sacrifice.

There was yet another sense in which Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets: he literally fulfilled prophecy. The two most striking sources were Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, both of which describe his crucifixion; but there were hundreds more besides. (I’ve made

It was an incredibly audacious claim that he made. Who could say such a thing? In the context of the day, it was more than unthinkable, and it was unthinkable still for decades following, which is one reason I can’t give much credence to claims that early Christians invented sayings like these.

So what can we conclude about Jesus from this one statement? He was wrong or he was right. If he was wrong, he would have surely been found out. Trust me–I had a blowup in the office this morning myself–it’s hard to pretend you’re perfect when you’re around people for very long. Yet the people who knew him best were his most ardent followers. Certainly this speaks to the truth of Christianity.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Worshiping Christian | 3 Comments »

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.–John 1:14

Jesus–referred to here as “the Word”–came with glory reflecting his Father in heaven. Part of that reflection was in the grace and truth he expressed. Henry Cloud (previously referenced here) was the one who showed me how these work together, through his book Changes That Heal.

There is a productive, fruitful dynamic tension between grace and truth. Truth is the standard; grace is more relationship and freedom oriented. They are complementary, though, not contradictory.

Jesus lived out truth first by being true, by his utter integrity. He spoke truth in confrontation, he spoke truth in teaching, and he lived what he spoke. He lived out truth by setting the standard and living up to it. He is (as the verse quoted above hints) the Word, the expression of God, and a true representation of God’s character.

Truth in at least one sense is a hard, unyielding kind of thing. You can’t get it to change its mind, nor can you persuade it to be something other than what it is. Reality is what it is. Cloud clarifies* the importance of facing reality for what it is, including

• The truth about ourselves: our strengths, weaknesses, successes, failures, opportunities, and limitations.
• The truth about the world, that it is what it is and we can’t magically change it.
• The truth about God, that he is Creator and King, and has a claim on us

To dwell on the obvious, truth is a good thing. It gives solidity to reality. But it can also produce pain when we collide with it–especially when the truth we slam into is the truth of our own inadequacies and failures.

Grace is relationship-oriented. It opens the door for forgiveness, for acceptance in spite of faults. It is what can soften the blows of reality and truth. Yet it cannot stand without truth; it would be like trying to erect a skyscraper out of jellyfish skeletons.

It would not be quite right to say Jesus balanced the two. Better to say he expressed them both fully. One great example is his extended encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. He pointed out her sins quite frankly. She must have been embarrassed. Actually, though, before that point she must have been somewhat confused at his willingness even to talk to her. There were cultural and racial barriers in that day that normally would have prevented such a conversation even from beginning. Thus Jesus demonstrated his orientation toward caring relationship, even while he was insisting on dealing with the realities of her life. By the end of their conversation she understood that he was the one who could free her from her sin, and could show her (and her people) how to worship God truly.

Grace and truth were both expressed on the cross: sin had to be paid for, and it was; but he took our payment upon himself.

I have two very quick applications to draw from this. First, we ought to express grace and truth in our relationships with each other. That means recognizing the truth about ourselves, and being open to what others have to tell us about it. It’s often easy to hide from our own realities. It also means helping others see what is true and deal with it squarely. At the same time, grace impels us to remember that we’re all in the same condition: we need help, we need love, we need forgiveness; sometimes we just need to be given a break!

Especially if I have a difficult issue to work through, I’m going to look for counsel from someone who lives out both grace and truth: truth so I can see the realities I’m dealing with, and grace to help me with the walk through them.

Second application: thank God for his truth! What kind of world would it be without some solidity to it? And thank him for his grace, too, for we who cannot meet God’s true and just standards on our own must rely on his grace in order to have any hope at all.

*Oxymoron intended

Posted by Tom Gilson under Worshiping Christian | 7 Comments »