Editor’s note: This article was originally published on October 31, 2017 and is part five of a five-part series. 2023 marks the 506th anniversary.

2017 is a special year, marking the 500 year anniversary of a world-changing event: the start of the Protestant Reformation. It’s really not fair to mark one point alone for this revolution of faith and practice in Europe and the world because it was the product of forces that developed over many decades.

But Martin Luther’s October 31, 1517, declaration of 95 complaints against the practice of selling reductions to the penalty of sin is a pretty good place to say, “Here it started.”

The great men of the Reformation—Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin and those associated with them—declared their beliefs in a series of solas (in Latin, one would say the plural as solae). Sola means “alone” or “single.” We get our words “solo” and “solitary” from this Latin root. The classic sola statements of the Reformation were and are:

Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)
Sola Fide (Faith Alone)
Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)
Solus Christus (Christ Alone)
Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)

In this article we want to consider the final aspect: Glory to God Alone.

Overview of the Previous Four Solas

In most lists of the five solas, this comes last for a good reason. It’s because it’s the logical result of the previous four solas. If we properly understand the first four sola statements, they will lead us to the final statement, “giving glory to God alone.”

If we let scripture alone be our guide, we listen to God’s voice above all others. We understand that what God says matters more than anyone or anything else. This gives God the glory He alone deserves, as the heart, voice, and mind that should be regarded above all others.

If we let faith alone be our reception of God’s rescue, we understand that we don’t deserve any credit for what God does for us. We simply receive by faith what He so generously gave to us. This gives God the glory because we understand that we can’t save ourselves; Jesus must rescue us.

If we let grace alone be the grounds on which God rescued us through the person and work of Jesus, we understand that it’s not by grace and faith, not by grace and good deeds, not by grace and a good heart and not by grace and human initiative. It’s by grace alone. This gives God the glory because He alone gets the credit for the past, present, and future of our salvation.

If we let Christ alone be our salvation and center of life, it means that it isn’t through a mere man or institution that we’re made right with God. It’s by the person and work of Jesus Christ alone. This gives God the glory because it properly puts the focus on Jesus and takes it off everyone and everything else.

Putting the Focus on God and His Glory

In this we see that one of the great works of the Reformation was to once again put the focus on God and His glory.

Because we are made in the image of God, we’re capable of astonishing achievements of many kinds. We see what men and women can accomplish in art, science, engineering, athletics, and intellect and so easily put our emphasis on man instead of God. Yet, mankind at his best and greatest is still far short of God. He alone deserves the glory and honor that the first four sola statements illustrate.

This leads us to a practical point. We should resolve that, God helping us, we will give greater interest, care, and effort to advance the glory of God instead of the glory of self, of our congregation, or of our particular group in God’s greater family. As many men and women of God have warned, “don’t touch the glory”; let the honor and credit go to God and no one else.

Everyone should have this sentence over their life and work for God: Glory to God Alone.

Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: This article was previously published on September 16, 2021. This year (2023), the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei runs from the evening of September 24 until sunset on September 25.

Background to Yom Kippur:

The Temple Mount and the tension surrounding this particular location are common themes of contemporary discussions concerning the Modern State of Israel. However, when the people of Israel came out of Egypt (Exodus 12:33-14:31), they did not have a fixed location in which they would worship God. In fact, the building of the first Israelite Temple, which was ultimately established on what we now know as the Temple Mount, did not start until 480 years after the Israelite’s Exodus from Egypt. This project was undertaken by King Solomon (1 Kings 6:1)—the third king of the nation of Israel.

Nevertheless, prior to the existence of a permanent Temple building, the people still worshiped. In Exodus 25-40, God gives instructions to the people of Israel regarding the construction of a portable tabernacle—and all of its component parts—as a place of worship and sacrificial activity. The people transported the Tabernacle with them during the wilderness wanderings, prior to entering the Promised Land.

Subsequent to the instructions relating to the building of the Tabernacle came very specific commands pertaining to the regulation of sacrifices in the Tabernacle (Leviticus 1-7). These sacrifices were performed by priests who interceded between humankind and God by implementing divine instruction on behalf of the people. Aaron (Moses’ brother) and his sons were divinely appointed and inaugurated as the leaders of the community of priests (Leviticus 8-9).

Yet, immediately following their call to the priesthood, the book of Leviticus relates the account of the death of Aaron’s two sons—Nadab and Abihu—by the hand of God (10:1). The text does not explicitly state why God put these two men to death. They were apparently guilty of entering the tabernacle and making an offering in a manner that was not ordained by God (cf. 10:2).

This episode is presented as the historical foundation for the instruction presented in Leviticus 16:1-2 relating to the Day of the Atonement. In short, as a preface to the instructions for Yom Kippur, God declares to Aaron through Moses, “You are going to atone for your sin and the sin of your community exactly the way I am about to command you so that you do not die like your sons died.” The following provides a summary of the rest of the events that were to take place on Yom Kippur that are crucial to our understanding of the significance of this day.

Summary of Biblical Yom Kippur:

Initially, the high priest would enter the Holy Place of the Tabernacle with offerings of a bull and a ram. He was then commanded to remove his ordinary, yet majestic, priestly garb and dress in holy, simple linen vestments after properly bathing his body. After taking two more goats from the congregation to serve as sin offerings, the high priest would offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and his family, prior to making atonement for the people. He then entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood of the bull that was sacrificed on his behalf, on and in front of the mercy seat—the place where God’s presence was manifested (16:3-6, 11, 14).

This initial stage of the Day of Atonement is extremely important in that the high priest—the person who was chosen by God to intermediate between God and the community of Israel—demonstrated his own shortcomings. The need for the priest to bathe his body is the typical example of his constant need to renew the physical body in order for it to thrive. The sin offering that the high priest offered for himself was representative of (even) the high priest’s need to be cleansed of his sin. It indicated the necessity of the priest to attend to his own spiritual need prior to interceding on behalf of his community.

Next, the high priest was commanded to take two goats and cast lots over them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. God determined, through the casting of lots, which of these two goats was to be offered as a sin offering to the Lord (16:7-9). After this goat was killed, its blood was taken into the Holy of Holies and was sprinkled on and in front of the mercy seat. In this way, atonement was made by the high priest for the Tabernacle as well as on behalf of the people (16:15-16). The high priest then spread the blood of the bull he sacrificed for himself and the goat he sacrificed on behalf of the people on the horns of another altar, outside of the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle complex (16:18).

The sprinkling of the blood in different areas of the Tabernacle indicated that God permitted the high priest to enter into His presence to make atonement for himself, the people and the Tabernacle (which was defiled by the sin of the people) ONLY through the death of a substitute. That is to say, the life of the animal was sacrificed in order for there to be communion with God. These were God’s terms of worship. The people, through the priest, could only receive the forgiveness of their sin through the blood of a sacrifice (17:11).

In the midst of all of the blood sprinkling, there is a somewhat unexpected turn of events. Just when one might expect more bloodshed, the high priest is instructed to lay his hands on the head of the goat, that was not fated to death by the casting of lots, and confess the transgressions of the people. This act seemingly represents the transmitting of the sin of the people onto the goat. That goat—traditionally known as the “scapegoat,” though not without dispute—was taken by a helper and set free into the wilderness, evidently carrying away the sin of the people (16:20-22).

The last stage of the day was one of cleansing. The high priest was instructed to enter the tent of meeting, take off all of his garments and leave them there. The high priest was to bathe, get dressed in (presumably) his normal garments, and then make another sacrifice for himself and for the people. The person who was responsible for letting the goat go alive was also to purify himself. Lastly, all of the remains of the sacrifices were taken outside of the camp of the people of Israel and burned. The person who was responsible for burning the remains of the sacrifices was also commanded to purify himself (16:23-28).

Problems with Yom Kippur:

Since June 19, 2007—the day in which the first iPhone was released—I have consistently yearned to possess every generation of the iPhone. Ten years later, 18 different iPhone models have been produced with the latest and best being the iPhone X. At this point in history, it is possible to look back at the first generation of the iPhone, and while recognizing its splendor at the time of its debut, also acknowledge that it is not a desirable phone at this juncture. The reason is that there were several, if not many, shortcomings inherent to the original model.

For example, the first generation of the iPhone could not multitask in the manner in which it is possible on almost every phone nowadays. It was not possible to copy and paste text; third party applications could not be downloaded; there was no GPS system; the camera did not have a flash; it could not video record; the screen was minute compared to the screens on current phones; and the absolute best model had a memory of only 16GB. In light of all of these deficiencies, the best way to evaluate the value of the current iPhone X is by looking at the shortcomings of the initial model and reflecting upon how those shortcomings foreshadowed a greater end result.

Likewise, there were indeed shortcomings in the original High Holy day of Yom Kippur that foreshadowed a greater end result. God gave the people of Israel specific instructions for the Day of Atonement that contained certain inadequacies, implying the necessity for the atonement of sin in a more excellent manner. There are at least four main issues that arise with regard to the atonement for sin as depicted in Leviticus 16:

1) The Temporary Nature of the Atonement:
Why did the people have to continually sacrifice in order to atone for their sin? Why couldn’t their sin be atoned for once and for all?

2) The Blood of Animals:
How could the blood of animals take away the sin of humans? These first two issues bring to mind the inextricable connection between sacrificial activity and a physical Tabernacle or Temple. According to the Law set out in Leviticus 16, the people needed an actual location to carry out the sacrifices necessary in order to comply with God’s commands for legitimate atonement. Does the absence of a Tabernacle or a Temple—as is the present state of affairs—eliminate the possibility for the remission of sin?

3) The Imperfection of the Priesthood:
The priests had to perpetually sacrifice for themselves, symbolizing the guilt of the intermediator that was to represent the people to God, and God to the people. The priest had his own issue with sin, requiring him to sacrifice for his own sin before he could sacrifice for the sin of others. Aaron was indeed imperfect (cf. the Golden Calf narrative in Exodus 32), as were his sons (see above, e.g. Nadab and Abihu). This begs the question: Could there ever be forgiveness of sin by means of an innocent mediator as opposed to the guilty interceding on behalf of the guilty?

4) The Affliction of the People:
Is the self-affliction of the people related to the forgiveness of sin?

Christ in Yom Kippur.

This past summer, my family spent about seven weeks in Israel. Upon returning home, we were greeted by an enormous underground beehive in our front yard.This beehive grew to be extremely problematic because it was located about 10 feet from the front porch, meaning that we would have to pass many bees upon exiting the front door. I am as incompetent as anyone when it comes to problems with bees, so in my mind, I was sure I could eliminate the problem by killing the bees.

Our family and friends subsequently conducted a series of experiments with the intent of eliminating the bee problem. The experiments consisted of: spraying entire cans of bee spray on the bees, covering the bees with dirt, pouring water on the bees and even running over the bees with the lawnmower. To our dismay, the bees insisted upon endlessly occupying our front yard.

In reality, we were not addressing the source of the problem.

The reason the bees persisted in holding our family hostage was that their hive remained relatively unscathed. Despite our repeated attempts to resolve the matter by facilitating the demise of our unwanted neighbors, our solution to the problem was only representative of what needed to be accomplished. The problem continued to return after an hour, a day or a week. In order to obtain true liberation from the threat of the bees, something greater needed to happen. We needed to deal with the root of the issue—the underground beehive.

Correspondingly, atonement through the blood of animals could not truly eliminate humankind’s plight stemming from their sin. The high priests—impaired by the depravity of their own transgressions—were incapable of interceding in a manner worthy of absolute divine sanction. Thus, it was commanded that sacrifices be repeatedly carried out so that atonement could be made for sin, regardless of how much the people of Israel afflicted themselves.

These systemic inadequacies relating to Yom Kippur foreshadowed a day in which the shortcomings would be perfected—namely, through the person and the work of Jesus the Messiah. Jesus perfected the imperfections of Yom Kippur. This is an implicit message read through the pages of the New Testament.

However, Jesus is explicitly stated to be the culmination of the sacrificial system in Hebrews 7:26-27: “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.”

Jesus is the Perfect High Priest.

As we see in this passage from Hebrews, Jesus is “holy.” By His divine character, He is set apart for the service of God the Father. Jesus is “innocent.” He is without any deficiencies and completely blameless. Jesus is “unstained.” He is perfectly free from the character flaws and blemishes with which all of the previous high priests struggled as a result of their sin. Jesus is “separated from sinners.” He is completely disconnected from the sinful nature. Because of who He is and what He has done, Jesus is rightfully “exalted above the heavens.”

By virtue of these attributes and His exalted position, Jesus is the only Perfect High Priest who does not need “to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people.” Jesus was not guilty of any sin as He offered a blood sacrifice for the remission (cancellation) of sin, thereby being the only one who ever lived who could serve as a perfect intermediator between God and humankind.

Jesus is the Perfect Sacrifice.

Notice that in Hebrews 7:27, Jesus functions in two roles:

1) Jesus is the Priest:
Jesus is the subject of the final phrase. He is the one that is carrying out the act of sacrificing. This is what Jesus did on the cross.

2) Jesus is the Sacrifice:
Jesus is the direct object of the final phrase of Hebrews 7:27. He is the one being sacrificed. This is what Jesus did on the cross. When Jesus was on the cross, He exclaimed, “It is finished” (John 19:30). These words indicated that the ultimate sacrifice had been offered. There was no longer a need for any other priest or sacrifice because Jesus, the Perfect Priest, perfectly offered Himself as the Perfect Sacrifice (Hebrews 10:1-4).

The Levitical high priest could only offer the blood of animals, which never truly removed sin, but rather, temporarily covered human sin. Our High Priest, Jesus, offered Himself as a blameless sacrifice on behalf of humanity, alone in the heavenly Holy of Holies, suffering an agonizing death, so that He could serve as an impeccable mediator between humankind and God. As a result of His actions, the veil of the Temple was torn (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45), giving all who are covered by His blood access to the Holy of Holies and, thereby, the presence of the Most High God.

Louis Goldberg summarizes: “…The Mediator of the New Covenant, in His ministry, did not have to confess His sin because there was no sin in Him. Jesus the Messiah, acting in the capacity of High Priest, was holy, innocent, undefiled; He did not have to offer sacrifices before He could minister for us, taking our place perfectly before the exalted and holy God. Jesus alone faultlessly bridges the infinite gap between God and man, and because of His death, He can give us His life.”¹

The events that were commanded by God on Yom Kippur were signs of even greater things. They were representative of what the perfect High Priest Jesus would do in the heavenly Holy of Holies, satisfying the wrath of God toward sin by taking it upon Himself, spilling His own blood, and suffering the death penalty on the cross. Our sin was transferred to Jesus, paid for by His blood, and completely taken away (Hebrews 9:11-14; cf. Leviticus 16:20-22).

Conclusion: Affliction vs. Familiarity

The old adage “familiarity breeds contempt” seems to be why God commanded the people to afflict themselves in Leviticus 16 in addition to the other sacrificial obligations of Yom Kippur. Consider this fact: The people of Israel actually had the presence of the living God dwelling among them in the Tabernacle, and subsequently, in the Temple (cf. 2 Chronicles 5:14). This is the type of experience that might have become humdrum, and consequently, the people could have become complacent in their worship. Nevertheless, when the Day of Atonement came around, and with it multiple sacrifices to atone for the sin of the community, the people were reminded of who they were before a perfect God. Seeing what God required to make atonement as a result of the gravity of their sin, the people’s self-affliction was to serve as an additional reminder for them not to sin against God.

Nevertheless, believers in Jesus have no contemporary mandate to afflict ourselves on any particular day. Now, it is by looking at Jesus and how He intentionally permitted Himself to be afflicted, that we are reminded of the gravity of our sin.

God is not vindictive toward humankind but rather has established a way in which people can come to Him, completely liberated of their sin. God is not resentful and angry at human beings but rather has always loved those whom He created in His image. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, God has created a way for us to recognize Him and love Him back. In this, God has demonstrated that He indeed has never wanted anyone to perish in their sin but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9; cf. 1 Timothy 2:3-4).

It is because of God’s love exhibited through Jesus that humankind is not currently called to afflict our soul. Rather, we experience the affliction of our souls by fixing our eyes on the cross of Jesus. We meditate on the affliction He underwent, suffering mental and physical anguish, and eventually being put to death so that we might live. Our soul cannot be any more afflicted than that of Jesus who willingly died for humanity, suffering the wrath of God for sin that He did not commit.

An inadequate understanding of the ancient Israelite sacrificial system necessarily leads to an incomplete understanding of Jesus’ work for humanity. Because of this, we treasure every single page of written correspondence we have received from God. All of Scripture is relevant, and there is no section of Scripture that deserves to be read with my fantasy fiction attitude.

Yom Kippur is not simply another important Jewish holiday that Christians witness from a distance. Yom Kippur is a day in which we are reminded what the blood of Jesus actually did—and thereby, what it means to humankind. Jesus’ blood provided absolute forgiveness of sin, so that by looking to Him as our great High Priest, and believing in Him as our perfect sacrifice, we have the privilege of entering into the Holy of Holies and communing with the Most High God.

¹ Louis Goldberg, Leviticus, p. 85

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death… But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-56, NLT).

We all live in and observe the same world. We all see and experience the same basic things. The world isn’t as it should be. It’s broken. In the words of Bob Dylan, “Everything’s Broken.” Bad things happen to good people. People who should love each other hurt each other. The spiritual, moral, emotional, physical, and environmental landscape of this world is horribly broken.

Though we all live in and observe the same world, we interpret the data differently. There are countless explanations and interpretations for what’s broken, why it’s broken, and how it can all ultimately be fixed. But even the brightest optimist, the person with the best life imaginable, has to come to grips with the one thing that inescapably says that something’s horribly wrong: death!

In this fallen world the majority of men and women think of death in a very small, personalized way. They think of it as an event.

Death is something that happens to someone who’s living. “They died.” They think of it as an inescapable outcome of existence. You have a birth certificate and a death certificate. The first records your entrance into the world, and the second records your exit. Everyone gets both of those certificates.

Everyone welcomes birth. When a baby is born, cigars and “congrats” are handed out. Colorful helium-filled balloons abound saying, “It’s a____!” We celebrate the date of our birth. Loved ones gather and celebrate the day their loved one was born. We have a name for it: “birth-day party.”

People don’t celebrate when a loved one dies. No cigars, no “congrats,” no balloons. There’s no such thing as a death-day party. People grieve and ache and have to find a way to deal with the gaping hole that someone’s death has left in their world.

Others view death as the termination of life. There was life, and then it was terminated. Death looms as the great terminator of everything they don’t want to end, the loss of everything they worked so hard to gain and don’t want to lose.

Death is surely not less than those things. But death is far greater than than all of that. Death is a “something” that came into a world that only knew life! The world didn’t always look like the News at 10 AM or on our web browser.

The Bible tells us that when God finished creating the world, preparing it for man, and then creating man, God said it was “very good!” Man lived in a perfect world. It was environmentally perfect. Everything was organic! Nothing needed to be labeled as “sustainably grown.” It was socially perfect.

No need for marital counseling. No need for police. It was biologically perfect. There was no need for health insurance because there was no such thing as sickness. There was no such thing as life insurance because there was no such thing as death.

So where did death come from? What is the ultimate “cause of death?” What happened to usher in this inexorable power which now holds sway over what was once a world of life? The Bible informs us that death entered into that perfect world by way of sin.

“For sin is the sting that results in death…” (1 Corinthians 15:56).

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone” (Romans 5:12).

God had warned our first parents that sin would do that (Genesis 2:17). The New Testament tells us that sin has an outcome: “the wages of sin,” is “death” (Romans 6:23).

While fallen man processes the problem of death on one dimension, the Bible informs us that this thing we call “death” exerts its power on three levels. There’s spiritual death, there’s physical death, and there’s eternal death. To help us understand the nature and workings of death, and what it is we’re celebrating on Easter, let’s start with the one dimension of death that fallen man does understand: physical death.

Physical Death

First — The power of death does something to the body. A dead body can’t stick together. It’s falling apart. Death causes someone who was once beautiful to look ugly. When someone is dying of an aggressive form of cancer, you see death at work while they’re still alive. The complexities of anatomy lose all sense of integration. The body falls apart — and the person begin to waste away. When we bury someone, the corpse begins to dis-integrate. There’s no such thing as a beautiful corpse. Death makes once beautiful things ugly.

Second — A dead body can’t respond to stimuli. We have five senses. Those five senses make us fully aware of what’s going on outside of us. I’m aware of what’s outside of me through my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and skin. I’m aware. I can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Death brings an end to the senses. It doesn’t respond to visual, olfactory, auditory, gustatory, or somatosensory stimulation. No more senses. No sensation. It doesn’t respond to stimuli.

Finally — A dead body can’t exert itself. It’s powerless — it can’t move.

A dead body doesn’t possess the desire to move, or the power to move.

Such is the power of death, the grip of death.

Man has no remedy for it.

He’s powerless to overcome physical death.

Spiritual Death

The Bible *informs us* that physical death was preceded by, and *followed from, *spiritual death. Before death impacts a person’s body, death impacts man in his relationship with God. God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed Him, they would die. They disobeyed, yet they didn’t immediately experience biological death. They did immediately experience spiritual death. Sin brought death into the realm of their relationship with God. Even though our first parents were physically alive, they were spiritually dead. They were the original “Walking Dead.”

First — The wages of sin makes us spiritually ugly because we’re no longer fully integrated. God, who is triune, said, “Let us make man in our image.” God made man body, soul, and spirit. Fully integrated. The body and intellect/emotions were designed to be subordinate to, and influenced by, man’s fellowship with God.

Death touched the part of us where we are able to know God — to derive life from God! The outcome was *dis-*integration. Separated from the life of God, fallen man is governed by his fallen emotions, fallen intellect, fallen passions.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world….among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Spiritual death makes us ugly. It makes us turn even good things into bad things by making them ultimate things! When good things become ultimate things, they become ugly: sex is perverted, wealth is perverted, and power is perverted. That truth changes the way we explain and interpret the world around us. That truth changes the diagnosis and the treatment of what’s broken!

Spiritual death (that makes us ugly on the vertical axis of our life, causing us to be dis-integrated in our relationship with God) makes us ugly on the horizontal axis of our lives, causing our human relationships to dis-integrate. We no longer image God well. Instead of bearing the image of the giving, servant heart of God, our first impulse is SELF: self-gain, self-serving, self-promotion, self-preservation. No sooner did sin destroy man’s relationship with God than we have the record of the first murder. It was premeditated murder driven by self-concern. Cain was envious and jealous of his brother, Abel.

Second — Spiritual death destroys the capacity to respond to stimuli. When you’re spiritually dead, it means you can’t see beyond the realm of the physical. Everything else is more interesting than God, His Word, and His Wisdom.

For example, how many people in your neighborhood, school, and workplace want to take a couple of hours on Sunday to gather with others to acknowledge God, worship God, and learn of God? For the *vast *majority of them, the newspaper is more interesting than the Bible; playing a round of golf is more desirable than praising God; being in the stands at a football game (or on the couch watching one with friends) is more interesting than being in a room full of people worshipping Jesus.

That’s because spiritual death makes us incapable of perceiving the reality of the love of God, the cross of Jesus, heaven and hell. You’re as aware of the reality of those things as a corpse is aware of the people at his funeral. Your saved spouse talks about the joy of the Lord, and you aren’t touched by it. Your Christian friend tells you how “blessed” they were reading the Bible, and you’re dead to that reality.

THIS IS HUGE — If you see the world wrong, you live wrong. If you see life as all about your story and your glory, you get wrong all of your responses to life.

Finally — Spiritual death has left us powerless — without the power to do anything about our condition. The following verses explain how spiritual death has left us powerless.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

“When we were utterly helpless” (Romans 5:6).

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8).

Spiritual death leaves us powerless, utterly helpless, in the realm of motive and in the realm of ability. In the physical realm, I have to want to pick up a Bible. That desire has to be connected by way of my nervous system to my muscles, so I can do what I want to do. Spiritual death leaves us without the power to want God and powerless to reach out and grab Him.

Many might say — and I surely used to say and think this — I might not love God as much as I should, I might not have faith in God like I should, but I’m not dead. I have some moral sensation, and I have some moral strength. I’m not dead. You and I might define that as life, but God doesn’t! That’s not life as God defines it. That’s not the life God intended for us to experience. (Think of the TV series “Walking Dead.” Think of how “alive” the “walkers” are compared to real humans). The Bible says that we’re not just sick because of our sins. The Bible says we’re *dead.*

The World’s Diagnosis & Remedy

The world at large has a different diagnosis: man’s not dead, just sick. The world at large has a different prognosis. Give man enough time and he’s going to get better. The world at large offers countless remedies that are the inventions of dead men. Those things are the basis of hope for broken men and women in this broken world. But here’s the problem:

Hope is only real hope if that hope can fix what’s broken.

Think about this: Mankind is obsessed with eliminating the causes of physical death. There are great campaigns against cancer, AIDS, and other diseases. Billions of dollars are spent on medical research and educational campaigns. There are great campaigns against poverty and starvation, substance abuse, drunk driving, and the latest, against guns. (By the way, while countless billions of dollars are funding these campaigns that war against various “causes of death,” a good chunk of a billion dollars is spent by our government every year to KILL nearly 4,000 babies per day. THAT is how ugly and blind sin has made us!)

Every one of those campaigns are against the “causes of death.” But have you noticed that no one has ever just come out and said, “Let’s have a global campaign against dying”? You see, all of those campaigns to cure the various causes of death only prolong the inevitable. One out of every one person born will die.

The Bible’s Diagnosis & Remedy

The Bible has a very different diagnosis: *Ephesians 2 *is the death certificate. Apart from Jesus, we’re all in the morgue. It’s only a matter of time — the body will eventually catch up with us. We NEED to be SAVED.

But the Bible offers real hope. The Bible tells us that God did something to fix the problem of death on every level! God launched a great campaign against death. His great campaign against death began with a campaign against *the *Cause of Death: SIN!

As John Lennox explains, “sin entered the world to wreak endless havoc. So serious is that moral infection that the business of restoring men and women to fellowship with their Creator will involve something much bigger than creation itself: nothing less than the Creator becoming human, dying at the hands of his creatures and rising again in triumph over sin and death.”

Jesus Came to Destroy Sin & Death

The Bible tells us that something happened in history that we can’t ignore. Something happened that changes everything!

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis writes, “Once upon a time in our world, in a little stable, there was something that was bigger than the whole world.”

The Bible says that 2,000 years ago there was something inside a stable that was bigger than the world. 2,000 years ago, God came in human flesh. Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem. That’s what we celebrate on Christmas!

Death was not inescapable for Jesus. Jesus said, “No one takes my life — I lay it down…” Jesus said that He came to “give His life for a ransom.” Jesus is God come in human flesh for the sole purpose of destroying sin and death. On Good Friday, we gather to remember how Jesus was brutally beaten and then nailed to a Roman cross. 700 years before Jesus died on the cross, the prophet Isaiah told why all of that happened:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

Jesus Put Death to Death

Jesus would save us from our great enemies sin and death by His death on the cross in our place for our sin. There on the cross, when the Father laid the sins of the world on Jesus, Jesus experienced separation from God the Father. There on the cross, Jesus experienced biological death. Before He breathed His last, He shouted in victory, “It Is Finished!” Divine justice was satisfied. Our forgiveness was paid for in full. They took Jesus down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.

Tim Chaddick puts it like this: “The empty cross is not good news without the empty tomb!”

Three days after Jesus died, He rose from the grave — PROVING that on the cross He had truly conquered our great enemies sin and death! The resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees the final defeat of sin and death.

The Bible calls it a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). It’s a living hope because Jesus is alive! The Christian alone has real hope because their hope — JESUS — fixed what was broken! Jesus put death to death.

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:17-18).

We were hopelessly dead to God. We were powerless to overcome the power of that death. But when we were dead to God, God did what we couldn’t do.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Spiritual death made us spiritually ugly. The glorious resurrection power of Jesus is at work to make something beautiful of my life. Day by day the resurrection power of Jesus takes what was made ugly because of sin and causes my mind, desires, and passions to integrate with the heart and wisdom of God. The things that I once made ultimate ends for my gratification or glory (time, talents, and treasures) I now, by the resurrection power of God, use for His pleasure and His glory. I now have the life and love of God working in me, causing me to look more like Jesus: loving others and serving others, for His glory and my joy!

Spiritual death made me incapable of seeing beyond the physical. But the resurrection power of God enables me to be stimulated by the things of the Spirit, and helps me hunger for the Word and desire to pray. Spiritual death left me powerless. But the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is now working in me to want and do that which pleases God.

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

Eternal Death

The question remains — “If Jesus put death to death, why do I have to die physically?” Again, when we look at death’s entrance into the world in Genesis 3, we see that the power of death first touched man’s relationship with God. Physical death was secondary. The victory of Jesus over death begins where death began — by restoring our relationship with God, who is our life. The final stage of the destruction of death is over the grave.

This is huge. Physical death for the unbeliever is actually the last act in a progression toward eternal death — separation from God for eternity!

But because of the resurrection of Jesus, physical death for a Christian is the last and final act in a progression completely away from death.

I’ll tell a story that illustrates this: There was a Christian man who was dying of cancer. Whenever he was asked, “Do you believe God will heal you?” he said, “Oh, absolutely. I know God will heal me; I’m just not sure if He’s going to do it before I die or after.” In his case, it was after. But what he also used to say is, “If He heals me before, it’s just a temporary thing until He actually heals me after.”

Because Jesus conquered the grave, physical death is the door into a life forever in the presence of God. Death actually has no power over you. None at all. Physical death is actually going to be the last gasp of death in your life.

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death…But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-56).

I heard someone describe it like this: “Jesus conquered sin and death so you wouldn’t be defeated by them. Jesus walked out of His tomb so you could walk into life eternal. The resurrection of Jesus Christ means you’ll be invited to the one funeral you’ll want to attend: the funeral of death.”

Victory!

THAT’S why Jesus isn’t an option; Jesus isn’t a choice among many choices.

Religion can’t conquer death.

Moralism can’t conquer death.

ONLY JESUS CAN!

Conclusion

You can’t rejoice in the empty tomb if you haven’t been to the cross. Repent of — turn your back on — the lie of lies and trust in the cross and resurrection of Jesus to save you from your great enemies sin and death. Faith means that you’re so convinced that Jesus loved you and died for you that you’ll live for Him. You’ll trust, worship, serve, and obey Him.

If you’re alive — you get to be the agent of His life in a dead world! You get to communicate the life of Jesus by the way you live and by the words you say. You’re strategically placed in this world to use all that you are — all that you do — as ambassadors of the One who conquered death!

As we come to Good Friday, I thought it might be good to refresh our minds on what happened on the cross of Calvary 2,000 years ago. Although many died by crucifixion under Roman rule, there was one whose death was unique.

The death of Jesus of Nazareth was unlike any other death.

The Bible tells us that Jesus died in our place, not merely in a physical sense, but He died in our place in the greater spiritual sense. He died the death of a sinner under the wrath of God for the punishment of sin. The Scriptures teach that Christ died an atoning death, paying for the sin of the entire world. “The just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). This is truly a wonderful message but strangely offensive to many.

I’ve heard people say that it would be immoral for an innocent person to be punished for someone else’s sins. They refuse to believe that Christ died for the sins of the world. Actually, there’s a whole school of thought that attributes this aspect of Christian teaching to Paul rather than to Jesus. They say Jesus never taught that He would die for the sins of the world; this idea was all part of the mythology that was concocted by His followers, Paul being the main culprit.

Some years ago, when I was living in London, I met an Englishman who had converted to Islam under the influence of his Middle Eastern wife. As I spoke to him about Christ, he told me that my version of Christianity was not anything that Jesus originally taught. He was extremely offended by the idea of the blood of Christ making atonement for sin. He said that Paul had invented the idea, and one only needed to be a good person to be accepted by God. So I asked him, “Do you really think Paul invented the Christian faith?” “Yes,” he answered, “Before Paul, no one believed that Jesus died for the sins of the world.” I replied, “Interesting, because Isaiah (written 700 years before Christ’s birth) says, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one, to his own way; and the LORD laid on Him the iniquity of us all.… For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked–but with the rich at His death …’ (Isaiah 53:5-9). That’s the Old Testament saying that the Messiah was going to give His life as a sacrifice for sin. Paul didn’t invent the idea of Christ making atonement for sin, God did!” The man stood speechless.

The promise from the very beginning (Genesis 3:15) was that God would send a redeemer who would crush the head of the serpent (Satan), and in the process, have His heel bruised (a reference to Christ’s death to save us from sin).

People often say in regard to the Old Testament sacrificial system, “Why were all those animals slain and sacrificed; it’s all so bloody and barbaric! What was God thinking?” God was seeking to communicate to us dull-minded, hard-hearted people that the price for sin was the shed blood of an innocent victim. It’s as though God was saying, “This is what it cost to restore your relationship with Me, and all of these sacrifices are just a picture that I’m painting for you of the one who will come and give Himself as the ultimate sacrifice–the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

On the cross, Jesus died to pay the ransom for sinners.

For my sins and your sins, for the sins of everyone who has ever or will ever live. That is mind-boggling. As the psalmist said, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6). Although this is true and we can never fully comprehend what happened that day on Calvary, let’s take some time today to reflect and give thanks to the one who showed the greatest love of all as He by the grace of God tasted death for everyone.

_{Originally Published on April 14, 2017}

On our wedding day, as my wife was walking down the aisle, she looked at me intently, and the big question in her mind was, “Is he going to do it?” Her friend’s husband had done it at their wedding, and she wondered if I would too. But much to her dismay, I did not cry when she walked down the aisle. She asked me later on why I had not cried. “Why would I?”, I asked. “That was a moment to celebrate, not to cry!”

And yet, the Gospel of Luke tells us, that on Palm Sunday, when everyone else was celebrating and rejoicing, Jesus was crying. Why? The answer draws us into the heart of the gospel.

God’s Promise of a True King

Israel had many kings throughout their history, but, as we see in the books of 1-2 Kings, each one was a disappointment. Some were better than others, but none of them fulfilled their potential, and all left the people hoping for more.

God had promised that one day, He would send them a true king, who would rule in righteousness. He would be a liberator, who would set the people free from all oppression and establish a kingdom of peace and justice, which would have no end. And yet, no governing administration ever produced what they hoped it would.

Jesus, the True King & Promised Messiah

Rumors had been swirling for years that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the true king, but Jesus had refused to allow people to revere him as such, until Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, with the city of Jerusalem full of people who had come to celebrate Passover, Jesus affirmed publicly that he was indeed the Messiah, and he rode into the city on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9.

The people waved palm branches (John 12:13), laying them on the ground, along with their cloaks, before Jesus to create a “red carpet” for the rightful king. The significance of this act is found in 2 Kings 9:13, when Jehu became king of Israel, overthrowing the wicked dynasty of the Ahab and Jezebel. At that time, the people laid their cloaks on the ground before him. Additionally, some 200 years before Jesus was born, in the Maccabean Revolt, Israel had successfully cast off their Syrian overlords and gained their independence — at which time, the people celebrated with a parade, in which they waved palm branches. The palm branch, stamped on Jewish coins, was a symbol of deliverance from oppression.

Jesus Goes to the Temple, Failing to Meet Their Expectations

And yet, upon entering Jerusalem, instead of going to the Antonia Fortress to put the Romans on notice, Jesus went to the Temple, where he drove out the money changers and healed the sick (Matthew 21:12-14). Clearly, many of the people were disappointed that Jesus did not give them a political solution that day. Perhaps some of the same people who shouted, “Hosanna,” on Palm Sunday were even amongst the crowd shouting, “Crucify Him,” on Good Friday, having been disillusioned that Jesus hadn’t done what they expected him to do.

Perhaps they should have read Zechariah’s prophecy again. “Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he” (Zechariah 9:9). Jesus, the true king, came to meet our greatest need. The unrighteous, the Bible says, will not enter the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Jesus, the only truly righteous person who has ever lived, came to meet our greatest need: so that through his life, death, and resurrection, we might be justified by his grace, and thereby be saved from judgment!

God’s Plan: Better Than What They Hoped For

The people in Jerusalem had an expectation of what Jesus was going to do for them, but when Jesus didn’t do what they expected He would, some of them turned away — and yet, what Jesus was doing for them was better than what they had hoped for, and was what they truly needed!

May that be a lesson for us this Palm Sunday, so that we would walk with God by faith, trusting in His character, His love, and His plans. Rather than a genie in a bottle, who always gives us what we want, we have a Father in Heaven, who loves us and gives us what we need — and that is infinitely better!

Jesus Wept With Us So That One Day We Might Rejoice With Him Forever

In Luke 19:41, we read that as Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, as the crowds were cheering, Jesus was crying.

Shouldn’t He have been reveling in receiving the recognition that He rightly deserved? The reason Jesus cried is because, as He looked over Jerusalem, He knew that the current enthusiasm would not last, and He would soon be crucified as a criminal by the people He had come to save.

Yet, with tears streaming down His face, Jesus continued into Jerusalem. Why? Because, Hebrews 12:2 tells us of the joy that was set before him.

Jesus wept with us for a moment, so that one day, we might rejoice with Him forever.

In the Book of Revelation, we are given this preview of Heaven: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with “palm branches” in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10).

Palm Branches – The Symbol of Deliverance, Again

In Heaven, we see palm branches, the symbol of deliverance from oppression, because Jesus, the true king, has liberated us from that which is at the root of all oppression! Whereas on Palm Sunday, people shouted “Hosanna!” (“Save Now”), the great multitude in Heaven declares that Jesus has saved them.

Palm Sunday points us to the heart of the gospel: The true King came to meet our greatest need, and He wept with us so that one day we might rejoice with Him forever.

If you’ve been anywhere near Christian social media circles, you’ve most likely heard about “deconstruction.” To “deconstruct” something is to seek to take something apart and examine the parts that make it up. In my master’s studies, one of my focuses was on “theological method,” which is a process by which you can deconstruct the implicit process, by which people arrive at different theological beliefs or conclusions (More here on Theological Method).

#Deconstruction #Exvangelical

However, the word “deconstruction” is currently being used in popular culture in a way which is different from the scholarly usage of the term. People who were raised in Christian environments are deconstructing their faith, which means that they are questioning what they were taught and believed.

This is nothing new. People have been doing this for thousands of years, and sometimes it can be a very good thing. For example, it is helpful to go through the process of differentiating what about a belief system is culturally influenced, which parts are tangental or superfluous “chaff,” which deserves to be shed, or at least relegated to secondary importance, and which things are core, essential beliefs.

It is also important and necessary for a person, as they mature, to make the transition from inherited or assumed beliefs, to personal and sincere, heartfelt beliefs. This is exactly what we see in the Book of Deuteronomy, for example, where Moses speaks to the new generation: Their parents had been the ones who had experienced the Exodus and had seen God’s miraculous provision in the splitting of the Red Sea, water from the rock, and the fire on the mountain. This new generation had heard about these things but had not experienced them personally. And in Deuteronomy – at the end of his life – Moses speaks to this younger generation and urges them that they must have their own faith; that they cannot merely ride on the coattails of their parents’ faith.

In the process of examining what one believes and why, some people go through a process of deconstruction: a critical examination of what they were taught, what they experienced in the church environment, and whether they actually believe those things themselves. This is always a precarious process by nature, but in a way, it is necessary for a vibrant, personal faith commitment.

Recently, there has been a trend online encouraging people to deconstruct their faith, but not necessarily for asking important questions, which will lead to vibrant, personal faith. Rather, more for the purpose of influencing others to abandon their faith in Christianity.

Don’t Forget to Deconstruct Your Deconstruction…

In examining some of the videos and other materials that people have shared with me on this topic, what I have found is that many of these people, while they may be sincere, fail to deconstruct their deconstruction.

Theological Method is, in fact, the true and greater deconstruction because it has the capacity to not only deconstruct religious beliefs, but also to deconstruct the reasons why people abandon their previously held religious beliefs, or even why people reject certain beliefs altogether.

I describe what Theological Method is and how it works in this podcast episode:

Let’s Deconstruct a Deconstruction TikTok

Recently, someone sent me this video and asked for my take on it:

@jjtalks4 #deconstruction #exvangelical #atheism #agnostic #christiantiktok #criticalthinking #SaveIt4TheEndZone ♬ Ice Me Out – Kash Doll

This person comes across as smart, winsome and knowledgable about Christianity. There are some things she says, which are correct, about what Christians believe regarding the person of Jesus and His atoning death.

The problem with her argument, however, comes at the beginning where she lays out the basis of her premise. Her fundamental assumption is that God has established some completely arbitrary rules and then punishes people for breaking those rules. Then, she claims that Jesus’ death was essentially unnecessary, since it was just God appeasing His own unnecessary rules, which He set up in the first place.

Her Assumptions: God’s “Rules” are Arbitrary, and Judgment is Unnecessary

This woman’s view of sin is that sin = things which God forbids, or not doing what God commands. In other words, her view is that nothing is inherently bad or good, but God capriciously chooses what He thinks are bad or good, and imposes that standard on His subjects.

The problem with this view, is that it is NOT what the Bible actually teaches. What the Bible teaches is that morality is rooted in actuality: Some things are actually good, and other things are actually bad – whether God says they are or not, and whether you believe in God or not.

In other words: Sin is not bad because it is forbidden, rather: Sin is forbidden because it is bad.

Sin is Not Bad Because It’s Forbidden; Sin is Forbidden Because It’s Bad

As Moses tells the Israelites in Deuteronomy: All of God’s commandments have been for your good always. (Deuteronomy 5:29; 6:24; 10:13). Since God loves, and since He knows more than you, He – as a loving Father – tells you what to do and what not to do, because sin (missing the mark, doing wrong) is destructive. It is as if there is a glass of water and a glass of antifreeze on the table, and God’s command is: “Drink the water; don’t drink the antifreeze!” – and our reply is: “God is just making up arbitrary rules…” No, God loves you enough to tell you, based on His infinite knowledge, what will be best for you.

Furthermore, as God is the embodiment of goodness and love, morality is directly linked to His character and attributes. For this reason, to rebel against God is to sin, and this brings with it the natural consequence of judgment for those actions.

Interestingly, we live in a world today where there is an increasing consensus and belief that certain activities (racism, hatred, prejudice, etc.) are fundamentally, objectively wrong (whether you believe in God or not). It is widely accepted that to do those things is actually wrong and deserves some form of judgment. This is based on the belief that there is a standard of morality, which is not arbitrarily defined by a cosmic deity, but which truly and actually exists. This is what Christians, informed and confirmed by the Bible, actually believe as well.

So, the premise presented in this video can be seen to be a gross misrepresentation of what the Bible teaches and what Christians believe.

Did Jesus’ Death Cause God to Change His Mind About Judging Us for Our Sins?

One final point: She claims, at the end, that because of the death of Jesus, God “changed His mind” about punishing us for His own arbitrary rules. This is not what Christians believe, nor what the Bible teaches. Rather, the message of the gospel is that all of us have sinned and fallen short – not only of God’s standards, but even of our own standards of right and wrong. We have all done things and thought things which missed the mark, and the result of sin is death. However, the good news of God’s grace is that He came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves – in life, death, and resurrection – in order to reconcile us to Himself without compromising His fundamental characteristics of justice and mercy.

If “justice” = giving someone exactly what they deserve, and “mercy” = not giving someone the judgment they deserve for the wrong things they have done, then justice and mercy cannot co-exist, since they negate each other. However, as part of the definition of goodness, God, we are told in the Bible, is BOTH just and merciful. It is only in His self-sacrifice that we see how these two seemingly incompatible characteristics can be embodied by God at the same time – and that’s really good news!

^{Originally published on Nick’s blog December 8, 2021}

I imagine the disciples could sense something was different that evening. They had shared countless meals together, and often those meals would be the stage in which their rabbi performed. They had seen Him eat with elite dignitaries and social pariahs. They had heard Him forgive the sins of tax collectors and seen Him turn jars of water into wine at a wedding feast. They had witnessed Him turn a small boy’s offering into enough food to feed a hillside of thousands. That evening, when they celebrated the Passover together, it likely seemed different and particularly void of miracles and grandiose teachings. That evening, He told the disciples that one of them who had loyally followed Him for years, and had heard His teachings with his own ears, would betray Him. The tension in the room had to have been amplified by the growing hostility that they experienced from the religious elite, who were tired of hearing about this itinerant rabbi some were whispering might actually be the Messiah, the Son of Man.

In the midst of all this, Jesus reached for bread, unleavened bread that had no yeast because the Israelites’ escape from slavery left no time for bread to rise. Again, this evening, the bread would represent escape and redemption. Jesus held the bread and gave thanks, and then broke the bread so that all could share in it. He told those young men, who were wondering what life-changing message their teacher would share with them, that the bread was His body broken for them. After their meal was finished, He took the cup full of wine, and gave thanks for it. He shared it with His friends, after He told them that this cup was a sign of the new promise He was making with humanity. It was His blood, shed for them. A broken body and shed blood.

An inexplicable feeling of grief likely filled the room as those men, who had left their nets to follow this man, were wondering what would happen next. However, Jesus had left them a wonderful gift that they likely had no appreciation for until the events of the next three days were over.

He had taught them a way to give thanks and to remember.

Over the course of the 2000 years since that fateful evening, Christ’s followers have hotly debated what this meal was really all about. Some have wondered if His real flesh and blood is present in the elements of what we might call the Lord’s Supper. In the ritual of the modern Evangelical Church, we often find a simple loaf of bread and grape juice used for the elements. Despite the disagreements that stem from as far back as the early church fathers, what Christians seem to agree on is that the purpose of the meal can be found on the pages of Scripture itself. We are to give thanks and to remember.

Catholics, and many mainline Protestants, still refer to the meal by its ancient name, the Eucharist. It is a shame that many evangelicals refuse to use the word now, likely due to feelings of ritual that surround it, because the word is an appropriate label. The Greek word eucharisteo literally means to “give thanks.” It is the word used by Matthew and Mark to describe what Jesus did both in the Passover celebration and on the hillside where He multiplied those fish and loaves. It is the word Paul would use all those times he would tell a faithful church that he gave thanks to God for them, and the testimony he had heard about them. It is this word that serves as our reminder that before Christ gave the bread and wine to His disciples, He first gave His Father the small gift of His appreciation for the provision of bread and wine. It is the best translation of our English phrase “thank you.”

We too, when we take the bread in our hands, are to first simply give thanks to God both for the bread and for what it represents. Christ tells us that we are to remember Him when we eat. That includes remembering the events that followed this meal, i.e., the suffering He experienced at the hands of Roman guards, at the feeling of stark loneliness on the cross, at the death of the Son of Man, and at the victorious resurrection that gave us life. Yet we also forget to remember other things. There is the sermon He gave on the mountainside when He told His followers to love their enemies, the moment when He first forgave the sins of the paralyzed man before making him walk again, and the tears He shed with those who were grieving over the death of His friend Lazarus. We are to remember these things too and to give thanks for them.

To “give” thanks is an expectation we likely forget we have for others.

We expect a small wave from the driver of the car we allow to cut in front of us. Some of us struggle to find the right words to express gratitude when we are opening Christmas gifts in front of loved ones. That is because, ultimately, we are simply bad at saying, “thank you.” It is no wonder then that what humanity values so much, yet struggles to perform, would be something God desires to see us exercise and grow in. The habit of gratitude is one that escapes even the most “mature” Christians, yet I challenge you to think of someone who constantly practices it, who is not also the most encouraging Christian you know.

A change of mind is necessary to see this change in a believer’s life. We must realize that there is a reason the Biblical authors so often phrased this charge as to “give” thanks, and not simply to “say” thanks. Our gratitude is itself a gift regardless of how much it pales in comparison to the gift that provoked it. In the case of the parent on Christmas who has given their child something they desperately hoped to receive, that child’s “thank you” is the only thing the child could possibly give back to their parent. We are in the same position with God as He bestows eternal riches and gifts beyond our wildest imaginations. The life of obedience for the Christ follower begins with a simple “thank you” in response to the work of the cross and resurrection.

This habit of gratitude leads us to remembering as well. As we face the temptation to shipwreck our faith at every turn, we can remember that on the night in which He was betrayed, Christ took bread and broke it to symbolize His body that would be broken.

In light of this, it is easier for us to abstain from a trivial and temporary temptation that has consequences far surpassing the fleeting pleasure it might give us. Entering an American holiday season, which forces our consumerist muscles to get stronger every year, the cup which Christ gave thanks for, before explaining that His blood would give us all we could ever need, allows us the liberty to remember that we, in fact, do not need all we are told we do. God does not leave us with vague esoteric teachings that we must memorize by rote, but instead gives us bread and wine. As we look upon these all-too-common objects, He asks that we remember Him and all He has done for us.

The Church is to be a called-out-group that is defined by being eucharistic.

That is to say, we are to be both grateful and generous. Paul’s charges to the church at Corinth in his first letter implied that one of the catalysts of their many problems was a sinful view of the Eucharistic meal. It is around the table, remembering Christ, that the Church becomes one body and the Corinthians had horribly missed that. It is not foolish to say that we too have missed the mark on being known as a group defined by the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. How much more flavorful the earth would be if we, the salt, turned our minds more often to that night 2000 years ago? How much more light would our city on a hill give if wanderers were met more often with the ever-present glow of the upper room instead of the wild flashes of our modern strategy and salesmanship? How much easier would it be to persuade the world that our physical bodies were designed and sanctified by God if we regularly bowed our heads and pointed them to how Christ used His?

We can remedy this by first making more time to pause and remember, and to give thanks. Pastors can lead their congregations to the table more frequently and cease allowing the meal to be an addition to a service or a transition between a sermon and an invitation. Parents can bring their children to experience the life-giving story of the time when the disciples thought all might be lost, but Christ knew better, and so He gave them reminders to hold in their hands. Bread and juice can be in the cabinet, waiting to be brought out for a weekly remembrance.

If we desire our generosity to be cheerful and not obligatory, understanding the practice of the Eucharist, of giving thanks, is a fantastic place to start. If we want the center of our daily lives to be the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection, then choosing to live a life of gratitude and memory is the only place to start. So, take the bread and cup in your hands, say, “thank you,” and then pause to remember.

Today (this weekend), people worldwide are remembering and celebrating the greatest event in human history- the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! All human discovery and achievement, all scientific breakthrough and advancement, pales in comparison to this most glorious event- which was essentially the abolition of death and meaninglessness and the ushering in of genuine hope for the world.

On Easter Sunday, I could tell you that:

Jesus didn’t swoon on the cross but genuinely, truly, died. And it was seen-to by professional executioners.

They buried him in a well-known location, and yet three days later, the tomb was empty.

Women were the first to see him risen from the dead (which brought no credit to the claim in those days because of women’s low role in society). Why mention the women at all? Because it’s actually how it went down.

Five hundred people saw the risen Jesus at one time.

Jesus ate, drank, talked & walked with his closest friends and followers for forty days after his resurrection. His appearance was not just a one-time hallucinated experience.

After witnessing his resurrection, Jesus’ own family members, who were skeptical of him, accepted him as Messiah and God.

Each of the Apostles (excluding John) died gruesome deaths for their claim that Jesus was Messiah and Lord.

I could tell you that people back then were not more gullible about these things than we are. No one in the 1st century (besides the Jews) believed in “resurrection,” or wanted it for that matter – The Greeks had a very low view of the body and afterlife.. and yet the claim that Jesus rose from the dead and was Lord over all changed the world.

These facts concerning Jesus’ resurrection are of enormous importance, but they aren’t delivered to us via scripture as cold facts from a textbook waiting to be dusted off once a year around this time. No, the Christian life is to be one continual celebration and observance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!

N.T. Wright, in his book Surprised By Hope, says, “The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.”

The Apostle Peter also develops this idea of living out or practicing resurrection in his 1st epistle. He speaks of God’s people as having a living hope, an inheritance, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter wants us to think about the real-life implications of the resurrection of Jesus and bring that to bear upon our everyday rhythms.

To Peter, the resurrection of Jesus is a life-altering, earth-shattering, historical event. So significant is the resurrection that it changed the course of history and the possibilities for every human that has ever lived. Peter says that Jesus’ resurrection means that we can now set our hope entirely on the coming Kingdom of God – with 100 % certainty. His call to all Christians is this: set your hope wholly on the grace brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The phrase “the revelation of Jesus Christ” refers to the Day that God will seal up and finish everything that he did at the Resurrection of Jesus. The day that he will destroy death and bring new life to this world, the day when he will make all things new. This hope is everlasting, totally secure because Jesus alone has risen from the dead, never to die again. He has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, and He alone has the keys of hell and death. Now he sits at the right hand of God the Father with all authority and power guiding all things to this end; until the time when he will bring his kingdom to reign on earth, in righteousness and peace, world without end.

I love the way that Tim Keller uses this Tolkienism to refer to the new creation when he says, “The resurrection of Christ means everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.” -Tim Keller, The Reason for God.

That is the Kingdom of God – Peace, Shalom – complete healing and wholeness to all relationships in all of creation. In the Kingdom of God, we will be fully reconciled to God, to nature, to one another, and to ourselves.

Since all of this is guaranteed to us through Jesus’ resurrection, I want to follow suit with the Apostle Peter and the famous American poet Wendall Berry and say to you, ‘Live out that Hope, Practice Resurrection!’

But what does it look like to practice resurrection?

To the extent that that future is real to you, it will change how you live in the present. We call this “Eschatological Ethics.” Living out the kingdom of God in the here and now.

This idea breaks down into two categories: the calculated and the care-free.

The Calculated

If Jesus Christ is risen from the dead – that means we should calculate all things in light of the final resurrection and the coming kingdom. It means that everything we do in this life has eternal weight and merit to it. Directly following Pauls’ teaching on the truth and effects of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, he concludes –

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15).

N.T. Wright says, “The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it). They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.” – N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

Part of the church’s task consists of implementing that achievement of Jesus and anticipating the future kingdom by doing righteousness, justice and bringing peace to the places and people of our city where it is absent.

I see here a correlation to Jesus’ parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price. The exhortation of these stories is to give everything you have for the working and building of the kingdom of God. To live our lives as though the kingdom were here now. To begin to practice now the language and characteristics of faith, hope, and love in our everyday lives. For this is the language they speak in the courts of the kingdom of heaven.

Again, N.T. Wright, “Every act of love, every deed done in Christ and by the Spirit, every work of true creativity – doing justice, making peace, healing families, resisting temptation, seeking and winning true freedom – is an earthly event in a long history of things that implement Jesus’ own Resurrection and anticipate the final new creation and act as signposts of hope, pointing back to the first and on to the second…” – N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

The Care-free

Tim Keller, in his book, Jesus the King, asks a series of questions that help us to realize the everyday implication of the power and freedom that the resurrection of Jesus offers to our lives. He asks,

“Why is it so hard to face suffering? Why is it so hard to face disability and disease? Why is it so hard to do the right thing if you know it’s going to cost you money, reputation, maybe even your life? Why is it so hard to face your death of death of loved ones? It’s so hard because we think (and act) as though this broken world is the only world we’re ever going to have. It’s easy to feel as if this money is the only wealth we’ll ever have. If I only have one life to live, I better live it to the fullest by bringing ultimate satisfaction to myself. “But if the resurrection is true, then this is not my only life, nor is it my best life, but the best is yet to come.” – Tim Keller, Jesus the King.

Not only is the best to come, but it is “imperishable, undefiled, unfading and reserved in heaven for us, protected by God!

Because of this, we are free. Free to love all people liberally. Free to show kindness to all. Free to forgive. Free to think the best of people. Free to loosen our control and worry. Free to give more away. Free to take ourselves less seriously. We’re free to spend more time being with people, invest in their lives, and less time securing our own little kingdoms. We are free to bless the people who hate and curse us. Might I even suggest free to read another story to our kids or spend more time playing with them? We are free to throw a great party or plant a garden.

People who have no belief in God or the Resurrection – who have no hope in a restored heaven and earth, say stuff like this all the time. How much more can Christians live care-free? Indeed, if Jesus rose from the dead, your life should be care-free, but not because of flippancy. Your life should be care-free because of such great certainty and underlying hope about the future and the kingdom of God.

If you’re lonely in this life, in the resurrection, you will have perfect love. If you’re empty in this life, in the resurrection, you will be fully satisfied.

If you and I know that this is not the only world, the only body, the only life we are ever going to have – that we will one day have a perfect life, a definite, concrete life – then who ultimately cares what people do to you, and what happens in this life?

Because of the resurrection, we can be free from ultimate anxieties in this life; we can be brave and take risks. We can sacrifice greatly. We can face even the worst things with joy and with hope because it doesn’t end there. Death, chaos, and destruction do not have the final word over our lives – Jesus the resurrected Lord does.

It’s because of this hope we can freely give our bodies in obedience to God, to his use, and for his glory. We can have the mind of Christ, who did not hold onto his glory and comforts but laid them aside for others. We can be humble, like Jesus. We can make ourselves the servant of all, like Jesus. We can die to ourselves, our will, our self-preservation for the sake of others and receive a great reward in the Kingdom of God.” Only in the gospel of Jesus Christ can we find such enormous hope to live in. Only the resurrection promises us not just new minds and hearts but also new bodies. Only the resurrection promises that the best is yet to come!

Listen to the voices of the prophets, and just let this vision sink into your bones.

“On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:6-9)

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:1-5)

Last thing

“If you believe the resurrection is true. If you believe that Jesus has died to save you – to redirect your eternal trajectory irrevocably toward God. If you believe that God has accepted you, for Jesus’ sake, through an act of supreme grace. You are a part of the Kingdom of God which means – a guaranteed new heavens and new earth, a healed material creation, absolute wholeness and well being- physically, spiritually, socially, and economically.” – Tim Keller, Jesus the King.

If you believe this, then Practice Resurrection.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:3–6).

Hope is as essential to human life as food and water, without hope we lose the will to live. The best this world has to offer is hope in perishing things such as health, prosperity and happiness in this life, none of which last beyond the grave. Worldly hope is dying hope, and even this is in short demand nowadays. However, through the victorious resurrection of Christ we are given the promise of the imperishable inheritance that is eternal life. Christ conquered the grave and the promise of God is that we too will not be held down by death if we are found in him. Our hope in Christ is a living hope! Through this living hope alone can we have peace and even rejoice in these seasons of uncertainty and trials that we find ourselves in presently. May the peace, love, and hope of Christ be with you this week and forevermore.

“Today we call it the holy cross, for Christ has made it so glorious; but at that time it was nothing but the gallows on which the Jews hung and executed Him. This was the altar on which this High Priest performs His sacrifice.” – Martin Luther

Jesus our high priest chose as his altar the most gruesome and cruel place of torture for the dregs and criminals of society. Such was his identifying with the most heinous and shameful parts of our fallen, sinful, Adamic nature. He sanctified a symbol of gruesome Roman torture and criminal justice and transformed it into a symbol of grace, mercy, love and forgiveness. All this reminds me that in bearing my sin, He satisfies God’s justice for me and transforms my life through his sacrifice.

“Great God, in Christ You call our name and then receive us as Your own, not through some merit, right or claim, but by Your gracious love alone. We strain to glimpse Your mercy seat and find You kneeling at our feet. Then take the towel, and break the bread, and humble us, and call us friends. Suffer and serve till all are fed, and show how grandly love intends to work till all creation sings, to fill all worlds, to crown all things.” -Brian Wren

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:3-5).

The action of Jesus washing their feet is a demonstration of His love for sinners. And specifically His love for “his own.” This is an example of what Jesus’ love looks like. Humble, kneeling, washing. He cares about the dignity and value of each individual. He doesn’t stand far back with a hose and spray them all, but one by one, personally.

What a year it’s been! 2020 has felt to me as if the whole world has been shaken – a global pandemic, lockdowns and restrictions, death and tragedy, political polarization, economic catastrophes, riots and fires and pain. As I said, what a year!

Where is God in all of this you might ask? He is working his eternal plan (Romans 8:28)!

It is interesting that even as we observe the world being shaken, we can also see that the church itself has been shaken. Normal church practice has been stripped away by the restrictions and lockdowns implemented across the globe.

Gathering together was banned, music was banned, congregational singing was banned, time restrictions were placed on services, hospitality was banned, and even hugs were forbidden. The apparatus of the church in many ways was stripped away. Hebrews 12:27 says, “‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.” What is left for us Christians when all of this is removed?

For some in the church, nothing remained, and their faith failed; the apparatus of the church was where their faith was placed. And when it was removed, there was no foundation to stand on, no Christ to stand on. The shaking of the church has been intense and painful, but what remains?

What remains in the heart of every Christian is their personal relationship with Jesus.

A phrase that has been used so often that it has lost much of its meaning. A personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus has often been drowned out of our lives by the busyness of ministry, church life, community and perfect worship music. Are these things bad? Of course not, they are wonderful! But if they are all you have, what are you left with when they are removed? Nothing.

The “nothing” of people’s relationship with God is being exposed. God is always working – we know that (Romans 8:28). God is working in every situation; he is working even now in this global pandemic. In this time of “crisis” for the church in this “great falling away.” God is working and weaving his good plan, just as he has from the start. Where is your faith? Now is the time to look to God’s new beginning, for his rebirth of the church, with those who remain. “As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy” (James 5:11).

We have had a dependency on the apparatus of the church that has distracted us for our need to come to God, on our own in the secret place. To know his presence in the quiet of our room. To come before him, to pray for guidance, renewal; to come to him in confession and repentance, and to lay our lives daily before him; to know his touch, to feel the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our time alone with God. Without that, what do we have? Hip churches, wonderful music, coffee community – but with an empty place at the centre where Jesus should be enthroned. Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4). It is time to abide again with Christ, for him to be our life blood and our source.

Can we worship without music? Yes! Can the Holy Spirit move even if church looks a bit different? Yes! He moved in power in an upper room when the “church,” the 12 disciples, were scared and in hiding. Now is the time to see the spirit move in a way that we have never seen before! Don’t despair – look forward in faith to the new thing God is doing in the world!

I am so excited to be a Christian in this season, because the Lord is doing a new thing! This is not a season of defeat; it is an integral part of God’s great plan of salvation! This is not based on a shallow faith defined by distraction, but on a deep and personal faith, where Jesus is king and our lives are fully his.

What will our new normal be?

It will begin in the secret place with Jesus. Followers of Christ who have a deep abiding faith – who’s trust is in God – in his sovereignty over all the chaos and in his continuing plan for the world- those followers will stand, even though shaken, they will see the renewal of God’s church and his work internationally.

As we come back to gather together again, we are not re-starting church, instead, we are starting anew. The power to stand comes through a posture of kneeling in prayer (kneeling is not banned!). The rebirth of the church will be birthed out of a place of prayer and repentance.

Let’s be a part of God’s coming plan. Now is the time for us to go to God in prayer, to ask him to forgive us for building our faith on things other than him – even good things. Things can be stripped away- as we have seen this year – but our relationship with Christ is eternal. He is the rock on which we build our faith, our lives and the church!

This year the anxiety level of the global community has gone through the roof. For the first time, some secular people are thinking about the big questions of life; they realise they are facing the void alone, and they are terrified. They want an answer to their pain, confusion and fear. The Gospel is that answer, and we will see the gospel go out in power again. The “West” is the great new mission field.

The “West” has forgotten the Gospel, and we are who God is calling to tell it once again. Now is the time.

God told Esther she was made “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) – if you are still standing in Christ, then he is going to use you in this time. Come to him even now as you read this article; kneel down before him and offer him your life once more. Then come to prayer and hammer heaven with your requests to see God’s renewal in your communities and internationally. It might feel like the tide is going out on Christianity – but just as one wave rolls out, a new one is rolling in!

Together, in prayer, in the secret place with Christ, in our personal relationship with Jesus, we will see his church be renewed.

“On Christ the solid rock we stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand!”

In the previous reflection, we considered how the flesh of Jesus served as a veil to God’s glory. In this reflection, we will see how the very thing that separates us from God’s glory and presence is the very thing that unites us and grants us entrance.

This is why Jesus says that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to Father except through Him (John 14:6).

Paul puts it like this, “There is one God and one mediator, the man Jesus Christ” (Timothy 2:5).

Christ as our High Priest serves as our mediator, acting on our behalf and bringing us to God. For a mediator to function effectively, they must fully represent both parties in a conflict and then execute a solution.

Jesus does this impeccably for He is fully God and fully man. Thus He is able to bring two opposing parties together while fully representing both completely and accurately.

This is why the incarnation is not just so important, but indispensable to our redemption. Through uniting to us in His flesh, Jesus is able to unite us to God through His Divine nature. But notice, it is mandatory that we come through His flesh.

Therefore, it is as humans that we come through the humanity of Jesus into fellowship with the Triune God and share in His eternal life.

The Tearing of Jesus’ flesh grants us entrance into the presence of God.

As we noted, the author of Hebrews is underscoring the superiority and finality of the work of Christ our Great High Priest in bringing us into the presence of God.

You recall, that the theme of Jesus’ body being the temple means that He is the true dwelling place of God, wrapped in human flesh. When we make the connection to the veil of Jesus’ flesh and the veil in the temple, we discover that it is a simple connection to make.

For instance when Jesus died, Matthew informs us that the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This signified that access to God has been established once and for all in a new and living way, and that the things that separate us from God have been dealt with. Namely, our otherness, and more so, our sin.

This also signified that it was the work of God in that the veil was torn from top to bottom. In other words, it is God Himself who accomplishes the work of redemption.

In making this connection, it is also clear that Jesus’ flesh served as the veil that was torn as it was ripped apart by Roman flails and whips. This is why when Jesus instituted the New Covenant, He said ‘this is my body broken for you… this is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 22:19-21).

As a human High Priest, Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice whose body was torn and whose blood is able to save us to the uttermost and sanctify our hearts forever.

It was as His body was abused, beaten, ripped and torn, and His blood spilled that the true veil was torn.

Through His perfect and sinless humanity, He was an adequate offering to die in our stead and based on that achievement, give us full and free access to God. As a Christian, this means that with Jesus and in Jesus we come to God as humans. Redeemed humans washed in His blood and made new in His life.

Therefore we cannot emphasize enough that we come through our shared humanity with Jesus into the triune life and fellowship that He has always enjoyed and now shares with us as one of us.

This is how God brings many sons to glory and remakes redeemed humanity in the image of His Son.

As humans, we have full access into the life of the triune God all because Jesus chose to share our human nature with us and became a temple that could never be destroyed by death, but that destroys death once and for all.

In closing, this Christmas, let us remember that Jesus who came for us came as one of us, and that apart from His humanity, we would have no access to God.

“…By a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh” (Hebrews 10:20).

As we celebrate Christmas, we ponder the wonder of the incarnation of Jesus. That the second member of the Godhead added humanity to Himself, thus forever uniting Himself to humanity.

The writers of the New Testament stress both the humanity and divinity of Jesus. So we affirm that Christ is one person with two distinct natures, not separated, not mixed but forever united.

Theologically, we refer to this as the hypostatic union. In this brief advent reflection, I want to look at the words “through the veil,” that is to say, “His flesh,” and examine the imagery the author provides.

Here the author is saying, that by the blood and through the flesh of Jesus, we enter the most holy place with the human Jesus as our high priest who leads us. But notice that it is His flesh that is the gate of entrance. This is an intriguing way to express the high priestly work of Jesus and how He brings us into the presence of God.

What I want to do now is take up what seems to be an invitation to explore the range of meaning that the imagery employed by the author evokes, focusing on the imagery of the veil.

The flesh of Jesus veils the glory of God

When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, we read, “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”

What happened is that Jesus temporarily allowed His Divine nature to be expressed and let His glory radiate. This is why both John and Peter refer to that event and associate it with seeing the glory and majesty of God.

For instance, when John writes about this event, he says:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

He is here referring to seeing the glory of Jesus revealed on the mountain. What is important is that though this was a temporary event, it was a taste of what living in the New Jerusalem will be like.

John shares his vision of of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:10,11, where we read:

“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.”

He goes on to say in Revelation 22:5: “There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light.”

What is to be stressed here is that in the New Jerusalem, God’s glory will be present and expressed with all its fullness. Redeemed humanity will be able to stand it because they will be in their glorified state.

Until then, man cannot withstand being in the full presence of God’s glory.

Thus, as Jesus was on the earth, He had to restrain the full expression of His glory, and His flesh was the veil that covered His glory from man.

To further develop this idea, we can think of Moses who was also on a mountain where the glory of God was revealed. In Exodus 33, Moses asks God to show His glory. God’s response was that Moses could not see His face and live. We read:

“But He said, ‘You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.’ And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.’”

Notice that Moses was covered while God’s glory passed by. Moses eventually got his request not on Mount Sinai, but on the Mount of Transfiguration as he conversed with Jesus and Elijah. As Moses came down to the camp, his face shone from the encounter, which led to Moses putting a veil over his face as he conversed with the people.

Commenting on this, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3 that the children of Israel were not able to look at Moses’ face because he was reflecting the glory of God. Even though it was a mere reflection and a fading one at that. He then goes on to say in verse 18:

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

In Christ, the veil is removed, and we see God’s glory as it is revealed in and through Jesus, who is the brightness of His glory and express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3).

John also tells us that Jesus reveals God’s glory and the Father. In His introduction, he plays heavily on the theme of light. This is because He is seeking to draw our minds to the glorious light of God’s nature. This light he says, is Jesus. Then, in the span of five verses, he associates Jesus with the glory of God and manifestation of the Father.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).

Moses was not allowed to see God and live.

Yet in Christ, we are allowed to see God and live.

All because Jesus clothed and united Himself to us in adding flesh to His person. Remember our verse in Hebrews tells us that the flesh of Jesus is a veil.

The immediate reference is to the temple veil. It is as this veil torn, that we are able to see what it hides, namely the glory of God in the holy place where God sits enthroned between the cherubim.

It is the tearing of this veil of His flesh that we will take up in our next reflection.

In closing, I invite you to reflect on the following statement. God who dwells in unapproachable light has come near to us in the humanity of His Son Jesus as one of us. Sharing in our flesh.

There is a question that lurks at the back of our minds, niggling, scratching, attempting to penetrate our consciousness. We keep it at bay with busyness, distractions, vanity, and ambition, but it still scratches. The question is this: What is the purpose of life? What is the point of it all? What will remain of me when I take my last breath? That is the question that has scratched at the brain of every thinking person from the start.

Albert Camus wrote about the character of Sisyphus, who is found in Greek mythology. He was condemned to roll a stone up a hill until he was ten paces from the top, and then let it roll back down again only to roll it up again and repeat ad infinitum.

Life sometimes feels this way: eat, sleep, work, repeat. What is the point? Bertrand Russell said we are nothing more than an “accidental collocation of atoms destined to end in the heat death of the universe.” He went on to say, “Only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

Dawkins said we live in a universe of “blind, pitiless indifference.”

If human beings are here by a biological accident, then what is the meaning of life?

Do we live and breathe and die all for nothing? Is there any arc to our story? Or is it a plotless existence that simply happens and then ends?

Many of the great thinkers of history have embraced this idea of material meaninglessness. Steven J. Gould argues that we must “construct our own meaning,” but what gives our “construct” any meaning? Who determines it? By what standards do we measure whether or not we have been successful?

If God is not a reality, then we can be our own master. We can do as we please. We can construct our own meaning. But without God, none of it means anything; life has no ultimate purpose. Our “freedom” becomes utterly meaningless.

Aldous Huxley said very honestly:

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently, assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning – the Christian meaning, they insisted – of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”

This is an interesting and honest quote. To be a free, moral agent, we must remove God, but if we remove God, we lose our life’s meaning and purpose. Here Huxley acknowledges that total human, moral freedom comes only when we “deny that the world has any meaning whatever.” This is a high price to pay, and we are seeing the consequences of it throughout our world today. The void of meaninglessness is eating at people’s souls.

Anxiety is at an all-time high in the West, as we leave young people to face the void alone.

The temporary distractions of our imminent frame – social media, Netflix, pornography – can only temporarily keep the abyss at bay. In reality, in the face of eternity, we need God standing with us.

Albert Camus argued that, “If my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living. It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable. Once and for all, value judgments are discarded here in favour of factual judgments.” According to Camus, because nothing matters, we should spend our lives in pursuit of pleasure. In a meaningless universe, we are free to do this, and ultimately, the only thing worth anything is the quantity of pleasure we experience.

The French Poet Beaudalaire rigorously pursued hedonism in great “quantity.” However, his friends would recall that he experienced a persistent twitch: images of his pursuits involuntarily flashed before his mind, tormenting him. Perhaps you have had this same experience on occasion: unbidden flashes of your pursuits of pleasure, or images from an incognito internet tab, passing before your eyes.

It would seem then that, yes, we can have moral freedom, but we must give up any meaning our lives might hold to attain it. And, as Baudelaire (and I, for that matter) will testify, even having the moral freedom to do as we please can lead to more torment than pleasure.

The truth is, we were created for a purpose.

As trains are designed to move along their tracks, we are designed to move along the tracks of God’s will for our lives. His purpose stretches out ahead of us, curving and winding, climbing and descending according to his will, his good and perfect will. To step into our purpose, we must agree to travel on his track (Philippians 2:13). We “lose” our moral freedom as we submit our will to God the creator, but we gain meaning, purpose, and eternal life. We learn quickly that his good standard brings joy and peace into our lives, and that his “law of liberty” (James 2:12) is what brings true freedom, the freedom to be who we were created to be.

When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before the crucifixion, he prayed, “If possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not my will but yours be done” (Matthew 26:39). We serve a God who loves us so much that he submitted his will, his freedom, and his pleasure to the Father. He did that, all the way to the cross, all the way into death, for you and me. He did it because of his eternal love for us.

When we think about the reason to keep going every day, we must remember the love of Christ for us; that his death frees us from death and imbues our life with eternal purpose.

Speaking as one who tried it, being the master of your own life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. However, it is possible to hand over the reins to God today. The God of love, who gave up everything for you, is waiting for you. He waits for you to come to him, and in him, find life eternal.

What is the purpose of life? God created us to know him, to know his voice (John 10:27-28). He gave up his power and glory; he came to earth, lived as a man, died, and rose again, all so that we could be close to him. He wants us to hear his voice. It is so difficult to make our way through the unstable ever-shifting world we live in, but when we choose to follow God, we have access to His mind and his voice, as he guides us faithfully day by day.

“The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever. The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace” (Psalm 29:10-13).

Yes, life can feel like a flood. I have often felt as if I were drowning; even the world around me appears to be drowning. But we have a God who sits enthroned above the storm. He wants to speak to you; he wants to guide you; he wants to fill every day of your life with his touch and his presence (James 4:8).

Knowing that the God of the universe is guiding your life makes everything you experience eternally significant.

R.C. Sproul wrote, “Everything that we experience, every pain we endure and every tear that we shed is significant – forever.” This is what gives our lives meaning. No suffering is unseen; no pain passed over; God is working everything for our good eternally (Romans 8:28).

Because God is real, because he is personal, that means “what happens in history matters” (Charles Taylor). It all matters to God, and he wastes none of it.

The Lord is speaking; his word is as alive today in our secular age as it has ever been. As he guides our days and directs our paths, we see his will and plans unfold; we see how God and only God can turn the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of our lives into something beautiful as he uses them for his good purposes. It is God’s hand on our lives, his involvement, that fills our life with purpose.

_Bibliography

_{Camus, Albert, Justin O’Brien. The Myth Of Sisyphus, And Other Essays. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.}

_{Huxley, Aldous. Ends and Means. London: Chatto & Windus, 1937.}

_{Russell, Bertrand. A Free Man’s Worship, and Other Essays, London: Unwin Books, 1976.}

_{(Stephen J. Gould quote) Kinnier, Richard, Jerry Kernes, and Nancy Tribbensee, eds. The Meaning of Life: According to the Great and the Good. Palazzo Editions, 2007, P. 108.}

_{Dawkins, R. River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1995.}

_{Sproul, R. C. Surprised by Suffering (Robert Charles), 1939-2017.}

_{Taylor, C. A secular age. New York: Walker, Harvard 18th ed., 2007.}

Tim Keller once said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

Self-forgetfulness is the key to living a happy life.

In the book of Esther, we meet a very interesting character named Haman. He was an extremely successful, wealthy and powerful man. He was second in command to King Xerxes, who ruled over the globe-spanning Persian empire. Haman seemed to have it all, but he was not content with his life.

There was a man named Mordecai in his city who refused to show him respect and would not bow to him. Haman was so enraged by Mordecai’s lack of respect that he lost all pleasure in his life, accomplishments and success, all he could think about was destroying Mordecai and his people. He states in Esther 5:13, “Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”

Haman is such a fascinating example of a totally self-absorbed person. People who think about themselves all the time don’t necessarily have to be outwardly prideful and abrasive, in fact, they might feel quite inferior and insignificant.

The point is that both these types of people, be it the superior type or the interior type, are totally self-absorbed.

Being self-absorbed means that we don’t engage our ministry, our job, our volunteer work or whatever else we do with our time for the joy of doing the thing itself, rather we engage in these activities, first and foremost, for how they will reflect on us, for how it will make people think well of us, admire us and praise us. The joy is not in the thing itself but only in the response we get from others.

If we do not receive the admiration and praise we feel we should have, it leads us to becoming resentful and critical of those who have, in our view, “let us down.” All the pleasure we might have gained from the service we gave in our ministry or volunteering or career dissolves into bitterness; our joy is gone, and we find ourselves in Haman’s shoes.

C.S. Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters how God wants people to get to the place where one could:

“Design the most beautiful cathedral in the world and know it to be so and rejoice in that fact without being anymore or less glad at having done it than if it had been done by another. Jesus, you see, wants to turn our attention away from ‘self’ altogether and direct it towards him and our neighbours. Both vainglory and self-contempt equally keep the mind on the ‘self’ – both therefore lead to contempt of others and cruelty towards others” (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters).

Whether our personal bent leads towards a sense of superiority or inferiority, both those things keep our minds on ourselves, and then ultimately, leads to joyless lives of never being fully satisfied. We look to people to validate us and never feel our cup is full because we are only ever thinking about ourselves.

What is the answer then?

Well, the answer is to truly take ourselves out of the mix, to just forget about our “approval rating” and engage in life’s activities for the joy of the things themselves and not for the praise we might get for doing them.

“Yes, but that’s hard,” you say, “How do I really practice self-forgetfulness?” Well, interestingly, we can look back to Haman for the answer here.

Haman was asked by the king, “What should I do for the man the king delights to honour?” Haman’s response is very interesting. Thinking that he himself is the man the king delights to honour, he suggests that the king should have the king’s robes placed on him and that he be led about the city on a horse having someone shout how the king loves this man and honours him.

This might seem like a somewhat pompous request but, in fact, it was not a bad thing to ask for. Having the king’s robes placed on your shoulders meant that you were partaking in the kingship; you were loved by the king. You were receiving the praise of the most praiseworthy person in the kingdom. To receive the praise of the praiseworthy is above all else.

Haman, in fact, asked the king for a good thing, it’s just that he asked the wrong king. There is a king who is greater and higher, the most wonderful, the most praiseworthy, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords: Jesus. We, as Christians, have had the most praiseworthy King, declare to the world that he loves us with an everlasting love. Jesus had his robe ripped from him at the cross so that he could place his robe of righteousness on us. His actions on the cross proved once and for all his great love for us, and it can never be taken away.

So when we think of our “approval rating,” we can know that we are approved of and loved and adopted by the God of all. We can just put it to bed and know from this day on how greatly loved we are; we can stop looking to the “wrong kings” to feel good about ourselves. In fact, we can stop being self-absorbed. We can look outward and engage in our lives’ activities for the joy of them and in seeking to help others without constantly being crippled by how people either praise us, or fail to praise us for our work, but rather know without a shadow of a doubt that we are loved and seen and precious to our king and saviour, Jesus.

Self-forgetfulness isn’t a way to punish ourselves, no, it is the door to a truly happy life, resting in the love and acceptance of our saviour.