Yesterday I wrote about my desire to be a doer when it comes to the convergence of technology and theology, media and Christian living. I do not want to write a book full of prescriptions that I choose to ignore. And so, as I’ve dedicated increasing amounts of time to research, I’ve begun to examine my own life, my own use of technology and ultimately, its use of me.
Today I’d like to give three quick examples of the ways I’ve had to change my own life as I’ve thought about what it means for me to live in a distinctly Christian way in this media-saturated world. Maybe in the book I’ll write about some of these in greater detail. For now, I will be brief. Each of these is simply a way I’ve found that I can step just a little bit outside the torrent of media and information that always seems so close to overwhelming me.
I recently came to the realization that email owns me. A good technology that should be at my disposal has instead taken over and put me at its disposal. And if you’ve read Postman you’ll know that technology is very good at this. No sooner do we put a technology in our service than we find that it has so changed our lives that suddenly we have become enslaved to it.
When I find myself compulsively glancing at my screen every time I walk by, hoping to see an icon telling me I’ve got a new message, when I unthinkingly pull out my iPhone to check to see if I’ve got any new email, I realize I’ve got a problem. When I sit in meetings with email open, glancing as often to the screen as to the person speaking, I understand that something has gone wrong. Somehow I’ve given email more than it deserves. In my mind I’ve made it into something it is not and something it should never be. Email was never meant to be the first thing I look at in the morning or the last thing I look at before bed.
Hear me when I say that email is not a bad thing. It’s not a good thing either, really; it’s just a thing. I wouldn’t want to say that email is somehow innately destructive. It is an excellent medium for communication and one that serves many purposes very well. It is exceptionally efficient, at least when at its best, and gives us amazing levels of instantaneous access to one another. I wouldn’t want to cut it out of my life and certainly do not intend to.
But email is demanding, especially when given the reins. Recent scientific studies show that there may well be some kind of a correlation between the psychology of email and the psychology of slot machines. A variable interval schedule, as psychologists might know it, draws us back time and again, hoping for the occasional payout. Though most of the time there is no payout when checking email, just like there is usually all cost and no payout when playing slots, there is always the promise of something great. Occasionally we may win a jackpot and occasionally we may get a bit of very good news by email. But most of the time there is no payout at all. Yet our brains seem hard-wired to keep searching, to keep driving us back to the inbox, hoping against hope.
So what have I done? I’ve made email something that I’ve scheduled into my life. Let me back up just a little bit. Thinking about the nature of email and the kind of messages I receive via email, I realized that my mind had been tricking me. Really there was only very, very rarely any exceptional good that could come to me via email—the news that my book proposal had been accepted, the news that a friend had safely delivered her child. Far more often than not my email varies between junk and normal—spam and interesting yet ultimately non-urgent and non-life-changing communiques from friends and family. Such emails are easy to schedule into certain times of day; there is no reason to monitor them on a constant basis. And so I now check email only occasionally—two or three times a day seems to be sufficient. So far I don’t see that it’s had even the smallest amount of negative impact. I do not access email at all in the evenings and have cut far back on the weekends (by way of example, I checked once this past Saturday and not at all on Sunday).
It has shocked me to see that the world keeps turning even when I don’t constantly monitor email. Who would have thought it could be possible? Life goes on.
So much for email. I’ve also stopped gratifying my urge to instantly search for anything that interests me. Very often I find my mind wandering to a person or a topic and before I know it, I’m sitting at a computer and typing the search into Google. Just this evening I had the urge to search for information on Elizabeth Edwards, a book titled How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read and feedback on the new Facebook upgrade. I would then have blown fifteen minutes satisfying these impulses. I have seen that in this wired world knowledge about has become far more important than knowledge of, that the great virtue is in instant access to information. I’m going to try to stop catering to that desire. Instead, I’ll scratch things down in a notebook and look them up later. Or, more often than not, I’ll forget to look them up at all and be no worse off for it. I want to spend far less time searching out new information and more time reflecting on the information I’ve already got.
And this feeds into the third change I am making. Yesterday I went looking for books dealing with distraction. As I did so, I had a video clip playing in a different window and found that I was constantly flipping back and forth between them. The irony was not lost on me. For a long time I’ve been conflicted about A La Carte. It is a feature of this blog that has become quite popular—when people talk to me about what they like about the blog, it is probably second from the top of the list (immediately after book reviews). When I began it, some 1050 posts ago (the first one was in the summer of 2005 and I’ve been quite regularly updating it five times a week since then) I saw it as an opportunity to share a few of the things that had caught my attention the day before. To be honest, it did not evolve much beyond that. It continues to be a bit of a brain dump, or a link dump, if you prefer.
Two things have come to bother me about it. The first is the regular juxtaposition of information. Here I’ll have a story about a terrible natural tragedy that brought about massive loss of life, and right below it I’ll have a link to a silly video parody of something completely unrelated. Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me. The second thing that bothers me is the way it has become a force for distraction. I don’t think any of us really need most of the information we can find through A La Carte. It’s mostly just mindless entertainment, even the best of it. The messages implicit in A La Carte are that we can skim lots of things, but really read nothing; that all news is really just a form of entertainment. It downplays thought and reflection at the expense of immediacy and variety. The messages get lost in the medium.
So here is the plan for A La Carte. It is not going away; it is just changing. What I want to try is to post a single link every day through A La Carte. Rather than posting a list of links that caught my eye, I’ll post a link to a single story along with an assessment of why it is important. If I haven’t found anything particularly important, I won’t post at all. I do not want to be another force of distraction. I want you to know that if I link to something, it is worth your time and attention. Stay tuned tomorrow for the first iteration of the new A La Carte. We’ll see how it goes.
So those are the three changes I’ve already made. They are small things, I’m sure, but they are not without significance. Like so many people, I feel as if technology owns me as much as I own technology. More so, even. I’ve got amazing gadgets and gizmos available to me and each of them plays its own role in my life. I just need to make sure that they are in my control, rather than handing them the reins and following blindly behind them. I think I’ve done far too much of that already.
I graduated from college in 1997 (Or so. To be honest, I don’t even remember exactly what year it was and didn’t bother attending the graduation ceremony or picking up my diploma which undoubtedly recorded the date). My history degree did not open up the world of possibilities I had obviously thought it might when I first chose history as my major three years before. With few options available to me, and suffering from a lack of motivation, I decided I had better find some kind of employment, even if it did not incorporate my training. I learned that a new Starbucks was opening nearby and quickly made my way through the interview process. The day the store opened I was there, and I stayed at that job, putting in my forty hours a week, for what must have been a year—possibly more.
I’m not sure if this is still the case, but back then every store was required to select one “Coffee Expert,” the one person on staff who would receive a bit of extra training in the world of coffee and who was required to know more about the various flavors of coffee than anyone else. This person had to be able to identify the differences between the types and to teach others how to do the same. He was responsible for brewing different kinds of coffees in order to educate both the employees and the customers. Through some strange twist of fate I was appointed to this position by the manager.
There was just one small problem. I hated coffee. I still do. I am convinced that it is a vile, evil concoction and one that has cruelly enslaved much of the human race. I despise the stuff, even in what I am assured is its finest form by the hoards of brainwashed Starbucks robots. I can barely stand even the smallest taste of it. It curdles my tongue, makes my eyes water, and leaves me gagging. I find it utterly revolting.
And yet I was the coffee expert. When customers wanted to know about the different kinds of coffee we offered, it was my job to lead them through the various options available to them and to help them select the coffee that was suited to their tastes. A customer would choose a package from the counter and I would say, “Oh, now that’s a great choice. It’s a delicious, full-bodied roast that you can taste all over your tongue. Look for the flavors of oak and a subtle hint of the spring flowers that grow in the mountains of Peru.” I had the routine down pat and helped sell a lot of coffee—more than anyone else in the store, I’m sure. The facts were all true; it’s not like I was some kind of used car dealer covering up a vehicle’s flaws and hoping to make a sell to some poor sap who would be stuck with a useless hulk. I simply relayed information I knew was true. But I hated the product. Had I been entirely forthcoming I would have said this: “It mostly tastes like cigarettes. When I drink it I detect mostly the flavor of charcoal mixed with dirt—and not the nice dirt I used to eat as a kid, either. It tastes like burned, charred, nasty, ugly hot dirt. It’s loaded with caffeine and I’m sure it’s going to shorten your life. If you enjoy the smell or taste of manure, I’m sure you’ll love it. Would you like me to grind it for you?” It always struck me as just a little bit odd that I would champion something I disliked so much.
Since I wrote my first book I had quite a few people ask when I would begin a second one. My response was that I’d write another book when I had lived another book. When it comes to writing it is always a temptation to relay information I know is true, even if I have not incorporated it into my life. I’ve had to confess that I’ve done this in the past right here on this blog. I can sometimes content myself with knowing that something I am writing is true and biblical, even if it has little resonance in my life.
When I worked at Starbucks I had absolutely no passion for coffee. Though I could talk a good line, I always felt a bit like I was lying. Customers would ask, “What’s your favorite?” and I would just blurt out a flavor based on my favorite packaging. I had no favorite coffee anymore than I had a favorite flavor of cough syrup or a favorite kind of kick in the teeth. I don’t want my life to be like this. I want what I say and what I write to be a reflection of who I really am—or who I really want to be through the power of the Spirit.
I want to be a Christian who doesn’t just do a smooth job of selling the Christian life. I could probably sit down and write a book that would say all the right things and make me feel very happy when I had typed out the last word. But it wouldn’t satisfy because it wouldn’t be genuine.
Recently I read through a part of Michael Emlet’s book Cross Talk and came across these words. Though targeted specifically at ministers, I think they are applicable to any of us.
A temptation in ministry is to think that just because we prepared a Bible study, a sermon, or a discipleship appointment (or wrote a book like this!), we are deeply engaging with the God of the universe. But that’s not necessarily true. It’s easy in ministry to live more as a ‘pipe’ than a ‘reservoir.’ That is, it’s easy to live merely as a conduit to others of the transforming truths of God’s Word, rather than as a changed and transformed reservoir who overflows with lived-out gospel truth. You wouldn’t imagine cooking meal after meal for your family without sitting down to enjoy that nourishment, would you? To paraphrase James 1:22, let’s not merely be hearers or speakers or counselors of the Word, but doers, first and foremost.
I know that in writing a book I could easily be a hearer and speaker but not a doer. But that isn’t who and what I want to be. As you know, I’ve begun work on The Next Story. And already I’m seeing how I have to make changes to my life based on what I am learning. Some of these will be experimental, trying to live out different ideas on a trial basis. Though totally unrelated to the book, I did this with vegetarianism recently, going two weeks without meat just to try it out and to see what life is like with a whole new set of tastes and flavors. There are things I will try out just for the sake of the book, with no intention of maintaining them long-term. But other changes are going to be permanent, coming on the heels of necessity or conviction. I will introduce you to a couple of these in the days to come. (Hint: you may have noticed I didn’t post an A La Carte today…)
Every now and again I like to post a song we’ve sung at church that may not be widely-known. Here is one we sing quite frequently. Titled “Wide Open Are Your Hands,” it was written by Bernard of Clairvaux back in the 10th century and translated from Latin in the 1800’s. The chorus was added by my friend Julian and the music (for which, unfortunately, I do not have a recording) was composed by the guys who lead us in worship.
*****
Wide open are your hands, paying with more than gold
The awful debt of guilty men, forever and of old.
Ah, let me grasp these hands, that we may never part,
And let the power of their blood sustain my fainting heart.
To you I lift my hands in heartfelt song and praise
For steadfast love which won my heart, for never-ceasing grace.
Wide open are your arms, you welcome all who come;
To take to love and endless rest each of your chosen ones.
Lord, I am sad and poor, but boundless is your grace;
Give me the soul-transforming joy for which I seek your face.
To you I lift my hands in heartfelt song and praise
For steadfast love which won my heart, for never-ceasing grace.
Draw all my mind and heart up to your throne on high,
And let your sacred cross exalt, my spirit to the sky.
To these, your mighty hands, my spirit I resign;
For me to love is Christ alone, to die is only gain.
To you I lift my hands in heartfelt song and praise
For steadfast love which won my heart, for never-ceasing grace.
One of the strange things that happens when you write a book is that other authors begin to ask you if you would endorse their own book. There is a strange little economy whereby people in a particular genre all endorse one another’s books. This is true in the Christian world as it’s true for books about history, politics, and the like. A relatively small group of people pass their books around with requests for endorsements.
I’ve written quite a few of these little blurbs lately. It is something I’m generally quite eager to do and even honored to do. There is a certain sense in which it is humbling to have someone ask if you’d put your name on their book, offering it a stamp of approval. Yet there is also a certain danger to it, knowing that if you do not read the book carefully, you may later be accused of endorsing a book with a potentially serious theological error in it. Stranger things have happened. What is more nerve-racking still is that you may well be endorsing a manuscript that will be edited after you’ve submitted your endorsement, meaning that the content going to print may be quite different from the content you’ve put your name to.
Different authors have different standards when it comes to writing endorsements. Some go sight-unseen, endorsing a friend’s book without even really reading the content. He knows his friend, he knows his theological position, and on that basis he will write an endorsement even without looking through the manuscript. Other authors are exacting, reading very carefully to ensure that every statement is as precise as it ought to be and even pushing back a little bit, asking the author to make necessary changes before they will put their name to an endorsement. Still other authors may just skim through the manuscript, looking for potential problem areas and reading those quickly even while racing through the rest.
When I began to write endorsements, I was very much in the middle camp—I would read every word of every sentence and would do so carefully. This is what I was most comfortable with, both for sake of conscience and credibility. I wanted to endorse only really good books and ones that were free of any theological error or weakness. As time has gone on, though, I’ve found myself spanning the middle camp and the final one. I have found that not every book easily lends itself to a thorough reading (such as a book of written prayers) and not every book depends upon theological precision (such as a biography). And so my early idealism has been undone just a little bit. And yet strangely this occasionally nags at my conscience. Somehow I feel that I cannot rightly write a convicting endorsement without having read every word. And yet if I were to read every word, I could not write more than the very, very occasional endorsement due to the time it would take to read the manuscripts so carefully. I have no desire to be the guy whose name is on every book; at the same time, I do like to say “yes” to these requests when I feel it would be helpful to the author.
At this point I want to ask you, when you read an endorsement, do you suppose that the author has pored over every word? Do you read these blurbs as blanket endorsements of the content, or do you see them as something less significant than that. Realistically, if you were to write endorsements, what camp would you be in?
It’s Friday morning, which means that I’ve got some free stuff to give away. For this week’s contest I cajoled my buddy Josh Harris into giving up ten copies of his new book Dug Down Deep. So there will be ten prizes, each of which will be an autographed copy of the book.
Here is a brief description of it:
In Dug Down Deep Joshua Harris shares how we can rediscover the relevance and power of Christian truth. This book shows a young man who rose quickly to success in the Christian evangelical world before he realized his spirituality lacked a foundation—it rested more on tradition and morality than on an informed knowledge of God.
For the indifferent or spiritually numb, Harris’s humorous and engaging reflections on Christian beliefs show that orthodoxy isn’t just for scholars—it is for anyone who longs to know to know the living Jesus Christ.
I recently wrote a review of Josh’s book and concluded with these words: “Dug Down Deep is an excellent book and one I would be glad to recommend. I wouldn’t hesitate to hand it to any Christian but would be particularly pleased to see it in the hands of young believers. In fact, if my own children were just a few years older, I would hand a copy to each of them. And I’m not sure that I can give a book higher praise than that.” You can read the review here, if you’d like to learn more.
And now, go ahead and enter the draw.
Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.
Recently a reader of this wrote me to ask if I had ever written anything dealing with believers and the final judgment. I quickly realized that I had not and thought that today would be a good opportunity to remedy that. So here is a brief look at what believers can expect in the final judgment.
There are several principles we need to keep in mind as we begin.
There will be a final judgment - At the end of days there will be a final judgment. We can offer no greater evidence than the words of Revelation 20:11-15 which vividly portrays this event.
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
In some final day, firmly set in the mind of God but hidden from us, there will be a great event of judgment in which those who are living and those who are dead will be brought before the throne of judgment where they will be examined and judged.
Christ will be the judge - Christ will serve as judge. We know this from passages such as 2 Timothy 4:1 where Paul writes of “Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead” and 4:8 where he refers to “the Lord, the righteous judge.” John also writes of Christ as judge saying in John 5:26-27, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.”
All men are to be judged - All men, both Christians and unbelievers, will stand before God in judgment. Revelation 20, quoted above, makes it clear that none are excluded from appearing before God’s throne. Similarly Matthew 25 speaks of the final judgment. While Jesus does differentiate between the sheep and the goats, he indicates that both will appear before his throne to be separated, the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
The ground of the judgment will be men’s deeds - Men will be judged according to what they have done, what they have thought, what they have said. Even the secrets of the heart will be brought to light in that day. The true character of each man will be exposed in the sight of God, in the sight of that person and in the sight of all.
Men will be judged according to God’s revelation - Christ will judge people on this basis of God’s revelation of himself. Therefore there will be a greater degree of reward or punishment to those who have had access to a greater measure of God’s revelation. To whom much is given, much shall be required.
With these principles in mind, we can now ask how believers will be judged.
In Romans 14 Paul says “we will all stand before the judgment seat of God” and “each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Writing to the believers in Corinth he says, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” It seems clear, then, that believers will need to appear before the Judge.
But this final judgment for believers will not be a judgment of life or death. There is no reason to think that as we approach God’s throne we will have pounding hearts, hoping that we will pass the test and be put at his right hand (and similarly there is little reason to think that unbelievers will approach the throne wondering if they are saved; they will know that they approach the throne to hear of their punishment). It is not that kind of a judgment, for all who have put their faith in Christ have already been justified and declared righteous. Christ has already been judged on their behalf. Instead, this final judgment will be a time of the bestowing of reward. Here Christ will evaluate all we have done according to the light given us and bestow rewards accordingly.
Some Christians believe that in the judgment all of our evil deeds will be exposed—that before we receive our reward we will first have all we’ve said and done brought into the light (see 1 Corinthians 4:5). However, this must be balanced with passages such as Psalm 103:12 (“as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us”) and Micah 7:19 (“You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”). It is my understanding, then, that our sins will not be exposed before others and that Christ will not speak of them in that day, for those sins have already been dealt with and have already been removed. Though Christ will dispense reward or withhold reward on the basis of what we’ve done or haven’t done, he will not bring those sinful deeds before all the world.
We may now ask the question if there will be discontent in heaven that some have received greater reward than others. So accustomed are we to finding joy and meaning in what we possess, and so accustomed are we to feeling that equality in possessions or wealth is a key to true happiness, that we have difficulty understanding how there can be inequality, and perhaps even radical inequality, even in perfect bliss. But if we understand that our true happiness is found not in what we own but in our delight in God, we must then see that all of us will be entirely, perfectly content after the judgment. Furthermore, we will know that God has judged rightly and given to each of us no more and no less than what we deserve. There will be no court of appeals for no one will want or need to appeal his reward.
How then do we live in light of this doctrine? We live righteous lives, storing up treasures in heaven. Somehow in my mind this seems like an ignoble motive—to obey God and to do good things as a means of storing up eternal reward. Yet Christ himself indicated that it is a good motive saying, “Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.” And so we can live here and now free from the need to find reward and satisfaction in this life, knowing that in eternity our reward shall be given in full.
If you would like to study this subject more, the best resources I was able to find were systematic theologies (Grudem, Culver and Hodge all proved helpful).
Beneath the Sun
You might cry, but this is definitely worth the read.
Most Influential Living Preachers
“In telephone interviews conducted in November 2009, Protestant pastors were asked to ‘name the top three living Christian preachers that most influence you.’ Twenty-one percent of pastors surveyed said Graham - that’s nearly three times the number who named Charles R. Swindoll, prominent pastor, author and host of the radio Bible-teaching ministry Insight for Living.”
Street Preachers Murdered
This story in the Palm Beach Post tells of three men who were murdered while street preaching. (HT:Phil Johnson)
Becoming an Adoption-Friendly Church
An article at WORLD encourages churches to become adoption-friendly. ” While Christians commonly praise adoption, most American churches do not have a single family that adopted a child during the past year. Churches can and should play a crucial role in encouraging members to “look after orphans in their distress” (James 1:27). Here are some specific ideas on how to become an adoption-friendly church: ”
The Gospel Coalition in Ontario
D.A. Carson and Mike Bullmore will be speaking in Hamilton, Ontario on Saturday April 24 as part of a Gospel Coalition regional conference.
Church Works Media
Church Works Media seems to be doing some good work. They say, “Our ‘bread and butter’ is providing doctrinally-rich, Christ-centered hymns and psalms for corporate worship—all free and reproducible.”
Another round of Reading Classics Together is swiftly drawing to its close. We have one more chapter to read in John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied and then we will have reached the end. But before we do that, let’s talk about this week’s chapter which dealt with the doctrine of Union with Christ.
Summary
I’ll admit that this was a chapter that took me by surprise. I suppose I must not have thought very much about union with Christ in the past and how it fits within the application of redemption. So it surprised me a little to see how deep-rooted this doctrine is, to see how it is in many ways the doctrine that encompasses all the others. Murray says “Nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ. … Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ. Indeed the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ.” Having read that, I knew I needed to sit up and pay attention.
Murray looks at both of these “phases” of union with Christ, first in the broad sense and then in the narrow. He looks first to the broad sense of the word and shows what Scripture teaches respecting it.
All who are elect were elected in Christ. “Those who will be saved were not even contemplated by the Father in the ultimate counsel of his predestinating love apart from union with Christ—they were chosen in Christ. As far back as we can go in tracing salvation to its foundation we find ‘union with Christ’; it is not something tacked on; it is there from the outset.” From before the world, from all eternity, we were united in Christ as those who were predestined in him.
God’s people were in Christ when he lived, died and was born again. “We may never think of redemption in abstraction from the mysterious arrangements of God’s love and wisdom and grace by which Christ was united to his people and his people were united to him when he died upon the accursed tree and rose again from the dead.” So even when Christ died, we were united with him.
It is in Christ that God’s people are created anew. “It should not surprise us that the beginning of salvation in actual possession should be in union with Christ because we have already found that it is in Christ that salvation had its origin…” When we are born again, we are regenerated in Christ.
The believer’s life is continued by his being in Christ. “It is in Christ that Christian life and behavior are conducted.” We live day to day in union with Christ.
It is in Christ that believers die. “They have fallen asleep in Christ or through Christ and they are dead in Christ.” When we die, we die in Christ.
It is in Christ that God’s people will be resurrected. “It is in Christ they will be made alive when the last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible.” When we rise again in the resurrection, we will be resurrected in Christ.
Through all of this we see that union in Christ is not confined to space and time. We have always been united to him, we live in him now, and we will be united to him forever. This is an amazing truth that stirred my heart. “[Union with Christ] has the expanse of eternity. Its orbit has two foci, one the elected love of God the Father in the counsels of eternity, the other glorification with Christ in the manifestation of his glory. The former has no beginning, the latter has no end.” Do you see this? There is a sense in which we who believe have been united to Christ since before the world began and in which we will always and forever be united to him. “It is a perspective with a past and with a future, but neither the past nor the future is bounded by what we know as our temporal history.” “Apart from union with Christ we cannot view past, present, or future with anything but dismay and Christian dread. By union with Christ the whole complexion of time and eternity is unchanged and the people of God may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” It is our union with Christ that gives us hope and peace when we look to today, when we look to yesterday, when we look to tomorrow.
Now, though union with Christ is an important part of the application of redemption, Christians do not become partakers of Christ until redemption is actually applied to them. Here Murray turns to the second “phase” and offers a few words about this union.
First, this union is spiritual. It is spiritual in that the bond of this union is the Holy Spirit and also in that there is a spiritual relationship in view here.
Second, this union is mystical. Wanting to use this word in its best sense, Murray says, “A mystery is something which eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entered into the heart of man but which God has revealed unto us by his Spirit and which by revelation and faith comes to be known and appropriated by men.” So this union is not mystical in the sense the word is used by eastern religions, but mystical in that there is a sense of mystery about it—mystery that is slowly being revealed in God’s revelation.
To draw attention to just what an amazing mystery this is, he says the following: “Of all the kinds of union or unity that exist for creatures the union of believers with Christ is the highest. The greatest mystery of being is the mystery of the trinity—three persons in one God. The great mystery of godliness is the mystery of the incarnation, that the Son of God became man and was manifest in the flesh. But the greatest mystery of creaturely relations is the union of the people of God with Christ. And the mystery of it is attested by nothing more than this that it is compared to the union that exists between the Father and the son in the unity of the Godhead.”
Returning again to the big picture of the doctrine of union with Christ Murray says, “Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that has been secured and procured for them in the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption, all of which they become the actual partakers in the application of redemption, and all that by God’s grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ.” Could he say it with more strength than this? We have no right or ability to think of the other doctrines without reference to this one.
Before he closes the chapter, he seeks to show on more critical fact about union with Christ, one more thing without which the doctrine would be incomplete. This union is more than union only with Christ—it is also a union with the Father and the Spirit. “Believers know the Father and have fellowship with him in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Father. They know the Son and have fellowship with him in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Son, the Savior, the Redeemer, the exalted Lord. They know and have fellowship with the Holy Spirit in his own distinguishing character and operation as the Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, the Sanctifier. It is not the blurred confusion of rapturous ecstasy. It is faith solidly founded on the revelation deposited for us in the Scripture and it is faith actively receiving that revelation by the inward witness of the holy Spirit.” In our union with Christ, we are united also with the Father and the Spirit. We “enter into the holy of holies of communion with the triune God and do so because we have been raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Jesus Christ.”
How is it, then, that I’ve never contemplated the scope of this doctrine?
Next Week
For next Thursday please read the final chapter—“Glorification.”
Your Turn
The purpose of this program is to read classics together. So if there are things that stood out to you in this chapter, if there are questions you had, this is the time and place to have your say. Feel free to post a comment below or to link to your blog if you’ve chosen to write about this on your own site.
Social Networks
The Economist has a special report dealing with social networking sites like Facebook. While generally positive in tone, the article does raise a few concerns.
It’s Not Just a “Guy Problem”
“My life changed forever when I was 21. I’d been curious for years to see what the big deal was about pornography. One afternoon in my empty apartment, I decided to just look around the Internet. After all, I told myself, this is something guys struggle with, so it’s not like I’ll get hooked or anything. The instant that first image popped up, I knew I was addicted. And I was a Christian.” Stories like this are becoming more and more prevalent today.
Christianity Explored
Kevin DeYoung: “If you are looking for an evangelism program to use in your church, I strongly urge you to consider Christianity Explored. Although there are several good programs out there, we decided to go with CE several years ago. We appreciate that the CE videos go through a book of the Bible (Mark) and does not skip over the doctrine of sin. To give you a feel for CE, I thought I would interview Bruce Jeffries, the elder who has spearheaded the program at our church.”
It seems that as human beings we are naturally drawn to underdog stories. Recently I watched a couple of episodes of Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, a six-part series that aired as part of the “American Experience” program. As with any biography of Lincoln, it contrasts his early years with those of his wife. Where Mary Todd was raised in a huge home filled with servants and slaves, Abraham Lincoln was raised in a one-room cabin far from civilization; where Mary enjoyed many years of formal education, Abraham studied what he could when he could and in the end had less than a single year of formal education from only the lowliest of teachers; where Mary was cultured and proper, Abraham was rough around the edges. They are in so many ways a study in opposites and that makes their romance and their love for one another all the more interesting. Where many would have seen in Mary the kind of person who would marry well and become the wife of a President, few would have predicted Abraham’s rise to the highest office. When he ran for office, he was the rail splitter President, the one who came from the backwoods to make a bid for the highest office. Lincoln stands as proof that in America people can rise beyond their circumstances and play formative roles in the nation. America is the land of opportunity for the Lincoln’s of the world.
After watching the episodes of American Experience I wandered into my office and noticed a little piece of paper, a Post-It Note, that had fallen beside my desk. Occasionally I have a thought that I figure I should record for one reason or another, usually because it is something I want to reflect on when I’ve got some time. Sometimes these get jotted down on little bits of paper and eventually thrown away. I don’t remember when I wrote this one, but in light of what I had just watched, it seemed appropriate. I had written two lines, the first of which was the following: “Christ found it tough to lay aside his glory.” That seemed appropriate in light of what I had just watched. Here is the reverse of the Lincoln story—the reverse of the underdog story. Though Jesus Christ was “in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6,7). Jesus had been exalted far beyond the office of President. He was in the form of God; he was God. And yet he humbled himself far lower than a rail splitter living in a squalid little cabin miles from nowhere. “[B]eing found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Lincoln worked hard—extremely hard—to rise above his circumstances. In fact, after he left his childhood home and struck out on his own, it would take him years to return, as if just being near his father would somehow interfere with his desire to become more than his father was. He was driven by a desire to succeed and to make more of himself than anyone could hope to expect for a man with such humble origins. As a young adult he may not have known what he wanted to be, but there is no doubt that he knew what he did not want to be. And with hard work and incredible drive, he become a lawyer and politician and President. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can see that he became exactly the President America needed in her greatest hour of need.
Which of these is the greatest story? Which of these strikes deepest? Here is where the second line of my little note comes in. After writing “Christ found it tough to lay aside his glory” I had written “Why do I find it hard to put on?” It’s a fair question, I think. Imagine what it must have been like for Abraham Lincoln to rise from rail splitter to President. There would have been difficulties, for sure, but such a rise is the stuff of dreams. Who hasn’t, at one time or another, dreamed of rising from obscurity to fame? Which underdog hasn’t sought to speak of his lowly origins as he tries to build bridges to the common man? Who hasn’t cheered on an underdog as he claims a political office or a gold medal?
But now imagine what it must have been like for Jesus Christ to put aside infinitely greater glory in order to become merely human. This is the stuff of scandal. Who cheers when a famous person falls into obscurity? Who lauds the politician who leaves office to sweep the hallways of a local school? We feel pity, not honor, for such a man. How can we even begin to understand the infinite difference between God and man? The Bible turns to superlatives, saying that Christ made that step, putting aside everything to become nothing. He came not as a king or a President, but as a servant. And this was only the beginning. “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). He died under the verse curse of God.
Surely it must have been exceedingly difficult, infinitely difficult, for Jesus Christ to lay aside all that he was in order to become one of his created beings. But he did it and in this way was able to offer the gift of salvation to all men. And to those who believe, he offers the holiness that is his. He offers us far more than the difference in position, in status, between rail splitter and President. He offers us the privilege of being remade, reborn, in his image. And yet so often we accept this gift hesitantly. At least, I know that I do. I look at the Bible, the guide to living a holy life, and accept it with great reluctance. I turn to it with hesitation and wrestle with its words, hoping it is not demanding of me what I know it is demanding of me. The glory that Christ found so hard to put aside is the very holiness I find so hard to accept. As it must have torn Jesus apart to take off that garment, there is a part of me that is torn apart at having to put it on.
And yet Christ died for even this sin, this sin of reluctantly accepting his free gift of grace—his free gift of sanctification. Despite my sin, I know that Christ has been working in me a desire for holiness. Being God, his power is far greater than mine and he is able to overcome even my ungodly reluctance. He is able to erase my nothing and to give me everything. And, by His grace, he will.
