We are to have faith that what God says about himself in Christ is true, what
God says about us in Christ is true, and what God says about others in Christ is
true. So whatever the appearances may be, we are to have faith that God is
working in others to do what only God can do. This means that we must never
condition our love and acceptance of people with judgment about how much or how
little progress they are making in their relationship with God.
Conditioning our love and acceptance of people on the basis of our judgment
reveals that we don’t believe what God says about them or that God is working in
their lives. Since “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom 14:23), we
should in this case be concerned with the tree trunk of sin in our own life
rather than trying to fix the sin we think we perceive in others’ lives.
We should focus on what God commands us to do rather than speculating about
the extent to which others are or are not doing what God has commanded
them to do. When we try to detach ourselves and critically evaluate the
progress of others, we act as though we are their masters, and we thereby
disobey God (Matt 7:1-5, Rom 14:4).
This also applies to people who haven’t yet surrendered their lives to
Christ. They, too, must be unconditionally embraced and invited into the
celebration of the cessation of the banishment from communion with God. Indeed,
our unconditional, loving embrace is the central way these people are to come to
know we are disciples of Christ. They encounter the reality of Jesus Christ as
they experience his love through us (Jn 17:20-26). Though they cannot see God,
they experience his love as it is manifested through us (1 Jn 4:12). Our
outrageous love becomes a puzzle to them for which Jesus Christ is the only
adequate explanation.
But doesn’t such an unconditionally loving approach to sinners make light of
sin? As Bonhoeffer asked, “Does not the evil in the other person make me condemn
him just for his own good, for the sake of love?” The answer, according to
Bonhoeffer, is a decisive no. Indeed, just the opposite is the case.
We radically trivialize sin when we make it a matter of more or less. We
undermine its absolute seriousness when we allow for supposed “holier” people to
love “less holy” people conditionally, based on “holier” people’s own judgment
and according to their own standards. Sin is only taken seriously when we
realize that, apart from Christ, we are all in the same septic tank of
condemnation together. It is taken seriously only when we realize that sin has
been irrevocably exposed, condemned, and overcome on the cross. And we repeat
this condemnation of sin and confess our conviction about its absolute
seriousness every time we love others as Christ has loved us—unconditionally,
despite our sin.
Regardless of whether people are believers or not, and regardless of how
things may appear, we are called to unconditionally embrace them with Christ’s
love and trust that God is at work in their lives, despite their sin, just as he
is in our own lives.
—Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 213-214
- Greg Boyd
Thursday, October 30, 2014
The Lord is Good to All
This morning I read what is among my
favorite psalms, Ps 145. It is a long and enthusiastic celebration of God's
utter goodness and benevolence to every creature and every person. In it we find
the following:
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The LORD is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made (Ps 145.8-9).
I enjoy reading this very much because it resonates deeply with me; it is a fine embodiment of my understanding of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. I believe that the cross of Jesus Christ, an atonement for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2.2), is the definitive demonstration of God's goodwill and love for the whole of the creation. This psalm here is even more so plausible and full of truth when we see it through the demonstration of God's love in Jesus.
Yet our experience often calls it into question! Is the LORD really gracious and merciful? Is he really good and compassionate to all? Is it really true that The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Ps 145.17)? How many people have to suffer every day and never find resolution for their problems, despite all their prayers! How many people lift up the prayer, Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low (Ps 142.6) and a response doesn't seem forthcoming!
Here we are brought face to face with God who acts and does things differently than we do. We want problems to be resolved here and now; God seems content to take his time in most cases. Rarely if ever are things hurried. Consider the story of Samuel searching for the new king of Israel. He wanted one of Jesse's older boys to be the king, since they were of age and strong and ready for the job. Instead God chose David, who was yet a boy and had to pass through many trials and tribulations first before becoming king. Samuel would have preferred a quick solution to the matter, but God chose the lengthier way.
Why things are like this, we may never know. The world isn't the way we would expect; God isn't like us in every respect, and here especially he seems strange and far off. What are we supposed to do? What else can we do, except what the Bible calls us to do from the very beginning to the very end: to trust God. This was Jesus' message: repent and believe in the good news that God's kingdom is near; trust that God is taking control of things and is leading them to a glorious restoration in the end.
This psalm is a good psalm to pray. Think of Christ on the cross for the sins of the whole world, think of the empty tomb and the power of God to bring resurrection out of crucifixion. Then you will say: The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Ps 145.17).
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The LORD is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made (Ps 145.8-9).
I enjoy reading this very much because it resonates deeply with me; it is a fine embodiment of my understanding of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. I believe that the cross of Jesus Christ, an atonement for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2.2), is the definitive demonstration of God's goodwill and love for the whole of the creation. This psalm here is even more so plausible and full of truth when we see it through the demonstration of God's love in Jesus.
Yet our experience often calls it into question! Is the LORD really gracious and merciful? Is he really good and compassionate to all? Is it really true that The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Ps 145.17)? How many people have to suffer every day and never find resolution for their problems, despite all their prayers! How many people lift up the prayer, Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low (Ps 142.6) and a response doesn't seem forthcoming!
Here we are brought face to face with God who acts and does things differently than we do. We want problems to be resolved here and now; God seems content to take his time in most cases. Rarely if ever are things hurried. Consider the story of Samuel searching for the new king of Israel. He wanted one of Jesse's older boys to be the king, since they were of age and strong and ready for the job. Instead God chose David, who was yet a boy and had to pass through many trials and tribulations first before becoming king. Samuel would have preferred a quick solution to the matter, but God chose the lengthier way.
Why things are like this, we may never know. The world isn't the way we would expect; God isn't like us in every respect, and here especially he seems strange and far off. What are we supposed to do? What else can we do, except what the Bible calls us to do from the very beginning to the very end: to trust God. This was Jesus' message: repent and believe in the good news that God's kingdom is near; trust that God is taking control of things and is leading them to a glorious restoration in the end.
This psalm is a good psalm to pray. Think of Christ on the cross for the sins of the whole world, think of the empty tomb and the power of God to bring resurrection out of crucifixion. Then you will say: The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Ps 145.17).
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Eye for Eye: Jesus refutes OT Teaching
One of the most surprising aspects of Jesus’ teaching is that, while he
clearly shared his contemporaries’ view of the Old Testament as inspired by God,
he was nevertheless not afraid of repudiating it when he felt led by
his Father to do so (Jn. 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:31). For example, while the OT
commands people to make oaths in God’s name (Deut 6:13), Jesus forbids it (Mt
5:33-37). And, much more importantly for our purposes, while the OT commands an
“eye for eye” and a “tooth for a tooth,” Jesus commanded people to “not resist
an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other
cheek, also” (Mt 5:38-39).
Jesus’ repudiation of taking an “eye for an eye,” is explicitly commanded in the OT (e.g. Ex 21:24; Lev 24:19-20). Indeed, in Deuteronomy, the command is not merely about how much punishment is allowed; it’s about how much is required. “Show no pity,” the text states, “ life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Deut 19:21). It thus seems that Jesus “freely admitted that his ethical teachings contrasted sharply with some of the ethical teachings in the Mosaic law.”[1]
In this light, Eugene Boring must be judged to be on the mark when he argues that this “juxtaposition is not to be softened,” for in this passage “Jesus does more than give a better interpretation of the old authority; he relocates authority from the written text of Scripture to himself – i.e., to God’s presence in his life, teaching, death, and resurrection…”[2] With Donald Hagner, we must agree that this example of Jesus’ “authoritative ‘but I say to you,’ is shocking in its contrast with the principle of justice defended by the OT texts.”[3] Yet, while this contrast is indeed shocking, it’s important we note that Jesus’ new “teaching is not [a] transgression of the Law, but its transcendence,” as Boring puts it.[4] Jesus repudiated aspects of the OT law not by encouraging people to break any laws, but by teaching and embodying a way of life that reflected the wholeness (teleios) of the Father (Mt. 5:48, cf. 17-20).
Nevertheless, it can’t be denied that this replacement is “shocking.” What is even more shocking than this contrast, however, is the absolute importance Jesus’ placed on adhering to it. Jesus commanded followers to love and serve enemies rather than adhere to the OT law “that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Mt. 5:45, cf. Lk 6:35, emphasis added). For Jesus, embodying enemy-loving non-violence was the precondition for being considered a child of God. The stakes obviously could not be higher.
Yet, in replacing the “eye for an eye” command with his love command, Jesus is not merely repudiating three verses of the OT. He is, at least indirectly, undermining the inherent violence of all retributive laws in then OT. For the principle embodied in the “an eye for an eye” is not essentially different from the commandments to execute children who slander their parents, to cut off the hand of any woman who touches a man’s genitalia, and the like. His teaching, clearly, is quite at odds with a significant portion of the OT law.
One could go further, as does C. S. Cowles, and argue that Jesus’ teaching on enemy-loving non-violence “represents a total repudiation of Moses’ genocidal commands and stands in judgment on Joshua’s campaign of ethnic cleansing.”[5] Indeed, while it raises a host of interpretive issues which I am addressing in my forthcoming book The Crucifiction of the Warrior God, Jesus’ radical teaching on enemy-loving non-violence stands in tension with every OT narrative in which Yahweh is depicted as acting or sanctioning violence. For example, it’s significant that when James and John wanted to follow the precedent of Elijah and “call fire down from heaven to destroy” a Samaritan village, Jesus “rebuked” them and, according to many early manuscripts, told them; “You do not know what spirit you are of” (Lk. 9: 54-55; cf. 2 Kg 1:10, 12, 14). As shocking as it is, this episode clearly suggests that Jesus regarded Elijah’s enemy-destroying supernatural feat to be ungodly, if not demonic.
Whatever else we might say about all of this, if we take Jesus’ criteria for what qualifies one to be considered a child “of your Father in heaven” seriously, then it seems that anyone who acted in the violent way Moses, Joshua, Elijah and other OT heroes acted would be considered by Jesus to be disqualified from being considered a child of God. Obviously, in making this observation I’m not suggesting OT heroes weren’t “saved,” for Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. I make it rather to simply note the remarkable extent to which Jesus turned significant portions of the OT upside-down with his radical teaching on enemy-loving non-violence.
- Greg Boyd
Jesus’ repudiation of taking an “eye for an eye,” is explicitly commanded in the OT (e.g. Ex 21:24; Lev 24:19-20). Indeed, in Deuteronomy, the command is not merely about how much punishment is allowed; it’s about how much is required. “Show no pity,” the text states, “ life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Deut 19:21). It thus seems that Jesus “freely admitted that his ethical teachings contrasted sharply with some of the ethical teachings in the Mosaic law.”[1]
In this light, Eugene Boring must be judged to be on the mark when he argues that this “juxtaposition is not to be softened,” for in this passage “Jesus does more than give a better interpretation of the old authority; he relocates authority from the written text of Scripture to himself – i.e., to God’s presence in his life, teaching, death, and resurrection…”[2] With Donald Hagner, we must agree that this example of Jesus’ “authoritative ‘but I say to you,’ is shocking in its contrast with the principle of justice defended by the OT texts.”[3] Yet, while this contrast is indeed shocking, it’s important we note that Jesus’ new “teaching is not [a] transgression of the Law, but its transcendence,” as Boring puts it.[4] Jesus repudiated aspects of the OT law not by encouraging people to break any laws, but by teaching and embodying a way of life that reflected the wholeness (teleios) of the Father (Mt. 5:48, cf. 17-20).
Nevertheless, it can’t be denied that this replacement is “shocking.” What is even more shocking than this contrast, however, is the absolute importance Jesus’ placed on adhering to it. Jesus commanded followers to love and serve enemies rather than adhere to the OT law “that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Mt. 5:45, cf. Lk 6:35, emphasis added). For Jesus, embodying enemy-loving non-violence was the precondition for being considered a child of God. The stakes obviously could not be higher.
Yet, in replacing the “eye for an eye” command with his love command, Jesus is not merely repudiating three verses of the OT. He is, at least indirectly, undermining the inherent violence of all retributive laws in then OT. For the principle embodied in the “an eye for an eye” is not essentially different from the commandments to execute children who slander their parents, to cut off the hand of any woman who touches a man’s genitalia, and the like. His teaching, clearly, is quite at odds with a significant portion of the OT law.
One could go further, as does C. S. Cowles, and argue that Jesus’ teaching on enemy-loving non-violence “represents a total repudiation of Moses’ genocidal commands and stands in judgment on Joshua’s campaign of ethnic cleansing.”[5] Indeed, while it raises a host of interpretive issues which I am addressing in my forthcoming book The Crucifiction of the Warrior God, Jesus’ radical teaching on enemy-loving non-violence stands in tension with every OT narrative in which Yahweh is depicted as acting or sanctioning violence. For example, it’s significant that when James and John wanted to follow the precedent of Elijah and “call fire down from heaven to destroy” a Samaritan village, Jesus “rebuked” them and, according to many early manuscripts, told them; “You do not know what spirit you are of” (Lk. 9: 54-55; cf. 2 Kg 1:10, 12, 14). As shocking as it is, this episode clearly suggests that Jesus regarded Elijah’s enemy-destroying supernatural feat to be ungodly, if not demonic.
Whatever else we might say about all of this, if we take Jesus’ criteria for what qualifies one to be considered a child “of your Father in heaven” seriously, then it seems that anyone who acted in the violent way Moses, Joshua, Elijah and other OT heroes acted would be considered by Jesus to be disqualified from being considered a child of God. Obviously, in making this observation I’m not suggesting OT heroes weren’t “saved,” for Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. I make it rather to simply note the remarkable extent to which Jesus turned significant portions of the OT upside-down with his radical teaching on enemy-loving non-violence.
- Greg Boyd
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
An Insatiable Hunger
The only kind of life animals care about is
biological. If their basic physical needs for food and shelter are met, they’re
satisfied. Humans also want their basic physical needs met, of course, but that
isn’t enough. We hunger for more. Not only do we want to be alive, we want to
feel fully alive. We hunger for Life.
This craving for Life can be described in
many ways. Among other things, it includes the profound desire to feel loved
and the desire to be happy. But one of the most fundamental aspects of the Life
we long for is our undeniable, universal need to experience worth and
significance. Though we may be unaware of it, all of us are driven by a
desperate need to feel like we matter. Even if all our basic physical needs are
met and we enjoy all the comforts the world has to offer, still, on some level,
we will feel empty unless we sense that our life serves an ultimate purpose.
Many things can make us feel worthwhile and
significant, but our deepest hunger is only satisfied when we’re rightly
related to God. Only our Creator can give us the fullness of Life we crave.
Jesus’ death on the cross is proof that we could not possibly have more worth
and significance to God. Despite our sin, our Creator thinks we are worth
experiencing a hellish death for. In fact, it was for the joy of spending eternity
with us that Jesus endured the cross (Heb. 12:2). In other words, Calvary
reveals our unsurpassable worth and significance. At the core of our being, this
is what we long for.
Why did God create us with this hunger?
Because he wants to share himself with us. He wants us to participate in his
divine nature (1 Peter 1:4). As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he longs for us
to join in his eternal dance of perfect, ecstatic love. Our insatiable hunger
for a depth of Life that only he can give is a sort of built-in “homing device”
intended to lead us to him. The Trinity is our home, and we are never fully
satisfied or at peace until we rest in him.
Yet because God wants a loving relationship
with us, he does not force us to accept his invitation. We have the ability to
refuse it if we so choose. If we want, we can pretend we’re self-sufficient and
able to meet our own needs. If fact, were it not for God’s grace working in our
life, this is what all of us in our fallen condition would want and what all of
us would choose. For apart from Christ, Scripture says, we are all dead in our
sins (Eph 2:1,5).
When we push God away, our homing device
doesn’t shut off. It simply gets redirected. Instead of leading us home to the
Trinity, we try to satisfy our hunger for worth and significance by turning to
other things.
- Greg Boyd
The Deepest Law of Acceptance
“In the cross God demonstrates the deepest law of acceptance. For to be
convinced that I have been accepted, I must be convinced that I have been
accepted at my worst. This is the greatest gift an intimate relationship can
offer — to know that we have been accepted and forgiven in the full knowledge of
who we are, an even greater knowledge than we have about ourselves. This is what
the cross offers.
”
— Rebecca Pippert
”— Rebecca Pippert
Monday, October 27, 2014
Trusting God for the Wrong Things
Chloe was a smart, personable, and devoted Christian student from
South America whom I had the pleasure of teaching in several theology classes.
In one meeting, Chloe confessed that, despite the confident appearance that she
projected, she actually lived with a sense of guilt and had never felt like a
good Christian. In fact, Chloe said she had never been confident she was “truly
saved.” She knew that salvation is based on our faith, and she knew that the
essence of faith is trust. But trusting God was something Chloe said she always
struggled with. “Everyone else at this college seems to trust God for everything
in their life,” she said, “but I just can’t!”
Chloe seemed baffled when I asked her what she felt she was
supposed to trust God for. “You know,” she said, “I’m supposed to trust God to
bring the right man into my life to be my husband, and I’m supposed to trust
that he’ll lead us into the right ministry together and that he’ll bless and
protect our family.”
“Protect?” I asked. “As in, protect your children?” We sat in
silence for a moment before I continued. “You’re having trouble trusting God to
protect your children… as in, protect them from things like child
molesters?” Tears began to well up in Chloe’s eyes, as she had shared with me in
previous meetings about personal experiences around this issue. I leaned
forward, grabbed Chloe’s hand, and said, “Chloe, maybe it’s time to stop beating
yourself up for not trusting God for something you already know he can’t be
trusted for. If God didn’t protect you when you were nine, it’s little wonder
you have trouble trusting him to protect you and your future children when
you’re twenty.”
Chloe was stunned. I had broken an unacknowledged rule among
Christians like Chloe who try to find security in the magical promise that, if
they can just “trust and obey,” God will bless them and protect them and their
children. The unspoken rule is, don’t notice the obvious. And the obvious
reality no one is supposed to notice is that the magical formula contradicts
the way the world actually is.
At one point in Job’s dispute with his “friends,” Eliphaz
rhetorically asks Job, “Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the
upright destroyed?” (Job 4:7). Only a person who wore magical glasses that
deleted out innocent people perishing and upright people being destroyed could
ever say something so absurd. Anyone looking at the world with any degree of
objectivity sees that innocent and righteous people perish and are destroyed as
routinely as guilty and unrighteous people.
This is a scary world to confront, however. We would all feel more
secure if we could trust that the world is actually fair and that we will be
spared its random nightmares if we just “trust and obey.”
Living under the illusion that trusting God about such matters
ensures our safety allows some people to enjoy a false sense of security, but as
Chloe’s story illustrates, it can also be a source of tremendous pain. Many
struggle, as Chloe did, with guilt and doubt simply because their own experience
refutes this magical worldview. Though they may not break “the rule” by
admitting the obvious, they know, on some level, that there are a multitude of
variables other than God’s will or our own faith that influence what happens to
children, marriages, careers, finances, health, and every other aspect of our
lives.
As much as we might wish it were otherwise, the truth is that in
an unfathomably complex world in which every human and angelic decision ever
made exercises an ongoing influence on what comes to pass, there is no magical
formula that can guarantee things will turn out one way rather than another.
To
try to find security in anything outside God’s character is to reflect both a
lack of understanding and a lack of trust. It is to treat God’s covenant
promises as if they were contractual deals.
—adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 223-224, 230
Our Desire - Blessing or Christ
This is how Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919) puts it.
I wish to speak to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people say, "I wish I could get hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot." Sometimes they say, "I have got it." If I ask them, "What have you got?" the answer is sometimes, "I have got the blessing", sometimes it is, "I have got the theory"; sometimes it is, "I have got the healing"; sometimes, "I have got the sanctification." But I thank God we have been taught that it is not the blessing, it is not the healing, it is not the sanctification, it is not the thing, it is not the it that you want, but it is something better. It is "the Christ"; it is Himself. How often that comes out in His Word - "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses", Himself "bare our sins in his own body on the tree"! It is the person of Jesus Christ we want. Plenty of people get the idea and do not get anything out of it. They get it into their head, and it into their conscience, and it into their will; but somehow they do not get Him into their life and spirit, because they have only that which is the outward expression and symbol of the spiritual reality. I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skillfully engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I thought, "'That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God, to see in them the face of love, shining through and through; not ideas, nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life."
I prayed a long time to get sanctified, and sometimes I thought I had it. On one occasion I felt something, and I held on with a desperate grip for fear I should lose it, and kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and, of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood. Of course, I lost it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a little water from the reservoir, when I might have all the time received from Him fullness through the open channels. I went to meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had not Himself as my joy. At last He said to me - Oh so tenderly - "My child, just take Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself." And when at last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my experience of it, and just placed them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of an experience, the Christ larger than the moment's need, the Christ that had all that I should ever need who was given to me at once, and for ever! And when I thus saw Him, it was such rest; it was all right, and right for ever. For I had not only what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should need the next and the next and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be a million years afterwards, when we shall "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father" (Matt. 13: 43), and have "all the fullness of God."
And so I thought the healing would be an it too, that the Lord would take me like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set me going like a machine. It is not thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich; a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or healing at one time than I needed for that hour. He said: "My child, you must come to Me for the next breath because I love you so dearly I want you to come all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me and would not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My breast every moment." He gave me a great fortune, placed thousands and millions at credit, but He gave a cheque-book with this one condition, "You never can draw more than you need at the time." Every time a cheque was wanted, however, there was the name of Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His name before the heavenly world and God was glorified in His Son.
I had to learn to take from Him my spiritual life every second, to breathe Himself in as I breathed, and breathe myself out. So, moment by moment for the spirit, and moment by moment for the body, we must receive. You say, "Is not that a terrible bondage, to be always on the strain ?" What, on the strain with one you love, your dearest Friend ? Oh, no! It comes so naturally, so spontaneously, so like a fountain, without consciousness, without effort, for true life is always easy, and overflowing.
And now, thank God, I have Him, not only what I have room for, but that which I have not room for, but for which I shall have room, moment by moment, as I go on into the eternity before me. I am like the little bottle in the sea, as full as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the sea is in the bottle; so I am in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that bottleful in the sea, there is a whole ocean beyond; the difference is, that the bottle has to be filled over again, every day, evermore.
Now the question for each of us is not "What think you of Bethshan, and what think you of divine healing?" but "What think you of Christ?" There came a time when there was a little thing between me and Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a friend who said, "You were healed by faith." "Oh, no," I said, "I was healed by Christ." What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a time when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should have to work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I had it; that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I thought I had got the faith, "Heal me." I was trusting in myself, in my own heart, in my own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me because of something in me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord allowed the devil to try my faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring lion, and I found myself so broken down that I did not think I had any faith. God allowed it to be taken away until I felt I had none. And then God seemed to speak to me so sweetly, saying, "Never mind, my child, you have nothing. But I am perfect Power, I am perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the preparation for the blessing, and then I am the Blessing, too. I am all within and all without, and all for ever." It is just having "Faith in God" (Mark 11: 22). "And the life I now live in the flesh, I live," not by faith on the Son of God, but "by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. 2 20). That is it. It is not your faith. You have no faith in you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You have nothing but emptiness and vacuity, and you must be just openness and readiness to take Him to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life and healing, and have simply to say, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." My faith is not worth anything. If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend upon my faith at all. I would say, "Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the channel of blessing to this one just breathe into me all that I need." It is simply Christ, Christ alone.
Now, is your body yielded to Christ for Him thus to dwell and work in you? The Lord Jesus Christ has a body as well as you only it is perfect; it is the body, not of a man, but of the Son of man. Have you considered why He is called the Son of man? The Son of man means that Jesus Christ is the one typical, comprehensive, universal, all-inclusive Man. Jesus is the one man that contains in Himself all that man ought to be all that man needs to have. It is all in Christ. All the fullness of the Godhead and the fullness of a perfect manhood has been embodied in Christ, and He stands now as the summing-up of all that man needs. His spirit is all that your spirit needs, and He just gives us Himself. His body possesses all that your body needs. He has a heart beating with the strength that your heart needs. He has organs and functions redundant with life, not for Himself, but for humanity. He does not need strength for Himself. The energy which enabled Him to rise and ascend from the tomb, above all the forces of nature, was not for Himself. That marvellous body belongs to your body. You are a member of His body. Your heart has a right to draw from His heart all that it needs. Your physical life has a right to draw from His physical life its support and strength, and so it is not you, but it is just the precious life of the Son of God. Will you take Him thus today, and then you will not be merely healed, but you will have a new life for all you need, a flood of life that will sweep disease away, and then remain a fountain of life for all your future need. Oh, take Him in His fullness.
It seems to me as if I might just bring you a little talisman today, as if God had given me a little secret for every one here and said to me, "Go and tell them, if they will take it, it will be a talisman of power wherever they go, and it will carry them through difficulty, danger, fear, life, death, eternity." If I could stand on this platform and say, "I have received from heaven a secret of wealth and success which God will give freely, through my hand, to everybody who will take it," I am sure you would need a larger hall for the people who would come. But, dear friends, I show you in His Word a truth which is more precious. The Apostle Paul tells us that there is a secret, a great secret which was hidden from ages and from generations (Col. 1: 26), which the world was seeking after in vain, which wise men from the East hoped they might find, and God says it "is now made manifest to his saints"; and Paul went through the world just to tell it to those that were able to receive it; and that simple secret is just this "Christ in you the hope of glory."
The word "mystery" means secret; this is the great secret. And I tell you today, nay, I can give you, if you will take it from Him, not from me-I can give you a secret which has been to me, oh, so wonderful! Years ago I came to Him burdened with guilt and fear; I tried that simple secret, and it took away all my fear and sin. Years passed on, and I found sin overcoming me and my temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a second time, and He whispered to me, "Christ in you," and I had victory, rest and blessing.
Then the body broke away in every sort of way. I had always worked hard, and from the age of fourteen I studied and labored and spared no strength. I took charge of a large congregation at the age of twenty-one; I broke down utterly half a dozen times and at my last constitution was worn out. Many times I feared I should drop dead in my pulpit. I could not ascend any height without a sense of suffocation, because of a broken-down heart and exhausted nervous system. I heard of the Lord's healing, but I struggled against it. I was afraid of it. I had been taught in theological seminaries that the age of the supernatural was past, and I could not go back from my early training. My head was in my way, but at last when I was brought to attend "the funeral of my dogmatics," as Mr. Schrenck says, "the Lord whispered to me the little secret, 'Christ in you'; and from that hour I received Him for my body as I had done for my soul. I was made so strong and well that work has been a perfect delight. For years I have spent my summer holiday in the hot city of New York, preaching and working amongst the masses, as I never did before; besides the work of our Home and College and an immense mass of library work and much besides. But the Lord did not merely remove my sufferings. It was more than simple healing. He so gave me Himself that I lost the painful consciousness of physical organs. That is the best of the health He gives. I thank the Lord that He keeps me from all morbid, physical consciousness and a body that is the object of anxious care, and gives a simple life that is a delight and a service for the Master, that is a rest and joy.
Then, again, I had a poor sort of a mind, heavy and cumbrous, that did not think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to have a ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always under command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in this way. He replied, "Yes, my child, I am made unto you Wisdom." I was always making mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make them again; but when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the mind of Christ, that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head right, then I took Him for all that. And since then I have been kept free from this mental disability, and work has been rest. I used to write two sermons a week, and it took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides the conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me. The Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as well as our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, ' Cannot you be a will to me?" He said, "Yes, my child, it is God who worketh in you to will and to do." Then He made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and when to yield. Many people have a decided will, but they do not know how to hold on just at the proper moment. So, too, I came to Him for power for His work and all the resources for His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would say, if this precious little secret of "Christ in you," will help you, you may have it. May you make better use of it than I! I feel I have only begun to learn how well it works. Take it and go on working it out, through time and eternity-Christ for all, grace for grace, from strength to strength, from glory to glory, from this time forth and even for evermore.
HIMSELF
by A. B. Simpson
Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.
Once 'twas painful trying, Now 'tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost.
Once 'twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;
Once 'twas constant drifting, Now my anchor's cast.
Once 'twas busy planning, Now 'tis trustful prayer;
Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care.
Once 'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;
Once 'twas constant asking, Now 'tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.
Once I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored, Safe within the vail.
- Glenn Regular
I wish to speak to you about Jesus, and Jesus only. I often hear people say, "I wish I could get hold of Divine Healing, but I cannot." Sometimes they say, "I have got it." If I ask them, "What have you got?" the answer is sometimes, "I have got the blessing", sometimes it is, "I have got the theory"; sometimes it is, "I have got the healing"; sometimes, "I have got the sanctification." But I thank God we have been taught that it is not the blessing, it is not the healing, it is not the sanctification, it is not the thing, it is not the it that you want, but it is something better. It is "the Christ"; it is Himself. How often that comes out in His Word - "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses", Himself "bare our sins in his own body on the tree"! It is the person of Jesus Christ we want. Plenty of people get the idea and do not get anything out of it. They get it into their head, and it into their conscience, and it into their will; but somehow they do not get Him into their life and spirit, because they have only that which is the outward expression and symbol of the spiritual reality. I once saw a picture of the Constitution of the United States, very skillfully engraved in copper plate, so that when you looked at it closely it was nothing more than a piece of writing, but when you looked at it at a distance, it was the face of George Washington. The face shone out in the shading of the letters at a little distance, and I saw the person, not the words, nor the ideas; and I thought, "'That is the way to look at the Scriptures and understand the thoughts of God, to see in them the face of love, shining through and through; not ideas, nor doctrines, but Jesus Himself as the Life and Source and sustaining Presence of all our life."
I prayed a long time to get sanctified, and sometimes I thought I had it. On one occasion I felt something, and I held on with a desperate grip for fear I should lose it, and kept awake the whole night fearing it would go, and, of course, it went with the next sensation and the next mood. Of course, I lost it because I did not hold on to Him. I had been taking a little water from the reservoir, when I might have all the time received from Him fullness through the open channels. I went to meetings and heard people speak of joy. I even thought I had the joy, but I did not keep it because I had not Himself as my joy. At last He said to me - Oh so tenderly - "My child, just take Me, and let Me be in you the constant supply of all this, Myself." And when at last I got my eyes off my sanctification, and my experience of it, and just placed them on the Christ in me, I found, instead of an experience, the Christ larger than the moment's need, the Christ that had all that I should ever need who was given to me at once, and for ever! And when I thus saw Him, it was such rest; it was all right, and right for ever. For I had not only what I could hold that little hour, but also in Him, all that I should need the next and the next and so on, until sometimes I get a glimpse of what it will be a million years afterwards, when we shall "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father" (Matt. 13: 43), and have "all the fullness of God."
And so I thought the healing would be an it too, that the Lord would take me like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set me going like a machine. It is not thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich; a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or healing at one time than I needed for that hour. He said: "My child, you must come to Me for the next breath because I love you so dearly I want you to come all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me and would not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My breast every moment." He gave me a great fortune, placed thousands and millions at credit, but He gave a cheque-book with this one condition, "You never can draw more than you need at the time." Every time a cheque was wanted, however, there was the name of Jesus upon it, and so it brought more glory to Him, kept His name before the heavenly world and God was glorified in His Son.
I had to learn to take from Him my spiritual life every second, to breathe Himself in as I breathed, and breathe myself out. So, moment by moment for the spirit, and moment by moment for the body, we must receive. You say, "Is not that a terrible bondage, to be always on the strain ?" What, on the strain with one you love, your dearest Friend ? Oh, no! It comes so naturally, so spontaneously, so like a fountain, without consciousness, without effort, for true life is always easy, and overflowing.
And now, thank God, I have Him, not only what I have room for, but that which I have not room for, but for which I shall have room, moment by moment, as I go on into the eternity before me. I am like the little bottle in the sea, as full as it will hold. The bottle is in the sea, and the sea is in the bottle; so I am in Christ, and Christ is in me. But, besides that bottleful in the sea, there is a whole ocean beyond; the difference is, that the bottle has to be filled over again, every day, evermore.
Now the question for each of us is not "What think you of Bethshan, and what think you of divine healing?" but "What think you of Christ?" There came a time when there was a little thing between me and Christ. I express it by a little conversation with a friend who said, "You were healed by faith." "Oh, no," I said, "I was healed by Christ." What is the difference? There is a great difference. There came a time when even faith seemed to come between me and Jesus. I thought I should have to work up the faith, so I labored to get the faith. At last I thought I had it; that if I put my whole weight upon it, it would hold. I said, when I thought I had got the faith, "Heal me." I was trusting in myself, in my own heart, in my own faith. I was asking the Lord to do something for me because of something in me, not because of something in Him. So the Lord allowed the devil to try my faith, and the devil devoured it like a roaring lion, and I found myself so broken down that I did not think I had any faith. God allowed it to be taken away until I felt I had none. And then God seemed to speak to me so sweetly, saying, "Never mind, my child, you have nothing. But I am perfect Power, I am perfect Love, I am Faith, I am your Life, I am the preparation for the blessing, and then I am the Blessing, too. I am all within and all without, and all for ever." It is just having "Faith in God" (Mark 11: 22). "And the life I now live in the flesh, I live," not by faith on the Son of God, but "by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. 2 20). That is it. It is not your faith. You have no faith in you, any more than you have life or anything else in you. You have nothing but emptiness and vacuity, and you must be just openness and readiness to take Him to do all. You have to take His faith as well as His life and healing, and have simply to say, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." My faith is not worth anything. If I had to pray for anyone, I would not depend upon my faith at all. I would say, "Here, Lord, am I. If you want me to be the channel of blessing to this one just breathe into me all that I need." It is simply Christ, Christ alone.
Now, is your body yielded to Christ for Him thus to dwell and work in you? The Lord Jesus Christ has a body as well as you only it is perfect; it is the body, not of a man, but of the Son of man. Have you considered why He is called the Son of man? The Son of man means that Jesus Christ is the one typical, comprehensive, universal, all-inclusive Man. Jesus is the one man that contains in Himself all that man ought to be all that man needs to have. It is all in Christ. All the fullness of the Godhead and the fullness of a perfect manhood has been embodied in Christ, and He stands now as the summing-up of all that man needs. His spirit is all that your spirit needs, and He just gives us Himself. His body possesses all that your body needs. He has a heart beating with the strength that your heart needs. He has organs and functions redundant with life, not for Himself, but for humanity. He does not need strength for Himself. The energy which enabled Him to rise and ascend from the tomb, above all the forces of nature, was not for Himself. That marvellous body belongs to your body. You are a member of His body. Your heart has a right to draw from His heart all that it needs. Your physical life has a right to draw from His physical life its support and strength, and so it is not you, but it is just the precious life of the Son of God. Will you take Him thus today, and then you will not be merely healed, but you will have a new life for all you need, a flood of life that will sweep disease away, and then remain a fountain of life for all your future need. Oh, take Him in His fullness.
It seems to me as if I might just bring you a little talisman today, as if God had given me a little secret for every one here and said to me, "Go and tell them, if they will take it, it will be a talisman of power wherever they go, and it will carry them through difficulty, danger, fear, life, death, eternity." If I could stand on this platform and say, "I have received from heaven a secret of wealth and success which God will give freely, through my hand, to everybody who will take it," I am sure you would need a larger hall for the people who would come. But, dear friends, I show you in His Word a truth which is more precious. The Apostle Paul tells us that there is a secret, a great secret which was hidden from ages and from generations (Col. 1: 26), which the world was seeking after in vain, which wise men from the East hoped they might find, and God says it "is now made manifest to his saints"; and Paul went through the world just to tell it to those that were able to receive it; and that simple secret is just this "Christ in you the hope of glory."
The word "mystery" means secret; this is the great secret. And I tell you today, nay, I can give you, if you will take it from Him, not from me-I can give you a secret which has been to me, oh, so wonderful! Years ago I came to Him burdened with guilt and fear; I tried that simple secret, and it took away all my fear and sin. Years passed on, and I found sin overcoming me and my temptations too strong for me. I came to Him a second time, and He whispered to me, "Christ in you," and I had victory, rest and blessing.
Then the body broke away in every sort of way. I had always worked hard, and from the age of fourteen I studied and labored and spared no strength. I took charge of a large congregation at the age of twenty-one; I broke down utterly half a dozen times and at my last constitution was worn out. Many times I feared I should drop dead in my pulpit. I could not ascend any height without a sense of suffocation, because of a broken-down heart and exhausted nervous system. I heard of the Lord's healing, but I struggled against it. I was afraid of it. I had been taught in theological seminaries that the age of the supernatural was past, and I could not go back from my early training. My head was in my way, but at last when I was brought to attend "the funeral of my dogmatics," as Mr. Schrenck says, "the Lord whispered to me the little secret, 'Christ in you'; and from that hour I received Him for my body as I had done for my soul. I was made so strong and well that work has been a perfect delight. For years I have spent my summer holiday in the hot city of New York, preaching and working amongst the masses, as I never did before; besides the work of our Home and College and an immense mass of library work and much besides. But the Lord did not merely remove my sufferings. It was more than simple healing. He so gave me Himself that I lost the painful consciousness of physical organs. That is the best of the health He gives. I thank the Lord that He keeps me from all morbid, physical consciousness and a body that is the object of anxious care, and gives a simple life that is a delight and a service for the Master, that is a rest and joy.
Then, again, I had a poor sort of a mind, heavy and cumbrous, that did not think or work quickly. I wanted to write and speak for Christ and to have a ready memory, so as to have the little knowledge I had gained always under command. I went to Christ about it, and asked if He had anything for me in this way. He replied, "Yes, my child, I am made unto you Wisdom." I was always making mistakes, which I regretted, and then thinking I would not make them again; but when He said that He would be my wisdom, that we may have the mind of Christ, that He could cast down imaginations and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, that He could make the brain and head right, then I took Him for all that. And since then I have been kept free from this mental disability, and work has been rest. I used to write two sermons a week, and it took me three days to complete one. But now, in connection with my literary work, I have numberless pages of matter to write constantly besides the conduct of very many meetings a week, and all is delightfully easy to me. The Lord has helped me mentally, and I know He is the Saviour of our mind as well as our spirit.
Well, then, I had an irresolute will. I asked, ' Cannot you be a will to me?" He said, "Yes, my child, it is God who worketh in you to will and to do." Then He made me to learn how and when to be firm, and how and when to yield. Many people have a decided will, but they do not know how to hold on just at the proper moment. So, too, I came to Him for power for His work and all the resources for His service, and He has not failed me.
And so I would say, if this precious little secret of "Christ in you," will help you, you may have it. May you make better use of it than I! I feel I have only begun to learn how well it works. Take it and go on working it out, through time and eternity-Christ for all, grace for grace, from strength to strength, from glory to glory, from this time forth and even for evermore.
HIMSELF
by A. B. Simpson
Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.
Once 'twas painful trying, Now 'tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost.
Once 'twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;
Once 'twas constant drifting, Now my anchor's cast.
Once 'twas busy planning, Now 'tis trustful prayer;
Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care.
Once 'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;
Once 'twas constant asking, Now 'tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.
Once I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored, Safe within the vail.
- Glenn Regular
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)