He never met a prodigious adult who didn’t shrink in his presence; or raise a child to feeling himself a giant of faith. He easily mastered the theological depths of school-trained rabbis; and as quickly stood amazed at the profound faith of a Gentile soldier—a man who believed just because Jesus said so. The kind of faith he demands of us, but too seldom receives.
He watched unfazed as wealthy believers enriched the treasury with bountiful gifts, but experienced elation by a poor widow’s daily wage deposited there. He would, by his spiritual depth, successfully debate the keenest intellects in Israel, but let himself be bested into helping a Syrophoenician Greek woman. Because she understood that his playful illustration revealed a nature willing to be captured by his own words. He treated Satan with the contempt he deserved each time they met face-to-face, and each time the Evil One staggered away, black and blue! Yet, when a woman of the streets, having found forgiveness of sin in his teaching, entered Simon the Pharisee’s house, Jesus accepted her loving tears, ointment and hair as a towel for his feet. Jesus always brutalized the Evil One for harming God’s people, but gently received the sinner ensnared in wickedness. Jesus is the Friend...Counselor...Leader...when we want someone to care; to treat us with grace we don’t deserve, but need; to give us helpful, but unwelcome counsel, because his tutelage makes demands we find odious; to climb higher in behavior than we’ve ever been—and resist—because we prefer the practiced rut of life; to BE THERE when we repent and ask forgiveness, though we often find ourselves back in the sin repented. Of all the heroes people honor, of all the pursuits those heroes embody, who but Jesus saves us now from ourselves and our sins; and gives us Hope we now consider too high but seen THEN as infinitely low. And gives us dreams now too large but seen THEN as far too small. When God disposes of all earthly illusions and opens our brains and hearts to HIS GLORY Business tycoons Mark Hanna and George Pullman had polar differences from the middle to late 19th century. Pullman refused to bargain when workers in his company town called a strike. Hanna derided that Darwinian dogma. He called any owner a fool who wouldn’t meet his employees “half-way.” Life History U.S., Vol. 8, 104-105. Hanna understood the working man far better than Pullman. As politics is often the art of meeting half-way on issues, capital and labor should struggle to find ways to profit owners and benefit workers.
That doesn’t work when humanity asks God’s baseline condition for discipleship. God doesn’t, and won’t, meet us half-way. In the first place, he’s already gone ALL THE WAY in providing forgiveness and discipleship. He created us in his image, with the capability of being like him. He endowed us with a conscience to monitor and correct us. He educated us in the behavior he accepts and those he abominates. He implemented the means of forgiveness: initially by animal sacrifice, ultimately and finally by Christ’s own. He warned us of judgment if we don’t accept his word and of unaccountable beneficences if we do. But when he instituted the basis of Christian discipleship, he didn’t meet us part-way or half-way, finding a happy medium he could accept and we would. No Half-Way Covenants with God—like the failed effort of second and third generation Puritans. The first, basic and non-negotiable condition of discipleship is SELF-DENIAL. Understand it’s the FIRST response demanded of every believer in Christ’s Godhood Matthew 16:24-28. We can’t just say, “I believe in Jesus,” and feel that’s enough. No. It’s barely the beginning, but it qualifies us to prove our faith is real by crucifying the self-will (ego) that otherwise disputes with God every issue we don’t accept as necessary! If Jesus commands baptism, self-denial agrees, and we’re baptized. If Jesus condemns homosexuality (which he did in Mark 7:20-23, and through his Holy–Spirit baptized apostle in I Corinthians 6:9-11), we condemn it, without judging the homosexual—since judgment of the person is God’s role. The same principle applies to all other Christian teaching. These are just two of the most debated issues among Christians today. Let us always remember: it’s never enough to appreciate Jesus, admire Jesus or be impressed by Jesus. Billions world-wide, of all religions, have and are. It’s another thing altogether to be convicted by Christ’s Deity and, therefore, in submission to the complete Authority that demands absolute compliance from us. We can accept or reject hm. But we have not had, do not have, or ever will have the right to limit, alter or compromise the condition of discipleship. It’s All The Way as Jesus offered it or NO WAY. No middle ground exists. Two warnings. First, let us not equate the quality of Christianity with the comfort it brings us. For it often treats us roughly, without apologies. Second, let us never so raptly listen to ego-pleasing music that tattoos on our mental roof that we don’t hear the crescendo of God’s wrath falling in on us. Actress Ingrid Bergman seemed so natural in any role she played, she seemed to be living, not acting, it. In truth, she felt alive only when before the camera or audience. Nothing else fulfilled her. Round Up the Usual Suspects, 90.
Discipleship in Christ teaches a different model. Whatever we do or experience is what we are for Jesus at the time. Alexander Campbell might be in his study at 3 AM, or in the farm yard doing chores at 10 AM. In either place he felt comfortable fulfilling the role daily discipleship imposed. Because it’s always more important WHO we ARE than any role we play. Bergman never discovered who she WAS as a person, and had to keep working in her craft to be content. Consider two illustrations as examples of Christ’s intention for us. When the Roman guards offered him drugged wine to ease his pain on the Cross, he refused after tasting it. He wanted nothing to dull the agony of crucifixion. He wanted to be fully conscious to experience the worst death possible because God willed it to provide forgiveness of sin! The Sanhedrin’s effort to eliminate the entire apostolic corps failed when God provided exemption via a temporizing Gamaliel. Then, immediately after escaping death, God didn’t provide exemption from the terrible flogging each man received. Still, “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” Acts 5:41. Before suffering, they boldly proclaimed Christ. After suffering, they rejoiced. Each condition BEING what discipleship demanded. Paul and Silas had the same experience in the Philippian jail. Paul had it when God refused to remove the thorn in his flesh. Simon Peter had it sleeping between his guards on the night before the morning of his execution. Acts 16:22-40, II Corinthians 12:1-10, Acts 12:1-19. And on and on with Bible heroes. Sadly for many Christians, we want to skip the hardships and go directly to the joys of being a believer. That Jesus suffered to save us is appreciated. That we can delight in serving him is our desire. We need instead to appreciate that: whatever it is, at any time, we experience in faith, God designs to deepen our spiritual life and strengthen our Christian walk. If we are WITH Jesus because he is WITH us in it, that’s where we want to be. For we know, that is where his will is done through us and our will is increasingly subordinated to HIS. Which is, after all, the essence of Christian discipleship! If we love the honey of discipleship, we must endure the sting of discipleship. The result of the suffering that Jesus, Moses and Elijah discussed would be seen in Isaiah 53:10-12, Luke 24:1-8, John 20:19-20, Philippians 2:5-11, Hebrews 12:1-3 et al. All the glories the disciples’ grieving minds never anticipated. Indeed, the result cast a glow over the Lord’s Supper that we often instead see as a pallor.
Consider but two lessons the Transfiguration teaches. One, the reason Jesus went 2 ½ years before speaking plainly to the Twelve about his death Mark 8:27-30. Why wait so long with Calvary so near? Perhaps because he knew that only confessing him as God’s Son proved them spiritually mature enough to bear the devastating news of his coming rejection and crucifixion. Bear, not Hear, being the key word. As the Gospels make clear, each time heard it distressed them. We understand. We don’t want to hear that loved ones have an incurable disease. But we bear it because we know the bottom of a grave isn’t soil, stones, dirt, air or finality, but the entrance into everlasting life through Christ. Our loss is always their gain and we bear the loss to rejoice in their gain. Two, the impact of Christ’s miracles could be misunderstood by onlookers. Luke’s account of the Lord’s exorcism of the demonic boy the day following the Transfiguration noted that “everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did” 9:43b. When Jesus heard it, and saw the faces of his Twelve glow with delight, he immediately corrected the impression. In reality saying, “Don’t listen to them. They don’t understand. That’s not the way it’s going to be. Listen to me, I know. And I tell you that I’m going to be betrayed into the hands of men” 9:43b-44. Like the disciples that day, Christians today continually hear the opinions of unbelievers: what’s going to happen, who’s going to be at fault, how it’s going to eventuate. Don’t believe godless people. They have no idea if God’s beneficence or judgment is at hand for this country. They have no idea what has caused the secularism that has burned like subterranean fires through our culture. And they have none at all how to counteract and destroy it before it destroys us. Never look at life or death from this side of eternity, as unbelievers do. They don’t KNOW. But Christians do! And we know that a lot of what is acceptable behavior in our depraved world is unacceptable to God. And we stand with God as his friends by refusing to make ourselves his enemies by supporting or tolerating anti-Biblical ideas, convictions and behaviors. Fini he disciples soon forgot the chill that dark brought to the air and stars that spangled the sky. For above them a few feet unbelievably white light cascaded from Jesus, bathing everything in sight into noon-day. Then, in a flash, he greeted two ancient servants he identified as Moses and Elijah as they stood beside him. The men listened raptly to their shared conversation. It all centered on the exodon Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem. His exodon--DEPARTURE. His exodon—DEATH! The very word that struck terror in the Twelve just eight days before, Luke 9:28. In response, they appointed Simon to apprise Jesus of their common agreement: his death being the one word they couldn’t imagine appropriate to him.
But on the mountain they heard Jesus, Moses and Elijah discussing it in a blaze of light that Christ’s very nature had produced. In pure light, the word exodus-death perfectly fit his life. In pure light, only he had the holiness to suffer death that could forgive the sins of all humanity. In pure light, all three of them overlooking the shame crucifixion imposed to gain the Honor and Glory God bestowed on Jesus for enduring it Hebrews 12:2—the duo’s brilliance seeming to glow brighter, as if they also would benefit by Christ’s death. As if to say to the disciples, “Forget your opinions and trust Christ’s words. Forget what you KNOW by tradition and accept by FAITH what you can’t understand.” As if to say to us now, whenever God’s people gather around the Table of Jesus, eating the bread and drinking the grape, we should celebrate, not mourn, his sacrifice. As if to say, “Don’t leave Jesus on the Cross, since he stayed only long enough to provide forgiveness of sin; then by resurrecting, empowered discipleship; then...glory, glory...new bodies and minds in the world to come.” Stick a cross to a lapel as an expression of faith in Jesus, but understand that only self-denial is our personal evidence that Jesus LIVES! Since God released Jesus from the Cross in six hours, and from the Tomb in three days, he won’t tolerate having Jesus nailed to a crucifix now. Don’t revere the crucified man when the angels commanded the women, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said....go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead....’” Matthew 28:6-7 End Part II By late afternoon that day Jesus left the crowd and, accompanied by Peter, James and John, started to climb one of the toes of 10,000 foot Mt. Hermon. After a tiring hike, he finally signaled his arrival at the appointed place by kneeling to pray. When the trio saw him bow they also fell in heaps on the ground, watching. As always fascinated by their Teacher, they saw him gaze upward while speaking...an intense quietness of soft Aramaic words as if he and God shared an audible conversation with only Jesus heard.
Their alertness gradually surrendered to somnolence that descended with shadows across the mountain. Exhaustion finally sang a lullaby and they fell asleep in its arms...and slept soundly... until.... Sometime later, after dark, all three stirred from feeling a soft glow of light across their faces. Each thought he dreamed it until all looked a few feet above where Jesus continued to kneel praying, but with a halo of light rimming his body. This was no dream, they knew, and leaped up, fully awake. As Jesus stood the light around him continued to increase until, when completely erect, he stretched out his arms and blinding light burst from his entire body in waves of white flowing out of him in every direction, bathing the entire landscape under him, behind him, around him and above him, luminescence turning night into day! Paralyzed by spellbinding adoration, and hardly adjusted to their Master’s appearance, they saw two other celestial beings materializing at his side, greeted as old friends—Moses and Elijah—both obviously servants of the ONE greeting them by the lesser light showing from them. Unable to control his excitement, but not knowing what to say, Simon babbled out some meaningless prattle about erecting monuments to all THREE magnificent figures before them. And when they thought nothing could equal their wonder, a cloud that towered out of sight in all directions suddenly descended, and from inside its mass boomed a deafening message—and on their faces the three mortals fell. End Part I The Master’s flawless insight into and persuasive explanation of Psalm 110 stunned the leadership into silence. Unfortunately, not into faith. If nothing in 3 ½ years convinced them, his brilliant exposition of David’s Psalm wouldn’t.
Their distrust of Jesus, beginning at the start of his Early Judean Ministry, continued as every issue surfaced the differences between them. More than a year before this confrontation their spiritual depravity considered him a stooge of Satan. The very idea brought Christ’s scathing rebuke, but didn’t change their view. Judas himself a year after this encounter had also become an activist tool of Satan against Jesus. And nothing changed his view. Indeed, on the very day Jesus confounded the leadership, they had determined to kill him Matthew 21:38-39. Today’s unbelievers usually take softer positions on Jesus, but nothing that leads them closer to his true Identity. While considering him a good man, maybe one of the best men ever to live, they flatly refuse to accept him as the God-in-the-Flesh MAN! That refusal characterized the leaders of his generation. Which is why they said NOTHING in reply to his question, “Whose son is the Christ?” Its trenchant edginess unsettled them. His clear, rational, logical interpretation of the Psalm posed the most unwelcome question possible: with him expressing sovereign powers of insight into their most sacred texts; with him brilliantly deciphering perhaps the most important of all prophecies of the Christ’s Identity, could he be the Lord whom God addressed through David? Indeed, was it even remotely possible that a mere mortal from Nazareth could BE the National Messiah and—even more incredible—the Son God sent for some mission beyond all their imaginations? Both ideas made them regurgitate: first, that a peasant should rule the aristocrats of Israel. (They conveniently ignored the peasant David being their greatest king. If he, why not his descendant Jesus of Nazareth?); second, since they couldn’t imagine God’s concern for Gentiles, they would never anticipate a role for Jesus, since they would never accept him as Messiah—and, even more distasteful and blasphemous—the Son of God, since they could never conceive of God having a Son. When spiritual innovation rammed into religious tradition, offering a new, better, superior way to God, tradition moved more persuasively. They sipped Christ’s wine, but swallowed none of it. For they considered “the old is better” Luke 5:37-39. It’s the same issue today. Many toy with Jesus, claiming him as this or that or the other thing, but braking to a halt before him being God-in-the-Flesh! They claim to respect Jesus. They say they admire Jesus. They even say they love Jesus. They won’t say they worship Jesus as the GOD-MAN! Leaving them merely infatuated with Jesus, and always secondary in their affection, not in love with him alone, whatever. Leaving them outside God’s grace, wanting to belong, but refusing to pay the admission price. Desiring the victory God assures all who believe in Jesus as his Son, but not willing to join the team. And, like the Pharisees, outside God’s Presence, in spiritual darkness, regretting that God hadn’t agreed with them; determined never to believe what God dictated. The mournful regret of Whittier’s poem is theirs, “For of all the sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been’”! Fini God called Abraham to Canaan to prepare the world for Monotheism. God sent Jesus from Heaven to proclaim forgiveness of sin to all who accepted him as the Only Son of the Only God. As Messiah of the Jews Jesus offered himself as the ENMITY in whom God personalized his love for sinners and hatred of sin. Though the nation rejected his offer, God honored Jesus as both Messiah and His Son (remember that the Jews had him crucified for claiming to be God’s Son John 19:7.)
The essential point: the ENMITY—God-in-the-flesh—began his work as Jewish Messiah to prove himself Moses’ successor and fulfilled it as the Son of God dying to forgive human sin. As we cannot consider Jesus a good man while denying his Deity, we can’t say he fulfilled his purpose as the son of David while denying his sacrificial death for sinners. For the Christ came as God’s Son to be God’s powerful, universal, forceful and spiritually-violent presence against all the universal sin corrupting all humanity. However, it’s Christ as God’s final, universal, avenging Authority in human form that diverse America cannot accept. In that role he remains an unceasing irritant to unbelievers and comforting anodyne to believers. He constantly depresses unbelievers as he stimulates believers. Diversity—the voice of 21st America—shouts its rejection, “How can one Person, founding ONE religious Faith, have answers for ALL people, different as they are?” Well...Christians know...while the argument seems logical, IT ISN’T! While it makes sense to many, it’s nonsense to God. For the whole idea of human diversity demanding multiple ways to God collapses on a BASIC FACT: since all humans descended from one couple—a MAN and a WOMAN, humans are naturally and viscerally afflicted by their EGOTISM against God. It’s the single, continuing SIN against God’s will. For example, what was Eve’s sin against God? Eyesight? “When she saw....?” Genesis 3:6. No...she exalted her EGO over God’s prohibition, “You must not eat....” Genesis 2:17. For example, what was the Sin of Shinar? Ambition? “Let us...build...?” Genesis 11:4. No...they exalted their EGO over God’s express command, “Be fruitful and...fill the earth” Genesis 11:8. For example, what was Nebuchadnezzar’s sin against God? Pride? “Is not this great Babylon I have built?....” Daniel 4:30. No...he exalted his EGO over God’s SOLE AUTHORITY, “Your royal authority has been taken from you...until you acknowledge...the Most High” Daniel 4:28-32. Every person, in every culture, in every generation, continues to flaunt his EGO over God’s word. Which is why, when Jesus spoke of discipleship, instead of publishing a long catalogue of transgressions, he condemned the SOURCE of all sin—the EGO. And he eliminated the ego by commanding our DENIAL of it as the decision-maker of life. Denial of it, death of it, crucifixion of it—not fulfillment of it, or gratification of it or aggrandizement of it Matthew 17:34-37. Humanity’s sins are multiplied, for sure, but are simply MULTIPLES of ONE—the Original Sin of exalting human opinion over God’s revealed word. Which has shamed, disgraced, humiliated and cursed every generation since Adam and Eve began the torturous trail from God’s Presence into depravity! Now...to show how Jesus demonstrated in his own life what he demands of every disciple, remember Philippians 2:9-11. The Glory of having every knee bowing to him came AFTER denying himself. That being true, God’s blessings never come to us by living our EGO; by wanting something he said we can’t have; by not acquiring what God says we must have. End Part VIII The Baptist questioned the value of Christ’s teaching/pastoral ministry when he didn’t continue the wrecking-ball attacks his initial Temple cleansing promised. Nevertheless, knowing that his entire ministry modeled the strong teaching and active compassion God wanted from Messiah, Jesus appealed to John’s initial faith to power him through his doubts Luke 7:18-23,John 1:29-36.
Jesus never had that opportunity with the leadership. They never had faith in him. Not when he began, not as he continued, not as he systematically shredded their every effort to match insights with him, not as he silenced them with the question of Messiah’s identity. Nothing he said or did surfaced even a hint of belief. Jesus had no illusions. His Parable of the Tenants proved that he knew their intention: “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance” Matthew 21:38c. From Psalm 110, however, Jesus offered the gathered leaders insuperable scriptural proof of his true Identity. First, if the Christ had been only a descendant of David, he, under the Spirit’s inspiration, would certainly have called his offspring son. But he didn’t. Second, instead, the LORD—Jehovah—said to David’s Lord—Adonai—“Sit at my right hand....” David didn’t talk to anyone. He recorded only what YHWH said to Adonai—God the Father to God the Son. Inescapable conclusion then: the ONE revealing the prophecy’s meaning stood before the leaders as the embodiment and interpreter of all Scripture: Jesus, called the Christ. Indeed, as Gabriel made clear to both Joseph and Mary, he called Jesus the Son of God before referring to his descent through David Matthew 1:21,23, Luke 1:31-33. Since in that culture no father yielded allegiance to his son, David’s Lord is none other than the Son of God, David’s sovereign, not merely his descendant. The Holy Spirit as a dove proved Jesus God’s Son John 1:31-34. The Resurrection of Jesus proved Jesus God’s Son Romans 1:4. Two historic events 3 ½ years apart. One a message to Israel: Here is your Messiah. The other a message to the world: Here is your God. Jesus embodied the Kingdom of God as Robert E. Lee embodied the Confederate cause in 1861-1865. Jesus embodied a living, successful, spiritual cause and Lee but a failed, cursed national hope. Jesus embodied the Kingdom of God in Israel and the kingdom of God world-and-history-wide. And on into eternity as the Forever-High Priest interceding with God for his Chosen Saved. End Part VII |
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