mdemchsak

16
May
2019

Marriage Is . . .

This blog simply continues the previous one; therefore, it will be helpful to read the previous blog before reading this one. In this blog I shall define and discuss what marriage is. The definition will come straight from Scripture. Keep in mind that this blog is neither an apologetic nor pastoral advice. I hope that I say nothing new. If you read this and think, “How plain?” that’s probably a good sign. If you read this and are upset because I don’t quite fit contemporary culture, that, too, is a sign that I am on the right track. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

Marriage is . . .

the one flesh union of a man and woman for life. The Bible is consistent in describing marriage this way.

Genesis 2:23  Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Mark 10: 2-8  And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Ephesians 5: 25-32 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

I repeat.  Marriage is the one flesh union of a man and woman for life.  That is the definition of marriage. 

So let’s unpack that a bit.

Marriage is a one flesh union.  Jesus said, “So they are no longer two but one flesh.”  In marriage, two people become one.  This does not mean they lose their personalities or uniqueness.  In one sense they are still two.  But they are no longer two; God has made them one.  This union is true of all marriages.  It does not matter whether the husband and wife are Christians or nonChristians — in marriage they are one.  This means that their souls are united here on earth.  Paul goes so far as to say this: “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph 5:28).  Thus, when a man degrades his wife, he degrades himself, for he and his wife are one; and when a woman cares for her husband, she cares for herself, for she and her husband are one.  Husband and wife cannot be separated.  The union of marriage insures that the well-being of one spouse is tied to the well-being of the other.  This is what a union is. 

Sex is a physical part of this union.  In sex, a man and woman become one flesh — literally.  This is why God reserves sex for marriage, and why He encourages it within marriage.  Within marriage, sex is an act in which two people who are one become physically one.  In this context, the sexual act is a beautiful thing.  It reinforces the reality.  Outside marriage, sex is an act in which two people who are not one pretend to be one.  In this context, the sexual act is a lie.  It defiles those who commit it and sets up a mock reality.

This union means that marriage changes how a man and woman live.  Prior to marriage, a man and woman live separate lives.  They do this because they are not one, but once they marry, those separate lives must unite.  They now live in the same home, sleep in the same bed, share the same bank accounts, cars, furniture, and so on. They may divide the chores, but they have only one set of chores now.  In the West, a wife takes on the name of her husband so that the two become one even down to their names.  These are just the externals.  Since husband and wife are one, they also need to share hearts.  They need to hope together, dream together, and rejoice together.  They need to share fears and frustrations, troubles and pain.  They are one in their struggles, one in their victories, and one in their mundane routines.  They live as one in all of these ways because they are one.  The union changes everything.

So marriage is a one-flesh union.  That is the first part of the definition. The second part states that marriage is between a man and a woman.  I am almost embarrassed to discuss this aspect of marriage, not because the truth is embarrassing but because it is so obvious. I feel a bit like a man who has to explain to people that women get pregnant and men don’t or that food is something you eat. Doesn’t everyone already know that? Do I really have to explain it? The fact that marriage is heterosexual used to be obvious and is still obvious to most societies, but many in the West would like to change the obvious, and they exert great pressure on society to conform to a new idea — that marriage can be homosexual.   I do not wish here to get into every issue involved in a discussion of homosexuality.  I want to focus on one question only.  Can marriage be homosexual?   According to Scripture, the answer is a resounding “no.”  When the Bible defines marriage, it always does so with words like “man and wife.” 

When God formed marriage, He said, “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.”  

When Jesus describes marriage, he says, “‘God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.”  Jesus does not appeal to culture but to creation.  He says, God made male and female.  Therefore marriage.  To Jesus, marriage is built upon male and female.   From the beginning.

When Paul defines marriage, it is in the context of a discussion on husbands and wives and ultimately refers back to Genesis.  To Paul, marriage is again a creation thing, not a cultural thing.  And when it was created, it was male and female. 

You cannot honestly look at the Bible and say that it supports homosexual marriage.   If you want to argue for homosexual marriage, you will have to say that the Bible is wrong on this issue, but if you honor the Bible, you will have to say that “homosexual marriage” is a contradiction of terms.

Marriage is male and female.  By definition.

Marriage is also permanent.  The union of a man and woman is for life.  This permanence is a result of the nature of marriage.  In marriage, a husband and wife reflect Christ and the church, a union that is inseparable.  No one can snatch the sheep from Jesus’ hand (Jn 10:28).  Nothing can separate God’s people from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus (Rm 8:35-9).  Jesus is with His people always, even to the end of the age (Mt 28:20).  We are in Christ (Eph 1-2 and many other places); Christ is in us (Gal 2:20; Rm 8:10; Col 1:27).  In other words, the Christian enjoys a permanent union with Jesus Christ.  Marriage, then, must be a permanent union in order to reflect a permanent union.  If marriage is not permanent, it fails its purpose. 

In marriage, the two become one flesh “so they are no longer two but one.”  You can break up two, but you cannot break up one without doing immense, permanent, and irreversible damage to that one.  In marriage a husband is in his wife as Christ is in the church, and the wife is in her husband as the church is in Christ.  Husband and wife are united, and even if they divorce, you can’t fully get the husband out of the wife or the wife out of the husband.  They are still in each other.  I have seen this up close in multiple divorces around me.  Marriage was designed to be permanent.

Jesus considers marriage so permanent that he says, “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:32).  In other words, to Jesus, the divorced woman is still, in some sense, one flesh with the man she had previously married.  She may have a piece of paper that says she is free from him, but that paper is merely paper.  The one flesh union is, by nature, not something you undo with a piece of paper.  It’s not so easy as that.  Imagine a woman who had an abusive father and decided that he would no longer be her father.  She can say whatever she pleases, but the reality doesn’t change.  That man fathered her.  Marriage is this way.  The husband and wife are one flesh, and that union is permanent, whether they like it or not.  They can say what they wish and do what they wish, even divorce, but in some sense, they are still one.  Marriage is a deeper reality than they may like, but it was designed to reflect an even deeper reality than itself. 

Contemporary culture needs to grasp this aspect of marriage, for it considers marriage to be more like roommates with sexual privileges.  If you don’t like what you have, just get another.  No harm done.  This thinking is a lie.  It absolutely destroys people.  It rips apart families and undoes society.  The nonChristian sees no problem.  He swims in contemporary culture and the prevailing ideas are his water.  But the Christian should swim in Scripture and, thus, should have a much stronger and different vision for marriage. 

We do not follow society.  We do not listen to the dictator called Western culture.  We have a different king and a different kingdom, and in His kingdom, marriage is far more special, holy and beautiful than it is here because it reflects a wonderful, eternal marriage between the High King of heaven and His glorious Bride. 

Posted by mdemchsak, 1 comment
09
May
2019

Marriage Is Not . . .

The man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  (Gen 2:23-4)

Marriage is a universal idea.  It is Chinese, Korean, Nigerian, Mexican, European, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and secular all at once.  It is as current as this minute and as ancient as Adam.  It has existed in every culture throughout history.  Although different cultures have emphasized different aspects of marriage, the essence has remained much the same.  The difference between ancient Vietnamese marriage and modern Christian marriage is more like the difference between a Model T and a Honda than between a car and a boat. 

In Scripture, marriage goes back to the original creation.  God created marriage from the beginning; we did not invent it later.   Marriage is part of the fabric of society . . . by design.  It is foundational to the flourishing of the human race . . . by design.  It is the central construct for male/female relations . . . by design.

We must get into our heads the idea that God designed marriage . . . and that we did not.  We must, thus, look to God for what marriage is and for how marriage is to function.  This requires humility, for sometimes God says things we do not like or understand.  When God tells us the purpose of marriage, He says that He created it to be a beautiful union — a living, breathing, portrait of Christ and the Church.  But we have lost that portrait, and in doing so, we don’t know what marriage is.  The previous blog discussed this purpose of marriage; today we will begin to discuss its definition.  But before we define what marriage is, we probably should say what marriage is not.

Marriage Is Not . . .

Marriage is not built on romantic feelings.  By all means, marriage should contain romantic feelings, but it is so much more.  Much of Western culture misconstrues marriage by making emotional feelings the foundation for marriage.  Think of Romeo and Juliet, Enchanted, The Princess Bride, or the latest romantic comedy.  Boy likes girl, girl likes boy.  They “fall in love.”  They experience setbacks or their love develops, and marriage is the final step.  Western culture builds marriage on love, and who wants to argue against love?  I certainly don’t. 

But love has a thousand meanings, and when Western culture builds marriage on love, that love, more often than not, is a glorification of romantic feelings.  It may be true that romantic feelings were the initial spark that got the girl interested in the guy, but in the long run, “Romeo, O Romeo” cannot sustain a marriage.  A strong marriage can and should sustain romantic feelings, but romantic feelings cannot be the fuel for the marriage.  Sooner or later such marriages run out of gas.  If marriage is a house, romance is the furnace, but it is not the foundation. 

The irony of romance is that the marriages with the best romance are not the ones built upon romance.  Romance cannot bear that weight.  It needs a strong foundation somewhere else in order to flourish.  When marriages focus on commitment, sacrifice, and honoring the other person, romance flourishes.  That’s a great environment for romance.  But when romance is made to be the end all, it withers because ultimately romance was never meant to be the end all. 

In the West, putting this weight on romance poses a great problem for marriage.  One of the most common reasons people give for divorce is “We just don’t love each other any more.”  What the couple means is that they “lost that lovin’ feeling.”  In other words, they ran out of gas.  They portray their situation with the word “love,” but I would question whether they ever loved one another in the first place.  One of the characteristics of Biblical love is that it lasts (I Cor 13:13).

Marriage is not built on sex.  This misunderstanding is a cousin to the first.  Especially in the hypersexualized world of the West (though much of the rest of the world is moving in this direction, too), sex is often the ultimate pleasure in life.  And this is precisely the problem.   We make sex ultimate and the marriage secondary.  We act as if marriage exists to serve sex and not the other way round.  This view of marriage has the master and the servant reversed. 

God intended sex to be a physical expression of two becoming one.  It expresses the deeper reality of marriage, which is why it is reserved for marriage.  Marriage can and should foster a vibrant sex life, but sex cannot foster a vibrant marriage.  Like romance, that is too great a load for it to bear. 

Marriage is not primarily a social institution.  It is not just a place to raise children, though good marriages do provide the healthiest place in society for raising children.  It is not primarily a stabilizing force for society, though good marriages bring society more depth of stability than perhaps any other institution on earth.  Marriage clearly has societal benefits, but when people enter marriage solely for social reasons, they miss the point. 

You say, “How do people enter marriage just for social reasons?” Lots of ways. Some may arrange marriages for the purpose of family connections.  Kings did this for millennia; Hindus often do it for caste reasons.  Sometimes people marry to move up in society or to get a better situation.  Sometimes people marry because they feel societal pressure to do so. “You’re not married yet?” Sometimes a social marriage involves a husband and wife who lost their romantic feelings and now need something else to hold the marriage together.  The kids are the best excuse they have, so they turn their marriage into a mere social institution.  Then the kids grow up and leave.  At that point, the marriage either crumbles or finds another social reason to exist — financial stability or looking respectable in society. 

Most people recognize the emptiness of building a marriage on social benefits.  And virtually everyone has seen marriages in which the husband and wife were merely two people living under the same roof instead of a husband and wife.   When marriage becomes a mere social convention, the two never live as one.  They may look on the outside as if they are living as one, but on the inside the marriage is hollow.  It has no intimacy.  It has no commitment to the other person.  It may have a commitment to raising the kids or to maintaining an appearance of respectability, but the husband and wife are not committed to each other. 

God designed marriage to be a great blessing for men, women and society, but the essence of marriage is not social. 

It is also not the place to find fulfillment.  This is crucial, for many people think that if they can’t marry they will never be fulfilled.  They tie happiness to marriage.  They then marry and find that marriage can’t fill the shoes they have created for it.  I understand the desire to marry.  It is natural and good.  I had the desire when I was single; but to think, “if only I marry, then I will be happy” is to put immense pressure on the marriage, pressure that marriage ultimately cannot handle. 

This fact means that many people need to rethink their view of marriage.  If you are single, you have criteria about who you will date.  You know, nice looking, nonsmoker, interested in outdoors — these are the kinds of things people put on those dating websites.  Well, when I was single, I had criteria as well, and at the top of my list was “content in Christ.”  That’s not exactly the kind of thing you can put on a dating website, but that was nonnegotiable for me.  I was looking for contentment in a girl.  I knew that I could never make a woman content.  I’m a sinner.  And so I wanted a girl who didn’t need me to be content.  If I married someone who needed me to be content, then I would just be playing with a beehive. 

Let’s face it.  If you are not happy single, no spouse will make you happy later.  And if the guy or girl you like is not happy single, you will not make him or her happy later.  I wish I could shout that across the globe because too many people try to make marriage their fulfillment, and I’ve never seen it work.

God made us ultimately for Himself, not for a spouse.  The best marriages are the ones in which the husband and wife find their fulfillment in Christ and not in each other. 

Marriage is not about you.  This is related to the previous misunderstanding.  Too many people marry with a focus on themselves.  It is not wrong to consider what benefits a guy or girl may bring you, but it is toxic to make you the focus.  God may bring you great blessing through marriage, but the blessing is never the main point.  When the whole point of marriage becomes “what can I get out of it,” you become a beast.  You demand that your spouse meet your needs instead of trying to meet his or her needs.  In marriage, God calls a man and woman to die to self.  He tells the man to sacrifice for his wife as Christ died for the church, and He tells the wife to submit to her husband.  This is absolutely not a self-focused endeavor. 

Many marriages decay or explode because one spouse or both enter it with a focus on meeting their own needs.  They then find that their spouse does not meet their needs and that, uh oh, I have to give in to him?  Or I have to sacrifice my time for her?  Yes you do.  And if you do, you will find that you will improve your marriage if only because you begin to take the focus off yourself. 

So marriage should not be built on romance or sex.  It is not merely a social institution, nor is it the place to find ultimate fulfillment nor is it about meeting your needs.

What then is it?  That’s for the next blog. 

Posted by mdemchsak in Gender, Marriage, 1 comment
21
Mar
2019

Getting to the Purpose of Marriage

“Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-2)

Praise you, Father, for the marriage you have given me. It is a wondrous gift from your hand, a portrait of an even more wondrous gift from your hand.

Everybody knows what marriage is, right? After all, most people marry at some point; and even if they don’t, they see marriages everywhere they look. In fact, the odds are that they have seen at least one marriage up close, for most people still have lived in a home with married parents.  We know marriage.

Or do we? 

For all of our familiarity with marriage, most people do not seem to have any inkling of what it really is.  Just look at the marriages.  Marital dysfunction and divorce are rampant, and I would argue that part of the reason so many marriages are so bad is that people don’t understand what marriage is.

And this ignorance is not limited to the rank and file.  Most researchers, psychologists, marriage counselors, sociologists, and therapists likewise don’t know what marriage is, for most of these “experts” completely ignore what Scripture says about marriage.  To them, marriage is an entirely earthly affair.  It is not rooted in God; it does not reveal anything about God; it participants do not answer to God; indeed, it has nothing to do with God.  They rip God out of marriage and then talk as if they understand it.  In other words, when it comes to marriage, the blind are leading the blind.

If we want to recover marriage, I’m afraid we need to put God back into it.  We need to know why He made it, how He structured it, and what He has to say about it.

So let’s begin. 

Marriage is God’s idea.  He invented it and He likes it.  A lot.  Marriage is a holy union that unholy people get to participate in.  Sometimes we like to think that marriage is an arrangement designed to meet human needs, but I’m not convinced that is true.  I wonder rather if human needs were designed to fit marriage.  After all, marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, and we in Christ are His Bride.  Through faith all Christians enter into a marriage — the marriage they were made for.

This reality is why marriage is so holy.  It reflects the very purpose for which you were made.  It is not itself that purpose.  It merely reflects it.  Thus, a single woman can be completely fulfilled without a husband because she enjoys a greater Husband.  And a married woman can experience in marriage an earthly taste of heaven because that is what marriage was designed to be.  Our little marriages were meant to point us to a much greater one. 

When you begin to see this truth about marriage, you begin to see a template for marriage, and you also see how far we have fallen.  Anything that clouds the picture of Christ and the church defiles marriage.  An abusive husband defiles the picture of Christ; a self-asserting wife ruins the picture of the church; divorce destroys the picture outright.  God meant marriage to be a wondrous blessing, but we have too often turned it into a hell. 

We need to restore marriage to its original purpose, but we can’t if we deny that purpose outright.  This world wants to improve marriages by improving communication skills or implementing conflict resolution strategies or discouraging behaviors that bring financial strain.  All of these things are good, but they go only so deep.  Marriage is Christ and the church, not just two people communicating well. 

When a husband grabs hold of a good conflict resolution strategy, he may implement it, and it may help; but it is merely a tool he uses, and it touches his heart as a hammer does.  But when that same husband begins to see that he represents Christ within a holy union, that vision touches his heart.  He wants to love his wife as Christ would.  He wants the commitment to his bride that Christ has toward His.  That husband will fail to show the perfect love of Christ, but he will also have that perfect love pulling him ever onward.  He changes from the inside. 

And when a wife sees that she represents the church within a holy union, she forms a desire to honor her husband, to remain with him no matter the cost, and to respect his leadership.  She will fail to do these things perfectly, but she will have Christ pulling her ever onward.  She changes from the inside.

When marriages fail, they fail from the inside. They do not fail mainly from inadequate relational skills or strategies but from a lack of love and commitment.  Good skills and strategies cannot survive a lack of love and commitment, but Christlike love and commitment toward the other will endure poor skills and strategies.  Bringing marriage back to Christ brings it to its origin and allows us to build it on a foundation that will last. 

Marriage is much more than we think.

Posted by mdemchsak in Gender, Marriage, 2 comments
28
Feb
2019

Does Christianity Harm Women?

This blog begins a series on gender issues. In this series we will tackle questions dealing with sexuality and gender, including what the Bible says about male and female, marriage, singleness, homosexuality, and transgender issues.  Keep in mind that these will be short blogs on topics people have written books on. I can’t say everything.  So let’s dive in.

Some time ago, I was speaking with an atheist who said to me that one of the things she most hated about Christianity was its treatment of women. In certain circles — academia, politics, the media — that sentiment is common and because those circles tend to be vocal and have a platform, you have likely heard the accusation that Christianity harms women.  So let’s address that charge. Does Christianity harm women?

To respond to such a charge we need to deal with two questions: First, what constitutes harm? And second, what does Christianity teach? So let’s begin.

What Constitutes Harm?

On one level, the question of what constitutes harm seems unnecessary, for doesn’t everyone recognize harm?  Well . . . it depends.   Let me illustrate.

Which of the following harms women? 1) The enslavement of women because they are physically weaker; 2) the practice of preventing women from economic achievement simply because they are women; 3) the concept that men and women are different; 4) the belief that men and women have different roles in the family; 5) the desire in a man to hold open a door for a woman.

I think everyone would agree that numbers 1 and 2 harm women, but I have heard people declare that all five statements harm women, for some people consider all of the above to be sexist.  And sexism is a loaded word. When you accuse someone of sexism, you say that he or she harms people based on gender and you engender in people the animus of number 1 or 2 even if all you mean is number 4 or 5. Even in contexts in which the word “sexism” may have a more narrow meaning, the connotation still entails harm.  But do all of the statements above really harm women? Most people would not recognize harm in every statement above.

Statement number 3, for most people, is simply a common sense observation. Taken at face value, it does not bring any harm to anyone. It could bring harm, of course, depending on how one applies it. For example, the Taliban might argue that one of the differences between men and women is that women are not cut out for an education and, thus, should not go to college. This would be a misapplication of number 3, not necessarily an argument that it is false. Number 3 does not say that men and women are different in every respect. It says simply that there are differences.   Taken like that, the statement itself seems rather obvious, like saying that the sun rises in the morning. Let’s put it this way. If men and women are not different, why does every society in history have different words for men and women, as if they are different? And how did the feminist movement ever begin in the first place? And why do we have gender studies at universities? Even people who accuse Christianity of harming women must have in mind an idea of “woman” that differs from their idea of “man.” Otherwise, the accusation makes no sense. My point is that virtually everyone assumes number 3 to be true, including the people who say it isn’t. The idea that men and women are different is a basic fact that everyone assumes, and it is neither sexist nor harmful. It simply reflects reality.

Statement number 4 — the belief that men and women have different roles in the family — is an application from statement number 3. You can debate whether it is a misapplication, but if men and women are different, it is no stretch to think that they may have different roles in any part of society. This, by the way, may be the real reason people want to close their eyes to gender differences. They fear the consequences. From their perspective, the reality of male/female differences opens Pandora’s box. But the fact that men and women are different is so obvious that we must risk Pandora’s box.  In fact, the idea that men and women are identical is utter nonsense and brings with it its own Pandora’s box. Which Pandora’s box do you want?  Certainly, we must be careful in how we apply gender differences, but to deny them outright simply because we fear the consequences is nothing more than sticking our heads in the sand.

So back to the question — does statement number 4 hurt women? How you answer this question will depend upon assumptions and perspectives you bring to the question. For example, throughout history, the vast majority of people, including probably the majority of women, from virtually every culture would say “different roles for men and women within the family brings no harm to women.” We need to understand that contemporary Western feminism is a strikingly minority position. That doesn’t make it wrong or right, but it does suggest that the feminist position on certain questions is not so obvious as feminists think.   On other questions, however, feminism and history would shake hands. Most cultures in history, for example, condemned rape, sex trafficking, and spouse abuse — practices that disproportionately hurt women.  Apparently some practices are obviously harmful and others are not.

So do roles within the family hurt women?  On the surface of it, different roles, in all sorts of endeavors, are rather common and often quite beautiful. They certainly bring no harm. In addition, men and women truly are different, and the family unit is built upon the union of a man and a woman. Why then would we be surprised if a man and a woman had different roles within the family? Part of what the family is built upon is that difference. And that difference is wonderful.   Statement number 4, by itself, does not obviously harm anyone. People can and do abuse it, but you can abuse anything. If I run over your neighbor with my car, you don’t blame the car.

Statement number 5 — the desire in a man to hold open a door for a woman — is a genuine desire to show respect and honor to a woman. Certainly it is often a symbolic act, and certainly many men who hold doors for women also hurt them. But when men harm women, that harm does not result because they hold open a door. It results from sin that lies elsewhere deeper in the man’s heart. Holding a door for a woman brings her no harm and actually communicates that she is special. To argue that this act harms women is a bit silly. In fact to argue this way may actually harm women, for it says to men that women are not special, and it takes the focus of abuse off of serious sin issues in the man and puts it on a symbolic act.

We’ve laid some groundwork concerning what constitutes harm. This is important because we need to see that our worldview and culture often define what is harmful. People commonly disagree over what constitutes harm. Just look at Congress. Take almost any issue — abortion, economic policy, environmental law. On that issue a Democrat will tell you that a Republican stance is harmful, but the Republican doesn’t see the harm. And a Republican will tell you that a Democrat stance is harmful, but the Democrat doesn’t see the harm. Occasionally you find issues in which Democrats and Republicans agree on what is harmful, but those are the exceptions. Harm is not always objective.

So let’s apply this to the idea that Christianity harms women. Some practices are obviously harmful in all cultures and to all people — slavery, spouse abuse, rape, sex trafficking.   But many practices are harmful only from a particular perspective, and if you don’t share the perspective, you don’t see the harm. This is crucial, for when people say that Christianity harms women, are they pointing out objective harm that everyone can see or is this partisan politics?

Now let’s talk about what Christianity teaches, and for this purpose I will address a Christian audience, and I will unfortunately have to be brief.

Gender Equality

The first thing the Bible teaches about men and women is that they have equal value and capacities for knowing God.

Genesis 1:26-7  Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . “ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

This is the beginning, the creation, and God says that He created male and female in the image of God. Thus, that which gives men value is that which gives women value. Biblically, men and women have the same intrinsic worth and the same spiritual capacities. They are of the same essence. Men are capable of relating to God and reflecting His glory, and women are equally capable of relating to God and reflecting His glory. The Bible reflects an intrinsic equality between male and female that goes all the way back to the original creation.

Galatians 3:27-9  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Paul here is speaking of those who have been freed from the law through faith in Jesus Christ (vv. 21-6) and says that all who are in Christ share the same blessings regardless of ethnicity, socio-economic status, or gender. Male and female both have equal access to Christ, and when they are in Christ become part of the same family (Abraham’s offspring) and receive the same inheritance (heirs according to the promise).   This again reflects an inherent equality that exists between male and female.

In addition, consider the following:

The Biblical idea of marriage considers a man and a woman to be one flesh (Gen 3:23-5).

It was women who were the first eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus (Matt 28). You could say they were the ones who brought the good news to the apostles.

It was a woman who brought the good news of Jesus to her village in Samaria (John 4:39-42)

Paul considers women to be fellow workers in the Lord (Rm 16:3, 12).

Peter says women are joint heirs with their husbands of the grace of life (I Pet 3:7).

We could go on, but you get the idea. In the Bible men and women share an inherent equality, and this equality is basic to a Christian understanding of male and female.

Today, the ideas these Scriptures put forth about gender are ideas we take for granted, but when they were written, they were quite radical. Ancient Middle Eastern culture and first century Hellenistic and Roman culture were not so friendly toward women.   It is the Bible that began the process of getting people to recognize that women are of greater value than society had previously thought. Ironically, if you removed the Bible from history, there may never have been a feminist movement at all.

Gender Differences and Roles

 Genesis 1:27  . . . male and female he created them.

The Bible clearly portrays an intrinsic equality between male and female, but that equality is not the entire picture. The Bible also portrays men and women as different. God does not create the human race as one gender. He creates male and female. A man is not a woman, and a woman is not a man. They may be equal, but they are not the same. They are designed to go together like two complementary pieces of a puzzle.

Genesis 2:18ff  Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

This text relates the original creation. It is what God intended when He first set up the idea of male and female. This is not a result of sin, for sin had not yet entered the universe. When God created woman, He created her to fit a role. God wanted the woman to be a companion and a helper for the man. Most people have no problems with the companion part, but the helper part sometimes makes modern people squirm. But God does not consider this purpose to be bad. When He finishes His creation, He says it is “very good” (Gen 1:31), and these complementary roles are part of that “very good.”

Ephesians 5:22-5, 32  Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . . This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Paul here is describing different roles within marriage, and he says that those roles represent Christ and the Church. In other words, when you look at a good marriage, you should see a picture of what the relationship is like between Jesus and His Bride. In marriage a man and woman act out a bigger marriage, an eternal marriage with Christ Himself. This means that when a man and woman marry, their act has a meaning outside themselves, above society, and rooted in God. This fact gives marriage immense importance and purpose. It means that marriage is bigger than a man and a woman. The central purpose of marriage is not just to provide companionship or sexual intimacy or societal stability or a place to raise children. Those blessings are all true of marriage, but God intended marriage to be so much more. It is a high and holy covenant and a picture of something greater than itself; thus when Paul gives different roles for the husband and wife, he has in mind this greater, eternal purpose.

When people think of marriage only as a societal institution, a personal blessing, a coming together of two personalities or a place that legitimizes sex, they completely miss it. They look only at Earth and think they understand a covenant that was meant to reflect a piece of heaven. They ignore the whole point but then claim to understand the point.

If Paul is correct about the nature of marriage, and I dare say he is, then the role difference between the husband and wife is not only harmless; it is necessary. In order for marriage to fulfill its main purpose, someone needs to act out the role of Christ and someone else the role of the church, and for society to see Christ and the church, those roles need to be consistent.

Perhaps the problem some people have with differing roles within marriage is that they view those roles as inequality. They believe that the lead role has greater value than the supporting role. Scripture does not. In fact, in Scripture the greatest is the servant of all. This is why the picture of leadership Ephesians gives to the husband is one of sacrificial love and servanthood. He is to lay down his life. The supporting role is not inferior to the lead role. To say that it is would be cultural prejudice. Think of it this way. In a waltz one partner leads and one follows, but the leading role and the following role are two equal pieces of the same dance. If the man and the woman both tried to lead, the dance would fail.

Of course, like every other part of this fallen world, sin has corrupted marriage, and we humans have greatly failed to present a compelling picture of Christ and the church, but every now and then you find a couple who lives it out. They live it imperfectly to be sure, but they live it in such a way that you can see it. The husband loves his wife. He cherishes her, protects her, sacrifices for her and leads her in love, and the wife respects her husband and willingly submits to his lead. She may at times disagree with him and let him know when she does, but she remains fully committed to him even when she disagrees. When you see this, you are witnessing a beautiful dance, a holy mystery, a wondrous yet quiet portrait of a stunning union between the high king of heaven and his radiant bride.

Does that harm women?

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24
Jan
2019

The Importance of the Local Church

Let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb 10:24-5)

Lord, I thank you for the precious body of Christ, for the people with whom you have placed me, the people pray for me, and I them; who care for me, and I them; who serve me, and I them; who help me love you and trust you and live my life for you; and who work with me in the spread of your great name. 

The church is a universal body of believers. It is global and has no political or economic borders. It consists of those people for whom Jesus is Lord — who have had a genuine heart response to the person and work of Jesus Christ. That is the church.

But the church is also local. Wherever genuine disciples of Jesus exist, they meet together to form a local body. That local body may be as simple as two families meeting in their homes in China or as complex as a Western megachurch. The local church is the visible expression of the universal church. The components of a local church include the following: believers meeting together regularly (at least weekly) to worship Christ, to hear the Word taught, to mutually encourage one another in the faith, to practice communion and baptism, and all under the authority of elders.   Such is a local church, and such is the regular practice of believers across the globe.

But I sometimes have conversations like this:

“. . . so then, tell me. Are you a Christian?”

     “Yes.”

     “Where do you go to church?”

     “Oh, I don’t go to church.”

Now that’s an awkward interaction. Generally I follow up with something like “Why don’t you go to church?” And I get all sorts of answers.

“I’m burned out on church . . . the people are hypocrites . . . I had a bad experience . . . I can’t find a church that suits me . . . I don’t have time . . . I have too much work . . . I don’t need the church to worship. I can praise God on my own . . . It’s boring . . . It’s shallow . . . I want something authentic.”

Whatever the reason is, it seems as if many who call themselves Christians somehow think that participation in a local church is optional. They do not get this idea from the New Testament. Here in America they likely get the idea from — well — America. We are independent. We are free. We can do what we want. We have options. This thinking is basic to America, and many in America simply transfer the thinking to the church.

Many have lost the importance of the local church and in doing so have lost something significant about Christianity. They want an individualistic Christianity. They want to pick and choose according to their desires, but Christ calls them to die to their desires.

Let’s be clear. The local church is the local expression of the universal body of Christ. It is the body of Christ where you live. If you do not participate in the body of Christ where you live, what makes you think that you participate in the body of Christ at all? For the Christian, local church participation is not an option. I don’t mean this in a legalistic sense. Belonging to a local church does not save us. Salvation is a heart issue that goes deeper than church participation. But local church participation is spiritually necessary because salvation places us in a body, and we now need to live out our corporate identity.

In the New Testament, the idea of a believer intentionally operating without respect to a local church is utterly unthinkable. Here’s why.

  1. Believers who intentionally stay outside the local church handicap themselves spiritually. Consider the following: a sheep without a flock, an antelope without a herd, a fish with no school. All of the above are food for predators, and Satan is a roaring lion looking for whom he may devour (I Pet 5:8). The local church helps provide protection from the Evil One. The local church provides spiritual strength, comfort, encouragement and help in the business of walking with God.
  2. The local church is where the one-anothers happen: love one another, bear one another’s burdens, confess your sins to one another, serve one another, be devoted to one another in love, in humility regard one another as more important than yourself, greet one another with a holy kiss, speak the truth to one another, and so on. The very word “one another” (in the Greek it is one word), is a corporate word. By definition it requires a body. In addition, the context of the one-anothers is always corporate. When the New Testament writers give the one-anothers, they are giving them to local churches.   They are telling the local church how to live out its corporate life, and living out a corporate life assumes that you have a corporate life. It is difficult to have someone bear your burden when you are not around him, and it is hard to love someone with whom you spend no time. A local church is necessary to effectively carry out the commands of Scripture.
  3. The local church is God’s main plan for spreading the kingdom of God. If you love missions, you need to love the local church. In the New Testament, it is the local church in Antioch that sends out Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13), and when Paul sets out on his missionary journeys, he establishes local churches. In other words, the local church is both the sending agency and the main objective of missions. Missions that does not end in local churches is a failure.

Now this fact does not mean that parachurch organizations or sending agencies are  somehow bad. They can bring resources together from multiple churches in order to accomplish something that no single church could accomplish. But those organizations need to understand that they do not exist merely to replicate their ministry. They exist to serve the local church, not to replace it. They may have different functions (feeding the poor, providing medical care, evangelism, translating Scripture, etc), but the purpose of those functions is to aid the local church.

In the New Testament, even when God built a team with people from different churches (Paul and Timothy, Luke or Silas), that team still functioned as a church while on the field and then worked to plant churches wherever it went. Make no mistake. The local church is Plan A for the spread of the kingdom. God can use Plan B or Plan Z if the local church won’t fulfill its responsibility, but He still wants to get back to Plan A.

These are a few reasons why God’s people are to love the local church. It is where faith takes on flesh.  We are not to neglect it.

 

 

 

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21
Dec
2018

The Church Part III

This blog is a continuation of the previous blogs on the doctrine of the church.

The church consists of believers in Jesus Christ. It does not consist of mere churchgoers or religious types. One does not belong to the church by being a good neighbor or by giving money to a noble cause or by being born into a Christian family. One does not belong to the church by taking communion, reading the Bible, or praying regularly. To be certain, genuine believers will desire such practices, but external practices alone do not make one a believer any more than going swimming makes one a fish. The church does not consist of all those who look Christian. She consists of all those whose hearts have been transformed by the power of the gospel. In a sense, this makes her an invisible, global organization, but she always has a visible, local contact point.

If the worldwide body of Christ is to do any good, it must eventually touch people in a specific time and place. The local church gives to the body that time and place. It takes the power from the generating plant and carries it to 1264 E. Oak St. The local church is the neighborhood representative of Jesus Christ. It is the spiritual clinic around the corner that dispenses the power to change hearts and souls forever. It is the training ground for Christians. I do not mean that the church is the building where the gospel is proclaimed. Rather it is the men and women who proclaim it, just as the army is not the barracks but the soldiers who train in them. The church is people. It is always people, but it is not any people. It is a specific people who have given themselves to a specific purpose.

The church is a treasure. She is the beloved of Christ, His one and only. The Scriptures adjure us to love all men and treat everyone with kindness, mercy and grace, but there is a sense in which the Scriptures adjure us to do this all the more for the church. The church is special, not on her own account but on account of the One to whom she belongs. Those in the church are our brothers and sisters. They are family. Indeed, they are closer than family, for the bond of Christ is thicker than blood. If you think this to be favoritism, I would say that if it is, it is the sort of favoritism a boy might have toward his older brother. But Christians are not any family; they are members of a special family. The family name is greater than Rockefeller or Vanderbilt, Gates or Kennedy. Those families have paltry fortunes compared to ours. They have no real influence, no status, no position, no lasting accomplishments. But the church is the radiant bride of royalty. She belongs to the One who shall rule all nations, and He is jealous toward His bride. Do not treat her improperly, for she is God’s special treasure.

Thus, the church is a special people whose hearts have been cleansed and transformed by Jesus Christ. They belong to Him and are committed to following His lead. They are related not by blood or race or language or culture but by the Spirit. They are all part of one great body whose function is to love, serve and worship its Lord. They have been given a mission to make disciples of all the world. Wherever they go, they take the person and message of Jesus Christ. To the unbeliever they call for repentance and faith. To the believer they call for obedience, commitment, maturity and ministry. They live as ordinary people in the midst of society, but they live as extraordinary people called apart from society. They stand for something higher than this world and, as such, are persecuted as misfits and sometimes miscreants. They live to bring that other world to bear here because they know that, in the end, this world will be swallowed up by that one. They are a bride, a temple, an army, a lighthouse, a family, a body. They are the church, and one day, under Jesus Christ, they will rule the world.

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13
Dec
2018

The Church Part II

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . . it pleased God through the foolishness of what we preach to save those who believe . . . not many of you were wise according to the flesh, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.  (I Cor 1:18, 21, 26-8)

Lord, open our eyes, as those who stand in the righteousness of Christ, to see the power of the gospel that transforms.  May we as your church stand and not waver in the task of bringing light to a dark society and salt to an empty people. 

The last blog introduced the doctrine of the church and concluded by saying that the church has an obligation to take the gospel to the people.  To do this, the church must live where the people live. She is to infiltrate society and rub elbows with the common man. Monkery is not a long-term viable option for the serious Christian. Light does no good under a basket, and salt has no effect until it is rubbed on the decaying meat. Thus, the church traffics in the world. Yet simultaneously the church is not of the world. She lives in the world as a foreigner, and as such, is governed by the priorities and principles of her homeland. She dwells here but is a citizen of another place. In matters with no moral consequence she conforms to the place she lives, but in spiritual and moral issues she stands apart from her culture. In America she may wear jeans and eat burgers.  In the Middle East, she may wear a robe and eat hummus, but wherever she is, she does not abort her children or defile the marriage bed. She may live and work in the midst of the world, she may obey local laws, work ordinary occupations, and speak the same language as everyone else, but, ultimately, the church is counterculture.   She consists of everyday people living everyday lives in everyday places, but she transcends the everyday.

The church lives in the world, but God has not called her to be like the world. Rather, He wants her to transform the world. Because the church exists to bring Christ to the world, she constantly points the world to something beyond the world. The church is separate from the world and calls the world to a higher standard and power than the world can ever know. She is a lighthouse telling a society where the rocks are. She is a guide pointing a lost troop to the only path home. She is a nurse nursing the wounded back to health. She is counterculture because society wants to sail where the rocks are, travel down the path that leads only to a great morass, and practice those habits that only inflict further wounds.

The church is counterculture because while she points people to what is best, the people shut their eyes and ears to it and want nothing to do with her. The church is laughed at, scorned and mocked for calling the world away from its desires. In most places of the world, she faces persecution. She is beaten, robbed, killed, discriminated against and thrown into slavery, all because she insists on saying that the resurrected Christ is the only way out of the hellhole called self. But the world loves the hellhole. The world is an alcoholic who cannot see that his habits are destroying him. The church is a relative who comes alongside and points the way out. But the alcoholic loves the very thing that is killing him and sees the relative as a threat. So he abuses her. It may be quite safe to never speak to the alcoholic about change, but it is also quite immoral. When the church does her job properly, she will experience backlash.

The church is the only institution on earth that can do deep and lasting good. The Red Cross can help alleviate suffering, but it has nothing to offer the human heart. Political groups may help reform a wicked practice, but they cannot reform the human heart. A father and mother may instill in their children good manners and citizenship, but good manners and citizenship do not change the heart.  When we divorce our values from spiritual ultimacy, we become sugarcoated and hollow. Do not misunderstand. These other institutions can do good things. I would prefer to live in a place where wicked practices are reformed and people are polite, but I do not suppose that polite people obeying decent laws is the essence of life. The church is the lone institution that can bring ultimacy to all the other institutions on earth. It is the only institution that can offer something more than redecorating the living room. It can raze the house and build a new one. The church has at its disposal that kind of power. That power is inherent in the gospel through the Spirit. The church merely carries the power and brings it face to face with another person, like a medic who carries life in his bag and brings it to fallen comrades on the front line.

 

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29
Nov
2018

The Church

. . . on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  (Mt 16:18)

How precious is your church, O Lord.  She is your jewel, your Beloved, the ones you ransomed from the pit and made your own.  May we see her in all her glory, clothed in the righteousness of Christ and living as sons and daughters of the High King.  And may we honor her as one honors the bride of royalty.

A picture is worth a thousand words. You have heard the saying. And though Jesus predates the saying, He, too, understood the power of its message. When He taught, He taught with pictures. When He gave us baptism and communion, He gave us visual representations of spiritual truths. Indeed, even His very person was “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). He was Himself the picture of God.

Now I believe it quite helpful to think of spiritual truths in visual ways, and the doctrine of the church provides a good example of such a truth. Therefore, I wish to begin this blog with a series of pictures. Some are direct from Scripture; others are not. But all reflect some aspect of the biblical doctrine of the church.  Here we go:

The church is like a great temple composed of many living stones. Christ is Himself the chief cornerstone, and He has laid for us a foundation in the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:19-22; I Pet 2:4-8). By grace, the builder builds his temple, and by grace he then dwells in it.

The church is like a body with many organs and parts, but one head. The eyes see for the feet, and the feet walk for the eyes, but all follow the head and all need the others (I Cor 12).

The church is like the shoots and saplings that sprout from the root of a great oak. These then become stately oaks themselves and produce more shoots and saplings, which, in turn, grow and produce more and so on until this oak covers the earth from east to west.

The church is a great faucet through which living water flows.

The church is the light of the world shining in the darkness.

The church is the salt of the earth, preserving righteousness and truth.

The church is like an army spread out by squads in enemy territory and working to turn the natives away from their ruling prince and to their rightful king who will soon take over. Each member is a soldier working in some capacity to accomplish the mission of his commanding officer.

The church is an adopted family from all languages and cultures, full of variety, but whose members share a oneness that not even identical twins share.

The church is like an athlete whom the coach trains, puts in the game, calls his play, and gives him the ball. And the crowd cries, “Run! Run, church! Run!”

The church is a bride who has walked down the aisle and given herself to her groom. She belongs to him and he to her. He is her only love, and she has committed her life to go where he goes and has submitted her soul to his lead.

The church is a gathering too numerous to count of men and women singing, cheering, rejoicing, falling on their faces, all because of one man who is on the platform.

I suppose we could go on. The church is a group, a family, an army, whose task is to honor her king, to live in His ways, and to ultimately help raise others to do the same. Different members have different functions, but all work toward the same goal. They are teammates.

The church did not merely pop into existence. She had a beginning, a source. Jesus said to Peter, “upon this rock I will build my church” (Mt 16:18). The church was not yet formed at that time, but Jesus is clear that it was coming, and He was equally clear of who the builder would be. When the church grew, Luke tells us “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). The source of the church is Christ Himself. He is the object and the impetus of its worship. He gives to the church its purpose and the power to accomplish that purpose. He goes to the quarry, selects His stones, breathes His life into them, fashions them as He pleases and places them where He wishes in order to accomplish His purpose. He is the church’s beginning and fulfillment.

He is also the church’s head (Eph 5:23; Col 1:18). He calls the shots. He tells the feet to go or stop, the eyes to look to the front or back, the hands to steer left or right. He is commander in chief. He is Lord. And Lord means head. He never directs the church to act against her best interests. Just as any sound head never destroys its own body but cherishes and nourishes it, so does Christ do with His own body. He may at times give directions that require us to suffer just as a sound head may for a time command the feet to march 50 miles a day in the snow. But we must remember that He knows what He is up to. When He commands what we do not understand, when He directs us to suffer, we must remember that He is looking out for the best interests of His body. It is helpful to remember that we truly are at war. Sometimes to us the war is invisible, but to our head, it is never invisible. He always directs us as if we are in combat, not as if we were at a neighborhood garden party. When we question Him, it is often because we have forgotten that we are in the thick of a firefight.

Because Jesus is head of the church, He gives to the church her purpose. He has said, “The greatest commandment is this, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind’” (Mt22:37-8). His final instructions to His church were these: “All authority in heaven and earth is given me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). The church exists, then, to love and worship God and to make disciples. In fact, there is a sense in which we can say that the church is to love and worship God by making disciples. If the church says she loves God but does nothing to complete the main work God gave her, she is a mouth without a heart. This mission means that she is to evangelize the lost and disciple the saved, to bring others to a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, to help them be obedient to Christ, to help them worship and witness and pray and understand the Scriptures, and to help them, ultimately, help others do the same. As an army she is to obey her commander, recruit new soldiers and train them. If she obeys without recruiting and training, she is not obeying, for she is commanded to recruit and train. If she recruits but does not train, she ends up with a host of people who cannot do anything, but no real soldiers. If she trains but never recruits, she has a spiritual force focused on itself, not on its commander or mission. If she does not die first from self-centeredness, she will die eventually from the neglect of the next generation. The church is called to take the gospel to all people.

These are some aspects of the church.  We will talk more in future blogs.

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18
Oct
2018

On the Third Day

. . . he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (I Cor 15:4)

Praise you, Father, for you have revealed your power and have conquered sin and death.  You have brought your people hope and shown that you reign over history. 

I suppose it is a tad strange to think that an executed criminal somehow rescues the human race from its most dire problem, but then truth is a bit strange. Christian doctrine doesn’t claim to be plain or ordinary. It claims to be true. And besides … the “strange” story of Jesus doesn’t end in a tomb.

Anyone who has read even the slightest bit about Jesus or Christianity knows that the central thing about Him is that on the third day He was raised from the dead.

This claim is the lynchpin of the earliest teaching (see Acts). Paul says it is so central to the faith that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (I Cor 15:14). He even goes so far as to say that if Christ has not been raised, we are liars because we said God raised him (v 15).

The central message of the earliest church was not that the Cross saves us from our sins or that we are to love our neighbor or that Jesus is coming again. The central message of the earliest church was this: “this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has raised from the dead.” The disciples were beaten and imprisoned for saying this. They were ordered to cease this teaching, but they refused. “No!” they said. “Jesus is risen from the dead, and we are witnesses of this fact.” Over and over in the face of persecution and death, they insisted that Jesus of Nazareth was raised on the third day.

It is this belief that gave birth to Christianity. If there had been no Resurrection, there would have been no Christian faith — ever.

The Resurrection is the foundation of a new birth (I Pet 1:3). Without it, we are still dead in our sins (I Cor 15:17). Belief in the Resurrection is essential to knowing God (Rm 10:9). Christians see the Resurrection to have this sort of importance.

The Resurrection is the real-life conquest of sin and death. God is not playing a word game. He is not offering a new philosophy or a spiritualized truth. He is obliterating sin and death in real space and real time. It is a real conquest — an actual event in history. It is not a symbol or a myth.

In fact, it is such a real event in history, that the early church named the day. It occurred on the third day after Jesus’ death, on the first day of the week. Jewish believers, whose Sabbath was Saturday, were so convinced of this fact that very early on they began worshiping on Sunday.

This is significant, for Christians did not believe that the Resurrection was a nebulous activity in people’s hearts. If that were the case, then the Resurrection occurs on different days for different people, and it cannot be tangibly recorded in history. But every Biblical source we have says that something big happened on the third day after Jesus’ death. It was a Sunday. It was early in the morning. It was in Jerusalem. It was a few days after the Jewish Passover meal during Passover week when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Caiaphas was high priest. Something happened that day to make the entire body of Jesus’ followers claim that this third day is where everything changed.

Their basic claim is that Jesus of Nazareth bodily rose from the dead. You cannot read the New Testament without this claim slapping you in the face. It is so obvious that one hardly needs to say it is what the Bible claims, yet people still try to invent a christianity without the bodily Resurrection. Such is silly talk. It is like talking about an ocean without water, men without blood, or trees without trunks. Perhaps some people want Christianity without the Christianity. But read the gospels and be honest. They are too clear on this point.

This much is certain. The belief that Jesus bodily rose from the grave on the third day is basic to Christianity. All Christians share this conviction. It is simply part of what it means to follow Jesus.

And yet the Resurrection is more than just a body coming out of a tomb. It is the ultimate victory over the strongest foe we face (I Cor 15:25-6). It is tied up with our justification (Rm 4:25). It is part of removing sin (I Cor 15:17). It is the foundation for a new life in Christ (Rm 6). It is the hope of our future resurrection (I Cor 15:20-2). It reveals who Jesus really is (Rm 1:4). It is the beginning of the fulfillment of history (I Cor 15:20-4). It shows that God cares for the human race holistically — body, soul, and spirit.

 

Two in One

The Cross and Resurrection go together. In God’s plan, we cannot have the one without the other. On the Cross Jesus fulfills the just penalty for our sins. He is executed in our place, and sin dies. But on the Cross, Jesus also dies. If the Cross is the end of the story, it is not a victory. It is a tie game. The score is zero to zero. Jesus knocks sin out, but sin also knocks Jesus out. The Resurrection, however, means that sin gets shut out. The Resurrection ensures that the Cross is a victory. Jesus crucifies sin, but sin can’t keep Jesus in the tomb. It is not strong enough. In Jesus, sin and death have met a power that overwhelms them. They cannot handle Him.

Thus, the Cross and Resurrection are really two parts of the same event. They need each other. The Resurrection makes no sense without the Cross, but the Resurrection also brings hope and victory to the Cross. The Resurrection is part of the work of the Cross. If you want to think of it this way, the Resurrection completes the work of the Cross. When Christians talk about the work of the Cross, they never mean a Resurrectionless Cross. The Cross is sufficient, but understand that that sufficient Cross is always a Cross that ends in Resurrection.

I don’t want to get into a philosophical “what if” game. You know, “What if the Resurrection had never occurred? Would the Cross still retain its efficacy?” I am saying simply that, to the follower of Jesus, that “what if” game is unthinkable. It makes no sense. In Christianity, a Cross without a Resurrection doesn’t exist.

The Resurrection, therefore, is just as much a part of the removal of sin as the Cross is. If Jesus is not raised, we are dead in our sins (I Cor 15:17), and we are not justified in the eyes of God (Rom 4:25).

 

For the Future

The Resurrection of Jesus is the hope of our resurrection. In I Corinthians 15, Paul writes to people who have received the basics of the Christian message and who stand in it (v. 1). They have believed the fact that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and that he appeared to many people — even 500 at one time (vv. 3-8).

Paul is then astonished that some in the Corinthian church can accept the basic teaching of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus but deny the general resurrection of the dead in the future (v. 12ff). He is showing how inconsistent they are. It is as if he is saying, “You believe that Jesus is raised from the dead. How then can you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus is not raised. And if Jesus is not raised, everything falls apart.” (vv. 11-19) This is Paul’s argument.

He continues by saying that the Resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits of all who belong to Christ (20, 23). In other words, it is the first of the same kind. It is the beginning of resurrection, not the end of it. In Christ, God’s people will participate in a resurrection of the body simply because Jesus did. Our future resurrection depends on His. If Jesus is raised, and we are in Him, then we, too, will be raised. If His Resurrection was bodily, then ours will be, too. If, however, Jesus remains buried in the tomb, then we have no hope of a resurrection at all.

Paul then continues by discussing the nature of the resurrection body. He says that it will not be the exact same flesh and blood that we currently have, for “flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (v. 50) It will be, however, an incorruptible body. Our current bodies are buried in the dust, but they shall be raised incorruptible. The reason for this is that by faith, we are in Jesus, and He died and was buried, and His body was raised incorruptible.

The corruption of our current bodies comes from sin, but the Cross and Resurrection have done away with sin. Consequently, they have also done away with the corruption of the body. This is why our current bodies, which already have been tainted by sin, dissolve into dust, and we receive new bodies incorruptible in Christ.

Therefore, for those in Christ, death is not the end of the story. The Resurrection means that no one can hurt us, even if they kill us. The Resurrection means that in Christ we can boldly face lions, swords, or cancer. It means that we look at funerals with a different eye. We may still weep, for we still miss our loved ones, but behind the sadness lies a confidence, even a joy, that one day we shall be reunited in Christ with those loved ones. And that day shall be greater than this one.

We who are in Jesus may live on Earth, but we do not live for Earth. We live for eternity, of which this present world is but a shadow. We live this way because we know that we shall be raised incorruptible in Christ. We live for a new era, an era in which we shall see His face. This new era is the fulfillment toward which this present era is rushing. It is the end of the story — at least the story of this Earth. But it is the beginning of a new story — the real story, of which all of history is but a preface.

This new era, this new story, begins when we are raised incorruptible. The resurrection of the dead sets it off (I Cor 15:21-4), and the Resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits of that era. In other words, in the Resurrection of Christ, the new era has come to Earth. The Resurrection of Jesus foreshadows the general resurrection to come. Jesus’ Resurrection is like a movie trailer that comes out months in advance of the full movie. It is just a little appetizer for the full meal.

But the Resurrection of Jesus is more than a picture. It is the power of God. Our Resurrection is tied to His. We rise because He rose. This means that the Resurrection of Jesus also plays a causal role in the future resurrection of God’s people. History is like a novel in which the grand climax at the end is the natural consequence of a powerful event that occurred way back in chapter four. The Resurrection of Jesus is not just about Jesus. It is the basis for our resurrection and the new era to come. It brings about the fulfillment of history itself.

 

For Today

The Resurrection of Jesus is not just about the future. It is also power for today. It is a practical part of overcoming sin now. Scripture teaches that we have been raised with Christ. This is not a symbol but a reality, and it is not just a future reality but a present one. It is a work that has already taken place. The tenses in Scripture are in the past: “God … made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him …” (Eph 2:5-6) “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above …” (Col 3:1)

We already are resurrected with Christ, and this has implications for sin. Sin and death go together. Sin is the sting of death (I Cor 15:56), and death is the wages of sin (Rm 6:23). They are inseparable. Therefore, Christ has overcome the power of sin through His Resurrection.   In like manner, those in Christ have also overcome the power of sin through His Resurrection. When Christ was raised, we also were raised. In Christ, we live in a new realm. We are in that realm because we have been raised with Him into it. In Christ, we are also a new person. We are new because we have been raised with Him anew. Because we have been raised with Christ, our entire relationship with sin changes. No longer are we slaves. Now we are free. This is why Paul so adamantly opposes the idea that grace frees us to sin. It is the other way around. Grace frees us for righteousness. Sin is a complete violation of who we are in Christ. The Cross and the Resurrection are the means God uses to make us new in Christ (Rm 6).

When a butterfly comes out of its cocoon, it no longer lives as a caterpillar, crawling on sticks and chewing leaves. To go back and live that way would be a violation of what it has been transformed into. In the same way, we in Christ have been transformed through His death and Resurrection. In Christ, we have received wings to soar above sin, and that is now what we are made for. To go back and sin would be unthinkable.

The Resurrection is central in this transformation. It has made us into something different from what we used to be. We have power over sin because we are in Christ and are, thus, raised with Him to be part of the new human race of which He is the head. The Resurrection ushers us into this new race.   The Resurrection of Jesus, thus, has application for how we deal with our boss, whether we worry about money, how we overcome our anger or bitterness, and much more. The Resurrection of Jesus has practical application for how we live our lives today. It is common for us who follow Jesus to forget what the Resurrection has done for us. We forget that we have wings and too often revert to crawling on sticks.

 

Holistic Healing

The Resurrection of Jesus is a victory in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm. God cures humans holistically. He does not cure our souls only. He redeems our bodies as well. The problem with the human race has affected both the physical and spiritual worlds. Sin is a spiritual condition that is often acted out in physical ways. Sin has brought physical death. Consequently, any real victory over sin must also overcome death. Physical death.

God made the body. He loves it. That is why the redemption of the body is part of God’s solution. To exclude the body would have been incomplete. The bodily Resurrection of Jesus brings the power of God to the entire person — body, soul, and spirit. It does this because God cares for the entire person.

Thus, the Resurrection of Jesus is a powerful and multifaceted event. It is not just a body coming out of a tomb. Nor is it just the basis for a new life in Christ. Nor is it just an infusion of the kingdom of God on Earth. Nor is it just the fulfillment of history. Nor is it just a part of our justification. Nor is it just our hope for a future resurrection. It is all of these things simultaneously. It is physical and spiritual all at once. It is a physical event in history, but it is a cosmic event with the power to change the entire world order and usher in a new era. It declares the lordship of Christ. It changes our very nature from the inside out. It brings about the resurrection of an incorruptible body, and a new type of human. It ensures that the penalty and power of sin are gone.

We must not think of the Resurrection of Jesus in simplistic terms. We must not emphasize this or that spiritual teaching of the Resurrection to the neglect of its bodily nature. This results in a resurrection without teeth. The Resurrection then becomes a quaint metaphor that can mean whatever we want. We cannot rip the power out of the Resurrection and talk in nice spiritual language and think we still have the same Resurrection that turned the world upside down. Jesus’ Resurrection shocked the world.

Nor must we so focus ourselves on the bodily aspect of the Resurrection that we neglect the cosmic power and significance of what happened on that third day. Sometimes Christians spend so much time and energy defending the bodily resurrection that they have no time left for what it means. They have a body coming out of a tomb but little else. It doesn’t affect how they live. It isn’t involved in forgiving their sins. It doesn’t even give them hope at funerals. It is just an intellectual argument.

The bodily Resurrection of Jesus has immense spiritual power. A follower of Jesus holds tightly to both the bodily nature of the Resurrection and the spiritual significance of that Resurrection. The Resurrection heals us body, soul, and spirit because God loves us body, soul, and spirit, and we will not let go of any of it.

 

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments
12
Oct
2018

Why the Cross?

the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. (I Cor 1:18) 

There once was a man who wanted to build a bridge to the sun, so he fit stones together and began to raise up a bridge from the ground. His bridge looked beautiful, and much effort went into it, but in the end, the man failed. His goal was hopeless.

Such is the story of those who think their works will get them to heaven. And yet, ironically, most people don’t see their works as building a bridge to the sun. Why not? Is it that people do not fully understand the holiness of God? The infinity of God? The justice of God? Maybe our God is too small. A God whom we can reach through our own efforts is a small god indeed.

This is why we need the Cross. The Cross is necessary because a holy God is beyond our sinful reach. We cannot remove the stains of our sin. The difference between the Cross and works righteousness is the difference between a big God and a small god, and a small man and a big man. With the Cross, God is everything, and we are nothing. With works righteousness, God is much smaller, and we are something.

The Cross brings salvation to Earth. Works righteousness builds salvation toward heaven. Their starting points are different. God is fully capable of reaching across the chasm between Himself and sinners, but we sinners are utterly incapable of reaching across that chasm to a holy God. How many good works do you need to do to be good enough for holiness? That is one reason for the Cross.

 

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