Reflections on hope

As I wrote over at Pyro today, hope is as necessary to the human being as food and drink. You can't really live without it.

I started to write "to the Christian," but that isn't true. Everyone needs hope, and everyone has it. The unredeemed man has his own hope, but it is a doomed illusion. Eve and Adam hoped to have God-like knowledge and freedom and autonomy. They acted in hope. But because they did not act in faith, which is to say according to truth, what they attained instead was guilt and shame and wrath and misery and death. And so is the lot of every child of theirs who follows in their footsteps. I wrote a lot more about that somewhere, and it isn't my focus here today.

Here I focus on the Christian and hope.

I lived for years without (or with very little) hope, as a Christian. It was a dark, horrid time. With the occasional clarity of retrospect, I see that the real lack was a lack of faith.

Don't love that phrase much because it's overused and abused, but it's the truth. Understand, though: by "lack of faith" I do not mean "lack of orthodoxy." I was perfectly orthodox. That's not a self-congratulatory statement; it's categorical. I affirmed the verbal, plenary inerrancy of Scripture, the truth of the Trinity, the truth of penal substitutionary atonement, and on and on. Affirmed them with all my heart, internally and with my mouth and fingertips.

The trouble was that I did not embrace for myself the sweetness that comes from those truths to believers. Here we camp a moment on Ephesians 6:16 — "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one." I see the shield as a bit different from the rest of the armor. "The faith" probably does refer to the revealed body of truth. However, excepting the only the sword, all the other items of armor just stay on, once donned. Put on the helmet and leave it; strap on the sandals, and leave them; belt on the belt, etc.

But the shield doesn't do you a bit of good if you don't hold it tight and hold it close. Possessing a shield alone is of little practical value. The only way you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one is if you hold the shield and hold it tight and hold it close.

So for that period, I bristled with flaming darts and little hope, because I possessed the shield, but I didn't hold it close. John Piper's Future Grace helped me see that, and it combined with other facets of the Lord's patient dealing with me to turn me from despair to hope.

So hope comes from personal, appropriating, clinging, living faith, and that faith must come from revealed truth.

We need to have it, live it, speak it. Joni — who has known daily suffering for decades, to a degree few of us can imagine — speaks passionately, eloquently and movingly on the importance of hope. Parents need it, spouses need it, singles need it; all of us need it.

Worldlings have to make it up or materialize it. All of their hopes either are based on lies and illusions, or deal with things that thieves, moths and rust can destroy. They amount to a chimera. Barring repentance and saving faith in Christ, all their hopes are in the final analysis utterly and completely doomed. However good things are now, one day they will turn for the unimaginable worse, and will never improve.

The Christian's case is the precise and exact opposite.

Pastors should cling to and preach more hope. I've known pastors who show little hope; I've been a pastor who showed little. Pastors (most pastors, anyway, superstars aside) are exposed to such disappointment and sorrow and heartbreak. People fail, fall, betray, deceive, slander, malign, are ungrateful. Churches stubbornly refuse to grow. The hardened stay hard. Miracles are few and far, far between.

And you as a pastor may care more intensely than anyone else. Others drop by, go home, flick on the TV, and they're done. The pastor lives and dies with the church. He needs to have a hope that goes beyond how the church is doing this week, or how it's likely to do next week.

And more, the pastor really needs to hold it and preach Biblical hope. As I said, I've known pastors who've been so beaten-up by the church that the whole service has a doomed, gloomy feel. I'm not saying this either in harsh judgment (believe me!) or in lofty disdain (believe me!). I'm just saying it because it's true. My heart bleeds both for them and the church.

Those pastors need to find a hope that will lift their spirits and give them joy regardless of how faithful or faithless or feckless people are. They need that to lift them, and they need that hope to fill their preaching.

Yes, absolutely, preach the holiness of God and the fearful terrors of sin. But also and with equal passion (like Isaiah! like Jeremiah! like Ezekiel! like Paul! like Peter!) preach the sweetness and glories of the Gospel and its hope and promises.

I say this to you, and I say this to me.

Amen.

Yep: what Kevin DeYoung said

Could be this is Quote Day at BibChr, but that's fine.

Squishy universalist wannabes try to crowbar impenitent unbelievers into a Heaven they would hate with all their beings by fiddling with passages like (of all things) John 14:6.  "Through Me," Jesus says. "Ah yes," they say; "not through faith in Him, but through Him, thought His saving work."

After this by the estimable Kevin DeYoung, whatever ground they had for that pathetic dodge is gone, long gone.

Ephesians 1:3 — a few thoughts

My daily reading had me in Ephesians 1, a familiar and favorite passage. It seemed a good idea to share just a few thoughts with you from verse 3 —

Εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ εὐλογήσας ἡμᾶς ἐν πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῇ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ

Blessed! the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.... [DJP]

Thought the first: the threefold repetition of different words for "bless(ing)" should caution us against always assuming that every word has exactly the same meaning every time it's used. Here, the same author in the same breath uses the word in two senses. When applied to us (the second two uses) it means something like "to bestow a boon"; when applied to God, it means something like "to give praise and glory for bestowing boons."

Thought the second: every one of these blessings are the possession of every last genuine Christian, with no further distinction. Unlike Pentecostals and Deeper-Lifers, Paul never envisions a two-tier Christianity. To him, there are only two tiers, period: in Christ, outside of Christ. In Christ, one possesses every one of the spiritual blessings of which he speaks.

(I develop this a bit more in The World-Tilting Gospel. < /shameless plug >)

Thought the third: the blessings are expressly said to be spiritual. Paul knows full well that God has not, in this life, blessed us with every worldly blessing. Far from it (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).

But it is clear that the apostle's perspective is that, in being blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, our lot is far better from those who have been blessed with every worldly blessing outside of Christ.

Thought the fourth: note that Paul goes on to detail what he means by "every spiritual blessing." He means election, adoption, redemption, predestination. Those who kick at those Biblical truths are kicking at God's richest provisions for all His children.

Thought the fifth: Paul is, as we see in chapters 5 and 6, writing to husbands, wives, slaves, slave-owners, and children. And what does he write about, in writing to these people? Spiritual truths in the heavenlies. To be specific, he writes to children, to slaves, to ill-educated commoners, about election and predestination and God's plan for the ages. There is no sign that he would have had any patience with those who hold back those truths as too advanced, meaty, or deep for common Christians.

Thought the sixth: this blessed truth, which drives Paul to praise, is true of you and me if we are in Christ, period, without further qualification. If you are out of work, all this is true of you.  If you are in a rough marriage, all this is true of you. If you are in poor health, all this is true of you. If your kids are breaking your hearts, all this is true of you. Nothing on earth can alter or affect this truth.

But only if you are in Christ.

Are you?

If so... blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Monday music: "Sinfonia," from Handel's Messiah — plus some thoughts

I love Messiah, and love a well-done Sinfonia. For one thing, I simply like it. For another... Messiah is starting.

The third involves me imagining myself in Handel's thoughts, and here your mileage may vary. (Pardon my musically-inexact terminology; you'll know what I mean.)

The movement starts out with some very sonorous chords. I imagine that they are meant to call to attention, and perhaps to call to mind Genesis 1:1—3:14.

Then it all pauses, and a lone melody strikes out, sounded by one or more violins in unison. I hear that as Genesis 3:15, the first Messianic prophecy. It soon is joined by other lines, which interplay in and out as the music becomes progressively complex. This brings to my mind the addition of more Messianic prophecies, of types and shadows and institutions which with greater richness point forward to Jesus Christ.

Then the whole ends, and out comes the prophecy of John the Baptist, Messiah's herald.

Love it, love it.

Last night, something absolutely new and unprecedented happened

New? Unprecedented? Can't be. Doesn't Solomon write, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)?

Yet last night something happened that has never happened, not since the first molecule spun, nor ever before that.

Last night — or some 2000 years ago on the Thursday evening we marked last night — the Father told the Son "No."

This had never happened, ever, in all of recorded history. Never was a relationship closer, without the slightest stir of alienation, as that between God the Father and His dear Son.

Yet on that Thursday, we read

36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Matthew 26)

Once, the Son asked His Father if there was any way — any way — that the cup could pass from Him.

The Father evidently said "No, Son; there is no other way."

Again, the Son came back. Same answer. And again — same answer.

Of course, we know we are not reading of a pitting of wills against each other. Each time, Jesus framed His request "if it be possible," and each time He added, "not as I will, but as you will."

But in the correct rush to keep theology straight, don't miss the drama, don't miss the point.

If there had been a way, the Son would have chosen it!


If there had been a way, the Father would have granted it!


So great was the devastation, the disaster caused by our sin. So dire was our condition. So unsalvageable, so irreparable, so (if I may say it) irredeemable was our plight that nothing less than the Son dying in the stead of sinners would work salvation. All the blither-blather about other ways and broader hope are smashed to shivers in the Garden.

But consider one more thought, the thought that had tears pouring from my eyes as I dwelt on it.

What must it have been for the Father to say "No" to His Son? What must it have been for the Son to hear "No" from Heaven? To say it, to hear it once, let alone twice... let alone three times?

Clearly, no matter how well-schooled we might be, we don't grasp the full horror of what Jesus faced, if we can consider it without a touch of that horror ourselves.

Yet what love. What love of the Father to give His Son for such appalling rebels. What love of the Son to give Himself for such wrecks as we. What love of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, and draw us to repent and trust Jesus alone.

What great salvation, what a great Savior.