My Eternal King

by Jane Marshall

My God, I love Thee;
Not because I hope for heav'n thereby,
Nor yet because who love Thee not must die eternally.

Thou , O my Jesus, Thou didst me upon the cross embrace;
For me didst bear the nails,
The nails and spear, and manifold disgrace.

Why, then why, O blessed Jesus Christ, should I not love Thee well?
Not for the hope of winning heav'n, or of escaping hell;
Not with the hope of gaining aught, not seeking a reward;
But as Thyself hast loved me, O ever loving Lord!

E'en so I love Thee, and will love, and in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God, and my Eternal King.


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Taken from the March 26, 2006 Order for the Worship of God at Park Cities Presbyterian Church (Dallas, Texas), p. 4. You should have heard this sung. I still hear the reverberating beauty.

Psalm 118 - But the Lord Helped Me

[From the English Standard Version] Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Let Israel say, “ His steadfast love endures forever.” 3 Let the house of Aaron say, “ His steadfast love endures forever.” 4 Let those who fear the Lord say, “ His steadfast love endures forever.” 5 Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. 6 The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? 7 The Lord is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. 8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. 9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. 10 All nations surrounded me; in the name of the Lord I cut them off! 11 They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side; in the name of the Lord I cut them off! 12 They surrounded me like bees; they went out like a fire among thorns; in the name of the Lord I cut them off! 13 I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me. 14 The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. 15 Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous: “ The right hand of the Lord does valiantly, 16 the right hand of the Lord exalts, the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!” 17 I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. 18 The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. 20 This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. 21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. 27 The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar! 28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. 29 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!

In a very cursory way let me invite you to reflect through this psalm as a smooth stone might skip across the waters of a placid pond, whose ripples tell a most astounding story. The pond has not, you see, always been placid as the sweet waters will tell you as you drink from them – that is, if you will listen. The Call to the Many to Praise the Lord (vv 1-4) This psalm has a symmetry much like those of the ripples flowing out from the stone cast in the pond. The widest ripple is as the first verses of the psalm, calling all creation to give thanks to the Lord on account of his steadfast enduring love. In other words, this is a call for humanity to simply do what it was created to do. Then Israel, the people of the Lord, is called to give thanks. Then the Aaronic Priesthood, is called to give thanks, for they were those chosen from among Israel to lead the chosen people in giving thanks to the Lord. Finally, there is a call for those individuals who fear the Lord to give thanks and praise the Lord. As these groups of people are reduced more and more, we are lead to the voice of one who is distressed. The Voice of One who Suffers (vv 5-9) It is in this call to praise the Lord God, that the voice of one calls to Him in distress. What we find is that the voice of the one who suffers distress is the same voice who had called humanity, Israel, the Aaronic priests, and those who fear the Lord to praise Him. He is distressed after making this call to give thanks. While he is distressed over the results of his call to give thanks and praise to the Lord, we also find that the Lord is on his side. It is in the fact that the Lord is on his side that he finds strength to be courageous and not fear. It is on account of the Lord that this one suffering voice declares that he will look upon those who hate him in triumph! For refuge in the Lord is better than trusting human beings even the most noble kinds (e.g., princes). Point: The Enmity of the Nations (v10-13) We find that all nations are identified as those who hate this one who suffers distress (c.f., v 7). They are vicious in their hatred, swarming this one as bees swarm honey. In this cosmic enmity, the suffering one is driven along hard, such that he was falling. Yet as he was falling we find here that it is the Lord who helped him, as the water helps the skimming stone back into the air. Counter Point: The Lord is My Strength (v14-16) How can one subdue these swarming fire of the hatred of the world? This suffering one does so because the Lord is his strength and is Himself salvation. Unlike the water which thrusts the skimming stone back up into the air only to return again and ultimately submerge, the Lord leads this suffering one on in strength towards triumph. The Voice of One Triumphant (v 17-22) The first person perspective of the one who was distressed takes a marked change in v 17. He shall not die at the hands of his enemies whose enmity burns with fierce heat. Though the Lord was pleased to bring severe suffering to this one, even in his distress, He has not given this one over to death. No, the Lord has set triumph aside for him! The one who suffered the severity of the Lord now passes through the gates of righteousness as Victor. The cornerstone that the human builders rejected, the Lord has used to build a New House altogether. The Voice of the Many Praise the Lord (v 23-29) A grand chorus now joins the voice of the One Triumphant in praising God. What is profound here is that they do so (mibayt yhwh) from the house of the Lord! They too have also passed through the gates of righteousness and into the everlasting bliss of the presence of the Lord himself. Having been led by the Triumphant One, they now dwell in the Temple of the Lord. What more can one do but give thanks and rejoice from the heart. Conclusion The Lord is not content in relieving us from suffering so that we can enjoy second rate shanties. He is for us, on account of the Suffering One, whom the scriptures clearly reveal to us as Jesus of Nazareth. He who suffered did not die. He who received the severity of the Father’s wrath for sin was raised from the dead victorious and leads a people, a vast multitude, in Kingly procession praising their Creator from the depths of their beings.

Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns (Part 1 of 5)

Revelation 21:6-7 (NA26) 6 καὶ εἶπεν μοι· γέγοναν. ἐγώ [εἰμι] τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ, ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος. ἐγὼ τῷ διψῶντι δώσω ἐκ τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος τῆς ζωῆς δωρεάν. 7 ὁ νικῶν κληρονομήσει ταῦτα καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ θεὸς καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι υἱός.

6) And he said to me, “These things have come into being. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Completion. I will give freely to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life. (7) The one who is overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God, and he will be my son. (author's translation)

The Bible begins with Paradise and ends with Paradise, and in this way it functions as a kind of merism.¹ In the Genesis account that paradise is lost, while in the Revelation account it is restored. The Garden of Eden and the New Jerusalem stand as cosmic bookends to the voluminous story of God in Human History. The one who orchestrated the end from the beginning is the one who composed the entirety of the prose of History which lies in between, thus emphasizing God’s sovereignty over all that is, was and will be.

Alpha and Omega

This same God declares himself to be the Alpha and the Omega at the beginning of the book of Revelation (1:8) and then at the end of the book in 21:6 and 22:13. He also refers to himself as the Beginning and the Completion (τέλος) in 21:6 and as the First and the Last (εσχατος) in 1:17 and 22:13. By using these merisms as bookends in the book of Revelation, John is emphasizing the sovereign rule of God over all things.² He is also emphasizing that the End or Completion of all things, is not εσχατον, but rather εσχατος.³ The significance being that the Beginning, the End and all that lies in between is not some impersonal neuter but rather a Person working his will in time and space, a phenomenon commonly called History.

Beale suggests that Isaiah 41-48 also contains similar merisms, which may have also given rise to the one in view in Rev. 21:6 (e.g., Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12). Interestingly, although there are small differences in the LXX and the BHS in these passages, the nature of the merism is conceptually preserved in both. However, in light of those differences John apparently had in mind the Hebrew variation.

It is on this all encompassing sovereign basis, seen in this merism pair, that the Lord declares that all his promises, particularly those in view in 21:1-5, “have come into being” (γέγοναν). The significance of the perfect aspect of this plural verb seems to be under emphasized in most of the English translations, which generally translate it as “It is done” (e.g., NIV, NRSV, NASB). It is not the abstract that has been checked off, but the promises of God which have come into being as reality.⁴ All things will have been made new and the record is written down because God’s word is “faithful and true” (c.f., 21:5).

Further, these statements of all encompassing sovereignty are set forth as definitive of God’s person in light of the εγώ είμι phrase which precedes them. This hearkens back to the Gospel of John in which the Apostle seeks to identify Jesus with the burning bush theophany found in Exodus 3:14.⁵ This is to say that “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Completion” is a statement which drives the reader to both the Christotelic nature of history and the Divinity of Christ, who just as YHWH declares himself to be the First and the Last in Isaiah so also Christ, the second person of the Trinity, makes the same statement about himself here in Revelation 21:6.

In summary, the Alpha and Omega merism is paralleled by the Beginning and the Completion merism. These literary devices serve to fix Revelation firmly in the context of biblical history and to establish the basis for hope in the promises of God therein revealed to the church of all ages.


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¹ A merism is a grammatical device by which two poles are taken as representation of the whole.
² Beale, Gregory K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. in The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Edited by I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) p. 1055.
³ Caird, George Bradford. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. 1st ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) p. 266. Caird makes the statement that “the word εσχατον (neuter) does not occur in the New Testament.” While the neuter form occurs in Luke 12:59 in the singular accusative and in other neuter forms – in Mt. 12:45; Lk 11:26; Acts 1:8, 13:47; 2 Pe 2:20; and Rev. 2:19 – his statement per context seems to mean that whenever the End (εσχατον) is in view it is always spoken of as a person rather than an impersonal event.
⁴ Kistemaker, Simon J. Exposition of the Book of Revelation. Vol. 20 of New Testament Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001) p. 559.
⁵ ibid.

Essential Righteousness - Audio Sermon

For those of you interested the seven part series entitled "Essential Righteousness", feel free to listen to the mp3 of the sermon. It is about 25 minutes long and was preached in February 2006 to the North Texas Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of America for my licensure exam.

Murray and the Free Offer of the Gospel

What is freely offered in the gospel? Matthew 11:28 among other verses gives us the Lord's answer:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Christ offers himself, with "the whole gamut of redemptive grace ... included." (Collected Writings, vol 1. p 82). This is of course in the context of Union with Christ, which is a triune union.

It is thus union with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the particularity that each person sustains to men and in the distinguishing grace that each bestows in the economy of salvation. To nothing less are sinners invited in Christ's overture of himself. (ibid)

And so if it is Christ who is offered then we may only speak of an atonement that has in fact wrought redemption. It is not an opportunity for salvation that is offered but Christ himself, who is salvation. Further, while the general love of God for humanity is not to be discounted, the offer is of the Gospel which is distinguished by God's particular love for His sheep, His church (John 10:10-29; Ephesians 5:25-27). Thirdly, it is only in Christ that the wealth and love of the Gospel are existential. (ibid, p. 83).

Murray then concludes in his typical economy of precision. The free offer of the Gospel demands faith and commitment - not to a proposition (e.g., believe and be saved) but commitment to the Salvation, to Jesus Christ. The whole Christ is freely offered and "faith is first of all commitment to him. It is receiving and resting upon him alone for salvation." (ibid, p. 84).

For me Murray moves me towards contemplation here, away from purely propositional thoughts, though not removing the place of the thought from the thing being contemplated. There is sort of sigh that I can hear in my soul, "Oh God, thank you that you have saved me on the basis of Christ Jesus and not on my ability to articulate the intricacies of all that you have done in History to accomplish this!" Indeed, "wherever there is faith as slender as one strand of the spider's web, there the fulness of redeeming grace is active. 'Him that cometh unto me,' said Jesus, 'I will in no wise cast out.' (John 6:37)." (ibid, p. 85).

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Murray, John. Collected Writings of John Murray. Volume 1: The Claims of Truth. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976. Reprinted 1989.

Bibliography for Human Suffering and the Triune God

Sources on Suffering and Evil

Buttrick, George Arthur. God, Pain and Evil. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the First Epistle of Peter. Vol. 22 of Calvin's Commentaries; Repr., Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999.

Carson, D. A. How Long O Lord? Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity, 1990.

Clowney, Edmund. The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the Cross. Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1988.

Kreeft, Peter. Making Sense out of Suffering. Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1986.

Monod, Adolphe. Living in the Hope of Glory. Edited and Translated by Constance K. Walker. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002.

Schaeffer, Edith. Affliction. Old Tappan: Revell, 1978.

Sproul, Robert Charles. Surprised by Suffering. Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1989.

Sources Theology Proper

Bavinck, Herman. The Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vol. Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960.

Frame, John. The Doctrine of God. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002.

Holocaust Accounts

Wiesel, Elie. The Night Trilogy. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001

Human Suffering and the Triune-God (Part 5 of 5)

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The Hope in Suffering–A Pastoral Response
Dear Mr. Wiesel has in fact rejected the very person who causes suffering to have meaning, the very medium, in the Cross, through which the Lord gives those who suffer hope, and the only one who has promised to ultimately deliver from suffering and evil. It is that Israeli of ancient time, Jesus of Nazareth, who Himself caused time to be, who is the watershed between despair and hope in the midst of agonizing suffering. Wiesel had rejected the very cornerstone of hope, the Messiah who had borne the stripes of the whip ages before him, who hung upon a cross, who died a tortuous death exiled from His own people, to die alone outside the camp.

To hold and weep with the young Wiesel is certainly a loving thing to do; however, to stop with only tears, sentiment and embrace is to empathize with a pauper-child who has not eaten for two weeks and not give him the bread that he so desperately needs. There is no counsel man can offer apart from the Cross. There is no comfort, apart from the Cross, for those who suffer. It is at the Cross that we ourselves must wrestle with the pain we do not understand; it is the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, which we must liberally extend from one pauper to another in times of affliction and suffering.

The Apostle John writes that it is Christ who is the exegesis of God, it is Christ who explains the most transcendent and mysterious in terms of immanence and personality. "No one has at any time seen God. The One who is in the bosom of the Father, the only begotten God, that one interpreted [the Father to us]" (Jn 1:18, writer's translation). How can a man, perhaps a pastor, comfort anyone who has suffered as Elie Wiesel has suffered? He confesses despair which cannot be healed by human hands. At root he has made an interpretation of the Lord, borne from the depths of the darkest desolation. Only the Light of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, which can penetrate to those who suffer as Wiesel, it is only divine glory which is able shine in the catacombs of consternation.

The question is then, for the pastor or anyone else who would find themselves with the charge entrusted them to comfort the suffering: What interpretation of God will I offer the one writhing in pain? What sustenance will I offer to the one whose gut bellows with deafening howls of agony? Will I offer them the Christ and all that He is and promised, or shall I offer them something less?

When we pray for the suffering, the sick and the afflicted it is often the case that we pray for their healing, betterment and deliverance from their arduous situation. The Lord is concerned with our immanent needs:

6Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies ? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Lk 12:6-7 NIV)

So we must pray according to the immanent concerns of God – the pain, agony, despair; however, we must also be faithful to pray according to the transcendent concerns of God – His glory, His will, His purposes in history. If we pray only according to the immanent then we run the risk of implying that God will, and intends to deliver the person from their dire straits. The problem is that this is not always the case, and in our presumption we attempt to speak authoritatively about the purpose of God. Who are we to presume upon the will of our Maker!?

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mt 16:21-23 ESV)

The Lord Jesus makes plain to all who will hear that there are times in which the Lord's will and purpose is confusing and takes those involved through pain, agony, and suffering – and in the case of some torture and death. The Lord is concerned about the "things of men" but He is first concerned about His glorious purposes and plans which transcend the finite realm of humanity and confound even the wisest mortals.

So when we pray only in an immanent fashion, and it comes to pass that the husband dies of cancer or the father is sent to the gas chamber, we subject the faith of those for whom we pray to the furnace of despair which has burned belief out of many souls, shriveling their hearts, as it were, so that there is nothing left for God at all. We must pray with both the transcendence and immanence of God in mind.

Therefore, where the immanence of God is concerned with the smallest concerns of this world, the transcendence of God is concerned with God himself – his ways, his purposes, his will. These are unlike their human counterparts altogether. It is this transcendence that gives the man dying a painful death the hope that though he may not be healed, he may die well, believing, trusting that his death and suffering will glorify the Lover of his soul, with whom he will soon be face to face. And this is what we have in Christ, the one who endured more than any other person with perfect belief that his suffering and death would bring his Father the greatest glory. Indeed, this was the case.

It is the Lord who demonstrates His love for His people through pain. Certainly the Divine One is impassable, incapable of suffering, being wholly removed from the mess of sin and death that constitutes this world; yet, He came down and in all of the finitude of His humanity, He felt every piece of bone that ripped the flesh from off His back. He felt every nick in the cold metal of each of the spikes that impaled His lovely limbs. And when he gasped for his last breath, piked upon the Tree, He alone experienced the Father abandon him to torturous death, receiving the infinite wrath of the Almighty.

It is this Christ that we proclaim to those in dire straits. It is this interpretation of the Father that we must give to those who suffer, both in word and in deed. Anything else we might offer in His place is mere trite counterfeit, a mockery of unbelief erupting from our own hearts. Adolphe Monod, a French pastor who was well acquainted with suffering himself, writes:

Yet in order for us to understand God's love in all of its fullness and reality, it was necessary for God to present himself to us in such a way as to prove his love to us through pain. Mankind could never have been persuaded – or rather won – in any other way. Therefore Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God himself, became the Son of man that he might suffer and thus show God's love through acts capable of breaking the hardest hearts…¹

It is therefore imperative that all who would counsel the bereaved would point them to the interpretation of the Father, which is given by God in Christ. "It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself."² To rightly understand their own suffering the bereaved must have the right interpretation and must contemplate the mysterious depths of their very real pain from the face of God down to themselves, to possess the hope which transcends all understanding, being alone the incomprehensible Lord who still comes down today.


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¹ Adolphe Monod. Living in the Hope of Glory. (Ed. and trans. by Constance K. Walker. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002), 113-114.
² John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. (Ed. by John T. McNeill. Trans. by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vol. LCC. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 37.

Dissonance, Consonance and the Rhythm of Life

Some days we have terse instants in which Bach's perfect musical symmetry seems perhaps to correspond. Most of the time the music of this world sounds like the hawing of a distorted powerchord breathing its damper oppressively upon us. The marvel of the Gospel is that the amp has been busted and the song is being remade with even more tremendous pyrotechnics.

Human Suffering and the Triune-God (Part 4 of 5)

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Resolution in The Cross of Christ

In the introduction to Wiesel's Night, François Mauriac contemplates the day in which the young Wiesel had questioned him about God and evil. He writes:

What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Israeli, his brother, who may have resembled him – the Crucified, whose Cross has conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the Cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished?…This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.¹

I do not know that I would have had the wherewithal to know how to pastorally apply the truth of Mauriac's affirmation had I been in his place. No doubt the necessity to apply the truth of scripture to those crushed and struck down by this world is paramount. The immensity of immanent evil that Wiesel had suffered is in itself overwhelming. However, there is no peace in the face of any amount of suffering apart from the Cross of Christ. It is through the Cross that the transcendence of Eternal God of heaven and earth, comes down through suffering to apprehend our hearts for hope, giving meaning to all suffering and pain.

Calvary is judo. The enemy's own power is used to defeat him. Satan's craftily orchestrated plot, rolled along according to plan by his agents Judas, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, culminated in the [torturous] death of God. And this very event, Satan's conclusion, was God's premise. Satan's end was God's means. It saved the world.²

Our hope as Christian people, which is universally offered to all people, is that the transcendent God of all Heaven and Earth has come down and bound himself by way of covenant to His people. He has proven ever faithful, decreeing the immutable and infallible means to securing His covenant with us. It is Christ who is the Man of Sorrows, who is familiar with suffering, despised and rejected by men. It is Christ who was crushed for our transgressions, a spotless lamb led to slaughter. It was He who came and made his dwelling in the ghettoes of humanity. It was He who was assigned with the wicked, though He Himself was purer innocence than the gentlest of babes. Yet it was the Lord's purposed-will to crush Him, to cause Him to suffer, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to the Lord (c.f., Acts 2:23).

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¹ François Mauriac, introduction to "Night", in The Night Trilogy, by Elie Wiesel (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 11.
² Peter Kreeft. Making Sense out of Suffering. (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1986), 132-33.

Kingdom Rule & Authority (Mark 10:41-45)

Greek Text

ESV

Καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ δέκα ἤρξαντο ἀγανακτεῖν περὶ Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωάννου. καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτοὺς ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγει αὐτοῖς· οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν τῶν ἐθνῶν κατακυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι αὐτῶν κατεξουσιάζουσιν αὐτῶν. οὐχ οὕτως δέ ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν, ἀλλ̓ ὃς ἂν θέλῃ μέγας γενέσθαι ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται ὑμῶν διάκονος, καὶ ὃς ἂν θέλῃ ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι πρῶτος ἔσται πάντων δοῦλος· καὶ γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἦλθεν διακονηθῆναι ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι καὶ δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν.

And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Background and Context
James and John had approached Jesus and asked him if they might sit on the right and left of him when he came into his kingdom. On the one hand, they demonstrate their understanding of Christ's Kingdom was still very much culturally conditioned. They thought it would be a kingdom like the world had known, which would overthrow the Romans who had ruled Palestine for generations. On the other hand, they demonstrate a kind of ruthlessness in which they were seeking to circumvent Peter's place in Christ's economy as first among equals. Peter is left out of their equation. Apparently this intercourse with the Lord had become public knowledge among the disciples and they had become indignant (ἀγανακτεῖν in verse 41) at James and John for this move. Jesus moves into the midst of the strife to calm the storm.

Reflections on Authority in Christ's Kingdom

[The indignation of the Ten] was not, of course, that they understood that glory in the Kingdom is given as the reward of humility. Rather, it was simply that they were each coveting the best position for themselves, and resented such a sneaky ploy to snatch it away from them. ¹

Knowing that the disciples were indignant out of mixed motives at best, he turns their attention to the bad guys of the day. Jews of the first century C.E. who were interested in the idea of Messiah were interested in it because they wanted the Romans out. They hated the oppressive tyrannicalical rule that the Roman rulers had imposed upon them. They hoped that the long awaited and divinely anointed king of David's dynasty would come and crush the Romans.

It is not subtle thing for Jesus to direct their attention to the examples that everyone would agree were evil and tyrannical in their rule. Jesus brings the Herods and Felixes of the day along side the ambition that the disciples were manifesting as a kind of mirror. As the light shown from the mirror, it is as if Jesus was asking them, "Do you see the similarity that you have with Herod? You have demonstrated that the very thing you say you despise is clearly manifest in your own hearts."

It is a reminder to us. Often we see much in people that is rightly despised; however, let us not forget what scripture teaches us: The root of actual sins is sin and that sin is ever-present in us all. Often we can vociferously hate the sins we see in others because the thing we hate most about their sin is that it most poignantly reminds us of our own depravity. Instead of crying out like the publican, "O God, have mercy upon me (an us) a sinner!" we cry out, "Most Holy and Powerful God, how I thank Thee that Thou art pure and righteous and that I am not as such wretches like that person."

Let me ask it this way to you, "If the disciples are not immune to this; if James and John two of the three in the so-called "inner circle" of those disciples are not immune to the sin nature, then who in God's World do we think we are to have some how surpassed James and John?

In Christ's Kingdom the King has given an edict of priority: the subjects of His Kingdom are to have the "priority of humility".² It not a priority that the King requires and does not Himself follow, for He tells His disciples that He did not come to be served (passively) but to serve (actively). How would this be most clearly manifest? The priority of humility is found in the King dying upon the Cross, giving His life as a ransom for many [millions] of people.

Is it your delight to follow Christ in this priority? If you go make yourself humble, you will miss the point altogether here. When we delight in ourselves we even follow Christ in order to gain things for ourselves. When we delight in Jesus, truly enjoying Him for who He is as our King, we realize that we cannot embrace vain ambition and at the same time receive the embrace of God in Christ. The arms of our hearts will not fit around more than one object of our affections.
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¹ Farley, Lawrence. The Gospel of Mark : The Suffering Servant The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2004) , p. 173.
² ibid.

PhotoIconic Debut

I wanted to invite you all to view my new photography blog, PhotoIconic, and look forward to any comments.

Human Suffering and the Triune-God (Part 3 of 5)

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The Purpose/Place of Suffering
There is mystery and incomprehensibility as to why God allowed evil and suffering to be even a possibility in this world; however, the sovereignty of God is the great hope in the midst of suffering. Evil sets its foot no further than the Omnipotent Lord allows it. Evil does not befall upon anyone by chance, but according to the very counsel of Holy God. In light of all that God has revealed about Himself, His goodness, love, and mercy for example, we are forced to conclude that there must be some ultimately good and holy purpose within the counsel of God for evil and suffering in the world. One such reason appears to be that it shuts the creature up to confine the hermeneutic of his life to his relation to his Creator. Ultimately, however, no creature can presume to know the mind of his Maker.

Belief or Unbelief (Joseph)

The fact of the matter is that we are all shut up to believe or to not believe – that is the question all must wrestle with in times of prosperity and in times of bitter pain. Consider Joseph, a faithful Hebrew, who was probably about the same age as Wiesel when he was struck down into the cistern by his own brothers and then sold into slavery to the Ishmaelites out of sheer hatred. He served Potiphar faithfully, only to be slammed into prison on account of the lustful desires of Potiphar's own wife. Yet the Lord tells us that He was with Joseph in all of His suffering (Gen 39:20-21). Joseph notably navigated this evil and injustice by way of belief.

It is also clear from the biblical account that this was not an easy feat. It is apparent from the biblical account that Joseph dealt with significant emotional pain (Gen 43:30, 45:1-2). In Joseph's case, quite unlike that of Wiesel, the purpose his suffering is clear:

7And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. … 19But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Gen 45:7-8; 50:19-20 ESV)

Joseph looked upon a tremendously painful experience and embrace the fact that it was not by accident but by the very hand of God Himself that those things happened to him. His reassurance is on the basis of God's character and decree. It is in the humility of submission to a plan for his own life, which transcended all comprehension that Joseph is exalted to a place of peace and blessing equally as transcendent.

Human Suffering and the Triune-God (Part 2 of 5)

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God and Suffering, Pain, and Evil
The pastor who wishes to comfort the afflicted, that they be not crushed; the perplexed, that they be not driven to despair; the persecuted, that they be not forsaken; those who are struck down, that they be not destroyed; must have clear in his own mind the pure goodness of God and the place of suffering in the divine economy to the degree to which the Lord has revealed this mystery. For Wiesel and many others, an all-good God, who is also all-powerful could not exist and at the same time have allowed such horror to occur as Wiesel describes from his own experience.

However, this way of thinking appears to affirm the Lord God, Almighty rather than argue for his non-existence. When a cat kills a canary we have no moral qualm with God. People overwhelmed with great suffering, tragedy which has come lacerating their lives, the indignation one may feel against God, itself presupposes Him. "A cat cannot sin, even though it may swallow the canary, for a cat does not know the difference. But a man knows evil, and therefore knows—God. Pain and death come from sinful failure" (emphasis added).¹ Wiesel, in agony few will every know in their lifetime, seems to turn his back on Judeo-Theism and embraces some form of agnosticism or atheism. Yet, neither of these worldviews can comfort the tormented soul. They can offer Wiesel no more hope than a theism without a Crucifixion. To view the Holocaust a vile evil and then conclude that this historical event proves that God does not exist, is to presuppose the Lord God Almighty in all the purity of His goodness, as the moral standard. To turn the back in unbelief against the Lord God on account of His choice to allow heinous suffering, does in no way address for Wiesel the vile evil that tormented him. It is painful autobiography of his own rejection of his Creator on the basis of the performance he feels God should have done for him. Indeed, this is Wiesel's frustration when he writes, "I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice."² This is not submitted to minimize the torment that someone like Wiesel endured but to ask the question from where does the one who rejects God on a moral basis derive his morality? It is a pastoral call to counsel people at the root of their pain, to proclaim to them the Holy One in all His power, who alone can heal and comfort them.

Wiesel also records that many of the atrocities against the Jews were committed one to another. In the twilight of starvation, son would murder father for bread. May we rail against the Lord, for not helping us while killing one another? In the midst of his unbelief, Wiesel erupts into prayer, "My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou's son had done."³ (Rabbi Eliahou's son had abandoned his father to his death during a forced march). Ironically, the one prayer that Wiesel cries out in desperation is the very thing that came to pass. He stayed true to his own father until his death.

Man's concept of goodness is derivative of God as the archetype of goodness. Apart from the Triune God there is no basis for determining good and evil. Consequentially, statements of what is good or that the Holocaust was evil reduce to meaninglessness. "…He is himself the absolutely good, the perfect one, he cannot and may not love anything else except with a view to himself. He cannot and may not be satisfied with anything less than absolute perfection."⁴ Scripture instructs us in this way, that goodness is understood with God himself as both its source and goal:

6 Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD. 7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. 8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:6-8, emphasis added)

The child of God may rejoice in the wonder of the revelation of this passage. In these few lines of Hebrew verse the Lord teaches us that there is absolute good, and that this good is an ontological facet in the blinding spectrum of the diadem of His own being. It is the Lord who fills the heart with joy. The basis for peace and rest is that God causes one to dwell in safety (Hiphil imperfect – ynIbeyvi/T).

With the sovereignty of God in His decrees there is always the other side which is not as easily stomached. There are those such as Wiesel who have indeed not found themselves dwelling in safety nor sleeping in peace. Nowhere does God promise His people ease and prosperity, on the contrary, from cover to cover, God's own testimony in the Scripture is that the world is fallen, and He is working throughout history, even by way of sin, suffering and pain, to redeem a people for Himself. We may, therefore, understand the Bible's testimony that pain and evil may come our way, resulting from the sinfulness of fallen man, actively permitted by a sovereign God. Bavinck succinctly points out with regard to election and reprobation a principle which transcends "in a sense"⁵ to the problem of pain and evil when he writes, "If God foreknows and permits something, he does this either 'willingly' or 'unwillingly.' The latter is impossible. Accordingly, only the former remains: God's permission is an 'efficacious permission,' an act of his will."⁶

Do I have the reason for why God, in the purest light of his goodness, allowed the Holocaust to occur? Indeed, this is not the case; however, the Word of God makes graciously plain to man that war, sin and atrocity serves a purpose in the divine economy. The scriptures soberly remind all who would read that God is not the author of evil but that he does use evil to glorify himself. "God predestined the Fall, and though, as supreme ruler, as Supreme Ruler, he executes his plan even by means of sin; nevertheless, he remains holy and righteous; of his own accord man falls and sins: the guilt is his alone."⁷

In summary, God in his sovereignty does actively permit pain, suffering, and evil, and that active permission is nothing short of ordaining these things to happen. How is it then that God is not guilty of Auschwitz or any other evil in this world? Much of the answer to this question lies beyond mankind's ability or privilege to understand. The Apostle Paul gives us the most direct, and arguably the only direct answer, in the ninth chapter of Romans when he writes by way of divine inspiration:

19You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Ro 9:19-21 NASB95)

In Job's case the Lord responded to Job's inquiry by informing him (in the last three chapters of the book) of the nature of Creation, that he was largely ignorant of the nature of the world and the evil in it. John Frame comments with a view towards this question via analogy⁸ between Shakespeare, Macbeth, and Duncan, whom Macbeth murdered. No one would charge Shakespeare as guilty for the murder of Duncan even though Shakespeare is ultimately responsible for his death.⁹ Essentially, what the Reformed tradition argues is that there are two kinds of causalities; i.e., first and second causes. The Westminster Confession of Faith seeks to articulate this same concept when it states:

God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.¹⁰

Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.¹¹

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¹ George Arthur Buttrick. God, Pain and Evil (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), 77.

² Elie Wiesel. The Night Trilogy (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 53.

³ ibid., 97.

⁴ Herman Bavinck. The Doctrine of God. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 204.

⁵ Bavinck makes certain, as do I, that the reader understand that we do not advocate that God is the author of sin and evil, but that these are instruments, actively and efficaciously permitted, by which he purposes to manifest the excellencies of His glory (see discussion of God's glory at the top of p. 390 in Doct. of God).

⁶ Herman Bavinck. The Doctrine of God. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 388.

⁷ ibid., 385.

⁸ Analogies are tools for understanding in derivative fashion and not 1:1 in their correspondence.

⁹ John Frame. The Doctrine of God. (Phillipsburg: P & R, 2002), 179-81.

¹⁰ Westminster Confession of Faith III.1.

¹¹ ibid., V.2.

Which of these things is not like the other?

I wanted to share with you a disgustingly tragic article that is from CNN.

"Anti-gay protesters have launched a disturbing campaign to tarnish the funerals of fallen soldiers. At the funerals, demonstrators wave signs reading "Thank God for IED's" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." But grieving families are getting protective help from the volunteer group, Patriot Guard Riders."

Read the article on CNN

From where does this "pastor" get this "old time Gospel" that he so desperately wants to preach? He says that old time Gospel requires that he preach the hate of God. However, the hate of God exhausted itself upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for even Mr. Phelps at Calvary.

That same Lord Jesus said:

Matthew 5:43-48 (ESV) 43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Do you suppose Mr. Phelps thinks he no longer needs the Cross? Remember the Cross is the place in time and space where the infinite wrath of God against sin and sinners was swallowed up by Christ when he hung upon the Cross outside of Jerusalem? Surely there is judgment for sin upon the sinner; to teach otherwise is to undermine the Cross where that wrath and hatred of sin was meted out by the Father and swallowed up by Christ. It is remarkable that the God that will judge the living and the dead, the Lord Jesus, has not lead with "I hate your guts, sinner, die!" Rather, he has wept over the sin of humanity, he came to die that sinners might be reconciled to their God, because God so loved the World that He gave his uniquely begotten Son to reconcile sinners to Himself. Right? At least that is the Gospel that seems to flow cover to cover in the Bible I read.

Remember what Paul, the Pharisee of Pharisees, says after being converted from his legalism (obeying God in order to avoid the relation of judgment with Him)? Remember what that Apostle of Apostles said when he had been set free from hatred and death, liberated to love the Lord Jesus with all his heart, with all his soul and with all his mind? He concluded this in the context of a controversy in which he himself was involved:

1 Corinthians 13 (ESV) 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I encourage each of us, if we are in fact Christ's, to put on the Law of Love of which there is no limit, no bounds. We are here on this earth to be known by our love, the Love that is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are two messages here, and that of Paul and Jesus and that of Mr. Phelps. There is but one gospel that is neither old time or new time, but all time. One of these messages is not like the other. It is my hope if you are not a Christian, that you see that there is great difference between God's witness of himself in the Scriptures and the corruption of that witness that people may bring to it.

Human Suffering and the Triune-God (Part 1 of 5)

Prescript: One of the most difficult and fecund projects I had during my time at Westminster Seminary was to write read Elie Wiesel’s Night and then write a pastoral response to him, as if he had come into my pastor’s study and laid out his story (that of a Jewish youth in concentration camps in Nazi Europe), desiring counsel and direction. In continuing with recent themes of Christ and suffering, I share this with you here and invite your reflection and comment. This is the first of five posts.

There are few eras of history that embody brutality and suffering more readily to a twenty-first century Western mind than that of Nazi Germany during World War II. Even more, there are fewer particulars that epitomize the basest form of suffering than Auschwitz or Buna, jagged cogs of Nazi annihilation machinery. Today, it would appear that the West in general, and America specifically, understands little of suffering. Having grown fat, we mark out hunger as enduring an hour longer to eat; pain, by the backache caused by our own obesity (for which we have an encapsulated solution). Consequentially gross proportions of the church have grown anemic, glossing over the decreed place of suffering in the world, minimizing the resolute hope, that the One who bled the ground purest red at Calvary offers to any who are struck down, suffering today.

The Fact of Suffering

Some may say that the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were murdered, should not be compared to other instances of suffering, fearing that by doing so it is some how trivialized. However, if we do not recognize the Holocaust as one horror among many, it is then that we trivialize it. Stalin is reported to have slaughtered some 20 million of his own people, while Hitler slaughtered over a million Russians in the battle for Stalingrad alone. Millions of people die of AIDS in central Africa in our present day. In one day the English slaughtered more than ten thousand at the battle of Agincourt; and indeed the cry of the slaughtered was, "Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now! Let us on heaps offer up our lives."¹ The Holocaust, in its unforgettable terror, is one rap in the iteration of suffering on this planet, being a commentary on the degree of the presence of evil in the race of men, which all must face.

Most of the suffering today is never voiced. It is the silent scream of piercing amplification that races through the air on a frequency that no one can hear. The Holocaust has been an exception in which people have talked, their scream has been heard, and even still, many do not know how to resolve such heinous cruelty with the orthodox teaching of God's goodness. I believe this is the case not only for those who hear the wailing of a suffering soul but also for the soul itself that wails. Failure to find definitive resolution of these two facts will result in an impotence to counsel the bereaved and may result in the incineration of the faith of those who suffer.

After arriving at Birkenau, reception center for Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel wrote these words; the soot and fire from the crematorium having seared his depths:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.²

For Wiesel life had become a dying dirge, a condemnation that beats out its doom-drum rhythm, leaving him alone in a deafening darkness in which he had no answers, no faith, and no hope.

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¹ William Shakespeare, "Henry V," in The Riverside Shakespeare (ed. G. Blakemore Evans: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974),962 [IV.v.6-23].
² Elie Wiesel. The Night Trilogy (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 43.

Doug Green meets the Apostle Paul

You have got to see the post on Mark Traphagen's blog, Sacred Journey. He explains the extent to which Westminster Seminary professors go to get back to the sources of the Bible. -- Absolutely hilarious if you know or have seen Doug Green, professor of Old Testament at Westminster Philadelphia.

Warfield's The Plan of Salvation

A concise and really very encouraging read on the Trinitarian nature of salvation, God's decree and its outworking in history for the redemption of a new humanity, and a helpful guide to understanding many of the divisions or distinctions between the various flavors of Christendom.

If you are NOT Presbyterian and-or Protestant, I would be greatly interested to know if you found Warfield's description of things like sacerdotalism or other typically non-protestant ideas to be representative of your tradition. I would appreciate any help you can give me in understanding why you do or do not agree with his descriptions.

Please download The Plan of Salvation by Benjamin Warfield [PDF].