Signing Off for 10 Days

Back Monday, August 6, after some ministry and traveling.

Eternally Swallowed Up

Jonathan Edwards, reflecting on seeing Christ in the next life, while preaching on 2 Corinthians 5:8 at the funeral of David Brainerd:

The nature of this glory of Christ that they shall see, will be such as will draw and encourage them, for they will not only see infinite majesty and greatness; but infinite grace, condescension and mildness, and gentleness and sweetness, equal to his majesty . . . so that the sight of Christ's great kingly majesty will be no terror to them; but will only serve the more to heighten their pleasure and surprise. . . .

The souls of departed saints with Christ in heaven, shall have Christ as it were unbosomed unto them, manifesting those infinite riches of love towards them, that have been there from eternity. . . . They shall eat and drink abundantly, and swim in the ocean of love, and be eternally swallowed up in the infinitely bright, and infinitely mild and sweet beams of divine love.

--Jonathan Edwards, 'True Saints Are Present with the Lord,' in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 25: Sermons and Discourses, 1743-1758 (Yale University Press, 2006), 233

He Is the Firstfruits

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. --Romans 6:4

The Real Jesus

A January 1959 letter from C. S. Lewis to Edward Lofstrom. At one point Lewis responds to something Lofstrom had asked him about by saying--

'Gentle Jesus', my elbow! The most striking thing about Our Lord is the union of great ferocity with extreme tenderness. (Remember Pascal? 'I do not admire the extreme of one virtue unless you show me at the same time the extreme of the opposite virtue. One shows one's greatness not by being at an extremity but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space between')

Add to this that He is also a supreme ironist, dialectician, and (occasionally) humourist. So go on! You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man behind all the plaster dolls that have been substituted for Him. This is the appearance in Human form of the God who made the Tiger and the Lamb, the avalanche and the rose. He'll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ can be loved and admired as the doll can't.

--Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, 3:1011

Sin Doesn't Get Tired

Sin--including especially the sin of pride--is active, not passive. Sin doesn't wake up tired, because it hasn't been sleeping. When you wake up in the morning, sin is right there, fully awake, ready to attack. . . .

Purpose by grace that your first thought of the day will be an expression of your dependence on God, your need for God, and your confidence in God. 

--C.J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness (Multnomah, 2005), 69

Grace in Practice

Our brother Tullian on Liberate 2013--

Real life is long on law and short on grace—the demands never stop, the failures pile up, fear sets in. The idea that there is an unconditional love that relieves the pressure, forgives our failures and replaces our fear with faith seems too good to be true. Longing for hope in a world of hype, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the news we’ve been waiting to hear: God sent Jesus to set sinners free. Jesus came to liberate us from the weight of having to make it on our own, from the demand to measure up. He came to emancipate everyday people from the burden to get it all right, from the obligation to fix ourselves, find ourselves, and free ourselves.

God Chose What Is Weak in the World (1 Cor 1:27)

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring--

'I do really wish to destroy it!' cried Frodo. 'Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?'

'Such questions cannot be answered,' said Gandalf. 'You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.'

'But I have so little of any of those things!'

Myth Became Fact

In his fascinating essay “Is Theology Poetry?” C. S. Lewis spoke of the incarnation as 'the humiliation of myth into fact.' He wrote that

what is everywhere and always, imageless and ineffable, only to be glimpsed in dream and symbol and the acted poetry of ritual becomes small, solid—no bigger than a man who can lie asleep in a rowing boat on the Lake of Galilee.

The Word, the Logos, the central meaning of the universe, the integrative center to reality, the climax and culmination of all of human history, that which summoned solar systems into instant existence—at just the right time (Gal. 4:4)—became a baby. The night Christ was born in Bethlehem, Chesterton wrote, “the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.”

He became a man. The one true man. All that you and I experience Jesus experienced, with the exception of sin. I am increasingly thinking that to question whether Jesus led a normal life as we do is to put the whole point backward. His was the only normal life the world has ever seen. We are the abnormal ones.

When Jesus performed miracles he was not doing violence to the natural order. He was restoring the natural order to the way it was meant to be. People were not supposed to be blind but to see. People were not made to be lame but to walk. Legs are supposed to work.

Demons did not belong in people. Unlike Adam, who failed to exorcise Satan from the Garden, Jesus did what Adam should have done, exorcising demons from men and women made in God’s image. Adam was supposed to exile Satan from Eden but failed, so he was exiled from the Garden, and Israel later recapitulated that exile corporately. Jesus experienced the curse of exile as the one true and faithful Israelite who didn't deserve to be exiled. The remnant of one. Elijah said 'I, even I only, am left' (1 Kings 19:10), but only Jesus could truly say that in an absolute and ultimate sense.

In this sense Jesus’ miracles were not supernatural. They were truly natural. This fallen world is sub-natural. Jesus is the one truly human being who ever lived. The incarnation does not give us a hypothetical picture of how we would be able to live if only we were divine. It gives us an actual picture of how we are meant to live, and one day will, when we are once again fully human.

'It Has to Be Something Else I'm Looking For'

Don't watch this 2009 documentary of Mike Tyson with your kids, but I find it moving in a way I can't quite articulate. It is stirring to consider the tragedy of Tyson's life against the backdrop of the whole-Bible theme of glory and shame--granted in Eden, disfigured by sin, regained in Christ, and fully reinstated in the new earth.

Tyson is the only fighter whose career I followed with any interest. I have a strange, deep affection for him. Not sure why. Would love to see his eyes open to Christ and the gospel of free glory. He seems as primed for it as ever despite the blindness that clearly remains. I have hopes for it. If I had his address I'd love to write him.

I find his closing comments from 1:21:30 to the end very moving.

The Thing Just Isn't There

One of the most stirring quotes I have yet read from one of the most stirring men I have yet read. Full context here.

I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion--it raises its head in every temptation--that there is something else than God--some other country into which He forbids us to trespass--some kind of delight which He 'doesn't appreciate' or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it.

The thing just isn't there.

Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us--a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.

 --C. S. Lewis, as recorded in The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949 (ed. Walter Hooper; Cambridge University Press, 2004), 124