Jesus tells the story of a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who falls into the hands of robbers. The text reads, “They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.”
Viewing entries in
Theology
Crunk rap artist Lil Jon and DJ Snake have a top 10 single dedicated to the hook, “Turn down for what.” Since I was a bit out of touch with the language, I embarrassingly asked some teenagers what it meant.
God is a God of the ordinary. He does the miraculous through ordinary means. He uses ordinary people and simple methods to accomplish his divine goals.
There are far too many who have a theology that is full of it. Perhaps that’s a bit crude, but the facade that people often create under the guise of theology is astounding.
Nothing clears a room faster than the word sin.
Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. That’s all you Christians talk about and we’re sick of it. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. And we don’t believe in it anyway. So says the culture in 21st-century America.
If you’ve been on this blog for any period of time, you’ve likely come to realize that I want to talk theology in the language of ordinary, everyday people. I’m not afraid of complex doctrine or difficult church-language, but when I communicate the ancient truths of the Scriptures, I want the 30-year old dad to understand how this theology affects the way he does his work, loves his wife, and cares for his children.
Vocation, which commonly in our culture, refers to a person’s job is actually rooted in significant theological roots. Vocation, which comes from the latin vocatio, literally refers to God’s calling.
I read a ridiculous amount of blogs and listen to a ton of sermons. While there is certainly no shortage of availability of blogs to be reading or podcasts to subscribe to, over the past year a number of new voices have really become prominent in my feeds.
rescues.jpg
Throughout the book of Judges, God keeps sending judges. It’s not a one-time occurrence, it happens over and over and over again. While Israel repeats this cycle of sin, slavery, and tragedy, God doesn’t step back and watch it grow progressively worse.
Instead of letting Israel destroy everything, God steps in. God intersects the cycle of sin with rescue. No matter how ugly things get for the Israelites, God interrupts this cycle with grace and forgiveness. And this is not a one-time thing, it’s repeated throughout the entire history of the nation of Israel.
Note: This post is an excerpt from the free eBook, Addiction: Leaving the Vomit Behind.
Psalm 106 describes this:
"Many times he delivered them,
but they were bent on rebellion
and they wasted away in their sin.
Yet he took note of their distress
when he heard their cry;
for their sake he remembered his covenant
and out of his great love he relented."
No matter how many times we repeatedly turn to the same sins over and over and over again, God says, “My grace is enough.”
And he doesn’t just say, “I forgive you,” once. He says it a second time and a third time and a hundredth time and a two-hundreth time. The depth of our sins do not dictate the mercy of God. The frequency of our sins don’t determine the grace that we receive.
God isn’t giving us more chances to “not screw it up,” but instead he provides the rescuer who stands in our place.
And that is not based on your behavior. It is not dependent on the sins you’ve committed, the pain that you’ve caused, or the tragedy that your choices have led to.
The Israelites keep committing the same sin over and over and over.
When we read this in the book of judges, I can’t help but think, “These guys are idiots.” And then Irealize I do the same thing.
We do the same things over and over again; we return to the same sins time and time and time again, yet God remembers his covenant. He says, “I love you the same.”
Guilt & Shame
As we talk about these types of struggles, we likely also will deal with feelings of great guilt and shame. Guilt says, “I’m sorry. I did something wrong.” Guilt uses judicial language; it says, “Here’s the law and here’s what I did. These don’t match up.”
And so we feel guilty. We feel guilty because when talking about our addiction, we understand that God said not to and we did it anyways. And we did it not only once, but we did it repeatedly. We feel guilt because we know that the slavery we face is a result of our own sins. We feel guilt because we see the consequences that have come from our own decisions and how it has affected others.
And guilt weighs us down.
But there’s not only guilt, there’s also shame. Where guilt says, “I’m sorry, I did something wrong,” shame says, “There’s something wrong with me.” While guilt yearns for justice, shame seeks hiding. Like Adam and Eve cover themselves in the Garden of Eden, shame runs from the spotlight because we are afraid people will see us for who we are.
Where guilt is judicial in its language, shame speaks to our identity.
Shame says:
I am an addict.
I am a shopaholic.
I am a workaholic.
I am a porn addict.
I am my job.
I am my relationships.
I am _______________________.
The Good News deals with both of these. The death and resurrection of Jesus deals with both guilt and shame. On the cross, you are declared not guilty. No matter what you’ve done or how many times you’ve done it, you are declared innocent.
Not guilty.
And the cross also covers shame. It speaks to your identity.
It says, “You are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come.” You are not your addictions. You are not who you were.
In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says it this way, “But when the time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law.” Notice the language he’s using here. It begins very judicial, “That God sent his son born of a woman, born under law,” why? Because we had been guilty of breaking the law God sent his son, who was innocent, to redeem those who were guilty.
And as he continues, there’s a shift in his language, “That we might receive the full rights of sons.” He begins speaking to our identity, “Because you are sons. God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out Abba, father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
There’s actually a confession from 1581 that often gets used by churches even today:
O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them, and sincerely repent of them, and I pray You, of Your boundless mercy, and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being. - The Lutheran Hymnal
“Poor, miserable sinner.” This is about shame.
“Justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment.” This is about guilt.
And how does Jesus respond to this confession? He declares, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Guilt removed.
Shame removed.
Your sins, forgiven.
When you attend a worship gathering, what is happening? Why do we sing the songs we do? Why do we say the prayers, creeds, and confessions? And who is the service for; is it for believers or is it for unbelievers
Core to the Reformation was a simple, profound doctrine that Luther embraced that shaped his understanding of the Gospel. This phrase describes a tension that the Christian finds himself in. It presents us with the paradox of sinful, broken people have also been rescued and redeemed. We are holy yet sinful, new yet old, saints and sinners.
There’s a latin phrase that typically gets associated with Luther’s teaching:
Simul justus et peccator.
We are simultaneously justified and sinner.
We are saints and sinners at the same time.
One blog describes the phrase well :
"Perhaps the formula that Luther used that is most famous and most telling at this point is his formula simul justus et peccator. And if any formula summarizes and captures the essence of the Reformation view, it is this little formula. Simul is the word from which we get the English word simultaneously. Or, it means ‘at the same time.’ Justus is the Latin word for just or righteous. And you all know what et is... You remember in the death scene of Caesar after he’s been stabbed by Brutus he says, “Et tu, Brute?” Then fall Caesar. And you too Brutus? It simply means and. Peccator means sinner.
And so with this formula Luther was saying, in our justification we are one and the same time righteous or just, and sinners.” - Ligonnier.org
The Christian life is found in the tension. Are we sinners or are we saints? Yes. We find ourselves simultaneously both sinners and saints at the same time. While we are identified with Christ, a battle still wages war in us as our old self battles against the new.
“Simultaneously” points to this time between the times—the co-existence of two “times” at the same time: the old age and the new creation are both present realities. - Tullian Tchividjian
This is why Paul in Romans writes, “what I want to do I do not do.” Because Paul understands that the sinner in him is constantly in tension with the saint in him. Part of him is guided by the Spirit and looks outward with love for others. And another part of him is guided by his sinful nature and looks inward at what would be best for himself.
On the one hand we are completely unrighteous. Romans 3 says, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
But on the other hand we are completely righteous because of the work of Christ. Romans 3 also says, "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Saint and sinner. Both at the same time. The tension between the old you and the new you. The tension between sin at work and God at work. The tension between the god you worship and the God you worship.
Embrace the tension.
I love the Christmas season. And I love all the sights, sounds, and smells that come with it. I love the Christmas music that is constantly on repeat. I love the decorations. I love the way the mall feels when it is decked out in the Christmas spirit. And because of all of these things, as soon as the decorations and the music start to come out, a spirit of anticipation begins to start within me.
Because Christmas is coming.
The Christmas cookies left out for Santa. The looks on my family’s faces as they see the presents lined up under the Christmas tree. Christmas is coming and all the preparations that come with Christmas create a sense of waiting. We are waiting for Christmas.
For many of us, myself included, waiting for Christmas is about the anticipation of friends, family, presents, and music.
Our anticipation can be summed with words like:
Just hear those sleigh bells jingling
Ring ting tingling too
Come on, it's lovely weather
For a sleigh ride together with you
Outside the snow is falling
And friends are calling "Yoo hoo"
Come on, it's lovely weather
For a sleigh ride together with you
[tentblogger-youtube N9ZMU7Ka7_I]
And while these things are great things to anticipate, the waiting that comes in the holiday season is much more than that. In more traditional church language, there’s a name for this season, Advent. Advent comes from the latin word Adventus which means simply, “coming.”
Churches have historically used the weeks leading up to Christmas to prepare and anticipate the coming of Christ. There is an anticipation leading up to the Christmas celebration and specifically the gifts that we celebrate Christ bringing, but there is also an anticipation to when Christ reappears.
Christmas is coming. Chris is coming.
We wait with anticipation the birth of a King. We wait knowing that a baby has been born and it changes everything. And we wait for when the King is coming again.
As we approach Christmas, what gifts of Jesus are you longing for? What are the gifts that you wait for with anticipation knowing that there are some things that only Jesus can give to you? As you anxiously wait for the fact that a baby has been born, what is the hope that you need?
We wait. We anticipate the birth of a King. We anticipate the coming of the King who has rescued us from sin, death, and the power of the devil. We anticipate his return and the hope of his new creation. We long for the peace that He brings in the midst of this broken, dark, and hurting world.
Come Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free
From our fears and sins release us
Let us find our rest in Thee
[tentblogger-youtube bnxBax26qGQ]
In the book The Permanent Revolution, Alan Hirsch references a work by William Ocasio in which he describes the Columbia space shuttle disaster. On February 1, 2003, when Columbia reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, it disintegrated and killed all seven crew members. In analyzing the disaster, Ocasio realized that the problem was ultimately not about individual errors but instead about language.
Hirsch describes it when he writes, "Essentially a vocabulary of organizing plays a significant role in determining what practices will be considered normative and what practices are literally unheard of. Thus, the linguistic categories that an organization uses can shape how it conceives of core tasks."
Because of a problem of language, the Columbia space shuttle disaster happened. There was a lacking in categories and vocabularies and articulation, which left NASA blind to the problems they faced.
How often does the message of the Gospel encounter this same problem?
How often do we get so caught up in our own church-speak that the Gospel gets lost in translation? Think about it the next time you go to church or hang out around church people. Do they use the same language as ordinary people? It’s okay if there is some different language, but when we try to share the Gospel, do we too often assume that people just know the language and the categories?
If we do not consider the language barriers and our issues of translation, the Church will face a huge problem. A disaster is waiting to happen for those who don’t know the Gospel. And many of the truths that we trust are “simply unheard of” not because we don’t talk about them, but because they have no idea what we are talking about when we do.
Central to the work of a missionary is always translation. That doesn’t mean we abandon key doctrinal language like justification, the Gospel, or vocation. But it does mean that as missionaries we find ways to teach and to explain them in the language of the people. It means we don’t just assume that everybody knows what we are talking about. And we make sure that the message of Jesus doesn’t get lost in translation; we do whatever it takes to make sure that we translate the ancient message of the Gospel into the context of the culture we are trying to reach.
It has long be said that God’s Word is made up of two words. God’s first word of the law, which reminds us of our inability to save ourselves. And God’s word of the Gospel, which makes clear that are only hope is found in Christ alone.
The law often automatically gets categorized as bad.
While in some senses the law does deconstruct and even kill, the law is in fact good. Because even when the law functions for the purpose of showing our sin, it sets us up for the Gospel. This sense of the law is not the only way of course that the law functions, but it is hugely important in our understanding of God’s Word.
There are two descriptions of the law that I find helpful when thinking about the way in which the law shows our sin. These are the descriptions of hammer and mirror. In Preaching Law and Gospel by Herman Stuempfle he describes these two understandings of the Law.
The Hammer
The hammer functions for accusation. It targets the conscience with the goal of accountability. Guilt is evidence that the hammer of the law has done its work. The hammer swings with the goal of convicting the sinner.
The hammer bangs the gavel as a judge. It makes it clear to us that we are guilty. It destroys our self-justifying desires in the face of our own inability to do what the law demands. The hammer shatters the notions that the Gospel can be found in what we do.
At times the hammer swings in hard destroying what needs to be killed in order that life may come. And at other times the hammer is more like a mallet, gently exposing our sins and failures.
“Rather, our role is more that of surgeons who know they must cut in order to heal, or of therapists who understand the necessity of leading clients to insight which holds simultaneously the prospect of pain and the promise of renewal.” - Stuempfle
The Mirror
The mirror functions in a more descriptive role. It targets the consciousness seeking to make the hearer aware of the problems. The mirror is like the doctor who makes a diagnosis. The doctor describes the problems and points out the problem so you can get the right treatment.
The mirror reveals to us what we really look like. When we look in the mirror, we find out what we really look like. Our self-made images are shattered, when we find we aren’t as great as we think we are. We find that we cannot save ourselves and are left with a harsh diagnosis about our state of sin.
The law is good even when it makes us feel bad. But, in the words of Stuempfle, “the Law is never terminal.” It always exist for the sake of the word that follows. It is always for the sake that once the diagnosis has been made, that the surgeon would come in and heal the disease.