Cleopas and his friend are walking to the village of Emmaus when they are unexpectedly joined by a stranger who begins to interpret to them “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (the Messiah).” (v. 27) It’s amazing to me that as the stranger reveals to these two such deep spiritual truths, they still don’t realize who he is!

But after arriving at Emmaus and sitting down to dinner together, Jesus takes bread and breaks it and gives it to them, and in that moment, “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” This is what I long to see in the lives of people with whom I share the good news of all that the Scriptures reveal about Jesus the Messiah. I long to see their eyes opened so that they recognize Jesus for who he is. This is what I ask those of you who pray for our ministry to ask the Lord for. Pray that God would grant spiritual sight to those who are blind to the glory of Jesus Christ.

It is interesting that the revelation of Jesus to these two occurs in the breaking of the bread. This is most likely a reference to the Lord’s Supper, which is itself a revelation of the sacrifice for sins that Jesus made when he offered his body and his blood on the cross. It is in the declaration of that event, the Calvary event, that blinded eyes are opened.

That is not to say that everyone who hears the news of Jesus’ death and resurrection will be able to see with spiritual sight the glory of Christ. But when God in his grace opens blinded eyes and brings people to faith, he does it through the proclamation of the gospel. It’s difficult to proclaim the gospel to spiritually blind people who may not care two cents about what you are saying, but how necessary it is to be willing to open our mouths and to share the message without which no one can be saved (Acts 4:12), and trust that God will use it to save those lost sheep he has committed himself to finding (John 10:16).

This also shows us how we can pray for unbelievers: “Lord, open their eyes to see the glory of Christ the way you opened the eyes of those two in Emmaus.” Notice also that after Cleopas and his friend go to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples about what happened, Jesus appears again to them all. And verse 45 says, “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

“Lord Jesus, as we are faithful to declare the gospel message to those around us, please open their minds to understand the Scriptures. Give spiritual sight that blinded sinners may see the glory of Christ.”

In verse 47, Jesus says that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Commit yourself anew to proclaiming the good news of repentance for forgiveness of sins. Commit yourself anew to pray for those who are hearing that message. Pray that God would open their eyes and their minds to understand the Scriptures and to see the glories of Jesus, our wonderful Savior. Be encouraged as you speak to and pray for the hardest of hearts. God is able to open closed minds and eyes.

One of the things that stood out to me is that this was a salvation from an enemy.  Pharaoh was against God and out to keep the Israelites in slavery.  In the same way, we have an enemy, Satan, who wants to keep us enslaved to himself, and one of the aspects of our salvation is that we are delivered from him and he is destroyed.  This is mentioned in the song when they sing in Ex. 15:4-10

⁴  “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.   ⁵  The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. ⁶  Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. ⁷  In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. ⁸  At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

⁹  The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,
I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.
I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’
¹⁰  You blew with your wind; the sea covered them;
they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

This encouraged me because I very definitely see Satan scheming against me daily, and to know that he is defeated is very encouraging.  When Jesus died on the cross, it was Satan’s ultimate defeat, and just as Pharaoh and his officers sunk in the Red Sea and were “shattered” (v. 6) our enemy is also shattered.  By the “greatness of his majesty” Jesus has overthrown our adversary.  Of course, the ultimate manifestation of this is still future when Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire, but it is a certain thing that has already been accomplished.  So I can have confidence that I, in Christ’s strength am able to overcome our enemy.

Also encouraging were verses 16-18 where the song describes the effect of the Red Sea deliverance on the pagan peoples around who would certainly hear about this great act of salvation…

¹⁶  Terror and dread fall upon them;

because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,

till your people, O Lord, pass by,

till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

¹⁷  You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,

the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,

the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.

¹⁸  The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

Notice that verse 16 says that God has “purchased” his people.  Jesus has purchased us by his blood–his death on the cross.  The idea of being purchased is a very special way of thinking of our salvation.  We belong to God and he will certainly care for us because we are his.  1 Cor. 6:20 says, “you were bought with a price…”  and 1 Peter 1:18-19 say, “…you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

We can rejoice today in the fact that we belong to God and that he has defeated our enemy!  Hallelujah!

It really is startling how important Jesus’ healing ministry figures in to the gospel accounts.  These two chapters alone recount four specific healings, two specific deliverances from demons, one raising from the dead, and the general statement that Jesus “cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.”

What good news for those who are struggling with sickness.  I know that seeing this truth gave me confidence and faith to lay my need before the Lord Jesus and ask him to give me the health and strength that I need to adjust to my new living situation, take care of my family, begin my language studies and serve those around me in whatever way he has prepared.

But receiving physical healing alone fails to plumb the depths of all that is being revealed here about Jesus.  The reason the gospels emphasize the healing ministry of Jesus is not just that he is a source of health and well-being for this life, although he definitely is that, and it is not wrong to come to him with our physical needs as I did this morning.

Sickness and death and bondage to demonic powers are all the glaring evidence that mankind in his sin and rebellion against God is under God’s curse.  When Jesus comes on the scene in the gospels, healing all and delivering from demons and even raising the dead, God is displaying the truth that Jesus is the one who is going to remove that curse from the new humanity that God will bring into being.  This is why the gospels emphasize repeatedly that “all who came to him were healed.”  The redemption that Jesus brings is total and complete.

Matthew explains the healings in these chapters with a quotation from Isaiah 53.  This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”  If sickness and death are the curse of God upon sin, and they are (see Genesis 2:17), then by bearing our sicknesses and diseases, Jesus bears our curse.  His healing ministry then is a pointer to the fact that he is the Redeemer who lifts the curse and brings life in place of death.

Every time we receive a physical healing in this life from the Lord Jesus, it is a specific pointer, or as John would say a “sign” of the deeper and more significant foundational truth that Jesus has redeemed us from sin’s curse.

I am so glad that I can come to Jesus and ask for physical healing, knowing that he is my Redeemer and regardless of how he chooses to answer my prayer, whether I receive the “pointer” or “sign” of physical healing or not, I can know that by his death and resurrection he has lifted the curse from me and given me eternal life.

 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.¹⁵ (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) ¹⁶ For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.  (John 1:14-18)

Praise God for his glory!  We serve a glorious and majestic God!  And his glory is all around us.  The Scripture says his glory fills the earth as the waters cover the sea.  We can see his glory in the beauty of a fresh snow on Christmas morning, as the drab brown of winter is transformed into glorious white.  That’s God’s artistry!  Having lived now on three different continents and about to move to my fourth, I’ve seen the glory of God in majestic waterfalls, awe-inspiring canyons, and towering snow-capped mountains.  ”The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1)

We can also see the glory of God in his acts throughout history recorded for us in the Bible.  We see the promise that he made to Abraham and can then read the amazing story of how God took this single man and made him the father of many nations.  We see God’s glory in redeeming his people, Abraham’s descendants, out of Egypt, as he smites Egypt with plagues and opens up the Red Sea and brings his people through 40 years in the desert and into the Promised Land.

We see the glory of God in his faithfulness to his people, even when they are disobedient again and again and he finally sends them away into captivity, but he faithfully sends them his prophets to proclaim to them the truth and to call them to repentance.

But the most powerful revelation of God’s glory that the world has ever seen is what we are celebrating this morning, and what John refers to in John 1:14.  Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh and dwelt among us!

In the first two verses of chapter 1, John has already identified “the Word.”  He said in verse 1, “the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  In verse 2, he says “all things were made through him.”  The Word is God.  The Word is the Creator, but now in verse 14 he says, “the word became flesh”  Think of that!  The eternal Son, who is God, became man.  The Creator entered into the Creation.

The purpose of the incarnation

But don’t miss what John is saying here about the purpose of the incarnation.  He is not just saying that God became man, but that God became man to display his glory!  This was incarnation with the purpose of revelation.  Hebrews 1:1-2 says, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son….

Although it may appear that God was hiding his glory by sending Jesus to a lowly family to be born in the humble surroundings of a stable, he wasn’t hiding anything!  Jesus was a declaration of God’s glory!

John, an eyewitness who walked with Jesus throughout his life, was with him when he was crucified, saw his empty tomb and then touched his resurrected body, says, “We have SEEN his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father…”  Verse 18 says, No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

So how was God’s glory demonstrated in Jesus?  What did Jesus “make known” about God?   What did John see?

What is revealed of God in the glory of Jesus?

So many things could be said in answer to this question… that’s what the New Testament records for us, the manifold ways in which Jesus reveals God to us, but John mentions two very special aspects of Jesus’ glory in this verse:

 “…We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of GRACE and TRUTH.

He is “full of truth”

What does “full of truth” mean?  At the risk of oversimplifying, consider that truth is simply  “the way things really are.”

Ever since sin entered our world, we have a perception problem.  We are blind to the truth.  Throughout this gospel, John uses light to illustrate this.  We are blind and in the darkness.  We can’t see the true reality of things.  We can’t see the world around us as it really is.  We are deceived and in the dark.  This may take radical forms such as atheism and hedonism, but it extends to all of us.  Sin clouds our understanding.  We don’t see the glory of God everywhere that we should see it, and when we don’t see it, we very often are OK with that.  It doesn’t bother us.  We’re quite content to live in a world where God and his Son, Jesus Christ, are not at the center of everything.

But when Jesus came to earth, he came “full of truth“.  Everything that Jesus did.  Everything he said–his very presence in the world–brought light!  It displayed the truth.

As the perfect, sinless man, Jesus showed us what Man was created to be.

He showed us how man should live in submission to God by being obedient to his father.  Phil 2.8   He humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross.

He showed us how man should commune with God and do the work of the Father.  John 5:19, “Whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

Without Jesus’ life, we would never have known the full truth about God’s will for us as his creation.  Jesus shows us things as they really are.  This is what it means to be “full of truth”

Now think about the implication of this…

It is in the light of Jesus’ life that we can see the truth about ourselves: that we are sinners, that we fall short, that we are worthy of God’s holy and righteous judgment and condemnation.  That we don’t live our lives this way.

There’s a common misconception about Jesus that especially tends to circulate around Christmas that he preached a message of peace and love and unity among mankind.   Not so:  In Matt. 10:34 Jesus says, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Jesus came to show us things as they really are, which is why the word that is most often used to characterize his preaching is not peace, but repentance.

• Luke 5:32 “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
• Matt. 4:17 Jesus began to preach… “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”

When we read Jesus’ words and we read in the gospels about his life, how can we not be convicted of our lack?  How can we not see how far short we fall of this kind of life?  All we can do when confronted with the truth about Jesus, and subsequently, the truth about ourselves, is to repent!

But praise God that repentance is not only turning from our sin, it is also turning TO Jesus and Jesus, in addition to being full of truth, is also full of grace!

Jesus is “full of grace”

So for all of the sin and rebellion and selfishness and pride that Jesus exposes in me, there is a remedy, and that remedy is Jesus himself…

Grace is in Jesus!  Jesus is “full of grace”!  Hallelujah!

Grace is unmerited favor.  What is that?  It is God being good to me even though I deserve for him to punish me.

Jesus should have come to this earth to pour out his wrath on a rebellious creation, but instead he comes to bring about a new creation, holy and sinless.

Jesus should have come to call us out for our disobedience, but instead he came to obey in our place.  According to Romans 5, He came as the second Adam, this time to obey the command.   Against God’s command, Adam ate what he shouldn’t have.  In obedience to God’s command, Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath that we should have.

Jesus should have come to cast me into eternal separation from God, but instead he came to restore me to fellowship with God so that I can experience the abundant life that is found only in Him.

Jesus did not come only to give me a second chance to prove myself, but so that I can come to him everyday for grace and more grace.  Grace to keep me from sinning against God, and grace to forgive me when I do sin.   This is what verse 16 means,  For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

This is the GLORY of Jesus! He reveals things as they really are.  In the way he lived and moved through this world and even in the way he died, He shows us life the way God intended it to be.  He is full of truth.

But he is also full of grace, and so he takes this perfect life that he lived and he offers it to us as a free gift.

Actually I’ve decided to no longer call what Jesus gives us a free gift.  “Free gift” brings up images of cheap watches and disposable items that some marketing department wants to use to sucker us.  What Jesus gives us isn’t just a “free gift” it is a costly gift, but it IS a gift–a gift of grace.  We don’t have to earn it or prove ourselves worthy of it.  Everything that had to be done for us to get this gift from God, Jesus did.  He paid for it with his life. Christianity isn’t about what you do for God, but about what God in Jesus, did for you.

And this is where we truly see the glory of Jesus.  Yes, he was God in human flesh.  Yes, his life and his teaching show us things as they really are, but the most glorious of all is that display of love and grace that Jesus made when he hung condemned on the cross.  The holy wrath of God that we deserve was placed on him so that for those who are joined to him by faith, their sins are judged.  And then, as he rose from the dead, those who are joined to him by faith also rise to a new life.  And so we are accepted by God not on the basis of what we have done or will do, but on the basis of what Jesus did for us.  That’s the gospel!  And it is the glory of Jesus!

“Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.”  Glorious grace and glorious truth.  If you haven’t already, may you reach out to Jesus in faith and receive his grace today!

Let me encourage those of you who read via e-mail to visit the site and see the attractive new design that my son, Andrew, has produced for me.  I think he has done a great job with the redesign.  One of the advantages of clicking from the e-mail to the site and reading the post there is the use of ref-tagger.  Ref-tagger allows you to hover your mouse over the scripture reference and immediately read the verse I am referring to in the post.

Another advantage of using the site is that there are lots of good posts and articles to read in the archives.  Soon I hope to have these all categorized by scripture reference which will allow you to click on the “Scripture” tab off to the right and see all the posts sorted by Bible book and chapter.

Finally, using the website also gives you opportunity to comment on the posts.  I love a good theological discussion and enjoy interaction with readers.  Here’s an example of how the comments section can sometimes be even better than the post itself.

I’ve just arrived back home after six weeks of being on the road and thus the drought of posts recently, but I hope to have some fresh thoughts to share in the days ahead and appreciate you allowing me to share them with you.

This story is a microcosm of the victory that God will give his people over their enemy, Satan.  There are similarities in the way the Rabshakeh spoke to Israel and the way Satan sometimes speaks to us, and we can learn from Hezekiah and his servants how we should respond to Satan when he comes against us with his lies and threats.  We can also be assured that the victory, the slaying of the 185,000, has already been won, and Jesus at the cross has already humiliated our enemy, Satan.

Let’s look at the story in more detail to see these parallels:

We begin our resistance to the enemy with a declaration of trust in God.

Although the author doesn’t relate for us what the Jewish leaders had said to the Rabshakeh, we know that they must have already received some kind of ultimatum and they had responded to it with a refusal to surrender.  You can see this in the first words that the Rabshakeh speaks in Isaiah 36:4-5

 ⁴ And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? ⁵ Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me?

Notice that he says, “…this trust of yours” and he refers to “mere words”.  This shows us that Eliakim, Shebna and Joah (Hezekiah’s servants) must have declared to the Rabshakeh that they would not surrender but that they were trusting in Jehovah to deliver them.

In the same way, when Satan comes against us with any kind of attack or temptation, our first response should be to declare our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Just as Hezekiah “rebelled” against the King of Assyria, we must “rebel against” the Prince of this World.  I use the term “rebel” because that’s really our position in this fallen world.  Satan is called in 2 Cor. 4:4, “the god of this world.”

Part of spiritual warfare is realizing that we live in enemy territory.  This world as it presently exists is not neutral territory, nor has it been completely reclaimed by the Lord Jesus—that belongs to the future redemption of creation that Christ will accomplish at his return (Romans 8:20-25).   So when Satan as the god of this world comes at us the way the Rabshakeh came against Hezekiah, we must not just open the gates and let him in, but we must rebel.

So much spiritual warfare in the lives of Christians is lost because they never see the need for this initial rebellion against the false promises of the god of this world.  Just as the Rabshakeh, Satan comes to us with false promises of fulfillment, pleasure and abundance…

¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, ¹⁷ until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

Don’t make peace with the enemy!  Don’t float through this world and live your life the way everyone else does!  Rebel!  Declare your trust in Jesus and live the counter-cultural life that he calls us to.

Satan’s tactics 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of tactics that Satan uses against us, but consider the similarities between the tactics of the Rabshakeh and the way Satan often comes against us.  Using the following lies, Satan tries to intimidate us into following him and not “rebelling.”

“You are no match for me.  Just give in” (verses 6-9).

⁶ Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ⁷ But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? ⁸ Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ⁹ How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

I love this one because it is so obviously self-defeating on Satan’s part.  Notice the truth in what the Assyrian general is saying to Hezekiah.  “Don’t think that Egypt can save you!”  Isn’t that exactly what God himself was constantly saying to his people through the prophets?    “Don’t trust in Egypt to save you.  Trust in me.”

“Trusting in Egypt” is relying on our own human resources to combat the temptations and lies that Satan throws at us.  When temptation comes and Satan tries to convince us that we can’t resist and that we should just “go with the flow,” we should see in that lie the very pathway to deliverance.  It’s true, we are no match for him.  We need to look away from ourselves and our ability to “perform” for God.  Our confidence is not in ourselves but in the Lord Jesus.

So the best way to combat this lie is just to decide that no matter what, we are not going to give in to the lie that resistance is futile.  It is not futile because Jesus has won the victory over sin for us.  It’s not a question of how strong we are, but of his already-won victory over sin.

No matter how many times we’ve failed in the past, those failings do not diminish the strength of our captain.  Our hope is not in Egypt (our own resources), but in Jesus.  No matter how many times we must come to the Lord Jesus asking for forgiveness, we are going to hold on to him.

“You’ve come to the Lord too many times for forgiveness” (verse 7).

When we do hold on to Jesus, Satan can then come at us with this next lie.  “But you’ve sinned so many times, what makes you think that Jesus will keep forgiving you?”  Notice how similar this lie is to what the Rabshakeh said in verse seven.

⁷ But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”?

Removing the high places and altars is exactly what Hezekiah should have done, but the general tries to twist this around into a reason that God is not going to help Israel.

In the same way, coming to Jesus for cleansing whenever we sin is exactly what we are commanded to do (1 John 1:9), and yet Satan would have us believe that doing this is going to put us on God’s black list.  He is not happy with us for having asked for his forgiveness so many times.

“You are being punished by God” (verse 10).

¹⁰ Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ”

This was a powerful lie.  The Rabshakeh is saying, “How can you depend on the Lord to save you.  It is the Lord’s doing that I am here to defeat you, so calling on him for help isn’t going to work.”  In the same way, Satan would have us believe that the reason we are struggling with some sin is because we have brought it on ourselves.  Because of our own foolishness we have put ourselves in a no-win situation because God himself is against us.  We have so messed up our lives that God is now no longer willing to save us.  “In fact,” Satan convinces us, “God has determined that you must pay the consequences for this sin.”  This lie then ties in with the first and we are convinced that it really is no use seeking to live in victory over sin because we are under God’s judgment.

But what does the gospel say?  Our sins were placed on Christ (Isaiah 53:4,11-12, Hebrews 9:28)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. (1 Peter 2.24)

The key to not succumbing to this lie is to look to Jesus, who bore our sins for us.  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8.1).

Our response to Satan’s tactics

In addition to what I’ve already pointed out about how we can respond to these lies, there are a couple of observations here in the story itself that can help us in dealing with our enemy.  Verses 21 and 22 record for us how Hezekiah’s servants responded to the Assyrian general:

²¹ But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” ²² Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Don’t answer the enemy

Of course there is a sense in which it is necessary to answer the lies of Satan.  As I’ve pointed out above, we need to quote the Scripture at him the same way Jesus did when he faced him in the desert.  We need to counteract the lies and deceptions of Satan with biblical truth.

But there is also a sense in which we should not answer the enemy.  We cannot allow ourselves to start reasoning with temptation or we will very quickly talk ourselves into (actually, be talked into) doing exactly what we are resisting.  We can so easily convince ourselves that we are “resisting” the enemy when we are actually slowly giving in to his lies and rationalizing ourselves into sin.

You Lord of the Rings fans will recall the voice of Saruman. “Don’t listen to his voice,” Gandalf warned, “lest you come under his spell.”  Saruman had an ability to talk in such a way that made his arguments sound like one’s own.  Beware the voice of Saruman/Satan!

The best, practical way to avoid this is to listen to the voice of God in his Word.  We cannot do better than our Savior who three times defeated Satan by “not answering him a word”, but by listening to what the Father had said in his Word.

Tell it to Jesus

Hezekiah’s servants didn’t respond to the Rabshakeh, but verse 22 says they went and told his words to the King.  We likewise should take the lies of Satan to our King.  Don’t talk to the enemy and certainly don’t talk to yourself about his lies, but go to Jesus and say, “This is what I’m hearing.  These are the temptations I’m facing.  What am I to do?  You are the king; this is your problem and I need you to deal with this because I’m powerless before this powerful enemy.”

Conclusion:

Let’s rebel against the god of this world!  And when the enemy comes with his boasting and posturing and threatening, we will stand in the name of Jesus and see him demonstrate his victory over his enemies!

Crazy Love is written to Christians, but it is a book meant to challenge Christians just as Paul did the Corinthians:  …examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5).  Francis writes in the tradition of A.W. Tozer (quotes him a lot), and like Tozer, he speaks prophetically to the church.   In Chapter four, “Profile of the Lukewarm,” he offers brief descriptions of what a lukewarm Christian life looks like, each of which is followed by a gospel reference that speaks to that particular condition.

This is a biblically rooted call to not just “accept the gospel” as so much modern evangelism calls us to, but to “follow Jesus.”  Francis writes in chapter five, “Serving Leftovers to a Holy God”…

Hear me clearly in this, because it is vital—in fact, there is nothing more important or eternal:  Are you willing to say to God that He can have whatever he wants?  Do you believe that wholehearted commitment to Him is more important than any other thing or person in your life?  Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people He has made?

If the answer to those questions is yes, then let your bet match your talk.  True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity.

I know that this whole swimming-upstream, pursuing-Christ, taking-up-your-cross, counting-the-cost thing isn’t easy.  It’s so hard, in fact, that Jesus said the road is narrow and few will actually find it… and fewer still among those who are ric.  Like the parable of the sower, don’t assume you are the good soil; don’t assume you are one of the few on the narrow way. (p. 97-98)

The diagnosis of spiritual lukewarmness in Crazy Love is often tied with the symptom of how American Christians are handling their wealth.  Chapter seven, “Your Best Life Later” challenges the true believer to use his money, time and resources to “spend himself” for Christ.  We do this as we see those around us as Jesus (based on Matthew 25:37-45) and serve them in love.  Francis wants us to see that the wealth we have been given by God is not just so that we can say, “thank you, God” and then use it for our pleasure.  It is to be used to alleviate poverty and suffering; to serve others in the name of Christ.

All of this Francis enjoins on us not out of duty, but out of love for Jesus, love that is so radical in the world’s eyes that it is seen as “crazy love.”

This book will make you uncomfortable because it forces you to deal with the hard sayings of Jesus and the rest of the Bible.  Following Jesus is a call to die to ourselves and to love God above everything else.  This is a biblical message.

My one disappointment with the book is that while challenging us to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith, and while using the scalpel of the Word of God to cut away at the hypocrisy and lukewarmness that may be infecting our souls, Francis fails to apply the healing balm of the gospel.  I am a firm believer in challenging and questioning those with a false profession of faith who are under the illusion that they are OK because they believe the right things, but who don’t follow Jesus.  But if I am going to make that challenge, I also need to point that person to the gospel which covers our lukewarmness and all our sin and takes it away, empowering us to live like Jesus challenged us to live because it is his life we are living.

I know that Francis believes and preaches this gospel.  I just would have liked to see more of it in the book.   We do not become passionate, radical, sold-out-for-Jesus Christians by feeling guilty that we aren’t giving enough of our time or money.  The fuel of the Christian’s commitment to his Savior is the joy that the gospel brings, not just from the fact that we are forgiven, but also in knowing that our imperfect obedience in this life is covered by the blood of Jesus.  Francis wants us to serve Jesus out of love, but I think he doesn’t give enough weight to that which most moves us to love Jesus more:  seeing and experiencing what he did for us on the cross.

Another reason that the gospel needs to be included in any challenge to radical Christianity is that we will never be radical enough in our obedience to Jesus.  Perfect obedience is unattainable as long as we struggle with indwelling sin–as we grown waiting for the redemption of our bodies.  Ironically, even as Jesus’ gospel challenges us to a total, radical commitment to him, it also forgives us when we fail to live up to that commitment.  In a recent interview, Sandra McCracken (more on her in a later post) had this to say about our failures in the area of social justice:

As a follower of Jesus, social justice is something I am called to do perfectly. I fail. But Jesus has accomplished social justice on my behalf. This reality, like a new birth, liberates me to engage with my neighbours in mercy and humility. In the words of John Bunyan, “Run and work, the law demands. But gives me neither feet nor hands. A better song the Gospel sings, It bids me fly, and gives me wings.”

Knowing that our imperfect obedience is atoned for is not an excuse to ignore the challenges that Jesus gave us to leave everything, take up our cross and follow him—challenges that Francis Chan rightly repeats to us in this generation.  We need to be seeing progress in our lives, a growing Christlikeness that affects our wallets as well as our words.   As I recently showed in my post on Romans 8:5-9, there is no such thing as a “carnal Christian.”  May we, the children of God, in faith aspire to the radical, crazy love that Francis calls us to, and when we don’t see it in our lives, let us cry out to God in repentance and ask him to strengthen and grow that crazy love in us more and more by the power of his shed blood on the cross.

This is not a book of shallow solutions or counseling techniques, but a book that gets to the heart of Christ’s redeeming power. Death by Love explores how the cross of Christ and the atonement that Jesus made there for sins is the solution to the real-life problems that people face.

What makes this book stand out is the way Driscoll has taken real-life experiences of people he has counseled and woven them together with sound biblical instruction on the nature of Christ’s work for us on the cross.

I love the book for the way it presents Jesus in all of his glory as the Savior. He’s Kate’s Savior from satanic torment. He’s Thomas’ Savior from lust. He’s John’s Savior from the sexual sins of his past. He’s Kurt’s Savior from bitterness… But Mark doesn’t just state that Jesus is able to save from these sins, he shows how the atonement Christ made for sin addresses each of these specific situations.

Each of the chapters begins with a brief description of an individual whom Driscoll has counseled. Then he shares a pastoral letter that he has written to address that person’s problem. Each letter portrays a different aspect of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross: redemption, justification, reconciliation, expiation, ransom, just to name a few.

I especially appreciated the chapter on expiation, entitled: “He Raped Me: Jesus is Mary’s Expiation.” After sharing briefly the horrific story of Mary’s relationship with a violent boyfriend in high school and her subsequent struggles because of that relationship, Mark writes a beautiful letter showing from the Scriptures that Jesus died not only to forgive our sins, or to ransom us from sin, or to reconcile us to the Father (all wonderful truths portrayed in other chapters), but also to cleanse us from the stain of sin.

Expiation is just not an aspect of Christ’s work on the cross that we think about very often. While other more celebrated aspects of the atonement address the sins we have committed, expiation is a beautiful concept that can help Mary experience the truth that she has been cleansed and purified from the sins of others against her. Listen to how Mark says it in his letter…

On the cross, Jesus dealt with the sin that has stained your soul. Jesus both forgave your sins at the cross and cleanses you from all sins that you have committed and that have been committed against you.

These sins have resulted in great shame for you, which Jesus also dealt with on the Cross. Sadly, one of the effects of sin is that it has made you feel contempt and disdain for yourself as a despicable person unworthy of love, intimacy, and joy, despite the fact that you are an image bearer of God. Through the cross, though, Jesus Christ has taken your sin and shame away forever. (p. 153)

This book will move you to tears as you see how our sin has wreaked havoc in so many lives, but it will also move you to tears of joy and thanksgiving as you reflect on the incredible redeeming love of God expressed through the Father’s sending of his only begotten Son to die on the cross for us.

How can it be good news to hear that sanctification is basically up to us and that it is possible to live a defeated and “carnal” life as a Christian? As we continue looking at Romans 8, I hope to show you that the whole idea of the “carnal Christian” is a perfidious myth that is keeping many people under the illusion that they are going to heaven when they are actually on their way to hell. This myth also leads true believers away from their simple faith in the cross of Christ and confuses and weakens them as they try to produce spiritual fruit in their own power rather than receiving it by faith in Christ and his finished work on the cross.

Here’s the continuation of Romans 8…

Romans 8.3–9 (ESV)
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Let me remind you what I pointed out last week: When verse four says that Jesus died so that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us,” it is referring to our sanctification—in other words, to righteousness that we actually experience and live out and possess. This is great news for the person who longs to live a life that is pleasing to God. The verse does not promise that this righteousness will be an immediate possession, but it does hold out the promise that the Bible’s description of a holy and righteous life will be in us someday. Based on this promise, the true Christian should expect to see a growth in righteousness over time because this is exactly what Jesus purchased for us through his death on the cross.

The rest of verse four through verse nine describe how this is possible. Let me first try to summarize what these verses are teaching and then show in detail how Paul’s logic works.

Here’s the summary: The Holy Spirit applies in the life of every Christian the victory and power over sin that Christ won on the cross. The Spirit does this by giving the Christian a new mindset, or disposition, to live in a way that pleases God.

Now let’s look at the details.

Paul is talking about two different kinds of people: those who belong to Christ and those who don’t

One of the obstacles to seeing the real power of what Paul is saying here is the stubborn and persistent myth in contemporary Christian thinking that it is possible to be a “carnal Christian”. Based on a misunderstanding of a couple of NT passages, we have fallen for the idea that it is possible to be a Christian and not live like a Christian, even though Jesus on repeated occasions gave a very strict and demanding description of what it means to be his disciple and what it means to be “worthy of him.”

Read through the passage again without this paradigm controlling your interpretation and you will see that Paul is clearly describing two types of people: on the one hand is the person who belongs to Christ and who “has the Holy Spirit” or “is in the Spirit” (verse nine), or as verse five puts it, who “lives according to the Spirit” (KJV—“they that are after the Spirit,” NASB—“those who are according to the Spirit”). On the other hand is the person who does not belong to Christ and who does not have the Spirit (verse nine) and who is described in verse five as one who “lives according to the flesh” (KJV—“they that are after the flesh,” NASB—“those who are according to the flesh”)

Paul describes what keeps the non-Christian who “lives according to the flesh” from living with power over sin.

Verse five describes the unbeliever as one whose mind is set on the things of the flesh. This idea of “mindset” is a difficult concept to translate as can be seen from a comparison of Bible translations. I like the way the NET Bible says it: “those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh.” This is talking about more than just what we choose to fill our minds with in any given moment. It is a worldview, a perspective on things, that is fleshly.

I don’t have time to go into detail on the difference between “flesh” and “Spirit” in Paul’s theology, but I have been greatly helped by Herman Ridderbos and his writings on this. For Paul, the concept of “flesh” refers to the present world order as it is fallen in Adam, whereas the concept of “spirit” refers to the future Kingdom of God as it has now come in Christ.

Paul is not talking in these verses about two different parts of my being: the fleshly part, and the spiritual part (a common but flawed approach to much of Paul’s teaching on sanctification).  So when he says, “who lives according to the flesh,” he is referring to a person who has not yet been brought into the future Kingdom of God—of which the Holy Spirit is the seal and promise. That person is still living according to the present, sin-infested, unredeemed world order.

The problem is not that such a person is totally incapable of any action that is noble or kind or good, but rather that the mindset of such a person is shaped not by what God has done through his Son and is bringing to fulfillment, but by the here and now, by what is humanly attainable apart from the eternal purpose of God to bring glory to his Son.

Paul is not kind in his description of the mindset of the flesh. He says in verse six that it is “death,” in verse seven that it is hostile to God and does not submit to God’s law, and in verse 8 that it is not possible for this person to please God. Why? Because this is a human “works righteousness” that seeks to show God how good we can be rather than receiving in humble faith the righteousness of Christ.

When Christians try really hard to live sanctified lives, apart from what Jesus did on the cross, they are living like this person. Or it may be possible that they really still are this person that Paul describes.

Paul also describes what enables the true Christian to be assured of a life of increasing power and victory over sin.

Just as the mark of the non-Christian (or “pseudo-Christian”) is an outlook, mindset, or disposition to the things of the flesh, so the mark of the true Christian is a new mindset. He is a person who by the indwelling Holy Spirit (verse nine) sees things differently. His worldview is now shaped by the Spirit and he sees himself, the world, sin, and all reality from the Spirit’s viewpoint. Granted, this worldview is not perfectly formed the moment a person receives the Spirit, but the true believer will progressively grow into a spiritual mindset.  Therefore, when instructed in the things of God he accepts that teaching and is steadily transformed by it. Such a mindset leads to life and peace (verse eight). A true believer who has received the Holy Spirit into his life has new desires for righteousness and a growing hatred of sin. He will inevitably grow in grace because the Spirit has given him a new disposition.

Right now my wife is counseling an individual whose life is full of seemingly insurmountable problems arising from this person’s ongoing struggle with sin. But it is interesting to see this individual’s response to the truth. There is an acceptance of Biblical truth, a recognition that God is speaking to her and calling her to repentance and faith. There are godly desires to experience the righteousness of Christ even though this calls for a humbling of self and pride.  There is a desire to hold on only to him and what He has done for her at the cross. Hopefully, as my wife continues to counsel this friend, she will see this holy disposition to righteousness translate into action and real life change. That change may be slow. It may be labored and difficult. It may be accompanied with backsliding, but it will come if she truly belongs to Christ.

I like the way C.E.B. Cranfield says it in his commentary on these verses (emphasis added):

It must surely be said, on the one hand, that no Christian escapes from the hold of sin during this life, that even the very best Christians constantly fall short of God’s righteous requirements, that even the very best things they do are marred by their sinfulness, and that any impression of having attained to a perfect freedom is but an illusion, itself the expression of that very egotism which is the essence of man’s sinfulness. But, on the other hand, it must surely be said that there is such a difference between the believer’s and the unbeliever’s relation to the power of sin as justifies Paul’s use of “has… set… free”. The believer is no longer an unresisting, or only ineffectually resisting, slave. In him a constraint even stronger than that of sin is already at work, which both gives him an inner freedom, so that he already, in so far as the inner man is concerned, delights in God’s law (7.22) and already with his mind is committed to, and serves, it (7.25b). and also enables him to revolt against the usurping power of sin with a real measure of effectiveness. He has received the freedom to fight back manfully. Though the hold of his old master is not yet destroyed, his new – his rightful – Master has a firm hold upon him, and has claimed him for Himself and will not let go His claim. (Cranfield, Romans, p. 175)

Practical applications of these truths:

1. We need to look fruitless “pseudo-Christians” in the eye and challenge them that a confession of faith in Christ without an accompanying growth in grace is an empty confession and does not save.

I do not want anyone to hear in this post that we are justified on the basis of the righteousness that God progressively works into our lives. Not true! We are justified (made completely guiltless) the moment we put our faith in Christ, we do not have to attain to a certain degree of righteousness before we can be sure of our salvation. But justification is always followed by sanctification, which is the evidence that the Holy Spirit is truly present in a person’s life. If there is no evidence of God’s sanctifying work in a person’s life, we need to point them to the truth of Romans 8.1-9

2. We should expect to see new holy desires in our lives and nurture these by thanking God for them and asking him to strengthen them.

According to this passage, the new mindset, or disposition to righteousness that a true Christian experiences is produced by the Holy Spirit. It does not come from the individual. We should humbly thank God, recognizing that apart from his grace our mindset would be only hostility toward God marked by an inability to submit to his law.

One of my greatest frustrations with many Christians today is the refusal to recognize that everything good in us, even down to our very heart motivations comes from God by his grace because of what Jesus did on the cross. Many people think that if we recognize that our heart motivations do not come from us, but from God, it will cause people to just sit back and be passive and say, “well if God doesn’t want to make me holy, I guess I can’t be holy.” But that is convoluted thinking! A person who continues to think that way is in danger of evidencing that they are not really born again—that they have the mindset of the flesh.

Recognizing our dependence on God to give us holy, spiritual desires keeps us humble, it keeps us looking to the cross and what Jesus accomplished for us there. It keeps us living “according to the Spirit” who wants more than anything to glorify the Son and his righteousness by giving it to unworthy sinners.

It is glorifying to God when we confess to him the lukewarmness of our hearts and ask him to make us more passionate for him. Think about it… the very fact that we desire to not be lukewarm is evidence of a spiritual mindset! And our dependence on Jesus to make us passionate Christians is an evidence of our desire to see him glorified as the source of everything good in our lives.

Conclusion:

Romans 8 is such a tremendous chapter because it describes not what we do for God, but what he has done and will do for us. When we make it into a two-way street, as if God needed our help in saving us from ourselves, we rip the hope and the power out of the gospel message. I love verses nine and ten. That “however” is pregnant with hope. It is my hope that as a believer redeemed by Jesus’ cross, I no longer “live according to the flesh” but “according to the Spirit.” I belong to him. I can please him. And I can look forward with a sure and certain hope to the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled in me some day.

Romans 8.9-10 (ESV)
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

With this in mind, let’s look at Romans 8:1-4 (ESV).

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

This passage helps us to understand the relationship between justification and sanctification. Justification is the term the Bible uses to describe God’s work in saving us from the penalty of sin, while sanctification refers to our salvation from the power of sin. In other words, justification speaks to our legal standing of complete righteousness in the sight of God, whereas sanctification has reference to God’s giving us a life that looks more and more like that legal standing.

Verse 1 is a beautiful statement of the justification we have received in Christ. There is “no condemnation”. To be condemned is to be declared guilty. But for those who are in Christ, there is no guilty verdict, only the glorious “not guilty” that God pronounces over us. This is freedom from sin’s penalty. Have you felt the relief of having the penalty of eternal death removed from you?

Moving into verse 2 we begin to see the sanctification that we have received in Christ. What is it that we are “set free” from? It is the “law of sin and death.” Paul is not talking here about the Law of Moses, but rather about the power of sin that keeps us so bound that it can be described as a “law”. Just like laws must be obeyed, sin is a master that we are not free to disobey. Paul refers to the same thing in Romans 7:23 when he says, “I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

The law of sin and death (all sin eventually leads to death) is that which holds us captive. But, “the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” The Holy Spirit who applies in our hearts the life of Christ Jesus is an authority and power greater than that of sin. He is able to set us free.

Now here is where we start to see the relationship between justification and sanctification. Notice that verse 1 (justification) is linked to verse 2 (sanctification) by the word, “for” or “because” (NIV). Paul is not trying to say that verse 2 is the ground or basis upon which we are justified. Rather, he is saying that we are indeed free from condemnation and the evidence of that is the freedom from sin’s power that we have received in Christ. It’s as if he is saying, “There is no condemnation…and here’s the evidence that there isn’t”

Now, why would Paul offer the fact that the Spirit empowers us to live free and holy lives as an evidence of our justification? The answer is in verses 3-4.

Romans 8:3–4 (ESV)
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Here again we have another “for” but this time, it is used not to introduce evidence that verse 2 is true but rather to explain how the justification in verse 1 and the sanctifying power in verse 2 have come about. God, through sending his Son to die as a sin offering, has condemned sin. Jesus’ death on the cross as our substitute is the ground or basis upon which we are justified (v.1), but it is equally true that Jesus death on the cross is also the basis upon which we are sanctified (v.2)

You can see this so clearly as you continue reading into verse 4. Why did God send his Son to condemn sin in the flesh? “In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” In other words, Jesus’ death on the cross is not just to free us from sin’s penalty, but also to free us from sin’s power–to enable us to live the righteous life that the Law of God requires of us. Both justification and sanctification are rooted in what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

So what then is the relationship between the two? Namely this, there is no justification without sanctification. You cannot get justification from Christ without also getting sanctification. If someone claims that their sins are forgiven because they have trusted in Christ for salvation but then lives in sin, evidencing no power over sin, then that person has a false assurance of salvation.

So when Paul says, “…us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit,” he is not contrasting Christians who walk according to the spirit with Christians who walk according to the flesh. It is not that Christians are able to live in some kind of neutral ground with respect to sin and choose whether or not to walk according to the Spirit. There are not certain higher-level Christians who walk according to the Spirit while others haven’t quite figured that out yet. To walk according to the Spirit is the definition of being a Christian.

Lest you think that I am setting the bar too high here, listen to what the respected Presbyterian pastor James M. Boice says.

“…if we are not living a new life in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, it is not simply that we are unfulfilled or defeated Christians. We are not Christians at all! … it is only “those who are led by the Spirit of God” who are the “sons of God” (v. 14). Many who are not living by the Spirit need to awaken to the fact that they are not truly Christians (Boice, J. M. (1991-). Romans (784). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House.)

While seeing this relationship between justification and sanctification should be a wake-up call to the lukewarm Christian, it should also be an encouragement to the struggling Christian. The point here is not to heap guilt on a person that is trying very hard to live a sanctified life. Rather, the point is to help that person see that just as they look to Christ in faith for deliverance from sin’s penalty, they can also have every confidence that Jesus will also grant freedom from sin’s power. Indeed he already has granted that freedom! “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” It is past tense. Completed!

This is the gospel for Christians. Look to the cross of Christ. That is your victory over the sin you are struggling with. Put your faith in Jesus today and tomorrow and every day until he comes, just as you did on the day you first trusted him.