Melchizedek 3

 Melchizedek 3

Before going a step further, I simply must revisit a point mentioned fleetingly above and even, in a way, backtrack on it.

I mentioned an "objection" possibly coming from the other side concerning Jesus' priesthood, inasmuch as Jesus was not from the priestly tribe. 

On the other hand, the issue at stake here is probably not whether or not Jesus COULD be God's ultimate high priest, the "officiator" of the ultimate atonement. It is very likely that the epistle's immediate audience were convinced by the supernatural events accompanying the Crucifixion, centrally the rending of the temple veil, that the Holy of Holies had been breached by the Blood of the Lamb and that only the Lamb Himself could also have been the unseen Priest accomplishing the act. 

The Hebrews writer, therefore, is using his readers' own certainty against them (more properly put, against their error, out of love for them), and he is doing so mercilessly, leaving them no out. "You can't have it both ways" is the essence of this argument. If Jesus is the supreme High Priest of the Final Atonement, as we all agree, then you who try to subject Him to the Law and squeeze this new covenant into the parameters, purview and prerogatives of the Law have a HUGE problem: Jesus' high priesthood is, going strictly by the law, ILLEGAL. He is not a Levite. But that's only half of your problem, Law-Gospel faction. Here is the other half....

The LAW and the TEXT, in "letter" and "spirit," utterly and conclusively DISALLOW any Levite, any priest after Aaron's order, ever to become this ultimate High Priest. Not only is Jesus "barred," as it were (unless He had incarnated as a Levite, but as you will see, He not only didn't, but COULDN'T), from service as a priest within the parameters of the Law, but the Levites are barred, by the very law that makes them priests, from EVER being the ultimate Lamb and Priest "who takes away the sins of the world." Yes, indeed, the Law of God prohibited Jesus from performing "levitical" priesthood at the same time as it prohibited any Levite from ever being the Messiah. If it's "illegal" for Jesus to be a levitical priest, it's also "illegal" for a Levite, in a manner of speaking, to be Jesus. (You see where this is going, I trust.) 

Just as Christ the Lamb was sacrificed outside the city walls, the Atonement ultimately was realized outside the construct of the levitical priesthood. The "shadow of things to come" was not simply aspects of the Law prefiguring even greater things to be fulfilled within the Law's parameters; no, the whole Law itself was the shadow of greater things to come (or, as the writer puts it elsewhere, "the better covenant"). 

But I have failed to state why all of this is so. The reason for all the "illegality," why Jesus can't be a Levite and a Levite could never be "Jesus," is this: the Law STATES, and the Hebrews writer reiterates, that all the priests under the Law must (note, this is not optional, not an afterthought, but directly required) bring sacrifices for...their own sins. That's it. Jesus, the Sinless Lamb, could never do that. Though Jesus fulfilled the Law in His sinlessness, there is an aspect of the Law He could never have carried out: to bring sacrifice first for His own sins and then for the the sins of the people. He didn't have any, so He couldn't. You can't get around it. It's an explicit divine command: bring sacrifice first for your own sins, Levites. Jesus is categorically excluded forever; He can never be a Levite. And no Levite can ever be the Sinless Lamb (not to put too fine a point on it, we may justifiably say that the Law REQUIRES Levites to be sinners!). 

The writer covers these points in verses 27-28. 

And this is WHY, the writer insists, in this ingenious argument, that God "needed" a priesthood that was "other" than any priesthood the Law ever contemplated or was competent to contain within itself. The implicit point, that would not have been lost on these readers, is that, if the whole CRUX of the Atonement DEMANDS such an "outside-the-box" priesthood, then what on EARTH are you thinking about, Law-Gospel Faction, when you try to squeeze the LIFE of the "better" New Covenant (foretold by Jeremiah) into your fleshly, earthly, outmoded (and I mean that in the highest sense, the transcendant "mode" having burst into our world in the Son) precepts? 

Speaking of "life," several times in this chapter the writer, again mercilessly, injects the "life" mode into the conversation. He's determined not to let his readers off the hook. Christ is RISEN. He is ALIVE. Levites die and die and die and die. If for that reason alone Jesus can't be a Levite! He only died once (just as all must die once...) and passed His priesthood on to...NOBODY. Indeed, His priesthood was realized precisely IN His death and, by His resurrection, became unpassing, fixed eternally, His alone. There is no provision for anything of the sort in the Law. This nuance is perhaps somewhat connected to the writer's surprising, seeming non sequitur of an analogy, i.e., about a will and the death of the testator. The analogy is jarring, being a sudden by-the-way kind of example taken from the daily lives of writer and reader in their own time, with no apparent connection to the scriptural argument. Yet the constant "life and death" mode of this chapter, the implicit issue being what a death, or the absence of a death, MEANS, does make sense of why the illustration would have come to the writer's mind. Melchizedek's lack of a literary/revelatory death MEANS something (only revealed later on). Jesus' conquering life, never to die again, MEANS something. The fact that this life could come ONLY through death, THE death, MEANS something. And the object lesson of a will crystallizes the point handily: the death of a Levite or a mortal High Priest conveyed the Law-bound offices to the next generation. The death of Christ conveys nothing of the sort. There is no parallel, no symmetry, no yin and yang. There is only transcendence here, the transcendence of an inextinguishable LIFE, which the writer underlines repeatedely in this chapter, overtly or by implication (vv. 3, 8, 16, 24, 25, 28). And (compare the argumentation of Paul in Galatians) the point that must have been screamingly implicit between the writer and readers here was this: IF this LIFE has already been RECEIVED by the testator's heirs, i.e., by ALL the believers in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, then by what possible criteria can you demand of the Gentile believers something more in order to gain the LIFE they already HAVE? (That is the whole crux of Paul's argument in Galatians, which is why Hebrews strikes me as so powerfully Pauline, in terms of its deep logic and theological horizon; if Paul didn't write it, as for various reasons it is said he didn't, I would argue at the very least that writing a letter like this was not "beyond his pay scale," he was certainly competent to write in terms like these to his fellow Jews, adopting a style radically different from that of his letters to Gentile believers). 

It occurs to me that one might, in our day, object: "But if you say Jesus could never have fulfilled the commandment to bring sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the nation's, doesn't that completely invalidate the idea Christians love to tout, that Jesus fufilled the whole law? Doesn't the entire premise of his supposed 'perfect righteousness' come crashing down on that point?" The thoughtful answer to that is, of course: "Poppycock." The objection doesn't even work on its own premises: "Ah ha, so you're saying that because of Jesus' sinlessness He must have gotten something WRONG, precisely by failing to bring sacrifice for His...er, sins." 

How can sinlessness be a fault, a failure to live up to the standards of God's righteousness? Such an argument is on the same level of absurdity as the argument that, because some of the witnesses didn't exactly sync in their timetables, Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead. 

Fulfilling the Law NEVER meant doing absolutely everything the Law mentions. There are tons of things in the Law that Jesus never did, things that were contingent on peculiar occurences or were "if"-commands, i.e., "if and when A happens, then you must do B." (Note, however, that the command to the Levites never says, "If you have any sins..."; rather, the entire construct of the role itself is bound up with the offering of sacrifice first for their own sins.) And even deeper than that, there were commandments in the Law that Jesus didn't need to execute precisely because His holiness made them moot. When Jesus touched a leper, rather than needing to undergo His own ceremonial cleasing He made the leper clean. If anyone had wanted to accuse Jesus of law-breaking, all Jesus had to do was say, "Fine. Show me the unclean man I touched. Where is he?" How can the living Cleansing Himself be unclean? One goes, after all, to God for cleansing. The contact doesn't make God unclean. But now we are getting into other nuances, nuances that surely hover around everything going on here between this writer and his readers. 

To wrap this all up.... I mentioned in Part 2 that God made the Melchizedek Event "worse" by making it "blatant." I was referring of course to Psalm 110:4. That is a simply shattering, devastating, catastrophic divine utterance for the Law-Gospel position. The explicit pronouncement by God that there IS (not was but is) an "order of Melchizedek," that He will make a mysterious Someone "priest forever" in this order, and the divine seal and imprimatur that "he has sworn and will not change his mind" leaves NO out, no exit, no wiggle room. In verse 28 the writer gives the knife a last twist by reminding the readers that this "solemn affirmation" came "after the law." In other words, if it wasn't "bad enough" that the Melchizedek Event preceded the Law and just "hung there" as an utter inexplicable anomaly  unprovided for in the Law, the conundrum is magnified exponentially by God's overt endorsement and elevation of the event "after the Law," i.e., once again outside the box, seemingly detached from and independent of the Law's provisions. Were it not for Psalm 110:4, one might say the event in Genesis was a one-off, an outlier, a pre-Law approximation of something to be better established by the Law itself. One might even have looked at Melchizedek as a prefiguring of the Levites and the Davidic dynasty (though how the Levites and Davidic dynasty could, in Abraham, have given Melchizedek a tithe and been blessed by him would remain an uncomfortable and awkward aspect of the matter). But God's pronouncement of the Melchizedek Order AFTER the Law, seemingly as if the Law never existed and there were no such thing as Aaron, the Levites, the Tabernacle, borders on theological incoherence, chaos. It makes no sense at all. Certainly it makes no sense of the TEXT and the LAW. Not, at least, until the Answer, the Word, becomes flesh and accomplishes what no one could have foreseen, and makes sense of everything. As only God could have. 

Sense. Sense indeed. It is to come back to their Christ-enlightened senses that the writer begs his readers in this epistle. If he is merciless and unsparing in his argumentation, it is because life and death are at stake, and the Truth cannot be the pawn of religio-cultural sensibilities. It doesn't MATTER if you don't like the inextinguishable life of the better covenant poured out in grace on all who receive Him. It doesn't MATTER if you hoped it would be otherwise. It doesn't MATTER if Jesus shatters the neat category your minds had carved out for Messiah. NONE of that matters. God is not the servant of either your categories or your comfort. Our God is a consuming fire, and it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The Lord Jesus never apologized to anyone for touching (and by the way cleansing) the unclean leper. The living God never apologizes to anyone for raising up to Himself "a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek" and through Him ushering in "the better covenant." As we say today, "You can't argue with success." Theologically speaking, you can never ever impeach the "Son made perfect forever." 

Melchizedek 2

So in that light we look at Hebrews 7. It is an exquisitely fine, inspired (in every sense of the word) piece of argumentation aimed at its particular immediate audience--an audience perfectly competent to register, if not appreciate, not only every overt point but the string of between-the-lines implications. 

Before we go on, give a thought to this: who are these Gospel-of-the-Law adherents teetering on schism from the Church of the apostles? These are men who have paid a price for their faith in Jesus. These are very likely old "school pals" of a person like Saul of Tarsus. They all know each other by name, and have histories together. These "Christian Chasidim" could have suffered threat to their very lives coming from Paul before Paul's conversion, when he was hellbent on the obliteration of the Way. They would consider themselves Paul's elder brothers in the faith of Jesus, certainly not indebted to him in the least; if anything, he ought to accord them a certain reverence for their prior wisdom, their suffering at his hands, and their magnanimity in forgiving him when he, too, finally saw the Light. These are not people to whom any of the fine points of the Law or its relevance to the person of Christ are obscure. The writer of Hebrews knows this full well. He weaves oblique allusions, subtle ironies, even what one might call rather abstruse extrapolations of principle into his argument, appearing (so it seems to me) to do so with perfect confidence that his readers are going to GET IT. 

Mostly, to the point here, the Hebrews writer knows why the Melchizedek Argument is going to knock the wind right out of these men. It is simply shattering. 

While we may revel in the shattering brilliance of the argument, we ought also to register the heart-wrenching tragedy that the whole situation has reached this stage, this impasse. The writer is addressing his fellow sufferers for Jesus, people he's prayed with, supped with,  wept with, shared the wonder of the Resurrection with, and they are about to shake the dust off their feet and abandon him and the Church forever. To say the least, they are not enjoying this, either. They never wanted it to come to this. But they are sure they're right and they cannot back down. Consider the blank wilderness that confronts them, too, if they finalize this break. To be no longer part of the Church of Christ's apostles, yet unable ever to fully meld back into their old Jewish milieu because of the faith they once professed, a faith they likely continue to hold, in their own way, in Jesus. They will not be welcome in the old neighborhood. Nobody is having fun here. 

We need first to dismiss the notion that the writer is actually pointing to Melchizedek as a Christophany, a supernatural manifestation of the pre-incarnate Son. That's not what he means by Melchizedek's being without beginning or end, without parentage. (Supporting this, by the way, is the fact that it would be an intolerable tautology for Christ to be appointed a priest forever in the order of...well, Christ, if you start with the notion that Melchizedek is Christ. No, it simply doesn't work.) The writer is pointing out that this Melchizedek is what we might call today totally non-contextual. He doesn't fit anywhere (including--take note--the Mosaic Law, a point surely not lost on the first readers). He pops up for one moment in the sacred history, designated a priest and king, with titles that etymologically resound with Righteousness and Peace, he blesses...as if he had the authority to do so...Abraham and, prospectively in Abraham genetically speaking, all Israel (and, we should add, all of Abraham's children by faith--hardly reading too much into it, considering Paul's Epistle to the Galatians), and then disappears into nowhere. He is, in the revelatory history, without beginning or end, father or mother, birth or death, or genealogy of any kind.  He's utterly anomalous, not just because the Scripture doesn't include his detailed bio (there are many others like that, after all) but because someone so anomalous and unexplained dares to play such an exalted role, and with God's full backing. There was literally no explaining it...at least, not until Christ appeared and BECAME the necessary, "ah hah!" context that had been missing. But that's where this is heading, and I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, back to the text. Not a verse-by-verse, word-by-word study of Hebrews 7 but an attempt to grasp what the writer is "really saying," as it were, to his readers between the lines. Or to put it another way, how this chapter answers the objections and arguments we can deduce, actually FROM this chapters and other NT passages, that these "Christian Chasidim" were firing at the Gospel of Grace, of Promise, of Faith. 

Melchizedek is a BIG PROBLEM. First, because his fleeting appearance as priest, king, blesser, and receiver of tithes is utterly anomolous and, like God's promise to Abraham (see Galatians!), precedes the Law. Whatever this event means, it isn't Law-dependent. Its parameters (again, like the Promise) are completely different; if anything, its parameters envelop, and therefore exceed, the Law. 

Melchizedek is "like the son of God" in that, like Adam the son of God, he comes out of nowhere in the text. And boy does he grab the stage before completely disappearing from the story! It is vitally important for us to get our heads around why this is SO important in the fierce theological battle raging between this writer and his audience. To many of us today,  I suspect, the notion that the writer is "merely" talking about the literary context ("Melchizedek pops up suddenly in the text and just as suddenly pops out of it--wow!") seems like a pasty, boring Wonder-Bread sort of interpretation compared to the far more exotic, mystical alternative, that Melchizedek is a Christophany. But such an impression arises from a disastrous failure to register what a life-and-death issue the TEXT and the LAW were to this writer's readers. There is nothing "mere" about this to them! This TEXT is the Word of God (remember?) telling us that this man Melchizedek is a priest and king of the Most High God, a figure enjoying status and prerogative to bless the father of faith, Abraham and, by association, all the children of Abraham, including all those who will become, by faith, children to the the "father of all nations" (do you catch the scintillating hints lurking here, behind nearly every utterance, that would have tortured the sensibilities of this epistle's first readers?), and the TEXT is saying all this about Melchizedek wildly outside the least context of LAW, the holy law of God given to Moses wherein (ostensibly alone) all legitimate designation of priesthood might be found. Melchizedek is, frankly, an existential crisis for the coherency of God's Word...unless something comes along to make sense of him. 

So, no, there's nothing "mere" about the Melchizedek Conundrum, even dismissing the notion of Christophany. What the conundrum says about the text, the law, and the divine plan of redemption is literally life-and-death stuff for both the writer and his readers. This is a hill worth dying for. 

Throughout this entire argument, the challenge resonating between the lines is, "You can't make sense of Melchizedek without Jesus, and if you can't make sense of him, you can't make sense of anything else--it ALL falls apart...so if you abandon Jesus, what have you got left to go back to?" 

This is NOT, by the way, because Melchizedek is a "proof text." There are no scriptures that "proved" Jesus. On the contrary, Jesus proved the scriptures. The very event He represents (as scholars like to put it, "the Christ-Event"), unveiled the truths that were "lurking" there in the sacred history all along. Without Jesus, no one would, in all likelihood, have really understood what a conundrum Melchizedek was. But as we like to say these days, there are those things that, once you've seen them, you can't un-see them. Jesus reveals and resolves the Melchizedek Conundrum all at once. Because of Him, you SEE it and it make sense. As C.S. Lewis said of his faith, he believed in Christ as he believed in the sunrise--not only because he could see it but because, by it, he could see everything else.

The hint in verse 6 is devastating: "Melchizedek who does not share their ancestry...." Just like the floods of unwashed Gentiles streaming into the people of Christ, uncircumcized, eating unclean meats, not observing the sacred feasts and holy days. This text is so loaded with hot-button triggers it ain't funny (not funny at all, actually). We'd have had to be inside those readers' heads to fully "feel" how devastating a text this is. 

If these "Christian Chasidim" were writhing with aggravation at "goyim" claiming to be "the children of Abraham," then you can very well sense what an infuriating hint it was for this writer to underline the fact that Melchizedek, a king, priest of the Most High God, blesser of--hence superior to--Father Abraham, "does not share" the ancestry, not only of the Levites but of ANY of the Jews. 

To put it mildly, this is no warm-up to any suggestion by the writer that "hey, fellas, maybe we can meet each other halfway on this?" It's only going to get (depending on your point of view) worse. 

In verse 8 the writer "handles" Melchizedek as only a Jewish mind steeped in the study of, and rhetoric of, the Law possibly could. And as only such a Jewish mind also steeped in Christ Himself could. With a stiletto-like thrust he refers to Melchizedek as "alive," in contrast to the "mortal" Levites who go on and on receiving tithes from the people. So what's the stiletto-like point here? And in what sense can we possibly call Melchizedek "alive"?  Well, he's "alive" because he never dies in the text! Again, don't pooh-pooh that as ridiculously obvious, or "scraping." The writer clearly doesn't consider it that because he's walloping his readers over the head with it. Again, this is all about the TEXT and the LAW and what that means about GOD. Melchizedek came from no order (like the Dominicans or the Franciscans or the Levites). The text says nothing about the beginning or end of his priesthood, or rules of succession or inheritance. Unlike the "mortal" Levites, Melchizedek has no antecedents or heirs in the sacred history. He is, as it were, a timeless event. We never see him dead in the story. The Levites, we see them regularly dying and passing on their apparently endless labor of sacrifice from one generation to the next, all as neatly outlined in the Law. Melchizedek, outside the Law and superior to Abraham, transcends all such orders or sequence. That's...a problem. A big one. The Law makes no provision for it. What, therefore, IS it? 

And God made the problem only worse. Thank God. 

But before we discuss how God made it "worse," let's quickly point out the obvious: the double entendre is hardly subtle in the reference to Melchizedek as "alive." If Melchizedek remains forever alive "literarily," the Risen Christ is explosively, shatteringly, forever alive LITERALLY, and the thrumming-throbbing resonances between the Melchizedek Event and Christ the Event of all events come crashing in, overwhelming the epistle's readers. For that is always and endlessly the inescapable FACT: Jesus is alive, and no Law encompasses or controls that great Fact of all facts any more than the Law could prescribe or control Melchizedek. Until you have seen Christ like that, you can never see Melchizedek either. 

Well, that would already have been quite enough of a conundrum, I suppose, but wouldn't you know it: God wasn't satisfied to "leave well enough alone." He chose to go full-on blatant. Just in case, I am surmising, none of us would have gotten the point otherwise.

Which we probably wouldn't have. 

With a tone I am tempted to call mischievous, the writer sneaks up to his next, devastating point by provoking something like cognitive dissonance first. He asks why, if the Levitical priesthood is so great ("perfect"), God would need to establish a different priesthood? 

"Wait, what are you talking about? WHAT different priesthood?" 

"Hey, I'm really glad you asked that. I did mention this already but maybe you weren't reading closely. Psalm 110:4? Remember? 'You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek'?"

And when you work out the terribly close-knit logic of what the writer is saying  in Hebrews 7:11-17 (in the course of which he leaves much unsaid, knowing his first readers are filling it in even as they grind their teeth), it seems to come out like this: 

"God said He'd make Somebody Else into a DIFFERENT KIND of priest, an eternal one, completely outside the order of the Law. That's the order of Melchizedek. If God NEEDED a priest outside the order of the Law and the Levites, it was because the order of the Law and the Levites was NEVER competent to get the REAL THING that had to be done, DONE. God made Jesus (Who all this was really written about) that High Priest. And THAT, my dear, beloved, erring brothers, is the answer to your objection that Jesus can't be the Priest of God since He's not from the tribe of Levi. Guess what: Melchizedek wasn't EITHER. And Jesus is the FULFILLMENT of God's oath to make Someone Else a priest of Melchizedek's order, and the REALIZATION of the fact that the priesthood of Christ and the Promise to Abraham BOTH precede, transcend, exceed and are therefore superior to the Law." 

Next: Melchizedek 3

Melchizedek 1

The whole "Melchizedek" argument of the Hebrews writer is far deeper than one assumes at first glance. And it seems clear that the writer "goes there" because, under the leading of God's Spirit, he knows precisely how critically important, and vitally true, this is. And he knows, too, that his particular immediate audience of readers, i.e., Hebrew Christians who are teetering on the edge of apostasy, desperately needs to grasp it. 

Had it not been for this crisis in the early Church, one that is reflected far more broadly in NT texts than, again, a superficial glance would suggest, we might never have heard of this "Melchizedek" argument, as there would have been no compelling need for an "Epistle to the Hebrews." But this crisis was the Church's first, internal, existential threat, a conflict not only starkly evident in the Epistle to the Galatians but one that rears its ugly head also in Acts, echoes between the lines (not very subtly when you know what to look for) in Romans as well as providing a certain flavor, a tinge, to other texts, including probably the Gospels, in particular Matthew and John. 

Chapter 7 of Hebrew dives headfirst into the "Melchizedek" argument, though the writer passingly referred to it once or twice earlier in the epistle. In chapter seven he finally gives full vent to it. 

To the faction of Hebrew Christians--largely, I speculate, converts from the Pharisees (the "Chasidim" of their day)--several developments in the Christian Church's early days gradually triggered a growing unease and ambivalence about their newfound faith in the Risen Messiah Jesus. 

One of these was, I deduce from hints in the NT, a growing horror at the still primitive, theologically unformulated but pervasive regard for Jesus as essential deity, "one with the Father," in short God. Jesus was called "Lord," He was prayed to, Old Testament passages unquestionably describing Yahweh were routinely ascribed to Jesus--the implication was blatant. It seems this was more than they thought they were buying into when they finally believed in Jesus (likely, I again speculate, in response to the overwhelming evidence of His resurrection along with the manifestations following Pentecost). 

Another was their horror at what they interpreted as libertinism and sacrilege in the "goyim," Gentiles, coming into the "Church," which to them would be the perfected Israel, the People of Messiah, without a full-fledged conversion to law-observant Judaism. Their faith in Jesus had never supplanted the supreme place accorded to The Law in their hearts. As one excellent commentator put it, if Paul understood the law as given in order to lead us to Christ, the party of the Law-based Gospel in the early Church understood Christ as having been given to lead the world to the Law. 

The Mosaic Law enjoying such supremacy in their view, it is easier to grasp why any implication of Christ's deity would have been anathema to them, since, were He God, He would simply have to be, ipso facto, supreme over the Law itself. Because nobody and nothing but God is greater than God's holy Law. You could not admit Christ's deity without shattering the whole paradigm of your Gospel of the Law. The interplay between these two objections shows them to be fundamentally one at core. 

Hebrews is addressed to this party, this faction, in the early Church; they are on the brink of abandoning Jesus entirely. In modern parlance, they've had it. They see they are on the losing side, frustrated in their zealous effort to instill their "Gospel" in the Church and preach it among the Gentiles, and, therefore, furious. The inflow of unwashed Gentiles is only gathering force, which repels them to the core of their being. And, again, this whole thing about Jesus as "Lord" is increasingly unsettling and ominous. So, they're nearly out the door, it's virtually a done deal. The author of Hebrews is writing in something near desperation--the desperation of love--to stop them from quitting Jesus. Or, even if they had every intention of carrying on in their "Christian faith," only of the flavor they considered correct, then we can say the Hebrews author is writing, in love's desperation, to stop them from quitting the REAL Jesus (compare Paul's fiery denunciation of "another Jesus, another gospel"). 

In the course of this appeal, the author brings up this simply fascinating, actually stunning, argument about Melchizedek. It seems to come out of NOWHERE, and some might accuse it of being frivolous, fanciful, an instance of "scraping...." 

From a quick review I see that every NT reference to Christ's priestly role is in Hebrews. Without this epistle the whole idea, at least overtly (apart from places in John where Jesus announces He will be praying to the Father for His disciples), would be absent from the New Testament. Plus, the single OT reference to some mysterious, unnamed figure some time becoming a "priest" outside the entire order of the Law, that is, in the order of Melchizedek, would remain a loose end, a trail going nowhere, an anomaly. 

Theologically speaking, the Christian Church could have "lived without," would not have crashed without, the whole notion of Christ as the High Priest; that is, had the NT never mentioned it, we would have muddled along satisfactorily on the understanding that Jesus was "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" and not have worried our heads over who or where the "high priest" was or fit in this equation. In other words, the absence of an overtly indicated Ultimate High Priest in the final Atonement would not have crippled our redemption theology. 

The absence of such an overt teaching in the NT would not, of course, have meant that Christ WASN'T God's Ultimate High Priest; it would simply have meant that the Church went on unaware of the fact. 

All of which makes the Hebrews writer's resort to such a "peripheral," some say frivolous and doubtful argument in the face of such a dire, life-and-death crisis so astounding. The only sensible conclusion is that the writer doesn't see the argument as peripheral, frivolous or doubtful in the least. To him, it is actually the entire, indispensable crux of the matter. It is the sine qua non, the Hinge. 

Such a realization makes you sit up and take a fresh, even startled, look at this whole thing about Melchizedek. 

End of Part 1.

Truth is Reality, Part II

 Several months ago I preached a short, simple sermon based on one simple idea: "Truth is Reality." Perhaps you remember it. The sermon included twelve places from Sacred Scripture in which rech' shla [we were talking] about truth. I adduced these twelve places to illustrate that, in each instance, the word "truth" could be taken as referring to reality, i.e., to the order of things, to the way things really are. I was trying to emphasize the fact that when we talk about "truth," and when in fact God's Word talks about "truth," ne imeetsa v vidu [we don't mean] simply some kind of religious idea or point of view, ne imeetsa v vidu simply our Christian doctrines or rules. No. Having been summoned into new life in Christ, we have entered into reality, we have been reconciled with the actual order of God's creation. God has extracted us out of illusion and self-deception and transferred us into healing and healthy reality. 

And at such a price! This of course talks about God's love! I will say more about this today, because, really, this sermon is the second part of that sermon. A second part was very necessary. Why? Because that sermon was only one side of the medal. Why only one side of the medal? 

Here's why: having said that "Truth equals Reality," we could content ourselves with the thought, "Oh! Well, that makes everything easier. Truth is simply reality, that which is real. And I understand reality wonderfully well, therefore 'Truth' is, for me, an elementary thing!" 

No. Otnyud' net. [No way!]

Having said that "Truth equals reality", we must assert the other, vitally important, side of the medal: "Reality immeasurably transcends your comprehension." 

To know that God's Truth is perfect reality does not, by far, mean that you and I have wholly penetrated and grasped that reality--no, not even after we have entered into that truth. Yes, we can be certain that, in Christ, we are "home," where we are ultimately safe, where we are reconciled to the reality, to the life and to the love for which our Creator created us. But this does not mean that we have already ispytali dlya sebya ves' dom [experience the whole house], that we know to the end all of its rooms and corridors and windows and stairs. In other words, we are only beginning, and the path ahead of us is unending. To say that "Truth equals Reality"--this is not a recipe for complacency--"Oh good, now I know Truth." No, it is, rather, a challenge to go forward, with confidence and courage in our Savior, trusting Him to keep on unfolding us how a life reconciled to the truth must look, must develop, must reflect the heavenly Father. 

Very simply, this means that to follow Christ means constantly to follow Him into places that you didn't know about yet. There is the paradox; when we come into life in Christ, we come into the truth about which we know almost nothing. We are in the truth, in Christ, yet we are finding out about the truth, in Christ, forever! 

The rest of our life is a constant process of discovery. This is called our "walk in Christ." Yes, in Christ we are on the true path:  Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life."   But the path inevitably leads us ahead into unknown territory. That's what it means to walk by faith (i.e., in Him), not by sight (i.e., on our own understanding). 

Recently I was having an online conversation with our friend Chip Heim, and we were talking about these things. He raised many examples from the life of Christ, in particular how Christ showed love, examining how the path of love in Christ will contain much variety and many surprising and unexpected manifestations. 

That same evening, when Jesus told his disciples "I am the way, the truth and the life," he also told them,  "Love one another as I have loved you." 

Which raises the question: How did Jesus love? When we trace those many ways in which Jesus demonstrated love, we begin to understand that to walk with Christ means to constantly discover more and more reality about which we understood little before. And it is precisely this that makes life rich and deep. 

Let's look at some of the demonstrations of love by Jesus: 

unpredictable: he touched a leper (Matthew 8:1)

shocking: he washed feet (John 13:1-17) 

brave: he healed on the Sabbath in front of the powerful critics (Mark 3:1-6)

patient: "Have I been so long with you, Philip?" (John 14:9)

non-standard: dinner with Zaccheus, the calling of Levi (Luke 19:1-10; Mark 2:13-17)

violated socio-religious prejudices: talking with the Samaritan woman; praising the Roman centurion (John 4, Matthew 8)

puzzling: "Get behind me, Satan!", "Whoever would follow me must hate...." (Matt. 16:23; Luke 14:26)

humble: on the cross, "behold your mother" (John 19:27)

uncompromising: Matthew 23

observant and sensitive: the widow and her mite (Mark 12:41 ff.)

welcoming: "Come to me, all who are weary....", "Whoever comes to me I will not reject" (Matt. 11:28; John 6:37)

Such was the behavior of Him who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" and also said, "Love one another as I have loved you." His behavior corresponded to the highest reality and the purest holiness, but all the same to many his behavior was inscrutable, shocking, disturbing, non-standard, even offensive. Why? Because of their limitations. Because of their prejudices. Because of their closed hearts. 

Yet, when the Lord asked them,   "Which of you will convict me of sin?", no one could. They couldn't because, finally, everything that Christ did was true. But who could have predicted such a life, such a truth, such a way? No one. 

And so, now I have said a few words about "the other side of the medal." It was necessary to say it. Truth is reality, and glory to God that, now, in Christ, we have been reconciled with reality, our true home. But as said the apostle Paul, "I do not consider myself to have attained it all," likewise we must always recognize our walk with Christ is a walk of discovery, of challenges, of learning and revelation, of continually unfolding reality, of constant, brave striving forward, by faith and not by sight. He is our Reality, and we will forever be uznavat' [finding out] about Him and posnavat' [personally knowing] Him. 

Несколько месяцев назад я прочитал короткую простую проповедь, основанную на одной простой идее: «Истина есть реальность». Возможно, вы это помните. Проповедь включала двенадцать мест из Священного Писания, в которых речь шла об истине. Я привел эти двенадцать мест, чтобы проиллюстрировать, что в каждом случае слово «истина» может быть воспринято как относящееся к реальности, то есть к порядку вещей, к тому, как вещи есть на самом деле. Я пытался подчеркнуть тот факт, что когда мы говорим об «истине» и когда на самом деле Слово Божье говорит об «истине», не имеетса в виду просто какая-то религиозная идея или точка зрения, не имеетса в виду просто наш христианин. доктрины или правила. Нет. Призванные к новой жизни во Христе, мы вошли в реальность, мы примирились с действительным порядком Божьего творения. Бог извлек нас из иллюзий и самообмана и перенес в исцеляющую и здоровую реальность. И такой ценой! Это, конечно, говорит о любви Бога! Я скажу об этом больше сегодня, потому что, на самом деле, эта проповедь является второй частью той проповеди. Вторая часть была очень нужна. Зачем? Потому что эта проповедь была только одной стороной медали. Почему только одна сторона медали? Вот почему: сказав, что «Истина равна Реальности», мы могли бы удовлетвориться мыслью «О! Что ж, это все упрощает. Истина - это просто реальность, то, что реально. И я прекрасно понимаю реальность, поэтому« Истина » 'для меня элементарная вещь! " Нет. Отнюдь нет. Сказав, что «Истина равна реальности», мы должны заявить о другой, жизненно важной стороне медали: «Реальность неизмеримо превосходит ваше понимание». Знание того, что Истина Бога - это совершенная реальность, далеко не означает, что мы с вами полностью проникли и постигли эту реальность - нет, даже после того, как мы вошли в эту истину. Да, мы можем быть уверены, что во Христе мы «дом», где мы в конечном счете в безопасности, где мы примирились с реальностью, с жизнью и любовью, ради которых наш Создатель создал нас. Но это не значит, что мы уже испытали для себя весь дом, что мы знаем до конца все его комнаты и коридоры, окна и лестницы. Другими словами, мы только начинаем, и путь впереди бесконечен. Сказать, что «Истина равна Реальности» - это не рецепт для самоуспокоения - «О, хорошо, теперь я знаю Истину». Нет, это, скорее, вызов - идти вперед с уверенностью и мужеством в нашем Спасителе, доверяя Ему продолжать раскрывать нам, как должна выглядеть жизнь, примиренная с истиной, должна развиваться, должна отражать Небесного Отца. Проще говоря, это означает, что следовать за Христом означает постоянно следовать за Ним в места, о которых вы еще не знали. Это парадокс; когда мы приходим к жизни во Христе, мы приходим к истине, о которой почти ничего не знаем. Мы находимся в истине, во Христе, но мы узнаем истину во Христе навсегда!

Остальная часть нашей жизни - это постоянный процесс открытий. Это называется нашим «хождением во Христе». Да, во Христе мы находимся на истинном пути: Иисус сказал: «Я есмь путь, истина и жизнь». Но путь неизбежно ведет нас на неизведанную территорию. Вот что значит ходить верой (то есть в Него), а не видением (то есть согласно нашему собственному пониманию). Недавно у меня был онлайн-разговор с нашим другом Чипом Хеймом, и мы говорили об этих вещах. Он привел много примеров из жизни Христа, в частности, как Христос проявлял любовь, исследуя, как путь любви во Христе будет содержать много разнообразия и много удивительных и неожиданных проявлений. В тот же вечер, когда Иисус сказал своим ученикам: «Я есмь путь, истина и жизнь», он также сказал им: «Любите друг друга, как Я любил вас». Возникает вопрос: как любил Иисус? Когда мы прослеживаем те многочисленные способы, которыми Иисус проявлял любовь, мы начинаем понимать, что ходить со Христом означает постоянно открывать все больше и больше реальности, о которой мы мало что понимали раньше. И именно это делает жизнь насыщенной и глубокой. Давайте посмотрим на некоторые проявления любви со стороны Иисуса: непредсказуемо: он прикоснулся к прокаженному (Матфея 8: 1) шокирует: омыл ноги (Иоанна 13: 1-17) храбрый: он исцелял в субботу на глазах у могущественных критиков (Марка 3: 1-6) Пациент: "Я так долго был с тобой, Филипп?" (Иоанна 14: 9) нестандартный: ужин с Закхеем, призвание Левия (Луки 19: 1-10; Марка 2: 13-17) нарушаются социально-религиозные предрассудки: разговаривают с самаритянкой; восхваляя римского центуриона (Иоанна 4, Матфея 8) озадачивающие: «Отойди от меня, сатана!», «Кто бы ни пошел за мной, тот ненавидит ...» (Матф. 16:23; Луки 14:26) смиренный: на кресте «се матерь твоя» (Иоанна 19:27) бескомпромиссность: от Матфея 23 наблюдательны и чутки: вдова и ее лепта (Марка 12:41 и сл.) приветствие: «Придите ко мне все утомленные…», «Кто придет ко мне, не отвергну» (Мф. 11:28; Иоанна 6:37) Таким было поведение Того, Кто сказал: «Я есмь путь, истина и жизнь», а также сказал: «Любите друг друга, как Я любил вас». Его поведение соответствовало высшей реальности и чистейшей святости, но все же для многих его поведение было непостижимым, шокирующим, тревожным, нестандартным, даже оскорбительным. Зачем? Из-за их ограничений. Из-за своих предрассудков. Из-за их закрытых сердец. Однако когда Господь спросил их: «Кто из вас обличит меня в грехе?», Никто не смог. Они не могли, потому что, в конце концов, все, что делал Христос, было правдой. Но кто мог предсказать такую ​​жизнь, такую ​​правду, такой путь? Ни один. Никто. Итак, теперь я сказал несколько слов о «обратной стороне медали». Это нужно было сказать. Истина - это реальность, и слава Богу, что теперь, во Христе, мы примирились с реальностью, нашим истинным домом. Но, как сказал апостол Павел: «Я не считаю себя достигшим всего этого», точно так же мы должны всегда осознавать, что наше хождение со Христом - это хождение открытий, испытаний, обучения и откровений, постоянно раскрывающейся реальности, постоянной , мужественно устремляясь вперед верою, а не видением. Он наша Реальность, и мы всегда будем узнавать о Нем и познавать Его.

Milkshakes, McLaren, and the Blood of the Better Covenant

 I have no patience left with this...what can I call it...with this fad, this craze, this rather preening pseudo-sophistication in certain Christian circles that rushes to parade how much more expansive, magnanimous, inclusive, humane and pluralist it is than God Himself. 

What am I referring to? I am referring to our take on biblical teaching concerning two things: the atonement and the "old covenant."

These "takes" go more or less like this: regarding the atonement, it is barbaric, unenlightened, outrageous to teach that God required the sacrifice of a human being in order to forgive sin—the Cross was not God's will and the death of Jesus is no magic pill concocted by God to seal the deal; regarding what we call the Old Testament, i.e., the old covenant (in contrast to the "new covenant" that, for instance, Jesus directly names at the Last Supper), it was not replaced or transcended or in any way invalidated or superceded by anything Jesus did and to suggest that it was is to be an antisemite. 

What these two takes have in common are: 1) that they are driven by unadulterated fear, the fear of looking somehow....let's say, "incorrect," the fear of being labeled with precisely the labels (antisemite, racist, bloodthirsty, pagan...) with which they implicity label anyone who fails to nod in unison; 2) their willful ignorance, their obtusely blind eye to the plain teaching of Scripture. 

What else these two takes have in common is an insistent, knee-jerk offense, call it a horror, of plain, unadorned proclamation of central Gospel truths. Especially when it comes to the Blood ("this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant, given for the remission of sins"), and especially when it comes to the supreme, all-transcending, all-superceding  Lordship of Christ. 

It's what the apostle Paul called "the offense of the cross." It's the same horror of the Gospel's stark assertions drove his opponents (interestingly, both within and without the Church) so mad they hounded and vilified him into pariah status. There is nothing new under the sun.

"Not my will but yours be done," Christ prayed to the Father, and that prayer was surely granted. Jesus lived his entire life yearning for and straining after the fulfillment of the Father's will. And Jesus' final verdict on the unfolding of that holy will was, "It is finished." No, God does not do evil. But to suggest that that means death was not a requirement for atonement is to (besides simply ignoring Scripture) reduce the goodness and love of God to a two-dimensional Disney cartoon. (Not to mention it being unfathomably dim theological question-begging.) 

It is to content oneself, in a back-patting way, with one's capacity to make God better than awkwardly disturbing biblical teachings seem to make Him. It is a very gratifying approach indeed if one's notion of theology is something akin to applying makeup as one stares into the mirror. One wouldn't want anything too strange or terrible to show up in the mirror, after all....

"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." "This is my blood of the new covenant...." "Accordingly Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant." "He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured the punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed." "Indeed, the time is coming...when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It will not be like the old covenant...." 

You know, when you make a milkshake, you gather the ingredients, like milk, ice cream, a banana, chocolate syrup, and you toss them in the blender, blend them together, pour it into a glass and enjoy it. Is the milkshake "better" than the ingredients were separately? Well, if your goal was a MILKSHAKE then the milkshake is inarguably, incontrovertibly BETTER. (The writer of Hebrews seems to agree, though I don't know whether he ever had a milkshake.) The ingredients separately weren't a milkshake, they weren't what you were aiming at. Were they therefore "bad"? Well, that's a stupid question hardly worth dignifiying with a response. They were what they were, and for what they were they were excellent ("the law is holy," quoth the apostle Paul). But since our aim was a milkshake, it is absurdly obvious that the milkshake is "better," that it supercedes the ingredients that went into it...even as we recognize there could have been no milkshake without those ingredients. The milkshake is, in a sense, forever indebted to its constituent elements, but, that said, there is also NO GOING BACK (apart from the illusion of running a video backwards) and the constituent elements cannot possibly compete with the milkshake on the level of "milkshake-ness." To assert this is not to be anti-banana.... 

Dear reader, I will not insult your intelligence by spelling out the point of my analogy. You get it. 

As for the blood, the cross, the suffering, the "ransom," the propitiation, the sacrifice, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world," what can I say more than "Amen"? Yet I will say more. 

It was the Father's will that Jesus die. It was Jesus' will that Jesus die. I'm not even talking about the cross yet. I'm just talking about death. It was GOD'S will (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) that God the Son DIE. Had it not been, God the Son would never have become mortal Man. Period. Death entered the world through sin. Becoming a child of Adam, the Son of God sentenced himself, redemptively, to that very death, the..."sin-death." That death, whether by crucifixion or otherwise, was bound to be the act of atonement, the bearing of our sins. precisely because of the One dying. Only His death--the Sinless One dying the "sin-death"--was the..."vacuum" through which all our guilt and offense could be expelled. Redemption IS His suffering in our place. Not because God is a sadist. Please. Just stop with that, okay? It's idiotic. Worse, you mock holy things you are therefore in danger of never entering into. No, it's because what He's taking in our place is something awful. You don't take it and not suffer. That's not God's fault. It's ours. Which is rather the whole point, isn't it.... Try reading Isaiah again. 

These are my weak, frail scrabblings after understanding what is absolutely so. That it is absolutely so, Scripture leaves no doubt. My efforts to peer into it and make out its contours, its implications, its ramifications, a bit of its infinite depths, well.... My efforts, your efforts, are not in vain, with God's help. And there is certainty in what He has declared. And there is also, wonderfully, an eternity of understanding yet to discover. 

Probably the most ignorant critique of the atonement I have ever heard, particularly so in that it came from someone who ought to have known better, someone I once credited with better insight, came from Brian McLaren on a radio show one day when he chortlingly parodied the propitiatory death of Christ by comparing it to an office manager forgiving a colleague's error at work but coming home and kicking the dog to vent his anger. So that crude, warped, insidious caricature--disastrously wrong verging on theologically malevolent--seems to be the best McLaren can make out of "the blood of the new covenant, given for the remission of sins." The parody earned sycophantic giggles from McLaren's interviewer. They were partners in idiocy. 

By the way, the deity of Christ is COMPLETELY missing from McLaren's office-manager "parable." I'll leave that to you to extrapolate out theologically, only adding my view that it's KEY, the key to everything. McLaren seems utterly blind to it. It's what's all wrong, worse than wrong, in his preening chortles....

Only the One sinned against can take, absorb, the full brunt of the wrong done Him and expel it (and He goes through "hell," take that however you want, in the process). Which is why the blood of bulls and lambs could only ever have been a foreshadowing, not the Event itself. The New Covenant is better than the Old because the New one is...it. We're there. And once you're there, there's no going back. Especially when there's nowhere to go back to...which is the whole point of Hebrews.

God Is On Our Side

(A sermon written in English but delivered in Russian. Note that "obscheniye" means something like communion, fellowship, interrelationship. This text is written in sparse style, designed for spontaneous elaboration in the act of preaching.) 

GOD IS ON OUR SIDE

Luke 18:9-14 Parable of Pharisee and Tax Collector

Was the Pharisee right? I mean, right in his facts? Yes, he was right. He stated concrete facts.It was true that he... (list his boasts). It was even true that he was glad not to be a tax collector. I probably am also glad that I was not a tax collector of that time and that place. I am thankful to God for whom He has made me, to what He has called me, when, where and why. It's good to be grateful to God for who we are.

The Pharisee was right in his facts. But to be right is not the same as to be righteous.

"Right" is a term of comparison. "Right" means "not wrong." "Right" is a cold, dry position, it is not a quality of the soul.

But righteousness is a striving. It is the striving of love forward, it's the desire to heal, reconcile, restore, renew, show mercy, do good, become more and more expert in the manifestation of love. Righteousness is the heart's soglasiye with the priorities of God, and not only with His priorities but also with His motivations, it is joining up with His strivings.

Goal of the Pharisee consisted in being right. His prayer praised himself; his gratefulness consisted in what he did, and not in Who He belonged to or in that unfathomable mercy that God was always opening to him, as He always opens it up to you and me. In short, the prayer of the Pharisee was not a prayer that needed God. Really, think about it. In the prayer there was no request, no need, no resort for answers, understanding, help, guidance, wisdom, forgiveness, mercy. How can God answer a prayer that expects, needs no answer?

We know, in human interrelations, that the crucial element is obscheniye, and obscheniye is much more than the assertion of facts. The assertion of facts, this is a report and not live interrelations. The Pharisee gave a report, the conclusion of which was "I'm right." Well, good for you, but what do you want?

The tax collector was not reading a report. He came to the temple with trembling, hoping to find the mercy of God, hoping to find restoration, reconciliation with the love and purposes of God. In short, the tax collector desired CHANGE. That's the key moment.

2 Chronicles 16:9 The eyes of God roam the earth....

Not seeking those who will read Him a report, but....

The Epistle to the Hebrews expresses the only fitting attitude in which we must turn to God:

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

Yes, confidence, but confidence in God's mercy and grace, not confidence that we can impress Him with our report.

Certainly, yes, there is a place for confidence in the Christian life. Why, confidence is the essence of our faith, our upovaniye upon Jesus Christ. But this is not the kind of self-confidence that the Pharisee demonstrated in the temple. Such a kind of confidence is false, only prepares the soil to a fall.

The confidence which must abide in our hearts transcends self-confidence, it is rooted in the measureless mercy of God and his conquering love.

Because of the unfathomable mercy of God, we can say that God is on our side.

Story about Abraham Lincoln, journalist asking him, "Mr. President, is God on our side?", Lincoln responding, "I hope we are on God's side."

There is wisdom in the answer of Lincoln to the question. And in the light of that wisdom, many consider that it is incorrect, inappropriate to suggest that God is on our side.

On whose side? On the side of the Protestants against the Catholics? On the side of the Democrats against the Republicans? On the side of the Ukrainians against the Russians?

No, no, NO.

God is on the side of the human soul against sin and death. THAT'S what the mercy of God means.

God is even on the side of His enemies against everything that MAKES them His enemies. THAT is what the love of God means.

God is on our side, not because we're right, but because we're wrong. He is on our side because we need Him, and because He made us for love.

Romans 5:8-10

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

God is on our side, not with respect to any human conflicts or divisions or political or social questions. God is on the side of the descendants of Adam desperately needing reconciliation with the heavenly Father. And when we have come to know Him, He continues to be on our side, striving forward with us, and in us, to reach tovo sokrovennovo zamysla Yevo kasatel'no nas s vami [to reach that cherished design of His concerning you and me]. I am certain that such a vision inspired the apostle Paul to write these words:

Philippians 1:6

...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

That is why the tax collector went away justified, because he was a soul in which God was doing, and advancing a good work, striving toward the achievement of His holy design. The Pharisee nikuda dal'she ne khotel, po nemu on priyekhal, kuda dal'she? [Note to English-speakers: the Pharisee wasn't looking to go on; in his opinion he'd "arrived"--where else was there to go?]

The difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector:

When pride comes, then comes disgrace,

but with humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs 11:2

The humility of the tax collector drove him into the presence of God with trembling and sorrow. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. The tax collector, leaving the temple "justified" represents the living picture of this beatitude.

Romans 8:31-32

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Here, today, as we prepare to participate in the Lord's Supper, we come in spirit to the Throne of Mercy, where the blood of the Lamb has made propitiation for God's enemies. If God was, out of mercy, "for" His enemies, then how much more will He be for His beloved, reconciled children? God is for you, not against you. This table (trapeza), left to us by the Lord Himself in remembrance, testifies: "God is for us, not against." We have a Father, caring, understanding, condescending [NOTE TO ENGLISH-SPEAKERS: "condescending" has a good connotation in Russian, as in "coming down to your level to help you bear your burdens"], but also driving us forward to the fulfillment of His joy and ours.

Walking on the Water: WHAT Didn't the Disciples Understand?

Read Mark 6:45-52

"They did not understand about the loaves...."

What is Mark talking about? What didn't they understand about the loaves and in what sense were their hearts hardened? Hardened against what? And why did the Lord perform precisely this miracle, that is, walking on the water, right now? I.e., after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes? 

And why did the Lord give them the impression that He was walking by them, as if He wasn't even interested in their presence, until they cried out in fear? 

There are many mysteries in this event, and not only the very fact that Jesus walked on the water--which is already amazing--and perhaps precisely because of this we don't pay attention to the other deep questions that this event contains. 

So let's briefly meditate together over these questions. 

(Read 6:45)

Do you think Jesus knew, having sent the disciples across the lake, having stayed behind to disperse the crowds, that He would do this miracle? I think so. And I think that the Lord knew the disciples had need of this stunning manifestation of the power He possessed.  It must be that, for some reason, the disciples, having seen the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, remained strangely unimpressed--unimpressed by the significance of the miracle and the magnitude of what it said about the One who performed it. 

So in what sense were their hearts hardened? After all, they were following Jesus, they loved Him, in some sense they believed in Him! Certainly we could call them, in comparison with everybody else, the outstanding believers in Jesus of their day. So in what sense were their hearts hardened? 

I think it was in this sense: they underestimated the monumental, actually terrifying power radiating through not only every miracle but every act and word of Jesus. It's delightful, of course, when the Lord gently reaches down and raises Peter's mother-in-law back to health, or says, "Let the children come to Me." But this Lamb NEVER quits being the Lion of Judah. The glory of His tenderness lies precisely in the fact that He can dematerialize the whole universe with one word.  The very fact that we never read of Jesus' chosen inner circle reduced to trembling shock when Jesus heals the sick or even raises the dead suggests the way in which their hearts were hardened. Jesus' power wasn't simply about doing what people might consider "swell stuff," making it holiday time for all. No. The warped, bent human soul that doesn't register the danger in Jesus has no hope of rescue, for if Jesus represents no danger to our worst disease, then what salvation is there? 

Intrinsically linked to this is the very simple fact that the disciples urgently needed to understand that they didn't understand Jesus. In His rebuke it seems to me the Lord is saying between the lines, "Don't you understand yet that you don't  understand? Where is your awe? Where is the awareness of your own poverty of soul?" 

I think that this is the way the hearts of these disciples, whom Jesus loved in the perfect, passionate, self-giving love of God, were still unacceptably numb and unresponsive. They needed a lesson, to be shaken up. They needed to learn not only to rejoice but to tremble, not only to feel justified in their "choice" of Jesus (though the choice was really His), but to reach utter disillusionment toward all their previous, comfortable assumptions. They needed to know that no matter how much they grew to know Jesus, they were knowing Him Who was unfathomable, Who infinitely transcended their grasp. And they needed to know that before this Majesty, the one state the human soul is duty-bound to inhabit is...AWE. 

It is what the Old Testament calls "the fear of the Lord." A mere miracle-worker might impress you, but in the presence of God you fall speechless in adoration. 

And so, the Lord sent the disciples on in the boat, without accompanying them, while he went to the mountain to pray. What do you think? Did the Lord's talk with His Father in heaven, this most holy fellowship within the very being of God, touch upon the miracle Jesus was about to perform? I would guess, yes. 

Why? Because it strikes me that in this act, walking on the water, we encounter SUCH a sacred disclosure by the Lord to His most intimate circle, a disclosure of His unspeakable, transcendent glory, that, yes, the Lord must have talked, prayed, communed with the Father over it, the gravity of it, the meaning of it, the sublime, divine revelation of it in the dimension of time and space. 

We cannot know what words, if we may even call them words, were spoken in that prayer. But apart from words I imagine that found in that prayer were both joy and pain, holy passion surging after redemption's achievement, beginning with the redemptive work Jesus was patiently performing on those twelve unlikely disciples laboring against the wind in the boat even as Jesus prepared to step out on the water. 

And there can be no error in the disciples' clear impression that Jesus was about to walk right by them, until they grabbed his attention with a certain amount of terrified shrieking. I believe that is a critical part of this lesson: "I am walking on, in the power you don't understand, and accomplishing the Father's sacred will, whether you go with me or not. You need to UNDERSTAND: the waves, the wind, the very laws of the creation itself, will not stop me. I am heading ON. I want you with Me, but you will never get there on your own strength or understanding." 

But the disciples did cry out in fear, they didn't tell the "ghost" to go away, but recognized their Divine Master, and begged Him to come into the boat, to make it HIS boat. They were shaken, terrified, yet surely closer in faith and love to this incomprehensible Lord, even in their awe and fear, than they had ever yet been. For, by terrifying them, Jesus also exposed to them something of Himself He had never yet shown anyone else. That is...sacred, exquisitely sacred. At such a sacred moment you can only whisper in awe: "Who is this?" 

I think we all know what it is to want something so badly it hurts. Christ so loved the disciples, as He loves you and me, that He could not possibly be satisfied at their merest reception, certainly not on their comfortable terms. Their lives could not be changed as imperative as long as they failed to grasp that, before Him, they were in the presence of the Most High, before Whom all creation bows. I believe the sufferings of Christ in this world were not only, or perhaps not even mostly, from outright rejection and hostility. I think the Lord's deepest sufferings rose up from the intenstity and passion of His love for those He came to save. I hear that pain in His words, "Do you still not understand?" 

There must be untold layers of meaning in this event, including the fact that that the disciples saw Jesus "passing by" them on the water, in this stunning revelation of power and glory. It reminds me of the glimpse of glory given to Moses on the mountaintop when God "passed by" him. It is in moments like these that the glory spoken of by the apostle John must, to put it conversationally, have completely bowled the disciples over, shattering all their mental categories. "Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We SAW his glory, the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.... No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known" (John 1: 14, 18, NET Bible).

Yes, Jesus is "walking past," unstoppable, on the way to the Cross and beyond, with or without the disciples. Yet He is "walking past" also because God must always "pass by," allowing a glimpse, that's all, of ineffable, infinite glory. Our Lord and Savior will always go past our grasp, beyond our understanding, exceeding our vision; this is His glory and our joy. Yet, when we call out, He will come and enter into the boat with us, as well, and tell the very forces of creation itself to be quiet, because Jesus is with His friends. Both are true, the "walking past" and "entering in." It ought not to surprise us that this is hard to...understand. It is perhaps the whole point: to understand that we don't understand, exult, believe, and worship. 

Baptism of Christ, Death to Rebellion

 "Baptism unto Repentance, Death unto Rebellion"

Read Matthew 3:11-17

Read Romans 6:3-4

Paul says we are baptized into death, also that we are baptized into Christ! That's a strange symmetry, almost making "death" equivalent with "Christ"! 

To make it more complicated, John the Baptist identifies the act of baptism as an "immersion into repentance." 

So what is it: repentance? death? Christ? 

And the reality is, of course, that it's all of these. 

"Into death" and "into repentance." The symmetry testifies that repentance is a kind of death. It is a necessary death to our own rebellion against God. 

That's what baptism proclaims, even the baptism to which Jesus submitted Himself in order "to fulfill all righteousness." Without this death to rebellion against God, there is no righteousness. 

Even the Sinless One submitted himself to the Act of Repentance, which is absolutely what that Baptism was, on behalf of sinners who were utterly incapable of opening that door, blazing that trail, launching that spiritual trajectory, themselves. No wonder Jesus announced He was the "Door" and the "Way"! 

As C.S. Lewis very insightfully pointed out, only the Perfect One Who was in no need of repentance at all could perfectly commit the perfect repentance (return to God) that those who desperately needed to commit it...couldn't.  

I hope it gives us all extra insight into just why Jesus said this Baptism was indispensable to the "fullfillment", i.e., the bringing about, the materialization, the realization, "of all righteousness." 

It was imperative. It was imperative for Jesus to materialize, for us, in our place, on our behalf, for our sake--whatever phrase you can possibly think of that indicates the connection to us!--imperative for Jesus to materialize this "death to rebellion against God." It was imperative, so He did. Love made it imperative. 

Such are the measureless depths of His love. 

Death to rebellion against God is the beginning of the way to God, the beginning of Return to God. 

The Hebrew word signifying repentance is literally their word "return." When the Hebrew prophets preached "Repent!", they were actually saying "Return! Return to God!" The baptism John proclaimed was a Baptism of Return. And Jesus in His love submitted, to take that Way of Return and, by so doing, become that Way for us. 

This is why I am saying that without death to rebellion there is no possibility of righteousness--because without this death there is no way back, no way of return to God. 

But, hallelujah, there IS a way back. 

"I am the way," says our Savior. That's the sense of it, that's why the Lord Jesus is the sole Way to the Father. Because it is He alone and exclusively Who materialized in His Own Self the way of return to the Father. He became the Way in the flesh. 

Only He accomplished the ultimate death to rebellion against God--by perfectly rejecting it in life and extinguishing its power in death. Let me repeat that: by perfectly rejecting it in life and extinguishing its power in death! 

That's why the Lord so adamantly dismissed John's adamant plea that He not do this. There was never the least shred of a possibility that Jesus would concede to John's plea. It simply was not going to happen! Jesus HAD to do this, it was a non-negotiable imperative: "to fulfill ALL righteousness." 

All righteousness or no righteousness. 

There's a frightful thought, isn't it: to fulfill NO righteousness and, so, leave you and me high and dry? 

We would have ended up how, who and where without the Lord's adamant, unswerving, non-negotiable feat of love? 

The Living Way, the Lamb of God, Christ, right here and now at this moment by the Jordan River, is launching the redemptive feat, the way of return, for you and me. There is no other way. It's...IMPERATIVE. 

That's love. 

God is love. 

And so, Jesus is GOING to DO this, no matter what. Nothing and nobody, not even John the Baptist, is going to stop Him. It's...

IMPERATIVE.

In His unconditional dedication there is a lesson for us, but, praise God, so much more than a lesson. 

Christ always gives us more than just a lesson, or an example. 

We are incapable in our flesh of reproducing His "example" or "lessons." If all we had from the Lord were His examples and lessons then we would be "most of all people to be pitied." 

No. 

Christ always gives us more. He gives us His very life, His grace, His Spirit. The Risen Lord inhabits us. 

Therefore, from the unconditional dedication of the Living Way, who materialized everything imperative for return to God, we take, yes, a lesson, yes, an example, but more than that we receive the interior power and life by which alone such dedication can manifest in us, in unity with Him. 

That is the  key and whole secret to the Christian life: "Christ in you." 

That's why it was imperative. For "Christ in you" to ever happen. 

That's why Jesus' submission to this baptism fulfills all righteousness--because every step of the Redemptive Way materialized by Him fulfills all righteousness, the righteousness that saves us and transfigures us into Christlikeness. 

For my conclusion, I'd like to repeat the conclusion of another sermon I once preached on the Baptism. I think it is perfectly fitting here, too: 

"In light of everything we've said, and knowing what events are going to follow Christ's baptism, I think we can see in the very act of the baptism a prefiguration of the entire Redemptive Feat that will be realized by God in Christ. 

"Look for instance, with the eyes of your imagination, at Christ as He humbly, identifying as one of so many gathered there to repent, presents Himself to John for baptism, to take the way of return to God, through death to sin. In the same way God's Son will bear the sins of the world on the Cross, the Sinless Lamb identifying to the bitter end with us to make our way back to the Father possible.

"And then, Jesus goes down into the water, just as one day He will go down into the waters of death and the grave after passing through the righteous wrath of a holy God for the sin of the world.

"And then, Jesus emerges from the water, as one day He will rise, resurrected, victorious, from the grave, having overcome and crushed the powers of evil, shattered the authority of sin and death.

"And then, the heavens open above Him, as one day they will open up to receive the Risen Son back again, redemption won, salvation made real.

"And then, God's Spirit descends upon Christ, just as one day the Holy Spirit will again descend on the Body of Christ, His Church, to indwell Her and fulfill the Father's will through Her.

"And then, the voice of the Father emanates from heaven in supreme commendation of the Son: in the Son dwells all the Father's joy; wherever the Son is, there the Father's sacred will and love are manifested. Just as one day the Father will again exalt His Son before all creation and unfold in the Son His sublime purpose to dwell forever with His redeemed people, as King of kings and Lord of lords. 

"And in that day, as God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, 'before Me every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear by Me.'

"And the apostle Paul, led by the same Holy Spirit, in the light of Christ, further unfolded the ultimate meaning of Isaiah's words: 

"'As a result God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow--in heaven and on earth and under the earth--and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."