Wealth and Liberty

  It is commonly held that with wealth comes liberty.  I mean liberty or freedom in the classical sense: not so much the existence of choices but the removal of barriers that hinder one's goals.  One can easily imagine that a little more money, a slightly more secure situation, a larger pool of resources could open many doors that currently remain shut.  The doors might not be that obvious.  A liberal education is not cheap.  Certain social circles are hard to break into without the experiences that come with wealth.  Time comes at a price when one lives from paycheck to paycheck.  Philosophers will deny all this, but philosophers have generally come from privileged classes.
  Yet wealth comes with its own chains and burdens.

The Rock

When Peter confessed Jesus to be Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord made a confession to and about Peter (Mt. 16:16-18). Jesus declared Peter blessed in that he had received the truth from God himself. He also gave Peter his name, which in Greek means rock (John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus gave him his name upon meeting him, but this is a confirmation and an explanation of what made him a rock). Jesus also said that, “upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). Now whatever else this may mean, it has nothing to do with which bishop is head of the true church. The New Testament knows of no individual but Christ as the foundation of the church (1 Cor. 3:11). The Bible does name the prophets and the apostles as the church’s foundation with Christ as the chief cornerstone in several places (see Ephesians 2:19-22; Revelation 21:14). And it is true that the church must be apostolic, which means she must be founded on the teachings of the apostles. But she can only be built on the apostles as she is built on their witness, which is the holy Bible. Like Peter, the church must receive and submit to the Father’s revelation (see verse 17). Like Peter, the church must trust Jesus as the Christ, God’s anointed servant to bring salvation from sin and death; the church must trust Jesus as God’s Son, the very bosom of the Father. To be built on the rock of Christ, the church’s faith must be the same as Peter’s faith.

Behind the Question

In Matthew 16:13-20, we have one of the foundational texts regarding the church under the new covenant. In this post I want to point out how this passage begins. Jesus continues instructing his disciples after he has warned them of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees (16:5-12), by questioning about his reputation among the people: “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” Why? Obviously the answers the disciples gave do not reflect their own ideas. They certainly knew he was not John the baptist and it is unlikely that they ever identified him with the other prophets that they name. Peter spoke for all of them when he answered Jesus, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.”

So what value did Jesus’ question have? Questions are a very old way to teach. We usually associate the method with Socrates, the great Greek philosopher. But even the Greeks knew that the socratic method was older than Socrates. In fact, God himself may have been the first to use it when he inquired of Adam, “Where art thou?” Jesus asked his question of the disciples, as he did of Adam, with more in mind than finding an answer. He was teaching them who he is.

The disciples could see immediately that the popular theories regarding Jesus’ identity were woefully insufficient. Jesus is more than a mere prophet of God; all their experiences with him told them that. God the Father made himself evident in the mighty works and authoritative teachings of Jesus. Compared to the fancies of the world, the Father’s testimony was brought home and made firm. Before Jesus asked, the disciples thought that Jesus was the Christ, afterwards they knew. Flesh and blood did not reveal it unto them, but their Father in heaven.

Signs from Heaven

At least twice during his ministry Jesus’ opponents requested a sign from him (Matt. 12:38 ff., 16:1-4). Specifically they requested a sign from heaven. In both instances Jesus had worked a miracle that demonstrated God’s mercy and power. In the first he cast out a devil from a man and healed him. The Pharisees accused him of witchcraft (casting out devils by the power of the devil). In Matt. 16:1, Jesus is being “tempted” by his distractors. The Pharisees and Sadducees had no intention of being convinced of Jesus’ Messiahship. They wanted to entrap him.

Jesus refuses both requests. In fact, he gives the same answer: he would only give them the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah refers to his resurrection (Jonah was resurrected from the fish’s belly, as it were). In John 2:18-22, Jesus gives the same sign in substance though with no reference to Jonah. So the sign that Jesus leaves the world is his death and resurrection.

This is important for us to note. We often look for signs from heaven. We wonder why our Lord allows his name to be slandered. We wish that we could be relieved of the doubts the world raises in regards to the faith. But Jesus will not give us a sign from heaven. Our faith is trusting him.

The fact is that the gospel is sufficiently suited to rescue sinners and prepare them for heavenly glory. The fact that the enfleshed Son of God suffered on behalf of sinners, and that he calls us out of our sin (not waiting for us to make ourselves worthy), and that the all glorious God has committed himself to us should be all that the failing heart should want. Victory over sin and victory over the grave are signs enough for those who know their sin, and more than enough. There is no need to look for the spectacular, let the Pharisees and Sadducees do that.

Fire that Burns, Fire Giving Light

‘For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up,’ saith the Lord of hosts, that shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and [ye] shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.’ Malachi 4:1,2.

Here we are told that when the Lord comes in judgment it will be experienced in two different ways. To those who fear the Lord it will be like the refreshing Sun after a long winter. To those who scoff at the Lord’s concern for justice, it will be an oven that will consume them. It is, I think, significant that roughly the same imagery is used for both experiences: fire. To one it is the heat of judgment, to the other the light of righteousness. This is true of any encounter with the holy Lord. He is awful in justice. He is terrifying in his goodness. Here is One that probes the depths of my heart that I cannot even know (Jer. 17:9,10), that does not give any quarter to iniquity (Exo. 34:6,7), that demands a holiness equal to his own (Lev. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:13-16). This view of God cannot be but a threat to one not righteous, and none of us are.

But there is a righteousness available by faith: the righteousness of Jesus Christ. When we forsake any dependency on our own worth, and cast ourselves completely on the mercy of Jesus Christ,we may then stand before the judgment of God, because it is not we, but Christ who stands in our stead. But the gospel, too, causes a division in reception. Like the fire of the day of judgment, the gospel reveals a distinction among men:

For we [the preachers of the gospel] are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are the the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life: and who is sufficient for these things? 2 Cor. 2:15,16.

To those who have been born anew by the work of the Holy Spirit and have received the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith, the gospel is life. It is life because it changes the nature of the encounter with God. The gospel changes the day of judgment into the day of salvation. But to those who still rely upon themselves it is the savour of death. Because the gospel requires that those who receive it abandon any reliance upon themselves, it can only be received by the humbled heart. Those who will not be humbled before the Lord have no part in the righteousness he procured for believers. For them, the gospel confirms the sentence of death at the day of judgment.

Our Lord is a consuming fire. Whether he is a fire to consume all iniquity, or a light revealing the mercy of his salvation, depends on your relation to the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel.

Jesus, simply profound, profoundly simple

It strikes me as a preacher how simple Jesus' teaching is presented, and how profound it is at the same time. As a confessional Christian I am wary of many modern over simplifications, the tendency to reduce our faith and practice to bumper sticker catch phrases. The simplicity of Jesus is not that. In Matthew 15: 11, Jesus says, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." This was given to the crowds to counter the Pharisees' insistence on the washing of hands before one ate. The disciples balk at at this and ask him to explain, which is given by Matthew in verses 16-20.

Jesus' explanation boils down to this: Our sin is not due to the corruption of the world outside (food goes in the mouth and out into the pot, so to speak), but sin comes from our own corrupt heart. Sin originates from within. That's it, complete simplicity. But that simplicity has depth.

Let's look at our natural habits. We shift our sin onto the evil influences of the world: we blame TV, video games, the internet; we point our finger at schools and universities; we condemn upcoming generation's youth culture. But we don't sin because we are corrupted, we sin because we are corrupt. And, of course, that means when we want to assign guilt to the corruptions of our world we need to turn the finger to ourselves.

But this also has profound consequences for our salvation. If the heart is the source of corruption, then we cannot look there for our salvation. We cannot look there for righteousness. We cannot look to the heart of men for the reconciliation of the world. We must look outside ourselves. We must look unto Christ, the one given for the reconciliation of the world, the Holy One of Israel, the LORD our Righteousness. This is the good tidings of the gospel, that God has come to help those who cannot help themselves.