Category: Jesus

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Jesus

The Ever-Increasing Intensity of Jesus

“The Ever-Increasing Intensity of Jesus”
  by brian rushing

Many people seem to have the idea that the God of the New Testament is loving while the God of the Old Testament is angry and full of wrath. The thought process seems to be that when Jesus comes on the scene, He decreases the intensity of that fiery, wrathful Old Testament God. But that is most definitely not the case. In fact, regarding those 10 Old Testament laws that God had given to Moses called the Ten Commandments, we see that Jesus did not remove them nor did He even reduce them. No, surprisingly He made them even harder to live up to!

It was one thing to not kill someone (the O.T. Law), but now Jesus had said that anger in your heart can be the exact same sin as murdering someone. It was one thing to not have an adulterous affair (the O.T. Law), but now Jesus had said that lusting for someone else was the same sin. The intensity of the Law was increased dramatically by Jesus.

And when it comes to Old Testament God and New Testament Jesus, Jesus’ idea of judgment is actually intensified as well.

Dr. Packer puts it this way:

People who do not actually read the Bible confidently assure us that when we move from the Old Testament to the New, the theme of divine judgment fades into the background. But if we examine the New Testament…we find at once that the Old Testament emphasis on God’s action as judge, far from being reduced, is actually intensified.

The entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgment…and proclaims Jesus, the divine Savior, as the divinely-appointed judge…. If we know ourselves at all, we know we are not fit to face him. What then are we to do? The New Testament answer is: Call on the coming Judge to be your present Savior. As Judge, he is the law, but as Savior he is the gospel.

Run from him now, and you will meet him as Judge then—and without hope. Seek him now, and you will find him, and you will then discover that you are looking forward to that future meeting with joy, knowing that there is now “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1).

Jesus was not a reduction of God in any way – not in providing an understanding of the Law, not in being the world’s Judge, and not in love. Instead, Jesus is a clear look at who God always has been and always will be. He clarified for us how intense the standard of God is, how intense the wrath of God’s righteous judgment is, and how intense is the love and grace that God has provided to make us into holy people fit to be with Him.

I pray that Jesus continues to be ever-increasing in intensity in your own life!


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


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Jesus

The Restraint of Jesus

“The Restraint of Jesus”
  by brian rushing

I’m sure that you’ve noticed this as well, but…
Sometimes the words of the Bible are confusing.
Sometimes when I read it, I find that the choices that God made are confusing.
Sometimes the things that Jesus said and did are confusing.
loads of question marks symbolizing the questions about Jesus such as his restraint of using his divine attributes
For example, how is it that Jesus – being fully God and fully human – seems to not know certain things (“Who touched my clothes?” “How many loaves do you have?”), while at other times He knows things it is impossible to know (“You have had five husbands.” “Lazarus is dead.”)?

How is it that Jesus can be hungry or tired or thirsty, while also being able to multiply fish and bread from thin air, change water to wine, command storms, heal sickness, and raise the dead? Was Jesus lying when He said He was thirsty or didn’t know something? No, Jesus never was dishonest, so that can’t be the answer. At times it seems that Jesus is fully human with little or no divinity, and at other times He doesn’t seem human at all.

Because of this back-and-forth situation we find in Jesus, I can find myself scratching my head about Him – wondering why it seems that Jesus’ divine nature and power are sometimes reduced. But I now realize that “reduced” is not the right word:

“The impression of Jesus which the Gospels give is not that he was wholly bereft of divine knowledge and power, but that he drew on both intermittently, while being content for much of the time not to do so. The impression, in other words, is not so much one of deity reduced as of divine capacities restrained.”

“The God-man did not know independently, any more than he acted independently. Just as he did not do all that he could have done, because certain things were not his Father’s will, so he did not consciously know all that he might have known, but only what the Father willed him to know. His knowing, like the rest of his activity, was bounded by his Father’s will. And therefore the reason why he was ignorant of (for instance) the date of his return was not that he had given up the power to know all things at the Incarnation, but that the Father had not willed that he should have this particular piece of knowledge while on earth….”

This answers a lot of questions for me about why Jesus did what He did and said what He said. It was all based on His connection to the Father – following His will completely.

This also helps me realize that there are times where certain things will not be in the Father’s will for my life, and certain things that the Father has not willed for me to know yet. All things are permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial, so if I am walking perfectly in God’s will (which Jesus always did), then God will give me the knowledge I need when I need it. And He will give me the ability I need when I need it.

Regarding Jesus’ restraint and the Father’s will, Packer concludes the idea with:

We see now what it meant for the Son of God to empty himself and become poor. It meant a laying aside of glory… a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony —spiritual even more than physical— that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely human beings, that they through his poverty might become rich. The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity —hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory— because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

I am so glad that Jesus restrained Himself in accordance with the will of the Father, so that the messages of hope of Christmas and Easter became the greatest messages I ever heard and believed.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


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Jesus

Intentionally Choosing Death… How Strange

“Intentionally Choosing Death… How Strange”
  by brian rushing

“It is not strange that He, the Author of life, should rise from the dead. If he was truly God the Son, it is much more startling that he should die than that he should rise again.”

Absolutely.
It is not odd that the one who raised people from the dead could Himself rise from the dead. But it is very remarkable (strange, odd, unfathomable) that He would die in the first place.

gravestone symbolizing Jesus choosing death
And yet, parents, isn’t it true that you would willingly trade places with one of your children facing death in order that they (the child) could continue on in life? Certainly. Many children unfortunately end up in the hospital struggling for life. Parents pray fervently, and many will somewhere in one or more of those prayers ask God to let them trade places with their precious child. It is natural for us to be willing to choose death in order for us to save someone we desperately love.

What Jesus did for us is similar. The only way that I would be able to continue on in life forever was for Him to die as a substitute and take the punishment I deserved. So He willingly, intentionally chose death due to His love. In fact, He was born to die.

Though I now try to avoid using the word “church” to refer to a location, I used to call the main worship service on Sunday, “Big Church.” I still hear kids call it that today. And the word “Incarnation” is one of those “Big Church” words. At it’s simplest, it means a divine being taking a human form… God becoming a man.

How do we wrap our heads around that idea? Well, the New Testament doesn’t encourage us to worry too much over how it works, but rather encourages us “to worship God for the love that was shown in it. For it was a great act of condescension and self-humbling. ‘He, who had always been God by nature,’ writes Paul, ‘did not cling to his privileges as God’s equal, but stripped Himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man, And, plainly seen as a human being, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal.’ And all this was for our salvation.”

“The key text in the New Testament for interpreting the Incarnation is ‘You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake’s he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ When Paul talks of the Son as having emptied himself and become poor, what he has in mind…is the laying aside not of divine powers and attributes but of divine glory and dignity.”

God the Son, Jesus, while in Heaven in His full divine glory and dignity loved me and you. Due to that love, He laid aside His divine glory and dignity for a time so that he could be born as a human with a plan to die a cruel death as a substitute sacrifice for you and me. In your eyes, I’m not worth that. And in my eyes, you’re not worth that. OK, maybe you and I would pick some people who we’d say are worth it, but there are a whole lot that we’d leave out. So I’m glad we weren’t the ones having to make a decision as to whether or not to lay aside divine glory and honor and dignity for the people walking around on this giant ball called Earth.

It is strange to think that Jesus…God the Son…would die at all, much less that He would willingly choose to die for such ungrateful, irritating people (including you and me). But, strangely, oddly, fortunately…He did!

Be sure to thank Him for setting aside His divine prerogatives in order to die for you! And then strive to tell this great news to someone else today.

        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


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Jesus

The Freedom of Someone Else In Charge

“The Freedom of Someone Else In Charge”
brian rushing

In school, we were occasionally required to do group projects. Group projects were the worst.

At first it would seem that group projects would be great – more people sharing the burden to get the work done. But that was rarely the reality.

I love the t-shirt quote I recently encountered:
“When I die I want my group project members to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time.”

The reason group projects didn’t work well very often is that no one knew who was in charge and no one wanted to volunteer to be in charge. But as soon as someone did step into that “group leader” role, they became the responsible one to get the work done. It then seemed that everyone else then decided to become lazy or incompetent!

A person sleeping on a grassy hill symbolizing the Freedom of Someone Else being in Charge
i think this is one of my group project members

What we learn from such exercises is that: Being in charge requires responsibility.

When you have agreed to provide the leadership for an event or a project, the burden of responsibility can get heavy. That is why most of us would prefer to not be the group leader. If someone else gets assigned that role or voluntarily chooses it, then we feel much more relaxed and we often wash our hands of the consequences. We take the attitude of: “Well, he is in charge, so if it doesn’t go well… if it isn’t successful… the blame falls on him.”

And while most of us never wanted to take on that group leader role, Jesus is different. He says to us: “Give me your life. I want to be in charge of it.”

I like the idea that if I give Him that responsibility, I can wash my hands of the consequences. Others in the Bible found that same freedom. Take Daniel and his three friends as an example:

Those who know God show great boldness for God.

Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. This was not foolhardiness. They knew what they were doing. They had counted the cost. They had measured the risk. They were well aware what the outcome of their actions would be unless God miraculously intervened, as in fact He did.

But these things did not move them. Once they were convinced that their stand was right, and that loyalty to their God required them to take it, then, in Oswald Chambers’s phrase, they “smilingly washed their hands of the consequences.”

“We must obey God rather than men!” said the apostles.

“I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course with joy,” said Paul.

I’m striving to do a better job of letting Jesus take the lead, so I can smilingly wash my hands of the consequences! I like the freedom of letting Him be in charge.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


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Jesus

Homeless Savior

bird nest with blue eggs
“Birds have nests, Foxes have holes… but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Homelessness.

I have never been without a place to lay my head at night. But along with many of my friends, I did lose my house in a hurricane and didn’t have a home for a while. Being homeless in that way wasn’t a lot of fun. We were dependent on others and on their hospitality for several months.

After a couple of months, we were able to move into a FEMA trailer. It was certainly a blessing to have, but it still wasn’t home. And what we found is that you are never truly comfortable until you reach your true home. You are not comfortable in a borrowed trailer, in a friend’s converted garage, in a relative’s house. You are thankful for these options, but you aren’t comfortable until you are back in your home.

Stone Feeding Trough - Jesus' First Bed. (image from evidenceoftruthministries.org)
Stone Feeding Trough – Jesus’ First Bed.
(image from evidenceoftruthministries.org)

Jesus, the Savior, left His heavenly home. And even as He arrived on the earth, He seemed homeless – he was not born in the comforts of his family’s home, but rather in a stable and placed in a feed trough for his first basinet. He and his family would become refugees in another country while He was still a baby. And during His ministry, He lived as a traveling preacher without a home base. He knew what it was to be homeless.

But today, though Jesus has ascended back into Heaven – our God is still looking for a place to dwell on the earth as He now inhabits human hearts. Have you let Him take ownership of yours?

And just because you let Him in, have you given Him full control to redecorate as He sees fit? Or have you only let Him into certain rooms and allowed Him limited freedom there – more like a tenant than an owner?
Have you given Him a true home in your heart?

“Birds have nests
Foxes have dens
The hope of the whole world rests
On the shoulders of a homeless man
You had the shoulders of a homeless man
You did not have a home”
          –Rich Mullins

The question remains – Have you given the Homeless Savior full ownership of the home He wants in your heart?