The Way, The Truth and The Life

I finished Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. The fourth book was a little too much on transubstantiation and the uniqueness of priests for me (I'm completely Protestant in that regard) but there was still a lot to learn from even this about the right frame of mind to take when partaking of the Lord's Supper. Several of the phrases in the book are still running through my mind and especially the passage in Chapter 56 of Book 3 about John 14:6 where Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." À Kempis says about this passage, "Without the Way, there is no going; without the Truth, there is no knowing; without the Life, there is no living."

I read a few years ago a letter in the local paper that was attacking what the author thought was a false view of Christianity.  In it the author said, "Some of you Christians act like Jesus said , 'It's my way or the highway.'"  And I remember thinking, "No, he said, 'I am the way, and there is no other.'"  Without the Way, there is no going.

There are so many in the world today who deny that Jesus is the only way.  They want to make many different ways to the Father with Jesus being not the way but simply a way.  Some do this out of malice but many out of ignorance by studying books they believe to be new revelations and understanding the one true revelation to be corrupted, for without the Truth, there is no knowing.

A holiday is coming up when people will celebrate the resurrection of this same Jesus who is both the Way and the Truth.  Without his resurrection, according to the apostle Paul, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17)  So without his resurrection he is nothing to us, we are still in our sins and our faith is useless.  With his resurrection we have hope for resurrection as well, we have hope against the sting of death, which is sin.  Without his resurrection not only do we have no hope for a life after death but in fact then we are "of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19), for without the Life, there is no living.

Vigilance (Part 2)

Last time I mentioned the following passages from the Bible that exhort us to vigilance in our lives:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.  (1 Peter 5:8-9)

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.  (Luke 21:34)

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.  (Romans 13:11-14)

These are just a sample.  One of the themes of the New Testament is endurance in the resistance of our sins but it has been one of the most troubling themes for me to deal with throughout my life because I feel so inadequate to resist the devil.  I will freely admit that I fall repeatedly.  When I was little I remember watching bigger kids push smaller ones in the dirt and then pushing them down every time they tried to get up.  It didn't require a lot of effort on the part of someone so much stronger, and I often feel like I'm the little kid and the devil is the big kid.  I think I must be so easy to make stumble that rather than God pointing me out as a shining example like he did Job, the devil must go to God and say, "Have you seen your servant Justin lately?  I pushed him in the dirt a few more times when I was down there on earth yesterday."

My weakness in the face of temptation is one of the reasons that I mentioned that we have a helper.  I think that the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a teaching of the Bible.  What do I think the Spirit does?  Well, I can tell you that I don't think that the Spirit leads Christians into truths that aren't in the Bible.  What I do think is that the Spirit helps us to resist temptation and aids us in our fight against the devil.  I think that this view is clearly upheld by verses like Romans 8:13:

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Notice that this verse clearly says that, "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."  This says to me that I cannot by myself put to death the deeds of the body but rather I require the Spirit's help to do so.  A similar thought is found in Galatians:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  (Galatians 5:16)

Now, I used to read this to be saying that if I control myself to walk according to what the Spirit tells me in the Bible then I will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  This would make the verse into a tautology.  I no longer believe that this is what the verse is saying.  The remainder of the passage is this:

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.  (Galatians 5:17-25)

The passage tells me that if I am led by the Spirit then I am not under the law.  How is one led by the Spirit if it is simply a new law unto me?  That is, if being led by the Spirit merely means following the words of the Bible then that means that I have the choice of the words of the whole Bible to follow versus the words of just the Old Law.  These are the opposing forces in verse 18 - Spirit and law.  I have a hard time believing that God has simply given me a new law to follow that is similar in many respects to the Old Law but somehow I am to try harder than all of my forebears, none of which could follow the Old Law (Acts 15:10).  That is simply setting me up for failure.  I cannot do it.  I cannot follow the Bible without the aid of God any more than the Jews could follow the Old Law without the aid of God.

So after all of this what do I think the Spirit does?  I remember hearing somebody say once, "What do you want the Spirit to do for you?  Do you want him to lead you into truth not found in the Bible?"  In response I thought in my head, "No, I want him to help me follow the truth that is in the Bible."  I find that I cannot do right if I only draw upon myself to do it.  But I find that if I admit my own inability then I can do right by drawing upon the power of God rather than my own power.  This is what I think the Spirit does for me.  The Christian, we know, has the Spirit:

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  (Acts 2:38)

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.  (Romans 8:11)

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"  (Romans 8:15)

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
(Ephesians 1:13-14)

And the Spirit is our help in many ways, both to our prayers (Romans 8:26) and also to our will so that we can bear, not our own fruit and not the fruit of our flesh, but the fruit of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Foolishness of the Gospel

There is an article in the most recent edition of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) titled Losing Faith: How Scholarship Affects Scholars, 2 Who Did and 2 Who Didn't which is both illuminating and sad at the same time.  As you can imagine, the article is about the effects of becoming a biblical scholar on an individual's faith.  The article is essentially an interview between the editor of BAR, Hershel Shanks, and four eminent scholars: Bart Ehrman, James Strange, Lawrence Schiffman and William G. Dever.  The article is interesting because Mr. Shanks never pulls any punches when he has interviews like these, so the questions are right to the point (example: "Does this God of yours have any attributes?").  Unfortunately, the sadness comes in when you realize that the "Christian" scholar who claimed not to have lost his faith (Dr. James F. Strange) has a "faith" which most would wonder really exists at all.  Consider, for example, this exchange:

SHANKS: What historical claims?

EHRMAN: For example, that [Jesus] was raised from the dead.  That's a historical claim.  I mean either he was raised from the dead or he rotted in his grave.  The kind of Christianity I was in believed in an active physical resurrection of Jesus.  That was part of what it meant to be Christian.  You had to believe that.

SHANKS: Do you believe it, Jim? [to Dr. James F. Strange]

STRANGE: I don't believe that, but, yeah, I believe in something that means that Christ is alive, and our explanation of that is that there was a resurrection.  I think I'm more or less untouched by the sort of literalist interpretation [Bart is talking about]; resurrection is sort of a metaphor.

The italics are in the original, which is important.  Dr. Strange says, in reply to a question about whether he believes that Jesus was actually raised from the dead in the way that we read about in the Bible (more on that in a minute) and he says, "I don't believe that..." as though it is a silly thing.  A foolish thing.

And here is where, yet again, the Bible is always ahead of us all:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  (1 Corinthians 1:18-24)

The cross is foolishness to those who seek the wisdom of the world.  Notice how none of the "scholars" believe in the resurrection because it is just silly to believe in such a thing.  Ehrman puts it like so, "...I got to a point where the historical claims about Jesus seemed implausible, especially the resurrection.  Not the crucifixion - I think Jesus was crucified like a lot of other people were crucified, and I think that, like a lot of other people, he stayed dead."  You might think that this doesn't go with the verses above which talk about the crucifixion being foolishness to the Gentiles, not the resurrection, but the foolishness of the crucifixion is tied together with the historicity of the resurrection and the resurrection was a point of mocking contention for the Gentiles who valued "scholarship" and "wisdom."  Notice this fact in Acts 17 when Paul is done talking with the Athenians:

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this."  (Acts 17:32)

The resurrection that the apostles preached was a physical resurrection of the man Jesus.  It is not possible to get anything else from the teaching of the Bible:

So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"  (John 20:25-28)

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise."  (Luke 24:1-7)

Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.  (John 21:10-14)

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  (1 Corinthians 15:1-7)

The truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is absolutely central to the Christian faith.  It is so central that in fact it is not possible (or worthwhile) to even be a Christian without believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.  (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  (1 Corinthians 15:16-17)

This is not a metaphorical thing but a real historical event.  It is sad that so many biblical "scholars" are so steeped in modernism that they want to believe in a God who cannot create a universe or animals or even raise somebody from the dead.  Such a God is pathetic and is very much not the God of the Bible.  The God of the Bible is the God who created everything that is and is the God who saw that we were lost in our sins and completely without hope and who sent his eternally begotten Son to die as a convicted felon (a disgrace in any society and in any time) and be raised up again so that we, too, could conquer death and live forever.  This is the gospel.  It is the same as it ever has been.  It is old and therefore foolishness to modern biblical "scholarship" that is disgusted with the old and seeks ever for the new (so much like the Athenians - Acts 17:21 - nothing changes).  It is trust in this foolishness that comes to us in such simple trappings that is the only saving power for us today (Romans 1:16).  Without it we have no hope, as the poor biblical scholars in the BAR article have no hope.  This is clear from a part of the exchange in the article between the two who lost their faith:

EHRMAN: I have a different view.  I would actually like to be a believer.

DEVER: I would too.  I wish it were true.  I really do.

And so it is good news, even to these biblical scholars, when the Apostle Paul proclaims:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  (1 Corinthians 15:20-22)

Vigilance (Part 1)

As I've been reading The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis I've begun to run across passages that very much reflect the pre-Reformation era that the book was written in. There are large sections on the goodness of monasticism. For example, Book 1, Chapter 20 says the following:

He therefore that intendeth to attain to the more inward and spiritual things of religion, must with Jesus depart from the multitude.

and again:

The greatest Saints avoided, when they could, the society of men, and did rather choose to live to God, in secret.

Okay, so I'll admit that there is some appeal in these statements to me because I'm a big introvert and I would almost always rather be by myself than with a crowd and I would definitely always rather be by myself than with people I don't know; but I see that as a weakness rather than, as à Kempis would see it, a strength, since it greatly hinders any capability I have to obey the New Testament's clear call to evangelism.  Honestly, what kind of evangelist can you be when you are by yourself all the time?

That said, there are still many wonderful things about this book.  A marvelous quote I came across the other day is this one:

The devil sleepeth not, neither is the flesh as yet dead; therefore cease not to prepare thyself to the battle; for on they right hand and on thy left are enemies who never rest.

Yes, temptation and the devil and battle, we don't hear much about those lately, do we?  But of course they are real.  The Bible is full of admonitions to vigilance that we ignore to our own peril:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.  (1 Peter 5:8-9)

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.  (Luke 21:34)

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.  (Romans 13:11-14)

The practical applications here have to permeate our entire lives.  That said, I think we have some help, but that is what I want to talk about in Part 2 of this (there is a To Be Continued here because I want to go somewhere else with this but I'm not ready quite yet, not because I'm smart enough to have planned it out this way).