Thankful Thursday

 

Such a busy day! It’s 11:20pm and I’m just getting around to posting a few things for which I’m thankful this week. 

I’m thankful that my son sold his landcruiser so quickly. It’s not a family vehicle and he’ll soon be a family man. (And what young family can’t use a little more income?) The ‘cruiser was sold before it’d been advertised to the first person who looked at it. I’m very thankful that it’s a done deal and that my Father worked in everything to accomplish it.

I’m thankful for my grandchild soon to be born. I’m thankful that my daughter-in-law feels (and looks) so good this late in her pregnancy. 

I’m thankful for my sister and the care she gives to her children and my dad. I’m thankful that God gives her strength and wisdom.

I’m thankful that we had a few rain-free days so that I could finish staining my deck.

I’m thankful that my days are ordered by a loving God who can be trusted.

Throughout this year I’m planning to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving each Thursday along with Kim at the Upward Call and others.

The Cross of Christ: Looking Below the Surface

As you know, I’m participating in this round of Reading Classics Together at Challies.com. This week I read the third chapter of John Stott’s The Cross of Christ.  This chapter, titled Looking Below the Surface, answers the question, “What was there about the crucifixion of Jesus which, in spite of its horror, shame and pain, makes it so important that God planned it in advance and Christ came to endure it?”

Stott answers this question with four points:

1. Christ died for us.
2. Christ died for us that he might bring us to God.
3. Christ died for our sins.
4. Christ died our death, when he died for our sins.

Of course, he doesn’t just list these points, but fleshes them out. I’m going to leave, however, them as bullet points and move on to the second section of this chapter, where Stott looks at three of the main scenes from Jesus’s last day—the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemene, and Jesus’s cry of dereliction on the cross—to see what Jesus said about what was happening and what would happen. Do the four points listed above “fit the facts” that are recorded for us in the gospels?

The Last Supper
Jesus’s words and actions teach us his own explanation of the meaning and purpose of his death.

1. Christ’s death was central to his mission:

   The Lord’s Supper, which was instituted by Jesus, and which is the only regular commemorative act authorized by him, dramatizes neither his birth nor his life, neither his words nor his works, but only his death. Nothing could indicate more clearly the central significance that Jesus attached to his death. It was by his death that he wished above all else to be remembered.

2. Christ’s death took place for the purpose of establishing a new covenant and obtaining forgiveness of sin. His blood is “the blood of the new covenant,  which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
3. Christ’s death needs to be appropriated personally. The dramatization in the Lord’s Supper

   did not consist of one actor on the stage with a dozen in the audience. No, it involved them as well as him. … The eating and drinking were, and still are, a vivid acted parable of receiving Christ as our crucified Saviour and of feeding on him in our hearts by faith.

The Garden of Gethsemane
The “cup” symbolised the agony of enduring the judgment of God that our sins deserved.

God’s purpose of love was to save sinners, and to save them righteously; but this would be impossible without the sin-bearing death of the Saviour.

And so Jesus resolved to drink the cup; he willingly went finish his work by enduring the agony of the cross.

The Cry of Dereliction on the Cross
This section focuses on the meaning of Jesus’s cry, “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”Stott understands these words to mean that “an actual and dreadful separation took place between the Father and the Son.” This is one place where I’ll have to disagree with him, although I don’t have time to explain my reasoning in this post. Still, I do think the Jesus’s cry shows us something of his anguish on the cross. And when he cries out, “It is finished,” he is indeed declaring that he has accomplished our salvation.

Stott sums thing up by saying that the cross enforces these three truths:

1. Our sin must be extremely horrible if there was no other way to forgive it but that Christ should bear it himself.
2. God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension if he “pursued us even to the desolate anguish of the cross….”
3. Salvation must be a free gift. Christ declared it “finished.” What is left for us to contribute?

And so ends the first part of The Cross of Christ. Next week’s reading is from the second part, The Heart of the Cross.

How James Fits In

Last week I quoted a bit of the answer to the question “Does the Pauline teaching on justification contradict Jesus’ message?” from 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law, by Thomas R. Schreiner. This time I’m quoting from his concluding statement on what some scholars see as more contradictory teaching on justification in the New Testament—the supposed contradictory views of Paul and James on justification by works.

James and Paul do not actually contradict each other on the role of faith and works in justification. James affirms with Paul that faith is the root and works are the fruit. James addresses a different situation from Paul, for the latter denies that works can function as the basis of a right relation with God. A right relation with God is obtained by faith alone. Paul responds to those who tried to establish a right relation with God on the basis of works. Paul argues that God declares those to be in the right who lack any righteousness, if they put their faith in Christ for salvation. James counters those who think that a right relation with God is genuine if there is faith without any subsequent works. James looks at God’s pronouncement of righteousness from another angle, not as the fundamental basis of one’s relation to God but as the result of faith. James responds to antinomianism, whereas Paul reacts to legalism. 

Both Paul and James, according to Schreiner, 

affirm the priority of faith in justification, and both also affirm that good works are the fruit of faith but not the basis of justification. What James teaches, then, fits with Paul and what we have seen elsewhere in the New Testament.

You’ll probably recognize this the standard Protestant answer to the question of a contradiction between Paul and James on justification by faith. Schreiner doesn’t get to this conclusion, however, because he thinks Paul and James define the word justify differently. “[T]he common view,” says he, “that [justify] in James means ‘proved to be righteous’ or ‘shown to be righteous’ is unpersuasive.” 

Nope, it’s a little more complicated than just using a word differently. I can’t reproduce Schreiner’s argument here, but I will say it makes for an interesting chapter.