How the mighty have fallen

With thanks to http://mytheoblogy.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/the-autumn-transition/

The Levites were set apart as God's Priests from Exodus 32 for standing for God over the issue of the golden calf.

But then, Ezekiel 44:10 - "And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity." - how the might have fallen.

There is no other way to be saved - not even being born into the priestly tribe - only through faith in Jesus, and this by grace.

The Face

With thanks to https://pixabay.com/en/birth-child-baby-newborn-hand-466140/

I remember, from a couple of years ago, watching a very interesting documentary that attempted to explain, among other things, the development of the face of the growing human embryo.

The perfectly pleasant presenter was predictably flannelling on about how various parts of our head and neck were vestigial remains of erstwhile gills (sadly, even in this day and age, too many scientists still unswervingly believe this utterly illogical explanation!), but he did highlight something fascinating: that the face develops from three different parts: the left hemisphere of the face, covering that side's forehead, eye socket, nose, cheek, etc. (or maxilla), the right hemisphere, and the jaw (or mandible).

These three parts, he went on, gradually grow towards each other and fuse together, leaving only the mouth. The last part to fuse, he explained, was the philtrum - the groove running vertically from the bottom of the nose to the middle of the upper lip.

That got me thinking. Why did God do it that way?

ALL of creation points to Jesus in some way - that's the great glory of all creation, that it proclaims truths about Christ to itself and to the rest of creation. So what does this tell us about the way of things?

Whenever I see three of anything, my first thoughts, clearly, are going to be about the trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Here we have three parts of the face.

Speaking of the face itself, this is about intimacy: we, as God's children, are encouraged to 'seek his face'; on the other hand, the thought of God 'turning his face away' or 'hiding his face' is frightful to the writers of the Chronicles and Psalms; yet it is a great blessing to have God's face 'shine upon you'.

The thought of these three parts of the face coming together, yet leaving space for the mouth, makes me think of the tabernacle … bear with me!

The tabernacle was to be set up with the veiled mercy seat that kept the law and testimony in the west, the altar bearing the twelve loaves of bread in the north, the seven-branched, olive oil-burning, eternally-alight lamp in the south, and the bowl of incense in the middle of these three.

Symbolically (and this is all purely from hunting around the Bible - nowhere else), the “mercy seat” hidden behind the ‘veil’ represents the Father, the ‘table of shewbread’ represents the Son, the ‘menorah’ represents the Spirit, and the bowl of incense represents the prayers of the saints (that is, all of God's people) ... check out the table below.

	Tabernacle pattern	Cosmic reality
The Holiest Place (representing the Father)	Hidden from sight by a veil	“No-one has ever seen the Father …” (John 1:18)
	The veil is embroidered with cherubim	Cherubim stand guard over the way back to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24), where the Father is (Revelation 22:1-2)
	The veil is torn when Jesus “gives up the ghost”	Jesus granted us access to the Father when he died on the cross
The Table of Shewbread (representing the Son)	The table (bearing the bread) is made of wood, but the eye only sees the gold covering	The cross (bearing Jesus) is made of wood, but the eye reads the sign: “King of the Jews” (gold represents kingship)
	On the table are 12 loaves of bread	12 represents ‘governance’ (tribes / disciples in Israel, hours in day / night, months in year, etc.); … and there is much on bread representing Jesus, from “Bethlehem” meaning “home / house of bread” to Jesus’ words when he broke bread: “This is my body…”
	When transported, the table and its contents were cloaked in scarlet (representing ‘sin’) and ‘skin’	At the cross, Jesus – the one who ‘became flesh’ (Job 1:14) – “was made sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The Menorah (representing the Spirit)	A seven-branched candle…	The sevenfold spirit (Revelation 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 5:6)
	… burning olive oil …	Olive oil is used for ‘anointing’, representing anointing by the Spirit; fire represents ‘purification’, another work of the Spirit (our words ‘pure’ and ‘pyrotechnic’ have the same Greek root)
	… to give light to the whole room	God is Spirit (John 4:24) and light (1 John 1:5), as well as love (1 John 4:7), which ‘shines out’
The bowls of incense (representing the prayers of the saints	Rising up, a pleasing aroma to the Lord	Revelation 5:8 … ‘nuff said!

... And then check out the diagram below … symbolically, this reassures us that our prayers reach to, and lie at, the very heart of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Composite from http://www.bible-history.com/tabernacle/TAB4The_Ark_of_the_Covenant.htm, http://www.rawganique.com/Images/Swatches/HC1-040811-56.jpg, http://bibleabc.net/l_rev/images/bowl-70118.jpg, http://truthinmotion.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/bowl-of-incense-smaller.jpg, http://trivialdevotion.blogspot.co.uk/2011_06_26_archive.html, and http://www.thegalileeexperience.com/store/menorahs-candelabras-/menorah-tiberias-style-brass-regular-5-8-39-39-/prod_80.html - with thanks!

And so, just briefly back to the face again: what do the three parts fuse around?  The mouth.

And what does the mouth do?  Speak, converse, talk, chat, communicate, ...

And what is prayer?  Speaking, conversing, talking, chatting, communicating with God!

... Awesome!

The Lamb - Part 1

(With thanks to http://www.foxfirefiber.com/newsletter.html - accessed 17.03.13)

Sermon for Kew Baptist, 17 March 2013 (with a grateful nod to Glen Scrivener!)

Steve Levy, of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Swansea, recently preached a sermon …on preaching! … In which he emphasised how the words of a good sermon will certainly sound foolish, as it is the power of God that saves, not the power of the preacher ... so I would like to start by praying!

[Pray]

I’d like to read what I think is an excellent example of words that sound foolish to us, but that come in the power of God!

Revelation 6:15-17 says:

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

… So, the kings of the earth, great leaders, war heroes, the rich, the famous, the powerful, the influential - everyone, in fact – will, it is prophesied, resort to talking to inanimate mountains and rocks (who, it must be remembered, don't have a long history of engaging Man in conversation!) in a desperate attempt to find protection from the terrible wrath of ... a small, bleating, wobbly-legged, bundle of wool!

If that didn't sound foolish enough, Revelation 5:13 adds:

...every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them (say) “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!”

Again, I get the 'him who sits on the throne' bit – getting honour and glory ‘n’ all - but ... the LAMB?  What is this fixation with the young and ovine all about?

John the Baptist gives us the short answer in John 1:29-34:

...he saw Jesus ... and said, “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!  This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ … I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him … I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

The slightly longer answer will take us through some of the history of God's interaction with his people.  We're going to follow this little study on the lamb, stopping off very briefly in Genesis 22, Exodus 11-12, Isaiah 53, and Mark 14-15, but focussing mainly on The Passover and The Cross.

So, first of all Genesis 22:1-8:

... God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”

And he said, “Here am I.”

He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.  And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.  On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.  Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”  And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son.  And he took in his hand the fire and the knife.  So they went, both of them, together.

And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!”

And he said, “Here am I, my son.”

He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

So, here, we have a father and his son; the son is called his 'only son' whom the father loves; it's early in the morning when the son is led out with two other men, the wood upon which the son is to be sacrificed placed on his own back; and, on the third day, the father confidently reports that his son will return after the sacrifice.

Sound familiar?!  If we needed any more help as to what this event was prophesying, Solomon provides it, in 2 Chronicles 3:1, as he starts "to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem (which is) on Mount Moriah"

Interestingly, here, Abraham prophesies that The Lord himself will provide a lamb for the sacrifice ... yet THIS time, in verse 13, a ram is provided.

But let's get back to lambs!

Next we're into Exodus 11-12 and The Passover.  To preserve you from my voice for the next quarter-hour, Katy’s going to read a slightly abridged version, just leaving out repetitions or points not related to the lamb specifically:

The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt ... About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.  There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.

But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

This month shall be for you the beginning of months … the first month of the year for you ... on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household ... according to what each can eat ... Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old ... and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.  Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.  They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs ... you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in haste.

For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements: I am the Lord.  The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are ... when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

Moses expands on the instructions a little:

Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood … and touch the lintel and the two doorposts.

None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.  For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

Then, it happened:

At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.  And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

So, again, as with Abraham’s story, it’s Firstborn Son vs. Lamb!

The gods of Egypt, representing all gods that are not the one, true, living God, are about to be judged by the one, true, living God, and every household who align themselves to, or worship, these false gods will live only at the cost of their firstborn son.

But the one, true, living God - being the God of love as he is - has offered an alternative: a lamb.  “There was not a house where someone was not dead” after The Lord had passed through … the question was, would that dead ‘someone’ be a son or a lamb?

As it represented Jesus, this lamb had to be without blemish (representing Jesus’ being without evil); it had to be male (representing Jesus being the self-sacrificing Bridegroom to his Bride); and it had to be a year old (representing Jesus’ having completed his appointed time of ministry before his own sacrificial death).

On the tenth day of the first month, the lamb was taken into the household for whose salvation it was to be sacrificed, and kept there, inside, until the fourteenth day of this month.  For five days, then, this farm animal lived in the house as ‘one of the family’.  This represents how Jesus came in our flesh to make his home amongst us (and, for those who like numerology, perhaps the five days represents Jesus’ showing, during that time, that he fulfilled The Law?)

The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel then kill their lambs “at twilight”, or – as an alternative translation puts it - “between the two evenings”, which is an odd phrase that possibly refers to the two evenings that occurred on the day Jesus died, as reported in Matthew 27, Mark 15, and Luke 23.  Here, night-time fell at around noon, and the light only reappeared at 3pm, at which time Jesus gave up his spirit.  The Israelites then eat the flesh of the lamb, personally identifying with the saving work achieved by the sacrifice.

This offer of a lamb was a true gift from God - a “Get out of jail free” card, for those familiar with the board game ‘Monopoly’ - and, if a household heard God’s call, through Moses, to take this gift he offers, trusted that he is as good as his word, and showed their trust on their lintels and their doorposts, their own firstborn son would be spared.

Individual status would not be taken into account: “every firstborn … from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne … to the firstborn of the slave … the firstborn of the captive … in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock” would die.  No, this is all about faith – do you trust God or not?  It’s black or white; there is no grey area here – it’s a simple yes or no.  And the Lord makes a very clear distinction between those who do trust him and those who do not.

But what does trusting him actually look like in this situation?

I want to introduce you to three hypothetical Israelite households living in Goshen that night…

Meet the Cohens: they are very religious – they’re always inviting Moses over to have him share the words of God; they’re always praying and talking to each other about Father Abraham and singing spiritual songs; and they’re always doing good deeds around the neighbourhood for the widows and orphans.  On one level, they’re quite disappointed about The Passover: they don’t want God to pass over them, they’d like him to come in, examine their lives, and they’d like to hear the words “well done, good and faithful servant!”  On the other hand, a command is a command, and they follow obediently, carefully putting down two coats of lamb’s blood around their door.

Not like the Fagins: they weren’t going to be going anywhere that night anyway because their whole family had been served ASBOs.  They are commonly known as being drunkards, gluttons, liars, gamblers, swindlers, benefits cheats, notoriously promiscuous … they avoid Moses like the plague (if you’ll pardon the pun) so it’s only by fortune that they’ve heard what he said about the lamb’s blood anyway, and they really don’t think it will do any good because they’re sure that the Angel of Death has had their card marked from a long time ago.  But, equally, they’ve nothing to lose by doing it, and there is the possibility that God will be merciful if they obey this once, so they splash the basin of blood on the lintel and doorposts.

Then there’s the Leaveys: they’re not as wicked as the Fagins, but then they’re nothing like as good as the Cohens either.  They keep phoning up the Cohens saying “ok, we’ve killed the lamb and we think we’ve applied the blood the way we’re supposed to, but we’re not sure – could you spy through your window over the street and say what you think? … And do we really think it will make the difference?  What if the Angel of Death doesn’t see it, I mean it will be dark out there!...” … they pace up and down all night wondering if they’ve done enough and done it right enough …but, nonetheless, the blood is around the door.

… So, which of these families will end up with the dead son in the morning?

None of them!  If the blood was on the door, God wouldn’t look in to check on any further details, he would stay the destroyer’s hand and move on to the next house.  It had nothing to do with the moral character, standing in society, or even the state of heart or mind of the people inside the house, and everything to do with the presence of the blood on the door.  It was the fact that the blood was there that gave full protection from any further scrutiny.

It wasn’t even about how much faith they had in the blood – he never mentioned doubts, fears, worries, and concerns – he didn’t discuss how the people were to feel about it at all!  He simply asks to be trusted to know what he is doing.  You could have been as doubt-filled and concerned as you like but if the blood was on the door, no-one was coming in.

In stark contrast to what we normally hear from the pulpit (or, frankly, from any other would-be teacher), it wasn’t about what was on the inside that counted, but what was on the outside!

This resonates with the idea of Christ’s righteousness cloaking our nakedness as we stand before the judgement seat, such that the Judge looks at us and, only seeing Jesus, pronounces us innocent.

Salvation is nothing to do with your own performance and everything to do with Jesus’.  Christ saves you by His blood – not by anything in you.  It’s not about the quality of your living, speaking, acting, praying.  It’s not even about the quality of your own faith.  It’s only about the blood.  It’s the quality of His death, not the quality of your life.  1 John 1:7 says “the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from EVERY sin” – no sin can get past this purification.

We just need to remember to hold up this gift of the blood (alone) in our defence in the face of the judgement.

But, therein, lies a huge problem: we, as human beings, are invariably forgetful!  This is why the Bible and creation are littered with reminders – in fact, the Bible is not a book about doing so much as remembering.

And so, in this case, God calls for a regular reminder (Exodus 12:14-20):

This day shall be for you a memorial day and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord … you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute for ever.

Interestingly, it is not called the Feast of The Lamb, or even the Feast of The Lamb and Unleavened Bread, as you might expect from the prominent place lamb has on the Passover menu.  It’s just the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

For those who are saved, Jesus was The Lamb who was sacrificed once for all so that no further sacrifice is required.

On the night that he was betrayed (the day he was to become The Passover Lamb), Jesus appears to change the Passover meal for all future years, from the eating of the lamb, proclaiming his sacrifice that buys freedom, to the breaking and eating of bread in remembrance that he had given his body to be broken in our place, and to the drinking of wine, in remembrance that his life was poured out in our place.

I said I’d go through Genesis 22, Exodus 11-12, Isaiah 53, and Mark 14-15, focussing mainly on The Passover and The Cross.  I’ve done half of this – if you’ll allow me, I’ll go through the second half next week.

In the meantime, if you have tasted of Jesus and seen that he is good, please take and eat communion with us this morning in remembrance that he died and was raised to eternal life so that we might live with him for eternity.

Before we do, let me thank God as we pray together: Father, thank you for your son, who - doing only as he saw you do – sacrificed himself in order that we might be with you forevermore.  Help us always to remember, to remind others, and to be reminded by others about your love for us, your wisdom for us, and your power for us.  Help us to be content in all things, living life to the full, knowing and enjoying you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon for Kew Baptist Church

Last Sunday, I visited Kew Baptist Church for the first time and received a very warm welcome – thank you all very much!

There were many things I enjoyed about my visit – a couple of the most striking were here at the front: the massive sign behind the preacher saying “We preach Christ crucified”, and the table upon which the communion bread and wine were laid, which was decked out in a beautiful piece of crimson material that seemed to be folded quite chaotically on the top of this ‘altar’ but then, as it flowed over the edge - carefully parted to show the name of a token saint (printed on white) - the chaotic material itself seemed to disappear, revealing a beautiful and orderly vine-like pattern on its surface.  Interestingly, too, there remained, after the wine had been distributed and the tray returned to the table, a solitary cup of the wine and a solitary cup of water.

For me, this was an assault of wonderful symbolisms of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and what God achieved through it.

So I resolved to make sure I preach Christ crucified today, and I pray I do!

Coincidentally, my mother and I were talking recently and realised that we don’t fully ‘get’ the whole ‘Jesus died for my sins’ bit!  How does that work?  How can the death of An Innocent satisfy God’s need to deal with the evil in me?  Have you ever thought about that?

I would like to talk about this today, partly at least as I believe it may help in our daily spiritual battle to hold on to our 'certain hope' of God's goodness to, and love for, us.

So, my thinking goes like this …

I have evil tendencies: I do self-centred things that trample others down in order to put myself first; I seek to gratify perceived needs or desires in myself no matter the cost to anyone else; and this may happen entirely intentionally, or without really thinking about it (which I think really shows the depth of evil in me!) - this is the general human condition.

God, on the other hand, is pure goodness … righteousness … love.  It is this pure goodness and love that gave birth to us – the creation: in order for love to be love - an expanding, growing, building, including, joyful thing - it needs evermore receivers and enjoyers of love.

Evil, on the other hand, is not a thing in itself but merely an absence of God’s love – rather like ‘dark’ is merely an absence of ‘light’.  So evil results in a self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving hatred of everyone else, insofar as anyone else gets in the way of my own pleasure.

Clearly, evil and love cannot co-exist.  And so, clearly, evil is excluded from God, because God is love.

And yet, last Sunday, Pavlos spoke on the fact of evil in the world, and I wanted to pick up on a quote of his from Isaiah that I found fascinating - Isaiah 45:7 says:

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things." (KJV)

The idea that God - who is called ‘good’ and ‘love’ - would create evil is one that doesn’t feel right, and doesn’t sit well with:

Psalm 97:10 "Let those who love the LORD hate evil..."

Proverbs 8:13 "To fear the LORD is to hate evil..."

Amos 5:15 "Hate evil, love good..."

Zechariah 8:17 "do not plot evil against your neighbor, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this,” declares the LORD."

John 3:20 "Everyone who does evil hates the light..."

… and Romans 12:9 "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."

There are many passages like these that don’t make sense in the light of 1 John 4:8: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" … but a little exploration of the phrase “create evil”, may reveal something more profound about evil,  its supposed ‘creation’, and its alleged Creator.

For this exploration, I turn to Strong’s Concordance, a comprehensive cross-reference of every single word in the KJV back to the word in the original text, in the original languages of the Bible.  It was compiled by a team of more than a hundred researchers from Drew Theological Seminary and first published in 1890.

This tool shows us that ‘create’ is the Hebrew word ‘bara’ and ‘evil’ is the Hebrew word ‘ra’.

The first word – ‘bara’ – is also the first verb in the entire Bible: “In the beginning, God created…” – it is used in a number of places and seems to have a sense of “clearing a space” – the picture being one of clearing a space in a wooded area or an overgrown meadow before building a home or a farmhouse or some abode there.

If we think on the original creation story a little, it is clear that, if there was truly nothing apart from God – Father, Son, and Spirit – prior to the creation, then God would have had to have cleared a space in which his new creation could be located.

I think the story of the creation of Adam’s bride-to-be, Eve, is told to let us in on how he created his creation – the Son of God's bride-to-be.

If this is true, then the entire fabric of the cosmos came out of the side of the bridegroom-to-be, the Son of God: The Spirit, filling the Son of God, withdrew from this ‘rib’ of Jesus, rendering it dark, chaotic, and void.  He - The Spirit of Light and Life - then re-entered this darkness as God set about his work of creating and life-giving.  This creation was to be reunited with the Son of God like Eve was reunited with Adam: in marriage and sexual union ... or what marriage and sexual union symbolise in ‘The Big Picture of God’s story of everything' - that is, in truly … knowing God.

One of the more literal translations out there seems to lend some support to this, rendering Isaiah 45:7: “I am Jehovah, and there is none else, forming light, and preparing darkness, making peace, and preparing evil, I am Jehovah, doing all these things” (YLT).

So let’s look at that second word: ‘ra’.

‘Ra’, according to Strong’s Concordance, comes from a primitive root-word meaning ‘spoil’.  What was there, in the beginning, that could be spoiled?  Only God’s initially “very good” creation.

That begs the question: why would God prepare a very good creation ... to be spoiled?

To answer this, we need to remember 1 John 4:8 again: "... God is love".

It strikes me that, in order for there to be true love between two people (rather than just one party being robotically programmed to ‘love’ the other), there needs to be a genuine choice to love.  In order for there to be a genuine choice, there needs to be both freedom to choose and a selection of at least two options.

So, in his grace and his desire for a genuinely loving relationship with us, perhaps God allowed for something to spoil his ‘very good’ creation so that we could have a genuine choice: to be in a loving relationship with him, or a non-relationship with Not-Him ... a.k.a. ‘evil’.

The sad and all-too-familiar next bit of the story is that we chose evil.

The choice facing Adam and Eve in Eden was not really a choice to know good and evil, because they already knew good.  Because they already knew good, they were really choosing to know evil – and that is the choice we all took, in Adam.

But that sounds really weird, doesn’t it?  The idea that we - you and I - made a choice to turn from God in order to know evil ... in Adam!  But I think that understanding this will really help us to understand why the death of An Innocent deals with the evil in me, so I’m going to try to unpack it a little bit.

Genesis 2:3 says, of the seventh day: "God rested from all his work that he had done in creation".

So, once he created Adam and Eve, he did not go on to then create Cain, Abel, Seth, and all the others – they simply proceeded from Adam and Eve.  They – and we – were created in, and came out from, Adam and Eve.

Hebrews 7:9-10 alludes to this, too, when it says that: "one might even say that Levi himself (who receives tithes) paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor, when Melchizedek met him."

So it would seem that each and every one of us has an unbroken, literal link – through our flesh - all the way back to Adam: we, all, were in Adam when God created him (… us!)

So, again, it was in Adam, that we all – too – chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which brought death in to spoil creation.

This is why God is entirely just in seeing that the death that came through that choice is still meted out on us today.

Just ... but not happy!

2 Peter 3:9 describes God as: "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" ... Acts 17:26-27 says: "he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us."

God takes no pleasure from the nonetheless just situation that all of us should be eternally separated from him, through death, because of our choice to know self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving evil.

We knew good … but then, even as we knew good, we chose to know evil.  It was the great adultery: married and united to God, we then chose to also marry and be united with Not-God.  God and Not-God will not live alongside one another, so we effectively chose the ultimate divorce - complete separation from God forevermore.

Thankfully, our hatred of him ... did not stop him loving us!

But what was he to do?

There was only one thing for it: the Bridegroom would have to go to that place of ultimate divorce and show his bride his love for her.  If she then chose to receive that love (and so 'die' to her 'marriage' to Not-God) and trust him to carry her back home to be with him forevermore... he would, then, carry her home - protected - to his Father's house.

This 'place of ultimate divorce' is in the spiritually dead flesh we took on from Adam as we were born out of him ... or our nearest relative above us in his line!

So Jesus, too, had to first be born into Adam's flesh*, ... then inhabit that flesh without succumbing to its self-centred, self-absorbed, self-absorbing, self-serving, evil desires and temptations, ... and then allow this flesh of his to be beaten, broken, and sent to the grave, ... before finally returning from the grave with a body that would never again be anything but filled with the Spirit of God … never again to be separated from God … never again to be dead.

So this is why Jesus’ death can atone for my sin.

It is not so much that there is a contract against which I created a debt that Jesus paid from his riches.  It is, rather, that, by carrying his portion of Adam's flesh to death, he reached me in my portion of that dead flesh*.  Then he gained my trust, showing me his love for me - a love that sustained him through the utter brutality by which his flesh was put to death.  And then he guaranteed to carry me out of my dead flesh, by sealing me with the Spirit that will fill my ‘resurrection body’-to-come forevermore.

And so he can do for everyone born into Adam’s flesh.

If you have not died and been raised with him through your trusting in his love for you (as shown through everything he has ever done for you, climaxing at the cross), then you are still dead and divorced from God forever.

But what he has done for you still stands – and while you are still in this flesh**, you still have the opportunity to accept what he has done for you and to trust him to carry you – his beloved – back home.

I leave you with two passages, linked by a common thread.  Perhaps the first is for those who still steadfastly refuse the advances of love from the Bridegroom, the Son of God, Jesus Christ; the second for those who have been rescued, and are now just waiting for Jesus to return, to take them home:

The first was written by James: "You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?"

The second was written by John: "Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."


May I end with a prayer?

Father, open our eyes and hearts to know your love, and the love of your Son and Spirit.  Help us to know how to surrender our resistance to your loving approaches and enjoy being carried by you in your eternal embrace.  Help us, in our unbelief, to trust and hope only in you.  And may your love and goodness flow through us to our family and friends and neighbours and colleagues, to the glory of your name ... amen.



Footnotes:

* Hebrews 2:14  "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil"

** 2 Corinthians 5:10, which says that: "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."

Psalm 22

Where I was at school, the Bible was seen as a dusty rulebook of morals to live by, and The Psalms were a repository of mysterious poems designed to be chanted almost monotonously in order to stultify a room of rowdy boys during Assembly.

I doubt Jesus was chanting monotonously as he hung on the cross bearing the sins of the world, but Psalm 22 starts with the words that he spoke as darkness covered the land, and end with a verse reminiscent of his last words as he "gave up his spirit".

Could it be that Psalm 22 was given for us to mind-read the Son of God during the most crucial three hours in the entire history of Creation?

"My God, my God!"

Jesus, eternally begotten (i.e. ‘defined’ as "Son"), calls to his perfectly loved and loving father - but he doesn’t use the intimate name "Abba" ("Daddy"), as he encouraged us to, but by the name "El" ("God" – literally, "strength" or "almighty"), changing the perspective of this relationship from one of loving intimacy to one of power versus submission.

And he asks the question his whole church wants to know the answer to: "Why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?"

Jesus, the "Word of God", cries out with words, but is answered without a sound.  Instead, the source of his light – the light that he reflects so perfectly that he is "the light of the world" - is simply withdrawn.

                                                                                                                                                                                          

It was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour (Luke 23:44)

"My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest"

Perhaps this simple phenomenon of the light disappearing serves to remind Jesus of his father’s great goodness and the rescue mission they have set themselves: to deliver those who trust in God from the eternal separation their sin otherwise leads them to.

"You are holy, you who live in the praises of Israel - our fathers trusted in you: they trusted, and you delivered them.  They cried to you, and were delivered: they trusted in you, and were not confounded"

But how was this great rescue mission going to work?

Sin is not trusting in God … not trusting in God means disunity with God … disunity with God must mean separation from God … separation from God is death and hell.

How can God stop sinners going to hell?

"I am a worm and not a man"

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Scarlet is a colour symbolic of 'sin' throughout the Bible.  The Hebrew for the word 'scarlet' comes from the word for the type of worm that was crushed in order to make scarlet dye.  It follows that 'worms' are symbolic of sin too (e.g. Mark 9:47b-8, quoting Isaiah 66:23-24 "hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched").

"You are he that took me out of the womb.  You did make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.  I was cast upon you from the womb: you are my God from my mother's belly"

Jesus has blessed Israel, his ‘nation of priests’, for centuries.  Finally he is born ‘of the flesh of man’ into their care, forever trusting in God, in order to save man!

… So what would Israel offer towards the rescue mission?

Jesus looks around at those for whom he has been 'made sin': "I am a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him"

They that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying: you that would destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!

Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said: he saved others; himself he cannot save.  If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him!

He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

(Matthew 27:39-43)

The cynic might suggest that Jesus had always planned to quote the first verse of the Psalm in order to big himself up in the eyes of those who knew their scriptures.  But, were this even thinkable (through the agony, humiliation, and bloody trauma of the crucifixion!), he still couldn’t have controlled the natural response of those spitting hate at him all around, if he were just a man.

So ‘His own’ would not help, but what about the angels?  Surely the ‘ministering spirits’ - legions of whom he has lead as their Commander (Joshua 5:14), their great Arch-angel (1 Thessalonians 4:16) – surely they would come now, in his hour of greatest need?

No, not the spirits surrounding him now: "many bulls ... strong bulls of Bashan" and "roaring", devouring "lions" with mouths open wide surround him now.

The bovine imagery alludes to cherubim (compare Ezekiel 1:10 "they four had the face of a man … a lion … an ox … an eagle" and Revelation 4:7 "a lion … a calf … a man, and … a flying eagle" with Ezekiel 10:14 "the face of a cherub, … a man, … a lion, and … an eagle") – and who was the 'guardian cherub' of Ezekiel 28:14?  The one who deceived Eve and became ‘the accuser’, Satan.

Furthermore, lions, when described in reference to their mouths being open and aggressive, point our minds to think of demons, whilst Bashan appears to be Satan’s playground - the mountain he set up in opposition to Zion.  Deuteronomy 3:11 speaks of "Og king of Bashan … remnant of giants", and Amos 4:1-2 proclaims to the "cows of Bashan who oppress the poor, who crush the needy … they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks"!  Who is that ‘last’ taken away with fishhooks?  Ezekiel 29:3-4 "I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.  But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales".

No, "there is none to help"  Even the gifts of the Holy Spirit leave him:

Life drains from his body: "I am poured out like water ...  My heart has melted away within me … you lay me in the dust of death" (see Revelation 22:17 "... the free gift of the water of life")

Power drains from his body: "My bones are out of joint ...  My strength / power is dried up" (see Luke 4:14-15 "Jesus taught in the power of the Spirit and everyone praised him").  This truly is his moment of greatest weakness: bones are symbolic of strength, but his are "are out of joint" … although, crucially, they are not broken, as we can read in John 19:33,36 "But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs ... for these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken.’"  This is an important statement of God’s ultimate power in his greatest ‘weakness’ - his victory in his death.

"Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me"

There is a third group of witnesses around him: the reference to dogs is also seen particularly in Revelation 22:15 ("Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood"), Matthew 7:6,15:26-7 ("Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you" and "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs … yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table") and Exodus 22:31 ("You shall be consecrated to me. Therefore you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs").

It is important that Gentiles – who had never been part of "Israel" - are present here too: Jesus' death heralded "the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages" (Romans 16:25), that "a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25) to take their place as faith-filled "fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Ephesians 3:6).

So what will the Gentiles surrounding Jesus offer towards the rescue mission?

They were the ones who would "pierce my hands and my feet ... stare and gloat over me" (described in John 19:36-7) and "divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment" (described in John 19:23-24).

So who can Jesus turn to?

"You, LORD, do not be far from me.  You are my strength; come quickly to help me.  Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.  Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen"

This is not only a request in faith but also a prophecy and an encouragement in faith: "I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you - you who fear the LORD, praise him!  All you descendants of Jacob, honour him!  Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!  For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but HAS listened to his cry for help"

Then Jesus answers his own question in the beginning: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Remembering the rescue mission that he, the father, and the spirit agreed as they yearned for the love of their beloved creation, he proclaims: "From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows: The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise him (may your hearts live forever!), all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him (for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations), all the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him (those who cannot keep themselves alive), posterity will serve him - future generations will be told about the Lord."

The final verse - "They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!" - sounds very much like two verses towards the end of the Bible:

"The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done! "  And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.  And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great" (Revelation 16:17-18)

Interestingly, this followed by a severe earthquake, which was attested to in Matthew 27:51,54 "And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.  Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God!"

Then, right in the middle of some of the most beautiful and glorious verses speaking of the purpose of the cross, there is Revelation 21:6…

He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life."