God's power made perfect in weakness (even in this small way)

It is Easter Monday. The last day of the Easter period (mainly noted here because Easter Sunday is a bank holiday and so it stands in lieu of a proper day off for most people). And me and my family have been sick the whole way through!

I preached on Maundy Thursday evening (on Jesus' comments about washing from John 13) and Good Friday (on the three crosses and respective responses of two criminals either side of Jesus). If you are interested, you can listen back to those here and here. 

I had planned to speak on Easter Sunday about Matthew's account of three very different responses to the resurrection event. Sadly, having croaked my way through Good Friday (I edited out the coughing fits for the online upload) it all proved too much and a contingency speaker was drafted in last minute on Sunday morning (who I am told did a stellar job). Instead of sitting under some uplifting ministry on the resurrection of Christ, I had the joy of sitting in a medical walk-in centre - wife and son in tow - to find out whether we had an infection that required antibiotics or just a horrible virus that we had to wait out (for those that care, it was the latter - which really stinks because not only is it hanging around but there is nothing we can adequately medicate with either!)

But here is what encouraged me. I felt totally sick and ill, had to help look after my family who felt much the same, and had no hope of preaching Sunday morning (that's not the encouraging bit). I also know the gentleman who stepped into the breach to cover the preaching was not looking forward to delivering an off-the-cuff word or having to deliver my poorly planned, inadequate notes that he wouldn't get sight of until about 10 minutes before the service started (his servant heart and willingness to do so is more encouraging but that's not quite it either). What was so encouraging is that despite every reason for everything to fall apart, the church was full, the service went ahead and the word was well received.

Often what we plan to be great isn't as great as we might hope. Other times, what doesn't go to plan at all and ought to be a disaster is no such thing. I am reminded time and again of Christ's words to the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” You don't get much weaker than a preacher that physically can't deliver the sermon and a stand-in working from notes he has neither seen nor prepared!

And what more appropriate day than Easter Sunday for such things to happen. What looked like a disaster to the disciples on Good Friday, the death of their Lord on a shameful Roman cross, proved at Easter Sunday to be the plan of salvation God had ordained before the foundation of the world. What would have never been the plan of you and me was the appointed means by which God brought salvation to the world. What, by rights, should have been a total disaster and the end of the Jesus cult was God's greatest glory and the beginning of his 2000 year old church.

All that is to say, what may appear disastrous and seem destined to failure may be the very means by which God brings glory to himself. Whether that is in the small (or slightly bigger) parts of a church service or in the huge, grand sweep of salvation-history, God chooses the weak things by which to glorify himself. He chooses not to conform to human convention and wisdom. He chooses a virus to knock-out a church pastor and stop him preaching the word in order to glorify himself through another man taking his place and doing a far better job because he is almost certainly relying on the Lord in a way this pastor probably wasn't going to because his "power is made perfect in weakness".

The resurrection and the grounds of Christian hope

Good Friday is the day we remember the death of Christ. As I commented here, the cross is neither the object of our faith nor the basis of our hope. Rather, it is the place at which Jesus fulfilled the work of his mission and secured the salvation of all who believe in him.

Easter Sunday is the day we remember the resurrection of Christ. Unlike the cross, the resurrection is the basis of Christian hope. In Romans 8:24, Paul reminds us "hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" As such, the Christian hope is by definition some future event or happening for which we wait.

As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:20 "Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep". Firstfruits signal the start of a harvest and prove there is more fruit on the way. If Jesus' is the firstfruits of those who have died, his resurrection must signal more of the same to come. The resurrection acts as God's pledge to all believers that they will be raised to glory. Jesus rose as the firstfruits of the resurrection of all believers to come. According to Paul, the basis of our hope rests on the historical event of Jesus' resurrection.

If one can disprove the resurrection, one can destroy the Christian faith. Christian belief rests on the historical resurrection of Jesus. Without it, there is no future hope. Jesus did not rise, he is not in glory and  no believer is going to be there with him for eternity. Evidently, this is what the apostles themselves recognised when they returned to the very jobs from which Jesus first called them in the aftermath of the crucifixion.

The question that remains is this: what best accounts for the empty tomb? What best accounts for the sudden emergence of the Christian church? What best accounts for the willingness of the dejected followers of Jesus suddenly being willing to die for a faith based solely on the resurrection of their Lord? 

The evidence for the resurrection is quite astounding. The points of agreement among scholars on the basic historic facts surrounding the resurrection are enormous (see here for an outline of this). If the answer to the above questions is that Jesus actually, bodily rose from the dead then Christians have remarkable grounds for their current faith and future hope.

The nature of the cross and why Good Friday is still good

In an article I read recently, it was pointed out - via the questions surrounding when Christian was saved in Pilgrim's Progress - that we are not saved by the cross. Having outlined his position on when and where Christian was saved (at the wicket gate, if you are interested), the author states:

“Are you saying that someone can be saved without the cross?” a concerned student asks.

“No,” I answer, “No one can be saved apart from what Jesus accomplished on the cross, but the Bible proclaims that a person gets saved when he receives Christ, and the Bible does not say that a person gets saved through believing that Jesus died for him. Christ himself is the proper object of saving faith, not some part of his work.”

The author rightly goes on to say: 

virtually everyone has been told that if he will believe that Jesus died for him, he will be saved, but I repeat: this is not found in the Bible. A person is saved not when he believes in right doctrine (substitutionary, penal atonement, in this case) but a person is saved when he believes in the right person, namely Christ. So the object of saving faith is not a doctrine but a person. Christ himself is the treasure chest of salvation. Receive him, and you receive all that is in him.

The article correctly notes that penal substitution is a vital, indispensable part of the gospel. However, it is not the whole gospel and it is not through proper understanding of this doctrine that one is saved. In short, "all who receive Christ the risen Lord as Lord and Savior are saved".

It is also worth noting that none of the apostles seem to ground their hope in the cross either. Their hope seems to rest, not on the cross but, on the resurrection event. So, the cross is neither the object of salvation nor the basis of Christian hope.

Before we go throwing out Good Friday and ignoring Jesus' death altogether, here is why the cross is vitally important and Good Friday is still good. Despite the cross neither being the object of our faith nor the basis of our future hope, the cross is where Jesus ultimately and finally secured our salvation. The cross is the place whereby Jesus paid the penalty for sin, once for all, and completed the mission for which he came. At the cross, the price for sin had been paid, the debt cleared and - unbeknownst to them at the time - the salvation of all believers finally secured.

Although our future hope is not based upon Jesus' work of the cross (more of which on Sunday), without the cross our salvation would not, and could not, exist. The cross is of vital importance because it marks the point in salvation-history at which God punished, in himself, the sins of those for whom Christ died. The cross is neither the object of our salvation, nor the basis of our hope, but there would certainly be no salvation without it. 

That is why Good Friday remains good.

Ought we to fast for lent?

It is clear that a number of good Christian men have advocated the practice of fasting. Luther, Calvin and Wesley all advocated fasting as part of their Christian walk. More recently, John Piper has argued here in favour of making this an ongoing practice. 

However, Zwingli - who was not averse to disagreeing with Luther (cf. the Marburg Colloquy) - opposed fasting during lent, defending his co-workers during the "affair of the sausages"! Similarly, George Wischart rejected the practice of fasting. More recently, Curtis Mitchell has argued here that private fasting may be permissible but is not commanded, required or necessary. Rather, it is a legitimate but unnecessary emotional response to a felt need.

Piper notes that Jesus' response to a question on fasting in Mt 9:14-17 either refers to an effective revocation or a change in general practice. Either the bridegroom is taken away between the crucifixion and the resurrection or between the ascension and parousia. Piper goes on to make a case for the latter option and Don Carson argues similarly in For the Love of God.

Piper notes in his article that "fasting was by and large associated with mourning in that day. It was an expression of broken-heartedness and desperation, usually over sin". G. Campbell Morgan, in The Gospel According to Matthew, comments:

A wedding ceremony in an Eastern country lasted for seven days. It was a week of unbounded and unceasing rejoicing, of songs and music and mirth. And Jesus, said, These men are the sons of the bridechamber, and you must not expect them to fast while the Bridegroom is with them, but, “the days will come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast.”

This is Christ’s defence of the right of His people to be merry; and that right to be merry is the fact that He is with them. If that be true, then we have the right to be merry always. What He said about sorrow was fulfilled. He was taken away from them, and they fasted and were sad through those days of darkness; but He came back, and, standing on the slope of Olivet, He said, “Lo, I am with you alway.” Then there is no more room for mourning; no more room for the sad face of agony; but there is room for mirth, room for joy, and room for gladness.

Taking these three things together - (1) fasting is related to mourning, usually over sin; (2) Jesus' followers will mourn when he has gone away; and, (3) Jesus is with us always - we are rather led to the conclusion that fasting is unnecessary. Indeed, if Christ is forever with us by his Spirit and has dealt with our sin once-and-for-all, what place has fasting in the life of the believer?

Not to be undone so simply, Piper notes the issue and rightly draws our attention to the spanner in the works: (1) the early church fasted after the resurrection; (2) Jesus pictures the second coming as the arrival of the bridegroom in Mt 25:1-13. 

The second issue is rather easier to explain away. We all know the bridegroom is coming again only, next time, he is coming to judge the world. Though he is always with believers now, he will return bodily. Nevertheless, being with us now and having dealt with our sin, fasting has no place. There is nothing to mourn as the bridegroom is still with us. So, Pipers appeal to Mt 25 doesn't particularly advance the argument. What does represent a significant issue is this: if Christ is with us and has dealt with our sin, why do the church in Acts continue to fast?

Before going further, we should note there is no NT command to fast. Whenever Jesus discussed fasting, it was almost always in the context of cultural religion. It is hard to press Jesus statement in Mt 6:16-18 as an assumption his followers will/should fast. Rather, he is making a broader point about the outward show of religion and, where such outward forms exist, they should at least be genuine.

Nevertheless, we are still left with the issue of the early church fasting post-resurrection. We should note there are only two examples of this (Acts 13:1-3 and Acts 14:23). Piper seeks to offer 2 Corinthians 6:5; 11:27 in support of early church fasting but, although the translation may be taken that way in 11:27, the context rather bears out the given translation. So, what are we to say of the two examples in Acts?

It is difficult to press them too far. For one, both times of fasting are linked directly to the sending out, or appointing of, people to particular roles; namely, missionaries and elders. If we are trying to deduce a pattern from these two examples, we are forced to say fasting is reserved for such appointments in the Church. Further, given much of Acts relays particular events that are specific to salvation-history, we may want to be careful in suggesting all things as normative for the church. For example, are we to expect the same outcome as Acts 13 every time we fast? Given that Luke comments neither positively or negatively on these fasts, they are merely stated as having happened, we have no reason to presume this is normative for the church.

It is entirely possible that fasting was an issue of the same order as those in the Jerusalem Council. It is equally possible that this was merely a cultural practice brought over by the Jewish believers. It has surely got to be significant that the issue is only ever mentioned as a point of fact in Acts and is not raised in any of the letters; neither commanded, suggested nor even referred to as an already existing practice. It is perhaps a stretch to press, but nonetheless remarkable, that it is not mentioned in either of Paul's letters to the Corinthian church. He neither mentions it in relation to their culture of "spiritual" one-upmanship (a ready tool for such showy, faux-spiritual behaviour) nor as a counter to their gluttony when they meet together (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Similarly, in all Paul's commendations of churches, fasting is simply not mentioned.

So, what are we to make of fasting? Faced with Jesus words about the presence of the bridegroom in Mt 9, and given his comment that he is with believers always, we have positive reasons to reject fasting and mourning. In the face of any New Testament command to do so, and in the absence of any reason to presume the two instances in Acts are normative for the church, it seems legitimate to view fasting as obsolete.

Does that mean fasting is wrong? Not at all. Jesus himself fasted and John, whom Jesus commended, did so too. That the early church did so as well tells us, if nothing else, it is a legitimate practice. If an individual finds it somehow personally beneficial, then they are entitled to fast if they wish. Nevertheless, what has the believer to mourn if the bridegroom is forever with them and their sin has been dealt with once-and-for-all? If that is the state of the believer, then it seems we have little to fast.

Why the Christian can celebrate this Easter

Here are the words of Paul, speaking about the resurrection and its importance to the Christian faith:

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. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 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. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15:12-19)

Paul is clear that without the resurrection the Christian faith is meaningless and Christians are the most sad of sad cases.

Fortunately for the Christian, Paul goes on to say "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:20)". Indeed, there are good grounds to believe that Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead. William Lane Craig offers evidence for the resurrection here and John Stevens explains some of the implications of this glorious truth here.

There are plenty of reasons for the Christian to rejoice this Easter. Nevertheless, let the final word go to Peter:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

Giles Fraser hates Jesus

Not content with attacking "Evangelical Cheesus", and despising John for being "antisemitic", Giles Fraser has now decided he just hates Jesus. Full stop. To quote the man directly: "I hate Jesus". He comments:

How could Christians not hate Jesus, on some level? Much of his teaching is about the renunciation of desire. And on Good Friday he suffers the most excruciating torture and execution – something he had previously told his followers that they too must be prepared to emulate: "Take up your cross and follow me."

He tries to argue that "Jesus can absorb our hatred and is not destroyed by it. That, in part, is what is going on as he is mocked and spat upon. Mocked by the very same people that once welcomed him with open arms".

Fraser is simply speaking against the fact. Jesus was mocked by those that rejected him. The Roman Soldiers, bar one, ridicule Jesus and the religious leaders - who never followed him and were so envious of his following they sought to destroy him - mocked him alongside. No doubt Fraser is really thinking of the crowd, those that previously followed Jesus from town to town, who now turn on him. However, they rejected Jesus too - he wasn't the messiah they had hoped would save them from the Roman occupation. Indeed, the thief on the cross was saved when he stopped mocking Jesus, treating him with contempt, and accepted who he really was.

Fraser really seems to be saying that he hates Jesus because Jesus demands that he change. Jesus demands he give up sinful desires and turn in repentance to him. In Fraser's own words, he doesn't want to "be crucified". 

As I commented here, Fraser has a real problem when faced with the words of 1 John. 1 John 5:3 says "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome". Even Jesus says, in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments". Whilst still representing a problem for Fraser, his words at least accord with 1 John and those of Jesus himself. Fraser's refusal to change, and hatred of Jesus for even asking him to, at least harmonise with the words of scripture. 

The problem Fraser is faced with is the same issue he raises at the beginning of his article:

I hate Jesus. Yes, you read that right. I do. I hate Jesus. Three little words that you may think it absolutely impossible for any Christian to say, especially just before Easter Sunday. Well, I disagree..

I do think such words are impossible for a Christian. Jesus and John both seem to find them impossible for the Christian too. I will let you draw your own conclusion as to what this means for Fraser.

What makes Good Friday good?

As I commented here:

To them [the disciples], at that time, this [the cross] was disastrous. However, [Giles] Fraser is entirely wrong to suggest that the cross, "celebrated as a moment of triumph", is "theologically illiterate". He claims the end of the story does nothing to change this fact. However, the cross is a moment of triumph specifically because it is not the end of the story. Indeed, this is why Paul and the other apostles pinned their entire claim of Christian faith on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 Rather than flesh out those details myself, why not read this and this.

So, what makes Good Friday good? The resurrection of Christ. What makes the resurrection of Christ of any value? The events of Good Friday. We cannot have one without the other.

The apostles rarely taught about the cross without mention of the resurrection. Worryingly, our gospel preaching often considers the cross whilst simultaneously ignoring the resurrection altogether. How often does the resurrection feature in your gospel preaching? Does the resurrection even make any difference to your gospel preaching? The apostles were clear that it should make all the difference in the world.

Giles Fraser's 'Evangelical Cheesus' is not the Jesus of Evangelicals

Whilst I rarely agree with Giles Fraser, I have some sympathy with his view that bemoans, what he perceives to be, a certain form of Evangelicalism. He comments:

Jesus morphs into Cheesus – the es getting steadily elongated. Those who talk about Cheesus do so with a creepy sort of chummyiness. This is what evangelicals call "a personal relationship", by which they mean that Cheesus has become their boyfriend or best mate.

And when such people speak of Cheesus they have to wear that sickly smile too. It's that I-know-something-you-don't smile. Patronising, superior and faux caring all at the same time. And if you disagree with them they will pray for you. It makes you want to bang your head against a brick wall.

Certainly, there can be a tendency to over-emphasise Jesus, friend of sinners - with the emphasis on 'friend' - to the detriment of Jesus, the Son, God himself. Such a position can lead to an over familiar mateyness and cause us to forget entirely that Jesus Christ is Almighty God and should be approached and revered as such. 

However, let's not overlook two other possibilities explaining the existence, amongst Evangelicals, of those characterised by Fraser's description. It is entirely possible that such people were sickly, patronising, superior and faux-caring before they had any conversion experience. That they exhibit these character traits, only now expressing them through the words and phrases associated with theology and religious experience, does nothing suggest Evangelicalism 'creates' such people. Alternatively, these people may have simply misunderstood the New Testament writing or, whilst understanding, apply them in a rather blunt manner. Any sense in which a believers acts 'superior' is clearly antithetical to the New Testament writings and suggests the individual has not really understood the gospel itself, which makes clear none of us have any right to superiority.

However, Fraser is entirely wrong to equate, what he interprets as, "a creepy sort of chumminess" with the Evangelical claim to "a personal relationship". Evangelicalism at no point proclaims that Jesus will become your "boyfriend or best mate". Indeed, the relationship into which one is brought - or, more accurately, bought - isn't entirely comparable to friends (who calls their best mate "Lord"?!). Yes, we are reconciled to God through the cross - simply stated we are 'friends again' with Him - but the relationship between man and God is one of Father-Son than co-equal mates. We are adopted into the Son's sonship, thus inheriting that which is the Son's because we are in the Son. That is a far cry from gaining fringe benefits because, when the Son comes into his inheritance, we're his mates so we benefit by association. In fact, the relationship between Christ and the believer is rarely, if ever, cast as the relationship between mates in the New Testament.

Fraser again touches on a grain of truth whilst simultaneously missing the point when he states:

Cheesus cannot deal with tragedy. Which is why, for the worst sort of Cheesus-loving evangelicals, the cross of Good Friday is actually celebrated as a moment of triumph. This is theologically illiterate. Next week, in the run up to Easter,Christianity goes into existential crisis. It fails.

The fact that this is not the end of the story does not take away from the fact that tragedy will always be folded into the experience of faith. Even the resurrected Jesus bears the scars of his suffering. A man who has been through something like that will never smile that cheesy smile or think of faith as some sunny suburban upspeak. 

Certainly a fact often overlooked in Evangelical circles is that the cross was a complete disaster for Jesus' disciples. As William Lane Craig comments: 

Even the most skeptical scholars admit that the earliest disciples at least believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Indeed, they pinned nearly everything on it. Without belief in Jesus' resurrection, Christianity could never have come into being. The crucifixion would have remained the final tragedy in the hapless life of Jesus.

There was nothing in Jewish writing or culture that would have expected the resurrection of the Messiah. Although the concept of resurrection did exist, the Jewish view differs in two fundamental ways compared to Jesus' resurrection: "In Jewish thought the resurrection always (1) occurred after the end of the world, not within history, and (2) concerned all the people, not just an isolated individual. In contradistinction to this, Jesus' resurrection was both within history and of one individual person".

...confronted with Jesus' crucifixion and death, [the disciples] would only have looked forward to the resurrection at the final day and would probably have carefully kept their master's tomb as a shrine, where his bones could reside until the resurrection. They would not have come up with the idea that he was already raised.

As for the second point, the Jewish idea of resurrection was always of a general resurrection of the dead, not an isolated individual. It was the people, or mankind as a whole, that God raised up in the resurrection. But in Jesus' resurrection, God raised just a single man. Moreover, there was no concept of the people's resurrection in some way hinging on the Messiah's resurrection. That was just totally unknown. Yet that is precisely what is said to have occurred in Jesus' case. Ulrich Wilckens, another prominent German New Testament critic, explains: "For nowhere do the Jewish texts speak of the resurrection of an individual which already occurs before the resurrection of the righteous in the end time and is differentiated and separate from it; nowhere does the participation of the righteous in the salvation at the end time depend on their belonging to the Messiah, who was raised in advance as the 'First of those raised by God.' (1 Corinthians 15:20)"

It is therefore evident that the disciples would not as a result of Jewish influences or background have come up with the idea that Jesus alone had been raised from the dead. They would wait with longing for that day when He and all the righteous of Israel would be raised by God to glory.

Fraser would be correct if he were merely talking about the disciples' view of the cross prior to the resurrection event. To them, at that time, this was disasterous. However, Fraser is entirely wrong to suggest that the cross, "celebrated as a moment of triumph", is "theologically illiterate". He claims the end of the story does nothing to change this fact. However, the cross is a moment of triumph specifically because it is not the end of the story. Indeed, this is why Paul and the other apostles pinned their entire claim of Christian faith on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is why Fraser is so wrong about the Evangelical view of loss and disaster. Evangelicals are not convinced that a sickly smile or patronising platitude does anything to resolve a tragedy.  It is specifically because of the cross that the Evangelical view of tragedy is wider than that proposed by Fraser. Evangelicals see life beyond the here and now, in the presence of God, because of the work of Jesus on the cross. This doesn't mean "sunny suburban upspeak" solves all the world's ills; Evangelicals are perfectly aware of Rom 12:14-15. What it mean is life and hope beyond the problems of here and now. Such problems are not solved by that knowledge but we are given hope beyond them rather than an existence ending with them.

Fraser's 'Evangelical Cheesus' is not the Jesus of Evangelicals. His scornful view of a relationship with God cannot contend with 1 John 1 (esp. 1 Jn 1:3). His defeatist, pessimistic view of the cross is equally problematic when faced with these same verses (especially 1 Jn 1:7). John seems convinced that the cross was no disaster and through it we can have a relationship with Christ. Evangelicals tend to agree with John.