Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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Archives for July 2020

The Mark, Part 4: Life in the Big City

July 30, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle | Part 3: The Look of the Big City

John has described the entrance of the Bride, the New Jerusalem, and has told us something of what the city looks like. Now he begins to describe life, culture, in this unprecedented city.

His opening observation (Re 21.22) is the most obvious feature, the one that drives all the rest:

God is there.

The Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb—John speaks of them as distinct persons, but also in the same breath, as if they are equals—have taken up residence in this city; John says, perhaps unexpectedly, that they are “its temple,” or “its holy place.”

Now, that’s odd. How can God, who is infinite (unconfined by space) and thus omnipresent, be said to be a “place”?

Welcome to theology, where we spend our time seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, where things are indisputably true but deeply puzzling, where God invites us to know him but in significant ways remains beyond all knowing—and so where we are constantly reminded that we are not the smartest people in the room.

At any rate, as we’ve noted before, the Scripture portrays God as seeking, throughout history, to dwell with his people, to live in their midst. And now the partial, the anticipatory, has come to fruition. Now he dwells with us, visibly, physically(?), notably.

For the rest of the paragraph, John describes life in the city in a series of characteristics that flow directly from the fact that God Is There.

First, God’s presence illuminates the entire city and all life in it. The sun and moon are no longer needed (Re 21.23). How could one glorious presence light every corner of a city 1500 miles across? I suppose it’s reductionistic to suggest that since all the building materials are clear as crystal, there’s nothing to impede the light; this is God’s light, after all, and everything about the place is supernatural. It’s not as though a brick wall could keep the light from getting through.

It’s often been noted that this last section of the Bible often parallels the first; the entire Scripture is marked by what literary critics call an inclusio. In Genesis 1, God begins by creating light (Ge 1.3). Since he creates the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day (Ge 1.14-19), skeptics have questioned how there could be light on Day 1—and how there could be 24-hour days without a sun. The Bible doesn’t answer that question, but this passage makes it clear that there can be light—and more than sufficient light for life—without any sun at all. Does life at the beginning of Scripture resemble life at the end—light provided directly by the glory of God itself? That would certainly make sense.

It’s worth noting as well that the Lamb, who humbled himself and died in darkness, is now glorious enough to be the light of the city. The Father has indeed exalted him (Php 2.9).

There’s more to this city. Because God is there,

  • It’s safe (Re 21.25); those big imposing gates have no protective function. Omnipotence will bring that result.
  • It’s prosperous (Re 21.26). With the freedom that safety brings, there’s activity among the citizenry; there’s commerce; stuff gets done. Basically, it’s the opposite of life in a pandemic.
  • It’s clean (Re 21.27). It’s not “gritty,” the way life in most big cities usually is.
  • And finally, because God is there, the city is characterized by life rather than death (Re 22.1-2). There’s water of life, and consequently a tree of life (there’s Genesis again), whose fruits bring healing—life—to all peoples, without distinction and without discrimination. Remember what God said after Adam sinned? He moved to stop him from eating from the tree of life (Ge 3.22), perhaps because he would then be irredeemably sinful. But now, here, in the City, the time is right. The tree of life is here, and all can eat of it without fear.

The consequence of all this will be worship (Re 22.3-5). But we don’t need to wait for that. Next time, we’ll finish this series by reflecting on what we should be doing while we’re waiting for all this to happen.

Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible Tagged With: New Testament, Revelation

The Mark, Part 3: The Look of the Big City

July 27, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle

In the first 8 verses of Revelation 21, the bride, the New Jerusalem, is presented. Now we turn for a closer look at the heavenly city and what life will be like for those who live there.

To begin with, John is informed by his heavenly guide that the city doesn’t just act like a bride (Re 21.2)—she actually is one. And her groom, it turns out, is the Lamb Himself, the one who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll (Re 5.1-12), the one who by being sacrificed—by laying down his life—has redeemed to God a people from every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation (Re 5.9).

And this bride is bedecked as befits her station. The city appears like no other.

  • The walls are constructed with stone—not just concrete, or even marble—but precious stone (Re 21.11), the kind you wouldn’t use for massive construction work, because it’s just too expensive. Pretty much all the English translations render this word “jasper,” which is the best they can do to name an unearthly material. But it’s not much like jasper, which is quartz of various colors, and opaque. We read that this stone is “clear as crystal.” And the Greek word rendered “jasper” apparently carries a reference to being cut, more than being a particular species (is that the right word?) of gem. Imagine walls made of faceted diamond! Just that aspect of the city’s beauty boggles the mind.
  • It has high walls, with 12 gates and solid foundations (Re 21.12-14). In biblical times, walls were indications of strength; the city was protected from invaders and well positioned to repel them, since defenders could stand atop the walls—on the “high ground”—and make life miserable for any foolish enough to attack. The gates, too, are defensive, specially designed to make entry difficult in multiple ways. But here’s the thing: there are no invaders. All evil has previously been destroyed in the lake of fire (Re 20.11-15; 21.8). There’s no need for defense. This is one astonishingly safe city.
  • John’s guide goes to the trouble of measuring the city (Re 21.15-16). Oddly, it’s a cube—square on the ground but as high as its length and width. What that’s going to look like architecturally—lots of stories? spires?—we’re not told, but it reminds us of something ancient. In Solomon’s Temple, the Holiest Place, where God’s personal glory hovered between the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant, was a cube as well (1K 6.20), of 30 feet, covered with pure gold. This city too is pure gold “like clear glass” (Re 21.18). If we had been able to stand inside the Holiest Place, we would have been astonished. This is exponentially more than that. It isn’t ordinary gold, and it isn’t ordinary construction.
  • The foundations are various gemstones; jasper shows up again, as just the first of a dozen materials (Re 21.19-20). The gates are pearl (Re 21.21)—there must be some very large oysters somewhere—which is odd, since there’s no more sea. :-) And the streets are gold, again “like transparent glass” (Re 21.21).

Often in my academic reading, I’ll finish a page and think, “I know what every word on this page means, but I have no idea what this writer is talking about.” (That happens a lot with certain unnamed twentieth-century German theologians.) When that happens, I often suspect that it’s a flaw in the writer. The purpose of writing, after all, is to communicate.

But here the problem is not with the writer. The problem here is with me. I can read the words, but the content of this passage is simply beyond my ability to visualize and comprehend. It is beyond earthly experience.

We can only imagine.

And John’s description of the heavenly city is far from finished. So far he has described just the physical things. The spiritual nature of this city—if you will, the culture, the lifestyle, the vibrant life of this city—he’ll get to next.

We’ll talk about that next time.

Part 4: Life in the Big City | Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible Tagged With: New Testament, Revelation

The Mark, Part 2: Down the Aisle

July 23, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Looking Ahead

The last two chapters of the Book (Rev 21-22) begin with a wedding. The musicians sound the opening notes of the processional, the doors at the back of the sanctuary open, the mother of the bride rises to her feet, and all eyes turn to the bride. John writes,

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

This is an impressive event, marking the greatest change since Creation. Several things to notice about it.

Replacement

The old is done away with (Re 21.1). Everything physical that you know—the earth and everything in it, the universe, all of it—is gone. Like a ratty old coat, it’s tossed aside and replaced.

At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I suppose it’s a little like junking an old car. You liked that car; maybe you even had a name for it. It took you lots of places, and you have lots of memories of good times with friends and family. It wasn’t perfect, but it was yours, and you have had something of a relationship, as odd as that sounds.

But the mechanic has given you the talk. There’s a lot wrong with the old car, and fixing it would cost more than it’s worth. Cheaper to buy a new one.

Junk it.

And so, with regrets, you do.

I’m a happy guy. For all the old world’s flaws—and they are many, and deep-seated—she’s a beautiful place, with Rocky Mountains and river rapids and birdsong and thunderstorms and honeysuckle. God has been exceedingly good to us in placing us here, at the bottom of an ocean of all the air we can breathe, and giving us the abilities to sense all of these graces in multiple ways.

But this world is indeed broken, physically and socially and politically and in a thousand other ways, and we were designed, in God’s image, for a much better place than this—one without all the disappointments and frustration and pain and death.

A new universe. A new earth.

New constellations. New glories. New delights.

The old will be replaced, and the new will come.

God will bring history full circle, making new again all that has been damaged, replacing the broken and worn with the new and shiny and perfect and completely functional.

As in the beginning.

There’s more.

Moving In

God himself, the Creator, moves right into the neighborhood (Re 21.2-3).

That has always been his plan, that we would be neighbors—no, family members, living on the same land and enjoying unbroken fellowship forever. In Eden, he walked with Adam and Eve. In the Sinai, he gave Moses instructions for a tent where his light would shine perpetually and guide his people. Eventually David made plans for a permanent structure. And then—remarkably—the Son took on flesh and tabernacled among us (Jn 1.14).

But now it all comes to perfection. God lives on our street, and we live on his.

Healing

Why do away with the beautiful, old earth if you’re not going to get rid of what’s wrong with it?

Miraculously, magnificently, God destroys evil at its source. All the violence, all the injustice, all the deprivation. And with it go its effects: the suffering, the tears, the death (Re 21.4). Sin will die, while God’s people will live as they’ve never lived before (Re 21.6-8).

And this is just the beginning.

Next time, life in the big city.

Part 3: The Look of the Big City | Part 4: Life in the Big City | Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible Tagged With: New Testament, Revelation

The Mark, Part 1: Looking Ahead

July 20, 2020 by Dan Olinger 4 Comments

Crazy days, no?

The pace of social change is increasing, and with it the uncertainty. A lot of people are really, really angry. A great many are scared. And there’s a pretty good-sized chunk of folks who are just tired of the whole thing.

Unsurprisingly, there seems to be a lot of discontent with the way things are going—a sense of “we can do better than this.” I’ve seen a few of my Christian friends express longing for the passing of this broken world and the coming of the next—“this world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through” and all that. And within Christianity there’s always a subgroup of folks who are shouting that every headline is proof that The End Is Near.

As a personal note, I’ll observe that I too hope the end is near, though I’m not much for “proving” it from this or that headline. Jesus said that he would come “in such an hour as ye think not” (Mt 24.44), after all. (So are they wrong, or am I? :-) ) Both Jesus and Paul tell us to “watch,” and that we can certainly agree on.

With that in mind, I’d like to consider The End for a bit.

I’ve called this series “The Mark.” Maybe you think that’s short for “the mark of the beast,” which is indisputably a chip that they’re going to sneak into us when Bill Gates forces us all to get vaccinated.

Not gonna go there, for now, at least.

I’m referring to a different Mark. Paul writes,

One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Php 3.13-14).

In the King James Version, which is where most of my Bible memorization has happened, the word goal is rendered “mark.” It’s the tape, the end of the race. It’s where we’re headed. Where the exertion ends and the celebration begins.

That mark.

I’d like to spend a few posts thinking about the end of the book, the denouement.

The bulk of the book, the storyline, the arc of the narrative is reasonably well known—

  • God creates a perfect world as a place where He can fellowship with creatures in His image. (That’s us.)
  • We reject His offer of fellowship and break the perfection of the world.
    • Sin brings injustice, suffering, and pain to life. 
    • Life always ends in death, for animals and humans. 
  • God graciously works to undo the damage we have done.
    • In the midst of judgment, He provides for us to flourish.
      • Adam can still wrest food from the earth, though by the sweat of his brow. 
      • Eve can bear children—though only through pain—so humanity can grow and prosper. 
    • He raises up a people in Abraham—
      • To provide a vehicle for the Law and prophets and thus the Scripture. 
      • To provide a royal line for the birth of Messiah, the incarnation of the God-Man. 
    • The Son steps into human form, obeys the Law perfectly, and dies to pay the penalty for our sin. 
    • In the person of the Spirit, God restores spiritual life to His people and dwells in them to conform them to the image of His Son, so badly marred by their sin. 

That’s quite a plot.

But like any plot, it’s going somewhere; it’s working toward a conclusion, a resolution.

He’s going to restore Creation to where it was in the beginning, before we damaged it.

We read about that at the very end of the book.

Many Christians are surprised to learn that we don’t find very much about heaven in the Bible. We read a lot about the kingdom, the Millennium, but very little about what happens after that. The latter, the new heaven and the new earth, is pretty much limited to the last two chapters. 

We’ll spend the next few posts there.

Part 2: Down the Aisle | Part 3: The Look of the Big City | Part 4: Life in the Big City | Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible Tagged With: New Testament, Revelation

On Being Like Jesus, Part 8: Closing Thoughts

July 16, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Why It’s Important | Part 2: Why It’s OK to Moralize, This Time | Part 3: Aligning Your Values | Part 4: Aligning Your Focus | Part 5: Letting Go | Part 6: Getting Low | Part 7: Sacrificing Yourself

You’re not going to be called on, like Christ, to die for the sins of the world. But wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, God has called you to be like Christ, to represent him well (2Co 5.20) by serving others rather than being fixated on yourself. 

How can you live that out in your ordinary life?

  • You can notice when someone around you could use a hand. Hold a door; pick up what someone’s dropped; tell a friend there’s ink on his face. 
  • You can decide to spend less time thinking about your own happiness, or success, or popularity, or grooviness,* and think instead about how you can help other people get those things. Pass the ball. Redirect the spotlight. Make somebody else look good. 
  • You can think about the effect of your actions on people you don’t see right now. Clean up after yourself; pick up trash off the sidewalk. Don’t say every clever thing that pops into your head. Leave a loose end on the roll of toilet paper. 
  • You can choose to obey regulations and laws you think—or know—you don’t need, because that helps everybody, in more ways than you can imagine. 
  • You can take responsibility for your own actions instead of blaming your misfortunes on someone else. You got the grade you got because you didn’t study, not because the test was stupid. You got a speeding ticket because you violated a policy that you already knew about, not because the cop hates you. 
  • You can think about the things you’re good at—everyone’s good at something—and figure out who you know that could use your help with that. Did you do well in school? How about tutoring someone who’s struggling? Are you tall? How about getting stuff off the high shelves for the rest of us? 
  • You can walk circumspectly—looking around—watching for situations that could use your help, and do what you can, even if it’s not something you’re particularly good at. You can go out of your way, inconvenience yourself, be late to something, miss a bus, because somebody just needed a little help.
  • You can look for ways to be kind to someone you don’t like. He’s voting for that other guy. He advocates positions that are stupid. He’s a jerk. He’s nasty to you. Rather than unfriending him :-), how about watching his posts to see if there’s something he needs or wants that you can provide? How about encouraging him privately when he’s angry or afraid or sad? How about praying for him—grace, mercy, peace?
  • You can notice when other people are kind to you, or help you, or do things that benefit you, and you can thank them for it, specifically. 

You may never be at the homecoming dance at Richmond High. You may never need to be a hero. But you can live every day in a way that benefits the people around you. 

By God’s grace and with His help, you can be like Christ. 

* I use a word that’s hopelessly outdated to make a point. Whatever the term for “popular” or “admired” is in the current culture, it will be outdated in a few years—so outdated that people will laugh when you use it, taking it as an indication that you are hopelessly behind the times and thus the very opposite of what the word used to mean. Public admiration is a transient and ethereal thing. We seek it as if it were a thing of value, and it isn’t.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Ethics, Theology Tagged With: New Testament, Philippians, sanctification

On Being Like Jesus, Part 7: Sacrificing Yourself

July 13, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Why It’s Important | Part 2: Why It’s OK to Moralize, This Time | Part 3: Aligning Your Values | Part 4: Aligning Your Focus | Part 5: Letting Go | Part 6: Getting Low

Let’s start with a quick review.

Being Christlike begins by changing the way you think—specifically, what you value (Php 2.3) and where you focus (Php 2.4). That change in outlook will then issue in changing the way you act—divesting yourself (Php 2.6), humbling yourself (Php 2.7), and now—and finally—sacrificing yourself (Php 2.8).

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Christ, who is equal with the Father, as we’ve learned earlier (Php 2.6), submitted himself to the Father in obedience.

That is a mark of remarkable humility—and confidence, as we’ve discussed earlier. He obeyed someone who was not his superior.

We’re not like that. We don’t like to obey anybody, ever. As 4-year-olds, we thought we were smarter than our parents, and as 14-year-olds, we thought we were smarter than our teachers. (Actually, I recall acting that way openly in class when I was just 11. I was a precocious little snot, I was.) Today I have all kinds of friends who think they’re smarter than the government.

OK, maybe that was a flawed example. :-)

But the point stands. We don’t want to obey anybody, even—and most especially—those whom God himself has placed in authority over us.

Romans 13? Well, that says the government is a terror to evil and a praise to those who do good, and my government isn’t like that, so I don’t have to obey them.

By that standard, no one has ever had to obey any government that has ever existed, and God wrote Romans 13 as a gigantic joke.

That’s not a conclusion I can come to.

Obey the government? Well, in the US the government is the Constitution, and our elected officials don’t follow it, so I don’t have to obey them and their stupid laws.

There’s a fancy term for that governmental philosophy; it’s called anarchy, when every man does what’s right in his own eyes. And it doesn’t turn out well.

Jesus obeyed. He is God, and he obeyed.

That’s remarkable.

The passage goes further.

Not only did he obey, but he obeyed at infinite cost—to death, and even the death of the cross.

Crucifixion was designed specifically to be the slowest, most painful death possible. The Father’s will was not to send Jesus to die during the French Revolution, when the guillotine was the execution device of choice.

Drop, lop, plop. Done.

He didn’t send him to die in Hiroshima in August of 1945, when his life would have ended in a brilliant flash of light and instant vaporization.

He sent him to the Roman Empire in the first century.

There has never been a worse time to die.

Obedience really cost him something. And this something went far beyond the merely physical pain.

Obedient unto death—even the death of the cross.

I’ve heard a lot of talk from Christians recently about persecution.

For the most part, I find it embarrassing.

What persecution? Against this background—the death of the cross—what persecution?

What have I sacrificed?

I’ll tell you about the worse I’ve ever suffered for Jesus.

In college, I was standing on a sidewalk in St. Matthews, SC, next to a friend who was preaching across the street from a bar during the Purple Martin Day Festival, the town’s annual street party. Some men came out of the bar to see what was going on. One of them had a large paper cup of beer, and he threw it at my friend. Missed him and hit me. Beer all over me.

That’s the worst I’ve ever suffered.

And to tell the truth, it was a hot night, and the cold beer actually fell pretty refreshing running down my front.

Serving Jesus has cost me nothing of any consequence.

I know that not everyone can say that. I have friends who have lost much to follow Christ, and I have friends of friends who have died violently specifically because they were Christian.

They would say that it has all been worth it.

Next time, we’ll share some closing thoughts.

Part 8: Closing Thoughts

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Ethics, Theology Tagged With: New Testament, Philippians, sanctification

On Being Like Jesus, Part 6: Getting Low

July 9, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Why It’s Important | Part 2: Why It’s OK to Moralize, This Time | Part 3: Aligning Your Values | Part 4: Aligning Your Focus | Part 5: Letting Go

If the first exemplary action Christ took was to divest himself of something valuable (more on that in a moment), the second action was to humble himself (Php 2.7); as the NASB puts it, he “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”

As I noted last time, the theology gets a little complicated here. Paul says that Christ “emptied himself.” Emptied himself of what? What did he throw overboard on the way from heaven to earth?

Did he give up his equality with God—his deity?

Well, we know that can’t be right, for several reasons. As a visible, corporeal human being, he said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8.58). He perfectly revealed the Father (Jn 14.9; Col 1.15; Heb 1.3). The fullness of the Godhead was in him bodily (Col 2.9). He was God with us (Mt 1.23). One of his disciples called him God, and he didn’t correct him (Jn 20.28). He forgave sins (Mk 2.7). He offered an infinite sacrifice, sufficient for all the sins of all the humans who have ever lived.

Only God could do those things.

So how did he empty himself? What did he throw overboard?

Our passage doesn’t actually say that he threw anything overboard; it says that “he emptied himself” by “taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Php. 2.7). He didn’t lose anything he had; he added something burdensome.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of running a three-legged race. (I’ll bet it was at a church picnic, wasn’t it?).

How was your time in the 40 in that race? Better or worse than usual?

Worse?! How could that be? You had an extra leg, didn’t you?

In this case, having an extra leg doesn’t make you faster. It’s an added burden.

I said last time that no metaphors about God work perfectly, and the three-legged race is deficient as well—Jesus’ act of bearing both human and divine natures simultaneously was (and is) not clumsy or comical—but it serves well enough for our purpose. He took on a human nature, and that weighed him down in some sense. As Darrell Bock has observed, the incarnation “was subtraction by humble addition”; and as we learned in elementary school, subtraction is simply the addition of a negative number.

So Christ, valuing our need more than himself, refused to view his equality with God as something he had to hold and protect, but took the drastic step of becoming a man, becoming in form like a slave. That step had eternal ramifications for him as well as us. He is still a man, with a body, apparently forever bearing the scars (Jn 20.27) of his corporeal humiliation. That move did not cost him his equality with God, but it did cost him a lifetime of humiliation, disgust, and pain.

If you’re a believer, sacrificing yourself for others is not going to cost you anything eternal; you’ll still be God’s child, and you’ll still be secure in his love. But it will cost you other things, including your own will and your own way. It’ll probably cost you some respect, and it may even cost you some money. For some, it has even cost them their life. But if you take Jesus’ view, you won’t value those things, certainly not more than following his example.

Get low. Humble yourself. Set aside things you care too much about. Rest in the confidence of God’s plan and care for you, and take some risks.

Part 7: Sacrificing Yourself | Part 8: Closing Thoughts

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Ethics, Theology Tagged With: New Testament, Philippians, sanctification

On Being Like Jesus, Part 5: Letting Go

July 6, 2020 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1: Why It’s Important | Part 2: Why It’s OK to Moralize, This Time | Part 3: Aligning Your Values | Part 4: Aligning Your Focus

The first two steps in becoming more like Christ, as Paul lays them out in Philippians 2.3ff, involve changing the way you think; you align your values with Christ’s, and then you focus on what he focused on.

Jesus himself teaches us that actions result from thoughts; “out of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt 12.34). Our next step is going to involve changing our actions, but we’re not going to be able to do that unless we take those first two steps first, changing the way we think. History is filled with failures on that score.

Beginning with Philippians 2.5, Paul turns to Christ as an example of the ideas he’s laid out in verses 3-4; Christ’s actions, which we can see, are examples of the kind of thinking he’s asking us to pursue. I’d like to suggest that there are three steps—action steps—that Christ took in the behavior Paul describes here.

To begin with, Jesus divested himself—he let go of what he had.

Now, we’re getting into some complex and incomprehensible theological concepts here, so we want to be careful how we describe what Jesus did. Though we are in God’s image, God is fundamentally unlike us, and unlike anyone or anything else—that’s essentially what we mean when we say that God is “holy”—and consequently we can’t describe him accurately with a metaphor, which is one of the primary ways we come to understand things. So we’re working at a significant disadvantage here. Let’s proceed cautiously.

The text says that Jesus was “in the form of God” (Php 2.6). In English that sounds like he looked like God, but he actually wasn’t. And that’s a badly mistaken reading of what Paul is saying here. Jesus is the same shape as God; he’s like God in every respect. He is distinct from the Father but equal to him.

Now, Paul says, in that situation, Jesus didn’t regard his equality with God—which he did indeed have—as something that he needed to hold onto for dear life, the way a drowning man holds desperately to his rescuer. Why? Because equality with God is inherently his. He doesn’t have to fight for it or to fight off challenges to it. He’s confident; he’s in his natural state. This is just the way he is.

In the next verse this situation is going to get pretty sticky—but that’s for the next post. The key point here is that Jesus didn’t feel as though he had to hang on to what he had.

We’re not like that. We want what we have, and we hold these things insecurely, and we’re terrified of losing them. As I write this, we’re still in the midst of this pandemic business, and some of my friends are trying desperately to hang on to their health, while others are trying desperately to hang on to their rights, and come, um, high water and even worse stuff, nobody’s going to let go; this is a tug of war to the death. Don’t give an inch. If we lose what we have, we’ll never get it back.

That’s a sign of weakness.

It’s like the teacher who really won’t smile before Thanksgiving, because he’s afraid that he’ll lose control of the class. He’s incompetent, or he fears that he is, and his militancy is a cover for his insecurity.

Jesus isn’t like that. He doesn’t hang on to anything for fear of losing it. He’s willing to divest himself of whatever he has, for the benefit of those whose well-being he values. (Did he “divest himself” of his equality with God? Be patient; that’s for next time.)

Whatever you have—time, money, energy, whatever—you hold loosely, ready to drop it in an instant if by doing so you can serve others.

How do we act that out in a day of Covid?

I’m not your governor, and I’m not going to tell you what to do specifically.

Be like Jesus.

Here’s what he didn’t do. He didn’t say, “I’ll be glad to help you out, as long as it doesn’t, like, cost me anything.”

Someday the crisis of the day will be a distant memory, but the people you serve will still be conscious, in this life or the next, and they’ll still be valuable. Invest what you have, by God’s grace, in them, not in yourself.

Imagine if Jesus hadn’t done that for you.

Part 6: Getting Low | Part 7: Sacrificing Yourself | Part 8: Closing Thoughts

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Ethics, Theology Tagged With: New Testament, Philippians, sanctification

On Being Like Jesus, Part 4: Aligning Your Focus

July 2, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Why It’s Important | Part 2: Why It’s OK to Moralize, This Time | Part 3: Aligning Your Values

Paul’s first principle in his description of being like Jesus (Php 2.3-8) is to change your values—specifically, to regard others as more important than yourself (Php 2.3). In this post we turn to the second, complementary principle—we need to change what we focus on:

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others (Php 2.4).

As I’ve noted, this is complementary; it builds on the first principle. We begin by valuing others more than ourselves, and that change in valuation prompts us to “look out for” the interests of those we value.

I suppose the best illustration of this is parents with their children. In most cases this radical shift in focus happens naturally; it’s the rare exception when a mother feels no natural instinct to care for her infant, and indeed to put the infant’s well-being ahead of her own. Parents routinely sacrifice sleep for their newborn, and often they take on extra work to provide for the child’s needs, and further to provide things that may not be needs but that they consider important to the child’s success.

I well remember my last year in public school. I was in 7th grade, in a junior high (that’s what we called them in those days) in a Boston suburb where the leadership was trying all the latest fads in educational theory. There were no grades; there was no discipline; and I was headed for trouble in several obvious ways. My parents decided that my Mom would go to work—she had excellent secretarial skills—and in doing that they were able to pay for tuition in a Christian school several towns over. For the next 4 years I rode to work with my parents, caught a city bus to the next town, walked half a mile down a hill to the private school bus stop, and rode to school on Mr. Dutton’s bus. Reversed the process in the afternoon, studied at Mom’s office till 5, and then drove home with my parents.

Mom didn’t have to do that. I could have kept on going to school for free, catching a bus right down at the corner nearest my house.

But like pretty much all parents, my parents were willing to upend their lives to my advantage, because, at root, they valued me above themselves.

That’s natural, or so it seems. We value our children, and so we focus on their success.

Now, here’s the thing.

We need to do that with everybody.

Everybody.

The ones we don’t naturally feel any special attachment to.

The ones who don’t seem to be as valuable as we are.

And to our minds, that’s pretty much everybody outside our friends and family—and maybe some people within our friends and family as well.

You know who I’m talking about. :-)

The emphasis in our current verse (Php 2.4) is on focus, on looking around, on paying attention. It’s on noticing need and then acting on it.

You can’t notice if you’re not paying attention—indeed, if you haven’t developed the habit of paying attention.

You can’t notice if your nose is buried in your phone as you’re walking down the sidewalk.

You won’t notice if, like me, you’re such a list-obsessed person that all you normally think about is the thing you’re working on right now, and the next thing, and the next.

Stop. Look around. Pay attention. Notice.

Sure, fellow list-makers, make your list; see to your responsibilities; make each day count; be strategic.

But as you’re doing that, value those around you, and watch them, looking for their needs, ready to be interrupted, and planning how you can help meet them.

When Jesus started his earthly ministry, he had three years to save the world. That’s a pretty big to-do list.

How would you have started?

He started by going over to Bashan and getting baptized. Then he went to a wedding, and when they ran out of wine, he provided some more.

And after 3 years of seeing and acting on other people’s needs, he saved the world.

Follow him.

Part 5: Letting Go | Part 6: Getting Low | Part 7: Sacrificing Yourself | Part 8: Closing Thoughts

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Ethics, Theology Tagged With: New Testament, Philippians, sanctification