soteriology – Page 2

On Discipline, Part 2: Action

July 25, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Here in Philippians 4, we’re surveying a list of areas that we ought to discipline as we live out our faith in Christ. In the previous post, we noted that we should discipline our perspective to be joyful, rejoicing in whatever comes our way (Php 4.4). We turn now to the second Item in Paul’s list.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand (Php 4.5).

You may know that the KJV renders the key word “moderation.” There’s great breadth in the various reliable versions: “gentle spirit” (NASB), “graciousness” (CSB), “gentleness” (NIV). The standard Greek lexicon (BDAG) suggests “yielding, gentle, kind, courteous, tolerant.” I think we get the idea. There seems to be general idea of others-centeredness, of unselfishness, of lesser concern with one’s own rights than for the rights or needs—or even desires—of others.

Paul says this characteristic of ours should “be known to everyone.” How does that happen? Well, practically speaking, it can happen only when this is our default—whatever we do, in whatever circumstances, with whatever kinds of people, we’re gentle, kind, courteous, tolerant. This is just the way we always act.

That’s a tough order. It’s easy for most of us to be kind and cordial with people we like, or those who are first kind to us. But the situation is very different when someone is rude, or hostile, or childish, or self-centered. It is not my inclination, or yours, to be kind or courteous in those situations.

How often do we see that kind of spirit in operation in our culture? How often, rather, do we see some people mocking those they disagree with—“libtards” or “snowflakes” or “RINOs” or “MAGAs”? How often do we ourselves engage in that kind of mocking and ridicule?

Oh, but in my case it’s justified, you see, because that idiot deserved it, because he was rude to me first, or he’s a tool of the deep state, or he’s a threat to democracy. Or he’s just stupid.

Oh, no, my friend. Let your gentle default mode of action be known to everyone. There are no riders or qualifiers there.

Let me suggest that our current polarized culture presents us with a rare opportunity to have our calm, gentle, kindness stand out from the angry, pugilistic, chaotic background of polarization and rage. When everyone is running to and fro, the one who’s sitting calmly amidst the chaos reading a book stands out; he’s impossible to miss. And in our culture the simplest act of kindness, the slightest evidence of care and attention, screams louder than all the surrounding noise.

What a way to make a difference. What a way to be an ambassador.

Paul’s seals the importance of this discipline with a terse observation: “The Lord is near.”

To what is he referring here?

The word near here is a common word, one that can refer to either time or space.

Is he saying that the Lord is spatially near, as in omnipresent? “O be careful little mouth what you say”?

Or that he is temporally near: coming back soon? “O, can we say we are ready, brother”?

In his epistles Paul uses the word in both senses (Ep 2.13; Ro 13.11). In Jesus’ teaching he tends to use the word temporally, mostly because he’s frequently teaching about the nearness of his Coming. But when he says, “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” is it possible that he means to imply both?

I don’t see a reason to restrict the word here to either sense; either or both can serve as motivation for us to do better at this.

The Lord is indeed near us, both as a deterrent to sin and as a source of power for victory. In ourselves we cannot live this way consistently, but our God is near to us.

The Lord is indeed coming soon, to deliver us from all the frustrations that so vex us now. That means that as vexing as these confrontations are, they are temporary; and knowing that can relieve us of much of the pressure to collapse.

Live out grace, kindness, courtesy. By default. To everybody—especially to the really challenging everybodies.

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On Discipline, Part 1: Perspective

July 22, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

No, I’m not referring to child-rearing, but to how we discipline ourselves. It’s a truism that if you aim at nothing, you’ll certainly hit it. Pretty much everybody understands that you have to set goals, and then persist in pursuing them, in order to accomplish anything worthwhile.

There’s a whole industry of advisors, people who are happy to coach you on making the best of life—whether on the secular side or on the spiritual. Reading these works discerningly and thoughtfully can be highly profitable.

More reliably, though, the Scripture addresses this topic extensively. A series of blog posts is not the place for a comprehensive survey of the biblical theology of personal discipline, but it’s reasonable to focus on a single passage that concentrates on the idea.

I find such a passage in Philippians 4. It’s a concise presentation, and a familiar one; many Christians have memorized the passage, or at least parts of it. In verses 4-9, I find a list of five aspects of our lifestyle—what the King James translators called “conversation”—that we ought to discipline in certain ways. Lord willing, I’ll devote a post to each of the five.

The section opens with Paul’s goal for his (and our) perspective:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice (Php 4.4).

Our view of things, he says, should be consistently joyful.

Several things to note about that.

First, this is Paul writing. He has not had an easy life; as he has already noted in this short epistle, he has sacrificed early professional success to follow Jesus (Php 3.4-11), and a few years earlier he has listed for the church in Corinth a litany of hardship (2Co 11.23-29). Even as he writes these words, he is under house arrest in Rome, waiting for a hearing before Caesar that threatens capital punishment. He is not speaking platitudes.

Second, he is writing to Philippi, a church founded out of a night in prison, an earthquake, and government opposition (Ac 16.13-40). He is about to say that this church has already given sacrificially to support his ministry from a distance (Php 4.16). There is nothing flippant or casual about what he is asking them to do.

Rejoice, he says. No, I really mean it, he repeats.

And furthermore, rejoice all the time.

Rejoice in the good times; rejoice in the bad. Rejoice in success; rejoice in failure.

Rejoice in house arrest. Rejoice in the inner prison.

Interestingly, Paul lives that out. He has already written here that his arrest has yielded good things (Php 1.12-14), and he will go on to say that there are now saints in Caesar’s household (Php 4.22)—though we don’t know whether they became saints as a direct result of his appeal to Caesar.

Now for the fifty-dollar question—how does he do it? How does Paul rejoice in the midst of suffering and injustice greater than you (probably) or I have ever experienced? And by extension, how are we to “rejoice … always”?

The ellipsis provides the answer: “rejoice in the Lord always.”

There’s a lot packed into that tiny prepositional phrase.

What does it mean to “rejoice in the Lord”?

At its purest, it means simply to rejoice in God himself—who he is, and what he does. Meditation on him brings great delight.

But God knows that we are dust, and he understands that we are consistently motivated by self-interest. He graciously works benefits to us, in which we can then rejoice. The blessings of salvation are profitable topics for meditation, as are answers to prayer. (Sidebar: if you don’t pray much, or at all, you’re depriving yourself of the joy that comes from seeing prayers answered.) The confidence that comes from following his will, even through valleys (Ps 23.4), is reason to rejoice. It’s a great gift to know that, really, everything’s going to be OK, and the hard times will eventuate in great good.

So our first step of discipline, according to this passage, is in our perspective: we discipline ourselves to see all things as causes for rejoicing.

This is life-changing.

More next time.

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Continuous Improvement, Part 2: Inch by Inch

January 18, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: No Fear

Deming’s fourteen principles included a second one that has greatly influenced my thinking: being satisfied with slow, iterative change, so long as it is constant because it is built into the system. That, too, reflects something in God’s relationship with us.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, he has three years to save the world. We would certainly feel a lot of pressure in that situation. And that pressure would be compounded if we had to set up a system that would perpetuate itself for thousands of years—particularly if we found that our disciples unanimously and continuously Just Didn’t Get It.

A remarkable thing about Jesus’ ministry is that he never seems to be in a hurry. As he’s traveling through Galilee, he sees a funeral and stops to raise the lone widow’s only son back to life again (Lk 7.11-17). As he’s walking to a village to heal Jairus’s daughter (Lk 8.41-42), he pauses and asks, “Who touched me?” (Lk 8.45). And he takes time to talk to the woman, to comfort and encourage her. Though he sometimes expresses frustration over the thickheadedness of his disciples, he doesn’t fire them and look for someone else. At the end of his earthly ministry, though they are still essentially numbskulls, he instructs them patiently and at length about what’s coming next and what their responsibilities will be.

A little improvement here, a little improvement there. That’s good. We’re moving in the right direction.

It should be no surprise, then, that he works with us in the same way. At our conversion, a lot happens from the divine side, but we’re still just babies, dependent on constant care, feeding on milk and not solid food (He 5.12; 1P 2.2). Yet God has committed himself to us for the long term, uniting our efforts with his in the lifelong process called sanctification (Php 2.12-13). With our active participation, he begins to conform us to the character of his Son, a process that will take our entire lifetimes, even with the Spirit’s empowerment. And even at the end, we still won’t be there, and God will have to take us the rest of the way to perfect Christ-likeness—and he certainly will (1J 3.2).

He knows, of course, that all along that lifelong pathway we’ll stumble, sometimes from weakness, sometimes from inattention, sometimes from sheer bone-headedness. Even Paul didn’t do any better than that (Ro 7.14-25).

But our Father is utterly committed to our long-term reclamation, and he is in this with us for the long haul. He knows our dusty frame (Ps 103.14), and he knows that we’re going to progress in tiny steps, and that sometimes we’ll take steps backward. Though we are frustrated by the fickleness of our love for God and by the consequent inconsistency of our spiritual growth, he is not.

Why not?

Because God’s plans are never frustrated.

And because he loves us.

We’re going to get there, by God’s grace and with his empowerment. You can take that to the bank.

So, every day, we seek continuous improvement. As my pastor said recently, we just take the next step. What that next step is, is different for each of us, but by God’s grace we can see that far, and we can take the step in confidence that he will empower it.

I hope you don’t take this brief series to imply that God is following Deming’s fourteen principles; God is what he is timelessly, and Deming, through common grace, is following God’s principles rather than vice versa.

It shouldn’t surprise us that God is the perfect Father, the perfect Master, the perfect Director and Accomplisher of his good and eternal plans—that he has delivered us from all fear and empowered us to become like Christ, no matter how long it takes or how slow and inconsistent the process.

Take the next step, with confidence.

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Continuous Improvement, Part 1: No Fear

January 15, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Thirty years or so ago, when I was working for BJU Press, my boss assigned me the task of researching what was then commonly called “Japanese-style management,” to see whether we could apply some of its principles to our production processes. For several years the Japanese car companies had been cleaning the clocks of the American manufacturers, and companies of all kinds were beginning to take notice.

So I did some research. Interestingly, the Japanese companies were following the advice of an American statistician named W. Edwards Deming, who argued that companies, particularly in manufacturing, should evaluate their processes statistically and make changes to their processes that were called for by the hard numbers, rather than just acting on hunches. Deming composed a list of fourteen principles to guide company management in this process of continuous improvement.

I was particularly influenced by two of these principles. The first was the absolute necessity of removing fear from the workplace. Every employee must consider himself an equal member of the team, whose input is valued. (In many cases, the line worker’s input is more valuable than the boss’s, because he’s closer to the details of the process and more likely to see where the problems lie.)

The second was the idea of continuous improvement. A company often tries to roll out a new process or organization or morale campaign, with lots of horn-blowing and pom-pom shaking and fancy new slogans, but nothing about the process and the team dynamics really changes; it’s all just pomp and circumstance. Work harder! Try more! Rah rah rah!

Deming says you can’t become a perfect organization just like that. There’s no program or reorganization that is the magic solution to your problems. Instead, you must empower everybody in the organization to notice imperfections and to speak up about them. In the case of the Japanese automakers, they empowered every worker on the assembly line to pull the chain and stop the line if he saw a problem. Yes, it costs money to stop the line; but if you see a problem, stop the line.

Because management has removed fear from the workplace (see previous principle), the employee knows he won’t get cut off at the knees when he notices and immediately reports a problem.

And quality goes up, just a little bit.

And day after day, it goes up just a little bit more.

These days that approach to management is called continuous improvement, or total quality management.

And it works.

It’s interesting to me that God’s treatment of his people reflects both of these principles.

First, God removes fear from the relationship. He does this in a couple of ways. First, he begins the relationship by assuring the believer that although he was angry at his sin before salvation, that is no longer true. He is propitiated: the enmity has been removed, and he will never be angry at the believer again.

A friend of mine, a pastor, heard me say that in class once and challenged me on that. Isn’t God angry at us when we sin? Doesn’t he chastise his people (He 12.5-9)? Yes, he chastises us, but as a perfect father, out of restorative and corrective love, not out of anger. Christ’s sacrifice propitiated the Father, and he is no longer angry. For him to become angry at us, I would suggest, would devalue the sacrifice of his Son. Was Christ’s work effective, or not? Has he propitiated the Father, or not? I said to my friend, there are Christological implications in seeing the Father as ever angry at his children.

A lot of Christians continue to live under the fear of their Father. They know that their sin continues, despite all their efforts to eradicate it. Paul admits this of himself (Ro 7.14-24). But Paul ends that confession with a shout of triumph:

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. … There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Ro 7.25a, 8.1).

And he has already said, “We have peace with God” (Ro 5.1).

The second way he has removed fear is by assuring us of a good, and eternal, outcome. We will persevere (Jn 10.27-29); God’s enemies will be defeated (Re 20.10); and we will have abundant life eternally (Re 21.1-7), as well as in the present (Jn 10.10). Confidence, like love, casts out fear.

We’ll address the second principle next time.

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Part 2: Inch by Inch

In Christ, Part 9: Corollaries

May 29, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

There are several things that regularly—I’m tempted to say necessarily—accompany being in union with Christ. I don’t think it’s quite correct to call them consequences, because I think they have independent origins. But when you see someone in union with Christ, you will typically find these corollaries.

The first is the indwelling, and thus actively working, Holy Spirit. This indwelling comes to all believers, as Christ promised (Jn 14.17) and as Paul confirms (Ro 8.9). But I mention it here because John connects the indwelling with the union specifically:

Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit (1J 4.13).

The two seem to be necessarily collocated.

A second corollary is that believers grow, and specifically they grow together. If we are “in Christ,” and if Christ “is the head of the body, the church” (Co 1.18), then it makes sense that the parts of the body would work together and that the overall body would grow as a result. Paul writes,

That we … may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: ¹⁶From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love (Ep 4.14-16).

¹⁸Let no man beguile you … not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God (Co 2.18-19).

Another corollary is protection in suffering. If we are in Christ, then when we suffer, Christ is the one being attacked. Now, God was protecting his people long before there was union with Christ; David frequently rejoices in his protection. But I find it interesting that when Saul is persecuting the early church, Christ himself confronts him on the road to Damascus and says, “Why are you persecuting me?” (Ac 9.4). This is personal.

One more.

Our friend John writes further in his first epistle,

And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming (1J 2.28).

Now, our confidence at Christ’s coming comes from a number of factors, including justification, remission, adoption, and a whole long list of God’s works. But one thing is sure: those who are united with Christ spiritually can be confident that that union will eventuate in a deeper, more visible, and more fulfilling union in the end. It is no coincidence that Revelation includes a celebration of the marriage of the Lamb:

⁵And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. ⁶And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. ⁷Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. ⁸And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. ⁹And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. … ¹¹And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. ¹² His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself (Re 19.5-12).

This is where it’s all heading, folks. We have, with all these present blessings, merely a foretaste of glory divine.

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In Christ, Part 8: And More

May 26, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Another outcome of our union with Christ might surprise some Christians. It’s brought to the fore in two New Testament passages, both well known.

In John 13, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. To do so, he wraps himself with a towel. Both the wrapping and the washing are the typical tasks of a servant. The account indicates that Peter, at least, is uncomfortable with the implication; he bursts out with “You’re going to wash my feet?! … You shall never wash my feet!” (Jn 13.6, 8). As we all know, he relents—we might say over-relents—and Jesus patiently explains how the action is going to proceed (Jn 13.8-10).

When he’s finished, Jesus says,

¹⁴If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you (Jn 13.14-15).

A minority of Christians have taken this as an ordinance; they have foot-washing ceremonies in church, as they do with baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I don’t see a problem with that, but I don’t think it’s necessary; in fact, I think that in a way it misses the point, particularly as expressed in Jesus’ next words:

The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him (Jn 13.16b).

I think he’s using foot-washing, a servant’s task in his day, to illustrate a larger principle: no follower of Jesus is too big, too important, to be above serving his fellows. I’d suggest that for us to think that we’ve fulfilled this responsibility by washing a fellow church member’s feet once a month, in a day when foot-washing is not a cultural necessity (and I’m not saying that this is the typical attitude among those who practice the rite), is to fall far short of Jesus’ teaching. We need to serve one another—in any or all of the forms that such service takes today. That may be as simple as holding a door, or more intensive, such as cooking a meal or watching someone’s kids or fixing their car (or paying to have it fixed).

What does your colleague need, that you are in a position to provide? Provide it.

Paul strongly reinforces this concept in the well-known Christological hymn in Philippians 2:

⁵Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: ⁷But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: ⁸And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Php 2.5-8).

Christ didn’t hang on to his heavenly status, as though he would be at risk to take “upon him the form of a servant”; that’s a sign of insecurity, of weakness. He willingly set that aside—there’s not room here to go into detail about what that involved—and humbled himself, and met the needs of all of us.

Now, we obviously can’t give our lives to redeem all who will believe—and that’s already been accomplished anyway—but we can imitate his attitude and devotion in any number of ways, the opportunities that present themselves to us.

We love it when other people do that, but we’re afraid to do that ourselves.

However, that is precisely what it looks like to be in Christ.

Part 9: Corollaries

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In Christ, Part 7: Even More Outcomes

May 23, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

And there’s more. Which shouldn’t surprise us; that’s how God does things (Lk 6.38; Ep 1.3).

The Scripture ties our union with Christ to other delightful outcomes.

Power Through Prayer

Since we were in John 15 in the previous post, let’s notice one more outcome that Jesus mentions there.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (Jn 15.7).

That makes sense, doesn’t it? If we are in Christ, shouldn’t that make a difference in the way we pray—and in the Father’s response to our prayers?

We know that promises like this one are often abused. Little children pray for barrels of candy. Purveyors (I won’t call them “preachers”) of the prosperity “gospel,” which is really just the idolization of the self, encourage people to “name it and claim it”—in the name of Jesus Christ!

What a horrific twisting of Jesus’ words—in a very real sense, what blasphemy. These adults—if that’s what they be—haven’t progressed at all beyond the 7-year-old boy praying for that barrel of candy.

What is Jesus saying? He’s describing our being united with him. Now, if we’re united with him, our thinking is going to change—specifically, it’s going to mature. We’re going to be of one mind with him; our desires are going to be his desires. We’re going to pray what he would pray—and that would not be for a barrel of candy or a new Rolls Royce or a house the size of Nebraska. Jesus got on well with no house at all, you know (Mt 8.20; Lk 9.58).

And so, when we pray we’re going to ask for things that are in the will of the Father; and Jesus says elsewhere that those prayers get answered (Mt 7.7; 18.19; 21.21).

Now that is powerful prayer—the kind only those who are in Christ can pray.

Accurate Judgment

In a sense what we’ve been talking about so far in this post is simply wisdom—the wisdom that enables you to discern the Father’s will, and the spiritual vitality to desire it. The Bible extends that wisdom even further. In his first epistle to the Corinthian church, Paul spends a few column inches meditating on what it means to have this kind of mental connection with God. In the paragraph from 1Co 2.6-16, he makes a number of astounding claims.

God hath revealed [unseen things] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. … Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. … He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. ¹⁶For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ (1Co 2.10, 12,15-16).

We have the mind of Christ.

Of course we do, since we’re united with him. And that mind is mediated—clarified or explained, if you will—through the Spirit, who, as God, knows the Father and the Son perfectly.

In this context Paul is applying this principle directly to the matter of judgment. Initially he calls it wisdom (1Co 2.6-7), then revelation (1Co 2.10), then judgment (1Co 2.15).

Everyone who is in Christ has the Spirit dwelling in him. The Spirit helps him understand the Scripture (1Co 2.14-15), through which we learn the mind of the Triune God. This is an intimate relationship.

And with that mind, we can make wise choices—unlike the demonic forces, who thought it would be a good idea to kill Jesus while he was walking on the earth, at his most vulnerable (1Co 2.8)—and then found that their unspeakable crime was actually the very means their great Enemy would use to defeat them and to free millions of their slaves.

If they had had the mind of Christ, they wouldn’t have done that.

So we can do better.

Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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In Christ, Part 6: More Outcomes

May 18, 2023 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures | Part 4: Even More Pictures | Part 5: Outcomes

What else results from our being in Christ?

Stability

When Jesus introduced the metaphor of the vine and the branches, he was emphasizing the concept of nourishment: the vine feeds the branches, because it is the conduit of the branches’ lifeblood (to use a decidedly non-botanical term). The branch cannot survive unless it is attached to the vine.

On the positive side, then, the vine brings life and stability. Paul speaks of our being “rooted and … established in the faith, as you have been taught” (Co 2.7).

Since my church is halfway between my city’s rescue mission and one of its soup kitchens, we get a fair amount of foot traffic between the two, with consequent opportunity to interact with a variety of homeless people. The stories I hear from them, and the obstacles in their lives, will break your heart. Most of them have no sense of stability because they have no job, no income, no place to live, no way to get around. Everything’s just up in the air. I can buy them a meal or a few bags of groceries—and I have—but that’s not really a solution. And when you start looking for solutions, as those with extensive experience dealing with the homeless will tell you, the obstacles are often insurmountable. Sometimes they come from the homeless person himself; sometimes from the civic structure; sometimes from family; sometimes from somewhere else.

That level of instability is a deeply frightening and frustrating thing.

In Christ, Paul says, we’re rooted; we’re built up; we’re established.

Solid. Firm. Confident.

We don’t always feel that way. Most often that’s because we forget the Source of our stability and look to ourselves, or someone else, to solve our problem.

That’s a shaky foundation.

But the more you know—and practice—about your union with Christ, the fewer times those earthquakes in your soul will happen.

Growth

There’s more to this concept.

In the verse I quoted above, there’s a set of ellipsis marks. Whenever you see those in a quotation, you should ask yourself, “What did he leave out? and why? What’s he up to?” Bowdlerizing is a thing, more these days than ever before. Did I leave something out because it weakened my point?

Well, not this time. :-)

I left something out because I was saving it for later. Between “rooted” and “established,” which are closely similar concepts, Paul places the phrase “built up in him.” That’s a step beyond the other two; it speaks of not only surviving, but growing.

Prospering. Thriving.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus includes this same idea in his original metaphor of the vine and the branches. He speaks of the branches “bearing fruit” and “bring[ing] forth more fruit” (Jn 15.2) and “bring[ing] forth much fruit” (Jn 15.5, cf 8).

Jesus doesn’t unite us with himself just so that we’ll be safe—though indeed we will be. As he left, Jesus promised that he would always be with us (Mt 28.20), and he promised that he would send his Spirit, who “dwells with you, and shall be in you” (Jn 14.17)—and who has been in us, since Pentecost. And Jesus also told us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12.32).

Yes, we are safe, but as the old saying goes, “A ship in a harbor is safe; but that is not what ships are for.” (I don’t know whether John A. Shedd or Grace Hopper originally said that, but it’s true regardless.)

Jesus unites us with himself so that we will thrive through our intimate connection with him.

Is your connection with him like that? You can’t thrive—really thrive—without it.

Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

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In Christ, Part 5: Outcomes

May 15, 2023 by Dan Olinger 6 Comments

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures | Part 4: Even More Pictures

With the broader understanding of our union with Christ that these metaphors give us, we’re in a position to understand and appreciate the results that this union brings to our spiritual life and health. The New Testament mentions several.

What things result from our being in Christ?

Well, to begin with, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t happen—or rather, stops happening. Let me present two of them as pairs—what stops happening, and what starts happening.

Condemnation Becomes Acquittal

We started out life in serious trouble. We had received a sentence of guilt—of condemnation—from our first father, Adam. (You think that’s not fair? Well, there are some things to consider about that.) And shortly we had confirmed that guilt by demonstrating our own sinfulness—selfishness, rebellion, and eventually all the rest of it. As time went on, our guilt just kept on accumulating—even among the best of us. And as Jesus noted in his metaphor of the vine and the branches, the fate of unattached branches is to be gathered up and burned (Jn 15.6).

But with our grafting into the vine that is Christ, all that changes dramatically. Where there was condemnation,

¹There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death (Ro 8.1-2).

You have been declared not guilty in God’s courtroom because the penalty for your crimes has been paid—completely—by Christ, and you are in him.

But that’s only half of it. If you’re a bajillion dollars in debt, and some rich person pays that debt off completely, that’s great—you’re debt-free!—but the truth is that you’re still broke; your net worth is precisely zero.

What you need is some assets.

Bankruptcy Becomes Wealth

Our standing as “in Christ” doesn’t stop with paying off the old debt, forgiving our accumulated sins. It goes infinitely beyond that.

Since we’re “in Christ,” we are identified with him—and that means that his righteousness becomes ours.

He has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2Co 5.21).

Wow. That “some rich person” not only paid off our debt, but he made us cosigners on his own bank account. We have access to all the riches of righteousness available there.

That’s astonishing.

And now we have access to all kinds of other things that were infinitely out of reach before. We have what Paul calls “newness of life”—and his description of that life is radically different from how we used to live:

⁴But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ⁶by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; ⁷by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; ⁸through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; ⁹as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; ¹⁰as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything (2Co 6.4-10).

More briefly, he says that we’re a “new creation”:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2Co 5.17).

Paul summarizes all this up in a simple statement:

If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Ro 8.10).

Yes, we continue to sin, because there are stumbling blocks along the way of life, and because our fallen nature has not yet been eradicated (Ro 7.18-25). But there is a simple path to forgiveness and a promise of restoration (1J 1.9).

So we ought to walk—and we can walk—even as Jesus himself walked (1J 2.6)—because we are in him.

Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

Photo by Wylly Suhendra on Unsplash

In Christ, Part 4: Even More Pictures

May 11, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Pictures | Part 3: More Pictures

A metaphor of union with Christ that we saw briefly in the previous post is one we should develop further here.

We are, Paul says, a building, specifically a temple, a building where God lives (Ep 2.20-22). In its simplest sense this means that because we live in God’s house, we’re members of his family, his “household” (Ep 2.19); we belong, we have access to the house. We’re keyholders. That’s a mark of great privilege.

But this isn’t just an ordinary house; it’s God’s house, a temple, a place of worship. It’s a place that should inspire us to worship God, and a place where we should serve as agents to inspire others to worship God. We’re “a priesthood” that should “show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1P 2.9). Here, too, is a picture that urges us to be about our responsibilities, not just to enjoy our privileges.

And this is a temple like no other.

It’s alive.

We are “living stones” (1P 2.5), making up a building that “grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ep 2.21). This is not a cold, dank, dusty place whose glory days are long past—a tomb, in effect. This is a vital, vibrant, active temple, where God currently resides and where the business of worship is at its highest point in history—and will continue to increase forever, every day a new record, an unprecedented, joyous celebration.

I can’t even imagine.

What a picture.

And if this is the metaphor, what must be the reality?

There’s one more picture to consider, probably the one most widely known, because it’s in the passage most frequently preached.

At pretty much every wedding you’ve ever attended, the officiant at some point has referred to Ephesians 5.25-33. He has probably commented that the union of husband and wife illustrates the church’s union with Christ.

My colleague Dr. Gary Reimers has convinced me that the passage is not that simple. He notes that husbands are told “to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ep 5.28), which is “even as Christ also loved the church” (Ep 5.25). And as we’ve seen earlier in this series, the church that Christ loves is indeed his body. So this is perhaps more a further discussion of Paul’s key theme in this epistle—the church as the body of Christ—than the introduction of a new metaphor per se.

But that said, the Scripture does use nuptial language of the relationship between God and his people. Paul says that he wants to present the Corinthian church “as a pure virgin to Christ” (2Co 11.2), and the New Jerusalem is described as “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Re 21.2, 9). Now, the New Jerusalem is not the church, in my opinion, but I suspect that it represents all the people of God, which includes the church (yep, there’s my dispensationalist premillennialism rearing its head again), so I think it’s legitimate to consider the metaphor here.

Marriage is the most intimate of earthly relationships. A married couple is a team, a partnership, and a permanent one at that, at least for earthly life. The couple works together, cares for each other, supports each other, loves each other, “till death us do part.”

Like all of these pictures, it’s deficient, because no earthly relationship captures the eternal relationship between Christ and his church. But for the time it lasts, it has the potential to illustrate the key features of that relationship: its commitment, its love, its fierce endurance through all sorts of attacks from the enemy, its sense of stability, hope, and trust.

In union with Christ, we have all this, and more.

Part 5: Outcomes | Part 6: More Outcomes | Part 7: Even More Outcomes | Part 8: And More | Part 9: Corollaries

Photo by Wylly Suhendra on Unsplash