Beneath the Cross.

“Let us not expect too much from our own hearts here below.  At our best we shall find in ourselves daily cause for humiliation, and discover that we are needy debtors to mercy and grace every hour.”

(J.C. Ryle, Holiness, p.39)

I spent almost the whole weekend surrounded by and interacting with family, immediate and extended.  I was hardly ever alone this weekend.  The littlest cousin even followed me to school on Saturday, sat next to me while I was in section, and drew pictures for me.

It was such a sweet and fun time, yet the sweetness was sometimes marred by the recognition of my heart sin.  The unkind act, the hurtful remark, the general self-absorption.  Sin that is sometimes only revealed as it finds canvas on the lives of those nearest and dearest to us.

So, at the conclusion of one of the sweetest weekends I’ve had in a long time, I find myself beneath the Cross once more, in need of repentance and in need of His mercies.  The legalist in me is whispering lies, saying that I must do penance or somehow make up for past sin.  But Jesus is enough.  His righteousness is enough.  His death is enough.  His resurrection is enough.  His grace is enough.

I am a debtor to His mercy and grace every hour, but oh, such a thankful one.

Matthew 5:4 is because of Jesus.

You who are mourning by reason of inbred sin and depravity, remember, none of your sins can condemn you. You have learned to hate sin; but you have also learned how that sin is not yours–it was laid upon Christ’s head. Your standing is not in yourself–it is in Christ. Your acceptance is not in yourself, but in your Lord; you are just as accepted by God today, with all your sinfulness, as you will be when you stand before His throne, free from all corruption.

(by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg)

Nailed to the cross.

Tonight’s passage at Bible study included these two verses.  As I meditated on them today, the magnitude and the reality of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross were crushing.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with [Jesus], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14)

The “record of debt” is literally rendered as the “handwriting in the ordinances” in the original text.  This was a debt certificate written in the hand of the debtor, who was basically acknowledging his debt.  The certificate was legally binding, requiring payment in full from the debtor.

Paul is saying that we had such a debt certificate because of our sins, but it wasn’t a debt that could be paid with silver or gold; it was a debtor’s note that required the payment of death and eternal hell.  That’s how serious our sin was (is).

But what did God do?  He canceled it.  Wiped it away.  Blotted it out.  Our debt certificate was erased.  How, when sin is so serious?

He “set it aside, nailing it to the cross” (v. 14).  Our sins were nailed to the cross.  The ESV study notes says that “the image comes from the notice fastened to a cross by the Roman authorities, declaring the crime for which the criminal was being executed.”  When Jesus died on the cross, the criminal notice fastened to His cross included the full list of all my sins.  All of them.  The reckless words, the unchecked thoughts, the pride that belittles God Most High and magnifies ego, the self-righteousness for which the Pharisees were so harshly condemned …

My sins — past, present, and future — were nailed to the cross, and Jesus was nailed to the cross.  The Holy One was nailed to the cross, and my sins weren’t just written on a note and nailed above His head; they were borne on His very person.  He was nailed there.

“For our sake He made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Before the cross, in Gethsemane, He asked God if there was any alternative.  The One who can, by the word of His power, create life and destroy life; the One before whom legions of demons tremble; the almighty, awesome One.  He asked if there could be any alternative to the cross.  The thought of separation from the Father and the thought of God the Father’s wrath toward sin completely unleashed on Him brought Him such anguish and distress that His sweat became drops of blood.  Jesus sweated blood at the prospect of bearing my sin before the Holy, Righteous Judge. God’s fiery judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah was as nothing compared to the full, unbridled fury and wrath Jesus would face on the via dolorosa, on the cross.

This is what it meant for Jesus to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.  He bore our sin, that we might bear His perfect righteousness.

Now, how can I ever doubt His love when He has acquitted me of all wrong and charged His own Son with my treason?  The One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, was crushed that the creature might walk in newness of life.

How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

(by Stuart Townend)

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son…” (John 3:16).

Gospel-Centered Counseling.

I’m still not finished processing this conference message from over a month ago, but here are some of my notes from it (and some rough reflections of it).

“Any obedience not motivated by love for God is penance.”

“If you’re serious about God’s commands in/for your life and you don’t live in light of the gospel, [it will lead to] utter despair … because you cannot rest in your own righteousness.”

Elyse Fitzpatrick wrapped up the conference as Session #4’s speaker. Nothing pierced so deeply at the conference than what she had to say during this message. Her message was on “Gospel-Centered Counseling.” (Again, “counseling” could be as we counsel another or as we give counsel to ourselves in the crucial moments of life.)

Honestly, my notes from this session are all over the place. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I wanted notes that I could look over again, as if this godly woman were counseling me again. And just between you and me, I looked down to write to hide the tears, too.

She pointed us to the example of the Apostle Paul — one who determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. She reminded us that gospel obligations (the commands in Scripture) cannot be gutted of their heart: gospel declarations (what Christ accomplished on the Cross). She asked, “In seeking to help others pursue godliness, have you left Jesus behind?”

Gospel Declarations + Gospel Obligations = Gospel-Centered Counseling

To focus on the commands alone, apart from the gospel, is to “strip away the very course and essence of the applications of Scripture.” The commands without the gospel foundation only invite legalism, works-based righteousness. (And legalism never works to accomplish what it promises.)

“Any obedience that not motivated by love for God is penance,” she said. Guilt never breeds love; it does not bring holiness. Obedience is not motivated by the law. If anything, the law is our tutor — to bring us to Christ, to show us our need (see Galatians 3). It is not the road to self-righteousness. As believers, sometimes we only know these truths in abstract, but we don’t know how to actually apply the balm of these truths to our lives.

Elyse shared that a couple weeks before the conference, she had committed a certain sin. It was a sin that was particularly detestable to her. She felt much guilt, and she prayed for His forgiveness, remembering the words of I John 1:9 — that if she confessed her sin, He would be faithful to forgive her sin and cleanse her from all unrighteousness. But after she prayed, she still felt the weight of the guilt.

At this point, if I wasn’t completely attentive to every word she was saying before, I definitely was now. She described what I felt and struggled with every single day.

She went on to say that she realized that she could not release the guilt of her sin because she still clung so tightly to her own righteousness. She kept beating herself on the head about her sin in a “How could I have done that? How could I have sinned in that way?” manner, even after knowing that God forgave her, because she still wanted to rest in her own righteousness.

She said, “When you still hold to the guilt of your forgiven sin in self-flagellation [or etc.], you are spitting in the face of the Righteous One, saying you still want your own righteousness.” We have no righteousness of our own. Christ alone is our Righteousness.

What do we need to remember?

2 Corinthians 5:14-15. We need to remember His love.
(Our love is always responsive in nature. “We love because He first loved us.”)

2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1. We need to remember our adoption.

Colossians 3:1-4. We need to remember our future.
(We have been raised with Christ!)

2 Peter 1:3-10. We need to remember that we’ve been cleansed from sin; we have perfect peace in conscience.

“We aren’t meant to live in light of our sin. We’re to live in light of His finished work on the cross for our sin. Now, take a shower in that and then love God!“

We need to remember the gospel: His incarnation, His perfect life, His substitutionary death, His bodily resurrection, His ascension and reign.

She shared a quote from John Stott’s The Cross of Christ (i.e., John Stott who quoted Rowan Williams): “All progress in the Christian life depends upon a recapitulation of the original terms of one’s acceptance with God.” She followed this quote up with, “Like Luther said, hammer the truth continually into your head,” all the while hammering her own head with her fist. :]

I guess this message was so convicting, because she pulled up certain weeds in my heart and exposed their roots: legalism, pride, … Nothing new, but it was still painful to see these old fiends hiding in yet another corner of my heart.

Why do I beat myself up about my sin? Because I’m prideful. I think I’m “above” certain sins because of some extra inherent goodness that I possess. Why do I have trouble accepting that God has forgiven my sins after I pray and confess them? Not because I haven’t “forgiven myself,” but because I still want a little bit of my own righteousness — one that I can earn, one that I can boast in and say, “Look. That there is mine. I did it.” Why do I view His commands with an “I know I’m going to fail” attitude? Because I’ve forgotten the gospel. I’ve forgotten that Christ is my Righteousness and that by His Spirit, I can put to death the deeds of the body and obey from the heart.

Ah. And how has this bled into my counsel to others? Not even formal counseling necessarily, but the little conversations, the informal accountability?

Change and progress cannot stem from us. The hope of change and progress stem alone from Christ and His gospel. His righteousness imputed to us.

I went up to Elyse and hugged her after this session. God used her to begin shedding light on years of inner trials.

SAVIOR.

OUR GOD SAVES.

HALLELUJAH, OUR GOD SAVES.

& what can we do but weep for joy & dance & sing. Our God saves.

The Cross.

(Excerpts from The Int’l Standard Bible Encyclopedia, excluding pictures & verse.)

Meaning.

Singly they were set up as instruments of torture on which serious offenders of law were publicly suspended to die (or, if already killed, to have their corpses thoroughly dishonored).

Symbolic Uses.

Conventional & widespread use of the cross as a common Christian symbol makes it difficult for contemporary readers to sense the harsh reality that underlies this theology of the cross & the cross sayings in the [New Testament]. When Paul preached the “crucified Christ” (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2; Gal. 3:1) any audience in the Greek-speaking world would have known immediately that this Christ had suffered an especially agonizing & humiliating death, the sort usually reserved for rebellious slaves, political rebels, or criminals.

A common theme in the early anti-Christian polemic, preserved by Minucius Felix (one of the earliest Latin apologists) in his dialogue Octavius (29.2), was that Christians worship “a criminal & his cross” (hominem noxium et crucem eius). The scattered comments of Justin in his Apologia reveal that the extreme dishonor associated with death by crucifixion was one of the most common objections to the Christian claim that Jesus was Son of God; e.g., “They say that our madness consists in the fact that we put a crucified man in second place after the unchangeable & eternal God, the Creator of the world.”

Crucifixion.

The process subjected the victim to the greatest possible humiliation, with the victim (dead or alive) either nailed or bound to a stake.

In both Greek & Roman civilizations crucifixion was, with few exceptions, not applicable to the freeborn or to citizens. It was significant to the Roman upper classes that crucifixion was the servile supplicium, “the slaves’ punishment.”

The Roman jurist Julius Paulus (ca. A.D. 200), in the Sententiae complied from his works toward A.D. 300, lists crux as the foremost of the three summa supplicia, “supreme penalties” (the others are crematio, “burning,” and usually decollatio “decapitation”), revealing that this was applicable in such cases as desertion, betrayal of secrets, incitement to rebellion, murder, etc.

Jewish law prescribed that idolaters & blasphemers, after execution by stoning, were to be hanged on a tree to demonstrate that they were accursed by God (Dt. 21:23).

Procedure.

Whatever else may have been done to the victim prior to crucifixion, there was at the least a flogging to the point of making blood flow.

As the next step in the process the victim carried his own cross-beam to the place of execution, where the upright stake had already been erected.

Then on the ground he was fastened to the beam with arms outspread, usually by ropes, less commonly by nails.

The beam & body were then lifted into place on the upright. A small wooden block (sedicula) or a wooden peg positioned midway on the upright supported the body weight as the buttocks rested on it. This feature was extremely important in cases of nailing since it prevented the weight from tearing open the wounds.

Once the condemned was thus immobilized he was left alone, unable to attend to bodily functions, unprotected from inclement weather or flies, and, because the place of execution was usually some public street or prominent place, subjected to abusive words and mockery from passersby.

Remains from a first-century A.D. tomb unearthed at Giv’at ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem surprisingly included the two heel bones of a crucifixion victim still fastened together by a single iron nail.

The suffering of death by crucifixion was intense. In addition to exposure to the weather & insects (& sometimes animals), the body suffered from the intensifying damage of the wounds & from the stretching caused by the strained position. Some think that headache & convulsions added to the agony.

The ultimate cause of death has been debated; generally it is considered the result of gradual suffocation brought about by fatigue. The length of this agony was wholly determined by the constitution of the victim & the extent of the prior flogging.

“Surely our griefs He Himself [Jesus] bore, & our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, & afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, & by His scourgings we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
(Isaiah 53:4-6)

Blowing on the embers.

This past week, some things I’ve read have fanned a renewed desire for the gospel-less, Bible-less places of the world to be reached.

I pray these excerpts serve to blow on the embers in your heart (random aside: if you keep looking at the word embers long enough, it starts to look a little funny :] ) to again pray that those from “every nation, tribe, people, & language” would come to hear, know, & worship the only true God who saves them from their sins . . . & perhaps even pray that you might be the one to go tell them . . .

An email from a friend in Papua New Guinea regarding difficult decisions in Bible translation (I’ve edited some parts to keep it anonymous):

The [K people] have been having very “heavy” discussions on the current topic: what word or name to use for God [in their vernacular language]? They have come up with the name of a traditional spirit, who created the world, who knows all things, who even does good/kind things to people, but there is also a taboo on speaking the name out loud. It’s part of the secret knowledge that men who have been initiated can know, but others should not, or that an old man on his deathbed might whisper to a younger man. Therefore, out of this group of I think six men, there are varying and conflicting opinions. Some are afraid to speak the name, and think that this is a spirit from their traditional culture and not the true God of the universe, while some think that it would be good to call the one true God by this traditional name, and it’s just that the sense of taboo (in speaking it) needs to change. They hope that using this name will help the people to understand that He is their God and the Creator of everything, not just the white man’s god, bringing in an outside religion.

From Noel Piper’s Faithful Women & their Extraordinary God (from the brief biography about Lilias Trotter, missionary to the Arabs — particularly the Arab women — in Algeria):

Is it impossible that I [Noel Piper], or my daughter, or my granddaugther should do such a thing? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t depend on me. Who is my God? Is He not the same God who called Lilias Trotter, prepared her, moved her, & sustained her in Algeria for forty years? Is He not the same yesterday & today & forever?

But how can I know what lies in the future? How will I know how to get ready? I can’t really know. Lilias must have been mulling such thoughts when she wrote:

How many of us have said & sung with all our hearts “Anywhere with Jesus,” but at the same time we did not realize all that it meant for us. Indeed at home, & surrounded by all that home means, we could not know. When the test comes we must not forget that “anywhere” means for missionaries something different from life in England, & let us take very good care not to make a misery of anything that “anywhere” brings us.

To us in Algeria it must mean sometime or other, Arab food. Do we object to it? & mice, do we mind them? & mosquitoes, do we think them dreadful? In some parts it means close contact with dirt & repulsive disease. Yet if Jesus is there, what have we possibly to complain of? It means living among a stiff-necked & untrue people & struggling with a strange & difficult language. & yet let us evermore write over all our miseries, big, & for the most part very little, these transforming words “With Jesus.” & then the very breath of Heaven will breathe upon our whole being & we shall be glad.

Today from Desiring God Blog, Bill Walsh shares a letter written by Michelle, a missionary wife in South Africa. Here are excerpts from her letter, “Why I Would Die for South Africa”:

I could faithfully serve Christ & the gospel in another country. But I wouldn’t expect to reap the same amount of fruit as in a desperate place like Africa: “But God chose the poor of this world to be rich in faith & heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him.” (James 2:5). People here see their need for the Great Physician. People are suffering. We have the cure that they are asking for. The gospel (a biblical worldview) is the ultimate cure for AIDS & poverty & crime. In more western countries, people are deceptively self-sufficient & hardened to the gospel. Why not stay where the harvest is ripe & the workers are few?

. . . We stay because we are called to South Africa. When you are called, no promise of greater security or comfort can lure you away. You are free to enjoy all the beauties of South Africa without constantly wondering if it is time to abandon ship. How do we know that we are called to South Africa? Because this is the place where we can be most useful in God’s harvest field. This is the place where our talents can best be multiplied for the Master until He returns (Matt. 25). This is the place where we find the greater blessing of giving rather than receiving (Acts 20:35). This is the place where we can raise our children to be true self-denying Christ-followers. Unless He calls us somewhere more difficult, this is where we will stay — to live & even die for South Africa. Where are you called to die?

“Unless He calls us somewhere more difficult, this is where we will stay — to live & even die . . . Where are you called to die?” It sounds like something we’d accuse a “glory-missions”-minded person of saying. But she’s living in the realities of South Africa with her husband & children right now; her question has more thrust because she’s not saying it flippantly or naively.

For some of us (& by no means is it a lesser task or lesser harvest), that may mean staying home & faithfully ministering to our families. For others of us, that may mean eventually leaving our families & faithfully ministering somewhere else.

Let’s pray for the nations. Let’s pray for our missionary friends. Let’s pray & tell God we’re willing to go or stay . . . to be faithful to Him & faithful to proclaim the gospel (in truth, in love) wherever we are.

But let’s not immediately discard the possibility that He may call us to leave & labor in another field less harvested.

Good News, not Old News.

I met up with a dear sister for lunch today. At the end of our time together, all I could do was rejoice over what He’s been doing in her life. He is faithful; through the gospel, our hearts & lives are transformed for His glory. I suppose this is much clearer to sight in another’s life than in our own sometimes. I left from our conversation so joyful, so thankful . . . so reminded. (I love you! – & most of all, You.)

The gospel message will never be merely a thing of the past for those of us who are in Christ.

When we were justified, it was our letter of purchased freedom.
While we are being sanctified, it is our letter of sure hope.
When we are finally glorified, it will be our letter of eternal joy.

The salvation He promises is the salvation He effects, positionally & practically, to the day we see Him face to face. We should pray that our hearts would never be so hardened as to consider lightly – or yawningly – the cross of Christ.

The gospel is not just words. In it is the reality of a Perfect Life, worthy of eternal praise, brutally slain on the behalf of sinners, worthy of eternal punishment.

Consider His utter holiness. Consider our utter sinfulness. Consider the reality of a Christless eternity in hell. Consider the reality of heaven’s joy, Christ Himself. Consider what we deserved. Consider what we were undeservedly given instead.

Salvation came at a high, terrible cost; but the One who paid it, paid it willingly in love.

& He lives!

Sin which Clings.

It’d been a while since I’ve prayed that He’d do whatever it took to keep me humble, pure in heart, & nearer to Him. It’d been way too long since I’d mourned over the sin in my heart. The priority of being pleasing to Him in the inner person of my heart was replaced by the priority of pleasing myself.

Sin clings so closely. It’s so deceptive; the more sin I have in my heart, the less I actually see it or recognize it.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [the hall of faith mentioned in Ch. 11], let us also lay aside every weight, & sin which clings so closely, & let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder & perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, & is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

It clings so closely that sometimes I resign myself to thinking that it’s just who I am, an irreversible part of my person. & lately, the little sins (i.e., “little” only in my faulty estimation) that I left unchecked spread like gangrene within me. What were some of the sins I reckoned as so “little”? Justifying my poor attitude when tired, being abrupt when feeling stressed, grumbling along with others about this & that, or returning unkindness for unkindness . . . I could go on. But soon, what I thought were small, shallow sins began to corrupt all other areas of my heart & life. It only took a small spark to generate a raging wildfire.

I forgot to fear Him who sees & knows everything, even the sins that I try to conceal from others. I forgot that no sin is justifiable, whatever the circumstance. I forgot that my God demands absolute holiness, not just the appearance of conformity to His standards. I forgot that I need to continually put off sin & continually pursue His ways. I forgot God Most High.

It’s true – the most miserable person is a sinning Christian. Some say that with more knowledge comes more grief. In this case, I agree: [truly] knowing God, knowingly sinning against Him, knowingly grieving Him, knowingly setting His Word at naught . . . knowingly doing all these things cause tremendous more grief than unknowingly doing the same. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

Sin clings so closely. Yes, God says that once I am in Christ, “sin will have no dominion over [me]” (Romans 6:14). But this former master refuses to let me so quickly forget my former enslavement. Though it no longer reigns over me, it still “dwells within me” (Romans 7:17); & it doesn’t dwell in a dormant, passive state in the far corner of my heart. No, it continually weaves itself throughout all my understanding, affections, & inclinations. When I hack it away, cringing under the pain of hacking something that clings so closely, it immediately begins to grow back. It wants me to wrestle with it continually so that I will eventually give up & give in to its desires. It is a continuous battle.

But what does He say? Look to Jesus. Consider Him. Remember: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, & the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful & just to forgive us our sins & to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:8-9)

Weary brother, weary sister, let’s press on. The victory is His.

“Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood . . . He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness . . . Therefore lift your drooping hands & strengthen your weak knees, & make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, & for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:3-4, 10, 12-14).

*

Some excerpts from How to Kill Sin in Your Life (read Part 1 & Part 2):

“John Owens was right, he says of sin: ‘It has no doors to open. It needs no engine by which to work. It lies in the mind & in the understanding. It is found in the will. It is in the inclinations of the affections. It has such intimacy in the soul.’”

“Your sin is there, & it is wretched & it spurts forth between the cracks of your supposed righteousness. It comes out in anger & bitter words, unkind thoughts, criticisms, self-conceit, lack of understanding, impatience, weak prayers, immoral thoughts, & even overt sins.”

“In order to gain victory over sin, you must have a heart fixed on God. You must love Him more than you love your sin.”

“The way to kill sin in your life is to feed it Scripture. Scripture is a spiritual weed-killer. It will poison sin.”

“True prayer gives the heart a sense of its own vile character & renews the hatred of sin . . . Prayer exposes secret sins. Prayer weakens prevailing sins. Prayer finds strength in fellowship with the Holy God to kill sin in our lives.”