Category: Doctrine

Slow Faith: Lessons About Belief from the Disciples

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 5 Comments

There are times when it’s easy for me to be impatient with the slow faith of Christ’s first disciples. Sometimes, it’s hard to understand why faith was such a struggle for them. From where I sit, they appear to have had all the advantages that I lack. They knew Jesus face to face. They spent night and day with him for the three years of his earthly ministry. They saw him die and were among the first to speak with him after he had risen from the dead.

In other words, they experienced what I have often wished for myself. As John later wrote, the proof offered to them consisted of evidence that they saw, heard, and touched (1 John 1:1). Acts 1:3 says that after his resurrection, Jesus “appeared to them over forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” Luke also says that during this period, Jesus not only taught them, “he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.”

A Slow and Uncertain Faith

So it comes as something of a shock to find in Matthew 28:17 that when Jesus appeared to the disciples once more at the end of all this, “some doubted.” Matthew doesn’t say who these doubters are. I wish that he had. I’d like to know if they were the traditional heroes of faith that come to mind, like Peter, James, and John. Or a small handful of marginal disciples who lurked on the fringes. A part of me hopes it is the former rather than the latter because I think I recognize their slow faith.

Doubt, even at this late stage, is consistent with the picture we have of the disciples throughout the gospels. They come to complete faith but not easily. Their belief develops in stages and seems to falter at several points, sometimes in the most surprising circumstances (Matt. 14:31; 16:14; Mark 4:4). Even during the final hours of Jesus’ earthly ministry, they are still struggling to grasp the details of the storyline. 

The epigram that I think best describes Christ’s disciples’ struggle to believe, at least until the Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost, is the phrase that Jesus uses to describe the two disciples to whom he appears on the Emmaus road. He calls them “slow to believe” (Matt. 24:25). There are several reasons for this slowness.

In an encounter that feels almost parabolic, Luke tells us that Jesus drew near to two unnamed disciples who were traveling from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, listening as they puzzled over the events that had taken place earlier that Sunday morning. He reveals that although Jesus himself walked with them, they were “kept” from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). This was a supernatural veiling intended to drive home the reality of Christ’s resurrection to them.

I think there is an underlying grace note of humor, indeed even playfulness, in Jesus’ interaction with them. Imagine the risen savior listening to these two disciples as they give their account of the things that he has just experienced. They speak of Jesus’ words and deeds, his crucifixion, and the reports of his resurrection on the third day. They also express sorrow over the failure of their own expectations, saying, “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (v. 21). I can’t help imagining Jesus suppressing a smile as he listens to them.

I Want to Believe

Their questions seem understandable. Jesus had only just risen that morning. He had appeared to a few of his followers but not yet to everyone. These two disciples were trying to piece together the information that they currently had. Their doubts don’t seem to reflect an outright refusal to believe but are more of a lag in faith caused by a combination of incomplete information and their attempt to reconcile what had happened with what they had expected to take place.

Like the slogan on the old X-Files poster, these disciples wanted to believe. ButThey had expected the story to unfold quite differently. They were indeed looking for someone to “redeem” Israel. But the nature of that redemption and the mode in which Jesus accomplished it came as a surprise. They couldn’t see it because they were looking for something else.

This goes a long way in explaining the disciples’ struggle to believe all through the Gospels. It also helps us to understand our own doubts. I think there is a difference between being slow to believe and a stubborn refusal to believe. Like the first disciples, we may be confident that God is doing something but with preconceived ideas about how God’s plan should unfold. We have a kind of faith, but it is faith with an agenda. When God ignores the agenda we have set for him, as he almost always does, we become disillusioned. Instead of questioning our initial assumptions, like our first parents in the Garden of Eden, we begin to question God’s wisdom, goodness, and perhaps even his existence.

Also, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, our questioning usually springs from incomplete information. We don’t understand why God allows the circumstances that provoke our questions because we are unable to see how they fit into his larger plan. The concerns that challenge our faith are personal and are often narrowly focused on the limited sphere of our own lives and circumstances. What God is doing is much larger. Because we are on this side of eternity, it’s not yet clear how the little threads of our personal experience fit into the larger tapestry of God’s kingdom interests. If our faith suffers as a result, it’s usually because of the assumptions we have made about what God should be doing as much as it is about what he has done.

Irrefutable Evidence

The language that Luke uses in Acts 1:3 to describe  Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances emphasizes their persuasive nature. He calls those proofs “convincing,” using a Greek term other writers employed to speak of irrefutable evidence. In the medical realm (Luke’s own field), the term was used to refer to symptoms. Given the context, which is the bodily resurrection of Christ, perhaps this is intended to underscore the physical nature of this proof. Luke’s main point is that the evidence Jesus offered to his disciples was not only concrete, it was indisputable. However, I think that Luke’s description implies another equally important fact about the disciples themselves that is less obvious. It means that they needed persuading, even at this late point in the redemption story.

That they came to believe is clear both from their subsequent testimony and the tenor of their lives. As Peter would later put it, “. . . we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16). The apostles eventually came to full conviction, a belief that was strong enough to withstand the threat of certain death. But they were not quick about it. Or, at least, not as quick as we might think they should have been, given the advantages that were theirs as eyewitnesses of Christ’s majesty both before and after the resurrection.

This slowness is a blunt reminder that the faith Christ demands of us relies on something besides physical proof. When Jesus criticized the doubters on the Emmaus road for being slow to believe, he might have urged them to pay attention to the evidence that was in front of their own eyes. He might have told them to heed what their own senses now told them was true. Instead, the risen Lord rebuked them for ignoring old promises. According to Luke 24:25–27: “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

Believing is Seeing

An old cliché says that seeing is believing. However, the slow faith of the disciples who beheld the risen Christ tells us that it is the other way around. It is faith that opens our eyes to see Jesus as he truly is. What is more, the faith that Jesus demands is faith in a word. This faith is a matter of believing the word of promise uttered long ago through the Scriptures. It is also faith in the word of the apostles, a testimony that is rooted in history and confirmed by the fact of the resurrection.

When Jairus, the synagogue leader, was told that his daughter had died and there was no longer any reason to trouble the master, Jesus replied, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” (Mark 5:36). The adjective “just” or “only” in Jesus’ answer captivates me. It’s a word with limiting force, as if Jesus has simplified everything by saying this. All Jairus has to do is believe. Yet “only” faith is not necessarily “easy” faith. Slow faith is not synonymous with unbelief. The repeated testimony of Scripture regarding the disciples’ experience confirms this. Faith came to them, but it did not come easily. When it did come, it did not come merely as a result of external proof.

With this command, Jesus isn’t focusing on the ease of what he tells Jairus to do but on its singular nature. In this moment of need, there was only one path forward for Jairus, and it led through Christ. The only way forward was to believe and, more particularly, to concentrate that belief on the person of Christ. The one option that was open to Jairus was to lean into Christ. This is the essence of faith. Faith does not look inward in the hope of finding some hidden reserve of confidence. It focuses its attention on Christ, who is not only our help but our only hope.

Philosophers and theologians have puzzled over the question of faith and its origin for millennia. Their conclusions seem to diverge into two primary streams of thought. One leans into human reason and emphasizes evidence. The other leans in the opposite direction by viewing faith as a supernatural result of the work of God. Each of these views seems to cancel out the other.

The position that Jesus takes, on the other hand, seems to be a more mysterious middle ground between the two. The faith that Jesus demands from his disciples is not without evidence. Most of Jesus’ dealings with his disciples, especially when it comes to the miraculous, seem to presume that they struggle with slow faith. He builds an irrefutable case for his claims about himself. He doesn’t expect them to believe without substantial proof. Yet their story shows that strong evidence is not sufficient to elicit faith. They saw Jesus perform miracles and even raise the dead. They had healed the sick and even cast out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus told them point-blank that he would be crucified and rise again. Yet after Jesus appeared to them in the flesh, allowed them to touch him, and spoke at length about what was to come, “some doubted.”

Although our slowness to believe is nothing to boast about, we can at least take some measure of comfort from the fact that we are not the only ones to wrestle with this problem of slow faith. The Bible is full of similar examples. All of this suggests that slow faith is often normal faith.

But neither should we trust our doubt. We are those that Jesus described to Thomas, those who are blessed because they believe without seeing. We also stand with Jairus, whose only viable option was the path of faith. And if we find ourselves faltering, then we stand with Peter, who, in his sinking faith, knew enough at least to grasp the hand that Christ held out to him.

Three Prayers from the Cross

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

Some have called Jesus’ seven statements from the cross his “last words.” The label is striking but somewhat misleading. They are not individual “words” but a collection of sentences or phrases. Neither are they technically the last words of Jesus but merely the last things he said before his death and resurrection. It turns out that Jesus still had much to say. After the resurrection, he showed himself to be alive to the disciples and spoke to them over the course of forty days and beyond (Acts 1:3).

Still, there is something unique about these sayings. For one, there is a starkness to them. The dying, as a rule, are not talkative. If they are not unconscious, they are too uncomfortable to be chatty. Dying is hard work, and those engaged in the task are usually too preoccupied to be loquacious. Jesus’ words are as terse as one would expect from someone entering the final throes of death.

The First Prayer

Among these seven sayings are three prayers, of which the first is, in some ways, the most astonishing. In this prayer, Jesus asks the Father to forgive those who crucify him (Luke 23:34). This is poignant but especially so coming between Jesus’ warning to the daughters of Jerusalem of a terrible judgment yet to come and Scripture’s observations about the scorn of the watching crowd. Luke’s description paints a picture of callous disregard blended with pride. Jesus hangs naked between two criminals as the religious leaders sneer. “He saved others,” they taunt, “let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One” (Luke 23:35).

The soldiers do their work with the brutal indifference of soldiers. They pound nails in Jesus’ hands and feet and haul him up. They parcel out Jesus’ clothes. Instead of water, they offer him wine vinegar. The soldiers point to the sign Pilate has ordered to be placed above his head and say, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” Yet instead of asking for justice, Jesus pleads with God for mercy on their behalf. More than mercy. Jesus asked God to absolve them “for they do not know what they are doing.”

But they do know what they are doing. At least, they think they know. The crowd, which has been swept up in these events, watches it all unfold. Some with ghoulish interest and others with sorrow. The soldiers are only following orders. The rulers, likewise, are just doing their job. They believe they are acting responsibly by ridding the nation of a dangerous person. Yet it seems that Jesus is right after all. They are all of them ignorant. None of them has any idea what is really going on.

Jesus’ request that God forgive is not a dismissal of the cruelty of their actions toward him. This is not the kind of false forgiveness we sometimes offer, saying, “Oh, it was nothing at all. Think nothing of it.” Rather, Jesus’ petition acknowledges that he knows what is happening. Jesus is not a victim. He is acting as a high priest, praying for the sins of the people. But Jesus is doing more than praying. He is also offering the sacrifice that gives him the warrant to ask for forgiveness on their behalf. It is the sacrifice of Jesus himself (Heb. 7:27).

The Second Prayer

Jesus affirms this in the second prayer he utters from the cross. If Jesus’ first prayer from the cross is astonishing, his second is disturbing. Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:45–46 reveals that Jesus spoke these words in darkness at three in the afternoon. This sharp cry is separated from the petition for forgiveness by at least three hours of suffering.

Some find these words of Jesus’ troubling, interpreting them as a moment of doubt or maybe even despair. But they are something else. They are a quote from Psalm 22, which is also a prayer. Acting as both priest and sacrifice, Jesus utters a liturgical prayer: “He reached up for a word of the eternal God and sent it back up again.”[1] Jesus’ words do not reflect a loss of confidence in God, but they suggest that there is more going on in this moment than merely a symbolic act. Something is happening between Jesus and the Father that is deeply distressing to the Savior. If we take Jesus at his words, it is a separation. Somehow, the unity between Father and Son that existed since eternity past was broken at that moment. Philip Jamiesen explains, “The cry of dereliction reveals that the Son has lost His direct access to the Father even as He calls out to Him as God.”[2]

It is easier to explain what happened than to precisely describe what Christ experienced. 2 Corinthians 5:21 explains, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Those who stood by the cross watching did not recognize it but were seeing themselves at that moment. Jesus was sundered from the Father because he had taken upon himself the “sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Acting as both priest and sacrifice, Jesus utters a liturgical prayer.

The Third Prayer

The third prayer Jesus uttered proves that this cry of anguish was not a cry of despair. It is Jesus’ last statement from the cross. Luke 23:46 says, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” On the heels of his cry of anguish, Jesus makes this remarkable confession of trust and commits his spirit into the hands of the Father, whose presence he can no longer feel. This is the prayer of someone who knows that he is dying. Yet, it is also more. This is the prayer of someone who trusts the hands into which he has fallen. In Jesus’ experience, it is a leap into darkness but not a blind leap. Jesus knows where he is going and how this story will end.

The Methodist preacher William Sangster pointed out that, without the cross, Christians would have nothing to say to those who suffer. Jesus speaks to us, not only as one who was himself wounded. He speaks by his wounds. “To all those whose minds reel in sorrow; to all those who feel resentful because life has done to them its worst; to all those tempted to believe there is no God in heaven, or at least, no God of love, he comes and he shows them his hands,” Sangster declared. “More eloquently than any words, those pierced hands say, ‘I have suffered.'”[3]

The Gospel

Yet the mere fact that Christ suffered is not enough. What does it matter that Jesus’ suffering outstripped ours, if all it means is that he suffered too? If all the gospel has to say is that Christ feels our pain and understands our experience, it is no gospel at all.

Jesus’ three prayers from the cross help us to place the suffering of Christ in a larger context. Jesus shared our humanity, “so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14). Sympathy was certainly one motive for this but only in part. The ultimate reason was so that Jesus could die on our behalf. “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way,” Hebrews 2:17 goes on to explain, “in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.”

This is the power of the cross and the reason for Christ’s suffering. He came not only to die but to rise again on our behalf. It is the key that unlocks the mystery of Jesus’ words from the cross. Solomon observed that love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6). But in Jesus Christ, we see a love that was even stronger.

[1] Helmut Thielicke, Christ and the Meaning of Life, trans. John Doberstein, (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1962), 44.

[2] Philip D. Jamieson, The Face of Forgiveness: A Pastoral Theology of Shame and Redemption, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2016), 99.

[3] William Sangster, “He Dies. He Must Die.” In Classic Sermons on the Cross of Christ, compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe, (Grand Rapids: Hendrickson, 1990), 32.

Why We Need the Church

~ John Koessler ~ 4 Comments

I began to follow Jesus seriously in the 1970s. Back then, I thought of it as a decision. “I have decided to follow Jesus,” I sang. “No turning back, no turning back.” But over time, I came to realize that it was more a case of Jesus drawing me after Him. I worked the midnight shift at a fast-food restaurant and started reading the Gospels during my breaks. Their stories of Jesus calling the disciples to drop everything and follow Him caught my attention and eventually captured my heart.

In the early days of my new life, it didn’t dawn on me that church was also part of the package. Our family didn’t attend and now that I thought of myself as a Christian, it seemed unnecessary to me. I had Jesus and the Bible. I had made friends with others who shared my faith. Why ruin it all by adding church into the mix? I had visited a few churches in the past. With its unfamiliar people and odd music, the experience was more uncomfortable than anything else. We stood and sat. Stood and sat. And then a man got up and lectured us about things I didn’t really understand. But after I became a follower of Jesus, I started regularly attending because someone told me that it was what Christians do. The music was still strange to me, but the lectures made more sense now that I was reading the Bible. I have been going to church ever since, though not always with enthusiasm. The music and the people still seem odd to me at times. But I have come to see the church as an essential part of my Christian life.

What is the Church?

We often talk about the church as if it were a location. We say we are “going to church.” We point to a steepled building that we call “the church on the corner.” We think of church as a place we go to worship. But the Bible speaks differently. On the one hand, in 1 Corinthians 11:18, the apostle Paul describes how the Corinthian believers “come together as church.” According to this, church is something we do. It is the act of coming together as those who worship and follow Jesus Christ.  On the other hand, the apostle also speaks of church as an identity. Church is what we are. It is a community of those who belong to Christ. For example, later in his letter, Paul brings greetings from Aquilla and Priscilla, two of his friends and colleagues, and from “the church that meets at their house” (1 Cor. 16:19). This is the same letter that he addresses to “the church of God in Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2).

So a church is not a building but an assembly of believers. A church is a community of faith. When you read Paul’s references to the church in the New Testament, you find that he sometimes refers to it in the singular and at other times in the plural. He speaks of “the Church” and also of “the churches.” These are the church’s two primary modes. One is broad, and the other is narrow. On its most expansive level, there is only one Church made up of all believers, at all times, and in all places. This church is not confined to what is seen. It spans heaven as well as earth and includes both the living and the dead. It is also evident from the way Paul writes that there are many churches. This is the other mode of the church. It is local and consists of individual congregations made up of those who profess faith in  Christ. These local assemblies each have their own distinctive make-up, personality, and style and may sometimes differ on points of doctrine or practice. As a result, the New Testament can speak both of the Church and the churches without contradiction.

Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyons, characterized the church as “a paradise in the world.” The book of Acts provides a snapshot of what life was like in the early church. According to Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Luke describes what, on the surface, might sound like a utopian community. They shared their possessions, and their meetings were characterized by gladness and sincerity. Yet, the New Testament also paints a realistic portrait of church life. There we find people who are much like us, forgiven sinners who sometimes fight and complain but are still traveling the way of Christ together with the help of the Holy Spirit. In the book of Acts, we see some of the real-world flaws of this remarkable community. We discover that some of its members were hypocrites (5:1–2). We learn that the church’s first significant organizational change took place because some of its members were being neglected, possibly due to cultural prejudice (6:1). And we observe how reluctant the church initially was to accept the newly converted Paul because of his former life (9:26). Its members struggled with jealousy and ethnic prejudice. Some New Testament Christians were upset after they heard Peter had met and dined with Gentiles (11:2–3). Paul and Barnabas had so sharp a disagreement that they each went their separate ways (15:39). Some preachers taught with needed further doctrinal instruction (18:25–26). And Paul warned that others would become false teachers (20:30).

Why Church is Necessary

But do we really need the church? The Bible’s answer is an emphatic yes. One reason is that the assembled church provides a unique context for worship. When Christians come together as church, they do so to worship God through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:19-22 says that those who are in Christ are fellow citizens with God’s people and members of his household. They are a kind of temple, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. All who belong to Christ are being “built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” One of the primary reasons Christians come together is to experience the reality of God’s presence through worship. Another reason the church gathers is to hear the word of God taught. When Acts 2:43 gives a snapshot of the life of the early church, it says that the first disciples “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” Christians meet together to study God’s word to know how to be the church when they go their separate ways. A church is a community bound together by what Jesus Christ has done and what it has been taught. On the one hand, the word of God is the foundation that establishes the church. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20). Because of this, the church is also an agent of truth that proclaims God’s word to the world.  In 1 Timothy 3:15 the apostle Paul describes the church as the “the pillar and ground of the truth.”

Long before social media adopted the language of connection to refer to relationships enacted in the digital realm, the apostle Paul expressed the idea more concretely by calling the church a body made up of members who have been joined to one another through Christ. The church is a place where “we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Rom. 12:5). God’s Spirit has empowered every believer to contribute to the well-being of the other members. Instead of losing our individual identity and disappearing into the whole, each of us has a distinctive function in the church. Every member adds value to the church, even those who do not seem to add value. Christ has arranged the church this way, “so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other” (1 Cor. 12:25). Therefore, Christians come together as church to worship God, hear the word of God proclaimed, and care for one another. Then they each go their way to represent God’s interests in the world around them.

Although there are many organizations that work for the betterment of the world, three things set the church apart from every other institution. First, the church is a community where God uniquely manifests His presence. It is the dwelling of God by the Spirit. Second, the church is a believing community that both hears and proclaims the word of God. It is through the church that God spreads the good news of forgiveness through Christ. Third, the church is a community of servants empowered by God to represent His interests in the world.

God’s Beautiful Imperfect Church

Anyone who has visited a church knows that it is still a work in progress. God has given Christ’s righteousness to the church as a gift, but our practice of that righteousness is not yet perfect. Those who claim that there are hypocrites in the church are right. No congregation is everything that it should be. But there is more to the church than our experience of it. An essential discipline of the Christian life is learning how to view the church through the eyes of faith. We learn to look beyond our disappointments and take God at His word. All that God says of the church is true. This faith-driven approach to church life does not deny or explain away its problems. Just the opposite. Most of the New Testament was written in an effort to apply the truth of God’s word to the failures and inconsistencies of the church.

So how does one find their place in the church? The starting point is to recognize that union with Christ also unites us to the church. The same faith that is the door to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ is also our entrance pass into the church. We must also recognize the importance of intentionality. Scripture urges Christians to study the art of being a church. Belonging to the church comes automatically, but behaving like the church takes learning and practice.  Hebrews 10:24-25 uses the vocabulary of thoughtful reflection when it tells us to: “. . . consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” The closer we get to Christ’s return, the more we need the church.

What is God Like?

~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

The Bible teaches that God has revealed Himself to us through creation and by His word. But what does that revelation tell us about the nature of God? Theologians have traditionally divided God’s attributes into two main categories. Some are attributes that have no analogy in human experience. These attributes, often called God’s incommunicable attributes, display the uniqueness of the divine nature. Others, called communicable attributes, are characteristics that have some analogy in human experience. God’s incommunicable attributes show how the divine nature is unlike our own. They display God’s transcendence and reveal the great gulf that exists between the Creator and His creatures. God’s communicable attributes remind us that we have been created in the image of God and, in some small measure, were designed to be like Him.

When Jesus spoke of God to the woman of Samaria, He emphasized two fundamental characteristics of God. According to Jesus, God is both a Spirit and a personal being who seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). The title Jesus uses to describe this being is Father. This label implies that God is both intimately involved with His creation while being distinct from it. Creation depends on God for its origin and continued existence, but God is not dependent on anyone or anything (Acts 17:24-25). This independence is reflected in four attributes that flow from it and reflect God’s power: Infinity, Omnipresence, Eternity, and Immutability.

God Has No Bounds

When we say that God is infinite, we are not really talking about size or distance but the fulness of His perfection. God possesses all His attributes without measure or limitation. All that God is, He is to an infinite degree. This infinite God is omnipresent. He is always present everywhere. The Psalmist acknowledged this when he wrote, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Ps. 139:7–8). There is no place or situation in which we will find ourselves that God is not already present. We cannot hide from God or escape His presence.

Where time is concerned, God is eternal. He does not experience the limitations of time the way we do. As Psalm 90:2 observes, He exists as God “from everlasting to everlasting.” God’s eternal nature has implications for God’s interaction with creation. The eternal God can act within time as we know it, but He is not bound by time. Because God exists apart from time, the Bible uses our experience as a point of reference when talking about His eternal nature. 2 Peter 3:8 urges us to remember that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” What seems to us like a delay is not a delay to God. Our physical life has a beginning and an end. God has neither. Because we are time-bound creatures, we can only experience time as a succession of events. Unlike us, God is not subject to time or to cause and effect.

This means that God’s infinite nature is also immutable. God can’t be more or less than He already is. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” God’s character and nature do not change. Nor does He mature, grow, or evolve. His plans and purposes are fixed (Ps. 33:11; 102:27). At the same time, there are passages in Scripture that seem to attribute change to God. For example, Genesis 6:6 says that God “regretted that he had made human beings on the earth.” Jonah 3:10 tells how, after the people of Nineveh repented, God relented from the destruction He had threatened to bring upon them. As with time, the Bible speaks of these instances using human experience as their primary reference point. In these instances, it is not God who changes but humanity’s relation to God.

Omniscient, Good, Holy, & Omnipotent

The other category of God’s attributes is called communicable because they have some analogy in human experience. They describe God in terms with which we are familiar. They speak of His knowledge, righteousness, and mercy. At the same time, these attributes reinforce the Bible’s message that we are not God, even though we have been created in His image.

God’s communicable attributes include omniscience. God knows things, and so do we. But God knows everything to an infinite degree. He knows all things comprehensively. He knows all that has happened, and all that will happen. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me,” the Psalmist declares. “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:1–2). God knows all that we think before we think it and what we will say before we say it. He knows our secret thoughts, even those we have hidden from ourselves (Ps. 139:4, 24). By comparison, our knowledge is as infinitesimal as God’s is infinite.

Another communicable attribute is God’s goodness. This goodness is expressed first in God’s holiness and righteousness. God is Himself the ultimate standard of all that can be deemed good. For this reason, Jesus declared, “No one is good–except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Because God is perfectly holy, His moral standard is one that demands perfect holiness. He upholds this standard by acting justly and holding all those who fall short of it accountable. God has a moral nature and created us to be moral beings. But our nature is imperfect and is flawed by the presence of sin. Our unrighteousness separates us from God and makes us liable to His judgment. This problem of sin calls forth the other dimension of God’s goodness, the love that He has shown by offering us grace and mercy through Jesus Christ.

Of all God’s attributes, perhaps the most familiar is His omnipotence. God is all-powerful. This characteristic is expressed in Job 23:13, which says that God “does whatever he pleases.” Omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything. There are some things that Scripture says God cannot do. God cannot lie. He cannot sin. God cannot deny Himself. But God can do all that He purposes to do, and all that God purposes to do is consistent with His nature. Our God is mighty to save (Isa. 63:1; Zeph. 3:17).

Unity in Trinity

Although we tend to separate God’s attributes when we analyze them, they are not separate in God’s being. God is not divided, nor is He in conflict with Himself. God’s holiness does not battle with His grace and mercy. One of the dangers of focusing on the divine attributes is that it tends to reduce God to a list of philosophical abstractions so that we lose His personal nature. The Scriptures reveal that God is a personal being and that He exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Both the Old and New Testaments agree in their assertion that “God is one” (Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:32; Gal. 3:20; James 2:19). This means that there is only one God. There are not many gods. But it also means that God is one by nature. The three Persons in the Trinity are distinct from one another as persons but not in essence. Scripture does not portray God as a single divine person who manifests Himself in three different modes, nor does it speak of the Godhead as three separate divine beings. The triune nature of God has no analogy in human experience. All attempts to explain it by comparison with nature or philosophy are bound to fail. We can affirm this truth by faith, but we cannot fully comprehend it.

“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves,” the Reformation pastor and theologian John Calvin observed. He goes on to note that one leads to the other. When we look at ourselves, our thoughts turn to the God who made us and sustains us. When we contemplate God, we can’t help being aware of the ruin that sin has brought about in our lives. “To this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God,” Calvin explains, “and we cannot seriously aspire to Him before we become displeased with ourselves.”

The Bible shows us what God is like so that we will see ourselves as we truly are. The main lesson of the attributes is twofold. First, God’s attributes show us that although we have been created in the divine image, we are not God. Second, they remind us that we need God’s mercy and grace shown to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ before that image can be fully restored in us. This is the hope of the Christian. It is the hope that “when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

The Christian Art of Incivil Discourse

~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

John Calvin and Sebastian Castellio used to be compatriots. Until they weren’t. Calvin was initially so impressed with Castellio that the iconic Reformer invited him to serve as rector at the college of Geneva. Things changed when Castellio started to disagree with Calvin. The two Reformers began to take aim at one another, with Castellio publishing tracts that criticized aspects of Calvin’s theology and Calvin answering him in kind. One of Calvin’s responses was entitled A Brief Reply in Refutation of the Calumnies of a Certain Worthless Person. The first line reads, “There has come to my notice the foolish writing of a worthless individual, who nevertheless presents himself as a defender and vindicator of the glory of God . . . .”

I thought of Calvin’s essay recently, when the furor over John MacArthur’s dismissal of Beth Moore’s ministry erupted. When MacArthur was asked what he would say to Beth Moore in one or two words his answer was, “Go home.” MacArthur’s remark was relatively tame compared to Calvin’s, at least when you consider that in the Reformer’s day theological disputes often ended in prison or even death for those who disagreed. I guess we live in a kinder and gentler age by comparison. But that doesn’t make disagreement more comfortable for us. Especially when it is between people that we look up to. Listening to Christian leaders that we admire when they disagree with one another can be like listening to your parents fight. We aren’t sure whose side we should take. We just want it to stop.  

Listening to Christian leaders that we admire when they disagree with one another can be like listening to your parents fight.

In our digital age, where it only takes a click of the mouse to enter the fray, it is easy to turn a disagreement into something more. Like players pouring out of the dugout to protest a bad pitch, each side piles on the other using their words as fists. The fact that our theological brawls are mostly verbal may not be as much of an improvement over the old days as we thought. It is true that we no longer burn people at the stake. But we do occasionally burn one another in effigy via social media. Words can be weapons. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment,’” Jesus warns in the Sermon on the Mount. “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

 I suppose it might be different if our verbally violent exchanges led to mutual agreement. But they do not. How can they, when the views in contention are mutually exclusive? Neither side can capitulate to the other without compromising their convictions. Each finds it equally difficult to speak in moderation. The greater the conviction, the stronger its expression. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that both will eventually agree to disagree, but neither side can say that the other is right.

Don’t misunderstand me. The tone certainly matters. 2 Timothy 2:24–25 warns that “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.” In other words, if we are going to disagree, and we are going to disagree, we need to learn to disagree like Jesus. But what does that look like? Is it the gentle Jesus of the children’s hymn, who is meek, and mild? Some envision a Jesus who never said a harsh word to anyone. But that is not the Jesus described in the Gospels. The Jesus of Scripture called those who rejected His teaching “blind fools” and “hypocrites” (Matt. 15:7; 23:17). He grew angry when the religious leaders tried to accuse Him of Sabbath-breaking for healing a man with a shriveled hand (Mark 3:5). He made a whip of cords and used it to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple courts (John 2:15).

Some envision a Jesus who never said a harsh word to anyone. But that is not the Jesus described in the Gospels.

Likewise, the same apostle Paul, who wrote that the Lord’s servant must be gentle, is the one whose disagreement with Barnabas over ministry personnel was so sharp that the two of them went their separate ways (Acts 15:39). Was their dispute a sin? I guess it might have been, but the Scriptures don’t call it that. Paul also said that he wished those who were preaching circumcision to the Galatians “would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Gal. 5:12).

If we look beyond the New Testament, we can find other examples of strong disagreement expressed in passionate language. There is Moses, the Psalms, and the prophets, of course. When the returned Jewish exiles compromised their lifestyle, Nehemiah rebuked them, called down curses, beat some of them, and pulled out their hair (Neh. 13:25). I am not saying that moving forward we should adopt Nehemiah’s behavior as a pattern for our disputes, only that we shouldn’t be so shocked to find believers with opposing views expressing themselves with conviction.

For those who already agree with his views, MacArthur’s remark was simply a tersely stated biblical correction. For those who disagreed, it was a case of mean spirited bullying and prejudice.  But given the nature of MacArthur’s convictions, it is hard for me not to see the resulting outrage as somewhat disingenuous. How could MacArthur have said any different, given what he believes? Of course, he might have said nothing at all. I suppose that would have been more polite. But when he said that Beth Moore should “go home,” I suspect he meant it literally. Likewise, I think Beth Moore was right to be equally dismissive of John MacArthur’s suggestion. Her implied response to him, posted on Twitter, stated, “I did not surrender to a calling of man when I was 18 years old. I surrendered to a calling of God.” In a subsequent tweet, she added, “Whether or not I serve Jesus is not up to you. Whether I serve you certainly is. One way or the other, I esteem you as my sibling in Christ.”

The real rancor in this dispute didn’t come from MacArthur or Moore, so much as it did from their followers and other observers who piled on via social media. Those who took issue with MacArthur criticized his tone, but what they ultimately objected to was his view. Would they have felt any better if he had expressed his remarks with a sweet smile and a soft-spoken explanation, supported by extensive Scripture references? I doubt it. What was really at issue for them was not whether he should have used a different tone, but whether he had the right to hold his convictions at all. The same is true on the other side. In the end, both sides in the controversy essentially share the sentiment that MacArthur expressed. Each would like it better if the other would go away. Neither is likely to do so anytime soon.

In the end, both sides in the controversy essentially share the sentiment that MacArthur expressed. Each would like it better if the other would go away.

So how should we manage disagreements like this in the church? We can start by recognizing that complete agreement is unlikely, if not impossible. Our differences matter and they are not always able to be reconciled. If merely holding the opposite conviction is incivility, then incivil we must be. But it may help to recognize that not every doctrinal disagreement is a matter of life and death. It has helped me to sort through these matters by drawing a distinction between three levels of doctrine. First, there is a basic shortlist of fundamentals. These are the truths that are foundational to the Christian faith. They are so essential that if you eliminate them you no longer have Christianity. These are the truths that show us which hill we should die on.

Second, there are those truths over which Christians disagree and which are important enough to warrant a separation in fellowship or practice. These doctrines are essential to one’s theological identity or express convictions which shape essential ministry practices. But we would still consider those who hold views different from ours to be Christians. The difference between MacArthur and Moore falls into this category.

Third, are doctrines that we might call disputed matters. These are doctrines about which we will agree to disagree. We cannot all be right about them. Perhaps we are all wrong. But we will fellowship and minister together in spite of our differences. These truths are important, but they are not so important that tolerating those differences does damage to our identity or compromises our practice.

Of course, distinctions like these, which look neat on paper or in a diagram, are always messier in practice. One person’s disputed matter is another’s distinctive and sometimes even their fundamental. We will not always agree. Where convictions are strong, we should expect that their expression will be equally strong. Beth Moore is right when she observes that even in our differences we remain siblings in Christ. And anybody who has taken a long trip in the family car knows that siblings don’t always get along.