Commentary
The Nasty Little Doctrine We Can’t Live Without
“He chose us.”
Three little words tucked into Ephesians 1:4 that define a nasty little doctrine…
Nasty in that it draws a battle line straight through the middle of our theological camp.
But without this doctrine we have no blessing. No adoption. No inheritance. No security. No assurance. No celebration. No joy. No comfort.
Without this doctrine we have salvation dependent on human influence. Salvation merited by human effort.
Without this doctrine we have no sovereign–no supreme–being worthy of worship.
Fortunately, this doctrine doesn’t rest on Ephesians 1:4 alone. This doctrine is all over Scripture:
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. Deuteronomy 7:6
For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. Isaiah 45:4
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44
And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Romans 8:29
Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls. Romans 9:11
For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you. 1 Thessalonians 1:3-4
But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2:13
Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 2 Timothy 2:10
The doctrine I have in mind here is election, the concept that we are a mass of mankind distinguished and separated, united to spend eternity with Christ.
A concept that declares we are unworthy people declared worthy people. Unrighteous sinners declared righteous.
All because we are chosen in Christ.
I think most people would agree with this. It’s WHEN this election occurs that party lines form.
Where the Line of Division Is Drawn
The biblical concept of election states that God chose BEFORE the creation of the world those whom would be Christians.
Before man. Before creation. Before time. In the isolated, all-wise counsel of God–we we’re adopted into his family.
He chose us.
Now, Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world to be a sacrifice for sins. We have no problem with this.
Yet, suggest that Christians are foreknown for salvation in the same way and people cry foul.
What Election Does and Doesn’t Do
Understand, election doesn’t nullify man’s responsibility to believe in Jesus as Lord. It doesn’t eliminate accountability.
What it does do is reconstruct our nature from bent on corruption to pre-occupied with sanctification.
That’s the whole point behind election: that we should be holy. Not because he saw that we should be holy. But because he made us holy.
God takes delight in us. But not because of who we are. But because of who we are through Christ. We are changed through Christ into holy, blameless people so a holy, just God can delight in us.
Furthermore, our election causes us to find unquenchable delight in God. He becomes our perfect and supreme object which occupies our affections.
We are elected so we can adore God.
He may have angels. But his will is to have children. Children with whom he can be intimate.
Why We Celebrate
Christ is the peculiar object of God’s affections. Christ is his chief pleasure. And when we become Christians we inherit those affections. That is why we celebrate.
We participate in God’s presence only because Christ, in God’s sovereign will, redeemed us.
And that redemption is secured. Affirming our adoption into God’s family. Anxiety over our fate is soothed. And we receive comfort knowing that on our worst days we will still inherit eternal life.
What remains is bewilderment: Why did he choose me?
We will never know until the day we meet God when we will more than likely throw ourselves at the feet of our Savior in a reckless–but appropriate–act of worship.
Resist Christ as Lord [Our Condition Apart from New Birth]
**Part of the 10 Hard Truths about Being Born Again series**
Judas the apostate–the betrayer–was an apostle of Jesus Christ…
A man hand picked by Jesus to be one of the twelve…
Part of the close circle of disciples.
A man trusted to be the treasurer. A man who saw Jesus cure the lame. Conquer storms.
A man who heard all the doctrines of Christ. Doctrines taught with authority. Taught irrespective of tradition.
Judas even heard Peter tell Jesus, “You are the Christ.”
Yet, Judas was impotent to all things spiritual. Unregenerate. Blind.
Dead in sins, he didn’t think it worthwhile to glorify Jesus as God or give thanks to him.
And in the end–in spite of the abundant proofs of Jesus’ lordship–he rejected Jesus as his Lord.
Why? Judas simply chose the only thing that would please his corrupt nature and its appetite for sin. He couldn’t choose what his nature didn’t desire.
And this is why the new birth is needed.
First Corinthians 12:3 says that “No man can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” In other words, you CANNOT say “Jesus is Lord” and mean that he is master of your life…
And in John 6:44, Jesus says “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
In the absence of God’s gracious gift of faith in Jesus Christ, you can not embrace Jesus as Lord. In God’s grace, however, you are drawn FROM your beloved lusts and darling self-righteousness…
And drawn TO Christ. To rely upon Christ–and Christ alone–for salvation.
You are drawn from that which was appalling and ludicrous to that which is comforting and reasonable.
Mind you, the drawing here is not moral persuasion. It’s not doctrine. It’s not miracles. It’s distinct from that.
And superior.
It’s the internal and powerful influence of the Holy Spirit of God. An act of power, but not force. God makes the unwilling willing. He makes him who resists the lordship of Christ actually embrace the lordship of Christ.
Such statements may seem quaint, maybe even self-defeating, but to anyone who’s been truly born again, the work of the Holy Spirit in their regeneration is a stable, eyes-wide-open reality. One that faith can sink its anchor into.
Death: The Messiah Commits His Soul to God
Not long after a challenge to crawl down from the cross–an accusations that Christ was not who he said he was–a Roman centurion makes an unusual statement.
It was noon when darkness covered the whole land.
A sign that satisfied Amos 8:9. A sign that satisfied Jeremiah 15:9.
A sign the Jews didn’t expect. Nor even noticed as such.
But a sign that signaled their blindness. Their subjection to spiritual darkness.
The darkness remained for three hours. And in that darkness Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Jesus didn’t complain of Peter’s betrayal. He didn’t complain that his followers fled from him.
He complained that God had forsaken him.
And made a sacrifice of sin for us, Jesus now suffered God’s fury and wrath. The wrath Jesus feared in the garden. This was the agony he suspected he’d endure.
Wrath seen in the Old Testament consuming fire. Fire that consumed the sacrifice. Fire that should’ve consumed the sinner. It fell on Christ. A sacrifice that pacified God. A sacrifice that cried long and bitterly.
Startled by this sudden appearance of life in Jesus, someone soaked a sponge in sour wine, put it on the end of a long stick and raised it to Jesus’ lips.
They intended to cool his mouth. Not to nurse him. But to mock him. As if to say, “He’s crying for the prophet Elijah to rescue him. What other crazy thing can we get him to say?”
Then, Jesus died.
And at that instant, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, a signal that the nation of Jews would eventually be destroyed…
…Ichabod, the glory is departed from Israel…
And it signaled comfort to Christians: Here is a new and living way into the holiest by the way of Jesus’ blood.
And now we come to the centurion’s statement. Convicted and convinced, the centurion who oversaw the execution confessed: “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
The unjust punishment of a sinless man. The honor that heaven declared to the suffering servant.
Even in the depths of humiliation and persecution, Jesus was declared the Messiah. The Son of God. And he was declared to be so with power.
From conquering storms and subduing demons to human worship and heavens that declare his death, Jesus is named the Messiah. The reigning King. Whom we adore and serve. Forevermore.
**Part of The Messiah: Eleven Meditations from the Book of Mark series.**
Bondage to Worldly Wisdom [Our Condition Apart from New Birth]
**Part of the 10 Hard Truths about Being Born Again series**
You’ll get no fuss from me:
Intellectual discussions deserve appropriate exchanges of argument and counter-argument.
All well and good.
The only problem is, sin is not an intellectual problem.
It’s a spiritual problem. A problem the natural man–dead in sin–sees as foolish:
“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him….” 1 Corinthians 2:14
What’s at stake here is the rejection of the antidote to sin–the gospel–by the unregenerate. A rejection embedded in ridicule and scorn.
The gospel appears so ridiculous to the unregenerate that he cannot wrap his head around the gospel. He can’t wrap his head around the things of God. Or understand how anyone else could.
It’s utterly foolish to him.
Yet, this is not physical impairment. As if the unregenerate were missing the gospel bone.
This is moral impairment. Impairment caused by the rebellion of the heart and a bondage to sin. This rebellion and bondage is so deep that the mind justifies the rebellion and bondage by seeing the gospel–all spiritual things–as foolish:
And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 1 Corinthians 2:14
But this is not coercion. The unregenerate person CANNOT because he will not. His bent for rebellion and self-aggrandizement forbids him from choosing good.
It’s a real and ferocious bondage. Yet not an innocent bondage. Nor a hopeless bondage. At least not hopeless in the scope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Crucifixion: The Messiah Mocked on the Cross
Near the end of the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we see Jesus nailed to a cross…
A cross standing between two crucified robbers–a subtle insult by Pilate suggesting the king of the Jews was nothing more than a criminal.
The Mocked Messiah
Onlookers cursed Jesus. Spit his way. Even challenged him to crawl down from the cross. The two robbers hurled abuses at him.
Some Jews cried, “He saved others, but he can’t even save himself!”
This is a gruesome antithesis of Mary’s reckless act of worship. A far cry from an otherworldly transfiguration.
Jesus on the cross is not a potent display of power. It doesn’t move anyone to declare, “You are the Christ.”
In fact, in the minds of Mary, John and Peter–in the minds of all his followers–it looks like nothing more than a scandal. A fraud. A huge, out-of-nowhere upset late in the quarter.
This can’t be happening. Not to our Messiah. But it is.
Cursing Christ
The mockery doesn’t stop. Someone cries, “Let Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!”
A final demand for a miracle by the unbelieving Jewish authorities. A miracle they claim would convince them once and for all that Jesus is indeed who he says he is: The Messiah.
Their claim is false. They would not believe. They refused to believe any miracle up to that point. And they would refuse to believe in the resurrection.
In the end, they satisfied the desires of their heart. At the expense of the suffering Christ. But, without knowing it, they established the glory and perfection of Jesus: He saved others but not himself.
What the Work of the Crucifixion Means
This is what we don’t see: The work occurring out of every one’s sight between Jesus and God. The work that darkened Jesus’ soul, broke his body but displayed his absolute perfection.
All the work between himself and God.
And morally rejected by the world there was no longer any room in it for his mercy towards it. He drank in his soul the cup of death and the judgment of sin. His work was complete.
Obedient to the end, he dies. But his death ushers in another world. A life where evil could never enter…and the new man will be perfectly at peace in the presence of God.
How Do You See the Suffering Messiah?
The man who sees the danger in mocking the suffering Messiah will with relentless intensity seek salvation.
The man who sees the forgiveness for sin and the gift of eternal life purchased for him by the suffering and death of the Son of God will rejoice endlessly.
And the man who sees the sins which crucified Christ will mourn with godly sorrow.
How do you see the suffering Christ?
**Part of The Messiah: Eleven Meditations from the Book of Mark series.**
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