Holy Trinity and Waiting for My Change

“…He Who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He Who prepared us for this very purpose is God [the Father, 1:2,3; 11:31], Who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord [the Son, 1:3,4,14; 4:14; 8:9; 11:31; 13:14] - for we walk by faith, not by sight - we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 4:14-5:10).

The Father is the One Who purposes our resurrection (5:5), gives us the eternally divine Person of the Holy Spirit “as a pledge” (5:5), creates our resurrection body (5:1), and “will raise us also with Jesus” (4:14). This is done for His great glory (4:15). How great is “the love of God” (13:14)!

The Son Who is the resurrected Lord is the One to Whom we are faith-united to receive our resurrection from the dead (4:14). While here on earth, we are “absent from the Lord,” and desire instead “to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (5:6,8). The apostle, in his focus on this eternally divine Person of the one true God, appeals to our will (“we have as our ambition”) and our affections (“to be pleasing to Him”) in directing our attention to Him. We are motivated by the reality that this Son is the Judge and Rewarder of how we steward our time in this world. The greatest blessing a human can enjoy in the context of forever is “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” (13:14)!

The Holy Spirit, given to all who believe in the resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ (John 7:39; Acts 2:38), is a gift from the Father to assure us throughout our days here on earth that He will raise us from the dead in His good time. The Holy Spirit, God present in us, is a pledge of a future promise (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13,14). How comforting is “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (13:14)!

This one true God Who is three Persons will accomplish a great change in us. Consider all the ways Paul describes our God-wrought transition:

“…our outer man is decaying” → “our inner man is being renewed day by day”

“…momentary, light affliction” → “an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison”

“…the things which are seen” → “the things which are not seen”

“…temporal” → “eternal”

“…the earthly tent which is our house” → “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”

“…this house” → “our dwelling from heaven”

“…naked…unclothed” → “clothed”

“…mortal” → “life”

“…at home in the body,” and therefore “absent from the Lord” → “absent from the body and…at home with the Lord”

The Father “has prepared” (aorist middle deponent participle of κατεργάζομαι) us for this change, working it through our faith-union with the resurrected Son and assuring us of this purpose by giving us the indwelling Spirit. This has been my meditation this last week as I prepared for a graveside service I led yesterday. For the believer in Jesus Christ, the setting of earthly remains to rest in the cemetery is the great statement of faith in the promised change.

“Oh, that You would hide me in the grave,
That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past,
That You would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If a man dies, shall he live again?
All the days of my hard service I will wait,
Till my change comes.
You shall call, and I will answer You;
You shall desire the work of Your hands.
For now You number my steps,
But do not watch over my sin.
My transgression is sealed up in a bag,
And You cover my iniquity” (Job 14:13-17, N.K.J.V.).

(Fernando Ortega put this text to song.)

Give glory to the Triune God for His purpose in our resurrection. Burial is a step in that glorious direction.

Ft. Bayard National Cemetery

Drinking Mercy (and Coffee) Instead of Sorrow

“...I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:18-25).

Sometimes we read (and teach) this passage with an emphasis on Paul’s “gain” and “desire to depart and be with Christ.” This is a good and right thing – we need more of a scripturally-informed leaning toward and yearning for Christ’s heaven (Colossians 3:1-4 is a very important passage to me). However, that’s not the whole story.

I got to be part of a 100th birthday for a dear sister in Christ yesterday. She was having a difficult day health-wise, but it was a joy to see her reach – by God’s grace – this landmark. I thought of the difficulties and sorrowful loss her family has experienced in the years I’ve been their pastor, and was reminded of this profound truth proclaimed in the midst of heartbreak:

“This I recall to my mind,

Therefore I have hope.

The LORD’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul,

‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,

To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:21-26).

This was Tuesday’s meditation for me.

Today is Wednesday. I got a call this morning telling me that another dear sister in Christ, a 94-year-old prayer warrior of the highest degree, was in the hospital with a possible stroke. I confess: I felt a bit of fear inside. I was thankful to find her sitting up, smiling, eating breakfast, and drinking coffee (that magnificent elixir gifted from heaven to a sod-bound race). It was good to see her like this.

I don’t know what the next hour, day, or month holds, but I told her I hoped we’d be celebrating her 100th in six years. She agreed. I read Psalm 30 with her, prayed, and left. On the drive in to the office another passage from Philippians came to mind, and it wasn’t the one at the top of this post.

“But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need; because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow” (Philippians 2:25-27).

It’s interesting that Paul’s “gain” and “desire to depart and be with Christ” didn’t make him emotionless or oddly inhuman about “the last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26). The apostle loathed this thing (as I do with all my soul) and considered it the mercy of God that his fellow servant and dear brother was brought back from the brink, so that Paul wouldn’t have to drink a cup of “sorrow upon sorrow.”

I long for the heavenly Home where my Savior and Lord is. A lot. But I hate the process of getting there, and despise the fact that a funeral is always somewhere unseen around the corner. Paul held both of these emotions without contradiction or sin, which strengthens me. I pray for the grace to do the same.

Advent: the Battle Begins

The Son became as we are that first Advent,

vulnerable to the temptations of the devil;

He took on the sentence of death due to us

and defeated its reign of fear on our behalf!

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14,15).

Several years ago my youngest daughter was having a skin abnormality removed from her leg. It was potentially cancerous. Despite the fact that it was a relatively minor procedure, it was anything but minor to this dad. I was in the store the day before and thought I'd buy her a new Dora the Explorer nightgown to wear when she returned home. I remember standing there, holding this little nightgown, with Sting's "Fragile" playing as background muzak (seriously, it was!). "Flesh and blood" is really weak stuff to be made of.

Several years before that I was speaking at a funeral for a church member I loved dearly. Halfway through the sermon, as I was holding myself together by sheer will-power, I heard a voice in my head, "I don't want to do this anymore." It stunned me. I love the ministry. I love pastoring. I love preaching and teaching the Word more than I can say. That voice scared me. I've spoken a few older, more experienced pastors since then and the Lord has ministered to me through it, but it was an exceedingly fragile moment...one of the most fragile in my life. "Flesh and blood" is really weak stuff to be made of.

But our weakness is not merely our experiences in this world as sometimes powerless beings in the midst of unwelcome circumstances; being “flesh and blood” is far more serious - and weak - than tough days in this world. The writer elaborates on this at the end of this chapter: “...He had to be made like His brothers in every respect...He Himself has suffered when tempted...” (2:17,18). The weakness of being “flesh and blood” is our vulnerability to being tempted. This weakness is further emphasized later in Hebrews. Christ is effective as our heavenly, eternal High Priest because He “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). The weakness is not merely being “flesh and blood,” but the vulnerability to sin in temptation we inherit from our “fleshly nature.”

Ours is a slavery to the curse of the Law (death). Being children of Adam and Eve, we are born into this slavery; we further the slavery by our own freely-chosen transgression and lawlessness. All of us. Every one. This is our biggest problem. Our weakness means all of us are enslaved to sin before our Creator, a holy God Who is eternally offended by that sin and wrathful against it.

The Accuser and His Power

The devil introduces sin into humanity through his temptation of Eve (Genesis 3:1-6; 1 Timothy 2:14). It’s important that the devil used the Law of God (Genesis 2:16,17) as the tool of his temptation (3:1) - he does the same with us (if it ain't broke...). Eve gave in to this temptation, then Adam, and therefore all humans are born with a nature that inevitably rebels against the Law of God.

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s Law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7,8).

“Cannot.” It is impossible. The standard is God's, and we fight against it, attempt to re-define it by our preferences, and roar about the injustice when the penalty time approaches.

With the Fall sin entered into the “spiritual DNA” of humanity. The title “devil” means “accuser.” Now that all of humanity is fallen in sin, the devil accuses us before God day and night.

“...the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:10).

With sin came the condemnation to spiritual death and physical death. We all have an innate spiritual knowledge that we are guilty before God because of our sin and deserve hell for our guilt. "Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them" (Romans 1:32). The devil uses this knowledge to fill humanity with fear of death. Remember, death is not “natural,” as is usually said these days. This is the philosophy of a naturalistic, evolutionist worldview. The Bible tells us that death is the curse of the Law of God against sin, and we are all born with a cursed sin nature, already condemned to die.

The devil/sin uses the Law of God to tempt us into transgression of that Law, the penalty of which is physical death and eternal spiritual death: 

• “The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin” (Romans 7:10-14).
• “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). 

Remember, the Law of God is “holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12) and even “spiritual” (7:14). The problem isn’t the Law. It’s us as sinners. “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

The Law of God itself is not evil, except to the libertine rebel heart of fallen humanity (Psalm 2:1-3). God originally gave His Law to humanity as a means to avoid death and stay on the paths of His life:

However, the devil used the Law of God as a means of temptation unto death with Eve in the garden:

Since we are all born as descendants of the fallen Adam and Eve, we are born with a “spiritual DNA,” or sin nature that automatically desires to rebel against God’s Law. What was given as good is now an instrument of temptation, sin, and rebellion unto death. After the Fall, no human being can be right with God through Law-keeping (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16; 3:11). The devil, being the author of our death sentence through violation of the Law, then stands before God and accuses us of lawlessness and the death we deserve because of that lawlessness. He uses our condemnation under the Law to make us continually fearful of the curse of the Law: death.

Every human being is aware of the Law of God and the death sentence, even if they spend their whole lives denying it (Romans 2:14,15; 3:19). We do all we can to avoid facing this weakness. But it's still there. This is the fear of death from which Jesus came to deliver.

Advent Unto Deliverance

Jesus became one of us at Advent to destroy the power of the devil: “...the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, Who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). There is still Christian grief over death (Acts 8:2), but it is not a hopeless, defeated grief (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Jesus’ victory over death on our behalf did not avoid death, but went through it to destroy it.

“Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:8-10).

Remember, we are born facing physical and eternal spiritual death because we are born under the condemnation of the Law of God. We need a Savior.

One of the most famous verses about victory over death is actually a quote from the Old Testament: “Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from My eyes” (Hosea 13:14). In this O.T. passage God is actually summoning the grave and death to bring judgment! When the apostle Paul quotes this verse in the N.T., though, the victory of Christ totally reverses the meaning of the passage: “‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law” (1 Corinthians 15:55,56). Even though the Law of God is “holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12) and even “spiritual” (7:14), the devil uses it as a weapon of accusation and fear against our sin nature. He uses it as a means of temptation, since we are born with sin natures that rebel against the Law of God (7:15-23). No matter how fragile and weak the circumstances of this life sometimes make us feel, it's far, far worse than we can imagine.

But Advent means that the eternally divine Son of God took a human nature upon Himself and entered the world as one of us. He lived the perfectly holy, righteous, Law-keeping, and obedient life we could never live. He took the penalty for our lawlessness upon Himself, paying that penalty of death upon the cross. He rose on the third day that we might have life. He has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where "He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). Advent was the beginning of the battle over our super-fragility and profound weakness as sinners. And the battle has been won in Christ, the Child of Advent.

God Over Even Death

“...to GOD [יהוה] the Lord belong escapes from death” (Psalm 68:20).

• “...Jesus answered and was saying to them...‘For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment’” (John 5:19,21-29).
• “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies...’” (John 11:25).
• “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:14,15).
• “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Revelation 1:17,18).

Who is this God יהוה Who has power over death? It is Jesus, God the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, the only Savior, Judge, Lawgiver, Lord of the heavens and the earth. Humble yourself before Him in faithful obedience and know life, life, eternal life.

God's Teacher of Hope

Threat of Death as Teacher of Hope in this life: “...we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God Who raises the dead; Who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on Whom we have set our hope” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).

Threat of Death as Teacher of Hope in the Resurrection: “In the days of His flesh, [Christ] offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety” (Hebrews 5:7). The Father heard the Son’s prayer for salvation from death and answered it because of the Son’s piety...on the third day.

He wastes nothing in the life of His beloved - not even the sentence of death.