66 Blu-Rays

Once upon a time a man was sitting at home, pondering his life, wondering if there was more to it than endless TV shows and bottomless bags of chips. As he pondered he heard a rapping at his front door. He slowly pulled himself up from his lethargy and answered the door. Waiting for him was a sharp looking fellow who told him that he had been selected to receive a wonderful gift from a famous movie executive. The sharp dressed man said the name of the producer, but the man, let’s call him Tim, did not recognize the name. The sharp dressed man, let’s call him Peter, pushed ahead with his offer. He told Tim that this producer had the answer to life and he was willing to let Tim in on it. All Tim had to do was watch a group of movies over the course of the next year that the producer had made. In fact, Peter told Tim that he was prepared to hookup a system in his house right that very moment that had 66 Blu-Ray players in it, along with a flat screen TV and a 7.1 surround sound system. All Tim had to do was watch each movie in each player and at the end of the year the producer was going to come to his house and ask him what each movie was about and what the big story was that connected all the movies. If Tim got this, he would have the answer to life. Tim thought this was a great deal so he had Peter install the system. What could be easier? Tim already liked watching movies, so how hard could it be to watch 66 movies in one year.
Later that day Tim said down on the couch and started to watch the first movie. He watched for about 20 minutes and then fell asleep. When he woke up next morning he decided he would watch another movie, and just to keep it interesting, he would start the movie half way through. He watched about 10 minutes of movie #56 and then had to go to work. When he came back from work he settled in and watched a short movie, #65, before he went to bed. The next day he jumped to movie #14 and only watched 5 minutes, then he skipped to the last scene of the movie and watched it. This pattern continued all year as Tim jumped around from movie to movie, rarely finishing a whole movie, and often starting the movies somewhere in the middle. By the end of the year he had seen every scene of every movie. One year after Peter had given Tim the home entertainment system the producer showed up at Tim’s house to talk to him about the movies and the combined message of all the movies. He told Tim that he had hired several different directors to make the movies, and Tim thought that was so because most the movies had a very different feel from each other, but some were quite similar. As the producer started to ask Tim about the various movies it became clear that Tim was not sure what any single movie was about. He was able to talk about various characters in the movies and he remembered some of the scenes, but Tim could not make sense of the movies to the producer, and he was definitely not able to tell the producer what was the overall message of all the movies. Tim even blamed the producer for making movies that did not make any sense, if you can imagine that. The producer was quite disappointed that Tim had not watched each movie through in its entirety and he was even more disappointed that Tim thought the movies were unable to be understood. The producer noted that the problem might not be with his movies, but with how Tim watched them. Tim kinda shrugged and said “maybe,” but then he sat back down, turned on the TV and went back to watching what he had been watching a year ago, and what is interesting is that when he watched those movies and TV shows, he watched them from start to finish and they made such perfect sense to him.

The Union of the Divine and Human in Christ

How are we to understand the person of Jesus Christ in light of the biblical evidence that he was God and human? The church has wrestled with this tension for 2000 years, and much like the Trinity, has come to the conclusion that there is a deep mystery in the unity of the divine and human natures in the one person of Christ. What we will attempt to clarify in this lecture is what we do not mean by claiming that Jesus is both 100% God and 100% man. It would seem on the surface that these two assertions are contradictory. How can God be located in only one place, or how can a man who is finite know everything or be all powerful? It would seem that we have made a statement that makes no sense. While we are free to make nonsensical statements, the church throughout its history has rightly been uncomfortable with leaving its doctrines unexplained. While the explanations have not always been satisfying to everyone, often being perceived as more confusing and worthless than the original nonsense statement, the church has nevertheless felt compelled to offer an explanation for the faith that we have. Like Augustine, we must start from our position of faith in the revelation of God, but once we stand in the position of faith, we are not asked to remain silent, but are instead called to seek to understand our faith, to give a credible answer to the questions that are raised both by those inside the family and those outside. It is to that charge that we proceed as we seek to elucidate the mystery of the unity of the two natures in the one person of Christ.
Let it be understood at the outset that there is no explicit verse that deals with how the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ work together, or if they have any influence upon each other. Over the course of church history various options were put forward as to how the divine and human interact in Jesus. The two broad options that the church has rejected is that either one or the other nature becomes practically irrelevant. Liberalism depreciated the divinity of Christ, while conservatives have often depreciated his humanity. The latter problem has been termed Docetism, while the former one goes by many names, but broadly we can call it an Ebionite issue.
At this point, you might be asking what does it matter how we understand the divinity and humanity in Christ. Does it really matter what is going on behind the scenes? Well, on one level you may be correct, but history has shown us that when a group of believers fails to struggle with the unity of the divine and human that they tend over time to fall into one of the misunderstandings of Jesus, with the long term result that they eventually either deny his humanity or his divinity. It is our goal to so understand how the two natures are related that we can stay on the narrow road of orthodoxy and avoid crashing into either the docetic or ebionite guard rail.
A practical implication of the unity of the divine and human in Christ is that he bridges the metaphysical, moral, and spiritual gap between God and humanity. We have already shown that the Bible portrays Jesus as both human and God. At this point, however, we must ask ourselves are there any scriptural texts that indicate to us a way to reconcile the two natures in Christ. In other words, what happens in the womb of Mary when Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit? There are several verses in which both the humanity and divinity of Jesus are mentioned in the same context, with the implication being that there is only one person Jesus Christ who is being discussed. One such passage is John 1:14 in which “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Here the Word who is clearly described as God in v. 1 is said to have become flesh and he has dwelt among us. The divine has become human, but has not ceased to be divine. Jesus is also treated as a single person. There is no indication that we are dealing with a person who is possessed by God, a person who somehow has God hiding inside of him, as we often find to be the case in the NT with those who are possessed by a demon. The person is not equated with the demon, but instead the demon is treated as an invading party to the person. This is not the case with Jesus. He is not a man who has been invaded by God, but is a man who is God.
Galatians 4:4 says that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.” Again, we see that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity was born of a woman, born under law. It is clear from this passage that God became a man while not ceasing to be God. If we look close, we also will see that this passage does not tell us how this took place. We can be certain that the Son was born of a woman, but how it happens is not revealed. If you are like me, you drove to work today. You got in your car, turned the key, pushed the pedal, and made your way down the road. Most of us have a slight understanding of how our car works, but we could not explain what is going on under the hood. I can tell you that my car got me to work today, but I could not explain to you how it works. If, however, we wanted to know how it works we could go to the manual to discover what makes a car run. When we go the manual called the Bible, there is not an entry for what takes place under the hood of the incarnation, but it is clear that there was an incarnation of the Son. It may be more like the scientific paradox of how light is both a wave and a particle. According to our current understanding this should not be possible, but yet it is. Although we do not know how light can function in these two ways, we nevertheless affirm that it does.[1]
In speaking about the great mystery of the incarnation Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:16 that “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” Here we see that “he” appeared in a body. The “he” that is being referred to is Jesus. It was the Son, the second person of the Trinity who appeared in a body and was taken up in glory. He revealed himself as a human being. We will come back in a little bit and show how some people have taken the phrase “in the flesh” both here and in John 1:14 to argue that what happened in the incarnation is that God only inhabited a human shell. He clothed himself in a human form, in flesh, but did not join himself to a human psychology or will.
In addition to those passages which speak of Jesus as both God and man, there are also verses that use titles that apply to both his human and divine nature. In 1 Corinthians 2:8 we read that “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” What they did not understand was the secret wisdom of God decreed before the foundation of the world that God himself was saving his people by becoming one of them. In the verse under consideration we have the shocking statement that the rulers of this age crucified the lord of glory. The question that must be asked is who is the lord of glory? Who is being referenced in this verse? The easy answer is Jesus, and of course, that is the correct answer. Might there be, however, a deeper reference to the OT understanding of God as the lord of glory. We find the same type of statement in Acts 3:15 when Peter says that the religious leaders killed the author of life. The irony is obvious in that statement. The very one who created life has been put to death. How can the lord of glory be crucified? How can the author of life have his life taken from him. As we learn in John 5:26 the Father has life in himself and he has granted for the Son to have life in himself also. Here we are getting into the eternal generation of the Son from the Father, but that is another discussion, one best left for a lecture on the Trinity. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Son has life in himself, not from outside himself. If the Son has life in himself, then how can someone crucify him and take that life from him. Again, we read that Jesus laid down his life for his followers. His life was not taken from him, but he has the power to lay down his life and pick it up again.[2] This is not a power that a human has on his own, and yet, death is not something that can happen to God.
In a similar vein, we read in John 3:13 that “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” It is the son of man that has descended from heaven. We know that this was the favorite title that Jesus had for himself. Is he saying that he descended from heaven where he existed before he was born? That would appear to be the clear implication of the statement, but how do we reconcile this statement with the conception of Jesus. Did Jesus exist before he was conceived, and if so, was his conception merely a disguise. Was it play acting to try to convince people that he was human, or was the conception of Jesus the conception of a real human being, albeit without a human father contributing the male DNA? If we are to hold to a consistent hermeneutic that involves both the reliability and consistency of the biblical witness, then we cannot merely brush aside all the evidence that speaks of the true humanity of Christ. It is this problem that has brought about the tension in the church in attempting to understand the unity of the two natures in the one person of Christ.

[1] I am aware of quantum mechanics and its work on wave and particle relations. I use this example to show how people can hold two positions that seem at odds with each other because the evidence forces them to that position. Much like modern quantum science, the church was confronted with the two facts of the divinity and humanity of Christ and has sought to understand how the two can be related, while still holding to the truth of each nature.
[2] John 10:18

Ecce Homo: Behold the Man

In our day and age, there is little debate over the humanity of Jesus. It is a foregone conclusion that he is human, but alas he is often portrayed in modern scholarship as all too human. He is given the failures and the foibles of the mass of humanity. He is beset with the same temptations, but also the same sins as the rest of us. The old adage that “we are only human, born to make mistakes” applies also to Jesus. For you see, our culture is not one that questions the truth of humanity, but instead it questions to truth of divinity. It is God who is in the docks, as C.S. Lewis aptly described. We have placed the very existence of God on trial, from Nietzsche’s proclamation that God is dead to the new atheists such as Richard Dawkins who purport to have pulled back the veil on transcendence to reveal . . . . nothing is there. There is nothing beyond our universe, because there is no beyond. Now while it is obvious that this type of statement rests on a foundation of faith, as does the belief in the divine, the time we live in does not wish to see it that way. No, Jesus is human and of that we can be sure. But in the evangelical church, it is often the humanity of Jesus that is under developed. In a reaction to the rejection of the divine in the culture, the church elevates the divine nature in Jesus to such an extent that we lose his humanity. We affirm with our mouths that Jesus was 100% human, but there is lurking in our subconscious a suspicion about that. Did Jesus have zits? Did Jesus’ voice crack as he went through puberty? Did Jesus really grow in stature and wisdom? Did Jesus ever really wonder what the next day would bring? Did he ever feel alone, afraid, rejected, abandoned? Might there be a chair somewhere, in some house, which Jesus made as a carpenter? It is the everyday Jesus that we have a hard time embracing. We love the Jesus that walks on water, but we struggle with the Jesus who is sweating as he makes his way over the rugged roads from Jerusalem to Jericho. You see, in our churches, we must recapture the humanity of Jesus, the solidarity he has with the human race. Indeed, he was born of a virgin. But in that birth, Joseph most likely cut the umbilical cord that was nourishing the unborn son of God. Indeed Jesus walked on water and multiplied bread, but it was that same Jesus who had to drink the water he walked on and who had to eat the bread he multiplied in order to stay alive. Indeed, Jesus is the life, but it is the same Jesus who felt his life flow slowly out of his body as he hung on the cross suspended between heaven and earth on that most tragic, that most glorious, of days. Let us reclaim the humanity of Jesus for the Christian faith, for the human race. We must know that the blood that flowed through his veins was indeed human blood, the blood that would redeem the human race; the human race, what an apt metaphor. We have been racing from God, and yet in Christ, we find ourselves racing home. The promised son of Eve has arrived and the broken relationship is being restored in the man Jesus Christ. And as is the case with all races, the human race has a destination, a finish line of sorts, and it is not the one you are thinking of. You know the one, out there somewhere in the future, at the end. No, the finish line, the destination of the human race is Jesus Christ!

Open God's Letter

The Bible, Scripture, the Word of God, revelation, the revealing of God to man. Sitting in front on me is this most fascinating of books. The stories are fantastic, verging on the unbelievable, no, they are at times unbelievable, at least according to current ways of defining belief. We can’t run a test to see if God spoke to Moses. There is no microscope strong enough to magnify God so that we can see Him with our physical eyes. There is no mathematical formula that will explain God. No, God is different, like a relationship is different. You can’t investigate love, at least not empirically. You experience love, it encounters you and you respond. God is the same way. God comes to us and we respond. Jesus came to people when He walked on the earth and they responded. Some hailed Him as their Messiah, the anointed one that would save Israel. Some followed for a time and turned away when the path became difficult, when the teaching became tough, or when the cost was simply too high to pay. Others hated Jesus, plotting and planning in the highest courts in the land how they could rid themselves of this meddler, this corrupter, this blasphemer, this provocateur.
Why do I put my trust in the Bible? Why is it the highest authority in my life? That is not an easy question to answer. You see, there are numerous reasons, all tangled together and intertwined with each other. It is hard to distinguish each strand as they wrap around to form the rope of my conviction. I believe that the Bible has fulfilled the prophecy in it. Some of the prophecies are vague, while others are so clear that they are hard to sidestep as mere fortuitous coincidences. There is also the testimony of those who knew Jesus, the Apostles. These men died for their belief that Jesus rose from the grave. Now I know that people die for false beliefs every day, but do they think they are false beliefs or are they deceived? Were the Apostles deceived? Were they convinced of something that did not happen? It becomes subjective at times, but I believe that they were not deceived and that they did not die for a false belief. You ask me to prove it, and I tell you that I can’t, at least not in the sense you mean. Prove it like a math problem, prove it like it was something that anyone could go see and know. Jesus can’t be proven that way, and there is nothing in that which weakens my belief or renders it suspect. Prove to me that you love your wife, prove to me that you love your daughter or son. Relationships are not subject to scientific experiment. They are different. We experience people and at the moment we make a person into an object we have reduced them. We have made it easier for us to cast them aside, to disregard them, to hurt them, to abandon them. People are not objects, they are subjects. We encounter them in relationship. God is not an object for our study, but a subject for our encounter.
The Bible lies open before me to the first chapter of John and it says that God became a man, God became a human being so that we could be with Him. Paraphrasing Bono, He stooped so low, to reach so high. God came down, so that we can go up. There is a relationship that gives the Bible authority in my life. There is a relationship that confirms that the Bible is God’s love letter to humanity. God has reached out; He has put Himself in the vulnerable position of loving us first. We have to choose how we respond to Him. Will we return the love He gives, will we act as if He never offered His love, will we rage against Him for His love? The answer to that question lies with you.
God is the highest authority in my life! God is my deepest passion! Flowing from that commitment is a passion for humanity. Do I love humanity like I should? No, the answer is easy to give. I fall short time and again. Am I striving to love more. Yes, but it isn’t easy. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Tough words from a great man. Tough words from a great God. Open God’s letter, read, listen to what He says to you, and then decide.