On June 5, 2015, a long-time friend of the Gutenberg Community, Sherri Berg, died suddenly and unexpectedly. What follows is the talk that Dr. Crabtree gave at her memorial service on July 21, 2015. The talk is a good reminder for us all of where our hope lies. *** To remember Sherri for who she was, there are three different things we could legitimately consider. First, we could consider her magnificence as a creation of God. Secondly, we could consider her flawed moral nature. Or, finally, we could consider her righteousness in the defining existential commitments of her heart. Typically, a memorial service would focus on the first of these three things. It would focus on the truly wonderful person that Sherri was. As all of you know, Sherri indeed was a magnificent creation of God, and we could quite easily spend our time remembering and praising her magnificence as a human being. And we would be speaking the truth about her. But not the most important truth. Her amazing creatureliness is not the most important thing to know about Sherri. So I am not going to focus on that. Alternatively, we could focus on the harsh and unpleasant reality of Sherri’s sinfulness. If we are truly interested in speaking the truth about Sherri, we would have to acknowledge the reality of her sinfulness as well. Like every other human being on the planet, the beauty and goodness of Sherri’s many gifts were muted and degraded by that same awful reality that characterizes all of us. She was a sinner, innately prone to rebellion against her creator and against all that her creator loves and values. I think I knew Sherri well enough to know that she would have no objection to my saying so out loud. One of Sherri’s most outstanding characteristics, in my experience of her, was her blunt, unvarnished honesty. Sherri did not seem the least bit interested in coming at truth and reality obliquely. She liked her truth straight and direct—the straighter the better. She had little use for euphemism, vagueness, or obfuscation. There was a refreshing naiveté about her in this respect. It was as if her entire way of being challenged each and every one of us with the rather child-like question, “If it’s true, why wouldn’t you just say it?” Sherri was not interested in keeping a lid on the truth just because it might be uncomfortable, socially awkward, or embarrassing. She was as committed to a straight, explicit confrontation with fact and reality as anyone I have ever known. So, it would be very consistent with Sherri’s way of being for us to reflect on the reality of her sinfulness. But I don’t want to focus on that either. Rather, I want to focus on the state and character of Sherri’s “heart.” The best way to remember Sherri this evening, I think, is to reflect on those commitments, passions, and perspectives that defined her at the inner core of who she was. So who was Sherri? Sherri was a follower of Jesus, the Messiah. Her heart was committed to Truth (with a capital T), and the passion of her heart was to be good with a goodness that reflects the goodness of God. By reflecting on the nature of this commitment and passion, we will be reflecting on the very thing that defined Sherri at the core of who she was. I say we will be reflecting on what defined her “at the core of who she was” because Sherri—like you and me—was not always true to who she was at heart. None of us are. We are all evil, depraved creatures who get blindsided and up-ended by the currents of folly, impurity, and unrighteous rebellion that well up from within us. God does not expect us, in this lifetime, to transcend the moral depravity that constitutes who we are. But He does expect us to turn our desires toward knowing and serving Him. He wants us to come to hunger and thirst after the righteousness that we don’t have. He wants us to mourn over the sinner that we inescapably are. He wants us to come to acknowledge how unworthy we are, how undeserving of Life we are. And He wants us to come to understand that it is only on the basis of His mercy that we have any standing in His eyes at all. He wants us to make an existential choice to strive to serve Him, honor Him, obey Him, and come to know and love Him. These things we can do. These things we must do. We cannot be good. But we can decide to genuinely love goodness. The person whose life and being is characterized by just such a passion will fail. She will fail to be what, at her core, she longs to be. While she hungers and thirsts to be righteous, she will not and cannot be truly righteous. Her own depravity will sabotage her in her pursuit. Yet her commitment is real nonetheless. None of us will enter the eternal Kingdom of God gracefully. We will stumble into the Kingdom of God. We will enter in spite of the fact that sin has raised its ugly head in so many different ways throughout our lives. Sherri was no exception to this. I would not even have to know Sherri to know that that is true. But I firmly believe that Sherri knew and understood all that I have just articulated. She knew that her standing before God was not based on how she performed; it was based on the genuineness of her longing. She knew that God would accept her into his Kingdom because she truly wanted to be the person that God wanted her to be, not because she had actually become the person that God wanted her to be. Death is an ugly thing. It takes the reality of a human life and erases it. It will not take long after my death for my existence to become largely irrelevant to anyone and everyone still alive. Death is the absolute negation of everything that a person is or was. It made Jesus weep. I already mentioned that Sherri liked her truth straight. The straight truth is that we do not speak the truth when we say that we will always remember her. Or when we declare that we will never forget her. When we speak sentimentally of a person’s memory living on, we are not strictly serious. We tell such lies to ourselves because we want to hide the ugliness and destructive power of death from ourselves. The truth is that death destroys everything. In time, even the memory of a person fades into complete insignificance. My ancestors are an abstraction. They do not live in my memory. We cannot conquer death by leaving a legacy, by making a name for ourselves, or by any other such thing. There is one and only one antidote to death: RESURRECTION. If we are going to live on, there is only one way to do it—namely, to actually live on. But to live on is not the destiny of every individual. Most human beings will find their humanity erased by a death from which they will never return. But, so far as any of us could ever know, Sherri is among the fortunate few who will not be abandoned to death. She will not be lost to oblivion. She may be gone now, but death will not keep her. When Jesus returns and the final trumpet is sounded, Sherri will be re-created. She will be given a new body—a body that is beyond the ravages of those disorders that have plagued her for the past several years, a body that is beyond the pain that haunted her every movement. She will be made into a glorious, righteous, awesome, immortal being who will live eternally on the new, recreated earth, under new and more glorious skies, in a Kingdom of truly and perfectly good human beings. There Sherri will no longer be evil. She will no longer be subject to death and futility, and she will never again be victim to the evil of others. There Sherri will have Rest from the grief, the pain, the struggle, and the toil of this present existence. She will be given true Life and will endure forever. As the Bible sees it, Sherri was a winner. She achieved victory in the here and now. In his letter we call 1 John, the Apostle John writes of those who are victorious over “the world.” What is this victory of which he writes? It is the victory of not being influenced to disregard and reject the Truth. It is victory over all the seductive lies and compelling influences of world culture. In other words, our belief is our victory. Our existence in the here and now is a battle. Will we persevere in clinging to the Truth, or we will we abandon the Truth and believe what everyone around us believes instead? It is no easy matter to persist in believing the Truth. It is the hardest thing any human being will ever do. And it is the most significant achievement any human being can ever achieve. Sherri, I would maintain, gained that victory. When death put an end to her existence in the here and now, Sherri hoped in one thing: that her Lord and Master Jesus would be her advocate before the Judge of all the earth and would secure mercy and forgiveness for her. In other words, her singlemost hope was that Jesus would grant her Life beyond the grave. That, I would submit, was the hope that defined her existence. Sherri was not among those who sleep. She did not bob along in an unaware stupor. She was awake. She was wide awake to the importance, to the significance, and to the truth of the gospel that Jesus proclaimed to us. Specifically, she knew and understood the good news that God will be merciful to anyone and everyone who is willing to submit to God and who is willing to orient her life around the truth from God. Nothing in all of human existence is more important than to gain this very victory that Sherri gained. Sherri ran the race of human existence and came out a winner. Nothing would please her more than for those whom she loved—for all of you—to join her in this victory. As Sherri grew in her understanding of the Bible, she came to understand her creator better. She came to understand that God is the author of everything. Everything! The good, the bad, the pleasant, the not so pleasant. God is the author. Our lives are the script. Sherri’s death was no accident that could have been prevented. The timing of Sherri’s death was purposive and meaningful (even if only God knows the secret of its meaning). Sherri had become convinced of precisely this perspective on her life. Sherri’s death presents each and every one of us with a challenge: What are we going to do with the author of all that is and of all that occurs? Will we ignore Him? Will we choose to be indifferent toward Him? Or, like Sherri, will we recognize that choosing to know, honor, serve, and obey God is life itself? I hope, as I am sure Sherri would, that everyone here today will choose to take God seriously. I don’t mean choose to be piously religious; I mean choose to take seriously the author of all reality. The shock of Sherri’s unexpected death is a sobering reminder that now is the time to learn how to do this. It is now that we must learn what it means to take our creator seriously. Sherri took God seriously, and she died a winner. We must wake up from our indifference toward God lest we die losers. There is no more truly heroic act than to courageously persist in believing the Truth in the face of all that is arrayed against it. We come together today, in deep sorrow, to say farewell to a true hero. For Sherri was a hero. And she will get a hero’s reward. We will miss her. There are things we had hoped to share with her that will never be shared. There are things we had hoped to say to her that will never be said. Her gain is our loss. But we can only be grateful to God today that God has seen fit to seal Sherri’s victory and to make her a member of the eternal people of God. We must say “Goodbye” to Sherri for now, until we meet up with her again at the last trumpet. May that trumpet be quick to sound. May our time apart be brief. Come, Master Jesus, come quickly!

This article is from a talk given to Reformation Fellowship Church on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015. *** Communion is a ceremony based around food and drink. This makes a lot of sense to me. In the Lord’s Supper, it is as if we are enacting a physical metaphor. The physical act of eating and drinking is very much like the spiritual realities it represents. Food and drink—hunger and thirst—are incredibly powerful and important parts of human experience. Food and drink are life-giving. If we do not eat—if we do not drink—we will die. Our bodies are designed to tell us that we need food, we need drink. The longer we go without eating, the hungrier we get. The longer we go without drinking, the thirstier we get. And so the experience of eating and drinking is a very big deal. When we start eating and drinking, we usually experience pleasure. We respond to the taste of what we are eating and drinking. And then, as we continue to eat and drink, we feel the satisfaction of our need. Our hunger and thirst diminish and disappear. And the result is: we don’t die. Without food and drink, we die. With it, we live. Our physical existence is sustained for a while longer. Every day, when we eat and drink, it is like we enact a little parable. We experience pleasure, we achieve satisfaction, and we receive life. No wonder, then, that the Bible often speaks of the larger spiritual realities with metaphors of eating and drinking. The Bible portrays the things of God as pleasurable, like food and drink: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8); “The judgments of the Lord…are sweeter also than honey” (Psalm 19:9-10). The Bible portrays the things of God as satisfying our longings, just as food and drink satisfy our hunger and thirst: “For [God] has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good” (Psalm 107: 9); “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). And of course, the Bible portrays the things of God as giving us life, just as food and drink do. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die” (John 6:48-50). Jesus is telling us that He came to be the true bread, the bread that gives true life, eternal life: Eat this bread—that is, believe in me—and you will live . You will never die. Jesus also tells us how He gives life to the world: through His death on the cross, through His broken body. As He says, “The bread which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6:51). He says, “My flesh is true food” (John 6:55). It is my death on the cross that will give you life, eternal life. And so in communion we have a ceremony where we eat the bread and remember Christ’s death. His broken body, his death for our sins, is like our food. We receive his salvation with pleasure. The salvation He brings us satisfies our deepest hungers. And in the end, His salvation will give us life, eternal life. And so that is what we celebrate and remember with the bread. Just as bread satisfies us and gives us life, so Christ’s death brings us a salvation that truly satisfies and truly gives us life. And when Jesus had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19) Jesus also asked us to remember His death by drinking from a cup that represents His blood—that is, the blood that He shed when He died for us. Just as with the bread, we are remembering the salvation that Jesus brought us by dying on the cross. And this time, we celebrate it through drinking. Thirst is just as powerful an experience as hunger. We must satisfy our thirst, or we will die. And so, just as Jesus tells us that His body is true food, so He also tells us that His blood is true drink. Are we supposed to be imagining that we are drinking literal blood? Not at all. Rather, as we experience the pleasure and thirst-quenching satisfaction and life-giving properties of physical drink, we remember that it is the death of Christ that will truly quench our thirst and truly give us life. Jesus poured out His life’s blood so that we might live. In the same way Jesus took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (I Corinthians 11:25)

The last thing I remembered was the gunshot. The intruder killed me, shot me dead. The very next instant I was there, standing in an endless line of human beings. Up ahead was a magnificent throne. Some indescribable being was seated on it, more an effect than a form. I knew he was there, but I couldn’t really see him. He was incapable of being seen. He sees, but he is never seen. I don’t know how I knew that. I just did. Before the throne stood two men. One directly before the throne; the other off to its right-hand side. I was frightened, disoriented, confused, dazed, overwhelmed by the whole scene. Desperate to understand my situation, I turned to the man standing behind me in line. “Where am I?” As I looked at him, I noticed the line of humanity stretching all the way to the horizon. “You are at the last judgment,” he said. “We are in line to stand before our creator and be judged for the lives that we lived during our time on the earth.” Just then, a tall, confident man came strolling along the line from his place much closer to the front. “Do you know what day today would be if we were still alive upon the earth?” he asked me, stopping and looking directly at me. “The day of my funeral?” I asked tentatively. “Easter,” he said loudly. “It is rather appropriate that we should come before God to be judged on Easter day, don’t you think?” “Why is that?” I asked, terribly afraid that the very question might get me in some sort of trouble. I had heard of Easter, of course, but I didn’t really know much about it. My background had been as non-Christian as was possible in twentieth-century America. “Why is it appropriate that we should be judged on Easter?” “Very simple,” he said. “Those of us who will be granted eternal life today will be granted it for one and only one reason—Easter!” “So, what happened on Easter?” I asked sheepishly. I saw no need to hide the fact that I was a totally ignorant non-Christian. “You don’t know?” the man asked. “I am Dr. Knoworthy, Dr. John Knoworthy. I studied the Bible for fifty-five years before I died. I can probably answer any questions you might have about what is going on here today. Feel free to ask away. I can see that you are a fellow American from the twenty-first century.” He reached out his hand to shake mine. “What is your name?” “Jack,” I said. He reached out his hand to the man just behind me in the line, “And what is your name?” The man answered him, but I couldn’t make out what name he gave. He added, “I am afraid I am from a very different time and place in history from the two of you.” Dr. Knoworthy turned back to me, “So, you want to know what happened on Easter and why that is so significant? Easter is the day Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.” He turned and pointed to the man standing just to the side of the throne up ahead. “That’s Jesus right up there.” I had seen a couple of pictures of Jesus during my life. The man by the throne didn’t look anything like his pictures. “Not a single person in this line deserves to be granted eternal life. The only way any one of us is going to get it is if Jesus intercedes for us. If Jesus wants us in his kingdom, then we will be there. If he doesn’t, we won’t. God is the one up there on the throne deciding our fate. But he has delegated the right to determine what our destiny will be to Jesus. So, if Jesus wants us to have life, we’ll be granted life. If he doesn’t want us to have life, we won’t be granted life. It’s as simple as that.” Something was transpiring at the foot of the throne. I focused my attention on the proceeding. They were quite a distance away, but I could hear them like they were right in front of me. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the unseen being spoke from the throne. “Sir, I don’t see why you think you have the right to judge me. I think it is for me, for us, to judge you. You have caused so much suffering over the course of human history—it is you who should be held to account. If you condemn me, that is just one more act of cruelty. From my perspective, you are the evil one, not me. So I don’t care what you do with me. I don’t think you have the right to judge at all.” The unseen judge addressed the man on his right, “Jesus, what do you have to say?” “Father, I do not choose this man for the eternal kingdom.” “So be it,” said the judge, addressing the man before him. “By your own words I judge you. Since you do not care what I do with you, I will give you the condemnation you deserve. Go to your condemnation.” Two beings that I took to be angels led the man away toward a door on the left-hand of the throne. “I am really in deep…” I stopped. I felt a very heavy sense of disappointment come over me. If only I had got my stuff together earlier. I had reached a turning point in my life just before I died. I had lived a messy and immoral life. Murder, violence, women, drugs. You name it, my life was filled with it. My life was full of crap. I saw that so clearly just before I was murdered. I was in the motel room that night, flopped out on the bed. In my desperation, I cried out to God, “God, I am a mess. I have completely wasted my life. I don’t know what to do. I just want to be different. Please, God, let me be different, make me good. Make me a different kind of man.” The very moment I had said that, the motel room door burst open and the intruder shot me dead. I don’t know which of my enemies got me, but God knows I deserved it. If only I had had more time. I groaned. Dr. Knoworthy attempted to comfort me, “No, my friend. You are not beyond hope, as you seem to think. That is the good news of the Christian faith. No matter how evil a person is, he can be met with mercy if Jesus wants him to receive it. Jesus will request mercy from God for every one who belongs to him.” “But I didn’t have enough time to belong to him,” I suggested. “Nevertheless, Jesus can still speak for you. He can still ask God to grant mercy,” Dr. Knoworthy assured me. “But what’s to say God will grant mercy just because Jesus asks for it?” I asked. “Well, like I said, that is the good news part of the Good News. And that is why Easter is such a big deal. The fact that God raised Jesus from the dead is proof positive that God is, as he himself put it, “well pleased” with his Son. The Bible goes on to explain that because God is “well-pleased” with the Son, God will grant mercy to any person whom the Son chooses to have in his kingdom. If Jesus has your back, you cannot lose! Precisely that is the good news for everyone who believes in and follows Jesus. And precisely that is the joy of Easter.” Just, then, the next man in line approached the throne for judgment. “I doubt if this next man is going to be granted Life,” Dr. Knoworthy confided. “I did, however, counsel him what he ought to say. I told him to simply acknowledge his unworthiness and look to Jesus for mercy. Who knows? Maybe it is not too late for him.” I focused again on the proceedings before the throne. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the unseen judge said from the throne. “Sir, I agree with the last guy. I don’t see why you think you have the right to judge me. You have caused inexcusable suffering among us over the course of human history. It is you who should be judged, not I. I don’t think you have the right to judge me at all. So, I don’t care what you do with me. It is unfair in any case.” A very strange look came over the man’s face. He looked like someone who had just made a very serious mistake and knew it. Dr. Knoworthy looked surprised as well. “Why didn’t he do as I told him?” he asked, mostly to himself. But the man behind us answered his query, “God will not allow himself to be bullshitted. When you stand before God in judgment, only your sincere attitudes and beliefs can be expressed. You can resolve ahead of time that you will say what you think God wants to hear, but that isn’t what will come out of your mouth. What will come out is what you truly think and believe in your core.” The judge invited Jesus to weigh in, “Jesus, what do you have to say?” “Father, I do not choose this man for my kingdom.” “So be it,” God said. “I give you the condemnation you deserve. Go to your condemnation.” Once again, two angels led the man away toward the door on God’s left. Yet another man was led before the throne. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” God said from the throne. “Sir, I think I probably am not acceptable to you. I think you probably find me unworthy of everlasting life in your kingdom. I would like to say something in my own defense, though. I am caught off guard here a little. You see, I have never given a whole lot of thought to theology or religion or anything of that sort. I have just been more interested in other things. So, I come before you rather ill-prepared. I don’t really know what you want or expect. I mean, I tried to be good my whole life. I tried to help people and make their lives better. Now I did some bad things, mind you. I’m not saying I’m perfect or anything like that. But if you wanted more from me than I gave, I just don’t know what that would have been or how I would have done it. Really, I don’t actually care to think about the stuff that concerns you; it kinda bores me, really. I had many other things I was interested in during my life. So, I just kinda didn’t have a lot of time to get to know you and what you wanted from me.” “Jesus, what do you have to say?” the judge asked. “Father, you have taught me that the kingdom is for those who long to know and serve you. I cannot accept this man into the eternal kingdom.” “So be it, since you have shown no interest in knowing and serving me, I deny you access to the kingdom where all will know me and serve me forever. I give you the condemnation you deserve. Go to your condemnation.” Next a woman was led to the judge. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” God said from the throne. “Your Majesty, I know that I deserve condemnation. I am a broken and flawed person. I am not worthy of life in your kingdom. And I can now see how important Jesus is to your decision with regard to me. I have not been a follower of Jesus, your Majesty, but I was always open to believing in him. The only reason I did not commit to following him is that there were so many problems, so many unanswered questions, so many reasons to be uncertain. I read books about how the accounts concerning Jesus were all fiction and legend. And since I didn’t see his life and death and resurrection for myself, I just didn’t know for sure. I was so afraid of making a mistake that it just seemed better to not make a rash commitment. I didn’t think it would be responsible to commit to something I was not sure was true. So, in my own defense, I was a very open-minded person my whole life. I never disrespected Jesus or those who followed him. I just think that a person should always remain open to different points of view.” “Jesus, what is your pleasure?” the judge asked. “Father, you taught me that the kingdom is for those who are so committed to being in your kingdom that they would give up all else to lay hold of it. This woman does not belong in your eternal kingdom. She does not want it with all her heart.” “So be it. Since you lacked any desire for the kingdom that would compel you to search out the truth and commit to it, your declared openness to it is of no account. I deny you access to the eternal kingdom, where all will know me and serve me without reservation forever. I give you the condemnation you deserve. Go to your condemnation.” I was shocked at the scene I had just witnessed. She seemed like such a nice lady. Condemnation? How was there any hope for me? I turned to my two newfound friends, “Why is she being blamed for not being able to sort out the truth from the lies? That seems harsh to me. If she honestly couldn’t be sure what was actually true, why was she expected to commit to it?” The man from behind me answered, “There are two things that lead to uncertainty. One is not having enough of the right kind of information. God would never blame someone for not committing to what they could never know. The other thing is lack of real desire. Sometimes we lack the information we need because we aren’t interested enough to search it out. If the reason a person does not come to have enough of the right kind of information is because he never even attempted to acquire it, then that is damnable. That must be the case with that woman. She called it openness to what is true. But in actuality it must have been an unwillingness to seek for it and discover what is true. Open-mindedness can be the mask worn by a very foolish person. It can be the badge of one who, in reality, does not actually care enough to come to a conviction about what is true. Such a fool is damnable, however much he may be praised by all his friends.” As the next person approached the judgment throne, Dr. Knoworthy leaned toward me and spoke softly, “We will see how well this next woman was listening to my teaching. She sat under my Bible teaching for decades.” “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” God said from the throne. The woman responded, “Sir, I know that I deserve condemnation. I am weak, flawed, disobedient, double-minded—you name it—I have failed in every way. I do not deserve life in your kingdom. But, your Majesty, I believe that I will have an advocate. Sir, I have been a follower of your Son, Jesus, for several decades now. I have hardly missed a week of Dr. Knoworthy’s teaching of the Bible. They tell me that Dr. Knoworthy understands the Bible and the gospel better than anyone around. I have eagerly listened to what he has to say for many years. I am sure that what he has taught is true. So, I believe I have done what one must do to receive mercy. I know that it is the faithful student of your revealed word who will receive mercy. I believe I am such a student.” “Jesus, what do you have to say?” God inquired. “Father, the fact is that I have not chosen this woman for my kingdom. She has, in truth, embraced the truth about me with her mind; but she has not lived the truth.” The woman immediately broke in to object, “But, Jesus, I went to church regularly. I served you in every way I knew how to serve you. I have always presumed that I belonged to you, that I was your disciple. How can it be that you will not speak on my behalf?” “I never chose you. You were never mine.” “But how can that be? How have I not lived the truth?” Jesus looked up and gazed into her eyes. It was a look of love, but it was a stern look at the same time. She became very quiet and a look of horror came over her. God spoke, “Very well, I deny you access to the kingdom. Go to your condemnation.” “What just happened there?” I asked. Dr. Knoworthy responded, “It is always possible for a human being to grasp the theory of the gospel intellectually without making a personal, inward commitment to actually live his or her life in the light of its truth. One can articulate the gospel with the utmost precision and yet not really own it and embrace it with his whole being. The one who authentically embraces it will actually live his life as one who believes it and as one who has invested his existence in its truth. It is easy to deceive oneself and others into thinking he believes the truth of the gospel because he can so easily and readily talk about it and reason from it accurately. But, alas, that is not enough. One must live like one who believes the gospel, not merely philosophize like one who understands gospel theory. The man behind me interjected politely, “Well said, Dr. Knoworthy.” “God knows things about that woman that we would have no way of knowing,” added Dr. Knoworthy. “Like Jesus said, the woman did not actually live the truth. She seemed to realize this truth the minute she looked into Jesus’ eyes.” It finally hit me. How could there be an ounce of hope for me if all of these people stood condemned? I sunk into a deep sense of hopelessness. Dr. Knoworthy excused himself and went back to take his place in line. I remained silent, sensing my doom was approaching. There followed a long string of individuals standing before God to be judged. Every one of them received condemnation; and, with each new sentence of condemnation, my hopelessness grew deeper and deeper. I groaned. The man behind me reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder, “You’ll be alright,” he said. I became immediately aware that it was now Dr. Knoworthy’s turn before the throne. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” God said from the throne once again. “O! Eternal Triune Majesty, I am the greatest of sinners. I am worthy of nothing but condemnation. Almighty God, I have no other hope than the advocacy of my lord, the eternal Son, Jesus, the Christ. I stand here presuming that Jesus will ask you to show me mercy. That is the truth upon which I rest.” The minute the words came out of Dr. Knoworthy’s mouth, he knew that he had damned himself. “I stand here presuming?” he muttered under his breath. “How could you possibly say, ‘I stand here presuming’? You know better than that, you fool.” God ignored his muttering and turned to Jesus, “Jesus, what do you have to say?” “Father, I have not chosen this man for my kingdom. While his intellectual comprehension is exceedingly great, he does not really understand. You have taught me that it is the unassuming who will inherit the eternal kingdom. You intend to give it to those who presume that nothing is owed to them. This man is not unassuming. He presumes that the kingdom belongs to him. Such presumption is contrary to the spirit you want from those who belong to you.” Dr. Knoworthy erupted, “How dare you deny me the kingdom? I have spent my whole life preparing for this day. Damn you, Jesus. I deserve better than this.” God pronounced judgment, “Since you have never understood the depth of your own unworthiness and the profundity of the mercy that Jesus has offered you, you clearly do not belong to him. Go to your condemnation.” “Whoa! What just went down there?” I asked the man behind me with urgency. “Did you see that coming?” “Actually, I sort of did,” he responded sadly. “Really. How?” “Sooner or later, our words will betray our real beliefs and attitudes. Do you remember one of the first things he said to you? He said, ‘Those of us who will be granted eternal life today will be granted it for one and only one reason. Easter.’ I thought at the time that the way he phrased it was rather revealing. He was full of presumption. He was presuming from the get-go that God would grant him Life. His confidence seems to have been based on his years of Bible study. He thought he deserved mercy. If anyone was going to get mercy, it was going to be him. That kind of presumption is contrary to the spirit of the true heir of Life. I fear I suspected what was coming.” Now I was more hopeless than ever. “Everyone is being condemned. No one is getting mercy,” I complained. The man responded, “Jesus himself taught us that the way to destruction is wide. The way to eternal Life is exceedingly narrow; and very few pass that way. He told us. He said it out loud. But no one takes it very seriously. I know from personal experience. I was a teacher too. In my experience, it was easy enough to intrigue people with the truth. But very few of them stayed with it over the long haul.” I silently awaited my fate for several agonizingly long minutes until it was finally my turn to be judged. The man behind me tried to comfort me, “I think you’ll be fine. What you say will reveal the true beliefs and desires of your heart.” Two angels led me before the throne. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the unseen being said from the throne. I still could not see any form. But I felt keenly that he could see me; he could see right through me. I dared not look up. I just gazed at the ground in front of me. “My creator,” I said, “I have nothing to say really. I know that you can grant me mercy if you choose. But I know that if you do not choose to do so, you will be right and good not to do so. I more than fully deserve any condemnation that you might give me. So, I fully accept whatever you decide. I know that your judgment will be wise and just.” God turned to Jesus. My heart was beating hard and fast. “Jesus, what do you have to say?” “Father, I want this man in my kingdom. I ask that you might grant him mercy. Please don’t give him destruction, though he deserves it. Please grant him everlasting life in my kingdom.” “So be it, my friend,” God said to me. “Please enter into the eternal kingdom of my beloved Son.” I was stunned. I was overjoyed. I was dizzy with delight. As I was being escorted toward the door on the right-hand side of the throne, I heard the angel call to the man who had been behind me in line, “Saul of Tarsus, the one also known as Paul, please take your place before the judge.” “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” God said to Paul. Paul answered, “Father, I have nothing to say in my defense. I would be delighted to receive your mercy. I long to know you, to serve you, and to serve your Son in the eternal kingdom. But your judgment is wise and just. I know that if you do not grant me mercy, I only get what I truly deserve. I fully accept whatever you decide. You are not answerable to me or to any man.” “Jesus, what is your pleasure?” God asked. “Father, I want this man in my kingdom. I ask that you grant him mercy.” “So be it, my friend,” God said to Paul. “Please enter into the everlasting kingdom of my Son.” I lagged behind, waiting for Paul to catch up with me. I turned to speak to him, but he read my mind. “I am here on the same basis as you, Jack. God could make a camel his apostle. Being an apostle is not something I did for God. Being an apostle is something God gave to me.” “Wow,” I thought. “There was so much I didn’t know. So much I didn’t understand. But even though I knew nothing, God gave me everything. And with just a simple word from Jesus. No wonder we are supposed to think of Jesus as a heroic rescuer.” Just then I smelt a cup of coffee under my nose. “Wake up, Jack! It’s Easter. We have to hide the jelly beans for the grandchildren.”

Adapted from a talk given at Reformation Fellowship on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010. *** For many of us, the story of Jesus’ resurrection is an all too familiar story. Not only do we know the main outline and many details of the story itself, but we have rehearsed its implications over the course of many Easters. Today, I want to review briefly yet one more time four of the more important implications of Jesus’ resurrection. The First Implication Because God raised Jesus from the dead, I can know that Jesus has become qualified to fulfill his destiny as King over all God’s creation in the eternal age to come. From before creation itself, God had set as His purpose to become a human being and rule over His whole creation in and through that man who embodied His person and rule. Jesus was that man. He was the “Son” of God—destined to be the human image of God Himself, the human embodiment of God’s sovereign rule. But the Jesus of history never realized his destiny. He came, he taught, he was crucified. There was no evidence of his sovereign rule over creation. The corrupt and arrogant power of Rome seemed to prevail over him. That is one of the reasons why the resurrection of Jesus is significant. It is no slight thing that God, the one who can speak things into existence, called the dead Jesus forth from the tomb and brought him into an entirely new order of existence—an existence completely beyond death itself. God has always been capable of raising human beings from the dead. But Jesus was a first. To this day Jesus is absolutely unique. No human being throughout the whole of human history—save one—has ever been raised to this other order of existence. Why Jesus? Why then? Quite simply because Jesus, having submitted to the purposes of the Father by willingly going to his death for the sins of mankind, had proved himself worthy to inherit the destiny that had been set for him. He did and could serve as the human image of God because the love he manifested for us in his death was an act of God-like love. It pleased the Father greatly. Therefore, God granted him the right to rule as His proxy. He granted Jesus the right to fulfill the role of Son of God. This was his destiny from before creation, of course. But his resurrection marks that point in history when Jesus first enters into his authority to rule over all creation. The apostles describe it as Jesus being seated at the right hand of the God on high. Accordingly, because of the resurrection, we are fools if we refuse to bow our knee to Jesus. He is our Lord, our Master, our King. He will be so for all eternity. The Second Implication Because God raised Jesus from the dead, I can know that the eternal Kingdom of God is near; little else remains before God brings this age to an end and inaugurates His final Kingdom. If Jesus has been raised to the right hand of God, God’s purposes for cosmic history are almost complete. Only two significant things remain. God must fulfill His unique promises to Israel, His unique people. And God must put all of His enemies “as a footstool” under Jesus’ feet. In terms of the plotline of history, the resurrection brings us very near the end of the present age, no matter how long it might take. Accordingly, because of the resurrection, we are fools if we invest too deeply in our lives here and now. This whole order is passing away. All the trivial pursuits of our present existence are about to become totally and utterly irrelevant. We must strive to stay focused on that which is forever, on that which is permanent, and to hold loosely any and all that this present age has to offer me. The Third Implication Because God raised Jesus from the dead, I know that Jesus’ appeal to God for mercy on my behalf will be an effective appeal, heard and accepted by God. Jesus and his apostles claim that I am a creature worthy of destruction. My end will be condemnation unless God mercifully grants me a blessing I do not deserve. Jesus, serving as my high priest, offered his own body as a propitiatory offering, appealing to God to be merciful to sinners like me. How can I know that Jesus’ intercession was anything other than a futile gesture? I can know it because of the resurrection. God would never have performed the unique act of raising Jesus to newness of Life if He had not been pleased with Jesus. God would not have made him the trailblazer into another order of existence if Jesus did not have the authority to intercede for us and be heard by God. Accordingly, because of the resurrection, we can be confident and secure that we have an able advocate who, at the final judgment, will secure for us mercy, forgiveness, and Life. The Fourth Implication Because God raised Jesus from the dead, I know that death cannot prevent God from blessing me with the blessing He promised. Thousands of years ago, God promised a man, Abraham, that those who belonged to his people—a people that would include individuals from every people group throughout history—would be blessed. They would not be condemned to the curse of death that Adam proved mankind deserved. Rather, they would be granted the Life that they did not deserve. Was that promise a sham? A deceit? A fantastical myth? Abraham succumbed to death and was laid in a tomb. Isaac died and was buried. Israel died. Moses died. All those who believed God’s promise succumbed to death. Were they all fools? Is human mortality the fatal defect that brings to nothing all of the promises of God? The resurrection of Jesus says “no.” Because Jesus was successfully and triumphantly called out of the tomb, Abraham will be blessed with the blessing of Life just as God promised. Because Jesus was raised, Isaac, Israel, Moses, and we will be raised. If Jesus’ tomb could not thwart God and His purposes, then there is nothing in the whole created order that can thwart God and His purposes. If God has called us to receive what is good, then nothing in all of reality will prevent Him from giving us that good. The resurrection of Jesus proclaims that most emphatically. Conclusion There are no doubt other important implications of Jesus’ resurrection. These are four of the more important ones. We would do well to learn these, to understand them more clearly, to believe them more confidently, and to live them more consistently. We would do well to study the story of Jesus, especially the story of his death and resurrection, until we understand as well as can be understood the full meaning and significance of that story. I am afraid we live in a time and place where it seems more interesting to those who purport to be Christians to know the history of Middle Earth and to study and memorize the Silmarillian than to know and understand their Bibles. We would rather read the latest adventures of Harry Potter than read the teaching and wisdom of Jesus, the Messiah. This is understandable enough. Many of us are all too familiar with the stories of Jesus and of the Jews of ancient times. In our case, familiarity with these stories breeds a certain sort of contempt. We have had enough of messiahs, prophets, and apostles. Let us hear of wizards, hobbits, dragons, vampires, werewolves, and magic. These are far more interesting and intriguing. But we must not lose sight of what it is that we have in the Bible. The Bible is not fiction. It is reality. It is not there to entertain us. It is there to enlighten us. We seek to know and master what it says not because it is unsurpassed in its ability to fascinate us. We want to know the Bible because it is unsurpassed in the depth of the truth it will tell me about God, human existence, and the final outcome of my being. We have all become entertainment junkies. Accordingly, we believe we have outgrown the Bible. It can no longer excite. It no longer entertains. But this is a huge mistake. To lack interest in what the Bible tells us is to lack interest in my own existence. To lack interest in the story of the Bible is to lack interest in the outcome of my own life. The story of the Bible is the story of my salvation. If that story is not interesting to me, it can only be because my own salvation is not particularly interesting to me. And that would be grievous indeed. So today, Easter, let us not hold in contempt the well-rutted story of Jesus’ empty tomb because it has stopped intriguing us as a story; because it no longer excites our interest and fascination with its details. Rather, let us remember that it is not as a story that I must value it. I must value it as fact. Easter is important because it really happened. And because it really happened, the whole course of my existence has been explained. Because of Easter, I have a real and actual hope. Easter is not fantasy. Easter is the reality of our existence.

Common sense would seem to tell us that a thing cannot be both costly and free at the same time. If I must pay a high price for something, then it is not free; if it is free, then I am not required to pay for it. This commonsensical observation, however, leads to a theological puzzle: do the promises of the gospel come to us for free or at great cost? The Bible uses both kinds of language. To cite just two of many examples, compare these statements: And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. (Revelation 22:17) Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it… So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. (Luke 14:27-33) So which is it? Are we to count the cost, or are we offered something without cost? One simple (but wrong) solution would be to see two offers being made in the Bible: one for salvation and another for discipleship. Salvation is free and unconditional, and all believers accept this offer. Discipleship, however, is costly, and only some believers pay the price and reap the rewards of being a disciple. As some have said, one can accept Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord. Now, discussing the "lordship salvation" debate is not the purpose of this article (I wrote on this topic at length in my book Righteous Sinners ). Rather, I want to untangle the seeming contradiction between "costly" and "free." Indeed, we will find no contradiction: salvation is free in one sense and costly in another, and both truths are equally important in understanding our lives as believers. In our day-to-day lives, we are quite familiar with the ways in which something can be free in one sense and costly in another. Imagine that a young woman has been accepted to Gutenberg College and offered a full scholarship. Her tuition is fully paid for four years, and her rent, books, food, and other living expenses are paid as well. In one sense, then, to be a student at Gutenberg will cost her nothing. She does not have to give any money or qualify in any other way; she can just bring herself, freely, without charge. As any Gutenberg student could tell you, however, being a student here is not without cost. To be a student at Gutenberg requires "payment" of time and energy and commitment. To say "yes" to Gutenberg costs a certain amount of freedom. Even if someone had the opportunity to attend Gutenberg for "free," that person would still have to ask whether the price (in time and energy) is too high. The same thing can be said of the gospel: in one sense salvation is offered to us freely and graciously, but in another sense to accept that offer can cost us dearly. To illustrate this point, let us look at the context in Luke 14 where Jesus speaks of "counting the cost." Some have argued that Luke 14 is proof that we must distinguish between salvation, which is free, and discipleship, which is costly. Jesus tells a story about people being invited to a banquet (Luke 14: 16-24); this invitation is gracious and free and extended to all. Then Jesus changes subjects and says that no one can be His disciple unless he hates his father and mother, picks up his cross, and gives up all his possessions (Luke 14: 26-27). Thus, some argue, Jesus is clearly making two different calls: one is the call to a free salvation; the other is the call to costly discipleship. I would argue, however, that to call the invitation to the banquet "free" is misleading. While certainly "free" in one sense, the invitation is quite "costly" in another sense. To see how this is so, let us look at parable of the banquet from Luke 14: A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, "Come; for everything is ready now." But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, "I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused." And another one said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused." And another one said, "I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come." And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, "Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame." And the slave said, "Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room." And the master said to the slave, "Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner." (Luke 14:16-24) As Jesus tells this story, the offer to attend the banquet is free in one sense and costly in another. In one sense, the banquet costs nothing. A lush meal is graciously provided free of charge. Those who are poor and crippled cannot even hope to return the favor; the host of this banquet will never eat a lavish meal at their house, and yet he still invites them freely. The invitation is wide open: anyone who is hungry, come and eat. In another sense, though, attending the banquet is very demanding; look how many people turned it down. They all had things in their lives that meant more to them than attending the banquet, things they were not willing to give up. Their personal property and relationships meant more to them than the banquet did, and so they did not attend, even though the banquet was "free." In the end, they lost out entirely because they were not willing to pay the price. Now we can see that when Jesus goes on in Luke 14:25 and following to speak of the cost of discipleship, He does not intend a contrast with the parable of the banquet that preceded it. Rather, what He goes on to say about the cost of discipleship is exactly in keeping with the banquet parable. Now great multitudes were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:25-27) Here Jesus uses the language of obligation and cost: a person cannot follow Him unless he or she does these things, unless he or she pays this price. A person must "hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life." I would paraphrase what Jesus means as follows: If you follow me, you may face a choice. The important people in your life—your father, your mother, your wife—may not approve of you following me. The people of this world hate me, and if they hate me, they will hate you. And so you must choose: do you want to follow me and find eternal life, or do you want to keep the approval of those around you? The world being what it is, you can see that to follow me might even cost you your life. Notice that nothing in what Jesus says suggests that we are earning His approval or making ourselves worthy of salvation. He is not saying, "Leave your wife and children, and then I will know that you are worthy to be my disciple." Jesus is making a free and gracious offer: just bring yourselves, as you are, and I will give you life. In a world such as ours, however, accepting that offer can cost us much. In a world hostile to God, seeking to be God's friend can make you a target. We might like to follow Jesus and keep everyone happy with us, but that choice might not be open to us. Furthermore, the costs of following Jesus are not always tangible and external. Sometimes we must pay an internal cost as well, giving up cherished beliefs and ideas. Paul grieved because most of his fellow Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but he understood why: Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:1-4) They did not come to Christ because they were seeking to be justified based on their own performance, not on the forgiveness Christ offered. To follow Christ, they would have had to pay the price of abandoning their previous ideas. Ironically, some of the Pharisees came as far as believing that Jesus was the Messiah, and yet they still could not abandon their self-righteousness. Thus the "Judaizers" said they believed in Jesus as Messiah, but they continued to believe that obedience to the Jewish law—circumcision and eating kosher and such—won God's approval. But a gospel that tied salvation to performance of the law was not really the gospel at all; in Galatians Paul called this a "different gospel." Believing that Jesus was the Messiah was not enough; they had to believe that Jesus was the Messiah who saved unworthy sinners such as themselves. The Judaizers found that too high a price to pay. Costly and free—the gospel is both. To say that everyone can freely receive salvation while only some need pay the price of discipleship is to make a serious mistake. Salvation is totally free in one sense and highly costly in another, and we must understand both senses in order to understand the Christian life. Salvation is free in that we can do nothing—we can pay nothing—to earn our acceptance from God. We are evil, but God accepts us anyway, without reservation. We are guilty before the court of God's justice, yet He frees us from paying what we owe. God is not waiting to accept us until we meet some standard; we do not meet the standard, and yet He blesses us now. If we do not understand how freely and graciously God is acting toward us, then we can fall into self-righteousness and/or despair: self-righteousness because we have forgotten that we do not deserve God's kindness; despair because we have forgotten how freely willing God is to overlook our guilt. Yet, salvation is also costly, and we must understand that as well. By its very nature, to believe the gospel is a huge shift in our lives. To believe that Jesus died for our sins costs us our self-satisfied belief that we are good people. To believe that God is willing to forgive us costs us our bitter unwillingness to forgive others. To believe that the true riches are found in the kingdom of God costs us our delusion that money matters. To ask Jesus to be on our side may cost us the approval of others. If our faith is genuine, then it cannot help but confront us with some hard truths and hard choices. This confrontation is not optional; what Jesus offers is not what the world offers, and to have them both is impossible. To deny this is to distort our picture of faith itself.

We recently celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ. This year I found myself imagining what it would have been like to live in Nazareth when Jesus did and to see Him grow up. Would I have recognized Him as the Christ, the Messiah? I find this a troubling question, considering that when God became man and lived among us as Jesus only a few of those who met Him recognized Him for what He was—the Creator God in human form. In the past, I have always facilely answered the question affirmatively, "Yes, I would have recognized who Jesus was," my confidence bolstered by my assuming that I would have been an avid student of the Old Testament. Using my knowledge of the clues God had sprinkled throughout the Old Testament, surely I would have been able to identify the Messiah. In more recent years, however, the following observation has sobered me: familiarity with the Bible did not necessarily improve one's ability to recognize the Christ. The Pharisees were devoted students of the Old Testament. They were familiar with its many references to and prophecies about the coming Messiah. They were expecting His advent. Nevertheless, they failed to identify Him when He was in their midst. Why? First of all, we must recognize that while there are many prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming of the Messiah, they are not entirely clear. Many are presented in such a way that one could have reasonably concluded that the Messiah would be a charismatic political and military leader who would lead the people of Israel into victory over their enemies and establish a time of peace. Jesus did not fit this description. He came as the son of a poor carpenter. Rather than appearing as a larger-than-life leader, He appeared as an everyman. In this sense, the prophecies were misleading. Anyone looking to the prophecies for a detailed picture of the coming Messiah and all the unique circumstances and events in His life was focused on the wrong thing. The prophecies did present a few specific details about which one could be confident. Clearly, for example, the Messiah would be of the tribe of Judah through David and Zerubbabul (Haggai 2:23). Clearly, the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). Clearly, the Messiah would be somehow associated with the region of Galilee (Isaiah 9:1-2). The Old Testament also includes many other tantalizing details, but most are hard to understand with the same confidence. For example, Daniel specifies the time of the Messiah's coming: "seven weeks and sixty-two weeks" after the issuing of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25). The reference to the decree is specific and clear—Cyrus, king of Persia, issued the decree in 538 BC—but the length of time from then to the coming of the Messiah is expressed in less-than-straightforward terms. One cannot blame the Jews for not knowing exactly when to expect the Messiah. Several psalms also give details about the life and death of the coming Messiah, but they are not truly "predictive." For example, on the cross Jesus quotes the first words of Psalm 22, which King David wrote to express his suffering in the face of detractors who mocked him for trusting God. David describes his anguish in very graphic and poetic terms: For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing, they cast lots. (Psalm 22:16-18) I do not know the exact experience David is describing, but to the best of my knowledge he did not experience the literal reality of what he described. Rather, David is trying to describe an experience that was essentially internal anguish, and to convey this idea he chose to describe a situation in which he suffers physically at the hands of his detractors. He believes his suffering can best be understood by others if they visualize him surrounded by a mob that wants to torment him. The exact nature of the torment is not clear, but it involves having his hands and feet pierced, being naked such that his bones can be seen, and having his clothes divided among the tormentors. God inspired David to use these particular images because, although David was using them poetically, they became literally true in the life of Jesus. God did this in order to make abundantly clear that the kind of anguish that gave rise to David's psalm was the very same kind of anguish Jesus suffered when He was nailed to the cross. Understood this way, the psalm was not predicting Jesus' crucifixion—someone reading the psalm before Christ's death could not have been expected to understand the kind of death He would experience—but after Christ's death, one can look at the crucifixion and know that the kind of anguish David described in Psalm 22 is the kind of anguish Jesus experienced. Jesus literally experienced the poetic image that David used to describe his internal anguish. This same phenomenon is observable in other psalms and other passages that are often thought to be predictive. If I am correct, however, no one could use these psalms to predict the details of Jesus' life. Clearly, God did not choose to reveal in advance a large number of details about the advent of the Messiah so that people could easily identify Him. God could have described distinctive physical features to look for. The Messiah could have been marked with a certain color of eyes, configuration of moles on the skin, birthmark, or even a scar on the forehead. But He was not. In fact, Jesus' physical appearance was not of any significance, and the Gospels do not record any details of it. The Gospels do, however, constitute a portrait of Jesus, but it does not focus on His physical appearance. Rather, it focuses on his moral character. This emphasis is significant. God intended that the Messiah be recognizable, but not by superficial signs. Jesus was a portrait, in human flesh, of the transcendent God. Imagine an artist painting a self-portrait. He could not convey in a single picture his entire being. A living, breathing person with a constant flow of thoughts and feelings cannot possibly be translated to a static, two-dimensional form rendered with paints on canvas. Inevitably, something will be lost in such a translation. Therefore, the artist must decide what is most important to preserve in the translation, and it makes sense that he would try to preserve that which is most essentially "him." The artist must decide what is most significant or distinctive about him as a person and then create the portrait in such a way that this essence is communicated to the viewer. Jesus was just such a self-portrait. God could not convey all of who He is in the form of a man; He had to be selective. He had to decide what is most essentially Him. God could have decided that His most fundamental quality is His power. Were that the case, He would have appeared in the form of a powerful human, able to do endless wonders. He could have decided that His most essential quality is intelligence, appearing as the most brilliant man who has ever lived. Instead God incarnated Himself in the form of a man with a perfectly righteous moral character. He apparently deemed His moral character to be His most fundamental and distinctive quality—the quality of which He is most proud. In this sense, the Old Testament was full of clues for identifying the coming Messiah. While the Old Testament did not make clear that the Messiah would be God himself, it did reveal that the Messiah would be uniquely representative of the Creator God, and therefore He could be expected to embody the character of God Himself. The character of God is the predominant theme of the Old Testament. As God interacts with mankind—from the creation of Adam to the Babylonian exile—the pages of the Old Testament show God's many actions and proclamations to give us insight into His character. From the Old Testament, one could create a moral picture of God that would include details about what He values and how He responds to the various acts and attitudes of men. This helps explain why the Pharisees, who were students of the Old Testament, could have had the Messiah walking in their midst and not recognize Him. They had surveyed the Old Testament looking only for clues as to the superficial details of the Messiah's coming and were therefore ill-prepared to identify Him when He came. It was as if the Messiah were in disguise; He did not appear as the charismatic leader the people expected. Anyone, however, who had studied the Old Testament in order to better understand God would have been able to recognize the Messiah. Most people initially responded to Jesus being the Messiah with incredulity; He simply did not look like Messiah material. But anyone who had a profound understanding of God's character would have observed something strangely familiar when looking at Jesus; underneath the "disguise," God's unique and unmistakable character was visible. Such people would eventually come to recognize Jesus like a long-lost friend. This observation should be a sobering warning when we think about the end times. Many books have sought to describe the end times on the basis of biblical prophecy; some have become extremely popular. Typically such books are the result of a diligent search for clues regarding the details of coming events. However, given the extent to which the Pharisees' diligent search of the prophecies concerning the Messiah's first coming misled them, we must consider the possibility that such a search of end-time prophecies could also be misleading. God acts in mysterious and unexpected ways. Just as the coming of Jesus happened in an unexpected way, the end of the world will probably take some unexpected twists and turns. We would be wise to keep a flexible mind as to how the various prophecies will be fulfilled. The end times may be very different from what is generally anticipated. God has revealed many things to us regarding the last days, and we ought to use this revelation, but it would be unwise to focus exclusively on such details. We must balance such a study with an even more important project: we must work hard to gain a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the character and the values of God. No matter what events are associated with the end of the world, God will act in history in a way that is consistent with His character and values. If we have become intimately familiar with who He is, we will be able to recognize the work of His hands readily and we will not be mislead by unexpected twists and turns on the way to the end. Jesus, after telling his disciples a parable "to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart" (Luke 18:1-8), asks them this poignant question: "However, when the Son of Man [the Messiah] comes, will He find faith on the earth?" I suspect that faith will only be kept by those who have taken seriously their responsibility to become familiar with the nature and character of God. I pray that this will be true of us.

Theology Archives - Gutenberg College

The Vindication of Losers

Draws attention to a subtler and less obvious ramification of Jesus’ resurrection.

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