A bit of a double standard, no?

Why is it that a Christian may not, in good conscience, ignore the teachings of Scripture and the church regarding prayer and private morality, and yet she or he may, in good conscience, ignore the social teachings of Scripture and the church?—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 33

A bit of respect, please

I believe we need to cultivate a healthy appreciation of the holy presence of God in our midst, especially in our assemblies. There is no fear of God among us anymore. There is no holy hush that comes upon us as we supposedly sit before the living God. Our services and our singing are crude, coarse and borderline profane. All of it, in my opinion, is unbecoming of the Majesty of the glorious Christ whom we serve.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 211

A cancerous restlestness is consuming us

So much of our unhappiness comes from comparing our lives, our friendships, our loves, our commitments, our duties, our bodies and our sexuality to some idealized and non-Christian vision of things which falsely assures us that there is a heaven on earth.

When that happens, and it does, our tensions begin to drive us mad, in this case to a cancerous restlessness.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 16

The contradictory call to life

Affluence and leisure have created a higher psychic temperature. These have focused us on interpersonal, sexual, artistic, athletic and scientific achievement. In a word, they have focused us on self-expression. In our culture meaningful self-expression is everything; lack of it is death. Yet it is this death that paschally we must enter.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 13

Obscurity

In the end all of us live in obscurity, unknown, frustrated. Our lives are always smaller than our needs and our dreams. Ultimately we all live in small towns, no matter where we live; and save for a few brief moments of satisfaction, spend most of our lives waiting for a fuller moment to come, waiting for a time when we will be less hidden.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 11

Spiritual exhaustion

We no longer see our longing as a congenital and holy restlessness put in us by God to push us toward the infinite. Instead it becomes a tamed and tame thing, domesticated, anesthetized and distracted. We are restless only in a tired way (which drains us of energy) and not in a divine way (which gives us energy).—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 5

True knowledge

Man the knower pursues two related but distinct kinds of knowledge. As homo sciens, man the knower ofscientia, he tends to matters of fact, quantity, matter, and the physical realm; as homo sapiens, man the knower of sapientia, he shows his interest in the qualities of meaning, purpose, value, idea, and the metaphysical realm. If we are to have truth, neither kind of knowledge can be denied or ignored. The denial of the reality and importance of scientia is characteristic of the radical transcendentalism of Eastern religions, but today the even greater and more damaging imbalance is found in the pervasive radical immanentism of much Western culture and thought that attributes validity only to scientia. Enthusiasts of scientism fail to see that scientia is utterly dependent on sapientia for direction and meaning; their fervent attempts to pursue scientia in isolation from sapientia amount to a tragic rush into meaninglessness—the very antithesis of a genuine search for knowledge.—Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism, 48

A means to an end, not the end in itself (Tozer for Tuesday)

I must caution here that the Bible is not an end in itself. We were not given the Bible as a substitute for God until we get to heaven. Rather, the Bible is to lead us straight into the heart and mind of God. Contemporary Christians do not seem to get this.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 207

Dehumanization

The danger of mechanized civilization, of an industrial and commercial society, is that it tends to degrade the distinctive nature of man by emphasizing speed, size, quantity, and the maximization of physical pleasure by applied technical power at the expense of more crucial human values. The catastrophically dehumanizing means by which the Industrial Revolution came into being was as apparent to Lewis as it had been to the great Victorian social critics before him.—Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism, 79–80

A yawning chasm

Deterministic thinking eats away at the common reason: scientific thinking starts by scouring away superstitions and falsehoods, but then scientistic thinking, its appetite having grown after continual eating unrestrained by philosophical common sense, ends by devouring truths as well, leaving only the bones and orts of physical reality, with subject and object staring at each other across a yawning faithless chasm.—Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism, 44

But what do you do with all that knowledge?

Second things suffer, as Lewis was fond of repeating, when put first. Science is a good servant but a bad master, a good method for investigating and manipulating the material world, but no method at all for deciding what to do with the knowledge and power acquired thereby.—Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism, 33

The final post from Crucifixion

The greater part of the discussion in these pages has focused upon the communal, corporate, and cosmic significance of the cross of Jesus Christ. However, let no reader think that the apocalyptic and universal dimensions of the message leave no place for the faith and confidence of the individual believer. Several times in this book the reader has encountered an intimately personal testimony by the apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia. For writer and readers alike, these words can be our heart’s comfort and joy, for now and for all the days to come, whatever befalls: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 611

<idle musing>
That's the final snippet from this book. Next up is a book I recently picked up at a thrift store: Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism. It's out of print, so the link is to Worldcat, if you want to check it out of a library. That link also has a link to Google Books, in case you want to preview it.
</idle musing>

In the weakness of the cross

Unless God is the one who raises the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, there cannot be serious talk of forgiveness for the worst of the worst — the mass murders, tortures, and serial killings — or even for the least of the worst — the quotidian offenses against our common humanity that cause marriages to fail, friendships to end, enterprises to collapse, and silent misery to be the common lot of millions. “All for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.” This is what is happening on Golgotha. All the manifold biblical images with their richness, complexity, and depth come together as one to say this: the righteousness of God is revealed in the cross of Christ. The “precious blood” of the Son of God is the perfect sacrifice for sin; the ransom is paid to deliver the captives; the gates of hell are stormed; the Red Sea is crossed and the enemy drowned; God’s judgment has been executed upon Sin; the disobedience of Adam is recapitulated in the obedience of Christ; a new creation is coming into being; those who put their trust in Christ are incorporated into his life; the kingdoms of “the present evil age” are passing away and the promised kingdom of God is manifest not in triumphalist crusades but in the cruciform witness of the church. From within “Adam’s” (our) human flesh, the incarnate Son fought with and was victorious gver Satan —— on out behalf and in our place. Only this power, this transcendant victory won by the Son of God, is capable of reorienting the kosmos to its rightful Creator. This is what the righteousness of God has achieved through the cross and resurrection, is now accomplishing by the power of the Spirit, and will complete in the day of Christ Jesus.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 611

It ain't enough!

Forgiveness is not enough. Belief in redemption is not enough. Wishful thinking about the intrinsic goodness of every human being is not enough. Inclusion is not a sufficiently inclusive message, nor does it deliver real justice. There are some things — many things — that must be condemned and set right if we are to proclaim a God of both justice and mercy. Only a Power independent of this world order can overcome the grip of the Enemy of God’s purposes for his creation.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 610

Tozer for Tuesday

Churches today are built upon the premise of entertainment and fun. And in some places it would be rather difficult to gain an audience unless you supplied them ample entertainment and fun.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 205

creatio ex nihilo and the crucifixion

The God who is able to create out of nothing is able to create faith where there is no faith, righteousness where there is no righteousness, life where there is only the finality of death. By now the reader will readily see the connection between these affirmations and the crucifixion. On the cross, the disciples’ faith was destroyed. Perfect righteousness was consigned to nothingness by an unholy collusion of the “godly” (the religious establishment) and the “ungodly” (the imperial Gentile authorities). The Giver of eternal life was put to death and consigned to hell.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 599 (emphasis original)

Not by (human) might…

Human agents can administer justice, up to a point, and human forgiveness can certainly — and often does —— carry with it the power of God. But actual rectification — making right what has been wrong so that the wrong no longer exists —— is impossible for human beings. The coming of the Day of the Lord (Old Testament), the new creation (Second Isaiah and Paul), the kingdom of God (the Synoptic Gospels), eternal life (John), the new Jerusalem (Revelation) will not be accomplished through human means, but only through the working of God.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 598 (emphasis original)

Enraged, but not surprised

That question sums up a good deal of the argument of this chapter, and it illustrates the willful blindness of all human beings — Gentiles and Jews alike — to the enormity and ubiquity of Sin. We should not be surprised that there is evil “in” any human being. We should not expect to see some great accession of righteousness to occur with the bar mitzvah or any other “call to the commandment.” We should not continue to be perpetually surprised that people “find so much evil” within themselves and others. We should never cease to be shocked, grieved, even enraged — but we should never be surprised, for “all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin” (Rom. 3:9).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 589

But I'm not like them…

The Jewish community has every right to be protective of its ingrained, God-given concern for ethics and compassion. The problem among Jews and Gentiles alike, however, is the tendency for those who observe and comment upon wrongdoing to separate themselves from the category of ungodly perpetrator. This is the universal human way. It is our means of shoring up our dearly held conviction that we, the godly, are in a different position from the ungodly. This self-protective stance is enshrined in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men,” contrasted with the tax collector who cried out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” It is the tax collector who “went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Luke 18:9—14). The thrust of Luke’s parable of justification is extended ad infinitum by Pau1’s cosmic conception of what the dikaiosyne of God can accomplish.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 588

A prophetic word

Gross quotes the philosopher Eric Voegelin, who writes that evil regimes are able to recruit “the simple man who is a decent man as long as the society as a whole is in order but who then goes wild, without knowing what he is doing, when disorder arises somewhere and the society is no longer holding together” (Gross, 156–57, emphasis added [by Rutledge]).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 582n21

Regime change!

The term “regime change” emerged from an unsavory political context, but as an approximation of what the righteousness of God is able to do, we can capture it for the service of the apocalyptic drama. The old regime, in which the Powers of Sin and Death rule over the human race, will be definitively vanquished and “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Rom. 8:21). This means that there is a new future in which those things that are possible only with God will become the only ultimate reality.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 580

Creatio ex nihilo

Abraham — an elderly man with a barren wife — has no human potential. Paul emphasizes that Abraham was chosen before he was circumcised (Rom. 4:10-11), which is Paul’s way of saying that Abraham brought nothing to the bargain; his election by God was ex nihilo (out of nothing). This startling announcement lies at the heart of the biblical picture of God. This is the foundation of all that Paul says about justification; it buttresses what Paul means when he says “there is no distinction” (Rom. 3:22-23).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 576 (emphasis original)

Are we hearing the gospel?

We are able to participate in the working of God only because of his self-immolation on our behalf and in our place. It is not our spiritual journey that lies at the center of our faith; it is “the way of the Son of God into the far country,” as Barth calls it, claiming the language of Jesus’ parable in Luke 15:13. It is the journey of the incarnate One to us that enables our participation in the redemptive working of God. If this story is not told every time the people of God are enjoined to get busy, then we are no longer hearing the gospel.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 569

A particular way of life

Those who according to Paul are “in Christ” are called to a particular way of life that shows forth the power of his name, the boundless riches of his love, the merits of his death, and the sure and certain hope we have in his resurrection. This way of life is cruciform — that is to say, it bears the marks of Christ’s crucifixion (“Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” — Gal. 6:17).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 566

Over my dead body!

Christ’s recapitulation of the human story does not simply invite us into the divine life. There is an objective reality about it; it has happened over our dead bodies, so to speak.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 565 (emphasis original)

There is a joy in the journey!

Whether they acknowledge it or not, everyone has habits, but only a few carefully craft their habits in order to enhance their spiritual growth and development. How few of God’s people really enjoy the fullness of their salvation! Many are satisfied with their destination, but they neglect the journey. The day-by-day experience of God’s presence is something totally foreign to many Christians.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 204

But its not a pilgrimage

The Christian life of obedience is, therefore, not a pilgrimage toward a goal, as is commonly supposed. It is a witness or signpost to that telos (end, goal) that has already been achieved by Christ the Kurios and will be consummated in the last day by the action of God (the parousia, or second coming). The righteous, justifying action of God and the faith that is engendered by its powerful activity are the two effective agents that call forth the obedience.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 555

Twice! And in one verse, too!

[In Rom 8:11] Paul puts all three persons of the Trinity into one verse not once but twice, saying in essence that the Spirit of the Father who raised the Son from the dead now indwells the baptized believer and “will also quicken your mortal bodies by [the same] Spirit” (KJV). In a cursory reading, it is easy to miss the repetition with which Paul intends to convey the mighty action of God, who, in Christ, by the Spirit, has brought into being a new Adam, a new humanity. This is the great set of events that bestows upon us nothing less than the righteousness of God for the living of our lives.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 554 (emphasis original)

How is that possible?

The righteous requirements of the Law have been met in him in order that the righteous requirements of the Law might be met fully in us. This declaration by Paul is breathtaking in its precise correspondence with the idea of recapitulation and its outcome. But there is more. We have emphasized that Paul’s gospel is not about human potential or human possibility but about the power of God. Here in Romans 8:4 is a clear illustration. Our own “recapitulation,” the new life in Christ, is only possible through the power of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 553 (emphasis original)

What about the scandal?

In the theology of the cross, the theme of recapitulation ranks high in value. However, there is one problem. Recapitulation alone cannot fully account for the nature of crucifixion. Compelling as Irenaeus’s account is, it does not incorporate and make sense of the factor of Christ’s gruesome death. This is the lacuna — the blank space begging to be filled — in much of what has been written in church history about the cross. The scandal, the hideousness, the obscenity, and above all the shame and dereliction inherent in the manner of Jesus’ death have been passed over in silence more often than not.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 549

Reckon it so!

In the New Testament cosmology, the life of Jesus culminating in his crucifixion and resurrection is the inaugural event of the age to come, the reign of God to which all newly-begotten baptized believers belong by adoption and grace. It is only out of this completely new arrangement that obedience is engendered, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was this sort of obedience that Abraham was able to pursue “ahead of time” (or “beforehand” — Gal. 3:8) according to the promise of God (Rom. 4:1—22). It is this obedience that is ours through the reckoning (logizomai) of God to us (Rom. 7:23-25).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 547

It's not just getting wet!

Baptism is not a simple bestowing of blessing. It signifies a radical shift of aeons, a snatching of the baptized person out of the Enemy’s clutches, and a transferinto the age to come.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 542

The case for substitution

The theme of substitution allows full scope for us to understand the depth and completeness of Christ’s involvement in the human condition. From this perspective, it is truly hard to understand why there is so much resistance to it. How does it make the self-sacrifice of Christ more palatable to say that he gave himself only for our benefit, rather than in our place? Even if it is construed exclusively as a victory over the Powers — as in the Christus Victor motif — does that explain why the Son of God had to under go crucifixion to defeat Sin, Death, and the devil? Does it not require some suspension of disbelief in any case? Why should we resist the most obvious sense of the words “for us” and “for me” in the case of Jesus on the cross? Since he clearly did not deserve what happened to him, why is it not right to conclude that we should have been there instead of him? Is that not the most basic sort of human reaction? We have all heard of people saying, “It should have been me instead of him.” Why should we want ruthlessly to eliminate such thoughts concerning Christ on the cross? The plain sense of the New Testament taken as a whole gives the strong impression that Jesus gave himself up to shame, spitting, scourging, and a degrading public death before the eyes of the whole world, not only for our sake but also in our place.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 529 (emphasis original)

All this is from God…

The four passion narratives in the Gospels are designed, through extensive use of citations from the Old Testament, to show that God is at work at every turn to carry out his plan. Paul makes the narrative explicit: “If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself . . . that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning their trespasses against them” (11 Cor. 5:17-19).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 523

Tozer for Tuesday

“The just shall live by faith,” not the just shall live by his feelings. Faith here is complete confidence. It is not an act of believing once done. It is not something you do and settle it. It is a complete confidence that remains with you all the time. Faith is a complete confidence. It is a state of confidence maintained—a state of confidence first in God. We must believe in God, then we must believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, in the work He did for us and the work He is now doing for us at the right hand of God. We must maintain a state of confidence in the promises of God and the certainty that God will come to our aid.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 194

Bad theology and self-help

Almost from the beginning of this volume, we have been guided by the biblical picture of human nature, so well understood by the great literary writers and so much resisted by today’s purveyors of self-help. The biblical figure of “Adam” personifies the ubiquitous human fixation on the idea of its own innocence and the refusal of God’s right to be our Judge. Consequently we live with a delusion, insatiable in its demands and demonstrably false: the delusion that we can live free of the deeply lodged power of Sin in our lives. This is less a failure of anthropology than of theology — it is a tragically insuflicient grasp of who theos (God) is in relation to the creation.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 521 (emphasis original)

The buck stops … over there!

This is a compelling diagnosis of the human condition and our resistance to the whole concept of substitution. We do not want to give up our place as judge. Barth specifically defines the primal human sin as making ourselves judges in order to exculpate ourselves and condemn others. This is pictured in the instantaneous response of Adam and Eve, who, after eating the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, begin blaming each other and the serpent in order to hang on to the illusion of innocence — an innocence irreparably lost. We have usurped God’s place as the only true Judge, and therefore the substitution must happen at that particular juncture. An invasive, displacing movement on God’s part is clearly indicated, but paradoxically, it is the invasion that liberates even as it humiliates.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 519

Displaced!

Barth’s originality is also shown in his concept of displacement, or deposition. As the story of the primordial couple in Genesis 2-3 makes clear, our “original sin” was to set ourselves up as judges, that is, capable of determining good and evil on our own. In this presumption of ours we are radically in error. The usurpation of the role that belongs to God alone has led to the bondage of all creation (Rom. 8:20-23). Therefore the invasion of creation by God in Christ means that we have been radically displaced, deposed from our self-made throne or bench where we sit and judge others in order to shore up our restless need to prove our own righteousness. We want to “pronounce ourselves free and righteous and others more or less guilty.” We enjoy this role. But in the cross we see that we have been “displaced” by the one who is truly the Judge and is at the same time “radically and totally for us, in our place” (231-32). “For where does our own judgment always lead? To the place where we pronounce ourselves innocent . . . that is how we live. And that is how we can no longer live in the humiliating power of what took place in Jesus Christ. We are threatened by it because there is a complete turning of the tables. He who has acted there as Judge will also judge me, and He and not I will judge others” (233).—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 518

Judged, not just forgiven

In the crucifixion and its vindication in the resurrection, we see how every Power that wars against God has been and will be overcome and ultimately annihilated. It does not take a great stretch of the imagination to grasp how this may be linked with the cry of dereliction. In this sense, we may say that Jesus Christ absorbs into himself the divine sentence against Sin and Death. When Paul says “God made him to be sin,” he can be understood to say that in the tormented, crucified body of the Son, the entire universe of Sin and every kind of evil are concentrated and judged — not just forgiven, but definitively, finally, and permanently judged and separated from God and his creation.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 505 (emphasis original)

God doesn't change…

We have sought repeatedly to explain that any model requiring us to split the Father from the Son violates the fundamental Trinitarian theology of God and must be renounced. Equally central is the assertion that God does not change; least of all does he change as a result of the self-giving of the Son. This is a central affirmation. The event of the cross is the enactment in history of an eternal decision within the being of God. God is not changed by the historical event but has always been going out from God’s self in sacrificial love.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 500 (emphasis original)

Justification of the ungodly

Particularly noticeable in the construal of substitution as the action of a sadistic Father is the absence of any perception that the torturing to death of the only Son is related to the fall of Adam. In these critiques, there is no suggestion that the torturers themselves might be playing a part here, even if “they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Anyone seeking to caricature the crucifixion as the hateful action of a vindictive father does not understand what is happening: namely, the justification of the ungodly (Rom. 4:5; 5:6—9). In these critiques there is always more than a hint that the critic does not include himself or herself among the perpetrators.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 497n82 (emphasis original)

Vindicated!

However, in interpreting the cross and resurrection for the church, it is important to understand that the resurrection from the dead did not cancel out the crucifixion; it vindicated the crucifixion. The resurrection enabled the first disciples to understand what the death had accomplished, and the preaching of the cross by Paul is grounded in that new and revelatory connection.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 493 (emphasis original)

But is it biblical?

The preachers and teachers of penal substitution forced the biblical tapestry of motifs into a narrowly defined, schematic, rationalistic — and highly individualistic — version of the substitution motif.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 488

A prayer? Or a patriotic song?

695 My Country 'Tis of Thee

1 My country, 'tis of thee,
   Sweet land of liberty,
   Of thee I sing;
   Land where my fathers died,
   Land of the pilgrims' pride,
   From ev'ry mountainside
   Let freedom ring!

2 My native country, thee,
   Land of the noble free,
   Thy name I love;
   I love thy rocks and rills,
   Thy woods and templed hills;
   My heart with rapture thrills,
   Like that above.

3 Let music swell the breeze,
   And ring from all the trees
   Sweet freedom's song;
   Let mortal tongues awake;
   Let all that breathe partake;
   Let rocks their silence break,
   The sound prolong.

4 Our fathers' God, to thee,
   Author of liberty,
   To thee we sing;
   Long may our land be bright
   With freedom's holy light;
   Protect us by thy might,
   Great God, our King.
                         Samuel F. Smith
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
OK, some sing this as a patriotic song of victory, but if you look at the words, it's really a prayer—especially after verse 1. Of course, most people don't know any verse except the first one, so I guess it makes sense to see it as a country-praising call to arms. I'll take it as a prayer, though. And we certainly need it to be answered in today's world!

That's the final hymn in this hymnbook. And this is the final hymnbook currently in my collection (I've owned many more in the past), so any future hymns I post will be ones I come across in other books. I hope you've enjoyed the three-plus years as I've wandered through three Methodist hymnals and one generic evangelical one.
</idle musing>

But it evolved—Calvinism, that is

Protestant scholarship after Calvin took a different turn. The substitution model evolved into a more programmatic presentation than anything in Calvin’s writings, let alone in the New Testament. 487

Worth the work?

It is worth the extra work to understand Calvin’s language about the breach between sinful humanity and righteous God as a corrective to our narcissism.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion

The joy of the Lord (Tozer for Tuesday)

It is no secret that the devil hates our joy in the Lord and will strive with all his power to rob us of this holy delight. Nothing bothers the devil more than a Christian delighting in God’s presence.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 187

Pay taxes?

691 The Social Obligations of a Christian

The Bible teaches that the Christian should be law-abiding. The Bible also teaches loyalty to country. A loyalty and love of country does not mean that we cannot criticize certain unjust laws that may discriminate against special groups. The Bible says that God is no respecter of persons. All should have equal opportunities. The government of God is to be our model.

The Bible also teaches that we are to co-operate with the government. Jesus was asked, “Is it lawful to give tribute?” Jesus set the example forever by paying taxes. It takes money to run a government and to maintain law and order. The tax dodger is a civic parasite and an actual thief. No true Christian will be a tax dodger. Jesus said, we are to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. ” We ought to be more than taxpayers. To be simply law-abiding is not enough. We ought to seek and work for the good of our country. Sometimes we may be called upon to die for it. We are to do it gladly—as unto God. We are to be conscientious in our work as good citizens.
Billy Graham
Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
OK, I'll agree with him up to the point about fighting on behalf of it (that's what he means by dying for it). Violence is never an option for the Christian.
</idle musing>

The radical nature of evil

The argument here is that it is necessary to posit the existence of a metaphorical hell in order to acknowledge the reality and power of radical evil — evil that does not yield to education, reason, or good intentions. Evil has an existence independent of the sum total of human misdeeds. The concept of hell takes seriously the nature and scale of evil. Without a concept of hell, Christian faith is sentimental and evasive, unable to stand up to reality in this world. Without an unflinching grasp of the radical nature of evil, Christian faith would be little more than wishful thinking.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 458

Why nonviolent resistance is possible

Christians can engage in nonviolent resistance precisely because the wrath of the living God is directed neither at us per se nor at our adversaries, but at the realm of the Evil One. If we are enraged by the injustice we see, is not that a sign of the righteous wrath of God? Yet we are incapable of conquering the dark Powers. Without the wrath of God, which is ultimately on our side, we have no victory.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 449 (emphasis original)

A (belated) prayer for an election

689 Before an Election

Lord Jesus, we ask Thee to guide the people of this nation as they exercise their dearly bought privilege of franchise. May it neither be ignored unthinkingly nor undertaken lightyly. As citizens all over this land go to the ballot boxes, give them a sense of high privilege and joyous responsibility.

Help those who are about to be elected to public office to come to understand the real source of their mandate—a mandate given by no party machine, received at no polling booth, but given by God; a mandate to represent God and truth at the heart of the nation; a mandate to do good in the name of Him under whom this country was established.

We ask Thee to lead our country in the paths where Thou wouldst have her walk, to do the tasks which Thou hast laid before her. So may we together seek happiness for all our citizens in the name of Him who created us all equal in His sight, and therefore brothers. Amen.
Peter Marshall
Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Sure, there's some questionable stuff in there, but I'll agree w/his prayer for doing good and seeking the happiness of all the people! We could use some of that right about now…

Just an
</idle musing>

But not in the Church!!

684 Within the Church

There is no color barrier with God.
He is color-blind.
There are many practical problems
which still have to be wisely and understandingly worked out.
But one thing is certain,
that the color barrier
and the Christian Church
cannot go together.
It was the world which God so loved,
and within the Church
it is the world which is
the family of God.
                        —William Barclay
                         Hymns for the Family of God

The hungry

678 The Hungry Man and I

To allow the hungry man to remain hungry would be blasphemy against God and one’s neighbor, for what is nearest to God is precisely the need of one’s neighbor. It is for the love of Christ, which belongs as much to the hungry man as to myself, that I share my bread with him and that I share my dwelling with the homeless. If the hungry man does not attain to faith, then the fault falls on those who refused him bread. To provide the hungry man with bread is to prepare the way for the coming of grace.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Hymns for the Family of God

Why Job?

The book of Job will always be debated; we brought Job into this discussion to show how the speech from the whirlwind points away from “answers” and “explanations.” Instead, it brings us into the very presence of God.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 446

What happens when God appears?

A significant link occurs between Job 25:6 (“man . . . is a maggot, / and the son of man . . . is a worm”) and 38:1-3 (“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind / . . . ‘Gird up your loins like a man, / I will question you, and you shall declare to me’”). It would appear that the stupefying address of God to Job, though it appears to be irrelevant in the extreme, confers great dignity upon Job. He is neither a maggot nor a worm, but is called forth by God and made to stand upon his feet, covered in boils as he is. He is also summoned to “declare,” to speak back to God. To be sure, it would be easy to see this summons as bullying, since Job’s only “declarations” range from “I lay my hand on my mouth” to “I melt away; I repent in dust and ashes,” but in the conceptual universe of the Old Testament, such a conclusion would be a mistake. The wonder is that Job is addressed by God man to man, as it were; he is not a pitiable victim, but one who, being made in the image of God, actually corresponds to God and receives God’s revelation — an honor that we are meant to recognize as remarkable. We may truly speak of a theophany, a showing-forth of God himself Job appears to realize this, and it seems not only to satisfy him but also to reorient him altogether.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 446 (emphasis original)

Indifference

671 Indifference

When Jesus came to Golgotha they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to our town, they simply passed Him by,
They never hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,”
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.
—G. A. Studdert-Kennedy
Hymns for the Family of God

Power and evil…

Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, chief interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, was interviewed in his eighty-third year. His memories of the chief Nazis were still sharp. He remembered the terrifying normality of their personalities. “They were without a doubt the world’s greatest living criminals, but their hands were clean, their expressions were normal, they could have been people you meet on the street. You think, what kind of a man can do this, can serve someone like Hitler, and you realize, it’s very simple. A yes man. A toady. Someone doing it for rank or uniform or money or glory. . . . People have to realize that power and evil run on the same track.” Can we not see our own souls possibly at risk in such a situation?—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 443 (emphasis original w/Rutledge)

See evil for what it is…

Evil is in no way part of God’s good purpose, and cannot be, since it does not have existence as a created good. Evil is neither rationally nor morally intelligible and must simply be loathed and resisted. The beginning of resistance is not to explain, but to see. Seeing is itself a form of action — seeing evil for what it is, not a part of God’s plan, but a colossal x factor in creation, a monstrous contradiction, a prodigious negation that must be identified, denounced, and opposed wherever it occurs.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 434 (emphasis original)

Hear the Voice of Jesus Calling

669 Hear the Voice of Jesus Calling

1. Hark! the voice of Jesus calling,
   "Who will go and work today?
   Fields are white, the harvest waiting,
   Who will bear the sheaves away?"
   Loud and long the Master calls out,
   Rich reward he offers free:
   Who will answer, gladly saying,
   "Here am I, send me, send me."

2. If you cannot cross the ocean
   And the foreign lands explore,
   You can find the needy nearer,
   You can help them at your door.
   If you cannot give in thousands,
   You can give the widow's mite,
   And the least you give for Jesus,
   Will be precious in his sight.

3. If you cannot speak like angels,
   If you cannot preach like Paul,
   You can tell the love of Jesus,
   You can say he died for all.
   If you cannot rouse the wicked,
   With the judgment's dread alarms,
   You may lead the little children,
   To the Savior's waiting arms.

4. Let none hear you idly saying,
   "There is nothing I can do,"
   While the lost of Earth are dying,
   And the Master calls for you.
   Take the task he gives you gladly;
   Let his work your pleasure be.
   Answer quickly when he's calling,
   "Here am I, send, send me."
                         Daniel Marsh
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Real evil vs. romantic evil

Often the evil figure in books and films gets more respect than the leading characters. Popular culture puts out an endless stream of satanic characters; actors vie to play these parts and even win Oscars for them. In high culture, there is no more glamorous, even sexy Satan than Milton’s in Paradise Lost. An important counterweight to this sense of the devil as an alluring presence is the view of Simone Weil, who wrote, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring."—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 425–26

nonbeing and evil

If we take the classical definition of evil as privatio bono to mean absolute nonbeing, that would make evil into a coequal principle over against God: Ultimate Being Versus Ultimate Nonbeing. Resistance to this notion separated the apostolic faith from systems like Manichaeism and some forms of Gnosticism. Consequently, it may be preferable to think of evil as having limited nonbeing — it does not and cannot participate in “real” Being (God), but its presence and power in the world are not illusory; it “ain’t peanuts.”—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 424

Macedonia (hymn)

668 Macedonia

The vision of a dying world
   Is vast before our eyes;
   We feel the heartbeat of its need,
   We hear its feeble cries:
   Lord Jesus Christ, revive Thy Church
   In this, her crucial hour!
   Lord Jesus Christ, awake Thy Church
   With Spirit-given power.

The savage hugs his god of stone
   And fears descent of night;
   The city dweller cringes lone
   Amid the garish light:
   Lord Jesus Christ, arouse Thy Church
   To see their mute distress!
   Lord Jesus Christ, equip Thy Church
   With love and tenderness.

Today, as understanding’s bounds
   Are stretched on every hand,
   Oh, clothe Thy Word in bright, new sounds,
   And speed it o’er the land;
   Lord Jesus Christ, empower us
   To preach by every means!
   Lord Jesus Christ, embolden us
   In near and distant scenes.

The warning bell of judgment tolls,
   Above us looms the cross;
   Around are ever-dying souls—
   How great, how great the loss!
   O Lord, constrain and move Thy Church
   The glad news to impart!
   And Lord, as Thou dost stir Thy Church,
   Begin within my heart.
                         Anne Ortlund
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Gregory of Nyssa on evil

Among the Greek Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa makes the point well: “All wickednessis marked by the absence of good [steresis agathou]. It does not exist in its own right, nor is it observed to have subsistence. . . . Nonbeing has no subsistence; and the Creator of what exists is not the Creator of what has no subsistence. The God, therefore, of what exists is not responsible for evil, since he is not the author ofwhat has no existence” (“Address on Religious Instruction,” 282). Gregory compares evil to blindness, which is a privation of light.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 422–23 n. 78

Evil

there has never been a satisfactory account of the origin of evil, and there will be none on this side of the consummation of the kingdom of God. Evil is a vast excrescence, a monstrous contradiction that cannot be explained but can only be denounced and resisted wherever it appears.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 419 (emphasis original)

Tozer for Tuesday

When God promises to hear your prayers, it does not mean He makes an unconditional promise to answer them the way you want them answered. Other passages of Scripture tell you He will answer your prayer if you will meet the terms and pray in His will. So we get the truth not by riding one passage, but by taking all the Scriptures and putting them together.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 183

Jesus Saves! (hymn)

667 Jesus Saves!

1 We have heard the joyful sound:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Spread the tidings all around:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Bear the news to ev'ry land,
   Climb the steeps and cross the waves;
   Onward! 'tis our Lord's command;
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

2 Waft it on the rolling tide:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Tell to sinners far and wide:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Sing, ye islands of the sea;
   Echo back, ye ocean caves;
   Earth shall keep her jubilee:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

3 Sing above the battle strife:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   By His death and endless life
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Sing it softly through the gloom,
   When the heart for mercy craves;
   Sing in triumph o'er the tomb:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

4 Give the winds a mighty voice:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Let the nations now rejoice:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
   Shout salvation full and free;
   Highest hills and deepest caves;
   This our song of victory:
   Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
                         Priscilla J. Owens
                         Hymns for the Family of God

It's a domain!

We need to understand hell not as a place, to be sure, but as a domain where evil has become the reigning reality — an empire of death, as Cyril called it.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 417 (emphasis original)

No afterlife?

Sheol is the Hebrew word denoting the underworld where all the dead dwell , after a fashion — in a shadowy subexistent state. There is no meaningful life after death in the Old Testament world. We need to pause to let this sink in. Few Christians today (or Jews either, for that matter) fully comprehend the Old Testament’s thoroughgoing renunciation of all speculation about life after death. We are so accustomed to thinking in vague, generically religious, quasi-Hellenistic terms about the “immortality of the soul” that we can scarcely grasp the degree to which the ancient Israelite community was expected, in the name of Yahweh, to relinquish any hope for meaningful in- dividual survival after death. Insubstantial nonexistence in Sheol was the destiny of all.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 399 (emphasis original)

Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life

665 Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life

1 Where cross the crowded ways of life,
   Where sound the cries of race and clan,
   Above the noise of selfish strife,
   We hear Thy voice, O Son of man!

2 In haunts of wretchedness and need,
   On shadowed thresholds dark with fears,
   From paths where hide the lures of greed,
   We catch the vision of Thy tears.

3 The cup of water given for Thee
   Still holds the freshness of Thy grace;
   Yet long these multitudes to see
   The sweet compassion of Thy face.

4 O Master, from the mountainside,
   Make haste to heal these hearts of pain;
   Among these restless throngs abide,
   O tread the city's streets again,

5 Till sons of men shall learn Thy love
   And follow where Thy feet have trod;
   Till, glorious from Thy heaven above,
   Shall come the city of our God!
                         Frank M. North
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Definitely a social gospel hymn! Take a minute to read the biography at the link above. Seems he was a pretty important person in his day. Hymnary.org inserts a sixth verse:

3 From tender childhood's helplessness,
   from human grief and burdened toil,
   from famished souls, from sorrow's stress,
   your heart has never known recoil.

</idle musing>

Send the Light

663 Send the Light

1 There’s a call comes ringing o’er the restless wave:
   “Send the light! Send the light!”
   There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save.
   Send the light! Send the light!

Refrain:
   Send the light, the blessed gospel light.
   Let it shine from shore to shore.
   Send the light, the blessed Gospel light.
   Let it shine forevermore.

2 We have heard the Macedonian call today:
   “Send the light! Send the light!”
   And a golden off'ring at the cross we lay,
   Send the light! Send the light! [Refrain]

3 Let us pray that grace may ev'rywhere abound;
   Send the light! Send the light!
   And a Christ-like spirit ev'rywhere be found.
   Send the light! Send the light! [Refrain]

4 Let us not grow weary in the work of love.
   Send the light! Send the light!
   Let us gather jewels for a crown above.
   Send the light! Send the light! [Refrain]
                         Charles H. Gabriel
                         Hymns for the Family of God

He Lifted Me

653 He Lifted Me

1 In loving kindness Jesus came,
   my soul in mercy to reclaim,
   and from the depths of sin and shame,
   through grace He lifted me.

Refrain:
   From sinking sand He lifted me,
   with tender hand He lifted me,
   from shades of night to plains of light,
   O praise His name, He lifted me!

2 He called me long before I heard,
   before my sinful heart was stirred,
   but when I took Him at His word,
   forgiv'n He lifted me. [Refrain]

3 His brow was pierced with crown of thorn,
   His hands by cruel nails were torn,
   when from my guilt and grief, forlorn,
   in love He lifted me. [Refrain]

4 Now on a higher plane I dwell,
   and with my soul I know ’tis well;
   Yet how or why, I cannot tell,
   He should have lifted me. [Refrain]
                         Charles H. Gabriel
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Seems the author had quite a few pen names, but that's about all we know about him...
</idle musing>

Jesus Never Fails (hymn)

651 Jesus Never Fails

1 Earthly friends may prove untrue,
   Doubts and fears assail;
   One still loves and cares for you,
   One who will not fail.

Refrain:
   Jesus never fails,
   Jesus never fails;
   Heav'n and earth may pass away,
   But Jesus never fails.

2 Tho' the sky be dark and drear,
   Fierce and strong the gale;
   Just remember He is near,
   And He will not fail. [Refrain]

3 In life's dark and bitter hour
   Love will still prevail;
   Trust His everlasting pow'r
   Jesus will not fail. [Refrain]
                         Arthur A. Luther
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Invasion!

The church is not a redeemed boat floating in an unredeemed sea. It is not as if the only thing that has changed is that our sins are forgiven and we, person by person, come to believe in Jesus. Rather, there has been a transfer of aeons, an exchange of one kosmos for another. The Powers and principalities may not know it, but their foundations have been undermined and cannot last. The creation itself has been and is being invaded by the new world, the age to come.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 393

A nonviolent struggle

The language of struggle and combat is not incompatible with a commitment to nonviolence. The nonviolent combatants are sustained by their trust in God, who has promised that “vengeance is mine, I will repay.” Harsh and jarring though it may sound, the portrayal of the Lord as “a man of War” (Exod. 15:3; Isa. 42:13) is a powerful source of courage when the “war” is understood as the apocalyptic war against the Powers.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 384

I'd Rather Have Jesus

650 I'd Rather Have Jesus

1 I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
   I'd rather be His than have riches untold;
   I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands.
   I'd rather be led by His nail-pierced hand Refrain:
   Than to be the king of a vast domain
   or be held in sin's dread sway.
   I'd rather have Jesus than anything
   this world affords today.

2 I'd rather have Jesus than men's applause;
   I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause;
   I'd rather have Jesus than world-wide fame.
   I'd rather be true to His holy name [Refrain]

3 He's fairer than lilies of rarest bloom'
   He's sweeter than honey from out the comb;
   He's all that my hungering spirit needs.
   I'd rather have Jesus and let Him lead [Refrain]
                         Rhea F. Miller
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
I wonder how many Christians today would stand by this? When power and wealth and status are worshiped by so many, do we really believe that Jesus is preferable?

By the way, take a look at the biography of the hymnwriter, which includes the story of how the tune was written—by George Beverly Shea!
</idle musing>

At the center is …

The most surprising thing about [Revelation] is that at the center of the throne, holding together both the throne and the whole cosmos that is ruled by the throne, we find the sacrificed Lamb. At the very heart of “the One who sits on the throne” is the cross. The world to come is ruled by the one who on the cross took violence upon himself in order to conquer and embrace the enemy. The Lamb’s rule is legitimized not by the “sword” but by its “wounds”; the goal of its rule is not to subject but to make people “reign for ever and ever” (22:5). With the Lamb at the center of the throne, the distance between the “throne” and the “subjects” has collapsed in the embrace of the triune God.—Miraslov Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 300–301, cited in Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 382–83 (emphasis original with Volf)

Obedience … righteousness

When Paul says in Romans 6:16 that obedience leads to righteousness, he does not mean this in the usual way, as though righteousness were the reward for a long, arduous struggle on our part to be obedient. Rather, he means that the righteousness of God is the active, recreating power that enables the new life of obedience to take shape. This is what the new life in Christ means.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 369 (emphasis original)

A prayer from St. Patrick

643 Christ Be with Me

I arise today
Through God ’s strength to pilot me:
God ’s might to uphold me,
God ’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God ’s ear to hear me,
God ’s word to speak for me,
God ’s hand to guard me,
God ’s way to lie before me,
God ’s shield to protect me.

Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
—St. Patrick
Hymns for the Family of God

It's not neutral territory

As Martyn puts it, there are not two actors in the drama, God and humanity, but three — God, humanity, and the Powers. When Christ was “apocalypsed” to the world, he did not arrive in neutral territory. The occupying forces — pictured as Satan and his hosts — had to be driven from the field.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 356

Who is on the Lord's side?

I am always on the side of the people of God. I sound sometimes as if I am not, because I am severe with them. I am severe with them as a father is severe with a little family of children that he loves to death and of which he is very proud. I am very proud of God’s people and very happy to be with them and recognize them as being the Father’s children. But I am not going to let them get away with a lot of bad manners and bad habits when they should not. For that reason, I am severe, but I am severe with a smile. I never preach except with a smile in my heart and with the joy that I am part of the Church.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 179

Since Jesus Came into My Heart

639 Since Jesus Came into My Heart

1 What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought
   Since Jesus came into my heart!
   I have light in my soul for which long I have sought,
   Since Jesus came into my heart!

Refrain:
   Since Jesus came into my heart,
   Since Jesus came into my heart,
   Floods of joy o'er my soul like the sea billows roll,
   Since Jesus came into my heart.

2 I have ceased from my wand'ring and going astray,
   Since Jesus came into my heart!
   And my sins which were many are all washed away,
   Since Jesus came into my heart! [Refrain]

3 I shall go there to dwell in that city, I know,
   Since Jesus came into my heart!
   And I'm happy, so happy, as onward I go,
   Since Jesus came into my heart! [Refrain]
                         Rufus H. McDaniel
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Hymnary.org inserts a pair of verses:

3 I’m possessed of a hope that is steadfast and sure,
   Since Jesus came into my heart!
   And no dark clouds of doubt now my pathway obscure,
   Since Jesus came into my heart! [Refrain]

4 There's a light in the valley of death now for me,
   Since Jesus came into my heart!
   And the gates of the City beyond I can see,
   Since Jesus came into my heart! [Refrain]

</idle musing>

A rescue operation

The “apocalypse” of the cross and resurrection, therefore, was not an inevitable final stage in an orderly process, or an accumulation of progressive steps toward a goal; it was a dramatic rescue bid into which God has flung his entire self.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 355

Redeemed!

646 Redeemed

1 Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it!
   Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!
   redeemed through His infinite mercy—
   His child, and forever, I am.

Refrain:
   Redeemed, redeemed,
   redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!
   Redeemed, redeemed–
   His child and forever, I am.

2 Redeemed and so happy in Jesus,
   no language my rapture can tell!
   I know that the light of His presence
   with me doth continually dwell. [Refrain]

3 I think of my blessed Redeemer;
   I think of Him all the day long.
   I sing, for I cannot be silent;
   His love is the theme of my song. [Refrain]

4 I know I shall see in His beauty
   the King in whose law I delight,
   who lovingly guardeth my footsteps
   and giveth me songs in the night. [Refrain]
                         Fanny Crosby
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Now I Belong to Jesus

637 Now I Belong to Jesus

1 Jesus my Lord will love me forever,
   From him no pow'r of evil can sever;
   He gave his life to ransom my soul-
   Now I belong to him!

Refrain:
   Now I belong to Jesus,
   Jesus belongs to me-
   Not for the years of time alone,
   But for eternity.

2 Once I was lost in sin's degradation,
   Jesus came down to bring me salvation,
   Lifted me up from sorrow and shame-
   Now I belong to him! [Refrain]

3 Joy floods my soul, for Jesus has saved me,
   Freed me from sin that long had enslaved me;
   His precious blood he gave to redeem-
   Now I belong to him! [Refrain]
                         Norman J. Clayton
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
I mused about Clayton in this post. As for this hymn, there is a nice devotional on it here.
</idle musing>

The Light of the World Is Jesus

636 The Light of the World Is Jesus

1 The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin;
   The Light of the world is Jesus.
   Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in;
   The Light of the world is Jesus.

Refrain:
   Come to the Light; ’tis shining for thee.
   Sweetly the Light has dawned upon me.
   Once I was blind, but now I can see.
   The Light of the world is Jesus.

2 No darkness have we who in Jesus abide;
   The Light of the world is Jesus.
   We walk in the light when we follow our Guide;
   The Light of the world is Jesus. [Refrain]

4 No need of the sunlight in heaven, we’re told;
   The Light of the world is Jesus.
   The Lamb is the Light in the city of gold;
   The Light of the world is Jesus. [Refrain]
                         Philip P. Bliss
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
I don't recall ever hearing or singing this Philip Bliss song. It isn't one of his better know ones, only occurring in about 180 hymnals. Hymnary.org inserts a verse:

3 Ye dwellers in darkness with sin-blinded eyes:
   The Light of the world is Jesus.
   Go, wash at His bidding, and light will arise;
   The Light of the world is Jesus. [Refrain]

</idle musing>

Why Do I Sing about Jesus?

635 Why Do I Sing about Jesus?

1 Deep in my heart there's a gladness,
   Jesus has saved me from sin!
   Praise to His name, what a Saviour!
   Cleansing without and within.

Refrain:
   Why do I sing about Jesus?
   Why is He precious to me?
   He is my Lord and my Saviour,
   Dying! He set me free!

2 Only a glimpse of His goodness,
   That was sufficient for me;
   Only one look at the Saviour,
   Then was my spirit set free. (Refrain)

3 He is the fairest of fair ones,
   He is the Lily, the Rose;
   Rivers of mercy surround Him,
   Grace, love, and pity He shows. (Refrain)
                         Albert A. Ketchum
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Reconciliation

“Evil forces are to be cast out, not reconciled. Reconciliation is the result of that struggle, and is brought about only through conflict and eventually through death itself.”—Kenneth Leech, We Preach Christ Crucified (Cambridge Mass.: Cowley, 1994), 50, in Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 344

God's work—from beginning to end

The bedrock of the gospel is that the whole matter of reconciliation (laid out in Eph. 1:7—2:7) is God’s work from beginning to end; we receive God’s justifying grace passively, as pure gift. We are <>acted upon<> by God. But this is only half of the picture. Even as we receive God’s gracious action passively, we are in the same motion <>activated<> for a life of service. Verse 10 is an extraordinarily illuminating verse, splendid for teaching the relation of human activity to the divine activity. This exceptional passage should lay to rest all complaints that the emphasis on God’s agency leaves us with nothing to do.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 342 (emphasis original)

O, How I Love Jesus

634 O, How I Love Jesus

1 There is a name I love to hear,
   I love to sing its worth;
   It sounds like music in my ear,
   The sweetest name on earth.

Refrain:
   O how I love Jesus,
   O how I love Jesus,
   O how I love Jesus,
   Because He first loved me!

2 It tells me of a Savior's love,
   Who died to set me free;
   It tells me of His precious blood,
   The sinner's perfect plea. [Refrain]

3 It tells of One whose loving heart
   Can feel my deepest woe,
   Who in each sorrow bears a part,
   That none can bear below. [Refrain]
                         Frederick Whitfield
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Hymnary.org inserts a verse:

3 It tells me what my Father has
   In store for ev'ry day,
   And though I tread a gloomy path,
   The sinner's all the way. [Refrain]

</idle musing>

Who gets the credit?

We may say therefore that Christ evokes faith, begets faith, gives birth to faith, elicits faith, with the understanding that it never becomes a possession of our own that we can take credit for, but is always a work of his own.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 330–31 (emphasis original)

In My Heart There Rings a Melody

633 In My Heart There Rings a Melody

1 I have a song that Jesus gave me,
   It was sent from heav'n above;
   There never was a sweeter melody,
   'Tis a melody of love.

Chorus:
   In my heart there rings a melody,
   There rings a melody with heaven's harmony;
   In my heart there rings a melody,
   There rings a melody of love.

2 I love the Christ who died on Calv'ry,
   For He washed my sins away;
   He put within my heart a melody,
   And I know it's there to stay. [Chorus]

3 'Twill be my endless theme in glory,
   With the angels I will sing;
   'Twill be a song with glorious harmony,
   When the courts of heaven ring. [Chorus]
                         Elton M. Roth
                         Hymns for the Family of God

It's a whole lot more than "acquit"

God’s righteousness involves not only a great reversal (“the first will be last”) but also an actual transformation and re-creation. When radicalized in terms of Vaclav Havel’s insight about the line that runs through each person, the dikaiosyne of God means that no human being whatsoever will be exempt from or immune to his justifying action. Taking this a step further, we begin to see that when we say God will “justify” rather than merely “acquit,” the action has a reconstituting force — hence the insufficiency of the courtroom metaphor “to acquit.” God’s righteousness is the same thing as his justice, and his justice is powerfully at work justifying, which does not mean excusing, passing over, or even “forgiving and forgetting,” but actively making right that which is wrong. 329 (emphasis original)

He's Everything to me

In the stars His handiwork I see,
On the wind He speaks with majesty,
Though He ruleth over land and sea,
What is that to me?
I will celebrate Nativity,
For it has a place in history,
Sure, He came to set His people free,
What is that to me?

Till by faith I met Him face to face,
and I felt the wonder of His grace,
Then I knew that He was more than just a
God who didn't care,
That lived a way out there and

Now He walks beside me day by day,
Ever watching o'er me lest I stray,
Helping me to find that narrow way,
He's Everything to me.
                         Ralph Carmichael
                         Hymns for the Family of God

So, what does it mean?

Thus, “righteousness” does not mean moral perfection. It is not a distant, forbidding characteristic of God that humans are supposed to try to emulate or imitate; there is no good news in that. Instead, the righteousness of God is God’s powerful activity of making right what is wrong in the world. When we read, in both Old and New Testaments, that God is righteous, we are to understand that God is at work in his creation doing right. He is overcoming evil, delivering the oppressed, raising the poor from the dust, vindicating the voiceless victims who have had no one to defend them.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 328 (all emphasis original)

Stop it! Just stop it!

God did not change his mind about us on account of the cross or on any other account. He did not need to have his mind changed. He was never opposed to us. It is not his opposition to us but our opposition to him that had to be overcome, and the only way it could be overcome was from God’s side, by God’s initiative, from inside human flesh — the human flesh of the Son. The divine hostility, or wrath of God, has always been an aspect of his love. It is not sep-arate from God’s love, it is not opposite to God’s love, it is not something in God that had to be overcome.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 323 (emphasis original)

Tozer for Tuesday

If your Christianity depends upon the pastor’s preaching, then you are a long way from being where you should be. If you do not have a private, secret conduit, a pipe leading into the fountain where you can go anytime all by yourself; Whether there is a pastor there or not, whether you have heard a sermon in a year, you have nevertheless an anchor; you have a root, you have a conduit, you can get the water from God.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 171

I Know Whom I Have Believed

631 I Know Whom I Have Believed

1. I know not why God’s wondrous grace
   To me He hath made known,
   Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
   Redeemed me for His own.

Refrain:
   But “I know Whom I have believed,
   And am persuaded that He is able
   To keep that which I’ve committed
   Unto Him against that day.”

2. I know not how this saving faith
   To me He did impart,
   Nor how believing in His Word
   Wrought peace within my heart.

3. I know not how the Spirit moves,
   Convincing men of sin,
   Revealing Jesus through the Word,
   Creating faith in Him.

4. I know not when my Lord may come,
   At night or noonday fair,
   Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
   Or meet Him in the air.
                         Daniel W. Whittle
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Hymnary.org inserts a verse after verse 3:

4 I know not what of good or ill
   May be reserved for me,
   Of weary ways or golden days,
   Before His face I see.

</idle musing>

As it happened: the KJV vs. the Geneva Bible in North America

As the American settlements widened and deepened, and their political processes matured, the need for a separatist gospel ebbed. The relationship of Puritan church and Puritan state in early America soon became, strangely enough, as close as any relationship between the Jacobean Crown and the Church of England. In early Massachusetts, heresy, witchcraft, profanity, blasphemy, idolatry and breaking the Sabbath were all civil offences, to be dealt with by civil courts. The new Americans may have dispensed with bishops, surplices and the Book of Common Prayer, but they had not replaced them with a Utopia Of religious freedom. Seventeenth-century America was a country of strictly enforced state religion and as such needed a Bible much more attuned to the necessities of nation-building than anything the Separatists’ Geneva Bible could offer. It is one of the strangest of historical paradoxes that the King James Bible, whose whole purpose had been nation-building in the service of a ceremonial and episcopal state church, should become the guiding text of Puritan America. But the translation’s lifeblood had been inclusiveness, it was drenched with the splendour of a divinely sanctioned authority, and by the end of the seventeenth century it had come to be treasured by Americans as much as by the British as one of their national texts.—God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, 229–30

Really, we are all guilty…

Allowing the law-court imagery to predominate places us in the realm of legal standards — right and wrong, guilt and innocence. This immediately causes almost everyone to start thinking that there are guilty people and innocent people, whereas we have been taking pains to show that “the line runs through each person.” If we are faithful to the gospel as “the justification of the ungodly” (cf. Rom. 4:5), we will not talk about being morally right according to a set of legal commandments, but about being delivered from hostile, enslaving Powers that are waging war against God’s purposes. If we begin by talking about being acquitted in the courtroom, we are working from a diminished perspective. If legal language is introduced from the outset, biblical interpreters will find themselves in trouble because they will be operating in the realm of morality, not cosmology — and that will render the church theologically impotent in our geopolitically interlocked world.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 320 (emphasis original)

There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today

630 There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today

1 There is sunshine in my soul today,
   More glorious and bright
   Than glows in any earthly sky,
   For Jesus is my light.

Refrain:
   O there’s sunshine, blessed sunshine,
   When the peaceful happy moments roll:
   When Jesus shows His smiling face,
   There is sunshine in the soul.

2 There is music in my soul today,
   A carol to my King,
   And Jesus, listening, can hear
   The songs I cannot sing. [Refrain]

3 There is springtime in my soul today,
   For when the Lord is near,
   The dove of peace sings in my heart,
   The flowers of grace appear. [Refrain]

4 There is gladness in my soul today,
   And hope and praise and love
   For blessings which He gives me now,
   For joys "laid up" above. [Refrain]
                         Eliza E. Hewitt
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Lest you think that this hymn is just a light, fluffy little piece, take a look at the bio of the author. Seems she developed a spinal malady that kept her a shut-in. And yet she wrote this hymn...
</idle musing>

He Touched Me

628 He Touched Me

1 Shackled by a heavy burden,
   'Neath a load of guilt and shame—
   Then the hand of Jesus touched me,
   And now I am no longer the same.

Refrain:
   He touched me, oh, He touched me,
   And oh, the joy that floods my soul;
   Something happened, and now I know,
   He touched me, and made me whole.

2 Since I've met this blessed Savior,
   Since He's cleansed and made me whole,
   Oh, I will never cease to praise Him—
   I'll shout it while eternity rolls. [Refrain]
                         William J. Gaither
                         Hymns for the Family of God

Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus

621 Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus

1. O soul, are you weary and troubled?
   No light in the darkness you see?
   There’s light for a look at the Savior,
   And life more abundant and free!

Refrain:
   Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
   Look full in His wonderful face,
   And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
   In the light of His glory and grace.

2. Thro' death into life everlasting,
   He passed, and we follow Him there;
   O’er us sin no more hath dominion--
   For more than conqu’rors we are!

3. His Word shall not fail you--He promised;
   Believe Him, and all will be well:
   Then go to a world that is dying,
   His perfect salvation to tell!
                         Helen H. Lemmel
                         Hymns for the Family of God

But I don't like it that way!

If every possible system of merit has been swept away by Christ and buried with him in his death (Rom. 6:4), then we have nothing of our own to rely on. If the “balance sheet” has been torn up and discarded forever, we are in the position of the laborers in the vineyard who are angry because someone who worked fewer hours was paid as well as they were. That’s what we don’t like about God being the Judge. If human nature were the judge in such a situation, we would pay according to hours and productivity. Not so God, who, like the landowner in the parable, says, “Do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matt. 20:15). So God being Judge is a two-edged sword; on the one hand it slices the way we like because God is for us; but on the other hand it slices in a way we don’t like because he is also for everyone else without the usual distinctions, and that means no more A list and B list, and therefore no more building up of our own egos at someone else’s expense.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 318

Whom do we want as judge?

So in the end it comes down to who we want our judge to be. We don’t want to be judged by other people, and we don’t want to be judged by God, so that leaves ourselves. Down where it really counts, we want to be our own judge. We want to be in charge of evaluating ourselves. We want to be able to sing with Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.”—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 317

I Will Sing the Wondrous Story

618 I Will Sing the Wondrous Story

1 I will sing the wondrous story
   Of the Christ who died for me.
   How He left His home in glory
   For the cross of Calvary.

Refrain:
   Yes, I'll sing the wondrous Story
   Of the Christ who died for me,
   Sing it with the saint in glory
   Gathered by the crystal sea.

2 I was lost, but Jesus found me,
   Found the sheep that went astray,
   Threw His loving arms around me,
   Drew me back into His way.

3 I was bruised, but Jesus healed me;
   Faint was I from many a fall;
   Sight was gone, and fears possessed me,
   But He freed me from them all.

4 Days of darkness still come o'er me,
   Sorrow's paths I often tread,
   But the Savior still is with me;
   By His hand I'm safely led.
                         Francis H. Rowley
                         Hymns for the Family of God

<idle musing>
Many hymnals combine the verses such that verse 1 and 2 are verse 1, etc. And many also don't include the refrain. Many also include another verse (the second half of which this version uses as a refrain):

3 He will keep me till the river
   Rolls its waters at my feet;
   Then He'll bear me safely over,
   Where the loved ones I shall meet.
   Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story
   Of the Christ who died for me,
   Sing it with the saints in glory,
   Gathered by the crystal sea.

</idle musing>

The antiquity of the word "judgmental"

Perhaps we need some perspective on the matter, for this is a very recent development. The 1971 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary does not contain the word “judgmental” at all; the closest thing to it is the rare “judgmatical,” with the largely positive meaning of “judicious, discerning.” The next edition of the OED indicates that its first significant appearance with the negative connotation of today was in <>1965<>!—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 313 n. 22 (emphasis original)

We are all complicit

When I was a young activist in Virginia in the ’60s, my comrades and I loved the fierce passages from the Hebrew prophets. We envisioned them as God’s judgment on all the Southern conservatives who were still laboring in outer darkness concerning civil rights and the Vietnam War. Like many young idealists, we thought of ourselves as bringers of light. Later I learned that we are all in this together. I also am implicated in “grinding the face of the poor.”—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 310 n. 17

A Prayer

610 Prayer

Give us
A pure heart
That we may see Thee,
A humble heart
That we may hear Thee,
A heart of love
That we may serve Thee,
A heart of faith
That we may live Thee.
—Dag Hammarskjøld Hymns for the Family of God

Ransom

A passage in Isaiah [60:15–19] depicts God as the redeemer who brings precious gifts to reclaim Israel for his own. It certainly sounds like a “ransom,” and a “king’s ransom” at that — only it is not the king who is being ransomed; rather, in a true gospel reversal, it is the king who is doing the ransoming.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 300 (emphasis original)