Why the Resurrection Matters

Another Easter Sunday has come and gone and with it, the temptation to let the "Resurrection" fade into the background much the same as Christmas fades into the past and we are left paying off our credit cards from over-celebration. We don't celebrate in the same fashion for Easter. Despite the attempts to commercialize it with the Easter Bunny, new outfits, and candy, it still remains primarily a religious holiday that isn't recognized by people other than those who identify with Christianity. Yet the temptation to move on with our lives and compartmentalize the truths of the resurrection is just as much of a temptation as it is to throw out the wrapping paper and mentally move on to the next big event.

Easter is fundamentally different than Christmas, however. While the events of Christmas are incredibly important and contain a great deal of doctrinal truth, they don't stand on the same level as the events of Easter. In fact, the events of Christmas have no value whatsoever apart from Easter, since the death and resurrection of Jesus are the culmination of everything that he came to accomplish. If they never occurred, then his birth, life, and whatever else occurred would still have been interesting, miraculous, potentially life-altering even if we chose to use Christ's life as an example, but not near as important as they are because of the events of Easter weekend. I'm not sure if the importance of the resurrection can be overstated: if it doesn't happen, there is no hope, there is no ultimate salvation, and practically there is no foundation for the church. The first two points are theological in nature and I won't address them here. It is that last point–the practical necessity of the resurrection for the church–that I want to address.

As we examine the broader culture (at least of America) it's easy to notice that there are some very sharp disagreements regarding how we view various cultural issues. Pick any issue you'd like, and chances are you can find not just diverse views on the subject, but polarizing views. Our tendency is to believe that these disagreements are themselves the problem, but they aren't. They are a symptom of the problem. The real problem, as it turns out, is that we are standing on fundamentally different foundations.

Imagine that the two of us were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we began to describe to one another what we see. To a certain extent, our descriptions may seem similar. We might describe a deep gorge, the relative color of the dirt and clay, the vastness of what we are viewing. As we go further in our descriptions, however, they inevitably begin to diverge. One of us argues that the canyon is a thousand feet deep, the other says it is only a couple of hundred feet. Perhaps we argue about the vegetation, or what it is that makes it so beautiful, or how the sun sets–or rises–on the opposite end of the canyon. Soon we would find that our disagreement is so sharp, that it is impossible for us to figure one another out. We end up completely polarized, convinced that the other person is a lunatic.

Of course you may have already figured out the problem. We are viewing the same canyon, but from two different vantage points. Where we are standing makes all the difference in recognizing why it is that we disagree on our perspective. Once we understand that we are not even fundamentally seeing the same things, we can come to terms with the fact that we disagree.

This is why the real issues of culture have nothing to do with our perspectives on the issues, and have everything to do with the foundation on which we are standing. Christians in particular have taken for granted that for the vast majority of the history of the United States, most of the population stood on a similar foundation. Call it "Judeo-Christian values" or whatever you wish, but really it was just the foundation that there was a God and that we could find out more about him in the Bible. I don't assume that the entirety of the country was Christian, let alone religious, but at very least the foundation was roughly similar. Thus, if there were disagreements on certain subjects, they weren't extreme. We might be arguing about the color of the clay in the canyon, but at least we are looking at the same clay.

Unfortunately that foundation has shifted and the vast majority of culture is no longer standing on the same foundation. This is the effect of post-modernity that claims that there are no universal truths. One of the impacts of this was the supposed destruction of the meta-narrative, which is by it's nature a comprehensive truth claim. Of course the theory falls on it's head. Even saying that there is no universal truth is a comprehensive truth claim about how the world works, it simply shifts the responsibility for decision making to the individual, rather than the universal. Again, claiming that every decision is up to the individual is a universal claim. Thus the meta-narrative was not done away with, but simply changed, and as a result, we find that when we are describing what appear to be similar issues, they are not the same at all. Those of us who are Christians are standing on an entirely different foundation than those who are not-Christians, and vice versa.

This in itself is not a bad thing, it is just something that simply "is". If anything, it provides an opportunity for Christians to have more clarity about what it is that they actually believe. I also think that it should provide Christians more opportunity to have grace with skeptics, since we ought to understand that the issues is not a disagreement, per se, it is a foundational issue. We are not standing on the same footing. We aren't looking at the canyon from the same angle. I can't expect my skeptic friend to see the world from the same perspective that I do, unless we first understand where it is that we are standing.

All of this brings me back to the church, and my original point about the practical need to remember the resurrection. Over the past decade, at least, and perhaps longer than that, post-modernity has come into the church in a variety of ways. The easiest entry way has been to offer differing perspectives on traditional Christian perspectives. Some of those perspectives have been healthy and offered appropriate correctives in the church. Like all institutions (and individuals, I might add), when you have held onto a particular belief long enough, you typically end up abusing it in it's application. For example, the longer you believe you are a safe driver, the less likely you are to use your seat belt. The better you are at a particular activity–skiing, for example–the more likely you are to push the limits verging into the unsafe, even for an expert. The same goes for churches. What might begin as a helpful doctrine or tradition can end up being abused in the long run, in desperate need of correction and a reminder of where the application should begin and end. Other perspectives, however, have not been corrective in nature, but downright incorrect. As a seminary professor said, "the only corrective to bad theology is better theology." Unfortunately many of the critiques in the last decade have not been better theology, but just more bad theology from a different perspective. The pendulum might swing to embrace it, but it doesn't mean that we are any better off. Change for changes sake is not necessarily a good thing. So how do we combat these perspectives? The answer is the resurrection.

The resurrection provides Christians with the foundation on which unity can be built as a church, for at least two reasons. The first reason encompasses both Jesus death, and resurrection, which puts all Christians on the same plane. If Jesus death and resurrection are real, historical events that happened and on which Christianity is based, so that faith and confidence in those events is essential to being a Christian, then the very nature of them mean that all of us arrive into this new kingdom of God on the same train. No one gets in on their own power. No one is more righteous than another. In fact, we all have the same righteousness from the same savior and get in on the same ticket.

The second reason that the resurrection is necessary is that it proves that Jesus is the king of this new kingdom, and thus, he gets to set the expectations. I believe that one of the chief reasons that some of the sharp disagreements that the church has experienced with the culture have become sharp disagreements within the church itself is that many within the church have unwittingly shifted their foundation. This was more evident than ever in the week leading up to Easter when a variety of articles were published claiming to come from Christian sources, but as I examined them, I noticed that they weren't Christian at all. They claimed to have a similar value structure, but they so minimized the death and resurrection of Jesus that those two events were no longer the foundation on which they based the rest of their so-called "truth". Realizing that meant that I could accept their conclusions at face value–as the author's opinion–but also realize that they weren't Christian perspectives, even though they claimed to be. It has become increasingly easy for people in the 21st century church to disagree with Jesus, or try to change his words to fit our meaning, and the reason that we can do it is because we, essentially, deny the power of the resurrection or take it to mean something it doesn't mean. The resurrection is not hope just for hope's sake; it is hope because it revealed that Jesus really was who he said he was. Jesus really was God incarnate who had the ability to defeat death on our behalf. The power of the resurrection wasn't limited just to him; it's a power that all who put their faith in Christ have access to. Far from being just some nebulous, ill-defined hope, it is a hope that very clearly identifies Jesus as God of very God, and King of every King. In other words, if we believe the resurrection is true, we don't get to disagree with Jesus.

As believers, then, the starting point for our unity must be the resurrection of Jesus. This is what gives him His claim to authority, as well as clarifying for us why we don't get to be authoritative in our own right. The Resurrection is the foundation on which the Christian views the rest of the world. When we stand on the power of the Resurrection, then we may still discuss and dialogue about what, exactly, Christ believed, but we don't get to disagree with Jesus or the rest of the Bible, or interpret it to fit our cultural milieu or cultural understanding at the time. Rather we stand on the authority of Christ himself.

If there are sharp disagreements in the church, I am much less interested in knowing what you think about the disagreement, and much more interested in knowing what you think about Jesus. Is he the risen Lord, or not? If he is, then you and I can both submit our opinions to his. If he isn't, then we're not on the same foundation to begin with, and I don't care much that you disagree with me. We'll never agree on what the canyon looks like so long as we are standing on different lookouts.

This is why we can't put Easter in the past. Easter Sunday, and what it represents, are not just a day in the life of the church calendar, but the foundation on which every day must be built. To the extent that we remember that, we'll have a united church. To the extend that we forget it, we'll be divided. It might really be as simple as that.

The Logical Fallacy of the Progressive Theology of the Cross

Is it possible that Jesus death was nothing more than the perfect example of selfless love?

As Easter approaches, and Christians around the world begin to celebrate and commemorate Christ's death and resurrection, I'm reminded that there will always be people apparently within the fold who will nevertheless question the historical understanding of what was accomplished on that weekend long ago. Traditionally Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has been understood through the lens of "penal substitutionary atonement." In simple terms, the traditional view is that our rebellion from God, and everything that separates us from God's perfection (what we call "sin"), required a punishment. So God, in his great mercy, and Jesus, in his great love, came up with a solution: it would be the solution of the substitute. If Jesus, in his perfection, paid the penalty for our sin, then we could be reconciled to God. For us to be reconciled to God (atoned for), we need someone who would stand in (substitute) to pay our penalty (penal).

It is shocking to me that there remains in the Christian church a group of people who would wish to redefine this and reframe it so that it appears to make more sense to our modern sensibilities. Today the group would bill themselves as "progressive" Christians, but it's just another name for what has historically been referred to as "liberal theology". It's an attempt to whittle down Christianity to "good deeds", as if this was Jesus ultimate goal: just to get us to act right. The reason I'm continually shocked by it is because of the glaringly obvious fallacy that it presents, particularly as it relates to the cross of Jesus.

The assertion of an article circulating this week is that Jesus message was ultimately only about love, and so Jesus death on the cross could not have had anything to do with penal substitutionary atonement. In fact, if that is what the cross was about, this author wanted nothing to do with Jesus.

The argument goes something like this (and again, it's just rehashing an old argument): Jesus whole goal in his life and death was to demonstrate that the heart of the law is simply "love". Therefore, when the Bible says that Jesus fulfilled the law, what it means is that demonstrated what it means to live out the heart of the law, which meant standing up to the power structures, living for the oppressed, and ultimately, on the cross, giving up his life for a friend. Jesus death, then, was the ultimate example of selfless love. This is what he requires of Christians. God's not mad, he's just trying to get us to love one another. Jesus showed us that by his death, and so now we should go and live that out and do what he did.

The logical fallacy that is presented by this argument has to do with the very nature of our reconciliation with God, if such a concept exists at all in this theological construct. Even this progressive author agrees that sin has separated us from God; in fact, this is the extent of the definition of sin: whatever separates us from God. So far, so good. But then the question is raised: if we are separated from God, how is it that we go about becoming reconciled to him? The issue with the argument outlined above is that you are left with only one of two options: either everyone is reconciled to God, or no one is ever reconciled to God.

The truth is that no matter how loving we wish to be, the reality is that we will still fall short. Every person, every Christian, no matter how loving they try to be or actually are knows that they don't measure up to the example set by Christ. If it were possible that some other figure, a non-divinity, some purely human character, could have eventually met the standard, then we wouldn't have needed the example of Christ. Even if it were only by pure accident, surely over time one person would have gotten close, and someone else gotten closer, and on and on until eventually we figured out that the "law" really only intended us to get to the heart of the law, which is love. This is the nature of human progression, after all. We see something that works, or looks better than what we already know, and we build upon it to progress forward. Surely the same thing would be true of our ability to meet the law and live in harmony with how God requires.

The very fact of Jesus existence reveals that this is clearly not the case. We won't eventually "figure it out". Even this construct admits that an example was needed, and a perfect one at that. A model that we could follow. Someone who made the ultimate sacrifice, and gave his life for a friend. Now, according to this model, the Christian must replicate that with their own lives. Yet anyone who is honest enough to admit it knows that they are a poor example, at best.

Again, Jesus may have showed us the way to reconciliation, but it is nevertheless on us to ensure that we live out that path if we actually want to attain the reconciliation. If Christ's death on the cross did nothing for me other than provide me with an example, my confidence is not found in what he did but in my own ability to replicate what he did in some meaningful way in my own life. "Salvation" is found in my ability to live out the same type of life, to the same degree, as Jesus did. As was already pointed out, we all fall ridiculously short of that mark. To say otherwise is to be a fool.

So then we are left with only two options. Either God, in his mercy, for no reason other than because he realized that we were eternally screwed otherwise, has decided to save us all and we all are okay at the end of the day. No justification required. Just a blank slate, wiped clean, just because. The alternative is that we are all left striving to attain a perfection which none of us can; we are chasing a dream that will never be realized. In other words, it's back to the original conclusion: either everyone is saved, or no one is saved.

Herein lies the fallacy of this theology and where it breaks down. Aside from the fact that none of this is particularly good news, since all it does is shine a light on my own failures, there is another inherent problem. If everyone is saved, then there is no law at all. Even Jesus perfect life (which, again, matters to me not one whit) was totally and utterly meaningless if God was going to just wipe the slate clean anyway regardless. Everyone being saved sounds great. It sounds like a very loving thing of God to do, but in reality it is a chaotic sort of anti-loving God that would allow that to occur. It's a God without order, a God who doesn't give us any meaningful guide by which we should live because ultimately, obey or not obey, we end up in the same position. But then, if no one is saved, we have the same issue: if I am as loving as I can possibly be, but I will still fall short, then what is the point of even trying? I am imperfect as it is, and there is no hope of my reconciliation, then I may as well enjoy myself in the process.

The only possible responses to this are to say, either, that a) it is actually possible for a human to attain some semblance of perfection, or something that is acceptable to God so that ultimately not everyone is saved but he will save each of us on our own merits, or b) Jesus actually did accomplish something meaningful on my behalf that enables me to live the type of life that he calls me to live, without guilt or shame.

There is no in-between answer to these two things, if we claim to be a Christian. If Christ's life and death accomplished nothing on my behalf, then my reconciliation to God must be found in my own merits, or else, nothing about God's law matters at all. This was precisely the belief of the religious leaders of the day when Jesus arrived on the scene. Each person would be judged on their own merits. It's why the religious folks were self-righteous and the tax-collectors and sinners were outsides. This was the message of the power structure of Rome: as soon as you didn't perform according to their standards, they booted you out and killed you. The reason Jesus message was such good news to those desperate ears–and the reason the power structure hated him–was because they had already been told that their justification was up to them, and they found it to be terribly oppressive; Jesus message was just the opposite. "The only way to be reconciled to my Father is to go through me."

The truth is that no serious theologian denies that Jesus fulfilled the law. He did fulfill the law through his perfect life including and up to his death on the cross. The heart of the law is this: that we would love God (perfectly) and love others (perfectly). The law only serves to demonstrate that we, on our own power, cannot accomplish what we want to accomplish. But God, in his great mercy, sends a substitute. This substitute fulfills the law on our behalf by living a perfect life. This substitute pays the penalty for being a law-breaker on our behalf by dying an absolutely gruesome but perfect death on the cross. As a result, this substitute breaks the grip of death–separation from God and from one another–and rises from the dead on the third day. Salvation is found in no one but him.

Now we find that our justification, our righteousness, our goodness, our perfection, are all applied to us because of Jesus substitution on our behalf. He takes what we deserved and gives us what he earned. The irony of it all is that the decision we face is precisely the one that the progressive theologian has said we shouldn't have to answer at all, and it is this: will you put your confidence in the merits of Christ, or in the merits of yourself? The good news is that we can put our confidence in the merits of Christ. This is the what it means to have faith.

The alternative is to go on trusting in your own merits. And if you are, then I wonder what the standards are by which you are assessing your own goodness. If it is your own standard, then what does Jesus matter to you? There is no need to follow Jesus if you get to set your own standards. But if the standard by which you assess your own merit is Gods–that is, if your standard is the law of God–then how can you go on trusting your own ability? The good news is that you don't have to, because Jesus has already met the standard, and reconciled your failure, on your behalf, so you can be free.

This is the meaning of the cross.

Loving Others

A notification flashed across my iPhone this morning from a pastor's group I am a part of. The question that had been posed and was now sitting on my screen was how to address a "seeking" couple that was visiting the church but had questions about a particularly difficult cultural situation. In this case, the situation was "homosexuality", but it could have been anything. The pastor wanted to know what he should say and how he should address it.

A few thoughts went through my head as I considered what I would say to him if I responded. The first was, "what do you actually believe about the subject?" My guess is that my pastor friend already knew what he believed, or at least thought he knew what he believed, but when the question is actually posed by a real actual human rather than as a theoretical concept, stuff gets real.

I want to interject and interrupt myself for a moment, because I want to say that I did not read any further than the question, and I did not get an explanation or backstory or any details about what this particular pastor knew or didn't know or thought or didn't think. That said, there was something about the wording that made me think that this person perhaps hadn't through through what he actually believed when the rubber actually met the road; when his theology met his humanity. The word that struck me was the description of the inquisitors as "seekers".

I knew what he meant. "Seeker" is church lingo for someone who is seeking God in some fashion. They are typically "spiritual" but not "religious". They may have been raised in the church, see value in Christianity, but aren't entirely sure how to mesh what they think they believe with what they think the church believes. Often times a seeker has a particular question in mind; something that is their litmus test. For one man who visited our church, his question was predestination. He wanted to believe in God, but couldn't believe in a God who predestined people to Hell. He asked me what I thought on the way out of church, and I had to answer an incredibly complex question in just a couple of minutes with very little understanding of what was behind the question or where he was coming from. When you are talking to a "seeker", the tendency is to frame your response in a way that softens or mutes the difficult edges of your answer. We convince ourselves that the person isn't ready to hear the truth, or that the truth might offend them, and we wouldn't want that! We don't want to be the person who shoves them from "seeker" status back into "lost" territory. We better make sure that our answer is true, but not so true that it is offensive.

Oftentimes our responses in those scenarios end up being so ambiguous that they leave the person on the other end feeling like they got an answer, but not being totally sure what it was. I was watching an episode of Parks & Recreation the other day where the always-positive Chris played by Rob Lowe had recently broken up with Anne, one of the main characters. The problem was that the break-up was spun in such a positive way that Anne didn't realize that he had dumped her. I wonder how often my answers to these difficult questions so ambiguous or spun so positively that the person on the other end walks away thinking that I may have said something entirely different than what I intended.

What my pastor friend was really asking was, "How do I tell these people what God really believes about homosexuality without offending them and turning them away?" I think that's a legitimate question, but I don't think it matters whether or not the people are seekers, or whether they have been followers of Jesus their entire lives and are only just now having to figure out what God really thinks about this as it becomes a more common cultural question. Instead, I think that the real question that we have to ask ourselves is this: do you really love these people?

It strikes me that Jesus doesn't turn away from difficult questions, and he doesn't soften the blow of the truth that is in his response. Sometimes, people turned away because of it. Other times, they stuck with him. Here is the key: it was never their status (lost, seeker, found, whatever), and it was never their response (turning away or sticking) that guided his answer. It was always truth embedded and presented in love. When Jesus answered a question truthfully, he knew full well that he loved the person he was talking to. That's why he answered with such poignant truth. It was because he loved them.

I had to have a difficult conversation with someone once related to this topic. The first thing I did was ask the question: what does the Bible actually say? What do I actually believe? What does God actually think? This is what it means to love God, at least in part. It means that I actually care about what He thinks, and not just what I feel. But then, ultimately, the rubber meets the road and the theology of what God says meets the humanity and the emotion and the spirit of the person sitting right in front of you who has asked, "what does God think about this?" My pastor friend knew the right answer, but he wasn't sure that he knew the right response. My question would be, "do you really love them?"

When we really love the person we are responding to, to whatever degree our love can be totally genuine, that love will shine through in our response. I'm not telling you what God thinks about an issue to prove that I'm smart, or to prove that I can one-up you, or to belittle you or make you feel bad about yourself. I'm telling you what God thinks because I love you and He loves you and because He loves you and I love you I believe that there will be more joy in the truth of what God says than there will be if I just tell you what you want to hear, or if I couch my answer in such fluff that you leave without being entirely sure what God actually thinks. Love doesn't mean we always agree. Love doesn't mean that we always give the easy answer. Love means that we can give the honest answer, even when it hurts.

I said this to the Elders of our church a while back when we had one of these difficult questions come up and we had to respond, even though we knew that the reason the person was asking is because they were putting out their little litmus test to see if we believed in a God that they could believe in. I said, "if it is not difficult for us to respond, then we are not being Elders." Responses to difficult questions are not filled with pride; they are filled with love. It ought to matter to us when we give an answer to someone that we know might cause them to leave the church or leave the fold of God. Yet we know that it would hurt more, and be more harmful, to neglect what God said, or to answer ambiguously, just for the sake of harmony; just so that we don't rock the boat.

So yes, the question is, "what do you actually believe about the subject?" But then, before we respond, we need to ask ourselves, "do I really love this person like Jesus loves them?" If so, then we respond in truth, embedded and presented in love, not ambiguity.

The Gospel Vaccine

The best way to make sure that someone never understands the Gospel is to make them good.

I think this is what Jesus means when he tells the Pharisees that they go across sea and land to make a single convert and then make him "twice the son of hell" as they themselves are. There was a certain zeal to their activity; perhaps they were driven by a passion for their message. They may have appeared enthusiastic. Yet, they functionally shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people's face. Why?

Because they taught people how to be saved without Jesus. They made people good. They told them how they could behave better, have a better life, be more religious, and please God on their own. Once they believed that they could please God with their own efforts, they were in double trouble. It's one thing to be ignorant of the fact that you have a problem (in this case, God's displeasure towards your best efforts); it's another thing entirely to believe that you've solved the problem on your own.

It's bad to have cancer and not know it. It's worse to have cancer but convince yourself everything is okay. In the case of the former, you might be open to the real remedy once the problem is revealed. In the case of the latter, you don't even think you need a remedy.

The way we do this in the world of American Christianity is giving people just enough Jesus that they don't ever bother to look for the real thing. We give them a vaccine. They are inoculated. And we do it by making them good.

Growing up, we were made good through religious activity. We had solid theology and doctrine, we just didn't have much of Jesus. We assumed Jesus. We could quote answer #1 from the catechism (at least the first part), we just didn't know how to actually get the comfort that we said we had (the second part of the answer). (Side note: question #2, which no one memorizes, also directs us towards the answer...)

Nowadays the pendulum has swung in the other direction. We no longer address doctrine, theology, or that sort of deep, boring, and confusing stuff. We just "follow Jesus". We're not entirely sure which Jesus, or what Jesus believed, or what he taught, or any of that confusing stuff. We do know how to be better parents, better lovers, and better employees, though, so it can't be all bad. Anything other than that we can just sort of make up as we go.

The end result is the same in both categories. It's either something we do or something we know that makes us okay with God. Either we know a lot about him, or we follow him. Unfortunately, neither is ultimately sufficient.

The heart of Christianity is putting our total confidence in Christ's work rather than our own; it's understanding God's absolute and one-way love towards sinners like us. It means admitting that my best isn't good enough. I can't earn God's acceptance–but I don't have to, because Jesus already has. God gives it to me, free of charge. That's grace. And it's the only way in to the kingdom of heaven.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

— Matthew 23:13-15

“Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,
but belong—
body and soul,
in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.”

— Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 1

“Q. What must you know to
live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:
first, how great my sin and misery are;
second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery;
third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.”

— Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 2